Over in the thread, Do prewritten scenarios=Illusionism/Participationism?,

Ron Edwards wrote: M.J., what you describe sounds like straight-head Participation to me. I don't see why or how it's a different category.

what I wrote: The basic assumption of module play is that the referee has (either from his own creation or from a published product) a fairly tight concept of what the players are "supposed to do"; the players, as part of the social contract that supports play, have committed themselves to identifying what their characters are supposed to do and to do that.

Howdy M. J. Young,

For starters, my gut level knee jerk reaction is. . . I don't see the point.

A module is a module. Just like Monopoly is Monopoly, you know precisely what the goal is supposed to be, but it's in the getting there that the game, and thus fun, is to be found.

Why dissect it? Ah, but why not, eh?

To me a module has always been representative of a set story encompassing well defined goals. Now whether or not one label better applies to what a module is or is not becomes difficult to codify for one main reason: every Game Master will approach that same module differently. Some will be strict, some will play it from the hip.

What a module is, thus, is the sum of the the GM and player inter-relationship.

But the type of module will also change things. I've read modules that were very linear and might require a rather heavy hand to keep players who liked to wander on track, then again I've seen modules that provide a LOT of room to move around in. Goals are set, but whether or not the players actually accomplish them are incidental.

Of course the linear modules that require each section be completed in a set sequence will naturally end when the players cease to follow through on the goal. Which, I always thought, was the point.

Or, to put it another way, a module is a stand alone bit of potential narrative that can be either played with characters generated just for it, integrated into a larger campaign, or. . . well it's really a issue of style isn't it? Every GM runs their game how they run their game.

Most modules can be just about anything you want them to be. However not all modules are created equal. In fact not all modules are even the same, thus they can't all be fit into the pattern you've outlined. Sure many can, but not all.

When I wrote my adventures I provided set goals with multiple ways for the players to get to the goals, but always knew that the players might not follow through or get side-trekked. Thus, in the end, what I had was a dynamic set of possibilities that had to be adjudicated based upon what the characters actually did, not what they were 'supposed' to do.

But that's just one possible approach to running a game.

To sum up: What you're asking is not really a question about the nature of a module, but rather (IMO) a question about GMing style. Or rather GM approach to how they make use of a module, not so much about the module itself. The existance of a module in your example is incidental.

Just my opinion.


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

It is very slightly different, MJ, you've got a point.

The subtle difference is in the fact that you've said that module play allows them to fail. Now, some GMs won't allow that failure, and it becomes participationism if that's obvious, and Illusionism if it's not (I've done the latter a lot; think Fudging die rolls).

But assuming that the GM really allows them to fail, that all is as it is presented, then what you have is non-Forced play for that part. Now, Force was used likely to get the characters to the door. But once there this brand of module play is Open (non-Forced). Note how this is a primary form of Gamist play. The GM selects the "arena", but the players are free to succeed or fail within the arena.

In fact that's a point that Ron made previously himself.

In any case, remember that GMing modes can shift a lot, too. So one moment may actually be Open, and another Forced.

Mike

M. J. Young wrote: Have I misunderstood Participationism, or have I failed to state a clear difference?

Hi M.J.,

I'm pretty much in agreement with Jack on this one.

Best,
Ron

Yeah, "amusementparkism" is sorta the opposite of Module play. In that, the player can go wherever they like until they hit a plot, and then the Force comes in. In Module Play, the GM Forces the intro, but then plays open.

I was thinking about it, and most superhero play, at least like we played it, was participationist in it's "plot". That is, the GM says, "Glordo the Beast is attacking the Slatner Building", and off the PCs go to fight it. Basically, the plot is all Forced and rather openly, but the "important" parts of play, the fights, are non-Forced. Sorta like a series of tiny modules.

Note how in many of the cases of the obviously forced stuff (getting to the dungeon, this weeks monster), these things are considered to be unimportant to play. That is, these usually cater to Gamist play where the "plot" is merely the interesting pretext that get's us from arena to arena.

This is as opposed to Sim participationism, where suddenly it's all about the plot, and the players are left only to "act" their parts. Like much of CoC play.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Yeah, "amusementparkism" is sorta the opposite of Module play. In that, the player can go wherever they like until they hit a plot, and then the Force comes in. In Module Play, the GM Forces the intro, but then plays open.

See, I see both module play and parkism as simply shifting back and forth between other easy to identify GMing modes. I would only label them phenomenonologically for reference, like you have.

Mike

First, to Kester: the use of the term "module play" is more a temporary designation for a type of game social contract which can be illustrated by a specific approach to a certain kind of module; it was never intended to mean this is how modules are played, but only that I've noticed this style which appears to be different from the others mentioned elsewhere, which seems to be a functional sidestepping of "the impossible thing before breakfast". The question raised was whether this is distinct from what Mike labeled Participationism, or merely another way of describing the same thing.

In my attempt to draw the distinction, part of my question was whether I correctly understood Participationism to mean, in essence, "Illusionism with the consent of the players"; and further, taking that to mean that the players had no power over the outcome of the game nor even the track it followed, but only over things that amounted to color which the referee would work into his story. I think that's how Mike originally presented Participationism (as a sort of functional illusionism, because it was agreed in the social contract), and I think he's confirmed that thought here.

I think that what I've tentatively dubbed "module play" (again, for lack of a better name--something like "track agreement" might be closer) is very different from this in an essential point. But, as often is the case, I may have to get to that in a round-about manner.

I own several Dungeons & Dragons Competition Modules. I've never run or played any of them, largely because I'm always running my own material; but the competition modules have always appealed to me as being among the best I've owned. What interests me about these is the way they appear to be set up for play.

In each case, at the beginning of the module the players are told, this is who you are, this is where you are, and this is the basic idea of what you have to accomplish. This is the starting point. I suppose one could claim that setting the players at the starting point is "railroading"; but I don't see how you could avoid that at some level. As the characters are placed at the starting point, the referee in essence cuts them loose. He will not cause anything to happen at all; he will only unfold what is happening in response to the players' actions.

However, the players have agreed up front that they are determined to discover and accomplish whatever it is that is in the pages of that module. If the task is to find where the ancient mage Ischabuble hid his incants to undo the spell, they will get directions to Ischabuble's tower, figure out how to get in, and search for those incants. There might be a million other things they might do, but they've agreed that they want to do what the module wants them to do.

At no time during play does the referee intervene outside the parameters of what the module allows. That is, there might be "edges of the map" warnings to tell the players they're off track. But the referee does not have the task of making the events happen or bringing about the desired outcome. In fact, it might be that the player characters will fail utterly in their quest, that some or all of them will be killed, that they'll never find what they seek. What won't happen is they won't decide that they're not going to look for these things because they don't think these are important. They have committed themselves up front to accepting that doing what the module says to do is important.

I compared it also to the typical CRPG. I'm not terribly versed in these, having given them up when my Commodore 64 became unreliable. However, I recall playing a text-based version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I particularly remember trying to get the Babel Fish out of the vending machine and into my ear. There is only one way to do it in the game; you either do it that way or you fail. In fact, you absolutely must have the Babel Fish in your ear for the story to continue, so if you fail you're killed in a few minutes. But it's not participationism in the sense I understand the word. The game won't put that fish in my ear or let me get by without it or have Ford Prefect come over to help me with it if I can't figure out how to do it. The game will end, and I will lose. The fact is, when I inserted the disk into my floppy drive to play this game, I was implicitly agreeing that I was going to try to figure out what the game wanted me to do and do that. The fact that I could think of a dozen other ways to get that fish into my ear that ought to work was irrelevant; I had to do what the game required in order to continue.

That's this "module play" I'm describing.

It should be noted that this is presented as a viable and common approach to escaping The Impossible Thing. In this approach, it is the referee's story; he creates it. It is also quite true that the players have complete control over their characters. What makes it work is that the players have agreed (under the social contract) that their characters will pursue the referee's story by whatever means they can manage, and in so doing the players have committed themselves to figuring out what that story is and making it happen.

Again, rather than building a track and keeping the players on it, the referee blazes a trail (that is, he puts markers out along the way for them to find) and hopes the players will be able to follow it.

That might be a good name for it, actually: Trailblazing. The referee has created the story he wants to see played and placed the clues out there for the players to follow; the players, completely uncoerced by anything the referee does or says, commit themselves to finding and following those clues to reach the end of his story.

This becomes dysfunctional either if the players expect the referee to take them where they're supposed to go (participationist players with a trailblazing referee) or conversely if they refuse to follow the clues but would rather create their own stories.

Is that any clearer?

--M. J. Young

This underscores something I noticed elsewhere, but I think I can put it into simpler terms here. Illusionism and Participationism (per the new definition) depend on the use of Force (the "influence the GM has influence over story-impacting decisions made by the player-characters") to make them happen. From the numerous descriptions of what you term 'module play,' this isn't happening. The players are pretty much left to their own devices with the stated goal of 'following the module.'

Or, the gamemaster isn't expected to 'do it for them.'

Does that help?

Fang Langford

M. J. Young wrote: That might be a good name for it, actually: Trailblazing. The referee has created the story he wants to see played and placed the clues out there for the players to follow; the players, completely uncoerced by anything the referee does or says, commit themselves to finding and following those clues to reach the end of his story.

This becomes dysfunctional either if the players expect the referee to take them where they're supposed to go (participationist players with a trailblazing referee) or conversely if they refuse to follow the clues but would rather create their own stories.

Is that any clearer?

It is also quite true that the players have complete control over their characters. What makes it work is that the players have agreed (under the social contract) that their characters will pursue the referee's story by whatever means they can manage, and in so doing the players have committed themselves to figuring out what that story is and making it happen.

Le Joueur wrote: ...Illusionism and Participationism (per the new definition) depend on the use of Force (the "influence the GM has influence over story-impacting decisions made by the player-characters") to make them happen. From the numerous descriptions of what you term 'module play,' this isn't happening. The players are pretty much left to their own devices with the stated goal of 'following the module.'

Greetings M. J. Young,

M. J. Young wrote: First, to Kester: the use of the term "module play" is more a temporary designation for a type of game social contract which can be illustrated by a specific approach to a certain kind of module<...>

<...>

In my attempt to draw the distinction, part of my question was whether I correctly understood Participationism to mean, in essence, "Illusionism with the consent of the players"; and further, taking that to mean that the players had no power over the outcome of the game nor even the track it followed, but only over things that amounted to color which the referee would work into his story.

M. J. Young wrote: I own several Dungeons & Dragons Competition Modules. I've never run or played any of them, largely because I'm always running my own material; but the competition modules have always appealed to me as being among the best I've owned. What interests me about these is the way they appear to be set up for play.

M. J. Young wrote: In each case, at the beginning of the module the players are told, this is who you are, this is where you are, and this is the basic idea of what you have to accomplish. This is the starting point. I suppose one could claim that setting the players at the starting point is "railroading"; but I don't see how you could avoid that at some level. As the characters are placed at the starting point, the referee in essence cuts them loose. He will not cause anything to happen at all; he will only unfold what is happening in response to the players' actions.

M. J. Young wrote: However, the players have agreed up front that they are determined to discover and accomplish whatever it is that is in the pages of that module. If the task is to find where the ancient mage Ischabuble hid his incants to undo the spell, they will get directions to Ischabuble's tower, figure out how to get in, and search for those incants. There might be a million other things they might do, but they've agreed that they want to do what the module wants them to do.

At no time during play does the referee intervene outside the parameters of what the module allows. That is, there might be "edges of the map" warnings to tell the players they're off track. But the referee does not have the task of making the events happen or bringing about the desired outcome.

M. J. Young wrote: In fact, it might be that the player characters will fail utterly in their quest, that some or all of them will be killed, that they'll never find what they seek. What won't happen is they won't decide that they're not going to look for these things because they don't think these are important. They have committed themselves up front to accepting that doing what the module says to do is important.

M. J. Young wrote: I compared it also to the typical CRPG. I'm not terribly versed in these, having given them up when my Commodore 64 became unreliable. However, I recall playing a text-based version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

M. J. Young wrote: It should be noted that this is presented as a viable and common approach to escaping The Impossible Thing. In this approach, it is the referee's story; he creates it.

M. J. Young wrote: It is also quite true that the players have complete control over their characters. What makes it work is that the players have agreed (under the social contract) that their characters will pursue the referee's story by whatever means they can manage, and in so doing the players have committed themselves to figuring out what that story is and making it happen.

M. J. Young wrote: Again, rather than building a track and keeping the players on it, the referee blazes a trail (that is, he puts markers out along the way for them to find) and hopes the players will be able to follow it.

M. J. Young wrote: That might be a good name for it, actually: Trailblazing. The referee has created the story he wants to see played and placed the clues out there for the players to follow; the players, completely uncoerced by anything the referee does or says, commit themselves to finding and following those clues to reach the end of his story.

M. J. Young wrote: Is that any clearer?

I feel like I have to take a step back, and maybe a couple more.

The tag "module play" seems to have confused the issue entirely, as it has brought into this discussion a lot of ideas about how modules are played, and what is meant by a module, and stuff that really has nothing to do with this. The only thing this has to do with modules is that some people use modules this way. Hence I shall refer to it as Trailblazing.

I call it "the referee's story" because it doesn't matter where the story originates. It might be purchased in some supplement, or downloaded off some web site, or pre-written in great detail by the referee, or hard coded into the software of a CRPG, or created as a mere sketch of events by the referee. What matters in terms of role playing game play is that there is a story of some sort in the referee's mind as he sits down to run the game.

I see this as a commonality between Illusionism, Participationism, and Trailblazing. I see the differences in how that story impacts play.

Quite some time back the term Illusionism was presented as a form of play that was regarded as probably dysfunctional and probably railroading. The basic concept of Illusionism is that the referee has a story that is going to play out, and as the game unfolds his story plays out--and nothing the players can do will impact that one way or another, but they are given the feeling that their actions matter. Here are some illusionist techniques that may help illustrate how this works:

• The party comes to a fork in the corridors. They stop and examine both routes as well as they can, and then decide to take the left turning. In fact, it doesn't matter which one they take. One of those corridors leads to the troll encounter which is the next event in the referee's plan, and whichever one they take, it will be that one and not the other that goes there.• There is a big boss behind the little villains, and the game is supposed to have the players fight a lot of little villains first and later get to the big boss. The players, however, figure out that the little villains don't matter, and they capture one and interrogate him in a way which gives them the information they need to go around all the intervening little guys and get right to the problem. They go for the big boss, and they attack--but since it's too soon, either this turns out not really to be the big boss, or it is the big boss and he has an escape route of which they were completely unaware which enables him to slip from their clutches. It is impossible for them to reach the big boss without going through the intervening steps, but it will always seem as if they failed to consider something the referee had already prepared.• The players are supposed to feel the threat of their situation. Thus the referee throws at them a contingent of some sort of enemy that hits them hard and keeps coming. Combat continues through several rounds, but just as the players are starting to reach critical levels of hit points and other resources, several of the opponents are killed and most of the rest flee--because the referee has been monitoring not the condition of his antagonists but those of the protagonists, whom he has determined will be reduced to a specific level of danger before they move forward.

You can see that in this approach to play, the players might feel like they're in control, but they actually control nothing beyond color. They can describe what they're doing, and make choices which seem to have meaning, but all significant events and outcomes are predetermined, and nothing will alter this. When its time to face the final encounter of the game, wherever they go, that's where it will be. If they never suspect, they should come away exhilarated, feeling as if they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, that they won by mere inches, that in fact they did it, when they actually did nothing. Illusionism can be a very compelling gaming style, as long as the players don't see through the veil and discover that all they're doing is listening to a story. Somewhere I compared it to sitting on grandad's knee as he tells a story:

"There was a prince."

"The prince's name was Kester, Grandad."

"That's right! He had the same name as you."


It doesn't matter to Grandad that the prince's name was Kester; you added something to the color of the story, but you didn't change the story. That's illusionism.

Now, Participationism was originally defined something very like "Illusionism by consent". It seems that the gist of this particular thread is what that means. I have taken it to mean that everything just said about Illusionism is true, except for one point: the players know that nothing they do will matter, that they're just adding color to the story, and they've accepted this. They're still like the kid who tells Grandad what name to use for the prince, but they understand that this is not a significant element in the story. They're going to go through the motions and pretend to be doing things, and let the referee bring about the end the way an Illusionist referee does, and enjoy the ride. Tell me a story, and let me throw a bit of color into it from time to time, because you tell good stories and I like listening to them. To me, this is what is meant by "Illusionism by consent". I think that Mike (who coined the term and provided the initial definition) agrees with that, but his post was not completely clear on that point.

Jack, however, disagrees. To Jack, Participationism means only that everyone knows the referee has a story he wants to tell and that they're willing to go along with that. Whether or not they have control of it makes no difference.

I see this as a much broader definition of Participationism than was suggested, and probably a broader definition than is really useful. It starts to sound like "the players know that the current adventure involves the relationship of certain facts fixed within the world to each other"--and while in some games the players could know with certainty that this is not true in one way or another (e.g., games in which facts about the world are going to be created as the game progresses, or altered to meet player actions or expectations), it seems much to broad a definition for the purpose of defining a referee style--which is what it's supposed to be. If Participationism means that the referee is going to have total control of the events and outcome of the game, but it's O.K. for the players to be aware of this as long as they're willing to continue under the understanding that their actions are for color only, that describes a functional form of play. If it means something as broad as The World Exists In Fixed Form, that doesn't seem to me to describe anything useful.

In the midst of discussing dysfunctional play styles versus ways in which The Impossible Thing was resolved, John Kim made a comment about players accepting certain obligations at the beginning of play--that is, we say that the player has complete control over the actions of his character, but if in some D&D style fantasy game the player announces that the character is an elven thief, he has committed himself to playing within the parameters of the elven thief. At the beginning of the game, certain limits are agreed by the group, such as the system of rules, the nature of the world, and the types of character actions which can be performed. John said something about an agreement to play the module, to stay within the confines of the adventure as intended.

It struck me from that that this was a functional play style which was a distinct and at that point unmentioned resolution of The Impossible Thing: that the referee would bring his story (again, where he gets the story doesn't matter) to the table, and the players would begin at the established starting point, and from that point forward the players had complete control of their characters--they could do whatever they wanted; yet the referee's story would still be played out, if all went well, because the players had committed themselves to discovering and playing out the referee's story. The referee would do nothing to bring the story to pass; if it failed to come to pass, it was because the players couldn't follow the trail he had presented, missed important clues, misunderstood certain hints. Just as there was in Illusionism and Participationism, there was a chain of events which had been laid out before play began which the referee expected would, more or less, happen as preplanned. Unlike Illusionism or Participationism, the referee would do nothing to cause those events to happen beyond provide the clues pointing in the right direction. The players would bring it all to pass, or it would not happen.

I once ran a module, a slightly enhanced version of The Keep on the Borderlands. My computer had crashed, and taken my prepared materials with it rather abruptly, so I needed something to which to divert the player group rather quickly. I installed a simple hook: the prince of the local city informed the cavalier that monsters of the type that had killed the cavalier's liege (before the game began) had been seen again in the area where his liege had fallen, and good people were needed to drive them back. The group immediately rallied behind this character, and headed out to the location in question, and started searching for the monsters. They did what the module expected them to do. Now, they didn't have to do that. They could have returned to the area of the underground complex they had been exploring, and forced me to improvise with what I had. They could have stayed in the city and carried the adventures into an urban campaign. I had other places they might have gone instead, which were mapped. But I believe a sort of social contract aspect kicked in: they accepted that this was what their characters should do, that it was their job in this particular mode of play to attempt to find and follow the plot, and they did that. I never once forced an outcome or an event after introducing the hook.

It's not the best example, because of course Borderland is a very simple module that lends itself to non-linear play; but I think it does demonstrate that there is a significant difference in play style between a group in which everyone knows that the referee is going to bring about the story he's brought to the table incorporating them as color within it and a group in which everyone accepts that there is a plotline they're supposed to uncover and follow which the referee has marked but will do nothing about if they miss it.

Jack claims that both are Participationism. I say that Participationism is the considerably more narrow approach of players who let the referee tell them the story while they drop in bits of color, and that this is sharply different from that to the point that if both are Participationism then Participationism does not define or describe "a style of or approach to gaming". I think it makes a tremendous amount of difference whether everything in the story depends on the referee or the players.

Thus I suggest Trailblazing as a referee style, which can frequently be seen in module play, CRPGs, and a few other classic gaming situations.

Does this clarify the point?

Thanks for your patience.

--M. J. Young

M. J. Young wrote: Jack, however, disagrees. To Jack, Participationism means only that everyone knows the referee has a story he wants to tell and that they're willing to go along with that. Whether or not they have control of it makes no difference.

If people want to create different labels I'm cool with it. It's just that I think that the sort of play described here can be broken down into constituent parts that are described by other terms.

Thus, as I see it, "trailblazing"* is Participationism in a small way to the module "front entrance", and then Open play for the rest of the module to play out in. We can speak of the social contract that allows for the GM to use the overt Force that gets the player there. So, yes, we can talk about the mode in these terms.

But that doesn't mean that there's no use to talking about it as an aggregate phenomenon as well. In fact, I see El Dorado as shifting between Sim and Narr play (and all sorts of stuff regarding Illusionism and No Myth play as well). I could describe it that way, but using El Dorado, for those who know, is an easy shortcut.

So if people find value in Rollercoasterism, or Trailblazing, I can't see a downside. I mean, sure, we can worry about everyone coming up with their own terms for their composites of styles they play, or have noted. But to the extent that they are actually useful, they'll be retained. To the extent that they're not they won't.

As long as we know what the term is about. If one thinks that it's really a new GMing mode, that is, say, mutually exclusive of the terms being used, well then that's a subject for debate. But if it's just a descriptive composite, it seems cool to me.

So the question is, is Trailblazing mutually exclusive from, say Participationism and Open Play? Or is it just a description of a composite?

Mike

*I agree with MJ that too much was being made of the fact that the description of Module Play only pertained to a subset of the sorts of actual play that occurs in the presence of modules. The new term does make that clear, however.

Greetings All,

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: Well, let's step back a bit. These are things and behaviors that are and we are just slapping labels on them. It's sort of like sorting apples by roundness and squareness. Rare indeed is the apple that is perfectly round or square.

What I took from this thread were the concepts of Force, Overtness, and Flexibility. This strikes me as a more useful way of viewing these things that to coin yet another -ism.

Mike Holmes wrote: As long as we know what the term is about. If one thinks that it's really a new GMing mode, that is, say, mutually exclusive of the terms being used, well then that's a subject for debate. But if it's just a descriptive composite, it seems cool to me.

Mike Holmes wrote: If people want to create different labels I'm cool with it. It's just that I think that the sort of play described here can be broken down into constituent parts that are described by other terms.

M. J. Young wrote: It doesn't matter to Grandad that the prince's name was Kester; you added something to the color of the story, but you didn't change the story.

Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll wrote: Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying, she said: 'one CAN'T believe impossible things.'

'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'

I still take Trailblazing to be a composite.

Interacting with the predefined plot is not forced, just searched for. This makes me think of it very similar to Open Play (Plotless Background-Based, Pinball, Whatever-Ya-Call-It). The plot is actually just another piece of the environment to explore. Gamist to be sure, if the point is the challenge of locating the plot. It's just like searching for the holy-wand-of-bad-guy-smackdown in a dungeon.

Why it is a composite is because, a Transition to Participationism is made at specific points (when plot elements are encountered). I suppose you could start with Trailblazing and define styles around it, but I don't think Pinball or Participationism could be included in that model. Do you like CMYK or RGB? I can make purple out of either.

Huh, I suppose all I've done here is repeat myself, repeat Jack, and repeat Mike...in various fashions.

I would argue that Trailblazing (a technique that seems very familar to me) is really just a way for the players to get back some of the "coolness" they felt when Illusionism was happening. The players want to think that they have power, but are convinced that the GM is the one who should be telling the story. So they tell themselves that they can alter the GM's plot, but in reality they spend their time adhering to it. If they do make use of their power, then in my expirience the GM just ends up integrating those changes, for the most part, into his pre-mapped plot. So in reality, nothing really changes. Thus, Trailblazing is a specific type of Participationism.

This is of course only observed from my expriences in play.

Kester Pelagius wrote: To an extent I think that this is what M. J. Young is in the process of doing, putting down in words an attempt to set terms to a insight about the nature of gaming....

For instance much has been made about the use of the term "module" here, thus the term has been replaced with 'Trailblazing'. A word with conotations that may or not be best suited for MJ's concept.

It's not the willingness, nor even the ability, to accept the impossible as possible; rather it's the ability to imagine and envision something beyond what our preconceptions tell us is possible. In that I look forward to seeing where M. J. Young takes this theory. For with each new imagining of what gaming is, IMO, we learn something new. Even if that is just that something old has been rediscovered and polished off.

M. J. Young wrote: Participationism is a more functional resolution to TITBB which, I think, amounts to the players ceding complete control to the referee of everything that matters. They have accepted that the referee is going to tell the story and bring them to the places they are supposed to be, and that all they can do--all they are supposed to do--is make their characters interesting in the process. Participationism has been described as Illusionism By Consent, and that in itself is suggestive of this analysis, that the players have ceded power over the plot to the referee.

M. J. Young wrote: I'm suggesting that Trailblazing is a very common and functional resolution to TITBB which manages to blend the referee's control over the story with the players' control over their individual characters through a normally unrecognized compact at the social level: that the players are committed to discovering and playing out the referee's story, and the referee is committed to not interfering with their efforts to do so.
...
We always made the decisions; but we always made the decision to do what seemed like the next thing we were supposed to do. We would complete part of the adventure, and there would be a reason for us to go to the next place, so we would go there. The referee never tricked us into anything, never played games with the reality, never caused things to come about. We made everything happen. We had complete control over our characters and through them the direction of the story. Sometimes we changed the story in critical ways. But always we were dedicated to discovering what the next step was supposed to be, and doing that.

Having a thought...

This relates to two other running threads:
The switches and dials formerly known as Illusionism
Relationships Between GMing Styles

Wasn't sure which thread to put it in, but for some reason this seems the best place. Not because this discussion is about Illusionism, but because it includes it.

To me, Illusionism seems less and less like something you can pin down and define in any other way than 'Force relating to something done Covertly'. Covert Participationism would be one form of Illusionism, Covert No Myth would be another, Covert Open Play yet another, and so on. Since Covert and Illusionism seem synonymous, and nothing else can be clearly defined for Illusionism, what's the point in having both Illusionism and Covert as terms (other than that's how things happened to develop). This seems to very strongly support Jack's PoV in the switches and dials thread.

Covert Trailblazing seems impossible; making it obviously not Illusionism. Trying to make it Covert would make it play just like Covert Participationism; making it Overt again would make it Participationism. I know this is like running a sentence through a translator a few times...it's not supposed to be a proof, just a different angle.

MJ,

Riffing off of what John was saying: what do you think "everything that matters" is? This may be the source of my hang-up.

As I see it now, I still place Trailblazing in the Participationism camp. Let me explain. If players can "leave" the GM's pre-designed plot and wander off on their own, but they are expected to (via social contract) “find” the GM's plot eventually, then how much control do they actually have? I mean can they really have control over their character's development if there is only one way for the plot to unravel?

For example, let's say that my character, Bob, decides that he will go off and do his own thing because he just had a major realization that defines him as a person. This little personal discovery quest was in no way part of the GM's plan. So, does the GM humor me and improvise Bob's quest, or does he just try to lead him back to the "real" plot of the game. Moreover, simply by instigating a personal discovery quest wouldn't I be violating the social contract once I find out that the GM never planned for this? I'd say yes. So I indeed have lost control of my character by nature of the social contract.

Perhaps I can develop my character along the way, insomuch as I adhere to the GM's story, but that's a very limited amount of leeway.

I’d restate John’s question: In your vision of Trailblazing, would or should the GM give up his pre-defined story if the players don’t want to follow his clues?

John Kim wrote: Since by the definition the players want to follow the predefined story, that seems to be the only problem case. As long as the players don't get lost, Participationism and Trailblazing appear identical, right?

#3 (Flexibility)
= how flexible the outcome is permitted to be. The GM in question might be the kind who'll do anything up to actually picking up your dice for you in order for you to talk to "that guy," or he might be the kind who's happy to let the characters miss the clue, either 'porting it to another character or letting its absence go ahead and affect the outcome.

Greetings,

I hope this missive finds you well and in good health.

M. J. Young wrote: I suppose I should be interested in where I'm going with this as well.

M. J. Young wrote: Illusionism is another resolution to TITBB which we tend to regard as dysfunctional. In Illusionism, the referee surreptitiously siezes power, such that the players feel as if they are in control of their characters but they actually control nothing that matters to the story. One of them will carry the ring to Mount Doom, whether that's what they planned or not--it will somehow be forced upon them in a way that persuades them it was what they chose.

M. J. Young wrote: The players believe they control their characters, and in a sense they do--but the referee still has complete control over everything that matters.

M. J. Young wrote: Participationism is a more functional resolution to TITBB which, I think, amounts to the players ceding complete control to the referee of everything that matters. They have accepted that the referee is going to tell the story and bring them to the places they are supposed to be, and that all they can do--all they are supposed to do--is make their characters interesting in the process.

M. J. Young wrote: In Trailblazing, the referee will have created signposts, pointers, clues, ways for the players to discover what the story is.

M. J. Young wrote: The referee has actually ceded all control over the unfolding of events to the players, but in doing so has trusted them to honor the social contract that says they are going to make every effort to tell him his story.

M. J. Young wrote: If they got lost, that would be part of functional play. If they refused to follow the clues, that would be a violation of the social contract which underpins this particular style of play, and thus dysfunctional.

M. J. Young wrote: Within those, we always made the decisions; but we always made the decision to do what seemed like the next thing we were supposed to do. We would complete part of the adventure, and there would be a reason for us to go to the next place, so we would go there.

M. J. Young wrote: Oh--I'm curious as to why "Trailblazing" has inappropriate connotations. My great uncle used to blaze trails. The concept is rather simple: you take a knife or hatchet, and as you move through the woods you strip patches of bark off trees at intervals, creating a "blaze" of exposed wood which can be followed by you or someone else later.

M. J. Young wrote: How is this inappropriate? Or does the word suggest something to people unaware of the simple meaning that confounds this understanding?

O.K., I keep thinking that the reason I'm not getting through is because there is a disagreement about the definition of Participationism. As I understand Participationism, it is Illusionism By Consent; that requires that we understand the definition of Illusionism.

In The Dancing Princess in Multiverser: The First Book of Worlds, I wrote: Whichever way the character goes will ultimately be toward the city; from this far out, the city can't be seen, so when the character has traveled enough the city should be discovered.

What John Kim wrote: You alternately refer to the GM's power as being over "everything that matters" and "the plot" -- as if they were the same thing. My common impression is that a Participationist GM only seeks power over the overall plot -- i.e. aspects like characterization and others may be in the players' power.

M. J. Young wrote: I think that Jack is using a definition of Participationism that is, too my mind, too broad--it seems to him to mean that the referee contributes a central story idea and then by some means it is played out. Since Participationism was introduced initially as a refereeing style, juxtaposed to Illusionism solely on the question of whether the players knew that they had no control over the outcome, I don't see how it can be broadened to mean "either the referee is controlling the outcome or he isn't" and still be a style of refereeing. I say if the referee controls the flow of events, it's Participationism as Mike originally defined it; but if the referee merely lays out a path and leaves it entirely within the power of the players to follow it or fail, that's Trailblazing.

Why isn't that distinction clear?

M.J.,

I've been following this thread - and everything you've said is perfectly clear to me in terms of your distinction between Participationism and Trailblazing. Just so you don't think you're going psychotic.

Still, from a functional standpoint, do you think that Trailblazing has variability in terms of the Overt/Covert and/or Consensual/Non-Consensual scales discussed in this other thread: Illusionism: a new look and a new approach?

I think that if you're saying, in you're definition, that Trailblazing can have variability along these lines (that is to say that it can functionaly be placed in multiple places along the Covert/Overt and Consensual/Non-Consensual scales) - then I agree with you that it seems to be yet another discrete style of GMing to add to the taxonomic mix.

Cheers,



Jason

To use your example: Let's say that the players decide not to enter the building at all, not to disarm or even hunt after the bomb. Let's say they go visit the circus instead. This would be Trailblazing, but dysfunctional Trailblazing, right? -- because the players are breaking a stipulation of the social contract that says that the GM's general plot must be followed. Is this correct?

In other words, there is no plot outside the GM's?

Kester Pelagius wrote:

M. J. Young wrote: Participationism is a more functional resolution to TITBB which, I think, amounts to the players ceding complete control to the referee of everything that matters. They have accepted that the referee is going to tell the story and bring them to the places they are supposed to be, and that all they can do--all they are supposed to do--is make their characters interesting in the process.

That's not the role that I played when I DM/GM the campaigns I ran. Properlly a GM is a referee. A Referee's sole function is, in the traditional RPG, a arbiter of rules. It's not my job to dictate a story to anyone.

Kester Pelagius wrote:

M. J. Young wrote: In Trailblazing, the referee will have created signposts, pointers, clues, ways for the players to discover what the story is.

I'm going to step outside the bounds of this theory for a moment. This is called (amongst other things) foreshadowing. Droping hints and clues about the direction in which the flow of a story goes is intrinsic to creating a good story.

Kester Pelagius wrote:

M. J. Young wrote: If they got lost, that would be part of functional play. If they refused to follow the clues, that would be a violation of the social contract which underpins this particular style of play, and thus dysfunctional.

Then every group I've had would be dysfunctional.

But it's not. It's human nature. Also it's what the GM is there for, if need be, to provide those illusiory guide posts to lead the characters back in the right direction. But, really, this tends to happen in long drawn out meandering campaigns that last for hours on end.

Kester Pelagius wrote: (game description snipped)
Given the current theories being discussed how would you classify this?

I want to thank everyone for their posts, and particular those that have come since my last entry here. I do now feel as if it's starting to become clear.

Jack, it might help if we go back to the impetus for deriving the concepts of illusionism and participationism. These sprang from an examination of the problem of how people get around The Impossible Thing. I think, if we define them my way, we've identified at least four distinct approaches (and I've probably overlooked something, and I may not have the name right on the fourth, but this is from my recollection):

The referee controls the bulk of what is happening, including the plot, the survival of the characters, and much more; however, he lets the players provide color in the form of what their characters are doing, none of which really matters. The players do not know that their choices don't make any difference. This has been called Illusionism, and is considered dysfunctional because the players are being railroaded and don't know it. It solves TITBB by taking most of the meaningful power away from the players, but it doesn't let them know this.• Similarly, if the referee controls everything in much the same way that he would in Illusionist play, but the players know this and have (implicitly or explicitly) consented to this, knowing that they can create their characters' personalities and give color to the exciting story the referee is telling, this is a functional solution to TITBB. In essence (again implicitly or explicitly) the players have voluntarily ceded power to the referee to control the story. This is Participationism• The referee has created a story and told the players where it starts. However, once play begins, his place is solely revealing the world and applying the rules to their actions. He has designed things such that there are clues leading the right direction, but will not force the players to follow that direction. However, the players have (implicitly or explicitly) agreed that their task is to find and follow those clues to reach the end of the story. This resolves TITBB in a functional way, in that the referee cedes control over what actually happens to the players, who in turn commit themselves to trying to follow the story he has prepared. This would be Trailblazing.• This last may actually be several different styles which at the moment my mind is failing to distinguish. It includes what Mike earlier called Open Play, so that's what I'm calling it. It certainly includes most of what John describes in his games, Ron's base player in the band analogy, and perhaps Kester's play style. It assumes that the referee has created or presented a world in which "things can happen", but the entire direction is in the hands of the players. I suspect there are differences here between play in which the referee reacts creatively to player choices versus play in which the referee has everything mapped out in advance, but in essence the resolution of TITBB is that the referee has no story and controls nothing but the revelation of the world as the players explore it.

These are, to the best of my recollection, the ways in which TITBB is resolved by various gaming groups.

The value in knowing them and in distinguishing them, it seems to me, is very important to game and scenario design.

For example, in Multiverser we make a distinction between "game worlds" and "story worlds". "Game worlds" are places where the place is interesting and there are things that players can do which will lead to adventures, but the referee really doesn't have anything planned. "Story worlds" are the opposite end of the spectrum, in which the referee doesn't really have much of a world outside the plotted events, and things like hooks and illusion become very important as means of drawing the player into what's happening. Since going to press, through writing other scenarios for the game, I've realized that there's a spectrum between these--that there are worlds in which events are happening which will impact the player, but there's a lot of freedom in what he can do; or in which certain actions will trigger story-like plots that will play out; or in which missing the plot leads to exploring very different adventures within the same world. However, understanding that there are different ways to run worlds can help immensely in designing them; and being overt in the text regarding how certain parts of a world should be run can be very helpful for play.

Examples:

• My previously referenced quote from the text of one of our published scenarios, in which the player is given the choice of which way to go but will always wind up at the city. Referees unfamiliar with this might think that if the player turns the wrong direction he'll never find the city and so miss the adventure. Making it explicit in the text that this referee technique should be used to bring the player to the beginning of play will make the story work better.• Making it clear in designing an open-play world that the referee should not concern himself with preparing stories because something will happen, but rather should follow the player's lead and let the events unfold, will direct referees away from railroading and into this more open play style.• The previously described scenario in which the events happen in the order specified regardless of player action is a valid way to run a scenario, even though unusual. Recognizing this in the text may help referees understand what they're doing.


By working through the different ways games can be run, we open our own minds to the advantages and disadvantages of each, and can better point referees to techniques that will or won't work as well for what a particular game or scenario is trying to accomplish.

Jason, thank you for pointing me back to that thread. Although I didn't find "consensual" in the first page, I do think that the overt/covert factor could be shifted significantly. My emphasis on the implicit/explicit agreement suggests this--that it might well be that the group sits down and says, let's play this module or this scenario, you run it, and we'll make sure we do our best to stay on story, or that they might never be aware that they're following any scenario at all, as they are conditioned (from years of this style of play) to look for and follow the clues. I believe someone on some thread mentioned an actual play problem in which he had dropped players into a world in which there were a myriad of possibilities, and the players did nothing because they were waiting for some hint of what the referee wanted them to do. That suggests either participationist or trailblazer players with an open play referee. We could agree openly that this is what we're doing, or it could just be that we fall into it naturally and are unaware either that we're doing it or that there would be another possibility.

Tim, it would be dysfunctional play if the referee is trying to run a game by setting up clues for the players to follow and the players are ignoring the clues. As to whether there is anything to do beyond what the referee has set up, this is a more confusing question.

I think that I was probably trailblazing when I hooked my players into traveling the several hundred miles from where their characters were to where I'd established the Keep on the Borderlands would be. I set up a few pointers, and off they went. Now, my world was pretty detailed, and I'm actually a very flexible referee who moves between styles pretty freely. Had they stopped in one of the towns on the map between those two points, things could well have happened there. I might have had a world complex enough that there would be several trails of breadcrumbs leading off in different directions (I actually do have such a world in Multiverser development) and the players could choose which one to follow. At the point that the players stop following the bread crumbs, it ceases to be trailblazing; if the referee is limited to that style, play becomes dysfunctional, as he would be unwilling to force his story--the most he can do is give more blatant clues, and if they're ignoring his clues and he can't shift to another mode of play such as open play, the whole things can't progress.

If you were playing the Volturnus modules in Star Frontiers, and you decided you didn't want to join the Ul-mor and let them take you out of the desert, according to the module you'll die in the desert. That's not really participationism, I think, because it doesn't say that the Ul-mor will attempt to coerce you to follow them or that the referee should try to get the players to go that direction. Rather, it's trailblazing: the referee has provided the clues as to which direction the story goes next, and the players can take it or ignore it, but if they ignore it nothing else happens. The degree to which the referee can accommodate players "off story" may vary, but trailblazing requires that the players are at least attempting to stay on story, or that the referee be adaptable enough to set up a new trail in a different story when it appears that the original story is lost.

John Kim wrote: First of all, I think that M.J.'s phrasing here is poor. I suspect when he says "dysfunctional" that he means "dysfunctional for Participationism" -- i.e. it just indicates that particular style isn't working, but it could actually functional non-Participationist play. Your original statement, at least, suggests that your play isn't in the style M.J. is describing.

One of the points of this discussion is that the GM plays different roles depending on your style. The GM isn't neccessarily there to point out the "right direction". For example, my style in my Vinland game is pretty clearly to not have a "right direction". I will regularly throw in events to spice things up, but more often direction is determined by the PCs.

M. J. Young wrote: Jason, thank you for pointing me back to that thread. Although I didn't find "consensual" in the first page, I do think that the overt/covert factor could be shifted significantly. My emphasis on the implicit/explicit agreement suggests this--that it might well be that the group sits down and says, let's play this module or this scenario, you run it, and we'll make sure we do our best to stay on story, or that they might never be aware that they're following any scenario at all, as they are conditioned (from years of this style of play) to look for and follow the clues. I believe someone on some thread mentioned an actual play problem in which he had dropped players into a world in which there were a myriad of possibilities, and the players did nothing because they were waiting for some hint of what the referee wanted them to do. That suggests either participationist or trailblazer players with an open play referee. We could agree openly that this is what we're doing, or it could just be that we fall into it naturally and are unaware either that we're doing it or that there would be another possibility.

M. J. Young wrote: Jack, it might help if we go back to the impetus for deriving the concepts of illusionism and participationism. These sprang from an examination of the problem of how people get around The Impossible Thing. I think, if we define them my way, we've identified at least four distinct approaches (and I've probably overlooked something, and I may not have the name right on the fourth, but this is from my recollection

Greetings,

Hope you had a fun in the sun happy week end. Kids well? Wife happy with that thing you finally did she'd been bugging you to do?

Great times!

John Kim wrote: Hold on. If your GM is purely a rules referee and doesn't determine story, then the simple answer is that your style has not been "Participationist". M.J. is not advocating Participationism here as the one true answer -- he is simply describing a style which some people play in.

It seems to me that it is much more common for GMs to be more than a rules arbiter. Most traditional RPGs suggest that the GM work before the game itself to design or adapt "adventures" which the PCs go through...

John Kim wrote: OK -- I am guessing based on the positive tone here that you do foreshadowing. However, this involves being more than just an arbiter of the rules. In order to foreshadow, you have to have some idea about where the story is going to go, don't you?

Kester Pelagius wrote: (game description snipped)
Given the current theories being discussed how would you classify this?

Greetings M. J. Young,

Wow, wrote quite a bit there. Sounds like you are winding down on everything though so. . .

M. J. Young wrote: ...and perhaps Kester's play style...

M. J. Young wrote: Are we done?