Illusionism is in the articles as a valid, functional form of play. A recent poster just spoke out against it and doubted it as a vaild form ...

Bankuei wrote:

That is, everyone "knows" that you're supposed to take the job offered by the stranger at the tavern, even though it doesn't really make sense for your character, because if you don't ...
Chris

I think at that point both you and/or the GM are responsible for your own difficulties related to the situation. But no, I was refering to someone else.

-Marco

Clearly, whatever style of play occurs should be talked about up-front with all the social contract stuff. That was the single biggest smack upside my head out of everything I've read at the Forge: "Oh yeah... we should probably TALK about how roleplaying is gonna go."

It's amazing how easy it is to get lulled into the assumption that having the book means you know what to do.

Hi Nick,

Yeah, that pretty much is the point behind my Social Contract Decisions thread, looking at all the stuff that is just "assumed" to work, requiring folks to hash it out, sometimes with minimal friction, sometimes to dysfunctional meltdown.

What's really interesting to think about, for me, is that Illusionism can't be illusionism if you explicitly agree to play that way...In other words, the defining line between functional Illusionism and Participationism is the latter is the point when you explicitly agree to that style of play. This is really why I find so much trouble with Illusionism, because there's no way to prevent issues like folks who want to play protagonistic play(or take it as far as Narrativism) through discussion.

It's the fact that for many folks, this is the "standard" way to play, and it totally precludes any chance of explicitly discussing what's going on that makes it such a difficult method to swing into functionality.

Chris

Bankuei wrote:
What's really interesting to think about, for me, is that Illusionism can't be illusionism if you explicitly agree to play that way.

Bankuei wrote: The more I look at it, the more I believe that functional Illusionism is more unstated Participationism, rather than "raw Illusionism". That is, everyone "knows" that you're supposed to take the job offered by the stranger at the tavern, even though it doesn't really make sense for your character, because if you don't, "there won't be an adventure", even if no one out and out says it.

Wow--we're still having trouble with illusionism versus participationism versus trailblazing. Now, trailblazing is my term for what I initially and tentatively dubbed "module play" because I saw it exemplified by many of the modules, particularly the early ones, produced in the hobby and run at conventions. As the term was elucidated in the module play thread, that temporary designation was replaced with trailblazing. It is still, in my understanding, very different from participationism.

Illusionism I have experienced; I've even taught people how to use illusionist techniques to improve a campaign. I'm currently working on a scenario in which the level of illusionism will be very high: the scenario provides a sequenced list of what happens during the adventure, and instructs the referee that these events will happen in the order specified no matter which way the player character moves through the physical setting. To illustrate illusionism, my Game Ideas Unlimited article, Left or Right talks about descending into a dungeon and coming to a T at the end of the corridor, where the referee asks which way the players want their characters to go. In Illusionist play, the answer is completely irrelevant. The next event will be that the players will come to the room with the sarcophagus, because that's what the referee wants to have happen next. However, the players are made to believe that they came to that room because they chose to go left instead of right. That's a simple example, and not all illusionism is so bold as that; but in illusionist play the primary characteristic is that the players have no control over the unfolding of the plot beyond the color of what their characters do while all this happens around them, but they don't know it. They think their choices matter, and they're wrong.

Participationism has best been described as illusionism by consent. I was out of the illusionist game before it became participationist, and it was a disaster when it did so, because certain somewhat gamist players turned it into a game of confound the referee: could they do things that the referee couldn't possibly work into the story? However, there were players who very much enjoyed playing in that game after they understood that their choices didn't matter. The referee was a master storyteller and could take their color and include it in the unfolding drama he was writing before their eyes. The players still have no control over outcomes; they still provide color for a story whose course and ending are pre-determined; but they're aware of this, and implicitly or explicitly agree to those terms.

Trailblazing is different from participationism on this critical point: the players actually control the outcome of the events. That is, if they don't do it, it won't get done. In participationism, if you come to a fork in the road, you pretend to consider which way you should go, but it doesn't matter which way you choose. If you choose left, there are only three possible outcomes: the correct direction was always left, or the correct direction was right but is now left, or the referee will make sure that the left path is somehow impassible so that the players will return and take the right path. In trailblazing, if you're supposed to go right and you go left, you're lost; you wind up somewhere else. The referee must have left a clue somewhere--maybe you were supposed to talk to the hermit at the last inn, or notice the note on the old prospector's map, or accept the assistance of the old adventurer who said he knew the way--but if you didn't get the clue, you blew it. This has in common with illusionism and participationism that the referee has created the story, but it differs from them critically here. In those forms, it is entirely up to the referee to reveal the story by controling the events of the game; in trailblazing, it is entirely up to the players to actualize the story by following the clues the referee provided. In illusionism and participationism, the referee has almost all of the power to realize the story; in trailblazing, once play begins, he has almost none. The story happens because the players are committed to making it happen, and if they fail in that, the story doesn't happen.

It is still distinct from the sort of protagonized play/bass playing style which allows the players to do whatever they wish and has the referee respond to them and hold things together; in that case, the story is created by the players, not by the referee, who only provides the backdrop and possibilities for story and lets the players decide where the story goes. Still, trailblazing is closer in philosophy to this approach than it is to illusionism/participationism, because at the critical point the actions of the players matter.

The example is the common competition module, in which the players are expected to accomplish certain goals by certain points in the story, and the story unfolds as they do. If they go off course, no one puts them right. They are committed at the outset to figuring out what they should do to achieve the victory, which expresses itself as the telling of the story. In the same way, many referees write "adventures" for their players which have a plot all figured out. Some are illusionist or participationist and will make their story happen whatever the players do, but many are trailblazing, relying entirely on the ability of the players to work out what story is supposed to be told.

I agree with Wayne that taking the job from the stranger because you know it's the right path is more like trailblazing than participationism. In participationism, you do it because one way or another you're going to end up doing that job--it isn't really like you have a choice of jobs, and if you don't take it from this guy, it will be back again and again in a dozen forms and disguises until you do take it. In trailblazing you do it because you've committed yourself as part of the social contract to follow the trail of crumbs that lead you through the forest of the adventure, and this is one of them.

Re: The Ball, I believe this is an analogy for the passing of credibility between players, including the referee. Thus when the player says that his character will do something, and then the referee tells him the result, "The ball" has been passed from the player to the referee; when the referee asks what the player wants to do next, "the ball" is passed back. I'm less clear on the others, although I think transparency refers to the degree to which the mechanics are unnoticed during play.

--M. J. Young

I agree with you MJ, but I think your participationism examples are a little negative sounding. Sorta makes it all sound like it's doomed to dysfunction. (No superiority here, I'm sure I've done the same when talking about illusionism)

A participationists approach to the fork in the road could also be the GM saying "You come to a fork in the road, and you go left". A player might speak up and say "Hey! I wanna go right!". So, the GM says "But, the story is on the left". "Oh, OK, I'll go left." Overt, concensual force.

I know when we talk about GMing styles it always ends up being about the extremes, but participationist techniques can even be handy is protagonist play in the form of scene framing - where a little concensual force is involved.

There is probably no arguement here, but I felt like saying it.

EDIT: Hey look, I mentioned another GMing term: scene framing. This thread has some links on the matter...which leads to more links.

Participationism as I defined it is pretty uncommon if it exists at all. But imagine if you will players who only want to essentially make commentary and roll dice on the way through a pre-plotted story. "Why would anyone want to do that?" I hear some people shouting. Well, people watch TV, and that's less interactive. It's just not a common style assuming it is used at all.

And it might not be used at all. I theorized that this must be a style from two sources. One, it's certainly a possible combination of the Illusionist spectrum. I mean, if I wanted to do it as an experiment I could play through such a game. But more importantly, I thought I had seen evidence of it. Marco told me that he'd run the (IIRC) "Belltower" adventure for players who had really enjoyed it. Now, if you read that scenario, you'll see that there are cards that are given to players that tell them what to say, and have their characters do. Like little scripts. The GM hands these to the players at the appropriate time, and the players just do what they say.

Participationism.

Now, later Marco described how this game out, and I saw that the players had much more appearance of control than I'd thought. The plot was still on iron rails till it's conclusion, but there were places where they could at least decide on character actions (whether they made a difference or not). So I'm not sure that this was as Participationist as I at first thought.

I do think its an indication that stuff in that direction is possible, however. Note, that I think a well designed Participationist game might be fun assuming that it was expected, and everyone, well, participated correctly. So I think its still valid to think about in terms of the spectrum of styles as one little visited corner.

(Every time I say that, I think that I'm going to suddenly discover that there are tons of people who play this way in a format that we're just blind to here. Interactive Fiction ala Scotos?)

Mike

Edited from original response on-re-read:

Mike, man, yer never gonna let that go are you?

The Belltower was the first adventure I ever wrote with the intent of someone else trying to run it. One reason I did write it up was because people had told me it was gonna be "impossible" to do as a module. I was pretty pleased with it when we put it up, but yeah, I can see how you read it as a script.

But then, you thought the other example of play that I posted here (what I experienced as extremely protagonized play) was a script too--so maybe you're lookin' for that.

The cards were concieved of as a stunt, not a philosophy. The game itself wasn't on steel rails in anyway that was meaningful to the particiapnts. It ran, instead, as a number of revelations followed by persoanlized scenarios where they played with them. Encoding the complex situation into text blanked out a lot of what they'd been doing during the game. The fact that I couldn't count on someone running the game for *my* players made my attempts to convey the ideas even harder.

Would I write it the same way again? No. I'd be far more sensitive to people who fear the tyrany of a dysfunctional GM. Appearently it's a bigger problem than I thought before going online.

Is it indicative of anything? I don't think so. You once said that it was indicative of the way the game system was meant to be played. That's innacurate.

Do note that it is one of the scenarios we get consistently good feedback on. Appearently people like the ideas presented in it. I expect them to use them however they see fit.

-Marco
[The offending document is here:
http://jagsgame.dyndns.org/jags/template2.jsp?name=Other_Worlds

If you read it and feel compelled to flame me for it, please go read Star Power as well (a cyberpunk adventure). You probably won't like it any better but we don't have a lot of feedback on it and I'd rather be flamed for something new.

It's here: http://jagsgame.dyndns.org/jags/template2.jsp?name=Cyberpunk ]

One of my friends wrote a game for the RPGA that they rejected (I got the T-Shirt! "Rejected by the RPGA" it says. I'll probably wear it at GenCon). He ran it at some conventions anyway, and people enjoyed it. I think it qualifies as Participationism, and it certainly expresses its goals in plain language up front. Of course, it's meant to be a farce, which may or may not invalidate the game. But the people who played it loved it.

It's called Revenge of the Box Text. The entire game is a bunch of box text, with the only decisions given to the players those that are meaningless. No matter what decisions are made, the GM still reads the box text in exactly the same manner, all the way to the conclusion. This, to me, quite firmly seems to fall within "participationism" as I'm reading it here.

A more serious example, another local GM I know claims he scripts out some of his game plots in advance, to the point where he's pretty sure (or claims to be pretty sure) he knows what players are going to do 3, 4, 6 sessions ahead. He has huge scripts, overarcing plots, and while the minutiae generally doesn't concern him, the overall game plot does. He's been known to send players home after only a half hour of play, because an irrevocable die roll or a player's decision effectively forced him to re-write everything that came afterwards. This is very alien to me, yet the games he's claimed to have scripted to such extent are talked of very fondly by the participants. The players in one of them have admitted they were aware of the general illusion, but didn't mind 'cause they were still the ones moving through the story...

Is that participationism?

Mike,

It's yer definition, so correct me if I'm wrong, but although it isn't an extreme I'd still classify it as relying on participationist techniques. It's overt, concensual force (that is the definition, right?). However, it isn't railroading (overt, non-consensual force). Of course, I think I'd say that bangs are a sort of participationist technique. I'd probably dump relationship maps into Open Play. Hell, author stance is sort of like Illusionism (if the GM is doing it).

I'm not convinced any of the extreme ends of Participationism, Open Play, or Illusionism are actually playable.

Mike Holmes wrote: Participationism as I defined it is pretty uncommon if it exists at all....

And it might not be used at all.

cruciel wrote: Mike,

It's yer definition, so correct me if I'm wrong, but although it isn't an extreme I'd still classify it as relying on participationist techniques. It's overt, concensual force (that is the definition, right?). However, it isn't railroading (overt, non-consensual force). Of course, I think I'd say that bangs are a sort of participationist technique. I'd probably dump relationship maps into Open Play. Hell, author stance is sort of like Illusionism (if the GM is doing it).

I'm not convinced any of the extreme ends of Participationism, Open Play, or Illusionism are actually playable.

Hello,

The posts so far were split from the Help w/vocab thread.

For what it's worth, I don't see any points of controversy in this topic at all.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Hello,

The posts so far were split from the Help w/vocab thread.

For what it's worth, I don't see any points of controversy in this topic at all.

Marco wrote: a) railroading (IMO no, railroading must refer to deception or dysfunction)
b) illusionism (the PC's can live their lives between letters but no matter what they do, that next letter will come, giving them only the illusion of direction).
c) participationism (they know several letters are coming--the GM said so in the set-up, they've agreed to play. They're being led around by the nose.)
d) something else.

cruciel wrote:
Railroading is harder to peg down, because anything involving force could be railroading if it violates the social contract. But, railroading does not equal participationism.

There's my take on it.

Railroading has lot's of colloquial meanings to it that basically boil down to "The GM controls something I don't want him to control". The problem with this definition is that it shifts for everyone as to what constitute railroading.

So we use our own little modification which is similar. Railroading is dysfunctional use of Force. That is, the GM using force better be sure he has a mandate to do so in the fashion that he is, otherwise he's ruining play for others.

All the "isms" are presented as functional styles. So whatever the mode entails it presumes that the players want to play that way. If not, the GM is Railroading.

This means that non-consensual forms of Illusionism are almost always Railroading. But there are consensual forms of Participationism, Illusionism, etc, etc. This is an important point. No matter how odd you think Participationism seems to you, you have to understand that the theoretical players want the GM to overtly control their characters.

GM: "Your character comes to the corner and turns left."
Player: "Cool, what's there?"

Mike

cruciel wrote: I had a little trouble following that senario, but here's my opinions about how responses would map out.
...
Illusionism:
Characters get the letters and the players do what they want, such as take them to the police. But, for one reason or another, they can find no one to help them no matter what they do, until they end up following up on the letters themselves.

cruciel wrote: Open Play:
Characters get the letters and take them to the cops. The GM decides what the most likely action for the police would be and takes it.

Good replies--I have some comments:

Cruciel: yer take was pretty much on the money, I think.

Mike: Yeah, I don't see this as a debate per-se, just some clarification.

John: Your response leaves me a bit quizical.

You suggest that an Illusionist GM would make sure the letters were not clear enough to summons help. I disagree with that. Let me see if I can articulate what I'm thinking and then you can tell me if I was reading you right:

My take on Illusionism:
Under the preimise of Illusionism the GM has determined that *nothing* the PC's will do besides "deal with it themselves" would work. Therefore reasonable actions fail.

My reading of your take:
The GM has developed situation so that one possible mode of approach will not work, therefore that's illusionism.

I don't agree with that. I think it's all about how the GM handles resolution once play begins.

If the GM decides during set up that the PC's won't be handed a clearly smoking gun, I think that's just situation. Let's say a PC makes a character with a friend who's a Senator. If the GM says "no--not within starting parameters," is that Illusionism? It's control--but there's no 'illusion.' If the GM says "okay" and then the Senator can summon help even if the cause isn't clearly justified, I say that's open play. If the GM allows it but then has the Senator get sick when the PC calls for help, that's "railroading" or "Illusionsim."

Same with the set up in the begining: if I tell you "The authorities suck" and then you go to them for help and they suck, where's the illusion? Yes, the situation could be seen as contrived--and if the social contract is "the GM must never set up a contrived situation" then I think the players would have a good argument.

But if that's the case, what's up with the letters in the first place!?

-Marco

Marco wrote: You suggest that an Illusionist GM would make sure the letters were not clear enough to summons help. I disagree with that. Let me see if I can articulate what I'm thinking and then you can tell me if I was reading you right:

My take on Illusionism:
Under the preimise of Illusionism the GM has determined that *nothing* the PC's will do besides "deal with it themselves" would work. Therefore reasonable actions fail.

My reading of your take:
The GM has developed situation so that one possible mode of approach will not work, therefore that's illusionism.

John Kim wrote: As I had pictured Illusionism, I would agree that the GM has determined that nothing besides "deal with it themselves" would work. However, she has developed the situation with that in mind. With a bit of skill, she doesn't have to make reasonable actions fail. That is, she can always arrange the situation such that if they have to fail, then there is a good reason for it. As you say, this situation might be somewhat contrived -- but that is pretty much expected.

I'm going to follow Wayne's (cruciel's) listing, and give my take on it; I think I differ slightly on a few points.

Illusionism: The players discover that the police are no help; perhaps they've already been compromised--the commissioner is part of the plot. The letters are unpersuasive, not because they don't clearly say that the commissioner is behind it all, but because the police are convinced they must be forgeries. The players are forced to act without their support, or ignore the entire thing. If they want to act, they need to find the enemy's base of operations. Now, maybe they look, in which case they'll find it. Maybe, though, they don't look. In that case, when they go to the casino to relax, they suddenly are confronted with the fact that this is the base of operations for the enemy, and they've stumbled into it unprepared. If they don't specifically try to find the enemy, then wherever they do go, that will be where the enemy is. They see it as their bad luck, if they were trying to avoid this, because it never occurs to them that the original plan had this confrontation somewhere else--this is where it happens, so it "must be" where the referee intended it to happen all along.

Participationism: This plays out similarly to the other, but the players are aware of the illusion. They know somewhere within themselves that the referee is going to bring them into confrontation with the enemy when he wants it to happen. They get to color the story. They get to decide whether that confrontation will appear to be the result of their concerted efforts to find the villain, or whether it will be the chance occurence of their visit to the massage parlor. In fact, knowing that the referee has planned the next confrontation, they might decide where to go based entirely on where they want that fight to be--the sweat shop in the garment district, or the restaurant, or the temple. They don't know what is going to happen, or when, or where; but they know that the referee is going to spring it on them whatever they do, and they make choices to be ready for that moment.

Open Play: We've assumed that the player characters will take the letters to the police. In open play, the referee uses the mechanics of the game and his own good judgment; it may well be that at this point the police become involved; it may even be that they tell the player characters not to worry about it, and then proceed to truly deal with the matter. It may be that the characters and the police thereafter work together. Of course, depending on the setting, it still may be that the police are useless, or inhibit progress. It might even be that the police thereafter both do nothing and impede the characters' efforts.

Trailblazing: Obviously, for trailblazing to work, the players have to be committed to following the clues set out by the referee. What happens if they take the letters to the police may be any of several things. The police might assign someone to help them, or might say that it's not all that clear what's happening but they recommend a certain private investigator to assist them, or they assign someone from the department to help them get to the bottom of it. It might be that they take the letters to the police, and within a few days realize that the whole case is bogged down in bureaucratic nonsense and it's up to them after all. Whatever the result of the police situation, the players know up front that they have to solve this case, because that's what the game is about. Enlisting the assistance of the police in the matter might be a good thing, but if the players don't do it, no one will. Thus even when they go to the police, they know that the most they can expect is some assistance and encouragement, because this game is about them solving this problem, and doesn't work any other way. They might go to the police, but they do so only because they hope there will be more clues there to point them in the right direction, and possibly support on which they can call if they need it later. If they give up the case, they're breaking the social contract, which states that it is there job to find out what they're supposed to do and do it.

Railroading: the players receive the letters, which tell them what's going to happen next. Then the referee tells them that as the next scene opens, they're at the place where the event is going to happen. The players never decided whether they were going to do this; the referee merely put them there.

That's my take.

--M. J. Young

cruciel wrote: How about a different example?

Illusionism:
The letter basically says 'Go to warehouse, get magical artifact'. The GM has planned for minions of evil to attack the warehouse when the PC's arrive and steal the magical artifact.
Characters get letters and take to cops. Before the characters can even request aid minions of evil attack the cops. They happen to be looking for a magical artifact the cops raided from a warehouse earlier today, which they happen to get before the players/cops can stop them.