Name the phenomenon: Inter-player SIS incohesion
masqueradeball:
Just to clarify, is your goal here to name the phenomenon and sort figure out a way to diagnose it or is it to try and come with solutions. Not saying that either is better than the other, I just don't want to post a bunch of stuff you don't wanna hear.
lachek:
Yeah, good point.
Initially, I was certain that there was some theory out there that would explain and offer solutions to this problem. That's the reason I asked for someone to identify it using known terminology, so I could make it fit into a theory model such as TBM so I could approach it.
Since Ron has stated that other than "failure of the SIS", there is no better term for it, at this point I'd like to hear diagnoses and solutions.
dindenver:
Hi!
I have experienced this to varying degrees. I tend to use a few tricks to prevent this and other similar problems
1) Let the players know what the game is about. Often, people can come to the table with different expectations of what the game is about. Even for highly focused games I have seen this, but for more traditional games like Exalted, this is a big issue. Many games can be seen through different lenses. As a GM, or "the guy who is getting everyone to show up" for GM-less games, let people know what part of the game we all will be focusing on
2) Overtly state any issues in the Social Contract that are deal breakers (for instance, for me, its PvP). And encourage others to do the same. This can be a bit of a mood killer, but it can also prevent issues early on.
3) When I GM, I set expectations for the campaign/story/whatever, statements like "you guys are all going to be criminals" or "No one can play a thief unless you all play thieves" work great on getting the players on the same wavelength. Of course, be flexible. If the players come back with, "we all wanna be heroes," then adjust, but either way, we are all on the same wavelength. And don't be afraid of limiting players' choices, sometimes restrictions breed creativity...
4) Encourage the players to talk and strategize. The more "experience" a role player has, the more they have probably been exposed to "You say it you did it" or "No table talk" type rules and you will have to work harder to break the habits of these kinds of players. But it will be worth it. When the players collaborate to find a solution you never could have imagined, its like gold-plated diamonds!
5) Put on the breaks. As soon as the situation develops, stop the action and find out what's happening. It could be a matter of "immersive roleplaying" in the form of "my character doesn't know what Adam is doing, he's on the other side of the ship" or it could be the Players working the angles in case the GM is steering them both down a wrong track, etc. Either way, it doesn't hurt to stop them and ask what is going on. Who knows, they may be having a grand old time playing with the GMs head...
I hope that helps, good luck man!
Hans:
As the Dealer in the particular Dust Devils game Mikael is speaking of, I have some thoughts.
First, what is the SIS? Each person has their own immaginary space (IS), so what is it that is shared? Using some set theory-like terminology, I belive it is a very bad idea to think of the SIS as the union of the individual IS's. Rather, it is the INTERSECTION of those IS's. I can have a lot of stuff in my IS that isn't in yours, and vice versa In fact I can have stuff in my IS that contradicts, or is impossible in, your IS. As long as that contradiction or impossibility never comes up in the story or is never communicated, it doesn't really matter. We still have a functioning SIS.
Now, I think there are really three different phenomenon going on here. Hey, that lets me come up with THREE new terms! Yahoo! The two examples Mikael provides are perhaps examples of these phenomenon. They have different causes and results, but are superficially the same. Because Ron's musical analogy was really appropriate, I will use musical terms, and will try to make the cutesy where possible.
The first phenomenon I will call Suspension. This is when players have IS's that contradict in some important way, but as yet the contradiction is not obvious to anyone. At some point along the way, though, someone will notice the contradiction, and then it is resolved. In my experience Suspension can range from the trivial ("What, there's a DOOR in the wall?!") to the complicated ("What, I have been playing for 45 minutes picturing the Italian Rennaissance and all this time you have been picturing 1970's exploitation film?!") Suspension is something you only know occurred if it is recognized, and thus you can only identify after the fact. One supposes a group of people could play an entire campaign, and then, years later in conversation, realize that one or more of them had a fundamentally different IS for the game than someone else. Mikael's first example may be an example of this, at the moment of recognition by Mikael. The solution to Supsension is communication; listen carefully to what people are saying and state clearly what you think is important. Suspension can actually be a healthy thing in a game, if the resolution to the Suspension is somehow satisfying in and of itself ("Oh, so THAT's what was going on...wow, that's cool!")
The second phenomenon I will call Cacophony. Cacophony occurs when one or more player's IS's are in obvious conflict, but the player's themselves, for whatever reason, can't or won't resolve the conflict. Mikael's first example is more likely Cacophony in action. Maybe the player's are so caught up in the moment they don't realize they are stepping on each other's toes. Maybe they have a particular idea as to what the problem is in the story, and are blinded to the other events. Maybe they just don't like each other, and would rather interact at a distance, mediated by the GM, than directly with each other. The solution to Cacophony is dependent on the reasons for it; it could be as simple as someone else pointed it out, thus turning it into Dissonance that is resolved. But if it has to do with the interplayer relationship (i.e., they really don't like each other much, and hence don't listen to each other well), there may be no solution.
The third phenomenon is perhaps the most serious; I will call it a Making a Racket. A player Makes a Racket when they prioritize entertaining themselves with their own narrations instead of entertaining others by engaging with, interacting with, or magnifying, other's narrations. Making a Racket doesn't have anything to do with an IS conflict among players. It has to do with one player essentially saying "look at me!" Now, this can come from a good motive; the player might really think that what they have to say is more interesting/funny/dramatic/whatever than what other people are saying. Heck, when they are right it isn't really Making a Racket; its just adding a cool off the wall narration. Its only when a) the narration is viewed as disruptive to the rest of the players at the table and/or b) the player making the narration really doesn't CARE how it fits into what is going on that it is Making a Racket. The 2nd example Mikael provides is, most likely, one player Making a Racket. If the rest of the table had said "Awesome, starting a fire in the background of this tense scene, that is hilarious, well done!", then Mikael wouldn't have provided it as an example.
Tony LB addressed a very similar, perhaps the same, phenomenon as Making a Racket, or at least the motivations behind a lot of this, in a post on RPG.net, which can be found at the bottom of this page under the heading "Solitaire/Riffing", with some other relevant stuff up the page under the heading "The Story". (It is interesting that Tony LB should be the one to describe this phenomenon, because I have seen more of all three phenomenon in convention-setting Capes play then in any other game/setting
Danny_K:
Nice terminology.
I have to agree with Hans, what I'm seeing in that example (and I may be making way too much out of one example) is not divergent imagined worlds, but rather blatant privileging by the GM of Joe over Adam -- Joe's input is acknowledged, Adam's is not, everybody else follows the GM's lead.
That might be because Adam is "Making a Racket" and screwing up the tense scene that everybody else is invested in, and so they just tune out his input; or it may be that Adam is always ignored, and so he's made his input more and more obvious to try to get at least a little attention. Without that social information Ron was asking about, no way to tell.
And this phenomenon (if I've got the right diagnosis) is really, really well known to me from Vampire:the Masquerade play, where there is often a player who picks the Malkavian Clan (congenitally insane vampires) as an excuse to Make a Racket. These characters were called Fishmalks, and genuinely detested by most of the other players in the games I've played in.
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