[L5R, The Pool, and others] A new look at Drift
Callan S.:
Quote
Yeah, that concept is about the same as Incoherence, in reference both to the text and to subsequent play, rather than Drift. Drift might be a response to that situation, though.
Just noting this - I'm not sure it matters: When I responded I'd been thinking of how other groups could play in very different ways than my own reasons, with the very same text. I hadn't been thinking of incompatible combinations of Creative Agendas among participants in my own group. Although thinking about it, I'm not sure my distinction matters - the can be an incoherance amongst all users of the text, though some individual groups may form a coherant agenda in terms of just their own group. Again, this may not matter.
BUT on incoherance: But how did they get to that 'incoherant' state to begin with? Rather than a responce to that situation, how I took it is that drift is the method by which they arrived at the state of incoherance. I was thinking a text without strong facilitation for an agenda tends to set a group adrift and people sort of gravitate to what they think they heard in the game/what they like. For example, I'm thinking if you run a game of TROS with a test group with the spiritual attributes cut out, they would be more likely to come adrift compared to a second test group who play TROS with spiritual attributes intact. That'd be an interesting experiment to run a couple of dozen times, anyway.
Does the term drift apply to how a group arrives at incompatible combinations of creative agendas among participants?
Looking at the glossary, no, as that defintion involves starting from and leaving another creative agenda. But looking at your description in the original post "Arriving at a preferred Creative Agenda through altering the System, to the extent of ignoring or changing the written rules into new rules" this doesn't include a starting condition. Can drift arrive at incoherance as much as it can arrive at a shared CA?
Quote
Not much to say here. I asked Dan and Chris what they wanted, and they told me. Granted, I articulated the Narrativist option clearly rather than decreeing "This be Gamist, yarrr, let's go!" The reason I did that at all is because I know that the pure color and cultural mind-share of D&D often spark interest in Narrativist play, and I suspected that might be the case for these two.
This isn't a reason - it's just describing situation: On contact with color and cultural mind share, they may have been inclined toward nar play.
Situation isn't a reason. What was your reason?
Obviously I'm not demanding an answer here, I just think it's a hard but good question to mull over should you want it.
Ron Edwards:
Hi Callan,
I've thought about that and related questions quite a bit. I have speculated about given individuals, but over time, I've decided to let each person's history and reasoning be his or her own business. "Individual people display aesthetic preferences due to hundreds if not thousands of long-term and short-term circumstances" - not exactly a scintillating answer, but I think it's better to leave it to personal reflection and Actual Play posting.
It might be that your question is more general: why humans are consistently committed to, for instance, social competition, imaginative modeling, and communication through fiction. If so, then we're moving into an area of discussion that is out of the Forge's scope. I think it's a great and fascinating topic, but due to my deep distrust of the internet's effect on discourse, I'll discuss such things in person only.
"Drift to Incoherence" is a very powerful topic. The most definite example would be the common issue of Zilchplay - basically a group which sticks together and plays in a desultory if consistent fashion, "having fun" as long as "fun" means continuing to get together periodically, and getting a little bit of time in for one's character (and one's original if dwindling play-goals) once in a while. I'm also interested in whether and how Zilchplay is involved in the cross-group or no-group phenomenon, basically people who self-identify as gamers, participate in no consistent group, and who play briefly and occasionally in public meet-ups and as a guest presence in other groups.
Do people (groups/individuals) gravitate toward playing Zilch? The answer is empirically yes. What is that process? Does it have analogies in other small-a artistic social groupings? Do we even call it Drift?
And all of that should be distinguished from the other (original in discussion terms) meaning of Incoherence: clash of Agendas or desired Agendas. If Zilchplay is the outcome of, among other things, reduction of Agenda-desires to the individual level (such that getting a whiff every year or so is supposed to be enough), then Incoherence as originally described, which perhaps needs a name of its own, is the ongoing struggle to establish a given Agenda in the presence of conflicting desires. I'm not sure that a person or group arrives at this, because it's not so much a form of play as a condition in which play may, or unfortunately may not, occur. But who knows? Even a dynamic clash might become a "way" if it persists or occurs in a consistent enough fashion.
Let's call that kind of Incoherence "the storm" for fun, because that's what it looks like, complete with warning signs and unpredictable flare-ups. Do people (groups/individuals) gravitate toward the storm, or is it like a ditch on the side of the road that they can fall into? Do we even call that Drift? My original thinking is not, but like I say, all my thinking on this topic is getting aired out from the beginning now.
For clarity's sake: this thread is stuffed full of questions, and that's how it should be. However, I hope that it will serve as a basis for people to examine instances of play in new threads, toward the end of clarifying and maybe answering a given question.
Best, Ron
jag:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on December 15, 2008, 02:55:30 AM
I'm also interested in whether and how Zilchplay is involved in the cross-group or no-group phenomenon, basically people who self-identify as gamers, participate in no consistent group, and who play briefly and occasionally in public meet-ups and as a guest presence in other groups.
I'd say that's an extremely accurate description of me as a gamer. I'd be happy to be a lab rat and discuss my experiences in the no-group world, although that's likely a whole new thread.
James
Callan S.:
Hi Ron,
That's still just a description of situation. I probably didn't describe my question well. Basically there were atleast two options, if not considerably more. One was to describe nar and gamism to them, etc as you did. The other was to simply start playing as as you said, it'll become fun when they step on up (and if they don't have any inclination there, you'd play something else or watch a movie). What was your reason for taking the first option instead of the second option of just playing it?
Ron Edwards:
Hi Callan,
Your second option is repugnant to me and has failed to deliver a fun times more often in my own role-playing history and in the histories of others than I can count. I can't think of it working for any social, leisure activity. Most such activities have their "CA" (i.e. the point of doing this) already pretty well established, culturally, and if they don't, people know the signals to figure it out quickly. Role-playing doesn't. Without specifying why we're doing this, we may well be in the situation of one person bringing their gussied-up show pig, one person bringing their pig for slaughter and barbecue, and one person bringing their sex-partner pig complete with lubricant ... and each one expecting everyone to contribute to and participate in the expected activity.
The whole point of my System Does Matter essay and subsequent work here is founded on the idea that simply "arriving" at CA from unconstructed play itself is a very low-success enterprise.
All of which is a fancy way of saying "Because doing that sucks."
Bring this line of questioning back to the topic of Drift, please. I am confident that it is linked somehow to your point of Drifting from or to incoherent play and would like to have that connection made clear.
Best, Ron
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page