[L5R, The Pool, and others] A new look at Drift
Ron Edwards:
Hi Simon,
I'm OK with the Structural/Post-Structural thing, and you can probably see it in how I distinguish between System (how we play) vs. rules (what a book says to do). One of the problems with this whole family of Traits threads is that those two issues are getting confounded.
Your point about "adapting" is valid, although I'm pretty comfortable with calling that "learning." Perhaps I'm a bit pre-post-modern in thinking that a given rules set may well (a) teach a particular set of routines to play and (b) the users arrive at enjoyment of play via emergent properties in those routines, to a degree which they did not anticipate or fully appreciate before. This may be a fuddy-duddy attitude, but as it happens, that describes what occurs with plenty of things called games that are not RPGs.
Anyway, the whole point of this thread is to see whether the term Drift needs to get a total overhaul. My thinking is yes. Taking your points into account, here are some of the diverse notions that the term tends to get used for.
- arriving at CA by putting rules into practice (your "adapting") to get System and presumably a functioning CA
- playing by CA 1, shifting to CA 2 (rules changes or no rules changes)
- using rules which nicely facilitate "adapting" to CA 1, finding them unsatisfactory (i.e. never actually playing CA 1), and making new rules which then facilitate the preferred CA 2
- using rules which are a mess, facilitating no CA, finding them unsatisfactory, and making new rules which then facilitate a CA of choice
- and as a separate subject, "changing rules" ranges from the kind of fade-back and bring-forward I described with our L5R game, all the way to altering the written rules so drastically that you have genuinely made a brand-new game
Basically, that's way too many ideas and nuances to get subsumed under a single term. Time to roll up our sleeves about it.
Best, Ron
Simon C:
Thanks for that restatement Ron, I think it's a great refocusing of a thread that was in danger of drifting off into etherial "theory land" without reference to what's actually important or useful. With those things more or less understood, let's move on to the actual meat of the question.
A few questions:
Is Drift always about a change in CA? Is houseruling your game to make it "more realistic" or faster or so that Katanas are more awesome an example of Drift?
Is Drift something that is either present or not, or is it a matter of degree?
Then there's the biggest question, which I think will underpin how any others get answered:
What is the concept of Drift useful for? Are we using it to identify when a group is going "off the reservation" with a game, such that normal successful practices for playing that game may not be successful for them? Are we using it to more successfully describe techniques for changing CA within a given rules set? What's the most useful definition of Drift?
Callan S.:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on October 28, 2008, 03:45:48 PM
The game author's intent is actually irrelevant. You will find in general that "intentions" play no role in the Big Model at all, or more accurately, intentions are never invoked as a unique causal factor. Drift refers to what the play-group is doing, with no reference to the game author whatsoever.
What about the intentions of the author of that drift? The one person who (successfully) directs that drift? (that includes whether they know it or not that they directed it)
I'm not sure it detaches from the game authors intention when it's just a matter of someone at the table taking over the authorship position (probably the GM/person who owns the book).
Mind you, I'm skeptical how creative agenda apparently just kinda...forms out of social contract, in the big model. I rather think creative agenda is decided outside of social contract by one individual (ie, the big arrow starts earlier than the social contract). So I might be opening another can of worms in the wrong thread.
Ron Edwards:
Whew! Not a simple topic. I should start by saying again that my goal here is say, "Drift as currently defined and used is not sufficient," as opposed to "Here I clarify what Drift has been established to mean." In other words, I don't want to contort an inadequate term into multiple and new shapes; I want to find out what is happening so maybe we can create a better taxonomy.
Hey Simon, you wrote,
Quote
Is Drift always about a change in CA? Is houseruling your game to make it "more realistic" or faster or so that Katanas are more awesome an example of Drift?
Is Drift something that is either present or not, or is it a matter of degree?
... What is the concept of Drift useful for? Are we using it to identify when a group is going "off the reservation" with a game, such that normal successful practices for playing that game may not be successful for them? Are we using it to more successfully describe techniques for changing CA within a given rules set? What's the most useful definition of Drift?
"Tus preguntas son mis preguntas." I totally support all those questions as current unknowns and I'd like to see them worked out. As far as I can tell, we need different words for different phenomena; the one word has finally broken under the weight of all its meanings.
Originally, Drift was about Creative Agenda, with rules-change being one form of dramatic evidence for it. Then people including me starting talking about "drifting the rules," and that was often used independently of whether CA was involved. I tried to outline some of the subtleties of arriving at CA, too, upon using a text.
Callan, you bring up stuff that is a little easier for me, but it's really important that we go over it too, so thanks.
Quote
What about the intentions of the author of that drift? The one person who (successfully) directs that drift? (that includes whether they know it or not that they directed it)
I'm not sure it detaches from the game authors intention when it's just a matter of someone at the table taking over the authorship position (probably the GM/person who owns the book).
Well, again, I'm not really psyched about the whole "intention" thing. Maybe we're just using different terms. I'd probably say something clunky like "the goals that become evident as actions and interactions proceed," for which I typically use the word "agenda," or "goals of play."
Anyway, that said, I think the core point is that you're still talking about something the author wants, and I'm saying that's not the issue. The issue is what actually comes together (if it does) as a function of what the text says to do. So we should be comparing that one person's push toward a CA with
Regarding the last issue you mentioned,
Quote
Mind you, I'm skeptical how creative agenda apparently just kinda...forms out of social contract, in the big model. I rather think creative agenda is decided outside of social contract by one individual (ie, the big arrow starts earlier than the social contract). ...
It's totally appropriate here, but as I see it, there's no can of worms. Any social mechanisms by which CA forms are actually acknowledged in the model, but I don't list them or spell them out. My logic is, "whatever happens among the group such that CA gets established at that level." That could be anything: nice, nasty; centralized, democratic; whatever. I suggest that you're over-stating it when you specify one person only, but yes, it doesn't have to be all-equals-all-the-time either. You're totally right to say that such things don't form out of nothing or through mysterious ways. All the Big Model says, though, is "however it happens" and diagrams where.
CA, though, is not established at the moment that anyone (one, some, all) simply says what they want. It is established only insofar as it's expressed in play at the level of reward cycles over extended time; when and if that happens, that is certainly a function of group dynamics.
Also, that "one person" may generate personal desires outside of the Social Contract, but those are irrelevant and floating in space until they get communicated somehow in the context of "let's play this game." So at that point, Social Contract is up and running.
Best, Ron
Callan S.:
Quote
Any social mechanisms by which CA forms are actually acknowledged in the model
Hmm, I'm not refering to social mechanisms to form CA. If someones hungry and you offer them food, sure, the offering is part of the social mechanism, but deciding to offer it at all? Thats a decision they made outside of the social mechanism.
In terms of drift I'm comparing what sort of 'food' the author offers in his text Vs what someone in the gaming group offers as food when he knows what sort of CA members of the group hunger for.
Food for thought, hehe!
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