Is actual RP in MMORPGs another next impossible thing?
Lance D. Allen:
I want to try to express something about the SIS that has been provoked by this conversation. I've begun and discarded several attempts to address this before.
SIS exists solely within the minds of the players who create it. This, I think, can be considered incontrovertible, unable to be separated from the basic concept. It is created from a consensual and ongoing vote by all of its contributing members.
Mechanics and Color, constituted by the "game system" are the game author's vote. This opens the idea that the author (or game developers) are part of the SIS. They get a vote, they contribute. But the one thing that actually keeps them from being part of the SIS is that they are not taking from the SIS.
Now, the game system is just a vote. This is true in both MMORPGs and TTRPGs. You may think this isn't true in MMOs, because the game code only allows certain things... But it is true.. Because in the SIS, you do not have to accept what happens within the game. Consider the following examples:
City of Heroes: At the end of a long day of fighting crime, Errant was talking to Psionique, sitting on the edge of a rooftop. At this point, there is only a burgeoning friendship. Errant is alien to this world, and Psionique, while fearless in battle, has lead a sheltered life, so there are many things about the world that are unfamiliar to both of them. Eventually, their friendship will grow into a romance, but we're not there yet. After a moment of silence as they think their private thoughts, Psionique asks Errant about his homeworld. In response, Errant stands, and runs off the edge of the building, falling to the ground far below.
What happened? I hit the wrong damned button. I was still new to the game, and occasionally would forget to hit enter before trying to type. Do we somehow have to find a way to work this into the fiction? Absolutely not. Sometimes we might, but we don't have to accept the game's vote. I teleport my way back to the rooftop, and we continue the conversation as though it didn't happen.
Star Wars Galaxies: In the game, there was a cloning system. When you died, you were reborn at a cloning center. Supposedly, your old body died, but you continued with the new one. Let's think about the actual SW universe. Was cloning an every day occurrence, with individuals being reborn as clones? No. It was a way to create armies. The clones weren't rebirths with all your experiences. They were separate people who just happened to be identical to you, genetically. So we had the choice to either embrace this departure from SW Canon, or ignore it. In my own group, we ignored it. When someone 'died', they were simply knocked unconscious and taken to a medical facility where they recovered from their severe wounds in bacta tanks.
So I contend that MMOs are no less SIS-building kits than your average traditional TTRPG. The primary difference is the assumption. Most, though not all, TTRPGs assume you'll form an SIS (though they don't use the term; their authors may not even be familiar with the term, nor do they need to be). I believe that once upon a time, MMORPGs assumed the same thing, though I don't believe that's the case anymore. It is *possible* to enjoy both types of game with or without an SIS. I personally find it hard to enjoy MMORPGs without one. When playing solo, I frequently form an "IIS" (individual imaginative space), and I'll chat with NPCs, or type in in-character comments while I'm out in the hinterlands, all alone.
Re: Narrativism. I again say that no, by default, MMO roleplay is NOT narrativist. Narrativist play involves addressing human premises, answering questions with meaning. While this sometimes happens, most play falls squarely into Simulationist agendas.
How "shared" does an SIS have to be? I think of an MMO kind of like a "Living" Campaign, like "Living Eberron" or "Living Greyhawk". Each individual play group has it's own individual SIS, but there is content that is shared by all, via the mechanics and color of the D&D game, and more specifically the rules of the "Living" Campaigns. Nothing is shared universally by all players in the "Living" Campaign, but there is enough shared that players from two distinct groups can play together. A similar thing may occur in MMOs.. You may be playing your Troll Empire, and I may be playing my Defias Conspiracy, but we both accept that we're playing in the universe of... whatever WoW's setting is called, I forget. I accept that you're Horde, and as such there is animosity and distrust between our races. I may never acknowledge the existence of the Troll Empire, and you may never acknowledge that there's a Defias Conspiracy to take over the throne in Stormreach, but we could meet and roleplay together.
Caldis:
I think what you need is some examples of actual play that relate to what you are saying. So far all I see is a few mentions of ideas created in a game but no sign of how players interacted with each other using these ideas in a relevant manner.
Lets go back to the Troll Empire. You created this thing as an idea for players to grasp onto in the game but how did they do it? If you managed to have people take the information, accept it as real and base their play on it while interacting with each other then you do have a shared imagined space in action for those people. Actually you dont even need anything as overt as your troll empire added by the players, they can be using what the electronic game gives them and adding simple things like their own personalities and goals to be creating a SIS.
Did this idea lead to the creation of situation? What type of situations and how did they resolve these situations? Did they lead to entirely new situations or the same ones reskinned as something new? Answer these questions and you'll get an idea of what creative agenda may have been operating.
I'll give you an example from my own experience.
I played Mighty Bruillembar a Tauren hunter in WOW. A friend of mine played Grailoch an Orc Shaman. We would often join together and explore the world. We preferred doing quests and would totally clean out an area of quest before we moved on. We werent in a rush to level up and we definitely didnt chase after the best equipment and gear. We created emotes for our characters and hotkeyed them so we would often shout out trade mark sayings, Bruillembar talked in 3rd person quite a lot. Our play was simulationist and we did have a SIS operating between us. The scenery provide by the game took the place of minis and descriptions, the quests handed out and the programing of the monsters acted as a gm but the two of us were still imagining and roleplaying.
At times we did try out some things like the battle grounds or grouping to do dungeons, in those instances our CA shifted to gamism. We were doing our best to win and help our teams compete, survive, and get the big rewards. It was dependant on our skill.
I never saw any narrativism happening in game, but it is possible. It would have to be built by the players whereas our play was more riding on the back of the developers.
Patrice:
Well it's just the same point all along, we're talking about two different things in here, and we mix them: There's the MMO itself in which there's no SIS as such, but a virtual space and there's the RPG taking place within (remember the parasite thing?) in which a SIS seems to take place. When playing a MMO one has the choice to build somewhat of a SIS within while doing his quests and levelling thing, but one has also the choice not to, as you point it, Wolfen. I think we all agree upon the fact that, playing RP style within a MMO, one Shares an Imagined Space. The minis and descriptions example is such a good one! Thanks for that, Caldis.
I'm nevertheless a little bit annoyed about the whole SIS idea. If the game's Virtual space provides descriptions, well... Are you sure we can have a SIS? What would be Exploration without descriptions? I dunno if I really get a grasp at the core question, but I'm definitly annoyed to say there's a SIS, even in the parasite game. You provide, Wolfen, in your examples, clear evidence of a Social Contract and my actual play experience backs it, but that doesn't quite solve the SIS question as far as I am concerned. Now when you say one can play a P&PRPG without a SIS... I'm abashed because, Exploring a SIS is the defining thing of a P&PRPG. I must very strongly say that, hell no, one can't play a P&PRPG without a SIS. If there's no SIS, what you have, at best, is a boardgame ("It is *possible* to enjoy both types of game with or without an SIS").
Now there's something I must add. Must. I LOVE your actual play examples. Talking to the NPCs all alone, explore the world together, low-levelling, decide through Social Contract what we'll be doing and define what actually happened. That's all examples I've met, and done myself in my playing MMOs (well *cough* before transforming in some stupid Roxxorz and taking a lot of fun from that btw) and I liked that a lot. That were good times.
Now, concerning CAs, what happened in all my actual play examples is that: We build something with a bunch of fellows, something highly connected to the game background (the Setting) involving Character generation, guild creation and the like. Troll Empire, right, but also Pirates bunch, Twilight Brotherhood, Scarlet Crusade, etc (if only to take WoW examples). We enjoy impersonating fierce jungle trolls with the proper intonations and emotes, meeting points back in the jungle, night patrols, bonfires, etc. Or maybe we gather upon a ship and we sail all day talking like pirates and duelling each other with punches, drinking a lot and spanking the girls. We do it for, say, 6 months and then some day, someone says "aren't you bored to do the same things again and again?". From that, one half of the guild goes straight to PVE and they still empty Naxx on 25 raids as I talk. The other half wonders "Where do we go from there?". One half quits the game altogether. Remains 1/4. This quarter decides to build stories (I remember one of my officers saying "what we lack is stories, involving stories for each of us"). And... slightly changes the Social Contract and the CA into Narrativist patterns. Out of boredom of Sim gaming I would say. They still play nowadays although I have no idea of what their stories might be.
I'm maybe biased because I feel, I must confess, that Sim is a dead-end in itself (of course it's noooooot the issue please, an answer like "you're wrong, idiot" will totally satisfy me here :)).
Caldis:
Quote from: Patrice on January 20, 2009, 05:17:00 AM
I'm maybe biased because I feel, I must confess, that Sim is a dead-end in itself (of course it's noooooot the issue please, an answer like "you're wrong, idiot" will totally satisfy me here :)).
If you've read Ron's essay on Sim that is his big question about it. Why keep doing the same thing over and over and yes in MMO's that is a problem and most of them do lose people over time. They do manage to change it up a bit by adding new areas you can move on to with new quests and other skills to develop like crafting in the end though the game does become monotonous IME.
The game is providing support for this SIm style of play, giving things like skills and levels to work with. It doesnt do any of the heavy lifting for narrativism and several facets of the game actively work against addressing premise (you cant really change the environment).
As for Shared imagined space I think you are misunderstanding the term, I prefer to just use exploration which means virtually the same thing according to the glossary. We imagine fictional events and establish them by communicating them with each other. I have my character run off to attack a wild boar using the game as a tool, you see this action and follow along. We communicate across a visual medium, maybe we have a voicechat program and talk as well or else we type out messages that add to what is happening.
Lance D. Allen:
Last time I'm gonna say it, I promise...
Stories DO NOT equal narrativism.
A growing, evolving, changing and deepening character is a big, big hallmark of sustained simulationist play. I don't mean going up in levels. I mean deepening personality and exploration of what it is to be this person in this situation. I'm a bigtime sim player. I could tell you stories spanning years of play, with deep romances, epic battles, betrayals, reconciliations.. All of the stuff you love about your favorite books. And almost all of it falls squarely into the Simulationist agenda. We may sometimes have drifted into Narrativist play, like when we explored questions like "What is the price of Virtue?" or "How far does trust extend?" in Ultima Online. We didn't think of it as a deep thing, and it wasn't purposeful. We just played our characters, and the questions arose and were in turned answered as a result of our play.
In short, "you're wrong", but you're not an idiot. ::grin::
Quote
...decide through Social Contract what we'll be doing and define what actually happened.
"What Actually Happened" is the SIS. The "deciding through Social Contract" part is what makes it shared. We, collectively (largely implicitly) decide what "actually" happens within the fiction. What "actually" happened was that we had our rooftop conversation without any jumping in CoH. What "actually" happened was that you were unconscious and badly injured, not dead, in SWG. So long as a group of players accept a given version of the fiction, that is a Shared Imaginative Space.
Finally: TTRPGs without an SIS; You can play D&D using all of the mechanics, and imagine absolutely nothing. To argue that D&D is no longer a roleplaying game at that point may be valid, but in that case, neither is an MMORPG a roleplaying game if played without an SIS.. And if you play ANYTHING with an SIS, it instantaneously transmogrifies itself into a RPG. That starts leading toward the thorny, downward-spiraling discussion of what exactly defines an RPG, though. For my purposes, D&D is an RPG, no matter how it's played, and it can be played, and enjoyed by a certain set of people, without an Imagined Space of any sort, shared or otherwise.
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