Looking at the idea called 'system' again
JoyWriter:
Quote from: Callan S. on October 27, 2009, 02:41:18 AM
Josh, I think your just pitching that a wrench can be used like a hammer, thus it's both. Do we have any common ground on what it's original intent was? Cause if we don't, then we don't.
I'm trying to say a lot more than that, but that should be enough for now. I think original intent is a bit of red herring, maybe it's just more important how closely the object fits your definition of a hammer or wrench, including how it can be used. That kind of pragmatic domain is what I'm focusing on here, because these definitions, this "rpg theory" is supposed to be focused on helping practice along. By the way I'm glad you took the last post well, I was a little concerned that combining philosophy with humour might sound a bit snarky, which I hope you know wasn't my intention.
Quote from: Callan S. on October 27, 2009, 02:41:18 AM
People could define a glass of cyanide differently from me - doesn't mean their defining it differently will mean it'll have different properties once drunk. On this principle, no, I don't respect 'oh, this is our special definition'. Or I respect it about as much as the cyanide would, anyway. (a dark humour part of me wants to say that upon finding this to be true, a gamer would then redefine the word 'drink' and thus declare the problem solved, because they weren't drinking the cyanide anymore)
Ok, suppose someone out there has a resistance to cyanide poisoning, and in fact has quite a liking for it's taste, in the right circumstances. (Maybe they're an alien) They might define it as an acquired taste, and you would define it as a poison. But because of the differences between you and them, you are both right!
You suggest correctly that the world and it's practical issues will indeed overrule our pictures, and so sometimes a difference in definition means a difference in circumstance.
So here's what I'm suggesting; we go hell for leather after your idea of "putting up with shit", grounded as it is in your own experience, and then compare it to "system" as a component of "exploration", and all that stuff. In other words start with assuming system doesn't exist, and is not a real thing at all(as opposed to a real but absent thing). That may sound a pretty dull way to analyse it, but you often find that starting with your own words and your own view and stating them clearly allows people to come in and say "that bit there, that's what I mean by system".
So how about we just talk about tolerance vs agreement?
In the example of the paintball, as contracycle suggests, the effects on what people say in the game are not mentioned. We know very little beyond the fact that they stayed, or at least I know very little. So perhaps it's to vague and second hand an example to use? As a tangent it does occur to me that a lot of rpg theory is inward looking, focused on the games effect on itself, and doesn't consider that the process of play might chuck out all kinds of interesting artefacts. I'll be having a think about that.
Hang on, it's just occurred to me that you might be cross that people confused you by using the word system in a way you were not prepared for, and seek to use example or precedent to justify banning the word system from being used in that way. If this is true I think you will find that a fruitless struggle, given that the very foundations of system theory are built on the plurality of acceptable models and the ability to draw system boundaries any way you want. This broader idea of systems is a much bigger than your one of "darwinian systems" and the system defined by the "lumpley principle", native to the forge. My advice is not to bother policing people's words in this way, if that is what your doing, but rather seeking to insure those definitions don't encourage people to drink poison!
Callan S.:
I'm just not seeing much coherance to the original authors of the idea (or willfully ignoring the intent, yet still amazingly using it as a reference for arguement). In other cases I've pitched the idea that perhaps there was no system and said this is not a thread for zealous conviction there must be a system, you must humour doubt there was a system (even if you don't really believe that, but are just humouring the idea) to participate, and in those cases participation stopped. And with Gareths/contracycles post, it's mostly establishing what I'm trying to establish, so that's already complete. So I'm summing up.
You can't make system through play. You can ask someone if they want to follow a system you've thought up. No, there is no principle of "Oh, you don't always have to ask permission for something". Why? Because ask the damn people your going to play with if you don't have to ask permission always. If they say no, then clearly no, there is no such principle! They just said no to it! But because I, here on a chat forum, can't prove you don't always have to ask (oddly enough I can't in advance prove what someones going to consent to), that must make it a true principle you don't always have to ask? No! Ask the damn people your playing with. It's just wank to sit on a forum and tell each other that yeah, a group of players can do something, for example, the GM didn't agree to, and thats a rule of how things work in life, like gravity is a rule of how things work in life. No, ask a GM in that position if he wants to do that. If he says no, then clearly there is no "Oh, you don't always have to ask permission for something" principle that exists in real life, otherwise he'd be compelled by that real life 'fact' to say yes. Thinking otherwise is as bullshit as all the ideas that if you buy a woman X, Y and Z she'll sleep with you, as if it's a principle that 'woman brain' just follows. That's just a display of lame theory of mind, that's blind to consent and only sees a new rule of physics on 'how things work'.
Or it's worse than wank. I'll draw your attention of how domestic violence becomes ingrained into the 'system' of the 'relationship', with bullshit justifications "He only does it when he's angry". Oh, and you know these people genuinely believe it's a relationship - clearly showing that people, human beings, like you or me, can make a 'system' out of really...murky elements. Before you start 'spoofing' the GM or anybody, you might want to ask if that's how you want to live and tell others enmasse by forum it's okay to live that way. Because I can't honestly prove that the domestic violence couple aren't a 'system' or a 'relationship'. But just because something can't be disproved as a system, doesn't mean it's something you want to do in your life. I'm wondering if standards in the community are degrading, or atleast measured against my own set of standards (which I'm not saying are the be all and end all), they always were degraded.
Marshall Burns:
All right. This is probably gonna get me into arguments, but what the hell.
There is no such thing as "shit just happening." If something happens, it happens because something caused it to happen. Gravity, momentum, Newton's second law of mechanics, and conservation of energy caused the beach balls to behave as they did (what causes gravity, et al? Fuck if I know, but before we get into anything like that, such theoretical physics are a bit beyond our scope here, yes?).
Likewise, if some people are sitting around a table, anything that happens at that table happens because one or more of them caused it to happen.
Such a collection of causes and their effects, and the events that prompt causes into action, among a specific group of players for a specific unit of play comprises a specific System (as defined by the LP). Therefore there is no way for System to not exist. There is no way for things to happen at the table without someone causing them to happen.
A System can be disordered; it's still a System. You can cause things on accident; you still caused them, and it still contributes to the System. You can be displeased with the System's results; it's still a System.
So what exactly are we talking about here?
contracycle:
Quote from: Marshall Burns on October 29, 2009, 03:43:42 PM
Such a collection of causes and their effects, and the events that prompt causes into action, among a specific group of players for a specific unit of play comprises a specific System (as defined by the LP). Therefore there is no way for System to not exist. There is no way for things to happen at the table without someone causing them to happen.
I don't think that makes any sense. A "collection of causes and effects" can only be considered to be a system when they are systematically organised. And if they are not organised, then they are indeed just stuff happening, regardless of whether they had to be initiated and agreed.
Otherwise, there is only one system that any game needs, and I shall show it to you. Here it is: "People sit around and agree what happens in the game. The End." That is the perfect system; all other systems are subsets of this magnum opus. RPG design is now officially a Solved problem, and we can all pack up and go home. I shall be signing autographs at 4pm on Tuesday.
As I have already mentioned, it may well be true that components of a given system at use at a given table may be implicit rather than explicit, and not contained in the textual rules. But even that view must implicitly accept that they are agreements about the game and the play of the game, for the purposes of determining how the in-game content is to be created or altered. Even non-explicit, non-textual rules are implicitly systematic.
A system cannot be so disordered that it loses the quality of controlling game content without losing the quality of being a kind "system" at all. Ad hoc decisions are just ad hoc decisions; they are, specifically, not systematic decisions. A series of ad hoc deicsions does not constitute a system, they merely constitute a series of ad hoc decisions. Can that be a fun kind of game? Sure! But it's no longer a game governed by a system. And if the claim is advanced that any series of decisions, not matter how ad hoc or disorganised, is indistinguishable from system, then in fact system doesn't matter after all.
Caldis:
A few things need to be straightened out. The System does matter article predates the Lumpley principle so what that article is talking about and what system has come to mean may not be exactly the same thing. Look to the provisional glossary or better yet check out http://www.lumpley.com/opine.html
I think you guys are getting messed up because you are thinking of system as something you use to help you play out a session. That's not the case, when we talk system we're talking everything you actually did when you played out the game to determine what happened. So if in game a combat situation comes up and you try and play by the rules of the game to resolve the conflict that's not the entirety of system. The system includes things that most games dont really resolve such as where all the combatants were in relation to each other when combat broke out, what the conditions were in terms that may cause penalties like lighting cover and obstacles, are there any objects that can be used as improvised weapons. The system includes determining all these things and how and by who they are decided. It may be by negotiation between players and gm, it could be up to the gm to decide or it may be determinable by expending resources. All of it makes up system. If you are using ad hoc decisions to determine what happened in the game then that is part of the system the game is using. And yes Contra there is only one system and your definition nails it "People sit around and agree what happens in the game." That is exactly the definition of system the question is how do they get to the point of agreement. If they dont agree about what happens in the game it's impossible to have a game.
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