Looking at the idea called 'system' again
Callan S.:
Josh, if I wasn't, for example, word police, but you went on to post as if I absolutely were... well, in that example atleast, you'd be being disruptive. And willfully so, since it'd be ignoring any possiblity of being wrong on that and so deliberately acting in a way that doesn't match the situation.
Summing up in short form, if you treat both
A: Going into a store, handing someone money and taking from them some milk and bread
B: Going into a store with a knife, opening the till, taking money and leaving
as being 'system' in the same tone, equally, without caveat, then you are speaking about them as being equal and the same. As you treat them, so they become - either in other people that hear you or in your own eyes. If you treat them equally, so they, over time, will become equal.
Also it's possible this is occuring only because of some oversight/theory of mind issue. I think it's possible to ask for consent through body language alone. And I think if you miss the fact that asking and giving happened, you might start to think you don't have to ask for consent all the time, as if you can just do X sans that body language ask. I think we also often have loose, overall understandings of behaviour between people in our various cultures, that they were raised with and essentially consent to (well, I'll say 'essentially' to keep this simple). I think if you miss the fact these exist and are in action at the gaming table (as well as everywhere else), you might start thinking the smelly chamberlain example shows you don't always need constantly reinforced consensus and is an example of that, even though because of those prior understandings existance, your essentially bathing in constantly reinforced consensus.
Take this quote from Ron
Quote
We mean something more like "get" in the informal sense of the word, or "run with from now on," or even "stay consistent with from now on, at least close enough for government work."
If you want to really look at system, you'll see that this isn't describing how something works to me, it's asking me to 'get' it. And in asking, it's asking me to consent to 'getting' it. That's the actual system that's happening.
Yet if everyone thinks they are describing something that exists, rather than in describing something and in doing so, asking consent to it - if they don't recognise they are asking consent...well, I think maybe you get the smelly chamberlain thread. Whole bunches of people thinking they are talking about system when really the system is that they are asking each others consent to a certain procedure.
JoyWriter:
Quote from: Callan S. on October 31, 2009, 10:24:32 PM
And willfully so, since it'd be ignoring any possiblity of being wrong on that and so deliberately acting in a way that doesn't match the situation.
Like this d'you mean:
Quote from: JoyWriter on October 31, 2009, 07:21:46 PM
That's one important reason why it is valuable to spot patterns in behaviour, whether pre-arranged or otherwise, because you can change it.
Another good reason is because as you suggest, you can see an awesome series of events that happened, and try to replicate them.
....
can be considered a set of systems, with potentially quite different dynamics.
Quote from: Callan S. on October 31, 2009, 10:24:32 PM
as being 'system' in the same tone, equally, without caveat, then you are speaking about them as being equal and the same.
I've not only distinguished between those patterns we want to preserve and those we want to change, I've suggested that the abusive ones might themselves be distinguishable from each other!
Quote from: Callan S. on October 31, 2009, 10:24:32 PM
If you want to really look at system, you'll see that this isn't describing how something works to me, it's asking me to 'get' it. And in asking, it's asking me to consent to 'getting' it. That's the actual system that's happening.
I've invited you to do loads of things in this thread, all focused on bridging between what other people think and what you think, no dodgy power-knowledge stuff.
And in case you haven't got my point from above:
Quote from: Callan S. on October 31, 2009, 10:24:32 PM
... That's the actual system that's happening.
Yet if everyone thinks they are describing something that exists, rather than in describing something and in doing so, asking consent to it - if they don't recognise they are asking consent...well, I think maybe you get the smelly chamberlain thread. Whole bunches of people thinking they are talking about system when really the system is that they are asking each others consent to a certain procedure.
Are they? Could you be wrong on that?
If they weren't for example, requiring consent, but you went on to post as if they absolutely were, would you be being disruptive?
Your logic applies to yourself!
JoyWriter:
Oh and by the way that last post is the consequence of hitting post instead of preview, I'll have a more substantial post up within the next few days!
Callan S.:
Quote
I've not only distinguished between those patterns we want to preserve and those we want to change, I've suggested that the abusive ones might themselves be distinguishable from each other!
I honestly can't see you distinguishing between what you want to preserve and what you want to change (and by change I assume you mean remove). Even when you say you want to preserve awesome series of events, I can't honestly see you saying you would also remove things you thought morally iffy (and I mean even atleast by your own moral code, rather than by mine or some general one). You just talk about different dynamics, not right and wrong.
So maybe I'm not reading very well, or you just don't bring a moral compass to bear on this. Perhaps you think things are awesome as in fun, but you don't think along the lines of 'Well, that was awesome...but that little thing we did where we consipired to ignore the rules, that's a bit iffy/murky. I wonder if there is some way, different to how we did it, that we can have that awesome without the iffy?'.
Given the tone I percieve (percieve, as in perception, which is capable of failure) in your last post, you'd be betting on me not reading well. But if that's so, I'd not read any further responces very well either.
Quote
I've invited you to do loads of things in this thread, all focused on bridging between what other people think and what you think, no dodgy power-knowledge stuff.
I described what might be a genuine mistake and failure to perceive oneself asking consent. I accused no one of manipulation at all. Indeed it was supposed to be an olive branch, or atleast a probable olive branch, that perhaps this hinges on an innocent error? Ideally it would have gone "Oh hey, Callan, I hadn't thought in describing something in particular I might actually be asking for consent to it...I'm not taking it as true right now, but I'll chew it over!" and I'd go "Cheers!"
Quote
Are they? Could you be wrong on that?
That's why I used "it's possible" and you can even see the 'maybe' in your quote of me.
But with Ron, that's the interesting part and what prompted me to post probably too quickly...
When I say 'that's the actual system that's happening' then I'm describing the system, at it's current point, between me and Ron.
The interesting thing is that if I am wrong on what he was doing, then there is no system between us. Or no single system - he'd be running off some pattern of doing things, I'd be running off another pattern of doing things. Given the wide use of system here, you could call that clash of patterns 'system', but then again you could call two cars smashing into each other, as it's happening, system, with that broad a notion of system.
In terms of being disruptive, if myself and Ron were actually two patterns crashing against each other at that point, I don't think I could get more disruptive than has already happened. And yet everyone wants to call that crashing 'system', with no moral distinguishment. So if you want to call me disruptive, as in something morally iffy, go ahead, but then equally you'd have to name the smelly chamberlain thread examples that too, rather than just calling them 'system' without caveat and without tone.
contracycle:
Quote from: JoyWriter on October 31, 2009, 07:21:46 PM
Contracycle, generality is only dangerous if we stop there; we do not complain about all books being in the same library because "I got a book from the library" is not a very informative statement. In the same way, a general definition of what happens in a game is only a problem if it stops there, and we say "stuff happens, hallelujah" or something equally uninformative. The alternative is to look at different kinds of system (subdividing like looking through the library's filing system), and ask which are better, and if the better ones can be shared etc. For example, supposedly David Donachie GMs his game Solipsist very well, but other people can't get the same goodness out of it. If the definition of system is broad enough, we have a big net to catch facts about how he GMs, and develop explicit systems from them.
My problem with this approach is that you end up in a situation in which you can't distinguish between the fact of Alice being seated next to Bob, and a game using FATE as opposed FITM. It is indeed possible that Alice being seated next to Bob in some way contributed to the overall happiness of the group and the ability for the game to play succesfully, but this is totally beyond the scope of system. "Everything you do if you had fun" is far, far too broad a net. The defintion needs to be restricted to things that actually did influence play and impacted the IS. If it didn't do that, it's almost certainly something far too local to draw a principle from. There is indeed stuff that "just happens" in a game and in which there is no deeper secret to be teased out. There may be any number of personal or social influences to a game that are frankly beyond the remit of system.
Yes indeed, as I have agreed, it is worthwhile looking at what people did implicitly, and which they may not have recognised to be decisions constituting real system. But I repeat, it's worth looking; it's not worth assuming that everything they did is system simply because it happened.
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