Looking at the idea called 'system' again
rgrassi:
IMVHO the word "system" as defined in the glossary generates a lot of misunderstanding.
In part because it's the only concept that takes the ownership to actually make the imagination come fictional truth.
Maybe, a better definition could be:
"System is whatever must occur between players in terms of explicit (written and not interpretable) or implicit (deduced by common sense or built-in in the human nature) game rules or social behaviours in order to agree to fictional events during play".
Rob
Callan S.:
I think it needs to be defined as existing, based on something that is physically detectable. The original iterations of the lumpley principle rested on negotiation, which is fairly detectable at a physical level.
Otherwise you could say invisible fairies are at the table whispering in ones ears and influencing what goes into the SIS, thus invisible fairies are part of system!!!1! "But you can't prove they aren't there, and I say they are there, so they are part of system, it's exactly as the definition says etc etc" And in strict symantics, it is part of the definition.
That might sound over the top, but that's how the smelly chamberlain, or the idea I agreed to the GM's fiction on reloading, appear to me. Based on things that are invisible and while they can't be proven, they also can't be disproven. And the inability to disprove them is enough 'proof' for many to take them as being the case. Although in the latter case, immediately leaving the table might be enough to disprove the notion.
'whatever' isn't enough. It allows the invisible fairies a way in. Or to be more exact, superstition. Currently the LP is allowing just that.
rgrassi:
I see your point and it looks right to me.
"System is anything that must occur and is physically detectable between players in terms of explicit (written and not interpretable) or implicit (deduced by common sense or built-in in the human nature) game rules or social behaviours in order to agree to fictional events during play".
That could open the flank to "sensism" counter-arguments, but I hope not.
Rob
JoyWriter:
Quote from: Callan S. on November 01, 2009, 02:05:27 PM
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.
Bloody hell, it's good to talk, aye!
Even from an under-edited outburst of mine we still seem to be able to get somewhere.
I think you probably have been misreading me, but I'm not putting any fault in that, it's just miscommunication. The wonder of repeated conversation is that we can sort some of that stuff.
Also it might be helpful to contrast all of these robberies and things with an actually healthy situation; have you referred to anything in this thread that you would consider right? Playing lunch money, yeah?
Quote from: Callan S. on November 01, 2009, 02:05:27 PM
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.
Now I'm going to see if I can take a stab at defusing this right here, here's hoping aye!
So you've got a clash of two patterns right, your idea of the world + way of doing things and Ron's? And you feel that is a reasonable analogy (ie has important similarities) to the problems in the actual game you played?
Now what is that clash? Is it that you just don't want to use the word system, which he has suggested people use? No obviously not, because you've felt quite happy to distinguish different forms of systems in this thread. You've been happy to define "darwinian systems" which might have positive or negative effects on people.
So what is the problem? Is it that people are saying what they think without saying "it is my opinion that it is my opinion that..." etc at the start? If so there's an easy solution, just mentally append any number of the above to the start of people's opinions when reading them. But I doubt that is the core cause of your concern. :P
So is it that you have a view of the world, and you feel you are being asked to swallow someone else's theory without question?
There is actually a surprising amount of familiarity between learning a theory you don't necessarally agree with and the sort of agreement that Caldis has been referring to; in the case of the game, you can predict how you think things will go, and then say:
Quote from: Callan S. on November 04, 2009, 06:20:31 PM
"Hey, how'd the dragon breath fire on me? I'm standing way over here!?"
"No, your standing over there"
"If I'd known that I would have run way over here!"
"Well, your there and your burnt!"
So there are two ideas of what is going on in the imaginary world, yours and his. Now you can choose to keep your version of events to yourself, and go "Ok if he was right, how would it go?" (I'm using quote marks there because we don't have thought marks in our language!). This hypothetical "if he was right" thing is one very impoverished version of what the Shared Imaginary Space is about, it's like "for the sake of argument I'll go with that and build off it as if it was right".
Now to illustrate that I'll go with a more give-and-take based example. Say the GM instead says
"Oh ok, in that case the dragon steps forward and breaths fire on you, you're burnt"
what makes the difference between those two examples? In the first case it's the golden rule "GM decides everything, if there is a disagreement his way goes", in the second case, the GM could be adding a rule by adjusting his own behaviour, deciding "but the GM will defer to players decisions within these parameters ........" in some inexplicit/unexact way.
That is the system people have been referring to. There's no silly stuff about telling you that all along you thought something different to what you do, that somehow the fact that you sat down to a game (or started discussing a theory with them) means they know the insider of your head better than you, instead they just want you to go along with something, and they will sometimes also go along with you (if they are willing to do give and take).
That is the kind of agreement people are talking about. (in my opinion in my opinion etc)
Now this is different to a car crash, it's not people going "whatever, your thing is nonsense" it's "what if your thing was true, what would it mean"?
You can go back to the start of this thread and see me suggesting that you provide an alternative, a way of looking at games so people can "pretend your view is true". Until then, there's no possibility of shared understanding, it's just "I don't think the same as you, maybe your wrong". Perhaps we're all wrong, but if you provide an alternative view then people can decide to try yours out, hypothetically, and compare it to their own one. Your starting to do this, which is great, but it's still board games or card games, not your own explanation of actual rpg sessions.
To get really practical, I'll now split to focus on the example you gave near the start about ammo and stuff, and then on us talking now (how self-referential!)
Quote from: Callan S. on November 06, 2009, 08:31:29 PM
But ultimately I'll put it this way - if I knew someone else was going to be absolutely certain I'm agreeing with their fiction when I'm not and I'm actually telling them I don't agree? I don't want to give that impression - so I'd pack up and leave. That simple.
Is that what you did, in that game? Did you declare that you disagreed? And the game carried on anyway? And you didn't pack up and leave?
Did you start going "well if that is how reloading works, I'd have to do this"? That's what people are referring to, an agreement to build on something as if it was what actually happened. You might call it tolerating, and make a moral distinction between the two. But if so, what you call "tolerating", other people have included as part of "agreement". That's all, no confusion, just disagreement. What people maybe haven't seen though, is that you tolerated something you really didn't like. Why? You'd have to answer that. (if I'm right that I'm right that .....)
Now I thought I'd go onto referring to our conversation now but this is maybe already too weighty a post!
Callan S.:
Quote from: rgrassi on November 10, 2009, 07:42:27 AM
I see your point and it looks right to me.
"System is anything that must occur and is physically detectable between players in terms of explicit (written and not interpretable) or implicit (deduced by common sense or built-in in the human nature) game rules or social behaviours in order to agree to fictional events during play".
That could open the flank to "sensism" counter-arguments, but I hope not.
Rob
Hmmm, the thing about the implicit rules is that if you can physically detect them and the same rules are being used over and over with no new ones showing up, they are the same as explicit rules. As in they could all be written down and non interpretable, anyway. And the ones which seem to make more and more new rules coming from something unknown - well, that's a non physically detectable set of rules, since it's all originating from something you can't detect. It's like if the GM can give a bonus ranging from +1 to +4 to swing on a rope, that's physically detectable system. But how he decides what bonus, that's undetectable at a physical level (because if it became detectable, it would always be 'Well, if you do X you get +3' as a rule - and due to human whim and a lack of scary MRI technology, you cannot physically detect how he determines it).
From my observations, most implicit stuff falls into the latter, and thus can't be called system (with a defintion that requires physically detectable process), or it's detectable and may as well not be called implicit. So I dunno - that defintion seems clunky, yet I'd grant it works to a degree (kind of missinterpretable at the mo, imo).
I really appreciate that you looked at the physically detectable idea up close, thanks :)
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