Looking at the idea called 'system' again
Callan S.:
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Bang, you just did it! That was exactly what I was referring to, jumping from "it reminds me of this" to "I think it's like this". It may seem a tiny distinction to you, but it can give other people (like me) a lot more to get hold of when talking to you. If this is an accurate description of how you play (agreement to procedure before everything else), and how you want to play wheras the former is not, then we can make a big distinction between why and how you play and why and how other people (like Vincent) play.
I assure you I've been making this distinction since the begining...not that it matters really, unless any further arguement is based on the idea I made the distinction only just now.
The things is, I keep making the distinction and then people seem to read me to mean absolute understanding ... even though I'm sure everyone has played dozens of board game sessions where they formed no fictional understanding with the other players and only had a procedural understanding, and yet nothing caught on fire and no blood was shed or any other terrible thing, I'm sure. But when it comes to a roleplay example, there almost seems to be a howl that I simply must have agreed with the fiction. As if it couldn't work the same as the board game sessions from their own personal history!?
I appreciate you saying "we can make a big distinction between why and how you play and why and how other people (like Vincent) play.", but given the common, absolute resistance to thinking of play defaulting, even for a brief time, to boardgame like play, I think the question is more like 'Why are people so damn dedicated to always having an intact fictional understanding?'. In terms of your last question, this focus seems almost bigger than GNS...or perhaps it's why S exists at all. I will say in terms of gamism, I play for esteem...keep in mind that if you play for esteem, esteem doesn't vanish if the fictional understanding falls apart. I think narrativism is similar - the fun thing about nar doesn't vanish if the fiction falls apart for a bit. It's only sim where it's absolutely fucking vital the fictional understanding continues on (which is probably why I'm not really attracted to sim).
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That your problem actually was that his idea differed from yours, it differed from yours in that it was inconsistent, when interpreted as relating to the same fictional world.
I don't understand...why would I have a problem? We just work differently. It's like if he had black skin and I had white skin...we have different skin. I don't have to have a problem with the other guys skin to note there's a difference between our skins. And in terms of imagination, he imagines black (so to speak) and I imagine white. We don't agree/we don't match. It's that easy. I don't need to have a problem with it to accept we don't match/don't agree.
My example was to show we didn't agree. Just that - like I might point out our mutually non matching skin colours. It wasn't demonstrating any problem with it...I don't need everyone to imagine my way.
Years ago I had some posts here on pushing a vase off a balcony 'in game' and it falling several stories onto concrete. A large number of people had real issues, IIRC, with imagining it not breaking - they really needed everyone to imagine it breaking. They needed everyone to imagine it the same way they did.
Other than that, I don't know what else to add?
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This is what I think most people would be talking about when they talk about lumpley principle style agreement in a game, not that you overwrite your own personal view of the situation, that you fork it and work off the public build. Where I think you may have made a powerful insight is that people can follow the system and "agree" in that sense, despite having persistent misgivings that may not be dealt with. In other words "agreement" or "sufficient tolerance" can be reached that is sufficient for play to continue but not for actual satisfaction of the participants, and that something extra that you want from a game might be different from what other designers here want and insure they preserve.
You might not agree, but I don't think your into esteem enough to see it as the reason for play. Okay, imagine this, there is free booze at gaming night (HAZAH!). You come for the free booze. Now at some point the fiction breaks down...but the free booze keeps on coming. So it's no biggie, your getting what you came for, so fuck who cares if the fiction broke down, pass me another coldie! That's how esteem works in gamism - you come for the esteem the same way. But when I talk about it here, everyone keeps assuming I'm there for the fiction first and foremost and the beers just something unimportant on the side.
When the booze keeps coming, it's not 'tolerance', even. It's actually just not giving a shit.
Now, what I'm thinking is, and Caldis makes me think this, is that people here might like to think that everyone at their gaming table is agreeing and enjoy that feeling. And to accept what I'm saying would mean to lessen their certainty everyone is agreeing at the table - which would spoil what they get at the gaming table. So basically people have understanding and yet spoilt gaming in one hand, and in the other hand ignoring what I say and continue with their fun.
Eh, that sounds awkward. What I'm trying to do is preserve your notions that if someone stays at the table they must have agreed, by saying if I know that's the case for a game I wouldn't turn up to that game. I don't want to spoil peoples notion that if people stay at the table everyones agreeing to some fabulously solid fiction. But lets say you could have a different game to that, where people know that staying at the table can just mean agreement with procedure and no fictional understanding. That's a different set up you can have. Would everyone accept that is possible, even if you'd do it only once hell had frozen over?
Is that diplomatic enough? I'm not Ron, I don't really do the 'ease in'.
Caldis:
The problem with your multiple visions of the fiction approach is that it has the potential to ruin causality. You need to be able to create a sequence of events in a game. That's not always possible if different people are seeing things differently. I accept that people have different views of the fiction and I dont believe it's possible to always be on the same page, nor does it matter in a lot of cases if they do differ, but at a certain point you may have to resolve those differences and how you do that is part of system.
Take your example of the falling bottle. In most situations it doesnt matter if the bottle breaks or not so it's fine if people have different views on whether it breaks or not. Now what if we change the situation and there is a Genie trapped in the bottle who cant escape while the bottle is intact. If in the game the bottle falls off the ledge we then all have to know what happens. Half the group cant believe the bottle remains intact while the other member believe it broke. If the Genie comes out once the bottle is broken then unless everyone agrees the bottle broke the game cant continue. The question has to be resolved and it may involve going back to retcon the situation to resolve peoples differing views of the fiction. Whether or not you allow going back to change the situation is also part of system.
Likewise in your example with the reloading rifle. Your vision of the fiction may be that your character did fire his gun at the same time as the others who had aimed and that they just didnt allow you to roll the dice at this time. If in the interim your character is shot and killed by an enemy he may have been able to shoot and kill had they allowed you to attack at the same time as the rest the fiction in your head is irrelevant, you cant claim that your character is not dead and use that as a justification. The system has already determined that you didnt get to shoot. Basic cause and effect brought about by system.
Callan S.:
Quote from: Caldis on November 19, 2009, 10:11:56 AM
The problem with your multiple visions of the fiction approach is that it has the potential to ruin causality. You need to be able to create a sequence of events in a game.
No you don't need it (Want? Probably. Need? No). You've got this idea you need to be able to create a sequence of fictional events and then all your other arguements flow on from this assumption that you really need to. And this assumption is not true.
I'm guessing that your assumption was fostered by traditional roleplay games, where there was basically no written procedure on what to do next, at the gaming table, at any given point. And your so used to using fiction as some sort of way of determining what to do next at the gaming table, you can't actually see any other way, anymore. Even though I'm sure you could go off and play a boardgame with it's fully written out procedure, just fine.
Let's say there was an RPG with just three actions - climbing, jumping and talking. This is how your thinking - you don't know which to roll next at the gaming table, if any at all, unless you have a chain of fictional causality to tell you which to roll for. Essentially in how your thinking, if the fictional causality isn't intact, you don't know what to roll and since you don't, play has literally ground to a halt, since in the way your thinking, you can't roll anything because you have no idea what to roll (until your fiction becomes intact again).
Now lets drop the emotionally charged acronym 'RPG' and say we have a procedure. It has three entries; climbing, jumping and talking. Which one you roll for is determined by rolling 1D3. The procedure after that? Roll 1D3. After that? 1D3. Continue until you get bored of it.
Can you continue play, boring as it might be, in the latter example without any fictional causality? I'm hoping we both say 'Absolutely'. If not, I'm absolutely flabbergasted, as it's as followable as chess (if not nearly as interesting).
Are we both saying 'Absolutely'?
Caldis:
I'm sorry you've lost me in hypothetical nonsense again.
If you are trying to say it's possible to play purely proceedural with no reference to fiction please relate an actual play where this happened. Or develop a game that does so, play it and come back with play examples. I dont see how this relates to the topic though. What you propose is a game where the rules match system it doesnt change how system works in all other games or the concept of system. In the game you actually played system included the 'golden rule' as you put it, in that example the gm overuled your view of the fiction. It really is that simple and I dont understand why you are trying to complicate it.
Callan S.:
Do you have some physically measurable quality in mind that would prove it's the case, Caldis? If not, take it elsewhere and be productive in another thread - I've provided an example, your denying it not based on anything physically measurable, just your own willfull assertion. I had thought my own word for what I have agreed with would be enough. Apparently not. Okay, so describe a physically measurable quality that, if the activity measures up to it, proves play entered into procedure only. Or go away and be productive elsewhere. I might have seemed to be humouring willful assertions - I'll prove I'm not by asking here for a physically measurable test, or go and work on some other threads other than this one.
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