What is Right to Dream for?
Simon C:
A lot of good replies.
I'm going to focus on Caldis, because those questions are the easiest to answer. Hopefully my answers will work for the others too.
I don't think GNS is a useful classification system because it attempts to make distinct and incompatible some kinds of play which I think in fact overlap.
I don't think any players play ignorant of theme. I think some players play games with a loose connection to theme, with multiple or shifting themes, and with a low emphasis on their theme. I think some players also play "phatic" play, in the sense that making original statements about the theme, or even questioning the theme very hard are not the focus of play. Either or both of those things can happen. I don't think that either of those things is inherently less fun than play with a tightly focused, original and challenging premise.
The reason I think that this is not compatible with GNS is that this presents a model of why players care about what happens in play (creative agenda) that is not a categorical difference, but rather a field of possibilities. You can play a tightly wound, phatic game. You can play a loosely bounded game where you challenge your themes hard. I think this picture more accurately captures what people experience in play, and, crucially, is more useful in talking about play, fixing problems, and designing games.
I think that a lot of the things that people point to as indicative of Creative Agenda are in fact techniques (challenge, player empowerment, GM content authority). Techniques are powerful things, and I think they say a lot about how the game will be played, but they're not a creative agenda. They don't tell you why the players care about a particular action. I think theme explains that better than CA does.
Simon C:
Frank, you make a lot of interesting points, but I think maybe I don't quite understand them enough to reply.
Also, I'd really appreciate some input from some of the "old guard" that Frank's talking about.
contracycle:
Quote from: Simon C on March 22, 2010, 04:30:29 PM
Let the flames begin?
I want to explain why I think Luke's definition of an RPG is useful. His focus on "ethical choices" lays bare what I think lies at the core of what a Shared Imagined Space is for. We don't need a shared imagined space to enjoy the details of a world. We can do that by just writing about it (and I think a lot of obsessive setting designers are doing just this). We don't need a shared imagined space to imagine ourselves in a different world. We can read books for that (and I think a lot of obsessive setting book readers are doing that). The key factor that a shared imagined space allows us is to act, and to have that action interpreted within the ethical framework that all human acts are interpreted in. That's what it's about. Roleplaying gives us the illusion that our characters' actions are human acts, and subject to the interpretation and judgement of the other players. Even the strictly immersive, zero action games that Eero talks about are like this. Our characters act (or fail to act), and we think about the meaning of those actions - their significance to ourselves. I think all the acts of a character in a roleplaying game are symbolic acts. They have meaning only through our moral judgement of them.
Well you did ask for it. Utter bullshit IMO. See previous commentary on Narr-derived brain damage.
No, I don't really think you can enjoy an imaginary world by writing about it. That is an act of creation, not experience. Totally different. It would be more accurate to say you can ejoy an imaginary world by reading about it, which is certainly true; but as we know, the draw of RPG is to be more than just a passive observer, but to be an actual inhabitant, seeing it from the inside. Of course the SIS allows us to act, but why this action be be interpreted in an "ethical framework"? This is sheer nonsense, as is the claim that all actions are interepreted in this light. I've just made myself a sandwhich, what are the ethical implications there? No, that is NOT what its about, and I cannot imagine that many people spend all day considering their actions in ethical terms. Indeed one could argue from any number of political positions precisely the opposite, that most actions most of the time are not considered even slightly to posess an ethical component, whether that be clothes sticthed by indentured child labourers or eating blue-fin tune, etc etc ad nauseum. "Moral judgement" can go hang, I have zero interest in wasting my time with such self-indulgent, navel gazing trivia.
I am somwehat more sympathetic to your argument to theme but I still think you are at 90 degrees from what is significant about it., Sure Sim games can wander without focus, absolutely. One of their undesirable features is the lack of an end point, or chapters, etc. Now way to tell when you are done, which elads to a rambling style of play that often burns GM's out. But this makes theme useful as an organising principle, a simple tool, not a point of play. "Does the syhstem always win" is not a meaningful proposition here becuase that presupposes that the setting is in some way representative of the question, and it is the question which is important rather than the experience. This is completely backwards IMO. It may be meaningful to organise play around (what amounts to) a demonstration of the system winning or losing, but that is worthwhile purely experientally, and cannot and should not be seen as some kind of answer that goes any further than the specific instance.
Your mistake is to move the important locus from play out of the SIS and into the heads of the players. That of course is somewhat tautological but the fact remains is that what is significant is the IS itself, not what we might feel about it. To withdraw from the IS and consider a moral judgement is to undercut the point of the activity in the first place. It's not that such insights can never come, but they will come as a result of considering play post facto, not while doing it. They are just another thing that might be learned, of no more inherent significance than any other detail that might have come to light.
Simon C:
Cool. I think you correctly identify the key point I'm trying to make, but I don't think you make a convincing argument that I'm wrong.
Maybe it's my social science background, but I find it pretty uncontroversial that we understand all acts in the context of a symbolic framework. I think maybe using the words "moral" and "ethical" is causing people some hang-ups, because they carry implications of right and wrong, of objective morality. I'm not saying that we interpret all acts within a framework of good and evil. That's not what I'm saying, because you're right, that's stupid. I'm saying that we give meaning to actions (and in fact to everything we perceive) by referring to our cultural frameworks symbology. By "meaning" here I mean "import", "significance". I mean that we interpret actions as "signs" that signify something.
You're right, your making a sandwich doesn't have a lot of symbolic or ethical resonance, but then we don't see a lot of sandwich making in rpgs either. If all acts were equally significant, we wouldn't have any kind of theme at all, and the kind of unstructured, meandering play I'm talking about wouldn't happen. It's precisely because some acts carry more symbolic impact than others that theme is such a useful way of understanding play. Theme is how we give meaning to the things that happen in play. Otherwise it's all just making sandwiches.
The "waiting to die" Nordic play that Eero talk about is, far from a counterexample, a great demonstration of this in action. The actions, thoughts and feelings of the characters have meaning because of the situation the characters are in, close to death. They're not just making a sandwich, they're making their last sandwich. The action carries symbolic importance: "Faced with death, I make a sandwich".
ThoughtBubble:
Simon, here's my take.
I agree with you that CA is overrated as a tool for figuring out what to do in a campaign.
I agree that theme is a useful tool to figure out how to select Situation, Setting, Characters and Color. As such it's way more useful more of the time than CA.
I disagree with your conclusion that "Thus CA is worthless."
There are three fundamental disconnects as far as I can tell:
First, I get the feeling that you're treating Creative agenda as proscriptive instead of descriptive. My take on CA is that, when push comes to shove, my group, in this series of games, will choose/reward one set of activities over other ones. That's it. Compare this to "Since this is Gamist, this means..."
Second, I also think that you're trying to say that certain aspects of play only appear in specific Creative Agendas. I disagree. Theme is present in every CA. So is Setting. So is Character. So is Color. So is Morality, even if it is sometimes just "Killing evil things is AWESOME!"
Third, It also seems like you came to this with the idea that looking at Creative Agenda can tell someone why a game did or didn't work. From many failed games of personal experience, only 2 ever had Creative Agenda issues. Most of the bad games I've participated in were failing on raw exploration, or social contract.
My personal use for Creative Agenda has been "Keep aware of what the prioritized aesthetic choices are." Which is a handy thing to do. But knowing a Creative Agenda is much like saying "I want to write a monthly adventure novel." I still have to put the words on the page myself. And I still have to have the skill to know what words to put where and how. But now that I put a solid Creative Agenda on top of a game with functioning Exploration, and a solid Social Contract, I've been finally getting the "I can't wait until next game!" feeling that I've been searching for. But everything else had to be in place before that could start to work.
It feels to me like you're saying “This ruler is a poor hammer! We should get rid of all rulers!”
Aside from that conclusion, I think you're on to something. Keep applying this rigorous chain of thoughts. And tell us some more times about how you used theme to clear up a problem.
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