The rule "'fiction' determines what rules can be deployed" - definition of murk?
Alfryd:
Quote from: Callan S. on August 25, 2010, 05:12:40 PM
I think some people can play universalis without ignoring the rules, and others would ignore the rules of universalis on certain occasions 'because it makes sense' or whatever fiction reference they give. I don't think it's an agenda vs meta-game thing.
I can't comment on Universalis, since I haven't played or researched it, but the point I'm making is that the later example you agreed with- pushing over the Dwarf PC- has nothing to do with "making sense" in the way that your earlier examples would imply. Nor do I see what it has to do with a particular 'fiction reference'.
I'm not certain what you mean by agenda vs. metagame, because to my understanding 2 of the 3 CAs are essentially defined by metagame agenda (i.e, winning, or story.)
Look, here's the thing- what happens when two or more players agree that the rules should be broken, but disagree about what should happen in the absence of rule arbitration, either momentarily or in general? What guidelines or standards would you give to ease negotiation of this kind?
I mean, if you're talking about 'internal plausibility' and/or 'fidelity to genre convention' (WRT a particular 'genre') as the foremost priority of play, then go ahead and say so. What you'd have there, AFAICT, is straightforward simulationism, and I don't think you need new terms for it.
masqueradeball:
Alfryd, because its not an agenda, its a technique (I think). Fiction First is something that a person or group does during play, internally, not something that they would necessarily want to do, and "making sense" even in a Sim sense can be seen as best supported by strict adherence to the rules when the rules are carefully designed to simulate something in particular. Pushing over the dwarf is Fiction First (the technique that arises in that given instance) because the rules say (with the exception of "rule 0") that this cannot happen. If you want to push someone over you'd have to roll Initiative (which occurs whenever anyone has harmful intent towards anyone else), make a touch attack, etc...
Callan S.:
Alfryd,
I uses a bit of a short cut on a jargon term - prolly a double error on my part. By saying agenda I'm refering to 'creative agenda', a term used to describe nar, gamism and sim at the forge.
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I mean, if you're talking about 'internal plausibility' and/or 'fidelity to genre convention' (WRT a particular 'genre') as the foremost priority of play, then go ahead and say so. What you'd have there, AFAICT, is straightforward simulationism, and I don't think you need new terms for it.
On a side point, I'm not sure sim is by definition about ignoring the rules if plausibility or fidelity wont apparently be adhered to if you follow the rules. But that's a side point.
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but the point I'm making is that the later example you agreed with- pushing over the Dwarf PC- has nothing to do with "making sense" in the way that your earlier examples would imply. Nor do I see what it has to do with a particular 'fiction reference'.
The thing is, I'm throwing both the pushed dwarf and the genre convention adherance you mention, in the same basket. I'm also throwing Rons railroad example in the same basket, too.
I think you want to differentiate fiction that has been...I dunno, sullied by overt meta game agenda, as seperate from...I dunno, 'pure'(?) genre convention and maintaining plausibility.
They all go in the same basket, to me. For what I'm describing it doesn't matter what reason your trying to describe and push a certain fiction, to me. If your ignoring the rules for the sake of 'maintaining' that fiction in some way, it's fiction first. Whether the reason is you wanna railroad toward a fixed fictional description, wanna push around a player at the table by fiction proxy, or whether you wanna maintain 'plausibility'.
Now maybe you've had awesome sim sessions and don't want it associated with this sullied stuff. Fair enough. I've enjoyed milk and I don't like to think of milk with puss and hairs in it as being in the same basket as pure milk (or was this an awful analogy? I'm trying to show sympathy, however awkwardly)
But for technical discussion here, they are all in the same basket.
Or am I missing your point entirely and taking a long post to do it?
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Look, here's the thing- what happens when two or more players agree that the rules should be broken, but disagree about what should happen in the absence of rule arbitration, either momentarily or in general? What guidelines or standards would you give to ease negotiation of this kind?
How I deal with it in terms of designing a new game (that moves on from the way past RPG books have been layed out)? I don't have people agreeing the rules should be broken, to begin with. The game you design says you don't. Otherwise your not actually playing the game and instead your own invented derivative.
What to do when your just playing a regular RPG and this crops up?
I dunno, your question implies I think there is a happy ending to arrive at and it's just a matter of finding the way to it. I don't think there is, by default, a happy ending to arrive at in such a situation. Because nothing I'm aware of guaratees a happy ending to exist.
Once people walk off the trail, so to speak, I see nothing that guarantees a happy ending to it all.
Now granted that with traditional RPG's, like D&D (though slowly less so in each new incarnation), it's really, really easy to fall off the 'trail'. Often because the 'trail'/procedure to follow ran out before the average human senses noticed it. But people would think they were still on a trail/playing the game and not lost in a wilderness...making it twice the wilderness it was, really.
Jabber jabber jabber on my part...any of this seem to have a place with you?
Nolan,
Thinking on it, I'm not sure about the forges common use of the term 'technique'. If it means using it through the whole session and everyone who is about to play knows then yeah, it's a technique. Apart from checking where we are on that word, I'd say your post hits the nail on the head. :)
David P.:
Well, I would have replied sooner, but I've been at the hospital and been very busy the last week because on Sunday my baby girl was born. (<--- Shameless plug for congratulations..)
Callan, the idea that I'm trying to illustrate is that there are many different causes that could have a given effect, and that once a player says that X is happening, they must frame the situation so that X is plausible. I think it's best illustrated by referring to, of all things, a movie...
In The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, Joan is having a conversation with a man (presumably her conscience, or God), about whether or not God has sent signs to her. She brings up the fact that the sword she found in the field was a sign, and he offers many other explanations for how the sword could have ended up there.
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JEANNE
No, but... he sent me so many signs!
MAN
What signs?
JEANNE
Like... like the wind... and the
clouds... and... the bells... and
what about that sword lying in the
field... that was a sign...!
MAN
No. That was a sword in a field.
JEANNE
But... it didn't just get there by
itself.
MAN
True -- every event has an infinite
number of causes -- but why pick one
rather than another? There are many
ways a sword might find itself in a
field...
FLASH: A group of soldiers on horseback trot across the
field of Jeanne's childhood. The last soldier's sword is
coming loose, and ends up falling into the long grass...
MAN
Seems a perfectly valid
explanation... but how about this
one...
FLASH: Two young children are hurrying with the sword
when an old man calls them from far away --
OLD MAN
Hey, you little devils -- come back!
The two children drop the sword in the long grass (in the
same spot as before) and run off...
MAN
But then again, there are other
possibilities...
FLASH: A man is being chased across the field by a couple
of English soldiers out looting. His heavy sword is
slowing him down -- he flings it into the long grass...
MAN
... or even faster...
FLASH: The same man running across the field is suddenly
hit by an arrow from nowhere. He drops the sword in the
long grass, but manages to stagger off into the forest...
MAN
... and that's without counting the
inexplicable...
FLASH: A man crosses the field. For no apparent reason
whatsoever, he drops the sword and keeps on walking...
MAN
Yet from an infinite number of
possibilities, you had to pick this
one...
Basically, the idea is that given a certain effect, a player can be asked to frame the situation so that the end result is plausible, rather than causing a new effect from the initial action introduced.
Quote from: Callan S.
If your ignoring the rules for the sake of 'maintaining' that fiction in some way, it's fiction first.
My question is this: If fiction first is ignoring a rule to maintain fiction (rather than fiction determining which rules are applicable in a given situation), then what's the point of having a mechanic that makes the mechanics first mandatory? Wouldn't a group that has adopted a fiction first mentality simply ignore that rule as well?
Callan S.:
Hi David,
Congratulations on starting the race, with your new baby girl. It's very mind changing!
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the idea that I'm trying to illustrate is that there are many different causes that could have a given effect, and that once a player says that X is happening, they must frame the situation so that X is plausible.
I think your mixing up potential as existant. Yes, that's the idea your trying to illustrate. Is that idea actually being used in the rules or not? Potentially you could take the words of the game text and do that - it might be subtle drifting. The symantics of the wording are bendable.
I'll look at the brief snippet of wording
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until they decide to do something else.)
Is it actually going by your idea? Or by 'somthing else' it means use another rule? I understand your idea - me saying it's not happening here doesn't mean I don't understand your idea.
Regardless, I am talking about people who use a process, perhaps not even a conciously recognised one, of having to choose another rule. I thought the blood red sands was a textually accurate example, but you brought me to notice some ambiguity in it's text.
Also regardless, your idea still has an unresolved challenge loop built into it. Someone keeps challenging the other guys fiction - the other guy sticks with the same mechanic and keeps making up new fiction, which is rejected again and again. Everyones getting sick of it and are getting more tempted to a full blown social contract resolving of this waste of time. This is what I call a 'leak' in a ruleset, where play leaks out to the greater social contract bubble (traditional RPG's are chock full of leaks - basically sieves. Some people find that hot, for some reason).
Regardless of whether the rules manage it to begin with or it goes to an uncomfortable social contrat thing, either the first dude just has to accept the damn mechanic choice and entailing fiction, or the second dude has to change what mechanic he chose.
So with your idea, you need to outline how you end that loop, because how it's ended determines if it's fiction first or rules first. The way you were thinking of it, the other guy can stick with the mechanic he chose and just makes up a fiction, so it appears to you it's rules first. But until you get rid of that loop, which it is is not determined.
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My question is this: If fiction first is ignoring a rule to maintain fiction (rather than fiction determining which rules are applicable in a given situation), then what's the point of having a mechanic that makes the mechanics first mandatory? Wouldn't a group that has adopted a fiction first mentality simply ignore that rule as well?
Good question.
The point of this thread is to make concious and obvious the existance of that rule ignoring.
If someones not aware they are ignoring something, they can't stop doing it. They have no choice on the matter for being blind to it (see the prince of nothing novel 'The darkness that comes before' for an idea of being controlled by something your blind to).
Now maybe for some folk even if they know, they'll decide to keep going with it. Okay, cool - they now know, and have made their choice. And indeed I think it'll help in terms of them finding other folk who play that way, since fiction first and rules first aren't compatable. Seems a good ending to me.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think alot of gamers are habitually fiction first. I'm merely offering a red pill (I guess describing it as red pill makes it sound the better choice - for me atleast, it is). Though I think it's technical fact that with fiction first, system doesn't matter. But system not mattering doesn't have to matter to anyone, either, of course. It's not heresy for it to not matter.
So I'm not describing something that works to a fiction first person as yes, as they currently are, your right, they'd just ignore the rule. I'm instead describing how they could change, and describing what they'd be changing to (in fair detail). If they want.
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