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A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7557248" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Suppose that whether or not a sect member is in the teahouse is determined by making a "Luck at finding foes in teahouses" check. Prior to making the check, I have no idea as a character or a RL person whether or not those people are going to be there, so that would be exactly like RL also.</p><p></p><p>So if <em>every</em> method of resolution that allows for player-side uncertainty is exactly like RL, then the distinction between eg ROLEplaying and rolePLAYING goes away.</p><p></p><p>But the point of my OP is this: whether or not I find someone in a teahouse in real life isn't the result of someone exercising their creative decision-making powers in respect of the contents of my life. Whereas whether or not my PC findis someone in a teahouse in a game where that outcome is decided unilaterally by the GM <em>is</em> the result of someone exercising their creative decision-making powers in respect of the contents of the gameworld. <em>Those two states of affairs are very different.</em></p><p></p><p>In RL, sect members might be in a teahouse because it started raining and they took shelter; or because one of their mums was having a birthday party at the teahouse; or any myriad reasons that no one has ever thought of yet (because there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamed of even in my philosophy!).</p><p></p><p>The sheer causal variety and complexity of the world, and its causal autonomy from human cogniition and expectation, is one of the things that makes RL processes radically different from exercises of narrative power.</p><p></p><p>Even in your examples: <em>the thing that, in RL or in the imagined fiction, makes a cultist leader grant permission to some cultists to take time off and visit the teahouse</em> is completely different from <em>the thing that, in ROL, makes a GM decide that a cultist leader granted such a permission</em>. Maybe the cultist leader granted permission because of the look of longing in the eyes of the young cultist. But the GM didn't decide to make it part of the fiction that the leader grants permission because s/he was moved by a subordinate's look of longing.</p><p></p><p>The GM's cognitive and creative processes don't simulate or mirror the imagined ingame causal processes (which are, in most non-surreal games, intended to simulate or mirror RL causal processes).</p><p></p><p>When a player declares "I go to the teahouse to look for cultists", that puts a possibility on the table that wasn't there before - namely, that the PC in question goes to the teahouse and finds some cultists there. An action declaration makes some possible evolution of the fiction salient in a way that, prior to the declaration, it wasn't. If you don't like to call that a <em>suggestion</em> then I'm open to other terminology.</p><p></p><p>(I'm using the word "suggestion" because <a href="http://lumpley.com/hardcore.html" target="_blank">Vincent Baker does</a>: "When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not. . . . Mechanics . . . exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table.")</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7557248, member: 42582"] Suppose that whether or not a sect member is in the teahouse is determined by making a "Luck at finding foes in teahouses" check. Prior to making the check, I have no idea as a character or a RL person whether or not those people are going to be there, so that would be exactly like RL also. So if [I]every[/I] method of resolution that allows for player-side uncertainty is exactly like RL, then the distinction between eg ROLEplaying and rolePLAYING goes away. But the point of my OP is this: whether or not I find someone in a teahouse in real life isn't the result of someone exercising their creative decision-making powers in respect of the contents of my life. Whereas whether or not my PC findis someone in a teahouse in a game where that outcome is decided unilaterally by the GM [I]is[/I] the result of someone exercising their creative decision-making powers in respect of the contents of the gameworld. [I]Those two states of affairs are very different.[/I] In RL, sect members might be in a teahouse because it started raining and they took shelter; or because one of their mums was having a birthday party at the teahouse; or any myriad reasons that no one has ever thought of yet (because there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamed of even in my philosophy!). The sheer causal variety and complexity of the world, and its causal autonomy from human cogniition and expectation, is one of the things that makes RL processes radically different from exercises of narrative power. Even in your examples: [I]the thing that, in RL or in the imagined fiction, makes a cultist leader grant permission to some cultists to take time off and visit the teahouse[/I] is completely different from [I]the thing that, in ROL, makes a GM decide that a cultist leader granted such a permission[/I]. Maybe the cultist leader granted permission because of the look of longing in the eyes of the young cultist. But the GM didn't decide to make it part of the fiction that the leader grants permission because s/he was moved by a subordinate's look of longing. The GM's cognitive and creative processes don't simulate or mirror the imagined ingame causal processes (which are, in most non-surreal games, intended to simulate or mirror RL causal processes). When a player declares "I go to the teahouse to look for cultists", that puts a possibility on the table that wasn't there before - namely, that the PC in question goes to the teahouse and finds some cultists there. An action declaration makes some possible evolution of the fiction salient in a way that, prior to the declaration, it wasn't. If you don't like to call that a [I]suggestion[/I] then I'm open to other terminology. (I'm using the word "suggestion" because [url=http://lumpley.com/hardcore.html]Vincent Baker does[/url]: "When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not. . . . Mechanics . . . exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table.") [/QUOTE]
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