A Question Of Agency?

[pemerton]

If your solution tot he problem of being able to access your character's memory of off screen events is you should be able to make memories up and have them be real in the setting, there is nothing wrong with that, but that is you, the player shaping the setting, not your character shaping it.

Who has said it is my character shaping the setting? When the ranger remembers there are hills to the north, s/he don't create those hills! When Aramina remembers that Evard's tower is around here somewhere, she doesn't create the tower. She's remembering what she's heard about it while studying the lore of the Great Masters.

My point is that that is me playing my character by declaring actions that my character performs. In this case, as @hawkeyefan has said, a mental action.

A side-effect of me playing my character this way (and succeeding in the action declaration) is that we now know the world contains some hills. Just as a side effect of me saying my PC attacks the Orc with his mace might be that we now know the world contains a dead orc.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You're not the only person here trying to post sincerely. If you can't imagine the difference between playing a character who is an amnesiac and playing a character who remembers the world they inhabit, that's on you, not on me or @hawkeyefan.

I can imagine the difference. I don't think that problem changes what it means to shape the world through your character. I mean there is nothing to remember. It all happened off camera. And now you are saying something is a memory that never happened in the game. I am not saying it is wrong (it is actually a pretty good solution to the problem you are describing). But I am not able to see it as being the same as when I ask the GM for information about the setting. There is a big difference between those two approaches. You seem to think I am making a case for losing yourself in your characters identity or something. That isn't what I am meaning at all by doing things through your character.

 

[pemerton]

Because you are asking me to agree with you that the sea is orange.

So now your justification for wielding the "good faith" beatstick is that anyone who sees things differently is asking you to believe absurdities?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Who has said it is my character shaping the setting? When the ranger remembers there are hills to the north, s/he don't create those hills! When Aramina remembers that Evard's tower is around here somewhere, she doesn't create the tower. She's remembering what she's heard about it while studying the lore of the Great Masters.

This is just word play Pemerton. Those wouldn't have existed in the game, until you declared part of your memory: therefore you have created them (just like when the GM says there are hills to the north, the GM has created those hills). Doesn't mean there are not good reasons for them being there. But they were created. And the question is who has the power to create details that exist outside the characters? I would say in traditional play that is generally left up the GM.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So now your justification for wielding the "good faith" beatstick is that anyone who sees things differently is asking you to believe absurdities?

I do think your argument sounds rather absurd. Maybe I am just really stupid or something, but I honestly don't see how you are reaching the conclusion you are reaching here. And it is also terribly pedantic because it is so besides the point of what we've been debating. I honestly am not even sure at this point why we are fighting over these terms. Needless to say, you and I don't agree on what these things mean. We are probably better off just moving on

 

[Bedrockgames]

My point is that that is me playing my character by declaring actions that my character performs. In this case, as @hawkeyefan has said, a mental action.

A side-effect of me playing my character this way (and succeeding in the action declaration) is that we now know the world contains some hills. Just as a side effect of me saying my PC attacks the Orc with his mace might be that we now know the world contains a dead orc.

This is a very weird argument. The orc already was established as existing by the GM. And its death was contingent on a successful attack roll and doing the right amount damage. You didn't create a dead orc. You killed an orc that existed in the setting. The hill exists because you said it does. There is an obvious difference between these two things. If they feel the same to you, that is fine. I can't change that. But they don't feel at all the same to me.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This is naughty word unreal. A player being able to just invent any memories for their character about the setting and have those memories to be true, is a clear carte blanche to shape the setting. This is blindingly obvious.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This is just word play Pemerton. Those wouldn't have existed in the game, until you declared part of your memory: therefore you have created them (just like when the GM says there are hills to the north, the GM has created those hills). Doesn't mean there are not good reasons for them being there. But they were created. And the question is who has the power to create details that exist outside the characters? I would say in traditional play that is generally left up the GM.

Yep, exactly. Simple as that. And it is utterly mindboggling that this needs even to be stated.

 

[pemerton]

Sure, as I said it can depend on edition and approach to play.

But I'd say that, inherently, the fiction involves the PCs doing dangerous things, no? They're delving into dungeons or chasing down cultists or fighting dragons and so on.

For me, nothing is more frustrating than when players get very tentative with their PCs because they're concerned about something that could potentially be risky to them.

There is a fundamental "paradox" in classic dungeoneering D&D play (I use inverted commas to flag exaggerated description for rhetorical purposes).

The tropes are derived from REH's Conan, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Vance, etc. These are stories of risk-taking larger-than-life characters. In Conan stories fortunes flow through his hand as a matter of almost total indifference (read, or re-read, The Tower of the Elephant or The Jewels of Gwahlur to see what I mean).

But the ethos of actual gameplay is derived from small-unit wargaming, with Advanced Squad Leader as the paradigm example.

I'm sure @AbdulAlhazred can elaborate, both on the "paradox" of tropes vs ethos, and also on what sorts of departures from the default ethos were emerging by the mid-to-late 70s.

 

[Ovinomancer]

You'd think, but people still often will play characters that deliberately get into these situation but are extremely cautious how they handle them once they're there. And of course it makes quite a difference how the game system involved handles things. There's a big difference in taking chances in Pathfinder 2e and in Mythras to use two examples extremely familiar to me right now.

Sure, there's different characters, but your claim was that doing risky things violated IC play, and that IC play is different from Actor stance, so I'm not sure how you think this distinction of there being different kinds of characters relates.

I use the stances as they originally were described on RGFA, and to the best of my knowledge, I have those quite correct.

Here's the source, if you're pointing towards RGFA:

[A] Actor Stance
The Actor Stance is the one in which the player contemplates
what she can do to portray her character more effectively to the
other participants in the game. That is, you use it when you
have already fixed what your character is going to do -- and
your concern is primarily portraying her to others.
This is different from Author stance because it is not
concerned with character development -- instead of writing the
character or trying to think as the character, the player
consciously trying to portray the character as defined. (i.e.
"Michael has a weakness for women, so I'll say pick-up lines
to this NPC.")

Audience Stance
The position from which the player observes, enjoys, and
evaluates the game or aspects of it as himself, rather than as his
character. This is also a meta-game stance, as it refers to the
player's viewing and interpretation of the game, which may be
very different from the character's. This stance is the stance
from which things like dramatic irony or historical accuracy are
judged. It is also the stance adopted whenever the player
witnesses an in-game event of which his character is utterly
unaware.

[C] Author Stance
The position from which the player evaluates the game with an
eye towards changing it or affecting its development -- either
through her character or possibly through the world itself. The
player adopts this when consciously writing new parts of her
character's background, for example. Usually it is associated
with the player watching the development of the game, and trying
to spice it up by throwing in new twists (i.e. "Hey, we've just
gotten involved with pirates -- why don't I write in that my
character's ex-girlfriend was killed in a pirate attack!")
Thus, the player is trying to stay consistent with the
character as defined, but isn't thinking as the character.

[D] In-Character Stance (IC) or Immersion Stance
The view of the game from within the inside of the game world
and its reality, usually from within the mind of a player
character living within that reality. The player is thinking
as the character -- he doesn't acknowledge Out-of-Character
(OOC) information and tries to concentrate on what the character
is experiencing. In theory, acting In-Character becomes second
nature -- the player does not look at his character sheet and see
"Weakness for Women". Rather, he hears the GM describe a woman
and reacts by saying a pass at her.
There are a lot of conflicting claims regarding this stance.
Everyone agrees that it is difficult to get into. Once there,
some people talk about having different emotional responses or
different personality types (see below). In general, this is
said to take much preparation effort to drop into -- making the
character feel real in your mind. It also is fragile:
distractions can drop you out, making you uncertain of what the
character would "really" do.

[?] `Deep In-Character Stance'' (`Deep IC'')
This is a possible deeper version of IC stance, where the
player begins to "channel" her character and just be that
person. In theory, this is likened to certain mask work or
experiences of spiritual possession -- that is, even though the
character is not an external entity, the player feels as though
something else were taking over, and she is unable to control
what the character is doing in the game.

In reading this, I do not see the distinction you made above as choosing actions in Actor stance that are detrimental to the character because it makes for a better story, and, in fact, see In Character Stance as something you use Actor stance with. These aren't opposed, but flavors of the same thing. And, frankly, I find the concept of IC stance as presented here as incoherent in anything except a storygame. I could, perhaps, see an argument that exists in a game like Fiasco, which features free-form scene making between characters with no mechanics or GM, but not in a D&D game with all the mechanics -- unless the GM is utterly winging it and you're just doing a bit of freeform roleplay. Certainly not the situation in discussion.