What is the point of GM's notes?

[Ovinomancer]

Sure, it’s foundational because we literally are all making believe when we play.

So no one’s equivocating by using the word fiction to describe the stuff we make up when we play.

And the bolded statement is why this isn't an equivocation -- it's unequivocally explained what is meant.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Sure, it’s foundational because we literally are all making believe when we play.

So no one’s equivocating by using the word fiction to describe the stuff we make up when we play.

I agree make believe is foundational, and I agree using fiction to just mean stuff we make up isn’t equivocation, but I think if you use fiction or story to describe making stuff up, it leads to problems inevitably the other connotations get mixed in and equivocation arises.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Oh piss off. I know exactly what equivocation is, and you're looking for it where none exists in thos case. And yes, your approach to definitions is decidedly post modern whether you like it or not.

Careful with the confrontational rhetoric, please- don’t make it personal.

 

[prabe]

You are.

One is most probably blocking me or on my block list. The other, @prabe, explained that he felt it meant avoiding having the PCs revisit places when possible, keeping a timeline of important GM events, and otherwise ignoring background stuff. Does this sufficiently define "dynamic setting" for you?

What I meant about revisiting places was in the sense of "you can't step in the same river twice." If the PCs visit a city twice, it's different the second time. I see nothing objectionable in describing the setting in my games as dynamic, but I'm also not one who's been talking about a "living world," so maybe my opinion doesn't apply to that.

 

[Ovinomancer]

What I meant about revisiting places was in the sense of "you can't step in the same river twice." If the PCs visit a city twice, it's different the second time. I see nothing objectionable in describing the setting in my games as dynamic, but I'm also not one who's been talking about a "living world," so maybe my opinion doesn't apply to that.

Much better phrased this time around.

I think my only problem with these formulations is that they are very generic -- as in unspecific to process -- and are achieved by any number of approaches. It's like saying your RPGing has dwarves -- okay, cool, but why is that something special or different from any other RPGing with dwarves? Not really aimed at you, but rather randomly shot out into the darkness.

 

[Aldarc]

Fiction in this context is not a metaphor. It's literal!

When I Google "define fiction" here are the first and second meanings that are given:

literature in the form of prose, especially novels, that describes imaginary events and people.​

​

something that is invented or untrue.​

The "worlds" of RPGs are invented or untrue; and the form they take is descriptions of imaginary events and people. We could add places to that. And in the current context of discussion the focus is on GM-authored descriptions.

This is why @Emerikol's comparison of a GM running a sandbox game to God "run[ning] a game in a real world that he'd create that allowed for magic" doesn't get off the ground. The GM hasn't created a real world. They've imagined a pretend one. The players have no cognitive access to what the GM has thought of except by the GM telling them. How is this still controversial over 100 pages in?

The idea that the term "fiction" which simply means "make believe" and which absolutely applies to what happens in an RPG, could somehow be seen as a more nebulous term than "living world" is part of why I struggle with your view. Fiction is not a metaphor. It's literally what's happening when we play. We are making believe.

You point out a lot how you do not like equivocation, and that's understandable, but then you prefer vague words over specific ones.

Fiction works perfectly. From what I can see, it's the fear that gaming is about "making a story" which is the source of dislike of the term fiction. But fiction and story are not exact synonyms.

I personally prefer the term "fiction" because IMHO it's clearly descriptive of what it literally is. TTRPGs are about fiction, whether they are fictional settings or fictional characters or fictional scenarios or fictional plot hooks. It's all fiction. It's make believe. That literalness makes it both precise and apt as a term. Stoking imaginary fears about how someone equivocating on its possible meaning "story" (and even then, its sense as a pre-authored one rather than an emerging one) from the range of possible meanings for "fiction" does not make "fiction" less apt of a term.

First, no, it doesnt mean that. Those are types of or specific examples of forms of fiction, which is something else entirely. Second, I am beginning to doubt your use of 'equivocation' in these discussions.

And also his use of 'ambiguity' for that matter.

My problem with the term fiction, is its a loaded term.

And yet "Living World" is a loaded term (particularly as a positively-infused 'language persuasive technique') that you insist upon using without you raising any where near the sort of personal qualms or objections that you do for something as innocuous as "fiction." I hope the particular irony is not lost on you.

That said, "fiction," IMHO, is not a loaded term. A word having multiple, interconnected meanings in its semantic field does not mean that it's "loaded." It doesn't even necessarily prove the "polysemy" of a word. The word "fiction" is certainly no more loaded than any other word in the English language like "game," "world," "book," "dog," "death," or "mother." Furthermore, simply because ambiguity and/or vagueness between meanings can exist from imprecise use does not mean that it's a loaded term. This in general misunderstands what is meant by "loaded language."

I understand this is what you mean. The problem is: fiction carries a strong suggestion of the novel and of the crafted story. And we've seen this play out all the time with the term story in relation to RPGs. I see it constantly as a way of advocating for GM as storyteller for example. And since the purpose of a sandbox is largely to eschew any kind of directed story by the GM, I think that is why folks like me push back on the term "the fiction" and "fiction" (at least in online discussions; I don't care when it is used casually at the table). Also I think it is a cloudy term, the way it gets implemented because it often seems to blur setting and events that happen in the setting involving the PCs. I like to keep a pretty strong distinction between those things.

@Bedrockgames, simply because "crafted story" is included in the semantic field for the word "fiction," I don't think that "fiction carries a strong suggestion of the novel and of the crafted story" in this particular utterance. Even if it's possible, it's a weak suggestion at most. Instead, I think that it carries a more plausible suggestion of "fictional" (as in imagined, inventive, unreal) as a descriptive attribute. I would wager that the basic thesis that the TTRPGs involve "fictional" characters, settings, and scenarios is far from controversial. This is what is simply and plainly meant by the "fiction" of the game.

Also please take a step back for a moment and look at the wider conversation and its participants. Take a moment to consider the fact that the people you are arguing against about "fiction" are also highly resistant in their own games against imposed, pre-authored stories, "story before," railroading, etc. and yet are clearly eager with applying the term "fiction." But if "fiction" was as loaded or equivocation-heavy as you claim for the reasons you gave, then these should be the very same people who should be equally objecting to the term "fiction," but they are clearly not disturbed by this vaguely threatening possibility. Their probable objections to the possible equivocation of the term "fiction" as something antithetical to their obvious personal gaming preferences are dead silent.

So this may reflect your own personal hang-ups rather than any actual, pragmatic problem with the term "fiction" to describe the imagined game space for TTRPGs. I am fairly confident saying this because, honestly, apart from the few isolated people here like you on this thread, I have NEVER encountered people having any problem with the term "fiction" applied to TTRPGs. I am not exaggerating when I make that assertion. However, if you would like, since you occasionally do like appealing to anecdotal conversations associated with fictive statistics, I can even give you a fictive percentage and say that 97% of people I talk to understand what I mean by my use of "fiction" when I use it to talk about TTRPGs and don't share your hang-ups with the term "fiction." (I would wager further that most people don't care one iota.)

I even ran this by my partner who knows next to nothing about TTRPGs (and even then, tends to prefer more trad/neo-trad games), and I asked them "what do you think I mean by the term 'fiction' when applied to tabletop roleplaying games?" That's all I said. No further context was given. They immediately responded that they thought that it meant that it was "unreal" or "imagined." The word "story" actually wasn't mentioned at all.

I honestly don't know how else to communicate earnestly to you in good faith that this problem with the term "fiction" seems to be mostly a you thing that you want to be a much bigger, slippery slope semantic problem than it actually is.

It is very ambiguous. The first definition means both something imagined but more specifically a story. And it suggests both literature and novels. There is plenty of room for equivocation there. Fiction has a strong connotation of a fictional novel or something literary. That’s why those forms are part of Def 1 (and why the core definition is so ambiguous)

Yes it does and that is the problem. It is ambiguous because def one included both imagined stuff and story, then it goes on to include literature and novels. Story itself is a highly ambiguous word. The reason I am so wary of the term fiction is because I have seen people equivocate do much on the term story when talking about RPGs (story can just mean ‘stuff that happened’ but it can also mean something much more structured with lots of expectations)

Lexical ambiguity (in all its forms linguists have distinguished) tend to come from more isolated statements where context does not provide additional insight we can draw upon to clarify/narrow the (range of) meaning. For example, in the utterance "That's a cool cat." Are we talking here about (a) the thermal state of a feline or (b) a hip person? Both 'cat' and 'cool' have a range of overlapping, yet divergent, set of cognitive domains* that we draw upon or "tap" when we are attempting to discern meaning of an utterance. But if we are, for example, encountering this utterance in a jazz club vs. a zoo during winter that would likely provide the additional context for mentally deciphering the intended meaning without further utterances.

That a word includes multiple senses of meaning as part of its semantic field (as is ubiquitously the case) doesn't mean that it will always suggest all of them in each utterance. Realistically that's not the case. Some meanings are more apparent than others, particularly when applied to certain contexts. This is because ambiguity tends to resolve itself naturally in speech acts with further utterances that clarify or reinforce that meaning in context. Our brain tends to decipher a lot of this naturally due to the various mental frameworks we use for categorizing and contextualizing the meaning of speech acts. Our minds also tend to gloss over a lot of ambiguity when we encounter it (e.g., uses of the word "over").

There's not a good reason to fear potential ambiguity because you are worried that someone will equivocate on one of the possible meanings. How do you manage to even narrate things in your game if you are this worried about the existence of ambiguity? Are you this ridiculously terrified of calling a meteorological breeze in your fictional game world "wind" just because the word "wind" can also be used to describe a "fart" and are afraid of people equivocating the term? Or when you say that there is "plenty of space" are you worried that people will equivocate on ambiguous meaning and think that you are referring to "outer space"? I think that your fear of ambiguity and equivocation around the word "fiction" is greatly exaggerated, if not hyperbolically so.

This is also true of "fiction," which involves chasing a particular series of possible meanings (i.e., fiction -> story -> pre-authored -> railroaded content [or whatever]). Even then, the possibility of argumentative equivocation of a semantic unit is not the same as the natural result of equivocation as your argument implies is the case. That's too much of a slippery slope argument to make persuasively IMO. I think that the reasonable thing to do is not fear using accurately descriptive terms because people can equivocate on them (requiring them to make a series of steps), but, rather, to ask for clarification or to call out fallacies of equivocation when they do occur.

* Think of cognitive domains as a mental framework or semantic field of interrelated meanings we construct in our mind for a semantic unit. Or to borrow from cognitive linguist Ronald Langacker it is "a context for the characterization of the semantic unit."

For the record, @Bedrockgames, I am writing my dissertation on a singular Hebrew word in a subset genre of biblical literature, a genre that includes both "fiction" and "non-fiction," and applying cognitive linguistic approaches to discuss its discursive meaning(s). The word has a diverse range of distinct, yet interrelated meanings as part of its semantic field. Understanding what is meant by (and distinguishing between) lexical definitions, ambiguity, vagueness, polysemy, and cognitive domains are fundamental linguistic concepts for purposes of my own work. So my own criticisms of your argument, which draws heavily upon notions of semantic ambiguity and equivocation, do have a more substantial basis than simple differences of our respective game preferences.

Even if knowing this added piece of personal background is not likely to persuade you either way, I do have a bit more working familiarity on the subject matter than Joe Average. I just hope that confessing my background to this subject matter here doesn't become yet another piece of cognitive bias "evidence" you use to make further ad hominem accusations of academic elitism or intellectual bullying about others and me.

Overall, I definitely agree with @Fenris-77 that you are not so much worried about others equivocating on the term "fiction," but, rather, you are actively hunting to equivocate on the term yourself. Respectfully, you may want to reconsider your position on the term "fiction." From my own background familiarity on these matters, again whatever little it may be worth to you knowing, I don't think that your position is well grounded or reasoned. I can definitely see why Fenris-77 would be aggravated by your discussion.

My point is they are not interchangeable things, yet they are all contained in the word fiction. Therefore then not being interchangeable but part of that word, creates the ambiguity that allows for equivocation

You are not so much speaking of "ambiguity," but, rather, the simple state of a word having multiple meanings. Ambiguity exists when multiple distinct interpretations are plausible in a given utterance, which is certainly possible if you isolate that utterance from its surrounding context. While they are distinct in the case of "fiction," they are also clearly interrelated as part of its semantic field: i.e., pertaining to the imagined, unreal, fabricated, fictive, etc. These meanings have more in common between each other than, for example, than the ambiguity that exists between the meanings of the lexeme 'bank': i.e., "financial institution" vs. "edge of a river." (But in the case of this example, that ambiguity can be attributed to homonymy.)

I think a lot of gamers dislike the term the fiction to describe stuff that happens in an rpg (I know I dislike it)

I think that you often tend to appeal to what "a lot of gamers dislike" (or like, are, think, etc.) when you are using them as a amorphous shield for your own personal biases and perspectives. This is definitely not the first time you have made such unsubstantiated appeals. I think that your arguments would be far more persuasive if you didn't keep appealing to what "a lot of gamers" think and stuck to what you like or dislike. I know you say you dislike it here. That's fine; however, your use of a "lot of gamers" here is immaterial and inconsequential. As I said before, I have not encountered the aversion to the term "fiction" from the nebulous, faceless, insubstantial "lot of gamers" that you hiding behind here. "A lot of gamers" I have encountered don't share your opinion. Whose "a lot of gamers" matters more?

Yes, I will from now on forsake use of the term "living world"....no obviously not. And obviously you are probably not going to stop using the term fiction. I can't make you do anything you don't want to do, and you shouldn't do anything you don't want to do. But I can argue with you about the validity of the term fiction.

Just because you can argue against the validity of the term "fiction" through the virtue of having an opinion doesn't mean (a) you are doing a good job of it, (b) that you're persuasive, or (c) that your opinion/argument is equally valid.

But I can assure you my motivation here isn't that I am looking for something where it doesn't exist. Equivocation around story is something I have genuinely encountered a lot of in RPG discussions. Fiction seems ripe for that too.

Do you really want to found your argument on a such a steep slippery slope?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I personally prefer the term "fiction" because IMHO it's clearly descriptive of what it literally is. TTRPGs are about fiction, whether they are fictional settings or fictional characters or fictional scenarios or fictional plot hooks. It's all fiction. It's make believe. That literalness makes it both precise and apt as a term. Stoking imaginary fears about how someone equivocating on its possible meaning "story" (and even then, its sense as a pre-authored one rather than an emerging one) from the range of possible meanings for "fiction" does not make "fiction" less apt of a term.


And also his use of 'ambiguity' for that matter.


And yet "Living World" is a loaded term (particularly as a positively-infused 'language persuasive technique') that you insist upon using without you raising any where near the sort of personal qualms or objections that you do for something as innocuous as "fiction." I hope the particular irony is not lost on you.

That said, "fiction," IMHO, is not a loaded term. A word having multiple, interconnected meanings in its semantic field does not mean that it's "loaded." It doesn't even necessarily prove the "polysemy" of a word. The word "fiction" is certainly no more loaded than any other word in the English language like "game," "world," "book," "dog," "death," or "mother." Furthermore, simply because ambiguity and/or vagueness between meanings can exist from imprecise use does not mean that it's a loaded term. This in general misunderstands what is meant by "loaded language."


@Bedrockgames, simply because "crafted story" is included in the semantic field for the word "fiction," I don't think that "fiction carries a strong suggestion of the novel and of the crafted story" in this particular utterance. Even if it's possible, it's a weak suggestion at most. Instead, I think that it carries a more plausible suggestion of "fictional" (as in imagined, inventive, unreal) as a descriptive attribute. I would wager that the basic thesis that the TTRPGs involve "fictional" characters, settings, and scenarios is far from controversial. This is what is simply and plainly meant by the "fiction" of the game.

Also please take a step back for a moment and look at the wider conversation and its participants. Take a moment to consider the fact that the people you are arguing against about "fiction" are also highly resistant in their own games against imposed, pre-authored stories, "story before," railroading, etc. and yet are clearly eager with applying the term "fiction." But if "fiction" was as loaded or equivocation-heavy as you claim for the reasons you gave, then these should be the very same people who should be equally objecting to the term "fiction," but they are clearly not disturbed by this vaguely threatening possibility. Their probable objections to the possible equivocation of the term "fiction" as something antithetical to their obvious personal gaming preferences are dead silent.

So this may reflect your own personal hang-ups rather than any actual, pragmatic problem with the term "fiction" to describe the imagined game space for TTRPGs. I am fairly confident saying this because, honestly, apart from the few isolated people here like you on this thread, I have NEVER encountered people having any problem with the term "fiction" applied to TTRPGs. I am not exaggerating when I make that assertion. However, if you would like, since you occasionally do like appealing to anecdotal conversations associated with fictive statistics, I can even give you a fictive percentage and say that 97% of people I talk to understand what I mean by my use of "fiction" when I use it to talk about TTRPGs and don't share your hang-ups with the term "fiction." (I would wager further that most people don't care one iota.)

I even ran this by my partner who knows next to nothing about TTRPGs (and even then, tends to prefer more trad/neo-trad games), and I asked them "what do you think I mean by the term 'fiction' when applied to tabletop roleplaying games?" That's all I said. No further context was given. They immediately responded that they thought that it meant that it was "unreal" or "imagined." The word "story" actually wasn't mentioned at all.

I honestly don't know how else to communicate earnestly to you in good faith that this problem with the term "fiction" seems to be mostly a you thing that you want to be a much bigger, slippery slope semantic problem than it actually is.



Lexical ambiguity (in all its forms linguists have distinguished) tend to come from more isolated statements where context does not provide additional insight we can draw upon to clarify/narrow the (range of) meaning. For example, in the utterance "That's a cool cat." Are we talking here about (a) the thermal state of a feline or (b) a hip person? Both 'cat' and 'cool' have a range of overlapping, yet divergent, set of cognitive domains* that we draw upon or "tap" when we are attempting to discern meaning of an utterance. But if we are, for example, encountering this utterance in a jazz club vs. a zoo during winter that would likely provide the additional context for mentally deciphering the intended meaning without further utterances.

That a word includes multiple senses of meaning as part of its semantic field (as is ubiquitously the case) doesn't mean that it will always suggest all of them in each utterance. Realistically that's not the case. Some meanings are more apparent than others, particularly when applied to certain contexts. This is because ambiguity tends to resolve itself naturally in speech acts with further utterances that clarify or reinforce that meaning in context. Our brain tends to decipher a lot of this naturally due to the various mental frameworks we use for categorizing and contextualizing the meaning of speech acts. Our minds also tend to gloss over a lot of ambiguity when we encounter it (e.g., uses of the word "over").

There's not a good reason to fear potential ambiguity because you are worried that someone will equivocate on one of the possible meanings. How do you manage to even narrate things in your game if you are this worried about the existence of ambiguity? Are you this ridiculously terrified of calling a meteorological breeze in your fictional game world "wind" just because the word "wind" can also be used to describe a "fart" and are afraid of people equivocating the term? Or when you say that there is "plenty of space" are you worried that people will equivocate on ambiguous meaning and think that you are referring to "outer space"? I think that your fear of ambiguity and equivocation around the word "fiction" is greatly exaggerated, if not hyperbolically so.

This is also true of "fiction," which involves chasing a particular series of possible meanings (i.e., fiction -> story -> pre-authored -> railroaded content [or whatever]). Even then, the possibility of argumentative equivocation of a semantic unit is not the same as the natural result of equivocation as your argument implies is the case. That's too much of a slippery slope argument to make persuasively IMO. I think that the reasonable thing to do is not fear using accurately descriptive terms because people can equivocate on them (requiring them to make a series of steps), but, rather, to ask for clarification or to call out fallacies of equivocation when they do occur.

* Think of cognitive domains as a mental framework or semantic field of interrelated meanings we construct in our mind for a semantic unit. Or to borrow from cognitive linguist Ronald Langacker it is "a context for the characterization of the semantic unit."

For the record, @Bedrockgames, I am writing my dissertation on a singular Hebrew word in a subset genre of biblical literature, a genre that includes both "fiction" and "non-fiction," and applying cognitive linguistic approaches to discuss its discursive meaning(s). The word has a diverse range of distinct, yet interrelated meanings as part of its semantic field. Understanding what is meant by (and distinguishing between) lexical definitions, ambiguity, vagueness, polysemy, and cognitive domains are fundamental linguistic concepts for purposes of my own work. So my own criticisms of your argument, which draws heavily upon notions of semantic ambiguity and equivocation, do have a more substantial basis than simple differences of our respective game preferences.

Even if knowing this added piece of personal background is not likely to persuade you either way, I do have a bit more working familiarity on the subject matter than Joe Average. I just hope that confessing my background to this subject matter here doesn't become yet another piece of cognitive bias "evidence" you use to make further ad hominem accusations of academic elitism or intellectual bullying about others and me.

Overall, I definitely agree with @Fenris-77 that you are not so much worried about others equivocating on the term "fiction," but, rather, you are actively hunting to equivocate on the term yourself. Respectfully, you may want to reconsider your position on the term "fiction." From my own background familiarity on these matters, again whatever little it may be worth to you knowing, I don't think that your position is well grounded or reasoned. I can definitely see why Fenris-77 would be aggravated by your discussion.


You are not so much speaking of "ambiguity," but, rather, the simple state of a word having multiple meanings. Ambiguity exists when multiple distinct interpretations are plausible in a given utterance, which is certainly possible if you isolate that utterance from its surrounding context. While they are distinct in the case of "fiction," they are also clearly interrelated as part of its semantic field: i.e., pertaining to the imagined, unreal, fabricated, fictive, etc. These meanings have more in common between each other than, for example, than the ambiguity that exists between the meanings of the lexeme 'bank': i.e., "financial institution" vs. "edge of a river." (But in the case of this example, that ambiguity can be attributed to homonymy.)


I think that you often tend to appeal to what "a lot of gamers dislike" (or like, are, think, etc.) when you are using them as a amorphous shield for your own personal biases and perspectives. This is definitely not the first time you have made such unsubstantiated appeals. I think that your arguments would be far more persuasive if you didn't keep appealing to what "a lot of gamers" think and stuck to what you like or dislike. I know you say you dislike it here. That's fine; however, your use of a "lot of gamers" here is immaterial and inconsequential. As I said before, I have not encountered the aversion to the term "fiction" from the nebulous, faceless, insubstantial "lot of gamers" that you hiding behind here. "A lot of gamers" I have encountered don't share your opinion. Whose "a lot of gamers" matters more?


Just because you can argue against the validity of the term "fiction" through the virtue of having an opinion doesn't mean (a) you are doing a good job of it, (b) that you're persuasive, or (c) that your opinion/argument is equally valid.


Do you really want to found your argument on a such a steep slippery slope?

Aldarc. The issue with Fiction and the term story, is both of them are particularly problematic when it comes to RPG discussions. And this is going to be doubly the case when many of the posters invoking The Fiction as their preferred term, both come from a GNS background and have a preference for story now approaches. n terms of ambiguity, if a term has two or potential meanings, then its ambiguous. Fiction even in its first definition includes both the idea of imagined stuff and a story. That it is used pretty interchangeably in regular speech to mean novel, I think also demonstrates the issue here. And then I would add the fact that it tends to get used in a way in this discussion where the fiction applies not just to what happens, but to the setting the stuff is happening in (which I would say is very much a literary mindset, and bringing in some of that literary meaning, even if it isn't proper equivocation)

Look, you can mention your background. I am not as educated as you clearly. But I know what equivocation is. And unless you are arguing seriously that Fiction is not an equivocal terms in the way described (that one can shift from meaning 'imaginary stuff' to 'a story' or even 'a novel' quite smoothly and easily, then I think you are just drawing on advanced knowledge in a field to dismiss what is pretty hard to deny: fiction is highly equivocal; in RPGs especially this is going to be the case (it is a short leap from fiction to story). It isn't bullying. But I know enough about logic and equivocation to know your argument is a bit specious. Probably not enough to defend my position against someone with that advanced level of understanding (but enough to know and understand the dynamic going on here: because it is something I can do, if I choose to, with History, which i don't).

Now none of this is a problem if you aren't equivocating. But there have been plenty of instances of the fiction in other threads where this happens; and the term story has a long, long history of being equivocated upon in this manner all the time (I think you would have to be very disingenuous not to see that: both in terms of equivocation to argue for railroads, but also in terms of the story game versus trad debates-----in the same way that people use specious arguments about the term RPG to argue that story driven RPGs are not real RPGs). Again, if we are talking casual use, its totally fine. But you guys are claiming to have precise and meaningful jargon here to describe stuff, and you opted for a term like "the fiction" in vacuum, now that it is coming into contact with other types of gamers, there is push back against it. I believe you haven't encountered the problems i am trying to bring to your attention, but believe me when I tell you this is going to be a line that gets equivocated on and it is going to be a problem for people coming from styles like sandbox (when they see a term like that, it is both going to raise suspicions and it is going to strike them as highly inaccurate).

 

[AnotherGuy]

Much better phrased this time around.

I think my only problem with these formulations is that they are very generic -- as in unspecific to process -- and are achieved by any number of approaches. It's like saying your RPGing has dwarves -- okay, cool, but why is that something special or different from any other RPGing with dwarves? Not really aimed at you, but rather randomly shot out into the darkness.

If I'm understanding you correctly, the definition should reflect the processes that make what makes x's living world different to y's dynamic setting different to z's world in motion. Right?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Aldarc. The issue with Fiction and the term story, is both of them are particularly problematic when it comes to RPG discussions. And this is going to be doubly the case when many of the posters invoking The Fiction as their preferred term, both come from a GNS background and have a preference for story now approaches. n terms of ambiguity, if a term has two or potential meanings, then its ambiguous. Fiction even in its first definition includes both the idea of imagined stuff and a story. That it is used pretty interchangeably in regular speech to mean novel, I think also demonstrates the issue here. And then I would add the fact that it tends to get used in a way in this discussion where the fiction applies not just to what happens, but to the setting the stuff is happening in (which I would say is very much a literary mindset, and bringing in some of that literary meaning, even if it isn't proper equivocation)

Look, you can mention your background. I am not as educated as you clearly. But I know what equivocation is. And unless you are arguing seriously that Fiction is not an equivocal terms in the way described (that one can shift from meaning 'imaginary stuff' to 'a story' or even 'a novel' quite smoothly and easily, then I think you are just drawing on advanced knowledge in a field to dismiss what is pretty hard to deny: fiction is highly equivocal; in RPGs especially this is going to be the case (it is a short leap from fiction to story). It isn't bullying. But I know enough about logic and equivocation to know your argument is a bit specious. Probably not enough to defend my position against someone with that advanced level of understanding (but enough to know and understand the dynamic going on here: because it is something I can do, if I choose to, with History, which i don't).

Now none of this is a problem if you aren't equivocating. But there have been plenty of instances of the fiction in other threads where this happens; and the term story has a long, long history of being equivocated upon in this manner all the time (I think you would have to be very disingenuous not to see that: both in terms of equivocation to argue for railroads, but also in terms of the story game versus trad debates-----in the same way that people use specious arguments about the term RPG to argue that story driven RPGs are not real RPGs). Again, if we are talking casual use, its totally fine. But you guys are claiming to have precise and meaningful jargon here to describe stuff, and you opted for a term like "the fiction" in vacuum, now that it is coming into contact with other types of gamers, there is push back against it. I believe you haven't encountered the problems i am trying to bring to your attention, but believe me when I tell you this is going to be a line that gets equivocated on and it is going to be a problem for people coming from styles like sandbox (when they see a term like that, it is both going to raise suspicions and it is going to strike them as highly inaccurate).

Oh, I totally agree. But, I'd like to take a moment to ask you about your living world. A lot of gamers understand this to be a planet that is alive, and that raises questions of what it eats and breathes. Can you expand on how your living planet works? And why did you choose a planet that is alive from, say, a flat rock held up by four elephants standing on the back of a turtle?

 

[Ovinomancer]

If I'm understanding you correctly, the definition should reflect the processes that make what makes x's living world different to y's dynamic setting different to z's world in motion. Right?

No, just explain what/how it works in play. Don't really care what it's called, I'd like to hear what it is that is done at the table to make it work.