There are methods that promote authentic play. Authentic meaning that these choices and actions taken matter.
There are methods that don’t promote that kind of authentic play. Railroading, the three clue rule, and the like. These lead to choices and actions that don’t have all that much impact on play.
I don’t really get who would disagree with this. I feel like disagreeing with it means that folks can share examples of railroading that somehow allows for the kind of authenticity that’s being talked about.
A thought on that is to ask whether a focus on exploring/expressing personal authenticity
in itself does anything to guarantee personal authenticity? A person may dissemble on any topic,
including sincerity.
An explanatory model I find appealing is that suggested by Miguel Sicart (in the context of ethics in games.) He suggests that to be a player is to adopt a mental duality, i.e. we become our characters
without ceasing to be conscious of ourselves as players. For example, we take actions "in character" without being unaware of how we would act in the real world. In RPG we are committed to a sort of
simulation (simulated personhood), a sustained pretence in imitation of a person who is not ourselves and may not exist. I think that is as true of BitD as it is of D&D, and that word -
simulation - is an important one. Each player can simulate their character with
or without any special adherence to personal authenticity.
That may seem regressive, but I believe it reveals two concerns. Firstly, a person who simulates may persuade those around them of their personal authenticity, without that guaranteeing they possess or even have any interest in such qualities. Consequently, a game that does not overtly create space for or lead players to focus on exploring/expressing personal authenticity may be no less likely a circle within which to find them doing so.
Simulated behaviour is not identical to genuine behaviour.
I think it is right to say that story games set out to lessen the character-player duality that I described above. So must a player of BitD be guaranteed to evince greater personal authenticity than a player in D&D? I don't call actors liars, even given their specific skill is to portray a falsehood with every appearance of personal authenticy. That is, I draw clear lines between simulation and personal authenticity, and I seem to think that the former can be done with/without the latter. Seeing as I do not equate simulation with personal
inauthencity, can I really turn around and equate simulation in circumstances of lessened duality with any greater personal authenticity? It would come down to what I think the results of lessened duality are.
I can say that in story games, character is brought nearer to player and through mechanisms promoting autonomous conscious choice space is defined, expanded, or perhaps outright created in which player is more
able to simulate
themself-as-character. (This is the antithesis of immersionist play, which is driven by creativity, curiousity, delight in discovery, and empathy.) Given their methods and focus it seems right to say that story games bring players to notice and question how they might simulate in ways that do not transgress and ideally expound however they construct
themselves.
For those with concerns about the shade that might cast, I think one can safely say that it does nothing at all to promise that any player is/is-not more personally authentic... not even in their play. It may attempt to put a player's personal authenticity more on display, but again "a person may dissemble on any topic". Games like BitD can do nothing to avoid false simulation - although I think in their context they demand and reveal personal authenticity - they may even inadvertently encourage insincerities. Games like D&D take simulation on face value (appropriately enough.)
I think that for some gamers, "story" games can lean into behaviours that feel (to them)
inappropriate in the context of "play". I find myself sometimes wincing at clumsy or painful simulation. These are the risks, I suppose, that
@Campbell might have been writing of. In any case, this would in the end accept the OP's argument, at least to the extent of conceding that they call for that behaviour. I could therefore conclude with the following
- Personal authenticity is perforce a property of a player, not a character
- Where player is united with character, then we should see their personal authenticity more visibily inside the magic circle
- Where player is separate from character, their personal authenticity remains implicated in their choices of what their character says and does
- To the extent that player is simulating character, they perforce translate what is personally authentic to them into what their character says and does, so if their character is imagined to be psychologically and culturally different from them, they can only guess at what would count as personally authentic for that character: such guessing doesn't rest on whether player personal authenticity is/is-not on display inside the magic circle
Crucially, not setting out to explore/express personal authenticity is
not the same as not choosing actions in any context with more rather than less, better rather than worse, personal authenticity. (As an aside, this thread really helped highlight for me some of the virtues of immersionism.)
NOTE EDITS of bullet points. It's a complex topic! There are only interim conclusions in the interests of advancing our conversation. Not final destinations.