RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[aramis erak]

I think the best answer or at least a good perspective on that is to grasp that play is process, not product. So while indeed stories can be a product of boardgame play, they are not part of their process. I need not conjure a narrative of my knight's passage across the chess board in pursuit of its desired romantic liason with the opposing king, in order to parse the board state and make a good move.

(Thus, for clarity, it is that story - or more generally imagination - is a core component of play (playing with story) that is distinctive of TTRPG.)

And story wasn't always part of the process of D&D play for some groups. It was certainly intended to be (I got that straight from Dave Arneson via email), but it's not essential to actual play.

I'll note that the inclusion of a requirement for Avalon Hill's Outdoor Survival was a bit of an eye-opener for me when I finally got a copy of OE... and for a while, reinforced the boardgame mentality I came to AD&D with years earlier.

 

[clearstream]

And story wasn't always part of the process of D&D play for some groups. It was certainly intended to be (I got that straight from Dave Arneson via email), but it's not essential to actual play.

I've never experienced that or observed any group experiencing that. Can you quote that email here please?

I'll note that the inclusion of a requirement for Avalon Hill's Outdoor Survival was a bit of an eye-opener for me when I finally got a copy of OE... and for a while, reinforced the boardgame mentality I came to AD&D with years earlier.

It would be okay to find that a critical characteristic of games categorised today as table-top RPG, was once absent from some games erstwhile sharing that label. Those games can now be recategorised.

 

[Manbearcat]

I'm really confused with why those wouldn't be considered models. I think you are reading my use of model far too narrowly.

1. A mechanical model simply takes an input and yields a result that has meaning assigned to it.
2. I think Pemerton might take you to task for suggesting that anything other than the players generate content as he said "Vincent Baker's point is that mechanics do not author fiction on their own."
3. Take the D&D mechanic of encumbrance - there is no negotiation by the players as to whether a character is encumbered. The mechanic is clear. However, there might discussion about either a) it's obvious the DM is misremembering the rule or b) the player wasn't tracking weight of items correctly or c) their is some controversy about whether the DM is handling encumberance fairly. Say he only ever mentions Bob's PC as being encumbered while ignoring it entirely for his good friend Kyle. In all these cases there's never a negotiation of the shared fictoin - in cases 1 and 2 it's simply a fact finding mission - a) what was the rule we agreed to? b) what are all the items and their weights my PC is carrying? 3) might could be classified as a negotiation, but it's not one about the shared fiction, it's one about the DM applying the rules more fairly. In any event, the negotiation about what the fiction should say took place when deciding in session 0 to run this game with this DM - because that's where the rules/models were decided upon.

Yes. I'd call that a model.


What's a model to you?

I'm just going to pull parts of this out as best I'm able:

* Regarding model, D&D rules obviously aren't computer models that parameterize highly complex systems and run them from initial conditions. So that is out. My guess is that you think TTRPG rules serve as something like a phenomological model that gives (pseudo-) scientific expression to empirical relationships. I think a few games attempt to do so, but they generally yield a fair amount of sense spliced with a fair amount of nonsense.

So where I land on what TTRPGs can do (when designed well) is generate an abstract mental model for the players to engage with; a rough user interface to put another way. Players use rules holistically to draw inferences about relationships both within the imagined space and meta-relationships about rules intersections (because plenty of rules give expression to facets of play that exist mostly or wholly outside of the imagined space). That is what good rules do. They generate good, but abstract, mental models for individuals to deploy in play and for groups to share in their collective play.

* I don't know if @pemerton disagrees with me on system having a "say" or GM's having a "say" in individual moments of content generation. And I definitely don't know if he would point to Baker as saying "mechanics don't author fiction on their own" as evidence for that. Perhaps, but I'll leave that up to him. Even if he does, I'm fine with it because I'm quite happy to have heterodox views persist in these conversations (either mine or others) so long as they're (a) not intractable and (b) able to be articulated and then interacted with sincerely and amicably.

But, rather than channeling pemerton or Baker, I'll just throw out my own throughts on the subject.

1) At most (not every, but most) moments of play, something novel is being generated and entering the imagined space for one reason or another.

2) Various participants, folding system into this, are responsible for this novel content being generated. An easy example of system (sans directly attached player or GM vetting right at the exact moment...if you go backwards in time, you'll find the signature of player or GM or both...but at this exact moment is what I'm referring to) having say is any of the following:

Event/situation-generating rolls like Wandering Monsters in D&D or Town/Camp in Torchbearer or Season-changing moves in Stonetop.​

​

Codified state-changes like Doom Pools in MHRP or endgame in My Life With Master or all of the various "the scene ends here..." mechanics.​

​

Condified and constrained menus of options like PBtA moves Read a Sitch/Person (and all derivative) or advancement schemes generally (pick x, y, z which generate novel play pending decision).​

There are others, but those types of things are what I'm pointing at. And I don't see that they disagree with Baker's contention because I suspect that Baker's contention appends an implicit "in isolation" to the end of that. Content generators that are system-oriented or GM-oriented have prior participant (players included) inputs that will invest them with their purpose/place which engender the forward momentum/cascade to arrive here in the first place (where you call upon the system or GM to generate novel content). Further (and of course), you have the reality that this is all happening in the first place because all participants have opted-in to play the game in the first place.

---

I'll stop there and let you, or anyone else, mull that. I'll say beforehand that I don't know when/if I'll get back into this thread to formally respond to anything coming my way.

 

[clearstream]

I'm just going to pull parts of this out as best I'm able:

* Regarding model, D&D rules obviously aren't computer models that parameterize highly complex systems and run them from initial conditions. So that is out. My guess is that you think TTRPG rules serve as something like a phenomological model that gives (pseudo-) scientific expression to empirical relationships. I think a few games attempt to do so, but they generally yield a fair amount of sense spliced with a fair amount of nonsense.

So where I land on what TTRPGs can do (when designed well) is generate an abstract mental model for the players to engage with; a rough user interface to put another way. Players use rules holistically to draw inferences about relationships both within the imagined space and meta-relationships about rules intersections (because plenty of rules give expression to facets of play that exist mostly or wholly outside of the imagined space). That is what good rules do. They generate good, but abstract, mental models for individuals to deploy in play and for groups to share in their collective play.

* I don't know if @pemerton disagrees with me on system having a "say" or GM's having a "say" in individual moments of content generation. And I definitely don't know if he would point to Baker as saying "mechanics don't author fiction on their own" as evidence for that. Perhaps, but I'll leave that up to him. Even if he does, I'm fine with it because I'm quite happy to have heterodox views persist in these conversations (either mine or others) so long as they're (a) not intractable and (b) able to be articulated and then interacted with sincerely and amicably.

But, rather than channeling pemerton or Baker, I'll just throw out my own throughts on the subject.

1) At most (not every, but most) moments of play, something novel is being generated and entering the imagined space for one reason or another.

2) Various participants, folding system into this, are responsible for this novel content being generated. An easy example of system (sans directly attached player or GM vetting right at the exact moment...if you go backwards in time, you'll find the signature of player or GM or both...but at this exact moment is what I'm referring to) having say is any of the following:

Event/situation-generating rolls like Wandering Monsters in D&D or Town/Camp in Torchbearer or Season-changing moves in Stonetop.​

​

Codified state-changes like Doom Pools in MHRP or endgame in My Life With Master or all of the various "the scene ends here..." mechanics.​

​

Condified and constrained menus of options like PBtA moves Read a Sitch/Person (and all derivative) or advancement schemes generally (pick x, y, z which generate novel play pending decision).​

There are others, but those types of things are what I'm pointing at. And I don't see that they disagree with Baker's contention because I suspect that Baker's contention appends an implicit "in isolation" to the end of that. Content generators that are system-oriented or GM-oriented have prior participant (players included) inputs that will invest them with their purpose/place which engender the forward momentum/cascade to arrive here in the first place (where you call upon the system or GM to generate novel content). Further (and of course), you have the reality that this is all happening in the first place because all participants have opted-in to play the game in the first place.

---

I'll stop there and let you, or anyone else, mull that. I'll say beforehand that I don't know when/if I'll get back into this thread to formally respond to anything coming my way.

After reading your previous and this, I feel one ought to give some consideration to the extent that some game models aim to produce a game state (fiction + system) that has the feeling and follows the patterns of a real or imaginary world phenomenon. And that can be independent of any concern as to momentum/cascades or even saying things we don't want to say. It can be partly or wholly about "did what was modelled have the feeling and follow the patterns of whatever it is I suppose the phenomenon to have?"

Such models can indeed add fiction by directing players to imagine the phenomenon according to the model. Again, that can be independent of concern for momentum etc. It may be chosen for driving a distinct satisfaction in play, that others have commented on.

 

[pemerton]

When Baker says that RPGing is negotiated imagination what he has in mind is that (i) the fiction is a shared one, and therefore (ii) the participants in the activity have to converge on that fiction, and that (iii) the play of the game consists in various participants advancing conceptions of the fiction that can't all be true (eg "I killed the Orc" vs "The Orc escaped from you"), and therefore (iv) there has to be a process for selecting among those various proposals as to the content of the fiction.

The process whereby a group of people, engaged in a voluntary activity, choose among various proposals and settle on one is what Baker calls negotiation.

In the passage that I quoted, he identifies various ways to ease the negotiation, via rules and mechanics: eg give a particular participant "ownership" over a particular topic (You own the weather, I own what Thurgon says); have a rule for how a participant gets to make their contribution (eg When everyone looks at you to see what happens next, say something that falls within one of these dozen or so rubrics); roll a die and look on a chart; roll a die and then apply a rule that translates the outcome of that role into an allocation of authority; plus all the ways these various possibilities can be combined.

The rules and mechanics are not substitutes for negotiation, in the way that (say) a tram is a substitute for walking, or a computerised billing system is a substitute for book-keepers and writers of letters. Because the mechanics and rules won't do their job if they don't actually produce convergence on a shared fiction.

Baker has a nice example of a breakdown in this respect - which plays especially on the issue of who owns which bits of the shared fiction - with his "smelly chamberlain" example: http://lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/460

 

[pemerton]

I don't know if @pemerton disagrees with me on system having a "say" or GM's having a "say" in individual moments of content generation. And I definitely don't know if he would point to Baker as saying "mechanics don't author fiction on their own" as evidence for that. Perhaps, but I'll leave that up to him. Even if he does, I'm fine with it because I'm quite happy to have heterodox views persist in these conversations (either mine or others) so long as they're (a) not intractable and (b) able to be articulated and then interacted with sincerely and amicably.

But, rather than channeling pemerton or Baker, I'll just throw out my own throughts on the subject.

1) At most (not every, but most) moments of play, something novel is being generated and entering the imagined space for one reason or another.

2) Various participants, folding system into this, are responsible for this novel content being generated. An easy example of system (sans directly attached player or GM vetting right at the exact moment...if you go backwards in time, you'll find the signature of player or GM or both...but at this exact moment is what I'm referring to) having say is any of the following:

Event/situation-generating rolls like Wandering Monsters in D&D or Town/Camp in Torchbearer or Season-changing moves in Stonetop.​

​

Codified state-changes like Doom Pools in MHRP or endgame in My Life With Master or all of the various "the scene ends here..." mechanics.​

​

Condified and constrained menus of options like PBtA moves Read a Sitch/Person (and all derivative) or advancement schemes generally (pick x, y, z which generate novel play pending decision).​

There are others, but those types of things are what I'm pointing at. And I don't see that they disagree with Baker's contention because I suspect that Baker's contention appends an implicit "in isolation" to the end of that.

I personally don't use the language of "system say". I think the system is a method for constraining and generating what someone else says - eg I see Event rolls or Wandering Monster rolls as ways of constraining and generating what the GM says at certain moments of play.

Whether anything is at stake in relation to this terminological preference of mine I don't know.

I think there are a lot of systems that constrain and generate without modelling. For instance, an Event roll in Torchbearer 2e, or a Weather roll in that system, doesn't model anything. It is triggered by game play including a certain sort of action declaration or content (eg "We camp" or "We set off on a journey"), and it makes a significant contribution to setting the parameters of what the GM can say next. (But not the only constraint - eg the GM is expected to interpret and elaborate on Event rolls by reference to the PCs' actions, their allies, family and enemies, etc.)

And to be clear, by "model" I mean a representation of a thing or a process. An Event roll doesn't represent anything.

EDITed to correct an errant "with" to "without".

 

[pemerton]

To add to the bit about ownership, because I think it comes up quite often:

If I own what Thurgon says, and you own the weather, what happens if I decide that Thurgon says "It's raining" and you decided that the weather is sunny?​

A rule that can ease negotiation in these circumstances is that I don't make pronouncements about what Thurgon says the weather is until we're all agreed on what the weather is, and because you own the weather, I wait for you to announce what the weather is.

This is the sort of thing that Baker has in mind. The rules for Apocalypse World constitute an incredibly intricate set of structures of this sort. There are many RPGs that are not as careful in their structures, and hence tend to rely more on unmediated negotiation, and hence are vulnerable to "smelly chamberlain" problems.

 

[Manbearcat]

I personally don't use the language of "system say". I think the system is a method for constraining and generating what someone else says - eg I see Event rolls or Wandering Monster rolls as ways of constraining and generating what the GM says at certain moments of play.

Whether anything is at stake in relation to this terminological preference of mine I don't know.

I think there are a lot of systems that constrain and generate with modelling. For instance, an Event roll in Torchbearer 2e, or a Weather roll in that system, doesn't model anything. It is triggered by game play including a certain sort of action declaration or content (eg "We camp" or "We set off on a journey"), and it makes a significant contribution to setting the parameters of what the GM can say next. (But not the only constraint - eg the GM is expected to interpret and elaborate on Event rolls by reference to the PCs' actions, their allies, family and enemies, etc.)

And to be clear, by "model" I mean a representation of a thing or a process. An Event roll doesn't represent anything.

That make sense. Whether or not one should use "say" or "input" or "constraint" is certainly a question.

I have been using "say" in the past x number of years because my sense of that choice among the three above is that "say" is a cozy enough medium between the other two. "Input" is too soft/impotent for me and "constraint" often too binding/closed because there is a lot of GM or player or even prior system input that goes into any given moment of "system's say". That is, of course, system-contingent.

Put another way, I feel like subbing in "input" or "constraint" will generate more (very much unwanted imo) conversation around word choice/usage will in turn generate (at least for me) an overburdening of my thoughts and paragraphs with caveats and other measures to preempt those rabbit-holey digressions about word choice.

Of course I could be wrong about either the word choice or even the premise that you can preempt such digressions (I mean hell...ENWorld has become the most rabbit-holey divergence from TTRPG analysis and onto word/phrase usage possible in the last 6-7 years). Perhaps there is absolutely no stopping the pervasive impulse to litigate essential word usage and deluge every (what otherwise might be an interesting) thread with such (miserable imo) digressions.

My choice of usage is only to accomodate/preempt possible analysis-enmurdernating digressions over word choice. Nothing more. I'll use any words that will do that work (taco, goopdeedoop, Shirley...whatever).

 

[pemerton]

@Manbearcat

My experience in ENworld conversations has led me to the view that there is little value in choosing terminology to try and minimise controversy/semantic discussion.

I agree that "constraint" has connotations that are not perfect - eg suppose an Event roll tells the Gm to introduce a NPC who tells the PC about something bad that has happened to that PC's mentor, the GM is not only constrained but is also required to perform a particular sort of creative act - namely, to think of something bad that might have happened to the PC's mentor, which this newly-introduced NPC can relate to the PC.

The same thing happens in AW: everyone looks at the GM, who therefore has to choose a move, and if the GM chooses to announce future badness not only are they constrained, but they have to make something up and - because they have to misdirect (another constraint) - they have to make something up that follows from the fiction as established so far.

In the post you replied to I therefore tried "constrains and generates", and "contributes to the parameters of", what the participant says about the fiction.

 

[hawkeyefan]

My experience in ENworld conversations has led me to the view that there is little value in choosing terminology to try and minimise controversy/semantic discussion.

That depends… what do you mean by value?!?