RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[pemerton]

When two people look at a chess board, then (setting to one side tricks of the light, and assuming everyone is wearing their glasses, and etc) they see the same thing.

These two people do not need to establish any agreement as to the state of the board, as the physical location of the pieces, the physical properties of light, and the physiology of each person's eyes and brain, all bring it about that the two people see the same thing. Assuming the two people have at least passing familiarity with the game of chess, not only do they see the same physical objects, but they seem the same conventional state-of-affairs, that is, a board of chess pieces arranged thus-and-so.

RPGs do not have a physical board, or physical pieces, to generate agreement in the same fashion. The positions of the players are fictional (hence why we can talk about fictional positioning). Imagining a fiction is an active thing - the participant in the game has to conjure it up. And for the game to work, the players have to imagine the same thing - they have to agree on the fictional position of the participants.

Because that fictional position changes from moment to moment of play - this is what the play of RPG is all about - there has to be ongoing agreement, among the participants, about what it is that is being imagined, how it has changed, what the fiction is now as opposed to what it was then.

This is the way in which RPGing requires agreement in a different fashion from chess or from Empires and Arms - the difference does not consist in the need to agree on rules and conventions of play, but in the difference to agree on the (imaginary, fictional) state of the game, given that there is no physical, perceptible object that secures that agreement. (Unlike a chess board or a hand of cards or whatever else.)

This is why Vincent Baker refers to RPGing as negotiated imagination. He is using the word "negotiate" in its ordinary meaning of discussion aimed at reaching an agreement (thanks Oxford Languages via Google). RPGing is discussion aimed at reaching agreement on what it is that is imagined.

So when he talks about constraining or easing negotiation, he is talking about processes that ease and constrain the discussion. And he gives an example:

So you're sitting at the table and one player says, "[let's imagine that] an orc jumps out of the underbrush!"

What has to happen before the group agrees that, indeed, an orc jumps out of the underbrush?

1. Sometimes, not much [discussion] at all. The right participant said it, at an appropriate moment, and everybody else just incorporates it smoothly into their imaginary picture of the situation. "An orc! Yikes! Battlestations!" This is how it usually is for participants with high ownership of whatever they're talking about: GMs describing the weather or the noncombat actions of NPCs, players saying what their characters are wearing or thinking.​

Most of the disagreement in this thread consists in pointing to examples like this, pointing out that when these issues of ownership are clear there is little or no discussion. That is not in disupte.

Baker gives this example too:

4. And sometimes, lots of mechanics and negotiation. Debate the likelihood of a lone orc in the underbrush way out here, make a having-an-orc-show-up roll, a having-an-orc-hide-in-the-underbrush roll, a having-the-orc-jump-out roll, argue about the modifiers for each of the rolls, get into a philosophical thing about the rules' modeling of orc-jump-out likelihood... all to establish one little thing. Wave a stick in a game store and every game you knock of the shelves will have a combat system that works like this.​

And some of the disagreement consists in giving examples like this, although to me some of the presentation of them seems to be oddly idealised. As if players in 3E or 5e D&D combat, for instance, never seek clarification about where the monsters are so they can move their PCs without drawing opportunity attacks. Or as if players never seek clarification about how wet or slippery the wall is, so they can decide whether or not their PCs try and climb it.

In my experience, if a GM tells players "You enter <such-and-such a place>" it is common for the players to ask "What can we see?" or perhaps to ask "Can we see <insert whatever it is that the player is hoping their PC can see>?" This is the player wanting to know what it is that they should be imagining - or to put the same point in other words, what is their fictional position?

This is a discussion - a conversation among friends - aimed at reaching agreement - agreement on what should be imagined. That is why it has been described as negotiation. That's all.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I still don't think that clarifying facts is negotiation. It would not be that if I was checking those facts from a text, and I don't see it changing because I check those facts from a person instead.

Furthermore, I don't think getting several people to imagine roughly the same thing is particularly hard. At least my generation still remembers these things called books, which caused us to imagine things via words printed in them. In similar way we are easily capable imagining the things conveyed via spoken words.

 

[Pedantic]

When two people look at a chess board, then (setting to one side tricks of the light, and assuming everyone is wearing their glasses, and etc) they see the same thing.

These two people do not need to establish any agreement as to the state of the board, as the physical location of the pieces, the physical properties of light, and the physiology of each person's eyes and brain, all bring it about that the two people see the same thing. Assuming the two people have at least passing familiarity with the game of chess, not only do they see the same physical objects, but they seem the same conventional state-of-affairs, that is, a board of chess pieces arranged thus-and-so.

RPGs do not have a physical board, or physical pieces, to generate agreement in the same fashion. The positions of the players are fictional (hence why we can talk about fictional positioning). Imagining a fiction is an active thing - the participant in the game has to conjure it up. And for the game to work, the players have to imagine the same thing - they have to agree on the fictional position of the participants.

I don't actually think this is particularly controversial. We can't see the board, we have to come up with ways to work around that, we accept not having a board because it increases the possibility space and allows for unique gameplay structure, all things that are true of RPGs and not really true of other games. We all pretty much agree on those things, but I think the point here makes a leap.

Because that fictional position changes from moment to moment of play - this is what the play of RPG is all about - there has to be ongoing agreement, among the participants, about what it is that is being imagined, how it has changed, what the fiction is now as opposed to what it was then.

This is the way in which RPGing requires agreement in a different fashion from chess or from Empires and Arms - the difference does not consist in the need to agree on rules and conventions of play, but in the difference to agree on the (imaginary, fictional) state of the game, given that there is no physical, perceptible object that secures that agreement. (Unlike a chess board or a hand of cards or whatever else.)

This is why Vincent Baker refers to RPGing as negotiated imagination. He is using the word "negotiate" in its ordinary meaning of discussion aimed at reaching an agreement (thanks Oxford Languages via Google). RPGing is discussion aimed at reaching agreement on what it is that is imagined.

This is where I think the trick is coming in. The rules of chess do not exist to constitute the board. The interesting decisions in chess are not about the transition of pawn C2->C4, but about the structure of what emerges as a result of that composition, the plan for what will happen next, and the understanding of how moving that pawn will advance a player toward victory. Similarly, the game that is the TTRPG, despite its unique struggles with not being embodied and additional requirements necessary to simulate perceiving and interacting with the board, exists in interesting decisions above and beyond the composition of the fictional state.

Chess is a particularly interesting example, because it's just possible for two sufficiently talented players to maintain the board state entirely in their minds and play a game by speaking their moves back and forth. Unwieldy and unnecessary, but you could totally do it. If one of them slipped, and forgot the position of a rook from earlier and declared an illegal move as a result, that would not be a negotiation that was part of the game, that would be an error. If one of them attempted to move a piece that had been captured, hoping their opponent had forgotten that result, that would also not be a point of negotiation, that would be cheating. The game isn't the board state, and the rules and play of the game exist on the board, not to constitute it.

So when he talks about constraining or easing negotiation, he is talking about processes that ease and constrain the discussion. And he gives an example:

So you're sitting at the table and one player says, "[let's imagine that] an orc jumps out of the underbrush!"​

​

What has to happen before the group agrees that, indeed, an orc jumps out of the underbrush?​

​

1. Sometimes, not much [discussion] at all. The right participant said it, at an appropriate moment, and everybody else just incorporates it smoothly into their imaginary picture of the situation. "An orc! Yikes! Battlestations!" This is how it usually is for participants with high ownership of whatever they're talking about: GMs describing the weather or the noncombat actions of NPCs, players saying what their characters are wearing or thinking.​

Most of the disagreement in this thread consists in pointing to examples like this, pointing out that when these issues of ownership are clear there is little or no discussion. That is not in disupte.

Baker gives this example too:

4. And sometimes, lots of mechanics and negotiation. Debate the likelihood of a lone orc in the underbrush way out here, make a having-an-orc-show-up roll, a having-an-orc-hide-in-the-underbrush roll, a having-the-orc-jump-out roll, argue about the modifiers for each of the rolls, get into a philosophical thing about the rules' modeling of orc-jump-out likelihood... all to establish one little thing. Wave a stick in a game store and every game you knock of the shelves will have a combat system that works like this.​

All of the bits of this example that are negotiation explicitly point to failed play. The likelihood point is classic play your GM stuff, the argument about modifiers is either a poorly written game text, an actual ask for clarification, or an attempt to use an ask for clarification to smuggle in more play-the-GM material. A discussion of the rule's modeling is a meta-game or game design concern and in theory outside the scope of play, or more likely, an attempt to use a meta-game or game design concern to play the GM. All of these are exacerbated by the classic rule 0, design the plane as you fly it ethos that permeates TTRPGs, but not endemic to the form. The rest of this is just resolution mechanics, which are not generally negotiable in games without ceasing to play the game first.

And some of the disagreement consists in giving examples like this, although to me some of the presentation of them seems to be oddly idealised. As if players in 3E or 5e D&D combat, for instance, never seek clarification about where the monsters are so they can move their PCs without drawing opportunity attacks. Or as if players never seek clarification about how wet or slippery the wall is, so they can decide whether or not their PCs try and climb it.

In my experience, if a GM tells players "You enter <such-and-such a place>" it is common for the players to ask "What can we see?" or perhaps to ask "Can we see <insert whatever it is that the player is hoping their PC can see>?" This is the player wanting to know what it is that they should be imagining - or to put the same point in other words, what is their fictional position?

This is a discussion - a conversation among friends - aimed at reaching agreement - agreement on what should be imagined. That is why it has been described as negotiation. That's all.

That's...not a negotiation. Nothing is at stake, no exchange is happening, there are not agents with differing goals of various compatibilities. I am not negotiating with my boss when I walk to his desk and say "hey, I'm not totally clear what you wanted in that email, is that about the new report?" We're definitely trying to reach agreement on what I'm going to do with my time that afternoon, but the communication happening doesn't involve a give and take, and will be resolved when I get more information.

You could stop at discussion, and I don't think anyone would object, but "negotiation" is a weird term to use in this context. I think it's really here to equate what's happening to a different process that does involve negotiation, where differing goals are put forward, and those are quite reasonably different things.

 

[niklinna]

Clearly we still have some clarification of facts to do over the meaning of the word "negotiation". It's too bad we can't negotiate a common understanding.

I don't recall anybody saying that getting several people to imagine roughly the same thing is particularly hard—unless someone is deliberately trying to forestall agreement and drag a discussion into the weeds.

Negotiation isn't inherently adversarial. But certain examples of it rather highlight adversarial, one might even say disingenuous, behavior.

 

[niklinna]

That's...not a negotiation. Nothing is at stake, no exchange is happening, there are not agents with differing goals of various compatibilities. I am not negotiating with my boss when I walk to his desk and say "hey, I'm not totally clear what you wanted in that email, is that about the new report?" We're definitely trying to reach agreement on what I'm going to do with my time that afternoon, but the communication happening doesn't involve a give and take, and will be resolved when I get more information.

Yes, it is a negotiation. Agreement over the imagined fiction is at stake, asking questions and answering them is a classic example of an exchange, and "negotation" does not require the participants to have differing goals of various compatibilities (I even looked it up in the dictionary!)—they can have the exact same goal but still need to clarify, through discussion, which is back-and-forth exchange, which is negotiation, because people aren't psychic.

Just because the most notable examples of negotiation feature parties at odds, doesn't mean being at odds is required.

 

[Pedantic]

Clearly we still have some clarification of facts to do over the meaning of the word "negotiation". It's too bad we can't negotiate a common understanding.

I don't recall anybody saying that getting several people to imagine roughly the same thing is particularly hard—unless someone is deliberately trying to forestall agreement and drag a discussion into the weeds.

Negotiation isn't inherently adversarial. But certain examples of it rather highlight adversarial, one might even say disingenuous, behavior.

I actually think it is.

Obviously it's not zero-sum or it would be impossible, but yes, I would say a negotiation is defined by competing goals. We would not negotiate a common understanding of the definition, we would negotiate a mutually agreeable one. If the issue was lack of clarity in our understanding of the definition, then we could establish a common understanding through clarification and communication, not negotiating a mutually acceptable one.

 

[pemerton]

I still don't think that clarifying facts is negotiation. It would not be that if I was checking those facts from a text, and I don't see it changing because I check those facts from a person instead.

You and the person you are talking to - discussing with - are coming to an agreement on what to imagine together.

There are interesting differences from consulting a text - typically, a text (or, at least, the bare facts of what words are written there in what order) doesn't change when you consult it. The transmission is, in some sense, one-way.

Whereas in a RPG the transmission is, typically, two-way - eg The player says Can we see the staff we're looking for in here?, and the GM says Well, the room you're looking at is pretty empty but there is a chest big enough to fit a staff into, and then the player says OK, we go up to the chest and inspect it.

Or the GM says It's too dark for you to see anything in the room and the player says We throw our lit torch along the ground to about the middle of the room - what do we see now?

Or the GM says It's too dark for you to see anything in the room and the player says What about my Goggles of Nightvision?

These are all examples - and I would regard them as pretty common-place examples - of game players having a discussion in order to reach agreement on what to imagine together.

I don't think getting several people to imagine roughly the same thing is particularly hard.

Who does?

That said, it can be made hard, or at least harder. Eg D&D makes it harder to get people to imagine what happens when a group of doughty adventurers encounters a gang of angry Orcs than does, say, T&T.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't recall anybody saying that getting several people to imagine roughly the same thing is particularly hard—unless someone is deliberately trying to forestall agreement and drag a discussion into the weeds.

I think in some cases "roughly" is doing some heavy lifting, there.

 

[pemerton]

Oxford Languages, via Google: "negotiate" = obtain or bring about by discussion. "negotiation" = *discussion aimed at reaching an agreement."

In the context of RPGing, why is there no prior agreement? Because at certain key points of play, there is no participant who is entitled to unilaterally dictate what happens next.

In D&D this happens most often in combat (as Baker notes via his example 4.)

But it can happen in other contexts too, and in many non-D&D RPGs happens quite often in non-combat contexts.

The player says "I climb to the top of the wall". In 5e D&D, the GM is at liberty to say "OK, you make it up." But is not obliged to say that; the GM is equally entitled to say "OK, it's a slippery wall, make a STR (Athletics) check." Or, is entitled to ask the player "OK, what method are you using to climb the wall?" and then, in response to the player's reply, to tell the player that their PC makes it up, or to call for a check, or whatever.

These are examples of discussions about what to imagine together. And they illustrate that there is no prior agreement as to what to imagine: rather, there is a process of reaching agreement during the course of play.

They also illustrate what I regard as very common differences of interest in the context of RPG play: roughly speaking, players generally aspire to have their PCs succeed at the actions they take; whereas the GM, at certain key points, introduces adversity knowing that this may mean the player's aspiration is thwarted, and often with the deliberate purpose of making that thwarting a real possibility.

The role of the GM in orchestrating conflict is a fairly key part of mainstream RPG design and play - it is one part of what makes it a game rather than a round-robin storytelling activity.

 

[pemerton]

All of the bits of this example that are negotiation explicitly point to failed play. The likelihood point is classic play your GM stuff, the argument about modifiers is either a poorly written game text, an actual ask for clarification, or an attempt to use an ask for clarification to smuggle in more play-the-GM material.

It is not failed play for a player to ask "How slippery is the wall?" or "Can I get from A to B without taking an attack of opportunity?"

Nor to ask "If I take the high ground, will I get a bonus to hit?"

These sorts of things are core components of RPG play. They follow from the way that RPGs use real-world processes (often either geometric ones, like battle maps, or arithmetic ones, like reading dice results and adding or comparing numbers) to establish and change the fictional position of the players.