GM fiat - an illustration

[Crimson Longinus]

You are drawing a value judgment from what so am saying that isn’t there.

Right.

I'm reminded of Laurence Olivier talking to Dustin Hoffman on Marathon Man after Hoffman stayed up for 72 hours before a scene where his character had been up 72 hours: "My dear boy, why don’t you just try acting?"

The discussion here goes like this:

"Hoffman really stayed up for 72 hours for a scene."

"How dare you say that Olivier's performance didn't feel real? Also, the characters in the film/play are fictional so none of them "really" stayed up! Also, like Hume demonstrated, it is questionable to assume that the reality exists at all!"

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I am in a doctor’s waiting room on phone so forgive me if my replies are not thorough. I am not saying don’t apply rpg theory. I am saying do so if you want. But I do think the theory you are drawing on, while it might work well for explaining certain styles of play, doesn’t work well when illuminating what you guys call trad play. I was also saying even something like music theory, which I think is much more demonstrably effective than RPG theory, can have blind spots that fail to capture nuance (for example the difficulty that microtones present in a theory of music based on 12 tones). Now music theory tends to expand and adapt. So it has attempted to address this problem. But there is this insistence in these conversations that we have to adopt your language, way of analysis, and even conclusions.

I mean, I'm not really asking you to adopt anything. I'm just asking for explanations or engagement that is more than hand-waving "I know it when I see it"/"It literally can't be discussed, it's just not possible"/"there's so much more to it but I can't put it in words" type stuff.

Putting things into words is...pretty much literally what a discussion forum is about. And if a style cannot articulate what it is about, it's hard to see how that style can ever survive or propagate!

That isn’t what I said. I said some people don’t have fluency in the language you use and use broader language. I am not saying all bakers shouldn’t learn chemistry. I am saying for some it might be counter productive or steer them away from what they are doing that already is working

Then you're going to need more than mere speculative "well it COULD be harmful..." for such a position. Like, I get that you want to not push people away. That's an understandable motive. But the mere fear that someone, somewhere, might be harmed by merely having someone on here speak about TTRPGs by using theory, and by condensing down styles to the actual actions involved in enacting that style, is really tenuous. It borders on raising alarm bells over people talking about smoke, when no smoke has been seen or smelled.

this doesn’t undercut point 2 at all. Some people benefit from more music theory. Some people don’t. Because people are all different. For some people music theory provides enormous clarity, for others it gets in the way or they just find it frustrating (there is a meme among musicians with a picture of a music teacher instructing a class saying “come on it’s not rocket science” followed by a rocket scientist teaching a class saying “come on it’s not music theory”. And again I have to make the point: music theory has a much better track record I think than RPG theory (which is extremely contentious among gamers)

The problem is, the position you have staked out above is that we shouldn't use it, not just that it's not helpful for some people. That it is somehow insulting to you to use such theory in your presence, or to use it when we discuss game topics.

And of course it's controversial. It's new. RPG game design theory is literally still in its infancy. The field as a whole isn't even a single human lifetime old! Even if we grant proper wargames as the initial inspiration, those didn't exist until the late 18th century at the absolute earliest. (No, I don't count chess.) By comparison, music theory is, at bare minimum, at least three and a half thousand years old--and possibly more than five thousand years old. For a field that is somewhere between 50 and 250 years old, yeah, I think it's quite reasonable for it to still be controversial, to still be figuring itself out and not entirely well-structured yet.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Right.



The discussion here goes like this:

"Hoffman really stayed up for 72 hours for a scene."

"How dare you say that Olivier's performance didn't feel real? Also, the character's in the film/play are fictional so none of them "really" stayed up! Also, like Hume demonstrated, it is questionable to assume that the reality exists at all!"

Whereas from my perspective the discussion goes like this:

"Hoffman didn't really have much experience with having stayed up that long, so he chose to put himself in that position, in order to make his acting feel more natural."

"Well why didn't he just, y'know, do real acting?"

"Uh...what even is 'real acting'?"

"I can't describe it to you. Either you know it or you don't."

Which I think you can see why that would be both deeply infuriating and not really kosher as part of participating in a discussion. It's alleging that the other side is just flat-out wrong, and then following it up by saying "well it's literally impossible to explain unless you already know it, so you're just wrong and I can't tell you why."

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm reminded of Laurence Olivier talking to Dustin Hoffman on Marathon Man after Hoffman stayed up for 72 hours before a scene where his character had been up 72 hours: "My dear boy, why don’t you just try acting?"

Except I can imagine it another way. I have said these other approaches are entirely legitimate

I'm not saying that you personally are making a judgement. I am saying that the terminology itself only addresses itself, only imagines itself and leaves no room for other things to exist and be legitimate. That it cannot be used to compare and contrast because it leaves no room for anything else. This is not @Bedrockgames issue. It's trad culture defining itself as the definition of what roleplaying games should be in their platonic form. That it leaves no room for other forms of play to exist (and be legitimate or authentic).

It's not that slight is meant. It's a failure to imagine that there might be any other way.

I am not suggesting an ought here. My point isn’t that these kinds of mysteries are better. My point is there is a difference between a mystery with an objective answer and one without one (and one where the players are trying to actually solve that mystery versus one where they are figuring out a conclusion through other means). This isn’t about quality of the experience

 

[Bedrockgames]

I

And of course it's controversial. It's new. RPG game design theory is literally still in its infancy. The field as a whole isn't even a single human lifetime old! Even if we grant proper wargames as the initial inspiration, those didn't exist until the late 18th century at the absolute earliest. (No, I don't count chess.) By comparison, music theory is, at bare minimum, at least three and a half thousand years old--and possibly more than five thousand years old. For a field that is somewhere between 50 and 250 years old, yeah, I think it's quite reasonable for it to still be controversial, to still be figuring itself out and not entirely well-structured yet.

yes and because it is new many of us are much more wary of its conclusions. Especially since it is coming from within the hobby by people with who have preferences of style

 

[Campbell]

Except I can imagine it another way. I have said these other approaches are entirely legitimate


I am not suggesting an ought here. My point isn’t that these kinds of mysteries are better. My point is there is a difference between a mystery with an objective answer and one without one (and one where the players are trying to actually solve that mystery versus one where they are figuring out a conclusion through other means). This isn’t about quality of the experience

It isn't about the quality of the experience. It is about the authenticity of it. The integrity of it. The realness of it. That's what matters to me. The reason I do this thing is the experience of being there in the moment as the character I'm playing, feeling what they are feeling, and making decisions and seeing where that goes. The authenticity of it is an essential component. For me this is an extension of my love of acting. It's an act of vulnerability and empathy in the same way acting is.

It's not about judging the quality of play. It's about what is being said and implied about the nature of it. That I am not actually roleplaying but instead engaging in collaborative storytelling when I am emphatically not doing so. It's defining the nature of the play that is happening in a way that cuts against our intentions for it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It isn't about the quality of the experience. It is about the authenticity of it. The integrity of it. The realness of it. That's what matters to me. The reason I do this thing is the experience of being there in the moment as the character I'm playing, feeling what they are feeling, and making decisions and seeing where that goes. The authenticity of it is an essential component. For me this is an extension of my love of acting.

The "realness" that has been referred to does not mean the sort of authenticity you allude to here. Why do you keep making this conflation when it has been explained countless times that this is not what is meant? It is merely about there being objectively correct predetermined answer to the mystery, so that it can be "really solved."

 

[Campbell]

The "realness" that has been referred to does not mean the sort of authenticity you allude to here. Why do you keep making this conflation when it has been explained countless times that this is not what is meant? It is merely about there being objectively correct predetermined answer to the mystery, so that it can be "really solved."

So you agree that it's not less authentic?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So you agree that it's not less authentic?

Yes! Or not intrinsically so. What feels more authentic to one is rather subjective. What I don't think is subjective whether the mystery had "real", as in objective answer from the get go or not. That is the "realness" I am talking about.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It isn't about the quality of the experience. It is about the authenticity of it. The integrity of it. The realness of it. That's what matters to me. The reason I do this thing is the experience of being there in the moment as the character I'm playing, feeling what they are feeling, and making decisions and seeing where that goes. The authenticity of it is an essential component. For me this is an extension of my love of acting. It's an act of vulnerability and empathy in the same way acting is.

It's not about judging the quality of play. It's about what is being said and implied about the nature of it. That I am not actually roleplaying but instead engaging in collaborative storytelling when I am emphatically not doing so. It's defining the nature of the play that is happening in a way that cuts against our intentions for it.

Your comparison to acting I think is very apt.

If a person is portraying Sherlock Holmes, is that actor solving mysteries? Or are they hip-deep (or deeper...I know how the role can consume a person) in portraying a mystery-solver, entirely separate from whether they are mentally doing the process of solving mysteries?

Because that's a thing I said quite a ways upthread, albeit in different words. I think it is quite beautiful to breathe life and weight into a character. Believe it or not, I have done a very little bit of acting myself. (Portrayed Joe the Pawnbroker in my youth ministry's rendition of A Christmas Carol.) As you say, it is an act of brave vulnerability, to put oneself forward like that, to take on the mantle of another soul (fictional or not). But the concern, as far as I can tell, is to vividly, authentically, and sincerely portray a character doing things. A character feeling suicidal depression, for example, does not mean the actor portraying the character is feeling suicidal depression, even though they may be channeling experiences they have had at other times. Or at least I should hope that the actor isn't actually feeling suicidal depression as part of portraying that role, that would be very bad.

Yet, on the other hand, it is quite possible for an actor to legitimately be actually feeling the same feelings their character is feeling. For example, if two people meet on the set of a performance, and their characters become romantically involved, it is not too uncommon for those actors to also become romantically involved--or vice-versa, to have an already-involved couple choose (or be chosen) to play the roles of two characters who fall in love.

There is nothing inauthentic about the actor portraying a character who is falling madly in love with his romantic partner. But the actor himself probably isn't actually falling madly in love with the person portraying the character's beloved. That distance is entirely reasonable and healthy.

But what happens if you have an actor who wants to actually be feeling the things their character is feeling? That, I should think, is a slightly different ballgame. That is precisely the thing I am speaking of though: I want to feel like I, actually me the human currently sitting at this keyboard, is working through the logic and solving the puzzle. That I can also portray a person who is trying to solve something simultaneously is an immense delight to me; it makes the two experiences into one experience. My feelings are my character's feelings. That is of immense value to me.