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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 8536239" data-attributes="member: 71699">Here I read that she is attributing freeform play with systems, which is interesting in its own right, but I want to address fictional positioning.Recall that I want my construct for fictional positioning to be predictive. It predicts the moves characters will make.Politely pretending, while noticing that what is described never happens. We never subject moves to groups assent or dissent, rather players submit moves that follow the conversation. They only say what they believe will be assented to. Rarely, they say something that prompts dissent, which occasionally crashes them out of the magic circle.This doesn't match experience. It's a simplification. That may be all we need here.I have two concerns in mind here. First, I don't observe motivation in play as Newtonian, a force that is applied once to a character in a vacuum, who is propelled onward imperturbably from there. Rather, motivations are continuously being formed, revised, and applied. They are layered from overarching to immediate, and hold differing priorities for action. Second, it wouldn't matter if motivation was Newtonian: it must still be counted in fictional positioning.Think this through in a few different ways. First without motivation. I don't want to shoot you with a gun. Say there is nevertheless a gun present because we're in an armory. A gun is therefore squarely within the legitimate moves, but it's not one that will enter the fiction. If it did, it would feel jarring to all concerned. Dem was strictly unmotivated to shoot Jo with a gun, but Dem shot Jo with a gun. After the fact, everyone would most likely try to impute a motivation for the shooting to Dem.Say Jo tries to escape as imagined here. If Dem is unmotivated, Dem doesn't try to keep Jo from escaping even though that would be a legitimate move. I can't stress this enough - there are at any time a vast number of legitimate moves. Dem could have hopped on one foot. That would be a legitimate move (were motivation not at issue.)Those moves a character has motivations in connection with, form the subset from which they choose what they say next. Unmotivated moves aren't in that subset. It's meaningless to talk about the vast number of legitimate moves that have nothing to do with what's going on. Hopping on one foot might be an example (there's probably cases where it isn't).And those motivations change all the time. Say Dem is threatened by Jo and about to run (motivated to escape), when as a result of "looking around desperately" she spots a loaded six-shooter. She snatches it up and forms a new motivation - the shoe is on the other foot - "right Jo, tell me who's behind the plot to..." and so on. Motivations are continuously added to and altered.Baker touches on effectiveness hereThe "various factors" here could be taken to include motivation. If that's right, great!Now, I'm not saying that Baker intended effectiveness to be included in fictional positioning here, but seeing as I want a construct that has predictive power, I'm forced to bring effectiveness into fictional positioning (under the broader umbrella of 'motivation') Players are motivated toward doing the more effective over the less effective, but other motivations can prove more powerful still.That is because legitimacy alone isn't enough. A vast number of moves are always legitimate. And it is because motivation isn't one-and-done, motivations are referenced, formed, revised continuously during play. The legitimacy dimension gets at what is off the table. If I don't have wings (and assuming wings and only wings are needed to fly) then I can't legitimately declare flight. If we like, we can build motivation into legitimacy by saying something like this. If I don't want to fly, then I can't legitimately declare flight (this example is apposite to story-now play). That's fine, all I care about is that we put motivation into our construct.My preferred construct makes it explicit. A player's position is the total set of all of the valid (legitimate and motivated) gameplay options available to them at this moment of play. I'm using "valid" here in a similar way to how it is used to understand game balancing, where "valid" options are those that are legitimate and effective. However, I am placing effective into motivated, for what I think are obvious reasons.Obviously you can and should go on with your version of fictional positioning if you like. You often express a concern for analytical power. Why do you think the version that considers only legitimate moves is better than legitimate + motivated? (Assuming of course that motivated isn't simply built into legitimate, which also works for me.) How do you show that the set of legitimate moves isn't vast and undifferentiated, without bringing in other criteria (i.e. motivated)? It's like Borges' Library: you can take a few books off the shelf (moves that are removed due to constraints) but those remaining on the shelves are still vast in number.</blockquote>

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