After some chats between various people, I've decided to lay out the issues as I see them. I know, you guys probably hate it when I do that. But, you should know by now, that is just my MO.
I agree with MNW's general appreciation of thought bubbles. There are two "levels" of thought bubbles, which I've decided to call "private" (DM only) and "public" (for all of us) bubbles.
I think there is no contention about the value that private bubbles can have. They convey to the DM what your character is thinking, what s/he might do, etc. They also help the player get some "self" understanding, as having to put such things in writing generally requires more rigorous thought about them, etc. Private bubbles also have drawbacks. Posting takes more time. They might be redundant or otherwise just unnecessary.
Conclusion: Make private bubbles anytime you personally think it would help either you or me for any of the reasons above. It is NOT necessary for you to use them, but do so as you wish with the above thoughts in mind.
I think there was/is some different understandings about the value that public bubbles can have. The opinion on one side is that characterization is something between the DM and the specific player. And this makes some sense. Any desire for that is adequately covered by private bubbles.
However, there is also a notion that characterization also occurs between the members of the group. The PCs will eventually get to know each other, and, therefore, the players need to get a sense of the characterization of the other PCs. Now, it is obvious that this predominantly happens in the form of dialog and actions that the PCs have when together. The drawback that MNW points out, which I think is valid, is that in this particular format (the general bashing of us as repressed, Minnesotan, non-actors aside) there are cues, both verbal and nonverbal, they people normally rely upon, both consciously and subconsciously, to which we simply don't have the greatest access.
There are solutions to this problem. One thing that I'd greatly recommend, regardless of any decision on public bubbles, is explicitly thinking about those cues that are normally present in live conversation and adding them in. Use adjectives and adverbs more to describe the way your PCs are appearing and behaving. Think about how much in normal life we can tell from the cues and just tell us that we can see it. We know when someone is mad not because we can read their thoughts, but because of the cues we observe, and we are generally quite good at picking those things up. So, to some extent, we can mitigate the lack of cues that implicitly occur when gaming around a table by explicitly adding them to our posts. In fact, I bet that we can even do a better job if we try hard.
There are, however, still group characterization benefits that would be even better realized by having public bubbles. I think that if you buy into the idea of this group characterization, you know that public bubbles could go even further for those goals than explicit cues. But there is a "price" for that extra amount. That price is the extra opportunity for metagaming. There are two viable responses to this problem (that I can see): 1) We have a hard rule of no public bubbles, and rely wholly upon the explicit cues mentioned above to get that group characterization; 2) We have a soft rule of public bubbles are okay as long as there isn't metagaming.
This is, clearly, a balancing analysis, and I've given it a lot of thought. Here is what I think. If we are forced to rely on explicit cues, we will probably become better at using them, and better at roleplaying. If we have the aforementioned soft rule of public bubbles, at some point there will be problems caused by it. I don't think I need to conjure any examples, as I'm sure we can envision how such might occur. If we have no public bubbles, we WILL lose some amount of group characterization, at least for awhile as we get used to using cues. But we will still be able to have private bubbles with individual characterization. With those to inform the DM and yourselves about who your character is inside his/her head, we'll all get better at turning those things outward as cues.
Conclusion: No public thought bubbles. Let's all try to use cues, adverbs, adjectives, and the like as much as we can.
Any other thoughts on this, or did my stunning analysis (largely stolen/copied from chats) convince you?
I agree with MNW's general appreciation of thought bubbles. There are two "levels" of thought bubbles, which I've decided to call "private" (DM only) and "public" (for all of us) bubbles.
I think there is no contention about the value that private bubbles can have. They convey to the DM what your character is thinking, what s/he might do, etc. They also help the player get some "self" understanding, as having to put such things in writing generally requires more rigorous thought about them, etc. Private bubbles also have drawbacks. Posting takes more time. They might be redundant or otherwise just unnecessary.
Conclusion: Make private bubbles anytime you personally think it would help either you or me for any of the reasons above. It is NOT necessary for you to use them, but do so as you wish with the above thoughts in mind.
I think there was/is some different understandings about the value that public bubbles can have. The opinion on one side is that characterization is something between the DM and the specific player. And this makes some sense. Any desire for that is adequately covered by private bubbles.
However, there is also a notion that characterization also occurs between the members of the group. The PCs will eventually get to know each other, and, therefore, the players need to get a sense of the characterization of the other PCs. Now, it is obvious that this predominantly happens in the form of dialog and actions that the PCs have when together. The drawback that MNW points out, which I think is valid, is that in this particular format (the general bashing of us as repressed, Minnesotan, non-actors aside) there are cues, both verbal and nonverbal, they people normally rely upon, both consciously and subconsciously, to which we simply don't have the greatest access.
There are solutions to this problem. One thing that I'd greatly recommend, regardless of any decision on public bubbles, is explicitly thinking about those cues that are normally present in live conversation and adding them in. Use adjectives and adverbs more to describe the way your PCs are appearing and behaving. Think about how much in normal life we can tell from the cues and just tell us that we can see it. We know when someone is mad not because we can read their thoughts, but because of the cues we observe, and we are generally quite good at picking those things up. So, to some extent, we can mitigate the lack of cues that implicitly occur when gaming around a table by explicitly adding them to our posts. In fact, I bet that we can even do a better job if we try hard.
There are, however, still group characterization benefits that would be even better realized by having public bubbles. I think that if you buy into the idea of this group characterization, you know that public bubbles could go even further for those goals than explicit cues. But there is a "price" for that extra amount. That price is the extra opportunity for metagaming. There are two viable responses to this problem (that I can see): 1) We have a hard rule of no public bubbles, and rely wholly upon the explicit cues mentioned above to get that group characterization; 2) We have a soft rule of public bubbles are okay as long as there isn't metagaming.
This is, clearly, a balancing analysis, and I've given it a lot of thought. Here is what I think. If we are forced to rely on explicit cues, we will probably become better at using them, and better at roleplaying. If we have the aforementioned soft rule of public bubbles, at some point there will be problems caused by it. I don't think I need to conjure any examples, as I'm sure we can envision how such might occur. If we have no public bubbles, we WILL lose some amount of group characterization, at least for awhile as we get used to using cues. But we will still be able to have private bubbles with individual characterization. With those to inform the DM and yourselves about who your character is inside his/her head, we'll all get better at turning those things outward as cues.
Conclusion: No public thought bubbles. Let's all try to use cues, adverbs, adjectives, and the like as much as we can.
Any other thoughts on this, or did my stunning analysis (largely stolen/copied from chats) convince you?
