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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5626363" data-attributes="member: 54877">You can, of course, have any opinion that you want. The problem comes in, that I read the above, and the first thing that springs to mind is that you are telling me that things that happen at my table do not happen. It's hinted in all of that, but is especially clear in that second paragraph. In short, there are different ways to "respond to other rational entities," and the focus on narrative play, while useful, is a bit misleading here. The whole business about tactical battle elements is mainly an aside to all of this, and unnecessarily confusing because it is really an orthogonal discussion. (Do people play versions of D&D, any of them, as tactical skirmish games? Why yes, they do. Do some people enjoy that element and roleplaying too? Why yes, that too. Do some people enjoy only the roleplaying element? No doubt. Does the last group frequently get confused about the distinctions in the first and second group? Posters prove it every day!) We can and have talked about stances. They are useful to distinguish core activities during discussion. However, I think it is a mistake to take the distinct parts of a discussion as somehow always distinct in reality. You can talk about water and dirt, but the mixture has a quality that is very distinct from each element in isolation, for many purposes (not all, of course).  I come back to improvizational jazz as the best analogy for "this thing that happens at our table that we call roleplaying for which other people keep insisting does not happen, or if it does, isn't roleplaying." In improvizational jazz, from a musician analogous point of view, you are simulataneously engaged in author and actor stance. You are playing the piece. You are changing the piece, consciously. And you are doing this in a group, where direction passes on cues, to different people.  My opinion, is that a person who doesn't get that style of what we do well enough to include it in their analysis has a fatal gap in their understanding that prevents them from defining roleplaying as it actually practiced by people. (There may be other gaps, including some that I share. I wouldn't know about those. We are talking "necessary" here, not "sufficient.")  Furthermore, it is difficult for those of us practicing this different style to convey it to people who insist, as a starting point to all such discussions, that it does not exist.   Notice, from a strictly discussion analysis, that our position is much less ambitious.  We only claim that something we do, happens as we say it does.  This says nothing about what others do.   You can say politely, "Play what you like." You can't politely say, "Play what you like, but when you play what you like, you aren't playing what you think you are." It is difficult to define hard boundaries for roleplaying and not run that risk.</blockquote>

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