RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[clearstream]

Coming back to TR/CR based on reading these last few pages, resolution could be looked at from a perspective of "what does system decide on, and what is left up to play?" (It's not TR is more system decides and CR more left to play, both can be system heavy etc.)

Task resolution - do I get my foreseen effect? Play lies in whether effects collectively compell outcomes I want. Play is found in the to-and-fro or cut-and-thrust of cleverly chosen effects, with roshambo-interactions and odds as complications. Failure discounts the effect without refunding its price.

Conflict resolution - do I get my chosen outcome. Play lies in whether I can massage fictional-position to legitimate choosing that outcome. Play is found in clever roleplay that carries the group along with the story I'm telling. Complications nudge my story onto a different track. Failure gives someone else control of the story.

I appreciate that this will not be quite right, but wanted to take a cut at it to see how it looks written down? A side-notion I wanted to test is that looking for the same three-tier results index for TR as CR is either a mistake or produces a hybrid, as what is available and appropriate to complicate ought to differ.

 

[hawkeyefan]

My bigger issue here is that this sort of game, in constantly driving toward conflict, is also pulling away from realism in that reality has moments of anti-climax and times when the next move isn't obvious to anyone. Why not have this reflec tin play now and then?

Because interesting is more important than “real”.

 

[clearstream]

Because interesting is more important than “real”.

Because to some interesting is more important, while to others, only at no cost to their sense of real. Maybe. Suspension of disbelief.

That said, previous discussion makes me feel that rather than being a trade off or leaning, it's more how folk measure "interesting" and "real" for themselves.

 

[Lanefan]

Because to some interesting is more important, while to others, only at no cost to their sense of real. Maybe. Suspension of disbelief.

That said, previous discussion makes me feel that rather than being a trade off or leaning, it's more how folk measure "interesting" and "real" for themselves.

This.

For some of us, making the game world seem at least somewhat real is where (much of) the interest lies.

 

[Aldarc]

My bigger issue here is that this sort of game, in constantly driving toward conflict, is also pulling away from realism in that reality has moments of anti-climax and times when the next move isn't obvious to anyone. Why not have this reflec tin play now and then?

I don't think that any notion of reality or simulating realism is the goal of play for these games. I don't think that these games share your proclivities, aesthetics, or preferences regarding realism.

How is it that something interesting is always happening in an episode of Star Trek? Or Game of Thrones? Or Breaking Bad? Or even The Office? That's not realisitic! Of course not. Television shows, for example, don't particularly care about "reality" per se. What they care about is character drama. Things always happen. Their lives are filled with dramatic moments and action. Lulls in their lives are often skipped over in favor of dramatic ones because we are interested in seeing how the characters react to complications or situations. Do these shows feel less real? Maybe, but that's not why we are watching them. And yet these worlds do feel real enough for many people watching.

Likewise the goal of play in many of the games being discussed is character drama (and often emulation). For example, games like Blades in the Dark are not about simulating any realism of being a criminal. Instead, it's interested in emulating the feeling of being a criminal in a gang and how play generates character drama around that. When we pick up the dice, that means something there is uncertainty. There are often stakes involved. There are interesting consequences involved.

This.

For some of us, making the game world seem at least somewhat real is where (much of) the interest lies.

That point where "somewhere real" lies is not a science and it varies from person to person. Moreover, it's not as high of a priority for other people and roleplaying games.

 

[pemerton]

Does this mean that player knowledge can never be faulty - they're sure the dirt's in the safe but they've been misled all along?

As I said, A knows that p entails p.

And A knows that p is not a synonym for A believes that p.

Gettier, essentially. The presumed JtB that the dirt is in the safe turns out not to be robust.

@FrogReaver said "knowledge", not "justified true belief". But even if the players merely had a justified true belief, in so far as it is true, that would entail that it was not false and hence was not amenable to being contradicted by "facts".

Which suggests your player is metagaming, in that the character - being on the other side of town - would have no way of knowing the captive had escaped!

The character doesn't know. The player does, because it's an interesting thing that has happened. It generates pressure in play - will George tell people about the Death Art workshop that he escaped from? It is something to be built on in future narration.

My bigger issue here is that this sort of game, in constantly driving toward conflict, is also pulling away from realism in that reality has moments of anti-climax and times when the next move isn't obvious to anyone. Why not have this reflec tin play now and then?

The anti-climactic things can all be assumed to happen off-screen. In our play, we only focus on the interesting and exciting things.

For some of us, making the game world seem at least somewhat real is where (much of) the interest lies.

As I've often posted, I will put the vibrancy, verisimilitude and depth of my gameworlds up against anyone else's posting in these threads.

On this occasion, you can read the actual play here if you like. It is also illustrative of what very low myth play can look like.

 

[clearstream]

As I said, A knows that p entails p.

And A knows that p is not a synonym for A believes that p.

@FrogReaver said "knowledge", not "justified true belief". But even if the players merely had a justified true belief, in so far as it is true, that would entail that it was not false and hence was not amenable to being contradicted by "facts".

My line of thought is that if "knowledge", "to know", or "knowing" is an undefeated relationship between truth and belief, then we have to be both sure of that relationship (@FrogReaver's case, possibly) and sure that it will go on being undefeated. But norms and mechanisms of play can act against any guarantee that the relationship will remain undefeated.

Players would I suppose need to possess an unchallengeable right of assertion, so that A asserts that p entails p. This can be got around simply by ensuring that p does not become entrained in intent (or removing its entrainement.) Suppose in the example, participants have committed to not defeating the relationship between truth and belief: that forces it's removal.

Player: "You never held controlling shares in Miltech Industries... they were left to Rose!" Raises​

Supervillain: "Ha, you'll never prove it. You don't have the Will." Sees and raises​

Player: "Oh yeah? How about..." - describes throwing open the safe that's here in the Matriarch's office - "right here?!" Sees and raises​

Supervillain: Chuckles "You might want to read her new Will!!" - GM can't describe the safe as empty, so describes it containing two Wills instead Sees and raises (reversal)​

Player: "What the....!?" Can't match the reversal so Supervillain keeps their shares unless player escalates...​

I think this isn't a debate about knowledge, but one about right of assertion. In previous conversations I've argued that imaginary facts are simply those pieces of fiction asserted by whoever has the right to do so. I'm suggesting that's at play here, rather than what I would call strictly speaking knowledge. The ongoing development of our shared fiction seems to me to make the latter doubtful.

Is committing to the Will's presence in the safe equal to committing to it mattering (decisively) to the resolution? I think no, not when the resolution itself is going to decide whose intent prevails.

 

[clearstream]

As I've often posted, I will put the vibrancy, verisimilitude and depth of my gameworlds up against anyone else's posting in these threads.

On this occasion, you can read the actual play here if you like. It is also illustrative of what very low myth play can look like.

As an explanatory note, it was in view of your earlier claims and examples that I added that

previous discussion makes me feel that rather than being a trade off or leaning, it's more how folk measure "interesting" and "real" for themselves.

I'm saying then that it's what counts as interesting and real that matters, not necessarily any trade-off of one for the other. @Lanefan said that lacunae felt realer and more interesting to them. It's hard to see how one can dispute that, barring contradicting testimony from the poster themselves.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So I totally agree that game should be focusing on "interesting stuff" but at least to me for the interesting stuff to be entertaining, I have to buy into it's "realness" in some sense. This of course is true with other media too. And in stories about fantastic it is not about "realism" per se, it is about plausibility. And story doesn't necessarily need to make any obvious contradictions for me to lose belief in it. Sometimes the events, whilst in strict logical sense possible, seem so contrived or convenient that it draws attention the artificiality. What I rather like in RPGs, is that they often defy the expected narrative structures that make many other stories predictable or even stale. In an RPG it is not guaranteed that the hero will make it in the last minute or that the most dramatically appropriate thing will happen in general. And that makes them interesting.

 

[clearstream]

So I totally agree that game should be focusing on "interesting stuff" but at least to me for the interesting stuff to be entertaining, I have to buy into it's "realness" in some sense. This of course is true with other media too. And in stories about fantastic it is not about "realism" per se, it is about plausibility. And story doesn't necessarily need to make any obvious contradictions for me to lose belief in it. Sometimes the events, whilst in strict logical sense possible, seem so contrived or convenient that it draws attention the artificiality. What I rather like in RPGs, is that they often defy the expected narrative structures that make many other stories predictable or even stale. In an RPG it is not guaranteed that the hero will make it in the last minute or that the most dramatically appropriate thing will happen in general. And that makes them interesting.

This gets at why I sometimes use the label "dramatic narrativism" to describe some games, rather than bare "narrativism". I picture neighbouring modes such as "lyrical narrativism", which would entertain the lyrically rather than dramatically appropriate.