RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[FrogReaver]

It also doesn't establish any conflict.

The conflict arises when the players declare We try and stop them!

Can't say I agree here. In the 'goblins attack the tavern' scenario, Conflict (not combat) is happening regardless of what the players do. They can hide, run, fight, negotiate, etc. All of those are responses to the conflict - and all presumably will have repercussions to the emerging fiction.

Now we have two competing conceptions of the fiction: (i) the goblins sack the tavern; (ii) the PCs defeat the goblins before they can sack the tavern. Which prevails? If that is done simply by assertion and counter-assertion - say, as per round-robin storytelling - then I don't think we will get very exciting play.

Even if the players say 'we try and stop them!', that's not a competing conception of fiction because there's nothing it's competing against! True, the outcome is uncertain, and thus the 'try', but no where did the players propose 'we actually stop the goblins'. In D&D that part would be played to find out what happens. Do they stop the goblins, any casualties, what damage did the goblins cause to the town, any NPC's killed, etc?

I think the misalignment is here - Having multiple possible outcomes is not the same as having competing conceptions of the fiction.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

"Competing conceptions of fiction" is again one of those weird ways to phrase things that confuse people. I think I finally get what @pemerton means by it, but it is not how I'd express things. I wouldn't call a situation in a game having several potential outcomes "competing conceptions of fiction" any more than I would call a situation in real life having several possible outcomes "competing conceptions of reality."

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Even in battle-map resolution, as soon as someone asks "How high is the hedge?", with an eye to taking cover behind it while shooting over it, they have moved the space of resolution into the fiction. (This is the combat analogue of my example, upthread, of the tall PC carrying the short PC through the pool of water.)

Yes, assuming that this was not information marked on the map. But the point is that people can play long stretches without needing to resolve things via fiction this way. Same is true when the players are just talking in character.

A game with no fiction mattering to resolution is not a RPG. That's all the OP is saying.

As a statement about the game as a whole, sure, probably true. (Well, it could be a computer RPG, or a certain kind of a LARP.) But act of roleplaying is not dependent of resolution via fiction, and games can contain long stretches of roleplay without such resolution via fiction occurring.

I don't think it's a radical claim in itself, but it has implications for design, and for the analysis of play, that are not always recognised.

Such as?

 

[clearstream]

You are talking about assent to rules. But the location of the pieces in chess is a geometric state of affairs, which can be described independently of the rules for making moves.

I am talking about assent to the fictional position. This is distinct from assent to the rules. I can describe my fictional position without us knowing what the resolution rules are. (Here's a blog post where Vincent does that, and then works through some implications of this being possible.)

At this point I've read most of anyway, and I recall that post. It describes a process near-identical to the creation of my rules-lite or what could now be called FKR. Albeit I used karma not coin flips. I would encourage others to try play starting from no system. PvP is assumed to be in.

There's these sorts of cases you get to

Someone can just say it (they have control in this recognisable moment)​

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Multiple people can say it (you need a way to choose, that lets folk recognise when they'll get to choose.. you can see how a karma system emerges from this)​

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Whoever says X has control (you need to know how to recognise X and you want recognisable moments when X is live)​

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No one has control (people add to the fiction things they hope will lead to one of the recognisable cases above)​

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One reason PvP is a good assumption is GM can play with rights very similar to players. They're maintaining world and an extended cast, but when a player says the right thing at the right time that's that. And you want them to sometimes be wrong, so some world and cast things are known from time to time only by GM. (Remember this evolved into a karma system, so no one is wrong just because the die showed 1. In fate systems, GM can disavow hidden information before fate, and take roll to prompt its creation.)

You might recall a few threads back that I made a point out of what above I've characterised here as recognising. I wrote about matching candidate descriptions to norms/rules. That is, identifying fiction as being like F, where F has meaning in our process of play. That's in large part because of this immeasurable quality of fiction. Take Baker's example of "when my kids are present". It's recognisable, right? Consider how Gettier problems might apply though. Is anyone allowed to put in a scene someone who looks like one of their kids, but isn't? It's easy to see that fiction doesn't present us with neatly parameterised cases, so our rules need a way to catch them. Fiction-First PbtA moves do exactly that (when someone says something like this, do this...)

In the sorts of cases Baker describes, what's needed for play is a thumb on the scale. He talks about this... the ur-case is something like

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Anyone can introduce conflicting fictions, and background social contracts or status, or aesthetic, rhetorical and other appeals, produces assent (or doesn't, and play falls apart)​

This is why I write about goals of game design including alleviating negotiation, because we want the rogue to say "I slip in undetected" and be right.

That anyway blog post you draw attention to is an important one. So much of the rest is built upon it.

 

[pemerton]

Can't say I agree here. In the 'goblins attack the tavern' scenario, Conflict (not combat) is happening regardless of what the players do.

What is the conflict in "the goblins attack the tavern"?

Maybe the PCs yell out to the attackers "Knock yourselves out!" as they head off. Maybe they join in. Conflict requires opposition to the protagonists - the goblins attack the tavern doesn't involve any conflict, as we don't yet have any protagonist goals (such as defend the tavern).

They can hide, run, fight, negotiate, etc. All of those are responses to the conflict - and all presumably will have repercussions to the emerging fiction.

Suppose the players declare that their PCs run from the attacking goblins - where is the conflict? Who or what is opposing the PCs?

I mean, the GM can "assert" goblins attack the tavern. And then the players "assert" we - the PCs - run away. The fiction will change, but I don't think this is very compelling fiction, nor very compelling RPG play. There is no conflict - no opposition to the protagonists' goals.

Even if the players say 'we try and stop them!', that's not a competing conception of fiction because there's nothing it's competing against! True, the outcome is uncertain, and thus the 'try', but no where did the players propose 'we actually stop the goblins'. In D&D that part would be played to find out what happens. Do they stop the goblins, any casualties, what damage did the goblins cause to the town, any NPC's killed, etc?

I think the misalignment is here - Having multiple possible outcomes is not the same as having competing conceptions of the fiction.

The fiction is just that - fiction. So there are no real possibilities. There are different ideas about what might happen next. Those are the competing conceptions: "conceptions" here is a synonym of "idea"; and they are competing because their difference means they can't both be accepted by the participants as what happened next.

 

[pemerton]

"Competing conceptions of fiction" is again one of those weird ways to phrase things that confuse people. I think I finally get what @pemerton means by it, but it is not how I'd express things. I wouldn't call a situation in a game having several potential outcomes "competing conceptions of fiction" any more than I would call a situation in real life having several possible outcomes "competing conceptions of reality."

See just above: there are no real causal processes, no real uncertainty. It is all made up, and so someone has to do the making up.

Thus, the situation doesn't itself have several potential outcomes, like a roll of a die in the real world does. Rather, those imaging the situation can imagine various things that might come next.

Suppose that everyone at the table can only think of one way things might go, then presumably they will all agree to that. But in the case of We will stop the goblins! clearly the players are suggesting that there is an alternative way things might go, from how the GM has suggested they might go (ie the goblins sacking the tavern).

These are different ideas as to what might happen next, and both can't be true in the same fiction (assuming its not absurd or surreal).

This is why I say there are implications for design and for the analysis of play. Once we see that what is going on is not discovering which possible outcome is the actual one (which is a thing we do in the real world) but rather determining which of the differing ideas (= competing conceptions) about what happens next is the one we will all agree on (which is how shared fictions work), we can see different ways this might be done, better understand how we are doing it at our table, etc.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, assuming that this was not information marked on the map. But the point is that people can play long stretches without needing to resolve things via fiction this way. Same is true when the players are just talking in character.


As a statement about the game as a whole, sure, probably true. (Well, it could be a computer RPG, or a certain kind of a LARP.) But act of roleplaying is not dependent of resolution via fiction, and games can contain long stretches of roleplay without such resolution via fiction occurring.

I don't know why you say "the players talking in character" is not resolution via the fiction. When a player talks in character, they produce a bit of fiction. When another player responds in character, they are taking that earlier bit of fiction and building on it.

I mean, suppose that someone who didn't know the group was RPGing walked into the room, and heard one person telling another about how they're going to lend them a sword so that the borrower can get revenge on their nemesis. And the walker-inner expresses shock that these people are sitting around casually planning a murder! The players explain, "No, we're just roleplaying, it's pretend. That wasn't us, it was our characters talking."

That's fiction, and shared imagination.

 

[clearstream]

See just above: there are no real causal processes, no real uncertainty. It is all made up, and so someone has to do the making up.

Thus, the situation doesn't itself have several potential outcomes, like a roll of a die in the real world does. Rather, those imaging the situation can imagine various things that might come next.

Suppose that everyone at the table can only think of one way things might go, then presumably they will all agree to that. But in the case of We will stop the goblins! clearly the players are suggesting that there is an alternative way things might go, from how the GM has suggested they might go (ie the goblins sacking the tavern).

These are different ideas as to what might happen next, and both can't be true in the same fiction (assuming its not absurd or surreal).

This is why I say there are implications for design and for the analysis of play. Once we see that what is going on is not discovering which possible outcome is the actual one (which is a thing we do in the real world) but rather determining which of the differing ideas (= competing conceptions) about what happens next is the one we will all agree on (which is how shared fictions work), we can see different ways this might be done, better understand how we are doing it at our table, etc.

This feels related to notions about "task" versus "conflict" resolution. Orienting to the latter leads intuitions toward negotiation. Toward the former, assertion.

 

[pemerton]

This feels related to notions about "task" versus "conflict" resolution. Orienting to the latter leads intuitions toward negotiation. Toward the former, assertion.

I don't think so.

If the task is I forge a sword, then "assertion" would mean that it's done.

A system of "assertion" and nothing more doesn't require resolution mechanics. It just consists in the various participants asserting the stuff they're permitted to assert, perhaps ad hoc or perhaps in accordance with some structure or rules for prompts (eg I can't make an assertion about my "things" until you make an assertion that in some appropriate fashion "touches on" my "things").

 

[clearstream]

I don't think so.

If the task is I forge a sword, then "assertion" would mean that it's done.

That's inaccurate: it's I attempt to forge a sword. Possibly better language is "action" versus "outcome" resolution. In one, I assert my action - I'm for sure forging away there. In the other, I'm proposing an outcome - I aim to have a sword. Baker in fact describes this distinction, including that the actions leading to the outcome may be yet to be narrated. Systems like Paragon leverage that.

A system of "assertion" and nothing more doesn't require resolution mechanics. It just consists in the various participants asserting the stuff they're permitted to assert, perhaps ad hoc or perhaps in accordance with some structure or rules for prompts (eg I can't make an assertion about my "things" until you make an assertion that in some appropriate fashion "touches on" my "things").

I can't agree here. Hopefully the above indicates why.