RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[Thomas Shey]

I’m not! I’ve described how posts seem and I’m asking for a better interpretation than how they seem. I specifically said I don’t want to assume anyone is being disingenuous.

I’m trying to figure out what else it could be.

Its pretty simple; their perception of what you're talking about and the meaning of the word to their perceptions don't match up. What more is needed?

 

[FrogReaver]

I’m not! I’ve described how posts seem and I’m asking for a better interpretation than how they seem. I specifically said I don’t want to assume anyone is being disingenuous.

I’m trying to figure out what else it could be.

That explanation has been provided countless times now.

 

[Campbell]

Baker's starting point is freeform roleplaying where we start with a conversation/negotiation and then add structure to that conversation/negotiation. No particular authority structures, roles or rules are an assumed part. The idea is that no set of rules overrides what we are doing in the baseline activity, only that they provide a structure for how we go about it. Which allows room for all sorts of ways that a roleplaying game can be designed and played.

I think this framework of how we roleplay outside of the structure of any given roleplaying game is important in order to look at what we are doing with clear eyes.

Addendum: Baker's perspective on this comes from his own extensive experience as part of an extended freeform game that started as an Ars Magica game but left the actual game behind once the rules served no more purpose for the group. That game did not involve a single GM, but a more group distributed GM role.

 

[clearstream]

Yes, when a player declares an action, there is some goal. The goal of the action is not to try something, the goal is to achieve something. So they declare "I want to climb the wall" and we know the goal is to get to the top of the wall.

Modes of play differ on this. We use the somewhat unideal concepts of "task resolution" and "conflict resolution" to get at the difference. With the former, players are limited to declaring what their characters try to do. With the latter, players are encouraged to say what their characters aim to achieve. Players can also have lists of fiats: things they can simply make true because a rule says they can make it true. There's no difference between attempt and intent, in the case of fiats: it just happens.

The DM then has to determine if there's uncertainty and if so, determine a DC and call for a roll.

That process is how success or failure is worked out. It's not that both parties are somehow unaware of the process. The player knows a declared action that involves uncertainty will most likely require a roll.

That's all negotiation means in this sense. How do we work out X? How do the rules help us to determine the outcome of uncertain events.

I agree that there are moments of roleplay in which there is negotiation, whether or not the case you outline describes one.

In the case where someone simply declares that something is true, it's still subject to the rules. Baker addresses this by pointing out that participants are allowed to declare truths in specific cases... the GM very often to convey information about the world ("There's a big chasm before you, with a rickety rope bridge swaying in the wind, running to the far side") or the players about their characters ("Rolf has a beard and a wild mane of red hair" or "Rolf hails from the northern islands" and so on).

I agree that it is subject to the rules. I do not call "being subject to rules" negotiation, and I'm mindful that following rules requires agreements entered into by some means outside those rules.

That's all still worked out. It's still subject to the rules. It's in the way the game is designed, or it's in the way that the participants have agreed to play it. Neither the GM nor player can simply declare anything at anytime... they're subject to restrictions (though the GM will generally have far fewer than the player).

Restrictions may form part of a negotiation, and may exist in the absence of negotiation.

I mean... bringing two or more parties into agreement. All this balking about the word negotiation... I really don't get it. We all know what it means. We can all clearly see it applies.

As I think I keep reiterating, I do not observe negotiation in every moment of roleplaying. The parties may be brought into an agreement at time T that obviates negotiation at times T1, T2, etc. Baker provides an example of this.

So the objection to negotiation being used to describe the process of play seems to revolve around the idea that not every single thing we do when playing is strictly a negotiation. That Step B doesn't involve negotiation, therefore we're not always negotiating, therefore the label is inaccurate.

Which is just silly. Not everything we do when playing RPGs is roleplaying, yet we don't hesitate to apply that label. When I'm subtracting hit points from my total, I'm doing math, not roleplaying. Going by the logic being used to deny play is negotiation, it seems we need to find a new name for the hobby!

We do not negotiate in every moment of roleplaying. We do negotiate in some moments of roleplaying. As for which moments count as roleplaying, while it is open to claim that only moments in which there is negotiation count as roleplaying, that is a stony path that will lead nowhere fruitful.

I assume you mean that my claim that it’s obvious to all and that folks aren’t being disingenuous cannot both be true.

But yet when you remove the word negotiation… when we simply describe the process using other words… everyone seems to agree.

What job do you think principles and agenda are doing, in respect to agreement at later moments of play? I ask because either no one has answered this (I have asked twice before) or alternatively you did answer, and you said roughly that you would count them as elements of negotiation... which I'm saying thus obviate negotiation in some later moments, per Baker's example.

 

[clearstream]

I think this framework of how we roleplay outside of the structure of any given roleplaying game is important in order to look at what we are doing with clear eyes.

Reading that, I had a notion that perhaps it is the G more than the RP that introduces moments of negotiation.

Suppose I am alone in a room, and decide to pretend to be President Lincoln. I do my best to roleplay the President going through his morning ritual. Later, I pretend to be someone else, a whimsical fairy finding herself in a strange place.

I'm alone. I'm playing at roles, yet can it really be said that there is any "negotiation" going on?

I think negotiation enters the picture once I want to roleplay in a structured way with other people, and then it is dependent on how we arrange ourselves (which itself can be down to negotiation) and is circumstantial (e.g. less often arising under arrangements with high ownership).

 

[clearstream]

I feel like I am presented with two graphs of play

a) A flat line, along which every point contains an equal dollop of negotiation.​

​

b) A bumpy line, along which the amount of negotiation in each point varies (from none)​

And I am asked to choose between different ideas about the binding effects of agreements

i. Agreements made on Monday can't prevail on Tuesday: negotiation is needed every day​

​

ii. Agreements made on Monday can prevail on Tuesday: negotiation isn't needed on days where Monday's agreements hold, yet there can still be days on which negotiation is required and which may be framed by Monday's agreements​

​

I find the bumpy line with prior agrements prevailing at later moments - b) ii. - better matches what I observe in multiple modes of play. It seems more interesting, too: producing more ways to structure play and negotiation. It elucidates the job done by principles and agenda agreed up front.

 

[clearstream]

Baker's starting point is freeform roleplaying where we start with a conversation/negotiation and then add structure to that conversation/negotiation. No particular authority structures, roles or rules are an assumed part. The idea is that no set of rules overrides what we are doing in the baseline activity, only that they provide a structure for how we go about it. Which allows room for all sorts of ways that a roleplaying game can be designed and played.

This description makes me think of another connotation of "negotiate" which is when we "negotiate a rocky cliff face" or "negotiate an obstacle course". Nothing on the cliff face is open to my agreement or disagreement: the ancient granite is as it is. What I can control are my own actions, solely. Similarly, in RPG we negotiate the rules and one another's acts. (In this sense we can negotiate the rules themselves, and we can use the rules to negotiate one another's acts.)

I suppose a problem with applying negotiation with that sense in mind, is the semantic loading. The word could still be meant or interpreted to always include contingent agreement? I don't deeply object to the word - I get why some folk like it - yet it just doesn't quite capture what is going on for me, as perhaps I've shed more light on above.

 

[FrogReaver]

This description makes me think of another connotation of "negotiate" which is when we "negotiate a rocky cliff face" or "negotiate an obstacle course". Nothing on the cliff face is open to my agreement or disagreement: the ancient granite is as it is. What I can control are my own actions, solely. Similarly, in RPG we negotiate the rules and one another's acts. (In this sense we can negotiate the rules themselves, and we can use the rules to negotiate one another's acts.)

I suppose a problem with applying negotiation with that sense in mind, is the semantic loading. The word could still be meant or interpreted to always include contingent agreement? I don't deeply object to the word - I get why some folk like it - yet it just doesn't quite capture what is going on for me, as perhaps I've shed more light on above.

I was on board with the ‘traverse’ definition you mention above. @pemerton explicitly said that’s not what he meant though.

 

[FrogReaver]

Baker's starting point is freeform roleplaying where we start with a conversation/negotiation and then add structure to that conversation/negotiation. No particular authority structures, roles or rules are an assumed part. The idea is that no set of rules overrides what we are doing in the baseline activity, only that they provide a structure for how we go about it. Which allows room for all sorts of ways that a roleplaying game can be designed and played.

I think this framework of how we roleplay outside of the structure of any given roleplaying game is important in order to look at what we are doing with clear eyes.

Addendum: Baker's perspective on this comes from his own extensive experience as part of an extended freeform game that started as an Ars Magica game but left the actual game behind once the rules served no more purpose for the group. That game did not involve a single GM, but a more group distributed GM role.

The context helps. If everyone was framing it this way I wouldn’t really object. In Freeform roleplay with multiple people you’ve got to negotiate during the game due to lack of pre-negotiated rules governing what can be said by whom and when.

That said I often observe Freeform roleplay actually functions more as improv (is improv roleplay?). In that sense there are some mostly universal rules around it - you must give others the opportunity to share and you don’t outright negate a fictional element another player has added. Maybe these are simply the basics of play that our momma’s all taught us from a very young age. So it’s easy to overlook them, but they are present even here and thus are part of our social contract with others.

 

[FrogReaver]

Reading that, I had a notion that perhaps it is the G more than the RP that introduces moments of negotiation.

Suppose I am alone in a room, and decide to pretend to be President Lincoln. I do my best to roleplay the President going through his morning ritual. Later, I pretend to be someone else, a whimsical fairy finding herself in a strange place.

I'm alone. I'm playing at roles, yet can it really be said that there is any "negotiation" going on?

I think negotiation enters the picture once I want to roleplay in a structured way with other people, and then it is dependent on how we arrange ourselves (which itself can be down to negotiation) and is circumstantial (e.g. less often arising under arrangements with high ownership).

IMO. Roleplay is a game - even when done alone. But you are right to note that introducing more people either requires negotiation in the moment or pre-negotiation in order to play together at all. This is true of any game though, not just ttrpgs. Ttrpgs typically require more moment to moment agreement and thus it’s more apparent in relation to them.

There’s also the part that since we were little we have all been taught how to play with others. Those ingrained rules also apply toward roleplay in absence of other rules. Which means I doubt there are no pre-negotiated rules - they are just so ingrained we don’t notice them.