RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[Manbearcat]

I'm running The Between right now for @Campbell , @hawkeyefan , and another friend. Last week's session saw (obviously amongst other things):

* Campbell using his Janus Mask (a thematic resource track in the game which is akin to Resist + Trauma in Blades) to stipulate the death of an NPC offscreen by his PC.

* hawkeyefan stipulating a Clue about a Threat on a move he made via a recovery move called The Vulnerable.

* Myself framing scenes (a front-door situation with an NPC disenchanted with Hargrave House, the monster-hunter PCs' domain, because it produced a serial killer who slew his brother > whose remains were never found > his still-grieving mother is about to pass without putting her son formally to rest), framing consequences (a "shame mob" assembled in front of Hargrave House after that prior confrontation turned bad), and picking a location off the cuff (Zebediah's Pawnshop) and an NPC (Zebediah) to become a Side Character to further the investigation of another Clue that Campbell discovered in the prior Night Phase.


Any/all of these moments of play, from stipulation/framing to mechanical resolution to compliance with those results, require negotiation whether that negotiation merely comes in the form of individual participants or the collective performing a credibility test for what is framed/stipulated or compliance audit with mechanical resolution. Just because the performed credibility test is (a) operationalized in a rote or autonomic fashion (pick your description) and (b) is passive/silent because the credibility test/compliance audit passes muster doesn't mean it ceases to exist. It just means the participants and the play cohere at a high rate which makes the test/check mostly seamless or unobtrusive.

 

[clearstream]

It appearas that this assumption here in bold is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your argument.

Picture I am having a conversation with Jo-interlocutor about roleplaying in which we are happily proceeding with the word "negotiation". However, I have in mind merely traversal while Jo-interlocutor is thinking about agreement that is contingent in the moment. This would require additional querying for us to understand what each other is talking about.

 

[clearstream]

I'm running The Between right now for @Campbell , @hawkeyefan , and another friend. Last week's session saw (obviously amongst other things):

* Campbell using his Janus Mask (a thematic resource track in the game which is akin to Resist + Trauma in Blades) to stipulate the death of an NPC offscreen by his PC.

* hawkeyefan stipulating a Clue about a Threat on a move he made via a recovery move called The Vulnerable.

* Myself framing scenes (a front-door situation with an NPC disenchanted with Hargrave House, the monster-hunter PCs' domain, because it produced a serial killer who slew his brother > whose remains were never found > his still-grieving mother is about to pass without putting her son formally to rest), framing consequences (a "shame mob" assembled in front of Hargrave House after that prior confrontation turned bad), and picking a location off the cuff (Zebediah's Pawnshop) and an NPC (Zebediah) to become a Side Character to further the investigation of another Clue that Campbell discovered in the prior Night Phase.


Any/all of these moments of play, from stipulation/framing to mechanical resolution to compliance with those results, require negotiation whether that negotiation merely comes in the form of individual participants or the collective performing a credibility test for what is framed/stipulated or compliance audit with mechanical resolution. Just because the performed credibility test is (a) operationalized in a rote or autonomic fashion (pick your description) and (b) is passive/silent because the credibility test/compliance audit passes muster doesn't mean it ceases to exist. It just means the participants and the play cohere at a high rate which makes the test/check mostly seamless or unobtrusive.

This illustrates my suggestion up thread that the connotations of "negotiation" will better describe the desirable norms or expectations of some modes of play, e.g. PbtA.


EDIT Actually, let me explain that a bit. Point b) and the sentence following describe what I've called up-thread the implicit or potential for negotiation in every moment of play. But this is akin to noting the implicit or potential for magic-circle shattering argument in every moment of play, or the potential for us to don clown-suits and proceed in mime for the rest of the session. It doesn't seem helpful to me to describe things in terms of what they could be - I wouldn't describe a rock at rest as a rock that is "rolling" because it could roll even if it doesn't happening to be doing so right now. However, the lusory-attitude expected of players does matter. So it is quite right to have an attitude of awareness of the potential for, and openess to, negotiation in some modes of play, just as for some physical descriptions of a rock it would be quite right to keep in mind its potential to roll even while at rest. Yet that same lusory-attitude can be irrelevant or even disruptive to other modes of play.

 

[Aldarc]

Picture I am having a conversation with Jo-interlocutor about roleplaying in which we are happily proceeding with the word "negotiation". However, I have in mind merely traversal while Jo-interlocutor is thinking about agreement that is contingent in the moment. This would require additional querying for us to understand what each other is talking about.

Imagine if we were having a conversation in which we have varied understandings and different imaginings of the words that we were using. As it turns out, this is called standard discourse. Even if we are operating off different understandings, this sort of "additional querying" is not actually required in common parlance.

Moreover, we don't necessarily need additional querying for us to ask and understand what Baker is getting at because he explains his understanding of what he means by "negotiated imagination." So yeah, if we understand what he means by his argument and terms, then the person who disagrees with his use of "negotiation" or "negotiated" is indeed the one who is playing at semantics.

 

[Pedantic]

Imagine if we were having a conversation in which we have varied understandings and different imaginings of the words that we were using. As it turns out, this is called standard discourse. Even if we are operating off different understandings, this sort of "additional querying" is not actually required in common parlance.

Moreover, we don't necessarily need additional querying for us to ask and understand what Baker is getting at because he explains his understanding of what he means by "negotiated imagination." So yeah, if we understand what he means by his argument and terms, then the person who disagrees with his use of "negotiation" or "negotiated" is indeed the one who is playing at semantics.

We're actually have a lumping/splitting disagreement, not a semantic one, though we got here from semantics. Baker is asserting a bunch of things belong in the category "negotiation" and are fundamentally the same. The disagreement is that some things do not belong in that category and are not the same. His usage of the term is perfectly clear, but the reason for his usage of the term and the rhetorical purpose it serves is the point of contention.

 

[clearstream]

Imagine if we were having a conversation in which we have varied understandings and different imaginings of the words that we were using. As it turns out, this is called standard discourse. Even if we are operating off different understandings, this sort of "additional querying" is not actually required in common parlance.

Moreover, we don't necessarily need additional querying for us to ask and understand what Baker is getting at because he explains his understanding of what he means by "negotiated imagination." So yeah, if we understand what he means by his argument and terms, then the person who disagrees with his use of "negotiation" or "negotiated" is indeed the one who is playing at semantics.

Pages of debate in this thread demonstrate that we do necessarily need said additional querying.

 

[FrogReaver]

We're actually have a lumping/splitting disagreement, not a semantic one, though we got here from semantics. Baker is asserting a bunch of things belong in the category "negotiation" and are fundamentally the same. The disagreement is that some things do not belong in that category and are not the same. His usage of the term is perfectly clear, but the reason for his usage of the term and the rhetorical purpose it serves is the point of contention.

I dunno what lumping/splitting disagreement means.

 

[clearstream]

We're actually have a lumping/splitting disagreement, not a semantic one, though we got here from semantics. Baker is asserting a bunch of things belong in the category "negotiation" and are fundamentally the same. The disagreement is that some things do not belong in that category and are not the same. His usage of the term is perfectly clear, but the reason for his usage of the term and the rhetorical purpose it serves is the point of contention.

That's right, with the modest tweak that I get the impression that folk in the thread see that "negotiation" has multiple connotations that are not the same. And because of that semantic loading, the "usage of the term and the rhetorical purpose it serves is the point of contention", as you say.

 

[Manbearcat]

This illustrates my suggestion up thread that the connotations of "negotiation" will better describe the desirable norms or expectations of some modes of play, e.g. PbtA.


EDIT Actually, let me explain that a bit. Point b) and the sentence following describe what I've called up-thread the implicit or potential for negotiation in every moment of play. But this is akin to noting the implicit or potential for magic-circle shattering argument in every moment of play, or the potential for us to don clown-suits and proceed in mime for the rest of the session. It doesn't seem helpful to me to describe things in terms of what they could be - I wouldn't describe a rock at rest as a rock that is "rolling" because it could roll even if it doesn't happening to be doing so right now. However, the lusory-attitude expected of players does matter. So it is quite right to have an attitude of awareness of the potential for, and openess to, negotiation in some modes of play, just as for some physical descriptions of a rock it would be quite right to keep in mind its potential to roll even while at rest. Yet that same lusory-attitude can be irrelevant or even disruptive to other modes of play.

The exact same thing I'm depicting happens in D&D all the time whether it be turn-based combat or freeform roleplay:

TURN-BASED COMBAT

* The thatched-roof cottage is on fire from the Red Dragon's breath? Is the nearby cistern on slight elevation compared to the cottage? Wooden legs? Any rot? Will a well-placed arrow knock it from its foundation and spread water onto the cottage?

* Is the Reach of this NPC qualify as "Threatening" for where I'm at? If I move away will it provoke an opportunity attack?

* Can I use my Fireball like a concussive blast of displaced air right nearby the hobgoblin phalanx to cow them into parley? Like in a "I don't have to miss" kind of moment? Maybe get out of combat and get Advantage in a Social Interaction exchange?


FREEFORM ROLEPLAY

* Summon any conversation around 5e Background Traits like the ample one we had with @hawkeyefan 's Folk Hero.

* If I heave my maul overhead and sling it end over end at the roof of the cave's mouth, can I start a cave-in to prevent or slow the advance of the pyroclasm into our chamber?

* GM gets a weird result on NPC Reaction Roll and has to make up details that complies with the weird result. This may or may not open up previously unforeseen lines of play socially for PCs so we have to perform a credibility test when one or more of those prospects are brought to bear upon the gamestate.

 

[Pedantic]

I dunno what lumping/splitting disagreement means.

It's a recurring argument in most fields that have taxonomy. You tend to end up with "lumpers" who will view items as being more defined by a similarity, and "splitters" who will view push for more exacting definitions that separate more items. A classic example is whether science fiction and fantasy are meaningfully separate genres; is it more significant that both deal with plot elements that lie outside contemporary reality, or that the source of those plot elements is different?

I'm saying this is the same kind of problem, and the lumping position here is being used to serve the rhetorical purpose of narrowing RPG play down to one thing.