Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9221225" data-attributes="member: 71699">(Emphasis mine.) I have been thinking about this prompted by [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER]'s <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/rpging-and-imagination-a-fundamental-point.701162/post-9220867" target="_blank">#555</a> which I found to be a good post.I'd like to turn folks' minds to the idea that the fictional component of TTRPG game states are never fully in sync. Further, they are each incomplete sketches. Each participant maintains an incomplete sketch of the fictional state that corresponds on a few key details to others.An example is to read a transcript of play such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQE4vfdNRiE" target="_blank">Dolmenwood ep 03 night and morning at the ruins of an abbey</a>. At one point player characters are "loudly complaining about the night's sleep". But no one says what those words in fact are. That's a detail that won't get filled in. It's entirely possible in this case that one player pictures blowing on their hands and grumbling about the cold, a second imagines instead that they're stretching their back ands commenting on the stony ground, while a third has nothing particular in mind for that at all. We're more than capable of unravelling details as needed, but in this case never discover what "complaining" truly amounted to.Later the same morning characters encounter someone "not blocking the entrance and standing outside the entrance with a spear sort of raised but shaking a little bit is a woman who was dressed head to toe in animal skins basically um expertly uh you know whatever uh skinned um and um she has uh long braids that kind of come out of this fur cap that she's wearing um like you know long dread sort of thing that kind of fall down her hair and she has like and she's baring her teeth and she's like like really scared she's got a big gap right in the middle long dirty brown locks and she's basically filthy she's shivering a little bit in the cold and she's got her spear out um at the ready and she's like peering at you guys she's like who who goes there don't come any closer". How tall is this woman? What colour are her eyes? What's her apparent age? When she speaks, what's the tone and pitch of her voice? Such details are left open for each participant to have a different - or no - draft of in their individually-maintained fictional state.What I observe is that fictional states are "lazily" maintained. Taking advantage of the wonderful human propensity for efficient cognition. In play, the states don't need to be "continually checked to ensure they are in sync." Above, it means the GM can just assert some world facts, and players lazily add those non-contingently to what they each privately picture. Whether or not others agree with my characterisation of additions being often-enough non-contingent, I feel that the following observations are robust<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Each participant maintains a private draft of the fictional state</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Each participant's draft of the fiction is sketchy and incomplete</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Such sketchy and incomplete private drafts of the fiction diverge</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Other than as to a) a handful of anchoring fictional details, and b) details that are instantiated in system parameters</li> </ol></blockquote>

Verification