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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5607908" data-attributes="member: 54877">And interesting aspect of Improv Jazz is that not every player has to fully grok it to do it. You need one or two that have it cold. And then you need most of the rest that sort of understand and are willing to play along when they don't. And then you can have one or two that don't really get it at all, but are willing to follow a few rules laid down by the others--and do so when cued. The idea being, in part, that you don't get it until you do it--and thus there has to be allowances made for people to learn while doing it. I'm sure that the above sounds very familiar to some veterans of mixed experience roleplaying groups, with particular styles. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> And of course, in Forge theory, the "system" is not limited to the rules, but whatever it is that people do that makes it work. Thus, in Forge theory, our extensive use of cues is part of the system--albeit not explicitly written out. Plus, I'm sure everyone uses cues quite a bit, at least in some area of their game. I don't think our game stands out in that respect, but maybe stands out in that our use of the cues is very conscious by most of the players. I am teaching my son to drive. I am teaching him how I was taught, which was based on defensive driving principles. Everyone that drives sends out cues to other drivers--in the way you approach an intersection, how fast and when you brake, how close you get to it before stopping, etc. In defensive driving, you do the same thing, but part of the training is being conscious of the cues that you send. For yourself alone, there is often no reason to prefer approaching the intersection one way over the other. It's the signal that you send that makes a difference (or might--most of the time, it doesn't matter).  Here is a social cue in gaming that affects agenda, that I'm sure tons of people use: You, speaking in character at an important diplomatic scene, make a really brash, even pushy speech. You give a certain smile and catch the eye of the player of your character's friendly rival. This maybe says: "I'm setting this up for us to argue. Hit me with it." What that means will, of course, vary with the agenda at the table, right now. But chances are, anyone that has been there for a few session and isn't completely socially inept has at least some clue as to what is intended.  This same scene, the player might be more focused on getting results. The speech is similar (still in character), but more hurried, and played to the DM. This might say, "I want someone to jump in and help me, because this is important to do, win, say ..."  You'll note a strong metagaming component to those cues. One of the reasons we don't mind dropping out of immersion into explciit metagaming is that sometimes cues are misread. It is more important to us to have the cues read correctly than it is to preserve immersion. Not only does this produce the kind of game we want now, it teaches a bit on how to read the cue next time. I'm sure immersionist have not only a different preference, but accordingly a somewhat different set of cues as well. You'd have to ask an immersionist about that, but I imagine that a big part of the cues is that they be useful, but able to be learned outside the session to some degree. So whether such a session will go south or not is going to depend on having cues that fit what you do. We have safeguards, because immersion isn't important to us. I'd say that on this front, having cues that match your desired immersion level is far more important than everyone having the same creative agenda. I can deploy tools, including cues, to satisfy the gamist, simulationist, and narrativist. I can't deploy immersion-breaking tools or cues without pissing off the dedicated immersionist.</blockquote>

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