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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
The importance to RPGing of *engaging* situations
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<blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 8922617" data-attributes="member: 71699"><p>Not solely; it's taken a little out of context.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Here I am examining not reliability (on which I agree with you) but possibility. By what process might players <em>without</em> an express continuum of interests possibly engage with the contents of a situation? In part, I am interested in what might be called a time-zero problem (the starting point of the continuum.)</p><p></p><p>I hope it is clear that I am agreeing with a sense that meaning is unlikely to subsist in the contents of a situation alone. It is foremost, found in a relationship between those contents and the players. It is <strong>not </strong>guaranteed that what a DM finds meaningful, their players will find meaningful! I believe a post-modernist perspective would additionally hold that it is the totality of the contents (i.e. the context) that will inform the meaning (so that the meaning of an element among some contents will change, given those contents are changed.)</p><p></p><p>One way of increasing the probability of an element of the contents being meaningful to players is to consider what is known about those players. As you have outlined, something that is known is what they have shown they care about. My less-reliable example illustrates that there are possibly also things that they care about that they might not have shown, but that are known about their nature as human beings.</p><p></p><p>Coming back to reliability, I suggest meaning subsists in the contents of the given bounded situation <em>in light of</em> 1) the players, 2) the contents of that which has gone before, and 3) the contents of that which is anticipated to go on after. Players can be expected to be reasonably (but not perfectly) reliable (as reporters of their own inner state) in identifying what among that continuum of content they care about. (Implying of course that play can unravel with an eye toward engagment going forward. This in turn implies that player input into what happens next is likely to pay off as increased engagement.)</p><p></p><p>Roughly, I think the OP describes how a mode of RPG is constructed, and discusses a heuristic for predicting player interest in the contents of novel bounded situations. It advocates observing or listening to players as a means to predict their interest in the contents of those situations. What I hoped to contribute focuses on "novel" and "bounded" (words I know I have introduced, but hopefully others will see how they arise.) In essence, meaning cannot be adequately predicted in a bounded situation because it arises (relies upon) both the interpreters of meaning (acutely, the players), oriented toward the contents of a context that is ongoing. What has gone before, what can be foreseen, what players have shown interest in, and - albeit less reliably - what players as humans may be expected to be interested in.</p><p></p><p>In a sense, the point is tautological. Unsurprisingly, players turn out to be interested in that which they are interested in. What is instructive is recognising that they typically will <strong>show</strong> what they are interested in, and what they have shown can be used (informally) to make predictions. Another prediction is that foreshadowed or recurrent elements are more likely to be found meaningful than novel elements, <em>ceteris paribus</em>.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 8922617, member: 71699"] Not solely; it's taken a little out of context. Here I am examining not reliability (on which I agree with you) but possibility. By what process might players [I]without[/I] an express continuum of interests possibly engage with the contents of a situation? In part, I am interested in what might be called a time-zero problem (the starting point of the continuum.) I hope it is clear that I am agreeing with a sense that meaning is unlikely to subsist in the contents of a situation alone. It is foremost, found in a relationship between those contents and the players. It is [B]not [/B]guaranteed that what a DM finds meaningful, their players will find meaningful! I believe a post-modernist perspective would additionally hold that it is the totality of the contents (i.e. the context) that will inform the meaning (so that the meaning of an element among some contents will change, given those contents are changed.) One way of increasing the probability of an element of the contents being meaningful to players is to consider what is known about those players. As you have outlined, something that is known is what they have shown they care about. My less-reliable example illustrates that there are possibly also things that they care about that they might not have shown, but that are known about their nature as human beings. Coming back to reliability, I suggest meaning subsists in the contents of the given bounded situation [I]in light of[/I] 1) the players, 2) the contents of that which has gone before, and 3) the contents of that which is anticipated to go on after. Players can be expected to be reasonably (but not perfectly) reliable (as reporters of their own inner state) in identifying what among that continuum of content they care about. (Implying of course that play can unravel with an eye toward engagment going forward. This in turn implies that player input into what happens next is likely to pay off as increased engagement.) Roughly, I think the OP describes how a mode of RPG is constructed, and discusses a heuristic for predicting player interest in the contents of novel bounded situations. It advocates observing or listening to players as a means to predict their interest in the contents of those situations. What I hoped to contribute focuses on "novel" and "bounded" (words I know I have introduced, but hopefully others will see how they arise.) In essence, meaning cannot be adequately predicted in a bounded situation because it arises (relies upon) both the interpreters of meaning (acutely, the players), oriented toward the contents of a context that is ongoing. What has gone before, what can be foreseen, what players have shown interest in, and - albeit less reliably - what players as humans may be expected to be interested in. In a sense, the point is tautological. Unsurprisingly, players turn out to be interested in that which they are interested in. What is instructive is recognising that they typically will [B]show[/B] what they are interested in, and what they have shown can be used (informally) to make predictions. Another prediction is that foreshadowed or recurrent elements are more likely to be found meaningful than novel elements, [I]ceteris paribus[/I]. [/QUOTE]
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