pawsplay
Hero
An essay, expanding on a specific point from
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=228449
about the "envelope of experience" with regard to specific play styles and practical applications of the theory.
And stuff.
***
The envelope of experience is an imaginary barrier that wraps around a person as they enter an imaginary world. While they are present in the imaginary world, there is a clear separation between story and reality. Story encompasses all those things which are constructed by the participants. Reality is everything persistent in the group that exists irrespective of the conventions of the game. While the idea of an "envelope" is trivial, it is important when remembering that people respond to characters that are not real, react to victory or defeat that is not real, and tell stories of events that are not real. The envelope of experience can be described as a metaphor for "as if." Inside the envelope, participants experience the story as if it were real. Players make decisions as if they were the characters, narrators describe events as if the imaginary world was a real place, and adjudicators resolve game play as if the game were a story of real events.
Inside the Envelope
Players are not so much "types" as they are whole persons. Role-playing is only one corner of their entire person, yet their entire person will necessarily affect their game. We ask several questions.
1. What imaginary experiences do they prefer?
2. What kinds of resolution do they prefer?
3. What kind of social interactions do they prefer?
Genre
Genre is basically the type of imaginary experiences one prefers. Fantasy can be genre; the fantasy genre has imaginary elements in common with literary and cinematic fantasy. Real life cops can be a genre; the imaginary experiences are those we imagine real life cops to have. Genre can also describe certain stylistic choices, like a stream-of-consciousness novel or improvisational theater. While RPGs are a specific medium, genre transcends RPGs and pertains to our schema for certain kinds of events. For instance, someone's beliefs about the combat efficacy of karate affects their understanding and appreciation of various genres. Genre includes various elements of style, tone, theme, and imagery.
Style, as in literature, can refer to how events are presented. For instance, in a high action game, the style is one where flamboyant moves are rewarded with victory and violence often solves problems. Characters in a high-action style might be rather two-dimensional. A novel has a diction style and a movie has a visual style and a dialog style. RPGs have specific style elements such as description (elaborate versus general), knowledge (fog of war versus cards on the table), narration (narration then resolution or resolution than narration, or "narration in the middle"), time (fluid versus simulated), and authorship (with an autocratic GM at one end of the spectrum and a jam session on the other).
Tone is a feeling or sensation. It is not a specific emotion, but the form or shape of excitement that is similar to an emotion. For instance, a game might be fast-moving and whimsical or full of intensity. But a fast-moving, whimsical game could be sad or tragic, and an intense game could be about a search for happiness. Tone describes the color or sound of the narrator's choices. Obviously, players have as much if not more control over the tone of a game as the GM. If a player chooses to have their character act out and behave in a zany way, that will profoundly affect the tone of a game.
Theme is the idea of a game. A modernist approach to theme might say something like, "This story embodies the tension between altruism and the desire to enjoy material success." A classical theme might be something like, "Pride goeth before the fall." That would be a moralistic theme. A post-modern theme might be textual, such as a character and their environment, or it might be deconstruction, exploring why we tell a certain kind of story. In general, a classical theme is most likely to be moralistic or an evocation of pathos, whereas a post-modern theme is most likely to be skeptical of reducing an idea to simple terms.
Examples of themes from a traditional dungeon crawl:
* "We kill things and take their stuff."
* "Symbolically, we attack representations of our inner dark nature, and in doing so, gain illumination and life energy, symbolized by wealth."
* "Why do we kill things and take their stuff?"
* "We play the game of killing things and taking their stuff because it amuses us."
Imagery is pictures, sounds, words, even specific expressions of feelings. The tragedy of death is an image, as is the ashen face of the mourner, or the sound of the wind, or the word, "Forever." Imagery can be symbolic, or it can be incidental. Imagery itself excites and engages the imagination.
Resolution
Resolution systems differ according to how they answer a question in game. A resolution system must be asked a question. Merely relating an event is narration. But if a player or GM narrates things as a way of asking and answering questions about what happens next, that is a resolution system.
Systems have limits. There is a hierarchy of preferred resolutions.
1. Best: Use the rules as written to produce an appropriate result.
2. Use the rules with minimal modifications to produce an appropriate result.
3. Generalize the rules to produce an appropriate result.
4. Invent a new rule to produce an appropriate result.
5. Invent a specific rule for this situation to produce an appropriate result.
6. Least desirable: Decide on an appropriate result through social interactions, resulting in no rule.
An example of a best result be if a character hits with an attack, the player rolls damage, and the resulting wounds are an acceptable resolution for that attack. An example of a least desirable resolution system would be a player stating, "If you do that to my character, I'm taking my books and going home."
Resolution systems can be general or specific, and they might be general about some things and specific about others.
Methods of resolution include:
1. Mechanical - a rule takes an inputted question and generates an output
2. Narrative - someone uses their authorial privilege to specify a story-appropriate result
3. Conventional - Social interactions are used to decide a result deemed appropriate to all participants.
An example of a mechanical resolution would be a skill check. An example of a narrative resolution would be the GM stating, "After several days of travel, you arrive in town." An example of a conventional resolution would be a group of players agreeing how a specific power should work in a given situation. A GM acting as a rules adjudicator or referee is also using a conventional mode of resolution.
Players may prefer some modes over others, or may prefer some modes for some kinds of decisions and other modes for different kinds of situations. For instance, an "old school" AD&D player might prefer a largely mechanical combat resolution system but a narrative resolution to talking encounters. These three modes should be considered three primary colors which can be mixed, not mutually exclusive categories. For instance, convention decides what rules to include in the first place, and a respect for a logical narrative may override some mechanical answers that seem illogical. For instance, even if a firearm has a set damage, an appropriate narrative resolution would take into account that shooting yourself in the head is likely to be more serious than a typical battlefield wound.
Social Group
The social group is the people who get together to game. The social rules determine:
1. Who gets to join the game.
2. What game will be played.
3. Obligations and privileges of participating in the game.
4. When the game will be concluded or recessed.
A surprising number of questions can be formulated by one of these rules. For instance, if a player has a preference for a light-hearted, hack-and-slash oriented fantasy game, they will negotiate to join groups that permit that style and will run games in that style. They will most readily agree to fantasy games that reward high action and combat and do not severely constrain their decisions with moral factors. They might agree to a short-term game or a long-term campaign, and they will probably expect the game to retire at some point when the adventurers either achieve legendary power or (if the system allows for such things) their characters pass their prime or become less interesting.
Social groups can be described in a variety of ways using modern psychological and sociological theories. An important way of looking at group tension, it is important to think about motivations. Motivations can be known or unknown to one ’s self, or known or unknown to others.
1. Manifest motivations: I know why I do something, and you do, too.
2. Secret motivations: I know what I am doing, but you do not perceive it or know the reason.
3. Obvious motivations: I am not aware of something I do, but you see it.
4. Unknown motivations: I am not aware of something I do, and neither are you.
Manifest motivations make it easy to talk about what people want. Secret motivations can constrain conversation and result in decisions that are not optimal for the group as a whole, or perhaps even any individuals. Obvious motivations can be benign, but they can also become the targets of unwelcome criticism. Unknown motivations might be benign, but can result in surprising and stressful situations that provoke confusion or emotional intensity. For instance, your group might convene for a light-hearted fantasy game, only to discover through a series of events that one of your players is experiencing emotionally powerful gender issues that bleed over into play.
Fulfilling the Expectation of Excitement
The expectation of excitement comes from the player. They are seeking play in an accepted genre, with resolution systems acceptable to them, with a group that has acceptable social rules. They may have one or more preferred genres, a number of acceptable genres, and some unacceptable genres. Depending on the resolution methods and the social rules, they may join a game in a preferred genre, or they may not. They may join a game in an unacceptable genre, or they may not. They may enjoy some resolution systems, but dislike others. They may find some groups agreeable, and others disagreeable, and when a group changes in its interactions, they might prefer the changes or dislike them. In terms of genre, resolution, and social rules, a participating player can be described as optimally satisfied, satisfied, ambivalent, dissatisfied, or tolerant.
The GM or GMs have their own preferences, but must also account for the other players. GMs are also on the range of optimally satisfied to tolerant.
Sometimes styles differ. Players and GMs can be rigid, accommodating, flexible, supportive, or agreeable. A rigid player prefers a certain experience and resists other preferences. An accommodating player respects differences from other players but attempts to negotiate their preferred experience. The flexible player has their own preferences, but accepts the preferences of others. The supportive player has their own preferences, but actively attempts to see that others receive satisfaction with respect to their own preferences as well. The agreeable player has their own preferences, but is open to trying a variety of experiences and will readily change style to satisfy others or simply to try something new. This level of flexibility can vary among the different expectations, from game to game, or in response to specific alternatives.
Players and GMs also have expectations that are idiosyncratic. They are not general principles of gaming, but specific elements they prefer or do not prefer. For instance, a cop who games might only enjoy cop games that meet some minimal standards of realism according to his experience, or might insist on playing only light-hearted, moralistic cop games, or even both. Some players do not like games that are "too anime" while others prefer anime-inspired games or do not view anime-ness as an important or meaningful measure.
To fulfill the expectation of excitement, the game aligns the preferences of the players to produce a new, imaginary, interactive experience. This experience satisfies the players in their preferred modes. This can be thought of as the “good music” component. The second component is the group experience as a whole. Aligning the preferences of the players is also a part of a role-playing game. This can be thought of as the “good composition” component, whether it takes the form of a symphony or a jam session. Successfully coordinating the story and decision-making goals is itself a basic task of fulfilling the expectation of excitement. An ideal game is both game-ful (appropriate psychological challenge was experienced within the game framework) and group-ful (the participants negotiated the creation of a powerful game framework).
Thus, an ideal game could be a bunch of old friends getting together to slay orcs just like old times. It could be a number of players role-playing a byzantine political game that incorporates freeform role-playing with elaborate rules for achieving wealth and influence in the government based on alliances and the use of certain traits, with a reserve of “plot points” you might have to expend even to engage in personal combat.
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=228449
about the "envelope of experience" with regard to specific play styles and practical applications of the theory.
And stuff.
***
The envelope of experience is an imaginary barrier that wraps around a person as they enter an imaginary world. While they are present in the imaginary world, there is a clear separation between story and reality. Story encompasses all those things which are constructed by the participants. Reality is everything persistent in the group that exists irrespective of the conventions of the game. While the idea of an "envelope" is trivial, it is important when remembering that people respond to characters that are not real, react to victory or defeat that is not real, and tell stories of events that are not real. The envelope of experience can be described as a metaphor for "as if." Inside the envelope, participants experience the story as if it were real. Players make decisions as if they were the characters, narrators describe events as if the imaginary world was a real place, and adjudicators resolve game play as if the game were a story of real events.
Inside the Envelope
Players are not so much "types" as they are whole persons. Role-playing is only one corner of their entire person, yet their entire person will necessarily affect their game. We ask several questions.
1. What imaginary experiences do they prefer?
2. What kinds of resolution do they prefer?
3. What kind of social interactions do they prefer?
Genre
Genre is basically the type of imaginary experiences one prefers. Fantasy can be genre; the fantasy genre has imaginary elements in common with literary and cinematic fantasy. Real life cops can be a genre; the imaginary experiences are those we imagine real life cops to have. Genre can also describe certain stylistic choices, like a stream-of-consciousness novel or improvisational theater. While RPGs are a specific medium, genre transcends RPGs and pertains to our schema for certain kinds of events. For instance, someone's beliefs about the combat efficacy of karate affects their understanding and appreciation of various genres. Genre includes various elements of style, tone, theme, and imagery.
Style, as in literature, can refer to how events are presented. For instance, in a high action game, the style is one where flamboyant moves are rewarded with victory and violence often solves problems. Characters in a high-action style might be rather two-dimensional. A novel has a diction style and a movie has a visual style and a dialog style. RPGs have specific style elements such as description (elaborate versus general), knowledge (fog of war versus cards on the table), narration (narration then resolution or resolution than narration, or "narration in the middle"), time (fluid versus simulated), and authorship (with an autocratic GM at one end of the spectrum and a jam session on the other).
Tone is a feeling or sensation. It is not a specific emotion, but the form or shape of excitement that is similar to an emotion. For instance, a game might be fast-moving and whimsical or full of intensity. But a fast-moving, whimsical game could be sad or tragic, and an intense game could be about a search for happiness. Tone describes the color or sound of the narrator's choices. Obviously, players have as much if not more control over the tone of a game as the GM. If a player chooses to have their character act out and behave in a zany way, that will profoundly affect the tone of a game.
Theme is the idea of a game. A modernist approach to theme might say something like, "This story embodies the tension between altruism and the desire to enjoy material success." A classical theme might be something like, "Pride goeth before the fall." That would be a moralistic theme. A post-modern theme might be textual, such as a character and their environment, or it might be deconstruction, exploring why we tell a certain kind of story. In general, a classical theme is most likely to be moralistic or an evocation of pathos, whereas a post-modern theme is most likely to be skeptical of reducing an idea to simple terms.
Examples of themes from a traditional dungeon crawl:
* "We kill things and take their stuff."
* "Symbolically, we attack representations of our inner dark nature, and in doing so, gain illumination and life energy, symbolized by wealth."
* "Why do we kill things and take their stuff?"
* "We play the game of killing things and taking their stuff because it amuses us."
Imagery is pictures, sounds, words, even specific expressions of feelings. The tragedy of death is an image, as is the ashen face of the mourner, or the sound of the wind, or the word, "Forever." Imagery can be symbolic, or it can be incidental. Imagery itself excites and engages the imagination.
Resolution
Resolution systems differ according to how they answer a question in game. A resolution system must be asked a question. Merely relating an event is narration. But if a player or GM narrates things as a way of asking and answering questions about what happens next, that is a resolution system.
Systems have limits. There is a hierarchy of preferred resolutions.
1. Best: Use the rules as written to produce an appropriate result.
2. Use the rules with minimal modifications to produce an appropriate result.
3. Generalize the rules to produce an appropriate result.
4. Invent a new rule to produce an appropriate result.
5. Invent a specific rule for this situation to produce an appropriate result.
6. Least desirable: Decide on an appropriate result through social interactions, resulting in no rule.
An example of a best result be if a character hits with an attack, the player rolls damage, and the resulting wounds are an acceptable resolution for that attack. An example of a least desirable resolution system would be a player stating, "If you do that to my character, I'm taking my books and going home."
Resolution systems can be general or specific, and they might be general about some things and specific about others.
Methods of resolution include:
1. Mechanical - a rule takes an inputted question and generates an output
2. Narrative - someone uses their authorial privilege to specify a story-appropriate result
3. Conventional - Social interactions are used to decide a result deemed appropriate to all participants.
An example of a mechanical resolution would be a skill check. An example of a narrative resolution would be the GM stating, "After several days of travel, you arrive in town." An example of a conventional resolution would be a group of players agreeing how a specific power should work in a given situation. A GM acting as a rules adjudicator or referee is also using a conventional mode of resolution.
Players may prefer some modes over others, or may prefer some modes for some kinds of decisions and other modes for different kinds of situations. For instance, an "old school" AD&D player might prefer a largely mechanical combat resolution system but a narrative resolution to talking encounters. These three modes should be considered three primary colors which can be mixed, not mutually exclusive categories. For instance, convention decides what rules to include in the first place, and a respect for a logical narrative may override some mechanical answers that seem illogical. For instance, even if a firearm has a set damage, an appropriate narrative resolution would take into account that shooting yourself in the head is likely to be more serious than a typical battlefield wound.
Social Group
The social group is the people who get together to game. The social rules determine:
1. Who gets to join the game.
2. What game will be played.
3. Obligations and privileges of participating in the game.
4. When the game will be concluded or recessed.
A surprising number of questions can be formulated by one of these rules. For instance, if a player has a preference for a light-hearted, hack-and-slash oriented fantasy game, they will negotiate to join groups that permit that style and will run games in that style. They will most readily agree to fantasy games that reward high action and combat and do not severely constrain their decisions with moral factors. They might agree to a short-term game or a long-term campaign, and they will probably expect the game to retire at some point when the adventurers either achieve legendary power or (if the system allows for such things) their characters pass their prime or become less interesting.
Social groups can be described in a variety of ways using modern psychological and sociological theories. An important way of looking at group tension, it is important to think about motivations. Motivations can be known or unknown to one ’s self, or known or unknown to others.
1. Manifest motivations: I know why I do something, and you do, too.
2. Secret motivations: I know what I am doing, but you do not perceive it or know the reason.
3. Obvious motivations: I am not aware of something I do, but you see it.
4. Unknown motivations: I am not aware of something I do, and neither are you.
Manifest motivations make it easy to talk about what people want. Secret motivations can constrain conversation and result in decisions that are not optimal for the group as a whole, or perhaps even any individuals. Obvious motivations can be benign, but they can also become the targets of unwelcome criticism. Unknown motivations might be benign, but can result in surprising and stressful situations that provoke confusion or emotional intensity. For instance, your group might convene for a light-hearted fantasy game, only to discover through a series of events that one of your players is experiencing emotionally powerful gender issues that bleed over into play.
Fulfilling the Expectation of Excitement
The expectation of excitement comes from the player. They are seeking play in an accepted genre, with resolution systems acceptable to them, with a group that has acceptable social rules. They may have one or more preferred genres, a number of acceptable genres, and some unacceptable genres. Depending on the resolution methods and the social rules, they may join a game in a preferred genre, or they may not. They may join a game in an unacceptable genre, or they may not. They may enjoy some resolution systems, but dislike others. They may find some groups agreeable, and others disagreeable, and when a group changes in its interactions, they might prefer the changes or dislike them. In terms of genre, resolution, and social rules, a participating player can be described as optimally satisfied, satisfied, ambivalent, dissatisfied, or tolerant.
The GM or GMs have their own preferences, but must also account for the other players. GMs are also on the range of optimally satisfied to tolerant.
Sometimes styles differ. Players and GMs can be rigid, accommodating, flexible, supportive, or agreeable. A rigid player prefers a certain experience and resists other preferences. An accommodating player respects differences from other players but attempts to negotiate their preferred experience. The flexible player has their own preferences, but accepts the preferences of others. The supportive player has their own preferences, but actively attempts to see that others receive satisfaction with respect to their own preferences as well. The agreeable player has their own preferences, but is open to trying a variety of experiences and will readily change style to satisfy others or simply to try something new. This level of flexibility can vary among the different expectations, from game to game, or in response to specific alternatives.
Players and GMs also have expectations that are idiosyncratic. They are not general principles of gaming, but specific elements they prefer or do not prefer. For instance, a cop who games might only enjoy cop games that meet some minimal standards of realism according to his experience, or might insist on playing only light-hearted, moralistic cop games, or even both. Some players do not like games that are "too anime" while others prefer anime-inspired games or do not view anime-ness as an important or meaningful measure.
To fulfill the expectation of excitement, the game aligns the preferences of the players to produce a new, imaginary, interactive experience. This experience satisfies the players in their preferred modes. This can be thought of as the “good music” component. The second component is the group experience as a whole. Aligning the preferences of the players is also a part of a role-playing game. This can be thought of as the “good composition” component, whether it takes the form of a symphony or a jam session. Successfully coordinating the story and decision-making goals is itself a basic task of fulfilling the expectation of excitement. An ideal game is both game-ful (appropriate psychological challenge was experienced within the game framework) and group-ful (the participants negotiated the creation of a powerful game framework).
Thus, an ideal game could be a bunch of old friends getting together to slay orcs just like old times. It could be a number of players role-playing a byzantine political game that incorporates freeform role-playing with elaborate rules for achieving wealth and influence in the government based on alliances and the use of certain traits, with a reserve of “plot points” you might have to expend even to engage in personal combat.
