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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7600019" data-attributes="member: 4937">Now that is fascinating.&nbsp;&nbsp; Backing up a bit, one of my big obsessions in RP theory is the notion of a propositional filter.&nbsp;&nbsp; That is to say, what propositions does the GM recognize as valid propositions which then require him to come up with some sort of resolution, and what propositions the GM rejects as invalid that need to be stated in a different manner.&nbsp;&nbsp; It's my theory, and this is a big part of &quot;Celebrim's Second Law of RPGs&quot;, that the proposition filter has the single biggest impact on the process of play - even more so than the rules of the system.&nbsp;&nbsp; Further, in traditional RPGs such as AD&amp;D, the proposition filter is generally not explicitly defined.&nbsp;&nbsp; The writer of the system assumes the filter without actually stating what it is.&nbsp;&nbsp; It's something that's some essential to the act of RPing that for the longest time, it was just overlooked without much thinking about it.The fact that D&amp;D and it's descendants do not specify its proposition filter is one of the reasons that with the exact same rules set, two groups that are &quot;playing D&amp;D&quot; can be playing entirely different games.&nbsp; It's also one of the big problems that 4e D&amp;D ran into, is that 4e subtly started specifying its proposition filter, with the result that tables that had a well defined proposition filter and process of play, if it wasn't compatible with the 4e filter, and if they weren't willing to adapt 4e to their process of play or adapt their process of play to 4e, started saying things like, &quot;This isn't even an RPG.&quot;&nbsp; In their mind, all RPGs had a single proposition filter - that's how they'd always played - and a table with a different proposition filter is going to seem weird.&nbsp; Like really weird.What you are describing here is that your proposition filter is tuned to reject anything I earlier defined as a &quot;call&quot;.&nbsp;&nbsp; All propositions must take the form of a proposition.&nbsp; And that's a really pure and interesting stance.&nbsp;&nbsp; I'm inclined to like it, particularly since you are right that many calls take the form of interacting with the metagame rather than interacting with the game, and that often leads to dysfunctional processes of play, like as you call out &quot;fishing for the best solution&quot; (which is essentially attempting a bunch of do overs until you reach a trial and error solution without paying for the consequences of the failures).&nbsp;&nbsp; I don't think I'd ever go completely purist with that approach, but I do like the thinking behind it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7600019, member: 4937"] Now that is fascinating. Backing up a bit, one of my big obsessions in RP theory is the notion of a propositional filter. That is to say, what propositions does the GM recognize as valid propositions which then require him to come up with some sort of resolution, and what propositions the GM rejects as invalid that need to be stated in a different manner. It's my theory, and this is a big part of "Celebrim's Second Law of RPGs", that the proposition filter has the single biggest impact on the process of play - even more so than the rules of the system. Further, in traditional RPGs such as AD&D, the proposition filter is generally not explicitly defined. The writer of the system assumes the filter without actually stating what it is. It's something that's some essential to the act of RPing that for the longest time, it was just overlooked without much thinking about it. The fact that D&D and it's descendants do not specify its proposition filter is one of the reasons that with the exact same rules set, two groups that are "playing D&D" can be playing entirely different games. It's also one of the big problems that 4e D&D ran into, is that 4e subtly started specifying its proposition filter, with the result that tables that had a well defined proposition filter and process of play, if it wasn't compatible with the 4e filter, and if they weren't willing to adapt 4e to their process of play or adapt their process of play to 4e, started saying things like, "This isn't even an RPG." In their mind, all RPGs had a single proposition filter - that's how they'd always played - and a table with a different proposition filter is going to seem weird. Like really weird. What you are describing here is that your proposition filter is tuned to reject anything I earlier defined as a "call". All propositions must take the form of a proposition. And that's a really pure and interesting stance. I'm inclined to like it, particularly since you are right that many calls take the form of interacting with the metagame rather than interacting with the game, and that often leads to dysfunctional processes of play, like as you call out "fishing for the best solution" (which is essentially attempting a bunch of do overs until you reach a trial and error solution without paying for the consequences of the failures). I don't think I'd ever go completely purist with that approach, but I do like the thinking behind it. [/QUOTE]

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