What is the point of GM's notes?

[Imaro]

I'm not sure why you keep dragging this out like it's true. Lots of games, games played successfully and enjoyed immensely by people in this very thread, do exactly that. They just aren't games you've played or have experience with. So, in short, you are incorrect. Please stop insinuating that your way is the only way to play in this regard, whether you mean to or not, it's been the cause of no little friction in this thread.

I think he made it pretty clear he was drawing only on his own experiences and not making a general statement.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It can mean a lie, too. Or anything that is made up. Fiction does have multiple definitions, this is true, but that doesn't make it somehow impossible to understand what people mean when they use it in gaming.

Living world is far more open to interpretation and therefore equivocation.

I mean, when asked to define how I mean fiction, I can reply with "make believe", right? Pretty clear and no attempt at equivocation.

Give me your equally concise description of Living World. Hell, I'd say take an entire sentence rather than two words.

The problem is the equivocation with fiction often aligns with particular play styles. And it is particularly troublesome in discussions about sandboxes. Again most sandbox GMs don't object to living world as a description (and I think shared imagined space also would go down well). Terms like fiction introduce issues (and we've seen those issues play out in these discussions here)

 

[Fenris-77]

Terms like fiction only cause issues when people use fiction when they actually mean something else. I don't think it's a matter of equivocation as much as a lack of precision in terms generally, which is a feature of our hobby. Some of it comes from a lack of understanding of what the word fiction actually entails, specifically things like plot, or more specifically pre-plotted material. That would be an incorrect use of the term. When I say fiction I mean what it actually means - narration of imaginary people and events. Plot isn't involved. When the idea of plot isn't involved, i.e. when it's used properly, it's a very generally useful term to describe the output at the table in pretty much any RPG.

 

[Bedrockgames]

First, no, it doesnt mean that. Those are types of or specific examples of forms of fiction, which is something else entirely. Second, I am beginning to doubt your use of 'equivocation' in these discussions.

What are you talking about? That is what equivocation is (shifting from particular meanings of a word to other meanings: i.e. Fiction as Literature to Fiction as Imagined Stuff, to Fiction as a novel). Look below (formatting is a mess, but those are all meanings of the term. But a notion like imagined stuff, is a lot broader than literature. In RPG discussions you see this all the time with the word story for example. Someone says RPGs are about collecting storytelling, telling stories, therefore the mechanics should facilitate the telling of a good story or do things you see in good stories. And this isn't about storygames or GNS to be clear: this is a very mainstream use of equivocation. And my use of equivocation is fine. But to show I am not misusing it here is the philosophical dictionaries definition of it:

equivocation
The informal fallacy that can result when an ambiguous word or phrase is used in different senses within a single argument.

Example: "Odd things arouse human suspicion. But seventeen is an odd number. Therefore, seventeen arouses human suspicion."

That is clearly what I am talking about when I say shifting from one meaning of the term fiction to another in a discussion (and that ambiguity encompasses shifting from particular forms of fiction as well)

Here is the def of Fiction:

1 A: something invented by the imagination or feigned. specifically : an invented story
b: fictitious literature (such as novels or short stories)
c: a work of fiction especially : NOVELHer latest work is a fiction set during the Civil War.

2
A: an assumption of a possibility as a fact irrespective of the question of its truth. a legal fiction
b: a useful illusion or pretense

3: the action of feigning or of creating with the imagination

 

[Bedrockgames]

Terms like fiction only cause issues when people use fiction when they actually mean something else. I don't think it's a matter of equivocation as much as a lack of precision in terms generally, which is a feature of our hobby. Some of it comes from a lack of understanding of what the word fiction actually entails, specifically things like plot, or more specifically pre-plotted material. That would be an incorrect use of the term. When I say fiction I mean what it actually means - narration of imaginary people and events. Plot isn't involved. When the idea of plot isn't involved, i.e. when it's used properly, it's a very generally useful term to describe the output at the table in pretty much any RPG.

I understand this is what you mean. The problem is: fiction carries a strong suggestion of the novel and of the crafted story. And we've seen this play out all the time with the term story in relation to RPGs. I see it constantly as a way of advocating for GM as storyteller for example. And since the purpose of a sandbox is largely to eschew any kind of directed story by the GM, I think that is why folks like me push back on the term "the fiction" and "fiction" (at least in online discussions; I don't care when it is used casually at the table). Also I think it is a cloudy term, the way it gets implemented because it often seems to blur setting and events that happen in the setting involving the PCs. I like to keep a pretty strong distinction between those things.

 

[Fenris-77]

Fiction isn't literature, neither is it a novel. Those two things are examples of specific sorts of fiction, or to be more specific, fiction with particular structures and characteristics. So if you want to talk about those structures and characteristics you need to use those other words. What happens at an RPG table is also a specific example of fiction, but that doesn't mean it has any structures or features in common with a novel or literature. Those three examples have in common the definition of fiction, i.e. the description of imaginary people and events. This isn't a complicated idea - those aren't different meanings of fiction, nor is fiction an ambiguous word, it has a short an precise meaning.

 

[prabe]

Fiction isn't literature, neither is it a novel. Those two things are examples of specific sorts of fiction, or to be more specific, fiction with particular structures and characteristics. So if you want to talk about those structures and characteristics you need to use those other words. What happens at an RPG table is also a specific example of fiction, but that doesn't mean it has any structures or features in common with a novel or literature. Those three examples have in common the definition of fiction, i.e. the description of imaginary people and events. This isn't a complicated idea - those aren't different meanings of fiction, nor is fiction an ambiguous word, it has a short an precise meaning.

Yes. I think that TRPGs are specifically in #3 from Merriam-Webster, as @Bedrockgames cited above. It's nothing with any sort of structure--it's not a novel or anything. Fiction is everything imagined; it doesn't connote or denote any specific form or structure.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Fiction isn't literature, neither is it a novel. Those two things are examples of specific sorts of fiction, or to be more specific, fiction with particular structures and characteristics. So if you want to talk about those structures and characteristics you need to use those other words. What happens at an RPG table is also a specific example of fiction, but that doesn't mean it has any structures or features in common with a novel or literature. Those three examples have in common the definition of fiction, i.e. the description of imaginary people and events. This isn't a complicated idea - those aren't different meanings of fiction, nor is fiction an ambiguous word, it has a short an precise meaning.

I don’t think I agree with your conclusion here. We use the term fiction to refer to novels all the time. The first definition of fiction is specifically an invented story (that isn’t the same as imagined stuff). And those all aren’t just instances of fiction, those are potential meanings of the word. Fiction can refer to literature or a novel. The ambiguity arises from taking the broad meaning of fiction and equivocating on specific instances, but also on equivocating between definition 1 and 3

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yes. I think that TRPGs are specifically in #3 from Merriam-Webster, as @Bedrockgames cited above. It's nothing with any sort of structure--it's not a novel or anything. Fiction is everything imagined; it doesn't connote or denote any specific form or structure.

It is but it is easy to slide into definition 1 (and one is very ambiguous so ripe for equivocation)

 

[Bedrockgames]

Fiction isn't literature, neither is it a novel.

no but ‘something imagined’ and ‘a story’ are two different meanings of fiction. And fiction can refer to a novel or literature. There is ambiguity there and you see people use that kind of ambiguity all the time in discussions about RPGs and playstyles, and that matters when you are dealing with a low/no story like sandbox