Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7334677" data-attributes="member: 42582">[MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION], novels aren't imaginary. But the people they talk about are.I never said that shared fictions are imaginary, either - in fact I've tried to analyse in some detail that social processes that generate them. Thoughts are real - they are caused by complex processes that begin (typically) in the "external" world and terminate somewhere in the brain. But fictional things - the orcs, swords, maps, studies etc that make up the imaginary worlds of our roleplaying games, and that we think about when RPGing - do not exist. They are imaginary. Not real.If you want to discuss the metaphysics of fictions, and of ideas about and reference to fictional things, I'm happy to do so. It's a topic on which I have a degree of expertise. But I don't think it is necessary in the context of this thread, as the basic point - that imaginary things don't exist and don't exercise causal power - is sufficient.I can explore the streets of Melbourne. (And have done so.) I can't literally explore the streets of Greyhawk. What I can literally do is read a book that someone has written describing the (imaginary, hence non-existent) streets of Greyhawk. Or, in the context of RPGing, I can have someone (typically, the GM) read me passages from that book. Or I can declare "I look for a handy side-alley to ambush them from" and then roll some dice - which, if the requisite result is obtained, then leads to everyone at the table agreeing that the streets of Greyhawk include said alley.The above strikes me as so obvious - as a literal description of how RPGs work - that it is strange that you so vehemently reject it. Where do you think the map of Greyhawk came from? Presumably you accept that it was invented. Who invented it, and when? It can either be invented in advance, or invented in the course of play. If the latter, by what means? A roll of the dice to determine whether the player's desire as to how it is to be, or something adverse to that, is a method that is available and fairly widely used in RPGing.If I'm telling a story about an orc confronting a swordsman, and then add - "It just got killed by a sword blow from the swordsman" - that is an act of authorship, of invention. It adds detail to the story of the orc and its encounter with the swordsman.If I'm telling a story about the (imaginary) city of Grehyawk, and some character's travels through it, and then add - "And then she found a side-alley to hide in, and to lay an ambush for her pursuers" - that is an exactly parallel act of authorship. It adds details to the story of Greyhawk, and this character's adventures in that city.Mutatis mutandis for a story of a study being searched, in which I add - "And the searcher found a map in the bottom desk drawer!".I take it as obvious that these stories are not the same, and so I'm surprised that you think that is important to spell out - one is a story of an orc and a swordsman who kills it, one of a city and a would-be ambusher who finds an alley to lurk in, one of a study and a searcher who finds a map in it. What I said is that they are structurally equivalent acts of authorship. The structure in each case is: (1) established fiction about a situation involving a character (the swordsman, the would-be ambusher, the searcher) and some other story element (the orc, the city, the study); (2) an embellishment of the situation, an extra detail added - the orc is dead, killed by the swordsman; the city has an alley suitable for lurking in, which the would-be ambusher handily comes upon; the study contains a map, which the searcher finds.There are millions of RPGers the world over who don't want player action declarations to play any roll in embellishing the story involving the city or the study, but are happy for those action declarations to play a roll in embellishing the story of the orc. That is there prerogative. No doubt they have their reasons. But if the reasons they assert are that it is "unrealistic" for the player to embellish some of these stories, that is a bad reason. Because there is nothing less "realistic" about one rather than another person embellishing a story of a study than embellishing a story of an orc.If the person asserts (as I think   [MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION] does) that "As a player I only want to add those embellishments that correspond to causal powers exercised by my PC in the gameworld, so I will embellish deaths caused by my PC, but not maps discovered by my PC" that's his/her prerogative. It's a type of aesthetic preference. (As well as Emerikol,   [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has advocated it strongly in this thread.)My claims about it are two. (1) It is not more "realistic", or less "Schroedinger-y" than embellishing other parts of the fiction. (2) It means that a reasonable amount of your play experience will involve the GM telling you stuff that s/he made up (either in advance in his/her notes, or stuff that s/he makes up as needed but that is to be treated the same by the game participants as if it were part of his/her pre-authored notes).The reason for (2) I take to be obvious given the extensive discussion of it in this thread, and the example provided by   [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION],   [MENTION=40176]MarkB[/MENTION] and others. And the more the game involves "exploration" - that is, the players declaring actions which have, as an outcome, their PCs learning about the gameworld (eg opening doors, finding bribeable officials, searching for maps, etc) rather than their PCs changing the gameworld (eg by killing orcs or befriending strangers) - then the more that (2) will obtain.Furthermore, given that a PC's success in changing the gameworld often depends (in the imaginary causal processes) upon unknown but relevant factors (eg the armour of the orc; the temperament of the stranger) then even changing the gameworld through action declarations can become hostage to a resolution process that does not permit the player to embellish other elements of the shared fiction.For instance, if we go from player action declaration through resolution mechanics through embellishment that reflects outcome, then it is possible to have combat systems like D&D (AC, roll to hit, determine outcome from that) and hence it is impossible for it to be established, in advance of combat resolution, that the orc to literally have no chinks in his armour (such that, eg, you can't kill him until you rip off his helmet). Even a mage wielding a dagger can get lucky, find a chink in his armour, and kill the orc (if the orc wins, it's possible to say "Well, no chinks after all" - embellishment following resolution and reflecting outcome). Similarly, it is impossible for it to be established in advance that the temperament of the stranger is such that s/he is never befriendable: if the reaction roll (or corresponding resolution system) is high enough, it turns out that today the stranger is cheerful enough (or perhaps sufficiently in need of cheering up) that s/he will make a new friend. (Again, if the roll comes up poorly for the player, maybe this person really can't be befriended - embellishment follows resolution and reflects outcome.)Whereas if the process is GM adds all embellishments that pertain to elements of the fiction that, in the fiction, are not consequences of a PC's causal powers, and only then go to action declaration, then we may never even get to the resolution mechanic to find out if the PC changed the gameworld. Eg  if the GM decides the stranger is too despondent to be befriended, then the PC can't change that part of the gameworld. If the GM decides there are no chinks in the orc's armour, then the dagger-wielding mage PC can't change that part of the gameworld.This is the point about agency. In a game in which (2) is strong, the players' agency over the shared fiction is rather minimal. The focus of game play is on triggering the GM to relate this or that bit of the fiction that she is in charge of embellishing (because it concerns elements whose nature, in the gameworld, is not amenable to being caused by the PCs).I think I've made it clear that I don't really enjoy that sort of gameplay. Others have made it clear that they do. One thing that worldbuilding, in the OP sense, is for, is to enable that sort of gameplay. The only things that seems contentious is that some people don't like the description of it as "The GM telling the players stuff from his/her notes." But given that, literally, that is what it involves - as spelled out in some of the actual examples given in this thread - I don't see what the grounds for contention are.Agency in Gygaxian dungeoneering has two main elements.(1) The dungeon map is a real artifact. It is a strong constraint on the fiction that the GM narrates when the players trigger narration of fiction. The dungeon key is another strong constraint. These constraints establish a maze/puzzle that the players can solve. And that puzzle has "nodes" - in the fiction, they are rooms of the dungeon - which contain the elements of the win condition for the game - in the fiction, this is treasure; and also contain obstacles to both solving the maze and meeting the win condition - in the fiction, these are traps, tricks and monsters. The players' agency consists in solving the puzzle in a way that achieves the win condition; overcoming the obstacles is an important means to doing this.(2) The second element of player agency is what distinguishes Gygaxian dungeoneering from a boardgame (and whereas I think   [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION] and I broadly agree in respect of (1), I know that we disagree on the following point). Because the dungeon is not only a physical artefact (a map) but is also an imagined thing, the players can declare, as moves in the game, whatever they conceive of their PCs being able to do given their fictional positioning. This means that overcoming the obstacles permits a range of problem-solving solutions that goes beyond a traditional boardgame. In Talisman, just to pick an example, you can't cross the river by damming it; in classic dungeoneering you can.The second element of agency in Gygaxian dungeoneering depends very heavily on fair refereeing (   [MENTION=6680772]Iosue[/MENTION] had an interesting thread a few years ago that talked about Mike Carr's comments on fair refereeing). It also depends upon the obstacles, and their basic natures, being settled in advance of the players trying to overcome them by declaring moves for their PCs. (This is why Lewis Pulsipher said (paraphrasing) "Never put a diamond-studded room in your dungeon; because you can never be sure that a player won't find a way to get the diamonds - eg via a ring of wishing".)The second element of agency in Gygaxian dungeoneering does not depend, in general (perhaps it might in some cases) on the players getting the GM to tell them enough of his/her notes for the players to put together the solution to which the GM has scattered hints. So it is not (in general) like   [MENTION=40176]MarkB[/MENTION]'s example of looking around to see if any PCs are bribeable; and, if none are, then looking for more information from the GM until you learn what the solution is to the problem of your PC being a wanted criminal that is written in the GM's notes.Some Gygaxian dungeoneering does have this character - eg a door that won't open until a particular password is read, with the password written on a scroll elsewhere in the dungeon. If we describe this in literal rather than figurative terms, we have an obstacle to the players solving/beating the maze that the players can't overcome by declaring moves until they have made the correct other moves to trigger the GM to read the bit of his/her notes that records the information about the scroll. Some even has this character to a more extreme degree: there's a solution written in the GM's notes but there is no move the players can make in the course of play that will trigger the GM to tell them the solution, so they just have to guess. Tomb of Horrors has a lot of this; it contrasts with (say) White Plume Mountain or Castle Amber, which have lots of wacky obstacles but don't tend to impose particular solutions. I think these latter modules therefore offer players more opportunity to exercise agency of the second Gygaxian sort than does ToH.As I've said, I think running a game with either of these sorts of agency becomes hard when (i) the "map" ceases to be a real physical artefact and becomes, instead, some ideas in the GM's head which the player's only have access to through the GM's exposition of those ideas (the living, breathing world) and (ii) the situations - the obstacles - get framed in ways that suggest such a confluence of verisimilitudinous forces operating upon them that the open-ness of possibility found in wacky modules like S2 and X2 is lost, and play becomes increasingly about getting the GM to tell you stuff from his/her notes.The paradigm of RPGing in which neither sort of agency is present is a CoC module.</blockquote>

Verification