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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4272675" data-attributes="member: 42582">Many distinctions are apt to be denied, as they do not individuate natural kinds. I don't know that anyone has ever asserted that author stance and actor stance are natural kinds, so of course the distinction can be denied.Likewise one might deny the distinction between voluntary and coereced action, as both flow from a conscious decision by the agent. Nevertheless common sense draws a distinction, and it is the job of theory to accomodate, analyse and explain that distinction.Actor stance and author stance are not natural kinds, but they do mark a difference in play which is quite salient, at least to me. I have played games (especially 2nd ed AD&D, also CoC and Pendragon) in which what counts as good play is ensuring that my portrayal of my PC matches the various descriptors on my character sheet. This is the logic of prescriptive alignment mechanics, of personality flaw mechanics, and so on.I have also played games in which what counts as good play is making my PC do things that are interesting or relevant to the players at the table, and in which part of the skill of RPing is weaving a plausible or entertaining narrative around those choices that presents the PC as a coherent (if evolving) persona.These are (at least to me) different RPing experiences. One thing I like about the GNS lexicon is that gives me a handy vocabulary for capturing that difference.As to pawn stance: this has nothing to do with slaughtering innkeepers, which can easily be rationalised in author stance ("My guy is a psychopath" or, as you suggested, "That's just the kind of guy I am.") It's to do with whether or not one is roleplaying. How do you distinguish a tactical wargame or boardgame from an RPG in which all the play is in pawn stance?I don't understand what you mean here. Are you talking about differing interpretations of the GM's narration, or differing presuppositions about what elements exist in the gameworld? If so, that seems to have little to do with actor stance. Or are you talking about differing interpretations of the mechanics that dictate the constraints of acting (eg different interpretations of alignment)? I'm not sure I'd describe that as an inconsistency in story - it seems more like a metagame problem to me.Again I don't quite follow. What you describe is not an example of author stance - "I wanted to tell the epic tale of how we traveled west, but you have forced our characters east" is not a piece of narration intended to explain and retroactively rationalise a PC's action.I don't understand your metaphors of "double vision" and "the envelope of experience". Nor am I separating author from actor. I'm simply distinguishing two different approaches to the relationship between PC personality and roleplaying: Is the personality pregiven such that good RPing consists in faithfully reproducing that personality in play? Or is the personality up for grabs such that good RPing consists in finding clever, plausible, entertaining, meaningful, etc - insert normative adjective of choice - rationalisations of behaviour which is the result of a decision made during the course of play for reasons quite independent of the PC's hitherto-revealed personality?Btw, you seem to have an image of me as some sort of peddler of evil Forge anti-D&Disms who is all superior about his preference for narrativist play. I've been playing RPGs for over 25 years. Like many, I started with D&D and then AD&D. I was able to diagnose the unsatisfactory elements of AD&D (especially 2nd ed) without any help from the Forge (which I think didn't exist in the late 80s and early 90s) - discussions in articles and the Forum in Dragon magazine, especially about alignment, plus my own play experiences, did the job.I discovered the Forge a bit over 4 years ago following a link from an RPGnet review, and found a terminology and structure of thought that was new to me, but quite helpful - in some cases even illuminating - in explaining and interpreting many of my own experiences playing RPGs. And its practical utility was first made clear to me in various discussions on the ICE message boards around 18 months ago about the then-pending but now-postponed RM revision. My sense of its practical utility has more recently been reinforced by the discussions on these message boards around the new edition of D&D.I don't know how much you care about persuading me (or others, like Skeptic) that the Forge analysis of RPGs is unhelpful. But if you do want to do that, you're not going to do so by telling me that I don't understand my own experiences, or that my perception of them has been tainted by the Forge. You're going to have to offer some sort of conceptual framework for thinking about my experiences that offers more insight into them than the Forge framework has done. And that framework will have to respond to and explain perceptions of salient differences in play, not deny those differences.</blockquote>

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