Why do RPGs have rules?

[pemerton]

Why do RPGs have the rules then? To exclude B. To remove a need to care about #### you don't want so you can chase the high of G.

Intriguing as this theorem is, I have doubts.

Your theorem doesn't seem to have a place for process. Related to this, it treats G and B as static.

I think Baker's account of why we have rules - as per the OP - is absolutely focused on process, that is, the way in which a group of people come to jointly imagine some o where o ∈ E. Baker's account rests on a psychological conjecture, namely, that there are instances of o which are worth imagining, but which can't be arrived at except via a non-consensual process.

In basic structure, I think it's very similar to Jon Elster's account of "states that are essentially byproducts" (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/053901848102000301?journalCode=ssic).

 

[loverdrive]

That's an intriguing propositon. There may be an implied assumption that E is a countable infinity that could confound it. I'm not sure.

I'm not entirely sure if countability here even applies, as we are not operating with numbers. I'd say the set of all possible transcripts from an RPG campaign is a countable infinity, as, say, representing each as Unicode chars is an injecture function that would map transcripts to natural numbers, but I'm unconvinced it is important.

 

[pemerton]

To be uncountable a set must have a cardinal number larger than that of the set of natural numbers. We'd have to establish this for E in order to know, but I am not sure E has a well defined generator. Since S seems to not have one either I am not sure we can really say much here... Still I'm not a terribly good mathematician!

E is a set of imaginable events. As I understand it, the cardinality of any segment of the real number line is equal to the cardinality of the real numbers. And I can imagine Yog Sothoth reciting every real number that lies between 0 and 1. So the cardinality of E seems to be the cardinality of the real numbers.

 

[niklinna]

Isn't @loverdrive's E uncountable for this reason: that I can imagine RPGing a mathematician, that there is no limit to the numbers I can imagine that mathematician reasoning about, and that the number of such numbers is uncountable?

EDIT: Maybe even more straightforward, I can imagine someone taking measurements, and those measurements could yield any value at all on a real number line.

Why the prejudice against the imaginary number plane?!

 

[pemerton]

I'm not entirely sure if countability here even applies, as we are not operating with numbers. I'd say the set of all possible transcripts from an RPG campaign is a countable infinity, as, say, representing each as Unicode chars is an injecture function that would map transcripts to natural numbers, but I'm unconvinced it is important.

This seems right to me - ie both your countability hypothesis and your unimportance hypothesis.

But I think the set of E is not the set of all possible transcripts of RPG campaigns. The latter are constrained (eg by human doings within time and space). Whereas I think E, if it's to be super-everything, is the set of all imaginable things.

 

[pemerton]

I agree that rules exist to say no, but they also increase predictability for players and therefore make it easier to get into character. (If the character knows from the process of learning magic how a Web spell is likely to work on a horse, then letting the player know the rules of Web decreases the cognitive distance between the player and the character, compared to having to Q&A with the DM.)

The rules here seem a bit of a needless intermediary.

Wouldn't we work out how a Web spell works on a horse by imagining what would happen if a horse we ensnared in a giant web? And won't this be an adequacy condition on our rules? (Both our rules about the spell and our rules about horses.)

That's not to say that the rules are pointless, but their function seems to be to actually generate the outcome, not to generate knowledge as to possible outcomes.

 

[pemerton]

E is a set of imaginable events. As I understand it, the cardinality of any segment of the real number line is equal to the cardinality of the real numbers. And I can imagine Yog Sothoth reciting every real number that lies between 0 and 1. So the cardinality of E seems to be the cardinality of the real numbers.

To be clear, given the ambiguities of syntax:

I can entertain the proposition "Yog Sothoth recites every real number that lies between 0 and 1." But perhaps I can't imagine this, for some relatively strict sense of imagine, given that as an event it would lie outside of all possible human experience.

But, for any given real number that lies between 0 and 1, I can imagine the event that is Yog Sothoth reciting it. And the number of these events is uncountable (isn't it?), yet each of them is a member of E.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The rules here seem a bit of a needless intermediary.

Wouldn't we work out how a Web spell works on a horse by imagining what would happen if a horse we ensnared in a giant web?

In GM-less solo play or novel writing, sure. In normal play though, a player cannot read the mind of the GM, so in the absence of rules, Q&A would be required to learn how the GM imagines the result of snaring a horse in a giant web.

 

[loverdrive]

Your theorem doesn't seem to have a place for process. Related to this, it treats G and B as static.

Well, the rules themselves are rarely static too! Sometimes directly like DCC with it's dedicated funnel, sometimes indirectly, like picking a playbook, and then moves, and then advancements in AW.

The way I see it, venturing into dangerous territory outside of consensus necessitates protection, and some kind of assurance that this venture wouldn't suck. Before that is established, Baker's unwanted is actively worse than rubber-stamping consensus, I think.

This not directly flows from what I said above, but: BDSM, for example, is possible only because it can be stopped or slowed down at any moment with no repercussions. That is what allows the entire process to function, so the sub can let go and allow themselves to be surprised.

 

[pemerton]

The way I see it, venturing into dangerous territory outside of consensus necessitates protection, and some kind of assurance that this venture wouldn't suck.

When we're talking about imagining a fiction together, I'm not sure that an assurance of that sort is possible, is it?

I'm reminded of this from Edwards:

not everyone is necessarily a whiz at addressing Premise even when they try. If they were, we'd see a hell of a lot more great novels, comics, movies, and plays than we do. Signs of "hack Narrativism" include backing off from unexpected opportunities to address Premise or consistently swinging play into parody versions of the issues involved. I don't see any particular reason to bemoan or criticize this bit of dysfunction; all art forms have their Sunday practitioners. . . .

why role-play for this purpose? Why this venue, and not some more widely-recognized medium like writing comics or novels or screenplays? Addressing Premise can be done in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of artistic media. To play Narrativist, you must be seizing role-playing, seeing some essential feature in the medium itself, which demands that Premise be addressed in this way for you and not another. What is that feature? If you can't see one, then maybe, just maybe, you are slumming in this hobby because you're afraid you can't hack it in a commercial artistic environment. Maybe you even hang with a primarily-Simulationist group, with the minimal levels of satisfaction to be gained among them, because it's safe there.

But let's say you do answer that question, and hold your head up as a Narrativist role-playing practitioner, addresser of Premise. Fine - now you have to ask yourself whether you can handle artistic rejection. That's right, no one might be interested in you. This is exactly what all aspiring directors, screenwriters, novelists, and other practitioners of narrative artistry face. In which case, you'll have to decide whether it's because your worthy vision is unappreciated and should seek new collaborators, or because your vision is simply lacking. It's not an easy thing to deal with.

But let's say that's all resolved too, and you are holding the brass ring: successful and fulfilling Narrativist play with a great bunch of fellow participants, fine and exciting content from your and the others' work, and the sense of worthy artistry. Now for the final conundrum: what will you sacrifice to sustain it? Maybe your spouse is tired of the time you spend on this; maybe you and a fellow group member get a little too close; maybe you decide your art would be even better if your best friend's sorry ass was no longer gumming up the group's work. Can you make those sorts of choices? Can you live with the results?

Good luck with it.​