# That Thread in Which We Ruminate on the Confluence of Actor Stance, Immersion, and "Playing as if I Was My Character"



## innerdude (Apr 9, 2021)

So in the "What is the point of GM's notes?" thread, several posters brought up that one of the highest priorities for sandbox-style play is to experience a "living world," but to only do so through the viewpoint of the character. 

In almost every case this was described as only being properly facilitated through extensive prefabrication and preexistent notation of the game world by the GM. For sandbox play, adherents described high levels of prep as necessary to produce the needed levels of continuity, without which the desired qualities of "emergent" fiction, player engagement, and sense of "living" world would suffer or be damaged.

Now, let's be clear---the definition of "immersion" is murky. It's subjective, it's personal, and often contentious. What isn't in doubt, though, is that for certain D&D playstyles, there is a very high value expressed around the desirability of "immersion" as an attribute. Regardless of individual personal definitions of what immersion _is_, in the thread it was always viewed as a positive, desirable trait or condition to achieve during play.

And despite the potential pitfalls and disagreements, I'm very curious as to how and why this particular trait or quality of play has achieved its unique primacy. 

So, going back 10 years, I looked at a thread I started defending the concept of dissociated mechanics.  And needless to say, I am absolutely terrified and embarrassed at how little I understood about RPG theory, and how absolutely blind I was at the time. My arguments in that thread are laughable, but I was _so sure_ of what I was saying at the time.

For context, I wrote the thread in 2011. In 2011, I had just barely finished running a Pathfinder 1 campaign from level 1 to level 8, lasting 9 months. I had played 4e exactly once, for 2 hours, at an FLGS in the town where I was doing my post-graduate degree. I owned a copy of the old FASA Mechwarrior RPG, and had dabbled with a tiny bit of Top Secret S.I. as a twelve-year-old, but otherwise had literally zero exposure to any other non-D&D games. My main RPG journey went from BECMI > 3.5 > Pathfinder. 

I hadn't played a single session of Savage Worlds yet.

I bring this back up, because I also went back and read the original dissociated mechanics essay by Justin Alexander. 









						Dissociated Mechanics – A Brief Primer
					

Four years ago, in an effort to understand why I found so many of the design decisions in the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons antithetical to what I wanted from a roleplaying game, I wrote an es




					thealexandrian.net
				




And having significantly more experience with non-D&D systems now, my response to the essay was markedly different. Oddly, I continue to agree to the general principle. However you want to term the binary (associative/dissociative), I understood the functional equivalence of, "Mechanics are associated when decisions/processes invoked by the player correlate to decisions/processes invoked by the character in the fiction."

But even if I kind-of/sort-of agree with the concept in principle, I radically disagree now with his take on what non-diegetic mechanics do. (The diegesis / non-diegesis argument is brought up in a later reddit thread here: ). 

From where I stand now, the entire concept of "association" only makes sense if the apex priority of play is immersion.

And now having significantly more experience in the realm of RPGs, I'm now wholly of the opinion that the pursuit of immersion is now much like the pursuit of "realism" in RPG play --- it's largely illusory, ephemeral, difficult to obtain, and generally speaking, impractical to attempt to achieve as anything more than a fleeting (if enjoyable) side-effect.

Don't get me wrong, I've definitely experienced immersion in play. Even if it's somewhat a conceit, I can say there have been times when I have fleetingly experienced it, for brief moments. That sensation of the present, real world slowly slipping into the background as the mind's eye roves and focuses within the fictional world. For brief moments feeling some of the feelings of my character, having vague emotional responses as if I was my character. 

But my recent play using the Ironsworn rules has given a new perspective on this. And I will say that the experience has not been "immersive" in the same way. And I'm even willing to admit that there are elements of Ironsworn that probably make it more difficult to realize that kind of in-character immersion. 

But here's what's been very different---how much I care about the _outcomes_ for the characters involved when I play Ironsworn. Even if I'm not as fully enmeshed or "immersed" in the reality of the fiction, the level of input into the fiction for the players creates a different kind of immersion---there's immersion in the scene, the stakes, and the outcome for the players and the inhabitants of the fiction that's different than D&D, GURPS, or Savage Worlds. 

I'm anxious to hear from other posters, but there was one more thing I ran into as I went through the reddit thread. There's an article from a game designer of interactive fiction, stored on the internet archives that I found fascinating.





__





						Crimes Against Mimesis
					





					web.archive.org
				




I was fascinated by the separation between the three parts, or partitions of personality while playing interactive fiction---the player, the character-as-cipher, and the character-as-fiction. 

And I think there's a connection to be explored about how immersion is achieved---or not achieved, or even desired---where the intersection of those three concepts carries some weight.

And I wonder if the in-character sort of immersion can only be achieved when the player and character-as-cipher aspects are set aside. 

Anyway, lots more to ruminate on, but I'm anxious and excited to hear what others have to say.


----------



## MichaelSomething (Apr 9, 2021)

My attempts at immersion are constantly blocked by my group!

Whenever my character sings, I want to break out into a musical number in real life but they stop me!

Whenever my mages would cast magic missle, I would DAB to simulate the somantic components, but they didn't like that either!

They also disapproved me autotuning my voice when I wanted to play an Android in Starfinder!


----------



## TerraDave (Apr 9, 2021)

Yes, its pretty subjective. And tricky. Detailed notes, as I am sure have been discussed, can add to immersion, but also serve as a sort of trap, actually limiting world engagement.

What engages players, and gets them into the game, are the same. One person's narrativist motivator is anothers meta-moodbreaker.

What the game is about is often the bridge. CoC does well with selective detail: for investigation, to set tone, and of course to bring the crazy. But the system also allows for the abstract, or role-played, resolution of any number of lesser or mundane tasks. D&D put the focus clearly on exploration, combat, magic, and role-played NPC encounters. Usually with some degree of prep, and details on NPC/Monster capabilities.  By AD&D we did have more on the wider world--as the DM would dictate it--but outside core activities, detail was pretty light.

Of course, CoC does not have sandbox pretensions, which barely make sense in its setting (lets ignore the Mythos and teach classes and fix cars instead). D&D has always had some sandbox capability--but much of that was pretty crude, and it was clear from early on that the DM would create a dungeon, an adventure, or campaign, that would place some definition around what the PCs would do.


----------



## DemoMonkey (Apr 9, 2021)

I'm not sure which side of the debate you are actually on, but whichever one it is you are wrong and the way you play is bad.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 9, 2021)

Actor Stance as a concept doesn't quite capture what a lot of sandbox and living world GMs mean when they talk about acting through their character. The hard limit, for a lot, not all, is you can or should only impact the setting through your character (they would reject powers given to their player to shape the setting that don't reflect powers the character itself has for example). But a lot of these same GMs and players are much less concerned about players acting on out of character knowledge (that is a general concern you find in the hobby, in this style it is sometimes policed, but many sandbox campaigns feature people essentially playing themselves and even acting on real world knowledge). All that said, I think where people get tripped up is the absolutism. I think these kinds of campaigns can definitely work well when the players feel like they are exploring a world external to themselves. That doesn't mean every single part of the game needs to be in character (talking out of character is a very important social element of play and important for enhancing player understanding of the setting), and it doesn't mean there will not be edge cases around the whole 'impacting the setting through your character thing'. Sometimes a little bit of 'dissociated mechanics' is fine. It is when it overwhelms play or is hard to ignore peoples really start to have issues I think


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 9, 2021)

innerdude said:


> I hadn't played a single session of Savage Worlds yet.




I highly recommend it. One of my favorite systems.


----------



## TwoSix (Apr 9, 2021)

Bedrockgames said:


> I highly recommend it. One of my favorite systems.



I get the feeling from @innerdude's post that they were referring to their 2011 self not having played SW, not their 2021 self.


----------



## Aldarc (Apr 9, 2021)

I don't find the Alexandrian's disassociated/associated argument persuasive, particularly as it applies to what is or isn't a roleplaying game, especially due to the not-so-veiled Gatekeeping, BadWrongFun, and OneTrueWayism undertones of his article. 

It also discounts, IMHO, how "disassociated," meta-mechanics, or non-diegetic mechanics can actually _enhance_ in-character immersion (for some people). Disassociated mechanic are not inherently an immersion-breaking mechanic or a cessation of roleplaying for everyone as they are sometimes made out to be. For example, Fate points are commonly cited as being a disassociated mechanics that takes some people out of in-character immersion because they are spending a currency that the character can't know about. However, my own players in Fate have been highly immersed in roleplaying their characters while spending fate points. Are they necessarily 100 percent in-character while doing it? Who cares so long as they are immersed in the game and thinking about roleplaying their characters? Several players have conveyed to me, that fate points helped them reflect upon and contextualize moments in-character that are important enough for their character to achieve that it's worth spending this scarce resource on while also reinforcing that aspect of their character through the fiction. 



TwoSix said:


> I get the feeling from @innerdude's post that they were referring to their 2011 self not having played SW, not their 2021 self.



He has even talked about it a LOT in the thread that they say this one is derived from.


----------



## TwoSix (Apr 9, 2021)

Honestly, I've never really agreed with associating immersion with any sort of system of gameplay.  For me, immersion has always been linked to periods of freeform narrative, to the thespian and theatrical aspects of the game.  I just think more narrative focused systems drive the gameplay flow to that state more often.  It's easier to speak freely when I know the system is granting me permission to create details as needed without having to check if they meet a credibility test.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 9, 2021)

innerdude said:


> And despite the potential pitfalls and disagreements, I'm very curious as to how and why this particular trait or quality of play has achieved its unique primacy.




So, there's a lot of game theory verbiage in your post, but I think we can get at this element without referring to games at all, because it isn't a quality of games, specifically.  

Most of us have probably had the experience of watching a movie or TV show, or reading a book, and _forgetting_ that we are doing so.  We become absorbed into the fiction, and the outside world drops away.  You no longer sense the person sitting next to you in the theater.  You no longer notice you are turning pages.  That the real world exists is forgotten for the moment.  That, in a nutshell, is immersion.  Immersion is sought in RPGs for the same reason it is sought in movies, TV, theater, and books.

Now, in RPGs, we are usually talking about a subset of that kind of immersion - immersion in the first-person experience of a single character.  But the reason that experience is important to some is still the same.

Mind you, I think the assertion that you _cannot_ be role playing while using dissociative/non-diagetic mechanics is like saying an actor cannot actually be feeling emotions while remembering their blocking, where the camera/audience is and adjusting to suit, or recalling their lines.  I can accept that maintaining immersion in the role can be _harder_ when your mechanics are outside the fiction, but it is not impossible.  Humans aren't great at multitasking, but we can sometimes achieve it to some degree.


----------



## Aldarc (Apr 9, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Mind you, I think the assertion that you _cannot_ be role playing while using dissociative/non-diagetic mechanics is like saying an actor cannot actually be feeling emotions while remembering their blocking, where the camera/audience is and adjusting to suit, or recalling their lines.  I can accept that maintaining immersion in the role can be _harder_ when your mechanics are outside the fiction, but it is not impossible.  Humans aren't great at multitasking, but we can sometimes achieve it to some degree.



I often think about it like improv comedy. The improv comedian is both in-character while also thinking about how they can elicit a reaction from the audience from their in-character performance. I agree that thinking about roleplaying as strictly in-character/out-of-character tends to miss a lot of the complexities and subtleties at play here. Where I personally take issue is when pure actor stance is taken as the OneTrueWay to have GoodCorrectFun or the ideal that all roleplay should aspire to.


----------



## aco175 (Apr 9, 2021)

Do people prefer one type over the other?  I tend to have varying scales of players who go back and forth.  One player likes to talk in 1st person (I cast fireball) and another in 2nd (My guy casts fireball) person.  There appears to be a lot of overlap and one cannot play 100% one way or the other.  

I also wonder how much of this is determined by the style of the DM and what he rewards or models.


----------



## Fenris-77 (Apr 9, 2021)

1st and 2nd person are both fine ways to play. I do find that players who really target immersion as a key goal of play will normally gravitate to the 1st person. GM style helps too. For example, addressing the characters by name, rather than using the players names, is a seemingly small but actually fairly useful style item.

I don't much care for actor stance as perfect synonym for immersive play either. Partially because I don't care for stances as a useful descriptor of RPG play, or at least I don't care for the kind of discussions they tend to produce.

I also think immersion has more flavours than just the first-person all-in-character version that tends to get talked about a lot.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 9, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> Where I personally take issue is when pure actor stance is taken as the OneTrueWay to have GoodCorrectFun or the ideal that all roleplay should aspire to.




Indeed, I think the term "actor stance" was formulated neglecting what actors actually do, which is a bit of a pity.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 9, 2021)

I think we often have an issue with conflating tools and goals. I am someone who places a very high priority on feeling like my character in the moment, but for me a lot of the tools Justin Alexander scoffed at in his initial essay actually aid that sense. We can have similar goals, but require different processes and tools to get there. 

We have just started playing Infinity. I'm pretty sure a number of folks would consider Momentum to be a disassociated mechanic, but we are finding that it enables a number of situations in the fiction that are not well represented in other games. Like taking time to observe your environment often means you are better prepared for what's coming even if nothing seems amiss.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 9, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Indeed, I think the term "actor stance" was formulated neglecting what actors actually do, which is a bit of a pity.





In my experience the notion of actor stance often associates itself with Method Acting which is actually not all that well regarded anymore. The idea that you have to suffer for your art (calling on past experiences in your own life) and never break character on set. A lot of more modern sorts of acting techniques embrace just being present, trying different things, and the ability to experience the emotion only in the moment.

The Warner-Loughlin technique is specifically a response to Method.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 9, 2021)

Campbell said:


> In my experience the notion of actor stance often associates itself with Method Acting ...




Then it is based in a _misunderstanding_ of method acting - which I suppose is what you get when folks who are making jargon about one thing borrow language from areas that they aren't expert on.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 9, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Then it is based in a _misunderstanding_ of method acting - which I suppose is what you get when folks who are making jargon about one thing borrow language from areas that they aren't expert on.




To be fair it's a misunderstanding of method that a fair number of professional actors also engage in.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 9, 2021)

Campbell said:


> To be fair it's a misunderstanding of method that a fair number of professional actors also engage in.




Surely.  It is a misunderstanding propagated in the media itself, but that doesn't make it good.

For those who do not understand what we are talking about, I give you...


Spoiler: A digression...



Method acting is often depicted as an actor being "too in character" and "never breaking character".  As if when  you are playing Al Capone, you keep the accent up all the time, you bring your behavior in line with Al Capone's behavior, you even think like Al Capone, even off set.  The depiction is that a method actor will _become_ Al Capone, to the point of hardly needing a script.

That's an inaccurate depiction.

Method acting is using a set of practices (the "method" in the name) to draw upon your own experiences to bring yourself into an emotional state similar to the character's.  It is, in fact, specifically about bringing notions and feelings from outside the fiction into the enactment of the fiction.

The problem isn't that the actor "is Al Capone".  It is that, when they have a scene where they beat someone's head in with a baseball bat, the actor _gets themself into the emotional state you'd need to be in_ for that action.  Then, the director yells, "Cut!" and... those emotions are no longer appropriate, and cannot be processed normally while walking over the the craft services table for lunch.

This can make it very difficult to deal with the actor - "Cripes, Fred, why are you made at me?  I'm just a props guy!" - and moreover it is not good for the actor's psychological health.  Method acting is/was associated with emotional fatigue, and sleep loss/deprivation to the point of psychological disturbance.



In the end, immersion be damned, I do not want the player of a barbarian to be as worked up as the character is.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 9, 2021)

@Umbran 

That's where the notion for suffering for craft comes in, usually with he conceit that your only other choice is being performative or hamming it up. I think that reliving past traumas is bad for both the actor and the performance. That's why I am such a fan of the Warner=Laughlin technique because it grounds the emotional center of your performance in empathy for your character. We should not have relive our personal tragedies to have grounded performances.


----------



## MichaelSomething (Apr 9, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Surely, it is a misunderstanding propagated in the media itself, but that doesn't make it good.
> 
> For those who do not understand what we are talking about, I give you...
> 
> ...



So I take it your against players painting themselves black when they're playing Drow?


----------



## innerdude (Apr 10, 2021)

I didn't get to really dig into this in the OP, but there's some interesting parallels to pen-and-paper RPG play in the "Crimes Against Mimesis" article. (By the way, if you read the "Crimes Against Mimesis" article and didn't know what the acronym "IF" stood for, it's "interactive fiction." Took me a good 15 minutes to figure out that's what it meant.)

Even as a retrospective, the article is interesting, because it talks a lot about the earliest forms of interactive fiction --- the old text-based puzzler games like Zork and the like.

But in terms of the whole immersion / "playing as your character" concept, I was really interested in the author's breakdown here:




> *The Reader/Player*
> This is you, the real human being sitting at your computer playing the game. Your goal is to amass points, finish up, and have a good time along the way. You command all the reality-warping conveniences of the game program: save, restore, undo. You know when an item is important, because it is described as a separate object rather than as part of the scenery; you know when an action is important, because you get points for doing it.
> 
> *The Game Protagonist*
> ...




And I think we in RPG circles already understood the Reader-Player / Story Protagonist distinction, but I don't know that we've ever really separated "reader-player" from "game protagonist." Like, it's this really interesting concept that there is, in fact, a third level of separation between "player" and "story protagonist." 

To me the "Game Protagonist" persona functions/operates at the level of the player interacting with their character sheet. You're not really interacting with a "fully realized character," or "story protagonist" at this level . . . but you're still interacting with the game at hand in a way that's somewhat separate from just the mass of meat sitting at the table. Like, to rewrite the quote in pen-and-paper RPG terms: 



> *The Game Protagonist*
> This is you, represented by the largely mechanical numbers and one-word descriptors living on the character sheet. You just love fiddling with feats and situational bonuses and picking up new "loot", because it almost always comes in handy. Your goal is to fiddle around with all these mechanical components in any way you possibly can, so you can explore and tackle challenges posed in the environment as thoroughly as possible and amass all the really important objects, so you can get to the really important places. Strange urges guide you -- the need to roll for initiative when the shopkeeper hasn't even done anything threatening, to cast "charm person" on unsuspected bystanders just because you can, and to prod every inch of the floor with a 10-foot pole, because you're just _certain _it will unlock the secret treasure chamber with the +3 flamebrand longsword.




I'm running out of time again now, but there's some really dense stuff to unpack for me in how as a player I move upwards from reader-player, to game protagonist, to story protagonist.

I think there's something real here to recognize that potentially, "game protagonists" are a form of protagonism, they're just a far less realized version of it. Like, I think the argument that "traditional" RPGs still have protagonism of a kind can be true, if you use the "game protagonism" as the basis, rather than "story protagonism."


----------



## Arilyn (Apr 10, 2021)

I agree with the posters saying we dwell too much on disassociated mechanics.
Technically, most of what we do in RPGs is disassociated: rolling dice, writing on character sheets, eating snacks, talking out of character, even asking questions of the GM. I think what immerses us is just what's happening in the session. And Fate points, momentum, bennies, fail forward or players adding to the fiction are not going to pull me out. To me they are tools of the game, like dice and hex maps. If the events are engaging, and there are interesting characters to bounce off, I'll be immersed.


----------



## Scott Christian (Apr 11, 2021)

Immersion comes from the group, not the individual. 

Having a group 100% engaged increases immersion. Having a group where two people are on their phone decreases immersion. This is one of the reasons why electronics are so damning - they remove immersion. Immersion's prerequisites are eye contact, listening, responding, asking questions, and then the RP starts to fall into play. 

I would be willing to bet no one has experienced immersion in Roll20.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 11, 2021)

Scott Christian said:


> Immersion comes from the group, not the individual.
> 
> Having a group 100% engaged increases immersion. Having a group where two people are on their phone decreases immersion. This is one of the reasons why electronics are so damning - they remove immersion. Immersion's prerequisites are eye contact, listening, responding, asking questions, and then the RP starts to fall into play.
> 
> I would be willing to bet no one has experienced immersion in Roll20.



What's your forfeit?  I mean, I want to know what I'm winning.


----------



## GrahamWills (Apr 11, 2021)

I often wonder how many people who equate immersive roleplaying with "being in actor stance" have actual strong experience of being an actor? Because they seem to describe a state of mind in which 100% of the actor's mind is so immersed in the character that anything external to the character is not intruding. But I don't think this is not the actual case. In fact, I might argue that the best possible state for an actor would be about 50-50 split in their mentality; half of their mind fully engaged in the character, acting and reacting as part of the flow; the other half analyzing the situation as a play for  issues, thoughts and ways to make it better. In other words, half in-character thought and half meta-thought.

As an example, I was playing a character in Agatha Christie's AND THEN THEN WERE NONE a few years back and had to enter in a high state of excitement. Offstage, I would do so some physical prep to build physical tension (meta mind) and also subvocalize and talk to myself in character (in-character mind). When I entered the scene, my prep -- both just then and over the course of the run -- made most of what I was presenting to the audience  automatic -- here's a sample of my meta-thoughts in action for one performance I recall very clearly (lines edited slightly to avoid too many spoilers):

"It's all come true. My Ten Little Soldiers plan -- My rhyme -- my rhyme"
_Oh -- the other character on set jumped back much more stage right than usual. I'll have to delay a little while circling her to give them time to move back to position. They should work it out ..._

"Silence! It's all right, it's all right. Don't be frightened ..."
_Great, they noticed and adjusted. All good now... _

(Long speech here) ... "... The question was, who would win out?" <step up onto sofa>
_This sofa is a bit unsteady. Must remember to ask to have a more solid board put under the cushion between acts. _

"... he went and hanged himself ..." <throws rope with noose up over the ceiling rig>
_Oh crap ... that's hanging in exactly the wrong place -- it must be snagged. It's right where I fall behind the sofa in about two lines now. If I catch myself on it when I dive it could be really nasty and will look terrible_

"... I must have my hanging ... my hanging!"
_Oh naughty word, there's <other actor> ready to shoot. I'll have to dive to the right and miss the mattress. This is going to hurt, but I won't break anything, hopefully. _

BANG! <falls behind sofa, missing the mattress>
_OK, not injured, just bruised, I think. Let's give a thumbs up to the stage manger who is looking very nervous so they know I'm OK and they can continue. Two minutes to curtain; five to ibuprofen ..._

I don't think I'm that unusual as an actor. There always seems to be two parts to the mind, one concerned with the character and the other with the play as an entity. Any good actor will always be aware of positioning, who is blocking who, things that will distract the audience, that sort of thing. 

Relating this to roleplaying games: Their typical "audience" is the other players, so I would expect someone in "actor mode" to be spending about half their energy on "what would my character do" and half half on meta decisions that make the audience enjoy the game more. So for me, *when an RPG player uses a meta tool to make the game more fun, they are behaving exactly as I would expect a good actor to do.*

As a director, an actor who doesn't modify his acting to help his fellow actors is a selfish actor, and one who doesn't use acting techniques to make the performance run well is a bad actor. As a GM, a player who doesn't modify his play to help his fellow players is a selfish player, and one who doesn't use meta techniques to make the game run well is a bad player. 

TLDR: An "all-immersion" actor is a disaster; an "all-immersion" player is also a disaster.


----------



## innerdude (Apr 13, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Most of us have probably had the experience of watching a movie or TV show, or reading a book, and _forgetting_ that we are doing so.  We become absorbed into the fiction, and the outside world drops away.  You no longer sense the person sitting next to you in the theater.  You no longer notice you are turning pages.  That the real world exists is forgotten for the moment.  That, in a nutshell, is immersion.  Immersion is sought in RPGs for the same reason it is sought in movies, TV, theater, and books.




This is a good description, similar to what I was trying to elucidate in the OP. And I'd say that most of us have had an experience like that, at some point, in our RPG play "careers."

But in my experience, it's tenuous and fleeting. The very few times it happened, I remember thinking that it was an interesting, enjoyable feeling, but I couldn't pinpoint what it was that would have led to that moment.

Interestingly, the strongest, most vivid "immersive" experience I had was playing a system I strongly dislike (GURPS). And if I can remember it correctly, it seemed to be strongly tied to a scene where the GM and I mostly ignored the rules, or at least the rules weren't a factor in the play out of the scene.




Umbran said:


> Now, in RPGs, we are usually talking about a subset of that kind of immersion - immersion in the first-person experience of a single character.  But the reason that experience is important to some is still the same.




And this is where it starts to get interesting. Because after my recent experiences with Ironsworn, I'm no longer convinced that first person / single character perspective is a requirement for "immersion." Two sessions ago there was a dramatic moment where I can't recall being as "immersed" / in the moment / in suspense as a GM, ever. I was completely enthralled with the drama playing out in front of me, and I had almost zero final authorial say in the outcome. I wasn't "immersed" in the view of a single character, I was immersed in the scene as a whole.




Umbran said:


> Mind you, I think the assertion that you _cannot_ be role playing while using dissociative/non-diagetic mechanics is like saying an actor cannot actually be feeling emotions while remembering their blocking, where the camera/audience is and adjusting to suit, or recalling their lines.  I can accept that maintaining immersion in the role can be _harder_ when your mechanics are outside the fiction, but it is not impossible.  Humans aren't great at multitasking, but we can sometimes achieve it to some degree.




And the whole "association" thing goes back to the idea that "immersion" is best realized when you can only "see the world" / interact with the world / interpret the world as your character. I think this is much of what I'm trying to get at with this thread --- how, when, and why did this particular conceit become accepted as _the_ mode of play that leads to that fleeting sense of immersion?

Because without that particular conceit, the entire dissociated mechanics argument falls apart. If immersion can take place outside and beyond the confines of "playing only through my character," then the need to assert the primacy of "associative" mechanics falls apart.

In retrospect, though the concept of "associative" mechanics is tautologically correct ("decision points taken by the player correlate to decision points made by the character), as I review the last decade of my RPG play, I don't ever really recall my group having "immersion" as a goal of play. Enagement? Absolutely. Of paramount importance. The action, the dice, the drama / stakes of a particular scene, the hijinx and laughs . . . all of that.

But immersion? Hmmmm . . . not so much. And I'm sure there's some D&D purist that would claim that 8 years of playing Savage Worlds has blinded me to SW's "dissociations," such that of course immersion was impossible! "Don't you know how dissociative Savage Worlds is? Of course there was no immersion!"

But if the goal is to really experience that "slipping away of the real world into the imagined," how does mechanical "association" and "only acting through my character" really accomplish that?

Because when I look at the strongest time I was "immersed" while playing GURPS, it seemed to have more to do with the GM allowing me to _advocate for my character_ and _accept my improv'd propositions as truth_.

Now, I will say, for that particular game, I had probably the most strongly-realized character I've ever played. For all of its fault in resolution, one of GURPS' great strengths is how very strongly realized its characters are. The granularity and minute detail that go into a character build create very strong "building blocks" for knowing who your character is. My immersion was aided by the fact that I could easily slip in and out of "actor" stance without losing the thread of my character's motivations. I could quickly survey a scene in "author" stance, and know how my character in abstract would respond.

So I don't think "immersion" is achieved just through "playing through the eyes of the character." Playing through the eyes of a weakly-realized, rootless-vagabond-murderhobo isn't immersive in any way.

And thinking it through now, the immersion achieved in Ironsworn was greatly faciliated in a similar way---all of the characters are strongly realized through simple, but effective "fictional positioning" effects.


----------



## Scott Christian (Apr 13, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> What's your forfeit?  I mean, I want to know what I'm winning.



You win what anyone wins on the internet - a loss of time.


----------



## aramis erak (Apr 13, 2021)

innerdude said:


> Anyway, lots more to ruminate on, but I'm anxious and excited to hear what others have to say.



All _mechanics _are dissociated from the narrative. That's what makes it a mechanic, and the game a game rather than simple shared storytelling. There are different levels of dissociation, but they all, to some degree, break out of the narrative flow.

The metric I aim for is giving meaningful choices to the players.
I also like that a system "backgrounds" the mechanics well - that is, they rapidly become comfortable, such that my many learning-challenged players can, within a few sessions, just be told the assets to use and they know how to pull the dice together and read the result.

SOme of the play that, looking back, felt most immersive was, in fact, filled with mechanics, and all mechanics are dissociated based upon the definition in that linked article. It's author was not rigorous in their application of the definition.

"Structures make creativity easier" is one of the key wisdom points my Ed instructors repeated. And I've found it equally as true at the game table and in the classroom, and it's the most useful advice I was ever given.

Mechanics are structure. And dissociated from the narrative by their nature. The question is, how much do your players want and/or need, not are they good or bad, nor are they dissociated or not.


----------



## Lanefan (Apr 13, 2021)

Fenris-77 said:


> For example, addressing the characters by name, rather than using the players names, is a seemingly small but actually fairly useful style item.



Agreed.  I only ever use character names unless I'm specifically trying to get a zoned-out or distracted player's attention back to the game.

Using character names falls apart, however, if you hit the situation I once had: a character and a player with the same name, but the character of that name is _not_ being played by the player of that name. That was a tear-the-hair-out special, believe me!  Mercifully, it was only for a one-session gonzo game.


----------



## MarkB (Apr 13, 2021)

The description of immersion in the OP seems to suggest that it's an on/off state. Either immersion is fully happening, or it's not happening.

For me, it's always been more a matter of degree. Whenever I'm playing, I tend to have the in-character scenario playing out in the back of my mind while I'm also paying attention to what's going on at the table around me (or, these days, on the screen in front of me and the Discord call in my headphones). And the extent to which that mental image of the in-character scene comes toward the forefront of my attention will vary depending upon what's happening in-game and out of game.

But while I'm playing there's never really a _zero_ level of immersion. That in-character viewpoint is always at least just ticking over in my head. And in particularly dramatic moments it will grab a lot more of my attention.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 13, 2021)

innerdude said:


> So in the "What is the point of GM's notes?" thread, several posters brought up that one of the highest priorities for sandbox-style play is to experience a "living world," but to only do so through the viewpoint of the character.
> 
> In almost every case this was described as only being properly facilitated through extensive prefabrication and preexistent notation of the game world by the GM. For sandbox play, adherents described high levels of prep as necessary to produce the needed levels of continuity, without which the desired qualities of "emergent" fiction, player engagement, and sense of "living" world would suffer or be damaged.
> 
> ...




I was one of the proponents of living world in that thread: to be clear, at least for me, I never used immersion, and while I was involved in the discussion of association/dissociation, I only ever said it hit on something that resonated for people who were not satisfied with changes in 4E. For me, immersion as a concept is somewhat useful but often taken too seriously or too much to an extreme. I think with living world, your are trying to create a sense of an external place to the PCs. And that is done in part by only allowing them to impact the world through their PCs, but there are whole styles of living world where no distinction is made between say character knowledge and player knowledge: so character's point of view, strictly speaking, isn't the hard limit. I think what it is is an attempt to model a world, using a variety of methods, with a focus on treating moving parts in a setting (NPCs, faction, historical forces, as living, and having a kind of will of their own like PCs do). For me personally, when I role-play, the sense that I am there is definitely the thing that makes the activity different from other media (i get to choose what my character tries to do, and there is a real sense of interaction with a place). But sense isn't dependent on living world or sandbox. I can have that sense in a structured investigation mystery adventure, in a dungeon crawl with things pinned to specific location, in an adventure path (though clearly in the latter, my sense of total freedom might be more constrained by the conceits of the adventure structure). That said, immersion is definitely a goal I see among a lot of living world sandbox people. Usually they mean something like having to interact with the world through their character. Some people mean it to be getting deep into character, and intuiting their character's feelings and thoughts about things. And some folk get very specific and rigid about it. Myself, I don't act out in a performative way with my characters that much (and if I do it is hammy and fun), I am not there to feel what my character is feeling or achieve a high level of play. It is a game, I am there to enjoy it, and one of the things I enjoy is the sense that I am on the ground making choices that matter. I would call that experience immersion, but you can call lots of experiences immersion, and breaking someone's immersion isn't a grave sin or anything (getting upset because your immersion is disrupted, to me, is the sign of a problem player)


----------



## Campbell (Apr 13, 2021)

What I look for in roleplaying is a lot closer to how I felt on stage growing up in the theater than it is to how I feel when getting wrapped up in a good book, movie, or TV show. When I watch a movie or read a book I get wrapped up in the narrative, but I do not feel like I'm there in the midst of what's going on in the fiction. I'm a fan. An audience member.

What I'm looking for when playing an RPG is bleed. That sense of being there in the midst of it all, taking an active part, feeling what my character feels. It's a profoundly different experience for me.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 13, 2021)

Campbell said:


> What I'm looking for when playing an RPG is bleed. That sense of being there in the midst of it all, taking an active part, feeling what my character feels. It's a profoundly different experience for me.



based on my understanding of this term: bleed is definitely not what I am after.


----------



## Fenris-77 (Apr 13, 2021)

Bedrockgames said:


> based on my understanding of this term: bleed is definitely not what I am after.



What are you after then? Just curious.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 13, 2021)

Fenris-77 said:


> What are you after then? Just curious.




again my idea of what bleed is is based on descriptions I have seen but I am after fun, socializing, catharsis and for getting a chance to feel like I am in the shoes of a character. Bleed just sounds one or two steps more deep than what I am looking for (for instance I am fine playing a character and jamming up a villainous moment: but I don’t want that those emotions following me into the real world. Again it is possible I don’t understand bleed here.


----------



## Fenris-77 (Apr 13, 2021)

Bedrockgames said:


> again my idea of what bleed is is based on descriptions I have seen but I am after fun, socializing, catharsis and for getting a chance to feel like I am in the shoes of a character. Bleed just sounds one or two steps more deep than what I am looking for (for instance I am fine playing a character and jamming up a villainous moment: but I don’t want that those emotions following me into the real world. Again it is possible I don’t understand bleed here.



I didn't get the impression that Campbell was talking about anything that impacts out-of-game mental states. I could be wrong of course, but I think what he was after might be more completely called something like _in-game bleed_. @Campbell - correct me if I'm wrong here.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 13, 2021)

Fenris-77 said:


> I didn't get the impression that Campbell was talking about anything that impacts out-of-game mental states. I could be wrong of course, but I think what he was after might be more completely called something like _in-game bleed_. @Campbell - correct me if I'm wrong here.





Pretty much just in the moment. Ideally it's something that can be shut off and turned on basically on command. I want to connect to the character emotionally (for a moment), feel empathy for them. Be affected, but not like feel actual sadness if they were sad. Once play has stopped I want to feel for them, not as them.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 13, 2021)

Campbell said:


> Pretty much just in the moment. Ideally it's something that can be shut off and turned on basically on command. I want to connect to the character emotionally (for a moment), feel empathy for them. Be affected, but not like feel actual sadness if they were sad. Once play has stopped I want to feel for them, not as them.




This is helpful. I was thinking out loud by the way, my post wasn't intended to come off as saying you were doing things bad or wrong. Over the years, I've come to realize that what I am looking for in an RPG is less about the emotions and empathy of immersion and something lighter (a good analogy might be I am less interested in being marlon brando and more interested in being vincent price if that makes sense). Like I do want to be able to intuit what my NPCs would feel about a given situation, I do want to make decisions like I am in my character's shoes, but I am not terribly worried about 'an I completely in the headspace of the character').


----------



## Neonchameleon (Apr 14, 2021)

Bedrockgames said:


> I was one of the proponents of living world in that thread: to be clear, at least for me, I never used immersion, and while I was involved in the discussion of association/dissociation, I only ever said it hit on something that resonated for people who were not satisfied with changes in 4E.



And to me this is basically it. That one key part (not the only part) of immersion is when you've mastered the rules to a sufficient degree that they get out of the way. What the rules are does matter - but for the purposes of immersion they matter because some are easier to master than others and that familiarity is a vast help. There are other things the rules do, of course, including setting the tone.

And for all the comments on disassociated mechanics the fundamental problem was unfamiliarity and an unwillingness or inability to adapt. I've no real problem with this; there are lots of games I can't be bothered to learn. (I did and do have a huge issue with the edition war and the need people felt to burn 4e to the ground).

What I found 4e gave me was an actor stance that was similar to @GrahamWills example of And Then There Were None above. Someone looking at the environment and using options they knew how to use to make sure things work out and fill gaps with fewer options as I get tired. "I hit him" doesn't cut it (or rather it's for a limited number of fighting styles, most covered by the barbarian).


----------



## Lanefan (Apr 14, 2021)

Neonchameleon said:


> And to me this is basically it. *That one key part (not the only part) of immersion is when you've mastered the rules to a sufficient degree that they get out of the way. *What the rules are does matter - but for the purposes of immersion they matter because some are easier to master than others and that familiarity is a vast help. There are other things the rules do, of course, including setting the tone.



I very much agree with the bolded part, and would merely add that one of the benefits of a simplified rules system (which D&D has not been since 0e/Basic; even after heavy kitbashing to strip things down it can still be pretty complex in any non-0e edition) is that it has less to do to get out of the way.


----------



## aramis erak (Apr 14, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> I very much agree with the bolded part, and would merely add that one of the benefits of a simplified rules system (which D&D has not been since 0e/Basic; even after heavy kitbashing to strip things down it can still be pretty complex in any non-0e edition) is that it has less to do to get out of the way.



WIth the caveat that simple doesn't always mean less intrusive, more quickly resolved, nor even more consistent, I would agree on general principles.

Tunnels and Trolls is an example of simple isn't faster; combats can require pretty hefty dice pools, which  slows combat down notably.

WEG d6 Star Wars 1E has the many pools issue, as well as everything must be declared for the turn except reactions before first actions can  be rolled, and then you use the success roll as initiative, so every action impulse is a sort of who goes first. for low-skill characters in low numbers, lightning fast. Big parties (6+) with fair amounts of experience (skills in the 7-8 dice range), drive it to a crawl.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 15, 2021)

Neonchameleon said:


> And for all the comments on disassociated mechanics the fundamental problem was unfamiliarity and an unwillingness or inability to adapt.



Sometimes mechanics just don't fit peoples tastes when they encounter them. It isn't a matter of being unwilling or an inability to adapt (in my case I tried to like 4E, but it just never really worked for me)


----------



## GrahamWills (Apr 15, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> All _mechanics _are dissociated from the narrative. That's what makes it a mechanic



I know where you are coming from, but I cannot agree with this as a blanket statement. It seems to me like saying that “sentences” and “grammar” are dissociated from traditional written narrative, which is clearly not the case. For roleplaying, I’d say that mechanics are the way you construct narrative, much the way that using grammatical rules and constructs are the way you construct written narrative. Rather than _dissociated_, it seems they are fundamentally _associated_.

My guess is that we are more likely to agree on a modified version of your thought, augmented by this comment:


Neonchameleon said:


> That one key part (not the only part) of immersion is when you've mastered the rules to a sufficient degree that they get out of the way.



If a mechanic is _intrusive_ — in the sense that you have to consciously think about it as a mechanic rather than simply consider its effects — then I’d agree that it breaks the narrative flow and takes you out of that feel of being in a story, in much the same way that a sentence like “James had had a pleasant trip“ does. It’a mechanically correct statement, but not one that looks natural to me, so when I read it, I stop thinking about James and his trip and start thinking about the rules.

In much the same way, when i attack an enemy in an F20 game, if I roll d20 add my bonus and ask the GM if a 22 hits, I’m not thinking mechanics at all; I’m involved in the narrative, wondering if the next part of the story is me triumphantly landing a blow on the enemy, or dismayed by his strong defense. But if the enemy beats me in initiate and attacks me (PF2 rules) and I try to react to that, it takes me out of the narrative when the GM reminds me that since my turn has not yet started, I don’t have a reaction to spend — not that it’s a bad rule, just one that is not yet internalized by me. I stop thinking about the narrative and start thinking about the rules.

Another example: if I were to play a mechnic-free game in French, I could do it (badly) but it would not be possible for me to be immersed in it, because at every point I’d be thinking about the mechanics of speaking French; I have not internalized enough French “mechanics” for them to get out of the way. For me, the rules of roleplaying games are just one set of mechanics which are needed to play. Language, ability to roll dice and move tokens (whether physical or on a VTT), understanding social conventions — these are all “mechanics” which if you’ve internalized don’t stop your ability to feel in the narrative. I’ve been in enough situations where one or the other has been issue for someone at the table, definitely including me, and it does not seem to me that there is much difference in terms of interrupting narrative flow between trying to remember how to construct a future conditional in French, mixing up “!r 4d4+2“ with “/r 4d4+2”, or recalling which skills you can use to defend against a Provoke attack in Fate.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 15, 2021)

Also the issue isn't that dissociative wasn't hitting on something true. I think there was definitely truth in some of 4Es mechanics being dissociated and that being one of the conrtibuting factors to folks not liking it. But it is about volume and quantity. People too dissociative mechanics to an extreme level and started arguing any amount was a problem if you did't like it 4E. This is tru of most of the mechanics in 4E people didn't like. Here and there, they were mostly fine (especially as edge cases or as exceptions, or as things that didn't leap out). D&D, in my view always skirted the line with believability because it was a very hand wavy and abstract system. Fourth edition just pushed that lack of believability too far for some people (someone who doesn't mind Barbarian rage existing with the Barbarian, can understandably be more bothered by it if every class has that kind of ability). I think it was a combination of this, and the system being so unlike other version of D&D to many people, that they just couldn't get on board (I was in a number of groups and the reaction I saw in my area was about half of the players just flat rejecting the edition: and these were people who happily transitioned from edition to edition prior to that.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 15, 2021)

innerdude said:


> Anyway, lots more to ruminate on, but I'm anxious and excited to hear what others have to say.




First.  I think this essay is refreshingly honest.

When I play chess and I am deep in thought about the game and analyzing possible move combinations, I may be so focused that I am oblivious to the world around me.   I am immersed IN THE GAME.   I would never though even for a second equate this sort of immersion to what I am talking about in a roleplaying game.   I never for example think I am the king directing his troops when I play chess.   They are just pieces that I am moving around.   So I do believe when a lot of us argue about immersion, we are confusing these two concepts.

For me, roleplaying immersion is being my character.  Making decisions as my character.  Living the life of a character.   That is unique to roleplaying games and it's why I'm willing to commit to many many hours of time in such pursuits.

I also think you are right in declaring that the only pleasure you can get from a game is based on my definition of immersion.  I really enjoy the game of chess.  I am getting pleasure from such a game without ever getting the immersion I seek from a roleplaying game.   Now, obviously, I am not saying Blades in the Dark is equivalent to chess.  I am not.   I'm just trying to differentiate where we might be dividing over immersion.   Obviously creativity is fun and doing creative things is fun.  Blades in the Dark is likely far more creative than a D&D session for example.   It pushes different buttons and it also pushes some of the same buttons.   No doubt there is a lot of overlap.   

There is no need for anyone to become hostile about it.  An approach has payoffs.  We seek different payoffs on occasion.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 15, 2021)

innerdude said:


> And now having significantly more experience in the realm of RPGs, I'm now wholly of the opinion that the pursuit of immersion is now much like the pursuit of "realism" in RPG play --- it's largely illusory, ephemeral, difficult to obtain, and generally speaking, impractical to attempt to achieve as anything more than a fleeting (if enjoyable) side-effect.




Some people value immersion a lot, some don't. Some aren't capable of it, or only to a very limited extent, and wonder why others value it so much. I'm the opposite; I value immersion hugely, see the RPG game table as rather akin to a seance or (moreso) a shamanic vision quest. I have a lot of trouble understanding how/why people can be so keen on board games like Descent, that have the trappings of RPGs but are non-immersive. Or narrativist story-creation games for that matter - fun pastimes, but not _immersive_.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 15, 2021)

Scott Christian said:


> Immersion comes from the group, not the individual.
> 
> Having a group 100% engaged increases immersion. Having a group where two people are on their phone decreases immersion. This is one of the reasons why electronics are so damning - they remove immersion. Immersion's prerequisites are eye contact, listening, responding, asking questions, and then the RP starts to fall into play.
> 
> I would be willing to bet no one has experienced immersion in Roll20.



I experience immersion (as GM) in Roll20.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 15, 2021)

Bedrockgames said:


> Also the issue isn't that dissociative wasn't hitting on something true. I think there was definitely truth in some of 4Es mechanics being dissociated and that being one of the conrtibuting factors to folks not liking it. But it is about volume and quantity. People too dissociative mechanics to an extreme level and started arguing any amount was a problem if you did't like it 4E. This is tru of most of the mechanics in 4E people didn't like. Here and there, they were mostly fine (especially as edge cases or as exceptions, or as things that didn't leap out). D&D, in my view always skirted the line with believability because it was a very hand wavy and abstract system. Fourth edition just pushed that lack of believability too far for some people (someone who doesn't mind Barbarian rage existing with the Barbarian, can understandably be more bothered by it if every class has that kind of ability). I think it was a combination of this, and the system being so unlike other version of D&D to many people, that they just couldn't get on board (I was in a number of groups and the reaction I saw in my area was about half of the players just flat rejecting the edition: and these were people who happily transitioned from edition to edition prior to that.




The issue here is taking how one person might feel about a given mechanic and applying it universally to a larger population. The same mechanic that helps me develop a connection to the fiction and experience more of what my character experiences might seem off to you. Our brains work in different ways. We all have dramatically different experiences of the world, different insights into the way the world works. 

The problem I have with "disassociated mechanics" rhetorically is that people were telling people how they must feel about a given mechanic even if it rang true to them. Like for me personally as a life long athlete the energizer bunny fighter rings somewhat less true than limited use abilities even though I also have some issues with the specific implementation. 

Programming note : I do not want to get into debating the specifics of any mechanics in this thread.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 15, 2021)

innerdude said:


> And this is where it starts to get interesting. Because after my recent experiences with Ironsworn, I'm no longer convinced that first person / single character perspective is a requirement for "immersion." Two sessions ago there was a dramatic moment where I can't recall being as "immersed" / in the moment / in suspense as a GM, ever. I was completely enthralled with the drama playing out in front of me, and I had almost zero final authorial say in the outcome. I wasn't "immersed" in the view of a single character, I was immersed in the scene as a whole.



I think there are two points here.
1.  The word immersion is overloaded.  I'm immersed when programming and playing chess.   I'm immersed in solving the problems presented.   I would not by any means say this is the immersion of which I speak when it comes to roleplaying games.

2.  There is the immersion of viewing the fake world through the eyes of your character and acting and behaving as that character.   That does mean that at least part of your character is some aspect of yourself.  

I really do believe that #1 and #2 are confused in our discussions.




innerdude said:


> And the whole "association" thing goes back to the idea that "immersion" is best realized when you can only "see the world" / interact with the world / interpret the world as your character. I think this is much of what I'm trying to get at with this thread --- how, when, and why did this particular conceit become accepted as _the_ mode of play that leads to that fleeting sense of immersion?




Well if you are pursuing #2 above, then it follows naturally that stepping out of character to do something is going to lessen immersion.  In the same way that during a chess match, if I get up and go to the bathroom, I am going to break my immersion in that game.   



innerdude said:


> Because without that particular conceit, the entire dissociated mechanics argument falls apart. If immersion can take place outside and beyond the confines of "playing only through my character," then the need to assert the primacy of "associative" mechanics falls apart.




I really think these attempts to categorize playstyles and define everything are great but the experience came first.   I didn't like playing certain games.  They just didn't feel right.  Now that I have figured out why, I can avoid them but the feeling preceded my knowledge of the reason.



innerdude said:


> In retrospect, though the concept of "associative" mechanics is tautologically correct ("decision points taken by the player correlate to decision points made by the character), as I review the last decade of my RPG play,



I've been making this point for years but there are many who will still argue to the death about it.



innerdude said:


> But immersion? Hmmmm . . . not so much. And I'm sure there's some D&D purist that would claim that 8 years of playing Savage Worlds has blinded me to SW's "dissociations," such that of course immersion was impossible! "Don't you know how dissociative Savage Worlds is? Of course there was no immersion!"
> 
> But if the goal is to really experience that "slipping away of the real world into the imagined," how does mechanical "association" and "only acting through my character" really accomplish that?



It may not be known but it works for a lot of people.  Probably not everyone.  It's really not something reasoned out.  It's experiential.  We just reason after the fact as to why we get the experience we want.


innerdude said:


> So I don't think "immersion" is achieved just through "playing through the eyes of the character." Playing through the eyes of a weakly-realized, rootless-vagabond-murderhobo isn't immersive in any way.



I think for me #2 above which is what I really think pushes my buttons, immersion is best achieved as I described it.  That may not be true for you even if you are seeking a similar type of immersion.  It may also be true that you aren't even seeking the same kind of immersion.  It's hard to say without being able to read your mind.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 15, 2021)

Campbell said:


> The issue here is taking how one person might feel about a given mechanic and applying it universally to a larger population. The same mechanic that helps me develop a connection to the fiction and experience more of what my character experiences might seem off to you. Our brains work in different ways. We all have dramatically different experiences of the world, different insights into the way the world works.
> 
> The problem I have with "disassociated mechanics" rhetorically is that people were telling people how they must feel about a given mechanic even if it rang true to them. Like for me personally as a life long athlete the energizer bunny fighter rings somewhat less true than limited use abilities even though I also have some issues with the specific implementation.
> 
> Programming note : I do not want to get into debating the specifics of any mechanics in this thread.




There isn't a claim of universality. What I am saying is when 4E came out, a segment of the gaming population didn't like it. I was one of those people (though I did try to play it and it just never took off for me). We didn't know why we didn't like it at the time. Most of us weren't versed int he ideas that went into the design (we just knew it was different by a large degree from prior versions of the game: I think most of us were expecting a slight shift forward, and some tweaks to tamp down stuff like power gaming---maybe some simplification as well as 3E could get very involved). What we got was a very different version of the game than we expected (I had someone in my group who was following the design teams stuff more closely and he wasn't surprised--4E also addressed many criticisms he had of 3E and he was happy with it). Justin Alexander offered up an explanation, dissociated mechanics, that resonated with many of us because it either clicked as 'aha, that sounds like it could be it' or it was something we were grappling with but didn't quite figure it out in our heads and didn't know how to put it in words. So it resonated as an explanation with a portion of the population who disliked 4E. I think it was definitely on to something there. But I think where it went off the rails was people over applied it, it became a kind of extreme thing where some folks where like 'well if dissociation is to blame for my dislike, then we should never play a game with an ounce of dissociation'. But I think a closer look at the issue shows for those folks, dissociation was only part of the problem, and where it was a problem, it was really an issue of volume. 

I competed in martial arts so I understand your point on how that rang differently than you. It has been a while since I played 4E so I can't really handle the mechanics now well for analysis, but I would say I remember that stuff just feeling too well timed. It did reflect something real, but it was a little odd (like there might be a particular kick you are not likely to see more than once or twice per match, but that is because it is hard to land, not because you couldn't try to keep landing it if you wanted to). For a lot of folks, martial classes being that way felt very odd. That doesn't mean there weren't good reasons to not feel odd about it, or to think it was the best of all possible worlds in terms of implementing something from life the tis hard to simplify into a game mechanic. I had a lot of discussions with the friend mentioned above (who I wrote games with and saw eye to eye on many things). And he always raised good points about 4E in contrast to my criticisms. I don't think this is 'one side has a good explanation and argument and the other side is wrong" kind of thing. I think this is just an interesting moment in gaming where they put out a version of the game that landed well for some, not well for others, and figuring out why is difficult. Dissociation I think has survived as an explanation for many because it hit on something they felt but couldn't quite express. Doesn't mean it applies to you or to everyone.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 15, 2021)

AIR 4e Fighters had ONE genuinely dissociated mechanic - 'Come and Get It'. It was modelled on a fictional trope, but not one that resonated with the critics.


----------



## Aldarc (Apr 15, 2021)

Bedrockgames said:


> There isn't a claim of universality. What I am saying is when 4E came out, a segment of the gaming population didn't like it. I was one of those people (though I did try to play it and it just never took off for me). We didn't know why we didn't like it at the time. Most of us weren't versed int he ideas that went into the design (we just knew it was different by a large degree from prior versions of the game: I think most of us were expecting a slight shift forward, and some tweaks to tamp down stuff like power gaming---maybe some simplification as well as 3E could get very involved). What we got was a very different version of the game than we expected (I had someone in my group who was following the design teams stuff more closely and he wasn't surprised--4E also addressed many criticisms he had of 3E and he was happy with it). *Justin Alexander offered up an explanation, dissociated mechanics, that resonated with many of us because it either clicked as 'aha, that sounds like it could be it' or it was something we were grappling with but didn't quite figure it out in our heads and didn't know how to put it in words. So it resonated as an explanation with a portion of the population who disliked 4E. I think it was definitely on to something there*. But I think where it went off the rails was people over applied it, it became a kind of extreme thing where some folks where like 'well if dissociation is to blame for my dislike, then we should never play a game with an ounce of dissociation'. But I think a closer look at the issue shows for those folks, dissociation was only part of the problem, and where it was a problem, it was really an issue of volume.
> 
> I competed in martial arts so I understand your point on how that rang differently than you. It has been a while since I played 4E so I can't really handle the mechanics now well for analysis, but I would say I remember that stuff just feeling too well timed. It did reflect something real, but it was a little odd (like there might be a particular kick you are not likely to see more than once or twice per match, but that is because it is hard to land, not because you couldn't try to keep landing it if you wanted to). For a lot of folks, martial classes being that way felt very odd. That doesn't mean there weren't good reasons to not feel odd about it, or to think it was the best of all possible worlds in terms of implementing something from life the tis hard to simplify into a game mechanic. I had a lot of discussions with the friend mentioned above (who I wrote games with and saw eye to eye on many things). And he always raised good points about 4E in contrast to my criticisms. I don't think this is 'one side has a good explanation and argument and the other side is wrong" kind of thing. I think this is just an interesting moment in gaming where they put out a version of the game that landed well for some, not well for others, and figuring out why is difficult. Dissociation I think has survived as an explanation for many because it hit on something they felt but couldn't quite express. Doesn't mean it applies to you or to everyone.



I hope you don't mind that I post this with some degree of ironic tongue-in-cheek humor, and please don't take this as being mean-spirited: 


Bedrockgames said:


> My experience is when people coin a term to describe a playtstyle they dislike or don't want to engage in, their analysis of said playstyle is usually the thing that isn't very deep



What you say here is about how I feel about the Alexandrian's "disassociated mechanics" article.


----------



## MarkB (Apr 15, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> I think there are two points here.
> 1.  The word immersion is overloaded.  I'm immersed when programming and playing chess.   I'm immersed in solving the problems presented.   I would not by any means say this is the immersion of which I speak when it comes to roleplaying games.
> 
> 2.  There is the immersion of viewing the fake world through the eyes of your character and acting and behaving as that character.   That does mean that at least part of your character is some aspect of yourself.
> ...



I'd say there's even a third variant here - being immersed in the _scene_ of the fiction, as though one were experiencing it as a movie or show. I think this is actually the one I tend towards most, followed up by immersion in my specific viewpoint character.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 15, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> I hope you don't mind that I post this with some degree of ironic tongue-in-cheek humor, and please don't take this as being mean-spirited:
> 
> What you say here is about how I feel about the Alexandrian's "disassociated mechanics" article.



But that gets at part of what I said to Campbell. I can analyze to understand why I don’t like something and why people sharing my preferences might not. I think it is fair to experience something and figure out why you don’t like it. But if you then take that dislike and try to analyze what 4E is all about (especially for the people who like it: and especially if you discount their stated reasons) your bias is going to influence your conclusion (and if your analysis of 4E leads to a negative, it should be viewed skeptically). Dissociation isn’t an experience everyone has with 4E, but there folks who heard about it and felt it matched sone of their negative reaction (that is a lot diffferent I think from sone of the sweeping style analysis I was responding to in that post)


----------



## Aldarc (Apr 15, 2021)

Bedrockgames said:


> (that is a lot diffferent I think from sone of the sweeping style analysis I was responding to in that post)



Is it? That seems highly debatable. It’s not difficult at all, for example, to read Alexandrian’s article as a sweeping style analysis that makes assertions about what is or isn’t a roleplaying game and its not so veiled sense of badwrongfun and onetruewayism.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 15, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> Is it? That seems highly debatable. It’s not difficult at all, for example, to read Alexandrian’s article as a sweeping style analysis that makes assertions about what is or isn’t a roleplaying game and its not so veiled sense of badwrongfun and onetruewayism.



take it up with the Alexandrian. I wasn’t saying those things


----------



## Aldarc (Apr 15, 2021)

Bedrockgames said:


> take it up with the Alexandrian. I wasn’t saying those things



And I was merely saying that your comments could easily apply to the Alexandrian's article.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Apr 15, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> And I was merely saying that your comments could easily apply to the Alexandrian's article.



Ok


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 15, 2021)

MarkB said:


> I'd say there's even a third variant here - being immersed in the _scene_ of the fiction, as though one were experiencing it as a movie or show. I think this is actually the one I tend towards most, followed up by immersion in my specific viewpoint character.



I would have thought that was just #1.  Meaning you are observing something and intensely interested in that observation.   I know chess and programming are kind of out there examples but I think what you said is what I mean as it applied to roleplaying games.


----------



## MarkB (Apr 15, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> I would have thought that was just #1.  Meaning you are observing something and intensely interested in that observation.   I know chess and programming are kind of out there examples but I think what you said is what I mean as it applied to roleplaying games.



The thing is, #1 is a separate thing that I can experience in roleplaying games - becoming immersed in the tactical-board-game element of the system and acting based upon optimal game-mechanical choices. That's something I used to do a lot, particularly in 3e and 4e (linked more to my attitude as a gamer at the time than anything specific to those systems, I think).

That viewpoint is distinct from viewing the scene from an in-fiction standpoint while being a dispassionate bystander, which in turn is distinct from viewing the in-fiction scene through the eyes of your own very-much-not-dispassionate character. But they could all be considered a sense of immersion.


----------



## Lanefan (Apr 15, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> I would have thought that was just #1.  Meaning you are observing something and intensely interested in that observation.   I know chess and programming are kind of out there examples but I think what you said is what I mean as it applied to roleplaying games.



I can see what @MarkB is getting at here.

Three degrees, or types, of immersion:

-1- Immersion with the game mechanics.  This is your chess example, and can be applied to RPGs as well at the at-table level.
-2- Immersion in the scene from within your character.  You're seeing the game-world directly through the character's eyes.
-3- Immersion in the scene external from your character.  You're watching your character move through the game-world, seeing both it and the scene around it.


----------



## Scott Christian (Apr 16, 2021)

S'mon said:


> I experience immersion (as GM) in Roll20.



That is awesome. I expected some to be able to do it, but I do believe it is rarer. I mean people can have a great date online too, but the immersion isn't quite the same. May I ask (since so many are discussing the definition of immersion) what your definition of immersion is?


----------



## S'mon (Apr 16, 2021)

Scott Christian said:


> That is awesome. I expected some to be able to do it, but I do believe it is rarer. I mean people can have a great date online too, but





Scott Christian said:


> the immersion isn't quite the same. May I ask (since so many are discussing the definition of immersion) what your definition of immersion is?



Someone above said it - the regular world sort of melts away, and you feel like you are there. As GM I'm probably experiencing it more like a film viewer, identifying with the protagonists. It can be much stronger as a player. It's a sort of altered state of consciousness, but not that different from watching a film in the theatre; or TV to a considerably lesser extent. A good first-person video game can have some of the same effect; but with a good RPG it's much stronger. I still feel the emotions of when eg my LG PC in a _Midnight_ game had to execute a prisoner during a raid.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 16, 2021)

Arilyn said:


> I agree with the posters saying we dwell too much on disassociated mechanics.
> Technically, most of what we do in RPGs is disassociated: rolling dice,




I disagree on that; if your dice roll reflects an attempted action in world then it is not dissociated. The classic example is rolling a d20 to make an attack; the d20 roll 'becomes' the sword strike, a little bit.  I think that's one reason D&D moved away from 1 minute combat rounds where the association was much weaker. Another example is casting a fireball and rolling 8d6; to a degree the player feels like they are unleashing this devastating magical attack as they roll the dice. This is one reason I can't do 'players roll all dice' games; as GM I need to feel the association between the orc attacking and me rolling its d20+5.


----------



## Aldarc (Apr 16, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> I can see what @MarkB is getting at here.
> 
> Three degrees, or types, of immersion:
> 
> ...



1. Gameplay Immersion 
2. 1st Person Immersion 
3. Isometric Immersion


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 16, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> I can see what @MarkB is getting at here.
> 
> Three degrees, or types, of immersion:
> 
> ...



@MarkB 

I was lumping #1 and #3 together.  I saw it as a focus on something external or separate from #2.   I wasn't dividing up any further.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 17, 2021)

innerdude said:


> There's an article from a game designer of interactive fiction, stored on the internet archives that I found fascinating.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I haven't read the rest of the thread, but wanted to thank you for the link to Crimes Against Mimesis. It was a terrific essay, and although its about computer games it brings out so much that's useful for thinking about RPGing!

How many "immersion"-oriented D&D and similar games nevertheless involve the PCs collecting treasure in roughly-recognisable forms (potions and wands but not buttons or hair braids) from the rooms or bodies of defeated enemies? I'm fairly confident the answer is _quite a few_. But this is clearly a case of character-as-cipher rather than character-as-fictional-protagonist. Even the whole notion of the "adventure" very often reflects the same thing.

This is why I like to distinguish "immersion" from "inhabitation" of the character, where that gameplay aspect of the character really gets left behind.

For a blog dealing with a different aspect of RPGing, but actually grappling with some of the same _character as game piece _vs _character as protagonist _issues, you might be interested in this (which is linked to in the "Six Cultures of RPGing" blog that is mentioned in some other recent threads): The Sacrament of Death – Correspondence is about Diligence


----------



## pemerton (Apr 17, 2021)

innerdude said:


> And I think we in RPG circles already understood the Reader-Player / Story Protagonist distinction, but I don't know that we've ever really separated "reader-player" from "game protagonist."



Ron Edwards has.

So has Robin Laws. You can see it in a game like HeroWars.

So has Greg Stafford. He does so in Prince Valiant (published in the late 80s).

It's true that D&D play hasn't really drawn the distinction. See my post just upthread of this one.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 17, 2021)

Scott Christian said:


> I would be willing to bet no one has experienced immersion in Roll20.



Self-reporting is always unreliable. But I assert that I have experienced inhabitation of my character over Skype.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 17, 2021)

innerdude said:


> Umbran said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Given that we - human beings - become immersed in flims, books, live performances, etc - it's no surprise that you as GM were able to become immersed in the events of play _without_ having to adopt a first-person perspective.



Campbell said:


> What I look for in roleplaying is a lot closer to how I felt on stage growing up in the theater than it is to how I feel when getting wrapped up in a good book, movie, or TV show. When I watch a movie or read a book I get wrapped up in the narrative, but I do not feel like I'm there in the midst of what's going on in the fiction. I'm a fan. An audience member.
> 
> What I'm looking for when playing an RPG is bleed. That sense of being there in the midst of it all, taking an active part, feeling what my character feels. It's a profoundly different experience for me.



I have not acted since I was in high school (and was terrible at it!).

As a GM I want to have the feeling/experience that @innerdude describes. The "performative" aspect of RPGing, at least with my group, is never going have the polish that professionally published or produced work does. But the immediacy and engagement of being part of it does a lot of work to overcome that.

As a player I want something like what you describe. I will sometimes use my knowledge of people or ideas that are different from me/mine to help me understand who my PC is and what s/he might want. The immersion of play is different from that of GMing. I think players are more vulnerable.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 17, 2021)

S'mon said:


> AIR 4e Fighters had ONE genuinely dissociated mechanic - 'Come and Get It'. It was modelled on a fictional trope, but not one that resonated with the critics.



I thought the recovery mechanics were supposed to be dissociated. And the action points. And the marks.


----------



## aramis erak (Apr 17, 2021)

GrahamWills said:


> I know where you are coming from, but I cannot agree with this as a blanket statement. It seems to me like saying that “sentences” and “grammar” are dissociated from traditional written narrative, which is clearly not the case. For roleplaying, I’d say that mechanics are the way you construct narrative, much the way that using grammatical rules and constructs are the way you construct written narrative. Rather than _dissociated_, it seems they are fundamentally _associated_.
> 
> My guess is that we are more likely to agree on a modified version of your thought, augmented by this comment:
> 
> ...



Nope. *I do NOT agree.* I mean it quite literally when I say _All mechanics are intrusive and all are dissociative to some degree_; the question is not "are they dissociative?" It's "Do they give ways to alter the narrative that are worth the disconnection from story and interruption in flow?"

Even a timer mechanism for when the narration turns over to next player is dissociation from the story; it's a non-story element intruding.

The only form of RP play I can see lacking in dissociation is a high-trust no mechanics imrov group... and that fails to meet the standards for being a game. And then, even, many have a single rule - The GM decides the outcome of your actions - which is itself a limit on the story, an intrusion. Most such groups add a second: "Say 'yes, and', or 'Yes, but', and never say 'no.'" It pulls one out of the story due to the limits when you have to keep to those rules. 

Personally, I utterly hate pure improv storytelling as a mode of play. (it does meet the definition of play, but not all play counts as being part of a game.) I find it both too open and too constrained all at the same time.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 17, 2021)

pemerton said:


> I thought the recovery mechanics were supposed to be dissociated. And the action points. And the marks.




But they're not, are they?

"I catch my breath and patch myself up."
"I draw deep on my inner reserves."
"I pay special attention to That Guy."

The way APs are acquired (not spent) in 4e is pretty meta, but their use is very much not dissociated IME. Playing a 4e Fighter and drawing on my inner reserves to make an exceptional effort felt very immersive to me. I think someone upthread already noted this, that giving martial PCs limited resources is a lot more realistic than the traditional 'Energizer Bunny' Fighter.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 17, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> Nope. *I do NOT agree.* I mean it quite literally when I say _All mechanics are intrusive and all are dissociative to some degree_; the question is not "are they dissociative?" It's "Do they give ways to alter the narrative that are worth the disconnection from story and interruption in flow?"




I think by dissociative you mean "pulls me out of the story". But 'Dissociated Mechanics' is a term referring to a game mechanic that does not map to an in-world action - the mechanic is dissociated from the fiction. This may have an anti-immersive effect but that is not what it means.


----------



## Fenris-77 (Apr 17, 2021)

I feel like the associative/dissociative binary is a bit of a canard. They are superficially useful as labels, but that's about it IMO. The whole notion presupposes that there is some sort of 'pure state', or immersion I guess, that is magically not broken by rolling a die or broken by rolling a die, based on the reason for rolling that die. There is a point at which that idea doesn't really pass the laugh test for me. YMMV.


----------



## Aldarc (Apr 17, 2021)

Fenris-77 said:


> I feel like the associative/dissociative binary is a bit of a canard. They are superficially useful as labels, but that's about it IMO. The whole notion presupposes that there is some sort of 'pure state', or immersion I guess, that is magically not broken by rolling a die or broken by rolling a die, based on the reason for rolling that die. There is a point at which that idea doesn't really pass the laugh test for me. YMMV.



I disagree. The value of any gaming theory is directly proportional to how much of my hate for 4e D&D it justifies, and clearly associative/disassociate validates my hatred for 4e and puts it into an essay form using jargon, which means it must be correct; ergo, it is a highly viable way of looking at games.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 17, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> Nope. *I do NOT agree.* I mean it quite literally when I say _All mechanics are intrusive and all are dissociative to some degree_; the question is not "are they dissociative?" It's "Do they give ways to alter the narrative that are worth the disconnection from story and interruption in flow?"
> 
> Even a timer mechanism for when the narration turns over to next player is dissociation from the story; it's a non-story element intruding.
> 
> ...




I think there's a difference between a mechanic that intrudes on our usual thought processes and patterns and a mechanic that makes us feel less connected to the fiction. Sometimes it's those mechanics "that get in the way" that can lead to the most connection to the fiction if they get in our face in a way that feels more true to what our character would be experiencing.

Ludonarrative harmony does not necessarily come from a lack of mechanics. My own personal experience is that completely freeform play often reinforces existing real life social dynamics or what the participants think makes for a better story. The right game mechanics can help ground you more firmly into your character's perspective.

Edit : Just remembered that we're probably talking about different things here.


----------



## GrahamWills (Apr 17, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> Nope. *I do NOT agree.* I mean it quite literally when I say _All mechanics are intrusive and all are dissociative to some degree_; the question is not "are they dissociative?" It's "Do they give ways to alter the narrative that are worth the disconnection from story and interruption in flow?"



Well then, I’m going to have to ask you to address the latter part of my post. Since there is no fundamental difference between internalizing the rules of language, and internalizing the rules of a game, and since if you do not internalize either, they will block an immersive experience, do you draw a distinction between game rule mechanics and all other mechanics that go into a roleplaying game, or not?

Based on your above statement, you would seem to believe that simply speaking is intrusive and dissociative to some degree, so the only fully immersive game is an internal one where players simply feel emotions (without internal vocalization). That seems a rather extreme point of view, so maybe there is some other way in which you feel that game mechanics are special in a way all other mechanics are not.

My position, and I think most people’s, is that it is the degree to which mechanics are internalized that distinguishes mechanics. Having rejected that premise, I am curious as to what you think the difference is. Specifically, how do the following two situations differ, immersion-wise:

Anton struggles with the game mechanic rules for grappling, which limits their ability to play in-character
Betty struggles with the language mechanic rules for English, which limits their ability to play in-character
And perhaps more importantly: Once they have internalized the relevant rules, why is Anton still limited in their ability to play in-character, but Betty is not?


----------



## innerdude (Apr 17, 2021)

Fenris-77 said:


> I feel like the associative/dissociative binary is a bit of a canard. They are superficially useful as labels, but that's about it IMO. *The whole notion presupposes that there is some sort of 'pure state', or immersion I guess, that is magically not broken by rolling a die or broken by rolling a die, based on the reason for rolling that die. There is a point at which that idea doesn't really pass the laugh test for me. YMMV.*




This pretty much captures my thoughts verbatim. As I've noted previously, the term itself ("associated mechanics") makes sense --- a mechanic is "associated" if the decision process of the player maps to a decision process of the character.

But as @Fenris-77 says in the bolded part, the blunt instrument use of the term as a  catch-all for why a game mechanic fails some arbitrary test for helping maintain "immersion" is misguided at best.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 17, 2021)

innerdude said:


> This pretty much captures my thoughts verbatim. As I've noted previously, the term itself ("associated mechanics") makes sense --- a mechanic is "associated" if the decision process of the player maps to a decision process of the character.
> 
> But as @Fenris-77 says in the bolded part, the blunt instrument use of the term as a  catch-all for why a game mechanic fails some arbitrary test for helping maintain "immersion" is misguided at best.



I think "decision process" is not accurate.  Mechanics are conflict resolution tools, not decision tools.  I think that, for many, the term "associated" means that the conflict resolution mechanic is used after the conflict is fully established in the fiction and needs to be resolve.  The term "dissociative" is when the conflict is not yet fully established in the fiction, and the resolution process establishes some part of the fictional conflict, not just it's resolution.  So, rolling to hit after establishing the my character is attacking an orc in the fiction is "associated" because the attack is already established in the fiction so the mechanic is just resolving it.  while using a power to that cause an opponent to approach and be attacked strongly is "dissociated" because the opponent's action (to approach) is not established prior to the use of the mechanic.

I don't find this to be a particularly useful distinction, though, as all things are authored in the fiction and the fight here is really about if the GM narrates the conflict entirely unilaterally or if the player has some input into the conflict as well (and not really associated/dissociated), but this is what I understand the core issue to be.


----------



## darkbard (Apr 17, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> the fight here is really about if the GM narrates the conflict entirely unilaterally or if the player has some input into the conflict as well (and not really associated/dissociated)




Very much this.


----------



## Manbearcat (Apr 17, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> I disagree. The value of any gaming theory is directly proportional to how much of my hate for 4e D&D it justifies, and clearly associative/disassociate validates my hatred for 4e and puts it into an essay form using jargon, which means it must be correct; ergo, it is a highly viable way of looking at games.




Science!


----------



## aramis erak (Apr 18, 2021)

S'mon said:


> I think by dissociative you mean "pulls me out of the story". But 'Dissociated Mechanics' is a term referring to a game mechanic that does not map to an in-world action - the mechanic is dissociated from the fiction. This may have an anti-immersive effect but that is not what it means.



They are abstractions, and they are ALL inherently disconnected from the narrative. (Once again, "you're wrong because you don't understand what you're talking about" dismissiveness rears it's ugly head.)

The limitation on the narrative of any rule is inherently disconnecting from the narrative and substituting an unrelated action. You're pushing for a line that doesn't exist, on what is a spectrum. 

Anything other that pure narration is dissociative. Pure narration is about the LEAST POSSIBLE immersion level for many... especially if they're not the narrator. It's not about the immersion; it is that once you place limits, there's an inherent disconnect between story and intent.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 18, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> They are abstractions, and they are ALL inherently disconnected from the narrative. (Once again, "you're wrong because you don't understand what you're talking about" dismissiveness rears it's ugly head.)



If people are using different meanings for words, they are going to be talking past each other. Yes if you are using a word in a different way than an author used it, and criticising the author on the basis of your definition, you are wrong. You may legitimately criticise the author's choice of words, but if you don't understand what they are saying then your argument proceeds from false premises, and you are wrong.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 19, 2021)

S'mon said:


> But they're not, are they?



Well I'm the wrong person to ask, as I find the whole "dissociated mechanics" thing a half-baked way at trying to point to fortune-in-the-middle resolution together with some meta-game mechanics.

I remember in the original essay The Alexandrian got very worked up about an epic tier devil's mark ability ("Besieged Foe", I think it was).

Part of why I find the notion unhelpful is because it doesn't seem to apply easily even to some obvious cases: is CaGI dissociated? Is it less dissociated if it requires a roll to persuade or trick the opponents? But in that case, part of the definition of "dissociated" is _involves auto-success _even though D&D has always had many mechanics that involve auto-success.

Is it "dissociated" for the question of _whether or not a secret door exists at place A_ to be answered, at the table, in part by reference to the outcome of an action declaration _I search A for secret doors_?

I've been told that these various "dissociated" mechanics are obstacles to immersion in the fiction, or to inhabitation of the character, including in @innerdude's original thread. But personally I have not found that to be the case. At our table, in particular, using CaGI seemed to reinforce the player's sense of his character being at the centre of the fray, dominating things with his whirling polearm. No one ever seemed to be confused about what was happening in the fiction, or why, when that power was used.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 19, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Mechanics are conflict resolution tools, not decision tools.



This can depend a bit on system.

What you say is certainly true for Burning Wheel - because if there is no conflict then the  prior rule "say 'yes' or roll the dice" comes into play and so no mechanics will be invoked. And there is also "Let it Ride" as a further principle that establishes finality in resolution.

But there are some systems that mandate the use of mechanics even if there is no conflict (in any obvious sense of that phrase) occurring: Rolemaster has truckloads of this; Classic Traveller has a bit of it.

I will concede that to some extent it becomes self-fulfilling - in the sense that (eg), in Traveller, those points at which the system mandates mechanical resolution tend in virtue of that to become the sites of dramatic possibility - but I still think it's helpful to keep the two things distinguished. Rolemaster has its problems as a system, but I don't think it's ipso facto a failure just because it doesn't equate _mechanical determination of outcomes_ with _resolution of conflicts_.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 19, 2021)

pemerton said:


> This can depend a bit on system.
> 
> What you say is certainly true for Burning Wheel - because if there is no conflict then the  prior rule "say 'yes' or roll the dice" comes into play and so no mechanics will be invoked. And there is also "Let it Ride" as a further principle that establishes finality in resolution.
> 
> ...



In those instances, are the mechanics making a decision, or are they forcing a resolution of a conflict -- ie, "what happens when you do that thing?"  Mechanics resolve things, they aren't decision aids.

Or rather, things that aren't random tables aren't decision aids.  Those are decision aids, but I don't really see them as mechanics.  I suppose this may be a blind spot for me.


----------



## Arilyn (Apr 19, 2021)

For me, dissociated mechanics are the ones that are broken or oppose the spirit of the game. Some players don't like Fate points because they don't feel natural. I like them a lot because they capture the type of adventure where the heroes struggle, but then get their act together in order to defeat the villian. The old Marvel superhero game that was actually published by Marvel had energy stones that were used up as you burned through your power. Cyclops could easily use up his energy, take off his visor, and be fine. This totally broke my immersion. Cyclops' power cannot be turned off. How could these game designers not see this as a problem? Argh! Immersion gone...


----------



## Aldarc (Apr 19, 2021)

pemerton said:


> Well I'm the wrong person to ask, as I find the whole "dissociated mechanics" thing a half-baked way at trying to point to fortune-in-the-middle resolution together with some meta-game mechanics.



It's also somewhat amusing because he later becomes a fan of Numenera and the Cypher System, which has all sorts of things that would qualify as "disassociated mechanics," and he even admits as much, which is why some of his posts about that system involve him trying to backtrack on this article and provide justifications for the exceptions that he's willing to make for a game he likes. 



Arilyn said:


> For me, dissociated mechanics are the ones that are broken or oppose the spirit of the game. Some players don't like Fate points because they don't feel natural. I like them a lot because they capture the type of adventure where the heroes struggle, but then get their act together in order to defeat the villian.



Same. There is a Fate-like narrative ebb-and-flow to a wide variety of media (e.g., comics, movies, TV, etc.) that involve a competent ensemble of characters who struggle or face complications on their path to success.


----------



## MichaelSomething (Apr 19, 2021)

Want some associated mechanics?  There's always G.U.R.P.S.!!


----------



## pemerton (Apr 19, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> In those instances, are the mechanics making a decision, or are they forcing a resolution of a conflict -- ie, "what happens when you do that thing?"  Mechanics resolve things, they aren't decision aids.
> 
> Or rather, things that aren't random tables aren't decision aids.  Those are decision aids, but I don't really see them as mechanics.  I suppose this may be a blind spot for me.



In RM you very often have to roll to find out _what happens when you do that thing_. But if what you're doing is casting a teleport spell so you and your friends can get from place A to place B as part of a journey, it's hard for me to see it as _resolving a conflict _because there may not be very much at stake _besides the possible consequences that the spell failure system imposes_. There is no "say 'yes'" option in RM is played as written. (I GMed a lot of RM and it never occurred to me to say "yes" to that sort of thing. Part of the point of those mechanics is to find out what happens next.)

In the Traveller context there are random tables which I do think of as resolution mechanics in some contexts: eg when a player declares _I spend the week at the starport lounge waiting to see if I encounter a patron _then the random patron table is part of the resolution mechanism for that (it gets consulted if the encounter check is made: 5+ on 1 die, or 4+ if the character has Carousing-1+).

A bit more borderline is the throw against world Law Level to avoid being pulled over by the police or similar in a given day of activity (-1 to the throw if you are actually doing illegal things).

These Traveller-related thoughts involve a degree of reconceptualisation on my part: Classic Traveller as presented doesn't distinguish between content introduction as a component of framing and content introduction as a component of resolution. It tends to assume that the referee just knows how to do this stuff.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 19, 2021)

Fenris-77 said:


> I feel like the associative/dissociative binary is a bit of a canard. They are superficially useful as labels, but that's about it IMO. The whole notion presupposes that there is some sort of 'pure state', or immersion I guess, that is magically not broken by rolling a die or broken by rolling a die, based on the reason for rolling that die. There is a point at which that idea doesn't really pass the laugh test for me. YMMV.



I think for me rolling a die is just like turning a page in a book.  It doesn't really affect me.   I had a player once who suggested I just roll all the dice behind the screen and tell the group what happened so maybe some people are affected.  I didn't take up his suggestion by the way.

I think it's really just acting as your character or not acting as your character.  That is to be a value regardless of other distractions.  I want to act as my character and interact with a world independent of myself.   The GM provides that by creating a world and playing the other inhabitants.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 19, 2021)

pemerton said:


> How many "immersion"-oriented D&D and similar games nevertheless involve the PCs collecting treasure in roughly-recognisable forms (potions and wands but not buttons or hair braids) from the rooms or bodies of defeated enemies? I'm fairly confident the answer is _quite a few_. But this is clearly a case of character-as-cipher rather than character-as-fictional-protagonist. Even the whole notion of the "adventure" very often reflects the same thing.



Why is something like Indiana Jones guaranteed to be lacking?  Is the very essence of seeking treasure unrealistic?  I think not.  In fact, if there were treasure to be had I think we'd find takers even today to do dangerous things to get it.   Those would be real people with real motives.

There are many reasons for adventuring.  Getting treasure is just one.   And picking up the valuable stuff and discarding the stuff that isn't valuable isn't really surprising.  As the PCs grow in power and interact with the world even more, the reasons to adventure far more often take on higher drama.   At low levels, they might offer to rescue someone kidnapped by goblins but they are just as likely to just go looking for trouble.  

I'm sure you've really never experienced a game like mine.  You've played a caricature of my style of gaming and declared it of low value.



pemerton said:


> This is why I like to distinguish "immersion" from "inhabitation" of the character, where that gameplay aspect of the character really gets left behind.



And this is where I separated the types of immersion in another post.  You can be immersed in one sort of way in almost anything from gardening, a boardgame, etc...   That sort of immersion though is not at all what I and others on here talk about.   What we talk about is very much the immersion of inhabiting a character.   Similar but not exactly the same as reading a good novel and putting yourself in the shoes of the protagonist.  Even then the excitement of making decisions would not be as strong as it is in roleplaying games.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 19, 2021)

innerdude said:


> This pretty much captures my thoughts verbatim. As I've noted previously, the term itself ("associated mechanics") makes sense --- a mechanic is "associated" if the decision process of the player maps to a decision process of the character.
> 
> But as @Fenris-77 says in the bolded part, the blunt instrument use of the term as a  catch-all for why a game mechanic fails some arbitrary test for helping maintain "immersion" is misguided at best.



I would only use it for mechanics that you specify in the first paragraph.   I think that is a good description of what I talk about.   

Realize too that with any roleplaying game there is an "implied" setting.  That has to play into the decision making process.   Here is an example...

In the implied setting of 1e D&D,  Wizards memorized their spells and upon casting them they disappeared from their minds.   This memorization process and the fact they disappeared along with the levels of those spells were all associated.  That is because the game setting implied such association.   Wizards knew about all these things.  Spells were real to the inhabitants of the fantasy world.

Whereas other mechanics don't have that implied setting support.  In 4e, a rogue being able to throw a flurry of daggers once per day for example.  Rogues may have a maneuver where they throw daggers but they have no notion of a one day limit.  If instead there were a magical death cult, that specifically imbued themselves with such a power in some associated way then the power would become associated.  Instead we had no attempt to associate any of these martial powers.   Players deciding the moment when characters got a once in a day opportunity was very much authorial stance.   

So it's never about realism.  We can all agree that at times D&D has had some pretty unrealistic things.  It's about association in the setting for each ability.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 19, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> I would only use it for mechanics that you specify in the first paragraph.   I think that is a good description of what I talk about.
> 
> Realize too that with any roleplaying game there is an "implied" setting.  That has to play into the decision making process.   Here is an example...
> 
> ...



You know, when I said to you that spells are dissociated mechanics wearing a lampshade, you called me a fool.  Yet, here you are putting lampshades on things and thereby declaring them associated.  This directly goes to my statement that dissociation is a you problem, not a mechanical one.  If you're okay or not okay with something depending on if it has an attractive (to you) lampshade on, then it's not the mechanic that's dissociated, it's you.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 19, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> You know, when I said to you that spells are dissociated mechanics wearing a lampshade, you called me a fool.  Yet, here you are putting lampshades on things and thereby declaring them associated.  This directly goes to my statement that dissociation is a you problem, not a mechanical one.  If you're okay or not okay with something depending on if it has an attractive (to you) lampshade on, then it's not the mechanic that's dissociated, it's you.



The very definition of association is what you are calling a lampshade.  It shows honestly how utterly you don't understand dissociated mechanics.  

What you call a lampshade is the very essence of association.  An in world explanation for something that doesn't otherwise work in our own world.   So you try in one fell swoop to totally dismiss an idea but using a dismissive term.  The reality is that you either are woefully ignorant or you are very disingenuous and dishonest.

Some people care that their game have some justification for character powers in the campaign setting.  This is the entire point by definition.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 19, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> The very definition of association is what you are calling a lampshade.  It shows honestly how utterly you don't understand dissociated mechanics.
> 
> What you call a lampshade is the very essence of association.  An in world explanation for something that doesn't otherwise work in our own world.   So you try in one fell swoop to totally dismiss an idea but using a dismissive term.  The reality is that you either are woefully ignorant or you are very disingenuous and dishonest.
> 
> Some people care that their game have some justification for character powers in the campaign setting.  This is the entire point by definition.



The term is dissociated _mechanic_.  You're making a fictional lampshade argument, which has nothing at all to do with the _mechanic_.  In other words, plot coupons are fine so long as they're sufficiently veiled in a thin fictional justification.  This is the argument we were having with spells -- I was pointing out that if it's an actual mechanical issue, then spells are dissociated because they allow the player to enforce a change in the fiction that the GM is obliged to accept -- that it's the player making this fictional authoring decision.  I then said that this is lampshaded by "magic" and so ignored by many arguing about dissociated _mechanics_ -- that they ignore this mechanic when it's dressed up in clothes they like.  You then attacked me for not understanding what dissociated mechanics means, when you're making the exact argument I am right here -- that it's not the _mechanic_, but whether or not it's wearing clothes you like.  That this is a *you *problem, not a _mechanic _problem.

And, yet, here you are, once again telling me I don't understand what dissociated means.  I'm at a complete loss.  It's not often that I'm told I'm wrong and then have my exact argument repeated back to me as proof.


----------



## Fenris-77 (Apr 19, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> What you call a lampshade is the very essence of association.  An in world explanation for *something that doesn't otherwise work in our own world.   *



This isn't what the associative/dissociative binary revolves around at all.  Here's Justin Alexander's simple definition, and since he's the guy who came up with this it can be taken as gospel, insofar as the definition goes anyway:

_An associated mechanic is one which has a connection to the game world. A dissociated mechanic is one which is disconnected from the game world. _

You notice there's nothing there about real-world possibility? It's strictly a matter of association to the diegetic frame. Your use of words like _utterly_ and _very essence_ is pretty ironic.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 19, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> The term is dissociated _mechanic_.  You're making a fictional lampshade argument, which has nothing at all to do with the _mechanic_.  In other words, plot coupons are fine so long as they're sufficiently veiled in a thin fictional justification.  This is the argument we were having with spells -- I was pointing out that if it's an actual mechanical issue, then spells are dissociated because they allow the player to enforce a change in the fiction that the GM is obliged to accept -- that it's the player making this fictional authoring decision.



To come at your point from a slightly different direction: I think a good part of the appeal of spell-point-ish magic systems like Rolemaster, or exhausation-based ones like Burning Wheel, is that they deepen the "association" or lessen the "thin fictional justification". There's more of a sense of the character actually doing something in the fiction that generates this magical effect.

In those systems that tends to be a good fit with their other "realism"-supporting features like rich skill systems, no classes in the D&D sense, hit locations and parrying in combat, etc.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 19, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> I'm sure you've really never experienced a game like mine.  You've played a caricature of my style of gaming and declared it of low value.



Are you sure I haven't played it and just not enjoyed it? In another thread you seemed to assert that tastes in RPGing differ, as they do in relation to other pastimes and aesthetic endeavours.



Emerikol said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Indiana Jones is not a story of collecting treasure. Unless you count Marion, or Indy's father, as treasures.

And even if we ignore the story and focus on the events and tropes, you don't see looting of bodies and nor do you find the treasure conforming to pre-conceived game-significant forms like potions and wands but not buttons and hair braids.

Now I have no real idea of whether or not your game is an instance of the sort of D&D play I referred to. I didn't quote you or refer to you in the post to which I'm responding. The only reason I think it might be is because you seemed to see your game described in the picture that I painted.


----------



## AnotherGuy (Apr 19, 2021)

pemerton said:


> Well I'm the wrong person to ask, as I find the whole "dissociated mechanics" thing a half-baked way at trying to point to fortune-in-the-middle resolution together with some meta-game mechanics.
> 
> I remember in the original essay The Alexandrian got very worked up about an epic tier devil's mark ability ("Besieged Foe", I think it was).
> 
> ...




I think we all have various degrees of what breaks our immersion and which mechanics we may feel are more _dissociated _from our perceived conception of the fiction than others_. _

Having martial maneuvers such as CaGI might be troublesome for some, although the erata fix which adds a saving throw may assist some in overcoming their issue with the power.
Others may have no issue with CaGI as a martial power but take issue with the allowed frequency of it use - since that number is a mechanic solely for balance purposes and it is pretty exposed.
In our 5e game we tied the encounter and daily _powers _to HD and the exhaustion track so that veiled things somewhat.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 19, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> The term is dissociated _mechanic_.  You're making a fictional lampshade argument, which has nothing at all to do with the _mechanic_.  In other words, plot coupons are fine so long as they're sufficiently veiled in a thin fictional justification.  This is the argument we were having with spells -- I was pointing out that if it's an actual mechanical issue, then spells are dissociated because they allow the player to enforce a change in the fiction that the GM is obliged to accept -- that it's the player making this fictional authoring decision.  I then said that this is lampshaded by "magic" and so ignored by many arguing about dissociated _mechanics_ -- that they ignore this mechanic when it's dressed up in clothes they like.  You then attacked me for not understanding what dissociated mechanics means, when you're making the exact argument I am right here -- that it's not the _mechanic_, but whether or not it's wearing clothes you like.  That this is a *you *problem, not a _mechanic _problem.
> 
> And, yet, here you are, once again telling me I don't understand what dissociated means.  I'm at a complete loss.  It's not often that I'm told I'm wrong and then have my exact argument repeated back to me as proof.



Yes you didn't understand then and you don't understand now.  Of course dissociation occurs when a character that hypothetically would exist in the game world could not do such a thing or know such a thing.  That is the ENTIRE FRIGGIN POINT.   It has always been the point.   

In the Alexandrian football example, the reason why the wide receiver with the special leaping catch power is dissociated is BECAUSE in our world wide receivers cannot just make a spectacular catch whenever they want.  It is not a once per day power that NFL wide receivers catch some great catch.  Perhaps we might say there is a chance on any given pass that a receiver could make a spectacular catch but as an ability usable once per day is patently ridiculous.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 19, 2021)

pemerton said:


> Indiana Jones is not a story of collecting treasure. Unless you count Marion, or Indy's father, as treasures.



It's not a story about D&D either for the most part.  It's not how Gygax played either.  It's really a caricature and that was the point.  I gave Indiana Jones, the original, as a story where treasure collecting was going on but it is not what the story is about.  That was my intent.  I'm glad you got it.  

Treasure is a means to an end in most D&D games I know.  There are a lot of other agendas going on besides just mindless dungeon crawling.


----------



## Fenris-77 (Apr 19, 2021)

In some versions of the game it is the main point. The fact that 1gp = 1xp makes that pretty clear. That's less true of the newer editions of course.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 19, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> Yes you didn't understand then and you don't understand now.  Of course dissociation occurs when a character that hypothetically would exist in the game world could not do such a thing or know such a thing.  That is the ENTIRE FRIGGIN POINT.   It has always been the point.
> 
> In the Alexandrian football example, the reason why the wide receiver with the special leaping catch power is dissociated is BECAUSE in our world wide receivers cannot just make a spectacular catch whenever they want.  It is not a once per day power that NFL wide receivers catch some great catch.  Perhaps we might say there is a chance on any given pass that a receiver could make a spectacular catch but as an ability usable once per day is patently ridiculous.



Unless it's wearing clothes you like, though.  This is the point I'm making -- the difference between the NFL example and a spell is just the clothes they wear.  You can't imagine an outfit that fits the NFL example, so it's dissociated, but you can imagine some nice outfits for the spell, so it's associated.  This isn't about the actual mechanics, but about your ability as a tailor, which means dissociation is an issue that you have, not that the mechanics have -- you can't think of how to dress up some mechanics.  Other people can, so those mechanics are not dissociated for them, because they can come up with an outfit that fits.  

You seem to think that I don't follow the Alexandrian's argument, and your rather simpler form of it.  I follow just fine -- I just disagree.  It's not a matter of my failing to understand, it's that I understand it fine and think it's bogus.  And the reason why is that it's a definition that relies on an individual to determine if they can imagine how that mechanic works in a pleasing way or not, not that there's anything inherent in the mechanics.  Sure, some mechanics are easier to explain away, or have long standing explanation that make no sense but everyone is comfortable with (seriously, who initially read Vancian magic and thought, "wow, that makes perfect sense and isn't at all a balancing mechanic!").  Some can be more challenging.  But this isn't a failure for me to understand, it's a failure for me to _agree_.  Personally, I find the Alexandrian to be a great thinker on games, from within a very narrow set of approaches.  Outside of his comfort channels, he goes from a good thinker to just tossing out bunkum to support his biases.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 19, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Unless it's wearing clothes you like, though.  This is the point I'm making -- the difference between the NFL example and a spell is just the clothes they wear.



No.  Pay attention.   We don't like it BECAUSE it dissociates from the underlying world.   The implied setting if you will.   

There is an in game character driven reason for why spells work as they do.  Since spells are made up constructs, basically "magic", you have no correlation in the real world.  Thus if the rules say wizards memorize spells, your character sees themself doing that without difficulty.  It's just the way magic works in that world.  It could work any of a dozen ways or more.   Every time a fantasy author writes a novel, they put forth a magic system.  Some specialize in putting forth unique ones.  For some readers this is a plus as they like imagining all sorts of different ways magic could work.

Thus there is no dissociation between character and player.   The character memorizes the spell and casts the spell all in game.  No player authoring is required at all.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 19, 2021)

Fenris-77 said:


> In some versions of the game it is the main point. The fact that 1gp = 1xp makes that pretty clear. That's less true of the newer editions of course.



Is the way you earn x.p. the main point?  I mean gold is something that almost any sort of opposition will typically have.  No one in my group ever said "Let's fight this creature as it has more x.p."   They do check their sheets outside the game and get excited for what may be coming up in terms of improvements to their class but that is because they want to use those new abilities to advance their agenda in the game world.  So their game world agenda is their prime goal.  Power and money though make achieving any agenda useful in most cases.  It's why I've often said that dungeon exploring for profit is their job.  On occasion they need money so they will go for the gold.  Why do they need money?  They have some other game agenda.


----------



## hawkeyefan (Apr 19, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> No.  Pay attention.   We don't like it BECAUSE it dissociates from the underlying world.   The implied setting if you will.
> 
> There is an in game character driven reason for why spells work as they do.  Since spells are made up constructs, basically "magic", you have no correlation in the real world.  Thus if the rules say wizards memorize spells, your character sees themself doing that without difficulty.  It's just the way magic works in that world.  It could work any of a dozen ways or more.   Every time a fantasy author writes a novel, they put forth a magic system.  Some specialize in putting forth unique ones.  For some readers this is a plus as they like imagining all sorts of different ways magic could work.
> 
> Thus there is no dissociation between character and player.   The character memorizes the spell and casts the spell all in game.  No player authoring is required at all.




No player authoring is needed because someone else authored a whole system for the player already, before play began.

This is where elements of the game's fiction that have actual real world parallels....things like the one handed catch, which is a combo of skill, timing, and opportunity....somehow make less sense to people than someone throwing a fireball around and then immediately forgetting how to do so afterward.

It seems to me that a lot of this is more about the player's ability to decide "now is when I can do the one handed catch" because that player is now taking on the ability to control the fiction in a more authorial way....deciding that the opportunity is there... and that is simply unacceptable. Except cuz magic. Or cuz DM.

Yeah.....the idea of dissociation is easy to grasp, but I don't think it's nearly as meaningful as many have made it, even Justin Alexander, who has dialed it back a lot over the years.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 19, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> No.  Pay attention.   We don't like it BECAUSE it dissociates from the underlying world.   The implied setting if you will.
> 
> There is an in game character driven reason for why spells work as they do.  Since spells are made up constructs, basically "magic", you have no correlation in the real world.  Thus if the rules say wizards memorize spells, your character sees themself doing that without difficulty.  It's just the way magic works in that world.  It could work any of a dozen ways or more.   Every time a fantasy author writes a novel, they put forth a magic system.  Some specialize in putting forth unique ones.  For some readers this is a plus as they like imagining all sorts of different ways magic could work.
> 
> Thus there is no dissociation between character and player.   The character memorizes the spell and casts the spell all in game.  No player authoring is required at all.



I say a thing, and you tell me, vehemently, that thing is wrong.  And then say the thing.


----------



## Fenris-77 (Apr 19, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> Is the way you earn x.p. the main point?  I mean gold is something that almost any sort of opposition will typically have.  No one in my group ever said "Let's fight this creature as it has more x.p."   They do check their sheets outside the game and get excited for what may be coming up in terms of improvements to their class but that is because they want to use those new abilities to advance their agenda in the game world.  So their game world agenda is their prime goal.  Power and money though make achieving any agenda useful in most cases.  It's why I've often said that dungeon exploring for profit is their job.  On occasion they need money so they will go for the gold.  Why do they need money?  They have some other game agenda.



Gold is how you advance in the game, that makes it a central conceit. There's not really an argument contra there. IDK why we're arguing about it honestly.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 19, 2021)

And, in this argument, I think we reveal a major point...

Whether a mechanic is "dissociat_ed_" is really not the important bit.  Whether a mechanic is dissasociat_ive_ - whether it causes dissociation in the player, a breaking from the in-game experience, is. However, that is an entirely subjective thing. We could discuss tendencies, but none of us have actually asked enough players to really have data on that.

I will grant that Fate Points are a dissociated mechanic in the standard parlance as I know it.  However, they don't break me from the in-game experience, so I don't have an issue with them.


----------



## Lanefan (Apr 20, 2021)

pemerton said:


> In RM you very often have to roll to find out _what happens when you do that thing_. But if what you're doing is casting a teleport spell so you and your friends can get from place A to place B as part of a journey, it's hard for me to see it as _resolving a conflict _because there may not be very much at stake _besides the possible consequences that the spell failure system imposes_.



If instead of 'conflict resolution' one sees and uses mechanics as 'risk resolution' including but not limited to conflict, does that help?


----------



## Lanefan (Apr 20, 2021)

pemerton said:


> Indiana Jones is not a story of collecting treasure. Unless you count Marion, or Indy's father, as treasures.



I have to disagree.

The Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, the Cross of Coronado, etc., etc. - all of these are treasures the (attempted) collection/recovery of which are central to his stories.  That he ultimately ends up being more successful at saving people than at saving treasures isn't really the point: finding and recovering the treasures (but not for himself; "_this should be in a museum!_") is what drives him.


----------



## Manbearcat (Apr 20, 2021)

Fenris-77 said:


> Gold is how you advance in the game, that makes it a central conceit. There's not really an argument contra there. IDK why we're arguing about it honestly.




Its not clear how gold = xp is anything more than keeping score (which I think is what you're saying here and I don't know what Emerikol is saying about it) which also works with the rest of the system to create the carrot to "push on" rather than "retreat with the spoils we have (either because we're nearing encumbered or resource exhaustion."

"I suddenly got better at swinging a sword, not succumbing to poison, not perishing from falls because of the gold we got from that treasure room (as a first order function)" is clearly not anchored within the game world in any way.  

Looting a fancy +3 sword will makes you better at sword-swinging.

Buying a Periapt of Proof against Poison from the strange peddler will make you better at not succumbing to poison (and is a 2nd order function of getting gold...you have the gold...now you have to turn it into something useful).

Crafting a Feather Fall Scroll with the attained gold will make you better at not perishing from falls (again, 2nd order).


But if gold is a sort of 1st order adventuring competency force-multiplier (the "for xp" part) that it is in the real world in terms of wealth creation...then something very strange is happening in D&D land.

Like a great many things D&D, its (as you say) both an end and a means to facilitate the Skilled Play priority of classic D&D delving.


----------



## Lanefan (Apr 20, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> "I suddenly got better at swinging a sword, not succumbing to poison, not perishing from falls because of the gold we got from that treasure room (as a first order function)" is clearly not anchored within the game world in any way.



Which is a key reason why we dropped the concept lo these many years ago: it just didn't make - and couldn't be made to make - in-game sense.


Manbearcat said:


> Looting a fancy +3 sword will makes you better at sword-swinging.



If you're the one who gets to keep and-or use it, yes.  Where this falls apart is that looting said +3 sword also somehow makes the MU equally better at spellcasting, which is rather ludicrous.


----------



## Fenris-77 (Apr 20, 2021)

Nope, it's just score keeping, and a slightly odd one. But is the advancement mechanism, which pushes players to seek out gold as a goal.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 20, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> gold is something that almost any sort of opposition will typically have.



REH's Conan is an inspiration for FRPGing. So is LotR. The latter does not involve acquiring gold from loot. There are the Barrow Blades, but those have much more backstory than the typical D&D module gives a +1 sword in the troll's treasure chest.

One of the best Conan stories is Tower of the Elephant. In D&D terms that episode would be a failure because Conan didn't get the jewels. In The Scarlet Citadel he befriends a magician which helps him reconquer Aquilonia, but he doesn't accrue significant amounts of gold.

In our Prince Valiant game the PCs have not acquired gold through looting dead bodies or buried treasure. They have taken arms and horses from defeated knights, and have taken castles by force.

The whole structure of much D&D play - the discrete encounter with the enemies to be defeated in battle so that their nearby treasure can be taken - is a game device.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 20, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> If instead of 'conflict resolution' one sees and uses mechanics as 'risk resolution' including but not limited to conflict, does that help?



Not really, because in many systems the thing only becomes risky because there is a stipulated mechanic! RM has no framework for spraining one's ankle hurrying to work, even though that is a real risk which real people in the real world fall victim to more often than they would like!


----------



## Campbell (Apr 20, 2021)

pemerton said:


> Not really, because in many systems the thing only becomes risky because there is a stipulated mechanic! RM has no framework for spraining one's ankle hurrying to work, even though that is a real risk which real people in the real world fall victim to more often than they would like!




I prefer what Vincent Baker had to say here : RPG mechanics tell us what happens in the shared fiction full stop. They might be representative of how things work, but that is not their purpose. Their purpose is just to tell us what happens so play can move forward.

I can track down a quote later.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 20, 2021)

Campbell said:


> I prefer what Vincent Baker had to say here : RPG mechanics tell us what happens in the shared fiction full stop. They might be representative of how things work, but that is not their purpose. Their purpose is just to tell us what happens so play can move forward.
> 
> I can track down a quote later.



I think I know the quote:

Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players _and_ GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not. . . .

So look, you! Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.​


----------



## aramis erak (Apr 20, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> Its not clear how gold = xp is anything more than keeping score (which I think is what you're saying here and I don't know what Emerikol is saying about it) which also works with the rest of the system to create the carrot to "push on" rather than "retreat with the spoils we have (either because we're nearing encumbered or resource exhaustion."
> [snip]
> 
> Like a great many things D&D, its (as you say) both an end and a means to facilitate the Skilled Play priority of classic D&D delving.



Not all, perhaps even most, D&D groups didn't drive for "skilled play"; many, perhaps even most, didn't use all the rules in the game. The one most often dropped was XP=Gold. 



Fenris-77 said:


> Nope, it's just score keeping, and a slightly odd one. But is the advancement mechanism, which pushes players to seek out gold as a goal.



Being a major part of advancement makes it separate than just score-keeping.

The whole point of 1GP=1XP is that it's not the killing that levels you up, but the looting. If you can do the looting without the killing, _good on ye, bro!_

It was supposed to be to get the minis players to focus on something other than the killing.

It failed. 

It had a number of other odd effects... given the 1-2 GP a week for commoners income, it meant that Joe the Butcher could hit 2nd level as a fighter on his income as a butcher in about 5 years. 




Campbell said:


> I prefer what Vincent Baker had to say here : RPG mechanics tell us what happens in the shared fiction full stop. They might be representative of how things work, but that is not their purpose. Their purpose is just to tell us what happens so play can move forward.
> 
> I can track down a quote later.




I think it's an incomplete view, but agree with it to the extent presented in your paraphrase.

But the actual quote is a problematic bit in context. It's an apparent dismissal of the GM role as arbiter of truth of setting. It also lacks the element that mechanics can add things to the narrative, not just resolve situations to allow moving on.


----------



## Fenris-77 (Apr 20, 2021)

Well, lets be honest, the loot was generally scaled to the monsters for the most part. Bigger monsters equalled bigger loot woth the akilled play addition of figuring out which foes paid the best.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 20, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> But the actual quote is a problematic bit in context. It's an apparent dismissal of the GM role as arbiter of truth of setting. It also lacks the element that mechanics can add things to the narrative, not just resolve situations to allow moving on.




I think Vincent would say that the GM's role (if there even is one) is part of the rules of the game. That it's part of the mechanics/rules themselves. Same for who has the authority to declare something is true in the shared fiction.


----------



## Fenris-77 (Apr 20, 2021)

Campbell said:


> I think Vincent would say that the GM's role (if there even is one) is part of the rules of the game. That it's part of the mechanics/rules themselves. Same for who has the authority to declare something is true in the shared fiction.



Vincent is also talking about his own game. Which does not, for the record, dismiss the role of the GM, but rather constrains it to moderating the fiction at hand that emerges out of play, and obviates the notion that prescribed events should occur, i.e. prepped stuff


----------



## Campbell (Apr 20, 2021)

Fenris-77 said:


> Vincent is also talking about his own game. Which does not, for the record, dismiss the role of the GM, but rather constrains it to moderating the foction at hand that emerges out of play, and obviates the notion that prescribed events should occur, i.e. prepped stuff




That particular quote is addressing RPGs broadly and in a very game design centric way. He's talking to (mostly indie) designers there. It's also phrased very provocatively because Vincent.


----------



## Fenris-77 (Apr 20, 2021)

Campbell said:


> That particular quote is addressing RPGs broadly and in a very game design centric way. He's talking to (mostly indie) designers there. It's also phrased very provocatively because Vincent.



Yup, sure. but I find dyed in the wool D&D and OSR GMs are more likely to be precious about their perceived role and authority. That's not a criticism either, as much as sounds like one, as those GMs have had to forge their style from nothing because the games they play don't provide any of the mechanical support or direction that PbtA game do. A lot of those GMs tend to look at, say, Dungeon World, and immediately get upset at what they perceive to be a ton of constraints on how they run their game. In my experience though, the Keeper moves in good PbtA games tend to encompass pretty much anything a good D&D DM is doing anyway, it just takes some time and experience to realize it.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 20, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> It had a number of other odd effects... given the 1-2 GP a week for commoners income, it meant that Joe the Butcher could hit 2nd level as a fighter on his income as a butcher in about 5 years.




In what edition do you get XP for GP acquired without risk? Not 1e or 2e, 1e has a detailed system for reducing XP for low risk acquisition. And of course Level 0s don't earn XP.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 20, 2021)

pemerton said:


> REH's Conan is an inspiration for FRPGing. So is LotR. The latter does not involve acquiring gold from loot. There are the Barrow Blades, but those have much more backstory than the typical D&D module gives a +1 sword in the troll's treasure chest.
> 
> One of the best Conan stories is Tower of the Elephant. In D&D terms that episode would be a failure because Conan didn't get the jewels. In The Scarlet Citadel he befriends a magician which helps him reconquer Aquilonia, but he doesn't accrue significant amounts of gold.
> 
> ...



It's the implied setting of D&D which was my point.   It is an assumed characteristic of the world.  And in many of your examples the rewards would be commensurate with the setting but people do tend to carry something of value if they are good enough to be challenging a D&D group.  Not in 100% of the cases but in most cases.

But since it is an assumed characteristic of the world, the party doesn't have to place an inordinate amount of focus on merely acquiring gold for gold's sake.  They can be confident whatever enemies they face will have some gold.   There are many other motivations.  Again you idea of a D&D game is a caricature and I'm sure you can find some ten year olds playing that style of game.  Maybe even some really boring unimaginative adults.   I don't have that problem.  My groups are motivated by all sorts of things going on in the world.  So having mechanical impetus is something I don't see as required to have good roleplaying.  It can appear organically in almost any roleplaying situation if the group is trying and the DM is half good.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 20, 2021)

pemerton said:


> I think I know the quote:
> 
> Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players _and_ GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not. . . .​​So look, you! Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.​



I wouldn't subscribe to that philosophy at all.   I can see how it fits though for some of the styles people here like to play.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 20, 2021)

Fenris-77 said:


> Yup, sure. but I find dyed in the wool D&D and OSR GMs are more likely to be precious about their perceived role and authority. That's not a criticism either, as much as sounds like one, as those GMs have had to forge their style from nothing because the games they play don't provide any of the mechanical support or direction that PbtA game do. A lot of those GMs tend to look at, say, Dungeon World, and immediately get upset at what they perceive to be a ton of constraints on how they run their game. In my experience though, the Keeper moves in good PbtA games tend to encompass pretty much anything a good D&D DM is doing anyway, it just takes some time and experience to realize it.



I think precious is the wrong word.  Maybe defensive of their role as GM?

In my games, I've always held the GM to be the final authority on everything.  Of course I am also aware that this phrase is true "Whatever the DM says goes but if he says enough stupid stuff, the players will go too".   I also hold that character sensory input from the DM is the only real connection to the campaign setting the players have.  I very much tend to follow the rules to publicly change them ahead of the game but in a session, the players can't know enough in many cases to make a case the rules aren't being followed.  

One of my quotes is "Are you going to believe the established theory laid down by various scholars or are you going to believe your own eyes?"

So to the degree the players as their characters know the rules, it is knowledge held to be generally true across the land.  It's what scholars have figured out over the years and it's pretty reliable but it's not infallible.

For example, if I in the real world came upon a rock that was just floating in the air, I would be quite surprised to see it.  I understand gravity should pull the rock down.   I would not dismiss gravity as nonsense at that point.  I also would not dismiss the fact I have a floating rock right in front of me.  Perhaps, I'd immediately begin to try and figure out what other scientific factor is affect that rock.   In a world of magic, most people even smart people would be far more open minded about what is possible.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 20, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> The whole point of 1GP=1XP is that it's not the killing that levels you up, but the looting. If you can do the looting without the killing, _good on ye, bro!_



While any x.p. system is bound to have some downsides, I like x.p. == gold better than x.p. for monsters.  I find PCs acting out of character as a motivation to gain x.p. to be far worse when killing monsters is the motive.   Gold is worthwhile even if there were no x.p.  So PCs chasing gold is realistic even without the x.p. motive.   Killing that last fleeing goblin just because you don't want to lose the x.p. is not good I don't think.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> I wouldn't subscribe to that philosophy at all.   I can see how it fits though for some of the styles people here like to play.



It describes your play as well.  The method of negotiation differs -- you front load yours into the social contract of the game to establish that the GM has primacy in future negotiations, but that negotiation still happens.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> It describes your play as well.  The method of negotiation differs -- you front load yours into the social contract of the game to establish that the GM has primacy in future negotiations, but that negotiation still happens.



But when you reduce his point to that, then it really no longer becomes a point.  I mean isn't that true of pretty much every single social activity ever imagined?   So if that was his point, he is just restating the obvious.

I think he was making a more precise point than that.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> But when you reduce his point to that, then it really no longer becomes a point.  I mean isn't that true of pretty much every single social activity ever imagined?   So if that was his point, he is just restating the obvious.
> 
> I think he was making a more precise point than that.



Nope.  It's important to step back and look at a game from this distance so you don't reify things closer in as the main functional description.  RPGs are social engagements -- they are negotiations about what we're all going to pretend together.  If you don't keep this in mind throughout, you'll confuse yourself into thinking RPGs are about pretending a specific way.  You act as if this is obvious, and then make arguments that ignore it.


----------



## Ruin Explorer (Apr 20, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> While any x.p. system is bound to have some downsides, I like x.p. == gold better than x.p. for monsters.  I find PCs acting out of character as a motivation to gain x.p. to be far worse when killing monsters is the motive.   Gold is worthwhile even if there were no x.p.  So PCs chasing gold is realistic even without the x.p. motive.   Killing that last fleeing goblin just because you don't want to lose the x.p. is not good I don't think.



I don't think there's as much of a gap between gold = XP and XP from monsters as you're suggesting. If the last fleeing goblin might possibly have a few gp on him, the exact same motive is applied to the player. You seem to think that means there's inherently a better correlation between player and PC motives because of that, but I don't think that's necessarily true at all. It's only really true if every PC is the sort of murderous vagrant who would sell his grandmother or risk his life for a handful of gold pieces. The moment any other motivations get into the mix, gold = XP and and XP from monsters both start looking pretty anti-immersive (particularly with certain classes - Paladins, Clerics, Druids, Rangers, etc).

Re: immersion in general, looking back over 30 years I don't think I've ever seen it seem to be as valuable as engagement, and they're clearly two different things. Immersion being very much thinking within the world, but engagement being caring about stuff within the world. I've seen immersive play without much engagement, and I don't think anyone had a whole lot of fun, but I've never seen engaged play be anything less than huge fun. If you have a group where immersion is necessary for engagement (I've never seen it, but could imagine it), then I could see it becoming very important I guess.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Nope.  It's important to step back and look at a game from this distance so you don't reify things closer in as the main functional description.  RPGs are social engagements -- they are negotiations about what we're all going to pretend together.




My game is a Standard Form Contract.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Nope.  It's important to step back and look at a game from this distance so you don't reify things closer in as the main functional description.  RPGs are social engagements -- they are negotiations about what we're all going to pretend together.  If you don't keep this in mind throughout, you'll confuse yourself into thinking RPGs are about pretending a specific way.  You act as if this is obvious, and then make arguments that ignore it.



It may be important but that doesn't make it not obvious.  On board game night when we all decide on Settlers of Cataan instead of Ticket to Ride, a negotiation has occurred.   So some sort of negotiation is true of all games involving 2 or more people.

What may not be obvious is roleplaying games are not just one game.  That beyond choosing D&D perhaps you should also decide on the style of game.   In my case though there really isn't much of a negotiation.  I announce I have a campaign ready to go in my preferred style and ask who is interested.   Those who are join my game and those who are not do not.  I'd even go so far as to add that the beyond the game, and the style, there is also the theme of the world.   So I might have a player want to play one themed game but not another.  But there really isn't much negotiation going on.  It's take it or leave it.


----------



## prabe (Apr 20, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> What may not be obvious is roleplaying games are not just one game.  That beyond choosing D&D perhaps you should also decide on the style of game.   In my case though there really isn't much of a negotiation.  I announce I have a campaign ready to go in my preferred style and ask who is interested.   Those who are join my game and those who are not do not.  I'd even go so far as to add that the beyond the game, and the style, there is also the theme of the world.   So I might have a player want to play one themed game but not another.  But there really isn't much negotiation going on.  It's take it or leave it.



I think the argument @Ovinomancer is making is at least consistent with "take it or leave it" being at least in the neighborhood of negotiation, and while I wouldn't (probably) have chosen to describe what happens in play as "negotiation"--at least, not as a universal--it's ... not inaccurate enough for me to argue with.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 20, 2021)

prabe said:


> I think the argument @Ovinomancer is making is at least consistent with "take it or leave it" being at least in the neighborhood of negotiation, and while I wouldn't (probably) have chosen to describe what happens in play as "negotiation"--at least, not as a universal--it's ... not inaccurate enough for me to argue with.



I'm sure I respond to and argue with @Ovinomancer too much no doubt.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> It may be important but that doesn't make it not obvious.  On board game night when we all decide on Settlers of Cataan instead of Ticket to Ride, a negotiation has occurred.   So some sort of negotiation is true of all games involving 2 or more people.
> 
> What may not be obvious is roleplaying games are not just one game.  That beyond choosing D&D perhaps you should also decide on the style of game.   In my case though there really isn't much of a negotiation.  I announce I have a campaign ready to go in my preferred style and ask who is interested.   Those who are join my game and those who are not do not.  I'd even go so far as to add that the beyond the game, and the style, there is also the theme of the world.   So I might have a player want to play one themed game but not another.  But there really isn't much negotiation going on.  It's take it or leave it.



That you cannot see the negotiation inherent in this, or that you don't see the negotiation that takes place during your game (the negotiation of action declarations attempting to achieve a specific goal and your, as GM, preferences for outcomes) is the reason so many recent discussions have been a challenge with you.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> That you cannot see the negotiation inherent in this, or that you don't see the negotiation that takes place during your game (the negotiation of action declarations attempting to achieve a specific goal and your, as GM, preferences for outcomes) is the reason so many recent discussions have been a challenge with you.



It's your redefining of plain english terms to mean something different that is likely the culprit.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

prabe said:


> I think the argument @Ovinomancer is making is at least consistent with "take it or leave it" being at least in the neighborhood of negotiation, and while I wouldn't (probably) have chosen to describe what happens in play as "negotiation"--at least, not as a universal--it's ... not inaccurate enough for me to argue with.



Not just this, but negotiation happens _all the time_ in the game.  What gets confused is that the GM setting DCs or asking for rolls or narrating outcomes is seen as outside negotiation, but it's not -- it's part and parcel of it.  What really confuses me is that people will make the argument that there's no negotiation involved, or it's trite and obvious and simplistic, but then insist that proper roleplaying is a social engagement acting out between players as PCs and GM as NPCs -- as if this isn't an explicit negotiation.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 20, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> finding and recovering the treasures (but not for himself; "_this should be in a museum!_") is what drives him.



Is it? Or would he sacrifice them to save his friends and family? And/or his relationship with friends and family?



Emerikol said:


> It's not a story about D&D either for the most part.  It's not how Gygax played either.  It's really a caricature and that was the point.  I gave Indiana Jones, the original, as a story where treasure collecting was going on but it is not what the story is about.  That was my intent.  I'm glad you got it.
> 
> Treasure is a means to an end in most D&D games I know.  There are a lot of other agendas going on besides just mindless dungeon crawling.



In your D&D games do the players regularly recover loot from the bodies or hoards of dead/defeated foes?

EDIT to reply to more on the same topic:



Emerikol said:


> While any x.p. system is bound to have some downsides, I like x.p. == gold better than x.p. for monsters.  I find PCs acting out of character as a motivation to gain x.p. to be far worse when killing monsters is the motive.   Gold is worthwhile even if there were no x.p.  So PCs chasing gold is realistic even without the x.p. motive.





Emerikol said:


> It's the implied setting of D&D which was my point.   It is an assumed characteristic of the world.  And in many of your examples the rewards would be commensurate with the setting but people do tend to carry something of value if they are good enough to be challenging a D&D group.  Not in 100% of the cases but in most cases.
> 
> But since it is an assumed characteristic of the world, the party doesn't have to place an inordinate amount of focus on merely acquiring gold for gold's sake.  They can be confident whatever enemies they face will have some gold.   There are many other motivations.  Again you idea of a D&D game is a caricature and I'm sure you can find some ten year olds playing that style of game.  Maybe even some really boring unimaginative adults.   I don't have that problem.  My groups are motivated by all sorts of things going on in the world.  So having mechanical impetus is something I don't see as required to have good roleplaying.  It can appear organically in almost any roleplaying situation if the group is trying and the DM is half good.



I don't know where _mechanical impetus_ came from. My point is that the collecting of gold from opponents in classic D&D style is a game device, and not part of a well-developed protagonist-centred fiction. That you characterise _chasing gold_ as realistic for PCs just drives the point home. The way it's done in D&D - which has very little in common with Treasure Island or The Secret of the Unicorn - is a game device, invented by Gygax and Arneson.



Emerikol said:


> In my games, I've always held the GM to be the final authority on everything.  Of course I am also aware that this phrase is true "Whatever the DM says goes but if he says enough stupid stuff, the players will go too".   I also hold that character sensory input from the DM is the only real connection to the campaign setting the players have.



This does remind me of something we were talking about recently in another thread . . .


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> It's your redefining of plain english terms to mean something different that is likely the culprit.



Sigh.  Yes, that must be it.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 20, 2021)

I find negotiated imagination a pretty apt metaphor for skilled play of the fiction actually. As player you ask a bunch of questions about the fiction so you can negotiate a better position in the fiction for your character. When I say my character does something what I'm actually doing is proposing a change in the state of the fiction. I work those details out with the GM. Because the GM is coming to the negotiation with a stronger position does not mean it ceases to be a negotiation.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 20, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> I wouldn't subscribe to that philosophy at all.   I can see how it fits though for some of the styles people here like to play.



It's not a _philosophy_. It's an assertion about the core function of mechanics in RPGs.


----------



## prabe (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Not just this, but negotiation happens _all the time_ in the game.  What gets confused is that the GM setting DCs or asking for rolls or narrating outcomes is seen as outside negotiation, but it's not -- it's part and parcel of it.  What really confuses me is that people will make the argument that there's no negotiation involved, or it's trite and obvious and simplistic, but then insist that proper roleplaying is a social engagement acting out between players as PCs and GM as NPCs -- as if this isn't an explicit negotiation.



Yeah. While "negotiation" probably wouldn't have been the word I would have landed on, if I'd been thinking my way through it without seeing the quotation first (and no I don't know what my word choice would have been) I don't disagree much, or in ways I can elucidate easily. I'm certainly not looking for a fight over it, and didn't think I was particularly disagreeing with you.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

prabe said:


> Yeah. While "negotiation" probably wouldn't have been the word I would have landed on, if I'd been thinking my way through it without seeing the quotation first (and no I don't know what my word choice would have been) I don't disagree much, or in ways I can elucidate easily. I'm certainly not looking for a fight over it, and didn't think I was particularly disagreeing with you.



I wasn't disagreeing with you, either, rather just extrapolating more using your post as a springboard.


----------



## hawkeyefan (Apr 20, 2021)

I don’t see how an RPG can not be seen as a negotiation, really. Some of the decisions are made ahead of play, and some during play, some with dice and some without, but all those factors are part of the negotiation.

I’m going to attack the orc. My goal is to change the fiction so that the orc is dead. We’ve agreed that such a request requires a roll of the dice and consulting of rules.

I want to convince the guard to let us by. Depending on the game, this may require a strong argument on my part explaining why it’s reasonable for the guard to do so, or it may require a roll, or maybe it will require both. We’ve likely (at least loosely) decided how his will be resolved when we chose what game to play.

I can see how the idea of the game being a negotiation may not be readily apparent, but once made I don’t really see how it can be refuted.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 20, 2021)

pemerton said:


> It's not a _philosophy_. It's an assertion about the core function of mechanics in RPGs.




When he gets to asserting the "sole" function is this negotiation, that's philosophy.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

Umbran said:


> When he gets to asserting the "sole" function is this negotiation, that's philosophy.



You put it in quotes, so you obviously know you just subbed in a term that made this a strawman.  Why do this?

RPGs are about shared fiction, and how that fiction is created is a negotiation.  We use game systems to operationalize and codify these negotiations with mechanics, but that doesn't really change that what's happening is a discussion and negotiation about what we're going to all pretend together.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 20, 2021)

It's common place to appropriate a plain english term to represent some game concept.  I'm not against it.  When someone takes it as meaning the plain english sense, a polite way to respond would be to just say "Well this has come in gaming analysis to mean this".   Even the word bleed is a generic term and it's valid in the way I used it.   Negotiation is not what you are saying in the plain english sense but I'm sure in game analysis circles it may mean what you say.

Instead of being a jerk about it, and not everyone is of course, just say that.  Just say it's become a gamified term that means something more than just it's plain english meaning.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> It's common place to appropriate a plain english term to represent some game concept.  I'm not against it.  When someone takes it as meaning the plain english sense, a polite way to respond would be to just say "Well this has come in gaming analysis to mean this".   Even the word bleed is a generic term and it's valid in the way I used it.   Negotiation is not what you are saying in the plain english sense but I'm sure in game analysis circles it may mean what you say.
> 
> Instead of being a jerk about it, and not everyone is of course, just say that.  Just say it's become a gamified term that means something more than just it's plain english meaning.



What on Earth are you talking about?  The thread involving "bleed" is the other one.  And that thread's OP has an article, which you appear to have read given other comments, that clearly defines what "bleed" is in the context of that thread.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 20, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> It's common place to appropriate a plain english term to represent some game concept.  I'm not against it.  When someone takes it as meaning the plain english sense, a polite way to respond would be to just say "Well this has come in gaming analysis to mean this".   Even the word bleed is a generic term and it's valid in the way I used it.   Negotiation is not what you are saying in the plain english sense but I'm sure in game analysis circles it may mean what you say.
> 
> Instead of being a jerk about it, and not everyone is of course, just say that.  Just say it's become a gamified term that means something more than just it's plain english meaning.




He means negotiation in the usual sense. You can disagree with the claim, but this is not a case of a word being used in unusual ways.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> What on Earth are you talking about?  The thread involving "bleed" is the other one.  And that thread's OP has an article, which you appear to have read given other comments, that clearly defines what "bleed" is in the context of that thread.



And if someone missed that buried in the text a nice person would just point that out politely and not be a jerk about it.

And negotiation has been stretched well beyond its original meaning.  Here are some facts that would make something NOT a negotiation in the common language usage of the word.

1.  If everyone agrees ahead of time then no negotiation occurred.
2.  If no one agrees and no one is willing to budge at all up front from their position then no negotiation has occurred.

Words mean things.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 20, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> It's common place to appropriate a plain english term to represent some game concept.  I'm not against it.  When someone takes it as meaning the plain english sense, a polite way to respond would be to just say "Well this has come in gaming analysis to mean this".   Even the word bleed is a generic term and it's valid in the way I used it.   Negotiation is not what you are saying in the plain english sense but I'm sure in game analysis circles it may mean what you say.
> 
> Instead of being a jerk about it, and not everyone is of course, just say that.  Just say it's become a gamified term that means something more than just it's plain english meaning.




Yeah I'm guessing 'negotiation' here means something a bit different from the dictionary definition? Negotiation - Wikipedia

In my game the players seek to achieve successful outcomes in the campaign environment. But I don't see how the GM's role is 'negotiation' - what successful outcome am I seeking to achieve, that requires player agreement? Participation in the game. After that my role is judge, not lawyer.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 20, 2021)

Campbell said:


> Meanings of words are contextual. Many words have many meanings / definitions. This particular context comes from acting originally and is a big deal in the LARP community. It's not a term that was developed for analysis. A lot of LARP people are theater kids.



Well I was guessing in the first place because of course I don't know where this definition came from or there wouldn't be the issue.  Your answer is the sort of answer I would hope for right off.  Though including the specific parts about bleeding over being about emotions and not everything general.


----------



## Neonchameleon (Apr 20, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> I think precious is the wrong word.  Maybe defensive of their role as GM?
> 
> In my games, I've always held the GM to be the final authority on everything.  Of course I am also aware that this phrase is true "Whatever the DM says goes but if he says enough stupid stuff, the players will go too".   I also hold that character sensory input from the DM is the only real connection to the campaign setting the players have.



I'd say this applies to you and most old school GMs. And it's an approach I find actively harmful when it comes to roleplaying.

Not because of the "The GM is the final authority" part; most GMs do that in most systems it's the "character sensory input from the DM is the only real connection" part. This is a pretty narrow, low bandwidth link.

In most games not run by people "defensive of their role as GM" the GM can still create the impossible. But I have more links than just what they deign to tell me; the rules of the game provide another significant connection to the campaign setting. 


Emerikol said:


> For example, if I in the real world came upon a rock that was just floating in the air, I would be quite surprised to see it.  I understand gravity should pull the rock down.   I would not dismiss gravity as nonsense at that point.  I also would not dismiss the fact I have a floating rock right in front of me.  Perhaps, I'd immediately begin to try and figure out what other scientific factor is affect that rock.   In a world of magic, most people even smart people would be far more open minded about what is possible.



And they would then start trying to understand the world and figure it out. And they'd work out some of the physics of the world they were in and have understandings of it. As a player I approximate this sort of understanding of the world my character in and having learned about it from others who've been living there for longer through the mechanics. Does this make the mechanics always right? No. Exception based design is a thing.

And when GMs, because they are "defensive of their role as GM", use that as an excuse to deny me access to one of my key tools for understanding the world they strip me of the ability to connect with it as anything other than a blindfolded tourist with descriptions of somewhere I fundamentally am not allowed to have more than a superficial understanding of being told to me.

They also strip _themselves _of the ability to truly surprise where they intend to. A rock floating in space is not a surprise when you don't know rocks behave differently. Rather than "wow! That's odd" it becomes "Oh. Another thing I have no frame of reference for. Is this meant to surprise me?"


----------



## Campbell (Apr 20, 2021)

Vincent is talking about what happens at the table between players of a game. Not what the characters are doing. He's also attempting to do so in a way that does not privelege any particular RPG without making any assumptions about how authority is divided up. He's saying this is how RPGs work on a functional level before we bring rules, roles, and authority to the mix. I agree with him. You may disagree.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

S'mon said:


> Yeah I'm guessing 'negotiation' here means something a bit different from the dictionary definition? Negotiation - Wikipedia
> 
> In my game the players seek to achieve successful outcomes in the campaign environment. But I don't see how the GM's role is 'negotiation' - what successful outcome am I seeking to achieve, that requires player agreement? Participation in the game. After that my role is judge, not lawyer.



Nope, it means exactly that.

Let me ask you this -- can a game even occur without any agreement?  How does that agreement occur?

The answers, for me, are 1) no, it cannot, and 2) by negotiation, of course.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> You put it in quotes, so you obviously know you just subbed in a term that made this a strawman.  Why do this?




I refer to pemerton upthread, who quoted the passage I was referring to:

_"So look, you! Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their *sole* and crucial function."_

I didn't sub in anything.  There is no strawman.  It was in quotes because that was the literal word used.  Please double-check your facts before accusing in the future.  Thanks.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> And if someone missed that buried in the text a nice person would just point that out politely and not be a jerk about it.



You were using terms from the article, and doing so authoritatively.  It was pointed out nicely -- I said that bleed is orthogonal to skilled play and explained why.  You came back swinging after that.  At some point, you have to take some ownership for this.  I didn't redefine any words, but you're attack me as if I did.  I used the term as it was used in the article and thread you responded to, using the term, and, nicely, explained why your use was incorrect.  


Emerikol said:


> And negotiation has been stretched well beyond its original meaning.  Here are some facts that would make something NOT a negotiation in the common language usage of the word.
> 
> 1.  If everyone agrees ahead of time then no negotiation occurred.
> 2.  If no one agrees and no one is willing to budge at all up front from their position then no negotiation has occurred.
> ...



Negotiation has not been stretched.  It's being used exactly as defined.  

1.  This is a negotiation, and you need to be absolutely clear on what you've negotiated.  What you're deciding is the framework to use for future conflict resolution, and what negotiation points exist there.  Most problems in RPGs are when two sides have different ideas as to what was negotiated and how future negotiations will operate, and this causes conflict outside the agreed framework.
2.  Absolutely negotiation has occurred -- it's just failed.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

Umbran said:


> I refer to pemerton upthread, who quoted the passage I was referring to:
> 
> _"So look, you! Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their *sole* and crucial function."_
> 
> I didn't sub in anything.  There is no strawman.  It was in quotes because that was the literal word used.  Please double-check your facts before accusing in the future.  Thanks.



That's not what you quoted, which was a different statement that used "core" and for which you restated almost verbatim subbing in "sole."  If you meant to discuss a previous comment, you should have either made that clear or quoted it.

As for the comment, mechanics are most conflict resolution tools, and, as such, are part of the negotiation.  The statement isn't one of philosophy, but one of observation.  If you are not using mechanics as a way to facilitate the negotiation of what's happening in the shared fiction, what are they doing?  It would be a diverting change of pace if you actually put forth an argument instead of just driving by and tossing out random criticism.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> You were using terms from the article, and doing so authoritatively.  It was pointed out nicely -- I said that bleed is orthogonal to skilled play and explained why.  You came back swinging after that.  At some point, you have to take some ownership for this.  I didn't redefine any words, but you're attack me as if I did.  I used the term as it was used in the article and thread you responded to, using the term, and, nicely, explained why your use was incorrect.
> 
> Negotiation has not been stretched.  It's being used exactly as defined.
> 
> ...



Then we have no common framework in THIS universe because what you just said is complete nonsense. 

You can't redefine words to mean whatever you want them to mean.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Nope, it means exactly that.
> 
> Let me ask you this -- can a game even occur without any agreement?  How does that agreement occur?
> 
> The answers, for me, are 1) no, it cannot, and 2) by negotiation, of course.



Like I said, by the time the game begins, the negotiation has been successfully concluded. In play I as GM am not negotiating with the players. I am in a stance more akin to a judge. The players may petition me; I am not negotiating with them.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 20, 2021)

Neonchameleon said:


> I'd say this applies to you and most old school GMs. And it's an approach I find actively harmful when it comes to roleplaying.



Wow.  So despite the fact my games are fun and full of satisfied players doesn't matter.



Neonchameleon said:


> Not because of the "The GM is the final authority" part; most GMs do that in most systems it's the "character sensory input from the DM is the only real connection" part. This is a pretty narrow, low bandwidth link.



This very link is what exploded the roleplaying hobby.  Instead of very narrow limitations of other games the character could do whatever he wanted in an imaginary world.  It's why tabletop games still survive despite fairly sophisticated multiplayer computer games.  You just can't get a better sensory input device than a good DM.   It's the highest bandwidth link ever invented in gaming.



Neonchameleon said:


> In most games not run by people "defensive of their role as GM" the GM can still create the impossible. But I have more links than just what they deign to tell me; the rules of the game provide another significant connection to the campaign setting.



I would agree that the rules and any setting info provided by the GM are inputs prior to game start that are highly helpful.   And I'm fairly strict on letting the dice fall where they fall as you may know.   But there is also a necessary trust that when the GM describes somethings to the players that seems on the surface to contradict other knowledge that they the players do not know the whole story.   That something is at work that they do not understand.  Yet.



Neonchameleon said:


> And they would then start trying to understand the world and figure it out. And they'd work out some of the physics of the world they were in and have understandings of it. As a player I approximate this sort of understanding of the world my character in and having learned about it from others who've been living there for longer through the mechanics. Does this make the mechanics always right? No. Exception based design is a thing.



No argument here.  If my players see something that seems to "break" the known rules of the universe (something scientists do in this world as well) they adjust their working model and try to figure out the underlying principles behind the cause.



Neonchameleon said:


> And when GMs, because they are "defensive of their role as GM", use that as an excuse to deny me access to one of my key tools for understanding the world they strip me of the ability to connect with it as anything other than a blindfolded tourist with descriptions of somewhere I fundamentally am not allowed to have more than a superficial understanding of being told to me.



First the understanding is not superficial.  It's the best interface in gaming.   And I would agree that willy nilly ignoring the rules would be counterproductive but a slavish devotion to the rules in every instance would also be counterproductive.   

One thing I notice about people who push back on my style is that they seem to have had a lot of adversarial relationships with GM.   GM's need to be limited because they can't be trusted.  I just don't play with those GMs.



Neonchameleon said:


> They also strip _themselves _of the ability to truly surprise where they intend to. A rock floating in space is not a surprise when you don't know rocks behave differently. Rather than "wow! That's odd" it becomes "Oh. Another thing I have no frame of reference for. Is this meant to surprise me?"



Well again you go from an occurrence to making it common place.  There can be no surprise and no wonder if the GM cannot contravene what is known in advance.  I agree that if he contravenes everything all the time in a chaotic way then the players will get fatigued from the amount of change and become insensitive to it.  I never said nor advocated.  A power possessed is not by necessity a power abused.  If you've been abused (and boy in some of your alls stories I have to think it was borderline real abuse) then leave that GM behind for good.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

S'mon said:


> Like I said, by the time the game begins, the negotiation has been successfully concluded. In play I as GM am not negotiating with the players. I am in a stance more akin to a judge. The players may petition me; I am not negotiating with them.



I, as a player, want to kill the orc.  How does this happen in the game.  If you reach for conflict resolution mechanics, you're admitting that a negotiation is taking place -- we're using an agreed arbitration process to determine who gets what they want.  Inputs into this are the fictional positioning I can establish as a player and the fictional positioning the GM can establish, which are themselves codified by earlier negotiation.

No one has the unilateral authority to declare what happens in the shared fiction, unless it's stopped being shared.


----------



## dragoner (Apr 20, 2021)

S'mon said:


> Like I said, by the time the game begins, the negotiation has been successfully concluded. In play I as GM am not negotiating with the players. I am in a stance more akin to a judge. The players may petition me; I am not negotiating with them.



The Honorable Judge Mental, presiding. 
I prefer negotiation as it speeds things up, in that say a player rolls badly, it's easier if they describe how they fail, and for me to build upon that. So a quick "how do you succeed or fail?" negotiation helps me figure out their expectations, it sounds more clumsy that it is in practice. We also sort of figure our roles out, I mean someone who is playing a "loot the corpse" kind of character, we all know that character is only alive until death overtakes them.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> I, as a player, want to kill the orc.  How does this happen in the game.  If you reach for conflict resolution mechanics, you're admitting that a negotiation is taking place -- we're using an agreed arbitration process to determine who gets what they want.  Inputs into this are the fictional positioning I can establish as a player and the fictional positioning the GM can establish, which are themselves codified by earlier negotiation.
> 
> No one has the unilateral authority to declare what happens in the shared fiction, unless it's stopped being shared.



Maybe it's because I'm a law lecturer and I deal with lawyers, judges, arbitrators, that this seems so off. You keep conflating the lawyer with the judge, the player with the referee, Tony Slattery with Clive Anderson. In an RPG the referee is not trying to 'get what they want', they are adjudicating the player's attempt to get what he/she wants. 

Improv actors do constantly engage in negotiation with each other, because none of them has sole authority to determine stuff. The (traditional) RPG GM when presenting the world is not in negotiation stance. Saying they are just confuses their role.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> Then we have no common framework in THIS universe because what you just said is complete nonsense.
> 
> You can't redefine words to mean whatever you want them to mean.



You keep saying I'm redefining a word, here, when I'm using it exactly as it's defined in the dictionary cited in this thread (you liked that post, even).

One of two things is going on, here.  Either you're smuggling in some other concepts into the definition of negotiate, like maybe picturing a stiff, formal process where everyone's clearly aware of both the goals and the process, or you're just actively hostile to the idea that you're negotiating with players during play because it stands athwart your assertion that you're the boss as GM.  The former is something I cannot do anything about except encourage you to not do this, and for the latter I'd encourage a bit more awareness of the study of social dynamics -- even dictators negotiate all the time.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

S'mon said:


> Maybe it's because I'm a law lecturer and I deal with lawyers, judges, arbitrators, that this seems so off. You keep conflating the lawyer with the judge, the player with the referee, Tony Slattery with Clive Anderson. In an RPG the referee is not trying to 'get what they want', they are adjudicating the player's attempt to get what he/she wants.



Of course the referee is trying to get what they want.  What the referee wants is honest opposition to the PCs -- to play things according to whatever motivations they have been assigned in the most honest way possible.  As such, they have a position that may or may not coincide with player wants.  If it does coincide, the negotiation is swift and agreeable -- you could say it's even skipped.  If they don't coincide, then any number of negotiation methods and tools can be deployed, according to social contract agreed to.  Perhaps this negotiation is also swift, as the GM employs negotiated authority to declare an outcome, or maybe there's a discussion about what's best, or maybe game mechanics are used to resolve the conflict, or maybe all three.  The thing is that there's a conflict about the shared imagined space that needs to be resolved, and this is a negotiation to see who gets what.


S'mon said:


> Improv actors do constantly engage in negotiation with each other, because none of them has sole authority to determine stuff. The (traditional) RPG GM when presenting the world is not in negotiation stance. Saying they are just confuses their role.



GMs do not actually have sole authority.  We act like they do, but they don't, because RPGs are a social engagement, and all kinds of social pressures and implicit social contracts constrain the GM and create space for negotiation.  Not least of these is the understanding that the game will be fun.


----------



## prabe (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> I, as a player, want to kill the orc.  How does this happen in the game.  If you reach for conflict resolution mechanics, you're admitting that a negotiation is taking place -- we're using an agreed arbitration process to determine who gets what they want.  Inputs into this are the fictional positioning I can establish as a player and the fictional positioning the GM can establish, which are themselves codified by earlier negotiation.
> 
> No one has the unilateral authority to declare what happens in the shared fiction, unless it's stopped being shared.



I've had a few moments to think, and I think I understand why some people might not see your example as "negotiation."

Before I express those thought, though, I wanna say I'm not entirely disagreeing with the idea, so much as the word "negotiation."

For some tables (and probably some games) what explicit negotiation there is, is in the decision of what game to play. Maybe there's some, if the players are allowed input into the setting at chargen (e.g, backstories, the way I use them), or if there's a discussion of houserules. But that's roughly it.

There might be some explicit negotiation in-play, depending on the game, and how it's run; @dragoner suggests one way immediately upthread, and asking after the player's intention with a given action ("What exactly are you trying to accomplish, here?) might be another--though both of those might be more implicit negotiation than explicit.

Passing something (say, your desire to kill an orc) off to rules doesn't feel so much like negotiation as it does like mandatory arbitration: The players around the table have already come to their agreement as to the rules they're playing by, here. Games that allow players to more directly shape the setting in-play seem more-likely to feel explicitly negotiated in-play.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> GMs do not actually have sole authority.  We act like they do, but they don't, because RPGs are a social engagement, and all kinds of social pressures and implicit social contracts constrain the GM and create space for negotiation.  Not least of these is the understanding that the game will be fun.



I guess judges don't have sole authority either by this metric - there are always constraints.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> The thing is that there's a conflict about the shared imagined space




A conflict *about* the shared imagined space? I don't think so, not if players and GM are on the same page as to what is happening.

IME GM-player negotiation is what happens when there has been a breakdown in trust; it is the result of a dysfunctional play state - where there actually is a "conflict *about** the shared imagined space". The GM may have to resort to negotiation to attempt to re-establish trust and restore the 'shared imagined space'. But that hopefully only happens rarely.

*"But I was hiding!" "No you weren't!" "Yes I was!" "But you don't have cover!" "But I was hiding!" "But he was your ally! And right in front of you!" "But I was hiding! I rolled!" etc etc


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

@S'mon, @prabe,

The issue here appears to be the former of the two I posited to @Emerikol, which is that some other conceptions are being smuggled into negotiation when these don't actually exist.  There appears to be an expectation that negotiation requires an explicit understanding by all parties at all times that a negotiation is taking place.  This is not required in the definition -- it's being smuggled in.  


S'mon said:


> A conflict *about* the shared imagined space? I don't think so, not if players and GM are on the same page as to what is happening.
> 
> IME GM-player negotiation is what happens when there has been a breakdown in trust; it is the result of a dysfunctional play state - where there actually is a "conflict *about** the shared imagined space". The GM may have to resort to negotiation to attempt to re-establish trust and restore the 'shared imagined space'. But that hopefully only happens rarely.
> 
> *"But I was hiding!" "No you weren't!" "Yes I was!" "But you don't have cover!" "But I was hiding!" "But he was your ally! And right in front of you!" "But I was hiding! I rolled!" etc etc



No, negotiation is happening all the time -- you're imagining a specific, more formal and explicit discussion where both sides are formally engaged in negotiation.  This is an example of the smuggling I'm talking about.  You're negotiating with others all the time, about all kinds of things, on a nearly continuous basis.  We're negotiating about what negotiating means, right now.  Most negotiation is not brought to the conscious, explicit level because there is trust -- loss of trust is not the trigger for negotiation, but rather trust is often the basis for most negotiations.  Negotiation is merely the seeking of an agreeable outcome to any situation where there is obfuscation of desires.  And, since we can't know what anyone else is thinking (and are often clueless about what we, ourselves, are thinking) negotiation is a default occurrence in any social setting -- including RPGs.  That most negotiations end up having both sides wanting the same thing doesn't change that the process of feeling out the other side and coming to a mutually agreed resolution doesn't happen, it just often does so below the level of being aware of the negotiation.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 20, 2021)

I think there's pretty much always some conflict about the shared imagined space. We're just pretty good at implicit negotiation because most of us are extremely well practiced about it. I don't think it's a dysfunctional state of play at all. Working on achieving that shared experience is hard work.


----------



## prabe (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> @S'mon, @prabe,
> 
> The issue here appears to be the former of the two I posited to @Emerikol, which is that some other conceptions are being smuggled into negotiation when these don't actually exist.  There appears to be an expectation that negotiation requires an explicit understanding by all parties at all times that a negotiation is taking place.  This is not required in the definition -- it's being smuggled in.



I think the shared imagined space (nice phrasing, @Campbell ) is agreed-upon, but I think it's worth considering that sometimes it's explicitly negotiated, sometimes it's implicitly negotiated, and sometimes it's arbitrated. Some people will feel that anything not explicitly negotiated isn't negotiated; I'm not sure I feel strongly enough to tell anyone they're wrong about it.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> That's not what you quoted, which was a different statement that used "core" and for which you restated almost verbatim subbing in "sole."




With all due respect, no.



Ovinomancer said:


> It would be a diverting change of pace if you actually put forth an argument instead of just driving by and tossing out random criticism.




Stop making this personal.


----------



## Aldarc (Apr 20, 2021)

prabe said:


> I think the shared imagined space (nice phrasing, @Campbell ) is agreed-upon, but I think it's worth considering that sometimes it's explicitly negotiated, sometimes it's implicitly negotiated, and sometimes it's arbitrated. *Some people won't feel that anything not explicitly negotiated isn't negotiated;* I'm not sure I feel strongly enough to tell anyone they're wrong about it.



"If I can't see something actively fall, then it's not effected by gravity." 

Unsurprisingly, I fall into the "it's negotiation" side of this debate. Negotiation that happens prior to play - e.g., rules, social contract, etc. - that binds how play processes unfold still strikes me as negotiation, even if it's implicit. It's essentially the code of conduct, terms of service, and social contract of play. Just because we only notice the negotiation during moments of friction, doesn't mean it's not happening constantly.


----------



## prabe (Apr 20, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> "If I can't see something actively fall, then it's not effected by gravity."
> 
> Unsurprisingly, I fall into the "it's negotiation" side of this debate. Negotiation that happens prior to play - e.g., rules, social contract, etc. - that binds how play processes unfold still strikes me as negotiation, even if it's implicit. It's essentially the code of conduct, terms of service, and social contract of play. Just because we only notice the negotiation during moments of friction, doesn't mean it's not happening constantly.



Yeah. I think I've been clear-ish that my problem was with the word "negotiation," not really the broader idea. Having figured out to my own satisfaction why, I'm OK with where I am--and I'm more than OK leaving other people to argue about it.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

prabe said:


> I think the shared imagined space (nice phrasing, @Campbell ) is agreed-upon, but I think it's worth considering that sometimes it's explicitly negotiated, sometimes it's implicitly negotiated, and sometimes it's arbitrated. Some people will feel that anything not explicitly negotiated isn't negotiated; I'm not sure I feel strongly enough to tell anyone they're wrong about it.



Arbitration is a type of negotiation, usually with a (supposed) disinterested moderator.   Mechanics often fulfill this role, but it's important to note that this arbitration is between players -- the GM is not the arbitrator in this concept, they're a participant.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

Umbran said:


> With all due respect, no.
> 
> 
> 
> Stop making this personal.



With all due respect, yes, this is exactly what happened.  I mean, you went to the effort to snip out the next part, which is, I assume, what you wanted to disagree with, and left this as a mangled communication.  With the spice of the typically passive aggressive "all due respect" to boot.  I mean, it's pretty obvious exactly how much respect you think I'm due.  Especially with the quick tone argument at the end.


----------



## prabe (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Arbitration is a type of negotiation, usually with a (supposed) disinterested moderator.   Mechanics often fulfill this role, but it's important to note that this arbitration is between players -- the GM is not the arbitrator in this concept, they're a participant.



Arbitration is dispute-resolution (which is why I'm comparing going to mechanical resolution as "arbitration") but there's really no negotiation in the process, as I understand it. The sides make their cases, and the arbitrator decides; it's much more like a judicial process. Mediation is another kind of dispute-resolution, which is explicitly a kind of facilitated negotiation, where the mediator is also presumed to be neutral.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> With all due respect, yes, this is exactly what happened.




Let me review in short, one last time.

Pemerton: _quote from lumpley_
Emirikol: "I wouldn't subscribe to that philosophy at all..."
Pemerton: "It's not a _philosophy_. It's an assertion..."
Umbran:  "When he gets to asserting the 'sole' function is this negotiation, that's philosophy. "      
Ovinomancer: _jumps on Umbran for supposed strawman_

So, I repeat, no, you are incorrect about what happened.  Really, it is time to let it go.



Ovinomancer said:


> I mean, you went to the effort to snip out the next part, which is, I assume, what you wanted to disagree with, and left this as a mangled communication.  With the spice of the typically passive aggressive "all due respect" to boot.  I mean, it's pretty obvious exactly how much respect you think I'm due.  Especially with the quick tone argument at the end.




Second time - stop making this personal.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

prabe said:


> Arbitration is dispute-resolution (which is why I'm comparing going to mechanical resolution as "arbitration") but there's really no negotiation in the process, as I understand it. The sides make their cases, and the arbitrator decides; it's much more like a judicial process. Mediation is another kind of dispute-resolution, which is explicitly a kind of facilitated negotiation, where the mediator is also presumed to be neutral.



Your definitions are correct, except for the claim that these aren't kinds of negotiations.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Let me review in short, one last time.
> 
> Pemerton: _quote from lumpley_
> Emirikol: "I wouldn't subscribe to that philosophy at all..."
> ...



Oh, good, another strawman.  Here's the chain of responses, including only those that discuss the topic of the quote, starting with post 121:

pemerton at 121
aramis erak
Campbell
Fenris-77
Campbell
Fenris-77
Emerikol
Emerikol
Ovinomancer
Emerikol
Ovinomancer
S'mon
Emerikol
prabe
Ovinomancer
Ovinomancer
pemerton
Campbell
pemerton -- this is the post you quoted
prabe
Ovinomancer
Hawkeyefan
Umbran -- here is your response

Now, what @pemerton said in that quoted post was:


> It's not a philosophy. It's an assertion about the core function of mechanics in RPGs.



And you responded:


> When he gets to asserting the "sole" function is this negotiation, that's philosophy.



Your assertion here is that it should have been expected that everyone understand that you were referring to a post two pages prior and not the one you quoted.

Good, now that's settled.


Umbran said:


> Second time - stop making this personal.



With all due respect, sure.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Oh, good, another strawman.




In this context, a strawman is a misrepresentation of someone else's position.  Here, I was stating the events from my own perspective, and made no claim on anyone else's.  So, no strawman.  Not at the start of this nonsense (when I was really just expressing an opinion on where the practical stops and philosophy starts), and not now.  



Ovinomancer said:


> Your assertion here is that it should have been expected that everyone understand that you were referring to a post two pages prior and not the one you quoted.




My assertion was and is that I (and implied, folks in general) shouldn't be accused of strawman arguments for such things.  As for expectations - I saw my original comment as an aside or footnote, so my expectation was that folks who didn't find it valuable would ignore it, honestly.  

This mountain from that molehill.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Your definitions are correct, except for the claim that these aren't kinds of negotiations.



When everything is a negotiation, nothing is.


----------



## dragoner (Apr 20, 2021)

S'mon said:


> When everything is a negotiation, nothing is.



What would you call "discussion aimed at reaching an agreement"?


----------



## prabe (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Your definitions are correct, except for the claim that these aren't kinds of negotiations.



If arbitration is a negotiation, then so is a court case. Making your case to someone else, whose decision you've agreed to accept, and who then decides, doesn't seem like negotiation to me; neither does going to conflict-resolution mechanics in a game--especially not combat resolution. There is a reason I have compared going to such rules as arbitration. And if those doesn't seem like negotiation to me, they're going to seem even less like negotiation to someone who is "precious" about their GM authority.

OTOH, you seem willing to describe any attempt at conflict resolution as "negotiation," which ... is gonna lead to a circular argument, which is silly because except for that word I don't really have a problem with the quotation.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 20, 2021)

dragoner said:


> What would you call "discussion aimed at reaching an agreement"?



Not an Arbitration, for one.


----------



## prabe (Apr 20, 2021)

dragoner said:


> What would you call "discussion aimed at reaching an agreement"?



Not to be argumentative (well, not much) but I'd call it what it is. If it's a negotiation, I'd call it that. Or dickering/haggling. Or maybe someone stepping in to mediate the dispute--to get the people to agree. Or someone arbitrating the dispute--rendering a decision the parties have agreed to accept.

All of those are different things, and arbitration is not a form of negotiation (though it is a form of coming to a decision).


----------



## dragoner (Apr 20, 2021)

S'mon said:


> Not an Arbitration, for one.



Naturally, I would not either, nevertheless looking at the definition, it is listed as a synonym.

More than once at meetings, we have had to discuss what English words mean. A German engineer keep arguing that similar meant exactly the same as, and after it was proved that it didn't mean that, he said, he retracted his argument.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 20, 2021)

prabe said:


> If arbitration is a negotiation, then so is a court case. Making your case to someone else, whose decision you've agreed to accept, and who then decides, doesn't seem like negotiation to me; neither does going to conflict-resolution mechanics in a game--especially not combat resolution. There is a reason I have compared going to such rules as arbitration. And if those doesn't seem like negotiation to me, they're going to seem even less like negotiation to someone who is "precious" about their GM authority.
> 
> OTOH, you seem willing to describe any attempt at conflict resolution as "negotiation," which ... is gonna lead to a circular argument, which is silly because except for that word I don't really have a problem with the quotation.



Well, yes, of course these are negotiations.  I'm trying to get the arbiter or the judge to agree with goals by leveraging how they think on the law.  The judge/arbiter is trying to find out which decision best suits their goals.  That there is a large power disparity, in that the judge/arbiter has the ability to enforce their decisions (within constraints) doesn't remove the fact that there's a negotiation between parties.

I mean, you negotiate a surrender, and that's a case where there's a large power disparity.  I think that the difference in power is being allowed to overshadow the part where you're negotiating terms, which happens in arbitration and in courtrooms.  The defendant in a court is trying to negotiation terms where the judge will rule in their favor due to the arguments presented, and the prosecution is doing the same thing (adjust for civil procedures as needed).  The judge has goals of ruling well so as to increase the odds of remaining in office/gaining prestige/looking good in the press or less savory goals.  All parties are trying to maximize their positions relative to the others.  This is a negotiation.

And no, not all conflict resolution is a negotiation.  If someone is shot dead, that resolves a conflict, and there's no negotiation.  Negotiation is part of social interactions.


----------



## dragoner (Apr 20, 2021)

prabe said:


> Not to be argumentative (well, not much, but I'd call it what it is. If it's a negotiation, I'd call it that. Or dickering/haggling. Or maybe someone stepping in to mediate the dispute--to get the people to agree. Or someone arbitrating the dispute--rendering a decision the parties have agreed to accept.
> 
> All of those are different things, and arbitration is not a form of negotiation (though it is a form of coming to a decision).



I am mostly just curious myself. A "discussion aimed at reaching an agreement" was the instant definition, and I was hoping to not have used it wrong in my earlier post.

My native tongue, Russian is nothing like English, and last weekend, speaking and writing in Russian to friends made me see how badly it had decayed, now I am back here in English, hoping it is ok. lol

Tomorrow, I give it all up and only will communicate by math, or the occasional meme.


----------



## prabe (Apr 20, 2021)

dragoner said:


> I am mostly just curious myself. A "discussion aimed at reaching an agreement" was the instant definition, and I was hoping to not have used it wrong in my earlier post.
> 
> My native tongue, Russian is nothing like English, and last weekend, speaking and writing in Russian to friends made me see how badly it had decayed, now I am back here in English, hoping it is ok. lol
> 
> Tomorrow, I give it all up and only will communicate by math, or the occasional meme.



Yeah. I thought I remembered that English was not your native language. English has stolen too many words from too many languages to be a perfectly clear tool for communication; it's a shame it's the only language I really have.


----------



## Lanefan (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Arbitration is a type of negotiation, usually with a (supposed) disinterested moderator.   Mechanics often fulfill this role, but it's important to note that this arbitration is between players -- the GM is not the arbitrator in this concept, they're a participant.



Er...if, as in most cases, the GM is also the enforcer of the mechanics, doesn't that by default give her the role of arbitrator?


----------



## dragoner (Apr 20, 2021)

prabe said:


> Yeah. I thought I remembered that English was not your native language. English has stolen too many words from too many languages to be a perfectly clear tool for communication; it's a shame it's the only language I really have.



Each language has its strengths and faults, while English can be vague in meaning, its ease of use is one of the major reasons it has become the lingua franca of the planet. Chinese, for example, as another language, is more difficult. Some languages translate better too, such as my my mother is Czech-Austrian, and all those nations small, have plenty of speakers of a variety of languages. Even a quick search of people with her last name in the Moravian Gate area Czech Republic by Ostrava where her family is originally from, brings back Czechs, Jewish, and Sinti results, and we are all probably somewhat related. America is pretty amazing for its use of English.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 20, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Well, yes, of course these are negotiations.  I'm trying to get the arbiter or the judge to agree with goals by leveraging how they think on the law.  The judge/arbiter is trying to find out which decision best suits their goals.  That there is a large power disparity, in that the judge/arbiter has the ability to enforce their decisions (within constraints) doesn't remove the fact that there's a negotiation between parties.
> 
> I mean, you negotiate a surrender, and that's a case where there's a large power disparity.  I think that the difference in power is being allowed to overshadow the part where you're negotiating terms, which happens in arbitration and in courtrooms.  The defendant in a court is trying to negotiation terms where the judge will rule in their favor due to the arguments presented, and the prosecution is doing the same thing (adjust for civil procedures as needed).  The judge has goals of ruling well so as to increase the odds of remaining in office/gaining prestige/looking good in the press or less savory goals.  All parties are trying to maximize their positions relative to the others.  This is a negotiation.
> 
> And no, not all conflict resolution is a negotiation.  If someone is shot dead, that resolves a conflict, and there's no negotiation.  Negotiation is part of social interactions.




But the arbitrator or judge does not need the other party to agree to their ruling. The other party may be seeking to negotiate with the arbitrator or judge, but the arbitrator or judge is not negotiating. They are not 'trying to reach an agreement'. That's what mediators do.

I don't know why you are so hung up on defining a huge area of social interaction as 'negotiation'. My suspicion is it may be something to do with hostility to GM authority - if people come to see the GM as 'negotiating', then they are not acting as a referee or judge, their decisions are no longer authoritative. The alternative explanation, that you simply do not understand what the word means, is still possible but becoming less likely. But maybe you've been blinded by some theory gobbledegook that got you really excitted - it can happen to all of us.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 21, 2021)

Umbran said:


> When he gets to asserting the "sole" function is this negotiation, that's philosophy.





Ovinomancer said:


> You put it in quotes, so you obviously know you just subbed in a term that made this a strawman.  Why do this?
> 
> RPGs are about shared fiction, and how that fiction is created is a negotiation.  We use game systems to operationalize and codify these negotiations with mechanics, but that doesn't really change that what's happening is a discussion and negotiation about what we're going to all pretend together.



RPGing involves the creation of shared fiction; that's the main thing that distinguishes it from a boardgame.

Because the fiction is _shared_, there needs to be a means of establishing agreement about its content. This is what Vincent Baker calls _negotiation_ - the process whereby a group of humans reaches agreement. If anyone prefers another word for that process, I don't think it's a big deal. The point is that, for RPGing to work, the participants need to _reach agreement_ in respect of _the content of the shared fiction_. Vincent Baker summarises that as _negotiated imagination_.

@hawkeyefan gave some clear and simple examples upthread: by declaring that my PC attacks the Orc, I am putting it up for grabs that the shared fiction includes an Orc defeated by my PC in combat. How do we decide if the fiction actually changes in that way? Different systems have different answers, but a widely-shared one is to invoke combat resolution mechanics.

EDIT: I think the tangent in which @S'mon, @prabe and @Ovinomancer discuss whether processes of _reaching agreement by deferring to authority_ count as _negotiations_ or not is largely unproductive. The key point that Vincent Baker is making is that agreement has to be reached, and that this is what game mechanics facilitate.

I think there is probably a second, more sub-textual point, which is that in the context of RPGing whatever authority there is is granted quite immediately by the participants and can be revoked largely at will - which is a marked difference from (say) a judicial tribunal and some arbitral tribunals. But that seems orthogonal to a discussion about the relationship between player experience and (imagined) character experience.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 21, 2021)

A further comment on the role of authority:

Here is what Vincent Baker says (as per my post 121 upthread): _Mechanics . . . exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table._

I would say that one well-known function of authority is to _ease and constrain negotiation between the various parties_. Including the authority and those subject to it.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 21, 2021)

So the way I look at is there is this sort of natural state of what roleplaying looks like as an activity before we layer on the structures that sit on top of it. That things like defined roles for certain players and distribution of roles (responsibilities, rights and authorities) are part of the structure we layer on top. When talking broadly about roleplaying games we address that underlaying primal form of roleplaying.

I mean all of us involved in this discussion play and run games with a strong GM role. Vincent designs games with extraordinarily strong GM role. What that role looks like from game to game is different, but regardless it's layered on top of an unstructured experience we give structure to.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 21, 2021)

Umbran said:


> In this context, a strawman is a misrepresentation of someone else's position.  Here, I was stating the events from my own perspective, and made no claim on anyone else's.  So, no strawman.  Not at the start of this nonsense (when I was really just expressing an opinion on where the practical stops and philosophy starts), and not now.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



With all due respect, I may have played the music, but you chose to dance.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 21, 2021)

prabe said:


> Yeah. I thought I remembered that English was not your native language. English has stolen too many words from too many languages to be a perfectly clear tool for communication; it's a shame it's the only language I really have.



??? I'm guessing someone has me blocked and you're responding to them, here, because this is completely without context for me.


----------



## prabe (Apr 21, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> ??? I'm guessing someone has me blocked and you're responding to them, here, because this is completely without context for me.



There was quoted text in that post. If you don't see it, then you are probably correct. Um ... sorry?


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 21, 2021)

S'mon said:


> But the arbitrator or judge does not need the other party to agree to their ruling. The other party may be seeking to negotiate with the arbitrator or judge, but the arbitrator or judge is not negotiating. They are not 'trying to reach an agreement'. That's what mediators do.
> 
> I don't know why you are so hung up on defining a huge area of social interaction as 'negotiation'. My suspicion is it may be something to do with hostility to GM authority - if people come to see the GM as 'negotiating', then they are not acting as a referee or judge, their decisions are no longer authoritative. The alternative explanation, that you simply do not understand what the word means, is still possible but becoming less likely. But maybe you've been blinded by some theory gobbledegook that got you really excitted - it can happen to all of us.



Yes, they do, in that they cannot make a ruling unless invoked by the parties to begin with.  Parties that have already started a negotiation, failed to reach a conclusion, and turned to arbitration to help settle the negotiation.

Again, people are jumping to narrow points, like the fact that an arbitrator has authority, and ignores what came before that point and what can come after (arbitration can be voided by the parties reaching a different negotiated settlement, although this is rare because usually the breakdown in the ability to reach a conclusion is what results in arbitration).  The power disparity and position of the arbiter doesn't preclude negotiation, and the entirely of most proceedings are exactly this -- attempts to negotiate an agreement amenable to that party.

And I don't have any hostility to GM authority.  I'm running a railroad right now, hard and fast, Descent into Avernus AP.  I'm the GM, running 5e, and so am expected to fulfill that role, which requires the use of significant GM authority.  I'm not adverse to it at all.  I do recognize that my "authority" is actually limited, though, and not the all powerful, my say goes version, because I have a table of players and our social contract has requirements of me that supersede any granted by the system.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 21, 2021)

prabe said:


> There was quoted text in that post. If you don't see it, then you are probably correct. Um ... sorry?



No problem, it seemed from left field, so I guessed as much -- also nothing for you to apologize for, it's not a well thought out feature set.  I mean, you can absolutely use it to prevent a blocked person from seeing anything you post while you can still freely quote and respond to them.


----------



## Manbearcat (Apr 21, 2021)

Why is there negotiation?

Because TTRPGs aren’t “conch-passing story time”

There will be collisions of “this happens...no this other thing happens.”

There will be Skilled Play priorities that require some thing (procedure/dice/person) outside of the player who declared the action to sort out how the action changes the gamestate.

Disputes require navigation toward consensus. Whether there are assymetric power relationships doesn’t matter and whether that dispute > navigation > consensus loop is called negotiation or MMMMMTACOS doesn’t matter.

EDIT - Also, it is CRAZY the irrelevant nothingburgers that we can spend pages and pages arguing over.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 21, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> Why is there negotiation?
> 
> Because TTRPGs aren’t “conch-passing story time”
> 
> ...



Absolutely!  100% correct!  But, it's negotiation.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 21, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> Also, it is CRAZY the irrelevant nothingburgers that we can spend pages and pages arguing over.



Yes.

Baker is using _negotiation _to mean _the reaching of an agreement_. That's it. It's not that complicated.

_The GM gets to decide and everyone is obliged to go along with that _is obviously one way of reaching agreement. It is a constraint on "raw" negotiation. Just like Vincent says!

What's the argument about?


----------



## Umbran (Apr 21, 2021)

pemerton said:


> RPGing involves the creation of shared fiction; that's the main thing that distinguishes it from a boardgame.
> 
> Because the fiction is _shared_, there needs to be a means of establishing agreement about its content. This is what Vincent Baker calls _negotiation_ - the process whereby a group of humans reaches agreement.




Sure.  The nomenclature wasn't a hangup for me.



pemerton said:


> The key point that Vincent Baker is making is that agreement has to be reached, and that this is what game mechanics facilitate.




Broadly speaking, again, I am with you.  However... (there's always a however)...

I walk into a cooking school, and the chef/teacher/expert holds up a small knife, and intones, "This is a paring knife.  To pare is to cut the skin or rind off a vegetable.  That is what this knife is for!"

And I, the home cook, think, "Sure, that knife is used for paring.  But, I also use it for a ton of other small cutting tasks, because it is a very handy knife!"  And sure, I can see how the high-end professional has space and budget to have tools with one, and only one function.  But professional kitchens have floor space on the order of my entire home!  I can't have everything be a single task tool - my tools are multitaskers, whether they are intended for the job or not.

Thus my comment upthread.  Rules do what you are saying, sure.  But the GM running a game at home as a practical matter, has to lean on them for more than that.  



pemerton said:


> A further comment on the role of authority:
> 
> Here is what Vincent Baker says (as per my post 121 upthread): _Mechanics . . . exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table._
> 
> I would say that one well-known function of authority is to _ease and constrain negotiation between the various parties_. Including the authority and those subject to it.




Sure.  The exercise of authority is basically the creation of ad hoc rules - and we then have reduced the matter to the previous case.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 21, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> With all due respect, I may have played the music, but you chose to dance.




Heh.  I know exactly what I chose to do, and why.  It has less to do with your music than my user icon.  But that's neither here nor there.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 21, 2021)

Umbran said:


> Heh.  I know exactly what I chose to do, and why.  It has less to do with your music than my user icon.  But that's neither here nor there.



Well, at least you actually put forth an argument above, so I guess this is a win.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 21, 2021)

Umbran said:


> The exercise of authority is basically the creation of ad hoc rules



Huh? At least in rule-of-law societies, most authority is supposed to be exercised in accordance with pre-declared rules, not ad hoc ones!

Even in RPGing, I don't think the exercise of authority - be that GM or player authority - needs to be in accordance with ad hoc rules.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 21, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Well, at least you actually put forth an argument above, so I guess this is a win.




One more step for the win.  The following:

Ovinomancer:  Strawman! -> that nonsense above.
pemerton: _merely continue to include in next post_ -> elucidation.

Further discussion of this event can happen outside this thread, but enough here.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 21, 2021)

pemerton said:


> Huh? At least in rule-of-law societies, most authority is supposed to be exercised in accordance with pre-declared rules, not ad hoc ones!
> 
> Even in RPGing, I don't think the exercise of authority - be that GM or player authority - needs to be in accordance with ad hoc rules.




If the rules clearly prescribe _everything_, then there is no need for personal authority.  Authority only serves where the rules themselves do not.  Ergo, the exertion of authority is in filling in for the rules.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 21, 2021)

Here's Vincent Baker, as quoted by me:



pemerton said:


> I think I know the quote:
> 
> Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players _and_ GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not. . . .​​So look, you! Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.​



@Umbran seems to take issue with the use of the word _sole_ in that final sentence.

There are at least a couple of ways of interpreting that word in that context which render the statement at least plausible and probably true.

(1) Mechanics are artificial - in the sense of human-created - processes. They therefore have a _function_ which is what they exist for. (Contrast: tidal movements of water are a _process_ but they are a natural process. They have no function, though humans might take advantage of the process to achieve some purpose such as power generation. To impute a function to natural processes is sometimes harmless, and can even be a useful teaching heuristic, but can be misleading in the context of the pursuit of scientific knowledge.) Mechanics might do other things too, but those other things are byproducts of performing that function for which they exist. _Modelling the gameworld _may be an instance of such a byproduct.

(2) _Modelling the gameworld_ is itself a process of establishing the shared fiction, given that there is no objectively-existing gameworld that establishes an independent constraint on the accuracy and reliability of the "model". Hence it is just a special case of the general function.​
There is even a way in which (1) and (2) might both be true - ie if we accept (2) and then extrapolate to a version of (1), in which the salience of the special case emerges as a byproduct of the need for mechanics to perform their general function.

I think any of these is a plausible reading of what Vincent Baker had in mind when he wrote that sentence. He wasn't just making stuff up!


----------



## pemerton (Apr 21, 2021)

Umbran said:


> If the rules clearly prescribe _everything_, then there is no need for personal authority.  Authority only serves where the rules themselves do not.  Ergo, the exertion of authority is in filling in for the rules.



I think this is overly simplistic. I'm not sure what you have in mind in making your claim, nor quite what you mean by "personal authority" (are you including judges in that category, or only tyrants?). Nor am I sure how familiar you are with the pretty extensive literature on rules, and on authority, and on the rule of law. So I'll leave it at that unless you wish to take the discussion further.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 21, 2021)

pemerton said:


> Because the fiction is _shared_, there needs to be a means of establishing agreement about its content. This is what Vincent Baker calls _negotiation_ - the process whereby a group of humans reaches agreement. If anyone prefers another word for that process, I don't think it's a big deal. The point is that, for RPGing to work, the participants need to _reach agreement_ in respect of _the content of the shared fiction_. Vincent Baker summarises that as _negotiated imagination_.



Thanks for the source! I initially thought 'negotiation' was being used here as a term of art, and was flummoxed by the insistence it was being used per the dictionary definition.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 21, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> Yes, they do, in that they cannot make a ruling unless invoked by the parties to begin with.  Parties that have already started a negotiation, failed to reach a conclusion, and turned to arbitration to help settle the negotiation.



Like GMing, the negotiation has ended before the arbitration begins.

Anyway thanks to Pemerton I finaly know the source of the bee in your bonnet!


----------



## Lanefan (Apr 21, 2021)

Umbran said:


> If the rules clearly prescribe _everything_, then there is no need for personal authority.



The rules can prescribe everything as clearly as they want but somebody has to - ideally in a fair and neutral manner - enforce them; because if rules are not enforced somehow then they serve no purpose and might as well not exist.  That's where the authority comes in: the authority of the referee.


Umbran said:


> Authority only serves where the rules themselves do not.  Ergo, the exertion of authority is in filling in for the rules.



Authority doesn't exist separate from the rules, it exists as an extension of the existence of the rules.  No rules, no authority.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 21, 2021)

S'mon said:


> Thanks for the source! I initially thought 'negotiation' was being used here as a term of art, and was flummoxed by the insistence it was being used per the dictionary definition.





S'mon said:


> Anyway thanks to Pemerton I finaly know the source of the bee in your bonnet!



I'm always happy to be a source of things!

But did I succeed in laying the controversy to rest?


----------



## pemerton (Apr 21, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> Authority doesn't exist separate from the rules, it exists as an extension of the existence of the rules.  No rules, no authority.



This isn't true either. There can be authority without rules: the standard example in the literature is the ordinary but charismatic person who, through dint of personality and quick wits, is able to take control of an evacuation or similar emergency/rescue situation - coordinating and directing the collective effort - although there is no rule for the appointment of such a person, nor any rule that tells him/her what to do.

A less-discussed and perhaps less-admirable version is also well known to classroom teachers - the "leader" of the class who determines whether the rest of the class cooperate or not by dint of his/her own decision as to what the class shall do today.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 21, 2021)

Umbran said:


> One more step for the win.  The following:
> 
> Ovinomancer:  Strawman! -> that nonsense above.
> pemerton: _merely continue to include in next post_ -> elucidation.
> ...



Goodness, me, yessir.  Now that you've chosen to relitigate a dropped issue, called my posts nonesense, declared yourself winner, and then (with veiled moderation threats) declared the topic closed, how could anyone refute such rhetorical mastery?  I am overawed.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 21, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> The rules can prescribe everything as clearly as they want but somebody has to - ideally in a fair and neutral manner - enforce them; because if rules are not enforced somehow then they serve no purpose and might as well not exist.  That's where the authority comes in: the authority of the referee.
> 
> Authority doesn't exist separate from the rules, it exists as an extension of the existence of the rules.  No rules, no authority.




Have you ever played pickup basketball, been part of a poker night, or played board games with friends? The idea that we need an authority figure to enforce the rules is silly. We engage in activities all the time where we all jointly hold each other accountable.

Not saying that having a referee is a bad thing, but the idea that we all descend into chaos without one is silly.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 21, 2021)

A variation on @Campbell's recent post:

Rules can be govern an activity in the absence of a referee. This can be symmetrical, by way of mutual compliance: a friendly game of chess or bridge is like this. Or it can be asymmetrical, where one participant in the activity is also put in charge of rules-enforcement. Playing Monopoly or a similar game with a banker who is also a player is like this.

Although I often refer to myself as a "referee" in the context of GMing - because I learned my nomenclature from late 70s rulebooks, and only came across the term Gamemaster (modelled on Dungeon Master, I guess?) later on - I don't know of any approach to RPGing where the GM actually plays the refereeing role that is part of (eg) organised sports or serious competition in chess and other games.

The GM-player relationship has just as much in common with the asymmetry among participants exemplified by the banker in Monopoly. There can be good reasons to have such a role in the game because there are a number of things in RPGing where asymmetry can help achieve the goals of play. These include, as fairly well-known candidates: scene-framing; revealing hidden background fiction; declaring actions for non-player controlled characters; adjudicating the fiction and keeping action declarations within genre constraints; narrating consequences for failed checks; etc.

But none of these has anything to do with the idea that a referee is necessary to enforce the rules! That's a false claim that is also a content-independent claim (ie it is supposed to be true of all rules regardless of their content). Whereas the reasons why RPGing can benefit from having a GM are all very content-specific, having to do with particular content-dependent reasons that can arise in RPGing for having a particular participant in the game be the one who establishes _what happens next in the shared fiction_.

Appreciating this is pretty fundamental to understanding what is possible and/or desirable in RPGing, I think.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 21, 2021)

pemerton said:


> Nor am I sure how familiar you are with the pretty extensive literature on rules, and on authority, and on the rule of law.




Taking this out of order.  As I just told someone else - if a specific literature reading list is required to be part of a conversation, a public messageboard is not the place for that conversation. 

Rule of law is what we apply to bad actors.  The analogy for games would be dealing with cheaters, which I am pretty sure isn't the realm in question here.



pemerton said:


> I think this is overly simplistic. I'm not sure what you have in mind in making your claim, nor quite what you mean by "personal authority" (are you including judges in that category, or only tyrants?).




This is a messageboard about games.  Discussion of real-world societal governance is not only off topic, but generally frowned upon by the rules - says a person with authority to administer those rules 

I refer to "personal authority" to distinguish that from the agreed upon authority of the rules themselves.  If you are playing chess, reminding the other player that their bishop moves on the diagonal is not exerting personal authority, they are referring to the authority of the agreed rules.  I reject Lanefan's assertion that people require authoritative enforcement to play a game.  Humans are perfectly capable of staying within rules if they want to.

I would normally use chess or checkers to make this argument, but I foresee a reductive linguistic approach to a counter, so let us consider.... mancala.  A game with shared pieces and play space.

Assume players who know the rules and are willing to stay within those rules.  The rules denote all legal moves of all participants in the game, and the only authority needed in the game is that of those rules to dictate play. 

This, as contrasted with D&D, in which the book of rules is very clear that the rules _are not complete_, and should not be considered prescriptive of all moves that should be considered "legal" in the game.  D&D, and RPGs in general, required players to be given various forms of authority to decide on the legality and sometimes resolution of declarations not in the prescription.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 21, 2021)

@Umbran, I've seen you post to correct errors other posters have made about mathematics or physics.

You are making basic errors in your account of rules, authority, and the rule of law. For instance, I don't know of any thinker about the rule of law who thinks it is "what we apply to bad actors". To give one counterexample: I am not a bad actor; nevertheless I am bound by the principles of natural justice when I make decisions as an administrator of educational programs. This is a manifestation of the rule of law.

But as I already said, I don't see any real profit in pursuing this discussion.


----------



## prabe (Apr 21, 2021)

pemerton said:


> The GM-player relationship has just as much in common with the asymmetry among participants exemplified by the banker in Monopoly. There can be good reasons to have such a role in the game because there are a number of things in RPGing where asymmetry can help achieve the goals of play. These include, as fairly well-known candidates: scene-framing; revealing hidden background fiction; declaring actions for non-player controlled characters; adjudicating the fiction and keeping action declarations within genre constraints; narrating consequences for failed checks; etc.
> 
> But none of these has anything to do with the idea that a referee is necessary to enforce the rules! That's a false claim that is also a content-independent claim (ie it is supposed to be true of all rules regardless of their content). Whereas the reasons why RPGing can benefit from having a GM are all very content-specific, having to do with particular content-dependent reasons that can arise in RPGing for having a particular participant in the game be the one who establishes _what happens next in the shared fiction_.



I don't disagree with your post, but was leaving out the idea of GM as in charge of the rules an intentional omission? It's not part of every TRPG, but it's pretty explicit at least in the versions of D&D that I'm most familiar with that the GM is the last word on the rules--while still in principle being subject to them, which seems at least a little conflicty (but that's probably best left as a different discussion). That at least seems to be a difference in authority that's greater than the difference in (to use your example) Monopoly between the Banker and the other players.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 21, 2021)

prabe said:


> I don't disagree with your post, but was leaving out the idea of GM as in charge of the rules an intentional omission? It's not part of every TRPG, but it's pretty explicit at least in the versions of D&D that I'm most familiar with that the GM is the last word on the rules--while still in principle being subject to them, which seems at least a little conflicty (but that's probably best left as a different discussion). That at least seems to be a difference in authority that's greater than the difference in (to use your example) Monopoly between the Banker and the other players.



I didn't leave it out on purpose (as in I didn't (i) bring it to mind, then (ii) choose to omit it).

But I don't think it's a coincidence that I left it out. Because even for very traditional D&D I think the idea of the GM being in charge of the rules tends to be overstated. When you look at actual empirical cases you see players make rules calls quite a bit.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 21, 2021)

pemerton said:


> I didn't leave it out on purpose (as in I didn't (i) bring it to mind, then (ii) choose to omit it).
> 
> But I don't think it's a coincidence that I left it out. Because even for very traditional D&D I think the idea of the GM being in charge of the rules tends to be overstated. When you look at actual empirical cases you see players make rules calls quite a bit.



The GM is the only one at the table with the authority to make house rules, though.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 21, 2021)

The GM role extends out of the wargame referee. Referees in war games are not valuable because they know the rules better than the people playing the game. They are valued because they have expert level knowledge of historical battles. The referee in OSR is similar in my mind. Their value is that they are supposed to have expert level knowledge of the fiction/setting/world and apply that fairly (staying within the written rules whenever possible).

Warhammer 40K and Magic - The Gathering have complex rules, but would not much benefit from an OSR style referee.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 21, 2021)

S'mon said:


> The GM is the only one at the table with the authority to make house rules, though.



In a traditional way of approaching D&D (and similar games) I agree. We could call that (very roughly) a legislative function.

But I thought @prabe was referring also to moments of interpretation and adjudication.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 21, 2021)

Campbell said:


> Warhammer 40K and Magic - The Gathering have complex rules, but would not much benefit from an OSR style referee.



Warhammer 40K did start off with a referee by default as I recall, same as Warhammer Fantasy Battle.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 21, 2021)

pemerton said:


> I didn't leave it out on purpose (as in I didn't (i) bring it to mind, then (ii) choose to omit it).
> 
> But I don't think it's a coincidence that I left it out. Because even for very traditional D&D I think the idea of the GM being in charge of the rules tends to be overstated. When you look at actual empirical cases you see players make rules calls quite a bit.



I think power doesn't have to be exercised to exist.  Of course we all want some form of consistency in our games and GMs that changed rules willy nilly would be seen as abusers of their power.  In the case of classic D&D at least, the power is not questioned though.  This is why rules lawyers are held in such low esteem by most groups.  

So again, the old maxime, "What the DM says goes but if he says enough crazy crap, then the players go as well".   In a game setting, the DM is supposed to be using this power to make the game more fun.   How we do that may vary by opinion but I hope that is everyone's goal.


----------



## prabe (Apr 21, 2021)

pemerton said:


> In a traditional way of approaching D&D (and similar games) I agree. We could call that (very roughly) a legislative function.
> 
> But I thought @prabe was referring also to moments of interpretation and adjudication.



Yes. I was thinking more of the GM as the final word on/interpreter of the rules, not so much the GM as customizer of the rules. That doesn't make @S'mon wrong--it just means we were talking about different things.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 21, 2021)

S'mon said:


> The GM is the only one at the table with the authority to make house rules, though.



This isn't strictly true, though.  House rules can be overridden by the table, assuming non-dysfunctional social contracts.  At functional tables, players can have input and suggest house rules as well, and the table agrees to them or not.  In cases where the GM is exerting unilateral authority, I'd say that this is still either by implied consent of the table, or dysfunction exists.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 21, 2021)

prabe said:


> Yes. I was thinking more of the GM as the final word on/interpreter of the rules, not so much the GM as customizer of the rules. That doesn't make @S'mon wrong--it just means we were talking about different things.



Again, I think there's the implied consent of the table backing this.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 21, 2021)

prabe said:


> Yes. I was thinking more of the GM as the final word on/interpreter of the rules, not so much the GM as customizer of the rules. That doesn't make @S'mon wrong--it just means we were talking about different things.




Imagine in the early days of D&D when most of the rules even in 1e AD&D did not exist but were brought into the game by the DM.   For example, immunity to non-magical weapons.  The DM might introduce that without notifying the players up front.   The players might be surprised when they roll a 20 and the DM says your sword hits the target but there is no apparent damage.   The rules as they know them make no mention of immunity to non-magical weapons.

So players in this situation, who want my style of gaming, have to trust the DM.  The DM might introduce a new spell or a new ability at any time.   A new monster might look a little like an old one but have one key difference.  The wonder of encountering new things is what made D&D exciting for me.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 21, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> This isn't strictly true, though.  House rules can be overridden by the table, assuming non-dysfunctional social contracts.  At functional tables, players can have input and suggest house rules as well, and the table agrees to them or not.  In cases where the GM is exerting unilateral authority, I'd say that this is still either by implied consent of the table, or dysfunction exists.



In my gaming culture, it is assumed, but of course no player is held hostage and forced to play.  I don't think a player though would try to force the DM to play his way.  He might argue a rule that the DM ostensibly says he supports and is enforcing.  But, if the DM makes a final judgment no one would dispute that.   If you feel like the DM is ruling badly a lot then you just find one that isn't doing that and join that group.   So sure these gamer "roles" are imbued into our gaming culture.


----------



## prabe (Apr 21, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> Imagine in the early days of D&D when most of the rules even in 1e AD&D did not exist but were brought into the game by the DM.   For example, immunity to non-magical weapons.  The DM might introduce that without notifying the players up front.   The players might be surprised when they roll a 20 and the DM says your sword hits the target but there is no apparent damage.   The rules as they know them make no mention of immunity to non-magical weapons.



Yeah, playing a game that is in the process of being written is different than playing one that's in print (or has been).

What I really wanted to react to, though, was this:


Emerikol said:


> So players in this situation, who want my style of gaming, have to trust the DM.



Serious and sincere question: Is there any style of TRPG that works if the players don't (or can't) trust the GM? Seems to me the answer has to be "no," but I'm open to being wrong, here.


----------



## Umbran (Apr 21, 2021)

pemerton said:


> You are making basic errors in your account of rules, authority, and the rule of law.




So, when talking about physics, there is a _physical reality_ that does not care about our thoughts on the matter.  Law is a human construct, however, so there is no objective reality to appeal to determine correctness.  



pemerton said:


> For instance, I don't know of any thinker about the rule of law who thinks it is "what we apply to bad actors".




Lots of thinkers divorce themselves from practicalities.



pemerton said:


> To give one counterexample: I am not a bad actor; nevertheless I am bound by the principles of natural justice when I make decisions as an administrator of educational programs. This is a manifestation of the rule of law.




In human governance, law can be seen as a restriction or compulsion of action, explicitly or implicitly coupled with the consequences to be enacted by authorities for non-compliance.  You are bound by law, insofar as there are professional or legal consequences for you if you do not comply.

Game rules are merely the restrictions and compulsions.  Game rules do not address what happens to someone who fails to comply - The rules of D&D do not lay out what you do if someone rolls a d12 instead of a d8 for damage, for example. 



pemerton said:


> But as I already said, I don't see any real profit in pursuing this discussion.




Then feel free to disengage.  I won't chase you.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 21, 2021)

prabe said:


> Yeah, playing a game that is in the process of being written is different than playing one that's in print (or has been).



I think a game that lacks any DM input creatively on the rules will not be as flavorful and good as it good be.  So if Gygax had the complete rules, I don't doubt for a minute he'd still be adding something more to give his players a twist.  So I don't view the lack of immunity to non-magical weapons as a flaw in the rules.  Why would that be an essential component of D&D.  I do consider it a flavorful enhancement and the sort of things a DM might add to his own game even in the world of 5e D&D.



prabe said:


> Serious and sincere question: Is there any style of TRPG that works if the players don't (or can't) trust the GM? Seems to me the answer has to be "no," but I'm oen to being wrong, here.



Sure.  I would imagine that a game that restricts what a DM can do and gives more power to the players would be better in this situation.   Realize also that "distrust" does not equate to thinking the DM is evil.  They may just not trust his judgment.


----------



## prabe (Apr 21, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> I think a game that lacks any DM input creatively on the rules will not be as flavorful and good as it good be.  So if Gygax had the complete rules, I don't doubt for a minute he'd still be adding something more to give his players a twist.  So I don't view the lack of immunity to non-magical weapons as a flaw in the rules.  Why would that be an essential component of D&D.  I do consider it a flavorful enhancement and the sort of things a DM might add to his own game even in the world of 5e D&D.



I can see that, but I think with, say, 1e AD&D there was an explicit expectation both in the books and among the players that the DM would tinker with the rules, which doesn't exist in 5E. I'll grant that 5E specifically _allows_ it, but I don't think that's the same thing.


----------



## dragoner (Apr 21, 2021)

prabe said:


> Seems to me the answer has to be "no," but I'm open to being wrong, here.



I agree. A related issue is that most games I have seen die, or I myself killed as a GM, were due to the GM not having fun anymore.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 21, 2021)

prabe said:


> I can see that, but I think with, say, 1e AD&D there was an explicit expectation both in the books and among the players that the DM would tinker with the rules, which doesn't exist in 5E. I'll grant that 5E specifically _allows_ it, but I don't think that's the same thing.



I think they'd like to encourage it or at least not discourage it but sure I think Gygax had a strong opinion about what made a good DM and the work was mostly his at that point.   So 1e is far stronger on that point.  Agree on that.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 21, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> In my gaming culture, it is assumed, but of course no player is held hostage and forced to play.  I don't think a player though would try to force the DM to play his way.  He might argue a rule that the DM ostensibly says he supports and is enforcing.  But, if the DM makes a final judgment no one would dispute that.   If you feel like the DM is ruling badly a lot then you just find one that isn't doing that and join that group.   So sure these gamer "roles" are imbued into our gaming culture.



Are we doing "in my gaming culture" now?  Weird.  I think I see @Umbran's point, as the cultures of gaming have gone from a descriptive discussion of different play agendas to now being a claimed identity, with all of the baggage that entails.  Of course, I think this would have happened regardless of the term used, so "culture" isn't really the culprit, here.

I didn't suggest at all anyone was forcing anyone to play outside of the bucket of dysfunction.  That is a clearly dysfunctional situation, whoever is forcing whomever.  Outside of this strange suggestion, it appears you're agreeing with my statement -- the GM does not have absolute power of any kind because it's, at best, an implied grant of power by the table.  If this grant is abused, the GM is reduced to no power, as the game folds when players leave.  Power at the consent of the governed, I believe is the canonical structure -- the GM has no power not granted by the table.


----------



## prabe (Apr 21, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> the GM does not have absolute power of any kind because it's, at best, an implied grant of power by the table. If this grant is abused, the GM is reduced to no power, as the game folds when players leave. Power at the consent of the governed, I believe is the canonical structure -- the GM has no power not granted by the table.



100% this. Whatever distribution of authority exists at a TRPG table is agreed upon by the people at the table, either by choosing the game they're playing, or by changing it. If I have ... final say over the setting at my tables (I allow players to put things into the setting at chargen, but otherwise very rarely) that's only because the players at those tables allow me to (or understand 5E to give me that say) and choose to stay at those tables.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 21, 2021)

prabe said:


> 100% this. Whatever distribution of authority exists at a TRPG table is agreed upon by the people at the table, either by choosing the game they're playing, or by changing it.



Agree.  For those running campaigns like Gygax did, you may have many different adventuring groups passing through the world.  



prabe said:


> If I have ... final say over the setting at my tables (I allow players to put things into the setting at chargen, but otherwise very rarely) that's only because the players at those tables allow me to (or understand 5E to give me that say) and choose to stay at those tables.



Perhaps it's just phraseology here.  The players allow it for them to play in the campaign but if a player or players refused it the campaign might go on with different players.   Obviously, any players who do join have tacitly accepted the ground rules.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 21, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> This isn't strictly true, though.  House rules can be overridden by the table, assuming non-dysfunctional social contracts.  At functional tables, players can have input and suggest house rules as well, and the table agrees to them or not.  In cases where the GM is exerting unilateral authority, I'd say that this is still either by implied consent of the table, or dysfunction exists.




Obviously the GM exercises their authority with the consent of the group.
In case of conflict, maybe the GM does change the rule - I had to drop group initiative in a 5e game due to player demand; it made combats go much quicker but it made players unhappy.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 21, 2021)

S'mon said:


> Obviously the GM exercises their authority with the consent of the group.
> In case of conflict, maybe the GM does change the rule - I had to drop group initiative in a 5e game due to player demand; it made combats go much quicker but it made players unhappy.



Right, the point being that stating the GM has unilateral authority to impose their will on the game is actually far more complex a statement (and game dependent, but let's stick to D&D versions where this is typical) and actually means that the group has decided to let the GM implement things with implied consent until and unless revoked, as in your example.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 21, 2021)

I think abstract discussions about "the consent of the table" don't yield that much insight. In all social interactions there are power dynamics, and in that sense someone might be part of a D&D group, and might go along with a GM's rulings, even though s/he would really like to be out with a different group of friends at the cinema.

But those sorts of power dynamics normally aren't the same as the sheer force  and/or coercion that characterises criminal activities like kidnapping, or governmental activities like a criminal justice system.

When contrasted to those paradigm cases of force and coercion, RPGing - like other leisure activities - is voluntarily and hence whatever happens depends, in a formal sense at least, on mutual agreement.

When trying to shed light on RPGing, once we have the starting point that _RPGing involves collective agreement on a common fiction_ and that _the rules of RPGing are a device for helping to establish that agreement, and to determine who gets to change the fiction and how_, then we can talk about the allocation of responsibilities and authority by those rules.

When we do that, we can see that there are different ways of doing that. It's very typical, but not universal, for the rules to establish two particular and distinct participant roles - _the GM_ and _the players_. But across the variety of games that do this, there is plenty of variation on what the rules say about who can change the fiction and how. Some of those differences are found in the rules themselves - eg a 4e D&D GM can introduce new elements into an unfolding scene largely at will (but is expected to have encounter-building guidelines in mind when doing so); a Moldvay Basic GM is expected to be constrained by his/her map and key when doing so but within those constraints has a comparable degree of freedom; a MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic GM is expected to spend Doom Pool dice in order to do this. And some are established not by the published or expressly-stated rules but are implicit in a group's expectations, or perhaps in a wider set of expectations that are part of a gaming "culture".

Baker gives some examples that illustrate these differences as they arise both from express rules and implicit expectations/understandings:


So you're sitting at the table and one player says, "[let's imagine that] an orc jumps out of the underbrush!"

What has to happen before the group agrees that, indeed, an orc jumps out of the underbrush?

1. Sometimes, not much at all. The right participant said it, at an appropriate moment, and everybody else just incorporates it smoothly into their imaginary picture of the situation. "An orc! Yikes! Battlestations!" This is how it usually is for participants with high ownership of whatever they're talking about: GMs describing the weather or the noncombat actions of NPCs, players saying what their characters are wearing or thinking.

2. Sometimes, a little bit more. "Really? An orc?" "Yeppers." "Huh, an orc. Well, okay." Sometimes the suggesting participant has to defend the suggestion: "Really, an orc this far into Elfland?" "Yeah, cuz this thing about her tribe..." "Okay, I guess that makes sense."

3. Sometimes, mechanics. "An orc? Only if you make your having-an-orc-show-up roll. Throw down!" "Rawk! 57!" "Dude, orc it is!" The thing to notice here is that the mechanics _serve the exact same purpose_ as the explanation about this thing about her tribe in point 2, which is to establish your credibility wrt the orc in question.

4. And sometimes, lots of mechanics and negotiation. Debate the likelihood of a lone orc in the underbrush way out here, make a having-an-orc-show-up roll, a having-an-orc-hide-in-the-underbrush roll, a having-the-orc-jump-out roll, argue about the modifiers for each of the rolls, get into a philosophical thing about the rules' modeling of orc-jump-out likelihood... all to establish one little thing. Wave a stick in a game store and every game you knock of the shelves will have a combat system that works like this.

(Plenty of suggestions at the game table don't get picked up by the group, or get revised and modified by the group before being accepted, all with the same range of time and attention spent negotiating.)​
These examples are helpful in themselves for drawing our attention to the variety of ways shared fiction gets established and "incorporate[d] . . . . smoothly" by the participants "into their imaginary picture of the situation."

They also highlight some notions that might be used to help unpack that variety: a participant _having ownership _of some element of the fiction; a participant _establishing credibility_; and different ways of establishing credibility, like _introducing more fiction to join the dots _("cuz this thing about her tribe . . .") or _making a roll that generates the requisite authorial permission_.

We can also extrapolate - eg some rolls might generate _obligations_, or _prohibitions_, rather than permissions. This is what a classic D&D saving throw does: the GM narrates _You see the medusa, whose gaze will turn you to stone_ and then the player rolls the saving throw, and if it succeeds then the GM is prohibited from introducing, into the fiction, _that the PC has turned to stone_.

This also sheds some light on the hit point issue: when a player narrates _I hit it for 7 points of damage!_ what new thing is everyone at the table obliged to  incorporate into their imaginary picture of the situation? Not much, except that the foe has in some fashion been set back - at least for the moment - in the back-and-forth of combat. (We can also see, as has long been noted, that hit points work better for melee or perhaps mass missile attacks rather than for single shots of arrows.) It's only when the hit point loss reduces the target to zero that something more concrete has to be imagined - _the foe drops from your attack_ - or when a morale check fails that some more concrete outcome is obliged to be introduced _- the foe flees_ or _the foe throws down its arms and surrenders!_

The example of morale checks shows that in respect of at least some components of the fiction a classic D&D GM has less unilateral authority - less ownership - than a modern D&D GM.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 21, 2021)

pemerton said:


> I think abstract discussions about "the consent of the table" don't yield that much insight. In all social interactions there are power dynamics, and in that sense someone might be part of a D&D group, and might go along with a GM's rulings, even though s/he would really like to be out with a different group of friends at the cinema.
> 
> But those sorts of power dynamics normally aren't the same as the sheer force  and/or coercion that characterises criminal activities like kidnapping, or governmental activities like a criminal justice system.
> 
> ...



For me, the discussion about table power dynamics is to get to this starting point -- I do not think that it's as widely accepted as you seem to think, here.  There's a strong contingent of players that subscribe to the idea that the GM does, by right, have absolute authority.  This then makes moving to a discussion based on the concept that RPGs involve collective agreement on shared fiction quite difficult.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 22, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> For me, the discussion about table power dynamics is to get to this starting point -- I do not think that it's as widely accepted as you seem to think, here.  There's a strong contingent of players that subscribe to the idea that the GM does, by right, have absolute authority.  This then makes moving to a discussion based on the concept that RPGs involve collective agreement on shared fiction quite difficult.



Fair enough.

EDIT: Taken literally, that view would mean that all the players ever do in a RPG is make suggestions to the GM as to how s/he should change his/her unilaterally-authored fiction. To me that is a description of a degenerate case, and so I assume that no one really means to put it forward as a description of RPGing as such!


----------



## Ovinomancer (Apr 22, 2021)

pemerton said:


> Fair enough.
> 
> EDIT: Taken literally, that view would mean that all the players ever do in a RPG is make suggestions to the GM as to how s/he should change his/her unilaterally-authored fiction. To me that is a description of a degenerate case, and so I assume that no one really means to put it forward as a description of RPGing as such!



Right, I agree with your edit, but then most people have really spent a lot of time thinking on the hows and whatfors of how RPGs work, so they put forth the GM has unilateral absolute power, but then still play in a way that belies that.  

I think it's a fair point to say that most people don't put a lot of thought into RPG theory or criticism.  I'm of two minds on whether or not that's a good thing.  I think it's fine, if there is a good, solid set of game criticism, because this means that designers are putting out well tuned games (hopefully) and so it's not that important.  On the other hand, a lack of awareness means you're at the mercy of ill informed opinions and market copy and that you will have trouble correctly diagnosing root causes of failures at your table.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 22, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> I think it's a fair point to say that most people don't put a lot of thought into RPG theory or criticism.  I'm of two minds on whether or not that's a good thing.  I think it's fine, if there is a good, solid set of game criticism, because this means that designers are putting out well tuned games (hopefully) and so it's not that important.  On the other hand, a lack of awareness means you're at the mercy of ill informed opinions and market copy and that you will have trouble correctly diagnosing root causes of failures at your table.



I've got no problem with people not being into criticism/theory!

It just gets a bit frustrating when they then project their own experiences onto everyone else's play as if that _must_ be how it is.

And as you say, if they're having trouble in their own games then knowing a bit about how RPGing actually works can be useful for diagnosis and repair.


----------



## Lanefan (Apr 22, 2021)

pemerton said:


> But I don't think it's a coincidence that I left it out. Because even for very traditional D&D I think the idea of the GM being in charge of the rules tends to be overstated. When you look at actual empirical cases you see players make rules calls quite a bit.



Though said player-made rules calls are always subject to over-ride by the GM if they're incorrect.  The holder of authority doesn't change.


----------



## Lanefan (Apr 22, 2021)

Campbell said:


> Warhammer 40K and Magic - The Gathering have complex rules, but would not much benefit from an OSR style referee.



Back in the day when I bothered with the occasional M:tG tournament I can't recall even one where the judge(s) weren't constantly on the hop having to interpret or enforce the rules; and the tourney rules do state that a judge's ruling is final.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 22, 2021)

pemerton said:


> The example of morale checks shows that in respect of at least some components of the fiction a classic D&D GM has less unilateral authority - less ownership - than a modern D&D GM.




I don't think that's right. The classic D&D morale rules IME are entirely GM-facing, the Classic players don't demand "Those orcs have to make a morale check now!". In practice they are entirely an aid to GM adjudication of the situation. They don't bind the GM's hands in the way a PC making a Saving Throw does.

I've noticed a tendency from some posters to equate especially Moldvay D&D with 'tight' systems that do bind the GM. Just because Moldvay is a 'complete system' (per Alexander) does not mean it's a tight system. It's far closer to OD&D than to Forgey games or boardgames. It gives GMs the tools to procedurally adjudicate large chunks of the dungeon crawl experience, but it doesn't bind the GM. You can read the Moldvay example of play and see how it only tangentially relates to the described procedures for play.
I'm wondering if this tendency comes from Baker.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 22, 2021)

Ovinomancer said:


> For me, the discussion about table power dynamics is to get to this starting point -- I do not think that it's as widely accepted as you seem to think, here.  There's a strong contingent of players that subscribe to the idea that the GM does, by right, have absolute authority.  This then makes moving to a discussion based on the concept that RPGs involve collective agreement on shared fiction quite difficult.




Maybe we've seen how early 2000s Forge-ism damaged campaigns and even destroyed play groups, and don't want to give it an inch lest it take a mile.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 22, 2021)

S'mon said:


> I don't think that's right. The classic D&D morale rules IME are entirely GM-facing, the Classic players don't demand "Those orcs have to make a morale check now!". In practice they are entirely an aid to GM adjudication of the situation. They don't bind the GM's hands in the way a PC making a Saving Throw does.
> 
> I've noticed a tendency from some posters to equate especially Moldvay D&D with 'tight' systems that do bind the GM. Just because Moldvay is a 'complete system' (per Alexander) does not mean it's a tight system. It's far closer to OD&D than to Forgey games or boardgames. It gives GMs the tools to procedurally adjudicate large chunks of the dungeon crawl experience, but it doesn't bind the GM. You can read the Moldvay example of play and see how it only tangentially relates to the described procedures for play.
> I'm wondering if this tendency comes from Baker.



A player of Moldvay Basic is told to read the whole book except maybe ch 8. I know that's what I did.

This includes reading the monster entries, which have morale scores; and the rules for morale. I think there is a general expectation that the GM will use the morale rules. I think this happens in the worked example of combat.

It's true that the GM has to apply the morale rules him-/herself without the players getting to dictate it (for instance, some Orcs might be under the influence of magic or evil charisma that raises their morale or even makes them morale 12 fanatics - that's fair game). But a GM who decides that the Orcs fight to the death just for the hell of it is in my view not being fair. (Deciding that they surrender without making a morale check is different because it's an unearned boon to the players rather than a hosing; a sort of Moldvay-era "say 'yes'".)

But the morale rules are nevertheless part of the action resolution framework. They contrast in this respect with the dungeon-building rules, which are guidelines for content introduction but not themselves "mechanics" in the sense that Baker uses that phrase. (The wandering monster table occupy an intriguing liminal space here, like Baker's "make an Orc-showing-up-in-the-underbrush roll".)


----------



## S'mon (Apr 22, 2021)

pemerton said:


> A player of Moldvay Basic is told to read the whole book except maybe ch 8. I know that's what I did.



Back in the day (1980s)  I ran AD&D not 'Basic' so I can't say for sure. I know I never used the 1e d% morale rules. I think I did later use the 2d10 2e AD&D morale rules, but no player ever told me I _had_ to - that would have been completely anathema to the GM-is-boss culture of AD&D. 
Later on when I ran retro-clones like Labyrinth Lord, and eventually ran a BECM D&D campaign, still the culture was very much trusting the GM; I can't imagine a player complaining that the morale rules weren't being used right. This idea of a player saying "We're here to play Moldvay/1e/2e/LL, damnit! Use the rules!" seems really weird and far, far from anything I ever experienced.


----------



## Manbearcat (Apr 22, 2021)

S'mon said:


> I don't think that's right. The classic D&D morale rules IME are entirely GM-facing, the Classic players don't demand "Those orcs have to make a morale check now!". In practice they are entirely an aid to GM adjudication of the situation. They don't bind the GM's hands in the way a PC making a Saving Throw does.
> 
> I've noticed a tendency from some posters to equate especially Moldvay D&D with 'tight' systems that do bind the GM. Just because Moldvay is a 'complete system' (per Alexander) does not mean it's a tight system. It's far closer to OD&D than to Forgey games or boardgames. It gives GMs the tools to procedurally adjudicate large chunks of the dungeon crawl experience, but it doesn't bind the GM. You can read the Moldvay example of play and see how it only tangentially relates to the described procedures for play.
> I'm wondering if this tendency comes from Baker.




I don't know if Baker has ever talked about Moldvay.

The reason people cite Moldvay as being "tight" is because...well, its abundantly true.  And because they GMed it exclusively from 1984 to 1987 despite having stuff like Arduin's Grimoire and AD&D available.

The game fundamentally works if you just run it as is.  Its tight because all of its pieces create an integrated experience...that works.  If you remove any part of them (Wandering Monsters, Morale, Encumbrance, Required Rest, gold for xp, etc) or change the noncombat action resolution mechanics from a d6 (where you can basically just dice pool a group effort if more than one person is listening or whatever)...things don't work.

That is the definition of tightly designed.  Its not modular.  Don't fiddle with rules.  Don't take stuff out.  Don't add stuff in.  Play it as is.  Follow the rules/procedures.  It works.  Don't do that?  It ceases to do what it did (in this case, work as intended).

AD&D1e is a modular (rather than integrated/holistic) designed game which requires all kinds of fiddling and excising and adding because (a) it doesn't "just work", (b) its comparatively rules heavy (vs Moldvay), and (c) the instruction is comparatively opaque, voluminous, and scattershot (simultaneously).  It REQUIRES GM intervention.

It is not tightly designed.


----------



## Marc_C (Apr 22, 2021)

Anecdote: Once in a campaign the PCs crossed a portal. They saw a strange looking house and entered it. They heard noise coming from the basement. Going down the stairs they saw 5 scrawny looking adolescents. I told the players to stat the player sitting to their right. They played themselves AND their D&D characters for an adventure until they were able send their PCs back to the World of Greyhawk.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 22, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> I don't know if Baker has ever talked about Moldvay.
> 
> The reason people cite Moldvay as being "tight" is because...well, its abundantly true.  And because they GMed it exclusively from 1984 to 1987 despite having stuff like Arduin's Grimoire and AD&D available.
> 
> The game fundamentally works if you just run it as is.  Its tight because all of its pieces create an integrated experience...that works.  If you remove any part of them (Wandering Monsters, Morale, Encumbrance, Required Rest, gold for xp, etc) or change the noncombat action resolution mechanics from a d6 (where you can basically just dice pool a group effort if more than one person is listening or whatever)...things don't work.




Do you roll BTB Reaction checks for all monsters? I kinda like the idea that 1 in 36 ghouls are 'enthusiastically friendly'.


----------



## Manbearcat (Apr 22, 2021)

S'mon said:


> Do you roll BTB Reaction checks for all monsters? I kinda like the idea that 1 in 36 ghouls are 'enthusiastically friendly'.




Its funny, but yes, on everything!  And I'd recommend that approach to every new GM.

That was one of the most foundational and most fun parts of running the game for me.  Besides the fun, I'm 100 % certain that having to come up with a coherent and interesting story for odd rolls while playing Moldvay is the primordial soup of my ability to improv coherent and interesting content for Story Now games!

Perhaps if I could go back in time and change one thing about D&D culture it would be that young GMs saw those odd rolls as a challenge to resolve rather than something to ignore.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 23, 2021)

Where's this idea that players don't trust their GMs in indie games coming from? That they place undue constraints on the GM? Is this coming from actual experience? I know I have never felt particularly hemmed in by Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark, et al. I am still making about 1,000,000 judgement calls every game session regardless. My energy is focused differently, but I'm still a GM.

When I praise Moldvay for being clear, having effective procedures, I am mostly doing so in contrast to modern games that provide the GM with basically no guidance.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 23, 2021)

Campbell said:


> Where's this idea that players don't trust their GMs in indie games coming from? That they place undue constraints on the GM? Is this coming from actual experience?



I think the answer to that last question is "no".

I think one source of the idea is - to use the language of the "six cultures" blog being discussed in another current thread - a conflation of "indie"/"story now" RPGing and "neo-trad" RPGing. I think the conflation is coming from those who - to us the same terminology - are either classic, trad or OSR.

For those RPGers, they see that in both "story now" and "neo-trad" RPGing _characters are central_: and they perhaps don't appreciate that they are central in completely different ways. In "neo-trad" play the character is sacrosanct and part of the role of the system and associated mechanics is to protect the character from GM interference/nullification. In "story now" play the character is lightning-rod for adversity which the GM is expected to bring, and which the system - especially through its approach to establishing situation and narrating consequences of failure - is meant to help with.



Campbell said:


> I know I have never felt particularly hemmed in by Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark, et al. I am still making about 1,000,000 judgement calls every game session regardless. My energy is focused differently, but I'm still a GM.



When I GM BW, or Cortex+ Heroic, or Prince Valiant, or Classic Traveller, I have to make decisions all the time: what happens next? what follows from a failed check? how should that declared action be adjudicated?

Cortex+ Heroic is probably the most "procedural" of these because so much is linked to Doom Pool expenditure; but I still have to make decisions about whether and how much to spend, and if I'm creating a new Scene Distinction or a Complication or whatever I have to decide what that is.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 23, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> AD&D1e is a modular (rather than integrated/holistic) designed game which requires all kinds of fiddling and excising and adding because (a) it doesn't "just work", (b) its comparatively rules heavy (vs Moldvay), and (c) the instruction is comparatively opaque, voluminous, and scattershot (simultaneously).  It REQUIRES GM intervention.
> 
> It is not tightly designed.



AD&D is a nightmare in its presentation. Just to give a few examples:

* The rules for how spells are cast, how long it takes, how components work, what difference it makes if the casting is from a scroll, etc are scattered over two parts of the PHB (before and after the spell listing), and over two parts of the DMG (the entry on spells and the entry on scrolls);

* The rules for opening doors are found in part in the PHB under Strength, in part in the DMG near the sample dungeon (it's similarly bad for listening at doors, and finding secret and concealed doors);

* The rules for swimming are not found in either the PHB or DMG discussion of movement and movement rates, but in the discussion of waterborne adventring;

* There are rules for surprise, rules for how elves and halflings and rangers increase their surprise chance if sneaking around with only other elves and halflings, rules for moving silently (class or item), and rules for invisibility, but nowhere are the rules for invisibility and moving silently directly linked to the surprise rules in the way the elusiveness of elves, halflings and rangers is.​
For several years now, as a pointless hobby project, I have been collating the AD&D rules (from the PHB, DMG and bits of UA and OA) into a single coherent document. It's actually quite astounding how little scope they cover, relative to the page count. It's an inverse of Classic Traveller.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 23, 2021)

pemerton said:


> AD&D is a nightmare in its presentation. Just to give a few examples:



I agree.  I remember many an occasion when I was younger when we'd have to scour everywhere looking for rules.

I did like the narrative voice Gygax used and I liked ultimately the intent of the game and how it was DM'd but it was chaoticly presented no doubt.


----------



## darkbard (Apr 23, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> I did like the narrative voice Gygax used and I liked ultimately the intent of the game and how it was DM'd but it was *chaoticly* presented no doubt.



Jeez, *@Emerikol*, you think you'd be down with that!


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 23, 2021)

darkbard said:


> Jeez, *@Emerikol*, you think you'd be down with that!


----------



## innerdude (Apr 23, 2021)

S'mon said:


> Maybe we've seen how early 2000s Forge-ism damaged campaigns and even destroyed play groups, and don't want to give it an inch lest it take a mile.




Right, of course, it's the fault of the _theory_ that problems occurred.  It couldn't possibly have been that the theories (however incomplete and imperfect) brought about a different level of cognitive awareness for some participants, who realized they were dissatisfied with what was happening in their RPG play. Even if the theories (however incomplete and imperfect) happened to give those participants new ways to think about and express their experiences, far better that we avoid "damaging" and "destroying" play groups. Game theory is simply too dangerous to the health of our hobby to risk any discussion of the matter. Participants in RPG play who are uneasy and dissatisfied, but don't know why, should just soldier on blindly, because the GM is always right, dammit!


Apropos to the topic at hand, however, it's a bit curious how this discussion has veered into the topic of the assumed role(s) of the GM / GM authority on group dynamics. While interesting, I'm wondering what the connection is to exploring the dynamics of immersion / player stance.

Is there some connecting thread that I missed? I'll admit that I skipped 5-6 pages of conversation. 

I also continue to sense a strong sentiment, both here and in the "GM's Notes" thread, that proponents of "living world" play believe their agenda/playstyle is superior to achieve immersion. But I've still yet to hear a convincing argument how and why this is the case. What is so germane and important about the "living world" playstyle to achieve immersion?

One hypothesis, I suppose, is that by limiting player views/inputs to "only be from within the character," it naturally/necessarily forces the player to adopt certain mental models/tactics/frames within which to imagine the shared fiction. Since the player can't have input into the scene- or historical-level aspects of the fiction, there's little reason for them to step outside character view when attempting to place their character in the fiction.


----------



## Aldarc (Apr 24, 2021)

innerdude said:


> One hypothesis, I suppose, is that by limiting player views/inputs to "only be from within the character," it naturally/necessarily forces the player to adopt certain mental models/tactics/frames within which to imagine the shared fiction. Since the player can't have input into the scene- or historical-level aspects of the fiction, there's little reason for them to step outside character view when attempting to place their character in the fiction.



But this is also easily achieved within AP play, which may impose similar restrictions on inputs, so it's not as if "living world" (sandbox) play is required.


----------



## hawkeyefan (Apr 24, 2021)

innerdude said:


> I also continue to sense a strong sentiment, both here and in the "GM's Notes" thread, that proponents of "living world" play believe their agenda/playstyle is superior to achieve immersion. But I've still yet to hear a convincing argument how and why this is the case. What is so germane and important about the "living world" playstyle to achieve immersion?
> 
> One hypothesis, I suppose, is that by limiting player views/inputs to "only be from within the character," it naturally/necessarily forces the player to adopt certain mental models/tactics/frames within which to imagine the shared fiction. Since the player can't have input into the scene- or historical-level aspects of the fiction, there's little reason for them to step outside character view when attempting to place their character in the fiction.




As @Aldarc pointed out, this isn't unique to sandbox/living world style games as I understand them, but it very often goes hand in hand.

And yeah I think you’ve got the crux of it; by only thinking in a way that’s considered “in character”, player thought is more aligned with character thought. I’ve seen many people online claim that this is of paramount importance to them, and is actually the only “true roleplaying”. Anything that requires them to make a decision as a player rather than as the character is seen as disruptive to their in-character view.

And although I think that conclusion is nonsense, I can at least understand this as a priority of play. I would disagree that it objectively enhances immersion, but since what will enhance immersion is subjective, I accept that it is so for some folks.

And I think that it can help with immersion, even if I don’t treat it with paramount importance. Putting yourself in a character’s shoes, so to speak, is one way to immerse yourself. It’s absolutely a part of what I do, maybe even the biggest part, and I expect it is for most players.

But, there are other methods, too.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 24, 2021)

innerdude said:


> I also continue to sense a strong sentiment, both here and in the "GM's Notes" thread, that proponents of "living world" play believe their agenda/playstyle is superior to achieve immersion. But I've still yet to hear a convincing argument how and why this is the case. What is so germane and important about the "living world" playstyle to achieve immersion?
> 
> One hypothesis, I suppose, is that by limiting player views/inputs to "only be from within the character," it naturally/necessarily forces the player to adopt certain mental models/tactics/frames within which to imagine the shared fiction. Since the player can't have input into the scene- or historical-level aspects of the fiction, there's little reason for them to step outside character view when attempting to place their character in the fiction.



This is why I differentiated between types of immersion.  From a roleplaying point of view, it is impossible to be immersed in a game of chess.  Yet I will admit I've been intensely focused on a game of chess to such a degree that I do not notice the hours passing.  I am intensely focused.   This is not the immersion I talk about when I talk about roleplaying immersion.

For me roleplaying immersion is immersion into the character.  How much do you and the character become one.  You are the character in the same way you are the protagonist when reading a great novel.  I never really thought of using immersion in the chess way until I realized that I thought many of you were meaning it that way.  Any activity under the right circumstances can be immersive in that sense.  It's not the sense I meant when talking about roleplaying immersion.


----------



## Neonchameleon (Apr 24, 2021)

S'mon said:


> Maybe we've seen how early 2000s Forge-ism damaged campaigns and even destroyed play groups, and don't want to give it an inch lest it take a mile.



The irony here being that early 2000s Forge-ism wasn't being written for a D&D audience at all. Instead it was being written about the WoD/Storyteller games and trying to answer the question of why they weren't delivering on what they promised. The early 00 D&D games (and indeed most of D&D outside the 90s) were much more gameist/challenge focussed and although what the Forge was talking about was interesting it needed adapting.


----------



## S'mon (Apr 25, 2021)

Neonchameleon said:


> The irony here being that early 2000s Forge-ism wasn't being written for a D&D audience at all. Instead it was being written about the WoD/Storyteller games and trying to answer the question of why they weren't delivering on what they promised. The early 00 D&D games (and indeed most of D&D outside the 90s) were much more gameist/challenge focussed and although what the Forge was talking about was interesting it needed adapting.




Good point! From what I remember of the 2002-4 era, we were playing D&D 3e but some players and DMs tried to bring GNS Narrativism into the game as a kind of Real Roleplaying ideal, which didn't work too well. I remember a GM who got sufficiently frustrated that she switched her D&D campaign to Heroquest (the Glorantha game not the boardgame), which then removed the tactical combat aspect most players enjoyed.

I think 4e D&D also ended up a bit of a mess as it tried to mix half-understood Forge theory into the game; ending up a lot more 'incoherent' than most prior iterations (2e AD&D excepted).


----------



## pemerton (Apr 25, 2021)

hawkeyefan said:


> by only thinking in a way that’s considered “in character”, player thought is more aligned with character thought. I’ve seen many people online claim that this is of paramount importance to them, and is actually the only “true roleplaying”. Anything that requires them to make a decision as a player rather than as the character is seen as disruptive to their in-character view.





Emerikol said:


> For me roleplaying immersion is immersion into the character.  How much do you and the character become one.  You are the character in the same way you are the protagonist when reading a great novel.



If (i) my thought as a player is supposed to be aligned with that of my character, and (ii) I don't know anything about the world I'm in and need to be told by someone else (ie the Gm), then (iii) it must follow that I'm a stranger to the world.

Gygax in his DMG says that the GM should tell the players they don't know anything about the gameworld. This is primarily a play device - the players have to learn the setting as part of the skill of play. But it's not actually consistent with immersing in a character who is an entrenched part of the gameworld.

Given that I prefer to play characters who are entrenched in the gameworld rather than strangers to it, I also prefer to approach the gameworld in ways that don't require dependence on GM narration.


----------



## pemerton (Apr 25, 2021)

innerdude said:


> I also continue to sense a strong sentiment, both here and in the "GM's Notes" thread, that proponents of "living world" play believe their agenda/playstyle is superior to achieve immersion. But I've still yet to hear a convincing argument how and why this is the case. What is so germane and important about the "living world" playstyle to achieve immersion?



I know you've had a response to this from @Emerikol.

From my point of view I wouldn't expect an _argument_, because the appeal seems to be entirely to experience. And many of those proponents are quite hostile to the sort of analysis that might support a more abstract argument.

For my part, as I've explained already in my post just upthread of this one, I don't find _GM narration of everything my PC should already know given his/her connection to and enmeshment within the gameworld _very conducive to immersion. That is one reason I find BW's Wises and Circles mechanics appealing; though I can also see the appeal of the PbtA technique of _asking questions and building on the answers_ which lives in much the same functional space though without the same sort of connection to the action resolution mechanics.


----------



## Neonchameleon (Apr 25, 2021)

S'mon said:


> Good point! From what I remember of the 2002-4 era, we were playing D&D 3e but some players and DMs tried to bring GNS Narrativism into the game as a kind of Real Roleplaying ideal, which didn't work too well. I remember a GM who got sufficiently frustrated that she switched her D&D campaign to Heroquest (the Glorantha game not the boardgame), which then removed the tactical combat aspect most players enjoyed.
> 
> I think 4e D&D also ended up a bit of a mess as it tried to mix half-understood Forge theory into the game; ending up a lot more 'incoherent' than most prior iterations (2e AD&D excepted).



The thing about this is that in my experience the absolute worst part of Forge theory is its claim that purity is a good thing and incoherence a bad thing. There are about half a dozen people at any given table and they will all be looking at the very least for slightly different things. Purifying is an excellent design challenge to show you can but a good RPG will try to support people in a range of styles.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 25, 2021)

Neonchameleon said:


> The thing about this is that in my experience the absolute worst part of Forge theory is its claim that purity is a good thing and incoherence a bad thing. There are about half a dozen people at any given table and they will all be looking at the very least for slightly different things. Purifying is an excellent design challenge to show you can but a good RPG will try to support people in a range of styles.




I fundamentally disagree. That's just a dodge away from game design. The best thing about The Forge was the idea that we should have a shared purpose (creative agenda). That we should lean into whatever game we are playing rather than all trying to get our wildly different personal kinks satisfied. Enshrining the three particular creative agendas like did was thoroughly bad idea, but still an improvement over what we had before. 3 ways to play is better than 1 way to play. More ways to play is better still.

When I sit down to play or run a game I want to just focus on the game in front of me. I just want to play. I don't want to worry about working someone's particular kinks in. I just want to bring it. I'm also not bringing a particular energy other than what the game is about. I like that there are OSR games, Story Now games, games like Apocalypse World and Blades that have an agenda that does not fit as cleanly, etc. I like that I can select for particular play experiences. I like a lot of different sorts of games. Just not at the same time.

My personal experience of the before times was filled with a lot of disappointing play that comes from people not being on the same page. A lot of having to interrogate new players or groups to see if we might be a good fit. So much more work to get games off the ground. If I had to go back to that I probably would leave the hobby.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 25, 2021)

Trying to force a game or style of play on any preexisting group  when it's clear the people you are playing with have no interest is really bad form. I'm sorry that happened to you @S'mon.


----------



## Doug McCrae (Apr 25, 2021)

pemerton said:


> If (i) my thought as a player is supposed to be aligned with that of my character, and (ii) I don't know anything about the world I'm in and need to be told by someone else (ie the Gm), then (iii) it must follow that I'm a stranger to the world.



A suggested plot in Jonathan Tweet's rpg Over the Edge (1992) has the PCs gradually realising they are characters in a roleplaying game via this method (among others).

Someone confronts the PCs and says they are not real people. To prove it, she throws rapid-fire questions at them, such as “Where were you born?,” “How many siblings do you have?,” “What’s your mother’s maiden name?,” etc. The point is that normal people should be able to answer these questions immediately, while the players may well have to pause while they invent the background. Also, search for inconsistencies in the backgrounds the PCs have developed. In the role-playing universe, once the player has imagined something, it comes into existence, so once the PC says, “I have two brothers and a sister,” it is so and has been so in the past. But if pressed, a PC may well create inconsistencies. The GMC uses this interrogation session as proof that the PCs are not real people, or at least not normal ones.​
Ultimately the PCs meet their players.

Now that the PCs know who they are, have them meet their makers. A door opens (or whatever), and in step several people (describe the role-playing group exactly as they are). Each walks to his individual PC and says, “I am your creator. Now you have an opportunity to ask me anything you want” (or something like that). Encourage the players to have their PCs confront their makers, demanding to know why they were put through such struggles, why they were made defectively, etc. Have each player talk out the conversation between himself and the PC with the other players looking on. Played properly, this could be extremely dramatic.​


----------



## pemerton (Apr 25, 2021)

Doug McCrae said:


> A suggested plot in Jonathan Tweet's rpg Over the Edge (1992) has the PCs gradually realising they are characters in a roleplaying game via this method (among others).



I've read this scenario but never tried to run it. Have you? Or do you know if anyone has?

I know it could just be a rhetorical device, but there's actually quite a bit of lead-up to the bit you describe (like discovering the Coke can - I think that's from the same scenario).


----------



## Doug McCrae (Apr 26, 2021)

pemerton said:


> I've read this scenario but never tried to run it. Have you? Or do you know if anyone has?



No to both. To my knowledge no one in my gaming circle in Glasgow has ever done anything that broke the fourth wall in this way. I used to be into doing it in kind of a minor way with my PCs in the 90s and early noughties -- there was a lot of that kind of thing around at the time, like John Byrne's run on She-Hulk where she knows she's a comic book character. But I remember having quite a negative reaction to the Over the Edge version when I first read it, though I really liked most of the other ideas in the book. I just felt it wouldn't work, I think.

EDIT: It's interesting as an idea because it gets at the heart of a truth about roleplaying games, but there's no point in actually playing it.


----------



## hawkeyefan (Apr 26, 2021)

So some of the recent posts make me think of the comic “Die” by Kieron Gillen and Stefanie Hans, which also has a beta RPG. In the RPG, players create a fictional RPG character in the world of Die, and also create the player playing that character.

So there are two layers of fiction in the game, and it kind of allows for some real meta type commentary about why people RPG. 

I haven’t yet had a chance to play the RPG, but I hope to at some point. I recommend the comic to anyone interested in RPG theory and history, and just fantasy in general. It’s brilliant.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 26, 2021)

pemerton said:


> If (i) my thought as a player is supposed to be aligned with that of my character, and (ii) I don't know anything about the world I'm in and need to be told by someone else (ie the Gm), then (iii) it must follow that I'm a stranger to the world.
> 
> Gygax in his DMG says that the GM should tell the players they don't know anything about the gameworld. This is primarily a play device - the players have to learn the setting as part of the skill of play. But it's not actually consistent with immersing in a character who is an entrenched part of the gameworld.
> 
> Given that I prefer to play characters who are entrenched in the gameworld rather than strangers to it, I also prefer to approach the gameworld in ways that don't require dependence on GM narration.



This is why I have a long session 0 with players to establish their identity in the world.  I admit I don't tend to have PCs play where they grew up mainly because it gives them a massive advantage over the other PCs unless they all grew up there together.   I tend to give out information sufficient to what a PC would know in the world.  That though is not in game session development.  That is out of game session.


@Doug McCrae and @hawkeyefan 
I think those questions would be a great starting point for session 0.  I tend to let my players have a good bit of creativity on their background.  Once they decide on the details, I try to mesh it into the world so that they have actual names of countries, towns, etc...  where everything they describe happened.  Organizations that helped or wronged them can be associated with existing organizations in the world.  It's like they do a black and white sketch which is the true picture and then the DM just adds color.  

A checklist of questions though would be a good idea.   I tend to ask about family.  A lot of my players tend to desire to be loners though in many cases.


----------



## dragoner (Apr 26, 2021)

Norton's Quag Keep had the players of a D&D game sort of breaking the 4th wall with their characters, iirc.

Forge stuff is funny, we were alternating between Rifts and Call of Cthulhu when I first read it. I do tend to agree that having a system made for the setting is good, then again the setting is important. Now people are advertising playing Traveller with Pbta, the more things change, the more they stay the same.


----------



## aramis erak (Apr 26, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> While any x.p. system is bound to have some downsides, I like x.p. == gold better than x.p. for monsters.  I find PCs acting out of character as a motivation to gain x.p. to be far worse when killing monsters is the motive.   Gold is worthwhile even if there were no x.p.  So PCs chasing gold is realistic even without the x.p. motive.   Killing that last fleeing goblin just because you don't want to lose the x.p. is not good I don't think.



But do you like the "skip the defensive guards, go to the village while they sleep, kill the non-fighters, and loot the now lifeless village" that it spawned in many players back in the day? As one friend of mine says, "no popuylation, no popular unrest." the dead villager poses no threat when looting.


----------



## aramis erak (Apr 26, 2021)

S'mon said:


> In what edition do you get XP for GP acquired without risk? Not 1e or 2e, 1e has a detailed system for reducing XP for low risk acquisition. And of course Level 0s don't earn XP.



I've never met a butcher who didn't have at least some scars.


----------



## Emerikol (Apr 27, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> But do you like the "skip the defensive guards, go to the village while they sleep, kill the non-fighters, and loot the now lifeless village" that it spawned in many players back in the day? As one friend of mine says, "no popuylation, no popular unrest." the dead villager poses no threat when looting.



I would consider that group an evil one.  I tend to prefer playing with heroic characters.   

I also think since I run a world full of NPCs with realistic motives etc... that the wholesale slaughter of innocents will bring more heat than it prevented.


----------



## innerdude (Apr 30, 2021)

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the concept of a "living world" by itself is a net neutral correlation to "immersion."

All of the "offscreen" gyrations/permutations/extrapolations of what NPC/faction does what, where, and why, is not really important for my ability as a player to be "immersed" moment to moment.

During the times when I was most "immersed", these were the common components:

I had a strongly-realized character. The character was easy to visualize within the fictional space, with strong, well-defined motivations.
The _immediate scene_ being played out directly connected to the character's motivations.
As a player, I was open and willing to let the scene play out organically. I wasn't going to just "do this thing because that's what my character would do," I was actually trying to interpret the in-fiction results of the game loop into the frame of the scene. If something changed in the fiction that would have mattered to my character, I wanted that change to be accurately reflected. To be clear, this was only partially carried out in "actor" stance. There was significant bouncing between actor and author stances, interpreting the character within and the scene without.

As a player, nothing about the GM's conception of the "offscreen" world made any difference in the moment.

Conversely, some of the most anti-immersive things I've experienced were related to my inability to pursue my character's dramatic need. I'm specifically thinking of the Savage Worlds Shaintar game my friend ran three years ago. There were many, many moments where'd I'd try to get "in character," start to picture how my character would react in situations, how she would view/approach certain NPCs, etc., but would constantly get blocked when I realized that _this character_ was being denied what she would have wanted.

The only way a "living world" construct makes any difference to me as a player being "immersed" is if it gives the GM the ability to create scenes with 1) stakes appropriate to my character, and 2) is willing to actually "play to find out what happens."

For example, @Bedrockgames has cited multiple times a quote from a module that talks about how "the goblins don't just stand still," or whatever; i.e., the dungeon/town/city/country evolves as time goes on. But the GM's background workings/methods/processes in regards to making those extrapolations ultimately have zero effect on how and when the next _scene of play_ has the ability to "immerse" me as a player.

I think what I'm getting at is that "living world" sandbox play has a number of merits in and of itself, but there's nothing about the GM functions/machinations involved in generating a "living world" that would have any real impact on my "immersion."


----------



## prabe (Apr 30, 2021)

innerdude said:


> During the times when I was most "immersed", these were the common components:
> 
> I had a strongly-realized character. The character was easy to visualize within the fictional space, with strong, well-defined motivations.
> The _immediate scene_ being played out directly connected to the character's motivations.
> ...



This is a good post, but I specifically wanted to call out a couple of things in this.

First, I see an interpretation that immersion isn't entirely dependent on the GM's approach to the world, but that it's likely to be highly dependent on player-GM compatibility (and there might be synergies between specific GM approaches and specific playstyles).

Second, I find that my most-immersive play is very much into the story (not a specific character) and very much in a co-authorial mindset. That I find that authoring fiction requires more suspension of disbelief than reading it seems somehow relevant, here.


----------



## The-Magic-Sword (Apr 30, 2021)

One element of my personal style I've had players continually praise is the sense that there's a reason for everything, they feel like if they were to follow up on just about anything, there would be something there to learn about or understand why it works the way that it does.

I understand that piece of praise as my games having a sense of a living world, although I handle it differently than some would suggest that entails, specifically I make judgement calls about what needs to change over time, and what situations can be relatively static (read: where their status quo doesn't actually change in a meaningful way in universe, like, two countries won't just be at war forever, but its believable that they might be at a status quo stalemate for long time before a decisive battle would actually happen.)

What all those techniques being discussed here, and in the 'GM Notes' thread boil down to, is practices that enhance a sense of cause and effect at work in the world. Where 'Living World' techniques intersect with Immersion, is when the players uncover, or happen to hear about things happening in the world outside of the actions of the party and thereby imply movers and shakers beyond themselves.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 30, 2021)

For me personally the number one factor in my ability to experience bleed in a safe and fun way is the orientation of the other players (including the GM if I'm playing a PC) to the character I am currently playing. Are they curious about my character? Are they fans? Do they want to see what happens to them next? The reason that's important is I need to feel socially free to really play that character with integrity. If I feel that interest is not there I do not want to be a drain on other people's experiences. Nothing is less fun than if other people's eyes glaze over when it's your turn to talk or you pursue your character's personal agenda.


----------



## The-Magic-Sword (Apr 30, 2021)

Campbell said:


> For me personally the number one factor in my ability to experience bleed in a safe and fun way is the orientation of the other players (including the GM if I'm playing a PC) to the character I am currently playing. Are they curious about my character? Are they fans? Do they want to see what happens to them next? The reason that's important is I need to feel socially free to really play that character with integrity. If I feel that interest is not there I do not want to be a drain on other people's experiences. Nothing is less fun than if other people's eyes glaze over when it's your turn to talk or you pursue your character's personal agenda.



Honestly, I've said it before and I'll say it again, this is the real magic of Critical Role, say what you want about them being professionals, what really makes that show is that every player is a fan of the other's characters. Everyone is stoked whenever something is happening to any one of them, everyone is excited to interact with the other personalities at the table, to buy into jokes or emotional scenes. Everyone is actively interested in squeezing the other characters for their secrets. I've GMed groups somewhat like this in the past (my university days) and its a real pleasure when everyone is invested in each other.

Whereas at my table, there are people who kind of shortsightedly have the viewpoint that they really don't care beyond their own character, it gives things this 'ok great, but _*I'm*_ _bored' _vibe, its only just starting to change and I think it might be because I'm currently in a player slot while one of my regular player GMs, and I interact with everyone else using a character that has a strong personality.

That character is in an interesting position though, because they're kind of a massive jerk (albeit one with a good heart) the other players are fans of it provided it doesn't go too far (I've been asking to make sure everyone is comfortable on an ongoing basis, and playing in a way intentionally non-disruptive to party decision making), but the GM can't stand them, so I've been having to twist their personality in a way I'm honestly realizing I'm not enjoying as much, to keep them happy.

Which... I think I'm sympathizing with what you mean by "I need to feel socially free to really play that character with integrity" I might be feeling the loss of that integrity.

I'd be curious to play with you sometime, we seemingly have a lot of the same tastes and viewpoints.


----------



## hawkeyefan (Apr 30, 2021)

I currently don't have time to add much other than to say the recent posts in this thread have been really interesting and insightful. Good stuff.


----------



## aramis erak (Apr 30, 2021)

Emerikol said:


> I would consider that group an evil one.  I tend to prefer playing with heroic characters.
> 
> I also think since I run a world full of NPCs with realistic motives etc... that the wholesale slaughter of innocents will bring more heat than it prevented.



Except that the standard D&D world is more racist than Delhi, Jo'berg, Sydney, or Atlanta in the mid 19th C. The thinking and feeling beings that are listed as monsters are non-people in the games, and, at least in AD&D, are _inherently evil_, irredeemably so it would appear, so killing them is merely preventing their  spreading their evil ways...

... in the context of D&D as presented, Orcs not even good as slaves. Hence, slaughter is the order of the day, Given that the treasure in lair is where the bulk is, bypass the warriors, kill the orc village while the warriors are out, and get out with the treasure. If possible, tuckerize them before they tuckerize you. wait for one to be alone, and remote slay. If high enough level, cloudkill and a couple fireballs can end most villages. Maximum XP for minimum risk.


----------



## Campbell (Apr 30, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> Except that the standard D&D world is more racist than Delhi, Jo'berg, Sydney, or Atlanta in the mid 19th C. The thinking and feeling beings that are listed as monsters are non-people in the games, and, at least in AD&D, are _inherently evil_, irredeemably so it would appear, so killing them is merely preventing their  spreading their evil ways...
> 
> ... in the context of D&D as presented, Orcs not even good as slaves. Hence, slaughter is the order of the day, Given that the treasure in lair is where the bulk is, bypass the warriors, kill the orc village while the warriors are out, and get out with the treasure. If possible, tuckerize them before they tuckerize you. wait for one to be alone, and remote slay. If high enough level, cloudkill and a couple fireballs can end most villages. Maximum XP for minimum risk.




This does not really jive with the modern presentation of the game either as realized by Fifth Edition or especially Pathfinder Second Edition. The latter of the two goes to pretty explicit lengths that the defensive killing of orcs who are reaving is acceptable (just as it would be with humans), but that slaughtering them in their own territory when they have not been aggressive is not.


----------



## aramis erak (May 1, 2021)

Campbell said:


> This does not really jive with the modern presentation of the game either as realized by Fifth Edition or especially Pathfinder Second Edition. The latter of the two goes to pretty explicit lengths that the defensive killing of orcs who are reaving is acceptable (just as it would be with humans), but that slaughtering them in their own territory when they have not been aggressive is not.



5E also doesn't have 1 GP for 1 XP. So you're strawmaning here.

AD&D had both 1XP for 1 GP gained, and Orcs as inherently evil. The end result of skilled mechanical play is that Orc villages are fair game for mass murder.... which is part of why we rejected skilled play of AD&D in 7th grade. The obvious effect of the rules wasn't what we were comfortable with. On the other hand, seducing demons also was off-label but mechanically doable given the add-on Comeliness stat (IIRC, in Unearthed Arcana). My 18 Cha Elf got a max roll, and got lucky with Lolth in Q1... 
AD&D had a lot of unintended consequences of its rules.


----------



## Fenris-77 (May 1, 2021)

The end result of skilled play huh? Like there's only that one? I suspect that lots of people who engaged in that same skilled play might disagree. I know I do.


----------



## Manbearcat (May 1, 2021)

Yeah, that Game Theory being reported above wasn’t what I experienced in that period when my games left the dungeon.

My Hexcrawls in 1991 (8th grade by whatever) switched from AD&D to RC. Orcs went from Evil to Chaotic. The Game Theory that governed the groups I GMed for didn’t change as it pertained to Orcs whether it was in the dungeon or in the wild. It was:

Have Porter/mule

+

Treasure is infinitely better than confrontation.

+

Light Treasure with high return (in the form of gems and baubles etc) is massively better than gold due to encumbrance.

= Avoid conflicts and collect gems and baubles and keep the Porter alive.

Most of the games I ran were overwhelmingly Pawn Stance as well (for probably 100 players during that era) so alignment was less a moral question and more a game artifact question. Yet I didn’t see a tendency to expeditiously slaughter orc women/children in AD&D nor less so when we switched to RC.

It was resource-hoarding, rest/recharge-managing, spec ops XMen with S.O.P. power plays developed between party members for various situations.


----------



## The-Magic-Sword (May 1, 2021)

I don't think that the morality of early DND was an outgrowth of skilled play, I think it was an outgrowth of the game's theming on the basis of absolute Law Vs. Chaos, and eventually Good vs. Evil. That theming in turn, was probably an outgrowth of both fiction at the time, and a need to create a loose narrative justification for the game's core loop.

 By making creatures card carrying members of the evil faction, we create a justification for fighting them more or less in line with modern notions of tolerance of intolerance-- because they want things that are fundamentally at odds with the rights of others, they have to be addressed regardless of if they currently have the power to impose their desires, because someday they will have that power and use it. The only meaningful difference is whether that intolerance for the rights of others is considered an inherent trait, whether the exceptions to that are 'not appearing in this story,' or in the modern construction where only some of the orcs are intolerant of others rights, so only some of the Orcs qualify as monsters.  

But skilled play, in and of itself, isn't incompatible with that modern construction of morality because ruthlessness doesn't have to be the best rewarded solution to a problem-- it can be deconstructed via appropriate cause and effect in game. Its not hard to imagine a game where killing the entire orc camp to make sure there aren't any survivors to take revenge would cause others to target the players in shock and horror thereby making it an example of unskilled play, or one where even opening oneself up to betrayal would net some other worthwhile benefit such as the aid of well intentioned others and make the moral play the skilled one. 

Its actually interesting, because it opens up a question concerning skilled play-- does skilled play have to mean taking whatever action most reduces the difficulty of the scenario, or can it mean taking the hard road, but using skill to overcome the greater difficulty? Is the 'combat as war' mentality of killing creatures lest they warn or reinforce others a decision that demonstrates player skill, or a difficulty slider by which they attempt to reduce the need for skilled play by reducing the difficulty of upcoming challenges? 

Both obviously have their place, but its interesting to think about-- my friends and I have sometimes included optional rewards for engaging with optional encounters that are harder than the baseline, players skilled enough to take and overcome the risk are better rewarded than players who avoid taking unnecessary risk. It deconstructs 'skilled play' as exclusively careful play, and reconstructs it as one's ability to survive reckless derring-do through the finesse with which they handle the resulting situation one has found themselves in. 'Skilled play' isn't avoiding the Dragon, its overcoming or escaping the Dragon. It suits the combat-positive, player empowered systems I prefer to play. 

To drag this back around to the main subject of the thread, I think clear framing up front is important. In my upcoming Pirate West Marches, because the emphasis is on treasure, I'm going to stipulate that the players ought to construct characters who mesh with treasure seeking as a core motivation-- by being up front, I'm hoping to avoid scenarios where characters are built to be disinterested in what qualifies as skilled play (treasure-seeking, exploration), or to be so morally uncompromising that it presents impassable conflicts of interest ("but its wrong to loot a tomb!") They'll ideally be characters for whom skilled play and the two way bleed between character and player, are in relative alignment. 

It effectively delineates a space within which the players know that they can construct and play characters with 'integrity' to borrow Campbell's Verbiage.


----------



## aramis erak (May 2, 2021)

Fenris-77 said:


> The end result of skilled play huh? Like there's only that one? I suspect that lots of people who engaged in that same skilled play might disagree. I know I do.



Using the definition of skilled play above, involving using the rules as written for their maximum efficiencies,  yes.  That's what the rules encourage. 

Then again, my playstyle at the time I was running AD&D regularly was "Rules-raping munchkin rules-lawyer."
I outgrew that mode and AD&D, decades ago.


----------



## MichaelSomething (May 2, 2021)

In order to increase immersion, I removed hit dice/healing surges from my games and replaced them with Pathfinder 2's medicinal recovery system.  It's totally not a bunch of fiddly number crunching that complicates a process that was designed to be quick and easy to do.


----------



## Fenris-77 (May 2, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> Using the definition of skilled play above, involving using the rules as written for their maximum efficiencies,  yes.  That's what the rules encourage.
> 
> Then again, my playstyle at the time I was running AD&D regularly was "Rules-raping munchkin rules-lawyer."
> I outgrew that mode and AD&D, decades ago.



I think I may have not made my point clear enough. What you describe isn't actually the natural outcome of skilled play in practice. Not in my personal experience, nor in my anecdotal experience, nor even in the descibed play experiences Ive read (all three extensive). I'm sure it happens, but this seems like an idea you have rather than an actualy widespread reality. _Shrug_


----------



## innerdude (May 5, 2021)

I don't think it's controversial to say that early editions of D&D had a number of mechanisms that were internally at odds with creating "immersive" play experiences. Not to say that you _couldn't_ immerse, just that there were lots of artifacts getting in the way.

Gaming the "XP is gold" system, as noted by many.
General lethality / assumption of "troupe" play meant it was dangerous to get attached to any one character, let alone try and "immerse" as one.
The massive amounts of procedural rules (time, mapping, wandering monsters, massive numbers of tables on which to roll).
Gamist resource management of all sorts (rations, hit points, consumables, treasure hauling).
All of these are aimed at pushing players towards "skilled play" kinds of behaviors, of the kind predominant from '78-'83. And there's nothing wrong with it, it's just that taken at face value, they're largely at odds with "immersion" as a concept. The general "win conditions" of skilled play have no direct avenue into "immersion."


----------



## MichaelSomething (May 5, 2021)

I know what can increase immersion; dressing up as your character! Why hasn't anyone suggested it before?


----------



## aramis erak (May 5, 2021)

MichaelSomething said:


> I know what can increase immersion; dressing up as your character! Why hasn't anyone suggested it before?



Because for some, it's just a distraction. For others, a disruption. It also pushed into LARP territory, which for a significant subset is a no-go zone. There is very little that is truly a universal aid to immersion.


----------



## Emerikol (May 5, 2021)

innerdude said:


> I don't think it's controversial to say that early editions of D&D had a number of mechanisms that were internally at odds with creating "immersive" play experiences. Not to say that you _couldn't_ immerse, just that there were lots of artifacts getting in the way.
> 
> Gaming the "XP is gold" system, as noted by many.
> General lethality / assumption of "troupe" play meant it was dangerous to get attached to any one character, let alone try and "immerse" as one.
> ...



I disagree.  Well I disagree on some of your bullets.

1.  XP is Gold.  Sure if your players game the system this way then that is bad and yes it could happen.  My Job as DM is to disincentivize that behavior.   It was not a big deal for me.   This is probably the one I can concede was probably a problem for many groups though not mine.
2.  Beyond the very early levels, I didn't see this that much and even then with my groups it wasn't common place.   But my groups were highly skilled in my opinion.   Maybe this was a problem for many groups but honestly even outside of mine I didn't see it that much.
3.  These procedural rules as you call them were almost all handled by the GM.  Mapping was a player duty but we viewed it as our characters mapping in game.  If the character wasn't mapping then the player wasn't mapping.   So this one is at best neutral but in fact is likely pro-immersion.
4.  Resource management and skilled play is just doing what you would really do if you really were that character.   That would be immersing me further.   So I have to say this is the one I'm most opposed to in concept.   Lack of resource management would be non-immersive for me.  

And I'm talking about being immersed in character and not just being focused on the game.  One implies the other but the other does not imply the first.


----------

