Threefold Flamewars
John Kim
I wanted to start a thread on meta-analysis -- i.e. what actually
causes flamewars over the Threefold model. While I have at least
observed that things take place, I don't fully understand why emotions
get heated over this. Why should a bit of shifted terminology cause
this? I have some theories, but I'd like to run them past people who
might be more interested
Here are my basic cases:
(1) Someone cites a case of what they feel is a bad player or bad GM,
and they identify her as being influenced by another corner of the
Threefold. [i.e. "I had this lousy GM, and I think the problem was
she was Gamist."] Those who enjoy Game-oriented play get upset and
argue the point. The basic problem is that no one wants a bad player
in 'their' corner, so people will try to classify her behavior in
different sorts of ways -- or demand that the model cannot be applied.
(2) Someone says that they experience no trade-offs between story
quality and believability -- thus the Threefold model does not apply
to them. To someone who enjoys simulation, this can be read as "If
you do experience trade-offs between story and world, then you are
doing it wrong." Indeed, it may be intended that way, as David
Berkman did. The implication is that those who enjoy Simulation
simply don't know what they are missing, and if exposed to it done
well would prefer Drama-oriented play.
Am I missing other cases? The basic problem in here is in the
*valuation* of the different corners (Game, Simulation, and Drama),
not in their definitions per se. I'm not sure that any re-phrasing of
the definitions per se is going to solve these issues. There is a
fault in that Simulation is defined negatively, instead of tackling
the nebulous quality that people really enjoy about Simulation. That
is a long-standing problem. If anyone has any insights on that, I
would be glad to hear them.
Halzebier
>(1) Someone cites a case of what they feel is a bad player or bad GM,
>and they identify her as being influenced by another corner of the
>Threefold. [i.e. "I had this lousy GM, and I think the problem was
>she was Gamist."] Those who enjoy Game-oriented play get upset and
>argue the point. The basic problem is that no one wants a bad player
>in 'their' corner, so people will try to classify her behavior in
>different sorts of ways -- or demand that the model cannot be applied.
Guilty as charged. =(
Part of the problem is that gamism and dramatism are often identified
with two particular styles, namely railroading and thinly disguised
wargaming and/or munchkinism.
While these styles actually do fall under dramatism and gamism, they
are by no means exlusively negative (e.g., railroading does have its
advantages) nor, more importantly, necessary constituents (i.e.,
railroading is not a required for dramatists).
Regards,
Hal
talysman
> OK,
>
> I wanted to start a thread on meta-analysis -- i.e. what actually
> causes flamewars over the Threefold model. While I have at least
> observed that things take place, I don't fully understand why emotions
> get heated over this. Why should a bit of shifted terminology cause
> this? I have some theories, but I'd like to run them past people who
> might be more interested
[ ... ]
hi, John.
I agree that your examples are pretty common reasons why Threefold
discussions devolve into flamewars. however, I suspect another reason
may also be lurking: some people, despite their acceptance of
Threefold terminology, don't really accept that other people may like
other playing styles. it seems to be a threat to some people: "if
other people like to do X, it means my style is wrong."
I've definitely seen examples of this behavior within the last month.
the only question is: how common is it?
I, personally, don't like the Threefold. I won't go into the reasons,
other than to say that I don't begrudge other people using it; I just
don't find it useful. I accept that it is a part of the newsgroup's
common language, however.
I also accept that there are other play styles, because I don't always
play the same way, and I have liked different play styles at different
times. my only concerns with play styles is "how do I design for style
X?" and "how do I feel about this new style someone just described to
me? do I want to try it?"
Russell Wallace
>Am I missing other cases?
3) I get pissed off when it seems impossible to discuss anything else
without it veering into a debate about the frigging Threefold :) (Note
that I have no objection to people holding discussions about the
Threefold, only to situations where attempts to talk about other
things are continually taken over by it.)
>The basic problem in here is in the
>*valuation* of the different corners (Game, Simulation, and Drama),
>not in their definitions per se. I'm not sure that any re-phrasing of
>the definitions per se is going to solve these issues. There is a
>fault in that Simulation is defined negatively, instead of tackling
>the nebulous quality that people really enjoy about Simulation. That
>is a long-standing problem. If anyone has any insights on that, I
>would be glad to hear them.
I'll note that the hardcore simulationists have explicitly said the
nebulous quality they enjoy _is_ a negative one; it's not the presence
of a consistent world, but the _absence_ of any Game or Drama factors
in adjudication. If this is a fault, you should find a qualified poet
as an expert witness to back up your case that life itself is at fault
for being neither beautiful nor true :)
--
"Sore wa himitsu desu."
To reply by email, remove
the small snack from address.
http://www.esatclear.ie/~rwallace
Charlton Wilbur
> (2) Someone says that they experience no trade-offs between story
> quality and believability -- thus the Threefold model does not apply
> to them. To someone who enjoys simulation, this can be read as "If
> you do experience trade-offs between story and world, then you are
> doing it wrong." Indeed, it may be intended that way, as David
> Berkman did. The implication is that those who enjoy Simulation
> simply don't know what they are missing, and if exposed to it done
> well would prefer Drama-oriented play.
This does happen regularly, but it's not the principal issue.
> Am I missing other cases? The basic problem in here is in the
> *valuation* of the different corners (Game, Simulation, and Drama),
> not in their definitions per se.
You are missing two principal cases.
(3) Someone says that there's no difference between intent and
outcome, that the Threefold works equally well as both. This doesn't
match the experience of that apparently small number of us for whom
intent *does* matter, and so we step in to make that point. As it's
an old battle, and it's been fought many times, the positions are
entrenched.
(4) The vast majority of the possible other definitions of the
Threefold have been explored. At this point, we've hashed and
rehashed and re-re-hashed every single permutation of the damned
thing, and we want to talk about something else. However, every
newbie that comes in here seizes on the Threefold -- because it *is* a
powerful explanatory tool for some things -- and reopens one of the
threads, likely one of the flamewars we've been down before. Even
those people who like the Threefold are probably sick to death of the
same three arguments over it, and I can't imagine what the people who
have no use for it think.
If you take a look at any newsgroup or mailing list, you'll see the
same thing happening. One of the professional music theory lists I'm
on avoids the topic of tuning or intonation, because it's been hashed
out at least six times over the past three years, at great length; and
the only thing preventing there from being more heat than light was
that the list was moderated. A new subscriber who starts a thread on
whether Bach should be played in meantone or just temperament is going
to be astonished by the response he gets. This is the same thing
happening.
Getting the situation adequately represented in the FAQ -- maybe with
three or four different takes on the Threefold, and a discussion of
what the usual three flamewars are on -- would be an enormous
help, because then when a newbie reopens one of the old wounds we can
just point him or her at the FAQ.
Charlton
Robert Scott Clark
@posting.google.com:
> (2) Someone says that they experience no trade-offs between story
> quality and believability -- thus the Threefold model does not apply
> to them. To someone who enjoys simulation, this can be read as "If
> you do experience trade-offs between story and world, then you are
> doing it wrong." Indeed, it may be intended that way, as David
> Berkman did. The implication is that those who enjoy Simulation
> simply don't know what they are missing, and if exposed to it done
> well would prefer Drama-oriented play.
>
>
> Am I missing other cases?
Well, #2 there was presented in a slanted fashion. It starts off fine and
then you take a side and stick with it. I think you *are* leaving
something out unless you include "Or, maybe, it was not intended way, and
someone reacted to an imagined insult."
Jason Corley
> Am I missing other cases? The basic problem in here is in the
> *valuation* of the different corners (Game, Simulation, and Drama),
> not in their definitions per se.
My case!
"The Threefold describes /nothing useful/ for me and I find discussion
of it deeply uninteresting compared to discussing gaming. If you have a
problem, tell me about the /problem/, not about what intent you have
(if you are the GM) or what intent you hope, wish, or theorize the GM
has (if you are not). There has never been an in-play problem described
on this group that adding in the Threefold adds any useful information
to."
Then of course the proper response is "IT DOES SO DESCRIBE SOMETHING
USEFUL FOR YOU!!!! YOU JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT WHEN
YOU DESCRIBE YOUR GAME!!!! ALSO YOU'RE A BAD GM!!! AND YOU SHOULD GO
WATCH TV!!!" Wait, did I say "proper"? I meant "inevitable". :)
--
***************************************************************************
"You turn off the light and turn on the dark, you turn off the dark and
turn on the light --- positively marvillainous!" ---Krazy Kat, 1921
Jason D. Corley | End...@thecircus.org.uk | AIM: Concordancer
Warren J. Dew
Am I missing other cases?
Yes.
I think that if you'll read through the flamewar that I previously suggested
that Magnus read, you'll find that what the group newbies were saying was that
the threefold model was incorrect: that in fact there were no tradeoffs, and
that the model should be changed to reflect that. Not "I don't experience any
tradeoffs", but "no one experiences any tradeoffs".
In the most recent one, Adrian initially insisted that the threefold was in
fact defined in a way that it was about results, not about intentions. This
thread, on Google, has only 235 articles, and the threefold discussion starts
half way down at this article:
<http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2515257137d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8
&selm=3eae9a2d.323991275%40news.eircom.net>
Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software
Warren J. Dew
I'll note that the hardcore simulationists have explicitly
said the nebulous quality they enjoy _is_ a negative one; it's
not the presence of a consistent world, but the _absence_ of
any Game or Drama factors in adjudication.
Actually, among ourselves, we talk about it in a positive way: having a world
that is real independently of our own world (which is different than
"consistent"). Unfortunately, most people seem to use a different definition
of "independent" or "real" than we do, so that definition isn't useful for
common discussion.
Mary K. Kuhner
John Kim <jh...@darkshire.org> wrote:
[two cases: people not wanting bad players/GMs assigned to "their"
corner, people arguing that "their" corner can solve all problems]
Agreed about #1. A conflict between Brian Gleichman and I on this
point drove at least me and probably him as well off the newsgroup
last time. I was hurt and angry that my more game-oriented campaigns
couldn't be acknowledged and discussed as such; he was furious that
my games, which he regarded as bad ones, should intrude on his
heavily-defended corner.
This is a symptom, though, of something else; the fact that people
with minority styles often feel as though they're under constant
attack. As someone else said, people who value game get called
munchkins and people who value story get called railroaders. I'll
add that people who value the "sense of the Real" thing get
called loonies.
Your #2 feels to me like only one of a large bundle of related
issues. I'd say that the real issue of which #2 is only a symptom
is also the difference rule. Some people are profoundly
bothered by the suggestion that different people have different
values for the game.
I think you can see this in how quickly terms like "mental illness"
and "group masturbation" get trotted out. It isn't specific
to the Threefold; any discussion of a style different from some
posters' styles seems really threatening and tends to provoke a
violent response. But the Threefold has been tried as a tool to
enforce an understanding that styles differ, and so it catches a
lot of the heat.
Russell mentioned, a few days ago, that he was only willing to
discuss personality mechanics if people would refrain from responding
with immediate accusations of "bad roleplayer". I think this is
the crux of the matter. As long as there's societal tolerance of
this kind of thing, the newsgroup is going to be an unsafe place
for discussion, and people will come to it already half-disposed to
start flame wars.
That's the other reason I left last time; frankly, I was tired of
being called names and disappointed that other posters seemed to
regard this as acceptable behavior (i.e. they kept on interacting
politely with the offenders rather than ignoring them or trying to
get them to stop). I'm getting kind of sick of it this time, too.
I can killfile people I don't want to hear, but there's nothing to
be done about the second-order effects, and they really inhibit
discussion.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Warren J. Dew
Getting the situation adequately represented in the FAQ --
maybe with three or four different takes on the Threefold,
and a discussion of what the usual three flamewars are on
-- would be an enormous help, because then when a newbie
reopens one of the old wounds we can just point him or her
at the FAQ.
This would only work if the newbie could get the proper understanding of the
FAQ.
In fact, prior to his gafiation, John had already spent a lot of time stuff
into the FAQ definition of the threefold to try to head off these issues. For
example, the FAQ already contains words about how it's intent rather than
results that matter.
Despite that, Adrian still read the FAQ as saying the threefold was primarily
about results, basing this on the not unreasonable reading that the FAQ spends
a lot more time discussing threefold results than threefold intentions.
Indeed, it was exactly because he had read the FAQ that he could feel that he
knew the threefold better than Russell Wallace or George W. Harris, the first
two people who took issue with his interpretation. After all, he knew that the
FAQ was "The FAQ", while Russell and George, as far as he knew, could be
newbies who hadn't even bothered to read it yet.
Charlton Wilbur
> John Kim <jh...@darkshire.org> wrote:
>
>
> > Am I missing other cases? The basic problem in here is in the
> > *valuation* of the different corners (Game, Simulation, and Drama),
> > not in their definitions per se.
>
> My case!
>
> "The Threefold describes /nothing useful/ for me and I find discussion
> of it deeply uninteresting compared to discussing gaming.
So far so good.
> If you have a
> problem, tell me about the /problem/, not about what intent you have
> (if you are the GM) or what intent you hope, wish, or theorize the GM
> has (if you are not). There has never been an in-play problem described
> on this group that adding in the Threefold adds any useful information
> to."
I'm perfectly willing to accept that you don't find the Threefold
useful; why do you insist that I can't find it useful either?
Charlton
Mary K. Kuhner
analysis in it; I'm sorry.
I think that at the heart of it, it's very hard to make a forum
"safe space" for the discussion of all points of view. Anything
done to make things safer for one point of view is very likely
to be seen as making it positively unsafe for others.
In the gaming case, this is exacerbated by two things:
(1) It's common for those of us who post "gaming problems"
to want something other than hard-headed analysis. We may
want support for our position and/or criticism of the other
guy's position. We may just want reassurance. So if I post
"my player is being dunderheaded about X" and I get responses
like "X is a legitimate goal of style Y" I may feel cheated
or affronted. (I'm not defending this reaction, just
describing it.)
(2) Almost all of are part of a non-Net gaming community,
and we have, or feel we have, a personal stake in the views of
that community. It can be threatening to see a style
one doesn't like pushed hard here, because the thought
immediately arises: what if my player/GM buy into this?
What if I can't find any more players for *my* preferred kind
of game? What if the shelves at the local gaming store
fill up with only products supporting this icky style?
What if my players use this style as an excuse to play badly?
What if (as described eloquently in the essay "Roleplaying
considered harmful") the discussion actually diminishes my
own enjoyment or makes me insecure about my chosen play
style?
People presumably have *some* willingness to take these
risks or they wouldn't stay long on .advocacy. But that
willingness can run out very suddenly, especially if the
foreign style is one that they really dislike. (I can
see this happening to me in my long-ago discussions with
Rick Cordes about shared PC control among players.)
I don't think this is unique to the Threefold discussions.
Any attempt to talk about dicelessness, or immersion, or
radical changes in the GM/player boundaries, can bring on
a similar flamewar. Basically, all points on which we
differ strongly are flashpoints. The Threefold summarizes
a number of those points, and also *creates* one; the
often underappreciated difference between those whose
game concerns are well described by the Threefold and
those whose concerns aren't described at all.
One thing we could use is some sharp attention to the
statements "My concerns aren't well described by the
Threefold" (which is valuable and positive and needs to
be said, or the group isn't safe space for such people)
and "Your concerns aren't well described by the Threefold
either" (which is, in my view, profoundly unhelpful as
well as offensive). Historically we have often reacted
to the first of these as if it were a veiled form of
the second, and that's just wrong.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Jason Corley
> Jason Corley <cor...@cobweb.scarymonsters.net> writes:
>> If you have a
>> problem, tell me about the /problem/, not about what intent you have
>> (if you are the GM) or what intent you hope, wish, or theorize the GM
>> has (if you are not). There has never been an in-play problem described
>> on this group that adding in the Threefold adds any useful information
>> to."
> I'm perfectly willing to accept that you don't find the Threefold
> useful; why do you insist that I can't find it useful either?
I don't so insist - but I /do/ insist that if you're bringing up a
gaming problem, that you not just frame it in the terms of the
Threefold theory, which I do not ascribe to, but that you give me the
actual facts of the problem.
Mary K. Kuhner
I tried describing this once, a long time ago, in an analytic post about
what the positive quality involved *is*. Most of the post was still about
what it isn't (consistency; realism; genre verisimilitude) and when I came
to try to describe the thing itself, I ended up with Velveteen Rabbit
analogies which are useful to indicate the thing if you already know what
it is, but not at all descriptive if you don't.
My sister is a music theorist, and I (amateurishly) discuss music with her.
She will sometimes use terms I don't know but which have an immediate
referent when they're demonstrated. ("You're right, that trick *is*
used to suggest a kind of nebulous Asianness in all sorts of popular
music.") But occasionally she uses a term that I not only don't know,
but can't make any sense of when she gets on the piano and demonstrates.
("You hit some different keys each time, but I don't hear any
systematic difference.")
Maybe with training I'd hear it, or maybe not. Until I do, though, the
term is going to remain ungrounded and I'm unlikely to use it correctly.
At most I can file it under "mysterious musicology things". (And
retaliate by telling her what "detail balance" means in a Markov
Chain simulation!)
It *is* helpful, I think, to occasionally reiterate that it's not
consistency, or realism, or genre verisimilitude. But there's a risk
that it will then be perceived, as Russell says, in purely negative
terms.
(We seem to be having another go-around with "consistency." For
the record--this is not directed at either Russell or Warren--
something can be visibly consistent and not "real" in the desired
sense. If two outcomes are equally likely but the world model
produces one of them, the chosen one is consistent and right, and
the unchosen one is consistent but wrong. Conversely, though
we assume that right results are always consistent, the GM may
take this on faith if s/he can't immediately see how they
are consistent. An inconsistent result would definitely suggest
a busted world model.)
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Beowulf Bolt
>
> Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@mithril.chromatico.net> wrote:
> >
> > I'm perfectly willing to accept that you don't find the Threefold
> > useful; why do you insist that I can't find it useful either?
>
> I don't so insist - but I /do/ insist that if you're bringing up a
> gaming problem, that you not just frame it in the terms of the
> Threefold theory, which I do not ascribe to, but that you give me the
> actual facts of the problem.
Why do you feel you can tell everyone else how to post?
IMO, for all the talk about One-True-Wayism amongst the Threefold
supporters, it is the side that doesn't like the Threefold that shows
the least tolerance around here.
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare - a pumpkin with a gun.
[...] Euminides this! " - Mervyn, the Sandman #66
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason Corley
> Jason Corley wrote:
>>
>> Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@mithril.chromatico.net> wrote:
>> >
>> > I'm perfectly willing to accept that you don't find the Threefold
>> > useful; why do you insist that I can't find it useful either?
>>
>> I don't so insist - but I /do/ insist that if you're bringing up a
>> gaming problem, that you not just frame it in the terms of the
>> Threefold theory, which I do not ascribe to, but that you give me the
>> actual facts of the problem.
> Why do you feel you can tell everyone else how to post?
Well, naturally, people can post uselessly all they want. My position
is of course only my position - if people /don't/ want to talk to me
usefully they can post in Swahili or exclusively Threefold-talk all
they want.
> IMO, for all the talk about One-True-Wayism amongst the Threefold
> supporters, it is the side that doesn't like the Threefold that shows
> the least tolerance around here.
Yawn.
Charlton Wilbur
> This is a symptom, though, of something else; the fact that people
> with minority styles often feel as though they're under constant
> attack. As someone else said, people who value game get called
> munchkins and people who value story get called railroaders. I'll
> add that people who value the "sense of the Real" thing get called
> loonies.
Ironically, if we posit that the three points of the Threefold have
roughly equal numbers of adherents (and I have no meaningful data with
which to back this up), then everyone has a minority style to some
extent.
Maybe we just need to drum the difference rule into people.
> That's the other reason I left last time; frankly, I was tired of
> being called names and disappointed that other posters seemed to
> regard this as acceptable behavior (i.e. they kept on interacting
> politely with the offenders rather than ignoring them or trying to
> get them to stop). I'm getting kind of sick of it this time, too.
> I can killfile people I don't want to hear, but there's nothing to
> be done about the second-order effects, and they really inhibit
> discussion.
Can you think of something useful that might be done? I'm at a loss;
I can't think of any solution that doesn't cause at least as large a
problem as it solves.
Charlton
(munchkin, railroader, and loony, to various extents)
Russell Wallace
Yep. I feel the same way about my game worlds, for example. (Where I
define "real" and "independent" in the sense of the many-worlds
philosophy as I mentioned in the Mage discussion.)
1) When the simulation doesn't specify a particular outcome but only a
range of outcomes, and I use dice to determine the result, I feel I'm
selecting a particular world from a group, a la Schrodinger's Cat.
2) Where I determine the result based on dramatist or gamist criteria,
I'm doing the same thing, only nonrandomly (as if I could choose the
"cat is alive" world because I like cats).
3) Occasionally I notice the simulation is about to specify a result
alright, but it's a result the players and I will strongly dislike -
however, there is another possible world that would have appeared
identical until now, but the two will diverge at this point. In that
case I switch to that other world and continue with it. (In more
prosaic terms, I occasionally retcon behind the scenes provided that
won't introduce inconsistency with what has already been established
in play.)
I recognize the simulationist style isn't the same as mine, but I
don't know of any way to describe the difference other than "like mine
except it eschews 2 and 3, though it still includes 1 unless the GM is
running diceless". (I also don't see the difference between 1 and 2 as
very important, but I acknowledge that some people do.)
Russell Wallace
K. Kuhner) wrote:
>Maybe with training I'd hear it, or maybe not. Until I do, though, the
>term is going to remain ungrounded and I'm unlikely to use it correctly.
>At most I can file it under "mysterious musicology things". (And
>retaliate by telling her what "detail balance" means in a Markov
>Chain simulation!)
Good description! ^.^
>It *is* helpful, I think, to occasionally reiterate that it's not
>consistency, or realism, or genre verisimilitude. But there's a risk
>that it will then be perceived, as Russell says, in purely negative
>terms.
If you see that as a risk (i.e. a bad thing), would it help to add a
note that "negative" is intended in the technical rather than the
normative sense?
Beowulf Bolt
>
> Beowulf Bolt <beowul...@shaw.ca> wrote:
> > Jason Corley wrote:
> >>
> >> Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@mithril.chromatico.net> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > I'm perfectly willing to accept that you don't find the Threefold
> >> > useful; why do you insist that I can't find it useful either?
> >>
> >> I don't so insist - but I /do/ insist that if you're bringing up a
> >> gaming problem, that you not just frame it in the terms of the
> >> Threefold theory, which I do not ascribe to, but that you give me
> >> the actual facts of the problem.
>
> > Why do you feel you can tell everyone else how to post?
>
> Well, naturally, people can post uselessly all they want. My position
> is of course only my position - if people /don't/ want to talk to me
> usefully they can post in Swahili or exclusively Threefold-talk all
> they want.
Well, I must say that you are doing a bang-up job of convincing me
that I would *want* to consult your opinion on anything...
Charlton Wilbur
> I think that at the heart of it, it's very hard to make a forum
> "safe space" for the discussion of all points of view. Anything
> done to make things safer for one point of view is very likely
> to be seen as making it positively unsafe for others.
Or, alternately, anything that can be done to make things safer for
all points of view is likely to stifle interesting discussion.
> It can be threatening to see a style one doesn't like pushed hard
> here, because the thought immediately arises: what if my player/GM
> buy into this? [...] What if my players use this style as an excuse
> to play badly? What if (as described eloquently in the essay
> "Roleplaying considered harmful") the discussion actually diminishes
> my own enjoyment or makes me insecure about my chosen play style?
First, I'm not familiar with that essay; do you have a cite?
Second, I'm quite familiar with this. When I started my music degree,
I learned a great deal about music really quickly. Most musicians
come to study music because of a deep emotional response, which the
initial phases of formal learning often interfere with; it seems
common for musicians who have begun their studies to fear that the new
analytical skills that they're developing will hamper their enjoyment
of music. But it was my experience that after a certain point, the
more technical skills I had, the deeper my enjoyment of the music.
But first I had to let go.
I'm in that state now with roleplaying, I think -- the learning to let
go phase. I'm playing in a D&D3 game that's really just blood &
thunder fantasy roleplaying, and it's a great deal of fun. It might
be munchkiny, it might be power-gamey, the stories aren't created to
be wonderful, and the world falls apart if you poke it too hard -- but
it's FUN. And I can already see how the differences in player styles
are laying the groundwork for the end of the game.
> One thing we could use is some sharp attention to the statements "My
> concerns aren't well described by the Threefold" (which is valuable
> and positive and needs to be said, or the group isn't safe space for
> such people) and "Your concerns aren't well described by the
> Threefold either" (which is, in my view, profoundly unhelpful as
> well as offensive). Historically we have often reacted to the first
> of these as if it were a veiled form of the second, and that's just
> wrong.
The problem is that the idea is rarely, if ever, expressed as baldly
as that; if someone says "The Threefold is not a good model for my
problems," I'm willing to take him at his word. It's categorical
statements such as "The Threefold is more useful when considering
outcomes than when considering results," -- um, not for me it isn't --
and "The Threefold has not added anything useful to any discussion in
which it has been brought up." In both of these, the speaker presumes
to know what's of use to me better than I myself do. When is the
burden on the speaker to say what he really means? -- in other words,
if he *means* "I find the Threefold more useful to consider outcomes
than to consider intent," then when is it his responsibility to put
that little word "I" in? For if he *means* to claim that the
Threefold really is useless to everyone (poor deluded me!) then he
ought to be reintroduced to the Difference Rule. In text-only
communication, I simply cannot tell the difference between misstated
personal opinion and intentional categorical statement, except insofar
as I have built a mental model of my correspondents.
Charlton
Jeff Stehman
wallacet...@eircom.net says...
> If this is a fault, you should find a qualified poet
> as an expert witness to back up your case that life itself is at fault
> for being neither beautiful nor true :)
"But friend, to me He is all fault who hath no fault at all." --Tennyson
Is that close enough? :-)
--Jeff Stehman
Larry D. Hols
> YOU JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT WHEN
> YOU DESCRIBE YOUR GAME!!!!
That sort of thing in general bugs the hell out of me.
"I don't like peaches."
"Oh, you do,too! You just haven't had peaches like this."
"Um, I'm serious, I don't like peaches."
"I bet you've had lots of peach desserts and not even known it. You get
hold of some this Wonderful Peachy Keen Pie and you'll love it, because
you've already loved all of the peach desserts you've already had
without knowing."
"Excuse me--which part of 'I don't like peaches' do you not understand?"
"Trust me, I know you like peaches..."
"STOP WITH THE DAMNED PEACHES ALREADY!"
"You don't have to get pissy about it."
<sigh>
Look, people occasionally do state things poorly and asking questions
to clarify things is good, as is drawing them out so they re-state their
message. Assuming one's own hallucinations are a better guage of
another's thoughts is sheer hubris.
Larry
Wayne Shaw
K. Kuhner) wrote:
>
>This is a symptom, though, of something else; the fact that people
>with minority styles often feel as though they're under constant
>attack. As someone else said, people who value game get called
A lot of gamists picked up this habit over the years when dramatist
approaches appeared to be the dominant meme in the way the hobby was
swinging; I still tend to react overly-strongly when I see that meme
waved around to heavily and have been trying to restrain myself.
>munchkins and people who value story get called railroaders. I'll
>add that people who value the "sense of the Real" thing get
>called loonies.
Or get their desires called impossible.
>Russell mentioned, a few days ago, that he was only willing to
>discuss personality mechanics if people would refrain from responding
>with immediate accusations of "bad roleplayer". I think this is
>the crux of the matter. As long as there's societal tolerance of
>this kind of thing, the newsgroup is going to be an unsafe place
>for discussion, and people will come to it already half-disposed to
>start flame wars.
And somewhat ready to put their dukes up the moment some topics come
up, because past experience has taught them they'll need to.
Wayne Shaw
K. Kuhner) wrote:
>(2) Almost all of are part of a non-Net gaming community,
>and we have, or feel we have, a personal stake in the views of
>that community. It can be threatening to see a style
>one doesn't like pushed hard here, because the thought
>immediately arises: what if my player/GM buy into this?
>What if I can't find any more players for *my* preferred kind
>of game? What if the shelves at the local gaming store
>fill up with only products supporting this icky style?
>What if my players use this style as an excuse to play badly?
>What if (as described eloquently in the essay "Roleplaying
>considered harmful") the discussion actually diminishes my
>own enjoyment or makes me insecure about my chosen play
>style?
I think, in fact, I'd argue that fighting for mindshare is a
legitimate concern. Whether we have any appreciable impact on
mindshare is, of course, highly debateable (I have me doots) but I've
certainly seen people frustrated because a particular meme has become
dominant in their own area.
>One thing we could use is some sharp attention to the
>statements "My concerns aren't well described by the
>Threefold" (which is valuable and positive and needs to
>be said, or the group isn't safe space for such people)
>and "Your concerns aren't well described by the Threefold
>either" (which is, in my view, profoundly unhelpful as
>well as offensive). Historically we have often reacted
>to the first of these as if it were a veiled form of
>the second, and that's just wrong.
Unfortunately, I suspect too many people have run into a few too many
cases of guerilla tactics on the Net where the latter response would
be a legitimate expectation.
Larry D. Hols
> Agreed about #1. A conflict between Brian Gleichman and I on this
> point drove at least me and probably him as well off the newsgroup
> last time. I was hurt and angry that my more game-oriented campaigns
> couldn't be acknowledged and discussed as such; he was furious that
> my games, which he regarded as bad ones, should intrude on his
> heavily-defended corner.
Interesting. I popped in on random occasion (to read his reviews, in
large part) and found that his brand of gamism doesn't match mine. I
have to wonder why he thought he had to defend gamism from "those
outside" when he didn't even seem to grasp that there were differences
to be found within the same corner. Of course, he likely would have
considered me a heretic.
Which leads me to the observation that I noticed a lot of folks seem to
have the idea that because they play in a style that is determinedly
predominated by one intent that their personal style is essentially the
only style emphasizing that intent. I've noticed that more among
regulars of the Forge; I do see hints of it in posts here, though.
> This is a symptom, though, of something else; the fact that people
> with minority styles often feel as though they're under constant
> attack. As someone else said, people who value game get called
> munchkins and people who value story get called railroaders. I'll
> add that people who value the "sense of the Real" thing get
> called loonies.
I've never felt under attack here, whether years ago when I was active,
those times I lurked for short stretches, nor now, actively rejoining
discussion--at least, in the sense that my preferences were being
attacked. I've always found that the criticisms leveled at extreme
instances of any intent corner were likely to apply to a very low number
of games; they didn't apply to me and for the folks who liked such, the
criticism doesn't matter. It doesn't hurt my feelings a bit if somebody
doesn't like my play style. I enjoy it and that's what matters.
> Russell mentioned, a few days ago, that he was only willing to
> discuss personality mechanics if people would refrain from responding
> with immediate accusations of "bad roleplayer". I think this is
> the crux of the matter. As long as there's societal tolerance of
> this kind of thing, the newsgroup is going to be an unsafe place
> for discussion, and people will come to it already half-disposed to
> start flame wars.
I'll add that as long as there's tolerance for abrasive argumentation
in general, discussion is difficult. I find that tolerating abrasive
individuals simply because they sometimes have something interesting to
say perpetuates the abrasive behavior and likely increases it. If more
people would refuse to respond to abrasive posters (or simply point and
laugh instead of taking the poster at all seriously--something for which
I've been taken to task over, mind you, as some find it unreasonably
rude) then I think the climate for discussion would improve
dramatically.
> That's the other reason I left last time; frankly, I was tired of
> being called names and disappointed that other posters seemed to
> regard this as acceptable behavior (i.e. they kept on interacting
> politely with the offenders rather than ignoring them or trying to
> get them to stop). I'm getting kind of sick of it this time, too.
> I can killfile people I don't want to hear, but there's nothing to
> be done about the second-order effects, and they really inhibit
> discussion.
I agree. It's the parade of responses to the abrasive posters that
perpetuates the problem. At some point, for reasonable, valuable
discussion to thrive, those involved have to decide to only support
reasonable, valuable discussion and ignore anything that doesn't
qualify.
Larry
Russell Wallace
<crkd...@carrollsweb.com> wrote:
> Which leads me to the observation that I noticed a lot of folks seem to
>have the idea that because they play in a style that is determinedly
>predominated by one intent that their personal style is essentially the
>only style emphasizing that intent. I've noticed that more among
>regulars of the Forge; I do see hints of it in posts here, though.
Is this Forge another RPG discussion forum? If so, how is it accessed?
I might be interested in dropping in and taking a look.
> I agree. It's the parade of responses to the abrasive posters that
>perpetuates the problem. At some point, for reasonable, valuable
>discussion to thrive, those involved have to decide to only support
>reasonable, valuable discussion and ignore anything that doesn't
>qualify.
I think you're right; I've been trying to do that lately.
Mary K. Kuhner
Russell Wallace <wallacet...@eircom.net> wrote:
>On 12 May 2003 15:55:47 GMT, mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu (Mary
>K. Kuhner) wrote:
>>It *is* helpful, I think, to occasionally reiterate that it's not
>>consistency, or realism, or genre verisimilitude. But there's a risk
>>that it will then be perceived, as Russell says, in purely negative
>>terms.
>If you see that as a risk (i.e. a bad thing), would it help to add a
>note that "negative" is intended in the technical rather than the
>normative sense?
The "risk" I meant was of inaccuracy--I'm not sure the "eschews
drama and game decisions" description is as accurate as it could be,
so it's a bit risky to let it stand.
The other issue that was probably in the back of my mind, though,
is the situation on a mailing list I subscribe to. One of the
posters provoked a detailed description of this style and then
characterized it as ideological adherence to a completely abstract
goal--a kind of obsessive-compulsive behavior. I don't find this
accurate, which spurs the desire to have a positive way to
describe the desired enjoyment.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Larry D. Hols
> Maybe we just need to drum the difference rule into people.
That might do the trick by itself. Find a good slogan to get the idea
across and keep harping on it as an expectation.
> > That's the other reason I left last time; frankly, I was tired of
> > being called names and disappointed that other posters seemed to
> > regard this as acceptable behavior (i.e. they kept on interacting
> > politely with the offenders rather than ignoring them or trying to
> > get them to stop). I'm getting kind of sick of it this time, too.
> > I can killfile people I don't want to hear, but there's nothing to
> > be done about the second-order effects, and they really inhibit
> > discussion.
>
> Can you think of something useful that might be done? I'm at a loss;
> I can't think of any solution that doesn't cause at least as large a
> problem as it solves.
I've encountered efforts in other places that all had some positive effect.
The most extreme involved a weekly posting of recommended killfile
settings with reasons why and an invitation to examine threads to decide
whether the killfiling was warranted. I was flabbergasted when I first
ran into this. After a couple of weeks, though, I'd set my fillfile to
match the recommendations and reading that group became much less of a chore.
Outside of that, I suggest that folks be quick to killfile those who
are repeatedly abrasive. I also suggest moving messages out of
sub-threads where others respond to those killfiled so as to cut the
abrasive poster completely out of the picture--and make it plain that
the message was moved to improve the discussion.
Larry
Robert Scott Clark
news:20030512110826...@mb-m05.aol.com:
> Russell Wallace posts, in part:
>
> I'll note that the hardcore simulationists have explicitly
> said the nebulous quality they enjoy _is_ a negative one; it's
> not the presence of a consistent world, but the _absence_ of
> any Game or Drama factors in adjudication.
>
> Actually, among ourselves, we talk about it in a positive way: having
> a world that is real independently of our own world (which is
> different than "consistent"). Unfortunately, most people seem to use
> a different definition of "independent" or "real" than we do,
I find no discomfort in saying that the inability to define how those words
are actually being used, or to choose words that do not imply some sort of
pathology is no small part of the cause of my not-so-hidden hostility
towards simulationism. I get much the same reaction to immersion.
Mary K. Kuhner
Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@mithril.chromatico.net> wrote:
>mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) writes:
>> It can be threatening to see a style one doesn't like pushed hard
>> here, because the thought immediately arises: what if my player/GM
>> buy into this? [...] What if my players use this style as an excuse
>> to play badly? What if (as described eloquently in the essay
>> "Roleplaying considered harmful") the discussion actually diminishes
>> my own enjoyment or makes me insecure about my chosen play style?
>First, I'm not familiar with that essay; do you have a cite?
Frustratingly, a Google on it gives about 10 references to the
original post, but not (at least in my hands) the post itself.
The author was Mr. Tines, anyway, and the newsgroup was either
.advocacy, .misc, or both. Maybe you'll have better success?
Mr. Tines essentially said that he'd been converted from a
free-wheeling D&D style much like the one you describe (snipped)
to a more nuanced character-and-story style, and then had
realized, to his dismay, that he no longer enjoyed playing or
GMing. He had trouble going back to the old style--he'd been
inculcated with its disadvantages--but really just didn't like
the new one. (But you should read his post if we can find it;
I haven't seen it in a while and my paraphrase may be poor.)
>Second, I'm quite familiar with this. When I started my music degree,
>I learned a great deal about music really quickly. Most musicians
>come to study music because of a deep emotional response, which the
>initial phases of formal learning often interfere with; it seems
>common for musicians who have begun their studies to fear that the new
>analytical skills that they're developing will hamper their enjoyment
>of music. But it was my experience that after a certain point, the
>more technical skills I had, the deeper my enjoyment of the music.
>But first I had to let go.
Writers have this too; a not-uncommon reaction to learning more
about writing is to have one's enjoyment of *reading* temporarily
damaged. The Internal Critic starts in commenting about
wandering POV and inconsistent verb tenses, and there you go.
I think this also gets better with time, though I'm pickier
about my reading now than I used to be.
One story about myself that relates to this--When I was very
young, my family felt that chicken legs and watermelon were
really nice foods, treats, and would give them to me with
enthusiasm. It took me until about age 10 to realize that
actually I'm not fond of either one; I'd rather have chicken
breasts and canteloupe. So I don't always feel that becoming
more picky is a loss; sometimes it's just the bringing to
the forefront of an existing dissatisfaction.
>In text-only
>communication, I simply cannot tell the difference between misstated
>personal opinion and intentional categorical statement, except insofar
>as I have built a mental model of my correspondents.
Yup. And every time we've managed to half-convince ourselves, for
the sake of peace, that people really believe the difference rule
and are just expressing themselves badly--along comes someone who
makes it 100% clear that this just ain't so. So the suspicion is
always there.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Warren J. Dew
Yep. I feel the same way about my game worlds, for example.
(Where I define "real" and "independent" in the sense of the
many-worlds philosophy as I mentioned in the Mage discussion.)
Interesting and thought provoking post.
I can identify some of the differences of definition, if it helps - or more
likely, as an intellectual exercise.
While I don't think I have a problem with your definition of 'real', it's
possible that my definition includes a degree of completeness or closure that
yours did not. When I read your post in the Mage discussion, it wasn't clear
to me whether your use of 'consistency' included completeness. The lack of the
completeness I'm talking about is, I think, what Einstein was complaining of
the Copenhagen interpretation when he said 'God does not play dice with the
universe': the dice imply the need for an interventionist God.
What's really clear is that your definition of "independent" is different from
mine. If I can affect outcomes in the world, whether by your case (1) or your
case (2), it's not independent by my definition. Note also that I don't
consider "independent" to be synonymous with "mutually independent".
Finally, there may be a difference of opinion in the definition of "world". I
subscribe to the quantum mechanical interpretation sometimes called "many
worlds", but to me, the entire waveform, including all of the "many worlds", is
just one actual world; to me, this is a consequence of rejecting quantum
collapse. In addition, I think that a world has to include historical data if
consciousness is to make sense within it.
Indeed, I think there are a lot of open issues about how consciousness
interacts with the wave form. I would also note that empirical evidence favors
real world quantum waveform mathematics being dominated by self reinforcing
patterns such as solitons, rather than by the "all outcomes happen" type events
- or to put it another way, there are a lot of interference nodes out there.
There may be no difference of opinion regarding "world", though - I notice that
you switched from the term "world" to the term "simulation" early in your post,
and they are different things.
A few stray comments:
2) Where I determine the result based on dramatist or gamist
criteria, I'm doing the same thing, only nonrandomly (as if I
could choose the "cat is alive" world because I like cats).
In the long run, you'd get an "all cats are alive" world - or I would, given
how much I like cats. I'm not convinced that's not likely to be a node. I
also suspect that maintaining full consistency would then have some unexpected
effects, like "thorium reactors don't work" or "player characters have to hate
dogs".
3) Occasionally I notice the simulation is about to specify a
result alright, but it's a result the players and I will
strongly dislike - however, there is another possible world
that would have appeared identical until now, but the two will
diverge at this point. In that case I switch to that other
world and continue with it.
From a world standpoint, you are switching to another campaign without telling
the players - which is fine if your players don't mind, but I would.
Silvered Glass
<snip>
>(2) Someone says that they experience no trade-offs between story
>quality and believability -- thus the Threefold model does not apply
>to them. To someone who enjoys simulation, this can be read as "If
>you do experience trade-offs between story and world, then you are
>doing it wrong." Indeed, it may be intended that way, as David
>Berkman did. The implication is that those who enjoy Simulation
>simply don't know what they are missing, and if exposed to it done
>well would prefer Drama-oriented play.
By the phrase 'The implication is ... ', do you meant that the people
who read Berkman's intention into all such statements make such an
inference? Or do you mean that the person denying the universal
correctness of the Threefold's assumptions about the relationship
between has in fact implied it?
Robert Scott Clark
news:3ebfcb6e....@news.eircom.net:
> On 12 May 2003 15:08:26 GMT, psych...@aol.com (Warren J. Dew) wrote:
>
>>Russell Wallace posts, in part:
>>
>> I'll note that the hardcore simulationists have explicitly
>> said the nebulous quality they enjoy _is_ a negative one; it's
>> not the presence of a consistent world, but the _absence_ of
>> any Game or Drama factors in adjudication.
>>
>>Actually, among ourselves, we talk about it in a positive way: having
>>a world that is real independently of our own world (which is
>>different than "consistent"). Unfortunately, most people seem to use
>>a different definition of "independent" or "real" than we do, so that
>>definition isn't useful for common discussion.
>
> Yep. I feel the same way about my game worlds, for example. (Where I
> define "real" and "independent" in the sense of the many-worlds
> philosophy as I mentioned in the Mage discussion.)
> I recognize the simulationist style isn't the same as mine, but I
> don't know of any way to describe the difference other than "like mine
> except it eschews 2 and 3, though it still includes 1 unless the GM is
> running diceless". (I also don't see the difference between 1 and 2 as
> very important, but I acknowledge that some people do.)
>
I would like to agree with everything Russell said, except that I still
don't get his usage of "real" or "independant".
Warren J. Dew
I was tired of being called names and disappointed that other
posters seemed to regard this as acceptable behavior (i.e.
they kept on interacting politely with the offenders rather
than ignoring them or trying to get them to stop).
I suspect I'm one of those who tends to continue to interact politely with
offenders. In my defense I will say that I am trying to get them to stop the
offensive behavior, by trying to encourage them when they are less offensive.
That said, I would note that I'm probably less offended by name calling than
most. I'd also note that others often seem to find redeeming value in those I
find incorrigible; I've learned to live with this.
I'm always willing to listen to suggestions about how to deal with this better,
either in the newsgroup or by email.
I will say that in the last month or two, the old time regulars seem back in
the majority; if we all stick around, I'd expect things to get better rather
than worse.
Irina Rempt
> I've never felt under attack here, whether years ago when I was
> active, those times I lurked for short stretches, nor now, actively
> rejoining discussion--at least, in the sense that my preferences were
> being attacked.
I've successfully repressed most of my memory of the First Threefold
War, but I do remember being told in 1998 or so that "nobody really
plays immersively, if you claim you do you're either deluded or lying"
(I had the pleasure of GMing for a group of nothing but immersive
players a while after that, and I can testify that none of us were
deluded or lying; we were all truly immersed).
Also, when I mentioned that my worldbuilding felt more like discovery
than construction, I got "you know that you're making it all up, don't
you?" (implying that it would be possible and even easy to change
random details arbitrarily for the sake of the story).
Disclaimer: I don't remember, nor do I want to be reminded of, names of
actual people who told me these things. But they *did* feel like
attacks, if not on my person, then certainly on my playing and GMing
preferences.
Irina
--
Vesta veran, terna puran, farenin. http://www.valdyas.org/irina/
Beghinnen can ick, volherden will' ick, volbringhen sal ick.
http://www.valdyas.org/~irina/foundobjects/ Latest: 11-May-2003
Russell Wallace
>Russell Wallace posts, in part:
>
> Yep. I feel the same way about my game worlds, for example.
> (Where I define "real" and "independent" in the sense of the
> many-worlds philosophy as I mentioned in the Mage discussion.)
>
>Interesting and thought provoking post.
Thanks!
>I can identify some of the differences of definition, if it helps - or more
>likely, as an intellectual exercise.
Intellectual exercises are good ^.^
>While I don't think I have a problem with your definition of 'real', it's
>possible that my definition includes a degree of completeness or closure that
>yours did not. When I read your post in the Mage discussion, it wasn't clear
>to me whether your use of 'consistency' included completeness.
It doesn't include completeness - given that our brains and computers
are limited in capacity, we can never completely specify, simulate or
understand a world (at least, not a world rich enough to support
sentient life).
>The lack of the
>completeness I'm talking about is, I think, what Einstein was complaining of
>the Copenhagen interpretation when he said 'God does not play dice with the
>universe': the dice imply the need for an interventionist God.
I don't see how randomness has anything to do with completeness?
>What's really clear is that your definition of "independent" is different from
>mine. If I can affect outcomes in the world, whether by your case (1) or your
>case (2), it's not independent by my definition.
But you use dice, don't you?
Also, I don't believe I can affect outcomes in the game world - it's
in a different universe, after all, which by definition means it's
causally independent of our world. What I can do is choose which of
several related worlds to continue simulating.
>Note also that I don't
>consider "independent" to be synonymous with "mutually independent".
How does this come into it?
>Finally, there may be a difference of opinion in the definition of "world". I
>subscribe to the quantum mechanical interpretation sometimes called "many
>worlds", but to me, the entire waveform, including all of the "many worlds", is
>just one actual world; to me, this is a consequence of rejecting quantum
>collapse.
Yep. However, I also subscribe to the metaphysical version (logically
independent of the quantum mechanical version, but produces similar
results in this context), which regards all logically self-consistent
worlds as "real" in Plato's sense. (Among other things, this answers
the philosophical question "Why is there anything at all, rather than
nothing?".)
>Indeed, I think there are a lot of open issues about how consciousness
>interacts with the wave form. I would also note that empirical evidence favors
>real world quantum waveform mathematics being dominated by self reinforcing
>patterns such as solitons, rather than by the "all outcomes happen" type events
>- or to put it another way, there are a lot of interference nodes out there.
I suppose this is true.
>There may be no difference of opinion regarding "world", though - I notice that
>you switched from the term "world" to the term "simulation" early in your post,
>and they are different things.
"World" = the game world, the place whose inhabitants (including the
PCs and NPCs) perceive it as real. "Simulation" = the pattern of
neural activity in my brain (and those of the players) that produces
information about the game world.
In practice, the simulation (given that it doesn't contain an infinite
amount of information) refers to a whole family of game worlds, and I
make on the fly decisions to choose subsets of that family to simulate
henceforth, based on various criteria.
I gather that you feel you're simulating just one game world (even
though you don't have enough information to fully specify it, that
doesn't change the principle of the thing) and aren't willing to
switch to a slightly different one on the fly?
> 2) Where I determine the result based on dramatist or gamist
> criteria, I'm doing the same thing, only nonrandomly (as if I
> could choose the "cat is alive" world because I like cats).
>
>In the long run, you'd get an "all cats are alive" world - or I would, given
>how much I like cats.
In practice, I only do it when the cat (or human or Martian or
whatever) is a PC or a sympathetic NPC who's in some way significant
to the GM and players. This isn't enough to skew the overall
statistics of the game world significantly.
I know for some people that would still be enough to harm their
suspension of disbelief - that's why some people prefer playing
without script immunity. And I'll cheerfully run with no script
immunity if I think that's what the players want; it's just that most
players don't, at least not outside one-shot games.
>I'm not convinced that's not likely to be a node. I
>also suspect that maintaining full consistency would then have some unexpected
>effects, like "thorium reactors don't work"
Oh, thorium atoms normally decay with the expected frequency. It's
just that on the particular occasions where it mattered to the GM and
players, a thorium atom didn't happen to decay at the wrong time.
(Well, not that I've ever had something depend specifically on the
decay of a thorium sample, but that's the general idea.)
>or "player characters have to hate
>dogs".
Now I don't get that - why would they have to hate dogs?
>From a world standpoint, you are switching to another campaign without telling
>the players
True from a certain perspective.
>which is fine if your players don't mind, but I would.
Interesting - are you saying that not only do you run that way, but
you wouldn't want to play in a campaign that wasn't hardcore
simulationist? If you are I don't have a problem with that, it's just
unusual.
Silvered Glass
Wallace) wrote:
>On Mon, 12 May 2003 13:00:43 -0500, "Larry D. Hols"
><crkd...@carrollsweb.com> wrote:
>
>> Which leads me to the observation that I noticed a lot of folks seem to
>>have the idea that because they play in a style that is determinedly
>>predominated by one intent that their personal style is essentially the
>>only style emphasizing that intent. I've noticed that more among
>>regulars of the Forge; I do see hints of it in posts here, though.
>
>Is this Forge another RPG discussion forum? If so, how is it accessed?
>I might be interested in dropping in and taking a look.
<snip>
I've been reading there, but I never intend to post, because the place
is moderated a bit heavy-handedly: it's not just flame-fests that get
slapped down. It features a fair amount of theoretical discussion
based on an interestingly bent descendant of the Threefold, which ...
no, I'd better leave that series of remarks for email. :)
They also use a bent version of the stances, in which they employ
director's stance (which proves useful in that they can readily
describe games which hand players control of things usually in the
GM's purview); apparently doubt the existence of audience stance --
which impresses me as singularly odd, but audience isn't in Edwards'
list, which only includes author, actor, and director, and I saw a
thread debating whether it existed or not; think that something
resembling the gameplayer's stance I proposed is a special case of
author; and utterly confuse actor and character stances.
To wit: they use 'actor stance' with a definition that makes it sound
as if they mean 'character stance.' But I'm not sure it actually does
mean 'character stance.' I'll freely admit that I could be badly
mistaken here, but the only way I can think of for someone to be
unable to distinguish between actor stance and character stance is
/never/ to have been in character stance. That this may be the case
is suggested to me by the some of the narrativist game designs, which
seem to me to demand actor stance (rgfa meaning) and to be inimical to
character stance, including to character stance short of immersion.
(I would not assert this as a definite conclusion: I realize that
different players find different things to interfere with character
stance, or to promote it. But the games have features that many of
the people I know play in character stance would have difficulty
with.)
They often think 'immersion' and 'suspension of disbelief' are terms
without value or definition.
If you conclude that the place is dominated by what we'd call
dramatists, you're right; but their take on their threefold (called
GNS, Gamist-Narrativist-Simulationist) is rather too like ours in
places where one wouldn't, if one thinks of Berkman as the
archetypical dramatist, anticipate it.
It's a lot like looking at the Threefold in a funhouse mirror.
There are definitely ideas and techniques worth swiping over there;
I'm probably going to use a couple of the ideas from Ron Edwards' game
_Sorcerer_ in my next game.
Mary K. Kuhner
Robert Scott Clark <cla...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>I find no discomfort in saying that the inability to define how those words
>are actually being used, or to choose words that do not imply some sort of
>pathology is no small part of the cause of my not-so-hidden hostility
>towards simulationism. I get much the same reaction to immersion.
I think this is really clear, it sums up perfectly what I find
troublesome about your posts, and it shows that there's essentially
no chance that matters will improve.
If other peoples' honest efforts to describe their style are
interpreted as "implies pathology", and having people imply
pathology is an offense that you feel justifies overt hostility,
you're going to be the cause of endless flame wars. The only
alternative is for everyone whose style you dislike to keep
quiet or lie, and that's not acceptable to me.
<plonk>. If you want to tell me that my dick is small, feel free.
I get spam like that every day already.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Mary K. Kuhner
> I was tired of being called names and disappointed that other
> posters seemed to regard this as acceptable behavior (i.e.
> they kept on interacting politely with the offenders rather
> than ignoring them or trying to get them to stop).
>I suspect I'm one of those who tends to continue to interact politely with
>offenders. In my defense I will say that I am trying to get them to stop the
>offensive behavior, by trying to encourage them when they are less offensive.
It's a really tough line to find, and I'm not going to tell you that
I know where you should draw it.
My big concern is one that I've learned from being a leader of a large,
diffuse religious group. That is: you tolerate a rude person, and
everyone you hear from seems to be reasonably okay with that.
Perhaps s/he is even showing some signs of improvement, so you
persevere. What you *don't* hear about is the people who encountered
the rude person and left the group quietly, without saying anything.
(We finally did find out that we'd lost, at last count, 11 people
to this one person's behavior--this in a group with a diffuse
membership of maybe 45. That was a far higher cost than we'd have
been willing to pay. We removed the person and can only hope that
things will improve.)
>That said, I would note that I'm probably less offended by name calling than
>most.
Fair enough. As I said, it's not just the name-calling for me; it's
the second-order effects. I dip into various other newsgroups
and they seem to be mostly flames, contentless posts and potshots;
that doesn't encourage me even to read them, let alone post something
well-thought-out or meaningful.
>I will say that in the last month or two, the old time regulars seem back in
>the majority; if we all stick around, I'd expect things to get better rather
>than worse.
I would like that very much.
I've started using a killfile again; perhaps that will help my own
temper.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Robert Scott Clark
news:20030512105928...@mb-m05.aol.com:
> John Kim posts, in part:
>
> Am I missing other cases?
>
> Yes.
>
> I think that if you'll read through the flamewar that I previously
> suggested that Magnus read, you'll find that what the group newbies
> were saying was that the threefold model was incorrect: that in fact
> there were no tradeoffs, and that the model should be changed to
> reflect that. Not "I don't experience any tradeoffs", but "no one
> experiences any tradeoffs".
I believe you are stating this sloppily. I think a better stating would
be "no one need experience tradeoffs between the three corners of the
threefold - there are playstyles which may include higher degrees of one
or more corners, with the tradeoff coming from some non-threefold area."
>
> In the most recent one, Adrian initially insisted that the threefold
> was in fact defined in a way that it was about results, not about
> intentions. This thread, on Google, has only 235 articles, and the
> threefold discussion starts half way down at this article:
>
> <http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2515257137d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UT
> F-8 &selm=3eae9a2d.323991275%40news.eircom.net>
Charlton Wilbur
> <plonk>. If you want to tell me that my dick is small, feel free.
> I get spam like that every day already.
You know, that's something that baffles me. "If you do X, it means
that your dick is small!" Um, no, my tolerance for idiots has little
connection to the size of my genitalia, except in that (in my younger,
more foolish days) I tolerated several idiots while I was dating them.
Maybe more public plonking is part of the solution that we need, to
give the rude people the hint that their rudeness is inappropriate and
to indicate to newcomers whom to killfile?
Charlton
Mary K. Kuhner
Irina Rempt <ir...@valdyas.org> wrote:
>I've successfully repressed most of my memory of the First Threefold
>War, but I do remember being told in 1998 or so that "nobody really
>plays immersively, if you claim you do you're either deluded or lying"
>(I had the pleasure of GMing for a group of nothing but immersive
>players a while after that, and I can testify that none of us were
>deluded or lying; we were all truly immersed).
And gosh, it was a fun game. If only we didn't live on different
continents!
It was also visibly brittle in spots, and scary in that regard;
no style is perfect and this one has its downside. But I'd
cheerfully play in another, downside and all.
>Disclaimer: I don't remember, nor do I want to be reminded of, names of
>actual people who told me these things. But they *did* feel like
>attacks, if not on my person, then certainly on my playing and GMing
>preferences.
It's very difficult to carry on any kind of discussion with someone
who thinks you're lying or deluded. It's not just a matter of hurt
feelings; discussion really is baseless. Why should anyone read
my posts at all, if they don't think I'm telling the truth about
my experiences, or if they think I'm completely insane?
So I tend to take claims of lying/delusion as tactical, ways of
fighting for mindshare; and particularly slimy tactics at that.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Russell Wallace
<cla...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>I would like to agree with everything Russell said, except that I still
>don't get his usage of "real" or "independant".
Would it help if I said I'm something of a Platonist?
Russell Wallace
K. Kuhner) wrote:
>And gosh, it was a fun game. If only we didn't live on different
>continents!
>
>It was also visibly brittle in spots, and scary in that regard;
>no style is perfect and this one has its downside. But I'd
>cheerfully play in another, downside and all.
Me too!
>It's very difficult to carry on any kind of discussion with someone
>who thinks you're lying or deluded. It's not just a matter of hurt
>feelings; discussion really is baseless. Why should anyone read
>my posts at all, if they don't think I'm telling the truth about
>my experiences, or if they think I'm completely insane?
>
>So I tend to take claims of lying/delusion as tactical, ways of
>fighting for mindshare; and particularly slimy tactics at that.
Or just the person being a wanker for the sake of it. Either way it's
a waste of time continuing the debate.
Warren J. Dew
I'll freely admit that I could be badly mistaken here, but the
only way I can think of for someone to be unable to
distinguish between actor stance and character stance is
/never/ to have been in character stance.
Or, possibly, to be unfamiliar with any form of acting other than method
acting?
Robert Scott Clark
> On Mon, 12 May 2003 18:43:54 GMT, Robert Scott Clark
> <cla...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>>I would like to agree with everything Russell said, except that I still
>>don't get his usage of "real" or "independant".
>
> Would it help if I said I'm something of a Platonist?
>
Then I would expect "essential" instead of "real".
Russell Wallace
<cla...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>wallacet...@eircom.net (Russell Wallace) wrote in
>news:3ec00784....@news.eircom.net:
>
>> Would it help if I said I'm something of a Platonist?
>
>Then I would expect "essential" instead of "real".
What's the difference?
Robert Scott Clark
> On Mon, 12 May 2003 21:03:28 GMT, Robert Scott Clark
> <cla...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>>wallacet...@eircom.net (Russell Wallace) wrote in
>>news:3ec00784....@news.eircom.net:
>>
>>> Would it help if I said I'm something of a Platonist?
>>
>>Then I would expect "essential" instead of "real".
>
> What's the difference?
>
"Real" means real?
Russell Wallace
<cla...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>"Real" means real?
So you don't know what the difference is, then?
Robert Scott Clark
> On Mon, 12 May 2003 21:40:19 GMT, Robert Scott Clark
> <cla...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>>"Real" means real?
>
> So you don't know what the difference is, then?
>
Real implies existance.
Essential implies necessary.
Russell Wallace
<cla...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>Real implies existance.
That much is a trivial tautology.
>Essential implies necessary.
And that gives me no clue as to which of the many meanings of the word
"essential" you're referring to. I'll try again:
Some people believe the physical world we perceive with our senses is
all that has any real existence. Plato disagreed, and believed
mathematical entities have a real existence. I share this view, and
also note that mathematics has much broader scope now than it did
then; it can be regarded as the catalog of all possible patterns, i.e.
all things that are logically self-consistent.
This implies the metaphysical version of the many-worlds idea, which
is that our world is just one of an infinite ensemble of possible
worlds, encompassing all those that have logical self-consistency.
(Which neatly answers the philosophical question "why is there
anything at all, rather than nothing?".) Thus, our world and any
particular game world have the same ontological status: they are two
among the infinite ensemble. We cannot physically access worlds other
than our own (otherwise they would by definition be part of our own
world) but, following Plato, we can derive truths about them by means
of the intellect.
Any clearer?
Robert Scott Clark
news:b9ottl$fc6$1...@nntp3.u.washington.edu:
> In article <Xns93799197BE2Ecl...@65.82.44.187>,
> Robert Scott Clark <cla...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>>I find no discomfort in saying that the inability to define how those
>>words are actually being used, or to choose words that do not imply
>>some sort of pathology is no small part of the cause of my
>>not-so-hidden hostility towards simulationism. I get much the same
>>reaction to immersion.
>
> I think this is really clear, it sums up perfectly what I find
> troublesome about your posts, and it shows that there's essentially
> no chance that matters will improve.
>
> If other peoples' honest efforts to describe their style are
> interpreted as "implies pathology",
No, it's when people imply the actual existance of, or attribute motive
force to, imaginary things that I assume pathology.
> and having people imply
> pathology is an offense that you feel justifies overt hostility,
Implying pathology is meant as an offense. It's not a random insult I'm
throwing around. If people literally mean some of the things they have
said around here, then I actually think they probably need professional
and/or chemical help. If things are not meant literally, then I don't
think it's out of the question to expect some form of explanation as to
what was actually meant.
You want an example? Here goes (and it's going to be long)...
I occasionally write. I am not a perfect writer, and do not have the
mental resources to have a story spring fully formed in my brain. As a
result of this, writing a story takes time, both to actually commit it to
some medium, and to form the complete story in my mind. This results in
some elements being created after others, and large parts being decided a
significant period of time after the ideas for the story are originally
formed.
Because of this, sometimes my original intent becomes inconsistant with
what has happened so far. Maybe a character's personality has developed
from what I originally planned, or maybe because I had not added all the
details yet, the picture that I now see of the character is not exactly
what I thought it would be at that point. Hell, it might not even be a
concrete problem, but instead something that I can't quite nail down.
It is when that happens that I might have to deviate from my original
planned plot in order to continue writing the character consistantly.
Now, I could choose to say that more figuratively, and definately more
tersely, by saying "sometimes my characters don't do what I want them to
do" or "sometimes my characters hijack the story."
The thing is, that I can actually describe the process without using
language that sounds crazy. I don't have to pretend the characters are
anything other than figments in my mind.
Now, when I see simulationism discussed, I find many people cannot do
this.
When us unclean, unknowing masses think of simulationism, we often
associate it with consistency. And there's a good reason for that. The
difference between starting from initial conditions and following a chain
of causation and having a result that is consistent with both initial
conditions and the rules of causation is not overtly apparent.
Basically, from discussion, the difference has something to do with what
happens when there are multiple outcomes that are all consistent. Now,
when asked to explain what happens here, and someone responds "I observe
the gameworld", then I am pushed into the position of either taking them
literally, and knowing that in order for the discussion to continue
someone is going to need a big shot of thorazine, or assuming that there
is a more prosaic was of communicating that same idea.
Now, when the person who makes that statement cannot verbalize what they
actually mean, and instead start using even more words non-conventionally
("I'm using 'observe' differently than you are") or even starts randomly
capitalizing words as if that is supposed to give them different meanings
("real" is a very popular word to mis-capitalize), communication is not
helped at all.
Simulationism seems to me something very mundane and simple, but there is
a pressure by it's adherents to use fanciful words to refer to it, and
that's not good for healthy communication.
> you're going to be the cause of endless flame wars. The only
> alternative is for everyone whose style you dislike to keep
> quiet or lie, and that's not acceptable to me.
It's not a question of style, it's a question of people who say insane
sounding things.
>
> <plonk>. If you want to tell me that my dick is small, feel free.
> I get spam like that every day already.
Feel free to be a child all you want.
>
> Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
>
talysman
or, possibly, because the GNS approach, although inspired by
a few terms in Threefold, decided to approach theory from a
different perspective.
now, I don't claim to be an expert on either the Threefold or
on GNS, but there's a significant difference between the way
GNS approaches stances and the way the Threefold does. in GNS,
the stances are about how you influence play through your
character. this explains right away why there is no audience
stance in GNS: everyone is in the audience. furthermore, GNS
sees audience "stance" as part of the social level, not part
of game play.
character stance/immersion likewise gets ditched, because it's
about a quality of experience. the GNS version of actor stance
includes the Threefold's character and actor stances. this is
because GNS actor stance is defined as a player making decisions
based on the character's point of view, which is then contrasted
to GNS author stance, where a player makes decisions for the
character, but from the player's own point of view.
consider this: you have a barbarian character seeking vengeance
against a decadent southern empire. you (the player) want the
barbarian to eventually become the emperor. from an in-character
perspective, the barbarian wouldn't want this at all, but is
probably thinking about simple blood vengence or mass mayhem.
the player's plan, then, is for the character to change over
time. whenever a player makes a decision based on the character's
knowledge, beliefs and desires, that is actor stance, whether
or not immersion is involved. when the player makes a decision
to further the goal of making the barbarian emperor, however,
that does not fit into the barbarian character's beliefs or
goals at all -- it is author stance.
pawn stance is mentioned as a type of author stance; in theory,
you are supposed to make author stance decisions, then explain
after the fact an in-character reason why the character acted
that way. if you don't, you're just using the character as a
pawn.
so for example, your barbarian gets caught by another of the
northern tribes and discovers a band of southern legionaires
who are also awaiting torture and death at the hands of their
captors. you want the barbarian to become emperor, and gaining
the admiration and loyalty of a band of legionaires could help
that goal become reality. the barbarian, in theory, should hate
the legionaires for what they represent: the enemy who destroyed
everything he loved. so you, the player, override the character's
viewpoint.
- if you ignore the inconsistency, that's pawn stance.
- if you explain the action as "the barbarian still
hates the empire, but he decides these men are not
personally responsible and may make good allies,
although he'll keep a wary eye on them," that is
author stance.
this leaves director stance. in either actor or author/pawn stance,
your decisions affect the world through the character's actions;
in director stance, you can make changes in the environment that
logically your character could not change personally. this can mean
either making decisions for characters other than your own or making
decisions about other events. it can range from adding minor details
to the scene to actually co-authoring events with the GM.
continuing the example, the barbarian's player could say "there's a
clay pot in our cell used for drinking water; the barbarian smashes
it and sharpens the pieces to use as a makeshift weapon." THAT is
director stance. if the barbarian's captors distrust the barbarian
because they are being attacked by another tribe, the player can
suggest "the rival tribe makes a raid, and in the confusion, the
barbarian lures a guard close enough to grab him." THAT, also, is
director stance.
Peter Knutsen
John Kim wrote:
[...]
> (2) Someone says that they experience no trade-offs between story
> quality and believability -- thus the Threefold model does not apply
> to them. To someone who enjoys simulation, this can be read as "If
A few people are psysiologically unable to distinguish between the
colours red and green, i.e. they simply can't percieve something which
the rest of us sees very clearly. It's not denial, for them there
really *is* no difference.
Perhaps a large majority of roleplaying gamers, many more than the
8-10% who are red/green colour blind, are unable to percieve
inconsistency, which explains why they vehemently deny that there is
any trade-off.
[...]
> Am I missing other cases? The basic problem in here is in the
> *valuation* of the different corners (Game, Simulation, and Drama),
> not in their definitions per se. I'm not sure that any re-phrasing of
> the definitions per se is going to solve these issues. There is a
> fault in that Simulation is defined negatively, instead of tackling
*Can* it be defined positively?
I'm fairly sure I don't play immersively. But for various reasons I
want to create a gaming situation that is conductive to immersive
play, i.e. thinking in-character without distractions such as odd,
inexplicable character behaviour. Maybe I do play immersively? I
certainly like to be able to think like my character, do what he would
do, and have the world react "organically".
> the nebulous quality that people really enjoy about Simulation. That
> is a long-standing problem. If anyone has any insights on that, I
> would be glad to hear them.
--
Peter Knutsen
Silvered Glass
<taly...@globalsurrealism.com> wrote:
>psych...@aol.com (Warren J. Dew) writes:
>
>> Silvered Glass posts, in part:
>>
>> I'll freely admit that I could be badly mistaken here, but the
>> only way I can think of for someone to be unable to
>> distinguish between actor stance and character stance is
>> /never/ to have been in character stance.
>>
>> Or, possibly, to be unfamiliar with any form of acting other than method
>> acting?
Conceivably. But my first guess is that Ron Edwards didn't consider
the distinction worth preserving.
>now, I don't claim to be an expert on either the Threefold or
>on GNS, but there's a significant difference between the way
>GNS approaches stances and the way the Threefold does.
As an academic point, I'll note that we wouldn't usually consider the
stances part of the Threefold, although they're both rgfa theory, and
there tends to be some correlation -- but by no means a strict one --
between someone's Threefold preference and the stances they're likely
to employ.
<snip>
>character stance/immersion likewise gets ditched, because it's
>about a quality of experience.
That's one of the things that strongly suggests to me that Ron Edwards
doesn't value this quality of experience. I'm having trouble seeing
anybody who does value it ditching the vocabulary.
By the way, they're not precisely synonymous, in our terms -- I don't
know if you've picked that up yet or not, but I thought I'd mention it
because going back and forth between here and the Forge creates plenty
of opportunity for confusion.
Immersion does a specific meaning here, and it's a special case of
character stance.
>character stance/immersion likewise gets ditched, because it's
>about a quality of experience. the GNS version of actor stance
>includes the Threefold's character and actor stances. this is
>because GNS actor stance is defined as a player making decisions
>based on the character's point of view, which is then contrasted
>to GNS author stance, where a player makes decisions for the
>character, but from the player's own point of view.
I think Edwards impaired the utility of his own model by conflating
character and actor stance this way. He has a large tendency to come
up with mechanics that would practically force actor stance for many
players (I am using rgfa definitions here), and if he's consciously
decided to do that, then his designs serve his purpose and all is
well. But a designer who fails to recognize that the distinction
exists may be more likely to include inappropriate mechanics in RPGs
in which a major part of the appeal is staying in the character's
mindset.
<snip>
>pawn stance is mentioned as a type of author stance; in theory,
>you are supposed to make author stance decisions, then explain
>after the fact an in-character reason why the character acted
>that way. if you don't, you're just using the character as a
>pawn.
I think director's stance is likely to be understood if you use it,
and people will probably figure out pawn stance too, but if you use
actor for character here it's likely to create a fair amount of
confusion.
Warren J. Dew
unfamiliarity with acting, rather than with character stance - Silvered Glass
posts, in part:
Conceivably. But my first guess is that Ron Edwards didn't
consider the distinction worth preserving.
I would agree that in Edwards' case, it seems that it's character stance that
he hasn't experienced or doesn't value and is ditching.
Back when I first encounted the stances model, though, it was actor stance that
I didn't understand, as I figured all good actors used method acting.
Rupert Boleyn
K. Kuhner) carved onto a tablet of ether:
>In article <87znlsd...@mithril.chromatico.net>,
>Charlton Wilbur <cwi...@mithril.chromatico.net> wrote:
>>mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) writes:
>
>>> It can be threatening to see a style one doesn't like pushed hard
>>> here, because the thought immediately arises: what if my player/GM
>>> buy into this? [...] What if my players use this style as an excuse
>>> to play badly? What if (as described eloquently in the essay
>>> "Roleplaying considered harmful") the discussion actually diminishes
>>> my own enjoyment or makes me insecure about my chosen play style?
>
>>First, I'm not familiar with that essay; do you have a cite?
>
>Frustratingly, a Google on it gives about 10 references to the
>original post, but not (at least in my hands) the post itself.
>The author was Mr. Tines, anyway, and the newsgroup was either
>.advocacy, .misc, or both. Maybe you'll have better success?
>
>Mr. Tines essentially said that he'd been converted from a
>free-wheeling D&D style much like the one you describe (snipped)
>to a more nuanced character-and-story style, and then had
>realized, to his dismay, that he no longer enjoyed playing or
>GMing. He had trouble going back to the old style--he'd been
>inculcated with its disadvantages--but really just didn't like
>the new one. (But you should read his post if we can find it;
>I haven't seen it in a while and my paraphrase may be poor.)
Was this the post you're looking for?
--
Rupert Boleyn <rbo...@paradise.net.nz>
The media industry is a long, dark, narrow hallway where thieves and
pimps run free and good people die like dogs.
There's also a negative side.
John Kim
> jh...@darkshire.org (John Kim) wrote:
> >(2) Someone says that they experience no trade-offs between story
> >quality and believability -- thus the Threefold model does not apply
> >to them. To someone who enjoys simulation, this can be read as "If
> >doing it wrong." Indeed, it may be intended that way, as David
> >Berkman did. The implication is that those who enjoy Simulation
> >simply don't know what they are missing, and if exposed to it done
> >well would prefer Drama-oriented play.
>
> By the phrase 'The implication is ... ', do you meant that the people
> who read Berkman's intention into all such statements make such an
> inference? Or do you mean that the person denying the universal
> correctness of the Threefold's assumptions about the relationship
> between has in fact implied it?
I don't think there are any "facts" here. We are talking about a mental
model and issues of styles. The best you can say is that people view
it differently. One the one hand, someone can genuinely be insulting
or offensive without realizing it. Conversely, someone can take
offense too easily.
What I would look for is not to establish which one is factually right,
but rather find a way for them to talk about it civilly.
With regards to the case mentioned, it depends on the particulars.
From my perception, it most commonly goes like this -- someone
says they experience no tradeoff, i.e. they make a change which
they feel improves things all around, with no loss. However, that
doesn't mean that a player of different tastes who was in that
game might not feel a loss based on that same change. i.e.
They don't feel a tradeoff because they don't value what was lost.
- John
Silvered Glass
<snip>
>With regards to the case mentioned, it depends on the particulars.
>From my perception, it most commonly goes like this -- someone
>says they experience no tradeoff, i.e. they make a change which
>they feel improves things all around, with no loss. However, that
>doesn't mean that a player of different tastes who was in that
>game might not feel a loss based on that same change. i.e.
>They don't feel a tradeoff because they don't value what was lost.
It isn't even necessarily the case that making a particular change
causes the same kind of loss for everyone who perceives one.
George W. Harris
Wallace) wrote:
:On Mon, 12 May 2003 21:59:05 GMT, Robert Scott Clark
:<cla...@mindspring.com> wrote:
:
:>Real implies existance.
:
:That much is a trivial tautology.
As opposed to the other type of
tautology.
--
e^(i*pi)+1=0
George W. Harris For actual email address, replace each 'u' with an 'i'.
Robert Scott Clark
During the filming of Marathon Man...
Being a method actor, Hoffman did not sleep the night before shooting the
famous dental torture scene. When costar Olivier discovered this, he
remarked: "Why don't you try acting, it's so much easier."
Robert Scott Clark
@posting.google.com:
> With regards to the case mentioned, it depends on the particulars.
> From my perception, it most commonly goes like this -- someone
> says they experience no tradeoff, i.e. they make a change which
> they feel improves things all around, with no loss. However, that
> doesn't mean that a player of different tastes who was in that
> game might not feel a loss based on that same change. i.e.
> They don't feel a tradeoff because they don't value what was lost.
Fine, but that does not mean what is lost is something that is represented
by the threefold.
Russell Wallace
<gha...@mundsprung.com> wrote:
>On Mon, 12 May 2003 22:33:16 GMT, wallacet...@eircom.net (Russell
>Wallace) wrote:
>
>:On Mon, 12 May 2003 21:59:05 GMT, Robert Scott Clark
>:<cla...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>:
>:>Real implies existance.
>:
>:That much is a trivial tautology.
>
> As opposed to the other type of
>tautology.
>
>--
>e^(i*pi)+1=0
Precisely.
Warren J. Dew
I'm fairly sure I don't play immersively. But for various
reasons I want to create a gaming situation that is conductive
to immersive play, i.e. thinking in-character without
distractions such as odd, inexplicable character behaviour.
Maybe I do play immersively? I certainly like to be able to
think like my character, do what he would do, and have the
world react "organically".
Maybe you would like to play immersively, but since you are the gamesmaster,
you don't get to?
More seriously, there seems to be a continuum from character play to immersive
play. I think we'd need to know more about your playing style to know where
you are on that continuum. Care to expand on it?
Irina Rempt
> On 12 May 2003 20:08:31 GMT, mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu (Mary
> K. Kuhner) wrote:
>
>>And gosh, it was a fun game. If only we didn't live on different
>>continents!
>>
>>It was also visibly brittle in spots, and scary in that regard;
>>no style is perfect and this one has its downside. But I'd
>>cheerfully play in another, downside and all.
>
> Me too!
I do have something like it lying around that I was going to run for
some people who could never manage to find an opportunity to all show
up at the same time. I'm toying with the idea of doing it on IRC
(though I'll need technical assistance; I'm very much an IRC newbie).
Anyone interested (Charlton? Warren? Silvered Glass?) may mail me.
I'm not sure whether it will be that intense in text only, though.
Irina
--
Vesta veran, terna puran, farenin. http://www.valdyas.org/irina/
Beghinnen can ick, volherden will' ick, volbringhen sal ick.
http://www.valdyas.org/~irina/foundobjects/ Latest: 11-May-2003
Russell Wallace
wrote:
>I do have something like it lying around that I was going to run for
>some people who could never manage to find an opportunity to all show
>up at the same time. I'm toying with the idea of doing it on IRC
>(though I'll need technical assistance; I'm very much an IRC newbie).
>
>Anyone interested (Charlton? Warren? Silvered Glass?) may mail me.
Cool, I'm interested! And can provide technical assistance, I've been
using IRC as primary roleplaying medium for awhile now.
>I'm not sure whether it will be that intense in text only, though.
Can't predict the future, but on average I've found as regards
intensity, the loss of non-game-related side-channels more than makes
up for the loss of the game-related ones.
s...@nospam.visi.com
>>I do have something like it lying around that I was going to run for
>>some people who could never manage to find an opportunity to all show
>>up at the same time. I'm toying with the idea of doing it on IRC
>>(though I'll need technical assistance; I'm very much an IRC newbie).
>>
>>Anyone interested (Charlton? Warren? Silvered Glass?) may mail me.
>
> Cool, I'm interested! And can provide technical assistance, I've been
> using IRC as primary roleplaying medium for awhile now.
>
>>I'm not sure whether it will be that intense in text only, though.
>
> Can't predict the future, but on average I've found as regards
> intensity, the loss of non-game-related side-channels more than makes
> up for the loss of the game-related ones.
Have to agree with this. My experience with text-only e-mail games
(haven't done much IRC gaming, but it would be similar) is that the lack
of side conversation/distraction allows me to, in the case of good games,
get more intensity, more immersion, than I've gotten in the vast majority
of face-to-face games.
Scott
Charlton Wilbur
> Have to agree with this. My experience with text-only e-mail
> games (haven't done much IRC gaming, but it would be similar) is
> that the lack of side conversation/distraction allows me to, in the
> case of good games, get more intensity, more immersion, than I've
> gotten in the vast majority of face-to-face games.
During my first year of graduate school I roleplayed almost
exclusively by IRC. I'd be happy to offer any advice/support you
need. One thing that took me a lot of getting used to was the pacing:
it has a lot in common with PBEM games in that you can get rich detail
and fewer distractions, but the pace is much slower -- I'd say about
1/2 to 1/3 of what happens in a face-to-face session happens in an IRC
session of similar length.
Charlton
Robert Scott Clark
> This implies the metaphysical version of the many-worlds idea, which
> is that our world is just one of an infinite ensemble of possible
> worlds, encompassing all those that have logical self-consistency.
> (Which neatly answers the philosophical question "why is there
> anything at all, rather than nothing?".) Thus, our world and any
> particular game world have the same ontological status: they are two
> among the infinite ensemble. We cannot physically access worlds other
> than our own (otherwise they would by definition be part of our own
> world) but, following Plato, we can derive truths about them by means
> of the intellect.
>
> Any clearer?
>
Yea, much better. Although, I do wonder about the choice of verbage. With
the explanation, I can see how "real" and "logically self-consistent" mean
the same thing to you, but it seems that when discussing the topic
"logically self-consistent" would communicate the idea without needing the
explanation.
Now personally, I've used words in slightly non-standard ways in hopes of
getting asked for clarification, and it seldom works, so I'm wondering if
that is the intent, or whether you intend "real" to communicate more
information than just "logically self-consistent".
Russell Wallace
<cla...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>Yea, much better. Although, I do wonder about the choice of verbage. With
>the explanation, I can see how "real" and "logically self-consistent" mean
>the same thing to you, but it seems that when discussing the topic
>"logically self-consistent" would communicate the idea without needing the
>explanation.
That's what I do when I'm just discussing ordinary practical issues,
for that reason. In this context, though, Warren and I were discussing
philosophy - our views on the ontological status of our game worlds -
and I needed to use the word "real" to communicate my position on
that.
Mary K. Kuhner
Rupert Boleyn <rbo...@paradise.net.nz> wrote:
[Mr. Tines' "Roleplaying Considered Harmful"]
>Was this the post you're looking for?
Yes! Thank you.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Jeff Heikkinen
> Because of this, sometimes my original intent becomes inconsistant with
> what has happened so far. Maybe a character's personality has developed
> from what I originally planned....
It seems to me that you are attributing some sort of independant motive
force to the character here, the same thing (or at least, the same sort
of thing) you were objecting to. And a bit later you say (quite
reasonably when taken by itself)...
> Hell, it might not even be a
> concrete problem, but instead something that I can't quite nail down.
Fine. But...
> Now, when the person who makes that statement cannot verbalize what they
> actually mean, and instead start using even more words non-conventionally
> ("I'm using 'observe' differently than you are") or even starts randomly
> capitalizing words as if that is supposed to give them different meanings
> ("real" is a very popular word to mis-capitalize), communication is not
> helped at all.
(And several similar bits)
But above, we have seen that you *do*, contrary to your claims (which I
snipped), have to use a certain amount of metaphorical language implying
your own characters have motive force, even in your "non-crazy-
sounding" version of events. And we have also seen that you are
sometimes not able to articulate what is actually going on in these
situations. Why are you allowed to have this problems, yet object so
strenuously when someone else does?
It seems to me the threefold advocates are not the only ones here with
double standards.
On the other hand...
> Simulationism seems to me something very mundane and simple, but there is
> a pressure by it's adherents to use fanciful words to refer to it, and
> that's not good for healthy communication.
You know, when I first discovered this group that was exactly how I felt
about *everything* that is discussed here. It's gotten somewhat better,
but only because most of the discussions lately haven't been confined to
longtime regulars.
Halzebier
>Robert Scott Clark, worshipped by llamas the world over, wrote...
>> Simulationism seems to me something very mundane and simple, but there is
>> a pressure by it's adherents to use fanciful words to refer to it, and
>> that's not good for healthy communication.
>
>You know, when I first discovered this group that was exactly how I felt
>about *everything* that is discussed here. It's gotten somewhat better,
>but only because most of the discussions lately haven't been confined to
>longtime regulars.
I don't want to step on your toes, but I think that a well-thought out
and precisely worded solution may look 'trivial' when, in fact, it
isn't.
The end result may be easily understood, but that doesn't mean it was
easily arrived at.
(Or, in a slightly different vein: Sometimes, answers are easy, and
asking the right questions is the tricky part.)
Regards,
Hal
Robert Scott Clark
news:MPG.192b9957f...@news.easynews.com:
> Robert Scott Clark, worshipped by llamas the world over, wrote...
>
>> Because of this, sometimes my original intent becomes inconsistant
>> with what has happened so far. Maybe a character's personality has
>> developed from what I originally planned....
>
> It seems to me that you are attributing some sort of independant
> motive force to the character here,
Not at all. I am the one who is developing the personality for the
character.
> the same thing (or at least, the
> same sort of thing) you were objecting to. And a bit later you say
> (quite reasonably when taken by itself)...
>
>> Hell, it might not even be a
>> concrete problem, but instead something that I can't quite nail down.
>
> Fine. But...
>
>> Now, when the person who makes that statement cannot verbalize what
>> they actually mean, and instead start using even more words
>> non-conventionally ("I'm using 'observe' differently than you are")
>> or even starts randomly capitalizing words as if that is supposed to
>> give them different meanings ("real" is a very popular word to
>> mis-capitalize), communication is not helped at all.
> (And several similar bits)
>
>
> But above, we have seen that you *do*, contrary to your claims (which
> I snipped), have to use a certain amount of metaphorical language
> implying your own characters have motive force, even in your
> "non-crazy- sounding" version of events. And we have also seen that
> you are sometimes not able to articulate what is actually going on in
> these situations.
Again, that's not what happened.
Have you ever known something was wrong with one of your friends just
because they were behaving strangely? Even if there was no specific act
that clued you ioto the problem?
That's what I'm talking about here.
There is a difference in saying "there is some (or several) subtle
nuances that make me able to see the problem/pattern" and not being able
to describe what the process is at all.
I am saying that the planned action seems inconsistent with what has
already been established in the story even though I cannot explicitly
point out the chain of logic that makes it so.
> Why are you allowed to have this problems, yet
> object so strenuously when someone else does?
Well, when pressed, I attempt to explain it more clearly without delving
into evem more strained language.
>
> It seems to me the threefold advocates are not the only ones here with
> double standards.
>
>
> On the other hand...
>
>> Simulationism seems to me something very mundane and simple, but
>> there is a pressure by it's adherents to use fanciful words to refer
>> to it, and that's not good for healthy communication.
>
> You know, when I first discovered this group that was exactly how I
> felt about *everything* that is discussed here.
There is a difference between "jargon" and "fanciful words". The jargon
does not bother me.
Robert Scott Clark
news:c204cvc99l19ohdrb...@4ax.com:
> On Wed, 14 May 2003 06:07:49 GMT, Jeff Heikkinen <o...@s.if> wrote:
>
>>Robert Scott Clark, worshipped by llamas the world over, wrote...
>
>>> Simulationism seems to me something very mundane and simple, but
>>> there is a pressure by it's adherents to use fanciful words to refer
>>> to it, and that's not good for healthy communication.
>>
>>You know, when I first discovered this group that was exactly how I
>>felt about *everything* that is discussed here. It's gotten somewhat
>>better, but only because most of the discussions lately haven't been
>>confined to longtime regulars.
>
> I don't want to step on your toes, but I think that a well-thought out
> and precisely worded solution may look 'trivial' when, in fact, it
> isn't.
>
> The end result may be easily understood, but that doesn't mean it was
> easily arrived at.
That's why there are degrees. Since the number 3 is so popular, let's
imagine 3 men...
The first was trained by some espionage agency to be able to detect lies.
He knows where people look when they lie, what they are likely to do with
their hands, what word choices they make, and how their breathing
patterns change. He could teach a class in how to pick the liar out of a
group, because he knows the exact details of what to look for, and can
tell others.
The second has lived an eventful life as a gambler and a criminal. He
can detect lies also, but for him it's a "gut feeling". He has thought
about his ability some and come to the conclusion that people give off
subtle physical and auditory clues that he has learned, by practice, to
pick up on. He couldn't teach that class, because all he would be able
to say is "listen to see if they breathe funny or do anything
suspicious", but would not be able to define "funny" or "suspicious" for
the students.
The third guy is like the second, only without the self-reference. When
questioned as to why he can detect liars fairly successfully, he can only
respond, "I'm psychic, I guess."
Now, I admit, I would find it wonderful if everyone could explain things
to the degree that #1 does. Discussions would be informative and
enlightening.
But, #2 ain't that bad. First off, it's a hell of a lot easier to be #2
than #1. Secondly, a dozen or so #2s should be able to have a pretty
darned interesting discussion on the topic. Maybe by comparing theories,
they can push a little closer to being #1s, or at least give new
perspective to their own ideas.
I don't see any purpose at all in talking to #3. He's not going to add
any new information. Maybe someone else just like him can say "yea, I
feel that sometimes, I must be psychic too" and they can have a bonding
experience, then they can discuss how many fingers to hold up to their
heads to best focus their mental energies.
gleichman
more recent things. This caught my eye.
mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) wrote in message news:<b9ocin$153a$1...@nntp3.u.washington.edu>...
> Agreed about #1. A conflict between Brian Gleichman and I on this
> point drove at least me and probably him as well off the newsgroup
> last time. I was hurt and angry that my more game-oriented campaigns
> couldn't be acknowledged and discussed as such; he was furious that
> my games, which he regarded as bad ones, should intrude on his
> heavily-defended corner.
I remember this event, although I have a slightly different view of
where the friction was. While painful as it resulted in something I
neither intended nor wanted- it was not the reason for my leaving.
> That's the other reason I left last time; frankly, I was tired of
> being called names and disappointed that other posters seemed to
> regard this as acceptable behavior (i.e. they kept on interacting
> politely with the offenders rather than ignoring them or trying to
> get them to stop). I'm getting kind of sick of it this time, too.
> I can killfile people I don't want to hear, but there's nothing to
> be done about the second-order effects, and they really inhibit
> discussion.
This was the reason. And I'm sad to hear that it continues, but not
surprised as I see the three people who cause me such problems remain
here and are still so treated.
I fear your killfile will not work. I made use of that as well in a
vain attempt to defuse the encounter. Sadly they launched attacks
against me using the killfile as cover- only for me to see them
repeated in the posts of others who again kept on interacting politely
with them no matter what.
I hope you have better luck than I did.
I suppose in the end there is no help for it. I've decided that civil
conversation about things is impossible (or rather possible only for
short periods) on the net. While there are many worthwhile people to
speak to (I include you in that group btw), others will interpose
themselves before long.
My final conculsion on the matter is rather depressing.
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
> I think you can see this in how quickly terms like "mental illness"
> and "group masturbation" get trotted out. It isn't specific
> to the Threefold; any discussion of a style different from some
> posters' styles seems really threatening and tends to provoke a
> violent response. But the Threefold has been tried as a tool to
> enforce an understanding that styles differ, and so it catches a
> lot of the heat.
You're reading those comments much broader than they were written.
Don't presume you ever know my motives behind a statement, just read
what I write in the context it's written in. I don't characterize
(most) styles of play that way. I do characterize a very few
*responses* to games as neurotic, because that's what they are.
I wouldn't seriously describe a gamist but non-munchkin ("powergaming
at the expense of other players"?) style as "munchkin", or a deep
roleplaying style as "drama queen", but I also wouldn't be horribly
offended if that came up about my style. I'm a puzzle-, mystery-, and
setting-oriented GM and player, but I don't know what the popular insult
for that is.
I don't care about any of the Threefold things, because I think that
leaning too heavily to any of those extremes makes an inferior game. I
sure don't dislike it "because it suggests that styles differ"; that's
obvious, or there wouldn't be thousands of RPGs. Threefold's just
useless to me, not worth the electrons it's printed on.
Anyway.
I have three personal rules that I follow to try to preserve
meaningful conversation online.
The first is no *personal* attacks, ever. If you make an ad hominem
attack, on me or anyone else who does not immediately and blatantly
deserve it, you lose my respect and go straight to my killfile.
In the real world, nobody makes serious personal attacks in a
discussion about a Cthulhu-damned *game*. If some of these online
comments were made in person to me or anyone in earshot, I'd beat the
crap out of the perpetrator; I never actually have to do this, and only
rarely have to make it clear that I will, because nobody's that stupid
and rude in the real world. "You're mighty brave in cyberspace,
flame-boy" is the classic characterization of this.
The second rule is to never get upset about someone disparaging your
favorite system or style. Attacks on your favorite game or style are
not personal, no matter how horrifying you find them. If you've so
identified with a game that you can't hear anything negative about it,
you need to back away from the game table and get some perspective.
The third rule is to have a discussion. You have to respond to points
made, and acknowledge them or counter them with facts or logical
argument. Slandering someone or publicly refusing to answer when you've
been proven wrong, these are one-way tickets to my killfile. There's no
lower behavior. That's what fucking politicians do.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the point of USENET these days. It used to
be here so we could have discussions and work out the truth, not so that
people could cuddle up with a clique of like-minded people and never
hear anything they don't agree with (get a closed mailing list if you
want that), and not so that we could have flamewars every other post
(get a web forum if you want *that*).
> Russell mentioned, a few days ago, that he was only willing to
> discuss personality mechanics if people would refrain from responding
> with immediate accusations of "bad roleplayer".
My view is that calling someone a "bad roleplayer" is inappropriate.
Calling a style "bad roleplaying" is fine, if you then back up your
statement.
--
<a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
"We remain convinced that this is the best defensive posture to adopt in
order to minimize casualties when the Great Old Ones return from beyond
the stars to eat our brains." -Charlie Stross, _The Concrete Jungle_
Mary K. Kuhner
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote:
>12 May 2003 14:54:15 GMT, Mary K. Kuhner <mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu>:
>> I think you can see this in how quickly terms like "mental illness"
>> and "group masturbation" get trotted out. It isn't specific
>> to the Threefold; any discussion of a style different from some
>> posters' styles seems really threatening and tends to provoke a
>> violent response. But the Threefold has been tried as a tool to
>> enforce an understanding that styles differ, and so it catches a
>> lot of the heat.
> You're reading those comments much broader than they were written.
It just doesn't matter. It doesn't matter why you say it (though
in fact I wasn't thinking about you, as you might see if you
compared posting dates--you hadn't been behaving that way at
that point). Once you tell someone that they are insane or sexually
deviant for disagreeing with you, they'll defend themselves, and
useful discussion stops. I've seen this a million times; I've
almost never seen an exception. It is a tactic that, no matter
why you engage in it, kills discussion and eventually kills
newsgroups.
<plonk>
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Larry D. Hols
> My view is that calling someone a "bad roleplayer" is inappropriate.
> Calling a style "bad roleplaying" is fine, if you then back up your
> statement.
Backing up such a statement will prove difficult. Bad playing according
to what standards, exactly? Who determined those standards, exactly, and
on what basis do they claim authority?
If one can't offer up a set of standards which everyone agrees with,
backed by an authority whom everybody follows, then it's unlikely to
support a claim of bad roleplaying.
The only way to advance such an argument is to qualify it with
standards and source and you can get agreement that it doesn't meet
those standards. That doesn't make for a universal qualifier, however.
So, I can state that I don't like something because it doesn't meet my
standards for good play, but that assessment extends only as far as my
authority (which is to say, it ends with me).
Larry
Mary K. Kuhner
gleichman <bglei...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>mkku...@kingman.gs.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner) wrote in message news:<b9ocin$153a$1...@nntp3.u.washington.edu>...
>> Agreed about #1. A conflict between Brian Gleichman and I on this
>> point drove at least me and probably him as well off the newsgroup
>> last time.
>I remember this event, although I have a slightly different view of
>where the friction was. While painful as it resulted in something I
>neither intended nor wanted- it was not the reason for my leaving.
I'm sorry in retrospect for my part in it, and would like to apologize.
>I fear your killfile will not work. I made use of that as well in a
>vain attempt to defuse the encounter. Sadly they launched attacks
>against me using the killfile as cover- only for me to see them
>repeated in the posts of others who again kept on interacting politely
>with them no matter what.
>I hope you have better luck than I did.
I think we are seeing some progress toward a consensus on this
point. I don't know if it can be sustained, but newsgroup
communities may just be intrinsically shortlived.
>I suppose in the end there is no help for it. I've decided that civil
>conversation about things is impossible (or rather possible only for
>short periods) on the net. While there are many worthwhile people to
>speak to (I include you in that group btw), others will interpose
>themselves before long.
In very different ways, rec.arts.sf.composition and
comp.lang.c++.moderated seem to manage for pretty long periods,
though continual upkeep is required--there's a definite cost
in both cases, though paid differently.
Anyway, it's good to hear from you again. Your series of posts
on campaign tone has definitely influenced the way I go about
negotiating the start of new campaigns.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Brian Gleichman
news:ba43nd$msq$1...@nntp3.u.washington.edu...
> I'm sorry in retrospect for my part in it, and would like to apologize.
And I for my part.
> I think we are seeing some progress toward a consensus on this
> point. I don't know if it can be sustained, but newsgroup
> communities may just be intrinsically shortlived.
The tone of the group that I remember fondly lasted two years as I recall,
and I think it was likely very solid for a year or more before my arrival.
That was a good run.
I hope you're right about some progress being made. I find the other options
on the net seriously lacking. I do however think that even if it manages to
work out here that I should remain elsewhere. I have the wrong temper for
such things these days. The events that drove me away taught me to always
fight back, that that leads to finding battles in places there are no wars.
> though continual upkeep is required--there's a definite cost
> in both cases, though paid differently.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
> Anyway, it's good to hear from you again. Your series of posts
> on campaign tone has definitely influenced the way I go about
> negotiating the start of new campaigns.
That was like the first thing I posted. Interesting that it would be the
most useful...
Jason Corley
> Anyway, it's good to hear from you again. Your series of posts
> on campaign tone has definitely influenced the way I go about
> negotiating the start of new campaigns.
You can also check out some of his interesting theoretical threads at
rpg.net.
--
***************************************************************************
"You turn off the light and turn on the dark, you turn off the dark and
turn on the light --- positively marvillainous!" ---Krazy Kat, 1921
Jason D. Corley | End...@thecircus.org.uk | AIM: Concordancer
Timothy
>> and having people imply
>> pathology is an offense that you feel justifies overt hostility,
>
>Implying pathology is meant as an offense. It's not a random insult I'm
>throwing around. If people literally mean some of the things they have
>said around here, then I actually think they probably need professional
>and/or chemical help. If things are not meant literally, then I don't
>think it's out of the question to expect some form of explanation as to
>what was actually meant.
I'll be blunt: I've been lurking on this newsgroup for at least seven years.
I don't post as much as I used to, mainly because I realized I was
contributing more discord than insight. Once I LEARNED TO SHUT THE, I learned
a lot.
You could, too, if you'd spend less time TELLING PEOPLE THEY ARE INSANE, and
more time ACTUALLY LISTENING TO THEM.
After *years* of following rgfa, I can say with complete certainty that Mary
Kuhner, Irina Rempt, John Kim, Russell Wallace, and so on (forgive any
misspelling of names) have CONSISTENTLY behaved in a MUCH MORE RATIONAL MANNER
than you EVER HAVE, at least on this newsgroup.
Yet you rant on and on about how THEY are lunatics due to their GAMING STYLE!
Your behavior is *consistently* rude, self-righteous, and abrasive. Your
insult-laden (and insight-free) posts are one of the things that chased the
people who actually had a clue away from this newsgroup in the past (along
with the aforementioned secondary effects).
In other words, your rudeness cost *everyone else* on this newsgroup the
chance to discuss gaming with several of the most insightful members of rgfa.
This means that what you post is not exclusively your business, since it
negatively affects us all. So shut the hell up if you can't be civil!
Tim Dedeaux
Robert Scott Clark
> Yet you rant on and on about how THEY are lunatics due to their GAMING
> STYLE!
I can disregtard everything you said here, because you messed up this one
fundamentally important point.
Charlton Wilbur
No, you can't, because everything *else* applies to you.
*plonk*
Here's a thought. There are several people in this newsgroup who, for
one reason or another seem more intent on disruption than discussion.
Would it be worthwhile for some of us to explicitly volunteer to be
the heavies who told said people off, and perhaps published an
advisory killfile list? I suspect that with 3 or 4 people
consistently killfiled, the entire newsgroup would be more pleasant;
and with some sort of group consensus, this might address the issue
Mary points out of how it destroys the atmosphere here when people
keep on treating rude people civilly.
The real problem is that newsgroups are fundamentally a cooperative
medium. When everyone has consonant goals, they work perfectly. But
when someone is more interested in disruption than discussion -- and
it only takes one such to cause a tremendous amount of damage -- the
communication breaks down. People don't say interesting things
because they don't want to deal with the annoyance factor of Mark
"Kamikaze" Hughes or Robert Scott Clark savaging them; people don't
stay here to read and comment because ultimately a troll's vitriol is
interesting primarily to himself.
Comments?
Charlton
Arthur Boff
says...
>
>Hallo,
>
>> My view is that calling someone a "bad roleplayer" is inappropriate.
>> Calling a style "bad roleplaying" is fine, if you then back up your
>> statement.
>
> Backing up such a statement will prove difficult. Bad playing
according
>to what standards, exactly? Who determined those standards, exactly, and
>on what basis do they claim authority?
>
> If one can't offer up a set of standards which everyone agrees with,
>backed by an authority whom everybody follows, then it's unlikely to
>support a claim of bad roleplaying.
Agreed. The only definition of "bad roleplaying" I can come up with which has
even the vaguest chance of everyone agreeing with is:
Bad roleplaying: Behaviour in the context of a roleplaying game which
deliberately violates the social contract the game is being run under,
especially when the game contract has been made explicit. The occasional style
clash in the context of a game (eg, a Gamist suddenly discovering they've
signed up to a Dramatist campaign, to use a Threefold <salt> analogy) is
unfortunate but can't be described as "bad" since it isn't deliberate: a "bad
roleplayer" is someone who sets out to gamewreck.
Note the above definition is so fuzzy as to be almost worthless...
Larry D. Hols
> Agreed. The only definition of "bad roleplaying" I can come up with which has
> even the vaguest chance of everyone agreeing with is:
>
> Bad roleplaying: Behaviour in the context of a roleplaying game which
> deliberately violates the social contract the game is being run under,
> especially when the game contract has been made explicit. The occasional style
> clash in the context of a game (eg, a Gamist suddenly discovering they've
> signed up to a Dramatist campaign, to use a Threefold <salt> analogy) is
> unfortunate but can't be described as "bad" since it isn't deliberate: a "bad
> roleplayer" is someone who sets out to gamewreck.
>
> Note the above definition is so fuzzy as to be almost worthless...
I might extend that to include someone who espouses a distinct style
and then plays something different a good portion of the time at the
table. Gross inconsistency may be a valid reason to judge play bad.
Larry
talysman
> I'll be blunt: I've been lurking on this newsgroup for at least seven years.
> I don't post as much as I used to, mainly because I realized I was
> contributing more discord than insight. Once I LEARNED TO SHUT THE, I learned
> a lot.
>
> You could, too, if you'd spend less time TELLING PEOPLE THEY ARE INSANE, and
> more time ACTUALLY LISTENING TO THEM.
>
> After *years* of following rgfa, I can say with complete certainty that Mary
> Kuhner, Irina Rempt, John Kim, Russell Wallace, and so on (forgive any
> misspelling of names) have CONSISTENTLY behaved in a MUCH MORE RATIONAL MANNER
> than you EVER HAVE, at least on this newsgroup.
>
> Yet you rant on and on about how THEY are lunatics due to their GAMING STYLE!
bravo!
I snipped the part that went before because I think this is good
general advice that doesn't need to be attached to a specific person.
in particular, I would like to say that anyone who reads about how
someone else plays a game and then says "you are pathological, you
need psychiatric or chemical help" is, himself, pathological.
we're talking about freakin' GAMES here, people. as long as someone's
game playing doesn't lap over into reality, it's not a pathology, it's
just a passtime. heck, even in cases where a person becomes obsessed
with a game and starts talking about it in all social contexts, there's
rarely a need for anything more than a good talking-to, plus shunning
if the guy just doesn't get it.
let's get real here. you need to be Tom-Hanks-dressed-like-a-cleric,
looking-for-his-dead-brother, killing-orcs-who-are-really-muggers
whacked out before you really need medical or chemical help. anyone
who says someone needs mental help because they like extreme modeling
of realism or because they like character immersion is just putting
their priorities in the wrong order.
I mean, I'm not interested in character immersion, I ceased being
interested in extreme realism a long time ago, I don't care for tons
of rules anymore, and there's a score of other styles of play that I
don't care about, either. so when someone talks about this stuff ...
I skip it. maybe skim it in case someone mentions something else that
might be a useful technique on its own. no need to obsess that maybe
someone out there is playing in a way I don't like, because, really,
what difference does it make to me?
some people really need to just get a grip.
Robert Scott Clark
news:wky915r...@globalsurrealism.com:
> in particular, I would like to say that anyone who reads about how
> someone else plays a game and then says "you are pathological, you
> need psychiatric or chemical help" is, himself, pathological.
Yea, good thing I've never done that.
Now, someone who reads words that imply objective existance of imaginary
things and says "that sounds crazy" is just being honest.
I really want anyone of these many people saying I called someone crazy for
a style of playing to find one goddamned quote where I did so, because I
would think I would remember that.
Jason Corley
> Comments?
I find RSC's comments more useful than not.
"kamikaze"'s been in my rgfmisc killfile since he demonstrated willful
ignorance even after being corrected by facts an enormous number of
times. I don't see his behavior here so far as being all that
significant.
You really have to work to get in my killfile. You have to work hard
and for a long period of time. Just being a jerk doesn't cut it. You
have to be a truly disruptive person who is destructive of debate
either via extremely vocal ignorance, legal threats, or spamming.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that such an "advisory killfile"
would be useless because people have different levels of tolerance.
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
> Hallo,
>> My view is that calling someone a "bad roleplayer" is inappropriate.
>> Calling a style "bad roleplaying" is fine, if you then back up your
>> statement.
> Backing up such a statement will prove difficult. Bad playing according
> to what standards, exactly? Who determined those standards, exactly, and
> on what basis do they claim authority?
Bad according to the standards of your group, obviously. A group of
munchkins will consider deep roleplaying "bad", while a group of drama
queens will consider any combat or task resolution "bad" (extreme style
characterizations used for dramatic purposes only).
It's not like there's a roleplaying authority out there that you MUST
agree with, no matter how much certain cliques believe they're it.
There *are* some behaviors that are antithetical to almost all styles
of play, but they're few and far between.
> The only way to advance such an argument is to qualify it with
> standards and source and you can get agreement that it doesn't meet
> those standards. That doesn't make for a universal qualifier, however.
> So, I can state that I don't like something because it doesn't meet my
> standards for good play, but that assessment extends only as far as my
> authority (which is to say, it ends with me).
Sure, and water is wet. Where did you ever get the idea there was
anything else, about any subject except hard physical facts? "This book
has 352 pages" is the only thing we could ever say about *any* game if
we were restricted to that.
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
> Ded...@datasync.com (Timothy) writes:
>> I'll be blunt: I've been lurking on this newsgroup for at least seven years.
>> I don't post as much as I used to, mainly because I realized I was
>> contributing more discord than insight. Once I LEARNED TO SHUT THE, I learned
>> a lot.
So, your advice is to be quiet and listen to your betters? Bullshit.
There are no betters here. Kuhner's usually polite but she's completely
deaf to logical argument, and her advice is useless or actively
detrimental to most games, since she doesn't play in anything like real
RPGs; I view her more as comic relief than anything else. Kim's okay,
but gets distracted by philosophizing instead of staying on target. The
others you mention are not notably insane or useful. All of them are
just people who post on USENET. It isn't a profession or a holy
calling, for Cthulhu's sake.
None of the people you mentioned have ever written an RPG. Their
understanding of game design is therefore purely theoretical; they're
spectators shouting advice from the sidelines at the players who are on
the field. Long past, I thought Berkman was a nutjob, but at least he
was a game designer, and so had some practical experience to base his
statements on. I disagree with Peter Knutsen on many points, but he's
actually solving his game problems, and can have logical and coherent
discussions about them. I don't pimp my games much, in a rare display
of modesty, but they show my way forward: light but concrete rules.
If someone wants a private forum to speak pronouncements from on high,
even if they don't have any qualifications, they can start a mailing
list or web forum. That ain't what USENET's for. Shouting at people to
shut up, like you're doing, is futile and counterproductive. If you
want to see nobody but your heroes, get a scoring newsreader and mark
their posts up, and the pattern "Subject: ." down.
I hadn't bothered with rec.games.frp.advocacy in years, because for a
long time it was a cesspit of cliquishness, but with this resurgence of
it, there's a chance to kill the cliques and nonsense and have serious
discussions about RPG theory. Whether or not the flame-twits and
grudge-keepers will get it out of their systems, that remains to be
seen. Now that the assholes and fanboys have killfiled me, and I them,
I'm seeing a nicer rgfa, certainly.
I'd recommend reading my rules of behavior again, and trying to follow
them. When people are actually trying to have a serious conversation,
they work quite well.
Jeff Stehman
cwi...@mithril.chromatico.net says...
>
> Would it be worthwhile for some of us to explicitly volunteer to be
> the heavies who told said people off, and perhaps published an
> advisory killfile list?
This newsgroup already has a reputation as a loonie bin. If we did that,
we'd have a reputation as a fascist loonie bin. The only significant
downside of that would be potentially scaring away new blood.
It wouldn't hurt to draft a short "Welcome to rgfa" message you could
send/post to newcomers; "We're glad you're here and always looking for
fresh ideas, but don't be surprised if we've heard it before. And please
remember attack the argument, not the person." But if someone prefers
chaos, telling them off will do not good. You either need to ignore
them, or take the time to create a bond with them and then guide them
down, at which point they usually become bored and leave.
One thing to remember, however, is that this group is what it is in part
due to Berkman, who drifted in and out of many a killfile (even mine,
which is rarely visited). He was questioning the mental stability of
some of us a long time ago, but then, "don't be surprised if we've heard
it before."
--Jeff Stehman
Arthur Boff
kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu says...
>
>Sat, 17 May 2003 16:08:59 GMT, talysman <taly...@globalsurrealism.com>:
>> Ded...@datasync.com (Timothy) writes:
>>> I'll be blunt: I've been lurking on this newsgroup for at least seven
years.
>>> I don't post as much as I used to, mainly because I realized I was
>>> contributing more discord than insight. Once I LEARNED TO SHUT THE, I
learne
>d
>>> a lot.
>
> So, your advice is to be quiet and listen to your betters? Bullshit.
>There are no betters here. Kuhner's usually polite but she's completely
>deaf to logical argument, and her advice is useless or actively
>detrimental to most games, since she doesn't play in anything like real
>RPGs; I view her more as comic relief than anything else.
Could you define what you mean by "real RPG", please? It sounds like you're
really saying "Mary's play style is so different from mine I can't believe
we're in the same hobby". Which shows nothing except that the RPGing hobby is
very diverse.
> None of the people you mentioned have ever written an RPG. Their
>understanding of game design is therefore purely theoretical; they're
>spectators shouting advice from the sidelines at the players who are on
>the field.
They've not written *published* RPGs, but what about homebrewed systems? And
can't you gain an understanding of how systems work by *using* them as well as
writing them?
And can all game issues be boiled down to system? What about issues of setting,
or player dynamics?
> I hadn't bothered with rec.games.frp.advocacy in years, because for a
>long time it was a cesspit of cliquishness, but with this resurgence of
>it, there's a chance to kill the cliques and nonsense and have serious
>discussions about RPG theory.
On one hand, I won't call it cliquishness, on the other hand I agree with the
people who have said elsewhere
On the gripping hand, the tone of this post isn't likely to stimulate balanced,
reasonable discussion, is it?
Personally, I've always wanted to become a regular here but have never found
the quality of conversation to be consistent enough. I'd post here much more
often if people:
- took the Threefold less seriously. It is a theory. Like any theory, sometimes
it works well when applied to a problem, sometimes it just doesn't fit the
problem. I'm sure we're all grown up enough to both realise that sometimes
talking about a question in the context of the Threefold provides useful
results, and sometimes it doesn't, and it's always good to look at a problem in
more than one way - so Threefold-supporters, try to think outside of the
triangular box and see why some people don't want to talk solely in threefold
terms, and Threefold-haters, try to
- remembered their civility. The signal-to-noise ratio would drastically
improve if people didn't go out of their way to be rude to people or express
themselves in a trollish manner.
- took themselves less seriously. You wave your opinions and ideas around in
public, people aren't always going to say "Wow, your opinion is special and
valued and we love you very much as an individual". When people argue with you
they're not trying to smash, break and spoil your game and ravage your soul:
they're just disagreeing with your stated opinion.
Arthur Boff
>On one hand, I won't call it cliquishness, on the other hand I agree with the
>people who have said elsewhere
"that the Threefold tends to dominate conversations here."
Arthur Boff
says...
>> Bad roleplaying: Behaviour in the context of a roleplaying game which
>> deliberately violates the social contract the game is being run under,
>> especially when the game contract has been made explicit. The occasional
style
>> clash in the context of a game (eg, a Gamist suddenly discovering they've
>> signed up to a Dramatist campaign, to use a Threefold <salt> analogy) is
>> unfortunate but can't be described as "bad" since it isn't deliberate: a
"bad
>> roleplayer" is someone who sets out to gamewreck.
>>
>> Note the above definition is so fuzzy as to be almost worthless...
>
> I might extend that to include someone who espouses a distinct style
>and then plays something different a good portion of the time at the
>table. Gross inconsistency may be a valid reason to judge play bad.
Possibly. It depends on why the person is doing this. I agree that a "bad
roleplayer" would lie about his gaming preferences in order to get involved in
a game (there's no point getting involved in a game that you know you won't
enjoy, and then go on to disrupt it by playing in a manner you know the other
players won't enjoy).*
On the other hand, it could be that such a player simply hasn't really thought
out their motives for playing. Which isn't so much bad roleplaying as lazy
roleplaying.
* This could be a specialised case of the so-called "Tigger Syndrome", that
well-known affliction of players who, when you say "This game is going to be
run this way" they say "Yes, I'd love that!" and then spend a lot of time
complaining about the way the game is run - they aren't really as flexible in
terms of their gaming preferences as they claim, but they feel obliged to bend
the truth because "it's the only game around" - a flimsy excuse at best.
Irina Rempt
> Kuhner's usually polite but she's
> completely deaf to logical argument, and her advice is useless or
> actively detrimental to most games, since she doesn't play in anything
> like real
> RPGs; I view her more as comic relief than anything else.
<plonk>
Irina
--
Vesta veran, terna puran, farenin. http://www.valdyas.org/irina/
Beghinnen can ick, volherden will' ick, volbringhen sal ick.
http://www.valdyas.org/~irina/foundobjects/ Latest: 11-May-2003
Warren J. Dew
Here's a thought. There are several people in this newsgroup
who, for one reason or another seem more intent on disruption
than discussion. Would it be worthwhile for some of us to
explicitly volunteer to be the heavies who told said people
off, and perhaps published an advisory killfile list?
I don't think this would work for a couple of reasons:
(1) Unless you actually manage to get the person to abandon the newsgroup,
telling such people off doesn't solve the problem; indeed, it perpetuates it.
It adds one message that no one wants to read (the 'telling them off' post),
and one message that most people explicitly want not to read (the inevitable
response from the disruptor). It is exactly such strings of posts that make
most newsgroups somewhat unpleasant places.
Telling someone off helps only if the person isn't here to be disruptive, and
thus may actually listen to what is being said and learn from it. On the flip
side, actually driving someone from a newsgroup requires some rather
specialized techniques that I don't think most here are interested in
observing, learning, or executing - and even with those techniques, in my
experience, success is far from certain.
(2) There's a real difference of opinion about who is here primarily to
disrupt. For example, I'm quite tolerant of anyone who shows signs of wanting
to learn, even if they generally end up giving up in frustration and venting;
others are less tolerant of the venting, especially when it is impolite. I'm
intolerant of those who post their view without any willingness to listen and
at least try to understand other viewpoints, while others are tolerant of such
people if they seem otherwise well behaved and intelligent. As a result, I'm
pretty sure that if you compared Mary's list and my list of primarily
disruptive people, for example, you'd find them to be disjoint, despite the
fact that both are nonempty.
The real problem is that newsgroups are fundamentally a
cooperative medium. When everyone has consonant goals,
they work perfectly. But when someone is more interested
in disruption than discussion -- and it only takes one
such to cause a tremendous amount of damage -- the
communication breaks down.
One such person will get bored and leave if ignored. It's only when there are
two or more such people playing off of each other that they can stick around
long enough to kill off a newsgroup; that's in my opinion what happened here
two years ago. There's some risk of its happening again, but on the other
hand, there's also a risk, in my opinion larger, of traffic evaporating by
itself.
One skill that many long time regulars used to exercise well was the ability,
when faced with a post not deserving of a response, to actually refrain from
responding. I think we would do well to dust off that ability and use it.
Warren J. Dew
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