Lunamancer, posts like this are why I say you are stupid (and unpleasant).

Quote from: Lunamancer;888209Manzanaro is making up definitions that do not match his words. I'm using actual English definitions.

I have provided dictionary definitions of terms under contest. You didn't like them so you didn't see them. This is an example of stupidity on your part.

QuoteI never, never, never claimed anything about any sort of mechanics creating interesting stories without GMs or players making decisions. I have been arguing the exact fucking opposite. Whether it's real life or a life-like game world, they include human decisions. A simulation, in order to do a serviceable job at representing either real life or a life like fictional world necessarily must incorporate human input as part of the simulation.

Who exactly is arguing otherwise than that RPGs require GM and player input to create interesting stories? And you do realize that saying that simulations need human input is flat out wrong, right? They don't, other than in the design of the rules of simulation. This is why I have said over and over that no tabletop RPG is fully a simulation; there are elements that are purely authored as well as data returned via rules of simulation that then gets put into narrative form. All of this has been covered earlier in the thread and I am not rehashing it further.

By the way, the quoted text from you here stands as an example of both your stupidity and unpleasantness.

QuoteSecond, it is certainly not true that aiming to make something interesting actually makes it interesting. If I look to the real world to someone who is interesting, like, I dunno, say Einstein. It's not like he got out of bed every morning and thought, "Gee, what interesting thing can I do today?" He just set out to accomplish things that were important to him.

Interesting is a result. Not necessarily an intention. When "interesting" is an intention, "interesting" is not necessary the result. "Not necessarily" can also be read as "not usually."

Cutting out a lot of the more purely nonsensical elements of the post, let's address this.

You know how authors make biographies interesting? Via narrative means. They skip time. They focus on the interesting bits. They employ the same sort of narrative techniques from illuminating character, to scene framing, to description, to pacing, that are being discussed here in this thread.

At least that is what some of us are trying to discuss.

By the way? You being stupid and unpleasant? That is a choice on your part. You can stop being stupid and stop acting unpleasant at any time and we can be more civil and have more productive conversation.

Quote from: Manzanaro;887821So what I mean is, in sim play I think players tend to come at things in terms of aiming for effectiveness; problem solving. So scenes tend to be all about overcoming obstacles, or perhaps about obtaining the means to overcome future obstacles.

That's because they are role-playing. Unless it's in character to be a performer or poseur, the characters are not going around playing out scenes; they are simply living their lives. They don't have "narrative concerns." They display and develop their characters not as a staged affair for the benefit of an audience in another world but as a natural fact in the course of pursuing their interests.

Quote from: Phillip;888239That's because they are role-playing. Unless it's in character to be a performer or poseur, the characters are not going around playing out scenes; they are simply living their lives. They don't have "narrative concerns." They display and develop their characters not as a staged affair for the benefit of an audience in another world but as a natural fact in the course of pursuing their interests.

The player is not the character. It doesn't matter how much you wish it were so. It is not so. They are indeed playing out scenes. They may not be concerned with the narrative qualities of these scenes, but nevertheless such scenes do have narrative qualities, even if they are not positive ones.

And you may choose to call this meta awareness 'immersion breaking' but that is not something inherent. It is no more immersion breaking for me than rolling dice, or tracking game concepts like HP, or any of the other multitude of things that RPGs involve beyond the direct 'inhabiting' of an imaginary role.

Recalling the hypothetical Star Wars sudden-death scenario:

There's not much one can do there with narrative, since the event itself is likely to be unsatisfying.

For one thing, it's a game and the outcome is a disappointment. I would call it a marginal victory, at worst a draw, but it still falls short. The natural dynamic is not to be satisfied with such outcomes, but aspire to do better. Satisfaction, in the sense of a view that it is good enough, is really not to be desired in this situation, though acceptance in good sportsmanship is.

In a drama, on the other hand, any satisfaction would come from previous context; it's a matter of story structure. Manzanaro did not provide us with that, so "turn this into a satisfying narrative" is like presenting an already dead corpse for health improvement. What's happened has happened (and what has not has not); we don't have the freedom to toss it and rewrite as the author of a story has!

It is, in short, a PRE-narrative problem. By the time we've gone from event to narrative, it's too late.

Delivering satisfaction in that dramatic way is a tricky matter anyhow in an RPG, since the role-playing aspect means that players tend to identify with their characters rather than taking the more detached stance of audiences to a story. Rozencrantz or Guildenstern is not just being watched, he's being in a sense experienced. Some people just don't want to play an RPG involving horror, intrigues and betrayals, or some other element, even though they enthusiastically watch TV dramas about it.

Given the fact that it's a game, either:
A) We constrain the game so that the unsatisfying outcome cannot happen;
B) We constrain it so that the context providing dramatic satisfaction (if there is such to be had) necessarily does happen; or
C) We accept that the nature of the game is such that luck or player decisions -- probably a combination of both -- will cause the outcome with some frequency. (Even if that is one in a thousand plays, there's no reason it can't also be the first.)

The usual, or at any rate the "old school," in RPGs takes (C). The key issue there is the strength of the causal relationship of player decisions to the outcome, and how well those decisions are informed. How much is too much to leave to the players' inference rather than spelling it out for them? How much is too much an element of chance? Conversely, how much is too little, a determinism or lack of challenge that leaves the game dull?

The answers, the scope of what is fair and fun, vary considerably among players.

Okay sure, let's return to the sudden death Star Wars.

Let us imagine that the movie itself ended this way. Han heads into the asteroid field, gets hits by an asteroid, and the credits roll. Wrap.

So, as a narrative for a movie that had presented itself within the genre of pulpy rollicking sci fi adventure? Yeah, that would be a failure.

If it had happened as events in an RPG? Maybe it would be a failure. Maybe not...

If the GM has lead the players to believe that the campaign would be just like being characters in a Star Wars movie? Big fucking failure. The GM has implied a 'paracosm' of play that will be governed by narrative rules just as the Star Wars movies are. He has set expectation and then dashed them. So yes, this is going to be unsatisfying for most people.

You can not expect rules of simulation to emulate narrative convention. Instead you need to focus on narrative devices as ways to frame and present what emerges from rules of simulation.

How? Well that is what we are discussing.

Quote from: Phillip;888241In a drama, on the other hand, any satisfaction would come from previous context; it's a matter of story structure. Manzanaro did not provide us with that, so "turn this into a satisfying narrative" is like presenting an already dead corpse for health improvement. What's happened has happened (and what has not has not); we don't have the freedom to toss it and rewrite as the author of a story has!

Yes. Previous context is key. There has been a whole lot of advice emerging from this thread (outside of all the arguing) that is precisely aimed at establishing context.

Quote from: Manzanaro;888240The player is not the character. It doesn't matter how much you wish it were so. It is not so. They are indeed playing out scenes. They may not be concerned with the narrative qualities of these scenes, but nevertheless such scenes do have narrative qualities, even if they are not positive ones.

Whatever. Your fetish for semantic quibbles does not engage the subject at hand.

QuoteAnd you may choose to call this meta awareness 'immersion breaking' but that is not something inherent. It is no more immersion breaking for me than rolling dice, or tracking game concepts like HP, or any of the other multitude of things that RPGs involve beyond the direct 'inhabiting' of an imaginary role.

More irrelevance. What I in fact chose was to point out the common reason why people choose to do this and not that, a reason bound up with the nature of the undertaking -- and not incidentally why there is a notably different undertaking that is called by its thoughtful developers such things as a "narrative" or "story" game, not a "simulation."

Your disdain for a distinction that is important to such a spectrum of people holding very different priorities seems unlikely to accomplish anything good.

And here is a great post illustrating why I have called Phillip a dick and other such terms. He makes an erroneous claim that players are not acting out scenes, and then when I point out that, uh, yeah they are? He dismisses it as semantics. Apparently what is good for the goose is not good for the other geese.

And 'story games' have noting at all to do with the topic here. If the point being made is that rules of simulation can't create a good story and only games that are expressly 'story games' can? I call bullshit.

Quote from: Phillip;888243Whatever. Your fetish for semantic quibbles does not engage the subject at hand.


More irrelevance. What I in fact chose was to point out the common reason why people choose to do this and not that, a reason bound up with the nature of the undertaking -- and not incidentally why there is a notably different undertaking that is called by its thoughtful developers such things as a "narrative" or "story" game, not a "simulation."

Your disdain for a distinction that is important to such a spectrum of people holding very different priorities seems unlikely to accomplish anything good.

Quote from: Manzanaro;888242Yes. Previous context is key. There has been a whole lot of advice emerging from this thread (outside of all the arguing) that is precisely aimed at establishing context.

An issue I wish to raise is that the context of dramatic satisfaction is artifice, a tidy tying together that pleases precisely because reality so rarely produces such neat and poetic symmetries. It is reliably a result only of masterful contrivance and control. Subtle manipulation of players can (if well enough informed and skilfully performed) produce it, but runs the risk of being noticed and resented.

Quote from: Manzanaro;888246And here is a great post illustrating why I have called Phillip a dick and other such terms.

Yes, it is clearly because you have nothing sensible to say and using such language relieves your frustration.

QuoteHe makes an erroneous claim that players are not acting out scenes,

False. I make the accurate claim that usually the characters are not players acting out scenes, and the gamers are pursuing courses of action in keeping with that character.

Quote from: Phillip;888248An issue I wish to raise is that the context of dramatic satisfaction is artifice, a tidy tying together that pleases precisely because reality so rarely produces such neat and poetic symmetries. It is reliably a result only of masterful contrivance and control. Subtle manipulation of players can (if well enough informed and skilfully performed) produce it, but runs the risk of being noticed and resented.

Not true. If a narrative feels artificial, I would almost always call that a negative quality.

If you notice, nowhere in the many pages of this thread have I talked about manipulating events for dramatic purposes, and in fact I have spoken out against such ideas where they have cropped up.

I might suggest doing some reading on genre deconstruction, as this is exactly what I am talking about here. Taking situations that may be founded in genre tropes and concepts, but resolving them via means of simulation rather than via narrative preconceptions for what entails a good story, and then going on to get a good emergent narrative under these premises.

The good guys don't always win. The heroes don't always survive. The cavalry doesn't always show up in the nick of time. Entropy is the foundational trait of reality; now how do we get a good narrative out of that?

EDIT: As far as my reading up suggestion? A quick Google came up with this:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Deconstruction

which, on a cursory look over seems like a pretty darn good place to start.

Quote from: Phillip;888250False. I make the accurate claim that usually the characters are not players acting out scenes, and the gamers are pursuing courses of action in keeping with that character.

Except this is bullshit. Nobody roleplays without meta principles in mind.

Why do these dudes who feel no hesitance about killing others and taking their stuff not turn their eyes to the stuff of their fellow PCs? Meta principles.

Why do these characters decide to stay together like they are joined at the hip? Meta principles.

Why do people so seldom play out things like, fear, lust, cowardice. Surely we would expect to find these things represented within any kind of simulation of people involved in extremes of violence? Meta principles.

Most 'immersively playing a role' that I have seen is people just acting like themselves except "weakness free", and with gigantic balls and no aversion to killing, while simultaneously adhering to conventions of gameplay as established by years and years of roleplaying experience. If you are immersed in a role, than that role is just going to basically be you through a filter and all your characters are basically going to be the same dude.

I do want immersion, but immersion in playing a role and in portrayal of character. I would not try to put it in these terms with someone incapable of distinguishing the difference, but there is a difference. It is the difference between "what would I do" and "what would this character that I created do". Note that even in the second case, ideally the player will empathize and identify with this imaginary character. Indeed I think any narrative form allows us to identify and empathize with the characters in the narrative.

I might come back to this because I don't think i am conveying what I am talking about as well as I could, but it will have to be another time if I do.

Quote from: Manzanaro;888251Not true. If a narrative feels artificial, I would almost always call that a negative quality.

It's you vs. the millions who make skilled authors -- not random incident -- best sellers and the subject of careful literary study. You are mistaking your opinion for a kind of truth that it simply is not.

QuoteIf you notice, nowhere in the many pages of this thread have I talked about manipulating events for dramatic purposes, and in fact I have spoken out against such ideas where they have cropped up.

Then you had better accept that attainment of those purposes is likely to be about as haphazard as the means.

Quote from: Manzanaro;888253Except this is bullshit. Nobody roleplays without meta principles in mind.

Your personal "everybody" is by your description limited to the bottom of a barrel -- and I know for a fact there are a lot of us out here beyond that!

Quote from: Phillip;888260It's you vs. the millions who make skilled authors -- not random incident -- best sellers and the subject of careful literary study. You are mistaking your opinion for a kind of truth that it simply is not.

Something tells me you didn't read up on genre deconstruction like I suggested, did you? Watchmen, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, the Sopranos... These are all examples of deconstructive narratives in which artificiality as you refer to it is very much downplayed or (seemingly) removed.

Books in which we know the protagonist will win because he is the protagonist  are comfort food. They may be popular, but popularity and quality are not exactly corresponding qualities by any means.

Also I say, "If a narrative feels artificial, I would almost always call that a negative quality,"  and you call that "mistaking my opinion for a kind of truth"? I'm about to file you under 'stupid' with Looniemancer. Are you literally incapable of recognizing the difference between subjectivity and objectivity?

Also, what is "millions who make skilled authors"? Are you suggesting that there are millions of published authors? Or what? I think your orders of magnitude got away from you.

Quote from: Lunamancer;888209

QuoteYour claimed that "real life" is full of interesting stories and, therefore, simulationist mechanics can reliably create those interesting stories without the GM or players making decisions motivated in selecting for those stories.

Your claim that I made that claim is what's false.

Quote from: Lunamancer;887645

Real life is full of interesting stories. It required no outside force to set it up, at least not in the past few billion years.

Your obvious lie is obvious.

Quote from: Lunamancer;888209If you're somehow insinuating that  choosing a life at random is somehow a fair or accurate gauge, then shouldn't your test be likewise chosen randomly?

My assertion is that you need to make non-random selections based on a specific criteria. And you want to test these non-random selections by... making the selections random?

Explain how you can possibly think that makes a lick of sense.

QuoteThis is because no person, no object, no action, no world, no story can be in the state of being interesting. Interesting is in the mind of the beholder.

Sure. Different people will find different things interesting. The leap you're making from that to the claim that therefore the concept of "interesting thing" doesn't exist is complete nonsense.

The fact that you're implicitly extending this claim to conclude that a specific group of 4-8 people could never, ever agree that something is interesting is self-evidently pure nonsense.