Tony - I don't know if you're in computers or software at all, but this sort of thing is what drives many of us who are. And please don't take this the wrong way, 'cause I'm banging on John a bit here too as I see his perspective because I have the same bias....

People tell me all the time, when I'm trying to write a piece of software, "I don't know, it just happens that way."  Often in ways very similar to your response that it's all happening at once.  Software geeks spend much of our life disbelieving that approach.  We know that's not the case.  We know that somewhere underneath is a process, usually a step-by-step one, that has been so ingrained that it seems to the user to be all-at-once.

In your case, it might be, probably is.  I don't, and I'd bet John doesn't, know enough about how the brain always works to say one way or another.  I'm just trying to help both sides understand why the confusion, IMHO.

Why?  Because I'm digging this entire discussion way too much for it to fall apart through miscommunication, bias, and unintended slights.

EDIT: Side note to John - has anyone used UML to try to model RPG's?  Just a random thought for antoher thread perhaps.

Quote from: KeranWell, my being concerned about the consistency of the character isn't enough to make me call it character stance -- if it were, I'd spend a significant amount of the time when I'm writing in character stance, even though that rarely feels much like occupying the character's headspace.  What makes me say "this is character stance" is when what's going through my mind resembles what's going through the character's mind, however vaguely, shallowly, and incompletely.

So you see a distinction between that and someone who doesn't make the leap - that is, someone who doesn't try to be in the character's head, but remains "In Character." Someone who directs the character to do/say things that are solely based on what the character knows/sees as still being In Character?

Because if you do, you're cutting out a lot of people who make decisions in an attempt to remain "in character" who just aren't into making that final step of trying to be the character. Me, for one.

So what do we have as filters?

• Character motivations
• Fun motivations
• Game motivations

Quote from: James J SkachBecause if you do, you're cutting out a lot of people who make decisions in an attempt to remain "in character" who just aren't into making that final step of trying to be the character. Me, for one.

From the outside (other players), the two can look very similar but my experience suggests that they work quite differently inside and react to different game techniques differently.

Quote from: James J SkachSo what do we have as filters?

• Character motivations
• Fun motivations
• Game motivations

I think fun needs to be broken out into kinds of fun, and then it should start looking very familiar...

Quote from: John MorrowI think fun needs to be broken out into kinds of fun, and then it should start looking very familiar...

Well, I was just starting a list, not intending for it to be all encompassing...

Which of the mtriad of lists that I've probably read is this like?  I mean, I see Dancey all the time being put out there, or is it laws...jesus...time to do some work...it's less stressful

FYI, I think James' explanation about computer people is excellent for context.

Quote from: TonyLBBut if I'm really just applying all the filters at once ... what is there to figure out?  It's a single action.  It's no more subject to being broken up into pieces than any other filtering operation.

Well, even if you filter "animals that begin with the letter 'E'" as a single step, you can still identify that the filter that you are applying is an intersection of "animals" and "begin with the letter E" even if you don't apply them seperately.  You combine them somehow before applying them.  But the different filters that you apply are still discernable to you and you can identify them individually, even if you don't apply them that way.  That explains why you feel the process is two stances at once.  It's also useful to enumerate the filters you do apply, since that has an impact on the look and feel of your final choice, even if you don't apply them individually.

Quote from: TonyLBWhat would you answer if I asked you "Well, do you have some sense of what process you go through when you look at a set of words and pick out the ones that are animals?"  Would you be able to give me individual, differentiated steps?  Or is that level of operation atomic for you ... unified enough that it cannot be sliced into smaller bits?

Before I answer, I want to point out that I do ask this sort of question of myself when I want to know why I think or do things.  As James pointed out, computer people dig to understand how processes work.  The quick and dirty answer is what I was trying to suggest you do with the "Categories" example earlier -- I test myself and look for fringe cases where the process either slows down or starts to fray, because that often reveals the components.  It's like blowing apart particles in a particle accellerator to see what they are made of.  This is also how psychologists test theories about how people think.  

When I go through a list of words to pick out the animals, it starts with retriving a definition of the word and possibly an image to go along with it and then one of two things happens.  

If "animal" is an essential part of what I picture and think when I see the word (e.g., "elephant"), then the filter is already done for me and the metadata I need is already attached to the word, so it's either there or it isn't.  That's very fast.  It's like accessing a cache or precalculating a value and using a lookup table rather than doing math.

If "animal" isn't an essential part of what I picture and think when I see the word (e.g., "eel"), then I need to form the filter and apply it on the fly.  The value "animal" is not a part of the metadata that I naturally attach to "eel" because in my "native" mental categorization model, I primarily think of "animal" as "land animal" and possibly even "mammal", even though the technical definition includes fish, insects, birds, etc.  So I have to think more to recognize that the word "animal" belongs with things like fish, insects, and birds.  In fact, if I hit the word "eel" or "eagle", I might stop and ask you to define how you mean "animal" before proceeding.  It's that sort of pause or slow-down that let's me see what I'm doing.

Out of curiosity, has anyone ever asked you to produce a list based on criteria where you've stopped, upon thinking about the answer, and asked them to clarify the criteria to help you choose an answer for an instance?

Quote from: TonyLBI think that applying that style of analysis at that level makes assumptions about the structure of what you're analyzing.

Well, the core assumption of the filter/mask theory is that we apply criteria to the set of possible answers to reduce them down to answers that fit the criteria.  I was using it to explain my theory that filters are applied sequentially to narrow things down to the answer, but that's not critical to the core filter theory which, unlike the r.g.f.a theory or Forge their, inherently recognizes that a player can be applying many different filters to a choice, regardless of sequnce or priority (which is a question I suspect you'd have trouble addressing based on how you are making choices).

Quote from: TonyLBAsking me to break down the process of how I pick "echidnu" (a word that would never make it onto my lists of either "words starting with E" or "animal words") out of my brain is assuming that it is a process made up of distinct and separable pieces.

The question at it's most abstract, with a minimum of assumptions, is "How did you come up with the word 'echidnu', which just happens to start with 'E' and be an animal?  Where did those two categories come into play?"  If you say they didn't come into play, then I'm left wondering how you came up with an answer that just happens to fit the criteria without applying the criteria to the process.

Quote from: TonyLBLikewise, asking me to break down the process of how I pick character actions that serve both the needs of the character and the needs of the meta-game is assuming that it is a process made up of distinct and separable pieces.

Do you get what I mean by that?

Yes.  Step back from the issue of sequence and let's treat it as a single step.  Let's focus on the core filter idea -- that you are using criteria to produce a result that meets the criteria.  Do you disagree that you are doing that?

If not, then can you explain how you see it?

If so, then somehow, those criteria are being used to produce the result set.  Put another way, can you explain how you knew that "echidnu" was a good answer and 'wingnut" wasn't?  After all, you could say anything (not even confined to the list of valid English words).  Why and how are you coming up with correct answers?  If you can't figure that out, is it simply opaque to your conscious thought (happening subconsciously) or is it really an atomic process (perhaps you have everything pre-categorized on the fly and simply access the index?).

And, just to be clear, I'm not ignoring the possibility that your brain works totally differently than mine or that maybe I just don't understand what you are doing.  I know that different brains can think about things fairly different.  That's why different people have different aptitudes.  But before I come to the conclusion must remain a mystery to me, I want to make sure it really is a mystery.

Quote from: James J SkachI mean, I see Dancey all the time being put out there, or is it laws...jesus...time to do some work...it's less stressful

Neither.  It's the rec.games.frp.advocacy Threefold because you are mirroring the priorities that led to it:

Character Motivations = "IC Experience" which was an early name for GDS "Simulationism"
Fun Motivations = fun story = "Interactive Storytelling" which was an early name for GDS "Dramatism"
"Game motivations" = "Problem-Solving" which was an early name for GDS "Gamism"

See how these silly theories develop...

Quote from: James J SkachTony - I don't know if you're in computers or software at all, but this sort of thing is what drives many of us who are. And please don't take this the wrong way, 'cause I'm banging on John a bit here too as I see his perspective because I have the same bias....

I'm sufficiently into computers and software to throw the concept of neural network programming right back at'cha.  Not all functions, even in computer science, are broken in a "Step 1, step 2, step 3" manner.  Sometimes functionality emerges in different ways.

Quote from: James J SkachSoftware geeks spend much of our life disbelieving that approach.  We know that's not the case.  We know that somewhere underneath is a process, usually a step-by-step one, that has been so ingrained that it seems to the user to be all-at-once.

Before I even went into computer work, I learned the same thing in school with regard to writing instructions.  In school as a child, I was asked to write instructions to explain how to tie a shoe.  That's an activity that most people eventually do without thinking -- they just "do it" -- but it's interesting to break to down and try write it up.  I still remember one of the really clever answers and how it was worded because it described doing it differently than how I did it -- and I still use that sometimes, probably 30 years after the experience, when my way doesn't work so well on thinks like ribbons.  Basically, the girl said that you need to make two "bunny ears" (loops in the laces that look like rabbit ears) and tie them into a knot.  It's more complicated than what I normally do but works better on wide ribbons and stuff like that.

Quote from: James J SkachEDIT: Side note to John - has anyone used UML to try to model RPG's?  Just a random thought for antoher thread perhaps.

I know someone has written up a "design patterns" document for role-playing.  Not sure about UML.

Quote from: John MorrowWhy and how are you coming up with correct answers?  If you can't figure that out, is it simply opaque to your conscious thought (happening subconsciously) or is it really an atomic process (perhaps you have everything pre-categorized on the fly and simply access the index?).

It's not that I can't figure it out.  It's that you're asking to break a holistic process down into individual pieces.  I've been saying that, pretty plainly I think, for PAGES now.

I play the piano.  When I started playing the piano, I could tell you what order I chose to place my fingers on a chord:  I'd get the index finger first, then the middle, then the ring (if necessary) then the pinky.

But nowadays that breakdown doesn't exist for me.  It's not that I've gotten so fast at it that I do it subconsciously.  It is that part of learning the piano is to stop letting each finger do its own thing.  I put my hand down in the right chord position, because that's the unit of thought.  The same way you learn to see a group of letters as a word without sounding it out.  The same way you learn to use both legs, together, to run.

Human beings are not programmed in top-down, compartmental fashion.  I get that your programming experience makes the metaphor powerful for you, but it's the wrong metaphor.

Quote from: TonyLBI'm sufficiently into computers and software to throw the concept of neural network programming right back at'cha.  Not all functions, even in computer science, are broken in a "Step 1, step 2, step 3" manner.  Sometimes functionality emerges in different ways.

Correct.  Is that what you think is going on inside of your brain?  

The idea of filters and masks (that input matches criteria in order to produce output) fits pretty well with the way neural networks work, as does weighting, but it happens simultaneously as you describe.

First of all, I agree that "fun" doesn't work as a category.  People find many different kinds of thing fun.  Moreover, fun is more than just different kinds of input.  If we break down input in player behavior very loosely, we might have:

* What your character's personality and background are, plus internal state/mood
* What the state of the game is?  (i.e. what are the players feeling, is it near the end of a session, etc.)  

The rgfa definitions (Actor/Audience/Author/In-Character) aren't all filters of input.  Actor, Audience, and Author all take the full range of inputs.  Audience is passive, while Actor focuses on performance and Author focuses on changing/developing the state of the game.  In-Character is a filter on input, taking only the first, but it doesn't distinguish between actions (i.e. you can be in-character and just watching something or in-character and changing things).  

Neither the rgfa stances nor the Forge stances are very consistent in what they are distinguishing, in my opinion.  Really, I think that the theater/film analogy is problematic and if you want to develop the concepts here more, it would be better to drop it.  

Though maybe I'm missing something.  There are many theories of performance arts.  Some performers (like dancers and musicians) tend to focus more tightly on what they are doing, whereas stand-up comedians tend to pay attention more to the broad audience as they are performing.  Is there something there to be borrowed for RPGs?  I'm not sure.  

Quote from: James J SkachSo you see a distinction between that and someone who doesn't make the leap - that is, someone who doesn't try to be in the character's head, but remains "In Character." Someone who directs the character to do/say things that are solely based on what the character knows/sees as still being In Character?

Because if you do, you're cutting out a lot of people who make decisions in an attempt to remain "in character" who just aren't into making that final step of trying to be the character. Me, for one.

Within rgfa discussion, the distinction between being in the characters head and more conscious focus was clarified as between "In-Character" stance and the suggested "Deep In-Character" stance.  Still, I don't think you should feel offended at being cut out of any particular stance -- they're not exclusive clubs or anything.

Quote from: John MorrowI think that the third person "What would my character do?" and the first person "What would I do?" (while thinking in character) are distinct from "What should my character do?" (while considering not only the whole game milieu but also possibly meta-game concerns as well).  They are all distinct perspectives.  In a fiction sense, they are third-person, first-person, and omniscient perspectives.

Yeah, I think that makes sense.

QuoteI think there might have been more revision if there had been less hostility, which I think caused a "circling of the wagons" effect.  Oh, and I'm sure I was plenty guilty of shooting from behind the circled wagons and for that I appologize.

Well, I didn't have my ideas well-formulated at the time -- I'd recently tripped over some severe problems in my previous outlook and didn't know what to make of it -- and my offline life was becoming hugely stressful, with family members developing the illnesses that would eventually kill them.  So I didn't do my best job of debating, and there was no way I was up to handling the discussion in the social atmosphere that developed.

Not all that long after I faded out of rgfa, I also quit rping.  The group I was playing in included a couple who -- well, they had one of those emotionally abusive relationships where the woman is doing backflips trying to please an egomaniac who's grinding her into the dust, but  she won't hear anything against him at the same time.  They were good players and it was intense, but the OOC relationships became twisted and impossible.  I let everything crash then.  I didn't have the mental and emotional resources to handle the social aspects of playing or running, and I never expected to roleplay again.  I didn't get back to it until a couple of years ago, until after well everyone in the family who was dying, did.

By now I've had a bit more experience playing in other people's games -- I was a near-perpetual GM when I was posting in rgfa -- and with some more context and a lot more time to think, I'm in a much better position to say, "Well, this idea is helpful here and here, but it's not doing so good a job of describing my experiences here."  And there've been surprises along the way -- as you know, I find some of the Threefold terminology actively unhelpful; on the other hand, some of the things it describes are entirely real.  Now that I've played with some of the advocates I'd be inclined to describe my style as probably simmier than anybody's but Warren Dew's.

So I wasn't doing a good job of communicating near the turn of the millennium and I also apologize for anything I said that may have contributed to anyone's frustration, offense, or inability to make their own point in a useful manner.

Quote from: TonyLBI'm sufficiently into computers and software to throw the concept of neural network programming right back at'cha.  Not all functions, even in computer science, are broken in a "Step 1, step 2, step 3" manner.  Sometimes functionality emerges in different ways.

Tony - please please please don't take it the wrong way.  It was not meant to say your way of thinking was wrong, but why software guys tend to like to try to break things down this way - almost obsessively.

There aren't that many software guys doing neural network programming (overall), so the chances one will think that way are diminished.  I'm just trying to help you (and John) understand why he's harping on it so much.

The fact it exists as a bias is the idea I was trying to get across; not that it's the one true answer and you're thinking is wrong.