Quote from: TonyLBGiven that, I get ... heh ... sorta testy when the negative modes are correlated with positive features that I would like to attribute to my play.  Like, the description (from the first FAQ) of IC as "the position which the player adopts in order to play his character believably and satisfyingly."  I have to look at that and say to myself "Hey ... are they saying I don't play my character believably and satisfyingly?  Aw, SNAP!"

Verbiage with exactly that implicit implication is a persistent failing of rgfa discourse.  And it torqued people off in rgfa, too.

There are understandable social reasons why it developed that way, but it still had some unfortunate effects.

Quote from: TonyLBWell, these days I'm doing about 50/50 one-shots with possible continuation (i.e. "We'll play these characters for tonight" followed by "Hey, it's a new night, let's play those characters again, they're still cool!") and two-to-three-month short campaigns.

Have you played any really long campaigns and experienced any differencees in what you do between different  length campaigns or games?

Quote from: TonyLBThe sign of my being on the training side of that was that I missed individual notes when nothing else is wrong with the music.  On the integrated side, in the rare case that I missed a note then I would likely come out with a whole pile-up of mangled notes in quick succession.

Have you ever experienced playing in circumstances where the integration didn't work (the most commen example I've seen among people who do play keyboards is a non-standard sized keyboard or switching between a keyboard with synthesizer movements and piano movements after playing a long time on one and not the other), where you had to go back to thinking about what you were doing?

Quote from: KeranVerbiage with exactly that implicit implication is a persistent failing of rgfa discourse.  And it torqued people off in rgfa, too.

The reason why I posted that exchange with Bruce Baugh in the Forge Theory thread was to remind everyone that while the Golden Age of rec.games.frp.advocacy was very interesting and productive, things were getting pretty nasty at times, too.  Yeah, that group certainly had it's problems, though I also found that sometimes stirring the pot led to understanding (which was why I seemed like I was harassing Tony here, though I was trying to be nicer about it than I sometimes used to be on r.g.f.a).  For example, I believed that dice were integral to a "realistic" feeling at one point (see the "Dice and the IC POV" megathread that I started) but by the end, eventually did realize that wasn't true for everyone and why.

Quote from: KeranCaring a lot about internal states is a general rgfa habit, and I am strongly under the impression that making this distinction is part of the point of the stances classification.

Part of  that focus was from trying to explain why some people were so sensitive to verisimilitude issues that they were so sensitive to things being done for story reasons.  It was an attempt to explain why verisimilitude was so important.

Quote from: KeranNow if you and I were playing in the same game, I wouldn't care about your internal state, particularly -- what matters to me is that other people's portrayals are believable and interesting.  As long as your character works along those lines, and as long as you're happy with how you're achieving it, I don't care whether you get there in author stance, actor, or character -- I'm happy to treat your process as a black box.

I feel the same way.  Overall, even meta-game reasons for doing things only bother me if I actually notice them and can't ignore them.

Quote from: KeranI regard playing according to the character model, without occupying the character's headspace, as author stance (or maybe actor). I also regard directing a character to behave in a particular fashion for out-of-world reasons as author stance (or maybe actor).  It is competent author stance if the result still impresses the other participants as believable.  If it causes the other players to think, "I can't believe Brog would really do that," then it's incompetent author stance.  (Or, again, actor).

In my experience, there is a distinct difference between playing according to the character model but not inside the character's mindscape and directing the character for meta-game reasons.  I think the way I'd describe it is that it has to do with attachment to or closeness to the character model.  Like I said, there is third person (my game revolves around this character) and omniscient (this game is about bigger things than just one character).

Quote from: John MorrowI care less about the sequence (which you seem the most hung up on) and more about the ability to identify the components of the process.  I'm willing to accept that you do it all at once.  And it would be nice if you could explain how you do that, but that requires at least talking about components.  If the best you can do is, "I just do it," then I'm not going to know if I could figure out how to do what you do or at least understand what you do any more than I could learn how to play the piano or at least understand it if, when I asked you how you play a certain cord, you say, "I just do it."

ADDED: Maybe explaining what you did before you were able to do it all at once would explain how you practiced yourself into what you do.

Once on rgfa I tried to break my actual decision process down, and while I do have some distinct filters I can identify -- I can use the bitmask metaphor -- I found it extremely difficult to describe the process.  One of the reasons for that was that it looks as if it ought to be a sequential flowchart, and I didn't come up with a good way to report things other than sequentially, but I don't seem to experience it sequentially at all points -- it feels like a lot is going on in parallel.

So I'm not surprised that you want to break it down, and I'm not surprised that TonyLB's saying, "But that's not what happens."  I can break it down easily in places, and in other places it's startlingly difficult to describe what's going on.

Quote from: John MorrowThe reason why I posted that exchange with Bruce Baugh in the Forge Theory thread was to remind everyone that while the Golden Age of rec.games.frp.advocacy was very interesting and productive, things were getting pretty nasty at times, too.  Yeah, that group certainly had it's problems, though I also found that sometimes stirring the pot led to understanding (which was why I seemed like I was harassing Tony here, though I was trying to be nicer about it than I sometimes used to be on r.g.f.a).  For example, I believed that dice were integral to a "realistic" feeling at one point (see the "Dice and the IC POV" megathread that I started) but by the end, eventually did realize that wasn't true for everyone and why.

Well, the group was intended to host flaming rows, after all.  

And I took up dice again for the limited circumstances when I was not happy with my diceless resolutions because I needed objectivity and didn't have good enough in-world reasons to say what should happen.  Eventually I figured out a mechanic with low-enough handling time, and it's working well.  And that's something quite useful I got out of the group; I might not have successfully analyzed the source of my discomfort myself, without those discussions.

Quote from: John MorrowFor you, finding the intersection between what the character would do and having a fun story is done behind the scenes or your holistic approach so you aren't going to be consciously aware of any conflicts or exclusions between the two concerns (they are silently excluded) and it sounds like you've never run into a case where the two could not be reconciled.  If you did, I'd be curious how you'd experience it and deal with it.

Oh my ... you think I avoid those conflicts by accident?  Wow.  I'm flattered.  You must either think I'm really lucky or some sort of genius.

No, I avoid those conflicts by seeing them coming a long way off, and steering both the story and my character so that by the time the conflict comes to a head, I've got the room to navigate.  It's all part of my ongoing (and often unconscious) effort to improve my position to have fun in the game.  When I look at a story and character that match up that badly, I immediately think "Well, these aren't very interesting ... but I can see some ways to really spice 'em up!"

Like, remember the Tenra Bansho Zero example that I gave?  I picked up a pre-generated character, heard what the other players had, and immediately saw an area where I didn't have good tools to mesh my in-character abilities and drives with meta-game concerns.  First thing I did in the game was to start subtly steering my character and the story so that I would have plenty of ways that my character could plausibly act (particularly vis-a-vis violence and danger) that would let me make the game more fun.

I get the impression that by the time you started changing things around in the story and your character, you were way past the point of no return on that issue ... tearing toward a precipice with a full head of steam and no brakes.  Does that sound about right?  Do you think that if you had it over to do again you would steer things differently, or was the outcome pre-ordained (for you) from the very beginning?

Quote from: KeranI do distinguish between playing in character, meaning "playing according to the character model -- basing one's actions off the character's knowledge only, playing consistently according to the attitudes and abilities that the character has" and "playing to some extent from the character's headspace."  I do both at different times, and I don't find them to be the same internally.  And I care about the difference in my own play, because I find character stance more fun, and also because I usually play better in character stance.

Let me be more clear about my stance...umm..position.

I, too, distinguish between the two; however, I do so within the concept of Character.  That is, to me, they are both being in-character, just one more so than the other. Externally they will be proximate, while internally they might be different.

But let's assume, for the moment, that we're either:
trying to diagnose a group problem
trying to design a game

To me, in those cases, the external proximity is close enough for union/government work, as they say. It's also why I say that you then branch out if, and only if, it's required because the first pass doesn't answer your question.

If you're talking about understanding your own play for your own benefit, it's a different can of worms.

Quote from: John MorrowIn my experience, there is a distinct difference between playing according to the character model but not inside the character's mindscape and directing the character for meta-game reasons.  I think the way I'd describe it is that it has to do with attachment to or closeness to the character model.  Like I said, there is third person (my game revolves around this character) and omniscient (this game is about bigger things than just one character).

I have models of different types.  And I have three categories where a lot of rgfa thinking tends to be based on only two.

Standard rgfa simulationist thinking: according to the model, not according to the model.
Me: according to the model, not contrary to the model, contrary to the model.

An immersible character has a definitive model, and if I don't know what the character would do (and it isn't because the character is waffling too), then the only proper thing to do is to try to figure it out, referring to the model and nothing else, and if necessary creating it by conscious reasoning from other knowns, and channelling.  Making a decision because it is more convenient for the campaign is right out, because I have absolutely no way of persuading my subconscious to accept the decision and make it part of the model.

With a non-immersible character, I'm probably playing in author sometimes, but the idea is to move to character stance as fully as possible.  The rule here is "Never decide contrary the model" -- but I may be able to fill in blanks in a convenient fashion, provided it's believable.  For instance, the captain of the guard who was willing to talk.

The other parts of the world model are guaranteed to be indeterminate in spots: there are places where the model does not yield a definite answer as to what should happen.  Again, the rule is "Never rule contrary to the model, but where the model doesn't answer, do what is most likely, or most pleasing, or least displeasing."  I have no plot, but a bias toward the interesting and a stronger one away from campaign-wreckers and stuff I really don't want to deal with.

For the Player stance and Character stance: these don't seem different from the already common IC/OOC split. What's different enough about them to warrant their use? Or alternatively, what's nonfunctional about IC and OOC as they're currently (and pretty universally) known?

Keran:  Is the model supposed to be more certain and definite than an actual human being?

Quote from: TonyLBOh my ... you think I avoid those conflicts by accident?  Wow.  I'm flattered.  You must either think I'm really lucky or some sort of genius.

Not by accident but automatically.  But apparently that's not correct so...

Quote from: TonyLBNo, I avoid those conflicts by seeing them coming a long way off, and steering both the story and my character so that by the time the conflict comes to a head, I've got the room to navigate.  It's all part of my ongoing (and often unconscious) effort to improve my position to have fun in the game.  When I look at a story and character that match up that badly, I immediately think "Well, these aren't very interesting ... but I can see some ways to really spice 'em up!"

Well, that's sort of what I learned how to do -- recognize when a character is moving in a bad direction and try to nudge them into a better direction for the game.  But I do so thinking less about where the game is going than by recognizing that the character is going to a bad place (there are some patterns to that) and I don't change the character directly but I nudge their psychology and perception, which is what I have to do when thinking in character.  Just reaching in and changing the character of simply destroys in character thinking and breaks the character for good.

Question.  Does that mean that you'll bend the character to keep the story interesting?

Quote from: TonyLBLike, remember the Tenra Bansho Zero example that I gave?  I picked up a pre-generated character, heard what the other players had, and immediately saw an area where I didn't have good tools to mesh my in-character abilities and drives with meta-game concerns.  First thing I did in the game was to start subtly steering my character and the story so that I would have plenty of ways that my character could plausibly act (particularly vis-a-vis violence and danger) that would let me make the game more fun.

Do you have any examples of a character going in a different direction of a game for a longer-running campaign?  That's part of why I asked you about campaign length.  Some of the problems I experience don't develop for months because they are the result of patterns that take that long to become clear.

Quote from: TonyLBI get the impression that by the time you started changing things around in the story and your character, you were way past the point of no return on that issue ... tearing toward a precipice with a full head of steam and no brakes.  Does that sound about right?  Do you think that if you had it over to do again you would steer things differently, or was the outcome pre-ordained (for you) from the very beginning?

Well, the reason why I asked if you bend the character for the story, above, is that there are limits to how much I can bend a character before it breaks.

I made the changes in perception pretty early in the game, in the first few sessions, for my character to intuitively like the other PC (the player's role-playing helped there, too) and for my character to be a bit dense about her being a Druid (at first, he didn't notice and then he thought she was a Cleric -- again, the player's evasive role-playing helped).  So all of that started early on and the game probably could have ended that way, if the campaign  didn't go quite the way it did.  There was come room for error in there.  In fact, by the time my character found out the other PC was a Druid, it created tension but the PCs probably could have continued to work together.

The problem was that late in the campaign, three issues came up that I could not anticipate and, to my knowledge, they were elements the GM had planned from the beginning so they weren't designed to produce this problem.  

First, the PCs found ruins that apparently confirmed my character's worst fears about the elves (the elves had a war in the past and let's just say that they found ruins from the Nazi faction, which is how my character viewed all elves).  Second, the other PC started having conflicts of interest with her command structure that threw her loyalties into question and pushed my character to not trust her.  Third, when it became clear that two powerful elven groups were going to show up to deal with the situation, my character looked for an out and all of the other characters, including that PC and the NPC rulers of the town they were essentially resigned to the fact that things were out of control and more or less agreed that, yup, they were just going to just let the elves come in and do what they wanted, even if that meant wiping out the whole town to cover it up.  That all happened in the last few sessions (we still have to play the conclusion) very quickly.

I probably could have nudged my character to stick around because of his loyalty to the town and his friendships with the PCs and NPCs in the game (including a romantic relationship he abandoned when he defected) for even the first two or maybe two out of three but that last one was a killer.  There was no way my character was going to just sit there and die and there was no way he could stand alone against them.  Basically, I built some redudendcy into the braking system but they all failed, one after the other, until there was nothing left to stop with.

The outcome wasn't pre-ordained for me and I don't think the GM or other players expected it, either (they all seemed quite stunned, as were the NPCs, when my character -- a Lawful Neutral duty fanataic -- deserted in the night).  I don't think I would change it, because it was an incredibly enjoyable game even how it turned out.  All of the behavior was in character for the PCs and NPCs involved.  Nobody did anything wrong.  But if I were putting story and "fun" before character, I would have liked my character to have been with the other PCs for the final two sessions.  About the only other way I could have seen avoiding it would have been to explain to the Druid player what my character was looking for as an out in that pivotal final meeting that she didn't give him.  But changing how she behaved might have compromised that character's internal integrity, so I'm not sure that would have been an option.

If you want, I can ask the GM if I can post or send you the link to his campaign site, which includes a summary of the events of all of the sessions, if you are really interested.

And a thing that I want to point out is that throughout, I can tell when it's story or fun pushing against character and vice versa.  The choices I'm making to nudge character or story to suit the other remain very clear for me.

Quote from: John MorrowQuestion.  Does that mean that you'll bend the character to keep the story interesting?

What's that mean?  Characters (like real people) are in a constant state of flux and development.  Life is change.  I've got to choose, at every moment, how the character is going to move from his unchangeable past into his unknowable future.

So if you're asking "Will you play a character tomorrow in a way that would astonish the character they were yesterday?" then I'll say simply that yes, I will.  To do otherwise would be wildly unrealistic.

But I have this sense that you're asking something else.  I just don't know what.

Quote from: John MorrowThere was no way my character was going to just sit there and die and there was no way he could stand alone against them.

On a side-note:  I don't see how you could bear to walk away from this.  It strikes me as so perfect.  You've got a character who will not surrender, and a fight he can't possibly win.

In your place, I would have steered the situation right toward this ending, and fought.  Who could possibly ask for more?

Quote from: TonyLBWhat's that mean?  Characters (like real people) are in a constant state of flux and development.  Life is change.  I've got to choose, at every moment, how the character is going to move from his unchangeable past into his unknowable future.

Yes, people change and my characters can change and grow, too.  But people often don't change quickly and those changes can be bad as well as good, inconvenient as well as convenient, and so on.

Quote from: TonyLBSo if you're asking "Will you play a character tomorrow in a way that would astonish the character they were yesterday?" then I'll say simply that yes, I will.  To do otherwise would be wildly unrealistic.

But I have this sense that you're asking something else.  I just don't know what.

What i mean is that when the character's behavior changes over time, is it being driven by the needs of the game or story rather than by reasons within the characters themselves.