TheRPGSite

Over on Actor/Author/Director (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=66763&postcount=36), John Morrow brought up the r.g.f.a. definitions from which that model was developed (or corrupted if one prefers):

Quote from: John MorrowIn r.g.f.a, the Actor stance described a player who was actually acting -- that is, the player who made choices as a performance to the other players and the GM.  Their choices need not necessary be "in character".  They may simply be what the player considers entertaining and fun to play.

The Audience stance described the player who observes the game from an omniscient perspective.  It's the level at which a player appreciates the big picture story from the outside, like the audience appreciates a book or movie.

The Author stance is the stance from which players and GM contruct the SIS.  It's writing things into the SIS rather than making decisions about what they do.

The In-Character Stance is making decisions from the perspective of a character.  There are two versions.  The first version is the third person basic In-Character or IC stance in which decisions are made for the character by considering the character.  The second version is the first person Deep IC or Immersive stance, in which the player experiences the game and think In Character.

Now these are damn cool things, and I want to discuss them, but I'd also like to stick with the conversation we were having there.  So ... 'New Thread!'  This way I can have my cake and eat it too.

The first thing I notice about this, and I'd love to get clarified from someone who knows better than me (which in this case is just about everyone) is that the definitions seem to assume that the actions of the character are not part of the SIS (I presume "Shared Imaginary Space").  That is to say, the Author stance is "writing things into the SIS rather than making decisions about what they [the characters] do" (bolding mine).

In my sense of the words, making decisions about what the characters do is a big part of defining the SIS, so I'm really unclear about how you draw that distinction.  If you decide, as the King, to create a secret police to terrorize and purify the populace ... is that Author stance?  Or is Author stance just the stuff that you do writing up the secret police without acting through the agency of the King (like, between-session diaries and such)?

The second thing that really grabs at my notice is the two categories of "Actor" (acting the character) and "In-Character" (making decisions).  I totally don't get the relationship between these two categories.  Do they overlap?  Is one a subset of the other?  Whassup there?  I need some guidance :(

A little clarification here would go a long way toward my being able to discuss the concepts.  Thanks in advance!

Quote from: TonyLBOver on Actor/Author/Director (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=66763&postcount=36), John Morrow brought up the r.g.f.a. definitions from which that model was developed (or corrupted if one prefers):

Rather than my paraphrase, I suggest looking at actual r.g.f.a definitions from the two (not identical) FAQs here:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.frp.advocacy/msg/fc1c371f8ef26300?dmode=source

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.frp.advocacy/msg/c958d5bdaeeb635a?dmode=source

Quote from: TonyLBThe first thing I notice about this, and I'd love to get clarified from someone who knows better than me (which in this case is just about everyone) is that the definitions seem to assume that the actions of the character are not part of the SIS (I presume "Shared Imaginary Space").  That is to say, the Author stance is "writing things into the SIS rather than making decisions about what they [the characters] do" (bolding mine).

While this particular model was never a focus of mine, I think there were a few reasons for that.  I think the r.g.f.a models often approached things from a player perspective rather than a GM perspective which influences what the model cares about.  I think the assumption was probably that control of a character was within the player's sole sphere of influence rather than in a shared space.  It's a different scope for what's considered shared based on who has control instead of who is interpreting it or using it.  Either way, the distinction between manipulating the SIS through your character as an entity within that SIS that has to follow it's rules and manipulating the SIS in ways beyond what the character can do within the SIS is an important one and even the Forge model distinguishes it.

Quote from: TonyLBIn my sense of the words, making decisions about what the characters do is a big part of defining the SIS, so I'm really unclear about how you draw that distinction.  If you decide, as the King, to create a secret police to terrorize and purify the populace ... is that Author stance?  Or is Author stance just the stuff that you do writing up the secret police without acting through the agency of the King (like, between-session diaries and such)?

Here is where I think it helps not to look at things from just a single model because that model will cause you to frame issues a certain way.  The Forge model was designed, in my opinion, to advocate distributed control.  As such, it's framed to encourage people to think of the entire imaginary space as a shared space that the participants divvy up control over.  The r.g.f.a model was designed from a different perspective and in the context off a more traditional GM/Player divide.  As such, it assumes that the "shared" part is what's outside of the character that the player is  assumed to control.  Thinking about the SIS as if it were a real place, it's the distinction between being a mortal and a deity, affecting things as a part of the SIS or from an omniscient perspective.

• The character, as mortal within the SIS (Forge sense), is IC (player thinking about the character) or Deep IC (player thinking in character).
• The GM or players, directly manipulating the SIS (Forge sense) like a deity might from the outside, is Author
• The GM or players playing to the other participants in the game entirely outside of the SIS (Forge sense) like a performance is Actor
• The GM or players observing events in the SIS (Forge sense) is Audience

This is a place where the Forge sense of SIS, from the perspective of what everyone is imagining, is probably more accurate and useful.

Quote from: TonyLBThe second thing that really grabs at my notice is the two categories of "Actor" (acting the character) and "In-Character" (making decisions).  I totally don't get the relationship between these two categories.  Do they overlap?  Is one a subset of the other?  Whassup there?  I need some guidance :(

Well, there are actually three categories there.  Actor, In Character (third person), and Deep In Character (first person).  If you look at the FAQs, you'll find lines like, "In any RPG, the participants will leap back and forth between these four stances so quickly and intuitively that they are likely to be unaware that they are doing so at all."  (though how easily players switch between stances and how distruptive that is can vary from player to player)  

In other words, these stances are designed to discuss the frame of mind the player is in when making decisions, their "stance" or perspective, more than their control.  The distinction between "Actor" and "In Character" (either sense) is that "In Character" deal with the SIS while "Actor" is aware of portrayal of that character at the table.

In other words, the player may think, "My character is really angry," by thinking about their character or thinking in character.  That's IC.  The player may start shouting and banging the table to make their character's anger clear to the other players and GM.  If that's done with portrayal to the other participants in mind, it's Actor.  There seem to be some variations on this in the two FAQs that are probably worth looking at but that's my take on it.  I also think the line can be blurred if the IC thinking simply bleeds through into how the player acts instead of being done on purpose.

For example, I'll sometimes use accents for my characters to make them distinct.  I tend to play the game while thinking in character as much as possible but the accent is external to that and I have to do it on purpose to some degree.  The accent is for the benefit of the other players to help them distingush my character from me.  Sometimes, if I don't think about it at all, the accent disappears.  As such, I think that's an Actor mode (r.g.f.a sense) thing that I'm doing.

Quote from: TonyLBA little clarification here would go a long way toward my being able to discuss the concepts.  Thanks in advance!

Read the FAQs above.  Their descriptions are a lot longer and more authoritative than mine.

Maybe I'm missing something. What makes this more than just fancy words for the way things work at a gaming table?

I'm going to go dig into the FAQs, but in the meantime, I'm struck by stuff like this...

Quote from: John MorrowThe Forge model was designed, in my opinion, to advocate distributed control.  As such, it's framed to encourage people to think of the entire imaginary space as a shared space that the participants divvy up control over.  The r.g.f.a model was designed from a different perspective and in the context off a more traditional GM/Player divide.

I'd like to point out that I'm much happier just hearing about these ideas in their own context.  If you're trying to explain it all by reference to the Forge because you think that will make me more comfortable then, really, you don't have to try so hard.  It runs the risk of getting into a discussion of Forge-thought, and really I don't think that's going to help this thread at all.  Maybe a later compare-and-contrast thread, 'kay?

Quote from: James McMurrayMaybe I'm missing something. What makes this more than just fancy words for the way things work at a gaming table?

That's what theory is - any theory. It helps some people to think in this way - taking it apart and seeing what it is made of. Other people not so much.

-clash

Quote from: John MorrowIn other words, the player may think, "My character is really angry," by thinking about their character or thinking in character.  That's IC.  The player may start shouting and banging the table to make their character's anger clear to the other players and GM.  If that's done with portrayal to the other participants in mind, it's Actor.  There seem to be some variations on this in the two FAQs that are probably worth looking at but that's my take on it.  I also think the line can be blurred if the IC thinking simply bleeds through into how the player acts instead of being done on purpose.

Yeah ... the two FAQs are inconsistent.  In fact, I'm not at all sure that each FAQ is not slightly inconsistent within itself, between the Actor description as it references the "In-Character" description and the In-Character description itself.

I'm seeing at least two different distinctions being drawn:

• Actor is about portraying the character, not about deciding what the character is, whereas IC is about deciding what the character is and does, regardless of how it is portrayed.
  
• Actor is about playing a character (including both portrayal and decisions) with conscious recognition of out-of-game elements, whereas IC is about playing the character (both portrayal and decisions) while not consciously referring to any out-of-game elements.

As hard as it is for me to get on the same page with everyone else about one definition, it's even more challenging to get on the same page with you about the fuzziness.  Do you think we're understanding the FAQ-as-it-exists in roughly the same way?

Quote from: flyingmiceThat's what theory is - any theory. It helps some people to think in this way - taking it apart and seeing what it is made of. Other people not so much.

-clash

Ah. I thought perhaps I was missing some sort of revelation. If there's nothing new to discuss here than the terminology, I'll leave you folks to your fun. :)

Quote from: TonyLBI'd like to point out that I'm much happier just hearing about these ideas in their own context.  If you're trying to explain it all by reference to the Forge because you think that will make me more comfortable then, really, you don't have to try so hard.

Well, it seemed like you were contrasting and I felt the contrast would be ueful.  

Quote from: TonyLBIt runs the risk of getting into a discussion of Forge-thought, and really I don't think that's going to help this thread at all.  Maybe a later compare-and-contrast thread, 'kay?

Well, I don't think all Forge-thought is wrong.  As I pointed out, I think the Forge concept of SIS is probably better than the version you flagged.  

I'll try to stay away from Forge-though if you try to consider the stuff in the FAQ as best you can without Forge-thought, too.

Quote from: James McMurrayAh. I thought perhaps I was missing some sort of revelation. If there's nothing new to discuss here than the terminology, I'll leave you folks to your fun. :)

Really, a great deal of rgfa terminology arose from the need to explain differences of perspective to people with different paradigms of what people do while playing RPGs, and what elements of interaction are crucial to their enjoyment. I think that use as analytical tools was secondary, especially in the early days.

For example you have this classic clash: one player's thief climbs up onto a ledge that the other PC's can't reach, and explores a side passage. He discovers 10 gold pieces and a ruby worth 1000 gp. Returning to the party, he hides the jewel in his clothes and shares the gold among the other members of the party. An argument arises when he refuses to share the jewel. Later in the session, the rest of the party ties him up and confiscates the jewel. Now both parties go onto Usenet and complain. One side says the other party members had no way of knowing about the jewel, so they shouldn't be insisting he hand it over, let alone take "in-game" action based on that knowledge. The other side says that "in-game" vs. "out of game" doesn't even make sense. In order to explain the difference in perspective, concepts like stance and metagame are then introduced.

Quote from: James McMurrayMaybe I'm missing something. What makes this more than just fancy words for the way things work at a gaming table?

Nothing.  We happened to want to discuss the way things work at a gaming table.  It proved to be useful in some cases to consider what state of mind the player is in while portraying a character's actions, or determining what their actions would be.

Cool. I never needed fancy words but I appreciate the explanation. :)

Quote from: TonyLBYeah ... the two FAQs are inconsistent.  In fact, I'm not at all sure that each FAQ is not slightly inconsistent within itself, between the Actor description as it references the "In-Character" description and the In-Character description itself.

I think the first FAQ is more definitive and closer to the source.  I included the second one because it makes the distinction between IC and Deep IC (which came later) but I think that otherwise, it's pretty mangled.  Maybe I shouldn't have included it.

Quote from: TonyLBI'm seeing at least two different distinctions being drawn:

• Actor is about portraying the character, not about deciding what the character is, whereas IC is about deciding what the character is and does, regardless of how it is portrayed.
  
• Actor is about playing a character (including both portrayal and decisions) with conscious recognition of out-of-game elements, whereas IC is about playing the character (both portrayal and decisions) while not consciously referring to any out-of-game elements.

As hard as it is for me to get on the same page with everyone else about one definition, it's even more challenging to get on the same page with you about the fuzziness.  Do you think we're understanding the FAQ-as-it-exists in roughly the same way?

Go with this one:


Actor Stance
        The position from which the game is viewed when the player makes a
meta-game decision to further his portrayal of his character by
consciously attempting to mimic the character's actions, tonal quality,
facial expressions, gestures, or other physical manifestations of
character.  This is an important aspect of LARP, but even in table-top
gaming it often manifests: when, for example, a player stands up in a
sedentary table-top game, it is often an indication that he has
momentarily adopted the stance of Actor.
        The Actor Stance is the one in which the player contemplates what
he can do to portray his character more effectively to the other
participants in the game.  It is therefore by nature a meta-game stance,
removed from the internal reality of the game.


In fact, let's stick with the first FAQ and just keep in mind that during discussions of the In-Character stance, the distinction between thinking about a character and thinking in character was divided.

Hey John, are you sure about that?  Because the listing of IC in the FAQ you're directing me toward is:In-Character Stance
The view of the game from within the inside of the game world and
its reality, usually from within the mind of a character living within
that reality.  This is the stance of the *character,* not the player, and
it encompasses only those things seen from the character's point of view.
It is the stance commonly associated with "play itself," as opposed to
the meta-game, and is the position which the player adopts in order to
play his character believably and satisfyingly.You're saying that this definition is supposed to happily include the notion of somebody who is thinking about their character from outside the game-world entirely, as a piece of fiction which has certain properties?

Because, just looking at it, the description seems pretty hostile to that whole notion.  But maybe I'm reading it from a biased point of view.

Quote from: TonyLBThe first thing I notice about this, and I'd love to get clarified from someone who knows better than me (which in this case is just about everyone) is that the definitions seem to assume that the actions of the character are not part of the SIS (I presume "Shared Imaginary Space").  That is to say, the Author stance is "writing things into the SIS rather than making decisions about what they [the characters] do" (bolding mine).

Saying that the actions of the character are not part of the Shared Imagination Space makes no sense to me if by Shared Imagination Space you mean what we usually called the world: the entire fictional construct.  Sometimes people would use 'world' to mean strictly the setting, but usually it meant the setting and the NPCs and the PCs all together.  Sometimes people contrasted the characters and (the rest of the) world, but I don't remember anybody having any problem figuring out what was meant in context: disambiguation wasn't a problem.  The fictional actions of the fictional characters are part of the fictional world.

Forge thinking and rgfa thinking proceed from different baselines.

• Forge thinking: We're talking about who has the authority to make what stick in the group social activity.
• Rgfa thinking: We're talking about what's going on inside people's heads.

The reason for this is that rgfa theory basically started out as an attempt to explain to people who favored dramatic plotting and GM authorial manipulation that, no, some of us didn't want the most exciting action movie plot the GM could come up with.  We wanted the subjective experiences of You are Another Particular Person and You are in Another Place and Time.  So a lot of the discussion and terminology slanted toward considering what subjective states people end up in, how they get there, and how to produce and maintain the ones they find the most fun.

• Author stance: An OOC stance.  You're thinking about the game from the perspective of an author.  "My character would be placed in an interesting dilemma if she overheard part of the others' conversation, so I'll have her walk past the living room."
• Actor stance: An OOC stance.  You're thinking about the game from the perspective of an actor trying to portray a character.  "My character is angry and won't admit it, so I'll have him answer with polite words, but in a tense voice."
• Audience stance: An OOC stance.  You're thinking about the game from the perspective of a member of the audience (or a reader).  "She's found out they're betraying her -- I really want to see how she's going to respond to that."
• Character stance: An IC stance.  You're thinking about the game from the perspective of the character.  "If they realize I've guessed what they're planning, they'll move their operation off the station.  I'd better not let on until I can get some hard evidence."

I happened to use 3rd person for the OOC stances and 1st person for character stance because it's easier to illustrate the point that way, but note that whether one is playing in character stance doesn't actually have anything to do with which part of speech one is using to describe the character's actions.  We use third person pretty much all the time in my online games, for instance, because it's a natural format in chat, even when we're playing in character stance.

Variants of the above:

• Deep IC, or immersion: A variety of character stance in which you not only consciously think like the character, but to some extent feel as the character feels.  'Channelling' the character; creating the character's reactions subconsciously rather than consciously, so that it feels more as if one is discovering what the character is thinking and feeling than as if one is making the stuff up deliberately.
• Channelling the world: Technically this is a variant of author stance, in that one isn't taking the perspective of a character, and one is making decisions about the state of the world, but it feels closer to deep IC than to consciously making decisions about the setting or NPCs.  One subconsciously models the state of the world, so that one seems to be discovering what's happening, rather than making it up.  A common stance for some GMs.

Some other ideas that were floated after the original four stances:

• Director's stance: A proposed OOC stance meant to refer to using authorial powers beyond one's own character, to make decisions about what's happening in the setting.  This didn't often get used in practice because subjectively it isn't really a different perspective from author stance; it didn't turn out to be a particularly useful distinction.  (It might have been useful if rgfa stances had been about who has the resolving power for what, but they're not.)
• Gameplayer's stance:  An OOC stance; obviously, it's thinking about the game from the perspective of someone playing one.  "If I use up all my fate points now I might not have enough left for the climactic fight."

Some people find it much more enjoyable to play from some stances than others; or they may find some stances difficult or impossible to achieve; or they may be able to flip back and forth easily between some stances, but find other transitions difficult, disruptive or impossible.  Different people find that different techniques help or hinder getting into various stances.  For example, some people prefer to play in deep IC, but find having to firewall difficult or disruptive to the state, so these people may prefer a style of game in which they don't see or hear anything that their character doesn't.  Other people who like to play in deep IC find firewalling easy and non-disruptive, so they may prefer to watch the entire story unfold, whether their character is onstage or not.

QuoteIn my sense of the words, making decisions about what the characters do is a big part of defining the SIS, so I'm really unclear about how you draw that distinction.  If you decide, as the King, to create a secret police to terrorize and purify the populace ... is that Author stance?  Or is Author stance just the stuff that you do writing up the secret police without acting through the agency of the King (like, between-session diaries and such)?

Exactly what state of mind were you in, when deciding what the King would do?  Were you saying, "I want the King to be a clearly identifiable villain the PCs will strongly oppose -- I want clear lines of good and evil here -- so I'll make him a tyrant?"  Author.  Were you thinking as the King: "If I don't keep control of the dissident elements in the populace, they might ally with my enemy the Duke, and install him on the throne instead."?  Character.

Now as to whether your decision is part of the fictional world or not -- that depends on how you made it.  The King's actions become part of the happenings of the world, of course.  But there's a sense in which your decision-making itself is only part of the world if you made it in character stance.  That is, there is a fictional entity in the fictional world who thought, "I'd better keep the dissidents from allying with the Duke."  But there is no entity in the fictional world who said, "I want the King to be an obvious villain because it'll fit the genre."  That's a player-world decision, metaworld thinking that couldn't enter into the fictional world because there's no one who could have thought it.

The rgfa stances were often used by people who wanted to experience as consistent and vivid and believable a world as they could; and some of them found playing in character stance and sticking closely to in-world cause-and-effect the best way to achieve that You Are Thereness.  So they often would rather that the GM make the King's decision by thinking like the King, if he could manage it.  It's "I want to think and feel as my character really would feel in this situation.  I want the events of the campaign to be what would really happen if the campaign world existed in fact."  (There were other approaches in rgfa, but that one was the predominant one.)

QuoteThe second thing that really grabs at my notice is the two categories of "Actor" (acting the character) and "In-Character" (making decisions).  I totally don't get the relationship between these two categories.  Do they overlap?  Is one a subset of the other?  Whassup there?  I need some guidance :(

They're quite different, in rgfa thinking, where the in-world/metaworld distinction is of great importance.

If you're in actor stance, you are thinking as a player, OOC, trying to portray the character to the other players.  If you're in character stance, you're "being" the character, thinking like the character, making the character's choices not because of an effect it will have on the other players or the plot, but because that's what the character would do if they in fact existed and really were in that situation.

If I called them the actor's viewpoint and the character's viewpoint, would that be clearer?  I might end up introducing the same character action into the world either way, but I'd gotten there by a different process.

Actor: "I the GM want Russell the player to understand how dazed Shazemar the NPC is, so I'll have Shazemar stare at the cup out-of-focus and miss closing his fingers on it the first time."
Character: "I can't see ... oh, that isn't where I expected it?"

What I subjectively experienced, if I made the decision in character stance, is much different than what I experienced if I made it in actor stance, even if it's the same basic action I describe to the player.

Quote from: TonyLBHey John, are you sure about that?

It's not as bad as it looks.  The reason why I included the second FAQ was that the IC definitions were more developed.  But let me see if I can work with what's in the first one before changing my mind...

Quote from: TonyLBYou're saying that this definition is supposed to happily include the notion of somebody who is thinking about their character from outside the game-world entirely, as a piece of fiction which has certain properties?

Third-person IC is thinking about what the character would do based on what's known about them and what's happening to them.  First-person or "Deep" IC is thinking in character.  Both should produce actions akin to what the character would do if they were a real person and thus are the same category in the first FAQ.  The focus is a single character.  If you step back and consider the metagame beyond the character, that's Author mode.  

Quote from: TonyLBBecause, just looking at it, the description seems pretty hostile to that whole notion.  But maybe I'm reading it from a biased point of view.

Remember that this FAQ also says, "In any RPG, the participants will leap back and forth between these four stances so quickly and intuitively that they are likely to be unaware that they are doing so at all."

What you've been describing would be, in this model, using the IC stance to determine what your character is likely to do and then switching into Author mode to make a choice based on metagame concerns.

In fact, I'm starting to think that a weakness of both of these models is that they seem to mix perspective (how the player is looking at the game) and scope of control (what the player is authorized to change in the game), and those are at least semi-independent variables.

The perspective can be:

• Game Session (independent of the SIS)
• Interpretation (aesthetic judgements about the SIS)
• Setting (the whole SIS)
• Party (the PCs, collectively and individually -- alternately, multiple PCs)
• Character (a single character)
• Mind (a single character's mindscape)

The scope of control can be:

• Game Session (e.g., GM is god and can kick players out)
• Setting
• Character
• Nothing (observation)

Quote from: James McMurrayMaybe I'm missing something. What makes this more than just fancy words for the way things work at a gaming table?

Nothing.

The special bonus is that with the fancy words, we make simple things harder to understand! And that way we can feel special as we puzzle them out. It's pretty uninspiring to just walk down a corridor, but to find your way through a maze is cool! Even if you had to make the maze yourself, and all you're doing is getting up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet.

Let's try plain English.

And JimBob everybody..let's give him a hand....he's here all week...or at least as long as we're having a conversation wherein he, and his theories, are not the center of attention...

I know John and Tony and Keran are using big fancy terms, but how often do we get to watch Forge and rfga battel it out to really see the differences, strengths, weaknesses, etc.?  If it's not interesting to you to try to describe the differences between in-character and out-of-character, specifically with respect to how that might help keep a game group together, you can always ignore the thread.

It might not be John's, Tony's or Keran's objective (to find a tool to help diagnose or design), but it's mine.  And if I can help them work out what they want, I'm willing to compromise with them - win/win for all of us.

Quote from: John MorrowThird-person IC is thinking about what the character would do based on what's known about them and what's happening to them. First-person or "Deep" IC is thinking in character.

Right.  But I don't think either of those is (for instance) "Well, this character is a farm-boy with dreams of greatness, so obviously he's going to rise to the occasion when he is called to a heroic journey."  And yet, that is still deciding what the character would do based on what's known about them and what's happening to them ... but it's doing it from a perspective entirely outside the game-world, viewing the character as a piece of fiction with the properties of fiction, rather than (solely) a fictional person with the properties of a real person.

Since the FAQ is saying quite clearly that decisions about the character can only be made from within the game-world ... I just don't know how to reconcile that.

Quote from: John MorrowRemember that this FAQ also says, "In any RPG, the participants will leap back and forth between these four stances so quickly and intuitively that they are likely to be unaware that they are doing so at all."

What you've been describing would be, in this model, using the IC stance to determine what your character is likely to do and then switching into Author mode to make a choice based on metagame concerns.

But that is in all ways completely indistinguishable from being in both stances at the same time, right?

I mean ... I think I understand the claim that people are switching back and forth on a nano-second by nano-second basis ... but I don't feel that when I play.  What I feel like is that I've got both things in mind at the same time.

I guess I'm in search of the justification for why the "Switching" model over anything else.  It's stated so plainly ... just "This is what happens" ... that I don't really know whether there's some further justification hidden away, or whether it's just an axiom that got thrown out and nobody ever challenged.

Quote from: John MorrowIn fact, I'm starting to think that a weakness of both of these models is that they seem to mix perspective (how the player is looking at the game) and scope of control (what the player is authorized to change in the game), and those are at least semi-independent variables.

Big agreement on that from this side of the peanut gallery.  Nicely stated, too!

That having been said, perspective and authority are connected in some situations.  The claim "But it's what my character would do!" is not without strength in swaying people to let you do something they'd otherwise object to.  Yes?

Quote from: TonyLBBig agreement on that from this side of the peanut gallery.  Nicely stated, too!

That having been said, perspective and authority are connected in some situations.  The claim "But it's what my character would do!" is not without strength in swaying people to let you do something they'd otherwise object to.  Yes?

It's interesting, where does making a choice in character lead to an authority issue?

Quote from: James J SkachIt's interesting, where does making a choice in character lead to an authority issue?

Sorry ... can you elaborate on the question?  I'd rather respond to what you actually meant to ask than risk reading too much between the lines.

Quote from: TonyLBThat having been said, perspective and authority are connected in some situations.

You'll notice that I said that they were "semi-independent", not independent.  I said that on purpose.

Quote from: TonyLBThe claim "But it's what my character would do!" is not without strength in swaying people to let you do something they'd otherwise object to.  Yes?

I think that's a bad example (in fact, it's the example that's frequently used to "prove" that in character play destroys games because so many problem players use it as an excuse).  When a player honestly resorts to that explanation to explain a decision, in my experience, it's less an argument to sway players to allow something they object to and more of an argument to explain how the player is playing and why the decision was made.  The primary purpose of the explanation is not normally pursuasion except where an abusive is using it to cover their game-distrupting decisions to avoid blame.

Quote from: John MorrowI think that's a bad example (in fact, it's the example that's frequently used to "prove" that in character play destroys games because so many problem players use it as an excuse).

Yeah, that's true.  It was the first example off the top of my head.  I'll try to think of a better one, but if you scoop me on it, and make a good one before I do, then I'll probably just be happy to be let off the hook on some heavy pondering :D

Quote from: TonyLBRight.  But I don't think either of those is (for instance) "Well, this character is a farm-boy with dreams of greatness, so obviously he's going to rise to the occasion when he is called to a heroic journey."  And yet, that is still deciding what the character would do based on what's known about them and what's happening to them ... but it's doing it from a perspective entirely outside the game-world, viewing the character as a piece of fiction with the properties of fiction, rather than (solely) a fictional person with the properties of a real person.

You are still constrained by the character and who they are.  The "what's known about them and what's happening to them" is the persective, not that they are a piece of fiction.  If you are deciding what the character would do based on the needs of the story (e.g., "I need them to go with the party, otherwise I'm going to spend the next three hours watching everyone else play"), then your perspective isn't on the character but on the player and game.

Quote from: TonyLBSince the FAQ is saying quite clearly that decisions about the character can only be made from within the game-world ... I just don't know how to reconcile that.

When you say, "based on what's known about them and what's happening to them", you are constraining the decision to what's happening inside of the game world, and what's happening to and within the character in particular.  A player who views their character "as a piece of fiction" and uses the unrealness of the character to govern their decisions will make very different decisions.  You'll see that with some people who don't get into the game and just move their character around like a playing piece without a personality.

Quote from: TonyLBBut that is in all ways completely indistinguishable from being in both stances at the same time, right?

I'm not sure what you are asking here.

Quote from: TonyLBI mean ... I think I understand the claim that people are switching back and forth on a nano-second by nano-second basis ... but I don't feel that when I play.  What I feel like is that I've got both things in mind at the same time.

Where you bring Author mode in is when you consider "what's fun".  That's external to character and setting.  As you described it, you seem to consider the situation from an In Character perspective and then choose between different options of what the character might do from Author mode.  So you filter your choices from In Character and then finalize your choice as Author.  Isn't that pretty much how you described it earlier?

Quote from: TonyLBI guess I'm in search of the justification for why the "Switching" model over anything else.  It's stated so plainly ... just "This is what happens" ... that I don't really know whether there's some further justification hidden away, or whether it's just an axiom that got thrown out and nobody ever challenged.

I'm not sure the switching model is correct.  That may be an artifact of mixing perspective and scope of control.

What you should also remember is that rec.games.frp.advocacy was a discussion group that discussed theory with thousands and thousands of messages (I started one thread that ran something like 600 messages).  These FAQs are just a distillation of much longer discussions.  That's the closest rec.games.frp.advocacy had to Ron writing and essay to summarize something and they were trying to be as brief as possible.  So that FAQ is the tip of an iceberg, not the whole iceberg.  But also as the second FAQ explains, "These stances are not precisely defined."  The reason can be found in the first FAQ.  "This was first formulated by Kevin Hardwick and Sarah Kahn, and was so useful that it immediately became part of the jargon of the group."  In other words, no one questioned it heavily enough to give it a good workout, though elements were refined (e.g., the distinction between IC and Deep IC).

Quote from: TonyLBSorry ... can you elaborate on the question?  I'd rather respond to what you actually meant to ask than risk reading too much between the lines.

All characters, PC and NPC alike, are bound by the rules of the system and the definition of the world (what ya'll theroy guys like to call the SIS).

So if you make a decision to act a certain way or say a certain thing, and you make that decision based on in-character motivation, what authority issues exist?  The only ones I can think of are things resolved by mechanics, for which you obviously have mechanics, and things that are 'out of bounds' as it were.

So my question is, if your motivation/stance in In Character, what authority issues exist?

EDIT: Most of that was driven by your specific example of "but it's what my character would do." Which in my experience was rarely used as an appeal to authority.

Quote from: James J SkachSo my question is, if your motivation/stance in In Character, what authority issues exist?

Authority issues come up when players have expectations that transcend the SIS into the game space of players and GMs.  For example, it may make perfect sense for my character to steak from another PC, kill another PC, abandon the party, retire and buy a farm, etc. but all of those things may conflict with expectations that the group has about what characters should be doing.

Quote from: John MorrowAuthority issues come up when players have expectations that transcend the SIS into the game space of players and GMs.  For example, it may make perfect sense for my character to steak from another PC, kill another PC, abandon the party, retire and buy a farm, etc. but all of those things may conflict with expectations that the group has about what characters should be doing.

Gotcha...

So your character's authority to take certain actions are bound by the social contract.  The list of things to do/say from which I can choose is filtered through this lens.

Are all of the Actor/Author/Whatever-the-Hell bound all bound in the same way? I would assume so, but, you guys are old-schooling me on this, so...

Quote from: James J SkachSo your character's authority to take certain actions are bound by the social contract.  The list of things to do/say from which I can choose is filtered through this lens.

Correct, though not every group has much of a filter.  This is why the "But it's what my character would do!" excuse has such a bad reputation.  It's used by disruptive players to purposely try to slip things past the social contract filter.

Quote from: James J SkachAre all of the Actor/Author/Whatever-the-Hell bound all bound in the same way? I would assume so, but, you guys are old-schooling me on this, so...

Yes, I would think so.  I'm curious if Tony agrees.

Maybe that's a better way to look at this -- as a series of filters that get applied to put boundaries on the decisions a player makes or to pick the final decision out of a list of possiblities.

So "What would my character do?" is a filter.  "Would that upset Joe or Alice?" (other players) is a filter.  "Is this the way a character should react in this genre?" is a filter.  And so on.  It may be a little different for thinking in character but I think some sorts of filters might still be there.

Quote from: John MorrowYou are still constrained by the character and who they are.  The "what's known about them and what's happening to them" is the persective, not that they are a piece of fiction.  If you are deciding what the character would do based on the needs of the story (e.g., "I need them to go with the party, otherwise I'm going to spend the next three hours watching everyone else play"), then your perspective isn't on the character but on the player and game.

Is that "Author" stance then, in this terminology?

Quote from: John MorrowA player who views their character "as a piece of fiction" and uses the unrealness of the character to govern their decisions will make very different decisions.  You'll see that with some people who don't get into the game and just move their character around like a playing piece without a personality.

Oh dude ... do you realize how judgmental and dismissive that came across?  I'm assuming that you didn't mean it that way, but ... dude.  You know that this is part of the way I play my characters, and you want to make your only example be people who are identified only by the fact that they're doing a crappy job of roleplaying?  And I thought we were getting along so well ...

Quote from: John MorrowSo you filter your choices from In Character and then finalize your choice as Author.  Isn't that pretty much how you described it earlier?

Well, I described having a single state of mind that operated in both modes simultaneously.  You're describing switching back and forth.  So ... no, it's not really the same thing, I don't think.  I mean ... just for example, you really wouldn't talk about synergies between IC and Author stances if you adhere to the switching model, would you?

Quote from: James J SkachSo your character's authority to take certain actions are bound by the social contract.  The list of things to do/say from which I can choose is filtered through this lens.

Wow ... that's an interesting way to say that ... starting from the social contract, and then working your way out to behaviors, rather than vice versa.

I'd be much more comfortable saying, instead "There are things that people will let you do without a peep, and other things that will prompt discussions and maybe disagreements.  The sum of those actual boundaries is the social contract, whether it's what you've explicitly agreed to or not."  Which is sort of the same thing, but turned inside out, to put the emphasis on the actual people, where it belongs.

Quote from: James J SkachAre all of the Actor/Author/Whatever-the-Hell bound all bound in the same way? I would assume so, but, you guys are old-schooling me on this, so...

It's bound by the players at the table, just like everything is.

Quote from: TonyLBIs that "Author" stance then, in this terminology?

If I understand your question, then I think so.

Quote from: TonyLBOh dude ... do you realize how judgmental and dismissive that came across?  I'm assuming that you didn't mean it that way, but ... dude.  You know that this is part of the way I play my characters, and you want to make your only example be people who are identified only by the fact that they're doing a crappy job of roleplaying?  And I thought we were getting along so well ...

Well, clearly I'm not talking about you so please don't take it personally. ;)

I'm talking about what I think looking at a character purely from outside of the SIS might look like.  You've said that you take the character into consideration.  What I'm asking is suppose you didn't even think about what your character would do or who they were (information within the SIS) and just made decisions based on what seemed fun.  Does that make any sense?

Quote from: TonyLBWell, I described having a single state of mind that operated in both modes simultaneously.  You're describing switching back and forth.  So ... no, it's not really the same thing, I don't think.  I mean ... just for example, you really wouldn't talk about synergies between IC and Author stances if you adhere to the switching model, would you?

I'm basing the switch diagnosis on what you said earlier.  Earlier, you said,

Quote from: TonyLB"What my character would do" is not, usually, a single brightly lit path. There are a wide variety of responses that a character could plausibly have. Often, several of them are clearly also going to be fun as all hell on levels other than simply 'It's fun to play my character.' Some paths are going to put the other players on the spot, or put me on the spot, or show us something about the nature of ... I dunno ... cheese, or something.

So, among the things that my character could equally plausibly do, I choose the one that's fun. Best of both worlds.

What that suggests to me is that (A) you filter out what your character could plausibly do and then (B) filter those options based on what's the most fun.  Perhaps I'm reading too much into it.  But do you have any sense that one happens more than the other or do they seem to happen at the same time?  Do all of the things your character plausibly do pop readily into your mind (suggesting that you filter that independently and possibly) or is it easier to think of all the fun things your character might do (suggesting you filter that independently and possibly first)?  Or both, suggestion that you filter both independently and then find the intersection of the sets.  Or if neither comes readily to mind, perhaps you combine the filters.

Quote from: TonyLBWow ... that's an interesting way to say that ... starting from the social contract, and then working your way out to behaviors, rather than vice versa.

My assumption was that it was a filter on the player's choices and like any other filter (the character, the setting, the rules, what's fun) it could in theory be applied at any point in the series of filters to limit the options a player wil consider.  In other words, I'm sure that some people filter out certain choices fairly early in the process for social contract reasons (e.g., romance doesn't even get considered because the group doesn't do romance) while other people apply the social contract filter late int he process (e.g., I'll decide what my character does in character and then apply a light social contract filter that might block the choice just before it goes out).

So maybe that's what we need to be looking at is a series of decision filters (or boundaries or whatever you want to call them) that constrain the player's options until they come up with a decision about what their character does.  To a certain degree, that's even what I'm using thinking in character for -- a filter through which I look at the game.

Quote from: John MorrowWhat I'm asking is suppose you didn't even think about what your character would do or who they were (information within the SIS) and just made decisions based on what seemed fun.  Does that make any sense?

Not really, no.  How could you implement any decisions without going by way of IC stance?  Author mode is (if I understand these definitions correctly) entirely outside of the fiction of the game.  The moment you say "Brag cuts the orcs head off," whatever your motivation, you're in IC stance, aren't you?

Quote from: John MorrowBut do you have any sense that one happens more than the other or do they seem to happen at the same time?

My sense is that they are two facets of the same mental process.  It is not merely that they do happen at the same time, but that I would be in a different mental state if they could happen individually.

That's why I'm such a fan of games where the in-character material supports the system, and the system supports the in-character material ... without it, I feel like ... well, like I was having two unrelated images flashed at me, one in each eye, and being asked to work off of that.  It can be a little crazy-making.

Quote from: TonyLBNot really, no.  How could you implement any decisions without going by way of IC stance?

By treating your character as a pawn with no personality and simply playing off of the other players.  That horrible example I provided earlier, basically.

Quote from: TonyLBAuthor mode is (if I understand these definitions correctly) entirely outside of the fiction of the game.  The moment you say "Brag cuts the orcs head off," whatever your motivation, you're in IC stance, aren't you?

It's the perspective of standing outside looking in.  It's the omniscient perspective.  It's analogous to an author writing a book.  I'm not sure it classifies the statement but the reason why the statement was made.  If Brag cuts off the orc's head because that's what Brag would do, that's IC.  If Brag cuts off the orc's head because that's the most fun for the player, then it's Author.  If the player does it for both reasons, it could be both.

Quote from: TonyLBMy sense is that they are two facets of the same mental process.  It is not merely that they do happen at the same time, but that I would be in a different mental state if they could happen individually.

Can you frame an example based on a situation where "what the character would do" conflicts with what's fun, as in the examples I gave of a player's in character choices running up against the social contract of the group.  It might make the interplay between the two concerns more clear when they are in conflict with each it.

Quote from: TonyLBThat's why I'm such a fan of games where the in-character material supports the system, and the system supports the in-character material ... without it, I feel like ... well, like I was having two unrelated images flashed at me, one in each eye, and being asked to work off of that.  It can be a little crazy-making.

Can you explain this in more detail?  I'm not sure I understand what you are talking about.

Quote from: John MorrowBy treating your character as a pawn with no personality and simply playing off of the other players.  That horrible example I provided earlier, basically.

I thought, by the FAQ, that the choice to have (say) Brag cut the head off an orc could be made in Author mode, but that the actual execution always had to be in IC.  Isn't that where all this rapid switching is supposed to come in?

I'm not throwing my hands in the air and saying "Oh me oh my, how could somebody think that way?" I'm saying that by the definitions I've been handed, playing the game solely Author mode is literally impossible.  Am I missing something?

Quote from: John MorrowCan you frame an example based on a situation where "what the character would do" conflicts with what's fun, as in the examples I gave of a player's in character choices running up against the social contract of the group.  It might make the interplay between the two concerns more clear when they are in conflict with each it.

You're ... you're asking me to frame an example where my style of play breaks down.  You get that, right?  So I've racked my mind for actual examples, but I got nothing.  I'll fictionalize something for you, then tell you how I worked it out in real life:   We're playing Tenra Bansho Zero, with pre-generated characters and a fairly straightforward walk-through of several combats.  I'm playing a young Taoist girl of high social standing and no combat skills.  Here's where it becomes totally fictional:  I feel that there is no consistent action this character can take that doesn't involve asserting her station over the lower-class fighters of the other players.  And, moreover, I can't think of a way to make that fun.  So I step entirely out of game and say "Guys, I can't have fun with this character without breaking her to pieces.  Anyone have any ideas on how to maintain her society training without totally ruining our fun?"... but in actual fact, what happened is ...   I'm playing a young Taoist girl of high social standing and no combat skills.  I immediately and unequivocally beg the indulgence of the fighters, pointing out how completely in their power my character is physically ... how dependent she is upon their support and protection.  Couched in formal language and ritual humility it was totally a natural thing for her to do.  In doing so, I draw the other players to concede, contrari-wise, that they, rough and ready brawlers that they are, are completely dependent upon me to negotiate the finer points of etiquette and ethics (a nasty and important tangle in the world we're playing in, even (we decide) when confronting ogres and demons).  We all end up with our spheres clearly defined, and I end up with my in-character attitudes and my meta-game resources and desires happily aligned, all as a natural outgrowth of selecting one possible choice that grows naturally out of the character as it was provided to me.This is how I do things.  I don't choose Author and then IC.  I don't balance one against the other.  I find the way that I can have both, in the same moment, always.

Quote from: TonyLBRight.  But I don't think either of those is (for instance) "Well, this character is a farm-boy with dreams of greatness, so obviously he's going to rise to the occasion when he is called to a heroic journey."  And yet, that is still deciding what the character would do based on what's known about them and what's happening to them ... but it's doing it from a perspective entirely outside the game-world, viewing the character as a piece of fiction with the properties of fiction, rather than (solely) a fictional person with the properties of a real person.

Since the FAQ is saying quite clearly that decisions about the character can only be made from within the game-world ... I just don't know how to reconcile that.

If it says that, it isn't what anybody I remember ever meant.  Clearly, decisions can be made from viewpoints outside the game world, and people do it often.

I'm not entirely clear on what piece of verbiage is giving you the impression that it meant otherwise, but that may be because I read the original discussions and am supplying some inobvious piece of context.  (It wouldn't be the first time that happened.)

I'd call the example you just gave author stance.  The farmboy isn't thinking that stuff.

QuoteI mean ... I think I understand the claim that people are switching back and forth on a nano-second by nano-second basis ... but I don't feel that when I play.  What I feel like is that I've got both things in mind at the same time.

I guess I'm in search of the justification for why the "Switching" model over anything else.  It's stated so plainly ... just "This is what happens" ... that I don't really know whether there's some further justification hidden away, or whether it's just an axiom that got thrown out and nobody ever challenged.

Well, I suppose it happened because the people who became aware of stances also noticed switching between them -- how would one notice them, except by contrast?

Rgfa had a number of people who liked to channel their worlds and characters, but who didn't always find those states easy to achieve or maintain, and they'd notice when they got cracked out of the state they wanted to be in.  Which doesn't necessarily make switching the last word on the subject, or a match for everyone's experience.  Just that it's the way it occurred to some people to describe theirs.

I notice switches, but I don't notice every possible combination of them I might see from the four-stance grouping, and I do notice one or two that never made it formally onto the list.

For instance, for me author and actor are effectively indistinguishable, and I frequently refer to the author+actor combination because of this.  I suspect it might be different if we played face to face, so that when I was in actor stance I was doing physical things in order to portraying the character to the other players, whereas when I was in author stance I was thinking about things from an OOC perspective and declaring them in words.  But since we play online we're always typing at each other, and there isn't really a stance switch for me there in practice.

I am never in gameplayer's stance in an RPG.  It's a state of mind I assume when playing other games, and there's a lot about classic RPGs that would suggest that I might assume this stance, but in practice I never do.  Apparently I can think like a gameplayer or roleplay, but not at the same time.  Other people can do both, and would find the lack of support for gaming-as-such in my campaigns a fatal flaw.  (It's really hard to think about how to support an approach I never take myself.)

I usually prefer to be as deeply IC as I can manage when playing a character, and if I'm dealing with some other aspect of the world, I want to be channelling.  I definitely notice, and do not much like, things that force me out of character stance or which break my ability to channel the world.

For example, though I have since come by ways to improve it, I used to find combat online highly unsatisfactory.  I was on dialup for a long time, playing in text-only chat, and I had a hard time visualizing or describing positions and movement without diagrams.  That I was struggling to understand things that my character could simply see was distracting enough to force me out of character stance.  I'd be conscious of a sense of disconnection from the character, and also conscious of the arbitrariness of the decisions I was having to make strictly in author stance.  The experience of combat felt unreal: I was not perceiving at all what the character would think and feel, nor could I imagine who was where in the world around him.  It was as if I'd been reading an absorbing novel and suddenly come across half a chapter with sentences so badly constructed the confusion jerked me out of the story.

An effect like this, I notice.  I'm not so likely to notice a seamless slide between differing perspectives, when that happens.  Or to start a discussion about something that never causes me any difficulty.

Quote from: KeranI'm not entirely clear on what piece of verbiage is giving you the impression that it meant otherwise, but that may be because I read the original discussions and am supplying some inobvious piece of context.  (It wouldn't be the first time that happened.)

It was this:Like the previous three stances, the Author Stance exists outside
of the in-game reality.  It is an external position from which the game
is viewed for the purpose of making decisions about its progress and its
play.... but further discussion has convinced me that I was misinterpreting.  I'm still pretty new to these definitions :(   I'm now on the same page with you in feeling that the decision that the farm-boy will rise to the occasion is clearly labelled as "Author" (whatever else it might also, simultaneously, be) ... though I think that the actual act of him rising to the occasion must occur in "IC" (again, whatever else it might be at the same time).

Quote from: TonyLBNot really, no.  How could you implement any decisions without going by way of IC stance?  Author mode is (if I understand these definitions correctly) entirely outside of the fiction of the game.  The moment you say "Brag cuts the orcs head off," whatever your motivation, you're in IC stance, aren't you?

Not as I understood or used it.  You're in IC stance if you're thinking from the character's perspective when you say it.  You could as easily have been in author, thinking from your own perspective as a player.

Quote from: TonyLBYou're ... you're asking me to frame an example where my style of play breaks down.  You get that, right?  So I've racked my mind for actual examples, but I got nothing.  I'll fictionalize something for you, then tell you how I worked it out in real life:   We're playing Tenra Bansho Zero, with pre-generated characters and a fairly straightforward walk-through of several combats.  I'm playing a young Taoist girl of high social standing and no combat skills.  Here's where it becomes totally fictional:  I feel that there is no consistent action this character can take that doesn't involve asserting her station over the lower-class fighters of the other players.  And, moreover, I can't think of a way to make that fun.  So I step entirely out of game and say "Guys, I can't have fun with this character without breaking her to pieces.  Anyone have any ideas on how to maintain her society training without totally ruining our fun?"... but in actual fact, what happened is ...   I'm playing a young Taoist girl of high social standing and no combat skills.  I immediately and unequivocally beg the indulgence of the fighters, pointing out how completely in their power my character is physically ... how dependent she is upon their support and protection.  Couched in formal language and ritual humility it was totally a natural thing for her to do.  In doing so, I draw the other players to concede, contrari-wise, that they, rough and ready brawlers that they are, are completely dependent upon me to negotiate the finer points of etiquette and ethics (a nasty and important tangle in the world we're playing in, even (we decide) when confronting ogres and demons).  We all end up with our spheres clearly defined, and I end up with my in-character attitudes and my meta-game resources and desires happily aligned, all as a natural outgrowth of selecting one possible choice that grows naturally out of the character as it was provided to me.This is how I do things.  I don't choose Author and then IC.  I don't balance one against the other.  I find the way that I can have both, in the same moment, always.

OK.  This is one of the places where rgfa thinking tends to have embedded assumptions that aren't necessarily true, and the theoretical structure can break down if they aren't.  Even if the theory itself is OK, sometimes the surrounding discussion doesn't hang together.

The embedded assumption is that the nature of the character, and the nature of the world, are fixed in advance -- that your models are complete, determinate, definite.  And if your models are complete, determinate, definite, then you must be changing them in play to make an accommodation for the other players; you must be violating their integrity, their pre-existing nature.

Or, to put it another way: there's a fairly horrible embedded assumption that Out of Character is an exact synonym for Contrary to Character; that Out of World is an exact synonym for Contrary to World.

If you have indeterminate models -- if your character really might behave either way and you have no in-world way to decide -- then of course you must make the decision as to how she actually behaves for player-world reasons.  And of course in a case like this, it's nonsense to say that either way she might behave is contrary to her character.

Rgfa theory will sometimes trip over this distinction, and explode messily when it hits the ground.

It isn't entirely clear to me whether you made this determination about how the character would behave in author stance or character.  I would tend to assign "consciously made the decision in order to make the game work better" to author and "spontaneously subconsciously created the character's attitudes" to character stance; and I don't know that they're mutually exclusive.

Quote from: TonyLBIt was this:

Code Select Expand

Like the previous three stances, the Author Stance exists outside
of the in-game reality.  It is an external position from which the game
is viewed for the purpose of making decisions about its progress and its
play.... but further discussion has convinced me that I was misinterpreting.  I'm still pretty new to these definitions :(   I'm now on the same page with you in feeling that the decision that the farm-boy will rise to the occasion is clearly labelled as "Author" (whatever else it might also, simultaneously, be) ... though I think that the actual act of him rising to the occasion must occur in "IC" (again, whatever else it might be at the same time).

Oh, I see.  That is rather ambiguous.

Can I attempt to distinguish here between an in-character subjective perspective, something happening in the fictional world, and an in-world motivation for a decision?  Any of these might be described as 'IC', and I think the ambiguity of IC might be causing some problems here.

An IC stance: I'm thinking like the character, looking through the character's eyes, imagining what it's like to be the character as well as I can.

An in-world event: It takes place in the fictional construct; it's an event in the story, not something that happened in the GM's living room.  

An in-world motivation for an in-world event: the event happened because an in-world cause made it happen, not because I was thinking it would make the game better.

If I'm playing from an in-character stance, if I'm thinking like the character, then what the character does is an in-world event, and it also has an in-world cause -- the character's attitudes and abilities.  This is IC in three senses.

If I've just ruled that an area is a prairie rather than a forest because it's in the rainshadow of the mountains, then the existence of the prairie is in-world, and so is my reason for putting a prairie there.  But I'm not thinking like any particular character when I make this decision.  This is IC in two senses.

If I say that an assassin has tried to kill the prince because I think it will make for a good plotline, then the event itself is in-world, but my motivation wasn't, and I wasn't thinking from any particular character when I made the decision, either.  This is IC in only one sense.

Rgfa thinking tended to be dominated by people who both wanted to look at the campaign world through the eyes of a character so far as they could, and who also wanted as many decisions as possible to made for in-world reasons.  So "it's in the fictional world," "the cause of it is in the fictional world," and "it's the way this character is subjectively experiencing the fictional world" are all important senses of 'IC'.  In the stance discussion, the emphasis tends to be inclusive of the character-experience sense -- if I say character stance, I usually mean, to some extent, "The way the character is seeing the world."

How well I can imagine the character's view of the world, thoughts, and feelings determines how deep the character stance is.  On the shallow end, it shades into author stance pretty imperceptibly, so far as I can tell, and I don't think you can draw a hard line between them.

Well, I think the thing I (at least) am getting hung up on in a lot of these discussions is the assumption that people make a single decision for only a single reason.

Like, you talk about saying "This area will be prairie because it's in the rainshadow of the mountains."  One could also, presumably, say something more like "This area will be prairie so that we can have rustic farming communities for the PCs to interact with ... like in Shane!"

It is certainly conceivable that you could make the decision based on only one of those elements.  That's the easiest way to think about people's motivations.  But I think it's also quite possible that you could make the decision based both elements together:  "Oh, hey ... if we have a plains farming community up ahead then it both suits where I'd like the game to go and fits with the lay of the land.  Synergy!"

The "either-or" view of things lends itself easily to thinking of the stances as distinct categories, or as extremes on a spectrum ... but I don't think that's accurate.  I think they're at least somewhat independent of each other.

Does that distinction make sense?

Quote from: TonyLBWow ... that's an interesting way to say that ... starting from the social contract, and then working your way out to behaviors, rather than vice versa.

I'd be much more comfortable saying, instead "There are things that people will let you do without a peep, and other things that will prompt discussions and maybe disagreements.  The sum of those actual boundaries is the social contract, whether it's what you've explicitly agreed to or not."  Which is sort of the same thing, but turned inside out, to put the emphasis on the actual people, where it belongs.

It's bound by the players at the table, just like everything is.

Dont' want to get too nit-picky here, Tony, but we're saying the same thing - as you say from different perspectives.  Placing the social contract at the center or wherever isn't taking the focus off of the people - you can't have a social contract without the people.

I like the way John said it - filters. Whether you start at the individual and work out, or at the social contract and move in, you're still talking about layers of constraints/filters that people apply to themselves.

Hmmm...or do they.  How much is done before anyone ever gets a chance to peep? I wonder...

EDIT: Sorry for the delay - work is really getting me...

Quote from: James J SkachDont' want to get too nit-picky here, Tony, but we're saying the same thing - as you say from different perspectives.  Placing the social contract at the center or wherever isn't taking the focus off of the people - you can't have a social contract without the people.

Okay, cool!  We're on the same page, just looking at it from different edges of the paper.  Or ... something.

Quote from: TonyLBWell, I think the thing I (at least) am getting hung up on in a lot of these discussions is the assumption that people make a single decision for only a single reason.

Like, you talk about saying "This area will be prairie because it's in the rainshadow of the mountains."  One could also, presumably, say something more like "This area will be prairie so that we can have rustic farming communities for the PCs to interact with ... like in Shane!"

It is certainly conceivable that you could make the decision based on only one of those elements.  That's the easiest way to think about people's motivations.  But I think it's also quite possible that you could make the decision based both elements together:  "Oh, hey ... if we have a plains farming community up ahead then it both suits where I'd like the game to go and fits with the lay of the land.  Synergy!"

The "either-or" view of things lends itself easily to thinking of the stances as distinct categories, or as extremes on a spectrum ... but I don't think that's accurate.  I think they're at least somewhat independent of each other.

Does that distinction make sense?

As I was writing a response, something came up in my head.

It only seems to matter - that is, groups have problems, designs aren't good, if there's a conflict amongst these things.  So..

Let's say the area west of the mountains, according to in-world (or reality based weather patterns say) lends itself to being prairie.

• You go with prairie because of in-world considerations.
• You go with prairie becuase of out-world considerations.
• Both - Synergy!

In any of these cases you only have conflict if your decision includes any one motivation that goes against the group dynamic (blech, can't think of a better word - style?) - not all or most.

Because if you went and made it desert for out-world considerations, and your group plays in-world - you've got some 'splainin to do...

At that point, you're only option is to make it prairie?

Quote from: TonyLBWell, I think the thing I (at least) am getting hung up on in a lot of these discussions is the assumption that people make a single decision for only a single reason.

Like, you talk about saying "This area will be prairie because it's in the rainshadow of the mountains."  One could also, presumably, say something more like "This area will be prairie so that we can have rustic farming communities for the PCs to interact with ... like in Shane!"

It is certainly conceivable that you could make the decision based on only one of those elements.  That's the easiest way to think about people's motivations.  But I think it's also quite possible that you could make the decision based both elements together:  "Oh, hey ... if we have a plains farming community up ahead then it both suits where I'd like the game to go and fits with the lay of the land.  Synergy!"

The "either-or" view of things lends itself easily to thinking of the stances as distinct categories, or as extremes on a spectrum ... but I don't think that's accurate.  I think they're at least somewhat independent of each other.

Does that distinction make sense?

Yes, and this is an area where rgfa theory doesn't necessarily do justice to every perspective.

I use the stance descriptions when they capture a distinction I want to make.  For instance, if I was talking to Russell Wallace about some NPCs, I might say something like, "I was playing in author and I really need to get into character.  These NPCs are important and I need to get inside their heads."  (I play better in character stance than in author, so I like to be in character stance whenever I can manage it.) -- It so happens that we did have a conversation about like this.  I didn't necessarily use the stance lingo -- I think my phrasing was closer to "I need to get IC with these people" -- but the fact that we have a common set of concepts built partly on the stance model meant that my usage of 'IC' didn't need disambiguation.  I wasn't telling him that my author-stance portrayal was contary to the characters' natures, or motivated more by dramatic concerns than a desire for in-world consistency; I was telling him that I didn't yet have a grasp of the characters complete enough to give me the most desirable subjective perspective for me to play from.

On the other hand, if I tell you I make most of my resolutions about the state of the world in author stance -- well, it's technically true, but it's sometimes a misleading oversimplification.  The actual procedure is: I channel the result if I can.  If I can't channel, then I attempt to answer the question by consciously reasoning from the things I know about the world to the things I don't.  If that doesn't give me a definitive answer either, then I might break out the dice, choose the most likely outcome, or choose whatever plausible outcome will make for the most interesting play.  (In this case, other aspects of rgfa discussion would make what I was describing reasonably clear, even if the stance categorization isn't doing much useful here.)

Nobody got dogmatic about the narrative stances that I remember, so it didn't prove too much of a problem.  (Some people did get dogmatic about the Threefold, and that did cause a problem.)

There was a certain tendency in rgfa discussion to assume either-or.  Partly, this is an artifact of definition.  If I want to make a distinction clear, I'm probably not going to get the point across if I tell you about the borderline cases where the distinction is breaking down -- if (impossibly) you had no idea what life is, I'd start out by contrasting trees and rocks, rather than by trying to definitively rule on the status of viruses.

But another effect that occurs is that, in roleplaying, some people experience an opposition between elements that others don't experience.  For them, X always varies inversely with Y: for instance, in rgfa it was common for people to find a world less believable, less compelling, less real and engaging, to the extent that they were conscious of the GM's determining what happened in it from conscious dramatic motives.  But not everyone experiences a tradeoff here, and for people who don't, a model that insists that there is one (the Threefold) can come across as either useless or sheer raving nonsense.

Now, it happens to be the case for me that if I have a character I can play in deep IC and I make this character do anything for out-of-world reasons, I am both breaking any current state of deep IC, and impairing or sometimes even destroying my ability to achieve deep IC with that character in the future.  The more pivotal the issue I'm deciding this way is, the worse this damaging effect will be.  If I want to maintain a state of deep IC, I need to refer to my subconscious model of the character, and only to that model -- not to my out-of-world desire to have a particular event happen or not happen.  So I experience a clear distinction between author and character stance here.

I don't experience it everywhere, however.  For instance, when one of the PCs in my present campaign travelled to a castle, I created a captain of the guard on the spot.  I decided that the captain of the guard should know some of the things the PC was interested in discovering both because it was more likely than not that he would know those things, and because I wanted to advance the PC's quest.  I decided that he would be willing to talk, rather than either close-mouthed or too busy, because there was no in-world reason why he shouldn't be, and because I wanted to advance the PC's quest.  My depiction of the captain started primarily in author stance, and then slid into character stance as the session went on and I gained a better sense of the captain's outlook.  I couldn't tell you at what point the character stance aspects eclipsed the author stance, and I don't see any reason not to regard the middle of the conversation as a blend.

Quote from: James J SkachAs I was writing a response, something came up in my head.

It only seems to matter - that is, groups have problems, designs aren't good, if there's a conflict amongst these things.  So..

Let's say the area west of the mountains, according to in-world (or reality based weather patterns say) lends itself to being prairie.

• You go with prairie because of in-world considerations.
• You go with prairie becuase of out-world considerations.
• Both - Synergy!

In any of these cases you only have conflict if your decision includes any one motivation that goes against the group dynamic (blech, can't think of a better word - style?) - not all or most.

Because if you went and made it desert for out-world considerations, and your group plays in-world - you've got some 'splainin to do...

At that point, you're only option is to make it prairie?

Yeah.  If I know my map is correctly drawn -- if the continent is the size I've depicted it as, if it's at the latitude I said it was, if the mountains are as high as I've said they are -- then I can't put a desert west of the mountains because there's no physical reason why it should be that dry.  It's mostly steppe and forest steppe.  And if I tried to tell the players it was a desert, Russell at least would be saying, "It can't be."

I can do things for out-of-world reasons if there isn't any in-world reason why I shouldn't.  But our tacit agreement -- 'game contract,' in rgfa jargon -- includes 'The world will be as consistent and believable as we can make it' way up there on the priority list.  Which precludes putting deserts in impossible places.

I might end up putting a desert somewhere I didn't originally expect to see one if I realized that one of my initial guesses about the geography of the continent was wrong.  Say, if I realized that it was larger than I first thought, or if there was another range of mountains disrupting other parts of the circulation pattern.  Or maybe I realize that there is a desert west of the mountains; therefore, the continent must have a geography that will yield a drier interior.  What I can't do is put a desert in a physically implausible place because I want the plot to include a jaunt through the local equivalent of the Taklamakan, or because I have designs on a scene that feels like "Ozymandias."

Hey, there.  I wrote the second FAQ which was quoted there.  However, I didn't originate the idea and don't want to be too definitive about it.  The concept started with Kevin Hardwick's post in July 1995:

 Narrative and Style  (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=Pine.ULT.3.91.950711170632.8510D-100000%40rac8.wam.umd.edu&rnum=1)

However, he doesn't give hard definitions there -- he's relying on metaphor.  The definitions were only loosely hashed out in later discussion, and both Neel and I tried to paraphrase them.  Looking back at how Neel and I each wrote this, I think Neel put a heavy emphasis on IC stance as the stance of "play itself" -- which I think more reflect his vision of play.  That might be where you get the idea that IC stance is somehow necessary to action.  

Based on how I remember rgfa usage, I would say that if you are always taking into account the character's personality as well as the meta-game or out-of-game implications, then you are squarely within rgfa Author stance.  Author stance does not imply ignoring the character's motivations.

Quote from: jhkimHey, there.  I wrote the second FAQ which was quoted there.

Yes, I know.  That's why I picked it without reading it too closely.  Do you remember why you changed the language from the first FAQ and defined Immersion the way you did?

Quote from: jhkimHowever, he doesn't give hard definitions there -- he's relying on metaphor.  The definitions were only loosely hashed out in later discussion, and both Neel and I tried to paraphrase them.  Looking back at how Neel and I each wrote this, I think Neel put a heavy emphasis on IC stance as the stance of "play itself" -- which I think more reflect his vision of play.  That might be where you get the idea that IC stance is somehow necessary to action.

Can you clarify what you were trying to say about Actor?  It really does look like it's saying two things in your FAQ.  What were you intending to convey?

Quote from: jhkimBased on how I remember rgfa usage, I would say that if you are always taking into account the character's personality as well as the meta-game or out-of-game implications, then you are squarely within rgfa Author stance.  Author stance does not imply ignoring the character's motivations.

For the most part, using or not using meta-game was probably one of the most central r.g.f.a concepts.  It was at the heart of the world-based vs.
story-based split that led to the Threefold.  But I think Tony has a point.  If we're talking about stances, I'm not sure why a decision has to be based on only one.  It seems like a player can apply the sensibilities of different stances to come up with something in the overlap and it may be worth noting all of those stances that contribute.

Quote from: John MorrowYes, I know.  That's why I picked it without reading it too closely.  Do you remember why you changed the language from the first FAQ and defined Immersion the way you did?

Neither Neel's nor my FAQ are the original source.  I didn't intentionally change the language of Neel's FAQ, but rather had a different paraphrase of the original source -- Kevin's stance discussions.  

Quote from: John MorrowCan you clarify what you were trying to say about Actor?  It really does look like it's saying two things in your FAQ.  What were you intending to convey?

Huh?  I don't see it.  As I define it, Actor Stance is focused on one thing -- consciously portraying the character as it is at the moment.  That's what I define it as in the first paragraph.  There is a negative clause in the second paragraph that clarifies that it is not concerned about character development and not about thinking as the character, but that's just reinforcing what is said in the first part.  It is rather arbitrary, in my opinion, but fairly clear.  

Going back, I can see that Tony has injected this claim:

Quote from: TonyLBYeah ... the two FAQs are inconsistent.  In fact, I'm not at all sure that each FAQ is not slightly inconsistent within itself, between the Actor description as it references the "In-Character" description and the In-Character description itself.

I'm seeing at least two different distinctions being drawn:

• Actor is about portraying the character, not about deciding what the character is, whereas IC is about deciding what the character is and does, regardless of how it is portrayed.
  
• Actor is about playing a character (including both portrayal and decisions) with conscious recognition of out-of-game elements, whereas IC is about playing the character (both portrayal and decisions) while not consciously referring to any out-of-game elements.

I don't see where this second claim comes in.  

Actor is about conscious portrayal of character to the other players.  This is inherently an out-of-game focus, since it is about communicating to the other players (who are out-of-game entities, after all).  There will be decisions involved in portrayal, and they'll be made on the basis of communicating what the character is.  

Quote from: John MorrowBut I think Tony has a point.  If we're talking about stances, I'm not sure why a decision has to be based on only one.  It seems like a player can apply the sensibilities of different stances to come up with something in the overlap and it may be worth noting all of those stances that contribute.

Well, you can't mix Author and In-Character stances this way, at least.  If you're using out-of-game information in your decision, then it's pure Author Stance.  I can see blending Actor and Author stance, though, as they are defined.

Quote from: TonyLBAm I missing something?

I think Keran is doing a better job of explaining the model than I am. :(

Quote from: TonyLBYou're ... you're asking me to frame an example where my style of play breaks down.  You get that, right?    So I've racked my mind for actual examples, but I got nothing.

Yes, because I thought that would illustrate something.  But since you're having trouble coming up with a real example, I'm going to work with your real example and try to explain what I'm looking for to see if you can find it.

Quote from: TonyLBI'm playing a young Taoist girl of high social standing and no combat skills.  I immediately and unequivocally beg the indulgence of the fighters, pointing out how completely in their power my character is physically ... how dependent she is upon their support and protection.  Couched in formal language and ritual humility it was totally a natural thing for her to do.  In doing so, I draw the other players to concede, contrari-wise, that they, rough and ready brawlers that they are, are completely dependent upon me to negotiate the finer points of etiquette and ethics (a nasty and important tangle in the world we're playing in, even (we decide) when confronting ogres and demons).  We all end up with our spheres clearly defined, and I end up with my in-character attitudes and my meta-game resources and desires happily aligned, all as a natural outgrowth of selecting one possible choice that grows naturally out of the character as it was provided to me.

The issue I'm trying to get two is how and when you filter all of the possibilities down to the option you selected.  Yes, they were based on both "What's fun?" (Author) and "What makes sense in character?" (IC) but how does does each contribute to the winnowing that leaves you with a decision that's both fun and IC?  For example, did you flip through a bunch of ways your character could behave in your head and select which one was fun (e.g., role differentiation) over ones that were not fun (e.g., being arrogant and obnoxious)?  Did you flip through fun ways your character might behave and then pick the one that best matched the character?  Which filter do you start with and which has the final say or do you really do both at once without being able to seperate them, coming up with a list of things that are both appropriate and in character from the get go, without any conscious choosing things on those grounds?

Quote from: TonyLBThis is how I do things.  I don't choose Author and then IC.  I don't balance one against the other.  I find the way that I can have both, in the same moment, always.

I plan on touching on the opposition in the model in another reply, but that's not exactly what I'm looking for.  I don't think you are playing Author against IC.  I think you are using both to create an intersection set to choose an option.

Let me see if I can illustrate with an example that will probably make more sense if you've done any programming but hopefully will make sense to you even if you haven't (it's essentially a "bit mask").  What's illustrated below is technically a mask and not a filter but see if it makes any sense:

Suppose you the list of all possible things any character might do in a given
situation looks like this (list abbreviated to 16 possibilities):

All Options:   A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P

Of all possible things that any character could do, there is a smaller list of
things that your character might do:

Character:     A     D E F       J K L       P

Of all possible things that any character could do, there is a smaller list of
things that would be fun:

Fun:           A B C         H I   K       O

So things that are both fun and in character are:

Fun and IC:    A                   K          

Of those two, K is more fun than A so you choose K.  You can also get the
same intersection set by selecting the Fun options first:

Fun:           A B C         H I   K       O

...and then selecting what makes sense for the character...

Character:     A     D E F       J K L       P

...giving the same....

Fun and IC:    A                   K        

Clearly, you get yourself to the set of options that are Fun and IC.  My question is do you start with the character filter or the fun filter or do you jump right to the set of things that are both Fun and IC without any distinct choices that get you there?

One last mostly unrelated thing I want to add.  The application of the "Fun" filter to In Character choices leaves a noticeable pattern behind.  Using my example above:

If I filter all options with both character and fun (Author mode), I get:

All Options:   A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P
Character:     A     D E F       J K L       P
Fun:           A B C         H I   K       O
Final Set:     A                   K          

If I apply only the character filter, I get:

All Options:   A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P
Character:     A     D E F       J K L       P
Final Set:     A     D E F       J K L       P

If I use the character and fun set to reverse mask (or true filter) the
character only set:

Character:     A     D E F       J K L       P
Fun and IC:    A                   K    
Final Set:           D E F       J   L       P

...you'll get the options that will never be chosen if the fun filter is also
applied.

What I'm trying to point out here is that a player who applies a meta-game filter like fun will never have their character do certain things (those things that aren't fun).  In short games, that's difficult to notice.  In very long games, it can become difficult not to notice.

It's as if you chose never to type the letters a, f, m, n, q, and w while writing.  If you write a single word, I'm not likely to notice the absence.  If you type pages of text, it becomes much easier to notice the absence, especially if you have to stretch at all to avoid using a word with one of those letters.  

Similarly, if you play a character that never does anything that's not fun, even when unfun choices seem possible, it can become possible to notice the meta-game filter that's being applied.  And, yes, it's possible to create a character where the differences between the character filter and the fun filter is very small but for other characters, the filtering can be a lot more noticeable, at least in my experience.

Quote from: jhkimNeither Neel's nor my FAQ are the original source.  I didn't intentionally change the language of Neel's FAQ, but rather had a different paraphrase of the original source -- Kevin's stance discussions.

Neel's FAQ says, "This section was written by Sarah Kahn," one of the two people he credits for the developed model.  Just curious why you reworded it, since it seemed pretty clear.  I guess the obvious answer was that you were trying to clarify it.

Quote from: jhkimHuh?  I don't see it.  As I define it, Actor Stance is focused on one thing -- consciously portraying the character as it is at the moment.  That's what I define it as in the first paragraph.  There is a negative clause in the second paragraph that clarifies that it is not concerned about character development and not about thinking as the character, but that's just reinforcing what is said in the first part.  It is rather arbitrary, in my opinion, but fairly clear.

I can see why it looks clear to you.  The problem isn't the negative clause in the second paragraph but the positive counterpoint that says it invovles "trying to portray the character as defined"  and the example, "Michael has a weakness for women, so I'll say pick-up lines to this NPC."  The example looks pretty IC to me because the motive for tossing pick-up lines to the NPC comes from the character's weakness for women.  I guess that's not what you intended but I honestly though it was confusing, too.

Quote from: jhkimWell, you can't mix Author and In-Character stances this way, at least.  If you're using out-of-game information in your decision, then it's pure Author Stance.  I can see blending Actor and Author stance, though, as they are defined.

I think you are correct that this is how r.g.f.a would conventionally interpret the decisions, and I think Keran did a pretty good job of explaining why.  But I think Tony has a point.  It looks like rec.games.frp.advocacy (to which we both contributed) was practicing a "one drop" style assessment where "one drop" of meta-game makes an entire decision meta-game.  While that's a useful analysis from an Immersive and GDS Simulationist perspective (I make a similar point at the end of my filter/mask post before this one), it's not necessarily a fair assessment and capturing all of the decision layers (as Tony seems to want to do) might be more useful.

Quote from: John MorrowI can see why it looks clear to you.  The problem isn't the negative clause in the second paragraph but the positive counterpoint that says it invovles "trying to portray the character as defined"  and the example, "Michael has a weakness for women, so I'll say pick-up lines to this NPC."  The example looks pretty IC to me because the motive for tossing pick-up lines to the NPC comes from the character's weakness for women.  I guess that's not what you intended but I honestly though it was confusing, too.

Well, 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.

If I said something like "Michael has a weakness for women, so I'll say pick-up lines to this NPC," I'd most likely be describing "Keran thinking about Michael" rather than "Michael thinking about the woman."

I find there's some awkwardness in writing examples of stances.  I can only describe the character's reactions in words, even when the reactions are partly or completely nonverbal.  That can make it difficult to distinguish between "Keran thinking about the character" and "Keran being the character."  Sometimes using first person for the latter conveys the idea successfully.   But sometimes it gives people the idea that we're talking about which part of speech one uses to roleplay (which we aren't), or that we're saying that the use of first person is necessary to character identification, or indicative of it (which isn't so either).  I don't know a perfectly reliable way to depict the distinction.

QuoteI think you are correct that this is how r.g.f.a would conventionally interpret the decisions, and I think Keran did a pretty good job of explaining why. But I think Tony has a point. It looks like rec.games.frp.advocacy (to which we both contributed) was practicing a "one drop" style assessment where "one drop" of meta-game makes an entire decision meta-game. While that's a useful analysis from an Immersive and GDS Simulationist perspective (I make a similar point at the end of my filter/mask post before this one), it's not necessarily a fair assessment and capturing all of the decision layers (as Tony seems to want to do) might be more useful.

I think so too, and some of my latter-day criticism of the Threefold involved similar ideas.  I didn't do a particularly good job of getting my point across, though.

Quote from: KeranThat can make it difficult to distinguish between "Keran thinking about the character" and "Keran being the character."  Sometimes using first person for the latter conveys the idea successfully.

I 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.

Quote from: KeranI think so too, and some of my latter-day criticism of the Threefold involved similar ideas.  I didn't do a particularly good job of getting my point across, though.

I 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.

I like the mask & filter terminology. I think it does communicate the way that multiple motives can contribute to decisions, and also how they can skew decisions over time even when an atomic analysis is ambiguous.

E.g. you can do the same for the old issue of Simulationist vs. Dramatist. If I'm not mistaken, the old method of conceptualizing an aggegate "profile" of a person's preference, on a triangular graph, was only to look at situations where two or more of GDS conflicted, and count how many times each one won out. This led to problems with people who claimed that they always managed to make decisions that were both plausible and dramatic. The mask/filter concept helps in differentiating these preferences.

Quote from: Elliot WilenI like the mask & filter terminology. I think it does communicate the way that multiple motives can contribute to decisions, and also how they can skew decisions over time even when an atomic analysis is ambiguous.

I also think it can be used to talk about which mask/filter gets applied first or whether they are combined before being applied, which is what I'm really trying to figure out with Tony.  Clearly he combines multiple criteria but I'm curious how that works inside of his head.

Quote from: Elliot WilenE.g. you can do the same for the old issue of Simulationist vs. Dramatist. If I'm not mistaken, the old method of conceptualizing an aggegate "profile" of a person's preference, on a triangular graph, was only to look at situations where two or more of GDS conflicted, and count how many times each one won out. This led to problems with people who claimed that they always managed to make decisions that were both plausible and dramatic. The mask/filter concept helps in differentiating these preferences.

Correct.  The pattern created is what's not chosen, even if every choice is, in isolation, entirely plausible.

Quote from: John MorrowWhich filter do you start with and which has the final say or do you really do both at once without being able to seperate them, coming up with a list of things that are both appropriate and in character from the get go, without any conscious choosing things on those grounds?

I really do both at once.

This kind of combination isn't at all rare in human thinking, IME.  I'll use an example (even knowing that maybe the example will fall flat, and fail to communicate, if we think differently enough):

Suppose I ask you to think of animals whose names start with the letter "E".

Do you take a bunch of words:

Apple   Goat   Ecru   Elephant   Zither   Emu    Pizza   Elastic   Cheetah

And first filter these words to find the ones that start with E:

               Ecru   Elephant            Emu            Elastic

... then filter those words to find the ones that are animals:

                      Elephant            Emu

OR do you first filter the words to find the ones that are animals:

        Goat          Elephant            Emu                      Cheetah

... then filter those words to find the ones that start with E:

                      Elephant            EmuMy experience, personally, is that I don't do either of those.  I just think of animals that start with the letter "E".  Elephant, emu, echidna, eel ... does 'equine' count?  If I bothered to think about cheetahs and tree frogs and cobras it would take me forever to answer that question.  Likewise, if I were discarding words like elegant, estuary and eiderdown I would be much slower on the uptake.

This stuff happens all the time.  If you ask yourself "Do I have any friends in Baltimore I could stay with when I'm there?" you don't start by saying "Let me consider the set of all objects ... of those, which are people ... which of these people do I know ... which of these acquaintances are friends ... which of these friends live in Baltimore?"  You just think whether you have any friends living in Baltimore.

Quote from: TonyLBI really do both at once.

This kind of combination isn't at all rare in human thinking, IME.

I believe you.

Quote from: TonyLBSuppose I ask you to think of animals whose names start with the letter "E".  Do you take a bunch of words [a]nd first filter these words to find the ones that start with E [...] then filter those words to find the ones that are animals [...] OR do you first filter the words to find the ones that are animals [...] then filter those words to find the ones that start with E[?]

In reality the first filter creates the starting list.  In practice, I think of animals first (to reduce the set of starting words down to a manageable size) and then filter out those that begin with "E".  

How do I know this?  Because the starting set is much likely to include "Elephant" than "Elk" and much more likely to include those than "Ermine" (because it's not an animal I normally think about), "Eagle" and "Emu" (beause I tend to think of them as "birds", not "animals", even though they are both), Eel (think of those as "fish", even if that's not entirely accurate), and I won't think of Echidna (no clue what that is).  In reality, the first slice is animals that pop readily to mind.  I can also get a glimpse of the animals that I'm excluding ("No, doesn't begin with 'E'...") in my thoughts.  That's part of the reason why I asked about options that don't fit for your character.  I notice my own selection process by way of how I exclude things when the pop up to at least a semi-conscious level.  I can often observe evidence myself doing it, even if it happens very fast and seems to get muddled together at other times.

ADDED:  In some ways, the process is more like, "Dredge up a bunch of animal names.  Any 'E's?  No?  Dredge another batch of animals out of memory and check for 'E's."  Repeat as needed.  If the letter is something like "Q", I might dredge up and discard a few batches before I find something that fits.

Quote from: TonyLBMy experience, personally, is that I don't do either of those.  I just think of animals that start with the letter "E".  Elephant, emu, echidna, eel ... does 'equine' count?  If I bothered to think about cheetahs and tree frogs and cobras it would take me forever to answer that question.

You don't have to do all of that at the conscious level, and often animals happen so fast that it's difficult to observe.  Have you ever played the game "Categories" or "Super Categories"?  In the later, you take a piece of lined paper and write the latters from A-Z down the side, draw about 4-5 lines down the page to create columns, and then write a category at the top of each column (e.g., "Car Models", "Countries", "Historical Figures", etc.).  Each player then spends an agreed upon time (30 minutes, an hour, etc.) and tries to fill in as many words for each letter in each category as possible.  When you score, you get 5 points for an original word and 2 or 3 points for a word someone else has.

It's often easy to fill in a lot of the letters for each category but much harder to fill in certain letters when examples don't pop readily to mind because they are obscure or uncommon, don't sound like they start with that letter, or are very specific rather than general.  It's even more difficult if you want to try to be original.  The letters Q, X, and Z are almost always a problem, but other letters can be for certain categories, too.  

In my experience, if the category is "Car Models", for example, I'll start with the popular stuff.  Corvette, Camry, Taurus, etc. but it will take a lot more thought to come up with stuff like Rambler, Elise, Cobra, etc.  And as that process slows down, I can observe myself dredging cars up from my memory looking for a fit for a particular letter and going, "No", "No", "No", "Yes!"

Maybe your experience really is different (people do think differently), but are there any cases where your thinking of a match slows down enough where you can actually see what you are doing like that?

If you want to try this to see how you do it, and think that filling in all of the letters changes how you are matching items with a letter, you can also play just regular "Categories".  In regular categories, you write a word vertically down the side of the page and match the letters of that word, not the whole Alphabet, thus creating a true second filter.

Quote from: TonyLBLikewise, if I were discarding words like elegant, estuary and eiderdown I would be much slower on the uptake.

I don't think anyone starts that way because the starting set of words is simply too large.  I simply offered it as a possible option.

Quote from: TonyLBThis stuff happens all the time.  If you ask yourself "Do I have any friends in Baltimore I could stay with when I'm there?" you don't start by saying "Let me consider the set of all objects ... of those, which are people ... which of these people do I know ... which of these acquaintances are friends ... which of these friends live in Baltimore?"  You just think whether you have any friends living in Baltimore.

Yeah, actually I can see myself doing that.  I can see myself picturing friends, applying the Baltimore filter and then a near Baltimore filter, and then applying the "Can I stay with them?" filter.  And I can see myself finalizing that decision by looking at how much I'd like to stay with them and how close they are to Baltimore.

For me, I can see how I'm narrowing things down.  I'm not saying that you have to do the same thing, but you are doing some sort of filtering in your subconscious, then, and I'm curious if you get any glimpses of how you do it.

Quote from: John MorrowI'm not saying that you have to do the same thing, but you are doing some sort of filtering in your subconscious, then, and I'm curious if you get any glimpses of how you do it.

John ... I think that you've become very attached to your model, and that now you are interpreting all evidence in terms of that model.

Is there any piece of evidence that I could possibly present that would convince you that I actually do know how my mind is operating in this regard, and that it is not operating in the sequential-filter mode that you propose?

Or is this just going to be one of those cases where you say "I know what must be happening, my theory tells me so, so if you observe something different then you must be wrong."  'cuz I don't find those discussions terribly productive, so if that's where we'll going I'll just bow out now.

Quote from: TonyLBJohn ... I think that you've become very attached to your model, and that now you are interpreting all evidence in terms of that model.

Perhaps.  But somewhere in your brain, you are coming up with answers that fit multiple criteria.  That suggests that somewhere in your brain, perhaps in your subconscious, you are applying those criteria or using them in some other way to produce an answer that fits.  If your brain wasn't considering the criteria at all, I can't imagine how your brain would produce answers that just happen to fit the criteria, can you?  Is it possible to name an animal that begins with "E" without considering "animal" and "E" somewhere in the process?  Does that make any sense to you?

Also, the basic model doesn't require the filters to be sequential.  It simply requires that the player be selecting choices based on criteria.  It also allows for the filters to be combined before being applied, which is fine, too.  I'm trying to figure out what you actually do.

Quote from: TonyLBIs there any piece of evidence that I could possibly present that would convince you that I actually do know how my mind is operating in this regard, and that it is not operating in the sequential-filter mode that you propose?

I'm not saying that you have to operate in the sequential-filter mode.  I'm explaining how I know that I do and I'm asking if you've really checked if you do.  You may know how your mind works but a lot of people don't.  I don't know until I ask and can't understand what you do until you explain it in more detail.  "I just get an answer that fits both simultaneously" doesn't tell me how you get that answer.  If it's a subconscious process, that's fine but then something is going on in your subconscious to produce the answer.  If there is more to it than that and you've said so, I've missed ot or blocked it out.

Quote from: TonyLBOr is this just going to be one of those cases where you say "I know what must be happening, my theory tells me so, so if you observe something different then you must be wrong."  'cuz I don't find those discussions terribly productive, so if that's where we'll going I'll just bow out now.

Not at all.  I'd be just as happy if you explained to me how you do something very different.

Quote from: John MorrowAlso, the basic model doesn't require the filters to be sequential.  It simply requires that the player be selecting choices based on criteria.  It also allows for the filters to be combined before being applied, which is fine, too.  I'm trying to figure out what you actually do.

But 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.  

What 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?

I think that applying that style of analysis at that level makes assumptions about the structure of what you're analyzing.  Asking 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.

Likewise, 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?

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 :D

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 :D

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.

Quote from: jhkimNeither 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.

QFT

It's why, to me, the first question is really to the person trying to create the category.  What is it you're trying to distinguish? And again, if you're going by how people "direct" their characters - that is, what are their motivations for determining how their characters act/speak - what are the possible options?

• Actor - do players decide what their characters are going to do/say based on how they want to portray it to the group? I'd love an example.  I understand they may affect a certain performance once they decide, but does that influence the actual decision?  I mean "Oh I know, I want to act mad, so my character will be mad now." Is that motivation used?
  
• Audience - ummm...see above.
• Author - now we're getting down to it - you use information not available to your character when deciding what your character does/says.
• IC - you make decisions based on what your character knows/sees.

What others exist?

Quote from: jhkimFirst 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.

Yeah, I didn't mean to use it as a category, per se.  More of a generalization. The whole list was meant to be kind of top line things to be added to and then broken down into details.

Having said that, and having been just about to further the explanation, I find that fun is so different to so many people, you're right - ace it. If you ask someone why they make their character do X, and they say "Because it's fun for me," you haven't dug deep enough yet.

Quote from: James J SkachTony - 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.

I didn't take offense ... sorry if I came across that way.  I think you're right that the metaphors that people learn about how processes are organized have a way of informing the way they see processes later.  I've done standard programming, but I've also done neural nets and distributed computing, and quite a bit of work with relational databases.  With that kind of confused muddle, I don't really have any one metaphor that leaps up and demands attention ... it's always a clamoring chorus. :D

Quote from: John MorrowCorrect.  Is that what you think is going on inside of your brain?

I think that current models of cognition and computing probably, at best, approximate the actual workings of the brain as well as a map scrawled in crayon can approximate a real world territory.  If I had to make my particular scrawl, I would make a guess for this process (what I've heard referred to as "abductive reasoning") would look like multiple distributed agents all vying for attention from each other and from other higher level agents.  Even what we think of as static data (memories) probably have agency ... that's why memories can ambush us in association with other things.

But man alive, we've tangented off of the original subject, right?

I think what I started out trying to say was that positive categories ("If you're considering meta-game concerns and creating fiction then you're in Author stance") are more useful to me than negative categories ("If you're not thinking about anything outside of your character's viewpoint then you're in IC stance").  

Basically, I can lay claim to a whole bunch of positive things ... like a little check-list ... "Yeah, I'm usually doing that ... and that ... oh, not that though! ... but I do that ..."  By comparison, I can't see myself in any of the negative things:  "Well, no ... I guess I'm thinking about A, so I'm not in mode X ... but I'm also thinking about B, so I'm not in mode Y.  Sheesh!  I'm not in any of these modes!"

Given 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!"

Quote from: TonyLBIt'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 don't consider it impossible to break this sort of holistic process down into individual pieces.  In my experience, it simply isn't impossible.  I can look into my subconscious black box and at least get clues to what I'm doing.  And I think this is often vary useful to be able to do.  

Why?

Because so long as it's a holistic process, you can't explain it to me and if I don't just get it, I'm not going to understand it.  And because I don't understand how you think when you role-play, it would be very difficult for me to understand what techniques might or might not work for you.

For example, years ago, on r.g.f.a, a lot of the diceless advocates explained that they just decide what happens next.  While it's very possible that they "just decide", I can't do that.  As I mentioned elsewhere, that's such a problem for me that I roll dice to decide things, but it might be useful if I could understand how other people do it.  Maybe I could learn something from it.  But I never did because it never got beyond "just decide" or "just pick what's fun", which didn't really tell me anything.

Quote from: TonyLBI 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.

Yeah, I know that.  I touch type.  I run.  I can talk.  I do all sorts of things holistically, too.  I even understand that pressing a cord can become a trained atomic instruction.  But that doesn't mean it doesn't have components working inside.  Now let me give you some examples of what I mean.

First, you had to be taught to play the piano (just as I had to be taught to touch type).  That means that somebody or a book was able to explain to you how to position your fingers and move your hand to play a certain cord.  Maybe they even taught you a trick or two about how to keep your hand in the right position or know where it is on the keyboard.  You probably don't even think about that today but what you do automatically now still reflects what did deliberately then.  If I ask you to tell me how to play a certain cord, I suspect you can tell me which fingers have to be applied to certain keys in order to do so.  If nobody took the time to break playing the piano down into pieces that could be explained to others, it would be very difficult for people to learn how to play.  They'd all have to teach themselves through trial and error.

Now, you are hung up on the fact that I was asking which happens first.  Clearly, you normally move everything at once, and that's fine.  Moving one finger before the other isn't part of playing a cord properly.  It was an artifact of having to think about what you were doing.  And that brings me to the next point.

In my experience, you can learn a great deal about what you do automatically by observing what happens when automatic doesn't work.  I learned a lot about how I drive while driving on the other side of the road in Australia.  I learn a great deal about how I type when I type on a keyboard that's too small.  I learn a great deal about how I create phonemes with my mouth when I try to speak another language.  

For example, when I had trouble making turns while driving on the other side of the road, I realized that the way I take a turn is to identify where I want the car to wind up and then aim for that spot.  Thus to make turns and wind up in the proper lane, I had to carefully think to make sure the lane I was going to wind up in was the right one.  When I type on too small of a keyboard, I can tell by how I miss the keys on a small keyboard how I'm positioning my hands on the keyboard, and I can tell from trying to speak Japanese that I create certain phonemes in a certain way.

For example, I had a Chinese co-worker who was having the stereotypical "L" problem.  She couldn't say, for example, "Al".  I spent a few minutes with her and thought about how I make an "L" and asked her about (and looked at) how she made an "L" and I realized that she was making what sounded like the same sound with a totally different tongue position.  Once I told her where to put her tongue for an American "L", she could pronounce things she couldn't pronounce before.  

Normally, nobody thinks about how they make sounds with their mouth when they think (Peanuts had a classic strip where Linus freaks Lucy out by asking her if she knows where her tongue is).  I could have said, "I just say 'L'" and left it at that.  But then we wouldn't have learned anything about why she couldn't say something I could easily say.  Instead, I slowed down my speech, thought about what my tongue was doing, and then I could explain it to her, so that she could try doing the same thing.  Similarly, I had to get her to explain to me what she was doing.

My point here is that if you can't explain what you are doing in any more detail, there is only so much I can understand about what you are doing.  It's not only a black box to you but it's a black box to me.  Maybe that's where we have to leave it.  But I don't like to start there.

Quote from: TonyLBHuman 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.

I 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.

Quote from: TonyLBIf I had to make my particular scrawl, I would make a guess for this process (what I've heard referred to as "abductive reasoning") would look like multiple distributed agents all vying for attention from each other and from other higher level agents.  Even what we think of as static data (memories) probably have agency ... that's why memories can ambush us in association with other things.

That fairly closely matches how I think of things.  It also seems to match what scans of brains while people think show (thoughts and feelings that compete for control).  

Quote from: TonyLBBut man alive, we've tangented off of the original subject, right?

No really.  It all comes down to how people think about what they are doing when they role-play.  We are just going to a much deeper level.

Quote from: TonyLBI think what I started out trying to say was that positive categories ("If you're considering meta-game concerns and creating fiction then you're in Author stance") are more useful to me than negative categories ("If you're not thinking about anything outside of your character's viewpoint then you're in IC stance").

OK.  Then you should probably reframe the filter/mask to be another metaphor, then, because it's really all a way to describe set theory and finding a single set or the intersection between two or more sets.  Think of them as possibilities, perhaps.

Quote from: TonyLBBasically, I can lay claim to a whole bunch of positive things ... like a little check-list ... "Yeah, I'm usually doing that ... and that ... oh, not that though! ... but I do that ..."  By comparison, I can't see myself in any of the negative things:  "Well, no ... I guess I'm thinking about A, so I'm not in mode X ... but I'm also thinking about B, so I'm not in mode Y.  Sheesh!  I'm not in any of these modes!"

Maybe you should try describing the various perspectives and interests as independent agents, much as you described the mind working.

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!"

Well, that goes back to the core debate of r.g.f.a.  Just as the bias on The Forge was toward Narrativism, the bias on r.g.f.a was toward deeply in character play.  But also bear in mind that if you are considering the character and what they are thinking, you are including the IC element in your role-playing.

Quote from: John MorrowFirst, you had to be taught to play the piano (just as I had to be taught to touch type).  That means that somebody or a book was able to explain to you how to position your fingers and move your hand to play a certain cord.  Maybe they even taught you a trick or two about how to keep your hand in the right position or know where it is on the keyboard.  You probably don't even think about that today but what you do automatically now still reflects what did deliberately then.  If I ask you to tell me how to play a certain cord, I suspect you can tell me which fingers have to be applied to certain keys in order to do so.  If nobody took the time to break playing the piano down into pieces that could be explained to others, it would be very difficult for people to learn how to play.  They'd all have to teach themselves through trial and error.

But the skills of playing the piano are not the same as the teaching tools.  The teaching tools ("Put this finger here, then this finger here ... good!") may help somebody to get to the point where they can learn the actual holistic skill ... but that doesn't mean that the skill is the same as the teaching tools all put together.  It's not.

If I wanted to give you the opportunity to learn the way I think, I would probably give recommendations like this:

• List the patterns that your character naturally makes in the story.  What sort of effects can you easily achieve using him?  "Blag can start an argument any time he wants!  He's that annoying!"
• List the patterns in the story that lead to things that you like.  What elements of story make the game fun for you?  "I love the skulking ... sneaking through the corridors of a greater force really gives me a sense that my hero is sticking up for the little guy everywhere ... the guys that can't afford to just fight out in the open."
• Circle every element that appears in both columns.  Those are the tools you have to play with.
• Change the character a little bit, and repeat the exercise.  Do you have more tools now, or less?
  
• Change your goals a little bit, and repeat the exercise.  Do you have more tools now, or less?

This might well help you to get closer to the way I think about games.  But it's not what I do.  It's just a convenient exercise that I suspect might get a person into the head-space where they could figure out for themselves the way that all of those factors juggle together and bounce off of each other.

My piano teacher taught me by pointing out where each finger goes, one by one ... but that's not what a pianist does.  It's just an exercise that gets you to the place where you can learn what a pianist does for yourself.

Quote from: John MorrowWell, that goes back to the core debate of r.g.f.a.  Just as the bias on The Forge was toward Narrativism, the bias on r.g.f.a was toward deeply in character play.  But also bear in mind that if you are considering the character and what they are thinking, you are including the IC element in your role-playing.

And I'd be fine, see, if the IC definitions were strictly positive like that.  If I could say "Yes, I am considering my character, and therefore I am IC (as well as Actor and Author and Audience) in this moment," then I wouldn't have any motive to grouse if they wanted to say that IC was essential to satisfying roleplay, ethical behavior and sexual attractiveness.  'Cuz look!  I've got what it takes!

But when it's defined by a negative, like "This is the stance of the *character,* not the player, and it encompasses only those things seen from the character's point of view" then they're saying that my melange of different motivations means I'm not IC, and I don't get all the good stuff.

Quote from: TonyLBAnd I'd be fine, see, if the IC definitions were strictly positive like that.  If I could say "Yes, I am considering my character, and therefore I am IC (as well as Actor and Author and Audience) in this moment," then I wouldn't have any motive to grouse if they wanted to say that IC was essential to satisfying roleplay, ethical behavior and sexual attractiveness.  'Cuz look!  I've got what it takes!

But when it's defined by a negative, like "This is the stance of the *character,* not the player, and it encompasses only those things seen from the character's point of view" then they're saying that my melange of different motivations means I'm not IC, and I don't get all the good stuff.

That's only if the define or you interpret IC as the only way to get the good stuff. And anyone who comes at it like that is bond to piss somebody off...

Please note in the other thread (you know which one ;) ) Player and Character make no judgements on which includes or excludes the good stuff.

Quote from: TonyLBBut the skills of playing the piano are not the same as the teaching tools.  The teaching tools ("Put this finger here, then this finger here ... good!") may help somebody to get to the point where they can learn the actual holistic skill ... but that doesn't mean that the skill is the same as the teaching tools all put together.  It's not.

No, it's not exactly the same, but you can learn a lot about the one from the other, so maybe we can try working with the teaching tools.

Quote from: TonyLBIf I wanted to give you the opportunity to learn the way I think, I would probably give recommendations like this:

• List the patterns that your character naturally makes in the story.  What sort of effects can you easily achieve using him?  "Blag can start an argument any time he wants!  He's that annoying!"
• List the patterns in the story that lead to things that you like.  What elements of story make the game fun for you?  "I love the skulking ... sneaking through the corridors of a greater force really gives me a sense that my hero is sticking up for the little guy everywhere ... the guys that can't afford to just fight out in the open."
• Circle every element that appears in both columns.  Those are the tools you have to play with.
• Change the character a little bit, and repeat the exercise.  Do you have more tools now, or less?
  
• Change your goals a little bit, and repeat the exercise.  Do you have more tools now, or less?

This might well help you to get closer to the way I think about games.  But it's not what I do.  It's just a convenient exercise that I suspect might get a person into the head-space where they could figure out for themselves the way that all of those factors juggle together and bounce off of each other.

And that's a fine explanation and pretty much what I'm looking for, even with the caveat that it's only a pointer toward what you do.  Thanks.  And by defining what your concerns are and how someone might use them to produce the sorts of results you produce holistically, you've at least provided some foundation from which those elements could be discussed.

And this goes back to core concerns that you identified earlier -- playing true to character and making for a fun story.  I'm not going to dig to deeply past that, since you've said that it's not really what you do.  But I do have two other questions.  What's the duration of most of the games you play (hours, sessions, years)?  

Quote from: TonyLBMy piano teacher taught me by pointing out where each finger goes, one by one ... but that's not what a pianist does.  It's just an exercise that gets you to the place where you can learn what a pianist does for yourself.

What's between putting your your fingers where they belong one by one to doing like a real pianist?  How do you transition from the one to the other and what are some of the signs of transition?

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.

I 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.

Caring 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.  (There's no point in inventing new terminology if we're just renaming a distinction that existing terminology already covers -- that'd be pure obfuscation.)

Now 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 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).

I would regard using 'author' as fundamentally synonymous with "someone who creates a character, or someone who depicts a character behaving in a manner contrary to the character's nature, but not someone who shows a character behaving according to their nature" as a bad practice. Um, in the sense that I couldn't be persuaded to use the word that way at gunpoint. Because that's not what I do what I'm writing fiction -- I don't find it a useful concept of authorship -- and I'm highly allergic to using words to discuss RPGs in a fashion substantially opposed to their meanings in other fictional contexts.

Seems to me these two stance threads should be merged and the terms worked out from the ground up. If you think it's worth the trouble.

Quote from: TonyLBBut when it's defined by a negative, like "This is the stance of the *character,* not the player, and it encompasses only those things seen from the character's point of view" then they're saying that my melange of different motivations means I'm not IC, and I don't get all the good stuff.

The assumption is that meta-game concerns will conflict with in character concerns.  You don't experience that within your holistic process so it doesn't mean much to you, but it does matter to people who make conscious trade-offs.  

For example, in the recent role-playing heavy D&D game I was in, my character was an anti-Elf bigot (the elves in the setting essentially controlled the magic).  One of the other PCs was working for the elves. If, as you put it in your other reply, the pattern my character would have naturally made in the story was left to run it's course without meta-game intervention, it would have been a real short game.  So I purposely decided that my character intuitively liked and trusted the other PC and was going to be dense about noticing that she was a Druid (and worked for the elves).  Thus I use the "fun" meta-game concern to nudge the default (for me) In Character thinking toward something story-friendly though still In Character.  

That worked reasonably well for most of the campaign until it was no longer reasonable for my character to not notice she was a Druid (she was casting more often as her level went up), so felt I had to allow the character to notice.  That still wasn't a total disaster because he liked the other PC enough to cut her some slack.  But then the party found some elven ruins that played right into his bigotry and it became clear that two powerful groups of elves were going to show up to assert control over the situation.  During a pivotal meeting, even the other PC couldn't assure my character that the elves wouldn't just kill everyone to hush up the ruins that they found.

At that point, I could no longer overlook my character's attitudes toward the elves or the indifference of the other PCs toward what (from his perspective) looked like resignation to die at the hands of elves.  So at that point, the In Character perspective asserted itself over playing nice with the party and my character deserted and went over to a hostile neighboring group that he felt might actually do something to stop the elves from swooping in and covering things up.

So basically, for me, there were points in that campaign were there was clear tension between what the character would do (what you called the pattern my character naturally make in the story) and story, game, and social concerns (party cohesion).  To a point, I could use the "fun" concerns to nudge my character down the narrow yet plausible path that would maintain party cohesion but near the end, there was no intersection between what the character would do and keeping the PCs together.  

For 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.

But what that means, with respect to this model, is that it's designed to identify and help deal with issues that you don't deal with and problems you don't have.  You don't experience these stances, filters, masks, or whatever you want to call them as discreet things that you choose between consciously.  So perhaps this model just doesn't have much useful to say to you because you don't need it.

Quote from: John MorrowWhat's the duration of most of the games you play (hours, sessions, years)?

Well, 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.

Quote from: John MorrowWhat's between putting your your fingers where they belong one by one to doing like a real pianist?  How do you transition from the one to the other and what are some of the signs of transition?

Well, I'm not a huge expert, but the big thing in my personal experience was that at some point I started to think and operate on whole long strings of muscle movement as single mental objects.  So instead of thinking (for instance) "I need to hit these three notes, then instead of holding it for a third-note I need to hold it for a quarter note, then lightly hit that other note, all alone" I'd think "Okay, I need to switch the melodic line to quarter-beat syncopation here, just before starting the trill of grace-notes," and it happened.

The 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.

Quote from: droogSeems to me these two stance threads should be merged and the terms worked out from the ground up. If you think it's worth the trouble.

My guess is that once there is some sort of agreement, that should be done in anther thread, if necessary.

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 (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=67326&postcount=35) 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 (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=67326&postcount=35) 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.

Quote from: John MorrowWhat 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.

Haven't we already had this discussion?

Quote from: TonyLBOn 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.

He didn't leave his post to run to save himself.  In fact, he felt that he was committing suicide by leaving because he knew he'd deserve to be hung for desertion and fully expects to die for his trouble.

The reason he deserted was that the setting provided another option for him that made more sense.

The unfriendly neighbors of the village my character was working for are culturally very similar to my character and my character felt he had very good odds of convincing them to act against the elves even if the village he was protecting wouldn't.  Even if they didn't buy the story about the elven ruins, they were looking for an excuse to invade and my character decided to give them one.

It was a sort of "I have to destroy the village to save it" line of reasoning that all made perfect sense in character once my character was convinced that the village was going to be destroyed by the elves, anyway.  Basically, he felt they had a better chance being conquered and dominated by their rigid but not evil neighbors than being at the mercy of the (from my character's perspective) evil elves.

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

There was no way to do that without breaking the internal character model.  My characters logical course of action was clear.  While I'm disappointed he didn't make it to the end, it was the right thing to do in character and the other players seemed to think it was a pretty cool curve ball.

ADDED:  I should add that there was a historical even in the setting that was very important to my character concept and the situation he wound up in had strong resonance with that historical event in my character's mind.

Quote from: TonyLBHaven't we already had this discussion?

I'm not sure how to explain what I'm getting at and the question may be meaningless from your perspective so I'll drop it.  

Simply put, the changes that happen in my characters generally occur because of changes in the way the character thinks.  Where I nudge the character to behave a certain way for meta-game reasons, the two have a distinctly different feel for me.  And unless I successfully disguise the nudges as thinking from inside of the character, the character notices the difference, too.

Quote from: John MorrowThere was no way to do that without breaking the internal character model.  My characters logical course of action was clear.

Yeah, I get that, and it definitely sounds like a terrific game.  I just couldn't help noticing that we form our characters with an eye toward doing very different things.

I can't remember the last character I played where saying "My characters logical course of action was clear," would be the end of the decision-making process.  I tend to play people who, in the crunch, know the sensible, logical thing to do ... and then do something else, because of who they are. :D

Quote from: John MorrowSimply put, the changes that happen in my characters generally occur because of changes in the way the character thinks.  Where I nudge the character to behave a certain way for meta-game reasons, the two have a distinctly different feel for me.  And unless I successfully disguise the nudges as thinking from inside of the character, the character notices the difference, too.

Yeah, but that's the dichotomy you keep offering and I keep declining:  a decision that makes sense for the character, or one that aids the metagame.  I find the change I can make to the character that grows out of him naturally and serves the metagame purpose.  It's what I do.

Quote from: James McMurrayFor 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?

They're not nonfunctional, but they have multiple senses, and the stances were an attempt to discuss specific senses.

I don't think I can explain it any better than I have in some earlier posts in this thread.

Quote from: TonyLBYeah, but that's the dichotomy you keep offering and I keep declining:  a decision that makes sense for the character, or one that aids the metagame.  I find the change I can make to the character that grows out of him naturally and serves the metagame purpose.  It's what I do.

Here I'm talking about something a bit different that might help explain the disconnect between our two perspectives.

(ADDED: To make it clear, I'm talking about how and why I do things from here on.  I'm not suggesting that you do things this way.)

For me, the meta-game has no existence for my character.  The character deals with the events of the game within the SIS on their own terms.  

The player is aware of the meta-game and can see that a series of events is rolling toward disaster.  The player can't introduce that meta-game knowledge directly into the character because the meta-game doesn't exist for the character.  

So the the player must adapt the information into something that makes sense in character.  That might mean nudging the character to spot the SIS manifestation of the meta-game issue.  It might mean nudging how the character feels about something or what they see or don't see.  But it's not just changing how I decide the character is going to behave.  

I have to actually change how the character thinks, because that's what make the character go and supports the independent character thought process.  So the introduction of meta-game information into the character isn't simply making a decision for me.  It means rewriting a characters mind to work differently and think differently.  If I do a bad job, parts of the mind won't fit with other parts of the mind and they'll feel alien and wrong.  It can result in the collapse of a character or an insane character.

For example, if I need my character to like an NPC that my character should hate, I can just insert, "You like this NPC," into my characters mindscape.  But if the character's natural thought process decides that it should hate the character, the character will wonder where the thought to like the character came from.  

In order to make sure the character likes the NPC, I not only need to insert the thought to like the NPC but I also need to rewrite the character's mind so they won't just go back to disliking the NPC if they think about it because there may be complex reasons why they would like or dislike an NPC.  The things I insert have to be harmonized with the way the character thinks.  If they aren't, they don't match the rest of the stuff in the character's brain and the character notices the difference.

That's why it was easier for me to have my character not notice that the other PC was a Druid than to just give my character warm fuzzy thoughts about Druids because making my character like Druids would require major reworking about how my character thinks about elves and the humans that serve them, and so on.  I would have had to rework large hunks of my character's mind to explain why the character hates elves but likes Druids in character.  I suppose I could have made my character pity the humans who served the elves but there were game back-story issues that would have made that fairly complicated.  In the end, it was easier to just not notice.  

(By the way, have you seen the movie The Forgotten?  The in character feeling of having their memory manipulated externally when it's not successful feels not unlike what the main character in that movie felt.)

Quote from: James J SkachLet 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.

I don't know if habitually playing in shallow IC has much effect on either of these, because the people I know who care a lot about stance are a bunch of immersionists who want to play in deep IC.  And playing for deep IC can have major effects on both of these things.

For instance, I run for people who like to play in deep IC.  We haven't had any problems in my current campaign.  But let's imagine that two of the characters were clashing in a way nobody thought would be fun to play through.  One of the items that is not in my toolbox is telling a deep IC player, "Well, just make your character react some other way."  Because they probably can't do it without breaking the character in a way that destroys the point of playing.

As far as design goes, there are also some fairly common tendencies among deep IC players.  They don't like mechanics that distract them from what the character is thinking and feeling.  Exactly what people consider distracting varies, but some fairly common dislikes include mechanics that involve managing things that don't exist in the fictional world (like drama points), mechanics with high handling time, or mechanics that determine a character's reactions or behavior.

A number of Forge games have mechanics that demand author-stance play, and these tend to be bad designs for deep IC players.

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

No.  Let me try to explain how it works (or, in some respects, how I think it works).

First thing: there are ways in which 'model' is no bad word for it, and ways in which it's pretty lousy.  Problem is, I haven't come up with a better one for most uses.  

The word suggests correctly that it's something like a weather simulation -- that if I give it inputs, it will perform complex processing and give me outputs.  Unfortunately, it also tends to suggest formal, rule-based definition, which is not correct.  I don't have a bunch of rules in my head for deterministically predicting how an immersible character will behave; I have a construct that largely operates in my subconscious mind.  Its workings are not directly accessible to me.
 
I often don't know in advance -- to the point where it's been a standing source of amusement in my campaigns -- how an immersible character is going to behave.  That's part of the point of playing one -- if I could tell you reliably what the character would do in response to any stimulus, I'd be bored out of my skull.

I can make educated guesses how the character will behave, and often, but not always, I guess right.  Well, I can make educated guesses about how I'm going to behave, and often -- but again, not always -- I guess right.  The character can make choices, but doesn't seem to be able to choose all of his reactions; I can make choices, but don't seem to be able to choose all of my reactions.

Before the character reacts to something, or chooses something, it often seems as if it might have gone either way.  For instance, I do not know whether the warlord of Debroa, Khameris, will decide to kill Shazemar if he ever discovers what Shazemar's situation is.  He has not discovered it, and there are strong arguments both ways.  I can't tell you which will prevail with him.  If he ever finds out, I am guessing that he will debate with himself for a while, ask his wife what she thinks, and come to a decision.  I no more know in advance what his decision will be than I know what my own decisions will be before I have made them.

But after he decides -- if the matter ever comes before him -- then I know, just as my own decisions are known after I have made them, even though I don't know in advance.  I will have stepped into Khameris' mindset and considered, in a manner as faithful to his viewpoint (if he were real) as I can manage.

What I won't have done is say, "I don't want Shazemar dead, so I'll say Khameris decides not to kill him."  My conscious intereference in the subconscious character construct, particularly about something the character feels strongly about, will make it impossible for me to suspend disbelief in anything I play with that character afterward.  The "real" Khameris will have frozen at the point before I interfered; everything I play after the corrupt pivotal decision will feel fake, and will probably have to be consciously manufactured without much subconscious creative assistance.  Some deep IC players describe this as the character turning to cardboard.  And it isn't fun to play them, once they have.

For some people, if this happens, the character is broken forever: they'll never regain that deep IC mindset again.  I never lose my ability to call up an immersible character, but I can't make the subconscious processes accept the OOCly intruding decision as something the character really did, so it makes it very difficult to keep playing in that campaign.

Now sometimes it would be a lot easier if I could simply adjust the character, yes.  But it doesn't seem to be in my power to change the conditions under which I can achieve deep IC, and I consider deep IC well worth its price.

I have other sorts of models where I can get away with some conscious interjection.

Quote from: KeranBut after he decides -- if the matter ever comes before him -- then I know, just as my own decisions are known after I have made them, even though I don't know in advance.  I will have stepped into Khameris' mindset and considered, in a manner as faithful to his viewpoint (if he were real) as I can manage.

So you're saying that in the actual moment there is only one possible course available to the character?

I don't think real human beings work that way.  That's the appeal of stories where people are given a second chance at a critical choice:  Christmas Carol, for instance.  We recognize that our courses aren't fixed ... that the story of Scrooge dying miserly and alone is as real and true to his character as the story of his repenting and becoming a man of charity.

(Note:  I'm not saying that Scrooge's change was internally motivated ... clearly, there was a lot of external influence on him.  What I'm saying is that such stories appeal to us because they put the manifold nature of human behavior under a microscope and make it visible in big, broad strokes)

Quote from: John MorrowI have to actually change how the character thinks, because that's what make the character go and supports the independent character thought process.  So the introduction of meta-game information into the character isn't simply making a decision for me.  It means rewriting a characters mind to work differently and think differently.

Right.  So here's how I operate:  I do this through action.  I tell the story of how the characters mind was changed.

My guy doesn't wake up one morning thinking that the Druid is okay ... that would be lame.  But I do keep a weather eye out for opportunities to steer the situation into a good place for us to tell a story of how my guy and the Druid face an experience together that changes how they think of each other.

Quote from: TonyLBMy guy doesn't wake up one morning thinking that the Druid is okay ... that would be lame.  But I do keep a weather eye out for opportunities to steer the situation into a good place for us to tell a story of how my guy and the Druid face an experience together that changes how they think of each other.

Well, yeah, that was part of what I was doing in that D&D  game.  Part of what makes that somewhat difficult for me is, like I said, the character doesn't know about the meta-game.  So when I'm thinking deeply in character and the player-level consciousness is at a minimum, I may not be on the lookout for, or notice, ever opportunity that would help.  Another part of what makes this difficult, and part of what I was trying to explain, is that to "steer" the character, things have to be injected into the character's mindspace so that they seem like native thoughts and not alien thoughts to the character.  For some things that's easier than others.  

For example, it would have been harder for me to emphasize the "my character intuitively likes the Druid PC" if (A) the player hadn't happened to play the PC with qualities my character would like and could latch on to and (B) my character had learned the other PC was a druid before they had any time to bond as friends (which is why I tried to hide that from the PC as long as possible).  In fact, my character became a guard leader and treated that PC as his second in command.

But let me ask you this.  For a character you are running, what does it mean to "change how they think"?  How do you represent that change in your mind and store it?  How does it influence how you portray the character during play?  (Yes, I know some of this is all holistic for you so just answer as best you can if you can.)

Maybe we are talking about something very similar and perhaps what I'm doing is not all that different in substance but different in the particulars and the fact that the choices that are made in character and those made for meta-game reasons stay quite distinct for me.  Yes, I was nudging the character to not notice what the Druid was and to like the Druid but it was clear to me that I was doing that nudging and that it was done for meta-game reasons.  You seem to be saying that you don't get that clear distinction and it all just gets rolled in to how you play the character, right?

Quote from: John MorrowBut let me ask you this.  For a character you are running, what does it mean to "change how they think"?  How do you represent that change in your mind and store it?  How does it influence how you portray the character during play?  (Yes, I know some of this is all holistic for you so just answer as best you can if you can.)

It's a new, richer, character every time ... not "Here's the base character" and "Here, separately, are all the changes that have been applied," but rather "Here's the character, as he's come to be through experience."

Like, I could create a character from scratch by saying "Yoshi was an obedient young girl, even when her father abused her, but ever since she found the support of her friend, Khaidu, she has been more able to stand up for herself.  Now she looks back on those days with bitterness, and resolves never to let herself be mistreated that way again."  And then I can play that, right?  Is there any question about how one would think in order to play that character ... like, if that were handed to you as a pre-gen?

So, what actually happened in the game I played Yoshi in was that she started out as an obedient young girl with an abusive father.  Then, in-game, she found the support of Khaidu, and that led her to defy her father and become a new person ... specifically, the person described above.

Once she's gone through that experience, she's that new person.  The experience is part of the past that informs who she is now.

But, of course, things could have gone differently.  She could have remained loyal to her father, and repudiated her friend.  And that would make her a new person too, but a different new person.

Am I making any sense here?  Again, I feel like I may be misunderstanding the thrust of the question.

Quote from: TonyLBSo you're saying that in the actual moment there is only one possible course available to the character?

When a player thinking in character and the character has already made a decision, or is strongly inclined to make a specific decision, it is not so much that there is only one possible course available to the character from an abstract perspective but that the character has already chosen or will inevitably choose a particular course of action.  

Quote from: TonyLBI don't think real human beings work that way.  That's the appeal of stories where people are given a second chance at a critical choice:  Christmas Carol, for instance.  We recognize that our courses aren't fixed ... that the story of Scrooge dying miserly and alone is as real and true to his character as the story of his repenting and becoming a man of charity.

Correct.  However, Scrooge has a change of heart, in part, because Dicken's wants him to.  He doesn't have an independent choice.  If I were playing Scrooge in character (and I've recently read over much of the story for an alignment debate elsewhere), it would be entirely possible that a Scrooge could react differently to the ghosts than repentance.  There is a lot of evidence in the story that Scrooge feels morally justified for being the way he is and if the initial encounter with Marley or the first ghost brought out a different part of his personality (e.g., defensiveness) during play, I could see the story producing no change in Scrooge and being a tragedy, instead.  It's like trying to persuade anyone of anything.  Sometimes it doesn't work because something inside of them refuses to go along.

And to be perfectly honest, I'd rather games not always turn out the neat and tidy way.  For example, I played a character that was quickly consumed and died from an addiction.  While there was a certain tragedy and pointlessness to that, I valued the fact that the character was allowed to follow that course and also like the "playing without a net" feeling that creates -- that any outcome is possibly, not just the neat story-like endings.

Years ago, Fujisankei would subtitle the Japanese dramas they showed in the United States (they still show them but no longer subtitle them) and I would watch them (as would my wife and some of my friends).  Not only do those dramas follow a different set of conventions than American programs (they run for about 12 episodes then end -- so they are more mini-series than series) but I've recently found out that we were watching during a period when the dramas had taken a turn toward being quite dark and sometimes even ending an a depressing more than hopeful note (though there were still some comedies and such).

In those dramas, many of the sacred cows of American television weren't so sacred.  Likable characters had their lives ruined and committed suicide or died in pointless accidents.  Characters hurt their loved ones, wrecked their bodies, made horrible mistakes, and wound up never really getting together with the person clearly set up to be their soul mate.  In once case, the main point-of-view character of the show died before the last episode and in another, the main point-of-view character tried to kill herself and ended the series with severe brain damage (she failed to kill herself).

Now, there was definitely a certain "Jesus, Grandpa!  What are you showing me this thing for!?! quality to the experience, but in other ways it was amazingly liberating because it wasn't predictable based on story logic.  When an upset character ran away and toward a busy street once, my wife and I both cringed because it was possible that the character could run out into traffic and get run over.  I'd never have that thought with a normal American TV show.  There are things I can relax and not worry about because the author won't let them happen and things I can predict because, well, that's how the story has to go (e.g., both my wife and I found the end of the recent James Bond movie fairly predictable because the requirements and conventions of the franchise couldn't let the character go in certain directions).  I like not being able to predict where things can go, and that's also probably why I don't really like steering things toward or away from a particular direction, either.  I really like just watching things play out and seeing where the character goes, even if it means running into a busy street and getting run over or dying before the last session.

You'll notice that the changes I mentioned in the D&D game had less to do with story, per se, and more to do with smoothing things over for social/game reasons.  The main reason I tried to smooth over the conflict with the Druid was to produce a smoother running game for the Druid's player and the GM, not so much for them to have a happy ending.  And my main disappointment for my character in that game is less from a story or in character perspective and more from a player perspective (I wish I had my character to "be there" for the end) and a game perspective (I never got to actually use some really cool combat abilities the character had just gotten in combat and likely never will).  I'm actually pretty cool with the character doing what he did, which may be part of why I didn't push harder.

Quote from: TonyLB(Note:  I'm not saying that Scrooge's change was internally motivated ... clearly, there was a lot of external influence on him.  What I'm saying is that such stories appeal to us because they put the manifold nature of human behavior under a microscope and make it visible in big, broad strokes)

Sure.  But in the real world, people don't always change themselves the right way the way Scrooge did.  While there are plenty of people who clean themselves up in rehab or even find the courage to change themselves, there are plenty of  other people who remain trapped in addictions and so on.  Life doesn't always have a storybook ending because people don't always do what's needed to produce one, even when they are strongly shoved in the right direction.  So for me, even pushing a character hard to change is no guarantee that they will, any more than it's a guarantee for a real person, unless I start figure out what's pushing back and change it.  And that's not always possible if the cause is a core part of who the character is and can't easily be changed.

This is part of what I was talking about when I said that the filters/masks that people apply to characters create artificial patterns in the results.  My wife and I found the end of the James Bond movie somewhat predictable because we knew the filter/mask that the writers were applying to what could happen in the story.  Everything was consistent with the characterization and plausible, but it was predictable because the other filter being applied limited things into a very narrow range.  If I were applying a story filter to my character in the D&D game, he wouldn't have deserted.  In one sense, that would have been good but it also would have been what everyone expected, even if I found an in character reason to stay.  The desertion was so stunning to everyone (including the GM) because it not only made perfect sense in character (and the other PCs did have a chance to notice that something was changing and amiss) but wasn't what people expected.  In fact, that was a Scrooge-like change in character, as far as the PCs were concerned (the character was all about duty, command structure, etc.).

So what I'm adding to the picture here is that while I do want to steer my characters away from game destroying choices (e.g., choices that will ruin other PCs, choices that will destroy the setting, choices that will destroy the campaign, etc.) part of why I don't push harder is because I really don't want to.  There is a point at which I feel I'm forcing a storybook ending and I really don't want that. For the most part, I really want to see where the character winds up without me doing too much pushing, one way or the other.

John:  I'm trying to write "There are many possible actions for a character, all valid," and you seem to be somehow reading "Only the action that suits a specific style of story is valid."  That's not what I'm trying to say.

You're sitting here arguing for your right to consider a heartless, vicious Scrooge as a legitimate place to take the character.  You don't have to fight to convince me of that.  I think it's legitimate.  I think lots of things are all legitimate.  That's what I'm trying to say.

How are we miscommunicating so badly here?

Quote from: TonyLBSo, what actually happened in the game I played Yoshi in was that she started out as an obedient young girl with an abusive father.  Then, in-game, she found the support of Khaidu, and that led her to defy her father and become a new person ... specifically, the person described above.

Let me start here, since I think this gets closest to what I was looking for.

This represents the point in the game where Yoshi changed the way she thought about herself and her father.  It's a change in the character.

What I'm asking is how you represent knowing how Yoshi is in your brain.  How do you know who Yoshi is, that she's changed, and what does it mean to change the model of the character in your head when the change happens in the game?  Let me try this from a different angle.

If someone asked Yoshi, in the game, "So what made you change your mind?" how would she answer?  And where does the answer come from?

It's possible that I'm running back into your holistic process and you won't have an answer that would be useful to me.  If so, that's OK.

Quote from: TonyLBBut, of course, things could have gone differently.  She could have remained loyal to her father, and repudiated her friend.  And that would make her a new person too, but a different new person.

Correct.  Could you strip the story-concerns (or change them) that are part of your holistic decision process so that your characters would be more likely to make tragic decisions or not change?  (Ignore, for the moment, whether you'd actually want to do that or not.)  

Quote from: TonyLBAm I making any sense here?  Again, I feel like I may be misunderstanding the thrust of the question.

You are making sense but I'm not getting what I want.  I'm still trying to look into your black box so maybe the answer is that the things that I'm expecting you to be able to talk about just aren't there for you.

Quote from: TonyLBJohn:  I'm trying to write "There are many possible actions for a character, all valid," and you seem to be somehow reading "Only the action that suits a specific style of story is valid."  That's not what I'm trying to say.

That's not what I'm trying to say.  This is one of those places where my mind doesn't work linearly.  I tend to see strong connections between issues where other people see weak links or no link at all.  I understand if you aren't following my change of direction.

Quote from: TonyLBYou're sitting here arguing for your right to consider a heartless, vicious Scrooge as a legitimate place to take the character.  You don't have to fight to convince me of that.  I think it's legitimate.  I think lots of things are all legitimate.  That's what I'm trying to say.

No, I get that.  

What I'm suggesting is that if you also do what you seem to be saying you were doing, which is to factor "fun" into the process, that will color the the places where you take your character.  So can genre concerns.  If the players are playing by those rules (applying that filter or mask), then it will reduce which of the legitimate places a character can go that the player is willing to chose.

Let me ask a question to try to bring this back around to what we are talking about.  Do you ever play the Scrooge that never changes?  If so, under what circumstances?

Quote from: TonyLBHow are we miscommunicating so badly here?

We don't think about the hobby the same way and probably don't think the same way in general.  It happens.

Quote from: John MorrowWhat I'm asking is how you represent knowing how Yoshi is in your brain.  How do you know who Yoshi is, that she's changed, and what does it mean to change the model of the character in your head when the change happens in the game?

The same way I knew about her before she changed.  I've got a sense of who she is ... it's just a different sense than it was, much like I'd recognize if a friend were changing the way she acted.  How do you represent knowing how your character is in your brain?

Quote from: John MorrowIf someone asked Yoshi, in the game, "So what made you change your mind?" how would she answer?  And where does the answer come from?

The answer comes from how she thinks now about her own past.  Right afterwards?  She'd probably say something like "I couldn't let father keep pushing things toward a conflict with Khaidu.  I just ... I couldn't."

But then, a while later, if you asked her the same question she'd say "You know, I used to think it was all about Khaidu ... but I really needed to face up to that man.  I wonder whether, if Khaidu hadn't come along, I'd have found some other reason.  Who knows?"

And then, a while later, if you asked her the same question she'd say "God ... was I ever that young?  I don't know.  I just don't know that girl any more.  That was a different life.  Now hand me my knife, there's still cultists on the loose, and we're not going to make anyone safer gabbing here."

Quote from: John MorrowCorrect.  Could you strip the story-concerns (or change them) that are part of your holistic decision process so that your characters would be more likely to make tragic decisions or not change?

Tragedy's easy.  If you play a character as too weak to embrace the difficulties of her own life then it will end in tragedy.  All you've got to do is make enough of the wrong choices.

Not change?  No.  If I freeze a character in time then they're not a human character any more.  Now I can play them believing that they're unchanging ... but they're wrong.  Another good path to tragedy, by the way :D

Quote from: John MorrowWhat I'm suggesting is that if you also do what you seem to be saying you were doing, which is to factor "fun" into the process, that will color the the places where you take your character.  So can genre concerns.  If the players are playing by those rules (applying that filter or mask), then it will reduce which of the legitimate places a character can go that the player is willing to chose.

Ah.  Yes, that's true.  They'll only go places that are fun for me.

If Hypothetical-Sam is a player who combines those issues the way I do, but he finds different things fun (like the telenovelas you were talking about) then he'll choose to go different places, because those are the places that are fun for him.

Quote from: KeranOne of the items that is not in my toolbox is telling a deep IC player, "Well, just make your character react some other way."  Because they probably can't do it without breaking the character in a way that destroys the point of playing.

What I've learned over time is that I can either (A) nudge the character to react some other way (the key there is finding the pivotal spot in the character's psyche where a small nudge produces the desired big change in thinking) or (B) identify what's going on inside my character's head so I can explain what other characters need to do, in the game world, to get the desired result out of my character.  I've also learned to identify the warning signs of a character heading toward game-wrecking decisions in some cases, so I can give it the attention it needs to avoid wrecking the game.

Maybe Tony has a good point, that it's a just a matter of learning how to do it all together at the same time so it doesn't take an overwhelming amount of conscious energy to make it happen, like learning how to play cords on a piano.  But I still think it's correct to say that you can't count on every Deep IC player being able to do that, since it's very difficult to do deliberately.  The player needs to have developed that sort of tool for their toolbox.  They can't be forced to "just do it".

Quote from: TonyLBAh.  Yes, that's true.  They'll only go places that are fun for me.

In practice, what does that mean you won't do?  Any general things or is it case by case?

And can you see how knowing what you consider fun may make it easier for players and GMs to predict where your character will go in the game because they can have some idea of what you will or won't do with your character because of that "filter"?  Does that make why the filters/masks you apply to what your character will do have some value to understanding the way a game feels more clear to you?

Quote from: TonyLBThe same way I knew about her before she changed.  I've got a sense of who she is ... it's just a different sense than it was, much like I'd recognize if a friend were changing the way she acted.  How do you represent knowing how your character is in your brain?

Ultimately, I create a virtual personality in my brain that thinks for itself and has it's own memories and perspective of the game world.  Before I reach that point, I tend to represent the character as a bunch of broad strokes that paint a very rough picture.  Usually an attitude and a focus (one or more people or things that the character values strongly) give me something good to build on.  As I play the character and actually react to things using the broad strokes, I fill in a lot of details and create a mental model, perspective, and in game memories for the character.  Once enough of that framework is in place, I can just think in character.  

That's part of why I'm curious about what you do.  At the points where I'm thinking about my character rather than thinking in character, the model is generally much more crude, as are my decisions and characterization in the game.  That may be part of the bias you saw in the r.g.f.a model with the assumption that to play your character well, you need to think in character.  Perhaps for many people who normally play by thinking in character, they have the same problem that thinking about their character produces much cruder and less appealing results.

Quote from: TonyLBThe answer comes from how she thinks now about her own past.  Right afterwards?  She'd probably say something like "I couldn't let father keep pushing things toward a conflict with Khaidu.  I just ... I couldn't."

That's interesting.  See, that "probably" is probably significant.  If I were to step into my D&D character and ask him to defend deserting his post, the explanation would be how my character defends himself.  There would be no "probably" about it.  Where you see some other possibilities, I'd see the answer from the character.

FYI, I have the opposite experience when I GM and create setting details or don't play NPCs in character but decide what they do.  There, I see plenty of possibilities, as I explained previously.  And there, I run into my other problem which is picking between possibilities.  Because where some people have no trouble picking the one that's the most fun or just picking one at random, I can never whittle the possibilities down to a small enough list or have enough of a preference to just make a choice like that.

But then, a while later, if you asked her the same question she'd say "You know, I used to think it was all about Khaidu ... but I really needed to face up to that man.  I wonder whether, if Khaidu hadn't come along, I'd have found some other reason.  Who knows?"

Quote from: TonyLBAnd then, a while later, if you asked her the same question she'd say "God ... was I ever that young?  I don't know.  I just don't know that girl any more.  That was a different life.  Now hand me my knife, there's still cultists on the loose, and we're not going to make anyone safer gabbing here."

Is it common for your characters to cut their past loose like that once they change direction or is that a character-specific thing for this character?

Quote from: TonyLBTragedy's easy.  If you play a character as too weak to embrace the difficulties of her own life then it will end in tragedy.  All you've got to do is make enough of the wrong choices.

Yeah, but the best tragedy comes from when it's not inevitable, when it's plausible for the character to avoid it.  And that means that if you don't consider tragedy fun, you'll never create a character who can't avoid it, nor will your character ultimately choose the tragic option if they have a way out.  Even if that's not entirely true for you, do you understand where I'm going with that?  If my assumptions are correct, for the sake of argument, you'd never play a King Lear or Hamlet or MacBeth.

Quote from: TonyLBNot change?  No.  If I freeze a character in time then they're not a human character any more.  Now I can play them believing that they're unchanging ... but they're wrong.  Another good path to tragedy, by the way :D

I think we have a different definition of change, then.

Quote from: John MorrowIn practice, what does that mean you won't do?  Any general things or is it case by case?

It's pretty case-by-case.  The things I pursue are positives that I like (random examples: a character who has something to stand for, a situation that pushes people together and forces them to deal with each other, etc.) rather than negatives that I avoid.

Quote from: John MorrowAnd can you see how knowing what you consider fun may make it easier for players and GMs to predict where your character will go in the game because they can have some idea of what you will or won't do with your character because of that "filter"?  Does that make why the filters/masks you apply to what your character will do have some value to understanding the way a game feels more clear to you?

The question you're asking isn't clear to me, though I suspect that when we get that worked out the actual thing you're asking apart will be.

Quote from: John MorrowUltimately, I create a virtual personality in my brain that thinks for itself and has it's own memories and perspective of the game world.  Before I reach that point, I tend to represent the character as a bunch of broad strokes that paint a very rough picture.  Usually an attitude and a focus (one or more people or things that the character values strongly) give me something good to build on.  As I play the character and actually react to things using the broad strokes, I fill in a lot of details and create a mental model, perspective, and in game memories for the character.  Once enough of that framework is in place, I can just think in character.

Those are the steps of how you warm up ... not the components of what you're actually doing.  That's like saying "I adjust the piano seat, then I play a couple of scales, then I stretch out my shoulders ... and then when I've done all that I can just play a concerto."  Agreed?

Quote from: John MorrowThat's interesting.  See, that "probably" is probably significant.  If I were to step into my D&D character and ask him to defend deserting his post, the explanation would be how my character defends himself.  There would be no "probably" about it.

Well, I think you're reading too much into one word, but I take your point.  That whole phenomenon of a character who could only have one possible response to a situation is what I was talking about with the whole Scrooge examples (was that this thread, or somewhere else?).  I think that real human beings usually only have a "probably" answer about how they'd react under stress.  Yes, sometimes all the planets align and they are driven to one course and could take no other, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

I think that, to the extent that you deliberately portray a character who is more rigid than that, you're making something different from human personality.

Quote from: John MorrowIs it common for your characters to cut their past loose like that once they change direction or is that a character-specific thing for this character?

Yoshi changed enough that she could no longer understand the motives of her earlier self.  Okay, that's not exactly true ... she chose not to, because of various ways she'd been hurt.  In the middle section of her arc, she was becoming pretty self-aware, but by the end she had enough emotional scars that she just stopped looking inside of herself.

I'd guess that it's about as common in my play as it is in human beings under a great deal of stress ... not uncommon, but not universal either.

Quote from: John MorrowYeah, but the best tragedy comes from when it's not inevitable, when it's plausible for the character to avoid it.  And that means that if you don't consider tragedy fun, you'll never create a character who can't avoid it, nor will your character ultimately choose the tragic option if they have a way out.

Well, as a matter of fact I do find tragedy great fun, but if I didn't ... so what?  If it's not fun for me, why should I do it?

Quote from: TonyLBSo you're saying that in the actual moment there is only one possible course available to the character?

No.  If a character has a choice to make, then there must be more than one thing they could do.  But it has to be the character making the choice, if I'm playing immersively and expect to keep doing so.

And the character emulation routine doesn't, and can't, include considerations like "For social reasons, Keran doesn't want to kill off someone's character in their first session" as an input, nor "Keran's really attached to Shazemar and doesn't want him killed." Those aren't things the character can think about.

Since I really don't want Shazemar killed, and I also really don't want Khameris to turn to cardboard (since I lose an interesting character either way), what I do (since I can foresee these objectives possibly colliding) is to find some place in some other model where I do have some ability to adjust it without breaking it, and make it unlikely that Khameris will ever find out what happened to Shazemar.  I can't guarantee that it won't happen, but in places where the world model really might go either way, I can pick the branch that makes it less likely.

I do have models that I can nudge in desirable directions, but they're not immersible characters.  The only acceptable place from which to make a decision for an immersible character is inside the character.

Why can't you think about how you're attached to someone and wouldn't want them killed and still be thinking as the character?

Quote from: TonyLBThose are the steps of how you warm up ... not the components of what you're actually doing.  That's like saying "I adjust the piano seat, then I play a couple of scales, then I stretch out my shoulders ... and then when I've done all that I can just play a concerto."  Agreed?

Correct.  I'm trying to explain how the internal mindspace for the character gets built and how it clicks on.  It's also why I probably have a bias toward thinking of "thinking about the character" as being more crude and less interesting than "thinking in character". For me it is, though for other people it isn't.

Quote from: TonyLBI think that real human beings usually only have a "probably" answer about how they'd react under stress.  Yes, sometimes all the planets align and they are driven to one course and could take no other, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

I think that, to the extent that you deliberately portray a character who is more rigid than that, you're making something different from human personality.

And I'm not sure you are getting the context for the "one right answer".  Let me see if I can explain with the Scrooge example.

Scrooge is going to bed an Marley's ghost shows up.  At that point, there are a bunch of ways that Scrooge could react (e.g., he could keep insisting he's imagining the ghost, he could fear Marley and go along with the visits like he did in the story, he could get the whole point from Marley and not need the 3 visits, he could fight Marley and defend himself, etc.).  Maybe we could select one of those as the "probably" reaction but Scrooge might react different when it actually happens.

Suppose I'm playing Scrooge in character.  The GM has Marley's ghost visit my PC.  I don't think of all of those possibilities.  I hear out Marley as Scrooge (and visualize the scene with what the GM gives me) and then just react to it.  Once the character has experienced something and reacted to it, that's the way the character reacted to it.  As the player, I might assume that Scrooge would fight the ghost (much the way he fought everyone else up to that point) but maybe when the Scrooge I'm playing in character hears Marley's exlanation of the chain and his business, it will resonate with him instantly and he'll change then, without needing the three ghosts.  But once the character hears out Marley and reacts to it, that's the authentic and correct character response.  Any other response will be editing what happened.

Quote from: TonyLBWell, as a matter of fact I do find tragedy great fun, but if I didn't ... so what?  If it's not fun for me, why should I do it?

I'm not saying you should.  I'm just curious how broad your definition of fun is. It might come up if we discuss verisimilitude, which is also loosely related to thinking in character.

Quote from: James McMurrayWhy can't you think about how you're attached to someone and wouldn't want them killed and still be thinking as the character?

Let's see if this makes sense...

Because the character gets a say in who they are attached to and there are often good reasons for their assessment.

It's sort of like children who hate each other in school having their mothers say, "Why can't you just get along and like each other?"  It's not always that easy.

Right, I'm saying that from a character standpoint you decide (or realize depending on your immersion level) that you're attached to someone and don't want them dead.

I know that I'm attached to my wife and don't want her dead, and am pretty sure my motivations are at least as real as most characters. ;)

Quote from: James McMurrayRight, I'm saying that from a character standpoint you decide (or realize depending on your immersion level) that you're attached to someone and don't want them dead.

I know that I'm attached to my wife and don't want her dead, and am pretty sure my motivations are at least as real as most characters. ;)

It might be a misunderstanding..possibly.

I had the same reaction until I reread the sentence.  It's not the character that's attached to the other character - it's the player (Keran in this case).  Which is why using that particular motivation might violate a deeply in character persons sensibilities.

Yeah, it was a misunderstandng. Not used to people referring to themselves in the third person. :)

Quote from: James McMurrayRight, I'm saying that from a character standpoint you decide (or realize depending on your immersion level) that you're attached to someone and don't want them dead.

I know that I'm attached to my wife and don't want her dead, and am pretty sure my motivations are at least as real as most characters. ;)

I don't know about you but "decide" is not the word I'd use to describe why I'm attached to my wife and don't want her dead.  It's not really a decision I made in a distinct rational sense.  It the byproduct of a much more complicated relationship with my wife.  I'd probably put it in terms of, "I know I'm attached to my wife and don't want her dead."

Did you ever meet someone you wanted to like and there was just something about them you didn't like?  Liking or disliking someone isn't simply a matter of deciding that you will feel a certain way.  You just
feel that way or not.

Quote from: John MorrowSuppose I'm playing Scrooge in character.  The GM has Marley's ghost visit my PC.  I don't think of all of those possibilities.  I hear out Marley as Scrooge (and visualize the scene with what the GM gives me) and then just react to it.

Okay.  How do you choose among the possible reactions?

Quote from: James McMurrayYeah, it was a misunderstandng. Not used to people referring to themselves in the third person. :)

Yes, because there are two perspectives and thought processes in there, the player can see themselves from the perspective of the character, where they are an outside other.  As far as the character is concerned, hints, suggestions, and commands coming in from the player are external unless they are wrapped up so they look internal.

Quote from: TonyLBOkay.  How do you choose among the possible reactions?

The same way I'd decide how to react if personally I woke up in the middle of the night with the ghost of a friend hovering over me telling me to repent.  The character just reacts to it in character.

Quote from: TonyLBOkay.  How do you choose among the possible reactions?

OK.  I know my first response probably wasn't very helpful so let me try again.

The character would hear out Marley in character which would interact with their personality and memories to produce emotions and rational though processes.  Essentially, I feel emotions in character and those help drive how the character responds. too.

Suppose Marley's ghost talked about how my Scrooge was damned and my character, unlike the story Scrooge, put 2+2 together because he remembered his dialog with the people gathering money from the poor (the story Scrooge had the be reminded by the second ghost).  That could lead to an exchange with Marley that might achieve redemption without the three other visits being necessary, just because my Scrooge knew his partner was damned by acting just like he does.  

Or suppose Marley had come up in some earlier sessions and I realized that Scrooge actually resented Marley for leaving him alone by dying.  Maybe the dialog with Marley would have been far more belligerent and tense, with my Scrooge going off on Marley and not wanting to listen to him.  Maybe it would leave behind so much residual anger that Scrooge would ignore the lesson out of spite.

In many cases, the gut response I get and the emotions -- how I feel through the scene in character, contribute to the decision and that's not a process I consciously control.

Quote from: John MorrowI don't know about you but "decide" is not the word I'd use to describe why I'm attached to my wife and don't want her dead.  It's not really a decision I made in a distinct rational sense.  It the byproduct of a much more complicated relationship with my wife.  I'd probably put it in terms of, "I know I'm attached to my wife and don't want her dead."

Did you ever meet someone you wanted to like and there was just something about them you didn't like?  Liking or disliking someone isn't simply a matter of deciding that you will feel a certain way.  You just
feel that way or not.

Note my "deepending on your level of immersion". I'm personally always living my life in deep immersion mode, and no I wouldn't decide I love my wife. I'd realize it. Just like I said in the post.

The "decide" part comes from being a player running a character in a game.  Since you can't possibly have all the input that the character would have if it were real, at some point you have to make decisions. For instance, I really love my wife's laugh. I didn't decide that, it's just how we work. If however, some guy on the other side of the table were describing a scenario and were to tell me "the waitress has a lilting laugh" I, the player, would have to decide whether my character liked it.

Quote from: John MorrowThe character would hear out Marley in character which would interact with their personality and memories to produce emotions and rational though processes.  Essentially, I feel emotions in character and those help drive how the character responds. too.

Okay.  Now suppose Hypothetical-Bob has exactly the same sense of the personality and memories of the character, and he's honestly playing it in the same way you do.  Do you think that would provide so much constraint that, in the same situation, he couldn't help but make the same choice you did?

I think, "No, no way," for all the reasons I've cited.  There are many different ways that the decision can go, all within the constraint that it grow organically from the character as it exists.  You might choose one, and Bob might choose another.

Does that sound right to you?

Quote from: James McMurrayThe "decide" part comes from being a player running a character in a game.  Since you can't possibly have all the input that the character would have if it were real, at some point you have to make decisions. For instance, I really love my wife's laugh. I didn't decide that, it's just how we work. If however, some guy on the other side of the table were describing a scenario and were to tell me "the waitress has a lilting laugh" I, the player, would have to decide whether my character liked it.

While the character doesn't have all of the input a real person has, it's often close enough to get a genuine response and can be filled in with some questions at other times.  If the GM on the other side of the table were describing a waitress laughing at me, I'd decide in character how my character feels about the waitress.  I've had several of my characters fall in love to various degrees of depth (ranging from infatuation to a willingness to die or kill for them) and I've never had to "decide" how my characters felt about those NPCs.  What generally happens is that the character will notice a trait in the NPC that appeals to them and then take it from there through role-playing.  

In the D&D game I've been talking about, for example, my character decided to court the schoolmistress, a young widow, but never really had a romantic moment with her because events kept intruding.  My character was pretty stiff and formal and because of that, and a few other in game reasons, his feelings about her were often more about respect and duty than love or lust, and as a result, his feelings for her were not strong enough to keep him from deserting his post.  He liked her but he never actually fell in love with her.   There was also a scene early on, played out partially in email (not my preference) where the character came off differently than the GM intended (she came off as rude rather than witty) and I had to revise my character's memory of that scene or there would have been no romance at all.  That was entirely an in character response to the dialog.

In other games, I've had characters fall in love with women who were vulnerable and needed my character.  I've had a character pursue a woman he'd be an awful match with simply because he was fascinated by her and had to have her (that's the character where I tried to capture a friend's personality and that's where I succeeded).  I had one character start to go after one character, he realized she wasn't what he wanted during play, and in the process he realized that another NPC not intended to be a romantic lead (a tough unfeminine tomboy in a Western meant to be "one of the guys") was really what he was looking for (he wasn't ready to settle down and needed a woman tough enough to go adventuring with him -- there was more to it but that's a big part of it).  I've had two characters (one after the other one died) fall in love with the same NPC for different reasons and in different ways.  I've had a deeply troubled character fall into unrequited   love with a malicious and destructive woman played by another player.  

In every case, I didn't decide that the character would fall in love with the NPC or like or hate particular traits in them.  It flowed out of the in character interaction with those NPCs and how my characters responded to them.  My character in the D&D game was "supposed to" fall in love with the schoolmistress but that never happened and may never have happened. My character in the Western wasn't supposed to fall in love with the tomboy but did.  And those examples all involved the very real emotion of love.

I dunno.  It all felt very much like falling in love (or not falling in love) feels in real life to me.  Not a decision.

With respect to the lilting laugh, what happens there is that the player translates that for the character so the character hears that laugh.  It's not perfect, but it's good enough to create a genuine response.  In fact, part of the problem with the exchange in that D&D game that my character interpreted as rude rather than witty was that I filled in the wrong vocal tone and body language, in part because the emailed nature of the exchange gave me no GM tone of voice or body language to work off of.

Quote from: James McMurrayFor instance, I really love my wife's laugh. I didn't decide that, it's just how we work. If however, some guy on the other side of the table were describing a scenario and were to tell me "the waitress has a lilting laugh" I, the player, would have to decide whether my character liked it.

Er, let's distinguish some here.  Physically, in both cases, the ambiguity (i.e. does personality X like the laugh) is decided.  What you're saying is that there was no conscious choice involved when you decided that you didn't like your wife's laugh.  You just felt it.  

However, I would say that the same thing can happen in fiction-writing and role-playing.  Something can just feel like the right decision.  In fact, that creative feeling where you just know things is an important part of my enjoyment of creative activities.  

Quote from: TonyLBOkay.  Now suppose Hypothetical-Bob has exactly the same sense of the personality and memories of the character, and he's honestly playing it in the same way you do.  Do you think that would provide so much constraint that, in the same situation, he couldn't help but make the same choice you did?

I think, "No, no way," for all the reasons I've cited.

Well, but hypothetical Bob is a meaningless impossible construct.  For him to have exactly the same personality and memories of the character, you'd have to presume some sort of magical mind-transfer technology which tranplants mental vision directly from my head into Bob's.  I can't really make predictions about the effect of this magical process, nor do I see a point in doing so.

Cool. You guys are much better roleplayers than I'll ever be. :)

Quote from: TonyLBOkay.  Now suppose Hypothetical-Bob has exactly the same sense of the personality and memories of the character, and he's honestly playing it in the same way you do.  Do you think that would provide so much constraint that, in the same situation, he couldn't help but make the same choice you did?

I think, "No, no way," for all the reasons I've cited.  There are many different ways that the decision can go, all within the constraint that it grow organically from the character as it exists.  You might choose one, and Bob might choose another.

Does that sound right to you?

Yes, I think that sounds correct, but not because Bob is directly choosing a different different path for the character.  

While the character feels very different from the player and can think independently of the player, it still depends on the player as a filter to translate table-speak into character perceptions and for understanding of things that the player hasn't learned in the game.  I'm also reasonably certain that the player injects a certain amount of themselves into their characters, intentionally or unintentionally, simply because both share the same brain.  So how Bob interprets the encounter for the character and how the character feels about the encounter is going to be different than John's version because there are differences between Bob and John.  In other words, there is no way to make my version of a character and Bob's version really identical.

Now, to answer whether a clone of me running the same character would do the same thing, we get into issues of free will and predestination and so forth that we aren't going to resolve here.  It's like asking whether the same person in two identical parallel universes can make two different decisions.

Quote from: John MorrowWhat I've learned over time is that I can either (A) nudge the character to react some other way (the key there is finding the pivotal spot in the character's psyche where a small nudge produces the desired big change in thinking) or (B) identify what's going on inside my character's head so I can explain what other characters need to do, in the game world, to get the desired result out of my character.  I've also learned to identify the warning signs of a character heading toward game-wrecking decisions in some cases, so I can give it the attention it needs to avoid wrecking the game.

I can't nudge, but the response can be different if I get different inputs.

For instance, in a game I was joining, even before I got into play, I had very deep IC.  And I realized while watching the session before I was supposed to join that, given the historical situation, given the way the other PCs were behaving, given their capabilities, and given my own character's nature, he would certainly perceive them as a serious threat; and under the circumstances the only effective response to the threat he'd see was a pre-emptive strike against them.  This was actually the wrong answer, in view of some things I knew OOCly, but the character didn't know.

Now, obviously this wasn't the intent of the campaign setup, and nobody would have enjoyed it if we'd played it out.  But if my character didn't react that way, under the circumstances, I had no idea at all who he was -- I had a very strong sense of him already.  And I wouldn't have enjoyed smashing the character to bits in my first session, to play a wavering shadow of him thereafter.  So I went to the GM (another immersionist), explained the problem, and said, "Is there any reasonable way we can get my character enough information to stay his hand?"  The answer was no, so I didn't bring the character into play.

In this case, I'm not sorry that the answer was no, because on further observation, it became obvious that the problem with the other PCs' behavior was that one of them was a jerk character played by a jerk player (as they typically seem to be, in my experience).  If we'd avoided the first disastrous IC clash, there would have been other clashes later on (OOC and probably IC), because this other player was spending a lot of time jabbing at the GM for no good reason and otherwise being an annoying jackass.  I was not sorry not to be playing with the fellow.

QuoteMaybe Tony has a good point, that it's a just a matter of learning how to do it all together at the same time so it doesn't take an overwhelming amount of conscious energy to make it happen, like learning how to play cords on a piano.  But I still think it's correct to say that you can't count on every Deep IC player being able to do that, since it's very difficult to do deliberately.  The player needs to have developed that sort of tool for their toolbox.  They can't be forced to "just do it".

In the example I just gave, I have no clue how I could have done it, because I didn't anticipate the behavior of the other PC during the creation of my character creation. And if I had -- "You must design a character who will react to a destructive, threatening, heavy-handed probable psychopath in a way that's fun for everyone, including the player of the psychopath" isn't a design criterion I think I can fulfill.  I've created characters whose range of likely responses to behavior like that doesn't include violence; I haven't created any whose mindsets around such behavior would be pleasing to experience.  If I'd known what the other PC was like before I started character creation, I wouldn't have accepted the invitation to the game at all.

I've been playing since 1989, and in that time there've been maybe eight times that a character of mine has reacted in a fashion that it's awkward to have them reacting in.

On two occasions, it was strictly an internal affair -- my character was in a most uncomfortable state of mind, and it didn't have much effect on anybody but me.

In three cases, including the one above, the problem didn't originate in-world, even if it first manifested in-world.  It was originated in a conflict between players.  In the other two cases, my characters had to deal with the very powerful and aggressively controlling characters created by very aggressively controlling men.  Their SOs were also playing, and in both cases the women wanted to set up secret channels of communication with the other participants because they didn't want to deal with the men's reactions if they spoke openly.  It's my best guess that both men expected all female players to be as willing to put up with their attempts at domination as their SOs were, and to make characters who would tolerate their playing out the same dynamic in the game.  Both campaigns wracked up badly, because I had not done any such thing; nor do I propose doing any such thing in the future.  In these instances, my characters' reactions didn't cause the real problem, and I don't believe that my adjusting them would have done anything but delay the wreck.  Certainly it wouldn't have made the game fun for me.

In a sixth case, while I don't have anything against the player, he'd made a character of a sort that I'd tried to tell him not to make because it wouldn't work with the rest of the party.  I was right: it didn't work.  If I'd somehow managed to adjust the reactions both of an immersible NPC and another immersionist's PC, it again only would have served to delay the disastrous clash.

In a seventh case, the character I was playing reacted with no violence, but the fury of the betrayed, to a slur against his honor by a character he'd come to trust farther than that.  I couldn't change my character's reaction, but I offered to retcon the scene in order to dial down the feeling between the characters.  The other player decided to have her characters drop out, instead. (She'd just taken to playing two characters, one of whom was hostile to the one I was playing and the other of whom had been something of a friend.  It's my best guess that she was having a hard time flipping back in between the characters and making them distinct, and what happened is that some of Mr. Hostile's attitude got transferred to her other character.)  I have nothing against the player and we asked her back to the next campaign.

In the eighth case, my character reacted badly to another PC because of a botched portrayal.  The other player intended his character to be an ultra-suave highly persuasive heartthrob, but this wasn't in the range of his own portrayal abilities.  My character watched Mr. Would-be Heartthrob trying to put the moves on a young female PC and read him as one of these dangerous jerk that thinks he's God's gift to women and can't imagine that he's ever really been told, "No."  This created a bond between my character and the girl, but my character strongly distrusted Mr. Would-be Heartthrob, and my character was proving to be the driving force in the plot.  That still wouldn't have been too bad if Mr. Heartthrob had a reason to be with the rest of the group, aside from making a purely social connection with them.  But he wasn't part of the interacting societies they belonged to, and was underpowered so he didn't have any unique abilities to offer.  The result was that he didn't have a good entry into the plotline because the character had been designed with only one avenue of approach, and my character's reaction tended to cut him out.

So I have three cases where I think it's accurate to say that the unadjustable nature of my deep IC play caused some difficulty for someone besides me, and two where I would have offered to rewrite my character's reaction if I could.

But I have no idea how to rewrite an immersible character's reactions.  Rgfa's discussions of immersion were years in the future, and I had no idea that the effect even existed, when I first hit deep IC in session 7 of my first campaign.  I didn't learn how to do it consciously and intentionally.  "Hey, if I do this, my character will look at the situation this way instead of that way, even though the situation is exactly the same" -- I don't know how to get there at all, let alone to do it without a lot of conscious attention.

Quote from: KeranI can't nudge, but the response can be different if I get different inputs.

[...]

But I have no idea how to rewrite an immersible character's reactions.  Rgfa's discussions of immersion were years in the future, and I had no idea that the effect even existed, when I first hit deep IC in session 7 of my first campaign.  I didn't learn how to do it consciously and intentionally.  "Hey, if I do this, my character will look at the situation this way instead of that way, even though the situation is exactly the same" -- I don't know how to get there at all, let alone to do it without a lot of conscious attention.

I want to start out by saying that I used the word "nudge" for a reason.  The change has to be fairly small and has to be something that will stick.  It won't protect against players who are jerks nor will it solve all ills.

Your "Mr. Would-be Heartthrob" (Mr. WBH) example points to the key of what I usually do.  You mentioned how your in character perception of Mr. WBH as a "dangerous jerk" (assuming the player wasn't really a "dangerous jerk").  That's the sort of thing I fiddle with. What I do is translate that into something closer to what's intended for my character or simply ship it along with a feeling that goes along with it.  So long as the feeling is at least reasonably sensible, I can use it in character.  So, for example, if I realized that Mr. WBH was simply portraying his character badly, I might pass a more suave version of what he's doing along to my character or I might just pass the scene to my character with a mental note to the effect "You feel that's really suave" and just plug that in.  To a certain degree, I've learned to accept those cues along with descriptions such that I can nudge my character to like, trust, distrust, dislike, etc. NPCs.  No, it won't work if everything else about the scene is screaming for a different interpretation.  But when it's easier, I can pull that off.

Quote from: James McMurrayWhy can't you think about how you're attached to someone and wouldn't want them killed and still be thinking as the character?

Khameris the character would be thinking about what's good for Debroan security, and about how reluctant he is to kill Shazemar for his own reasons.  But "Keran wants Shazemar to survive because she likes playing him" isn't something he can take into consideration.
-- Oh, I see what happened.

Khameris has a couple of strong reasons to kill Shazemar and a couple not to (one of which is that he's fond of Shazemar too), and I can't tell you which way he'll choose frome outside his viewpoint.  Moreover, I don't think he'd know immediately, either -- I think it would be a dilemma for him, and he couldn't immediately say what he'd do.

Yeah, the other James pointed out my misunderstanding with the names.

Jesus Christ I can't even imagine what it must be like to play with you guys.

Let me be clear, I think it would be interesting, it's just not the way I've ever played (that deep).

I remember being in a group where I was looked at askew simply for not using OOC knowledge, they would have shit if I was that deeply in character.

Note: Don't get me wrong, I loved playing that way, and still do as it's what's mostly natural for me. But I'd love to just watch a session of you guys just to see what it's like.

Quote from: James J SkachDon't get me wrong, I loved playing that way, and still do as it's what's mostly natural for me. But I'd love to just watch a session of you guys just to see what it's like.

Probably not that different from your own gaming. I've met a lot of gamers through email, they give these lengthy elaborate descriptions of their gaming style, then we sit down to game, and they end up rolling dice, eating cheetos and talking shit like everyone else...

Quote from: JimBobOzProbably not that different from your own gaming. I've met a lot of gamers through email, they give these lengthy elaborate descriptions of their gaming style, then we sit down to game, and they end up rolling dice, eating cheetos and talking shit like everyone else...

Guilty as charged.  

And given that when we do get into the intense role-playing, our games can drop into near real-time play and whole sessions can be a lot of talking and stuff that's important to individual characters but not very interesting to anyone else, I suspect that many sessions of the games I play in would be really boring to watch.

Quote from: John MorrowYour "Mr. Would-be Heartthrob" (Mr. WBH) example points to the key of what I usually do.  You mentioned how your in character perception of Mr. WBH as a "dangerous jerk" (assuming the player wasn't really a "dangerous jerk").

No, the player just couldn't portray suave and amazingly charming, and that's how the failed attempt came across IC to my character.

QuoteThat's the sort of thing I fiddle with. What I do is translate that into something closer to what's intended for my character or simply ship it along with a feeling that goes along with it.  So long as the feeling is at least reasonably sensible, I can use it in character.  So, for example, if I realized that Mr. WBH was simply portraying his character badly, I might pass a more suave version of what he's doing along to my character or I might just pass the scene to my character with a mental note to the effect "You feel that's really suave" and just plug that in.  To a certain degree, I've learned to accept those cues along with descriptions such that I can nudge my character to like, trust, distrust, dislike, etc. NPCs.  No, it won't work if everything else about the scene is screaming for a different interpretation.  But when it's easier, I can pull that off.

Well, it was a marked reaction from my character, and I didn't hear the explanation for what Mr. WBH's player was trying to do until well after the fact, so I didn't even have the OOC information to try to work with until we'd already played a lot based on the original reaction.  If I'd known in a timely manner I might have been able to say, "OK, that scene didn't really happen that way ... " and try to retcon that part of it.  But that would have been pretty damaging in a couple of other directions, because three other important relationships for my character changed or shifted during it, one as a result of my character's view of Mr. WBH.

And it wasn't clear at the time to anybody what kind of an effect that scene and my character's interpretation thereafter would have.  It was only after it played out that Mr. WBH's not having another good path into the thick of things became apparent.  "Hey, he's not getting much spotlight time."  "Well, all the rest of us are psionicists and members of psionicist guilds, and even if we're enemies we all know each other and speak each other's language, and he ... poles a boat.  Oh, yeah, and besides that my character thinks ... " "Well, we sort of thought the teenagers would get together."  But the girl was played by another immersionist, and she fell hard for my character, rather than Mr. WBH.  So the expected tie never materialized.

Quote from: KeranNo, the player just couldn't portray suave and amazingly charming, and that's how the failed attempt came across IC to my character.

Yeah, I got that.  My point was to translate it for your PC so that it seemed suave and amazingly charming to your PC even if it wasn't.  It sounds like part of the problem was that the player didn't communicate the intent so you couldn't filter.  That's fine.  But could you have filtered if the player had told you what they were trying to do?

Quote from: KeranBut that would have been pretty damaging in a couple of other directions, because three other important relationships for my character changed or shifted during it, one as a result of my character's view of Mr. WBH.

Well, that's a "path not taken" discussion and you'll never really know if it might have been just as interesting the other way, though it's good that you enjoyed how it did run.  But I think the point here is that it sounds like you could have nudged the character by changing their perception of Mr. WBH's dialog if you had recognized what was going on and wanted to, correct?  And while I can see how you'd see that as a retcon, what I do is apply a real time translator to the situation so I don't have to rewrite it after the fact.  It's like having the character speak into a suave and charming modulator and having the character hear suave and charming out of the other side.  It can work as a retcon, too, and the net effect is the same.  The character's perception of the situation has been changed on purpose.

Quote from: John MorrowGuilty as charged.  

And given that when we do get into the intense role-playing, our games can drop into near real-time play and whole sessions can be a lot of talking and stuff that's important to individual characters but not very interesting to anyone else, I suspect that many sessions of the games I play in would be really boring to watch.

Well, tonight's session, I rolled dice twice, in private.  The only OOC remarks during the session (aside from "brb") were about the game.  We played for about four hours and a quarter, typing at each other.  I drank tea; I have no idea what anyone else did for refreshments, as one player isn't in my state and the other isn't on my continent.  I spent most of it channelling the world, which isn't as wonderful as deep IC but still fun.

I was in reasonably good form.  The major action tonight involved one of the PCs getting past a complex ward to scry the contents of a room the villains have been keeping sealed; she discovered a reliquary with disturbing contents.

It's interesting to watch other people's scenes if one has some engagement with the story.  For completely uninvolved third parties, however, I suspect we'd leave a lot to be desired as entertainment.  I mean ... ... there are 218 poses, 128 of which are in-world, some two dozen of which are about who's present, etc., and remarking on future sessions, and the rest are about the matter of the present session. Or, roughly, someone says something a bit more than once every two minutes.

It's possible to watch one of our games if one has a MU* client or telnet, and I don't think the players would mind, but I suspect we might render someone who doesn't have any investment in the story comatose.  Especially since, yes, we also often are doing *slower than realtime* play  (we have to type the conversations) and dealing with things that are interesting in deep IC, but not at all interesting to anyone who doesn't have a connection to the character.

If one's other hobby is watching glaciers, we're probably drop dead fascinating.  Otherwise I have my doubts.

Quote from: John MorrowYeah, I got that.  My point was to translate it for your PC so that it seemed suave and amazingly charming to your PC even if it wasn't.  It sounds like part of the problem was that the player didn't communicate the intent so you couldn't filter.  That's fine.  But could you have filtered if the player had told you what they were trying to do?

Hmm.  Good question.  I think I could have made a stab at it.  I wouldn't actually have any memories of convincing play here -- I think it'd come out as a patch, a blur, much the way retcons appear: they're not good, but if I don't have to contend with them too often, they're not fatal. As long as subsequent play fits in reasonably well with the patch, it's OK.

What I might not be able to deal with subsequent play that kept reinforcing my character's original impression.  At that point I doubt my suspension of disbelief would survive.

One night when I was playing, and not in terribly good form (post-migraine daze), I had an immersible character take an action that anyone else would have taken under the circumstances.  And it didn't feel entirely right, but I didn't figure out at the time either why it wasn't right, or what he would have done instead.  After the session -- I don't remember whether it was later that night or next day -- I suddenly realized that Tzaich couldn't possible have done what I'd said he did because it would have broken what, for the sake of brevity, I'll describe as a geas (in the old legendary sense of geas: the thing that will mystically bring down ruin on the hero if he ever does it).  Tzaich, having very strong magic, also had a very strong geas against pretending to be someone else: the closest he ever dared to get was to translate his name into another language and neglect to mention his origin.  And I'd shown him pretending to belong to another tribe.

I hadn't previously realized the existence of the geas.  It and its magical effects made sense of various other odd presentiments that I'd had that were previously unexplained.  So I had to retcon a part of the previous session.  The character model was refusing to accept what I'd played, and clearly pointing to something I hadn't consciously understood at first.

The retcon left me with a blurry grasp of that particular incident.  But I never again played in a manner that didn't account for the geas, and so the whole thing 'healed' around the retcon -- not perfectly, but adequately.

Quote from: KeranWhat I might not be able to deal with subsequent play that kept reinforcing my character's original impression.  At that point I doubt my suspension of disbelief would survive.

Yes.  I would guess that's a combination of the effort involved to keep translating and that if the translation fails or is forgotten even just once or a few times, it can cause a disconnect between the translated and untranslated version of the same character, right?

Quote from: KeranI hadn't previously realized the existence of the geas.  It and its magical effects made sense of various other odd presentiments that I'd had that were previously unexplained.  So I had to retcon a part of the previous session.  The character model was refusing to accept what I'd played, and clearly pointing to something I hadn't consciously understood at first.

I think that's a good example of how thinking in character can produce some incredibly deep and interesting linkages between things that don't seem readily connected to the player.  This sort of in character subconscious experience really fascinates me.

Quote from: KeranThe retcon left me with a blurry grasp of that particular incident.  But I never again played in a manner that didn't account for the geas, and so the whole thing 'healed' around the retcon -- not perfectly, but adequately.

Sometimes I can tap my GM skills (I do GM from time to time) to retcon in a fairly detailed scene to produce the desired memory and replace the real events.  The bigger problem that I've seen comes from when the inconsistency is so intertwined with something else or has already triggered an important series of events that to retcon it is to replay a large chunk of the game all over again.  What I often do there is to just try to sequester the memory from the character so they don't dwell on it or build on it.  It does create a sort of "scar" that the character has to avoid touching but it call allow the game to continue if it doesn't bother anyone else.

Quote from: John MorrowYes.  I would guess that's a combination of the effort involved to keep translating and that if the translation fails or is forgotten even just once or a few times, it can cause a disconnect between the translated and untranslated version of the same character, right?

I'm not aware of having a translation routine for general use that works while I'm in deep IC.  I can retcon at the cost of blurriness and some disruption.  I can step out momentarily, ask the GM how something is generally perceived in the character's culture, and fill in the character model from there.  I'm sometimes aware of getting pulled out of character because I the player am also listening, even if I'm usually in the background, and sometimes I start seeing patterns that indicate there's something OOCly wrong with what another player is doing -- signs of bad social dynamics, signs of someone using their play as an excuse to bully, that sort of thing.

I haven't really been thinking along these lines, though, and it may be that, now that I am, I'll notice myself doing something more like it in play.