Pundit,

You forgot the 'demonstration' part of your demonstration. You're also pushing the edge here, as Melan's posts indicate.

As far as promoting internal elitism and controlling conversation go, there's definitely some of that that's gone on - as well as excessively negative description of common and valid modes of play - but that's just the theory's rhetorical penumbra, the resentments of some of its authors, and irrelevant to serious evaluation.

But anyway, you can put up or shut up on particular topics as you see fit; authoritarian pronouncements prove nothing.

Quote from: HaffrungAs for Forge theory and big model or whatever the fuck it's called, I'd like to note for the record that I've been using the term 'immersion' because that's simply the best word for what I look for in an RPG. Just because someone else uses that word as part of a theory that Pundit hates shouldn't render it verboten. Terms like 'immersion' and 'gamism' have commonly accepted meanings outside Forge-speak. You see wargamers talking about simulation versus gamism all the time, and it isn't because of Ron Edwards, or some grand theory of wargaming.

Immersion in and of itself is not jargon. Saying "immersion" or even saying "narrativism" does not mean you're engaging in Forgespeak.

When you say "immersion" in a way that implies "a faulty way of roleplaying"/"something that isn't really possible"/"what those brain damaged people think they're doing when what they really want to do is create story", etc. THEN you're engaging in Forgespeak.

So its not just about the words. The words only become Forgespeak if they're used in such a way that they attempt to inject certain fundamental ideological assumptions into the conversation in such a way that you can't then remove them without getting into a semantic discussion (ie. you either have to accept that "narrativism" is a real category of RPG play, one of only three that people will enjoy playing, and the most correct and sophisticated way of creating story OR you have to derail the whole thread to get into a debate about narrativism). This is the way the Forgies take over forums; by injecting more and more Forgespeak into the conversation, getting through all kinds of flamewars and thread-derailments from those few who try to resist them, until everyone is finally so tired that they just accept these words as Truth and give in.

Not here.

RPGPundit

Quote from: CalithenaAs far as promoting internal elitism and controlling conversation go, there's definitely some of that that's gone on - as well as excessively negative description of common and valid modes of play - but that's just the theory's rhetorical penumbra, the resentments of some of its authors, and irrelevant to serious evaluation.

That's a bit like saying "well of course there's definitely some Christian prosletyzing going on in Intelligent Design Theory, not to mention some political gamesmanship and such to try to bypass separation of church and state and get the Bible into schools- but that's just the "rhetorical penumbra" of Intelligent design, and the resentments of some of its authors, and its irrelevant to serious evaulation".

When a theory only EXISTS in order to satisfy the resentments and ideological agendas of its authors, then that means the entire theory is itself irrelevant to serious evaluation.

RPGPundit

Actually, the Forge stuff came up in relation to my conversation with Elliot and someone else originally, so droog didn't instigate it in this thread.

That said, if the mod policy here winds up being to ban any talk which derives from Forge theory, then I guess I'd be better served in the D&D ghetto over at big purple.

The immersion thing is interesting. Prominent Forge posters did say all the things that Pundit mentions at some point. I don't consider it part of the theory, and in fact, the theory avoids use of the word 'immersion' for the most part because, well, people over there got stupid about this topic at some point. Here's what the Forge Provisional Glossary has to say about it:

QuoteImmersion
This term has no single definition. Some uses, among others, include: (a) undivided attention to the Shared Imagined Space, (b) the absence of overtly stating features of Social Contract and Creative Agenda, (c) strong identification with one?s imaginary character. See Why immersion is a tar baby 'and 'Immersive Story by John Kim.

(b) is irrelevant; it has nothing to do with immersion. (a) and (c) are both forms of immersion; I suspect they're both forms of a single, more underlying phenomenon, which is the beast we're hunting when we talk about immersion.

That said, Pundit is right that there's a lot of polemic mixed in with the Big Model in a lot of its core expressions, of course. This itself is the source of a lot of the fights it leads to; it's expressed with a bunker, us-vs-them mentality all the way through, so no wonder it tends to encourage people to either gang up in its defense or feel better and resentful at the negativity sent their way. That stuff is there. I just sort of ignore that stuff and concentrate on the factual assertions the theory makes about gaming, many of which I agree with, some of which I do not.

Hmm.

But that's the exactly right thing to say about Intelligent Design, Pundit. If the arguments for ID were good, I'd be a believer, despite my other disagreements with the messengers. The Nazi doctors discovered some things about medicine in their horrible experiments on Jews and others in the concentration camps; the monstrous things they did to make those discoveries doesn't change the fact that they discovered some things about medicine doing them. (There is a case that can be made for striking such discoveries from the history books, to discourage people from doing such things; I don't buy that line of reasoning in most cases, but it's there.) It doesn't make the medical discovery false that it was created in in a morally monstrous way, or for morally monstrous purposes.

I don't believe in any form of intelligent design or creationism because it's not a better explanation of the complexity and adaptation of life on earth than evolutionary theory provides. That's all. The fact that most of the people who support it are also people I have political and religious disagreements with, or that same use the theory to serve that agenda, is simply not relevant.

You know what, random Internet people? I just want a messageboard where I can discuss RPGs without moderation/board segregation fucking up the discourse because of ulterior agendas. Pundit, you are going against the board's basic ideas by working aginst the free exchange of ideas. Don't do it.

(And with this said, I'm off to spend the evening reading Neal Stephenson. Woo-hoo!)

Quote from: RPGPunditGiven that this thread has turned into one discussing Forgespeak and is now a kind of advertising/prosletyzing, I'm moving it to off topic.

To be honest, I don't think it belongs in "Off Topic", either.  How about creating a group specifically as a garbage dump for threads that are about role-playing but fall into Forgespeak (e.g., Forgespeak Garbage Dump or something like that) with a nice sticky message or two at the type where you explain why you think Forgespeak is bad and why threads that use a lot of Forgespeak wind up there?  You could also possibly prevent (if the software allows) users from creating new threads there, so it's only a place ot move other threads.  

This thread doesn't belong among the discussions of bacon and Chuck, either.

Quote from: CalithenaThe immersion thing is interesting. Prominent Forge posters did say all the things that Pundit mentions at some point. I don't consider it part of the theory, and in fact, the theory avoids use of the word 'immersion' for the most part because, well, people over there got stupid about this topic at some point. Here's what the Forge Provisional Glossary has to say about it:

QuoteImmersion
This term has no single definition. Some uses, among others, include: (a) undivided attention to the Shared Imagined Space, (b) the absence of overtly stating features of Social Contract and Creative Agenda, (c) strong identification with one?s imaginary character. See Why immersion is a tar baby 'and 'Immersive Story by John Kim..

Go and read the post I made last night on Immersion.

It's mostly quotes from academic papers on Immersion and gives a much clearer picture of what people are talking about.

Quote from: jrientsYou know what? With a title that namechecks an actual frickin' train, I've steered clear of that scenario precisely because I expected a railroad.

Dude.

The scenario is called like that because PCs go from one location to another in search of fragments of a statue, using that train. The adventure doesn't take part on the train (except for two brief spots): it's done in the cities along the route. So, you play in London, Paris... and the scenarios there are not very much railroady, at all.

I frankly feel that many complaints of railroading in that adventure come from people who have not played it, but YMMV and all that.

I did, Stuart. I even started a response post with the words "Good stuff", but then I didn't have enough extra to contribute to post it, so I didn't. I'd also add that Forge-associated people e.g. at Vincent Baker's "Knife Fight" have recognized that that's a place where the ongoing body of theory under discussion needs work. In addition to those discussions, some old exchanges between me and Victor Gijsbers and others at the Forge, between me and Morrow and Snead and Baker and lots of others at rpg.net, and some important diagnostic work at Mo's "Sin Aesthetics" blog have advanced things a little IMO.

But, you know what? There is a good moral argument against using Big Modelese, regardless of what the theory gets right or wrong, made most recently to me by Sett and Jreints, which is that it fucks up communication and personal relationships. I like and agree with a lot of what Pundit has to say about a certain kind of gaming, I think FtA is cool, and I also find his brash attitude refreshing on many (though not all) gaming-related issues. J Arcane forced me to be more intellectually honest in my thoughts about religion on the Big Purple, and I deeply respect Balbinus' opinions on eighties-style gaming. But I have serious conflicts with these three people basically solely because of Big Model wars.

So you know what? Fuck it. I'll take your challenge, Pundit. From now on, not only here but elsewhere, when I want to do systematic RPG theory, I'll do it either in English or by coining or appropriating terms that make sense to me and explaining what I mean by them when I use them.

Not because I don't think that Ron & the gang got at least some important things right, but because the language they used makes it impossible to talk about those things in a helpful way.

I suspect Levi got to this same point a long time ago, which is why he's gone the way he did: I know there are some important things he agrees with the Big Model gang on, but he just talks about them in his own way, and I think in light of what's happened to internet discourse on RPG theory, that's probably the best approach.

Quote from: StuartIt's mostly quotes from academic papers on Immersion and gives a much clearer picture of what people are talking about.

To be honest, I'm not sure it does because what people are immersing in and the perspective from which they are doing it matters a great deal.  I think you are, in essence, creating another definition like "simulation", where lots of things seem to fit the definition but they aren't really the same, don't have much in common with each other, and the techniques that encourage on can destroy another.  That never ends well in theory discussions once people start saying, "If you want X, you need Y," because Y helps one form of X but ruins other forms of X.

Quote from: CalithenaI did, Stuart. I even started a response post with the words "Good stuff", but then I didn't have enough extra to contribute to post it, so I didn't. I'd also add that Forge-associated people e.g. at Vincent Baker's "Knife Fight" have recognized that that's a place where the ongoing body of theory under discussion needs work. In addition to those discussions, some old exchanges between me and Victor Gijsbers and others at the Forge, between me and Morrow and Snead and Baker and lots of others at rpg.net, and some important diagnostic work at Mo's "Sin Aesthetics" blog have advanced things a little IMO.

I found the discussion about immersion on "Knife Fight" to be a bit strange for the same reason why the one on Story-Games right now is strange.  Too many people who don't do it or don't really understand it (and quite a few say so at one point or another) are trying to define what it is and how it works from the outside or trying to pick a definition that makes sense and feels comfortable to them.  Defining how other people role-play, instead of just asking them and believing what they tell you, also never seems to end very well, because the guesses are rarely right.

And even though I've had lengthy discussions with Vincent Baker and a few others about immersion, and I'm convinced that they do something like what I do and some other people do (e.g., John Snead), I think the fact that Vincent Baker can reconcile certain techniques with immersion while I can't (and other people can't) suggests that either we're not doing the exact same thing or that different people have different things that get them there or disrupt it.  So what that means is that any generalized statement about "immersion", how to encourage it and how not to destroy it, will almost be guaranteed to be wrong for quite a few people.

Quote from: CalithenaI guess making up new terminology could be an option, but that's work, and also it would feel vaguely unclean to do that when so much of it would just be a rewriting of what's on the Forge already. Though I guess Vincent Baker managed to improve things a little in some corners of the internet by rephrasing some things in his own words and making some new contributions of his own.

You know, I have rankled at the accusations of simple minded techies trying to understand the intricate complexities of "Story" and how they just get it wrong because they have no hope because they are techies. Still, I have to think this preoccupation with jargon is a side effect of techies involved in the analysis of games. Techies use jargon for job security. A very small number of us use it as a tool to compress complex ideas and communicate them to others who must understand those complexities in order to implement a complex system.

Games can be explained in plain English. Technology, if you are good at it, can be explained in plain English. I know, it is one of the things I do. So, I have no problem with a term like "Story Now" being used because I can figure that out from context. Some acronyms I got nothing on. The ones that cheese me the most are the ones that mean something else from what the rest of the world might understand them to mean.

So, honestly Calithena, what are the terms you cannot find alternatives for? Because honestly, someone else said it best, take off the piano mitts.

Bill

Edit: Looks like I was too late.

Quote from: John MorrowTo be honest, I'm not sure it does because what people are immersing in and the perspective from which they are doing it matters a great deal.  I think you are, in essence, creating another definition like "simulation", where lots of things seem to fit the definition but they aren't really the same, don't have much in common with each other, and the techniques that encourage on can destroy another.  That never ends well in theory discussions once people start saying, "If you want X, you need Y," because Y helps one form of X but ruins other forms of X.

I'm not sure why you think it's so vague.  I think it's fairy specific -- more specific than a lot of terms we've seen in use to date.  It's much more specific than "Narrativism" or "Simulationism".

Quote from: HinterWeltStill, I have to think this preoccupation with jargon is a side effect of techies involved in the analysis of games. Techies use jargon for job security. A very small number of us use it as a tool to compress complex ideas and communicate them to others who must understand those complexities in order to implement a complex system.

To be honest, I don't think that's always true.  Discussions like those on rec.games.frp.advocacy developed their jargon pretty organically (and some of the Forge terminology seems to have been organically created, too) because people wanted a shorthand to talk about ideas that can't be neatly compressed into plain English of a reasonable length and/or because the original terminology where people used plain English seemed clumsy.  In some cases, I think the original terminology is actually more clear.

Here is an early attempt to summarize the theory discussions on rec.games.frp.acvocacy that, in retrospect, is often a lot clearer than the terminology that was polished over time.  For example, it defines the points that would become the GDS as "Interactive Storytelling", "IC [In Character] Experience" and "Problem-Solving", which are all more clear and straightforward than "Dramatism", "Simulationism", and "Gamism" and, yes, that's the origin of those three styles.