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*The whole model - this is it

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« * on:* November 11, 2003, 03:49:15 PM »

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,

All the following material is supplemental to the existing essays, but

it also overrules them as well as any of my previous comments in forum

discussions at any point of contradiction.

In other words, all of the following is the straight dope as of this

writing. If a particular term or concept isn't mentioned here, then the

pre-existing material stands; ask about it if that material isn't clear

to you. If I haven't defined a term (and I define very few here), that

means that the current definition is intended to stand.

My plan is to hammer out any necessary hassles about this material in

this thread, and then rewrite the whole damn thing in "nice and

friendly" prose, which as far as I know is pretty much the first time

that will have been done. For a sample of the tone/logic I'll be using,

see *GNS - what is it? <http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=5860>*.

THE MODEL ITSELF

*[Social Contract]*

Social Contract encompasses everything about role-playing, because it is

the sum of all interactions among the people involved. If these people

happen to be role-playing together, then Social Contract crucially

includes "Let's play this game." This crucial element is what's further

subdivided throughout the rest of this model.

*[Social Contract [Exploration]]*

The above two terms do not constitute a dichotomy. Exploration

("imagined stuff," "shared imagined space"), as previously defined in my

essays, is an expression or application of that particular group's

Social Contract. One cannot say "That's just social" when discussing

some aspect of play, nor can one write off Social Contract as "just

being polite" with actual play being something else.

Exploration is usually described as merely a list of Character, Setting,

Situation, System, and Color. But it does have more internal/imaginary

structure: Character + Setting make Situation, System permits Situation

to "move," and Color affects all the others. This concept applies only

to the imaginary causes among the elements, by the way; the actual

effort, priority, or cause among these things, in social/creative terms,

varies widely.

*[Social Contract [Exploration [Creative Agenda]]]*

Creative Agenda is the blanket term for any and all GNS modes or

priorities of play. The Venn diagram is supposed to indicate that any

Creative Agenda is an expression or application of Exploration among the

real-people group. Since Exploration necessarily includes System, that

means, as soon as we start talking about Creative Agenda, "play has begun."

On paper, I draw this terms as an arrow, labelled GNS or Creative

Agenda. This arrow is very important - this "step" or "level" in my

model shifts out of the abstract and solidly into this group, playing

this game, this way, at this time. The model instantly ceases to be a

broad overview or comparative panoply, and starts to be a diagnostic or

description of a real play-experience among real people. Unless you are

thinking of such a case, you will be left flailing at this point in the

discussion.

For purposes of explaining the overall model, I'm profoundly

uninterested in discusing the nuances, internal relationships,

definitions, or anything else about the internal content of Creative

Agenda. All I care about, at this point, is that people recognize that

role-playing requires such a thing to exist.

*[Social Contract [Exploration [Creative Agenda --> [Techniques]]]]*

To understand this part, again, recognize that Creative Agenda and the

arrow symbol are supposed to be the same thing, not two things. That

means that we are talking about some actual play. The panoply of

Techniques being employed in that instance, over time, either satisfy or

fail to satisfy one or more Creative Agendas.

It's not too off-the-wall to think of Techniques as being a direct

expression of the more abstract concept of System (way up in

Exploration), except that System doesn't exist all by itself - it's

fully integrated with all the other components of Exploration. But if

you keep that in mind, then yes, the arrow represented by Creative

Agenda can indeed be "shot" from the bow of System.

Techniques include IIEE, Drama/Karma/Fortune, search time & handling

time, narration apportioning, reward system, points of contact,

character components (Effectiveness, Metagame, Resource), scene framing,

currency among the character components, and much more. Each of these

terms represents a /range/ of potential play-methods. I consider the two

most important Techniques to be reward system and IIEE.

*[Social Contract [Exploration [Creative Agenda --> [Techniques

[Ephemera]]]]]*

Ephemera is a new term, indicating the smallest-scale interactions and

activities of role-playing: anything that gets factored into or is

expressed by play in the space of a few seconds.

Although fleeting, Ephemera are emphatically not trivial. As with every

level/box so far, fairly extensive combinations of Ephemera express or

apply one or more Techniques. They are the internal anatomy, if you

will, of Techniques and hence (conceptualizing upward) of System.

Ephemera include individual Stances, in-character vs. out-of-character

diction and dialogue, referring to texts, sound effects, taking or

referring to notes, kibitzing, laughing, praise or disapproval, specific

dice or other system-based outcome interpretations, showing pictures,

and anything similar.

*Clarification*

Some related topics are out of the scope of this discussion. I'm happy

to discuss them in other threads /if/ the person is completely able to

demonstrate understanding of the material presented so far. However,

none of them are going to occupy a whole lot of my emotional attention,

at least not until the Narrativism essay is done.

- The relationship of S to N and/or G, or any other nuances of GNS

definitions or combinations within the [Creative Agenda] level. With any

luck, all three essays will do a good job of at least making /myself/

clear about this stuff. Whether that will mean a damn thing in terms of

resolving anything for anyone else, I can't say.

- Incoherence and/or dysfunctional play based on GNS incompatibilities.

This one will be a big deal for some, but I suspect it's a matter of

defensiveness in many cases: "You say it's incoherent but we have fun!"

To which I can only reply, "Sounds coherent to me," or, "I suspect your

'fun' isn't as 'fun' as you think, for everyone." I've been saddened by

how often the latter response has proved accurate in the long run.

- Commerce of any kind, especially in terms of "success." This

discussion, unfortunately, will have to await a much broader

understanding of game marketing and commerce than I think is the case,

currently. Recent threads at the Forge reinforce my impression about this.

Instead of going into stuff like the above, this thread is devoted to

clarifying any aspect of the Big Picture as presented here, especially

inter-relations among the levels, and how they are to be assessed and

discussed. I'd especially like to talk about combinations of Ephemera

relative to one or more Techniques, and combinations of Techniques

relative to one or more categories within Creative Agenda.

DESIGN, RULES, AND TEXTS

Design, when all is said and done, means authorship of a rules text.

"Rules" aren't part of the model any more. As I now see it, rules texts

are not and can never be "role-playing," but rather are recommendations

regarding the model, if you will, in hopes (shared by the readers) that

people who read it can get that version of the model into action.

Therefore the goal of design, it seems to me, is to make sense to the

reader in terms of the whole model. It's like a musical instrument, or

several of them, as well as instructions for how to play them, and

finally some music or chords to work with. Seems easy? Well, here are

the usual problems I see with role-playing texts, now that I have this

"model" thing setting next to me as I type.

Problem 1 = Simply leaving whole levels out, assuming that readers

already know and agree exactly where you're coming from for those

levels. It's conceivable that, for instance, a panoply of Techniques are

simply so powerful in reinforcing some subset of Creative Agenda that

stating the latter would be redundant, but as far as I can tell, most

rules-sets aren't that lucky.

Problem 2 = Problematic combinations of Techniques which lead to

confusion about Creative Agenda, which in turn means a whole lot of

local construction about "why we play." If you want to call this

"incoherence," you can - it's what I originally meant by the term, which

I'm considering retiring from use. And although I stand by my point that

this issue usually is a genuine problem for role-players, don't get me

started on early Champions or Amber, both of which turned out to benefit

greatly from the very same phenomenon. Whole 'nother essays, waiting to

happen.

Problem 3 = Plain bad system design, which is to say, unsatisfying at

the group level for any particular Creative Agenda. If a given

rules-loop allows an "automatic win" in Gamist play, if it jars the

Dream inconsistently with other features of the game, if it locks down

Premise too tightly ... any of these "break" a game relative to a given

goal of play. Such games tend to be instantly discarded or instantly

repaired, often covertly (people insist that the "right" way to play

just happens not to be textual).

Problem 4 = Nonsensical prose, which might accompany perfectly good

rules. This is far more common than is good for any hobby, I think. It's

often associated with Creative Agenda issues, but also with many aspects

of character creation.

Here's also what I see when looking at each level of the model and

thinking about rules texts.

Social Contract and rules: This is where all those "What is

Role-playing" sections fall flat on their face. Just to pick the most

glaring example, I'm here to say that role-playing is not, and never

was, "cops and robbers with dice to resolve disputes." Going by the

model, people roll dice (or whatever) because they /agree/ about the

imagined events, not because they /disagree/. It might be interesting to

see whether anyone could write an introduction to a role-playing game

that really did specify Social Contract issues in a way which set up all

the following material in the game. Everway, perhaps? Universalis?

Creative Agenda and rules: Most role-playing texts are emphatically

silent about Creative Agendas, especially in the model's context that

it's an expression of imaginative Social Contract. Often, especially

when Gamist priorities seem to be invoked, one can parse out the GNS

recommendation by looking at key words and phrasing ("When your

character dies, you have lost the game."). The more emphatic

Simulationist texts (Arrowflight) are often clearer, but whenever the

term "story" gets thrown around in a vague, "You know, the /story/" way,

I think the text becomes dramatically less helpful. I'm very impressed

with the introduction in the Marvel Universe RPG, which provides an

amazing textbook piece on the differences between Gamist ("The Brawl")

and Narrativist ("With great power comes great responsibility") play,

emphasizing that a group does well to decide which they would prefer to

do when playing the game.

Techniques and rules: Here's the most solid correspondence; I don't

think it's difficult to see how most rules are in fact instructions for

Techniques. The problem is that, according to the model, Techniques

alone do not a role-playing game make.

Ephemera and rules: Here's another tricky one - as with Creative Agenda,

you have to find key phrases or little snippets scattered around the

text in order to see whether any Ephemera are being explained or (more

likely) assumed to be already standard for the role-players. The most

explicit example I can think of are the frequent exhortations toward

Actor Stance in so many games, as well as the implicit content of a "GM

only" section.

DISCUSSING THE MODEL

I am listing some of the issues that people bring to discussing the

model here at the forums and elsewhere, and including some points of

interaction with the inherent stumbling blocks. The stumbling blocks

usually arrive from people employing one or more of these approaches:

a) reaching understanding through paraphrasing and correction,

b) denying understanding as a means of defending oneself from a

perceived threat,

c) desperately trying to present one's own developed notions of some

kind, and

d) arguing in order to fit in, a common behavior among members of a

somewhat socially stunted subculture.

Role-players often arrive at the Forge in an advanced state of

frustration regarding either play, talking about play, or both. Since

there's no way to control (or on my part anyway, no /desire/ to control)

what people want when they arrive, I think it's important for everyone

to consider all of the following points about discussing the model.

*Point #1:* Nearly everyone who first encounters the theory is

predisposed to discuss Ephemera. They are also emotionally tied to

various Ephemera, especially those combinations which reinforce certain

Techniques, and it's hard to get people to let go of that commitment

long enough to look at the variety available. They are often convinced

that even looking at alternatives will destroy the entirety of whatever

play-profile (real or idealized) that they currently hold in highest esteem.

/Required point of discussion:/ Get them up to Techniques, which is what

they really want to discuss. The key is to validate the Techniques

they're trying to reinforce, and to acknowledge to the person that they

are, indeed, making sense in these terms. After that point, the

diversity of Ephemera can be discussed without the person going into

protective-mode regarding what Techniques they prefer or are used to.

*Point #2 (related to #1):* People may also take a Reductionist approach

to trying to understand the model, which is to say, they would like the

"particles" of (say) Stance to be themselves little chunks of GNS, and

GNS as described simply to be collections of these chunks. This is not

the case. Instead, for every box in the model, a category or type of

"outer box" is always expressed/applied as a /combination/ of

terms/categories within the inner box.

/Required point of discussion:/ It's best to speak of combinations

within an "inner" box in terms of how it affects or is affected by its

"outer" box or boxes. Resist the extreme temptation to identify any one

Technique, for instance, with a particular GNS category, or any one

Ephemera-type event with a particular Technique.

*Point #3:* Creative Agenda is the "verb" of the model. As a generalized

topic, without an actual group or any role-playing to discuss, GNS

priorities are incredibly vague and abstract, to the point of being

uninteresting.

In application, however, they are extremely concrete and easy to

recognize. As I wrote in a recent thread,

Quote

The only variables that really make sense, in discussing GNS, are the

social interactions and communications that go on among the real people

at the table, during play.

What is reinforced among them? Who praises whom, for doing what, and how

often? When is a stated or proposed action disallowed, often in very

subtle form? What gets everyone listening with undivided attention to a

single person's announcements? When do people laugh? When do they not

laugh, or socially squelch someone else's amusement?

All of those things, and more, are the only valid variables for

assessing a GNS profile for a given instance of play. (And by

"instance," I mean a lot of play, at least a session, probably more.)

I wish I'd made this point earlier. It's a big deal. The definitions of

GNS are not the same variables one uses to assess GNS in action. Since

GNS is a subset of Social Contract - indeed, it's the application of

Social Contract to the imagined material ("Exploration") - its identity

for that group can only be assessed in social terms.

Furthermore, in application, a given Creative Agenda category is also

extremely diverse in terms of possible Techniques, which is what my

current three essays (two down, one to go) are mainly about. M.J. Young

made a very good point recently when he said that within-Agenda

categories (e.g. specific types of Gamism, etc) lead to more rancor and

"not-us" distinctions among people discussing role-playing than

among-Agenda categories, in most cases. Or to put it differently, people

are highly committed not to "Gamism" but rather to "Gamism our way." Or

to put it in terms of my essays, within-category synecdoche seems to be

an extremely heartfelt, hotly-defended problem.

/Required point of discussion:/ Don't get sidetracked into definitional

descriptions when discussing actual play. If a person really is

interested in examining the Creative Agenda(s) of his or her

role-playing, or more accurately that of his or her group, then focus on

social interactions, the real-people approval and disapproval during

play itself, as quoted above.

*Point #4 (related to #3:* Creative Agenda is the most troublesome level

of the model for people to discuss, because many folks would very, very

much like Techniques to construct a satisfying GNS-profile for them,

without explicit reference to Social Contract. To link [Social Contract

[Exploration]] /causally downward/ into [Techniques], emphasizing

personal responsibility ("You get what you play for"), is frightening

and unwanted. They want what they want without wanting (a) to say so or

(b) actually to do that thing. Or if they are getting what they want,

it's often through Social Contract manipulation and they don't want to

endanger their carefully-constructed power-play.

Here's the biggie: people have often come to idealize "rules" or "lack

of rules," whichever, in order to cement into play the Techniques that

they are used to or that they think will get them what they want. This

is the source of Rules and/or Setting Fetishim, as well as the source of

System Doesn't Matter. It's also the source of the /failure/ of both

tactics, neither of which stand up well in the long term. Cries of "it's

just a game" or "I just play to have fun" are signs of these tactics in

a state of final breakdown. Excessive arguing about details of GNS-stuff

is sometimes a defense mechanism.

/Required point of discussion/: Stress Creative Agenda as the absolutely

necessary bridge from "we all like Star Trek" (Exploration) to "this is

how we role-play Star Trek" (Techniques). And just as importantly, be

prepared for the possibility that the person may /not/ be coming from

the position described in this point, and may well be perfectly comfy

with the concept of Creative Agenda once they get it properly explained

in terms of the levels of the model. So over-defensiveness on your part

should be acknowledged as a potential problem too.

*Point #5:* Techniques express and satisfy Creative Agenda, whether

unsuccessfully or successfully. However, the relation between these

levels is not a tautology. You cannot discuss some abstract "real

Simulationism," for instance, in terms of Techniques which define it,

and especially not in terms of whatever the imaginary characters did to

or with whomever they fictionally encountered. Instead, you must

investigate whether X Techniques as applied and socially reinforced in Y

role-playing group are coalescing around (e.g.) a Simulationist

aesthetic. This is related to Point #3 in that applying Creative Agenda

is highly specific to a group of people: their personalities and

interactions, and their habits of play. But my current point is that

Techniques don't "compose" a Creative Agenda in a definitional way.

/Required point of discussion/: Details of Creative Agenda may not be

the necessary point of discussion anyway; it might just be a matter of

letting the person know you get where they're coming from. For point #4,

getting GNS into the light is crucial. For this point, however, you just

might need to acknowledge that the Techniques being described, by this

person, do nail the GNS priority he or she prefers. It's very similar to

the "wants-Techniques, talks-Ephemera" issue mentioned for Point #1. In

this case, it's "wants-GNS, talks-Techniques." Again, the point of

discussion relies on acknowledging the person's valid combination so

they know they are being heard.

Also, a person who's confounded over this issue probably needs to hear

that Creative Agenda categories (GNS) are not principles to live up to,

but rather just a vocabulary that helps describe the whole-model profile

for that particular group (or rather, an instance of that group's play

in action).

*Point #6:* Rules, Techniques, and System are now carefully

distinguished from one another in the model. System is a fairly abstract

term that indicates that the imagined Situation and other elements

actually change through the activity of role-playing. As a term, I

suggest thinking of it as "/a/ or /any/ system" rather than "/the/

system." Techniques are extremely concrete and observable methods of

actual play. Rules are textual guides or instructions about any aspect

of role-playing at any level of the model.

/Required point of discussion:/ It's going to take some work to help

people understand that "rules" are not part of the model at all. People

usually say "rules" when they mean Techniques or System. Instead, they

are texts, used to greater or lesser extent as a way to establish any

aspects of the model that the group wants to be established. This is the

Lumpley Principle in action. Discussion of the Principle got a little

wonky when I was working out "rules" vs. "system," but now I think it's

nailed.

*Point #7:* In discussing Techniques, one person's mind-blowing,

door-opening example is another person's ho-hum or still another

person's deal-breaker. One of the most difficult problems with a

multi-user forum discussion is when Person X explains something about

the GNS-level to Person Y using a specific Techniques example, and then

person Z gets the idea that this Technique /is/ the GNS term. And if

they hate the Technique, then they fall right off the cognitive

mountain, sometimes irretrievably.

/Required point of discussion/: Fear is a serious problem when dealing

with a third-party's reaction to these discussions. It's very common for

someone literally to flip out when reading a Techniques example, as the

example may represent (rightly or wrongly) everything that is Horribly

Wrong with Other Role-Players in this person's mind. Whereas for the

person to whom the example is addressed, the Horribly Wrong Thing might

be just what they're looking for; or more likely, the Techniques example

only works in the very localized context of that person's game being

discussed (which is why it was used as an example in the first place).

So managing these third-party reactions can be a major issue and take a

lot of time.

Some final bits about discussion ... we are not talking about minor

issues at the Forge. We're dealing with how people socialize, how they

express their creative drives, and how they self-identify in a highly

technical subculture. The very fact that people register and post

denotes that they feel a /need/ to communicate about it. So the main

watchwords are /care/, and yet also, /detach/. The times to detach are

easy to recognize - whenever any of the following phrases start getting

thrown around.

- "But my character would do this ..." Characters are fictional and

cannot make decisions in the absence of a real person's creative input.

- "System doesn't matter, all you need is a good GM / group" ... All

role-playing utilizes System, and "good" in this context usually means

"what I want."

- "That upsets balance ..." Balance is a red herring unless it's defined

in highly specific terms. See my Gamism essay for details.

- "That's not realistic!" Realism cannot be mandated by "rules," and

like balance, must be locally defined with care. No one "just knows"

what realism is, in actual play.

- "The Storyteller Golden Rule ..." This rule is a big puff job, because

it leaves "fun" undefined, nor does it specify who can mandate when a

rule is to be ignored.

However, rather than using these responses as comebacks, use them as a

foundation from which to defuse the potential fight. And make no

mistake, when a person says stuff like this, they're almost certainly

fighting, in response to being upset with you or with someone from the

past. The only solutions involve removing the confrontation, rather than

meeting it - all that'll get you is a headache.

WRAP-UP

Any ideas for this section, anyone? I have some, but I thought I'd

save'em until you all stomp and shatter all of the above material into

more useable form.

Best,

Ron

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*Ben Lehman

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*The whole model - this is it

<http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=8655.msg90115#msg90115>*

« *Reply #1 on:* November 11, 2003, 04:11:21 PM »

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks.  That clears a lot up for me.  Still needs more digestion, but

at this point I can say that this matches my beliefs pretty closely...

 Still many quibbles about other (not included in this post) details,

but that's what makes life interesting, isn't it?

A few points and questions:

1)  Is Stance a technique, exploration, or social contract level issue?

 I was under the impression it technique-level, but it seems to me that

it might be higher than that, particular with regard to Lumpley and

Emily style play, where it seems imbedded in the social contract at the