Resolution

[adamdray]

I have been thinking more about elements of my Social-Play Model, especially the IIEE pieces of it, and doing a little reading. I found Victor Gijsbers' old post, Shared Imagined Space, Shared Text (April 2005) to be very enlightening. I know next to nothing about Derrida, structuralism, semiotics, and the like, so I tread on thin ice here, but

Comments

[buddha_davis]

Adam,

Do you mind if I point some guys on a forum (www.thereisnoscreen.com) I frequent over here? This is cool stuff!

Buddha

[adamdray]

Point away. Realize that it's mostly stuff other people have said, though maybe without the cool pictures. I just found a 2 year old Forge post where Ralph Mazza says pretty much everything I'm saying.

Still, if my version of things helps people understand where I'm coming from (and where a lot of Forge twunts are coming from), then only good can come of it.

[buddha_davis]

Yeah, but it's good to review it occasionally, and to look back at it and see how soemone else phrases it. Sometimes that's what it takes for it to click for you! For example, I love your GNS post... man, that made it really clear to me!

Buddha

[marcochacon]

So okay, this is good. I'm reading along and going "yeah, yeah--okay. Yeah, I agree with that."

It's all reasonably well presented.

Where I want to call attention to stuff I think is interesting.
1. Your blog's black background makes it painful for me to read your posts anywhere but *my* friend's list--and replying is hard too. Hard on my eyes.

2. (the real content) I believe that CA's are problematic here (and always have) because they create what I think is an illussion of underlying structure where it's not that simple. I.e. the fact that Bob and Laura argue about killing the hobgoblin (in the functional 3rd example) does not, to me, indicate a fundamental issue with how RPGs are done right--but rather the garden variety thing that happens when the group picks Italian food again and I stew.

It isn't that I have a Sushi-ist CA and it's being denied--it's that I didn't get what I wanted. I'm not convinced the context of the game is what's key here

[adamdray]

Should be much more readable now, right? I was due for a color change anyway

[adamdray]

My point in all that was that I don't just think it's a social thing ("you selfish fuckers, we always get Italian and never order sushi!"). I think it's earlier than that: you have certain preferences (Sim vs. Narr, polka vs. country) and certain skills (bricolage vs. scene framing, tuba vs. slide guitar). Someone is bound to get frustrated.

Maybe a group who have played together for years manage to create the polka-country fusion band that surprises music critics. Hey, Smashing Pumpkins does great things with a violin, and Cake fuses weird funky and jazzy influences with rock and adds a dash of swing brass flare, and John McCrea (lead singer) almost raps his music rather than singing it...

[marcochacon]

I don't know--when my friends don't do what I want them to it's annoying even without all that input-feedback-loop stuff. The fact is that I can get annoyed when they choose a restaurant I don't like and don't assimilate my requests same as if they're not doing what I want in an RPG

[joepub]

So, it seems to me that