06-23-2018, 03:44 PM | #21 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Social Engineering's "Influencing PCs" box, pg. 32
Well, in the first place, your environmental determinism is a philosophical viewpoint that grew out of Humean empiricism by way of logical positivism; it is not the only possible philosophical viewpoint. In the second place, the behaviorist program of psychological research it inspired has not been the only such program, or the dominant one, since I was in college. The cognitivist approach has its own limitations, but it's clearly an alternative. And in any case, even if environmental determinism and behaviorism were true, there would be no compulsion on game writers to base games on them, or on GMs and players to play those games. You can stipulate, if you like, that volition is an illusion, but it still might make for more enjoyable games. After all, we can play games that feature magic, or gods, or superpowers, or superscience, or psi; I don't see why we shouldn't play games that also feature some form of "free will" if we like that particular superpower.
(I'm not going to try to debate determinism vs. indeterminism, or compatibilitism vs. incompatibilism, or any of those philosophical issues, because this isn't a suitable forum. Let's just say that I'm aware of philosophical viewpoints that disagree with yours.) In the second place, your argument about going back in time and changing the past is a misrepresentation of the situation. Say that I write up a character, in a future society that has no social stigma on preferred partner sex, and a male character (PC or NPC) tries to persuade her to sexual activity, and I say, "It doesn't matter how well he rolled; he's the wrong sex for her." That isn't going back in time and rewriting the character sheet. The character sheet never said "This character is heterosexual" or "This character is bisexual." It didn't say anything about the subject. In the society in question, sexual preference is a zero point feature, and doesn't have to be written down, any more than I have to write down that the character has gray eyes or rarely eats highly spiced food. So when I base her reactions on my conceiving her to be exclusively homosexual, that's not changing something that was already established. It may be making explicit something that I had privately decided about the character, or deciding it when it becomes relevant. You seem to want everything to be determined by explicit rules and by things that are explicitly stated on character sheets. I've never played that way, or run games that way. I've always considered myself free, as GM or player, to improvise things that I didn't decide in advance, and I allow my players that same freedom. And GURPS is a game system that's highly compatible with that style of play. If you don't like that style of play, you don't have to play that way, or adopt an *optional* rule that was intended to facilitate it.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
06-23-2018, 04:08 PM | #22 | ||||||
Join Date: Jun 2018
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Re: Social Engineering's "Influencing PCs" box, pg. 32
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However, since I never suggested tossing out the concept of agency in the first place the contradiction here is secondary. Quote:
I am very interested to see any rebuttal to that. Quote:
If a characteristic is important to the PC then it should be written down. Otherwise, the unfolding story can unfold the character in ways the player doesn't have full control over. Quote:
Players can suggest things in this circumstance but they don't get to dictate. The time for dictation is when the character sheet is being made and, to a lesser extent, outside the session. The worst time for adding important features like sexual orientation is on the fly, after a roll was rolled on the subject. Features like sexual orientation are core self concept features. If a player didn't bother to specify then that player is making it clear that it's not important (to the player). Quote:
And, ad-libbing by the GM is one thing but players taking over the GM role is another. |
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06-23-2018, 04:33 PM | #23 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Social Engineering's "Influencing PCs" box, pg. 32
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If I write fiction, obviously my characters don't have full agency, as you define it. I totally control everything they do, and I can make them do anything, or prevent them from doing it. In relation to the fictional world, I'm omnipotent, and the characters aren't. But that makes the distinction between "agency" and "lack of agency" meaningless in statements about characters in the fictional world. Agency is a property of the author, and only of the author. But there is also a meaningful distinction within a story between characters who have agency, and characters who lack it, at least as a matter of degree. You yourself are accepting that distinction when you say that fictional characters don't have agency in all things at all times; if they did not have agency in some things at some times, that would be a trivial and uninteresting truth. And since, in writing fiction, we don't normally introduce the omnipotent being who controls all the events that happen in the story as a character, the concept of "full agency" has no application within the fictional world. "Agency" for human characters usually means that the things the characters do are the result of their choices. Lack of agency applies if their actions are not the results of their choices: If they're controlled by fate, or their social role, or their psychological compulsions, or something else of that sort, and have no room to change that. Agency is characteristic of romantic fiction; lack of agency is characteristic of naturalistic fiction. And most rpgs are romantic, with exceptions such as Paranoia where the players are invited to view their characters ironically. To add to this, it's a classic philosophical move to define X in such a way that nothing in the real, observable world can fit the definition; and then to say that X does not exist; and then to draw conclusions from X not existing. For example, many philosophers have defined "knowledge" as meaning that it is not conceivable that a claim to knowledge could ever be shown to be wrong; and, since we can always imagine grounds for doubt (Descartes' evil genius and so on), to draw skeptical conclusions. But the point of concepts is to be applied to things that exist in the real world. Your concept of agency cannot apply to anything in the real world, and therefore can be set aside. A valid concept of agency cannot require omnipotence, just as a valid concept of knowledge cannot require omniscience or infallibility. You may think that your claim that "full agency" requires omnipotence is a very simple point that cannot be discussed philosophically. I think it's a philosophical position, and one that makes any discussion that follows from it meaningless.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. Last edited by whswhs; 06-23-2018 at 04:37 PM. |
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06-23-2018, 04:56 PM | #24 | ||||||
Join Date: Jun 2018
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Re: Social Engineering's "Influencing PCs" box, pg. 32
that doesn't require any kind of overwhelming complex debate or discussion.
As for ignoring your rebuttal, your static/prefabricated fiction analogy is just an analogy and doesn't rebut what I wrote. I didn't ignore that part of your post. I didn't find it relevant. Quote:
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As for "Your concept of agency cannot apply to anything in the real world", I have no idea what you mean. Nowhere did I create a personal concept of agency. I didn't define it. I am talking about agency in the standard manner, not inventing something out of thin air. It's a simple fact that total agency is omnipotence. With anything less there is limitation. From limitation comes struggle. From struggle comes something to do. There is no game in omnipotent PCs. Quote:
That's a useless stance. Everything is a philosophical position. You're now tossing all of reality out to evade the basic truth I keep posting about control. |
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06-23-2018, 05:08 PM | #25 | |||
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Social Engineering's "Influencing PCs" box, pg. 32
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06-23-2018, 05:14 PM | #26 | |
Join Date: Jun 2018
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Re: Social Engineering's "Influencing PCs" box, pg. 32
That's not a rebuttal. Mine was.
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Systems can have flaws, hence this topic. |
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06-23-2018, 06:23 PM | #27 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Social Engineering's "Influencing PCs" box, pg. 32
Tabletop RPGs are a form of fiction.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
06-23-2018, 07:20 PM | #28 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Social Engineering's "Influencing PCs" box, pg. 32
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No, it doesn't make sense to give amchine gun the Trait of Charisma eiher. If you did it would only be usable by the person using it. Also, a machine gun bullet to the eye is nothing to do with imposing "will". It's a Piercing Attack to be resisted with DR rather than "agency". So perhaps you will be slightly more careful with your frequents claims of "red herrings" agsint other persons.
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Fred Brackin |
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06-23-2018, 08:35 PM | #29 | ||
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Social Engineering's "Influencing PCs" box, pg. 32
Saying you "addressed the issue" is not a rebuttal.
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Last edited by David Johnston2; 06-23-2018 at 09:02 PM. |
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06-23-2018, 09:00 PM | #30 | ||
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Saint Paul, MN
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Re: Social Engineering's "Influencing PCs" box, pg. 32
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As a GM, I certainly expect my players to be actively developing their characters in play. If something becomes important in a scene (like sexual orientation), I wouldn't presume to tell the player what choice to make to fit my idea of how the narrative was supposed to go. I would ask them and then have the scene adapt to their response. Indeed, how great it is when the responses are surprising because they transform the story into something that is unexpected and new for everyone. Quote:
The GM does, in many games, get to judge the quality of role-playing which can be rewarded with character points in GURPS. If a player is clearly making decisions that don't fit with their backstory just to avoid plot complications, they might earn fewer character points. At any table I've played at in the past few decades, they would also have a private conversation with the GM after the game. Eventually, if their play-style remains contrary to the expectations of the group, they may be asked to game elsewhere. |
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