thread: 2009-07-26 : Very Briefly about Authority
On 2009-07-28, Josh W wrote:
Vincent, you're moving into a very general field, the foundations of social systems! Now that's not a minefield warning or anything, instead a suggestion of stuff you can look at if you want to help explain this. Here's my take:
Any social structure is made of people with choice, and we can blow up all kinds of social structures if we want to. Now why don't we? Well we can tie existing structures together, so we say that if you break the rules of one then people will not cooperate with you in the other. Classic structures being the club of "trustworthy people" or "gentlemen" or "oath-keepers". Do you get the idea? We could say that if someone cheats at cards they are "an untrustworthy fellow" and not do business deals with them.
So in bygone days if Callan takes your advice and refuses point blank to play an rpg under the agreed rules, then word could spread that he is "of intemperate and intransigent character" which would discourage people from working with him. You'd also likely be called "a corrupter of honest men"!
But that doesn't cover it of course! Because as long as you tie back to existing structures, there must be one structure that stands on it's own feet. And if one stands on it's own feet, why can't many? (Looks like the oldschool language has rubbed off!)
So if we ignore the paradigm of "the agreements of trustworthy men", it can only be that cooperating in a game by the agreed rules is better than any other form of interaction the participants can think of.
In other words, people will play by the rules if the rules are more fun than being an asshole, but may play by different rules if they are more fun than both. People will not play the Chamberlain trick if letting the GM decide that is more fun. In other words, authority for deciding elements of game fiction can be protected if not only the things the GM produces are better, but simply having the ideas come from the GMs head is better. Only some preference on the level of principle (like Paul's one) will protect it in general, any specific things value will only protect it that once.
Naturally these two things can fight it out, with "this is a good idea" on one side vs "it's good to listen to him" on the other. The more you value the input of a person for their own good, or for intermediary reasons like "I bet it's part of a good plan", or "I can't do his job and mine well simultaneously" the more persistent your authority structures will be.
You can replace this with getting all the players to swear an oath, but really, rpgs are usually too uncertain an activity for that serious a commitment (it's not precisely clear what you will be agreeing to), and we are not from the past! Of course the final choice is just to go back on your agreements anyway and be happy about it, but that's another story!
