thread: 2005-03-18 : Audience?
On 2005-03-18, Eric wrote:
I would suggest that if Vincent wants to draw a distinction between someone who's present and can chuck fan mail, add birds to the sky, etc., and someone whose only contribution is "That's cool!", then the actor/audience terms aren't really sufficient. The levels-of-engagement thing isn't a binary setup and I think we'll just waste time trying to shoehorn it in there. Charles' four-part list comes closer but I think the lines are still blurry.
So let's take Vincent's last question in the originating post and say MU to it.
I think the interesting place for me in this thread, apart from the huge value in the bolded stuff in Vincent's post, is in the blurred area between "contribute as audience" and "watch as audience" in Charles' dissection.
The other lines aren't particularly blurry. As previously discussed, witnessing seems to be critical to protagonism. Engagement sufficient to hit this threshold definitely defines the line between ignore, and watch. The line between actor (PC or explicit GM duty, present in scene) and active audience (able to directly affect SIS, but no PC present nor explicit GM responsibilities) is similarly, I think, generally pretty plain.
But because the social feedback loops are so strong, the spectrum between audience as witness and audience as contributor seems really blurry. If we draw it anywhere, it's by saying that the latter can affect the SIS directly through their own words, while the former does so indirectly - they affect another player with their words/attention, who then affects the SIS with this in mind. But since the SIS gets constituted through all of our words, not merely those acknowledged as explicitly "to be included", things blur.
As an example let's say we have two PCs, not including mine (I'm also not the GM), together with an NPC named George. If the NPC leaves then the tensions between the other two will erupt and we'll get a cool fight. We all know this. As a variously-engaged (and empowered) audience member, my contribution to the game could fall anywhere along the following spectrum:
"George goes off on his own now."
"I think it's time for George to go off on his own."
"Hey, GM, this would be a cool time for George to take off."
(Look at GM expectantly, but say nothing.)
(Look to see if the GM will do this cool thing, but null expression, no prompting.)
[Earlier, when George almost left but was restrained by circumstances, burbling about how cool it was that the other two almost got their chance to fight it out today.]
Does that make sense? Do you see what I mean when I say that I don't see a sharp line anywhere, there?
