thread: 2012-11-21 : Positioning: Some Looly Pooly Groundwork
On 2012-11-21, Alex D. wrote:
Following on from Gordon, and arrows between players...
There is one large cloud, the group fiction (SIS?).
But, also, each player has a cloud and also each possible set of players has a cloud. (In some, maybe all, cases these are irrelevant!)
I'm going to call clouds fictional spaces from here on out! Ya'll know what I mean, I hope.
In my mind (fictional space), I envision my warrior drawing his dagger. So it's in my head, that's it, and if I say "Well, my warrior has his dagger drawn.", maybe people will accept it (as a thing that happened but wasn't explicitly stated) or maybe they won't!
If Joe Gamer leans over, says "These guys look angry. Better get your weapon drawn.", and I'm like "Oh yeah, I'll whip out my dagger.", but no one else hears or notices... well, it exists in the fictional space shared between Joe and I.
Maybe someone (Jane Gamer) steps away from the table, I declare dagger drawn. Now that fact exists in the fictional space shared between everyone except Jane.
Finally, we get back to the biggest, most important cloud, the whole group fictional space. Maybe I'm wrong! Maybe this isn't news. I'm not sure.
Oh, sure, also each different cue is it's own thing, of course, but the distinction between dice VS written things isn't as interesting to me as the distinction between my & Joe's cloud VS the group cloud. I think the latter is more contentious, too?
And, at the risk of going into Ramble Country, I think putting something into a partially shared fictional space (say, my & Joe's cloud) is a sort of social positioning that can then push something into the group shared fictional space.
Am I wrong? Maybe!
It's curious.
Do any games rely on or allow a partial shared fictional space?
- Alex
This makes GcL go "Good link, llb"
Rereading and re-remembering it, I'm left thinking that players/sets don't get clouds - they only get arrows. They have thoughts and interactions that influence the singular shared cloud. Which isn't to say there aren't differences at any given time between what Joe thinks about the shared cloud and what I think about it - but we are thinking about the same, singular cloud. Maybe.
This makes VB go "Wow, that thread..."
It was SO FRUSTRATING at the time, but reading back through it, it was kind of perfectly fine. Neat.
This makes llb go "from my perspective"
...I don't think we need to worry theoretically about multiple fictional subspaces unless we want to. If everybody doesn't agree it's not "true" -- but people can agree before to rules that "require" their agreement later, such as secret information, or they can discuss things separately as social positioning. (Prearranged rules are just a strong subset of social positioning.)
Note that we can observe the LP operating on any hidden info at the moment it becomes public -- so that is also the moment it enters the fiction.
This makes TMR go "Hee!"
I was thinking about that exact thread when I read this. Re-reading it, it's VB's comment at 31 that seems like it's most relevant here. That's a direct link between currency and fictional positioning.
This makes GcL go "One more thing"
I think there's an arrow between a player and him or her self, too. An arrow, not a cloud. There are things in the cloud that only I know about! Neat.
This makes CB go "Thought about cloud priority"
I believe you just described the issue with secrets between players at the table, especially if you make the assumption that the GM's cloud is the cannonical group cloud (a fairly common assumption in a lot of strong GM RPGs).
