thread: 2005-11-10 : Open House: Ask a Frequent Question...
On 2005-12-01, Vincent wrote:
I haven't seen so much (b) in the past year, now that you mention it; maybe we're getting somewhere.
You get to character-as-avatar by taking too literally the "space" metaphor. There is (or there used to be) a certain kind of physics-emulationist technical agenda whose adherants are (or were) very prone to this.
I say "shared imagined space" and they say (or said) "right! Your character is your representative in that space, and your game rules are its physics!" As though there were a space somewhere wherein your character was really walking around and doing things, bound by gravity and +1 to hit.
Makes me CRAZY.
But like I say, maybe all those people are gone now and the world's a better place.
This makes JHK go "They are out there."
They are there and they will continue to talk and we will continue to do what we do.
Let's just keep on keepin' on.
This makes JJWH go "Well, it makes ME think..."
It makes me think of vector spaces. A space is a set of coordinates. In this the coordinates would be static states of the fiction (incomplete and/or incompletely understood), and the rules (mechanical, social, etc) constrain how you move in that space, ie how you add/modify the fiction. (perhaps The Fiction?). So, yes, bound by gravity and +1, but no, no walking.
