Quote from: TonyLBI'd love to discuss the r.g.f.a. stuff, but I'd also like to keep up the discussion of the Actor/Author/Director divide.  I'm greedy that way.

No problem.  Just make sure that divide isn't limiting how you are looking at the issue.  I have no problem taking the r.g.f.a discussion over to your new thread and, frankly, beyond a compare and contrast, I'd like to see if either model is missing something.

Quote from: John MorrowOut of curiosity, what about when doing what you believe your character would do is what makes the game fun?  I'm not clear whether that's what this definition is trying to say or whether it's assuming that sometimes just doing what you believe your character would do isn't going to be fun.

So, back on this topic:  I think (though maybe I'm wrong about this too) that Actor and Author the way I've written them up in the first post are not mutually exclusive.  In fact, they're not even written to be mutually exclusive.  They're ... what's the word ... orthogonal.

If you're saying "Yeah, my character would totally do this" then you're in Actor stance.  Yay!

If you're saying "Oh, this would totally be a Good Thing for reasons having nothing to do with what my character would do," then you're in Author stance.  Yay!

If you're doing both?  Well then, more power to you.  In fact, I'd say that the vast majority of the time I'm doing both these days.

"What my character would do" is not, usually, a single brightly lit path.  There are a wide variety of responses that a character could plausibly have.  Often, several of them are clearly also going to be fun as all hell on levels other than simply 'It's fun to play my character.'  Some paths are going to put the other players on the spot, or put me on the spot, or show us something about the nature of ... I dunno ... cheese, or something.

So, among the things that my character could equally plausibly do, I choose the one that's fun.  Best of both worlds.

Quote from: TonyLB"What my character would do" is not, usually, a single brightly lit path.  There are a wide variety of responses that a character could plausibly have.  Often, several of them are clearly also going to be fun as all hell on levels other than simply 'It's fun to play my character.'  Some paths are going to put the other players on the spot, or put me on the spot, or show us something about the nature of ... I dunno ... cheese, or something.

I think that's where the distinction between what the r.g.f.a model calls "In Character" (thinking about what your character would do) and "Deep IC" thinking in character as your character, is important.  When I'm thinking as my character, I not only usually have a single brightly lit path (the character just does what they think they should do) but in that frame of mind, I'm not normally thinking about whether that's good or bad from a perspective outside of my character.  Some people seem to have a much easier time toggling between thinking in character and outside of the character.  Vincent Baker seems to have a much easier time switching perspectives than I do.

For me, thinking in character is like booting a computer.  I have to start up the characters memory, thought processes, and emotional state and can't do that instantly.  As such, I can suspend the character to do some things out of character (e.g., pouring myself more Pepsi or making a skill roll) but if the task requires a lot of mental effort or accesses the same information that the character is using, the in character thinking crashes and I'll have to reboot to get back into it.

Quote from: TonyLBSo, among the things that my character could equally plausibly do, I choose the one that's fun.  Best of both worlds.

This is actually the problem I have as a GM, when I'm not thinking in character.  And then my problem there is picking which one is fun because they often all look like good choices to me.  I roll a lot of dice when I GM because it's easier for me than deciding.  The one interesting side-effect of that is that I've been told that I'm not easy to predict by players who were used to playing the GM (that is, figuring out what the GM is planning and doing things to manipulate the GM).  Hmmm.  That's probably another stance, too -- observing and manipulating other participants at the game level.

Quote from: John MorrowWhen I'm thinking as my character, I not only usually have a single brightly lit path (the character just does what they think they should do) but in that frame of mind, I'm not normally thinking about whether that's good or bad from a perspective outside of my character.

Well, see now, that's interesting.  From my definitions that makes it sound as if for you, Actor and Author mode are incompatible.  If you're thinking about the outside perspective then it spoils your ability to think about the inside, and vice versa.  Does that sound right?

For me, not so much.  The two ways of thinking don't conflict.  It's not even that I toggle rapidly (though I understand why, if the state of thinking about what your character would do excludes other considerations for you, that you would envision it that way).  I just do both at the same time, without interruption.

Strange, huh?

But I keep going back to the thought that the most important question to consider is, "Are you thinking about things in such a way as to try to be consistent with your character or not?"

Now for some of you high falutin' theory guys (it's a joke, so pipe down you), there might be something to exploring the greater detail of WWMCD vs WWIDAMC (go on, figure 'em out for yourself). But somehow, for most players and GM's, I'm guessing the first question will be the most important in trying to figure out why a game group isn't working well together.

Perhaps it's better to think of these things in a tree format (if you want to classify things in this way). Question 1, A) Inside Character or B) Outside Character.  Does this help diagnose the group's problems? Yes, you're done.  No - OK, if you chose A) Inside Character, do you...

And so on...

Kind of like a Help chain you see in software...

EDIT: Which, of course as I go back and read them, is a pretty close approximation of what you have for Actor and Author.  I think, perhaps, I'd change a few terms and things...hmmm...

Quote from: James J SkachBut I keep going back to the thought that the most important question to consider is, "Are you thinking about things in such a way as to try to be consistent with your character or not?"

Now for some of you high falutin' theory guys (it's a joke, so pipe down you), there might be something to exploring the greater detail of WWMCD vs WWIDAMC (go on, figure 'em out for yourself). But somehow, for most players and GM's, I'm guessing the first question will be the most important in trying to figure out why a game group isn't working well together.

I think you lost me.  Which first question?  Maybe can I get a few lines of "Alice, Bob and Clyde" fictional example to where you're thinking of this question coming up, and why it's most important?

Quote from: TonyLBI think you lost me.  Which first question?  Maybe can I get a few lines of "Alice, Bob and Clyde" fictional example to where you're thinking of this question coming up, and why it's most important?

Sorry...I was so long between posts (had to watch the Bears and Colts win!) that I probably lost something...

My assumption is that we would like to define stance - that is, what a player is doing/saying at the table and what motivations are behind those actions - and come up with some categories to help understand what's happening during a gaming session.

Now, my next assumption is we're doing this to help ourselves and other people have a tool to diagnose what's happening at a table to either design a game or improve group play.

So, I'm thinking of this as a kind of diagnosis tool.  It's kinda how my mind works when trying to categorize things.  So, when trying to determine a player's stance, I ask a question - "How are you making decisions about what your character does/says?"

This validates, I think, your difference between Actor and Author (though I think another term for Author might be a better bet).  Am I making decisions about my character based on what the character would do - either as What Would My Character Do (WWMCD) or What Would I Do As My Character (WWIDAMC) - or am I making on them on something outside that. (EDIT: often, in traditional RPG, called guilty knowledge)

Now, we seem to have been talking about at least two possibilities for the former - subdivisions if you will (three if you account for Performance, which I think I get now but I think might be a different animal).  Whether the distinction is valid or not we can discuss.  I'm sure there are tons of subdivisions for those making decisions outside of that.

In either case, if you have a problem at the table, and the first order question of In/Out of Character helps you fix it, you're not going to care about the subdivisions.

It's just one of the ways I approach attempts at classification. Ask the question that would lead to the classification to see if its valid.

Does that help?

Oh ... yeah!

I guess I thought we were all on the same ... okay.  Let me back up.  Way back when you wrote:

Quote from: James J SkachI think in practice, these things are likely not to cause conflict (regardless of the stance) because the play will combine nicely.  That is, Joe will choose a character that fulfills his goals of killing orcs, and Jane will kill orcs because that's what the character she chose would do.  In practice, the two will achieve different goals through the same act.

I read more into that than I think you meant.  So let me extend what you actually said to what I read between the lines.

   "... and because Joe has chosen a character who naturally kills orcs, he can be in Actor stance ('I kill Orcs because it's what Brog does') and Author stance ('Me likey kill 'dem Orcs!  More Orcs!  More killing!') at the same time without any conflict."

I don't think that you could pin Joe down to one or the other of Actor or Author.  He's clearly doing both, right?  And I don't see anything in the descriptions (at least the ones I gave) that says he can't be doing both.

So I'm pretty sure I no longer see these two things as either-or ... and so I can't really go with you on the idea of using that either-or choice to navigate a tree.  How about we just realize "Oh, hey, these things aren't mutually exclusive," and make our lives much easier?

Quote from: TonyLBWell, see now, that's interesting.  From my definitions that makes it sound as if for you, Actor and Author mode are incompatible.  If you're thinking about the outside perspective then it spoils your ability to think about the inside, and vice versa.  Does that sound right?

In a Forge sense, that's probably correct.  Director is also a problem for me.  Basically, if most of my mind is working on thinking in character, thinking about anything out of the character (whether it's an omniscient setting issue or the game as a game) can cause problems for me.

Quote from: TonyLBFor me, not so much.  The two ways of thinking don't conflict.  It's not even that I toggle rapidly (though I understand why, if the state of thinking about what your character would do excludes other considerations for you, that you would envision it that way).  I just do both at the same time, without interruption.

I think you are still missing a critical distinction, based on that comment.  I don't think about what my character would do.  I think in character.  It's not the same thing.  

The clearest example that I can give happened years ago, I was playing a character involved in some illegal activity trying to evade the authorities.  Up until that point, he had been involved in a lot of adventures with an NPC girlfriend and another PC.  To evade the authorities, since he didn't feel he could withstand the lie detection they had available, he decided to have his memories psionically scrubbed of the illegal activity he'd been involved in.  When that happened, I filtered the character's memory accordingly.

What happened after that was the character started to feel strong uneasiness and paranoia while dealing with his girlfriend and the other PC.  This wasn't something that I decided to do.  It came out of thinking in character, and it wasn't even conscious.  

What I realized after the game, when I psychoanalyzed my own character to figure out what was going on, was that the erased memories contained all of the most intense bonding experiences between my PC, his girlfriend, and the other PC.  Without the memories of either the illegal activity or the bonding experiences, the evasion about various things as well as the close familiar dialog between the other PC and my character's girlfriend took on a  very sinister appearance to the character -- as if the other PC had moved in on his girlfriend and was trying to do him harm.  

I didn't think about doing that.  I'm not sure I would ever have thought of that consciously.  I was thinking in character as my character and it happened.  Think of it as a controlled multiple personality, if that helps.

Do you understand the distinction I'm trying to make?  It is the distinction between IC and Deep IC in the r.g.f.a stances model.

Quote from: John MorrowI think you are still missing a critical distinction, based on that comment.  I don't think about what my character would do.  I think in character.  It's not the same thing.

That's fine.  Do you get that the definitions being discussed in this thread do not touch on that distinction?

If you're "thinking as your character" then you're in Actor stance.  If you're "thinking about what your character would do" then you're in Actor stance.

What I'm saying is that some people (e.g. me) achieve Actor stance in a way that doesn't preclude their simultaneously achieving Author stance.

It sounds, to me, as if you only go into Actor stance in ways that preclude your simultaneously achieving Author stance.

Do you sometimes go into Actor stance in different ways that don't preclude your simultaneously achieving Author stance?  Do you have a different mindset at your disposal that lets you play with both at once?

Quote from: TonyLBOh ... yeah!

I guess I thought we were all on the same ... okay.  Let me back up.  Way back when you wrote: I read more into that than I think you meant.  So let me extend what you actually said to what I read between the lines.

   "... and because Joe has chosen a character who naturally kills orcs, he can be in Actor stance ('I kill Orcs because it's what Brog does') and Author stance ('Me likey kill 'dem Orcs!  More Orcs!  More killing!') at the same time without any conflict."

I don't think that you could pin Joe down to one or the other of Actor or Author.  He's clearly doing both, right?  And I don't see anything in the descriptions (at least the ones I gave) that says he can't be doing both.

So I'm pretty sure I no longer see these two things as either-or ... and so I can't really go with you on the idea of using that either-or choice to navigate a tree.  How about we just realize "Oh, hey, these things aren't mutually exclusive," and make our lives much easier?

Abso-fucking-lutely...

It could be that Joe picks characters that will like to kill orcs because - hey! Joe likes killing orcs! He doesn't want to have to "act" much, so in order to hang out with his buddies (who like to challenge themselves a bit more with their choice of character, shall we say) and have a good time, he picks Brog.

Once that decision is made, there's no difference between the two.  In fact, he is occupying two formerly mutually exclusive points in space and time at one time, thereby ripping a hole in the known universe and...well..after that I got nothin'

But it does, to me, bring up an interesting point.  Is there something that needs to be done at the "chargen" pointin the process - something like a stance that classifies how people come to pick the characters they play?

P.S. You see this in a group where one guy keeps picking "Brog" right?  Probably a common thing.  And at some point you might get friction because somebody decides to say "Geez, does Joe ever play anything but Brog?"

EDIT: And just to be clear, it's why I mentioned a Tree approach.  Tree are funny things, they don't just have two branches (unless, of course, you're talking about a binary tree).  So the answers could include C) Both and D) Other that lead to different questions. Make sense?
EDIT2: My bad, I thought I had mentioned tree approach - perhaps in another thread.

Quote from: James J SkachBut I keep going back to the thought that the most important question to consider is, "Are you thinking about things in such a way as to try to be consistent with your character or not?"

What does it mean to be "consistent with your character"?

Quote from: John MorrowWhat does it mean to be "consistent with your character"?

I don't know what your defintion would be.  Perhaps yet another thread. Yikes.

You've mentioned a couple of possibilities.  One I'm familiar with, the other you've explained and I get the distinction. In the long run, for me, it's that when I make a decision about my character's actions/words, I try to do it in such a way as to be consistent with the characters attributes, personality, insert-system-specific-character-defining-things-here.

Does my character lie? No, then I better not lie.  Does my character hate orcs? Yes? Shoot first ask questions later. Things like that.

Help?

Quote from: James J SkachBut it does, to me, bring up an interesting point.  Is there something that needs to be done at the "chargen" pointin the process - something like a stance that classifies how people come to pick the characters they play?

I dunno.  There's a whole pile of interesting stuff in terms of how you choose the constraints that you will play under, in order to strengthen you rather than restrict you.

Like, I used to always take "Reckless" and "Rigid Code of Ethics" when playing Champions, because I liked to play a certain devil-may-care silver-age style of hero.  Those "disadvantages" weren't restrictions for me ... they were exactly in line with what I was going to do anyway, and if anybody groused about it (which they seldom did, but I suppose it could have happened) then I could easily point at my character sheet and say "Look, I can't help it!  I've got the psychological limitations."

But I don't think that only happens in character generation.  People choose their games on that basis too.  They decide what the world's going to be like to suit the type of things they want to do ... do you play Vampire as a group of on-the-run Caitiffs, or as the ruling members of the power elite?  Well, depends how you want to be constrained during the course of the game.

Quote from: TonyLBThat's fine.  Do you get that the definitions being discussed in this thread do not touch on that distinction?

If you're "thinking as your character" then you're in Actor stance.  If you're "thinking about what your character would do" then you're in Actor stance.

What I'm saying is that some people (e.g. me) achieve Actor stance in a way that doesn't preclude their simultaneously achieving Author stance

It sounds, to me, as if you only go into Actor stance in ways that preclude your simultaneously achieving Author stance.

Correct.  In other words, one form of Actor stance plays more nicely with Author stance than the other.  That's important if you want to start making assumptions about how the stances interact within a player.  

Quote from: TonyLBDo you sometimes go into Actor stance in different ways that don't preclude your simultaneously achieving Author stance?  Do you have a different mindset at your disposal that lets you play with both at once?

I find "what would my character do" an uncomfortable way to play a character because I can imagine my character doing all sorts of things and have no way to pick between the possibilities (the same problem I have with diceless games).  So what's clear and easy for me while thinking in character (because my character knows what they want to do) becomes a chore thinking about my character.  It also sort of defeats my primary reason for playing, which is to experience the game in character.

I can do this when I GM for NPCs to a certain degree, but even then I often find myself slipping into the character to play through scenes with more detailed NPCs or NPCs that I've run quite a bit.  At other times, I roll a lot of dice to pick between choices and while that works OK for brief NPC encounters, it's not really satisfying for a PC.  This is one of the reasons why I enjoy being a player more than being a GM.

So the answer is that I probably could play with a different mindset but it's not the way I'd prefer to play and I'm not sure I'd enjoy running a PC that way.  It might be worth a try one of these days, but I suspect I'll have to force myself not to slip into thinking in character because that happens when I run NPCs as a GM.