It prevents me from making meta-game judgments and second-guessing my characters.Mad Method wrote...
Curious. Why?Sylvius the Mad wrote...
I would rather not be consciously aware that I'm playing a game.
Usually. Games that allow me to roleplay are fun. Games that don't allow me to roleplay are not fun.Mad Method wrote...
And do you succeed?
To roleplay. I enjoy setting a character loose in an environment to see what he will do.But that which comes first comes first, so allow me to ask a more general question: Why do you play role-playing games?
I'll grant you that it's possible to pretend that every time an NPC responds in a way contrary to the intent of one of your statements due to them being dense or stupid. But...Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Except that you know how your character said it, because you chose that in advance. Why is this supposed implication overriding things you know to be true?
As a matter of fact I have talked to a person or two in my life, and in my experience, conversations are not scripted. I don't select what I say from a list of preset options (i.e. I can actually tailor the wording/tone of my statements to the person I am speaking to), and I can, in fact, clarify the meaning or intention of a misunderstood statement. And yes, it can make a difference; a person's feelings towards me are not so binary that we can't resolve the difference between sarcasm and insult.Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Why didn't you interpret that as evidence that the NPC couldn't take a joke and was oversensitive? If you delivered the line sarcastically, and they just didn't get it and took offense, would offering a correction make any difference? Given that they're now mad at you, would they believe that you didn't mean it that way?
Have you ever talked to people?
The player of a video game RPG is not creating the story, they are choosing which version of the story they want from a fixed number of presets. I would argue it's not possible for the writer to be "wrong" about the intent of a statement because, well, he wrote it. It is entirely posisble, however, for the player to misinterpret the intent of a statement when its tone is not made explicit.Sylvius the Mad wrote...
How does that matter? Yes, the writers need to have some idea how the line is delivered in order to write the response, but there's nothing preventing them from being wrong about that tone.
Modifié par Mad Method, 07 mars 2011 - 11:36 .
That would let me meta-game the consequences, though, by tailoring the environment to suit my preferences.Mad Method wrote...
Sylvius, it sounds to me as if the game itself is unnecessary to this task. If I want to set a character loose in an environment to see what will happen, I can already do that within my mind.
TheOneAndOni wrote...
I'll grant you that it's possible to pretend that every time an NPC responds in a way contrary to the intent of one of your statements due to them being dense or stupid.
As a matter of fact I have talked to a person or two in my life, and in my experience, conversations are not scripted. I don't select what I say from a list of preset options (i.e. I can actually tailor the wording/tone of my statements to the person I am speaking to), and I can, in fact, clarify the meaning or intention of a misunderstood statement.
I disagree. I think the writer and player are collaborating to write the story.The player of a video game RPG is not creating the story, they are choosing which version of the story they want from a fixed number of presets.
I would argue it's not possible for the writer to be "wrong" about the intent of a statement because, well, he wrote it.
If the tone isn't explicit then it isn't there at all. There's no middle ground.It is entirely posisble, however, for the player to misinterpret the intent of a statement when its tone is not made explicit.
Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 07 mars 2011 - 11:44 .
Modifié par Mad Method, 08 mars 2011 - 12:24 .
I didn't mean to imply that; I meant to imply that you can provide your own imaginative reason for why the intent of your statement was misunderstood, and "stupidity" and "density" would be among those explanations.Sylvius the Mad wrote...
People keep saying that. People who think in ways you don't immediately understand are not necessarily stupid. That's very condescending.
I find it hard to imagine communicating in this way in real life. How a statement is percieved is as important (if not moreso) as how it is intended, and the point at which those things are not the same is the point where communication breaks down entirely.The way I play RPGs, I can tailor my wording and tone as well.
And I don't find that I can clarify misunderstood statements in the real world because I can't tell what means people are using to interpret my remarks in the first place.
So I just focus on what I'm saying and their interpretation is their problem.
I concede the point about the PCs reasoning being entirely player driven, but even that must exist within the context of the framework laid out by the writer (which the player has no influence over). Conversations, however, are selected from a pre-defined subset, and I don't think you can really have full, pre-scripted conversations completely devoid of implicit intent in all of the statements.I disagree. I think the writer and player are collaborating to write the story.
The story you describe is just the authored narrative. You're ignoring the emergent narrative: the part of the story that appears only as a result of the player's input. This would include all of the PC's reasoning behind his choices. That's part of the story, but it's something of which the writers are entirely unaware.
I disagree. I believe the game world is the creation of the developer, and his interpretation of it is what defines it. Players may choose to interpret it differently for their own purposes, and even though that's a perfectly acceptable practice, I still believe it makes those interpretations "incorrect" (for lack of a better word).He can't be wrong about what he intended, but he can absolutely be wrong about the intent of the line contained within the game.
It seems like the distinction you are making is between intent and tone. It's true that there is no tone in un-voiced dialog since tone is an audio quality, but humans use tone for essentially no purpose other than to convey intent.Because the lines in the game demonstrably don't contain any tone at all, so if he thinks they do then he's obviously wrong.
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If the tone isn't explicit then it isn't there at all. There's no middle ground.
Mad Method wrote...
Hm? You don't have to particularly metagame it. And it sounds to me like you're better off with classic Pen and Paper RPGs than PC games.
Chris Priestly wrote...
Who had this topic as "The next thing that Sylvius will take offense to as ruining his game" in the pool? Anyone?
But I'm not in their heads. I can't know why they reached a given conclusion. It's not like I know what they think they were responding to, but that's not the intent I chose, so I'm overriding it and thus have to invent some explanation.TheOneAndOni wrote...
I didn't mean to imply that; I meant to imply that you can provide your own imaginative reason for why the intent of your statement was misunderstood, and "stupidity" and "density" would be among those explanations.
First, it's important to recognise that communication isn't a thing. There's expression, and there's interpretion, and those two things together we call communication, but communication exists in name only.I find it hard to imagine communicating in this way in real life. How a statement is percieved is as important (if not moreso) as how it is intended, and the point at which those things are not the same is the point where communication breaks down entirely.
I concede the point about the PCs reasoning being entirely player driven, but even that must exist within the context of the framework laid out by the writer (which the player has no influence over).
Whereas, I insist that implicit intent can't exist within the statements at all. I'm not just ignoring it; it's not there.Conversations, however, are selected from a pre-defined subset, and I don't think you can really have full, pre-scripted conversations completely devoid of implicit intent in all of the statements.
I wouldn't call any interpretation incorrect unless it contradicts the game's explicit content.I disagree. I believe the game world is the creation of the developer, and his interpretation of it is what defines it. Players may choose to interpret it differently for their own purposes, and even though that's a perfectly acceptable practice, I still believe it makes those interpretations "incorrect" (for lack of a better word).
Neither the tone nore the intent exists within the game. If either did, you could show it to me. You could point to the intent.It seems like the distinction you are making is between intent and tone. It's true that there is no tone in un-voiced dialog since tone is an audio quality, but humans use tone for essentially no purpose other than to convey intent.
This.ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...
He doesn't like multi-player games.Mad Method wrote...
Hm? You don't have to particularly metagame it. And it sounds to me like you're better off with classic Pen and Paper RPGs than PC games.
DadeLeviathan wrote...
I love how this thread has turned into a question and answer session with Sylvius. "Oh great and powerful forum elder! Show us your wisdom!"
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