[arg_discuss] Social Interaction in ARGs

[Markus Montola]

Back again at the email a lot later.


We have coined the term "minimalist role-playing" for many role-playish 
situations that emerge in pervasive games. It happens primarily when you 
have to perform a character in order to interact with the game sensibly: 
For instance, if you play the role of the captain on the bridge of the 
Enterprise, and the game hardware only reacts to voice commands such as 
"Computer! Activate the Tachyon Shields!", you are role-playing -- even 
though your knowledge of (and interest in) the character is small. You 
play the captain of Enterprise, but don't really know/care whether he's 
Kirk or Picard.

I think such interactions are becoming more common of late. Sometimes it 
comes up like the computer game Uplink, which changes your computer into 
your game character's computer and allows you to hack international 
targets, or an ARG, where you don't know whether you are talking with an 
NPC or an outsider. If you play a tad role-playish ARG like Sanningen om 
Marika, which explicitly told the players to pretend it is real as the 
only rule in the advertisements, you start making more difference 
between your "ordinary self" and "role-played self".


I've discussed Minimalist Role-Playing in this paper. Please note that 
it is written from the other end of the bridge, for a larper audience. 
Minimalist role-playing enters the story under the heading "playing 
without characters", there's a lot of stuff before it. We are giving it 
some proper treatment in our forthcoming book, which does not have a 
publication date just yet. 
http://www.liveforum.dk/kp07book/lifelike_montola.pdf

Also, you should take a look at this paper; it discusses the ARGlike 
larp Momentum, in which a nice double life strategy was used. The story 
is quite complicated so I won't try to summarize it, but it's all about 
your ordinary self, your game self and a nice way of introducing 
separate characters into the equation. And what happens when your 
character meets your mother.
http://www.liveforum.dk/kp07book/lifelike_stenros.pdf



Best,

  - Markus

PS. If ARG is "defined" by lack of role-played characters, what should 
we call the group of hybrids which look like ARGs and taste like ARGs 
but where designers *or players themselves* come up with pretended, 
fictional or secretly fabricated characters?


Brian Clark kirjoitti:

> "I don't quite understand why all of you think it isn't a factor, and don't

> see any difference between roleplay in ARGs and RPGs."

> 

> I see a huge diversity of roleplaying within individual ARGs and RPGs, let

> alone in differences between the two genres.

> 

> Once of my cast members for Eldritch Errors is a fairly well known LARP

> (live action roleplaying) figure, and she too wrote about the differences

> there. Quoting her:

> 

> "In RPG's, there is a clear line between 'character' and 'self', or at least

> clearer. When you are 'in game' you are not you, but a character that you

> have created; and when the game is over, you go back to being you. ARG's are

> different, in this way, because while people maintain an 'in game' and 'out

> of game' understanding, their persona 'in game' is really them, the actual

> person. Granted, in some cases it is an amplified version of themselves, but

> regardless, it makes the interactions complicated on a whole new level that

> is not touched upon often, and most times purposefully avoided, in RPG's."

> 

> From: http://www.schmeldritch.com/2007/11/on-the-inside-looking-in.html

> 

> She also focused on the difference between self and character between the

> two, and pointed to a John Hughes 1988 paper entitled "Therapy is Fantasy:

> Roleplaying, Healing and the Construction of Symbolic Order":

> http://www.rpgstudies.net/hughes/therapy_is_fantasy.html

> 

> In that paper, Hughes tries to define roleplaying as "a recreational [...]

> translation of private fantasy activities such as daydreaming into social

> and game context that is structured and controlled by an agreed set of

> rules."

> 

> He's interested in it as a therapist, though, because:

> 

> "One of the characteristics of collective fantasy formations such as

> roleplaying is that because the creation of the fantasy is a group

> communicative process, one is able to access the processes of symbol

> formation in ways that are not possible when studying reports of dreams and

> daydreaming. As such, collective fantasy stands as a prime example of the

> symbolic interactionalist approach to the construction of meaning, a true

> universe of discourse."

> 

> To boil that back to Markus, maybe the difference is that ARGs tend to have

> a smaller distance between ordinary self and pretend self (as in "I'm trying

> on an alternate version of myself") than "fantasy roleplaying" (where I

> don't mean fantasy as in "elves and wizards" so much as "I'm escaping from

> myself into a fantasy".)

> 

> Both, though, are a collective symbolic process that is constructing

> meaning, and Hughes would argue both give you a symbolic peek into the minds

> of the participants.

> 

> -----Original Message-----

> From: arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org [mailto:arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org] On

> Behalf Of Christy Dena

> Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 11:06 PM

> To: Discussion list of the IGDA ARG SIG

> Subject: Re: [arg_discuss] Social Interaction in ARGs

> 

> Yes, I like Markus's quote too. That is exactly the kind of definition

> that facilitates the continnum I was after. There can be a sliding

> scale of difference between the ordinary and pretended self. To me

> (and others), the difference between the ordinary self and the

> pretended self is a signficant part of the experience, and therefore

> influences design. I mean, there are millions of people worldwide

> playing World of Warcraft, not World of Walmart. To be honest, I don't

> quite understand why all of you think it isn't a factor, and don't see

> any difference between roleplay in ARGs and RPGs.

> 

> 

> On 6/25/08, Brian Clark <bclark at gmdstudios.com> wrote:

>> Markus, I love the clarity of:

>>

>> "an ordinary self, a pretended self and a consciousness of their

>> differences"

>>

>> That actually seems to be a unifying concept across these other competing

>> definitions: the arguments are about how far the pretend self has to be

> from

>> the ordinary self to count as roleplaying.

>>

>> Christy, though, I want to go back to one of the definitions you offered:

>>

>> "creating a novel persona for your character that fits in the context of

> the

>> game world and interacting with others through that persona"

>>

>> I'd argue that "novel" is a pretty high bar to set to qualify. "For your

>> character" suggests a certain level of roleplaying is already happening,

>> doesn't it -- because the MMPORG mechanic subtly encourages that by

>> producing a digital proxy. It also leaves itself fuzzy with the

> "interacting

>> with others" because MMPORGs historically can separate human-to-human

>> interaction into "player/player" with everything else

> "player/environment".

>> ARGs don't have such an easy shortcut.

>>

>> If you took Yee's definition and reworked it, it sounds like Markus'

>> statement from Lillard:

>>

>> "creating a persona for yourself that fits in the context of the game

> world

>> and interacting with others through that persona"

>>

>> This to me seems axiomatic, at least in the player-centered definition of

>> what is an ARG. That's what underscores that Unfiction is an OOG space:

>> because the rest of the world becomes "the game world". I'd go so far to

>> argue that if people weren't at least subtly "creating personas" to

>> "interact with others" it wouldn't be the Internet, which has a culture of

>> anonymous voyeurism that ARGing (like other community dynamics) actually

>> manages to overcome in amazing ways.

>>

>> The lack of roleplaying is the emergent behavior from the interaction of

> the

>> system, not the roleplaying.

>>

>> -----Original Message-----

>> From: arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org [mailto:arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org]

> On

>> Behalf Of Markus Montola

>> Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 3:13 AM

>> To: arg_discuss at igda.org

>> Subject: Re: [arg_discuss] Social Interaction in ARGs

>>

>> It all depends on how you define role-play. A good definition of

>> pretend play (iirc by Lillard) assumes an ordinary self, a pretended

>> self and a consciousness of their differences. So if you don't know

>> she is a character, you can't pretend. Of course this is not always

>> simple; especially if young children play.

>>

>> Usually.

>>

>> Our research project (IPerG) ran a few games using a lot of pervasive

>> role-play, where players were explicitly asked to treat everyone as

>> part of the play. Thus, they were role-playing in their everyday

>> interactions with bus drivers and clerks -- and incidentally some of

>> these folks (like a real nurse working in a real hospital) turned out

>> to be involved with game content.

>>

>> As a result we ended up with lots and lots of gray areas between play

>> and not play, often involving pretence, role-play et cetera.

>>

>> We have published quite a lot on role-play, pervasive play and the

>> social expansion to the ordinary world. I'm more than happy to provide

>> links if anyone's interested.

>>

>>

>> Best,

>>

>>   - Markus Montola -- writing a PhD. on pervasive role-play

>>

>>     University of Tampere Hypermedialab

>>     Mobile: +358 44 544 2445

>>

>>> I'm with you, Mike. I think as soon as a player treats a character as

>>> real, which they know (or suspect) to be a fictional construct of some

>>> kind, that puts them in the realm of roleplay. They're placing their

>>> own persona into the game.

>>>

>>> Also, I don't think there's really any difference between a person

>>> playing an Orc (or Shakespeare) and themselves. The vast majority of

>>> players are not skilled enough to behave in any manner other than

>>> their own, if that makes sense. And this isn't bashing the player's

>>> skill levels - it's an observation of how rare real acting talent is.

>>> So even though the Orc mask may give them permission to loosen up and

>>> not worry so much about what other people might think - they're still

>>> essentially being themselves.

>>>

>>> But I'll provide the same caveat as Mike as well. I'm no academic. So

>>> I may just be missing the point.

>>>

>>> Wendy

>>>

>>>

>>> On Mon, June 23, 2008 7:53 am, Mike Monello wrote:

>>>> I am the furthest thing from an academic you can get, but it seems to

>>>> me that when a player knowingly interacts with a fictional character

>>>> they have crossed the threshold into role-playing. Whether they send

>>>> an email or

>>>> go on a mission or more involved experience, they have made that jump

>>>> into the game space, even if the character they've chosen is a close

>>>> version of themselves. I don't recognize a difference between someone

>>>> playing a character exactly like themselves in a known fiction and

>>>> someone playing an Orc or any other fantastical creature - both are

>>>> operating within the safety and knowledge of a fictional framework

>>>> that allows them to make choices and play in a way that real life

>>>> absolutely would not.

>>>>

>>>> Either that or I've totally missed what y'all smart folks are talkin'

>>>> about!  :)

>>>>

>>>> ---

>>>> Mike Monello

>>>> Partner, Campfire

>>>> http://www.campfirenyc.com

>>>>

>>>>

>>>>

>>>>

>>>>

>>>>

>>>>

>>>> Am 23.06.2008 um 04:50 schrieb Christy Dena:

>>>>

>>>>> Cool. ARGs really are about performance in so many ways.

>>>>>

>>>>> But that still isn't the aspect of roleplay I was talking about. I'm

>>>>> after a definition that indicates how much the 'performance' of the

>>>>> player differs from their everyday self. There must be a continuum

>>>>> or

>>>>> something that shows the difference between a player performing an

>>>>> Orc

>>>>> or Shakespeare on the one end and being themselves but doing

>>>>> something

>>>>> they have never done before on the other (and all that is in

>>>>> between).

>>>>> [I don't have any of my books with me and am on short periods of

>>>>> dial-up and so can't research this myself right now.] Hmm, perhaps I

>>>>> shouldn't of put the draft up just yet after all. :\

>>>>>

>>>>> Anyway, I think ARG players are usually called on to do more on the

>>>>> 'other' end of the spectrum. But, I may be entirely wrong and so

>>>>> would

>>>>> love to know more. Jan sent me a great example of roleplaying in her

>>>>> ARG. I'd love to see others.

>>>>>

>>>>> John Evans has actually moved all of the content into the ARGology

>>>>> wiki. So, please, feel free to hack and add at will!:

>>>>>

>>>>> http://www.argology.org/wiki/index.php?title=Social_Interaction

>>>>>

>>>>> A start may be to add a quote from Jane's essay in the roleplay

>>>>> section!