[arg_discuss] Social Interaction in ARGs

[Christy Dena]

> maybe the difference is that ARGs tend to have

> a smaller distance between ordinary self and pretend self


That is what I've been saying all along. OK, so it seems we're in
complete agreement. I think the reason why you, and others, disagreed
with me then is because of my statement about 'roleplay':

"Players of ARGs usually play themselves, they don't roleplay. They
do, however, do need to sustain the illusion of the gameworld when
they interact with characters. ARG Dave Szulborski explains the lack
of roleplay in ARGs:
ARG In-Game Rule #1: Do not role play or pretend to be a made-up
character while playing an ARG. Alternate Reality Games are intended
to be played and enjoyed as yourself. (Szulborski, 2005, 39) "

It seems you use the term roleplay as including all participation in a
game or theatre. This is why you, and others, reacted to the idea of
'no roleplay'. I think using the term 'roleplay' to denote something
that occurs in every game is redudant. In my quick writing, I employed
'roleplay' to denote a particular type of pretend play that is quite
distinct from their ordinary selves. 'Roleplay' for me, and others,
distinguished that pretend element and highlights the significance of
this characteristic of the game. However, what your response has shown
me is what different associations to the term some people have, and
has helped us find a definition that is more specific and addresses
all our perspectives.

I could rewrite the original comment with our new somewhat shared view
of roleplay and ARGs, however, the comment in the table was not a
general statement about ARGs, but a direct response to the use of
roleplaying for social interaction as defined by Bjork and Holopainen:

"Players have characters with at least somewhat fleshed out
personalities. The play is centered on making decisions on how these
characters would take actions in staged imaginary situations." (p.
252)

And this is where I ask again: when do ARGs have player-created
characters with somewhat FLESHED OUT PERSONALITIES? When is the play
is CENTERED on making decisions on how these characters would take
actions in staged imaginary situations?

I've got examples of situations in which I've taken actions in staged
imaginary situations. But how much of the play was centered on that
experience? That is, was the process of making character-based
decisions the primary characteristic of the game, a primary part of
the experience? Is this what appeals to players of ARGs? Can ARGs be
played without player-created characters with fleshed out
personalities? How many player-created characters have fleshed out
personalities?

Indeed, perhaps the most important question in relation to the table:
How many of the player-created characters with fleshed out
personalities are facilitated by the PMs to encourage social
interaction between players in group activities?

I'd love to hear anyones thoughts and examples on this. But, I'll
leave these questions in the air to dangle as long as they like, as
I've got to get back to writing! :)


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

> "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!

>>>>>

>>>>

>>>>

>>>> _______________________________________________

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>>>>

>>>

>>>

>>> Wendy Despain

>>> quantumcontent.com

>>>

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>>>

>>

>>

>>

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