(3/4) Follow the rules or follow your conscience?

Third part in a series. First part here, second part here.

Alright, for this post I'd like to switch gears a little, go into a mode of contemplation.

I've written one post on why we do not wish to challenge our basic assumptions, and one on how norms and identity foreclosure can be harmful to your personal development. Now, I'd like to share some thoughts on the morality and ethics of deviation or rejection of authority.

I'd like to point out that this series of posts aren't leading to some specific conclusion, I would rather say I'm examining the bricks and laying a foundation to use the building analogy.


When to follow the rules, and when to follow your conscience?
First, an anecdote. During secondary school/high school, our class did a discussion exercise, which started with us being told the following story:

A duke was leaving his castle for a trip. Since he suspected his wife to be unfaithful, he ordered his guard to kill her if she tried to get into or out of the castle while he was gone, and he let her know this. He then left.
The duchess did indeed sneak out to meet her lover, paying a ferryman to whisk her across the moat. She spent the night at her best friend's place and then went to meet her lover. After the encounter, she would leave to sneak back into to the castle, but had no more money to pay the ferryman. The lover and her best friend refused to help her, and the ferryman refused to ship her over without payment. She pleaded with the guard to let her in, but he refused, and warned her he would have to kill her if she attempted to enter the castle. Out of desperation, she tried to enter the castle anyway, and was killed.
Who's fault is it that the duchess died? The duke's, the guard's, her friend's, her lover's, the ferryman or herself's?

My opinion was that it was the guard's fault, which was met with protests from my classmates, and the rationale "He was just doing his job!"

After a few years of reflection, and encountering the Milgram experiment (Which I have linked to before), it is my belief that "Just following orders" is not a moral argument.*

Terrible actions are made possible by people just following orders. Rather than a moral actions (By moral action, I do not mean an action for good, but rather an action that is evaluated morally, that can be moral or immoral) blind obedience is the rejection of morality. It is a rejection of yourself as an agent, as a human with the capacity for reflection and morality. Blind obedience makes you simply an extension of the morality and reasoning of the person making the decisions, an idea the wikipedia article on the Milgram experiment labels "agentic state theory".

I see humans in an existential light. It is our capacity to make meaningful choices that make us human, and even surrendering this power, or not doing anything at all, is a choice. Doing your job, following normality or following orders is not an excuse to act against your ethics... But, as the Milgram experiment clearly shows, we want someone to tell us what to do. We do not wish to take the full responsibility, or challenge the stability and security of societies structures. (Man, I guess really should read Sartre.)

But to what extent can you stay true to your own morality in society? I've just finished the course on ethics and law in psychology, which raised this question especially.


Psychologist ethics
As a psychologist, you are in a position of power in your relation to your clients. You must handle your relationship and your intimate knowledge of your client in an ethic way. You must treat your client, and the system sie is a part of (such as hir family), with respect. As a psychologist you generally work alone, and you alone must weigh together all these considerations, somehow integrating your morality, the law, the professional ethic of psychologists, and of course pragmatic reality.

What if it is against my morality not to treat this client, but we just do not have enough resources to treat everyone we would like at this clinic? In this case, it is impossible for me to do the fully moral thing, and I must somehow accept this. I must somehow become neither despaired or jaded when I'm forced to go against my empathic impulses.

Likewise, ability takes a part in ethic conduct, to treat someone with respect is a question of ability just as much as morality. In an interpersonal profession such as mine, doing the right thing requires reasoning, as well as emotion and empathy, as well as ability. A psychologist needs to have wisdom, and not only to be a moral psychologist, but to be a succesful psychologist at all.


Laws
I would even question if i obeying the law is inherently moral. The law tells us what we must and must not do, but it doesn't tell us what we should do. As a psychologist, there are many things I can do in my work which are not illegal, but definitely not ethical either.

I sometimes feel people are justifying their actions with solely the fact that they had the right to take them, not at all adressing that they were, in facts, assholes just now.
Just as a person can hide their moral responsibility behind an authority, they can hide their own tendencies to greed and small-mindedness behind the fact that they have the right to do so.
But of course, there is a big difference between having a right, and doing right. The laws are only concerned with the former, and that's a good thing too. The state has no business in determining who is and who has the right to be an asshole.

Furthermore, there are even moments when I can feel the law is inhumane, and to follow my ethics would require me to go against the law, for instance when the law declare immigrants illegal.
This is a difficult situation. If I do not wish to go against my belief of what is good and right, I should break the law. At the same time, I wouldn't wish other professionals to break the law when treating or handling me - The laws protect me when I'm in a vulnerable position and at the mercy of policemen, social workers, doctors and psychologists.

So what do I do? Follow my consciousness? Obey the law? Or I could follow my conscience and break the law, but also follow the law and accept my punishment, as the law must be upheld for society to function.


Reality
So let's be pragmatic. Some things can only be achieved with orders and hierarchy. Without routines and standard procedures, lives would be lost everyday. Perhaps the act of submission to authority can be a moral action? I'd like to point to the movie Hero, in which the protaganist sacrifices himself to the authority in the end, because he reaches the conclusion that in this case, the authority is the good cause.

And if I enter a group, such as a community, a workplace or an organisation, have I not implicitly accepted the rules of this group? If I start work at a hospital only to work according to my personal conviction rather than standard routines, I sabotage everyone's work, doing more harm than good.

Finally, I believe that some aspects of society wouldn't function without the possiblity to "escape responsibility". The decision makers does not have to carry out their own decisions, and the executors does not have to make a decision. It is possible for both parties to scoot over the responsibility to the other.
Again, the example of illigal emmigrants: The police escorting them from their homes are just "doing their job", they do not have to justify their actions to their conscience or to the family being sent away. The decision makers do not have to confront those they send away, or their own feelings empathy for these people. And The Job gets Done.

When it comes to illegal immigrants, I do not believe in sending people back to something they've run away from, whether they are officially refugees or not, but we still need a cold, objective and just standard of procedures for many of society's functions. Individuals can be prejudiced against other people, or swayed into making exceptions for charismatic people. The official standard can not.

But we must remember that laws, rules, standard procedures and authority are in the end the formalized reasoning of ordinary hum,ans. They are not given by God or nature. They can be changed. They should be subject to critical scrutiny and revision.

I suppose my conclusion would have to be that, as usual, there are no simple answers. Just as you can not completely surrender yourself to laws, you cannot completely entrust yourself in a simple moral principle. Doing the right thing requires ever vigilance, care and thoughtfulness.


----
* We can consider my process of finding arguments for my cause in the light of my first post in this series. Here I examined the idea that humans often make emotional decision and then intellectually justify them rather than vice versa.

As a high schooler, had I already then grasped the problem that blind obedience meant, and later Milgram and the third reich simply provided me with the articulation of this into concrete examples?
Or where thes examples rather a way for me to intellectually justifiy a gut feeling against blind obedience?

(2/4) Norms and identity

Second part in a series. First part here: Accepting and justifying traditions.

So humans have a tendency not to question established norms and tradition, not to become overloaded through them. In this post I will discuss when this becomes a problem. Accepting normativity can lead to opression or foreclosed identity. First, let's look at opression.

Norms and opression

First of all, structures can confer power to some people, and we then might consider this power natural and not something to question. Patriarchalism and gender roles for instance; There are heavy expectations on gender roles, especially the female role. These gender roles disempower women, but we consider this role something naturally feminine, and thus it needs not change.

Secondly, people may be refused their way of life if it deviates from the norm. People become very, very provoced when other people prove to them that another way of doing things is possible, and thus cognitive dissonance prompts them to stop the deviants. Same sex marriage and adoption for instance - What if you don't need a man and a woman to make a family? Then what is our traditions and norms good for? What if they are pointless?

Humans must have clear borders to live within, our the anxiety over what to do will become too much. Some people will fear these borders and measures of how to live will shake and crumble when we challenge them. Even the opressed people may promote these norms to avoid the cognitive dissonance of realizing they're accepting abuse from other people.

Identity and mental health
Finding your own answers and forming your own identity is preferable to accepting normativity.

Again, let's go back to my model of mental health. In this model, I have put health above normality. (As did Lucien A. Buck) I stated that it is better to find your own answers to who you are, what is moral and how to do things than to uncritically accept these from society, parents or other authorities. The process of "finding oneself" is described by James Marcia (epigon of Erik H. Erikson), who outlines four states of identity. Once again, I'm quoting Wikipedia.

A) Identity Diffusion, is the status of individuals who have not yet experienced a crisis or made any commitments. Not only are they undecided about occupational and ideological choices, they are also likely to show little interest in such matters.

B) Identity Foreclosure, is the status of individuals who have made a commitment but not experienced a crisis. This occurs most often when parents hand down commitments to their adolescents, usually in an authoritarian way, before adolescents have had a chance to explore different approaches, ideologies, and vocations on their own.

C) Identity Moratorium, is the status of individuals who are in the midst of a crisis but whose commitments are either absent or are only vaguely defined.

D) Identity Achievement, is the status of individuals who have undergone a crisis and made a commitment.

So, what is the problem with foreclosure? Well, the first is that by not challenging and scrutinizing societies' norms and answers, you might allow yourself or others to be oppressed, as outlined above. Secondly, withouth properly thinking through who you are and how you wish to live, experimenting and searching during a moratorium, your sense of self won't be as stable. I'll elaborate:

When searching yourself for answers, you get to know yourself. You feel more at ease with yourself. By working your answers through, you reach a deeper understanding of them than the hollow granted-at-surface of foreclosure - You can present rationals for the choices you've made, rather than justifications.

Furthermore, as you walk the metaphorical landscape of your inner world to find your place, you learn your way around these landscape. You know them, and thus you can change your position if need be. You can adapt. These are the reasons I've put Health at a greater sense of security than Normality.

In contrast, if you have just decided on a position and stuck with it, rather than exploring it, your understanding of it is more shallow. You cannot backtrack and adapt so to speak, so instead you must defend this position. 

A note on normality

Normality and normativity is something powerful. We fear and condemn the abnormal. To be called unnormal is to be denied you humanity and fellowship with other humans, and it stirs up powerful emotions. The "abnormal" and isolated people, such as schizophreniacs and autists who are unable or unwilling to participate in human society, reject their labels and diagnosises. But do they reject them to maintain their sense of belonging with other people, or do they (in the case of severe symtoms) reject them simply because they've do not care what other people think of them, and thus the concept of insanity holds no meaning to them?

Next part here: Follow the rules or follow your conscience?

(1/4) Accepting and justifying traditions

Hello internets! My full-time practical training is over and vacation is here. Let's write!

I've got a series of posts lined up for you about norms, authority and traditions.

In this first post I'll discuss why we are unwilling to challenge the traditions we follow, and in the following posts I'll go into when this becomes a problem with norms, ethics and even game design.

People have a tendency to accept the norms, traditions and power structures around us as natural. Rather than asking ourselves "Why do we do it this way?" or "What does these traditions we follow lead to in practice?" we instead say "It's always been this way" or "It's just the natural way to it" to find justification for our way of life.

There is nothing strange about this. As you might remember from my model of mental health, we need some parts of our lives to be automatized, we need some rules that doesn't change. We just don't have the cognitive capacity to consider every action and decision in full. As a matter of fact, we want to avoid scrutinizing our assumptions and traditions... Because, what if we discover that we've been wrong all the time?

Cognitive dissonance

The sense that what we are doing is counter to our ideals, or that we act on different principles in different situations is nigh on unbearable to us, and we go to some lenghts to reduce this feeling. In social psychology, this feeling is called cognitive dissonance. Wikipedia has an excellent article on it, check it out! I quote Wikipedia:

The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing them.

So let's say I beat up my kids every day to foster them into obeying my moral rules.

- One day a person comes along and tells me that moral humans are raised with a sense of trust, not with punishment.

- Holy shit! So I've been hurting my children with no good reason all this time? But I love my children! And loving and hurting someone does not match up!

- To avoid this sense of cognitive dissonance, I animatedly describe what an idiot this person is and how totally wrong sie is. By rejecting this idea and declaring it false, I can maintain my moral consistensy.

In fact, people spend a lot of time justifying their own behaviour. We like to believe that we always make decisions based on reason and ideals, and then execute these in action. In actuality, more often than you'd think we act first and afterwards justify what we just did with explanations, rationalizing our actions or feelings.

Instinct first, then reasoning

I bet all of you have been in a discussion when someone brings forward an argument for a cause, and when proven that this person is wrong in hir argument, sie changes the argument. Take a look at this, for instance:

Person A: "We need a death penalty as a deterrant for crimes like homicide"

Person B: "Actually, countries with a death penalty has a higher frequency of homicide than states without."

Person A: "Well, it's insane to spend money to bunch murderers up together in prison, they'll be out again soon, and worse than they were before!"

See what happened there? If person B is right, and person A truely believe that we should lower the amount of homicides, sie should rationally change hir position on death penalty, not change hir argument.

Rather than reaching his position through rational consideration of for and against arguments, Person A first of all feel strongly that murderers should be put to death, and then justifies hir feelings with intellectual arguments.

This is not necessarily wrong, we need our feelings to guide us and inform us of a situation. The most skilled practicioners leave room for intuition and gut feeling in a decision making process.

Generalizing and building ideologies

Also, by turning what we experience personally into something general, or law of nature, we can justify our feelings. "You ALWAYS leave your dirty socks on the floor! Can't you pick them up after yourself like a normal person?" justifies my frustration more than "I don't like it when you leave your dirty socks out". Feelings turn into arguments.

And this goes for ideologies as well! Let's compare conservatives and liberals:

On a neural level, conservatives react stronger and faster to scary stimulus. The ideology of conservatism is basically a body of intellectual arguments justifying why we should remove these scary stimulus. In the same way, the ideology of liberalism can be understood as a way to justify curiosity, sensation-seeking and egocentrism. Personally, I experienced a sense of not always being taken seriously as a child, and my own ideology can be understood as a justification of my longing for acceptance and approval.

This can be disheartening, but I feel there is something beautiful in how humans can create meaning. In the end, we live in a cold and objective world of chemistry and physics, but we have the ability to turn a meaningless nature into meaningful ideology, art and society, to build a rich world of the mind atop the world of materia.

Brain damage

People who have lost the part connecting the two brain hemispheres together, have in effect two brains working independently. During these conditions, the process of justification becomes extremely clear.

Show the message "Take out your red coat" to the persons left eye, and the right brain hemisphere will register and process this message, and have the persons left arm reach for the coat.

Then, ask the person why sie reached for the coat. Language is located in the left hemisphere, but the left hemisphere doesn't know about the written message, and the person will reply "Oh, I felt like taking a walk" or something to that extent, that is make up a reason on the fly for the action just taken!

First part in series. Next part: Accepting normativity.

Anyway

I felt I just had to get the first draft of creative roleplaying out of my system and down in electronics, and I think the writing suffered as a result. Originally it was just one post that grew into two, the first being rather dry and the second being rather passionate.

I saw "Where the wild things are" yesterday. Really nice, with relevance to this blog. It has life issues, the frustrations of growing up and not being able to articulate these frustrations yet, and portrayed in a way I could believe in. Furthermore, there is a lot, like a lot on expectations there, expectations for the future, on other people...

At one point, one of the wild things smashes up his work of love. When he returns to it, Max (the main character) has a left a little twig heart with his acronym in it. He raises his hand as if to smash that too, but he can't. It's just too strong and he gives in. I cried a little bit then. Okay, well, I choked up like a bitch. It was awesome. :D

Impro and creative roleplaying

On impro theatre
You can read my introduction to impro theatre here.

Since impro is made in the moment, the actors have to remain in the moment, spontaneous and open to their own and others idea. If you get an idea, act on it; If you notice it feels right to tap your foot, then do just that, and then build on that. If you notice another player bringing an idea into the scene, accept it and then build on that.

In effect, you have to remain sensitive and open at all times. Never plan, never force the scene to become what you would like it to be. Impro is a collaborative effort, you need to get a feel for where you as a group are going right now, and go that direction.

Imagine that our story is a train, and that our ideas are it's fuel. Whenever someone brings an idea to the scene, they bring energy to the scene, moving it forward and energizing the other actors. You need to recognize energy when you see it, grab it and use it.

On blocking in improvisation theatre
Blocking, or rather avoiding it, is a central concept of improvisation theatre. When I introduce an idea and you reject it, that's blocking.

Let's say we're playing a scene about a burglary, and we're considering how to get through a security door. I say "I've got just the thing, I brought the dynamite!"

You could say...

"We'll have to find another way around!" which would be ignoring the idea. Perhaps you're not paying attention to the other actors because you're occupied with planning a window-break in-scene.

"No, this door is dynamite proof!" which would be cancelling the idea and making the last exchange pointless, not moving the story forward and thus dull. There is a tendency to add complications to stories in impro and roleplaying, to make them more exciting, but this is still blocking, putting a dead stop on the idea.

"You doofus, the door is wide open!" which would be sure to draw some quick laughs from the audience, but it would also be rejecting the idea.

All of these are blocking in some form. I've offered energy, but you've discarded it, pulling the brakes on our scene. That's bad. Energy and momentum is vital, our scene cannot live without it. Let's look at accepting:

"Great, let's do it!" Alright! You take my idea an add more energy. Let's go!

"The dynamite!? Whoa, that's dangerous! Can you handle it?" Here you take my idea and add a complication for more energy. Notice the difference between adding something to the idea and cancelling it. (The dynamite proof door-reply) The story is still moving forward! This is the proper way of adding complications.

So complications != blocking. Undoing other players contributions is blocking, and that can be both by providing roadblocks or solving their character's problems for them, if they were interested in exploring these problems.

Blocking in roleplaying games
What's funny is, while blocking is a deadly sin in impro theatre, traditional roleplaying games are built on blocking. The game master has complete control of the story and the players have complete control of their characters, what they do, etcetera. But consider this: If the control of the characters belong to the players, then all the numbers and dice rolls are a way for the game to say when they can't do whatever they like, effectively blocking them

So we're playing, and you say "I run across the roofs to escape, jumping from building to building, staggering on the slick roofing tiles in the moonlight" Cool! That's an idea that inspires me, it gives me energy, get's me engaged in the story and we're heading somewhere. Now the game master says "Roll for Athletics, difficulty 5", so you roll the dice, and they say... "No, you didn't".

And that's it! Talk about roadblock! All that investment and the game just throws it away.

Now, you could argue that it's up to the GM to keep the game moving even with failures, but the matter of fact is that games have traditionally been written so that;
1) If you want to act, you roll.
2) If you fail your roll, your action fails. The game doesn't give you tools or advice to keep the story moving from this point, at all. Hey, most players wouldn't provide the kind of creative input I quoted above, as it would be in vain anyway if your dice roll failed.
3) As a matter of fact, the game can punish you for failing. Injuries provide negative modifications to your stats, making future failure more likely.
As a matter of fact, I've seen GMs use dice checks with the purpose of blocking, so that the players doesn't stray from the pre-planned course or scenario, or to make sure the players doesn't get anything for free. I don't think these are rare cases, either.

Consider that: The players (the players, not their characters) want something, and it's your job as a GM to make sure they doesn't get it. Why should you do that? When the players want something, that's where their energy is, where their interest lie, that's how you get them fired up. You need to go there, give them what they want, add complications if you wish, but give them what they're interested in.

Forcing
In traditional roleplaying, the GM has a pre-planned vision to lead the players along with. In a tradition were communication between participants is seen as distracting from immersion, the only way for players to realize their vision is to force it through the rules.

Trad gaming is soaked in this philosophy of influencing the game through force.

When trad games implement player influence, it is usually in the form of points with which to buy your influence. When trad gamers discuss shared storytelling, it is in terms of authority, rules for when you as a player may force your vision on others.

But force never leads to creativity. Trust does. Forcing is blocking.

No wonder the game master doesn't trust the players to muck up the story by forcing their influence on the story, because force is all they have.

But enough with the critizism.

To play with creativity
Improvise. Collaborate. Keith Johnstone says in his books on impro that everyone is creative, if they just trust theirselves. Trust your players. Provide a clear, shared vision, and create from it. Don't use force, use openness. Let your character and your ideas be vulnerable, allow them to change. Find the ideas in the shared imagination, not in what you have planned out for yourself.

Listen, like really listen, to each other. Communicate. Do what you feel is fun and gives good movement to the game. If you don't like something, say so. You needn't have anything happen to your character if you feel it is tedious, unpleasant or not fun for you as a player. There aren't winners and losers in roleplaying.

Don't block.

Rules should be written not as laws or maybe even mechanisms of rewards, but as something to relate to, to make the story more tangible and inspiring.

Litterature
For now, I'll have to point you to further litterature rather than developing this theoretical body.

Graham Walmsley has written the book Play Unsafe on how to adapt Johnstones ideas of impro to tabletop roleplaying. The books, Impro and Impro for storytellers by Johnstone are just as relevant.

John Harper has written Lady Blackbird, a free quick-read game which is improvised, provides a clear and inspiring vision, minimalist rules, rules that inspire story-making a very non-blocking resolution system, and advice how to encourage collaborative creating. Harper is also working on the excellent game Danger Patrol, where a single scene is all the prep the GM does pre-game.

In Mouse Guard by Luke Crane, all actions are successes. If a roll fails, the GM either introduces a complication or gives the character a harmful condition - Sie gets what sie wants, but at a price. No blocking, just adding to the story. The condition mechanic is present in Lady Blackbird as well.

On traditional roleplaying games and indie games
As I critize the traditions of roleplaying, does that mean I wish to promote indie roleplaying games and devalue trad roleplaying?

No. Roleplaying as a hobby is just 30 years old. There is no money in roleplaying, and thus there are no professors of roleplaying and you can't go to roleplaying design college. Thus, the development of roleplaying games are happening right here, right now, and to me, challenging and analysing the assumptions of trad rpgs is how to develop trad rpgs.
Indie roleplaying is just 10 years old, and even moreso trying to find its form. Is creative roleplaying the same as indie roleplaying? Is it narrativism? Or is it something else? You tell me.

An interplay model of roleplaying

Background
My thoughts on roleplaying are influenced by my interest in impro theatre and client-centered therapy. Here, I intend to make a general model of roleplaying, and in the next post follow up the general with the specific, going into detail of "creative roleplaying", a style of play I am particulary interested in exploring.

In this model, I view roleplaying as movement, a process that is happening in the here and now of a group. Also note that one of my key concepts, flow, is said to require great experience - So perhaps my model is only accurate in capturing the process of experienced roleplayers?

In any case, In this post I make four statements on roleplaying in general:


1) Roleplaying is a group process
As a tradition, roleplaying games have been written as simulations. The books contain rules and the setting that together describe a world and its set of laws, and you are offered to bring your character to life within this world and experience it through that character.

But I believe that the act of roleplaying is not primarily a simulation, but a group process, an interplay between players. This is an aspect of roleplaying that just cannot be ignored, but historically it has been grossly neglected in the writing of roleplaying games. How often does a roleplaying book concern itself with how to take care of the other player's creativity, or how to settle on a social contract together? Oftentimes, writing roleplaying games seems to be lacking the assumptions that some people are actually going to play this. Perhaps the worst example of this is the following rules which where present in all (?) of roleplaying games released by the leading swedish roleplaying publisher in the 80s-90s:

1) The GM is always right
2) If, for some reason, the GM would not be right, see rule 1)

This is denying the interplay in roleplaying.


2) The ultimate goal of roleplaying is flow
Flow is the sensation of losing oneself in an activity, to be completely immersed and absorbed in concentration. All of your cognitive (thought) resources are in the game, so you don't have to consider what to do next - You just do it. You go with the flow, so to speak.

In my introduction to roleplaying I mentioned three aspects of roleplaying: Game, immersion and story. I believe flow can be achieved in all three.

I have experienced flow sensations in story-focused games when going on a creative spree with my fellow storytellers. To immerse completely in your character is the equivalent of immersive play. I haven't encountered flow in game-focused roleplaying, but since the sensation of flow is common to most task-oriented human activity it should definitively be possible when trying to best an in-game challenge, such as tactically mastering a combat scene.

Now, achieving this flow state should be understood as exactly an ultimate goal. Casual roleplaying can have the goal of meeting and relaxing with friends, but I believe that working with the assumptions that leads towards flow also work towards easier achieve casual roleplaying. Working towards flow is making the game smoother, simply put.

It might also be prudent to point out that constant flow is not necessarily a good goal for roleplaying - In most stories, we switch tempo between energy-filled intense scenes, and refreshing and slow ones. In any case, I wish to make the point that a good game is one that moves forward, one that has energy.


3) Blocks are counterflow
So the game needs to go somewhere. It needs to move forward to be interesting and captivating, and anything that breaks this energy is counter to flow and enjoyment of the game. As these elements are blocking the game, let's call them "blocks". They are the phenomena that block the games movement, disrupts and distracts players when they are in the game.

Imagine that you know what do next in the game, you have a vision (I'll return to this) in your head, you just need to verbalise it to bring it into our shared imagined world. If you're interrupted in that process, you have been blocked. Your movement loses its momentum, and thus the game loses momentum.

What counts as blocks depends on what you're concentrated on, of course. A player immersing in hir character and the fantasy world is blocked by out of character-discussions between players, or the game master breaking out the rulebook.
A player focused on creating story is blocked and disrupted if elements that run counter to the storys established mood is introduced.
Most everyone is blocked by long discussions on how to interpret game rules during game time.


 4) You need to share the same expectations on the game
When doing roleplaying, I believe that shared expectations on the game is the very foundation without which rewarding interplay between the players are impossible. The greater extent of shared expectations, the better the game works.

Expectations can be social expectations, such as "We all show up at Daniel's place at six o'clock" and "We don't make fun of each other's characters". Let's call these the social contract.

They can also be expectations on the game world, such as "My character is a real upstanding hero, I expect others to view that way too" or "I expect those vines would be a perfect to climb that wall". Let's call this vision, how we see the game world.

We can use expectations to construct three levels of how well the game is going. I will use a graphical representation of the interactions between four light-beige coloured people around a gaming table. Pardon the eurocentricity. :)

4.1) The expectations aren't shared

If this is the case, you have a problem. If the players have different ideas of how to conduct themselves, what goes for this group, which mood is appropriate in the game, and how events should resolve in the game ("I hit you, you're dead!" "No I'm not, you missed!" to quote a classic line from children's play) you get frustration and conflict among the players.

Players might resort to try to enforce their vision on the others rather than working collaboratively.  "Okay, your character is making mine look bad, but I expect him to look cool, so I'll have to kill your character" or development along such lines is one way of reaching your personal vision by force. This means constant blocking of each other.

4.2) The expectations are shared

If this is the case, the vision of the game in each players head are matching. When you verbalise your vision, it doesn't block anyone elses vision, but rather works in concert with them, creating a shared, sustained fantasy. The game gathers momentum and it goes somewhere.

4.3) Flow

Without blocking, the players can get into the flow together so to speak, and their visions are not only matching anymore, they become a communal vision shared by all, almost tangible. The players can scoop story ideas, in-character lines, et cetera from this shared vision without hesitation, just creating and creating together. Each contributition builds on the previous, moves the game forward and energizes the other players.

This should be understood as a continuum. There are always some amout of blocks appearing in all games, and a flow or sensations of flow can be achieved without being completely immersed in the game.

You can draw a parallell to my model of mental health, at the bottom we have defensive-aggressive, in the middle communal and at the top creative. When roleplaying, just as when living our life, we need a sense of security. A sense that my contributions works, that they are worth something, that they won't be blocked, and that I won't have to justify myself.


Conclusions
No matter your creative agenda (Game, immersion, story), roleplaying is a group process. As a player and a game designer, you have a responsiblity to take care of other players creative input - Probably most relevant to immersion and simulation games, where it is easy to hide behind in-game logic. "But that's what my character would do!"
Games should be designed for clarity above all things, as confusion will lead to blocks of the game. Clarity builds a sense of security of which the players can work creatively from.
Games should be designed to provide energy to the group, not to drain energy.

Flow

Two weeks ago I attended the annual swedish roleplaying convention, GothCon. I organize Indierummet, an event we've ran the past five GothCon's now, where we demonstrate indie roleplaying games. I played/GM:ed/demonstrated Berättelser från Staden of my own design (I'll get more into that game later on), and Lady Blackbird by John Harper. Go ahead and check it out, it's brilliant. A very interesting read whether you're a seasoned roleplayer or just curious of what the hobby is like. You can read it in, like, five minutes anyway.

Playing these highly collaborative and creative games, we got into a real flow, something I've experienced doing impro (In a previous post I described it by linking to Higher Love by Depeche Mode) but never really in roleplaying games, I think.


Discussing this with my two co-organizers, the pieces started to fall into place, and I began sketching up a model for understanding this feeling through impro theatre theory, and that's what I'm writing for this blog right now.


Just wanted to drop a little background ahead and a link to Lady Blackbird.