Abstract

Ninety-nine percent of the people who read this will be familiar with the “Bang Bang! You’re Dead! No I’m Not!” argument of game design — that is, that the rules of roleplaying games are necessary to arbitrate differences of opinion on what we imagine in the game. Usually this is used as a sort of apology to gloss over the downer of having to follow rules. I’m going to use it as a starting point, however, to try and explain the entire phenomenon we call roleplaying.

Roleplaying is something that a lot of people do, and even do together, without really being able to explain what it is very well. We say it’s grown-up make-believe, it’s collaborative storytelling, it’s improvizational theater — but in the end it’s not really any of these things. Most of our descriptors are accurate without being precise, broadly correct but clumsy terms that do not effectively communicate what we are doing — even to each other.

A great deal of work on this very problem has been done at the Forge, and this essay is fundamentally indebted to the good work of people like Ron Edwards, Clinton Nixon, Vincent Baker, Victor Gijsbers, and many others. The bulk of the work at the Forge is based off of the seminal question “Why do we do what we do?” The inquiries and conclusions that arose from that question recognized that the reasons that we play are not always the same, and that the player’s goals in playing were instrumental to the ensuing roleplay. This is the important third ingredient to roleplaying — the goal of the participants.

Third ingredient? What were the first two? Back to “Bang Bang! You’re Dead!” — the rules arbitrate what we imagine — therefore there are rules, and there is imagined content. Adding player goals, we have the trinity of roleplaying, or what I will be calling the aspects of roleplaying: the System, the Imagined, and the Goal.

None of these aspects have any substantial reality — that is, they are all mental constructs existing only in the minds of the players. Even the System, which we like to think is pure and objective, written down and published, is really only what the players remember and use from the published material, supplemented by the copious idiosyncratic rituals and habits that are not written down anywhere. Now, the specifics and details of each aspect are not identical in every player’s mind. Any five players will experience the game in five inescapably different ways. The pictures we imagine are similar, but not identical; there’s always the one guy who memorizes all the rules; and of course, the players’ goals may be vastly divergent. This is a simple fact of how people work — outside of telepathy, there is no way to make other people think exactly what you’re thinking. Yet somehow, when we roleplay, we share an imaginary experience. How does that work?

Back again to our “Bang Bang! You’re Dead” kids — the rules exist to arbitrate differences, which is another way of saying that the rules help reconcile the individual players’ imagined content. The rules make my mental pictures look more like your mental pictures, and vice-versa. This applies, however, to all three aspects continually reconciling the others. The Goals inform what choices we make in adding or changing elements of the Imagined; the Imagined gives us meat for our Goals to chew on; the System provides tools to manipulate the Imagined and to develop our Goals. Based on this understanding, the basic function of roleplaying is to create a similar Imagined, System, and Goal in each player’s mind and thereafter reconcile inconsistencies as all three aspects develop in complexity. This reconcile-and-develop process is accomplished through interactions between the aspects; together, the three aspects function as a self-correcting gestalt.

That’s the abstract. Now for the nitty-gritty.

Aspects

Here’s a breakdown of the three Aspects, first with a facile (and incomplete) definition, and then at length.

Imagined - What we imagine.
This is the easiest aspect to understand the basics of and the most difficult to understand in totality. This is the ’stuff’ that we imagine as we roleplay — the characters, the setting, the situation, relative positions of characters, the props and inevitably the weapons in hand, and whether Galstaff, Sorcerer of Light, has grey eyes or blue eyes. History, both in terms of setting and in terms of the characters — a full transcript of game events (as remembered by the player) — also resides in the Imagined. Beyond these more concrete elements, however, the Imagined also incorporates genre conventions and the range of options available to characters. The Imagined in a superheroes game is fundamentally different than the Imagined in a gritty historical fantasy game, and not just because one has tights and the other has chainmail. Saving the world by punching one guy in the face is not only feasible, but the preferred method of operation in the superheroes game; a mounted knight in full plate in the gritty historical fantasy game, however, is going to laugh at such tactics, and taking him down isn’t going to save the world, anyway. Needless to say, the Imagined is a hugely complex mental construct, and one that requires powerful tools to reconcile with other players’ imaginations.

System - The rules of the game.
Actually bearing only passing resemblance to the rules as published in game supplements, the System is inspired by published rules content in exactly the same way as the Imagined is inspired by published setting content. It is composed of what interpretations of the published rules material are given credence by the players, as well as rituals idiosyncratic to the players (”house rules” are explicit rituals; implicit rituals include things like niche protection), and any other procedures (bluebooking) that determine what happens both in the Imagined and in the real world of players, dice, and character sheets. The core of the System is the Lumpley Principle: the means by which the players agree on what happens. It determines who has credibility (who has access to the System’s interactions), calculates binary success/fail or “fuzzy” degrees of success/fail, dictates how new content is added, and allows existing content to be manipulated.
It’s important to note, too, that the System is just as unshared as the Imagined and the Goal. Not all players are really playing by the same set of rules; hopefully these rules are very similar or perhaps even indistinguishable, but this is only after the operation of the roleplaying process — it’s difficult to imagine a new group of players with a new game immediately ‘clicking’ without even the mildest speedbumps.

Goal - What’s important to the players.
A player’s Goal is the reason that player is even roleplaying to begin with. It is the seat of player initiative and personal significance, and as such, is the most ineffable of the three aspects. Functionally, a player’s Goal emphasizes some parts of the play experience over others according to standards in the player’s head. Goal does not deal directly with content; goal is why some elements of the Imagined content are included when retelling war stories at Con. Goal cannot be reduced to a word or phrase — ‘Story’ only begins to scratch the surface; what kind of story is the player after, entailing what specifics? — and, like Imagined and System, will not only reconcile with the other players’ Goals, but will also change and develop over time.

The relative size and complexity of each aspect, and whether there are other aspects-of-significant-importance within the roleplaying activity, is pretty much an open question at this point. We know about these three. Maybe there are others. I don’t know how they interact with these three yet, mostly because I don’t know what they are.

Interactions

Roleplaying is the process of reconciling and developing the three aspects in the players’ minds. This continual process of development and reconciliation is realized through the interactions of the Imagined, the System, and the Goal. Interactions are the things that players do at the table — some are external (actions, speaking, rolling dice) and some are internal (consideration, imagining, planning). By doing these things, the players share with each other the characteristics of their mental conceptions of the Imagined, System, and Goal.

Access to some Interactions is frequently privileged, out of reach of most players. Most commonly, this access is invested in the Game Master, but other games may divvy up access to the Interactions in more complex fashion (See: Polaris). This differentiation of access privileges has profound impact on how a game is run thereafter.

Between the three aspects there are six types of interactions, as displayed on the following chart. A relatively short description of each type of interaction is listed below, along with the access privileges which are usually associated with that interaction and a handful of examples.

Fuel Interaction - The Imagined Fuels the System. The Imagined provides the System with the elements which the System uses to determine what happens. This “Fuel” can be characters, environmental elements, situations, or any other material that the System uses as input for its deliberations. Fuel includes not only items with game effects (Dagger with +9 against Ogres) but also opens up possibilities based on its presence (stairs allow a character to reach the next level; the presence of a badguy allows the protagonists to duel with her).
Because the Fuel Interaction connects to the System, the System arbitrates what “gets in” — any player can want something to have game effect; the System decides if it does (through dictate, through privileging some players over others, or even simply by charging game currency to empower an element to be included in a given way).
Example: The character sheet itself is not Fuel; players selecting numbers representative of the Imagined character and feeding these numbers into the System is. The character sheet is just a handy tool, a reminder of what numbers we’ve assigned to our characters. In the statement, “My guy swings his sword” both the guy and the sword are Fuel.

Articulation Interaction - System Articulates the Imagined. The concrete output of the System — that is, “what happens” — articulates the Imagined, providing development, action, and revision. Articulation can both establish elements within the Imagined as well as manipulate them later. This is the corollary to Fuel — the finished goods from the raw materials.
Because Articulation is derived from the System, the System determines who gets to do the articulation as well as providing some guidelines (dice results, usually). In a given game, not everyone can always perform the Articulation — it is often limited to just the GM.
Examples: The most facile example of Articulation is interpreting what a die roll means for the elements within the Imagined, but this is not the only example. Activities such as “Creating the Adventure,” “Rolling Up Characters,” and “Framing the Scene” are also Articulation. Task Resolution is primarily Articulation; Conflict Resolution is patently both Articulation and Validation.

Contextualization Interaction - The Imagined Contextualizes the Goal. Any story needs characters, a setting, and events in order to express itself; so too does any competition, social statement, or other conceivable product of roleplaying. The elements of the Imagined are utilized in Contextualization to put the Goal in a context of supporting, conflicting, and qualifying details, all of which enrich the Goal. This interaction provides the specifics of the Imagined to express generalized Goals — and it is important to note that the same specific details may be used concurrently in more than one Contextualization interaction to inform more than one Goal.
As an interaction between the Imagined and the Goal, Contextualization is up for grabs, performed by everyone at the table in an unconstrained fashion, based on the material provided by the Imagined (which is not up for grabs in an unconstrained fashion).
Example: Relating the hopes and dreams of one’s character with the stated goals of a faction of NPCs is a simple example; a more complex example might relate the raison d’etre of the Knight, the Pacifist, the King, and the Infidel when they all come face-to-face in the middle of a battlefield.

Imbuing Interaction - The Goal Imbues the Imagined. Imbuing makes the elements from the Imagined content mean something. Ten character names and abilities, a map, and a horde of orcs is just a laundry list of information until some items on the list are made heroes, some are made victims, and some are made villains. This is the corollary to Contextualization; whereas Contextualization positions meaning within a collection of elements, Imbuing assigns individual meanings to individual elements.
Like Contextualization, Imbuing is unconstrained, and any player can imbue any element of the Imagined with any meaning they like. Divergent significance attached to elements can often lead to problems in play — such as when one player casually kills off a character that another player was not finished with.
Example: Assigning a thematic meaning to a character, setting, or prop in the Imagined — “my guy embodies the ethos of nobility” or simply, “my guy is badass.”

Side Note: Contextualization and Imbuing can be ‘wild card’ interactions that seriously diverge the Imagined and Goals of different players. This is why these interactions are expressed by the interactions’ complements (see below).

Steering Interaction - The Goal Steers the System. The Goal determines what actions and additions will be proposed, attempted, and/or declared — this potential material is fed into the System, which will determine what happens. Steering interactions are always created “Out of Character,” based on criteria in the minds of the players, not the characters. “In Character” decisions are in fact simulations of decisions that the player believes the character would reasonably make. The four Stances (Pawn, Actor, Author, and Director) are all ways to perform Steering interactions.
Because the Steering Interaction connects to the System, it, like the Fuel Interaction, is subject to the System’s gatekeeper processes. Steering interactions can be delimited by the abilities and point of view of the player’s character or supercede these limitations; Scene Requests may be privileged to just the GM; new characters may only be created by spending game currency.
Example: Simplistically, the impulse behind “my guy tries to hit that guy”; complexly, “I would like to play a scene in which that guy wants to seduce that guy.”

Validation Interaction - The System Validates the Goal. While the concrete output of the System feeds into Articulation, the abstract output of the System feeds into Validation. Whatever “happens” in the Imagined may have thematic implications for the Goal. This may plainly validate the Goal, or it may complicate that validity with qualifications and exceptions. This is the corrolary to Steering; it is the game’s response to player propositions.
This is another interaction based from the System, and therefore often privileged. The System often determines who is allowed to interpret the significance of the System’s output, and may also provide some guidelines for that interpretation.
Example: Joey fails to win the race. Does this mean he did not try enough? Would he have won if he trained more? Is he now a failure, or will it give him the resolve to try again, thus justifying his self-confidence?

Every single thing that the players do in the game can be understood as one or more interactions. When the roleplaying process is functional — that is, it reconciles and develops the aspects in the players’ heads — every die roll, every interpretation, every proposed action, contributes to the self-correcting and development process.

Round and Round

As the diagram implies, the interactions feed into each other in self-reinforcing circles. The two obvious circles are the outside, or Widdershins, circle, and the inside, or Sunwise, circle. Note that the processes do not necessarily ’start’ at any one aspect as depicted below. I am unfortunately bound by the rules of grammar, which state that sentences must start somewhere.

Widdershins (Outside) Circle - The players’ preferences and interests (Goal) color their understanding (Imbue) of the setting and their own characters (Imagined), which prompts them to use selected elements of that setting and their characters (Fuel) in order to determine what happens (System), the answers to which reinforce or complicate (Validate) the things they cared about in the first place (Goal).
Example: I have an interest in the concepts of honor and duty (Goal), and so I apply (Imbue) the principles of bushido onto my modern-day character (Imagined). This constrains my character’s options (Fuel) when taking actions (System), thereby expressing (Validating) the elements that I am interested in (Goal).

Sunwise (Inside) Circle - Based on what is important to the players (Goal), they make decisions (Steering) that are adjudicated by various rules and rituals (System). The results are interpreted (Articulation) into “what happens” (Imagined), which juxtaposes elements of characters and setting (Contextualization) to develop the new meaning (Goal).
Example: Because I want to develop my character’s relationship with my father (Goal), I decide to spend game-currency (Steering) to begin a new scene (System). I describe the scene (Articulation) as a family barbeque (Imagined). The characters’ conversation further informs (Contextualization) their relationship and the father/daughter dynamic (Goal).

Note that it’s also patently possible for ‘flow’ to go in more complex shapes than these two circles. A sequence of interactions could go, for instance, Imbue -> Contextualize -> Imbue -> Fuel -> Articulate -> Contextualize. The key is that each interaction strengthens the aspects that are involved in the interaction, either by developing it, by reconciling differences between players’ conceptions, or both. Functional roleplay is the process by which the aspects are continuously reconciled and developed. As long as the ‘flow’ routes through the players’ Goals in meaningful ways, not only will the aspects be reconciled, but they will be developed in interesting — ie fun — ways. This is the point of roleplaying.

Complements

Just as the diagram suggests the circular reinforcement, players can also perform interactions in both directions at the same time. This sort of ‘reaching around’ to the other side of the diagram exposes combinations of interactions which are complementary to each other.

Validation complemented by Articulation and Contextualization - The System’s validation or qualification of the Goal is abstract; that Validation is expressed by the System’s results Articulating the details of the Imagined in order to re-Contextualize the significance of the Goal.
Example: I have my guy attack the enemy base because I think that’s heroic. I get a terrible die roll. That wasn’t heroic; that was stupid (Validation). My guy gets shot up and captured (Articulation) putting him at the mercy of the enemy (Contextualization).

Steering complemented by Imbuing and Fuel - The dictates of the Goal not only determine what events I want to happen, but they prioritize elements of the Imagined in order to provide the tools with which to make those events possible.
Example: I’m playing 7th Sea. I want to swash some buckle. So I declare my guy is going to swing from the chandelier, land on some mooks, and cut his initials into the villain’s shirt (Steering). That there is a fundamental difference between mooks and villains and that there is a chandelier ripe for swinging on are Imbuing interactions. That I can use that chandelier as a vehicle and the mooks as a landing pad are Fuel interactions.

Imbuing complemented by Steering and Articulation - What is important to me is terribly idiosyncratic but must be communicated to the other players. Imbuing can be ineffible, but I have tools which allow me to Steer the System into Articulating the Imagined in meaningful ways.
Example: I am intrigued by how Doctor Hudson might have been active in my character’s amnesiac past (Imbuing). So I have my character interrogate the good Doctor (Steering) in order to make him explain his motivations (Articulation). Note that the answers that the Doctor provides are immatieral; the very fact that my character performed the interrogation expresses my interests as a player.

Contextualization complemented by Fuel and Validation - The Imagined details which qualify and develop the Goal also provide functional effects which the System can use to validate the Goal.
Example: The last remnants of the Revolution are surrounded by hostile Monarchist forces (Contextualization). Those soldiers and cannons (Fuel) will shoot the hell out of anyone who tries to escape (Validation).

Fuel complemented by Contextualization and Steering - Elements of the Imagined which are processed in the System are also elements of the Imagined which bear on the Goal and delimit or open the possibilities of player action.
Example: My guy’s sword gives him a +9 against ogres (Fuel). At the same time, his possession of the sword makes him a fantasy hero (Contextualization) which means he is one to fight ogres (Steering).

Articulation complemented by Validation and Imbuing - The development of what happens in the Imagined is mirrored by the System’s qualification and validation of Goal emphases, which in turn give meaning to the events happening in the Imagined.
Example: We have succeeded in destroying the third Death Star (Articulation). This bodes well for the Rebellion (Validation) and hereafter the destruction of the Death Star will be a powerful rallying point (Imbuing).

Function

Now that we’ve got all the pieces on the table and what each piece ‘does’, we can talk about how the whole thing works together. As stated before, the function of roleplaying is to reconcile and develop the three aspects in the players’ heads. The model represents a self-reinforcing gestalt which self-corrects, manipulates, and adds to the aspects through interactions performed by the players.

First off, I should point out the limitations of my glorious illustration. While the illustration does make it look like there is one Imagined, one System, and one Goal, in reality there is one of these for each player. If there are five players at the table, there are five private Imagined, five private Systems, and five private Goals at work. They are not identical, and never will be, but the process of reconcile-and-develop works to make them more and more similar. The interactions are the only elements in the model which can be public. Articulation leads the pack — usually spoken aloud, this interaction is very common to all the players’ experience, and can easily be misidentified as ‘being’ roleplaying all by itself