unforum

[thebruce]

It comes back once again to the origin of TINAG... is it a player mantra, or is it a PM/Character mantra?

The qustion was posed in an ARGNetcast a few of months back, and my answer was more towards the player side - numerous reonses disagreed in saying that TINAG was actually a character philosphy - in the fictional world, the character can't break out of that fictional mold, it's beyond the character's capability. From a player standpoint, the players almost reinforce TINAG for the characters because the players know it's game. But in treating it as if it were real (the essential point of args as we know them), it's then by the same definition not possible (though by player effort this time, not by nature) for the player to treat the character as if it were fictional, or offer ideas that would be impossible for the character to comprehend.

From a PM standpoint, yes they need to deal with the inevitable event that someone will attempt that, but that's why it's a matra, a philosophy - when speaking of the logic of an alternate reality game where the game in every way wants to be real, then it's not possible for anything within that realm to comprehend that it is not real.

Perhaps your confuson about TINAG is because you're applying it to the player side, rather than the character/pm side. The players have a choice in how they play the game, so they're not bound by the concept - though etiquette encourages them to maintain the concept within the game. Characters however, are bound by the 'game', inasmuch as the PMs define those bounds (that is, they can for example allow a character to 'comprehend' and be curious about the fact they're fictional, but then they extend the boundaries of the arg so it's still part of the arg, not breaking out of the arg's boundaries - it's still all fictional, even the grasping of being fictional).

TINAG was intended to be PM/character philosphy, not a player one.

[Star Spider]

Totally wicked - I get it. But in that respect I see not difference between an ARG and an RPG. The game in a LARP and an RPG wants to be as real as an ARG within their given environnments. If I were to introduce the idea of a computer in a medieval RPG to a character then it would be outside of their comprehension the characters in an RPG as they are fully immersed in their environment - the same as in a LARP - if I went to a medieval LARP in futuristic clothing the characters would notice find that beyond their knowledge. It would be up to the DM or GM how they would react. So I guess I understand where you are coming from but why then do RPG's and LARP's not have the TINAG principal? I am still not seeing where the distinction in genres is coming from in relation to TINAG.

[thebruce]

RPGs are like ARGs but the player generally is asked to play a character they are not within a game world that doesn't have any part in the player's real life.

LARPs are like ARGs but the player is playing a fictional character, not themselves, within a game world that is fictional though takes place in the real world.

ARGs are fictional stories taking place in the real world of the player, where the player is not generally asked to role play a character, but be themselves.

...these are ideal descriptions of the genres the way I understand them, so I could easily be wrong in some details
In theory, TINAG could apply to each, though it's more prominent, if not required, for the ARG genre by the nature of the beast *cough*.
Again, there are others who are more knowledgable of the technical and philosophical aspects of ARGs and TINAG than I, so I'm sure they'll have some better input (as they have already).

[catherwood-offline]

[Star Spider]

That makes sense... I was under the impression that it was sort of an umbrella term for the whole game. But if it is relating to the rabbit hole where someone might want to be tricky and blur the lines so much that someone would not know the difference between game and reality that would make sense. As long as people are able to find out that it is a game - so then the team doesn't find trouble and the police don't have their time wasted Also I would think teams should want the public to know it is a game - so they play it!!!

[SpaceBass]

I think it was Jane McG who postulated the metaphor for an ARG as a tiger on display in a cage at a circus or zoo: the tiger is normally a dangerous animal one would generally not wish to encounter. At the circus, in the cage, the tiger is interesting and exciting because we know it won't kill us. A tiger without a cage is likely only frightening and a cage without a tiger is just boring.

The frameworks and rulesets of RPGs and LARPs define the gamespace boundaries, a player steps inside those boundaries in order to play, and thus assumes a role within the fiction. In Alternate Reality Gaming, which may inhabit the entire world and intrude practically anywhere into one's reality, the framework is only able to roughly define itself, is dependent upon interpretation by players, and (most importantly) is almost always unknown at the outset and built and defined and refined during play.

In ARG, TINAG is the tiger's cage; it embodies the trust between the players and the puppetmasters and it is our reminder that this is all fictional. The phrase "this is not a game" is not meant to be taken literally; consider it a meta-form of sarcasm. "This is certainly a game even though it doesn't act like one and doesn't admit it is one and presents elements of itself in the real world as if they were real themselves," just isn't quite as catchy.

[unmortal_mind]

On LARPs and ARGs..

[george.kaplan]

 spyrpg.com

[Euchre]

I'm very late to the discussion, but since this has been bubbled to the top I went over the posts (especially thebruce's) and I've come up with some of my own thoughts on the subject.

Role playing already occurs in an ARG. As noted the players in both an RPG and an ARG are aware of the fictional world and it's separation from the real world. The difference is that in an ARG the players don't necessarily act as completely disparate 'characters' within the ARG, but do play a role when interacting with the characters from that alternate reality. In an RPG, your character is supposed to basically have no awareness and no overt relationship to your real world self. TINAG is the mindset of all characters and PMs in an ARG, and the players are generally expected to engage in it when interacting with the PMs and characters. In an RPG, everyone is in a TINAG mode.

A comparison I drew in my mind was that of conventional cinema and theater versus the Shakespearean model where asides to the audience are used. Normally characters simply act as if the audience doesn't exist, but of course Shakespeare wrote in the asides where the characters actually engage the audience by addressing them directly. In the RPG, everyone is an actor on stage, and there is no other world, ever. In an ARG, the players are the actors with the privelege of an aside in their dialog - but of course in an ARG, the added dimension beyond that is the audience getting to be an actor, or respond to those actors using asides. In modern times the actors during an aside are treated more conventionally, but in Shakespeare's own time it was not unheard of for audience members to shout their thoughts back at the actor performing the aside. If you read some of the asides carefully, they were crafted as if in response to a dialog one might have had with people of that time's mindset.

Of course in Shakespeare's time Juliet was portrayed by a man and the audience often sat on the edges of the stage and threw things at the stage if they weren't happy with the play. Hmm, maybe an ARG isn't so different!

[El Neil]

man, i thought of a very similar idea last night and was so excited! was just about to post it on here. i even went as far as to write some rules. good job i checked the forums first.

basically, the way i had it was that each player played a character or organisation and through the various media roleplayed that character over time. the media they produced had to be entirely their own (apart from blog templates, copyright-free stuff etc) and that they had to clearly state that it was fictional, and provide a contact email. this is so players can set up "meetings" between characters, and to prevent conflicting accounts of the same in-game event.

roleplaying was mandatory, and players were discouraged from linking externally to real world brands, places, events or people if they could help it. therefore, if your character had a favorite fictional musician, hopefully someone else could be that musician. The first 10-15 people who subscribed would have their entry pages listed on a directory as entry points to the game, so people could set up their inital meetings. over time, players are encouraged to keep up to date, and add navigatable links between characters after meetings they have had, or perhaps just as a comment on someone else's character.

hopefully this would create over time an alternate reality social community. there is nothing forcing the characters to meet, but there needs to be navigatable links between characters (even if its just one character slagging off another's bad spelling in their blog) in order to create the network for exploration.

is this what you were originally getting at?