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Post by Kainguru on Apr 9, 2013 19:00:19 GMT -8
Re: emotions - the problem with this problem is that even though emotions are experienced by everyone they escape an easy and universal definition as to exactly what they are. It's a chicken or the egg as the first conundrum - do emotions elicit and physiological response or vice versa. For every piece of research that suggests one there is another that suggests the opposite. The second conundrum is that many emotions as subjective experiences are varied but when looked at objectively there is little to distinguish them - fear and lust elicit similar physiological responses but are experienced differently. Ah fuck . . . Basically what I'm trying to say is that it's really really complicated and a lot of assumptions about emotions tend not to stand up critical analysis and people have hugely different understandings of what emotions are because of the vagueness of the subject matter - which was evident in the podcast . . . However, I thought the topic was handled very well where the bits of confusion/dissent in the debate were products of the exact problem above and to be honest IMHO there is no 'right' answer . . . Personally I like to fuck with players a little to get an emotional response . . . Moral/ethical dilemmas for the character informed by my knowledge of the player to make it meaningful. Setting the stage with some creative acting can help as well . . . ie: lying through my back teeth and over stating the importance of a die roll in critical situation (eg: I know they've 4 chances in 6 of success but maybe the players have 'misunderstood' and think their chances are much smaller than they actually are - even if they roll a 4 the tension at the roll is palpable and the relief at success often negates the realisation that the odds were far more favourable than they appeared) Re: Moors, Arabic campaign flavour: all I'll say is Morocco and Moroccan food. Plus think about having low set tables and cushions as seating with rugs etc thrown about . . . this was how they laid out my favourite coffeeshop in Amsterdam (shut now ) as it had a distinctly Moroccan/Ottoman theme. Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 9, 2013 19:02:01 GMT -8
Everything goes with hash browns. Speaking of Amsterdam: hash hash browns or hash brownies - spoilt for choice Aaron
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Apr 9, 2013 21:02:04 GMT -8
I won't tell you guys what they do with food in this country... How about a nice piece of bread with lard, instead? That's smalec. Breakfast of Champions.
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Apr 9, 2013 21:15:42 GMT -8
problem is that even though emotions are experienced by everyone they escape an easy and universal definition as to exactly what they are. It's a chicken or the egg as the first conundrum - do emotions elicit and physiological response or vice versa. For every piece of research that suggests one there is another that suggests the opposite. The second conundrum is that many emotions as subjective experiences are varied but when looked at objectively there is little to distinguish them - fear and lust elicit similar physiological responses but are experienced differently. Remember: If you are having fun, you are doing it right. There is no wrong way to play. Nothing ambiguous about that. No siree Bob.
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 9, 2013 21:44:10 GMT -8
problem is that even though emotions are experienced by everyone they escape an easy and universal definition as to exactly what they are. It's a chicken or the egg as the first conundrum - do emotions elicit and physiological response or vice versa. For every piece of research that suggests one there is another that suggests the opposite. The second conundrum is that many emotions as subjective experiences are varied but when looked at objectively there is little to distinguish them - fear and lust elicit similar physiological responses but are experienced differently. Remember: If you are having fun, you are doing it right. There is no wrong way to play. Nothing ambiguous about that. No siree Bob. No but what an emotion 'is' is . . . Anger and fear can both be elicited by the surreptitious administration of adrenaline IV - same physiological response but different 'emotions'. Aaron
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Apr 9, 2013 22:05:13 GMT -8
Remember: If you are having fun, you are doing it right. There is no wrong way to play. Nothing ambiguous about that. No siree Bob. No but what an emotion 'is' is . . . Anger and fear can both be elicited by the surreptitious administration of adrenaline IV - same physiological response but different 'emotions'. Aaron Are you saying to me, "fun" is not an emotional response, Aaron? That playing to feel important and powerful are not emotional player goals? (There is no winner's finish line in RPGs but that does not mean a player cannot play to feel like winning) To wit, the triggers and mechanisms for those emotions are not uniform. Fun. Not an emotion?
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 10, 2013 6:01:30 GMT -8
NOT the point - emotions defy clear explanation . . . that's just a current given FACT . . . YOUR experience and definition will, in all likelihood, fail to correspond with someone elses. For the record several personages of repute would actually argue that 'fun' isn't an emotion in itself being just a cultural label for an physiological experience that correlates with several other cultural labels for 'emotions'. The range of different emotions experienced by a person is often dictated by the persons social and cultural frame of reference . . . cultures with no description for a certain emotions that we assume are universal don't experience that emotion per se . . . they have no corresponding context in which to frame the physiological experience . . . "When considering a social psychological approach to emotion it would initially appear implicit that such an analysis would pre-suppose social influences. Yet social psychology is a diverse discipline using a range of often contrasting thematic devices and theoretical approaches to explore the differing dimensions of a given issue. Rather than assuming the dominance of one theme/approach over the other in ‘best addressing’ an issue, social psychologists prefer to understand the interplay between them as a way of seeking a broad and inclusive insight into the complex arrangements that are the individual and his/her social environment. In addressing the issue of emotions as purely private and subjective or socially influenced two thematic dyads emerge - individual/society dualism and agency versus structure as action. Individual/society dualism can traditionally be described as the ascribing of internal or external causes as contributory to the manifestation of emotions. However, social psychology aims to explore the connection across this presumed divide by utilising “the concepts of meaning and experience . . . because of their quality of being definitively neither inside nor outside the person” (Hollway, 2007, p26). Agency versus structure mirrors individual/society dualism by considering the extent to which an individual can either exert their free agency in effecting an outcome or to which they are passive responders of the social structures that surround and constrain them. Social psychology attempts to understand the dynamic tension that exists between these interactive polarities (citing Hollway, 2007). . . . James and Cannon both disregarded the social aspect of emotion, preferring to be inwards looking when sourcing the causes of emotion. It is in the initial perception of events as having ‘emotional content’ leading to specific bodily/neurological changes that propagate appropriate emotional responses that both theories become problematic - how does the body/brain know which emotion to evoke?. Schacter (1959 cited in Parkinson, 2007) endeavoured to resolve this by proposing a ‘Two-Factor Theory of Emotion’ which considered some of the social factors of perception. “Emotion depends on two factors: autonomic activation in the body (the physiological factor) which determines the intensity of the experienced emotion, and cognitions about the situation (the cognitive factor) which determine the quality of the experienced emotion”(Parkinson, 2007, p98) (see figure 1.3) . . . This ‘Appraisal Theory’ redefines emotional consciousness as being directed outwards; citing Frijda (1983 cited in Parkinson, 2007) the experience of ‘anger’ tends to be an awareness of the irritating nature of the eliciting event rather than that of the actual emotion itself. Smith and Lazarus (1993 cited in Parkinson, 2007) provide a model for this theory (see figure 1.4) - if an event is relevant to ones goals then emotion will be experienced. Whether this experience is pleasant or unpleasant depends upon its congruence in helping or hindering those goals. The secondary appraisals (accountability) then determine the specific nature of the emotion. . . . Consider though, that within the context of a social group, an individual can experience feelings of emotion on behalf of others - despite an absence of personally relevant investment in the outcome. ‘Appraisal Theory’ can be extended to consider this societal aspect and provide an emotional component to ‘Social Identity Theory’ by proposing that other people can also matter to the individual as part of the process of group identification. Therefore what happens to the other members of the group becomes personally relevant to the individual (citing Parkinson, 2007, p103). . . . The group becomes a contributing social structure that helps frame the subjective appraisals and emotions of its members. This does not negate agency as can be exampled in the notion of ‘Emotional Labour’ - where a group member will “. . . actively [work] on their own (or others’) emotions in order to meet employers’ needs rather than their own” (Parkinson, 2007, p104). The social world then has an existent consequence on the process of producing the internal/subjective experience of emotion mediated by the relevant choices of the individual in framing their perception(s). . . Ekman et al (1969 cited by Parkinson, 2007) tested this theory by investigating whether a sample population from across several cultures could correctly match basic categories of emotion to photographs of North American facial expressions corresponding to those emotional categories. Eckman et al (1969 cited by Parkinson, 2007) reasoned that if these basic emotions have a biological basis then recognition across the differing cultural groups would be universal (Pan-Cultural). Their statistically significant results appear to support this idea of a biological basis for basic emotions and affective presentation - diminishing the importance of social factors by shifting the locus of the emotional experience back to being an internal cognition independent of perceptual agency. Russell (1994 cited by Parkinson, 2007) reconsidered this interpretation; though the results were statistically significant they were not consistent across either the range of basic emotional affects or across the divergent cultural groups. He proposed that participants from other cultures were making ‘best guesses’ using the cultural tools available to them rather than instinctively recognising particular emotional categories. Within this paradigm the social factors of cultural immersion provide the framework/context in which emotional experience can be interpreted, understood and ascribed meaning. This shifts the process and product of emotion back to being a perceptual response to a subjective internal experience (sic Schachter’s Feedback Theory) which is given meaning by the acquired external representations of culture. Though Russell (2003 as cited by Parkinson, 2007) is careful to distinguish between this use of ‘emotion as concept’ from ‘actual emotions’. For Russell the social context of culture provides the means to label imprecise subjective sensations as ‘emotions’ vis-a-vis emotions “. . . cohere in perception more than in reality”(Parkinson, 2007, p110). This renders inaccessible independent objective measurements of the phenomena of ‘actual emotion’ . . . Because emotion is only examined in its deployment as a discourse resource, discursive psychology does not concern itself with analyses of subjective experience and correlating psychometric measurements - features more typical of PSP approaches. If the causality of emotions is not considered then the accuracy of these self reports, as independent measures of some unqualified event, is not relevant. Rather it is the functional use of emotion in what it achieves in giving meaning to a discourse that is important; emotion as part of a social process instead of as a product of a process . . . Phenomenological methodology (citing Hollway, 2007) requires the application of epoche when attempting to extract meaning from rich textual or verbal accounts. Since it is doubtful that any phenomenological researcher can maintain Husserl’s ‘God’s eye view’ then a more reflexive approach to research is indicated. In being reflexive the phenomenological researcher must acknowledge the role of their own subjective preconceptions (including cultural orientation and other personal frames of reference) being brought into this entirely social process of ‘co-constructing’ a described experience. Despite the superficial disparity of each these approaches theoretical assumptions they do appear to approach markedly similar conclusions regarding the role of emotions in the social world as functional tools to be deployed to give meaning and description to experience. It appears to be almost impossible to tease out the actual raw experience of emotion, as a separate entity open to objective study, from the consequences of emotion as a functional aspect of discourse. Whether emotions are purely subjective internal affairs or an emergent property of the process of interaction, an interpretive repertoire is still required to frame and contextualise the experience. Being social constructs these interpretive repertoires make an accounting of social factors in any social psychology study of emotion relevant - if only to facilitate the shared understanding of an experience by promoting a degree of correspondence between description and meaning" (citing Yuile, 2009 . . . severely abridged) I said it was far more complicated than it first appears . . . again, overall I think the podcast handled the topic very well I merely wanted to illustrate that where there was dissent between the hosts such dissent is unavoidable rather than problematic . . . because we all have different world views and definitions/experiences of 'emotion' . . . Aaron PS: to really elicit an real emotional response I'd suggest hooking the players up to IV lines and have the GM administer appropriate stimulants/depressants for the emotion desired . . . fear or anxiety? give a shot of adrenaline to trigger the fight or flight reflex. Ethically . . . probably a bad thing but hell talk about immersion PPS: I know, way too heavy for this time of day but I'd rather shut down a pointless semantic debate rather than drag it out through the thread (pointless only because if experts can't agree . . . )
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 10, 2013 6:13:12 GMT -8
I won't tell you guys what they do with food in this country... How about a nice piece of bread with lard, instead? That's smalec. Breakfast of Champions. That looks revolting (and I like hommus) Bit like when I traveled through Romania and ordered some soup: went for the "whatever is favorite around here", it was (for want of a better description) 'cream of tripe soup' Aaron PS: do they make you eat it as some sort of cultural right of passage eg: "refuse my lard insult my honor".
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mrcj
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 173
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Post by mrcj on Apr 10, 2013 11:59:31 GMT -8
If I heard right and the Moorish culture was going to be set in a temperate mountainous zone some of that setting will fall away, like the desert archetecture, dress, and olives etc.
So what you might be looking at is something more like Afganistan or the area around the Black Sea. The earlier suggestion of the Ottoman history is pretty good. I have run setting with similar shading, it breaks players out of the "normal" northern European setting.
Pulling the gamers out with music is also a cool and low stress way to go.
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Apr 10, 2013 14:17:43 GMT -8
It feels fun. I like it. I do it again…. It feels fun. I like it. I do it again…. It feels fun. I like it. I do it again…. ABC operant conditioning: great for conga lines We agree that one man’s fun can be another man’s misery, which is your point in the above post that analyzes what makes an emotion and the labels that may be irrelevant to that emotion. Now let’s try declared intent: sarcasm in support. problem is that even though emotions are experienced by everyone they escape an easy and universal definition as to exactly what they are. It's a chicken or the egg as the first conundrum - do emotions elicit and physiological response or vice versa. For every piece of research that suggests one there is another that suggests the opposite. The second conundrum is that many emotions as subjective experiences are varied but when looked at objectively there is little to distinguish them - fear and lust elicit similar physiological responses but are experienced differently. Remember: If you are having fun, you are doing it right. There is no wrong way to play. Nothing ambiguous about that. No siree Bob. I am forbidden to say “no siree Bob” without eye-rolling sarcasm. It’s in my social contract.
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Post by Stu Venable on Apr 10, 2013 15:13:47 GMT -8
Okay, hold on a second.
Is that, like, real lard in that pan? Or is it some kind of cream-based gravy?
And is it honest-to-God lard, or vegetable based lard (like Crisco).
Or is it congealed bacon grease (which I would obviously forgive).
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Post by Stu Venable on Apr 10, 2013 15:18:01 GMT -8
And Kainguru, I get what you're saying. Stork kept wondering (or postulating) that trepidation and anticipation aren't emotions, where as I would argue they are.
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Apr 10, 2013 15:28:55 GMT -8
Okay, hold on a second. Is that, like, real lard in that pan? Or is it some kind of cream-based gravy? And is it honest-to-God lard, or vegetable based lard (like Crisco). Or is it congealed bacon grease (which I would obviously forgive). Crisco. There is even a butter made of something just as tasteless. And it costs money to buy it to add insult. AND they pour sauce over the top of pizza here. But you cannot buy a bag of salt and vinegar chips!
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Post by Forresst on Apr 10, 2013 16:36:05 GMT -8
Here I was, hoping against hope, that that lard stuff was kinda like cretons. Cretons sound like a losing proposition, and probably disgusting, but it at least has meaty bits. Also super tasty.
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 11, 2013 4:28:20 GMT -8
And Kainguru, I get what you're saying. Stork kept wondering (or postulating) that trepidation and anticipation aren't emotions, where as I would argue they are. I'd agree with you Stu that they are emotions . . . rather they're the labels you give to your experience. You 'feel' something you call it trepidation/anticipation . . . Stork shares your system of labeling an 'experience' but he probably experiences it differently because it's all subjective. What you experience as trepidation I imagine Stork might call anxiety (elevated adrenaline levels) and trepidation as a response to that underlying anxiety (trepidation being a separate but related response to the emotion of anxiety). Both answers are right . . . it just depends on your frame of reference . . . and because we are unique consensus it difficult. It's like having a formal debate without an agreed set of definitions . . . fun but problematic because it's easy to start arguing about opposite ends of the same stick Aaron
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