GNS and metagame machanix

[contracycle]

It seems to me the problem with such a point system from character identity is that it is a special case exception to other characters in the game.  And without a seamless in-game rationale, I would expect this to be displeasing.

I'm inclined to wonder if Sim metagame rewards might be control of what is simmed.  This is effectively the ability to demand a scene, or description.  I think the sim interest is largely in Seeing Stuff, and in character conception, and in character action, you can effectively compel the GM to describe whatever it is you choose to explore.  If this is denied, Questions will be Asked.  If I create a character oriented around horses, say, then I can (in principle) compel my GM/whatever to give me horse-oriented feedback.

I wonder if there is any commonality in sim players seeking out vehicles and other forms of mobility by which they can unilaterally change their perspective on the game space.  Perhaps scrying and comms and the like, too.  Dunno, thoughts?

The major problem it seems to me is that if Exploration is the priority then any form of player authorship and hence overt ability to generate game content would defeat the purpose.  Hmm, perhaps something like this might be aproached from the principle of mysteries and secrets; perhaps the "meta" game reward is to see things that other people in the game are unable to see - i.e., that this sight is in some manner priviliged.  I have been toying with the principle of "the arcane" (in its prosaic sense) quite a bit recently  There is a frisson in knowing things that are Secrets; arguably the entire celebrity rumour mill is based on the illusion of this.

The frequency with which games posit specialist or unique insight makes me wonder why this should be the case.  Some of it is marking out the hero as the hero, and some I think is the excitement of forbidden knowledge.  If the basic act inherent to RPG is Exploration, then perhaps the basic conceptualisation of RPG (and other fiction) tells us something about what an extreme player commitment to this act would seek.  However it occurred to me while phrasing my example about horses that the GM, and indeed the game text probably will not know what it is the player wants to explore.  Sure, theres a whole bunch of self-selection in the topics when electing to play a game, but within those bounds a I expect a player behaving according to this 'model' might still focus on a sub-entity within the whole.

Perhaps, therefore, a mode involving sequenced information might be employed, a sort of enlightenment by stages.  In fact I think I encountered an extant version of this recently....

BEWARE!  Freelancer spoilers below!
Not that I think it likely that anyone here would particulalry care, but form demands...

I think I saw in Freelancer the use of this sort of convention to the point of cliche.  Having played a lot of these sorts of games, I saw the great revelation coming.  In the opening scenes, a terrorist organisation stages a surprise attack and kills a foreign ambassador.  However, in the opening of the attack they say "Do not interfere, we are protecting the president" or words to that effect.  There had been nothing as yet pointing to a danger to anyone let alone the president - therefore this non sequitur was a Clue.  And given the Clue, I could and did predict that the terrorist organisation would turn out to be not to be so terrorist, and such indeed was the case.

End Spoilers!

So to sum up this ramble I would say that I think there may be virtue in looking towards, umm, "layered revelation", and specialist and unique viewpoints.  As to WHY this works in a metagame sense I would suggest that it has to do with the kudos actively or tacitly awarded the Knowers of Things.  That is, if you are a particular specialist and players come to you for specialist insight, you gain the social recognition of your wisdom.  In the game, this might be a wholly mechanical artifact but the FORM of interaction between the people is preserved in the sim.  Even if your fictional heretical insight cannot be revealed in the game, the dynamic amongst the players (sim or otherwise I venture) will tend to affirm the value of the specialist insight and the player/character status of being Illuminated.

[Mike Holmes]

In terms of a feedback thing, I think the method you cite, Gareth, just might work. But I agree that, again, even the metagame desire to see certain things is a metagame desire that is problematic in some ways to enable in terms of player power in Sim.

Perhaps understanding would be easier if we were to define metagame in terms of Sim. That is, metagame is something that is counterproductive to Sim in that it supports a metagame urge, and Sim seeks to eliminate this. This would be supported by Darren's excellent readings of the essays, I think. And further, I'm not sure what other use the term has besides this.

This is all confounded by what I've termed Pseudo-In-Game (looking for a bettter term, so help me out). That is, a mechanic that's clearly metagame by Ron's definitions from the essay, but is designed in such a manner as to have some strong in-game cognate. Such as the "shooting" mechanic suggested. While obviously not meant to be part of the in-game causal relationship, it's also supported by the notion the the characters are "the best", and that the mechanic represents that in some way. The Karma example is exactly meant to show how one can tell that such a mechanic is metagame (or not), despite the ruse.

One argument would say that such mechanics are good because they represent a compromise. That is, a willing player can suspend his disbelief a little easier that with an out and out mechanic. The opposing argument says, however, that in attempting to be such a ruse, the player will be even more offended than by a pure metagame mechanic that presents itself "honestly'. I think both sides of the argument have merit, and it's going to come down to personal preferences.

I think that subtlety of use is much more important in making a metagame mechanic less obtrusive. That is, if the mechanic is presented in such a way that it's employment tends only to occur in cases where the actions are congruent with the Sim decision, where they can be presented as decisions that come from in-game cause (despite not) originating from something already controlled, these are the least likely to offend. This is different from Pseudo-In-Game mechanics which often allow the player unsubtle control of elements that they would normally have no control over. If Karma is the only thing that a player controls outside of his character, that's pretty unsubtle, though still pseudo-in-game.

To parallel, Author Stance play occurs all the time in Sim; a fact which at first seems contradictory. But as long as the decision looks like something that could have been produced by Actor Stance play, then nobody complains. And I posit that players do this all the time. I know I certainly do. How does it support Sim? As an example, take the player who has his character travel to a far off land. Quite often it wasn't just plausible that the character would do this, but it's because the player was genuinely curious that he took this choice. So he's playing Sim, but using metagame to achieve it.

So, this is why I like Gareth's idea (and to the extent that MJ's is like it, his, too). Basically you are empowering players to cause something to happen that jibes with their metagame agenda, but only in such a way as it could have been the character's decision to do so anyhow.

Still metagame, in my book. But less obtrusive. One thing that makes some of these proposals more problematic in terms of Sim, is that they limit what the character can do in a very metagame way in order to enable certain decisions as rewards. That is, it's taking away from the player's ability to affect the universe as the character to say that they can't go and apply for a job as a reporter until certain conditions have been met. Either those conditions are causal, and in-game, or they are not, and metagame.

Does that help at all, or am I just being confusing?

Basically it seems to me that we're talking about the sort of things that form the border regions where Sim collides with metagame. It's very much a spectrum sort of thing to me. If you want to really extend the theory, one can point out that statistics are, in fact, slightly metagamey, even those that are supposed to represent in-game things entirely. This is why MJ has the problem he does. Can you eliminate this entirely? Actually, mechanically, you can. Just have no mechanics. I think that Andrew Martin would agree with me that all statistics presented as abstractions for players could be seen as somewhat metagame. Hence his games that only refer to things in in-game terms (a character doesn't have a speed rating, he can run 20 MPH and accellerate at 4m/s^2, etc).

So what does that mean? Well you can't have it both ways, it seems to me. I'm sure that there are implementations that are better at allowing players to project metagame power into the world at hand, but in the end, they all impact the sim feel to an extent. It's exaclty that I think that all games are hybrid in this way that led me to my posting about the axis model. It's OK that there's a conflict because in the end, players usually want more than one thing. Meaning that if you fail slightly on the one axis, that it's OK as long as it's still in the range on the other (the umbrella thing).

So, put these mechanics in, by all means. Just be aware of the extent to which they have to be effective at what they do in comparison to the impact. And that some players are just not going to like them (but big deal, that's true of all mechanics).

Mike

[taalyn]

Example from Crux again:

Boons are like good luck. They can be drawn from the caern (a white mote) and represent excellent benefits. If my character is running a race, succeeds and gets a Boon, perhaps he he wins by a significant margin, or attracts the attention of someone who could make him famous, or otherwise get something extra nice out of the event. Boons drawn can also be turned into motes for a Passion immediately.

Boons can also be generated -  bought by spending motes of Passions. Now my character is trying to sneak by a guard outside the temple, to save his lover:

- I spend a mote of his Passion: loves Julie 2, and he automatically succeeds. This supports Gamist choices.
- spend a mote, and the guard is Julie's brother, unaware that she's been kidnapped by his employer. This is Narrativist.
- spend a mote, and I get to narrate how the sneaking happens - Sim.

 The Sim reward has parts that look gamist (autosuccess) as well as Narrativist (gets to narrate the event), the difference is that a Sim player would use it to explore the Setting.

 I think this is pretty much along the lines of Mike's Pseudo-in-Game idea, since the metagame use is supported by in-game story (passions). I think this is more clearly about a metagame mechanic than Gareth's "layered revelation" idea, which seems to me to be just a style of GMing. At least, I'm not sure how it can be a metagame mechanic.

 Am I understanding you guys right?

 Aidan

[Mike Holmes]

Definitely pseudo-in-game. And to the extent that your game is about things like magic as game realities, it's also somewhat subtle. But I think the more that you can do to make it seem just like any other character ability, the better. As it is, it's somewhat of an exception, and, hence, a bit non-sim.

OTOH, I'm not sure that you ought to worry about that. It's certainly not tremendously damaging to sim, and even if it is, is it some goal of yours to remain high sim?

As always, my philosphy is make the game work first. Then look at GNS simply to see if the rules conflict in terms of GNS. You're about at that point, and I'm not seeing the game being particularly conducive to producing incoherence. So seems all good to me.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Ah-ha! I found the thread that I was looking for.

Lots of good discussion of Simulationist play, metagame mechanics, and reward system in Is S out of balance with G/N?

The thread wanders a bit, but stick with it with this topic in mind.

Best,
Ron