The Perfect Role Playing System©

[Lorenzo Rubbo-Ferraro]

"In general the left and right hemispheres of your brain process information in different ways. We tend to process information using our dominant side. However, the learning and thinking process is enhanced when both side of the brain participate in a balanced manner."

Taken from an interesting web site is about the left and right side of our brains. (http://brain.web-us.com/brain/LRBrain.html)

Just a thought:

If perfection/fulfillment/wholeness involves the marrying of the duel principles of our minds then perhaps the Perfect Role Playing System© does to.

The left side of our brain is associated with masculine thinking and is responsible for linear processing of information, sequential thinking, logic, reality.

The right side is considered the effeminate and deals with random processing, holistic processing, intuition and fantasy.

If so then perhaps the Perfect Role Playing System© (O.K. I'll change it to Enjoyable RPG then) is one somewhere between my airy fairy freeform feminine side and my mathematical masculine side. Or to put it in another way: A system somewhere between our modern freeform style RPG's and old style crunchy ones.

Just a thought.

[Jack Aidley]

The left/right brain model has been shown to be untrue; while there are asymmetries in our brain they don't follow the creative/logic distinction of left-right brain ideology.

Any theory of roleplaying based on the idea is likely to fail therfore.

[Alan]

The left/right brain model has been shown to be untrue; while there are asymmetries in our brain they don't follow the creative/logic distinction of left-right brain ideology.

Can you refer me to your source for this statement?  I haven't heard this before and would like to learn about it.

[montag]

In the simple form you presented the left/right brain model is nonsense, see e.g. http://www.rense.com/general2/rb.htm or better still read a good psychology or neurology textbook, not some pages from the internet. Especially not ones that try to sell pseudo-scientific nonsense tapes.
btw.: all "right-brain-involvement" techniques – usually for learning – I've heard of, are actually old stuff, dressed up to find favour with the latest hype (those cute fMRI pictures). You get told that you shouldn't focus only on detail, that a relaxed and friendly atmosphere is helpful, that you should involve more than language (usually located predominantly in the left hemisphere) by using scent, touch, motor activity ... and so on and so forth. Once you step back from the focus on the brain, you easily recognise that these are "ancient" techniques, whose usefullness wasn't discovered recently but acknowledged all along, and whose effects can be explained easily without having to resort to the "specific function" of the right hemisphere.

[MachMoth]

Being as I'm in a hurry, I'll just add my two-cents.  If this gets covered in the above articles, then I'm sorry.  Anyways, a lot of my recent studies of RPG's, games, and storytelling have been a delve into the world of psychology.  So, from those studies I can tell you that it would be harsh to classify the half-brain theories as fully true, or fully false.  There are, indeed, things one side can do that the other cannot.  This isn't a matter of one side being in charge of any specific function, but that a specific lobe or part exists on that side.  It has been proven that when the corpus callosum (a thick band of nerves in charge of communication between the two hemispheres) is severed, certain functions become hindered.  The most common example is that speech is handled in the left hemisphere (again, not because the left side does speech, but because it contains Wernicke's area and Broca's area, two small sections of the brain dedicated to comprehension and production of speech, respectively).  When a key is placed in the subject's left hand (right hemisphere), without seeing it, he will be unable to give a name to the item.  He will know what it is, and even what its usage is, but will be unable to say what it is until he can see it (thus allowing the information to travel to the necessary areas of the brain.)

However, this only proves that the two hemispheres of the brain are capable of different functions.  It does not prove the overall effects of these parts to the hemisphere.  It does not disprove it either, but simply produces alternative possibilities.  In truth, even a split-brain patient can function perfectly normally in everyday life.  Most of the brains functions, while specialized, are not exclusive.  It works on a very shared-net model.  Some functions require or are optimized by a specific lobe, others are not.

The best example I can give would be our lab network, here on campus.  Some things, all 100 computers are cabable of, though some better than others.  Other functions, you must go to a specific machine, or table for.  Still yet, none of the machines are capable of printing without the one machine in the back.  

Ack, I've rambled on enough, gotta run.  Hope this is of some use.  Psychology is something I'd strongly suggest dabbling in.  It has helped to make some of the abstract, difficult to grasp concepts discussed around here far more tangable.

ACKEDIT:  Oops, a bit of topic drift, quick edit.

[Calithena]

Actually, skipping the facts of psychology and neurophysiology entirely, I'd just like to make a comment on the original hypothesis. Let's say there are parts of the mind and/or brain that get satisfied by different things. Is 'The Perfect RPG' really the one that tries to satisfy them all at once? Maybe they can't all be satisfied at once to a maximal degree. Maybe, rather, 'the' perfect RPG is the one that satisfies part of your mind to a maximal degree - and there are other perfect RPGs that satisfy others, and so forth. Maybe it's not about totality of experience but about intensity, and many kinds of intensity can't combine well. Sex is great and rock climbing is great, but if you have sex while hanging by your nails from a slippery piece of granite you probably won't enjoy either.

[Alan]

In the simple form you presented the left/right brain model is nonsense, see e.g. http://www.rense.com/general2/rb.htm or better still read a good psychology or neurology textbook, not some pages from the internet.

Is there another source for this refutation of left/right brain specialization? I find it hard to credit an article from a website that also features UFO sightings and Atlantis discussions.

[MachMoth]

Here ya go:

First, an essay writen by William H. Calvin (affiliate professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine), for a collection of essays called The Throwing Madonna.  While not diffinitive, the book is a good, down-to-earth explaination of the human brain, that, from what I've read, is very interesting.  Worth checking out, if your library has it.
http://williamcalvin.com/bk2/bk2ch10.htm

Next, we have an article, published in the July 13,1999 New Scientist.  It was written by John McCrone, author of Going Inside, among a few other books, several articles for New Scientist, the Guardian, the Lancet Neurology, and beyond, and a specialist in the area of human conscience.
http://www.btinternet.com/~neuronaut/webtwo_features_leftbrain.html

Yeah, the Christian Church has something to say about it too:
http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/brain.htm

Another book to look at would be The Left-Hander Syndrome : The Causes and Consequences of Left-Handedness, though I have no links to its material.

I'd have a few more, but apa.org is down for the day.  Man my timing sucks.  Anyways, as for my educated opinion, I believe the Left Brain, Right Brain theory to be an overly simplistic, though not utterly false, view of the behavior and function of the human brain.  To answer the question in a simple response, the R/L Theory has not been proven defunct, simply incomplete.  I hope this is of use to you.  Maybe I'll root through the APA stuff tomarrow, if I'm not busy.  Or, maybe I'll remember a resource I forgot.

P.S.
Boo Yeah!  I was starting to think I was never going to get a good chance to babble some Psych in here.

[montag]

@Alan: you did notice the article was from the New Scientist, didn't you?  It's the same MachMoth references.
Since I can't use my university's subscriptions from home, I'll have to refer you to MIT Open Courseware in the meantime: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Brain-and-Cognitive-Sciences/index.htm

To add to MachMoth's professional opinion: Yes, some functions are lateralised, and there probably is some overall difference between the way the two hemispheres work, but it probably isn't a simple male/female, local/global dichotomy, because these have been tried and found insufficient. The eventual solution will probably be similar to the one that one day will combine parallel-distributed and modular accounts in cognitive science.

[Alan]

Thanks, I've got some reading to do.

[Walt Freitag]

If so then perhaps the Perfect Role Playing System© (O.K. I'll change it to Enjoyable RPG then) is one somewhere between my airy fairy freeform feminine side and my mathematical masculine side. Or to put it in another way: A system somewhere between our modern freeform style RPG's and old style crunchy ones.

Regardless of the scientific standing of various left-brain right-brain theories and beliefs, this assertion can and should be evaluated and discussed on its own merits.

My question is, doesn't "somewhere between our modern freeform style RPGs and old style cruncy ones" describe a large number of systems out there, if not the vast majority of them? There are a few systems that are freeform to the excusion of all crunch, and a few others that are crunchy to the exclusion of all open intuitive decision-making, but these are exceptions.

Consider the following systems with regard to the "somewhere between..." description:

- Fudge
- Sorcerer
- My Life with Master
- Dust Devils
- Donjon
- Hero Wars/Quest
- Otherkind

Even some that might appear easy to characterize as "left-brained" or "right brained" (we all understand the current cultural meaning of those designations, regardless of their literal validity) hardly lump together in two simple categories. The Riddle Of Steel has crunchy combat, but it encourages on-the-fly plot development using character relationships and aggressive scene framing, techniques that once were associated primarily with freeform. InSpectres has lots of shared narration but a thoroughly crunchy reward system. Universalis is crunchy and freeform, in a way.

In short, I don't get it. It's like you're saying, "Perhaps there could be food less salty than anchovies, but less sweet than molasses." Well, yeah. But I see a pretty complete and wide-ranging menu available already. What am I missing?

- Freitag

PS Nice to have a fellow German weekday around!

[MachMoth]

Glad I could be of help.  If you're ever in need of some psych references or the like, PM me, or better yet, start a thread so others can see them too.  I'll see what I can gather.  I have found Psychology to be a wonderful resource, that has made many aspects of RPG design more tangible.  And, I'd love to babble about it more often, around here.

[Lorenzo Rubbo-Ferraro]

Regardless of the scientific standing of various left-brain right-brain theories and beliefs, this assertion can and should be evaluated and discussed on its own merits.

Thanks for this Walt, I guess this is what I was trying to say. I heard about the left/right brain thing years ago and just assumed that was happening when I analyzed my thoughts about system creation in this dualistic way.

I guess it's just because I am currently struggling with a system in this way. If it becomes too freeform then dice become irrelevant: everything can just be narrated. So you add a few mechanics. The problem is when you start to add a few mechanics then you must add a few more (generally to be fair) and then where does it all end? Soon you have a system bogged down heavily with number crunching and you want to toss it all aside in favour of freeform.

I guess my theory (or deepest desire) is to somehow harmoniously marry the two. But by crickey it's doing my head in!

Strangely enough the RPG's on Walt's list that I have seen I like a lot.

Perhaps I should buy TROS and be done with it!

Thanks everyone –I shall investigate the left/right brain thing a bit more.

[Lorenzo Rubbo-Ferraro]

oops.. submitted it twice.