Sim-Morality (essay thread, long)

[clehrich]

There is a thread, now probably dead, in the Site Discussion forum, discussing Ron's new article on Simulationism, but I thought this might be a useful place to start grappling with the details.

Ron seems to expect, and I would guess he knows what he's talking about, that he might get a lot of heat here; by implication, a thread on it might generate a bit of warmth.  So here are two things that don't interest me in this thread, but might be interesting in other threads:

1. Whether the model description of Simulationism in general is correct or not.

2. Whether Simulationism is a rewarding way to play or not.

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Okay, so here's what does interest me.

1. Suppression of metagame concerns (and potentially mechanics), notably in How-To-Play text.  Ron talks about this as making the GM a co-conspirator of the game authors, which I think makes a lot of sense.

My question, however, is that I have rarely encountered groups which actually took "GM-Only" warnings seriously.  Thus the players had to be complicit in the conspiracy against them; they actually knew perfectly well what was really going on.  My sense is that there was another metagame "how to text" being written here, but not actually printed because it would break the Sim-frame.

This text essentially said this:

We know, and you know, that this is only a game.  We all know that metagame things are going on.  But we also know, as do you, that good Simulationists don't want to know this.  They want to maintain the dream.  So you must train yourself not to have seen certain things, to forget the man behind the curtain.  If you have seen your friend's character sheet, it is immoral to make use of that knowledge.  If you know that a certain monster has certain powers, because you have read the manual, but your character wouldn't know that, then it is immoral to act upon that knowledge.

So my question: am I right in interpreting "Good players do X" as a moral injunction?

2. Assuming that this is more or less correct, it means that breaking frame, as it were, is equated to cheating.  (Thus perhaps some of the uncomfortable boundary with Gamism.)  So the question, which I think might be useful for exploring GNS at large, is this:

What does it mean to cheat in an RPG?

In a straight Gamist game, this is obvious.  If the point is to win (in whatever sense), and to do so by following a set of rules, then to win without following the rules is cheating.

In Narrativism, I think this would be very hard to define, and I leave it to people clearer on the precise contours of the type than I.

In Simulationism, however, you have several possibilities:

Cheating the Odds --- die fudging, etc.
Cheating the Character --- pretending to have different skills or whatever than one does.
Cheating the Setting --- acting contrary to the determined structures of the game-world.
Cheating the Frame --- acting with OOC knowledge or priorities not parallel to IC concerns.  (This is why Director-stance mechanics have sometimes been seen as cheating by Sim-priority players.)

I wonder, though.

Surely the dominant thing in Simulationism is exploration, right?  And if we slightly extend Cheating the Setting to cover a wider range of games (especially High Concept games, perhaps), then you could have Cheating the Exploration as a legitimate category.  For example, if exploring some version of the bushido honor code is central, then deliberately acting contrary to it is cheating the exploration.

But why is this not a more central concern?  Why is all the moral venom reserved for Cheating the Frame and Cheating the Odds?  I mean, if the mechanics "should" be (but never will be) transparent, so the dream can be maintained perfectly, then why should a fudged die roll make all that much difference?

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Anway, this is a very negative take on the morality of Simulationist systems, looking only at the cheating and bad things rather than what they consider moral and to be encouraged.  Any takers?

[M. J. Young]

You seem to have posted this minutes before I got here. I was a bit nervous about the "long" comment in the title, but it proved not to be long (I write longer post-it notes).

As an aside, I would prefer "unethical" over "immoral"; but that's actually addressed to Ron, who chose the word initially.

It is unethical to violate the social contract; it is thus unethical to violate the rules which the social contract supports. However, we must understand what those rules are.

Ron has identified Multiverser as a simulationist game. I'll take that as given, for this post. As part of play, I, the referee, might verse your character into Cask of Amontilado or The Last Starfighter, The Postman, Prisoner of Zenda, Most Dangerous Game (all worlds I've used). But your character is an in-game simulation of you, and his knowledge includes all of your knowledge up to the moment play began. Part of the interest may be whether you recognize the world as it unfolds. In that case, it's perfectly reasonable for you to use knowledge you have of the story or world as the basis for in-character decisions. On the other hand, if I drop you into a world from one of the game books that is not based on something you would know, I'll be annoyed if you go out and read the game book to find out what's happening in it. Your character shouldn't benefit from such knowledge, and I would consider that cheating.

Similarly, I think that players could use director-stance mechanics in a simulationist game, provided that the social contract supported this. In essence, though, this would require that the players have agreed to create events and situations and appointments which are consistent with the simulation. That is, there's no particular reason why the referee should be the only one who knows what's appropriate for the setting. As long as it is not the case that the world is not knowable to the players, there's no inherent reason why the players could not create the details within the simulationist framework.

There are little ways in which this happens all the time anyway. For example, I might describe a room as having a bookshelf against the wall, or a dresser in the corner. A player might then say that he's going to leaf through a few of the books or check the clothes in the drawers. I never said there were books or clothes; those were reasonable inferences from what I did say, but they were probably director stance creations of detail from the inference. I could, as referee, veto those, saying that the shelves or the drawers are empty; it is more likely in most situations that the inference is quite acceptable. More dramatic examples would be looking at knick-knacks on the mantel when only a fireplace has been mentioned (not all fireplaces have mantels, but it is frequently the case that decorative objects are placed on such pieces), gazing in the unmentioned mirror of a dresser (most, but not all dressers do have mirrors--otherwise they're usually technically chests of drawers), or looking at a clock in the room on the assumption that all rooms of this sort have clocks in them (in my house, only the bathrooms and the laundryroom lack them). This is creation of detail in a simulationist framework; it is very mild director stance. You could have stronger director stance in such play without breaking from the simulationist model. What matters is whether it is legitimate within the social contract.

I hope this helps.

--M. J. Young

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Chris,

I think you nailed it.

I'll use the specific example of Illusionist play because that's where issues of ethics, railroading, and so forth cropped up most. In the most-recent and most-successful Illusionism discussion, Mike Holmes (and I think Marco too) did a very good job of explaining the necessarily-collusive nature of the "veil" between the GM's story-authority and the in-game what-happens mechanics. I agree with them - Illusionism is collaborative deception, much like, in fact just like, stage illusionism.

M. J., you're right - "unethical" is precisely what I'd call it. However, based on the reactions and concerns of people who are very close to this, emotionally, I think "immoral" reflects their take on it. Perhaps I'm drawing too much on personal history for that usage, though.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

Brilliant everyone, brilliant.

I'd just add one more thing. The reason for the focus on "cheating frame" is historical. RPGs have always assumed that players will play Gamist all the time, especially if "allowed" to. Thus in a Sim intended game, the rules must focus on preventing the "creeping Gamism" that Ron alludes to. But as we know, this is not only useless, but often couterproductive.

IOW, C, your point is well taken. The focus should not be on preventing one from "cheating the frame", but from "cheating the Setting" and other elements. Or rather, one should focus on rewarding staying in the appropriate venue of exploration (to turn the tables and use positive reinforcement). What you've pointed out is a looong standing and all to commonly accepted out of hand rule focus that should never have been.

Mike

[contracycle]

One thinkg.  I buy "cheating the setting" conceptually, but I feel one of the things about game rules is that you sign up to them when you agree to play.  Can we express these sorts of themses/expectations such that we can be ocnfidenat that the players know what this rule is and that it is in operation?

[Mike Holmes]

One thinkg.  I buy "cheating the setting" conceptually, but I feel one of the things about game rules is that you sign up to them when you agree to play.  Can we express these sorts of themses/expectations such that we can be ocnfidenat that the players know what this rule is and that it is in operation?

I think so. Further, I think there are probably ways to incorporate it into the mechanics to better inform the players. Wasn't that what we were trying to do with Mesopotamia?

Mike