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[Marco]

Hiya,

Chris, what do you think of this idea:

1. Achieving Sim play just as you describe, and as we can see over and over in game designs which purport to be "transparent" only through reducing handling time. Fudge is a great, great example. Usually associated with phrases like "storytelling" or "getting to the story" or "not letting system get in the way."

2. Achieving Sim play by focusing more on representative mechanics, rather than less, and aiming for an elegance of among-mechanics causes. This elegance is intended to act as a tool among the participants for the keeping the Dream afloat, because it "works" in the sense of a set of imaginary physics. (Note: I use the term "physics" loosely, because the mechanics can be about anything.) Best example that comes to mind at the moment is Pocket Universe, although EABA can certainly go this way.

My claim is that #2 is indeed the same overriding aesthetic goal as #1, but wants to get there through embracing representative tools, whereas #2 finds those tools distracting.

Best,
Ron

I'm not Chris--but one of my longest standing observations (especially wrt GNS Sim) has been that I think The Window or Theatrix (for example) and GURPS (for example, I don't know EABA or Pocket Universe) have extremely different "aesthetic goals."

Although I may not know preciselywhat you mean by an aesthetic goal, I think that the play of these games, the mindset of the players and the reasons for choosing one over the other are extremely and distinctly different.

-Marco

[clehrich]

Ron,

Let me be sure I've got this right.  #1 is "transparency" as an approach.  #2 is "representative mechanics" as an approach.

My claim is that #2 is indeed the same overriding aesthetic goal as #1, but wants to get there through embracing representative tools, whereas #2 finds those tools distracting.

So "representative" has the same goal as "transparent", but wants to achieve is through representative tools, whereas "transparent" finds those distracting.

I'm assuming, by the way, that the last #2 is supposed to be #1; if not, I have honestly no idea what you're saying.

Okay, assuming that, I'm still confused.  You started by asking me what I think of "this idea."  Which?  The division into "transparency" and "representative" as ways of achieving Sim goals?  The particular relationship between these two points?  I'm not trying to be pissy or something, but I genuinely do not know what you're getting at.

I'm also not sure why these two things aren't both claims to transparency, but maybe that was your point?

Sorry, I think my brain is running slow at the moment.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Couple posts to respond to.

1. Marco, quick clarifier: I do not suggest that either The Window or Theatrix is any sort of Sim exemplar in game design at all. Far from it. I tried to explain how both, in my view, go all kerflooey in actual play. That's about all I can say about either in GNS terms. In line with Mike Holmes' correct and all-too-rarely heard points, all-kerflooey play is not Sim.

2. Chris, I think I did get the #1-#2 mixed up. Anyway, I was hopin' that my post would be easy and fun, but my impression now is that nothing in this thread is going to be either.

What I'm driving at is that I get your point about Sim play being an unreachable ideal if "system" is intended to produce raw experiential contact with the Dream.

However, I am now looking at the common and well-known attempt to construct the Dream using "system" composed of representations of its causal bits. This bit is about (um) range modifiers of one's likelihood to hit a target. This other bit is about, oh, how many years one must age one's character to represent a stint as a merchant marine. And so on.

My claim, which I have no doubt will raise cries of rage from those who really like one or the other, is that these ways to play have a lot in common and will suffer from the same crisis (the one you're describing).

They sure as hell don't look the same. On the one hand, you have the whole "immersive" thing goin' on, quite likely with in-character hats (real ones) and accents and so on. On the other, you have these engineer-lookin' guys who have painstakingly worked out just how a phaser functions.

So yeah, that was my point: they are both attempts at "transparency," so-called, and oriented toward making the Dream "happen," which is to say, doomed. I am currently under the impression that you and I are agreeing.

(As techniques on their own, they are not doomed, but might be enjoyed for what they are, or put in service of some other CA. That's a whole 'nother issue.)

Best,
Ron

[clehrich]

Ron,

Oh, I get it!  Yes yes yes yes yes.  We are totally in agreement.  Sorry, we clearly just think about this in such different ways that we can't even tell when we're on the same page.

Anyway, I was hopin' that my post would be easy and fun, but my impression now is that nothing in this thread is going to be either.

No fair.  You swapped the numbers so I got all lost.  Besides, I'm having fun.  Easy, well, no, but I tend not to connect fun with easy -- kind of like a hooker is easy but not as much fun as....  Sorry.  Anyway.

Yes.  I'm having a lot of trouble expressing what we are in agreement about, because it always seems to come out like I'm talking about a problem with hard-core immersion.  But as you just pointed out in your post, it's not about immersion; it's about Sim.

Furthermore, the "problem" here should not -- but might well -- "raise cries of rage from those who really like one or the other."  This problem seems to me an exciting source of tension and power in Sim, not something that makes it suck.  But I do find fascinating the fact that it is the Sim crowd who are most insistent that what they are doing is coherent.  You don't hear a lot of that in Nar, because it's about cool stories.  In Gam, it's about really elegant design and balance and rocking fights and stuff.  But the Sim gang want to stress that their way is somehow more cohesive and comprehensive, thus all that tedious crap about "one true way" and so on.

Anyway, yes.  Totally.  M.J., if you're out there, is Ron making this clear?  I'm not, I realize, because I'm thinking about too many things at once, but is he?

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Got three things!

1. High five for Chris, and also to Neel (neelk) - I just re-read the whole thread and discovered his brilliant gem phase: "artifice to artifact."

I'm thinking that one of these approaches were discussing is best understood as "ignore the artifice, because as long as we keep our gaze fixed on the desired artifact, it'll happen." The other approach might be "keep tuning the artifice, because when we finally get it right, the artifact will emerge." Sort of the New Ager vs. the Engineer, both wanting the same thing.

Whereas in my experience anyway, Sim play works nicely when the participants embrace a certain metagame responsibility for what they're up to, instead of idealizing some forrm of "emergence" to come. H'm ... empowerment seminars for Sim, anyone?

2. In the hopes of staying on-topic for the thread, I suggest investigating the rich tradition of Amber play, especially the sort which borders on LARP and focuses tightly on very colorful characters with very elaborate relationships to canonical characters and setting elements. I'm also interested in quite a bit of Cthulhu play, especially at conventions with highly experienced GMs, in which I suspect the dice do absolutely nothing relevant to play except make rattling noises on the table.

3. Forgot #3.

[ah! editing in a bit later, after I remembered: anyone who is interested in the problematic issues of the Simulationist Creative Agenda, for any medium, needs to read Dream Sequence, which is one of the collections from the comic Finder, by Carla Speed McNeil. This is fundamental reading for the topic, although I didn't discover it until last year.]

Best,
Ron

[M. J. Young]

Chris asked if I was getting it. I think so.

There is Group I Simulationists, whom we might dare call immersionists or virtualists, who want to find a way to escape the interruptions caused by mechanics as much as possible so that they can experience the dream with a minimum of "reality interference".

There is Group II Simulationists, who are dedicated to increasingly complex rules systems that attempt to emulate every nuance of the world, in the hope that when the system is working perfectly the dream will flow without any interruption; it would seem to me that the sort of interruption feared here is that someone would not know what to do, and would make something up that didn't feel right, so the answer is to be certain that the system answers everything and no one is ever left floundering for an answer.

There is still at least Group III Simulationists, for whom mechanics are a tool for crafting the world and the characters, who aren't particularly worried about whether they "get in the way of the experience" because to some degree they are part of the experience--like being able to watch the puppet show from behind the curtain, and see how the puppets work.

I think.

Sorry I don't have time to think about it too much more. Got to be somewhere soon.

--M. J. Young

[contracycle]

My interest is in these strategies.  How do you downplay the potential rupture caused by mechanics?

Your point about "real-world processing" hits the nail on the head.  The more of this you have to do, the less "SIS-processing", as it were, you can do.  It's as simple as that.

I don't think thats necessarily true.  I think there is much potential for actually supportive mechanisms.

The representative systems that we have at present are flawed in their strict adherence to causality within the game space.  What they need is to break out of the conventions of depiction in a manner analogous to the advent of impressionism.

My angle of attack here is that many performing arts exploit "tricks" of perception to create a particular effect that supports the piece.  Say for example, the use of long cloths to create a sea effect of roiling waves on stage.  Nobody is fooled into thinking they are actually seeing water - but the effect of the motion in the peripheral vision or whatever can create a satisfying impression of the sea.  Satisfying enough to contextualise and dramatise a scene or speech.

Similarly, masks are suprisingly compelling in their false but strong depiction of human facial expressions.  It would be an interesting experiment to play an RPG with all the players wearing masks all the time.
If someone is wearing a mask that strongly expresses an emotion, and yet their voice or other body language conveys a contradictory emotion, most people would experience some degree of cognitive dissonance reconciling the two.  I think that the contradiction between mechanical representations and the Dream is a similar kind of dissonance.

But the key is that both are signals equally, and so if the two signals can by synthesised, reinforce one another, then the message to be conveyed will also be reinforced.  IMO the problems with representaqtive systems like GURPS are that they tell rather than show; that is, to understand a strength rating, you first have to translate out of the game world into numbers before comprehending the message about the game world the number is trying to convey.  They "represent" the game space via a symbol set that is itself divorced from the game space.

It is my contention that an "impressionistic" approach in which the mechanisms are designed at the procedural level to imitate an appropriate contextual "feel" are not just unintrusive in terms of the dream but can be actually helpful in its creation and maintenance.  I suppose I am proposing a "designed cognitive resonance" between the subject matter and the techniques employed in the exploitation of that subject systematically.  In that light I disagree that there is a necessary and universal antagonism between the dream and its mechanical realisation.

A crude example of the two approaches from computer gaming.  In Civilisation, you could play through the feudal period, but it would feel nothing like fuedalism subjectively.  You just move armies around etc in bog standard wargaming fashion.  In medieval total war, you still move armies around but there is a whole mechanical layer dealing with the personal loyalties, aptitudes and predelictions of your vassals and officials.  Neither can be said to truly represent feudalism, but the latter is much less disruptive to the illusion than Civ's raw and remote abstraction.    There is a certain purposeful similarity between the subject being represented and the mechanism used to actually represent it.

[Arref]

It is my contention that an "impressionistic" approach in which the mechanisms are designed at the procedural level to imitate an appropriate contextual "feel" are not just unintrusive in terms of the dream but can be actually helpful in its creation and maintenance.

That's very nicely said.
Are there some good existing RPG examples of this?

[John Kim]

The representative systems that we have at present are flawed in their strict adherence to causality within the game space.  What they need is to break out of the conventions of depiction in a manner analogous to the advent of impressionism.  

I'm rather appalled at the analogy here -- since your implication is that pre-impressionist art is "flawed" by its representative approach, and that impressionism thus "fixed" the problem of constrained artists from Michaelangelo to Sargent.  While RPG causality isn't the only possibility, I don't think that it is inherently inferior to non-causality.    

My angle of attack here is that many performing arts exploit "tricks" of perception to create a particular effect that supports the piece.  Say for example, the use of long cloths to create a sea effect of roiling waves on stage.  Nobody is fooled into thinking they are actually seeing water - but the effect of the motion in the peripheral vision or whatever can create a satisfying impression of the sea.  Satisfying enough to contextualise and dramatise a scene or speech.  

This example seems to me to be strictly representational.  It's making the set look like what it is supposed to represent.  In the same way, people in the audience are not fooled into thinking that there is an actual house on-stage.  They know that it is a set, since they can see the curtains and edges and such.  But the set designers try to make it look as much like a house as they can, to aid the audience's suspension of disbelief.  

But the key is that both are signals equally, and so if the two signals can by synthesised, reinforce one another, then the message to be conveyed will also be reinforced.  IMO the problems with representaqtive systems like GURPS are that they tell rather than show; that is, to understand a strength rating, you first have to translate out of the game world into numbers before comprehending the message about the game world the number is trying to convey.  They "represent" the game space via a symbol set that is itself divorced from the game space.

Actually, one of the design goals of GURPS was to reduce "game-speak" compared to prior systems.  Thus, rather than using "hexes" or scale "inches", GURPS uses yards as it's measure of distance.  It's combat turn is exactly one second, so that is a real-world measure as well.  There remains a lot of game-speak, of course, but the amount and the effect of it was certainly considered as part of the design philosophy.  

On the other hand, I think that a symbol set divorced from the game space can also be highly useful in representation.  This is the equivalent of narration in books, plays, or films -- i.e. words that are not spoken in-character but rather a description of events.  

While you give examples from computer games and theater, it isn't clear to me what you're talking about in terms of tabletop RPGs.  What are the mechanisms that you are picturing here?

[clehrich]

Your point about "real-world processing" hits the nail on the head.  The more of this you have to do, the less "SIS-processing", as it were, you can do.  It's as simple as that.

....
The representative systems that we have at present are flawed in their strict adherence to causality within the game space.  What they need is to break out of the conventions of depiction in a manner analogous to the advent of impressionism.

Just for clarification here, I think you're saying that the impressionist approach was a challenge to and moving beyond pure representation, which impressionists saw as flawed, not that such representation is inherently flawed, right?  This is where I think John misunderstood, so I want to be certain.

I need to think about the rest of your very complex post for a bit.  Back with you in a day or so....

[contracycle]

I'm rather appalled at the analogy here -- since your implication is that pre-impressionist art is "flawed" by its representative approach, and that impressionism thus "fixed" the problem of constrained artists from Michaelangelo to Sargent.  While RPG causality isn't the only possibility, I don't think that it is inherently inferior to non-causality.    

Theres no need to read the simile that deeply.  In fact I think that game mechanics are, umm, more flawed as it were by reliance on strict literalism than the case in the art world.

I'm not at all sympathetic to much of the debate that occurs withing art; I really have no position critical or otherwise toward most art, or forms, or whatever.  So I dio not mean to imply any criticism of pre-imprssionist work whatsoever.

This example seems to me to be strictly representational.  It's making the set look like what it is supposed to represent.  In the same way, people in the audience are not fooled into thinking that there is an actual house on-stage.  They know that it is a set, since they can see the curtains and edges and such.  But the set designers try to make it look as much like a house as they can, to aid the audience's suspension of disbelief.  

Its possible I have used the term poorly, but you are describing what I regard as virtuous rather than what I regard as problematic.  My argument is that most RPG mechanics do not aid suspension of disbelief, and that they should do so more.  One might say I think most mechanics are constructed in defiance of the dream, giving a mechanistically objective description from the players perspective, and thus aggravating the need to transition in and out of the dream in actual play.

But your point on gamespeak was almost diametrically opposed to what I am saying.  I am not saying that game speak should be minimised, if anything I'm saying it should be used more, but should also be designed to support the content of the dream, in both form and function.  I actually really dislike the GURPS use of $, for example, as universal currency.  This chops off part of the game space from exploration, I feel.  It also distorts the description, requiring that the actuall material be framed in terms of this convention rather than in terms of conveying the SIS.

So I was asked for some examples, I'll provide what I can although they are pretty thin on the ground.

Riddle of Steel's initiative system is much enjoyed.  I think its not just that this is a better mechanic than most initiative systems, but also it is appropriately synchronised with the game content the mechanical action describes.  Thus, the tension the character feels in the game space is communicated to the player in real space, and people tend to find it more "enagaging" and "real" - much more so than the alternatives such as "action in reverse order of announcement".

Hmm, actually an honourable mention is deserved by HOL and its "Anguish Equivalency Table".  So sure, not a wholly serious mechanism, but a bit more visceral than blow to region X, Y points damage, bleeding on table Z.

I think that Pendragon has a similar effect in its explicit representation of the chivalric virtues, although this is not implemented in quite the way I mean.  But its a lot better than most.

On the other hand, I think that a symbol set divorced from the game space can also be highly useful in representation.  This is the equivalent of narration in books, plays, or films -- i.e. words that are not spoken in-character but rather a description of events.  

No, the narrator is a character.  If it were theatre, the narrator would be played by an actor.  The narrator is just one more dramatic device, IMO.

[John Kim]

On the other hand, I think that a symbol set divorced from the game space can also be highly useful in representation.  This is the equivalent of narration in books, plays, or films -- i.e. words that are not spoken in-character but rather a description of events.  

No, the narrator is a character.  If it were theatre, the narrator would be played by an actor.  The narrator is just one more dramatic device, IMO.

You've lost me.  I agree that a narrator would be played by an actor and is a dramatic device.  However, it is still usually separate from the imaginary space of the play.  (There are sometimes narrators who are also characters perhaps narrating their past, but here I'm talking about narrators separate from the story.)  

By comparison, consider the GM in a role-playing game.  This role is also played by a real person, and she narrates in-game events.  Does this make the GM a character?  I would say no.  The GM is an important part of the experience of the game, but not a character within the Shared Imaginary Space (SIS), aka the diegesis.  

There's an interesting article, "A Semiotic View on Diegesis Construction", in the http://www.ropecon.fi/brap/">Beyond Role and Play from last year's Solmukohta convention.  It uses a semiotic model of signs: which can be indexical (i.e. literal meaning), iconic (i.e. meaning by similarity), or symbolic (i.e. meaning by habit or convention).  You seem to be pushing more iconic signs: i.e. not literally what is in the game-world (like a LARP set in modern-day), and not meaning purely assigned by convention (like many tabletop mechanics).  I think iconic signs are an important part of the arsenal but not the only or best choice.  

My argument is that most RPG mechanics do not aid suspension of disbelief, and that they should do so more.  One might say I think most mechanics are constructed in defiance of the dream, giving a mechanistically objective description from the players perspective, and thus aggravating the need to transition in and out of the dream in actual play.  

OK, so I'm pondering this and your examples of suspension-of-disbelief aiding mechanics (TROS initiative, HOL's anguish table, and Pendragon's personality traits).  I'm willing to believe that these are the only mechanics which you find help suspend your disbelief, but I also think suspension of disbelief is a personal thing.  I think your analogy of art is apt -- i.e. some people are thrilled by impressionism and are put off by the sameness of realistic perspective and detail; while others feel the reverse.  In RPGs, I wonder if having been a physicist, I don't find objective mechanics as distracting as you do.  

I agree that an RPG system is a set of symbols that represent the game-world.  But I disagree that using those symbols inherently draws one out of the narrative.  A system needs to be learned, but in principle once it is learned then it becomes a part of communication.  For example, I found the basics of RuneQuest were an excellent symbol set for my Vikings and Skraelings game.  My impression is that TROS is fine for Renaissance duellists circling each other, but RQ is to me much better for the fatalistic and gory combat of the viking sagas.

[contracycle]

OK, so I'm pondering this and your examples of suspension-of-disbelief aiding mechanics (TROS initiative, HOL's anguish table, and Pendragon's personality traits).  I'm willing to believe that these are the only mechanics which you find help suspend your disbelief, but I also think suspension of disbelief is a personal thing.  I think your analogy of art is apt -- i.e. some people are thrilled by impressionism and are put off by the sameness of realistic perspective and detail; while others feel the reverse.  In RPGs, I wonder if having been a physicist, I don't find objective mechanics as distracting as you do.  

I doubt thats the case, given that I'm a dialectical materialist and trained as an engineer.  I alslo think "tastes differ" is almost always a useless observation.

A system needs to be learned, but in principle once it is learned then it becomes a part of communication.  For example, I found the basics of RuneQuest were an excellent symbol set for my Vikings and Skraelings game.  My impression is that TROS is fine for Renaissance duellists circling each other, but RQ is to me much better for the fatalistic and gory combat of the viking sagas.

RQ may well produce OUTPUTS you find suitable, but the process in which you engage to generate them is much less like the acitivity described than is the case with the TROS initiative mechanic.  And while I don't necessarily disagree that a system of code can be used for communication, this does not seem to me to be an adequate counterpoint to the suggestion that the closer the code accords to the process described the more useful it can be.

I'm not sure what this post was meant to say; just that you don't need the help?  That may or may not be true, but its irrelevant to whether or not the idea makes any sense.  I find RQ to have many of the same inadequacies as GURPS, but let me say this: the fact that RQ includes hit locations is an improvement, in the lights of my argument, over abstracted universal HP, because it is more like the described action than simple HP attrition was.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I'm pretty sure this discussion needs to get split into separate threads, but I don't want to presume others' priorities by making the splits myself.

Can folks take distinct topics into new threads on their own, please?

Best,
Ron

[clehrich]

After considerable thought, I've concluded that actually this conversation jumped threads a long, long time ago.  John and contracycle have now started it in an interesting direction, and one which follows up very much my deeper interests, so I'm calling the thread closed and suggesting we all move over to John's Thread.

Many thanks for all the suggestions and ideas!