Maneuvering Emotions on a Relationship Map

[contracycle]

The purpose of the design isn't to say 'hey, this is how social interaction works in real life'. And I'm not forced into having this goal because something like: Otherwise suspension of disbelief will cave, and presumably since one can't have that I must be working toward how it really is (and therefore, I must still be making the claim 'this is how it is').

IMO, I don't think you can escape that.  I do think whatever you put in place will be a baseline that must be plausible to some degree.  Short of surrealism, any presentation of a fictional setting must not immediately violate the readers/viewers sense of the plausible.

Now the problem as I see it with social system mechanics is that I can't imagine how you can link these things up in a formal, organised manner and not IMPLY a view of how reality really works.  Rather like the firearms issue, only more so IMO, your 3 rules apply but so does a fourth: the end-user will complain to the proportion the rules do not accord with their own prejudices.

Anyway, all I said was that it was "more contentious" not that it was impossible.  FVLMINATA triggered some criticism to its social rank initiative system, but not so much, as far as I am aware, that it has really suffered as a result.  As with many things, the more obviously fictional the setting as a whole is, the less implied the implied argument becomes.

[Callan S.]

IMO, I don't think you can escape that. I do think whatever you put in place will be a baseline that must be plausible to some degree. Short of surrealism, any presentation of a fictional setting must not immediately violate the readers/viewers sense of the plausible.

I already noted that this need 'not to violate' isn't an issue that forces any design goal.

Basically the three rules wonderfully eliminate the proposed fourth. They basically tell me to write as I please, since if I please myself I'll probably please some other demographic. There seems to be a bit of a dogma around RP that product design is not about meeting a market but all about portraying some sort of greater truth. If I were a book writer and writing a boys own adventure, I don't care if the mills and boons audience would gnash their teeth at my work. However I'm supposed to forfil all roleplayers preferences, despite our clear diversity? It reminds me of the geek falacies.

In context to this post, this is also some advice for those who design, to not get hung up on certain issues that might seem important at first and perhaps falter or give up the design.

Side note: It'd be rather interesting to write a social conflict game based on exploring how people construct many, many visions of how social conflict interactions. Ie, how their missmatched visions clash with each other. Of course, it might be seen as 'claiming' how reality works...but it would be rather ironic given the games exploration.[/quote]

[nellist]

I tried a map, in the form of a Venn diagram for some politics in a tribal setting (Glorantha, using Hero Wars, the Pure Horse Tribe). The PCs were influential tribesmen, and there were counters in each area of the Venn diagram representing clan chiefs and other personalities. Not so much relationships but political/ideologcal views such as "imperial" vs "tribal", or "more swords"vs "tradition" were all represewnted.

The PCs moved around the 'map' convincing (or not) by various means the chiefs to cross a line into a neighbouring area.

I think if I had planned it a bit better I could have made it a gamist puzzle to move pieces from one area to another in a way that achieved the desired result. It turned out to be a moderately interesting piece of immersive character play with in-character speeches to persuade chiefs.

Keith Nellist

[contracycle]

If I were a book writer and writing a boys own adventure, I don't care if the mills and boons audience would gnash their teeth at my work. However I'm supposed to forfil all roleplayers preferences, despite our clear diversity? It reminds me of the geek falacies.

That is not precisely what I meant.  I mean rather, almost anything will be forgiven as long as it signposted as being part of the game, rather than something the game is trying to preach.  In the present climate in certain quarters - often those in which global warming and evolution can be dismissed as "just" theories - even sound peer-reviewed methodical work is criticised.

So what I mean is that I think these ideas will work best when operating very overtly as a mechanism, prfereably a central mechanism, of the game, rather than being an add-on.  It's also the kind of thing that should be just as discussed as abstractions as hit points might be discussed as asbtractions.