Short-term Memory as resolution system

[Russell Collins]

I'm experimenting with using a test of short-term memory as a mechanic to determine simple success or failure. In execution, the GM will read a list of numbers, letters or words made up of 5 to 9 items, dependent on difficulty. After the reading, the player is then allowed to write out the list and hand it in for "grading." A correct list is a success, one with errors is a failure. In game there will also be a mechanic to allow re-tests.

The number of items in a list is inspired by the work of George A. Miller and his research into channel capacity of the mind. The GM may adjust difficulty for individual players based on their early game success or failure.

I have not found other discussions of this topic, nor have I found online references to any games employing it (ouside of Concentration or Memory.) Are there other games that I'm unaware of? Would avoiding fortune this way break the game?

[thwaak]

I can't recall (heh) any other games like that, but I do have a few questions:

1) It seems this would be a pass/fail resolution system. If a person remembered a majority of the list, would they have a partial success?

2) It seems like a rather lengthy resolution mechanic and among many players, would appear to slow things down dramatically. Would players have time limits to write?

3) Is this a general mechanic question or do you have a setting in mind? Under the right setting, I can see this working wonders...something like a game where everyone plays an amnesic trying to find their identity, and so many memory success gives the player a clue as to their identity.

To be more helpful, I'd need to know what context for the mechanic you had in mind.

-Brent

[Russell Collins]

The game is about the stressors of day to day life and how the ability to avoid them will lead to abuse of power. Since it is set in environments like offices and schools the idea of making tests "test-like" appealed to me.

Time limits are an excellent idea and add to the testing environment. Some tests can affect multiple players too, which may speed resolution along if preference is given to the first players to hand in their results. Or an automatic failure for the last. (Oh, that's evil.)

Right now I am handling it as pass/fail because the driving force for the players is to collect power that will let them retake test and reduce their difficulty as well as avoiding tests by forcing them on other players. With so much weight on these tests they should be steered toward charging and abusing the power quickly.

[matthijs]

This looks interesting, but it's hard to understand how it's supposed to go in actual play. Could you give a fictional example of a game session - when do you run the tests? how often? what effects do they have a) on the in-game events, b) on the players?

[TonyLB]

Russell:  You're cool with this resolution mechanic being brutally unfair, right?

'cuz some people are just plain better at this than others.  Some people can visualize 5 distinct objects (numbers, words, letters) in their mind at the same time, and some people can visualize 9.  It's one of the reasons for the nonsense that is the IQ tests (which measure mental abilities very much akin to that ... feats that are measureable and recordable but have only the vaguest provable correlation to anything else that one might think of as intelligence).

What's worse, some people (particularly some people with otherwise low thresholds of juggling objects in their heads) are very good at grouping on the fly, a phenomenon that you, personally, will have either exercised or ... y'know ... not, if you live in an area with mandatory area-code dialing on your telephone.  When you have to remember "Two, one, two, five, five, five, one, two, one, two" you almost certainly don't remember all ten digits.  You remember "(212)" (and possibly start humming some Frank Sinatra), then "555" then "12" then "12 again."

If you can group those as fast as you receive them then you won't have to ask for the number twice.  If you have trouble doing that then you're going to need the number said slowly, and you may just flat out need to write it down, because virtually nobody can remember all ten digits as individual digits.

Enough pop neuroscience.  Suffice to say that some folks are going to beat your "nine items" test every single time.

You cool with that?

[Callan S.]

Would avoiding fortune this way break the game?

It's still fortune based, your going to get a range of results.

Then again I gag at saying that "Gah! It's not fortune! What am I saying! It's player skill and a chance for self improvement!". In other words, it spikes a gamist responce from me. Will that detract from your designs focus, if it happens in other users?


Tony: Jeez, unfair? Only if your playing something which isn't gamist! :) I think this might be an interesting litmus test, in terms of presenting it to people and seeing whether it's seen as unfair or an (exciting) hurdle.

[contracycle]

While this may be Worthy, will it be Fun?

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Hi Russell,

I think it sounds like a really neat idea. I personally would only be able to play towards failure states though... which maybe a compelling option perhaps. I have extremely mild dyslexia, and start to jumble things into the wrong order right at the lowest of your settings. (5 characters) The International Dyslexia Association estimates 15-20% of the population have Dyslexia. I didn't take time to confirm that with other sources, and it's possible they have a vested interest in stretching the numbers. Still... there maybe a rather significant subset of folks that would have extra difficulty with this system. So it's something you should look at.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't go with this as an idea. Personally I like it. *shrugs* I can't do Boggle or Scrabble very well either, but I still play them with friends.

Perhaps you could have a handicapping method if playing over multiple sessions is a goal for your design?

[David "Czar Fnord" Artman]

I concur with others regarding the handling times: this will be a slow resolution system.

That said, I can see FOUR axes for difficulty: number of items, item relationships, whether or not they must be recalled in order, and time between item listing and item recall.

Consider: If I ask you to recall "Plane, train, car, boat, bus" you should almost always succeed because they are items that are easily associated or related. But if I ask you to recall "Yellow, 99, inspiration, hurdle, Chrissy" then you might stumble more, because the words have so little to do with each other (on the surface). Further, you might try to memorize them as a sentence ("99 yellow hurdles inspired Chrissy), but that would put them out of order (assuming normal English sentence structures) and so you'd miss a few "successes," if your listing was required to be in order. Finally, if I as a GM make you wait for a long time before you test, you might not remember if it was Chris or Christy or Chrissy: still fewer "successes."

Also, I would have to vote for ranking successes by number of correct items in correct order, rather than a binary all or nothing. And note, with such a number-correct-and-in-order success system, that it would be EASIER if you listed several items (I think). I mean, if you list thirty items, and I need four "successes" to do something, then I have far better odds of getting any four in the right order than if you only gave me four. Hmmm... that sounds like BS, actually. I sense that this, in fact, might be some kind of inverted bell curve of success, actually, with a very few or a lot of items being easier to guess in order than some "middle number" of items.

Hmmm... maybe if you have to get a percentage of them right, in order, per success...? Assume 10 successes is the "max," then divide the number of given items by 10 to determine how many must be gotten in order for each single success. Thus, if I give you 30 items, you'd have to get 3 in order for EACH single success. If I give you 5 items, every one you get in order is two successes---aw, crap, that doesn't work either. Same deal as if there was no division by ten involved, I think.

OK, rambling OFF. :)

Give it a shot, I say. Try it a variety of ways (one or more of my Axes above) and see if it breaks.

HTH;
David

[Russell Collins]

On the issue of fairness, The intent of the game is to foster competition and jealousy between characters. Those who fail tests will likely gang up on those who succeed readily.

The charges of power the players accrue can allow re-tests, simplify tests, force other players to make tests, and disrupt the ability of other players to gain power. If a Player is doing poorly, they need to spend more time gathering power to stymie the others.

An example will be forthcoming. My vacation starts today and I may be away from the internet for a few days. Please don't take my silence as an abandonment, You've all raised very good questions that deserve thought and answers.

Thanks

[Andrew Morris]

Russell, I really want to emphasize what Tony is saying. I mean, would you be cool with a resolution system that, say, rewarded the tallest player? Because he's gonna be tallest every time, unless someone wears platform shoes or something. I'm pretty sure you'll get around the same variability in results with a memory test.

The guy who's good at remembering these clusters will always do well. The guy who's not will always do poorly. Memory ability is funny and some people are just really good at it, while others are terrible, even with considerable training.

The only way I could see to get some variability in results would be to change the nature of the memory clusters, so that each one is different. One time it could be words, another numbers, then a mix of colors and numbers, and so on, because different people are better at remembering different types of things. For example, I can remember random strings of numbers just fine. But an equal number of colors? Whoa...no way.

[TonyLB]

On the issue of fairness, The intent of the game is to foster competition and jealousy between characters. Those who fail tests will likely gang up on those who succeed readily.

Competition and jealousy between characters, or between players?

[Callan S.]

On the issue of fairness, The intent of the game is to foster competition and jealousy between characters. Those who fail tests will likely gang up on those who succeed readily.

Oh, what an interesting way to create an antagonist! Will the design really encourage and point out the ganging up factor, so as to make certain it's used and players don't sit around by themselves and powerless?

It might be quite a strong flavour though, as players wont be just working together to depict a picture of jelousy and competition, they will actually be feeling it. This wont easily allow an objective distance to examine such feelings. On the other hand, they really will be examing the real deal and not some idealised/possibly romantasised version of jelousy and competition (heh, which as were told repeatedly, is why theory and GNS forums were shut down - no concrete actual events were used, just imagined game play).

[Russell Collins]

On the issue of fairness, The intent of the game is to foster competition and jealousy between characters. Those who fail tests will likely gang up on those who succeed readily.

Competition and jealousy between characters, or between players?

The Game of Life offers competition in which player can amass more wealth and worldly success. If the players take it off the board and apply it to thier friendships that's just poor sportsmanship. I feel the same applies to RPGs, especially one with no improvement mechanic. It's meant to be a one-shot game. I should have mentioned that early in retrospect.

It's a valid concern and I've decided on two possible endgame outcomes. One in which everyone wins (very difficult) and one in which only one player wins (easier but with strong competition.)

[Russell Collins]

Example of play:

The GM helps the players make up their characters. For this example they are all office drones.

On day 1 no one has accumulated any power. I'm calling it Insight in game. They must face their daily stressors without recourse to change them. This is also the opportunity for the GM to experiment and find the weak and strong players and adjust approaches accordingly.

Player 1 is about to face a stressor. The GM narrates:

"You've just sat down at your desk when Simone is standing in the entrance to your cubicle. She's glaring at your trash can in which you see an empty Chinese food container. 'Simone' is neatly written on the side. 'Do you want to explain why my dinner was gone from the breakroom when I had to stay until 8 last night?' She narrows her eyes."

The player now faces a test. The GM recites the list in a clear voice, announcing each item about 1 per second (recommended by the Miller tests of short term memory.) The player is asked not to repeat the items aloud as some tests may involve more than one player:
"1, 5, 8, 2, 9, 3. Pencil up."

The player grabs his pencil and jots down the list as best he remembers it. I expect this will not take very long since the longer a player muses over the first items the more likely the last ones will be lost. I've found most strings are best remembered with immediate repetition. After jotting down the list, the player hands in the page and the GM evaluates.

If all the items are correct; items, order, spelling (homnyms count!) then the GM awards the player and he narrates his escape from the stress.

Player 1: "How could I have eaten your dinner? I was only in a half day yesterday and Jim and I went to lunch at Sizzler. It was probably Hadley or Mike. They're always trying to lay the blame on me for their behavior."

GM: Simone looks angry, snorts and storms off. Soon you hear a tense argument with Hadley waft over your cube from the other side of the room.

What if the player failed? The GM takes control and narrates the Player getting chewed out. The player collects one point of Strain, the degenerative stat for the game.

A fewmore tests take place during the day before the players go home. They now declare how many points of Insight they want to accumulate that night through web browsing and occult rituals. They are now charged up for Day 2.

Day 2 sees player one with 2 points of Insight. The GM narrates as Lumburgh wanders over to the player's cube.

Player 1:"He's going to ask about the TPS reports isn't he."

GM:"Of course."

The player knows there are other players the test can be passed off to in the office. He spends a point of Insight to escape the test before it begins. Lumburgh stops at Player 2's cube instead and asks if that player can finish up the reports for the department.

Player 2 tries a test. Yesterday he did very well, accruing 0 strain. The GM is making his tests more difficult to compensate.

GM:"Yeah, I think it would be just terrific of you if you could just go ahead on finishing up the reports for the department and then just leave them on my desk before the lunch meeting."

Test time. GM: "apple, nonsense, crater, repose, mouse, snare, edge, protein."

The player tries for it and fails. But, he has 3 points of his own in Insight (he had to gain 1 Strain though for staying up all night. He decides to spend 2, retaking the test and cutting off the last word. The GM tests him again and he wins.

The player now narrates the outcome but with a slight magical effect.

Player 2: "'I'd love to do that for you, but I didn't come in today.' Lumburgh straightens up, sips his coffee with a confused look and wanders back to his office."

The day continues, the players experiencing a few more stressors.

That night the other players are annoyed at Player 2's continued success. They decide to spend Insight to interrupt his technoccult meditations.  As he settles in for another all nighter, Player 1 declares he will spend his other Insight point to Interrupt. Every interruption prevents another player accruing 1 point of Insight. Player 2s infant son starts crying, loudly and won't calm down for an entire hour. Player 2 loses enough time to prevent gaining more then 2 points before work the next morning.

I think I've covered the basics and that this context improves my intent.