The Forge Forums Read-only Archives
The live Forge Forums
|
Articles
|
Reviews
Welcome,
Guest
. Please
login
or
register
.
May 27, 2022, 03:45:45 AM
1 Hour
1 Day
1 Week
1 Month
Forever
Login with username, password and session length
Forum changes:
Editing of posts has been turned off until further notice.
Search:
Advanced search
275647
Posts in
27717
Topics by
4285
Members Latest Member:
-
Jason DAngelo
Most online today:
70
- most online ever:
565
(October 17, 2020, 02:08:06 PM)
The Forge Archives
Archive
RPG Theory
sim fidelity
Pages: [
1
]
« previous
next »
Author
Topic: sim fidelity (Read 4753 times)
Emily Care
Member
Posts: 1126
sim fidelity
«
on:
March 06, 2003, 03:04:18 PM »
Hello all,
The thread on order of sim elements inspired these thoughts in me, but they were OT enough that I figured I should put them on a different thread.
OK, so all roleplaying contains exploration of the 5 elements (setting, situation, system, character and color). Narrativist and Gamist gaming explore them with specific goals (exploring big P-Premise, or overcoming challenges, for example). Sim is often seen as simply exploration of the 5 without these additional filters. The GNS triangle is uneven, sim is either more or less than the other two approaches. But what if we think of sim play as just another filter? And each variety simulationism as its own unique take with a common goal: fidelity to a source referent.
Sim play may have many goals: "Realism", Genre consistency, or other specific goals that are analogous to model building: making a beautiful reproduction of something one has seen represented, the referent. This may be the real world, a novel, a genre, etc. Play seeks to capture the "true thing" of the referent that it is the goal of play to explore & newly represent. Each mode of sim play has a filter question that gets asked of each game event. This question is the criteria for whether it rings with that truth or not. All that system contains is used to ask the question.
From Ron's Sim essay (on
Purist for System
): "Purist-for-System designs tend to model the same things: differences among scales, situational modifiers, kinetics of all kinds, and so forth."
The filter for representation here is that the truth of physics etc. can be represented through the medium of mechanics. The filter is "what would happen in the real world". The genre is real world physics. :)
High Concept
games fall under the consistency with genre etc. heading. "What will evoke the text/setting/perioed I'm representing best?"
I'm not so sure about
Rules-lite Story or Character priorities
but it seems like the path to truth here is about plausibly tying actions to character motivations. The filter is "what would the character do".
Narrativist and gamist decisions are seen as being metagame oriented because their goals deal with explicitly with the experience of the player. And in distinction, sim goals are seen as being about in-game elements. If sim goals are aspiring to the dream, that fidelity to whatever is being simulated, then these are still metagame goals, they simply masquerade as "in-game". Each filter refers to the materials of the game world itself, so the fact that it still refers back to the experience of the participants may be overlooked.
Anyway, another set of $.02.
Regards,
Emily Care
Logged
Koti ei ole koti ilman saunaa.
Black & Green Games
Ron Edwards
Global Moderator
Member
Posts: 16490
sim fidelity
«
Reply #1 on:
March 06, 2003, 03:13:01 PM »
Hi Emily,
You wrote,
Quote
If sim goals are aspiring to the dream, that fidelity to whatever is being simulated, then these are still metagame goals, they simply masquerade as "in-game". Each filter refers to the materials of the game world itself, so the fact that it still refers back to the experience of the participants may be overlooked.
Agreed in full! And stated better than anywhere else that I can recall. This is an issue that Mike Holmes and I (for instance) do agree on, but have a terrible time managing to articulate to one another's satisfaction when referring to it in short-hand.
Best,
Ron
Logged
Le Joueur
Member
Posts: 1367
"No Choice" IS a Choice
«
Reply #2 on:
March 06, 2003, 03:41:40 PM »
Quote from: Emily Care
Narrativist and gamist decisions are seen as being metagame oriented because their goals deal with explicitly with the experience of the player.
Just once I was wondering when someone would point out that Simulationism's choice "to avoid meta-game"
is
a meta-game choice. It's a common mistake to think that 'not making a choice,' aversion to choosing, is not a choice, because it is.
At each 'meta-game' opportunity, Simulationist Drift chooses to avoid the meta-game potentials -
that is the Simulationist meta-game choice
-
not
.
Any better?
Probably not, but it does mean that
every
mode makes clear meta-game choices.
Fang Langford
Logged
Fang Langford is the creator of
Scattershot presents: Universe 6 - The World of the Modern Fantastic
. Please stop by and help!
talysman
Member
Posts: 675
Re: "No Choice" IS a Choice
«
Reply #3 on:
March 06, 2003, 11:38:48 PM »
Quote from: Le Joueur
Quote from: Emily Care
Narrativist and gamist decisions are seen as being metagame oriented because their goals deal with explicitly with the experience of the player.
Just once I was wondering when someone would point out that Simulationism's choice "to avoid meta-game"
is
a meta-game choice. It's a common mistake to think that 'not making a choice,' aversion to choosing, is not a choice, because it is.
At each 'meta-game' opportunity, Simulationist Drift chooses to avoid the meta-game potentials -
that is the Simulationist meta-game choice
-
not
.
although that's true, Fang, I kind of thought that Emily was saying that Sim is metagame in another way. consider this: metagame decisions, as Emily states are concerns about player goals. Sim is concerned with in-game goals ... but this is a masquerade for a player goal, enjoyment through recreating a novel, historical time period, genre, real-world physics, or "emotional physics". or, as Emily puts it, fidelity (instead of premise or challenge.)
Logged
John Laviolette
(aka Talysman the Ur-Beatle)
rpg projects:
http://www.globalsurrealism.com/rpg
Mike Holmes
Acts of Evil Playtesters
Member
Posts: 10459
sim fidelity
«
Reply #4 on:
March 07, 2003, 08:48:01 AM »
All I can says is, ayup. That's what I been saying all along. Thanks for stating it in a way that people can grok Em.
This does lead to some interesing cconcepts. It explains a lot of the Actor Stance play that occurs in Sim, for example.
Mike
Logged
Member of
Indie Netgaming
-Get your indie game fix online.
Emily Care
Member
Posts: 1126
sim fidelity
«
Reply #5 on:
March 07, 2003, 10:31:45 AM »
Thanks all! Glad to help lend clarity.
Fang: What John said. I see sim decisions as metagame choices too. I think you and I are on the same chapter, if not the same page yet. I agree that every mode makes metagame choices.
Quote from: Le Jouer
At each 'meta-game' opportunity, Simulationist Drift chooses to avoid the meta-game potentials - that is the Simulationist meta-game choice -
not
.
I'm not sure I got what you meant by this. But my rephrasing of this might be that "At each 'meta-game' opportunity Sim Drift
uses versimilitude to a given text or referent as the primary criteria for decision making
- that is the meta-game choice.
--Em Care
Logged
Koti ei ole koti ilman saunaa.
Black & Green Games
Le Joueur
Member
Posts: 1367
We All Agree?!? wtf?
«
Reply #6 on:
March 07, 2003, 10:32:53 AM »
So we all agree then?
That each of the GNS modes
does
prioritize something above and beyond 'in game' issues?
Narrativism = Edwardian Premise
Gamism = Competition (IIRC)
Simulationism = Fidelity (to
something
)[/list:u]Great googlimoogly!
Fang Langford
Logged
Fang Langford is the creator of
Scattershot presents: Universe 6 - The World of the Modern Fantastic
. Please stop by and help!
Ron Edwards
Global Moderator
Member
Posts: 16490
sim fidelity
«
Reply #7 on:
March 07, 2003, 10:54:01 AM »
Hi Fang,
Yes, we all agree - and I think we have all
always
agreed about this but had a hard time articulating it.
I think it's clear that "one of these two is not like the others," in terms of how one relates overt, non-Explorative agenda (social and aesthetic) to the act of play. That difference is what's been referred to, in the past, as "not metagame."
I think Emily's term "fidelity" is a much, much better way to articulate it, so that's what I'll being saying, along with stuff like "commitment to Exploration" and "the Dream," from now on.
Best,
Ron
Logged
Mike Holmes
Acts of Evil Playtesters
Member
Posts: 10459
sim fidelity
«
Reply #8 on:
March 07, 2003, 11:00:05 AM »
Yeah, Fidelity is a term we could have used long ago. Works well as a substitute for Verism...Vemisil..Vemersil..that other word, too.
Mike
Logged
Member of
Indie Netgaming
-Get your indie game fix online.
Emily Care
Member
Posts: 1126
sim fidelity
«
Reply #9 on:
March 07, 2003, 11:58:37 AM »
Quote from: Mike Holmes
Verism...Vemisil..Vemersil..that other word, too.
Yeah, considering I couldn't even spell it correctly in
my
post....
here it is first and last time:
verisimilitude, dude.
Logged
Koti ei ole koti ilman saunaa.
Black & Green Games
Pages: [
1
]
« previous
next »
Jump to:
Please select a destination:
-----------------------------
Welcome to the Archives
-----------------------------
=> Welcome to the Archives
-----------------------------
General Forge Forums
-----------------------------
=> First Thoughts
=> Playtesting
=> Endeavor
=> Actual Play
=> Publishing
=> Connections
=> Conventions
=> Site Discussion
-----------------------------
Archive
-----------------------------
=> RPG Theory
=> GNS Model Discussion
=> Indie Game Design
-----------------------------
Independent Game Forums
-----------------------------
=> Adept Press
=> Arkenstone Publishing
=> Beyond the Wire Productions
=> Black and Green Games
=> Bully Pulpit Games
=> Dark Omen Games
=> Dog Eared Designs
=> Eric J. Boyd Designs
=> Errant Knight Games
=> Galileo Games
=> glyphpress
=> Green Fairy Games
=> Half Meme Press
=> Incarnadine Press
=> lumpley games
=> Muse of Fire Games
=> ndp design
=> Night Sky Games
=> one.seven design
=> Robert Bohl Games
=> Stone Baby Games
=> These Are Our Games
=> Twisted Confessions
=> Universalis
=> Wild Hunt Studios
-----------------------------
Inactive Forums
-----------------------------
=> My Life With Master Playtest
=> Adamant Entertainment
=> Bob Goat Press
=> Burning Wheel
=> Cartoon Action Hour
=> Chimera Creative
=> CRN Games
=> Destroy All Games
=> Evilhat Productions
=> HeroQuest
=> Key 20 Publishing
=> Memento-Mori Theatricks
=> Mystic Ages Online
=> Orbit
=> Scattershot
=> Seraphim Guard
=> Wicked Press
=> Review Discussion
=> XIG Games
=> SimplePhrase Press
=> The Riddle of Steel
=> Random Order Creations
=> Forge Birthday Forum