Aesthetics and Reality

[Marco]

I don't believe the arguement is that weak. The basic set is meant to be used with with one of the world books, or whatever GURPS calls them. It's like playing AD&D 1st ed with just the players handbook. You kind of need the dungeon master's guide and the monster manual.

Besides, if you buy my arguement that GURPS was built from and defaults to a fantasy genre, then even just playing using the basic rulebook would have some genre expectations. And even if a group did play with just the basic book and they didn't play fantasy, we could probably look at this hypethetical game played by a hypethetical group and notice it fits into this or that genre.

Firstly, I nod to John for saying elegantly what I was going to about moving the goalposts. I believe GURPS fits the bill quite well.

Secondly:

GURPS Basic. I did. Modern day. No set genre that the players were aware of. No special powers. We switched to GURPS because we felt the firearms were more realistic than what we were playing (Hero).

One of the reasons I especially like generic systems is because one can use them to set genre-expectations on their heads. That's a major strength. And when you've contra-genreed then you need some base-line reality to fall back on.

-Marco

[Caldis]

I'm sorry Fang but I'm not sure that I understand what it is exactly you are arguing, and I'm not sure that anyone else here has either.  I may just be simpleminded but I'd like to understand where your coming from so I'll ask some basic questions.

Are you simply saying that most games focus almost exclusively on working out mechanics to resolve actions realistically and ignore mechanics that help to promote style of play desired ?

Or are you saying that game designers focus too much on developing the mechanics of games and not enough time with the atmosphere?

[C. Edwards]

Plus, let me add my opinion that those things "there's nothing inherently wrong with" (games that "stretch the color elements") won't be as popular if honestly portrayed as not "emulating their genre" (unplayed sales not withstanding).

I certainly agree with this opinion. Basically what I was saying with "there's nothing inherently wrong" is if someone wants to design a James Bond rpg that's a study in ballistic minutae and blood loss ratios for various types of wounds, more power to them. Just don't expect me to give a rat's ass.

I think that both types of games, those that emulate the atmosphere and conventions of the 'source material' and those that use the color elements of the 'source material' as a base for a 'realistic' simulation, have their place though. Different strokes for different folks. But, don't try and pass off one for the other. That's a common practice that is largely due to a lack of recognition of the different needs of varying playstyles and the unfathomable belief that one game can serve the needs of all playstyles.

Ok then, done ranting.

-Chris

[Jason Lee]

I think that both types of games, those that emulate the atmosphere and conventions of the 'source material' and those that use the color elements of the 'source material' as a base for a 'realistic' simulation, have their place though. Different strokes for different folks. But, don't try and pass off one for the other. That's a common practice that is largely due to a lack of recognition of the different needs of varying playstyles and the unfathomable belief that one game can serve the needs of all playstyles.

I agree with this, and would like to point out there is another priority you could focus on here...sacrificing both realism and atmosphere to ensure the game provides a balanced challenge for the players.  In fact, I could say that you could prioritize the 'game challenge', the 'aesthetic conventions of the source material', or the 'simulation of reality'.  Then I could put labels on these groups and call them Gamism, Dramatism, and Simulationism.  Then I could argue about it and refine these definitions, maybe even evolving it into a different model.  But, I digress.

So, back to Fang...

Without the presence of large measures of both, my point becomes nonsensical.  What I was trying to say and keep trying to say despite the frivolous use of 'genre,' despite the straw men stood up, is that since I can't see a game that is played without the presence of both elements in large measure, I argue that making the 'work to make the game experience plausible enough to be accessible to many people by familiarity with what they know in real life' the more important of the two, weakens (and renders 'harder to ignore the overt presence of') the 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative."'

I read this over a few times, and all this seems to be saying is that prioritizing realism over aesthetics takes something away from aesthetics...which I definately don't disagree with, but am failing to see the big revelation - there are always tradeoffs.  If that's it, that's all, and you aren't trying to say one decision is better than the other - then yeah, I'm with ya.  And yeah, designers should know they have to prioritize and clearly pick one.  That's just saying coherency is a good idea.

[Le Joueur]

I was saying that reducing the definition of reality so it approaches zero and increasing the definition of genre so it approaches infinity would make the discussion impossible.

Then you're arguing against a straw man, cuz I ain't talkin' 'bout reducing anything to zero.  If I haven't said it clearly enough, I'm talking about one being 100% and the other being 101%.

My point is absolutely pointless if you imagine that I'm saying anything is reduced to 0%.  That would be like saying having an arm without a head to move it (or a head with no arm to do anything).  If you keep implying that my argument can be reduced by superimposing all or nothing labels on it, you continue to argue with straw.

Fang Langford

[Le Joueur]

I'm sorry Fang but I'm not sure that I understand what it is exactly you are arguing, and I'm not sure that anyone else here has either.  I may just be simpleminded but I'd like to understand where your coming from so I'll ask some basic questions.

Ye Gads.  Give the "Woe is me, I'm too stupid" crap a rest.  Nobody here is stupid.  I'm making a subtle point; that means it's tough to get.  Some things in life are hard, a lot of those are unnecessary.

Like this one.[/list:u]I'm entitled to have my own opinion.  I'm also entitled to have no one get it

and no one to give a rat's ass about it.

Please, oh please, if you don't care to 'get it' don't bother attacking it.  I'm almost positive it's implications won't mean diddly-squat to you.  However, if your curious: ask.

Are you simply saying that most games focus almost exclusively on working out mechanics to resolve actions realistically and ignore mechanics that help to promote style of play desired?

I'm not simply saying anything.  There is no 'exclusive focus.'  I'm talking about a certain slight shading.  A hint, if you will, that most games, when the chips are down, will pick 'work to make the game experience plausible enough to be accessible to many people by familiarity with what they know in real life' over the other.  My experience is that in those cases it falls upon the individual's expectations and failing that becomes a 'bad experience.'  My intention is to say 'why do that?'

Or are you saying that game designers focus too much on developing the mechanics of games and not enough time with the atmosphere?

It's not about atmosphere or anything usually treated so superficially.  I'm talking about implications flowing out of the movement of the entire structure of a game.  Things like the presence of 'extra rules' that never get used, but are there only for the sake of the 'work to make the game experience plausible enough to be accessible to many people by familiarity with what they know in real life.'  I'm talking about 'what gets the most attention' in the rules.  I'm talking about 'where the buck stops' in the rules.  These are not easy things to suss out; they're very subtle.

That's why these subtle things, like my opinion on this, don't matter.[/list:u]I'm saying that when the

'work to make the game experience plausible enough to be accessible to many people by familiarity with what they know in real life' clearly comes before 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative,"' the game suffers.

If "the atmosphere" pimped by the color text can carry the game past this subtle failing, no one notices (except me).  I'm saying 'what if' you took the little effort to make the subtle difference in priority.

What I'm not saying is that the 'work to make the game experience plausible enough to be accessible to many people by familiarity with what they know in real life' exists at the expense of the 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative,"' or vice versa.  If you can't see how they both exist in every game¹.  Then you'll never get my point.

And it's mine and you can't have it.[/list:u]Fang Langford

¹ Back in the parent thread to this, I practically begged for an example where there was no

'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative,"' even if it was just color text.  Now, I'd raise that bar to say that given a potential example of it, has the person suggesting it played it in a fashion where they or their group did not in some way create (either implicitly or explicitly) any 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative,"' of their own.

I doubt such example exists.  That's right, I'm saying you can't play without some 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative,"' in your play.  Like I said, it's my opinion and your welcome to leave it in the dust.  The door is over there.

[Jason Lee]

Then you're arguing against a straw man, cuz I ain't talkin' 'bout reducing anything to zero.  If I haven't said it clearly enough, I'm talking about one being 100% and the other being 101%.

My point is absolutely pointless if you imagine that I'm saying anything is reduced to 0%.  That would be like saying having an arm without a head to move it (or a head with no arm to do anything).  If you keep implying that my argument can be reduced by superimposing all or nothing labels on it, you continue to argue with straw.

Well, the post in question was actually responding to Jere's GURPS realism post that John also responded to (who apparently stated the arguement better than I did, as he isn't being flogged with his goalposts).

But, as you seem to have taken up the flag...

If a game that seems to prioritize realism first (GURPS) isn't sufficient enough to fall into the category of a game that prioritizes realistic mechanics over source material aesthetics then you're narrowing the definition of realism down too much to be useful.  It's saying 'Well, GURPS isn't actually realistic, so it can't have realistic mechanics - no matter what the designers wanted.'

[Le Joueur]

[Fang] seems to be saying is that prioritizing realism over aesthetics takes something away from aesthetics...which I definately don't disagree with, but am failing to see the big revelation - there are always tradeoffs.  If that's it, that's all, and you aren't trying to say one decision is better than the other - then yeah, I'm with ya.  And yeah, designers should know they have to prioritize and clearly pick one.  That's just saying coherency is a good idea.

I'm not saying "pick one."  I'm saying what if nobody ever picked 'the other one?'  What if it were never a matter of prioritizing the 'work to make the game experience plausible enough to be accessible to many people by familiarity with what they know in real life' before the 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative,"' but instead a matter of how much of the latter to show (even though it was the priority always).

What would happen then?  What if every game prioritized the 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative,"' but only a few showed it obviously?

To me, only to me, and very definitely only me, would that make all games better.  (Especially games who were original and had no single 'source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative.')

This is not an opinion I want verified or ratified.  It was an observation I wanted to share.  An idea that I thought many would benefit from.  A concept I felt I could understand better if I had to explain it.

Not at all how it turned out.[/list:u]Fang Langford

[Jason Lee]

I doubt such example exists.  That's right, I'm saying you can't play without some 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative,"' in your play.  Like I said, it's my opinion and your welcome to leave it in the dust.  The door is over there.

I still (I did before too) agree with everything you've said in this post except the above quoted section.  We may have to agree to disagree here.  You acknowledge it's an opinion and that's good enough for me.  My opinion is that play needn't be reminescent of a fictional narrative.

[Le Joueur]

But, as you seem to have taken up the flag...

If a game that seems to prioritize realism first (GURPS) isn't sufficient enough to fall into the category of a game that prioritizes realistic mechanics over source material aesthetics....

There's that straw man again.  Did I ever narrow the definition of "realism first?"  I don't think so; I believe calling the phenomenon the 'work to make the game experience plausible enough to be accessible to many people by familiarity with what they know in real life' makes it a whole heck of a lot broader and GURPS most definitely fits this model.  I remember the amusing introduction to one of the earliest versions citing SCA sword practice experience as all the 'reality' they needed for the game.  That's enough 'work to make the game experience plausible enough to be accessible to many people by familiarity with what they know in real life' for me to think it prioritized.

Have you played it without any preconceived notions of the 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative,"' coloring your play?  If not, then the play wasn't free of at least some of it.  Note, I'm not trying to prove anything, but applying my recent criteria to the offerings as exceptions.  Yes, it's narrow to say that preconceived notions count, but my supposition depends on both always being present.

You acknowledge it's an opinion and that's good enough for me.  My opinion is that play needn't be reminescent of a fictional narrative.

And mine is that it's unavoidable.  (And so far only one game has been listed doing this and as I said, that is just an example that proves my opinion to me.)

Fang Langford

[Jason Lee]

What would happen then?  What if every game prioritized the 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative,"' but only a few showed it obviously?

Then we'd have all Sim/Nar hybrids and the Gamists would go play computer games and Warhammer (which may well happen in your undefined Stage 5 for all I know).

To me, only to me, and very definitely only me, would that make all games better.  (Especially games who were original and had no single 'source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative.')

This is not an opinion I want verified or ratified.  It was an observation I wanted to share.  An idea that I thought many would benefit from.  A concept I felt I could understand better if I had to explain it.

Given the prevailing opinion (I think it's prevailing) that a functional Sim/Nar hybrid needs to have Nar as the priority and Sim as subordinate this seems to sync up nicely and explain quite a bit about that approach.

[Jason Lee]

There's that straw man again.  Did I ever narrow the definition of "realism first?"  I don't think so; I believe calling the phenomenon the 'work to make the game experience plausible enough to be accessible to many people by familiarity with what they know in real life' makes it a whole heck of a lot broader and GURPS most definitely fits this model.  I remember the amusing introduction to one of the earliest versions citing SCA sword practice experience as all the 'reality' they needed for the game.  That's enough 'work to make the game experience plausible enough to be accessible to many people by familiarity with what they know in real life' for me to think it prioritized.

Well then, I guess I wasn't the one who put up this straw man to begin with.  'Cause you're saying my arguement against Jere's post is wrong because you said something different than he did.  Umm...ok, sure.  I'm gonna let this particular disagreement drop.

EDIT:

Have you played it without any preconceived notions of the 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative,"' coloring your play?  If not, then the play wasn't free of at least some of it.  Note, I'm not trying to prove anything, but applying my recent criteria to the offerings as exceptions.  Yes, it's narrow to say that preconceived notions count, but my supposition depends on both always being present.

Too narrow for my tastes, and too narrow to exclude any rpg (hence the genre approaching infinity arguement) - therefore impossible to argue against.  I'm gonna chalk this up to an unresolvable difference of opinion as well.

[clehrich]

I seem to have stirred a wasps' nest.

So far as I can tell, Fang is saying something like this (Fang, correct me if I'm wrong; this is an honest attempt):

1. All games in some manner or other emulate what we perceive as ordinary reality.

2. All games are at the same time colored by "source material," i.e. non-real representations which impose non-real expectations.

3. All games which claim to prioritize #1 and ignore #2 are in fact combinations, despite themselves.

4. Many games which seem as though they ought to prioritize #2, in that they claim reference to specific source material, actually waste a lot of time prioritizing #1.

5. Therefore, it would be best to focus game design priorities upon #2, and to a great extent let #1 take care of itself.

Now if I've got that right, it seems to me an enlargement or extension of one of Mike's Rants, specifically the one about how if you spend 50 pages detailing combat mechanics, you have just announced that your game is about combat, whether you like it or not.  Fang, I think, is extending this: if you spend time detailing exactly how to model reality in a game based upon, say, Space 1999, you're detracting from the really important focus on modeling Space 1999.

Now the point I brought up at the outset was that all this essentially amounts to aesthetics of degree; as Fang has noted repeatedly, it's not a question of absolutes on any end.  But I'd push a little further.

Seems to me that what's called for here is a focus on the intersection of the two regions.  Space Opera means nothing without reference to reality, and reality means nothing without reference to ideas and structures outside of formal reality and in the bounds of pure ideation.  Setting the latter half of that aside, the point is that every game system has to come up with a way to bridge between reality and the source material, however defined.¹  Now the trick is that this depends upon your aesthetics of how that intersection works within the source, which is what you really have to model.

For example, if you think The Matrix is really about grittiness and true reality, focused especially upon combat, but that it extends this in a narrow range of absolute categories, then you will want a fairly gritty and real-feeling combat system, with specific rules for how this same set of rules can be bent or broken by people like Neo.  But if you think this is really a fairly wild comic-book sort of thing which is only colored grittily, then you will want a very different set of rules.  It all depends upon how you interpret the intersection of perceived reality with the fantastic elements of the source.

If I've understood all this reasonably correctly, I just don't see why it's such a bone of contention.  You have to interpret your sources, however many and varied, and you have to formulate a mechanics system that appropriately represents your interpretation of how those sources intersect with perceived reality.  You can do this implicitly or explicitly, of course.  

If the point is that lots of games don't seem to do this coherently, I agree entirely.  But does this get us anywhere?  The way to make this a useful principle for game design and diagnosis would be to formulate it in schematic model form.  Here's a few suggestions (which I hope will spark further discussion):

A. To what extent does this specific sort of incoherence overlap with GNS incoherence, if at all?

B. I recommend that we refer to Baseline (or something of the kind) instead of reality; retaining "reality" as a term seems to spark all sorts of difficulties incidental to the actual point at stake.

C. I recommend that we scrap "genre," "source," and everything of the sort.  Again, they spark all sorts of problems.²  How about Vision?

D. I think we need to come up with some classification for the different types of intersections that get rendered in mechanics.  There's physics and so forth, of course, but there are also what might very loosely be called narrative concerns.  I don't think we want "narrative," owing to overlap with GNS, and "story" seems a disaster waiting to happen.  Furthermore, I don't think that material reality plus (loosely) narrative elements cover the complete range.

Thus:  as Baseline intersects with Vision, mechanics are formulated to represent that intersection.  These mechanics will render, in more or less detail, a range of factors (materiality, fiction/story/plot/narrative elements, etc.).

E. The diagnostic issues are, then:

(1) Is prioritization of factors appropriate to the Vision?
(2) Is the balance of emphasis in mechanical rendering appropriate and adequate to the range of intersection?  That is, does it stress one or the other side of Baseline/Vision?
(3) Does the totality of the game's material support these mechanics, such that it is clear how the various pieces work together?[/list:u]
Anyway, I think that might be a useful place to begin.  I do not think this is the same as GNS, but it's probably a layer in the Big Model (on whose pieces I am unclear, and most of which I believe have not adequately been detailed).

Thoughts?

Notes
1. "Source material."  Without wanting to provoke arguments about the nature of genre, the point here is that those aspects of a game which are fantastic are strongly colored by prior encounters with some sort of source material. If nothing else, we've all seen movies and TV, whether we use them consciously or not.  The most creative idea does not exist in a vacuum.

2. "Genre."  I note that Ron pushed for the elimination of the term "genre" in "GNS and Other Matters."  I rather wonder whether this was (at least in part) the problem he was trying to avoid.

[Le Joueur]

Clehrich is 'close enough for government work.'

My silence otherwise is me attempting to be less reactionary than yesterday.  Right or wrong, I think people understand what I think.

Fang Langford

[M. J. Young]

Have you played it without any preconceived notions of the 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative,"' coloring your play?  If not, then the play wasn't free of at least some of it....

And mine is that it's unavoidable.  (And so far only one game has been listed doing this and as I said, that is just an example that proves my opinion to me.)

I don't know. I've got this feeling that this notion of "fictional narrative coloring your play" can be stretched so far that there's no way around it; at the same time, I think that taken as stated, it is not unavoidable.

I started play with OAD&D. Now, in OAD&D there's a long list of fiction that was considered inspirational source materials. At the time I hadn't even heard of 90% of the stuff; even now, I'm sure I haven't read quite a lot of what's listed there. I came to OAD&D in some sense looking for a Tolkienesque experience within a game. Did I find it? Well, yes and no. Did the books influence the way we played? That's just it: I don't really think it did. I think that the only "fictional narrative" that impacted how we played was the rules to the game themselves. We recognized rather quickly that the elves of the game were different from the elves of Tolkien, and the orcs were even more different, and although the dwarfs and halflings and rangers certainly owed a great deal to those books, they weren't the same thing by a long stretch. We also recognized that although we were creating heroic adventures, they were entirely different heroic adventures from those we read in books (and although I hadn't read many of the cited source books in OAD&D, I'd read quite a bit of fantasy that was not so cited).

I played Metamorphosis Alpha; I don't know whether there actually is any fictional narrative source material for that, but it certainly didn't impact the way we played. I'm sure there are post apocalyptic movies, but I saw no similarity at all between our Gamma World experiences and, say, Mad Max, or even Time Machine. Star Frontiers had only passing similarities to Star Trek or Star Wars. None of these games were "realistic" in the conventional sense; but at least when we played them, the rules created the worlds, and not our expectations.

In playing Multiverser, I usually start people in NagaWorld. We usually call NagaWorld a fantasy world, but in all the time I've run it or played it I think I only once was aware of any character or creature using magic within the world, and that in a single instance of play. There is no narrative source material NagaWorld is trying to copy; it's very specifically attempting to be completely unlike anything you've ever encountered anywhere else, from the superficial (orange grass) to the incredible (the universe is only a thousand miles in diameter, with all the stars points of light a mere five hundred miles from the center of the world). I've created other worlds that weren't supposed to be "like" anything else. In one sense, I was creating new genres in which there was a single example; in another sense, I was ignoring genre completely.

I've also created and run at least one world that leaps to mind in which everything is realistic twentieth century with an alternate history that turns it into something of a nightmare world; but the villains are all ordinary humans who think they're doing the right thing. Now, you could argue that I'm allowing the "fictional narrative" of modern realism to "color my play"; or you could as easily argue that I'm coloring it directly from my perceptions of reality. It seems like as long as you can find some book or story somewhere that resembles what is being attempted in the game, you can argue that the game is influenced by the fictional narrative. I don't buy it. If I'm playing the Civil War era and building my world on, say, the PBS documentary series, I'm not necessarily influenced by any fictional narrative.

I'll also mention Legends of Alyria. Is play here "influenced by the fictional narrative" because it creates its own fictional narrative to help illustrate how play should proceed? There is no world I've ever encountered that remotely resembles Alyria. Seth Ben-Ezra has admitted to many influences in the imagery and flavor and function of the world, but those with which I am familiar of the ones he lists are so completely different in all the ways that seem to matter that nothing here is trying to imitate anything there.

It is entirely possible for a game to define its own narrative expectations completely outside any reference to any known fictional narrative. It is entirely possible to play in such a game. Some such play attempts in some way to simulate reality (with more or less success) as we perceive it. Some tries to create a different reality and simulate that.

I certainly agree that a game that is trying to give form to a known narrative source ought to emphasize those mechanics which will realize that source material over those that will create "realistic" results. To harken back to an earlier example, in a four-color superhero game when Lois Lane is tossed out of the airplane, we should be concerned with whether Superman can save her, and not with how long it will take for her to hit the ground when falling from that altitude. At the same time, it's one thing to say that some games ought to pay more attention to the fictional narrative source material they are trying to recreate, and quite another to insist that all games are trying to recreate some fictional narrative source material. The former is excellent design advice; the latter is patent arrant nonsense. If all it means is that games have to be about something to be played, it tells us nothing; if it intends to mean that all games are about something that is represented in other narrative sources which they are committed to emulate, it's already demonstrably false (the summary dismissal of GURPS notwithstanding, it is only the clearest example of this).

I'm sorry, Fang:  All Generalities are False. There are games committed to attempting to emulate reality, in which narrative fictional sources are irrelevant. Make positive statements about those games in which such sources matter, but don't try to claim that this is the entire universe of role playing games.

--M. J. Young

Edited to fix a quote tag.