Transparency revisited

[SwordofLux]

Just to put in a couple cents, I think of Transparency as relating to, as mentioned previously, intuitiveness combined with ease-of-use. I like to think of it in video-game terms. Some video games have controls with a very steep learning curve: once you master a few simple concepts, you can then infer what happens with combinations of various commands. I'll use a fighting game for example (eg Mortal Kombat, Tekken, etc.). At first, you may have to use trial-and-error to determine exactly what each button does. Then, you can try out different combinations of buttons. The system may start off being rather Opaque, if you will. However, as you learn the game through experience, eventually, you forget that you're just pushing buttons, and begin to equate the physical action with what happens on screen. At high levels of play, the button combinations are instinctive - you know exactly what to do to get the result you want, and you can begin truly playing the game - no longer against the system or computer, but against your human opponent.

This to me is what Transparency means - when one no longer needs to think about the system, then act: one simply does. So, I guess I kind of side with Mr. Edwards - Transparency in relating to the roleplaying experience is simply comfort level - with complete comfort or transparency, one is completely immersed in the character's world, and rolling the dice (or whatever) is no longer a hindrance, but simply the button that causes an effect withing that world.

MJK

[Ron Edwards]

Hello MJK, and welcome to the Forge!

I've split your post to the original Transparency thread into its own thread. That thread dated back to April 2002, which is a long time ago; one of the general deals here at the Forge is to keep discussions isolated in time. So starting a new thread (like I've just done with this one, retroactively) is preferred to posting onto the tail end of an older one. Check out the site etiquette sticky in the Site Discussion forum for more details.

Anyway, back to the real point. Clearly we agree about "transparency," which is always good to know. I think that thread was pretty successful insofar as the term hasn't caused any cognitive mixups for us ever since.

Best,
Ron

[SwordofLux]

Sorry about that - all I saw was the April date, and assumed it was this year. I got to the thread from the glossary section in your Simulationalism article. Then I saw that there was another, later discussion on it - ah well.

At any rate, I've been following the theories here off and on for a few months now, and I'm trying to get a handle on all the various and different terms being thrown around (which, as you can imagine, is no easy task). I've been working on a game of my own for a couple years now (just in my free time, which isn't very much at all) and am considering posting the basics for feedback when they're in a pretty coherent state. To relate that back to this, I'm designing the system to be fairly transparent, although I suppose I should say "have few Points of Contact", if I'm using that term correctly. I originally stated that particular design goal as the system being "intuitive", which, I think works better than "transparent", and has a different connotation than "few Points of Contact". That is, you may still need to roll dice fairly often (which is something I enjoy, so it's a kind of unstated design goal) or look up rules (depending upon your depth of knowledge), but they should be completely internally consistent and logical (which, I believe, will lead to their being intuitive). So, I'll get around to that fairly soon, and see what people think.

Thanks for the welcome
MJK