The airplane issue

[Jeffrey Miller]

Uh... I asked Mike for a rec on beginner's Game Theory before rereading his post.  Sorry. ;)

[Mike Holmes]

I would love to see a thread (here, or over on RPG.net) titled "Why I Hate GNS" and see if any reasonable responses get generated, or whether people are just against it to be against something. "Acknowledge my distain, dammit!"

Hey, as long as people aren't railing against it, I have no problem with it. I mean, it's up to an individual to decide whether a particualr theory holds any value for them, and I don't think there's a need to evangelize. Certainly not to provoke.

There have been, and are, many objections to GNS theory that have nothing to do with Chris' motives. Those people exist, too, but critical thought requires that we accept that GNS is probably flawed in some way, and probably will give way to something better in the future.

In the meanwhile this thread is just to get some perspective on what GNS is, and is not.

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

Uh... I asked Mike for a rec on beginner's Game Theory before rereading his post.  Sorry. ;)

Hey, it was a good question. Being an advocate for it, I ought to lead the way. Here's what Amazon has:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0486296725/002-1165456-9241625?vi=glance
Included on the page are other similar pop references. I have no idea if any of them are good or useful.

Mike

[epweissengruber]

Sorry for the confusion.

I typed in my response to the question itself.  I was a little unclear.  I didn't even see yours.  I did not try to rip on you at all.  Sorry for the misunderstanding.  But I think my post was put right after yours -- in a freakish coincidence.

Greetings,

Most of the replies have dealt with the plane analogy.  They address the pertinence of a definition of game and role-playing to any theory about games.

I apologize for any perceived 'derailing' of the conversation.

Leaving now, per request.


Kind Regards,

Kind Regards

[Piers]

So this is a little tangential in some ways, but, to pick up on the plane analogy, there are some good reasons to be just as unsure about what a Plane is as what a Game is.

Right now my favorite theory book for my academic work is John Law's Aircraft Stories (Durham and London: Duke UP, 2002), which is not so much an account of the (cancelled) British attempt to build a reconaissance/bomber plane called the TSR 2 in the 1960s, as an incisive analysis of the idea of the plane, and the fatal incoherence of the project.  One of the reasons why the plane was cancelled is simply that the designers never seem to have resolved what it was.

Now, your tolerance for this book is probably entirely dependent on your appetite for books with subtitles like "Decentering the Object in Technoscience," but it is a very accesible example of a certain sort of Sociology of Technology and Science.  However, as a book explicitly about how to theorize the workings of complex systems--not just the design process, but the interaction of everything and everyone involved (contractors, the military, the ministries of the government, pilots, the public at large, and more)--there are a variety of ways in which it relates directly to analyzing the very strange hybrid beasts we call role-playing games.
 
Mike makes an excellent point in this thread about the usefulness of Game Theory in designing games.  I'd like to suggest that there is an equally useful role for other kinds of theoretical conceptions from Sociology, Philosophy, Literary Studies, etc.  Unlike Game Theory, it may not make the process of design easier, but (perhaps like GNS), it may make understanding what we produce simpler.

Your mileage will probably vary wildly.  

Piers

[deadpanbob]

To follow up on EP's post, I think that what GNS adds to Game Theory is that people want different "currencies" than just "Gamist" currencies. Though I happen to know that this has been adressed in Game Theory already in more general terms. Still GNS is a very good application of Game Theory on a simple level, and cold be restated something like:

Given players desiring differing currencies, a game may become "broken". The more different the currencies, the more likely the breakdown.

Mike

I agree that it has been addressed in Game Theory - but the fact that its been addressed at a more general level is precisely why I would love to see GNS feed into a more technical applied 'science' of game design.

I want to design a roleplaying game that's in accordance with the general concept of coherence as established in the GNS theory.  I want to do that because I think it will produce more satisfying play on a more regular basis for its intended audience.  Given that I can read a game like PACE, or more importantly read and play a game like TRoS, and come to different conclusions about those games GNS coherence than does Ron (or anyone else really) - I think there are points where the theory is too subjective.  I would like GNS, or an extension thereof, to help me reliably produce a particular GNS coherence.

I know that roleplaying is a specific type of social interaction, and therefore will never be fully described by a hard science model, but I also know that it's possible to build a more objective social interaction framework.  

Again, I recognize that I could just try and do it myself, and I am greatful to Ron and the rest of the Forge old guard for working through the issues to produce GNS.  I'm not trying to be derisive or dismissive of GNS.

Cheers,



Jason

[epweissengruber]

OK, I think we now have a topic on game theory that could be spun off into a new thread soon.  Maybe the GNS theory WILL lead to a total revision of Game Theory!

, I think that what GNS adds to Game Theory is that people want different "currencies" than just "Gamist" currencies. Though I happen to know that this has been adressed in Game Theory already in more general terms. Still GNS is a very good application of Game Theory on a simple level, and could be restated something like:

Given players desiring differing currencies, a game may become "broken". The more different the currencies, the more likely the breakdown.Mike

The idea of currency -- and the exchange of currencies -- this is THE link between GNS and Game Theory.  There is a slight terminological confusion because "Gamist" sounds more like "Game" or feels more "game-y" that Narrativist or Simulationist, but its a minor one. ("Agonist" -- game play stressing conflict and competition -- is far to pretentious to take hold.) All three modes involve the exchange of currencies between players.  The players, of course, means GM as well.  The market for these currencies is a little distorted -- the currency flows between the Players and the GM in different ways, but all Players want to feel that their exchanges are governed by the same rules.

What are the implications for G,M, and S if the traditional inequalities in exchange between GMs and Players are leveled?

My brain is exploding .... looks like Heinrich has made a useful contribution.

Great thinking Mike!

Proposal 1: we use "Players" to designate all those folks who are not GMs, and "players" to designate everyone involved in the game, including GM's?

Proposal 2: We can start a number of discussions about the Theory of Games.  There could be Theory of Games: Game Theory which would be comments about Von Neumanesqe mathematico-economic models, or Theory of Games: Sociology, etc.  It's all sounding a little theoretical.  I would be hesitant to post because, well, I haven't had a regular game group for three years.  But I don't want the area Mike has opened up to remain unexplored.

[Walt Freitag]

Hi everyone,

Maybe my own understanding of game theory isn't what I thought it was, but to me the idea of using game theory to help design recreational games makes no more sense than using biochemistry to invent a pizza recipe or  the theory of computation to figure out why your enternal hard drive won't boot. That is to say, it relates to the subject matter at hand, but on entirely the wrong level of abstraction.

Game theory impinges on everyday games at a few (surprisingly few) points. For example, it will tell you what frequency of bluffing in poker for a given hand would most benefit a player in the long term -- or it would, if the calculations weren't far too complex to actually perform. (But take heart, the theory does allow you to prove that such an optimum bluffing frequency must exist!) It won't help you choose the best move in a chess game or figure out how much you should bid on Marvin Gardens in Monopoly. And it certainly won't help you decide whether Monopoly is a more enjoyable game with or without the "Free Parking" house rule.

Game theory has no problem with different players placing different values on different aspects of the outcome. But it requires all that information -- that is, the payoff for every player for every possible combination of individual moves -- to be already known going in. It then says that each player has an optimum strategy for how to allocate their moves to maximize their own value over repeated plays, and if the game is really really simple you might even be able to calculate what that strategy is.

I'm unable to see how this is the slightest help in designing or understanding role playing games. Or has any practical relalationship to GNS theory, which I think this thread should get back to.

- Walt

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Thank you, Walt.

I don't know what's happened lately, but The Forge has turned into a pit of off-topic discussion. In this thread alone, I've seen game theory (which I do understand, and which is a mathematical pursuit that has very, very little to do with RPGs), the idea of a "why I hate GNS" thread - which is not happening without a focus, Kester trying to garner sympathy for himself, and all sorts of other off-topic nonsense.

This discussion was very good about two pages ago.

[Gordon C. Landis]

OK, so responding to Ron's post as closely as I can . . . the idea here is that GNS is focused on the details of what happens when playing an RPG, just like these Mad Max folks would focus on the details of what happens when flying a plane?

ASIDE:  I can't decipher how the "what does the plane do?" discussion in the analogy is related to the rest of it - the Mad Max folks are entirely focused on what the plane does.  It flies, carries them from one place to the next, lets them spy on their enemies, etc.  I assume what was meant at that point was something more like "HOW/WHY does the plane do what it does?"

Anyway - the claim is that by focusing on details, the Mad Max folks do NOT (neccessarily, unless someone also takes additional steps) end up understanding the basic and fundamental principles of how a plane interacts with the atmosphere, gravity and etc.  Correspondingly, we do NOT end up understanding the basic and fundamental principles of how an RPG interacts with  . . . what?  Human behavior/experience? (Again, unless someone takes additional steps.)

Well, that's a problem right there - human behavior and experience as a "thing to understand" does not precisely correspond with atmosphere and gravity as things to understand, and in fact discussing human behavior in that way is highly contentious and difficult.  There are those who claim we just need the right approach and it's JUST like atmosphere and gravity, those who say it's MOSTLY like atmosphere and gravity, those who'll say it's KINDA like atmosphere and gravity, and those who'll say it is NOT ANYTHING like atmosphere and gravity.  And the exact way in which human behavior is just/mostly/kinda/not anything like atmosphere and gravity will vary wildly within each category.

The Forge (as oppposed, for the moment, to GNS) actually has tackled that issue from time to time, and it often becomes . . . contentious and difficult.  So in some ways, I think GNS intentionally focuses on the details of what's happening rather than the theories/facts behind the environment, because there's unlikely to be an agreement on those theories/facts.  That said . . .

GNS (I think) actually IS embedded within a full understanding of its' environment.  It does expressly avoid developing that too much, because in practical terms it doesn't really matter and can distract the discussion into completely unresolvable areas of personal perspective.  But it is there, I think.

That full understanding of the environment, however, is not grounded in "games", but in an even broader category I've been calling human behavior.  This means that it is possible to jump right from human behavior to Dreaming or Story Now without even bringing "games" into it, unless you want to - and, it's worth noting, many people do.  A full understanding of the environment/atmosphere/physics of "games" can be useful to all of GNS, and especially (duh) to Step On Up, but the fact is: the "thing that's bigger than GNS that we don't focus on" - the blind spot that corresponds to the atmosphere and gravity for our Mad Max plane-using folks - isn't, IMO, "games," and it's not really a blind spot - people are aware of it.

But sure, maybe sometimes we don't focus there (both "games" and the real big human behavior picture) as often as we should, and maybe there's something of value to find in doing so.  Threads addressing some specific example would, I'm sure, be quite welcome.

That's about as much as I can think to say on the subject,

Gordon

[Ron Edwards]

Zowie - Gordon nails it again, in my view. This post plus Julie's, especially, really help me a lot.

This thread spawned a lot of secondary topics well worth pursuing. I can see the Game Theory stuff, especially, going places as long as people think carefully about what's a subset of what. Best done in other threads, though, I think.

Best,
Ron

[clehrich]

Oh, all right.  I'll bite -- I always do, don't I?  And you won't like it.

I have to wonder what the value of GNS and the role playing theory on this site is if it remains unequivocally opposed to asking the question, 'what is a game?' It's like a post-holocaust environment in which Mad Max is holding college level courses on aeronautics. Only no one knows what a plane is. So instead, they hold classes on everything you can do in one. You can sit in them, for example. You can be served drinks. On the outside, the plane has two wings and a nose, but those features aren't directly related to what you can do inside the plane. Once you have mastered this, you get your degree. ... The above example is actually a good one. Because in the post-holocaust environment there are no physicists around who can calculate force, thrust, vectors, momentum... So out of necessity they dispense with the question 'what makes it go?' Better yet, when someone asks 'what does the plane do?' they get smacked down, and are told, 'Don't ask what it does, just look at the sum of the details. That's all a plane is.'

I'd like people to address this question here in detail.

Sorry, what question?  There seems to be a single question here, painted over with a rather confused and to my mind totally irrelevant metaphor.  The question posed is this (rephrased, a la Jeopardy, as a question):

"what [is] the value of GNS and the role playing theory on this site ... if it remains unequivocally opposed to asking the question, 'what is a game?'"

The airplane analogy is a blind, like the whole damn post.  It means nothing; it's just another silly analogy without purpose.  Suppose I tell you that RPGs are just like book-binding, because the glue is like the Social Contract and the stitching is like Exploration and and and and....  Okay, now will you post an entire thread about how to make the endpapers fit in as well?  What for?

I asked in that thread, and I'll ask again: what is the point of comparing "Game" and "RPG"?  Who says they're the same thing, or that the one is a member of the other as taxon?  Why do they say so?  On what basis?

If this cannot be answered -- and "Heinrich" certainly made no attempt to do so, considering logical rigor absurd -- the entire analogy is just pointless.

Here's an interesting example, because the poster (Jeffrey Miller) was up-front:

"Heinrich" seems to be arguing closer that it matters understanding "what is a religion" when attempting to compare 2 religions, but this too is a false assumption in dependancies. One needn't understand the intricacies of Tibeten straw-in-the-brain mysticism or Catholic liturgy to examine the reasoning behind why people devise religions.

Unfortunately, Jeffrey is incorrect here.  He is making a more generously-formulated, more coherent, and much less bloody-minded version of the same error Heinrich made.

Religion does not exist.  It's not a "thing."  It's not "out there."  You can't sift sand and find religion.  Similarly, "game" does not exist, and can't be "found" for what it "really is."  Consequently, when you ask "why people devise religions," you must formulate a definition, implicitly or explicitly.

Now this leads to a second-order question: how could the question, "Why do people devise religions?" not be tautological, if we are the ones defining the category "religion"?  The answer is that the way (the ONLY way) out of this logical tautology is to take examples from actual human history, and lay out groundwork that explains why you are going to discuss these things under the same rubric.  You don't have to define all of "religion," but you do need to explain why activity A and activity B are reasonably grouped with respect to the general category "religion" as a term of modern analytical discourse.  In the process, you necessarily participate in the construction of definitions of religion; you're not trying to find out what religion "really is," but trying to establish a functional discourse about the things we usually tend to call something akin to "religion" and thereby formulate an ever more rigorous ground for such discussion.

In reference to games and RPGs, the point is that while it is quite possible that "game" and "RPG" as usually utilized here at the Forge are categorical terms at differing levels of taxonomy, it is at any rate the case that in order to compare them you have to propose grounds of comparison.  That is, it is incumbent on the person who brings up the comparison to justify and validate it.

So how should we respond to Heinrich's question?

1. Ask what is meant by the comparison "game" and "RPG".   If the two are validly compared and aligned in Heinrich's head, then on what basis is this the case?  And they must be so in his head, because otherwise it makes no sense to criticize anything for not aligning the two.  It's like saying "GNS does not adequately define book-binding, therefore it sucks."  Okay, but that's only a legitimate criticism if you can demonstrate why GNS ought to define book-binding.

2. Ask why this fundamental logical question is being deflected with yet another comparison, again not carefully legitimated, i.e. the analogy of airplanes in a post-apocalyptic world.  On what basis is this a good analogy?  What does the discussion gain by accepting the comparison?  Because if the answer is "nothing," then it's a stupid metaphor.  Most of the "I've got a new metaphor" discussion around here is play, a way of thinking about things in new ways; if you want to do hard-core analytical criticism, as Heinrich claimed to, proposing a new wacko metaphor isn't going to help.

Ron, to be blunt, I'm throwing the question straight back.  After smacking us indirectly and backhandedly for rising to Heinrich's bait, you've either risen to it yourself or are casting new bait.  What's the point of the metaphor?  God knows we've got enough metaphors -- pinball, cards, monopoly, chess, etc. (and these are the intelligent ones!).  What is the use of throwing out another, saying, "I've found something valuable here but (ha ha) I won't tell you what it is, please argue about it," and then sitting back and waiting?

Legitimate this comparison.  Or legitimate this bait.  Or something.  This whole thing stinks to high heaven.

This thread is specifically about an idea. Ignore the inflammatory bullshit about how the Forge is "unequivocally opposed" to discussing what a game is (multiple threads falsify the claim). Ignore the observation that "Heinrich" only saw fit to present his argument after he'd managed to get people into a defensive tizzy. Do adopt the plane-metaphor he presents, for purposes of discussion. Let's see if it applies.

(1) Why should we adopt it?  
(2) It doesn't unless you make it so.

Now legitimate the comparison and demonstrate to me that the whole thing isn't proving Heinrich's point.

Chris

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

H'm, I guess it wouldn't help to point out that above, I agree with Julie and Gordon? And hence, I think with you as well?

After smacking us indirectly and backhandedly for rising to Heinrich's bait, you've either risen to it yourself or are casting new bait.

I'll plead not guilty to the baiting part. As for rising to it myself, let's say I was ... interested in the plane-bait. I'm interested because the existence of entirely logically-valid debate in the absence of a shared paradigm is historically important in the history of ideas. It's not the specific airplane-as-physical-object metaphor that interests me, so much as the details-vs.-function contrast.

The function of something is always a ... function (damn this language) of shared agenda; has to be. To evaluate function, which is to say the realization of the shared agenda, some performance variable has to be agreed upon. In flying a plane, it's whether we get from here to there in one piece. However, at the Forge and in specific reference to GNS, what do we have as our touchstone that the function is occurring? In my view, it's the Actual Play forum, and the constant testimonials we get about fun and creativity. That's the mountaintop-answer I alluded to in my first post.

I really wanted to know, however, whether I was committing a tautology with this view, to myself. I wanted to know what merits might be found in applying the details-about-nothing argument to the model, as critique. A number of posts helped me out a lot in formulating a counter-argument which, unlike one I might generate on my lonesome, went through a lot of minds.

Best,
Ron

P.S. Indirectly and back-handedly? I just move slowly. Be patient.

[Jeffrey Miller]

...the idea of a "why I hate GNS" thread - which is not happening without a focus...

I'd like to point out that it might be off-topic to this thread, but it /is/ a valid discussion topic.

-j-

[clehrich]

Well, I x-posted with Ron, and have pm'ed him, but this whole question is really bugging me.

To evaluate function, ... some performance variable has to be agreed upon. In flying a plane, it's whether we get from here to there in one piece. However, at the Forge and in specific reference to GNS, what do we have as our touchstone that the function is occurring? In my view, it's the Actual Play forum, and the constant testimonials we get about fun and creativity.

In other words, if GNS helps make play fun, it's good; if it doesn't, it isn't.  Yes?

I really wanted to know, however, whether I was committing a tautology with this view, to myself. I wanted to know what merits might be found in applying the details-about-nothing argument to the model, as critique.

Maybe I'm being far too generous to Heinrich, but I don't think that's what he said.  Let me put that differently: I'm sure it's not what he wrote, but I don't know what he meant (if he meant anything except to rile us).  What he wrote was:

I have to wonder what the value of GNS and the role playing theory on this site is if it remains unequivocally opposed to asking the question, 'what is a game?'

And then proposed the silly airplane analogy.  Where did all this about practicality come in?  He asked a fairly simple question:

[*]Is this theory of RPGs valid, given that it does not address the question, "What is a game?"
Which depends on an underlying question:
[*]Is it possible to have a theory of RPGs that does not address their relation to games as a larger category?[/list:u]To which my anwer is a redirected question:

[*]What allows you to correlate the validity of one sort of theory to the other?  
Thas is,
[*]What is the basis upon which you are making this evaluation?
Since without knowing that, we cannot evaluate your critique.[/list:u]That is, there can be no point in seeking a counter-argument, since what has been proposed here is a question and not an answer, and furthermore the poster did not make clear what he meant by the question.

I fail to see what practicality, or function, or play, or any of that has to do with anything here.  No matter what standard you choose -- apparently it's Actual Play -- the putative arguer can always say, "Aha, that's not my standard, ha ha you lose."  This is silly.  Why rise to this bait?

Why toss up this analogy as bait in the first place?  I mean, you say that "It's not the specific airplane-as-physical-object metaphor that interests me, so much as the details-vs.-function contrast," but that means you have already chosen what you consider the correct answer for yourself, and are (unconsciously, I think) to some degree looking for others to find it as well, validating your reading.  Doesn't this worryingly support some of what Heinrich is accusing us of?