I don’t know how to ease into this so –

While in Gamism and Narrativism mechanics are ideally employed to allow for effective addressing, mechanics in Sim is a subset of the “social meaning structures”, IOW Internal Causality. Sim is about adding meaning to and within the social structures – the Dream. One consequence of this is that the employment of mechanics and their very form can gain and impart meaning. In a strange way everything in Sim is subject to meaning negotiation/alteration. I’ll give an example.

In the game I play music is employed to heighten the emotional content of the scene as it being played out. Music is so vital to the play that if the machine were to go down we would stop play until the problem could be remedied. Over time certain tracks came to be identified with certain situations, places, moments, etc. In the game whenever a PC or an NPC was present who was a Black Commando the DM would play track 2 from the game CD Dark Reign. These guys were death on two legs, they were unbelievably lethal and there were not on the side of good as far as most of the world was concerned. One night we were playing and the DM put on this track and immediately every character started acting very paranoid and started defensive actions etc. The DM called one player on this rebuking him for playing on out-of-character knowledge since the DM had given no clues that such people were in the area; to which the player responded, “You always play that track for the Commandos. You’re telling us to be alert and wary.” The DM thought about this a moment and agreed that was true and play resumed. He realized at that moment that he had been using music in the past to give cues to the players that if they were alert enough they could use for their characters. IOW instead of saying, “roll a 20 sided. You feel the hairs on the back of your neck raise. Inside you feel something is very wrong.” He just played the track and the players picked up on that cue. It felt very internal to the SIS because there was no point of contact despite that the music itself was not internally to the SIS.

Another example – A character who was controlled a player by the name of Dave via play had been given a berserker champion because Dave’s honoring the tribal chieftain with big steel. As we found out after the game the chieftain was having problems with the champion as he was getting ready to make a grab for the chieftain spot and he needed an “honorable” way to dispense with this problem without violating the social codes of his tribe. At any rate the berserker was all that and more, but he was oath sworn to serve and did. The berserker was highly superstitious and was deathly afraid of breaking oath, but was not happy about he position he was in. Later another player character came up to Dave and the berserker and for some reason decided he was going to humiliate the berserker. Finally this player mimed pulling back and open handing the berserker to the face so hard that he spun the berserker around causing him to fall to his hands. I guess you could say Drama was being employed at this point. The DM mimed the spin down and the spin back up of the NPC berserker and turned and glared at his master, Dave, with a wild look in his eyes. After but a moment Dave the player made the smallest of nods and the DM turned to the other PC raised up his arms as if he was wielding a mighty axe and a made a huge chopping motion. The player was stunned. He did nothing for a second or two. The DM then stated, “He sunders you. You’re dead. Hand me your character sheet.”

The berserker’s look, via the DM actually playing the look, communicated volumes, but it required that the players understand the social mores and norms of this berserker – IOW we needed to know the social “structures”. He wasn’t asking for Dave’s Character to help him, to avenge him, to put a stop to the madness. No. He was asking for permission to avenge his honor but at the same time was acknowledging his oath to Dave by not just lashing out without permission. That the berserker did not just go bananas but sought permission first said something about the importance he felt about keeping true to his oath. Whether that was out of honor to Dave’s Character or fear of “karmic” consequences we’ll never know, but it was interesting to behold and added to the text of the Dream and gave us something to debate on as players. Also Dave’s nod said a number of things about his Character. That he believed that such matters should be worked out by those involved. That he did not need to speak. It said something about how he felt about his relationship with the other player character. It was also his resolution to what would have become an even larger problem if it wasn’t resolved right then and there.

How all this played out was really grooved on by the players. The acts of communication and the consequences of those acts and the meanings they created by both supporting and challenging the SIS via the social structures was talked about for a long time. This was all done without the normative Fortune mechanics. All this added to the Dream.

To get back to mechanics much of the paper load has been stripped away and the dice rolls have been almost completely isolated from published rules. Its not so important that each point of contact be codified prior to play, but rather that on any 20 sided die roll higher is better and lower is worse. (To have one die type and roll leads to low handling time thus speeding up the amount of conflict that can be addressed in any given time) The employment/invocation or not of fortune itself shades the meaning of what is transpiring. Do I wish to slow play down and highlight this time as a high risk moment? Will the employment of fortune heighten or lower the sensation of risk at this moment? What are the players doing to address and/or moderate that risk?

So to step back a bit what does this mean regarding game design and/or play? That all the participants, most especially the DM, should not be locked into regarding mechanics as only a resolution device – be it conflict or task. In a coherently designed Gamist game mechanics are employed to aid the address of Challenge. In a coherently designed Narrativist game mechanics are employed to aid the address Premise. I believe that in Simulationism mechanics and the time and place of its employment should be reconsidered as a tool to aid in the support of the dream – risk manipulation and meaning creation.

Just some ramblings about some consequences about some of the ideas I have been putting forth.

Any thoughts? Am I just looking at a blank wall muttering about the colors? Bueller? Does this belong in RPG Theory? Mom?

Aure Entuluva,

Silmenume