I wasn't quite sure where this fit in the whole mechanics threads scheme of things, so rather than botch someone else's efforts - I put this here.

If Drama as a resolution “mechanic” can be considered a pure and naked instance of the Lumpley Principle in action, which then tends to be not noticed at all, then I propose that the other resolution mechanic methods, Fortune and Karma function strongly as efforts to call attention a specific event.

In system does matter, what it really boils down to, is that the game designer first and then later the players later, are saying that these specific instances where we drag out the credibility negotiation mechanic (Fortune and/or Karma) are important to this game experience.

Think of every instance of non-Drama resolution mechanic employment as a bell being rung stating, “pay attention to this transaction!” There is significance to this moment and we want to draw attention to it!

Thus a game designer faces the task of determining and institutionalizing which moments of game play he believes are important to the enjoyment of the players. These decisions are not easy, obviously, for there are several balls that must be juggled. Not the least of which is which Creative Agenda to support. However, the form that this abstraction of the Lumpley Principle process takes is also vitally important.

Let me create an example –

We have two players, one the traditional DM and the other the traditional player. The sequence of events up to this point has led to a pistol duel.

Both players call out at the same, “I draw down on you faster than you do!” Obviously we have two competing statements vying for credibility. The two look at each other blankly and can’t decide which statement deserves to be entered into the SIS. So the DM says, “I have an idea. We’ll each write a limerick. Then well go outside and read them both to the first person we meet and whichever limerick the person says they like, the author will be granted credibility on their game statement.” This process is a resolution mechanic, and as unwieldy as it is, it can still work. But why at first glance does it seem to not be a resolution mechanic? Because the way the Lumpley Principle process has been dressed, the mechanic does not in any way seem to reflect what is being resolved, i.e. writing limericks and gun fights do not appear to be similar.

So how do we get around that? By assigning the mechanic a label that sounds like it is related to gun fighting. Maybe that mechanic might be called – “Gun Draw” or “Initiative.” But it’s still the Lumpley Principle, but now it has a raiment that more closely reflects what is going on within the SIS. This raiment is important, but not vital. IOW the above process as goofy, as distracting as it is, it can be employed successfully as a method to distribute credibility. This is an important point. Limerick writing does not resemble gun fighting in any way, yet it can work. This means that the resolution mechanic need not be representative of what is going on in the SIS. So what is it doing if it can work? Distributing credibility. Mechanics do not represent anything. The best that can be done for them is to dress them up in a way that makes it seem as if they are representative.

Why is making the mechanic (the dressed up Lumpley Principle) seem like the event that is occurring within the SIS important? Because it helps keep us focused on what we are resolving while we are engaged in the process of resolving (distributing credibility). This is why employing limerick writing and the hapless bystander as a method of determining resolution isn’t going to fly with most players. It takes us too far abroad from what we are trying to resolve.

Ok. That was a silly example. But it demonstrates the point that while we dress up the Lumpley Principle and call it a mechanic we forget that just because we dress up the mechanic in a certain way that that mechanic does not represent the actual statement being resolved. The raiment may call to mind, but it is no substitute for, the statement itself.

That being said, mechanics cannot represent Step on Up, nor Story Now. Both Step on Up and Story Now are intangibles that exist in the players minds. One does not roll a 20 sided and say, “The dice indicate I am getting my Step on Up or Story Now.” The best the designer of mechanics can do is to hope to draw to the players’ attention to this event right here that we call Challenge or Premise and get them to spend time and effort here. It is what is being negotiated that may allow for the sense of Story Now or Step on Up to be felt. The employment of a mechanic at this moment just says that this moment is important. So why is it then acceptable to say that mechanics represent elements of The Dream?

As I understand, mechanics are shortcuts employed by the players to facilitate the distribution of credibility among the players making statements which are the expression of Step on Up or Story Now. It’s not the mechanics that make for those states of mind, but the players.

Part of the problem lies in that the phrase, “The Dream,” is not defined. Both Step on Up and Story Now are phrases that are openly understood to be human processes that are experienced by the players. Step on Up isn’t constructed by mechanics, its created by the statements of and experienced by the players. Story Now isn’t constructed by mechanics, its created by the statements of and experienced by the players. The Dream as it is currently employed seems to conflate two distinct ideas – the experience of the Dream, and the efforts to accurately model the nonhuman external/physical.

Do the following statements make any sense?

“However, I am now looking at the common and well-known attempt to construct Step on Up using "system" composed of representations of its competitive bits”?

“However, I am now looking at the common and well-known attempt to construct Story Now using "system" composed of representations of its human issue bits”?

So why is the above formula applicable to Simulationism?

No matter how you dress up mechanics, they are nothing more, nor nothing less than pre-defined Lumpley Principle negotiations. Mechanics don’t make the experience (Step on Up, Story Now, the Dream), but they can color it.

Jay,

Uh, yeah.

Except that I think the whole limmerick thing looks *exactly like* a resolution mechanic. It is one. It just doesn't try to masquerade as "representing the game world." I play a lot of games where this is the case, so it doesn't strike me as a big deal.

Hey Paganini,

You are correct. The limerick is a resolution mechanic, and that was my point. Resolution mechanics do not represent anything inherently. Thus by extension mechanics do not the Dream make.

Silmenume wrote: Hey Paganini,

You are correct. The limerick is a resolution mechanic, and that was my point. Resolution mechanics do not represent anything inherently. Thus by extension mechanics do not the Dream make.

Paganini wrote: as far as I know, "the Dream" is not about representing anything, it's about causal relationships.

Causality is to the Dream as mechanics are to Step on Up or Story Now. It constrains and limits and helps give shape to, but the employment of causality is not in and of itself the Dream any more than the employment of mechanics is Step on Up.

Hey Jay, here's my take on it.

Causality is the Dream in motion. It's an inherent property of all roleplaying, but it is a prime element of the Dream. Causality is the dynamistic force within the Dream.

Once we get our set pieces all gathered together in our imaginations, what then? We have Klingons, Cpt. Kirk, a green space babe, and a dubious application of physics. These icons are only part of what we need to set the Dream in motion. We also need the specific nature of causality in Star Trek in order for these icons to interact in a manner that makes us feel like we're imagining the Star Trek universe.

So, I disagree that causality is to the Dream as mechanics are to Story Now and Step On Up. You can attempt to model causality with System, thereby giving motion to the Dream through the interactions of a game, but you can't remove causality itself without reducing the Dream to a snap shot. No action, no motion, just icons in freeze frame.

-Chris

Hi guys,

Jay, I suggest that The Dream is defined, and that our shared task is to find words among us, here, to understand what I've written about it so far. If such words have not as yet been discovered for (say) you, then I hope we can arrive at them. I would prefer to stick with that approach to the conversation and exhaust its potential (if it must fail) rather than begin with "the Dream is not defined." Do me, or rather the author of that essay at the time it was written, the favor of at least trying it this way first.

For example, Julie (jrs) recently suggested that the key term for her, in understanding what I mean by "the Dream," is a sensation of transportation. We were talking about opera and how her aesthetic "goal" in enjoying it is to be transported.

Chris, representation/emulation of an existing set of setting/story material is one way to enjoy The Dream, in terms of the touchpoint the group needs, or its goals of what to appreciate. As I've tried to express before, it is also possible to enjoy The Dream when the touchpoint is imaginary process rather than product (e.g. "how my so-very-realistic system really does combat right").

I also suggest that we consider a general point about discussing Creative Agenda and most especially Simulationist play. I think one of the biggest problems in the whole CA discussion thing, all these years, is that people not only want to see "their way" all laid out down to Techniques and Ephemera, but they also want its ineffable wonderfulness to be preserved in the definition or explanation. Again and again, people object that what I'm describing can't be what they do because the essay text doesn't feel like what happens during play, or it doesn't praise them as doing something awesome and good. I think this kind of "feeling rejected by Ron" sensation is pretty common, in fact.

So I'm asking that people look over some of the Sim points again, especially those in the essay, and put a big gold star on every single paragraph, with the star meaning AND HE LOOKED UPON IT AND FOUND IT GOOD. Also, if you fill in the Social Contract yourself, the Exploration priorities yourself, and then the Techniques/Ephemera combinations yourself, as befits your particular group ... then I think the essay makes a lot more sense in terms of the arrow which drives down through the levels.

Best,
Ron

Jay wrote: So how do we get around that? By assigning the mechanic a label that sounds like it is related to gun fighting. Maybe that mechanic might be called – “Gun Draw” or “Initiative.” But it’s still the Lumpley Principle, but now it has a raiment that more closely reflects what is going on within the SIS. This raiment is important, but not vital. IOW the above process as goofy, as distracting as it is, it can be employed successfully as a method to distribute credibility. This is an important point. Limerick writing does not resemble gun fighting in any way, yet it can work. This means that the resolution mechanic need not be representative of what is going on in the SIS. So what is it doing if it can work? Distributing credibility. Mechanics do not represent anything. The best that can be done for them is to dress them up in a way that makes it seem as if they are representative.

Ron Edwards wrote: Jay, I suggest that The Dream is defined....

Sim, Right to Dream wrote: For play really to be Simulationist, it can't lose the daydream quality: the pleasure in imagination as such, without agenda.

Glossary wrote: Right to Dream, the
Commitment to the imagined events of play, specifically their in-game causes and pre-established thematic elements. One of the three currently-recognized Creative Agendas. As a top priority for role-playing, the defining feature of Simulationist play.

Ron wrote: Chris, representation/emulation of an existing set of setting/story material is one way to enjoy The Dream, in terms of the touchpoint the group needs, or its goals of what to appreciate. As I've tried to express before, it is also possible to enjoy The Dream when the touchpoint is imaginary process rather than product (e.g. "how my so-very-realistic system really does combat right").

Agreed on all counts, Chris.

Regarding the definition issue, I am not claiming that a textual definition exists which makes anyone reading it go, "Oh, yeah, that, I get it." I am suggesting that me-the-author of that essay had something in mind, and expressed it however well or badly he did. It would be nice to give him the credit of trying, among all of us (including me-now), to try to get at it.

This isn't intended to shut down this thread - far from it, I'd really like this thread to get somewhere.

Best,
Ron

Hey Ron,

I was a little startled by your last post. I had never intended any disrespect to you and/or your efforts in your Sim essay. I have issues with the subject matter, but I hoped never to promote the idea that I did not appreciate the efforts of you as the author. If that is not readily apparent please let me know. My interests are rooted strongly in the investigation of ideas, not in the slamming of the efforts of individuals.

Returning now to address the ideas that I wish to discuss…

Hey Walt,

Your description of the Lumpley Principle is certainly broader and more inclusive than what I had originally indicated in my first post. As you had detailed, the LP is better described as a process of deciding what statement to give credibility to. However, even allowing for that important correction, nothing about my assertions regarding resolution mechanics is obviated. No matter how one dresses the resolution mechanics up, no matter how one abstracts the negotiation process, it still all boils down to all the players having to agree as to which statement to give credibility. A resolution mechanic does not give credibility to an event, rather the resolution mechanic is given credibility by the players.

The question to ask is not what is being rendered by the mechanics, but why a resolution mechanic is being employed at this moment in play. In coherent Gam and Nar game designs that question is fairly easily answered. This type of moment, which has been created by player actions/statements has been rendered into a resolution mechanic because it has been deemed relevant, in one way or another, to a conflict type (a forced decision) called Challenge or Premise.

You asked at the end of your post “who’s been saying they do” represent a particular Creative Agenda. I’ll cite a few quotes –

Internal Cause is King…However, the right sort of meaning or point then is expected to emerge from System outcomes, in application.

Purist for System …The only required priority is to enjoy the System in action. (I'm not claiming here that the other four elements are irrelevant, though.)

High Concept…The process of prep-play-enjoy works by putting "what you want" in, then having "what you want" come out, with the hope that the System's application doesn't change anything along the way.

Historical note: BRP…Pound for pound, Basic Role-Playing from The Chaosium is perhaps the most important system, publishing tradition, and intellectual engine in the hobby - yes, even more than D&D. It represents the first and arguably the most lasting, influential form of uncompromising Simulationist design…
…The influence operated primarily through the popularity of both RuneQuest and Call of Cthulhu. Looking across the early versions of these games as well as Superworld, Questworld, and more, I think BRP is identifiable as a Purist for System design and publishing.

Rules-lite Story or Character priorities… Here's my point: in application, a covert System is heavily, heavily entrenched, regardless of whatever to-hit modifiers or dice rolls have been peeled away. … It's not just High Concept though. It looks like it - the heavy emphasis on story/genre, with overt eschewing of System, but it's also (a) actually pretty heavy on Drama-driven or Karma-driven System and (b) emphasizes customizable Settings as in Purist for System play.

Q: Can Simulationist play be Vanilla?

A: Well, we don't say Vanilla and Pervy any more (too rude for some, apparently). Now we talk about Points-of-Contact being low or high for given portions of rules. But to lapse back into the old terminology, yes, it can. Dread is a veritable poster child for Vanilla Sim, which I would generalize to mean a High Concept Simulationist design with low Points-of-Contact and a high emphasis on Situation. Pervy Sim basically just ups the Points-of-Contact as well as the emphasis on Exploring anything regardless of topic, which pretty much describes any member of the Purist-for-System category.

There is Group II Simulationists, who are dedicated to increasingly complex rules systems that attempt to emulate every nuance of the world, in the hope that when the system is working perfectly the dream will flow without any interruption; it would seem to me that the sort of interruption feared here is that someone would not know what to do, and would make something up that didn't feel right, so the answer is to be certain that the system answers everything and no one is ever left floundering for an answer.

There is still at least Group III Simulationists, for whom mechanics are a tool for crafting the world and the characters, who aren't particularly worried about whether they "get in the way of the experience" because to some degree they are part of the experience--like being able to watch the puppet show from behind the curtain, and see how the puppets work.

Gahh!

Jay - once and for all, put aside all concerns with disrespect. It is an obsession on your part and continually obstructs my attempts actually to have a dialogue with you.

I'm staying off this thread for a while. I'll come back later and see what's up.

Best,
Ron

Jay,

I've been mulling over your post for a day and a half now, but I'm sorry to say I'm still basically baffled by it. Completely. Beginning to end, point by point, sentence by sentence, nothing but failed comprehension rolls.

Perhaps we can work this out step by step somehow. To start with, I seem to be tripping over the words "represent" and "abstract(ion)" in several different places. The words apparently don't mean what I think they mean, because if they did, then a statement like "X can't represent Y because X is an abstraction" would be kind of like saying "X can't swim because X is a fish." That is to say, isn't representing things what abstractions do? Isn't that what makes them abstractions in the first place? What's wrong with saying that "has five hit points" represents a shared imagined characteristic of a monster? (Sure the players have to agree that's what it means, but so what? I've never seen players have any difficulty coming to that agreement, so why is it an issue?)

- Walt

Hey Walt,

Sorry about the confusion.

My thinking is thus.

A representation tries to call to mind the object it is mimicking.

A line drawing of a fish calls to mind an actual fish.

An abstraction denotes a quality about an object and usually requires a fair amount of contextualization.

A number of 15 in the skill of swimming describes a quality about an object. The number 15 is an abstraction of the quality of a persons' (object) swimming skill.

The quantification (15) does not exist in that object. The 15 is an abstraction created in our heads so that we might quantify or otherwise make sense of a quality. Quantification, the creation of an abstraction about an object, is something that exists in the head of the one making use of the abstraction, but it is not something inherent to the object.

15 is not part of the object. The object does not possess an object called a "swim skill." It just swims really fast and can stay underwater for long periods of time.

Did I do any better or have I just muddied the waters even more?

Jay,

I'm guessing a bit, but here's part of what I think you're saying. Correct me where I go wrong.

In the imagined world that Sim projects, i.e. the Dream, there is assumed to be a consistent causality -- the world is deterministic. If, let's say, gravity is active in that world, then every time my character drops something he can be quite sure that it will fall.

But the causality of that world is not identical to the mechanics. The mechanics abstract certain elements of the world's causality, reducing them to formulae or whatever. While some systems certainly try to do so, one cannot actually produce the total system of causality: to do so would require a physics, chemistry, biology, and so forth rather beyond that we have in the real world, first of all, and besides the point of mechanics is not to reconstruct, from the ground up, all the mechanical causality-structures of the Dream-world.

Therefore the question when looking at mechanics is choice: why these elements? Since we cannot actually model everything, what we choose to model amounts to a mode of emphasis, putting certain kinds of negotiations with the Dream-world front-and-center. This entails Mike's Rant about combat systems: by electing to model combat in detail, we automatically emphasize combat as important.

Now this is true in any type of system, but in Sim it's not clear what end such choices serve. That is, in Gam and Nar, the purpose of such mechanics is to emphasize player/character actions of particular sorts, because those actions will produce or facilitate Step On Up or Story Now. But in Sim, the claim is that such mechanics facilitate the Dream, which is not an activity as such. So the question becomes how the selection of particular elements to model facilitates the Dream itself rather than actions.

You're suggesting, based I take it on my remarks here and there on Peircean semiotics, that the way this works is by providing opportunities for Abductive failure. That is, the point is to get players to make wrong guesses about the Dream-world such that fixing those errors actually strengthens the Dream. Thus the action-type facilitated by Sim design is Abduction, a specifically player activity, which is quite different from what is facilitated in Gam and Nar.

For example:

GM: You see a pretty classic saloon, with the clever sign, "Saloon."

Player: Doc Holliday walks through the swinging doors into the saloon. He strides across the sawdust-strewn floor up to the bar, spurs jangling. He looks at the bartender, a fat, sweaty guy balding on top, and says, "Gimme a shot of rye. Make it a double."

GM: You look at the bartender and are surprised to see that it's a woman, a pretty young thing in a gingham dress. "Get you something, stranger?" she asks.

Now the player has made an Abduction here: this is a classic western saloon, so it has peanut shells and sawdust on the floor, swinging doors, and a fat, sweaty guy as the bartender. I will now test this Abduction by examining the Deduced Results directly, which is to say I will mention the doors, the sawdust, and the bartender. His Abduction is largely validated, but one Deduced Result is incorrect: the bartender is not a fat, sweaty guy, but a young woman in a gingham dress.

His Abduction has not been a total failure -- the bar didn't suddenly turn out to be the Mos Eiseley cantina, complete with aliens, which would have broken the Dream. Instead, he has been almost exactly correct, but there is an alteration to the standard picture. As is expected with such Abduction-Deduction, this detail actually strengthens the Dream: this saloon has now come alive, no longer just a shadowy cardboard cutout but a real place, with real people. (That's an exaggeration, but the principle is good.)

Furthermore, the player now knows that the woman in the gingham dress is worth talking to, i.e. could be interesting, because she represents a slight variation from the norm. There isn't anything interesting about the sawdust on the floor or the swinging doors; they're stock elements, and they've been validated.

Note, in passing, that none of this is about the character: he never assumed that the saloon bartender was a fat, sweaty guy, because he saw the woman when he came in. The Abduction is made by the player, and thus the failure of the ensuing Deduction strengthens the Dream by making the player see better what the character sees.

Therefore the whole point of the causality of the universe, which is what said, "A standard saloon has these basic elements," is that slight variations actually strengthen the whole. The exceptions prove the rule, if you like.

Now let's consider something more clearly mechanical.

Doc Holliday has been sleeping with the pretty bartender, but her brother Clem, who works out at the Bar-T Corral, has found out about it and he confronts Doc in the street at high noon. "Draw," he says.

The ensuing gunfight will work according to strict causality of the Dream-world. This is not the same as saying that the gunfight will be based exactly on how such combats actually worked in history, with all the physics and whatnot precisely fixed as they must actually have been. We must know what sort of Western we're in. If this is a gritty, "Unforgiven" sort of thing, then precise simulation of real-world physics and history is probably at stake; if this is a Sergio Leone spaghetti Western, then the gunfight will play out according to the aesthetics of such a gunfight: less blood, less chance of a jam or a simply failed draw, more chance that the superior gunfighter will simply dispatch his opponent, etc. And the mechanics must abstract -- from the total possible causal structures of such gunfights -- those elements that emphasize what is important to this type of gunfight.

But the trick is that if this causality is absolutely deterministic, it is only so for the character; the player knows that there are any number of options, and he cannot know which will manifest in this instance. He also knows that the form of this gunfight must match the possible range of the Dream, and that because this universe is deterministic the GM will not make the decision arbitrarily. Instead, the mechanics will tell us which issues are indeed at stake here.

What we hope, in fact, is that because this gunfight seems interesting -- which is the case because such fights are interesting in the source material and because (not coincidentally) they are intensively modeled in the mechanical system -- the player will fail ever so slightly in his Abduction about how this gunfight will run. Otherwise we have once again a cardboard cutout, a completely tedious "blah blah here we go again" gunfight instead of something interesting.

Let's suppose that, contrary to expectations, Clem's gun jams and Doc is a little slow on the draw (or Clem cheats by drawing early). Already we have a slight violation of the norm of the gunfight, but it is still within the range of possibility. Doc must now act in a way that is consistent with the deterministic nature of the universe, and he can to some degree predict the outcome.

Doc could very slowly and carefully fire just to the left of Clem's head, making it clear that he could have killed Clem but chooses not to do so. In some games, depending again on source material, he could shoot Clem's gunbelt buckle so as to drop his pants without hurting him.

Doc could simply kill Clem, or try to.

Doc could make a gentle remark about Clem needing a big boy's gun and then turn his back and walk away.

Depending on the nature of the Dream-world, all of these actions will have relatively predictable results.

If we had done this purely mechanically, for example if our mechanical system requires that Doc declare his action before any draws are made, then he shoots or doesn't shoot based simply on his Abduced expectation of the kind of gunfight we're in.

In any event, the slight violation of the absolute normative expectation for such a fight, as determined by the Dream and rendered through mechanics-emphasis, makes the gunfight meaningful and important instead of something that could be handwaved. We might note the not-uncommon statement in Sim systems that no action -- really, we mean no mechanics-relevant action, i.e. no important action -- can be automatically successful.

This suggests that the possibility of failure especially when the chances of success are high, or conversely the possibility of success when the chances of failure are high, functions to strengthen the Dream. And an actual violation of this kind -- a critical success or failure, for example -- will tend to empower Dreaming. Thus the love of things like "exploding" die rolls. The violation of norms represented by such an explosion also strengthens the Dream because it happens with the range of possibility but at its extreme. So people get very wound up when you start rolling repeated 20s or whatever.

The point being, I take it, that the mechanics here emphasize certain aspects of the Dream-world as places where Abductive failure will be particularly strengthening to the Dream. Therefore we must choose our mechanics on the basis of what we wish to emphasize, not because a perfect model is desirable but because such mechanics will allow for Abductive failure. Further, we must have the mechanical system sufficiently strong that such an Abductive failure will not simply break the dream: if the Dream-world is strongly causal in a simple sense, we cannot have a mechanical system whose odds (to take the obvious Fortune example) permit extremely common violations of expected norms of causality: if every roll 15 or higher on a d20 is an exploder upward, and every roll 5 or lower is an exploder down, we don't get excitement and interest because it seems that the causality of the universe is too unpredictable to be interesting.

So we have a seemingly paradoxical balance: on the one hand the system has to be totally deterministic and predictable within its areas of emphasis, and at the same time must permit occasional strong violations of expected norms. As a rule, such systems should be dependent not on GM or player whim, but on some kind of arbitrary exterior system, such as Fortune, because this ensures that such violations are not created for any reason except that they are within the limits of the possible Dream-world structures, and thus allow us to explore that which we could not simply have created.

Something like that, anyway.

Hiya,

I get what you're saying, Jay, I think. If Chris is on the right track, then your points are very similar to mine in the Sim essay in terms of choosing which of the five Components of Exploration are held as "starters."

Since the five are not independent but rather exist in a fairly straightforward structure, this choice becomes a complex and pregnant one - whatever you choose to emphasize among them as a foundation sets up questions, fun, potential, and room to play/imagine among the rest.

Best,
Ron

Hey Chris,

You pretty much hit a home run. Just to cover my bases I want to expand on the examples you provided.

In the first example of abductive failure, you have a scene where the player lays out some basic setting elements and the DM makes a minor change or two. The player’s abduction was demonstrated to have failed in a small way.

In the second example you have a player’s intended action fail, again demonstrating a small but important abductive failure.

I wish to demonstrate another type –

Two Rangers are patrolling in Ithilien. One is a player is playing a veteran and another player is playing is a rookie. It is early afternoon and they are in a clearing. The rookie spies a knife on the ground; the blade is covered in wet blood. The rookie starts to panic saying there’s orc in the area. The rookie points to the knife which has all sorts of hideously shaped heads with long wicked looking fangs carved into the pommel. The rookie has abduced, via hilt design, that the knife was made by orcs. Because the blood is wet he abduces that the knife was used recently and thus the owner must be nearby.

The veteran is nonplused as he points out to the rookie that because the blood is fresh, that the knife has indeed been used recently. However, as it is early afternoon, that means the knife would have to have been used while the sun was up. (Abduction) If indeed the knife was used while the sun was up, then no orc could have wielded it (Abduction), as no orc can abide by the sun. (rule). The rookie is both relieved and intrigued by this turn of events (The rookie has now been shown to have made an abductive failure). Who could or, much more importantly, what would use something as foul as an orc blade?

At this moment an orc stands up on the far side of the clearing and launches an arrow.

*Causality has been broken!*

The battle proceeds. The veteran kills the orc and the rookie escapes with a minor arrow wound.

The player playing the veteran is befuddled not because his abduction wrong (there was an orc nearby), but because the rule was wrong (this orc could function in daylight). Now the player could assert the GM made an error, but we’ll assume the GM is an old pro and the player has lots of faith in the GM not to make mistakes like that. The other main option is that causality has changed. Some orcs, at least this one, can operate without trouble in daylight (Deduction – new rule!). The world is now a little more complex; the Dream has become a little richer.

The player goes over to the orc body. He sees the arrow shaft that he fired into the orc. He also sees on the orc’s chest a white hand. This is new. All the orcs he’s ever seen or heard of bore the mark of the lidless eye. This orc is different from other orcs. The Ranger checks and finds an empty dagger sheath on the hip of the dead orc. The Ranger checks the orc dagger that his partner found and under closer inspection notes the same symbol of a hand incised at the base of the blade.

The failing of the Veteran Ranger’s abduction initiated the search that lead to the discovery of a new rule of causality. This was a GM initiated change to causality.

Let’s look at a player initiated change to causality. I’ll use Chris’ example of the gun fight between Clem and Doc. Before the gun fight itself we’ll declare, for this exercise, that the player playing Doc (this can include the GM if Doc is an NPC) has not only never lost a duel, but he has never left his opponent alive.

To borrow ruthlessly from Chris –

Let's suppose that, contrary to expectations, Clem's gun jams and Doc is a little slow on the draw (or Clem cheats by drawing early). Already we have a slight violation of the norm of the gunfight, but it is still within the range of possibility. Doc must now act in a way that is consistent with the deterministic nature of the universe, and he can to some degree predict the outcome.

Doc could very slowly and carefully fire just to the left of Clem's head, making it clear that he could have killed Clem but chooses not to do so.

While driving a friend around, I realized that I had made some vocabulary usage errors in my previous post.

Players at the table gasp that Doc didn’t kill Clem. They all just realized that they had just had abductive failure.

Hiya,

Great thread.

Jay, you asked me,

Could you expand on your notion of “starters” please? I think I may be suffering from blinders right now. To me, any game of Sim is based on the Ideals that are being celebrated. Because I am stuck on that right now, I am having difficulty wrapping my mind around the idea that any particular element of Exploration can be used as a “starter.” As you had indicated, all five of the elements of Exploration are interwoven and I can’t imagine any one being given precedence over another.

Hey Ron,

Your re-statement made great sense. Thanks!

I think it interesting to note that in the two examples you gave used Setting and Character as one of the two primary “starting” elements for play. Idea(l)s cannot be found in System or Color and Situation is the dynamic interplay between Setting and Character. IOW it’s difficult (impossible?) to have a rich Situation without one or the other of Setting or Character being rich as well.

It is an observation that lends support to my idea that Purist for System is not a Sim priority play style. (That may not have been your intention, but I am running with the idea as evidence) The employment of mechanics (decision making processes) as an end unto itself without interest in celebrating/defending idea(l)s is no more Sim than it is Gam or Nar. Creative Agenda, to me, is the grappling, putting forth and testing, defending, celebrating, etc., of idea(l)s. Purist for System, as a priority, is indifferent to idea(l)s. It is an agenda that is interested in the machinery of play, but not idea(l)s.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

The following are various corrections to my usage of the logic terms: abduction, induction and deduction. These are relatively new terms to me, so bear with me in my struggle to come to understand them fully.

Two Rangers are patrolling in Ithilien. One is a player is playing a veteran and another player is playing is a rookie. It is early afternoon and they are in a clearing. The rookie spies a knife on the ground; the blade is covered in wet blood. The rookie starts to panic saying there’s orc in the area. The rookie points to the knife which has all sorts of hideously shaped heads with long wicked looking fangs carved into the pommel. The rookie has abduced, via hilt design, that the knife was made by orcs. Because the blood is wet he abduces that the knife was used recently and thus the owner must be nearby.

The player playing the veteran is befuddled not because his abduction was wrong (there was an orc nearby), but because the rule was wrong (this orc could function in daylight). Now the player could assert the GM made an error, but we’ll assume the GM is an old pro and the player has lots of faith in the GM not to make mistakes like that. The other main option is that causality has changed. Some orcs, at least this one, can operate without trouble in daylight (Deduction – new rule!). The world is now a little more complex; the Dream has become a little richer.

Doc always kills his opponents! (rule) But for some reason he has chosen to do otherwise under these circumstances. The Dream is made richer, and something has been revealed about Doc. His Character has become richer as the rules we have become accustomed that seem to govern his behavior are more complex than we had thought. Doc isn’t always a killer! (new rule)

Hello,

I think that System can be the core factor of the starting depth/detail without any trouble at all. I picked Setting and Character because they are the most obvious and common "starters," not because they are the only or key ones. I also think the same is true for Color.

System-first prep is widespread as an ideal, as a quick look at the hundreds of free RPGS on the net attests; most of them are watered-down GURPS. Color-first prep is, I suggest, the usual approach in the role-playing one finds embedded in the larger-scale activity of LARPing.

All of this is bordering on thread-drift, however, and I'd like to take it to another thread if anyone wants to continue.

For purposes of this thread, I'm seeing 100% agreement among us - Chris, Jay, me. Jay, do you think it's a good time to say "Got it" and close it? I do. We can take smaller-scale or secondary topics to new threads.

Best,
Ron

Just a small point before the thread gets closed, depending on how Jay feels about that. In response to Jay's request for clarification:

Jay wrote: The veteran is nonplused as he points out to the rookie that because the blood is fresh, that the knife has indeed been used recently. However, as it is early afternoon, that means the knife would have to have been used while the sun was up. (Abduction) If indeed the knife was used while the sun was up, then no orc could have wielded it (Abduction), as no orc can abide by the sun. (rule). The rookie is both relieved and intrigued by this turn of events (The rookie has now been shown to have made an abductive failure). Who could or, much more importantly, what would use something as foul as an orc blade?

Hey Chris,

Thanks for the clarifications!

Before I sign off this thread, I wish to raise one point. Regarding –

clehrich wrote: …I would tend, if we're going to keep to this limited framework, to say that you're not actually violating the Rule, but rather proposing exceptions; this creates more Rules, and makes them more complex and more accurate, assisting the players to make predictions about the Dream-world….