Topic: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
Started by: ejh
Started on: 6/8/2005
Board: RPG Theory
On 6/8/2005 at 4:26pm, ejh wrote:
Fiduciary responsibility (split)
Holy cow. I never realized that 'james_west' wasn't 'James V. West.' Big brainshift reading that.
I have a small and tangentially related response at my gaming blog, which references a post on this topic by Ben Lehmann in his blog.
http://esotericmurmurs.blogspot.com/2005/06/ben-and-james-on-what-gaming-does-to.html
Summary: I have noticed one bad thing gaming did to me, and it wasn't about stance, it was about assumptions about reality implicitly and unintentionally conveyed by sim rules.
On 6/8/2005 at 4:31pm, Ron Edwards wrote:
RE: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
The above was split from fiduciary responsibility?, a thread from four years ago. Ed, be more careful about resurrecting old threads.
Discussion may continue, of course.
Best,
Ron
Forge Reference Links:
Topic 189
On 6/9/2005 at 9:52am, pete_darby wrote:
RE: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
[transposed from old thread when I made the same mistake]
Gah! Clipboard ate the old post!
Basically:
Competetiveness, okay in good social environment as encouragement to excellence, bad in attempt to crap on friends
Bad things about RPG's:
1. Tendency to be limited to adolescent fantasy versions of problems & problem solving (kill things & take their stuff)
2. Insular socially normalizing environment.
3. Wide range of tools for social bullying, from my guy to rules lawyering and all points between
4. Possible tendency for players (as opposed to GM's) in participationist games to become purely reactive in game, and experience anxiety when asked to become pro-active. Added to points 2 &3, may influence behaviour outside play.
Just playing devil's advocate here...
On 6/9/2005 at 11:07am, contracycle wrote:
RE: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
ejh wrote:
Summary: I have noticed one bad thing gaming did to me, and it wasn't about stance, it was about assumptions about reality implicitly and unintentionally conveyed by sim rules.
I agree with this strongly. Especially in the case of adolescents, who are at that very time probably using games like RPG to experiment with their understanding of how reality works, the model of reality presented by a game has to be considered quite carefully, I think.
I agree that this sorta conceit of simulationism can be dangerous in this way. But I would hope that an increase in design notes accompanying texts would mitigate the problem. If the designer can discuss directly with the players what the express intent was behind a given rule, then the players would probably be less likely to interpret it as a normative description of the actual world they inhabit.
I also think Sim games should be more focussed on What they explore, rather than just the nebulous "world". If we understand that this game explores topic X and generally only refers to topic Y distantly, we can understand that the discussion of topic Y is not as developed and therefore not necessarily accurate.
Edit: I also think this phenomon has already seen some tacit recognition in the number of occassions we see adult players with children specifically introducing their children to RPG in the form of a mentor-lead activity. I think this is a good thing, arguably a really excellent thing if it sort of reproduces an experience between parent and child that is educative but also equitable, lead but not authoritarian, and about doing rather than passively absorbing. There is an aspect of parent-child RPG that I suspect is quite similar to taking kids on hunting trips and personally teaching them about weapons and the wilderness, if you see what I mean.
On 6/9/2005 at 9:17pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
I disagree across the board.
I agree with John Kim's comments on the page that, in fact, RPGs are "play" and as such teaching tools as much as anything is. The idea that skills are not unambiguously good is poppycock, no matter what whatshername says. Given that we define what is good and bad, that shouldn't be surprising. And, yes, my skill with classical guitar actually did make my punk playing better. Believe it or not. I wasn't as good a punk player as a classical player, but I wouldn't have been able to play punk at all, had I not known the classical guitar, would I? RPGs include penalties for getting outside your field of knowledge, and so cover these things handily.
I find it ironic that my own game was used as "proof" that skills are not unambiguous goods. Despite the fact that I allow them to be used against characters, I do not conclude that we should all cut off our feet so that we never trip again.
I find it odd that this is the one thing that the authors can bring up as modeling that might distort people's visions of reality. I've been playing RPGs since I was nine years old, and I have no difficulty understanding that Alignments are a crap concept. And never did have any problem understanding it (it bothered me so along with other D&Disms, that I burnt my D&D books at the age of 13).
Next I'll be told that I don't value life enough because I've been trained that there are evil people, by learning to hate orcs. Oh, wait...what's that you say? This isn't about Mike Holmes? Well, then, please point out the damaged individuals.
The whole thing is preposterous. See yourself as damaged if you like. You know, I'm not the sort who rails against every cause as being about victimism. But this is just going out of one's way to discover that they've been victimized. Just play and have fun.
Mike
P.S. Oh, and by way of disclosure, yes, I am a card carrying member of the CAR-PGa.
On 6/9/2005 at 9:44pm, ejh wrote:
RE: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
Mike, I presented the "skill as unambiguous good" thing as an example of one small way in which games had contributed to a part of my own worldview that I later rejected.
I also said that the parts of games which are liable to reinforce dubious notions about reality were the parts which seemed least fantastical, least controversial; orc-killing and alignment obviously don't fall into these categories; the "skill as unambiguous good" thing and the "nature vs nurture" thing (to cite the concerns of myself and John Kim as examples) do qualify.
Arguing whether or not I am *right* to reject the notion of skill as unambiguous good, and using discussions of guitar playing to do so, is surely irrelevant. Obviously people may disagree on the truth or importance of these things. (I have a hard time getting myself worked up about John Kim's concerns about Nature vs. Nurture, for example, and I am sure that my Langer-dervied ideas about learning and competence as chimerical are controversial or ridiculous to many.)
I just wanted to present, as an isolated data point for people to make of what they will, one particular way that I felt that games may have had what I later came to consider a negative effect on me -- without making any particular claims as to how strong this was, compared to other influences or my own natural inclinations and character. I can't really claim to know those things. And of course one may disagree that it *was* a negative effect -- if one thinks that it is better to regard knowledge and competence, as most people do, as unambiguous goods, then if games did reinforce those things in me it was a positive contribution which I have now sadly lost.
It's fairly trivial in the long run and if I hadn't accidentally resurrected a thread and brought it to prominence on the Forge (by failing to notice the old timestamps), I wouldn't really expect much conversation about it. My apologies for pressing your game into service against your own weltanschauung. :) Quite unintentional.
But when understood properly -- "I came at one point in my life to believe things which violate the fundamental assumptions of certain sim rules, and therefore regretted that those rules might have helped reinforce those assumptions for part of my life" -- well, there's not much to disagree with, is there? It's a subjective self-report. That really happened, even if you find it foolish or nonsensical.
On 6/9/2005 at 10:24pm, John Kim wrote:
RE: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
ejh wrote: I also said that the parts of games which are liable to reinforce dubious notions about reality were the parts which seemed least fantastical, least controversial; orc-killing and alignment obviously don't fall into these categories; the "skill as unambiguous good" thing and the "nature vs nurture" thing (to cite the concerns of myself and John Kim as examples) do qualify.
ejh wrote: But when understood properly -- "I came at one point in my life to believe things which violate the fundamental assumptions of certain sim rules, and therefore regretted that those rules might have helped reinforce those assumptions for part of my life" -- well, there's not much to disagree with, is there? It's a subjective self-report. That really happened, even if you find it foolish or nonsensical.
Just to clarify here -- I mentioned the notion of nature/nurture because it is an important political issue, for example in debates over gender and race. However, I strongly disagree that such simulation rules should be considered a "danger" or "problem" because they have real-world meaning.
I consider real-world meaning to be a good thing, or at least a tool that can and should be used for good. Sure, simulation rules can get reality wrong, but the people who write them are generally concerned over that and will fix them given a chance. I might disagree with what they say, but I consider the "solution" of cutting out such information from RPGs to be a cure far worse than the disease. Speaking personally, I like my RPGs to have such information. For example, while I have many issues with the core GURPS system, I think GURPS as a whole has done a lot of good with its well-researched worldbooks that introduce players to other cultures and periods in history.
On 6/10/2005 at 7:30am, contracycle wrote:
RE: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
Mike Holmes wrote:
Next I'll be told that I don't value life enough because I've been trained that there are evil people, by learning to hate orcs. Oh, wait...what's that you say? This isn't about Mike Holmes? Well, then, please point out the damaged individuals.
Been on RPG.net lately? IMO the walking wounded are in full force.
I have remarked in other contexts that I have concerns about what I perceive to be an outright didacticism in adolescent gaming that is often tied directly to personal abuse: X is the way it is and you are stupid for thinking otherwise. The game can then become a contest of one-upmanship based on spurious appeals to "reality", a phenomenon with which we are well familiar.
And this has polluted the broader aspects of the hobby by the persistent and ill-informed arguments over for example the "realism" of gender based strength modifiers or some other reactionary garbage. Yes, RPG can be and is used to reinforce dogmas I consider utterly poisonous, and they are precisely, as was said in the original post, due to the necessarily implicit assumptions in sim.
On 6/13/2005 at 12:13am, groundhog wrote:
RE: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
Cause or effect?
Do games with poor, questionable, or plain silly social statements attract those who are damaged mentally, emotionally, and socially? Do they cause the damage?
I think as much as anything, people who will believe things like skin color having a correlation to intellegence or gender circumscribing available skills in real life are drawn to games that make such statements. They aren't being taught these things by the games. They are being taught these things by their families, friends, and neighbors. Unfortunately maybe their schools play a part. The games might reinforce some antisocial falsehoods the players already hold, but I doubt very seriously they start someone down those damaged paths.
On 6/13/2005 at 12:19am, Marco wrote:
RE: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
contracycle wrote:Mike Holmes wrote:
Next I'll be told that I don't value life enough because I've been trained that there are evil people, by learning to hate orcs. Oh, wait...what's that you say? This isn't about Mike Holmes? Well, then, please point out the damaged individuals.
Been on RPG.net lately? IMO the walking wounded are in full force.
Everyone is someone else's "damaged." You and me included. Thinking someone is stupid because they think differently from you and appealing to "reality" is more common in political debates than gaming.
-Marco
On 6/13/2005 at 4:02pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
What Christopher and Marco said. Worse, this is like the whole TV causes violence debate. Well, maybe it does. Does that put the blame on the TV producers, however, or on the public who demand such TV? We can go around and around about this. But it seems to me that the only viable solution is for people to consider their gaming material critically.
The only other solution is censorship. Is that what we want?
In this way, RPGs are no different than any other medium.
Mike
On 6/14/2005 at 2:36pm, Ben Lehman wrote:
RE: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
Mike Holmes wrote: Worse, this is like the whole TV causes violence debate.
Okay.
The rest of this stuff can be put down to opinion, but this statement is blatantly untrue.
There is a key difference between people protesting violence in video games and TV and people saying "Hey, let's look at how RPGs effect the lives of their players." The difference is that no one, not a single god-damn person in this entire god-damn conversation over the course of four god-damn years, has called for censorship of any form at all.
It would be great if everyone who said "You can't take responsibility for your creativity! That would be censorship!" took a long, hard look at where that idea is coming from, 'cause it ain't coming from me, or James, or Ed, or anyone else.
Y'all can write whatever games you want to write, and play whatever games you want to play. Neither I nor anyone else is going to stop you by force. If you're my friend, and I think that you are hurting yourself or other people, I would try to stop you, but that's it.
There are people in the world whose lives are negatively effected by their RPG play. This is a given! This is true about nearly everything, and I don't have a problem saying it. Looking critically at our designs and trying to increase the positive effects (with which, I hope, we are all familiar) and maybe even decrease the negative effects is not an attack on you, your games, or anyone else. Self-criticism and self-analysis are the only means to self-improvement, and if the "saying we could do something right means that you're saying we've done something wrong" message keeps going around, we're never going to get anywhere on this front at all.
I assume we are all interested in the same thing, here -- making and playing better games. I simply cannot believe that looking at that from the direction of social context is necessarily wrong, bad, or censorious.
yrs--
--Ben
On 6/14/2005 at 3:00pm, Walt Freitag wrote:
RE: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
Mike Holmes wrote: But it seems to me that the only viable solution is for people to consider their gaming material critically.
Ben Lehman wrote: Self-criticism and self-analysis are the only means to self-improvement...
Why so much heat from so little friction? I don't see a whole lot of disagreement between your positions.
- Walt
On 6/14/2005 at 3:23pm, pete_darby wrote:
RE: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
The first problem I have with suggesting that folks regard the content or effects of their games is that thing I mentioned in passing: that game groups are an insular, normalising environment with plenty of tools for bullying or punishing deviant opinions within the group.
In other words, they tend to reinforce the majority opinion of the group in a constant feedback loop. This is not, without great effort, condusive to critical appraisal of the effects of the group on the attitudes, etc of the members.
The second problem I have is that, inside such a group, suggesting everyone takes care to think about the implications and consequences of their playing could well be just another way of squashing dissenting voices and normalising the values of the group.
Finally, worrying about content and consequences while in the act of creation is the best way to generate creative block known to man.
Well, that was incendiary, wasn't it? The solution... I don't know. I have some ideas, but they're not as well formed as the above paranoia.
On 6/14/2005 at 5:11pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
I assume we are all interested in the same thing, here -- making and playing better games. I simply cannot believe that looking at that from the direction of social context is necessarily wrong, bad, or censorious.
Here we are discussing it, Ben. Give me an example of somebody damaged by RPGs, and how it happened, and how it was the fault of the RPG and not the humans playing. How the game could have been improved such that the players would have been less harmed.
If you're just saying that RPGs can be constructed to teach, or better the players, I'm all for that idea. In that case we merely have a different view of what "damaged" means. If indulging in a bit of pointless entertainment is "damage," because I could have used the time more constructively, well, then color me damaged. But it's not what I'd call a reasonable definition of harm in any way. More importantly, nothing that needs fixing.
Mike
On 6/16/2005 at 8:42am, contracycle wrote:
RE: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
Marco wrote:
Everyone is someone else's "damaged." You and me included. Thinking someone is stupid because they think differently from you and appealing to "reality" is more common in political debates than gaming.
Actually you are completely wrong. In real politics, everyone is so aware that even interpretations of What Reality Is are highly divergent and therefore CANNOT be appealed to at all; it almost always constitutes arguing your conclusion. Appealing to "reality" simply indicates you do not respect your opponents point of view.
Bu by contrast, this hobby has exhibited a lot of conflict based on unilateral interpretations - the whole threefold itself being an attempt to escape the sterility of mutual accusations of "not playing right". Then there is the whole stpid "rollplaying vs. roleplaying" argument that is never really an argument but an accusation.
I think these things are indiciative of RPG as a self-reinforcing environment, and this has serious implications if we talk about becoming more mainstream. And I also think that much of the hostility, and division into camps, that RPG exhibits as a subculture are themselves products of this self-righteousness, matured and tempered in the environment of the local gaming group. This I think gives an illusionary sense of the reasonableness or generality of the local opinion.
On 6/18/2005 at 3:30am, Ben Lehman wrote:
RE: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
Mike Holmes wrote:
Here we are discussing it, Ben. Give me an example of somebody damaged by RPGs, and how it happened, and how it was the fault of the RPG and not the humans playing.
I'm trying to think of a way to do this (or the realistic goal of explaining how having the hobby of "RPGs" has been a negative influence on someone's life, rather than Mike's "shirt without any stitching or needlework" request) without violating the trust of my friends by bad-mouthing them on a public board.
I think I will figure something out. It just might take me a while.
yrs--
--Ben
On 6/20/2005 at 1:36pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
Go ahead and change the names of the innocent, and the facts such that the example is hypothetical or merely parallel to the one you're thinking of.
OTOH, if it happens that this is the only example you can think of, then perhaps you're not talking about a phenomenon, but an individual problem? In which case, perhaps there's nothing to do about it? Just like you wouldn't redesign a particular car because it had a freak accident once on one particular curve of a particular road.
I'm not claiming that nobody has ever heen hurt by an RPG. I'm saying that if and when it's happened, it's likely been just happenstance, and not something that could have been prevented.
I'm for bikers wearing helmets - there's a consistent threat of head-damage that's being checked by their use. But if you said, hey bikes are still dangerous, without pointing to some particular phenomenological problem of their use, I'd tell you that there's nothing really to be done about the situation.
If you're saying that life is dangerous, well, sure. But there's nothing to be done about that general statement. And that doesn't make life bad, it makes it life.
Mike
On 6/26/2005 at 6:02am, cruciel wrote:
RE: Fiduciary responsibility (split)
I see a whole lot of nothing to disagree with here.
Remember Chun Li? She stuck her butt out and threw fireballs that looked like jellyfish. Bounced all over the screen. Did that kick thing if you mashed the arcade machine buttons.
People these days, arcade goers or not, seem to associate fast with small. Is this Chun Li's fault, or is Chun Li the fault of a societal preconception? Because this has no basis in reality. Doesn't matter I suppose. The point is, whatever premise (literary non-Forge definition) or genre conventions you toss at your reader might be believable to them outside of the context of the individual story. (Hell, that can be good craft.)
For example, your premise might be that gnomes live inside the hollow earth and make all the world's buttons. Your reader might accept the premise in the context of the tale you are telling, but probably won't start digging up their rose bed looking for gnomish button smiths. However, one of your genre conventions for a detective story might be that shooting people in the knee is relatively safe. People might just believe that and go on a knee-shooting spree.
It can be sophistry and still impact the reader's view of the world. Maybe RPGs have you believing that reflexes are linked to flexibility (the ubiquitous Dexterity stat), or maybe a sci-fi show convinced you exposure to outer space makes your blood boil, or maybe Biology 101 convinced you that a meteor impact led to the KT extinction, or whatever.
This isn't some sort of Sim thing - it's just a human thing. I don't see anything particularly dangerous, unusual, or unique to RPGs about it. :)