Okay, so I was grading papers or something, and when I turned around, there had been this hugely interesting debate here about aesthetics, reality, emulation, genre, and a whole lot of other things. I read it all with great interest, and got to the end, and found that the thread is now closed. Okay, so here's a new one, taking up similar issues.

As I understood it, the issue was about the relevance of "reality" to RPG play, with Fang championing tossing out realism in favor of GenEx, in order to best emulate other-media source material. Other posters (John, Mike, Marco, etc.) suggested that the emulation of non-RPG source material is not necessarily the point. This all strikes me as somewhat talking past each other.

Let's suppose we take for granted the conception of "reality," so that it doesn't become a term of debate. As I see it, "reality" here means simply our general sense, as people with some experience of the world, of how things generally happen, and what's likely. So "reality" would include things like this: You generally die if you are heavily machine-gunned in the head, or fall off a very high building. Note the word "generally," by which I mean that sure, there are exceptions, but our sense of reality is that these exceptions are few enough that we wouldn't take the chance, i.e. we wouldn't gleefully jump off a high building in the expectation that that one-in-a-million chance is going to come up trumps. Besides, we assume that the very rare guy who comes out alive is going to be seriously hurt in the process. This isn't always physical, incidentally, as our sense of reality includes: One is usually upset to discover that the love of one's life actually only wants one's money and is sleeping with somebody else on the sly; in such cases, one may act somewhat irrationally. Okay, so that's reality.

Now let's also set aside "story"; for this purpose, I agree with Fang: it's not relevant here.

Okay, so what's the debate?

We've got two poles of an axis: reality and genre. The genre may or may not be "pure reality"; such things are done, but not commonly in RPGs.

The questions, then, are these:

• What do we mean by genre expectations in the first place, as they specifically relate to "realism" questions?
• Where do aesthetic considerations come into this?
• What do genre expectations have to do with "source material"?

Let me start with the last, because it was a bone of some contention.

While it is common for RPGs to base themselves upon source material of one kind or another, it isn't necessary. Shadows in the Fog makes heavy use of Victorian source material of many kinds, but I cannot think of a single example from any medium that fits what I think the game is about, so the game has to do a lot of work setting up the genre expectations. If you design a game based on Star Wars, by way of contrast, it is likely that you want the game to be a lot like the films. Note: likely, not certain. At all events, the whole point of outside sources, setting, and in many ways mechanics themselves is to set up genre expectations.

Okay, so now back to the first question: what's this got to do with reality?

Well, the thing is that no genre expectations are so specific that they determine everything there is to be said about the setting. Doesn't matter the medium -- you can't determine everything. Now in most media, this isn't a major concern, because you simply don't film (or whatever) the things you don't know about; or rather, you only know what you film. This is like No Myth, really: if the expectations about something aren't set explicitly, they're not set at all. There is no background knowledge somewhere about the genre that sets such expectations.

So the background knowledge, which in fact you have to have if you're going to interact with the world dynamically (as in RPGs and not in films), comes from reality.

Let me put it like this:

Genre expectations permit the imagination of and interaction with a limited situation in conscious tension to how the world actually is.

Examples:

• James Bond is better, cooler, faster, and more dangerous than any actual human person. The world he lives in is in that sense not like ours. But the tension created in a given situation relies on our expectation that some aspects of reality will be respected. He can't get out of the prison by flying; this is not part of genre. But this needn't be specified: the genre is clear by distinction from reality, not because it's all delimited. Can he do things, from film to film, that we never knew he could do before? Yes, that's what Q is for.
• Superman is insanely different from ordinary people. The world he lives in includes others somewhat like him, and is clearly not reality. But a lot of interest and tension is generated by the fact that his world is mostly like ours, e.g. Lois Lane, if dropped from a plane, will die unless Superman saves her. Again, it's conscious tension against reality that makes his powers have purpose and meaning.
• The Lord of the Rings is a story set in a world seemingly utterly unlike ours. But when it gets right down to it, Frodo and Sam, for example, are very ordinary people, and basic rules of reality do apply to them. There is thus strong tension in the situation, because we define the fantasy with respect to our own reality, and we assume that the hobbits are pretty much like us unless we're told otherwise. This is why, when Gandalf reemerges in Book 3, we're surprised: we didn't realize that he was even remotely capable of defeating the Balrog, much less surviving a mile-long fall. We suddenly think, "Damn! He's way more powerful than we realized!" And this sets him up as the White Rider for the battle of Helm's Deep, and the way he can rout huge armies by riding at them and waving a sword. We believe this, because we now know: Gandalf is really not at all human, and just looks like it.

I hope by now this point is clear: the non-reality aspects of a genre only make sense and have meaning or interest with respect to reality.

So where do aesthetics come into it?

1. How do you know what reality is, anyway, except by aesthetic judgment? This is the old "truth is stranger than fiction" thing. If you hear that somebody fell 500 feet onto pavement and got up and walked away, you think, "naah, couldn't be." Okay, but you might be wrong -- stranger things have happened. Your sense of reality is simply not correct, because it's simply your aesthetic judgment of what reality is like. I suspect that some stuntmen and commandos and other people who do really really dangerous things have a somewhat different aesthetic sense of reality than the rest of us, because they have a more informed way of aesthetically judging what's possible or likely and what's not.

2. How do you decide when some event is or is not within the genre? Aesthetics, by exactly the same methods that you use when you determine whether something seems "realistic."

I'll briefly go back to a post I did a while ago, which you can find here, where I made a comparison to Michelangelo. Basically what I'd like to say, in the present context, is that genre expectations are constraints, rules, that predetermine certain aspects of the artistic object (RPG play is included here). If you can perfectly fit the rules, you can emulate a genre, if that's your goal, or otherwise create a plausible situation within the world/setting/genre/etc. Now when you bend or break those rules, you need to do so very consciously and carefully, because you're again challenging expectations. This is what happens with, for example, James Bond: they try to make it look very realistic, as though the "rules" were simply reality as it ordinarily is, but Bond pushes the limits of those rules, a bit at a time. He doesn't suddenly turn into Superman, but rather turns out to be just a little better shot than we can quite believe is "really possible," but we accept this because the art of Bond is to push that sort of boundary.

So you can't throw out reality, I'm afraid. To do so would require creating an art object that is completely incomprehensible, because it would not relate in any way to the ordinary.

Anyway, let's see if people still want to debate this.

Hi Chris,

So you can't throw out reality, I'm afraid. To do so would require creating an art object that is completely incomprehensible, because it would not relate in any way to the ordinary.

Thanks for continuing the discussion, Chrises.

The take away lesson I'm getting from this conversation is that "realism" (with all its myriad definitions) comes down to establishing plausibility. Anything can be plausible if you care to play with or in it, but most times what people look for in a game are the parameters of commonly understood reality, and outside of that they look for something that matches genre expectations of a known text. There is an element of communication involved.

As Chris (Bankuei) writes, genre expectations give participants a "hook", an easy in to the shared game world. This might be seen as a shared aesthetic sense of what's believeable or desirable in the game.

clerich wrote: Basically what I'd like to say, in the present context, is that genre expectations are constraints, rules, that predetermine certain aspects of the artistic object (RPG play is included here). If you can perfectly fit the rules, you can emulate a genre, if that's your goal, or otherwise create a plausible situation within the world/setting/genre/etc.
Now when you bend or break those rules, you need to do so very consciously and carefully,because you're again challenging expectations. This is what happens with, for example, JamesBond: they try to make it look very realistic, as though the "rules" were simply reality as it ordinarily is, but Bond pushes the limits of those rules, a bit at a time.

I'm also glad that this discussion is continuing.

I'm not going to debate the nature of reality as proscribed by Chris in his initial post. So take it for granted that reality is a shared sense of what is common sensically plausible.

I agree with you in the sense that reality provides the comparison point that gives definition to a given game's genre expectations by means of compare and contrast. Genre expectations define, in this sense, what rules of reality it's fair to break or bend, and just how far outside of reality can one go for a given action/thing/decision/whatever.

However, I don't think that RPG game mechanics need to try and simulate or emulate reality at all. They simply can't do it. You can't show me a mechanical system that does a reasonable job of emulating reality. When I, as a real person, decide to shoot someone in the head with my big gun, there are a lot (maybe nearly an infinite number of) variables going into whether I succedd or not that can't be captured by game mechanics at all.

Game mechanics are abstractions that attempt to capture the 'feel' of reality - while some games at the extreme actually claim that their mechanical components are actually 'realistic'. The more variables the rules take into account for any given action, the more complex the rules become, and thus the more unusable they become from the perspective of having an enjoyable game experience.

Fang was making the case for the fact that he thinks too many RPG designers strive for a "simulate reality" system while eschewing the actual 'rules' for the Genre set out by the source material. He's saying, in essence, that a lot of game designers would create a game about James Bond, and then make it frightfully difficult for "00" agents to say jump off a cliff and chase down an airplane in a nosedive in order to escape from an army of soldiers trying to kill him. Fang goes on to postulate that many designers, when they realize that characters in the game won't be able to actually do things that seem appropriate inside context of the Genre, slap on some meta-mechanic that makes this possible. He's arguing that the 'simulate reality' mechanics should be thrown out the window and only the 'exception mechanic that facilitates/captures the feel of the genre' should be used at all.

I'm slightly in the middle on this one. I think that mechanics need to be judged in total for a game to see if they accurately capture the feel of the Genre. I don't think that reality has any place in the mechanical system designs of RPG's. Sure, reality is the signpost/backdrop that allows all of us real people to get into and understand the game - it is the baseline against which all Genre expectations are compared. But I maintain that reality can't be accurately modeled in an RPG.

Cheers,



Jason

deadpanbob wrote: Genre expectations define, in this sense, what rules of reality it's fair to break or bend, and just how far outside of reality can one go for a given action/thing/decision/whatever.

deadpanbob wrote: However, I don't think that RPG game mechanics need to try and simulate or emulate reality at all. They simply can't do it. You can't show me a mechanical system that does a reasonable job of emulating reality. When I, as a real person, decide to shoot someone in the head with my big gun, there are a lot (maybe nearly an infinite number of) variables going into whether I succedd or not that can't be captured by game mechanics at all.

deadpanbob wrote: The more variables the rules take into account for any given action, the more complex the rules become, and thus the more unusable they become from the perspective of having an enjoyable game experience.

deadpanbob wrote: I think that mechanics need to be judged in total for a game to see if they accurately capture the feel of the Genre. I don't think that reality has any place in the mechanical system designs of RPG's. Sure, reality is the signpost/backdrop that allows all of us real people to get into and understand the game - it is the baseline against which all Genre expectations are compared. But I maintain that reality can't be accurately modeled in an RPG.

John Kim wrote:
I have heard this before, and I don't understand it. My work as a PhD physicist was programming simulations. The programs are inevitably filled with ignored factors and rough estimations. There will always be factors which you cannot take into account, and the results always differ from the real data.

To take an example closer to RPGs, the Navy used the board game "Harpoon" in order to train cadets in naval tactics. Now, the mechanical system is far from perfect and doesn't take a ton of factors into account -- but the point of reasonableness is if the cadet knows more about real naval tactics afterwards. This would be my criteria: that is, if using the rules, are the results more realistic than if a GM with no particular knowledge made up results off the top of his head.

John's post touches on a concern of mine, which is that reality is a moving target.

Take the case of guns. Almost nobody who lacks experience with firearms understands how they actually feel to shoot, and since the vast majority of gun owners never go out committing crimes with them (or even stay in and commit crimes at home), they don't know how it feels to behave with a gun under stress. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports show that people mostly miss, for instance; it takes dozens of shots at close range for the average urban firefight to hurt anybody. The one game that actually models this accurately, Friday Night Firefight, looks weird to people who haven't studied the matter.

Then there are the cases where what people know proves to mostly be propaganda. What the average gamer "knows" about the Middle Ages, for instance, is mostly Enlightenment screeds and propaganda, demonstrably wrong point by point and embedding irrelevant and unfounded assumptions.

Then there are the cases where our understanding changes over time withut any lack of good will. The nature of matter's most fundamental components is a case in point, and can actually come up in some contexts, particularly engineering and stuff.

All of this without even touching on divergent notions of human nature.

So I much prefer to say "this is the effect I'm after" and point at some inspirations. It doesn't matter whether the real world is like that it or not; it matters if my would-be players like it and agree on what we're doing.

I guess all I was trying to say is that "reality" is fluid, and not simulable. That is, it is only possible for an ordinary person to assess realism on aesthetic grounds, for all the reasons that John and Jason describe about "serious" simulations, where millions or more are at stake.

If you have a terrific simulation program, and it takes into account just about everything, and just once (because any simulation is going to have more random factors than you could shake a stick at) somebody gets shot horribly and survives, that contradicts the sense of reality that we have as human people who watch too many movies but don't actually go out and kill people with weapons all the time. This is the point made about Friday Night Firefight. So for most purposes, "reality" is a GenEx same as everything else, and doesn't really have a lot to do with how things actually are, in the sense that the FBI or the cops could tell you some things about, say, how often people firing guns in a firefight are likely to hit anybody.

But John raised the point that is most important to me, as a humanities wonk: reality where it applies to social-historical situations. We've talked again and again about religion, or society, in fantasy settings, but I'm bringing it up again. I'm like the cop talking about firefights when it comes to religion: I have enough training that my "reality" bumps are very precisely honed. And when I find that everyone believes in a bunch of gods but that this doesn't affect the way they live, I say "crap" and move on. This is one of many examples; if you want to debate it, let's start another thread. My point is just that "reality" is composed of far too many factors to model, except aesthetically, and that aesthetic modeling is extremely variable depending upon the interpreter.

If, then, reality itself in RPGs is an aesthetic judgment, and most RPG genres bend reality to formulate another set of expectations with respect to the notional reality described, I'm confused about why there should be conflict here.

I understand clearly what Fang means, insofar as he's saying that far too many systems try to construct absolute simulations of reality. Okay, but I think he's saying a lot more than this, and I'm not sure what it is.

I also understand that folks are saying it's not necessary to simulate alternative realities such that the end-product is exactly like a given medium (TV show, movie, etc.). Okay, but why is this in conflict with what Fang is saying?

I think there's a missing middle term, and that until we isolate that, this debate could (if Fang will let it) continue forever. But I think Fang has something important to say -- right or wrong -- that is getting glossed over in this discussion.

Am I missing the point entirely?

---------

Sorry -- on re-reading, it sounds like when I say "if Fang will let it" as though I'm referring to his closing the other thread. I don't mean this; he was perfectly justified in doing so. I mean "if Fang will let it" in the sense that he may or may not want to try to open up his own thinking to find the missing term, without which I think I'm jousting at windmills.

clehrich wrote: My point is just that "reality" is composed of far too many factors to model, except aesthetically, and that aesthetic modeling is extremely variable depending upon the interpreter.

If, then, reality itself in RPGs is an aesthetic judgment, and most RPG genres bend reality to formulate another set of expectations with respect to the notional reality described, I'm confused about why there should be conflict here.

As I see it the whole issue comes down to a failure to communicate the purpose of a game’s design in relation to its ‘source material’ and how that relates to consumer expectations based upon that same ‘source material’.

A genre operates under a certain set of rules. They vary between genres and even to a degree within an individual genre. Here’s the problem. In that other thread there was much talk about an RPG being based on a genre, that is in most cases just false. The games that Fang is perturbed by are not based on a genre but the color elements attached to a genre. These RPGs stretch the color elements of a genre over a rules-set meant to be a simulation of ‘reality’ (to some degree) and generally ignore the conventions of the genre they supposedly emulate. That’s it.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with that of course. When somebody buys a game that has the trappings of a particular genre splattered all over the cover and in snippets of colorful prose throughout the book and the game doesn’t return a play experience in much of anyway resembling its ‘source material’, that’s when bitterness ensues. If game designers market their games responsibly this isn’t really an issue. That’s hard to do though if you’ve convinced yourself that you have just created the greatest thing since grilled cheese. (Or if you value the dollar over any kind of integrity, but I’m in a ‘benefit of the doubt’ kind of mood.)

That’s my take, hopefully it helps some.

-Chris

C. Edwards wrote: When somebody buys a game that has the trappings of a particular genre splattered all over the cover and in snippets of colorful prose throughout the book and the game doesn’t return a play experience in much of anyway resembling its ‘source material’, that’s when bitterness ensues. If game designers market their games responsibly this isn’t really an issue. That’s hard to do though if you’ve convinced yourself that you have just created the greatest thing since grilled cheese.

C. Edwards wrote: As I see it the whole issue comes down to a failure to communicate the purpose of a game’s design in relation to its ‘source material’ and how that relates to consumer expectations based upon that same ‘source material’.

A genre operates under a certain set of rules. They vary between genres and even to a degree within an individual genre. Here’s the problem. In that other thread there was much talk about an RPG being based on a genre, that is in most cases just false. The games that Fang is perturbed by are not based on a genre but the color elements attached to a genre. These RPGs stretch the color elements of a genre over a rules-set meant to be a simulation of ‘reality’ (to some degree) and generally ignore the conventions of the genre they supposedly emulate. That’s it.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with that of course. When somebody buys a game that has the trappings of a particular genre splattered all over the cover and in snippets of colorful prose throughout the book and the game doesn’t return a play experience in much of anyway resembling its ‘source material’, that’s when bitterness ensues.

clehrich wrote: I guess all I was trying to say is that "reality" is fluid, and not simulable. That is, it is only possible for an ordinary person to assess realism on aesthetic grounds....

Le Joueur wrote: So I guess I'm saying that in my experience a game does better across it's whole audience (both those who prefer a "simulation of 'realty'" and those who desire an 'emulation of genre') if it has a well crafted 'hidden agenda' to 'emulate its genre,' than if it simply "[stretches] the color elements" (appealing therefore to a smaller market and causing "bitterness" in some). Furthermore, I just don't see those who prefer a "simulation of 'reality'" suffering any of their own "bitterness" if the 'hidden agenda' is hidden well enough.

Jere wrote:

Le Joueur wrote: So I guess I'm saying that in my experience a game does better across it's whole audience (both those who prefer a "simulation of 'realty'" and those who desire an 'emulation of genre') if it has a well crafted 'hidden agenda' to 'emulate its genre,' than if it simply "[stretches] the color elements" (appealing therefore to a smaller market and causing "bitterness" in some). Furthermore, I just don't see those who prefer a "simulation of 'reality'" suffering any of their own "bitterness" if the 'hidden agenda' is hidden well enough.

Could you give an example of a game that really tries to simulate reality and isn't really just emulating a genre (or specific source material)? I'm hard pressed to think of a single one.

Could you give an example of a game that really tries to simulate reality and isn't really just emulating a genre (or specific source material)?

Ride the movies

Jere wrote: Could you give an example of a game that really tries to simulate reality and isn't really just emulating a genre (or specific source material)? I'm hard pressed to think of a single one.

Jere wrote: Could you give an example of a game that really tries to simulate reality and isn't really just emulating a genre (or specific source material)? I'm hard pressed to think of a single one.

Emily Care wrote: John Kim has a very interesting point about the role Traveller played in his life. It's realism-oriented rules taught him about astrophysics. That's an extremely worthy goal in a game.

deadpanbob wrote: Maybe I'm not thinking clearly - lack of sleep and all - but isn't basic GURPS exactly this game? I'm not sure, because a cursory glance of my GURPS basic edition doesn't show a smoking gun where the designers say "we're trying to simulate reality" - but that seems to be the effect in play (at least among the people I've played GURPS with).

GURPS claims realism but by no means always delivers. There are all kinds of widgets and blivets in it, and the folks in charge routinely dismiss well-documented evidence that contradicts their stylistic preferences. (Which is fine except insofar as they claim that this or that is how it really is, rather than how they'd like it for a game with a particular sort of default style of its own.)

deadpanbob wrote:

Jere wrote: Could you give an example of a game that really tries to simulate reality and isn't really just emulating a genre (or specific source material)? I'm hard pressed to think of a single one.

Maybe I'm not thinking clearly - lack of sleep and all - but isn't basic GURPS exactly this game? I'm not sure, because a cursory glance of my GURPS basic edition doesn't show a smoking gun where the designers say "we're trying to simulate reality" - but that seems to be the effect in play (at least among the people I've played GURPS with).

Hey Jason,

Gots one problem with the following:

deadpanbob wrote:

Jere wrote: Could you give an example of a game that really tries to simulate reality and isn't really just emulating a genre (or specific source material)? I'm hard pressed to think of a single one.

Maybe I'm not thinking clearly - lack of sleep and all - but isn't basic GURPS exactly this game?

Jere wrote: GURPS doesn't succeed in simulating reality. I'd say that GURPS succceeds in providing the rools to build a simulation that meets your needs.
....
Which, and you are right, indicates that Steve Jackson wanted GURPS to be that reality-mdoeling game, but even he realized that the game didn't succeed.
...
GURPS can't even really claim to be a true attempt at reality modeling. They've steered away from comprehensive societal systems, economics, and other areas of human existence.

If no one's said it yet Jere, Welcome to the Forge!

If GURPS and historical RPGs don't fit the bill for you nothing will. GURPS is the perfect example of stretching color over simulation rules (despite its fantasy roots). From my PoV, you're definition of realistic and genre cannot be compatible.

No game will provide an objective simulation of reality - they are all written by people and reality is subjective (I think therefore I am and all that). I don't think anyone really believes otherwise, but you have to take that into account when trying to find an RPG that's purpose is to simulate reality. All the game needs to fit the bill then is the goal of simulating reality - the author will do the best he can from his PoV. An author needs to draw his definition of reality for purposes of the game from somewhere, like historical source material or other things that if you try real hard you can claim are a genre.

Jere wrote: Could you give an example of a game that really tries to simulate reality and isn't really just emulating a genre (or specific source material)?

I wrote: Could you give an example of a game that really tries to draw upon an external reference and develop a realistic model and isn't really just trying to develop a model based upon an external reference?

I wrote: Could you give an example of a game that really tries to draw upon an external reference and develop a realistic model and isn't using the same external reference for developing color as it is for it's realistic model?

Fang wrote: Except that do you know anyone who plays only the basic edition?

Le Joueur wrote: Except that do you know anyone who plays only the basic edition? (Not the 'complete' one that came later with magic and psionic rules, I think those "[emulate] a genre.") As soon as you pick up one of the other products to play with it....

cruciel wrote: Fang Cross Post Reply:

Fang wrote: Except that do you know anyone who plays only the basic edition?

Me, back in the day when I played GURPS. Err...wait, memory...it was the 'complete' version. But, you don't need to always play with those elements. Besides, 'Yeah, but does anyone actually play this game?' is a pretty weak arguement. It was written after all.

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: Besides, if you buy my arguement that GURPS was built from and defaults to a fantasy genre, then even just playing using the basic rulebook would have some genre expectations. And even if a group did play with just the basic book and they didn't play fantasy, we could probably look at this hypethetical game played by a hypethetical group and notice it fits into this or that genre.

Since we're descending into the same madness as previously, I hereby retract my challenge.

To bring the word genre into all of it's common uses renders this whole discussion moot. It's injection was originally as a substitute for 'source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative,' which was an attempt to not use the word 'story.' If you begin to use 'genre' to mean any roughly contiguous set of experiences ("Unix Genre" or "Automotive Experience Genre") then I vote we avoid it's use for the rest of the thread as that meaning is equivalent to 'thing.'

Cruciel creates a really interesting straw man to argue with essentially implying that it's impossible to simultaneously 'work to make the game experience plausible enough to be accessible to many people by familiarity with what they know in real life' and 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative."' This is patently false; I doubt any game ever does one without any of the other.

And that was the basis of my original point.

Without the presence of large measures of both, my point becomes nonsensical. What I was trying to say and keep trying to say despite the frivolous use of 'genre,' despite the straw men stood up, is that since I can't see a game that is played without the presence of both elements in large measure, I argue that making the 'work to make the game experience plausible enough to be accessible to many people by familiarity with what they know in real life' the more important of the two, weakens (and renders 'harder to ignore the overt presence of') the 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative."'

Try saying that before breakfast.

Anyway, since no one seems to agree that putting a game's 'creative agenda' ahead of the 'completeness' of its mechanisms is the obvious choice, I retract the opinion and plan on keeping it to myself from now on. If you want a game that is 'more complete' than it is aesthetic, more power to you; I've never seen one of these 'succeed.' (I plan on no one understanding that line and refuse to explain it.)

Fang Langford

edited to improve color choice and add "is the obivous choice" to a nonsensical statement.

Le Joueur wrote: Cruciel creates a really interesting straw man to argue with essentially implying that it's impossible to simultaneously 'work to make the game experience plausible enough to be accessible to many people by familiarity with what they know in real life' and 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative."' This is patently false; I doubt any game ever does one without any of the other.

Le Joueur wrote: Anyway, since no one seems to agree that putting a game's 'creative agenda' ahead of the 'completeness' of its mechanisms, I retract the opinion and plan on keeping it to myself from now on. If you want a game that is 'more complete' than it is aesthetic, more power to you; I've never seen one of these 'succeed.' (I plan on no one understanding that line and refuse to explain it.)

Jack Spencer Jr wrote:
I don't believe the arguement is that weak. The basic set is meant to be used with with one of the world books, or whatever GURPS calls them. It's like playing AD&D 1st ed with just the players handbook. You kind of need the dungeon master's guide and the monster manual.

Besides, if you buy my arguement that GURPS was built from and defaults to a fantasy genre, then even just playing using the basic rulebook would have some genre expectations. And even if a group did play with just the basic book and they didn't play fantasy, we could probably look at this hypethetical game played by a hypethetical group and notice it fits into this or that genre.

I'm sorry Fang but I'm not sure that I understand what it is exactly you are arguing, and I'm not sure that anyone else here has either. I may just be simpleminded but I'd like to understand where your coming from so I'll ask some basic questions.

Are you simply saying that most games focus almost exclusively on working out mechanics to resolve actions realistically and ignore mechanics that help to promote style of play desired ?

Or are you saying that game designers focus too much on developing the mechanics of games and not enough time with the atmosphere?

Le Joueur wrote: Plus, let me add my opinion that those things "there's nothing inherently wrong with" (games that "stretch the color elements") won't be as popular if honestly portrayed as not "emulating their genre" (unplayed sales not withstanding).

C. Edwards wrote: I think that both types of games, those that emulate the atmosphere and conventions of the 'source material' and those that use the color elements of the 'source material' as a base for a 'realistic' simulation, have their place though. Different strokes for different folks. But, don't try and pass off one for the other. That's a common practice that is largely due to a lack of recognition of the different needs of varying playstyles and the unfathomable belief that one game can serve the needs of all playstyles.

Le Joueur wrote: Without the presence of large measures of both, my point becomes nonsensical. What I was trying to say and keep trying to say despite the frivolous use of 'genre,' despite the straw men stood up, is that since I can't see a game that is played without the presence of both elements in large measure, I argue that making the 'work to make the game experience plausible enough to be accessible to many people by familiarity with what they know in real life' the more important of the two, weakens (and renders 'harder to ignore the overt presence of') the 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative."'

cruciel wrote: I was saying that reducing the definition of reality so it approaches zero and increasing the definition of genre so it approaches infinity would make the discussion impossible.

Caldis wrote: I'm sorry Fang but I'm not sure that I understand what it is exactly you are arguing, and I'm not sure that anyone else here has either. I may just be simpleminded but I'd like to understand where your coming from so I'll ask some basic questions.

Caldis wrote: Are you simply saying that most games focus almost exclusively on working out mechanics to resolve actions realistically and ignore mechanics that help to promote style of play desired?

Caldis wrote: Or are you saying that game designers focus too much on developing the mechanics of games and not enough time with the atmosphere?

Le Joueur wrote: Then you're arguing against a straw man, cuz I ain't talkin' 'bout reducing anything to zero. If I haven't said it clearly enough, I'm talking about one being 100% and the other being 101%.

My point is absolutely pointless if you imagine that I'm saying anything is reduced to 0%. That would be like saying having an arm without a head to move it (or a head with no arm to do anything). If you keep implying that my argument can be reduced by superimposing all or nothing labels on it, you continue to argue with straw.

cruciel wrote: [Fang] seems to be saying is that prioritizing realism over aesthetics takes something away from aesthetics...which I definately don't disagree with, but am failing to see the big revelation - there are always tradeoffs. If that's it, that's all, and you aren't trying to say one decision is better than the other - then yeah, I'm with ya. And yeah, designers should know they have to prioritize and clearly pick one. That's just saying coherency is a good idea.

Le Joueur wrote: I doubt such example exists. That's right, I'm saying you can't play without some 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative,"' in your play. Like I said, it's my opinion and your welcome to leave it in the dust. The door is over there.

cruciel wrote: But, as you seem to have taken up the flag...

If a game that seems to prioritize realism first (GURPS) isn't sufficient enough to fall into the category of a game that prioritizes realistic mechanics over source material aesthetics....

cruciel wrote: You acknowledge it's an opinion and that's good enough for me. My opinion is that play needn't be reminescent of a fictional narrative.

Le Joueur wrote: What would happen then? What if every game prioritized the 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative,"' but only a few showed it obviously?

To me, only to me, and very definitely only me, would that make all games better. (Especially games who were original and had no single 'source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative.')

This is not an opinion I want verified or ratified. It was an observation I wanted to share. An idea that I thought many would benefit from. A concept I felt I could understand better if I had to explain it.

Le Joueur wrote: There's that straw man again. Did I ever narrow the definition of "realism first?" I don't think so; I believe calling the phenomenon the 'work to make the game experience plausible enough to be accessible to many people by familiarity with what they know in real life' makes it a whole heck of a lot broader and GURPS most definitely fits this model. I remember the amusing introduction to one of the earliest versions citing SCA sword practice experience as all the 'reality' they needed for the game. That's enough 'work to make the game experience plausible enough to be accessible to many people by familiarity with what they know in real life' for me to think it prioritized.

Le Joueur wrote: Have you played it without any preconceived notions of the 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative,"' coloring your play? If not, then the play wasn't free of at least some of it. Note, I'm not trying to prove anything, but applying my recent criteria to the offerings as exceptions. Yes, it's narrow to say that preconceived notions count, but my supposition depends on both always being present.

I seem to have stirred a wasps' nest.

So far as I can tell, Fang is saying something like this (Fang, correct me if I'm wrong; this is an honest attempt):

1. All games in some manner or other emulate what we perceive as ordinary reality.

2. All games are at the same time colored by "source material," i.e. non-real representations which impose non-real expectations.

3. All games which claim to prioritize #1 and ignore #2 are in fact combinations, despite themselves.

4. Many games which seem as though they ought to prioritize #2, in that they claim reference to specific source material, actually waste a lot of time prioritizing #1.

5. Therefore, it would be best to focus game design priorities upon #2, and to a great extent let #1 take care of itself.

Now if I've got that right, it seems to me an enlargement or extension of one of Mike's Rants, specifically the one about how if you spend 50 pages detailing combat mechanics, you have just announced that your game is about combat, whether you like it or not. Fang, I think, is extending this: if you spend time detailing exactly how to model reality in a game based upon, say, Space 1999, you're detracting from the really important focus on modeling Space 1999.

Now the point I brought up at the outset was that all this essentially amounts to aesthetics of degree; as Fang has noted repeatedly, it's not a question of absolutes on any end. But I'd push a little further.

Seems to me that what's called for here is a focus on the intersection of the two regions. Space Opera means nothing without reference to reality, and reality means nothing without reference to ideas and structures outside of formal reality and in the bounds of pure ideation. Setting the latter half of that aside, the point is that every game system has to come up with a way to bridge between reality and the source material, however defined.¹ Now the trick is that this depends upon your aesthetics of how that intersection works within the source, which is what you really have to model.

For example, if you think The Matrix is really about grittiness and true reality, focused especially upon combat, but that it extends this in a narrow range of absolute categories, then you will want a fairly gritty and real-feeling combat system, with specific rules for how this same set of rules can be bent or broken by people like Neo. But if you think this is really a fairly wild comic-book sort of thing which is only colored grittily, then you will want a very different set of rules. It all depends upon how you interpret the intersection of perceived reality with the fantastic elements of the source.

If I've understood all this reasonably correctly, I just don't see why it's such a bone of contention. You have to interpret your sources, however many and varied, and you have to formulate a mechanics system that appropriately represents your interpretation of how those sources intersect with perceived reality. You can do this implicitly or explicitly, of course.

If the point is that lots of games don't seem to do this coherently, I agree entirely. But does this get us anywhere? The way to make this a useful principle for game design and diagnosis would be to formulate it in schematic model form. Here's a few suggestions (which I hope will spark further discussion):

A. To what extent does this specific sort of incoherence overlap with GNS incoherence, if at all?

B. I recommend that we refer to Baseline (or something of the kind) instead of reality; retaining "reality" as a term seems to spark all sorts of difficulties incidental to the actual point at stake.

C. I recommend that we scrap "genre," "source," and everything of the sort. Again, they spark all sorts of problems.² How about Vision?

D. I think we need to come up with some classification for the different types of intersections that get rendered in mechanics. There's physics and so forth, of course, but there are also what might very loosely be called narrative concerns. I don't think we want "narrative," owing to overlap with GNS, and "story" seems a disaster waiting to happen. Furthermore, I don't think that material reality plus (loosely) narrative elements cover the complete range.

Thus: as Baseline intersects with Vision, mechanics are formulated to represent that intersection. These mechanics will render, in more or less detail, a range of factors (materiality, fiction/story/plot/narrative elements, etc.).

E. The diagnostic issues are, then:

(1) Is prioritization of factors appropriate to the Vision?
(2) Is the balance of emphasis in mechanical rendering appropriate and adequate to the range of intersection? That is, does it stress one or the other side of Baseline/Vision?
(3) Does the totality of the game's material support these mechanics, such that it is clear how the various pieces work together?


Anyway, I think that might be a useful place to begin. I do not think this is the same as GNS, but it's probably a layer in the Big Model (on whose pieces I am unclear, and most of which I believe have not adequately been detailed).

Thoughts?


Notes
1. "Source material." Without wanting to provoke arguments about the nature of genre, the point here is that those aspects of a game which are fantastic are strongly colored by prior encounters with some sort of source material. If nothing else, we've all seen movies and TV, whether we use them consciously or not. The most creative idea does not exist in a vacuum.

2. "Genre." I note that Ron pushed for the elimination of the term "genre" in "GNS and Other Matters." I rather wonder whether this was (at least in part) the problem he was trying to avoid.

Clehrich is 'close enough for government work.'

My silence otherwise is me attempting to be less reactionary than yesterday. Right or wrong, I think people understand what I think.

Fang Langford

Le Joueur wrote: Have you played it without any preconceived notions of the 'work to provide an experience reminscent to some "source material including movies, television, books, and other fictional narrative,"' coloring your play? If not, then the play wasn't free of at least some of it....

And mine is that it's unavoidable. (And so far only one game has been listed doing this and as I said, that is just an example that proves my opinion to me.)

M. J. Young wrote: I don't know. I've got this feeling that this notion of "fictional narrative coloring your play" can be stretched so far that there's no way around it; at the same time, I think that taken as stated, it is not unavoidable.

clehrich wrote: A. To what extent does this specific sort of incoherence overlap with GNS incoherence, if at all?

Okay guys,

Unless you missed the point, I'm talking strictly about my opinion. There is no expectation of truth or fact to what I'm saying. I'm talking strictly about my interpretation of what I've seen/see. To that end I only need to clarify what I've said where it has been misrepresented or misunderstood. There's no reason anyone needs to agree with my interpretation of things. It isn't especially important that anyone understands, however I feel it necessary that it is stated clearly. This apparently isn't so.

M. J. Young wrote: I don't know. I've got this feeling that this notion of "fictional narrative coloring your play" can be stretched so far that there's no way around it; at the same time, I think that taken as stated, it is not unavoidable.

I started play with OAD&D. Now, in OAD&D there's a long list of fiction that was considered inspirational source materials. At the time I hadn't even heard of 90% of the stuff; even now, I'm sure I haven't read quite a lot of what's listed there. I came to OAD&D in some sense looking for a Tolkienesque experience within a game. Did I find it? Well, yes and no. Did the books influence the way we played?...I'd read quite a bit of fantasy that was not so cited).

M. J. Young wrote: ...You could argue that I'm allowing the "fictional narrative" of modern realism to "color my play...." ...I don't buy it.

M. J. Young wrote: I certainly agree that a game that is trying to give form to a known narrative source ought to emphasize those mechanics which will realize that source material over those that will create "realistic" results.

...It's quite another [thing] to insist that all games are trying to recreate some fictional narrative source material...[and] is patent arrant nonsense. ...If it intends to mean that all games are about something that is represented in other narrative sources which they are committed to emulate, it's already demonstrably false (the summary dismissal of GURPS notwithstanding, it is only the clearest example of this).

M. J. Young wrote: I'm sorry, Fang: All Generalities are False.

M. J. Young wrote: There are games committed to attempting to emulate reality, in which narrative fictional sources are irrelevant.

Fang,

A funny little thought has just crept into my head. Your opinion seems very similar (note: I'm not saying identical, you can figure that out) to the big horseshoe theory of GNS - that Sim cannot be an exclusive priority, that it's just a dial that is adjusted on the Sim spectrum with Nar on one endpoint and Gam on the other. Maybe someone who knows more about this theory can expand on the idea. Maybe there is something you can work with in this theory.

First of all, this isn't a theory; it's an opinion. Theories are potential facts. Opinions are mislead observations.

cruciel wrote: A funny little thought has just crept into my head. Your opinion seems very similar (note: I'm not saying identical, you can figure that out) to the big horseshoe theory of GNS - that Sim cannot be an exclusive priority, that it's just a dial that is adjusted on the Sim spectrum with Nar on one endpoint and Gam on the other. Maybe someone who knows more about this theory can expand on the idea. Maybe there is something you can work with in this theory.

Marco wrote: GURPS Basic. I did. Modern day. No set genre that the players were aware of. No special powers. We switched to GURPS because we felt the firearms were more realistic than what we were playing (Hero).

One of the reasons I especially like generic systems is because one can use them to set genre-expectations on their heads. That's a major strength. And when you've contra-genreed then you need some base-line reality to fall back on.

Hey Fang,

I completely and wholeheartedly concur with your opinion.

That's all I have to say about that.

Sylus

Mr. Fang 'Le Joueur' Langford wrote: ...it's just my opinion....

Why is it so important to prove my opinion wrong? What happened to 'agreeing to disagree?'

M. J.,

With all due respect, I'm surprised by this type of challenge coming from you. Throughout both this thread and its predecessor, I've been confounded by an inability to communicate. Last time I resorted to draconian methods to end it. This time it isn't my thread and I wasn't terribly comfortable entering it, but felt that as much as I was being cited, I couldn't 'leave it be.' In trying to graciously withdraw I seem to have insulted you; this was not my intent.

M. J. Young wrote: Most people who say "It's my opinion" mean something more on the order of "I believe this is true;" if they qualify it as "It's just my opinion" it is possible that they mean "I believe this is true, but really have no evidence to support it and can't defend it at all."

M. J. Young wrote: Now, in the former case, when someone says "I believe this to be true," we naturally expect to be able to challenge and question the statements....

M. J. Young wrote: In the latter case, I suppose we have to come to grips with why someone would bother to tell us that they believe something to be true for which they have absolutely no evidence or support.

M. J. Young wrote: The second is that they are announcing to the world that they are opinionated fools who don't care what the truth of the matter might be but have made up their minds and don't wish to be confused by the facts.

M. J. Young wrote: I am quite comfortable with the idea that Mr. Langford believes all narrative is dependent in some form on prior narrative,

M. J. Young wrote: ...That he thinks it will always make for a better game to turn to the narrative rather than reality in designing game systems.

M. J. Young wrote: I also think that in the examples I gave, the influence of prior narrative was minimal.

M. J. Young wrote: I maintain that...it is meaningless.

M. J. Young wrote: I also find it offensive that you would imply that when you state that something is your opinion, that means no one should disagree with it.

Well, I'm not the moderator round these parts, folks, but I think that unless someone wants to take up these questions in terms of a model (GNS or otherwise), as I proposed a bit earlier, this thread has pretty much run itself into the ground. If I have any weight, having restarted the thread on my own recognizance, I say this:

Either add something new to the discourse, preferably by responding to the proposed model, or let it lie.

Ron, I'd ask that we wait and see if anyone wants to take it up; if not, feel free to exercise a kill. I'm about ready to wash my hands of this, and Fang has made it very clear that he is too.

Hi there,

Chris is acting entirely on his rights as the initiator of the thread. You read his post, people - what he said there, goes.

Best,
Ron

clehrich wrote: I seem to have stirred a wasps' nest.

clerich wrote: A. To what extent does this specific sort of incoherence overlap with GNS incoherence, if at all?

B. I recommend that we refer to Baseline (or something of the kind) instead of reality; retaining "reality" as a term seems to spark all sorts of difficulties incidental to the actual point at stake.

C. I recommend that we scrap "genre," "source," and everything of the sort. Again, they spark all sorts of problems.² How about Vision?

D. I think we need to come up with some classification for the different types of intersections that get rendered in mechanics. There's physics and so forth, of course, but there are also what might very loosely be called narrative concerns. I don't think we want "narrative," owing to overlap with GNS, and "story" seems a disaster waiting to happen. Furthermore, I don't think that material reality plus (loosely) narrative elements cover the complete range.

Thus: as Baseline intersects with Vision, mechanics are formulated to represent that intersection. These mechanics will render, in more or less detail, a range of factors (materiality, fiction/story/plot/narrative elements, etc.).

E. The diagnostic issues are, then:

(1) Is prioritization of factors appropriate to the Vision?
(2) Is the balance of emphasis in mechanical rendering appropriate and adequate to the range of intersection? That is, does it stress one or the other side of Baseline/Vision?
(3) Does the totality of the game's material support these mechanics, such that it is clear how the various pieces work together?

To Fang: Please accept this as my apology.

I certainly understand what it's like to explain something repeatedly in the face of others who don't seem to understand what seems clear to me. In fact, just this past week I was doing that on the participationist/trailblazing thread, and at the same time by e-mail with someone talking to me about the wormhole theory of time travel. Whether it is something you are unable to express clearly enough (I've had many of those ideas over the years) or some subtlety I'm just not grasping, I did raise the tension level some with my first post, perhaps, and that was not necessary.

I still don't get it, but hope that as Scattershot develops this idea of relying on the fictional narrative rather than emulating reality will show itself through the design. I look forward to it.

Look at the bright side: obviously you know that it's going to take some work to communicate the new ideas to some of us old guys, so you know where you're going to have to do the work.

--M. J. Young

Emily,

Many thanks for your responses. Let's see...

Emily Care wrote: Baseline and Vision are excellent terms. They are (as I see it) non-controversial, and get at the relative nature of the concepts. Also may make it easier to remember that what's going on is communication of a shared vision, rather than interaction with some static "thing" out there that one is bringing into being in the game play. (I'm thinking of how one can get hung up on the details of how a system varies from the source material--I like the word Referent, but I was a semiotics geek back in the day. )

Let's see: where do Baseline and Vision intersect? How can mechanics help the crossover be smooth? Baseline is what everyone can assume is true. (I see it as choosing a horizon if one is in null-g, a useful, though arbitrary choice that allows everyone to share a perspective). Vision is the artistic creation that one/some people wish to share with the whole group. Hopefully creating a new Baseline--(Hey, that's got another meaing too--back to Ron's band metaphor.)--on which to riff.

How do I say the next thing without saying "g*nr* conventions"? This is seperate from narrative concerns, though that would be one too. What makes up a Vision? Setting, situation, goals, descriptions?

Thanks for bringing the discussion back to a constructive vein.

clehrich wrote: It's funny, I originally thought of Referent as well, but decided (1) not everybody is a semiotics geek like you and me, and (2) I think Baseline is also a referent; furthermore I think probably both are better understood as signifieds and not referents, but now we're down to a conversation of about three.