Neonchameleon
Legend
Whereas for me the integrity of the model is almost worthless. What matters is how accurate the model is against what it is supposed to be modelling.
What's your style?
Whereas for me the integrity of the model is almost worthless. What matters is how accurate the model is against what it is supposed to be modelling.
Tony Vargas
Legend
Interesting contrast.
IMHO, there are qualities that make a good game, and qualities that make a good model (simulation). They're not entirely at cross-purposes, but you can sacrifice making a good game in trying to make a good (accurate/realistic or consistent/high-integrity or both) model. It can also be easier or harder to make a game that's also a good model, depending upon what you're trying to model. Good stories have some things in common with good games, so trying to model a story or genre can be more successful than trying to model a setting or a physical law with a game. A Global Warming Model doesn't just take up unimaginably more processing power than pong, it's also not as much fun.
A few observations about my group's style (hmmm, it could use a fancy name... "The Style"... no... "De Stijl"... too Dutch... "Duh Stijl"... closer... "Derp Stijl"... that's it!)
It's system-independent. We tend to play different games the same way in the end; system doesn't matter nearly as much as our personalities & collective sense of humor. Over the past decade our extended group has managed to play D&D 3e, M&M, Dragonstar, D&D 4e, Savage Worlds, AD&D, Fate, and D&D 5e in a similar fashion.
It's very character-oriented. In the sense the goal is to create the most amusing, if not absurd, fictional characters & send them on amusing, if not absurd adventures.
Regardless of system or genre(s), we flirt shameless with parody & satire. Probably because they look so good after a few drinks.
Despite being silly a lot of the time, the (usually homebrewed) settings tend to be detailed. Because some of us are inveterate world-builders.
Sometimes, the silliness pivots to serious, philosophical, even poignant (when someone other than me is DM'ing). Those moments are kinda magical.
If our campaigns where Infocom text adventures, they would have 2 modes: VERBOSE and EVEN MORE VERBOSE.
It's system-independent. We tend to play different games the same way in the end; system doesn't matter nearly as much as our personalities & collective sense of humor. Over the past decade our extended group has managed to play D&D 3e, M&M, Dragonstar, D&D 4e, Savage Worlds, AD&D, Fate, and D&D 5e in a similar fashion.
It's very character-oriented. In the sense the goal is to create the most amusing, if not absurd, fictional characters & send them on amusing, if not absurd adventures.
Regardless of system or genre(s), we flirt shameless with parody & satire. Probably because they look so good after a few drinks.
Despite being silly a lot of the time, the (usually homebrewed) settings tend to be detailed. Because some of us are inveterate world-builders.
Sometimes, the silliness pivots to serious, philosophical, even poignant (when someone other than me is DM'ing). Those moments are kinda magical.
If our campaigns where Infocom text adventures, they would have 2 modes: VERBOSE and EVEN MORE VERBOSE.
Balesir
Adventurer
I think it might be interesting to note, here, that I can identify two types of "consistent" that might not always be included in the definition.
1) Consistency = the models that the players hold in their heads of the imaginary situation in the game are the same; i.e. they are consistent from one to the next.
2) Consistency = no set of established facts about the imagined world are directly contradictory; i.e. if A, B and C have been established as true, in no case should A and B, either independently or combined, make C nonsensical.
The first type of consistency I personally couldn't give a hoot about - but the second I find essential. This is important in that several of the games I like now can generate situations where different players have quite different interpretations about why and how things happen - and yet they can all still agree that what has happened is completely consistent and agree with what might or might not be true as a result.
As I write, I could even add:
3) Consistency = the results obtained by using the system of play are plausibly those that would be seen in a world of the genre and description of that selected for play. this might be a "realistic" world or something very different.
The Crimson Binome
Hero
The second one is what I consider more important, but from a practical standpoint, I'm not sure how you would go about guaranteeing that unless you have one "true" situation that you're checking against, as the GM is imagining it. If you're just establishing facts as you go along, without checking each against a central authority, then you would need to check each new fact against every other fact in order to guarantee that there is no contradiction. If the GM is imagining the "true" situation, then you only need to check each new fact against that one model, and you'll know that none of the facts contradict each other as long as they agree with that.
Balesir
Adventurer
The more recent games I'm talking about, the system is quite explicit about how "facts" are created. so, everyone knows what they are and can judge whether or not they are consistent (in sense (2)). Anyone might create facts, but only in accordance with the rules. Ideas not created as "facts" according to the rules are just ideas - neither true, not untrue until they are either made "facts" or made impossible by other facts that make them nonsensical. So, for example, if the GM has an idea about what the BBG is doing, but this is not introduced into play as a fact, then it is not a "fact". Events in the game may render it impossible (in which case it can never become a Fact). If, on the other hand, it becomes a Fact (and thus known to the players), there is nothing they can do to change what has already been established.
It's actually quite easy, once you get the hang of it
