Cognitive dissonance in YOUR favorite RPG [+]

[The Shadow]

The absence of elements that set off internal dissonance is a big factor in why games become my favorites, rather than useful resources I loot from.

Beat me to it. A game that produces dissonance will not remain my favorite for long. (Barring early days when I didn't know of any alternatives.)

 

[DeviousQuail]

When I think too deeply about some mechanics I have to remind myself that it's a game. It can even be fun to deep dive on those topics, but only outside of the table.

The thing that gives me fits in my favorite RPGs is meta currencies. I understand the concept and see why and how it can be interesting. I also hate it and don't see why anyone would make it a part of their game. The current big one is XP in Cypher/Numenera. Long story short I found a solution that works for me. A minor one is the Darkness Points in Coriolis. Not sure if other Free League games use a similar mechanic. It's a tradeoff the players give me for rerolling and using certain abilities. As a GM I get to use the points to make their lives harder. But some of those things are for what I think should be basic actions taken by NPCs. I don't like the way that works. So instead I use Darkness Points for timing situations. Everyone will do what they should but the more Darkness Points I spend the better the timing of it works for NPCs or environment. It seems to be working well so far.

 

[aco175]

I try to not care that much and figure the designers have a reason for the rules. This seems to have resolved most of the dissonance.

 

[GMMichael]

Modos RPG:

- Charging a defensive opponent eats up one of your actions, so you basically get 2 for the round and your opponent (who doesn't retreat) gets 3. Drives me nuts.*

- Parrying attacks doesn't offer a huge benefit, besides avoiding all physical damage. But that's only if you roll a higher result than your opponent. Drives me nuts.*

*(There are rationales for both of these, but it doesn't feel intuitive.)

 

[The Shadow]

Modos RPG:

It's entirely possible I'm missing something, as I'm not familiar with the game. But on the surface at least, these make sense to me.

- Charging a defensive opponent eats up one of your actions, so you basically get 2 for the round and your opponent (who doesn't retreat) gets 3. Drives me nuts.*

You spent an action to move, they didn't.

- Parrying attacks doesn't offer a huge benefit, besides avoiding all physical damage. But that's only if you roll a higher result than your opponent. Drives me nuts.*

Avoiding all physical damage sounds pretty good? And surely parrying an opponent is very much a matter of relative skill?

 

[overgeeked]

Yep, that sound to right me!

In your example, I'd propose the cognitive dissonance comes from:

• you read the rule, it says only 2 magic rings at once
• your fiction/imagination can see a species wearing multiple magic rings

That’s ludonarrative dissonance. Ludo meaning game. So ludonarrative dissonance is literally when the rules of the game don’t match the narrative. Which is what you’re describing.

Cognitive dissonance is the stress you feel when someone you think is good does something evil. Your mind stresses and tries to square the circle.

 

[Emoshin]

That’s ludonarrative dissonance. Ludo meaning game. So ludonarrative dissonance is literally when the rules of the game don’t match the narrative. Which is what you’re describing.

Cognitive dissonance is the stress you feel when someone you think is good does something evil. Your mind stresses and tries to square the circle.

Here's what I had read before about ludonarrative dissonance:

• coined by video game designer Clint Hocking in 2007 in a blog post in response to the video game BioShock
• is the conflict between a video game's narrative told through the story and the narrative told through the gameplay

Given the propensity for arguments on Enworld, including arguments for and against comparisons to video games, that didn't seem like a good direction to take this thread.

I also read somewhere else that the term "ludonarrative dissonance" is sometimes mocked within the video game industry, that it's one of those terms that a newbie reads on the Internet and then starts using it at work. I don't have any way of verifying that, or knowing how much respect and usage the term has in the video game industry.

I also don't have any evidence that "ludonarrative dissonance" is widely used in the roleplaying community currently, and I don't know if "ludonarrative dissonance" is the term that, one day, will be used to widely describe non-video gameplay across the wider community.

 

[Umbran]

Does that count?

I wouldn't think so.
Maybe don't propagate that conflict around, huh?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I'm not "after" anything per se, other then to propose that framing it as a subjective experience (like cognitive dissonance) is a better starting point to discuss it compared to some of the other ways (ie., arguments) I've heard in the past.

While I share the ... reticence ... of @Gradine ... I will add this-

I think that this is an interesting topic. I like the idea. I agree that framing it as "cognitive dissonance" is likely going to get more people to participate than ludonarrative dissonance.

As a general rule, I tend to think of this in terms of suspension of disbelief, which is the term that people are familiar with from literature and films- but as more particularly applied to games. In other words, when are you able to avoid critically thinking about something in order to enjoy it?

At a fundamental level, all roleplaying games are both games and fictions, just as all literature is imprecise words that are abstractions and all films are necessarily untrue. The extent to which you can suspend your disbelief while playing will often determine your enjoyment.

That said, it is my opinion that this is often quite subjective. For example, someone who is enjoying playing a game qua game might not be bothered by the hit point mechanic at all, because they are emotionally invested in the rolling of the dice and combat, while someone invested in the game as simulation of an independent reality would be thrown off by the hit point mechanic. In other words, people will have completely different reactions to identical mechanics.

Any way, I'll check in later- great thread starter!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I've played D&D since 1989, so yeah, I've seen a ton of cognitive dissonance. Most of it has been fairly possible to resolve, albeit sometimes it's a bit weird. 5E actually has the most cognitive dissonance of any edition of D&D I've played, and I don't think that's just recency bias, but rather because it is trying to do something quite difficult and sort of be all things to all men.

The least cognitive dissonance re: how the rules function has largely been in stuff at the rules-light end of things - particularly PtbA and Resistance, but even there you sometimes get a smidge.