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Vincent Baker on mechanics, system and fiction in RPGs
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<blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9197985" data-attributes="member: 71699"><p>Ernest Adams was primarily writing for videogame design. He authored a series of articles on the subject and the book brings together many important ideas. Currencies as a tool of game design had been well explored by videogame designers, so that element of what Vincent was writing was not new (though neither was it misleading or unhelpful!)</p><p></p><p>I think Vincent's most important contributions have been in the direction of "how to relate the fictional and the mechanical" which he accurately characterised in the piece you quoted as "<em>one of the ongoing and outstanding crises in rpg design</em>." You might recall for example that we debated awhile back the prospect of games like chess as engines of fiction. Through long contemplation of your and Vincent's arguments I now think it is right that although a game of chess produces a history, and although one can have conceits in mind for the pieces, the moves, and the board, when one plays chess one is not involved in manipulating fiction. One plays chess <em>in the real world</em>, as it were.</p><p></p><p>One of the unique challenges of TTRPG design is crafting rules that manipulate - are informed by and have effect in - fiction. Ernest Adams is emphatically <strong>not</strong> addressing that problem. [USER=7040941]@Emberashh[/USER] I would draw this point to your attention as I think you might see that while TTRPGs are certainly games and there are many commonalities between them and other games - they are easily recognisable members of the family - it is better to think in terms of incomplete overlaps. Meaning that there are design problems to solve for them that <em>don't arise</em> in other kinds of games.</p><p></p><p>It's possible that there are ways to see the neurological representation of fiction in a similar light to the mechanical representation of game world in CRPG, so that to say that TTRPG mechanics have fictional effect is actually to say they have neurological effect just as much as CRPG mechanics have mechanical effect (e.g. updating a game state and calculating and rendering the current scene.) I don't think Ernest Adams was making such an argument, although I admit I haven't read his book cover to cover. Even if it were, practical differences between brains (or future AIs) and current silicon computers would raise unique design problems... that are of the kind Vincent is illuminating! How do we craft mechanics when the results are uncertain yet intended to fall within certain norms? What norms do we make appeal to, and what is the ideal way to make that appeal? How can we constrain it? What purposes might we conceive for such mechanics? Vincent is writing on all of these important questions.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 9197985, member: 71699"] Ernest Adams was primarily writing for videogame design. He authored a series of articles on the subject and the book brings together many important ideas. Currencies as a tool of game design had been well explored by videogame designers, so that element of what Vincent was writing was not new (though neither was it misleading or unhelpful!) I think Vincent's most important contributions have been in the direction of "how to relate the fictional and the mechanical" which he accurately characterised in the piece you quoted as "[I]one of the ongoing and outstanding crises in rpg design[/I]." You might recall for example that we debated awhile back the prospect of games like chess as engines of fiction. Through long contemplation of your and Vincent's arguments I now think it is right that although a game of chess produces a history, and although one can have conceits in mind for the pieces, the moves, and the board, when one plays chess one is not involved in manipulating fiction. One plays chess [I]in the real world[/I], as it were. One of the unique challenges of TTRPG design is crafting rules that manipulate - are informed by and have effect in - fiction. Ernest Adams is emphatically [B]not[/B] addressing that problem. [USER=7040941]@Emberashh[/USER] I would draw this point to your attention as I think you might see that while TTRPGs are certainly games and there are many commonalities between them and other games - they are easily recognisable members of the family - it is better to think in terms of incomplete overlaps. Meaning that there are design problems to solve for them that [I]don't arise[/I] in other kinds of games. It's possible that there are ways to see the neurological representation of fiction in a similar light to the mechanical representation of game world in CRPG, so that to say that TTRPG mechanics have fictional effect is actually to say they have neurological effect just as much as CRPG mechanics have mechanical effect (e.g. updating a game state and calculating and rendering the current scene.) I don't think Ernest Adams was making such an argument, although I admit I haven't read his book cover to cover. Even if it were, practical differences between brains (or future AIs) and current silicon computers would raise unique design problems... that are of the kind Vincent is illuminating! How do we craft mechanics when the results are uncertain yet intended to fall within certain norms? What norms do we make appeal to, and what is the ideal way to make that appeal? How can we constrain it? What purposes might we conceive for such mechanics? Vincent is writing on all of these important questions. [/QUOTE]
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