A discussion of metagame concepts in game design

[Maxperson]

...

Read the paragraph you quoted again.

I did. You're still off about horoscopes. The ones done by serious astrologers are much more specific than the ones in the papers and online.

 

[pemerton]

My opinion of history is that it is not a science - it involves careful observation, but not measurement, and does not provide the sort of systematically ordered knowledge that science does.

That's not to deny that historians provide knowledge - not all knowledge is scientific knowledge.

That's also not to deny that historians can identify causal relationships - not all identification of causation is scientific. (Eg I am identifying, right now, that movements of my fingers are causing events to occur in my computer, which in due course will cause other related events to occur in other computers, but I have not worked any of that out scientifically, and none of that is scientific knowledge.)

 

[Ovinomancer]

It's doing the same sort of work as "per se" or "ipso facto".

Eg hitting a ball with a bat is not per se sport, but it can be if certain other conditions are satisifed.

If the other conditions are internal to the hitting of the ball with the bat, then we're talking about some instances of hittings, diestinguished by their internal properties and relations.

The features I mentioned as making careful observation and measurement science are not external conditions. They are internal to the observation and measurement.

Your sentence structure didn't imply that reading, though, but thanks for the clarification. However, I strongly disagree that observation becomes science if there's some internal properties exist. Internal properties exists in everything if you look for them. This cannot be a sufficient condition.

Observation is only one part of the method. It cannot be science on it's own, regardless of how many internal conditions you think apply.

Without more, I'm also not persuaded that it would be science.

Science connotes not only a method, but also an output: a contribution to the stock of human knowledge, which is systematically generated and hence (in some fashion) systematically recoverable and disseminable.

As you describe it, I'm also not sure what your "experiments" would consist in other than careful observation and measurment. What properties of the cup, or of the grains, are you suggesting you would be investigating?

This need to attach significance to a tool is baffling. It's a tool, it doesn't have any measure of human import. Humans bring that. There's nothing profound about science, but there can be about what questions humans pursue with science. Don't confuse the two.

EDIT: I also checked the Wikipedia page on Joseph Banks, to see if it confirmed my own recollections:

[A]n English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences.

Banks made his name on the 1766 natural history expedition to Newfoundland and Labrador. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage (1768–1771), visiting Brazil, Tahiti, and, after 6 months in New Zealand, Australia, returning to immediate fame. He held the position of President of the Royal Society for over 41 years. He advised King George III on the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and by sending botanists around the world to collect plants, he made Kew the world's leading botanical gardens. . . .

From his mother's home in Chelsea he kept up his interest in science by attending the Chelsea Physic Garden of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries and the British Museum, where he met Daniel Solander. He began to make friends among the scientific men of his day and to correspond with Carl Linnaeus, whom he came to know through Solander. As Banks's influence increased, he became an adviser to King George III and urged the monarch to support voyages of discovery to new lands, hoping to indulge his own interest in botany. . . .

In 1766 Banks was elected to the Royal Society, and in the same year, at 23, he went with Phipps aboard the frigate HMS Niger to Newfoundland and Labrador with a view to studying their natural history. He made his name by publishing the first Linnean descriptions of the plants and animals of Newfoundland and Labrador. . . .

Banks was appointed to a joint Royal Navy/Royal Society scientific expedition to the south Pacific Ocean on HMS Endeavour, 1768–1771. . . .

The voyage went to Brazil, where Banks made the first scientific description of a now common garden plant, bougainvillea . . .

While they were in Australia, Banks, Daniel Solander and the Finnish botanist Dr. Herman Spöring Jr. made the first major collection of Australian flora, describing many species new to science. . . .

Banks arrived back in England on 12 July 1771 and immediately became famous. He intended to go with Cook on his second voyage, which began on 13 May 1772, but difficulties arose about Banks' scientific requirements on board Cook's new ship, Resolution. The Admiralty regarded Banks' demands as unacceptable and without prior warning withdrew his permission to sail.​

It seems that at least a number of scientists of his day regarded Banks's careful observation and measurement as constituting a contribution to scientific knowledge. And I personally regard the idea that one of the more significant enlightenment scientists, who was famous for his scientific endeavours and was a long-serving president of the Royal Society, was in fact not a scientist generating scientific knowledge, as a counterexample to the mooted definition of science and scientist that produce that result.

Careful observation can definitely be useful, but it's not, by itself, science. There's a method.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It can be, if the method used to make predictions is the scientific one. Why not? Like you say a little later, science is a tool that can be used for boring crap.

When it suffices. When it works.

Outcome cannot be the definition of science.

I didn't say it was. I said it was the factor by which the data you're obtaining are massaged.

I think you're confused about what massaged means in this context. It doesn't mean 'changes', it means 'is changed to affect the outcome of the experiment.' When calculating G, you don't change the experiment to get the correct value of G, you use the the result of the experiment to calculate G. There's a big difference.

If the weighting is in response to prior election results, in what sense is it subjective? If I adjust the gravitational constant of my physical model in response to experiment results, is that subjective?

Adjusting inputs to get an output is subjective. Adjusting your calculated results based on the results of your experiment isn't changing input data or output data, but the calculation you do with it. This is fairly simple stuff.

Are you saying that science is always confident and precise? I think you know better, but that really sounds like the argument you're making here.

Not at all, and how you got to me claiming science is more precise when I was pointing out your overconfidence is a pretty big jump.

You're doing nothing here but contradicting me, so I don't know what else to do but contradict you right back. Current events are absolutely within the domain of the historian, because the historical processes that historians study are not confined to the past and do not suddenly cease to exist at the present. When a historian of, say, labor relations comments on a contemporary labor dispute, that's not like a chemist commenting on philosophy - it's like a chemist commenting on more chemistry.

Yeah, we're just going to have to disagree that the study of history is the study of all time. I'm okay with that if you are.

 

[TwoSix]

Careful observation can definitely be useful, but it's not, by itself, science. There's a method.

Sure, but if my 6th grader tells me they learned about kingdoms and phyla in science class, and I tell them "Actually, that wasn't a real science class, you're really in more of 'learning basic background observations that will someday let you do actual science' class", I'm still kind of a douche.

The fact that a more precise definition of "science" exists doesn't render the more casual usage any less useful. There's nothing wrong with referring to a guy who spends 5 years in the Amazon rain forest cataloging the different kinds of ants that live there as a "scientist" even if he doesn't make a single hypothesis.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I did. You're still off about horoscopes. The ones done by serious astrologers are much more specific than the ones in the papers and online.

I'm sorry, I'm still a bit thrown by the oxymoron that is "serious astrologer".

Complexity is not the same as falsifiability. No matter how many and varied the calculations an astrologer makes, it's all for nothing if their prediction is phrased in such a way that its truth value is open to interpretation after the fact. No horoscope I've read, be it ever so "serious", has ever clearly stated, "We will be able to observe Event E happening at Time T and Place P, and if we do not observe it, then I am wrong and will need to modify or discard the theory under which I made this prediction." But such falsifiable predictions are the bread and butter of science. And they're also what Nate Silver is producing. Falsifiability alone is not sufficient to make a prediction scientific, of course - the method by which it is arrived at and the response to it are also critical - but without falsifiability, it is definitely not scientific. And this key distinction is what separates statistical prognostication from horoscopy (unless the statistical prognostication is stated vaguely).

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Outcome cannot be the definition of science.

You keep making these bald declarations, as if authority was yours to define terms and concepts by fiat. This one is particularly jarring, given how outcome-oriented science clearly is, and how distinctive that trait is compared to other, superficially similar fields (like astrology). Hell, one definition-for-kindergarteners I use for the scientific method is "seeing what works".

I think you're confused about what massaged means in this context. It doesn't mean 'changes', it means 'is changed to affect the outcome of the experiment.' When calculating G, you don't change the experiment to get the correct value of G, you use the the result of the experiment to calculate G. There's a big difference.

I understand that. I'm not sure you understand the analogy. Silver, per his stated methodology, does the latter. He uses the results of elections (experiment) to calculate the most effective weight (G) for a given input (data). He certainly doesn't change elections to fit his predetermined weight.

Yeah, we're just going to have to disagree that the study of history is the study of all time. I'm okay with that if you are.

Only if you're okay with my calling sports betting science.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I'm sorry, I'm still a bit thrown by the oxymoron that is "serious astrologer".

Complexity is not the same as falsifiability. No matter how many and varied the calculations an astrologer makes, it's all for nothing if their prediction is phrased in such a way that its truth value is open to interpretation after the fact. No horoscope I've read, be it ever so "serious", has ever clearly stated, "We will be able to observe Event E happening at Time T and Place P, and if we do not observe it, then I am wrong and will need to modify or discard the theory under which I made this prediction." But such falsifiable predictions are the bread and butter of science. And they're also what Nate Silver is producing. Falsifiability alone is not sufficient to make a prediction scientific, of course - the method by which it is arrived at and the response to it are also critical - but without falsifiability, it is definitely not scientific. And this key distinction is what separates statistical prognostication from horoscopy (unless the statistical prognostication is stated vaguely).

You clearly don't understand the model Silver presents. It's not falsifuable because it assigns a probability to all possible outcomes. That probability may be very small, nearly zero, but it exists. Now, what Silver opines will happen is falsifiable, but that's just his interpretation of the model output.

You have an extremely poor understanding of the underlying maths and that's leading you to be overconfident in the results. Like I keep saying about stats.

 

[Wiseblood]

Interesting choice of game to illustrate your point... D&D is pretty light on the metagamey elements.

Feng Shui is a game I’ve always felt used those concepts in a really effective and positive way. Modiphius’ 2d20 system which powers Conan and Star Trek has some heavy metagame elements (as a more modern example).

Metagaming is a slightly outdated term for player narrative control, which is much more popular in modern games. There are entire games built around the concept these days.

For me, it depends on the game. Are you asking about metagaming in D&D or metagaming in general? In some games it works really well (I go back to Feng Shui); in others it wouldn’t be a natural fit.

For me metagaming was making narrative decisions based on player knowledge and based upon information observed by other characters.

In other words Lidda is away from the party scouting & stumbles upon a band of monsters. They discover her and attack to subdue. When other PLAYERS hear this they look for excuses to come and help using all sorts of mental gymnastics.

What the op describes is merely the user interface of RPGs.

 

[Ovinomancer]

You keep making these bald declarations, as if authority was yours to define terms and concepts by fiat. This one is particularly jarring, given how outcome-oriented science clearly is, and how distinctive that trait is compared to other, superficially similar fields (like astrology). Hell, one definition-for-kindergarteners I use for the scientific method is "seeing what works".

Science is process oriented. If it was results oriented, then the neans of gettinf a correct result wouldn't matter -- astrology is as good as chemistry so long as they are right. This even ignores that science is a tool to learn what is true, so how can it be outcome based when you're doing science to learn some truth you do not already know? And your shorthand is perpetrating your misunderstanding of science, it isn't evidence of what science is.

I understand that. I'm not sure you understand the analogy. Silver, per his stated methodology, does the latter. He uses the results of elections (experiment) to calculate the most effective weight (G) for a given input (data). He certainly doesn't change elections to fit his predetermined weight.

The very nature of polling means that previous success does not result in future success, or haven't ypu noticed the run of failed predictions based on pollomg models? If Silver is doing science, then all the failures are as well, and, taken as a field, the result isn't very good. That a few models did well isn't evidence that they were science while the others aren't, and further goes to show that outcomes aren't the definition of science.

Only if you're okay with my calling sports betting science.

Oh, well, I suppose you'll have to continue to argue at me about history being the science of the future, literally.