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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 9515559" data-attributes="member: 6696971">This is a good post.  I typically always like your posts even if I don't agree with them entirely or with certain aspects of them.I like that you're switching the conversation to your typical inclinations toward challenge-based play.  I'd like to talk about that a little bit.  You and I have talked in the past about systems that index various goals simultaneously (in particular, we've discussed Blades in the Dark among a few others).So here is my sense of your position on challenge-based designs:* Like the bit above that I've bolded, it seems to me that you feel an awkward dissonance when micro goals in a game are sometimes at tension with one another or one micro goal is momentarily or perpetually at tension with a macro goal.  A game like Torchbearer (the pinnacle of challenge-based TTRPG design imo) would seem to generate this sort of struggle for you.  You have multiple clocks going simultaneously and they each demand you perform subtly different calculus to stay on top of them.  You have multiple currencies that power various aspects of play and attaining these or spending these come at costs to other interests or assessments around sacrificing immediate needs to invest in longterm gains.  Gaining and spending these currencies requires you to perform a lot of tactical and strategic calculus around various, sometimes competing, interests and loops/intervals of play.  Finally, gaining certain key currencies and advancing requires thematic struggle and action resolution failure.There are a lot of spinning plates to stay on top of and they can compound if you don't maintain extreme skill at managing the tactical level, the strategic level, while pushing hard on the thematic elements of play all times (which intersect with the tactical layer, the strategic layer, and the advancement layer).Torchbearer's "board state" is never something that lets up.  You can "keep the headman's axe at bay" perpetually and you can even thrive within the scope of your character's premise/thematics, but you never get full reprieve from that looming execution.  It, by design, always haunts play.  And you better not let up or it will catch up to you.My sense is you might call this approach "parasitic design" or a "decaying board state?"  If so, my sense is that you would ascribe "dysfunctional" as a descriptor for this approach to systematizing challenge-based play and organizing play priorities?* So, assuming the above is correct, I have a question for you regarding baseball; starting pitching specifically.  When you're a starting pitcher, the dynamics you're working under are actually rather similar to playing Torchbearer.  You have multiple competing interests that you have to constantly weigh and juggle.1) You have a pitch count clock that is ticking and constantly looming (modern era absolutely tries to keep starting pitchers below 100 pitch count...so finishing ball games as a starting pitcher is extremely difficult anymore).  So you need to optimize for efficiency, but sometimes a singular moment or a particular at-bat or a particular situation demands that you abandon your efficiency optimization to potentially "get out of a spot."2) Hitters' statistics increase dramatically vs a pitcher as the game deepens, as pitches accrue, and they get further at-bats against you.  The third time through the order is a statically a huge increase in metrics vs a pitcher when compared to the first time through the order.  Consequently, there are two different games of "cat & mouse" happening between pitchers and hitters here:2a) Pitchers often decline showing their full repertoire of pitches to either all hitters the first time through the order or to select hitters specifically.  This is a sacrifice of short-term gains for long term durability and the amelioration of that long-term trend of hitters getting better against you as at-bats accrue in a game.2b) Beyond the dynamics of 2a above, pitchers often change their sequencing and location dynamics of pitches either to the whole lineup or to specific hitters.  This might be working against a pitchers strength in a particular at-bat or in a particular inning or a particular time through the lineup.  The intended payoff is that a particular dangerous hitter or the lineup-at-large might be off balance; again sacrificing optimization of tactics right now for (hopefully) strategic payoff.3) The Home Plate Umpire is a huge part of a pitcher's calculus.  As the adage goes, "the most important pitch in baseball is strike 1."  That is because getting ahead of the hitter (achieving a 0 balls : 1 strike count) is absolutely essential for success at every interval (for this at-bat, for pitch count optimization, for staying out of trouble in this inning, and for reducing the total number of times through the order in the game).  However, the second most important pitch in baseball is on the 1-1 count.  The difference between hitter success on a 2-1 count (2 balls : 1 strike) vs a 1-2 count is profound.So a pitcher has to "game the Umpire" and pitch to that Ump's subjective tendencies both generally and especially on the first pitch of an at-bat and when facing a 1-1 count.4) Finally, it is absolutely essential that you "show up big" in big moments as a starting pitcher.  Your team is deeply relying upon you.  There is an intangible of grit and fortitude and courage that you have to show and that comes in many forms from (i) the way you carry yourself generally when its your day to (ii) your body language/disposition on the mound between pitches to (iii) whether you have proven that you can "clutch up" in order to "get out of a jam" or make a key pitch in a key situation.  And whether anyone wants to admit it or not (iv) striking out a key hitter for the other team (especially overmatching them with a fastball or making them look stupid with a slider) juices up your team, no doubt.This intangible component is kind of the thematic/premise piece.I could go on, but hopefully I've demonstrated the dynamics of starting pitching in baseball and why I feel like (i) its analogous to being a player in a game of Torchbearer and (ii) why I wonder if you would look at these starting pitching dynamics as "parasitic design" or a "decaying board state" (particularly the dynamics of the pitch count inevitably leading you to get taken out of the game) and therefore "dysfunctional challenge-based design."[HR][/HR]Hopefully this makes sense and gets some traction in your brain because I'm very curious about the contours of your positions on this stuff.  I'm pretty sure we disagree about key elements, but I don't know.</blockquote>

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