Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8136245" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I think you've misunderstood what I'm saying here.  Let me clarify:I'm not remotely saying (and I would never say because its absurd) that game designers should not engage in understanding and leveraging well-understood cognitive fundamentals of humanity at large.  They 100 % have to.  In fact, one of the primary things that these (PBtA, FitD, et al) games do (which I often champion) is that their reward cycles are entirely Skinner Theory motivated:- xp for failure or xp for very specific things you want to reward so they animate players to pursue in play (pursuing thematic interests, making Action Rolls in Desperate Position in Blades, etc).Things like this are absolutely insightful and brilliant game design.And "say yes or roll the dice", "follow the players' lead", "do NOT have a solution in mind", "drive play toward conflict", "no plot points/don't play the story/there is no story/play to find out what happens" (Vincent Baker's axioms from Dogs in the Vineyard that informed Apocalypse World and all of its offshoots and, in my opinion, are the most influential indie design tenants there is) are ALL about broad human psychology.  They're about how to invest agency and provoke action within the players thus handing over a huge chunk of the responsibility for the trajectory of play.What I AM saying in my post above is the following:(a)  Human neurological diversity is extreme.(b)  Among that diversity are absolutely niche cognitive frameworks.(c)  I've been running these games and talking to people about them (thousands of people) for 16 years now (since I first ran Dogs in the Vineyard).  This is the FIRST time I've encountered it.  I've never encountered people saying "Success With Cost/Complication" feels indecipherable from "Failure."  That doesn't mean its not legitimate.  I'm sure they/you feel that way.  (d)  But because its niche its not something that is inferable by designers or something that can be uncovered via research (a la Skinner's research/experiments/theory).(e)  So they aren't going to design around the uninferrable.That is unless they're intentionally creating niche design for a very specific subset of people.  And don't get me wrong here either.  I'm not remotely against niche design.  I'm enormously encouraging of it.  That is one of the absolute best aspects of the indie design scene of the last 20 years (focused, intentful design for niche themes/premise/crowds).  And the last thing that I'm saying is that I don't know that all of this isn't a perception of "Success With Complications" as consistent with "Failure" is something that is actually native to all (or even much) of these people.  I have to wonder (like SO much that happens with D&D) how much of this is cultural or cognitive conditioning due to nearly exclusive exposure to one play paradigm (and its action resolution mechanics) for a long period of time.</blockquote>

Verification