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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8155450" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Ok, that is exactly what I thought.  I wish you would just come out and call me a "dishonest, ideologically-entrenched douche" rather than implying it and then bouncing the ball back in my court as you've done in the lead sentence above. Alright.1)  I brought up "RNG as epithet" because in the gaming community (not software development or wherever you're trying to draw jargon from), its pretty much exclusively used as an exasperated exclamation when someone feels that an aspect of a game (deep deck + draw mechanics, or a large and swingy dice game) highlights the noise of the RNG aspect sufficiently to damage the game's ability to distill the signal of skilled play. Whether you meant it in the clinical RNG bent of software development (or whatever) and therefore just meant it as a descriptor (rather than the neutral "fortune resolution" as I've always used it and most everyone else has), is besides the point for why I included it. I included it because its extremely important in a conversation about agency (maybe not to you or your point...but it absolutely is important as a fundamental aspect of the conversation).Now, moving on from that.2)  It was unclear to me what your hypothesis was until that last thing you posted where (a) you appear to think you have read my mind and (b) your brutally incorrect inference that I was being intellectually dishonest has led you profoundly astray.Because you haven't explicitly said it yet but you've hinted at it significantly above, I'm assuming what you're attempting to demonstrate is the following formulation:* The Czege Principle states that authorship of your own success at defeating an obstacle isn't fun.* "Isn't fun" here can be subbed out for "yields a meaningless decision" which can then be extrapolated to "authorship means no agency has been expressed."I now think that is what you're trying to do.Unfortunately, this is a complete non-sequitur.  It is a fundamental misunderstanding and subsequent  misappropriation of the axiom (which I'm sure someone has already told you along the way but I haven't read a lot of the thread lately).The reason why I included all those extra steps in the Play Loop?  ITS BECAUSE THEY'RE FUNDAMENTAL TO THE FORMULATION OF ALL OF THIS:1)  The Czege Principle is about NO INTERMEDIARY BETWEEN <OBSTACLE> - <MOVE> - <OBSTACLE DEFEATED>.  It is about AUTHORSHIP VIA FIAT.For instance:GM THINKING:  "This damn Spellcaster <OBSTACLE> is going to wreck my perfectly planned mystery/encounter/metaplot.  I know!  I'll leverage my exclusive access to the offscreen and unestablished backstory to erect this block! <MOVE>"GM IN PLAY:  "You cast your Scry/Teleport/Fly/Charm spell and nothing happens.  It must be an Anti-Magic Field! <OBSTACLE DEFEATED>"This is the Czege Principle at work.LITTLE KID PLAYING:  "I'm Indiana Jones!  DUN DUH DUNT DUUUUH! Oh no, a Pit Trap! <OBSTACLE>  "Oh look!  A chandelier <makes whip crack noise> <MOVE>  DUN DUH DUNT DUUUUH <pantomimes swinging across and landing on the other side>!<OBSTACLE DEFEATED>This is the Czege Principle at work.THIS is why proposal (and then consult the intervening procedures to determine if this proposal is actionable) is the correct word.  NOT AUTHORSHIP.The Czege Principle is about skilled play (and agency being an attendant feature of that).  This dovetails precisely with my point about RNG above.  "RNG" (the epithet) is a thing because it reduces the distillation of Skill Play.  Coming up with an obstacle and making a move by fiat to defeat it "is not fun" because it is THE COMPLETE ABSENCE OF SKILLED PLAY.EDIT - Ninja'd by [USER=16814]@Ovinomancer[/USER] :  "unilaterally author outcome" is another way to put it.  This is why "proposal > consult intervening procedure to determine if it is actionable" is the correct formulation.</blockquote>

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