Breaking Edition Stereotypes

[Manbearcat]

double post

 

[Manbearcat]

These authors aren't trying to model reality: they're making the points they want to make using story components adapted from reality.

Great post but, alas, I cannot xp.

To span the spectrum, Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) and Andrew Stanton (Wall-E) weren't trying to simulate dystopian futures. The worlds were conduits for the authors' social/political commentaries (warnings?) and ruminations (affirmations?) upon the human condition.

 

[dd.stevenson]

Hmmm...

Pathfinder games that are published adventure only? Check.
OSR games that I house rule and then blog about? Check.
DDN playtests in the caves of chaos? Check.

Well, this is embarrassing...

But D&D worlds have no need for a clear distinction between magic and reality. When I play, I’m not modeling the real world, or even the real world + magic. I’m modeling a fantasy world, where I can edit natural laws that get in the way of my fun.

Some might say this confirms the stereotype of hand-wavium and action movie physics. No?

Not that these things bug me in the least, mind you!

 

[pemerton]

Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) and Andrew Stanton (Wall-E) weren't trying to simulate dystopian futures. The worlds were conduits for the authors' social/political commentaries (warnings?) and ruminations (affirmations?) upon the human condition.

Brave New World is quite interesting in this respect.

My understanding is that it's heavily influenced by Bertrand Russell's The Scientific Outlook, and especially the chapter on Scientific Reproduction. Russell's book is a work of non-fiction, an attempt at "futurology", and to that extent is a simulation - an attempt to project from known starting points via application of systematic causal reasoning. What Huxley does is take Russell's predictions and turn them into a piece of literature: as you say, a comment rather than a prediction or simulation.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Some might say this confirms the stereotype of hand-wavium and action movie physics. No?

I suppose that someone might, but I've always thought that hand-wavium and action movie physics are based on a lack of explanation. "Eh, it doesn't matter, so whatever. It's just a game/movie, etc." But maybe that's not everyone's idea of what those terms mean.

 

[Ratskinner]

Dickens is a realist, yes. As, per your link, is Flaubert. But to think of their works as simulations of anything strikes me as absurd. Madame Bovary isn't a simulation of the life of the bourgeoisie - it's an attack upon it. Great Expectations isn't a simulation of what happens when the younger brother of a smith's wife receives an anonymous bequest - at least as it spoke to me when I read it, it's about the illusions that drive so much of modern social dynamics.

These authors aren't trying to model reality: they're making the points they want to make using story components adapted from reality.

This is where I fall as well. In order to be a simulation at all (in the gaming sense), a work must involve some sort of decision or event processing which is designed to model some kind of "reality" (loosely termed). Works of literature simply don't do that. (I suppose maybe those Choose You Own Adventure books might be an exception. ) The nature of that processing is what (sorta) determines whether a game is Sim or Gamist. Of course, this was kinda the problem with 2e that lead to railroading. Folks wanted to bring that literary expression to gaming, and it didn't work out so well.

 

[Kalontas]

I definitely agree with "magicising" the world a bit. I definitely like the approach of "science that sounds like magic", as opposed to the reverse we usually see. I don't like just doing whatever the hell you want and hand-waving it away with "magic!" I do like making magic make sense.

My world is made of atoms - but not atoms of hydrogen, or oxygen - atoms of fire, water or "blood" (life force). Portals work by anchoring energy particle to an object, and then throwing so much energy (bound to that portal anchor) that the fabric of space itself is pierced and opens up a whole to the location of the portal anchor - which is based on real world physical theories of quantum entanglement.

The OP sounds like just that sort of thing. I like the sound of that.