Dr. Strangemonkey said:
For instance, I use the term traditional partially because I don't know that I've seen a term that fits the stance better but mostly because it's the term we've been using and we all know enough what it means by this point in the conversation to use it safely.
Fair enough. But I do think it is interesting and positive that as Plane Sailing has identified, we really have two divisions, not one and that we're moving from a discussion in which there is one axis to one in which there are two. There appears to be a
coherence axis and a
culture axis and part of the problem with our discourse here is that they were conflated at the beginning of the debate.
But, yes, I would argue that the standards of evidence for engaging in cultural simulation in RPG play should be higher than those of university presses, doctoral examining committees, and peer-reviewed academic journals, but primarily because you are engaging in very different form of argument not because the standards of evidence used by those insitutions is poor. For any of the above things the burden of evidence is simply to prove that a good argument can be made for a thing having being real. A far smaller burden of proof than proving what may or may not have been possible given the parameters of the time period.
I can see where you are coming from here in a sense. Correct me if I am wrong in observing that we are once again coming back to this question of suspension of disbelief that underpins much of this discussion. In order for you to suspend disbelief about how people who do not think in a modern way actually thought, you need a very high standard of proof. Fair enough. I wouldn't be surprised if educated Eberron fans like shilsen play cosmopolitan games for that very reason.
You can make fine arguments for the probable and general content of thought for a period and its a fine, fun, and useful activity,
which for some people becomes more fun when combined with gaming.
but, firstly, it is simply an argument and always was simply an argument
But so are theories about other aspects of the past like material culture. Based on medieval literature, it was assumed for centuries that rich people didn't eat pigs and poor people did. Yet the archaeological record has recently demonstrated that knights ate more pork than anybody else.
When it comes to questions of what houses are made out of, what crops are in the fields, what beasts are wild and domestic, what weapons people used, etc. we are engaging in just the same sort of best-guess historical simulation work. However, I know of nobody who would say that because the material past is not recoverable with certainty that there should be no effort made to circumscribe the material objects available in game. The same proof standards you reject in the field of cultural and intellectual history, I would argue, you accept when it comes to material history.
and thus bears within it a great deal of flexibility and, secondly, it's a far cry from an determination on the range of the possible or the strength of the necessary.
I think you're very pessimistic about the capacity to create in-game cultures that are non-modern that still manage to logically deal with issues of dissent, pluralism and individuality.
In terms of suspension of disbelief, I think that the real argument is that the parameters need to be set by genre
I have been in genre-driven games and I agree that literary genre can be used for this. However, I don't think that one can simply port over ideas of "genre" from literature to gaming with fidelity. Gaming is not literature; the fact that a byproduct of both things is story does not mean that they are especially analogous. There are many things to which one could relate RPGs based on one or two characteristics but the fact is that gaming is not a kind of literature.
Furthermore, what about the fantasy novels that strive to populate themselves with characters who think in pre-modern ways? George R R Martin's
Song of Ice and Fire and Sean Stewart's
Nobody's Son make it a real priority to ensure that the characters' thoughts exist within a cultural context.
in the larger and mechanical sense not by content.
You have to explain this phrase. What do you mean when you apply "larger mechanical sense" to "genre"?
To my mind any other standard is one that is essentially built on prejuidice,
All standards are based on prejudice. Liking (arbitrarily or not) one thing and not liking other things is the only meaningful way we can assemble and structure gaming groups.
You need to realize where you are and what you are doing before you forget it.
Could you please expand on this?
Poetic license isn't simply a fiat, it's a recognition of the inherent difference in the type of argument that is being made and the manner in which it reflects reality differently. And RPGs exist in the realm of the poet, however far removed from Keats they may be.
I have to disagree here. I mean what you say sounds impressive, philosophical and sweeping but doesn't convey the sense in which your statement is true. In what way is a weekly activity of a bunch of guys sitting around drinking beer and rolling dice the "realm of the poet"?
Bottom line I think cultural simulation is a poor activity for the realm of the speculative which RPGs participate in, and I think the genre resists it.
What is gaming a genre of? There are genres within gaming but gaming itself is not a literary genre.
Now, I'll yell at movies for botching the armor all the dang time I'm watching it, but that's because a lot of movies are making a different sort of thing than RPGs do.
I would be that if there were egregious breaches in material history/culture in gaming, it would get on your nerves too.
Cinema on Alexander the Great is making a statement on an adventure and building a piece of intellectual history, a movie about Indiana Jones is actually having an adventure.
That's not determined by the choice of subject matter, though. That is determined by the kind of movie people set out to make. A fantastic highly mythologized Alexander movie that made minimal objective truth claims could be quite fulfilling as could a gritty quasi-documentary about people attempting to thwart Hitler's attempts to mobilize occult power on his side in the 1930s.
There's a level at which what your doing with cultural simulation makes a big difference, I'll grant, so that you can use anthropological monographs perfectly appropriately either to justify a specific thought with a general one or to dispel a general myth that might stand as the justification for a specific thought, but I don't think that you stand on good ground when you use such a monograph to tramp down on the capacity of an individual author to create an individual instance.
It all depends on application. Sometimes doing so is a good idea; sometimes it is a bad idea. But, again, I think you are assuming I sit around in my games declaring, "you're not allowed to think that." Usually, in my games, when people's characters take intellectual positions that cannot be culturally contextualized (something exceedingly rare), we just weather it. Sometimes the person's fellow players try to reason with him or her to explain why they don't think such a position is sensible but that's about it. People make mistakes in simulation exercises all the time but when people do, you just move past it; you don't go "take that back!"
Basicly, if someone comes up with a 'Roman' character who has a highly developed theories of secular government,
This gives me a great opportunity to dispel some myths about my style of play but to do so, I need you to tell me what "secular government" means to you. Do you mean "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's?" If so, I don't think you have much to worry about; this idea was, after all, articulated within the Roman Empire on other occasions than the very famous one to which I draw your attention.
Or do you mean that the state should not respond to things it thinks demons are doing? This seems very problematic. Demons can cause disease and crop failure. Should the government decide not to address epidemics or crop failure because demons might be involved in them?
Or is it that local magistrates should not be involved in religious rituals? This doesn't seem like secular government at all -- prohibiting people's rights to engage in religious observance is quite problematic.
Why don't you give me an example of such a theory and then we can hash out how to go about culturally contextualizing it.
inviolable individual liberty,
Again, in what sense? Give me an example of the theory and then we can look at how to contextualize it.
and believes in the presumption of innocence then I don't think anyone is much in a position to say, "Hey, that doesn't make sense."
So, returning to the question of material history, how do you solve the problem of your PCs importing modern ideas and manufacturing gunpower, mining uranium to produce fissionable materials or building hydroelectric power systems? If it really totally wrong for a GM to in any way seek to limit the importation of modern thought into game worlds, how does one deal with its implications for the material world?
On the other hand, if someone were to say that those were beliefs widely held by Romans and their families or that the Romans came up with those ideas to give to us then I think it would irresponsible not to try to correct that misconception.
Look! Common ground! Yeah -- this is what the people who wanted to do Cosmopolitan play quit over in the D&D game in which I play. We happily conceded that if they wanted to have a bunch of modern ideas, we were not going to stop them. They became annoyed because we argued that these views were held by a small minority in the early 15th century Russia variant in which we were playing.
ptolemy18 said:
Of course, in the case of a fantasy game like D&D, the addition of fantastic elements inevitably turns the "real-world simulation" elements into mere set-dressing for the fantasy.
It depends on your standards for such a simulation. I have only ever run one real world simulation. It was set in the 9th century in Dalmatia but my idea of real world simulation was: the world was as people believed it to be. So, I used the literature of the time to determine just what kinds of creatures lived in the world, what kinds of magic could be used, etc. I consider this to actually be the most accurate type of historical simulation one can have -- far moreso than modern the sort of simulation one achieves by imposing modern ideas that demons don't exist, etc. onto people in the past.
One of the characters in the game was a Carolingian weather wizard who effectively had variants of D&D spells like
Control Weather, Lightning Bolt, Call Lightning, Ice Storm, Sleet Storm, etc. So, I think that if magic is done right, it can enhance rather than detract from a simulation agenda that is based on historical reality.
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