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<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6780768" data-attributes="member: 27160"><p>Well, the incidence of mistakes is quite high, but the more "serious" and important the decision, the more likely "system 2" is to scrutinise and veto dubious answers, so instances of high impact errors are relatively rare (as one would hope!) Instances of low-impact errors are high, however - high enough to affect economic systems (and hence my interest in studying the area).</p><p></p><p>If you feel you need to refute the model, however, please instead read it through again, because I think it shows also how just the structure you espouse <em>can</em> work, and work well. I'm going to talk about it in the context of this next paragraph, because it caused me to think more deeply - always a good thing, and much more fun than what I should have been doing! <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devil.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":devil:" title="Devil :devil:" data-shortname=":devil:" /></p><p></p><p></p><p>Note that system 1, when it uses an availability heuristic to judge an intensity, often looks for easily recalled instances in life or art. In the case of RPGs, often it looks in genre books, movies, TV series and so on. It follows, then, that if you share a common culture and common tastes in genre reading and watching, it would be quite possible to cultivate a group of people who are all using similar bases for their availability heuristics when judging things about the game world, provided that the genre and sources were clear enough. This would give the players and the GM enough of a common notion of the game world to have it feel coherent and "familiar" to play in. In other words, what you describe happening in your games fits well with the theory.</p><p></p><p>So, what's my beef? Well, thinking about it, I don't have any objection to the "GM makes a world for the players to explore" from the point of view of feeling "real", or permitting exploration. My problem is that it prevents any real bite of the "game" part of "roleplaying games", because the players have no firm base of understanding upon which to make strategic decisions. Or, rather, as my earlier post shows, if they do persist in "gaming" their one avenue is to game the GM, by trying to anchor and frame his decisions.</p><p></p><p>Now, it occurs to me that, from your perspective, this may very well be no real problem - in fact, it makes perfect sense for it to be a positive advantage. The paragraph I quoted above gives me the impression that exploration and experiencing the game world and situation are more important in your gaming style than either story provokation or strategising. My experience suggests that, if either of these two features are allowed, they rapidly become a primary focus of play. It makes good sense to me, therefore, that you would want to discourage them if you wanted to positively promote the experiencing/exploring aspect of roleplaying.</p><p></p><p>Both (collaborative) story provokation and gaming/strategising require hard-and-fast rules to work well. Without a solid rule foundation, gamers cannot make sound tactical or strategic plans and decisions and collaborative story-play will devolve into one person dominating the "story"*.</p><p></p><p>So, if you want to steer clear of either gamist or narrativist play, I think that GM judgement calls could be just the ticket. This will still be susceptible to "disruptive" players who want to play in either "storytelling" or "gaming" mode, but that is an issue of communication. It should be made clear that, while there are (perfectly good) games aimed at promoting just those agendas, those playing this game are interested in avoiding them in order to promote the simple joy of exploring and experiencing the wonders of the game world.</p><p></p><p>If you want a game with significant strategising or collaborative story provokation, though, GM judgement calls are best avoided. This is because they allow players only a hazy concept of what the "rules" are and, worse, once they realise what the rules <em>really</em> are they are susceptible to abuse, if you game them. GM decisions can be "anchored" and "framed" with a view to either dominating the story or "winning" the game - and neither is good for the health of play.</p><p></p><p>An interesting insight, I think, into the place of GM judgement calls in roleplaying rules - thanks!</p><p></p><p>*: Another aside - the existence of firm rules such as FATE point rules is why I think [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] is quite wrong about not being able to explore a world/story you have had a role in authoring. The point of such rules in games designed for collaborative storytelling is to ensure that the story is <em>collaborative</em> - that <strong>everyone</strong> gets input into the authorship. This can indeed result in stories that surprise everyone who is playing! In FATE, you can do a pretty good job of directing the story just as you want... right up until you run out of FATE points! Then it's someone else's go. If you want a simple and quick way to try this out, try the card game "Once Upon a Time". It does something similar by giving rules for narratorship to move around the table and an objective (play all your cards). It's quite short and very simple, but I challenge anyone to predict the story that will come out of a game!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 6780768, member: 27160"] Well, the incidence of mistakes is quite high, but the more "serious" and important the decision, the more likely "system 2" is to scrutinise and veto dubious answers, so instances of high impact errors are relatively rare (as one would hope!) Instances of low-impact errors are high, however - high enough to affect economic systems (and hence my interest in studying the area). If you feel you need to refute the model, however, please instead read it through again, because I think it shows also how just the structure you espouse [I]can[/I] work, and work well. I'm going to talk about it in the context of this next paragraph, because it caused me to think more deeply - always a good thing, and much more fun than what I should have been doing! :devil: Note that system 1, when it uses an availability heuristic to judge an intensity, often looks for easily recalled instances in life or art. In the case of RPGs, often it looks in genre books, movies, TV series and so on. It follows, then, that if you share a common culture and common tastes in genre reading and watching, it would be quite possible to cultivate a group of people who are all using similar bases for their availability heuristics when judging things about the game world, provided that the genre and sources were clear enough. This would give the players and the GM enough of a common notion of the game world to have it feel coherent and "familiar" to play in. In other words, what you describe happening in your games fits well with the theory. So, what's my beef? Well, thinking about it, I don't have any objection to the "GM makes a world for the players to explore" from the point of view of feeling "real", or permitting exploration. My problem is that it prevents any real bite of the "game" part of "roleplaying games", because the players have no firm base of understanding upon which to make strategic decisions. Or, rather, as my earlier post shows, if they do persist in "gaming" their one avenue is to game the GM, by trying to anchor and frame his decisions. Now, it occurs to me that, from your perspective, this may very well be no real problem - in fact, it makes perfect sense for it to be a positive advantage. The paragraph I quoted above gives me the impression that exploration and experiencing the game world and situation are more important in your gaming style than either story provokation or strategising. My experience suggests that, if either of these two features are allowed, they rapidly become a primary focus of play. It makes good sense to me, therefore, that you would want to discourage them if you wanted to positively promote the experiencing/exploring aspect of roleplaying. Both (collaborative) story provokation and gaming/strategising require hard-and-fast rules to work well. Without a solid rule foundation, gamers cannot make sound tactical or strategic plans and decisions and collaborative story-play will devolve into one person dominating the "story"*. So, if you want to steer clear of either gamist or narrativist play, I think that GM judgement calls could be just the ticket. This will still be susceptible to "disruptive" players who want to play in either "storytelling" or "gaming" mode, but that is an issue of communication. It should be made clear that, while there are (perfectly good) games aimed at promoting just those agendas, those playing this game are interested in avoiding them in order to promote the simple joy of exploring and experiencing the wonders of the game world. If you want a game with significant strategising or collaborative story provokation, though, GM judgement calls are best avoided. This is because they allow players only a hazy concept of what the "rules" are and, worse, once they realise what the rules [I]really[/I] are they are susceptible to abuse, if you game them. GM decisions can be "anchored" and "framed" with a view to either dominating the story or "winning" the game - and neither is good for the health of play. An interesting insight, I think, into the place of GM judgement calls in roleplaying rules - thanks! *: Another aside - the existence of firm rules such as FATE point rules is why I think [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] is quite wrong about not being able to explore a world/story you have had a role in authoring. The point of such rules in games designed for collaborative storytelling is to ensure that the story is [I]collaborative[/I] - that [B]everyone[/B] gets input into the authorship. This can indeed result in stories that surprise everyone who is playing! In FATE, you can do a pretty good job of directing the story just as you want... right up until you run out of FATE points! Then it's someone else's go. If you want a simple and quick way to try this out, try the card game "Once Upon a Time". It does something similar by giving rules for narratorship to move around the table and an objective (play all your cards). It's quite short and very simple, but I challenge anyone to predict the story that will come out of a game! [/QUOTE]
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