D&D 5E Human (mis) perception and how it affects gaming

[Manbearcat]

If you show someone a video of a group of people passing a ball around and you ask them to count the number of successful passes, they are likely to miss the man in the gorilla costume who saunters across the stage in the background, intentionally making a spectacle of himself.

If you have a well practiced x-ray technician focus on the top of a metacarpal, looking for an anomaly, they are apt to miss the fracture at the base of the metacarpal.

The tension of crisis during initial accounts of events cloud judgement, mental acuity and the conceptualization of the details of what was actually seen and heard and the passage of time with respect to those things...sometimes wildly from one account to the next.

There is an inherent "lost in translation" aspect at the core of human perception; deviation in levels of pre-concieved bias meets deviation in levels of understanding meets incongruencies in spatial orientation to create flux in interpretation.

You have layers of information conveyance in gaming.

1) The designers efforts at transparency of their written rules.
2) Their editors interpretation of what is important with respect to page count.
3) The GM ingesting those rules.
4) The players ingesting those rules.
5) GM to player interface with respect to that ingestion.
6) Player to player interface with respect to that ingestion.
7) What each player wants out of the game with respect to the others and how explicitly and how thoroughly each canvasses that with the other players/GM.
8) What the GM wants out of the game with respect to the players and how explicitly and how thoroughly they canvass that with the players.
9) The deviations in understanding, communication skills, information processing aptitude, preconceptions, and spatial orientation at the table.

I'm sure there are others.

How, if it all, can a ruleset (specifically 5e) work to minimize the inherent "perception flux" that exists between each of us?

 

[D'karr]

If you show someone a video of a group of people passing a ball around and you ask them to count the number of successful passes, they are likely to miss the man in the gorilla costume who saunters across the stage in the background, intentionally making a spectacle of himself.

If you have a well practiced x-ray technician focus on the top of a metacarpal, looking for an anomaly, they are apt to miss the fracture at the base of the metacarpal.

The tension of crisis during initial accounts of events cloud judgement, mental acuity and the conceptualization of the details of what was actually seen and heard and the passage of time with respect to those things...sometimes wildly from one account to the next.

There is an inherent "lost in translation" aspect at the core of human perception; deviation in levels of pre-concieved bias meets deviation in levels of understanding meets incongruencies in spatial orientation to create flux in interpretation.

You have layers of information conveyance in gaming.

1) The designers efforts at transparency of their written rules.
2) Their editors interpretation of what is important with respect to page count.
3) The GM ingesting those rules.
4) The players ingesting those rules.
5) GM to player interface with respect to that ingestion.
6) Player to player interface with respect to that ingestion.
7) What each player wants out of the game with respect to the others and how explicitly and how thoroughly each canvasses that with the other players/GM.
8) What the GM wants out of the game with respect to the players and how explicitly and how thoroughly they canvass that with the players.
9) The deviations in understanding, communication skills, information processing aptitude, preconceptions, and spatial orientation at the table.

I'm sure there are others.

How, if it all, can a ruleset (specifically 5e) work to minimize the inherent "perception flux" that exists between each of us?

I have found that lots of designer notes tend to minimize that aspect of incoherency, but also help when the DM/players want to take the game in different directions. For example if the designers tell the DM and players that they designed something with X in mind, then it's easier for the DM to adjust when his perception of X changes, or when he wants to stretch/contract the parameters of X.

 

[Manbearcat]

I have found that lots of designer notes tend to minimize that aspect of incoherency, but also help when the DM/players want to take the game in different directions. For example if the designers tell the DM and players that they designed something with X in mind, then it's easier for the DM to adjust when his perception of X changes, or when he wants to stretch/contract the parameters of X.

I absolutely agree. This is where 2 comes in to ruin the day. The consumer base also has a place in this as it tends to demand relatively small sized tomes such that costs are kept down. Actuaries and marketing strategists have their say there as well as they collate, process, and "interpret" (more perception yay!) that consumer data and make speculative assessments.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

Why should it?

At the table, if the DM and players cannot communicate with each other such that the game runs smoothly and differences in interpretation are settled with gentle debate, then the table has a problem, not necessarily the game. With trivial access to the designers' intentions, and indeed many avenues to ask direct questions of them, rules disagreements can be settled quite easily these days.

But why should a game force your table to interpret things in the same way mine does? Without the flux you speak of (which isn't really the right term, since nothing is flowing in or out, nothing is in motion, it is just different for different people - you might use variation or diversity instead), there would be a dearth of creativity in the game, a lack of imagination to work beyond the rules. This is a roleplaying game, not a board game.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Sidebars that describe the intent of a set of rules go a long way. In fact, in a modular game, each module should include a description of the intent of the module, how the mechanics reflect that (if not obvious), and potential ramifications of using it.

This is a level of documentation I don't think I've ever seen in a game, though the 3.5 Rules Compendium does do some. An expanded version of that would be an excellent model for a System Reference Document

 

[Manbearcat]

Information/stimuli in. Processing, perception and communication out. Which is why I used flux. But you can certainly use a different phrase if you'd like. Sort of like top of the atmosphere radiative flux with shortwave and longwave radiation. The brain is the top of the atmosphere in this case.

Solid, transparent, non-negotiable information doesn't inherently inhibit creativity or imagination. For many people, without a tangible framework/canvass, they are paralyzed with an inability to leverage their creative reservoir. We do not all work the same when it comes to accessing our creative centers.

 

[Ahnehnois]

How, if it all, can a ruleset (specifically 5e) work to minimize the inherent "perception flux" that exists between each of us?

Why would you want to?

 

[Warbringer]

How, if it all, can a ruleset (specifically 5e) work to minimize the inherent "perception flux" that exists between each of us?

There are always meta communication issue that revolve around the creation of any how to text, but to minimize these the designer needs to decide the specific nature of the target audience, and write only for that audience.

Unfortunately, that means writing for a specific play style, the majority play style identified in the playtest.

After that, avoid jargon

Clean consistent writing
References that actually point to the right place in the text
Lots and lots and lots of examples

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I like what has been said about explaining why aspects of the rules or game are the way the are. Part of that can be taken care of in the Dungeon Master's Guide (or equivalent), and probably should. It can be frustrating from any perspective finding out that the reason whether your group is arguing over whether or not a rule should or should not be there is because they are coming to the table with different assumptions of what the game (or the adventure, or the campaign, or the encounter) is intended to be about. The more friendly debates and discussions I observe in my group, the more I realize that communication and clarity on "what is it we are here to do?" is extremely important.

 

[FireLance]

Why would you want to?

To increase sales of the RPG, of course.

Or did I misunderstand your question?