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<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6731244" data-attributes="member: 27160">I found this entire post quite bizarre, but I want to comment on this specific bit as Game Theory is something that I have studied to some degree as part of a Masters in Economics and Finance. The idea that Game theory is part of some sort of &quot;attack&quot; on a pre-existing culture of gaming is, I'm afraid, preposterous.Game Theory is a theory of economics concerned with analysing the way that people behave when trying to optimise outcomes for themselves. Specifically, it looks at situations where several people make decisions all at once and the outcome relies on the combination of decisions made by all &quot;players&quot;. This analysis is obviously applicable to games that involve more than one player making simultaneous decisions that combine to determine an outcome, as well as applying to the behaviour of economic agents. A couple of interesting observations arise from this:1) The main reason that Game Theory applies to several games is precisely that many games work on the conceit that they represent or simulate a &quot;real life&quot; situation. Since their earliest inception as training for adult life - a role they still fulfil among immature animals, including humans - games have commonly been based on the &quot;fiction&quot; that the actors in the games are pursuing &quot;adult&quot; activities.2) Game theory is not really applicable to D&amp;D as [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION] would have it, since the players are playing cooperatively and the GM is not a player in the Game Theory sense that (s)he is not making decisions...Game Theory, just to be clear, has nothing whatsoever to do with stories or storytelling. Its relationship to games is also quite incidental.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 6731244, member: 27160"] I found this entire post quite bizarre, but I want to comment on this specific bit as Game Theory is something that I have studied to some degree as part of a Masters in Economics and Finance. The idea that Game theory is part of some sort of "attack" on a pre-existing culture of gaming is, I'm afraid, preposterous. Game Theory is a theory of economics concerned with analysing the way that people behave when trying to optimise outcomes for themselves. Specifically, it looks at situations where several people make decisions all at once and the outcome relies on the combination of decisions made by all "players". This analysis is obviously applicable to games that involve more than one player making simultaneous decisions that combine to determine an outcome, as well as applying to the behaviour of economic agents. A couple of interesting observations arise from this: 1) The main reason that Game Theory applies to several games is precisely that many games work on the conceit that they represent or simulate a "real life" situation. Since their earliest inception as training for adult life - a role they still fulfil among immature animals, including humans - games have commonly been based on the "fiction" that the actors in the games are pursuing "adult" activities. 2) Game theory is not really applicable to D&D as [MENTION=3192]howandwhy99[/MENTION] would have it, since the players are playing cooperatively and the GM is not a player in the Game Theory sense that (s)he is not making decisions... Game Theory, just to be clear, has nothing whatsoever to do with stories or storytelling. Its relationship to games is also quite incidental. [/QUOTE]

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