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Interesting Decisions vs Wish Fulfillment (from Pulsipher)
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6344914" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Here are some phrases which, for message board purposes, can be treated as synonymous: "is hard"; "is a challenge"; "is difficult".</p><p></p><p>Relying on that synonymy, I now restate the quote:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">If you have a truly hard game, then there has to be a significant chance of failure. If it's possible to change the ods, then it's not really that hard. It might be hard to find how to change the odds, but the fact that the odds can be changed belies the hardness.</p><p></p><p>I hope that this restatement reveals what has gone wrong: if it is <em>hard </em>to change the odds, then in fact the game was <em>hard</em>, even if the upshot is that the odds were changed and hence the final, modified, risk of failure was low.</p><p></p><p> [MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION] gave work examples; I can give some too. When I have to get something written by a deadline, I rarely fail - writing to a deadline is part of my job. But that doesn't mean it can't be hard - it's just that I put in the effort, an am quite good at it. You might retort, "OK, then, it's not hard for you" - but now we're just playing with ambiguities in the meaning of "hard. Eg it's not hard in the sense that I'm likely to fail, but it certainly is hard in the sense that I might be exhausted by the end of it.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I think this is obviously untrue. I mean, every sudoku or crossword has a solution, but that doesn't mean that no puzzle of that sort is ever a real challenge. It's a long time since I took a maths or logic exam, but every question on those exams had a solution too, a solution that I was in principle capable of identifying and applying. It doesn't mean that none of them was hard.</p><p></p><p>Or to give a real-world example: the threat to mercant shipping of submarine warfare was able to be mitigated via the convoy system, plus other innovations in naval practices and technology. That doesn't mean that the threat posed by submarines was an illusion!</p><p></p><p></p><p>This makes sense to me.</p><p></p><p>So does this.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>As I posted a way upthread, I agree that it's not about difficulty. Nor is it about linear/sandbox. It's about "choice" vs "experience". In RPGing, the examplar of "wish fulfillent" is not really what Emerikol pulled out in the OP. It's first person immersive RPing. I think of CoC as the poster-child for this, but I think a lot of the more "avant garde" 2nd ed stuff (Ravenloft, Planescape) was intended to be played this way too.</p><p></p><p>I like your analysis. I don't know that I agree with the connection to WF, though - goofing off isn't necessarily about "having an experience". I think it can often be about "authorship", about achieving some communicative effect in the real world. (Eg making a point about your PC, or about someone else's, or making a point about what is at stake.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6344914, member: 42582"] Here are some phrases which, for message board purposes, can be treated as synonymous: "is hard"; "is a challenge"; "is difficult". Relying on that synonymy, I now restate the quote: [indent]If you have a truly hard game, then there has to be a significant chance of failure. If it's possible to change the ods, then it's not really that hard. It might be hard to find how to change the odds, but the fact that the odds can be changed belies the hardness.[/indent] I hope that this restatement reveals what has gone wrong: if it is [I]hard [/I]to change the odds, then in fact the game was [I]hard[/I], even if the upshot is that the odds were changed and hence the final, modified, risk of failure was low. [MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION] gave work examples; I can give some too. When I have to get something written by a deadline, I rarely fail - writing to a deadline is part of my job. But that doesn't mean it can't be hard - it's just that I put in the effort, an am quite good at it. You might retort, "OK, then, it's not hard for you" - but now we're just playing with ambiguities in the meaning of "hard. Eg it's not hard in the sense that I'm likely to fail, but it certainly is hard in the sense that I might be exhausted by the end of it. I think this is obviously untrue. I mean, every sudoku or crossword has a solution, but that doesn't mean that no puzzle of that sort is ever a real challenge. It's a long time since I took a maths or logic exam, but every question on those exams had a solution too, a solution that I was in principle capable of identifying and applying. It doesn't mean that none of them was hard. Or to give a real-world example: the threat to mercant shipping of submarine warfare was able to be mitigated via the convoy system, plus other innovations in naval practices and technology. That doesn't mean that the threat posed by submarines was an illusion! This makes sense to me. So does this. As I posted a way upthread, I agree that it's not about difficulty. Nor is it about linear/sandbox. It's about "choice" vs "experience". In RPGing, the examplar of "wish fulfillent" is not really what Emerikol pulled out in the OP. It's first person immersive RPing. I think of CoC as the poster-child for this, but I think a lot of the more "avant garde" 2nd ed stuff (Ravenloft, Planescape) was intended to be played this way too. I like your analysis. I don't know that I agree with the connection to WF, though - goofing off isn't necessarily about "having an experience". I think it can often be about "authorship", about achieving some communicative effect in the real world. (Eg making a point about your PC, or about someone else's, or making a point about what is at stake.) [/QUOTE]
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