Not a Conspiracy Theory: Moving Toward Better Criticism in RPGs

[Hussar]

I think you're putting a lot more emphasis on which encounter gets chosen (blindly or otherwise) than is really there. In my experience of map and key play, the expectation is that most of the doors will be opened at some point or another.

And the players determine the order of those encounters by…. Please tell me the acceptable term for making a decision with limited information.

 

[Hussar]

It feels like there is rarely fully-informed information about anything....

Ok. Fair enough.

Then what is the acceptable term for making decisions based on little or no information? Apparently guess is wrong. And anything I say is going to be subject to the ultra pedantic (well it’s never fully informed) treatment.

So folks you let me know.

 

[Hussar]

I remember reading many a paper in college (written in response to another) that stated such things as, "Working with your definition of term X", sometimes with the additional proviso, "as I understand it".

Absolutely. You don’t necessarily have to agree with every element of a term in order to understand it and use it.

 

[Hussar]

Is “informed guesswork” acceptable?

 

[Lanefan]

Ok. Fair enough.

Then what is the acceptable term for making decisions based on little or no information? Apparently guess is wrong. And anything I say is going to be subject to the ultra pedantic (well it’s never fully informed) treatment.

So folks you let me know.

When boiled right down, I think the best term is simply "exploration"; as that is (one hopes!) what is occurring.

 

[Cadence]

Ok. Fair enough.

Then what is the acceptable term for making decisions based on little or no information? Apparently guess is wrong. And anything I say is going to be subject to the ultra pedantic (well it’s never fully informed) treatment.

So folks you let me know.

EDIT: Maybe skip this one and go to the one right below it.

Guess certainly seem fine for a single decision with no or (what I would think of as) little information. At some point it started sounding like you were analogizing a bunch of people's play to an endless string of uninformed coin flips... even when they described gathering information, etc... Maybe I/they misread. Given the point of this thread, having folks come back as pedantic when they thought their ttRPGing was being described as the mental level of the card game war didn't seem to surprising to me.

 

[Cadence]

Is “informed guesswork” acceptable?

When boiled right down, I think the best term is simply "exploration"; as that is (one hopes!) what is occurring.

Hmmm. Thank you @Hussar for giving me something to think about. Is "exploration" pretty much "informed guesswork"? Ditto for what doctors do with diagnoses? Car mechanics for a bunch of things? Researchers of most sorts?

Anyway, adding the "informed" in front of it makes it sound a lot better to me!

I wonder how the doctors, mechanics, and researchers would feel about it in an abstract discussion about what they do, vs. being told that's what they do?

::::

 

[Lanefan]

The action declaration I imagined was checking out the warehouse security "without being caught or shot".

A guard asking you your business is not being shot. It's not being caught (as in captured). It's not even being caught (as in having one's cover blown). I reiterate: a Stormtrooper asked Ben and Luke what their business was. This did not result in them being shot, or captured, or having their cover blown.

True, but not every character has a 437th-level NPC psionicist riding shotgun in the speeder to obliterate the Stormtroopers' memories and clear the way.

My character at the warehouse sure doesn't, anyway. Therefore, I'm all I've got; and to me having my face seen up close comes under "getting caught". I don't want anyone to be able to remember me later, therefore I most certainly don't want to interact closely with anyone; even less so if they're armed. After my surveillance shift, when I get back to my [hotel, base, whatever] I'm changing my clothes and maybe destroying the old ones so they too can't be recognized later.

Having a chance to seduce or bribe or intimidate or read a guard isn't negative, in my view.

Yes it is, if my intention (goal) is to remain discreet and completely anonymous while watching the warehouse my involvement in any of those scenarios tells me I've failed. Therefore I don't think it's right for a GM to frame me straight into such a scene without giving me fair in-fiction opportunity to a) see it coming and b) avoid it if I so desire.

On a broader scale, it's another take on an issue I've raised before: more granularity, please.

Here is the mechanical framework for that last possibility:

When you read a person in a charged interaction, roll+sharp. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7–9, hold 1. While you’re interacting​

with them, spend your hold to ask their player questions, 1 for 1:​

• is your character telling the truth?​

• what’s your character really feeling?​

• what does your character intend to do?​

• what does your character wish I’d do?​

• how could I get your character to __?​

​

Reading a person is an investment in time. It means studying them carefully through the whole conversation, noticing changes in their tone, the movements of their eyes and hands, their most fleeting expressions. In play, have the player roll this move only (a) when the interaction is genuinely charged, and (b) when you’re going to play the interaction through.​

So the GM has put the player in a spot - a guard is talking to them - but has also provided the player with an opportunity - to talk to the guard and learn, for instance, "How could I get your character to let me into the warehouse unannounced?"

The very fact I'm in that spot means I've outright failed in my goal of remaining discreet and unobserved. There's no way I'm going to initiate any interaction with any guards, meaning the guard must have initiated the interaction with me in order for that scene to be framed; and further meaning that both as player and character I was given no opportunity to avoid said interaction.

It seems to me that you are assuming that the GM has a permission to make a hard move more-or-less at will. (Eg as in most approaches to AD&D play.) But as per the "play loop" that @Campbell posted upthread, the GM in Apocalypse World does not enjoy any such permission.

I suspect the GM doesn't enjoy the permission to arbitrarily declare failure of a character goal or sub-goal simply in order to frame a scene either.

 

[Hussar]

Hmmm. Thank you @Hussar for giving me something to think about. Is "exploration" pretty much "informed guesswork"? Ditto for what doctors do with diagnoses? Car mechanics for a bunch of things? Researchers of most sorts?

Anyway, adding the "informed" in front of it makes it sound a lot better to me!

I wonder how the doctors, mechanics, and researchers would feel about it in an abstract discussion about what they do, vs. being told that's what they do?

::::

If a car mechanic or a doctor routinely makes choices with the same level of information that players typically have, I would foresee malpractice suits in the very near future and dead customers from faulty brakes.

But sure doctors and mechanics are makin “informed guesses” if that will move us past this current overly pedantic wank we seem to be stuck in.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Struggle in what way?

In the ways they usually do. Lack of mutual understanding or agreement, arguing over labels instead of analyzing and contrasting actual playstyles. That kind of thing.

Pushback against what exactly.

Against the dominant paradigm that treats trad play as the default expectation.

When I pushback against a term like MMI,

I don't blame you for pushing back on that term. To me, it's a kind of trad play where something has gone wrong. Generally speaking, I don't think that's what most folks want from play.

or being told there's a double standard of required knowledge to be taken seriously in the discussion (and of course trad games require less, because reasons)...

I don't think there's a double standard. The one benefit to traditional play being so common is that most of us are familiar with it.

I think you've misunderstood.

My post said all of those are valid lenses. They all reveal a piece of truth.

I don't think they do. I think they all fail in some meaningful way.

Ok. Ok. I surrender. I will not call it guesswork any more.

What is the preferred term for making a decision with very limited information?

I think poor design and/or poor play. If I'm doing nothing but making uninformed decisions in play, I'm likely to be dissatisfied. I expect map and key play to allow for ways to learn things so that I can make informed decisions. For me to be able to make moves that allow me to gain greater understanding of the situation.