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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 8500845" data-attributes="member: 71699">Chess defines the moves that can be made, and its goals guide the moves that are made. Machines play it well, so we cannot say it is a human-only domain.This is where the analogy of phase-spaces come in (using the term to label the volume containing all states of a system on each degree of freedom). Or let's just call it the list of all possible games (which may be infinitely vast, even while containing only games with the features a given game implies.)When I read a book, if I reread it I know what is going to happen. The dramatic-narrative is the same because books are linear and non-dynamic. Chess is non-dramatic, but it implies all its narratives. Thinking about its "phase-space" is just a way of noting that we don't need to play all those different games to know that they are implied.That's interesting and compelling to me. RPG stories that I have observed, for example the game's designer running a session of BB, are not as great a story as say Hamlet (or whatever literature you count great.) Even when successful and fun. What is compelling is something else.When we look at dramatic-story-focused games, are we trying to force something that is great in another medium, into a medium that has different strengths? When I read Law's narrative beats, I wonder if this dramatic-programming is the right analysis. Are we at the end of history for RPGs, and they will be judged on how well they can compare with dramatic-stories in linear media? Or is there more to find out?</blockquote>

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