Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 9220030" data-attributes="member: 6690965">I don't actually think this is particularly controversial. We can't see the board, we have to come up with ways to work around that, we accept not having a board because it increases the possibility space and allows for unique gameplay structure, all things that are true of RPGs and not really true of other games. We all pretty much agree on those things, but I think the point here makes a leap.This is where I think the trick is coming in. The rules of chess do not exist to constitute the board. The interesting decisions in chess are not about the transition of pawn C2->C4, but about the structure of what emerges as a result of that composition, the plan for what will happen next, and the understanding of how moving that pawn will advance a player toward victory. Similarly, the game that is the TTRPG, despite its unique struggles with not being embodied and additional requirements necessary to simulate perceiving and interacting with the board, exists in interesting decisions above and beyond the composition of the fictional state.Chess is a particularly interesting example, because it's just possible for two sufficiently talented players to maintain the board state entirely in their minds and play a game by speaking their moves back and forth. Unwieldy and unnecessary, but you could totally do it. If one of them slipped, and forgot the position of a rook from earlier and declared an illegal move as a result, that would not be a negotiation that was part of the game, that would be an error. If one of them attempted to move a piece that had been captured, hoping their opponent had forgotten that result, that would also not be a point of negotiation, that would be cheating. The game isn't the board state, and the rules and play of the game exist on the board, not to constitute it.All of the bits of this example that are negotiation explicitly point to failed play. The likelihood point is classic play your GM stuff, the argument about modifiers is either a poorly written game text, an actual ask for clarification, or an attempt to use an ask for clarification to smuggle in more play-the-GM material. A discussion of the rule's modeling is a meta-game or game design concern and in theory outside the scope of play, or more likely, an attempt to use a meta-game or game design concern to play the GM. All of these are exacerbated by the classic rule 0, design the plane as you fly it ethos that permeates TTRPGs, but not endemic to the form. The rest of this is just resolution mechanics, which are not generally negotiable in games without ceasing to play the game first.That's...not a negotiation. Nothing is at stake, no exchange is happening, there are not agents with differing goals of various compatibilities. I am not negotiating with my boss when I walk to his desk and say "hey, I'm not totally clear what you wanted in that email, is that about the new report?" We're definitely trying to reach agreement on what I'm going to do with my time that afternoon, but the communication happening doesn't involve a give and take, and will be resolved when I get more information.You could stop at discussion, and I don't think anyone would object, but "negotiation" is a weird term to use in this context. I think it's really here to equate what's happening to a different process that does involve negotiation, where differing goals are put forward, and those are quite reasonably different things.</blockquote>

Verification