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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8299121" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>If, by "exogenous", you mean <em>the game designers didn't write them down</em> (eg because they forgot to, or because they thought they were self-evident, or it didn't occur to them that anyone might try and play the game a different way), then sure. I think everyone agrees that OD&D and AD&D are not complete games as published - you can't play them as their designers conceived of them without bringing in some knowledge that the texts don't give you.</p><p></p><p>But there is another sense of "exogenous" which I don't think is apt here. For instance, in backgammon if your have a 6 and 1 as your opening roll then there is a best move. But that statement of principle is exogenous to the game-as-artefact in the sense that (i) it is not stated in the rules, is not implicit in the rules as stated, and is not entailed by the rules as stated, and (ii) you can play backgammon, and perhaps even win backgammon, without adhering to or even being aware of that principle. The principle is ultimately a probability-based generalisation that takes the rules as a given and assumes winning as a goal:<em> if you get the chance to make this move (by rolling 6 and 1), and then <u>do</u> make it, you are more likely to win the game then if you use that 6 and 1 to make some other move</em>. I can't speak as confidently about chess as backgammon, but I think principles that govern openings and development can probably be compared to the one I've described for backgammon.</p><p></p><p>It's an interesting feature of these, and many other, games that - having stated rules for them, including win conditions - these other principles emerge. Gygaxian skilled play gives rise to similar principles - for instance, there are more or less optimal gear load outs and spell load outs, and while some of these are going to be very context dependent some can be generalised with a reasonably high degree of stability (eg all else being equal, Sleep is a better spell to memorise than Affect Normal Fires).</p><p></p><p>But the principles and techniques that are necessary to actually be playing Gygaxian skilled play at all are not like this. They are <em>presupposed </em>by the game rules as stated, and in that fashion are entailed by those rules: the rules don't make sense, and won't support the win condition of the game - ie acquiring skill to earn XP and thereby demonstrate one's skill at play - unless understood in light of, and applied in accordance with, those principles and techniques.</p><p></p><p>To try and talk about Gygaxian skilled play while keeping those principles and techniques out of the discussion, and <em>only </em>talking about the content of the rulebooks, will be fruitless. The rulebooks are incomplete, in a way that the rules for chess and backgammon simply are not. (The comparison is like one between modern recipes, which are complete, and mediaeval or early modern recipes which say things like "Take a pig, butcher it and cook it." I don't know much about the history of recipes, but for game rules I assume that Hoyle is or is near the beginning of attempts to state rules completely. Gygax's attempts to write down the rules of his game are simply not up to Hoyle standards.)</p><p></p><p>In my previous post I said "I don't agree". I'll finish this post by saying that I'm not really sure of where you're trying to head. If the point is that Gygax's rules are incomplete, then I think that's true and very widely acknowledged (and very widely acknowledged now for decades - Ron Edwards wrote interesting stuff about that point 20-odd years ago, and can't have been the first). But if you are asserting that we can discuss what is written in Gygax's rulebooks, and from that alone get some insight into Gygaxian skilled play without having to have regard to the unstated but crucial and presupposed principles and techniques of play, then it's still the case that I don't agree.</p><p></p><p>If your point is neither of the above then I apologise for not having followed it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8299121, member: 42582"] If, by "exogenous", you mean [I]the game designers didn't write them down[/I] (eg because they forgot to, or because they thought they were self-evident, or it didn't occur to them that anyone might try and play the game a different way), then sure. I think everyone agrees that OD&D and AD&D are not complete games as published - you can't play them as their designers conceived of them without bringing in some knowledge that the texts don't give you. But there is another sense of "exogenous" which I don't think is apt here. For instance, in backgammon if your have a 6 and 1 as your opening roll then there is a best move. But that statement of principle is exogenous to the game-as-artefact in the sense that (i) it is not stated in the rules, is not implicit in the rules as stated, and is not entailed by the rules as stated, and (ii) you can play backgammon, and perhaps even win backgammon, without adhering to or even being aware of that principle. The principle is ultimately a probability-based generalisation that takes the rules as a given and assumes winning as a goal:[I] if you get the chance to make this move (by rolling 6 and 1), and then [U]do[/U] make it, you are more likely to win the game then if you use that 6 and 1 to make some other move[/I]. I can't speak as confidently about chess as backgammon, but I think principles that govern openings and development can probably be compared to the one I've described for backgammon. It's an interesting feature of these, and many other, games that - having stated rules for them, including win conditions - these other principles emerge. Gygaxian skilled play gives rise to similar principles - for instance, there are more or less optimal gear load outs and spell load outs, and while some of these are going to be very context dependent some can be generalised with a reasonably high degree of stability (eg all else being equal, Sleep is a better spell to memorise than Affect Normal Fires). But the principles and techniques that are necessary to actually be playing Gygaxian skilled play at all are not like this. They are [I]presupposed [/I]by the game rules as stated, and in that fashion are entailed by those rules: the rules don't make sense, and won't support the win condition of the game - ie acquiring skill to earn XP and thereby demonstrate one's skill at play - unless understood in light of, and applied in accordance with, those principles and techniques. To try and talk about Gygaxian skilled play while keeping those principles and techniques out of the discussion, and [I]only [/I]talking about the content of the rulebooks, will be fruitless. The rulebooks are incomplete, in a way that the rules for chess and backgammon simply are not. (The comparison is like one between modern recipes, which are complete, and mediaeval or early modern recipes which say things like "Take a pig, butcher it and cook it." I don't know much about the history of recipes, but for game rules I assume that Hoyle is or is near the beginning of attempts to state rules completely. Gygax's attempts to write down the rules of his game are simply not up to Hoyle standards.) In my previous post I said "I don't agree". I'll finish this post by saying that I'm not really sure of where you're trying to head. If the point is that Gygax's rules are incomplete, then I think that's true and very widely acknowledged (and very widely acknowledged now for decades - Ron Edwards wrote interesting stuff about that point 20-odd years ago, and can't have been the first). But if you are asserting that we can discuss what is written in Gygax's rulebooks, and from that alone get some insight into Gygaxian skilled play without having to have regard to the unstated but crucial and presupposed principles and techniques of play, then it's still the case that I don't agree. If your point is neither of the above then I apologise for not having followed it. [/QUOTE]
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