I guess I must ask a similar question here to that I asked @Hussar. Would you say that help to navigate is help that if followed, is likely to see you navigate more successfully?
Sure, but I don't see that as being a matter of prediction. E.g., if I help someone to learn how to paint, it doesn't let them
predict which brush strokes to make or which colors to use. The closest you get to "prediction" is the development of appropriate intuitions, "artist's eyes" and the like. E.g., learning how to paint will include color theory, which has certain limited "predictive" value (e.g. predicting that if you use color X, it will be unlikely to go well with color Y), but by and large is more just a matter of developing an understanding, and being aware of what things
have worked for others before, so you can confidently
choose whether to hew to or disregard convention.
I think we can easily just grasp the nettle: GNS isn't predictive and therefore it can tell us nothing about what to do, avoid, or expect in our future game designs or play. It can only supply an interpretation and analysis of some objects of study that cannot be related to any future objects (no matter how similar in apparent type.)
Alternatively, we can take the other view: GNS can tell us something about future game designs and future play. For me that seems a very useful viewpoint, and it seems to be the view that many of the posts in this thread are predictated upon.
Yeah I think you're using "predict" in a way, way, WAY broader sense than others are. You seem to see it as, "If we can derive
literally any information from the theory, at all, about what is worth doing or might produce success, then it is
predictive," and that's not generally how people think of "predictive" theory. E.g., I don't think most people would think of (say) "French Cuisine," as a form of "predictive theory," in the sense that it's much more about origin, observation, and classification than it is about "if I use ingredients X, Y, and Z and employ cooking techniques A and B, the resulting dish must be French cuisine."
Awareness of the preferred
flavors of French cuisine and the preferred
ingredients of French cuisine is not, generally speaking, particularly useful for its
predictive value. That doesn't mean it provides no information, nor that these things are useless if you want to prepare French dishes--exactly the opposite, in fact, these things are essential for learning how to produce French cuisine. But they aren't useful because they're
predictive. They're useful for developing useful intuitions (which can be "predictive" in an
extremely loose sense).
Actually, here, let's use a more specifically practical example. The English language. Is "fluent in English"
predictive of what neologisms will be successful as additions to English? I would argue no. If you
want to invent new terms or usages in English, then intuitive understanding of what English "is" and "isn't" is going to be super, super useful. But there are tons of neologisms that never outlive the context they grew up in, and further significant ones that can't outlast the generation they came from. E.g., nobody uses "gas" in the sense of the phrase "he's a gas" anymore--meaning someone who makes you laugh a lot, so you
breathe a lot, hence "gas"--even though it was quite popular in the early 20th century. Being a native English speaker provides pretty much zilch in terms of
predicting whether terms will be accepted and stick around, and yet it is still useful, I would even say
essential, if you want to
try to coin new terms. If you can't speak English fluently, you will almost certainly struggle to coin new terms, unless you make such hilariously boneheaded mistakes that they become popular via comedy (see:
English As She Is Spoke). And yet many, many English speakers have coined new terms...which failed to achieve wide acceptance. Consider, for example, that before we had settled on "science fiction" as the name for that genre of fiction concerned with the future and featuring various fictitious technological advances or discoveries, there was much debate about the proper term, and a leading competitor to "science fiction" was "
pseudoscientific romance," a term you have most likely never heard unless you actively read fiction from the time (or responding to it in the decades following; I have only encountered it via Asimov.)
Awareness of how English works gives you "predictive" ability in a loose and intuitive way because, well, you hopefully develop the ability to "trust your ear"--if something
sounds wrong to a native/fluent English speaker, that usually means it
is wrong. But if your goal is to
coin new terms, merely avoiding wrongness isn't enough, and no amount of fluency will get you to the point where you can truly "predict" whether your coinage will stand the test of time for a decade, let alone a century. Was Shakespeare's command of the English language something that allowed him to
predict that "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy," would become words so iconic that even most school children have heard them despite knowing nothing of their context or meaning? I would argue
absolutely the hell not, indeed, that his command of English could not possibly have predicted anything about his plays other than that they would be coherent for an audience to comprehend, and yet
without that command of English, we could confidently predict that nothing he ever wrote would have survived to the modern day.
GNS is an
attempt--I would argue a heavily flawed one, but one of the most full-throated and deeply-investigated--to develop "fluency" in what roleplaying games are
for, their purposes and intentions. That fluency, if it could actually be achieved, would be as indispensible for developing new and audience-capturing games as "fluency with English" is for writing popular and audience-capturing plays. But that fluency will never be "predictive" in any durable, meaningful sense--such predictions may even be impossible.
@Hussar @EzekielRaiden would I be misstating your views if I said that you agree as to predictive, provided we qualify as to the strength. You both used terms like helpful, possibly anticipating a weak or erratic correlation between the theory and game design and play, now and yet to happen. Does that sound right?
I mean, I guess? See above.
