Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Jay Verkuilen" data-source="post: 7730900" data-attributes="member: 6873517">I totally agree. &quot;Story losses&quot; really captures the general idea. When we watch a movie we ordinarily expect that the heroes will triumph in the end, the question is how. RPGs let us feel the tension as we're going along and participate in the story. The tension is primarily from heightening drama. In this sense things like &quot;I want signature aspects of my character protected&quot; makes way more sense when an RPG is thought of as a story, not as a game. In a Eurogame there's usually no direct &quot;versus&quot; aspect of the game, but that doesn't mean there's no loss. The loss is there in the form of opportunity cost. There have always been other games without a versus: The venerable Clue is a good example. The players can't affect each other directly at all, but only one gets to solve the crime. &nbsp;I'm not sure that the term &quot;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion" target="_blank">loss aversion</a>&quot; as used by behavioral economics is really being understood in the original post, although I do think loss aversion does play a role in an RPG (e.g., how much people dislike XP losses compared to foregone opportunities). Loss aversion refers to the fact that people tend to be inconsistent in their preferences for losses depending on framing. I have no problem with the author coining a new term but I think calling on a term to mean something else vague just sheds confusion.In this sense RPGs as many people play them are more like an interactive, collaborative performance like jazz or dance than they are like sport. In a jazz combo (I've played in them) different players have roles: The drummer and bassist interact a certain way and usually play throughout the piece, the horn players tend to take turns more, etc. The general goal of a combo of equals (as opposed to a leader with a few sidemen) is that no one player should consistently outshine the others. Each gets their chance in the spotlight to play a solo and to sound good. The combo interacts to create a sum greater than the parts, which sets up the ability for each player to shine. Often there isn't even an audience for jazz playing if you're talking about a studio jam. The audience is really the players themselves. A &quot;versus&quot; player is usually someone you don't want around.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jay Verkuilen, post: 7730900, member: 6873517"] I totally agree. "Story losses" really captures the general idea. When we watch a movie we ordinarily expect that the heroes will triumph in the end, the question is how. RPGs let us feel the tension as we're going along and participate in the story. The tension is primarily from heightening drama. In this sense things like "I want signature aspects of my character protected" makes way more sense when an RPG is thought of as a story, not as a game. In a Eurogame there's usually no direct "versus" aspect of the game, but that doesn't mean there's no loss. The loss is there in the form of opportunity cost. There have always been other games without a versus: The venerable Clue is a good example. The players can't affect each other directly at all, but only one gets to solve the crime. I'm not sure that the term "[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion"]loss aversion[/URL]" as used by behavioral economics is really being understood in the original post, although I do think loss aversion does play a role in an RPG (e.g., how much people dislike XP losses compared to foregone opportunities). Loss aversion refers to the fact that people tend to be inconsistent in their preferences for losses depending on framing. I have no problem with the author coining a new term but I think calling on a term to mean something else vague just sheds confusion. In this sense RPGs as many people play them are more like an interactive, collaborative performance like jazz or dance than they are like sport. In a jazz combo (I've played in them) different players have roles: The drummer and bassist interact a certain way and usually play throughout the piece, the horn players tend to take turns more, etc. The general goal of a combo of equals (as opposed to a leader with a few sidemen) is that no one player should consistently outshine the others. Each gets their chance in the spotlight to play a solo and to sound good. The combo interacts to create a sum greater than the parts, which sets up the ability for each player to shine. Often there isn't even an audience for jazz playing if you're talking about a studio jam. The audience is really the players themselves. A "versus" player is usually someone you don't want around. [/QUOTE]

Verification