Thinking About the Purpose of Mechanics from a Neo-Trad Perspective

[pemerton]

The author of the six cultures of play blog assumes some familiarity on the part of the audience with the subject matter. When I first read it, I didn't have much trouble working out what was being discussed, although I quibble with some of what is said about "story games" and benefitted from a bit of discussion with friends to get a full handle on neo-trad.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The author of the six cultures of play blog assumes some familiarity on the part of the audience with the subject matter. When I first read it, I didn't have much trouble working out what was being discussed, although I quibble with some of what is said about "story games" and benefitted from a bit of discussion with friends to get a full handle on neo-trad.

I suspect the author is an academic and is writing like one.

But, to me, a written communication that cannot be parsed without prior knowledge of the subject -- and without hyperlinks to help people catch up -- is a failed written communication unless one is involved in espionage or something.

 

[pemerton]

But, to me, a written communication that cannot be parsed without prior knowledge of the subject -- and without hyperlinks to help people catch up -- is a failed written communication unless one is involved in espionage or something.

Really?

Not everything has to be written as an introductory text. Some things are written by people with a degree of familiarity or expertise for the benefit of others with a degree of familiarity or expertise. When I encounter something like that, and feel I need to read around the topic a bit more to work out what's going on, I start with Google and/or Wikipedia.

For instance: someone who has only ever played game store pick-up D&D, or has only ever played D&D with their long-running group of friends, probably won't be able to easily work out what is going on in the Six Cultures of Play blog. But then why does it matter to them? They're part of a single culture of play, most likely trad or neotrad.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Really?

Yes?

If you post something in public, the implicit suggestion is that it's a subject for public consumption. Otherwise, this discussion, which spun out of message board discussions, could have just stayed there, in that community.

The author of this essay is explicitly looking for feedback and response. Not tossing even a hyperlink or two to help people catch up to speed means they're losing out on at least part of their audience.

 

[pemerton]

Yes?

If you post something in public, the implicit suggestion is that it's a subject for public consumption. Otherwise, this discussion, which spun out of message board discussions, could have just stayed there, in that community.

The author of this essay is explicitly looking for feedback and response. Not tossing even a hyperlink or two to help people catch up to speed means they're losing out on at least part of their audience.

By this measure, something like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a failure. But in fact it's very widely regarded as a wonderful tool.

 

[niklinna]

I suspect the author is an academic and is writing like one.

But, to me, a written communication that cannot be parsed without prior knowledge of the subject -- and without hyperlinks to help people catch up -- is a failed written communication unless one is involved in espionage or something.

Welcome to the Internet! Ruiner of decent writing, bane of readers worldwide.

You should try All Dead Generations: great ideas, presented in 300% of the words necessary, with plenty of garden path sentences, dropped phrases, and rampant misspellings. Oh and of course it assumes you know a fair bit about classic play, which actually is pretty fair...that's not the sort of thing I'll fault a blogger for. But lack of an editor or proofreader seems to be endemic.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

By this measure, something like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a failure. But in fact it's very widely regarded as a wonderful tool.

Given that philosophers are involved, isn't it likely that it's regarded as an almost infinite number of things?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I suspect the author is an academic and is writing like one.

But, to me, a written communication that cannot be parsed without prior knowledge of the subject -- and without hyperlinks to help people catch up -- is a failed written communication unless one is involved in espionage or something.

He is a pretty smart guy from what I know (not sure if he is an academic but definitely an intelligent and well read person). I don't know most conversations on blogs in the RPG world (especially the world the retired adventurer belongs to) assume a certain level of understanding. But this one isn't especially difficult to crack I think. He goes over things like the history and explain what each on is. What I always found confusing about the article wasn't anything the author did but the use of Trad (which he employs because according to him that is the term people who play the style use). That always throws my brain for a loop.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Given that philosophers are involved, isn't it likely that it's regarded as an almost infinite number of things?

As a mathematician, I generally assume people know what 1 and 2 are, but it is actually true that a formal definition of 1 + 1 = 2 when you dot all your i's takes several hundred pages. Clearly there's a middle ground which is both reasonable and effective! At least we can hope so...

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't know Fate well enough to have a view. But this is not true for HeroQuest Revised.

Well, I have to unpack what I said a little: its theoretically possible to represent a lot of fine distinctions in Fate, but since you don't have unlimited Aspects available, that theoretical potential isn't all that realistically practical in most versions of it. And of course it doesn't have much answer that I'm aware of to the "good at X, really good at y" problem I referenced.