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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Indaarys" data-source="post: 9199525" data-attributes="member: 7040941">Its been a while since I read the MDA paper, but its entirely possible its morphed into a completely different usage for me at this point. I refer to Aesthetics as being the overall result of what I call synchronicity, which is a measure of possible Immersion (in the sense of being lost in playing the PC) that considers whether or not how a given Action in a game feels to the Player, is themed by the game, and what the Player percieves the Action to be, are all synchronous with each other. For example, jumping in Mario. All three are met fairly heavily, which makes sense given the effort Nintendo puts into getting that specific element exactly right. The game feel produced by the action is satisfying as it produces a pleasant to engage skill test on the players part (just like real jumping often does), the actual look of the Jump on-screen correlates to the players engagement of the Action, and the perception of the player of these elements synchronizes as the Jump produces the expected results, and triggers intuitive feedback from the game when it doesn't. Ie, if you fail a jump, you know its because you missed the timing. Naturally the first reaction to this is probably going to be that this is just video game design, no doubt from the Theming aspect. Theming in a tabletop game is just as prevalent, and that's generally where Ive found most aesthetic problems are sourced, with their effects being centered in player perception. (Game feel does it too, but for the issues Ive been pointing at, the issues in theming)In the given PBTA example, the Action itself is fine. Rolling dice is always fun and its what people expect from TTRPGs. But the Theming is where the issue is, and this relates to the negative feedback loop thats created by the dice rolls. Because the bulk of results are themed as either Failures or Success at a Cost, this in turn can mess with player perception when there's too many rolls, or indeed if some other bit of theming (we're superheroes!) conflicts with it. (We're superheroes but we're also bumbling idiots!) (Note, not talking about Masks, just a made up example)Fixing it can come from a lot of directions. The design intent here is that the negative feedback loop is desirable, so if we want to stop it from going into overdrive, a roll economy is probably the best way to introduce that constraint (as testing reveals that insisting on buy in doesn't serve as an consistent constraint across all players). But you can also just change the probability space for how often the negative feedback loop starts. A higher stat array in Ironsworn accomplishes that pretty handily and has been a staple house rule of mine for years. Thats where we come into the question of whether or not PBTA even allows for a first person POV, at least as far as Moves are concerned. Im of the opinion it doesn't; Moves step the player into a third person POV, and this is where the difference is. A task-oriented loop never leaves first person unless the Player steps out of the game loop entirely. This is where Player perception becomes important, and why I think genre emulation isn't all that great, because it understandably has to blend a constant shift between 1st and 3rd person, and that flip even bleeds over into game feel, where the Action is still fine in theory but starts to feel bad because of the other two going haywire. (Ie, the pincushion effect)But, when the buy in works, it clears the issue. Hence why Ironsworn never gave me this particular issue, as I came into it for the solo experience, and so the flipping back and forth just doesn't cause these issues because that's just how the solo experience works. In fact if I cared to, Id probably end up liking a few different PBTAs if I tried and played them solo, though that'd depend. Ironsworn also themes a lot of what it does in the 1st person, and I can't say that doesn't have a big effect on why I like it so much. But, the buy in doesn't always work, and it certainly didn't for me, and still doesn't despite being much more aware of whats going on and having more control over how I'd react. You're right of course, but as noted, I just don't consider it to be a very good constraint, as it doesn't consistently work. Incidentally, the solution I proposed is right there in the system already in how GM moves are metered out. I think it just needs to be applied in the other direction. Those are mechanics in those games, but they aren't tropes in of themselves. So perhaps we're both not on the same page about what we consider to be tropes. I think of tropes in terms of stuff you find on tvtropes. Narrative patterns that happen in different kinds of story media. Thats another instance though where the constraint isn't consistent, and rubs up against the previously mentioned aesthetic issue. Not only can engaging a Move feel like your character isn't acting credibly, but it can also result in a bigger problem on a more macro scale. Constant drama being packed on over and over, even when the Moves are used at an intended rate, starts to cause a coherence issue, not unlike a tv show completely losing any dramatic credibility when things start becoming contrived to keep the show going another season. I explained above. In a nutshell, the constant flipping between a first person POV in the improv game, and a third person POV any time Moves trigger, and Id additionally add the requisite OOC-but-still-ingame talk that tends to result from how the game works. That last bit I don't hold against any of these games. Theres more than a few genres that, if I was playing with people who were just as in-tune with it, wouldn't result in nearly as much of that issue. I won't hold whats basically a skill issue against the game. They're literally in the name, for one, and if you're familiar with post-apoc stories its easy to see where those Moves come from. Most good PBTA games, the ones where the designers actually understood what AW was doing, will be very clearly reinforcing specific tropes indicative to the chosen genre with the Moves, and Playbook design in general is going to do the same in a broader sense, if playbooks are used at all anyway. Ironsworn doesn't use one for example and its not difficult to see what the tropes are. Moves don't care about it just being a hit. Some just treat a weak hit as reason to give less benefits (ie choose 2 instead of 3 as on a 10), but many others introduce success with a cost, many of which in turn reflect on the competance of the character if they aren't housruled to some other theming. You may personally not object to that, others do. Success with a cost isn't the same thing as Success, and no amount of arguments to the contrary are going to change how someone feels about the difference.</blockquote>

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