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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9332476" data-attributes="member: 71699">Yes, so what you're describing is a common problem in conceptual ontologies. Picture it topographically. We have a contoured plane and at various places peaks. This is a many-dimensional plane - one dimension for each degree of freedom of expression - but for now think of it as three dimensional: game dimensions x, y, z. Thus a high peak in the top right corner is a maximised expression of the three dimensions (aka game properties.)The peaks represent modes, and their slopes represent neighbours of the modes. A little less x, a little less y, a little less z. So when we talk about a mode of play (or a game genre FTM) we are talking about a neighbourhood in which are found recognisably similar games... but they are also when we scrutinse them recognisably dissimilar. In theory the top of the peak is a sharp-point hard up against the top-right corner, but in practice it's a blunt peak with a few games that are pretty strongly in the "genre" -  genre-defining, you might say - but each slightly different from the other. A strong family resemblance, in Wittgenstein's language.I think so too. You end up with a set with some defining characteristics, but the thing about sets is you can always define new ones, and the new ones can intersect the old ones. Still, generally for a time one can define genres and sub-genres in a meaningful and useful way. And equally, when one is speaking of membership in sets defined by collections of properties, dimensions of the definition can't really be protected: they're always available to the definition for another set that intersects the first (i.e. includes other dimensions, or excludes some of them). One important note here is that sometimes the sum contains something other than the parts. Taking games to be mechanisms, perhaps the analogy of an ICE can work. The sparkplugs alone won't propel you from 0-200MPH in ten seconds. So that provides modalists with a strong reason for cherishing their mode. They may say, and possibly with justice, that the sum is greater than the parts.The point of a spectrum is to resist clear lines, not to look for them! However, I don't think the cutoff is arbitrary. In many domains, particular mixtures prove to be sweet-spots... more appealing than other mixtures containing some but not all of the ingredients. Of course, there are other equally sweet-spots containing some of the ingredients, with perhaps some others.I feel like a fruitful path for hybridists is to accept that modalists are identifying a sweet-spot, and insist in return that  other recipes that may very well share ingredients are also sweet-spots. For one thing, this requires getting a bit more particular about that label "trad". What really is trad? I don't think I've ever experienced anything like the list of features that I've seen put forward in this thread to define that mode of play. Is the "trad" folk have in mind sandbox? If so, is it OSR-ish sandbox? D&D-ish sandbox? Rules-lite sandbox? Rulings-not-rules sandbox? Rules-not-rulings sandbox? Neotrad  sandbox? Or is it AP specific? Does that include CoC APs? How about Masks of Nyarlothep? Does it include RQ APs? How about Griffin Mountain? Is it only when the AP is played a certain way (playstyle dependent)? Or does it include when a group deconstruct the AP and use it for setting, adversary and adversity inspiration?Comparing a modal view of "narrativist" play with a fuzzy hybrid strawman for other play, isn't comparing figs with figs and can be readily foreseen to not work out very well, e.g. to invite fuzzy hybrid views of "narrativist" in return.</blockquote>

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