Interaction Model Version 2 Summary (long)
Brian Gleichman
OK, Time for a summary again. Maybe this is the last time (cheers from the
masses...). I've shortened the text lines in the hopes there will be no
more problems from that end.
The major changes include adding a General Descriptive rating and PC
Lethality. Also changed is the addition of a upper Descriptive rating for
actions regulated by the each of the four Interactions.
I thought long and hard about the adding PC Lethality and decided that it
indeed deserved its own rating in order to more finely grade player
expectation.
THE MODEL
The Interaction Model is designed to give a player an idea of what to
expect from a campaign as far as what events are likely (or possible) to
take place. Players vary widely in their tolerance for certain events such
as in game torture, rape, or murder. They also vary widely in their
acceptance of the degree that such things may be described.
It is hoped that a general rating system, based upon a "General View" scale
of such things can be an aid to the GM in setting player expectation.
It is not a measure of good and bad. It is not a measure of character
viewpoint. This is a tool for game contracts and as such is for the GM and
player, not the character. It is not a complete description of a campaign,
additional models would be need for completeness.
The Model is made of the following parts: General Descriptive Rating, PC
Lethality, Conditions, and the Interactions themselves which have the four
sub-sections of Player vs. Player, Player vs. Game, Game vs. Player, Game
vs. Game.
Each are is rated by the following scale: Heroic, Moral, Pragmatic, Dark,
and Black.
GENERAL DESCRIPTIVE RATING:
This is the level of descriptive detail allowed to the common events of a
campaign. This includes general combat and GM description of any events not
covered under the Interactions.
Heroic: Unpleasant description is avoided at all costs. Example:
You take 8 hit points of damage, looks like you're down.
Better hope someone first-aids you quick.
Moral: Description is detailed to the extent it would be in a PG
movie. Example: The shot hits Mad Dog Joe in the left
chest spinning him into the wall where he falls to the
ground.
No non-heroic detail is to described.
The details are never graphic.
Pragmatic: As Normal, but allows non-heroic detail to be added
for non-heroic actions. Example: The Dark Avenger fires
his sniper rifle from hiding-killing the unsuspecting target,
spattering blood across the room into the faces of the
peaceful people having dinner who break into panic. The
villain's girlfriend bends crying over the bleeding body.
The details are never highly graphic.
Dark: As Pragmatic, but allows the addition of non-heroic detail to
any event. The moans and slow death of the wounded.
The crying child, etc. The details are never highly
graphic.
Black: As Dark, but Description has no limit. Any amount of detail
is allowed.
PC LETHALITY:
This measures the chance of PC death resulting from game events.
Heroic: The PC never dies, at least not in the end. Think "Golden
Age" of comics. Superman CAN'T die, not really.
Moral: The PC may die as a result of a combination of poor
play, bad situation, and/or bad luck. Such an event is
rare however. The player can expect that his character
will survive the Campaign except under extreme
conditions.
Pragmatic: Death is now not an uncommon event. The campaign
doesn't pull punches when characters bite off more than
they can chew. Still, good play increases PC chances
notably. With such play, it is common for a character
to survive the campaign.
Dark: The chance of Death is now high. Think Dirty Dozen or
similar movies. The question is not who will die, it's who
will survive.
Black: Death is all but certain. It will be a rare character indeed
who lives until the end of the campaign, and maybe even
the end of the adventure.
INTERACTIONS:
Interactions are used to determine if vile or disgusting things can happen
and under what conditions. As such they are the heart of the Model's goal.
Interactions are broken down into how parts of a campaign act against other
parts. What's acceptable for a NPC to do is not always acceptable for the
player.
Interactions are sub-sectioned into the following four groups.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Player vs. Player (how the PC treats other PCs) PP
Player vs. Game (how the PC treats NPCs/World) PG
Game vs. Player (how the NPCs/World treats the PC) GP
Game vs. Game (how the NPCs/World treats itself) GG
Heroic:
Allows no action that is vile in nature or even questionable, i.e.
torture, rape, killing of prisoners, backstabbing, assassinations,
etc.
This is the Heroic/Adventure conduct at it at its best and cleanest.
There are no exceptions allowed.
At the Game vs. Player- such events may be threatened or
attempted. They just will never happen. "Thank goodness
you came along Masked Rider, I didn't like the look in his
eye." or the Car Bomb that never seems to work just
right.
At the Game vs. Game Level- such things happen only to those
that deserve it ("Great, Mad Dog Joe back shot his
partner Evil Slade, less work for us."). They may be
threatened freely however.
Moral: Has the same basic conditions as Heroic except:
It is realized that conditions in a campaign may conspire to force
vile events to occur. Disallowing such events under those
conditions would damage SOD or other concerns to the point that
allowing the event is less damaging to play than disallowing it.
Hence, under VERY RARE conditions, the vile event is allowed
to happen. This is called an Event Escalation.
It is assumed good play, the avoidance of a bad situation and/or
reasonable luck in play would be sufficient to protect characters
from such things.
Pragmatic:
The mindset now becomes one of the vigilante, a dark avenger.
Assassinations, Killing of prisoners (without trial), and other
questionable acts are now seen as justified when there is no other
reasonable option left to the player.
This is NOT Dark. There is never a reason to justify rape or the
murder of innocents under Pragmatic.
Pragmatic allows Event Escalation as in Moral.
At the Game vs. Player, Game vs. Game level, the world no longer
plays fair. Don't except the villain to step out into the open before
being able to kill to you.
Dark: At this point, any event is allowed if the campaign calls for it.
Skilled play will have an impact on if such things happen,
but don't be surprised when they do.
Black: Such events are now desired. They will happen.
INTERACTION DESCRIPTIVE LIMIT:
While the General Descriptive Rating determines the overall descriptive
level applied to the game, there are those cases where players may desire
graphic combat description, but will only allow the barest description for
the events covered under the Interactions, i.e. vile events. This
Interaction Descriptive limit follows the same guidelines as the General
Descriptive Rating.
Thus, every Interaction has a Descriptive Limit of its own. It represents
the upper limit of allowed description when vile actions do occurs. Note
that a Descriptive rating at Heroic has no meaning- no vile event will ever
occur in any case.
Example:
Game vs. Player: Moral (Black)
Result: It will be very rare for a PC ever to be tortured. But will
when it happens, it will be very graphic and detailed.
CONDITIONS
--------------------------------------------------
Conditions are exceptions to the rules. Not every Model can cover all the
possible results and some people will disallow certain specific events for
personal reasons.
Example Condition:
No child abuse is allowed at any rating
MODEL EXAMPLE:
------------------------
Middle Earth (as it is in LOTR if it was a campaign)
Descriptive Rating: Moral
PC Lethality: Pragmatic
Player vs. Player: Heroic
Player vs. Game: Heroic
Game vs. Player: Moral (Moral)
Game vs. Game: Moral (Moral)
Conditions:
None
NOTES:
--------------------
Addition of other Models such a the Threefold together with other useful
things (like a general description of the campaign and what Ruleset is in
use) would aid in give a fairly complete picture.
Brian Gleichman
Barbara Robson <rob...@octarine.cc.adfa.oz.au> wrote in article
<robbj95.869136469@octarine>...
> Bravo! This revised version presents a coherent and (I think)
> useful model.
Thanks. Everyone loves positive feedback. A large part of the credit for
any of the good things here goes to most the group as a whole. I've had
wonderful feedback and almost all of it was useful.
> Why not keep the 'Heroic..Black' scale for
> the level of violence and disturbing events in the game and use
> something else for the other two scales. For example:
Mostly because it would mean too many terms flying around in my head. Also,
I intended this Model to be an add on to others and a single scale makes
that easier. Plus, there is always virtue in being consistent.
I think confusion can be avoided by remembering that it basically measures
safe/clean (Heroic) through dangerous/icky (Black).
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Rating: Heroic - Moral - Pragmatic - Dark - Black
>
> Description: Abstracted - Brief - Concise - Detailed - Explicit
>
> Script Immunity: Absolute - Conditional - Limited - Absent - Reversed
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
If I was going to drop the reasons given above and change the ratings:
I like the words you used for the Script Immunity ratings. They
give a good quick feeling for what's intended.
Don't care much for the Description Ratings. Except for Explicit
and Abstracted, they just don't seem to capture the same
meanings for me. For example: The fact that Pragmatic uses the
same level of Description as Black, just for a much smaller set
of events is lost in 'Concise'.
Shazemar
On 17 Jul 1997 20:28:46 GMT, "Brian Gleichman"
<glei...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
I'm with Barbara on using different words for the lethality and
descriptive scales, mostly because phrases like 'moral description'
and 'pragmatic script immunity' don't convey anything to me without a
cue card. As far as the usefulness and completeness of the model
go, it looks terrific. I could easily characterize my campaign as
generally pragmatic to dark, with detailed description and
conditional script immunity.
Good work.
Shazemar
kera...@mail1.nai.net
http://nw3.nai.net/~keranset/
keranset.telmaron.com 5252
Brian Gleichman
Shazemar <kera...@mail1.nai.net> wrote in article
<BE8D47D36A298446.C7B805C4...@library-proxy.airnews.ne
t>...
> I'm with Barbara on using different words for the lethality and
> descriptive scales, mostly because phrases like 'moral description'
> and 'pragmatic script immunity' don't convey anything to me without a
> cue card.
That's two votes for a word change.
I'll wait until I hear from Irina, Mary, Sarah, Warren and the others
before deciding anything. A least a few of them did agree that using the
same word scale was a good thing.
Let's see if you've changed their minds.
Psychohist
Brian Gleichman posts, in part:
I'll wait until I hear from Irina, Mary, Sarah, Warren
and the others before deciding anything. A least a few
of them did agree that using the same word scale was a
good thing.
I don't think I did; in fact, in an earlier post, I suggested that the
'allowed actions' axis should be heroic-vile, while the 'descriptive
detail' axis use the light-dark wording. More recently, I think I like
the more specific 'descriptive detail' axes better - the ones running from
'abstract' at one end to 'graphic' or something like it at the other.
Warren
Irina Rempt
Brian Gleichman (glei...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
> Shazemar <kera...@mail1.nai.net> wrote in article
> <BE8D47D36A298446.C7B805C4...@library-proxy.airnews.ne
> t>...
> > I'm with Barbara on using different words for the lethality and
> > descriptive scales, mostly because phrases like 'moral description'
> > and 'pragmatic script immunity' don't convey anything to me without a
> > cue card.
> That's two votes for a word change.
> I'll wait until I hear from Irina, Mary, Sarah, Warren and the others
> before deciding anything.
I'm with Barbara too, as I think I've already pointed out (but it seems
that net lag from here is still terrible).
Irina
--
ir...@rempt.xs4all.nl
-------------------- Lingua Latina Occasionibus Omnibus --------------------
VII. "Heu! Tintinnuntius meus sonat!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fenyx3204
I'm going to come in on that side as well.
I think the concepts are great. And the abstraction you've reached here in
terms of the scales in question are, I think, essential to a good game
contract. This is the true value of the system -- providing a common set
of abstractions for discussion.
But I think the non-intuitive nature of the labels you have applied to
these scales lessens their value by obscuring what's being said without
first "referencing the manual".
I also liked, at first glance, the idea (was it Irina's?) of the bars --
although I don't know how practical that really is in practice.
Justin Bacon
Brian Gleichman
Fenyx3204 <feny...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19970720180...@ladder02.news.aol.com>...
> I think the concepts are great. And the abstraction you've reached here >
in terms of the scales in question are, I think, essential to a good game
> contract. This is the true value of the system -- providing a common set
> of abstractions for discussion.
Thanks. It looks like I've hit my goal. It will be interesting to see if
anyone uses it.
> But I think the non-intuitive nature of the labels you have applied to
> these scales lessens their value by obscuring what's being said without
> first "referencing the manual".
Sigh, it does look this way.
Check my reply to Irina for my latest suggested amendment.
> I also liked, at first glance, the idea (was it Irina's?) of the bars --
> although I don't know how practical that really is in practice.
I like bars too, as a general concept. But wonder what they mean could mean
in this Model.
The concept of "A Game vs. Players that is mostly Pragmatic, but is
somewhat Dark" is... What?
A measure of the chance of Escalation maybe.
A measure that we allow some Dark events, but not others.
I would think use of Conditions would be cleaner and less subject to
questions of 'What?".
Of course, Irina didn't split out PP, PG, GP and GG. Maybe it meant the
spread of the ratings across these areas.
No doubt she'll chime in and clear it up for us.
Brian Gleichman
Irina Rempt <ir...@lamarkis.uucp> wrote in article
<EDM0...@lamarkis.uucp>...
> I'm with Barbara too, as I think I've already pointed out (but it seems
> that net lag from here is still terrible).
I could swear there were a couple of people out there who wanted to use the
same word scale. I could swear it.
Well, no matter. They're out-voted too.
Back to Barbara's idea:
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Rating: Heroic - Moral - Pragmatic - Dark - Black
>
> Description: Abstracted - Brief - Concise - Detailed - Explicit
>
> Script Immunity: Absolute - Conditional - Limited - Absent - Reversed
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
PC Lethality: Absolute, Conditional, Limited, Absent, and Reversed works
perfectly.
The Interactions Ratings of Heroic, Moral, Pragmatic, Dark and Back are all
but set in stone (sorry Warren).
That leaves General Descriptive Rating:
Abstracted replacing Heroic and Explicit replacing Black are fine.
But I don't think Brief-Concise-Detailed brings across the concepts of the
Descriptive rating.
Let's reprint the present General Descriptive Ratings and open it for
general discussion as to better wording:
GENERAL DESCRIPTIVE RATING:
Right now, from my viewpoint- how about:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Abstracted, Cinematic , Transitional, Realistic, and Explicit
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Abstracted leaves it without any but the barest hint of reality.
Cinematic brings the concept of Action Movie description level.
Transitional indicates the addition consequences for non-heroic actions
Realistic adds all the consequences of battles/events.
Explicit rolls around in the ugliness of it.
OK, let's beat this up some.
Brian Gleichman
> "Brian Gleichman" <glei...@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> >-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >Abstracted, Cinematic , Transitional, Realistic, and Explicit
> >-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> That almost works for me. I'm not sure that 'Transitional' conveys its
> meaning well, but I can't really suggest a good alternative
It took me a while just to come up with Transitional. Then I looked for a
better word. Then I gave up.
> The term 'Cinematic' seems to match its meaning in this scale, but I'm a
> little concerned that it might clash witch other uses of the term
Possible. Still most people seem to specifically mention the model when
using the terms so I don't think it will be a major problem.
Irina Rempt
Brian Gleichman (glei...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
> > I also liked, at first glance, the idea (was it Irina's?) of the bars --
> > although I don't know how practical that really is in practice.
> I like bars too, as a general concept. But wonder what they mean could mean
> in this Model.
> The concept of "A Game vs. Players that is mostly Pragmatic, but is
> somewhat Dark" is... What?
> A measure of the chance of Escalation maybe.
> A measure that we allow some Dark events, but not others.
> I would think use of Conditions would be cleaner and less subject to
> questions of 'What?".
> Of course, Irina didn't split out PP, PG, GP and GG. Maybe it meant the
> spread of the ratings across these areas.
> No doubt she'll chime in and clear it up for us.
Heus! Tintinnuntius meus sonat! ("Hey! There goes my beeper!" for the
dog-Latin impaired :-)
I don't think I can really clear it up; it was my first reaction to the
scales presented in that way, because I don't have a clear idea of *my
whole game* as being at any one point on the scale; individual *events*
get resolved in a Dark, Pragmatic or Moral way.
I can't get the hang of PP, PG, GP and GG either, because whenever I
try to think about it like that I immediately put myself on the wrong
foot <picture of woman trying to lift herself up by the ankle> and
start regarding it as a "GM-versus-players" situation, which makes me
clam up.
I'll stick to what I *can* explain, then: the tone of the world is
Pragmatic overall, with lighter patches (but not so over-bright that
they're Heroic) and darker patches (but not so sickening that they're
Black). Whenever an event happens, it falls somewhere within that part
of the scale; the ratings are the result of observation ("everything
tends to fall within these boundaries"), not a conscious decision ("we
won't allow things to fall outside these boundaries").
It's more like "the world and all people in it treat everything like
this, but we happen to be the good guys so we don't do the very worst
things" (Mary also said something along those lines, I think). So, if
anything, PP and PG would be slightly more toward the Moral end and GP
and GG slightly more toward the Dark end, but all of it still within
the same range; that is, GG or GP *can* be Moral, and PP or PG *can* be
Dark, but the distribution of individual events varies.
Note that I'm not saying anything about description level. I don't
think I can judge that - it varies wildly with the individual event.
Irina
--
ir...@rempt.xs4all.nl
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say. |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Gleichman
Irina Rempt <ir...@lamarkis.uucp> wrote in article
> I don't think I can really clear it up; it was my first reaction to the
> scales presented in that way, because I don't have a clear idea of *my
> whole game* as being at any one point on the scale; individual *events*
> get resolved in a Dark, Pragmatic or Moral way.
<snip>
> Note that I'm not saying anything about description level. I don't
> think I can judge that - it varies wildly with the individual event.
Three thoughts:
1) Only a rating of Black deters character from more 'heroic' levels of
actions. Thus it's quite acceptable for a player to run a 'true blue good
guy' say in a PG: Dark campaign. He would just have a harder time living
with the other PCs. Thus Pragmatic with patches of Heroic is already
contained within Pragmatic.
2) If no limits are placed on allowed events, the rating should be Dark. If
'Dark' actions occur only under rare conditions, then take the normal
acceptable level (i.e. what's required before the game must accept an
escalation).
Example: Game vs. Player: Moral
A. Maiden has gotten herself into a situation due to some really dumb
decisions combined with some bad luck. This means the villain should be
doing rather upsetting things about now.
The question is- does he? GP:Moral says no, however SOD and other world
concerns may require a yes answer. It's a escalation point. It's determined
either by GM decision or (more likely I think) a combined Player and GM
decision or maybe even a Player only decision. The answer can go either
way.
This doesn't make for a Dark campaign (as long as such things are rare).
If there was no chance for escalation- the GP should have been rated Heroic
and not Moral. In a Dark game, the answer is almost always yes without
need for escalation.
3) You may use different ratings with different players. This would be a
bit confusing if you didn't realize you were doing it. Sarah for example
might be quite willing to play under GP:Dark while Mary would be more happy
with GP: Pragmatic.
This is especially true of the Descriptive Rating.