3D threefold
David Alex Lamb
thoughts; sorry to take so long to post what may now be far out of context.
I also apologise that this post requires some ability to visualize in 3D
(albeit not that much, since I'm worse at it than most engineers).
I've seen some discussions of the 3fold founder on interpreting what the
triangle means. It seems to me to be easier to understand in terms of a
"projection" of a 3-dimensional space.
Imagine 3 orthogonal axes labeled with your 3 favourite terms for the 3fold
concepts (I'll use world, story, game). The points of interest are in the
range 0..1 on each axis. For a given GM decision (about a resolution point,
since that's apparently where the 3fold is to be used), a "1" for a given axis
X means "the decision was made according to X-based principles", and a 0 means
"the decision contradicted X-based principles". A decision made according to
"world" principles that contradicts story and game principles would thus be
(w,s,g) = (1,0,0).
One could characterize a given GM's style by taking an average of all the
resolution points s/he ever decides. Thus 30% world, 50% drama, 20% game
would be (.3, .5, .2).
The threefold then represents a projection of "style" points onto the plane
defined by w+s+g=1.0. I think this plane can be thought of as pretending each
decision is made purely according to one viewpoint, so that all "averages"
must have w+s+g = 1.0 (any increase in "story" principles requires a decrease
in one of the other areas).
However, it's not necessary to presume the three are mutually exclusive.
A decision made according to principles common to all three views would be
(1,1,1) for example. This point projects to the centre of the usual
triangle. As does, unfortunately, (0,0,0) -- the impossibly chaotic campaign
where all decisions contradict all 3 sets of principles.
The illumination I received from the 3D viewpoint is this: perhaps a lot of
3fold discussions have bogged down because the 2d triangle projection throws
away some information available in the 3d version -- people talk past each
other because their shared communication model -- the triangle -- is sometimes
inadequate to represent their different points of view.
The 3d version is harder to visualize, but contains more information, since it
allows for representing decisions consistent with more than one of the "axes".
--
"Yo' ideas need to be thinked befo' they are say'd" - Ian Lamb, age 3.5
http://www.cs.queensu.ca/~dalamb/
Alex
"David Alex Lamb" <dal...@qucis.queensu.ca> wrote in message
news:92aci4$jhh$1...@knot.queensu.ca...
> Imagine 3 orthogonal axes labeled with your 3 favourite terms for the
3fold
> concepts (I'll use world, story, game). The points of interest are in the
> range 0..1 on each axis. For a given GM decision (about a resolution
point,
> since that's apparently where the 3fold is to be used), a "1" for a given
axis
> X means "the decision was made according to X-based principles", and a 0
means
> "the decision contradicted X-based principles". A decision made according
to
> "world" principles that contradicts story and game principles would thus
be
> (w,s,g) = (1,0,0).
Would a "0" necessarily mean that that leg of the model was *contradicted*
or just not considered?
>
> One could characterize a given GM's style by taking an average of all the
> resolution points s/he ever decides. Thus 30% world, 50% drama, 20% game
> would be (.3, .5, .2).
This is exactly the same revision I mentioned, without the mentioning of the
third dimension.
http://x71.deja.com/threadmsg_ct.xp?AN=697070473.1&mhitnum=27&CONTEXT=977847
604.76939280
>
> The threefold then represents a projection of "style" points onto the
plane
> defined by w+s+g=1.0. I think this plane can be thought of as pretending
each
> decision is made purely according to one viewpoint, so that all "averages"
> must have w+s+g = 1.0 (any increase in "story" principles requires a
decrease
> in one of the other areas).
>
> However, it's not necessary to presume the three are mutually exclusive.
> A decision made according to principles common to all three views would be
> (1,1,1) for example. This point projects to the centre of the usual
> triangle. As does, unfortunately, (0,0,0) -- the impossibly chaotic
campaign
> where all decisions contradict all 3 sets of principles.
Both of these two previous paragraphs seem mutually exclusive. A "1" should
represent 100% as you stated in the first paragraph. A decision made
according to all three views couldn't be 100%,100%,100% it would be,
instead, 33.3%,33.3%,33.3%.
And the 3rd dimension isn't needed, btw. As long as you're talking about
percentages all you need is a triangle and a point somewhere *within* that
triangle (unless one or two of the views of the model is completely ignored;
in which case the point will appear on an edge or vertex of the triangle,
respectively). The 3rd dimension would be needed if you used a 4-fold model,
though, since you'd be in need of another vertex to represent a 4th view.
Angela
> > A decision made according to principles common to all three views would
be
> > (1,1,1) for example. This point projects to the centre of the usual
> > triangle. As does, unfortunately, (0,0,0) -- the impossibly chaotic
> campaign
> > where all decisions contradict all 3 sets of principles.
>
> Both of these two previous paragraphs seem mutually exclusive. A "1"
should
> represent 100% as you stated in the first paragraph. A decision made
> according to all three views couldn't be 100%,100%,100% it would be,
> instead, 33.3%,33.3%,33.3%.
Not necessarily. I think he was saying that a decision made which would be
the same decision prescribed by all three viewpoints (a decision that is
harmonized with all three) would be 1;1;1.
I wonder what would qualify in that respect?
Angela
No .sig
No .damn copies of my missing volumes of "Story of Civilization" for
Christmas, either
Alex
"Angela" <angelab...@home.com> wrote in message
news:Yb426.105905$iy3.24...@news1.rdc1.tn.home.com...
> Not necessarily. I think he was saying that a decision made which would
be
> the same decision prescribed by all three viewpoints (a decision that is
> harmonized with all three) would be 1;1;1.
I know that's what he was saying but I think that .33, .33, .33 is the
correct way to write it.
Angela
Alex <noe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Z8h26.20071$f36.1...@news20.bellglobal.com...
Yeah, that's what I was thinking initially, but are there any we can think
of that would be completely in accordance with all three views? I mean, are
there any truly common ideas held, such that a decision made in accordance
with that idea would get a 1 no matter what axis you plotted it on?
Angela
No .sig
No .breakfast yet
David Alex Lamb
Alex <alex...@athotmaildot.com> wrote:
>"David Alex Lamb" <dal...@qucis.queensu.ca> wrote in message
>news:92aci4$jhh$1...@knot.queensu.ca...
>to
>> "world" principles that contradicts story and game principles would thus
>be
>> (w,s,g) = (1,0,0).
>
>Would a "0" necessarily mean that that leg of the model was *contradicted*
>or just not considered?
>
You're right - 0 should mean "ignores". I suppose (1,-1,-1) might make sense
for the example above, but I haven't thought through the implications of
allowing negative coordinates.
>> However, it's not necessary to presume the three are mutually exclusive.
>> A decision made according to principles common to all three views would be
>> (1,1,1) for example. This point projects to the centre of the usual
>> triangle. As does, unfortunately, (0,0,0) -- the impossibly chaotic
>campaign
>> where all decisions contradict all 3 sets of principles.
>
>Both of these two previous paragraphs seem mutually exclusive. A "1" should
>represent 100% as you stated in the first paragraph. A decision made
>according to all three views couldn't be 100%,100%,100% it would be,
>instead, 33.3%,33.3%,33.3%.
>
>And the 3rd dimension isn't needed, btw. As long as you're talking about
>percentages all you need is a triangle and a point somewhere *within* that
>triangle (unless one or two of the views of the model is completely ignored;
>in which case the point will appear on an edge or vertex of the triangle,
>respectively). The 3rd dimension would be needed if you used a 4-fold model,
>though, since you'd be in need of another vertex to represent a 4th view.
>
This issue is the entire point behind the 3d idea -- my assertion that 2d
loses information that leads to arguments where people talk past each other.
Every point on the 3D line from (0,0,0) to (1,1,1) gets mapped to the middle
of the triangle, but they mean completely different things. Ignoring negative
coordinates for the moment (the "contradiction" idea) (0,0,0) would mean a
decision made where all 3 concerns were irrelevant, while (1,1,1) would mean
consistent with all 3.
The point was: the triangle midpoint (and, by comparison, most other points on
the triangle) conflates several different things, leading to confused
discussions.
Furthermore, if we can ensure that negative coordinates make sense, then the
"pure" simulationist extreme is a requirement that no decision ever go
negative on the "world" axis. Thus a decision made according to some "drama"
rule that happened to be irrelevant to world-based concerns (e.g. some choice
about which events to look at in detail, where all events were proper
"simulation" events), would be allowed.
Bradd W. Szonye
> A couple of weeks ago a thread title (now forgotten) provoked the following
> thoughts; sorry to take so long to post what may now be far out of context.
> I also apologise that this post requires some ability to visualize in 3D
> (albeit not that much, since I'm worse at it than most engineers).
>
> I've seen some discussions of the 3fold founder on interpreting what the
> triangle means. It seems to me to be easier to understand in terms of a
> "projection" of a 3-dimensional space.
My feeling is that playing styles are best described as a positive
vector in an N-space, where N is the number of styles in the model. For
a "perfect" model that encompasses all possible styles, the length of
the vector is exactly 1 (ie., a unit vector), but for an "incomplete"
model like the threefold, it will be between zero and one.
For the threefold, N is 3, and the "style space" is the positive octant
of a unit sphere. With three axes, S D G, you can graph threefold
preferences with the following:
0 <= S <= 1
0 <= D <= 1
0 <= G <= 1
S^2 + D^2 + G^2 <= 1
This shows that a very strong preference along one axis implies that
other styles must have less consideration, but moderate preferences
limit the other styles very little. This seems to fit with the evidence
(that strong simulationism must ignore the metagame, and that strong
gamism precludes most story and world concerns, but that mid-triangle
people *don't* recognize that there are tradeoffs).
Sorry about the math-speak, but I'm not sure how to describe this in a
way that doesn't use it.
--
Bradd W. Szonye Work: br...@cup.hp.com
Software Design Engineer Home: bra...@concentric.net
Hewlett-Packard Cupertino Site, iFL Phone: 408-447-4832
Jason Corley
> David Alex Lamb <dal...@qucis.queensu.ca> wrote:
>> A couple of weeks ago a thread title (now forgotten) provoked the following
>> thoughts; sorry to take so long to post what may now be far out of context.
>> I also apologise that this post requires some ability to visualize in 3D
>> (albeit not that much, since I'm worse at it than most engineers).
>>
>> I've seen some discussions of the 3fold founder on interpreting what the
>> triangle means. It seems to me to be easier to understand in terms of a
>> "projection" of a 3-dimensional space.
> My feeling is that playing styles are best described as a positive
> vector in an N-space, where N is the number of styles in the model. For
> a "perfect" model that encompasses all possible styles, the length of
> the vector is exactly 1 (ie., a unit vector), but for an "incomplete"
> model like the threefold, it will be between zero and one.
I understand the math-speak, but I'm just laughing my head off that people
think that this somehow makes talking about gaming /simpler/ and /more
communicative/. For god's sake. :D
> For the threefold, N is 3, and the "style space" is the positive octant
> of a unit sphere. With three axes, S D G, you can graph threefold
> preferences with the following:
> 0 <= S <= 1
> 0 <= D <= 1
> 0 <= G <= 1
> S^2 + D^2 + G^2 <= 1
I mean, just look at this. LOOK AT IT!
:)
--
***************************************************************************
"I was pleased to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't
know."----- Mark Twain, _Life on the Mississippi_
Jason Corley | le...@aeonsociety.org | ICQ 41199011
Alex
> You're right - 0 should mean "ignores". I suppose (1,-1,-1) might make
sense
> for the example above, but I haven't thought through the implications of
> allowing negative coordinates.
The implications would be that you wouldn't be able to use any pretty shape
to visualize - you would be forced to use the whole cartesian graph (x,y,z).
Well, at least until 1 unit away from (0,0,0).
> This issue is the entire point behind the 3d idea -- my assertion that 2d
> loses information that leads to arguments where people talk past each
other.
> Every point on the 3D line from (0,0,0) to (1,1,1) gets mapped to the
middle
> of the triangle, but they mean completely different things. Ignoring
negative
> coordinates for the moment (the "contradiction" idea) (0,0,0) would mean a
> decision made where all 3 concerns were irrelevant, while (1,1,1) would
mean
> consistent with all 3.
OK, I see what you mean. Unfortunately it would be difficult to describe
percentages then. For example, if your (w,s,g) equalled (.4, .4,.6), you
couldn't describe it as 40% world-centric.
>
> The point was: the triangle midpoint (and, by comparison, most other
points on
> the triangle) conflates several different things, leading to confused
> discussions.
Agreed.
> Furthermore, if we can ensure that negative coordinates make sense, then
the
> "pure" simulationist extreme is a requirement that no decision ever go
> negative on the "world" axis.
That's possible, the shape would be a cube two units on a side with the zero
point dead center. Each two opposite faces (the 1 and the 6 or the 2 and the
5 or the 3 and the 4 on a six-sided die) represent "completely contradicts
with ..." and "completely agrees with ...". The vertex where the 1, 2, and 3
meet could represent "completely contradicts all three principles"
(the -1,-1,-1 point) while the opposite vertex (meeting point of 4, 5, and 6
(the 1,1,1 point on the graph)) represents "completely agrees with all three
principles".
I hope this helps.
John Kim
and keeper of the FAQ I felt I should comment, because for the past
month or two I find I have been avoiding this newsgroup because of
various "threefold model" discussion, such as...
Bradd W. Szonye <bra...@concentric.net> wrote:
>David Alex Lamb <dal...@qucis.queensu.ca> wrote:
>> I've seen some discussions of the 3fold founder on interpreting what
>> the triangle means. It seems to me to be easier to understand in terms
>> of a "projection" of a 3-dimensional space.
>
>My feeling is that playing styles are best described as a positive
>vector in an N-space, where N is the number of styles in the model.
Frankly, this and others of the recent spate of threads has
moved me pretty solidly over to the camp that rgfa is a forum for
esoteric discussion of little to no practical value. While I still
consider the threefold a decent kernel of an idea, I really wish
discussion of it would go away.
If the threefold is of any use at all, then it should come up
and be useful in "regular" discussion of actual game situations and
problems.
On the other hand, I realize that if I want discussion to
go a different way, I should start new threads. I am currently just
getting back from holidays -- I will try to think of some new threads
to start soon.
--
John H. Kim | Whatever else is true you
jh...@fnal.gov | Trust your little finger
www.ps.uci.edu/~jhkim | Just a single little finger can
UC Irvine, Cal, USA | Save the world. - Steven Sondheim, "Assassins"
Eric L
> This issue is the entire point behind the 3d idea -- my assertion that 2d
> loses information that leads to arguments where people talk past each other.
> Every point on the 3D line from (0,0,0) to (1,1,1) gets mapped to the middle
> of the triangle, but they mean completely different things. Ignoring negative
> coordinates for the moment (the "contradiction" idea) (0,0,0) would mean a
> decision made where all 3 concerns were irrelevant, while (1,1,1) would mean
> consistent with all 3.
*I* don't like this idea (I am for the 2D geometry only).
If a decision is coherent with all 3 directions, then:
**you can't tell where is the decision in the triangle**
because the whole triangle is only a vertex in this case.
(the dramatic vertex, the world vertex and the metegame
vertex can not be distinguished in this situation,
*SO* they are in the same location in the space of decisions)
Eric Lestrade
Brian Gleichman
news:92e196$ass$1...@news.service.uci.edu...
> Frankly, this and others of the recent spate of threads has
> moved me pretty solidly over to the camp that rgfa is a forum for
> esoteric discussion of little to no practical value. While I still
> consider the threefold a decent kernel of an idea, I really wish
> discussion of it would go away.
I agree. Compare the last month or two of threefold arguments to some of the
discussions we had for months before, and the waste of time becomes almost
sickening.
I'd rather remove the threefold from the FAQ completely instead of going
through periods like this. It does have the positive point of identifying
people one is better off not dealing with in the first place (as they launch
old and flame baited attacks on it), but most here don't use that advantage.
--
Brian Gleichman
glei...@mindspring.com
Age of Heroes: http://gleichman.home.mindspring.com/
Free RPG Reviews: http://gleichman.home.mindspring.com/Reviews.htm
Robert Scott Clark
>"John Kim" <jh...@cosmic.ps.uci.edu> wrote in message
>news:92e196$ass$1...@news.service.uci.edu...
>
>
>> Frankly, this and others of the recent spate of threads has
>> moved me pretty solidly over to the camp that rgfa is a forum for
>> esoteric discussion of little to no practical value. While I still
>> consider the threefold a decent kernel of an idea, I really wish
>> discussion of it would go away.
>
>I agree. Compare the last month or two of threefold arguments to some of the
>discussions we had for months before, and the waste of time becomes almost
>sickening.
>
Given that both of these guys KFed me, someone else can answer. If
this place isn't for discussions about things like the threefold, what
is it here for.
If all it's here for is telling of old "war stories", then personally,
I prefer to masturbate in private.
Alain Lapalme
personally also find these theory discussions to be rather uninteresting. I
just ignore them.
Alain
"Brian Gleichman" <glei...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:92gvck$4sg$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net...
Brian Gleichman
"Alain Lapalme" <lap...@magma.ca> wrote:
> Hey, chill out guys! If you don't like a thread, just ignore it.
> I personally also find these theory discussions to be rather
> uninteresting. I just ignore them.
All nice and well, but that only solves part of the problem.
Many people here have limited time available for posting. If they're
spend all or even most of it defending or attacking the threefold like
they've done over the last couple of months there is no one time left
for other threads.
Brian
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
James C. Ellis
>
> If this place isn't for discussions about things like the threefold,
> what is it here for.
>
> If all it's here for is telling of old "war stories", then personally,
> I prefer to masturbate in private.
What a fine contribution _you_ seem to be making to the spirit of the
group. Your maturity is inspiring to us all.
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare - a pumpkin with a gun.
[...] Euminides this! " - Mervyn, the Sandman #66
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Scott Clark
>Robert Scott Clark wrote:
>>
>> If this place isn't for discussions about things like the threefold,
>> what is it here for.
>>
>> If all it's here for is telling of old "war stories", then personally,
>> I prefer to masturbate in private.
>
> What a fine contribution _you_ seem to be making to the spirit of the
>group. Your maturity is inspiring to us all.
>
I have taken part in the threefold discussion, and I have not butted
in to those discussions that I care nothing about. Now a couple of
asses (sure I'll insult them, it's not like they can see it) come
along and complain about the only thread going on around here that I
give a damn about. Pardon me if I get a little defensive.
I'll give you the chance too... what should we be talking about here?
woodelf
> > My feeling is that playing styles are best described as a positive
> > vector in an N-space, where N is the number of styles in the model. For
> > a "perfect" model that encompasses all possible styles, the length of
> > the vector is exactly 1 (ie., a unit vector), but for an "incomplete"
> > model like the threefold, it will be between zero and one.
>
> I understand the math-speak, but I'm just laughing my head off that people
> think that this somehow makes talking about gaming /simpler/ and /more
> communicative/. For god's sake. :D
which is why i prefer to ditch the math, push the limits out way past
anything found in the real world, and eliminate any (absolute)
mathematical relationship between the axes. it becomes just a labeling
system. i notice there aren't endless flamefests about the campaign axes
around here, and i suspect that's in part because they don't use a
mathematical/geometric model that implies either a zero-sum rating, or a
complete set of categories.
--
woodelf <*>
woo...@rpg.net
http://members.home.net/woodelph/
I did not realize that similarity was required for the exercise of
compassion. --Delenn
woodelf
<alex...@athotmaildot.com> wrote:
> OK, I see what you mean. Unfortunately it would be difficult to describe
> percentages then. For example, if your (w,s,g) equalled (.4, .4,.6), you
> couldn't describe it as 40% world-centric.
no, but you can say "about equally concerned with world and story, and a
bit more concerned with game; not obsessed over or disinterested in any of
the elements". now, given that there is no objective rating system, nor
any way to apply it, it seems to me that that's as accurate as we can get
in the first place. after all, who's to say that your .4 isn't my .8.
i'm equally distrustful of percentages in this context--i don't think most
of us could accurately determine the relative importance of the 3-fold
axes (or any other set of criteria) to a decision beyond the fineness of
the Fudge scale.
woodelf
Alex Lamb) wrote:
well, i've been advocating roughly such a visualization model ever since i
discovered r.g.f.advocacy a few years ago. the differences are slight,
but possibly significant. i prefer to think of it as a 3-space with each
axis corresponding to one of the "points" of the 3-fold. there we agree.
however, i've always envisioned it as a 0 meaning no regard (positive or
negative) for the style in question--it hadn't occurred to me that anyone
would make a decision deliberately contrary to any of the styles in
question [i'll get back to that in a bit]. anyway, i think of the space
being the triply-positive octant of a sphere, because i find the sphere
surface useful for the model. the surface of the sphere is the
limit--*if* you are making a decision that is so extreme in one or more
ways as to be sitting on the surface of the sphere, then (and only then)
you can not alter one value without altering at least one of the others.
however, i envision this space as huge and the surface distant because,
IME, it is rare that a decision point could not be altered to better
comply with one of the styles of the 3-fold while not affecting its degree
of compliance with the other 2. if we can successfully rate the
game-ness, world-ness, or story-ness of most (99+%) GM's decisions on a
scale of 0 to 5, then the sphere surface is out around 10.
i prefer not to use the triangle at all, because in a triangle you can't
alter your distance from any vertex without altering your distance from at
least one of the other vertices. to me, this is contrary to the actual
experience roleplaying. IME, you can often wiggle your, say, story-ness,
by a substantial bit, without helping or hindering the game-ness or the
world-ness measurably (if at all). i think a further advantage of the 3D
model is that there's more room to play, geometrically. a given rules
system or GM could easily define some sort of space or surface within the
larger 3-fold space. due to the GM's preferences, or the nature of the
system, all decisions would be limited to that space or surface--and the
outer limits of that space could be much closer. so, (still using a
standard range of 0-5 and absolute of 0-10), perhaps Burros & Banditos has
a very detailed setting that, for whatever reason, is noticably at odds
with its mechanics over the impact of magic on the setting. you might be
in a situation where, as written, you can't exceed a world-ness of 2
before it starts to inpinge on your game-ness, and vice versa.
now, as to those who find this sort of theory uninteresting: if i
understand correctly, you find it uninteresting because it's
non-productive and/or not applicable in a practical way to RPing. i
suggest that a visual model more like i have above, rather than a
triangle, would sidestep most of the endless arguments over the 3-fold.
IME on this newsgroup, they mostly boil down to 2 sorts: disagreements
about to what degree one style trades off with another, and disagreements
about the validity of the axes chosen. this model explicitly visualizes
the styles as only trading off as much as you want them too--i.e., the
absolute limits of playability are way out there where they are not a
concern to the real world, but a particular situation could easily impose
tighter limits. and by trying to be less of a restrictive mapping of
preferences (the triangle implies that you select the values--and thus
your preferences--in some sort of mathematical way, and are thus limited;
this implies that you may categorize yourself as you see fit in all the
values--5,2,0; 1,0,0; or even 5,5,5), i hope it would lessen people's
feelings of being left out by the model, and thus fighting it.
furthermore, it accepts the addition of as many axes as you care to name,
without altering the model's functionality. all axes are considered,
mathematically, to be orthogonal. if, for you, there is a relationship
between 2 or more of them, that's fine, but there is no need to alter the
entire model to reflect this (which seems to be another source of
argument). basically, i've always considered the 3-fold a labeling tool,
not a categorizing tool. it adds useful (to me) terminology, with (in
theory) agreed-upon definitions, and thus cuts down on a lot of
miscommunication. it's when it starts trying to map real-world decisions
to a zero-sum model that i think it falls down. remove the zero-sum, and
i think it will work better.
for those who think it's got the wrong axes: perhaps to be useful, it
needs to be expanded to look more like the campaign axes. everyone can
throw in their favorite axis, and we'll see which ones strike a chord with
more than one or 2 people, and prove to be useful for discussion. for
those who think models are useless theory: sorry, can't help; they help my
understanding, so i see them as useful. it's like the impasse i had with
me intro chem prof: he said that one only learns theory by working the
math repeatedly, whereas i only learn theory by being taught theory.
----
your comment about making decisions deliberately contrary to a given style
got me thinking: does anybody do this? that is, does anybody say "these
are the precepts and values of style X, and in my game i strive to do just
the opposite"? as opposed to "these are the precepts and values of style
X, which conflict with those of style Y, and in my game i strive to uphold
style Y". and as opposed to "i strive to make my game like foo", which
is exactly opposite to style X, unbeknownst to the speaker. if so, i
guess i'd be inclined to use negative space for that. which would be a
further advantage to a 3D model, IMHO: you could make a distinction
between playing more like X and playing less like Y, whereas the triangle
just tells you you moved further away from Y and closer to X, without
telling you why.
Robert Scott Clark
>i prefer not to use the triangle at all, because in a triangle you can't
>alter your distance from any vertex without altering your distance from at
>least one of the other vertices. to me, this is contrary to the actual
>experience roleplaying. IME, you can often wiggle your, say, story-ness,
>by a substantial bit, without helping or hindering the game-ness or the
>world-ness measurably (if at all).
I agree with you, but there are two counter arguments to this. I'm
going to roughly state what some people have said to me, so if I
misrepresent your position, sorry.
1. Warren wouldn't necessisarily agree with your "wiggle" room idea.
He has said that the world produces a result, and any deviation from
this result is a "trade-off".
I have responded to this with the idea that the more detailed (and
strict) your model is (this works for world model, story model, or set
of game rules), the less "wiggle" room you have, and consequently the
more the model represents a trade-off. Conversly, the less detailed
the model is, the more possible/acceptable results there are, the more
wiggle room there is.
2. Justin Bacon has said that the threefold is about conflicting
decisions, and does not apply to decisions where the GM doesn't have
to choose between ways of making the decision.
>----
>your comment about making decisions deliberately contrary to a given style
>got me thinking: does anybody do this? that is, does anybody say "these
>are the precepts and values of style X, and in my game i strive to do just
>the opposite"? as opposed to "these are the precepts and values of style
>X, which conflict with those of style Y, and in my game i strive to uphold
>style Y". and as opposed to "i strive to make my game like foo", which
>is exactly opposite to style X, unbeknownst to the speaker.
As one of the people who has suggested possible negative values, I can
say that the first of these is definately not what I was talking about
(and I don't really get what you are trying to say with the second
one)
Let me use the example of Gamism, since that is where I would be most
on the negative axis. Given your example, a +G player would want more
highly skilled players to succeed, and a -G player would want the
worst player to succeed. On this scale, I would place myself very
close to 0. By this scale, I find both +G and -G undesirable. What I
was attempting to do by labling myself negative on the game scale was
to differentiate my style (where I actively want player skill to have
no effect - even at the cost of a better story, simulation, whatever)
from the other style where the player wants +G, but must sacrifice it
to attain some other goal.
Let's take two decisions that look like (rated from 0 to 1)
D/G/S
(0.75,0.2,0)
and
(0.75,0,0)
When I say anti-gamist (-g) what I am refering to is the person who
picks the second choice.
woodelf
<BBDD8CF1BD9843D6.CC594172...@lp.airnews.net>,
cla...@mindspring.com wrote:
> >i prefer not to use the triangle at all, because in a triangle you can't
> >alter your distance from any vertex without altering your distance from at
> >least one of the other vertices. to me, this is contrary to the actual
> >experience roleplaying. IME, you can often wiggle your, say, story-ness,
> >by a substantial bit, without helping or hindering the game-ness or the
> >world-ness measurably (if at all).
>
> I agree with you, but there are two counter arguments to this. I'm
> going to roughly state what some people have said to me, so if I
> misrepresent your position, sorry.
>
> 1. Warren wouldn't necessisarily agree with your "wiggle" room idea.
> He has said that the world produces a result, and any deviation from
> this result is a "trade-off".
>
> 2. Justin Bacon has said that the threefold is about conflicting
> decisions, and does not apply to decisions where the GM doesn't have
> to choose between ways of making the decision.
it is exactly these two ideas that i'm trying to soften by re-modeling the
3-fold, as it is exactly these ideas that i think lead to most of the
arguments over the validity of the 3-fold, and prevent us from using it as
a better communicative tool. i would guess that case one is someone who
is essentially on the surface of the space, out at teh limits, where you
must trade one value for another--but i maintain that this is an unusual
position, and probably one that only simulationists often even approach
(based on the fact that i have rarely, if ever, heard someone who
considered themselves strongly gamist or dramatist claim that any
deviation from the ideal would of necessity be a lessening). case two
sounds like someone's personal decision space, within the larger 3-fold
space. IME, most GMs seem to play at the limit of the personal space in
3-fold terms. for that GM, any change in the degree of one quality of the
3-fold affects the others. but a different GM might be able to start from
exactly the same position, and alter one of the values without altering
the others at all, due to different precepts of how the game should be
run.
> >----
> >your comment about making decisions deliberately contrary to a given style
> >got me thinking: does anybody do this? that is, does anybody say "these
> >are the precepts and values of style X, and in my game i strive to do just
> >the opposite"? as opposed to "these are the precepts and values of style
> >X, which conflict with those of style Y, and in my game i strive to uphold
> >style Y". and as opposed to "i strive to make my game like foo", which
> >is exactly opposite to style X, unbeknownst to the speaker.
>
> As one of the people who has suggested possible negative values, I can
> say that the first of these is definately not what I was talking about
> (and I don't really get what you are trying to say with the second
> one)
ok, since math seems to be the preferred means of getting these ideas across:
we start with a scale from 0 to 1 for each axis, with 0 meaning no
consideration for the style in question, and 1 being very strong
consideration. now let's further assume that we have 3 people who hcan
all be described as (-1,.5,.5). in that case, quote one would refer to
somebody who has the negative one precisely because they detest the style
of that axis for some reason, to the point where they go out of their way
to work against its precepts; taking away this dislike, without changing
anything else, would leave them at (0,.5,.5). quote two is somebody who
simply likes the aother two axes better, and in order to get them up to a
score of .5 each she's had to sacrific first-axis-ness, bringing it down
to -1. the third quote is from someone who's never heard of the axes.
she would describe her own game as being a +1 vector along a single axis,
which translates into the 3-fold space as (-1,?,?).
Warren J. Dew
remove the zero-sum, and i think it will work better.
It may work better for you, but it would work worse for me.
I would also note that the 'zero sum' aspect is strictly a representational
issue; you can stick two axes on the triangle and make it non zero sum, and you
can add a label to the origin and make your positive octant of a sphere zero
sum.
your comment about making decisions deliberately contrary
to a given style got me thinking: does anybody do this?
It's not clear to me how this would even be possible. In the only example I
can think of, if one specifically tries to avoid making a good story, one ends
up being very concerned with story. An existentialist story is still a story.
Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software
woodelf
psych...@aol.com (Warren J. Dew) wrote:
> Regarding the threefold, 'woodelf' posts, in part:
>
> remove the zero-sum, and i think it will work better.
>
> It may work better for you, but it would work worse for me.
which is why i'm suggesting that for many (most? all?) GMs, a personal
zero-sum surface/space would be used, which falls somewhere within the
octant that describes all possible decisions. i'm trying to find a way
that the model can support both zero-sum and non-zero-sum interpretations,
in such a way that it still is a useful labeling and communicative device.
> I would also note that the 'zero sum' aspect is strictly a representational
> issue; you can stick two axes on the triangle and make it non zero sum,
and you
> can add a label to the origin and make your positive octant of a sphere zero
> sum.
only if all decisions take place on the surface of the sphere (not in its
interior) [unless i misunderstand what you mean].
> your comment about making decisions deliberately contrary
> to a given style got me thinking: does anybody do this?
>
> It's not clear to me how this would even be possible. In the only example I
> can think of, if one specifically tries to avoid making a good story, one ends
> up being very concerned with story. An existentialist story is still a story.
which is sorta why i'm wondering if anybody ever does this. personally, i
think unconcerned is as slight as you can get, and if you go beyond that
you're once again raising your "score" in that axis (just as you say).
Brian Gleichman
news:woodelf-3112...@10.0.0.100...
> (based on the fact that i have rarely, if ever, heard someone who
> considered themselves strongly gamist or dramatist claim that any
> deviation from the ideal would of necessity be a lessening).
As a someone considers themselves strongly gamist, I'd make that claim.
woodelf
<glei...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> "woodelf" <woo...@rpg.net> wrote in message
> news:woodelf-3112...@10.0.0.100...
> > (based on the fact that i have rarely, if ever, heard someone who
> > considered themselves strongly gamist or dramatist claim that any
> > deviation from the ideal would of necessity be a lessening).
>
> As a someone considers themselves strongly gamist, I'd make that claim.
so, you're saying that, given two ways to resolve a decision, one of which
has (story,world,game) values of (0,0,.8) and the other of which has
(.1,0,.8), you would find the latter decision less gamist because of the
slight added consideration of story, even though the amount of game
consideration hadn't been reduced? that is, even if decisions would not
compromise the game-ness, and there was a reason for them (one of your
players would be happier, say), you would not make them?
Brian Gleichman
> that is, even if decisions would not
> compromise the game-ness, and there was a reason for them (one of your
> players would be happier, say), you would not make them?
The example is flawed.
Any time that I consider story under conditions that require a gamist
decision, I must compromise game-ness.
Mary K. Kuhner
>so, you're saying that, given two ways to resolve a decision, one of which
>has (story,world,game) values of (0,0,.8) and the other of which has
>(.1,0,.8), you would find the latter decision less gamist because of the
>slight added consideration of story, even though the amount of game
>consideration hadn't been reduced? that is, even if decisions would not
>compromise the game-ness, and there was a reason for them (one of your
>players would be happier, say), you would not make them?
I cannot speak for Brian, of course, but this makes no sense to me.
The Threefold doesn't deal with outcomes, and breaks immediately
when you ask it to do so: it deals with intentions.
A gamist player/GM can be just as concerned with purity of intentions as
a simulationist player/GM. For example, if we have agreed that a
situation will be resolved solely on the basis of player skill, rules,
randomizers, and the established situation, then I'm violating that
agreement if I allow story to influence the outcome. It's still a
violation even if the outcome is one that could have been produced
by skill, rules, randomizers and situation, because in fact it *wasn't*.
If someone bribes me to throw a game of chess, that game is ruined as
a sporting contest. It's still ruined even if having me lose was the
expected outcome of a real, unthrown game (say, the opponent was
much better than me)--because the outcome depended on money instead of
skill. I didn't have the appropriate intent.
To me your reasoning sounds like saying "It really doesn't matter about
the bribery, because the outcome was the same as it probably would have
been anyway." But most chessplayers would agree that it *does* matter
about the bribery; and gamist roleplayers tend to think it does matter
when you manipulate outcomes for story purposes.
It's worth noting that the story manipulation will change the results
away from what game considerations would produce; otherwise why would
you bother doing it? Manipulation that never changes the outcome
is no manipulation at all.
I don't see the Threefold as symmetrical on this point; I have never
met a dramatist player who had a class of resolution methods he was
disbarred from using, whereas both gamist and simulationist players
generally do. We've talked a lot about what simulationist players are
disbarred from. For a specific example of what a gamist player is
disbarred from: I am accustomed to say to my (fairly simulationist)
GM "I have no idea what to do here, but my PC would: can we fudge
it?" I could never say that in a serious chess game, and I don't think I
could say it in a serious gamist RPG: it misses the whole point of
player skill as a determining factor. But it makes sense in a sim
game, and is not necessarily disbarred there.
It would be tidier to have a symmetrical figure, but that's not what
we have. I think, therefore, that the whole idea of mapping the thing
in spaces of whatever dimension is useless. The points are not
interchangable; we can't come to a conclusion "Being X means you
don't want Y and Z" that is symmetrically true across the triangle.
It's just not what roleplayers seem to be like; the dramatist point
is very fundamentally different from the other two.
The only use of thinking of it as a triangle, as far as I can see, is
to express the point that if you are closer to one thing you are
further from the others.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Robert Scott Clark
>I cannot speak for Brian, of course, but this makes no sense to me.
>The Threefold doesn't deal with outcomes, and breaks immediately
>when you ask it to do so: it deals with intentions.
Then it has even less of a requirement to be a trade-off model. You
can have the intent to maximize everything, even if you know you will
not succeed.
If this is not what you are saying, please explain.
> the dramatist point
>is very fundamentally different from the other two.
>
Well here is something I can absolutely agree with.
>The only use of thinking of it as a triangle, as far as I can see, is
>to express the point that if you are closer to one thing you are
>further from the others.
In a general sense, I will agree, but not specifically. If I looked
at 10000 games, and each one increased dramatist concerns, then I
would expect a trend in lowering in the others, BUT, for any one of
these games, I think it is entirely possible that the story could be
increased without harming anything else.
woodelf
<glei...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> "woodelf" <woo...@rpg.net> wrote in message
> news:woodelf-0101...@10.0.0.100...
> > that is, even if decisions would not
> > compromise the game-ness, and there was a reason for them (one of your
> > players would be happier, say), you would not make them?
>
> The example is flawed.
perhaps. the more i think about it, the more i think it's a logical
abstraction that couldn't occur in actuality.
> Any time that I consider story under conditions that require a gamist
> decision, I must compromise game-ness.
but that pretty much answers my question, nonetheless: to the degree that
my example situation can be approximated in reality, the very act of
considering non-game elements lessens game-ness for you (as a
representative gamist). unless i misread you.
woodelf
K. Kuhner) wrote:
part of this stems from unclear writing on my part: i *was* talking about
intentions, not outcomes. or at least i intended to be. so, the question
still stands: is a decision less gamist because non-gamist elements were
included in the decision, even if the degree to which gamist elements were
included was not at all diminished? [i'll grant you that, while i can
state this as a mathematical construct, i can't actually come up with an
example of it. nonetheless, i would love to hear how the gamist feels in
this hypothetical situation, even if it's one that could never come up in
reality.]
> I don't see the Threefold as symmetrical on this point; I have never
> met a dramatist player who had a class of resolution methods he was
> disbarred from using, whereas both gamist and simulationist players
> generally do. We've talked a lot about what simulationist players are
> disbarred from. For a specific example of what a gamist player is
> disbarred from: I am accustomed to say to my (fairly simulationist)
> GM "I have no idea what to do here, but my PC would: can we fudge
> it?" I could never say that in a serious chess game, and I don't think I
> could say it in a serious gamist RPG: it misses the whole point of
> player skill as a determining factor. But it makes sense in a sim
> game, and is not necessarily disbarred there.
>
> It would be tidier to have a symmetrical figure, but that's not what
> we have. I think, therefore, that the whole idea of mapping the thing
> in spaces of whatever dimension is useless. The points are not
> interchangable; we can't come to a conclusion "Being X means you
> don't want Y and Z" that is symmetrically true across the triangle.
> It's just not what roleplayers seem to be like; the dramatist point
> is very fundamentally different from the other two.
which is precisely why i propose model where the axes are all orthogonal:
it enables you to represent eitehr the trade-off model or the
rate-each-one-separately model, and since it doesn't favor either
interpretation, it (IMHO) makes it easier to discuss which of those is the
case. frex, your point about non-symmetricity is very interesting to me.
i'll be thinking about that one all the way through tomorrow's game
session. and i think part of why i never thought about it before was the
triangle that implicitly puts all 3 axes equally in opposition.
> The only use of thinking of it as a triangle, as far as I can see, is
> to express the point that if you are closer to one thing you are
> further from the others.
which is the part i'm contesting. so far, i'm not sure my argument is
sound, but i have this gut feeling that you are *not* inherently further
from the others as you get closer to one. i'll keep triyng to track this
down, or better articulate it, so that i or another can ascertain whether
i'm full of it. ;-)
Brian Gleichman
> but that pretty much answers my question, nonetheless: to the degree that
> my example situation can be approximated in reality, the very act of
> considering non-game elements lessens game-ness for you (as a
> representative gamist). unless i misread you.
Although I have a more complex view of gamist than the FAQ, this is true for
those cases where there's overlap.
Warren J. Dew
I don't see the Threefold as symmetrical on this point; I
have never met a dramatist player who had a class of
resolution methods he was disbarred from using, whereas
both gamist and simulationist players generally do.
I got the impression that David Berkman felt that any methods outside of what
he recommended were, at a minimum, 'bad gamesmastering'.
Alain avoids using dice for his own campaigns.
It's not clear to me that this is a threefold concern, but it's not clear that
it isn't, either. I do get the sense from some story advocates that "a really
good gamesmaster/storyteller can always come up with a better story than
soulless randomizers or mechanics", which implies that there are some
tradeoffs, even if they aren't with the other vertices of the triangle.
Jason Corley
> It's not clear to me that this is a threefold concern, but it's not clear that
> it isn't, either. I do get the sense from some story advocates that "a really
> good gamesmaster/storyteller can always come up with a better story than
> soulless randomizers or mechanics", which implies that there are some
> tradeoffs, even if they aren't with the other vertices of the triangle.
"A really good GM can always come up with a better challenge for player
skill than leaving it to something randomized or mechanistic, because
players themselves are neither random nor mechanical."
"A really good GM can always stay truer to the game world by coming up
with results himself rather than leaving it to something randomized or
mechanistic, because then the GM's vision of the world is unclouded by
things occurring in the metagame like dice rolling across the table."
You're right, there are trade-offs, you're right, there is a preference
here, you're right, it doesn't fit the Threefold.
--
***************************************************************************
"I was pleased to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't
know."----- Mark Twain, _Life on the Mississippi_
Jason Corley | le...@aeonsociety.org | ICQ 41199011
Bradd W. Szonye
>This is a meta-discussion post... but as a regular poster here and
>keeper of the FAQ I felt I should comment, because for the past month
>or two I find I have been avoiding this newsgroup because of various
>"threefold model" discussion, such as...
>
>Bradd W. Szonye <bra...@concentric.net> wrote:
>>My feeling is that playing styles are best described as a positive
>>vector in an N-space, where N is the number of styles in the model.
Uh, oops. *sheepish grin* It's even worse than I remember it being when
I wrote it!
>Frankly, this and others of the recent spate of threads has moved me
>pretty solidly over to the camp that rgfa is a forum for esoteric
>discussion of little to no practical value.
I've gone from vocal "newbie" back to lurker to mostly ignoring the
group, myself. I agree that it's gotten out of hand.
>While I still consider the threefold a decent kernel of an idea, I
>really wish discussion of it would go away.
I don't think the threefold is the problem as much as the hair-splitting
discussions that go along with it. There seems to be a *lot* of
intolerance for differing opinions on it, despite that the whole point
of the thing is to dispel intolerance. Two major things seem to provoke
the most hostility: using a term in an intuitive way or as the FAQ
describes it rather than in the arcane way an old-timer understands it,
or saying something even vaguely reminiscent of David Berkman or other
past "enemies" of rgfa. Despite the fact that I find Berkman's beliefs
regrettable and even offensive (as they've been explained to me), I've
been killfiled or threatened with killfiling repeatedly because I'm
"just like Berkman."
Some people really need to stop painting big red targets on the newbies,
and actually listen to what we *say*.
>If the threefold is of any use at all, then it should come up and be
>useful in "regular" discussion of actual game situations and problems.
Agreed. There is some value in meta-discussion and discussion of the
theories and models, but I too am tired of the hair-splitting and
condescension and hostility.
--
Bradd W. Szonye Work: br...@cup.hp.com
Software Design Engineer Home: bra...@concentric.net
Hewlett-Packard Cupertino Site, iFL Phone: 408-447-4832
Bradd W. Szonye
That's actually a problem, however. (It's a problem for mid-triangle
people anyway.) Why? As David Alex Lamb said, it makes it impossible to
distinguish between the GM like Scott, who considers most all of the
threefold styles irrelevant, and one like me, who prefers Gamism but has
strong elements of Dramatism and Simulationism too. Even though there's
a good chance that we wouldn't like each others' games (I might think
his is pointless and meandering, while he'd think I'm a rules lawyer
obsessed with details), the threefold puts us at the same "point" in the
triangle. It treats the mid-triangle people as "all you folks" -- we're
second-class citizens, not worthy of distinguishing between us, unlike
the "corners" which all have their own sense of community.
This is *part* of the reason why mid-triangle people find the threefold
less useful. Another reason is that moderate, mid-triangle folks
encounter tradeoffs much less freqeuently than corner styles; the whole
insistence of the threefold as a "tradeoffs model" makes it seem out of
touch with reality to somebody who just doesn't encounter tradeoffs,
even when mixing the styles.
Bradd W. Szonye
>> I agree with you, but there are two counter arguments to this. I'm
>> going to roughly state what some people have said to me, so if I
>> misrepresent your position, sorry.
>>
>> 1. Warren wouldn't necessisarily agree with your "wiggle" room idea.
>> He has said that the world produces a result, and any deviation from
>> this result is a "trade-off".
>>
>> 2. Justin Bacon has said that the threefold is about conflicting
>> decisions, and does not apply to decisions where the GM doesn't have
>> to choose between ways of making the decision.
woodelf <woo...@rpg.net> wrote:
>it is exactly these two ideas that i'm trying to soften by re-modeling the
>3-fold, as it is exactly these ideas that i think lead to most of the
>arguments over the validity of the 3-fold, and prevent us from using it as
>a better communicative tool.
I don't really have anything to say about the second counter-argument,
but I agree with you on the first. I think that the insistence on
recognizing trade-offs is a flaw, not a virtue, because it alienates
people who never encounter a need to trade off one style to accommodate
another. I too believe that there are a wide range of styles where it's
possible to change the mix of 3fold components without encountering a
trade-off situation.
However, I also recognize that *some* preferences do require tradeoffs,
and it's precisely those styles at the "extremes" where there is little
room for deviation. Thus, the recognition of trade-offs is important,
but the insistence that there is *always* a trade-off, in all styles, is
a major flaw.
I agree that the "bubble" picture of the threefold is much better than
the "triangle" picture; near the surface of the bubble, you need to make
trade-offs or you break the bubble, but more toward the center, there is
a lot more wiggle room in what works for you.
This is not the only source of controversy re: the 3fold, but it is one
of the major ones.
Bradd W. Szonye
>
> remove the zero-sum, and i think it will work better.
>
>It may work better for you, but it would work worse for me.
This is, of course, one of the major points of contention regarding the
threefold. Some styles make trade-offs very obvious, whereas others are
very tolerant of them. It seems like the trade-offs are important only
to the strongest styles, like extreme gamism and strict simulationism
and the sort of mid-triangle people who try their darnedest to satisfy
all three axes.
For the more stylistically moderate, there's a lot more wiggle room, to
the point that there isn't really a trade-off at all. A flat, trade-off
model suits such people extremely poorly, and they're some of the more
vocal opponents of the threefold.
I agree with woodelf that a "bubble" model describes the general gaming
population much better than a "triangle" model does.
> your comment about making decisions deliberately contrary
> to a given style got me thinking: does anybody do this?
>
>It's not clear to me how this would even be possible. In the only
>example I can think of, if one specifically tries to avoid making a
>good story, one ends up being very concerned with story. An
>existentialist story is still a story.
I agree with Warren here. Being contrary to a style is merely a perverse
way of taking that styles concerns into consideration. You may have a
very different result, but you end up obsessing about the same things.
While a "negative style" may make sense theoretically, just as
existentialism is a distinct style, it's so unusual in practice that I
wouldn't worry about it beyond a footnote (just so that people know that
you've considered it).
Ero...@aol.com
bra...@concentric.net (Bradd W. Szonye) wrote:
> This is *part* of the reason why mid-triangle people find the
threefold
> less useful. Another reason is that moderate, mid-triangle folks
> encounter tradeoffs much less freqeuently than corner styles; the
whole
> insistence of the threefold as a "tradeoffs model" makes it seem out
of
> touch with reality to somebody who just doesn't encounter tradeoffs,
> even when mixing the styles.
As someone who considers his own style "mid-triangle" (halfway between
simulationist & gamist, but on the far side of the dramatist corner from
the center) I have to say that I encounter tradeoffs all the time, and I
find myself... confused ... by your insistance that you don't.
Maybe you only count something as a "tradeoff" if high stakes are
involved, while I consider even minor tradeoffs to still *be* tradeoffs?
In the part of your post I didn't quote, you talk about Dave Lamb's and
your games being different, despite both being "mid-triangle" and about
how you probably wouldn't like to play in each other's games. From my
pov, you've each made a different set of trade-offs. Your style has both
advantages and disadvantages compared to his, and vice versa. If his mix
of winging-it and mechanics didn't have advantages over yours (e.g. not
being "obssessed with details") no one would prefer his to yours. If it
didn't also have disadvantages compared to yours ("pointless and
meandering") then no one would prefer your style to his. And a
"tradeoff", in my view, is where one accepts that one's position has
- and has to have - both advantages and disadvantages. Like yours. Like
mine. Like everyones.
Erol K. Bayburt
Ero...@aol.com (mail drop)
Er...@ix.netcom.com (surfboard)
Robert Scott Clark
>As someone who considers his own style "mid-triangle" (halfway between
>simulationist & gamist, but on the far side of the dramatist corner from
>the center) I have to say that I encounter tradeoffs all the time, and I
>find myself... confused ... by your insistance that you don't.
Add me in, I don't have trade-offs either.
>
>Maybe you only count something as a "tradeoff" if high stakes are
>involved, while I consider even minor tradeoffs to still *be* tradeoffs?
Nope. Maybe a mild tradeoff, once in a blue moon, but under normal
circumstances, no tradeoffs whatsoever. In fact, it is only in "high
stakes" situations that I would ever see any tradeoffs at all. For
minor things, there is always enough wiggle room to fit everything in.
>
> If his mix
>of winging-it and mechanics didn't have advantages over yours (e.g. not
>being "obssessed with details") no one would prefer his to yours. If it
>didn't also have disadvantages compared to yours ("pointless and
>meandering") then no one would prefer your style to his. And a
>"tradeoff", in my view, is where one accepts that one's position has
>- and has to have - both advantages and disadvantages. Like yours. Like
>mine. Like everyones.
Here is where you are missing what we are talking about. We are not
talking about the concept of trade-offs in general. We are talking
about the concept of trade-offs within the threefold model,
s vs g vs d.
Basically, here is an example of what I am saying...
Situation 1: I make the decision as "in world" as I would ever care
to make it.
Situation 2: I tell the best story that either I am capable of
telling, or that I care to take the time and effort to tell.
Situation 3: I make a decision that meshes just as well with the
world as 1, and tells as good a story as 2.
No tradeoff for me. I get to have my cake and eat it, too.
S1 - a: Pickier GM makes in world decision that is much more limiting
than the one I made
S2 - a: PGM tells the best story he can. It is more detailed than
mine.
S3 - a: PGM tries to do both, but they don't fit. He has to pick one
over the other.
Tradeoff for him.
The big point is, that even if I decided to include no story concerns
at all, I still would not put more effort into making a more complex
world model. Yes there is a tradeoff, but it is with something
outside of the model - my desired complexity/effort.
Bradd W. Szonye
>
>>As someone who considers his own style "mid-triangle" (halfway between
>>simulationist & gamist, but on the far side of the dramatist corner from
>>the center) I have to say that I encounter tradeoffs all the time, and I
>>find myself... confused ... by your insistance that you don't.
>
>Add me in, I don't have trade-offs either.
I *do* encounter threefold tradeoffs sometimes, but it's usually only
when my concern for one aspect of the threefold is higher than normal
(for me). For example, sometimes I get strong inclinations toward
simulationism; that conflicts with my usual gamism, and usually I rule
in favor of the gamism.
However, most of the time, my dramatist and simulationist leanings don't
interfere with my overall gamist slant, nor with each other. For the
most part, it's because I have moderate preferences (regarding S/D
anyway), and a little "wiggle" in any particular style doesn't
perceptibly affect the other elements of my style.
Another way you can view this is to say that I trade off simulationism
and dramatism against arbitrariness and whim, *not* against gamism or
each other. My style isn't strong enough to require balancing different
aspects of the threefold.
>>If his mix of winging-it and mechanics didn't have advantages over
>>yours (e.g. not being "obssessed with details") no one would prefer
>>his to yours. If it didn't also have disadvantages compared to yours
>>("pointless and meandering") then no one would prefer your style to
>>his. And a "tradeoff", in my view, is where one accepts that one's
>>position has - and has to have - both advantages and disadvantages.
>>Like yours. Like mine. Like everyones.
>
>Here is where you are missing what we are talking about. We are not
>talking about the concept of trade-offs in general. We are talking
>about the concept of trade-offs within the threefold model, s vs g vs
>d.
Right. The less "threefold-oriented" your style is, the less you need to
balance *threefold* concerns against each other. A GM with a high level
of arbitrariness in his style might trade off whim against gamism; that
GM can honestly say that the increased gamism does not affect the level
of dramatism whatsoever, because it only affects non-threefold concerns.
>The big point is, that even if I decided to include no story concerns
>at all, I still would not put more effort into making a more complex
>world model. Yes there is a tradeoff, but it is with something outside
>of the model - my desired complexity/effort.
Righto. And to such a person, it does no good to tell him "you must
trade off between story and world," because in his experience, that's
not where the trade-offs lie. In my experience, the most common
trade-off is detail vs effort, and the next most common is probably game
vs world. There are plenty enough people, however, where story vs world
vs game trade-offs are so rare that the threefold seems pointless or
useless, especially when you insist that trade-offs between the three
are inevitable.
That's how somebody like Warren can believe that the story vs world
trade-off is an invaluable part of the model while other folks don't see
a trade-off at all.
What's important is that we don't err in either direction: the
traditional problem is people who don't think that story *ever* trades
off with world, but it's no more useful to insist that story *always*
trades off with world.
Andy Gibson
>but I agree with you on the first. I think that the insistence on
>recognizing trade-offs is a flaw, not a virtue, because it alienates
>people who never encounter a need to trade off one style to accommodate
>another. I too believe that there are a wide range of styles where it's
>possible to change the mix of 3fold components without encountering a
>trade-off situation.
>
>However, I also recognize that *some* preferences do require tradeoffs,
>and it's precisely those styles at the "extremes" where there is little
>room for deviation. Thus, the recognition of trade-offs is important,
>but the insistence that there is *always* a trade-off, in all styles, is
>a major flaw.
>
1) By the nature of the threefold model there are *bound* to be trade-
offs, because the three corners are different
2) Those who do not experience trade-offs do not do so because they are
not as "purist" or "picky" as those who do - i.e. they simply don't care
about decision intent issues as much
3) Problems with this come about, ISTM, due to an expectation that the
model will describe all aspects of a style. I don't believe this is so.
It's a bit like describing a car and saying that it's red. The
specification of a colour cannot be said to completely describe the car,
and for someone who really doesn't care what colour car they drive it
could be seen as useless information. But for those who have a definite
preference for a specific colour (or even more than one, or a mixture)
it still conveys useful information.
>I agree that the "bubble" picture of the threefold is much better than
>the "triangle" picture; near the surface of the bubble, you need to make
>trade-offs or you break the bubble, but more toward the center, there is
>a lot more wiggle room in what works for you.
>
I disagree, not because I don't think that the idea that some people are
less "connected with" the triangle is valid, but because I think the
"bubble graph" should have a myriad "origins". The fact that decision
intent issues are not important to you probably means that *something*
else *is* important, but it will not necessarily be the same "something"
for all "decision intent unconcerned" people. Better, I think, in this
case to leave the triangle as a 2D system and clarify that it is only
one aspect of a description of a style of play - one dealing with
decision intent.
Cheers,
Andy
David Alex Lamb
>trade off between story and world," because in his experience, that's
>not where the trade-offs lie. In my experience, the most common
>trade-off is detail vs effort, and the next most common is probably game
>vs world.
Sounds about right to me, too.
> There are plenty enough people, however, where story vs world
>vs game trade-offs are so rare that the threefold seems pointless or
>useless, especially when you insist that trade-offs between the three
>are inevitable.
>
>That's how somebody like Warren can believe that the story vs world
>trade-off is an invaluable part of the model while other folks don't see
>a trade-off at all.
My favourite "story" over "world" example is the number of destroyed
ST:Voyager shuttles. I imagine the writers saying "but we *have* to blow up
another shuttle to set up *this* situation required by today's plot". My wife
and I lost count midway thru Season 1; I suspect by Season 5 (where we're
viewing now: repeats from the Space channel in Canada), enough mass of
shuttles have been destroyed to rebuild Voyager twice over. One of these days
they're going to have to show us the giant shuttle replicator tucked away in a
corner of Cargo Bay 1.
I forget exactly where, but Marion Zimmer Bradley was once criticised for
having the journey between two particular cities take several times longer in
one book than another, for no apparent in-world reason. She apparently
responded huffily that in her world, journeys took the time demanded by
dramatic circumstances.
--
"Yo' ideas need to be thinked befo' they are say'd" - Ian Lamb, age 3.5
http://www.cs.queensu.ca/~dalamb/
Robert Scott Clark
>case to leave the triangle as a 2D system and clarify that it is only
>one aspect of a description of a style of play - one dealing with
>decision intent.
>
What is the difference between defining the plane and saying that it
applies to people to differing degrees, and defining this other axis
as another aspect of the same model?
Warren J. Dew
Those ... do not experience trade-offs ... because they are
not as "purist" or "picky" as those who do ... they simply
don't care about decision intent issues as much....
Problems with this come about, ISTM, due to an expectation
that the model will describe all aspects of a style. I
don't believe this is so. It's a bit like describing a
car and saying that it's red. The specification of a
colour cannot be said to completely describe the car,
and for someone who really doesn't care what colour car
they drive it could be seen as useless information.
Yup.
I have a 20th anniversary Trans Am with a turbocharged V6 engine.
My wife has a grey car.
Alain Lapalme
And I have a vehicle which allows me to go from point A to point B.
good point guys!
Alain
Robert Scott Clark
>
>I have a 20th anniversary Trans Am with a turbocharged V6 engine.
>
>My wife has a grey car.
The problem is it now becomes all or nothing. There is no "almost v6
engine". You are either the strict, trade-off only threefold person,
or the worlds are meaningless to you.
(ps Trans AM describes the type of car, V6 describes the type of
engine, grey describes the color, after asking numerous times I still
haven't been told what the threefold describes)
woodelf
(Bradd W. Szonye) wrote:
> Warren J. Dew <psych...@aol.com> wrote:
> >Regarding the threefold, 'woodelf' posts, in part:
> > remove the zero-sum, and i think it will work better.
> >
> >It may work better for you, but it would work worse for me.
>
> This is, of course, one of the major points of contention regarding the
> threefold. Some styles make trade-offs very obvious, whereas others are
> very tolerant of them. It seems like the trade-offs are important only
> to the strongest styles, like extreme gamism and strict simulationism
> and the sort of mid-triangle people who try their darnedest to satisfy
> all three axes.
>
> For the more stylistically moderate, there's a lot more wiggle room, to
> the point that there isn't really a trade-off at all. A flat, trade-off
> model suits such people extremely poorly, and they're some of the more
> vocal opponents of the threefold.
>
> I agree with woodelf that a "bubble" model describes the general gaming
> population much better than a "triangle" model does.
just to make one thing crystal clear [well, i can dream...]: part of the
reason i'm advocating the "bubble" model is that it is a superset of the
triangle model. it's not that i think that more people fall outside the
descriptive space of the triangle than inside it, it's that i think that
some people fall each of without and within it, so a model that handles
both groups is preferable. i think there is still a definite place for
the zero-sum triangle model, but i believe that it applies to some,
perhaps most, rather than all.
i guess i'm not actually advocating removing the zero-sum; i'm advocating
making it optional.
Ero...@aol.com
<A49405E38FB2A3A6.31047647...@lp.airnews.net>,
cla...@mindspring.com wrote:
>
> >As someone who considers his own style "mid-triangle" (halfway
between
> >simulationist & gamist, but on the far side of the dramatist corner
from
> >the center) I have to say that I encounter tradeoffs all the time,
and I
> >find myself... confused ... by your insistance that you don't.
>
> Add me in, I don't have trade-offs either.
>
> >
> >Maybe you only count something as a "tradeoff" if high stakes are
> >involved, while I consider even minor tradeoffs to still *be*
tradeoffs?
>
> Nope. Maybe a mild tradeoff, once in a blue moon, but under normal
> circumstances, no tradeoffs whatsoever. In fact, it is only in "high
> stakes" situations that I would ever see any tradeoffs at all. For
> minor things, there is always enough wiggle room to fit everything in.
I thought that's what I said: What I would call "making a minor
tradeoff" you call "wiggle room" and don't see as even being a tradeoff
at all. We disagree about what is and isn't a "tradeoff."
>
> >
> > If his mix
> >of winging-it and mechanics didn't have advantages over yours (e.g.
not
> >being "obssessed with details") no one would prefer his to yours. If
it
> >didn't also have disadvantages compared to yours ("pointless and
> >meandering") then no one would prefer your style to his. And a
> >"tradeoff", in my view, is where one accepts that one's position has
> >- and has to have - both advantages and disadvantages. Like yours.
Like
> >mine. Like everyones.
>
> Here is where you are missing what we are talking about. We are not
> talking about the concept of trade-offs in general. We are talking
> about the concept of trade-offs within the threefold model,
> s vs g vs d.
[snip]
>
> The big point is, that even if I decided to include no story concerns
> at all, I still would not put more effort into making a more complex
> world model. Yes there is a tradeoff, but it is with something
> outside of the model - my desired complexity/effort.
OK, so you do make tradeoffs - just not (you claim) between the corners
of the threefold, but only with elements outside it. That makes a lot
more sense than "I don't encounter any tradeoffs with anything
whatsoever" which is what I thought you were saying.
Now I still don't agree with your anti-threefold argument, but it isn't
the braindead argument I though you were making. Thanks for clearing
that up.
Robert Scott Clark
>I thought that's what I said: What I would call "making a minor
>tradeoff" you call "wiggle room" and don't see as even being a tradeoff
>at all. We disagree about what is and isn't a "tradeoff."
Lets say there are 20 possible outcomes (in reality, there are usually
infinity possible outcomes). After applying all of my world
concerns, There are still 7 "good" outcomes. I now use dramatic
concerns to pick one of the 7 (in reality, for me, it probably only
eliminates another 4 or so, and I still have to arbitrarily choose one
of the remaining ones)
The word "tradeoff" to me implies that by making a choice, something
is gained and something else is lost. In my example, by adding
another criterion to my decision, I have gained by narrowing down my
choice, but what exactly have I lost?
>
>OK, so you do make tradeoffs - just not (you claim) between the corners
>of the threefold, but only with elements outside it. That makes a lot
>more sense than "I don't encounter any tradeoffs with anything
>whatsoever" which is what I thought you were saying.
There is a problem here though. The specific "tradeoff" we have been
talking about here is between detail and other concerns, and it is not
a clean trade-off. Having high detail/pickyness/whatever we are
calling it means that other concerns become a tradeoff with each
other, but does not automatically force any corner to tradeoff with
it.
What we get is not an attempt to add another corner to the triangle,
but an attempt to measure how applicable the threefold as a tradeoff
model is.
We can say either of the two following things (which I see as
functionally equivalent)
The threefold is only applicable to those who have a high degree of
detail/... in their games.
The threefold is applicable to everyone, but the higher the level of
detail/... the higher the incidence of conflict between the styles,
and the greater the incidence of encountering tradeoffs.
I see the second as superior, because it allows those of us on the
low-detail side to get the usefulness of the shared terminology,
without being bound by the tradeoff model that is not relevant to our
style of play. Notice, there is a difference between saying, "I have
managed to overcome those tradeoffs that limit you" and saying "The
whole concept of tradeoff is not relevant to me, because I never see
situations where I have to make a choice."
James C. Ellis
>
> >I thought that's what I said: What I would call "making a minor
> >tradeoff" you call "wiggle room" and don't see as even being a
> >tradeoff at all. We disagree about what is and isn't a "tradeoff."
>
> Lets say there are 20 possible outcomes (in reality, there are usually
> infinity possible outcomes). After applying all of my world
> concerns, There are still 7 "good" outcomes. I now use dramatic
> concerns to pick one of the 7 (in reality, for me, it probably only
> eliminates another 4 or so, and I still have to arbitrarily choose one
> of the remaining ones)
>
> The word "tradeoff" to me implies that by making a choice, something
> is gained and something else is lost. In my example, by adding
> another criterion to my decision, I have gained by narrowing down my
> choice, but what exactly have I lost?
The possibilities screened out by the additional criteria. Perhaps
this means that there are certain plot elements or storylines that
_never_ appear in your campaigns because they are routinely screened out
by your decision-making process. This might not matter to you - hell it
probably is the way you like it - but it remains a tradeoff.
Approached from another perspective, I'm sure Warren is eminently
satisfied by the results of _his_ decision-making process. A Tradeoff
model does not imply less than complete satisfaction with the result -
for the GM at least.
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare - a pumpkin with a gun.
[...] Euminides this! " - Mervyn, the Sandman #66
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Bradd W. Szonye
>
> Those ... do not experience trade-offs ... because they are not as
> "purist" or "picky" as those who do ... they simply don't care about
> decision intent issues as much....
One note: The trade-offs often disappear *not* because you're not as
"picky," but because you're playing at a level of style where, for
example, a little more world intent doesn't interfere with your
preference for game intent. That is, when your level of concern for
world and game is fairly moderate, a slight extra focus on one does
*not* necessitate less focus on the other. It's only when you have very
high concern for game that an extra focus on world will detract from it.
> Problems with this come about, ISTM, due to an expectation that the
> model will describe all aspects of a style. I don't believe this is
> so. It's a bit like describing a car and saying that it's red. The
> specification of a colour cannot be said to completely describe the
> car, and for someone who really doesn't care what colour car they
> drive it could be seen as useless information.
>
>Yup.
>
>I have a 20th anniversary Trans Am with a turbocharged V6 engine.
>
>My wife has a grey car.
Here's a better analogy, in my opinion: When I was young and reckless, I
tried to determine the top speed of my Ford Probe. I found that several
things would lower the car's top speed. Some were fairly obvious, like
leaving the windows open or turning on the flip-up headlights -- either
one lowered the top speed by almost 5mph! Others were less obvious, like
turning on the radio or air conditioner. Even a little thing like
getting the car washed would change the top speed. Overall, I found that
the Probe would go about 104mph in the worst conditions and up to about
112mph in best conditions (nothing on, car totally closed up and clean).
Now, if I want to drive the Probe at 65mph, there are no tradeoffs
between opening the windows, using the A/C, or turning on the
headlights. However, if I want to drive the car at 110mph, I must choose
between air conditioning and radio. I must make sure the car is clean if
I'm going to turn on the headlights.
This is directly analogous to the threefold styles. If I want to run a
moderately gamist game, then any "reasonable" amount of story or world
concern will work with no troubles. However, if I want to run a nearly
pure gamist game, more than a tiny bit of story or world concern is
going to hamper my game. Furthermore, a high amount of game concern also
introduces more trade-offs between story and world.
What happens in rgfa is that there are some people who always drive
their Probes at 110mph; those people insist that the trade-offs are
inherent to the styles, and they are a crucial part of the model. Other
people drive at 65mph, and they never encounter the trade-offs. Some of
them go so far as to say, "What do you mean, I can't run the radio and
the A/C at the same time? Are you insane?"
Bradd W. Szonye
>OK, so you do make tradeoffs - just not (you claim) between the corners
>of the threefold, but only with elements outside it. That makes a lot
>more sense than "I don't encounter any tradeoffs with anything
>whatsoever" which is what I thought you were saying.
Same here -- that is, I too encounter plenty of trade-offs, but most of
them are between a threefold styles and "something else," not between
corners of the threefold itself.
A classic example is the guy who wants to honor both story and world.
Many people who put very high value on story or world to begin with are
going to insist that you *can't*: that there are trade-offs between
story and world, and you can't maximize both. In their experience, if
you put more emphasis on one, you're going to sacrifice the other.
On the other hand, many folks who *don't* start out with very high
requirements don't see a trade-off. That is, no trade-off *between story
and world*. Instead, they see a trade-off between quality and effort.
They consider a high-story, high-world game "better," but also realize
that getting a good balance of both takes a lot of time and work and
brain sweat.
What happens in practice is that the first group insists that there is
an inherent trade-off between story and world, while the second group
responds, "I don't see any trade-off, just more work for the GM." Both
recognize a trade-off, but they disagree about where it is. My
experiences with rgfa lead me to believe that both groups are right:
there is a point where more effort is not enough, and there is an
inherent tradeoff between styles, but most people never play at a level
where that is true. Thus, we have the disconnect between people who have
good reason to believe that styles conflict, and people who think the
first group is crazy or stupid.
>Now I still don't agree with your anti-threefold argument, but it isn't
>the braindead argument I though you were making. Thanks for clearing
>that up.
The threefold is handy, but the insistence that there is *always* a
tradeoff between G, D, & S causes massive PR problems for the threefold
because most people will rarely (or never) encounter the trade-offs.
Bradd W. Szonye
>detail/... the higher the incidence of conflict between the styles,
>and the greater the incidence of encountering tradeoffs.
>
>low-detail side to get the usefulness of the shared terminology,
>without being bound by the tradeoff model that is not relevant to our
>style of play. Notice, there is a difference between saying, "I have
>managed to overcome those tradeoffs that limit you" and saying "The
>whole concept of tradeoff is not relevant to me, because I never see
>situations where I have to make a choice."
I agree with this wholeheartedly. I don't know that "detail" is quite
the right way to describe it, but it catches the right spirit of things:
The more you invest in threefold styles (or any other style), the more
conflict and trading-off you'll see between styles.
Thus, we reconcile the two camps:
1. You can always add more Style Y to Style X, it just takes more work.
2. There is always a trade-off between Styles X and Y.
People in camp 1 usually assume that camp 2 folks "just aren't trying
hard enough." People in camp 2 get upset because camp 1 "just can't see
how they *don't* fulfill my needs, and telling me to work harder is just
insulting."
The truth appears to be that eventually you reach a point where "more
effort" is not effective for your particular group, and at that point
the trade-offs between styles become important.
(There are, of course, other issues, like "But I just don't like any
amount of Style Y, no matter how well it combines with Style X," but
that's a different argument.)
Andy Gibson
of other aspects.
Cheers,
Andy
Bradd W. Szonye
>>
>> Lets say there are 20 possible outcomes (in reality, there are usually
>> infinity possible outcomes). After applying all of my world
>> concerns, There are still 7 "good" outcomes. I now use dramatic
>> concerns to pick one of the 7 (in reality, for me, it probably only
>> eliminates another 4 or so, and I still have to arbitrarily choose one
>> of the remaining ones)
>>
>> The word "tradeoff" to me implies that by making a choice, something
>> is gained and something else is lost. In my example, by adding
>> another criterion to my decision, I have gained by narrowing down my
>> choice, but what exactly have I lost?
James C. Ellis <ell...@cadvision.com> wrote:
> The possibilities screened out by the additional criteria. Perhaps
>this means that there are certain plot elements or storylines that
>_never_ appear in your campaigns because they are routinely screened out
>by your decision-making process. This might not matter to you - hell it
>probably is the way you like it - but it remains a tradeoff.
Yes, but it's not a trade-off of story versus world, which is what the
trade-off aspect of the threefold implies. It's a trade-off of drama
against something else -- maybe game concerns, maybe social concerns,
maybe effort concerns. It's only a trade-off of story versus world if
the story concerns invalidate some of your world decisions.
Is that clear? There *is* a trade-off, but it's a trade-off not modeled
at all by the threefold. The "trade-off triangle" model of the threefold
only makes sense if you assume a constant level of effort (so that you
can't solve the problem by working harder/smarter) or you assume a very
high level of adherence to a style (so that you're already putting in
about as much effort as is humanly possible).
Otherwise, the trade-off aspect of the model doesn't make sense, because
you *don't* necessarily sacrifice one style by putting more focus on a
different style. Telling Scott that he can't add more story without
sacrificing some world sounds just as dumb to him as it does to Warren
when you tell him that he could have more story with his world concerns
if only he would work a little harder. At Warren's level of play,
story-world trade-offs are inevitable; in Scott's style (or mine, for
that matter), actual conflicts between story and world are so rare that
it's hard to see that there's a trade-off at all.
>Approached from another perspective, I'm sure Warren is eminently
>satisfied by the results of _his_ decision-making process. A Tradeoff
>model does not imply less than complete satisfaction with the result -
>for the GM at least.
We're not saying that you or Warren or anybody else is using a
sub-optimal decision-making process. Just that moderate styles don't
often encounter a trade-off between story and world, because the
requirements are too loose to require that kind of trade-off. Insistence
that story *always* requires degradation of world thus sounds false to
such people. It's much more common for story concerns to require a
different kind of trade-off, namely that it's *more work* to address
those concerns.
It's not until world concerns or story concerns become *very* important
that some sort of inherent trade-off becomes apparent between the two.
Basically, the more common "more work" trade-off becomes prohibitively
expensive, so you must give up something else: namely, you sacrifice
some story concerns, some world concerns, or both.
Like I said in my car analogy: if you try to drive a Ford Probe at
110mph, there is a legitimate trade-off between turning on the radio or
turning on the air-conditioner (because the car doesn't have enough
power to do both at that speed). If you only drive at 60mph, the whole
idea of a conflict between radio play and air conditioning seems silly.
Robert Scott Clark
>Because I don't believe that it is *one* other axis - I think it's lots
>of other aspects.
>
I will actually agree. I'm just going one at a time.
Robert Scott Clark
>I agree with this wholeheartedly. I don't know that "detail" is quite
>the right way to describe it, but it catches the right spirit of things:
I think "effort" might be better (technically they're the same thing,
more "detail" is just the effect of more "effort")
James C. Ellis
>
> James C. Ellis <ell...@cadvision.com> wrote:
> > The possibilities screened out by the additional criteria. Perhaps
> >this means that there are certain plot elements or storylines that
> >_never_ appear in your campaigns because they are routinely screened
> >out by your decision-making process. This might not matter to you -
> >hell it probably is the way you like it - but it remains a tradeoff.
>
> Yes, but it's not a trade-off of story versus world, which is what the
> trade-off aspect of the threefold implies. It's a trade-off of drama
> against something else -- maybe game concerns, maybe social concerns,
> maybe effort concerns. It's only a trade-off of story versus world if
> the story concerns invalidate some of your world decisions.
The Threefold doesn't just talk of tradeoffs of story vs world. A
story vs game tradeoff is still a Threefold tradeoff. Since I am in
favour of the inclusion of a Social axis, I would say that story vs
social is also included. Story vs effort is would grant you appears to
be a non-Threefold tradeoff (though I could make an argument that this
is also a story vs game tradeoff, or even story vs story.).
> Like I said in my car analogy: if you try to drive a Ford Probe at
> 110mph, there is a legitimate trade-off between turning on the radio
> or turning on the air-conditioner (because the car doesn't have enough
> power to do both at that speed). If you only drive at 60mph, the whole
> idea of a conflict between radio play and air conditioning seems
> silly.
Theres still a tradoff occuring - between these and fuel economy. Is
such a three/fourfold concern? Who the hell knows - it's a pretty weak
analogy IMO.
davi...@my-deja.com
>Lets say there are 20 possible outcomes (in reality, there are
>usually infinity possible outcomes). After applying all of my
>world concerns, There are still 7 "good" outcomes. I now use
>dramatic concerns to pick one of the 7 (in reality, for me, it
>probably only eliminates another 4 or so, and I still have to
>arbitrarily choose one of the remaining ones)
>The word "tradeoff" to me implies that by making a choice,
>something is gained and something else is lost. In my example,
>by adding another criterion to my decision, I have gained by
>narrowing down my choice, but what exactly have I lost?
Actually, you have made a story-world tradeoff here, not in the
particular outcome, but in the pattern of events that results. If you
always apply these filters, there will be approximately 4 of 7 possible
world-valid outcomes that will never occur. Over the course of world
history, the world will be distorted by the absence of these
possibilities, thus compromising the original world model in which those
non-occurring outcomes were valid. Likewise, in eliminating the
original 13 world-violating outcomes, you may remove potentially
"better" stories (Of course some will argue that world-invalid outcomes
make bad stories. In that case, those 13 options weren't "really"
options.).
-Dave
Robert Scott Clark
>Actually, you have made a story-world tradeoff here, not in the
>particular outcome, but in the pattern of events that results. If you
>always apply these filters, there will be approximately 4 of 7 possible
>world-valid outcomes that will never occur.
No, there will be 6 of 7 outcomes that will never occur.
>Over the course of world
>history, the world will be distorted by the absence of these
>possibilities, thus compromising the original world model in which those
>non-occurring outcomes were valid.
One valid choice is taken over another valid choice. Nothing is lost.
For a tradeoff, world would have to say 2 and 5 are valid, and drama
would say that 1 and 3 are valid. Now I have a tradeoff, because both
cannot be valid.
> Likewise, in eliminating the
>original 13 world-violating outcomes, you may remove potentially
>"better" stories
You make the assumption that between two possible dramatic choices,
one will always be preferable.
That is my point about the degree of effort I am willing to put in.
I can have a world that says 9 of 13 are acceptable, or I can have one
where only 2 are acceptable. I am not willing to put in the effort
to develop enough detail for my world to make the more precise
determination.
The same goes for drama. I say that there are 5 acceptable decisions,
you say that if the world eliminates one of these that is better than
the rest then I have traded off drama for world. Well, I say, that if
one is better than the others, then there aren't 5 acceptable
decisions to begin with, only 1.
If 5 decisions are acceptable, then there are 5 choices that are
better than the others, and are basically indistinguishable from each
other, and I don't have either the skill or the desire to make the
choice more specifically. If one is decidedly better than the others,
then those others are unacceptable.
Jeff MacDonald
Robert Scott Clark wrote:
>
>
>Lets say there are 20 possible outcomes (in reality, there are usually
>infinity possible outcomes). After applying all of my world
>concerns, There are still 7 "good" outcomes. I now use dramatic
>concerns to pick one of the 7 (in reality, for me, it probably only
>eliminates another 4 or so, and I still have to arbitrarily choose one
>of the remaining ones)
>
>The word "tradeoff" to me implies that by making a choice, something
>is gained and something else is lost. In my example, by adding
>another criterion to my decision, I have gained by narrowing down my
>choice, but what exactly have I lost?
>
something. I read you as saying that out of those outcomes that work
from the world perspective, you choose the ones that would make the
best story. Over a large number of such decisions that will bias the
world to be more "dramatic" than it would be if dramatic criteria
were not used. That is a threefold tradeoff. It may be one you're
willing to make, but it is a tradeoff non the less.
The only case when it wouldn't be, would be if applying each set of
criteria eliminated the same outcomes. ie story, world and game all
left you with the 2-3 valid outcomes. I think that would be pretty
unlikely to happen regularly.
--
thejeff
Robert Scott Clark
>world to be more "dramatic" than it would be if dramatic criteria
>were not used.
Right. I have gained something, that was the point. Now what have I
lost?
Did I pay less attention to the world than I would have otherwise?
No, I had finished applying all the world concerns I had before I even
gave drama the first thought.
Did I pay less attention to player skill than I would have otherwise?
No. In my case, I have paid basically no attention to player skill in
either case.
>That is a threefold tradeoff.
How so? I have paid exactly as much attention to the world as I would
have without applying the dramatic criteria. If I hadn't brought out
the dramatic concerns, I would have been stuck with choosing randomly
between the world-acceptable outcomes.
Unless "random and arbitrary" is now, somehow, world oriented, then
these two methods have exactly the same level of world-orientation,
while the first has an additional level of drama. Same in one
element, better in another = no tradeoffs. (unless we can find a
change in another quantity)
This doesn't necessisarily make that choice better. If I could
improve the game without hurting drama or world, I still wouldn't do
it (I would be willing to do a reverse tradeoff, and actually hurt the
world/drama in order to remove game elements) , but that doesn't force
me to say that it isn't possible.
>The only case when it wouldn't be, would be if applying each set of
>criteria eliminated the same outcomes. ie story, world and game all
>left you with the 2-3 valid outcomes. I think that would be pretty
>unlikely to happen regularly.
If that happened, what would be the point of applying anything except
the first one.
Jeff MacDonald
Robert Scott Clark wrote:
>>
I understood from your example that out of 20 possibilities you ruled
out 13 on world grounds and then 4 more on story grounds. From those
you chose one that actually happened. This translates to me as "Out
of the outcomes that fit the world, I choose only one of the ones
that makes a good story". If that's not right then I misunderstood
you and much of the following doesn't apply.
>>Actually, you have made a story-world tradeoff here, not in the
>>particular outcome, but in the pattern of events that results. If you
>>always apply these filters, there will be approximately 4 of 7 possible
>>world-valid outcomes that will never occur.
>
>No, there will be 6 of 7 outcomes that will never occur.
Obviously, in each individual decision only one outcome will occur.
Too see the tradeoff you have to look at what happens over multiple
decisions. If the same filters are always used then over time it will
be obvious that outcomes that make sense for the world, but don't
make a good story never occur.
>
>
>
>>Over the course of world
>>history, the world will be distorted by the absence of these
>>possibilities, thus compromising the original world model in which those
>>non-occurring outcomes were valid.
>
>One valid choice is taken over another valid choice. Nothing is lost.
>
Nothing noticable in a single event. Over many decisions world
realism is lost (biased to dramatic outcomes)
Simplistic analogy: For a single coin toss it's realistic to say it
comes up heads. For a hundred it's ridiculous if it comes up heads
each time, but each considered alone is realistic.
>
>
>For a tradeoff, world would have to say 2 and 5 are valid, and drama
>would say that 1 and 3 are valid. Now I have a tradeoff, because both
>cannot be valid.
>
Even if there is overlap (say 4 is valid for both), you are losing
both good stories (1,3) and valid world possibilities (2,5). I think
you're missing this point, because as you said in any individual
decision only one can be chosen anyway.so it might as well be one
that fits with both. The key is that, over many decisions, both
realism and drama can suffer. "Why do we never see this type of
story?" and "Why does the dramatically appropriate thing always seem
to happen?"
Now these may be tradeoffs you're willing to make. You may even see
them as good things. From a threefold point of view they are still
tradeoffs.
All of this can of course be applied to gamism as well.
<snip stuff about detail level which is meaningful, but I think
outside the point I'm trying to make>
--
thejeff
Robert Scott Clark
>I understood from your example that out of 20 possibilities you ruled
>out 13 on world grounds and then 4 more on story grounds. From those
>you chose one that actually happened. This translates to me as "Out
>of the outcomes that fit the world, I choose only one of the ones
>that makes a good story". If that's not right then I misunderstood
>you and much of the following doesn't apply.
That's what I said, and it is vaguely accurate, but implies an
ordering that I don't consider important. A more accurate description
might be There are 20 options. 7 are acceptable to the world. 8 are
acceptable to the drama. There is an intersection of size 3 that are
acceptable to both.
>
>
>Obviously, in each individual decision only one outcome will occur.
And if nothing is lost by eliminating 6 outcomes all at one, why is
something lost by eliminating 4 outcomes, then followed by eliminating
another two.
>Too see the tradeoff you have to look at what happens over multiple
>decisions. If the same filters are always used then over time it will
>be obvious that outcomes that make sense for the world, but don't
>make a good story never occur.
So. How does this hurt the world?
>>
>Nothing noticable in a single event. Over many decisions world
>realism is lost (biased to dramatic outcomes)
Realism has 0 importance to me. Did you mean some other word besides
"realism" ?
>Simplistic analogy: For a single coin toss it's realistic to say it
>comes up heads. For a hundred it's ridiculous if it comes up heads
>each time, but each considered alone is realistic.
>
Too easy to calculate the probabilities, let's try poker.
Having some knowledge of probability, I can say I would be suspicious
if someone got dealt 4 royal flushes during a night of poker. If I
knew nothing about the distribution of cards or calculating odds, I
might find nothing wrong with it.
If I have a very strictly defined world, having a pattern of drama
form might be noticable. With my world, it would not be.
> The key is that, over many decisions, both
>realism and drama can suffer. "Why do we never see this type of
>story?" and "Why does the dramatically appropriate thing always seem
>to happen?"
>
Why do I never see an action movie where the main character becomes a
world famous florist at the end?
Basically, you have added an additional story requirement to your
conditions - all stories must be possible. This is not one of the
demands I put on my stories, and would not be one of my demands even
if I had no world concerns whatsoever.
Warren J. Dew
I suspect a strong simulationist would say that you have
lost something. I read you as saying that out of those
outcomes that work from the world perspective, you
choose the ones that would make the best story. Over a
large number of such decisions that will bias the world
to be more "dramatic" than it would be if dramatic
criteria were not used. That is a threefold tradeoff.
It may be one you're willing to make, but it is a
tradeoff non the less.
Yes - though most of the tradeoff has already happened, from the threefold
perspective, because the world wasn't strong enough to provide a single 'world
correct' outcome in the first place.
From Robert Scott Clark's response:
Unless "random and arbitrary" is now, somehow, world
oriented, then these two methods have exactly the same
level of world-orientation, while the first has an
additional level of drama.
'Random and arbitrary' is, in fact, at least slightly more world oriented than
'applying story concerns', for the reasons Jeff gives above. 'Random and
arbitrary' - or at least random - can in fact be entirely world oriented, since
it doesn't necessarily take into account metagame concerns; this depends on the
individual world.
If you replace 'random and arbitrary' with another explicit reason that's more
clearly not in the threefold - say, 'boyfriend of gamesmaster' or something -
then yes, the degree of story orientation could be increased not at the cost of
the world (though possibly at the cost of that particular personal
relationship, in this case).
Warren J. Dew
I would also note that the 'zero sum' aspect is strictly a
representational issue; you can stick two axes on the
triangle and make it non zero sum, and you can add a label
to the origin and make your positive octant of a sphere
zero sum.
"Woodelf":
only if all decisions take place on the surface of the
sphere (not in its interior) [unless i misunderstand what
you mean].
You do misunderstand what I mean.
Label the origin in your spherical octant model "Everything other than
threefold, including social". Now, I can measure the degree of these
'everything else including social' concerns in any point in your spherical
octant as (1 - radius). So even the spherical octant model ('octant' for
short?) has tradeoffs now: between the four concerns, game, story, world,
everything else including social, you cannot increase any one without
decreasing at least one of the others.
woodelf
gotcha! but i'd hardly call that a "strictly representational" issue.
you've drastically changed the meaning of the model by doing that. if it
were up to me, adding another axis/concern to the model would involve
increasing its dimensionality, not relabeling an existing
portion/direction of the model. the whole *point* of it is to represent
that (IMHO) the axes of the 3fold are not inherently in opposition, even
if most gameplay occurs in a subspace within which they are. now, only
one of these can, of course, be the accurate model: either the trade-offs
are inherent, or they're not. but my octant model only addresses an
"absolute" inherent-ness--while it might say that the trade-offs aren't
inherent, it doesn't deny the possibility that the trade-offs are
frequently encountered.
however, i will grant you that if *everything* that occurs during a game
decision were included in the model it would end up zero-sum, provided you
were making the optimal decision. that is, if you're only using, say,
half the game-ness you can, given the amounts of all the other things
you're using, you could increase game-ness without decreasing anything
else. how many people play in that way, i have no idea.
p.s.: am i making sense? do you understand what i'm saying? you're
welcome to think i'm wrong, but i have this fear that i'm simply not
making my point clear, and thus being misunderstood more than disagreed
with. either that or i'm not understanding you; we seem to be talking
past each other.
Alain Lapalme
Robert Scott Clark wrote:
> >>
> >Nothing noticable in a single event. Over many decisions world
> >realism is lost (biased to dramatic outcomes)
>
> Realism has 0 importance to me. Did you mean some other word besides
> "realism" ?
>
What about "credible"? After a while it becomes more and more difficult
to suspend disbelief.
Alain
Alain Lapalme
Warren J. Dew wrote:
> If you replace 'random and arbitrary' with another explicit reason that's more
> clearly not in the threefold - say, 'boyfriend of gamesmaster' or something -
> then yes, the degree of story orientation could be increased not at the cost of
> the world (though possibly at the cost of that particular personal
> relationship, in this case).
>
I thought things like "boyfriend of GM", "X had a bad day today", "Y really
dislikes long fights" were part of the 3 fold, specifically, in the gamist apex?
Alain
Brian Gleichman
news:3A58D41...@magma.ca...
> I thought things like "boyfriend of GM", "X had a bad day today", "Y
really
> dislikes long fights" were part of the 3 fold, specifically, in the gamist
apex?
No.
They're in the often talked about, but never accepted, fourth corner of
Social. They are not part of the current Threefold.
--
Brian Gleichman
glei...@mindspring.com
Age of Heroes: http://gleichman.home.mindspring.com/
Free RPG Reviews: http://gleichman.home.mindspring.com/Reviews.htm
Warren J. Dew
I thought things like "boyfriend of GM", "X had a bad day
today", "Y really dislikes long fights" were part of the 3
fold, specifically, in the gamist apex?
Heh. Before we had any aficionados of the style here, that corner was indeed
used as a dumping ground for those concerns, as well as for anything that
anyone in the group considered to be 'bad roleplaying'.
Then Brian Gleichman showed up, and vigorously defended the style against the
rest of us, clarifying what the game orientation was all about in the process.
Since then, several other gamists have shown up (or become more vocal).
The actual presence of people who prefer game oriented campaigns has helped my
understanding of the style immensely; prior to that, we were theorizing in a
vacuum (maybe not a complete vacuum, but at least a partial vacuum).
For example, one of the useful things that came out of the most recent
threefold flamefest was that the key defining factor of the game orientation
was a focus on the influence of player skill - the skill of the player, not of
the character - on event resolution. Okay, the gamists all knew this already
and perhaps thought it too obvious to emphasize, but I hadn't realized that it
was more than one of many equal factors until this time around.
Joshua Hall-Bachner
"Brian Gleichman" <glei...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> No.
>
> They're in the often talked about, but never accepted, fourth corner
> of Social. They are not part of the current Threefold.
Out of curiosity, is there some reason this never seems to make it into the
model? I've seen *far* more in-game decisions made based on social factors
than gamist or simulationist ones...
--
Joshua Hall-Bachner
charl...@tmbg.org
Brian Gleichman
news:93bi11$psl$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> Out of curiosity, is there some reason this never seems to make it into
the
> model? I've seen *far* more in-game decisions made based on social factors
> than gamist or simulationist ones...
Change comes slowly, if at all.
And no one here has pushed Social concerns as a primary factor in their
games. I think most would like to think that they don't exist as they have
the traditional trade-offs with the other corners.
At one time, there was a number of people opposed to adding it (including
myself). I don't know of anyone opposed now, but there is the sense that
since we don't have someone who plays primarily for Social concerns that any
attempt to define the corner would produce the flawed results similair to
the FAQ's gamist definition.
Robert Scott Clark
>What about "credible"? After a while it becomes more and more difficult
>to suspend disbelief.
I think you are correct in that this is what he meant to say, but I
have a
few comments regarding it.
1. This can only happen if each decision is made without knowledge of
previous events. If a choice would cause suspension of disbelief
problems, because of previous decisions that were made, then it would
never be included as an "acceptable" outcome. Over time, if enough
related decisions are made, eventually you will be forced into a
situation where you have to choose and a tradeoff will occur. In
practice, this never happens to me. Maybe it is the low level of
detail I begin with, maybe it is reason #2
(below), maybe it is the fact that I do not enjoy long campaigns, but
whatever the reason, I never reach the point where a string of
coincidences (from the world perspective) start to harm my SoD.
2. I don't play out every aspect of the character's life. If there
are 10 decisions that form a pattern, there are 100 others that do
not. To follow the coin tossing metaphor, to toss 10 heads in a row
might straign SoD, to toss coins all day and realize that at least 10
of them came up heads does not.
During the past week, 95% of my life has been same-old-same-old, while
there have been several occurances that have a certain "resonance"
that I cannot wait to tell two of my friends about tomorrow as I feel
it will make a great story. My SoD is still basically intact.
3. If SoD is really what he meant by "realism", then I have already
made my arguments. Just go back for the past 2 weeks, and find every
post where I say "picky" and substitute in "less willing to Suspend
Disbelief." (your can also change "detail" to "more detail which
makes consistancy more difficult which leads to SoD problems)
Robert Scott Clark
>
>Yes - though most of the tradeoff has already happened, from the threefold
>perspective, because the world wasn't strong enough to provide a single 'world
>correct' outcome in the first place.
Replace "world wasn't strong enough" with "world wasn't detailed
enough" or "the GM wasn't willing to put the effort into making a
stronger world", and you just said exactly what we have been saying
for days now.
What I don't get is how you can call something that does not involve
increasing one aspect of the threefold at the cost of another a
"threefold tradeoff."
Also, this seems to imply that a threefold tradeoff can take place at
the design stage (not something I disagree with, just an observation),
so what would world oriented design look like.
>
>'Random and arbitrary' is, in fact, at least slightly more world oriented than
>'applying story concerns', for the reasons Jeff gives above.
The reasons Jeff gave put the cart before the horse.
Question we are arguing: Does increasing Drama necessisarily decrease
Simulationism (or whatever we are calling it now) assuming gamism is
kept constant
I attempt to give an example of this not happening when I play.
Jeff says, "you did decrease simulationism."
I say, "how?"
Jeff says, "you increased drama..."
His unstated assumption being "... because an increase in drama is a
decrease in simulationism/world-orientation."
You know, you can prove anything if you are allowed to assume that it
is
true.
The question still remains, what, exactly, about the increase in drama
distracts from the world?
***At the end of this post, I am going to post a question related to
this topic***
> 'Random and
>arbitrary' - or at least random - can in fact be entirely world oriented,
Can. Maybe. (I am starting to accept that it *might* be used this
way, as I find that Warren uses dice much differently than I do) But
not always. My example was of me replacing my use of dice with my use
of dramatic concerns, and my use of dice is not world-oriented.
> since
>it doesn't necessarily take into account metagame concerns;
I don't get this part. Dice rolled by a player on a table in the real
world is as meta as you can get.
>>
>If you replace 'random and arbitrary' with another explicit reason that's more
>clearly not in the threefold
My use of random elements is not for any threefold concern (unless,
possibly, if we add social).
> - say, 'boyfriend of gamesmaster' or something -
>then yes, the degree of story orientation could be increased not at the cost of
>the world
So, you admit that the threefold is not always a tradeoff model (at
least not internally to itself)? What you just said is pretty similar
to what we have been saying for quite a while now.
*** bonus question ***
What exactly does a world-oriented decision look like?
Or, more precisely, what do the results of a world oriented decision
look like?
When I have been refering to world-oriented, I have been limiting
myself to something along the lines of "consistant". The other
natural contenders for "world-oriented" (ie realistic,
verisimilitudinistic, ...) have already been eliminated, so
"consistant" is all I have left.
While we might not all be able to agree on what a good story is, any
one of us could likely describe what we consider a good story. From
this description, I could look at your game (created using any method)
and determine whether or not it was "good enough". If your game is
very world-oriented this might not occur often enough to satisfy
someone desiring drama, but at least the drama-desiring player could
say "see that... If you had more of that, I would like your game
better."
So, Warren, how would you, looking only at what happened in the game
world, decide if it was sufficiently "world-oriented" for your tastes?
My guess is that you will say that the question doesn't apply. If
that is the case, then I have an alternate model, that clears things
up for me a bit.
Warren J. Dew
basically intact, despite a certain number of coincidences over the past week.
I've found that my characters are amazingly resilient to disbelief in their own
world. They can believe their own worlds even when they become far stranger
than I can imagine.
I as a player have more of a problem, because I can see more of the puppet
strings.
davi...@my-deja.com
>>Actually, you have made a story-world tradeoff here, not in the
>>particular outcome, but in the pattern of events that results. If
>>you always apply these filters, there will be approximately 4 of
>>7 possible world-valid outcomes that will never occur.
>No, there will be 6 of 7 outcomes that will never occur.
Ouch. Got me there. I should have said "can never occur" rather
than "will." My point being that over time the existence of the
"drama-appropriate" filter will become evident as certain classes of
world-valid events are found never to occur. It obviously won't be
evident in a single decision, where only one possible outcome
occurs, as you note, but given a sample set of dozens of decisions,
the pattern would appear.
>>Over the course of world history, the world will be distorted by
>>the absence of these possibilities, thus compromising the
>>original world model in which those non-occurring outcomes
>>were valid.
>One valid choice is taken over another valid choice. Nothing is
>lost.
What is lost is a region of "possible outcome space" which is
inaccessible for non-world reasons.
>The same goes for drama. I say that there are 5 acceptable
>decisions, you say that if the world eliminates one of these that is
>better than the rest then I have traded off drama for world. Well,
>I say, that if one is better than the others, then there aren't 5
>acceptable decisions to begin with, only 1.
I don't believe that decisions can be consistently made which
satisfy every desire of the GM equally well. Thus, when I said that
one was "better" I meant with better with respecct to drama, but
worse with respect to world. The tradeoff above is between the
"most dramatically appropriate" choice, and a less dramatically
appropriate one which violates the world integrity to a lesser
extent.
>If 5 decisions are acceptable, then there are 5 choices that are
>better than the others, and are basically indistinguishable from
>each other, and I don't have either the skill or the desire to make
>the choice more specifically. If one is decidedly better than the
>others, then those others are unacceptable.
Agreed that some choices will be neutral to all the 3-fold concerns,
since they are not an all-encompassing list of possible motives.
-Dave
Robert Scott Clark
> My point being that over time the existence of the
>"drama-appropriate" filter will become evident as certain classes of
>world-valid events are found never to occur.
This assumes that it is the same "kind" of decision that produces the
dramatically appropriate outcome in all similar situations. I have
not found this to be the case.
>
>What is lost is a region of "possible outcome space" which is
>inaccessible for non-world reasons.
Again, I can only answer with "So?"
Whenever you make any choice for whatever reason, you eliminate a
large number of possibilities. If the region I eliminate by making
choice X is no better than the region eliminated by choice Y. The
only way I can really make sense of you statement is to interpret it
as "everything that can happen should happen" and it is true, this is
not going to happen with what I am describing. OTOH, If this is to be
considered one of the defining factors of world-orientation, then I am
suprised I have not heard it before now, as it is a pretty big and
limiting requirement.
>
>
>>The same goes for drama. I say that there are 5 acceptable
>>decisions, you say that if the world eliminates one of these that is
>>better than the rest then I have traded off drama for world. Well,
>>I say, that if one is better than the others, then there aren't 5
>>acceptable decisions to begin with, only 1.
>
>I don't believe that decisions can be consistently made which
>satisfy every desire of the GM equally well. Thus, when I said that
>one was "better" I meant with better with respecct to drama, but
>worse with respect to world. The tradeoff above is between the
>"most dramatically appropriate" choice, and a less dramatically
>appropriate one which violates the world integrity to a lesser
>extent.
>
I didn't trim this much, because I want you to re-read what I said,
with the following explanatin, because you missed what I was saying...
If there is a decision that is better than all other drama choices,
but worse in world, they yes, you are right, that is a tradeoff. I
seldom encounter that situation. The situation I encounter (probably
because I am very lenient when determining what is a good story) is
one in which there are several choices that are equivalent drama-wise.
If any of these is also top ranked in world, then I can pick that one,
and lose no drama.
The problem I find is the opposite of what you describe, I am often
faced with is that I pick the best of both, and still have to find a
way to decide between several choices that are of the highest quality
on both accounts.
>>If 5 decisions are acceptable, then there are 5 choices that are
>>better than the others, and are basically indistinguishable from
>>each other, and I don't have either the skill or the desire to make
>>the choice more specifically. If one is decidedly better than the
>>others, then those others are unacceptable.
>
>Agreed that some choices will be neutral to all the 3-fold concerns,
>since they are not an all-encompassing list of possible motives.
>
Now this totally confuses me. What you said has absolutely nothing to
do with what I said. Am I missing something? Please explain.
Robert Scott Clark
>I as a player have more of a problem, because I can see more of the puppet
>strings.
Not to sound bitchy, but how do you watch movies? I have no SoD
problem even when I know something was totally made up.
>
davi...@my-deja.com
posted these replies, I see Jeff MacDonald has made similar points, so
some of what I said needs modification based on Scott's responses
thereto.
davi...@my-deja.com wrote:
>> My point being that over time the existence of the
>>"drama-appropriate" filter will become evident as certain classes of
>>world-valid events are found never to occur.
>This assumes that it is the same "kind" of decision that produces the
dramatically appropriate outcome in all similar situations. I have
not found this to be the case.
Not sure what you mean here, but you said elsewhere that your worlds are
not detailed enough to allow the sort of analysis I have discussed.
Given that, I would say what you see as "no tradeoff" could be equally
well modelled as "tradeoffs of factors considered inconsequential." I
come away with an appreciation for woodelf's "positive octant" model,
where tradeoffs do not exist at small radii because neither axis is
near-maximum.
>What is lost is a region of "possible outcome space" which is
>inaccessible for non-world reasons.
>Whenever you make any choice for whatever reason, you eliminate a
large number of possibilities. If the region I eliminate by making
choice X is no better than the region eliminated by choice Y. The
only way I can really make sense of you statement is to interpret it
as "everything that can happen should happen" and it is true, this is
not going to happen with what I am describing. OTOH, If this is to be
considered one of the defining factors of world-orientation, then I am
suprised I have not heard it before now, as it is a pretty big and
limiting requirement.
What I was driving at was more an "everything that can happen should
happen eventually in a thorough world model." If the world is to be
defined as one in which dramatically appropriate events are favored, for
instance then there may not be a difficulty, but you described choosing
from possible outcomes and rejecting some for world reasons, others for
dramatic reasons. This implies that the world model accommodates some
of the dramatically-rejected choices. In this case, you are shifting
away from that model by rejecting those choices.
Since you have subsequently indicated that your world is "fuzzier" I
think I can easily see that the shift away from world is lost in the
"noise" and thus not perceived. It also does not surprise me that those
who most clearly see the "world" tradeoff are those who have the
strongest preferences for very detailed worlds.
>If there is a decision that is better than all other drama choices,
but worse in world, they yes, you are right, that is a tradeoff. I
seldom encounter that situation. The situation I encounter (probably
because I am very lenient when determining what is a good story) is
one in which there are several choices that are equivalent drama-wise.
If any of these is also top ranked in world, then I can pick that one,
and lose no drama.
The problem I find is the opposite of what you describe, I am often
faced with is that I pick the best of both, and still have to find a
way to decide between several choices that are of the highest quality
on both accounts.
OK, I think I see now. I did miss your point initially. Of course, I
thought it was part of the canonical 3-fold that in the center of the
triangle, tradeoffs were less relevant. Fuzzy worlds would also seem to
fit there.
Robert Scott Clark
>Given that, I would say what you see as "no tradeoff" could be equally
>well modelled as "tradeoffs of factors considered inconsequential." I
>come away with an appreciation for woodelf's "positive octant" model,
>where tradeoffs do not exist at small radii because neither axis is
>near-maximum.
Yes, we agree then, this is how I would model it.
>
>Since you have subsequently indicated that your world is "fuzzier" I
>think I can easily see that the shift away from world is lost in the
>"noise" and thus not perceived.
I don't have any problem with this interpretation. If fact, I think I
might use it in place of my "fuzzy" term. Except, I would say "not
percieved" = "not there for me".
> It also does not surprise me that those
>who most clearly see the "world" tradeoff are those who have the
>strongest preferences for very detailed worlds.
Ditto for those who most strongly prefer drama.
>
>OK, I think I see now. I did miss your point initially. Of course, I
>thought it was part of the canonical 3-fold that in the center of the
>triangle, tradeoffs were less relevant.
Well, that person belongs there, but also the person that has strong
feelings for all (and therefore must constantly choose) also fits
there. I could see someone in the center either having few tradeoffs,
or being the most affected by them. That is one of the problems I
had with the canonical model, it didn't differentiate between me (near
the origin of the octant model) and some guy with strong motivations
(at the intersection of the 1,1,1 vector and the limiting bubble - wow
I bet that sounds like garbage to someone who didn't read the posts on
the octant model)
The Grouchybeast
> At one time, there was a number of people opposed to adding it (including
> myself). I don't know of anyone opposed now, but there is the sense that
> since we don't have someone who plays primarily for Social concerns that any
> attempt to define the corner would produce the flawed results similair to
> the FAQ's gamist definition.
I would say that I play in large part for social concerns, in that 'will
I and the players enjoy this?' is probably more important to me than
story, world or game. Of course, part of 'what will we enjoy' *is*
determined by factors like my husbands' enjoyment of problem solving.
I've also found that sometimes going for what you *think* will be
entertaining for the players isn't always the best way to actually get
fun encounters.
> Brian Gleichman
LOVE
aNNA
--
I see you standing there, far out along the way,
I want to touch you but, the night becomes the day.
I count the words that I am never going to say,
And I see you, in midnight blue. (ELO - Midnight Blue)
Alain Lapalme
> "Alain Lapalme" <lap...@magma.ca> wrote in message
> news:3A58D41...@magma.ca...
>
> > I thought things like "boyfriend of GM", "X had a bad day today", "Y
> really
> > dislikes long fights" were part of the 3 fold, specifically, in the gamist
> apex?
>
> No.
>
> They're in the often talked about, but never accepted, fourth corner of
> Social. They are not part of the current Threefold.
>
Well, that really makes decreases its utility if it totally disregards a major
game dynamic.
Alain
Brian Gleichman
news:3A5AE10E...@hotmail.com...
> I would say that I play in large part for social concerns, in that 'will
> I and the players enjoy this?' is probably more important to me than
> story, world or game. Of course, part of 'what will we enjoy' *is*
> determined by factors like my husbands' enjoyment of problem solving.
Just spinning my wheels here..
If you have a player who likes problem solving, is the decision Social or
gamist? If you have one who likes romances, is the decision Social or Story?
Going back to the intent concept, one could say that since both decisions
where driven by player requirements, the answer is Social.
But I wonder if that dilutes the concept of the Threefold (off hand, I'd say
no). If so, we have a problem as judging by results *does* dilute the
Threefold.
> I've also found that sometimes going for what you *think* will be
> entertaining for the players isn't always the best way to actually get
> fun encounters.
So how do you do it?
Brian Gleichman
> > They're in the often talked about, but never accepted, fourth corner of
> > Social. They are not part of the current Threefold.
> >
>
> Well, that really makes decreases its utility if it totally disregards a
major
> game dynamic.
It disregards many game dynamics- light/heavy/no mechanics, genre,
psychological mechanics, etc. The Threefold is a simple tool that does what
it does, nothing more. If what it covers is uninteresting or not complete
enough, don't use it.
Addition of the Social corner isn't as simple as it looks. It opens up a
cans of worms that many here have not decided how to deal with yet.
The Grouchybeast
> "The Grouchybeast" <thegrou...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:3A5AE10E...@hotmail.com...
>
> > I would say that I play in large part for social concerns, in that 'will
> > I and the players enjoy this?' is probably more important to me than
> > story, world or game. Of course, part of 'what will we enjoy' *is*
> > determined by factors like my husbands' enjoyment of problem solving.
> If you have a player who likes problem solving, is the decision Social or
> gamist? If you have one who likes romances, is the decision Social or Story?
I think that's one of the problems with trying to specfically define a
Social motive for making descisions, because 'making a game everyone
enjoys' is a starting point for most games. Sometimes people have
incompatible playing styles and can't enjoy playing together, but
hopefully there aren't too many groups where people set out to make
descision with the sole object of making the other players unhappy. If
there are, they probably don't last that long.
> Going back to the intent concept, one could say that since both decisions
> where driven by player requirements, the answer is Social.
>
> But I wonder if that dilutes the concept of the Threefold (off hand, I'd say
> no). If so, we have a problem as judging by results *does* dilute the
> Threefold.
I agree that it goes back to the usual definition - it doesn't matter if
the result satisfies all three (four) requirements, it matters what the
motive behind the descision was. I don't think it inherently breaks the
Threefold either, although there might be a queation as to whether it's
a useful thing to include in the model. The Threefold is a way of
discussing sometimes conflicting preferences in games rather than an
all-inclusive model of roleplaying. If the 'Social' component doesn't
cause many people problems, is there any point in including it?
(You can question, as Jason does, whether the whole Threefold thing is
useful anyway, but let's just skip that bit of the thread this time and
say that it is, at least for some people at some times.)
> > I've also found that sometimes going for what you *think* will be
> > entertaining for the players isn't always the best way to actually get
> > fun encounters.
>
> So how do you do it?
I'm tempted to just say 'badly'.
Mostly how I do it is by letting the players make as much of the running
as possible, having given them the starting set-up of the game world at
the beginning. I try to listen to their ideas and plans and change the
world (out of their sight) if they come up with something better than I
did. I'm also willing to change things if the players are becoming
bored or frustrated or just want a change of pace.
> Brian Gleichman
love
Anna
Robert Scott Clark
>It disregards many game dynamics- light/heavy/no mechanics, genre,
>psychological mechanics, etc. The Threefold is a simple tool that does what
>it does, nothing more.
Anyone care to explain exactly what that is?
I've asked several times, and still get no response.
Bradd W. Szonye
>> Yes, but it's not a trade-off of story versus world, which is what the
>> trade-off aspect of the threefold implies. It's a trade-off of drama
>> against something else -- maybe game concerns, maybe social concerns,
>> maybe effort concerns. It's only a trade-off of story versus world if
>> the story concerns invalidate some of your world decisions.
>
>The Threefold doesn't just talk of tradeoffs of story vs world.
I realize that. I'm talking strictly about non-threefold trade-offs:
considering only story and world, sometimes you must make a story vs.
world trade-off, but the more common experience is that it's an effort
trade-off, not a threefold trade-off.
>A story vs game tradeoff is still a Threefold tradeoff. Since I am in
>favour of the inclusion of a Social axis, I would say that story vs
>social is also included. Story vs effort is would grant you appears to
>be a non-Threefold tradeoff (though I could make an argument that this
>is also a story vs game tradeoff, or even story vs story.).
My claim is that the "effort trade-off" is far more common in practice
than actual threefold trade-offs, which is why there are so many people
who don't believe that threefold trade-offs exist at all. (I'm not among
them, despite the fact that I too encounter mostly effort-type
trade-offs in my own gaming.)
>> Like I said in my car analogy: if you try to drive a Ford Probe at
>> 110mph, there is a legitimate trade-off between turning on the radio
>> or turning on the air-conditioner (because the car doesn't have
>> enough power to do both at that speed). If you only drive at 60mph,
>> the whole idea of a conflict between radio play and air conditioning
>> seems silly.
>
>Theres still a tradoff occuring - between these and fuel economy.
If you've ever tried to drive a Ford Probe at 110mph, it's not just fuel
economy. You *can't* run the A/C and radio at the same time, or the car
doesn't have enough power to overcome drag.
>Is such a three/fourfold concern? Who the hell knows - it's a pretty
>weak analogy IMO.
No, it's a great analogy: if you try to "drive" your game with very high
concern for world, you must choose between a little more story, a little
more game, or a little more world. However, if you only care about world
concerns moderately, it's not at all obvious that there's a trade-off at
all.
--
Bradd W. Szonye Work: br...@cup.hp.com
Software Design Engineer Home: bra...@concentric.net
Hewlett-Packard Cupertino Site, iFL Phone: 408-447-4832
Bradd W. Szonye
>Label the origin in your spherical octant model "Everything other than
>threefold, including social". Now, I can measure the degree of these
>'everything else including social' concerns in any point in your
>spherical octant as (1 - radius). So even the spherical octant model
>('octant' for short?) has tradeoffs now: between the four concerns,
>game, story, world, everything else including social, you cannot
>increase any one without decreasing at least one of the others.
That I agree with. In fact, it's what makes the "bubble" model different
from the "triangle" model: there are always trade-offs, true. However, I
find that the most common trade-off, by far, is "effort vs something
else." That's why you hear so many people argue, "You can have great
story and great world, if only you tried harder!" Because their
experience is that you can always have whatever you want in a game as
long as you invest enough effort. (Of course, in practice, some things
are simply "too much effort," and may even be impossible. *That's* where
threefold trade-offs and similar issues come in.)
The triangle model emphasizes trade-offs between story, world, and game,
when such trade-offs aren't all *that* common, and they're usually
subtle when they do exist. I think the bubble model does a much better
job of representing that than the triangle does.
Bradd W. Szonye
trades off with world; that adding a "drama filter" to your world
concerns will inherently decrease world-orientation.
>davi...@my-deja.com wrote:
>>What is lost is a region of "possible outcome space" which is
>>inaccessible for non-world reasons.
Robert Scott Clark <cla...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>Again, I can only answer with "So?"
Or to say, less confrontationally: It's only a trade-off if the
difference actually matters in *your own* style. That is to say, even if
it would make the world concerns seem less important to a *strict*
simulationist, all that really matters is whether it's a trade-off to
the GM, who is likely only moderate in simulationism.
To put it another way: the moderate simulationist might eliminate many
possible decisions because they conflict with world concerns. That does
*not* mean that the remaining choices are all equally valid to him. At
the moderate level, what you reject is often much more important than
what you choose. That's because moderates avoid extremes (like choices
that will "break" the world) but they rarely seek a mandate (a clear
choice among the remaining options). That's the nature of being
moderate.
The point is that (for the moderate) world concerns don't tell you that
half of your 20 options are valid and thus should be possible; they tell
you that the other half are invalid and must be rejected. This is very
different from the extremist, who feels that further "weeding" of the
options according to other concerns will reduce world concerns. Adding
other concerns is a (threefold) trade-off for the extreme simulationist,
but not for the moderate. For the moderate, it's an effort trade-off:
how do I address other concerns without breaking my world constraints?
I do see the point about how, from some points of view, more dramatism
will always decrease simulationism; tending toward the "credible"
instead of the "realistic" does show a lack of world concern, because
Truth is Stranger than Fiction. However, I think that it makes more
sense to consider trade-offs from the point of view of the GM making the
decision. If it doesn't seem like a "trade-off," there's no sense in
calling it that, because that only causes confusion and (frequently)
hostility.
It would definitely help if we could find some easier way of describing
and discussing these "trade-offs" in such a way that it doesn't alienate
the more moderate GMs.
Warren J. Dew
That is to say, even if it would make the world concerns
seem less important to a *strict* simulationist, all that
really matters is whether it's a trade-off to the GM, who
is likely only moderate in simulationism.
For effective use of the model, though, what matters is whether it's a tradeoff
to the person trying to make an evaluation.
For example, if I'm using the threefold to decide whether or how I want to play
in your game, what matters for my decision is whether the things being done are
tradeoffs to me, a potential player, not whether they are tradeoffs to you, the
gamesmaster.
Bradd W. Szonye
I disagree: I think the "there must be trade-offs" and the "would I like
your game?" aspects of the threefold are different and largely
independent. Why?
First, consider the "would I like it?" aspect. For that, you must
evaluate whether the game has sufficient support for the styles you
prefer, and whether it sufficiently suppresses the styles you dislike.
For example, I quickly tire of games which don't let me exert my skill
sufficiently. (I don't do well unless I have a high level of
participation, and the gamist approach does the best job of ensuring
that.) You probably wouldn't care for a game without high recognition of
world concerns. Mary generally prefers games with a "non-fiction" feel,
which means "little or no dramatism" in practice.
To us, it doesn't really matter whether it's a trade-off causing our
dissatisfaction. I don't care whether it's drama or realism or lack of
effort on the part of the GM that's reducing my opportunities for
participation. Mary doesn't care whether story impinges on game or
world; she just plain dislikes it. We don't really care *why* our needs
aren't being met. While it may be a trade-off problem, that's secondary
at best. More on this in a moment.
Next, consider the trade-offs aspect. I feel that this issue is most
important for game designers and planners, specifically for explaining
*why* you can't make everyone happy all the time. It's a common
experience here that somebody will have moderate or low concern for a
style but assume that they can "make the simulationists happy"
nonetheless. Their usual experience is that they can accommodate more
people just by putting in a little more work. (For example, consider
Scott's example of using both world and story filters to narrow down
your options. The story filters may well inherently decrease the
simulationism somewhat. However, with moderate "world" requirements, a
little extra work can make up for that trade-off. It becomes a "world
versus ease of use" trade-off again.)
Such people run into trouble when they encounter somebody who demands a
very high level of game, story, or world. Their assumption is "more work
solves everything," but that appears to be false when it comes to the
extremes of a style. No reasonable amount of work will ever overcome the
threefold trade-offs.
Those aspects are both important, but in practice they don't interact
much. In fact, the whole trade-off thing seems to be pretty unusual; it
only seems obvious to the people who demand a lot from a particular
style, just as there are a lot of trade-offs in driving a car that are
hidden until you try to drive it near top speed.
There *is* a small space where the two aspects interact, and that's when
you try to resolve a conflict between styles. In those cases, one of two
things happen: either it's a "needs more effort" conflict, or it's an
inherent conflict (because more effort is not reasonable or impossible).
In those cases, the trade-offs can help you explain why the styles are
conflicting, and they can help decide whether it's possible to resolve
the conflict. In general, however, it appears that "inherent" conflicts
(I want drama but Mary hates it, or Warren wants a *lot* of world, and
no amount of work will let me oblige him while still maintaining my
standards for gamism) are by far the most common kind. Thus, the whole
trade-offs thing seems bizarre to your average, mid-triangle player.
James C. Ellis
>
> Thus, the whole trade-offs thing seems bizarre to your average,
> mid-triangle player.
I'd be wary of blanket statements like this; there are a number of
mid-triangle players - including myself - that don't agree with this.
(Still trying to process effort tradeoffs, and how they fit in.)
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare - a pumpkin with a gun.
[...] Euminides this! " - Mervyn, the Sandman #66
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Bradd W. Szonye
>>
>> Thus, the whole trade-offs thing seems bizarre to your average,
>> mid-triangle player.
>
>I'd be wary of blanket statements like this; there are a number of
>mid-triangle players - including myself - that don't agree with this.
Good point. For example, the threefold tradeoffs (under some
circumstances) make sense to me, and I'm a gamist with strong
mid-triangle leanings. I most often encounter them when trying to
balance character skill (simulationism) against player skill (gamism).
As a player, I'm *very* strongly gamist, but as a GM and especially as a
sometime-game-designer, I have a lot of simulationist influences and
more than a couple dramatist influences.
There's one particular world-game trade-off I run into very frequently
during game design. Two, actually. One of them is an occasional but
strong desire for personality mechanics. Basically, I feel that there
are circumstances where player feelings and desires are inappropriate to
the in-game reality; unfortunately, I've never found a solution that I'm
comfortable with that removes "undesirable" player inputs without
sacrificing player skill and enjoyment. This is a trade-off of world
against game (and social, I think) concerns. The other is a desire to
allow "handicapping" (in the sporting sense) for players who lack
certain skills, such as tactical or diplomatic ability. Basically, I'd
like it if players could *choose* whether to use player skill or
character skill as appropriate. Unfortunately again, I've never found a
way of doing this that I felt was fair to both strong and weak players.
In ordinary practice as a GM, however, I've found that when certain
elements are lacking from a game, it's simply a matter of more prep work
and better improvisation. Whether it's boning up on unfamiliar rules,
doing a better job of character development, paying more attention to
the internal logic of the world, or avoiding a "rut" I've fallen into,
the root of the problem usually lies in a lack of preparation and plain
old hard work on my part -- not some inherent trade-off between styles.
> (Still trying to process effort tradeoffs, and how they fit in.)
In my own case, I usually find that effort is not the issue when it
comes to planning, game design, and theory: the threefold trade-offs
become much more of an issue "outside the game."
However, during actual play, effort becomes a much larger factor. In
particular, I find that when I don't put enough work into preparation
(whether it's because of burn-out, laziness, a busy schedule, or the
like), there are far more stylistic problems in my games. The usual
symptoms are:
- I rely too much on "formula" adventures, especially the "travel a long
distance and get waylaid en route" adventure.
- I tend toward "stylistic favoritism," where I'll overemphasize the
preferred style of one player; for example, I might rely too much on
tactical combat one session and overcompensate by doing nothing but
storytelling and roleplaying the next.
- My campaign develops an overall staleness, where events and details
are too predictable and trite. Suddenly, all the waitresses are cute
but surly.
In those cases, there are two solutions: spend more time on prep and be
more empathic with my players, or hand over the reins to somebody else
(especially if the root cause is burn-out).
In other words, the game gets unbalanced toward one style or another,
sometimes wildly changing styles from week to week as I overcompensate.
The problem is that, at that level of effort, it's impossible to balance
stylistic issues. Since the "solution" of ignoring the preferred style
of one or more players is unacceptable, I need to put in more effort.
I think that's a fairly common way of looking at it: you can always
blend styles, but it means more work. The threefold trade-offs are
useful, but mainly to say: "You can't *always* blend styles. Sometimes,
more effort is not enough."
Alain Lapalme
> Alain Lapalme posts, in part:
>
> I thought things like "boyfriend of GM", "X had a bad day
> today", "Y really dislikes long fights" were part of the 3
> fold, specifically, in the gamist apex?
>
> Heh. Before we had any aficionados of the style here, that corner was indeed
> used as a dumping ground for those concerns, as well as for anything that
> anyone in the group considered to be 'bad roleplaying'.
>
> Then Brian Gleichman showed up, and vigorously defended the style against the
> rest of us, clarifying what the game orientation was all about in the process.
> Since then, several other gamists have shown up (or become more vocal).
So, blame it all on Brian, eh!
>
>
>
> For example, one of the useful things that came out of the most recent
> threefold flamefest was that the key defining factor of the game orientation
> was a focus on the influence of player skill - the skill of the player, not of
> the character - on event resolution. Okay, the gamists all knew this already
> and perhaps thought it too obvious to emphasize, but I hadn't realized that it
> was more than one of many equal factors until this time around.
>
I can't remember at what stage of its development the 3 fold was at when I last
followed a discussion on it. However, as far as I remember, my understanding of
the gamist side was what you state above, plus the social aspects. Not that I'm
trying to re-open a can of worms, though.
Alain
Alain Lapalme
A movie is a story that I am not involved with. All my SOD requires is that it
be internally consistent (as an aside, if you spend any time analyzing a
movie's plot afterwards, you find that a large percentage of movies do not make
sense). When I am player a character, many of the decisions are mine. I know
that I am making these decisions, so losing myself in the character is more
difficult because, as Warrent says, I can see the puppet strings and it is a
conscious effort for me to turn a blind eye to them.
Alain
Robert Scott Clark
>A movie is a story that I am not involved with. All my SOD requires is that it
>be internally consistent
If you'll note, consistancy is one of the few things I've said I pay
any attention to in RPGs.
> When I am player a character, many of the decisions are mine. I know
>that I am making these decisions, so losing myself in the character is more
>difficult because
I've noticed statements like this from several people. They say
things like "SoD", but seem to really mean "immersion", or something
similar.
I don't try to "lose myself" anywhere. If fact, if it happened
accidentally, I would likely consider it a negative, not a positive.
Warren J. Dew
I as a player have more of a problem, because I can see
more of the puppet strings.
Robert Scott Clark:
Not to sound bitchy, but how do you watch movies? I have
no SoD problem even when I know something was totally made
up.
Knowing that the strings are there is different from actually seeing them.
In a movie, the strings are carefully hidden: I'm not on the set, I can't see
the director giving directions, I don't see the actors' out of character
comments on what they are doing, nor their expressions when they are told
something is going to happen to their characters that they don't like.
Everything is carefully choreographed to keep me close to a character's eye
view, not a player's eye view - and as I said, it's not the characters who have
a problem with suspension of disbelief.
That said, my solution is that I rarely watch movies.
Robert Scott Clark
>In a movie, the strings are carefully hidden: I'm not on the set, I can't see
>the director giving directions,
I like Mel Brooks's movies.
> I don't see the actors' out of character
>comments on what they are doing,
I love the "running commentary" feature on many DVDs.
>
>That said, my solution is that I rarely watch movies.
Which might be the biggest difference imaginable between the two of
us.