Re-reading this post reminded me of Burning Wheel, a table top role playing game that’s reward system actively encourages questioning, testing and acting upon the goals and beliefs of a fictional character created by the player, but simultaneously and subversively places the character in complex situations that force the player to change those beliefs over time as a result of the conflicts they cause (and somewhat according to chance). The player has to accept that his character may become something completely alien to how it started during the course of play, yet continue to empathize with it in order to be rewarded for acting out it’s actions in the fiction.
Would (re)designing such a game around further encouraging elements of rationality be too close to Dark Arts? (Luke Crane, the game’s creator, sometimes speaks about game design as a form of mind control at the gaming conventions he frequents.)
I don’t really see how this would be Dark Artsy, but even if it is it sounds crazy fun to play.
How does it make you update your beliefs though? As far as I can tell, it just lets you try things, and upon failure allow you to “succeed” at what you said you wanted to do in a way that makes other things worse.
Oops. I realize now that I was confusing the definition of belief used here with the definition used for the game (a principled to-do list), so the idea isn’t as applicable as I originally thought, but I’ll try to answer you anyway.
As a player you can change your character’s beliefs almost as often as you like and the game rewards you for tailoring them to the context of each scene you enact, with different rewards depending on whether you act in accordance with them or undermine them (this encourages you to have conflicting beliefs, which increases the drama of the shared story). Then, between game sessions, all players involved nominate those beliefs you appear never to undermine for promotion to trait-hood (indicating you’ve fulfilled your character’s goals and they no longer need testing), and those you appear always to undermine for changing. Traits often give game mechanical bonuses and penalties, but can take almost a full story arc of deliberate undermining before being nominated for change.
Conflict in the game is handled in a very specific way. You describe your intent (what you want your character to achieve in the story) and how it is achieved, the GM declares the skill rolls or other game mechanics required and sets the stakes (consequences for failure). If the GM and none of the players can think of an interesting direction a failed roll could take the story in then no roll is made, you get what you wanted and the group moves on to the next, more interesting, conflict. Otherwise, the stakes are negotiated and you choose whether to roll or change your mind. Once the roll is made it’s results are irreversible within the fiction.
To a large degree it is up to the GM to create interesting and painful stakes with which to challenge your beliefs, so your mileage will vary.
Would it be fair to summarize that as “it makes you update your beliefs insofar as it’s made explicit that your character has new goals, and helps you practice changing your mind?”
The most powerful method I know for improving clarity and brevity is to write, scrap, and rewrite. An even more powerful version of this is to write, scrap, sleep on it, and rewrite.
Writing concisely is often a time-consuming process, and I don’t always take the time.
You weren’t too bad, you did a lot to explain the game mechanics to people who didn’t click through and read the link, even when said explanation didn’t directly contribute to the point you were trying to make.
Being concise is difficult in that you’re trying to efficiently explain something, while also not leaving out important details necessary for you to be understood (i.e. keeping the inferential distance short).
Knowing what the audience knows often helps in terms of what can be left out.
What I generally do is write something, then revise it to make it shorter, which typically involves:
trimming out unneeded grammatical constructions (like “you did a lot towards the goal of” → “you”)
rearranging syntax to make the statement more clear (in general, the subject of the sentence should come first, as well as the inferentially closer parts of the statement)
general futzing about with the words until you think they’re arranged better
Knowing a specific term for something also makes it easier to express without needing to reexplain all of it every time you use it.
Re-reading this post reminded me of Burning Wheel, a table top role playing game that’s reward system actively encourages questioning, testing and acting upon the goals and beliefs of a fictional character created by the player, but simultaneously and subversively places the character in complex situations that force the player to change those beliefs over time as a result of the conflicts they cause (and somewhat according to chance). The player has to accept that his character may become something completely alien to how it started during the course of play, yet continue to empathize with it in order to be rewarded for acting out it’s actions in the fiction.
Would (re)designing such a game around further encouraging elements of rationality be too close to Dark Arts? (Luke Crane, the game’s creator, sometimes speaks about game design as a form of mind control at the gaming conventions he frequents.)
I don’t really see how this would be Dark Artsy, but even if it is it sounds crazy fun to play.
How does it make you update your beliefs though? As far as I can tell, it just lets you try things, and upon failure allow you to “succeed” at what you said you wanted to do in a way that makes other things worse.
Oops. I realize now that I was confusing the definition of belief used here with the definition used for the game (a principled to-do list), so the idea isn’t as applicable as I originally thought, but I’ll try to answer you anyway.
As a player you can change your character’s beliefs almost as often as you like and the game rewards you for tailoring them to the context of each scene you enact, with different rewards depending on whether you act in accordance with them or undermine them (this encourages you to have conflicting beliefs, which increases the drama of the shared story). Then, between game sessions, all players involved nominate those beliefs you appear never to undermine for promotion to trait-hood (indicating you’ve fulfilled your character’s goals and they no longer need testing), and those you appear always to undermine for changing. Traits often give game mechanical bonuses and penalties, but can take almost a full story arc of deliberate undermining before being nominated for change.
Conflict in the game is handled in a very specific way. You describe your intent (what you want your character to achieve in the story) and how it is achieved, the GM declares the skill rolls or other game mechanics required and sets the stakes (consequences for failure). If the GM and none of the players can think of an interesting direction a failed roll could take the story in then no roll is made, you get what you wanted and the group moves on to the next, more interesting, conflict. Otherwise, the stakes are negotiated and you choose whether to roll or change your mind. Once the roll is made it’s results are irreversible within the fiction.
To a large degree it is up to the GM to create interesting and painful stakes with which to challenge your beliefs, so your mileage will vary.
Ah.
Would it be fair to summarize that as “it makes you update your beliefs insofar as it’s made explicit that your character has new goals, and helps you practice changing your mind?”
Yes, that would be fair. Are you aware of any good methods for learning and practicing to be more concise?
Get a Twitter account?
The most powerful method I know for improving clarity and brevity is to write, scrap, and rewrite. An even more powerful version of this is to write, scrap, sleep on it, and rewrite.
Writing concisely is often a time-consuming process, and I don’t always take the time.
Hmm, interesting question.
You weren’t too bad, you did a lot to explain the game mechanics to people who didn’t click through and read the link, even when said explanation didn’t directly contribute to the point you were trying to make.
Being concise is difficult in that you’re trying to efficiently explain something, while also not leaving out important details necessary for you to be understood (i.e. keeping the inferential distance short).
Knowing what the audience knows often helps in terms of what can be left out.
What I generally do is write something, then revise it to make it shorter, which typically involves:
trimming out unneeded grammatical constructions (like “you did a lot towards the goal of” → “you”)
rearranging syntax to make the statement more clear (in general, the subject of the sentence should come first, as well as the inferentially closer parts of the statement)
general futzing about with the words until you think they’re arranged better
Knowing a specific term for something also makes it easier to express without needing to reexplain all of it every time you use it.