Stone, Steel, and Steam - Revised and Ready to Test
Ron Edwards:
You guys are making my head hurt a little bit with certain uses of GNS terms. There's a lot of merit in the posts, but also a lot of fog and at least one serious misconception.
I don't want to derail the thread. Mark, let me know if you want a brutal, clear, no-holds-barred breakdown of Narrativism as it pertains to your game (what you've made available) and its practical application in terms of groups, people, real-life morality, and beliefs. I might be rather hard on some of the posts so far.
If you don't want that here, then I ask that we not focus on that issue in this development thread, and talk about something else of Mark's choice. In that case, if anyone's interested in the Narrativist stuff, then I suggest posting in Actual Play about any game experience and raising the issue of whether Narrativist play was going on, or why or why not.
Mark, let us know.
Best, Ron
Shimera9:
I still need to read through the docs, but here are few points that caught my attention from what you've posted here.
Quote
any kind of 'scientific' analysis of the event reveals it was 'just some dumb superstition' or 'mass hysteria.'
I take it from your examples that this means magic use can be easily attributed to other causes. A scientific analysis could reveal their presence through statistical analysis, though we've seen in our own world how debated those numbers are. Basically, if something has a repeatable mechanical effect then there's a good chance it can be analyzed by scientific methods. That being said some people do treat "science" as a belief system rather than a methodology, which leads to certain biases.
I've found a good way to handle subtle magic is to treat is as largely probabilistic. By that I mean that most of the actual effects should involve altering the odds of a given event. Rules-wise, this can often be handled well by a "reroll" or other second chance mechanic. That actually gives you a fairly easy way to handle a variety of effects. For example: weather control -> reroll chance of rain, mind control -> reroll persuasion attempt, and so on.
This approach does make magic most effective when things start with a 50/50 chance. Below that, it's still effective but the increase in probability is less (ex 50%->75% vs 20%->36%). Above that, the chances are high enough that that an extra boost is less notable (ex. 80% -> 96%).
As for the Karma issue, you have established that in the game world spiritual forces have a definite (if subtle) effect. As such, you can justify that as an actual part of the game world metaphysics or cosmic law. However, you should probably define exactly what that law is. It looks like you've already got "you reap what you sow" as a basis.
Have you considered using "like attracts like"? Within the mind the "nearness" of something is usually related to how similar it is to what you're currently experiencing. In other word, it takes less time to "travel" to another idea if you're already thinking of something similar. If the same applies to spiritual/magical reality, then it makes since that related forces should exist in close proximity. Extend this out one more step and you have actions attracting spiritual forces related to those actions. In short, if you inflict pain on others you may attract spirits or forces associated with that pain. Since those forces can manipulate events, it's not much of a stretch to see how attracting those forces could increase the chance of such events occurring around or to you. By the same token, beneficent acts could attract forces that benefit those around them.
There are a few interesting implications to trying karma to same forces the enable magic. First off, if those forces are probabilistic, that means people can evade the backlash. The changes of evading all of it becoming increasingly small as time goes on. However, in a large enough population you'll have enough people who "cheat fate" to lay the seeds of doubt. By making punishment or reward less certain you encourage a certain amount of risk taking and raise in world debates over whether they exist at all. This does also mean that the characters can never be sure when karma will strike, if it does.
The second interesting point is that those attracted forces might in turn be manipulated by magic. This actually has some similarity to real world beliefs. After all, ritual cleansing is a practice in many culture, particularly around dangerous things like death or combat. It could example, a warrior's cleansing rituals might help ward of any spirits of death that were attracted during a battle. This does mean evil doers might surround themselves with charms and the like to keep those consequences at bay. However, such charms could wear out with use and need to be renewed. At that point all it takes is a bad batch or attracting too many forces to overcome those defenses. It also means that those who acknowledge they're doing wrong may seem particularly superstitious, which is an interesting touch.
markgamemaker:
I think I read an earlier (and, from what I'm hearing, by now antiquated) version of GNS Theory and assimilated it into my way of thinking about gaming from an end user perspective before I even seriously considered design. Either I didn't get it at all to begin with, or I did but my brain's definition of the terms and this community's definition of the terms have drifted apart. Forget what I said about being a Narrativist; I don't know what I am in your book at this point. That doesn't mean there's no merit to discussing what this game is or can be in terms of the current theory. I'll write more about that later - I have to catch a plane and will be offline for the next week.
Karma is intended to be a player mechanic, both enforcement of the social contract and a melodrama tool, so it wasn't ever meant to be an issue of whether or not the characters believe in Karma. However, this discussion is taking an interesting turn and I'll read more throughly, consider, and continue this discussion on that score when I return.
Thanks again, everyone.
Quote from: Ron Edwards on December 21, 2010, 05:37:24 AM
You guys are making my head hurt a little bit with certain uses of GNS terms. There's a lot of merit in the posts, but also a lot of fog and at least one serious misconception.
I don't want to derail the thread. Mark, let me know if you want a brutal, clear, no-holds-barred breakdown of Narrativism as it pertains to your game (what you've made available) and its practical application in terms of groups, people, real-life morality, and beliefs. I might be rather hard on some of the posts so far.
If you don't want that here, then I ask that we not focus on that issue in this development thread, and talk about something else of Mark's choice. In that case, if anyone's interested in the Narrativist stuff, then I suggest posting in Actual Play about any game experience and raising the issue of whether Narrativist play was going on, or why or why not.
Mark, let us know.
Best, Ron
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[*] Previous page