"Dave Arneson's True Genius": April 13th at 6:00AM EDT

[mormonyoyoman]

You sure you two are friends?

[robkuntz]

Apr 14, 2018 0:36:02 GMT -5 mormonyoyoman said:

You sure you two are friends?

I've never had a true friend that I didn't argue with.  However, my points stand as asserted (and in many cases ignored) above.

Now onto more important matters.

Since I have identified that:

1) Arneson created a new system
2) Have isolated and expounded upon the system's qualities and the system's architecture, thus allowing for its theoretical breadth and lineage to be established--i.e., there is no lineage, it is a Garden of Eden state which has no previous history in the history of games (and thus no pre-existing language to precisely describe it)
3) Have rebutted assertions that it is all derived from X, Y or Z, again, using irrefutable science as proof positive for that
4) Have forwarded historical facts that this system was redacted for a primarily closed strand that is possible under the ranges available to it (EGG's, "simplicity" or "ultimate complexity"); this too was accessed through system's science (i.e., open and closed systems)
5) And, in the end, have re-placed Arneson where he rightly belongs as the progenitor of the RPG concept; the whole in fact elevates his status to a superior level.  I wish that I had created the 4th primary category of games! But it was not me, nor Gygax; it was Arneson who achieved that grand milestone.

Since all of this is now known due to the three essays in my unassuming little book, where to now?

Well theory and the grounding of a working system, although new in kind, is necessary for the application of that theory.  That's the next stage.  Broad examples of its application (many which we all know about and many which we do not).  So, one does not place the cart before the horse in such a stepped process, nor does one talk in gobble-de-gook to explain 1-5, above in creating an irrefutable base to proceed from.  So far people have ignored 1-5 above, BUT they have not refuted any of it.  The silence is deafening, so to speak, which proves that I am on the right track.

[ermanaric]

robkuntz wrote:

"But this is where Arneson’s “progress towards the goal” becomes more than just a historical milestone in design and in social impacts (the latter instances which I note hereafter by way of an appended list, below). For he not only used “given ones” (systems) to create a new expression, but he transcended these by merging open and closed systems themselves. The emergent system he created from this utilized specific qualities from both system types that, in effect, cross-communicated with each other."


Hi Rob, if you could be so kind as to give me an example illustrating this point: can you give me an example of a specific quality from both system types that he used?

[robkuntz]

Apr 14, 2018 3:59:37 GMT -5 ermanaric said:

robkuntz wrote:

"But this is where Arneson’s “progress towards the goal” becomes more than just a historical milestone in design and in social impacts (the latter instances which I note hereafter by way of an appended list, below). For he not only used “given ones” (systems) to create a new expression, but he transcended these by merging open and closed systems themselves. The emergent system he created from this utilized specific qualities from both system types that, in effect, cross-communicated with each other."


Hi Rob, if you could be so kind as to give me an example illustrating this point: can you give me an example of a specific quality from both system types that he used?

Sure thing, and that's pretty simple and can be generally referenced in the system's architecture (a conceptual component with open latitude and a mechanistic set of (initially) closed rules).

For instance, we can either use the rules as-is (closed) or during play promote/demote them to another category entirely.  In fact the rules are there as guides and can be changed at will or stricken entirely and, during play, new rules can be added to describe actions/events not covered by any other rule.  The latter instance of creating rules in situ is what I refer to as ongoing systemization. This was unheard of in set-in-stone rules preceding it.

Another example is the extinguishing (initially) by Arneson of the zero-sum model used in all previous table top games.  By utilizing a never ending world with no real goal but to explore. he naturally sided with an open conceptual state, the never-ending story, the evolvement of the players and the game at once and other points contained in the list of system qualities I noted in the book.

But, and for the obverse side, we have the ability to make the game scaleable through closing it down (as with AD&D-type standardization used with pm adventures) or opening wide as we did during the playtests, so this points to the system's mutability range (from used AS-IS, by the book, to a complete throttling of it as an exponentially growing inquiry (so open that it would be near the edge of chaos so to speak). 

[Deleted]

Apr 14, 2018 0:21:15 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

Apr 13, 2018 20:44:01 GMT -5 @gronanofsimmerya said:

One teaches high school students differently from how one teaches PhD candidates.

You are being purposely absurd.  I never stated that I was teaching HS students.  I was  explicitly stating what a new system was in the only terminology that can describe systems--systems science.

Re-read the back cover bullet points and back matter:Design Philosophy/ Systems Theory//RPG History

This part isn the thread has ended.  Go have a beer.

And you're being purposefully obtuse.

It's too early for beer.  I'm going to go have some coffee.  A hot, delicious alternative to hating everybody forever.

[Deleted]

Apr 14, 2018 0:36:02 GMT -5 mormonyoyoman said:

You sure you two are friends?

Hell, yes.  I respect Rob too much to be anything but honest with him.

[Deleted]

Apr 14, 2018 7:00:25 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

Sure thing, and that's pretty simple and can be generally referenced in the system's architecture (a conceptual component with open latitude and a mechanistic set of (initially) closed rules).

Leaving aside a (to me) trivial disagreement with style and moving on to substance:

If I have ANY quibble with the content of DATG, it is that I wish you had said a LOT more about the conceptual vs mechanicistic systems.  Not only did the system get closed in the late 70s, but the emphasis shifted from concepts to mechanics.  That shift has done incredible harm to the hobby in a myriad of ways including massive tomes of rules and long, pointless arguments over whether a "longsword" "should" do 1d6+1 or 1d8 damage.

Part of this, of course, is that it is easier to dink around with mechanics than concepts, which means that it's easier to create volumes of mechanics to sell than volumes of conceptual tools to sell.  Unfortunately, it shifted not only the products being sold, but the very nature of discussions about the game.

Possibly the greatest harm, though, is that it has almost killed people creating their own worlds/games.  "Game mastering" has been taken to mean "first you have to memorize 500 pages of rules."  This is doubly painful when compared with the early years of this hobby, 1972-1976.  People played a game or two, and then promptly went off and created their own.  Within a month of my first running proto-D&D at the University of Minnesota in October 1973, at least three of my players were running their own game.  A dozen people or more in the local science fiction community started running their own games with loose rules after playing a game or three.

Once upon a time people saw the game as a way to express their creativity.  No more.

[robkuntz]

Apr 14, 2018 14:10:52 GMT -5 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Apr 14, 2018 7:00:25 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

Sure thing, and that's pretty simple and can be generally referenced in the system's architecture (a conceptual component with open latitude and a mechanistic set of (initially) closed rules).

If I have ANY quibble with the content of DATG, it is that I wish you had said a LOT more about the conceptual vs mechanicistic systems. 

You mean like these commentaries and text?  I could have extracted more from DATG but these sufficed to explain my points.  They were very concentrated essays, btw. For a mere 70 pages.  I packed a lot into it and covered many important and interrelated subject areas.

***
C54: The more that rules remain local and immutable the more they take upon the aspects of Laws. In today’s mainstay RPGs one need not wonder why the rules are specifically linked to premade adventures. The play area has been cordoned off by a combination of rules and formats used as an integrated, ordered, and precise system. Any attempt to diverge from this pattern is met by virtual signatures equating to “Off Limits.” These signatures not only define where you cannot go, but where you must go, within the system.


C81: Pre-fabricated adventures are like BIC lighters: They have a variety of colors and motifs, are compact—one size fits all—and are pretty easy to operate. They are engineered with time-tested repetitive structures in mind, and each uses recurring and easily identified elements that have become commonplace and predictable as ascertained from previous consumption cycles. Moreover, both are disposable. This may offer a clue: As we substitute our individual imaginations and creative tendencies for the disposable kind sold to us by others, that we have less in common with the natural and enduring human traits of volition and transformation than we do with mechanisms.

C96: A “game” is a general term used to describe a device that allows for a specific type of play. In traditional games the play has always been elucidated through the use of steadfast rules. Why? Because these games were of the general variety, examples of which are readily comparable to many forms of game theory prevalent at the time they were designed. Arneson broke with this established view of generalized play and hard-fast rules by utilizing ever expanding conceptual realms and a mutable mechanical structure to provide inter-access to them. This not only created a new foundation for what was considered “game-play” by the shattering of established thoughts and examples about game design, but it forced new theorizing regarding the use of conceptual system environments. This has perforce created a new language for the continued investigation and understanding of this transcendent game-play form, and one not consonant with past game theory terminologies and/or the assumptions attached to these.

C100: Leaps in design and creativity have come and gone in societies driven by the market wherein “progression” is more often linked to the substantive material realm. We generally measure such impacts by how creations forthcoming from various design avenues externally modify our existences; and thus the advent of cars, telephones, rail transit, etc., these all have a commonly shared appreciation by us for their widely felt impacts in the physical realm.

But how such creations are manifested is usually beyond the grasp of the majority of those who utilize these; therefore a gap exists between the minds that fathom such visions for society and for its members as end-use consumers who partake of them.

Classic D&D was, however, one of those synergistic, creative leaps that impacted both sides of this otherwise polarized societal view. Its interface allowed for end-users and the game to evolve at the same time. These notions were no longer separated by the neatly ordained and invariant market-to-consumer formula. Furthermore, creativity, which has been on the retreat ever since the entrenchment of the industrial/mass consumerism model, was brought back into focus as an intrinsic part of basic human nature. The ultimate realization from this synergy renaissance was that we are all creative masters. It was a reaffirmation of what we know and experience when distanced from the “grind” and what we likewise sense and extol in children: the natural and vitalistic aspects of being a human.

and,,,

In due course the design tenets/philosophies from the original game, now ignored, faded against an immense and growing foreground of TSR doing the imagining and creating of pre-determined/pre-structured scenarios for the consumer. The sustained promulgation of this disposable and repeatable model caused all but scattered remains of the original RPG philosophy as it was then forming to be lost.
This 180 degree reversal abruptly issued in the Formula RPG experience that persists to this very day as a strictly closed form expression; and this was (and still is) a direct, and glaring, contradiction to the genius of its original manifestations: First Fantasy Campaign and the commercially successful Classic Dungeons & Dragons.

…This model has now been progressed by industry leaders and others to a polished and methodical formula, a conveyor belt line of pre-made de jour for everything. With it comes entertainment and number crunching on a grand scale, but minus the persistent and empowering creative component that in turn spurs growth possibilities on all mutually beneficial levels as it once did.


BTW: Where's the difficult access in these sentences? Seems to me that people are straining at the theory parts alone and summarizing all three essays based around that. Shrug.

[Deleted]

Well, yes. I'm not saying you didn't cover it, I'm saying I would have liked more pages on the subject. The focus on microtrivial details of mechanics is one of the things sucking life out of the hobby.

Most people have rotten reading comprehension, to answer your last question.

[robkuntz]

Apr 14, 2018 15:32:41 GMT -5 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Well, yes. I'm not saying you didn't cover it, I'm saying I would have liked more pages on the subject. The focus on microtrivial details of mechanics is one of the things sucking life out of the hobby.

Most people have rotten reading comprehension, to answer your last question.

Well, first things first.  Proving that the system was redacted for an older model should be enlightening for some.  That this older model was always a bounded constraint type limited the mechanical diddling back then in the wargame era until it hit a wall and no more diddling could occur. Ironically, with Fantasy's unbounded realms the NEW ESTABLISHMENT can now diddle with mechanics ad infinitum, and that is exactly what they are about doing, over, and over and over.  They have definitely lost sight of an RPG as a conceptual experience.

[Deleted]

Could not agree more strongly.

Be thou Exalted.

[xizallian]

Well one thing we know for sure, you two really are friends, you bicker like on old married couple. While I agree with robkuntz about DATG, I also agree with @everyone else, that at some point this needs to be translated by someone into at least 10th grade English for those of us who don't read at Graduate level.

[mormonyoyoman]

I have no difficulty with the use of obfuscation, yet long ago grew suspicious of tech writers who used the word "utilized." Edited it out each time, replacing it with the word "used," then gave them a copy of "the Elements of Style.". We didn't have to reach a mass audience, but some guys reading those manuals handled nukes.

[Admin Pete]

I think I have posted this before somewhere, but it is IMO worth repeating. I have never played a game of any kind as a child that I did not house rule. As an adult if I am the host, all games whether it is cards or board games or anything else, they have house rules. In college, when we played Risk, I talked the others into adding map. We took a sheet of poster board and drew in the islands in the Pacific (Oceania) and connected it to Asia, Australia, North and South America. It completely changed the strategy of the game.

[mormonyoyoman]

Not to change the subject, but just to change the subject - I am enjoying this book more with each re-read. It's a slow read for me, because I STILL keep putting it down, staring into space, and imagining the many different turns the hobby could have taken and almost took at so many different points. Makes me more sad that "Adventures in Fantasy" was printed in an unreadable format.

[Jakob Grimm]

Apr 13, 2018 9:01:35 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

The idea that I use confusing or inaccessible language is very humorous!

People have put a lot of effort into saying that your language is in some way or other unintelligible. What IMO is more accurate is that you use formal language/words in more complex sentences than people are used to (because after all most writing these days is dumbed down to 4th or 5th grade level). Complex sentences using formal language and "big" or "difficult" words does require focused, thoughtful reading and critical thinking. Focused thoughtful reading and critical thinking is not something that has ever been taught in the public school system for a extended period of time dating back decades. In fact, currently (and for a long time) the public school system actively discourages the development of these skills and punishes the students who have these skills.

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.

It entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought implicit in all reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue; assumptions; concepts; empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions; implications and consequences; objections from alternative viewpoints; and frame of reference. Critical thinking — in being responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposes — is incorporated in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among them: scientific thinking, mathematical thinking, historical thinking, anthropological thinking, economic thinking, moral thinking, and philosophical thinking.

Critical thinking can be seen as having two components: 1) a set of information and belief generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior. It is thus to be contrasted with: 1) the mere acquisition and retention of information alone, because it involves a particular way in which information is sought and treated; 2) the mere possession of a set of skills, because it involves the continual use of them; and 3) the mere use of those skills ("as an exercise") without acceptance of their results.

Critical thinking varies according to the motivation underlying it. When grounded in selfish motives, it is often manifested in the skillful manipulation of ideas in service of one’s own, or one's groups’, vested interest. As such it is typically intellectually flawed, however pragmatically successful it might be. When grounded in fairmindedness and intellectual integrity, it is typically of a higher order intellectually, though subject to the charge of "idealism" by those habituated to its selfish use.

Critical thinking of any kind is never universal in any individual; everyone is subject to episodes of undisciplined or irrational thought. Its quality is therefore typically a matter of degree and dependent on, among other things, the quality and depth of experience in a given domain of thinking or with respect to a particular class of questions. No one is a critical thinker through-and-through, but only to such-and-such a degree, with such-and-such insights and blind spots, subject to such-and-such tendencies towards self-delusion. For this reason, the development of critical thinking skills and dispositions is a life-long endeavor.

~ Michael Scriven & Richard Paul

Critical thinking is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way. People who think critically consistently attempt to live rationally, reasonably, empathically. They are keenly aware of the inherently flawed nature of human thinking when left unchecked. They strive to diminish the power of their egocentric and sociocentric tendencies. They use the intellectual tools that critical thinking offers – concepts and principles that enable them to analyze, assess, and improve thinking. They work diligently to develop the intellectual virtues of intellectual integrity, intellectual humility, intellectual civility, intellectual empathy, intellectual sense of justice and confidence in reason. They realize that no matter how skilled they are as thinkers, they can always improve their reasoning abilities and they will at times fall prey to mistakes in reasoning, human irrationality, prejudices, biases, distortions, uncritically accepted social rules and taboos, self-interest, and vested interest. They strive to improve the world in whatever ways they can and contribute to a more rational, civilized society. At the same time, they recognize the complexities often inherent in doing so. They avoid thinking simplistically about complicated issues and strive to appropriately consider the rights and needs of relevant others. They recognize the complexities in developing as thinkers, and commit themselves to life-long practice toward self-improvement. They embody the Socratic principle: The unexamined life is not worth living , because they realize that many unexamined lives together result in an uncritical, unjust, dangerous world.

~ Linda Elder

I am just smart enough to recognize that I possess these skills at a level that is insufficient to easily read all parts of DATG, I have to put in hard work to do it and I think that is where many of us are at. An unfortunate side effect is that our understanding lags and I would imagine that is frustrating for Rob that even those of us who want to get it have trouble with parts of it.

This is the encouraging part, there is quite a bit of DATG that is not hard to read and most inquisitive 6th graders could handle it.

I wonder what it would be like to have been taught these skills from childhood versus having to try to learn them unassisted as an adult.

[mormonyoyoman]

Jakobgrimm, learn to read before age 3 and it'll help.

[Jakob Grimm]

Apr 20, 2018 15:49:48 GMT -5 mormonyoyoman said:

Jakobgrimm, learn to read before age 3 and it'll help.

I'm not sure how to take that statement.

[mormonyoyoman]

No insult. It's just that almost any skill is more quickly learned when one is too young to believe that some things are impossible.

My mother accidentally taught me critical and cognitive thinking by teaching me to read before I was three. (She was a Batman fan in the 1940s and Detective Comics were my primers.) if she had waited for me to learn in school, I might never have learned. Literacy is essential for critical work thinking, and schools not only discourage reading, they discourage active thinking. Heck, they even make history boring!

[mormonyoyoman]

In regards to some RPG of the Week thread or popularity contest somewhere, I made this comment: "Left my comments, FWIW. I don't think there's much interest in any game which requires effort + imagination."

[robkuntz]

Apr 28, 2018 23:07:20 GMT -5 mormonyoyoman said:

In regards to some RPG of the Week thread or popularity contest somewhere, I made this comment: "Left my comments, FWIW. I don't think there's much interest in any game which requires effort + imagination."

When D&D stopped being an ongoing idea it became strictly entertainment.  Entertainment has always been related to comfort.  The idea of combining craft and entertainment had its heyday, its 15 minutes in the sun--and has now vanished.  When TSR's trade phrase became, "Products For Your Imagination" (to consume the imagination of others) it moved 180 degrees away from "Products BY Your Imagination"/  The last would be the proper trade phrase for OD&D if there had been one.

[mormonyoyoman]

I wonder if it's enough that the original premise ("Products BY yer imagination and effort" really is a good descriptor.) is available and possible, or if the final form of rolegaming will be pre-mastigated videogames.

Many (once "most") garners do adapt products and create their own worlds, but as leasure time shrinks and Android phones proliferate will creativity and ease live together or destroy each other?

This does not apply to games only. The plot of "Ready Player One" is at least 90 years old.

[Deleted]

People are inherently creatures of habit, and rather lazy, alas.

[mormonyoyoman]

We were all teenagers once. Used to be that we were expected to grow out of it.

[robkuntz]

Apr 30, 2018 16:43:11 GMT -5 mormonyoyoman said:

I wonder if it's enough that the original premise ("Products BY yer imagination and effort" really is a good descriptor.) is available and possible, or if the final form of rolegaming will be pre-mastigated videogames.

Many (once "most") garners do adapt products and create their own worlds, but as leasure time shrinks and Android phones proliferate will creativity and ease live together or destroy each other?

This does not apply to games only. The plot of "Ready Player One" is at least 90 years old.

The mass production/mass consumerism model is entrenched and has been integrally linked to GDP and thus to all business, institutional and governmental thought processes.  I fear that the days of creating and learning--unless you are a Boy Scout or such--but, in general, routinely pursuing a craft from BitD is now anachronistic.  There may be a resurgence, just like there was with OD&D, but the signs for that at present are generally not good.

[mormonyoyoman]

May 1, 2018 14:06:48 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

Apr 30, 2018 16:43:11 GMT -5 mormonyoyoman said:

I wonder if it's enough that the original premise ("Products BY yer imagination and effort" really is a good descriptor.) is available and possible, or if the final form of rolegaming will be pre-mastigated videogames.

Many (once "most") garners do adapt products and create their own worlds, but as leasure time shrinks and Android phones proliferate will creativity and ease live together or destroy each other?

This does not apply to games only. The plot of "Ready Player One" is at least 90 years old.

The mass production/mass consumerism model is entrenched and has been integrally linked to GDP and thus to all business, institutional and governmental thought processes.  I fear that the days of creating and learning--unless you are a Boy Scout or such--but, in general, routinely pursuing a craft from BitD is now anachronistic.  There may be a resurgence, just like there was with OD&D, but the signs for that at present are generally not good.

Guess I've been so entrenched in the the LDS life, that creating and learning - as well as learning who you want to be (which is not the same as what career do you want) seems everyday normal. At least when I look at the grandkids and our daughters (& accompanying husbands I suppose). Maybe the rest of the nation is too much at the ease, though I can't let myself get that discouraged about my siblings. I'm too old to get pessimistic.

[Deleted]

The shift from concentration on the conceptual to concentration on the mechanical has resulted in 90% of all gaming posts on all forums being absolutely irrelevant niggling over rules. A recent thread on ODD74 had somebody complaining about "problems" in the CHAINMAIL jousting rules because not all defensive positions were equally good.

I asked what historical data the poster had on jousting, which killed the thread, fortunately. But the notion persists everywhere that "all choices must be valid." Choices involve tradeoff, but most people don't want to have to make tradeoffs.

[mormonyoyoman]

Perhaps this comes from players still not realizing how different rolegaming is from literally Every Other Type of Game. Forewords and Forewards can repeatedly warn the reader that there is no winning or losing per player; gamesmasters may brief their players with the same fact, but an obnoxiously vocal minority (?) can't seem to understand that the characters may win or lose; a player's victory is in the joy of immersion in adventure.

Why is this so hard to understand? Almost every player at my tables understood and lived the thrill. Else none of us could have enjoyed playing in my wife's Call of Cthulhu campaign - for which she eventually had a waiting list.

[Deleted]

But the jousting rules are historical. Complaining about some defensive positions not being good is like complaining that a tank has thinner armor in back than front.

[mormonyoyoman]

Yea verily yea. It's just Speculatin' Chet speculatin' that the complaining might'n be about trying to finagle an advantage - to win.