one of the problems w/evolutionary views: they create rigid typologies
December 27, 2019 8:39 AM Subscribe
'Civilization' and Strategy Games' Progress Delusion [Vice Gaming] “And what do we find in most historical 4X games? A largely uniform tech tree that all factions will progress through in a unilateral direction. Even non-historical 4X games feature uniform tech trees, they just use the present as a starting point and not an endpoint. But what is progress in an historical 4X game? To be blunt, it’s the elimination of difference. [...] Games are supposedly a series of interesting decisions, but one of the dirty tricks of social evolution is to obfuscate political decisions under the guise of progress. Effectively your only decisions are how to advance through a predetermined trajectory culminating with “us”, "the US”. [...] They create rigid typologies (the rungs of the ladder) that break down very quickly given the incredible diversity of human populations.”
This harkens back to my recent comments about preferring fantasy to sci-fi in genre fiction as well as games. These "civilization" simulations where one "more advanced" system replaces "inferior and old" systems do the same, exact things I find distasteful in a lot of sci-fi: they flatter the reader or player by allowing them to recognize and know some basic, familiar represented facts, historical points or scientific terms and theories. Sci-fi (and Civilization®) fans love being flattered this way, IMO. Then these games/fictions pull a sleight of hand trick where the underlying fictional premise (or false truths) are supported or "explained" by science or High School social studies.
Goes back to dragons eating cattle: How many cattle? How often? At what point does keeping dragons as war weapons become a liability versus a military benefit for a population?
If "it's just magic," then my willing suspension of disbelief is a happy one! "Explaining" your pseudo-scientific/cultural/political-theory-nonsense with just enough Science and History to make the audience feel smart is American hucksterism, and leaves a snake-oil taste in my mouth.
I'm referring to past MeFi discussions and I'm not being extremely clear here, admittedly. I'll blame it on the cold I have. But I'll boil it down to a single sentence: Don't try to make me believe your bullshit.
posted by SoberHighland at 10:47 AM on December 27, 2019 [8 favorites]
Goes back to dragons eating cattle: How many cattle? How often? At what point does keeping dragons as war weapons become a liability versus a military benefit for a population?
If "it's just magic," then my willing suspension of disbelief is a happy one! "Explaining" your pseudo-scientific/cultural/political-theory-nonsense with just enough Science and History to make the audience feel smart is American hucksterism, and leaves a snake-oil taste in my mouth.
I'm referring to past MeFi discussions and I'm not being extremely clear here, admittedly. I'll blame it on the cold I have. But I'll boil it down to a single sentence: Don't try to make me believe your bullshit.
posted by SoberHighland at 10:47 AM on December 27, 2019 [8 favorites]
if anything, it is the most natural model to put into a simulation game, if only because we know that this is what happens
Imagine, for a moment, that human progress were determined in secret by the roll of two six-sided dice, and we live in a world where the result came up 11.
The best games are the ones that allow two six-sided dice to be rolled, and lead to varied outcomes from 2 to 12. The games we've got are ones where any number of dice of different sides are rolled, but inevitably add to 11, because that's "realistic."
posted by explosion at 10:49 AM on December 27, 2019 [10 favorites]
Imagine, for a moment, that human progress were determined in secret by the roll of two six-sided dice, and we live in a world where the result came up 11.
The best games are the ones that allow two six-sided dice to be rolled, and lead to varied outcomes from 2 to 12. The games we've got are ones where any number of dice of different sides are rolled, but inevitably add to 11, because that's "realistic."
posted by explosion at 10:49 AM on December 27, 2019 [10 favorites]
Previously: I've been playing the same game of Civilization II for almost 10 years. This is the result.
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:53 AM on December 27, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:53 AM on December 27, 2019 [4 favorites]
The best games are the ones that allow two six-sided dice to be rolled, and lead to varied outcomes from 2 to 12.
I put that in the same category as "Let's make an alien planet and start evolution there." it's not even speculation, because we only have one data point.
posted by happyroach at 10:55 AM on December 27, 2019 [7 favorites]
I put that in the same category as "Let's make an alien planet and start evolution there." it's not even speculation, because we only have one data point.
posted by happyroach at 10:55 AM on December 27, 2019 [7 favorites]
My main problem with fantasy settings is how often they conflate culture with "race", and provide justification for racial superiority when everyone in one race gets a +2 to int while other races get a -1. Orcs are "objectively" suited to be a laboring slave race because of how fantasy settings frame their racial bonuses. In the next D&D game I run, I feel like I want to only allow people to play humans, and develop different cultures they could be from, but not have those differences grant an objective gameplay bonus.
As for the article, this gets to the heart of what researching for my own 4x game. The trouble I've run into is deciding what the game model should be. What does an adaptive-rather-than-progressive technological model actually look like, when you need to give mathematical rules for it? Which rules will give you that kind of behavior? And then, what does the gameplay loop look like? Not in general, but precisely.
Very interesting stuff, but I haven't found a solution I'm satisfied with yet; any feedback on what that should look like would be great!
posted by I-Write-Essays at 10:59 AM on December 27, 2019 [3 favorites]
As for the article, this gets to the heart of what researching for my own 4x game. The trouble I've run into is deciding what the game model should be. What does an adaptive-rather-than-progressive technological model actually look like, when you need to give mathematical rules for it? Which rules will give you that kind of behavior? And then, what does the gameplay loop look like? Not in general, but precisely.
Very interesting stuff, but I haven't found a solution I'm satisfied with yet; any feedback on what that should look like would be great!
posted by I-Write-Essays at 10:59 AM on December 27, 2019 [3 favorites]
Another reason why Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is great: it spun out stories about the factions of a future and their relationships via the technology tree, its descriptions and a smattering of interludes. (Rather than using the tech tree to stuff the past into the colonial / "progress" / winners and losers based lens called out in the article.)
posted by Anonymous Function at 11:09 AM on December 27, 2019 [14 favorites]
posted by Anonymous Function at 11:09 AM on December 27, 2019 [14 favorites]
There've been SF game tech "trees" that do things like randomize some branches and inventions so at least in principle one time you play the biological spaceships are a great option and another time it'll composite hulls. The one or two I've tried seemed to suffer the "sameness" issue in practice, as presumably everything gets flattened during playtesting.
But this piece isn't really complaining about options on the tree so much as the tree itself--or more accurately the game itself. The only way to play is really to adopt to the trade/expand/exploit/grow approach or be stomped on.
On an individual gamer level this seems fine, as if that's not what you want to do you can make the winning move by choosing not to play. That doesn't resolve the part of the essay that's cultural criticism.
posted by mark k at 11:10 AM on December 27, 2019 [2 favorites]
But this piece isn't really complaining about options on the tree so much as the tree itself--or more accurately the game itself. The only way to play is really to adopt to the trade/expand/exploit/grow approach or be stomped on.
On an individual gamer level this seems fine, as if that's not what you want to do you can make the winning move by choosing not to play. That doesn't resolve the part of the essay that's cultural criticism.
posted by mark k at 11:10 AM on December 27, 2019 [2 favorites]
I-Write-Essays: I hear you regarding race and fantasy. However, sci-fi, horror, and fantasy (especially games) all need to establish rules that the storytelling will play out in. For that reason, I actually like this about fantasy. It's as written on the tin: Fantasy. We live in a real world of shades of gray, and these games and stories are a temporary detour from that reality.
Here's a quick story that still makes my eyes roll: I play tabletop D&D 5e. About a year ago, we had some players "reasoning" with a Bearded Devil that they had captured: a literal Devil from literal Hell with snakes for a beard! A fictional creature of PURE EVIL. Reasoning with it! I like some time away from our shifting gray reality where some Evil is just Evil, and some Good is just Good. Some dragons need to be slain. It's escapism, cathartic.
That said, your human-only world sounds like it could make for a very interesting one to play in.
posted by SoberHighland at 11:11 AM on December 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
Here's a quick story that still makes my eyes roll: I play tabletop D&D 5e. About a year ago, we had some players "reasoning" with a Bearded Devil that they had captured: a literal Devil from literal Hell with snakes for a beard! A fictional creature of PURE EVIL. Reasoning with it! I like some time away from our shifting gray reality where some Evil is just Evil, and some Good is just Good. Some dragons need to be slain. It's escapism, cathartic.
That said, your human-only world sounds like it could make for a very interesting one to play in.
posted by SoberHighland at 11:11 AM on December 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
And then, what does the gameplay loop look like? Not in general, but precisely.
John Maynard Smith wrote many books on evolutionary biology and ecology that discuss modeling of populations of organisms, how they grow and shrink, or die off. His work might be a good starting point for the mathematics involved in abstracting this kind of thing.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:13 AM on December 27, 2019 [2 favorites]
John Maynard Smith wrote many books on evolutionary biology and ecology that discuss modeling of populations of organisms, how they grow and shrink, or die off. His work might be a good starting point for the mathematics involved in abstracting this kind of thing.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:13 AM on December 27, 2019 [2 favorites]
Here's a quick story that still makes my eyes roll: I play tabletop D&D 5e. About a year ago, we had some players "reasoning" with a Bearded Devil that they had captured: a literal Devil from literal Hell with snakes for a beard! A fictional creature of PURE EVIL. Reasoning with it!
But this is wrong. Devils in D&D are intelligent creatures. "Hell" in D&D isn't the Christian Hell, it's just another realm of existence. They're certainly capable of reason and being reasoned with.
I-Write-Essays: I hear you regarding race and fantasy. However, sci-fi, horror, and fantasy (especially games) all need to establish rules that the storytelling will play out in.
That's kind of the problem, though, as with your devil example. Why is the "rule" that an entire race of intelligent just Bad no matter what? Not a single Orc can be a good person no matter what they do?
posted by the legendary esquilax at 11:22 AM on December 27, 2019 [8 favorites]
But this is wrong. Devils in D&D are intelligent creatures. "Hell" in D&D isn't the Christian Hell, it's just another realm of existence. They're certainly capable of reason and being reasoned with.
I-Write-Essays: I hear you regarding race and fantasy. However, sci-fi, horror, and fantasy (especially games) all need to establish rules that the storytelling will play out in.
That's kind of the problem, though, as with your devil example. Why is the "rule" that an entire race of intelligent just Bad no matter what? Not a single Orc can be a good person no matter what they do?
posted by the legendary esquilax at 11:22 AM on December 27, 2019 [8 favorites]
I think the author is reading way too much into stuff. Sometimes the curtains are just blue.
I used to play a lot of Civ from Civ 2 to 4, late 90's through the 00's. Basically it exists to scratch the "I want to build stuff and take over the world!" itch. That is, of course, not a politically correct goal to have in mind and is very colonial, but it's just a computer game.
What makes it addictive and is what separates the most enjoyable games from mediocre games is the sorts of stories players can play in the game. In games where you build stuff, whether 'civilizations', cities, or railroads, you build things and they change and develop over time. You take parts of them apart and expand and build new stuff. After a while you can look around and see the remnants from previous iterations and you remember all the decisions you made along the way and that's the story that connects the player to that world.
It's just a game though. I've played a lot of Grand Theft Auto and I have zero interest in committing crimes, hurting people, and breaking traffic laws in real life.
If anything games like this become a springboard into looking deeper in the world and learning about stuff. Why was it Europeans that sailed to the Americas and not the other way around? Why were the Europeans sailing to begin with--couldn't you just walk to India or China if you wanted to? Why did Eastern Europe take a detour into communism? Why are there large parts of the world seemingly "stuck" in the tech tree far behind us?
posted by Blue Tsunami at 11:24 AM on December 27, 2019 [4 favorites]
I used to play a lot of Civ from Civ 2 to 4, late 90's through the 00's. Basically it exists to scratch the "I want to build stuff and take over the world!" itch. That is, of course, not a politically correct goal to have in mind and is very colonial, but it's just a computer game.
What makes it addictive and is what separates the most enjoyable games from mediocre games is the sorts of stories players can play in the game. In games where you build stuff, whether 'civilizations', cities, or railroads, you build things and they change and develop over time. You take parts of them apart and expand and build new stuff. After a while you can look around and see the remnants from previous iterations and you remember all the decisions you made along the way and that's the story that connects the player to that world.
It's just a game though. I've played a lot of Grand Theft Auto and I have zero interest in committing crimes, hurting people, and breaking traffic laws in real life.
If anything games like this become a springboard into looking deeper in the world and learning about stuff. Why was it Europeans that sailed to the Americas and not the other way around? Why were the Europeans sailing to begin with--couldn't you just walk to India or China if you wanted to? Why did Eastern Europe take a detour into communism? Why are there large parts of the world seemingly "stuck" in the tech tree far behind us?
posted by Blue Tsunami at 11:24 AM on December 27, 2019 [4 favorites]
> What makes it addictive ... is the sorts of stories players can play in the game.
Yes, this is exactly how I conceive of the fun factor of the game. What I have come to find, and what I think the author is getting at, is that the game is only designed to tell one kind of story, and it gets boring to tell that same story after a while.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 11:28 AM on December 27, 2019
Yes, this is exactly how I conceive of the fun factor of the game. What I have come to find, and what I think the author is getting at, is that the game is only designed to tell one kind of story, and it gets boring to tell that same story after a while.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 11:28 AM on December 27, 2019
the legendary etc: It's perfectly fine to have shades of gray morality in tabletop. I'm not trying to dictate how other people play. But to me?, a Bearded Devil is a Bearded Devil. I guess I prefer a less "Kumbaya" style of D&D, where a literal Devil summoned from literal Hell is literally Evil. Because, it's a fantasy game with violent fighting and murder as one of its core elements which takes up a vast amount of its rule books.
Guess I'm a bit of a Grognard.
edit: there was more to the play example than just "reasoning" with the devil, but I don't feel like derailing the thread with a big story about it.
posted by SoberHighland at 11:28 AM on December 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
Guess I'm a bit of a Grognard.
edit: there was more to the play example than just "reasoning" with the devil, but I don't feel like derailing the thread with a big story about it.
posted by SoberHighland at 11:28 AM on December 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
In the next D&D game I run, I feel like I want to only allow people to play humans
I want to take it the other way. I want the other "races" to literally just be races. Goblins are short and have bad teeth because of malnutrition and racism. Orcs aren't actually physiologically stronger, they just tend to be strong because that's the jobs that were available to them.
Like, if we can have half-elves and half-orcs, then they're clearly the same species as humans.
We do the same thing IRL with different races. It's just expected that Chinese are shorter and slighter than Caucasians, and then you get Yao Ming. I want to see a tall goblin. I want to see an orc accountant. I want to have a little fun with the punk elf who's rebelling against her parents by using an orcish battle axe instead of the heritage long bow like her ancestors before her.
posted by explosion at 11:41 AM on December 27, 2019 [4 favorites]
I want to take it the other way. I want the other "races" to literally just be races. Goblins are short and have bad teeth because of malnutrition and racism. Orcs aren't actually physiologically stronger, they just tend to be strong because that's the jobs that were available to them.
Like, if we can have half-elves and half-orcs, then they're clearly the same species as humans.
We do the same thing IRL with different races. It's just expected that Chinese are shorter and slighter than Caucasians, and then you get Yao Ming. I want to see a tall goblin. I want to see an orc accountant. I want to have a little fun with the punk elf who's rebelling against her parents by using an orcish battle axe instead of the heritage long bow like her ancestors before her.
posted by explosion at 11:41 AM on December 27, 2019 [4 favorites]
> What makes it addictive ...
One. More. Turn...
posted by humboldt32 at 11:41 AM on December 27, 2019 [7 favorites]
One. More. Turn...
posted by humboldt32 at 11:41 AM on December 27, 2019 [7 favorites]
explosion: does this mean certain races don't get things like Darkvision, or +/- to ability scores?
posted by SoberHighland at 11:47 AM on December 27, 2019
posted by SoberHighland at 11:47 AM on December 27, 2019
But to me?, a Bearded Devil is a Bearded Devil. I guess I prefer a less "Kumbaya" style of D&D, where a literal Devil summoned from literal Hell is literally Evil.
SoberHighland
If you haven't already, there's an excellent book addressing exactly this view in fantasy, The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad. Written in 1972, it's a critique of the kind of fantasy you're describing that used to be dominant in the genre. It's written as a frame story containing a fictional sci-fi/fantasy novel from 1953 and a fictional critical essay from 1959 about it.
The book-within-the-book is a story set in a post-nuclear apocalypse future about one of the few remaining good, pure humans who must purge his homeland of the irredeemably evil, impure mutant hordes that have overrun it. The book is titled Lord of the Swastika and the author is an alternate-history Adolf Hitler.
In case any readers missed the point, the critical essay by a fictional critic spells it out. (Yet somehow people still did: the American Nazi Party put the book on its recommended reading list). In Spinrad's own words:
posted by the legendary esquilax at 11:52 AM on December 27, 2019 [8 favorites]
SoberHighland
If you haven't already, there's an excellent book addressing exactly this view in fantasy, The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad. Written in 1972, it's a critique of the kind of fantasy you're describing that used to be dominant in the genre. It's written as a frame story containing a fictional sci-fi/fantasy novel from 1953 and a fictional critical essay from 1959 about it.
The book-within-the-book is a story set in a post-nuclear apocalypse future about one of the few remaining good, pure humans who must purge his homeland of the irredeemably evil, impure mutant hordes that have overrun it. The book is titled Lord of the Swastika and the author is an alternate-history Adolf Hitler.
In case any readers missed the point, the critical essay by a fictional critic spells it out. (Yet somehow people still did: the American Nazi Party put the book on its recommended reading list). In Spinrad's own words:
To make damn sure that even the historically naive and entirely unselfaware reader got the point, I appended a phony critical analysis of Lord of the Swastika, in which the psychopathology of Hitler's saga was spelled out by a tendentious pedant in words of one syllable. Almost everyone got the point... And yet one review appeared in a fanzine that really gave me pause. "This is a rousing adventure story and I really enjoyed it," the gist of it went. "Why did Spinrad have to spoil the fun with all this muck about Hitler?"I'm not accusing you of anything, this is just to say that there's a reason the genre moved away from that type of Pure Good vs. Unrelenting Evil narrative, because when you look at it, it does quickly become very uncomfortable.
posted by the legendary esquilax at 11:52 AM on December 27, 2019 [8 favorites]
"Well, it doesn't bother *me* so..."
I-Write-Essays: You could also do some home-brewing w/r/t "races" in D&D. Allow (encourage? require?) your players to play non-standard races (orcs, half-orcs, golbins, etc.); balance the racial bonuses out or eliminate them altogether; re-write or eliminate racial barriers to different classes; include encounters with groups of friendly, "good" orcs (or other normally "evil" creatures); take the party to settlements run by goblins (or other species) that are no different (and no less welcoming/unwelcoming) than settlements run by humans, dwarves, or elves; make racial discrimination a theme of the adventure (the party's half-orc ranger is refused service at a local tavern, for example); treat good & evil less as absolutes: maybe sometimes it's in part a difference of perspective or priority or even culture: the kobold kingdom is facing starvation, so they have to send raids to the nearby human villages, and sometimes things get violent; a paladin's "good" actions are short-sighted and cause massive suffering for others; even if the party is facing a devil from a dimension of pain who eats living souls, if the devil is intelligent, in theory it has its own sense of reason, priorities, etc. and one could reason with it -- although it may be super, super difficult to do so.
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:56 AM on December 27, 2019 [2 favorites]
I-Write-Essays: You could also do some home-brewing w/r/t "races" in D&D. Allow (encourage? require?) your players to play non-standard races (orcs, half-orcs, golbins, etc.); balance the racial bonuses out or eliminate them altogether; re-write or eliminate racial barriers to different classes; include encounters with groups of friendly, "good" orcs (or other normally "evil" creatures); take the party to settlements run by goblins (or other species) that are no different (and no less welcoming/unwelcoming) than settlements run by humans, dwarves, or elves; make racial discrimination a theme of the adventure (the party's half-orc ranger is refused service at a local tavern, for example); treat good & evil less as absolutes: maybe sometimes it's in part a difference of perspective or priority or even culture: the kobold kingdom is facing starvation, so they have to send raids to the nearby human villages, and sometimes things get violent; a paladin's "good" actions are short-sighted and cause massive suffering for others; even if the party is facing a devil from a dimension of pain who eats living souls, if the devil is intelligent, in theory it has its own sense of reason, priorities, etc. and one could reason with it -- although it may be super, super difficult to do so.
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:56 AM on December 27, 2019 [2 favorites]
I'd probably handwave some of these things. Move actual Dark Vision to a magical item, but instill a cultural/experiential dark vision in dwarves (or anyone who's lived in a dwarven city for a decent length of time). I'd probably scrap plusses and minuses entirely. Want to be a swole goblin or a waify orc? Go for it.
IMO, the point of role-playing games is fun and stories, so I'm not looking to make the players unable to do what they want so much as just remove some of the racial essentialism.
posted by explosion at 11:56 AM on December 27, 2019
IMO, the point of role-playing games is fun and stories, so I'm not looking to make the players unable to do what they want so much as just remove some of the racial essentialism.
posted by explosion at 11:56 AM on December 27, 2019
Move actual Dark Vision to a magical item, but instill a cultural/experiential dark vision in dwarves
Or you could take the stance that many of the "races" are the same species (hence the ability to interbreed) and that "evolution" (or whatever fantasy word you want to use for that) works really, really fast in a magical world and the DNA ("bloodlines") of a population is magically altered by their geographical location to make them more suited to living there: those creatures that live underground became shorter, developed dark vision, etc.; their cousins that lived in swamps developed scaly skins, etc. And/or, certain events may have happened in a certain population's past that are magically encoded in their DNA/blood, so they carry on certain genetic traits/family legacies. But a family of dwarves that moved above ground would gradually dilute their specific traits over generations and some members could start to become more elvish, for example (I think a half-elf/half-dwarf would be pretty cool to play)
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:11 PM on December 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
Or you could take the stance that many of the "races" are the same species (hence the ability to interbreed) and that "evolution" (or whatever fantasy word you want to use for that) works really, really fast in a magical world and the DNA ("bloodlines") of a population is magically altered by their geographical location to make them more suited to living there: those creatures that live underground became shorter, developed dark vision, etc.; their cousins that lived in swamps developed scaly skins, etc. And/or, certain events may have happened in a certain population's past that are magically encoded in their DNA/blood, so they carry on certain genetic traits/family legacies. But a family of dwarves that moved above ground would gradually dilute their specific traits over generations and some members could start to become more elvish, for example (I think a half-elf/half-dwarf would be pretty cool to play)
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:11 PM on December 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
The Digital Antiquarian also wrote about Civ and the progress narrative -- including a contemporaneous review of Civ I that lambasts it for "hipness" and "political correctness", daring to include things in the tech tree like women's suffrage and mass transit.
Civ's inspiration, the Avalon Hill board game, was largely trade-based, an aberration for the time.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 12:15 PM on December 27, 2019 [9 favorites]
Civ's inspiration, the Avalon Hill board game, was largely trade-based, an aberration for the time.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 12:15 PM on December 27, 2019 [9 favorites]
the legendary etc: I'll look into that. In our tabletop sessions, there certainly are shades of gray! There has to be in order to have conflict and story arcs. This happens more so with some DMs than others, and I think that's a great thing. Without gray areas, the game would devolve into something more like chess.
My (maybe not great) one example with the bearded devil was given to show how too often (IMO) the tendency of bean-plating creeps into things like roleplaying games and fiction and can throw off a narrative or at least "go against the spirit" of the game. Where almost every encounter can slip into navel-gazing, and real-world, out-of-game rationalizing. There's always going to be a back and forth with this. As mentioned above, people can enjoy (though not me) Grand Theft Auto without ever slipping into crime or murder or even desiring to do so—ever.
I generally play good characters, but have had huge fun playing more callous, self-serving types as well. It mixes things up, makes for more fun roleplaying opportunities sometimes, especially with (some) players who (in my experience) tend to fall back upon turning character role-play into personal psychodramas. There's a balance, as things like sexual assault, rape and torture are absolutely forbidden at our tables—no exceptions—even if shitty, detestable things like that could conceivably happen "in-game" under some conditions.
It can get weird, admittedly. We also do not allow real world racism/sexism...Full stop. But what about a character who has a sneering contempt for Dwarves, or Half-Orcs? I'd allow that. Not because it's admirable, but because it adds more conflict and flavor to the game sessions. But even that could be taken too far, and we'd crack down on it. We are a friendly group who all know each other. Tabletop RPGs—really, any form of roleplaying—demand a level of real world trust and honesty.
posted by SoberHighland at 12:25 PM on December 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
My (maybe not great) one example with the bearded devil was given to show how too often (IMO) the tendency of bean-plating creeps into things like roleplaying games and fiction and can throw off a narrative or at least "go against the spirit" of the game. Where almost every encounter can slip into navel-gazing, and real-world, out-of-game rationalizing. There's always going to be a back and forth with this. As mentioned above, people can enjoy (though not me) Grand Theft Auto without ever slipping into crime or murder or even desiring to do so—ever.
I generally play good characters, but have had huge fun playing more callous, self-serving types as well. It mixes things up, makes for more fun roleplaying opportunities sometimes, especially with (some) players who (in my experience) tend to fall back upon turning character role-play into personal psychodramas. There's a balance, as things like sexual assault, rape and torture are absolutely forbidden at our tables—no exceptions—even if shitty, detestable things like that could conceivably happen "in-game" under some conditions.
It can get weird, admittedly. We also do not allow real world racism/sexism...Full stop. But what about a character who has a sneering contempt for Dwarves, or Half-Orcs? I'd allow that. Not because it's admirable, but because it adds more conflict and flavor to the game sessions. But even that could be taken too far, and we'd crack down on it. We are a friendly group who all know each other. Tabletop RPGs—really, any form of roleplaying—demand a level of real world trust and honesty.
posted by SoberHighland at 12:25 PM on December 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
Anyone considering whether history is determined (or how much) might look at Prof. Ada Palmer's class from UChicago. She sets up a standard period in the Italian Renisannce and students get characters with role/character sheets they get to set up and then she lets them play out how ever it works out. Here's a popular account of the class. She's also a scifi writer and world builder. Her blog has more detail and a fascinating account of how the games/simulations (mostly) have parts that *always* turn out the same. Some things always do, some don't. Why is fascinating (to me).
posted by aleph at 12:31 PM on December 27, 2019 [12 favorites]
posted by aleph at 12:31 PM on December 27, 2019 [12 favorites]
Should have mentioned that the part in her blog describing the class/simulation is in: "Part 5: The Papal Election of 2016" further down the page.
posted by aleph at 12:43 PM on December 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by aleph at 12:43 PM on December 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
Sounds like Reacting to the Past.
posted by doctornemo at 1:56 PM on December 27, 2019
posted by doctornemo at 1:56 PM on December 27, 2019
Longtime 4x player here.
I agree with many of the tech tree and development path critiques - although, like Blue Tsunami, I love playing them.
I've been interested in messing up those trees and paths. For one, really opening up alt. history so that it's not a sure thing that developing (say) the telegraph will yield success. Same for social and political organization.
I'd also like to follow Scott's anarchist anthro and offer players the chance to avoid the state, and not get Xterminated right away.
posted by doctornemo at 2:00 PM on December 27, 2019 [3 favorites]
I agree with many of the tech tree and development path critiques - although, like Blue Tsunami, I love playing them.
I've been interested in messing up those trees and paths. For one, really opening up alt. history so that it's not a sure thing that developing (say) the telegraph will yield success. Same for social and political organization.
I'd also like to follow Scott's anarchist anthro and offer players the chance to avoid the state, and not get Xterminated right away.
posted by doctornemo at 2:00 PM on December 27, 2019 [3 favorites]
I appreciate this article, especially for what it told me about the Poundmaker Cree in Civ VI. I did not know these things about their history, but what I did know is that if somebody is planning to publish a fictional narrative about indigenous groups at a historical disadvantage, they have to talk to them first.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:31 PM on December 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Countess Elena at 8:31 PM on December 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
> what I did know is that if somebody is planning to publish a fictional narrative about indigenous groups at a historical disadvantage, they have to talk to them first.
IMO it's even more surprising when you consider that Civ 5 had Venice, which introduced a dramatic difference in the way the game was played, much more akin to a city-state. They could have done something similar, or taken it further.
> For one, really opening up alt. history so that it's not a sure thing that developing (say) the telegraph will yield success. Same for social and political organization.
Random chance kinda sucks as a game mechanic. It could be massaged into something neat though. The default mode of board games is you decide to do something and roll for success. A few games manage to tip that on its head by rolling first, and then deciding what to do with it. Apparently this is called situation luck by the game design crowd. But I agree that the tech tree is very predictable in a way not borne out in reality.
Anyways, a more unexplored aspect of the Civ games is the direct authoritarian nature. Democracy gives you more happiness but doesn't really impact your ability to rule unilaterally or trade or something. Staying in power is not so simple, it is theorized, and perhaps a game about ruling should embrace that.
posted by pwnguin at 10:10 PM on December 27, 2019 [2 favorites]
IMO it's even more surprising when you consider that Civ 5 had Venice, which introduced a dramatic difference in the way the game was played, much more akin to a city-state. They could have done something similar, or taken it further.
> For one, really opening up alt. history so that it's not a sure thing that developing (say) the telegraph will yield success. Same for social and political organization.
Random chance kinda sucks as a game mechanic. It could be massaged into something neat though. The default mode of board games is you decide to do something and roll for success. A few games manage to tip that on its head by rolling first, and then deciding what to do with it. Apparently this is called situation luck by the game design crowd. But I agree that the tech tree is very predictable in a way not borne out in reality.
Anyways, a more unexplored aspect of the Civ games is the direct authoritarian nature. Democracy gives you more happiness but doesn't really impact your ability to rule unilaterally or trade or something. Staying in power is not so simple, it is theorized, and perhaps a game about ruling should embrace that.
posted by pwnguin at 10:10 PM on December 27, 2019 [2 favorites]
Re: fantasy and racial bonuses - the 2nd edition of Pathfinder (one of the big second-tier games, with Dungeons & Dragons taking up the first tier all by itself) tackled this quite intelligently. "Race" is now called "ancestry", and gives you access to one of a handful of thematic abilities, but no innate stat bonuses and nothing that all of one ancestry gets. The bulk of your stat points comes from your "background", which is your character's specific upbringing, and from your class, a move so obvious in hindsight that I'm shocked it took until 2019 for a fantasy tabletop roleplaying game to say, 'you know what? we're just going to give you a bunch of points in your class's primary stat'.
(Half-Orcs can take a bonus that gives them a small bonus to Diplomacy checks when talking to "monsters".)
posted by Merus at 11:14 PM on December 27, 2019
(Half-Orcs can take a bonus that gives them a small bonus to Diplomacy checks when talking to "monsters".)
posted by Merus at 11:14 PM on December 27, 2019
I was in highschool when the first Civ came out (hell, I even played the tabletop Bronze Age centered boardgame before there was a computer game) and have been an avid 4x'er ever since. I get where BlueTsunami and doctornemo are coming from with the simple pleasure of building something and showing continuous progress of a dominating civilization, but I do love the emergent storytelling that can come up in the game's more fraught early and middle phases, before the map is completely filled in and there's more surprises to be found. I have always pined for a way to just expand the Classical and Medieval periods in the game, essentially shrink the turns from being decade increments to seasons and just convert over into having the world be a custom map for, say, Crusader Kings.
Which brings to mind the thing that does bug me about the standard 4x formula: that individual rulers are so absent in the gameplay. You don't have to deal with the fact that a royal dynasty just produced a string of inbred, decadent incompetents that are about to be unseated by a cabal of dissatisfied nobles, or that a brilliant philosopher king general emerges to lead your civ to a golden age but fails to put in any institutions that outlives them, causing a collapse far worse than the advances that they created.
And because of that you don't get the texture of creative flourishing and decadent decay that makes so many actual civilizations so fascinating. To a degree, I hated CK3 at first because I found it so frustrating to have one king spend their entire life uniting, say, Ireland or Castile, only to see everything fall to pieces when they died and have their three heirs squabbling over the remains, but then I realized that cycle of glory and loss -is- the juice of the game. That's where all of the stories and conflicts and actual content comes from. A thousand narratives about ambitious "heroes of their own stories" who think themselves the rightful heir to this throne or that angling and struggling.
I'd love to see a game that just took that and married it to the grand strategy through the ages formula Civ with maybe a tenth of the number of characters and perhaps the notion of seeing different dynasties rise and fall and rise again.
Also, per TFA, I would like to see more games recognize the different forms of sophistication that various civilizations possess that aren't technology, and I'd like for us to recognize what happens when you conquer people and erase their cultures. I want more games where you cannot complete the tech tree and where occupying a neighbor's cities can give you some technology advances but also wipes out some of their knowledge, and the degree to which you're able to exercise a technology is based on the number of scholars who know that tech, and therefore any war that kills those citizens or causes them to be converted can result in tech switching over or being completely lost to the world. I want more games where technology choices have biases and lock you out of other choices (and increase friction with neighbors who made those opposite choices), similar to how Stellaris has this natural split between materialists and spiritualists.
I also wouldn't mind a more historical SimCity that lets you run a city through the ages and technology and grand strategy choices happens to you, and your focus is on helping your city thrive through history.
posted by bl1nk at 7:47 AM on December 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
Which brings to mind the thing that does bug me about the standard 4x formula: that individual rulers are so absent in the gameplay. You don't have to deal with the fact that a royal dynasty just produced a string of inbred, decadent incompetents that are about to be unseated by a cabal of dissatisfied nobles, or that a brilliant philosopher king general emerges to lead your civ to a golden age but fails to put in any institutions that outlives them, causing a collapse far worse than the advances that they created.
And because of that you don't get the texture of creative flourishing and decadent decay that makes so many actual civilizations so fascinating. To a degree, I hated CK3 at first because I found it so frustrating to have one king spend their entire life uniting, say, Ireland or Castile, only to see everything fall to pieces when they died and have their three heirs squabbling over the remains, but then I realized that cycle of glory and loss -is- the juice of the game. That's where all of the stories and conflicts and actual content comes from. A thousand narratives about ambitious "heroes of their own stories" who think themselves the rightful heir to this throne or that angling and struggling.
I'd love to see a game that just took that and married it to the grand strategy through the ages formula Civ with maybe a tenth of the number of characters and perhaps the notion of seeing different dynasties rise and fall and rise again.
Also, per TFA, I would like to see more games recognize the different forms of sophistication that various civilizations possess that aren't technology, and I'd like for us to recognize what happens when you conquer people and erase their cultures. I want more games where you cannot complete the tech tree and where occupying a neighbor's cities can give you some technology advances but also wipes out some of their knowledge, and the degree to which you're able to exercise a technology is based on the number of scholars who know that tech, and therefore any war that kills those citizens or causes them to be converted can result in tech switching over or being completely lost to the world. I want more games where technology choices have biases and lock you out of other choices (and increase friction with neighbors who made those opposite choices), similar to how Stellaris has this natural split between materialists and spiritualists.
I also wouldn't mind a more historical SimCity that lets you run a city through the ages and technology and grand strategy choices happens to you, and your focus is on helping your city thrive through history.
posted by bl1nk at 7:47 AM on December 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
Can't believe I never knew Why Gandhi is an asshole:
In the original Civilization, it was because of a bug. Each leader in the game had an “aggression” rating, and Gandhi - to best reflect his real-world persona - was given the lowest score possible, a 1, so low that he’d rarely if ever go out of his way to declare war on someone.posted by TheophileEscargot at 10:39 AM on December 28, 2019 [8 favorites]
Only, there was a problem. When a player adopted democracy in Civilization, their aggression would be automatically reduced by 2. Code being code, if Gandhi went democratic his aggression wouldn’t go to -1, it looped back around to the ludicrously high figure of 255, making him as aggressive as a civilization could possibly be...
I guess I prefer a less "Kumbaya" style of D&D, where a literal Devil summoned from literal Hell is literally Evil.
I remember a game-mechanical document, which got pretty goofy at points and pushed back on rather stupid strawmen with occasionally stupid arguments, but raised some interesting points as to what the hell "evil" actually means in a universe where it is a valid moral position supported by half of the (verifiably existent, unlike in the real world) deities. Out here in the real world, most people who do bad things tend to push back on being characterized as evil (and subordinately push back on the idea that those things they do are bad), whereas in D&D if you're, say, a cleric of Bane, then that means you are essentially an evangelist for Evil, who does Evil things as an act of devotion to your Evil god, acts you know and openly acknowledge are Evil.
Broadly, this work (which I see is archived here) posits four distinct but overlapping ways of viewing moral alignment in D&D: first, that they're simply different teams pursuing different aims, but mostly by the same means; second, that they're a description of a charater's general attitude rather than of rigorous compulsions, and that Evil doesn't mean one spends all one's time being horrible; third, that Evil is authentically dedicated to the performance of explicitly immoral acts; and fourth, that they're simply necessary counterbalances to each other.
But how's that work with inherent evil? The author riffs on this in pointing out that, since Abyssal sand detects as Evil, if you attach that to a specific moral framework then you're implying that the sand in the Abyss is intrinsically immoral. And if races have a moral "type", what's that mean? Are orcs inclined by nature towards immoral acts? Or by culture?
posted by jackbishop at 1:50 PM on December 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
I remember a game-mechanical document, which got pretty goofy at points and pushed back on rather stupid strawmen with occasionally stupid arguments, but raised some interesting points as to what the hell "evil" actually means in a universe where it is a valid moral position supported by half of the (verifiably existent, unlike in the real world) deities. Out here in the real world, most people who do bad things tend to push back on being characterized as evil (and subordinately push back on the idea that those things they do are bad), whereas in D&D if you're, say, a cleric of Bane, then that means you are essentially an evangelist for Evil, who does Evil things as an act of devotion to your Evil god, acts you know and openly acknowledge are Evil.
Broadly, this work (which I see is archived here) posits four distinct but overlapping ways of viewing moral alignment in D&D: first, that they're simply different teams pursuing different aims, but mostly by the same means; second, that they're a description of a charater's general attitude rather than of rigorous compulsions, and that Evil doesn't mean one spends all one's time being horrible; third, that Evil is authentically dedicated to the performance of explicitly immoral acts; and fourth, that they're simply necessary counterbalances to each other.
But how's that work with inherent evil? The author riffs on this in pointing out that, since Abyssal sand detects as Evil, if you attach that to a specific moral framework then you're implying that the sand in the Abyss is intrinsically immoral. And if races have a moral "type", what's that mean? Are orcs inclined by nature towards immoral acts? Or by culture?
posted by jackbishop at 1:50 PM on December 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
I think the big issue with tech trees is not necessarily that they're universal (if anything the alternative, that some civilizations would be innately blocked off from some kinds of knowledge, seems incredibly problematic), but the way that technological progress is perfectly compartmentalized away from any kind of social, geographic, or economic context. That is, in Civilization you can be a totally landlocked country and somehow develop sailing, if that's what you choose to put your abstract research credits into, or discover horseback riding despite never having seen a horse.
posted by Pyry at 3:38 PM on December 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Pyry at 3:38 PM on December 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
Civ VI tried to address that a bit through the boost mechanic where certain actions or discoveries would give you a bonus of (I think) 1/3 of the research cost of a related technology. So if you settled a city on a coast you would get 1/3 of the research cost of the Sailing tech or whatever.
Of course that just made it faster to learn techs or civics rather than only letting those civs do it. But that's a game balance issue. If you prevented, say, landlocked civs from learning ocean related techs it would render those civs unplayable in many situations. Maybe that's realistic but it's probably not a lot of fun.
posted by Justinian at 4:28 PM on December 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
Of course that just made it faster to learn techs or civics rather than only letting those civs do it. But that's a game balance issue. If you prevented, say, landlocked civs from learning ocean related techs it would render those civs unplayable in many situations. Maybe that's realistic but it's probably not a lot of fun.
posted by Justinian at 4:28 PM on December 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
> I hated CK3 at first
Do you mean CK2? 3 isn't due out until 2020.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 5:51 PM on December 28, 2019
Do you mean CK2? 3 isn't due out until 2020.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 5:51 PM on December 28, 2019
I do love the emergent storytelling that can come up in the game's more fraught early and middle phases, before the map is completely filled in and there's more surprises to be found
Me too! I love exploring through fog of war.
Civ gives me that very nicely, especially with random land generation (I don't know scale, don't know what kind of landmass(es), etc.
Heck, I'll get lost in Rome:Total War by exploring fogged up areas where I know the geography perfectly well. I just want to see what's under the fuzz...
posted by doctornemo at 7:29 PM on December 28, 2019
Me too! I love exploring through fog of war.
Civ gives me that very nicely, especially with random land generation (I don't know scale, don't know what kind of landmass(es), etc.
Heck, I'll get lost in Rome:Total War by exploring fogged up areas where I know the geography perfectly well. I just want to see what's under the fuzz...
posted by doctornemo at 7:29 PM on December 28, 2019
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But we just don't know exactly how things might turn out with those alternative models, because what we have as reality is what did happen, which is the colonial/capitalist 4x model presented in the article. It seems hard to argue that the 4x model is unnatural — if anything, it is the most natural model to put into a simulation game, if only because we know that this is what happens (at least before space exploration parts of these games).
Games are great playgrounds and opportunities to explore doing things differently, but Civilization etc. do what they do well, knowing their limitations ahead of time. They fail for lack of imagination outside of the bounds of how things turned out in our reality, but they excel in the narrow scope of what they do simulate.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:29 AM on December 27, 2019 [6 favorites]