thread: 2013-10-28 : A Question about Objects
On 2013-11-05, Gordon wrote:
Rickard's got most of it, I think - yes, definitionally (to my mind) "the object of the game doesn't 100% match the players' goals". I'd flip that around - the point isn't that you're even trying to get an object that's 100% of the player's goals. It doesn't have to do that, it's the object, right? It is what it is regardless of those other goals. I think that's not-bizarre.
But there's a piece that maybe you'll find still-bizarre. I do think there are details about how goals that aren't the object of the game create design complications in a more difficult way "just for RPGs." In Mobile Frame Zero, if someone, oh, takes damage so that their fig stays the most aesthetically pleasing rather than effective, that interferes with getting VPs before countdown. But it's pretty easy to say "hey man, you're weird, and you lost. You make cool lego-mechs, though."
In an RPG, I think dismissing Nick's "for me, to find out what the explorer makes of their terrifying circumstances" in a similar way is not so easy (sometimes still possible, but not so easy). As amazingly useful as all this object of the game is, it does not DISPLACE the fact that when provided with a certain level of engagement with fictional stuff, people will bring goals in no matter what you say about an object for the game. Those things are entirely capable of slapping your object of the game around and taking its lunch money.
To be clear, Vincent, I'm not saying you are dismissing that at all, never mind in the same way - if you had ANY direct response to that bit from Nick, I missed it. I see other goals (social interaction, personal experience, whatever - maybe including good old Big Model CA and "aesthetic priorities" - those were a thing, right?) as design considerations that will interact with the object of the game. Most of what I've read here is entirely consistent with that. Every now and then, I think I see that displacement thing happening instead, and I go "Hurr? That's not right ..."
This makes Nick go "To be clear about what I'm saying, though"
I'm *not* saying I don't pursue the object! I find that I get the best (most interesting) result for "find out what the explorer makes of their circumstances" if I drive toward the object ("escape") as hard as I can. (And similarly for Doomed Pilgrim.)
So I don't ignore the object, preferring my personal goals. I pursue the object, *to fulfil* my personal goals!
(The fact that I can do that shows that the game is well designed to support my personal goals, among others.)
