thread: 2013-10-28 : A Question about Objects
On 2013-11-06, Gordon wrote:
Vincent: Valuing the aesthetic aspect of the fiction might amplify the pursuit of the object, or it might get in the way, depending upon details in design and player behavior.
The relationship between goals and objects is, I'd say, more akin to a complex association than a compatible/incompatible dichotomy. People will make decisions based on uncertainty about compatible/incompatible. Probably they'll try and optimize for compatible - but the nature of such things is they'll often be unsure, and sometimes wrong. This is OK - unsure is certainly true for the designer, too (if I understand how Mechanism Design might apply here, there are better and worse methods, but no guaranteed solutions).
But it seems a mistake to ignore the complexity. I mean, as a designer, you might decide not to care and put the onus on the players to, e.g., abandon aesthetics when neccessary to acheive their object. But my experience (and possibly lame-ass understanding of stuff like Mechanism Design) is that that is close to expecting them to not behave like humans. Acknowledging simultaneously that it is MORE than reasonable to expect them to actually care about/pay attention to the object ...
Trying to keep it short - I guess "compatible/incompatible is too simple" vs. "you can always boil it down to compatible vs. incompatible" is a potential "we just disagree" point, and if so, maybe we're done. If not - I'll be back, maybe tomorrow, though.
