thread: 2005-04-25 : Technical Agenda
On 2005-04-27, Victor Gijsbers wrote:
The rules work on the pretense that they directly represent the fictional stuff. They leave organization of the players' interaction strictly unspoken.
Are the two parts of this definition as tied to each other as you seem to suggest? Couldn't one have a strictly representational/causal set of rules (that is: the numbers and whatever that determine the chances of conflicts/tasks going one way or the other are strictly determined by the contents of the SIS) while at the same time having the game text be sensitive to the way such mechanics are used in a real social situation?
It's not the best of examples, but what about Great Ork Gods? It is pretty clear about the social interactions, yet it pretends that everything that enters the resolution mechanics directly represents something in the fictional world. (The reason it is not a very good example is that the gods exist in the SIS only in a very shallow way.)
Anyway, is there a necessary connection between strictly representional mechanics and insensitivity to the social situation?
