Sunday, May 15, 2005

Options!

I'm going to be away from the blog for a few days while I move across the country. Until then, I'd like to leave you with this. I have three essays I'm thinking about right now. Which one would you like to read:

1) Loving the Minimax -- Powergaming, Minimaxing, Munchkins, Game Theory, Optimization, Human Behavior and Social Contracts.

2) Social Mode and Zilchplay -- "Fourth CAs" and social interactions at the gaming table. Possibly even has something novel to say.

3) Why Gamism rocks and Narrativism is for poncy nancy boys -- Self explanatory.

13 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ben:

I vote for #2 coming out first, then #3.

Good luck with the move. Lord knows I've done that enough in my life. Hope it goes super-smooth!

Cheers,


Jason
"Oh, it's you...
deadpanbob"

3:17 AM  
Blogger Brendan said...

Gamism hits nancyboys yaaay!

8:01 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

#3.
As a poncy nancy boy I look forward to ripping your primitive gamist argument to dainty bleeding pieces.

10:40 AM  
Blogger Ben said...

As a poncy nancy boy, clearly Narrativism is just right for you ;-)

yrs--
--Ben

12:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Gamist thing. You nerdy engineer types with the calculators and books full of lists can try to tell me what's so great about tweaking your 13th level battledroid to the max. Meanwhile, I can do human stuff with my art :)

6:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nancy boys.

5:41 AM  
Blogger thickenergy said...

Let's hear what you have to say on #1. I enjoy serious Gamist play as long as nobody tries to layer a veneer of role-playing on top of it. That's why I normally stick to board and card games, or even MMORPGS (which we all know have all of nothing to do with role-playing) when getting my G fix.

6:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ooh, they all look like a lot of fun, actually. i'd rate them (coolest to least, um, coolest) 3, 2, 1, but they all look neat.

12:58 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

loving the minmax for me!

9:31 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fuck. You mean I have to choose?

They're all sweet, and I know you'll do #2 eventually anyway, so my vote's for #1.

12:31 AM  
Blogger Ben said...

To clarify -- I'll do all of these eventually. I'm just thinking about which one to do first.

And it looks like a pretty even split. :-(

yrs--
--Ben

3:34 AM  
Blogger Sven Holmström said...

I really can't understand neither narrativism nor gamism, so I would say the essay about that would be the most interesting.

5:29 AM  
Blogger Sven Holmström said...

BTW
I'm not too much into GNS, but I try to understand it somewhat, for communication reasons.

I guess all the CA:s are quite wide, but simulationism to me seems to bee the widest of them all. Actually so wide that it easily could be split into two. This might all be a misunderstanding, though.

CA:s are supposed to describe players drive in play (right?). In simulationism you gather players (on one hand) who get a kick out of combat systems that really describes a specific typ of combat, really coherent love soaps with thick rules for social interaction with (on the other hand) people like me who really identifies role playing with the act of conversing in others not as myself, but as my character. (And this has nothing to do with the social mode that you are suggesting, since it's not the players you want to converse.)

I really can't see why those two aspects are thrown together as one. Can someone explain?

5:53 AM  

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