Counter-factual Play

I like to listen to the Philosophers Zone as a podcast and in a recent episode the topic was the Philosophical Baby. Slightly out of context was this comment by the guest (Alison Gopnik) about imagining counter-factual realities. Although this quote is about babies, it's worth reading it substituting "babies" with "gamers" or "story makers" to give it the context for this blog. I hope you see what grabbed my attention.

Well in fact, what we discovered is that babies and young children are extremely good at imagining counter-factual alternatives, other ways that the world could be, other than they way that they are now. That's what children do when they are involved in pretend play, which is one of the most characteristic things for 3 and 4 year olds to do. 3 and 4 year olds will spend 24/7 often as crazed world princesses and ninjas and who knows what else.

One of the great puzzles has always been why do they do that, why are they often in these alternative universes? And one thought is that if what babies and young children are doing is figuring out the causal structure of the world, an old philosophical idea is that understanding causation is a good idea because it lets you construct counter-factual, it lets you imagine other ways that the world could be. And what we think is that just as in their exploratory play, children are finding out all about the world around them in an uninhibited way. In their pretend way, children are exploring possibilities, but they're doing it in an uninhibited way.

(emphasis is mine)

I think this is a great way to think about our story games, as an exploration of other ways the world could be. Mind you, I wouldn't want to live in some of the worlds my games have created, but there are others that would be pure delight.

Freudian Slips are Intentional

I've said before that games make moral statements, right down to the design mechanisms. In fact, it's in the mechanisms themselves that the moral statements are made.

So I'm glad to see that it's also in the setting. Go read it for yourself and then reconsider why you want the orcs to be evil.

Philosophical Taxonomy of Gaming Types

I have mentioned before that games convey moral principles, sometimes through a deliberate decision by the game designer.  Even though I'm a lurker's lurker at The Forge, I'm aware of the taxonomy contained in the GNS model.  It should be of no surprise that one key mind behind the ongoing development of the GNS theory is a biologist (with a penchant for bat genitals and the sounds that rats make after sex, it seems).  One of the building blocks of biology is the taxonomical structure (thank you, Linnaeus) which breaks down all life into a hierarchy, and which allows for unique naming to take place.  Thus, the GNS is a taxonomy.

 

But as I've said, games convey moral principles.  They also convey philosophical perspectives.  This, therefore, is not the biologist's taxonomy of gaming types; it is the philosophical taxonomy of gaming types.  It should be of no surprise that the mind behind this development studies theology and philosophy (with a penchant for bat food - the divine mango).

 

Existential

In which the game is about creating a story after the fact, looking back on the actions and decision points to create a story.  This is probably the most common of the story game types.  However, the mechanisms of the game probably prevent this from being a pure existential game, since those mechanisms incline the character towards certain decisions - that's incline, not force.  The player can still choose to have the character go against the option with the most likely success.

 

Dialectical

In which the game is about decision points that favour neither side of a conflict, and the story still moves forward.  This is the clash of two opposing motives creating a new situation that contains elements of both, but which is not actually either.  Typically this is seen in games that allow for two characters to oppose each other, fail, and still the plot moves forward.  Make failure interesting through the dialectical approach.

 

Fatalistic

In which the game is about the characters assuming and perfecting a role in the cosmos, with no necessary interest in the big picture.  Any game which is just about levelling up the characters is really about a character not simply accepting their fated raison d'etre, but embracing it and rushing towards it with all enthusiasm and vigour.  Fatalism should not be confused with fate; it is more to do with asking, "What was I meant to do in this life?"

 

Formal

In which the game follows an established narrative form, with structured events and decision points.  Any game that has an endgame mechanism is like this, in that the overall narrative has an end.  The form of the story always results in an encounter with The Big Bad (or similar), but there is no guarantee that the protagonists will triumph.  Any game that will always result in the characters dying, or going insane, or falling asleep, etc., is a formal game.

 

Solipsist Causation

In which the game reactively follows the trumphs and tribulations of the characters; bending the will of non-player protagonists and the acts of objective material around the existential history of the protagonists.  This is typically found in games in which the player can bank points from character suffering to later spend on changing the future (usually for character favour).  The character is the centre of the universe (whether actually stated in the game or not) because of this mechanism of balance, and therefore the character may as well be the only character in the universe.

This is far from a complete list.  What philosophical forms have you seen in games?