Games and the Western Mind
Some recent psychological research, mentioned in the NY Times, has confirmed that not everyone in the world thinks like westerners. This is not surprising, though apparently many psychologists have hoped their work was universal, even when only American college students were used as subjects. Regardless, the new work identifies particular differences. The unsurprising: strong individualsm, in particular identifying the self with traits rather than a role in society. The surprising: The western for fairness seems uniquely strong.
The most ambitious role-playing games aspire to stretch our minds a little: to see ourselves in another place and time, with different motives and ideas than we have. Aiding such explorations is difficult: games often struggle to evoke even the physicality of another world believably. It is especially hard because, as the article suggests, so much of our thinking is unconsciously—but very substantially—influenced by our society. Can games hope to evade such biases, even a little?
That was partly my intent with City of Birds which, for instance, has characters with no abilities, only social roles. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it has been successful with people who disliked role-playing previously (especially women). Clearly, games do not have to be as individualistic as they usually are, or concerned with material gain and utilitarian do-gooding; with dice and the numerization of everything. I wonder, though, if role-playing—as a hobby—is somehow uniquely western at its core. If so, there may be limits on what it can do. But we’re far from any limit now, so let’s keep pushing.
Aug 26, 2010 | Filed in design
| Tagged: analysis, anthropology
Lessons of Spaceship Design
The fighters launch from their carrier; they jink and turn, shooting bogeys down as they go. Finally, they approach the enemy capitol ships. They fly close, fire torpedoes, and escape, leaving behind billowing fire. Wait. Is this World War II or a space opera confection?
In this article, we’ll consider how the size of ships affects how they can fight—and come to some surprising conclusions.
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Aug 23, 2010 | Filed in models
| Tagged: scale, space
Anaxis 2 Playtesters Wanted
A major expansion to my space wargame Anaxis has been in the works for several years, and is almost complete. I’m therefore looking for outside playtesters to help me refine the text and ship designs. If you think you’re interested—and will indeed get around to playing in the near future—please write me an e-mail.
A screenshot from the Vassal implementation:
May 25, 2010 | Filed in news
Intermediate Defense Strategies
In my previous article on the geometry of empires, I considered two essential strategies for organizing the defense of a territory. In one, troops were positioned along the border, ready to intercept enemies but spread thin. In the other, a single, centrally-located force was powerful but slow to respond. These are extreme approaches, though, lying at the ends of a spectrum filled with intermediate strategies.
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Apr 23, 2010 | Filed in models
| Tagged: geography, history, scale
The Geometry of Territory Defense
The pre-modern state aims to defend its borders against enemies. The size of its territory, though, has profound implications for how it can do this; which may in turn influence how that state develops—whether, in particular, it seeks aggressive expansion.
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Apr 04, 2010 | Filed in models
| Tagged: geography, history, scale
Die Mechanics Revisited: Summation
Some years ago I wrote an article on the basic statistical properties of common die-rolling mechanics in games. It was one of the more popular articles on my site, but also contained errors and omissions. I’ve been wanting to do an updated version but found the hurdle of completing the entire article at once too daunting. Therefore I’m publishing it in pieces, as I have time.
I’ll consider a variety of common uses of dice, from their basic statistical properties to how they might be applied in a game, including what tone or psychological impact they might bring. We start today with the simplest of mechanics: summation.
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Mar 24, 2010 | Filed in design
| Tagged: mechanics, rolling
Post-Hoc Difficulty Correction
Imagine you’re to evaluate a group’s ability, perhaps in sharp-shooting, and award ratings like A or F. You might plan a series of challenges, of increasing difficulty. What if these turn out to be much harder than you planned, so that while you expected a mean success rate of 60%, it was actually 20%? The obvious solution is to multiply all scores by 3 to bring up the average. But it turns out that this (and any other linear correction) penalizes the weaker performers.
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Mar 20, 2010 | Filed in models
| Tagged:
A Call for Brief Imaginative Games
Many a gamer has discovered that, suddenly, he no longer has the time he did in high-school; that he cannot play an epic role-playing campaign spanning months; that he cannot commit to play every week, or for ten hours stretches. The constraints of the outside world are often the blame, but so too is the gamer’s own development: he has other things to do with his time, for fun, and cannot put up with a flabby gaming experience: every minute must count.
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Mar 19, 2010 | Filed in design
| Tagged: indie, strategy
City of Birds refresh
I am bringing out a redesigned version of City of Birds that is easier to read and also shorter, with a slightly lower cost to match ($6 in PDF). CoB is my story-centric, semi-historical role-playing game that does without many traditional RPG elements.
Jan 06, 2010 | Filed in news
The Flaw of Spore
Spore’s problems can be reduced to one fundamental flaw. It is not EA’s aggressive DRM, the game’s failure to be meet impossible hype, or a mainstream target audience. The flaw is simpler and far more egregious: player decisions that have no consequences.
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Nov 27, 2009 | Filed in reviews
