Re: Qualitytable

From: gamartin_at_...
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 08:19:44 -0000

> That's hand-waving. This has nothing to do with the "system" (other

Yes

> than that the system doesn't handle it at all), this is a "yes, but"
> narrative device to "explain away" what happens to the wealth in
> question. If I _want_ to actually answer the question, as opposed

Exaclty. Its a narrative rather than simulationist system.

> to waffling my way around how it's "the wrong question to ask",
> then with HW as it stands, I'm stuffed.

Why? The correct method, expenditure of HP's, has been explained more than once.

> It's absurd to say that you can only narrate (sorry, NARRATE) wealth
> by trivialising and negating game-world factors that might lead to

The system does not trivialises them - it merely declines the futile attempt to mechanically model them, and allows you the discretion of imposing what the physical interpretation of a change in systematic wealth ratings is.

> increases in wealth by supposing the automatic existence of equal
> and opposite game-world anti-factors, such that "it only counts if
> and in so far as you spend the HPs on it". Maybe I actually wanted

Thats the entire point of the system, the single central concept on whiuch all of character definition rests. To borrow a term, HP are character currency, they allow the character to alter the state of their character - fitter, faster, richer. All of these are controlled by the expenditure of HP's.

> those original events to matter, and to have the game rules support
> incorporating them into the mechanical description, eh? You can

Fine - but recognise that this is a simulationist approach. You are trying to do physics - cause and effect in mechanically predictable manner. But the entire system qwuite clearly and obviously works on a different, dramatic, set of premises. All I am saying is that to try to insert a Simulationist calculation into a Dramatist mechanic is a) pointless b) going to give funny results.

> jump up and down all day and say "bad, bad, simulationist, bad",
> but it's not addressing the core point.

Hey, I LIKE simulationism. Bu this is not a simulationist mechanic. It does not measure how many pushups you do and thus how much your strength increases; it asks the player "how much are you changing your strength by". And it treats wealth in exactly the same way.

Powered by hypermail