#Game philosophy

[plethoraworldatlas]

In reading Marcia's review of her experience with Shadowdark, I contemplated on how I run my own OSE games. This is also fresh on my mind because I am running Miranda Elkins' fantastic Nightwick. Its all about distilling things down to the interesting choice and eliminating the non-interesting one.

Basic Equipment: I am thinking about charging my players a flat rate for all basic dungeoneering equipment that is rolled into weekly expenses-- so 7sp a week for expenses plus ~3-5sp for pick of equipment

Not interesting:  Cost of equipment, especially down to coppers

Interesting: Scarcity (what if there is no 50' rope this week?) and how many slots PC dedicates to basic equipment

Light: Due to torch cost and number per slot, it is easy to carry a lot of torches.

Not interesting: Carrying enough light to last 12-24 turns- easily done

Interesting: When torches extinguish-- like in the middle of a fight or when the goblins you are negotiating with get mad; how many hands in the party are occupied by torches

This is why I prefer to use the overloaded encounter die to simulate inopportune moments when a torch is snuffed out- gust of wind, dripping slime, bucket of sand thrown by a sneaky goblin. And with regards to hands, holding a torch potentially lowers AC, removes a weapon, or makes spell casting delayed (need both hands). One saving grace: torches are an improvised weapon that do 1d4 dmg and are on fire.

Stuck Doors: I now commonly interpret the 2-in-6 chance as a basic surprise roll. If they players fail it, they make a loud noise and alert anything on the other side of the door, but open it next round.

Not interesting: Rolling a d6 over and over again to see if PCs finally break down a door

Interesting: Seeing if PC get surprise on whatever is on the otherside; if additional equipment is brought to deal with doors

I usually like the idea that a crowbar allows and additional 1d6 rolled per individual with one.

Rations: This is similar to the situation with light, its easy to carry enough food/water for 2-4 hours which is more likely the time frame of a dungeon delve-- not a camping trip.

Not interesting: Tracking both food and water separately for nominal circumstances

Interesting: How many PCs carry rations; will rations be used for other things (like distracting monsters) or saved to avoid fatigue

For me the nature of rations are both food and water abstracted. So if a player want to use food as a distraction, mark off 1 rations. If a player wants to douse a small fire, use 2 rations as you frantically empty out a water skin and try to put out the fire consuming the spell book.

Secret Doors & Traps:  Two dungeon features that are opposite sides of the same coin. Really I think Chris McDowall has written some of the best bits on this that boil down to "traps are puzzles" and not really "gotcha".

Not interesting: Situations where the PCs have to pick the exact right spot and roll a 1-2 in 6

Interesting: Adding in environmental clues or other sources of information that allows discovery by players investigating the fictional environment

Now, I will keep both rolls as a back-up for either PCs not having a good idea and/or a back-up for perhaps me being unable to convey the fictional environment properly in the moment.

Weapons: I've yet to find a really good way to do weapons simply outside of 1d6 damage for all types. I don't mind BX's variable weapon damage. And I do like some old rulesets sorta "first strike" if your weapon is larger than an opponents other wise smaller, lighter weapons strike first in subsequent arounds.

So here is what I have got so far: Using a weapon two-handed is a +1 to damage, using an off-hand weapon is +1 to-hit, and a shield is of course +1 AC. I do like that fighters with bows can shoot twice if they did not move and the "cleave" ability.

Not interesting: Weapon factors that are so extensive they require a separate rules discussion, trigger player obsession, and/or orient the whole of gameplay to combat

Interesting: What PCs chose to do with their hands: more armor, more weapons, or more light

So that is it for now, if you'd like to see more of my house rules here is my post on the Serpent Song Hymnal. I hope to have a sorta player version created sometime soon but I'm still trying to dial-in what my go-to "french vanilla" D&D is like.

[pro-philosopher]

Because sharing is caring, we couldn't miss the opportunity to bless your feeds.

And tell you the first chapter of Pro Philosopher 2 is now available FOR FREE on Steam. Go have a good time, kids!

[breadandlottery]

Consequentialism | Stoicism | Moral Absolutism

[ladytabletop]

game designers talking about what a game is/should be are really just the ancient greeks inventing philosophy again

"what is a game?" whatever i'm playing right now, and most of the things I'm not

[philosophybits]

To be born to create, to love, to win at games is to be born to live in time of peace. But war teaches us to lose everything and become what we were not.

Albert Camus, Notebooks, 1935-1942

[baneshake]

Another post showcasing my options for a YouTube thumbnail test, though this one hasn't completed as of posting since the connected video will not premiere until twenty minutes after this post is made (I reference the option to come see all of these here at the end of the video).

The video is titled "Assassin's Creed was ALWAYS woke" and debunks the anti-woke grifters who are trying to spread bad faith arguments about Assassin's Creed Shadows, primarily since they consider a (historical) black man to be an issue for all of their stupid, stupid reasons. I push back on a lot of those claims, and focus heavily on the fact that Assassin's Creed has been heavily politically progressive since its inception, and why that's a good thing. I genuinely wonder which one of these will win out for the thumbnail test:

[unionizedwizard]

the funniest thing about ffxiv is that there is absolutely no way to get Too Deep or Too Erudite about it. like i loved to overthink about warcraft lore and stuff but i always knew it was tongue-in-cheek at BEST because they can't fucking write to save their lives, but the delightful thing about ffxiv is that it's objectively the correct and intended thing to do to Fully Understand the deeper motivations of (checks notes) anime catgirls. they're really like. yeah you should take some time in between slutty glam-making to painstakingly translate every single ancient greek name in the game because they create a subtle foreshadowing tapestry that directly quotes aristotle in the original greek. i dont know to which extent my tinfoil hat theory was actually meant to be understood as such under close scrutiny or if i'm completely off my rocker but it WORKS. in any case. it really DOES work. is the thing

[ozianfizz]

I love that DE takes places not in the apocalypse or post-apocalypse, but just before the end of the world

I love that it's not escapist fantasy and that it's meant to be just as paradoxically depressing, hopeful, cynical, hate-and-loved filled as the real world

I love that nobody is a reliable narrator and that each axis of politics in the game comes with its own problems and shitty people who are ideologically poisoned (while also sometimes being right, infuriatingly), INCLUDING the centrist option of not taking any sides

I love that your protagonist is always one drink, smoke, and/or failed skill check from having a heart attack or killing himself. And I love that his insight into the world and the heart of his home is something that is terrifying and comforting.

I love that being hardcore is a belief system almost like a religion, and that a group of kids starting a nightclub might actually be proven right in that love will save the world

I love that every mystery in the game, from the Pale to the murder itself, has no clear cut explanation and nothing is objective. All we have are the insights of a brain damaged amnesiac cop, the conflicting voices in his head, and the conflicting voices of those around him.

I love that the first skill check in the game you can fail is your hungover amnesiac protagonist saying "I want to have fuck with you". And that it establishes to the player that failing doesn't necessarily mean you can't proceed or that you should restart your save, and that sometimes failing a check can actually be great

I love that you can replay the game in succession right a way, or wait months/years until you forget a lot of it, and both experiences are fantastic. You AND Harry can both experience things in bits and pieces you can vaguely remember and grasp, and I actually highly recommend going a long time between replays at least once

And as painful as it is, I love the splintering of ZA/UM due to corporate meddling and greed, Korvitz's complexity as being simultaneously hard to work with, the heart of this world and story, AND being totally justified in his anger and betrayal, and how the varied "successors" to Disco Elysium are so different (including a mobile game version with microtransactions). Because this is actually the most Disco Elysium thing that could've ever fucking happened

[detective-pancake]

Hey, so I don't want to be that guy, but when are we going to acknowledge that Akechi was right?

No, I obviously don't mean about the things he was very clearly wrong about. I'm referring to the things he says in interviews about the Phantom Thieves. I hate how many people switch up after playing through his betrayal who previously agreed with his views, because nothing he said is wrong and nothing he did changes that fact. He speaks in the TV Station on the objective facts that he should know about, and with or without the context of his form of justice those facts stay true. It's a fallacy to claim that his form of justice being universally less approved of makes the Phantom Thieves better by comparison, or discredits anything he said. I don't think the Phantom Thieves are evil, or that they should necessarily be imprisoned, but I do think that they are not morally sound. They're kids. Prior to his betrayal I think he served his purpose well, but it's easy to disregard the validity of his words when you find out that he's a murderer. With the knowledge he SHOULD have had (and that many DID have), everything he says is true. And honestly? It still can be true for basically the entire plot of the game. Mishima's confidant tests the thieves in that way. They could have changed the hearts of anyone who's not a persona user, for any personal reason. It's a slippery slope.

I'll use these three options as an example for why he's right:

"They're justice itself" is just subjective and incorrect, because justice as a concept is individualized and given how each Phantom Thief has different reasons for being one it's ridiculous for even them to say. Their first target was before they even formed a group, and Ann was ready to kill Kamoshida. The others were not even going to step in, and they were going to respect her choice either way. All the members are so different, so this is an insane claim to make.

"They're necessary" is wrong because to say they are necessary is pretty disingenuous to all "justice" that has ever happened BEFORE they existed. I don't believe that the Thieves were a necessity per say, and personally I think their actions can only be judged on a case by case basis. Some Mementos targets for example have issues that stem beyond what they have done. Now they have their desires stolen but still have the issue that pushed them to immortality in the first place, plus a shitton of guilty baggage. The Thieves only help with the atonement, but not the push. How many of those people didn't just go right back to their past behaviors? How many of them got worse in other ways? Think about Futaba, she felt so guilty for something she thought she did, she formed a palace to condemn herself to die alone. To claim the Thieves are necessary to reform society implies that their method is the most effective, and I think that's a lot to claim for something they don't understand.

"They do more than the cops" I almost agree with. Legally the police in Japan in this game anyway (yes I'm aware it extends to reality in many ways, but I'm referring to just the game right now) are corrupt and flawed for the most part, but the thing I don't agree with is that this makes the Thieves a better alternative. They're not. For the same reason Yoshizawa says later, the Thieves can only do so much as vigilantes, and to imply that society should rely on these faceless nameless flawed people to fix society is not any better than what they have now. Especially with the method being unknown, potentially unsafe, and easily exploitable. I cannot be the only one who if the Phantom Thieves were real, would be extremely alarmed by the prospect of a group of vigilantes "changing hearts" right? It's so vague, and the pattern is dystopian. At least police methods are familiar

What I'm saying is that they're kids, and it's kind of insane that this game places Akechi as the narrative foil for the Thieves in their message and then makes it so easy to disregard because "he's an assassin so how could he know anything about justice". The Thieves don't either, and Ann was nearly a murderer. If the bar is "don't commit murder when you're infiltrating someone's mind" then it's far too low. I wouldn't trust a group of adults with this power to reform society, even less a group of teenage vigilantes. I'm 19, and I find this odd. And Strikers frames them as even more righteous, and it bugs me even more in that game. At least Royal has the third semester to give a bit more nuance to how big of a responsibility Ren was given, but that's also very frequently misinterpreted.

I love this game, and I love this fandom, and I have thoughts that get weird and ranty. I apologize, but I hope you all found this as interesting as I did.

[pro-philosopher]

See if you can out-shine this very shiny boy in Pro Philosopher 2! Maybe you can even give him reality check.

Play our new FREE demo on Steam! It's the whole first chapter!

[prokopetz]

What I really appreciate about The Talos Principle 2 is that big chunks of its writing genuinely read like they were written by someone who's personally had to justify the discipline of philosophy to a STEM major. "There exists an implicit moral algorithm in the structure of the cosmos, but actually solving that algorithm to determine the correct course of action in any given circumstance a priori would require more computational power than exists in the universe. Thus, as we must when faced with any computationally intractable problem, we fall back on heuristic approaches; these heuristics are called 'ethics'." is a fascinating way of framing it, but then I ask why would you explain it like that, and every possible answer is hilarious.

[doomedclockworkdotmp3]

yknow what whatever have some beauty mark boys

[thorough-witness-enjoyer]

Moving from the light vs dark saga to the fate saga, to me, feels like when you pause to eat at a restaurant and the waiter takes your plate away to bring dessert

Like yay!!! Dessert!!! But waiter I wasn’t done with that yet :( come back waiter :( there was still unexplored and under examined plot lines on my plate waiter :(

[evermarch]

hey! you said you had more to say on asterid and im so curious about your thoughts. I wonder what you think about how she might represent the progression of submission (from implicit, to anxious when she bans the hanging tree song, to silence when burdock dies). Just feel like you might have some interesting words on this.

i’m still processing all my *thoughts and feelings* so this may be a bit half-baked, but i think asterid is a fascinating case study in implicit submission. because she doesn’t start that way. and most importantly, she doesn’t end that way.

asterid can be analyzed by considering hume’s doctrine of implicit submission from his “of the first principles of government” essay iv, which says that while “force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion.” hume extends the “opinion,” which can be understood to mean ideology (maybe not the best word idk), into two categories—opinion of interest and opinion of right. the former involves the idea that government in general is a good thing, and also this government isn’t really worse than any other conceivable form. opinion of right can be further divided into the right to power and the right to property.

right to property is somewhat self-explanatory, so we can look next at the right to power. that is largely about how a government in power gains a lot of its power from the idea that it (and by extension, the people in power) has always had power, so it will, and thus should, continue to have power. this concept is much like the heavensbees in the capitol—snow himself disdains but cannot refute the notion that the heavensbees embody panem, because the heavensbees have always embodied panem, and thus maintain the right to wealth and the sprawling mansions and the endless libraries. he tolerates it, largely because he, too, is among this class. he implicitly submits.

asterid, likewise, is among the privileged within her community. the “government” which affects her day-to-day life is, yes, the capitol, but more so its extension of the peacekeepers and the mayor in district 12. she doesn’t engage with the capitol citizens or its rulers, but she does engage with the peacekeepers that require her family to place a banner in the window and the mayor who reads the treaty of treason at the reaping.

asterid should subscribe to the “opinions” of government more than most—she certainly should have an opinion of interest, because, she is decently fed, has friends, and not the worst life. yes, she’s in the reaping, but so is everyone tangible in her world, and she’s in the bowl less than most. there’s no real reason for her to be able dream up a better system, or necessarily to want to.

as far as opinion of right, the government owns the property (see katniss and snow’s conversation in the study in cf, where she says “he has no right, but ultimately every right,” to occupy her home). but asterid has all the access she needs. and with the right to power, the capitol has always had power, true, but so has she—it’s understood through the physical features that the merchant class shares (blonde hair, blue eyes), which differs tremendously from the seam (lower class) people, that the privileged, “powerful” class in district 12 have always been afforded proximity to the government’s right to power and the benefits therein.

but asterid doesn’t. she, much like plutarch, rejects the submission which should come easier to her than to most of the people of district 12. why? because of the three limitations on the opinions which empower government—“self interest, fear, and affection.” hume emphasizes that these limitations don’t overthrow a government on their own; they require a lot of people to reject and/or utilize them accordingly. that said, an individual’s expression of any of the limitations can extend somewhat far in terms of their own autonomy.

asterid, of course, fears the government, and protects her self-interest (her life as described above). she doesn’t run from the reaping. she doesn’t step too far out of line, as far as we know. but she does wield her affection as a healer as a means of force. she treats those in the seam and takes no payment for her services. she falls in love with a man from the lower class and rejects the relatively comfortable life to which she was born entitled. in doing so, she sacrifices the right to extend such comfort to the future children she may have had with otho mellark. these actions are inherent objections to the stratification of the classes of district 12. in other words, our girl is a class traitor, and she commits.

however, embracing these limitations only goes so far. her fear for her family’s safety takes over when she bans the hanging tree, and when she silences katniss’ defiant speech at home. when her husband dies, asterid’s affection turns against her. she enters a catatonic state which endangers the life of her children. had she fallen in love with a man from town, she may have still gone into a catatonic state, but she would have the resources to treat herself and go on. because of her small acts of opposition, otherwise insignificant to the government and its power, she lost the privileges of her prior proximity to the government’s right to power. so, she implicitly submits.

but that’s not true anymore once her daughter comes back from the games. she returns to treating people with no payment. she’s in more danger than ever before, and yet, she brings gale to her home in the middle of the night. after that, she risks prim’s safety by allowing her to aid the steady stream of beaten bodies which arrive on her doorstep. she begins to envision a better world—in district 13, she does her part to help the rebellion. she models the same behavior for her impressionable little girl. a child best known for following in her mother’s footsteps in appearance and in behavior. a daughter whose life is blown to pieces because she, like her mother, refuses to submit.

while it’s true that asterid suffered far more from her small acts of defiance than was proportional, and certainly far more than she gained, i think that she stands as a extension to hume’s assertion that the limitations on the opinions of government can only achieve so much. his example is in collective action, like the rebels fighting the war. it’s true that asterid did not participate in destroying an arena or shooting a gun. but without her affection for a seam boy overtaking her fear and self-interest, we would never have had katniss. without her demonstration of love across stratified lines, katniss would not have prim to protect, or, if she did, a will to do so. without her healing, katniss would never have known how to save peeta (or herself) in the arena, and panem would have never seen the trick with the berries.

through her little acts of defiance, her incidental rejections of submission, asterid birthed a revolution.

[revanknightwoman]

I couldn't fit in more quotes. If you have any other favorites, please comment below