Good rules

Ron Edwards writes a lot. Sometimes, amidst heaps and heaps of words, he comes up with the best, most straightforward statements of role-playing truths. Here's one:

That by the way is a lesson my fellow role-players seem reluctant to grasp: that good rules are not there to prevent bad play but to enable good play, and that sometimes, the decisions of the moment may not be all that great – just as in any art form […]

(from this post about superpowers in Champions 1st-3rd edition, in Ron's Doctor Xaos comics madness blog.)

Well put! I'm quoting this because I think it's hugely important:

Good rules are not there to prevent bad play but to enable good play.

Indeed.

And my own experience agrees with Ron's here: far too often, "role-players" don't seem to get this point, and trite arguments about how you can "fix" a game/behavior/player by keeping them in check with rules come up over and over and over. F'rex, by far the most common piece of feedback you get from playtesters is: "Hey, I noticed that one (not me!) could possibly ruin the game by doing this and that, and the rules-as-written won't stop them from doing so." Except that's not what I design rule-sets for (and not only 'cause, frankly, no rules tome will ever be thick enough to list all the "don't"s for a role-playing game)…

Remember: the purpose of good rules it to enable good play.

Ulrich Beck in the shower

I'm told this was originally posted by Evan Torner on some "google plus" venue. Paul Czege was kind enough to share it with me.

So I've re-read some of the German sociologist Ulrich Beck and determined the following way of presenting capitalism's "issues" to undergrads while in the shower:

1. Capitalism only works by feeding itself. It has no natural predators. It is a badly written game system that serves no one.
2. To feed itself, it must constantly monetize and rationalize the world.
3. Monetizing and rationalizing the world means subverting or destroying structures that do not provide capital and predictable gains. Everything must become an "industry." Everything consumable, and locked away.
4. Capitalism actually doesn't act on the level of the individual - it requires unassailable institutions (governments, corporations, industry networks) that systematize the extraction of wealth and value through making everything consumable but locked away.
5. Minimizing risk in the extraction of wealth and value means projecting any social, health or financial problems onto the individual.
6. Individuals then become the managers of their own risk (Beck's thesis). They are isolated, alone with their bad bargains and untenable decisions. Cutting them off from communities or inserting capitalist relations into communities to monetize and rationalize them make these individuals easier to control and incorporate into capitalist logics (debt, alienated labor).
7. Nobody likes being the manager of one's own risk (how stressful!), so those who can afford it quietly build up new social defenses (i.e. personal wealth, gated communities, Platinum cards) against the risk management.
8. The wealthy's bolstering of their own defenses requires capital, so further pressure is applied on those poorer individuals ("young, loitering, non-property-owning, poor" as Rich Benjamin recently put it) to create a safety net for themselves. Communities for the 1% holding all the wealth preserve pre-capitalist social networks and leisures. They help perpetuate the chaos outside their walls while believing themselves to be mere managers of their own wealth. A community-defense mentality sets in, and others not in on the 1% believe they can gain access to their safety nets if they help capitalism push the rest of the 99% down.
9. The poor are meanwhile fed into feedback loops (like the prison industrial complex or the surveillance state) to track their risk while denying them the ability to adequately manage it.
10. Poor people turn to desperation, and so do the talented people who don't want to be poor. Everyone oppresses everyone else in the hopes of getting behind the wealthy's wall (though they're still overworked and anxious thanks to the risk society).
11. Everyone oppressing everyone else is actually not a desirable, productive or healthy psychic environment. Despite or perhaps because of their defenses, the wealthy continue to feel insecure. Were they the ones responsible for this mess? Of course not! An abstract system that, by definition, cannot take responsibility is, in fact, responsible. But they as individuals need to continue protection against risk until the mess "sorts itself out." They churn up the engines of capital to protect themselves, and the cycle continues.

I see now how socio-historical catastrophes happen. It's these damn feedback loops.

Vincent Baker's new achievement

...in the words of Jesse Burneko, here.

Naked Went the Gamer

Il titolo è di un articolo di Ron Edwards che trovo molto interessante e godibile. Tempo fa, acquistai un numero di Fight On! (la rivista del cosiddetto "Old School Renaissance") appositamente per poter leggere questo brano, incuriosito dalle controversie che aveva suscitato in giro per la Rete (offendendo la delicata sensibilità, o forse dovrei dire l'amor proprio, dei soliti geek dalla pelle troppo sottile). Nonostante lo scarto generazionale tra "il professore" e me, mi resi conto di condividere di cuore gran parte delle sue posizioni. Sono stato quindi felicissimo di scoprire recentemente che l'articolo è stato messo online sul sito dell'autore: lo segnalo dunque ai miei lettori, raccomandandolo con trasporto.

One morning, in the heavy rain, the price of a hard choice came to be paid.

You don't use rational ethics to show that you're right, you use it to become right.

+1

Parody is effective when it is also a good narrative.
Does this mean for a parody game to be effective it must also be a fun game? Yes, I think so.

(Ben Lehman, here)

Words of perfect wisdom

"The most important part of having fun with a game is matching the expectations of the players to what the game will really be like."

(quote from author's commentary to an installment of Irregular Webcomic; thx to Ben Lehman)