You, the game of philosophy.

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

Derrick Jones <gunther at online1.magnus1.com> wrote:
>something stupid/out-of-character.  Players usually assign blame to the
>code.  "That mobile attacked me back!" or "How come I died when I decided
>to step off that cliff?" and "I was hunted down and attacked by a savage
>gang of orcs!" are complaints every adminstrator should hear from the bad
>players as they leave.  I'm targeting my game towards the type that
>realizes that mobiles defend themselves any way then can, doing something
>stupid gets you killed, and that orcs are to be avoided when theres an
>army of them storming the plains...

Isn't holding the idea that some players are "bad" a very dangerous
position for a designer to hold??  Who are "good" ? The ones that
enjoy your original design?  *snicker* Haven't you failed somewhere
when you have to resort to defining some players as bad?  Haven't you
failed in communicating your game philosophy?

>> > >
>> > >Again, I take exception to all of this because of the basic premise.
>> > >The character is *not* you, Glassner.  It is a character which comes with
>> > >its own abilities, desires, and faults.  It is up to you to direct the
>> > >character most of the time, but it is not you.
>> > 
>> > For a singleplayergame I would have to agree with Glassner, the
>> > character is me.
>
>The characters we play are puppets.  The idea that people do not possess

Correction, the characters YOU play are puppets. Or at least you
believe so.  How can you be so certain that my puppet isn't me?  Are
you that obsessed with my exterior?  Another thing to think about, I
have total control over a real puppet. And... puppets have been used
in therapy (sorry JCL, I'll stop here to please you)...

What you suggest is that I control the puppet intelectually with a
proper mental distance, but I find myself emotionally involved.
That's where the fun is.  That distance you value would block my fun.

I guess this has a lot to do with Descartes and other philosophers.
If I sense through the screen and are able to deduce what I might
sense in the future by reasoning about my actions, how can you then
say that what I sense in the game is fundamentally different from what
I sense in other contexts?  After all, I only know that I think,
right, at least I think I know?  I can only hope that there is
something subtantial in what I sense.  I have no real evidence that I
should trust the real world more than a game world. Ok, the game life
is a shorter life, but it is still a life? Isn't it?  Actually I'm not
quite sure if the game life is shorter, maybe it is only
time-compressed.  ;^)

>Good role players make convincing illusions, but should never convince
>themselves.  

Haha, you have a lot of faith in the integrity of the mind.  But I've
seen quite a lot of proof that should suggest otherwise.  Our "wants"
and "wishes" and a lot of other stuff interfere.  Why do people buy
tickets in the lottery?  Is it a lack of understanding of realistic
behaviour or what?  Or are they driven by some kind of desire? Is it
you or a puppet who play in the lottery?  A "puppet" when you loose,
and "you" if you win?

>See my puppet analogy above.  If you think *you* are in the game, thats
>scary.

"you" ? Is that a mental or physical entity?  Does it exists?  Is it
one thing or many things?  Is it a separate entity?  Can you prove to
me that you exists outside this game world called mud-dev?  You forget
that one part of your brain might accept that this is "only a game"
while another part of your brain ignore that "fact".  Which part of
your brain is more "you" than the other?  Which part is dominating
during gameplay?

>This here I find odd.  What makes stupid characters unconvincing?  I like
>to think I play stupid characters quite convincingly. And yes I believe I
>have had a character die from jumping off a cliff (he didn't know any
>better).

Well, totally inconsistently behaving characters is perhaps what was
meant.  Most novels assign different personalities to different
characters, right?  If Paul and Lisa swap and change roles without
motivation througout the book then it won't be easy to get into the
thing...  Building a character takes time.  Of course, if the topic of
the novel IS inconsistent behaviour then you have a different
situation.

Ola.