Sunday, May 30, 2010

A Thing I Noticed

Recently I've been interested in how players make decisions during play - how they decide what to say next. I made a diagram of it, and posted in in some places. Here it is again:


The things around the outside are what influence the things on the inside, if you see what I mean. Maybe it's interesting to some people? There's no space for "What would my character do?" I'm not sure if that's a mistake, or the whole point of the thing.

2 comments:

  1. I have questions!

    What are principled decisions? What are unprincipled decisions?

    Are 'social structures' about the group hierarchy, and whose say has more 'clout' than someone else's?

    I don't understand something about the inner circle. It has two different colours. Do these relate to the different colours in the outer circle ('Game text' and 'Other stuff')?

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  2. Steve!

    Here's a post on Vincent's blog that explains principled vs. unprincipled: http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=23

    Social structures are about group hierarchy, absolutely. Also more benign stuff. Who is considered the "expert" in this game, who is considered the most creative, or whatever.

    Colours are just for decoration (I know, it's a diagram sin). Things on the outside influence the things on a direct line towards the center. So the game text influences a lot of how we agree to stuff in play (i.e system), and a bit of how we decide what to say next.

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