When we want to convince others to support our policy positions, we often tell stories. We tell people about things that happened to us, to people we know, and to people we’ve heard of. Journalists tell stories about what happened to famous people recently, or to whole sets of people in “studies”. Popular books also include such policy-lesson stories. And fiction often tries to persuade about policy using “true-like” stories, which are not actually true.
The term “procedural rhetoric” was developed by Ian Bogost in his book Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames.[3] Bogost defines procedural rhetoric as “the art of persuasion through rule-based representations and interactions, rather than the spoken word, writing, images, or moving pictures”[4] and “the art of using processes persuasively.”[5] Though Gonzalo Frasca’s preferred term of “simulation rhetoric” uses different language, the concept is the same: he envisions the authors of games as crafting laws[6] and that these authors convey ideology “by adding or leaving out manipulation rules.”[7] Frasca defines simulations as “to model a (source) system through a different system which maintains (for somebody) some of the behaviors of the original system,”[8] a definition that shows the importance of systemic procedures. [...]Bogost overwhelmingly uses video games as the medium to clarify this concept because “they embody processes and rely upon players to enact them.”[19] However, he does suggest that this theory could apply to other types of “play” and their possibility spaces: “For example, consider a game of hide-and-seek in which an older player must count for a longer time to allow younger players a better chance to hide more cleverly. This rule is not merely instrumental; it suggests a value of equity in the game and its players.”[20] Similarly, procedural rhetoric would apply to board games such as Elizabeth Magie’s The Landlord Game, a forerunner of Monopoly (game), that was designed to educate players on the negative outcomes of capitalism.
While some games and game theory in general can probably help with understanding of certain policies, tabletop games are not created to be good worlds to live in. Games are created either to be viciously competitive between players or as cooperative play against extremely dangerous circumstances. Neither are good indications of the world we want to live in. That is precisely because stakes are much lower in games, rather than real life. Death, poverty, jail are extremely uncofrotable things for any human being, while losing in a game (and dying there) or going to a jail in Monopoly is not. So while certain things can make an interesting mechanic in a game, it does not create good "mechanic" in life.
That is an interesting idea. I think it would be hard to pull of though. I think of games as a collection of purposefully arbitrary and exploitable rules. The fun is in finding the best way to exploit them. Which is pretty much the opposite of what you want for good policy.
Many people use "house rules" that change the official rules of the game. Reasons are plentiful:
- changing parts of the game rules that you don't like (I think this is the category Robin is talking about)- accidental differences because people don't understand the rules in the same way. Main reason is ambiguity or bad translation. But might be primed to understand these ambiguities in the way they prefer,- simplifications e.g. for kids or for faster play.
I tried to google some house rules and it is really easy to find variants for most major board games on boardgamegeek (just go to the game -> Forum -> Variants):e.g. Catan https://boardgamegeek.com/b...Special simplifications for kids:https://boardgamegeek.com/g...
Well, choosing policies and seeing what happens is what the game is all about, right? The amount of fun you get out of this game is mostly from the aha moments when you realize what the longer term consequences of you policy are. The game mechanic is mostly lookup-tables from - as I understand - simplified but real economic dependencies between the gears of society. Those can't be changed (though there are two versions, front and back of the board) but I think that wouldn't fall under different policy in your sense anyway. The proposed initial setup is tuned toward choosing policies that focus on education (at least that were the only ones that I could get to work). But it is possible and to start with different initial settings. The lookup tables do not scale to transhumanism though...
Indeed, I think a reasonable, even friendly, response to an argument is yah that’s good but I think it’s a bit more limited in benefit than even your qualifications suggest. I took the examples I gave to be cases that one might initially think fit perfectly into the kind of things one could illustrate.
Now maybe I’m wrong and you do think that this is a means of explanation that is much more limited than other forms in which case you can agree but the primary question of interest here to me is just how difficult it is to use this form and other than by giving examples not sure how best to communicate that.
It seemed to me you were suggesting in the original that the problems games face in terms of explanation weren’t particularly worse than that faced by other kinds of narratives. I’m suggesting that while it might be good when it works it’s not just that it distorts the explanation but that it totally prevents large classes of ideas from being expressed that way.
I didn’t say that you should have said it 5 times. Indeed, I said I liked the idea. I merely think that people reading it will tend to not appreciate just how strong a constraint this is so why not illustrate it.
Relevant keyword: https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...
The term “procedural rhetoric” was developed by Ian Bogost in his book Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames.[3] Bogost defines procedural rhetoric as “the art of persuasion through rule-based representations and interactions, rather than the spoken word, writing, images, or moving pictures”[4] and “the art of using processes persuasively.”[5] Though Gonzalo Frasca’s preferred term of “simulation rhetoric” uses different language, the concept is the same: he envisions the authors of games as crafting laws[6] and that these authors convey ideology “by adding or leaving out manipulation rules.”[7] Frasca defines simulations as “to model a (source) system through a different system which maintains (for somebody) some of the behaviors of the original system,”[8] a definition that shows the importance of systemic procedures. [...]Bogost overwhelmingly uses video games as the medium to clarify this concept because “they embody processes and rely upon players to enact them.”[19] However, he does suggest that this theory could apply to other types of “play” and their possibility spaces: “For example, consider a game of hide-and-seek in which an older player must count for a longer time to allow younger players a better chance to hide more cleverly. This rule is not merely instrumental; it suggests a value of equity in the game and its players.”[20] Similarly, procedural rhetoric would apply to board games such as Elizabeth Magie’s The Landlord Game, a forerunner of Monopoly (game), that was designed to educate players on the negative outcomes of capitalism.
You will probably enjoy this: https://ncase.me/polygons/ it is a simulation based on the Thomas Schelling board game-like model.
It is similar to a few pages your friend Kevin Simler has made but a bit better!
While some games and game theory in general can probably help with understanding of certain policies, tabletop games are not created to be good worlds to live in. Games are created either to be viciously competitive between players or as cooperative play against extremely dangerous circumstances. Neither are good indications of the world we want to live in. That is precisely because stakes are much lower in games, rather than real life. Death, poverty, jail are extremely uncofrotable things for any human being, while losing in a game (and dying there) or going to a jail in Monopoly is not. So while certain things can make an interesting mechanic in a game, it does not create good "mechanic" in life.
That is an interesting idea. I think it would be hard to pull of though. I think of games as a collection of purposefully arbitrary and exploitable rules. The fun is in finding the best way to exploit them. Which is pretty much the opposite of what you want for good policy.
Yes, fixed; thanks.
I am well aware of house rules.
You didn't answer my question.
Many people use "house rules" that change the official rules of the game. Reasons are plentiful:
- changing parts of the game rules that you don't like (I think this is the category Robin is talking about)- accidental differences because people don't understand the rules in the same way. Main reason is ambiguity or bad translation. But might be primed to understand these ambiguities in the way they prefer,- simplifications e.g. for kids or for faster play.
I tried to google some house rules and it is really easy to find variants for most major board games on boardgamegeek (just go to the game -> Forum -> Variants):e.g. Catan https://boardgamegeek.com/b...Special simplifications for kids:https://boardgamegeek.com/g...
Well, choosing policies and seeing what happens is what the game is all about, right? The amount of fun you get out of this game is mostly from the aha moments when you realize what the longer term consequences of you policy are. The game mechanic is mostly lookup-tables from - as I understand - simplified but real economic dependencies between the gears of society. Those can't be changed (though there are two versions, front and back of the board) but I think that wouldn't fall under different policy in your sense anyway. The proposed initial setup is tuned toward choosing policies that focus on education (at least that were the only ones that I could get to work). But it is possible and to start with different initial settings. The lookup tables do not scale to transhumanism though...
Indeed, I think a reasonable, even friendly, response to an argument is yah that’s good but I think it’s a bit more limited in benefit than even your qualifications suggest. I took the examples I gave to be cases that one might initially think fit perfectly into the kind of things one could illustrate.
Now maybe I’m wrong and you do think that this is a means of explanation that is much more limited than other forms in which case you can agree but the primary question of interest here to me is just how difficult it is to use this form and other than by giving examples not sure how best to communicate that.
It seemed to me you were suggesting in the original that the problems games face in terms of explanation weren’t particularly worse than that faced by other kinds of narratives. I’m suggesting that while it might be good when it works it’s not just that it distorts the explanation but that it totally prevents large classes of ideas from being expressed that way.
I didn’t say that you should have said it 5 times. Indeed, I said I liked the idea. I merely think that people reading it will tend to not appreciate just how strong a constraint this is so why not illustrate it.
Typo, probably want it to be "hear"**: "your priorities about the characters in a story you here may not be the same as your priorities"
NPR article today on the wild economy of board game funding:
https://www.npr.org/2020/07...
https://boardgamegeek.com/b...
Is a game about standing in line for goods in 1980s Poland.
I do mean to change rules, and have player strategies change in response to that.
I explicitly mentioned that in the post. Not clear how repeating that five times would have helped.