Brian Gleichman posts, in part:
Here we have a bunch of gamers, each no better than the
others. You're no Newton (nor am I of course), there
hasn't been any true application of note, and I have as
much right to define or reject terms as you.
The same word can have different meanings depending on context.
Within the context of the threefold, and this group, terms like
"simulationism" were fairly generally accepted as labels for a
particular concept.
If you or anyone else wanted to accept the model, but use different
labels, you were free to start using your own labels, and to suggest
that others do likewise. I tried doing this myself with the
threefold, but doing so does come with a cost of having to constantly
remind people of what the variant label means, until it becomes
accepted within the group, if ever. As a result, I haven't completely
switched to using "world oriented" in place of "simulationist".
If you or anyone else wanted to discuss different concepts, you were
free to come up with your own model, and define your own concepts and
suggest your own labels for them. You could even reuse the same
labels for those different concepts if you wanted to, and if you
weren't concerned with the confusion that might result.
To the extent that "rights" are involved, I'd say that the originator
of a model will obviously be the first one to define the related
terms. With respect to the threefold, it's kind of hard to say
exactly who the originators were, but ultimately the most common
terminology was accepted by the regulars in the group at the time.
Other people are still free to use different labels for the same
things, or the same labels to mean other things, of course - but it
behooves everyone to define their terms if they want to avoid
misunderstanding.
In games, Simulation (unlike the threefold) had decades
of practical, accepted and applied use that was ignored
by r.f.g.a.
I don't agree. In wargaming, there has always been a tension between
the use of "simulation" to mean "having predictive power about the
outcomes and flows of battles", the way Dunnigan tried to do things in
his designs, and the using it to mean "including a greater level of
detail", an approach that was taken to its limits in games like
Tobruk. Any application of the term in roleplaying games has been
even more vague. In any case, I don't know of any use of the term
"simulationism" - with the suffix - predating the threefold in either
area.
I do agree that terms and definitions were incor****ated into John
Kim's FAQ prematurely, and lack of updating eventually resulted in
that FAQ becoming worse than useless. None of the regulars ever
claimed that the FAQ was definitive, though; I don't think the
regulars or the model can be blamed for newcomers mistaking the FAQ
for "truth" rather than for "one person's understanding at one single
point in time".
Paired words like that offer great freedom as it's
immediately obvious that one is speaking about something
more specific (much like Brian Gleichman instead of just
Brian) as well as offering a much reduced chance of
duplicating some other model.
I agree it reduces the chances of duplication; I don't agree that it's
a panacea. Misunderstandings can still arise, and sometimes adding
words can make things more misleading, rather than less. All that
said, I often use two words rather than one - as in "world
orientation" - for just this reason.
At any rate, none of these things are criticisms of the concepts of
the threefold model itself; they are only criticisms of the
terminology that some people used for it. That's not to say the
concepts couldn't be criticized - of course they can be - but that's a
separate issue from criticism of the terminology.
To my knowledge, there are only three or so attempts to
build a rpg model in such terms- r.f.g.a could have
'owned' their choices whole cloth.
But instead they took Drama, Game, and Simulation- words
used by many gamers and turned them on their heads.
The tradeoff was between longer terms that would be clearer to
newcomers to the group but more ***bersome in discussions between
regulars, and shorter terms that regulars would immediately understand
but would have to be explained to newcomers. Given the concepts would
probably have to be explained to any interested newcomers anyway, I
don't think choosing the latter was necessarily a mistake.
Warren J. Dew
|
