these are cerebral and inchoate thoughts mostly related to my thesis that are going here because they have theoretical implications about how and why we run games the way we do, and the implications thereof. It is unlikely to be of interest to any other than me and is only going here as a record of notes.
--
the trend towards new paperback editions of staples like lieber, moorcock, et al are to include maps even when the original editions had none. in the case of works like elric, where concepts of geography, spatiality, temporality are deliberately confused, this seems laughable at best. an obsession with "naming, counting, listing" theory, but delany's appendix in return to neveryon, an over-running katafictional story throughout many of his works, is the "modular calculus". the osr returns to the megadungeon, or approaches fictive spaces that don't conform to the approach of reified post-enlightenment fantasy worlds (the megadungeon as psychological space, as we see in Courtney Campbell's work, or Logan Knight's Corpathium to name one example), but the underlying structure of the game is based on algebriac logic: sequential turns, 10' spaces, 6 mile hexes (A1, B2) depleting rations, dice rolls. Naming, counting, listing. Perhaps the approach of od&d: to provide stats, a numerical rationalist grounding in the world, and then devalue those in favour of the conversation exploring the fictive approach, is meant to provide the destabilising effect of coming into these altered, non-rational spaces.
How to mathematically represent a Tanelorn or Viriconium or Neveryon? Perhaps it's the roguelike or the procedural. No Man's Sky produces an infinity of spaces that all share the same essential characteristics.
But what would running a game based on the logic of calculus look like? If we were to represent imaginary worlds with imaginary numbers.
--
the trend towards new paperback editions of staples like lieber, moorcock, et al are to include maps even when the original editions had none. in the case of works like elric, where concepts of geography, spatiality, temporality are deliberately confused, this seems laughable at best. an obsession with "naming, counting, listing" theory, but delany's appendix in return to neveryon, an over-running katafictional story throughout many of his works, is the "modular calculus". the osr returns to the megadungeon, or approaches fictive spaces that don't conform to the approach of reified post-enlightenment fantasy worlds (the megadungeon as psychological space, as we see in Courtney Campbell's work, or Logan Knight's Corpathium to name one example), but the underlying structure of the game is based on algebriac logic: sequential turns, 10' spaces, 6 mile hexes (A1, B2) depleting rations, dice rolls. Naming, counting, listing. Perhaps the approach of od&d: to provide stats, a numerical rationalist grounding in the world, and then devalue those in favour of the conversation exploring the fictive approach, is meant to provide the destabilising effect of coming into these altered, non-rational spaces.
How to mathematically represent a Tanelorn or Viriconium or Neveryon? Perhaps it's the roguelike or the procedural. No Man's Sky produces an infinity of spaces that all share the same essential characteristics.
But what would running a game based on the logic of calculus look like? If we were to represent imaginary worlds with imaginary numbers.
"How to mathematically represent a Tanelorn or Viriconium or Neveryon?"
ReplyDeleteWell, let's take the calculus idea. Integration is defining a function, (often) an ongoing curve, through the area underneath the curve. The territory being explored, as you cut more and more finely, lets you understand the nature of the phenomenon as a whole.
What is this but understanding the world through an increasingly robust encounter chart? :P The type and nature of encounters lets you construct the world that they require around them.
I'm not quite sure what the equivalent of a derivative might be -- perhaps generating something like a yearly event table from the setting pitch? Taking the broad conception and quantizing that into a format that lets you chart how the conception will develop in the future.
I suspect that these responses are reading the question too narrowly, but I present them nonetheless.
I'm someone who has lived a life seemingly in the background, I must say this final indignity I have suffered almost too much to endure. You see, I have been sickly and weak since the day I was born and doomed to go through my life weakling. I seemed to have always suffered from one illness or another and could never play with the other children as I so desperately wanted to. Mother always made such a big fuss over me, also, making the situation worse as the other boys teased me mercilessly after they saw it. I was browsing the internet searching on how I could be transformed into a powerful person when I came across the email of a man named Lord Mark. who was a VAMPIRE so I told him that I has always dreamed about of becoming a VAMPIRES, All i did was just to follow the procedure that i was been told, and I bet you that procedure I took change my entire life to something i ever desire, freedom, sickness free, pains free, fame, influence, connections and even more that i can. Thanks to Lord Mark. Do you want a life full of interesting things? Do you want to have power and influence over others? To be charming and desirable? To have wealth, health, and longevity? contact the vampires creed today via email: Vampirelord7878@gmail.com
ReplyDelete