Game Mechanics and Science in Fortannis

[Alex319]

This question is an offshoot of the previous discussion about talking about game mechanics.

Here is what I am still trying to understand. If I say "it took Bob 8 hits to kill that monster" that is something I can observe in game (note that I haven't mentioned body points or anything yet). Similarly I could observe "it took Alice 4 hits to kill the same type of monster." Again this is all IG.

So clearly, after observing multiple battles, it is possible for my character to realize "Alice always kills the monster in exactly half as many hits as it takes Bob, therefore Alice's swings must be twice as powerful as Bob's swings." And similarly it would be conceivable that by observing, e.g. how many hits from different people it takes to breach armor (presumably you know IG when your armor is breached, and note that this is an experiment which could be done IG without expending IG resources, since refitting armor is free) it would be possible, using only IG information, to eventually "figure out" the body point system (in a similar way to how, in real life, we do experiments to figure out how the world works)

It seems weird to suggest that all of the above can be observed IG, but characters can't put that information together IG to come up with a standardized system. It would be like if they had developed the balance scale, and could put different objects or combinations of objects on each side of the balance scale to compare which one was heavier, and had the need to talk about how heavy objects were - but somehow couldn't come up with the concept of a unit of weight (like a pound) to compare different objects. (And, note that in real life, the concept of standard units of measure dates back to at least ancient Greek and Roman times, so it's certainly reasonable that a society with a medieval tech level would have them.)


BTW, the reason that I am asking these questions is because because I see my character as somewhat of a "scientist" type character - trying to understand how the world works through observation and experiment, and I plan to focus on that aspect more going forward. So if there really are boundaries of the form "your character isn't allowed to figure out X" then I would like to know what they are.

 

[llywelyn]

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, \ Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." — Hamlet (1.5.167-8)

The mechanics of the rules provide an abstraction of events that are happening in game, because modeling all of those events as they are happening requires us to use real weapons, real armor, and to actually die (which is notably undesirable) and/or to create rules systems so complex that we should really be playing Kriegsspiel in tabletop and not LARPing. There are things that can be conceived of and that not only exist in game, but have been made manifest that by the rules as written should not be strictly possible (pantherghasts being a notable example, phobias from dreams being another one, but there are also no rules for how something like scaphism would work or how it would impact someone, but this isn't to say that it shouldn't have any IG impact—it absolutely should—merely that the rules do not cover it).

The mechanics are a model of the world and, as George E. P. Box said, "all models are wrong, but some are useful." One shouldn't confuse the model (the rules) with the thing they are representing (the story, the world, the IG reality).

One sees this abstraction in action clearly in the Acarthia 414 Player's Guide, pages 59–60. There is an OOG note that reads as follows:

Competitors’ weapons are padded and will do no real damage. You will attempt to hit your opponents three times to eliminate them. (OOG-You will swing “padded” and will be eliminated when you receive blows worth 30 points…
​

Thus, IG, I perceive a 30-point padded slay and 3 solid blows against the opponent, maybe with the last soundly landing on their helmet. Despite that only one hit actually landed and that hit was certainly not actually on their head. You might generate an equivalent model, except that in this case what you see isn't what you see. You don't see one weapon swing in this case, you see three blows in a rapid flurry, despite that what you see OOG is "prepare to die! 30 padded slay!"

So when you see that "A is 'twice as effective' at B in the same number of blows" OOG, what you are seeing IG may be that… or it may be that A is better at positioning, more apt at overcoming terrain, or any number of other elements that translate to the same thing OOG and all of these things together mean that A is taking down enemies more effectively than B.

This abstraction shows up again and again throughout the rules. In the introduction by Michael A. Ventrella, ARB 1.2 "Acknowledgments & Introduction," he says:

Many gamers are so enamored with writing rules systems that they forget that the rules are only there to enable the plot to proceed. […] Remember that “the spirit of the rule is more important than the letter of the rule.”
​

This is elaborated further in several parts throughout the book, but most clearly at ARB 1.2 pg 34, "Spirit of the Rules."

This is not to say that there can't be a strongly scientific bent to approaching reality as it exists in game or that such isn't a valuable potential character archetype. Be it modeled after Hippocrates, Avicenna, Erasistratus, Aristotle, Zhang Heng, Albertus Magnus, or myriad others (some less savory). There are a lot of possibilities, but what you will find in your research is that the rules are a model of the world that can't be represented within the world, because at its heart it is an abstraction being used to tell a story, rather than a solid structure that can be modeled like gravity.

 

[Cedric]

I agree with David here. When I go up in level and gain more proficiencies, it's not just that my arm strength is getting stronger so I swing more damage, but my skill level is actually increasing. My increased damage is a result of more strength but it is also the result of me becoming more skilled with a blade. I'm hitting more often and getting past armor more and more. We just have an abstract semi-representational model for combat which involves me swinging a foam sword that takes all this into account.

Also in an actual fight I wouldn't always be doing the same amount of damage. Give me a sword to fight a real goblin and in the course of that battle, I'd get some nicks in, but I'd also get better deeper blows. But to make our system work, we need to average all of that damage to me just swinging 2s. That's why our combat model isn't entirely accurate to what we are seeing.

So...in my head (again, everyone may perceive this differently) when I'm fighting a goblin, swinging 2 damage and take him down in 5 blows, but Calidan attacks a similar goblin and swings 5s and takes him down in 2 blows, it's not just his arm strength is better, but instead more hits are landing (regardless of player skill with a sword), some deeper than others and it averages out that we are skill things at a rate that our character card is showing.

 

[Jesse Grabowski]

Yet again, very well explained David!! And incredibly accurate to the game's vision and mechanics to tell the story.

 

[llywelyn]

Now that I've had some sleep, I'll also add this:

If a player wants to take on a serious IG old-school scientific challenge around something IG that OOG-mechanically has no answer (e.g., the nature of energy transfer in magic) as part of their character arc, I can work with them—and already have with a few players. I'd love to see more IG theories and papers (similar to what we are seeing as thesis in the Mages Guild right now) that can form an IG reference and history. I'd also love to see old-school naturalist-style papers in the Mages Guild bestiary.

Just not that try to re-derive the mechanical rules such that OOG knowledge of the rules becomes IG knowledge of the world. To make an analogy: If we are playing a space-trading LARP and all agree that gravity is real, but model the motion of the planets using epicycles, I don't want PCs IG trying to derive epicycles (which are the abstraction when gravity is what is actually going on), but am happy to work with them on how hyperspace works.