[War_ooc] Okay, so...

Sun Jun 21 17:16:20 EDT 2009

Your idea is logical and would make sense if we were more of a
military/combat sim (ironic given our title). But we are a creative
writing game, why burden ourselves with trying to quantify
political/military/economic levels of every country that is being
played? A logical, critical thinking approach seems more apt. Not to
say numbers aren't going to play a part (Zimbabwe's GDP obviously
doesn't allow for nuclear power plants to be constructed) but
assigning everything from 1 to 10 seems to be placing headaches on
John.

And yes Pat we are listing to you. Your point in KISS is very apt, and
I think that trying to give a qualititative criteria for what makes a
post 'decent' is a good *starting* point.

PS IAN!

On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 6:41 PM, <lee.tarnow at utoronto.ca> wrote:
> I like this -- I still say we should put this into some objective
> metric and rate how each decision would sit in the metric, and then
> base our decisions on that, but I think this is good regardless.
>
> Quoting Michael Downey <michael.michaeldowney at gmail.com>:
>
>> It would have to be case by case, I would think.
>>
>> 1) Has anything like/similar this happened before? Has anything
>> like/similar to this happened in this particular country before?
>>
>> 2) How left/right is this action? How left/right is the country in question?
>>
>> 3) Is the quality of writing good enough (personal note, quality of
>> writing is purely a qualitative review, in my opinion)
>>
>> For example, the Russian president being overthrown by the army is
>> possible. The US president being overthrown by the military is highly
>> unlikely. Just as the US President fully nationalizing the health care
>> system is unlikely but the Canadian PM fully nationalizing Canada's
>> health care system is well within the realm of 'possible'
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 6:16 PM, <lee.tarnow at utoronto.ca> wrote:
>>> My issue is with what is DECENT. In the end, that basically comes down
>>> to John's judgment, and then we get things like flying Ebola monkeys.
>>>
>>> At the very least, that decent explanation needs to be ruled against
>>> some barometer of quality. Maybe a qualitative left-center-right scale
>>> in terms of checks and balances? As I've explained to John,
>>> right-leaning policies wouldn't necessarily fly well in a left-leaning
>>> environment. Further, how do we determine what is too severe a
>>> reaction from what is not? I'm not saying the game has to be
>>> determined by numbers, but a clear, objective system SHOULD be in
>>> place so that the game doesn't go to Narnia.
>>>
>>> And no, I'm not interested in playing in Narnia. ;)
>>>
>>> Quoting Iain <iain at iain-waddell.co.uk>:
>>>
>>>> For the very little that will be my two pence (being British and all ;-)):
>>>>
>>>> I also think the best setting (from a totally personal preference and
>>>> selfish-I-would-enjoy-more) would be near future. Again this gets us out of
>>>> being bogged down in current affairs (does anyone REALLY want to
>>>> play Gordon
>>>> Brown?? Huh? Lol) and also gives us enough grounding in reality to not have
>>>> to overthink how the world would be or research how it was...
>>>>
>>>> Furthermore, I agree that the game needs something to keep it chugging
>>>> along, but through experience of sims (yes yes, mainly Trek I
>>>> admit it) this
>>>> is done by having guidelines rather than hard and fast rules and a good set
>>>> of players/writers.
>>>>
>>>> And I'm afraid good writing with 'decent' explanation does win
>>>> over complete
>>>> realism in my book. Note the word 'decent'.
>>>>
>>>> Iain
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: war_ooc-bounces at esteroic.com [mailto:war_ooc-bounces at esteroic.com] On
>>>> Behalf Of lee.tarnow at utoronto.ca
>>>> Sent: 21 June 2009 21:32
>>>> To: war_ooc at esteroic.com
>>>> Subject: Re: [War_ooc] Okay, so...
>>>>
>>>> I see what your saying -- that turning this game into a strictly
>>>> by-the-numbers game would make it boring.
>>>>
>>>> HOWEVER
>>>>
>>>> I think that, while not overly restrictive, SOMETHING needs to be in
>>>> place. If we don't have anything objective in place, the game will
>>>> need constant nudging along, which would not bode well in down times.
>>>> I'm not saying that we need to be number crunching GDP and such, but
>>>> if a left-leaning country implements right-leaning policies, the game
>>>> should reflect the consequences of that decision. Further, in a lull,
>>>> the game SHOULD be able to support itself.
>>>>
>>>> To reiterate my point, while we don't need a D&D rulebook, we need
>>>> some clearly defined rules that'll keep the game chugging along during
>>>> down time, and make sure things make sense.
>>>>
>>>> Quoting Michael Downey <michael.michaeldowney at gmail.com>:
>>>>
>>>>> I personally vote for the near-future timeline. War in Space is really
>>>>> not what I imagined this game to be. Historical is interesting but
>>>>> would seem like a fundamental shift in WAR. Aren't there other games
>>>>> like that out there?
>>>>>
>>>>> Near-future gives us a strong basis but does not bog us down with
>>>>> current events. If things happening now suddenly come up that make our
>>>>> near-future scenario out of place then we just have to shrug our
>>>>> shoulders and remember it is AU.
>>>>>
>>>>> I have and always will be a proponent of realism but John is correct
>>>>> that this is a creative writing RPG and not a number-for-number
>>>>> simulation. A lack of realism leads to things like the Anglo-Japanese
>>>>> War of 2001, Austrian Gundam and Central African railgun tanks. But
>>>>> becoming a bunch of bean counters that pour over the GDP and other
>>>>> stats of a country vs. another would bog the game down and make it
>>>>> boring and pedantic. That is why I would suggest we take a 'Tom
>>>>> Clancy' approach; a solid grounding in realism but a bit of
>>>>> unrealistic (or more precisely, unlikely) events being allowed if they
>>>>> are backed with good writing.
>>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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