"Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine"

[waveridden]

tell me why i am being advertised a game that describes itself as "cozypunk"

[jennamoran]

There is a strong and persistent tension between ubiquitous corporate control over tea cozies and the way the street finds its own uses for them.

[jennamoran]

It is extremely annoying that I have to explain my dreams aloud for them to make sense. Writing them down doesn't work. Muttering them too softly to hear doesn't work. The instant I actually start talking properly about them, whether or not someone else is there, I know what they're about. There's probably a brain science reason for this, or at least a brain science explanation justifying why it might be the case for some people such as myself, but it's so awkward.

(Brought to you by "why was I dreaming about a bunch of Star Wars characters with save points in a vaguely Paranoia Alpha Complex kind of location in a just-after-the-Empire-Won AU running around trying to find enough unpoisoned food and sneak their way out of the occupied sectors only to have the doctor of the team eventually realize 'we're already dead' in what seems to be an afterlife sense but what it meant or how it resolved anything was not explained before I woke," which I had to actually start explaining aloud to myself in order to realize that it's just my brain being discouraged about the current political situation.)

[assiraphales]

ppl talk about tumblr like it’s dead. ‘this would have done numbers on tumblr’ ’tumblr would have loved this movie” baby we’re still here

[jennamoran]

sometimes I can still hear its voice

[jennamoran]

The Schostrich Colocation (v 0.1)

Print this game. Attach it to another RPG.

In this game you play scholarly ostriches, or schostriches. You have gathered to play an RPG, as is a schostriches' wont. A schostrich is a most dedicated bird and is nigh physically incapable of making OOC comments or actions during play. Therefore, the players cannot take IC actions as schostriches; they must be OOC as players or IC as their schostrich's character at all times. This applies even to a player playing a schostrich GM (SOGM) in a game that has such a thing; "there is a table by the river where you gather," for instance, can only refer to the schostriches' PCs and not the schostriches themselves. Depending on how you define IC and OOC, it may be possible to describe things OOC (setting the stage for later play and so on) but do have care.

CHALLENGE

The schostriches face five challenges during play: the waters, the malark, the frog, the odliend, and the stork. (In that order.)

The current challenge begins rated 5 and increases by (1d6-1) every fifteen minutes of play. When it reaches 12, it completes.

Each player rolls 7d6 when the game begins and another 1d6 after each full hour of play. Push dice forward; the sum of their faces represents your schostrich's ability to meet the current challenge. Once pushed forward, dice cannot be reclaimed. While the dice pushed forward equal or exceed the challenge rating, your schostrich is doing well. While they equal or exceed half the challenge rating, your schostrich is managing.

When a challenge hits 12+, it's complete. Remove it from play. Remove all pushed-forward dice. Either take on the next challenge or end the session. If you've played at least 40 minutes since your last bonus 1d6, roll another. Record your dice; their state persists between sessions.

Remember that you are allowed to talk about either game OOC; while not even a SOGM can describe the malark or what any of this is like for the schostriches it's perfectly possible to explain or discuss the matter as players. For the sake of symmetry the authority on the waters, the malark, the frog, the odliend, the stork, and the implications of failing to exceed a number or half the number goes to whoever is playing the closest thing to a relevant authority in-game (or, of course, to the group as a whole if authority is unclear or clearly absent.)

by Jenna Moran

[brazenautomaton]

I don't get this, what is the point of the game-within-a-game if you never talk about being schostriches and the fact that you are schostriches doesn't alter how you play the game

[jennamoran]

Oh! That's probably an overstatement.

Let's simplify RPG play for the moment to in-character and out-of-character play.

In character, you use your speech and actions to directly convey your PC's speech, actions, and more generally identity.

Out of character, you talk about anything from your character to the mechanics of the game.

This is something of a canard in that it's impossible to draw clean lines between the two modes of play. If you hiccup when deeply in character, that's definitely your OOC body doing that, but you'll naturally present that as IC ... unless you're playing a robot or something, in which case you'll naturally shift OOC instead. And so forth. But conceptually, right, there's "here I am in the skin of my character, being my character in the medium of my words because they have no fleshly body of their own" vs. "here I am playing a game with y'all." as two distinct intentionalities towards play.

Because schostriches are devout, devout roleplayers---it's a cultural thing, I assume---they're strictly IC at all times in play. They say only what their character says. They act only in ways intended to convey their PC. It's obviously possible as real-world players to say "I flare my feathers to convey my rogue assuming an aggressive stance," but it felt to me like that was disrespectful, given that the schostrich was explicitly trying to convey not "look at me and my feathers" but "my rogue is assuming an aggressive stance." It felt like it was a way of demeaning scholarly ostriches to allow players to do that. Does that make sense?

But all that really does is say, you're not allowed to step into your character's skin without stepping into their character's skin. You're absolutely still allowed to talk OOC about your schostrich, and you're absolutely allowed to let it impact how you play. How could you do otherwise? If your rogue's an elf, that impacts how you play them even when they're not saying poser things like "as an elf, I flare my ears aggressively." If being an elven rogue didn't affect what they did then you might as well not be IC at all. If being a schostrich affects nothing then you're already playing your character as if a schostrich, which seems an overstatement too.

I do think that in a lot of gaming people go sort of halfway IC. They use inherently OOC techniques to express their character. For instance, giving a voiceover as a character when the implicit idea that they're telling the story to someone in the future is not viable. (There's also the flip side, seeking OOC objectives through IC means, but while that's usually good play it's also logically impossible.) Half-IC play gets tricky because---well, to take the example of a voiceover, it's clear that a schostrich looking back and telling stories of the campaign is probably not playing a session at the time and therefore able to mention things like feathers, but at the same time, that requires them scorning and reinterpreting their past self in the same cruel way the rules of the Schostrich Colocation ask you not to. Is it reasonable to imagine that in the grim future of the schostriches they become bitter and disaffected and no longer love roleplay and so dedicate themselves to ripping the mask from their past self and narrating roleplaying stories in their schostrich identity? Is it reasonable to step out of character and then begin to narrate a voiceover in that embittered schostrich voice? Well, technically, of course it is; you're out of character and as history shows people who are out of character can say literally anything. But perhaps it bends the spirit of the game.

Anyway, I guess all I'm saying is that if you believe playing a schostrich (struggling perhaps with a midrange malark) playing at being an elven rogue, mech pilot, youkai helping small-town humans, or you is the same as just playing an elven rogue, mech pilot, youkai helping small-town humans, or you yourself then the colocation in fact brings nothing to the table for you and perhaps your group. But inevitably one must accept that if this is so you are functionally playing a schostrich playing a dedicated elven rogue roleplaying yourself at all times and Marcie of Dark Dungeons fame was correct to fear Black Leaf's demise.

Conversely, it must be admitted that---even if you accept this argument, and agree that the colocation makes a meaningful difference in your play---the game is v. 0.1 because it was written between 3 and 5am and therefore the added fun value of the additional layer of play cannot yet be guaranteed.

[jennamoran]

The Schostrich Colocation (v 0.1)

Print this game. Attach it to another RPG.

In this game you play scholarly ostriches, or schostriches. You have gathered to play an RPG, as is a schostriches' wont. A schostrich is a most dedicated bird and is nigh physically incapable of making OOC comments or actions during play. Therefore, the players cannot take IC actions as schostriches; they must be OOC as players or IC as their schostrich's character at all times. This applies even to a player playing a schostrich GM (SOGM) in a game that has such a thing; "there is a table by the river where you gather," for instance, can only refer to the schostriches' PCs and not the schostriches themselves. Depending on how you define IC and OOC, it may be possible to describe things OOC (setting the stage for later play and so on) but do have care.

CHALLENGE

The schostriches face five challenges during play: the waters, the malark, the frog, the odliend, and the stork. (In that order.)

The current challenge begins rated 5 and increases by (1d6-1) every fifteen minutes of play. When it reaches 12, it completes.

Each player rolls 7d6 when the game begins and another 1d6 after each full hour of play. Push dice forward; the sum of their faces represents your schostrich's ability to meet the current challenge. Once pushed forward, dice cannot be reclaimed. While the dice pushed forward equal or exceed the challenge rating, your schostrich is doing well. While they equal or exceed half the challenge rating, your schostrich is managing.

When a challenge hits 12+, it's complete. Remove it from play. Remove all pushed-forward dice. Either take on the next challenge or end the session. If you've played at least 40 minutes since your last bonus 1d6, roll another. Record your dice; their state persists between sessions.

Remember that you are allowed to talk about either game OOC; while not even a SOGM can describe the malark or what any of this is like for the schostriches it's perfectly possible to explain or discuss the matter as players. For the sake of symmetry the authority on the waters, the malark, the frog, the odliend, the stork, and the implications of failing to exceed a number or half the number goes to whoever is playing the closest thing to a relevant authority in-game (or, of course, to the group as a whole if authority is unclear or clearly absent.)

by Jenna Moran

[jennamoran]

Probably a good way to get an intuition for how random inanimate objects bumping around on the Earth for a long enough span of time can wind up creating life is to do a load of laundry where a lot of things have long straps or sleeves or cords and seeing how complexity makes itself manifest.

[jennamoran]

weirdly, neither mathematicians or clergy were very happy about the hour when the Riemann hypothesis was miraculously trivially provable even though it sat directly at the intersection of their special interests

[jennamoran]

I realize you're somewhat biased on this, but do you think it would be worthwhile to buy Nobilis now (assuming I have little hope of ever actually playing a game of it and just want to read it for pleasure), or wait for the new edition you're working on?

If you're just reading and not playing, and you're patient, most of the good bits of Nob2 and Nob3 will make it into Nob4.

[jennamoran]

hi there! I'd really like to get into the nobilis universe (I'm including glitch!) but I've never played a diceless game before and from what I've seen the opinions on which nobilis edition to play are pretty divisive. if it wouldn't be too much of a bother, could you share which game you think would be a better place to start for a group experienced with more traditional games?

"Glitch: A Story of the Not" is the most robust and polished option, if your group can handle the page count and premise.

[thydungeongal]

Character whose tragic backstory includes losing their father at an early age during a game of peek-a-boo

[thydungeongal]

One moment he was there... Then suddenly he was gone...

[arsene-inc]

But peek-a-boo is such a simple innocent game. People play it all the time and nothing happens.

Here look

Peek-a-b---

[jennamoran]

fwiw the high levels of correlation between skin cancer, sleep apnea, and failure to reappear strongly suggest some sort of mechanism involving catastrophic structural failure in the face of transitioning suddenly from existing in isolation to the mortifying ideal of being seen aggravated by the buildup of fatigue toxins; one can dramatically improve one's ability to reliably survive peek-a-boo by getting plenty of rest, probably fluids, and building exposure slowly through partial peek-a-boo, a practice of social courage, and as necessary a small mirror built into the edge of one's glasses. Stay safe out there.

[tenleaguesbeneath]

If you aren't playing Wisher, Theurgist, Fatalist, then you have no legitimate need for the rules of Wisher, Theurgist, Fatalist (WTF 45)

But character generation is done before one begins play (WTF 62)

And the character generation procedures for an RPG are commonly understood as part of the game rules [citation needed]

These three premises add up to a contradiction, where the only two escapes are by asserting that WTF's character creation procedures are not, in fact, rules of WTF but instead something else, perhaps setting elements or norms of play culture, or by coming to the conclusion that it is not possible to legitimately create a WTF character.

[jennamoran]

a more pressing question is whether you were playing WTF when you wrote this post and if not what the heck you thought you were doing using its rules

[tenleaguesbeneath]

That's unknowable without a Wisher involved.

Also making this post was not needful. So legitimate or not, I didn't have need of the WTF rules because I didn't need to make the post.

I'm also not entirely convinced that examining the structure of something qualifies as using it.

[jennamoran]

I'm also not entirely convinced that examining the structure of something qualifies as using it.

More seriously, to address the original claim, legitimacy does not derive from the text of a roleplaying game but rather from the will of the people. It cannot derive from text because nobody can know what a text actually says.

[binghsien]

Are you intending to imply that "the will of the people" is itself legible? If so, how? To whom? Via what method?

[jennamoran]

probably the simplest way is a Knowledge + People roll, but one could also look for which character creation efforts are legitimate and work backwards

[jennamoran]

I've been thinking about this a bit. I think that a better answer is that certain elements of the will of the people are in fact locally legible. You can observe people overtly creating WTF characters. If you are close to them you can observe them covertly, fearfully creating WTF characters in the shadows, or wishing that they could do so without onus but holding back. You can observe them being judged for these choices, or not being judged for these choices, by the marketplace of local ideas.

There are of course subjective elements to that last assessment. Still, practically speaking, either the result of public awareness of WTF character creation is inhibitory feedback that reduces their WTF character creation propensities relative to a loosely measurable baseline or positive feedback that increases it.

Scientific, empirical measurement of the will of the people in a given community regarding this matter would require extensive and mostly unjustifiable labor (although of course similar principles apply and in most cases labor is functionally its own justification) but a loose approximation is pretty easily obtained.

Basically, my assertion is that you can turn to the rules of a roleplaying game and wiggle them a bit to see whether a macabre undead word puppet assembled by the designer at a particular historical moment considers a certain action legitimate, and this has critical value, but ultimately it is through parasitizing on human action or, minimally, human consciousness, that a roleplaying game manifests into reality and becomes the system whose purpose is what it does. In this fashion the will of the people is distinct from a text, which is functionally identical to its Godel number in exactly the same way that extant entities potentially aren't.

[tenleaguesbeneath]

If you aren't playing Wisher, Theurgist, Fatalist, then you have no legitimate need for the rules of Wisher, Theurgist, Fatalist (WTF 45)

But character generation is done before one begins play (WTF 62)

And the character generation procedures for an RPG are commonly understood as part of the game rules [citation needed]

These three premises add up to a contradiction, where the only two escapes are by asserting that WTF's character creation procedures are not, in fact, rules of WTF but instead something else, perhaps setting elements or norms of play culture, or by coming to the conclusion that it is not possible to legitimately create a WTF character.

[jennamoran]

a more pressing question is whether you were playing WTF when you wrote this post and if not what the heck you thought you were doing using its rules

[tenleaguesbeneath]

That's unknowable without a Wisher involved.

Also making this post was not needful. So legitimate or not, I didn't have need of the WTF rules because I didn't need to make the post.

I'm also not entirely convinced that examining the structure of something qualifies as using it.

[jennamoran]

I'm also not entirely convinced that examining the structure of something qualifies as using it.

More seriously, to address the original claim, legitimacy does not derive from the text of a roleplaying game but rather from the will of the people. It cannot derive from text because nobody can know what a text actually says.

[binghsien]

Are you intending to imply that "the will of the people" is itself legible? If so, how? To whom? Via what method?

[jennamoran]

probably the simplest way is a Knowledge + People roll, but one could also look for which character creation efforts are legitimate and work backwards

[tenleaguesbeneath]

If you aren't playing Wisher, Theurgist, Fatalist, then you have no legitimate need for the rules of Wisher, Theurgist, Fatalist (WTF 45)

But character generation is done before one begins play (WTF 62)

And the character generation procedures for an RPG are commonly understood as part of the game rules [citation needed]

These three premises add up to a contradiction, where the only two escapes are by asserting that WTF's character creation procedures are not, in fact, rules of WTF but instead something else, perhaps setting elements or norms of play culture, or by coming to the conclusion that it is not possible to legitimately create a WTF character.

[jennamoran]

a more pressing question is whether you were playing WTF when you wrote this post and if not what the heck you thought you were doing using its rules

[tenleaguesbeneath]

That's unknowable without a Wisher involved.

Also making this post was not needful. So legitimate or not, I didn't have need of the WTF rules because I didn't need to make the post.

I'm also not entirely convinced that examining the structure of something qualifies as using it.

[jennamoran]

I'm also not entirely convinced that examining the structure of something qualifies as using it.

More seriously, to address the original claim, legitimacy does not derive from the text of a roleplaying game but rather from the will of the people. It cannot derive from text because nobody can know what a text actually says.

[thydungeongal]

Feel old yet? 9/11 happened 1,115 years ago

[jennamoran]

and 8 and a half months

[tenleaguesbeneath]

If you aren't playing Wisher, Theurgist, Fatalist, then you have no legitimate need for the rules of Wisher, Theurgist, Fatalist (WTF 45)

But character generation is done before one begins play (WTF 62)

And the character generation procedures for an RPG are commonly understood as part of the game rules [citation needed]

These three premises add up to a contradiction, where the only two escapes are by asserting that WTF's character creation procedures are not, in fact, rules of WTF but instead something else, perhaps setting elements or norms of play culture, or by coming to the conclusion that it is not possible to legitimately create a WTF character.

[jennamoran]

a more pressing question is whether you were playing WTF when you wrote this post and if not what the heck you thought you were doing using its rules

[jennamoran]

Nobilis 4 Preview

Nobilis 4: A Preview | Jenna Moran

Nobilis 4: A Preview by Jenna Moran on Patreon. Join Jenna Moran's community for exclusive content and updates.

Preview and rough layout of the first hundred pages of Nob4 is up for patrons, along with boring incomplete explanation of delays and why they will likely continue! Feel free to get it from a patron or subscribe-for-$1-then-quit (I'm not sure if patreon currently charges first month immediately or not) if you feel the need.

[twiststreet]

She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.

She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.

81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.

The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.

Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.

Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.

The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.

She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.

Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.

When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.

The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.

When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.

The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.

You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.

Edited down a long tweet. (x)