Actor, Director, Producer: The player role in RPG battles

I have more to say about Final Fantasy XIII, but that post is so depressing to write I thought I'd hold off for now and elaborate on a point I made in my post discussing its combat mechanics. Role-playing games tend to get broadly divided into "turn-based" and "action" categories, distinctions that are not particularly informative, often get used inaccurately, and don't usefully elaborate the relationship between the player and the system. The battle systems in RPGs can be described in a variety of orthogonal ways, each of which has some value for describing the game's engagement with the player. Here I want to focus on the role of the player in dictating the course of the battle. Traditionally the player has either been an "actor" or a "director", but in the past decade or so, "producer"-style play has also become common. Depending on context, any of these player roles can be used to generate a compelling play experience, but an understanding of their strengths and weaknesses is essential.

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Eleventy-one!

Discount Thoughts turned eleventy-one with that last post, which I think is an excellent time to shake up the structure of this annoying little site. I've decided to kiss the keywords list goodbye and revamp the links. I've replaced it with a non-exhaustive list of keywords and the most popular posts (relative to my other posts) from the last month or so. The list of papers (formerly headed as "Shameless Self Promotion") has been removed and will now exist only in this post. Let me know what you think of the changes.

"Solution Structure of Polymerase μ's BRCT Domain Reveals an Element Essential for Its Role in Nonhomologous End Joining"

"Dynamic Coupling and Allosteric Behavior in a Non-Allosteric Protein"

"Role of Structural Plasticity in Signal Transduction by the Cryptochrome Blue-Light Photoreceptor"

"Long-Range Dynamic Effects of Point Mutations Propagate through Side Chains in the Serine Protease Inhibitor Eglin c"

"Increased Rigidity of Eglin c at Acidic pH: Evidence from NMR Spin Relaxation and MD Simulations"

And some contact information, rendered in my native language:
Email : clarkson dawt emm double yew at geemail dawt cawm
Speak it to learn my address.

Also in this post: the Discount Thoughts lexicon!

bafmodad (baf mō dad) — In a video game, an object which is not of any intrinsic use but which must be obtained in order to advance the plot. The Medallions from Ocarina of Time are a classic example. The bafmodad is conceptually related to the cinematic MacGuffin. Term invented by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik as a corruption of the name of an actual item from Starfox Adventures.

cameralepsy — The repeated recrossing of a boundary between two camera fields of view. Generally occurs in games which have fixed cameras and camera-relative controls. If the smallest angle between the cameras is > 120 degrees, there is a high probability of a cameraleptic seizure, which can only be cured by ceasing to move or (in games like Grim Fandango) changing the control scheme.

disingenue — A person, often famous, who falsely claims that his or her bad deeds are due to the influence of poorly chosen friends.

magibabble — The fantasy equivalent of Treknobabble, magibabble is pseudoscientific, jargon-filled dialogue concerning technicalities of magical physics that will either cause the destruction of the world, allow the heroes to save the world, or both. Excessive use of magibabble is a particularly common sin of fantasy RPGs. The emphasis on jargon is a critical feature of magibabble. Ordinary myths and legends often hinge on some technicality of magic, but they are not examples of magibabble because the rules are explained in plain language. Magibabble is typically used to disguise plot holes or laziness.

tatropmr (tä trōp mər) — The Abstract Transcendental Realm Of Perfect Mathematical Relationships, a nonexistent place which is frightfully dull, rather difficult to comprehend, and not inhabited by natural laws. All those who fundamentally misunderstand the process and meaning of science are eternally condemned there. First identified by Paul Davies, also the first to be publicly damned to it.

the turtles — A key problem with many arguments for creationism or intelligent design is the turtles: specifically, the fact that they go all the way down.

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The disingenue

The ingenue in fiction is a sweet young girl who because of her naïveté is often taken advantage of by more worldly members of the cast. Sometimes she is even duped into committing some crime or other offense and made a scapegoat by dastardly villains. It's an enduring theme in literature, enough so that it still has traction in modern society, though in an altered form. I call the many who make use of it disingenues, a word that has been used occasionally by others without definition. By it I mean someone who pretends to be a naïve innocent led astray by people who pretended to be her friends, with the intention of deflecting blame for some misdeed. More broadly, it could be taken to mean someone who is disingenuous generally (like, say, Alberto Gonzales).

The narrow meaning could be applied to any number of misbehaving celebrities. They blame "bad influences" around them and pledge to improve the company they keep so as not to wander down the garden path again. It's a cheap dodge, and one that devoted fans always buy. Thinking seriously, when Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan go out to party, who's in charge of that entourage? They are. They wield the power and authority in their circles, and they make their own decisions. Having the wrong people around them enhanced their opportunity to make bad choices, but those "bad influences" didn't choose for them.

But let's not limit the definition to women; this is the 21st century, and gender balance is at work here in epic proportions. The greatest recent disingenue is in fact a man, Michael Vick, who until this very day made a dedicated effort to lay blame for his own failures and shortcomings on the people surrounding him. From the beginning of this dog-fighting debacle, his position was that he had placed ill-deserved trust in his relatives and acquaintances. He had given them a house and they had betrayed him by using it for these evil purposes. Of course this fanciful tale of Mike Vick, ingenue, eventually unraveled, leading to today's guilty plea. Encouragingly, today he also said, "Not for one second will I sit right here and point the finger and try to blame anybody else for my actions or what I've done." Maybe he has turned the page, but consider how his statement of fact went to great lengths to indicate that the most gruesome act -- the violent killing earlier this year of several dogs that were not "game enough" -- was a "collective effort" involving Vick but not solely carried out by him. This is not materially different from the statements of fact accompanying his cohorts' pleas, but the difference in language is telling; he is still trying to deflect blame.

Literary or not, the disingenue is here to stay. This line of defense is too successful to fade anytime soon. We always want to pity a poor celebrity led astray by the bad influences around him or her. But let us not forget that these people chose to associate with those influences, and moreover, that when those influences offered a turn onto the wrong road, Mike Vick and others like him chose to take it.

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