Superstruct
On the way home from the puppet play, and I talked about how we had seen people burning off stress and aggression by playing games.
We also wondered and hypothesized about whether the problems of the whole world were folded into the scope of what we are expected to care for, on top of each individual's own challenges, and whether that causes people to collapse or come unhinged.
As if attuned to those two themes, the Google Alert that I set up to track Superstruct sent me actual paying job offers. I received a more detailed picture of what the Superstruct experience is intended to actually be like. I'm losing sleep, so I have to blog about it to get it off my mind.
Superstruct involves many of the things I want my life to be about.
- Future forecasting.
- Solving problems with massive collaboration games.
- Obsessively tracking things that other people put online.
It's probably not going to work out, though.
Game Mechanics
I need rules and structure. Pandemic is a delightful little board game that simplifies the real world in microcosm. Superstruct is completely open-ended, involving imagination, as if solving the world's problems for real.
Objectivity
Pandemic also provides victory and failure conditions and an objective measurement of progress, but Superstruct consists of telling stories.
Stress-free
Finally, I thrive creatively in low-pressure circumstances, and don't perform at all under stress, but the stakes of Superstruct are global superthreats before which I am an insect. I would have to pretend I'm living with problems that I don't understand at all. Problems that are-- by the definition of "superstruct"-- outside the scope of any one person to solve. The ultimate intimidation.
When I roleplay, I don't hold any back any part of my suspension of belief. I lose myself completely in vivid emotional reality. I don't know how to do half-measures in which I'm taking it anything less than deadly serious. I'd be pacing back and forth every night, muttering to myself in rage and grief. In my experience, roleplaying has tended to give me physical symptoms which upon investigation turned out to have been panic attacks. Games don't get any less fun than that, for me.
Summary
To sum up: (A) There's no game system (in the sense of rules and measuring), only immersion in a gloomy, overly-broad scope. (B) I have not yet attempted the amazing things they are attempting. (C) I'm failing myself by not participating, but participating would turn me into the type of loony who you see muttering on the street. (D) I am sad.
This is not to say Superstruct is bad. Roleplaying games are obviously successful, they are just bad for my mental and physical health. I'm frustrated by not matching this, is all.
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned For A Historical Pre-enactment Society
Sure as you're born, the thing I envisioned all those years is finally here: a futuristic alternative to the Society for Creative Anachronism. However, I never tied HPS into the idea of solving problems the way Superstruct has done. I would like to see an HPS which is little more than a cleverly-designed reductionistic system for shared world-building, operating on simple interpersonal rules. No need to deal with "win this game or we all die". No requirement to fix anything. So long as you obey the rules for interacting with other players, you can just be there, in the future, just like you're here in the present. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee. You know? You don't have to "fix" the Middle Ages to be in the SCA.
Lessons Learned For Games That Solve Problems
1. Narrow the scope.
- the scope of the challenge presented to the player
- the scope of the work the game is quietly extracting in the background from the gameplay
- well-specified
- well-understood
- then stimulus and response can be quickly connected to carrots and sticks, to create the brain chemistry of addiction
2. Hide the problem.
Capturing all those unused human computing cycles and applying them to real-world problems will come about by disguising the problems the games are solving, so that the players don't have it pushed in their face. It's crucial. For me, that is the central key that makes the concept so potentially wonderful! Disguise a boring and intimidating problem as something else. Fool the brain. It's a beautiful mind hack! For pete's sake, here are reasons that we aren't already doing the work! Why else would it be necessary to turn it into a game to begin with? Banish the paralyzing overwhelm, the drudgery, and the gloom with a game--don't allow paralyzing overwhelm, or drudgery, or gloom into the game.
Conclusion
Voting with one's feet makes one irrelevant to effect change. When I was dissatisfied with Cory Doctorow's Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town, I added chapters to the novel and made it to my liking, and I'm proud of that.
I can't bear to leave Superstruct alone. I want so much for it to succeed, I can feel it in my eye-balls. Its goals and creators (both Jane McGonigal and Jamais Cascio!) are full of awesome, even if it remains to be seen whether its methodology is full of win. The things that Superstruct players create and put online will be worth following. If I think of anything to add to it, I'll send it in. We'll see how it goes.
Now to try to go to sleep. That is manageable.
Comments
atdt1991 on Jul. 19, 2008 1:01 PM
I think you're a very different person from most people. I don't find myself overwhelmed by an imaginative challenge, I find myself freed from the constraints of "will it actually work" to make up shit that could -plausibly- work, which is, to me, the most important part of science. Asking the right question.
With many ARGs, you may have a goal, but you do not necessarily have an idea of how you're getting there. There may be methods of measuring progress planned that we are not aware of, y'know?
(I'm not trying to defend the game, since I haven't gotten involved with it or anything, I'm just contributing my thoughts and they happen to be contrarian :D )
matt-arnold on Jul. 19, 2008 2:24 PM
That's good.
earthenwood on Jul. 19, 2008 7:56 PM
hi Sken!
Matt,
First, it was great to be able to talk to you last night about these things. Second, I am sorry you are a bit sad and reminded of panic from this course of events. *hug*
and of course, given my super limited gaming experiences (um, pokemon or checkers, anyone?) I really have no idea what a lot of this post is about. But I am struck by the description of the Supersect game as it has been described. And I am trying to understand it and your thoughts on it, so bear with me...
See to me, this is an incredibly appealing game concept, especially in that it seems to really reach out to others in a constructive way, not just in a strategic or entertaining way. It seems it will make one think about the larger implications in the world at large. That interests me, personally, way more than all of the neat, fun, and beautiful games that I see and read about, but never play. In my eyes, this sort of game is an excellent way to focus the imagination and problem solving skills into real action. It is certainly more scary sounding than just figuring out strategies and living within the confines of a game system.
I don't know, I guess what I am saying is perhaps a reason it appeals to you and has caused some disturbance in your thouhgts is that it freaks you out a bit. Because it might be something that challenges your own comfortable process and way of thinking. It is a challenge, that is for sure, a challenge to the conventions of game rules as a whole and a challenge to you personally, given the rules and guidelines you have in place (listed here) for what a successful game is to you...
And that challenge might not be a bad thing. I mean, everyone needs to know their breaking point and the things that might trigger panic or fear in them... But it is a good idea, in my opinion, to really examine those things that cause the triggers, because it usually means there is work needed to be done there. (like me and my agoraphobic triggers, which I hid from for a long time, but have had to face to deal with them)
i hope this makes sense, what are your thoughts?
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