git ssb

Game

This is the thread for managing actual game turns. Anticipating this:

• the rules don't seem to specify a term for "one set of turns". I say let's call this a round. That way we can be clear that, for example, "we are still in Round 3 and Kas is the Lens"

• For Round #1, I think I'd like to pass the Lens duty, which also means I don't go first. I feel like I've had a lot of influence on the story very early, and I'd like to make give someone else the lead for the first round

For reference, here are the relevant rules from Page 18:

Decide which player will start: that player becomes the 1rst lens. If someone is teaching the game, they should be the 1rst Lens. You can give the Lens a large and visible object to remind everyone at the table who it is.

1) Declare the Focus: The Lens declares the current focus of the game, the part of history you’re going to explore right now.

2) Make History: Each player takes a turn creating either a Period, Event or Scene. The Lens goes rst, then go around the table to the left. What you create must relate to the current Focus. The Lens can choose to create two things on her turn, so long as they are nested inside each other: either a new Event plus a Scene inside that Event, or a new Period plus an Event inside that Period. This gives the Lens more power to get the Focus going.

3) Lens Finishes the Focus: After each player has taken a turn, the Lens gets to go again and add another Period, Event or Scene (or two nested things). This lets the Lens have the last word about the Focus.

There was a bit of change of plans with @haileycoop asking if either @kas or myself would like to take the first turn as Lens, and I accepted.

Following the last turn in the round, the rules (also page 18) specify that:

The player to the right of the Lens picks something from play in this last Focus, and makes it a Legacy

We agreed that we were going to play three rounds, and I just wanted to confirm our terminology:

Is a Focus the same as a round? That was how I'd interpreted it, meaning we'll each get one round as the Lens.

The same player creates an Event or dictated Scene that relates to one of the Legacies, either the one just created or one already in play.

So, having shifted the playing order, we should define who is to my right and left. Whoever chooses the Legacy this round will choose the Focus on the final round.

The player to the left of the Lens then becomes the new Lens and picks a new Focus

I noticed we didn't have anywhere to take note of the Focus, other than in history.txt. Do you think this fits anywhere better, or is that something we don't need to document in gameboard.md?

Is a Focus the same as a round?

I have understood it simply as the focus of the round, ‘the part of history [we're] going to explore right now’: the entire round plays out with this focus in the center. So if you choose ‘Governance of the Sequoia’ as the focus of the round, all our contributions must have a relation to that focus. That doesn't imply that a new period, event or scene must take place on Sequoia, but it must relate to the governance of Sequoia somehow.

In real life: The lens of the microscope has a focus that ‘decides’ what we're looking at right now. Perhaps there are other interesting critters in the drop of water we took from the lake, but we're going to focus on those blue-green algae right there, right now.

we should define who is to my right and left

We have already established the order

1. @hailey
2. @ansuz
3. @kas

I suggest we pretend sitting around a table with @hailey at 12 o'clock, @ansuz at 4 o'clock and @kas at 8 o'clock. This way @ansuz will have @hailey on his right and @kas on his left, etc.

I noticed we didn't have anywhere to take note of the Focus, other than in history.txt.

Let's consult The Wise Python:

>>> import this
   ⋮
Explicit is better than implicit.
   ⋮

I'd say we put the word FOCUS on the gameboard:

   ⋮
#### LEGACIES
   ⋮
#### FOCUS

Governance of the Sequoia

----

## PERIOD[START]: Refusing the singularity (DARK)
   ⋮

Ideally, one should be able to pick up the gameboard (which is our version of the card stack) and continue the game right there, without necessarily consulting history.txt or git log .

I have another suggestion: That all keywords (PERIOD, EVENT, …), including tone, be written in uppercase so as to clearly distinguish them from words in a title.

PS:

We should probably even state the current lens:

#### FOCUS (LENS = @ansuz)

Governance of the Sequoia

+1 to all of the above.

I'll hold off on pushing any changes in case you're working on committing something, to avoid having to merge. If you feel like reformatting, feel free (assuming @haileycoop agrees).

Agree

I added the FOCUS section, but used an h5 tag to match Legacies. I have a very busy day today, but tomorrow I'll see about documenting more of these changes in microscope-ssb/template.md.

OK, so since you've both taken your turns, after I wrap up as lens with a new piece of history (or two, nested), @haileycoop (the person to my right) gets to choose and explore a new legacy, and then @kas starts the second round (of three) as the new lens.

I just pushed a new period with a nested event (both of which are dark in tone), wrapping up my turn as lens.

I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to determine some of the long-term history all at once. Having done so, I think after this I'll focus on smaller details.

@haileycoop, you're up next.

By the way, I also added a new file: overview.md. It contains the current structure of the gameboard without all the details. I found it difficult to visualize the overall plot by looking at gameboard.md.

Thanks @ansuz. I'm glad you added a new period. We needed some more struggle before the peaceful resolution!

I've got some ideas but will let them simmer in my mental stew for a little bit today

After I set the legacy and one more event or scene, the rules (pg. 18) also suggest we take a moment to reflect on how the game is going. I think we should do that, especially because we are playing in such an unconventional way

Ok, I've done my job to set the legacy and I added an event ("Digital stowaways") in the first period.

I decided the legacy should be the Sequoia itself.

The rules suggest that now is a good time to pause and reflect:

Before the new Lens starts, you may want to take a quick intermission and talk about how the game is going. Talk about what you’ve liked or what intrigues you, but don’t plan what’s going to happen next.

I think now is a good time for this. We've put in a lot of effort to get over this initial hump, and we should be proud of making it work! Let's also feel free to reflect on how our process and tools are working, and maybe leave some time to capture learnings and rule refinements in the other repo

The rules suggest that now is a good time to pause and reflect

I wrote a detailed response this morning, but it seems I didn't hit the comment button :/

I'll try to rewrite my thoughts from this morning tomorrow morning, as it's pretty late.

I've been reading through the rulebook again while we've been playing, and it has me second-guessing some of the content from my turns.

On page 67.

Avoid broad “what happens next?” Questions.

I think I'm guilty of this in the "Set adrift" event. In a game with less latency it might be easier for one of you to say something if I'm being vague, but the risk of holding up the game may act as a bit of a deterrent to what might otherwise be constructive feedback.

I'm going to try to focus more on details, but I'm considering whether it might be worthwhile to allow for small revisions to existing history to correct for these things. As long as they don't conflict with existing history, or take into account information that wasn't available at the time, it may be worth the departure from the rules.

When looking at the game played so far, the form rather than the content is drawing more attention. Contentwise I feel I have a pretty good, if somewhat sketchy, picture of what's going on in our adventure. Formwise, however, I have a few comments – not necessarily thought through (and I'm really just observing, not complaining):

1. This way of playing an RPG reminds me so much of an antipodal long-distance relationship (“I was too busy today to get in touch with you before you went to sleep, so now you'll have to wait another day before you can read my answer.”): Even a small delay by one participant spreads like ripples and is causing one round to spread over days and even weeks.
2. Because of the long round-trip time, we cannot rely on our memory when it comes to whose turn it is, what round we're in, which focus we have, and so on – we need to be more explicit (I have a few suggestions that I will post separately). It was very helpful when @ansuz introduced the overview.md file, but I feel we need to be even more explicit about the structure.
3. I'm not sure a git repo is the best way to store game data, but short of any alternatives I'll just leave it hanging here (if SSB allowed editing of posts in the form of superseding posts it would be possible to implement an ssb-wiki, and somehow I feel a wiki would be a better alternative).
4. The markdown format is also sub-optimal because it doesn't have explicit block ends, and so it's difficult to get a precise overview of what's going on. The new overview.md file did mitigate the missing block markers, but it also left us with yet another file to maintain in-play. Having nestable, collapsible blocks would be a Nice Thing, wouldn't it?

While I don't think we have reached the final form of the game, I feel we have identified many of the bumps and come a long way since we started the game a couple of weeks ago. The game form, rather than its contents, is still what matters most to me at this point, and I'm willing to continue until we find something that works smoothly (within one game) and consistently (over several games).

PS: In spite of the long time it takes to complete a round, I would like to keep the 48 hours that each player has to finish their turn: It takes some time to get into the mood of the play and become inspired for the next move, and I feel that a shorter max limit than 48 hours would be to stressful.

Thanks for the thoughts both. I was about to start replying but I have a meeting starting. I think I am fre tonight

I'm going to respond to the two of your first, since you are covering a lot of my interest areas:

@ansuz said:

I think I'm guilty of this in the "Set adrift" event. In a game with less latency it might be easier for one of you to say something if I'm being vague, but the risk of holding up the game may act as a bit of a deterrent to what might otherwise be constructive feedback.

Yes, the rules suggest that you should informally discuss each new card before committing to the text on it. But this feels impossible with latency.

I'm going to try to focus more on details, but I'm considering whether it might be worthwhile to allow for small revisions to existing history to correct for these things. As long as they don't conflict with existing history, or take into account information that wasn't available at the time, it may be worth the departure from the rules.

I'd be supportive of this. When I've tried to apply this game to real-world settings, having editability is an obvious need. And I can see how the latency in the game makes this even more potentially important.

There might be some clues in the "push" rules on page 43, which allow you to roll-back something that happened during a played scene. The emphasis is on making the "push" - the suggested change - immediately.

Maybe we could trial this, and say that during the present reflection period, everyone has a chance to suggest changes. If no one objects to the changes, then we make them.

This way of playing an RPG reminds me so much of an antipodal long-distance relationship (“I was too busy today to get in touch with you before you went to sleep, so now you'll have to wait another day before you can read my answer.”): Even a small delay by one participant spreads like ripples and is causing one round to spread over days and even weeks.

Indeed. I am also liking our commitment to staying within the constraints of SSB. Switching into a video-chat format temporarily might be easier or more fun, but it sort of defeats the larger project of seeing how this works on Scuttlebutt

Because of the long round-trip time, we cannot rely on our memory when it comes to whose turn it is, what round we're in, which focus we have, and so on – we need to be more explicit (I have a few suggestions that I will post separately). It was very helpful when @ansuz introduced the overview.md file, but I feel we need to be even more explicit about the structure.

I'm finding that I am feeling too lazy to do the extra maintenance required for the log file or this overview file. And I also missed the overview file being introduced. Partly this is because my work is getting busier, and some old side projects are also coming back around and taking up time. I'm not sure I want to commit to maintaining 3 separate files every time I take a turn.

I'm not sure a git repo is the best way to store game data, but short of any alternatives I'll just leave it hanging here (if SSB allowed editing of posts in the form of superseding posts it would be possible to implement an ssb-wiki, and somehow I feel a wiki would be a better alternative).

I agree it's not the best. I think that there's potential that whatever solution would work for Microscope would also work for other purposes. I think this is similar to Mikey's Telephone Pictionary proposal. As someone who can't code, I try to avoid proposing coding projects. But if you all were interested in going for a grant to do something here - perhaps something that builds off of Mikey's proposal - I would support it in whatever way I can (and wouldn't ask for a share of the funds)

The markdown format is also sub-optimal because it doesn't have explicit block ends, and so it's difficult to get a precise overview of what's going on. The new overview.md file did mitigate the missing block markers, but it also left us with yet another file to maintain in-play. Having nestable, collapsible blocks would be a Nice Thing, wouldn't it?

It would be nice! As above, if either of you would be keen to pursue a proposal for some aspect of the tech we want, I'm here to help. But perhaps it's best to hold these ideas lightly for now and see what happens after another few rounds of play.

A few other thoughts:

Relating back to @ansuz's point about vague posts. I think that @kas noticed early on that my "30 billion" event was a bit vague. I think vague posts also tend to say so much about the world and maybe close off too many possibilities? I had this feeling about "Establishment of a new democracy". It spreads a bit too far past its boundaries. For example, it says:

Experience from Earth as well as from the early generations on Sequoia had shown that the form of democracy they brought with them from Earth was dysfunctional and almost always resulted in oppression of minorities, thus creating tension between opposing factions. This became immediately evident on Sequioa, where opponents were forced to live and work together under conditions that would have caused riots or even civil wars on Earth.

Given that this event happens during what is currently the second game period, this claim that it "became immediately evident" actually makes claims about what has happened in a previous period. The game rules say something about avoiding these kinds of boundary-spanning claims, because it becomes harder to add new pieces into the history later. This for me would be a case for an edit, just to narrow down the claims that this event is making.

(I'm not trying to pick on anyone here - it's just a good example of this challenge. I think I also committed this error in my "30 billion" event)

Relatedly, my introduction of immortal digital consciousnesses in "Digital Stowaways" also breaks a suggested rule from Robbins. He argues that having people who span across periods can be problematic by binding things together too tightly. I'd be open to editing that as well. The main reason I did this is because I am just as interested in the moral conflict between Uploaders and Refusers, as I am in the utopian struggles of the Refusers. My "Peace in Diversity" end period was actually about Uploaders and Refusers getting along, more so than Refusers getting along amongst themselves. But I think that you two interpreted it differently. This is another casualty of us not having the ability to discuss each play that we make.

I mean, perhaps we need to accept that each and every card will require a conversation thread? Obviously that will slow things way down...

I'm finding that I am feeling too lazy to do the extra maintenance required for the log file or this overview file.

Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy: There is now a short shell script, mkov.sh, in the …/bin directory that will create an overview.md out of the gameboard.md file for those who prefer a clearer overview.

As for the history.txt file: If we cannot maintain this file, then we're left with the git log. The history file is just a subset of the git log, so omitting the log doesn't remove any information. The git log has a higher noise/signal ratio, though, so it's less useful.

So if this is what we decide, then we're left with only the gameboard.md file. That's fine with me, but I still think we should have a pointer that indicates who currently has the ball (and possibly which round we're doing). Personally I have lost orientation: I don't know who's next and I don't know what round we're at.

Switching into a video-chat format temporarily might be easier or more fun, but it sort of defeats the larger project of seeing how this works on Scuttlebutt.

Exactly, and I will boldly veto against going outside SSB. It would be nice to have a separate ‘facility’ for Microscope RPG inside SSB, the way the chess guys have their chess board, but we don't and that's why we're using git (which is admittedly not ideal).

I have contemplated having a set of cards for the game here at home, just for my own overview (lack of overview and continuity is currently my biggest obstacles with the current form), but the jury is still out on this.

chess people. it's not just guys.

Thanks @marina. Well and truly noted

It's also fun to know that others are watching.

I'm curious about the chessboard. I didn't know about this work. Is there somewhere I can learn more?

@haileycoop if you are curious about ssb-chess talk to @happy0 if you use patchbay its under /chess and here is the repo for ssb-chess on github

@frankie is one of the aforementioned chess people :)

Aye, if you run patchbay (setup instructions here: https://github.com/ssbc/patchbay#setup ), then click the blue dot at the top right you will see the 'chess' option.

If you click 'observe' you should be able to see most of the games that are active =]. If nothing displays, things are probably still indexing =p (I should really give some indication of that.)

You can also invite anyone you are friends with (you follow them, and they follow you) to a game in the 'invite' tab at the top of the chess page.

@haileycoop

I don't know who's next and I don't know what round we're at.

I just added a Next steps section to gameboard.md, with checkboxes to show what's been completed. Since we planned to only do three rounds, it wasn't too much work to fully plot out the rest of the game. We're currently still in REFLECT ON GAME PROGRESS, which I'll get to in a moment..

...say that during the present reflection period, everyone has a chance to suggest changes. If no one objects to the changes, then we make them.

I meant to make some edits to my content this weekend, before we go ahead with the next round so that @kas has the capacity to build on anything I change. It ended up being a busy few days, but I'm giving myself until tonight to finalize that. Once we're happy with our current content, the game moves on to kas' turn to set the new focus.

@ansuz,

Thanks, I like your changes to gameboard.md so much! They sort of obsoletes both history.txt and overview.md (at least if you use the mkov.sh script). Since @hailey is not so keen on those files, what do you say if I remove them (and move log.js into the …/bin directory)?

The only thing I can see right now that could be relevant to the gameboard is that the current torchbearer add a deadline when they accept the torch (date and full hour must be enough precision), i.e., now + 48 hours. In that way everybody will know (1) when to latest expect a move and (2) who's next. That, in fact, was my only reason for suggesting timestamps in the potentially obsolete history.txt file.

All of these improvements are fantastic. Thank you.

So did we agree on a process for editing history at this point?

Did we just want to let everybody submit some edits to existing items, and then we all have to agree that everything still makes sense before we resume play?

Are we allowed to edit other players' cards or just our own?

If only our own, do we have a step where we nominate cards we would like other players to edit?

@kas

I like your changes to gameboard.md

My partner was watching me play, and she was interested in trying it out, so we've been playing a game together in parallel via a cryptpad. I used that checklist format to teach her how the turns go.

what do you say if I remove them (and move log.js into the …/bin directory)?

That's fine by me, but we should put instructions for using mkov.sh into the readme, maybe. I had to read the source to see that there was a help command. Once I used it properly, I really liked the results!

the current torchbearer add a deadline when they accept the torch

I meant to finish any edits last night, but when I started looking at what to change, I didn't have any clear ideas.

@haileycoop

So did we agree on a process for editing history at this point?

I realized I didn't respond directly to your suggestion above:

Maybe we could trial this, and say that during the present reflection period, everyone has a chance to suggest changes. If no one objects to the changes, then we make them.

That seems likely to work, though as I said above, I'm kind of stuck on what to change.

Are we allowed to edit other players' cards or just our own?

I lean towards just our own, but as I'm not making a lot of progress on my own, we can discuss possible directions.

If only our own, do we have a step where we nominate cards we would like other players to edit?

Maybe we ought to start a new issue where we can discuss this? I'll go ahead and do that, and start with the points where I'm having trouble.