tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post5066337694097673625..comments2024-03-28T20:36:33.364-04:00Comments on GROGNARDIA: More Space Opera AmusementJames Maliszewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00341941102398271464noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-50621482374321248002011-02-09T17:37:25.129-05:002011-02-09T17:37:25.129-05:00Delta:
"The example of "Putin is well ab...Delta:<br />"The example of "Putin is well able to be a nice guy and generate trust, especially in the weak-minded..." definitely sounds sociopathic and low-empathy to me"<br /><br />Sociopathic means something like "has no internal sense of societal morality, but can comply through observation". Maybe that fits Putin, and maybe he's low-empathy. If so, it's clearly not in a way that fits the SO attribute, though. Likewise those charming CIA guys.Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01173759805310975320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-18782837769370738412011-02-08T06:23:51.118-05:002011-02-08T06:23:51.118-05:00...point of that last anecdote: Empathy seems like......point of that last anecdote: Empathy seems like an attribute that should be left to the player's discretion. Arguably also Int & Wis (which I might collapse into Pow, next time I D&D), Cha.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-90811602046859544462011-02-08T03:21:04.505-05:002011-02-08T03:21:04.505-05:00This can go wrong... undercover policeman who swit...<i>This can go wrong... undercover policeman who switched sides to the anti-nuclear group he had infiltrated</i><br /><br />cf. Hitler's investigation of the German Workers' Party. I think part of the problem here is that, although empathy (and charisma, for that matter) is a popular term, we still have no decent theory of it. If one can be charming without it (and uncountable true crime narratives suggest that one can), if one can listen and make appropriate responses and gain trust, then what is the it that's missing? cf. House, Blade Runner, the Hannibal Lector series... It's very interesting that SO offers a definition, even more so that the definition doesn't match our world experience, helping to define a separate SO world.<br /><br />And because I have no OSR credentials to destroy, I can confess here that I once experimented with a system that had (IIRC) 24 attributes including stuff that's normally considered to be in the player's remit: morale, gullibility, inventiveness. The game was a fiasco, but I still think there's value in similar exercises.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-42442187754698195152011-02-07T14:52:17.802-05:002011-02-07T14:52:17.802-05:00"The best infiltrators are usually not psycop..."The best infiltrators are usually not psycopathic, though."<br /><br />I think that's at least debatable. I would fall on the other side of that argument. The example of "Putin is well able to be a nice guy and generate trust, especially in the weak-minded..." definitely sounds sociopathic and low-empathy to me ("empathy" and "charm" not being the same thing).<br /><br />Obviously we won't settle the issue here. :)Deltahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00705402326320853684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-56680051321296783302011-02-07T11:42:30.595-05:002011-02-07T11:42:30.595-05:00It would be interesting to play around with some o...It would be interesting to play around with some of the implied mechanical ideas more generally, not unlike the moral/spiritual attributes of Pendragon. For instance, perhaps a D&D-like where Strength and Dexterity are both replaced by Stature, high values of which give bonuses to damage and penalties to AC, and vice-versa for low values.Joshua L. Lylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03358762663581842879noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-67686710584675559552011-02-07T07:34:52.634-05:002011-02-07T07:34:52.634-05:00Even counter-intelligence often involves infiltrat...Even counter-intelligence often involves infiltration, which needs high-empathy operatives. This can go wrong; recently here in the UK the news covered an undercover policeman who switched sides to the anti-nuclear group he had infiltrated. Successful inflitrators *like* the people they are infiltrating. Psychopaths with superficial charm can be effective in short-term assignments, eg the IRA girls who seduced off-duty British soldiers for putative one night stands to kill them. The best infiltrators are usually not psycopathic, though.Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01173759805310975320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-90077690737311407702011-02-07T07:28:19.528-05:002011-02-07T07:28:19.528-05:00gridlore:
"Now BOSS would have wet work teams...gridlore:<br />"Now BOSS would have wet work teams and torturers and other roles for nice little monsters like me, but I think the scariest security type is somebody like Vladimir Putin.. loves his family, smiles, sings and dances when called on, then calmly orders 12 people to vanish."<br /><br />Exactly. Putin is well able to be a nice guy and generate trust, especially in the weak-minded (*cough*). Or take IRA/Sinn Fein terrorist leader Martin McGuinness, a family man who gained the trust of female British govt minister Mo Mowlam. I think these men are not lacking in natural empathy, even though they both have killer eyes and can easily compartmentalise - I'm guessing they are the sort SO would class as very low empathy?Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01173759805310975320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-89347627841794276212011-02-07T07:19:03.502-05:002011-02-07T07:19:03.502-05:00Seems very silly to me, given that most field inte...Seems very silly to me, given that most field intelligence work involves developing human contacts! Low empathy as described might be useful for an Assassinations sub-bureau, even then the trigger-man will often need high-empathy comrades to eg set up a honeytrap.Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01173759805310975320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-32496287703349569612011-02-07T06:32:33.181-05:002011-02-07T06:32:33.181-05:00It's worth noting that in many, many places th...It's worth noting that in many, many places there is no distinction between intelligence and counter-intelligence agencies. Fictional spymaster George Smiley defintely could not have done his job if he'd had a shred of empathy, however we imagine it operates. <br /><br />I'm interested in this aura business. Of those things you just sense, or just know, reliably, about characters. Many game systems either assume it (alignment operates as an aura, usually) or include specific characteristics to quantify it (not just CHA and POW but also detect lies, spot hidden, even credit rating), yet a lot of roleplaying is lying: spoofing the aura system. So it seems often to be unclear, what a PC can possibly know.<br /><br />Maybe this idea that you are prepared to read the world and its people is one of the things that make d&d "medieval."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-34911163584003101622011-02-07T02:32:58.629-05:002011-02-07T02:32:58.629-05:00As somebody already pointed out above, BOSS is a s...As somebody already pointed out above, BOSS is a security service, not an intelligence agency. BRINT was intel. Spys, BRINT, needed to be empathic to do their jobs. BOSS types were secret police thugs basically. In a democratic society they were controlled by rules / regs and were analogous to the FBI (and somewhat less "thugish"), in a despotic one they were the Gestapo / KGB / your worst nightmare. Oddly although I'm quite familiar with it I never played Space Opera much (played Traveller mostly for SFRPGs). It made interesting reading and a good source of ideas though.hubbell_brucehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13408176992601627339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-9243395942870578332011-02-07T02:06:35.929-05:002011-02-07T02:06:35.929-05:00That seems like an odd take on psychopathy/ sociop...That seems like an odd take on psychopathy/ sociopathy, from what amateur bit I've come to understand. Space Opera: "the 'colder' and more 'withdrawn' the character...". Wikipedia (Psychopathy): "...an abnormal lack of empathy combined with strongly amoral conduct but masked by an ability to appear outwardly normal." The top diagnostic checklist item is actually: "Superficial charm"!<br /><br />So I would tend to connote psychopathy more like D&D Chaos: the ability to be effectively charming or lash out viciously, and to switch between the two quickly and unpredictably. But Space Opera sort of hamstrings itself by defining empathy as a physics-like "broadcast... aura", such that it's incapable of distinguishing between "real" empathy and "fake" empathy in this sense.<br /><br />(That said, I don't have any problem with top intelligence guys being portrayed with sociopathic traits/low "real" empathy. It's just the Space Opera description of such that seems to have painted itself into a corner.)Deltahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00705402326320853684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-42478012338124365212011-02-06T21:01:35.931-05:002011-02-06T21:01:35.931-05:00I've been living with Antisocial Personality D...I've been living with Antisocial Personality Disorder for years. One of the reason I was a good sniper; unlike most soldiers I had no qualms about seeing the faces of the people I killed.<br /><br />But that same "quality" would have made me a terrible BOSS agent. You want spies in this job, people who can infiltrate the enemies of the state and (depending on how repressive the state is) do everything from gather hard intelligence to set up groups for elimination.<br /><br />During my time in the service I worked with CIA assets. Nicest guys in the world. Really could put you at ease. You wanted to help them.<br /><br />Now BOSS would have wet work teams and torturers and other roles for nice little monsters like me, but I think the scariest security type is somebody like Vladimir Putin.. loves his family, smiles, sings and dances when called on, then calmly orders 12 people to vanish.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-89606352249191084992011-02-06T20:32:44.889-05:002011-02-06T20:32:44.889-05:00There's a lot of research that says that socio...There's a lot of research that says that sociopathic tendencies are useful in getting promotions in large companies. So I don't see this as unrealistic at all. If Coke executives are psychopaths, what are CIA 'executives' going to be?anarchisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05546197561922726279noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-24522802094719408682011-02-06T19:48:41.666-05:002011-02-06T19:48:41.666-05:00The important bit about BOSS is the remaining line...The important bit about BOSS is the remaining line of the quote which details what it does, namely "conducting counter-espionage and anti-sabotage investigations, suppressing revolutionary and terrorist organisations, and maintaining the security of the state in general." It then goes on to explain how they are utter bastards, especially in a state of emergency (especially when the requirement of due process is removed).<br /><br />I always took BOSS as being much more akin to it's real-world namesake* than anything else. The important distinction to remember that it is overtly a security service, rather than an intelligence service. [This is confused by the fact that the aforementioned agencies often had multiple arms,** some who dealt with intelligence operations,*** some who dealt with counter-intelligence operations, and some who dealt with internal security operations. Within each bureau these divisions were often quite separate.]<br /><br />The driving force of an intelligence operative is insatiable curiosity, whilst that of a counter-intelligence operative is often rampant paranoia. And for a security operative, add a certain ruthlessness (and intrinsic hopelessness) to the paranoia.<br /><br />[* The internal security apparatus of South Africa. I was always tickled pink that <i>any</i> English speaking country would use the acronym BOSS for their security apparatus, but if anyone was going to it would be the South Africans responsible for securing the state against a black uprising. NOT nice people!]<br /><br />[** Of the 16 or so directorates of the KGB, only the First was dedicated to foreign intelligence operations. The remaining ones were either totally focused on internal security or it made a substantial portion of their remit.]<br /><br />[*** The intelligence division in <i>Space Opera</i> is BRINT (Bureau of Intelligence), which is "the implacable foe of BOSS."]Reverance Pavanehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01217657347160811310noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-47708522591070271882011-02-06T17:31:40.946-05:002011-02-06T17:31:40.946-05:00"Therefore, to become Minister of Security, a...<i>"Therefore, to become Minister of Security, a character must have, at most, an Empathy of 2! This makes me wonder what the authors of Space Opera had against intelligence agencies."</i><br /><br />That's hilarious. It's an obvious play on the Cold War image of the amorality of espionage services. A chief who could order the assassination of one of his own men (Thinking a scene from the Sandbaggers, for example)for the greater good could easily be seen as sociopathic by others.Anthonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01254215329246851683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-80720625659510878472011-02-06T15:03:38.230-05:002011-02-06T15:03:38.230-05:00Isn't that riffing on the James bond books whe...Isn't that riffing on the James bond books where it says the agency looks for anti social youths who have a fierce sense of nationalism or there abouts?UWS guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01277557128674527225noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-45000131269075744102011-02-06T14:46:41.791-05:002011-02-06T14:46:41.791-05:00Of course, any game has to impose certain simplifi...Of course, any game has to impose certain simplifications in order to make the game playable. I like this mechanic quite a lot. It communicates interesting information about how the designers see the world. I don't know that the designers were against intelligence agencies: they simply saw them as amoral.Aaron E. Steelehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07789462075611254929noreply@blogger.com