Come to think of it, there's several games I've played with sci-fi geeks (at CUSFS) and social geeks (at Alex Churchill's) and non-geeks (with Trinity friends), but not with maths geeks (which you'd think would be my natural home :) )
2) Trades. Immediate trades should certainly be binding.
That's my argument. But I felt sure some people would disagree. Possibly even delight in surprising people by breaking that...
There's also a strong incentive to make long-term trades binding;
Agreed. It's obviously best to keep and enforce all (or at least almost all) agreements, else no-one can make any agreements at all. (cf. Real life ;))
OTOH, there is an amount of "how much is this social contract within this particular game, and how much is outside"? I think it's normally implicit which. Reneging over a trade for a small item is just petty. Stabbing an ally in the back at the last minute has advantages (cf. prisoner's dilemma) -- it's generally clear in advance if that's part of the game or not.
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Date: 2008-09-08 05:35 pm (UTC)2) Trades. Immediate trades should certainly be binding.
That's my argument. But I felt sure some people would disagree. Possibly even delight in surprising people by breaking that...
There's also a strong incentive to make long-term trades binding;
Agreed. It's obviously best to keep and enforce all (or at least almost all) agreements, else no-one can make any agreements at all. (cf. Real life ;))
OTOH, there is an amount of "how much is this social contract within this particular game, and how much is outside"? I think it's normally implicit which. Reneging over a trade for a small item is just petty. Stabbing an ally in the back at the last minute has advantages (cf. prisoner's dilemma) -- it's generally clear in advance if that's part of the game or not.