I've asked you this a couple of times, and so far, you have not answered me on it. If the governor of New Jersey came on the news and said that his daughters were having the same problems as described in Dancing Princess, and that he would give a million dollars to the guy that could fix it, but if you failed, you would be executed, would you REALLY check into it? You could certainly use the money. You might even be able to figure out what's wrong, but would you REALLY check into it? I'm inclined to think that you would just say "That's too bad about the daughters" and just go on about your day.
Well, if you wouldn't help the governor of New Jersey with the exact same problem, then what makes you think that a verser would? I'm seriously curious how many players go to the castle because it's what they are "supposed" to do, and not because it's what they really feel they would really do in that situation. I did what I felt I would really do. I'm not trying to knock the world or anything, I'm seriously curious.
It does change things when you're immortal.
You do raise a good point tho'. However, that 'I'm supposed to' is generally helpful for everyone to have a fun game.
So you're saying that it's better to sacrifice realism for fun? The thing of it though is that, in Dancing Princess, I got 1@10 blacksmithing. In my current world, that helped me land a job. Gold is practically worthless. I'm much happier that I have the metalworking skills in my current world.
John, I have avoided your example because on one level, it's much too personal. But let me get much to personal.
I've struggled with clinical depression probably since grade school. I have been suicidal long enough that I take it for granted. The answer to the question, "Do you have a plan" is "Yes, I have thousands of plans, I just don't have a good plan." The prospect that I might die is one of the things that brightens my days. I'd like to be out of this life and on to the next. So the notion that I might be executed for failing is not a serious deterrent. It's an incentive to fail.
On the other side of the coin, though, I do not see myself having the skills to do the job. The odds that I might be able to work out what is wrong with the governor's daughters when experts have failed to do so are slim to none. Thus it would be a lot of effort to try to solve a problem I probably cannot solve. My reason for not responding is that the chance to get the million is negligible.
Most versers get somewhat inflated opinions of their own abilities. This is because their own abilities are usually inflated--they can do things no one else can do, and they understand aspects of reality no one else understands. With those two points in hand, they have good reason to believe that they should be able to solve the problem. Besides, it does not take much of a literary background to recognize that this is a fairytale, even if you do not know the particular fairytale involved, and everyone knows that in English versions of fairytales, the hero always succeeds. That gives an extra boost of confidence, because being the verser means that you're the main character in the story, and that means that you must at least have the chance to succeed, or you wouldn't be in this story. (It would be different if you wound up in some Lovecraftian horror piece. The main characters in those stories generally either go insane or get eaten. I'm reminded that when Derek Jacob Brown realizes that the other campers in the Slasher Summer Camp scenario are being killed, he starts packing his things and says to his camper friend that he's leaving: "You don't understand. I've seen this movie. Everybody dies." But that's a matter of knowing what kind of story you've entered, and what is likely to happen to the main character--and it also requires a philosophy of the verse that perceives worlds as expressions of forms of fiction, the way Dan O'Malley does.)
So I think a lot of versers bite on the bait because they are persuaded that they are exactly the right person to solve the problem, and they like the offered reward and don't much fear the threatened punishment.
--M. J. Young
MJ, I've been psychotic all my life. I remember having symptoms of it when I was in the first grade. Talking to myself, things like that. If you put our minds together, we would be sane.
Regarding depression, something to think about. Having nothing but sunshine and no rain makes a desert.
Two Posts
The prospect that I might die is one of the things that brightens my days. I'd like to be out of this life and on to the next.
Ya know MJ, it's kind of ironic that you mentioned that. I've wanted to kill myself so many times it isn't funny. Anything to make the pain of a psychotic episode stop. The thought which continually stops me IS the thought that I will have to stand before God and explain why I did it.