It’s kleenejess, and since I’m just filling myself in on this push/pull thing, can you give some concrete examples from the gender lines thread? I understand what you’re trying to say in terms of “listen to how things are being said,” but I’m not sure I yet follow what you mean.

Thanks!

–Jess

Since you’ve made such good points on push vs. pull in rpgs I’m curious if you would ever do a post on games that are generally played with Push that still have an appeal to Pull gamers.

If you identify yourself as someone who prefers Pull mechanics are there any Push games that appeal to you? Has this been covered well elsewhere?

I’d be interested in your opinion.

Regards,
Anthony

Blog-nazi or no blog-nazi, if you think that it will push your work ahead, more power to you. There’s lot of places to ramble online, and you don’t have to host a social on your blog if you don’t want to.

No new venue, as of yet. Right now I’ve changed my blog’s policy to where I moderate all comments, with the express idea of making it laser focused.

Though it’s pretty blog-nazi of me to do so, at least then I don’t have to sweat dealing with the debate-monkeys and attention mongers who’d argue just to argue rather than really read what I’m saying.

I figure between the 6-7 major forums and free blog options, anyone who wants more open dialogue can open up shop there.

I heartily agree.

Now ignore the content (even though it’s very interesting and shouldn’t be ignored) and imagine the flow of that conversation as the transactional dynamics of a game.

If you go and have a look at the Playing Across Gender Lines, you’ll see a rather good example of someone using Pull in a discussion with a lot of voices. It takes a particular focus and some heavy dose of mad moderation skillz, but it’s possible.

Yeah. Pull is hard (impossible?) to do outisde of an actual conversation. Since forums are mostly asynchrounous conversations are hard.

Also note that the Forge is set up to discourage conversational stuff with the emphasis on more comprehensive, thought-out, and slightly delayed posting than other forums. Another problem with forums is the sheer number of people involved: you don’t want to shut people out, but when twenty or thirty people jump in on the discussion, it rapidly gets too chaotic for a lot of pull…

Hey, that’s interesting… Does pull tend to work better when targetted against one person while push is more scalable? That bears some thinking…

Thomas

I will.

I do, though less so now than fourty years ago, natch.

I see what you mean about papers etc. I think that’s an interesting observation, and might be an exacerbator to the frustration I have at RPG forums. Maybe they become more push mediums because not only are they populated by a greater proportion of push-socialized folks, but the written medium encourages a push at to make your voice heard.

Thanks. If you do have a startling revelation in education on this subject, I trust you’ll let me know?

In ohter news… Let’s talk about socialization! Do you think (I’m sort of assuming you do) that there’s a tendency in our culture to socialize girls more for pull interactions and boys more for push interactions?

What other endeavors socialize (or teach, or prefer, whatever) push or pull?

Personally, I’ve found that the paper writing, presentation, and defense cycle in my own field (philosophy) encourages a lot of push while discussion can go either way. You don’t really get to write papers that draw people out; instead you present your position, back it up, and move on.

Does that make sense?

Thomas

I think we should craft one in which there are a series of three (or something) pull mechanics that escalate in intensity followed by a series of the same number of push mechanics that wane in intensity. So that the rheotical movements crash upon eacjh other like waves.

Hell, we should make some elemental water game, or something with vikings or pirates, or river dragon game. Hey! We should base it on something like the Agatamori… that one’s just *begging* for the Mountain Witch-y, Snow from Korea-y concentrated dynamic that lends itself well to Nar games. Or do a Nar game “Ferryman” which is of course about the ballance between life and death, and in which either the underworld is pull and the overworld push or vice versa. It might be neat if the object was to start one player from either side and have to move against escalating conflicts of the other to find the yin spot or yang spot in the other.

We should also play at some point with the pattern that we talked about on 1KM1KT that I suggested for interaction that didn’t fit for your bodhisattvas in When the Forms Exhaust their Variety.

Do you have a new venue in lieu of the blog? I see you on SG, but not so much.

Thomas,

Hrm. I’d like to help, but I’m not sure how to get you there. I suspect you’ll wake up in the middle of the night in an Aha! moment one of these days and it will just be solved for you.

Here’s hopin’..

~Mo

Sort of, but not really. I guess part of the problem is that I recognize a lot of truths about Push/Pull, and I think I’m pretty good at recognizing actual instances of Push/Pull, but I can’t actually tell you what the difference between them is.

This means (at least for me) that I can’t extrapolate new instances. I can identify experiences I’ve had before, and I can identify most situations once they’re related to me, but I can’t figure out what’s actually different between the two.

(Quick aside: At the risk of sounding arrogant, I happen to think that I’m incredibly good at aggressive pull communication techniques. I don’t tend to use it much academically, but interpersonally it shows up a lot. So I’m right with you that pull isn’t necessarily “passive”.)

All that said, I’m still a bit shaky on my definition. Even the one I proposed in my last comment. I suggested that push might be about threatening things of value, and pull might be about offering things of value, but if that’s the case what item of value is being offered in a series of socratic questions (which I concur strikes me as very pull oriented).

Also, thanks for your patience with my slow-wittedness. I must admit that it’s pretty frustrating being so confused since just about everyone else seems to understand this without all the questions.

Thomas

I think there’s some people that aren’t using it quite that way either because they have a different take, or, more often, becauase they are using it to go forward towards other applications like game styles, play transactions or mechanics (which makes me excited). In my first post I made the mistake of talking about everything at the same time, which caused some confusion – it’s taken me some time to find the language to talk about it clearly.

And Thomas…

Now that I’ve had a chance to read your second post, I’m going to actually refrain from approaching it until you have a chance to respond to mine, in case something got sorted out.