Ariadne's Thread #3

Wheeler's 20 Questions: Quantum Ogres in a non-locally real universe

Aug 30, 2024

Ariane’s Thread began as a pulling together of vaguely connected topics orbiting the creative output of the Alone in the Labyrinth blog. Inevitably there arises an element of self indulgence in such an endeavour, one which may not be to the taste of all readers. These threads flip over, prod and poke matters not directly pertaining to the hobby for reasons known by me alone.

Continuing that trend (or fulfilling that brief?), this particular piece appears to have emerged following a mental confluence of two unrelated podcast episodes.

The first was Fear of A Black Dragon’s review of Brad Kerr’s Temple of 1000 Swords.

The second was Curt Jaimungal interviewing science writer Amanda Gefter on the subject of QBism.

What connects this two disparate pieces of media?

Quantum Ogres.

The Quantum Ogre

The concept of the Quantum Ogre emerged from a series of blogposts (and comments upon them) over a few days (yes, that’s how things were done back then) in September of 2010 by Dreams in the Lich House Courtney Campbell of Hack & Slash. In short, the quantum ogre is used as an example of GM fiat undermining player agency, and goes something like this:

PCs are confronted by a choice (for example: take the left path or the right)
The GM has a prepared ~~encounter~~ event (originally the titular ogre encounter, but this could be any monster, trap, NPC or treasure… some kind of event)
In their enthusiasm for this encounter unfolding, the GM places the encounter in their path, regardless of the choice the PCs make, rendering the choice meaningless

Until that choice is made, the ogre sits in a sort of “quantum state”- it is at points A and B simultaneously, but always at the first place we look. The interaction of the observer (the PCs) determines the outcome of this “double slit experiment”.

Temple of 1000 Swords

Temple of 1000 Swords is an OSR adventure by Brad Kerr. My awareness of Kerr is principally as co-host of the Between Two Cairns podcast, alongside Cairn creator Yochai Gal. Each week the pair review an adventure module, sometimes joined by RPG creators Sam “Skullboy” Agnelli (aka. Better Legends) or Amanda P (Tannic, Pilgrimage of the Sun Guard). Until recently, I was unaware of Brad’s own high quality output, so was amused to hear his work examined on ANOTHER RPG adventure review podcast, Fear of a Black Dragon.

(For further context, Fear of a Black Dragon is an RPG podcast hosted by Jason Cordova and Tom McGrenery)

SPOILERS FOR TEMPLE OF 1000 SWORDS FOLLOW

I do not own this adventure, nor have I read it (though I am very tempted to pick it up), you can buy it here (affiliate link):
https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/360211/Temple-of-1000-Swords?affiliate_id=767873

Apparently, somewhere in this dungeon is a very cool vampire impaled on a very cool sword to the wall: it is conscious and conversant, and wants to persuade the PCs to release it. It is, by all accounts, a very cool “encounter”, leading the hosts to discuss how easily it could be missed during a delve. Jason Cordova seemed to favour moving the encounter to a different location if it was felt the party might miss out on it, thus creating A QUANTUM VAMPIRE.

Brindlewood Bay

This did not surprise many people familiar with Cordova’s preferred play style and previous games, but as someone less familiar… the thread seemed not quite as solid. I understood that the there was a superpositional element to Cordova’s Brindlewood Bay from the discourse surrounding its novel approach to the mystery genre… but somehow it seemed to be a different beast.

First, allow me to compare and contrast a “standard” mystery-solving RPG with that of Brindlewood Bay.

A typical investigative game consists of players putting together the clues they find in order to work out the plot known only to the GM. In a murder mystery they might start with a body and an immediate crime scene: the GM has already established the circumstances that led to this death, and the players are tasked with uncovering a pre-existing narrative. Along the way they are likely to get sidetracked by red herrings and become increasingly frustrated with their lack of progress, leading the GM to consider plonking crucial evidence directly in their path to expedite the investigation.

Brindlewood Bay’s intention is to emulate the amateur sleuth genre of the TV Whodunnit, with added Chthulu-esque cosmic horror. Instead of there being an established solution to the Lovecraftian mystery, it emerges during play. Scenarios detail a number of evocative clues, which are provided to the PCs (“Murder Mavens”) as a consequence of their investigations. The PCs piece the clues together and come up with their conclusion, which is tested mechanically by rolling 2d6, with a bonus to the roll for each clue:

On a 10+, it’s the correct solution. The Keeper will provide an opportunity to take down the culprit or otherwise save the day.

On a 7-9, it’s the correct solution, but the Keeper will either add an unwelcome complication to the solution itself, or present a complicated or dangerous opportunity to take down the culprit and save the day.

On a 6-, the solution is incorrect, and the Keeper reacts.

(I think the above is quoted from the original game text, but I stole it from the Alexandrian)

It is clear that we’re dealing with a significantly different beast to the quantum ogre: while both are “superpositional” in that multiple states co-exist until they are observed or measured, they are quite disparate in terms of outcome. The outcome of the Quantum Ogre is always the same, while Brindlewood Bay is always different.

The Quantum Ogre is driven by GM fiat, Brindlewood Bay a kind of player-character “super-agency” found in storygames. Yet both represent an approach to the gameworld that sits diametrically opposite The Blorb by Sandra San of https://idiomdrottning.org/blorb-principles. Sandra’s essay truly deserves a fuller introduction than I’m going to give, not least because there’s so many bad faith readings of it in the discourse, but I think even a superficial understanding of it will suffice for this model.

20 Questions

But let’s put that on the back burner and allow it to stew while we prepare some more exotic ingredients for the pot courtesy physicist Andrew Wheeler.

Have you ever played 20 questions? You think of a subject and the other players have to guess what it is. They can only ask closed questions, but you must answer truthfully. The challenge is to narrow the range of possibilities to one.

Have you ever played it in reverse? In this version, a whole room of people know the answer, and one solitary player has to guess what they’re all thinking by questioning them. It’s nowhere near as fun. But what can make it fun is starting without an answer: the sole player’s questions refine the range of possible answers, much like the investigations of the PCs in Brindlewood Bay, until the player finally asks outright “Is it a-” or “Is she-” and, so long as the prior criteria are satisfied, a member of the crowd is able to answer “yes”.

That’s very poorly explained. How about an example:

Andrew Wheeler: Is it white?

A pause, querent decides…

PLAYER 2: Yes

WHEELER: Is it bigger than a house?

Player 3 considers all possible objects that are white, then whether any are bigger than a house, then whether they want that to define the !quantum object”.

PLAYER 3: Yes

WHEELER: Does it float?

Player 4 considers things that are white, bigger than a boat and float. They think of a big white ship, which amuses them for some reason, so they answer…

PLAYER 4: Yes!

WHEELER: Is it cloud?

Player 5 has been asked outright a question about the identity of the quantum object, so they consider whether all the criteria are satisfied.

PLAYER 5: Yes!

Wheeler used this game to explain the idea at the core of the Participatory Anthropic Principal (an interpretation of Quantum mechanics), that consciousness (or the observer) brings the universe into being. Just writing this now and I realise that this presupposes an intelligent universe. Did I just science myself into deism?

Losing Steam

Unfortunately, during research for this short post, I came across Rise Up Comus’ piece Matrices of Blorbiness, which makes all the points I wanted to make, right down to the 2-axes of alignment/political compass.

My minor point would have been to have the quantum/blorb axis be quantum/Newtonian, and there was another internal debate as to whether the approaches are materialist vs idealist, but I think it’s a conversational dead-end.

If there’s any discussion left worth having, it might be around the term “emergent story”. I’ve been very happy to throw this around for a few years now, but only now am I bothering to interrogate whether it might also be applicable in the case of something like Brindlewood. Clearly the outcome of the story emerges entirely as a consequence of player (and character) action rather than GM Fiat, but instinctively it feels different to the story that emerges from a more traditional investigative game.

Thoughts?

Finally, can’t remember where and when I read this, but I know it was from Yochai Gal (and I paraphrase): “Every time I read something about RPG theory, I’m left feeling as though it comes down to people liking different things then justifying their taste within a broader theoretical framework.”

I always get to the end of a post that addresses the discourse feeling a bit dirty, so as a palate cleanser, I refer you to the Josh McCrowell (Rise Up Comus)’s remarks at the start of his post on the quantum/Blorb axis:

Mandatory Apotropaic against the Nerd: There are lots of different sliding scales to measure RPG play, lots of legitimate ways of play, lots of things that I enjoy at different times, etc. etc.

I agree. Decategorize reality! Starting with unreality.

Until next time…

- Sofinho