Post-Big-Model RPG theory

How to handle a conversation (with turn-taking cues etc) is a complex and unsolved topic, but extensively studied, even though there's more. It's part of linguistics programs for example.

Vincent, thanks. I consider this question answered to my satisfaction for now.
Next question anyone?

I actually have one (caveat - I understand that maybe this is a matter of taste):

When designing a game, what aspect of the game do you start with first? For instance, with "Rock of Tahamaat" (which is hilarious, BTW) it seems like the genesis of the game is in explicitly and mechanically rooting the IIEE chain. Do you typically pick a conceptual aspect of gaming and create a set of procedures that centralize that aspect?

As another example, one of the things I find fascinating about In A Wicked Age is that pretty much by definition there can be no conflict unless the characters (and I include NPCs in this) oppose each other. All interaction between an individual character and the setting (PvE as opposed to PvP, if you will) is governed purely by GM fiat. If I decide that I want to hunt down and slay a dragon and that dragon isn't a character, the GM just says, "OK, sure. It's slain. What now?" This is interesting because it focuses the players' attention on the stuff that's really sexy - the unfolding inter-character conflict caused by orthogonal (and in many cases diametrically opposed) character interests.

Was that the goal from the beginning? To abstract away the PvE element of the game and concentrate on well-crafted PvP?

Hm. Conceivably so.

What I always say is that a game is when you have three insights that align: insight into your subject matter, insight into the real live human condition, and insight into roleplaying as a practice. So, like, by pure chance I'd had a hilarious conversation about space tyrants on the night before I was trying to explain IIEE, and when the idea of human beings pushed to desperation occurred to me, bam! It was a game, and I wrote it out and published it on my blog the next day.

So but I think that you need all three, but it doesn't matter which order.

Does that answer your question?

-Vincent

Yeah, it does. Thanks!