Catch Your Hare

I’ve now finished this book. Good God, it was a chore.It is one of those books that comes recommended as “readable” and “witty”, but, to me, wasn’t at all. The first half was rather turgid; the second half interesting but long.Oh well. The information in it was extremely useful: evolutionary and cognitive stuff. I’m glad I’ve read it. I’m also glad I won’t have to again. 

Criticism of evolutionary psychology is usually by sociologists. The more stuff I read by sociologists, the less respect I have for them.

The criticism usually stems from postmodernism. This is rather cheating, of course. You can argue against anything with postmodernism.

So, anyway. Criticism of evolutionary psychology often takes this form:

Evolutionary psychologist: You can explain X by natural selection.

Sociologist: Aha! Look at his language! Look how he uses the language of religious fervour! He considers no other explanations! He is a knowledge fascist! I make snide remarks and jokes that are barely funny!

And it gets nowhere. It’s a shame. There are very valid criticisms to make of evolutionary psychology, but they’re difficult to find amongst the language-based critique and postmodernist stuff.

First, evolutionary psychologists talk a lot about evidence, and how it works differently in evolutionary psychology. This is, to some extent, fair. It is difficult to do experiments in evolutionary psychology, because they take millions of years, by which time lab technicians will all have gone home.

Also, sometimes, evidence is used very well, and evolutionary psychologists will bring forward so many convincing arguments about their evolutionary explanation of something that it’s hard to argue with it. (I would give an example, but it’s 1.30am and I can’t be bothered to dig it out. Also, of course, by omitting the explanation, I avoid the possibility that people will prove me wrong.)

However. Evolutionary psychologists also argue like this:

1. Here is phenomenon X.

2. How can phenomenon X be explained by natural selection?

3. Because of Y!

This is, to a limited extent, also fair enough. Viewing things through the lens of natural selection explains a bit more about the world.

However, this eventually leads to the argument:

1. What evidence have we got that evolutionary psychology is true at all?

2. Because it explains X!

This is a little circular.

In general, my problem with Evolutionary Psychology is that it works in various ways:

• Sometimes, it’s all rigorous and evidence-based: this phenomenon can be explained by X, which is backed by evidence Y1, Y2 and Y3.
• Sometimes, it’s just a model and a base for hypotheses: if we consider this phenomenon in terms of natural selection, it could be explained by X, and we might look at Y1, Y2 and Y3 as support.

And it’s usually unclear which of those two is actually happening.

I’m just back from IndieCon, a convention on the South Coast, in Naish Holiday Village.It was a very pleasant four days. The convention itself was quiet and successful: I hope it’ll come round next year.

I started on Thursday night by running Poison’d in the bar. For a two hour game, it went well, and that’s two hours including character creation, so the biggest miracle is that the game works in that time. It was fun. That said, it felt rather hollow: straight to the monstrosity, straight to the buggery, none of the emotional side. Poison’d isn’t the game for tearful soliliquies, of course, but it mustn’t all be monstrosity.

Friday morning started with Trollbabe. I’m very interested in the system, but we had three players, with different play styles, and the game didn’t really come together for me.

On Friday afternoon we tested A Taste For Murder, my murder mystery game. It went very well. That’s a finished game, there.

Then Friday night was Polaris. Not bad, although the large quantities of wine didn’t help. Why am I always drunk when I play Polaris?  What I love about Polaris is that it gives a superbly epic feel with little effort from the players. Without thinking about it, you’re narrating someone dying and their screams echoing forever in the King’s Hall.

Saturday started with 3:16. I’m intrigued by 3:16: still not totally sold on it, but enjoying it a lot. I played this guy who screwed everyone else over. There’s a surprise. What I like about 3:16 is that indie and more traditional gamers play side-by-side and enjoy it.

Now, for Saturday afternoon, I’d offered to run Lacuna, but not a single fucker signed up. That’s a minor complaint about the convention: although it was billed as a convention to “try” indie games, my feeling was that people stuck to indie favourites: Hot War, 3:16, Spirit of the Century, anything run by Scott Dorward, who is himself an indie favourite. Lesser-known games struggled a little. Clare, who was running games for Flammable Penguin (great name), didn’t get enough sign-ups tonight, although her game looked fascinating.

So Saturday afternoon was instead spent playtesting Ordinary Angels, Andrew Kenrick’s game-in-development about angels/cops. It was good stuff. Bit of a police procedural, bit apocalyptic. Nice.

On Saturday night I ran Poison’d. What a superb game. Four players, nastiness without it being empty nastiness. Wonderful. My personal favourite moment: the Captain exited the bedchamber of his mistress, a vicar’s wife, and found his gunnery master waiting for his turn. “Can I have a go with her?”. The Captain shot the mistress.

Sunday morning was Spirit of the Century. Good stuff, actually, and I’m glad I played, because I wasn’t totally sold on the system before, having played an hour-long game. We summoned the god Ra. It wasn’t in the scenario, but we were trying to deal with the God of Night, and Ra seemed the man for the job.

Then, on Sunday afternoon, I ran 3:16. Now, when Gregor plays, there’s much comedy: our first planet involved killing Ewoks. I’d wanted to run it straighter and darker, so I did. My squad were sent to dispatch some “mindless beasts” that, on encounter, proved to be an advanced civilisation. It became clearer, throughout the mission, that it was genocide.

And that was it. A superb little convention, which I hope will come back next year.