Rands in Repose: Gaming the System

There’s a discoverable structure to the rules. There’s a correct order, which, when followed, offers a type of reward. It’s the advantage of thinking three blocks ahead in Tetris or holding onto those beguiling hypercubes in Bejeweled. This is the advanced discovery of the system around the rules that leads to exponential geek joy.

There’s a paradox and a warning inside of optimization and repetition.

The paradox involves the implications of winning. Geeks will furiously work to uncover the rules of a game and then use those rules to determine how they might win. But the actual discovery of how to win is a buzz kill. The thrill, the adrenalin, comes from the discovery, hunt, and eventual mastery of the unknown, which, confusingly, means if you want to keep a geek engaged in a game you can’t let them win, even though that’s exactly what they think they want.

The theme-within-a-theme in the story is that science is a lot like this. Just like a gamer, scientists are looking to find the rules of nature. In fact, in complex games where you don’t know most of the rules at the outset and have to figure them out as you go, you will find aspects of the scientific method. Systematic testing where you change the conditions and see what the outcome is.

I don’t know what kills that monster, so I’ll try different characters or weapons to find the vulnerability.

Oh look, pac-man ate that dot and all the ghosts turned blue. I wonder what that means?