Maybe one way to address this issue is to start the game with a
disclaimer like we sometimes see in movies ("this is a fiction and a
parody"). It breaks the effect of surprise, but that may actually be a
good thing here.
We could do this, I'm not sure our game is a parody but it's definitely
a fiction. It's a good idea.
Beyond this, on one side, because our game relies on the real web, we
cannot reinvent everything and we need to situate ourselves in the real
world. Real countries, real events must be part of the context in our game.
On the other side, we want to tell a story, therefore we need a minimal
control over the direction it takes; and because a story involves events
and characters, we need to create a fictional environment here - in
order to have the freedom to make the story evolve in the direction we
chose and in order to gain the absence of judgment we need when we do
this (see "Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel;
it is its morality" from Kundera on this for instance -
http://www.bookdaily.com/book/10531/testaments-betrayed-essay-in-nine-parts-an)
So the way I see things is a minimal but strong fictional context that
naturally uses everything for which there is no ethical question (like
tools - all tools available on the web), and give ourselves the freedom
to ask ourselves, on a case to case basis, if it's ok to involve a real
organization/person, ok on an ethical basis, as Xav was suggesting. The
idea for me is to keep the freedom of choice all the time and not be
toot bound to any real organization/person so that it could create an
issue later - therefore we need strong fictional elements so that we can
chose to include or not real elements without impacting the core of the
story.
What do you think ? I'm not sure I'm very clear (english on these topics
is quite tough for me), please let me know I can elaborate.
D
_______________________________________________
Farsides mailing list - [email protected]
Wiki: http://farsides.com/
List: http://farsides.com/ml/
Forum: http://farsides.com/forum/
Ideas: http://farsides.com/ideas/
Chat: http://farsides.com/chat/
