I came across this cryptic phrase in a description of an old D&D adventure Tale of the Comet . In context, it seems to describe the designer solving a problem of game balance by having the powerful technology items have limited charges / uses before expiring. But I cannot parse prophet-squeeze-monster and I certianly don’t recognise it as a classic trope. Any ideas?

  • Sergio@slrpnk.netEnglish
    2·
    12 hours ago

    Fascinating question. I have a couple (uninformed) guesses:

    • maybe “prophet” is a mis-transcription of “profit” and it refers to a “profit squeeze” meaning costs increase but results diminish. this is a way of handling the “game unbalance” problem: the technology is there but the cost is so high it doesn’t unbalance things. So “profit-squeeze monster” means you just take that to the extreme.
    • instead, maybe the last two words go together to make “squeeze monster”. You know like those rubber stress toys that you squeeze and part of the monster is an eye or something that bulges out. I seem to remember those being around in the 90s when this article is about. So “prophet / squeeze-monster” refers to two ways of limiting the game unbalance problem: the technology is either used as a “prophet” to just estimate your enemy or something, or its a “squeeze monster” where… uh… I dunno… you disfigure but don’t kill the enemy?
    • instead, maybe “squeeze monster” is like you pull a trigger but can’t control it… you’re a “squeeze monster”?

    If I were editing that article/review, I’d change the word “trope” to something like “technique” or “approach”, bc “trope” sounds like it should be widespread. I’d guess it’s probably a technique that game designers used and talked about to one another and had this term as a shorthand probably bc of some anecdote or cartoon or funny t-shirt that someone had once.