# "Gamism," The Forge, and the Elephant in the Room



## innerdude (Jan 16, 2012)

Having  heard oodles about it from various ENWorld-ers, I finally ventured over  to The Forge (The Forge Forums - Index) for the first time a couple of weeks  ago. 

My  first impressions of the site were generally positive, though anyone  who's complained about the pretentiousness of Ron Edwards' writing style certainly has a point. That said, I found that I  actually agreed with most of his explication of Gamist/Narrativist/Simulationist  theory, and the theory's general taxonomy.  I enjoy exploring basic human motivation (one of the  reasons I've always loved RPGs to begin with), and GNS theory is nothing  if not a short-hand for looking at how RPG group dynamics develop. 

That  said, there was something that I simply couldn't shake while reading  through Ron's five or six different treatises on GNS, and after further  re-readings, it has still stuck with me. To me it's a huge "elephant in  the room" surrounding GNS, and it is this: 

Gamism in its purest form, as defined by Ron Edwards, is largely antithetical to the social contract of roleplaying. 

Now,  before everyone goes off on a massive "Who are you to decide what isn't  roleplaying!!!" rant, or rails against me for "One True Way-ism," at  least hear me out. 

What I'm not saying is that those who enjoy Gamism are doing anything "wrong." I personally have a  near-infinite appetite for gamism. I LOVE board games, and an evening of  hard-core Cities and Knights of Catan, followed up by some Dominion is  one of life's true joys. I love the "Step on Up!" challenge of digging  into rules and figuring out how they tick, all to create a strategic  advantage, and win the admiration of peers for a game well played. 

What I am saying, however, is that RPGs are a vastly inferior source of  fulfilling Gamist tendencies compared to numerous other venues, and as such,  Gamism should, as it has since RPGs have evolved beyond their war gaming roots, play third-fiddle to Narrativism and Simulationism. Ron Edwards is all for having more "Gamist" RPGs. I happen to think they're the _last _place I would want to push Gamism. 

In Ron Edwards mind, Gamism is "easy, diverse, and unpretentious." Yet pure powergaming, and "munchkin-ing" have long been derided in our hobby. So if Gamism isn't "bad," why is it so difficult to incorporate into many RPGs, and why do the majority of RPGs implicitly or explicitly push back against Gamist tendencies? 

Ron seems to think it's mostly misguided GMs and game designers trying to "enforce their will": 

"Some  groups and game designers treat Gamism's easy 'in' as a necessary  evil  and to take an appeasement approach. The 'Id' can be controlled,  they  say, as long as the Superego (the GM) stays firmly in charge and  gives  it occasional fights and a reward system based on improving   effectiveness. This approach may rank among the most-commonly attempted   yet least-successful tactic in all of game design. It will never   actually work: the Lumpley Principle correctly places the rules and   procedures of play at the mercy of the Social Contract, not the other   way around. Therefore, even if such a game continues, it has this   limping-along, gotta-put-up-with-Bob feel to it." 

But here's the thing: I don't think the problem is the groups, the GM, or the rules systems. If Bob is the problem, _then Bob is the problem_. And the problem is that most Narrativist and Simulationist players rightfully feel that Gamism in RPGs unnecessarily encroaches on territory considered to be fundamental to the genre. 

Board games are one type of social experience, and RPGs are another, but to a Gamist, the ultimate purpose of them is the same--to "win" the "game." A Gamist can have similar senses of satisfaction playing WoW, Risk, Pinochle, or RPGs. Narrativists and Simulationists, however, are pretty much limited to RPGs. 

Nobody cares  about sharing a "narrative," or "interacting with the game world"  of Risk--but in RPGs, they are fundamental to the entire experience. 

If Gamism in RPGs has evolved away from its earliest war gaming roots, it's because most RPG players have found that Gamism is a poor fit, or more appropriately, a _poorer _fit for the genre than Narrativism and Simulationism. Why on earth would a Gamist prefer roleplaying games to one of the numerous, vastly superior  outlets for their desire--video games, board games, card games, and the  like? RPGs are different from other Gamist venues _precisely because they're not wholly Gamist.  _

So if  you're a pure Gamist, why hang out  with all of us "Narrativists" and "Simulationists," when we're mostly  going to tell you to stop being "Gamist" in the first place? Why not  spend your time on something that fills your Gamist desires much more  readily and fully than RPGs generally manage? Having said that, I recognize that many of us don't always get to choose our group's makeup. And sometimes, we have a friend we just want to be involved in the hobby at all, regardless of motivation.

But if Gamists consistently feel dissatisfied with their RPG experiences, it's probably because generally speaking, the genre is already making them swim upstream. RPGs are one of the few, singular outlets that Narrativists and Simulationists have, whereas RPGs are just one of dozens, if not hundreds of outlets for Gamists. As a result, Narrativists and Simulationists are rightfully protective of our turf. Our opportunities for exploration are vastly more limited compared to Gamists. We _need _our RPGs to be Narrativist and Simulationist, in ways that Gamists don't need their RPGs to be "Gamist." In other words, when it comes to RPGs, it's the Gamist's job to adjust their viewpoint to the Narrativists and Simulationists, not the other way around. And frankly, if the Gamists don't like it, they're almost assuredly going to go back to something that better "scratches their itch." 

Does this mean that Gamists can't, or shouldn't be accommodated at all? No, but it does mean that the primary focus of RPGs should never primarily be the "G." After having read Edwards' GNS theory, I am even more convinced that while it doesn't need to be wholly ignored, Gamism is and should be subservient to Narrativism and Simulationism in RPG design and play.


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## Squire James (Jan 17, 2012)

innerdude said:


> Bottom line: After having read Edwards' GNS theory, I am even more convinced that while it doesn't need to be wholly ignored, Gamism is and should be subservient to Narrativism and Simulationism in RPG design and play.




In your gam... um... narrated simulation, maybe.  Keep in mind that the G in RPG is the noun, and the RP is but an adjective!  A rather important adjective, yes, but not (much) more important than the noun!


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## UngainlyTitan (Jan 17, 2012)

I would xp you for reading Ron Edwards essays more than once but the site won't let me. It is more than I achieved.

It is a long time since I read the relevant material but I did have the impression that no one was a pure anything in actual play. One tends to be more of one than another but never complely one thing.

I have the impression that gamism as view from the Forge is about beating hte challange presented in the game and a willingsness to use meta-game knowledge to achieve this end.


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## Crothian (Jan 17, 2012)

innerdude said:


> Does this mean that Gamists can't, or shouldn't be accommodated at all? No, but it does mean that the primary focus of RPGs should never primarily be the "G." After having read Edwards' GNS theory, I am even more convinced that while it doesn't need to be wholly ignored, Gamism is and should be subservient to Narrativism and Simulationism in RPG design and play.




To move this to something more easily discussed what RPGs do you feel are too gamist and should become something else?  What writers and designers out there do you feel should alter their approach to game design?


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## chaochou (Jan 17, 2012)

I think The Forge, Ron's essays and some of the old archived threads over there make for some interesting reading.

It's a while since I read them. but I don't think 'winning' is called out as central to Gamism - it's about the 'Step on Up'.

I think the best 'Step on Up' illustration is Paranoia. It's a black, bureaucratic comedy of errors, designed to allow players to churn through characters (because they have six identical clones) and get them all hosed in farcical, idiotic and hilarious ways. I'm sure the rules say 'The more stupid and dangerous the thing a character tries to do, the better chance it should have of succeeding'. That's pure Step on Up  - do something stupid and dangerous, do it now.



innerdude said:


> In Ron Edwards mind, Gamism is "easy, diverse, and unpretentious." Yet pure powergaming, and "munchkin-ing" have long been derided in our hobby. So if Gamism isn't "bad," why is it so difficult to incorporate into many RPGs, and why do the majority of RPGs implicitly or explicitly push back against Gamist tendencies?




IIRC, somewhere on The Forge is quite a detailed section on why Sim and Gamism don't mix. Whether that explanation is meaningful or satisfactory is another topic. But if you accept that there was a pretty heavy weighting to sim design through, say, the 80s, it isn't hard to imagine why gamist tendencies have had perjoratives attached to them.


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## pemerton (Jan 17, 2012)

chaochou said:


> I don't think 'winning' is called out as central to Gamism - it's about the 'Step on Up'.



I think winning, or something like it, is pretty central to Edwards' conception of gamist play:

Competition is best understood as a productive add-on to Gamist play. Such play is fundamentally cooperative, but may include competition. That's not a contradiction: I'm using exactly the same logic as might be found at the poker and basketball games. You can't compete, socially, without an agreed-upon venue. If the cooperation's details are acceptable to everyone, then the competition within it can be quite fierce. 

Role-playing texts never get this straight. For them, it's always either competition or cooperation, one-other, push-pull, and often nonsensical. . .

So what is all this competition business about? It concerns conflict of interest. If person A's performance is only maximized by driving down another's performance, then competition is present. In Gamist play, this is not required - but it is very often part of the picture. Competition gives both Step On Up and Challenge a whole new feel - a bite. . .

I might as well get this over with now: the phrase "Role-playing games are not about winning" is the most widespread example of synecdoche in the hobby. Potential Gamist responses, and I think appropriately, include: 

"Eat me," 
(upon winning) "I win," and 
"C'mon, let's play without these morons."​
I'm defining "winning" as positive assessment at the Step On Up level. It even applies when little or no competition is going on. It applies even when the win-condition is fleeting. Even if it's unstated. Even if it's no big deal. Without it, and if it's not the priority of play, then no Gamism.​
He does make room for "everyone being a winner" - if there is Step On Up without competition - but suggests that a lot of satisfying gamism will involve competition, and hence losers as well as winners.



innerdude said:


> Does this mean that Gamists can't, or shouldn't be accommodated at all? No, but it does mean that the primary focus of RPGs should never primarily be the "G." After having read Edwards' GNS theory, I am even more convinced that while it doesn't need to be wholly ignored, Gamism is and should be subservient to Narrativism and Simulationism in RPG design and play.



I can't reallly agree with this at all. It's hard to judge some one's priorities for play when you're reading a few lines they wrote on a messageboard, but a version of exploration-heavy gamism seems to me the default assumption for play here at ENworld. Every time someone posts, for example, that D&D play without the risk of PC death isn't satisfying, or isn't meaningful, and everyone posts about the importance of scenario design that creates options for "meaningful choice" - where by meaningful choice that mean choices that increase or decrease the risk of PC death, and the likelihood of PC enrichment - they are advocating gamist play.

Gygax himself, in the AD&D PHB, presents a version of gamism - he calls it the ideal of "skillful play" - as the point of playing D&D.

Somewhere in the 80s and 90s simulationism emerged as the dominant priority in (at least mainstream) RPGing, and this Gygaxian stuff got downplayed in D&D rulebooks. But I can't agree gamism in the hobby is somehow less deserving of accommodation.

To finish this post, here is another passage from Edwards' essay, under the heading "The bitterest role-player in the world":

Meet the low-Step On Up, high-Challenge Gamist, with both "little red competition" dials spun down to their lowest settings. 

This person prefers a role-playing game that combines Gamist potential with Simulationist hybrid support, such that a highly Explorative Situation can evolve, in-game and without effort, into a Challenge Situation. In other words, the social-level Step On Up "emerges" from the events in-play. This view, and its problematic qualities, are extremely similar to that of the person who wants to see full-blown Narrativist values "just appear" from a Simulationist-play foundation. It's possible, but not as easy and intuitive as it would seem. 

His preferred venue for the Gamist moments of play is a small-scale scene or crisis embedded in a larger-scale Exploration that focuses on Setting and Character. In these scenes, he's all about the Crunch: Fortune systems should be easy to estimate, such that each instance of its use may be chosen and embedded in a matrix of strategizing. Point-character construction and menus of independent feats or powers built to resist Powergaming are ideal. 

As for playing the character, it's Author Stance all the way. He likes to imagine what "his guy" thinks, but to direct "his guy" actions from a cool and clear Step On Up perspective. The degree of Author Stance is confined to in-game imaginative events alone and doesn't bleed over into Balance of Power issues regarding resolution at all. 

Related to the Stance issue, he is vehemently opposed to the Hard Core, even to any hints of it or any exploitable concepts that it seizes upon most easily. For instance, reward system that functions at the metagame level is anathema: not only should solid aesthetics should be primary, but he is rightly leery of the Hard Core eye for such reward systems. "Balance" for him consists of the purity of the Resource system and unbroken Currency. It's consistent with the Simulationist Purist for System values and represents further defenses against the Hard Core. 

He probably developed his role-playing preferences in highly-Drifted AD&D2 or in an easily-Drifted version of early Champions, both of which he probably describes as playing "correctly" relative to other groups committed to these games. 

This man (I've met no women who fit this description) is cursed. He's cursed because the only people who can enjoy playing with him, and vice versa, are those who share precisely his goals, and these goals are very easily upset by just about any others. 

*His heavy Sim focus keeps away the "lite" Gamists who like Exploration but not Simulationism. 
*The lack of metagame reward system keeps away most Gamists in general. 
*Hard Core Gamists will kick him in the nuts every time, just as they do to Simulationist play. 
*Most Simulationist-oriented players won't Step Up - they get no gleam in their eye when the Challenge hits, and some are even happy just to piddle about and "be." 
*Just about anyone who's not Gamist-inclined lumps him with "those Gamists" and writes him off.​
I've known several of these guys. They are bitter, I say. Imagine years of just knowing that your "perfect game" is possible, seeing it in your mind, knowing that if only a few other people could just play their characters exactly according to the values that you yourself would play, that your GM-preparation would pay off beyond anyone's wildest dreams. Now imagine years of encountering all the bulleted points above, over and over.​
I agree with Edwards that this is a genuine type. I would add that it is, to some extent, one logical extension of Gygaxian play (but adopting a less metagamey XP system than XP for treasure). While Edwards exaggerates the bitterness for rhetorical effect, if you go to (for example) the ICE boards you will see this sort of approach to play articulated by many posters. And I think it is an approach to play that any design of D&D should at least have in mind as a mode that should be viable.


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## 1Mac (Jan 17, 2012)

As I recall, Gamism isn't about the player winning; it's about the _character_ winning. A subtle but crucial distinction!


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## tomBitonti (Jan 17, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I think winning, or something like it, is pretty central to Edwards' conception of gamist play:
> 
> 
> So what is all this competition business about? It concerns conflict of interest. If person A's performance is only maximized by driving down another's performance, then competition is present.​




Enjoying the read, up until that sentence.  This is, in my view, a rather terrible outlook: Competition means doing *better* than the adversary, not *driving it down*.  Quality competition tends to have the opposite effect: Of *driving up* the adversary's performance.  That is one of the strong benefits of competition.

Anyways, completely derailed my reading.

TomB


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## The Shaman (Jan 17, 2012)

pemerton said:


> It's hard to judge some one's priorities for play when you're reading a few lines they wrote on a messageboard, but a version of exploration-heavy gamism seems to me the default assumption for play here at ENworld. Every time someone posts, for example, that D&D play without the risk of PC death isn't satisfying, or isn't meaningful, and everyone posts about the importance of scenario design that creates options for "meaningful choice" - where by meaningful choice that mean choices that increase or decrease the risk of PC death, and the likelihood of PC enrichment - they are advocating gamist play.
> 
> Gygax himself, in the AD&D PHB, presents a version of gamism - he calls it the ideal of "skillful play" - as the point of playing D&D.
> 
> Somewhere in the 80s and 90s simulationism emerged as the dominant priority in (at least mainstream) RPGing, and this Gygaxian stuff got downplayed in D&D rulebooks. But I can't agree gamism in the hobby is somehow less deserving of accommodation.



Thank you for saving me the trouble of crafting a reply.


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## pemerton (Jan 17, 2012)

The Shaman said:


> Thank you for saving me the trouble of crafting a reply.



Do you have a view about Edwards' "bitterest roleplayer"? Stripped of Edwards's rhetorical flourishes, I've played with, and GMed for, quite a few of these guys (and they don't have to be bitter!). Heck, in some moods (as a player, not normally a GM) I'm one of them.

I think Rolemaster can suit this sort of play if handled in the right way. I would have thought that 3E could, too, at least in some sort of E6 or similar variant that has ways of handling the "build divergence" at higher levels.

I get the impression that your Flashing Blades game involves a lot of setting exploration, but does it have a gamist edge too?


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## The Shaman (Jan 17, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Do you have a view about Edwards' "bitterest roleplayer"? Stripped of Edwards's rhetorical flourishes, I've played with, and GMed for, quite a few of these guys (and they don't have to be bitter!). Heck, in some moods (as a player, not normally a GM) I'm one of them.



In my experience, Mr Edwards' "bitterest roleplayer" tends to be the guy who shifts pretty readily between thinking in- and out-of-character, engaging both the rules and the game-world. In that sense they're among my favorite players to have in a game.







pemerton said:


> I get the impression that your Flashing Blades game involves a lot of setting exploration, but does it have a gamist edge too?



Combat in _FB_ is very gamist, but it's dressed up so beautifully in simulationist terms that it sneaks up on you. The abstractions come wrapped in pretty red ribbons of flavor text.

Frex, the unarmed combat rules can play a significant role in a duel; there's a real mechanical advantage - the opportunity to stun your opponent and cost them an action in the following turn - in throwing a punch or kicking the other guy in the nads during a sword fight.


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## pemerton (Jan 17, 2012)

The Shaman said:


> Frex, the unarmed combat rules can play a significant role in a duel; there's a real mechanical advantage - the opportunity to stun your opponent and cost them an action in the following turn - in throwing a punch or kicking the other guy in the nads during a sword fight.



Interesting.

What sort of mechanics does the game use to stop this becoming a default "win" strategy (like the notorious spiked chain wielder in 3E)? I don't think D&D has ever been very good at handling this - unless you count the 4e encounter power approach as a "solution", but I would see it more as "dispensing with the issue in favour of a completely different approach".

BW has a very interesting mechanic for regulating the use of Brawling to get advantages in combat, plus other similar "augment" strategies: namely, in order to advance their abilities, PCs must use them in challenges with a range of difficulties (incuding some of very hard or overwhelming difficulty), and so players have a metagame incentive not always to bring all their resources to bear.

But while I think this is clever, it also effectively squashes gamist play when the crunch actually hits, because there's all these bigger picture concerns taking over.

EDIT:

A different thread - one of the current Vancian magic threads, either in this sub-forum or in "new horizons" - led me to reread Edwards' Fantasy Hearbreakers essay. One thing he said there seems relevant to this therad:

[E]ach of these games is alike regarding the act of role-playing itself. The point of play is being an adventurer who grows very powerful and might die at any time, and all context and judgment and outcomes are the exclusive province of this guy called the GM (or whatever), case closed. They precisely parallel what AD&D role-playing evolved into during the early 1980s. Each of these games is clearly written by a GM who would very much like all the players simply to shut up and play their characters without interfering with "what's really happening." They are Social Contract time bombs.​
A good gamist RPG has to avoid the "time bomb" thing. That is, it has to allow the Step on Up - and, perhaps, the competition as well - to emerge, and resolve itself, without engendering any more hard feelings than would result from playing a friendly hand of cards (to pick another social, low key competitive passtime).

This involves a lot of moving parts - for example, fitting the game to the fiction in a way that works for everyone at the table without requiring the GM to get involved in a way that might suggest playing favourites. And handling the issue of "lose conditions" - what is the analogue, for a player whose PC dies, or fails to rescue the prisoner, or whatever, of dealing another hand? I think that, historically, D&D has handled some of these issues better than others, and has also handled them differently across editions.



innerdude said:


> Yet pure powergaming, and "munchkin-ing" have long been derided in our hobby. So if Gamism isn't "bad," why is it so difficult to incorporate into many RPGs, and why do the majority of RPGs implicitly or explicitly push back against Gamist tendencies?



I would say, at least in part, because they haven't solved the design problems to which gamist play, and especially competitive gamist play, gives rise.


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## The Shaman (Jan 17, 2012)

pemerton said:


> What sort of mechanics does the game use to stop this becoming a default "win" strategy (like the notorious spiked chain wielder in 3E)?



Getting a stun is good - it costs your opponent any remaining actions in the round, and denies them a long action and allows them only one normal action in the next round.

But a stunned character isn't helpless. He can move, parry, dodge, back away, or attack and rely on a reaction parry (a parry with a -6 penalty that doesn't count as an action). A stunned character's options are limited, but the player retains meaningful choices.

Where it gets really dangerous is if a character is stunned twice, losing all actions (other than a reaction parry) in the next round. One of the adventurers in my game is virtually impossible for anyone to hit normally with a sword, but put him up against a couple of tough brawlers and he can be in deep trouble if he doesn't get them first.


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## The Shaman (Jan 17, 2012)

pemerton said:


> A good gamist RPG has to avoid the "time bomb" thing. That is, it has to allow the Step on Up - and, perhaps, the competition as well - to emerge, and resolve itself, without engendering any more hard feelings than would result from playing a friendly hand of cards (to pick another social, low key competitive passtime).



I think this goes back to some degree to the notion of transparency, of the rules and the adjudication.

While I tend to swim in the rulings-not-rules end of the pool, in my experience the games that facilitate that approach offer relatively concise, clear rules from which the referee can readily extrapolate on the fly. That shouldn't be taken as an endorsement of 'rules-thin' versus 'rules-dense,' but rather a rules-dense game can have fairly simple mechanics at its core which facilitates _ad hoc_ rulings.


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## S'mon (Jan 17, 2012)

I think we all tend to have styles we favour and styles we see as secondary.  Edwards seems to like Gamism & his Narrativism, and sees Simulationism as secondary - his earlier essays regarded Simulationism as actively dysfunctional.  You like (edit) Sim & Nar.  I'm G&S: I see a strong world-Simulation as creating the environment in which Gamism can flourish, with Narrativism a secondary consideration; as GM I might have occasional Nar (or Drama/Story-Sim) flourishes, but it's not a central consideration for me.  What I like is PCs exploring a well-simulated world and attempting to succeed in it to the best of the players' abilities.


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## The Shaman (Jan 17, 2012)

S'mon said:


> What I like is PCs exploring a well-simulated world and attempting to succeed in it to the best of the players' abilities.



Same here.


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## S'mon (Jan 17, 2012)

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] - I don't think 'meaningful choice' has to mean 'Gamist choice'.  It can mean Narrative or Dramatic choice, and it can mean Sim choice.


Narrative choice - do I join my traitor girlfriend against my old comrades, or kill her?  What would I do for love?  Choice is the essence of Premise per Ron's Narrativism.

Sim choice - choosing what part of the world to explore, whether in terms of geography or relationship webs etc, motivated by which would be the most interesting rather than most enriching.


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## steenan (Jan 17, 2012)

innerdude said:


> But if Gamists consistently feel dissatisfied with their RPG experiences, it's probably because generally speaking, the genre is already making them swim upstream. RPGs are one of the few, singular outlets that Narrativists and Simulationists have, whereas RPGs are just one of dozens, if not hundreds of outlets for Gamists. As a result, Narrativists and Simulationists are rightfully protective of our turf. Our opportunities for exploration are vastly more limited compared to Gamists. We _need _our RPGs to be Narrativist and Simulationist, in ways that Gamists don't need their RPGs to be "Gamist." In other words, when it comes to RPGs, it's the Gamist's job to adjust their viewpoint to the Narrativists and Simulationists, not the other way around. And frankly, if the Gamists don't like it, they're almost assuredly going to go back to something that better "scratches their itch."
> 
> Does this mean that Gamists can't, or shouldn't be accommodated at all? No, but it does mean that the primary focus of RPGs should never primarily be the "G." After having read Edwards' GNS theory, I am even more convinced that while it doesn't need to be wholly ignored, Gamism is and should be subservient to Narrativism and Simulationism in RPG design and play.




I would agree with this point of view if mechanics-heavy gamism was the only kind. But I can tell from my experience that it is not. I know a few people (including my wife) who really like "winning" and overcoming challenges in RPGs, but are not into character optimization, tactical combat and adding bonuses. They prefer planning when they can and improvising when they must, using out-of-the-box solutions, manipulating people, exploring mysteries and solving puzzles. They want to have their wits tested, but in interaction with the game world and NPCs, not in interaction with the mechanics. Computer, board or card games are not a satisfying option here.

It's good to have RPGs designed consistently for fun gamist play. 

The problem starts when (what happens very often, unfortunately) a designer can't decide what kind of game they want to create, gives a random mix of G, S and N and at the table players pull in different directions. That's why I'm strongly opposed to the idea of a "game for everyone".


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## Quickleaf (Jan 17, 2012)

I thought I'd chime in with a different perspective. Caveat: I am not a hardcore game theory guy, I am just passingly familiar with GNS.

Back when I as writing Tales of the Caliphate Nights (Paradigm Concepts) for True20 system I made a decision that all of the most powerful options would come from those that enhanced the genre narrative. During character creation the most powerful feats included Virtuous and True Faith, both which included role-play guidelines. During play you could gain big bonuses by initiating framed stories, and could sway elements of the story with a creative weaving check. And there were feats which gave you bonuses to those two actions.

In GNS terms I'd guess you could call this "aiming thru gamism to evoke interesting narrative." From the few games I played it worked very well in channeling power-gamers into the atmosphere Caliphate Nights evoked.


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## Gentlegamer (Jan 17, 2012)

steenan said:


> I know a few people (including my wife) who really like "winning" and overcoming challenges in RPGs, but are not into character optimization, tactical combat and adding bonuses. They prefer planning when they can and improvising when they must, using out-of-the-box solutions, manipulating people, exploring mysteries and solving puzzles. They want to have their wits tested, but in interaction with the game world and NPCs, not in interaction with the mechanics. Computer, board or card games are not a satisfying option here.



I view my participation in role-playing games the same way. 

I humbly submit that such activity is the core of the rpg game-form, and as such, actually the primary focus upon which narrative and simulation aspects can be layered according to preference.


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## pemerton (Jan 17, 2012)

S'mon said:


> I don't think 'meaningful choice' has to mean 'Gamist choice'.  It can mean Narrative or Dramatic choice, and it can mean Sim choice.



Agreed. But when used on these boards, it is often used to mean "operationally superior" choice.


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## S'mon (Jan 17, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Agreed. But when used on these boards, it is often used to mean "operationally superior" choice.




?  I don't really get that - if one choice is clearly operationally superior then in Gamist terms there is no meaningful choice.  And those of us who talk about 'meaningful choice' a lot tend to expressly discount the kind of tactical decision-making you get in a 4e combat encounter.  I think it's far more common for people here to use 'meaningful choice' to mean "Choosing what part of the world to explore" (sim) or "Choosing love over loyalty" (nar) than to mean "Choosing the best way to win" (gamism).

You occasionally get Gamist talk eg praising 4e for its multiple viable combat options, but that's definitely not the primary meaning of 'meaningful choice' I see used here.


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## chaochou (Jan 17, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I think winning, or something like it, is pretty central to Edwards' conception of gamist play:
> I'm defining "winning" as positive assessment at the Step On Up level. ​




Pem, I like your post.

But 'winning as positive assessment at the Step On Up level' is not what I call 'winning' in the way someone wins at Chess or Advanced Squad Leader or the 4*400 relay.

It means (imo) winning in the sense of 'winning approval from your peers'.


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## Teataine (Jan 17, 2012)

There has to be a connection between what we're doing right now in the game and what we're doing in the game overall.

Gamism does require the meaningful choice of being able to pick different tactics, strategies and solutions to problems.

However, if all choices are "equal", in the sense that there's no clear advantage to them, then it's actually meaningless. So in fact I'd argue that there has to be some "operationally superior" aspect to at least some of the choices, otherwise you can't "step on up".

Picking the non-optional choice "because that's what my character would do" or "because that's how the setting works" or "because it's more interesting this way" or whatever is antithetical to gamism. Thus, if you want to make gamist choices, some of them have to be clearly superior...
...or rather, there has to be a clear connection between the choice you make right now and what we're doing here overall (ie. trying to "win").

In (post 3E) D&D it's clearly more optimal not to provoke an AoO unless the benefit outweighs the cost. That makes it a meaningful choice, because it effects your overal chances of getting your goal.

------

Also, regarding the "elephant in the room" from the OP. 

I think "munchinism" is what happens when you let a gamist loose on a simulationist system. Taking an disadvantage like "Stutter" or "Greasy hair" to get a +2 to attack. Powergaming or - to use a more positive term - Optimizing on the other hand is always desirable to a degree. 

Just like the DM won't throw an Ancient Red Dragon at the party at level 1, a good gamist player will recognize there is no sense in breaking the system to create Pun Pun or any other invincible build. He will create a character that can be appropriatelly challenged, because he wants to be challenged (So he can step on up.). But he won't intentionally gimp his character either.

And while boardgames and cardgames can certainly scratch the "gamist itch" of challenging play very well, I think RPGs are still their own form with their own kinds of challenges that other games can't deliver. Challenges that happen within a shared fiction. That's why RPG gamism is possible and desirable.


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## pemerton (Jan 17, 2012)

S'mon said:


> I don't really get that - if one choice is clearly operationally superior then in Gamist terms there is no meaningful choice.



But this all turns on "clearly". 

Examples include things like in classic D&D play, having two mappers so that if one gets swallowed by a Lurker Above the party still has a copy of the map. Or the ToH story about the guy who, teleported into the three lever pit, stood on two levers before operating the third, so as to avoid fallling down any further pit that was opened up. These choices become obvious in retrospect, but that just puts pressure on the Gygaxian GM to come up with new challenges and puzzles, and the players to come up with new solutions.

Another example of the usage of "meaningful choice" that I find fairly common is the idea that players should occasionally be presented with overwhelming encounters, so they can learn to judge their PCs' prospects and flee when necessary.

And yet a further example is this, from a former prolific poster on these boards, responding to one of my actual play posts:



pemerton said:


> The scenario I ran yesterday (from the Eden Odyssesy d20 book called "Wonders Out of Time") called for a Large bear.
> 
> I wasn't sure exactly how many 10th level PCs would be facing it at once, and so in prepping I placed a single elite level 13 dire bear
> 
> ...





Raven Crowking said:


> Also, in a "fiction-first" system, the players could attempt to avoid a combat because that offered their best chance of success.  If you design the challenge of avoiding said combat "To keep the XP and pacing about the same as I'd planned", then you undo the value of that choice.



From my (non-gamist) point of view, the following response captures some of the relevant differences in possible dimensions of meaningfulness:



Victim said:


> I strongly disagree.  Wide variance in difficulty or rewards based on player strategy doesn't preserve the value and meaning of player choice, it destroys that value - essentially, you create a single correct choice.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Similarly, if a diplomatic approach is just as hard as a fight, whether or not the PCs have good CHA, skill trainings, etc means something.  The fact that the characters chose a non violent means of resolving the problem even if it wasn't any easier tells us something about their values.  If talking is easy, then PCs can get through without strong social skills, and all that their choice tells us about the characters is that they're expedient.




This is why I like the fact that, from the point of view of Gygaxian gamism, 4e is such a cakewalk, with all that plot protection, and lack of operational resource management, etc. It means that the importance of operational decision-making is reduced (less scope for gamist priorities to take over) and room is therefore created for thematically-driven decision-making.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 17, 2012)

I think GNS often presents a false choice between gamism, simulationism and narrativism (I also think these are just models and there are plenty of other ways to cut up the gaming community that might be more fruitful).


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## Teataine (Jan 17, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> I think GNS often presents a false choice between gamism, simulationism and narrativism (I also think these are just models and there are plenty of other ways to cut up the gaming community that might be more fruitful).



I feel this is a fairly negative interpretation of GNS.

First of, it's certainly a model. GNS is a part of the larger framework called The Big Model, which is _a_ way (not _the_ way) to look at games, specifically through the lens of social dynamics at the table. 

I also don't feel it's about cutting up the community, because GNS as such doesn't apply to people, or groups of people. If I say "gamist player" I don't mean "this person is a gamist", but rather that this person is, in this particular game, at this particular time, pursuing a gamist agenda. 

It's not about division of groups of players but about understanding game design and the way priorities are set at the table.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 17, 2012)

I understand it is part of the big model, but that doesn't make it any more useful IMO. When I say "cutting up" I don't mean divide but categorize. I personally just haven't found it helpful to my gaming or designing.


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## LostSoul (Jan 17, 2012)

innerdude said:


> What I am saying, however, is that RPGs are a vastly inferior source of  fulfilling Gamist tendencies compared to numerous other venues, and as such,  Gamism should, as it has since RPGs have evolved beyond their war gaming roots, play third-fiddle to Narrativism and Simulationism. Ron Edwards is all for having more "Gamist" RPGs. I happen to think they're the _last _place I would want to push Gamism.




I read a term on a blog (which one, I've forgotten): "tactical infinity".  I think that's a key element to satisfying gamist RPG play.

You could imagine a war game scenario where a stronger force is set to root out a smaller one hiding in a forest.  That could be interesting.  You array your troops and have them fight each other.  In an RPG, though, you could burn the forest down, go and talk to the leader and convince him to surrender, join forces and carve out your own empire, try to convert them to your religion, etc.  The fact that you're not limited to any one course of action - and your PC's goals are (typically) up to you to decide - means that RPGs have that "tactical infinity".


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## Scribble (Jan 17, 2012)

I tend to like my rules as written to be Gamist, but play at the table in a more narrative/simulationist style.

Gamist rules give us a clearcut starting point. The ability for the players to add narrative/simulationist elements themselves are what make the rules shine. (IMO)

Lady in the streets but a freak in the bed?


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## Anselyn (Jan 17, 2012)

tomBitonti said:


> Enjoying the read, up until that sentence. This is, in my view, a rather terrible outlook: Competition means doing *better* than the adversary, not *driving it down*. Quality competition tends to have the opposite effect: Of *driving up* the adversary's performance. That is one of the strong benefits of competition.
> 
> Anyways, completely derailed my reading.
> 
> TomB



If you are attached to an absolute measurement scale and used to an economic analysis then I guess you're probably right. But if you just view a differential performance on a relative scale then the the concept is the same and clear. 
I guess that an evolutionary biologist might assert that a successful species drives down the the adversary's performance having won, say, a competition for food.  I think as gamers we should be able to take a rather generic interpretation of the idea of competition.


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## 1Mac (Jan 17, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> I think GNS often presents a false choice between gamism, simulationism and narrativism.



If I'm remembering correctly how GNS works, then not really. As I recall, GNS isn't about full games, or players; it's about choices in a game. In a way it's improper to ask if DnD, or Paranoia, or Fate, are Gamist, Narrativist, Simulationist; without first asking how the game handles individual gaming elements. How does the game handle combat? Exploration? Social encounters? Economy? Reputation and fame?

If the answer is that 1MacRPG handles most of these choices in a Simulationist fashion, then it is fair to say that 1MacRPG is a Simulationist game. Likewise, if JoBob likes making most game choices with a Gamist mindset, then it is fair to call JoBob a Gamist. But the reason many games seem to be a mix of GNS tendencies is because a particular sort of choice will lean towards a different GNS facet than another sort of choice. A game might handle combat in a very Gamist manner, but treat exploration in a Narrativist way. Likewise, a player might prefer the game's economy to be highly Simulated, but to treat fame in a Narrativist way.

The point being, because GNS theory focuses on components of a game, rather than the whole game; therefore GNS theory allows for games (and players) to be Gamist, Narrativist, and/or Simulationist, depending on what part of the game we are looking at. Thus there is no possibility for false choice, at least at the macro-level of an entire game.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 17, 2012)

That is why I said it often presents a false choice (and not always). I see a lot of GNS propoenents push for focus on one of the three categories for example when discussing the best way to design games. Many people feel this is what created the problem for 4e, they applied GNS by making the edition with gamism as the focus. Most gamers, I believe, would rather have those three elements in balance.


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## Umbran (Jan 17, 2012)

Teataine said:


> I feel this is a fairly negative interpretation of GNS.




Negative, but accurate*.  When writing on GNS, Edwards claimed that a gamer held one of three mutually exclusive aims.  His posit was that the problem with most games at the time was that they tried to satisfy all three aims at once, when the player really only wanted one.

Needless to say, I think Edwards was incorrect.  I think WotC's market research in 1999 rather blows that part of GNS out of the water.



> First of, it's certainly a model. GNS is a part of the larger framework called The Big Model...




Technically inaccurate.  Edwards first had the "threefold model", sometimes also called "GDS theory".  Here is it Game, Drama, and Simulation.   Edwards then revised it to GNS.  He later discarded GNS, and came up with the Big Model, which shares some ideas with its predecessor, but much of it is redefined, so it isn't really the original GNS that is part of the Big Model.


*cite:  System does Matter, by Edwards: 

_"Three player aims or outlooks have been suggested, in that a given player approaches a role-playing situation pretty much from one of them, with some, but not much, crossover possible."
...
"Here I suggest that RPG system design cannot meet all three outlooks at once."
...
"To sum up, I suggest a good system is one which knows its outlook and doesn't waste any mechanics on the other two outlooks."_


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## 1Mac (Jan 17, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> That is why I said it often presents a false choice (and not always). I see a lot of GNS propoenents push for focus on one of the three categories for example when discussing the best way to design games.



Fair enough, but then that is not a problem with GNS theory as originally presented, but with how it is often erroneously interpreted.



Umbran said:


> Negative, but accurate*.  When writing on GNS, Edwards claimed that a gamer held one of three mutually exclusive aims.  His posit was that the problem with most games at the time was that they tried to satisfy all three aims at once, when the player really only wanted one.



As I indicated in my previous post, that's an incomplete understanding of Edwards' thinking. From another Forge essay (emphasis added):



> Much torment has arisen from people perceiving GNS as a labelling device. *Used properly, the terms apply only to decisions, not to whole persons nor to whole games.* To be absolutely clear, to say that a person is (for example) Gamist, is only shorthand for saying, "This person tends to make role-playing decisions in line with Gamist goals." Similarly, to say that an RPG is (for example) Gamist, is only shorthand for saying, "This RPG's content facilitates Gamist concerns and decision-making." For better or for worse, both of these forms of shorthand are common.
> 
> For a given instance of play, the three modes are exclusive in application. *When someone tells me that their role-playing is "all three," what I see from them is this: features of (say) two of the goals appear in concert with, or in service to, the main one, but two or more fully-prioritized goals are not present at the same time.* So in the course of Narrativist or Simulationist play, moments or aspects of competition that contribute to the main goal are not Gamism. In the course of Gamist or Simulationist play, moments of thematic commentary that contribute to the main goal are not Narrativism. In the course of Narrativist or Gamist play, moments of attention to plausibility that contribute to the main goal are not Simulationism. The primary and not to be compromised goal is what it is for a given instance of play. The actual time or activity of an "instance" is necessarily left ambiguous.
> 
> *Over a greater period of time, across many instances of play, some people tend to cluster their decisions and interests around one of the three goals. Other people vary across the goals, but even they admit that they stay focused, or prioritize, for a given instance.*




The big point is that GNS is not really about games, or players; but individual gaming decisions, and how those decisions may or may not aggregate around one style of play for a given game or player.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 17, 2012)

I think Umbran's reading of the essay is pretty accurate (Umbran's citation is quite explicit on that point). Part of edward's problem is the sprawling natural of his system of thought. Ultimately he is still saying these things are focused at an individual level and still tend to be at a broader level. I don't think that is the only way to apply GNS theory, but it is how most people seem to do so, and Edwards himself talks of these things frequently as being mutually exclusive or at odds.


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## 1Mac (Jan 17, 2012)

Umbran's reading is accurate if you are only looking at the one particular essay. The essay that Umbran cites and the one I cite do not really contradict each other (just because Edwards discusses games that are exclusively Gamist, that does not exclude games that have all three GNS facets), but the essay I cite clearly contradicts Umbran's interpretation.

A big problem with Edwards, I'll grant, is that his writing style frequently wants for clarity, which is why he is often misinterpreted. Apparent contradictions arise, but I think his ideas are interesting enough that it's worth the effort to resolve those apparent contradictions.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 17, 2012)

1Mac said:


> Umbran's reading is accurate if you are only looking at the one particular essay. The essay that Umbran cites and the one I cite do not really contradict each other (just because Edwards discusses games that are exclusively Gamist, that does not exclude games that have all three GNS facets), but the essay I cite clearly contradicts Umbran's interpretation.




But edwards says explicitly Umbran's citation that an RPG can't do all three at once. He also says it is better design to focus on one style. Also the existence of another essay that muddies Edward's position doesn't remove System Matters from existence.


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## 1Mac (Jan 17, 2012)

What Edwards says is "a good system is one which knows its outlook and doesn't waste any mechanics on the other two outlooks." Note that he doesn't say "game," and that at the beginning of the essay, he says, "by 'system' I mean a method to resolve what happens during play."

So by "system," he could mean a complete game, or he could mean rules for a particular situation in the game. Edwards' cursed lack of clarity allows for either interpretation. If we are going to be fair to Edwards' ideas and assume they are not self-contradictory nonsense*, then we have to look at his other writings on the subject to determine which interpretation is correct.

*I accept and appreciate that many will have this view!


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 17, 2012)

1Mac said:


> What Edwards says is "a good system is one which knows its outlook and doesn't waste any mechanics on the other two outlooks." Note that he doesn't say "game," and that at the beginning of the essay, he says, "by 'system' I mean a method to resolve what happens during play."
> 
> So by "system," he could mean a complete game, or he could mean rules for a particular situation in the game. Edwards' cursed lack of clarity allows for either interpretation. If we are going to be fair to Edwards' ideas and assume they are not self-contradictory nonsense*, then we have to look at his other writings on the subject to determine which interpretation is correct.
> 
> *I accept and appreciate that many will have this view!




I think by system (in the case of this essay) he meant Agamemnon system, not sub system. Though even there I think it is a mistake to assume you can't balance The three elements. 

I do agree clarity an issue for Edwards, and in my opinion this was made even worse when he developed his own lexicon to talk about the big model.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 17, 2012)

Edit: that should read "a game system" not agamemnon.


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## Umbran (Jan 17, 2012)

1Mac said:


> Fair enough, but then that is not a problem with GNS theory as originally presented, but with how it is often erroneously interpreted.




His words were pretty clear there, when put in context of the entire piece.  I'm sorry, but there aren't too many ways to interpret, "I suggest a good system is one which knows its outlook and doesn't waste any mechanics on the other two outlooks."  I see two, and the rest of the surrounding text strongly suggests one over the other.



> As I indicated in my previous post, that's an incomplete understanding of Edwards' thinking. From another Forge essay (emphasis added):




In historical context, I read that rather differently.

All due respect, I think Edwards had a major problem.  His fundamental thesis, that players really focus on a single primary aspect, was wrong, at least for a large chunk of players.  The "torment" arose not from people misunderstanding his theory, but from his simply not understanding players as well as he thought.  As time progressed, he backpedaled from the clear initial statement I presented, to the softer statement you referenced. 

It is no surprise that the model was flawed - it was a theoretical construction, without empirical underpinnings or support.


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## 1Mac (Jan 17, 2012)

Umbran said:


> All due respect, I think Edwards had a major problem.  His fundamental thesis, that players really focus on a single primary aspect, was wrong, at least for a large chunk of players.  The "torment" arose not from people misunderstanding his theory, but from his simply not understanding players as well as he thought.  As time progressed, he backpedaled from the clear initial statement I presented, to the softer statement you referenced.



That may well have happened. At least, it's impossible to contradict. But if he did backpedal, I find his "backpedaled" thesis more interesting that his original idea. That is, I find GNS theory more interesting and insightful when applied to individual gaming decisions, rather than entire games.

Whether Edwards always had it in mind to apply GNS to such micro-decisions, or he originally applied it to macro-games and started blowing smoke while refining the original theory; in either case, GNS theory _as it currently stands_ applies to smaller gaming decisions, not full games.


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## Umbran (Jan 17, 2012)

1Mac said:


> That may well have happened. At least, it's impossible to contradict.




And I admit it is speculation.



> But if he did backpedal, I find his "backpedaled" thesis more interesting that his original idea. That is, I find GNS theory more interesting and insightful when applied to individual gaming decisions, rather than entire games.




I find that taking it that way makes it much more academic than useful.  Individual decisions are so mired in their own context of the moment that the agenda of the maker is only part of the story.  It seems to me that the signal to noise ratio on individual decisions is pretty low.



> Whether Edwards always had it in mind to apply GNS to such micro-decisions, or he originally applied it to macro-games and started blowing smoke while refining the original theory; in either case, GNS theory _as it currently stands_ applies to smaller gaming decisions, not full games.




It seems to me that GNS effectively has a few versions - editions, if you will.


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## Greg K (Jan 17, 2012)

Could someone XP Umbran for post 42? I am unable to XP him until I spread out the XP.


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## innerdude (Jan 17, 2012)

Don't have time to make a huge response, but I did want to comment that the responses so far have been really interesting to me. 

I will say this: 

If it was in fact what he meant, I think Edwards' idea that "GNS only applies to the individual components, not the whole" is fairly disingenuous (and I'll need to go back and explore it further, and it's possible that's not what he meant at all). 

What's the point of applying the criteria of GNS to individual objects, and not the whole? We don't play "Role Playing Mechanics Decontextualized and Piece Meal," we play "Role Playing _Games_." A game is the _sum _of the experience created by its rules constraints, not the rules themselves. 

Anyway, I'm really interested in seeing what else people think.


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## tomBitonti (Jan 17, 2012)

Anselyn said:


> If you are attached to an absolute measurement scale and used to an economic analysis then I guess you're probably right. But if you just view a differential performance on a relative scale then the the concept is the same and clear.
> I guess that an evolutionary biologist might assert that a successful species drives down the the adversary's performance having won, say, a competition for food.  I think as gamers we should be able to take a rather generic interpretation of the idea of competition.




I think you are thinking of rewards distribution, as a consequence of the outcome of overcoming the adversary.  Wolf eats deer, caveman slogs a second wife, and so on.

But as far as the effect of competition on performance, that trends to increase the performance all around.

One style of "doing better" is to undercut the opponent.  Another style is simply to "do better".

There has to be care in measuring performance.  Say, shooting basketball, scoring a hoop is success: Jumping higher (or faster, or more accurately) is performance.

TomB


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## Crazy Jerome (Jan 17, 2012)

When I use "meaningful choice" it is not restricted to any one aspect of GNS. There are individual cases where it might be by the nature of the case itself, but as long as choice involves a decision point that has more than one reasonable answer, and each answer has consequences, then I consider the choice meaningful. 

An interesting thing that I've noticed the last few months is that the differences that the theory tries to explain (however well or poorly) can also be present in other venues. I've been playing a lot of Agricola (a farm-themed Euro boardgame), and seen outright frustration from my wife and daughter because they want:

1. To be competitive--have a chance to win the score.
2. Get a complete farm, make it look nice--tell the story of the farm through play.
3. "Explore" different ways of putting the farm together--simulate the different farms.

The "problem" in straight Agricola is that pursuing anyone of these goals cuts off avenues to get the other two. I got the "Farmers of the Moor" expansion as a gift recently. If reviews are accurate, it goes a long way towards reconciling this problem by making the actions you take towards one aim the natural actions you could take for the others. Not perfectly, of course, but noticably better than the original.  FotM achieves this, in part, by adding a few elements that help synchronize meaingful choices for all three of those goals.

Of course, a theme board game is a very closed system compared to any RPG, but then it doesn't have the DM to help smooth over rough areas, either.


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## GSHamster (Jan 18, 2012)

Assuming the validity of the GNS stuff, the OP's basic argument is that a game cannot be all things to all people. In that case, it's better to focus on the underserved marked (NS) than the overserved market (G).

I think that's a reasonably valid statement.

However, I wonder how this works with groups of people. Let's say you have group of three friends, one G, one S, and one N. Would a game that attempted to hit all three points be better for that group? Compared to a game that did a better job on 2 points, but a terrible job at 1 point.


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## 1Mac (Jan 18, 2012)

innerdude said:


> What's the point of applying the criteria of GNS to individual objects, and not the whole? We don't play "Role Playing Mechanics Decontextualized and Piece Meal," we play "Role Playing _Games_." A game is the _sum _of the experience created by its rules constraints, not the rules themselves.



Because it doesn't stop there. Once you've identified how a game handles discrete sorts of task, you can build a picture of what the entire game is like, "the sum of the experience created by the rules constraints," as you put it.

Put it this way: If GNS applies only to full games, and not game decisions, then by the theory there are only three sorts of games. That's boring, and not very insightful. But if you look at individual sorts of decisions and see how they combine, then you get a much more colorful picture of what the game is like. That's why I say the revision (if it is a revision) is an improvement.


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## Umbran (Jan 18, 2012)

GSHamster said:


> Assuming the validity of the GNS stuff, the OP's basic argument is that a game cannot be all things to all people.




I've long held that one game (one finite, useable ruleset), cannot be all things to all people.  For any finite set of rules, there will be optimum paths and suboptimum paths, things the system does well, and things the system doesn't do well.  I hold the idea for genre/style, though, not creative agenda.  

GURPS, for example, for all it's claim to being Generic, is good at being gritty, but it isn't too good at doing more cinematic styles well.

It looks like WotC is dodging my skepticism, but staying in one genre family (fantasy), and then making a system that isn't really just one game, but several, depending on what knobs and switches you throw.

I don't know if it can be done, but the concept is novel, to me.




> In that case, it's better to focus on the underserved marked (NS) than the overserved market (G).
> 
> I think that's a reasonably valid statement.




Well, there's an entire indie market that grew up around the Forge discussions, for just that purpose.  Some of those are good games.



1Mac said:


> Put it this way: If GNS applies only to full games, and not game decisions, then by the theory there are only three sorts of games.




Not quite.  What I read in the original GNS was that *good* games are really only one of the three, and games that tried to be multiple things ultimately fail at greatness, because of internal conflicts.

Basically, Edwards seemed to claim that a game that tries to handle all three agendas is the moral equivalent of "Ludwig's House of Brick Oven Sushi" - at conflict with itself over what it was going to accomplish.  

Think of it as if Edwards wanted to be the Freud of RPGs - able to sit a game down, talk to it, and reveal where it's pathologies lie, by revealing its inner conflicts.  Interestingly, Freud's work was similarly not backed by empirical data, and while his work is studied for historical context, his theories are largely discredited now.


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## pemerton (Jan 18, 2012)

Umbran said:


> When writing on GNS, Edwards claimed that a gamer held one of three mutually exclusive aims.



This claim is made about aims in a given episode of play. And the notion of "episode" is deliberately (and perhaps unhelpfully) left vague and open-ended.



Bedrockgames said:


> But edwards says explicitly Umbran's citation that an RPG can't do all three at once.



The essay Umbran cited is an earlier one. His view develops over time. This is a reasonable, indeed typical, thing for any thinker.

Here is another passage from his essay on gamism:

Step On Up is actually quite similar, in social and interactive terms, to Story Now. Gamist and Narrativist play often share the following things: 

*Common use of player Author Stance (Pawn or non-Pawn) to set up the arena for conflict. This isn't an issue of whether Author (or any) Stance is employed at all, but rather when and for what.

*Fortune-in-the-middle during resolution, to whatever degree - the point is that Exploration as such can be deferred, rather than established at every point during play in a linear fashion.

*More generally, Exploration overall is negotiated in a casual fashion through ongoing dialogue, using system for input (which may be constraining), rather than explicitly delivered by system per se.

*Reward systems that reflect player choices (strategy, aesthetics, whatever) rather than on in-game character logic or on conformity to a pre-stated plan of play.​
Which is a really long-winded way of saying that one or the other of the two modes has to be "the point," and they don't share well - but unlike either's relationship with Simulationist play (i.e., a potentially hostile one), Gamist and Narrativist play don't tug-of-war over "doing it right" - they simply avoid one another, like the same-end poles of two magnets. Note, I'm saying play, not players. The activity of play doesn't hybridize well between Gamism and Narrativism, but it does shift, sometimes quite easily.​
He gives Tunnels and Trolls, and Marvel Super Heroes (the 80s version) as two examples of games which support both gamism and narrativism with minimal drift. I personally would add D&D 4e to that list.

The list of four dot points is quite important here. It identifies those features of a mechanical system that both (i) signal its departure from simulationist priorities, and (ii) enable metagame input - whether gamist/strategy or narrativist/aesthetics - in the course of play. So he is not, here, departing from the claim that System Matters. He's elaborating on it, in the light of reflection on gaming texts, the play experiences they claim to deliver, and the play experiences that actual play shows them to have delivered.

The passage I've quoted also reinforces the point that the GNS division is about episodes of play, not players. In my own experience, the observation that with the right system in place, and the right group, play can shift quite easily from narrativism to gamism, or vice versa, is true.



Umbran said:


> Needless to say, I think Edwards was incorrect.  I think WotC's market research in 1999 rather blows that part of GNS out of the water.



I personally think that this is an open question, but incline to the opposite view from yours.

Edwards' sociology follows a roughly Weberian approach - posit ideal types, and use them as interpretive aids in trying to understand a range of closely described social situations. (Hence Edwards' emphasis on rich accounts of actual play.)

The WotC approach is (fairly obviously) more in keeping with contemporary methods of market research.

For a range of reasons, most of which probably can't be stated without violating the "no politics" rule, I think the current state of political discourse in English-speaking countries, and the degree of sociological (mis-)understanding that lies behind it, gives us at least some reason to think that the contemporary method is not all that it is cracked up to be, and that Weber might have been on to something.

(Or, for a different treatment of what I nevertheless see as a similar point - about aesthetic and literary understanding - see Hely's "How I Became a Famous Novelist".)

I don't expect any of the above to persuade you. I'm just trying to give a brief explanation of how reasonably intelligent people might prefer Edwards' analysis to a market research style of analysis.

I'll finish with a further hypothesis of my own: I think the biggest reason for hostility to Edwards' analysis is that he treats White Wolf and 2nd ed AD&D-style play - "storytelling" play - as a version of simulationism that misdescribes itself. 

High concept simulationism is the "official" term for this sort of play, in which theme and plot are pregiven (generally by the GM or the module author), and the players then taking their PCs through that plot, contributing a bit of characterisation and other colour but not fundamentally shaping the story. It should be noted that Edwards is not per se hostile to this sort of play (and nor am I): as he says, Call of Cthulhu is the poster child for this sort of game, and (at least in my experience) a well-GMed CoC game is hard to beat.

Now for some players, there is already trouble at this point - because, for them, high concept play is seen as radically different from mechanics-heavy play of the RQ/RM variety - and so they balk at it being put in the same category as purist-for-system simulationism.

But that is an issue mostly just of terminology. Where the _real_ trouble starts, I think, is with the "storytelling" idea - what Edwards' diagnoses as the self-misdescription of certain essentially high concept simulationist games. A misdescription, because in fact it is crucial to these games (as presented, at least) that the GM have control of the story, and that the players' contributions be colour only. (Of D&D modules, I would put a number of Planescape modules in this category - especially Dead Gods and Expedition to the Demonweb Pits - and also a number of 2nd ed Ravenloft modules.) These games therefore tend to produce illusionism (ie the GM controls things from behind the screen, while creating the illusion of player choice mattering to the story).

Now, for many players it seems that this sort of play is highly enjoyable. It is very common for illusionism of various sorts to be defended on these boards, for example, or even put forward as an inevitable feature of all RPGing. But, although Edwards' states that his essays are meant to be neutral as to playstyles, and although there is nothing in his definitions of high concept simulationism and illusionism that is inherently pejorative, it is obvious (I think) that he regards illusionist play as tending very strongly towards dysfunctionality (and Edwards elaborated his views on this in the notorious "brain damage" episode.)

I personally share Edwards' view that illusionism, or the railroading that it can tend to collapse into, is one of the least enjoyable ways of playing an RPG. And I think part of my liking for his analysis is that it interprets for me, in a way that the WotC market research utterly fails to do, _why_ I dislike that 2nd-ed style of play so much, and has also helped me become much more self-conscious about my approach to GMing, and the sorts of techniques (mechanical and otherwise) that will and won't help my game.

But for those players who like illusionist, "storytelling", "adventure path" type play, then an analysis and interpretation founded on the rejection of such playstyles is probably always going to fail to move them. Just as, presumably, those who would deny that modernity is in any interesting and important way different from premodernity, or that those differences are just a sign of moral failure, would find little of value in Weber.

My own view is that value-free sociology is not possible, and hence that these sorts of disagreements over interpretation, and the viability and suitability of interpretive frameworks, are inevitable. Obviously others may have, and probably do have, different views.

EDITED TO ADD:


Umbran said:


> It is no surprise that the model was flawed - it was a theoretical construction, without empirical underpinnings or support.



This is not true - or, at least, not true for certain values of "empirical".

The construction is based on extensive actual play experience, plus extensive close engagement with others' episodes of actual play, plus extensive close reading of RPG game texts.

This is not the method of natural science. It is the method of a certain part of the social "sciences" and the literary disciplines. While issues of methodology in the humanities are, of course, vexed, for quantity and quality of insight I will put Weber up against contemporary market researchers any day of the week!


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## howandwhy99 (Jan 18, 2012)

I'm not looking to win. I'm not looking to tell a story. I'm not looking to "interact with the game world". Yeah, I think from different perspectives all of those things could be happening during play, but they are more cherry-on-top pleasures for me than why I show up.

What I crave and find certain RPGs can give more than any other form of entertainment is the "eureka moment". It's that moment when your anticipations are gratified, when your long work and labor to comprehend pay off, when you have sudden understanding of a previously incoherent concept and want to run outside naked down the street like Archimedes. (Tip: Don't do this by the way.)

It's quite a simple thing, but it's difficult to pull off without a good game referee. When everything they say is in referential code, not to our real world but to the fantasy one, then the entirety of their script is clues. Piecing the clues together is the game and eureka moments the payoff. These things start small too. For instance, when you go into that dungeon and start counting paces. You come to a 4-way intersection and walk forward 50 paces, then left 50, then left again 50, then left again until you reach...? What? 

The key to a great RPG puzzle game is the players don't tell the DM "Say we're in the same 4-way intersection!" What happens is the ref describes something the players are anticipating, without having been told to do so, and Bang! there's the pay off. Anticipation is built into the world. And, if you have a particularly good and capable referee, those eureka moments pile up and up and up and tie together more and more. But, and this is also key, no player ever reaches an absolute decoding of the fantasy world. Not in part, not in whole. Those overwhelming realizations keep on happening over and over as more pieces fall into place as you simply focus, listen intently, and attempt different actions into what is being shared. There is no end to the magic or the mystery. And that is why a game of D&D or any reality puzzle game designed and run to this end is the greatest game ever created. Well, at least for me.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 18, 2012)

Pemerton, thanks for the thorough post. I can only speak for myself but can positively say my dislike of GNS has nothing to do with the reason you stated. I gamed a lot in the 90s and agree with many of Edward's attacks on the kind of storytelling/railroading 2e and ww advocated. Lots of people who disagree with edward's agree that this was a legitimate issue.


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## Neonchameleon (Jan 18, 2012)

I'm genuinely trying to see how the following isn't a fair and accurate summary of Innerdude's post: 
Gamists are people who have badwrongfun. And they should stop having badwrongfun and become like the people who have fun I like or just go away.  And the same social contract holds at my table as holds everywhere else.​And a quick answer: Pure gamists IME don't tend to play tabletop RPGs - it's board games and computer games.  But pure simulationists also find sims are much more effective on computer.  And pure narrativists have Improv Drama and collaborative writing.  And tabletop RPGs appeal to some gamists (such as Gygax and Arneson) because they are so open ended. 

As for "playing to win", _in character_ you bet I'm playing to win.  Because the wages of failure are _death_ (or worse).  Out of character, it depends.

And "power gaming" is mostly derided because a lot of high crunch RP designers manage to create rules that simultaneously suck and blow.  Take the 3.X druid.  He has two class features in the PHB (wild shape and animal companion) that are _as strong as the_ _entire fighter class even before he starts casting spells_.  Sucks to be the fighter alongside a druid.  But a druid fighting for his life is going to worry about swords and axes first, and the fighter's feelings later.  Which leaves the "power gamers" as the people keeping simulationist game designers honest and pointing out the man behind the curtain.  Of course a lot of people who like simulationism don't like this.


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## Umbran (Jan 18, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I personally think that this is an open question, but incline to the opposite view from yours.
> 
> Edwards' sociology follows a roughly Weberian approach - posit ideal types, and use them as interpretive aids in trying to understand a range of closely described social situations. (Hence Edwards' emphasis on rich accounts of actual play.)
> 
> ...




I'll put it this way: That's what they want you to think. For a variety of reasons, many forces in the world put a lot of energy into making us focus on our differences, rather than on our similarities.  

Now, we've only seen summaries of the WotC research, so you may take it with a grain of salt if you wish, but let me remind folks of what they found:

They did a segmentation study, which means they looked for groupings of preferences among gamers.  And yes, they found them.  They are a bit, even notably, different from the GNS creative agendas, but they seem to be there.

But, another thing they found is that there are a few core likes and desires that are common to most gamers.  Not only common, but in fact more important to the individuals than the things that make them different.  In short, to RPG players, pretending to be an elf is generally more important than being gamist, or narrativist, or part of whatever sub-segment of the gamer population.  

This is part of why, to those who don't play the games, we all look pretty much the same.  The differences between us are smaller than the similarities.

This is why I personally, and in my moderator capacity, find edition warring, what I call "dichotomy warring" (like new school/old school), or any other heated arguments so galling.  They drive wedges between people based on small differences, ignoring what is shared.  

It is like two folks who really love pizza.  They love pizza in general.  But one has a leaning towards anchovies, and the other to pepperoni.  They have a knock-down, drag out fight over the anchovie/pepperoni divide, they refuse to eat with each other, and start labeling restaurants based on how much they cater to one side or another.  And they forget that all those places offer *pizza*, and that with a little forethought, they could manage their preferences - say, by getting a pie that has half pepperoni, half-anchovie, or maybe this week they both have sausage, because the pizza is the central thing they actually like, the toppings are merely accents.

Now, in politics, people drive these wedges and amplify differences and claim that compromise is impossible as power plays.  I don't think that was Edwards - I think he just didn't realize that the commonalities were more important than the differences.  He didn't have the scope of data, or the detached perspective, to see it.

If he did actually soften his position over time, as it seems to me he did, I give him some credit for doing so.  That shows that he was at least revising some in the presence of new information, in the form of people arguing with him.



> EDITED TO ADD:
> This is not true - or, at least, not true for certain values of "empirical".
> 
> The construction is based on extensive actual play experience, plus extensive close engagement with others' episodes of actual play, plus extensive close reading of RPG game texts.




"Extensive" is a vague term.  There are very few, if any, people with sufficiently broad gaming experience to claim to have a representative sample.  I've seen no sign that Edwards' personal experience was so extensive, or that he took any pains to not self-select or remove bias from his observations, such that we can call it anything other than his personal anecdotal experience.  The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".


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## Balesir (Jan 18, 2012)

Umbran said:


> Now, we've only seen summaries of the WotC research, so you may take it with a grain of salt if you wish, but let me remind folks of what they found:
> 
> They did a segmentation study, which means they looked for groupings of preferences among gamers.  And yes, they found them.  They are a bit, even notably, different from the GNS creative agendas, but they seem to be there.
> 
> ...



As long as I have been reading GNS and its incorporating theories, it has never tried to segment or classify *people*; it has been about agendas. Even if a questionnaire were to ask explicitly whether I preferred Gamism, Narrativism or Simulationism (and described each in GNS terms) *I* would answer at least both G and S (and maybe N, too). And my experience is very much that they do not mix. But they do not mix in the same session - or even instant - of play; this has nothing to do with them mixing as likes by the same individual. This, in fact, is the real "take away" I got from GNS. Just because I like roleplaying in one way does not mean I won't _also_ like roleplaying in another way.

GDS, or the "threefold model" (which was not a creation of Edwards, incidentally, but came out of discussions on the rec.games.frp.advocacy boards - in the mid-nineties, if memory serves me well) *did* talk about 'types of player' and 'types of system' - GNS doesn't.

What GNS says about systems is that they will tend to support or not support specific agendas. What it claims about the agendas themselves is that an individual player may well enjoy more than one of them, but any 'instance' of play will prioritise one of them, simply on the basis that you cannot, logically, "prioritise everything" (unless you are a pointy haired boss  ).

I enjoy games/campaigns/sessions focussed primarily on both Sim and Gamist agendas. My experience, however, is that trying to address both in one session tends strongly to end in tears. It is, as you said, similar to food. I like icecream, and I like lamb balti. Experiments at mixing the two in the same mouthful, however, have not ended well...



Umbran said:


> "Extensive" is a vague term.  There are very few, if any, people with sufficiently broad gaming experience to claim to have a representative sample.  I've seen no sign that Edwards' personal experience was so extensive, or that he took any pains to not self-select or remove bias from his observations, such that we can call it anything other than his personal anecdotal experience.  The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".



True, but all data consists of anecdotes, in the end.

Sadly, no-one is likely equipped or funded sufficiently to really collect the data needed for this or any similar study. As [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] says, it is _instances of actual play_ that need to be counted and studied - and nothing so far attempted in the way of "surveys" even approaches that.


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## Umbran (Jan 18, 2012)

Balesir said:


> As long as I have been reading GNS and its incorporating theories, it has never tried to segment or classify *people*; it has been about agendas.




I think that depends upon your interpretation of some of Edwards' wording.  

"Three player aims or outlooks have been suggested, in that a given player approaches a role-playing situation pretty much from one of them, with some, but not much, crossover possible," leaves only a little room for interpretation.  If Edwards had intended to note that a person was likely to change agendas from one situation to another, he could have done so with addition of one word ("...approaches a _particular_ role-playing situation...").  Without that distinction, the implication that it is a general behavior of the individual is pretty strong.

But then, we've already identified that his language use was not actually all that great, so that's not surprising.  That, if nothing else, sometimes leaves me wondering why so many folks like his work - the guy's not a very clear writer, honestly.

And I think there's also an argument that if categorization is not explicit, it is implicit.  There is no such thing as an agenda without a person that has it.  If a good system focuses on one agenda, and that system is played for extended time, or with some preference by a given player, the player probably enjoys that agenda, no?  The whole point of identifying the agendas, and focusing a game on a particular agenda, is to produce a game that will be enjoyed by folks who like that agenda, no?  Or, is there some objective, non-player-preference-focused reason to stick to one agenda of which I'm not aware?




> Even if a questionnaire were to ask explicitly whether I preferred Gamism, Narrativism or Simulationism (and described each in GNS terms) *I* would answer at least both G and S (and maybe N, too).




Yep.  Which is part of why I say that in this, Edwards was wrong, and that the model does not match reality well in this regard.  That is a possibility, you know - that his model isn't very close to reality.

There's a bit of a bugaboo out there about classifying people.  Here's the thing - there's nothing wrong in general with taking a large group of people, and finding clusters of likes or dislikes among them, and then using that information to try to better serve people in one or more of those clusters.  The issues arise when you try to treat individuals as if membership in a group is the most important thing about them.

Statistics about people in aggregate are an information source.  Treating a person as if they are a statistic is stereotyping.



> True, but all data consists of anecdotes, in the end.




As a physicist, I disagree with that statement, but don't feel it'll be valuable to this discussion to go down that rathole at this time.


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## innerdude (Jan 18, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> I'm genuinely trying to see how the following isn't a fair and accurate summary of Innerdude's post:
> 
> Gamists are people who have badwrongfun. And they should stop having badwrongfun and become like the people who have fun I like or just go away.  And the same social contract holds at my table as holds everywhere else.




That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that as a genre, RPGs provide a much more unique venue for Simulationist and Narrativist explorations than they do for Gamism. 

I don't have a problem with Gamists wanting to have fun in their RPGs. I'm more than willing to admit that I derive satisfaction from well-designed character builds, and then seeing the benefits of those designs come to fruition in play. 

However--that sense of "Gamist" satisfaction should be subsumed within the broader goals of Narrativism and Simulationism in RPGs. I said it earlier--even if there's enjoyable Gamism to be had in an RPG, an RPG is an RPG (and not something else) precisely because it _inherently contains "spaces" or "venues" within its accepted play structure and social contract that aren't Gamist_.

I don't think most people sit down to play a pen-and-paper RPG simply because they want the challenge of creating the "awesomest character ever," and then "running around and pwning stuff with it." If that's all a player is _really _after, I'd say to them, "Cool, sounds like a lot of fun!" (and I'd be telling the truth when I said it--in the right context, it's an immense amount of fun). But I'd follow it up by saying, "Why don't you take up that challenge in WoW, or SW:TOR, or Skyrim, or Magic: The Gathering, or any of dozens of other venues that really let you get to the 'meat' of that desire? If that's really all you want, an RPG is kind of roundabout way of getting there." 

Mechanically, Diablo the CRPG and tabletop D&D have many, many similarities. But you're going to have an awfully hard time having the kind of "Eureka Moments" HowandWhy99 describes in his earlier post in Diablo. 

Why? Because at its core, Diablo is Gamist--it's entire function is to create ever-increasing challenges based on the mathematic formulas that determine the player character's capabilities against the "world" that Diablo creates. That's certainly a valid way to play a _game that doesn't functionally present other options for doing so. _

Diablo can't create Narrativist or Simulationist challenges. But RPGs do. 

I'm more than willing to admit that an RPG can "Drift" with Gamist tendencies from Narrativist or Simulationist roots, and that such drift can provide satisfaction for players who like Gamism. But I think RPGs as a genre require more than just Gamism to really work in ways that don't end up being "dysfunctional."  As I stated in my original post, pure Gamism is inherently antithetical to the social contract of RPGs.


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## chaochou (Jan 18, 2012)

innerdude said:


> Anyway, I'm really interested in seeing what else people think.




I read this recently on another forum and it seemed vaguely appropriate:



> To even discuss things like terminology you basically need to accept  certain postmodern tools to even be comprehensible: there is a need to  understand that words by themselves do not have objective definitions,  but rather language is a social construct - words mean what we agree  upon for them to mean. Often this social coordination of communication  becomes an authority struggle: you can show your loyalty to a given  tribe by the way you use words, and you can display your authority by  influencing others to use words your way.
> 
> Furthermore, even if  we're all being egalitarian and objective, with no tribalist bull****  getting in the way, there's still the issue of useful frameworks of  thought: people use words for different purposes, and for this reason  they have different needs for what those words mean. This is easy to see  everywhere around us: words are constantly being repurposed to make  them more useful for different situations. The important lesson here is  that it's wrong to ask what a word "means". The useful question is,  which framework of thought is most useful for my purposes in this  situation, and therefore, what do I want words to mean?
> 
> Basically  all discussions about rpg terminology in the Internet become such  cluster****s because of those issues: on the one hand we have people  fighting to brand "roleplaying" as a term according to their own wishes  on what to include or exclude, and then on the other hand we have  people who actually need to use words to think, and they're obviously  trying to find words for concepts of utility.





And that's just a discussion on what 'roleplaying' means, let alone more precise terminology like 'creative agenda' or specific techniques or elements of design which promote a certain style of play.

By and large, I think an internet discussion on the merits of GNS is going to hit these major roadblocks, and rarely move on. Threads at The Forge only got anywhere because 'objective definitions' were accepted, or enforced by moderation (although detractors might call this a sort of intellectual dishonesty or censorship) and dissent based on a perception of 'tribalism' was also heavily modded (although detractors might say this created, or helped create, its own tribalism).

That's not to say I don't find GNS useful - I've just found over time that I don't find it very useful to talk about. I can look at games in GNS terms and it might help me think about how to run a game or play a game, or analyse why some things went well and others less so. It just doesn't really help communicate, certainly with people I don't know on a forum.

Finally, The Forge, GNS, and its offshoots did actually produce games and I think it's worth trying out things like Sorceror, Dogs, Apocalypse World (or the Dungeon World hack) just to see what happens.

The Forge was originally about supporting small scale publishing and I think it is healthy that there are publishers like Burning Wheel HQ or Vincent Baker trying to innovate and take risks which larger corporations can't, or guys like John Harper giving away stuff like Lady Blackbird and Danger Patrol for free (one.seven design studio).


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## innerdude (Jan 18, 2012)

chaochou said:


> I read this recently on another forum and it seemed vaguely appropriate:
> 
> (snip)
> 
> And that's just a discussion on what 'roleplaying' means, let alone more  precise terminology like 'creative agenda' or specific techniques or  elements of design which promote a certain style of play.




You're absolutely right, chao, and as a guy with an English degree, believe me I recognize the ridiculousness that often arises from the vagueries of semantics. 

But in this context, I think I am trying to push a definition of "roleplaying" a little bit more outside the boundaries of Ron Edwards' view of "Gamism." To me, Gamism in RPGs only works if there's an accepted social contract between the players that there's "something else" there _other than Gamism_. Gamism can co-exist in an RPG with other elements; it can't simply be what the RPG is "about."


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## Crazy Jerome (Jan 18, 2012)

innerdude said:


> That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that as a genre, RPGs provide a much more unique venue for Simulationist and Narrativist explorations than they do for Gamism.




I disagree with this.  If oral story-telling, improvisational acting, free-form pretend, creative writing (and reading of others creative writing) didn't exist, I might agree with it.  But they do.  Different cross-sections of these are to RPGs for simulationist and narrativist tendencies, as various games are to RPGs for gamist tendencies.  If anything, the unique thing about RPGs is the way they can synthesize all three into one activity.

I'll grant that in the Barker or Tolkien sense of "imagining a living world" and then sharing that with other people, RPGs are perhaps a more *accessible* means than what was available before.  People aren't likely to have great fun reading your novel and discussing it, if you only dabble in writing it.  Whereas, you can have fun with board games and the like at whatever effort you choose to put forward.


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## innerdude (Jan 18, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> I disagree with this.  If oral story-telling, improvisational acting, free-form pretend, creative writing (and reading of others creative writing) didn't exist, I might agree with it.  But they do.  Different cross-sections of these are to RPGs for simulationist and narrativist tendencies, as various games are to RPGs for gamist tendencies.  If anything, the unique thing about RPGs is the way they can synthesize all three into one activity.




A reasonable point, but the other activities you mentioned (other than free-form "pretend") don't promote the same levels of interactivity like RPGs do. Or, more appropriately, RPGs create a more _equally shared venue of interactivity _than the others do. 

Now, in some regard, this is where the heart of Gamism comes in--because how do you have a roleplaying "game" without rules? Otherwise it becomes little more than free-form "pretend." 

Gamism, as Ron Edwards seems to define it, is derived from a player's need to engage (and win) in competition through their performance. Thus, "Step On Up!" happens when a challenge is presented within context of a situation and rules constraints. But the rules constraints exist in the first place as a means to create a scale of balance for player social interactivity ("My pretending is just as important as your pretending"). If those rules also provide a secondary function (Gamism), it's still _secondary_ to the original purpose for the rules existing in the first place. And if the players engaging in Gamist play aren't interested in acceding to the existing social premise of an RPG--"We all want to pretend together"--then they're not really playing an RPG at all, but playing a glorified war game, a tactical strategy game, or some other kind of "game" that does not fall under the genre of "roleplaying game." 

Are Gamists doing anything "wrong" if they do this? Nope, not at all. They're having fun. But once again, as I said in my OP: _Pure Gamism, as defined by Ron Edwards, is antithetical to the social contract of roleplaying games._ 

The rules of an RPG exist to _build upon the "pretending." _The social impetus ("I want to pretend I'm an elf today") always precedes and supersedes the need to create rules for it. Rules only exist to structure, balance, and adjudicate what happens within the "free-form pretending." _And it is the act, or impetus to "pretend" that separates RPGs from other Gamist analogs in the first place. 

_You can, if you want, make a "game within the game" that pushes Gamist buttons and twists its dials. But Gamism only exists in RPGs because rules are necessary to transform "free form pretending" into a more egalitarian social experience. 

_The rules don't come first. _A desire to engage in a unique social engagement comes first.


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## Gentlegamer (Jan 18, 2012)

innerdude said:


> Now, in some regard, this is where the heart of Gamism comes in--because how do you have a roleplaying "game" without rules? Otherwise it becomes little more than free-form "pretend."
> 
> _The rules don't come first. _A desire to engage in a unique social engagement comes first.



You role-play to an audience: the Game Master, who is also the rules. Both conditions satisfied.


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## pemerton (Jan 19, 2012)

Umbran, thanks for the thoughtful responses.



Umbran said:


> I'll put it this way: That's what they want you to think. For a variety of reasons, many forces in the world put a lot of energy into making us focus on our differences, rather than on our similarities.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



Compromise in politics is a complex issue. I'm in print arguing that contemporary political philosophy suffers from a lack of a good theory of compromise (and a part of my doctoral work was an attempt to correct that deficiency). But the very same paper argues that, absent a situation of proper compromise, we are in a Hobbesian war of all and against all.

I don't have as well-developed views on the nature of aesthetic distinction and disagreement, but I do have some views. For example, both someone who loves Graham Greene, and someone who loves Stephen King, might describe themselves as "readers of novels". And to someone who is not at all bookishly inclined, the two readers might look pretty similar. And there's no doubt that the two readers have some interests in common (they have an interest in liberal censorship laws, a low price for paper and ink, etc). But put the two of them together in a book club, and  it's likely that hilarity (or conflict) will ensue.

And it needn't be two people with diffreing tastes. It can be one person with a range of tastes. Over the holidays my kids went away for a week and a half with grandparents, so my partner and I got to see three movies: Melancholia, This Skin I Live In (? anyway, the latest Almodovar film) and the new Sherlock Holmes film. Needless to say, if I'm in the mood for Melancholia, and I accidentally find myself watching Sherlock Holmes, or Almodovar for that matter, I'm going to get a shock. To the extent that these films have artistic merit, they are on very different dimensions.

I see GNS as bringing this sort of analysis of differene in aesthetic experience, and the techniques and structures that produce it, to RPGs.



Umbran said:


> The issues arise when you try to treat individuals as if membership in a group is the most important thing about them.
> 
> Statistics about people in aggregate are an information source.  Treating a person as if they are a statistic is stereotyping.



I don't believe that this is what Edwards, The Forge, or GNS analysis does.



Umbran said:


> The whole point of identifying the agendas, and focusing a game on a particular agenda, is to produce a game that will be enjoyed by folks who like that agenda, no?



Yes, but Edwards (and The Forge generally) advocates playing a wide variety of games, to see different techniques in play and enjoy what the different agendas have to offer. The focus is not monistic or homogenising.



Umbran said:


> That, if nothing else, sometimes leaves me wondering why so many folks like his work - the guy's not a very clear writer, honestly.



As above, I can only speak for myself. I like his work because he tries to bring the analytical and interpretive methods with which I am familiar, and which I regard as powerful techniques for making sense of cultural and social phenomena, to bear on one of my favourite passtimes. It's the closest thing to serious criticism that I'm aware of in the domain of RPGs.



Umbran said:


> The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".





Balesir said:


> True, but all data consists of anecdotes, in the end.[/qupte]
> 
> 
> Umbran said:
> ...


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## Anselyn (Jan 19, 2012)

tomBitonti said:


> I think you are thinking of rewards distribution, as a consequence of the outcome of overcoming the adversary.  Wolf eats deer, caveman slogs a second wife, and so on.
> 
> But as far as the effect of competition on performance, that trends to increase the performance all around.
> 
> ...




No. I was thinking more like - grey squirrels eat a wide range of food and breed fast. Red squirrels find their food eaten by an increasing number of adaptable greys and the population decreases. This is two populations in competition - one losing a struggle in absolute terms. The red squirrels have not thrived due to the pressure of the greys. 

Or,

Mode competition at the onset of lasing in a laser. The mode that starts with slightly greater gain increases intensity more quickly,  depletes the inverted carrier population and so increases its intensity and reduces the available carriers  which could partake in stimulated emission and increase the intensity in another mode. Ultimately you get a high side mode suppression ratio in which the initial emission of the side modes has been quenched and one mode dominates as stimulated emission suppresses the initial spontaneous carrier recombination,  

Competition and performance have valid definitions and use outside economics.


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## pemerton (Jan 19, 2012)

innerdude said:


> the rules constraints exist in the first place as a means to create a scale of balance for player social interactivity ("My pretending is just as important as your pretending").



I tend to think this is right - and Vincent Baker pushes this line strongly - but it is certainly controversial on these boards.



innerdude said:


> If those rules also provide a secondary function (Gamism), it's still _secondary_ to the original purpose for the rules existing in the first place. And if the players engaging in Gamist play aren't interested in acceding to the existing social premise of an RPG--"We all want to pretend together"--then they're not really playing an RPG at all, but playing a glorified war game, a tactical strategy game, or some other kind of "game" that does not fall under the genre of "roleplaying game."



But I think this is wrong. Both gamist and narrativist play involve exploration of a shared imaginary space - ie "pretending together" - but unlike simulationist play, exploration is not the main thing. It's a preliminary to something else.

Now you describe that something else as secondary, but what is your basis for that? For example, suppose the rules of the game mean that, (i) if I have narrated that some fictional character is dead, then I also get to narrate that I am looting my body. And suppose the rules of the game also permit me (ii) to narrate that some fictinal character is dead, as a consequence of narrating that I have struck them with a honking big weapon, and (iii) to narrate the spending of my loot so as to increse my ability to buy honking big weapons. We don't need to add very much to (i), (ii) and (iii) to get the basics of Tunnels & Trolls play, or some versions of classic D&D play. I think the incipient gamism is obvious - players can "win" by narrating successful attacks, looting corposes, buying bigger weapons, rinse and repeat. And there is nothing in that gamism that is at odds with playing "let's pretend". It's just pretending to a purpose.

My own view on what distinguishes this gamist RPGing from a wargame or a boardgame is that fictional positioning is central. For example, to be allowed to get to stage (ii) - narrating a strike with my honking big weapon - I am going to first have to establish in the shared imaginary space, that I am nearby my intended target. To do this, I'm going to have to first establish, in the SIS, how I get there. And so on. In classic D&D or T&T play, this is where the dungeon exploration comes in - and fictional positioning is central to it.

Conversely, it is the failure of 4e to adequately articulate how fictional positioning matters in that game's action resolution (although in my view it does matter in all sorts of ways) that leads to 4e being described by many as a mere boardgame or skirmish game.


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## tomBitonti (Jan 19, 2012)

Anselyn said:


> No. I was thinking more like - grey squirrels eat a wide range of food and breed fast. Red squirrels find their food eaten by an increasing number of adaptable greys and the population decreases. This is two populations in competition - one losing a struggle in absolute terms. The red squirrels have not thrived due to the pressure of the greys.
> 
> Or,
> 
> ...




The second case is a technical usage.  I'd rather not attempt to apply it here, as the meaning is a very specific shorthand for an underlying process subject to precise definitions.  I don't that that sense of meaning is applicable in this case.

What matters is the meaning presented by the original text:



> Competition is best understood as a productive add-on to Gamist play. Such play is fundamentally cooperative, but may include competition. That's not a contradiction: I'm using exactly the same logic as might be found at the poker and basketball games. You can't compete, socially, without an agreed-upon venue. If the cooperation's details are acceptable to everyone, then the competition within it can be quite fierce.
> 
> Role-playing texts never get this straight. For them, it's always either competition or cooperation, one-other, push-pull, and often nonsensical. . .
> 
> So what is all this competition business about? It concerns conflict of interest. If person A's performance is only maximized by driving down another's performance, then competition is present. In Gamist play, this is not required - but it is very often part of the picture. Competition gives both Step On Up and Challenge a whole new feel - a bite. . .




In that text, two ideas are brought together: *Competition* and *Performance*, with the statement, very specifically, and very strongly (from the use of *only* in *only maximized*):



> If person A's performance is only maximized by driving down another's performance, then competition is present.




That is to say, the key issue is the stated relationship between competition and performance.  In your first example, which uses the terminology in the sense as fits the original text, can you say that the performance of the red squirrels was definitely worse because of the competitive pressure of the grey squirrels?  I see likely that the red squirrels, within their limited remaining lifetime, might have seen increases in performance.  That the performance was ultimately inadequate for survival doesn't require that it worsened.

TomB


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## Neonchameleon (Jan 19, 2012)

innerdude said:


> That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that as a genre, RPGs provide a much more unique venue for Simulationist and Narrativist explorations than they do for Gamism.




I strongly disagree.  To people who like Step on Up play, RPGs can challenge them in ways no boardgame can.  That's a unique venue.

On the other hand to simulationists, the World of Warcraft is massive and consistent if not coherent.  The World of Eve is ... something that can not be matched on the tabletop and is an incredible thing to explore.  Even at the non-MMO level, the worlds of Mass Effect, the Witcher, Dragon Age, KOTOR, and Skyrim (to name the first few that spring to mind) provide a huge amount to explore - and far more given the time constraints than any DM could handle.

Given that simulationists have better alternatives, why not try to push them out too and leave yourself with just the narrativists? 

Especially as an RPG is an RP*G* - there is nothing inherently simulationist about a Role Playing Game - but the very name itself says that they are (and always have been) gamist.  D&D explicitely grew out of wargaming and as such is one of the most gamist strands of RPG.



> I don't think most people sit down to play a pen-and-paper RPG simply because they want the challenge of creating the "awesomest character ever," and then "running around and pwning stuff with it."




To me that sounds more like narrativist desires.  The gamists I know would most enjoy running around pwning stuff with a 6" knife, a long stick found lying on the ground, 50' of twine, a barrel full of rotten apples, the shards of a broken mirror, and four chickens.  On the other hand, give them the ability to rewite reality with a click of their fingers and they will take it because it's the best tool available.

The power fantasy is IME a narrativist fantasy, not a gamist one.  But when the narrativists demand the power, the gamists will push what can be done with _whatever they are given_ right to the limit.  Exalted is not intended to be a gamist game and it's not one real gamists favour.  But let gamists loose on Exalted without an explicit social contract and things get ... scary.

A note to any offended simulationists or narrativists: I'm no more in favour of kicking you out than I am gamists.  And that's the _point_.



> Diablo can't create Narrativist or Simulationist challenges. But RPGs do.




Never played Diablo.  But Eve creates vast amounts of Simulationist challenges.



> As I stated in my original post, pure Gamism is inherently antithetical to the social contract of RPGs.




And here I'm going to emphatically disagree with you on two points.

1: You seem to assume there is _one_ "social contract of RPGs".  You can play two different RPGs _with the same group of people_ and they will have different social contracts.  PVP in D&D is one thing and would probably get you kicked out of most of my groups unless there'd been a long narrative arc leading into it (paladin vs cleric, each with ideals that demanded something different).  PVP in Paranoia is ... encouraged.  Which just demonstrates that when you talk about "The social contract of RPGs" you are talking about something that does not actually exist.

2: RPGs _evolved from pure gamism._  Especially D&D.  Gygax and Arneson were both very, very, very gamist.  And Arneson got the idea for D&D from Braunstein and _really_ stepping on up with an approach that said "that which isn't banned is allowed".  Tomb of Horrors is about as pure gamism as it gets.  Are you trying to redact it from the hobby?



innerdude said:


> Gamism, as Ron Edwards seems to define it, is derived from a player's need to engage (and win) in competition through their performance.




Who are you competing against?  Competing against each other is a _bad_ thing at the table.  But IME most gamists aren't competing against their fellow players.  They are _competing against the challenges thrown by the gameworld_.



> If those rules also provide a secondary function (Gamism), it's still _secondary_ to the original purpose for the rules existing in the first place.




The original purpose of the rules existing _was for tabletop wargaming_.  This is historical fact.  You seek to throw the entire history of D&D out of the game.



> Are Gamists doing anything "wrong" if they do this? Nope, not at all. They're having fun. But once again, as I said in my OP: _Pure Gamism, as defined by Ron Edwards, is antithetical to the social contract of roleplaying games._




Once again you have invented out of thin air "the social contract of roleplaying games" when there isn't one.  I'll put up with behaviour in Fiasco that I'd potentially end a friendship over in a long running campaign game.



> You can, if you want, make a "game within the game" that pushes Gamist buttons and twists its dials. But Gamism only exists in RPGs because rules are necessary to transform "free form pretending" into a more egalitarian social experience.




Gamism exists in RPGs because humans like challenges.  Gamism exists in D&D _because the historical roots and ongoing patterns of D&D are gamist._  I know you don't like gamism.  In which case I have to ask something: *Why are you posting on a board dedicated to a game that is based on a hacked tabletop wargame centered around Step On Up play simply in order to tell people who like this style that they are having BadWrongFun?*


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## Balesir (Jan 19, 2012)

Umbran said:


> I think that depends upon your interpretation of some of Edwards' wording.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> But then, we've already identified that his language use was not actually all that great, so that's not surprising.  That, if nothing else, sometimes leaves me wondering why so many folks like his work - the guy's not a very clear writer, honestly.



I think of him as a thinker, rather than a writer, honestly. All that I have read of his has been a "work in progress" and development of thoughts and theories arther than a finished view that stands without modification. I therefore look at what he is saying in sum, rather than analysing specific wording of writings that have almost certainly been superceded in his thought anyway.

This (obviously) doesn't make for an easy "textbook" style lesson, but I have found GNS useful enough to me personally to put up with that.



Umbran said:


> And I think there's also an argument that if categorization is not explicit, it is implicit.  There is no such thing as an agenda without a person that has it.  If a good system focuses on one agenda, and that system is played for extended time, or with some preference by a given player, the player probably enjoys that agenda, no?  The whole point of identifying the agendas, and focusing a game on a particular agenda, is to produce a game that will be enjoyed by folks who like that agenda, no?  Or, is there some objective, non-player-preference-focused reason to stick to one agenda of which I'm not aware?



No, the idea is to make games supporting a particular agenda for those who enjoy playing to pursue that agenda - or that is my understanding. Where I think the hangup comes is with the idea that if you like pursuing agenda "A" you will therefore not like pursuing agendas "B" or "C", because you are somehow wedded inexorably to agenda "A". This goes completely against what _I_ understand GNS to be saying. Yes, the agendas "G", "N" and "S" are things you may like or have no attraction towards, but thay are not exclusive and they in no way "define" you as a roleplayer.

I go back to the food analogy, because I think it's a fairly apt one; if I make a dish to serve to friends, I try to make it a tasty dish that they will enjoy. To that end, I might include ingredients I know they like, but I would be foolish to chuck in _every_ ingredient I know they like, because some ingredients just don't go together.

At the same time, I find it fun and useful to taste and try different foods and thus widen my experience and tastes. There are those who say "if it's not roast meat and vegetables I don't like it" - and they may even have tried all other varieties of foodstuff and found they disliked them, but more likely they are just unwilling to accept and try out other foods (perhaps because they might find they actually like them - the horror!).

What GNS did for me, then, was show me that there are more ways to roleplay that what I had 'grown up' assuming was the "right one". That actually trying to find a "one true way" was a chimaera - an illusion and a waste of my time. Better was to accept that there are many ways to roleplay - and try as many as I can to find out which ones I like!



Umbran said:


> Yep.  Which is part of why I say that in this, Edwards was wrong, and that the model does not match reality well in this regard.  That is a possibility, you know - that his model isn't very close to reality.



Yes, it's possible - but I use it for much the same reason I use science: it provides benefit to me in my experience and my experience so far tells me that it has value _for me_.



Umbran said:


> There's a bit of a bugaboo out there about classifying people.  Here's the thing - there's nothing wrong in general with taking a large group of people, and finding clusters of likes or dislikes among them, and then using that information to try to better serve people in one or more of those clusters.  The issues arise when you try to treat individuals as if membership in a group is the most important thing about them.



Some people like ice cream. Some people like lamb balti. Knowing these things about someone may well be helpful if I am asked to recommend a restaurant to them. They may very well like both - in which case I would still recommend that they do not mix ice cream and lamb balti in the same dish.

Classification assumes that individuals placed in one group cannot also belong to others. Individuals that like more than one activity would often be very well advised not to try doing them all at once. Another analogy I have used before: I like cycling (pushbike riding); I also like watching theatre. I have never tried doing both at the same time, and in general I would advise against it. That is not even to say it would not be _*possible*_ to cycle around while watching a play, but there are several good reasons why it might not be as fulfilling an experience as it might be.

Likewise with GNS; I would say it is very likely that an individual will like more than one of the agendas, possibly all three. It is also possible that they might be able, for a while at least, to successfully pursue more than one of them at a time. But I have seen enough problems and issues with doing so that I think, in general, it is a better idea to set out _primarily_ to pursue one of them for a specific game or campaign.

In game design, this translates slightly differently. I think a game system should, all else being equal, try to support one agenda well. If it can support a second as well, all well and good - but if conflicts arise there should still be a "top dog" or the design will end up not supporting any agenda well. If the system makes it clear what agenda it primarily supports, so much the better as this will (a) allow those who don't want to pursue that agenda at this time to pick a different system and (b) let players know what agenda(s) is/are expected of them as they come to the game.



Umbran said:


> As a physicist, I disagree with that statement, but don't feel it'll be valuable to this discussion to go down that rathole at this time.



Despite that I only really meant the comment in a fairly "light" way, and that I agree that it's a very deep rathole, as an engineer I would stand by that statement all the way - in pm, if you really want.



pemerton said:


> I don't think familiarity with Edwards' work breed edition warring. I tend to think that a lack of familiarity with different approaches to play, and a lack of understanding of the range of techniques and systems that support those different approaches, produces edition warring.



This is very much my view, too. Perhaps, more specifically, my view of "Edition Warring" changed markedly due to my understanding of the content of GNS theory. What I now disagree with is the argument that there is one, true way to roleplay and any new system should seek to become closer to it. I also disagree that, for any particular individual, there is one, true system that will meet all their needs and be all they ever need to play. With that view, trying to influence present or future editions to include everything that you like is misguided and, in my view, doomed to painful failure (even if you "succeed").

This informs all my posts on "Editions". I like D&D 4E - I find it does something I like very well. I will support and defend it on that basis.

I personally have no real attraction to 3.x any more - not because it is a "bad" system but becuase what _*I*_ found it did well, 4E does better. But I played 3.x happily in years gone by and if some find what they like supported by it then they should absolutely be free to take advantage of that. I am pleased, also, that Pathfinder exists to support their needs on an ongoing basis; I wish it and them good luck.

I also play other (non-D&D) systems, because 4E does not support all agendas/styles. I think those other systems do what others say they see in 3.5 better than 3.5 - but my "better" may not be their "better", so I'll hold my tongue (aside from possibly mentioning that such other games exist) and let them enjoy what they find there.

In other words, just because _I_ like X, doesn't mean _everybody_ likes X and, even if they do, they might not like it _all the time_, and even if they do _that_, they might have found a better way to do it than I have!


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## pemerton (Jan 19, 2012)

Balesir said:


> I think of him as a thinker, rather than a writer, honestly.



I'd add - my understanding is that he's trained as a biology scholar, not a humanities scholar. Given that the task he's undertaking is an essentially literary one, I tactually hink it's a pretty impressive effort.



Balesir said:


> I also play other (non-D&D) systems, because 4E does not support all agendas/styles. I think those other systems do what others say they see in 3.5 better than 3.5



This is the reason why I personally have little interest in playing 3E.



Neonchameleon said:


> Given that simulationists have better alternatives, why not try to push them out too and leave yourself with just the narrativists?



Ssshhh! You'll blow the cover on my secret ambition!


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## innerdude (Jan 19, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> *Why are you posting on a board dedicated to a game that is based on a hacked tabletop wargame centered around Step On Up play simply in order to tell people who like this style that they are having BadWrongFun?*




Gah, I had a lengthy post all typed up and making final edits, and somehow I closed the window. 

I'll say in short: 

I'm not claiming Gamism is BadWrongFun. Read my OP: _I really, really like Gamism. _

I just find it disingenuous to claim that Gamism can really be "the point" of an RPG. An RPG exists as a way to facilitate a certain kind of shared sociality, and RPG rules exist to ensure that sociality is stable and enjoyable for the participants. 

When I'm talking about "social contract," that's what I'm talking about. You're right, every group's contract will be different. But what I'm saying is that an RPG group's social contract, whatever it is, _must necessarily include the clause, "We're playing a roleplaying game, and not something else." _

This is a binary--no group can both be "Playing a roleplaying game," and "Not playing a roleplaying game" at the same time. And what I'm saying is that regardless of group and RPG system, that agreement stays in effect. That every RPG group's social contract includes the clause, "We're playing a roleplaying game," and thus includes some sense that there is a shared sociality around what they're doing.  

And an RPG's rules are ultimately designed to support that sense sociality _first_. If a person decides that "gaming" an RPG's "rules" is fun, and they like the "competition," whether between players, or in the challenges of the GM, that's their prerogative. But the rules don't _fundamentally _exist for that reason. In other words, Gamism is necessarily always a function of "drift." You can "drift" a game towards Gamism--sometimes very effectively--but _PURE_ Gamism (i.e., Gamism unmixed with anything else) fundamentally ignores the aspect of shared "pretending" and sociality. 

And if a game's rules _do _fundamentally exist to provide total Gamist experiences, it's probably not an RPG, but something else. 

And that's totally cool. Just don't conflate the two.

Neonchamelon, you stated that Gamists can get experiences in RPGs that they can't get anywhere else. I agree with you. I just happen to think that the reason that's true is because RPGs provide experiences that are inherently _not Gamist_ that Gamists don't get elsewhere. Gamists don't like RPGs because they're Gamist, they like RPGs because they're RPGs--i.e., they fundamentally contain elements that reach beyond Gamism. And my point is, they have to, to be considered an RPG at all.


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## innerdude (Jan 19, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Ssshhh! You'll blow the cover on my secret ambition!




LOL, truth be told, I'm very much entrenched in the Narrativist camp. I generally prefer my Narrativism to be at least partially grounded in Simulationism, because I feel that exploration of human emotional condition carries more weight when it's more firmly based in reality than otherwise. 

But even then, currently I'm much more attracted to systems like FATE, and The One Ring, with their emphasis on narrative control to create interesting situations, than I am in any iteration of D&D (If I want action-heavy, moderate Simulationism mixed with drifted Gamism, Savage Worlds is much, much easier to use to scratch that itch).


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## Crazy Jerome (Jan 19, 2012)

innerdude said:


> And an RPG's rules are ultimately designed to support that sense sociality _first_. If a person decides that "gaming" an RPG's "rules" is fun, and they like the "competition," whether between players, or in the challenges of the GM, that's their prerogative. But the rules don't _fundamentally _exist for that reason. In other words, Gamism is necessarily always a function of "drift." You can "drift" a game towards Gamism--sometimes very effectively--but _PURE_ Gamism (i.e., Gamism unmixed with anything else) fundamentally ignores the aspect of shared "pretending" and sociality.




My disagreement here is that to the extent that the above quote is correct, you can substitute "simulationism" or "narrativism" (or probably any number of things, such as "drama") into the place of gamism, and it will still be equally true.  You seem to be suggesting, if I read you correctly, that there is something *inherently* simulationist or narrativist about a group making a social contract to pretend.  This I reject as thus far unshown by this discussion. It seems to be the premise rather than the conclusion of the arguments thus far.

I'll even go so far as to say that it is entirely possible to have a social contract to pretend without any of the GNS elements present.  One easy way is to drop any pretense of story.  "Hey, I'm being an elf.  Isn't that neat?"  "Oh yeah, can I be a gnome?"  "Sure."  "What are we doing?"  "Oh, just hanging around being and elf and a gnome."  "Cool."  My early frustrated storyteller remembers scenes like this when I was around six.  The "icky girls" always seemed to want to play this way, for some reason.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jan 19, 2012)

As far as I'm concerned, the primary usefulness of the whole GNS discussion is as an ongoing thought experiment. To the credit of the Forge folks, I think they take that attitude on their better days. People sometimes want to see the stuff as insightful theories or even settled boundaries. 

However, its useful purpose seems to be to churn up your mind, and thus cause you to think about the relationships of players to characters to rules to system to social contract. Then put it aside and go make a game, play it, examine the play, tweak it, and so forth. It doesn't so much provide answers as it does provoke useful questions.


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## pemerton (Jan 19, 2012)

innerdude said:


> An RPG exists as a way to facilitate a certain kind of shared sociality, and RPG rules exist to ensure that sociality is stable and enjoyable for the participants.



But this is equally true of parlour games and light card games, which nevertheless are played to win and lose.


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## LostSoul (Jan 19, 2012)

innerdude said:


> And an RPG's rules are ultimately designed to support that sense sociality _first_. If a person decides that "gaming" an RPG's "rules" is fun, and they like the "competition," whether between players, or in the challenges of the GM, that's their prerogative. But the rules don't _fundamentally _exist for that reason. In other words, Gamism is necessarily always a function of "drift."




Gamism or Step on Up is the fundamental reason all the rules in my 4E hack exist - and that goes for the setting, how authority is distributed, and _why the players assume roles_ (ie. "role play").


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## Rogue Agent (Jan 20, 2012)

innerdude said:


> That said, I found that I  actually agreed with most of his explication of Gamist/Narrativist/Simulationist  theory, and the theory's general taxonomy.




First: 

GNS was originally based on the Threefold Model developed on rec.games.frp.advocacy back in the late '90s. The Threefold was very specifically aimed at describing what motivated GMs to make specific decisions: Does this simulate the game world (simulationist)? Does this make for a good story (dramatist)? Does this make for a good challenge (gamist)? The theory applied to people insofar as GMs and players would generally have preferences for the types of decisions they would like to be made.

I once read a pretty good summary of what Edwards did in developing the GNS. I can't find it at the moment, so I'm going to re-summarize it: Basically, Edwards had a real passion for a narrow slice of Dramatism. He defined that narrow slice as Narrativism. This left him with a bunch of dramatist play-styles that no longer fit in Narrativism, so he basically shoved most of those into Simulationism (which he didn't appreciate or understand very well).

This, of course, is a complete mess. It works fine if your Gamist or if you fall into the narrow slice of dramatist that Edwards defined as Narrativism. But the Simulationist wing of the model was a complete mess. You can see this very clearly in later discussions at the Forge where adherents of the GNS keep describing Simulationism as incoherent (or struggling to find coherent in it): It was incoherent because Edwards had made it that way.



> Board games are one type of social experience, and RPGs are another, but  to a Gamist, the ultimate purpose of them is the same--to "win" the  "game."




Second:

While same gamists may want to "win the game", they're just a narrow (arguably dysfunctional*) wing of gamism. In similar fashion, there's a narrow wing of dramatists who want to "tell my story" (and will sit there lecturing their players through cut-scenes) and a narrow wing of simulationists who will spend 2 hours resolving 10 seconds of action using a dozen minutely detailed tables.

(* Although there's really no reason why you couldn't design an RPG to  accommodate them. Arguably _Descent_ is that game.)

None of these narrow wings actually tell us much about the bulk of players pursuing that agenda. Most gamists are actually just interested in facing and overcoming challenges (often using creative tactics both in-game and metagame). And that's been pretty much a core property of RPGs since Day 1.

I would, personally, argue that a central flaw in both the Threefold and GNS is that you can't satisfy multiple stances at once. (People may have blurred values, but the Threefold argues that any decision has to be purely one or the other; and the GNS holds that rules have to purely pursue one agenda or they lead to brain damage.) Whereas, in practice, this is usually quite trivial if you're not dealing with radicalized purists: You can have the goblin cave with a sufficiently plausible ecology and behavior pattern to satisfy the guy who wants the game world to feel real; which is also a solid challenge to satisfy the guy who wants to overcome such things; which is also rife with inter-tribal political agendas that satisfy the guy who wants a story-riich environment.

And, even moreso, the desires of the agendas actually overlap quite a bit: Challenge is the stuff of powerful stories; stories are only effective if you can believe in them; and so forth.



> Does this mean that Gamists can't, or shouldn't be accommodated at all?  No, but it does mean that the primary focus of RPGs should never  primarily be the "G."




*tl;dr One of the central principles of both the Threefold and GNS is that different gamers have different opinions about what's important. Congratulations, you have an opinion different from gamists. So what?*


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## Neonchameleon (Jan 20, 2012)

innerdude said:


> Neonchamelon, you stated that Gamists can get experiences in RPGs that they can't get anywhere else. I agree with you. I just happen to think that the reason that's true is because RPGs provide experiences that are inherently _not Gamist_ that Gamists don't get elsewhere. Gamists don't like RPGs because they're Gamist, they like RPGs because they're RPGs--i.e., they fundamentally contain elements that reach beyond Gamism. And my point is, they have to, to be considered an RPG at all.




OK.  I'm going to try to disprove this one by counter example.

Old School Tomb of Horrors. It is a RPG scenario and something that can only really be run in a RPG.

However it's pure gamism and all about Step On Up.  That stuff about staying in character?  Unnecessary and not used by many groups for that module.  After all, PCs won't survive.  About the story?  The story is barely there.  It's _all_ about Step On Up in an absurd situation.

So you can have an RPG without many narrativist trappings.  Tomb of Horrors demonstrates how.

On the other hand an RPG is an RP_G_.  The game is part of the name.  And you can only get rid of the game by getting rid of the rules (not that there's anything wrong with freeform).

I'd therefore argue that Narrativists like RPGs because they are Gamist - i.e. they provide an arena for conflict and a mechanism for conflict resolution.  And this is more fundamental than Gamists liking RPGs because they are Narrativist.


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## tomBitonti (Jan 20, 2012)

pemerton said:


> But this is equally true of parlour games and light card games, which nevertheless are played to win and lose.




Although, often folks play such games to have a fun evening with friends, and the "winning" aspect, while present, is an occasional benefit, not something that all around are trying especially hard to do.

For truly serious competition, there is a whole higher tier of effort, and of meta-play (think about serious poker, or of pool sharks).

Players play to win, yes, and to have fun, too, and trying too hard to win can take away a lot of the fun.

TomB


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## Gentlegamer (Jan 20, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> OK.  I'm going to try to disprove this one by counter example.



May I provide another? 

The Giant's Bag - An Account of a "Wilderness Adventure" in Fantasy Wargaming (played by Ernie and Gary Gygax, refereed by Rob Kuntz)

That is an experience no other medium than a role-playing game can deliver, including board games, card games, miniatures games, or video games. The participants in that scenario are all very classical 'gamists' whose 'in character' motivation is nothing other than simple treasure hunting.


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## innerdude (Jan 20, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> OK.  I'm going to try to disprove this one by counter example.
> 
> Old School Tomb of Horrors. It is a RPG scenario and something that can only really be run in a RPG.
> 
> ...




I disagree that you can have an "RPG" without Narrativist trappings. An RPG without any sense of narrative essentially negates the purpose of having a GM at all. You're treating a mechanically derived situation as nothing more than a "challenge" to be overcome, and the GM is just AI at that point, and nothing more. 

If your definition of "RPG" includes that playstyle, that's fine, but more and more I'm of the belief that the style of play you describe needs its own descriptor. It's not precisely "roleplaying," but something else. Yes, it uses the mechanics of an RPG to create what happens, but the results of that play style are far more peripheral, or contiguous to that of a board game; it's exploration of "challenge" and "wit" to gain prestige with peers. 

I also remain thoroughly unconvinced that the format of an RPG provides better Gamist experiences for Gamists than something else. What is it about the structure and sociality of "Playing an RPG" that makes Gamism "better" than doing it in another venue?


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## Neonchameleon (Jan 20, 2012)

innerdude said:


> I disagree that you can have an "RPG" without Narrativist trappings. An RPG without any sense of narrative essentially negates the purpose of having a GM at all. You're treating a mechanically derived situation as nothing more than a "challenge" to be overcome, and the GM is just AI at that point, and nothing more.




And that's what _Tomb of Horrors_ for all practical purposes is.  Except that a DM is far more flexible and responsive than any AI anyone has ever come up with.  And can take ideas and run with them.



> If your definition of "RPG" includes that playstyle, that's fine, but more and more I'm of the belief that the style of play you describe needs its own descriptor.




Why?  _Dungeons and Dragons_ got there first.  Tomb of Horrors was published in *1975*.  D&D _developed out of tabletop skirmish games_.  If you don't like that people stay close to the roots of D&D, fine.  But given that this has been part of the RPG hobby for _more than 35 years_, who the hell are you to try to enforce another name on this group and kick them out of the RPG hobby?

If you want to call what you do "non-gamist roleplaying" then fine.  But if you don't like D&D having prior claim, then you are the one who needs to change.



> I also remain thoroughly unconvinced that the format of an RPG provides better Gamist experiences for Gamists than something else. What is it about the structure and sociality of "Playing an RPG" that makes Gamism "better" than doing it in another venue?




Flexibility.  In a tabletop RPG you can literally try anything you can think of and are (a) bound only by your imagination and the physics of the world and (b) not pulling the results out of your ass.  You need someone with the flexibility of a good DM to cope with genuinely innovative plans that undercut the assumptions of the game.  And teamwork.  Firing ideas off each other.  Always good.

To take one famous scene, there is no boardgame or computer game in existance that will allow you to make a plan involving using a wheelbarrow and a storm cloak to pretend to be the Dread Pirate Roberts _unless it has been set up to let you pretend to be the Dread Pirate Roberts using a wheelbarrow and a storm cloak_.  D&D or other tabletop roleplaying game?  Not a problem.


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## SSquirrel (Jan 20, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> Who are you competing against?  Competing against each other is a _bad_ thing at the table.  But IME most gamists aren't competing against their fellow players.  They are _competing against the challenges thrown by the gameworld_.




You just called a large chunk of the action that happened in many World of Darkness games I played in badwrongfun.  Not to mention my friends who played Amber always seemed to be against each other.  I never played that one tho.



Neonchameleon said:


> *Why are you posting on a board dedicated to a game that is based on a hacked tabletop wargame centered around Step On Up play simply in order to tell people who like this style that they are having BadWrongFun?*




Why are you calling RPGs with a competitive aspect badwrongfun?

This whole thread is just one big example of why I think GNS theory is useless.  It has never impressed me or made me think anything about any of the games I play.  Trying to pigeonhole everything just makes me less interested, unlike I think it was Pemerton, who loves diving into the analysis.  

Oh and before I get asked why I'm reading a GNS thread if I hate GNS Theory, I was curious what the elephant in the room was and now, like a train wreck, I can't look away.


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## BryonD (Jan 20, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> OK.  I'm going to try to disprove this one by counter example.
> 
> Old School Tomb of Horrors. It is a RPG scenario and something that can only really be run in a RPG.
> 
> ...



But you have not demonstrated it at all.  
Yes, you could run Tomb of Horrors in exactly that matter with every bit of the narrativist elements removed.
But what you would be left with would truly be a "GAME".

I could run Descent or play WoW and in every way produce exactly the same experiences you have described.  But they don't provide the same experience as a RPG does when *I* play it.

Oh, and for the record, Panda Bears have BEAR right there in the name.

And hitting a little closer to home.  WoW is an MMORPG.  So I guess if that standard works then it isn't that you are claiming that removing narrative elements detracts from the game so much as, perhaps, that ADDING them doesn't bring anything.  Which may be your view.  But if it is then you are missing out on what a lot of us REALLY enjoy.  Now it may be that you are part of the great majority of society and simply don't enjoy that.  No complaint there.  But if that is the case, I don't see any reason to consider you comments as a meaningful contribution to a conversation aimed at people who do.


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## Neonchameleon (Jan 20, 2012)

SSquirrel said:


> You just called a large chunk of the action that happened in many World of Darkness games I played in badwrongfun.  Not to mention my friends who played Amber always seemed to be against each other.  I never played that one tho.




Mea culpa.  I thought I earlier brought up the example of Paranoia which is pretty much pure PVP - I'd in no way call consensual competative play badwrongfun.  I would however call making other people _irrelevant_ bad.



BryonD said:


> But you have not demonstrated it at all.
> Yes, you could run Tomb of Horrors in exactly that matter with every bit of the narrativist elements removed.
> But what you would be left with would truly be a "GAME".




Most of them are removable.  To remove an equivalent number of gamist elements from a game you'd have to throw the dice and resolution mechanics out of a game.  This is because Tomb is at the end of the scale.



> So I guess if that standard works then it isn't that you are claiming that removing narrative elements detracts from the game so much as, perhaps, that ADDING them doesn't bring anything.  Which may be your view.  But if it is then you are missing out on what a lot of us REALLY enjoy.




And you've missed what I am arguing entirely.  I'm not a pure gamist.  I'm arguing against Innerdude's attempt to round up the gamists and push them all off the boat.  As I would equally fiercely any attempt to say that D&D was just a game and the narrativists should go away.  Or the simulationists.  I believe that his attempts here are worse than opening another edition war (as if with 5e we needed to) and are based on flawed notions of what D&D is and how deeply the gamist side is entwined in the whole.  If he'd been arguing to throw the narrativists off the boat I'd have taken Arneson and Braunstein as step-on-up play at its finest and said you couldn't do that without the narrative.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.


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## S'mon (Jan 20, 2012)

In D&D the point is to go up levels and get more powerful by overcoming challenges.  It's a game, at its core.  Running it as a simulation where the player doesn't actually care whether their PC overcomes challenges & levels up is rare, IME.  There are other RPGs where success is not the main object of play, but it's at the heart of D&D.


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## pemerton (Jan 21, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> I once read a pretty good summary of what Edwards did in developing the GNS. I can't find it at the moment, so I'm going to re-summarize it: Basically, Edwards had a real passion for a narrow slice of Dramatism. He defined that narrow slice as Narrativism. This left him with a bunch of dramatist play-styles that no longer fit in Narrativism, so he basically shoved most of those into Simulationism (which he didn't appreciate or understand very well).
> 
> This, of course, is a complete mess.



Other than the fact that I don't agree it's a complete mess, this overlaps quite a bit with my post upthread (#52):



pemerton said:


> I think the biggest reason for hostility to Edwards' analysis is that he treats White Wolf and 2nd ed AD&D-style play - "storytelling" play - as a version of simulationism that misdescribes itself.
> 
> High concept simulationism is the "official" term for this sort of play, in which theme and plot are pregiven (generally by the GM or the module author), and the players then taking their PCs through that plot, contributing a bit of characterisation and other colour but not fundamentally shaping the story. It should be noted that Edwards is not per se hostile to this sort of play (and nor am I): as he says, Call of Cthulhu is the poster child for this sort of game, and (at least in my experience) a well-GMed CoC game is hard to beat.
> 
> ...




But (in my view) it's not as if Edwards has made some sort of simple error here. Rather, it's a point of deep interpretive disagreement. From Edwards' perspective (which, on this point, I share), there is a radical difference between _a GM making a decision because it makes for a good story_ (which is "dramatism") and _the game being designed so as the agency of all participants, channelled in a certain way by the rules, will produce a good story_. The first subordinates the agency of the players to the choices of the GM. The second doesn't. The first has the players exploring the GM's story, not creating their own.

But from the point of view of those who _enjoy_ adventure path play "for the story", or who enjoy illusionist play, but who dislike RQ or RM or similar purist-for-system games, then I'm sure that the "simulationist" classification spanning both approaches to play is unsatisfactory.

That's the nature of interpretation and criticism - it's evaluative, and hence controverisal.

TL;DR: GNS subordinates or marginalises a certain sort of play - which, in D&D terms, I think of as 2nd ed era play. But that's not an oversight. It's a key feature of the system, which was designed to try and understand the balance-of-power issues that some see that style of play as particularly prone to.


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## pemerton (Jan 21, 2012)

tomBitonti said:


> Although, often folks play such games to have a fun evening with friends, and the "winning" aspect, while present, is an occasional benefit, not something that all around are trying especially hard to do.



Sure, but the same can be true of an RPG. How many people play hard core T&T? I mean, Every time you blast a monster with your magic you have to say "Take that, you fiend!"


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## pemerton (Jan 21, 2012)

SSquirrel said:


> You just called a large chunk of the action that happened in many World of Darkness games I played in badwrongfun.  Not to mention my friends who played Amber always seemed to be against each other.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Why are you calling RPGs with a competitive aspect badwrongfun?



I think you've misunderstood Neonchameleon. It's the OP who's saying that competitive RPGing isn't really RPGing.



SSquirrel said:


> This whole thread is just one big example of why I think GNS theory is useless.  It has never impressed me or made me think anything about any of the games I play.  Trying to pigeonhole everything just makes me less interested, unlike I think it was Pemerton, who loves diving into the analysis.



Fair enough. But GNS doesn't have anything bad to say about your friends playing competitive WoD or Amber. The OP was criticising GNS because GNS says that competitive play is one healthy way to play an RPG.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled train wreck!


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## pemerton (Jan 21, 2012)

innerdude said:


> An RPG without any sense of narrative essentially negates the purpose of having a GM at all. You're treating a mechanically derived situation as nothing more than a "challenge" to be overcome, and the GM is just AI at that point, and nothing more.



Two things.

First, early RPGs often call the GM the referee. That's for a reason - the GM was core to action resolution, and the GM was _not_ expected to metagame the action resolution in the interests of "story" (very different from, say, AD&D 2nd ed or classic White Wolf).

Second, gamist play will have a sense of narrative in the sense that events happen in sequence, and a recount of what happened to the PCs is possibe. But the original reason that ToH was written and played wasn't to generate hilarious stories about whole teams of PCs getting swallowed by the green devil. It was to pose a challenge to players (especially arrogant and self-important players). This is spelled out in the intro to the module, and has been discussed at length in Stoat's excellent Tomb of Horrors thread.



S'mon said:


> In D&D the point is to go up levels and get more powerful by overcoming challenges.  It's a game, at its core.  Running it as a simulation where the player doesn't actually care whether their PC overcomes challenges & levels up is rare, IME.  There are other RPGs where success is not the main object of play, but it's at the heart of D&D.



I'd agree that it's probably rare to play D&D in a way that makes levelling irrelevant, but I suspect it's not all that uncommon to play D&D in a way that makes levelling a sort of taken-for-granted backdrop to play, rather than the _point_ of play. I think this is especially true of 4e, and certain variant approaches to XP in 2nd ed AD&D and 3E, where XP are earned essentially for turning up and playing the game, and so no particular effort is required to earn them.


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## BryonD (Jan 21, 2012)

pemerton said:


> First, early RPGs often call the GM the referee. That's for a reason - the GM was core to action resolution, and the GM was _not_ expected to metagame the action resolution in the interests of "story" (very different from, say, AD&D 2nd ed or classic White Wolf).




I think you are spinning a bit there.
I think it is fair to take as fact of record that RPG roots come out of purely "game" based war games.

The evolution of the terms used in the game reflect that heritage far more than any meaningful description of the new hobby that was evolving from that existing hobby.

And no less significant, the hobby itself was very much an evolving thing and still did reflect those wargame roots.  So the idea of what an RPG was or could be was not nearly as explored as it is now.

There is no one right answer here and I can't claim that your statement is patently false.  But you present it as if to claim that it was a conscious choice to proactively cling to gamism and pointedly hold back story telling.  I'd call that far down the list to the point of being a de-minimus issue.


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## Umbran (Jan 21, 2012)

pemerton said:


> But the original reason that ToH was written and played wasn't to generate hilarious stories about whole teams of PCs getting swallowed by the green devil.  It was to pose a challenge to players (especially arrogant and self-important players).




Not *just* challenge them.  But to also teach them a lesson.  Teaching lessons to the arrogant and cocky usually implies a certain amount of mocking when the powers they are arrogant about fail them.

Which is just to show that one adventure *can* server two masters well enough


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## pemerton (Jan 21, 2012)

BryonD said:


> I think you are spinning a bit there.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I can't claim that your statement is patently false.  But you present it as if to claim that it was a conscious choice to proactively cling to gamism and pointedly hold back story telling.



You may be misunderstanding my point. [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] said uthread that, without a simulationist or narrativist purpose in RPGing, the GM's role would be reduced to that of adjudicating action resolution. My point was, that for a certain style of RPG play - Gygaxian gamism (as exemplified by the ToH), Pulsipherian gamism (as articulated in his articles in the early days of White Dwarf), etc - this _was_ a key role of the GM, but that did not make those games any less RPGs. Pulsipher argued _against_ GM adjudication that took into account story considerations, on grounds that it undermined the contribution of player skill to outcomes.

Central to an RPG, as I conceive of it, is that (i) there is a shared imaginay space, and (ii) each of the players' primary source of influence over the SIS is a particular character (or a handful of such characters) in that SIS - the PC. (Even in games where director stance is common and/or central, the PC is typically still an important locus for the exercise of director stance.)

There is nothing about this that makes non-gamist priorities more fundamental than gamist ones. As [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] pointed out upthread, action resolution in a shared imaginary space creates distinctive, arguably unique, possibilities for setting up and taking on challenges.

As for whether calling the GM a referee is a deliberate attempt to preserve or promote gamism, I don't think that, didn't assert it, and didn't intend to imply it. In talking with others about my game I often describe myself as the referee, just because I (and some of my players) first started RPGing when "referee" was standard terminology.


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## SSquirrel (Jan 21, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> Mea culpa.  I thought I earlier brought up  the example of Paranoia which is pretty much pure PVP - I'd in no way  call consensual competative play badwrongfun.  I would however call  making other people _irrelevant_ bad.




No worries.  Just the way that particular statement was phrased made it  sound like any competitive gaming was bad.  I remember the Paranoia, but  I hadn't been paying attention to who had said it, b/c I didn't have  anything to comment about in that specific post    Definitely agree about the irrelevancy, but comments I have pop into  mind about that would fall under edition warring, so I'll keep them to  myself heh.




pemerton said:


> I think you've misunderstood Neonchameleon. It's  the OP who's saying that competitive RPGing isn't really  RPGing.




I think it was a matter of he used an absolute when he didn't really  mean to.  Reading his actual statement, I could only read it the way I  did.  It's fine tho, we're good.  I wasn't responding to the OP in my  post, I was targeting the comments I saw.



pemerton said:


> Fair enough. But GNS doesn't have anything bad  to say about your friends playing competitive WoD or Amber. The OP was  criticising GNS because GNS says that competitive play is one healthy  way to play an RPG.




I never said GNS said anything bad about competitive play.  That was all  related to Neonchameleon's post.  My "this thread is an example" bit  was just that if you bring up GNS Theory, all you get is a long argument  w/no resolution and a bunch of discussion that makes me think we should  all log off and go do something else for awhile.  Which I am right now.   bedtime  

PS Actually, he was saying that saying the Gamism factor is the largest  factor of a RPG is wrong and that doesn't seem crazy to me.  When the  understood definition of gamism is a competition (with a chance of winning) against the game.  His example of pure gamism would have you ignoring the social aspects of the game and group dynamic and basically sounds like someone who would not be a lot of fun to game with.  Pure gamism and not trying to work with your group at all is just someone being an asshat and trying to ruin a roleplaying session 99 times out of 100.  Even people who are playing very confrontational characters who are maybe even trying to kill other party members actively are still playing within certain limits and guidelines the group has.  Hence, not pure gamism.


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## S'mon (Jan 21, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I'd agree that it's probably rare to play D&D in a way that makes levelling irrelevant, but I suspect it's not all that uncommon to play D&D in a way that makes levelling a sort of taken-for-granted backdrop to play, rather than the _point_ of play. I think this is especially true of 4e, and certain variant approaches to XP in 2nd ed AD&D and 3E, where XP are earned essentially for turning up and playing the game, and so no particular effort is required to earn them.




Hm, you have a good point.  Would that be 'drifted' play, then? 

I'm running AD&D currently online twice a week in my city & wilderness based Yggsburgh campaign, and I worry a bit that I'm giving XP for fun roleplaying and shenanigans, rather than just for killing monsters and getting treasure, thus violating the purity of the Gygaxian paradigm. I resolve it a bit by tracking XP session to session, but only 'dropping' XP when there is a concrete achievement such as a defeated monster, pile of loot, or substantive political achievement.

Looking at how I actually award XP, I guess a good deal of it could be described as being for 'story creation' - as it's an open sandbox the players are free to engage with it however they wish; the more entertainingly they do so, the more XP I tend to give. OTOH the old-school players very much want to keep the primary focus on Gamist concerns, defeating challenges, succeeding, and levelling up. It's just that some of those challenges are primarily political and/or romantic rather than physical threat.


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## S'mon (Jan 21, 2012)

pemerton said:


> There is nothing about this that makes non-gamist priorities more fundamental than gamist ones. As [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] pointed out upthread, action resolution in a shared imaginary space creates distinctive, arguably unique, possibilities for setting up and taking on challenges.




I agree strongly, and that's the biggest part of the attraction of RPGs for me. I don't think I'm at all uncommon, either.


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## S'mon (Jan 21, 2012)

SSquirrel said:


> Even people who are playing very confrontational characters who are maybe even trying to kill other party members actively are still playing within certain limits and guidelines the group has.  Hence, not pure gamism.




I don't see why you can't have pure Gamist PvE - players as a cooperative group controlling their PCs, versus the GM-created environment. I'd think that was the normal sort of Gamist play in RPGs.


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## BryonD (Jan 21, 2012)

pemerton said:


> As for whether calling the GM a referee is a deliberate attempt to preserve or promote gamism, I don't think that, didn't assert it, and didn't intend to imply it.



Fair enough.  I'm glad to be corrected.

However, I still read what you wrote and see you drawing a connection between "a reason" the DM is called a referee and expectations about metagaming.  

I can agree with your clarified point of view.  But that statement I quoted remains an example of taking a rather simple point tied to a simple explanation and spinning it as a thought out plan to achieve a particular cause.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jan 21, 2012)

S'mon said:


> Looking at how I actually award XP, I guess a good deal of it could be described as being for 'story creation' - as it's an open sandbox the players are free to engage with it however they wish; the more entertainingly they do so, the more XP I tend to give. OTOH the old-school players very much want to keep the primary focus on Gamist concerns, defeating challenges, succeeding, and levelling up. It's just that some of those challenges are primarily political and/or romantic rather than physical threat.




As far as I'm concerned, if one wants to say that the three GNS entities are the only ones, then gamism is even wider than that. Namely, it even applies when the "step on up" is built around surface and/or metagaming things instead of the direct subject matter of the "story" itself. 

For example, when we play 4E, I award bonus action points for "making people laugh". In this respect, I'm acting as the "referee", as pemetron discussed it. (Also something we have long called the DM in our games--usually Mr. Ref or Ms. Ref.) However, we also have this dynamic embedded in our "system" (in GNS terms, encompassing social contract and any house rules or other ways of doing things). Make someone "roll on the floor or gasp for breath" and you get the award automatically, no matter how trivial the remark or who set it up.   We've done something similar in all our games since the late '80s.

Now, I happen to think there are things "on heaven and earth" in roleplaying that are well outside GNS. So if someone wants to say that is more social gaming, I'm not offended. I'm just working within what GNS says. But certainly, there is something more "gamist" oriented in that activity than Nar or Sim. For one thing, we'd do it anyway without the reward, but the reward does intensify the drive and the one-upmanship.


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## tomBitonti (Jan 21, 2012)

*Re: Tomb of Horrors as Gamist*

Something curious about TOH as an example of gamist type play, the module forces players rather far outside of the usual rules.

Puzzles are often defeated by clever player ingenuity.  Not by clever rules combinations.

Getting through the tomb is assisted tremendously by creative play.  The result is rather immersive, in that players must think in terms of the base physics of the situation.  Players are forced to interact, in detail, with the module defined environment.

Not sure of my point, but I thought it was curious.

TomB


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## Balesir (Jan 21, 2012)

BryonD said:


> I still read what you wrote and see you drawing a connection between "a reason" the DM is called a referee and expectations about metagaming.
> 
> I can agree with your clarified point of view.  But that statement I quoted remains an example of taking a rather simple point tied to a simple explanation and spinning it as a thought out plan to achieve a particular cause.



You are reading the "reason" somewhat backward to the way I had taken it - and this might explain the sinister intent you see.

Instead of "they were calling the GM a referee for the reason that they wanted to promote or encourage gamism", I read it as "what they were engaging in (and assuming as the "natural" way of things) was gamism; for that reason the word 'referee' seemed a natural one to use for the GM".



Crazy Jerome said:


> Now, I happen to think there are things "on heaven and earth" in roleplaying that are well outside GNS. So if someone wants to say that is more social gaming, I'm not offended. I'm just working within what GNS says. But certainly, there is something more "gamist" oriented in that activity than Nar or Sim. For one thing, we'd do it anyway without the reward, but the reward does intensify the drive and the one-upmanship.



One of the most revealing and useful things I have read on The Forge in this respect is the idea that the rewards that really tell you what agenda is being pursued are not those in the game system; they are the rewards of kudos and approbation given and received between the players.

When I want to figure out what agenda is engaging my players, I don't look at the rules or the in-game action - I look at the high fives, the compliments, the laughter, the applause, even. That tells me far more than any game-related factors ever will about what the players are looking for out of the game.


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## Rogue Agent (Jan 22, 2012)

pemerton said:


> But (in my view) it's not as if Edwards has made some sort of simple error here. Rather, it's a point of deep interpretive disagreement. From Edwards' perspective (which, on this point, I share), there is a radical difference between _a GM making a decision because it makes for a good story_ (which is "dramatism") and _the game being designed so as the agency of all participants, channelled in a certain way by the rules, will produce a good story_.




Oh, yes. While there are certain problematical elements of Edwards trying to move the Threefold from decision points to mechanical design (which makes the concept of exclusivity even less applicable in actual practice) while simultaneously cranking up the theory's reliance on exclusivity into a mantra of brain damage, that's not what makes GNS theory an incoherent mess.

What turns GNS into an incoherent mess is when Edwards takes a bunch of dramatist play-styles and shoves them into GNS Simulationism. That turns GNS Simulationism into a complete mess. It's why GNS as a theory fails to find much traction with simulationists. It's also why those discussing GNS find it difficult to discuss GNS Simulationism in a meaningful, coherent, or consistent fashion.



> The first subordinates the agency of the players to the choices of the GM.




This isn't actually true, but this probably isn't the best place to get into it. Short version: It is possible for a traditional GM to make decisions to promote the creation of a good story _without predetermining what the story will be_.


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## Rogue Agent (Jan 22, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> Why?  _Dungeons and Dragons_ got there first.  Tomb of Horrors was published in *1975*.




Quick correction: Published 1978. First run at Origins in 1975.



BryonD said:


> But you have not demonstrated it at all.
> Yes, you could run Tomb of Horrors in exactly that matter with every bit of the narrativist elements removed.




Note that Neonchameleon didn't says "without ANY narrativist trappings", he said "without MANY narrativist trappings".

I think it would be pretty much impossible to run an RPG session that _completely_ eliminated the trappings of one of the three agendas in Threefold and/or GNS theory.


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## pemerton (Jan 22, 2012)

Balesir said:


> One of the most revealing and useful things I have read on The Forge in this respect is the idea that the rewards that really tell you what agenda is being pursued are not those in the game system; they are the rewards of kudos and approbation given and received between the players.



Yes. Given that I run a pretty vanilla narrativist game, these cues are important - it's not as if their are funky narrativist mechanics that my players are using to show what they're interested in.



Crazy Jerome said:


> As far as I'm concerned, if one wants to say that the three GNS entities are the only ones, then gamism is even wider than that. Namely, it even applies when the "step on up" is built around surface and/or metagaming things instead of the direct subject matter of the "story" itself.
> 
> For example, when we play 4E, I award bonus action points for "making people laugh".
> 
> ...



Nice example. And to me, illustrative of the limits of any interpretive theory - it's meant to be an aid to interpretation and understanding, not prescriptive of practice. In this particular example, the line between gamism and narrativism is thin. For example, Edwards characterises The Dying Earth as narrativist, not gamist, but it also is aimed at producing humour (and I imagine this was also true of some T&T play back in the day). One difference between narrativist humour and gamist humour might be that narrativist humour is built out of the situation in a more intimate way than gamist humour (and The Dying Earth certainly aims at this).

But I don't see this as a point against GNS (nor for it), I just see it as an example of how interpretive theories can help frame critical thought and generate critical discussion.



tomBitonti said:


> Not sure of my point, but I thought it was curious.



If I can suggest a point, it's an illustration of how GM-adjudicated play in a shared imaginary space can be a terrific venue for a type of gamist play. Playing ToH is not like playing a board game!


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## S'mon (Jan 22, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> What turns GNS into an incoherent mess is when Edwards takes a bunch of dramatist play-styles and shoves them into GNS Simulationism. That turns GNS Simulationism into a complete mess. It's why GNS as a theory fails to find much traction with simulationists. It's also why those discussing GNS find it difficult to discuss GNS Simulationism in a meaningful, coherent, or consistent fashion..




Yeah, I agree strongly. It's insulting to both Simulationist and Dramatic styles to shove them both into a Sim box, while privileging the narrow Narrativist premise-based sort of Dramatism into one of the Big Three. Conflating Twilight: 2000 and Runequest simulation-games with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a Dramatist game, as all 'sim' is hugely unhelpful and gives me brain-ache, if not brain-damage. The design goals and the play goals are just not the same.  

Hint: If a game has Drama Points or Fate Points, it's not a Simulation game. Just call it a Dramatic (Or even Narrativist)  game. Thank you.


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## Balesir (Jan 22, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> What turns GNS into an incoherent mess is when Edwards takes a bunch of dramatist play-styles and shoves them into GNS Simulationism. That turns GNS Simulationism into a complete mess. It's why GNS as a theory fails to find much traction with simulationists.



That would be the "simulationists" that don't exist in GNS because it's about agendas, not classifications of people?

Is it entirely possible that the "Simulationist" agenda is poorly defined and consists of more than one distinct agenda? Yes, absolutely. But I have yet to see anyone come up with a very clear division or taxonomy - and I'm not convinced it's meaningful or worthwhile. I love playing to a Simulationist agenda at times, but my experience of it is that the exploration that forms its core is too freeform, too variable, to make classification really useful. That does not make it an "inferior" way to play in the slightest - and maybe if we'd all stop being so goddamned touchy all the time a lot of these debates might be a lot more productive.



Rogue Agent said:


> This isn't actually true, but this probably isn't the best place to get into it. Short version: It is possible for a traditional GM to make decisions to promote the creation of a good story _without predetermining what the story will be_.



Sure, it's possible - I've experienced it. But do the players focus no making the story? No - the GM does. That makes it a game focussed on exploration - exploration of the situation the GM creates (and maybe also the world setting and the characters the players are playing, depending on the proclivities of those involved). Focus over all else on exploration is Simulationism as defined in GNS, therefore it is a correct classification as far as it goes - the "cap fits".

Is it different from Simulationist play focussed on other aspects of exploration - pure world exploration, for example? Sure it is - no-one claimed that GNS was a total classification! There are several "flavours" of Gamism and Narrativism, too. What you are saying is like claiming that strawberry ice-cream should not be called "ice-cream" because it's not the same as chocolate ice-cream. Would it be useful to come up with names for the flavours within "ice-cream"? Maybe. Maybe not. Give us an example, if it's important to you. Edit: as a "starter for ten" Edwards already did, FWIW - exploration of setting, of situation and of character.



S'mon said:


> Yeah, I agree strongly. It's insulting to both Simulationist and Dramatic styles to shove them both into a Sim box, while privileging the narrow Narrativist premise-based sort of Dramatism into one of the Big Three. Conflating Twilight: 2000 and Runequest simulation-games with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a Dramatist game, as all 'sim' is hugely unhelpful and gives me brain-ache, if not brain-damage. The design goals and the play goals are just not the same.



I can set out to explore a town I just moved to or I can set out to explore Antarctica - very different goals, but still both are "exploration". In an RPG sense, T:2k, RQ and Buffy are all games about exploration, too. They are also very different games, but so are Sorceror, Burning Wheel and PrimeTime Adventures (all Narrativist in focus). This is not intended to be any sort of "insult" and I'm somewhat mystified as to how it could be perceived as such.

Edit: I'm not that happy with this post, but I don't have time to rewrite it; I hope you'll get the points even though they are not well expressed...


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 22, 2012)

Belasir it sounds like the GNS definition has found a common thread for the convenience of its categories but is totally missing the essence of simulationism. Really it sounds like the forge is just trying to define away anything that intrudes on its theory. It is overly reductionist in this case. RQ and Buffy are setting out to do two entirely different things. You can't just reduce them to Exploration. I also think the term Exploration is being used far too broadly here and artificially bounding two very different ideas unde the same notion.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 22, 2012)

Balesir said:


> I can set out to explore a town I just moved to or I can set out to explore Antarctica - very different goals, but still both are "exploration". In an RPG sense, T:2k, RQ and Buffy are all games about exploration, too. They are also very different games, but so are Sorceror, Burning Wheel and PrimeTime Adventures (all Narrativist in focus). This is not intended to be any sort of "insult" and I'm somewhat mystified as to how it could be perceived as such.
> 
> Edit: I'm not that happy with this post, but I don't have time to rewrite it; I hope you'll get the points even though they are not well expressed...




I think the reason people (particularly those who side with simulation) react negatively is because of the dismissive attitude on the forge to concepts it doesn't like or grasp. You are not being dismissive or insulting. In fact I have found you to be a polite and open-minded poster. But the moment someone shows up on a board and advocates GNS people get defensive for a reason. Just look at Edward's attitude toward immersion. He is entitled to his position, but if someone values immersion and reads Edwards dismissive comments about it, it is natural they will react negatively. I think the same thing is happening with simulationism. Self identified simulationsists reject Edwards definition of the term and say "no, that isn't what we are doing." The GNS response feels like a semantic trick to say "oh, but you are".


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 22, 2012)

Just to add my two cents I think it is practical to distinguish between simulation, which strives for varying degrees of realism (RQ and Harn), and Emulation which strives to capture the feel and "laws" of genres (Buffy and Savage Worlds).


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## S'mon (Jan 22, 2012)

Balesir said:


> Edit: I'm not that happy with this post, but I don't have time to rewrite it; I hope you'll get the points even though they are not well expressed...




I get that you disagree with us.


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## BryonD (Jan 22, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> Note that Neonchameleon didn't says "without ANY narrativist trappings", he said "without MANY narrativist trappings".
> 
> I think it would be pretty much impossible to run an RPG session that _completely_ eliminated the trappings of one of the three agendas in Threefold and/or GNS theory.



Agreed on both points.

I was just extending that to the idea that you could functionally run ToH as a pure board game and zero narrative elements, but a vast selection of rules.  If you really wanted to do that.


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## pemerton (Jan 22, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> Just to add my two cents I think it is practical to distinguish between simulation, which strives for varying degrees of realism (RQ and Harn), and Emulation which strives to capture the feel and "laws" of genres (Buffy and Savage Worlds).



This is, at least roughly, the distinction between purist-for-system simulationism and high concept simulationism.

I think of RM, RQ and Traveller as paradigms of purist-for-system, and CoC as a paragon of the latter.

As I've said upthread, it's no surprise that those who enjoy "storyteller" type systems find the GNS analysis problematic - it's aim is to provide an interpretive account of (what Edwards finds to be) the inadequacies or balance-of-power problems with those games.


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## S'mon (Jan 22, 2012)

pemerton said:


> This is, at least roughly, the distinction between purist-for-system simulationism and high concept simulationism.




Yeah, I meant to say it earlier - that terminology really sucks. 

IMHO YMMV etc.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 23, 2012)

pemerton said:


> .
> 
> As I've said upthread, it's no surprise that those who enjoy "storyteller" type systems find the GNS analysis problematic - it's aim is to provide an interpretive account of (what Edwards finds to be) the inadequacies or balance-of-power problems with those games.




But as I pointed out many of critics of GNS are just as hostile to storyteller systems as Edwards was.


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## BryonD (Jan 23, 2012)

Balesir said:


> You are reading the "reason" somewhat backward to the way I had taken it - and this might explain the sinister intent you see.
> 
> Instead of "they were calling the GM a referee for the reason that they wanted to promote or encourage gamism", I read it as "what they were engaging in (and assuming as the "natural" way of things) was gamism; for that reason the word 'referee' seemed a natural one to use for the GM".



I called it "spin", not "sinister intent".

But anyway, my point is that A and B are unrelated.
I don't really care if you want to say A lead to B or B lead to A.
I still disagree and I think a simple examination makes it apparent that the term had nothing whatsoever to do with thoughts of "gamism" either as a cause or as an effect.


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## Rogue Agent (Jan 23, 2012)

Balesir said:


> Rogue Agent said:
> 
> 
> > It's also why those discussing GNS find it  difficult to discuss GNS Simulationism in a meaningful, coherent, or  consistent fashion.
> ...




Case in point.



> That does not make it an "inferior" way to play in the slightest - and maybe if we'd all stop being so goddamned touchy all the time a lot of these debates might be a lot more productive.



Did somebody say it was an inferior way to play? I must have missed that.



> Sure, it's possible - I've experienced it. But do the players focus no  making the story? No - the GM does. That makes it a game focussed on  exploration - exploration of the situation the GM creates (and maybe  also the world setting and the characters the players are playing,  depending on the proclivities of those involved). Focus over all else on  exploration is Simulationism as defined in GNS, therefore it is a  correct classification as far as it goes - the "cap fits".



Hmm... I think you might want to go back and try re-reading my post and/or the thread. The bit you're quoting there was specifically and explicitly talking about dramatism, not simulationism.

With that being said, it sounds like you're of the school of GNS thought that attempts to make the incoherent GNS Simulationism semi-coherent by defining it as "exploration" (usually by using multiple and mutually contradictory definitions of "exploration" to pull it off). (I believe this originates from a later Edwards essay, but it's been awhile since I really delved into this stuff.)

But, as you've noted, this doesn't actually solve the problem. In fact, it perpetuates it: Not only does GNS Simulationism remain a bizarre amalgamation of Threefold Dramatist and Threefold Simulationist agendas that's "too freeform" and "too variable" to be useful, but you've simultaneously scooped out large chunks of Threefold Simulationism and orphaned them completely.

The result is a theory which is incoherent, confusingly labeled (since simulationism is no longer focused on simulation), and incomplete even within the simple boundaries of what it's trying to discuss.

Ultimately, the only real way to "fix" GNS theory is to go back to the very beginning and fix the initial error of moving dramatist agendas (which are naturally related to other dramatist agendas) into simulationism. The theory would still have some problems, IMO, but it wouldn't be fundamentally flawed from square one.


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## S'mon (Jan 23, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> Ultimately, the only real way to "fix" GNS theory is to go back to the very beginning and fix the initial error of moving dramatist agendas (which are naturally related to other dramatist agendas) into simulationism. The theory would still have some problems, IMO, but it wouldn't be fundamentally flawed from square one.




Yes, I think that's exactly right.

The ironic thing is that when most people who haven't ploughed through a ton of Edwards essays talk about G N & S, they actually use those terms in the earlier threefold model GDS sense - they say Narrativism, but their use of the word is identical to Dramatism.  They thus accidentally recreate a functional model out of the dysfunctional mess of GNS.  

I used to correct them, but now I think they're doing it right.  The GDS split is intuitive and can actually be useful; whereas pushing people to use the correct definitions of a bad model seems like a bad idea.

OTOH, Edwards is a terrible theorist but a fantastic publicist. I doubt I would even have heard of GDS if not for him and his GNS. So maybe he did a good thing, in a strange and indirect way.


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## pemerton (Jan 23, 2012)

S'mon said:


> The ironic thing is that when most people who haven't ploughed through a ton of Edwards essays talk about G N & S, they actually use those terms in the earlier threefold model GDS sense - they say Narrativism, but their use of the word is identical to Dramatism.  They thus accidentally recreate a functional model out of the dysfunctional mess of GNS.



I agree that this happens, but don't agree about the functionality of the resulting model - what it results in is posts where games relying upon heaps of GM force to produce a story _in spite of_ the action resolution mechanics get lumped together with games that try to ensure that the action resolution mechanics themselves will produce a good story without the GM needing to exercise force in the same way.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 23, 2012)

Someone pointed this thread out to me:

Here

I think it may shed some light on resentment by simulationists to GNS.

Also in post number three Ron says he classifies gamers using GNS.


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## S'mon (Jan 23, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I agree that this happens, but don't agree about the functionality of the resulting model - what it results in is posts where games relying upon heaps of GM force to produce a story _in spite of_ the action resolution mechanics get lumped together with games that try to ensure that the action resolution mechanics themselves will produce a good story without the GM needing to exercise force in the same way.




Story-telling railroads vs story-creation games.

I agree those are different.  I tend to think story-telling-railroad* should be its own classification.  However story-creation games can be Edwards-Narrativism, but don't have to be.  They can be other sorts of Dramatist play. Edwards would happily lump in a non-railroaded 'Buffy' game with a pure-railroad game and call both Sim. Then he'd add in Runequest type world-simulation for good measure, and claim the players of all three had the same Creative Agenda: 'exploration'. :\

*And the players who love them.


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## Balesir (Jan 23, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> Belasir it sounds like the GNS definition has found a common thread for the convenience of its categories but is totally missing the essence of simulationism. Really it sounds like the forge is just trying to define away anything that intrudes on its theory. It is overly reductionist in this case. RQ and Buffy are setting out to do two entirely different things. You can't just reduce them to Exploration. I also think the term Exploration is being used far too broadly here and artificially bounding two very different ideas unde the same notion.



Maybe - in which case, as I said before, we need someone to come and tell us what _is_ the "essence of simulationism"? What I see at this point are two cases:

1) A group gather to create a joint story and use mechanics and game procedures (_whether written in the rule book or not_) to prioritise player input to that story from all players (including the GM, if there is one).

2) One person comes up with a situation and plotted "story arc" (by which I mean a set of intentions of the (NPC) protagonists and maybe an expected storyline if things aren't changed) and the players experience it in the alter egos of their characters, possibly pushing buttons and twisting dials in the fiction to see how that alters the 'story'/situation.

These seem to be fundamentally different; to "lump them together" as "Dramatism" seems to miss a critical distinction.

On the other hand, we have:

1) One person comes up with a situation and plotted "story arc" (by which I mean a set of intentions of the (NPC) protagonists and maybe an expected storyline if things aren't changed) and the players experience it in the alter egos of their characters, possibly pushing buttons and twisting dials in the fiction to see how that alters the 'story'/situation.

2) One person creates a game world setting, with NPCs and societies and such like and the players explore that setting using their alter ego 'characters', pushing buttons and twisting dials in that game world to see what effect that has in the game setting.

3) One person sets up a game world setting, with NPCs and so on to interact with, and the player(s) use that world setting as a foil to their character, which they try to "get into the head of" and identify with to the maximum degree, experiencing the game world from that character's point of view.

These three seem to me to have far more in common than the first two, even though they are clearly quite different themselves.



Bedrockgames said:


> Just to add my two cents I think it is practical to distinguish between simulation, which strives for varying degrees of realism (RQ and Harn), and Emulation which strives to capture the feel and "laws" of genres (Buffy and Savage Worlds).



Why? Sure, there is a clear, _prima facie_ difference, but from the point of view of games that are very specifically about "other worlds", why should the one we somewhat thoughtlessly refer to as "real" hold any special position or significance?



Rogue Agent said:


> Did somebody say it was an inferior way to play? I must have missed that.



[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] claimed that Simulationism was _treated as_ an inferior agenda in the post three below yours.



Rogue Agent said:


> With that being said, it sounds like you're of the school of GNS thought that attempts to make the incoherent GNS Simulationism semi-coherent by defining it as "exploration" (usually by using multiple and mutually contradictory definitions of "exploration" to pull it off). (I believe this originates from a later Edwards essay, but it's been awhile since I really delved into this stuff.)



The drive to categorise people sits heavy with you, apparently. If all you are going to try and do is pigeonhole me as a strawman I'm not gonna play.



Rogue Agent said:


> But, as you've noted, this doesn't actually solve the problem. In fact, it perpetuates it: Not only does GNS Simulationism remain a bizarre amalgamation of Threefold Dramatist and Threefold Simulationist agendas that's "too freeform" and "too variable" to be useful, but you've simultaneously scooped out large chunks of Threefold Simulationism and orphaned them completely.



"Threefold Dramatism" is a kludged amalgam already, as I pointed out above. GNS Simulationism can pretty much be described as "exploration" in all its forms - if you have examples that don't fit (these "parts of Threefold Simulationism that were 'orphaned', perhaps?) please explain them.

Exactly what is "explored" is certainly freeform and variable, but does classifying the elements of what is explored either (a) change the basic agenda of "exploration" or (b) consitute a useful exercise, as opposed to artificially limiting what we think of as "viable exploration targets"? I don't think so.



Rogue Agent said:


> The result is a theory which is incoherent, confusingly labeled (since simulationism is no longer focused on simulation), and incomplete even within the simple boundaries of what it's trying to discuss.



Simulation is tied into exploration: if someone is exploring an imagined world, someone else has to "simulate" that imaginary world for them. As Hârn creator Robin Crossby put it "GMs build castles in the sky, and players live in them".



Rogue Agent said:


> Ultimately, the only real way to "fix" GNS theory is to go back to the very beginning and fix the initial error of moving dramatist agendas (which are naturally related to other dramatist agendas) into simulationism. The theory would still have some problems, IMO, but it wouldn't be fundamentally flawed from square one.



No, it would be unrelated to GNS (as it always was - possibly Edwards' greatest mistake was the conflation of terminology) and still kludging together two fundamentally different forms of play:

1) One in which the GM makes in-fiction choices and resolutions in order to make "interesting" dramatic situations for the players to explore, and

2) One in which the group looks for mechanics and procedures that allow all of them collectively to fabricate a story without any preconceived situation or premise.



Bedrockgames said:


> Someone pointed this thread out to me:
> 
> Here
> 
> ...



And in reply 11 he makes it clear that this is discussion to try to uncover theories from a mess of opinions. Two points:

1) Agreeing that GNS is a useful set of classifications for thinking about RPGs and RPG systems is not the same as agreeing with whatever Ron edwards has ever said, and

2) If we start getting possessive and defensive about terms we identify with, or start searching through what other people have ever said to classify them as "bad people", useful discussion soon flies out the window.

I think we're skirting close to that last one already.



S'mon said:


> Story-telling railroads vs story-creation games.
> 
> I agree those are different.  I tend to think story-telling-railroad* should be its own classification.  However story-creation games can be Edwards-Narrativism, but don't have to be.  They can be other sorts of Dramatist play. Edwards would happily lump in a non-railroaded 'Buffy' game with a pure-railroad game and call both Sim. Then he'd add in Runequest type world-simulation for good measure, and claim the players of all three had the same Creative Agenda: 'exploration'. :
> 
> *And the players who love them.



Leaving aside that I think a (non-railroaded) 'Buffy' game could easily pursue a Narrativist agenda, could you explain what a non-railroaded, non-Narrativist game of 'Buffy' could look like?

As an aside, an exploratory game does not have to be "railroaded"; you can change things as you explore them - a fact dramatically demonstrated by European explorers since the 1200's or so. That doesn't stop what you are doing being exploration.

Aside 2: railroads can, in my view, be useful in some situations (and by no means only in "Sim" ones). A game addressing a specific Gamist agenda concerned with encounters only (D&D 4E _could_ - but need not - be played in this way) can use a "railroad" story to tie together and add context/goals to the encounters, for example. By no means to everyone's taste (not to mine, to be honest), but nevertheless a valid use for the "technique".


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 23, 2012)

Belasir, the essence of simulationism is very simple: Striving for realism. It has nothing to do with the type adventure you go on. You can have a story heavy RPG that is simulationist in its physics. People associate it with sandbox but it can support all kinds of play. GNS distorts the normal definition of the term and stretches the definition of exploration to make it a meaningless category. 

In answer to why we need it. I don't need deep simulation in my games. I want a moderate amount of realism. Others want more, yet others want less. Jst because a setting has magic, dragons etc, that doesn't mean it isn't governed by a consistent set of physical laws. If you want people to suspend disbelief, it helps if you keep the mundane elements believable.


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## S'mon (Jan 23, 2012)

I think this parrallel post by Justin Alexander is accurate, and accords with what several of us have been saying:
http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=507977&postcount=7


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## S'mon (Jan 23, 2012)

Balesir said:


> Leaving aside that I think a (non-railroaded) 'Buffy' game could easily pursue a Narrativist agenda, could you explain what a non-railroaded, non-Narrativist game of 'Buffy' could look like?




If Dramatist: Mutual story-creation set in the world of Buffy, possibly emulating aspects of the TV show, that is not based on Premise, Premise being required by Narrativism. The rules-free online 'sim' posting community do or did that kind of thing a lot, for Buffy but especially for Star Trek.

Or 

If Simulationist: A simulation of what it would be like to live in the world of Buffy, whether as a normal human, a Slayer, a Demon, or other. The Runequest/Twilight 2000 approach.

Edit: You could also have a Gamist game set in the Buffyverse. I'd think it would make a pretty good setting for Gamist play. Kill monsters, level up.


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## S'mon (Jan 23, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> Belasir, the essence of simulationism is very simple: Striving for realism.




You can simulate something that is not the real world, of course.

"What would it be like to be a Slayer in the Bufyverse?" is a simulationist approach, as opposed to "Let's create a story like the ones in the Buffy TV show", which is a Dramatist approach.  

In-universe, Slayers die all the time. In the TV show, the protagonists rarely die, at least not permanently.

So, in the former approach, the Simulationist approach, characters do not have script immunity, you don't know whether your Slayer PC is Buffy or Kendra until the dice tell you so. In the Dramatist approach you know your PC is Buffy or the Buffy analogue, and your PC won't die a meaningless death in session 2.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 23, 2012)

Balesir said:


> .
> 
> And in reply 11 he makes it clear that this is discussion to try to uncover theories from a mess of opinions. Two points:
> 
> ...




A) Having a discussion doesn't make him any less resonsible for his statements. He opens by labeling a simulationism an abdication of responsibity and purpose. He describes almost like a moral failing. People will and should react negatively to that.

1) agreed, but GNS is embedded with many of Edward's biases against certain play style, it is a model with an agenda. It is not terribly objective.

3) Useful discussion flies out the window when you use semantics to force a model, when you dismiss people's own stated reasons for gaming, and when you define away whole play styles because they don't fit your model.

I never said Edwards was a bad person. In fact if you go back, you will see that I said he is actually a nice guy when you interact with him on his forum.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 23, 2012)

S'mon said:


> I think this parrallel post by Justin Alexander is accurate, and accords with what several of us have been saying:
> http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=507977&postcount=7




I think he is in the money here.


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## Rogue Agent (Jan 23, 2012)

S'mon said:


> Story-telling railroads vs story-creation games.
> 
> I agree those are different.  I tend to think story-telling-railroad* should be its own classification.




I think that's just repeating Edwards mistake at a slightly smaller scale.

The argument can certainly be made that storytelling railroads are a dysfunctional form of dramatist play. But I don't think that means it's not dramatist play.

In similar fashion, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, you can see arguably dysfunctional gamist play ("I win" munchkinism or killer GMs, for example) and arguably dysfunctional simulationist play (2 hour sessions resolving 10 seconds of game time in minute detail).

While I think there's very valuable discussion to be had in looking at subsets of each agenda, I think the impulse to say "this is slightly different approach to achieving dramatism, so let's push it out of dramatism altogether" is a mistake.



Balesir said:


> "Threefold Dramatism" is a kludged amalgam already, as I pointed out above




You're mistaking technique with agenda and then claiming that the agenda is somehow a "kludge" because it can be pursued with different techniques.

It's like claiming that Discworld isn't fantasy because it's funny. Or that Shakespeare isn't theater because it's written in English.



> > Ultimately,  the only real way to "fix" GNS theory is to go back to the very  beginning and fix the initial error of moving dramatist agendas (which  are naturally related to other dramatist agendas) into simulationism.  The theory would still have some problems, IMO, but it wouldn't be fundamentally flawed from square one.
> 
> 
> 
> No, it would be unrelated to GNS




Fair enough. I guess we'll just have to agree that GNS is too deeply flawed to be fixed.



S'mon said:


> I think this parrallel post by Justin Alexander is  accurate, and accords with what several of us have been saying:
> http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=507977&postcount=7




That's the guy I was thinking of above... but apparently not the post (since this looks like it was just posted).


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## Balesir (Jan 23, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> Belasir, the essence of simulationism is very simple: Striving for realism.



Isn't that "Realism"? I repeat my question from before - why should the "real" world as a model have a special place when discussing imaginary worlds?



Bedrockgames said:


> It has nothing to do with the type adventure you go on. You can have a story heavy RPG that is simulationist in its physics. People associate it with sandbox but it can support all kinds of play. GNS distorts the normal definition of the term and stretches the definition of exploration to make it a meaningless category.



Sure, all of that is an area of concern and discussion - but it's not what I'm talking about when I use GNS concepts to view a situation. You can take the word "Simulation" away from me, if you like - but that doesn't change the concept I'm talking about. I'll just have to come up with a new word for it, and we'll play 'confiscate the word' again. I try to be specific when I'm using the word in a GNS sense for just this reason - others use it in several different ways (case in point: your is quite different to that used in the Threefold, for example).



Bedrockgames said:


> In answer to why we need it. I don't need deep simulation in my games. I want a moderate amount of realism.



Fine - and entirely understandable. But nothing to do with the agenda for concentration and activity that you bring to any particular game, which is what GNS tries to address.



S'mon said:


> I think this parrallel post by Justin Alexander is accurate, and accords with what several of us have been saying:
> http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=507977&postcount=7



Much of that is verbatim what [MENTION=6673496]Rogue Agent[/MENTION] said - looks like maybe Justin Alexander = Rogue Agent?



S'mon said:


> If Dramatist: Mutual story-creation set in the world of Buffy, possibly emulating aspects of the TV show, that is not based on Premise, Premise being required by Narrativism. The rules-free online 'sim' posting community do or did that kind of thing a lot, for Buffy but especially for Star Trek.



OK, so how do the players know what this mutual story should be about? Do they discuss and choose a situation (monster and nefarious deeds for the episode)? Do they have a GM to choose this for them? Do some of them play the "bad guys"?

In short, what is an individual player concentrating on at the point when in-game resolution is happening?



Bedrockgames said:


> A) Having a discussion doesn't make him any less resonsible for his statements. He opens by labeling a simulationism an abdication of responsibity and purpose. He describes almost like a moral failing. People will and should react negatively to that.



Sure, but I'm not here to answer for Ron Edwards' statements or posting history. I am interested in a specific way of looking at the roleplaying experience, and I have my own ideas about it based in part on reading what he (and others) have written about it. Since he was the first person to publish thoughts on taking that view, I think it's reasonable to give his thoughts full consideration as part of that.



Bedrockgames said:


> 1) agreed, but GNS is embedded with many of Edward's biases against certain play style, it is a model with an agenda. It is not terribly objective.



The model is entirely objective; that _Edwards_ may not be (and that _I_ may not be, for that matter) I entirely accept. Conflating the model with its instigator is, as with so many theories and models throughout history, profoundly unhelpful, in my view.

What the model _might_ be is flawed or incomplete. As with any theory or model, the way to address that is for those knowledgeable about the subject to first understand what the model or theory says, and then amend, disprove or add to it as appropriate. So far, what I have seen is a combination of:

- Not understanding the model, so objecting to it on the grounds of what it isn't

- Claiming that it is incomplete, but failing to add to it or even specify what, precisely, it is missing, and

- Claiming that it is wrong, but failing to specify clearly what is invalid without trying to apply the model to things it expressly does not address.

If a constructive addition or alternative were offered, or if an example of an agenda were offered that is not covered by the GNS schema, I would be very glad indeed to hear of it. Like any theory, GNS stands until a better one is found (and the Threefold, while it had its uses, is just different, not a replacement - it does not address agendas for gaming and never did).



Bedrockgames said:


> 3) Useful discussion flies out the window when you use semantics to force a model, when you dismiss people's own stated reasons for gaming, and when you define away whole play styles because they don't fit your model.



What "reasons for gaming" (I'll take this to be equivalent to what I understand by 'agenda' for now, but more definition may be needed to be sure) are dismissed or 'defined away'? In all the discussion so far, I ain't seeing any.


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## Balesir (Jan 23, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> You're mistaking technique with agenda and then claiming that the agenda is somehow a "kludge" because it can be pursued with different techniques.



No, I'm saying that what the player is focussed on creating when a third party is responsible for setting the parameters of the situation/story is different from what they are focussed on adding to the game when the responsibility for generating a story is theirs and that is what they want to do. This is what I mean by the players' "agenda". "I want to take part in a story" is different from "I want to make a story happen". Both are fine objectives for a roleplaying session, but to call them "the same agenda" makes no sense to me.



Rogue Agent said:


> Fair enough. I guess we'll just have to agree that GNS is too deeply flawed to be fixed.



By those lights, the Threefold is, too - are we having fun, yet?

GNS and the Threefold are two different but compatible models. They are not mutually exclusive (or even competitive) - they talk about different things (reasons for in-game resolution decision making vs. the agenda a player at the table has for what they want to spend their energy creating). Both are, in their own sphere, useful but possibly flawed/incomplete theories.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 23, 2012)

Belasir, with all due respect, everyone here has demonstrated they understand GNS in my opinion. If we disagree on details that is fine, but trying to win a debate by accusing the opposition of not understanding GNS is not helpful (and it is an all to common tactic of the GNS crowd). The issue is we disagree with many of it's fundamental assumptons and terms. That does not mean we fail to understand them.


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## Balesir (Jan 23, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> Belasir, with all due respect, everyone here has demonstrated they understand GNS in my opinion. If we disagree on details that is fine, but trying to win a debate by accusing the opposition of not understanding GNS is not helpful (and it is an all to common tactic of the GNS crowd). The issue is we disagree with many of it's fundamental assumptons and terms. That does not mean we fail to understand them.



Sorry, I didn't mean to accuse those in this thread of "not understanding GNS" - I was just saying this is among the cases I find in general; we burrow down to the root of the disagreement, and it turns out to be misunderstanding. This is not specifically aimed at this thread, this forum or even the interwebz - just a general observation.


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## Zelda Themelin (Jan 23, 2012)

I kinda have always wondering what really intrests people in Forge-theories.
I used out of curiosity visit Forge and it reads to me same way as pretensious crap in some new-age/other brainfarty things people make up to trick people to give them money/get followers to tell them how right/smart/cool they are. 

I get someone there really wants to feel "special". 

I don't like their game systems even. I have met in real life some people who like and contribute to that page. I dislike them as people, I hate their gaming-style. 

So some people love word-games and sematics like that. I am not one of those people. I think most stuff that comes from that kinda "social game" ruins good relaxed games.

I am not saying that all people that like to wonder around Forge or think similar ideas would all be first rate -----.  It's just that ones I knew were.


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## S'mon (Jan 23, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> The argument can certainly be made that storytelling railroads are a dysfunctional form of dramatist play. But I don't think that means it's not dramatist play.




You may well be right. It's not a question that has much concerned me.


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## S'mon (Jan 23, 2012)

Balesir said:


> OK, so how do the players know what this mutual story should be about? Do they discuss and choose a situation (monster and nefarious deeds for the episode)? Do they have a GM to choose this for them? Do some of them play the "bad guys"?




I don't understand what the point of these questions is.  Are you disagreeing with something I said?


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## S'mon (Jan 23, 2012)

Balesir said:


> Sorry, I didn't mean to accuse those in this thread of "not understanding GNS" - I was just saying this is among the cases I find in general; we burrow down to the root of the disagreement, and it turns out to be misunderstanding..




Oh, we don't misunderstand at all - _we understand perfectly_. We're just wilfully rejecting the Obvious Truth of GNS, because we're all really Justin Alexander, and we/I have/has a malevolent agenda to stop EN World from understanding and embracing Forge Theory.  Because we/I are/am a Bad Person.


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## Izumi (Jan 23, 2012)

What people want from their rpgs is like an ever-changing and fast-moving river. The GM has to navigate the current in a boat made of stone. Since you can't win, and you're gonna sink anyways, it's best to make the journey really interesting. The game resolution mechanics are gamist because something can be won or lost. The Drama is in there because the tension of losing what you invested of your time is often on the line. Knowing more and interacting in the story increases your chances of not being put into the gamist win/lose. The story itself takes care of itself in most cases when the two above combine. Sit back, play your devices, and watch your players get themselves into trouble.

On a side note, I homebrewed a few combat systems that are cool and very realistic. Efficient and simple they work great in D&D save for one thing...The choice of how much to risk mattered so much in a fight, the players developed fear, and with angst delayed the game with a decision paralysis. Then got upset when their own choice led to death. Goes to show that what works great, doesn't necessarily make for a good time. Same for these theories perhaps.


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## UngainlyTitan (Jan 23, 2012)

This thread is getting the root of some issues that have always buged me about GNS but about your use of "Exploration", cannot every thing about rpg's be reduced to "Exploration".
Is not the addressing of premise in Narrativist play and challange in gamist play also exploration?
I think my issue is that is Gamist, Narrative or Sim are not competing priorities but for many people they want Purist for System mechanics to support what is Gamist play or High Concept Simulation to pursue Narrative play or either to support dramatic/story play. 
In other words it is an interesting theory but does not reflect actual practise.


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## Neonchameleon (Jan 23, 2012)

Balesir said:


> Isn't that "Realism"? I repeat my question from before - why should the "real" world as a model have a special place when discussing imaginary worlds?




Different meanings of realism. Would "striving for consistency" be better? It doesn't matter what rules your imaginary world has. What matters is that it has them and you stick to thme.



> The model is entirely objective;




Really?



> What the model _might_ be is flawed or incomplete. As with any theory or model, the way to address that is for those knowledgeable about the subject to first understand what the model or theory says, and then amend, disprove or add to it as appropriate. So far, what I have seen is a combination of:
> 
> - Not understanding the model, so objecting to it on the grounds of what it isn't
> 
> ...




You've clearly missed the people pointing out that "Simulationism" is an incoherent mess. The people pointing out that contrary to your assertion about Ron Edwards getting there first, GNS is a debased form of GDS - which isn't about gamer type so much as decisions made at the table. And the fact that the only known empirical model we have bears no resemblance to Ron Edwards' hypotheses.


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## Balesir (Jan 23, 2012)

OK - I surrender. I'm out - bye.


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## Umbran (Jan 23, 2012)

Balesir said:


> Ain't no arguin' with blind hate. I'm out - bye.




And there ain't no discussin' when someone is willing to label the others as "blind", so there you go.


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## Rogue Agent (Jan 23, 2012)

Balesir said:


> No, I'm saying that what the player is focussed on creating when a third  party is responsible for setting the parameters of the situation/story  is different from what they are focussed on adding to the game when the  responsibility for generating a story is theirs and that is what they  want to do.




Probably true. But saying that people interested in experiencing stories that have had their parameters set by somebody else constitutes an interest in "simulating" something is patent nonsense.

Trying to use stance, technique, and/or division of authority at the game table to create a dividing line between those who have an interest in "story" and those who have an interest in "simulation" is a really bad idea. Stances and techniques aren't goals; they're tools for achieving goals.

And the reality, of course, is that most stances, techniques, and divisions of authority at the game table can find applications _across different goals_. For example, consider the modern technique of breaking up the authority of the traditional GM and spreading it around the table: Lots of Forge games use that for narrativist goals. But Robin D. Laws' _Rune_ used it for gamist goals. And I've known lots of campaigns in which different players "owned" different parts of the game world, which can make the technique very applicable for simulationist goals.



> By those lights, the Threefold is, too




Like most of what you post here, your conclusion doesn't follow from your premises. The Threefold is very specifically focused on one method of classification. That's why it works.

By those lights, as you say, GNS fails because it isn't focused. It is, instead, a muddled attempt to overload multiple metrics onto a single scale. 

It's like somebody said: "There are these related concepts of 'weight' and 'mass'. But, in practice, they're different. So I'm going to separate the two and say that 'weight' is actually just a kind of frequency. And then I'm going to spend ten years trying to make my concept of 'frequency' coherent despite the fact that I've erroneously included weight in my definition of the term."

It's not the weight and mass are the same thing. It's just that weight isn't a frequency.



S'mon said:


> You may well be right. It's not a question that has much concerned me.




It only interests me insofar as I think correctly identifying that most story-railroaders are primarily interested in story is the quickest way to show them techniques that they can use to pursue their interest in story without using the, IMO, dysfunctional techniques of railroading.

Whereas, OTOH, trying to convince them that their use of a railroading technique means that what they're _really_ interested in simulation doesn't accomplish anything at all: People who are actually interested in simulation aren't going to find anything of interest in the games of the story-railroaders (or vice versa); and the techniques one group uses won't be particularly useful to the other without a lot of modification.

If the group is enjoying itself without reservation and isn't interested in experimentation, of course, this is usually all irrelevant. Tiger Woods might spend a year making micro-adjustments in his swing in order to optimize his game, but most of us are probably perfectly content to just play like Tiger Woods.


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## pemerton (Jan 23, 2012)

S'mon said:


> Story-telling railroads vs story-creation games.
> 
> I agree those are different.  I tend to think story-telling-railroad* should be its own classification.
> 
> *And the players who love them.



I think this is the type of game with which GNS has the most trouble, because GNS is predicated on this being a dysfunctional approach.

To set up an analogy: if an account of literary forms can't really find room for Tom Clancy, is this an idictment of the account, or is it consistent with the fact that Clancy is not really literature (despite being popular)? It's against forum rules to express a view on this (as far as gaming is concerned), but I think that this is one important issue for GNS and the playstyles whose legitimacy it excludes.



Bedrockgames said:


> He opens by labeling a simulationism an abdication of responsibity and purpose. He describes almost like a moral failing. People will and should react negatively to that.



I think this is part and parcel of GNS being an interpretive account of a creative activity. To continue my analogy - should readers of Clancy react negatively to a literary theory that dismisses Clancy? Or should they reevaluate their own tastes in literature? I'm not suggesting one answer or the other is to be preferred, but it is not a sufficient refutation of a critical analysis of literature that it would force the second (reevaluation) alternative.

Similarly, Edwards wants simulationists - particularly a certain sort of storyteller simulationist - to reevaluate their RPGing. He thinks what they're doing is a defective form of the activity. This is what some criticism calls for, and criticism of this sort is not per se flawed. It depends on the arguments presented.



Bedrockgames said:


> Also in post number three Ron says he classifies gamers using GNS.



From that post:

This is not to say a person cannot demonstrate more than one of the priorities. However, in my experience, a person WILL tend to emphasize one of them, or have a favorite among the three. At that point, I say, "You are [fill in]."

. . .

Sure, they might not be constrained to "their" outlook 100% of the time. I am not claiming that sort of rigidity; it's not like having blue eyes or brown eyes. But the actual classification of the behaviors, especially when they are consistent over time for a person, is valid.

Therefore I make no apologies regarding my points in this thread. Obviously those points don't apply to the (hypothetical) individuals who slip and slide among the three priorities like little pixies. My points DO apply to the many people I have known, seen, communicated with, and role-played with.​
So I am a narrativist who can also enjoy light gamism, and modest doses of CoC or RQ/RM simulationinsm. [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] sounds more like a slipping and sliding pixie!



S'mon said:


> However story-creation games can be Edwards-Narrativism, but don't have to be.  They can be other sorts of Dramatist play.



Whereas I tend to agree with Balesir - what would it be but narrativism? There's no doubt that Edwards, in his "official" definitions of narrativist play, states it too narrowly than he actually uses the term.



ardoughter said:


> Is not the addressing of premise in Narrativist play and challange in gamist play also exploration?



Perhaps, for certain senses of "exploration". The contrast, for me, is between "pre-given" vs "determined via play".

In some games, the outcome of challenges is pre-given (eg because the GM will fudge to make sure that the PCs survive a fight). In other games, the outcome of challenges is determined via play, including the decisions of the players.

In some games, the thematic/story content is pre-given (eg classic D&D alignment rules pre-determine what counts as moral or immoral behaviour). In other games, the meaning of thematic content is determined via play, including the decisions of the players.

(Note that "determined via play" here is very different from "improvised by the GM". The key point is that the decisions of the players, as expressed in the actual course of playing the game, make a difference to the outcome.)

These contrasts obviously are not the only way in which the ideas of exploration, pre-given, determined via play, etc can be articulated. But this particular articulation does capture something of great importance to _me_ in RPGing, and The Forge is the first place where I encountered this stuff being set out in some detail, with a degree of sophisticiation and with reference to a wide range of RPG systems. 



ardoughter said:


> for many people they want Purist for System mechanics to support what is Gamist play or High Concept Simulation to pursue Narrative play or either to support dramatic/story play.



I think the distinction, in GNS/big model, between "agendas" and "techniques" is a bit unstable, as your examples show.

Edwards himself notes the drifting of Champions play from purist-for-system goals towards gamist or narrativist goals - but the underlying mechanical chassis remains the same. Burning Wheel is a contemporary game whose underlying mechanics are highly purist-for-system, but which is intended to be played in a more narrativist fashion. It is an interesting illustration of what you need to do to get that sort of outcome: in BW, it is particularly (i) the guidelines to GMs for adjudicating failure (focus on intent rather than task), (ii) the PC advancement mechanics (which give players an incentive to sometimes take on challenges that they can't overcome), and (iii) overlaying a fate point system on top of the personality/disadvantage mechanics.

I've played RM with a drift to narrativism, but not as coherently as BW - a host of table understandings that it's hard for me to fully identify, but the existence of which becomes obvious when I look at the mainstream of RM play on the ICE boards, were central.

And I'm sure there is plenty of drifting of high concept games to narrativist play - personality mechanics, fate point mechanics and the like would again be obvious focal points for this sort of drift.



Neonchameleon said:


> And the fact that the only known empirical model we have bears no resemblance to Ron Edwards' hypotheses.



This was mentioned upthread. As I said earlier, Edwards is not making a hypothesis to be tested via market research. He's putting forward an interpretive theory, to be "tested" by its capacity to deliver insight into human activity and self-understanding. My own view is that this cannot be value-free (because people cannot get the requisite degree of evaluative distance from their own activities). But as I also said, the best interpretive theories, for my money, utterly kill market research for power and insight.

WotC's research may well have helped them sell books. But I don't know that it adds a lot to our understanding of RPGing as a creative human endeavour.



Balesir said:


> looks like maybe Justin Alexander = Rogue Agent?



On these boards, I think that Justin Alexander = The Beginning of the End.


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## S'mon (Jan 23, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> It only interests me insofar as I think correctly identifying that most story-railroaders are primarily interested in story is the quickest way to show them techniques that they can use to pursue their interest in story without using the, IMO, dysfunctional techniques of railroading.
> 
> Whereas, OTOH, trying to convince them that their use of a railroading technique means that what they're _really_ interested in simulation doesn't accomplish anything at all: People who are actually interested in simulation aren't going to find anything of interest in the games of the story-railroaders (or vice versa); and the techniques one group uses won't be particularly useful to the other without a lot of modification.
> 
> If the group is enjoying itself without reservation and isn't interested in experimentation, of course, this is usually all irrelevant. Tiger Woods might spend a year making micro-adjustments in his swing in order to optimize his game, but most of us are probably perfectly content to just play like Tiger Woods.




I'm assuming they're mostly interested in story-experiencing rather than story-creation, maybe while adding a bit of 'colour', as I think Pemerton has said. That would be for the (eg) fudged linear games where the GM promises to take you through to the end, one way or another.  There are also Gamist linear games where there's a challenge in surviving to the end and a possibility of failure, eg due to TPK.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 23, 2012)

Pemerton, I am sorry but edwards is not engaged in anything approaching literary criticism. When your critical analysis of play includes labelling some gamers as menally damaged and abused, you are going to get a negative reaction.

Also Edwards is he one holding up RPGs as art, simulationists aren't really doing that. They are just saying their style is a legitimate approach to gaming not that it is inherently more meaningful than others. So your literary analogy just seems flawed. Besides his theory is little more than him prnouncing his prefer styles as meaningful and disparaging or dismissing styles he doesn' agree with. I don't think there is any reason or need for those of us who rejevt his theories to re-evaluate how we game because Ron disapproves.


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## Umbran (Jan 23, 2012)

pemerton said:


> This was mentioned upthread. As I said earlier, Edwards is not making a hypothesis to be tested via market research. He's putting forward an interpretive theory, to be "tested" by its capacity to deliver insight into human activity and self-understanding.




What is "insight"?  A grasping of inner workings, right?  How do we know that what is delivered is actual insight, and not just a load of hooey?  How do we know we better grasp our players through GNS than by other means?

He gives us a model - called it that himself.  The test of any model is how closely it's results and forms mirror reality.  If his model does not give results similar to reality, its ability to give us insight into how people actually work in this activity is questionable, at best.

Now, if you noted that the WotC market research was not specifically geared to test the accuracy of this model, and as such that research does not strictly disprove the model's accuracy, you'd be correct.  That would be a valid critique.

However, the WotC research didn't set out to prove any particular model, but just to gather information and see what could be seen.  If GNS were accurate, you'd still expect a segmentation study in the same general area to give you a three-dimensional result, rather than a 2-D arrangement. You're not assured of that, as it depends on the nature of the questions and the analysis, but I still find the contrast notable. YMMV.



> But as I also said, the best interpretive theories, for my money, utterly kill market research for power and insight.




As noted before, tell that to Freud.  For decades the world thought he brought us insight into the workings of the human mind - it was considered perhaps the best interpretive theory ever.  Turns out, though, that his model was inaccurate.  Wildly so.  Many people were treated on the basis of his model - my psych-professional friends have told me that when you go back and look at the case studies, and aggregate them into statistics, said treatment was about as effective as a placebo treatment.

The analog would be to use GNS theory to design your games, or consider your player's choices - the question is whether doing so gets you better results than using any other method of consideration.  Do you get system, campaign, and adventure designs based on GNS than you'd do just going with your gut, or with the 5-room dungeon?


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## BryonD (Jan 24, 2012)

pemerton said:


> But as I also said, the best interpretive theories, for my money, utterly kill market research for power and insight.
> 
> WotC's research may well have helped them sell books. But I don't know that it adds a lot to our understanding of RPGing as a creative human endeavour.




Yes, but what do you think of the Emperor's new shoes?


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## pemerton (Jan 24, 2012)

Umbran said:


> How do we know we better grasp our players through GNS than by other means?



I don't think GNS is intended primarily to interpret others. It's intended to aid self-understanding, for deigners and players.



Umbran said:


> He gives us a model - called it that himself.  The test of any model is how closely it's results and forms mirror reality.



This may be true, but in the case of most human social and cultural activity, there may be little access to the relevant reality other than via interpretive accounts of one sort or another.



Umbran said:


> Now, if you noted that the WotC market research was not specifically geared to test the accuracy of this model, and as such that research does not strictly disprove the model's accuracy, you'd be correct.  That would be a valid critique.
> 
> However, the WotC research didn't set out to prove any particular model, but just to gather information and see what could be seen.  If GNS were accurate, you'd still expect a segmentation study in the same general area to give you a three-dimensional result, rather than a 2-D arrangement. You're not assured of that, as it depends on the nature of the questions and the analysis, but I still find the contrast notable.



I think of it more in these terms: a television production company might survey the viewing preferences of a wide range of actual and potential viewers, and try to determine to what degree they prefer various sorts of tropes, characters, plots, themes etc in their television dramas/soap operas. On this basis, it might build up a model of the viewing market, and how a range of shows migth be produced that would satisfy that market in various respects.

Such a model may not (and I suspect is likely not to) correlate to all, many or perhaps even any critical accounts of television dramas. That wouldn't show that the critical accounts are wrong, however. The critical accounts aren't trying to do the same thing. For one thing, they may deploy categories that viewers do not use in their own self-description of their preference. For another, they may develop arguments that certain viewers are systematically mistaken in their own conception of their preference, or are victims of manipulation of some form or another in forming their preference.

To come at it another way: I happen to think that Adorno is wrong in his hostile diagnosis of jazz music. But I don't think that it is enough to refute his criticism, simply to point out that jazz is popular with audiences that include a high number of self-described music lovers.



Umbran said:


> Do you get system, campaign, and adventure designs based on GNS than you'd do just going with your gut, or with the 5-room dungeon?



In my case, yes.

In no particular order, the Forge approach to talking and thinking about RPGs has provided me with the conceptual resources to understand:

*why RQ and RM play very differently, even though both are ostensibly purist-for-system games (RM's mechanics, both PC build and especially action resolution, create a space for the injection of metagame agendas in a way that RQ does not);

*why I enjoy CoC scenarios and regard GM force as contributing strongly to them, whereas I find the same thing in D&D close to intolerable (the different way in which the mechanics, and the default approach to each game, make it worthwile and rewarding for the player contribution to be confined primarily to colour rather than plot);

*why check-mongering systems (without scene-resolution of some sort, like BW's "let it ride") create serious obstacles to "story now" play (because there is no way to bring scenes to a close without suspending the action resolution mechanics via an exercise of GM force);

*why I could never get satisfactory play experiences from following Gygax's and Pulsipher's advice about playing classic D&D (because they are arguing for a certain type of serious and somewhat austere gamist play, whereas I prefer to prioritise the classic trope and themes of romantic (ie self-consciously pre-modern) fantasy;

*why I find alignment mechanics, OA-style honour mechanics redundant if not positively dysfunctional in play (because these attempt to pre-answer the thematic questions that I prefer to address via play);

*the metagame character of 4e mechanics, and the related contrast between treating mechanics as a model of ingame causal processes, and treating them as setting parameters on the otherwise free narration of ingame causal processes;

*and other stuff as well, but this list is probably long and indicative enough.



BryonD said:


> Yes, but what do you think of the Emperor's new shoes?



Would you care to elaborate?


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## pemerton (Jan 24, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> I don't think there is any reason or need for those of us who rejevt his theories to re-evaluate how we game because Ron disapproves.



Well that's fair enough.


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## LurkAway (Jan 24, 2012)

pemerton said:


> This was mentioned upthread. As I said earlier, Edwards is not making a hypothesis to be tested via market research. He's putting forward an interpretive theory, to be "tested" by its capacity to deliver insight into human activity and self-understanding. My own view is that this cannot be value-free (because people cannot get the requisite degree of evaluative distance from their own activities). But as I also said, the best interpretive theories, for my money, utterly kill market research for power and insight.



Forgive my ignorance, but what is the practical difference between "_interpretive theory_" and a carefully crafted _opinion piece_ dressed up in an important-looking suit?


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## pemerton (Jan 24, 2012)

LurkAway said:


> Forgive my ignorance, but what is the practical difference between "_interpretive theory_" and an _opinion piece_ dressed up in an important-looking suit?



What domain of inquiry are you talking about?

In academic disciplines, the difference is depth of inquiry. There is just no comparison, for example, between the depth of Weber's comparative historical and sociological research, and that of the typical NYT columnist.

When it comes to RPGs, there is no academic discipline, but depth of inquiry still makes a difference. One striking feature of discussions and essays at The Forge is the range of games discussed and played, and the detailed attention that is paid to the published texts for those games.

This contrasts with, for example, claims one sometimes sees made about the depth of simulationist or immersive play supported by 3E, for example, without any apparent familiarity with, or comparison to, other systems (such as BRP/RQ) that also aim at this sort of play. Or claims made about how skill challenges just _cannot_ provide anything but a die-rolling experience, without any apparent familiarity with, or comparison to, other systems (such as Maelstrom Storytelling or HeroWars/Quest) that use similar action resolution mechanics. Or (and this one I remember from the ICE boards) claims that a game in which equipment is bought using points just _cannot_ make sense or be played in a verisimilitudinous world, without any apparent familiarity with, or comparison to, points-buy systems (especially superhero systems) in which points buy for equipment is a standard part of character building.

I also want to stress that this has nothing to do with my own personal RPGing preferences. Look at the class balance thread on the New Horizons subforum. Poster after poster tries to tell the OP that s/he is mistaken, or asking for the impossible, in wanting balance to be handled via GM adjudication and the exercise of force, rather than via mechanical means, _without providing any discussion of the long tradition of RPG play_ - and especially a certain type of AD&D play - that proceeds in precisley such a fashion. I personally don't like that sort of play, but it exists, and I would say at one time was perhaps the mainstream approach to playing D&D (at least judging from Dragon magazines of the era, the way modules are written, etc).

In short: familiarity with a breadth of differing examples, which then breaks down a person's general inclination to generalise from his/her own experience, is central to constructing plausible and worthwhile interpretive theories.


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## LurkAway (Jan 24, 2012)

pemerton said:


> What domain of inquiry are you talking about?



As it pertains to this discussion...



> When it comes to RPGs, there is no academic discipline, but depth of inquiry still makes a difference. One striking feature of discussions and essays at The Forge is the range of games discussed and played, and the detailed attention that is paid to the published texts for those games.



So with people clearly believing that GNS innaccurately lumps other playstyles into "Exploration", can Ron Edwards be considered to have made an honest effort to inquire and understand playstyles beyond Gamism and Narrativism, such that GNS can be described as having "depth of inquiry" in order to qualify as a comprehensive "interpretive theory"?


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## pemerton (Jan 24, 2012)

LurkAway said:


> So with people clearly believing that GNS innaccurately lumps other playstyles into "Exploration", can Ron Edwards be considered to have made an honest effort to inquire and understand playstyles beyond Gamism and Narrativism, such that GNS can be described as having "depth of inquiry" in order to qualify as a comprehensive "interpretive theory"?



I think so. Others apparently disagree. It also depends on what weight you're giving "honest". Is he lying? I don't think there's much evidence of that. Is he trying hard enough to put himself in others' shoes? When I read his essays and his posts, I think he tries about as hard as any RPG commentator that I've read, but others mightn't think so.

I certainly enjoy simulationiost play - both RQ/RM purist-for-system, and CoC high concept - and I don't feel slighted or misdescribed by Edwards or the GNS idea. I think that they are both exploratory play, although what is being explored is obviously very different in each case.

Trickier, in my view, is Edwards' claim that the ideal of a 1:1 correlation beteen mechancial resolution and ingame causal processes is at the heart of all simulationist play. This is obviously true for purist-for-system sim, but is it true for high concept? One reason to think that it is is that, when it breaks down, then space for the metagame wedge opens up (eg think about the endless hit point disputes, either driven by gamists whose PCs jump over 100 foot cliffs, or the more narrativistically-inclined who want "0 hp" to correlate to dead, or swooned, or disarmed, or . . ., as the mood strikes them). Conversely, part of what makes immersion very easy in CoC (at least in my experience) is that the mechanics make it very clear what is happening to your character, so you know who it is you're meant to be "inhabiting", and what the events are to which you are adding colour and characterisation.

Is this a plausible part of a "comprehenisve" theory? So far in this thread I've heard that GNS is inadequate in its characterisation of simulationist play, but the only account of why that is so (that I recall at the moment, anyway) is Rogue Agent - namely, by running together purist-for-system and "storyteller", GNS obscures that storytellers are really frustrated narrativists. But is this claim by Rogue Agent any better grounded than Edwards' claim? I'm not sure, but I see a lot of hostility on these boards to players with their metagame agendas, so I'm not sure that Rogue Agent is right.

TL;DR - I feel that Edwards gets my simulationist experiences right, but I'm not a big player of the the sort of game whose classification seems to be controversial, namely, GM-driven, plot-heavy high concept which (unlike CoC, at least as I've experienced it) is not expressly predicated on the players just sitting back and enjoying the ride.


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## Rogue Agent (Jan 24, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Perhaps, for certain senses of "exploration".




Oddly, this appears to be true of "exploration" in the sense that Edwards defines it in the Big Model. As Justin Alexander noted in that link S'mon posted a few pages back, Edwards using the same terms he uses to describe simulationism to describe _all roleplaying activities_ is a dead give-away that something is wrong with Edwards' conception of simulationism.



Umbran said:


> However, the WotC research didn't set out to prove any particular model, but just to gather information and see what could be seen.  If GNS were accurate, you'd still expect a segmentation study in the same general area to give you a three-dimensional result, rather than a 2-D arrangement.




Well, not really. First, since we don't know anything about the questions asked, it's difficult to draw any conclusions from it. We know the conclusions WotC drew (and then ignored in 2008), but we have no way of validating those conclusions or looking for alternative (or additional) interpretations of the data.

So WotC's conclusions are interesting insofar as they go, but insofar as they don't seem to really be addressing any of the stuff GNS is addressing it's difficult to see how the two results actually mesh.

What's probably more damaging to GNS is actually the "8 core values", since it completely devastates the exclusivity which still lies tangled up in the heart of the theory (despite being mellowed somewhat).


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## LurkAway (Jan 24, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Trickier, in my view, is Edwards' claim that the ideal of a 1:1 correlation beteen mechancial resolution and ingame causal processes is at the heart of all simulationist play. This is obviously true for purist-for-system sim, but is it true for high concept? One reason to think that it is is that, when it breaks down, then space for the metagame wedge opens up (eg think about the endless hit point disputes, either driven by gamists whose PCs jump over 100 foot cliffs, or the more narrativistically-inclined who want "0 hp" to correlate to dead, or swooned, or disarmed, or . . ., as the mood strikes them). Conversely, part of what makes immersion very easy in CoC (at least in my experience) is that the mechanics make it very clear what is happening to your character, so you know who it is you're meant to be "inhabiting", and what the events are to which you are adding colour and characterisation.
> 
> Is this a plausible part of a "comprehenisve" theory?



I understand the difference between hardcore vs "pretend" simulationism, but I never really understood why it was so important to polarize players by heavily differentiating between purist for sim vs high concept simulation.

I don't have an interpretive theory, only a mere opinion: that D&D -- with very unpurist systems -- was the most successful RPG in history, and that 4E -- which attempted to narrow down the playstyle -- has quickly seen the coming of the next edition.

So perhaps like anything in life, some of the best systems are the flawed and messy compromises, and that perfection is not the elegant elimination of inner conflict, and that Ron Edwards (being a purist, if I understand him correctly by some of the harsh judgement values he has applied to simulationism) fails to understand the importance of compromise in approaches to playstyles. And in that sense, perhaps the GNS lacks a depth of inquiry.

But unlike others who seem to have a solid grasp of GNS theory, I haven't really tackled it in-depth, so perhaps I don't know what I'm talking about.


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## Neonchameleon (Jan 24, 2012)

LurkAway said:


> I understand the difference between hardcore vs "pretend" simulationism, but I never really understood why it was so important to polarize players by heavily differentiating between purist for sim vs high concept simulation.
> 
> I don't have an interpretive theory, only a mere opinion: that D&D -- with very unpurist systems -- was the most successful RPG in history, and that 4E -- which attempted to narrow down the playstyle -- has quickly seen the coming of the next edition.




And yet 1e, arguably the longest lasting line, was actually pretty purist in what it was about.  It was about going down dungeons and robbing the dungeons blind (with force if necessary).  And just about everything from the XP rules (1GP = 1XP - blatant encouragement for robbing the monsters through cunning) to the wandering monster rolls (Get A Move On) to the monsters themselves (earworms?  lurker above?  cloaker?) was designed round this.

2E was the edition that attempted to be universal - and IME that's the most disliked one.  It took out 1e being good at what it was good at and attempted to make it a very unpurist system without taking in to account that the base had a specific function.


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## LurkAway (Jan 24, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> And yet 1e, arguably the longest lasting line, was actually pretty purist in what it was about.  It was about going down dungeons and robbing the dungeons blind (with force if necessary).  And just about everything from the XP rules (1GP = 1XP - blatant encouragement for robbing the monsters through cunning) to the wandering monster rolls (Get A Move On) to the monsters themselves (earworms?  lurker above?  cloaker?) was designed round this.
> 
> 2E was the edition that attempted to be universal - and IME that's the most disliked one.  It took out 1e being good at what it was good at and attempted to make it a very unpurist system without taking in to account that the base had a specific function.



Well I was referencing D&D as a whole, because it's tricky to disentangle the various historical factors by which D&D editions evolved. So D&D is very popular in the mainstream, and Rolemaster not nearly as much, for example.

And for whatever it's worth, AD&D with unified mechanics seems popular here
EN World: Your Daily RPG Magazine - View Poll Results


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 24, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> And yet 1e, arguably the longest lasting line, was actually pretty purist in what it was about.  It was about going down dungeons and robbing the dungeons blind (with force if necessary).  And just about everything from the XP rules (1GP = 1XP - blatant encouragement for robbing the monsters through cunning) to the wandering monster rolls (Get A Move On) to the monsters themselves (earworms?  lurker above?  cloaker?) was designed round this.
> 
> 2E was the edition that attempted to be universal - and IME that's the most disliked one.  It took out 1e being good at what it was good at and attempted to make it a very unpurist system without taking in to account that the base had a specific function.




Yeah but people were using 1E for things other than dungeon crawls long before 2E came around. Besides when 2E was out, it had a very large  and playerbase. The main reason it gets demonized is it watered down the flavor material (to be more family friendly) and it went overboard with the story heavy GM advice). 

Whatever te history though i think it is true that popular games need to appeal to a variety of players and playstyles. If you focus on one way you alienate the other appeoaches. And since gaming is a communal activity, it is rare for a group to be so homogenous that it is made up entirely of "gamists" or "simiulationists". 4E literally split gaming groups up because it catered to a narrow agenda.


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## Umbran (Jan 24, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Is he lying? I don't think there's much evidence of that. Is he trying hard enough to put himself in others' shoes? When I read his essays and his posts, I think he tries about as hard as any RPG commentator that I've read, but others mightn't think so.




When I read his works, I don't think he's lying, either.  Not in the, "I know and recognize the truth, but say something else anyway, sense.  I think he frequently gets blinded by his own brilliance, and tends to assume the primacy of his own theories and personal preferences.

So, to me, he's not lying.  He's just occasionally wrong, and not very willing to see what he doesn't want to see.  Just like normal folks, really.




pemerton said:


> I don't think GNS is intended primarily to interpret others. It's intended to aid self-understanding, for deigners and players.




Ah.  I'm pretty sure it is quite the opposite.  To me, his writing style (and, honestly, focus) screams, "This is how you should look at everyone else," not, "this is how you should look at yourself."




> Such a model may not (and I suspect is likely not to) correlate to all, many or perhaps even any critical accounts of television dramas.




Ah.  I think I see what you mean.  The issue we'll have, then, is that I find critical accounts not grounded in popular enjoyment of an art to typically be self-serving, self-referential and often useless.

Critics have a habit of turning away from the practical matters of what actually reaches a human heart, and instead start to base their assessment upon a critical framework, developed by critics for critique, with a disconnect from how non-critics perceive the work.

If such critics are taken seriously, this leads to artists creating art for the sake of getting positive critique, rather than for sake of communicating something to the rest of the world.  You end up with museums filled with works that cannot be understood except by folks who have first spent time studying the particular critical formulae for the genre in question.

Take much of "modern art" as an example.  Your your average person is bored in a modern art museum for this reason - the critical rules for modern art are not strongly associated to base human responses, and the art was created for folks immersed in those rules.  



> That wouldn't show that the critical accounts are wrong, however.




Correct, but... I will use an absurd analogy to demonstrate my point.

If I make up an arbitrary rule that says that all written work with more than a specified number of instances of the letter "a" as bad, I am not "wrong" to then say, "By my rules, this work is bad."  That doesn't mean the rule is meaningful in the first place, though.


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## pemerton (Jan 24, 2012)

First, can I say that I'm really enjoying this thread, and just wanted to thank everyone who's conrtributing to it!



LurkAway said:


> I never really understood why it was so important to polarize players by heavily differentiating between purist for sim vs high concept simulation.



I'm not sure about the polarisation - to the extent that it occurs, I think it's side effect rather than intention.

The main way that Edwards articulates the difference has a signficant historical (rather than conceptual) dimension: many high concept games have inherited (from D&D, either directly or via mediation) action resolution systems with a somewhat purist-for-system orientation, but then hedge these in or water them down in order to produce a narrower range of mechanical consequences that will help produce the desired genre outcomes in play. (Reducing the prospects of PC death would be one common example of this sort of "hedging".)

The main conceptual difference, I think, is that purist-for-system wants a mechanic for everything - as Edwards puts it, the system itself becomes a signficant focus of play - whereas high concept is more interested in treating the system as a means to an end (the ends of setting, character and/or situation) and so can handle system compromises or limitations when focus moves away from those ends of play.



LurkAway said:


> I don't have an interpretive theory, only a mere opinion: that D&D -- with very unpurist systems -- was the most successful RPG in history, and that 4E -- which attempted to narrow down the playstyle -- has quickly seen the coming of the next edition.
> 
> So perhaps like anything in life, some of the best systems are the flawed and messy compromises, and that perfection is not the elegant elimination of inner conflict, and that Ron Edwards (being a purist, if I understand him correctly by some of the harsh judgement values he has applied to simulationism) fails to understand the importance of compromise in approaches to playstyles.



I'm not sure that 4e is more narrow in the playstyles it supports than earlier editions. I think that it is more upfront than earlier editions about its orientation, and also - it turns out - that the sort of game for which it is best suited appears to be less popular than WotC hoped.

As to D&D's popularity, I'm in no position to judge how much that turns on being first to market, and how much that turns on the details of the mechanics.



LurkAway said:


> So D&D is very popular in the mainstream, and Rolemaster not nearly as much, for example.



I think that one stage (late 80s-ish?), ICE - publisher of RM and Middle Earth RP (a RM light system) - was the second-biggest RPG publisher.



Bedrockgames said:


> i think it is true that popular games need to appeal to a variety of players and playstyles. If you focus on one way you alienate the other appeoaches. And since gaming is a communal activity, it is rare for a group to be so homogenous that it is made up entirely of "gamists" or "simiulationists". 4E literally split gaming groups up because it catered to a narrow agenda.



Again, I'm not sure that 4e is as narrow, in comparison to earlier editions, as it is portrayed. I think it is true that there was an apparent willingness to drift earlier versions moreso than 4e.

I think some other factors were also at work - for example, it seems that the expectation that those with non-simulationist preferences should subordinate those preferences in order to unite a group around a system like 3E was stronger, and more effective, than the expectation that those with simulationoinst preferences should subordinate those in order to unit a group around a system like 4e. I think that this relates to the overall significance of simulationist design as the mainstream of RPGing since at least the mid-80s, and the default expecation for how mechanics should work, even among some of those whose goals for play were frustrated by those mechanics.



Umbran said:


> I think I see what you mean.  The issue we'll have, then, is that I find critical accounts not grounded in popular enjoyment of an art to typically be self-serving, self-referential and often useless.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



Modern art is an interesting phenomenon, connected also to intellectual, political and emotional responses to the first world war undertsood as marking the end of a certain illusion about the character of modernity.

The broader question, of the relationship between "cultured" experiences/preferences, and "folk"/"popular" experiences/preferences, is complicated, and can also lead in directions in breach of board rules. But I think that the subsumption of cultural production under the imperatives of commercial production is an important transformation - something which begins in at least the second half of the nineteenth century (and which romantics, both conservative and socialist, such as Ruskin and William Morris wrote extensively about).

I remember some time last year eyebeams (I think) had a post on these board saying that there is a widespread self-delusion among gamers, of themselves as immune to or above commercial/corporate spin, when in fact they are very easily manipulated by well-judged commercial/corporate endeavours. A factor in this, I think, would be that for many gamers a signficant part of their self-identification and self-validation is bound up in their consumption of cultural products which are privatised and commercialised in a way that traditional folk culture is not.

I think a lot of the conversations about the OGL and Pathfinder exhibit curious features resulting from this particular state of affairs - the fact, for example, that Paizo is able to present itself, or be presented by its fans, as almost a countercultural underdog, when in fact it is a highly successful commercial venture based on selling subscribers a luxury prodcut in quantities that they will probably never have the time to use for its ostensible purpose (namely, RPGing).

The announcement of 5e/D&Dnext is another interesting example of the intersection of cultural and commercial imperatives in a way that seems to involve a degree of willing cooperation by customers in a type of wilful blindness about their relationship to the producer of the product in question.

I don't know if you know Edwards' nuked applecart essay, but it can be seen as a Morris-style call for authenticity and "craft" in RPG production and the relationship between production and consumption. And I think that there is a non-accidental connection between his views about the RPG industry, and his approach to thinking about RPG play.


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## innerdude (Jan 24, 2012)

Don't want to interrupt the train of thought, but it seems that the thread has kind of diverged into several separate yet related questions: 



Does GNS theory actually present valid, significant, hypotheses surrounding the way RPGs are used/formed/interpreted?
If it does, how accurate is it within each of its "3-fold" structures?
Are the three playstyles in GNS as "pure" as Ron Edwards describes them to be, or are games necessarily a mixture?
Obviously, my original idea--that Gamism as such, when pursued in its purest distillation, ultimately leads to play styles, systems, and social "contracts" that fall outside the common genre purview of "roleplaying" generally--hinges on answering some of those questions. If GNS theory is all bunk to begin with, then obviously I'm wasting my breath (and a LOT of keystrokes). 

Clearly there are vagaries within GNS that are highly undefined and fluid, but when I read the material I connected with it. Taken individually, I recognized each of the three GNS concepts, and could picture situations and game sessions where each had taken place. 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: _I "get" Gamism_. I know EXACTLY the feeling of "Step On Up!"; it happens every single time someone lays out a board to play a game of Settlers, or lays out the Action card stacks in a game of Dominion. I immediately perk up, and get excited; in my mind, I'm making connections between the available actions and how they synergize, plotting future moves, and generally engaging with the "Game" in front of me. 

Here's another example--I thoroughly dislike playing a game of Settlers with my mother-in-law, because her approach is decidedly non-Gamist. She deliberately goes out of her way to create boards where "everyone has a chance," she's liberal with the 5s, 6s, 8s, and 9s on resources. She is totally non-competitive in using the robber and soldier cards. She'll avoid cutting off other players with roads, and so on. 

And when I play with her, it sucks all of the fun out of playing Settlers. Why? Because she's completely removed the "Step On Up!" challenge from the game. Even if I win, I get zero satisfaction from the result, because I know it was largely pure luck--my numbers just happened to get rolled slightly more often than someone else's. I know exactly what Gamism is, because I _feel it_. And when I want to have a Gamist experience (Like Settlers of Catan), I really do want it to be Gamist; it's why the game is fun at all. 

I also recognize that I have definitely had moments in RPG sessions where Gamism was evident. Calculating movement so a character can slip in behind an enemy to get the +2 flanking bonus. Setting up the perfect trip attack. Taking weapon finesse for a rogue, so that my attack bonus could go up to +4 for DEX, instead of +1 or +2 for STR. I get that all of that is part and parcel of the RPG experience, and that it's possible to gain that sense of "Step On Up!" accomplishment from an RPG. The GM creates the challenge, the players leverage their "Game" resources to defeat it, everyone derives satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. 

But in reading and re-reading Ron Edward's ideas on Gamism, reflecting on my own play experiences as well as those shared here and elsewhere, more and more Gamism seemed to be an agenda one pursued while in the midst of the one of the other two. That for an RPG to be purely "Gamist," it sacrifices much of the purpose, sensibility, and "liveliness" that RPGs produce.

To be honest I have no more proof than anyone else, other than my own observations. But if there's one question I keep coming back to it's this: given the choice as GM, would you rather have a "purist" for Gamism in your group, or Narrativism or Simulationism? I'd argue that deep down . . . most of us want a player willing to engage in something more than pure "Step On Up!" 

So maybe I'm asking the wrong questions, here. I asked earlier why RPGs were uniquely suited for Gamism, and the most common replay I got was _flexibility_. That a GM can respond to more situations in more unique, interesting ways than a simple AI program can. That makes sense, and I can see the appeal to a Gamist in that situation. 

But what does _the GM_ get out of that situation, especially if they're a Gamist themselves? Is it all about "setting up cool scenarios" for them? Is it the satisfaction of knowing that they challenged their players? Is that enough for a Gamist? To me that's a different sort of "social contract" than "Step On Up!" for the GM.

That seems to be a difficulty to me in "pure" Gamism--if EVERYONE at the table is Gamist, doesn't someone have to ultimately sacrifice their "Gamism" for a higher goal? And if the "RPG" at that point becomes nothing more than series of encounters, with a rotating "challenge arbiter," where players create the "Step On Up!" challenges, is that still a full-blooded RPG? Or is it, as I see it, more of a fusion of the Castle Ravenloft boardgame with very minor adjudicative control handed to one of the players?

And maybe this is a potential problem with GNS itself--that logically extended, GNS can be problematic in reconciling player perspective with GM designs.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 24, 2012)

I too am enjoying the discussion Pemerton. Instead of engage in an endless back and forth I will give you the lastvword on my last post your quoted and respond to the apple cart essay (which, full disclosure, I read very quickly because I am in the middle of a number of things).

I think Edwards is romanticizing the designer in that essay. I run a small indie company, but I am also a professional writer in my daily life. The truth is, being a one man show doesn't make you a craftsman In fact it often leads to bad writing and bad design. Most major rpg companies are still small compared with other industries. But like publishing it helps the writer make a better finisshed manuscript if he must go through the editorial process. When an rpg company is set up so there is a manager of the process with editors, designers and writers beneath him, I think you usually end upnwith a superior end product than the designer making and producing his own game (and again I say that as an indepedent designer). The things edwards says in the essay are the same thing you hear from failed writers who resort to vanity press. A one man show is his own crrative director, editor, designer, etc. That can lead to a lot of bad habits.

I would also add that big rpg companies spending large amounts on advertising, which ron discusses, is a good thing for their games and the hobby. We can barely afford 200 dollars in ads for each of our games, but marketing is critical if you want people to know about your game and hive it a chance.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jan 25, 2012)

innerdude said:


> So maybe I'm asking the wrong questions, here. I asked earlier why RPGs were uniquely suited for Gamism, and the most common replay I got was _flexibility_. That a GM can respond to more situations in more unique, interesting ways than a simple AI program can. That makes sense, and I can see the appeal to a Gamist in that situation.
> 
> But what does _the GM_ get out of that situation, especially if they're a Gamist themselves? Is it all about "setting up cool scenarios" for them? Is it the satisfaction of knowing that they challenged their players? Is that enough for a Gamist? To me that's a different sort of "social contract" than "Step On Up!" for the GM.




For me, part of it is the challenge--though I frame more as "keeping the party on the edge without pushing them over" than straight adversarial play. Not that I play golf, but from the many friends that do, I think this is somewhat analogous. You may play in a foursome, but you are really playing *against* the course. If you happen to have a friendly wager on the side, that will increase the feel of playing against the other players, but it doesn't change the essential nature of the activity. You can get a similar feeling in any sport (you challenge yourself to be as good as you can be regardless of the competition), but my understanding is that the nature of "You versus the course" really brings this out in golf. In any case, RPGs scratch this particular itch for me in a way that a board game or card game never could.

Also, there is a sense in which pure gamism is a lesser form of this challenge than going for a blend.  But that is true of pure anything. Whatever one thinks about the Forge dogma that the creative agendas cannot mix, it is true that succesfully mixing them is a challenge of your ability with all three agendas. That is, if *all* I have to do is provide room for the players to step up, or help them experience the world or their characters, or provoke them to pursue an immediate story--I can do that with one hand tied behind my back, half asleep. Heck, when the players really get going in one of those modes, sometimes I think I have done it half asleep. But blending all three (or rapidly switching between them, if you prefer); looking for cues; deflty poking here or prodding there, without taking over full control and steering the action--that's tough.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jan 25, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I also want to stress that this has nothing to do with my own personal RPGing preferences. Look at the class balance thread on the New Horizons subforum. Poster after poster tries to tell the OP that s/he is mistaken, or asking for the impossible, in wanting balance to be handled via GM adjudication and the exercise of force, rather than via mechanical means, _without providing any discussion of the long tradition of RPG play_ - and especially a certain type of AD&D play - that proceeds in precisley such a fashion. I personally don't like that sort of play, but it exists, and I would say at one time was perhaps the mainstream approach to playing D&D (at least judging from Dragon magazines of the era, the way modules are written, etc).
> 
> In short: familiarity with a breadth of differing examples, which then breaks down a person's general inclination to generalise from his/her own experience, is central to constructing plausible and worthwhile interpretive theories.




I don't know how much the breadth of experience is critical to interpretive theory crafting, compared to other things one would presumably need to bring to the table for those theories to be plausible and worthwhile. (Presumably, insight, intuition, some kind of analytical framework, deep hands-on experience, etc. will all factor in.)

I do know that having all of those things is more likely to produce a theory that at least aspires to "interesting failure" if it falls short of plausible and worthwhile. Whereas, the lack of experience tends to produce theory that is either drek or even outright ridiculous--tempered only by insight and self-awareness of the lack of experience. That is, the breadth of experience, whatever else it may be, is an andidote to some obvious pitfalls. Whether a given theory crafter is then able to build on that good foundation is another question. 

It's funny that innerdude brought up asking the "right question", because I was just thinking along those lines in this context. I get the impression with the Forge stuff that it *may* be *mostly* bunk, but if it is, it is bunk about something more real underneath. Whereas, my reaction to some of the things you mentioned in the quoted section is not so much that some people don't have the right question (on a particular aspect of games), but they don't even seem to be aware that there *is* question of some kind--however poorly we all may formulate it.


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## S'mon (Jan 25, 2012)

innerdude said:


> ...for an RPG to be purely "Gamist," it sacrifices much of the purpose, sensibility, and "liveliness" that RPGs produce.




I certainly agree strongly with this snippet.  BUT that in no way means that Gamism is necessarily secondary or subordinate to Sim or Drama.  IMO any real RPG has Gamism, Simulation, and Drama - the three poles upon which the RPG - the Role-Play-Game - rest. 

Some players prioritise the simulation, others the game, others the drama (story-creation or story-experiencing).  But any RPG needs elements of all three to be a good RPG.


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## pemerton (Jan 26, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> I think Edwards is romanticizing the designer in that essay.



Agreed. That was part of what I was trying to get at with my comparisons to Morris and Ruskin.



Bedrockgames said:


> I am also a professional writer in my daily life.



Likewise, although probably in a slightly different sense - I am a humanities academic.



Bedrockgames said:


> A one man show is his own crrative director, editor, designer, etc. That can lead to a lot of bad habits.



In my field - academic research and writing - I agree that this can be so. Some of my best work has been co-authored, and even sole-authored pieces benefit very much from critical scrutiny by colleagues, audiences, referees etc.

But I do have the privilege of writing in a field where commercial considerations (and the constraints these can impose) are secondary at best.


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## pemerton (Jan 26, 2012)

innerdude said:


> But what does _the GM_ get out of that situation, especially if they're a Gamist themselves? Is it all about "setting up cool scenarios" for them? Is it the satisfaction of knowing that they challenged their players?



For my part, yest. It's the satisfaction of putting together and adjudicating a successful challenge, a "cool scenario".


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## BryonD (Jan 26, 2012)

S'mon said:


> I certainly agree strongly with this snippet.  BUT that in no way means that Gamism is necessarily secondary or subordinate to Sim or Drama.  IMO any real RPG has Gamism, Simulation, and Drama - the three poles upon which the RPG - the Role-Play-Game - rest.
> 
> Some players prioritise the simulation, others the game, others the drama (story-creation or story-experiencing).  But any RPG needs elements of all three to be a good RPG.



I certainly am a big time simulation priority guy. 
But I could simulate everything by ad hoc and fiat.  
Having the mechanics driving the simulation is much more fun.  And that is game.

Also, the little games of "kill the orc" buried within the simulation and narrative are fun in their own right as well.

(In other word: "yep")


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## S'mon (Jan 26, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Likewise, although probably in a slightly different sense - I am a humanities academic.




It shows.  I'm a legal academic myself.


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## innerdude (Jan 26, 2012)

S'mon said:


> IMO any real RPG has Gamism, Simulation, and Drama - the three poles upon which the RPG - the Role-Play-Game - rest.
> 
> Some players prioritise the simulation, others the game, others the drama (story-creation or story-experiencing).  But any RPG needs elements of all three to be a good RPG.




I agree. My original idea was not to denigrate Gamism as a play style, only to assert the primacy of Simulation and Narrative ahead of Gamism as a defining quality of the table-top RPG as a genre. 

When I say "subordinate," I don't mean it in the sense of, "These play styles should take preference over Gamism," though re-reading my original post it comes across that way. I mean subordinate in the sense that Gamism only naturally arises as a consequence of creating a framework to support the other two first. There is no Gamist framework in RPGs without deferring at the very least to the needs of Narrativism ("Let's all pretend together, and here are the stories we want to tell"). 

In fact, I strongly suspect that the real hierarchy of importance in RPGs is likely

1. Narrativism
2a. Simulationism 
2b. Gamism

where 2a and 2b are interchangeable and mutable depending on group and circumstance. 

The point of an RPG is, really, to "tell a story." The other two arenas are more about creating the "purpose" of the story, or defining the "reward" for successfully engaging with the narrative. "In this context, what inherent properties of the narrative milieu have brought about the current situation, and how do we manage it?" 

Simulationism looks at the answer as more of an "observational state," and tries to work backwards and forwards to produce "The Dream." 
Gamism looks at it as more of an opportunity to explore the nature of the challenge itself, and find satisfaction in its conclusion. 
Narrativism doesn't care either way about the resolution, so long as it contains a core human emotional "truth." 

For RPG game design purposes, then, I think the first question comes down to, "What kinds of stories do you want to tell?" The mechanics you use to support the stories will then create the opportunities to engage in either of the other two.

In other words, you can't have a "Gamist" (or "Simulationist") RPG _without first actually having an RPG_. The nature of the genre demands that something else be in place before you have "Gamism" (or "Simulationism") within it. To me, that's the real core of the RPG "social contract."


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## pemerton (Jan 27, 2012)

innerdude said:


> I mean subordinate in the sense that Gamism only naturally arises as a consequence of creating a framework to support the other two first. There is no Gamist framework in RPGs without deferring at the very least to the needs of Narrativism ("Let's all pretend together, and here are the stories we want to tell").



This seems to be a version of Edwards' claim that exploration of a shared imaginary space is intrinsic to all RPGing, but that simulationism is distincitve in treating that exploration as an end in iteslf ("Let's all pretend and see what happens") whereas gamism and narrativism treat the exploration as a starting point for something else ("Let's all pretend that we're fighters and see who's strongest!", or "Let's all pretend and see whether honest folk really _can_ triumph over evil").

Here is a sample quote:

It has rightly been asked whether Simulationism really exists, given that it consists mainly of Exploration. I suggest that Simulationism exists insofar as the effort and attention to Exploration may over-ride either Gamist or Narrativist priorities. ​


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## pemerton (Jan 27, 2012)

S'mon said:


> It shows.  I'm a legal academic myself.



Law (primarily legal and constitutional theory) and philosophy (primarily social and political philosophy) in my case.


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## Gentlegamer (Jan 27, 2012)

innerdude said:


> The point of an RPG is, really, to "tell a story."



The point of a role-playing game is to play a game. 

Participants may layer other goals on top of this, or make other objects the subject of the game, but these are not inherent to the game-form.

To illustrate: D&D from the beginning was gamist, through and through. The Dragonlance series of modules was an attempt to create more of a narrativist campaign, but ultimately failed due to how unsuited D&D as a rule-set is to this goal. The Saga game-system was developed for Dragonlance to facilitate narrative/story game-play, and it was much more successful to this end.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 27, 2012)

Gentlegamer said:


> The point of a role-playing game is to play a game.
> 
> Participants may layer other goals on top of this, or make other objects the subject of the game, but these are not inherent to the game-form.
> 
> To illustrate: D&D from the beginning was gamist, through and through. The Dragonlance series of modules was an attempt to create more of a narrativist campaign, but ultimately failed due to how unsuited D&D as a rule-set is to this goal. The Saga game-system was developed for Dragonlance to facilitate narrative/story game-play, and it was much more successful to this end.




If this were true 4E would have been much more succesful. For a very long time now, D&D has been much more than just playing a game. I think any definition of role playing games that ignores the "role playing" component is flawed.


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## UngainlyTitan (Jan 27, 2012)

pemerton said:


> This seems to be a version of Edwards' claim that exploration of a shared imaginary space is intrinsic to all RPGing, but that simulationism is distincitve in treating that exploration as an end in iteslf ("Let's all pretend and see what happens") whereas gamism and narrativism treat the exploration as a starting point for something else ("Let's all pretend that we're fighters and see who's strongest!", or "Let's all pretend and see whether honest folk really _can_ triumph over evil").
> 
> Here is a sample quote:
> It has rightly been asked whether Simulationism really exists, given that it consists mainly of Exploration. I suggest that Simulationism exists insofar as the effort and attention to Exploration may over-ride either Gamist or Narrativist priorities. ​



It seemsto me that Edwards (or at least GNS) is oblivious to that large subset of rpgs'ers that cannot achieve the "lets pretend " if they are forced to operate any metagame levers, The "Method" rpg'ers if you will.
I also believe that if that is his view, that simulationism is exploring hte simulation then it should get a new and different label, perhaps Exploration. That would have saved a lot of grief on these boards at least. 

It seems to me that there is a population that prefer to explore the world and want to only opeate in character, they have strong preference for "purist for system" rules. Some want to explore the DM's story adding some colour to it, want to operate in character and some of these prefer purist for system and others prefer High Concept simulation.
People that are willing to operate (at least in part) in a more metagame way do not prioritize simulation as much but I do not think there is anyone that wants a system that simulates nothing, or is there?


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## Crazy Jerome (Jan 27, 2012)

innerdude said:


> When I say "subordinate," I don't mean it in the sense of, "These play styles should take preference over Gamism," though re-reading my original post it comes across that way. I mean subordinate in the sense that Gamism only naturally arises as a consequence of creating a framework to support the other two first. There is no Gamist framework in RPGs without deferring at the very least to the needs of Narrativism ("Let's all pretend together, and here are the stories we want to tell").




It is perhaps the core of my disagreement with your point that I think that is a too expansive definition of Narrativism (or even little "n" narrative, divorced from Forge-speak). Telling the story is indeed "narrativism", if not always the more narrow Forge Narrativisim. But if the GNS tripod are the legs of the stool for all rolelplaying, then "Let's all pretend together" is the shared floor upon which the stool sits:

1. Gamism - Let's all pretend together and kick some orc butt.
2. Simulation - Let's all pretend together and explore this world or the characters.
3. Narrativism - Let's all pretend together and tell a story.


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## innerdude (Jan 27, 2012)

Gentlegamer said:


> The point of a role-playing game is to play a game.
> 
> Participants may layer other goals on top of this, or make other objects the subject of the game, but these are not inherent to the game-form.




I heartily disagree--there are definitive elements of the RPG game as a form and genre that differentiate it from other "games" (and hence other "Gamist" pursuits). 

When a group sits down and agrees, "Let's play a roleplaying game," they're agreeing to play a particular type of game, one that at least marginally  follows and inherits the aspects of a game that could be considered a  "roleplaying game."

How far inside the genre convention the group wants to go is up to them, but it doesn't change the fact that the genre itself has real boundaries. And it's my observation that Gamism, when approached as its own "pure" pursuit, very, very quickly pushes up against the boundaries of the RPG genre in ways that Narrativism and Simulationism don't.


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## innerdude (Jan 27, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> It is perhaps the core of my disagreement with your point that I think that is a too expansive definition of Narrativism (or even little "n" narrative, divorced from Forge-speak). Telling the story is indeed "narrativism", if not always the more narrow Forge Narrativisim. But if the GNS tripod are the legs of the stool for all roleplaying, then "Let's all pretend together" is the shared floor upon which the stool sits:
> 
> 1. Gamism - Let's all pretend together and kick some orc butt.
> 2. Simulation - Let's all pretend together and explore this world or the characters.
> 3. Narrativism - Let's all pretend together and tell a story.




That's an interesting point, though I think to some degree, the "kicking orc butt" could be a part of all of them. 

I'd put it more this way: 

1. Gamism - "Let's all play a game together, and do so to test our wits and abilities within the structure of the game's rules, and gain satisfaction by using our wit and knowledge to overcome structural challenges." Unlike the other two, the "pretending" part here is totally optional from the "game" part. If that challenge ends up as "pretending to be an alter-ego and kicking orc butt," so be it. The "pretending" part in Gamism is largely irrelevant, unless you're looking at some level to incorporate aspects from one of the other two "legs." (As a side note, any time you hear a complaint against GM fiat, it's generally coming from a gamist perspective--"You're 'unfairly' or 'arbitrarily' changing the challenge, and thus lessening my satisfaction!")

2. Simulationism - "Let's all pretend together and explore some aspect of a shared "world" and the characters that inhabit it." This may or may not even involve a structured set of "game" rules at all, beyond accepting that one person or persons is the "arbiter" of what happens and what doesn't--Rule 0. This "simulation" could also easily incorporate kicking orc butt--exploring the social ecology of orcs, the effects of lawless and reckless chaos on society, the nature of "tribalism," and more. 

3. Narrativism - "Let's all pretend together, and tell a meaningful story that resonates, reflects, or assimilates aspects of human values and emotions." Once again, this may or may not involve any "game" rules other than Rule 0 (and could also easily incorporate kicking orc butt, especially if it was approached from the aspect of, "What makes humans different from orcs? What emotional responses and controls do we have that they lack, and why is that important?"). 

Note the difference--Only #1 _absolutely requires_ there to be a formal, structured set of rules to be "gamed" for its premise to work at all. In a purely Gamist scenario, a player is only "pretending" to be an elf  with magic or a dwarf with an axe because that's how the challenge is  presented, and that's how the rules define the situation of the  challenge. It has nothing to do with caring about any sense of simulation or narrative.

Obviously, RPGs started from war games, and I get the fact that anywhere there's rules to be gamed, someone's going to "game" them (the phrase "Don't hate the playa, hate the game" is eminently applicable here). 

But the reason RPGs have continued to this day and evolved is because at some point, Gygax and Arneson had a "Whoah!" moment (think Keanu Reeves) when they discovered that there was something _else_, some other "kind" of game hiding underneath their miniatures battles in Chainmail. 

That's the game I want to play. Not a highly refined, glorified Chainmail.


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## pemerton (Jan 28, 2012)

ardoughter said:


> It seemsto me that Edwards (or at least GNS) is oblivious to that large subset of rpgs'ers that cannot achieve the "lets pretend " if they are forced to operate any metagame levers, The "Method" rpg'ers if you will.



I would say not oblivious, but certainly not designing games for them!



ardoughter said:


> I do not think there is anyone that wants a system that simulates nothing, or is there?



Well, everyone wants the system to deliver genre/world-appropriate outcomes. The difference is how this achieved, mechanically.

Overgeneralising slightly:

*simulationist play emphasises a correlation between mechanics and ingame causation - the "to hit" roll correlates to my weapon swing, the damage roll correlates to wear and how hard I hit, etc.

*narrativist and gamist play can more easily separate mechanics and ingame causation (going metagame, like you said) - and this opens the door to a different sort of mechanic, which sets parameters on outcomes, but leaves the details of how it comes about in the gameworld to be narrated by the players and GM.

Here are some passages from Edwards that draws the contrast:

Narrativism now appeared to be a mirror image or twin sibling of Gamism, counter to older impressions shared by me and anyone else who ever wrote about role-playing that Gamism was the odd man out. . .

Gamist and Narrativist play often share the following things: 

*Common use of player Author Stance (Pawn or non-Pawn) to set up the arena for conflict. This isn't an issue of whether Author (or any) Stance is employed at all, but rather when and for what. 

*Fortune-in-the-middle during resolution, to whatever degree - the point is that Exploration as such can be deferred, rather than established at every point during play in a linear fashion. 

*More generally, Exploration overall is negotiated in a casual fashion through ongoing dialogue, using system for input (which may be constraining), rather than explicitly delivered by system per se.​
I see all that as elaborating your point about the metagame levers.

Skill challenge mechanics,in 4e, are an example of this sort of non-simulationist mechanic (except when used just as complex skill checks). And I know of two games that use that style of mechanic exclusively: HeroWars/Quest, and Maelstrom Storytelling. In those games, coherence, consistency and genre-appropriateness in the mechanics are delivered entirely by participant narration - the mechanics, though, set the parameters on what sorts of outcomes can be narrated.



innerdude said:


> Gamism - "Let's all play a game together, and do so to test our wits and abilities within the structure of the game's rules, and gain satisfaction by using our wit and knowledge to overcome structural challenges." Unlike the other two, the "pretending" part here is totally optional from the "game" part.



Why do you say this? For example, how can anyone use wit and knowledge to "beat" the Tomb of Horrors if they drop the pretending part?



innerdude said:


> Narrativism - "Let's all pretend together, and tell a meaningful story that resonates, reflects, or assimilates aspects of human values and emotions." Once again, this may or may not involve any "game" rules other than Rule 0



Well, this is controversial too.

I mean, a big driver of The Forge movement and GNS (maybe the most important driver) is to design RPGs that will reliably deliver story, (i) _without_ the balance of power issues that come from Rule 0 "storytelling" - which tends to produce either dysfunction, or else player exploration of the GM's story if the players acquiesce, and (ii) without undermining player advocacy for their PCs and degenerating into insipid conch-passing.

As it happens, this is a non-trivial design challenge. Rule 0 is certainly not up to the task.


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## innerdude (Jan 28, 2012)

Good points, pemerton, though I think maybe you've taken the logical conclusion a step farther than I intended.  

I'm not saying you _should_ create _any _RPG without "rules," as such; I'm merely commenting that the form and essence of Narrativism and Simulationism at least _support _it as a possible agenda, whereas Gamism does not. 

As for how you can defeat something like _Tomb of Horrors_ without "pretending," I stated further on that you can "pretend," but that it's not particularly relevant to the purpose OR outcome of Gamism. The "pretending" in _pure _Gamism means you're only "pretending" for the sake of engaging with the challenge. It's merely one of the mechanisms that defines the challenge, and its possible outcomes. From a purely Gamist perspective, the only reason you'd choose being an Elf over a Dwarf, or choose one weapon proficiency over another, for example, is the way it changes your tactics and strategy toward the challenge (again, talking about _pure _Gamism here). 

It has nothing to do with why the player wants to "be an Elf," or "explore" what it means to be "dwarfish," or try and understand the world in which those characters inhabit. It's merely a means to creating strategy to defeat a particular challenge.


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## pemerton (Jan 28, 2012)

innerdude said:


> The "pretending" in _pure _Gamism means you're only "pretending" for the sake of engaging with the challenge. It's merely one of the mechanisms that defines the challenge, and its possible outcomes. From a purely Gamist perspective, the only reason you'd choose being an Elf over a Dwarf, or choose one weapon proficiency over another, for example, is the way it changes your tactics and strategy toward the challenge (again, talking about _pure _Gamism here).
> 
> It has nothing to do with why the player wants to "be an Elf," or "explore" what it means to be "dwarfish," or try and understand the world in which those characters inhabit. It's merely a means to creating strategy to defeat a particular challenge.



Sure, I agree with that. There's no broader aesthetic point to the pretending. But the shared imaginary space can still shape this gamist pretending (ie it's not just mechanics/boardgaming). For example, if I'm a gamist play, and I know my GM loves bullettes, then I have a reason not to build a halfling - but that reason isn't mechanical, it's because of the nature of bulettes in the SIS (I hope I've got my bulette lore right!).

Personally, I've found this a pretty common way to play D&D - someone will choose Dwarf because they want to be tough, Elf because they want to be an F/MU, etc. I've seen it in other games with mechanically differentiated racial options too.


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## LurkAway (Jan 28, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> 1. Gamism - Let's all pretend together and kick some orc butt.
> 2. Simulation - Let's all pretend together and explore this world or the characters.
> 3. Narrativism - Let's all pretend together and tell a story.



Or perhaps...?

Gamism - Let's kick pretend orc butt
Simulation/Immersion - I'm pretending to be a fighter trying to kick orc butt
Narrativism - We're pretending these heroes have/are/will kick orc butt

Still not sure that any of this theory _as is_ is actually useful. I suspect that Monte and Mearls are more interested in practical matters than strictly defining Gamism/Simulationism/Narrativism, and the next edition of D&D will be incredibly popular. Meanwhile, over at the Forge, is all their GNS theorizing producing games that a significant number of other people are playing? The list of indie RPGs shown on Wikipedia produced by The Forge all seem to have been published back in 2002 to 2004.


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## pemerton (Jan 30, 2012)

LurkAway said:


> Still not sure that any of this theory _as is_ is actually useful. I suspect that Monte and Mearls are more interested in practical matters than strictly defining Gamism/Simulationism/Narrativism, and the next edition of D&D will be incredibly popular.



Six-and-a-half years ago, Mearls said this:

The simple truth is that few in the gaming industry put any real, useful thought into their work. The Forge is really the crucible for a lot of the real examination and exploration of the underlying structure of RPGs. Outside of the Forge, there are few other designers who think of games in a useful, interesting way.

The RPG "industry" doesn't exist to produce good games. It exists to produce a network where game creators can compete for social prestige. There are pockets of real design work, but they're the exception, not the rule. . .

The Forge might be useful. It's the sort of thing that you have to go look at and judge for yourself. I find it a bit too steeped in jargon, but a lot of the end ideas are useful to think about in terms of my work.​
As I understand it, Mearls first game to prominence at the Gaming Outpost, which (again, as I unerstand it) was also a sort of precursor to the Forge.



LurkAway said:


> Meanwhile, over at the Forge, is all their GNS theorizing producing games that a significant number of other people are playing? The list of indie RPGs shown on Wikipedia produced by The Forge all seem to have been published back in 2002 to 2004.



Well, Edwards "shut down" the Forge a year or so ago, didn't he, declaring that his work there was done.

But I also think it would be a mistake to dismiss (for example) modernist movements in art, literature or music just because only a cultural minority admire, read or listen to those works. Their effect on popular works is nevertheless pervasive, even if unnoticed.


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## LurkAway (Jan 30, 2012)

pemerton said:


> But I also think it would be a mistake to dismiss (for example) modernist movements in art, literature or music just because only a cultural minority admire, read or listen to those works. Their effect on popular works is nevertheless pervasive, even if unnoticed.



I personally dismiss the modernist movement in art because whenever I go to an art gallery I can't help but laugh at the unnecessarily pretentious Artspeak. The underlying message about the human condition or whatnot is buried under so much jargon, I can't help but think this is just another emperor without clothes. It is possible to communicate the purpose of an artwork in a clear and straightforward manner, or even to write something intentionally poetic, or just let the artwork speak for itself (or not), but it is the determined pretentiousness of artspeak that makes me suspect that all the bla bla bla verbiage is just a cover for something embarrassingly pedestrian.

/end rant (based partially on several years of art classes and art history)


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## Yora (Jan 30, 2012)

Well, I know about the German literature scene where it's just the same. It appears that "big writers" are writing needlesly complicated so that the critics can praise it in the similar needlesly ways they prefer. The main reason for this is, that it hides from the public that it all is completely without substance. The insiders bath in each others radiance. The emperors new clothes may be just the right term.

The only great German author I've seen in the last 10 years is Walter Moers, whose work is 40% direct parody of this, and 30% hidden satire of it, with the last 30% being the actual plot of the book. And he easily makes parody and satire true high art.


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## pemerton (Jan 31, 2012)

A lot of modern art is pedestrian, isn't it? I'm not much of an art historian, and am happy to be corrected by those who are, but I would say that Duchamp's "Fountain" has a lot to answer for!

It's one of the earliest works that I know of in which the idea is more important than the execution (although the aesthetic character of the urinal as a work of ceramics is also part of it - but important mostly, I think, for how it feeds into and reinforces the idea).

I personally think "Fountain" is brilliant, although board rules probably preclude explaining why. But once you set up an approach to art in which idea will trump execution, it's likely you're going to get a lot of duds, because not every artist's idea is going to be brilliant. And increasingly, especially in "found object" visual art works, there is not even a great aesthetic component to the idea.

But my comment upthread was about influence, not quality. Whether or not one likes Fountain and the work that has followed it, I think it's influence is utterly pervasive, in all sorts of ways. Whether that's a good or a bad thing might depend on whether or not you think that modern art and design is overwhelmingly ugly (and there can be subtleties here, because one might hate the stereotypical modern building and yet love The Simpsons or South Park, although arguably they are both grounded in a common foundation).


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## Leatherhead (Jan 31, 2012)

To me, GNS seems backwards.

As if it was reverse engineered from "how" people play the game, instead of working with "why" people play the game, and building from there.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 31, 2012)

pemerton said:


> A lot of modern art is pedestrian, isn't it? I'm not much of an art historian, and am happy to be corrected by those who are, but I would say that Duchamp's "Fountain" has a lot to answer for!
> 
> It's one of the earliest works that I know of in which the idea is more important than the execution (although the aesthetic character of the urinal as a work of ceramics is also part of it - but important mostly, I think, for how it feeds into and reinforces the idea).
> 
> ...




i had to google the fountain, but looking at it I think it is an example of what luraway means. Personally i don't find it brilliant at all. I recall there was an artist who pooped in a can and it was praise by critics. This is much the same. It is the emperors new clothes to me.


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## pemerton (Jan 31, 2012)

I don't want to break board rules - but when thinking about The Fountain you have to remember that it is 1917. France, together with the rest of Europe - and especially England and Germany - who collectively regarded themselves as the pinnacle of human civilisation, with their art as part of that - is bleeding dry in perhaps the most pointless war in human history.

The First World War punctures modern Europe's illusory self-conception (although films like Warhorse seem designed to try and reestablish the illusion!). The Fountain is an expression of, and a reflection on, that point in the domain of the visual arts. It's a savage attack on what its author regards as a failed civilisation - and failed not due to external shock, but due to its own, radically conceited failure of self-understanding.

To use the "new clothes" analogy - the whole _point_ of the Fountain is that European civilisation, c 1917, has no clothes on.

Anyway, I don't think I can say any more without blatantly breaking the rules of the board.


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## LurkAway (Jan 31, 2012)

pemerton said:


> The First World War punctures modern Europe's illusory self-conception (although films like Warhorse seem designed to try and reestablish the illusion!). The Fountain is an expression of, and a reflection on, that point in the domain of the visual arts. It's a savage attack on what its author regards as a failed civilisation - and failed not due to external shock, but due to its own, radically conceited failure of self-understanding.



Bedrockgames, or to put it simply, Duchampe was subverting conventional notions of "What is art?"

So you walk through an art gallery, adoring the Mona Lisa and other great artworks, and  then suddenly you come to a urinal mounted on a wall, and that's there to challenge you -- the usual modernist stuff.

But AFAICT, this is the art world's interpretation of Duchampe. The art itself can be deeply personal, and artists may or may not be able to articulate their own opinions of their own art.

IMO, it's contemporary artspeak that I like to dismiss because I think its jargon and pretentiousness prevents it from being an effective and honest "ambassador" between the artist's work and the rest of the world.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 31, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I don't want to break board rules - but when thinking about The Fountain you have to remember that it is 1917. France, together with the rest of Europe - and especially England and Germany - who collectively regarded themselves as the pinnacle of human civilisation, with their art as part of that - is bleeding dry in perhaps the most pointless war in human history.
> 
> The First World War punctures modern Europe's illusory self-conception (although films like Warhorse seem designed to try and reestablish the illusion!). The Fountain is an expression of, and a reflection on, that point in the domain of the visual arts. It's a savage attack on what its author regards as a failed civilisation - and failed not due to external shock, but due to its own, radically conceited failure of self-understanding.
> 
> ...




I understand that reading, but for me it doesn't redeem the piece.


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## pemerton (Jan 31, 2012)

LurkAway said:


> IMO, it's contemporary artspeak that I like to dismiss because I think its jargon and pretentiousness prevents it from being an effective and honest "ambassador" between the artist's work and the rest of the world.



Contemporary criticism reminds me of Plato's doctrine that it is critics who are the real musicians (because performers are just slaves, and composers just follow the rules of harmony - at least, this is my recollection of a lecture I was in a long time ago).

But besides the sometimes excessive self-importance, I don't like the dependence of a lot of contemporary criticism on what I regard as flawed accounts of meaning (especially Heidegger and Derrida and now Zizek, all of whom I regard as grossly overrated).



LurkAway said:


> Bedrockgames, or to put it simply, Duchampe was subverting conventional notions of "What is art?"
> 
> <snip>
> 
> But AFAICT, this is the art world's interpretation of Duchampe.



Because I'm trained as a political and social philsopher, and not as an art historian or critic, I tend to see it more in historical/political/social terms than in narrowly aesthetic/"what is art?" terms. Which probably came through in my post above.

More generally, I'm sceptical of criticism that is divorced from politics - which is not to say that I think aesthetics is just a branch of morality - my tentative view is that they're independent and sometimes are opposed. It's more that I think Neitzsche is right about the connection between evaluation and social/historical context.

To try and bring this back on topic, but probably by saying something that no one else agrees with, one thing I like about Edwards is that he tries, in his GNS essays, to link playstyle and system design to broader ideas about how RPGing works as a social activity, relates to other competing leisure or creative activities, etc. I wouldn't say that he's always right, but I like that he makes the attempt.


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## LurkAway (Jan 31, 2012)

pemerton said:


> To try and bring this back on topic,



Yes, let's do that 



> but probably by saying something that no one else agrees with, one thing I like about Edwards is that he tries, in his GNS essays, to link playstyle and system design to broader ideas about how RPGing works as a social activity, relates to other competing leisure or creative activities, etc. I wouldn't say that he's always right, but I like that he makes the attempt.



I won't presume to judge one or way another. But I would like to quote a tidibit from Ron Edwards just less than a year ago that makes me wonder how much he is in touch with RPGing as a _*social*_ activity:


> Here's something you should know about me: I have no "smoothing" social  skills at all. I despise nice little phrases that lubricate exchanges of  information. So when I say, "I'm interested in what you have to say," _like I did in your thread_, I f*cking well mean it and - you know? - expect you to chill, and _receive _  the genuine respect I just handed you instead of getting all bent out  of shape. When I close with "Best," you know what that means? It means I  sweated over that post with my best attempt to communicate. It's not  some cute little TTFN sign-off.


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## pemerton (Jan 31, 2012)

That's a bit ad hominem, isn't it? I mean, a sociologist could be gruff, rude or taciturn and still be a good sociologist.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 31, 2012)

pemerton said:


> That's a bit ad hominem, isn't it? I mean, a sociologist could be gruff, rude or taciturn and still be a good sociologist.




The problem with Edwars is it impacts is ideas. I also would not say he is doing sociology. Sociologists have a method, edwards has opinions and theorirs based on his own experiences with gaming. If he was actually going out and performing objective studies about ow gamers behave and communicate, that would be different. I would compare what he does more to a literary critic with a critical framework. However I would argue his framework is flawed.


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## pemerton (Jan 31, 2012)

A critic, sure, but not a critic just of the products of RPG play, or just of RPG texts. He has a theory - obviously a contentious one - of how RPG play works as a social activity, and what it's social point might be.

The Lumpley Principle, for example, is a sociological conjecture. Likewise the contention that the primary function of RPG rules - whatever else they might do - is "to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table".

(Admittedly these aren't Edwards, but they're from the same school, and he says similar sorts of things, although not always as clearly!)

I think the 4e rulebooks could do with more of this. The DMG talks about various sorts of player, using Robin Laws' categories (I think - I don't actual have the Laws of Good Gamemastering). But there is little attempt to relate these social dynamics of play to the structuring of scenarios or the incorporation of story elements other than fairly banal stuff like "If you have an Actor than include some NPCs to talk with". And all of the Monster Manual is presented in ingame, fictional terms rather than at the metagame and social level. Worlds and Monsters was better in this respect, in my view, talking at the metagame level about how story elements are to be used. But it still doesn't include advice on the social dynamics of shared story creation.

Simplest example: the DMG says that players can create Quests, but says nothing about how this is actually to be handled at the table. Who designs the encounters? According to what principles? Who decides how much treasure there will be? What if the quest is to find a partiuclar treasure? It's not as if there is nothing useful to be said about how this all might be done - about _how_ realworld negotiation at the playing table might be eased and constrained.


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## LurkAway (Jan 31, 2012)

pemerton said:


> That's a bit ad hominem, isn't it? I mean, a sociologist could be gruff, rude or taciturn and still be a good sociologist.



I don't want to engage in 'character assassination' so I was hoping that the quote would speak for itself. To put it generally, I think that communication (combined with others like the 'brain damage') is wrong-headed for several reasons, the most relevant one to this discussion being that Edwards seemed unwilling or unable to give others the benefit of the doubt (as much as he expects to receive it). I could explain in detail why I get that impression, but I'm not sure its appropriate to dissect. It just seems to me that giving others the benefit of the doubt, genuinely wanting to understand where they're coming from, is very important to understanding other viewpoints, especially with interpretive theory. Otherwise, the scope of the interpretive theory is self-limited by the author's own communicative barriers. I really didn't want to spell it out like this, i was hoping the quote would speak for itself like I said. And maybe I'm wrong and maybe it was an inadvertent ad hominem attack, but I certaintly didn't intend it that way.

EDIT: Not to be a hypocrite, I would like to give Edwards the benefit of the doubt, so although comments about 'brain damage' do make me rather suspicious, I try not to jump to conclusions, and that's why I wrote earlier that I didn't want to presume one way or another.


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## pemerton (Jan 31, 2012)

[MENTION=6685059]LurkAway[/MENTION], I wasn't accusing you of hypocrisy (or didn't mean to). Your follow-up post does make your point clearer.  Like you, I haven't done a thorough review of the posts of Ron Edwards.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 31, 2012)

I dont think he even has a real theory, more of a critical framework or model. But the problem is the model isn't the product of any real method yet it claims tonhave insight into social interaction at the gaming table. 

And I think Lurkaway made a good point about closed mindedness. Edwards has an insistence in his viewpoint that troubles me. It is like he can't even conceive of the possibility he is wrong or other approaches may be just as valid. Arguing passionately for a position is fine, but it is very important to understand the other side of the debate without attributing negative qualities to them. In a way, there is an undercurrent of ad hom attacks in a lot of his writing.


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## Crazy Jerome (Jan 31, 2012)

pemerton said:


> I think the 4e rulebooks could do with more of this. The DMG talks about various sorts of player, using Robin Laws' categories (I think - I don't actual have the Laws of Good Gamemastering). But there is little attempt to relate these social dynamics of play to the structuring of scenarios or the incorporation of story elements other than fairly banal stuff like "If you have an Actor than include some NPCs to talk with". And all of the Monster Manual is presented in ingame, fictional terms rather than at the metagame and social level. Worlds and Monsters was better in this respect, in my view, talking at the metagame level about how story elements are to be used. But it still doesn't include advice on the social dynamics of shared story creation.
> 
> Simplest example: the DMG says that players can create Quests, but says nothing about how this is actually to be handled at the table. Who designs the encounters? According to what principles? Who decides how much treasure there will be? What if the quest is to find a partiuclar treasure? It's not as if there is nothing useful to be said about how this all might be done - about _how_ realworld negotiation at the playing table might be eased and constrained.




I think excellent DMG advice could use something almost exactly at the midpoint between Edwards and Laws. Edwards is so hellbent on telling you exactly what he means, that he doesn't care how it sounds. Laws is so worried about everyone being nice and playing well together, that he sometimes can't tell you a hard truth without reducing it to pablum.

Edit:  I will say this in the defense of Edwards' tone.  I never understood it ... until I imagined myself running an RPG forum dedicated to serious inquiry and having to act as a moderator.  As my young nephew used to say, this could make you a bit "kwanky".  (That's "cranky" for those of you unfamiliar with "toddler-ese".  )


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## LurkAway (Jan 31, 2012)

@pemerton , no worries, I didn't think you were, I was just self monitoring myself

I read about the brain damage here
Comments on the GNS Model

I've only skimread these, so I can't vouch for it, but FYI from the same author whoever he is:
Whitehall ParaIndustries: Flaws of GNS- Part I: The Appeal
http://whitehall-paraindustries.blogspot.com/2009/01/why-rpg-theory-has-bad-rep-part-i.html


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## Zelda Themelin (Jan 31, 2012)

LurkAway said:


> Or perhaps...?
> 
> Gamism - Let's kick pretend orc butt
> Simulation/Immersion - I'm pretending to be a fighter trying to kick orc butt
> ...




Hehe, that clarifies it quite much. Still, not useful. I think whole Forge thing is to gloryfy some "Narrativism" (horrible word) - style, that very few normal rolepleyers like. I think that is easily seen in their lack of sales. Gllory to ideas where money goes, so sorry, but no matter how original or "Indie" piece of art (movie, game, book) is, it lacks value if idea is not attractive to somewhat large group of people.

Classical rpg:s have always consisted of some rolemaster/keeper/dm/gm/equal with really silly name, group story-telling is classic too (I did it when I was kid) but not part of classic rpg style. You can bet artsy-fartsy people to come up with something weird. Yet there aren't many lady-gaga:s out there. 

It might just be I am anti-narsist... sorry narrativism. 

But seriously I pretty much oppose idea of rpg:s having equal gamemaster rights. And forge game themes are so un-fun, though few were rather clever too I must admit. 

Wait I once played with friends some vampire/beyond the supernatural/torg games where we were playing ourselves (3 different itmes). Kinda ourselves. And took turns running the plot and npcs, I was the evil "gm". Usual arguments about our stats etc. I can't imagine that being popular either.


But as you present those ideas here, seem to be summed up by all regular rpg:s I know. People play rpg:s so many different way, but Forge games way, 
I've only seen it once and as to my experience of people themselves... 


I'd be curious to know, do anyone here reflect this philosophical pondering (not in sense if this current theory is right but how you see it) into your actual gaming? Well few have given examples of their "gamist" (hate that word too) moments, but can you kinda foretell how players will react to different things etc. based on these or similar theories. I know some metathinking is required when making game for other people to exist but do most of you here believe into complex game-theories or do you use your gutt-feeling? If you are just making your gaming system you fancy I don't think it counts.


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## pemerton (Feb 1, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> Edwards has an insistence in his viewpoint that troubles me. It is like he can't even conceive of the possibility he is wrong or other approaches may be just as valid.



Whereas I don't get that vibe - for example, in a couple of his essays he talks explicitly about how he changed his mind - on the existence of simulationism, for example, and also on the place of gamism - he used to think it was the odd one out, but then realised that it has more in common with narrativism than narrativism has with simulationism.

He also apologised for the "brain damage" episode in a very public way, as well as (if he is believed) talking to John Nephew personally to resolve things between them.

I'm by no means saying he's a saint! But by the standards of the academic world, for instance (which is the world of ideas that I mostly inhabit) he seems to admit to change and to error at least to an average degree.


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 1, 2012)

pemerton said:


> Whereas I don't get that vibe - for example, in a couple of his essays he talks explicitly about how he changed his mind - on the existence of simulationism, for example, and also on the place of gamism - he used to think it was the odd one out, but then realised that it has more in common with narrativism than narrativism has with simulationism.
> 
> He also apologised for the "brain damage" episode in a very public way, as well as (if he is believed) talking to John Nephew personally to resolve things between them.
> 
> I'm by no means saying he's a saint! But by the standards of the academic world, for instance (which is the world of ideas that I mostly inhabit) he seems to admit to change and to error at least to an average degree.




I am not talking about an inability for his views to change overtime, i am talking about the level of conviction the man seems to have at any given moment. I am sorry, but I think the way he presents his ideas, it comes off as the one true way. He speaks in very absolute terms. This I could understand if e was talking about gravity, but not when you are talking why folks are at the gaming table. It is his dismissal if other points of view. Perhaps he has changed his position on simulation, but there was a time when he was highly dismissive of the concept. And as far as I know he continues to dismiss immerssion


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## pemerton (Feb 1, 2012)

LurkAway said:


> I've only skimread these, so I can't vouch for it, but FYI from the same author whoever he is:
> Whitehall ParaIndustries: Flaws of GNS- Part I: The Appeal
> Whitehall ParaIndustries: Why RPG Theory has a Bad Rep- Part I: The Threefold



I just read it.

For what it's worth, here are my main thoughts about it.

It starts with a definition of RPGing:

It is a table-top game played by a group of people. That game consists of people role-playing their characters in a continuing series of events set in a self-consistent setting with consistent rules.​
It then breaks that definition up into G, N and S components:

It is a table-top game (Gamist) played by a group of people. That game consists of people role-playing their characters in a continuing series of events (Story) set in a self-consistent setting with consistent rules (Simulation).​
It then uses that break up to accuse GNS of missing the point about RPGing, by insisting on the "only one creative agenda at a time" principle:

It is table-top game (Gamist) played by a group of people OR it consists of people role-playing their characters in a continuing series of events (Story) OR it is set in a self-consistent setting with consistent rules (Simulation).​
I'm not personally 100% sure that the "only one agenda at a time" claim is true, in part because I think the distinction that Edwards et al deploy between "agendas" and "techniques" is somewhat loose - and Edwards himself seems to come close to allowing this when he says that:

Gamist and Narrativist play don't tug-of-war over "doing it right" - they simply avoid one another, like the same-end poles of two magnets. Note, I'm saying play, not players. The activity of play doesn't hybridize well between Gamism and Narrativism, but it does shift, sometimes quite easily.​
(This sort of passage tends, for me, to push against the view that GNS is about labelling and dividing the community. I know others see Edwards' writing differently.)

But even if the "only one agenda" claim is true, the criticism on those blogs wouldn't follow. Gamism is not about "playing a game". It's about doing well at the game being the point of play. Narrativism isn't about there being a "continuos series of events". It's about group play being capable of producing aesthetically satisfying fiction.

Because I don't think the criticism is fair or accurate, I don't think that these conclusions follow:

Indeed, if followed the model will produce something that is basically another type of game completely. . .

The Forges definition of Narrativist while very specific is still a method of viewing a Story based campaign. Some people like it. The games produced (for the best examples of the theory) by the theory are not what people commonly consider to be RPGs- but they are still games of some type liked by a certain type of player.​
This is the first time I've heard it suggested that Dogs in the Vineyard, Sorcerer, My Life With Master, etc aren't RPGs. (And for me, it echoes the frequent characterisation of 4e as a boardgame rather than an RPG.)

I also don't think it's true to say that GNS involves

a very specific concept of Story. One that isn't one in common use by any means, and one that likely didn't apply to any significant number of rpg campaigns until he started to apply it.​
Edwards' notion of "story" is straightforward enough - something of aesthetic appeal and aesthetic worth. (He is ambiguous about the relationship beteen appeal and worth, and has an overly moralised conception of what things are aesthetically worthwhile, which happily he drops when he actually starts talking about games, as opposed to talking abstractly about what story involves.) I've played in a lot of RPG sessions and campaigns - not just my own - where that sort of story is going on, although back in the years when I was doing a lot of play outside my own group people weren't very self-conscious about Forge-y techniques, and (especialy because of AD&D 2nd ed and Vampire, I would say) there was an excessive emphasis on the GM as the progenitor of the story.

But if I had to sum up my objection to the objection, it would be that _this_ is presented as if it were a strong reason to reject GNS:

It is inherently subject to Definition Conflict, and thus flamewars​
There are obvious ad hominem avenues of rebuttal here - the refutation of GNS depends upon definitions, for example, that are highly contestable - a lot of Basic D&D lacks a continuing seris of events, for example, because the passage of time between trips to the dungeon is simply handwaved away.

But - and this goes back to my exchangs with Umbran earlier in this thread (and like Umbran this blog draws on the WotC data) - I don't regard it as an objection to an interpretive theory that its characterisation of some value, or of some domain of human activity, is contestable and contested. Simple example: Rawls' may be wrong in his account of fairness, in his account of the relationship between fairness and justice, in his claim that justice is the preeminent virtue of a society, etc. But you can't show he's wrong just by showing that others - including eminent others like Nozick - contest his account of fairness, of justice, of the relationship between these two values, of the relationship of justice to overall social virtue, etc.

Hardly anything worth saying about human affairs is uncontroversial!



LurkAway said:


> I read about the brain damage here
> Comments on the GNS Model



I've read the brain damage thread, although it was a while ago now (but well after the actual event).

As I recall it, it is not that

Ron thinks of other definitions of Story . . . [as] brain-damaged.​
As I recall it, Edwards said that people had lost the ability to understand what it means to create a story from playing Storyteller RPGs. (This loss of ability was the so-called brain damage - Edwards makes it clear that he's a mind-brain identity guy, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's a hardcore Chomskyan!)

Here is an example, from Vincent Baker's blog:

protagonism was so badly injured during the history of role-playing (1970-ish through the present, with the height of the effect being the early 1990s), that participants in that hobby are perhaps the very last people on earth who could be expected to produce *all* the components of a functional story. No, the most functional among them can only be counted on to seize protagonism in their stump-fingered hands and scream protectively. You can tag Sorcerer with this diagnosis, instantly.​
Notice that he includes _himself_ among the braindamaged - so he's not talking about people with differing views from his about what story means - though he also regards himself as among the most functional of the braindamaged.

What he's claiming is that the practice of RPGs - especially early 90s storyteller RPGing damages the understanding of protagonism - of story creation.

Here is another example, probably more outrage-provoking:

a human being can routinely _understand_, _enjoy_, and (with some practice) _create _stories. I think most postmodernism is arrant garbage, so I'll say that a story is a fictional series of events which present a conflict and a resolution, with the emergent/resulting audience experience of "theme." . . .

the routine human capacity for_ understanding, enjoying, and creating stories _is damaged . . . by repeated "storytelling role-playing" as promulgated through many role-playing games of a specific type. This type is only one game in terms of procedures, but it's represented across several dozens of titles and about fifteen to twenty years, peaking about ten years ago [ie mid-90s]. Think of it as a "way" to role-play rather than any single title. 

I now hold the viewpoint that in every generation, inspired and interested young teens and younger college students are introduced to a fascinating new activity that they are eminently qualified to excel at and enjoy greatly. However, subculturally speaking, it's a bait-and-switch, especially during the time-period outlined above. Instead, they were and are exposed to damaging behavior as _they_ _learn what to do_, and therefore, the following things happen. (1) They associate the procedures they are learning with the activity itself, as a definition. (2) The original purpose which interested them is obscured or replaced with the "thing," or pseudo-thing, of the new purpose, which no one is qualified to excel at, nor does it offer any particular intrinsic rewards. 

The vast majority of people so exposed quite reasonably recoil and find other things to do. Some stay and continue to participate. Socially, the activity occurs among the generational wave-front of the young teens and young college students, losing most as it goes, retaining a few each iteration, but always replenished by the new bunch. Of the ones who remain involved, many are vaguely frustrated and dissatisfied, and some of them gain power within that subculture and work hard to perpetuate it.​
Now I don't know what toxic personalities and behaviours Edwards encounterd to make him write this. I have my own memories of university roleplaying clubs in the early to mid 90s, and while I wouldn't describe what I saw there in quite the strong terms that Edwards uses, and I also would regard the RPGing as only one component of a much bigger social dynamic, I did see things that fit what Edwards is describing - in particular the exercise, by GMs who were also dominant figures in this subculture, of their self-asserted power as GMs over _the story_ and _the game_, as one element in a broader matrix of power exercised over acolytes or wannabe acolytes.

I would say that it was a social dynamic not radically different, in some of its broad features, from that of various and notorious cults that also like to collect their members from vulnerable late-teens who are newly commencing university/college students.

I had the good fortune to recruit some players, who became long term players in my game and long term friends, from refugees from games run by participants in this milieu. I also myself played in some games within this milieu, but mostly as an outsider, and in the only ongoing campaign I took part in remain very pleased with my role, as a player, in bringing the focus of play away from the GM and a would-be dominant player colluding with him to "own" the story, back to the rest of the players, and our PCs, and the various stories that we were trying to tell. (Was I therefore a "problem player"? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure the game folded not long after I quit it due to commencing full time work.)

I think Edwards' pejorative remarks about pastiche also have to be read in a similar social context. Everyone - or, at least, every roleplayer - presumably has some genre story or stories that s/he enjoys, and that inform his/her own story creation as a roleplayer - tropes, thematic concerns, characters who spoke to us and whom we like to echo, etc. When Edwards is attacking pastiche in RPGing, he is talking (I think) about the social pressure, within a certain sort of subculture associated at least weakly with sci-fi and fanatsy fans (including the RPGers among them) to adhere to _the story_, the "canon", the world, as an already-given thing (or, more often, an already _purchased_ thing), to which a would-be player's own protagonistic inclinations must be subordinated.

This is why I always agree with [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] when debates break out on these boards about excesses of player entitlement, a GM's prerogative to control the game, etc. Of course the GM has some say over what game will be run, just as the players do to - if only by saying, if you're going to GM that than let's all go to the movies instead! But as soon as someone thinks that _it is important to call out a GM's prerogative_, as if the banal fact that the GM is a human being too, participating in a voluntary leisure activity, wasn't all that we needed to know, then I react in the same fashion as Hussar. And I get a feeling of hostility to player protagonism that I don't understand, but that reminds me, however mildly, of Edwards' comments about RPGing.

Edwards says another curious thing on the Vincent Baker blog:

The design decisions I've made with my current project are so not-RPG, but at the same time so dismissive of what's ordinarily called "consensual storytelling," that I cannot even begin to discuss it on-line. . . I cannot articulate the way that I have abandoned the player-character, yet preserved the moral responsibility of decision-making during play.​
I don't know what he was working on then, and whether or not it has seen the light of day. I'd be curious to see it.

From that comment, plus some other stuff on the Forge forum, I infer that Edwards thinks that the whole player-participant-via-PC model of RPGing is inherently flawed as a medium for collective story creation. If true, that would be a depressing conlcusion for me! - although a flaw need not, per se, be fatal.

One post by Edwards that has helped me a lot with my GMing was posted 7 months or so after the Brain Damage episode, and seems more upbeat about what can be done in an RPG:

*Plot authority *- over crux-points in the knowledge base at the table - now is the time for a revelation! - typically, revealing content, although notice it can apply to player-characters' material as well as GM material - and look out, because within this authority lies the remarkable pitfall of wanting (for instances) revelations and reactions to apply precisely to players as they do to characters

*Situational authority *- over who's there, what's going on - scene framing would be the most relevant and obvious technique-example, or phrases like "That's when I show up!" from a player

*Narrational authority* - how it happens, what happens - I'm suggesting here that this is best understood as a feature of resolution . . . and not to mistake it for describing what the castle looks like, for instance; I also suggest it's far more shared in application than most role-players realize . . .

*The real point, not the side-point, is that any one of these authorities can be shared across the individuals playing without violating the other authorities. *

For instance, in [a particular game RE GMed], I scene-framed like a m[*****]-f[*****]. That's the middle level: situational authority. . .   But I totally gave up authority over the "top" level, plot authority. I let that become an emergent property of the other two levels: again, me with full authority over situation (scene framing), and the players and I sharing authority over narrational authority, which provided me with cues, in the sense of no-nonsense instructions, regarding later scene framing. . .

Well, let's look at this [ie another poster's problems with his game] again. Actually, I think it has nothing at all to do with distributed authority, but rather with the group members' shared trust that situational authority is going to get exerted for maximal enjoyment among everyone. . . 

It's not the distributed or not-distributed aspect of situational authority you're concerned with, it's your trust at the table, as a group, that your situations in the SIS are worth anyone's time. Bluntly, you guys ought to work on that.​
So maybe he changed his mind about the viability of RPGs as a creative medium. I don't know.

TL;DR - I may be brain damaged!


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## pemerton (Feb 1, 2012)

Zelda Themelin said:


> Classical rpg:s have always consisted of some rolemaster/keeper/dm/gm/equal with really silly name, group story-telling is classic too (I did it when I was kid) but not part of classic rpg style.



The standard approach to narrativist play relies just as much on the GM/player divide as does Gygax's D&D. It's not "group storytelling". In fact, the whole idea is to get a story _without_ group storytelling.

The actual jobs given to the GM and the players are a bit different from at a Gygaxian table, and very different from at a "storyteller" table.



Zelda Themelin said:


> I'd be curious to know, do anyone here reflect this philosophical pondering (not in sense if this current theory is right but how you see it) into your actual gaming?



Yes. I've been GMing in roughly the way that I do now since I started running an Oriental Adventures game in 1986. But reading the Forge, and reading some of the game rulebooks that I learned about there, has helped my GMing a lot. It was also good for WotC, because it also encourageed me make the switch from GMing Rolemaster to GMing 4e! (Not directly - I don't think there's a lot of 4e play at the Forge - but by giving me the ideas to appreciate the ways in which 4e's design would help me get what I wanted out of a gonzo fantasy RPG without having to push against the system.)



Zelda Themelin said:


> can you kinda foretell how players will react to different things etc. based on these or similar theories.



I'm not sure you can tell how a player will react to different GMing approaches unless you play with them (or at least know them well in some other fashion). I use it to help develop my own GMing technqiues.



Zelda Themelin said:


> do most of you here believe into complex game-theories or do you use your gutt-feeling?



Speaking for myself, I use theory to help develop my gut-feelings. But my gut-feelings can also tell me when something is not working. For my first few years as a GM (basically up until Oriental Adventures came out) I read Lewis Pulsipher, Gary Gygax, and similar sorts of stuff in Dragon and White Dwarf and the AD&D rulebooks, and I tried to run a game like they said I should - emphasising operational play, the need to make the players _earn _their XP, keep careful track of time and use time as another resource to challenge the players, etc - but (i) I wasn't very good at it, and (ii) my players didn't really seem to enjoy it. They enjoyed playing their PCs, and pursuing their PCs' goals within the imaginary world, and they wanted me to present those PCs with the challenges that would let the players explore and develop their PCs in the ways that interested them.

Even though now, when I look back at Oriental Adventures I see a game aiming mostly at a type of high concept sim play (especially with its Honour mechanics), at the time it was liberating for me - in part because of the way it gave the players more freedom to build PCs in accordance with their own conceptions of them (via the proficiency and build-your-own martial arts rules), in part because its classes and races were more obviously embedded in a world of clear thematic values (the loyal samurai, the wandering bushi, the devoted kensai, etc). And hardly an iron spike or 10 pole in sight!

My gut feel led me to the sort of RPGing I enjoy, and as an adult I became familiar with a much wider range of RPGs, but The Forge really helped me hone in on what my preferences were, how different mechanics worked with them or against them, etc etc.



Zelda Themelin said:


> I think whole Forge thing is to gloryfy some "Narrativism" (horrible word) - style, that very few normal rolepleyers like.



This I'm in two minds about.

Of course most people don't want to play the actual avant-garde games like Nicotine Girls or My Life With Master. I don't run those games either. I run 4e D&D - in its themes and tropes, it's a mainstream gonzo fantasy RPG.

But I'm not entirely persuaded that only very few normal RPGers like playing a game in which player protagonism, and the genuine shaping of the story thereby, is to the fore. I'll admit that the popularity of adventure paths does tell against this. But I also think that there does seem to be some genuine but fairly widespread ignorance of techniques - it is extremely common on these boards, for example, to see post after post written on the assumption that the only alternative to a sandbox is some sort of adventure-path style railroad.

On the other hand, there also seems to be a big love among many RPGers of a pre-packaged story of which they can be a part (by playing their PCs). For these people, presumably narrativism does have little appeal.

Like I said, I'm in two minds. I think 4e was an interesting attempt to produce a very narrativist-friendly game, that could also be used for light gamist play, and that (despite its departures from traditional D&D) retained many features of classic RPGs - powers, hit points, and other class features that blur the line between game and metagame, rather than calling it out in the more blatant fashion of some Forge-y games.

With 4e apparently having collapsed, I think it will be a while before we see something like that again! I think it's back to mainstream sim for us!


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 1, 2012)

I don't really see the Rawls comparison here. Rawls had an idea which he attempted to prove through a clear argument, but he is a philosopher. There is no way to test Rawls idea in a lab, especially since it is an argument about what "ought to be" not what "is". But Edwards, IMO, fails to build an argument that can be met. He begins with a conclusion and procedes from there. In my mind the burden is on Edwards to prove his position has merit. Also, Edwards is describing something that could easily be tested. There may be some debate about method and results, but there are ways to obtain data about agendas are at the table. So i don't feel he can rely on asserton or argumention alone. 

If he was just a blogger giving his two cents this wouldn't be an issue. As a gm i comb blogs for advice that may be useful and try it out. But he has built a model and website around these ideas. So he clearly wants them to be taken seriously.

On the whole brain damage thing, i don't think there is any good ustification for that. We already had a lengthy debate about ths at therpgsite, so I wont get too into my views again, but he began with comparing a style he didn't like to brain damage (going further and saying actual real harm was done to the mind) and ended by comparing it to sexual abuse. That doesn't disprove his ideas. However it definitely says something about his rhetorical style.


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 1, 2012)

pemerton said:


> But I'm not entirely persuaded that only very few normal RPGers like playing a game in which player protagonism, and the genuine shaping of the story thereby, is to the fore. I'll admit that the popularity of adventure paths does tell against this. But I also think that there does seem to be some genuine but fairly widespread ignorance of techniques - it is extremely common on these boards, for example, to see post after post written on the assumption that the only alternative to a sandbox is some sort of adventure-path style railroad.




I am not sure this is that wide spread. Personally I have had many fruitful conversations here about adventure structures and approaches to running games. I have found that people use widely different vocabularies (normakky descriptive enough that you know what the person is saying most of the time). There will always be people who just see the two extremes if the spectrum: sandbox and railroad. I am not sure this stems from ignorance of alternatives. My conclusion is this comes from the fact that these two are the most concrete in terms of prep and concept. So i think most people are aware of other techiques (heck you can't read most gm sections without being exposed to alternatives to sandbox and railroad)

 I dont run either. I run what i call character driven adventures mixed with invesrigative elements. It is very similar to what Clash Bowley calls situational GMing. So my approach involves making characters, power groups, locations and events. It would be easy to mistake this for sandbox, but in my mind it isn't that. I suspect plenty of folks at the forge employ this style as well. But i also employ railroad and sandbox as techniques here and there. For instance the initial set uo if my adventure may be a railroad, but after that players have total control. 

Another thing to keep in mind is age. You rarely know the age of a poster or how long they have played rpgs. Usually when I enciunter a poster who doesn't undeerstand the range of techniques or styles out there, it turns out to be someone who started gaming recently (usually beginning on 3e, pathfinder or 4e).


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## steenan (Feb 1, 2012)

With all the criticism of Forge theories, I was skeptical about them for some time. I changed my mind, because they really helped my games. Even if the GNS classification is arbitrary and not grounded in serious research, it is exactly what I needed.

For several years me and my friends had a problem: we enjoyed some sessions much better than others and couldn't put a finger on the difference. Some games were excellent, some were just good; we played and GMed good enough to ensure we had "good" games, but we didn't know how to aim for "excellent".

The narrativism, as defined at Forge, was a revelation. The distinction between "story before" and "story now" was exactly what we searched for.

Forge also helped me rediscover gamism as a fun and functional play style - as opposed to munchkin activity that disrupts play. Being aware of different agendas that may come into conflict helped in finding common ground and deciding how we wanted to play at given time.

The Big Model, despite its incompleteness, was much more useful for my group than any other classification scheme (like the Law's one) exactly because it didn't try to classify player styles or character behavior, but the activities and agendas at the table. It showed us that we may find many different "common grounds" and there is no need for painful compromises - but we have to, for every separate game, define clearly how we wanted to play.


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## Balesir (Feb 1, 2012)

I'm unable to xp [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] for his last two posts in this thread; if someone would cover for me, I'd be most grateful.

His patience with the monumental task of building a response to the torrent is something I am currently in awe of!

Also: [MENTION=23240]steenan[/MENTION]'s last post reflects my experience very well, indeed.


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## Zelda Themelin (Feb 1, 2012)

I think basic idea of some greater unifying theory isn't bad at all. It might just been that way too eco-cetric way to push these ideas (even the wrong ones) is against scientific princible and is more way chaotic artist way to do it. And thus annoyance of bloatic personalites, internet as channel of communication and very sub-genre examples of systems coming from there. Those had extreamely low attraction value to me, and some of them suggested that creators were very troubled people.
Not perhaps truth, but that's how I assumed when I also read through other stuff on that web page.

I would say that it's nice to hear some people found something helpful from that site. I've mostly run on people whose games it ruined when one of them got too much into it. 3, mmh maybe 2 that counts occasions in RL. 

But if what you say about 4th edition is true, maybe that's why I dislike 4th edition. I hate too much meta there. For some reason abtract rules living in different universe work for many other games, but not for my rpg. Maybe because I want rules to support my imagination rather than distract it. Plus I really like 3rd edition rules. I've played rpg:s with many different systems, most painful being Phoenix Command and Blue Planet. Too much complexity. And I actually rather liked Amber, though auction system for stats was almost as bad as arguing what are our own stats. 

4th edition, as one forge game I own make very boring to read. Because rules relate so little into what game is actually about. Well, 4th edition is not so bad, it does have color pictures and interesting names for powers (not always a good thing). AD&D with it's lovely random rules (starting from very simple things like saves or thoc0) was still fun to read.

I probably won't be getting 5th edition, but I am interested what it will be in the end. What was 4th editions lesson to company/designers. 4th edition works for many people now, who might not be happy how 5th edition. I wonder if it's yet another market split.

Honesty most people on market prefer simple fantastic scifi/simple fantasy gaming. Look what sells now as computer games and movies. Most of us don't want to work when we play. It's relaxing hobby not quest for enlightment.

No hard working person has time to commit make every game-session good. When we all know that real problem why they are lacking is mostly too stresful life and how little time it leaves to think these imaginative worlds. That's why we play modules nowdays, while not even always agreeing with storyline, or ignoring it in some parts. What we ordinary gamers (and there isn't much young generation coming to gaming, at least not in my country) don't need is another do-it-yourself-resolutions-last-too-long-gamesystem. There must be lot of ready-to-play elements. Micromodules even within basic books. More than just the one, different examples for different themes would be cood, and that would also tell me what type of gaming that system supports well.

And there should be something that would attract new gamers. I would suggest comic book specials. People keep buying books they don't really need, if they are setting books. So it's important to create setting that will intrest people and that can be used to create that multi-parket between different attractiojn points. Do it well, like Angry Birds. If Hasbro/WotC is not willing/able to take this approach D&D story might just end. Though it will probably die lingering death. It needs desperately reboot to cool. We ramaining rpg hobby loving folk are mostly 34-76 year old. And when my still rpg playing palls get their first kid late 30 it's generation hobby transfer becomes unlikely. 

I know this is mostly unrelated to this discussion and feel free to ignore me.


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 1, 2012)

Balesir said:


> I'm unable to xp [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] for his last two posts in this thread; if someone would cover for me, I'd be most grateful.
> 
> His patience with the monumental task of building a response to the torrent is something I am currently in awe of!
> 
> Also: [MENTION=23240]steenan[/MENTION]'s last post reflects my experience very well, indeed.




I think he is doing a very good job of responding to our criticisms.


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## pemerton (Feb 1, 2012)

You're all making me blush!

I don't see the point of a thread like this being for me to persuade Bedrockgames, or Innerdude, or anyone else. And thery're all intelligent posters, so they can probably see that it's unlikely they'll change my basic view that Edwards has interesting things to say.

In that respect, it's like an academic colloquium. I don't go to many seminars given by people with views I disagree with, expecting to come out having my mind changed.

For me, the point (and the pleasure) is to see what others are thinking, what reasons matter to _them_, to get a handle on the intellectual terrain and what the range of views are that a reasonable person moving through that terrain might hold.

And likewise to put my views out there and see what sort of responses they provoke.

I also think the fact that this thread remains completely civil 11 pages in, and has had (I think) no moderation, is a terrific thing, and often not the case on these boards when these sorts of issues come up.


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## UngainlyTitan (Feb 1, 2012)

I have found this thread very useful to illuminate some of the issues I have with GNS. It is very interesting that there seem to be no alternative framework for examining rpg design issues though. WoTC seems to have some framework based on market research from my reading of comments by Mearls and others but aside from that old study referenced in this thread has published nothing.


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## Umbran (Feb 1, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> Edwards has an insistence in his viewpoint that troubles me.




Edwards has a theory about the social interactions in gaming, but also claims he lacks some critical social skills.

His lacking the skill doesn't automatically mean he is wrong.  A person who cannot play basketball can still analyze basketball, after all.  However, his admitted lack of understanding of social interaction does rob him of the ability to use authoritative voice in presentation.  

Unfortunately, authoritative voice is about all he ever uses.


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## Zelda Themelin (Feb 1, 2012)

steenan said:


> For several years me and my friends had a problem: we enjoyed some sessions much better than others and couldn't put a finger on the difference. Some games were excellent, some were just good; we played and GMed good enough to ensure we had "good" games, but we didn't know how to aim for "excellent".




Ok, so you have time to think gaming a lot "graz". You also seem to have very balanced group, with similar idea of "fun gaming". This is not so with most groups I know/used to know. Nice thing with that is that great deal of different gaming systems/themes got tried out. But, alas, with age comes, at least in my circles tendarcy to stick with something we do well. Lack of time contributes as well.

What kinda games you play? Not D&D much? Those more philosophical ones I take based on your nick.

I think it's important in these kinda discussions about gaming to tell what are games we prefer to play. Helps to get where we are coming for these conclusions. 

I mostly play D&D 3.x, older editions of it too, sometimes oldie runequest, home-made very lite systems for scifi and occasionally something else. Themes ranging from basic adventuring to some weird godly stuff.  I also play lot of video games.

Also what's up with names like "hollysomething god" and "feathered fowl" (given by Oathbound), they sound so stupid. Do they sound less stupid to native englishspeaker? I am honestly curious I run into these word-horrors now and then. Sometimes problem is with translation. Feathered Fowl  requires imagination not to translate it into something like Chicken flock or similar.

It causes way too much hilarity when we use those terms, and late 90 early 2000 was full of systems with pretensious "secret terminalogy". White wolf games and others flogging on success like Nobilis/Immortal/Planescape "cant" even. It was sort of new and fun when it first came out, but too much is too much.

Too much rules and too much in-game-world-thematic-knowledge leads to too dense gaming experiences. Which is kinda like bad movie where lot of special effects try to  cover the plot that makes no sense.


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## LurkAway (Feb 1, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> I will say this in the defense of Edwards'  tone.  I never understood it ... until I imagined myself running an RPG  forum dedicated to serious inquiry and having to act as a  moderator.



I don't know... Enworld mods and other RPG forum mods have been slaying trolls, quenching inflammatory posts, and warding off editions wars for years,  and they're (mostly) normal.



pemerton said:


> I don't see the point of a thread like this being for me to persuade Bedrockgames, or Innerdude, or anyone else. And thery're all intelligent posters, so they can probably see that it's unlikely they'll change my basic view that Edwards has interesting things to say.



I have shifted in one respect. I think I understand better that GNS deems to describe 3 poles of roleplaying agendas. Just like nobody lives permanently in the South Pole, pure 100% Gamist agendas are surely non-existent in rpgs. Gamist roleplaying may sound like an oxymoron, but even if so, that's still only a theoretical elephant in a theoretical room.

GNS is just one possible layer of existence, so to speak. In another layer, you have the 4 poles of Thinkers, Power Gamers, Character Actors, and Storytellers. Monte's "Uniting the Editions" lists D&D playstyles as Fast and simple, Story-based, Tactical combat, Simulationist, and Heroic and High Action, and claims that D&D "needs to cater to all of [those playstyles]". Until reconciled (if possible), these paradigms co-exist as much as you want them to and each is as useful as you think it's useful.

Anyway, I don't think the elephant in the room is Gamism.

I think the elephant in the room is Ron Edwards.

I think GNS/Big Model would get a boost by ditching Edwards as its spokesperson and finding another interpretor. Edwards' unfortunate history of lack of social graces makes him, IMO, not only useless but actively subversive towards mass acceptance of GNS. If I was his agent, I would try to keep him contained with his clique at The Forge, and hire a publicist -- someone with one foot in The Forge and one foot in the real world -- to do all the talking (unnecessarily harsh, maybe, but...)

RPGs are for most people a leisure social activity. Geek internet debate is fun too, as long we're treating each other as real people with a fun agenda, not blank users digesting an academic lecture. Pretentious theorizing and rude-sounding pronouncements can be met with great hostility, maybe because it essentially undermines the fun nature of RPGs. For example, the Tommy/Johnny/Spike/Vorthus articles may lack rigorous whateveryoucallit, but it gets the tone exactly right for MtG players. A good GNS ambassador would never lose sight of the importance of presentation, clarity, empathy, humility, mututal respect, and fun.

(All of the above assumes that GNS controversy is just as it seems, which I've acknowledged I'm not fully versed in.)

So I think presentation of GNS ideas is just as important as the idea itself, and how much that can be underestimated (as witnessed, coincidentally, with the 4E marketing debacle vs countermeasures taken with 5E). With all due respect, I think taking direct quotes from Ron Edwards can inadvertently subvert your efforts IMO -- unless you were only meaning to preach to the choir?

My secondary contention -- that the scope (and thus usefulness) of interpretive theory might be limited by an author's (lack of) empathy or humility -- is speculative and I don't expect to dissuade GNS supporters with that.


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## Crazy Jerome (Feb 2, 2012)

LurkAway said:


> I don't know... Enworld mods and other RPG forum mods have been slaying trolls, quenching inflammatory posts, and warding off editions wars for years, and they're (mostly) normal.




Here, the mandate is that we can be silly, drift topics somewhat (as long as it isn't a thread cap), and generally have a lot of social chit chat mixed in with the more "serious" posts. It is conversational. Imagine you are trying to moderate a forum where the mandate is to stick tightly to the point of a topic, say only what is useful on that topic, and when it is done, everyone shut up about it. Oh, and don't post off the cuff, either. Really think about what you are saying.

Now granted, maybe the problem is that the chances of pulling that off on an internet forum are worse than herding 100 cats across the breadth of Alaska during the dog sled races. And maybe someone that thinks either is a good idea should never be a moderator of a forum. I know I don't want to ever be one.  Still, I can empathize with the inherent frustration of the task that they set for themselves when they decided to try it.

Another possiblity, of course, is that the person writing hard-edged critiques of gaming shouldn't also be a forum moderator, unless they are unusually easy going.


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## LurkAway (Feb 2, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> Imagine you are trying to moderate a forum where the mandate is to stick tightly to the point of a topic, say only what is useful on that topic, and when it is done, everyone shut up about it.



But potentially, a forum where people voluntarily design games can be fun, right? Why must there be a mandate to moderate with an iron fist? Shelly Mazzanoble's articles and the email transcripts from Worlds and Monsters hint that professional game design discussions can be fun and casual in tone -- no severely awkward moments where a guy insists with expletives that a standard valediction is imprinted with sweat and tears.


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## pemerton (Feb 2, 2012)

LurkAway said:


> With all due respect, I think taking direct quotes from Ron Edwards can inadvertently subvert your efforts IMO -- unless you were only meaning to preach to the choir?



Well, often when I post I'm trying to sort out my own ideas, and relating my point to an author or rulebook that has influenced me can help with that.

But I've decided to adopt your suggested strategy in a new thread!


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## S'mon (Feb 2, 2012)

Crazy Jerome said:


> H Imagine you are trying to moderate a forum where the mandate is to stick tightly to the point of a topic, say only what is useful on that topic, and when it is done, everyone shut up about it. Oh, and don't post off the cuff, either. Really think about what you are saying.




Who set that mandate?  Ron Edwards. Who interpreted and applied that mandate? Ron Edwards.

Lots of fora have similar mandates. The Dragonsfoot Workshop forum is one that comes to mind.  But I have never seen anything like RE's ostentatious yawn-and-squelch routine anywhere but The Forge.


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## LurkAway (Feb 2, 2012)

pemerton said:


> But I've decided to adopt your suggested strategy in a new thread!



Sounds good. Mind you, one possible drawback is that you won't get many replies if your post is too reasonable and moderate 

As for me, I think I'm going to take a badly needed vacation from Enworld. I actually have my wife's hotmail address registered with this account, so I'm going to erase my password and tell her: No matter how much I beg and plead, do not send me the password for at least a month. I hope this strategy works!


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## pemerton (Feb 2, 2012)

LurkAway, enjoy your vacation!


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## steenan (Feb 2, 2012)

Zelda Themelin said:


> But, alas, with age comes, at least in my circles tendarcy to stick with something we do well. Lack of time contributes as well.



With full-time work and family I have much less time than I had 10 years ago, but the effect on my gaming is opposite to what you experienced. I have varied needs that no single game satisfies and I don't have time to play several times a week, as I used to do. So I play less campaigns and more one-shots (each in a different system), and I favor thematically-intense games over generic ones. 



Zelda Themelin said:


> What kinda games you play? Not D&D much? Those more philosophical ones I take based on your nick.
> 
> I think it's important in these kinda discussions about gaming to tell what are games we prefer to play. Helps to get where we are coming for these conclusions.



Currently, I run Nobilis (that's where the title comes from) and play Exalted. We'll also start a Mistborn campaign soon.

But that's just now; I like to mix things. I played several indie games, from Dogs in the Vineyard to Polaris and 3:16. But I also played two D&D (3e) campaigns, some Warhammer, Pathfinder, Call of Cthluhu, Mouse Guard, Savage Worlds, Wolsung and old World of Darkness (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage).

I also created several homebrew systems (one of which we played in two campaigns, over 3 years total) and played in my friends' homebrews.



Zelda Themelin said:


> Also what's up with names like "hollysomething god" and "feathered fowl" (given by Oathbound), they sound so stupid. Do they sound less stupid to native englishspeaker? I am honestly curious I run into these word-horrors now and then. Sometimes problem is with translation. Feathered Fowl  requires imagination not to translate it into something like Chicken flock or similar.



I'm not a native English speaker. In Polish, "Hollyhock god" sounds just as strange and is definitely not as natural for me as "Game master". 
But it is not stupid. I understand where this name came from. In a game where everyone plays, essentially, a god of something, and where flower symbolism is an important theme, calling the person who runs the game a god of hollyhock (fruitfulness, abundance, fertility, potential for growth) brings exactly the meaning it's supposed to.



Zelda Themelin said:


> Too much rules and too much in-game-world-thematic-knowledge leads to too dense gaming experiences. Which is kinda like bad movie where lot of special effects try to  cover the plot that makes no sense.



If the rules or the setting details just are there - I agree. But there are game that are "system heavy" or "setting-heavy" in a planned and directed way. They require greater investment to work, but also bring rewards that a simple, casual game can't offer. 

For example, if you try to play Dogs in the Vineyard without understanding lives and mindset of the Faithful, or without understanding how the mechanics is to be used, the game will, most probably, be a catastrophe, even with a good GM and experienced players. But DitV,, with its thematic focus and system designed to support it, leads to session much more intense and interesting than if one tried to play a similar story in a more traditional rpg.


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