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I've been milling over something for a while now, and given the current threads it seems like an appropriate time to ask this question.

The typical way to deal with keeping out Gam is via 'gamist creep defense'.  I have no idea who originally coined the term 'gamist creep', but I blame Mike Holmes.  Gamist creep defense are all those familiar rules in game text designed to control the 'munckins'.  This is the stick approach, and in my experience always leads to rules bloat.  Which is totally counter-productive, because it just introduced more rules and layers for what I call The Egg Hunt.

The Egg Hunt is a behavior I would classify as gamist.  It's rooting through the game text for the most effectiveness per cost, largest damaging weapon, individual abilities that stack together, flaws in logic of the game's design, or whatever.  Looking for exploitations, commonly by intentionally misconstruing the wording of the text.  I've never found the behavior very impressive even from a gamist standpoint.  How clever do you really have to be to search for the biggest number; what obstacle have you overcome?  But, my personal opinions are beside the point.

So, I guess now that I've warmed up to the question, my question is:  How do you remove the incentive to play gamist from a system?  This is a general question about techniques.  I'm primarily concerned with the Egg Hunt, but other gamist behaviors are welcome for discussion.  It's worth noting that I suffer from a certain amount of 'missing the point' when it comes to Gamism, but I think I've got a decent understanding of it from an academic point of view anyway.

I do not want anything 'stick' like.  Attempts to beat a Gamist until they play Nar I think are inherently flawed - just play with someone else.  The point is more to remove the fear that might drive people to make gamist like decisions when they might otherwise prefer not to - allowing them to play Nar maybe in despite of abused player syndrome (and maybe get over it, like how playing The Pool is stuck-in-Actor-stance therapy).

Here is what I've come up with thus far, as examples of what I'm think.  Disagreements with the following are, of course, welcome.  Heh, not that them being unwelcome would do any good ;).

• Removal of point based character generation.
• Removal of layers (just skill instead of racial bonus + stat + skill + specialization, for example)
• Removal of 'balance' across characters (some people are better, some are worse, player decides how cool they want their character to be)
• Removal of stackable elements (bonuses do not stack).
• Removal of advantages that negate disadvantages and vice versa, or simply ruling that such negations do not function.

Others?  Thoughts on implementation?

It seems to me that this approach is somewhat misguided.  Gamism is "step on up" -- that is the "incentive" more or less: to step up, and to prove yourself (or have fun trying even if you fail).  So to eliminate the incentive it seems that you'd have to remove the parts of the human brain that go for challenge, those responsible for the social dynamic that rewards success, and so on.  

The examples you give dont speak of incentives at all really, but common sorts of rules where the disjunct created by gamism being amidst other CAs is usually highly evident.  But even if it's not evident in other rules, it's still probably present.  To really get rid of the disjunct in play, you'd have to remove all the rules.

This has become a common mantra, perhaps too common, and so I hate to repeat it again, but this seems to come down to social contract, and not about rules at all.   Rules can aid players in using one CA versus another ("facilitating" it) but I they can't force it.  Unless you have a rule that says "everyone must prioritize the same CA."

I also sort of doubt that players who fail to play Nar/Sim but default to Gam are commonly "scared" of the other CAs, or even if they are, that the kinds of rules you mentioned would be the source of that fear.   Director stance can, for example, be scary to people unfamiliar with it, but there's of course no 1-1 mapping from that to Nar.  Maybe you cna elaborate more on what you mean by "scared?"

Quote from: JasperIt seems to me that this approach is somewhat misguided.  Gamism is "step on up" -- that is the "incentive" more or less, to step up, and to prove yourself (or have fun trying even if you fail).  So to eliminate the incentive it seems that you'd have to remove the parts of the human brain that go for challenge, those responsible for the social dynamic that rewards success, and so on.  

The examples you give aren't really incentives at all, but just common sorts of rules where the disjunct created by gamism amidst other CAs is generally pretty evident.  But even if it's not evident in other rules, it's still probably present.  To really get rid of the disjunct in play, you'd have to remove all the rules.

This has become a common mantra, perhaps used too commonly, and so I hate to repeat it again, but this seems to come down to just a social contract issue, and not about rules at all.   Rules can aid players in using one CA versus another ("facilitating" it) but I they can't force it.  Unless you have a rule that says "everyone must prioritize the same CA."

It's sort of a given that if Gamism is the player's goal then that's what you get, and that social contract rules all.  I won't disagree.

Facilitating is the point, I don't want to force anything (no 'stick').  I just want to take the fun out of the Egg Hunt.  If there is no challenge, you can't step on up to it.  I suppose I should have made that clearer.  I'm talking about not facilitating Gamism, as opposed to trying to squash Gamism.

EDIT:

Quote from: JasperI also sort of doubt that players who fail to play Nar/Sim but default to Gam are commonly "scared" of the other CAs, or even if they are, that the kinds of rules you mentioned would be the source of that fear. Director stance can, for example, be scary to people unfamiliar with it, but there's of course no 1-1 mapping from that to Nar. Maybe you cna elaborate more on what you mean by "scared?"

Yeah, I can elaborate.  By scared I mean what I refer to as 'gamist for defense'.  People who may not be interested in challenge, but feel they must participate in it or be deprotagonized by having their priorities overshadowed by gamist risk requirements (character death is a good example).  My reference to abused player syndrome is specifically in reference to the above dysfunction.  I should have been more specific about that too, because around here that can refer to any number of behaviors, from bunker playing (refusing to do anything) to intentional aggravation of other players.

It seems to me that a game's text and rules need to support the desired CA, rather than discourage the other two. So, perhaps the best way to discourage Gamism would be to effectively ENcourage either Sim or Nar, depending on the goals of the game in question.

Quote from: ethan_greerIt seems to me that a game's text and rules need to support the desired CA, rather than discourage the other two. So, perhaps the best way to discourage Gamism would be to effectively ENcourage either Sim or Nar, depending on the goals of the game in question.

I won't disagree with that either.  However, techniques that discourage are not what I'd like to look at.  I'd like to look at techniques that are simply unappealing to someone looking for challenge - they do nothing to support challenge.   That's what I mean by 'removing the incentive'.  Perhaps my choice of wording could have been better.

It stands to reason that if we can facilitate an agenda, we can therefore fail to facilitate another.  I'd like to look at intentionally failing to facilitate Gam.  It's my hypothesis that if you know how to facilitiate your target agenda and know how to fail to facilitate the other(s), that you can create a coherent game by not falling into the trap of filling in elements of design with components that actually facilitate a different agenda than the one you intend.

Quote from: cruciel
I'd like to look at techniques that are simply unappealing to someone looking for challenge - they do nothing to support challenge.   That's what I mean by 'removing the incentive'.

Can there really be a system that has no challenge? Even if character efficacy isn't an area for challenge, one could find some other challenge, IMHO.

But I'm with you on stopping the Egg Hunt (love that term BTW!).

I think one of the best ways to stop it is to disconnect specific stats from categories of tasks. That is, instead of all attack rolls being tied to Dexterity or Strength, base them on how the player describes the action. Another good thing is to make different types of actions equally important in the game. Make as many social conflicts that count as physical conflicts that count. Mix them up a bit (but in an orderly way).

Hi Jason,

Probably one of the easiest, and most overlooked options... is the complete lack of improvement in effectiveness, for the player or the character.  Almost all Gamists blanch at the very idea, and wonder, "Why even play?"  When there is no points, toys, or powers to collect, gamist play tends to dry up in most cases.

Chris

The question is how to disincentivize gamist play.

There are two things that drive gamist play, it seems to me: reward and risk.

One of the reasons that Legends of Alyria is so difficult to drift gamist (apart from the fact that you can't really build up a more powerful character or gain bonuses or anything like that) is that ultimately there really isn't much in the way of risk. A character can't die unless the player agrees that it's time for the character to die, and that the death will have meaning to the story. It isn't really "your" character anyway, so it's not "your loss" if the character dies--the characters were created by group cooperation, and you were chosen to play this one because we all thought you would be best at this, whether it's hero, sidekick, villain, henchman, facilitator, or victim. You don't really have something "at stake", so you can't "risk" it.

Ron focuses a lot of reward systems, and he's right--if you design a reward system which gives you benefits for addressing premise which enable you to address premise, you inherently disincentivize non-narrativist play.

So if you can target the things at risk and the rewards in reach, you can shift play away from gamism.

Multiverser drifts quite a bit between modes, as the players wish. Some of them push the gamism dial up high, others go narrativist or simulationist quite readily. Why is this so? There is no reward system at all--play is its own reward, so if you get your kicks out of meeting the challenge and getting the glory, you'll take the risks and come out ahead. The risks, though, are at the same time minimized--you might destroy some valuable or irreplaceable bit of equipment, but "irreplaceable" is such a relative concept in something as big as the multiverse, so you'll probably be able to get something like it eventually. You might die--but even though that's what you risked, it's not the end. You could die without feeling like you lost. Indeed, you could even decide that now was the time to die, and do something nearly guaranteed to cost your life because it will address premise, lose your life, and keep going. Risk is minimized. It's not eliminated. You can't eliminate risk and still address premise (or even feel like a very real simulation, in most cases); you can't entirely eliminate the reward of winning, even when "win" is defined by character goals determined in the player's own mind. But if you dial these back, gamism becomes optional, and players can be comfortable moving toward the other agenda.

--M. J. Young

James,

Thanks for clarifying that.  Is this fear of deprotagonization a legitimate fear do you think?  (I haven't read through all the relevant articles on the subject.)  Because in your example of fearing character death, it seems to me that if the other players in the game are playing it Nar -- and the rules support Nar -- then that character shouldn't really be dying due to any kind of strategic lapses; i.e. failing to step on up.  So I'd sort of agree with  Ethan in that it's mostly a matter of supporting something other than Gamism, because this will "cause" the other players of the game to player Nar/Sim, and thus fail to threaten the protagonization of the player in question.

Unless of course the fear of deprotagonization exists regardless of whether it's a legitimate fear.  And in that case...I don't know.  It seems the player is just going to have to experience the game and see how it works, or have it spelled out to him in the rules or by fellow players.

I get the feeling you're really looking for specific examples of how to ease players out of this fear, but it's pretty dependent on the game.  Certainly death, wiff factor and other kinds of deprotagonizing effects commonly referenced on the Forge could all apply here.

Jay,

Quote from: coxcombCan there really be a system that has no challenge? Even if character efficacy isn't an area for challenge, one could find some other challenge, IMHO.

Realistically, probably not - unless resolution is something like 'flip a coin'.

QuoteBut I'm with you on stopping the Egg Hunt (love that term BTW!).

I think one of the best ways to stop it is to disconnect specific stats from categories of tasks. That is, instead of all attack rolls being tied to Dexterity or Strength, base them on how the player describes the action. Another good thing is to make different types of actions equally important in the game. Make as many social conflicts that count as physical conflicts that count. Mix them up a bit (but in an orderly way).

Sort of ensuring that character traits of the same type have equivalent relevance in game play?   I think that's a good one.

Chris & M.J.,

I'm going to stick my reply to both of you together, because it's so short.

Agreed, and very good points.

Gamism, as defined by Ron's essay, is the competition between players for social esteem via challenge and risk.

The only way that I can think to make this functionally impossible is to completely eliminate any possibility of using the system to do anything, by an inordinately complex series of nonsensical modifiers.  In other words, a system that supports no type of play at all.

Now, if we're talking about "my guy is bigger / better," a specific subtype of gamism, I think that wholesale elimination of character creation rules and "pick your power level" is sufficient.

yrs--
--Ben

Quote from: JasperThanks for clarifying that.  Is this fear of deprotagonization a legitimate fear do you think?  (I haven't read through all the relevant articles on the subject.)

Because in your example of fearing character death, it seems to me that if the other players in the game are playing it Nar -- and the rules support Nar -- then that character shouldn't really be dying due to any kind of strategic lapses; i.e. failing to step on up.  So I'd sort of agree with  Ethan in that it's mostly a matter of supporting something other than Gamism, because this will "cause" the other players of the game to player Nar/Sim, and thus fail to threaten the protagonization of the player in question.

Unless of course the fear of deprotagonization exists regardless of whether it's a legitimate fear.  And in that case...I don't know.  It seems the player is just going to have to experience the game and see how it works, or have it spelled out to him in the rules or by fellow players.

Legitimate?  That kinda depends on how you look at it.  If you are playing a game where the standing behavior is not to kill PC's (because the GM thinks killing characters is no fun/wrong/whatever), but the mechanics say once you run out of health levels you die, then you've got people (probably) trying to play Nar using a system with a Gam element in conflict with their goals.  (This is just an example, I can think of examples where character death is appropriate for Nar and lack thereof appropriate for Gam.)  So, is this fear legitimate?  Character death isn't going to happen, but the mechanics say it can.  In my experience, this kind of arrangement isn't carved in stone, so to speak.  It's just kind of hidden behind the scenes, as something in the realm of GM discretion; bundled up with assumptions about how it would be 'cheating' for character death not to be an option, while at the same time not wanting it to be an option.  

(It was a real 'doh!' moment for me one day when I realized that if I didn't like character death I shouldn't have rules for it.  I know that seems kind of silly, but sometimes the most obvious things are the easiest to miss.)

So I agree, when the rules are supporting Nar then strategic lapses shouldn't incur costs.  Part of what I'm trying to get to is how to do the 'rules are supporting Nar' part, except from the other side (how not to do Gam).

M.J talks about risk above, thought not a strictly Gam risk factor I consider character death to be a pretty common one.  If you remove that risk factor, you should (in theory) remove the player's need to protect themselves from that risk (step on up to it).

QuoteI get the feeling you're really looking for specific examples of how to ease players out of this fear, but it's pretty dependent on the game.  Certainly death, wiff factor and other kinds of deprotagonizing effects commonly referenced on the Forge could all apply here.

That might be what I end up doing with the techniques, but I'm really just hunting for techniques such as the removal of character death.  Well, and discussing the validity of said techniques.

Quote from: Ben LehmanGamism, as defined by Ron's essay, is the competition between players for social esteem via challenge and risk.

The only way that I can think to make this functionally impossible is to completely eliminate any possibility of using the system to do anything, by an inordinately complex series of nonsensical modifiers.  In other words, a system that supports no type of play at all.

Yeah.  My 'flip a coin' response to Jay sums up my take on that.

Quote from: BenNow, if we're talking about "my guy is bigger / better," a specific subtype of gamism, I think that wholesale elimination of character creation rules and "pick your power level" is sufficient.

I'm okay with discussing any subtype, though the primary focus of my initial post was the Egg Hunt (which seems to match up somewhat with "bigger/better guy").

I don't think you ever completely eliminate the Egg Hunt (second the motion to call that a cool term, BTW). Even if the resolution is `flip a coin', I can still try to be clever about when coins get flipped. That said, I do think that while the goal may be unreachable, it is approachable and the approach is called KISS. Minimaxing needs trade-offs that make a difference. If everything is unlayered and orthogonal that becomes hard. If on top of that there are very few things to play with, any attempt at minimaxing will get a lot more obvious than most Egg Hunters are comfortable with. See, for example, Over The Edge. The only way to minimax that is by taking over-the-top Traits. This will be very obvious to all concerned.

But I do wonder if the whole issue of gamist-for-defense is not better dealt with from the other side of the GM-screen. If you want to argue that you don't need to hunt eggs, isn't it far more convincing to build such a character and play it?

SR
--

Quote from: Rob CarriereI don't think you ever completely eliminate the Egg Hunt (second the motion to call that a cool term, BTW). Even if the resolution is `flip a coin', I can still try to be clever about when coins get flipped. That said, I do think that while the goal may be unreachable, it is approachable and the approach is called KISS. Minimaxing needs trade-offs that make a difference. If everything is unlayered and orthogonal that becomes hard. If on top of that there are very few things to play with, any attempt at minimaxing will get a lot more obvious than most Egg Hunters are comfortable with. See, for example, Over The Edge. The only way to minimax that is by taking over-the-top Traits. This will be very obvious to all concerned.

Good one.

QuoteBut I do wonder if the whole issue of gamist-for-defense is not better dealt with from the other side of the GM-screen. If you want to argue that you don't need to hunt eggs, isn't it far more convincing to build such a character and play it?

I'm sure that wouldn't hurt.  Though this has been debated, it seems to be popular opinion (I agree) that an incoherent game encourages incoherent play.  There is a lot that can be done about incoherent play at the social contract level.  Teaching by example might far into that category.

Quote from: Rob CarriereMinimaxing needs trade-offs that make a difference. If everything is unlayered and orthogonal that becomes hard. If on top of that there are very few things to play with, any attempt at minimaxing will get a lot more obvious than most Egg Hunters are comfortable with. See, for example, Over The Edge. The only way to minimax that is by taking over-the-top Traits. This will be very obvious to all concerned.  

Well, you're right that this all but eliminates numerical minimaxing, but it doesn't eliminate Gamism at all.  If you read the GM section of Over the Edge, it is full of all sorts of advice on defenses against "power-gaming" which constantly came up in the author's own campaigns.  His examples (like Loretta and Horace) are typical of an equally common form of "power-gaming" on a social and creative level.  For example, he describes:

QuoteHorace was a new character, a Cut-Up with a slew of powerful magical devices, whom you met in the last section.  His excellent trait was that he was an artificer of supernatural objects, of which he had several.  Essentially, his superior trait was that he had several superior traits.  This particular player assumes that it is his duty to develop the most powerful character he can get away with.  I asked him to explain why his superior power didn't make a travesty of game balance, and he really couldn't.  But this player always gets his characters into deep trouble, so I didn't worry about it.  I let the power stand as is.

Power-gamers in a minimalist system operate by manipulating what they can get away with.  The challenge is in doling out pleasing creative bits which will justify this.  So throw in some stuff with the GM likes, and push a few buttons, and then also push the line as much as possible with other stuff.  The fact that it's obvious isn't a barrier.  Despite the fact that the GM recognized it, Horace got away with ridiculous stuff: a paralyzing banana gun, a crystal that turns bullets into bubbles, and more.  You just have to know how to manipulate the GM and possibly the other players right.

John,
several answers: First and most importantly, you're right that this device is limited to eliminating numerical minmaxing, it does absolutely nothing to stop social engineering of the GM. That does, in my experience, stop some of the Egg Hunters (abashed Egg Hunters? :-), but certainly not all of them, so it doesn't eliminate the entire problem.

Second, in the case of OTE, there's actually a second line defense in that on Al Amarja having cool powers is definitely a mixed blessing. A lot of the energy in that GM section goes to describing how the author handled the overpowered characters in a `ok, that's your choice, these are the consequences' fashion. That's a circumstance that's not unique to OTE, so this idea could be added to the anti-egg hunting recipe.

Third, I think personal experience may have colored my answer. All the cases I have seen where the Egg Hunt actually did damage involved a GM getting blindsided by something like a GURPS Universal Specialist. Systems like OTE eliminate that possibility.

SR
--

Quote from: Rob CarriereSecond, in the case of OTE, there's actually a second line defense in that on Al Amarja having cool powers is definitely a mixed blessing. A lot of the energy in that GM section goes to describing how the author handled the overpowered characters in a `ok, that's your choice, these are the consequences' fashion. That's a circumstance that's not unique to OTE, so this idea could be added to the anti-egg hunting recipe.

Third, I think personal experience may have colored my answer. All the cases I have seen where the Egg Hunt actually did damage involved a GM getting blindsided by something like a GURPS Universal Specialist. Systems like OTE eliminate that possibility.

Agreed on the latter, and obviously my answer is colored by personal experience too.  I am a notorious minimaxer and dissecter of systems, and I usually find other minimaxers easy to deal with.  On the other hand, I find the other type (which I dub "wheedlers") much more insidious and problematic because they're manipulating real social relations rather than a nicely delimited rules system.  My worst experience was in the Amber DRPG, for example.  

As for the former, I consider that something of a mistake.  In my experience, causing trouble for the PC doesn't actually deter such players.  In fact, they revel in it -- and it gives them more spotlight time compared to other PCs.  Of course, if them having the spotlight to fight through trouble is interesting to play, then this can be a fine choice.  My point is just that it's not much of a deterrent to the player.

A think a lot of it comes down to the challenges that the GM creates for the players (or the players create for themselves in some games).  If most of the challenge in a game is defeating enemies in combat, then you will see more of these gamist tendencies manifest.  So create / play a game that is not focused on combat challenges.

If your primary concern is to eliminate Egg Hunting then create/play a rules-lite game so that the GM can't be surprised easily.  The player will have to ask the GM about the character getting cool new stuff and the GM will know about it then.

Quote from: UmberhulkA think a lot of it comes down to the challenges that the GM creates for the players (or the players create for themselves in some games).  If most of the challenge in a game is defeating enemies in combat, then you will see more of these gamist tendencies manifest.  So create / play a game that is not focused on combat challenges.

I think this has a narrow view of Gamism.  It is pretty common for people to associate Gamism with only number-crunching, mini-maxing, and combat-focussed play.  However, I feel that non-combat Gamism is almost as common.  i.e. These are people who enjoy solving mysteries or overcoming obstacles by social, political, and other means.  

Quote from: UmberhulkIf your primary concern is to eliminate Egg Hunting then create/play a rules-lite game so that the GM can't be surprised easily.  The player will have to ask the GM about the character getting cool new stuff and the GM will know about it then.

Well, this eliminates the possible element of surprise, but it doesn't eliminate the behavior.  The equivalent of this in a more crunchy system would be requiring that the GM be notified in advance of changes from spending XP, for example.

QuoteI think this has a narrow view of Gamism. It is pretty common for people to associate Gamism with only number-crunching, mini-maxing, and combat-focussed play. However, I feel that non-combat Gamism is almost as common. i.e. These are people who enjoy solving mysteries or overcoming obstacles by social, political, and other means.

John, I agree that combat-focus is not the only form of gamism.  I just thought that cruciel was trying to discourage behaviours that I mostly associate to that kind of play.  I think cruciel would welcome gamism in the problem solving sense, though I am just inferring that from the posts (I don't want to put words into anyone's mouth).

-Brodie

I'm really trying to avoid saying 'discourage'.  If I were to say "How can I support Gamism?", then intentionally not do any of the suggestions, that'd be more along the lines of what I'm thinking.

I can appreciate the value of GM input, but I think it's generally a poor solution.  Anytime the solution is "Do what Bob says", then the challenge becomes convincing Bob of what to say (John's "wheedlers").  It's my feeling that trying to prevent gamism by placing active restrictions on the behavior actually accomplishes the opposite result.  The restrictions become the challenges that need to be overcome; by searching for shortcomings in the system (egg hunting), via social pressure (wheedling), or whatever.

Though I will admit, as far as personal gamist interests go I prefer non Egg Hunt games.  For example, chess; which I can only think of having an Egg Hunt if you intentionally don't tell the other person about rules like castling.  

EDIT:  

I've got a weird analogy.  I know I'm making a Nar versus Gam example of something that is wholly Gam in nature, but bear with me - analogies are never perfect.

If anyone has played Starcraft, flying units (particularly carriers) are obviously the most effective strategy.  Now imagine that someone else is building to carrier rush and you just want to make little buildings.  Eventually you start building carriers too, even if what you really want to do is make little buildings. The rest of the Starcraft units become worthless, as do your little buildings, so you fear playing with them because you'll be booted early in the game and won't get to play at all, so you might as well play the way the game encourages you to.

How we might fix this is to remove the ability of other units to hurt your units and buildings.  Now you are free to make whatever units and buildings you like.  What makes the game fun for the gamist has been removed, so he probably won't even bother to play it.

Quote from: crucielI can appreciate the value of GM input, but I think it's generally a poor solution.  Anytime the solution is "Do what Bob says", then the challenge becomes convincing Bob of what to say (John's "wheedlers").  It's my feeling that trying to prevent gamism by placing active restrictions on the behavior actually accomplishes the opposite result.  The restrictions become the challenges that need to be overcome; by searching for shortcomings in the system (egg hunting), via social pressure (wheedling), or whatever.

Though I will admit, as far as personal gamist interests go I prefer non Egg Hunt games.  For example, chess; which I can only think of having an Egg Hunt if you intentionally don't tell the other person about rules like castling.

Ah!  This set off a light bulb for me.  In principle, you can fail to encourage Gamism by failing to provide interesting challenge.  For example, suppose in combat, the player always has roughly the same chance of success or failure regardless of what choices he makes.  i.e. The mechanically driven maneuvers have mostly similar average effectiveness, and there are no GM-granted bonus points for player description.  This makes combat uninteresting from a Gamist point of view -- since neither number-crunching nor wheedling get much benefit.  

Now, this might be a little difficult to accept, because this likely sounds boring to a lot of people even if they don't identify themselves as Gamist.  I'm not sure what I think of this, though.  Does this just mean that Gamism is more common than commonly thought?  Or does it mean something else?

Quote from: John KimNow, this might be a little difficult to accept, because this likely sounds boring to a lot of people even if they don't identify themselves as Gamist.

This may be part of it. What you think your preference is and what you show you actually prefer through your actions, choices and behaviors may be different things.

Quote from: John KimAh!  This set off a light bulb for me.  In principle, you can fail to encourage Gamism by failing to provide interesting challenge.  For example, suppose in combat, the player always has roughly the same chance of success or failure regardless of what choices he makes.  i.e. The mechanically driven maneuvers have mostly similar average effectiveness, and there are no GM-granted bonus points for player description.  This makes combat uninteresting from a Gamist point of view -- since neither number-crunching nor wheedling get much benefit.

Yeah, I agree.    When you introduce a concept like modifiers (a common way maneuvers are differentiated), then people will think about them.  Leading to that whole problem where just saying 'I hit him' is the best choice for an action (gamism for defense?).

QuoteNow, this might be a little difficult to accept, because this likely sounds boring to a lot of people even if they don't identify themselves as Gamist.  I'm not sure what I think of this, though.  Does this just mean that Gamism is more common than commonly thought?  Or does it mean something else?

I think it means there is a little gamism in most playing.  I know that even if I choose the best decision for the story instead of the tactically superior choice, I'm still going to pick the best way to do something within the confines of what furthers the story.  I won't just end up picking how I want to do something randomly.

It may also be that people just want their actual player decisions to matter, both tactically and thematically.  Who really wants to have a great idea for how to resolve the current conflict, and not have the quality of their idea affect the outcome?

I think that most games need to have some gamist aspect, no matter how much you dislike or want to sway away from gamism.

When you completely get rid of  'gamism' in a system you end up with something like SLUG by Stephan O'Sullivan where the whole system can be described in two sentances:

1) (Character Creation) Write about your character
2) (Resolution of anything) Roll Dice (any kinds).  Read their Result.  DM will tell you if you sucede or fail, or any measure inbetweem.

Here you see this done.  Character creation is destroyed down to just having a notion of your character, and as is resolution. Its all but gone. (note even in this instance there is still a bit of gaming left but we will ignore it for now)

But this steps on a few toes.  Sure the nars are happy as can be, but what about the sims?  Without game sims are in a somewhat bad position.  Whose gonna tell them what happens in their reality.

I haven't really read the articles on gns posted here, but I have a skimmed a few.  I'm not sure if this is a new idea, or what, but this is what I feel is the way game gns should be handled.
( I apologize ahead of time for going on a rant that probably recites the obvious)

                Gamism
                 /        \
             Nar        Sim
            /    \       /    \
         Sim    Game     Nar
        /   \    /      \     /    \
Game     Nar        Sim      Game


or if you please,
        ..<- ->GAME <- -> NAR <- -> SIM <- ->GAME<- -> ..
       
Is what I see as the 'dependancy' tree.  Any one game would be one branch on this tree (one / or \) or a chain of these branches having at least two aspects of gns and at most (obviously) three.  The first being dominent, the second being influenced, and the third if there being just 'ghost' remnants.

The dominent node would take predecence over what most people would see the game as.   For example, White Wolf folks would like people to say their game is NAR and it certainly does its best to support nar.  However the gamism aspect is still there.  SIM is all but completely ignored.  It only shows up in ghost forms where the rules try in a basic sense to have some bearing on how things really are.

If you have a Nar system, for gods sake don't just put all your effort into nar.  These three are interdependant in a way.   Sure put as much emphasis as you can on NAR, but to just have it completely nar is dangerous.  Heck even nar/sim is a little dangerous and in need of some ghost of gamism.  In my opinion solid systems have all three nodes (dominent, influenced, and ghosted) of this.  However maybe what you want isn't a solid system - I'm not here to judge.

To the point:  If you were to choose to have a game with no gamism, you end up with not an rp"g", you end up with a role playing session much like slug.  Roll some dice! Or as stated earlier, Flip a coin! (Which is really a light 'ghost' of gamism anyways, but we will ignore that).  Its not a game, its a session and social event.  Theres nothing wrong with that, but it should be acknowledged.

In fact, while most people call this type of system 'unusable' and 'unmanagable' its not really quite usable.  To have this system you must have a group of responsible trusting people to play with that are interested in ns.  That said such a group would most likely come about a game like this on the fly and so theory isn't of any use to them.  Even the simulationist who is at ill ease for not having a clear way to similate the reality of his dream is not that bad off because he takes on the responsibility himself of making things logical and sensible.  In fact this sense of logic and sensibility is almost the only thing that holds this together.  The sim here almost takes the place of the game's rolls of keeping order.

Unfortunately groups like this are not in many.

Just a note here, that Sims I feel is weak without some ghost or influence of Gam ( and vice versa..) as Gam and Sims are in a way like brothers- Both made out of the same war game background but with plenty of sibling rivalry between them. Yet they both know that they *really* do need each other.  Now while they can function on their own, they are much happier together.

What I think you mean in my terms, is to make it so that gamism is just a 'ghost'.  Which is slightly different as you'd have a gamism aspect, but it would be more like FUDGE. (Man I'm just referencing SOS all over the place tonight...).  There are gamist aspects, but they are all but naught. He seems to have taken your approach in many ways:

1) Lets see.. what do gamists like.... NUMBERS! lets ditch all of em.  + and - dice and nominal descriptions to everything!
2) What else do they like... oh yeah character creation. Hmm ok, lets make it just be a process where you talk ot the gm about your character.  Thats gets rid of most gamist tendancies. (I havent read FUDGE since 1995, but it hink its something like this still...)

Of course he loses this in his bad (imho) combat rules and magic rules (at least circa 1995 - they are probably better now), but he seems to have your sentiments at heart.  After realizing a game like slug isnt digestable to most, adding gamism made FUDGE into what it was ( or maybe he went the other route, and took gamism away to make slug ).  Fear of 'dying' or having other 'gamist' related effects ruining your day in fudge is almost gone, especially when you can use a 'fudge point' to fudge whatever would ruin your day.  Just to those sos enthuists I'm not trying to say this was his mind set, just trying to use it as an example of a n-s-g system.

Back to my other point, most games seem to take 'sim' in as the ghost and gamism or narativism as their influence.  Not that this is inherently better but I think it says something about the gaming market.

Now before you start screaming at me "But ... but... most games that are bad are bad because they try to satisfy gn and s" remember, thats because they try to put their all into each of these.  

Also:  Of Course gamism is more common than commonly though! Its in almost all commercial games whether people care to admit it or not ;-)

Just to try to make my point clearer as I feel it may have been muddled in my ramblings,  heres some examples:

3E D&D:  Gamism (obvious), Sim, Ghosts of Nar (aligment?)
Novel Based RPG Books:  Gamism or Nar, Nar or Gamism, Sim
M&M: Gamism, Nar, Sim
White Wolf:  Nar, Gamism, Sim
GURPS: Sim, Gamism, Nar (this is a weird one... sometimes id say its more nar than gamist and others id say its more nar than gamist... these are both halfway between influence and ghost)
FUDGE: Nar, Sim, Game

Amadeus--thanks for your thoughts; I do think, though, that you need to read the articles, because you've missed some critical aspects of the theory.

First, creative agenda ("GNS") is about how people play, and only secondarily about game design. It comes to be about game design in the sense that designs can make it easier or more difficult to pursue a particular agendum. No game is gamist; it facilitates or promotes gamism. People who play it will find that gamism is easy and other agenda are more difficult.

Second, creative agenda is not about anything that a game can do; it's about what the players prioritize--what it is they want to get out of the game. There is a group represented here who uses D&D3E to play a completely narrativist game, because they pretty much have no interest in the advancement rules or the conflict mechanics or any of that stuff, but are using that as the backdrop for their real interests, the exploration of premise. Similarly, Multiverser has been called simulationist, but in play it very easily drifts to the agendum of the player, because whatever it is that the player finds interesting, that's what the game is about. Never, however, does anyone make two agenda the number one priority at the same instant. It is impossible de facto. Whichever one is the top priority for your play, that's the way you're playing.

Third, it's possible to design a game that stays so completely out of the way of player preferences that it can easily be played in any one agendum; it is not possible to create a game that inherently supports multiple agenda without creating conflict with the others. One of the interesting aspects of Multiverser's design is that it has no reward system at all--the aspect of design which Ron Edwards frequently states is the critical determinative of what agendum a game primarily supports is missing completely from that system. That's significant. In D&D, the reward system runs gamist; if you try to play simulationist or narrativist, the reward system works against you, trying to force you to play gamist. At the other end, Legends of Alyria's rewards are narrativist, and if you try to play it gamist or simulationist it will push you back to narrativist play quite inexhorably. Anything that a game does to support one mode or agendum by its very nature opposes the other two.

To read the articles; read them carefully. If you don't get it from reading Narrativism: Story Now, go back to System Does Matter and try that. If that doesn't help, read Applied Theory to see something of how design relates to play. Tackle them; understand them. The theory doesn't say anything like what you're suggesting it says; I think if you seriously tackle it, you'll discover ideas about role playing that have been right in front of you all this time and you've never realized it.

--M. J. Young

First, I'd like to say I'm sorry if that first post didn't make as much sense or contextual sense as I would have wished.  I had been coding for about 12 hours on some weird archaic junk and my mind wasn't where it should have been.  That said, I still stand by what I said and will try to say it correctly now that I'm rested.  However relookinga t the examples I gave, they are weak and sometimes wrong.

Quote
First, creative agenda ("GNS") is about how people play, and only secondarily about game design. It comes to be about game design in the sense that designs can make it easier or more difficult to pursue a particular agendum. No game is gamist; it facilitates or promotes gamism. People who play it will find that gamism is easy and other agenda are more difficult.

This is obvious.  I kinda ignored this, but I do understand this.  What I'm trying to do is dissect how gns influences design - and it does, all three aspects of it.  I'm sorry I didn't make it as clear as need be.  I know that gns deals mostly with what players want, and secondly with how to achieve this goal through design.  I also know that most people believe you must go gung-ho at one and ignore the other two, but this isn't what most of these people actually do in practice.  

If one were to try to make gamism as hard as they could what would they do - take out all elements of a 'game' which gets rid of alot of the idea of 'stepping up to a challenge'.    This wouldn't work really I realize at squashing gamism but its still will do alot to it.  If one wanted to take out sim, one would take out of the rules of coherence to what really happens in that world. And even then incoherence is a type of environmental variable.

What we should look at here, is the true anatomy of a game.  I am choosing to divide it up into the gns stances even those they aren't directly the same, the similarity is so useful it would be silly to ignore it.  Of course sim is kinda weak in this model becoming more sim-gamism, but its still there.   Its been said multiple times that you can't support more than one kind of view without suffering greatly, and this just isn't true - as I will explain after dealing with these points.

Quote
Second, creative agenda is not about anything that a game can do; it's about what the players prioritize--what it is they want to get out of the game.

Well this is true in the most basic sense, but that is not to say that a game cannot be made up of parts that relate to gns, which it is.

Quote
Third, it's possible to design a game that stays so completely out of the way of player preferences that it can easily be played in any one agendum;

Of course, but that's not a 'good' game per se.  It doesn't really help solve any of the three urges players have.  It leaves them to do it themselves, which some may prefer, but in essence its bad design.  If players wanted to do it themselves, they wouldn't be looking at your system.

Quote
it is not possible to create a game that inherently supports multiple agenda without creating conflict with the others.

Yes yes, but this is not what I'm trying to say (I admit I'm doing it rather poorly.  I'm better at papers than forum babbling - I'll try to get this into a real paper and put it up sometime on my site and link it here.).  Any one game does only 'inherently support' one agenda, but the tools it uses borrows from the other agendas areas within the system.  This is why I believe nars can mold d&d easily into a nar game if they want to - because it has ghosts of that that can be picked up and developed (as written, or if you go ahead and ignore whats written, you are using a different system.  this system will obviously be more suited to your whims, and you have went and redesigned the system.)

Quote
One of the interesting aspects of Multiverser's design is that it has no reward system at all--the aspect of design which Ron Edwards frequently states is the critical determinative of what agendum a game primarily supports is missing completely from that system. That's significant. In D&D, the reward system runs gamist; if you try to play simulationist or narrativist, the reward system works against you, trying to force you to play gamist. At the other end, Legends of Alyria's rewards are narrativist, and if you try to play it gamist or simulationist it will push you back to narrativist play quite inexorably. Anything that a game does to support one mode or agendum by its very nature opposes the other two.

Rewards are important yes, but this a reflection of the rest of the rules of the game and the mindset of the game creator.  They should coincide with it, or simply not exist.  I'm not positive on this now, but I'm thinking about this being a gamist aspect of design being used for other purposes.

QuoteTo read the articles; read them carefully. If you don't get it from reading Narrativism: Story Now, go back to System Does Matter and try that. If that doesn't help, read Applied Theory to see something of how design relates to play.

Done.

QuoteThe theory doesn't say anything like what you're suggesting it says;

Of course it doesn't as the theory and I are talking about two different things.  Just because your theory doesn't say what mine does, doesn't mean mine doesn't say what mine does. Unfortunately I was silly ( or stupid ) enough to use your terms instead of my own. This is my mistake and I'm sorry.

============================
To avoid further confusion and possible annoyance I'm going to ahead and rename some of the terms I have been using.  I'm also going to discuss flaws in gns game design as you see it.

Quote
Mechanics - Mostly what I've been calling gamist.  This is not how dice work etc as the name would at first suggest but more the little things gamist like.  This is by far the dominant of the three in most public gaming systems
Context - What I've been referring to as sim
Nar Mech - Aspects in design that appeal to nars.  This is often seen as lack of aspects of mechanics.
Direction Incentive - Recently added due to thinking some about rewards this is none of the three but its roots are from mechanics
Esthetics - Something not mentioned earlier due to it not being relevant.

Now, I'm going to talk about game theory and its relation to gns and despite the fear of stepping on toes, its problems.

A few other terms you may or may not be familiar with in real game theory that I may use, but if I don't should be kept in mind when reading this. Alot of these are based on rewards in one sense, but in a real sense  its about rewards in relevance to 'winning the game' not to character advancement or anything like that.  As we all know from reading any rpg book, winning in rpgs is done differently than in other games.

Quote
Pareto Optimal: efficiency of a game so that no player may get more out of the game without cost to another player
Hicks Optimal:   efficiency of a game so that all players get the greatest possible 'payoffs'
Nash Optimal:  ( you might remember this from an analogy in a recent movie A Beautiful Mind) efficiency of game so that all players have no incentive to change their current strategy as it would harm all and in their current position they all win.  We see this is impossible in RPGs. But a close match will be shown.  This is misused , but you will get the idea behind it I hope.

I'll also go ahead and differentiate my theory with popular gns theory by calling it Nashville GNS.  (I've always been one for bad obvious wordplay.)  What we want is a nash optimal hicks optimal game.  That way people can have fun without having to mold their strategy to another strategy such as mentioned in the original topic of this thread (I'm sorry for deviating) gamism and everybody has fun.  It seems the assumption is that the name of this game is Pareto Optimalization, which is somewhat true, but not to the extent that is commonly believed.

While these are more for games involving 'score' of some type I think they may be of use here if one uses it in ordinal terms in relation to  how successful each player is at achieving their goal, or as you put it strategy.    You can either
A) Fulfill your goal completely,
ie, have alot of fun
B) Partially Fulfill your goal
have some fun, but feel that you are in the wrong game, but deal
C) Fail.
don't have fun.

In essence the goal of this game is determined by your strategy.  In fact this is such common knowledge, these are often combined into the term you use as 'strategy'.  So easy right? Everybody wins since their goal is determined by their strategy and that strategy fulfills their goal. Wrong.  

The problem is the 'rules of the game'.  An ideal game would be able to make all three strategies win equally.  This is possible in an ideal context where all the game players choose the same strategy.

Those with a short view would assume then that the best path is to just cater to one type and let the rest suffer.  This would be a GREAT solution if in real life people tended to game in groups that all shared the same strategy.  However it seems to me that this often times isn't the case (especially where gaming is more of social activity than a game for the sake of a game.)  Often times a group will contain a gamist, two nars, and a sim or two sims, a gamist and a nar, or whatever.  The point is this mix almost certainly makes the previous method plain out bad practice.  Game design should help the gamemaster achieve ALL the players goals.  Your view of game design simply doesn't and the assumptions that any game can be played equally well in gn or s is wrong due to the mix of groups.  Most people leave this up to whoever is running the game to cater.  This is much like Ron's reference to system not mattering and how it really does.

Lets examine the options.  

We know from experience that catering to all three g n and s is simply too much for a game to handle.  Theres too much load.  You get baggage, and conflict.  Everybody loses.  Further more we know that if you pick any one that one wins, and the rest in the gaming group must be catered to by the gm.  Given that not all gm's are as skilled enough to cater to different players, by default the others will lose.  You must assume the worse.


Who Wins VS Game Design Assumption
.   |  G    |   N   |  S    
----+-------+-------+-------
.G  |  W    |   L   |  L    
----+-------+-------+-------
.N  |  L    |   W   |  L
----+-------+-------+-------
.S  |  L    |   L   |  W
----+-------+-------+-------
 

L = complete lose
X = half win
W = win


In a more optimistic view the gm isnt completely bad, hes actually pretty good.  He can do *something* on his own.  In fact, hes good enough that if there are two different kinds of groups and recognizes this, he can easily accommodate both but one does suffer.


Who Wins VS Game Design Assumption
.   |  G    |   N   |  S    
----+-------+-------+-------
.G  |  W    |   X   |  L    
----+-------+-------+-------
.N  |  L    |   W   |  X
----+-------+-------+-------
.S  |  X    |   L   |  W
----+-------+-------+-------
 
or

.   |  G    |   N   |  S    
----+-------+-------+-------
.G  |  W    |   L   |  X    
----+-------+-------+-------
.N  |  X    |   W   |  L
----+-------+-------+-------
.S  |  L    |   X   |  W
----+-------+-------+-------

L = complete lose
X = half win
W = win


With a 'great' gm, these levels are bumped up again. Another thing to note is that this model is for a non-mixed strategy - which isn't always the case.

That seems to have exhausted all the options, but really it hasn't.    From such a cursory view as this we seem to come about the conclusion that we can assume the gm isn't that bad and we only let one man really suffer - the odd man out.  This is sloppy and ill conceived. We should design for the worst among the gamers, since the better ones can help themselves.

We should try to bump this up without the gm's help.  "But what about conflict!" I hear from the peanut gallery.  Good question.

Gamism most directly conflicts with narrativism but its not a conflict that can't be repaired.  Narrativism however doesn't really   We also so that Sim and narrativism conflict, but not *that* much.  Sim and Gamism also only *half* conflict. This can be seen more clearly later when I discuss peoples REAL (and mixed) strategies as opposed to the suggested model.  

Not all people are gamists, sims, or nars.  Some people prefer to mix their strategies.  I for example play as a narrativist, but I also have alot of essence of gamist in me - however having something at least someone near the settings 'reality' is somewhat important to me but only when it gets WAY out of hand (I played in a game once where dragonsw ould randomly appear and change your gender/class... this is bad).   I think this represents alot of people.  Others are gamists, who like sim in their games, or sims who like a little game in their sim.  Or any other combination.  I feel most people who know nothing of theory are one of these who have two goals. This however is an opinion so I will leave it out.

Ok good.  That means its easier to ignore two of the three in my game design!  Great.  Actually this isn't the case.  For anybody with two of these you demote their win down to a half win. Of course some people hold their narrativist goal higher than their sim or gamist goal.  



   |  G    |   N   |  S    |      GN   |   GS  |  NG   |  NS   |   SN  |  SG
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
.G  |  W    |   L   |  L    |      W    |   W   |  X    |  L    |   L   |  X    
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
.N  |  L    |   W   |  L    |      X    |   L   |  W    |  W    |   X   |  L    
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
.S  |  L    |   L   |  W    |      L    |   X   |  L    |  X    |   W   |  W    
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------


I'm not going to bother listing the optimistic view here as this is a forum post and thats getting a little too complex for the likes of a post and to be honest its irrelevant to good design.

So I suppose we aren't as bad off as I first said.  However, 4/9 of each row still full loses.  Hell, thats just under half.  2-3 of the average 6 gamers in your group are possibly having a bad time assuming each of these are of equal proportion in the gaming community (big assumption I know I can't make).  The point is 12/27 types of gamers will find your game not fun.

What we would like to see is a board filled up with Wins right? This however is impossible as stated earlier.  So what good is all the garbage? Well instead lets just focus on instead, making as few people as possible lose.  Much easier.  But how?

I propose proper design should focus on one of these, and be influenced by another.  Conflict for this isn't really that bad, as we see from the fact that gamers themselves are more often than not using a mix of two strategies, rather than a single strategy.  So designing a game with the idea in the back of your mind that some gamists are going to play your narrativist game may be useful.  Sure, you get some conflict, but the gain is so much better its silly to be afraid of it.



   |  G    |   N   |  S    |      GN   |   GS  |  NG   |  NS   |   SN  |  SG
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
.GN |  W    |   X   |  L    |      W    |   W   |  X    |  X    |   X   |  X    
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
.GS |  W    |   L   |  X    |      W    |   W   |  X    |  X    |   X   |  X    
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
.NG |  X    |   W   |  L    |      X    |   X   |  W    |  W    |   X   |  X    
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
.NS |  L    |   W   |  X    |      X    |   X   |  W    |  W    |   X   |  X    
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
.SN |  L    |   X   |  W    |      X    |   X   |  X    |  X    |   W   |  W    
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
.SG |  X    |   L   |  W    |      X    |   X   |  X    |  X    |   W   |  W    
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------

Gee golly I like those numbers alot better.  1/9 types happy looks good to me.  With a good gm or a great gm everybody is happy!  I'll deal with the minor conflict in strategies.  Still we had better at least throw that 1/9th a bone.  And we do ussually, buts that all it is - a bone.  No real meat, just a mention or hint that the person who made the game knew about the forgotten ninth guy and wanted him to know he wasnt completely out there in the dark alone.

So now we have as close to a Nash/Hicks optimal as we can get.  Even the losers arent that far in the dark, and if you have any sort of decent game runner, there are no losers.

Ok so surely we see to design a game that makes the most people happy a bit of minor conflict helps the medicine go down.  But what in gods name does all this have to do with the topic at hand and what I was suggesting earlier? If so far you've dismissed this on the premise that the loss you gain with conflict is too much, this is where it comes together for you.

Its been a while so I'll refresh your memory on my new definitions:

Quote
Mechanics - This is not how dice work etc as the name would at first suggest but more the little things gamist like.  This is by far the dominant of the three in most public gaming systems
Context - What I've been referring to as sim
Narmech - Aspects in design that appeal to nars and encourage them.  This is often seen as lack of aspects of mechanics.
Direction Incentive - Recently added due to thinking some about rewards this is none of the three but its roots are from mechanics
Esthetics - Something not mentioned earlier due to it not being relevant.  However this contains how dice are rolled, etc.

Mechanics are what really gets a gamist going.  These are the things that promote as dubbed above, "The Egg Hunt", min maxing, system breaking, and a defined challenge to 'step up to'.  This shouldn't be seen as probability curves and the like, but simply things in games that promote gamism.  And to an extent most rpgs have this, whether they like to admit it or not.  There is a sense of this no matter what you do.  Directive Incentive is a method of this, but it is also used in narmech.

Narmech is anything that  promotes narrativist play.  The easiest way recently was to simply change directive incentive from mechanics over to narmechanics.  This is seen in games that reward good role playing with character points.  However this is not the only way.  Often times this is simple shown by putting less emphasis on mechanics.  In this way, narrativism is tied inversely to mechanics.

Context defines what the sim really wants - the context of the mechanics / 'narmech'.  This is the setting.  This also is how this effects both mechanics/narmechanics.

Esthetics are things about the game that are none of the above but are influenced and influence all of the above.  Most notably is the resolution of actions.  

I just realized I spent way too much time so far on this post and I have to study for my final later today.  I'll get back to the game side of this tonight.  Sorry for cutting you short, but I think you can see where it is going right now without me babbling on for another page.  heck maybe I'll just go ahead and write the paper off this and post it. ;-)

Ugh,Just noticed I lapsed into talking about gns as its secondary purpose.  Oh well, take it with a grain of salt.  This is what happens when i try to do things ont he fly =-P

Such an indepth post deserves and indepth response, however I soon have a meeting, so I'm just going to hit the Sim issue real quick.  I'll get to the rest later.

I don't believe Sim exists.  I'd rather actually get some work done than have the old discussion about whether or not Sim exists.  I'm just letting you know that I'm not blowing off your Sim points anymore than I do anyone elses.  I read and think about peoples Sim posts, but I leave discussing it to those it concerns; and there are plenty of clever people here who can address it.  It's all just a bunch of 8x10 color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one.  (If I squint at your chart until the S's fade out it's a lot smaller.)

If you are interested in this approach, I think the most recent ideas on it are in The Roots of Sim II (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9642).  The counter-point is at Understanding: the "it" of Simulationism (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9715).  There are lots of threads on the topic (search for Beeg Horseshoe).

Ahh, right.  The thought actually has crossed my mind but I haven't come to a real conclusion about it myself.  If I really had to on the spot I'd downgrade sim to a subsection of gamism or narativism, or maybe just an aspect seen in both, but I don't really have a full opinion on it.  But thanks for the links, thats going to sure help me on the the way.  I'm not sure if I mentioned it in the above post earlier but I do feel for sure that sim is at the least the most often 'ghost'ed part of the three.

Before I start making my huge second post on how all that junk I said applies to real design, I'd like to make sure a few things are put in the light I wanted them in but that I might have lost due to all the charts etc (I really dislike charts in games, but sometimes they are useful... ;-))

Just wanted to repeat the premise the players are not ussually gn or s, but a combination of these and even changing at times. Sure sometimes you get your diehard narrativist or gamist or sim, but in the end most players are somewhere in between these bounds.

Second, something I didn't mention is that sometimes groups grow towards a certain aspect of these and it makes more sense to use a grouping such as the normal gns in a broad way, but I still believe its best to do this while not ignoring a secondary claim.

Third, I realize that in most ways, rpgs aren't games and aren't as subject to game theory as other thigns - that said in some ways they are very similar and just a type of game thats not often investigated.

I'll post the next huge blurb to conclude my point in abit.  You have been forewarned ;-).  Idiot wind this way cometh .. or somethign

Amadeus,

Now that I've got a little more time and my bias is out in the open, I'd like to hit a couple of your other points.

QuoteThis is obvious. I kinda ignored this, but I do understand this. What I'm trying to do is dissect how gns influences design - and it does, all three aspects of it. I'm sorry I didn't make it as clear as need be. I know that gns deals mostly with what players want, and secondly with how to achieve this goal through design. I also know that most people believe you must go gung-ho at one and ignore the other two, but this isn't what most of these people actually do in practice.

If one were to try to make gamism as hard as they could what would they do - take out all elements of a 'game' which gets rid of alot of the idea of 'stepping up to a challenge'. This wouldn't work really I realize at squashing gamism but its still will do alot to it. If one wanted to take out sim, one would take out of the rules of coherence to what really happens in that world. And even then incoherence is a type of environmental variable.

What we should look at here, is the true anatomy of a game. I am choosing to divide it up into the gns stances even those they aren't directly the same, the similarity is so useful it would be silly to ignore it. Of course sim is kinda weak in this model becoming more sim-gamism, but its still there. Its been said multiple times that you can't support more than one kind of view without suffering greatly, and this just isn't true - as I will explain after dealing with these points.

GNS is about an instance of play, say a session or more.  You seem to be talking about lowercase gns (as we say around these parts) - which is to say little bits of play that might be gam-ish in overall Nar play.  At the GNS level these little bits are irrelevant, because you're looking for an overall pattern; and you can't have more than one overall pattern.

Why analyze an instance of play instead of atomic moments (little gns)?  Because the greater your number of data points the smaller your statistical deviation.  You aren't so much identifying a GNS priority as you are assuming it.  People are complicated things, trying to keep track of every little priority shift is like trying to catch a bumblebee with a spoon.

What seems to help people with this, is that if play is 10% Gam and 90% Nar we call it Nar, because Nar dominates the flow of the game it can be said that Nar is of most interest to the player.  Basically, you're abstracting out tiny shifts in player mood to get a general impression of play.  I think the whole percentage angle is an incorrect simplification, but like I said, it seems to help some people.

QuoteYes yes, but this is not what I'm trying to say (I admit I'm doing it rather poorly. I'm better at papers than forum babbling - I'll try to get this into a real paper and put it up sometime on my site and link it here.). Any one game does only 'inherently support' one agenda, but the tools it uses borrows from the other agendas areas within the system. This is why I believe nars can mold d&d easily into a nar game if they want to - because it has ghosts of that that can be picked up and developed (as written, or if you go ahead and ignore whats written, you are using a different system. this system will obviously be more suited to your whims, and you have went and redesigned the system.)

Well, you can drift anything, it's just a question of how much work you want to put into it.  When it's snowing outside I could ride a bike to work, but I'd be better off driving.  If the mechanics do not impede an agenda, no biggie.  The problem is when they directly impede the other agenda.

Gam and Nar are in direct conflict; theme and challenge are not compatible.  To use a conventional example, a level playing field is important for a game, whereas a story is hindered by the concept of game balance.  I can't think of a story where everyone was equal.  Drama requires you to dig a character deeper into a conflict, whereas with challenge the point is to dig yourself out.  I'm actually having trouble explaining this because it seems so obvious that I can't think of anything to say.

QuoteThose with a short view would assume then that the best path is to just cater to one type and let the rest suffer. This would be a GREAT solution if in real life people tended to game in groups that all shared the same strategy. However it seems to me that this often times isn't the case (especially where gaming is more of social activity than a game for the sake of a game.) Often times a group will contain a gamist, two nars, and a sim or two sims, a gamist and a nar, or whatever. The point is this mix almost certainly makes the previous method plain out bad practice. Game design should help the gamemaster achieve ALL the players goals. Your view of game design simply doesn't and the assumptions that any game can be played equally well in gn or s is wrong due to the mix of groups. Most people leave this up to whoever is running the game to cater. This is much like Ron's reference to system not mattering and how it really does.

Lets examine the options.

We know from experience that catering to all three g n and s is simply too much for a game to handle. Theres too much load. You get baggage, and conflict. Everybody loses. Further more we know that if you pick any one that one wins, and the rest in the gaming group must be catered to by the gm. Given that not all gm's are as skilled enough to cater to different players, by default the others will lose. You must assume the worse.

Uh oh.  I think I see an assumption that a good GM can make any group work.  That basically means the GM controls the agenda of the group, which in turn means you are in fact only supporting one player's agenda - that of the GM (I suppose that's coherent then - nothing to conflict with).  The GM sure does have more responsibility than the rest of the players, but his agenda isn't more important.  I dare say it's less important.  I'm personally very wary of solutions that shift power from the players to the GM.  I like to let everybody play.

To start, let me say that your ideas for a theory of role playing are very interesting, and have a lot of potential; however, you seem to be badly misunderstanding and/or misusing creative agenda terminology, and you would probably be a lot better off (particularly around here where there are so many of us that have very refined definitions of those terms) dropping them completely from your discussion. They're only interfering with your ability to communicate your ideas, because almost every time you use one of the agenda names my reaction, at least, is that this is incorrect. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Just to make a few points--

Although many gamist games are very heavy on mechanics, many are very light on mechanics; further, there is another well-supported myth that heavy mechanics means simulationism. You can have mechanics-heavy narrativism, although it's rare. Your assertion that mechanics rules are specifically connected to gamism is mistaken both because mechanics-heavy games can be connected to narrativism or simulationism, and because gamist games can be extremely rules light. Fudge is usually played highly gamist, from what I've observed. Rolemaster is, I think, usually labeled simulationist.

Simulationism is not equal to verisimilitude or emulation. There is nothing at all about simulationism that requires the world be especially detailed or even created at all before play. The thread on The It of Simulation, cited above, delves into this significantly. You can have high-detail verisimilitude in narrativism or gamism; you can have tightly structured game physics and internal causality in narrativist and gamist play. This is not "simulationism in support of X". It is merely strong verisimilitude as a technique in support of X. Strong verisimilitude is an incredibly useful and common technique in supporting simulationism, but it neither makes something simulationism nor is necessary to that agendum.

"Games that reward good role playing with character points" are not narrativist, and that is not a narrativist mechanic. Narrativist games don't give much concern at all to "good role playing" (no more so than gamist games, and probably less so than simulationist exploration of character). Narrativism says that the address of premise is more important than the exploration of the five elements of exploration (one of which is character) and more important than player personal glory. You can play narrativism in pawn stance. It's just uncommon.

I think you've got a lot of interesting ideas in your post about game design; but you're getting them all confused by trying to relate them to Edwards' Theory terminology in ways that aren't valid.

See if you can explain what it is you're trying to say without using the words "narrativist/m", "simulationist/m", or "gamist/m". I think you'll find that you've got something good here that really doesn't have anything to do one way or another with Ron's theories. In the end, we'll probably all say, yes, that's good, and helps us understand games in interesting ways, as it addresses techniques; but it has very little to do with creative agenda.

--M. J. Young

First off:

MJ Young Said:

Quote

To start, let me say that your ideas for a theory of role playing are very interesting, and have a lot of potential; however, you seem to be badly misunderstanding and/or misusing creative agenda terminology, and you would probably be a lot better off (particularly around here where there are so many of us that have very refined definitions of those terms) dropping them completely from your discussion. They're only interfering with your ability to communicate your ideas, because almost every time you use one of the agenda names my reaction, at least, is that this is incorrect. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Yeah its mostly misusing.  I think you are right and I should try to make all my ideas independant into their own system.  Good call.  In that note, I dont think ill post my blurb on mechanics/ etc until i do this.  On the other hand, I'm here now so I'm going to keep on my same path and at least answer your post.

Quote
Although many gamist games are very heavy on mechanics, many are very light on mechanics; further, there is another well-supported myth that heavy mechanics means simulationism. You can have mechanics-heavy narrativism, although it's rare. Your assertion that mechanics rules are specifically connected to gamism is mistaken both because mechanics-heavy games can be connected to narrativism or simulationism, and because gamist games can be extremely rules light.

Well, just because there are examples outside of the norm is not to say they aren't connected.  Now they may not be connected with a *huge* coorelation (although I do think its fairly big) , but to say gamism is completely independant of game mechanics seems incorrect.  But maybe my approach of connecting it so highly is also incorrect.  It seems the connection is most likely somewher ein the middle.

Quote
Fudge is usually played highly gamist, from what I've observed. Rolemaster is, I think, usually labeled simulationist.

Really is it? (to fudge) I never knew.  From what I've actually seen, the fudgelist is a mix of pretty hardcore sims, nars and then gamists and from what I've seen in play it goes towards nars.  I guess you learn everyday.  

cruciel said:

Quote
GNS is about an instance of play, say a session or more. You seem to be talking about lowercase gns (as we say around these parts) - which is to say little bits of play that might be gam-ish in overall Nar play. At the GNS level these little bits are irrelevant, because you're looking for an overall pattern; and you can't have more than one overall pattern.

Why analyze an instance of play instead of atomic moments (little gns)? Because the greater your number of data points the smaller your statistical deviation. You aren't so much identifying a GNS priority as you are assuming it. People are complicated things, trying to keep track of every little priority shift is like trying to catch a bumblebee with a spoon.

What seems to help people with this, is that if play is 10% Gam and 90% Nar we call it Nar, because Nar dominates the flow of the game it can be said that Nar is of most interest to the player. Basically, you're abstracting out tiny shifts in player mood to get a general impression of play. I think the whole percentage angle is an incorrect simplification, but like I said, it seems to help some people.

Thanks, I'll think this over.

Quote
Gam and Nar are in direct conflict; theme and challenge are not compatible. To use a conventional example, a level playing field is important for a game, whereas a story is hindered by the concept of game balance. I can't think of a story where everyone was equal. Drama requires you to dig a character deeper into a conflict, whereas with challenge the point is to dig yourself out. I'm actually having trouble explaining this because it seems so obvious that I can't think of anything to say.

Yes I see this, but thats only if you try to put both on the same level.  You can still have a great story AND a secondary gamist challenge in there.  

You say balance gets in the way of story, and this is true.  But this doesn't mean they are mutually exclusive.  I think if you only secondarily pay attention to gamism, the conflict isnt that high.  You can still have a good story where the characters are only *somewhat* balanced.  Say... XGL for example.  

My main point is that minor conflict you will get will be worth making that gamist or two in your game happy (assuming they are there.)  After all gamists are people too ;-).  The tradeoff for a slightly worse story is worth it to make most gamers happy, leaving only one person (in this case the diehard sim) out in the cold.

Quote
Uh oh. I think I see an assumption that a good GM can make any group work. That basically means the GM controls the agenda of the group, which in turn means you are in fact only supporting one player's agenda - that of the GM (I suppose that's coherent then - nothing to conflict with). The GM sure does have more responsibility than the rest of the players, but his agenda isn't more important. I dare say it's less important. I'm personally very wary of solutions that shift power from the players to the GM. I like to let everybody play.

Well, thats not the real assumption, alot lies on the players too.  However from a game design aspect you have to ignore the fact that there are bad gms and bad players.  If you are playing with one of these, you are playing in a bad game, and you are wasting your time.   Thats just the way it is. A bad gm can ruin the perfectly designed game and so can bad players - both equally well.

Anyways, I'm going to go ahead and work on making this stuff sensible. I'll let everybody know when I think im close =-P

Thanks for your input everyone, very helpful.

cruciel wrote:

QuoteGam and Nar are in direct conflict; theme and challenge are not compatible. To use a conventional example, a level playing field is important for a game, whereas a story is hindered by the concept of game balance. I can't think of a story where everyone was equal. Drama requires you to dig a character deeper into a conflict, whereas with challenge the point is to dig yourself out. I'm actually having trouble explaining this because it seems so obvious that I can't think of anything to say.

To this I say "nonsense".  Games can be constructed with decidedly un-level playing fields in which the goals of players are not symmetrical at all.  In fact I would say that the concept of a level playing field in conventional RPG is tenuous at best, seeing as the GM is invested with so much power by comparison with players.   Actual level playing field games that execute with in an RPG have not yet been touched on at all, and possibly won't ever; but the elevel playing field is only relevant in the realm of competitive play, itself only a subset of gamist play.

Anyway, I fully support Amadeus attempt to approach potential subordinate modes.  I do think it is true that a player has a particular preference, but I also think that preferences occur in strong combination in individuals.  If play is 90% Nar and 10% Gam, that is no excuse for failing to address the 10% Gam.  It may well be a lower priority, it may well be expendable, but it can still be investigated and it can still be used in play.

--

I have to say I think this proposal, the elimination of Gam, either will not work at all, or will make a game that is Not Fun.  A gamist criticism of the starting position:

Quote
The Egg Hunt is a behavior I would classify as gamist. It's rooting through the game text for the most effectiveness per cost, largest damaging weapon, individual abilities that stack together, flaws in logic of the game's design, or whatever. Looking for exploitations, commonly by intentionally misconstruing the wording of the text. I've never found the behavior very impressive even from a gamist standpoint. How clever do you really have to be to search for the biggest number; what obstacle have you overcome?

would be: "So you want to cripple character effectiveness so that you can assert more GM power over the game world and drag us through your auteur-created story willy nilly.  Thanks but no thanks."

There's too much conflated into this 'egg hunt' scenario.  Absolutely, searching for the biggest numbers is Smart, becuase you need to understand the range of possibility and effectiveness to plan usefully.  If there is a clearly optimal choice, it is Stupid not to take it - that is a failure of system.

Looking for "exploitations" though slides us into the realm of cheating - and I do not accept it is legitimate to presume gamism implies the prevalence of cheats.  I reject the claim that abnalysing a system to understand it and making intelkliugent choices of those available can be reasonably conflated with deliberate misinterpretations or manipulation - these are NOT the same behaviour in my view.

To return to your starCraft analogy, if what you want to do is just build buildings, why did you fire up starcraft at all?  there are plenty of other games which do not feature the problem you describe.  If what you want to do is build buildings, what you need is a game that rewards the building of buildings... Pharaoh, say.  Eliminating the game will not achieve your goals at all in my view, and worse, will eliminate a major plankn of protagonism and character expression.

Quote from: contracyclecruciel wrote:

QuoteGam and Nar are in direct conflict; theme and challenge are not compatible. To use a conventional example, a level playing field is important for a game, whereas a story is hindered by the concept of game balance. I can't think of a story where everyone was equal. Drama requires you to dig a character deeper into a conflict, whereas with challenge the point is to dig yourself out. I'm actually having trouble explaining this because it seems so obvious that I can't think of anything to say.

To this I say "nonsense".  Games can be constructed with decidedly un-level playing fields in which the goals of players are not symmetrical at all.  In fact I would say that the concept of a level playing field in conventional RPG is tenuous at best, seeing as the GM is invested with so much power by comparison with players.   Actual level playing field games that execute with in an RPG have not yet been touched on at all, and possibly won't ever; but the elevel playing field is only relevant in the realm of competitive play, itself only a subset of gamist play.

Believe it or not I agree with you.  The game balance thing was just an example of how Gam might conflict with Nar, not a universal statement about how Gam and Nar games have to work.

As for the uneven distribution of power to the GM...  If you're making an allusion to Illusionism (that's fun to say), I've always wondered what could possibly appeal to a Gam player in an Illusionist game.  I mean really, what's the point if the GM is allowed to fudge?  Of course, I have the same thing to say about Nar.

QuoteI have to say I think this proposal, the elimination of Gam, either will not work at all, or will make a game that is Not Fun.  A gamist criticism of the starting position:

If you want to shoot for absolutes, I'd say it wouldn't work at all.  

Quote

QuoteThe Egg Hunt is a behavior I would classify as gamist. It's rooting through the game text for the most effectiveness per cost, largest damaging weapon, individual abilities that stack together, flaws in logic of the game's design, or whatever. Looking for exploitations, commonly by intentionally misconstruing the wording of the text. I've never found the behavior very impressive even from a gamist standpoint. How clever do you really have to be to search for the biggest number; what obstacle have you overcome?

would be: "So you want to cripple character effectiveness so that you can assert more GM power over the game world and drag us through your auteur-created story willy nilly.  Thanks but no thanks."

If you cut out "assert more GM power over the game world and drag" I'm fine with that interpretation.  If the Gam interpretation boils down to "This doesn't look like any fun at all", then mission accomplished.

QuoteThere's too much conflated into this 'egg hunt' scenario.  Absolutely, searching for the biggest numbers is Smart, becuase you need to understand the range of possibility and effectiveness to plan usefully.  If there is a clearly optimal choice, it is Stupid not to take it - that is a failure of system.

Looking for "exploitations" though slides us into the realm of cheating - and I do not accept it is legitimate to presume gamism implies the prevalence of cheats.  I reject the claim that abnalysing a system to understand it and making intelkliugent choices of those available can be reasonably conflated with deliberate misinterpretations or manipulation - these are NOT the same behaviour in my view.

I consider the Egg Hunt to be a substyle of min-maxing.  I suppose it's worth it to make the distinction between regular min-maxing and the Egg Hunt version, which is sort of like cheating.  There's the spirit and the letter of the law, the Egg Hunt is ignoring the spirit.

QuoteTo return to your starCraft analogy, if what you want to do is just build buildings, why did you fire up starcraft at all?  there are plenty of other games which do not feature the problem you describe.  If what you want to do is build buildings, what you need is a game that rewards the building of buildings... Pharaoh, say.  Eliminating the game will not achieve your goals at all in my view, and worse, will eliminate a major plankn of protagonism and character expression.

Again, that's sort of the point.  How do I make something other than StarCraft?  So I can play it instead.

Let me reveal my master plan for a second.  Figuring out how to fail to support Gamism is as much about supporting Gam as Nar.

Quote from: Amadeus

QuoteGam and Nar are in direct conflict; theme and challenge are not compatible. To use a conventional example, a level playing field is important for a game, whereas a story is hindered by the concept of game balance. I can't think of a story where everyone was equal. Drama requires you to dig a character deeper into a conflict, whereas with challenge the point is to dig yourself out. I'm actually having trouble explaining this because it seems so obvious that I can't think of anything to say.

Yes I see this, but thats only if you try to put both on the same level.  You can still have a great story AND a secondary gamist challenge in there.  

You say balance gets in the way of story, and this is true.  But this doesn't mean they are mutually exclusive.  I think if you only secondarily pay attention to gamism, the conflict isnt that high.  You can still have a good story where the characters are only *somewhat* balanced.  Say... XGL for example.  

My main point is that minor conflict you will get will be worth making that gamist or two in your game happy (assuming they are there.)  After all gamists are people too ;-).  The tradeoff for a slightly worse story is worth it to make most gamers happy, leaving only one person (in this case the diehard sim) out in the cold.

Funny thing about compromises, they don't make anyone happy.  

To step out of theory and into actual play for second, I play in a bit of a mixed group.  In my experience things work better when we play to compatibilities rather than try to compromise on incompatibilities.  Often, there just isn't a compromise that can be made - two wants may be in direct conflict.  So we normally just pick someone, say "Sorry you can't both get what you want", and move on (in instances where we pull out to group negotiation or when tweaking the system).

Quote from: cruciel
Believe it or not I agree with you.  The game balance thing was just an example of how Gam might conflict with Nar, not a universal statement about how Gam and Nar games have to work.

And my point was that the level playing field is an artificial and irrelevant hypothetical.  As I understand the orthodox position on the conflict between Gam and Nar, it is that the fun of Gam can override that of Nar.

Quote
As for the uneven distribution of power to the GM...  If you're making an allusion to Illusionism (that's fun to say), I've always wondered what could possibly appeal to a Gam player in an Illusionist game.  I mean really, what's the point if the GM is allowed to fudge?

Its quite simple really - as often mentioned, one of the antecedants fo RPG is Free Kriegspeil.  This is indeed driven primairly from a Sim interest, but it demonstrates that players can cede total executive authority to a referee based on that referess competence and the presumption of neutrality.  Similarly, Matrix games are virtually rule-less but this does not compromise their ability to be enetertaining as games.  The GM's fudging is unimportant unles the GM is cast as an opponent.

QuoteIf you cut out "assert more GM power over the game world and drag" I'm fine with that interpretation.  If the Gam interpretation boils down to "This doesn't look like any fun at all", then mission accomplished.

No, I don't think those terms can be omitted.  I am also suggesting that an RPG with a non-Fun gamist component will fail for Nar and Sim too.

QuoteI consider the Egg Hunt to be a substyle of min-maxing.  I suppose it's worth it to make the distinction between regular min-maxing and the Egg Hunt version, which is sort of like cheating.  There's the spirit and the letter of the law, the Egg Hunt is ignoring the spirit.

Fine, but if its ignoring the spirit of the law, its overriding the social contract.  Thats a severe problem not strictly related to Gamism, it seems to me.  Healthy, contractual Gamism should not exhibit this failurte, and thus the attempt to eliminate or minimise Gamism does not help in resolving the Egg Hunt problem.

Quote
Again, that's sort of the point.  How do I make something other than StarCraft?  So I can play it instead.

By relocating the gamist rewards (and methods) such they reinforce the behaviour you wish to encourage.  The victory condition for starcraft is the obliteration of the opponent; if you do not want to play that sort of game, you need to establish a victory condition about something else.  The example of Pharoah I mentioned is a good one because in it one major form of victory is the construction of huge monuments.  In order to achieve this, you will have to construct many smaller buildings - also, there is no real opponent in these games, in the sense of a player with opposed objectives.

Quote from: contracycleNo, I don't think those terms can be omitted.  I am also suggesting that an RPG with a non-Fun gamist component will fail for Nar and Sim too.

QuoteBy relocating the gamist rewards (and methods) such they reinforce the behaviour you wish to encourage.  The victory condition for starcraft is the obliteration of the opponent; if you do not want to play that sort of game, you need to establish a victory condition about something else.  The example of Pharoah I mentioned is a good one because in it one major form of victory is the construction of huge monuments.  In order to achieve this, you will have to construct many smaller buildings - also, there is no real opponent in these games, in the sense of a player with opposed objectives.

Let me see if I can boil this down.  Are you basically saying that any rewards system is Gamist in nature?

Quote from: cruciel

Quote from: Amadeus

QuoteGam and Nar are in direct conflict; theme and challenge are not compatible. To use a conventional example, a level playing field is important for a game, whereas a story is hindered by the concept of game balance. I can't think of a story where everyone was equal. Drama requires you to dig a character deeper into a conflict, whereas with challenge the point is to dig yourself out. I'm actually having trouble explaining this because it seems so obvious that I can't think of anything to say.

Yes I see this, but thats only if you try to put both on the same level.  You can still have a great story AND a secondary gamist challenge in there.  

You say balance gets in the way of story, and this is true.  But this doesn't mean they are mutually exclusive.  I think if you only secondarily pay attention to gamism, the conflict isnt that high.  You can still have a good story where the characters are only *somewhat* balanced.  Say... XGL for example.  

My main point is that minor conflict you will get will be worth making that gamist or two in your game happy (assuming they are there.)  After all gamists are people too ;-).  The tradeoff for a slightly worse story is worth it to make most gamers happy, leaving only one person (in this case the diehard sim) out in the cold.

Funny thing about compromises, they don't make anyone happy.  

To step out of theory and into actual play for second, I play in a bit of a mixed group.  In my experience things work better when we play to compatibilities rather than try to compromise on incompatibilities.  Often, there just isn't a compromise that can be made - two wants may be in direct conflict.  So we normally just pick someone, say "Sorry you can't both get what you want", and move on (in instances where we pull out to group negotiation or when tweaking the system).

I'm not talking about a compromise I'm talking about allocating resources efficently. ( I know that sounds a helluva lot like compromise )

I also play in a mixed group.  That said, when we play a game, we satisfy to some degree everybodies gns.  I am predominately the gamer but as I said earlier I am also weird enough to have some nar in me too. We also have a full nar.  Now often times we aren't being fullfilled with the same parts of any given session, but over all we are fullfilled with the season and the game.

We may start out with some personal crisis or something that furthers the story which will lead into a challenge that will be resolved again to further the story etc.  Now these challenges are only now and then but they are enough to finish off any urges I have for gamism that are left unsatisfied by the nar heavy content.

Say we fight an illuminated vampire because hes important to the story for x reason. Now once the vampire is suitably bound, the nar comes in and starts interogating him in the style of his character to find out the next step of the story.   Sure,  hes not crazy about challenging combat or what not, but he doesn't find himself unhappy with the session over all or with even that section and I don't with the nar heavy.  He knows it necessary to get further in the story and so goes with it.  I like nar and so it satisfies me there, and I get my primary goal accomplished too  - a great experience for me.  He has a pretty good game, as do others in this same style.   Two things (nar and gam) aren't really that hard to allocate into the same game.  

Sure there is some minor uncomfortability for the nar for  all of what 15-30 minutes, but since hes so happy about the rest of the game, and the fact that its progressing the story anyways, its forgotten.  His primary goal is being filled up constantly through the nar heavy game- whats he care if now and then they need to deal with challenges.  And me, my secondary and primary goals are both being filled and so I'm happy as can be too.  The only person who would be having no fun at all would be a diehard sim. (if they exist?)

The point?  Its harder to add in this secondary aspect when its not in the system itself than when it is.  Compromises don't have to be made when they are made for you. When it isn't built in you end up having to make compromises and making people unhappy about the changes.  

Sure you stil have to make compromises about the game system changes etc, but they are alot less often and less serious.

Quote from: cruciel
Let me see if I can boil this down.  Are you basically saying that any rewards system is Gamist in nature?

Not exactly, but I'm inclined to extremely broad perceptions of what constitutes a game, so some things I think of as games have no reward mechanism.

What I mean more precisely is that reward mechanisms are attempts to shape behaviour.  So, to produce a game that you want to play, you need to identify what sort  of behaviours in which you'd like to indulge and reward those - not eliminate a reward system.  I suggested that this would so hobble the game aspect that the subsequent 'game', comprising N&S, would not meaningfully be an RPG.

It's been a bit since I started this thread.  I had to skim back through it, and it's slowly returning to me.  I've made an error I have to correct.  Sorry for the backtrack, but I noticed the me of today was contradicting the me of yesterday.

I have to rescind the following statement, it was untrue:

Quote from: II consider the Egg Hunt to be a substyle of min-maxing. I suppose it's worth it to make the distinction between regular min-maxing and the Egg Hunt version, which is sort of like cheating. There's the spirit and the letter of the law, the Egg Hunt is ignoring the spirit.

Which means the following still deserves a response.

Quote from: contracycleThere's too much conflated into this 'egg hunt' scenario. Absolutely, searching for the biggest numbers is Smart, becuase you need to understand the range of possibility and effectiveness to plan usefully. If there is a clearly optimal choice, it is Stupid not to take it - that is a failure of system.

Looking for "exploitations" though slides us into the realm of cheating - and I do not accept it is legitimate to presume gamism implies the prevalence of cheats. I reject the claim that abnalysing a system to understand it and making intelkliugent choices of those available can be reasonably conflated with deliberate misinterpretations or manipulation - these are NOT the same behaviour in my view.

If I'm now recalling correctly what I meant by Egg Hunt, yes, searching for the biggest numbers is Smart, and the Egg Hunt is encouraged by bad system with such obvious strategies.  So one way to eliminate the Egg Hunt is by removing those optimal choices.  For example, in the game Go all the pieces have the same size and function.  If there were pieces that took up multiple squares those pieces would obviously be better.  The Egg Hunt is looking for those pieces.

Egg Hunting may or may not involve perversion of rule text.  After all, if there is an obvious error in the text wouldn't it be Smart to take advantage of it?  This particular type is similar to wheedling, because it tends to involve convincing the other people (when someone says "The book doesn't say that!").  Again, wouldn't it me Smart to beguile your fellow players?

The Egg Hunt could be approached from many different angles.  Finding the best choice within the rules, by twisting the rules, by manipulating the people involved, by finding a better source book, or whatever.

So, I guess I see Egg Hunting that does and does not break the social contract.  All are (were) equal targets in this discussion.

I also seem to recall part of my original purpose was to figure out how to design for Egg Hunt-less Gamist play (choice are tactically different, but no choice is clearly "better").

Quote from: cruciel
So one way to eliminate the Egg Hunt is by removing those optimal choices.  For example, in the game Go all the pieces have the same size and function.  If there were pieces that took up multiple squares those pieces would obviously be better.  The Egg Hunt is looking for those pieces.

Well even in Go there are smarter opening moves than others and it would be *nonoptimal* and Stupid not to take these movies.  If you were to draw this analogy character creation would be the early game where you set up your positions and borders or what not.  Placing a peice ON the corner is a pretty dumb move, especially early game.  My point is that no matter how much you get rid of eggs to hunt, they will still be searched for.

Quote
I also seem to recall part of my original purpose was to figure out how to design for Egg Hunt-less Gamist play (choice are tactically different, but no choice is clearly "better").

I guess it boils down to being impossibly careful and having infinite foresight.  ;-)

However, usefully - ( ihope)
There is reward in egg hunting.  Get rid of it. The reward in egg hunting is that you have a stronger character to solve challanges.

To get rid of this reward this, it seems that your design is wants to be balanced but with different strategies all inherantly equal.  What I would do for this, is make a rock-paper-scissor sort of style of balance between three, four, or more different 'tactics'.  Defense might beat Quick might beat Offense might beat Defense.  Or whatever fits.  Of course don't make it flat rps, go ahead and add in a random factor.  Just make sure each area of the game is balanced in its own seperate area.  Don't let your skills affect combat significantly, or anything like that.  If you want a feign combat skill have a feign combat skill instead of using bluff.  

Other suggestions as earlier add this and help such as removing stacking, etc.  

Then find a way to satisfy the gamers.  I would suggest by taking the reward you just took away from having an uber character and putting it in solving challenges.  

I'm not sure if this was of any help, butI hope so.

Quote from: contracycle

Quote from: cruciel
Let me see if I can boil this down.  Are you basically saying that any rewards system is Gamist in nature?

Not exactly, but I'm inclined to extremely broad perceptions of what constitutes a game, so some things I think of as games have no reward mechanism.

What I mean more precisely is that reward mechanisms are attempts to shape behaviour.  So, to produce a game that you want to play, you need to identify what sort  of behaviours in which you'd like to indulge and reward those - not eliminate a reward system.  I suggested that this would so hobble the game aspect that the subsequent 'game', comprising N&S, would not meaningfully be an RPG.

(emphasis mine)

Ok, I'll agree with you on the first part (plain text).  The question is, how does one make a rewards system that is not Gamist?

As for the second part (italics), I disagree.  I think playing for its own sake, without a rewards system, is perfectly valid.  Without a rewards system you wouldn't be supporting/encouraging a play style, but you also won't be interfering with one.  So from my perspective, a lack of rewards system is one way you could fail to support Gamism.  Though not the topic of this thread, a lack of rewards system might also be a method for failing to support Nar.

Quote from: Amadeus

Quote from: cruciel
So one way to eliminate the Egg Hunt is by removing those optimal choices.  For example, in the game Go all the pieces have the same size and function.  If there were pieces that took up multiple squares those pieces would obviously be better.  The Egg Hunt is looking for those pieces.

Well even in Go there are smarter opening moves than others and it would be *nonoptimal* and Stupid not to take these movies.  If you were to draw this analogy character creation would be the early game where you set up your positions and borders or what not.  Placing a peice ON the corner is a pretty dumb move, especially early game.  My point is that no matter how much you get rid of eggs to hunt, they will still be searched for.

Maybe so, but if the search is ultimately fruitless then the incentive is gone.  I think I get what you're saying, but you might not want to stretch the Go analogy to far.  The Egg Hunt is about player resources, not in-play tactics.  (Though tactics are a valid target for this discussion.)

QuoteI guess it boils down to being impossibly careful and having infinite foresight.  ;-)

However, usefully - ( ihope)
There is reward in egg hunting.  Get rid of it. The reward in egg hunting is that you have a stronger character to solve challanges.

To get rid of this reward this, it seems that your design is wants to be balanced but with different strategies all inherantly equal.  What I would do for this, is make a rock-paper-scissor sort of style of balance between three, four, or more different 'tactics'.  Defense might beat Quick might beat Offense might beat Defense.  Or whatever fits.  Of course don't make it flat rps, go ahead and add in a random factor.  Just make sure each area of the game is balanced in its own seperate area.  Don't let your skills affect combat significantly, or anything like that.  If you want a feign combat skill have a feign combat skill instead of using bluff.  

Other suggestions as earlier add this and help such as removing stacking, etc.  

Then find a way to satisfy the gamers.  I would suggest by taking the reward you just took away from having an uber character and putting it in solving challenges.  

I'm not sure if this was of any help, butI hope so.

I agree with that for non Egg Hunt Gamism.

To return to StarCraft, except not as an analogy this time, it's basically a big game of rock-paper-scissors.  I think it's somewhat poorly executed, but that's kind of beside the point (once you get that complex though, I think perfect circle is pretty impossible).

Quote from: AmadeusNow once the vampire is suitably bound, the nar comes in and starts interogating him in the style of his character to find out the next step of the story.

I thought you were going to try to get to your theory without using the Creative Agenda terminology.

This is not narrativism at all. It doesn't even resemble narrativism. What it appears to be is something more like Threefold Dramatism, a desire to role play a character.

Why isn't it narrativism?

• Merely having dialogue and narrative, character interaction and role play, is not narrativist. It's just role playing, exploration at a basic level, that can be harnessed for any of the three agenda.
• The suggestion of "find out the next step of the story" implies that there is a story to be found out. That's not narrativism; that's trailblazing--the referee has created an adventure, and our job is to follow the clues that will carry us through his story. Narrativism inherently means that the referee doesn't have a story, and neither do we--we are going to create the story by addressing the moral issues here. Looking for the next step in the story is common in gamist play (such as competition modules) and in simulationist play. Trailblazing is incompatible with narrativist play as a technique, because the degree to which there already is a story to be followed is the degree to which you are not creating it through play.
• There is no issue being addressed at all. What you are describing is a simple information gathering scene. What is the moral, ethical, or personal issue with which your character is wrestling at this moment? There is none. Narrativism, in this situation, would arise if perhaps the characters now argued about whether it was moral to kill a vampire who had been captured alive, knowing that he can't survive without killing but at the same time that killing is precisely that which makes him evil, and killing him would be the same thing. It might arise if the vampire offered the character something he truly desired, in exchange for freeing the vampire, and the character had to consider whether the price of releasing just one blood sucking vampire into the world was worth receiving his desire (and this really mattered in play). Merely roleplaying a conversation is no more narrativist than walking around a Final Fantasy game discovering what the locals are programmed to say.[/list:u]
  Sure, you've got a mixed group; but there's no evidence in anything you've presented that any of your group are narrativists. They're gamists, maybe simulationists, who enjoy a variety of different techniques, who may fall in different categories of the Threefold Model (which I gather is very much about techniques). There is no narrativist conflict here because there is no narrativism being displayed in anyone's play that you have thus far described. Resolving moral issues does not seem to be the point of play here, for any of the players. Everyone wants to win; they just like different aspects of that which has to be done to do so.
  
  *****
  
  I'm going to agree with Jason that a game without a rewards system is still rewarding; players set their own goals and achieve them in-game, whether it's overcoming an obstacle, dealing with a difficult issue, or discovering a new world.
  
  Sorcerer and Alyria have, I think, narrativist reward systems, and are worth examining in this regard.
  
  --M. J. Young

Quote from: M. J. Young
I thought you were going to try to get to your theory without using the Creative Agenda terminology.

Well no.  I'm going to get to my theory seperately in the theory forum when its ready.  Right now I'm both learning and questioning this theory.

That said, I want to give a better example, the last was hasty and nonspecific and somewhat useless.

This happened recently in a supers game in the M&M system:
Players:
Me:  A time travelling lizard monk (long story)
Him: A Psionic more or less renegade super hero
Others: Not in this example because aren't really that relevant to the example

We are having a challenge currently - Me, Him and the Others have been confronted with a mystic thats currently attacking us who has some information we might like to know.  He (being mechanically primed for kicking ass) steps up and attempt to harm him, first by breaking the ceiling glass in at him.  This strategy somewhat worked and he was hurt (with help from others).  I moved in and disabled his powers with a gadget that cut out mystic powers.  He started another attack on him.  He got in one round of damage before I was able to do anything at all. This one round knocks him out and it looks like he is going to continue for another ound which would kill the enemy.

A note about my character and how I play it. My character has several moral bounds due to his monk statis.  First he cannot allow someone who is not an active threat to be harmed.  However he also is bound to help his allies.  So I am forced with a moral decision - turn on my friend or allow this defenseless nonthreat to be killed for no reason especially when his death may stop us from finding information that will save innocents.  I make a choice and realize it and I rotate the gadget towards the psionic to disable his powers and give him a little speech about killing those who are defenseless or some such.  After we question him I diplomatically choose to ignore the fact that he stays in afterwards and does his thing with him.

We are both happy, and get something useful out of the game.  He gets to fulfill his need to beat this (even though I think it was beaten before this, but if he doesn't thats fine) and I get to arrive at a moral conclusion and use that to base my actions on.  

It seems to me though that we both have different gns.  Is this true? If so, what are each of us, if not what are both of us?  Maybe we are just using different technique? If so what techniques are we using?

We seem to have some conflict, but its so minor it doesn't matter in the end and is resolved with a little decency and doesn't effect either of us from having a good time overall.  Really I don't think it would have mattered if I choose not to ignore him beating the shit out of him when we left.  

Quote
This is not narrativism at all. It doesn't even resemble narrativism. What it appears to be is something more like Threefold Dramatism, a desire to role play a character.

meh, dramatism was the original roots of narrativism so i suppose it must at least resemble it.  

really though desire to roleplay a character seems more sim to me in a 'mask' sort of way (immersion). Is this correct?

His intent isn't so much as to roleplay the character as that he is becoming that character for a section of time.  Its not a desire to, it is an actualization of this desire.  The way he does it (in the other example which is a different game) is that he becomes this other character.  He was an actor for a while, before he changed his major to religion, so I suppose this is where he gets it from.  

Is this correct?

QuoteThey're gamists, maybe simulationists, who enjoy a variety of different techniques, who may fall in different categories of the Threefold Model (which I gather is very much about techniques).

Ok fine.  Is it ok to say maybe one of us is a gamist and one a sim?  It still shows  that our group is mixed and a fun game for all is possible by not ignoring completely the other agenda.  Sure if you focus on all three its horrible, but 2 isnt a problem.

Meh actually nm.  I'll just work on my own thing and ignore gns since I seem to 'not get it' and I at least think its partly bs.  Plus I'll get lots more time to do this =-P

Quote from: cruciel
As for the second part (italics), I disagree.  I think playing for its own sake, without a rewards system, is perfectly valid.  Without a rewards system you wouldn't be supporting/encouraging a play style, but you also won't be interfering with one.  So from my perspective, a lack of rewards system is one way you could fail to support Gamism.  Though not the topic of this thread, a lack of rewards system might also be a method for failing to support Nar.

Lets imagine a diofferent covert agenda.  Lets say I was building a game for kids becuase I wanted them to get outrside and play in the outdoors.  I feel this would be a good and useful thing that they will enjoy.

I then construct a pretext for being in the outdoors, which is a game.  But, so as not to distract them from the appreciation of the outdoors, I make the game No Fun.  The result will be that the 'game' is a burden, a chore, and it will not have much take-up.  And your covert agenda will be undermined by the failure of the overt agenda.

RPG is necessarily N+G+S; I don't think one of these can eliminated without transforming into something else.  N&S alone is arguably fancy-dress or some sort of historical re-enactment.  But I do not think it can be RPG.

Quote from: contracycleLets imagine a diofferent covert agenda.  Lets say I was building a game for kids becuase I wanted them to get outrside and play in the outdoors.  I feel this would be a good and useful thing that they will enjoy.

I then construct a pretext for being in the outdoors, which is a game.  But, so as not to distract them from the appreciation of the outdoors, I make the game No Fun.  The result will be that the 'game' is a burden, a chore, and it will not have much take-up.  And your covert agenda will be undermined by the failure of the overt agenda.

RPG is necessarily N+G+S; I don't think one of these can eliminated without transforming into something else.  N&S alone is arguably fancy-dress or some sort of historical re-enactment.  But I do not think it can be RPG.

I think Simming (if I understand the hobby correctly) would be the result of an RPG stripped of all Gamism.  Though, in my experience some LARPS would also apply.  But the point is not to quibble over your example.  I agree with your general point that completely stripping G, N, or S from an RPG will make it something other than an RPG.  Just as I do your point  in the other thread about stripping out Nar making something a wargame.

The thing I disagree with is that I think you're over-stretching your point to say that by removing the Gamism you make something no fun - that implies that 'no fun' and 'not an RPG' are synonymous.

Even with no mechanical reward / support for gamism, the social reward and support for gamism can be there: in ST simming, as the most widespread example,  the "solving" of missions, the speed at which one rises through the ranks, the "correct" application of available resources, all feed gamism.

But I think the cart is before the horse a little here: rather than saying "An rpg must potentially support all 3 agenda, or it isn't an RPG", I'd say "Anything recognisable as an RPG will, by its nature, be potentially capable of supporting any agenda."

Which is to say that where you have a group of players using imaginary characters to explore a situation, that will be potentially any agenda regardless of mechanical support.

Quote from: cruciel
The thing I disagree with is that I think you're over-stretching your point to say that by removing the Gamism you make something no fun - that implies that 'no fun' and 'not an RPG' are synonymous.

That wasn't quite my point.  Your stated goal is to make the gamist praxis non-rewarding, i.e. no fun. I'm not suggesting gamism has to be there for fun to be there.

Quote from: AmadeusThis happened recently in a supers game in the M&M system:
Players:
Me:  A time travelling lizard monk (long story)
Him: A Psionic more or less renegade super hero
Others: Not in this example because aren't really that relevant to the example

We are having a challenge currently - Me, Him and the Others have been confronted with a mystic thats currently attacking us who has some information we might like to know.  He (being mechanically primed for kicking ass) steps up and attempt to harm him, first by breaking the ceiling glass in at him.  This strategy somewhat worked and he was hurt (with help from others).  I moved in and disabled his powers with a gadget that cut out mystic powers.  He started another attack on him.  He got in one round of damage before I was able to do anything at all. This one round knocks him out and it looks like he is going to continue for another ound which would kill the enemy.

A note about my character and how I play it. My character has several moral bounds due to his monk statis.  First he cannot allow someone who is not an active threat to be harmed.  However he also is bound to help his allies.  So I am forced with a moral decision - turn on my friend or allow this defenseless nonthreat to be killed for no reason especially when his death may stop us from finding information that will save innocents.  I make a choice and realize it and I rotate the gadget towards the psionic to disable his powers and give him a little speech about killing those who are defenseless or some such.  After we question him I diplomatically choose to ignore the fact that he stays in afterwards and does his thing with him.

We are both happy, and get something useful out of the game.  He gets to fulfill his need to beat this (even though I think it was beaten before this, but if he doesn't thats fine) and I get to arrive at a moral conclusion and use that to base my actions on.  

It seems to me though that we both have different gns.  Is this true? If so, what are each of us, if not what are both of us?  Maybe we are just using different technique? If so what techniques are we using?

It's sort of hard to make an analysis from this example.  In my experience, and in my group, this is a fairly common Gamist approach.  Disarm big bad somehow, don't kill because of moral grounds and a need to question them, and block actions of other characters that try to kill them.

Any form of disarm (spell-block, taking away staff of doom, etc) is typically anti-climactic (because you have removed the threat from the antagonist), though it is almost always the most intelligent strategy.  The same is true for keeping them alive and pumping them for information; definitely the smart thing to do, but it lacks drama.

A moral code that a character sticks to doesn't necessarily mean Nar.  Character beliefs can be simply Color.  The thread Characterization vs Deep Character (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9839) goes over this.   Also, in this sort of mode the moral code of the character tends to match that of the player, regardless of cultural context.

None of these are absolutes, and I am not saying your agenda is Gam. I'm just saying that the scenario isn't enough to go on (for me anyway) to assess what agenda is at work, particularly given that it matches up nicely with certain styles of Gamism I've seen.

What was the key interest in this scene - the conflict between the characters about killing the bad guy, or capturing the bad guy?  Which conflict was more fun?

No real answers in this post.  Just things to think about.