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I have been thinking, recently, apropos to lumpley's Arranging the Pieces of the Game as to what really defines Narrativism and Gamism, at a base.  I think that there are two issues here, which are of course intertwined, but largely seperate.

I'm going to cheat, and cut to the end point:  I think the Gamism and Narrativism are as close to identical as to *almost* make no difference between them.  I'm not proposing that they are identical, but rather that almost anyone who enjoys Gamist play will, properly introduced, enjoy Narrativist play, and visa-versa.

(I think that this also might be the "less-talked about" piece of Big Horseshoe -- that Gamism and Narrativism are almost touching, but not quite.)

The two issues here are the exploration and the social function.

First:  Exploration

Ron talks about exploration of Premise as the primary engine of Narrativism.  I agree with this assessment, by and large, but I want to take a little bit of time to talk about what exploration of Premise actually means.

A Premise, as I can sum it up in my head, is a Hard Question -- "Is the life of one man worth the fate of a village?" say.  The point of narrativist play is that the players, by which I mean everyone at the table even the GM hiding behind that little screen over there, have to look at that issue and decide to answer it one way or another.  I'd like to note, right now, that a key of a good Narrativist set-up is that the questions are not just limited to "yes/no," but rather allow a full range of options from giving up and watching away to "yes, but..." and "no, unless..."  In a real sense, we're talking about Exploring the premise here -- what matters is not necessarily the actual answer which is chosen in play, but the act of poking around inside the moral/ethical conundrum.  It could be called, also, Exploration of Hard Choices.

Right, okay, so that's a nice summary of Narrativism, but what does that have to do with Gamism, which is all about competing with each other, right?  Well, funny you should ask, I don't think it is.  Necessarily.  (this ties into point two.)

In a situation of Gamist play, we're going to see the players, sitting around a table, agonizing over a situation in the game, trying to figure out what the best thing that they should do is.  Funny, that sounds a lot like Narrativism, doesn't it?  Yes.  It is.  Because Gamism is also founded in Exploration of Hard Choices.

Any decent instance of Gamist play will present a series of challenges and difficulties, and the Gamist players (including the GM hiding behind his screen over there) need to decide how they might best be addressed.  A key to good gamist play (and something I hit on in an earlier thread called The Gentleman Gamist is that it allows for the full-range of possible responses to the situation, including "this isn't worth it I walk away," or "I go back to town and buy ten barrels of oil" and not just a matter of maneuvering into positions and attacking.

So, wow, those two things are similar.

Now, point two.  I was going to post this in a seperate thread and called it "Narrativism's Dirty Little Secret" but I realized that it doesn't strictly apply to Narrativism, it isn't dirty, it isn't particularly little (actually a pretty big deal) and it's hardly a secret.  And it helps me get to my conclusion here.

Ron talks, in his Gamism essay, about a lot of things, but he holds out that the bedrock of all Gamist play is competition to gain prestige among the people at the table.  I agree one hundred percent, while at the same time feel that he has missed a major point.

Consider, to pick a human social group at random, a group of Narrativist players, and consider how they might interact with each other.  They're going to be bouncing ideas off of each other, talking about the situation, and exploring the ins and outs of the premise like crazy.  And, whaddaya know, they're going to be competing for prestige.  Because the guy who can get the problem, who can really provide in-depth addressing tha makes you go "cool," the guy who always gets the brilliant scene -- that guy has more prestige.  And we all love prestige.

Now, is this the basic engine driving all Narrativist play?  No.  But prestige competition, I would argue, forms an important part of all human social interaction, which includes RPG play as a subset (caveat -- I am not an anthropologist, I just hang out with them.)  Narrativist play can be very competitive, very cooperative, or both.  It can be very "step on up and pour out your moral guts" or it can be very friendly and allow people to step back from the events and distance themselves from the choices, and it can lie anywhere in-between.  To borrow a term from the Gamism essay, the dials are flexible.  But to say that there is no competition is just strange.

Now let's look at Gamist play, and consider how Gamist might interact with each other.  They're going to be bouncing ideas off of each other, talking about the situation, and exploring the ins and outs of the tactics (and strategy) like crazy.  And, whaddaya know, they're going to be competing for prestige.  Because the guy who can get the problem, who can make his duel-flaming scimitar druid who is taking down demigods at fifth level, who can teach you how to make a Martial Artist not suck ass, who can scam an entire kingdom out from a king with only a beggar PC, a cod, and three candles, that guy has more prestige.

The point here is that Gamist prestige is gained by exploring the Hard Choices, and the Narrativist prestige is gained *in the exact same manner.*

Here are some questions:

Given that the two types are very similar, what is the best way to talk about the differences between them?  (The best that I can think is that you explore Gamist situations chiefly by cleverness, and Narrativist situations chiefly by moral clarity.)

Does this have implications for Congruent Nar/Gam design?

Does this have implications for the creating a vocabulary that Gamist-favoring players and Narrativist-favoring players can use to talk to each other, directly, without using Simulationist-by-habit terms that brand both of them as pariahs?

Given the rooting of both Narrativist and Gamist play in challenging, difficult situations, does this have something to say about the strong emphasis on Sim in mid-80s through mid-90s gaming, the nature of gaming as a geek and social reject culture, and the lack of acceptance of role-play by the mainstream culture?

Other thoughts?  Other question?  Any disagreements?

yrs--
--Ben

I stumbled on the same thing last week when designing my IGC games. Both Battle of Frozen Waste and Brotherhood are designs very close to the edge, at least in my mind. The former started as plain nar, switched to gam, and came back to nar, while the latter started as a game mechanic, reached terminal velocity before coming to the crossroads and became gamism with a narrativist goal. So yeah, I know all about this feature, and agree largely with your points.

The only significant difference between nar and gam is the source of prestige for the players, or in other words, the goal of play. I happen to think that this is something Ron knows, and it's just that we haven't understood him before. I myself came to have an inkling from playing mucho MLwM last month, and realised this from just trying to design those two games. In other words this thing has been sitting there quite a while, so I'd be surprised if nobody noticed it before.

Quote from: Ben Lehman
Given that the two types are very similar, what is the best way to talk about the differences between them?  (The best that I can think is that you explore Gamist situations chiefly by cleverness, and Narrativist situations chiefly by moral clarity.)

I don't know if the difference is something that one should try to establish if one accepts your points. On the contrary, by not establishing the difference one can shoot for a much larger and more distinguished range of design goals, ne? On the other hand, if there is a characterisable difference, it has to be known. I cannot neither think of one apart from what you offer. It's just a question of pure play goals; one player is satisfied by winning the battle, another by losing in a meaningful way. There's quite a continuum of possible choices, and they all are in some way gamism (being that the chooser has made this choice and thinks it the right on) and narrativism (being that the chooser knows what the story consequenses of his choise are).

When reflecting this back to classic gam and nar games I come to think that the significant difference lies in the construction of the game matter. If the matter is analytical (rules, quantifiable systems, binary logic, probabilities) the game is gamist, while if it's pure social contract (role playing, multiple win conditions) it's narrativist. In a gamist game the crunch is traditionally a matter of knowing the analytical system of rules and meanings, while in a nar game the crunch is producing a synthesis of game matter in a novel and "true" way.

This reflects to the Gamism as Lobe shift thread as well; we've been discussing how some of us think that empathy is a requirement of nar, while some think that analytical thought is a requisite and empathy is just a matter of taste. The assumption seems to be that if I don't take the story construct with passion but instead with philosophy, I'm playing in a gamist way.

The proof to a complete sameness would be if any gam game could be interpreted as nar and vice versa. I don't think that this is possible, which would seem to implicate a difference on some level. At first glance it's because the subject matters of the games are different, and there usually isn't any meaningful premises in how many torches one carries against the encumbrance factor. Likewise it's sometimes hard to see the winning goal and especially the allowed tactical options in typical nar stuff.

There is differences, but I'm not sure that they can be formulated on the creative agenda level. It seems to me that one could have any number of goals that are answers to premises as well. Discussion, folks! I'm interested in any insights.

Quote
Does this have implications for Congruent Nar/Gam design?

You can take a peek at the implications in the Brotherhood (if I wrote it clearly enough, that is). It's a game that is so perfectly balanced between the modes that I don't know there being any difference anymore. Haven't playtested, but it's hard to think of any situation where one could make a gam decision resulting in incoherence towards nar or vice versa.

Quote
Does this have implications for the creating a vocabulary that Gamist-favoring players and Narrativist-favoring players can use to talk to each other, directly, without using Simulationist-by-habit terms that brand both of them as pariahs?

One would think so, but the result would be a little "refreshing". A winning condition would be the same as a stance on premise (or would it?) and a thematic decision would be a tactical move, or something.

Quote
Given the rooting of both Narrativist and Gamist play in challenging, difficult situations, does this have something to say about the strong emphasis on Sim in mid-80s through mid-90s gaming, the nature of gaming as a geek and social reject culture, and the lack of acceptance of role-play by the mainstream culture?

I've generally found out that the same people consistently hate both gam and nar. It's indeed tied to the challenge aspect; many people have thought that they are gamist until they lose, in my experience. Some times they still think so after losing, and the loss was because the GM cheated. In reality a significant amount of roleplayers is indeed on a power trip, which is a type of sim and not conducive to any kind of personal stake. It's one of the more common reactions: whenever someone disagrees with some rule or feature by claiming that it limits the possibilities for roleplaying, the reason is that they find the demand for personal accomplishment limiting. For many people the best kind of game is the one where they cannot be wrong.

Just some random reactions.

Wonderful stuff!

One quickie reaction:

Quote from: Eero TuovinenThe proof to a complete sameness would be if any gam game could be interpreted as nar and vice versa. I don't think that this is possible, which would seem to implicate a difference on some level. At first glance it's because the subject matters of the games are different, and there usually isn't any meaningful premises in how many torches one carries against the encumbrance factor.

I think you could argue that, say, standard D&D play addresses the Premise `might makes right'.

SR
--

Quote from: Rob CarriereI think you could argue that, say, standard D&D play addresses the Premise `might makes right'.

Rob, that's not a Premise, that's a Theme. A Premise is a question that produces Theme.

Standard D&D might hinge around "What would you do to gain power?" or "What trials is the gain of wealth worth?" or anything similar. Properly phrased, the above Premise during the game would be, "Does Might Make Right?" To which the D&D answer is usually "Yes."

(Though I will note basic D&D sets up its situations such that you don't feel bad about it: the monsters are evil (not just "different," but really, actually "evil"), or are murderous (but unintelligent) beasts, and often involved in some nasty situation or other involving goodly folk who will be hurt unless the monsters are stopped.)

But honestly, D&D play is quite open in regards to what the game's Premise could be, it just depends on what the group, or individual players, focus on, and whether or not they're bothering to examine that question by way of their decisions. If whether or not might equates to right really has no bearing on their decision making, then it isn't a Premise, and may not even be Narrativist (if no Premise is having a bearing on their decision making).

Interestingly, while sometimes it is hard to seperate the above Premise from the Challenge, depending on the situation in the game, which does speak to Ben's point about the closeness. I don't know that it necessarily links them -- after all, you're either playing for Challenge-based reasons, or Premise-based ones, and I can't see it very different from the similar confusions that arise between Simulationism and Narrativism.

Quote from: greyorm
Standard D&D might hinge around "What would you do to gain power?" or "What trials is the gain of wealth worth?" or anything similar. Properly phrased, the above Premise during the game would be, "Does Might Make Right?" To which the D&D answer is usually "Yes."

I don't think you necessarily got Ben's point (assuming I got it, that is). Read the last chapter of your post again, and compare to Ben's post. Note how he writes about how nar and gam games have similar parts, while you write about how one plays for premise or challenge reasons. Ben's argument is that the two can be one, and when not, that's because of some yet to be distinguished reason.

The point was not that all gamist games would have premise, it was that analytically premises and goals are very similar. So while it's useless to ponder the premise of D&D, the way it addresses goals and winning strategies is fundamentally similar to the way nar games address premise.

There's no premise to D&D simply because for about all possible premises the answer has already been given or they are not important to the game. As you yourself note, it's a little stupid to ask things like "Does might make right?" in D&D. The rules and play ethos answer the question already. There's no room for premise as the game is written.

On the other hand, there is plenty of room for the question "How do I win?", which is the gamist equivalent of premise. Or rather, the equivalent is "Do I win by this strategy/tactic/whatever?" One could conseivably try to map D&D to a nar game with similar structure to see how close the similarity really is, but for discussion purposes it seems that tactics are similar to themes (the ways premise is addressed). You choose one and try to prove your choise right.

Consider Brotherhood, again: the premise is along the lines of "What am I willing to do to win?" focusing on the real life player interaction. The gamist goal, on the other hand is offing the wizard, and is done by choosing from suitable play strategies, like "I'll skirt the edges of propriety in description." or "I'll build a trust relationship with another player and win by the lowering Ice." or even "I'll rape the characters of a couple of other players both physically and psychologically and then draw their lifeforce to get the magic for offing the wizard." Notice how each of these is indistinguishable from an answer to the premise? The game is built to be as close to a nar game as possible while preserving a gamist basis.

Interesting thought: remember how gam is supposed to include two differrent psych structures, gambling and skill play? I don't but something like that was written by Ron. Anyway; what is the nar equivalent of the gambling behavior? Is it choosing a premise and expecting another player (the GM) or maybe more properly the system to prove it right. Does this happen?

Quote from: Eero TuovinenI've generally found out that the same people consistently hate both gam and nar. It's indeed tied to the challenge aspect; many people have thought that they are gamist until they lose, in my experience. Some times they still think so after losing, and the loss was because the GM cheated. In reality a significant amount of roleplayers is indeed on a power trip, which is a type of sim and not conducive to any kind of personal stake. It's one of the more common reactions: whenever someone disagrees with some rule or feature by claiming that it limits the possibilities for roleplaying, the reason is that they find the demand for personal accomplishment limiting. For many people the best kind of game is the one where they cannot be wrong.

Ugh.  Yes.  I'm getting exactly this sort of problem with a recent session of Sorcerer I ran with a player who should, really, never play Sorcerer -- she didn't enjoy herself and I didn't enjoy running her part -- I have her in lots of games in which we both have a great time, but this isn't one of them and I can think of others in which her participation was frustrating for both of us -- all of those games can be summarized simply as premises in which the PC was doing something inherently unhealthy and 'wrong' in some context, and was paying the price for it.

They aren't about paying prices or being wrong -- in playing the game, they and I are both frustrated by the constant attempts to make those two things "Not be true" for their character.

Hello,

You guys are all so on target that I don't even know what to say. My personal "Hey! N goes with G, not S!" insight-moment was so re-orienting that it, above all else, prompted me to write GNS and Related Matters of Role-playing Theory as well as the three support essays.

And Eero, especially - Yes, I agree in full.

Best,
Ron

Quote from: Eero TuovinenI don't think you necessarily got Ben's point (assuming I got it, that is)...The point was not that all gamist games would have premise

That wasn't what I was saying, either, though I admit I could have been clearer as to my point.

QuoteThere's no premise to D&D simply because for about all possible premises the answer has already been given...There's no room for premise as the game is written.

Actually, here's where I completely disagree. The answer hasn't been given. The answer is encouraged through the mechanics, but it is by no means a forgone conclusion, hence my statement about "depending on the situation in the game."

Consider the standard situation of a LG paladin confronting a CG bandit. The paladin could kill or force the bandit to submit, but that still doesn't necessarily make the choice "right" (and it might even cost the paladin his powers, dependent upon the GM's interpretation of the situation).

Now, does the system reward violence as a solution (in fact, the solution)? Heck yes, so if that's what is meant by "right" then sure, we can argue the system answers the question; but I'm not sure everyone is going to agree that "right" = mechanical effectiveness or mechanical reward. I mean, if you decide to forego the reward for killing X because it would be morally unconscionable, that's a pretty strong statement that must be answering a Premise.

QuoteConsider Brotherhood, again...

Sorry, I'm not familiar with the game, so I can only shrug and take your word for it that this is going on.

Quote from: greyorm
Actually, here's where I completely disagree. The answer hasn't been given. The answer is encouraged through the mechanics, but it is by no means a forgone conclusion, hence my statement about "depending on the situation in the game."

I'm of the mind that such an interpretation is stretching the game over what is useful. Sure, D&D can be used as a vessel for moral deliberation, but so can any other game. It's as possible to use a narrativist game for gamist goals, but that's missing the game's point.

So yeah, one could argue that D&D doesn't say that might makes right. It's just that to the whole question is irrelevant to the action at hand, and the answer can be whatever floats your boat. You could argue theology or quantum physics within the game as well, but that doesn't mean that the game supports it. No game could forbid a premise in the way you are suggesting, simply because no game I know of forbids players from talking about whatever they will.

As to what I mean when saying that there is no room for moral deliberation in the game... if you play the game as written, you'll be rolling dice for damage and looting bodies, not confronting moral challenges. The paladin might have to stop to ascertain from the GM if killing the bandit is evil, but that's an additional tactical consideration, not moral premise. Paladins have limitations in a misguided attempt at balance, not because of interest in a moral premise. If anything, playing a paladin can be a moral theme, as the definition of good paladin works from is pretty fixed. That's no nar.

If you on the other hand do something else than adventuring, in what sense are you then playing the game? Isn't it some other game? If I was playing MLwM and a player suddenly declared his character wants to go to the nearby dungeon to get some treasure... in what sense is he playing the same game I am?

(Edited to change a theme to a premise. Try that!)

Everyone--

Wow.  Great discussion.

Could we shift the D&D discussion, particularly about whether the hack-and-slay nature of D&D is rooted in the system or in social contract, off to another thread?  It isn't that I don't think it's important, it's just that I'm worried about it swamping all other responses.  Please post a link form this thread once you start it.  Thanks.

More in depth replies later, when I don't have class in ten minutes.

yrs--
--Ben

Quote from: Eero TuovinenI've generally found out that the same people consistently hate both gam and nar. It's indeed tied to the challenge aspect; many people have thought that they are gamist until they lose, in my experience. Some times they still think so after losing, and the loss was because the GM cheated. In reality a significant amount of roleplayers is indeed on a power trip, which is a type of sim and not conducive to any kind of personal stake. It's one of the more common reactions: whenever someone disagrees with some rule or feature by claiming that it limits the possibilities for roleplaying, the reason is that they find the demand for personal accomplishment limiting. For many people the best kind of game is the one where they cannot be wrong.

Yes, yes, yes!  I had a huge discussion on related issues with my game group this weekend.  One player, who I'd thought was pretty hard core Sim with Gamist tendencies, got really, really upset at suggestions that someone might enjoy things that were Gamist or Nar, to the point of stating that such things were wrong, selfish, 'not roleplaying,' and a perverse threat to her enjoyment.  She also specifically designs characters so that they cannot be wrong, and finds it slightly perverse that I enjoy designing characters who are wrong, or specifically set them up to fail.  So now I have a better idea of what types of games to play with her and which just to not even bother with.

Quote from: Ben LehmanCould we shift the D&D discussion, particularly about whether the hack-and-slay nature of D&D is rooted in the system or in social contract, off to another thread?  It isn't that I don't think it's important, it's just that I'm worried about it swamping all other responses.  Please post a link form this thread once you start it.  Thanks.

Alignment and Premise in D&D.

More about whether D&D is built in any way to address premise.

You're welcome.

--M. J. Young

Okay -- for the most part, I'd like to say that most of the responses in this thread just make go "yes, yes, that's exactly it."  I like this but, like Ron, find that I have little to say about it other than agreement.

However, I think that there are some things about Gamism that need to be cleared up, because they create false distinctions here.

1)  Gamism is not, nor has ever been, explicitly about game mechanics.  Likewise Narrativism is not, nor has ever been, explicitly divorced from game mechanics.  For an example of the first, I hold up Amber Diceless in Throne War mode, and for an example of the second, I hold of Sorcerer.  So talking about Gamism in terms of "more focused on rules" or "less creative" is not in the picture.

2)  Likewise, Gamism is not, nor has ever been, necessarily about winning.  Gamism, I believe, is about the exploration of strategic/tactical choices.  This include an option for winning and for losing (see the "Gentleman Gamist" thread for more about this.)  What is important about Gamism is the quality of the Challenge -- whether it was a good game.  (Now, what *some* gamist groups do is place emphasis on exploration before the decision enters the Shared Imagined Space, thus allowing winners and losers, but I think that this is a subset of this larger exploration category.)  A Gamist, I think, will be happy to lose as long as the situation was fair and challenging.
 Likewise, Narrativism isn't necessarily about making any choice.  There is a type of Narrativism that is about making the right choice, I'm pretty sure, represented by, say religious teaching games.  The exploration of the Choice is still there, it just takes place on a metagame level, after the choice is made.

3) My point was not the Gamism and Narrativism are one and the same, but that both are based around addressing difficult questions, and thus very very similar.  I think there are differences.  The way I phrase it now is perhaps this, which is odd, because it is all in shared imagined space terms:

Gamism is about choices involving the material, which is anything easily grasped and defined.
Narrativism is about choices involving the ethereal, which is anything not easily defined (including morality.)

What do people think about these definitions?

So all you need to do to make a good hybrid is stick these two things together in the same package, like Eero does in Brotherhood.

See my comments in MJ's thread about D&D.

yrs--
--Ben

P.S. Apropos to Gamism and system crunch, I present "the lightest Gamist game in the world:"

You are in a jail cell.

(How do you get out?)

Hmmmmmm... I don't know why, but I'm uneasy about the whole material / immaterial divide there.

To my mind, Gamism is more tied to matching the player against the challenge of the situation in the SiS.

Whereas narratavism is the opposite ;-)

Actually, Nar is matching the player against the premise of the situation in the SiS.

There's certainly a degree of congruence there... especially given that, once a gamist works out a reward system geared to rewarding address of premise, they often migrate very quickly to N play, from G motives.

But going back to my original theme... I've often been in arguments with folks, often on ethical subjects, where winning the argument was more important than being right at the time. To me, that suggests that gamism may be "about" the immaterial or ethical issues, while premise in N games may be about entirely easily grasped material things (I could easily envisage an N game based around economic theory... "Opportunity Cost: the RPG").

Hiya,

Ben, I agree with all your clarifying points in your last post, but not with your material/immaterial distinction.

In my eyes, the distinction between Gamism and Narrativism resides in one of the most important "lynchpins" in the Big Model's structure: the reward system. It's part of System, but you can see its causes "reverberate" down from Social Contract, you can see its integration with many of the Techniques during play, and you can see it pop in and out of play associated with various Ephemera (in fact, noting down "that's a Karma point!" or something is, itself, an Ephemera).

These "reverberations" of the reward system are as close to a material manifestation of Creative Agenda as we are ever going to get. And since causality in the Big Model is considered to operate primarily inwards (i.e. Social Contract as prime mover), then it's Social Contract we should turn to when looking for "fundamental" variables.

So ... all of that is a long way to say that the distinction between Gamism and Narrativism is:

1. Gamist play is rewarded with increased social esteem based on assessing one another's strategy and guts.

2. Narrativist play is rewarded with insight into one another as authors and into oneself via the text (in this case, I mean the SIS/transcript), at the visceral level typically associated with narrative fiction.

I'm pretty sure I said both of those things in the corresponding essays, as well as saying that I think they are procedurally very similar in role-playing.

Best,
Ron

Quote from: Ron Edwards
1. Gamist play is rewarded with increased social esteem based on assessing one another's strategy and guts.

2. Narrativist play is rewarded with insight into one another as authors and into oneself via the text (in this case, I mean the SIS/transcript), at the visceral level typically associated with narrative fiction.

BL>  Sorry for the slow response here.

I disagree with your statement 1 or, rather, I agree that it represents a specific case of Gamist play but is potentially very misleading about the thing as a whole.  Let me take this step-by-step.

I picture "social esteem rewards" and its close cousin "social esteem competition" as a little knob attached to RPG (or really any social interaction), that can be turned up.  I think that, in the context of RPG games, this knob is *not* located at the creative agenda level, but rather way up at the social contract level.  To put it bluntly, any CA can have this sort of reward system immaterial of whether it is G, N or even S, and so your above description of Gamist play cuts off a whole chunk of Gamism, and also mixes some things that are rightly N and S into the bunch.

I think that the reward of Gamism is, to steal your sentence structure from number 2:  Insight into one another as problem solvers and into one's own decision making via the transcript.  And that social esteem competition may or may not be tacked onto this, just as it may or may not be tacked on to Narrativism or Simulationism.

yrs--
--Ben

Hi Ben,

Everyone always focuses on the "social esteem" part of that definition. The real thing to focus on is the strategy and guts part.

I do think that the social esteem issue is present in the other modes, but is required in the Gamist one.

Best,
Ron

Well, I'd nitpick Ron to say that social esteem is a necessary engine for all social intercourse, and thus a (possibly muted) driver of all play regardless of CA, but gamism is driven by a more open acclaim than most sim play, and much nar play.

Am i right in saying that the only reason social esteem appears in the Gamism definition is that G play is about winning something, and in a socially co-operative past-time the only thing worth winning is esteem of your peers?

Anyway, we're all singing star spangled banner to the same tune, just arguing over whether it's "oh say can you see" or "oh say can you see".

Quote from: Ron EdwardsHi Ben,

Everyone always focuses on the "social esteem" part of that definition. The real thing to focus on is the strategy and guts part.

I do think that the social esteem issue is present in the other modes, but is required in the Gamist one.

BL>  You know, we're so close here, it's just frustrating.  It's frustrating enough that I feel like giving this another shot, even if only to explain why, while totally understanding and agreeing with everything you say about Gamism, reading the Gamism essay makes me tear at my hair as if it were colonized by sentient alien lice from Dimension X.

To get at the root of my problems, and I think the root of many other people's problems, I'm going to have to discuss my own gaming experiences, and give some context for how I read your writing about Gamism.

Points:
1) I have never played in a social-esteem competition free game.
2) In one of my play-groups, the game is reasonably-low competition, alternating Gamism and Narrativism on either a "who's GMing" or a "scene by scene" basis.  In another one of my play-groups, the game is very high-competition sim, with a somewhat jocular underlying gamist base.  The gamism is very low-comp, friendly stuff, but the sim is just vicious.  I've seen people not talk to each other for months (even years) on end because of tiffs about people not "playing in character" or "mixing in and out of game."  Yank off that competition knob sort of stuff.  (yes, and dysfunctional.  Funny you should mention that.)
3) Gamism is marginalized, constantly, in gamer-talk, and the basis of this marginalization is that gamism is supposedly all about PvP, whereas "real roleplaying" has no competition at all.  (Never mind that Gamism is often cooperative, and that... grumble... grumble...)  I think that we're all a bit touchy about this, because in the experience of most Gamist players this is nothing like the truth.

So, when I see Gamism, in the context of your three essays *and most Forge talk* as being identified directly with competition, and sometimes thus (a wrong assumption) the only type of CA that includes competition, well, I get alien lice.  Because my experience is totally the opposite -- I see gamism as a low-competition mode, roughly on par with narrativism, and character-immersion sim as the biggie for player comp.  The fact that the competition comes first in your sentence doesn't help this situation, as by the time I get to "strategy and guts" I've already gone into bull-in-china-shop mode.

So, can we say that Narrativism is an exploration of the player's ethics, morality, and guts?  Can we say that Gamism is an exploration of the player's strategy, tactics and guts?

I think (and hope) that we can.

yrs--
--Ben

P.S.  If you tell me that guts doesn't enter into narrativism, I'm going to hold up the text of Sorcerer.  Just so you know.

P.P.S.  Just a note to say that I definitely agree that we're in potato/potahto territory here.

Ben:

I don't think anyone's disagreeing over the "social esteem in all agenda" thing here... but I also don't think that jockeying over social esteem (and in some cases there, losing it for each other) is as closely identified with competition as you seem to.

Frex, the breakdown you describe over "doing sim wrong" seems like a deep disagreement over techniques: i don't see where competing for social esteem comes into it, except as a means to win the argument over which techniques are to be used.

In fact, I'd say the problem there was Gam-Sim clash: complaints about "mixing in and out game" and "not playing in character" sound to me like sim disapproval of gam tactics.

Could it be that when everyone's in Gam mode, the clash goes away because the sim players relax their insistence on pure diagetic play?

I'm seeing you say competition where I think I can see plain old disagreement... And I still reckon "guts" are more important to gam play than any other. but that may be the groups I've been with. Competition =/= disagreement.

I'd have to agree with Pete.

In what way is throwing a tantrum and winding up on non speaking terms over a tif about playing in character competition for social esteem?

Does your group actually hold up in high esteem players who act like twits?

I suspect not.  In fact, I'll venture (let me know if I'm overstepping here) that you generally disparage such behavior and have lots of rude things to say about someone when they act like this.

So I'm not seeing this sort of behavior as being competing for social esteem.  Its seems to me to be regular old disagreement where one or more parties are using incredibly childish debating techniques.

Am I missing something?

I have problems with the terms as they stand very similar to Ben's.

What I fund frustrating is that a lot - I mean really, a lot - of gamist play is totally non-competitive and has no element of social esteem at all because there is nobody there to observe it.  If I'm playing Civilisation, my board-tokens are competing with other baord-tokens, but there is not and never will be an audience for my success or failure.  Theres just me, playing for my satisfaction.

There I disagree that the social esteem issue is REQUIRED for Gamism.  Its not, IMO.  Its one of the things that gamists may engage in, just as it may be one of the things that any agenda practitioner may engage in.  

I guess what bugs me about this is that it impies that if there is a gamist player about, then social esteem competition will necessarily be a part of play.  And I don't buy that.  There does not seem to be any room for the self-satisfied gamist whose assessment is SELF-esteem based instead of socially based and who thus poses no threat to anyone, and will not be trying to score points off anyone.  They can sit there, into the Zen of their own performace, not much giving a damn what anyone thinks about what they are achieving or otherwise.

My understanding is that when self-esteem is at stake, that's just as validly Step On Up as when esteem in the eyes of peers or audience is at stake. "Social esteem" as a phrase might be a bit misleading (and the Gamism essay only uses it once); saying "esteem that exists at the social level" as the essay generally does might make it clearer that self-esteem qualifies.

I also believe it is possible (and not necessarily uncommon) to play conventional games, especially solo games, in a completely "non-gamist" way, playing without any esteem (self- or otherwise) at all at stake, playing for the sensory and cognitive experience, or the "flow" of it, alone.

- Walt

Quote from: contracycleI guess what bugs me about this is that it impies that if there is a gamist player about, then social esteem competition will necessarily be a part of play.  And I don't buy that.  There does not seem to be any room for the self-satisfied gamist whose assessment is SELF-esteem based instead of socially based and who thus poses no threat to anyone, and will not be trying to score points off anyone.

Yes, a definition of gamism that precludes gentlemanly gamism is a biased one.  In addition to what Walt said, I'd point out that what's critical is that the esteem be at stake in some way, not what those stakes are. They may be your own sense of accomplishment, or they may be bragging rights until the next con.  

And it's spelled out pretty clearly in the Gamism essay that competition with respect to Step on Up (interpersonal among the players) or challenge (faced by the characters) are dials that can be high or low in gamism. It depends on the conflicts of interest present. That's worth quoting here:

Quote from: In the Gamism essay, RonThink of each level having a little red dial, from 1 to 11 - and those dials can be twisted independently. Therefore, four extremes of dial-twisting may be compared.

1. High competition in Step On Up plus low competition in Challenge = entirely team-based play, party style against a shared Challenge, but with value placed on some other metric of winning among the real people, such as levelling-up faster, having the best stuff, having one's player-characters be killed less often, getting more Victory Points, or some such thing. Most Tunnels & Trolls play is like this.

2. Low competition in Step On Up plus high competition in Challenge = characters are constantly scheming on one another or perhaps openly trying to kill or outdo another but the players aren't especially competing, because consequences to the player are low per unit win/loss. Kobolds Ate My Baby and the related game, Ninja Burger, play this way.

3. High competition in both levels = moving toward the Hard Core (see below), including strong rules-manipulation, often observed in variants of Dungeons & Dragons as well in much LARP play. A risky way to play, but plenty of fun if you have a well-designed system like Rune.

4.  Low competition in both levels = strong focus on Step On Up and Challenge but with little need for conflict-of-interest. Quite a bit of D&D based on story-heavy published scenarios plays this way. It shares some features with "characters face problem" Simulationist play, with the addition of a performance metric of some kind. Some T&T play Drifted this way as well, judging by many Sorcerer's Apprentice articles.

--Em

Quote from: Walt Freitag
I also believe it is possible (and not necessarily uncommon) to play conventional games, especially solo games, in a completely "non-gamist" way, playing without any esteem (self- or otherwise) at all at stake, playing for the sensory and cognitive experience, or the "flow" of it, alone.

Why do you say its non-gamist, though?

If self-esteem is construed as social, then I don't know what else to say.  It seems we permanently circle back to the necessary starting point that gamists are primarily engaged in a form of social status competition.  But as has already been pointed out, the same could be said for any public exercise under any agenda - recognition of the veracity of sim, recognition of a profound answer to premise.  Surely, all these procure some sort of social prestige - at which point ALL agenda's must be identified as a form of esteem competition.  It seems circular to me.

Hello,

Why does everyone persistently ignore the crucial variable in my definition of Gamist play?

Personal strategy and guts.

It's not just about social esteem, it's social esteem about these qualities specifically, in application. What is so hard about understanding that?

Best,
Ron

Well, I think Walt's saying you can play non-rp games (computer, etc) either for the journey or the story, not necessarily the challenge.

So, not gamism, yeah?

And where comes this idea that gamist play involves some zero sum game of competing for social esteem? It's all about the group approval (which, as you rightly say, is a necessary component for all CA) for display of tactical skill & risk taking. Now, that's grabbing for social esteem, but not necessarily competing for it in terms of "beating the other players."

And sure, there's room for the solipsistic, self satisfied gamist, just like the self satisfied sim and self satisfied nar ("heh. I'm adressing my premise and nobody knows, ehehehehehehe"). But unless it's affecting the expression of the game, unless it affects play, it doesn't matter to the model.

EDIT: cross posted with Ron. What he said. The social esteem stuff is right up there at the Social Contract level of the model, we like playing with folks who like us.

Those are 2 seperate points he's making Gareth.

1) Yes you can play solo gamist because self esteem is at stake.

2) But not all games played solo are played gamist with self esteem at stake, they may also be being played simply for the experience.


I don't know how you play Civ, but when I play it (and I play a ton of it) its and odd admixture.

I hate and resent it when a freaking computer pastes me.  Particularly when it was my own fault.  That's the gamist self esteem element.

But I really really hate multiplayer Civ, because there are alot of Gamey strategies to the game that surface when people are playing to win that detract from the overall experience of the game.


What that tells me is the step on up dial is cranked to different levels.  In multiplayer Civ where the primary goal is to prove how many hours of your life you've wasted getting really good at a computer game (step on up cranked high) players are willing to sacrifice the experience for the win.

I avoid multiplayer (and generally do with other games like Age of Wonder etc, to) because the Step on Up is cranked higher than I like.  When playing solo I can "step on up" only to extent I need to satisfy my own esteem issues and can then enjoy a more leisurely viable came play.

Why do I say it's non-gamist? Simple. "No esteem (self- or otherwise) at stake" equals no Step On Up equals not Gamist.

Of course, this is in reference to something other than role playing games, which means Agenda Theory desciptors like "Gamist" and "Not Gamist" are applicable only as loose metaphors. Taking it too literally would be like debating whether a tree is liberal or conservative (or whether John Kerry leans more toward deciduous or coniferous).

QuoteIf self-esteem is construed as social, then I don't know what else to say. It seems we permanently circle back to the necessary starting point that gamists are primarily engaged in a form of social status competition. But as has already been pointed out, the same could be said for any public exercise under any agenda - recognition of the veracity of sim, recognition of a profound answer to premise. Surely, all these procure some sort of social prestige - at which point ALL agenda's must be identified as a form of esteem competition. It seems circular to me.

This question arises equally whether self-esteem is considered esteem at stake in Step On Up or not. Are you playing Sim to pursue a Sim agenda, or to garner esteem from other players (or self-esteem) for doing so successfully? It sounds like such an intractable question. And yet, in real life, it's usually pretty easy to tell which is in effect. When I run for a bus, I know very well whether I'm doing it because I really want to board that particular bus, or because I want to try to prove that I can catch it. I can often even tell that when I'm watching someone else run for a bus.

I think the issue has caused some confusion and error, though. For example, I don't accept the conventional assessment that playing to create humorous events that make other players laugh is Gamism, just because players can garner social esteem (or self-esteem) for succeeding in doing so. Players can also garner social esteem (or self-esteem) from succeeding in generating emotionally engaging narrative that makes other players say "wow" or "oh my god" by skillfully addressing Premise, yet no one ever argues that that makes playing to address Premise Gamism. You can't draw conclusions from the presence or absence of Step On Up alone; you have to consider what's prioritized.

"Does self-esteem count?" is a pretty straightforward question, by contrast. Imagine a Gamist player who somehow ends up playing with a Deep Immersionist group. The other players don't care at all about how badass his character is or how well he massages the system or how lucky his die rolls come out, and they repeatedly tell him so. He pulls a brilliant loophole and a natural 20 out of a hat that saves the whole party, and the other players roll their eyes and say "Geez, what a munchkin." He's getting no esteem from the other players. But he's still playing Gamist and is most likely going to continue playing Gamist if that's his agenda. Self-esteem is filling in.

- Walt

Edit to note: I cross-posted this with about five other people. I was responding to Gareth's (contracycle's) questions.

Quote from: Ron EdwardsWhy does everyone persistently ignore the crucial variable in my definition of Gamist play?

Personal strategy and guts.

It's not just about social esteem, it's social esteem about these qualities specifically, in application. What is so hard about understanding that?

Speaking for myself, I ignore it because personal strategy and guts appear to be universally applicable to, and creditable for, success in any difficult task, from doing a crossword puzzle to running a marathon. I don't see anyone claiming that social esteem about a player's physical appearance or their ability to add up the total of 3d6, or any other factor or accomplishment not involving personal strategy and guts, is relevant to Gamism. Making the other players laugh apparently does elicit social esteem about the person's strategy and guts, or else it wouldn't be repeatedly held up as Gamist behavior. That means that "specifically about personal strategy and guts" is actually so general it hardly seems to exclude anything.

- Walt

Hi Walt,

I've never supported the business about making others laugh as a Gamist approach. My claim all along is that humor is a secondary element of whatever Creative Agenda is under way, and that it can augment or overtake any of them. So I think that's a red-herring issue.

I also don't grasp how to apply your point about strategy & guts in other, non-role-playing activities. Sure it applies to other activities. And its application to role-playing is very similar. When it applies, and when it's the key variable for the social-status thing, then that's Gamist play.

That is so clear, and so straightforward, that I can only guess that people are still trying to ratchet other things they want or don't want to be Gamist into the conversation. I'm pretty sure you're not guilty of that, though, so color me confused.

Best,
Ron

Ron,

You've also indicated that if you remove the personal strategy and guts element and have the social esteem competition independent of the imagined elements of play then you still have Gamism, albeit of the hardcore variety.  It's inevitable for people to move from there to seeing the social esteem competition as the sine qua none of Gamism and the personal strategy and guts as being an optional extra.

Hi Ron,

I'm pretty sure I'm the one who's confused. My question (and it's not rhetorical, it's real curiosity) is:

1. Gamist play is rewarded with increased social esteem based on assessing one another's strategy and guts.

2. ____ play is rewarded with increased social esteem based on assessing one another's play.

What behaviors relevant to role playing are included in #2 but excluded in #1? In other words, what error occurs as a result of overlooking the "strategy and guts" stipulation as you've warned us not to do?

And, as an entirely separate question, am I correct in telling Gareth that it's valid to add a parenthetical "(or one's own)" after "one another's" in  definition #1?

- Walt

Hello,

Ian, I think you're confounding the social esteem issue per se with competition for social esteem. In my essay, I try to make it clear that competition is based on a very specific, identifiable phenomenon: when the "pool" of esteem relies on conflict of interest (if one goes up, someone or everyone else has to go down). This is not definitional for Gamist play; it is merely a very powerful auxiliary/optional engine which may be added to it, often in a positive way.

Step On Up = social esteem is at stake based on personal strategy and guts

- it may or may not include conflict of interest and therefore competition for that esteem
- it must concern the "strategy and guts" being demonstrated by the real people

Hard Core Gamism doesn't deviate from these standards. It is indeed about (a) social esteem based on (b) personal strategy and guts, but (c) removes the relevance of the Exploration except as a shuttlecock to be fought over among egos. It's a modification of Gamist play that does not require changing the definition. And how can it not be about strategy and guts? It's about nothing but! It concerns my (the person's) strategy and guts relative to the rules-set and to one another's egos in terms of social dominance (bullying, spurious logic, etc). Same issues + absent to minimal Exploration + willingness to harm another's social standing = Hard Core Gamism. I don't see how it causes the "strategy and guts" element to disappear at all - emphatically to the contrary, in fact.

Walt, let's see ...

Quote1. Gamist play is rewarded with increased social esteem based on assessing one another's strategy and guts.

2. ____ play is rewarded with increased social esteem based on assessing one another's play.

What behaviors relevant to role playing are included in #2 but excluded in #1? In other words, what error occurs as a result of overlooking the "strategy and guts" stipulation as you've warned us not to do?

My fill-in-the-blank word is: "All." That's fundamental to the concept of Social Contract.

I do think that Gamist and Narrativist play are more overt and (maybe) more self-revealing than Simulationist play, in this regard. But that is a separate issue.

I think the error should be clear from there. Removing the "strategy and guts" part of the Gamism definition is a clear example of synechdoche, wrongly implying that the other forms of play do not include social esteem issues at the Social Contract level. I consider it a particularly absurd instance of synechdoche.

QuoteAnd, as an entirely separate question, am I correct in telling Gareth that it's valid to add a parenthetical "(or one's own)" after "one another's" in definition #1?

I think you are correct, but I also think that such "self-evaluated" Gamism is probably characteristic of incoherent play (at the group level). In other words, if your pals can't appreciate you, you must please yourself. Such behavior tends ultimately to become self-indulgent and uncritical, and in many cases results in the Birth of a Prick problem that I describe in the essay.

Best,
Ron

As far as social-esteem and Gamism, I don't know if I can add much more after Pete said:

Quote from: PeteAnd where comes this idea that gamist play involves some zero sum game of competing for social esteem? It's all about the group approval (which, as you rightly say, is a necessary component for all CA) for display of tactical skill & risk taking. Now, that's grabbing for social esteem, but not necessarily competing for it in terms of "beating the other players."

Social-esteem is not a zero sum game.  Everybody can win, therefore it isn't a competition.  Beauty.

How's about an example?

In my group we've got some Gamism in places.  We've got one player that I'd characterize as very Gamist.  He knows it, he likes it, and he's very non-competitive.  Cooperation among characters/players is his deal, and he doesn't try to hog the spotlight.  If you have a character that is better suited to a task than his, his character will ask yours to do it.  When you do it, his character will say "Thanks" or "Good job", and the player might say "That was neat" or "I like that character".  And he seems rather annoyed if you don't do the same.

He's probably the player who is best about acknowledging the abilities and accomplishments of characters other than his.  Of course, he totally doesn't get why you'd want to torture your characters, have them freak out in a crisis, kill their family, or do anything similar.

Anyway, I'm drifting.  The point is, this player is Gamist, non-competitive, and very much about social-esteem rewards.

(However, the second-most Gamist in the group is very competitive.  Very much "I will outsmart you and be angry if I don't".  Again social-esteem, but this time it is competitive.  However, not the point, competitive player examples are easy to come up with.)

*****

As for the difference between Gam and Nar...

Yeah, Gam and Nar are both meta-game agendas about conflict.  I seem to remember Ron calling them 'kissing cousins' at some point.  For some reason that metaphor stuck with me.  They are so very alike, yet mixing the two is only legal in Arkansas.

The thing that always makes this point for me is player control mechanics (drama points or something).  Anything that allows you alter resolution allows you to express your agenda.  But drama points are typically a limited resource, meaning expending them reflects a personal investment in the situation.  The player must assess a loss of personal resources (and control of the game) against how important it is to get what he wants at an exact moment.  This suits both Gam and Nar, the only difference is in how they are used.

Ok, I guess all I've said in this section so far is, "I agree with Ben."

Though both about risk and cost (what is the resolution of this conflict worth) and personal investment, the difference lies in what kind of risks and costs are valued.

What is the risk?
Is the risk something with emotional value to the character (value of life, a loved one, etc), or a pre-established loss condition (dying, the village burning down, etc)?

What is the cost?
Is the cost a moral boundary, or is the cost effectiveness (loss of resources, dying, etc)?

The difference here is so fuzzy, because they can appear congruent (I think my Gamism examples are crappy, btw), but there is a fundamental difference in dramatic flow (for want of a better term).  As the risks and costs are evaluated by the players against the standards of their agenda, they intertwine into a web of Situation.  Though Gam and Nar are both building a web, the pattern is different.

I'm struggling to get a across what probably just boils down to "A creative agenda is simply a compilation of Techniques."

EDIT:  Cross post with Ron, who also covered the 'zero sum social-esteem' thing.

The only thing I'm really competitive about when I play RPG's is my groovy ideas: when I come up with a new idea or concept in the setting, and people jump on it and start riffing on it, I feel very gratified.  Obviously, this works best in games where I have some directorial powers and make up cool stuff.  

As far as being effective in combat, making people laugh... I can do those things, but they're not a big deal.  I like it when people want to play with my toys.  

So that's clearly a form of metagame reward, but it doesn't seem to fit the GNS breakdown very well.

Speaking as a quack GNS consultant (hey Ron, can I charge people for that yet?)... sounds to me like DannyK is grooving on sim to me. Coming up with new stuff to explore, and getting well deserved kudos from other folks exploring them.

Quote from: crucielI?m struggling to get a across what probably just boils down to "A creative agenda is simply a compilation of Techniques."

Or perhaps, a creative agendum is the principle upon which the selection of techniques is based?

--M. J. Young

Ron

I think the source for my confusion here, and I think in earlier discussions with Ralph, is that your position here is contradictory to the venn diagram.

* if the strategy and guts does not have to refer to the the rules of the game because gamism can be expressed purely as social bullying
* AND if the strategy and guts do not have to relate to the imaginary events of play or the ruleset.

Then this contradicts the Venn Diagram.

[Social Contract[Exploration[Creative Agenda---->[Techniques[Ephemera]]]]]

For the above to be true about Gamism the Creative Agenda box would need to sit between Social Contract and Explaration.

[Social Contract[Creative Agenda---->[Exploration[Techniques[Ephemera]]]]]

(none of which I see as inherantly problematic - except insofar as it suggests Gamism exists entirely independently of roleplaying and thus suggests that for gamists rpgs exist merely as a venue, as a kind of soft play area)

Wow.

This thread exploded while I was out.

Okay.  I'm not going to try the misguided approach of responding to each post individually, but I'm going to respond to the general ideas.

1) If your thinking "I agree with Ron, Ben is is a dolt" or "I agree with Ben, Ron is a dolt," you're not reading my posts carefully enough, becuase I (seem to) agree with Ron.  It's just that he *way* he talks about things makes my skin crawl, and I'm trying to tell him (because he asked) why this is the case.

2) Regarding my background, no it isn't a mix of the Game and Sim with competition at the sim level -- the Gamist underlying was really just jocular minimaxing.  Really.  The social competition was totally sim-level, and by "not talking" I mean social expulsion and ridicule, not isolated tantrums (rather, a big group of people having a tantrum at once.)  And, yes, I know its dysfunctional.  I'm trying to explain why Gamism doesn't seem very competitive to me, not dis Sim.

3) Ian (latest post) I think you're on to something, but I don't think that a rule-less Gamism is necessarily about bullying at all.  Remember -- it's not zero sum.  Let me say that again: it's not zero sum.

What I think you're on to is that the competition knob is at the Social Contract level of the model, and that the Gamism switch is at the CA level, and thus the relationship between competition and Gamism is whispy at best.

4) Danny K:  Yes, that's competitive Sim.  Thanks for some evidence it's existence (I'd love to see an actual play post about this...)

5) Ron:  If, as you say by way of Walt, "All play is rewarded with increased social esteem based on assessing one another's play," why did you single out Gamism and the Gamist essay to talk about this?  In other words, I'm hip to your meaning, but I still can't fathom the presentation.

yrs--
--Ben

The way I see it, gamism grooves on using tactical expertise & risk taking to try to gain something... which could well be illustrated by a meta game reward, whether it's currency or just Oog (thanks, Great Ork Gods), or it could be a diagetic improvement in the situation of the character, it could be candy from the GM, but none of these have to be rpesent, becuase they're just place holders for the important thing, which is the acclaim of your peers.

Which, sure, is what we all want from all CA... but if gamism is tactics & risk to gain something, we ought to say what that something is. Sure, it's the same as the other CA, but it's what's being rewarded and approved that defines the CA, not what's being given. Look back at the list of stuff the Gamist can be getting for "good play": the same list can be used to reward Sim or Nar play. So the reward is less important that what's being rewarded.

I'm still slightly foxed as to what or who DannyK is competing with in his Sim invention... perhaps striving is a better term than competition: but then, striving is one of my favourite terms in all games analysis (any situation without striving is dull, dull, dull)

Quote from: pete_darbybut none of these have to be rpesent, becuase they're just place holders for the important thing, which is the acclaim of your peers.

Except that doesn't make sense for single player games.  Like Patience, say.

QuoteI'm still slightly foxed as to what or who DannyK is competing with in his Sim invention...

Another player as to which of them has the credibility to determine then content of the sim.

EDITED TO REMOVE UNNECESSARY SARCASM

Gareth, I'm talking about role-playing games as a creative, social past time, so I don't think Solitaire is relevant.

But you could do worse than searching on "solo adventure" for previous discussions on that sort of thing in RPG's.

Quote from: pete_darbyGareth: I'm talking about role playing games... what are you talking about?

The same.  Because I do not experience a qualitatively different form of satisfaction in RPG than I do in any other game.  It seems to me entirely normal, as I have outlined above, for games to be played for the personal satisfaction of doing.

If its true that RPG-gamism is based on esteem, and yet non-RPG games like Patience are not, then RPG gamism must be radically different from the satisfaction the people gain from non-RPG games - in which case, Gamism is wholly the wrong term.

Ah well, agree to disagree time... RPG's are qualitively different to other games, and their rewards and methods are peculiar to them, to my mind.

The whole of the model being discussed here is predicated on RPG's being social, collaborative pasttimes. When folks are grooving entirely on the personal satisfaction of doing, they're missing a whole load of fun that's unique to RPG's.

Why call it gamism? Tactics & risk, the same as in other games, are being tested, but the rewards and methods are different.

And, please, where's the tactics & risk in Solitaire? Pitting your wits against a deck of cards? I'd barely even call Solitaire a game.

QuoteAnd, please, where's the tactics & risk in Solitaire? Pitting your wits against a deck of cards? I'd barely even call Solitaire a game.

There are tactics to solitaire, but I believe it would be more accurately categorized as a puzzle than a game.

Quote from: pete_darby
The whole of the model being discussed here is predicated on RPG's being social, collaborative pasttimes. When folks are grooving entirely on the personal satisfaction of doing, they're missing a whole load of fun that's unique to RPG's.

That applies to any number of online games.  You have one level in which you are grooving on your own achievement, and one on which you get the warm fuzzies from the approbation of others.  But this latter does not appear to me to be the driving force because people often persist in games which they are bad at, but which they nevertheless enjoy.

Quote
Why call it gamism? Tactics & risk, the same as in other games, are being tested, but the rewards and methods are different.

I could make a cogent case that that is a form of Sim.  Succesfully understanding and exploiting your coherent surroundings to achieve a specified goal could all be described as exploration of setting or situation or both.

Quote
And, please, where's the tactics & risk in Solitaire? Pitting your wits against a deck of cards? I'd barely even call Solitaire a game.

Nonetheless, Solitaire is commonly considered to be a game.  Yes, you are pitting your wits against a stack of cards, or more precisely, against the objective world.

Quote from: With Ron subsequently filling in the world 'All,' I1. Gamist play is rewarded with increased social esteem based on assessing one another's strategy and guts.

2. All play is rewarded with increased social esteem based on assessing one another's play.

Just wanted to acknowledge Ron's response and say that I'm mulling it and continuing to follow the thread. I see where Ron's coming from, but I'm not completely settled on it because when I consider various aspects of another's play that one might be assessing, I see strategy and guts (or at least, one or the other) popping up everywhere, underlying everything.

In a game with a creative Sim agenda, someone makes the perfect "catbus" contribution into the imagined space -- an imagined element that's completely unexpected, and yet completely fitting. I load them up with social esteem. Why? Because I'm impressed and grateful. Why am I impressed and grateful? Because they've done something that's not easy to do or not frequently done well. Why is it not easy to do or not frequently done well? Because doing it requires, among other things, strategy and guts (more so the latter, in this case).

- Walt

Gareth, just to pick up on one bit... sure, you're exploring setting and character, but to what end? To find out more about the character or setting (sim) or to extend tactical options, or to put something at risk (both gam). That's one fairly unique aspect of RPG's: pretty much everything's done through a lens of exploration of a shared imaginary space, but that doesn't mean that exploration is or isn't the point.

Why do people persist playing games that they're "bad at"? Perhaps because, despite them not "winning" in the terms the game describes, they're being rewarded either internally or externally for having tried to apply tactical thinking and taken risks. Esteem, again both self and other, as driver. But, in a social past time, I think we've got to talk about social esteem.

Or perhaps they like the space they're exploring in the game, or they're crafting heart rending stories of staggering beauty on the quake servers. Maybe they just like to hang with the guys. Maybe the game doesn't matter, but the folks do.

Walt... I guess it's a common cause of peer approval, and is a good example of a gamist aspect to sim play, but still I'm seeing the preservation of the dream (the right idea at the right time) as being the main thing approved of here. And hey, I'm still pushing for striving to be used in general cases: all CA consist of striving for esteem in the group, but what's being esteemed is the clincher. In Walt's example, it's the quality, appropriateness and unpredictability of the suggestion that's rewarded, which certainly take guts to present, and perhaps a little tactical thinking about presentation, but it seems to me isn't the focus, the source of the approval.

Quote from: Quoting Pete Darby, Ralph

QuoteAnd, please, where's the tactics & risk in Solitaire? Pitting your wits against a deck of cards? I'd barely even call Solitaire a game.

There are tactics to solitaire, but I believe it would be more accurately categorized as a puzzle than a game.

That's a fine line; I tend to think of it as a game, and have learned much from playing it.

Several months back, Kelly Tessena published an article (free for anyone) at Gaming Outpost, My Adventures as a New GM: Cheating in which she recalled playing solitaire as a child. She lost so frequently that she added a rule, allowing her to reshuffle the draw deck one time during play. A babysitter caught her doing this, and threatened to take the cards away from her if she was going to cheat like that.

I picked up on this idea in Game Ideas Unlimited: Challenge, where I recognized that what Kelly was doing as a child, and what I had done with solitaire games when I was young, was adjusting the challenge level of the game.

The fact that rules changes--such as standard versus Vegas, for example--can make the game more or less challenging strongly suggests that we play for the challenge; the payoff is that we feel like we won. The game has to be hard enough that we might have lost, but easy enough that we win frequently enough to get that payoff and play again.

The "tactics" in solitaire lies in determining the move that has the greatest probability of leading to a win. The "risk" lies in deciding whether to make that move or not, knowing that the possibility exists for any move to be the fatal one. There is a great deal of opportunity for analysis of probabilities and risks in the game, trying to deduce what moves are most likely to bring success versus what moves are most likely to bring disaster. Some moves are high on both scales; some are low on both.

So solitaire definitely has a lot of gamism in it.

Quote from: Later, WaltIn a game with a creative Sim agenda, someone makes the perfect "catbus" contribution into the imagined space -- an imagined element that's completely unexpected, and yet completely fitting. I load them up with social esteem. Why? Because I'm impressed and grateful. Why am I impressed and grateful? Because they've done something that's not easy to do or not frequently done well. Why is it not easy to do or not frequently done well? Because doing it requires, among other things, strategy and guts (more so the latter, in this case).

My response to this is that while it does require things we call "strategy and guts" to do that in a sim game, it is a confusion of concepts that have the same names. That is, we can call the move good strategy in the same way that the author of a book can use good strategy in crafting his plot to draw in the readers, or an architect can use good strategy in laying out the floorplan of the building for traffic flow; but we don't mean quite the same thing by "strategy" in those cases as we do when we're talking about the sort of strategy that wins games. Similarly, we can say there was risk, and therefore guts, in the crafting of that plot or the layout of that floorplan, but (and this is a lot finer distinction, perhaps) it is a different sort of risk and a different sort of guts than the sort we're talking about in the risk taken to win a game. It's a confusion of similar things that have the same name because of their similarity (perhaps because they are analogous, but not identical).

So there might be risky strategic decisions made in addressing premise or discovering setting, but they aren't the same kind of risky strategic decisions that are made in meeting challenge.

Of course, Ron might have a completely different answer to this, but it works for me.

--M. J. Young

Quote from: M. J. Young
That's a fine line; I tend to think of it as a game, and have learned much from playing it.

And that, I think, is the element thats missing from the description of Gamism at the moment.

IMO, games are an autodidactic behaviour; they are, if you will, 'experiments' conducted in the material world to explore, understand, how that world operates and acts.

I can't see at the moment any potential Sim interest that may be present in Patience/Solitaire.  Its so abstracted that it isn't anything thing other than an exercise (in all senses of the term) in problem solving.  I believe problem solving is in itself a self-satisfying behaviour, and that game playing amounts to a sort of practice for problem solving in the real world where things matter.

I think that for someone who enjoys this sort of activity, the absence or presence of the approval of others is pretty much unimportant.  That sort of thing may well be the ultimate purpose to which the practice is directed, but it may not - the real thing may well be something that determines survival.  People often sacrifice opportunites for social rewards in order to dedicate themselves to mastery of their specific discipline.

Yes, ultimately survival and performance may well be methods by which social approval, mating status, are achieved, but equally it seems to me that we award such approval to those who demonstrate high levels of skill and competence because we are impressed by that skill and competence.  We like people who can do, achieve, and reward and respect them accordingly.  To me, any attendant social rewards are incidental, rather than central, to the goals of the behaviour.  The presence of othe players is pretty much accidental except inasmuch as team-play presents qualitatively different challenges to learn and in which to develop skill.

Yes, like many activities, we engage in it socially and achieve more than one goal simultaneously.  I eat because I must, and I eat socially becuase I can achieve that and have a pleasant experience with my friends at the same time.  The fact that there may be some approval or otherwise going on here, if I cook say, only goes to explain why this instance of eating behaviour occurred in company, rather than why eating behaviour occurs at all.

MJ:

Damn good point there about "what do we mean when we say strategy or tactics?"

Gamism is, to my mind, concerned with the Costikyan definition of games, where strategy and tactics are concerned with management and manipulation of resources and risk.

Now, in sim games, you've still got your resources to manipulate and put at risk, but that's not as important as the preservation, expansion and exploration of the SiS: good management and manipulation of resources is only socially rewarded as far as they support the Sim agenda. Same with nar, you got resources and risk, but they're important as feeders for story now & address of premise, not so much for the elegance of their management.

But I get the feeling that, for satisfying play, there has to be struggle, and for struggle there has to be some element of personal esteem "on the line", at least as an opportunity cost as opposed to an actual loss. But that's just a long winded was of saying "we play to get approval of our play from the whole group (including ourselves), and gear our play to maximize that." Which is kind of the point of the whole of Ron's theory...

Quote from: pete_darbyBut I get the feeling that, for satisfying play, there has to be struggle, and for struggle there has to be some element of personal esteem "on the line", at least as an opportunity cost as opposed to an actual loss.

BL>  Why?  No.  Seriously.  A whole lot of people say this "I can't see anything that the resource management in Gamism serves, so there must be an esteem competition element."  I can't help but suspect that these people are not regular players of Gamist games, or only play a small subset of them.

When I play, say, Go, I play to win, of course.  But "playing to win" is an illusion.  I'm not trying to win.  I'm trying to play a good game.  What does that mean?

It means that the situations in the game, from a tactical/strategic viewpoint, are interesting.  This has absolute bull-pucky to do with the acclaim of my friends, although I might enjoy exploring those situations together with them.

Now, take the same situation, and map it onto D&D 3.0 .  Do I take the "Extended Rage" or the "Extra Raging" feat for my Barbarian, given my weapon choices, our fighting tactics, etc?  Well, there are a lot of complicated things in this situation, and the point is not to make the right choice but rather that the strategic situation itself is interesting.  The situation itself is "good game."  The choice matters, it matters a lot, but not because of what my friends will think of me for it.  It matters because its a difficult choice that we can think about together.

yrs--
--Ben

But my point was that in all play in RPG's, not just Gamist, there's an element of risk. In Gamism, it's more quantified, but in Sim it's the risk that your exploration won't gel with the other folks in the SiS, in Nar it's exposure of your own values. And there's my own crazy attitude that any creative endeavour involves some effort towards improving the endeavour, which is what I mean by struggle, and risk in that the effort may be misguided, or wasted. But this is getting very waffley, and should wait until I can express it properly.

In the example you gave... if no-one's grooving on approving optimal tactical play or risk, are you sure you're not exploring system in a Sim style?

But, how do you mean, play a good game? Exhibit tactical thinking? Take risks?

And, in terms of the big ol' theory, you may be grooving on the tactical thinking, but if other folks don't appreciate that's how you're playing, you can sure end up with a lot of strife. So the social esteem, or at least approval, is important for an ongoing game to stay "fun".

Quote from: pete_darby
In the example you gave... if no-one's grooving on approving optimal tactical play or risk, are you sure you're not exploring system in a Sim style?

Possibly.  I may well be slipping from one to the other, it happens, and Sim would be the mode I'm likeliest to slip to.

But it still seems to me that players of games are pretty much uninterested in the opinions of others in this regard.  while composing the previous post, I got to thinking about all the fan I saw trekking about in trail of the players in the golf Masters.  Presumably most of these are themselves players, not only groupies.  Sure, while they are there watching the greats, they are providing approval and perhaps, indulging in exploration of system.  But it seems to me, when they play for themselves, they are not exploring the system, I would think.  They are using it.  This is the part that is not, for me, explained by the model, the amount of time these people might spend on the driving range, practicing practicing practicing.  To explain this by reference to some sort of esteem they may garner at some later date does not ring true for me.

If I read a book, it seems more reasonable to me to conclude that I enjoy the book, the act and process of reading, etc.  It seems less plausible to me to assume that I am reading a book so that at some future time I may demonstrate my erudition and gain social approval.  Similarly, it seems more plausible to me that someone who exposes themselves to the agony and injury of many sports is more likely to actually enjoy that activity than some other, consequential, reward.

Well we're into things like the difference between sport and games (IMVOO, I think you need to be able to directly affect the other guy to make it a game, and golf don't qualify), and the difference between reading and writing a story, and the difference between solo activities, observing activities and participating activities, all of which have differing methods and rewards.

I'm not saying group esteem is the only reason anyone does anything (that would be crazy talk), but it is, to me, the reason they do social things, to get warm fuzzies from the group, as opposed to lone wolf activities.

And hey, some folks do read books they hate just to show off to their friends...

Hello,

In fact, I think the more general topics should be taken to off-list discussions now. This thread has certainly more than served its purpose regarding RPGs.

Best,
Ron