There's a new essay up by Ron on his newest thoughts on GNS, stances, actual play, and coherent game design. (This kind of replaces the FAQ - but it's not one. It's solely his thoughts, so don't get all cult-like or anything.)
Anyway, head to the Articles page and check it out - it's not bad.
There once was a man from Schenectady
Who decided to get a vasectomy;
He asked Doc McCall
"Could you please purge my balls?"
But OUCH! the doc made a synecdoche.
Um...okay, so it ain't brilliant. Do I get a prize just for playing? (Oh, hey, does this make me a Gamist?)
Okay, now I've actually read the whole thing.
I like it. I like it a lot. My initial, off-the-cuff response is to say I like it in similar ways to liking Understanding Comics. I particularly like the comments regarding White Wolf & how their games end up working (as opposed to how their theoretically "meant" to work), obviously. In the Mage game I'm currently running, I've rejected the setting in order to further the PCs being Protagonists in exactly the way you said.
And you said "Great Googlie-Mooglie"! I love that expression.
Well done, Ron.
But OUCH! the doc made a synecdoche.
Hilarious! Yikes!
Paul
[ This Message was edited by: Paul Czege on 2001-10-14 23:05 ]
Vedy interesting. I didn't do an incredibly complete read-through -- the parts that were less interesting to me, I just skimmed.
If I may be permitted a probably offensive pseudo-anthropological note, I think I'm beginning to see a consistent pattern in Ron's work. When he gets an idea, he tends to see it as the be-all and end-all of whatever it's about, and pushes it strongly, generally past its merits. After time and reflection, he begins to take a more moderate -- and, I feel, ultimately more useful -- stance on the idea.
Which is a long way of saying that, while I'm increasingly a fan of the ever-more-polished core concepts of GNS, and the first few pages of the document strike me as far and away the best that's been done on the subject, the tone of the document increasingly puts my teeth on edge as we get further into it.
No matter. If I'm right, it'll settle down eventually. If I'm wrong about Ron's tendancy to settle down, then I'm probably wrong about them being offensive at all. Instead, I'm just neo-phobic.
I find the discussion of preparing sessions very interesting, probably because I'm in the middle of changing from a Roads to Rome approach to, uh, something else.
Effectiveness/Resources/Metagame continues to feel, to me, forced into a threefold split. I will, perhaps, try to articulate a different approach later.
Using inter-player dialogue and knowledge to determine character action, then retroactively justifying the action in terms of character knowledge and motive. "You hit him high and I'll hit him low," between players whose characters do not have the opportunity to plan the attack. [This example could also apply to Gamism over-riding Simulationism; the two are quite similar.]
This bit doesn't strike me as a Simulationism/whatever conflict, but, rather, a conflict in expectations over the degree of allowable non-Actor stances. For example, I could easily envision a purely Gamist environment having strong problems with players externally coordinating attacks, simply because it's "cheating" -- violating a rule intended to make the given confrontation more challenging.
Despite the admitted correspondence between Actor stance and Simulationism, I think that this is, at best, only secondarily a modal conflict. Minor issue in a part of the document which is otherwise excellent.
With respect to the baggage carried by the terms "story," "genre," and "diceless": Word. If I were a wiser man, I'd just drop out of any thread anywhere in which any of those terms were used.
Ditto the disavowal of "balance equals gamism." Grrr. I hate it when people say that.
The Impossible Thing to Believe Before Breakfast:
I think that you're onto something here, but not quite there in terms of succesfully articulating it. One thing which always bothered me about Narrativism as defined here was the assertion that only by allowing players some degree of non-my-guy control could they be said to be "creating a story."
My criticism is this: If I'm playing a character, in fully my-guy mode, and at the end of it, a story comes into place, in what way have I not been creating a story?
There is a conflict between GM-as-author and players-as-protagonists, but it's more subtle than what this document presents, I think.
I just deleted a couple of attempts to further clarify what I'm trying to say, here. Gimme a night or two to sleep on it. (If you catch me posting here from work tomorrow, yell at me -- I'm way behind on the office stuff).
[ Edit was to clean up some confusing phrasing. ]
[ This Message was edited by: Epoch on 2001-10-15 02:57 ]
Firstly, I have to say I'm annoyed at all the White Wolf dissing - for all your experiences may lead to such negative opinions, it simply does not reflect mine, and the "conflict" that is "observed" in WW seems strongly overstated to my mind. I can appreciate the difficulties alluded to in embracing Mage, and saw it recently referred to as "unplayable", but I consider this a failure of imagination.
Secondly, the article appears to restate an interpretation of Gamism which I continue to fail to recognise. The more I see this error perpetrated, the more annoying it becomes. For example, in the section on premises, a situation is cited of narrativism overiding simulationism by means of use of an abtract dice pool. Well, how much more player-vs-player-competitive can you get? Why is the Pool a narrativist/dramatist system instead of a gamist system, when it fills the criteria of direct inter-player conflict? I find this inconsistent. And I really don't think gamist play ever meaningfully posits the GM as a competitor against the players, the concept is self defeating in gamist terms. And this error leads to the absurd conclusion, IMO, that gamist play has been "marginalised", after previously castigating a fair list of games for their excessive or broken gamist tendencies. Then of course the assertion that gamism exploits the Fortune mechanic primarily or heavily, although one must necessarily conclude from this that Chess is not a game (!?). Come on, there is a heavy element of Gamist play in Amber, as illustrated by their own combat examples!
And lastly, I feel the role of premise as a diagnostic tool is hopelessly incoherent, as we keep switching between premise as envisioned by the GM, premise as embedded in the world, and premise as envisioned by the players, without discussing whether they can or do coexist simultaneously, or to what degree. And as a result the statement that when Narrativist play is brought to detailed settings (V:tM and LOT5R) there is a conflict between the pe-play setting premise and a pre-play character premise. Why? All this requires is that play cannot begin uninformed; that players must be front-loaded so that they are able to construct a character-premise in the context of the setting premise (although here we see the confusion of where premise lives laid bare). This needs to be discussed further.
Gareth (contracycle),
The essay hasn't been up 24 hours yet. I am assured that no one - absolutely no one - can possibly have devoted the attention to reading it that I put into conceiving it, at this point, so I am willing to be patient.
Please give me the respect of re-reading, taking a while to consider it, and then responding - specifically as opposed to raging at THIS post to defend your previous post. I respect your judgment and ideas (always have) and would like to have them focused on my essay at the very highest level of comprehension for both of us.
I cannot imagine where the following ideas originated. They are certainly not asserted anywhere in my essay.
- Castigating games specifically for Gamist tendencies.
- Associating Fortune specifically with Gamism (my point is that Gamism encompasses the full range of using Fortune, from none at all to nearly-always).
These and other statements lead me to believe that you are on a "first-read" rush, as they are simply unconnected to anything I've stated, or internally inconsistent.
An example of the former is the idea that an abstract dice pool is necessarily Narrativist, which it is not; it could well be Gamist, exactly as you say. The issue at hand was to provide an example of Narrativism overriding Simulationism, and we have games that do this via an abstract dice pool. Whether other games do this with a Gamist bent rather than a Narrativist one is irrelevant to the point.
An example of the latter is referring to the dice-gambling in the Pool as interplayer conflict, which it patently is not; players do not gamble against one another in The Pool. Or similarly, failing to see my point that Amber's design may lead to rapid Gamist drift, which your point agrees with rather than refutes.
Best,
Ron
Hi Mike,
So, when person A seems to get more reasonable, who has changed, person A or person B? As a university prof, I see so many examples of person B maturing in outlook (and ascribing it to changes in person A) that it seems like the usual course of events. But, just as you are gentleman enough to acknowledge that it may be "you," I will do likewise and acknowledge that you may be right in your initial observation and it may be "me."
Mark Twain joked about it once, regarding his opinion of his father.
"One thing which always bothered me about Narrativism as defined here was the assertion that only by allowing players some degree of non-my-guy control could they be said to be "creating a story." "
I think that my current description in the essay states that "story" can be involved in role-playing in any of the modes, and that Narrativism is defined only by PRIORITIZING that outcome (a story of some kind), not by the presence or absence of that outcome.
"My criticism is this: If I'm playing a character, in fully my-guy mode, and at the end of it, a story comes into place, in what way have I not been creating a story?"
Two things. First, a story has been created, but it was not Narrativist play unless the behaviors/goals and so on actually prioritized it, as I said above. It still may be a fine story, produced via non-Narrativist means.
Second, YOU may not have created it at all. In Call of Cthulhu play (of the classic, absolutely-faithful to text method I have been doing lately), a story does indeed emerge, but none of the players have had any but the most superficial hand in creating it. We have, at most, colored in designated spaces.
With any luck, that clarifies or perhaps helps with the "always bothered you" part of Narrativism.
Best,
Ron
I have to agree with Ron on the idea of Story creation. Creating a story is vastly more difficult than participating in one.
In reviewing my own gaming experience...story has come about either because it was scripted to come about and we just tripped the appropriate triggers, or when we played more free form it was created by shear coincidence.
The former, I've come to think of as the Paint by Numbers approach. Sure I dipped the brush in water and sloshed it around...but the painting was pretty much there already.
The latter, in my experience, most often can only be considered a story for very generous definitions of story. Usually they are more accurately called "a series of somewhat related events". Only by chance do these events coallesce into something resembling an actual story.
I've become convinced that the only way a story can actually be CREATED during play as opposed to simply witnessed or participated in or affected in some limited scope is with Narrativist play (either with or without a Narrativist Game).
This of course is distinctly different from story being created BEFORE play through scripted metaplot.
Related to that somewhat is that I'm a little unclear as to why scripted metaplot is so closely associated with Simulationism in the article as opposed to either G or S but not N. But thats another thread entirely.
Ultimately I think this is the best articulation I've seen of these ideas gathered in one place and not scattered across several threads in several forums on several sites. So thank you Ron for the effort.
Hopefully this article will serve the dual role of giving new members a one stop primer to these concepts so that less bandwidth needs be spent reexplaining the basics and secondly to use that saved bandwidth to spring board into some of the other areas highlighted as under development.
I for one am interested in the idea that Conflict Resolution is different from Scene resolution as they appear at first blush to be synonyms.
A cursory overview reveals that the new doc is good and very appropriate. Clinton, I also like the formatting. Well done all around. NOTE: I am Hunter Logan, not the other way around.
Logan
Thanks guys!
I want to repeat that Logan's previous work did a tremendous service to me, and that I believe that the majority of its content was never explored, discussed, or considered. I could not have written this one without the effort spent on the first, and I hope that people give Logan the appropriate credit for it.
Any comments of mine about not using the previous document were in regard to showing it to newbies, and did NOT indicate my lack of approval of its contents.
Best,
Ron
Ron,
In the short term, the difficulty with what I am thinking about what you are thinkinh is that none of the listed gamist premises ring true for me. Arguably the best was "Can I play well enough such that my character survives the perils?" when it should have been restricted to "Can I play well?".
Grrr. After just agreeing with Ron that the word "story" was a dangerous one to use in RPG theory discussions, I introduced it into the thread. Bad me.
Post more after work.
Gareth,
My take on Gamism is that the stakes have to be external and common to the competing participants, not internal and self-assessed. Therefore a Gamist Premise must have an acknowledged challenge and an acknowledged loss/victory condition; furthermore, although degrees of success may be recognized, equal success for all is ... well, not part of the picture.
Huge variety exists among the possible Gamist Premises in terms of the degree of randomness, who's competing with whom, and so on. As I said, there are probably whole spheres of play, design, and Premise-specifications that we have not explored or perhaps even seen in role-playing history. My little list is by no means definitive.
I should also point out, just to be absolutely clear, that competing for "most attention," or "coolest," or similar things falls into this framework as well.
Best,
Ron
Hi Contracycle!
Quote
On 2001-10-15 05:17, contracycle wrote:
Firstly, I have to say I'm annoyed at all the White Wolf dissing - for all your experiences may lead to such negative opinions, it simply does not reflect mine, and the "conflict" that is "observed" in WW seems strongly overstated to my mind.
I personally found Ron's thoughts on the Storytelling System and GNS to be really insightful and "critique-ful" as opposed to negative in a derrogatory way. I just retired as 16 months of being one of White Wolf's primary STs on their own company sponsored moderated java chats and wrote most of the (now antiquated) rules and guidelines for them for playing in those chats. I'm on a first name basis with a few WW staff/developers and have even been giving a paid position on a non-gaming oriented site to host weekly columns on White Wolf games (site= 101.com; contract signed, column not yet up). I'm mentioning all of this not to toot my own horn, but to assure you that I have loads of experience with WW and I'm one of the Storyteller System's big fans, not someone who loves to bash it. I still think Ron is really on to something regarding WW games and its worth further consideration.
I know a lot more people who love WW games than I know people who have -fun- playing WW games -together- and Ron's essay and the entire GNS model have given me a lot of ideas as to why.
More on this issue:
"My criticism is this: If I'm playing a character, in fully my-guy mode, and at the end of it, a story comes into place, in what way have I not been creating a story?"Ron's comments:
Two things. First, a story has been created, but it was not Narrativist play unless the behaviors/goals and so on actually prioritized it, as I said above. It still may be a fine story, produced via non-Narrativist means.
Second, YOU may not have created it at all. In Call of Cthulhu play (of the classic, absolutely-faithful to text method I have been doing lately), a story does indeed emerge, but none of the players have had any but the most superficial hand in creating it. We have, at most, colored in designated spaces.
I agree with both of the things above, but don't feel that they cover the full spectrum of possibilities within my initial assertion.
Let me suggest this as a play style. I believe that it is not a construct, but a reasonable description, in retrospect, of several games I have participated in:
The players have no control besides the usual "my guy" stuff. Non-Actor stance is discouraged or at least not publically spoken of except occaisionally to avoid violating anyone's comfort levels.
The player characters define and create the "sequence of caused events." The GM has either no idea of what is to come or only a loose one, and spends a great deal of time in a reactive mode, allowing the players, through their characters, to define the intellectual terrain of the game. What planning he does do is generally response oriented -- "Okay, given that the players just decided to go investigate the land of Sarth, what shows up there?" -- but it is done with an eye towards building an overall conflict, creating rising tension, building towards a climax, and all of the other narrative/story conventions that we've come to expect. The PC's have dramatic immunity, and the GM also works to ensure that they have the full plate of troubles that befits the protagonists of a story.
So: Your concept number two -- that a story emerges, but that the players have had little or no part in creating it -- does not, I assert, apply. The players,
through their characters, have driven the game a good deal.
Concept number one -- whether behaviours and goals prioritized the story -- is more problematic, as, certainly, there are few or no overt mechanics of the sort you'll see in more consciously narrativist games like
The Pool . On the other hand, a lot of the GM's time and effort -- and certainly, a good chunk of his goal -- is to facilitate a traditional narrative.
You and I have spoken about "high-exploration Narrativism" before, and I think that this situation is an example of it. I think it's also a fairly common mode of play. You'll note that it shares a lot of features with the old Threefold Dramatism. It's also far from incompatible with the Storyteller system.
Let me jump to another example for a moment: My current Amber game. Before we began, we sat down and talked about the game. I explained the premise (this is the premise in the first sense you mention in the article): there was a rebellion 100 years ago, which tore the Amber family in two. It failed. Some Royals died. After that was an uneasy peace/truce/domination by the winning side. Now, new events will cause a resurgence in rebel possibilities.
After that, we sat down and talked about each Royal in turn, trying to figure out who the king was. Eventually, we voted between Random and Brand. Brand won. Then we decided who rebelled -- our consensus was that Eric rebelled. We went through the list of Royals again and worked out who was on each side. We went through the list
again and worked out who died. The players then chose their parents and the side they were on, as well as their ending circumstances.
Then I went and I wrote all that into an actual story. The result is here:
The Ancient Grudge.
Now, was I the author of that story? Sure. I wrote the entire thing, created innumerable details, made it all fit together. Or was I the author? After all, the major events -- Eric rebels, Corwin dies, Bleys remains loyal and is killed by Lot, etc. -- were all dictated to me by our consensus decision making.
It's like what I imagine ghostwriting is all about: someone dictates to you the barest skeleton of a story. You then write the book.
I think that there's a good analogy there to a style of GMing -- you don't have to give the players Monologs of Victory, or the freedom to create NPC's, or the ability to spend a Hero Point to ignore everything you said was or wasn't possible. That's all the detail stuff, the ghost-writer stuff, and you can keep 100% of it for yourself, and the players will still be creating the story if you let them drive it forward, rather than put them on rails.
I feel like I'm still not being clear here, and it's driving me crazy, but that's the best I can express it.
Anyhow, that's what I think the article is fuzzy on in terms of the Great Impossibility -- yes, the GM can be the author in the sense of being the ghost-writer, and the players can be just "their guys," and they can all still create a story together. I think that the Storyteller games grope towards this concept quite a bit, and -- and this is a failing -- don't quite get there.
But I may just be being egomanic -- this is one of my major preferred styles of play, and we all know how religious people get about those. :razz:
I'm not particularly a WW partisan - but I have had many positive experiences with their stuff, and still feel that their approach was rather sophisticated for the day. Few games have produced as interesting a set of inter-character personal relationships as these, and again I say, I find the criticism very overstated. Perhaps they were stretching for a fruit beyond their grasp, but that invalidates neither the attempt or the achievements they did reach.
Quote
My take on Gamism is that the stakes have to be external and common to the competing participants, not internal and self-assessed. Therefore a Gamist Premise must have an
And thats where we disagree.
Does the marathon runner compete for victory, or to test themselves? Out of the thousands who enter the NY marathon, or the London, or the Comrades, only a tiny percentage have any expectation of winning, and a broader percentage, of finishing. What motivates these people?
Furthermore, do we have room for the concept of "sportsmanship"? That it is the taking part rather than the winning that counts, that you shake your opponents hand after the match, that you abide by the rules because you choose to rather than being coerced to?
To deny an internally reflective motive for competition - well, its just not cricket.
I disagree CC, mostly because I don't think you're allowing the concept of external factors to be broad enough. For your Marathon example perhaps just knowing they completed the thing is enough...perhaps just trying is enough. In either case the contest is still man vs. Marathon...only the actual goal has changed.
I don't believe Ron's use of External Factors was suggesting that the Gamist player must always attempt to defeat or overcome these External Factors. Rather those factors are the measuring stick used to measure "success" by what ever "internal" definition of success the player has.
In order for you to have competition you must have something to compete against and something to compete for. By my read of the article, Ron's left the door pretty wide open as to what those things might be.
Hey,
This thread has broken up into two very distinct issues, one about "story" and one about Gamism. Gee, what a surprise ...
I'll provide my take on each one, and then, if they seem to be developing further, someone, please take them to RPG Theory separately.
Hey Mike S (Epoch), can't leave that "story" issue alone, huh? Like a loose tooth. My claim is that your described mode of play - in practice - comes perilously close to what I call "the Moog organ and the pennywhistles" style of story creation.
It all comes down to, Do or don't the players exert preferences and influences over what the story is about? And I mean ABOUT, with protagonists and issues and passions and all that Egri stuff.
On the one hand, if they do, then you have classic Narrativism with the players happening to use only Drama mechanics. This is fine. The mechanisms are there, and they use them, and all is just as described under the Narrativism text. When you refer to "story driving," they're doing just that - but they sure as hell CANNOT be only in Actor Stance when they do it.
On the other hand, if they don't, then their "story-driving" roles are illusions, reduced to nuances of characterization and going 'round the mulberry bush to the left rather than to the right as they travel to the castle. This is fine too, but it ain't story-making by the players.
In practice, I have observed that what begins as the first often becomes, with nary a whimper, the second. I think Jesse would be a good person to describe his experiences in this context.
My goal is simply to call a spade a spade. I'm interested in what happens both before and after a certain quantum of "story meat" has been generated. If the group members ARE driving the story - in which case exerting metagame priorities even if they don't TALK about them - then it's Narrativism. If one member (the GM) is EXERTING the story upon the others, in its essential matters, then it's not.
Best,
Ron
Regarding Gareth's disagreement regarding Gamism ...
I agree with Ralph entirely, and I think he has stated the position fairly and completely. Part of the problem is that Gareth has brought in the matter of MOTIVES, and I consider them to be irrelevant.
To take the example of the marathon runner, I admit to any and all motives that could lead anyone to participate. None of them are, themselves, the fact of competition. That competition utterly relies on the existence of a finish line that all participants utilize as the "end" of the activity, and also on the various standards and practices of behavior during the activity. That's what I mean by externality, and without it, no competition is possible.
Bringing that kind of feature into role-playing is what defines Gamism. I consider it to be a fascinating, high-potential thing which was badly stunted early in role-playing history and only now is regrowing in functional ways.
Best,
Ron
Motives were introduced to illustrate that the motives I believe that Ron is assuming gamists have do not, IMO, describe gamist motivations at all. And I think as long as we are working from a false perception of gamist goals and motives, we cannot meaningfully discuss gamist premises - which is the point I started with. I am suggesting that we are in fact calling a spade a fork.
In the marathon example, if Valamir concedes that the actual runner may be content with just finishing, then this invalidates the claim that the external factors, in terms of goals, need to be shared by all particpants. Clearly they are not - they are self-imposed not externally imposed. The conflict is not human vs. marathon, it is human vs. self.
Furthermore, if it is true that the external factors need not be the actual goal of gamist play, then why are such factors assumed to be a component of the gamist premise? This was my starting point - by framing the gamist premises as victory-oriented it fails to describe, IMO, the goals of gamist play.
I think Valamirs last pragraph about the requisites of competition illustrate the problem very neatly - to paraphrase Gleichman, he has fallen into the trap of confusing gamism as "competitionism". Is it so hard to accept that the gamist is "competing" against their own stupidity? As Gleichman has said so often, it is NOT about victory, it is ABOUT performance. The existance of an external competition is, IMO, wholly irrelevant. The gamist will measure their own performance in gamist terms regardless of whether such a "competition" is present.
And 'round and 'round we go.
Bluntly, I have said nothing about motives. GNS is not about motives, and my list of Gamist Premises, in particular, have nothing to do with motives. They describe contexts for Gamist play, AS OBSERVED. (Same goes for the other modes)
Why do people have such a terrible time with the basic, observable claim that people do not compete in a self-subsumed vacuum? They compete in a social context, with others, about certain things.
Now. Perhaps they DO have an "inner life" regarding the competition that is more important than anything external regarding that same competition. That is not important to my point, because I am discussing the actual competition itself, in which those externalities must be present or no competition is happening.
I can see this entire conversation going right off the rails, as people invent "Bill the marathon runner" who cares nothing for the finish line, nothing for the crowdsd, nothing for anything but the glory and poetry of his bid against his own body ...
Fine. Bill is still running on a road, with other marathon runners, with a tape across the way, with the cameras running. The act of running that marathon is a competitive act, and victory and loss conditions are explicit. Even if "loss" only means "not as fast as I ran it last time," its conditions are explicit.
We might posit a fine Disney movie about Bill running the marathon the day before, all alone, glorying in the experience of testing himself for its own sake, completely divorced from the "sullied" context of victory against others, and so on. Wiping a tear from our collective eye, we are still forced to admit that, although it may express something about WHY real people who run marathons it is utter fantasy concerning the WAY they run them.
The same goes for Gamist role-playing. Perhaps a player's motive is to "test himself." Well, gee, fellas, it just so HAPPENS that he's doing so (a) against a module, (b) against some other team of players, (c) against fellow players, or (d) any ol' other thing we can think of. Gamism is observably present when such things are happening.
Best,
Ron
Quote
On 2001-10-17 10:08, Ron Edwards wrote:
The same goes for Gamist role-playing. Perhaps a player's motive is to "test himself." Well, gee, fellas, it just so HAPPENS that he's doing so (a) against a module, (b) against some other team of players, (c) against fellow players, or (d) any ol' other thing we can think of. Gamism is observably present when such things are happening.
At the risk of being a bad person, it seems to me that this "competition" is something like a framework in which (say) Gleichman's "objective test of player skill" can take place.
So I'm playing DBA the other day (a miniatures wargame which I am only a beginner at) and I
won a game.
That never happens! I was very pleased. But I was also pleased with the game I played immediately before, in which I got caned. Because even though I didn't win, I thought I demonstrated a grasp of the tactics my army required. There was definitely a test of player skill going on, at least in my empty head.
The key, I think, to integrating the undeniably true but still speculative "some Gamist players are happy even if they lose" and the observable Gamist trait of competition is that the boundaries of the competition facilitate the individual tests of skill. The players agree on the goals (stay alive, end the game with the most money, score the most points, whatever) and that objective provides the yardstick for individual player goals (stay alive longer than Steve, get more money than last time, whatever).
This seems to me to be especially true in RPGs, which usually have graded scoring systems (Experience Points, for example) rather than either-or victory/loss conditions. I would say that this falls into the category of (d) "any other thing we can think of" above.
So while I think it's absolutely true that many individual Gamists may play games without any expectation of winning, the fact that there are victory/loss conditions (or a scale of success, or whatever) is, I think, an integral part of the play style.
I'm not sure if that makes any sense or if it's just me rambling on again.
Hey James,
I think you are dead-on correct. Nothing in my discussion of Gamism says anything about people being ONLY happy with winning. The sequence would go,
Why do you role-play?
"To have fun."
How is that done?
"Competing with my friends, in a discernable, actual competitive arena."
What various arenas of competition exist? (This is the Premise part)
"Depends on who's competing with whom and about what."
Now, someone else may come and ask more personal or experiential questions regarding the importance of winning, but that is not a concern of GNS. I did not say that Gamist play relies on winning as the only source of satisfaction, and objections to that misperceived claim are irrelevant to the topic.
My only claim is that the terms of the competition are real among the players. They may or may not be STATED, but they are there.
For instance, I recall butting heads with Gamist-oriented players in the 80s all the time - I'd say, "But it's not about winning," and they'd say, "Oh, come ON - who are you trying to kid? Of course it is!" and cite both character improvement and covert/overt influencing of the GM as "obvious" proof. Now, unlike then, I see their point perfectly.
Best,
Ron
[ This Message was edited by: Ron Edwards on 2001-10-17 11:51 ]
No, James, you're not just rambling. That makes a lot of sense. I think many of these objections on both sides are just perspective problems, and that mostly we are talking about the same phenomenon.
Certainly people would have to admit that for a game to support gamist play actively it must have something in it that can be played against. This is very broad, and can be anything. A player can play very easily in a gamist fashion in a Simulationist game. All that player must do is choose a goal for himself (making his character king, for example) and prioritize that. The system, however, is doing nothing to support that activity. There will be no points in a Sim game for becoming King, and it will not be a condition for winning. These sorts of mechanics support Gamists by giving them something to measure themseves against.
In the Marathon example, it's the difference between running it alone and having a watch and not. The watch is a mechanic that is gamist. Without the watch is analagous to Simulationist. But the watch is an interesting tool for comparison. The Gamist might have a better time if there is a watch. Without the watch the player is left to guage his success on his own. Which is fine.
The theory is that certain of these mechanics can be constructed to make gamist RPGs more interesting to players with a preference for that style of play. D&D Exp may or may not fit that bill for a given Gamist. I'd speculate that it would depend on how much they also like Verisimilitude. This is where you get the very common Gamist/Simulationist player from. They want a challenge, but they want it "realistic". Exp as in D&D is more likely to attract the hard core Gamist.
Does that help at all?
Mike
I think a lot of the problems people are having with Gamism is in the wording. Ron stated in his essay, "Gamism is expressed by competition among participants (the real people); it includes victory and loss conditions for characters, both short-term and long-term, that reflect on the people�s actual play strategies."
This does not mean the only form of competition is player vs. player. I consider myself to enjoy Gamist RPGs tremendously, and have found three sorts of competition that they usually involved (these will be obvious to anyone who's taken any sort of Lit class):
- Player vs. player: Rune is the best example of this. Yes, all players are working together towards a goal of killing monsters in a framework. But, all players are also trying to rack up the most points for their character. Pantheon and Baron Munchausen are other great examples of this. They both involve players trying to verbally outwit each other to make a story.
Win/loss condition: Do I get more points than other players?
- Player vs. world: I'd use D&D3E as my example for this. The characters are set into a specified framework (an adventure, a module) and there are set victory/loss conditions. The players work together to win at these conditions. This does not mean they win in the story. The story is irrelevant. The story is fun, and a part of it, but not the point. The point is to get experience points and gain levels. (Yes, you may not play D&D this way. Whatever. It facilitates this, and that's not a bad thing.) A story would suck if the heroes ran back to town to heal after every third fight. In D&D, this is fine as long as the monsters/traps/evil necromancer dies at the end and the characters get the XP.
Win/loss condition: Do we as a party receive the maximum amount of XP?
- Player vs. self: This is one of the least common types in RPGs, but is very interesting. This is more of the "runner testing himself" example above. For my example, I'll use Sorcerer - really. To me, one of the most fun parts of Sorcerer is the Humanity mechanic. It's a gamble of how far I can extend myself summoning demons and gaining power and still keep my character. By looking at odds and chances, I can play this as a huge gamble, seeing how much power I can get before burning out. This is still in a framework, and is still a competition.
Win/loss condition: Can I achieve maximum power and keep my character?
All of these fit in Ron's definition. There are definite win/loss conditions in all of them. They all have a definite framework set out before play to judge the win/loss condition. And they all rely on player strategy to win.
Clinton,
Solid. (Cue 70s street-level action flick soundtrack)
Best,
Ron
Speaking as a marathon runner, I carry a watch in large part to know how long I have to go before I can stop hurting.
Best,
Blake
Very good Blake. :smile:
But just the idea that you refer to yourself as a Marathon runner means that you consider your abilities in the context of how well you can run a twenty-six point whatever mile race (which, BTW impresses the hell out of me; I have trouble running two). These are the parameters of that competition. You could just be a long distance runner, and not worry about time or distance too much, and just guage things more roughly. That paricular distance and the time that it takes to run it are the gamist elements. And they are very engaging, I find. Tho not at all necessary. Different modes.
Mike Holmes
:smile:
More seriously, running that distance is certainly a challenge. Most folks run to beat their best time, to qualify for Boston, or to prove something to themselves. I'm in the last camp, more concerned in the race itself with finishing, but not worrying about time or competition with other runners (well, OK, I didn't want to let the blind guy pass me, but other than that...). Not finishing would suck. The whole point of running a marathon is to finish it.
I can certainly see the Gamism analogy. The watch serves as a meter of progress toward the runner's goal, but that goal does vary with the runner. Similarly, different roleplayers in a Gamist context may have different interpretations of "victory," or perhaps more pertinent, different meters of enjoyment. All this is pretty self-evident. What seems to be the most useful point is that the context of the starting and finishing points is common to all the runners.
Best,
Blake
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Win/loss condition: Can I achieve maximum power and keep my character?
At which point the argument has become circular - the gamist "premise" is now located in the mechanical system and its balance of probabilities, NOT in the premise of any proto-story such as "can I survive tonights bloodbath".
Thus, none of the listed gamist "premises" are any such animal.
If people really want to get into "are the listed Gamist premises reasonable," or, "Is there Gamism at all," and anything like that - which they evidently do - then I'd like to see an appropriately-titled post for it.
Gareth, you've posted a lot of short statements in a variety of threads recently, but have not presented an argument that I can follow ... I know there must be a coherent foundation for your points (it's you, after all), so a "Gamism" thread would be greatly appreciated.
For the record, I can't see your current objection at all. So I'm asking for clarity in a place devoted to that topic.
Best,
Ron
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On 2001-10-19 04:48, contracycle wrote:
At which point the argument has become circular - the gamist "premise" is now located in the mechanical system and its balance of probabilities, NOT in the premise of any proto-story such as "can I survive tonights bloodbath".
Thus, none of the listed gamist "premises" are any such animal.
I'd like to call you on this, though. It's an interesting school of thought, and the prevailing school of thought in RPGs today, White Wolf actually being the king of espousing it. I assume you're saying (your brevity sometimes confounds this - correct me if I've misread you) that the Premise must be in the story and not in the system - that the system is rather irrelevant without a great story.
I'm the first to admit a great story is needed, but I think that it must be rooted in the system. That's really the point of discussing GNS - how can we seed the system with mechanics that explicitly reinforce the premise?
Sorcerer does this with its Humanity-balancing mechanic. The question is asked: how far will you go for power? The system quantifies this.
Dying Earth does this with its unique resolution and refresh mechanics. The idea is to create characters that aren't heroes, but are whipped up on the whims of fate - the system makes this happen.
Hell, even D&D does this. The idea is to have characters that grow ever stronger in the face evil. The system reinforces this by rewarding you whenever you slay evil in its tracks.
All of these assure that a good story - or at least the intended story for the game - is told
Hi Clinton,
I'm not disagreeing with you regarding the value of premise vis-a-vis reinforcing mechanics. I am curious how you'd categorize The Pool in this discussion. The attraction of The Pool seems to me to be its open-ended freedom for players to adapt their stories to any premise offered by the narrator. However, I don't see The Pool providing premise-specific mechanics.
Thoughts?
Best,
Blake
I haven't played the Pool yet, so I can't comment with any real knowledge, but from a few readings, this is what I see:
- The Monologue of Victory does not reinforce a premise, but certainly reinforces player-driven story creation. You literally could not play a game where the players expected the "world" or outside forces to control their character's destiny - their destiny is in their own hands.
- At the same time, the betting system, and the ability to get "the hose" or to lose all your dice on one roll is a great way to replicate in a system the idea of overextending yourself, or fate taking a firm hand in your fortune.
These would seem contradictory, but remember that a character can recover from the Hose by pressing himself to succeed and not taking MoV's relatively easily.
Therefore, my guess is that the Pool is great for a Premise of: How will you control your own destiny in a world of chance? Will you let your life be ruled by the whims of the world, or will you fight the hard fight in the face of Fate?
The mechanics certainly seem to support this. The type of game I'd be most likely to run with this is pulp sorcery, Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser-type action, to be specific.
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I'd like to call you on this, though. It's an interesting school of thought, and the prevailing school of thought in RPGs today, White Wolf actually being the king of espousing it. I assume you're saying (your brevity sometimes confounds this - correct me if I've misread you) that the Premise must be in the story and not in the system - that the system is rather irrelevant without a great story.
[/premise]
No, not precisely.
The Egrian approach to premise is located in the narrative proper. This is why Egri places such emphasis on introducing your conflict straight away, not revealing anything which fails to support the premise, that sort of thing. I must point out that I don't in fact think this can be ported to RPG's en bloc, and this is a secondary criticism of the espoused model. In the Egrian sense, premises cannot be in the mechnaics.
Thus, a mechanic CANNOT have anything to do with a premise. IT cannot support it or work against it, because the premise lies in the words spoken by the GM, the things that are described, etc etc. The role of mechanics supporting, umm, verisimilitude used to be described as supporting genre conventions - like the lethality of .38's in Noir - but now I am to understood that genre is also passe.
Whatever we call that process - "realising the world through mechanics" perhaps - it cannot have anything to do with premise as Egri defines it. You can/will have multiple premises in sequence set in a single world with such realised mechanics.
However, when Clinton tried to rationalise the listed gamist premises, all of his approaches analyse the mechanics. Not one of them addresses a specific scenario or event, as Ron's initial gamist premises did ("can I survive tonights bloodbath").
Thus, I think we are trying to use two incompatible approaches to premise (one located in the narrative, one located in the mechanics). If Clinton is right and it is the mechanics which define gamist rpemise, then Rons premises are false. And if Ron is right, in essentially saying that a gamist premise is a framed competition (something else I dispute), then Clinton must be wrong.
I just find the whole thing completely incomprehensible.
The Egrian approach to premise is located in the narrative proper. This is why Egri places such emphasis on introducing your conflict straight away, not revealing anything which fails to support the premise, that sort of thing.
When did Egri become the issue? Later, you say the issue is muddled - no one else brought this up that I can see. Talk about one model at a time.
However, when Clinton tried to rationalise the listed gamist premises, all of his approaches analyse the mechanics. Not one of them addresses a specific scenario or event, as Ron's initial gamist premises did ("can I survive tonights bloodbath").
Thus, I think we are trying to use two incompatible approaches to premise (one located in the narrative, one located in the mechanics). If Clinton is right and it is the mechanics which define gamist rpemise, then Rons premises are false. And if Ron is right, in essentially saying that a gamist premise is a framed competition (something else I dispute), then Clinton must be wrong.
This may sound harsh on Ron, but my examples were different from his because he doesn't primarily play or enjoy Gamist games (which he admits). He and I in no way disagreed - I just have a deeper appreciation for my inner Gamist. (Not that Ron doesn't - geez, the disclaimers are getting thick lately.)
Mechanics do not define Gamist premise - they define Premise in all games which are constructed well, wherever these games may fall. I see your point that they don't have to define Premise - but I believe you'll find a game much less enjoyable if they do not.
I just find the whole thing completely incomprehensible.
This is primarily because you keep bringing new models and misapplications of quotes into the discussion - not bad things, but they tend to muddle the situation. Re-read it from the beginning, and it should refresh your memory.
And... Premise in the Pool, above, anyone? I'm interested in whether my idea holds up.
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On 2001-10-22 09:11, Clinton R Nixon wrote:
Mechanics do not define Gamist premise - they define Premise in all games which are constructed well, wherever these games may fall. I see your point that they don't have to define Premise - but I believe you'll find a game much less enjoyable if they do not.
And since Mechanics and Premise (in my opinion) are heavily intertwined, it makes sense that a Gamist game would rely on competitive mechanics, and these will probably be more noticable. A game with a N or S bent should have mechanics supporting that, though they may be less obvious if you aren't looking for them. In Gamist games, the rules tend to stick out a little more (there's that misconception that good Gamist = more Rules, at least that's what it seems commercial games (D&D and Rune, for example) support).
Uh, guys? I suggest that this thread has matured well past the point when it should have reproduced - perhaps to the point of metastasis. Gamism, Premises for Gamism, and so on really ought to hop into threads headed by specific issues, questions, or claims.
Many thanks,
Ron
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When did Egri become the issue? Later, you say the issue is muddled - no one else brought this up that I can see. Talk about one model at a time.
There are references to Egris discussion of premise in the initial article and in subsequent posts.
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Mechanics do not define Gamist premise - they define Premise in all games which are constructed well, wherever these games may fall. I see your point that they don't have to define Premise - but I believe you'll find a game much less enjoyable if they do not.
Be that as it may, you seem to agree that my initial claim is correct: that framing the GAMIST as "tonights competition" is erroneous; it is not a gamist premise at all.
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This is primarily because you keep bringing new models and misapplications of quotes into the discussion - not bad
I most certainly did not - in fact I went out and bought bloody Egri on the basis of trying to understabnd Ron's approach to premise.
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And... Premise in the Pool, above, anyone? I'm interested in whether my idea holds up.
Well, personally I don't think that to say gamist games have a premise in the mechanics means anything significant, because it does not absolve us of the need to discuss premise as it occurs in an actual game, which DOES have a pseudo-narrative structure. On the other hand, the pool appears to be heavily gamist because of the resource management structure (NOTE: not because of the presence or absence of competition), so I don't understand why it is described as intended for narrative play if System Does Matter.
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aren't looking for them. In Gamist games, the rules tend to stick out a little more (there's that misconception that good Gamist = more Rules, at least that's what it seems commercial games (D&D and Rune, for example) support).
I am intrigued to see what sort of game you would propose for this gamist, who is non-competitive and a rules minimalist.