Since we're on a bit of a Sim kick...

[timfire]

What are sim-oriented games that do not use the typical heavy actor stance, or to put it another way, what are some sim games that break the tradtional mold?

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Pendragon does function mainly from the Actor Stance mode, but the player has the option to make the character's behavior depend on a roll, or to choose the behavior but accept a "check" for that end of the behavioral spectrum. It also has a Winter Phase (which influenced Black Fire and Orkworld, as well as others) in which everyone "wargames" the events of the year for each character, as the adventuring phase is quite brief in in-game time.

Ralph (Valamir) reminds me that any Stance is usable during any GNS sort of play, and that players will certainly hit Author Stance sometime even if they are playing (say) GURPS. But the question, for me, is whether non-Actor Stances are necessitated or at least strongly suited to particular mechanics in various Simulationist-oriented games.

Arguably, the bulk of creative satisfaction that frequent Author Stance achieves in Gamist and Narravist play is, in much Simulationist play, achieved via character creation before play, and via applying the reward system (i.e. extending character creation process) between sessions.

H'm, other games ... I'll muse.

Best,
Ron

[Landon Darkwood]

Ralph (Valamir) reminds me that any Stance is usable during any GNS sort of play, and that players will certainly hit Author Stance sometime even if they are playing (say) GURPS. But the question, for me, is whether non-Actor Stances are necessitated or at least strongly suited to particular mechanics in various Simulationist-oriented games.

Can you give an example of how Author/Director Stances would be 'mechanically supported' in a Sim context? My reflexive response to this quote was to say that I think Director and Author stance are used in Sim all the time, especially in games that have a very specific pastiche - the real person desires to motivate the actions of a character and the features of the environment in accordance to a particular gestalt, those actions being a tool to reinforce genre features or whatever you want to call them. Sometimes, you have to reach outside the internal features of a character for that kind of thing.

Example: In Decipher's Lord of the Rings RPG, much text is given to describe the degree to which normal people are generally good, honest, forthright, and deferential to lawful authority - regardless of what their other individual personality traits are. So, even if your character has certain flaws like Greed or whatever, you as player could be motivated to have your character act and speak such that he seems "like a hero in a Tolkien novel" as much as possible. Hence, you may play down his Greed flaw at times to fulfill that, because good people in Tolkien's world generally just don't act that way. Doing so reinforces the consistency of the pastiche, but is not dependent on what's on the character's sheet.

In Feng Shui, much text is given to using Director stance to bring environments to bear on in-game events (especially action scenes) in an appropriately cinematic way. You as player or GM can sometimes put explosive objects in convenient places during a stunt, etc.

On the other hand, you have that phrase "to particular mechanics" in there, which sort of changes things. In my experience, Director and Author stance usage in the Sim games I've played doesn't necessarily tie to a particular mechanic.

So, being that this is one of your points on 'how better Sim can be done', I am curious as to how you think mechanics can be brought into a greater correlation with Stance usage in Sim.


-Landon Darkwood

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Landon,

Well, you may be reading more into my word-choice of "particular mechanic" than is really there ... I would have picked the rules you're referring to in Feng Shui as a prime candidate. So no, nothing any more specific or isolated than that.

Oh - and your point about the role of Author Stance in specific-pastiche Sim play is absolutely accurate. Good call.

Best,
Ron