What is the metagame goal of Sim?

[Jonathan Walton]

Jack, I agreed with you on the necessity of Character.  What I'm saying is that individual players don't require their own characters for Sim play or you can play Sim withou having a character of your own.

There still have to be characters, but they can be other player's characters.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Jack, I agreed with you on the necessity of Character.  What I'm saying is that individual players don't require their own characters for Sim play or you can play Sim withou having a character of your own.

Ah, then we argee, then.

[Silmenume]

Jack, I agreed with you on the necessity of Character.  What I'm saying is that individual players don't require their own characters for Sim play or you can play Sim without having a character of your own.

Ah, then we argee, then.

OK – here comes the great irony in all of this.

My assertions about Character and Situation in Sim had errors but not for the reasons stated above.  My assertion wasn't about character ownership at all, but that in Sim players could only address Situation via a character.  It didn't matter whether the player owned the character or not, just that he was using a character under his control at that moment when he was addressing Situation.  In other words, the action of addressing Situation had to be handled entirely insitu, no metagame tools allowed.  But the information given here as well as the many actual game examples given at the Universalis site clearly demonstrated otherwise.

I will say that reading those examples was both fascinating and down right troubling (for my theory that is!)  The game examples were definitely not Gamist nor Narrativist in nature, they were Sim, but in a manner I had never seen before.  So much of the effort and focus was on Situation that I was really treading water trying to fit it into my Character centric model.  And it finally dawned on me...

Sim isn't about Exploring Character per say, its about the interaction between Character and Situation.  The key is that in Sim there are two general areas that can be focused on while addressing Situation.  The most common form is addressing Situation via Character via limitations and how Character does respond/grow while working out the problems in the Situation.  The less common form, and the one that is so amazingly handled in Univeralis is focused on creating Situation and then throwing characters at it to see where the Situation ends up.  Universalis is a Situation focused game, but Characters must be employed in order explore the Situation and see what happens.  What ties these two seemingly unrelated forms of Sim together is that they both focus on the actual interaction between the two elements, Character and Sim as the means by which they attain their goals.  We mix Character and Situation together to see what happens and have a good time doing it, they just come at the problem from two different sides and with two different emphasis.

In Universalis they are not playing with Premises, but story ideas – conflicts!  Then Characters are thrown in to see where the STORY goes!  In Character focus Sim the Characters are the focus and situational elements are developed around them to see how the Character's respond.  It's still Sim because it's that Char/Sit interaction for its own sake – not for Victory or Theme but just because we find that Char/Sit dynamic fascinating!  Characters in Situation focus games (Universalis) while lesser in importance, do serve a vital purpose and are created specifically so as to be able to support the address of the specific conflicts that have been created by the players.  Not any ol' Character will do!  Oh no!  They must have a reason for being brought into the Situation.  Note - this is quite the opposite historically of most Character focus Sim games which regularly fail utterly to design Situations that are specifically tailored to facilitate the address of Charter and by extension Player specific needs and desires.  Char focus Sim still needs to grow up.  

In both these styles of Sim play, its not an either or, but a slider between the two extremes.  However it appears that the forms these two focuses take in actual play, while both Sim, are radically different from each other.

Anyhow, that is my epiphany for the night.  I think it is pretty spiffy and goes along way to explaining what Sim is about and its metagame goals.  At least I think so.

Any comments?

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume

[M. J. Young]

I think Jay has resolved much of this already; but let me take a peek at a few points.

Character is not sacred nor central in simulationism?

?I disagree that it must be the anchor. I think you can have absolutely simulationist role playing games in which each player plays a nation, or an ideal, or an emotion, or a military unit.

I cannot disagree with you more.  Character is to Sim what Challenge is to Gamism and Premise is to Narrativism.  One cannot play Sim without a Character.  Period.

The simulationist is interested in learning, in knowledge, in discovery; he is driven by curiosity.

Of the four individuals who posted above not one listed anything about learning, but rather experiencing.  While they may be the only four, or five as I count myself amongst them, the assertion that all Simulationists are motivated by learning, knowledge or discovery is not supported.  Mike Holmes very clearly stated that he wants "to feel that the imagined world has an independent reality of sorts of it's own. Not to "know" that it does."  Here a Simulationist very clearly states that it is not Knowledge or thirst thereof that drives him.  Yes, Discovery can be a goal, yes it is a legitimate goal, but as Eero Tuovinen put it for more elegantly than I could ever hope to say, it is a pedagogic goal, not representative of any specific CA.

Well, I dunno. Maybe I'm not cut out for this discussion. What you have here is a good start and a good start is half begun. That is, how long before a character, any character, must appear in this story about the dark evil? Does it matter that a character does not appear in this first sentence?

Sim isn?t about Exploring Character per say, its about the interaction  between Character and Situation....What ties these two seemingly unrelated forms of Sim together is that they both focus on the actual interaction between the two elements, Character and Sim [sic] as the means by which they attain their goals.

Universalis is an excellent example of simulationist play in which situation can be addressed directly by players without the intervening instrumentality of characters; thanks go to Jonathan for calling it to our attention.

It also points up another overlooked fact in this discussion: the referee in a simulationist game is also playing in a simulationist mode (if the group is playing coherently), and might not at any point invoke a character to do so. What Universalis brings into focus by giving to every player is the same credibility that is given to the referee in a more traditional game: the ability to define and manipulate setting, situation, and color directly, without the intervention of character.

I'll point to my Applied Theory article to remind 1) that characters in role playing games are tools for exploration, which work best when they are designed to do the job for which they are intended, whatever that job may be; and 2) that although it is unusual, it is not inimical to simulationist play to apportion credibility such that players can directly impact setting and situation without the instrumentality of characters (stance), for which Universalis is a fine example.

You challenge my assertion that "Discovery" is the metagame goal of simulationism by citing several people who speak of "Experiencing" as the point of play. The problem is that this is not a contradiction. Experiencing is a subcategory of Discovery; it is direct learning, understanding something by experiment.

I had a notion of an example for this; it may be superfluous now that Universalis has been mentioned, but I'll sketch it very briefly anyway. At the moment there are a couple of robotic probes on the surface of Mars. It would not be difficult to hypothesize a similar group of probes sent to a distant planet perhaps in another stellar system. These are the player characters. They have specific abilities selected from a list, based on cost factors. They are limited artificial intelligence probes whose mission is to gather information about the planet that their creators might find interesting, and to transmit that information back to earth several light years away. As player characters, our involvement is entirely in discovering the setting; situation is extremely limited, and character is nearly non-existent. However, if I can be interested in the information such real probes provide (which I am), and I can be interested in imaginary worlds in great detail (which I am), this becomes a simulationist role playing game in which I am exploring a planet as a robotic probe. Setting is everything in this game, and as long as there is detail to the setting, the game remains interesting.

I once played in a Multiverser world for a very long time in which all I did was explore the setting and devise protections against its dangers so I could continue to explore the setting. I discovered a great many things about that place that no player had ever known before, uncovering its history, biology, chemistry, and more; but I never came to the end of what was there. Character mattered only in that I imputed to my character the desire to know these things, so I could discover them. Situation mattered only in that I was attempting to stay alive and continue exploring. It was a setting-driven game at that point, and I loved it.

So one problem with your assertion that the character/situation connection is the vital element of simulationist play is that it isn't; simulationism may well be the agendum in which the character/situation connection is the least important.

Which is the other problem with your assertion: the character/situation connection is of vital importance in both narrativist and gamist play, to the degree that "characters" are employed. That is, stepping away from "character" and talking about something less specific, let's call them "player agents"--the entities within the game over which the players have control. In gamism, play revolves around player agents facing challenge in situations. In narrativism, play revolves around player agents acting in ways that address premise and produce theme. That character/situation link is vital to play in those agenda. Yet as I just suggested, heavy exploration of setting may be a very intense simulationist experience, within which neither character nor situation are terribly important except as they support exploration of setting. The player agent in that case is a pawn used to convey information from the game world to the player. It could very much be one of those robotic probes in my suggested exploratory role playing game.

I hope this helps.

--M. J. Young

[Mike Holmes]

The one example of play that really comes to mind, and I'm not sure if this was referenced, was the game in which I and two friends played out "the future" of Earth's history. There were no characters, per se, created. I think Bill Gates got mentioned, but he was merely color. The only created components were nations, and organizations like the UN and mass endavors like, IIRC, there was a lunar colony or somthing. It was all kept on the macro level to ensure that we'd get through several decades at least.

From one POV, nations in this game were characters. That is, they were entities to which actions were attributed. But the problem is that's the point where setting and character start to blur. When is something setting, and when is it character? In Universalis we just don't make a distinction. It's a "Component" in the game. And players use components to create action with meaning. And that's the important part.

Mike

[Jack Spencer Jr]

From one POV, nations in this game were characters. That is, they were entities to which actions were attributed. But the problem is that's the point where setting and character start to blur. When is something setting, and when is it character? In Universalis we just don't make a distinction. It's a "Component" in the game. And players use components to create action with meaning. And that's the important part.

I think Mike makes a valid point. Does the distinction really need to be made between setting and character or any of the elements like this? Does having them labeled correctly gain anything? Is something gained by proving the existence of "characterless" play, which seems to be the direction the conversation has taken, for good or ill.

Personally, I don't think so. I take the view Mike makes above in the quoted portion. I think of it sort of like a gerund, which is a verb that acts like a noun, as in singing in We admired the choir's singing. Therefore I think Mike took setting elements and used them as character elements because in all roleplaying, all five elements of roleplaying are present.

EDIT: another point in the discussion seems to be some belief that character needs to be one's own character. I don't think that's true, nor do many people here, but it's coming from somewhere, it seems.

[Caldis]

Just to throw a monkey wrench into the discussion, what makes Universalis (or The Pool) Simulationist?  I've seen this claim a few times but I just dont get it, it does nothing to help you experience a situation, it doesnt help you 'discover' something only create.  

In his review of the game Ron labelled it narrativist and I can see that since any player can decide what is important in the game by spending coins on it and increasing it's worth or by creating a new scene.

Personally I tend to think of it as something outside of roleplaying and maybe beyond GNS but within roleplaying I dont see it fitting in the simulationist mold.

[Silmenume]

Hey Caldis!

I love your question, and would love to explore it, but not here please!  I invite you to post a link here to that conversation if you wish, but I would still like to try and discuss what Sim is, not how certain games are or are not Sim as I'm still trying to hash that out right now.

Sorry if I am being a butt head...

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume

[Caldis]

Hey Caldis!

I love your question, and would love to explore it, but not here please!  I invite you to post a link here to that conversation if you wish, but I would still like to try and discuss what Sim is, not how certain games are or are not Sim as I'm still trying to hash that out right now.

Sorry if I am being a butt head...

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume

No problem.  I'll start that elsewhere, likely at a later date.  I posted it here because it seemed to fit since it was the main piece of proof used to disprove your inital point, even though in my mind it doesnt.

[Silmenume]

Hey M. J.,

First of all, for the sake of this particular discourse, I really like the idea of "player agent" as a working definition for Character.  It still implies entity without necessarily denoting individual flesh and blood being.

That being said, the example you gave of the Robotic Probes and your Setting heavy emphasis does not refute my Sim definition (as proposed and still up for debate) of Character/Situation interaction.  To me, your example is the Sim equivalent of low Step on Up, low Challenge Gamist play.  Allow me some latitude, if you would while I try and work out an analogy please!

Lets take a look at the Gamist model

[*]Competition at the Step On Up level = conflict of interest regarding players' performance and impact on the game-world.
[*]Competition at the Challenge level = conflict of interest among Characters' priorities (survival, resource accumulation, whatever) in the game-world.[/list:u]
Now lets apply that to Sim –

[*]Exploration goal/interest at the Metagame level = Desire to create and/or experience a synthetic reality (story creation or Character creation – like story creation, Character creation is not just a one time roll up but the continual process of adding to Character).  (Desire for the kind of Dream)
[*]Exploration goal/interest at the Situation level = conflict among Characters' goals (survival, desire to explore the imagined physical Setting, whatever) vs. events/elements in the game-world.  (Creating the Dream)[/list:u]
Low Exploration in both levels = strong focus on the Synthetic Reality but with little desire for conflict resulting in low Exploration of Situation/Character.

To go back to your example, it appeared that you had low or no interest in addressing Situation/Character but a high interest in the Synthetic Reality.  You had a Character, a robotic probe, with a Goal to explore the physical Setting that succeeded wildly.  Little was revealed (or created) about the Character because little conflict (Situation) was encountered, as was a natural consequence of your creative inclinations.  You had a game that brilliantly yielded what you desired; lots of Setting information while creating little Story (few dramatic events) and little Character.

However, had you not addressed Situation at all, met not one single conflict, then there would have been no Exploration as defined in the Big Model.  IOW you would have had a travelogue or nothing more than a description, but no story.  Secondly, if Situation was never addressed then it would have been Zilchplay as no CA could be accounted for.  As you did address Situation, even on an extremely limited basis, a CA could be ascribed, as all the elements of Exploration were then present.  As you have indicated, and I fully understand, you had little if any interest in Situation and Character in the example of play that you had shared.  However, CA expression, how one approaches Exploration, mandates address of Situation as Exploration must include Situation, even if it is in the tiniest amounts, or its not Exploration.  Yet, when you did have to face that rare occurrence of Situation, even if it was something you didn't have any interest in, you prioritized your choice to be that of Character interest (even if it was entirely pawn stance – something like, "M. J. is interested in searching out things in this synthetic world") over Challenge or Premise addressing.

Like low Step on Up/low Challenge Gamism where it would be difficult to even see Gamism in operation as one could easily spent the vast majority of their time enjoying other areas of Exploration, the same applies to the Simulationist example you gave.  In such a Gamist game one could reasonably ask, are they even playing Gamist if they are hardly addressing Situation?  As long as they do approach the few Situations from a Gamist perspective the answer according the Big Model would be, yes.  From another theoretical perspective such play is perilously close to being described as Zilchplay.  This is not to say that such play is without value, but rather it seems to exhibit no discernable CA as it doesn't provide many data points due to the lack of address of Situation.  

Yet as I just suggested, heavy exploration of Setting may be a very intense simulationist experience, within which neither Character nor Situation are terribly important except as they support exploration of Setting.

There are several problems with this statement.  The first problem is the usage of the term exploration.  You are conflating the general meaning of exploration: To search into or travel in for the purpose of discovery; exploring outer space - with the Forge definition of Exploration as the process whereby information is added into the Shared Imagined Space which process must include System, Setting, Character, Situation (I'm not sure if Color is required or not).  Using the Forge definition within your statement, "heavy exploration of Setting" means creating much information about Setting into the SIS.  Using the general usage of exploration would describe game play whereby player-agents/Characters spent much time investigating the "in-game" geography.  The second problem is the assertion that exploration of Setting (either the act of creating Setting information into the SIS or investigating the fictional geography) is a Sim CA priority.  This conflating of the two meanings is deadly when trying to untangle is this particular problem.  One cannot Explore Color the same way one can explore/investigate Setting.  For clarity's sake I humbly request that another term, like investigate be employed when discussing the "in-game" act of detailed inquiry or systematic examination of geography and leave the term Exploration for the process of adding information into the SIS.

Which is the other problem with your assertion: the Character/Situation connection is of vital importance in both narrativist and gamist play, to the degree that "Characters" are employed.

I agree that the Character/Situation connection is of vital importance to both narrativist play, but for both of those two Agenda it is a tool/process for addressing Challenge or Premise, things outside the SIS.  With Simulationism I believe the Character/Situation connection is enjoyed for how it affects the SIS as an end unto itself – making more of that evanescent Dream.  This is why I believe Universalis does fall into Sim.

I feel, that despite instances whereby metagame tools can be employed to create, manipulate, or alter the outcome of Situation, Roleplay is still basically a process whereby player-agents (to a greater or lesser degree) must grind through "in-game"/SIS conflicts.  This can account for a lot or a little amount of time played, but that basically equates to strong or weak expression of CA.  In what fashion the players approach SIS conflicts determines which CA is expressed.  Strong or weak expression of CA does not directly map to lots of fun or a really shitty time.  I know that I sound like a broken record on this but addressing conflict is the heartbeat of roleplay – no conflict – no heartbeat.  Remove all conflicts and you're not Exploring anymore.  This does mean to imply that all roleplayers must have a love for a rapid heartbeat, high Situation addressing games, to enjoy or love the game they are roleplaying.

It also points up another overlooked fact in this discussion: the referee in a simulationist game is also playing in a simulationist mode (if the group is playing coherently), and might not at any point invoke a Character to do so.

While the DM is a player, his role is very different in a game than that of the players.  And by "DM is a player" I mean that individual who is roleplaying that is at that moment engendering/discharging the powers of DM.  The powers of the role DM are very different from those of the players.  Even in Universalis, where so much credibility is vested into the players to carry out the duties of the DM, at the moment an individual player employs a power of the DM, they are for that moment a DM.  To equate player role with DM role is a little off the mark.

You challenge my assertion that "Discovery" is the metagame goal of simulationism by citing several people who speak of "Experiencing" as the point of play. The problem is that this is not a contradiction. Experiencing is a subcategory of Discovery; it is direct learning, understanding something by experiment.

The problem with that definition is that one can experience without intent and more importantly one can experience without learning.  Learning arises out of experience, thus learning is a subset of experience, not the other way around.  Experience means to become conscious of, as through the emotions or senses, which must happen before anything can be learned.  Thus one can be motivated to create experience for reasons other than learning, such as creating experiences of emotional or sensorial significance.

From one POV, nations in this game were Characters. That is, they were entities to which actions were attributed. But the problem is that's the point where Setting and Character start to blur. When is something Setting, and when is it Character?

To me Setting is any part of the SIS which is not a player-agent/Character and does not require or provoke a player-agent to make a decision.  A rock is a rock, Setting, unless, frex it is hurtling towards a player-agent then it becomes a Situation event as well.  A huge war could be raging, but if the player-agent is completely unaffected by it that war is Setting, background material and nothing more.  NPC's are Setting unless they conflict with the player-agents even if they are interacting with the player-agents.  Characters/player-agents are as you described, entities to whom actions were attributed that, I am assuming, were under player control at the time said actions were committed.

Wow, once again back to Zplay, and what it means to Explore.

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume

[contracycle]

The problem with that definition is that one can experience without intent and more importantly one can experience without learning. Learning arises out of experience, thus learning is a subset of experience, not the other way around. Experience means to become conscious of, as through the emotions or senses, which must happen before anything can be learned. Thus one can be motivated to create experience for reasons other than learning, such as creating experiences of emotional or sensorial significance.

I'm inclined to disagree, but I do so from the perspective that all games are autodidactic devices.  That is, lion cubs chasing each others tails might be said to be learning or playing interchangeably; I think it is precisely the case that learning arise automatically from experience that makes experience such a powerful indicator of competence.  I think all the 'sensoria significance' in games is in service to a learning agenda, consciously or otherwise.

A rock is a rock, Setting, unless, frex it is hurtling towards a player-agent then it becomes a Situation event as well. A huge war could be raging, but if the player-agent is completely unaffected by it that war is Setting, background material and nothing more.

I find myself unable to make the distinction.  That is, sure the war may be off-screen, but if a player character is conceptualised as "on the run from the army", the war has been brought into play (even if perhaps not at the foreground of play).  I can't think of a game setting that is not a moment as much as it was a place.  To my mind, setting and situation are pretty much the same entity.

I will distinguish however betweens situation as expression of setting, and situation as expression of dramatic intent.  this is why I prefer the terms foreground and background to discuss when setting is active and when passive, so to speak.

[M. J. Young]

Jay, I'm not saying that the five elements of role playing don't exist in all role playing. Even when "character" is reduced to "player agent", there is still a degree to which my robotic probes, or Mike's acting nations, are characters available for exploration.

What I hear you say is, "Character and its relationship to situation is always the most important thing in simulationist play."

I respond by saying, "No, sometimes character is very unimportant and sometimes situation is very unimportant, as for example setting may be the most important thing in a specific example of simulationist play." I provide an example.

You reply, "Ah, but character and situation still exist, which is what I'm saying."

Now I can't win. I've never said that character doesn't matter or situation doesn't matter; I've never said that setting, system, or color doesn't matter. I've only said that in simulationism, as in narrativism and gamism, it is possible for any one or more of these to be either a prime focus of exploration or an incidental matter in play, and especially so in simulationism, where the object is to discover that which is explored.

Let's look at it another way, maybe. If your theory is correct, and the relationship between character and situation is the metagame goal of simulationism, then it would follow that this distinguishes it from both narrativism and gamism. Yet it is clear that narrativism and gamism both are most commonly expressed through the character relationship to situation. They are character relationship to situation addressing premise, and character relationship to situation confronting challenge, respectively. So then, simulationism is character relationship to situation to what end? I say it is character relationship to situation for discovery, the creative exploration of elements within the shared imaginary space. Just as challenge can be "we killed the dragon" or as easily "we entered the dragon's cave and got away with our lives and a bit of treasure" or "I'm the only man alive who saw a dragon and lived to tell the tale"; just as premise can yield "power corrupts" or "moral fiber can overcome the corrupting influence of power"; so too discovery can yield information about the character, or the situation, or the setting, or the system, or the color.

Sure, there is always a relationship between character and situation, even when that relationship is "my robotic probe is gathering information on an alien world which its designers should find interesting" and all the discovery is really about the setting. But that's true for gamism and narrativism, too. It is more true for narrativism, where who the character is is far more likely to matter than in simulationism, and therefore must be explored in more detail (caricatures and pawns are effective characters in simulationist play, but almost never in narrativist play). In gamism, the character can be a pawn, but it still has to be a player agent responding to situation. Simulationism makes the lowest demand on the character/situation connection of the three agenda, because it has the greatest range of what can be explored.

--M. J. Young

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

M.J.'s nailed it, as far as I'm concerned.

Best,
Ron

[Silmenume]

Just so that we have a common reference points -

[*]The Shared Imagined Space is a term used to describe the notional arena/stage where the things we are doing are situated with reference to the real world e.g., the contest of Basketball takes place on a court.

[*]Exploration is the process whereby any and all information is added to the SIS – it does not require the address of Situation in its application.
Exploration is limited to and must include all the elements used in this process – all the Elements of Exploration.

[*]Creative Agenda is a concept that attempts to categorize and explain why we do the things we do during the process of Exploration (adding facts to the SIS.)

[*]Creative Agenda is defined by from what perspective players address Situation.

[*]When looking at the SIS, Creative Agenda can only be diagnosed by observing how the players attend to conflicts contained within Situation.

[*]Creative Agenda as a broad concept does not say why a player is having fun, but rather attempts to say that a player is having fun doing X in the SIS, because I see him doing that allot; X being how the player addresses conflict/Situation.

[*]As Creative Agenda as a concept is concerned with the address of Situation and Exploration is not, no CA, including Simulationism is the same as Exploration.[/list:u]

What I hear you say is, "Character and its relationship to situation is always the most important thing in simulationist play."

OK.  Fair enough.  Let me see if I can clear this up a little because that is not what I am attempting to say.

I am saying that Character and its interaction with Situation is the element that both defines and illuminates which Creative Agenda in action.

The game you described wasn't Simulationist because you investigated much of the planet's geography, but because the few times you addressed Situation it was from a Sim perspective.  Definitionally and Diagnostically Sim is as bound to the address Situation as is Gamism and Narrativism.

I am NOT saying that one must be focused on that dynamic as the only way to play Sim, rather one must approach Situation from that perspective (whatever that might be) if the game is to be diagnosed as Sim.  Approach to Situation and game focus (real time spent) are not the same thing.  I have argued and am attempting to argue and define just what that approach to Situation is, how it works, and what defines it.  I have never once mentioned that a game must be focused on that interaction, but I do say that Approach is definitional.

Mea culpa for lasering in on what I am trying to figure out what Sim is, by which I should have been clearer that I am speaking about a section of the model, and not preambling my efforts consistently, clearly and continuously.  Yes I am approaching Sim from a "hardcore" point of view, but only to try and figure out what that metagame goal is and how it works, just like one might approach Gamism from the Hardcore point of view to try and figure out just what its metagame goal is with a minimum of interfering or noise causing distractions.  For this purpose I am concentrating as much Sim CA as possible so as to be able to distill its essence.  You have taken my efforts to mean that I am prescribing game focus.  I am not.  I am discussing what makes a CA, Sim specifically.

What I am hearing from you is that just adding details to the SIS (investigating geography which then places much Setting information into the SIS) is partly definitional of the Sim CA.  If that was not your intent, then I'll just have to shut my gibbering pie-hole on that particular topic.  If that was your intent, then I disagree.  In fact such a game as you described would be almost impossible to diagnose because there were so few places from which to gather data points.  The game could very nearly be diagnosed as Zilchplay as it would have been almost impossible to diagnose its CA.

"No, sometimes character is very unimportant and sometimes situation is very unimportant, as for example setting may be the most important thing in a specific example of simulationist play."

What I am hearing from you is that just adding details to the SIS (investigating geography which then places much Setting information into the SIS) is partly definitional of the Sim CA.  If that was not your intent, then I'll just have to shut my gibbering pie-hole on that particular topic.  If that was your intent, then I disagree.  In fact such a game as you described would be almost impossible to diagnose because there were so few places from which to gather data points.  The described game could very nearly be diagnosed as Zilchplay as it would have been almost impossible to diagnose its CA.  Investigating Setting is not CA specific activity until it can be mapped back to the address of Situation.

To parse your quote as I interpreted it, not necessarily as you intended it, is that Simulationism is not defined in the interaction of Situation and Character because they are not important to the Simulationism CA.  I say they are critical to defining and diagnosing the Sim CA, but I also say they do not have to be the focus or the most important thing the players attend to.  I was attempting to argue from a point of view where they were the most important thing to try and make manifest just what those defining things were.

Thus for the purposes of trying to determine what the metagoal of the Sim CA is, as well as how it works I am going to continue to approach this problem as if this interaction is the focus of play.  Not because that form of play (heavy focus on Char/Sit interaction) is the only way the Sim CA can be expressed, but for the purposes of creating as many data points as possible.

I hope that I have in some ways addressed your complaint about me creating what appeared to be a logical conundrum for you.

So then, simulationism is character relationship to situation to what end?

That is the million-dollar question that I started this whole thread for!

The operation of CA in Gamism its to create winning strategies to the Challenge contained in Situation.  The operation of CA in Narrativism its to create answers to the Premise question contained in Situation.  Thus it follows that the operation of CA in Simulationism its to create _______ to ________ contained in Situation.

But I think Sim is different, so I would phrase the question as such –

The operation of CA in Simulationism its to create responses to character specific conflicts contained in Situation.

This does not mean one is focusing on character, as one could be more interested in the creation of the conflicts/story directly.  IOW these created responses could be for the purpose of revealing (creating more) character or moving (creating more) story.

This does not mean that players desire only to focus on this process, as they can be interested in attending to many other things such as Setting or employment of mechanics.

This does mean that when the players do address Situation they do prioritize their response along the lines laid out above over that of Challenge or Premise.

Note in Gamism the stakes are designed outside the SIS, among the players, much as Premise is in Narrativism.  What are we designing outside the SIS that we bring into play that directs our course in Sim?  OR are we designing anything outside the SIS other than bringing into play a desire to be involved in the interaction of Character and Situation as an enjoyable experience in and of itself?

How is this dynamic different from Gamism and Narrativism?  Because in G/N the SIS is used in service of some goal, while in Sim there is no metric (victory or theme) to determine if the use of the SIS has been successful or not.  The players either enjoyed the process or not.  In Gamism and Narrativism there is an inherent metric involved that player actions are measured against, whether or not the players give it much heed.

Simulationism makes the lowest demand on the character/situation connection of the three agenda, because it has the greatest range of what can be explored.

I think that is more of a historical accident with all the incoherent Sim game design and theory which is backed up to a large in the general belief that Gamism and Narrativism seem so intuitive while Sim does not appear to be so.  The reason Sim seems less intuitive is because most Sim oriented DM's don't understand that Character/Situation relationship.  Design and theory has in the past focused on Setting, Mechanics, Color, Character Design, pre-fab Situations, but they have never focused on the dynamic between Character and Situation as what drives events forward story wise.  Now you can have games that don't focus on that drive, but most players do enjoy that dynamic but it has never been effectively delivered historically.  Coherent Gamist and Narrativist games do focus on Situation and the Character's interaction with it very solidly.

I do also believe that Sim does have the greatest range of what can be Explored, but I believe that vastness lies in the Character/Situation dynamic, not in the various elements of Exploration itself.  In fact I think that is the mistake Sim theory and design has made in the past, that somehow Sim isn't beholden to the Char/Sit dynamic.  Since so much effort was focused on these other elements of Exploration as an end unto themselves without designing them with the goal to facilitate the Character/Situation dynamic, all sorts of incoherence was designed and drift frequently entered when the players tried to find their way to that dynamic.

Yes Sim has the greatest range of what can be Explored, but that lies in that interaction between Character and Situation can be about anything, and not just a Challenge or a Premise.  Again I am NOT saying that this dynamic is the only thing Sim players are focusing on.  I am only saying that this dynamic is what drives their address of Situation when it does come up.

Contracycle I will address your post as soon as I can!

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume

[Silmenume]

In trying to keep myself from any more hot water and to prevent any more confusion allow me to clear up a colossal mistake in my previous post.  Since I can't edit it, here is the second bullet point as I had intended to write it.

[*]Exploration is the process/event whereby any and all information is added to the SIS – it does not require the address of Situation in every instance of Exploration's application/employment/invocation.
Exploration is limited to and must include all the elements used in this process – all the Elements of Exploration.[/list:u]

This is not meant to contradict or present new light on the meaning of the vocabulary of the word "Exploration", just an attempt to phrase it in a way that helps with the dissection of the issues I am trying to work on.

My apologies.

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume.