Simulation exploring story vs narativism

[Fabrice G.]

Hi everyone,

IIRC all act of roleplaying are exploration of some kind. Then, narativism is the exploration of Premise.

What is sim. exploraton of story then ?

In witch way the later differ from narativism ?
I've read the essay, but this one is still blurry for me.

I know this is one of the "toutchy" subject of the GNS classification, and a  cause of debate.

I would want to add that this question is NOT intented to bring uncoolness, or about "flaming" (?) GNS, but is really for my personnal understanding.

Thanks,

Fabrice

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Fabrice,

I appreciate the question you're asking, but you're throwing around some terms in a way that's going to cause some trouble ...

"Exploring story" is an oxymoron. The things that can be Explored are: Situation, Character, Setting, Color, and System. They can't be Explored in isolation from one another, mostly, although emphases can be very different. "Story" is not an imagined element; it is an outcome of play, and it can be produced in a wide variety of ways across all of GNS.

Therefore, if you consider that a group can look back over their play and see a "story" as a result of many different processes, much of your question evaporates. To pick just one example, if you have the production of this "story" as the top priority of play as evidenced through decisions during play, wowsers, Narrativism. To pick just one more, if it occurs because the "story" was front-loaded by the GM and the players were happily Exploring Character and/or Setting while said story played out, you have ... amazingly enough, Exploration of the relevant elements as the priority, which by definition was Simulationist play. And one more "just one more," if it occurs because the elements of competition included the ability to manipulate Situation (e.g. Pantheon), then the priority of play was the win/lose strategizing, and it was Gamist play.

It's way easier than people make it.

Best,
Ron

[Fabrice G.]

Thanks Ron !

Actually it fit quite well with my way of seing it. All the referance i saw about sim. exploration of story just confused things for me.

Oe more question for you, in your article you say that all act of roleplaying are about exploration. In your last post you clearly explain hat the basic elements being explored were: character, setting, color and situation. Where does the Premise stand in all this ?

(again, it's not a kind of personal attack to you Ron, I just want to clarify all this).

Fabrice.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Fabrice,

No worries - remember, I don't perceive questions as criticisms or attacks. And further, "attacks" are easily dealt with, so they don't stress me out anyway.

Let's review, because you still misquoted slightly: the FIVE elements of Exploration are Character, Setting, Situation, System, and Color. You can see that the first three are heavily interlinked, and that System is essentially a set of agreements about how to establish "what happens" as an imagined event, and that Color is anything that "deepens" or "heightens" any of the others.

Premise arises out of imagining these things. It comes in several levels, which some people are getting confused.

The first level of Premise is merely being interested, personally, in some combination of the five Explored elements, enough to want to role-play at all.

The second level of Premise is a group thing, and it is expressed in terms of GNS and actual play. We are now talking about priorities regarding what to do, during play, with our five Explored elements. Shall we author a story about them? Narrativist play. Shall we compete/challenge regarding any aspect of them? Gamist play? Shall we put maximal effort into imagining them, as such? Simulationist play.

During role-playing, however, that second kind of Premise gets a real workout and becomes very individualized to that one group, using that particular game. Here is where we find all the nuances of Stance, Currency, Resolution, IIEE, and more. Although (for instance) all Narrativist play has the general goal of "let's author a story" about or using those five elements, different groups who conform to this basic similarity are going to display very different profiles at this level.

[A lot of discussion at the Forge deals with all the variety within Narrativist Premise alone, but that does not mean it is the only kind of Premise.]

I suggest that many groups reach that first level of Premise very easily. However, I also suggest that they try to deal with all the details of role-playing (e.g. IIEE, Resolution, Currency, Stance) without having at least considered the intermediate, or GNS level of goals. Without the "second sort" of Premise being at least compatible among the group during play, they may get into some very painful negotiations at this "deepest" leve.

Now finally, back up and consider all these things at once - and plant them in the middle of all the socializing, romance, friendship, negotiations, rivalries, and resentments that any group of people bring to a situation. It's important to remember that none of the above theory exists in isolation from all the normal human interactions going on.

Best,
Ron