GNS and "Congruency"

[Le Joueur]

Fang's blood-type analogy reminds me of a point I forgot to make: since congruence applies to a particle, only a pervasive pattern of congruence has any meaning at higher levels. So when I say something like "congruence is by definition one form of coherence," I mean that pervasive congruence throughout play, not some small number of individual instances, would result in coherence.

An open question is, how pervasive can congruence be? To borrow Fang's analogy, do any "Type O" people exist, or does everyone inevitably have enough "A", "B" etc. particles that they must fall into some other type? If pervasive congruence is not a real phenomenon, then as Fang says the applicability of the concept is very limited.

I believe pervasive congruence is real and in fact fairly common, which is why specific occurrences that introduce additional unnecessary incongruence (such as a particular scene where OOC knowledge suddenly becomes an issue) cause noticeable problems in play.

I see, congruence is like a coherency to something, not necessarily a singular GNS mode.  In that case I like it, because that makes it possible to begin to name other styles without getting them confused with whatever GNS mode they might be 'nearest.'  Id est; style does not equal mode.  There could be a style, say Munchausen style, that has a lot in common with the mode of Narrativism, but...not...quite...enough (to be 'pure' Narrativism, making it like those 'functional hybrids' Ron allows).  You play congruent to Munchausen style in a fashion parallel to coherent Narrativism.

Now do I have it right?

Fang Langford (Who's trying really hard to get it.)

[Walt Freitag]

Hi Fang,

Unfortunately, no. That's not really what I mean by congruence and I also think you're misintepreting coherence too, though I'll let Ron speak to that.

For what it's worth, I'm not making any assumptions, and have not yet reached any conclusions, about the validity or usefulness of congruence as a concept. Therefore, your difficulty with it might just be you correctly perceiving its emptiness ahead of the rest of us. (I don't really believe that myself, or I wouldn't have brought the idea up in the first place, but peer review must decide the issue.)

Congruence isn't "to" something, it's "between" (usually) two modes. Such a congruence would, however, be typical of a functional hybrid style. So you're not too far off.

Congruence, applied to the "substance" level and to actual practice, is about minimizing the visible consequences of any conflict that may exist between simultaneous divergent GNS goals. Attempting to ensure congruence in play means attempting to make sure that as players make decisions to advance their goals, those decisions do not conflict with other goals that are simultaneously in play (such as the goals of the other participants, or other different goals espoused by the same system) even though those goals might differ in fundamental ways (across GNS lines). Thus, congruence is a quality (perhaps the main quality, though that's just speculation) that helps functional hybrids be functional.

Fang, I do appreciate that you do me the honor of trying really hard to get it. (No sarcasm intended. I mean it.) So please, keep asking questions.

Oh, and I apologize to those who found the choice of term confusing or counterintuitive. I believe it appears more appropriate when the idea is more clearly understood, but I could be delusional. The idea behind the choice of the term is that at any given decision point, you can ask, "what would the G decision, S decision, and N decision be?" It might work out like this:

G: attack the orc (he's worth EPs!)
S: run away (my character's never seen one before, he's probably scared out of his wits!)
N: attack the orc (that way, my morally fragile character can be all remorseful and angst-ridden about it later, oh goody!)

The visible results of the G and N decisions are the same, that is, congruent, so if the player does indeed attack the orc, it's a G-N congruent decision.

The real problem, I guess, is "incongruent" which even I find counterintuitive even though it's the clear opposite of congruent. "Incongruent" really means "telling" or "focused" or perhaps "pervy." I'd use "progruent" instead if it weren't such an ugly snarling beast of a word.

- Walt

[Ron Edwards]

Hey Walt,

This may seem like an enormously stupid question, and indeed it may be, but for me, right now, it's the crux of the whole issue.

Technically, can one say that one person's N decision and another person's N decision are congruent?

That is, I see what you mean regarding congruence between one person's G and one person's N (or whatever). If I'm not mistaken, if they both make an N decision, they have achieved congruence in the "easiest" (obvious) way.

Or, conversely, does the term only apply when the two or more decisions are necessarily different in GNS terms?

And if that's the case, then does congruence apply if two people make N decisions, but their type of N is very different? Because such a difference is potentially incoherent, say if I am playing N-wise with lots of Drama and a specific tradeoff between Actor-Author stances, and you are playing N-wise with heavy Fortune-in-the-Middle and precisely the opposide tradeoff in stances.

Best,
Ron

[Le Joueur]

Congruence isn't "to" something, it's "between" (usually) two modes. Such a congruence would, however, be typical of a functional hybrid style. So you're not too far off.

A better way of saying what I thought I was saying but-it-didn't-come-out-that-way, I haven't read (today at least).

Fang, I do appreciate that you do me the honor of trying really hard to get it. (No sarcasm intended. I mean it.) So please, keep asking questions.

Aw, shucks...okay.

The real problem, I guess, is "incongruent" which even I find counterintuitive even though it's the clear opposite of congruent. "Incongruent" really means "telling" or "focused" or perhaps "pervy." I'd use "progruent" instead if it weren't such an ugly snarling beast of a word.

Aren't you conflating incongruent with coherent now?  (That would give congruency/incongruency a one-to-one relation with incoherency/coherency, rendering it useless.)  It seems to me one could have an incongruent, incoherent game (which would be just lousy with its GNS consistency).  If anything the way you're putting it now makes coherency sound like reflexive congruency.  If it's G-N and it's congruent, then if it's G-G then it's reflexively congruent or coherent.

Thinking it over now, I think 'incongruent' as implied by this use of the term 'congruent' has no meaning.  I mean the opposite of a stable union of two particles is not elemental (H2O is stable and H2 is elemental), it's unstable.  That means incongruent would basically mean games that don't work; a pointless thing to define.  The important point is that you didn't define that, it's just the extension of the verbal analogy.

(Any closer?)

Fang Langford

[Walt Freitag]

Hi Ron,

Technically, can one say that one person's N decision and another person's N decision are congruent?

That is, I see what you mean regarding congruence between one person's G and one person's N (or whatever). If I'm not mistaken, if they both make an N decision, they have achieved congruence in the "easiest" (obvious) way.

Or, conversely, does the term only apply when the two or more decisions are necessarily different in GNS terms?

Okay, confusion is stemming from loosely applying congruence to the larger scale and it's coming uprooted from its original definition. Technically congruence is a quality of a single decision, not a comparitive between two different decisions. Congruence means you can't tell. If you can look at what a participant does and decide that an N decision was made, then that decision is incongruent. If you cannot tell whether it was an N decision or something else, then that decision is congruent between N and the something-else.

If two players both have N goals (for the moment, let's leave the specific sub-varieties of N goals out of it), and both make N decisions, then you have not achieved congruence (by definition, a demonstrably N decision is not a congruent decision) but you have achieved coherence in the simplest (I wouldn't say the easiest!) possible way. (A tiny sliver of coherence, at this scale).

If one player has N goals and one has G goals, but each makes a G-N congruent decision, then you have achieved (a tiny sliver of) coherence by means of congruence. If we could read their minds we might see that the first actually made his decision solely to advance his Gamist goals, and the second decided solely based on Narrativist motivations. But since the decisions themselves are congruent, neither's decision is visibly incompatible with the other's goals.

At present there is no definitional basis for calling their two decisions or any two decisions congruent (or not congruent) relative to one another. That, I believe, is the domain of coherence.

A decision is congruent, or not congruent, only with respect to two or more of the decision-making modes enumerated by the underlying model.

And if that's the case, then does congruence apply if two people make N decisions, but their type of N is very different? Because such a difference is potentially incoherent, say if I am playing N-wise with lots of Drama and a specific tradeoff between Actor-Author stances, and you are playing N-wise with heavy Fortune-in-the-Middle and precisely the opposide tradeoff in stances.

Actually, yes, but first let me rewrite the first sentence of your question: Does congruence apply to a decision when the issue at hand is not whether the decision is N or otherwise, but rather which of two or more very different kinds of N decision it is?

I did leave the door open to this sort of focusing down within a specific mode:

A congruent decision is a decision made by a participant (GM or player) during play that cannot, on the basis of the visible behavior resulting from the decision, be categorized as belonging to a specific mode of decision-making enumerated by the underlying model. In the context of the GNS model there are exactly four possible congruencies...

So, it all depends on the underlying decision-making model. If you are now working with a model that enumerates different types of N decision-making (call them N1, N2, ...) then you could indeed invoke the concept of e.g. N1-N2 congruence.

- Walt

[Danny Cline]

Hello,

I think some of the confusion here may be from a slightly unusual use of the word congruence (or congruent).

In Mathematics, the word congruent is used in conjunction with a relation between elements of a set.  We can define a relation between elements of a set such that two elements are either related to each other or not.  With certain additional properties this relation is called an equivalence relation, and if two elements of a set are related to each other via a given equivalence relation they are said to be equivalent or sometimes congruent.  Thus we'd say A is congruent to B if the two are related.

What it seems Walt is doing here is a shorthand form of this notation that may be confusing to those who have this background (or probably those who don't).  (If I am misinterpreting you, please don't hesitate to tell me so.)

First some basics:

The set we are looking at is the set of decisions a player might make at a given point in-game, including all things that are considered part of the decision from a GNS standpoint - primarily reasons and actions.  The equivalence relation (and it is an equivalence relation) says that decision A and decision B are related (congruent, equivalent) if the observable part of that decision, the results if you want, are identical.

So what's being said here seems to be that for a given decision-making opportunity, decision A and B are congruent if their outcomes are the same regardless of what went into making that decision.

Now, the confusing part may be the shorthand.  I believe that what Walt means when he says a decision is (for instance) G-N congruent is that a Gamist and a Narrativist decision one might make in that instance are equivalent (related, congruent), leading to a given outcome, the observable result.  This means that an outside observer cannot distinguish this particular Gamist choice from this particular Narrativist choice.  

Now, while this shorthand may be confusing there are very good reasons to use it here, as there can be more than one of each Gamist, Simulationist, and Narrativist choices available in a particular decision-making opportunity.  As such, it wouldn't be particularly clear to say that in a certain instance (for example) the Gamist decsion and the Simulationist decsion are congruent (related, equivalent) as there could easily be more than one possibility of each.  Nor would it be particularly useful to say that a Gamist decision and a Simulationist decision are congruent without somehow specifying which example of each we mean (which Walt does by including the observable result in his notation).

So when Walt says decision A is (for example) N-S congruent, what it means is that there exist both an N-decision and an S-decision which produce the same observable result: the result seen in decision A.  I hope this makes some of this a little more clear, though I know this kind of terminology may not be the most easily accessible.

I hope that I have not misinterpreted Walt in this post.  If I have I apologize.

Danny Cline

[Walt Freitag]

Danny,

Your analysis is correct with regard to my intended meanings. You've actually gone a step farther by pointing out that just because a particular decision that's been made is congruent, doesn't mean that all decisions that could have been made at that point are congruent.

Technically, the definition of congruence applies only to decisions already made. But your point is not moot, because when we try to apply congruence to larger scales, e.g. by speaking of encounter designs that encourage (some particular type of) congruent decision-making, we end up applying the concept of congruence to decisions likely to be made in the future. "What's likely" is the most we can say about such a future event. I don't know of any situation where it would be possible to say that every decision a participant could possibly make would be congruent. Heck, even in the most coherent pervy Narrativist situation, a participant could at any time haul off and make an obviously Gamist decision. (Ask yourself, if storytelling is the main goal, why do such systems take such pains to limit the number of "story points" or "hero points" participants have? Why not just give them all they want?)

However, in practice, I believe there are lots of cases where most of the reasonable decisions a character is likely to make in a situation are congruent. That's because even though congruence is defined in terms of visible results, it comes about because of a coinciding of underlying motivations and/or circumstances. If the player-character is a young ambitious former sorceror's apprentice without notable conflicts, and a bully calls him out in a tavern at the start of his first adventure, then his most likely choices, at least, are G-N-S congruent. If he accepts the challenge, it could be because the player wants the experience points, or because the character is young and confident and would act that way, or because it's a chance to get some kind of story going. If he refuses, it could be because the player doesn't like the odds, or because the character isn't quite so confident as to challenge a well-favored local bully on his home turf, or because the player doesn't want the story to develop that way. I'm sure there's some sensible decisions the player could make instead that would be unambiguously Gamist, or Simulationist, or Narrativist, but off hand I can't think of any.

(Note, however, the generic-ness of this example: the price, I believe, of its congruence.)

Fang, I understand the point in your last paragraph, but I disagree with it. The analogy of congruence as a stable union of two different particles is just close enough to be dangerous. Let me offer a different analogy: congruent is like optically unpolarized, incongruent is like polarized. Aligned is like Coherent in the sense you've used it, meaning oriented toward the same GNS goal. (I'll use capital-C Coherent to mean specificially that.) Unaligned is oriented toward diverse goals. Letting light through is like coherent in its most general definitional sense that Ron just restated, which is, compatible with all stated goals. (Lower-case c coherent)

polarized and unaligned (blocks light): incongruent, not Coherent, incoherent; dysfunctional

polarized and aligned (lets light through): incongruent, Coherent, coherent

unpolarized and aligned/unaligned (lets light through): (cannot say whether it's aligned or not, because the polarization defines the alignment): conguent, not Coherent, coherent

Does that help?

- Walt

[edited because I mixed up the cases in the last few lines, and again later because I said "Narrativist simulation" in the second paragraph when I meant "Narrativist situation"]

[Le Joueur]

I understand the point in your last paragraph, but I disagree with it. The analogy of congruence as a stable union of two different particles is just close enough to be dangerous. Let me offer a different analogy: congruent is like optically unpolarized, incongruent is like polarized. Aligned is like Coherent in the sense you've used it, meaning oriented toward the same GNS goal. (I'll use capital-C Coherent to mean specifically that.) Unaligned is oriented toward diverse goals. Letting light through is like coherent in its most general definitional sense that Ron just restated, which is, compatible with all stated goals. (Lower-case c coherent)

polarized and unaligned (blocks light): incongruent, not Coherent, incoherent; dysfunctional

polarized and aligned (lets light through): incongruent, Coherent, coherent

unpolarized and aligned/unaligned (lets light through): (cannot say whether it's aligned or not, because the polarization defines the alignment): congruent, not Coherent, coherent[/list:u]Does that help?

Actually it makes things more confusing.  Shouldn't there be four combinations?  You make alignment common with GNS so even "unpolarized" games can be in GNS 'alignment.'  Let me see if I can sum your point:

Code Select Expand

Type                   Light        Congruence   Coherence  coherence
----                   -----        ----------   ---------  ---------
polarized/unaligned    Opaque       incongruent  not GNS    incoherent
polarized/aligned      Transparent  incongruent  GNS        coherent
depolarized/unaligned  Transparent  congruent    not GNS    coherent
depolarized/aligned    Transparent  congruent    GNS        coherent
But that only means that congruent serves as a very technical way of saying a game (that is GNS inCoherent) does not have to be dysfunctional.  Unless there is some kind of interrelationship between Coherence and congruence (not a one-to-one relationship), isn't it without value?

As Ed says, "Oops there goes my brain again, turned off.  Buttered toast!"

While I am fascinated by games that are functional and inCoherent, I was hoping that there would be games that were dysfunctional because they were Coherent (after a fashion, they'd become functional if they abandoned GNS Coherency, but not congruency).

Perhaps we'd best take this to private messaging, because I'm just not getting it.

Fang Langford

[Danny Cline]

Fang,

I think the way Walt is looking at things is that in the congruent case (decisions being made cannot be unequivocally stated to be one particular type from GNS by an outside observer) makes the question of capital-C Coherence either impossible or irrelevant, much like unpolarized sheets cannot be aligned to each other nor can they be unaligned, as alignment is a function of polarization.

The point here is that if all my decisions over some period of time are, say, "GN-congruent" to an outside observer they cannot be Coherent, as I seem to be acting in a Gamist manner sometimes and a Narritivist manner sometimes (or both all the time, if you like).

Alternatively, if all of my decisions were "GN-congruent" an outside observer might choose to look at my behavior as either strictly Gamist or strictly Narrativist and say it was Coherent.  And, depending on my state of mind, they could be right in a sense.

Danny Cline