Scattershot Gaming Model

[MK Snyder]

Continuing discsussion of the Gaming Model

Just a stylistic suggestion that might make some of the ideas easier to grasp--consider adding some graphic elements such as axes or tables so that the entire presentation doesn't rely on the reader creating those images internally.

If you as a writer find yourself telling the reader to imagine such a display, that's a good indicator that it's time for a picture to replace a thousand words.

[Le Joueur]

A Graphic Depiction of the Scattershot Model

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           Thinking in Context/TiC

Player  -->  Persona  -->  Game  -->  Narrative
Role-playing games (or at least Scattershot) are set up to offer the ability for participants to TiC.  It is not required, but it must always be available.  TiC is how the player identifies with their Persona.  The Persona is their window to the things they find interesting in the game.  Playing the game is how a narrative gets created.  A narrative is simply the sequence of in-game events; the sequence lends additional value to what is produced by role-playing gaming.

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         Basic Approaches

              Inward

                 |
                 |                  W
                 |                  h
P      Avatar     |  Swashbuckler    o
e                 |                  l
r                 |                  e
s  --------------------------------
o                 |                  G
n                 |                  a
a      Joueur     |     Auteur       m
                 |                  e
                 |                  S
                 |

              Outward
Inward means your interests in that Approach deal with the content of your selection.  Therefore outward has you considering your selection's interesting qualities from an 'outside perspective.'

I've overly simplified things in terms of what you select, either your Persona or the whole game.  There are of course a myriad 'shades of grey' in between, but we're just looking at the simple things here.

The Avatar Approach values the content of the Personae.  The Swashbuckler Approach delves into the make-up of the whole game.  The Joueur Approach isn't really interested in what goes on inside of their Personae; they focus on what their Personae can do, on the value in the whole game.  Finally, the Auteur Approach concentrates one what makes the game as a unit interesting or cool.

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               Sharing

    TiC  <------------------>  Everything

Self-Sovereign   Referential   Gamemasterful
No sharing paradigm is perfect; people make imperceptible and brief jumps to other levels often, based on assumptions within the game.  But we can go into a game with a reasonable expectation of the maximum available for that game.  Self-Sovereign is the basic TiC; you consider your interaction with the game with basically your Persona's information and perspective.  Referential is the level where you are expected to take Proprietorship over all things that belong to or directly affect your Persona that aren't already the 'property' of another player.  At Gamemasterful sharing, everything is up for grabs; in fact, with permission of the other participants you may even do things with their Personae.

From An Ambitious Approach:

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             Commitment

Passive  -->  Intentional  -->  Ambitious
Passive Commitment is where most of the gaming takes place 'inside' the participant; Passively Committed players are often very supportive of any play or perhaps simply reserved.  Intentional Commitment may or may not know what they like but they tend to go after it or at least mention a sense of its lack.  Ambitious Commitment participants really 'go for it;' they drink deeply of gaming and come back for more.  I've seen more problems arise from interacting with an Ambitiously Committed player, even in a group whose Approach is homogeneous.

Be careful not to associate Commitment to closely with the degree that a game is Self-Conscious.  An Ambitious Commitment can occur even without the awareness of the game by itself or by the player of their Commitment; they are not connected.

In concert with the prior two articles, this will hopefully make things clearer for the Scattershot Model.

Fang Langford

[MK Snyder]

Yes, this helps me a lot.

I'm a visual processor, which is to say, when I process language I tend to generate a movie in my head. To be able to see a graphical representation of relationships helps me to grasp them faster.

(note: The Threefold mapped to a triangle? That would be ok except that peole tend to want to force it into an equilateral triangle. But I don't think it is, and I don't think it has to be, because the modes aren't generated by anything in the real world that is balanced. They're descriptions of the frequency relationships of human behaviors.)

There are other ways to process language...which is really hard to imagine...I have been told by other people that they don't have pictures in their heads. Just words. And that if they don't narrate something to themselves when they encounter it, they won't remember that aspect of it--such as color. And, yes, some of these nonvisualizers do play rpg's.

Some people are tactile processors--they learn mathematics better if they have objects to manipulate to demonstrate mathematical relationships.

Interesting that you are using a spatial relationship as metaphor for the allocation of control in sharing. I can see the extension that some decisions, while not concerned with an event "close to the character" in the specific scene being played may be considered "close to the character" in terms of emotional or personal impact.

[Le Joueur]

(note: The Threefold mapped to a triangle? That would be ok except that peole tend to want to force it into an equilateral triangle. But I don't think it is, and I don't think it has to be, because the modes aren't generated by anything in the real world that is balanced. They're descriptions of the frequency relationships of human behaviors.)

The triangle has been shown to be inaccurate.  The closest diagram I've heard is a venn diagram with two non-overlapping circles (Narrativism and Gamism) completely within a larger circle (Exploration).  The area not included within any two circles is Simulationism.

But that's really rudimentary; I leave the remainder of this description to heads more aligned with the GNS (in their own forum).

Thanks for prompting a useful descriptive tool.

Fang Langford

[MK Snyder]

Venn diagram! *duh*
slaps forehead.

Yes, that is a much better image.

[MK Snyder]

Except that I wouldn't map the Threefold the way you have described mapping GNS.

[Le Joueur]

Except that I wouldn't map the Threefold the way you have described mapping GNS.

I can't really comment on the threefold, the various views of it made it too nebulous back when I was a participant on the newsgroups.  I didn't like it then and I don't like the GNS now (for design) so I really only invested enough time to comprehend one of them.

You're probably still right.

Fang Langford