Practical Examples of GNS

[jeffd]

I'm a newbie here, so forgive me if I'm asking something utterly foolish...

I've read through most of the articles posted on GNS and I've skimmed the forum some.  GNS to me seems to be an appealing system but at this point I'm having trouble making the translation from theory to reality.  Are there any threads or articles somewhere that takes a practical view of GNS and using real-world games shows say what a Narrativist game looks like.  I realize many of Ron's articles reference games; but for the most part I don't have any experience with the games he's mentioning and for the few he does mention that I've been exposed to I'm not entirely clear on what makes them Narrativist vs. Gamist vs. Simulationist.  

JD

[jdagna]

Hello there!  Welcome to the Forge.

Ron will probably be moving this over to the GNS Forum, but I'll venture an answer for you.

GNS is really about defining and explaining the players.  There are three modes of play, with behaviors that fit into each of the three categories.  When games are described as being Narativist (or whatever), what we're really saying is that the game's rules faciliate that mode of play better than they faciliate other modes.  Incoherent games often encourage different modes in different parts of the rules, thereby introducing some natural conflict.  It's usually pretty easy to tell which mode(s) a game supports.

There is no single way to design games that facilitate certain modes - you just have to understand what you're trying to do and then work with rules that do that.  This can be something of a trial and error procedure, though you can look at other games for examples.  In particular, you want to be sure that the rules reward the behaviors you want to see.  For example, a rule that gives experience for killing things will fit well in a Gamist game, but poorly in a Simulationist or Narrativist game.

If you want to get opinions on games you are familiar with, start by searching the forums for those games, since we may have discussed it already.  If we haven't, you might as well ask.

[Eric J.]

Yes, welcome to the Forge.

GNS is tricky.  It is very easy to make generalisations about it that aren't always true.  Most people take a while to get used to it's fundamental concepts.

jeffd, I like your examples but I would have to dissagree with you about what I would concider a generalisation regarding your statment about killing relating to Gameism.

But I don't know squat about GNS so you should probably ignore this post after the first line.

[Mike Holmes]

First off, as Justin said, the original practical use is to look at player behavior in order to determine player priorities, and where these conflict in play. So, for a practial example, I offer a game that I'm playing in right now. In the game we're playing, there's a mechanic that balances out some character strengths with some putatively equal weaknesses. The chargen states that for every strength you take that you have to select a weakness that is equal in scope. This seems intuitive enough.

The problem is the "enforcement" of such a rule. A player took as a weakness something that the GM felt wasn't balancing because he felt that the weakness would never come into play. The conversation went something like this (highly paraphrased):
Player: thought that it was the GM's responsibility to ensure that situations occured in which the weakness would take effect.
The GM: felt that the player should be responsible for taking weaknesses that would automatically come up in play.
Player: that would mean having the character do stupid things that involved playing to his weaknesses. Something like, "If a character can't swim, why would he intentionally go near water?"

What we have here is classic incoherence. The player has distinctly Gamist priorities. He can't see playing the character as anything other than a response to challenges set by the GM. Why would the player throw more adversity in his own path when it wouldn't "make sense" for his character to do so? This retreat to Simulationist logic to explain what is, in this case, a Gamist response to a Narrativist situation is classic (and sometimes referred to as "My Guy" syndrome).  

The problem is that the GM is assuming a Narrativist, or Authorial Simulationist response. That is, he expects the player to dissociate his own goals from those of the character's and to play in a way that makes for the best story. This sometimes involves not doing what's best for the character. Not that one has to go out of character to do so, mind you (common fallacy). But in the case of the non-swimmer, a player could come up with any of a jillion reasons why his character might go to the beach, and be in jeopardy of his weakness coming into play. And this would simply be non-Gamist play.

What happens often in situations like this is that the player and GM, not knowing about GNS, look at each other like the other is crazy (well, they misunderstand each other, anyhow). Often terms like "munchkin", "min/maxer", etc, come out in these cases from the anti-Gamist side. But that doesn't help the player in question see what he's doing "wrong". Worse, it's not wrong at all, it's just a different style. In the case above, the GM ruled that the player had to play his way, but I'm fairly certain that the player was at a loss as to how that was done. So play is going to be interesting.

I haven't stepped in with theory, however. People have tried this before, and mostly it just confuses people further. So I'm hoping that in this case, that it gets ironed out in play.

But what the overall theory here says is that there's a reason that this problem occured. It starts with the players in question having a different view of what the "correct" way to play is. But the problem in this case is that the rule in question made this potential problem become an actual one because, as the essay is entitled, System Does Matter. It's the way the strength/weakness rule is constructed in the context of the other rules that makes it the source of the problem here.

It very much does say to players two different things. The one thing it says, which the GM intended, is that this rule is a way to make a more detailed and interesting character, one that not only has more things decided about him, but also has some interesting weaknesses that the player might like to see come into play. The other thing that the rule says to players is that it's a way for the player to make the character more powerful at a cost. The power will help overcome challenges, and the cost is something to be avoided in order to have the character better succeed.

What's the result? Well, looking at the rule, each player sees that they're using the rules in the "right" way, and they can't understand the other player's position. This is dangerous and can lead to dysfunctional play. For example, if the player in question never does put the weaknesses into action, the GM has threatened to do so for him. Meaning, essentially, that all the player has to do is to follow his own plan, and he'll get what he wants anyhow. And the GM will be left frustrated, wondering why the player doesn't want to author his own character's conflicts. Assuming that he bother's to have the weakensses come into play at all.

So, does that provide you with an example of GNS in action?

As far as what games as a whole promote X or Y, etc, that's pretty complex as you have to look at the system as a whole. And, as such, you'll tend to get a lot of opinions. But on some games you can get some consensus.

As to the lack of games that you've seen that are mostly supportive of Narrativism, that's unavoidable. Because, only recently have games been designed with that principle in mind. This is not to say that players didn't play Narrativist previous to this, just that they were drifting the designs of extant games significantly to do so.

So, what games did the Narrativists use most to get drifted Nar play? Well, the most obvious examples are the Storyteller games. There's quite a lot of debate about whether or not they tend to produce coherent games, but one thing that's generally agreed on is that they are an attempt at a hybrid design arguably combining elements of all three modes of play simultaneously. Which is ambitious to say the least. Many people say that the end result tends to drift all over, leading mixed groups to incoherent play quickly.

Whether or not this is true, one thing is true, which is that some groups composed entirely of players who wanted Narrativist play found Storyteller to be their system. In effect, however, this means drifting the rules in that many of them are simply discarded.

It's always been true that the easy place of resort for the Narrativist was to playing freeform. Freeform doesn't support any of the modes much at all, and as such, the Narrativist group finds less to hinder them than in other systems. Freeform "stays out of the way" of Narrativism. Of course it stays out of the way of the other modes as well, allowing them equally as well. But given that all RPGs as designed had more support for the other modes, freeform was seen as the place where Narrativism could reign supreme, if you will. Basically, when people played freeform in a Gamist or Sim fashion, freeformers would wonder why they wouldn't instead play all the RPGs that were designed to deal with that urge.

Anyhow, once indentified, however, people realized that, just as one could build a game to promote Gamism or Sim, one could build games to promote Narrativism (as opposed to just getting out of the way). Interestingly, we've had recent reports that the Freeformers think the idea is absurd, and that doesn't surprise me.

Anyhow, the idea that less rules means more Narrativist opportunity comes from this attitude. But that hasn't stopped designers from creating what, I think at least, are productive Narrativist designs. They're just newer is all, so less people have been exposed to them.

Does that help?

Mike

[Marco]

I wanted to step in and point out that GNS analysis can be quite complex (Mike's example could be read a number of different ways:)

If you take the stances as though they were presented in conversation (instead of assuming that each statement represents the true belief of each party) you could get something like this:

The GM might be exercising Gamist priorities ("This character is out of balance!") while the player could've been exercising Sim priorities ("Here's Hal. Hal can't swim. Therefore, Hal, being bright, doesn't go to the beach.")

Or it could be a case where the player simply needed one more benefit to make the character he wanted--like the character as he stood, and then was forced by the system to take a defect--so he picked one of minimal impact (easily avoided). Such a player might, in effect be making a Narrativist decision (This is the character I want to tell the story about) and might, in other circumstances take *crippling* disadvantages that he was willing to accept--just not for that character at that time.

So there's a great deal of emphasis on viewing play as a whole--and for a while--before its, or a player's operational style, is categorized.

-Marco

[Alan]

Some games designed to support Narrativist play:

Sorcerer
Trollbabe
My Life With Master
Questing Beast
The Pool
Dust Devils
Hero Quest (was Hero Wars)
InSpectres
Universalis

Of these, those where the design elements are most obvious are The Pool, InSpectres, and Trollbabe.

Many of these are available through the Commercial RPG section of the Forge's Resource Library.  The Pool, I think, is still in Free RPGs.

[Mike Holmes]

I wanted to step in and point out that GNS analysis can be quite complex (Mike's example could be read a number of different ways:)

Agreed. Much more of an art than a science in general.

That said, I'm sure that I have this case correct, mostly because of the other contextual cues that, as Marco notes, are important parts of the analysis. Though the game is still in chargen, the participants in question have revealed themselves quite thoroughtly (chargen is a long process in this particular game). I can't relay all these details to you in the text here, so realize that any example is going to be imperfect, and try to see it for what it is. An example, not a definition. In any case, I used the example because it struck me so firmly as to the nature of the particular incoherence, and I think it comes through as I described it. Who knows.  

Many times it's not so easy to determine what's going on, even with all the cues. I had this GURPS Traveller game a while back...

Mike

[jeffd]

Interesting stuff guys - thanks for the insight.  At first glance I thought GNS was a way of describing systems - now I appreciate it better as a way of understanding GM/Player priorities.  It's honestly helping me do better with the game of Fading Suns I'm running, which is nice.

JD

[Walt Freitag]

Mike,

That was an awesome post.

Here's my question about the problem of trying to solve problems by explaining the theory to participants: why not use the theory to make a diagnosis, and then deliver the diagnosis in plain English terms? My weatherman doesn't explain Bernoulli's Laws and the thermodynamics of water phase transitions when he tells me it's going to rain. Sure, he sometimes explains the reason it's going to rain, but only in the most general terms ("this warm moist air mass is colliding with this cold air mass...").

I don't see anything wrong with saying, "The problem here is that the GM is seeing disads as a way to get the character into more interesting and challenging situations, and he wants the player to cooperate with that by taking disads that are going to fit with the setting he's planning to run. The player is seeing taking disads that appear less likely to come up in play as a strategic way to get the disad points for the least amount of sacrifice later." (That's the "it's going to rain" level of analysis.) You could further say that "The real cause of the problem is that the player sees character design as part of a competition for survival against the GM, where it's important to get the most benefit from every resource, while the GM sees character design as part of a process for creating interesting situations through play, so the system rewards players for adding elements that help do that, and adding elements that don't do that shouldn't merit the reward." (That's the "colliding air masses" level of analysis.)

Now, neither of these diagnoses tell the participants what to do about the problem, but neither would a full technical GNS explanation of the situation. (Similarly, for the weather forecast, my understanding of the thermodynamics and fluid mechanics, or lack thereof, has no effect on whether my picnic is rained out or how I feel about it.) The only purpose for bringing up the theory would be to attempt to add credibility to your diagnosis -- which is understandably unlikely to work. It's understandable, if people don't accept your explanations or advice, to want to say, "it's not just my casual opinion you're disregarding; there's a whole cool theory developed and talked about and used by lots of smart people and it's based on the underlying principle that Exploration of five elements blah blah blah..." but in the end that's not going to be any more persuasive than saying, "trust me, I'm a doctor."

- Walt

[Mike Holmes]

The reason I don't bring up the theory is for one reason. The reason I don't mention the problem directly at all is for another.

Look at the attributions you make. People don't like being told why they're doing something. Heck, it looks a little like Marco was channeling these people and arguing against the analysis for them in their absentia. People point out about GNS that people don't like to be pigeonholed. And they're right about that. So I never do that in a game (except maybe jokingly with people who know the theory).

If I had told the player in this case that "The real cause of the problem is that you see character design as part of a competition for survival against the GM, where it's important to get the most benefit from every resource," I'd get, "I'm not a munchkin!" as the reply. "I'm just making my character realistically".

The way to fix these problems, it seems to me, is to take a much more Taoist tactic, and just "be" like you want the player to be. Nothing teaches like example. This isn't easy, because you can't do it in a way that will annoy the other player (much*), but will instead be enlightening. Doesn't always work, but I've found it more reliable than trying to tell players that its their behavior that's causing problems. They're all playing "correctly", as far as they're aware, remember?

Mike

*I think of my Zen technique as the "way of the forgiving sledgehammer" or somesuch. I don't have enough patience for more proper technique.

[Walt Freitag]

Look at the attributions you make. People don't like being told why they're doing something.

I guess it makes a big difference, in the hypothetical case here, whether my opinions were asked for in the first place, because that determines which of two important principles apply: "If you can't say something nice, say nothing at all," or "Don't ask me the question if you don't want to hear the answer."

So, where does all this leave us? The proposition being examined in this thread is whether GNS is, at it's often described as, a useful diagnostic tool for problems in play. How useful a tool can it be if it cannot be used by the people having problems (because of the difficulty of sufficiently grasping its nuances) and cannot be used by an informed third party to diagnose (because no one wants to hear the diagnosis)? We're left not with "physician, heal thyself," but with "physician, heal only thyself" which is pretty meager return for all those years all those people spent in med school.

I don't accept it. GNS derives from the idea that it is possible to observe play and come to consistent conclusions about certain aspects of that play; specifically, the GNS priorities that participants exhibit. As those conclusions must be based on observed behavior, coming to such a conclusion necessarily associates some behavior with the creative agenda -- in other words, not just "you're playing Gamist" but "you're doing, among other things, such and such Gamist behaviors." Except, instead of saying "Gamist," you describe the behavior as problem-causing for participants with conflicting agendas. Generally, that's the kind of attributions I made in the example. (I could have worded the second description of the problem in better accordance with theory by replacing the word "sees" with the phrase "behaves as if," but this would make little difference in actual practice, nor substantially affect the objections Mike raises.)

The assumed right never to have your feelings hurt by being told when it's your behavior that's causing problems is destructive to any society, on any scale. It's a right I'm willing to grant only on a case by case basis (e.g. to young children in certain circumstances, or to people who I fear will beat me up if I say something they object to), not as a general principle.

- Walt

[Marco]

Look at the attributions you make. People don't like being told why they're doing something. Heck, it looks a little like Marco was channeling these people and arguing against the analysis for them in their absentia. People point out about GNS that people don't like to be pigeonholed. And they're right about that. So I never do that in a game (except maybe jokingly with people who know the theory).

That seems a bit easy to misconstrue: I wasn't intending to argue against your analysis at all--I was just pointing out that the behavior *as described* (i.e. you said "this is what's going on." I said "I we, for argument's sake, *don't* take Mike at his word and JUST assume that was what was said ...") could go a number of different ways.

I'm sure you're as right as it's really possible to be. You certainly didn't indicate that any of the principles involved disagreed with you.

So--no--I wasn't arguing your analysis--just pointing out that there is (as I see it, as yet, etc.) no way to make a GNS behavioral determination without loads of data (usually only available by being at the table for some time).

-Marco