Response to the Supporting Essays

[Bill Cook]

I just finished reading all three GNS support essays and wanted to air some of my reactions.

That's why it's often referred to as "the engine," and unlike other modes of play, the engine, upon being activated and further employed by players and GM, is expected to be the authoritative motive force for the game to "go."

I think every rules clarification query I ever posted has been in this vein.  Without regard to GM authority or consideration of purely social dysfunction or concern for whether it's fun for me or the group, what do the rules support?  And I don't want to know so I can say, "Well, the author says I'm right."  I just want to align myself to the system's motive force.

A lot of people have mistakenly interpreted the word "Narrativist" for "making it up as we go." Neither this nor anything like it is definitional for Narrativist play . . .

[*]Simulationism: "Well, that's what you'd expect to happen."
[*]Narrativism: "Wouldn't it be cool if [some character relevant situation] happened?"
[/list:u]
Close?

Is Narrative play better facilitated by a game world filled with question marks?  Or do some things need to be established to even have a game world?  What's the cutoff?

Is discovery of pre-determined elements anathema to Narrativism?  Is employing this technique the equivalent of knocking off that module and returning to the chassis (i.e. necessarily Simulationism)?

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I'm sympathetic to the ideal of Purist for System.  Of course, it must have focus to be relevant.  Nothing can be everything to everyone.

The only required priority is to enjoy the System in action.

This gives voice to an aesthetic I've never been able to express.

Narrativist character creation in some games requires a fair amount of back-story, just as some Simulationist play does, but in the former, it's about establishing a chassis for conflict, metagame, and reward, and in the latter, it's about Coloring the character and providing opportunities for GM-created hooks.

I'm trying, but it's still hard to buy the idea that Narrativism is a natural impulse and Simulationism requires training to restrain urges towards the bolt-on agendas.  I know this comparison is in the context of character generation, but it also seems relevant towards approaches for making story.  It seems as though the first one is constructed and the second arises.

Simulationist play may be spoken of as lacking metagame interpersonal agenda . . .  Its metagame, although fully social, is self-referential, to stay in-game.

Stepping up out of role-playing games for a minute, has anyone had the experience where everyone else playing a sports game was focused on winning and you were so into the process of play, that you lost sight of the points and competition?  e.g.  Playing tennis with my sister and giving easy returns, being more into the back-and-forth than the "love 30."  Trying to pull a frisbee out of my dog's mouth, he keeps evading me, I walk away and then he bumps me with the frisbee from behind, as if to say, "Hey!  Try again.  Let's keep it going."

I realize this is heresy, but do these non-role-playing examples make any comparison to Simulationist play?

I suggest that in Sorcerer (Narrativist), the expectation is that the character will encounter functional limits of his or her behavioral profile, and eventually, will necessarily break one or more of the formal tenets as an expression of who he or she "is," or suffer for failing to do so. No one knows how, or which one, or in relation to which other characters; that's what play is for. I suggest that in GURPS (Simulationist), the expectation is that the behavioral profile sets the parameters within which the character reliably acts, especially in the crunch - in other words, it formalizes the role the character will play in the upcoming events. Breaking that role in a Sorcerer-esque fashion would, in this case, constitute something very like a breach of contract.

Ok.  Does the adversity that a Narrativist GM serves up necessarily challenge the limits of character behavior as an expression of their identity, or is that particular to Sorcerer?  Or is it an element of Narrativist diversity?

Indulge me.  What is an example of a character acting out of profile, derailing a Simulationist agenda?  If someone could do 1st ed. AD&D (if that's Sim), that would help me understand better.

Therefore, when you-as-player get proactive about an emotional thematic issue, poof, you're out of Sim.

Well, shit.  No wonder I work everyone's last damn nerve.

Many people mistake low time-scale techniques like Director stance, shared narration, etc, for Narrativism, although they are not defining elements for any GNS mode. Misunderstanding this key issue has led to many people falsely identifying themselves as playing Simulationist with a strong Character emphasis, when they were instead playing quite straightforward Narrativist without funky techniques.

Sim with character emphasis appears similiar to no-frills Nar.  And . . . I couldn't find the quote, but I seem to remember reading the same point in regards to Sim with situation emphasis.

(I guess if you're happy doing either, irregardless of conscious practice or formal understanding, you could call it whatever you like within your own circle and never trouble anyone.)

I'm aware that addressing premise is the qualifying distinction between the two (three?), but . . .  Just curious: if you have a system with characters summarized by a one-line issue, an explicit procedure to improvize situation (in a chain of causality) relevant to those issues, . . . is it necessarily Nar?  Or instead, is it one of these Sims in Nar's clothing?

***************************************************

Here's one for you: is less metagame necessarily less bolt-on agenda?

***************************************************

Gamist play, more than any other mode, demands that Situation be not only central, but also the primary focus of attention. You want to play Gamist? Then don't piss about with Character and/or Setting without Situation happening, or about to.

Ok.  I've played slingshot paintball for over 12 years with a group of friends.  Sometimes, the games go quiet, and the steady eye and the patient hand breaks the frustrated enemy rush.  It makes me think of hunting.  You spend hours in a tree.  Frost forms on your skin.  Even the squirrel doesn't notice you, just two feet away.  Then you shoot the deer.

I guess what I'm saying is that there may be lattitude to linger on the build-up with a payoff of intensity.  Or maybe I'm mixed up with another mode.  Anyway, definitely off RPG . . .

(Denouncement: Heretic!)
(Response: Punish me!)

***************************************************

For the characters, it's a risky situation in the game-world; in addition to that all-important risk, it can be as fabulous, elaborate, and thematic as any other sort of role-playing. Challenge is merely plain old Situation - it only gets a new name because of the necessary attention it must receive in Gamist play. Strategizing in and among the Challenge is the material, or arena, for whatever brand of Step On Up is operating.

Here's a zinger: does challenge necessarily denote Gamism?  If not, would challenge "in the context of competition" flip the switch?

***************************************************

I'm reminded of a monopoly game my friends played.  Two of them employed a strategy of holding onto the vital land that another player needed to be a contender.  Two others actually got a monopoly.  Another two were the ones shut out by the otherwise impotent play-busters.  A player of the third category landed on a monopoly and didn't have enough money to pay.  So, the monopoly holder said the renter had to mortgage his properties.  To which he responded by gifting his holdings to the other contender.  A huge argument erupted.

A second point of interest: one of the players shut out brokered a deal to help an impotent player form a meager monopoly, even though the shut out player took a considerable loss.  This aroused cries of disgust.

My point: spitefulness or altruism aside, relevance in play trumped the drive to win.  I know I'm off in boardgame land, but does anyone have a cogent expression of this behavior as Gamist?  Does it have a parallel to some other mode?  Or is this merely interesting, but not terribly relevant to GNS?

I love the T&T and Kobolds texts . . .  In these games, the idea is to keep the Challenge whimsical enough that its occasionally-extreme consequences don't reflect proportionally on the player's emotional stakes of the moment.

The behavioral cues that Ron alludes to on occasion are key to my approach towards assessing emotional stakes.  What is reasonable to expect in terms of a mature Gamist attitude?  Engaged by the in-game challenges (e.g. kill the dragon) but detached from the metagame consequences (e.g. my friends all witness my defeat)?

I imagine that the non-verbal cue-response and challenge-attenuation that sensitive GM's perform in microseconds is an illusionist gesture.  If my assumption is correct, that these maneuvers make a lie of Gamist play, how does an enthusiast for this style of play train "my guy" disassociation (assuming this will provide the advantage of clearing unhealthy emotional attachments to metagame consequences (another assumption: that they are unhealthy)) and sell the verve of square play/going for the throat?

I suggest with great fervor that combat is only one form of conflict, and character survival is only one in-game metric for success.

Well, ok, I buy the argument as it pertains to character survival.  But as it relates to combat, I am less convinced and await enlightenment.

***************************************************

Trying to prevent this one-two combination of behavior has led many game designers mistakenly to provide endless patch rules, full of exceptions to cover the exceptions, none of which accomplishes anything except to open up even more points of vulnerability.

I've read a number of threads where posters report system breaks, and I've noticed a trend of designers saying, "If you want to build that kind of character and you enjoy it and it doesn't negatively impact game play for your group, play on, brother.  More power to you."  I now view this response as a defense against rules bloat.  To me, it is dismissive and haughty.  With respect, I think designers would achieve a more supportive tone in responding to "the sky is falling" posts by (1) acknowledging the perceived limitations of their system and (2) arguing for the merits of their design constraints.

(I just can't stop thinking about Mage Knight and how a certain Storm Giant combination broke the game for me.)

Defend against Breaking through elegance, not through patch rules. Eliminate, from the ground up, all recursiveness, nonfunctional layers, and mathematical ratios.

Here's the recommended solution that addresses earlier criticisms of Gamist design!  I almost blacked out, holding my breath, waiting for it.

Beware of end-runs which permit a Challenge to be solved without the requisite Step On Up ability or competence. Playtest the game multiple times with people who are determined to beat it.

The second sentence I understand.  Will someone plain-speak the first one?

The short version is that friendships cannot be placed at stake based on in-play events - if they are, then Step On Up places way too much pressure on the agreement to play together at all.

There's a cutoff point in any activity for not matching strength.  And that could be bullying or being a leech.  I wonder how much of this type of dysfunction by mismatch stems from that person being unhappy with himself on a personal level.

***************************************************

Premise must pose a question to the real people, creator and audience alike. The fictional character's belief in something like "Freedom is worth any price" is already an implicit question: "Is it really? Even when [insert Situation]?" Otherwise it will fail to engage anyone.

Consider a character whose defining interest is to save enough money to put her son through college so he can have a better life than she did.  The GM says, "At work, your associate relates, through tears, how her son, your son's friend, emptied out her checking account and ran off.  You return home and find a note from your son.  He's left on a road trip to Mexico with that ne'er do well!"  Premise?  Or just a bit of pulp fiction?

The theme is the idea that you wish to explore in the story. It brings unity to the story and is explored throughout the story by the actions of the players and the main characters. Even the obstacle or conflict that forms the plot usually resonates with the theme. It is the thread that ties everything together and usually teaches the players something.

In a lot of games I've been involved with, each character has a point of interest particular to him, and at the same time, there is some backdrop of conflict involving major powers across regions.  Players become  invested in the game by relating their personal concerns to how it impacts the world-level power struggle.

But it sounds like Ron is saying a campaign should be stamped with something like "Is love worth dying for?"  Or maybe each character gets their own stamp, like everyone gets a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant.  I take the source issue to be Narrativist diversity, but does this value-study syntax strike anyone else as being a bit dry?

Narrativist play doesn't force a "separation" from the imaginative commitment to the role-playing. As the whole medium of Creative Agenda is Exploration, you don't have to diminish Exploration at all during Narrativist play. It is instead focused and heightened as the mechanism for addressing Premise.

So we can still say, "Ok, you're in a bar.  This guy with an eye patch sits down at your table and says in a gravelly voice, 'I've a need for sword hands,'" right?  And can the players still do things like go to the market or visit the alchemist shop?  Just to see what's there?

Depth and profundity of the Premise and/or theme are false variables. The key issue is whether participants care enough to produce a point, not whether the point is deep.

I cautiously draw encouragement from this statement.  Does this mean that it's Premise if it matters to the players?

a "player" in a Narrativist role-playing context necessarily makes the thematic choices for a given player-character. Even if this role switches around from person to person (as in Universalis), it's always sacrosanct in the moment of decision. "GMing," then, for this sort of play, is all about facilitating another person's ability to do this.

I think, also, an important GM duty for this type of play is to be continuously presenting something worth making a decision about.  (Which sounds exhausting.)

I submit that trying to resolve conflicts by hoping that the accumulated successful tasks will turn out to be about what you want, is an unreliable and unsatisfying way to role-play when developing Narrativist protagonism.

I can see myself making this pitfall.  Is Fortune in the Middle the best tonic?  Or is there a more general, logical opposite?

***************************************************

When the Situation must slowly develop into Premise, play is necessarily extended into multiple sessions. Playing Sorcerer . . . often proceeds in this fashion, to the extent that the first couple of sessions resemble the first sections of a classical novel rather than a movie or play, and they tend not to show off all of their most satisfying features during single-session demonstration play.

I'm intrigued that different Nar systems support different rates of story development.  I own Sorcerer and have read through it.  Haven't had the opportunity to play yet.  But now I have a better expectation of what play will be like.

Producing a story via Force Techniques means that play must shift fully to Simulationist play. "Story" becomes Explored Situation, the character "works" insofar as he or she fits in, and the player's enjoyment arises from contributing to that fitting-in. However, for the Narrativist player, the issue is not the Curtain at all, but the Force. Force-based Techniques are pure poison for Narrativist play and vice versa. The GM (or a person currently in that role) can provide substantial input, notably adversity and Weaving, but not specific protagonist decisions and actions; that is the very essence of deprotagonizing Narrativist play.

I think it's worth noting that another kind of Force is the GM doing nothing.  i.e. The players can make all the story-producing decisions they want, but the GM just lets them dry out on the table.  And his pressure becomes the madness of boredom, driving you to try everything, like the game world is an alien artifact in your hands, until you hit on an entry to his pre-determined plot.  And I imagine, in his mind, he thinks, "Behold!  Story was created from play!"

. . . if playing this particular game worked so wonderfully to free the participants into wildly successful brainstorming during play ... and since the players were a core source during this event, as evident in the game's Dedication and in various examples of play ... then why present the results of the play-experience as the material for another person's experience?

Agreed.  Can there be modules a la AD&D for Narrativist games?  Or would that be antithetical to the style of play?

An open, out of character dialog about the direction of the story should be maintained so that the Storyteller knows what's working and what's not.

(Hear the opening strains of the Hallelujah Chorus.)  My weary brain thanks you.

People apparently prefer a fair amount of context and constraint in order to provide input instead.

Speaking as one of those people, I say, "Hear, hear!"  This, I think, is getting back to an earlier comment I made about GM duties.

A related tendency is to rely on restraint, stating or implying that "good players wouldn't do that!" I suggest two alternative approaches: (1) that System provide "rebound" or consequences to make the variety of choices interesting, and (2) stating explict Creative Agenda expectations up front.

Regarding (1), I'm all for any technique or design approach that provides for a variety of interesting choices.  What is meant by rebound?

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Re: Impossible Thing.

Game texts should explicitly distribute GM duties.

Cool.  Got it.

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If the typical role-playing preferences among humans are Gamist and Narrativist, then play based on these modes should be easy to pick up, easy to spread, and easy to sell, and I think it is all three. However, since the typical role-playing text and typical training is Simulationist, the net effect is to bump the majority of interested people away from the hobby after first contact, and to consolidate the Simulationist primacy in all evident features of the hobby, as opposed to the potential ones. This is one of several reasons why the hobby remains decidedly fringe.

This is my view on the accessibility of these modes.  

[*]Narrativism - People are afraid to appear foolish in front of their friends.  I found one of the hardest parts of being in a band was singing in front of the players.  The audience never bothered me as much.
[*]Gamism - Competition quickly collapses into frustration with loss and hurt feelings from taking game play as being personally directed.
[*]Simulationism - The geek factor of immersion can range from uncomfortable to repulsive.[/list:u]
The sad truth is, the older we get, the more all we end up doing when get together is a lot of talking.  I read that Ron's intent or ambition is to compete with other types of social activities (e.g. playing poker, going to clubs, watching Simpsons re-runs, etc.).  There are a number of layers of apathy to pierce.

[*]Passive vs active forms.  (e.g.  Television vs Scrabble.)
[*]Known model vs "Oh shit, we have to read the rules."
[*]Stupid proof vs "Smart Brother, get over here and explain this!"
[*]Highly procedureal vs highly interpretive.[/list:u]
I remember having to beg one of my groups to give M:TG a try.  They were just more comfortable playing Nintendo and making home videos at the time.  But once it broke, that was all we did.

To me, it's about training.  And by that, I mean "handling."  What you end up managing are intense feelings of irritation and revulsion, and the idea is to shepherd them into familiarity and delivery on promise.

Clearly, that cannot be accomplished through design alone.  Excellent design is a facilitator.  To actively create inroads from the fringe, RPG designers will need to partner with salesmen, IMO.

. . . no one might be interested in you. In which case, you'll have to decide whether it's because your worthy vision is unappreciated and should seek new collaborators, or because your vision is simply lacking. It's not an easy thing to deal with.

[Addressing would-be artists] Before you skip straight to these ruminations, get a handle on the fact that no one knows you exist.

"For every voice you've ever heard/There's a thousand without a word"
 -Lindsey Buckingham

But let's say that's all resolved too, and you are holding the brass ring . . .  what will you sacrifice to sustain it?

Being a part of an artistic community is like having a love affair.  It's poignant.  Devastating.  Exhilirating.  Aggravating.

I think artists who cobble together careers are those who manage to amass an expectation for their work.  From their fans.  From their family.  Artists who avoid sacrificing the support figures and associations that afford them belonging and renewal are those who accrete some business acumen.  With that stroke, you bridge your work to the responsibility of providing for your needs.  And then, I guess, if you can somehow release feelings of entitlement (principally to minimize resentment over competition for your uncommon attentions), courtship of the muse may be sustained to the limit of interest.

If you ever determine that art reveals your spirit, you may never achieve more than suffering at the contrast between the moment you knew and the life you lead, but even knowing this bars the return to innocent contentment with mediocrity.

***************************************************

I wanted to thank Ron Edwards for writing these essays.  I think it's courageous to champion the viability of role-playing games.  And to share a vision of socially functional players, unfettered in their execution of play and impressive to bystanders for the legitimate character of their enterprise.

The inspiration I take from my reading is to (1) define and seek the type of play that pleases me most greatly, (2) use these tools to infer intent for play so that I may align myself to it and (3) be happy with myself as a person before I come to the table.

[Sean]

What an amazingly interesting post, Bill. I'm just going to take up one little part of it here - I hope others will do the same, because there's so much here to talk about.

Ron wrote: "I suggest with great fervor that combat is only one form of conflict, and character survival is only one in-game metric for success." And you replied: "Well, ok, I buy the argument as it pertains to character survival. But as it relates to combat, I am less convinced and await enlightenment."

Here are two games which to me really indicate different Gamist competition possibilities: Robin Laws' 'Pantheon', which has these weird little story games where you score points for doing funny things with the stories, and Ron Edwards' 'Elfs', where player conflict and character conflict run side by side in all kinds of ways that involve Gamist competition but need not necessarily involve fighting. In fact, the game seems to support a funny kind of competition in slapstick in a really cool way, to judge by the rpg.net reviews (no play experience yet myself). But anyway both of these seem to facilitate Gamism, and the competition does not center around combat in either one, although in Elfs combat situations are certainly one of many ways to get the game's Step On Up going.

[pete_darby]

Or, more topically, have a look at the Great Ork Gods playtest... The attribute Oog is used purely as a "score," it has no in game currency value whatsoever, it brings no benefits beyond "I got it.... and you don't."

And for the other points... Bill, i think this isn't just one of the great posts on Ron's essays. I think it's about a dozen. Magic 8-ball says "Responses will follow in spearate baby threads." But, given time, you could feed discussion for about a month with thsi baby alone...

[Mike Holmes]

What Pete said. Split this, and split frequently.

Assuming that this will become the "alternate gamism" thread, my position is that combat is merely traditional ane filial. That is, tradition is the form we see gamism in because of D&D. Had the first RPG instead been Buildings & Businesses, I'd be trying to tell people now that they ought to try combat instead of business competiton as a model for RPG gamism (and if you don't think that's a compelling enough arena for competition, I refer you to the current TV show, "The Apprentice").

This doesn't mean that there's any imperative to go this way. Just that people have ignored a wide open ground for far too long for no particularly good reason at all.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Bill,

I finally managed to get a few minutes to go through your post! I regret that I have to take it fairly piecemeal. For now, I'll keep all my responses in this thread, in a kind of "responses to your reactions" way, and if you or anyone else wants to take a sub-topic to a new thread, that would be fine.

Here's a general point. You use lots of non-role-playing analogies in your post, and usually you qualify them as being "heresy" or expecting some kind of disapproval. Dude, I use non-RPG analogies all the time, like the basketball thing in the Gamism essay. As long as we understand that we're using them only for points of analogy and reference, all is well.

Regarding Narrativist vs. Simulationist agendas:

Is Narrative play better facilitated by a game world filled with question marks? Or do some things need to be established to even have a game world? What's the cutoff?

I think some things need to be established even to have a game-world. The section "where do little Premises come from" is specifically about this point. Even Universalis starts with a Tenets step in order to accomplish this specific thing. As for where the cutoff is between not-enough and too-much, that will vary greatly by group, by instance, and by whatever else could factor in there. Consider that to be a very spinnable dial.

Is discovery of pre-determined elements anathema to Narrativism? Is employing this technique the equivalent of knocking off that module and returning to the chassis (i.e. necessarily Simulationism)?

My answer is "No" to both questions. You do not have to throw prep and plans out the window in order to play Narrativist. That would be removing a great deal of content from play and turn the whole endeavor into improv, which to my thinking shares only a teeny element of overlap with role-playing of any mode.

One clarifier, actually: discovery of pre-determined elements as a priority is indeed not very facilitative to Narrativist play. As a technique or component among many others, though, it's a fine thing.

Ok. Does the adversity that a Narrativist GM serves up necessarily challenge the limits of character behavior as an expression of their identity, or is that particular to Sorcerer? Or is it an element of Narrativist diversity?

That's merely a technique, which indeed happens to be a feature of Sorcerer, not a defining feature of Narrativist play. Also, just as food for thought, one might target the center of a character's behavioral tendencies, rather than the edges. And finally, who's to say that it's the GM who "serves up" the adversity? Adversity for a character can arise from and/or be fine-tuned by any person at the table, most particularly including that character's player. Remember that in Sorcerer, the Kicker is written by the player, not the GM.

Indulge me. What is an example of a character acting out of profile, derailing a Simulationist agenda? If someone could do 1st ed. AD&D (if that's Sim), that would help me understand better.

Bearing in mind that playing early D&D and AD&D (pre-1980, say) cannot be easily classified - I'd have to know tons of stuff about your group and circumstances and examples of play - let's try it.

Presuming (these are very important) the following:

- The group is committed to a fantasy setting they have built through a couple of years of intensive play, beginning while they were learning the rules and now progressed to a heavily mapped and well-understood fantasy city a lot like Leiber's Lankhmar. They are not at all interested in competitive level-up, and everyone typically works to make sure everyone else isn't hosed by momentarily mis-remembering a rule. In other words, they are not especially, if at all, Gamist.

- The group is committed to a number of setting-specific interpretations of certain rules about thief and assassin alignments. Assassins must be Evil, hence there are no Good assassins ever, hence thieves (similarly constrained to be Neutral) and assassins have a number of potential values-clashes. So the group is very focused on jockeying and negotiating among thieves' and assassins' guilds during the game. [Note that they are using the original rules as a creative constraint; this group has done so without much self-reflecting and considers themselves to be playing the game "as written" despite ignoring numerous rules that are irrelevant to their Sim/Setting agenda.]

Then:

- A player decides to have his assassin character (a) default on a job, (b) save the thieves' guildmaster's daughter from goblins, (c) return her to her real mother who'd thought she was dead, and (d) die in a hail of crossbow bolts between the city guard and his ex-compatriots, because it buys time for the mother and daughter to escape secretly from the city.

Bear in mind that a great deal of this whole setting and the situations the GM presents are predicated on assassins being necessarily Evil. And being Evil is, for this group, a social-contract agreement that you will play your character a certain way (they are ignoring the section in the DM Guide which openly addresses "wandering" play among alignments). The GM takes these alignments into account when prepping adventures, and everyone is used to the idea that when your character's alignment is invoked, he or she delivers.

Basically, by acting as described above, the player has fucked up the scenario, the GM's plans, the agreement among everyone else, and so on. "You're not playing a paladin, damn it!" "What's the point of playing an assassin if you're going to do that?" "What, you don't understand Evil?" My point is not that they are pointing to the rules (which they might be doing literally, albeit futilely), they are actually pointing to their own shared [Social Contract [Exploration [Creative Agenda]]] historical agreement. The player has not only broken the "How we play alignments" agreement, but most especially the "alignments play a role in the social and political conflicts of this setting" agreement, which is the whole foundation of playing at all, for this group.

That's this group, of course. In another group, cries of joy and huzzah might arise. In yet another ... etc, etc.

Does that help at all?

Just curious: if you have a system with characters summarized by a one-line issue, an explicit procedure to improvize situation (in a chain of causality) relevant to those issues, . . . is it necessarily Nar? Or instead, is it one of these Sims in Nar's clothing?

Neither. Or could be either. Or anything. You've merely presented a couple of techniques, not an agenda that can be analyzed.

is less metagame necessarily less bolt-on agenda?

(We're still discussing primarily Simulationist issues.) Historically, yes; conceptually/theoretically, no.

Lots o'Gamism next.

Your deer-hunting example is a good one, because build-up counts as part of the process. While you're waiting and being all concentrated and focused, you are still indeed hunting. You don't, for example, pull out the skin-mags and speak to Rosie Palms. You don't knit. You don't do a little dance. No, you're hunting. Waiting, enduring the frost, being still are all part of the hunting.

Situation may take a bit to form in Gamist play, but it needs to be forming, or in action. You must, so to speak, be in deer territory.

Here's a zinger: does challenge necessarily denote Gamism? If not, would challenge "in the context of competition" flip the switch?

Zinger-schminger. The question's nonsensical. First you check whether Step On Up is occuring; if yes, then just stick the "Challenge" label onto the Situation. That's all there is to it. You can't go in reverse.

Can you propose a situation in which all manner of opportuntity for Gamist play is available? Sure, but that doesn't make the play Gamist; only Stepping On Up does that.

What is reasonable to expect in terms of a mature Gamist attitude? Engaged by the in-game challenges (e.g. kill the dragon) but detached from the metagame consequences (e.g. my friends all witness my defeat)?

Generally speaking, the only person who can answer a "what is reasonable" question of this kind is you, personally. People and groups vary all over the map. More specifically, your proposed answer puzzles me greatly: if one is detached from the metagame consequences, no Step On Up is possible at all. The whole point of Gamist play is to be invested in such consequences.

Many people who aren't interested in Gamist play, or who have only done so in an adolescent context, only conceive of such investment as Wimpiness and the Hard Core. I argue that this viewpoint is a tad limited.

Beware of end-runs which permit a Challenge to be solved without the requisite Step On Up ability or competence. Playtest the game multiple times with people who are determined to beat it.

The second sentence I understand. Will someone plain-speak the first one?

H'm, seems pretty clear to me ... Can you win without demonstrating personal strategy or guts? Just because you picked the (here's one of those analogies) the Channel-Fireball feature? Then the game system's broken.

And on to Narrativism.

Consider a character whose defining interest is to save enough money to put her son through college so he can have a better life than she did. The GM says, "At work, your associate relates, through tears, how her son, your son's friend, emptied out her checking account and ran off. You return home and find a note from your son. He's left on a road trip to Mexico with that ne'er do well!" Premise? Or just a bit of pulp fiction?

Neither. This is merely Situation. We don't know whether a "defining interest" is involved until we see what the character does, and even that won't be a Premise unless the people at the table get invested in it.

it sounds like Ron is saying a campaign should be stamped with something like "Is love worth dying for?" Or maybe each character gets their own stamp, like everyone gets a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant. I take the source issue to be Narrativist diversity, but does this value-study syntax strike anyone else as being a bit dry?

Two things. First, your perception that I'm talking about "stamping" a Premise-label onto play needs some revising. I'm not talking about what we say to one another while or before we play, I'm talking about what our play is doing whether we notice it or not.

Second, sure it's dry. This is an analytical essay, not an inspirational tract. The essay is nothing but dry, boring, definitive descriptions. By contrast, my supplements for Sorcerer are biased, focused, with any luck inspirational, and totally dismissive toward anything but Narrativist play. That's because they're supplements for Sorcerer. Does that make sense at all?

So we can still say, "Ok, you're in a bar. This guy with an eye patch sits down at your table and says in a gravelly voice, 'I've a need for sword hands,'" right? And can the players still do things like go to the market or visit the alchemist shop? Just to see what's there?

Uh-huh. I confess to being very puzzled at what you imagined people might be doing if they weren't doing that. Perhaps a touch of synecdoche is going on, in the sense that you're thinking that only Simulationist play is "really" role-playing in the sense of using shared imagination as the medium.

Does this mean that it's Premise if it matters to the players?

It's only Premise if it matters to the players. In this sense, Story Now and Step On Up are 100% identical, and a certain case is being made for the same relative to The Right to Dream in a neighboring thread or two. Oh, and the GM is a player too.

I think, also, an important GM duty for this type of play is to be continuously presenting something worth making a decision about. (Which sounds exhausting.)

Nah! It's way easy, actually. It's only exhausting if you make the little error you're making and concentrate this duty in the hands of one person.

I submit that trying to resolve conflicts by hoping that the accumulated successful tasks will turn out to be about what you want, is an unreliable and unsatisfying way to role-play when developing Narrativist protagonism.

I can see myself making this pitfall. Is Fortune in the Middle the best tonic? Or is there a more general, logical opposite?

Fortune-in-the-middle is only one option, although it is a good one. You're right to scent another, more general one, though - always turn to the Reward system, the single most important part of System in general, relative to Creative Agenda.

Can there be modules a la AD&D for Narrativist games? Or would that be antithetical to the style of play?

There's a whole thread goin' on about this now. You'll have to provide a far more focused reference point than "modules a la AD&D," though.

A related tendency is to rely on restraint, stating or implying that "good players wouldn't do that!" I suggest two alternative approaches: (1) that System provide "rebound" or consequences to make the variety of choices interesting, and (2) stating explict Creative Agenda expectations up front.

Regarding (1), I'm all for any technique or design approach that provides for a variety of interesting choices. What is meant by rebound?

A resolution system with "rebound" not only provides feedback for the imaginative expression of what's going on, but also shows you real consequences to your character's in-game actions. No matter what, however the dice fell, stuff happened and the situation is now changed. The Whiff Factor is, by definition, a low-to-absent rebound feature ("I miss. Next round"). So is unstructured Drama resolution ("They attack you." "I kill them").

I read that Ron's intent or ambition is to compete with other types of social activities (e.g. playing poker, going to clubs, watching Simpsons re-runs, etc.). There are a number of layers of apathy to pierce.
...
I remember having to beg one of my groups to give M:TG a try. They were just more comfortable playing Nintendo and making home videos at the time.

I submit that most people who self-identify as "gamers" or "role-players" are extremely learning-aversive and extremely neophobic. When you turn to people outside of the subculture, you may be astounded at how willing they are to try.

I think I should also explain that I do not intend or have ambition toward role-playing competing with other social activities. My claim is that the hobby/activity already does so and hence, to be a reliable part of one's life, ought to provide at least as much enjoyment and opportunity for positive social feedback. I'm speaking on a personal level, not on a social-change expand-the-hobby level.

I think you'll like the Infamous Five links I recently summarized in Site Discussion.

Whew! There ya go - thanks for reading and writing.

Best,
Ron

[Bill Cook]

It sounds like I've been trying to pigeon hole CA by associating various Techniques.  And while some help/hinder more than others, there are few (none?) hard associations.

- A player decides to have his assassin character (a) default on a job, (b) save the thieves' guildmaster's daughter from goblins, (c) return her to her real mother who'd thought she was dead, and (d) die in a hail of crossbow bolts between the city guard and his ex-compatriots, because it buys time for the mother and daughter to escape secretly from the city.

LOL.

Does that help at all?

Yes.  Enormously.

Zinger-schminger. The question's nonsensical. First you check whether Step On Up is occuring; if yes, then just stick the "Challenge" label onto the Situation. That's all there is to it. You can't go in reverse.

Can you propose a situation in which all manner of opportuntity for Gamist play is available? Sure, but that doesn't make the play Gamist; only Stepping On Up does that.

It sounds like Step On Up is a quality of spirit revealed in a player's response to Situation.  i.e. Establishing CA is not a GM duty.  (Though it may be revealed by his actions as a player.)

More specifically, your proposed answer puzzles me greatly: if one is detached from the metagame consequences, no Step On Up is possible at all. The whole point of Gamist play is to be invested in such consequences.

Many people who aren't interested in Gamist play, or who have only done so in an adolescent context, only conceive of such investment as Wimpiness and the Hard Core. I argue that this viewpoint is a tad limited.

More often than not, I fight hard.  I'll back down (without seeming to) if a friend is highly invested and appears to be buckling under the strain, but otherwise, I'd just as soon he take it on the chin.  I would like to think my range of aesthetic allows for grainy competition.

However, I find there is a quality of detachment or serenity or unconcern that facilitates finding the limit of your performance capacity.  You remain deeply committed to the endeavor, but you also instantaneously release feelings of disappointment.  Because the next move is coming up, and you need your mind clear to wield its full power.

I once saw a guy get ejected from a fantasy con in Dallas because he refused to desist dissent of a ruling about a mech's lack of a rotating torso.  Clearly there was something at work there other than an empowering viewpoint.

H'm, seems pretty clear to me ... Can you win without demonstrating personal strategy or guts? Just because you picked the (here's one of those analogies) the Channel-Fireball feature? Then the game system's broken.

(Bing!)  Crystal.

Neither. This is merely Situation. We don't know whether a "defining interest" is involved until we see what the character does, and even that won't be a Premise unless the people at the table get invested in it.

More of my CA/Technique conflation.

First, your perception that I'm talking about "stamping" a Premise-label onto play needs some revising. I'm not talking about what we say to one another while or before we play, I'm talking about what our play is doing whether we notice it or not.

Play demonstrates CA (i.e. Step On Up, Premise, . . . an (arguably active) motive quality for Sim).

Second, sure it's dry. This is an analytical essay, not an inspirational tract. The essay is nothing but dry, boring, definitive descriptions. By contrast, my supplements for Sorcerer are biased, focused, with any luck inspirational, and totally dismissive toward anything but Narrativist play. That's because they're supplements for Sorcerer. Does that make sense at all?

Certainly.  This is actually a point I was hoping others would answer to as a way of providing inspiration.  (Restrains urge to apologize.)

Uh-huh. I confess to being very puzzled at what you imagined people might be doing if they weren't doing that. Perhaps a touch of synecdoche is going on, in the sense that you're thinking that only Simulationist play is "really" role-playing in the sense of using shared imagination as the medium.

All modes are expressed through the medium of shared imagination.  I want to avoid discussing intent.  I mean to recognize the viability of every mode.  I'm sensing that CA is not something that is . . . pursued?  Words fail me.  Once again, it occurs to me that CA may be better experienced than understood.

You're right to scent another, more general one, though - always turn to the Reward system, the single most important part of System in general, relative to Creative Agenda.

You know, I've never trucked with the value of character advancement in RPG's.  It's always struck me as absurd.  I mean, if a character's cool because he does something, why rate it?  Hell, it better work.  Else, why am I playing him?  I mention this as the consequence of Reward.

To me, ideally, Reward should facilitate play in that session.  Else, it's a bit of accounting (phagh!), IMHO.

A resolution system with "rebound" not only provides feedback for the imaginative expression of what's going on, but also shows you real consequences to your character's in-game actions. No matter what, however the dice fell, stuff happened and the situation is now changed. The Whiff Factor is, by definition, a low-to-absent rebound feature ("I miss. Next round"). So is unstructured Drama resolution ("They attack you." "I kill them").

Would TROS be an example of a system with high rebound as pertains to combat?  And Story Engine be an example of a system with overall low rebound?

I think I should also explain that I do not intend or have ambition toward role-playing competing with other social activities. My claim is that the hobby/activity already does so and hence, to be a reliable part of one's life, ought to provide at least as much enjoyment and opportunity for positive social feedback. I'm speaking on a personal level, not on a social-change expand-the-hobby level.

I understand your position better now.  Thx for clearing that up.

Infamous Five Links?!  Good God, that's a lot of reading!  ;)

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Bill,

Excellent conversation!

Establishing CA is not a GM duty. (Though it may be revealed by his actions as a player.)

That is exceptionally well said. I wish I'd understood the importance of articulating this idea much, much earlier. I've carried on dialogues with people for months before realizing that they had interpreted my ideas as "what a GM must impose on the players."

I find there is a quality of detachment or serenity or unconcern that facilitates finding the limit of your performance capacity. You remain deeply committed to the endeavor, but you also instantaneously release feelings of disappointment. Because the next move is coming up, and you need your mind clear to wield its full power.

Yeah, that's true. Investment, yes, but also the willingness to move with the punches and adapt, if possible, to setbacks - and as well, when fairly beaten, to handle it properly. This is the essence of non-Wimpiness, and Wimps will never understand it until they make a 180 emotional adjustment. Merely "wanting to win" is no particular virtue in a Step On Up situation.

Would TROS be an example of a system with high rebound as pertains to combat? And Story Engine be an example of a system with overall low rebound?

TROS, absolutely. In fact, TROS, The Burning Wheel, and Sorcerer constitute a kind of interesting "triangle" of providing rebound in very similar ways, when it comes to combat and potentially other complex conflicts. Story Engine is a little tricky in this regard ... in play, I've found its damage system to be rather savage, in the sense that its effects on characters simply remove their most effective/interesting features from play. TROS does not do this; your character might lose a limb or otherwise be hideously maimed, but his or her Spiritual Attributes will still fire on all cylinders. So I do consider SE "low rebound," but not because "nothing happens" - instead because nothing useful happens. I wrote Trollbabe to be especially "bouncy" in terms of rebound.

Best,
Ron

[M. J. Young]

You know, I've never trucked with the value of character advancement in RPG's.  It's always struck me as absurd.  I mean, if a character's cool because he does something, why rate it?  Hell, it better work.  Else, why am I playing him?  I mention this as the consequence of Reward.

Just wanted to poke this in here: don't conflate character improvement (a.k.a. advancement) with reward system. The two may or may not be connected. Multiverser has much about character improvement, but no mechanical reward system whatsoever; similarly, you can characters that do not improve and still have rewards.

Take another look at http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/23/">Applied Theory, and particularly the sections on improvement and reward, for more about how these can be worked together or separately, and how to tailor them to the desired mode of play.

--M. J. Young