Dramatism and Illusionism

[Marco]

Marco, I think you have grossly misunderstood Caldis argument.  The point was that strict adherence to alleged "virtuality" (if such a thing exists), or more accurately IMO, the simulation, it can still lead to play that is Not Fun.  And what we see in practice - certainly in my experience anyway - is that when even committed Sim players face the choice between a simulation of something boring, and a quick metagame negotiation to do something more interesting, they adopt the latter.  Otherwise, we should be seeing games like Watching: The Paint Dry and Watching: The Grass Grow.

That is not at all you interpretation, which assumes a large degree of intent: you claim that it is the GM forcing them back into line.  Where does this emerge from Caldis description?

Emphasis added.

Contracycle,
When Caldis says this:

to accomodate that either the players will have to participate with the gm's plot or the gm will bend his view of what's realistic and participate in the players choices and allow for new conflicts to develop even if they shouldnt.

(Emphasis added)
That's precisely what I'm responding to. Neither needs to happen. There is a third alternative. The situation and setting (usually what was referrd to by you, I think, as both foreground and background) is designed to be pregnant with interest (both intellectual and emotional and relevant to the players and the characters)--and the players/characters interact with both fore-ground conflicts and back-ground environment. It won't be with the GM's "plot" (a word that, IMO, regretabbly, means, on The Forge a pre-determined outcome)--there won't be a 'plot.'

And the GM doesn't have to bend his situation/interpertation of "reality"--the players will explore avenues that seem interesting simply because they're consistently portrayed that way or logically ought to be (one might resonably expect an elite paranormal private investagor's life to be interesting if not blackballed entirely). This is why Mike's Middle Earth example is probably not well suited to a Virtuality game where a high tempo of play (quickly occurring interesting events) is preferred: a sparsely populated fantasy world with no intrinsic starting-situation beyond "here you are on the map" is not the best bet for finding out "what-if" when the players want constant action.

If, in the fairly extreme situation* of the Hellboy scenario, the players might decide that since quitting the team will result in them being blackballed and they aren't willing to turn to a life of crime, what they will do instead, perhaps, is do a great job, advance in rank, and then change their organization from the inside. They might also decide to "frag their commander" or perform some "intentional incompetence"--or otherwise address whatever issue is making them want to quit.

If the players are driven to want to quit and there's no good option for them then we have a failed game that may not be deemed dysfunctional by the participants (it may not blow up in an argument). Next time, I'll say, let's make characters who believe in the organization we can't reasonably quit or easily change--or let's make it one that we as players can get behind. But what Caldis is proposing is that this change will happen during the game to salvage it. It doesn't--not under a strong commitment to virtuality.

What we see in practice is a situation and setting that is chosen for it's intrinsic interest (to players and characters) and the PC's and GM play around in that experiment. That's front-loaded. You don't play "guys on the other side of the planet with no relation to the interesting stuff that's going on." But neither are you constrained to follow the GM's plot.

The third solution (and, IME, the actual one) is that the players work from internal causes with a what-if mentality (expected by the players, enacted on the part of the GM) making decisions to react to and act on the world. Because there's a lot of inherent interest (just exactly the same way that Narrativist play has Premise--and, I'd say that the "interest" is precisely the same in engrossing Sim--human experience type stuff, intellectually interesting stuff too) the game doesn't become Drying Paint: The Watching.

But if you think I've misunderstood, ask Ralph. He started the thread and he noted that exactly the kind of thought Calids proposes ("The players must agree to play in the GM's plot or the GM must bend his idea of what's realistic to make things more interesting") is exactly what I'm saying doesn't fit with a very discernable form of gaming.

Quite a big chunk of the rest of your argument makes no sens eto me at all I'm afraid, swerving as it does from sim to gam to narr and alleged virtuality and referencing GDS...  I do not follow, and it seems awfully as if you are arguing your conclusion

I'm not surprised you say that. Having had PM conversations with you, it's clear we don't see eye-to-eye on many things. But if you consider that there is no good term for what I am describing in GNS other than virtuality and no good term for what GDS calls Dramatism in your lexicon, that might illustrate how the language you prefer to use doesn't really suit you here.

-Marco
* Note: this is, IMO, an example of 'moving the goal posts.' In the original example I had the players decide to quit as a viable example of how they could avoid the GM's plot. I'd said "look, unlike the movie, in this case the character's aren't prisoners so they can decide not to engage with this plot."

Here that has been "examined" and re-cast as a non-viable alternative (being hunted by their former employers, which was the situation removed from example A, has been replaced with an equally absolute and dire "black balling.")

Well, let's just assume they were prisoners like in the movie then. Then their choice about engaging with the situation is either determined at char-gen time/the start of the game ("You're in prison, that's the situation") and choices not to engage become matters of personal response ("I prefer not to") rather than major mutations to story-arc events.

But the choice is still there.

[contracycle]

That's precisely what I'm responding to. Neither needs to happen. There is a third alternative. The situation and setting (usually what was referrd to by you, I think, as both foreground and background) is designed to be pregnant with interest (both intellectual and emotional and relevant to the players and the characters)--and the players/characters interact with both fore-ground conflicts and back-ground environment. It may not be with the GM's "plot" (a word that, IMO, regretabbly, means, on The Forge a pre-determined outcome)--there won't be a 'plot.'

How is this not existing GNS Sim?

If, in the fairly extreme situation* of the Hellboy scenario, the players might decide that since quitting the team will result in them being blackballed and they aren't willing to turn to a life of crime, what they will do instead, perhaps, is do a great job, advance in rank, and then change their organization from the inside. They might also decide to "frag their commander" or perform some "intentional incompetence"--or otherwise address whatever issue is making them want to quit.

It seems to me you want it both ways; you want play to explore What If, but when certain What If's are likely to be dull, then others are selected that are more interesting.  So this is not really the exploration of a what if at all; its the avoidance of one.

But what Caldis is proposing is that this change will happen during the game to salvage it. It doesn't--not under a strong commitment to virtuality.

But, A) it does in my experience, and B) your response is that it does, because instead of quitting you propose they find something more interesting, or restart with a new social contract specifying that the particular "what if... we quit" is not to be explored.  So this does not appear to show the claimed commitment to virtuality.  If the players were all committed to virttyuality, they should have stuck with the black-balling to fully explore the What If.

I'm not surprised you say that. Having had PM conversations with you, it's clear we don't see eye-to-eye on many things. But if you consider that there is no good term for what I am describing in GNS other than virtuality and no good term for what GDS calls Dramatism in your lexicon, that might illustrate how the language you prefer to use doesn't really suit you here.

But I do have a good term for Dramatism in my lexicon: Participationism.

And I can't see the need for the term virtuality if it cannot be described by features that distinguish it from GNS sim.

Here that has been "examined" and re-cast as a non-viable alternative (being hunted by their former employers, which was the situation removed from example A, has been replaced with an equally absolute and dire "black balling.")

But, if that is what alleged Virtuality produces, then that is what virtuality produces, isn't it?  If the presumption is strict adherence to in-game cause and effect, then that blackballing by the employers may well be a naturally arising effect.  There is no need to presume at all the GM is being coercive here; the GM is just running the model to its logical conclusion, arguably.  Certainly, that was the scenario given.

[Caldis]

Well, Caldis, you can assert that a virtualist GM would do something to intervine or would break the commitment to Virtuality but I could as easily argue that a Narrativist GM will eventually rope a character back "into line" for the "sake of the Narrative." If a player decides to have his character jump off a cliff the consequences will also "break the social commitment to situation being interesting" but no GM will save him.

I'm not arguing that the GM would break the commitment to the virtuality, I'm just arguing that the commitment to virtuality isnt what has been described.  It's not an attempt to discover what is the most realistic outcome, not a scientific simulation trying to provide an answer, but one where plausibility is required to give the virtuality an air of realism and the possibility of being true.

I'm not saying that play cant grind to a halt under virtuality because realism demands it.  I'm saying if there is a plausible out, even if it's not the most realistic, then it's an acceptable venue to take the exploration.

Consider this: GDS essentially lumped something like Participationism with Narrativisim. If I told you that the two forms of play were baiscally identical but for, oh, some minor style variations would you agree? I doubt it.

Actually given my understanding of what GDS was looking at I can agree with that, or rather that they both flow from the same quadrant of the GDS triangle.  They both want Drama and from my understanding of GDS it's all about the intent behind the decisions made during play so they could be lumped together.  However the difference where GNS is concerned is the resulting play, does the player get to actually make decisions that create drama.  These are slight differences but they have huge consequences and make a vast difference if you are talking GNS or GDS, you arent really talking about the exact same thing.

But that's missing the point: the mode of play is about commitment to "what I think is plausible" vs. "what I think would be a good story" (in the rawest of GDS terms).

In your case of the Jedi, you state that he should be dead so the player will get two seconds of in-game play before he's vaporized. If the GM is damn sure that's what would happen then the character's a no-go. If the GM thinks the character is plausible (maybe under "some condtions" then it's a go).

But if you factor out the gray areas and the congruence and get to a point where the GM has to decide between story and 'reality' then there's as big a difference as a player who decides between 'reality' and 'Premise.'

I agree with all of that, maybe I'm picking nits but the change of the word realistic to plausible makes all the difference to me.  The goal of simulationism isnt to answer a scientific 'what if' question it's to play out situations that have an air of believability to them so the experience feels real.  

My problem with saying that V-vs.-P isn't the N-vs-G is, to date, other than asserting it's true, I don't see any argument for it.

I see some trivial similarities in modes of GNS Sim (and, honestly, I see more similarities between Nar and Participationism than I see with Virtuality and Participationism) but I see far more dramatic differences.

Try looking at it this way.  
Under GNS all gamists are concerned with the challenges that come up in the game.

The simulationist is concerned with the plausibility of the game and that what happens feels believable.

All narrativist players want to be creating drama.

Participationists are engaging in a game where believability of the result is just as important as it is to the Virtualist, the only difference is in who controls the flow of the plot.

[Marco]

How is this not existing GNS Sim?

It is GNS Sim--a subset of it (Virtuality) which is lumped in with Participationism and GNS declares the two similar. And they are, in the same way that Participationism and Narrativism are similar, i.e., trivially.

It seems to me you want it both ways; you want play to explore What If, but when certain What If's are likely to be dull, then others are selected that are more interesting.  So this is not really the exploration of a what if at all; its the avoidance of one.

Well, it seems that way because the goal-posts were moved. I said "Quitting is viable--and the GM's situation involves not-quitting, so quitting is a functional avoidance of that situation, and we explore quitting."

Caldis moved the goalposts back to "quitting is not a functional solution" so the players go elsewhere. The idea that any idea the players come up with must be functional and interesting is Participationism of a sort (one that's likely to be very taxing for the GM).

The situation that presumes that the players explore quitting in a boring manner is as follows (this is the most-likely fit from what I've been given as I presently see it):

1. The situation apparently allows them to quit (they can "resign their commissions").
2. The players do quit.
3. The GM, essentially without warning, has them be blackballed to the point where only a life of crime is viable (I would question the feasibility of this as a player--it sounds railroady to me--but I'll assume it's reasonable in the game).
4. The players try various things, roleplay out the downward spiral of hopelessness of not being able to find work, and eventually the characters and players give up, and we move to another game.

I have seen that happen--but the sailent points are:

Point 3: the GM either springs this on the players with no warning (in which case it is questionable that it follows from internal causes) or warns them that "if you quit the government will never forgive you and is all powerful in controlling your employment."

That warning alone smacks of Participationist thinking (what if the characters leave the country and start Ghostbusters UK?)--but if the warning is given (and the closer to actual-play situation is "Sauron is *unbeatable* unless you destroy the ring--and he will sieze the world and cast it into misery and dispair.") the idea that the players decide to go through with it it means that they have interest in that outcome.

Note: complete surprises are possible (who knew the Government could and would do that--but it's clearly consistent that they could and makes sense that they would)--and that's an area that is risked in Virtuality gaming, IME.

But, A) it does in my experience, and B) your response is that it does, because instead of quitting you propose they find something more interesting, or restart with a new social contract specifying that the particular "what if... we quit" is not to be explored.  So this does not appear to show the claimed commitment to virtuality.  If the players were all committed to virttyuality, they should have stuck with the black-balling to fully explore the What If.

Well, in your  experience if it happens (A) then it's not a high commitment to Virtuality. It's more like Participationism ... or something.

But I do have a good term for Dramatism in my lexicon: Participationism.

And I can't see the need for the term virtuality if it cannot be described by features that distinguish it from GNS sim.

Well, I didn't come up with it. I didn't even latch on to it first. I didn't start this thread and I didn't propose Mike's 3D model. So, you know, if I'm alone in thinking there might be a place for it that's news to me.

But, if that is what alleged Virtuality produces, then that is what virtuality produces, isn't it?  If the presumption is strict adherence to in-game cause and effect, then that blackballing by the employers may well be a naturally arising effect.  There is no need to presume at all the GM is being coercive here; the GM is just running the model to its logical conclusion, arguably.  Certainly, that was the scenario given.

The GM isn't being coercive--what's unclear is why the players chose that course of action in the face of such sanctions. If the conflict in the game is "you work for an agency that makes you do terrible things" (a viable conflict) then one would expect that it would be hard to quit such an agency--or an easily resolved situation.

If the situation is: Magician Balroth has robbed the mid-town bank again and the players are like "Screw that, remember that great adventure when the team was in San Francisco--let's go there and set up shop" then the players do, indeed, avoid the conflict with Balroth and do their own thing and it seems unlikely that the players and characters would think such a thing was likely to be profitable (both to the characters and players in this instance) if the agency used terrible sanctions against those who did quit.

In other words, wherever you set the goalpost will inform your answer: but you have to acknowledge what you are doing when you set it or you'll be confused.

-Marco

[Marco]

Try looking at it this way.  
Under GNS all gamists are concerned with the challenges that come up in the game.

The simulationist is concerned with the plausibility of the game and that what happens feels believable.

All narrativist players want to be creating drama.

Participationists are engaging in a game where believability of the result is just as important as it is to the Virtualist, the only difference is in who controls the flow of the plot.

I think I responded to a lot of your (good) post in my answer to Contracycle. I'll look back over that in a minute though.

I want to look at this quoted bit first.

I think Participationists want drama as well--half of them, anyway--and believability may very well be sacrificed for it. The question is who sets the standard for believibility--and it's clearly each participant--but if the standard is "what the game-mechanics say would happen" then plot-protection stands in opposition to believability. This isn't hypothetical: this is a clear cut case in many games and many arguments.

If the transcript of play is held up (it must seem plausible) then, yes, there will be a lot of congruence between that and Virtuality--but note:

Contracycle says that Dramatist play is best described in GNS as Participationism. So does John Kim--and so do I.

But the key aspect to Dramatism is Drama--and the need for it. Virtuality may well lack drama: The players investigate avenue A, it's not dramatic for long stretches, if it fails to yield results they try avenue B.

Under Dramatism, I think Illusionists techniques will be used to make sure Avenue A does work.

If the Narrativist player wants to be "creating drama" (a somewhat lite but, IMO, reasonable shorthand for this discussion). We get to a question of who defines "create."

If the players see a strong GM hand (with some illusionist techniques) as assisting their creation of drama (and, remember, we don't know if this is The Moving Clue or Force yet ...) then the similarity is more pronounced between Participationism and Narrativism. In this case the GM may be simply using Force as a boundary which says "I'm not sure I can deliver a good experience past this threshold" and the players go "well, shucks--but it's good to have seatbelts when driving"--with a really talented GM there might never be Force and there would be lots of congruence--but the difference is in the GM's role and social contract ability to make the call to step in as a failsafe.

Obviously where you stick Participationism will depend on how some thresholds and variables are defined--but wherever you stick Participationist play you're going to be putting it next to someone who doesn't identify with it's core concepts if you just have three GNS bins.

-Marco

[Marco]

I'm not arguing that the GM would break the commitment to the virtuality, I'm just arguing that the commitment to virtuality isnt what has been described.  It's not an attempt to discover what is the most realistic outcome, not a scientific simulation trying to provide an answer, but one where plausibility is required to give the virtuality an air of realism and the possibility of being true.

I'm not saying that play cant grind to a halt under virtuality because realism demands it.  I'm saying if there is a plausible out, even if it's not the most realistic, then it's an acceptable venue to take the exploration.

This may or may not be true depending on whether you are looking at theory, practice, or some combination of both (and who's head you're inside). If I'm running a game for a player who I think needs escapism after suffering a real-life tragedy then hell yes, I will do whatever I can to be entertaining--so clearly a plausible out is better than the most-realistic and an "obvious dues-ex," so, yeah.

But there's a line here in more normal conditions that's hard to draw, IMO.

As I said: one will never *really* know what the "most realistic" event would be--and certainly if two people disagree (a player and a GM for example) then I think it's fair to say that one person may convince another of his or her point of view.

So you could say you wind up doing whatever the most persuasive player says would happen--and call it Persuasiveism--but I think that's getting away from a core point:

I think the difference is how decisions are made. One can argue that this isn't GNS and therefore both modes should be together since they'll (in some sense) look the same--I think that's a huge mistake. I've seen arguments like that--but if someone makes one then they're arguing that, in this case, a weakness in the theory is actually a feature.

The basic, intense incompatibility of both styles is a well documented phenomena. It isn't merely a scoping issue as step-on-up and competiton is in Gamism (IMO).

An Illusionist GM will do things to preserve interest and pacing and such that a Virtualist GM won't do.

I think that's the key issue and the key difference.

This is just as a Gamist GM (or Simist-Participationist GM) will do things that a Narrativist GM won't do. Same magnitude, similar issues.

-Marco

[contracycle]

It is GNS Sim--a subset of it (Virtuality) which is lumped in with Participationism and GNS declares the two similar. And they are, in the same way that Participationism and Narrativism are similar, i.e., trivially.

Shrug.  I see them as more than trivially similar.

Caldis moved the goalposts back to "quitting is not a functional solution" so the players go elsewhere. The idea that any idea the players come up with must be functional and interesting is Participationism of a sort (one that's likely to be very taxing for the GM).

I don't see how that is moving the goalposts.  Your whole argument is that with a high commitment to "virtuality", the chips fall as they will.  Caldis extenbded your example in which the result the virtuality mandates is one that presents problems for continued play.  This is exactly what we would expect to see in a game in which "virtuality" was the primary driver.

3. The GM, essentially without warning, has them be blackballed to the point where only a life of crime is viable (I would question the feasibility of this as a player--it sounds railroady to me--but I'll assume it's reasonable in the game).

Right - and here you are assuming baselessly that this is without warning, and an act of GM malice.  You are warping the given scenario - the scenario that was proposed was precisely meant to elucidate what happens when the in-game continuity in virtuality produces a result that is perhaps not fun.  You seem to be trying to dodge that by introducing a malicious motive to the GM.

The discussion of who gives the warning when appears moot to me.  I'd expect players in a Con-X game, in line with genre conventions, to understand that "you can't leave the agency".  That is a strong trope in quite a lot of adventure fiction, and I see no reason to presume that Caldis proposition is perverse in this regard.

Well, in your  experience if it happens (A) then it's not a high commitment to Virtuality. It's more like Participationism ... or something.

No - its Sim.  Its not participationism becuase they are not being lead by the GM's story - thats exactly why they were free to quit.  In my experience with sim play, if the simulation produces a result that is not fun, play will break and a new arrangement will be made.

Well, I didn't come up with it. I didn't even latch on to it first. I didn't start this thread and I didn't propose Mike's 3D model. So, you know, if I'm alone in thinking there might be a place for it that's news to me.

Fair enough.  But I understand you to be arguing in favour of its introduction.

The GM isn't being coercive--what's unclear is why the players chose that course of action in the face of such sanctions.

Yes, sure - but you;re argument was that virtuality was the play wtyle in which internal continuity was king, and everyone has that as their primary interest.  So the question in response is: what happens when that internal continuity makes play no fun?  You can't keep changing your own example and imposing further conditions on it to keep avoiding dealing with that question.  And without that distinction, virtuality does not need to be thought to exist.

Imagine all the characters got arrested and imprisoned.  Most sim players would probably say OK these characters are good as dead, or skip time till they are released, perhaps.  I would have thought that according to the argument you present for virtuality, if the players were committed to virtuality, they would desire to play out their prison sentences.  That is the naturally arising outcome of the simulated game environment, and authentic cause and effect, and according to the description of virtuality proposed, the players should seize on it with both hands.

But I have never seen that happen.

[contracycle]

But the key aspect to Dramatism is Drama--and the need for it. Virtuality may well lack drama: The players investigate avenue A, it's not dramatic for long stretches, if it fails to yield results they try avenue B.

IMO that distinction is only apparent, not real.  I think that Participationism, as described, also includes some aspects similar to high concept sim.  The key point about it is that it is the GM making the decisions, not that the GM necessarily makes drama-based decisions.

So for example, the classic clash between a Gamist player and a participationist GM is when the GM wants to have the characters captured and incapacitated, and the gamist player foils the capture or immediately escapes.

Now the GM may say that they wanted to enforce this action because of virtuality (thats what would happen given the initial conditions) or because of Dramatism (thats what needs to happen to make this entertaining).  

Regardless of the GM's motive, the players are mostly along for the ride - until the gamist throws a spanner in the works.  At which point people accuse them of being a munchkin and not being "realistic" (if 'virtuality' is a public virtue) or not going with the story (if story is a public virtue).

So it seems to me that Virtuality and Dramatism are too sides of the same Participationist coin.

[Marco]

I don't see how that is moving the goalposts.  Your whole argument is that with a high commitment to "virtuality", the chips fall as they will.  Caldis extenbded your example in which the result the virtuality mandates is one that presents problems for continued play.  This is exactly what we would expect to see in a game in which "virtuality" was the primary driver.

It's moving the goal posts because I'd explicitly said "the players are not prisoners (as in Hellboy)"--if the players "are not prisoners" but will be "as good as dead" if they leave then I think that you might as well say they are prisoners.

The problem comes about when you actually see this happen (or don't see it happen as the case may be.) Let's look at your next quote.

Right - and here you are assuming baselessly that this is without warning, and an act of GM malice.  You are warping the given scenario - the scenario that was proposed was precisely meant to elucidate what happens when the in-game continuity in virtuality produces a result that is perhaps not fun.  You seem to be trying to dodge that by introducing a malicious motive to the GM.

The discussion of who gives the warning when appears moot to me.  I'd expect players in a Con-X game, in line with genre conventions, to understand that "you can't leave the agency".  That is a strong trope in quite a lot of adventure fiction, and I see no reason to presume that Caldis proposition is perverse in this regard.

(Emphasis added)
I'm not assuming malice at all. My thought was that the PC team was a lot like a real modern-day SWAT team that combats the paranormal. You can quit and go freelance--if you want. By the time you make it something else, it's something else. Maybe it's a bad example--I don't know what happens if you quit Conspiracy-X? Do they have some magical blackballing capability? Do they kill you? Do you know what happens if you quit?

If you know then it's moot. If you don't know and the player asks, what will you say and how will you make the determination?

If the players knew, coming in, that quitting was a seriously challenged option then having them quit would be an implicit statement of a wish to explore that serious challenge.

If quitting isn't a serious challenge then quitting means they are choosing to explore some other situation (being freelancers).

The problem arise when you indeterminantly exchange one for the other--or where the players mistake one for the other ("Hey, I thought we could just up and quit!?")

You say that Caldis can assume that--but that was what I was specifically letting out with my "they're not prisoners bit."

And this is exactly the sort of situation that I'd expect would either get cleared up in play (the GM warns them that there will be serious reprocussions to their quitting). They might quit anyway--but they know what they're doing.

If nothing in the environment would communicate to them that they are making a huge mistake then a) that's rare in real life--wouldn't the agency warn them? and b) it's the sort of problem that can happen in Virtuality but not in Participationism. It's a key, driving difference.

No - its Sim.  Its not participationism becuase they are not being lead by the GM's story - thats exactly why they were free to quit.  In my experience with sim play, if the simulation produces a result that is not fun, play will break and a new arrangement will be made.

Well, firstly, under traditional GNS participationism is Sim.

Secondly, at some point play will break, clearly. It depends on what your tolerance for not-fun is, how not-fun it is, and why (exactly) it's not-fun. A player can run into horribly furstrating adversity and groove on it--so it's not a matter of in-game consequneces alone.

I don't know too many gamers who do like that, however--and there's some axis of goal-oriented play and character-identification that isn't sufficiently covered by the decision-making paradigm alone that addresses the value of play ... but yes, eventually the play will break.

But before that happens, IME, the players will try other stuff.

Now: note--Calids, in the text I bolded, and, I think, the text you refered to, talked about the players participate with the gm's plot--this is what I argued against.

The players doing *something else* is not the same as "participating in the GM's plot."

I've no problem with the players getting a negative feedback and doing something else--but I do have a problem with that being described as participation in the GM's plot (at least the way that's meant here).

Where this is distinct from Participationism is that if the player isn't grooving on the negative feedback it will still be there up to and including the breaking of the game because it's "what would happen."

Under Participationism if the player isn't grooving on negative consequences then something will happen to keep play interesting and moving without the player needing to change course (or, alternatively, the player may, indeed, need to return to the GM's rails).

Fair enough.  But I understand you to be arguing in favour of its introduction.

More accurately, I'm using it because people react badly to "GDS Sim" which is what I'd rather use. Virtuality was introduced because people see it as a real phenomena under GNS (it wasn't presented as a challenge to the model, IIRC, and, indeed, I do not think it does--I think it's the lumping Participationism in GNS Sim with Virtuality that creates problems).

Yes, sure - but you;re argument was that virtuality was the play wtyle in which internal continuity was king, and everyone has that as their primary interest.  So the question in response is: what happens when that internal continuity makes play no fun?  You can't keep changing your own example and imposing further conditions on it to keep avoiding dealing with that question.  And without that distinction, virtuality does not need to be thought to exist.

Imagine all the characters got arrested and imprisoned.  Most sim players would probably say OK these characters are good as dead, or skip time till they are released, perhaps.  I would have thought that according to the argument you present for virtuality, if the players were committed to virtuality, they would desire to play out their prison sentences.  That is the naturally arising outcome of the simulated game environment, and authentic cause and effect, and according to the description of virtuality proposed, the players should seize on it with both hands.

But I have never seen that happen.

I haven't seen that happen either (playing out every moment of a lengthy jail sentence). I've seen games end in massive police battles that both the GM and players wished hadn't happened, however.

That's the difference: if the GM intervines to provide an escape route through the line of cop-cars then we have a good candidate for Participationism. If not, a good candidate for Virtuality (assuming the deciding factor was how the GM makes decisions about such things and the game is otherwise somehow classifiable as Sim).

But those are two very different modes of play. As different, IMO, as Participationism and Narrativism.

-Marco

[Marco]

So for example, the classic clash between a Gamist player and a participationist GM is when the GM wants to have the characters captured and incapacitated, and the gamist player foils the capture or immediately escapes.

Now the GM may say that they wanted to enforce this action because of virtuality (thats what would happen given the initial conditions) or because of Dramatism (thats what needs to happen to make this entertaining).  

Right--and this is exactly the problem with GNS Sim (as in Exhibit A). If the GM is participationist and claims "virtuality" as a reason for in-game events then he's lying or self-deceiving. If the GM determines that the events are what would "really happen" then the GM is, by definition, not a participationist GM who "wants to have the players captured and incapacitated."

The GM doesn't want the PC's captured. The GM wants to run things as they would happen. Or, perhaps, the GM would prefer captured characters--but won't accuse a character who fights his way out of it of being out of line--as it turned out, what really happened is "you can't catch Neo with a butterfly net, even though that would've been really cool if you could."

The failure to distinguish between the two very different mind-sets is a key weakness in GNS (as you present it here, anyway). How do I specificy that I'd like one vs. the other when talking to a GM? Or when making a game?

The fact that you can't see the difference is telling: if you have only GNS as a tool and you're you (Ralph seems to see the difference) then the conversation is broken. All you can give you from my request is what excuse I want you to use with your railroading.

So it seems to me that Virtuality and Dramatism are too sides of the same Participationist coin.

This is essentially what GDS said of Narrativism (instead of Virtuality) and it wasn't any more correct there.

-Marco

[Valamir]

Hey guys,

I'm having an extraordinary amount of trouble figuring out what this latest conversation that gone on for the last couple of pages is even about.

Generally when a discussion between 2 people winds up being mostly a debate about what a 3rd person did or didn't say...its a clear sign that the topic has run its course.

If I'm wrong and there is some key issue here that is worth grappling with, then please start over in another thread so we can all follow along in the discussion.

But I'm thinking this thread is just about run out of usefullness...

[Lee Short]

I think Ralph's contention is correct, and the current definition of Sim is broken.  In matter of fact, the definition is written such that Sim has become a ghetto for what doesn't fit in Nar & Gam, rather than a coherent play style in its own right -- which it should be.  

As an example of what's wrong with the definition, consider the game Theatrix, which is Sim under the present GNS definition.  Here's some text from David Berkman, one of the Theatrix authors, on how to run the game:  

Race Bannon, ace pilot, wants to Immelman turn, barrol role between the tightly packed squadron of German bi-planes heading his way, avoiding loads of fire as he goes, and hook the blimp on the other side of that mess with a dangling line and hook as passes over it. Anyone else would be dead, dead, dead, but Race has a pilot Skill of 8.5, with a specialty in his own heavily modified Sopwith Camel, which he is currently flying. The description of the action is done with such flourish, and the eventual consequences of it are interesting, exciting, and, for your adventure, necessary. So you are heavily inclined to provide a success. I would also be heavily inclined to demand a Plot Point for this outrageous stunt, spent into the Descriptor 'Ace Pilot', and despite very much wanting to provide a sucess, I would hand over a failure of the Plot Point weren't spent. Why? Because Race is hogging the spotlight here. This is a Plot Point moment, and I ought to be sure that this act is within character conception (that it is Race's moment as opposed to some other character's, ie. he has the Descriptor), and that Race has saved a Plot Point to carry it off with (ie., that he has allowed others their moment in the sun, saving something aside for this moment, *his* moment).

Now I ask you:  does this sound anything like "Internal Cause is King"?  No, it doesn't, and there's really no commonality between this playstyle and a playstyle which really values internal cause as king.  The fact that these are both lumped together as Sim in GNS terms is a flaw in the definition, and this is what Ralph is trying to fix (I think).  

========

I think a big problem is that internal cause and internal plausibility often seem to be conflated.  Much of the time I see the words 'internal cause' here on the Forge, what the author really means is 'internal plausibility'.  

The distinction here is not trivial, and is of utmost import when discuss Simulationism.  It's the difference between "what is the single thing my character would do?" and "what are the set of things my character might do?"  These are not the same question, and to a real simulationist  the former is paramount  He may not always have The Right Answer, but he at least makes the effort.  He may not have the all information he needs to answer the question, but he does the best he can with what information he has.  

Caldis understands the difference, he just draws different conclusions than I do:

I'm not arguing that the GM would break the commitment to the virtuality, I'm just arguing that the commitment to virtuality isnt what has been described. It's not an attempt to discover what is the most realistic outcome, not a scientific simulation trying to provide an answer, but one where plausibility is required to give the virtuality an air of realism and the possibility of being true.

Other than use of the problematic word 'realistic', "an attempt to discover what is the most realistic outcome" is exactly what simulationism is about.  Anything else is, at least, a mixture of simulationism and some other creative agenda (no caps).  Pure sim is indeed quite rare.  The definition of sim should nevertheless refer to sim in its pure state.  

=========

I disagree with Ralph as to what distinguishes Sim from garden-variety Exploration.  IMO, what distinguishes Sim from Exploration is that in Sim, you never settle for "plausible enough":  only the most plausible will do.  In Exploration, lesser degrees of plausibility are perfectly acceptable.

[contracycle]

If I'm wrong and there is some key issue here that is worth grappling with, then please start over in another thread so we can all follow along in the discussion.

Yes, forgive me for contributing to your thread, I can see now that doing so was unpardonably gauche.

[ErrathofKosh]

In general I think the policy at the Forge is that when the originator of a thread asks for it to be closed, it is closed...

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

It's closed now. For future reference, the initiator of the thread may request the closure of the thread, and others are to respect that request by restraining themselves until I say one way or the other.

In very nearly all cases, the request is judged OK by me. I only say "No, keep going" if the thread-initiator is apparently trying to slam the door in order to have the last word. This has happened only once, I think.

Best,
Ron