Gamism, Narrativism, and Gestalt Shift

[Mike Holmes]

This all seems to be boiling down simply to "Shift Happens." Erm, sorry, couldn't help myself. But I mean we've always known that shift happens, and I think that the assumption has always been that, given that this theory stuff is all new, that shift usually has happened in games in the past without people realizing that they were shifting. Oh, they might have felt a change, but, yeah, it wasn't being done consciously.

I don't think that's news at all, is it?

Mike

[Sean]

Depends on whether you're interested in the details or not, Mike. Gordon and I seem to be, so there you go.

[M. J. Young]

I'm probably the poster child for shift.

However, I want to point to something which I am surprised has not yet been mentioned.

Loyalty issues such as the one portrayed here can be very much part of a gamist agendum. They serve as one of the limitations on the character: can you achieve the goals you have set for yourself without crossing this line?

That's why early point-based supers games often included "Dependent Non-player Character" as a disad: by connecting yourself to someone else who was vulnerable, you created a weakness that could limit your ability to do what you wanted, because to do so you would have to sacrifice what you couldn't risk.

That doesn't mean you were necessarily doing that. It does mean that the possibility exists that in your game, you recognized that loyalty to friends was a limitation on what you could do, and at this moment portrayed you had to make the decision that you could not gain what you hoped to gain without losing what you couldn't afford to lose, so you were going to have to step back, save the endangered companions, and hope that you could find another way to get that treasure eventually.

I hope that sheds some light on it.

--M. J. Young

[Gordon C. Landis]

MJ,

Yup, that's another specific example of how Gamism could be supported by loyalty issues.  And a good one.

Mike,

I think we're talking about a lot more than just shift happening (which, yeah, is pretty old news) - we're talking a bit about the why and how (and when it starts, but fails), which is perhaps also no big thang.

But the hybridization/subordinate modes stuff seems pretty fresh - though I guess Sean still needs to develop his "G/N congruent play" thought.

Sean,

Other than that G/N point, it looks to me like this thread is about done too - unless there's somewhere else you wanted to take it first?

Gordon

[contracycle]

Well, I do have a slight difference with "shift happens" but it is only this: shift doesn't happen equally.  I think I only ever shifted into Narr on a handful of occassions, but spent many years shifting between S and G.  So, that is what I specifically mean by a subordinate mode - a second preference.  If the subordinate mode hypothesis is true, then it has implications for purposefully hybrid design, and for some examination of in-play group dynamics.

[Sean]

I'm happy calling the thread. I can imagine it being continued in various useful ways, but none that couldn't be equally well conducted in a new discussion.

Here are my current thoughts on that last topic, if anyone wants to take that up somewhere else:

One thing I'm still mulling over, which is not a matter of congruent play, is the way that MLwM absorbed my gamism effortlessly. I suppose it's a matter that what you do to get love is deal with your character's (your) interests, and the only kinds of things you can do wind up serving the game's theme, so wherever you're at privately, you wind up back in Nar-land in terms of your public contribution to what's going on.

This relates to the Sim/slow issue. Ron says in one of the essays that Gam dominates the other modes, and he's right, from the point of view of the group: once the Gamism gets into a group it's a very rare bunch of roleplayers who won't all start stepping on up whether they want to or not. This is that old 'human nature' thing. But from the point of view of individual contributions, it's Sim that eats the other modes. Because a lone misplaced Gamist will just chirp up and the rest of the group will go back to doing their thing with a look of bemusement or annoyance; but a lone Simulationist can keep asking questions, asking for descriptions, going to look at something else, interacting with the SiS forever, and since these actions are all pretty basic to Exploration itself, it's much harder to spot the lone Simulationist right away, or to explain to him or her why his play-style is screwing everyone else up.

Having considered the issues of this thread more, I'm pretty sure that G/N congruent play is just flat-out impossible. Enjoyable managed drift between G and N with players who enjoy both is very possible: I'm the king of this kind of GMing, thanks to long experience with Nar-drifted D&D and fantasy homebrews.

Actually, thinking about this further just now, I just joined the camp that says all congruent play is impossible, even with Sim. But I don't have the time to explain why I think that now.

See you all in other threads.