'Must...learn...crane technique!' Design idea.

[Callan S.]

One element I'd like to remind and stress is that you don't just get to choose C. The GM has to say 'no, that move fails' first.

For example, your about to prove you the bestest move making guy, you say your first move, with the very next already at the tip of your tongue and ...the GM say 'That was it, you got him! Winning move!'

The GM's just told you you've won. But you've got the idea in your head that making up hundreds of moves was winning. But because you've just made the winning move, that clearly states that any other move you could make would be a losing move. You'd be making hundreds of losing moves.

Both of you have completely different ideas of what a win status is. You are playing two different games at the same table.

Second example, you say your move, the GM says 'It fails!'. You choose C. You make another move, the GM states to you 'It fails!'. You choose C again. It goes on until you get to 20 XP. You declare to everyone 'I WIN!' after the GM has said to you 'you lose' over and over and over again.

To me, another person telling me I've won or lost is more important than the system telling me I've won or lost. This is repeated over and over in the gamism essay on this site - it is social feedback that is the key to play.

If your willing to ignore another human being telling you you've lost, in favour of the system telling you've won, I don't think that your interested in anything but solo gamism, where your looking to give yourself esteem. There's no point in thinking you've won when everyone else thinks you've lost - your just fooling yourself. There is nothing else to gain in gamism but the esteem of others - if you don't have that, then you've lost, no matter how much XP you have. And this design explicitly demands the GM tell you when you've failed - you can't convince him that really your winning, with all that XP, when he knows he just told you you failed.

Frankly I've tried to enjoy gamism solo in a group that was focused elsewhere. In my case I know that I turned more and more to the numbers supporting my agenda, rather than people. I know it is gamism to play by yourself and try and earn your own esteem. It works and is functional. But in such a case, your playing by yourself - it doesn't matter if your at a table with a bunch of other people. Your just playing by yourself. Your not doing gamism with other people. You could all be doing gamism, but all seperate, descrete little games. Without social feedback between you, those games are not linked. Which isn't the worst thing in the world, but is not part of this design.

[Moreno R.]

Callan, I must admit that I am really not understanding what you want from this game. You talked about "a gamist bent design", but from what I see in these post, you are talking about ways for THE CHARACTER to win, not the player.  This is not gamism.

(and the post about the glass dome, I really could not understand it. You don't want complete control as a GM, and you are thinking about a game where the GM has total and absolute arbitrary control and can tell the players that their move "worked" or not on a whim?)

So I am not really sure that we are even talking about the same things. In a gamism design I search for tactical and strategic choices, but from what you told until now it seems that in this game the only one who get to make tactical choices is the GM (from your description, the GM choose to "bestow his blessing" on a character or another, deciding who win and who get the xp. The only winning strategy I see for the player is to befriend you, adulate you, and tell you that you are a really good GM, so you will let them win. It's an accurate description or there is some objective criterion that the GM should use to decide who win, that you forgot to tell us?)

My impression is that we have very different ideas about what "gamism" is, too.

You asked for a "gamist goal". I think I never saw such an animal in my life. The only goal of gamism is to "prove myself". Myself. The player. Not the character. In a gamist game, we are TOLD the goals (or it's implicit). And it could be anything. There is no a different class of "gamism goals" to reach. The "goal" of a Gamism game could be "to create the best story you can". The difference is not in the goals of the characters, but in the REASON why you (the player) try to reach them

So, in a gamist game, the goal could be "To get my character laughed off, miserable, lost in a sea of stupidity, until he dies for no reason whatsoever" (a cruel variant of Paranoia played gamist, maybe?). Every time someone laugh at my character, every time he lose, every time he has reasons to feel miserable, everybody at the table see how good I (the player) am at this game (and I could get some kind of xp, resource or prize for this). Because everybody (in a non dysfunctional group) is playing for the same things. And the system rewards all this.

One element I'd like to remind and stress is that you don't just get to choose C. The GM has to say 'no, that move fails' first.

For example, your about to prove you the bestest move making guy, you say your first move, with the very next already at the tip of your tongue and ...the GM say 'That was it, you got him! Winning move!'

The GM's just told you you've won. But you've got the idea in your head that making up hundreds of moves was winning. But because you've just made the winning move, that clearly states that any other move you could make would be a losing move. You'd be making hundreds of losing moves.

What is the goal of your game? The player has to make his character "win"...  what? There is some kind of objective criterion that the GM follow to decide if a move is "the right move", or the GM see the xp tally of the character and he say "mmm..  player x has too many xp, I have to let his character win more fights...". Because if this is the GM strategy, I will always choose option C anyway. If I have more xp, the GM has to make win more often, or I will get the "right move". So by choosing C I will win, at the end, more often.

It's mathematical.  If I want to force you to let me win to avoid giving me more xp, I should choose the strategy that give me more xp when I lose.

(let me say that from my limited understanding of the design that you want in your game, I find it remarkable in the way it would destroy any fun I find in playing a rpg...)

Both of you have completely different ideas of what a win status is. You are playing two different games at the same table.

Second example, you say your move, the GM says 'It fails!'. You choose C. You make another move, the GM states to you 'It fails!'. You choose C again. It goes on until you get to 20 XP. You declare to everyone 'I WIN!' after the GM has said to you 'you lose' over and over and over again.

To me, another person telling me I've won or lost is more important than the system telling me I've won or lost. This is repeated over and over in the gamism essay on this site - it is social feedback that is the key to play.

If your willing to ignore another human being telling you you've lost, in favour of the system telling you've won,

Stop! Stop right here, because this is the proof that you have REALLY misunderstood Ron's essay on gamism (and any other idea of gamism I ever saw as well).

The "other person" isn't telling ME that I have lost, again and again.

The "other person" is telling me that MY CHARACTER has lost, time and again.

And, EVERY TIME he is telling me that, he is forced to give me a lot of xp.

If you don't understand the difference, you have not really understood gamism.

Let me tell you an example. Suppose I am a writer. I write best sellers. In my books, every time, a beautyful and lonely girl fall in love with the wrong person. Sometimes he is a liar and want her money.  Sometimes he is already married with children, and would never broke his family. The detail change every time, but at the end, in every book, the heroine lose everying he has for love, and after that she lose that love, too, and at the end she always lose her life.
These books sell million of copies. The more my heroines suffer, the more money I make. I live in luxury, with a lot of models and actress at my feets.
Every time, I go to the publisher of my books. Every time, He says to me "what a loser your characters are. She lost again. And again, and again, and again. She always lose.  Anyway, this is a check for ten million dollars, as an advance on the royalties".

If you were in the room, you would think of me as a loser?

I don't think that your interested in anything but solo gamism, where your looking to give yourself esteem. There's no point in thinking you've won when everyone else thinks you've lost - your just fooling yourself. There is nothing else to gain in gamism but the esteem of others -

EVERY Agenda is reinforced in play by the esteem of others. Even simulationism or Narrativism. But that esteem is based on the concrete, real objectives of the players at the table.  It's not something that the GM can concede or deny at his every whim. You can't tell the people at the table "give player x your esteem because I want to give a prize for the way he is not able to play the game I created. And don't give any esteem to player y, because he il playing my game too well and is beating me". It doen't work like that.

if you don't have that, then you've lost, no matter how much XP you have. And this design explicitly demands the GM tell you when you've failed - you can't convince him that really your winning, with all that XP, when he knows he just told you you failed.

In this situation, the GM would only embarrass himself. Telling me that I "lost" because my character lost is like telling me that I am in love because my character is in love, or that I am dead because my character is dead.

[Callan S.]

Going to PM on BB's points. And I've realised I've been ranting to support a principle, rather than just looking at how what I want doesn't get across and thinking of ways of doing it. Bad habit, trying to get an idea across when I should remember my objective is to use this myself - not to communicate any grand idea.