GNS and transaction theory

[Mark D. Eddy]

It seems to be a premise of the GNS theory that each discrete decision is based on one and only one of the catagories, and that catagory can be absolutely determined given enough information. If this is not true, my question falls apart, so correct me if I'm wrong.

Now the question is this: If the above is true, it stands to reason that transactions can or must occur in real game play so that an individual's priorities do not overwhelm the rest of the group -- even if that individual is the "Game Master." E.g.: as a primarily narrativist with simulationist leanings, I have learned to allow my gamist player(s) to have their combat or confrontation of the night so that they can enjoy the game as well. Are such transactions appropriate under the theory, or is the theory more inclined to suggest homogeneity of 'style'/preference for the group?

I didn't articulate this question as well as I should have in my first post, and it got lost.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Mark,

There's some debate about the "atomism" of GNS decisions, and so far I've remained rather loose about the length and content of "an instance of play." But all that is just to let you know that discussion about this stuff does exist (down in those threads below, somewhere).

Your essential question makes sense. Let's see if I can answer it ...

Basically, these transactions you're describing are happening all the time. There's no reason to reduce their presence, if they are being carried out and resolved in such a way that everyone is enjoying himself.

One thing people mis-read in my essays is the notion that play should be somehow "pure" in GNS terms. If you check out the Coherence material, and especially the final part of the essay, you'll see that I'm really saying that functional outcomes of whatever GNS preferences are present are the real goal. These "outcomes," of course, result from the "transactions" that you describe.

Now, the painful thing for many people seems to be that I do think there's a functional limit, in terms of diversity of GNS goals (among other things). In other words, too much diversity in those goals in particular, and the transactions begin to break down. I'm not sure why saying this results in such angry, retaliatory reactions among many readers, but it sometimes does.

Best,
Ron

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Now, the painful thing for many people seems to be that I do think there's a functional limit, in terms of diversity of GNS goals (among other things). In other words, too much diversity in those goals in particular, and the transactions begin to break down. I'm not sure why saying this results in such angry, retaliatory reactions among many readers, but it sometimes does.

My own personal theory I've had since the days of GO - and take it for what you will - is that you can functionally hit two GNS goals, but three will always flop on you. Real examples:

- The Riddle of Steel. You could easily play this with a group of story freaks and combat-simulationist nuts.
- Sorcerer. While oriented towards a good story, there's a great deal of the mechanics that can be played with in a very Gamist fashion. (An odd one - player vs. character. Basically, "how far can I push this guy before he gets the big violation?")
- Some games of D&D. With some altering of the rules, I've played in some great Gamist/Narrativist mixes of this.

You'll note in all the examples, one priority is still primary. RoS and Sorcerer lend themselves to a primarily Narrativist style of play, with RoS secondarily supporting Simulationism and Sorcerer secondarily supporting Gamism, while D&D primarily supports Gamism, but can be drifted to secondarily support Narrativism.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Clinton,

Yeah, I agree with you about the Two-at-a-Time, One-Mainly idea, as a practical/empirical issue. It's even stated in the old "System Does Matter" essay.

So Mark, is this makin' any sense?

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

You'll note in all the examples, one priority is still primary. RoS and Sorcerer lend themselves to a primarily Narrativist style of play, with RoS secondarily supporting Simulationism and Sorcerer secondarily supporting Gamism, while D&D primarily supports Gamism, but can be drifted to secondarily support Narrativism.

Right. Most games after D&D support either Gamism or Simulationism primarily and the other secondarily. GURPS is primarily Sim and secondarily Gam supportive. RM Primarily supports Gamism and secondarily Sim. These are just my personal observations from play. People should realize that the mode that a particular system supports best is fairly subjective. You can often get a consensus, but I doubt there are many games that everyone would agree on.

Senzar as Gamist, perhaps?

Another question is how much should you make such transactions explicit? I suppose there might be a stealth camp out there that would argue that you can get more transactions in successfully by doing them covertly, than overtly. But the honesty policy would demand that you make them overt. I'm not speaking of discussing them each individually, but rather stating up from before a game that we'll be playing some Gamist for Bob, and some Simulationist for Red.  So that people know that it'll be happening up front.

The advantage to playing a "pure" game if you can swing it is that, assuming that everyone likes that mode, eveyone will be at maximum mode satisfaction continually. OTOH, given the subdivisions of each mode, true "purity" is probably a myth. So the question then is, if the transactions are between relatively similar modes, do you need to make them explicit? I suppose there's a point at which you should just ignore it. Or am I wrong?

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hey Mike,

It seems to me that the transactions need to happen, but the idiom and vocabulary that are used can vary quite a lot.

Given a shared idiom/vocabulary for the transactions, within a mode, I think, most of it can be worked out very quickly, whether to decide to play more like one of the people ("Bob's here, so we have to kill stuff to win," or "Jay's here, so we have to all be in-character a lot"), or to be prepared for different strokes for different folks. Between modes is harder, of course, but not too much harder in at least some combinations.

However, I'd be wary of using all manner of GNS-talk to do it, because then people would probably construct divisions/incompatibilities that aren't there. That's where the widely-feared "divisiveness" comes in - oh no, we can't play together, you're a Simulationist, etc. So I'd have the transaction be overt but the vocabulary be more casual - and I'd even suggest that some of these transactions don't really exist until play gets started, which is why I referred to "idiom" as well as vocabulary.

(Sigh) I'm obliged to repeat that irreconcilable GNS-differences do exist, and they aren't rare - but it might be a relief to some who fear "divisiveness" that failure to transact in Mark's terms is really the culprit of game dysfunction. The value of GNS and related stuff is making it possible to overcome that, without simply resenting the other guy who seems to have fucked-up play priorities (as it seems at the time).

Best,
Ron

[Mark D. Eddy]

(Sigh) I'm obliged to repeat that irreconcilable GNS-differences do exist, and they aren't rare - but it might be a relief to some who fear "divisiveness" that failure to transact in Mark's terms is really the culprit of game dysfunction. The value of GNS and related stuff is making it possible to overcome that, without simply resenting the other guy who seems to have fucked-up play priorities (as it seems at the time).

Best,
Ron

OK, good. I'm getting this and agreeing with most of it so far.

I got lost, however, in the discussion of game systems. I won't disagree that most systems facilitate one style of play over the others, but I haven't run across any system that excludes one style of play, and I suspect there are systems that facilitate all three styles (e.g., Shadowrun).

It may even be possible to work "my" transaction theory into a game ruleset to allow diverse types of gamers to play under that ruleset. I'll have to think about that.

[Mike Holmes]

Heh, Shadowrun is often pointed to as an example of Gamism/Siimulationism incoherency that causes lots of problems. It certianly doesn't do much for Narrativism. Again this is my opinion, but a fairly commonly held one, IIRC.

Mike

[Christoffer Lernö]

I suspect there are systems that facilitate all three styles (e.g., Shadowrun).

Uh-oh, don't get me into my anti-Shadowrun rant here. I'm with Mike on this one. As I GM I have constant problems because the results generated within the Shadowrun system is firmly inconsistent with soliloquy resolution. Or in other words, the SR system produces unreasonable results which are hard to link together with the actual telling of the story. Ah, now I just thought of about a million examples. Somebody stop me please. Take these voices out of my head.

[Mark D. Eddy]

Odd -- I think that from a player's point of view the Good Karma mechanic is an explicitly narrativist tool. It allows a player to choose when he excells at something for dramatic effect (and the choice *not* to use Good Karma when it's available is definitely narrativist). The 2ed addition of Threat Dice gives the Game Master a narrativist tool, allowing him to tailor a threat to the abilities/needs of the party. I've run a campaign where the narrativist premise was "Is there a point where fame is less important than friendship?" and a second campaign with the premise "It's not what you know, it's who you know."

Contacts are Simulationist/Narrativist tools, depending on their use. If you *only* use them as information sources for planning 'runs, then you'll have a problem. If the Combat Mage's Street Kid contact winds up falling in love with him (and he with her), causing him no end of anguish, that's the stuff of memorable drama (and the Narrativist sub premise of "Do the laws and morals of society apply to societal outcasts, too?").

Perhaps it's because I ran Shadowrun unmodified in a truly unusual place -- Friday nights at the WotC Game Center in Seattle. I had anywhere from three to fifteen players any given week, and I was able to satisfy them well enough that they kept coming back for more, and they still talk about the game four years after it ended. I personally think it was in the transactions I was facilitating. I was able to keep gamists, simulationists, and narrativists coming back to the same table week after week because they knew that, given enough time, their portion of the story, their particular slant, would come up. And even if one of them slept through the combat sequences, they knew that she'd be there for the in-character immersive dialog, helping to build the world around them, and letting them off the hook for that portion of my attention (so they could go buy food).

[Ron Edwards]

Hey there,

Whoa whoa, gentlemen. This discussion of game design is going right down a road that leads to madness.

Whenever we talk about game design and GNS goals, it's a matter of multiple data points, not only with using that game, but also in comparison with similar and different games. It's not enough to say, "In my game, we had all kinds of modes," and have that be an argumentative point.

As soon as the question turns from play to design, people are going to have a hard time judging among the actual game text, the social context and transactions of their own group, and what compromises people were making during play.

I can see where it happens in this thread - we were talking about play, and Clinton brought in the two-but-not-three idea, and he used game systems as examples. If I'm not mistaken, that was shorthand - "his experience of play using these games." It wasn't a shift to game design as a topic, although it's threatening to be.

That's why the GNS-stuff in my reviews must always be provisional - I'm presenting my best judgment, but it's not a rubber-stamp to say "Oh, you must and only should play [GNS-mode] with this game."

Another issue is that the habitual GM may be the worst person to consult regarding the presence of Narrativist play - such GMs tend to focus on plans for and outcomes of play sessions, when considering what play was "about," as opposed to the decisions and experiences of play itself.

So far, people have presented some interesting points about playing Shadowrun. Since GNS/game design does not focus on what "can" be done using a given system, but rather on what is most easily and consistently done, it's not too valuable to use those points as "evidence" in a debate.

Mark's original point concerned the decisions and interactions of play itself, and I think the issues he's raised have been addressed (correct me if necessary, Mark). If we want to get into the design side of things, then let's start new threads about it.

Best,
Ron

[Mark D. Eddy]

Well, the follow-up point wasn't really addressed, mostly because we went from a generalization to specifics without passing Go and without collecting $200.

However, the discussion has led me to a clarification of my thought/point: Under transaction theory game design, incoherence may not be undesirable, and in fact may be thoroughly desirable, because it allows for more flexibility of transaction. So a 'transactionist' game may be deliberately designed incoherently, with a toolbox that includes explicit enablers for all three styles of play, and explicit instructions on how to tailor a character more coherently.

Does *this* make any sense, or is the fact that I'm working on about four hours of sleep mean that I've just had a blinding flash of idiocy?

Also, shold this be under a seperate catagory of GNS, Transaction, and Game Design?

[Christoffer Lernö]

Odd -- I think that from a player's point of view the Good Karma mechanic is an explicitly narrativist tool.

Oooh, you're sooooo asking for it! ;) Whatever Shadowrun is, it's not a good game gawddamn! ;)

Now, it's not that I couldn't keep players happy with it. I had players begging me to GM it, but it was PAIN man PAIN. I think it boils down to the "my GM can run anything well" thing. Does the Shadowrun system HELP or does it make it harder? For me it was definately the second. I struggled against the system to make the stories work.

Your milage may vary of course. But I had big problems walking from soliloquy to game theory in Shadowrun because they tended to be inconsistent. Of course I'm running an illusionist game here, but that should be pretty obvious.

Now let's say on of the character's jump out the window. Wheee. No rules for that, so I say it she goes splat on the sidewalk. She wants to roll for it. No problem, I make up some rules for it. She still goes splat. Does the game help me tweak those rules? Nope.

Another time they're surrounded by parts of the private army guarding the private compound they just tried to enter. "Lay down your weapons" they say. One makes a run for it (totally insane of course). If I resolve that using the combat system she'll get away if they try to use restraining stuff like nets or dartguns. If they start using the heavy stuff which certainly will work (read: missiles) there's not gonna be anything left.

If I resolve it with soliloquy ("they shoot you down with dart guns") the player's gonna feel cheated that she didn't get to roll for it ("obviously the GM just decided what was gonna happen").

Solution? As a GM make sure you never get into a situation like the above. Result: Shadowrun feels restraining.

If they wanted to make Shadowrun feel like a narrativist game, dump the overly complicated, not working anyway, combat/magic/net systems and create something which facilitates narrativist stuff. If it's gonna be simulationist, then make sure the damn rules are consistent. Gamist? Well same point as the simulationist one.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Christoffer,

I would very much appreciate it if you'd read over this whole thread. When you do, you'll see that the "Shadowrun: Narrativist?" topic is badly off-topic and needs to be killed quickly. Please don't continue it here.

Best,
Ron