Help a GNS illiterate?

[Ben Lehman]

Everyone is looking for something--  Goals, Desire and RPGs

   My name is Ben Lehman, and I am GNS-illiterate.  No matter how many times I read Ron's essays, I can't seem to get a good grip on the GNS model.  I feel that I finally have a good grasp of what Gamism is, but N and S elude me.  To see my latest mistakes, see my "power distribution in RPGs" thread in RPG theory.
   So I would like to ask the help of the people in the forums to not embarrass myself further.  Also, I have a hunch about what role the generalized "stance" takes in overall RPG structure, and I'm looking to develop a larger model.  But I can't do that without understand the parts.
   My plan of attack is this -- I will say what impression I have of each of the stances, particularly paying attention to fuzzy areas and things that I'm unsure about, and then y'all correct me, and show off your knowledge of RPG theory.  Deal?  If not a deal, read no further.

Gamism -- A Gamist is a player that wants a challenge in the game.  He wants the game to be challenging in and of itself.  During play, of course, he plays "to win," but this is actually illusory.  A "good game," to a Gamist, is a game in which the challenges are hairsbreadth close, and he wins by his own cleverness or luck.  The second best case is losing by such.  D&D 3rd is an example of gamist design -- the game is balanced to provide good challenge for all players.

Narrativism -- I am by far the most fuzzy on Narrativism.  I imagine that what a Narrativist wants is a good story.  During play, a Narrativist does what he can to enhance the plotline and character interactions.  A "good game," to a Narrativist, is one where everyone participated (is this necessary) to make a thought-provoking story.  I am unclear on a good example of a Narrativist design.  Riddle of Steel's spiritual attributes make sense to me -- they encourage plot development -- but I have also been told that Sorcerer is a N design and, from the quickstart, I can't figure out WHY.

Simulationism -- This one is BIG -- it seems to be by far the biggest box of the three.  What a Simulationist wants is, well, simulation.  For the simulation of "real life," or something close to it, this is plausibility, often reflected in a detailed world, character-motivation based play, and meticulous record keeping.  This also (?) covers genre simulation -- a huge branch of RPG design.  A "good game," to a Simulationist, is one where nothing broke the fabric of the world, and it followed its own laws well.  Examples of a RealSim game would be something like Rolemaster (?) and examples of GenreSim games would be the old Marvel Superheroes game and Teenagers From Outer Space.

I am especially unclear on whether GenreSim is considered Narrativism or Simulationism.  If it is the former, I can't see what the "real world" is given particular credence as a genre with its own category.  If it is the latter, I can't see why a lot of supposedly Narrativist game designs are different -- a good genre story is mostly a matter of sticking to the genre conventions, after all.

Anyone want to help?

yrs--
--Ben

[Garbanzo]

Ben-

Looks like I'm sneaking in here before the heavies...I'd better type fast!

The first caveat is that there aren't (necessarily) G or N or S players.  GNS examines decisions.  The second is that this stuff is most useful at diagnosing problems.  If everything's fine, no need to get all analytical.
Standard disclaimers taken care of, I think you've mostly got it.

Gamist decisions: ramping up character effectiveness.
Narrativist decisions: going for interesting stories around a theme.
Simulationist decisions: working to maximize the reality of the game-world and the ramifications of that.

Here are the best examples I can think of, lots of them old chestnuts from the fora.

G vs S: I'm playing the Spider-Man computer game.  One approach would be to zoom straight through, responding to the baddies as they arise, and going by the seat of my pants (Sim - I'm Spider-Man).  The other would be to take into account what happened last time I played, being conscious of where the baddies are (player-knowledge vs char knowledge) and working the system (w/ save games, etc) to acomplish my objectives while maximizing my resources (G - I want to win.)

More G vs S: We're playing Luke vs Darth.  Rolling the dice (00) and consulting the chart - on round 2, Luke's skewered Darth.
G - Woo hoo!  Now where's the Emperor?
S (possibly) - No way.  That wouldn't've happened.  Lets keep going.  (Because the rules are just a way of modeling game-reality.  But sometimes a model can fall short.)

S vs N: I'm the Flash.  The bad guys have F-16s going to blow up the dam.  (Damn.)  Can I get there in time?
S - Depends.  Lets compare the Flash's stated top speed vs the F-16s, check how far both are from the destination, and see what's consistent with previously established reality
N - Of course!  I'm the Flash!  What's the point of being the Flash if you're too slow?

A better S vs N (from just the other day): I'm Wrathful.  Says so on my charsheet.
S - So I better act Wrathish.  I need to play out established reality.  
N - Wrathful is a component of my psyche, and something I'll struggle with as the campaign goes on.  It's an issue for me, not a mandate.

N vs G: What sort of character do you make for DnD?
G - I'm going to use the rules to make the most effective character I can.  That's what rules are for, right?
N - I'm going to make a character that's interesting to me, and has some personality and potential to grow.  Which probably means not a combat-monster.

G vs S vs N: I'm a noble Paladin, all about sanctity of life, yada yada.  Do I loot the bodies?
G - Yup.  I need the gold, they might have some good treasure, etc
S - No.  My order wouldn't behave that way.  Doesn't make game-world sense, so I won't do it.
N - No or Yes.  My character's all about Honor, and this is a decision: now that I'm strapped for resources, do I bend my moral code?


Exploration and verisimilitude is sought by all three modes.  It's fundamental.  All decisions need a stable context.  The 3 stances perhaps are just viewpoints on what is meant by that.  (Stable rules vs stable reality vs a stable ground for relevant choices)
As for genre simulation, if you're trying to model the way a genre works, that'd be S.  If you're trying to create the kinds of character-choices and themes of a given genre, that's N.

I think the trickiest bit is about the choices presented by N.  They need to address the "premise" of the game.  But what's "premise"?  And how's it different from "Premise?"  And what was that "creative agenda" thing?

My own take (waiting for the heavyweights): Sometimes a Nar-supporting game will have an explicit Premise: "What will you do for Power" (Sorcerer, this is the whole point of Sorc, which is why it's considered Nar).  Sometimes there will be a less definite premise, or creative agenda: "We go out and kill monsters" to "civilization is crumbling around you; now what?"
(Me out on a limb:) Many Nar games have an explicit Premise, but some don't.  It doesn't matter, because there's no such thing as a Nar game, anyway.  Just games that better-support Nar decisions.  So if the game is pure dungeon-crawl, but somehow has tons of ways for players to make important character-choices that offer character growth and change, that counts.


That's my best take.
-Matt

(I'm glad I got in so quickly; Now we both get to be corrected! :)

[Paganini]

Hey Ben,

Heh heh heh! Ron, did I or did I not just say something about your terms being obfuscatory? Heh heh heh!

Anyway, it can take a while to fully understand the parts of GNS that have been fully mapped out . . . we're all still working on the parts that haven't. :) So, here's my version of GNS in a Nutshell, in words that differ from Ron.

First, Exploration.

In GNS, "Exploration" is the group act of creating a fictional reality through the combined imaginings of a group of people. It's the basic foundation of all role-playing. Ron has identified five elements that define the imagined realtiy: Color, Character, System, Setting, Situation. If you're role-playing, you're Exploring (imagining as a group) these five elements. One (or more) of the elements may be emphasized over the others, but they're all present.

GNS also identifies three types of "Stance," which are points of view from which players make decisions. In Actor stance, players make decisions from the PoV of their character, allowing no outside motivation or information. In Author stance, players make decisions of some meta-game significance, which are then justified in game terms. Pawn stance is a child of Author stance, in which the justification is omitted. In Director stance players make decisions that directly influence the imagined reality, without needing any special agency (character).

The actual GNS categories themselves identify during-play priorities.

Simulationism is the biggest box, but it doesn't have anything to do with simulation. Simulationism prioritizes the actual Exploration (imagining of the fictional reality, remmeber) over any meta-game concern. The benchmark of this exploration is that it be causal; the shared reality must behave as it actually would if it were not fictional. In-game events must have reasonable in-game consequences. Note that the emphasis of the Exploration may lie on any one of the five elements. You will see lots of old threads about games (frex, the Window) that actually facilitate Simulationism with Exploration of Character (Sim: Char) or Simulationism with Exploration of Situation (Sim: Sit) rather than actual narrativism. A tell-tale sign of Simulationism is "well, let's do this and [/b]see what happens[/b]."

Narrativism and Gamism have specific meta-game goals when compared to Simulationism.

Narrativism relies on using the fictional reality as an engine for answering a thematic question. The thematic question is an Egri-style Premise as defined in Ron's essay. Lajos Egri defined "premise" in his Art of Dramatic Writing as a sort of special construct required for drama. Basically, an Egri premise is a statement about what happens in the story, like (for Romeo and Juliet) "Love overcomes even death." An Egri premise has some very specific components and requirements; there are some summaries of it online if you do a Google search. Anyway, for narrativism, you take an Egri premise and turn it into a question to be answered by Exploration. Something that might not be immediately obvious is that there must be some level of Author stance available to the players for narrativism to exist. In order to address the premise, it's sometimes necessary to move characters around in ways that might not be causal.

Gamism is currently under the microscope here, and Ron has a new essay in the works, but basically - so far as we know - Gamism prioritizes competition between the actual players using the imagined reality as an arena for this conflict.

It's important to note that GNS is a way of classifying decisions. All three modes can, and will, be present in any game session. Furthermore, decisions arising from the three modes can be made in games using any system. A "narrativist system" is a system that encourages or facilitates narrativist decisions. A "narrativist player" is one that tends to make narrativist decisions. The terms aren't exclusive - there's nothing that says you can't make simulationist decisions using a narrativist game... it'll just be more work for you, since the system won't help much.

Anyway, I think that pretty much covers the the basics. Hope it helps.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Understand can come from actually observing other people. Keep in mind that the term "instance of play" is somewhat misleading. It is not a fixed value. It does not refer to a single die roll. It could mean a single or series of sessions. You need to look at a bigger picture to see the GNS. It is not the dice roll but the lines of communication happen over a history of dice rolls.

[Mike Holmes]

First, and I can't believe nobody spotted this one, GNS are referred to as Modes of play. Stances are something that's not directly related, and include Actor, Author, Director, and maybe Audience, and Pawn mode as a specific sub-mode of Author. This is all in the essay, and I'm not sure how you missed it. Check that section out again.

Second, Simulationism has everything to do with Simulation and is accurately named at that. The common caveat has been overextended to say that they are unrellated. But they aren't totally dissociated, and I wish folks would stop saying that they are. What can be said accurately is that not all Simulationist games are specifically simulations. But many, many are. Moreover, those that are simulations are definitely Simulationist.

But Nathan's correct that the only essential element in Simulationism is prioritizing Exploration over any other metagame priority.

Third, on the term story, we don't use it in association with Narrativism any more because people have very different ideas of what constitute a story. Thus what one player calls a story is created by Sim play. Thus, SimGenre is Sim. Nathans' paragraph covers what Narrativism is well. But what it doesn't say is that essentially Narrativism is all about players being the ones who make up the important decisions that drive the narrative as opposed to the narrative only being the realm of the GM. Which, when it occurs puts it squarely in the realm of Simulationinsm.

Any of this helping? Can you tell us what the sticking points are?  

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ben,

Here are some useful threads. I've listed them from most recent to oldest, so read'em in whatever order you'd like.

GNS - what is it? - the straight dope, in very brief and pointed terms
Premise on a platter -clarifies and alters the "premise" terminology in the essay
GNS crisis of faith - concerns applying the theory to game design
Confused about Premise and Narrativism - very strong definition and explanation of Narrativist play
light bulb - very nice shortie breakdown of the three modes
Is S out of balance with G/N? - some little disagreements; warning - contains Threefold references (so ignore if you don't know what that is)
Ying in the yang? - some nice straightening out in this one
Seven major misconceptions about GNS - pay special attention to the "boxes" concept

Best,
Ron

[Ben Lehman]

But Nathan's correct that the only essential element in Simulationism is prioritizing Exploration over any other metagame priority.

Third, on the term story, we don't use it in association with Narrativism any more because people have very different ideas of what constitute a story. Thus what one player calls a story is created by Sim play. Thus, SimGenre is Sim. Nathans' paragraph covers what Narrativism is well. But what it doesn't say is that essentially Narrativism is all about players being the ones who make up the important decisions that drive the narrative as opposed to the narrative only being the realm of the GM. Which, when it occurs puts it squarely in the realm of Simulationinsm.

BL>  But I was told that player power was, specifically, related to Stance and not Mode (good call on the misuse of vocab there -- that was just a memory failure rather than misunderstanding).  Now, it could be that most GOOD Narrativist play divides the storytelling power, but I get the impression that an emphasis on storyline can be totally divorced from power distribution.
 Is this incorrect?  If so, why?

Any of this helping? Can you tell us what the sticking points are?  

BL>  Yes, it's helping a lot.  I have a pretty good grasp on the sim/narr line, but I'm still having difficulty with GenreSim and associating this with my day-to-day gaming experiences.  Let me bring in an example which covers both:
Last summer, I played in a Teenagers From Outer Space game which was extraordinarily good.  For those unfamiliar with the game, you play a bunch of wacky high-school students, both alien and human, and get into goofy hijinks.  This simulates the genre of superpowered high school comedy -- mostly anime like Urusei Yatsura but also like Wierd Science.  We were definitely focusing on the anime side.
The characters were:
The geeky child of two Sentai (power ranger style) superheroes, who was trying to get together his own Sentai team.
A surfer dude, X-treme sports enthusiast, and True King of California
A robot girl with wish-granting powers
An alien invader who was trying to conquer the world, but no one would ever take him seriously because he was small and cute.

There were others, but you get the idea.  We spent the 6 session game running around LA, building vehicles that transformed into giant robotic Andrew Jacksons, defending the prom from Neptunian invaders, getting in running gun battles for the love of the prettiest girl in school, surfing giant waves of pink glitter, and generally living it up.
The thing is that the game simulated the genre perfectly.  But there was also a lot of director power, and a very nice story on both episodic and continuous levels (sadly we never got to destroy Florida in the Spring Break Special, which would have been the culmination of the plotline).
So this simulated a genre really well and, since it was a narrative genre, also generated good story (good enough that we were writing up comic book notes, which were sadly abandoned in the crush of fall schoolwork.)

Is this sim or narr?  It didn't have a big Theme, except for perhaps "goofy aliens are living on earth and crazy hijinks ensue."  But the goal wasn't to explore some aspect of the human psyche -- it was to produce good comedy, which seems like it should be a Narr goal.  But it also produced good comedy by sticking to the bounds of a very specific genre, which is definitely GenreSim.

Is this sim play or narr play?  I understand it can't be both at once, which seems to be the easiest explanation.

yrs--
--Ben

P.S.  It seems to me that both GenreSim and Narr players are interested in developing story -- the GenreSim player does it in game, and the Narr player does it out of the game.  In that case, this really was a bimodal game, as we would discuss outcomes and applicable OOG to resolve actions but many of the events of the game were based on in-character reactions which might have seemed "random" from a narrative perspective had they not later been justified...

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ben,

You're really having a hard time with Stances, I think - and you know what? They're pretty trivial. A Stance may last about one second during play itself; they shift around all the time. The profile of Stance combinations can be part of the GNS picture of a given instance of play, but that's it.

Imagine a nested set of categories, like boxes within boxes.

The biggest category: Social Contract
The next category: Exploration, all 5 parts
The next category: GNS modes
The next category: "rules" (whether in print or not; I'm talked about rules employed)
The next category: techniques
The next category: Stance

"Power" is not really an official term in the model. Most people use it to discuss establishing the Explorative content among everyone involved. Clearly, as such, it penetrates from the outermost box to the innermost box in a wide variety of ways. One can also talk about "Balance of Power," which is to say, how negotiations at the Social Contract level are what establishes this "Explorative Authority" throughout play.

And finally, it will be very helpful to you to leave out the term "story" entirely. Just think of any and all role-playing as having the potential to create a story, and leave it at that.

Best,
Ron

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ben,

Whoops, forgot this one, Humor and GNS. Its take-home, in my view, is that funniness per se is not G, N, or S. Funniness is something else.

So looking back on your Hentai game, we can't look at the humor and make a GNS assessment off of that alone. You've told us about the faithfulness to the source material (double thumbs-up) and something about a "pretty good story" (for which, also double thumbs-up). Here's the catch: either or both of these can also be found in all three modes of play. I still don't have the information I need to assess your group's play in GNS terms.

So funny or not won't tell us, "genre" faithfulness alone won't tell us, and "story produced" won't tell us. Gotta look at something else.

Only you can tell us about the something-else. You were there and participating in the social interactions during play. You know whether the group, as a whole, put "make it like hentai" at the top of the priority list, and whether the "pretty good story" was developed through determined commitment to the issues involved (even if couched in wholly play-my-character terms), or whether it more-or-less just played out that way because that's what hentai does.

Best,
Ron

[Ben Lehman]

A note--
You might want to edit the above statement.  Hentai doesn't mean what you think it means (I hope.)
Hentai anime is, uhm, porn.  A definite subgenre, and NOT what we were playing.  There is a very good freely availible Hentai simulation game called Big Breasts Small Waist, but that's neither here nor there.

Actual response--

After rereading the entireity of "GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory," whilst specifically comparing all therein to this game only, I have reached the conclusion that what we were doing was either Narrativist play or a Simulationist "exploration of color."  Or we phased in and out of the two...

And you are right -- I am getting confused about Stance.  I think that (looking at replies early in the thread and posts around the fora) there is somewhat of an assumption that Narrativists games must feature Director stance and the Simulationist games strongly favor Actor stance.  (In the "Lightbulb" thread, this is pretty much used as the definition of the three modes.)  I think that this is wildly mistaken and, in fact, a large branch of Narrativist play (represented by "genre emulation" games like Buffy and TFOS) is being overlooked.  This mode tries to emulate a particular story or story type (Wacky High School, say, or Westerns) whilst keeping the players pretty firmly in Author stance.  It's still heavily Narrativist, in that the storyline (and the appropriateness of the storyline) is the main concern.  If that's the case, you might want to add TFOS (Game of the Year 1987) into your list of late 80s narrativist designs.  Although there isn't usually a capital P premise...

Either that, or I'm getting muddled again, and this is a type of Sim, focusing on exploration of "genre" or something similar.  It just seems to be a very very strange one.

hrm...

OTOH, despite the fact that this still confuses me, I have a much clearer grasp on the GNS model from all of y'all's comments.  I think the two things that were gumming me up a lot (and may still be, to some extent) were:
1) GNS is ultimately disconnected from Stance.
2) Multiple types of play can exist within the same game, and even the same session or the same scene.

yrs--
--Ben

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Whoa doggies! I totally mixed up Sentai and Hentai while I was typing. Holy shit! Legend of the Overfiend does-not-equal Power Rangers, no sir.

('Course, wasn't there that one Sentai movie in which the heroine wore nothing but a pair of go-go boots and beamed "happy rays" from her vagina? I'm not kidding! I never saw it, just heard about it ...)

You wrote,

I think that this [meaning prevalence of Director Stance assumed to be Narrativist - RE] is wildly mistaken and, in fact, a large branch of Narrativist play (represented by "genre emulation" games like Buffy and TFOS) is being overlooked. This mode tries to emulate a particular story or story type (Wacky High School, say, or Westerns) whilst keeping the players pretty firmly in Author stance. It's still heavily Narrativist, in that the storyline (and the appropriateness of the storyline) is the main concern.

I agree. But I'd amend it slightly, though, in that last sentence, to something like "... in that the issues raised by the storyline ..."

You see, I'm pretty sure that one group can play Buffy damn Narrativist, which is to say, they just step into JMS' shoes and get into "it" (meaning play) as if they were the new authors, and that another group can play Buffy damn Simulationist, essentially reproducing the tropes as a form of fanfic, basically.

Every game of Call of Cthulhu creates a Lovecraft-like story. I consider any CofC I've run or played to be rock-solid Simulationist, because the issues are not at stake - we know what they are, we know what such stories "say," and we are reveling in that shared knowledge.

Best,
Ron

[Ben Lehman]

Hi there,

('Course, wasn't there that one Sentai movie in which the heroine wore nothing but a pair of go-go boots and beamed "happy rays" from her vagina? I'm not kidding! I never saw it, just heard about it ...)

BL>  That would be the infamous "Kekko Kaimen" (the Naked Hero).  She also had a mask.  Created by Nagai Go, one of the strangest perverts in Japan.  What can I say, I'm a wild anime geek...

I think that this [meaning prevalence of Director Stance assumed to be Narrativist - RE] is wildly mistaken and, in fact, a large branch of Narrativist play (represented by "genre emulation" games like Buffy and TFOS) is being overlooked. This mode tries to emulate a particular story or story type (Wacky High School, say, or Westerns) whilst keeping the players pretty firmly in Author stance. It's still heavily Narrativist, in that the storyline (and the appropriateness of the storyline) is the main concern.

I agree. But I'd amend it slightly, though, in that last sentence, to something like "... in that the issues raised by the storyline ..."

You see, I'm pretty sure that one group can play Buffy damn Narrativist, which is to say, they just step into JMS' shoes and get into "it" (meaning play) as if they were the new authors, and that another group can play Buffy damn Simulationist, essentially reproducing the tropes as a form of fanfic, basically.

BL>  Okay... I get that.  But I have a question.  Can a game be Narrativist without a high-minded theme?  In that case, would only "artistic" forms of passive entertainment (books, movies, tv, and so on) be Narrativist material.

I ask because TFOS draws its source material from Japanese animated sitcoms, particularly the works of Rumiko Takahashi.  By and large, these are not art -- they don't have a lot to say about the nature of the world.  They are light-hearted silly entertainment, with some romantic tensions and cute character designs.

I would still consider them Narratives.  And I would consider a similar game Narrativist, provided that it was played out with the players aware of the genre tropes, and conforming or expanding them as necessary to achieve the end goal of play (teh funny).  But, though it may have a Premise (what if aliens were just as shallow as LA high-schoolers?), it isn't a particularly deep one.

Is this correct?

yrs--
--Ben

[Mike Holmes]

It just so happens that I used to play TFOS a little, and got a chance at the last RPG.Net Gameday to play the latest edition with the designer. I was one of those little plantie guys who was a cool cowboy type.

Very sim game. In fact, I was startled looking at a game I'd not seen in years as to just how Sim it was.

Now, by that I mean it supports Sim play. As we know, a player can always make a Narrativist decision. So I'm sure your assessment of your play is accurate. When you were following the GMs plot, and filling in your roles as Anime characters, you were playing Sim. When you were, as a player addressing themes like Relationship With Parents issues and the like, you were playing Narrativist.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ben,

You wrote,

Can a game be Narrativist without a high-minded theme? In that case, would only "artistic" forms of passive entertainment (books, movies, tv, and so on) be Narrativist material.

Yup! No high-mindedness necessary. One of the fundamental concepts of Premise (as defined by Egri) is that it has nothing to do with "high-brow" vs. "low-brow."

A basic Archie Comics story is about a great deal, as is an episode of Seinfeld (yup, Seinfeld) or Superfriends or The Brady Bunch. I suggest that a lot of your Sentai examples might be about more than you're perceiving. Even a kiddie lesson like, "Don't lie to your friends" is a bona fide Theme. Playing a game in which the player-character must decide to lie to his or her friends, having the outcomes hinge on that decision, and having the other elements of play all support or comment or parallel it, is Narrativist play.

I'll run with your next paragraph, though, which presumes no such Premise or Theme. Even your stated one, "What if ..." isn't a Narrativist Premise at all because there's no "umph" to it, emotionally; stating it as an answer doesn't carry any point.

So playing like that wouldn't be Narrativist play. It'd be solid source-material emulative Sim.

I guess what I'm saying is that I think you're confounding two variables: (1) high-minded vs. low-minded, which is irrelevant to Narrativist vs. not; and (2) Premise-present vs. Premise-absent, which is decidedly relevant to Narrativist vs. not.

Best,
Ron