Gamist case study attempt

[Nick the Nevermet]

I remember a thread (specifically a few posts within it) a while back about the use of GNS.  The concluding argument was that the use of GNS is analytical; it is a way of organizing one's thoughts & perceptions to allow an effectively intervention in play or game design.

With that in mind, I thought it would be a useful (for me) mental exercise to try to attempt to use GNS for a 'case study' of the gaming group I was in for undergrad.  My understanding of GNS is based primarily on the articles, not the forum, unfortunately, which means I probably am missing some parts.  If anyone wants more examples than I give for any part, just ask.  I got a ton.

Many Games, One Play Style
Starting spring semester of my freshman year, I had a gaming group in college.  There was a core of 4 of us which was always involved, and then at various other points we had others come and go.

Three of us took turns being GMs, and we played several different games, though in retrospect the list of our most popular games is a clear indication of how we played.  In order of amount we played them: AD&D2 with all the Player's Option books (Combat & Tactics, etc), Shadowrun, Vampire, Amber, Ars Magica (1 session), Werewolf (aborted just before 1st session due to what I would now call a failure to gain consensus on a social contract).

Put simply, we were a great example of gam-sim hybrid play.  For Gamism, we were the low competition challenge, low competition step-on-up.  The party, as a whole, was given challenges, goals, and problems, and the expectation as that the group would work as a team to overcome these problems.  The adversity was always created by the GM.  Performance would determine the amount of reward the characters received.  Conflict between characters was heavily sanctioned.  Player character unity was seen as a sacred cow.  I use that term because it was unreflexively taken as a naturally good thing in any case of play, unless a game specifically called for it (Paranoia and Amber were the two games we identified as specifically calling for player conflict).  Exploration occurred most often within the system and situation... sometimes with the setting (usually when I was GM).  As for specific details:

1) Oddly, experience was rarely the main reward for play.  I suspect this was due to the commitment to avoid player competition.  Both in Shadowrun and AD&D2, the amount of experience given out was practically a constant among the player characters.  What did change was the amount of 'toys' the characters had: magic items, favors from NPCs, etc.  And even then, generally speaking the amount of reward given was on the group level: the group became hunted, the group all got magic items, etc.  

2) The role of Fortune / Drama / Karma in play, and the balance of crunch vs. gamble, were the biggest issues of contention among my players.  I realize these are two different issues (crunch/gamble being one, DFK another), but in my group, they were perfectly correlated.  On one extreme there was 'SWAT,' a person who attempted to control the system, the situation, and his character through methodical strategy (drama & karma based) to create highly predictable situations.  His goal was always to eliminate chance totally, regardless of dice or other character actions.  On the other you had "Wild," a guy who believed in the fun of highly unpredictable play with bizarre outcomes.  As long as he didn't feel like he was being specifically targeted, he didn't mind losing, as long as the act of gambling was fun in itself.  Two of his most memorable characters were an explosives expert in SR, and a wild mage in D&D.  He also believed that attempts at control were inherently opposed to fun play.  SWAT and Wild ended up in constant arguments about play.  
(Amusing note: SWAT hated diceless games.  For him, it was fun to take control, to make an event which should be unpredictable work exactly the way he wanted it to.)

3) Combat for us was the dominant form of conflict.  There were some exceptions.  I GMed a campaign where the players were involved in a war between Gods.  They needed to determine what the political environment was and make several key choices on who they were going to back and how, in the name of their patron deity/deities.


the place of sim
As I mentioned above, we played a sim-gamist hybrid.  The sim aspect was in an explicitly supportive role to the gamist situation & challenge.  Constant claims to realism, plausibility, and causation were made in any argument about what should happen and why.  We would also be a poster-child, I suspect, of the high-sim gamism of the Big Horseshoe theory.  Sim created the rules of the game.  Anything that was deemed 'unrealistic' was essentially an illegitimate action.


Problems and Problem People
The players I roleplayed with were very consistent in what their positions where when conflict arose.

1) SWAT was often seen by other players as a borderline hardcore gamist.  He would make characters that could be as strategic as he could ever want.  Cautious wizards, plotting clerics, etc.  He was not a 'vulgar' hardcore in the sense that he ignored everything but system & social contract, but rather he made sure everything was seamlessly aligned.  He was a master of what Ron calls Calvinball.  He did not fit the classic, high in both step-on-up and challenge, however, as his strategizing was usually directed at the GM's challenges, unless provoked.

2) Of the three common GMs, Wild was the one who was the most controversial.  His love of fortune extended over the entire game.  Practically everyone wanted more crunch more karma than Wild was willing to allow.  As a result, SWAT often gave up on characters in favor of even more blatantly hardcore characters.  I often expressed frustration at how often unforeseen outcomes came out of the blue with no explanation.  In my view this was a separate but often related flaw in his GMing style.

3) The fourth core player, "Quiet," was the poster-child for the question Cassidy recently asked about enthusiasm: he would sit back, let the other players actively get into a situation, and only when action was absolutely demanded (i.e. combat, planning a raid, etc.) would his character participate.  Quiet was very good when he participated, but he would let things come to him most of the time.  SWAT liked his play the most, though no one really had a problem with it.

4) I suspect that I was not as gamist as the other players.  When they complained, it was that I did not focus enough on situation ("What are we supposed to be doing?") or that my challenges weren't challenging enough ("It was a nice plot, with nice characters, Nick, but we killed things too easy").  However, I didn't cause as many violent reactions as either SWAT or Wild, so I ended up being GM a over half the time, with SWAT and Wild each a under a quarter.

We also had several other player: we had two players who were seen as turning on others too much, we had a powergamer who was constantly in danger of breaking the game (we didn't play with him long), and an individual who rejected sim play (his characters often tried to do things that were seen as 'silly' or 'unrealistic')

And this is useful?
In a word, yes.  In general, though, I have a respectable bank of gamist play experiences.  Now that I have a way to organize them, I can more effectively use these experiences to identify problems involving gamist play in the future.  If I can see potential problems sooner and clearer, there is a better chance I can do something about them.

Another hope is that by understanding what kind of play I am use to, I will be able to understand what new styles of play will be more or less challenging for me.  For example, dive-right-in narrativism would be very challenging for me.  However, if I'm trying to play straight sim, it is important for me to know I'll have a tendency to assume situation is dominant.  This is more of a hope, than a real tool right now, but there you go.

Anyways, what do you guys think?

[Ron Edwards]

Wow!

I'm impressed, not that that should mean anything. All I can say is that I'm glad the ideas turned out to be useful to you, and thanks.

More later, I'm sure - I have major real-life stuff to do until next week.

Best,
Ron