The Nar Hard Question, Factor 1

[ethan_greer]

I've got this idea, but I think perhaps I've been approaching it from the wrong direction.

Montag, good call. Strike "subconsciously" from that post. It's a worthless word in the context in which I used it.

I don't know how useful this conversation has been or can be. It cannot be argued that roleplaying texts have shaped the hobby. Likewise it cannot be argued that many roleplaying texts contain explicit bias against Gamism.  Beyond that, I don't think I had anything else to talk about.

[Ian Charvill]

Over in the other thread I saw a lot of gut reactions flying around, along the lines of, "hey! I prioritize Sim naturally, darn it!" Well, okay. My question is, how much of that "natural inclination" towards Sim is a result of anti-gamism rants in the mid-late 80s/early 90s texts?

Ethan, I think you may have glossed over one of my points, which in this context is very important: how could an anti-gamist text act as an indoctrination in sim when there are three modes of play?  Why don't people flee from maligned gamism towards narrativism?  Or are you suggesting a tendency towards narrativism is also the result of these anti-gamist texts?

Furthermore, if these texts had such influence then how do you account for the massive amount of gamist play using classic pro-sim game systems such as GURPS, Hero and so on?

[I was for a moment going to ask you to cite a couple of games with the kind of texts your talking about, to get a deeper understanding of the kind of text your talking about, but my gaming collection has been winnowed over the years.  The only eighties games I own still are those too shabby through use to be sold on ebay.]

[Gordon C. Landis]

I see two issues here that should be included in the discussion of "anti-Gamism" texts.  The first calls for a bit of clarification about just what texts we're talking about, as I think a fair number of what people call "anti-Gamism" rants (and thus, I guess, presumptively pro-Sim or Nar) would more accurately be called "anti-YOUR-Gamism" (or pro-MY-Gameism) rants.  That is, in GNS terms an awful lot of (especially early) game texts are all about the Game - but feel very strongly that THEIR way of doing Game is better than some one else's way of doing Game.  Somewhere along the line, a big way of conducting this agrgument became to seperate MY rules from the domain of Game (or "winning", or "power gaming", or "munchkinism", or etc.) entirely, so as to leave the now-negative label on the other guy alone.  But a good portion of the time, this was (in GNS terms) just within-Gamism differences, rather than a real cross-mode conflict.

On the one hand, this first issue shouldn't be a surprise - arguing and/or getting clarity about the rules (in the broadest sense) IS an important thing within RPG play of any kind, and certain kinds of within-Gamism disagreements can get particularly prickly (Ron's point in the "Hard Core" stuff from the Gamism essay).  But because exactly what an RPG was (is?) "supposed" to be hadn't (hasn't?) been fully-formed yet, this issue became about the "right" way to play AT ALL, as opposed to simply the right way to play THIS PARTICULAR GAME.  So - while the whence-it-came is not necessarily unusual or unexpected, the effect on Gamism was to poison it more than was needed.

The other issue I'd point to is the drive for uniformity and consistency.  In order for this hobby to establish itself as a "thing" of its own, it needed to be able to define itself - but to this day, we find that to be a very difficult thing to do.  But this desire for uniformity and consistency of WHATEVER it was that folks were doing was (and is?) quite, quite strong.  I think the very emergence of "supplemental" material for RPGs is an expression of this - the Strategic Review and later The Dragon came into existence because folks wanted "official" ways to have Rangers and Illusionists and all the rest.  This desire eventually lead to TSR's RPGA and the tournament phenomena where (in theory) everyone was playing on the exact same level playing field.  And here's where I think GNS kicks in - because once they really started OPTIMIZING for this level playing field, what ended up getting optimized was Gamism, pretty much to the exclusion of the other agendas.  Whereas a personal serial-GM'd campaign with the Giant modules might be drifted to about any GNS CA, when you showed up for your first RPGA events - you better be ready for Gamism (and their particular flavor of Gamism, at that - to reiterate my first issue a bit), or you'll be in for a hell of a shock (and I was - speaking from personal experience here.  I can remember the moment of disconnect vividly to this day, when me and my buddy said "we go down the hall looking for traps - sound good everyone?" and the GM said "Which square first? [roll-roll-roll] You see nothing.  Do you continue? Yes? OK [roll-roll-roll] Which square next? That one? [roll-roll-roll] . . . " Uh, we're on a time limit here - obviously this isn't going to work . . . )

My guess - and it is ONLY a guess, I haven't spoken much with game designers from this early "disparage Gamism" time period - is that this shock of "how we play at home" vs. "how someone apparently thinks we're supposed to play" from convention/tournament play had a huge impact on the texts of games released shortly thereafter.  Because I'd think that, while the "average gamer" of those days may not have been a regular convention-goer, MANY of the designers (or soon-to-be designers) were.  But even if that guess is off-base, I still think the (not really necessary, but certainly understandable) drive towards uniformity and consistency are part of the whence-it-came.  A HUGE positive I see in GNS (despite what some people say about it "dividing" gamers) is that it removes that - or rather, it looks towards different areas to find the uniformity and consistency, and thus possibly can be used to avoid the poisonous "edge" towards other approaches inherent in the anti-Gamism rants that Ethan alludes to.

That's my thoughts,

Gordon

[ethan_greer]

Why don't people flee towards Narrativism? Because many anti-Gamist texts also assert that they're all about being Narrativist, and that their system is How To Do It (TM).

So, what do you get? You get games that are basically Sim, but that malign and discourage Gamism while claiming to be Narrativist. And you get quite a few confused gamers who are emphasizing different parts of the text according to their proclivities and wondering why their games always fall apart.

The best example I can think of for this kind of text is Vampire: The Cool Subtitle.  More examples can be found in Ron's Simulationism article.

[Rob Carriere]

From my memories of the very late 70s and early 80s: I'll agree with the stuff everybody agrees on, but I think there is an additional point that exists with anti-G, but not with anti-N, and may well have contributed to the asymmetry of lots of anti-G rants, but no anti-N.

The point is this: the anti-G stuff actually works for pro-G people.

These guys were gleefully talking the talk about `powergamers', `minimaxers' and so on, all the while closing up rules loopholes in order for the in-game challenges to remain fun. At the same time they were playing a meta-game where there was significant social credit to be had for finding a fresh loophole in games like Champions or GURPS.

I think less than 10% of the anti-G talk I heard was by people who were actually anti-G. (I don't make a statistically significant sample of course, so despite the percentage this is purely anecdotal.)

This may the cooperative version of what Gordon talks of in his first point.

SR
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[Ian Charvill]

It occurs to me that games like Vampire epitomise Big Horshoe design theory.  To get narrativism you first have to establish a simulationist foundation.  You then progress along the narrativist arm by adding subsidiary rules (Humanity, in the case if vampire).

But because of the heavy sim foundation the subsidiary rules - in order to be of piece with the foundational rules - end up being of a simulationist cast.  So you end up with Vampire-style Humanity with Humanity dictating in game behaviour rather than Sorcerer-style Humanity where it acts as a flag for the players.

Now, this strikes me as a possible insight.  Both about Big Horseshoe theory and the rise of sim.  The idea that sim is not a mode of play, a goal, but a route to somewhere - that this is an idea that has led to a lot of bad design.  That strieks me as plausible.

[contracycle]

It seems to me that by the time rgfa had come into being, there had been a lot of anti-N ranting.  The key phrase in this criticism being 'railroading for the sake of Story'.  Again, though, a model could be constructed in which GM's appeal to "story" to legitimise action against Gamism, thereby provoking a backlash against "Story" from causality-oriented Simulationists.

Ian, yes and excellent thought, that description of Vampire really works for me.  It might also explain some of the conflicting views of Vamp; because I think for some people, that route worked, and they really did end up in a place they would not have got to before, without that structure.  But, it was a big millstone around the necks of the people who did not need to be 'walked' into a Nar-like play mode.