Removing the Incentive for Gamism

[Jason Lee]

I've been milling over something for a while now, and given the current threads it seems like an appropriate time to ask this question.

The typical way to deal with keeping out Gam is via 'gamist creep defense'.  I have no idea who originally coined the term 'gamist creep', but I blame Mike Holmes.  Gamist creep defense are all those familiar rules in game text designed to control the 'munckins'.  This is the stick approach, and in my experience always leads to rules bloat.  Which is totally counter-productive, because it just introduced more rules and layers for what I call The Egg Hunt.

The Egg Hunt is a behavior I would classify as gamist.  It's rooting through the game text for the most effectiveness per cost, largest damaging weapon, individual abilities that stack together, flaws in logic of the game's design, or whatever.  Looking for exploitations, commonly by intentionally misconstruing the wording of the text.  I've never found the behavior very impressive even from a gamist standpoint.  How clever do you really have to be to search for the biggest number; what obstacle have you overcome?  But, my personal opinions are beside the point.

So, I guess now that I've warmed up to the question, my question is:  How do you remove the incentive to play gamist from a system?  This is a general question about techniques.  I'm primarily concerned with the Egg Hunt, but other gamist behaviors are welcome for discussion.  It's worth noting that I suffer from a certain amount of 'missing the point' when it comes to Gamism, but I think I've got a decent understanding of it from an academic point of view anyway.

I do not want anything 'stick' like.  Attempts to beat a Gamist until they play Nar I think are inherently flawed - just play with someone else.  The point is more to remove the fear that might drive people to make gamist like decisions when they might otherwise prefer not to - allowing them to play Nar maybe in despite of abused player syndrome (and maybe get over it, like how playing The Pool is stuck-in-Actor-stance therapy).

Here is what I've come up with thus far, as examples of what I'm think.  Disagreements with the following are, of course, welcome.  Heh, not that them being unwelcome would do any good ;).

• Removal of point based character generation.
• Removal of layers (just skill instead of racial bonus + stat + skill + specialization, for example)
• Removal of 'balance' across characters (some people are better, some are worse, player decides how cool they want their character to be)
• Removal of stackable elements (bonuses do not stack).
• Removal of advantages that negate disadvantages and vice versa, or simply ruling that such negations do not function.

Others?  Thoughts on implementation?

[Jasper]

It seems to me that this approach is somewhat misguided.  Gamism is "step on up" -- that is the "incentive" more or less: to step up, and to prove yourself (or have fun trying even if you fail).  So to eliminate the incentive it seems that you'd have to remove the parts of the human brain that go for challenge, those responsible for the social dynamic that rewards success, and so on.  

The examples you give dont speak of incentives at all really, but common sorts of rules where the disjunct created by gamism being amidst other CAs is usually highly evident.  But even if it's not evident in other rules, it's still probably present.  To really get rid of the disjunct in play, you'd have to remove all the rules.

This has become a common mantra, perhaps too common, and so I hate to repeat it again, but this seems to come down to social contract, and not about rules at all.   Rules can aid players in using one CA versus another ("facilitating" it) but I they can't force it.  Unless you have a rule that says "everyone must prioritize the same CA."

I also sort of doubt that players who fail to play Nar/Sim but default to Gam are commonly "scared" of the other CAs, or even if they are, that the kinds of rules you mentioned would be the source of that fear.   Director stance can, for example, be scary to people unfamiliar with it, but there's of course no 1-1 mapping from that to Nar.  Maybe you cna elaborate more on what you mean by "scared?"

[Jason Lee]

It seems to me that this approach is somewhat misguided.  Gamism is "step on up" -- that is the "incentive" more or less, to step up, and to prove yourself (or have fun trying even if you fail).  So to eliminate the incentive it seems that you'd have to remove the parts of the human brain that go for challenge, those responsible for the social dynamic that rewards success, and so on.  

The examples you give aren't really incentives at all, but just common sorts of rules where the disjunct created by gamism amidst other CAs is generally pretty evident.  But even if it's not evident in other rules, it's still probably present.  To really get rid of the disjunct in play, you'd have to remove all the rules.

This has become a common mantra, perhaps used too commonly, and so I hate to repeat it again, but this seems to come down to just a social contract issue, and not about rules at all.   Rules can aid players in using one CA versus another ("facilitating" it) but I they can't force it.  Unless you have a rule that says "everyone must prioritize the same CA."

It's sort of a given that if Gamism is the player's goal then that's what you get, and that social contract rules all.  I won't disagree.

Facilitating is the point, I don't want to force anything (no 'stick').  I just want to take the fun out of the Egg Hunt.  If there is no challenge, you can't step on up to it.  I suppose I should have made that clearer.  I'm talking about not facilitating Gamism, as opposed to trying to squash Gamism.

EDIT:

I also sort of doubt that players who fail to play Nar/Sim but default to Gam are commonly "scared" of the other CAs, or even if they are, that the kinds of rules you mentioned would be the source of that fear. Director stance can, for example, be scary to people unfamiliar with it, but there's of course no 1-1 mapping from that to Nar. Maybe you cna elaborate more on what you mean by "scared?"

Yeah, I can elaborate.  By scared I mean what I refer to as 'gamist for defense'.  People who may not be interested in challenge, but feel they must participate in it or be deprotagonized by having their priorities overshadowed by gamist risk requirements (character death is a good example).  My reference to abused player syndrome is specifically in reference to the above dysfunction.  I should have been more specific about that too, because around here that can refer to any number of behaviors, from bunker playing (refusing to do anything) to intentional aggravation of other players.

[ethan_greer]

It seems to me that a game's text and rules need to support the desired CA, rather than discourage the other two. So, perhaps the best way to discourage Gamism would be to effectively ENcourage either Sim or Nar, depending on the goals of the game in question.

[Jason Lee]

It seems to me that a game's text and rules need to support the desired CA, rather than discourage the other two. So, perhaps the best way to discourage Gamism would be to effectively ENcourage either Sim or Nar, depending on the goals of the game in question.

I won't disagree with that either.  However, techniques that discourage are not what I'd like to look at.  I'd like to look at techniques that are simply unappealing to someone looking for challenge - they do nothing to support challenge.   That's what I mean by 'removing the incentive'.  Perhaps my choice of wording could have been better.

It stands to reason that if we can facilitate an agenda, we can therefore fail to facilitate another.  I'd like to look at intentionally failing to facilitate Gam.  It's my hypothesis that if you know how to facilitiate your target agenda and know how to fail to facilitate the other(s), that you can create a coherent game by not falling into the trap of filling in elements of design with components that actually facilitate a different agenda than the one you intend.

[coxcomb]

I'd like to look at techniques that are simply unappealing to someone looking for challenge - they do nothing to support challenge.   That's what I mean by 'removing the incentive'.

Can there really be a system that has no challenge? Even if character efficacy isn't an area for challenge, one could find some other challenge, IMHO.

But I'm with you on stopping the Egg Hunt (love that term BTW!).

I think one of the best ways to stop it is to disconnect specific stats from categories of tasks. That is, instead of all attack rolls being tied to Dexterity or Strength, base them on how the player describes the action. Another good thing is to make different types of actions equally important in the game. Make as many social conflicts that count as physical conflicts that count. Mix them up a bit (but in an orderly way).

[Bankuei]

Hi Jason,

Probably one of the easiest, and most overlooked options... is the complete lack of improvement in effectiveness, for the player or the character.  Almost all Gamists blanch at the very idea, and wonder, "Why even play?"  When there is no points, toys, or powers to collect, gamist play tends to dry up in most cases.

Chris

[M. J. Young]

The question is how to disincentivize gamist play.

There are two things that drive gamist play, it seems to me: reward and risk.

One of the reasons that Legends of Alyria is so difficult to drift gamist (apart from the fact that you can't really build up a more powerful character or gain bonuses or anything like that) is that ultimately there really isn't much in the way of risk. A character can't die unless the player agrees that it's time for the character to die, and that the death will have meaning to the story. It isn't really "your" character anyway, so it's not "your loss" if the character dies--the characters were created by group cooperation, and you were chosen to play this one because we all thought you would be best at this, whether it's hero, sidekick, villain, henchman, facilitator, or victim. You don't really have something "at stake", so you can't "risk" it.

Ron focuses a lot of reward systems, and he's right--if you design a reward system which gives you benefits for addressing premise which enable you to address premise, you inherently disincentivize non-narrativist play.

So if you can target the things at risk and the rewards in reach, you can shift play away from gamism.

Multiverser drifts quite a bit between modes, as the players wish. Some of them push the gamism dial up high, others go narrativist or simulationist quite readily. Why is this so? There is no reward system at all--play is its own reward, so if you get your kicks out of meeting the challenge and getting the glory, you'll take the risks and come out ahead. The risks, though, are at the same time minimized--you might destroy some valuable or irreplaceable bit of equipment, but "irreplaceable" is such a relative concept in something as big as the multiverse, so you'll probably be able to get something like it eventually. You might die--but even though that's what you risked, it's not the end. You could die without feeling like you lost. Indeed, you could even decide that now was the time to die, and do something nearly guaranteed to cost your life because it will address premise, lose your life, and keep going. Risk is minimized. It's not eliminated. You can't eliminate risk and still address premise (or even feel like a very real simulation, in most cases); you can't entirely eliminate the reward of winning, even when "win" is defined by character goals determined in the player's own mind. But if you dial these back, gamism becomes optional, and players can be comfortable moving toward the other agenda.

--M. J. Young

[Jasper]

James,

Thanks for clarifying that.  Is this fear of deprotagonization a legitimate fear do you think?  (I haven't read through all the relevant articles on the subject.)  Because in your example of fearing character death, it seems to me that if the other players in the game are playing it Nar -- and the rules support Nar -- then that character shouldn't really be dying due to any kind of strategic lapses; i.e. failing to step on up.  So I'd sort of agree with  Ethan in that it's mostly a matter of supporting something other than Gamism, because this will "cause" the other players of the game to player Nar/Sim, and thus fail to threaten the protagonization of the player in question.

Unless of course the fear of deprotagonization exists regardless of whether it's a legitimate fear.  And in that case...I don't know.  It seems the player is just going to have to experience the game and see how it works, or have it spelled out to him in the rules or by fellow players.

I get the feeling you're really looking for specific examples of how to ease players out of this fear, but it's pretty dependent on the game.  Certainly death, wiff factor and other kinds of deprotagonizing effects commonly referenced on the Forge could all apply here.

[Jason Lee]

Jay,

Can there really be a system that has no challenge? Even if character efficacy isn't an area for challenge, one could find some other challenge, IMHO.

Realistically, probably not - unless resolution is something like 'flip a coin'.

But I'm with you on stopping the Egg Hunt (love that term BTW!).

I think one of the best ways to stop it is to disconnect specific stats from categories of tasks. That is, instead of all attack rolls being tied to Dexterity or Strength, base them on how the player describes the action. Another good thing is to make different types of actions equally important in the game. Make as many social conflicts that count as physical conflicts that count. Mix them up a bit (but in an orderly way).

Sort of ensuring that character traits of the same type have equivalent relevance in game play?   I think that's a good one.

[Jason Lee]

Chris & M.J.,

I'm going to stick my reply to both of you together, because it's so short.

Agreed, and very good points.

[Ben Lehman]

Gamism, as defined by Ron's essay, is the competition between players for social esteem via challenge and risk.

The only way that I can think to make this functionally impossible is to completely eliminate any possibility of using the system to do anything, by an inordinately complex series of nonsensical modifiers.  In other words, a system that supports no type of play at all.

Now, if we're talking about "my guy is bigger / better," a specific subtype of gamism, I think that wholesale elimination of character creation rules and "pick your power level" is sufficient.

yrs--
--Ben

[Jason Lee]

Thanks for clarifying that.  Is this fear of deprotagonization a legitimate fear do you think?  (I haven't read through all the relevant articles on the subject.)

Because in your example of fearing character death, it seems to me that if the other players in the game are playing it Nar -- and the rules support Nar -- then that character shouldn't really be dying due to any kind of strategic lapses; i.e. failing to step on up.  So I'd sort of agree with  Ethan in that it's mostly a matter of supporting something other than Gamism, because this will "cause" the other players of the game to player Nar/Sim, and thus fail to threaten the protagonization of the player in question.

Unless of course the fear of deprotagonization exists regardless of whether it's a legitimate fear.  And in that case...I don't know.  It seems the player is just going to have to experience the game and see how it works, or have it spelled out to him in the rules or by fellow players.

Legitimate?  That kinda depends on how you look at it.  If you are playing a game where the standing behavior is not to kill PC's (because the GM thinks killing characters is no fun/wrong/whatever), but the mechanics say once you run out of health levels you die, then you've got people (probably) trying to play Nar using a system with a Gam element in conflict with their goals.  (This is just an example, I can think of examples where character death is appropriate for Nar and lack thereof appropriate for Gam.)  So, is this fear legitimate?  Character death isn't going to happen, but the mechanics say it can.  In my experience, this kind of arrangement isn't carved in stone, so to speak.  It's just kind of hidden behind the scenes, as something in the realm of GM discretion; bundled up with assumptions about how it would be 'cheating' for character death not to be an option, while at the same time not wanting it to be an option.  

(It was a real 'doh!' moment for me one day when I realized that if I didn't like character death I shouldn't have rules for it.  I know that seems kind of silly, but sometimes the most obvious things are the easiest to miss.)

So I agree, when the rules are supporting Nar then strategic lapses shouldn't incur costs.  Part of what I'm trying to get to is how to do the 'rules are supporting Nar' part, except from the other side (how not to do Gam).

M.J talks about risk above, thought not a strictly Gam risk factor I consider character death to be a pretty common one.  If you remove that risk factor, you should (in theory) remove the player's need to protect themselves from that risk (step on up to it).

I get the feeling you're really looking for specific examples of how to ease players out of this fear, but it's pretty dependent on the game.  Certainly death, wiff factor and other kinds of deprotagonizing effects commonly referenced on the Forge could all apply here.

That might be what I end up doing with the techniques, but I'm really just hunting for techniques such as the removal of character death.  Well, and discussing the validity of said techniques.

[Jason Lee]

Gamism, as defined by Ron's essay, is the competition between players for social esteem via challenge and risk.

The only way that I can think to make this functionally impossible is to completely eliminate any possibility of using the system to do anything, by an inordinately complex series of nonsensical modifiers.  In other words, a system that supports no type of play at all.

Yeah.  My 'flip a coin' response to Jay sums up my take on that.

Now, if we're talking about "my guy is bigger / better," a specific subtype of gamism, I think that wholesale elimination of character creation rules and "pick your power level" is sufficient.

I'm okay with discussing any subtype, though the primary focus of my initial post was the Egg Hunt (which seems to match up somewhat with "bigger/better guy").

[Rob Carriere]

I don't think you ever completely eliminate the Egg Hunt (second the motion to call that a cool term, BTW). Even if the resolution is `flip a coin', I can still try to be clever about when coins get flipped. That said, I do think that while the goal may be unreachable, it is approachable and the approach is called KISS. Minimaxing needs trade-offs that make a difference. If everything is unlayered and orthogonal that becomes hard. If on top of that there are very few things to play with, any attempt at minimaxing will get a lot more obvious than most Egg Hunters are comfortable with. See, for example, Over The Edge. The only way to minimax that is by taking over-the-top Traits. This will be very obvious to all concerned.

But I do wonder if the whole issue of gamist-for-defense is not better dealt with from the other side of the GM-screen. If you want to argue that you don't need to hunt eggs, isn't it far more convincing to build such a character and play it?

SR
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