Removing the Incentive for Gamism

[Jason Lee]

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.

Good one.

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?

I'm sure that wouldn't hurt.  Though this has been debated, it seems to be popular opinion (I agree) that an incoherent game encourages incoherent play.  There is a lot that can be done about incoherent play at the social contract level.  Teaching by example might far into that category.

[John Kim]

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.  

Well, you're right that this all but eliminates numerical minimaxing, but it doesn't eliminate Gamism at all.  If you read the GM section of Over the Edge, it is full of all sorts of advice on defenses against "power-gaming" which constantly came up in the author's own campaigns.  His examples (like Loretta and Horace) are typical of an equally common form of "power-gaming" on a social and creative level.  For example, he describes:

Horace was a new character, a Cut-Up with a slew of powerful magical devices, whom you met in the last section.  His excellent trait was that he was an artificer of supernatural objects, of which he had several.  Essentially, his superior trait was that he had several superior traits.  This particular player assumes that it is his duty to develop the most powerful character he can get away with.  I asked him to explain why his superior power didn't make a travesty of game balance, and he really couldn't.  But this player always gets his characters into deep trouble, so I didn't worry about it.  I let the power stand as is.

Power-gamers in a minimalist system operate by manipulating what they can get away with.  The challenge is in doling out pleasing creative bits which will justify this.  So throw in some stuff with the GM likes, and push a few buttons, and then also push the line as much as possible with other stuff.  The fact that it's obvious isn't a barrier.  Despite the fact that the GM recognized it, Horace got away with ridiculous stuff: a paralyzing banana gun, a crystal that turns bullets into bubbles, and more.  You just have to know how to manipulate the GM and possibly the other players right.

[Rob Carriere]

John,
several answers: First and most importantly, you're right that this device is limited to eliminating numerical minmaxing, it does absolutely nothing to stop social engineering of the GM. That does, in my experience, stop some of the Egg Hunters (abashed Egg Hunters? :-), but certainly not all of them, so it doesn't eliminate the entire problem.

Second, in the case of OTE, there's actually a second line defense in that on Al Amarja having cool powers is definitely a mixed blessing. A lot of the energy in that GM section goes to describing how the author handled the overpowered characters in a `ok, that's your choice, these are the consequences' fashion. That's a circumstance that's not unique to OTE, so this idea could be added to the anti-egg hunting recipe.

Third, I think personal experience may have colored my answer. All the cases I have seen where the Egg Hunt actually did damage involved a GM getting blindsided by something like a GURPS Universal Specialist. Systems like OTE eliminate that possibility.

SR
--

[John Kim]

Second, in the case of OTE, there's actually a second line defense in that on Al Amarja having cool powers is definitely a mixed blessing. A lot of the energy in that GM section goes to describing how the author handled the overpowered characters in a `ok, that's your choice, these are the consequences' fashion. That's a circumstance that's not unique to OTE, so this idea could be added to the anti-egg hunting recipe.

Third, I think personal experience may have colored my answer. All the cases I have seen where the Egg Hunt actually did damage involved a GM getting blindsided by something like a GURPS Universal Specialist. Systems like OTE eliminate that possibility.

Agreed on the latter, and obviously my answer is colored by personal experience too.  I am a notorious minimaxer and dissecter of systems, and I usually find other minimaxers easy to deal with.  On the other hand, I find the other type (which I dub "wheedlers") much more insidious and problematic because they're manipulating real social relations rather than a nicely delimited rules system.  My worst experience was in the Amber DRPG, for example.  

As for the former, I consider that something of a mistake.  In my experience, causing trouble for the PC doesn't actually deter such players.  In fact, they revel in it -- and it gives them more spotlight time compared to other PCs.  Of course, if them having the spotlight to fight through trouble is interesting to play, then this can be a fine choice.  My point is just that it's not much of a deterrent to the player.

[Umberhulk]

A think a lot of it comes down to the challenges that the GM creates for the players (or the players create for themselves in some games).  If most of the challenge in a game is defeating enemies in combat, then you will see more of these gamist tendencies manifest.  So create / play a game that is not focused on combat challenges.

If your primary concern is to eliminate Egg Hunting then create/play a rules-lite game so that the GM can't be surprised easily.  The player will have to ask the GM about the character getting cool new stuff and the GM will know about it then.

[John Kim]

A think a lot of it comes down to the challenges that the GM creates for the players (or the players create for themselves in some games).  If most of the challenge in a game is defeating enemies in combat, then you will see more of these gamist tendencies manifest.  So create / play a game that is not focused on combat challenges.

I think this has a narrow view of Gamism.  It is pretty common for people to associate Gamism with only number-crunching, mini-maxing, and combat-focussed play.  However, I feel that non-combat Gamism is almost as common.  i.e. These are people who enjoy solving mysteries or overcoming obstacles by social, political, and other means.  

If your primary concern is to eliminate Egg Hunting then create/play a rules-lite game so that the GM can't be surprised easily.  The player will have to ask the GM about the character getting cool new stuff and the GM will know about it then.

Well, this eliminates the possible element of surprise, but it doesn't eliminate the behavior.  The equivalent of this in a more crunchy system would be requiring that the GM be notified in advance of changes from spending XP, for example.

[Umberhulk]

I think this has a narrow view of Gamism. It is pretty common for people to associate Gamism with only number-crunching, mini-maxing, and combat-focussed play. However, I feel that non-combat Gamism is almost as common. i.e. These are people who enjoy solving mysteries or overcoming obstacles by social, political, and other means.

John, I agree that combat-focus is not the only form of gamism.  I just thought that cruciel was trying to discourage behaviours that I mostly associate to that kind of play.  I think cruciel would welcome gamism in the problem solving sense, though I am just inferring that from the posts (I don't want to put words into anyone's mouth).

-Brodie

[Jason Lee]

I'm really trying to avoid saying 'discourage'.  If I were to say "How can I support Gamism?", then intentionally not do any of the suggestions, that'd be more along the lines of what I'm thinking.

I can appreciate the value of GM input, but I think it's generally a poor solution.  Anytime the solution is "Do what Bob says", then the challenge becomes convincing Bob of what to say (John's "wheedlers").  It's my feeling that trying to prevent gamism by placing active restrictions on the behavior actually accomplishes the opposite result.  The restrictions become the challenges that need to be overcome; by searching for shortcomings in the system (egg hunting), via social pressure (wheedling), or whatever.

Though I will admit, as far as personal gamist interests go I prefer non Egg Hunt games.  For example, chess; which I can only think of having an Egg Hunt if you intentionally don't tell the other person about rules like castling.  

EDIT:  

I've got a weird analogy.  I know I'm making a Nar versus Gam example of something that is wholly Gam in nature, but bear with me - analogies are never perfect.

If anyone has played Starcraft, flying units (particularly carriers) are obviously the most effective strategy.  Now imagine that someone else is building to carrier rush and you just want to make little buildings.  Eventually you start building carriers too, even if what you really want to do is make little buildings. The rest of the Starcraft units become worthless, as do your little buildings, so you fear playing with them because you'll be booted early in the game and won't get to play at all, so you might as well play the way the game encourages you to.

How we might fix this is to remove the ability of other units to hurt your units and buildings.  Now you are free to make whatever units and buildings you like.  What makes the game fun for the gamist has been removed, so he probably won't even bother to play it.

[John Kim]

I can appreciate the value of GM input, but I think it's generally a poor solution.  Anytime the solution is "Do what Bob says", then the challenge becomes convincing Bob of what to say (John's "wheedlers").  It's my feeling that trying to prevent gamism by placing active restrictions on the behavior actually accomplishes the opposite result.  The restrictions become the challenges that need to be overcome; by searching for shortcomings in the system (egg hunting), via social pressure (wheedling), or whatever.

Though I will admit, as far as personal gamist interests go I prefer non Egg Hunt games.  For example, chess; which I can only think of having an Egg Hunt if you intentionally don't tell the other person about rules like castling.

Ah!  This set off a light bulb for me.  In principle, you can fail to encourage Gamism by failing to provide interesting challenge.  For example, suppose in combat, the player always has roughly the same chance of success or failure regardless of what choices he makes.  i.e. The mechanically driven maneuvers have mostly similar average effectiveness, and there are no GM-granted bonus points for player description.  This makes combat uninteresting from a Gamist point of view -- since neither number-crunching nor wheedling get much benefit.  

Now, this might be a little difficult to accept, because this likely sounds boring to a lot of people even if they don't identify themselves as Gamist.  I'm not sure what I think of this, though.  Does this just mean that Gamism is more common than commonly thought?  Or does it mean something else?

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Now, this might be a little difficult to accept, because this likely sounds boring to a lot of people even if they don't identify themselves as Gamist.

This may be part of it. What you think your preference is and what you show you actually prefer through your actions, choices and behaviors may be different things.

[Jason Lee]

Ah!  This set off a light bulb for me.  In principle, you can fail to encourage Gamism by failing to provide interesting challenge.  For example, suppose in combat, the player always has roughly the same chance of success or failure regardless of what choices he makes.  i.e. The mechanically driven maneuvers have mostly similar average effectiveness, and there are no GM-granted bonus points for player description.  This makes combat uninteresting from a Gamist point of view -- since neither number-crunching nor wheedling get much benefit.

Yeah, I agree.    When you introduce a concept like modifiers (a common way maneuvers are differentiated), then people will think about them.  Leading to that whole problem where just saying 'I hit him' is the best choice for an action (gamism for defense?).

Now, this might be a little difficult to accept, because this likely sounds boring to a lot of people even if they don't identify themselves as Gamist.  I'm not sure what I think of this, though.  Does this just mean that Gamism is more common than commonly thought?  Or does it mean something else?

I think it means there is a little gamism in most playing.  I know that even if I choose the best decision for the story instead of the tactically superior choice, I'm still going to pick the best way to do something within the confines of what furthers the story.  I won't just end up picking how I want to do something randomly.

It may also be that people just want their actual player decisions to matter, both tactically and thematically.  Who really wants to have a great idea for how to resolve the current conflict, and not have the quality of their idea affect the outcome?

[Amadeus]

I think that most games need to have some gamist aspect, no matter how much you dislike or want to sway away from gamism.

When you completely get rid of  'gamism' in a system you end up with something like SLUG by Stephan O'Sullivan where the whole system can be described in two sentances:

1) (Character Creation) Write about your character
2) (Resolution of anything) Roll Dice (any kinds).  Read their Result.  DM will tell you if you sucede or fail, or any measure inbetweem.

Here you see this done.  Character creation is destroyed down to just having a notion of your character, and as is resolution. Its all but gone. (note even in this instance there is still a bit of gaming left but we will ignore it for now)

But this steps on a few toes.  Sure the nars are happy as can be, but what about the sims?  Without game sims are in a somewhat bad position.  Whose gonna tell them what happens in their reality.

I haven't really read the articles on gns posted here, but I have a skimmed a few.  I'm not sure if this is a new idea, or what, but this is what I feel is the way game gns should be handled.
( I apologize ahead of time for going on a rant that probably recites the obvious)

Code Select Expand


                Gamism
                 /        \
             Nar        Sim
            /    \       /    \
         Sim    Game     Nar
        /   \    /      \     /    \
Game     Nar        Sim      Game


or if you please,
        ..<- ->GAME <- -> NAR <- -> SIM <- ->GAME<- -> ..
       
Is what I see as the 'dependancy' tree.  Any one game would be one branch on this tree (one / or \) or a chain of these branches having at least two aspects of gns and at most (obviously) three.  The first being dominent, the second being influenced, and the third if there being just 'ghost' remnants.

The dominent node would take predecence over what most people would see the game as.   For example, White Wolf folks would like people to say their game is NAR and it certainly does its best to support nar.  However the gamism aspect is still there.  SIM is all but completely ignored.  It only shows up in ghost forms where the rules try in a basic sense to have some bearing on how things really are.

If you have a Nar system, for gods sake don't just put all your effort into nar.  These three are interdependant in a way.   Sure put as much emphasis as you can on NAR, but to just have it completely nar is dangerous.  Heck even nar/sim is a little dangerous and in need of some ghost of gamism.  In my opinion solid systems have all three nodes (dominent, influenced, and ghosted) of this.  However maybe what you want isn't a solid system - I'm not here to judge.

To the point:  If you were to choose to have a game with no gamism, you end up with not an rp"g", you end up with a role playing session much like slug.  Roll some dice! Or as stated earlier, Flip a coin! (Which is really a light 'ghost' of gamism anyways, but we will ignore that).  Its not a game, its a session and social event.  Theres nothing wrong with that, but it should be acknowledged.

In fact, while most people call this type of system 'unusable' and 'unmanagable' its not really quite usable.  To have this system you must have a group of responsible trusting people to play with that are interested in ns.  That said such a group would most likely come about a game like this on the fly and so theory isn't of any use to them.  Even the simulationist who is at ill ease for not having a clear way to similate the reality of his dream is not that bad off because he takes on the responsibility himself of making things logical and sensible.  In fact this sense of logic and sensibility is almost the only thing that holds this together.  The sim here almost takes the place of the game's rolls of keeping order.

Unfortunately groups like this are not in many.

Just a note here, that Sims I feel is weak without some ghost or influence of Gam ( and vice versa..) as Gam and Sims are in a way like brothers- Both made out of the same war game background but with plenty of sibling rivalry between them. Yet they both know that they *really* do need each other.  Now while they can function on their own, they are much happier together.

What I think you mean in my terms, is to make it so that gamism is just a 'ghost'.  Which is slightly different as you'd have a gamism aspect, but it would be more like FUDGE. (Man I'm just referencing SOS all over the place tonight...).  There are gamist aspects, but they are all but naught. He seems to have taken your approach in many ways:

1) Lets see.. what do gamists like.... NUMBERS! lets ditch all of em.  + and - dice and nominal descriptions to everything!
2) What else do they like... oh yeah character creation. Hmm ok, lets make it just be a process where you talk ot the gm about your character.  Thats gets rid of most gamist tendancies. (I havent read FUDGE since 1995, but it hink its something like this still...)

Of course he loses this in his bad (imho) combat rules and magic rules (at least circa 1995 - they are probably better now), but he seems to have your sentiments at heart.  After realizing a game like slug isnt digestable to most, adding gamism made FUDGE into what it was ( or maybe he went the other route, and took gamism away to make slug ).  Fear of 'dying' or having other 'gamist' related effects ruining your day in fudge is almost gone, especially when you can use a 'fudge point' to fudge whatever would ruin your day.  Just to those sos enthuists I'm not trying to say this was his mind set, just trying to use it as an example of a n-s-g system.

Back to my other point, most games seem to take 'sim' in as the ghost and gamism or narativism as their influence.  Not that this is inherently better but I think it says something about the gaming market.

Now before you start screaming at me "But ... but... most games that are bad are bad because they try to satisfy gn and s" remember, thats because they try to put their all into each of these.  

Also:  Of Course gamism is more common than commonly though! Its in almost all commercial games whether people care to admit it or not ;-)

Just to try to make my point clearer as I feel it may have been muddled in my ramblings,  heres some examples:

3E D&D:  Gamism (obvious), Sim, Ghosts of Nar (aligment?)
Novel Based RPG Books:  Gamism or Nar, Nar or Gamism, Sim
M&M: Gamism, Nar, Sim
White Wolf:  Nar, Gamism, Sim
GURPS: Sim, Gamism, Nar (this is a weird one... sometimes id say its more nar than gamist and others id say its more nar than gamist... these are both halfway between influence and ghost)
FUDGE: Nar, Sim, Game

[M. J. Young]

Amadeus--thanks for your thoughts; I do think, though, that you need to read the articles, because you've missed some critical aspects of the theory.

First, creative agenda ("GNS") is about how people play, and only secondarily about game design. It comes to be about game design in the sense that designs can make it easier or more difficult to pursue a particular agendum. No game is gamist; it facilitates or promotes gamism. People who play it will find that gamism is easy and other agenda are more difficult.

Second, creative agenda is not about anything that a game can do; it's about what the players prioritize--what it is they want to get out of the game. There is a group represented here who uses D&D3E to play a completely narrativist game, because they pretty much have no interest in the advancement rules or the conflict mechanics or any of that stuff, but are using that as the backdrop for their real interests, the exploration of premise. Similarly, Multiverser has been called simulationist, but in play it very easily drifts to the agendum of the player, because whatever it is that the player finds interesting, that's what the game is about. Never, however, does anyone make two agenda the number one priority at the same instant. It is impossible de facto. Whichever one is the top priority for your play, that's the way you're playing.

Third, it's possible to design a game that stays so completely out of the way of player preferences that it can easily be played in any one agendum; it is not possible to create a game that inherently supports multiple agenda without creating conflict with the others. One of the interesting aspects of Multiverser's design is that it has no reward system at all--the aspect of design which Ron Edwards frequently states is the critical determinative of what agendum a game primarily supports is missing completely from that system. That's significant. In D&D, the reward system runs gamist; if you try to play simulationist or narrativist, the reward system works against you, trying to force you to play gamist. At the other end, Legends of Alyria's rewards are narrativist, and if you try to play it gamist or simulationist it will push you back to narrativist play quite inexhorably. Anything that a game does to support one mode or agendum by its very nature opposes the other two.

To read the articles; read them carefully. If you don't get it from reading Narrativism: Story Now, go back to System Does Matter and try that. If that doesn't help, read Applied Theory to see something of how design relates to play. Tackle them; understand them. The theory doesn't say anything like what you're suggesting it says; I think if you seriously tackle it, you'll discover ideas about role playing that have been right in front of you all this time and you've never realized it.

--M. J. Young

[Amadeus]

First, I'd like to say I'm sorry if that first post didn't make as much sense or contextual sense as I would have wished.  I had been coding for about 12 hours on some weird archaic junk and my mind wasn't where it should have been.  That said, I still stand by what I said and will try to say it correctly now that I'm rested.  However relookinga t the examples I gave, they are weak and sometimes wrong.

First, creative agenda ("GNS") is about how people play, and only secondarily about game design. It comes to be about game design in the sense that designs can make it easier or more difficult to pursue a particular agendum. No game is gamist; it facilitates or promotes gamism. People who play it will find that gamism is easy and other agenda are more difficult.

This is obvious.  I kinda ignored this, but I do understand this.  What I'm trying to do is dissect how gns influences design - and it does, all three aspects of it.  I'm sorry I didn't make it as clear as need be.  I know that gns deals mostly with what players want, and secondly with how to achieve this goal through design.  I also know that most people believe you must go gung-ho at one and ignore the other two, but this isn't what most of these people actually do in practice.  

If one were to try to make gamism as hard as they could what would they do - take out all elements of a 'game' which gets rid of alot of the idea of 'stepping up to a challenge'.    This wouldn't work really I realize at squashing gamism but its still will do alot to it.  If one wanted to take out sim, one would take out of the rules of coherence to what really happens in that world. And even then incoherence is a type of environmental variable.

What we should look at here, is the true anatomy of a game.  I am choosing to divide it up into the gns stances even those they aren't directly the same, the similarity is so useful it would be silly to ignore it.  Of course sim is kinda weak in this model becoming more sim-gamism, but its still there.   Its been said multiple times that you can't support more than one kind of view without suffering greatly, and this just isn't true - as I will explain after dealing with these points.

Second, creative agenda is not about anything that a game can do; it's about what the players prioritize--what it is they want to get out of the game.

Well this is true in the most basic sense, but that is not to say that a game cannot be made up of parts that relate to gns, which it is.

Third, it's possible to design a game that stays so completely out of the way of player preferences that it can easily be played in any one agendum;

Of course, but that's not a 'good' game per se.  It doesn't really help solve any of the three urges players have.  It leaves them to do it themselves, which some may prefer, but in essence its bad design.  If players wanted to do it themselves, they wouldn't be looking at your system.

it is not possible to create a game that inherently supports multiple agenda without creating conflict with the others.

Yes yes, but this is not what I'm trying to say (I admit I'm doing it rather poorly.  I'm better at papers than forum babbling - I'll try to get this into a real paper and put it up sometime on my site and link it here.).  Any one game does only 'inherently support' one agenda, but the tools it uses borrows from the other agendas areas within the system.  This is why I believe nars can mold d&d easily into a nar game if they want to - because it has ghosts of that that can be picked up and developed (as written, or if you go ahead and ignore whats written, you are using a different system.  this system will obviously be more suited to your whims, and you have went and redesigned the system.)

One of the interesting aspects of Multiverser's design is that it has no reward system at all--the aspect of design which Ron Edwards frequently states is the critical determinative of what agendum a game primarily supports is missing completely from that system. That's significant. In D&D, the reward system runs gamist; if you try to play simulationist or narrativist, the reward system works against you, trying to force you to play gamist. At the other end, Legends of Alyria's rewards are narrativist, and if you try to play it gamist or simulationist it will push you back to narrativist play quite inexorably. Anything that a game does to support one mode or agendum by its very nature opposes the other two.

Rewards are important yes, but this a reflection of the rest of the rules of the game and the mindset of the game creator.  They should coincide with it, or simply not exist.  I'm not positive on this now, but I'm thinking about this being a gamist aspect of design being used for other purposes.

To read the articles; read them carefully. If you don't get it from reading Narrativism: Story Now, go back to System Does Matter and try that. If that doesn't help, read Applied Theory to see something of how design relates to play.

Done.

The theory doesn't say anything like what you're suggesting it says;

Of course it doesn't as the theory and I are talking about two different things.  Just because your theory doesn't say what mine does, doesn't mean mine doesn't say what mine does. Unfortunately I was silly ( or stupid ) enough to use your terms instead of my own. This is my mistake and I'm sorry.

============================
To avoid further confusion and possible annoyance I'm going to ahead and rename some of the terms I have been using.  I'm also going to discuss flaws in gns game design as you see it.

Mechanics - Mostly what I've been calling gamist.  This is not how dice work etc as the name would at first suggest but more the little things gamist like.  This is by far the dominant of the three in most public gaming systems
Context - What I've been referring to as sim
Nar Mech - Aspects in design that appeal to nars.  This is often seen as lack of aspects of mechanics.
Direction Incentive - Recently added due to thinking some about rewards this is none of the three but its roots are from mechanics
Esthetics - Something not mentioned earlier due to it not being relevant.

Now, I'm going to talk about game theory and its relation to gns and despite the fear of stepping on toes, its problems.

A few other terms you may or may not be familiar with in real game theory that I may use, but if I don't should be kept in mind when reading this. Alot of these are based on rewards in one sense, but in a real sense  its about rewards in relevance to 'winning the game' not to character advancement or anything like that.  As we all know from reading any rpg book, winning in rpgs is done differently than in other games.

Pareto Optimal: efficiency of a game so that no player may get more out of the game without cost to another player
Hicks Optimal:   efficiency of a game so that all players get the greatest possible 'payoffs'
Nash Optimal:  ( you might remember this from an analogy in a recent movie A Beautiful Mind) efficiency of game so that all players have no incentive to change their current strategy as it would harm all and in their current position they all win.  We see this is impossible in RPGs. But a close match will be shown.  This is misused , but you will get the idea behind it I hope.

I'll also go ahead and differentiate my theory with popular gns theory by calling it Nashville GNS.  (I've always been one for bad obvious wordplay.)  What we want is a nash optimal hicks optimal game.  That way people can have fun without having to mold their strategy to another strategy such as mentioned in the original topic of this thread (I'm sorry for deviating) gamism and everybody has fun.  It seems the assumption is that the name of this game is Pareto Optimalization, which is somewhat true, but not to the extent that is commonly believed.

While these are more for games involving 'score' of some type I think they may be of use here if one uses it in ordinal terms in relation to  how successful each player is at achieving their goal, or as you put it strategy.    You can either
A) Fulfill your goal completely,
ie, have alot of fun
B) Partially Fulfill your goal
have some fun, but feel that you are in the wrong game, but deal
C) Fail.
don't have fun.

In essence the goal of this game is determined by your strategy.  In fact this is such common knowledge, these are often combined into the term you use as 'strategy'.  So easy right? Everybody wins since their goal is determined by their strategy and that strategy fulfills their goal. Wrong.  

The problem is the 'rules of the game'.  An ideal game would be able to make all three strategies win equally.  This is possible in an ideal context where all the game players choose the same strategy.

Those with a short view would assume then that the best path is to just cater to one type and let the rest suffer.  This would be a GREAT solution if in real life people tended to game in groups that all shared the same strategy.  However it seems to me that this often times isn't the case (especially where gaming is more of social activity than a game for the sake of a game.)  Often times a group will contain a gamist, two nars, and a sim or two sims, a gamist and a nar, or whatever.  The point is this mix almost certainly makes the previous method plain out bad practice.  Game design should help the gamemaster achieve ALL the players goals.  Your view of game design simply doesn't and the assumptions that any game can be played equally well in gn or s is wrong due to the mix of groups.  Most people leave this up to whoever is running the game to cater.  This is much like Ron's reference to system not mattering and how it really does.

Lets examine the options.  

We know from experience that catering to all three g n and s is simply too much for a game to handle.  Theres too much load.  You get baggage, and conflict.  Everybody loses.  Further more we know that if you pick any one that one wins, and the rest in the gaming group must be catered to by the gm.  Given that not all gm's are as skilled enough to cater to different players, by default the others will lose.  You must assume the worse.

Code Select Expand


Who Wins VS Game Design Assumption
.   |  G    |   N   |  S    
----+-------+-------+-------
.G  |  W    |   L   |  L    
----+-------+-------+-------
.N  |  L    |   W   |  L
----+-------+-------+-------
.S  |  L    |   L   |  W
----+-------+-------+-------
 

L = complete lose
X = half win
W = win


In a more optimistic view the gm isnt completely bad, hes actually pretty good.  He can do *something* on his own.  In fact, hes good enough that if there are two different kinds of groups and recognizes this, he can easily accommodate both but one does suffer.

Code Select Expand


Who Wins VS Game Design Assumption
.   |  G    |   N   |  S    
----+-------+-------+-------
.G  |  W    |   X   |  L    
----+-------+-------+-------
.N  |  L    |   W   |  X
----+-------+-------+-------
.S  |  X    |   L   |  W
----+-------+-------+-------
 
or

.   |  G    |   N   |  S    
----+-------+-------+-------
.G  |  W    |   L   |  X    
----+-------+-------+-------
.N  |  X    |   W   |  L
----+-------+-------+-------
.S  |  L    |   X   |  W
----+-------+-------+-------

L = complete lose
X = half win
W = win


With a 'great' gm, these levels are bumped up again. Another thing to note is that this model is for a non-mixed strategy - which isn't always the case.

That seems to have exhausted all the options, but really it hasn't.    From such a cursory view as this we seem to come about the conclusion that we can assume the gm isn't that bad and we only let one man really suffer - the odd man out.  This is sloppy and ill conceived. We should design for the worst among the gamers, since the better ones can help themselves.

We should try to bump this up without the gm's help.  "But what about conflict!" I hear from the peanut gallery.  Good question.

Gamism most directly conflicts with narrativism but its not a conflict that can't be repaired.  Narrativism however doesn't really   We also so that Sim and narrativism conflict, but not *that* much.  Sim and Gamism also only *half* conflict. This can be seen more clearly later when I discuss peoples REAL (and mixed) strategies as opposed to the suggested model.  

Not all people are gamists, sims, or nars.  Some people prefer to mix their strategies.  I for example play as a narrativist, but I also have alot of essence of gamist in me - however having something at least someone near the settings 'reality' is somewhat important to me but only when it gets WAY out of hand (I played in a game once where dragonsw ould randomly appear and change your gender/class... this is bad).   I think this represents alot of people.  Others are gamists, who like sim in their games, or sims who like a little game in their sim.  Or any other combination.  I feel most people who know nothing of theory are one of these who have two goals. This however is an opinion so I will leave it out.

Ok good.  That means its easier to ignore two of the three in my game design!  Great.  Actually this isn't the case.  For anybody with two of these you demote their win down to a half win. Of course some people hold their narrativist goal higher than their sim or gamist goal.  

Code Select Expand



   |  G    |   N   |  S    |      GN   |   GS  |  NG   |  NS   |   SN  |  SG
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
.G  |  W    |   L   |  L    |      W    |   W   |  X    |  L    |   L   |  X    
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
.N  |  L    |   W   |  L    |      X    |   L   |  W    |  W    |   X   |  L    
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
.S  |  L    |   L   |  W    |      L    |   X   |  L    |  X    |   W   |  W    
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------


I'm not going to bother listing the optimistic view here as this is a forum post and thats getting a little too complex for the likes of a post and to be honest its irrelevant to good design.

So I suppose we aren't as bad off as I first said.  However, 4/9 of each row still full loses.  Hell, thats just under half.  2-3 of the average 6 gamers in your group are possibly having a bad time assuming each of these are of equal proportion in the gaming community (big assumption I know I can't make).  The point is 12/27 types of gamers will find your game not fun.

What we would like to see is a board filled up with Wins right? This however is impossible as stated earlier.  So what good is all the garbage? Well instead lets just focus on instead, making as few people as possible lose.  Much easier.  But how?

I propose proper design should focus on one of these, and be influenced by another.  Conflict for this isn't really that bad, as we see from the fact that gamers themselves are more often than not using a mix of two strategies, rather than a single strategy.  So designing a game with the idea in the back of your mind that some gamists are going to play your narrativist game may be useful.  Sure, you get some conflict, but the gain is so much better its silly to be afraid of it.

Code Select Expand



   |  G    |   N   |  S    |      GN   |   GS  |  NG   |  NS   |   SN  |  SG
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
.GN |  W    |   X   |  L    |      W    |   W   |  X    |  X    |   X   |  X    
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
.GS |  W    |   L   |  X    |      W    |   W   |  X    |  X    |   X   |  X    
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
.NG |  X    |   W   |  L    |      X    |   X   |  W    |  W    |   X   |  X    
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
.NS |  L    |   W   |  X    |      X    |   X   |  W    |  W    |   X   |  X    
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
.SN |  L    |   X   |  W    |      X    |   X   |  X    |  X    |   W   |  W    
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
.SG |  X    |   L   |  W    |      X    |   X   |  X    |  X    |   W   |  W    
----+-------+-------+-------+    -------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------

Gee golly I like those numbers alot better.  1/9 types happy looks good to me.  With a good gm or a great gm everybody is happy!  I'll deal with the minor conflict in strategies.  Still we had better at least throw that 1/9th a bone.  And we do ussually, buts that all it is - a bone.  No real meat, just a mention or hint that the person who made the game knew about the forgotten ninth guy and wanted him to know he wasnt completely out there in the dark alone.

So now we have as close to a Nash/Hicks optimal as we can get.  Even the losers arent that far in the dark, and if you have any sort of decent game runner, there are no losers.

Ok so surely we see to design a game that makes the most people happy a bit of minor conflict helps the medicine go down.  But what in gods name does all this have to do with the topic at hand and what I was suggesting earlier? If so far you've dismissed this on the premise that the loss you gain with conflict is too much, this is where it comes together for you.

Its been a while so I'll refresh your memory on my new definitions:

Mechanics - This is not how dice work etc as the name would at first suggest but more the little things gamist like.  This is by far the dominant of the three in most public gaming systems
Context - What I've been referring to as sim
Narmech - Aspects in design that appeal to nars and encourage them.  This is often seen as lack of aspects of mechanics.
Direction Incentive - Recently added due to thinking some about rewards this is none of the three but its roots are from mechanics
Esthetics - Something not mentioned earlier due to it not being relevant.  However this contains how dice are rolled, etc.

Mechanics are what really gets a gamist going.  These are the things that promote as dubbed above, "The Egg Hunt", min maxing, system breaking, and a defined challenge to 'step up to'.  This shouldn't be seen as probability curves and the like, but simply things in games that promote gamism.  And to an extent most rpgs have this, whether they like to admit it or not.  There is a sense of this no matter what you do.  Directive Incentive is a method of this, but it is also used in narmech.

Narmech is anything that  promotes narrativist play.  The easiest way recently was to simply change directive incentive from mechanics over to narmechanics.  This is seen in games that reward good role playing with character points.  However this is not the only way.  Often times this is simple shown by putting less emphasis on mechanics.  In this way, narrativism is tied inversely to mechanics.

Context defines what the sim really wants - the context of the mechanics / 'narmech'.  This is the setting.  This also is how this effects both mechanics/narmechanics.

Esthetics are things about the game that are none of the above but are influenced and influence all of the above.  Most notably is the resolution of actions.  

I just realized I spent way too much time so far on this post and I have to study for my final later today.  I'll get back to the game side of this tonight.  Sorry for cutting you short, but I think you can see where it is going right now without me babbling on for another page.  heck maybe I'll just go ahead and write the paper off this and post it. ;-)

[Amadeus]

Ugh,Just noticed I lapsed into talking about gns as its secondary purpose.  Oh well, take it with a grain of salt.  This is what happens when i try to do things ont he fly =-P