Simulationism without Force?

[montag]

Short version:
Simulationism without Force: Is it possible? What does it look like?

Long version
I'm currently having a debate with a fellow player GM, about our extent of co-authorship when she's the GM. My point is, that since the buck stops with her (concerning the world, our PC's magic, NPCs etc.) we are definitely not co-authors and she might as well commit to illusionism, I'm willing to trailblaze.
Her point is, that we're free to go wherever we want, and if we decide against some obvious pre-made conflict, we can find another, elsewhere (she admits it takes her some time to come with something new). And she points out, that the PCs have really changed the world (She agrees she decided to let it happen.)

The difficult thing is, that she's operating from some sense of a pre-existing world, which she is representing to us - internal cause – and I'm saying there is no such thing, neither PC nor game world exist, we decide to have something happen.
However, I'm having trouble describing the fine difference between Sim: at the market and Narr: bangs.
When the Simulationist goes to the market, AFAIK the expectation is, that the GM present the market and provide feedback based on where the player wants to go. It doesn't look like Force to me, but the buck, as to what is real and whether that merchant is a disguised ninja stops with the GM.
Similarly, when the Narrativist GM provides a bang, he or she is forcing a  situation on the player, which requires a choice. And even there the GM will often have control over the "response" of the world to the PC's choice.

To me, the difference is, that in the second case the GM conceives of his or her bang as a ball thrown to the player and – given the shared CA – is eagerly anticipating how the player will throw it back. In the former case, the GM is trying his or her best to deliver a plausible response from the imaginonary environment, based on prior expectations and commitments made concerning the setting. Where I tie myself into knots is when I consider, that there is no internal cause in the absence of – in this case – GM decisions.
Then again, taking this to the extreme would seem to mean, that any GM buck stoppage concerning the world is forcing the players, and that doesn't sound right either.

Can anyone help?

[Eero Tuovinen]

It seems to me that simulationism without Force results from common agreement concerning the thing explored. If the GM is perceived as holding onto a premade game world there's no Force, as it's not the GM who exerts judgement over player actions, but the world itself. As all questions about Force, this is simply about personal perspective; if the  players trust the GM to be impartial simulator nothing he does due to the simulation is Force - if it was, it wouldn't be simulation, as the GM would excert personal judgement, ne?

The same phenomenon surfaces whatever is the focus of exploration. In character exploration a player can easily undermine his believability towards others by f.ex. suddenly forgetting the character loved an NPC which was placed in danger. In this case the player makes a choice the other players see as suspiciously non-characteristic (gamism or whatever the reason), casting a shadow over the player authority. In this style of play the players have power over their characters by the virtue of limiting themselves to character simulation. If they overstep the boundary, other players will complain - it's use of Force by the player.

The situations are the same, in one case it's the GM who simulates the world, in other it's the player simulating the character. In both cases choosing simulation means essentially foregoing personal choises - any choice has to be conceivably "neutral" and resulting from the simulational logic. If it doesn't, the player is deemed to be using Force in an unacceptable way.

So the answer to the question is that this kind of simulationism is about agreeing to an impossible ideal to gain play reality and some functions that are impossible in "no-Myth". The GM in a sense sacrifices his own play interest to instead use his energy in simulating the game world. In truth it's of course just that the other players agree to believe that the GM preference is true simulation, but the result is the same: as long as the GM preference doesn't get too flagrant the fiction of simulation can be upheld.

Your problem comes from ripping apart the fiction that the GM is really simulating. Of course it's not possible to simulate things perfectly; the GM will always be judging things through his own preference. The hope is that that preference is partial to good story and character protagonism.

I suggest that what the GM is doing isn't really Force when the players have agreed that the game world is GM territory. When the GM makes a decision it's not viewed as player input, but as a fact of the rules. It's the same phenomenon we have here in Finland with most all GMs designing their own rules and overriding them constantly. The GM is removed as a player, and is put up as a rules arbiter.

The game style in question is functional only if you can accept that the GM is the final arbiter. If you persist in demanding accountability the illusion of impartiality will crumble and the game will end. The GM has the power only by the virtue of the simulationist logic. Likewise a player in the same mode can only control his character as long as his auteur status is respected; if others start depating player decisions and demanding "good roleplaying" they effectively take away the player control of his character, as he now has to limit himself to the auteur decisions of others. The "simulation" is a fiction that protects and conceals flagrant player decisions from the other players and dresses them up as impartiality. This is socially crucial if the players fear real contact with each other, or don't want to play a game where they themselves are put on line.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Simulationism without Force is quite possible.

It is characterized by letting go of hardly any interest in "story" whatsoever. If we spend the whole session on buying shoes, that's what we do. A fight with a wandering bear is the same as a fight with the big bad villain. Play your character's mannerisms, move from place to place.

No story emerges due to player-characters' decisions and crises (whether front-loaded or emergent). No story emerges due to GM's overt or covert authority over what happens next. Enjoy how everything works, causally, and anything that happens is occasion for such enjoyment.

I think some people are going to misunderstand, however, and think that their Vanilla Narrativist play-experience follows this model. Bluntly, it doesn't, no matter how much Ouija-Boarding they do to hide their authorship from themselves and one another.

Best,
Ron

[GreatWolf]

Hello,

Simulationism without Force is quite possible.

It is characterized by letting go of hardly any interest in "story" whatsoever. If we spend the whole session on buying shoes, that's what we do. A fight with a wandering bear is the same as a fight with the big bad villain. Play your character's mannerisms, move from place to place.

An example of this, from actual play.

Most teenage roleplayers play D&D.  Me, I played Middle Earth Roleplaying (MERPS) and, later, Rolemaster.  My MERPS experience really had little to do with Middle Earth.  Actually, it had everything to do with the Trollshaws module that was in the back of that book.  This was truly an environment to explore.  There was a safe point of civilization (the Inn at the Last Bridge), a lot of wilderness, and two "adventure sites":  a ruined castle that headquartered a spy for the Witch-king, and a troll cave.

We must have played several different sets of characters in that same environment, and, invariably, we did the same thing.  We would scout out the troll cave (the castle was too tough), eventually assault it to kill the trolls (which was a tricky proposition), and then take over the cave as our home base.

It is this part that is critical to the discussion at hand.  The book included a map of the troll cave, so we* would sit down and figure out what we needed to make the cave defensible and habitable.  "Hmm.  We'll want some caltrops here, and we'll need some tarps to make doors, and with all the snare traps that we're wanting to set, we'll want about 100' of rope."  We were limited by the equipment list in the book, of course, which is why we used the tarps for doors.  (Doors just weren't priced out.)

There was also the issue of transporting all this stuff, so we'd have to budget for a cart of some kind and horses.

So then, we would begin the trek from the cave to the Inn, where we would always meet a trader who just happened to have all the junk that we wanted.  This trip took several days in each direction, so it could be dangerous, especially on the return trip with our supplies.  There was, of course, the random encounter issues, so we'd have to judge if it was safer to move quickly along the road (but no doubt meet more people) or to move through the woods more slowly but hopefully avoid conflict.

Then, when we got back to the cave, we'd start setting it up the way that we wanted.

This process could take a couple of sessions to complete, but we all enjoyed it immensely.  It was like outfitting our secret fort.  Who cares that the secret fort only existed in our minds?  It was fun to imagine, and that's all we cared about.  No addressing of Premise, no one-upmanship.  Just the joy of assembling a fort.


*I often played with a GM PC, so I was involved in this part of the game as a player

[Andrew Norris]

I'm not sure if my comments here are totally relevant, but I wanted to make the point that you're talking about a specific kind of Sim (Exploration of Setting) with specific techniques (GM retains full authorship).

I could imagine a Sim / Exploration of Color game in which the GM allows shared authorship. For example, a Star Trek game in which the point is to "do things like they're done on the show", and players and GM are all considered on equal footing in terms of their credibility as to what constitues valid color. I recognize, though, that this is skirting the edges of Narr if the game becomes an episodic, "each session has a moral" situation like the show.

For your specific situation, I agree with Ron that you're going to see Force applied when the GM's Sim techniques interact with players' vanilla Narr tendencies. If the GM says that you can pass up an existing planned situation in favor of another situation to be planned later, that sounds like Trailblazing to me.

[Ian Charvill]

While Ron's underlying points are sound, his examples are so misleading it's almost painful.

Consider the wandering bear vs major villain.  Broad brushstrokes: in the loosely Egrian terms of a narrativist "major villain" means character who embodies the antithesis of the theme the player wishes to resolve the premise into.  And story, for that matter, means what happens as structured in relation to and through the lens of the premise and resulting theme.

In simulationist terms major villain means the character who the player character is most strongly in opposition to, and story means what happens when the two of them come into conflict.  A faithful simulationist explorer of character will be most interested in driving their character into the situations their character would be most interested in.  To spend time facing the bear rather than the villain would be frustrating to the player on the same grounds as it would be frustrating to the character.

Same with the shoes example.  Round it out and it makes sense: you're playing a valley girl and you spend the session shopping for shoes; you're playing the Merchant captain of a 200 ton Far Trader and you spend the session shopping for spices.   In context it makes sense.  Out of context it sounds a little like: if you'd not be happy spending an entire session shopping for shoes then either it's simulationism plus force or vanilla narrativism.

The 'It' of simulationism is Discovery and it's innate and unlearned drive is Curiosity.  People are not equally curious about all things, and being curious about different things with differing levels of intensity is not necessarily an indicator of some underlying up-for-grabs premise.

Players will - regardless of their CA - choose interesting things over uninteresting things.   You don't hear narrativists citing actual play examples of their session revolving around the premise of "what would you sacrifice to prevent yourself from wearing a chartreuse tie?".  You don't hear gamists talking about the time they rolled a natural 20 on their Double Entry Bookkeeping skill roll and prevented their patron from playing an extra 10% tax in the fiscal year 2000-2001.  And you don't hear simulationists talking about the session where they bought all those shoes.

Now, speaking as a simulationist who has used force and has not used force here are some tells for no force sim:

1 World creation powers are split among the players at the table:  This apportionment may be formal or informal.  Powers need not be uniformly apportioned.  Powers may show up during different phases of play.  Because the GM is not using force they do not need to worry about the disrupting effects of group creativity.

(This applies equally to both powers of invention and straight forward credibility over facts of an established game world)

2 Multi-plot stories:  Not all plots need to have equal weight.  Actually, it would be a strong sign of force if they did - symmetry tends not to be accidental.  Most likely, you would see a small number of concurrent plots that hold the interest of the entire group and a number of smaller sub-plots relating to individual characters or subgroups.  One or more of the subplots and main plots may be left unresolved at the end of any given instance of play.

(Plot here merely means chain of causily linked events)

3 Casual acceptance of metagame elements by the players.  This doesn't need to be showy and covert, so you might have to watch for it.  An example would kibbutzing about an imaginary element of play, everyone talks whether or not their character is present.  This ties in with the shared powers to say what's true about the game world - if John the player has credibility to assert that slaves were illegal in England from the late Eighteenth century, it doesn't matter whether his character is present at the discussion between the barrister and the judge).

4 Variable pacing - some sessions will cover a lot of ground, some will cover very little.  Ron refers quite a few times in to his Hero Wars campaign covering in a session as much material in a session as most groups do in three.  You'll see that in free sim, but also you'll see the converse: slow, drifting exploration.  Some sessions, if you were trying to sum them up in a story-so-far-email would take you a sentence, some would take multiple paragraphs.  Such is the price of freedom.

5 Variable engagement.  Sometimes everyone is really focussed on what's happening at the table, regardless of whether their character is present or has a stake in what's going on, because they're interested in the territory that's being explored.  Other time's not so much, and they'll wander off to pee or get snacks.  I'm guessing this is somewhat universal: at three to four hours the typical role playing session is long enough that Miramax would release it as Part I and Part II.  But the different people engaged at different times aspect is a result of free exploration, and different focusses of curiousity.

Remember: we're not talking about narrativism here, what person A explores need have no thematic relationship with what person B explores, and so there is no pressure on either to have their exploration make a comment on what the other is exploring.

And probably the biggie:

6 Thematic disunity.  I've written before how it's inevitable that whenever you have an open conflict (i.e. a conflict who's outcome is not predetermined) you will be able to observe premise resolving into theme through free choice.  For example, Professor Ratious, the mad scientist, vs Captain Paladin, our devout hero.  Premise: will scientific rationality overwhelm religious faith.  Outcome depends on cause and effect chains of decisions made and dice rolled.  Theme: Faith Triumphs over Cold Rationality, Progress is Unstopable, Everyone wins if we can all just learn to get along, whatever.

However, under free simulationist play, nobody really cares about the thematic stuff.  This parallels with "3" - the metagame is there, but nobody pays much attention to it.  Captain Paladin uses science when it suits the character.  At the same time as the Ratious vs Paladin thing is going down, Paladin has an agnostic contact at the British Museum and the agnosticism goes by without any particular attention or energy.  And so on.  To bend a Forge term to current purposes: the use of premise is incoherent.

[M. J. Young]

The 'It' of simulationism is Discovery and it's innate and unlearned drive is Curiosity.

I wanted to say thank you for that.

I think there's still a problem with the use of the word "force".

If we have agreed that we are playing in, say, Greyhawk, but the only player at the table who is allowed to read the Greyhawk descriptions is the referee, it is not referee force to present the world as it is in the book, or as the referee understands the book to represent it. It is a simple situation in which we've agreed to content within the shared imaginary space which is not known to all of the participants, thus giving credibility to one participant to present that content.

"Force" seems to mean that some player (usually the referee) is using his credibility through techniques which disempower other players in ways in which the social contract intends that they should be empowered. It is, in a sense, pushing the degree of control one player has into another player's territory--"because I get to decide X, in this case I can control Y, even though technically you get to decide Y; my control of X can be pushed to the point that it gives me de facto control of Y through my manipulation of X."

Thus "force" seems to be the use of a technique which stretches one player's credibility to overcome another's.

Does that make sense?

--M. J. Young

[montag]

Thanks everybody.
The response don't form a line in my head as yet, so I'll try to address them one by one, hoping for the heureka experience.

- Eero: very good points, thanks. I'm not entirely sure though, you seem to be saying that Simulationism is possible only when one never "looks behind the curtain". I'd say that's probably true in-game (or at least doing so in-game is a major stumbling block best avoided), but out-of-game it shouldn't be a problem. Or is it?
- the GM in question conceives of play as focussed on enjoyment of how everything works, but she indulges our desires in so far as she provides us with stuff happening. If I (and the others to a lesser extent) where not continuously pushing her for "stuff to happen", I'm pretty sure we'd be buying shoes (just to make it totally clear: I'm trying* as hard as I can to take pleasure from buying shoes. I usually get impatient after two hours, and she accepts that I can't stand more than that. (And in anticipation of Ron's response to this: Yeah, I'm willingly paying the price, and know what I'm doing. ;))
- Seth: great example, thanks. I find it hard to imagine playing that way but it gives me a good picture of what Sim without Force might look like.
- Andrew: good point, we are indeed talking about Sim: EX-Setting and the technique of full GM authorship, or rather, I'm wondering what is full GM authorship in this case.
I find myself nodding in agreement to the rest of your post, but can't connect it to my problem, could you please try again? Thanks.
- Ian: hey, I could actually like what you describe! Let me assure you, it's not the way we used to* play. Thanks for giving me a decent handle on Sim without Force in more abstract variables, which nicely complement Seth's account.
- M.S. Young's (what's the M. stand for? Michael IIRC) response is the only one which I can immediately connect to (I'm sure the others are connected just as well, I just don't see it yet.). I've been considering whether to use the term "Force" or not all the way through writing my original post, and just now I'm wondering whether "authorship" wouldn't have been more appropriate.
From the current definition, from the Narrativism essay, posted below, I assumed our case might fall under pseudo-decisions.

Force by definition disrupts the Creative Agenda.
Force techniques include IIEE manipulation, fudged/ignored rolls, perception management, clue moving, scene framing as a form of reducing options, directions as to character's actions using voiced and unvoiced signals, modifying features of various NPCs during play, and authority over using textual rules. The Golden Rule of White Wolf games is, in application, a mandate for Force.
Force Techniques often include permitting pseudo-decisions, which we can discuss at the Forge if necessary. Also, Force Techniques do vary in how flexible a scene's outcome is permitted to be. Some GMs (to use the classic single-GM context) might do anything up to actually picking up your dice for you in order for you to talk to "that guy," or he might let the characters miss the clue, either 'porting it to another character or letting its absence go ahead and affect the outcome.

I'm no longer sure I guessed right.

Thanks everybody, apologies for being unable to fully "get it", despite your efforts, I'll keep trying. Again, thanks!

edit: I'm an idiot! I actually asked two questions. The one on Sim without Force has been answered in full. The other one, "What is wrong with my particular reasoning" is clouding the first. Apologies to everyone.
Ron, should I take the second question to a different thread?

* she's no longer the GM and the rest is happy with that. We did however agree to finish her story.

[John Kim]

OK, so having accepted that it is possible, your question is: what does it look like.  First of all, I'd recommend reading an old thread called http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6178">Plotless but Background-based Games.  

I'm currently having a debate with a fellow player GM, about our extent of co-authorship when she's the GM. My point is, that since the buck stops with her (concerning the world, our PC's magic, NPCs etc.) we are definitely not co-authors and she might as well commit to illusionism, I'm willing to trailblaze.
Her point is, that we're free to go wherever we want, and if we decide against some obvious pre-made conflict, we can find another, elsewhere (she admits it takes her some time to come with something new). And she points out, that the PCs have really changed the world (She agrees she decided to let it happen.)  

You are talking as if conflict is something that is independent of the PCs -- i.e. you have to search to find it.  But by controlling what the PCs are trying to do, you can create conflict.  The most trivial example is: the PCs come into a peaceful city.  They rob some stores and try to set themselves up as a crime syndicate.  Now, there is a traditional feeling both that this is "munchkin" and that it is meaningless action.  But that's not inherently true.  If you play characters who are the type to become criminals, then this line of events could have lots of stuff about the PCs personalities and desires.  

The important thing about this is to realize the dynamic of status quo.  Typically PCs will support whatever the status quo is.  That is, if nothing unusual is going on, they will live out relatively boring lives.  They will only spring into action if they find something unusual, and will otherwise just wander about searching for such.  But it is also possible to have PCs with ambition to change the status quo.  i.e. So if faced with a sleepy town, they will do something to it.  

Note that this isn't the same thing as players.  i.e. In a game where players can establish background, a pro-active player might play a re-active character -- where the player invents unusual stuff to motivate her PC into action.   But even in a game where a player can't establish background, the player can be pro-active by having a driving force which is within the PC.

[montag]

Thanks John, wonderful link, wonderful vintage thread
(they don't make 'em like they used to, eh? ;)

Concerning pro-active play by the players: Yeah, maybe we should burn the place down ;) Less extreme measures have been tried several times and failed, partly because there is not a lot of conflict in the setting.
I've considered having my PC "freak out" and wreak havoc, but decided against it, since it would be putting my priorities before those of the GM to a substantial degree.
I'll show the old thread to her when she GMs the next game.

[John Kim]

Concerning pro-active play by the players: Yeah, maybe we should burn the place down ;) Less extreme measures have been tried several times and failed, partly because there is not a lot of conflict in the setting.
I've considered having my PC "freak out" and wreak havoc, but decided against it, since it would be putting my priorities before those of the GM to a substantial degree.  

OK, I guess this prompts me to ask: what are the GM's priorities?  Apparently you think the GM has a vested interest in characters acting within certain limits -- is that right?  Can you describe the setting and situation that lacks conflict?  

Priorities can be a murky issue. because while it is often true in practice, it is also often assumed by the players.  In games I have GMed, I have had players who held back from doing things because they didn't want to mess up my plans -- when in fact I wasn't attached to any plan, and in fact would welcome havoc on the part of the PCs.  

I also think it's overly negative to call this "freaking out".  Pro-active PCs just means taking on the status quo.  Such ambition can be heroic and positive.  For example, in one campaign, we were superheroes in the near future where there was an tyrranical world government.  However, most of the other PCs were content such that as long as said government wasn't attacking them, and as long as they didn't hear about a hideous plan that the government was hatching, they simply sat tight.  In contrast, my PC actively strove to topple the government in ruthless strikes against those it and those who aided it.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Apparently the original question has been raised and answered. Several loose ends remain, and I'm wary of letting this thread shoulder the burden of dealing with them.

1. Markus' (montag's) and M.J.'s question about Force as a term, which in my view is still wrangling with the distinction between "character decisions and actions, and their significance" and "GM contributes input into the SIS."

(Note to the interested: M.J. stands for "Mark Joseph," and in fact, the estimable gentleman does not typically go by "M.J." in person; our typical use of his initials is an artifact of on-line recognition.)

2. John's question to Markus about the freaking-out PC, and GM/player priorities.

Markus, these seem very much like threads of their own, and please feel free to gun'em into starting mode, beginning with links to this one.

In the meantime, here at this ranch, I think all the little cowpokes can lay down their saddles and tuck in.

Best,
Ron

P.S. I saw Bronco Billy twice this week. Expect further Billy-isms.