What is the metagame goal of Sim?

[Silmenume]

Roleplay is about us, the players, making decisions.  In Gamism its what Challenges are to be met and then addressed in what fashion.  In Narrativism it's what Premises are to be created and then addressed in what fashion.  In both cases there is a metagame decision being made as to what we as players are going to engage with.  Once we have decided what we are engaging with we put the decision into action in the SIS.  Now these decisions about what we are going to engage with do not have to be overt, it can be those elements of the Situation that just catch our interest and we decide to start interacting with.  These, what am I interested in addressing question can also be overt and even discussed out loud, the point is that there is a decision being made beyond what GNS mode am I interested in playing that takes place outside of the SIS.  As was lamented indirectly in a number of earlier threads, its not enough to say that a Gamist player is interested in Challenge and then present any ol' Challenge and expect said player to engage.  So we understand that said player doesn't have just a generic interest in Challenge generally, but has an interest in certain types of Challenge.  IOW a Gamist player has an interest in engaging in certain forms of Challenge and games can be designed that address all different form of Gamist interests.  However all these games, in all their forms, still at the root do focus on Challenge and that is what makes them Gamist in design – actual play usage withstanding.  The same general tenants can be applied to Narrativism and its focus.

Having said all that, the question I come to ask is what is the focus of Sim, i.e., how does it address Situation.  Simulationism is fundamentally different from G/N in that both aspects of Character must always be (paradigmatically speaking) employed inviolate.  In Narrativism Character/corpus need not necessarily be present for the player to address Situation in a way that addresses Premise IOW corpus can be disentangled from Situation yet the player can still address Situation for the purposes of addressing Premise.  In Gamism Character/persona can be disentangled from Situation and the player can still effectively address Situation for the purposes of addressing Challenge.  Obviously this will not always happen, nor must it happen, but what it does mean is that maintaining the integrity of the Character corpus/persona unity is not the metagame priority in G/N.  Maintaining the integrity of the address of Challenge or Premise is the metagame priority.  

I posit that in Sim maintaining the integrity of the Character corpus/persona is a metagame priority for the purpose of addressing Situation.  The question becomes, what does that mean exactly and what are the implications?  For example, in all Gamist designed games we know that its about Challenge – its just a matter of how and what form is emphasized and served up.  The same with Nar – how do we facilitate the address of Premise and what form will that take?  In what forms do the metagame interests of Simulationist players take shape?  Even though the limiting factor of Sim is ostensibly entirely in game, i.e., Character, unlike G/N which are by definition driven entirely outside the SIS, I posit that Simulationists also approach Situation with a metagame interest driving as well.  

What is that metagame drive?  Is it to live the Dream?  Is it to experience the Dream?  If so, what does living or experiencing the Dream mean? How can this be facilitated by design or approach?  If it is living the Dream, then I would say that it is made manifest by living the decisions and experiencing the things that a Character in that given Situation would face.  I am not speaking of "Immersion" nor do I wish any conversation about "Immersion" please, it is irrelevant.  A player need not identify with their Character, but if said player finds no resonance with their Character I find that to be nearing a rather paradoxical Situation.  For a player not to be interested in their Character as a Simulationist is equivalent to not being interested in the Challenge as a Gamist or the Premise as a Narrativist.  Again here things are a little different in Sim– it is not enough for a player to have an interest in their Character but they must also have an interest in the Situation as well, and in a manner that should line up with the Character's interest as well.  There is a triangle of interest in Sim (Player interest in Character, Player interest in Situation, and Character interest in Situation (justification)) that is different from Gamism/Narrativism (Player interest in Challenge/Premise, Player interest in the specific Situation, but Character justification is not a priority).

Is it Discovery?  What are we finding?  I do not believe it is Discovery alone, but rather the intricate dance between the immediate act of creation and the act of discovery following.  I do believe that Discovery is a much more important drive in Sim than in Gam/Nar, but I do not believe it is the end all be all.  As roleplay is the act of creating, creating facts into the SIS, there must be a strong drive to create as well.  By create I mean all forms of create which, among many other things, I would include creating strategies to address Challenge, creating moments to Premise, as well as creating responses that reveals Deep Character.  How much one enjoys creating as opposed to Discovery varies from player to player, but I do not think that Discovery defines Sim, however it is more important than in G/N.  Never the less, is it something that needs to be facilitated?

If form follows function, and the form of Sim is Character persona/corpus unity what are the implications (functions) of that?

In short – what is the Metagame of Sim and how can it be facilitated?  Many of the same kinds of metagame issues arise in Sim as they do in Gam/Nar, but historically they have either been ignored and then dealt with in an ad hoc manner or have be tried to be stamped out of existence leading to all sorts of problems.  While the goals of Sim might be to make the Dream as pervasive as possible during play, thus creating a belief that all metagame issues must be banished, I believe in many healthy Sim games that the metagame is handled in game, or conversely just moved to the bookends of the game itself.  I also think that the ignoring or marginalizing of metagame is a TRAGIC mistake of Sim as practiced and preached historically and has done enormous harm to the mode.

Some thoughts and questions.

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume.

[Ian Charvill]

Of all the three modes as defined simulationism is the only one not marked as being a retreat.  Gamism is a retreat from stepping up to any challenges that matter.  The display of guts and strategy necessary to defeat an imaginary dragon?  Compare it to judo, sunday-morning football, chess, going on who wants to be a millionaire, playing poker for pocket change.  Gamism revolves around very low stakes indeed.  Narrativism is the same.  Don't have the guts to talk about relationship-issues with your friends?  Play Sorceror.  You don't even have to be aware of the premise stuff you're "addressing" everything can happen on a nice safe covert level.

Within the model, simulationists are the only people engaged in the act of roleplaying for it's own sake.  If you commit to imaginatively exploring hobbiton and the experience sucks in and of itself, then you just wasted an afternoon.  That's three hours you don't get back, dude.  Doesn't matter how many xp you nabbed or what troubling human issues you tackled if hobbiton fell flat as an area of exploration then you and your group suck.

Simulationism doesn't have a metagame goal, thank god.  If it did there would be no room in the model for people who actually enjoy exploration.  People who don't have the balls to step onto a judo mat to find out if they have any strategy and guts, people who don't have the balls to say to their girlfriend, I not sure impressing my friends with how pretty you are is enough to put up with your sarcastic comments, those guys can play G and N.  People who enjoy exploration for it's own sake are lucky enough to play S.

[for the sake of clarity before someone rushes to fast to the reply button I'm going to close with a note that I don't think G and N are a waste of anyones time - no one, I repeat no one, is being attacked here - I've just adopted an extreme position in order to emphasise the central point that simulationists roleplay for love of the game, not for love of the metagame]

[Mike Holmes]

Is it to experience the Dream?

I wouldn't call it a dream, but it's to feel that the imagined world has an independent reality of sorts of it's own. Not to "know" that it does, for it doesn't. But just to feel that it does.

To get this, other metagame priorities can't rear up visibly in such a way as to indicate that the world isn't independent. It's the independence that's important. If the world gets linked back to the real world, then it suddenly feels just an arttifact of play - it no longer feels independently real.

Of course some people would say that this is the I-word that I'm describing...

Mike

[Sean]

I played a game in January where about an hour and a half of game play focused on a meal I ate. I got my (sorry, Calithena's) young protege, from an isolated island on the edge of the world, to try various dishes she had never experienced before. I discussed getting a ship built with a local shipbuilder, since the one I had shown up on was wrought from shark-hide and whalebone, and I had a long sea voyage in front of me.

That was the 'heavy role-playing' part of the hour and a half, about twenty minutes of it. Most of the rest went like this: Del would describe a dish, how it was put together, how it tasted. I would mentally savor it and add certain details, or ask him questions about how it compared to real-world dishes or other dishes that I (sorry, Calithena) has sampled in his game-world. I would 'eat' them, and then the indigenes would bring out another platter of their cuisine for my delectation.

I can still smell that slow-roasted pork we tried after the fish, which of course I never smelled at all, sitting here at my computer four months later, and taste the raisin-rum drink in the stone cups, and remember the expanse of tropical ocean unfolding before me as I emptied a bowl of the local hashish after the long dinner was finally concluded. In fact, I'll probably take those memories with me to my grave.

So there's my answer to the question.

[Emily Care]

Sean, you rule.

If the world gets linked back to the real world, then it suddenly feels just an arttifact of play - it no longer feels independently real.

What about high concept sim? Think of the campaign Neel described recently where his play group had watched hk-action everyday for a week running prior to game, where everyone embodied the genre to the hilt and flowed together.  Unless they were playing narrativist unbeknownst to me (which is entirely possible) there was a strong connection between ingame and metagame texts, that enhanced the sim experience, instead of detracting from it.

I think this is a running disconnect between how you and I look at it, Mike. It think we're just seeing different sides of the same coin.  Looking back on my own light-bulb moment about the sim metagame and comparing your (slightly less long ago) discussions .

However, Jay, you seem to be saying that character integrity and justification of actions based on "character" motivations is definitive of sim play--that may be a bit to limited, as Sean's example shows.  If you loop it back to in-game consistency, then you've got Mike's ideas( of a year ago anyway) in a nutshell.  

--Emily

[Silmenume]

Hi Emily!

I will comment on the other posts when I've more time to reply, but this one I can do quickly.

However, Jay, you seem to be saying that character integrity and justification of actions based on "character" motivations is definitive of sim play--that may be a bit to limited, as Sean's example shows.  If you loop it back to in-game consistency, then you've got Mike's ideas( of a year ago anyway) in a nutshell.

The problem may be a vocabulary usage on my point, but I don't think my assertions exclude Mike's ideas as you've indicated them.  The idea of a metagame does allow for the elements that Sean spoke about in his post, or at least I am not making any attempt to exclude them.  In fact I am saying that metagame elements like Sean's are as much a part of Sim, and are actually part of the driving force, as much as the metagame of Challenges is to Gamism.

By Character motivation I am making reference to "in-game" consistency - consistency of Character.  Note that I indicated that "character" motivations are not the sole motivator, but rather that player actions in game need to be justified in one form or another via Character motivation.  Whether that be retconning or by limiting actions ahead of time, justification is a process of attending to "in-game" consistency.  The justification process can be completely transparent or not, but I do believe that justification/"in-game" consistency of Character corpus/persona is a hallmark of Sim, but not the only one.  It is a hallmark in the same what Challenge is a hallmark of Gamism and Premise is of Narrativism.  Or at least that is thesis I am putting on the table for examination.

Note - I am not saying that Character motivation is what drives play.  Rather I am saying Character motivation is what limits the address of Situation in the same way that Challenge limits the address of Situation the same way Premise limits the address of Situation.

What I am saying is that Sim players have a metagame goal, like Gamists and Narrativists which both drives and limits play.  Sim players play for a reason - what is that reason?  How is that reason to play made mainfest in play?  How can we make ourselves aware of that reason as DM's?  How can mechanics be employed/created to facilitate this metagame goal?

By integrity of character I mean continuing to limit oneself in the same way the Gamists limit themselves in the address of Challenge.  If Gamists this break in integrity in addressing Challenge is a dysfunction known as cheating.  In Narrativism this break in integrity in addressing Premise results in flawed or nonsensical play.  I don't know if there is such as thing as cheating in Narrativism per say, but if a player crumbles under the weight of the Premise and punts by avoiding it all together I would suspect there would be some hard feelings at the table.  So I extend this analogy to Sim via Character integrity.  Whatever difficulties we run into, i.e., Situation, we are expected to limit our response to a situation, that challenges us as creators, to come up with a response that is both novel yet constrained by character integrity (corpus/persona)/in-game consistency.

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume

[Caldis]

What I am saying is that Sim players have a metagame goal, like Gamists and Narrativists which both drives and limits play.  Sim players play for a reason - what is that reason?  How is that reason to play made mainfest in play?  How can we make ourselves aware of that reason as DM's?  How can mechanics be employed/created to facilitate this metagame goal?

I believe the metagame goal of Sim is escapism, to leave this world behind and explore other situations and settings that one would never have the chance to explore in reality.  Narrativism uses the game to make a comment on the real world, gamism uses it as a test of tactical and strategic ability that exists beyond the game, but sim is an escape from the real world.  It's goal is to provide an experience that is different from reality but consistent enough with it to feel real.

I dont think that published systems have had any problem providing this and that sim has been served fairly well by the major game publishers. There are a plethora of interesting gaming worlds out there which provide plenty of setting material, I will admit they have glossed over situation leaving that up to the individual players (GM) to create for themselves.

[M. J. Young]

Not surprisingly, I disagree, Jay. I think you are again commiting synecdoche--confounding the part for the whole, the example for the category.

Character is not sacred nor central in simulationism.

Don't misunderstand me. I agree that the vast majority of simulationist play revolves around character. If you accept that Multiverser is a simulationist game, it clearly revolves around character--the player characters are the only thread that ties world to world, as everything else, including the system, changes around them. I agree that character can be the anchor in simulationism.

I disagree that it must be the anchor. I think you can have absolutely simulationist role playing games in which each player plays a nation, or an ideal, or an emotion, or a military unit.

I think your insistence that character is the lynchpin of simulationism is very limiting to the concept.

For a player not to be interested in their Character as a Simulationist is equivalent to not being interested in the Challenge as a Gamist or the Premise as a Narrativist.

I find I must disagree with this.

There have been people who have argued that narrativism, in particular, was all about character; that was wrong. In short, for a player not to be interested in their character as a simulationist is equivalent to not being interested in character as a gamist or in character as a narrativist.

The simulationist is interested in learning, in knowledge, in discovery; he is driven by curiosity. Just as most narrativists address premise through character, most simulationists approach discovery through character. I have argued elsewhere, however, that both may be done in pawn stance. It is actually easier to do simulationism in pawn stance than to do narrativism in pawn stance; there is a sense in which it is difficult for the premise to matter to the players if it does not matter to the characters, but there is no sense in which information that matters to the players has to matter to the characters. We can play with a simulationist agendum aimed at discovering much about the setting, the situation, the system, even the color, without our characters being more than audio-video probes through which we view these.

Certainly creation is part of it; but creation is itself part of discovery--even those of us who create are discovering as we do so, learning what the world of our imagination could contain. Discovery is not passive, any more than addressing premise or meeting challenge. It can be creative.

What I am saying is that Sim players have a metagame goal, like Gamists and Narrativists which both drives and limits play. Sim players play for a reason - what is that reason? How is that reason to play made mainfest in play? How can we make ourselves aware of that reason as DM's? How can mechanics be employed/created to facilitate this metagame goal?

I agree that there is a metagame goal in simulationism; that goal is to discover. It may be to discover through character experience. It may be to discover through intellectual inquiry, completely divorced from character experience.

Your repeated emphasis on the place of character in simulationism is a red herring. Character is one of the five elements of exploration; all creative agenda explore all five elements, and all have within them significant variation in the importance of each in exploratory terms from one game to another, one group to the next, one set of preferences to a second.

Yes, character is often very important in simulationism. However, sometimes it approaches insignificance--just as it does in the other agenda.

--M. J. Young

[Mike Holmes]

I agree with MJ, no surprise.

Think of it this way - I get the same kick out of playing a country in some wargame simulations that I get in sim RPGs. I don't even have to play a character at all. All that has to happen is that I get a sense of the things simulated having an "objective" existence (again, not an actual objective existence, but a feeling that there is one). That we're putting the theoretical objective existence before any other secondary priority. Privileging it.

It may be harder for some to do this without acting through a character, but that's just a sub-preference, as MJ points out.

Mike

[Silmenume]

I would like to thank everyone who took the time to make a considered response.  This topic is something that is dear to me and everything everyone has to say is deeply valued – so THANKS!

If you commit to imaginatively exploring hobbiton and the experience sucks in and of itself, then you just wasted an afternoon.

Is it to experience the Dream?

I wouldn't call it a dream, but it's to feel that the imagined world has an independent reality of sorts of it's own. Not to "know" that it does, for it doesn't. But just to feel that it does.

...Del would describe a dish...how it tasted. I would mentally savor it ...
then the indigenes would bring out another platter of their cuisine for my delectation...
I can still smell that slow-roasted pork ... and taste the raisin-rum drink in the stone cups...
I'll probably take those memories with me to my grave.

It's goal is to provide an experience that is different from reality but consistent enough with it to feel real.

All emphasis, bold and italic, are mine - Silmenume

While the sample here is obviously unscientifically small, all the above indicated that experiencing an artificial reality of one sort or another as the reason to play or the source of pleasure derived from playing.

Hey Ian.  I believe the example you gave was a metagame goal.  That goal was to have a good time experiencing time spent in Hobbiton.

Having seen that experiencing is vital to Simulationist drives, how can this experiential process be enhanced/amplified/distilled?  This is especially difficult for Sim since experiencing has a connotation of passivity while roleplay is an active form.  CA's are defined by how players address Situation, e.g. doing something (that something being acting on a conflict).

Some very important ideas arise out of this.  First Sim is not Exploration.  Exploration is merely the process, which includes the Lumpley Principle (System), whereby elements (constrained to Character, Setting, Situation) are added the Shared Imagined Space.  This is no mystery, yet we must be careful when we say things like, "I liked exploring the forest."  That is a perfectly valid statement for a Character in game, however, for a player stating that outside the SIS problems arise.  Did said player mean he enjoyed having his Character knock around the forest (experiential – thus fulfilling or satisfying a personal desire of said player) or is said player making a reference to the process of Roleplay – creation of facts into the SIS?  From a player, not Character, perspective it is illogical to say, "I like Exploring Setting," unless he meant he enjoys the actual process of creating Setting elements (like a forest) into the SIS.  Why is this important?  Because much of Sim play has been confused by the conflating of these two meanings, and their differences are profound.  One is experiencing that which is, walking around an extant forest in the SIS, and the other is creating a forest where none was before in the SIS.

Second Sim has an unusual tension in it that Gamism and Narrativism do not.  Sim does place a premium on the experiential process as an end unto itself.  There are two basic avenues of experience that I see in Sim, passive (sensual – things are described directly to the player or are observed as things are described by other players at the table) and active (the act of doing as experienced via the player's Character).  The main problem that I have seen with Sim is that quantity of detail, mostly of Setting, is equated with richness of game experience.  But that is only half of the equation and is a passive process for the players; someone else is creating the information into the SIS.   What about the process of experiencing what it is like to be someone else?  Even if the player relates much detail about what they are doing, unless it affects Situation it is still a non-CA event, it doesn't move story forward nor does it address Character.  While one may spend much time describing clothing, mannerisms and affectations (which is basically Setting or Color), all that detail reveals NOTHING about the character/nature of the fictional being.  So how does one experience the life of another, by experiencing the same sensations (passive) and the same conflicts (active) that such an individual faces.  How are the conflicts differentiated among individuals?  By having each Character have different motives/desires/drives.  How can this process be made richer, fuller, and more manifest?  How does one balance the passive process with the active process since both are or can be fascinating?

There is the flip side to this experiential coin in Sim.  Again Sim is unique in the marriage of Situation/Character.  One could play oneself in a fictional Situation even if the Setting was contemporary or known to the players.  However they are still engaged in a fictional event (Situation) doing things that they would not normally do, or why go through the process of fictionalizing what they could already do in their daily lives?  Heck, one could even play oneself, in a familiar Situation in a familiar Setting, say at a bar picking up a girl, which in real life they might be too shy to do.  However, that they are actually picking up the girl in game, something they might be too shy to do in real life, is a fictionalization of themselves; they are no longer who they really are but projecting a fiction of whom they would like to be.  The character has ceased to be an accurate representation of said player and has become someone slightly different, someone who is more confident than that player really is.  This does not mean such an activity is not worth while, quite to the contrary, a person can gain much from such a process, but it supports my argument that rarely does anyone truly play oneself when they are claiming to do so, they are playing a characterization or a projection of who they think they are or who they would really like to be.

Does this mean all Sim players play Sim because they want to Explore Character specifically?  No.  Don't be silly!  However in Sim a player cannot address Situation without Character.  Unlike Gamism, which also requires that Character must present to address Situation, Simulationism demands that the manner of said address of Situation must be limited by the Character corpus/persona unity.  However, if a player only has an interest in addressing Situation and has little interest in developing their character, they should at least like the nature of the Character enough so that they can address Situation in a manner they find enjoyable as that Character will delimit how that players addresses Situation.  However if a Sim player has no interest in developing their Character at all, and Character limited interaction with Situation is the defining element of Sim, much the way Challenge limits the interaction with Situation and defines Gamism, then one wonders why said Sim player is even bothering to play as they are not expressing a CA.

Does this mean that players must address Situation at all times?  No.  Like Gamism and Narrativism one can spend (much) game time addressing other things as well.  Unlike Gamism and Narrativism, both which have matured nicely and have effectively identified how to sharpen their particular focus on Situation, Challenge and Premise addressing, both of which are active processes, Sim right now has not figured out how to amplify and focus the address of Situation.  Sim is the red headed stepchild of roleplaying because many games and many game designs don't instruct players or the GM how to or even that they ought to spend effort on the Character/Situation portion of Exploration.  If roleplay is CA, and addressing Situation is the expression of CA, and Sim game designs are almost criminally negligent in pushing the developing of Situation its no wonder that Sim has so many incoherent game designs.  How likely is a game to have a coherent CA in operation is there is little instruction on how to develop or focus Situation address?  And here's the really difficult part, its not just any Situation that will do, it has to fit the interests/needs/motives of the Character and the Player.  Since Character interests are really player interests, which are metagame interests, we come back to the question of – What are the metagame interests of Simulationists and how do we best facilitate those interests?  This is handled effectively in games that have coherent Narrativist supporting mechanic designes because they allow for the dynamic metagame addressing of Situation via active overt Premise creation.  Can such an overt process be applied to Simulationism, even if it were to take place outside of a game?  Is there something about Simulationism that can be focused upon like Premise or Challenge?  Since Sim ostensibly operates entirely within the SIS how do we identify and allow for the metagame goals of players to integrate seamlessly into the roleplay process, which places great value (we do not have to say demands) transparency?

Character is not sacred nor central in simulationism...

...I disagree that it must be the anchor. I think you can have absolutely simulationist role playing games in which each player plays a nation, or an ideal, or an emotion, or a military unit.

I cannot disagree with you more.  Character is to Sim what Challenge is to Gamism and Premise is to Narrativism.  One cannot play Sim without a Character.  Period.  If a person were to play a nation then their Character is either the nation of the agents thereof.  The same goes with a military unit – that military unit is said player's character.  The key is that any Character must be intelligent (capable of thought – not inanimate) and capable of affecting the world around it.  An individual cannot experience what its like to be a concept.  One can experience a person running a nation or commanding a military unit, but one cannot experience being a concept.  Whatever Character a player is playing, it must be capable of human traits – it must be anthropomorphized.  Thus if one were to play such things as a nation or a military unit, they would either have to be anthropomorphized so as to be playable in an RPG or one would not be roleplaying.  If one were to play an ideal, that ideal would first have to be personified into an intelligent agent then thrust into play.  As far as emotions go, an emotion is a description of a state of being.  Playing an emotion, not as a character, but as a self-contained entity is patently absurd – it is a straw man argument.  I agree that one could play a being that had no other essence than anger, but once again you come back to Character.  One could use anger as part of a Premise or as fuel to address Challenge, but not as a Character.

As far as your statement that Discovery is the motivating goal of Sim I would address you to this link Creative Agendas, Aesthetic Purism, and 'the' Social Mode, specifically these portions –

The fact that you started play to get to know each other doesn't control play decisions, so it's not an agenda. Ice-breaking, dating, teaching.... these do not trigger specific agendas per se, as the players are left free to make decisions according to any agenda even when playing these.

The key word is creative. While you might call a pedagogic goal an agenda of play ("I'll go to the winter palace to illustrate to the other players the excesses of the revolution."), it's not a creative one. I might approach teaching through socratic method (narrativism), illustrative method (simulationism) or through testing and action (gamism) (I've coincidentally written one of each, as I noted some time ago). Teaching as an "agenda" doesn't constrain the play decisions I make, it just constrains methods.

One can easily substitute Discovery (knowledge seeking) for Teaching (knowledge sharing).

The simulationist is interested in learning, in knowledge, in discovery; he is driven by curiosity.

Of the four individuals who posted above not one listed anything about learning, but rather experiencing.  While they may be the only four, or five as I count myself amongst them, the assertion that all Simulationists are motivated by learning, knowledge or discovery is not supported.  Mike Holmes very clearly stated that he wants "to feel that the imagined world has an independent reality of sorts of it's own. Not to "know" that it does."  Here a Simulationist very clearly states that it is not Knowledge or thirst thereof that drives him.  Yes, Discovery can be a goal, yes it is a legitimate goal, but as Eero Tuovinen put it for more elegantly than I could ever hope to say, it is a pedagogic goal, not representative of any specific CA.

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume

[Jonathan Walton]

Does this mean all Sim players play Sim because they want to Explore Character specifically?  No.  Don't be silly!  However in Sim a player cannot address Situation without Character.

Um, sure you can.  Say I'm playing Universalis, but I haven't yet created any Characters in the game.  What do I control?  Well, I can bid coins to control the Situations that are developing for other people's characters, and I can do other things, like suggest Tenants and stuff, if it's earlier enough in the game.  The Exploration has already begun, because the group is imagining things together.  Play had begun, because there are some game entities that are "doing" things.  I don't see why this couldn't be Sim play.

You seem to be assuming that character is the only conduit through which people enjoy Exploration (or, at least in Sim play), which I don't agree with at all.  There have been games where I've enjoyed experiencing someone else play more than I've enjoyed playing myself.  Was I still engaged with the game? Yes.  Was I doing Sim through my character?  No, not really.  I was watching the game as a player (not a character) and enjoying the Exploration from that POV.  Sim play does not have to involve heavy immersion.

[Silmenume]

Does this mean all Sim players play Sim because they want to Explore Character specifically?  No.  Don't be silly!  However in Sim a player cannot address Situation without Character.

Um, sure you can.  Say I'm playing Universalis, but I haven't yet created any Characters in the game.  What do I control?  Well, I can bid coins to control the Situations that are developing for other people's characters, and I can do other things, like suggest Tenants and stuff, if it's earlier enough in the game.  The Exploration has already begun, because the group is imagining things together.  Play had begun, because there are some game entities that are "doing" things.  I don't see why this couldn't be Sim play.

Well if that isn't a splash of cold water in the face, I don't know what else would qualify.  I am going to have to meditate on this for a while.  Thanks for bringing this functional example to my limited attention.  I don't know if this totally destroys my theory or merely indicates it needs some tuning up.  It would seem to appear to violate the internal causality clause of Sim, but obviously that needs some looking into on my part.

You seem to be assuming that character is the only conduit through which people enjoy Exploration (or, at least in Sim play)...

Actually, my earlier thesis, which is now being strongly reconsidered, is that character was the only conduit with which people could address Situation in Sim play. And as a result of that "necessity" there was an inborn need to enjoy that limitation or at least attend to it while addressing Situation.  I did not mean to say or assert in any way that Character is the only reason people enjoy roleplaying Sim.  That enjoyment can come from many places, its just that if one does not enjoy Exploring the character itself, then the limitations or lens that Character brings to bear on Situation ought to be resonant with the player in the same was Challenge or Premise resonates with the player and limit or focus the address of Situation.  IOW a Gamist player should at least enjoy the Challenge he is facing or why even bother?

I fully agree with you that one can be passive at just watching a game unfold while the "camera" is focused elsewhere and still be fully attentive and engaged.  Remember one cannot overtly express CA at all times.  My point was that the Sim CA was made manifest in Situation much like Challenge and Premise are made manifest in they way they address Situation.  A CA is made apparently over a long period of time precisely because overt CA expression does not happen all the time.  Not happening all the time includes times where the player is not adding the SIS via Exploration – IOW the camera is not on a given player.

Sim play does not have to involve heavy immersion.

While there is no exact or near exact definition of Heavy Immersion, I strongly agree with you nevertheless.  Please understand that when I say that in Sim the address of Situation is (or I thought it was) limited solely via Character (which is not the same as saying all acts of Exploration must occur via Character – which is something I not saying) that is not the same as saying that Sim play in any way requires immersion, heavy or otherwise.  I am saying Character is the limiting factor of addressing Situation, not that one must immerse themselves in that Character.  While Gamism is defined by its address of Challenge on a general theoretical level; practically what that means is that the player is specifically constrained in his address of any specific situation based upon which specific Challenge is in operation.  The same goes for Simulationism.  The question is what do we substitute for Challenge?  My thesis was that it was Character motivation/desire/drive.  In a strange way I thought the Id portion of the Character was the drive (which substituted for the driving desire to address Challenge or Premise) and the Super Ego was the limitation in the address of Situation when the Id faced obstacles – conflict.  Hence the all in one Character drive and limitation thesis for Sim.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Does this mean all Sim players play Sim because they want to Explore Character specifically?  No.  Don't be silly!  However in Sim a player cannot address Situation without Character.

Um, sure you can.  Say I'm playing Universalis, but I haven't yet created any Characters in the game.  What do I control?  Well, I can bid coins to control the Situations that are developing for other people's characters, ...

I don't mean to nitpick, but isn't this one of the things about Universalis? That is, it's not your character and the other players' characters but all of the players have equal right to all of the characters in play?

If so, then your example does not contridict Silmenume since characters were used in exploring. In fact, even if that's not how Universalis works (or could work) I think that you have characters in action to address situation. Who owns them or not doesn't mean anything. Situation = Setting + Character + Situation. So long as a character is involved, I would call it necessary to exploration.

[Jonathan Walton]

Well, sure, Jack.  But Jay was saying that individual players create Sim play by having their Characters respond to Situation.  I was saying that Character isn't the critical component.  Say, for instance, that I suggest "There should be a dark evil spreading over the land."  Now, I suppose you could stretch things and say that the "dark evil" was a Character that I spontaneously created, but I don't think so.  I think it's an example of using Setting to create a Situation for other people's characters.  You could play an entire game, in a heavy Sim style, without a character of your own, just manipulating Setting and adding Color, for instance.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

"There should be a dark evil spreading over the land."

Well, I dunno. Maybe I'm not cut out for this discussion. What you have here is a good start and a good start is half begun. That is, how long before a character, any character, must appear in this story about the dark evil? Does it matter that a character does not appear in this first sentence?

I see it like this:

On Wednesday, my mother, aunt Betty, cousin Rob, uncle Mike, aunt Jean, our neighbor Frank, and the 1987 Denver Broncos, all....

This is the begining of a sentence. Obviously, after the elipse would be a verb such as "did stuff" or whatever.

With the quoted sentence above, you have started a story without introducing a character yet. But I think it would be difficult to go much further without a character coming about. Either a cast of character or like you had suggested, the land and darkness themselves become characters in a sense.

I wonder if it's worth focusing on setting the stage like this as an example of a play without actors, if you will, when eventually the actors will step out of the wings? That is, if it were possible to play this way entirely, then OK, but if not, it's strikes me as looking at a sentence fragment as proof that a sentence can be written without a verb (and it doesn't, you see, because it isn't a sentence but a sentence fragment)