About the players.

[Pagrin]

While I read a lot here about characters and rules and GMing, I haven't noticed anything about the different types of player.
Amoungst my friends and the locals here we have noticed and named the 4 major types of player. But I was wondering if anyone knows of any different types.
1 - The Power Gamer - "I want the biggest and best whatever it is." Character stats are all important.
2 - The Rules Lawer - "But on page *** it says ******." Doesn't care what the Gm says, the rules say this and thats the way it should be.
3 - The Role Player - "But I need to emote and nail my hand to my head with for angst than is ever going to be called for." Doesn't care about the game system or even the setting very much, but would love to be on stage overacting if they weren't playing your game.
4 - The War Gamer - "How do I kill it!" Just looking for fights and the best way to win them.

Now I know no actual play is this straight forward, and in fact most are shades of grey from the 4 above examples.
But let me know if you what of a player who doesn't fit these at all.
Pagrin :-)

[M. J. Young]

I know a lot of players who don't fit any of those.

Certainly I know players who do; but three of those "types" are typically gamist, and narrativism and simulationism just aren't terribly well represented by the ones you've listed.

Over the decades a lot of "gamer typologies" have been put forward, and they contain probably scores of variants. No less that Robin Laws is said to have published a typology recently. I haven't seen it, but I've heard that it's not terribly useful--that is, you can connect the large number of variant types he identifies with people you know, but it doesn't do anything to help your gaming to do so.

My brother says that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide all the people in the world into two kinds and those who don't. This sort of typing amounts to little more than name-calling, "labeling" the "troublemakers". It doesn't touch what the problems are, nor suggest ways of addressing them.

Might be useful, though, if you were interested in playing Hackmaster.*

--M. J. Young

*It has been suggested that the Hackmaster game book is not the game, but a prop for the game. The real game is that the players are playing stereotypical gamers of the sorts portrayed in Knights of the Dinner Table, and the role playing game rules exist to provide the context for them to express their gamer characters while imagining that their characters are playing characters within the game. Thus my notion is that you could identify such types and use them for character generation of the "outer tier" of Hackmaster play, such that someone could choose to play the power gamer, or the munchkin, or whatever.

[John Kim]

Over the decades a lot of "gamer typologies" have been put forward, and they contain probably scores of variants. No less that Robin Laws is said to have published a typology recently. I haven't seen it, but I've heard that it's not terribly useful--that is, you can connect the large number of variant types he identifies with people you know, but it doesn't do anything to help your gaming to do so.  

Well, while you might not agree with its advice, Robin's Laws does offer pretty concrete advice about what to do with the types.  I have a http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/reviews/robinslaws.html">capsule review of the book, but it doesn't go into much detail.  I can quote a snippet as an example.  He has a section where he talks about structured vs unstructured adventures.  He then gives this advice about how much to structure (this from page 17):

So, to see how much attention you should pay to structure, perform the following exercise.  Give a score to each player, reflecting his apparent interest in structure and storytelling techniques.  As with the similar system exercise (p. 11), you should use split scores for players with mixed tastes, and perform whatever other adjustments make sense for your specific group.
Storyteller       +3
Power Gamer   +1
Specialist         +1
Butt Kicker       +1
Casual Gamer  +1
Method Actor     0
Tactician          -3
...

Now, on the one hand, upon reading this I immediately thought of all sorts of objections to this sort of outright typing and numbering.  However, I think it is intended as rules of thumb for GMs who need advice.  These are presented as intentionally-simple rules of thumb to get one going, rather than deep inherent truths.  

Anyhow, I have more on different models of player types on my http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/">RPG Theory Page (under "Models of Role-playing").

[Pagrin]

I suspect you might be seeing my posting for being more than was intended. Please understand I am not meaning to be insulting to anyones playing or style of playing (Which, granted having reread my post it might seem that way.) Rather I was actually looking to see if there are other board styles of play which I hadn't listed.
The reason behind this is a few years ago I attended a seminar at a Con where these very models were used to define people, as a lead into improving a persons ability to GM.
Recently I had been thinking about the idea of arranging a similar seminar at a con I currently attend. Hench the need to update and improve on the data.
I also realized after the first posting that I left a type off the list.

5 - The Story teller - "I haven't read anything from your game but I suspect its going to be like this......." Will spin long and sometimes overly complicated plot threads, regardless of what the evidence in the game is pointing toward.
Pagrin :-)

[Henri]

I suspect you might be seeing my posting for being more than was intended. Please understand I am not meaning to be insulting to anyones playing or style of playing (Which, granted having reread my post it might seem that way.) Rather I was actually looking to see if there are other board styles of play which I hadn't listed.

That is good to hear.  I think the reason that people reacted against your initial post (I know this is true for me) is that all of your categories were very negative and were essentially stereotypes.  I would agree that there is certainly a real-world basis for these stereotypes, but virtually any gamer is going to be insulted by what they perceive as an effort to pigeon hole all gamers into one of four or five negative stereotypes (not that you were actually doing this, but it looked like you might have been).

The reason behind this is a few years ago I attended a seminar at a Con where these very models were used to define people, as a lead into improving a persons ability to GM.

That is sad.  I doubt that a seminar that begins in such a way can lead to anything productive.  Unless, that is, the question the seminar is trying to answer is something specific like, "What to do with the problem gamer?"  Then it would make sense to have a typology of problem gamers, after making it clear up front that you are only talking about people who are really causing problems for your group.  Of course, this still begs the question, "If these people are so problematic, why do you want to play games with them so much?"  I want to be clear that I don't necessarily think the answer to this question should be to just kick them out.  It is quite possible that they can be "rehabilitated" and there may be out-of-game social reasons for not kicking them out.

[Trevis Martin]

I've seen t his topic in a few places before and I'd like to contribute a possiblity that occurs to me.  Typical 'problem gamer' typology is a classification of symptoms or symptomatic behavior of CA incoherence.   These types wouldn't even be seen as problematic if they are participating in a group with coherent and aligned (or at least agreed) CA that agrees with the proclivities of the type.

I'm sure my observation is nothing new.

Trevis

[Henri]

Trevis: Of course, you are quite right.  A better topic for a panel than "What to do with the problem gamer?" would be something more like "How to I form a coherent social contract with my gaming group?"  Of course, a bunch of people are probably going to be scared away by "social contract" or just think you are being pretentious, so you might need a better way to word it.  

This is probably obvious to a lot of people, but as Ron emphasizes in the Gamism essay, GNS incoherence is just one kind of incoherence and there are others.  In the typology that Pagin gives, three types are Gamist (The Power Gamer, The Rules Lawer, and The War Gamer) and two types are Narativist (The Role Player and the Storyteller).  However, with the exception of The War Gamer, all of these are pretty much inherently dysfunctional.  Even in a purely gamist game with all gamist players, Rules Lawers and Powergamers are going to annoy the other players.  And even in a purely Narativist game with all Nar players, The Role Player and the Storyteller are going to really annoy the other players, especially the "Storyteller" since he is hogging the spotlite and effectually deprotagonizing everyone else.  This is purely a guess, but I would be willing to wager that whoever came up with this typology is probably very Sim (even if he doesn't think of himself that way).  This is because each of these categories are examples of their Creative Agenda (Gamist for the first three and Nar for the other two) terribly misunderstood and stereotyped at their very worst.

[F. Scott Banks]

I dunno.  I don't find this question to be too offensive.  After all, there are those who play this way.  I've run across these stereotypical gamers in my travels.  Then again, I'm using electronic media for players to play my games, so I'm practically inviting those who are:

A.  Looking for a videogame.  They expect to be rwarded for whatever they're version of "winning" is.  A lot of people expect this actually, not just the powergamers.  A lot of roleplayers expect rewards for roleplaying.  I pointed out that the exciting storyline that resulted from their roleplay was the group's reward...they weren't buying it.  I've met players who selflessly sacrifice themselves for the group only because they expect the GM to show compassion and ressurect them or make them gods.

B.  Looking for a stage.  This isn't something I consider too bad actually, as I look at RPG's as a medium for group stroytelling.  But then, you have the player who consideres the other players to be the supporting cast of his or her personal epic.  There have been games designed around this mechanic so we all know someone who plays this way.  Roleplayers get sensitive about this one because hey, who hasn't gotten really deep in their characters, or had their GM mojo working (yeah, GM's will get lumped in here too if they handle their players too roughly)?  It's those players who use roleplaying as a way of controlling all the characters in the game instead of just their own who have created the sterotypical "primadonna" roleplayer.

C.  Working the system.  Powergamers get lumped under this one too because they're usually only attached to the rules insofar as they benefit them.  But c'mon, everyone knows a gameref.  They're generally (when they're not pimping the rules for every advantage) just players who see these games, with their dice and their charts, as games of chance.  They look at games from a different angle.  The numbers and rules excite them moreso than the storytelling and character development.   They're not bad players, they're just playing the wrong game.  

I think Ron mentions something like this in one of those GNS articles, but after nearly three months, it still sails clear over my head.

D.  Generals.  Hey, with detailed weapon diagrams, complex troop formations, kinetic damage charts, energy absorption scales against composite armors, and all the other Clancyesque erratta that goes into some games out there, it's hard not to start thinking of yourself as Patton.  

These players aren't bad players either, they're just thinking that, "If this is how the game is played, then these are things I have to know, this is how I must approach it."  Come to think of it. this is generally the catalyst behind most of those stereotypes.  Two people looking at the same thing and seeing two completely different things.  If I had a better grasp of it, I'd make another reference to the GNS theorem here.

So while oversimplifying certain approaches to gameplay might strike some as offensive, lets remember that some of these simplified viewpoints lead back to concrete and established practices.  It's just like when you get a poorly written review and you have to pick through it to see what useful critiques might be hidden in the self-indulgent crap that's been dumped all over your hard work.

...not that I've ever had a bad experience with a reviewer or anything...uhhh, heh heh.

[timfire]

... two types are Narativist (The Role Player and the Storyteller).

Not to drift the thread, but is the 'Role-player' Nar? Or are they Sim?  Most self-described 'roleplayers' I know are pretty Sim. Most talk about 'playing in-character' is about sticking to the pre-conceived idea of who the character is. In other words, playing 'in-character' reinforces character stereotypes, which is a pretty Sim ideal. (Somewhere else someone commented that that Sim tends to reinforce stereotypes, but Nar likes to break character stereotypes.)

This is purely a guess, but I would be willing to wager that whoever came up with this typology is probably very Sim (even if he doesn't think of himself that way).

I never thought about that, but now that you mention it seems like an acute observation.

While I read a lot here about characters and rules and GMing, I haven't noticed anything about the different types of player.

Going back to the original post, even though people don't talk about 'player-types' much on these boards, if you read Ron's articles on GNS he mentions a bunch of different types of players, or at least different types play.

[Henri]

3 - The Role Player - "But I need to emote and nail my hand to my head with for angst than is ever going to be called for." Doesn't care about the game system or even the setting very much, but would love to be on stage overacting if they weren't playing your game.

Yeah, I guess this could go either way (Sim or Nar).  It's hard to say with so little information.  Honestly, it's such a trite stereotype that arguing over its CA is probably not worth our while, so I'm going to bow out of this thread.

[captain_bateson]

The initial post didn't offend me either. However, it did occur to me that such lists of stereotypes, as well as (hope I don't offend anyone) things like trying to assign players a spot under GNS theory, make it easy to overlook the complexities and individuality of a player. We need to be careful of finding one trait in a player that validates a particular classification ("Power Gamer," or "Narrativist", for instance) and then look no further.

Probably a no-brainer. But it just occurs to me that I don't really know what classification I fall under in GNS, if not all of them, and I don't know if any of the classifications offered up at the beginning of this thread suit me either. For instance, the thread I started over in Actual Play about how I disagreed with a GM on resolving a combat might make me look like I'm very into tactics and winning. But, in another Amber game I play, in combat I typically just say, "Charis [my character] becomes a whirling dervish of death." It depends a lot on the circumstance, my character, the GM, and the kind of game the GM is running.

This mostly occurs to me because, in the aforementioned thread, I felt very much like I probably came off as someone not interested in story but interested in "winning" or "things being done right," which generally isn't true. It was unique to that particular campaign and situation. I wouldn't want to be judged, labeled, and categorized by that one incident, nor, I think, would many others.

That said, I do know lots of people who do seem to fit those categories, even after I've given them a bunch of benefit of the doubt and tried not to take my first impression to the bank. I think we all know there's a certain amount of truth in stereotypes. We just need to be careful about assuming too quickly a person falls into one.

[Doctor Xero]

This is purely a guess, but I would be willing to wager that whoever came up with this typology is probably very Sim (even if he doesn't think of himself that way).  This is because each of these categories are examples of their Creative Agenda (Gamist for the first three and Nar for the other two) terribly misunderstood and stereotyped at their very worst.

I find this statement more than a little hypocritical, for it attacks the typology as being stereotyped and then indulges in one of the popular anti-Simulationist stereotypes.

Very hypocritical indeed.

Doctor Xero

[Doctor Xero]

In other words, playing 'in-character' reinforces character stereotypes, which is a pretty Sim ideal. (Somewhere else someone commented that that Sim tends to reinforce stereotypes, but Nar likes to break character stereotypes.)

Another inaccurate but popular anti-simulationist stereotype.  My how the stereotypes are flying on The Forge today!

Doctor Xero

[Trevis Martin]

I'm not sure that the sterotypes are at all related to CA.  CA shouldn't be classed as a stereotype as in a player being or not being 'gamist.'  Once I understood the difference in CA's I've found that while I enjoy Narrativist play a great deal I also get a kick out of gamist play and can indeed feel very satisfied with Sim play (high concept usually.)  Most people  have put together the 'way you are supposed to play these games' from past expeirence.  Either constructing straight out of rule books or being taught by joining other groups.  Most of the groups I was ever involved with in my history contributed to my ideas of play but I now realize that many of them were either terribly incoherent by habit or the system they were using was incoherent or a combination of the two.

I would say that if any of these behaviors are standing out in play then it needs be addressed by figuring out what that type of play is really about.  If it does have to do with an incoherent CA or merely with a players background (or maybe the person does have some pathological need to control the dynamic in a dysfunctional fashion) in any case it should be addressed.  My point above was just to point out that one source of these dysfunctional behaviors can be CA incoherence.

But to make it clear a person is never a GAmist, a Simulationist or a Narrativist... It isn't a gene.  They may simply play that way in a particular group or game.  Maybe consistantly, maybe not.

Trevis

[Henri]

This is purely a guess, but I would be willing to wager that whoever came up with this typology is probably very Sim (even if he doesn't think of himself that way).  This is because each of these categories are examples of their Creative Agenda (Gamist for the first three and Nar for the other two) terribly misunderstood and stereotyped at their very worst.

I find this statement more than a little hypocritical, for it attacks the typology as being stereotyped and then indulges in one of the popular anti-Simulationist stereotypes.

I'm sorry that you found my statement hypocritical.  I'm not sure how I'm indulging in a negative Sim stereotype.  All I did was note that the original creator of the typology implicitly attacked Gamists and Narativists by relegating them to negative stereotypes.  Like I said before, it's just a guess, but this seems to me to suggest that the person is not only Sim, but thinks that Sim is the "right" way to play.  Anyone else is then pigeon-holed into one of these negative stereotypes.  This isn't hypocritical on my part because I'm not making a broad generalization about gamers, or even Sim gamers.  I'm just stating something about this one particular person.  I don't have any issues with Sim, I think it's great.  But I do have an issue with what seems to me a very narrow-minded view of role-playing.

A side note: I agree that this isn't a primarily GNS issue.  I had just meant the GNS thing to be a side comment, and am now regretting it.  I don't think discussing the CA of imaginary, stereotyped people is going to be very productive.