Caring How it Resolves?

[contracycle]

1. Play does alternate on an atomic level but GNS looks at larger chunks so there's no problem

That is what I think, yes.  So Dr X is wrong to assert they occur simultaneously; they instead occur alternately.

Dr Xero wrote:

What you label as impossible I recognize as something I have seen done repeatedly in real life and have read about frequently in the various literatures about gaming and the gaming subculture.

Well, I think that what you saw was them alternating, rather than them happening simultaneously.  The GNS theory is based on the alleged observation of three distinct behavioural modes; you cannot exhibit more than one of these at any given moment.  So, if your observation is right, the founding premise of GNS - the very identification of G and N and S at all - must be abandoned.

But my observations lead me to agree with the model and its temporally distinct behaviours.  I finds an analysis based on this premise to be fruitful.  I therefore speculate that what you really saw was a rapid alternating of modes between Sim and Narr - not the simultaneous execution of both.  I may, of course, be wrong, but I'm not going to abandon a fruitful theory for one that appears less fruitful.

[Marco]

Contra,

Well, I understand what you're saying--but I'm not sure I agree with what the theory says about it.

To my understanding there is no "sim or nar" at the level you're saying it's alternating. There are a string of decisions that are *neither*--the theory is mute as to them.

If the theory *does* classify them (say, based on the intent of the player) then we don't need instances of play when we're dealing with ourself (I made this case once and got a strong negative from you, IIRC).

If the theory doesn't classify them then what you're seeing or thinking is happening doesn't relate to the theory, IMO.

I think the single-instance of CA is *only* related to large instances of play and it's flexible as to how-large.


-Marco

[TooManyGoddamnOrcs]

The way I see it, and I'm popping out of nowhere here to offer my opinion, is that the Creative Agenda is not applied during play but rather when play stops due to A)the end of a game or B)play becoming dysfunctional due to a conflict of what is now identifed as creative agendas.  From what I can tell, GNS is forensic pathology: it only works on dead games, whether they died of old age or were killed in the crossfire.

Edit (12:34 EST)- putting the word "forensic" in front of pathology so I'm not accused of casting aspersions.

[contracycle]

Well, I understand what you're saying--but I'm not sure I agree with what the theory says about it.

Fine, but if you disagree about what the theory claims en bloc, then why interven in a conversation about the theory in a forum dedicated to duiscussing that theory?

To my understanding there is no "sim or nar" at the level you're saying it's alternating. There are a string of decisions that are *neither*--the theory is mute as to them.

Well if its true that NEITHER is happening then Narr and Sim can definitely not be occurring simultaneously, because neither are happening at all.

You are overextending my argument to assert that every single activity must be correlated with a specific mode, but that is not what I have argued at all.  I have only argued that Narr and Sim cannot occur simultaneously; if neither are occurring the problem is moot.

If the theory *does* classify them (say, based on the intent of the player) then we don't need instances of play when we're dealing with ourself (I made this case once and got a strong negative from you, IIRC).

It only classifies on the basis of behaviour.  There may, or may not, be an identifiable GNS prioritisation at any given decision.  Thus we need to observe an instance of play that is more than one decision in order to make a meaningful observation.

If the theory doesn't classify them then what you're seeing or thinking is happening doesn't relate to the theory, IMO.

Nonsense; thats like saying that because I recognise the location and momentum of an electron cannot be simultaneously be determined, that one of these must not fall under physics.

I think the single-instance of CA is *only* related to large instances of play and it's flexible as to how-large.

You are confusing the methodology of identification with the actual phenomenon observed, I think.  I would certainly agree the theory is only USEFUL when deployed against large instances of play which allow a meaningful diagnostic observation to be made.

[pete_darby]

The way I see it, and I'm popping out of nowhere here to offer my opinion, is that the Creative Agenda is not applied during play but rather when play stops due to A)the end of a game or B)play becoming dysfunctional due to a conflict of what is now identifed as creative agendas.  From what I can tell, GNS is forensic pathology: it only works on dead games, whether they died of old age or were killed in the crossfire.

Edit (12:34 EST)- putting the word "forensic" in front of pathology so I'm not accused of casting aspersions.

Just a quicky on this one, I don't see it as deserving a full new thread...

Basically, no. Creative Agenda is just what it sounds like, the agenda for the creativity involved in play. It's constantly, usually unconciously, applied in play as each player shapes play towards their preferences. That the classification on these boards often occurs post-mortem is a function of the nature of discussion, that it usually takes place at the very least between session rather than in them, and a function of the model's promotion as a diagnoser of dysfunction, so folks new to the theory use it to look at old games that faltered to see if the model accounts for or explains that failure.

Please check out the actual play boards, though: they contain a great number of games that are analyzed between sessions of live campaigns, and judge for yourself whether GNS / big model analysis was surgery or autopsy.

Oh, and welcome to the Forge!

[Marco]

Well, I understand what you're saying--but I'm not sure I agree with what the theory says about it.

Fine, but if you disagree about what the theory claims en bloc, then why interven in a conversation about the theory in a forum dedicated to duiscussing that theory?

I should've said I disagree with *your* take on it. Sorry for not being clearer.

See, what you're saying is a rapid low-level switch between Sim and Nar is, IMO, exploration of situation and character associated with Nar play. Remember that all play will have such elements.

In your physics analogy I would see you as stating that we "really can" know the location and momentum of an electron--we just can't measure it well enough to be a useful diagnostic.

That's *not* true in physics.

-Marco

[contracycle]

See, what you're saying is a rapid low-level switch between Sim and Nar is, IMO, exploration of situation and character associated with Nar play. Remember that all play will have such elements.

No, what I am saying is exactly that all play has such elements.  Please remember I am only challenging the claim the N and S occur SIMULTANEOUSLY.

Switching between modes, rapidly or otherwise, is characteristic of normal play regardless of which of those CA's is prefered.  At crisis points, one will be prioritised over the other - this is the most useful diagnostic event.

It MIGHT be true that switching between N and S only or predominantly is indicative of Narr exploration; I'm not aware of any discussion as yet of sub-groups of preferences.

[Marco]

It MIGHT be true that switching between N and S only or predominantly is indicative of Narr exploration; I'm not aware of any discussion as yet of sub-groups of preferences.

Okay, well--it looks to me like you're looking at individual decisions which, pretty much, *all* involve exploration and trying to sort of "split the atom" and say this one is more exploration than address or vice versa (or more dramatically to say "this decisions was almost pure-address of premise where as the one right before it was exploration for exploration's sake).

I don't think that's supported in the essays or the theory anywhere. I understand that at some point there's supposed to be a critical decision that shows choice (although I've seen it argued that it's not a singularity but rather a holistic view of many decisions)--but either way, on that basic level if a decision both explores character and addresses premise how can you, even in retrospect, say that it was definitively sim or nar?

If you can then I think some basic examples of the sort people commonly ask for would be provideable (perhaps with a little context).

-Marco

[Doctor Xero]

I therefore speculate that what you really saw was a rapid alternating of modes between Sim and Narr - not the simultaneous execution of both.  I may, of course, be wrong, but I'm not going to abandon a fruitful theory for one that appears less fruitful.

Quantum theory is based (in part) on a recognition that something might be in two different and seemingly oppositional states simultaneously -- to use perhaps-too-simple language, just as a photon is both particle and wave even though a particle and a wave are two different and seemingly oppositional forms.

In the same fashion, two different creative agendae can be at work simultaneously, in this case simulationist and narrativist.

I can keep two different thoughts in my mind at the same time, I can imagine light and dark at the same time (it's called multi-tasking and really isn't that rare a talent!), and I can operate from and operate within two different creative agendae at the same time.

I honestly don't see what's so difficult to comprehend about such a thing.

And just as quantum theory does not negate particle physics nor wave-based physics despite encompassing a simultaneity of both particle and wave in such things as photons, so simultaneous simulationist and narrativist gaming does not negate the G/N/S theory, and just as quantum theory does not blur and merge particle and wave, so simultaneous simulationist and narrativist gaming does not blur and merge S and N.  Yet the simultaneous still is both possible (and frequent) in gaming, just as it is with photons.

Doctor Xero

P.S. My apologies to any hard science experts who read this post for my simplified language, but I didn't want to indulge in an in-depth technical explanation of quantum physics when I was using it primarily for purposes of analogy.

P.P.S. If anyone finds something by which to be offended in this post, it is by choice.  Just become someone infers it does not mean I have implied it.

[contracycle]

I honestly don't see what's so difficult to comprehend about such a thing.

OK, whats difficult for me to comprehend is how you can simultaneously ask the question "I wonder how this would play out" and also the question "how can I make this play out in a certain way".

Upthread Paganini wrote:

In order for your story to have been produced by Narrativism, there's the additional requirement of shared authorship. The practical upshot of this is that the players are the ones setting up and resolving the Problematic Human Issues through the actions of their characters. This is what it means "to address premise."

If I desire exploration of causality, of character and setting, then it seems inimical to me to create those things myself.  If I create them I have a tough time exploring them, as I already know everything there is to know about them.

If the premise was my prior example of 'would you sell your granny', then I don't understand how I can simultaneously decide that my answer will be No and seek to give it, and also NOT know what my characters decision will be until it is made and can be explored.  These appear inherently contradictory to me.

[Marco]

I'm not sure that Sim is a state of "gee, I don't know what my character would do until it comes up."

That doesn't sound right to me. I think I can say for certain what a great deal (most?) of character would do in a given situation. This goes all the moreso for the act of making a character *as* a statement (Judge Dredd) who allows the player to explore an extreme view of justice against mercy (or even logic).

I think your mind-set of Sim is only one of a possible spectrums there-of.

-Marco

[Doctor Xero]

OK, whats difficult for me to comprehend is how you can simultaneously ask the question "I wonder how this would play out" and also the question "how can I make this play out in a certain way".

Ah, I understand.  Let me explain, first by referencing Ron Edwards' article explaining narrativism.

They also vary a great deal in terms of unpredictable "shifts" of events during play. The key to Narrativist Premises is that they are moral or ethical questions that engage the players' interest. The "answer" to this Premise (Theme) is produced via play and the decisions of the participants, not by pre-planning.

By the words Ron Edwards uses here and elsewhere, it becomes evident that the responses to the Premise are the result of game play -- they do not pre-exist it.  In fact, in the quote above he specifically argues against pre-planning the way the Premise is addressed!

I will not quote his comments on simulationism in his narrativist article because, as his article seems to admit, his understanding of simulationism then was not the equal of his understanding of narrativism, but I will note that  he and others have since pointed out that certain types of simulationist play are also free of that sort of pre-planning (admittedly, certain types are not).  Moreover, as pointed out in other threads, both narrativist and simulationist  play have restrictions, albeit restrictions in different ways for different purposes.

And they have overlaps.

Simultaneous simulationist/narrativist gaming involves campaigns in which

1) the character is a gameworld manifestation of one part of the player's own psyche, sort of a personal archetypal embodiment, and thus the player and character's interests in certain areas are identical, and

2) the gameworld chosen was created not only to incarnate a fun genre which the players love but to allow that genre to be used as an instrument for the player-characters interests in both the Dream and the Premise such that they become one (the combination of which is at the heart of all myth/dream analysis, for example).

In such campaigns, sometimes for weeks only the Dream is explored (simulationism), and sometimes for weeks only the Premise is addressed (narrativism), but sometimes for weeks both occur simultaneously.  Is it the player or the character who is confronting?  The answer is YES!  No one can claim it is only the character without first blinding himself or herself to the unity of character and one of the player's selves.  No one can claim it is only the player without a similar denial of the player's relationship/fusion with parts of the character.  In this case, in this The Right to Story and the Dream Now!, the distinction is irrelevant.  Similarly, the players chose the campaign specifically because it incarnates a Dream in which the moral or ethical questions that engage the players' interests are addressed.  The Premise and the Dream are inseparable, and once again in The Right to Story and the Dream Now!, any distinction made between them is imposed, artificial, and at best a trick of semantics.

In such cases (far more common than posters seem to realize), the players and game master(s) have together constructed a campaign such that the "formalized interactive points of contact between the player and the game" (i.e. the character) and the "formalized interactive imaginative space" (i.e. the gameworld) allow such simultaneity.  In such cases, yes, the player can simultaneously ask the questions "I wonder how this would play out?" and "how can I make this play out in a certain way?"

Doctor Xero

[M. J. Young]

In the same fashion, two different creative agendae can be at work simultaneously, in this case simulationist and narrativist.

I have not heard this position argued so eloquently since I argued it probably six years ago at Gaming Outpost.

Yet it is undermined in part by

In such campaigns, sometimes for weeks only the Dream is explored (simulationism), and sometimes for weeks only the Premise is addressed (narrativism), but sometimes for weeks both occur simultaneously. Is it the player or the character who is confronting? The answer is YES! No one can claim it is only the character without first blinding himself or herself to the unity of character and one of the player's selves. No one can claim it is only the player without a similar denial of the player's relationship/fusion with parts of the character.

For weeks the players may play narrativist, and then drift to simulationist, and stay there for weeks and then drift back.

No man can serve two masters. The distinction between the agenda is what is the single number one priority that the player has overall through the instance of play. You can't make a decision with two number one priorities. Often you can make a decision based on your number one priority which does not violate your number two priority; often you will select from first priority options one that will be consistent with second priority concerns. In that sense you can support all three agenda at once. However, one of them will still be first, and that's the one which ultimately defines play. The others may influence and constrain in secondary ways, but they cannot all be first.

--M. J. Young

[Doctor Xero]

You can't make a decision with two number one priorities.

Forgive me if I offend you by saying so, but here is where you are wrong.

Uttered in different fashions by different people, in denying the human capacity for multi-tasking and for merging of priorities this single postulate  underlies most of the miscomprehension about this.

So long as someone claims he or she lacks the ability to multi-task and merge priorities in such a fashion, yes, he or she will be unable to do so.  As Richard Bach points out, "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours."  But that does not mean that the rest of us are forced to be similarly limited.

This could be a culture-based confusion, I suppose.  I think it was Patricia Collins who pointed out that one difference between European approaches to binaries and African approaches to binaries is that Europeans tend to treat binaries as either/or while Africans tend to treat binaries as both/and.  One of our cultural forebears, the ancient Greeks, adored tragedies which involved two conflicting obligations.  (The ancient Celts and the modern Japanese love this trope as well.)  On the other hand, in the United States, sustained success in business, politics, and much of daily life are all predicated upon the ability to kill several birds using the one stone.  People often have to juggle competing Number One Priorities, and the most successful people are often those who can find solutions which fit all of them equally, merging them or serving two or more masters simultaneously, as you put it.

Many Christian denominations focus on the notion of God as three-in-one -- not as three separate facets or three separate entities or three separate aspects but as three-in-one simultaneously -- just as many focus on the notion of Jesus Christ as simultaneously 100% God and 100% mortal human, and just as the doctrine of consubstantiation teaches that the eucharist is simultaneously 100% the flesh of the Christ and 100% an ordinary wafer.  (To use non-Christian examples, a similar capacity for recognizing simultaneity occurs with the Celtic conception of the threefold goddesses.)

So, no, it seems to me that, yes, you can make a decision with two or more number one priorities.  Indeed, the ability to do so is necessary in this world, IMHO.

Doctor Xero

[M. J. Young]

So, no, it seems to me that, yes, you can make a decision with two or more number one priorities.  Indeed, the ability to do so is necessary in this world, IMHO.

This obviously is the crux of the disagreement. Can you have two primary priorities, simultaneously and of equal force?

I cannot speak for Ron on this, but it has always seemed to me that this was a fundamental point of the Big Model, from back when it was casually called GNS. The model maintains that players, in any instance of play, put one of the three agenda first, above the other two; that conflicts and dysfunction arise when they disagree through their actions as to which should be first; and that play is significantly facilitated by fostering agreement here. I would say it is a fundamental axiom of the model: only one can be first.

The model does not forbid drift or transition; that is, one can be first now, but another first later. From the beginning, though, it argued that one must be primary.

I could be mistaken on that point; I also could be mistaken, as the good Doctor suggests, in my assertion that one can have only one first priority. Theological paradoxes aside (which are not about priorities, but whether seemingly contradictory facts might both be true), I must stand by my assertion.

Let us take as an example that I am a fully trained lifeguard who happens to be at a lake when I see someone drowning. I happen to have two priorities, and for this example they will both be first priorities. One is to save the life of the victim. The other is to stay dry.

These might seem at first to be absolutely contradictory. How can a lifeguard save a drowning victim without getting wet? Yet any professionally trained lifeguard will tell you that getting wet is the last thing he will do. The mantra reach, throw, row, go drilled into generations of lifeguards tells us that we are to save others with a minimum of risk to ourselves, and that means looking for any means of rescuing the victim without getting in the water with him.

So it is best to find a stick, a pole, a towel, something I can extend to the victim while standing on the shore. If I can do this, I can save the victim and stay dry, observing both of my first priorities. Alas, there is no pole, no object long enough for such an attempt.

Barring that, I must throw something to the victim, a floatation device, preferably attached to a rope, by which he can suspend himself while being hauled to shore. Thus again I might both prevent the drowning and stay dry. Alas, my victim has passed out, and cannot grab the ring; he cannot save himself, and needs me to come to him.

I should jump in a boat. I might get wet this way, but I might not. I could conceivably rescue the victim and stay dry. Alas, there is no boat at hand; I cannot row out to rescue him.

At this point, it is clear that if I'm going to save the victim, I am going to have to get in the water; and barring some superhuman ability, that means I'm going to get wet. Maybe I could send someone else; but if there is no one else trained to do the job, I might well wind up with two people drowning. In any event, at some point I am going to have to decide whether I am going to get wet or let the man drown.

I don't think that's a stupid example. It is entirely possible to be a lifeguard for years, even a working lifeguard, and never have to get in the water to pull someone to safety. Yet at some point you may be faced with the question of whether it is more important to save the victim or to stay dry.

Creative agenda theory says that when you face that choice, you will pick one over the other. If you indeed are able to pick one over the other, you have at that moment identified which one is more important.

When James T. Kirk reprogrammed the Kobiashi Maru (spelling?) simulation so he could defeat the enemy and escape, he faced a choice as to which was more important--is it better to cheat so you can win, or admit that there might be a no-win situation? His choice was in a very real sense one of priorities. Which is more important? If you can't win without cheating, do you admit defeat, or cheat?

Gamism, simulationism, and narrativism can co-exist for long periods without conflict in a well-designed game; players comfortable with drift can change what they are prioritizing from one scene to the next. However, at some point, the model says there can be only one, one first priority to which the others must bend when they come into conflict.

It's very popular to say that by multitasking we can have multiple first priorities; but it doesn't hold up in reality. Conflicting priorities must be heirarchical, or they ultimately prevent choice.

--M. J. Young