Looong post on Sim definition

[Valamir]

It's precisely the "Simulationism is fear" argument that you're making. If you can't see "tourism" as a bold and viable form of play, then you're not really seeing all of sim for what it is. Again, it's my point that simulationism accepts conflict if it comes and that nobody plays without it. You're the one arguing that there's some mode in which conflict is not wanted.

Mike

I beg to differ.  I very clearly said "At best you can say its raw Exploration with no Creative Agenda enjoyed for its own sake"  

So I'm clearly leaving room for people who (all or some of the time) enjoy this play not out of fear, but because they legitimately enjoy it.

But no.  Tourism is not, and cannot be "bold".

Boldness requires taking decisive action in the face of adversity.  If a player is "bold" they have to be doing something.  They will have a Creative Agenda.

It requires exactly zero boldness to go along for the ride and admire the view.

No matter how much fun it is.  No matter how much the player is rightfully enjoying themselves, tourism is not bold.  It is, almost by definition, the least bold form of roleplaying there can be...which is why it often winds up being the place that non bold players retreat to (the fear factor).

A fearful player can retreat to Tourism precisely because it requries no boldness on their part at all.  That's not to say that a bold player can't enjoy Tourism also.

But without a conflict to be simulated I firmly believe that Tourism is not simulationism but just Exploration without any commitment to anything more than just Exploration.

[contracycle]

It requires exactly zero boldness to go along for the ride and admire the view.

I can't agree with that I'm afraid.  Sure package tourism may be rather unexciting, but having spent some years in the backpacker community, such as it is, I can assure you that some forms of tourism are very bold indeed.  Like the couple I know who did Latin America last year, including talking their way through a FARC roadblock.

I know many people who have headed off to to other countries with minimal currency, unable to speak the language, and equipped primarily with a railway timetable and a decent pair of walking shoes.  One might argue that the RPG equivalent of this sort of activity is gamist, and is in some sense interested in the challenge of overcoming these problems, but in my experience it really is the desire to see whats there, over the next hill, that drives this exploratory behaviour.

Lets us distinguish I think between the person who seeks out challenge for its own sake, and the person who resigns themself to challenge in the pursuit of something else.  I don't see the latter as necessarily less bold, because they are still recognising the challenge and its problems.

[Marco]

It requires exactly zero boldness to go along for the ride and admire the view.

Lets us distinguish I think between the person who seeks out challenge for its own sake, and the person who resigns themself to challenge in the pursuit of something else.  I don't see the latter as necessarily less bold, because they are still recognising the challenge and its problems.

I agree that "tourism" can be dangerous--or even exciting--but it seems an incredibly poor way to describe the motivations of a player who shows up to "destroy the evil empire because they wiped out his parents."

(It's true that the player might be there for the challenge--or for the moral statement--but if neither is the case then saying the player is there for something like tourism seems decidely off the mark no matter how many imperial roadblocks the character has to talk their way past.

I think it's most accurate to say the player is in the game for experiential reasons that are best described as the in-game motivations of the character (i.e. experiencing the character's motivations).

-Marco

[contracycle]

I agree that "tourism" can be dangerous--or even exciting--but it seems an incredibly poor way to describe the motivations of a player who shows up to "destroy the evil empire because they wiped out his parents."

I would agreer, but I'm not sure why you expect that tourism would be used to describe such a player.  That player clearly has some sort of purposeful agenda and is thus not just going over the hill to see whats there, which was the point at issue.

[Valamir]

It requires exactly zero boldness to go along for the ride and admire the view.

I can't agree with that I'm afraid.  Sure package tourism may be rather unexciting, but having spent some years in the backpacker community, such as it is, I can assure you that some forms of tourism are very bold indeed.  Like the couple I know who did Latin America last year, including talking their way through a FARC roadblock.

Well, we're stretching the analogy a little thin here, but at no time would I say a backpacker is "along for the ride to admire the view".  There's a whole nother level of motivation there.

Whether its a desire to see what the country is "really" like outside of traditional tourist destinations, a desire to see if their up to the physical challenge of the hike, or some Waldon Pond philosophical adventure there's something else there (besides financial cheapness I expect) that makes a person willing to take this on.  That something else would be the equivelent of a CA.

I'd say we're in perfect agreement there.

I think it's most accurate to say the player is in the game for experiential reasons that are best described as the in-game motivations of the character (i.e. experiencing the character's motivations).

I'm not sure if we're on the same wavelength or not.

If this is how you'd describe play, then no, I don't think this is very compelling Simulationism.  This is just raw exploration with emphasis on character.  For me to be simulationism you have to put this character into a conflict laden situation and THEN want to experience the character's motivations and find out what happens.  Without the conflict laden situation for the character to bounce off of...to me it is just tourism...whether the pretty scenery is setting or character.


With exploration you have setting, character, and situation and through system stuff happens to change these elements.  Those changes have effects that ripple back out and (through system) provide the basis for yet more changes which cause more ripples and so on.

The ripples are part of Exploration itself.  Its what happens as soon as you turn System on and start to play.  The enjoyment of seeing the ripples and watching their effect on the world is fundamental to every creative agenda.  Its just basic Exploration to want to "see what happens".

Simulationism IMO requires more than just wanting to "see what happens" (just like Nar and Gamism do).  That something more is a commitment from the player to use his character to cause ripples and place his character into situations where those ripples effect him.  That's conflict.  The simulationist needs conflict to act as a catalyst to simulation just as much as Narrative gamers need conflict to act as a catalyst for premise or Gamists to act as a catalyst for challenge.


Its like a chemistry student performing an experiment.  He's got the beakers and test tubes and bunsen burners and he's mixing and heating and distilling and whatever else.  He's performing the experiment.  His lab partner whose just watching him do all this to see what happens...he's just along for the ride.  He may hand him the occassional test tube or stir the occassional mixture when asked...but you can't really say that the partner is performing the experiment.  He's just observing it.

So to is the difference between Simulationism and Tourism in my mind.

[Marco]

If this is how you'd describe play, then no, I don't think this is very compelling Simulationism.  This is just raw exploration with emphasis on character.  For me to be simulationism you have to put this character into a conflict laden situation and THEN want to experience the character's motivations and find out what happens.  Without the conflict laden situation for the character to bounce off of...to me it is just tourism...whether the pretty scenery is setting or character.

I don't know if we're on the same wavelength or not--but my example was the character who wants to bring down the empire because it executed his parents. That sounds conflict-laden to me.

So to is the difference between Simulationism and Tourism in my mind.

The missing 4th CA is discovered!
-Marco

[Mike Holmes]

That's not tourism Marco, that's the other form of Sim being talked about here.

Ralph, just because you see some difference between seeing the game world, and seeing it through a lens of conflict doesn't make it a different mode. First your rhetoric is judgement-laden, as if you know that the form that you obviously prefer is better. How is this any different than early anti-gamism? How many times did we hear, "That's not real roleplaying!" Now you're saying that it's something else, not Simulationism.

As to the boldness, I've said many times before that Narrativism could be stated to be the retreat of those too fearful to face immersion. There are probably bad reasons for every mode, real or theoretical, but that doesn't make the mode in question a lesser form of play for those who enjoy it legitimately.

Even if you apply a judgement to this theoretical form of play, and are correct, however, that doesn't make it something worthy of it's own GNS classification. Again, it doesn't stand the test of mutual exclusivity. Again, my proposal is that this mode does not exist at all, as such. That is, can you give me one example of this so called mode being played? Or are we talking about something comepletely theoretical here? Yes, MJ will tell you that at times in games he's played, that players go off "just exploring" and doing nothing else. How is this not just more simulationism? MJ, in those games was there never any conflict ever? Eventually there were conflicts, right? When they seemed sensible? As such, this is just an example of a Simulationism CA that involved more exploration than conflict. Big deal, that doesn't make this a mode.

In fact, all play consists of exploration punctuated by conflicts. All play by everyone. There is no RPG where you just have conflict, conflict, conflict, without ever having the world described at all in between. Even the name of the monster that you're killing is exploration as it establishes some vision inside of the player's head. Given that exploration is an inescapable part of play, then the only question is what portion of play is "only exploration," and how long it takes to get to the next conflict. This is a spec trum where no line can be drawn in terms of defining a CA over an "instance of play." Yes, you can say that this one decision was "exploratory" and the next "conflict based," but we all know that this is true of every mode of play.

When the CA is done "to see what's out there, and how my character reacts during conflicts," that's Simulationism, no matter how spread out the conflicts are.

To do another analogy, it's like you've said that elephants are divided up into two sorts, Elephants and Pink Elephants, and Pink Elephants are not elephants because they're pink. Well, I'd say that they don't exist, so there's no use in saying this. What possible good does separating these two "forms" of play do? How are they like the difference between other GNS modes? How do they conflict?

Mike

[Valamir]

Mike, any judgement you're seeing...you put there.

Put a lid on your frothing egalatarianism for a minute.

Nothing in your last post applies to anything I said in mine.  You might as well be responding to someone else entirely.


Alls I have said is this:

Conflict is essential to Simulationism just as its essential to Narrativism and Gamism.

A Creative Agenda is quite simply nothing more than how a player responds and interacts with the conflict of the character.

Without a conflict, there is no Creative Agenda.  You have only Exploration.  

Of course all play consists of exploration punctuated by conflict.  There is no "in fact" about it.  This has been bog standard part of the model since Exploration was first introduced.

But it had been suggested that conflict was not essential to Simulationism.  That you could be playing simulationist without needing any conflict.  Which is the idea I have endeavored to refute.  Simulationism without any conflict is not simulationism.  It is just exploration.  Exploration all by itself without any Creative Agenda at all.

[Mike Holmes]

A Creative Agenda is quite simply nothing more than how a player responds and interacts with the conflict of the character.

Since when? A Creative Agenda is the general method for decision making over an instance of play. If the GM decides that no conflicts are iminent, because it wouldn't be plausible for any to be so, then that's Simulationism at work. Creative Agenda refer to "instances of play" not to atomic decisions. So, while exploration often doesn't show up on the CA radar, it certainly can.

In any case, the point is that exploration, per the model, is part of every CA, not ancillary to it.

Mike

[Valamir]

Since when?

Since ever.  Although I don't think its until recently that we've begun to really dissect it enough to understand that.

A Creative Agenda has no meaning whatsoever outside of conflict.  It is essentially, how the player responds out of game to conflicts presented in game.

A Gamist views a conflict as an opportunity for challenge and Step on Up
A Narrativist views a conflict as an opportunity to address premise and achieve Story Now.
A Simulationist views a conflict as an opportunity for Discovery and to examine "What if" (Discovery being my preferred term for "Right to Dream".)

Without the back drop of conflict, none of this happens.

An Instance of Play can best be thought of as the cycle of conflict (from recognition, through response, to resolution) over the course of which a Creative Agenda manifests.  I've come to be convinced that the reason defining Instance of Play in the past was alot like trying to pin down a cloud is because the crucial element of the relationship to conflict was missing.  Its possible to have conflicts nestled within and overlapping with other conflicts throughout the game which makes each "instance of play" a rather tangled thread, which is why its so hard to identify concretely and evaluation and observation is so often based on a gut feel for what's going on...why there is no clear and plain litmus test for actual play.

In any case, the point is that exploration, per the model, is part of every CA, not ancillary to it.

A point which I've been repeating myself several times now.  And as long as there is no conflict that is all you ever have, which is a large part of why folks of differing agendas can actually play together.  Because they can all engage in and enjoy the exploration of play.  It's the player's approach to Conflict (through the entire cycle of conflict) that defines a Creative Agenda.

If there is never any conflict, then there is never any Creative Agenda, just Exploration.

If there is a conflict but the player refuses to engage in it, then the player has no Creative Agenda and is just engaging in Exploration alone.

Exploration alone with no attempt at or desire to engage with Conflict is what has been called Tourism in this thread.


I'm pretty convinced that Conflict is the missing link in solidifying the relationship between these things.

[Mike Holmes]

Your argument is a tautology. You keep saying over and over, CA requires conflict, because CA requires conflict. Make an actual argument. Based on what, does CA require conflict?

You seem to believe that Instances can't occur without conflict? That is, if one goes for X amount of play without a conflict, then that must mean what? That there was no instance there? Doesn't the instance include this play?

How can you in one breath say that exploration is part of a CA, but that only conflict defines a CA? Are you saying that all exploration is unidentifiable in terms of CA? If, for instance, a player goes looking to see if there's a monster to fight, isn't it possible to define this looking as Gamist exploration? Even if he never finds a monster to fight?

I think it's actually quite easy to identify play in any of the three modes without conflict ever occuring.

Mike

[M. J. Young]

There's so much happening in this thread that my reply may be a bit disjointed. To reduce that, I've started a spin-off thread of sorts, http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=129826#129826">Simulationism: Reflexive Play?, in which I want to challenge Jay's repeated assertion that we don't explore the elements of exploration but use them to explore something else. I'll refer that part of the discussion there.

Ralph, you've surprised me. You're suggesting that it's possible to roleplay without a creative agendum; yet exploration is by definition (under the model) creative. How would you reconcile this with the model, without declaring that it's not roleplaying?

Let's set aside the tourism concept for a moment (although I think that's the clearest example of non-conflict roleplaying). You've mentioned before playing games in which you would "explore system" by having characters jump off cliffs knowing full well that they would survive the fall, because the mechanics of the game world were such that the damage could not possibly be fatal. I got the impression that sometimes you just did that because you were exploring the fact that you could do that--you weren't running from a monster (who presumably could have jumped down on top of you, since if you could survive the fall but it was too dangerous for you to fight, it would probably know in such a world that it could survive such a fall as well). That sounds to me like non-conflict exploration of system. Am I missing something?

Mike asked if there were games in which there was never any conflict. There's a part of me that wants to say obviously not; but then, Jay seems to have limited what can be called conflict. Is it conflict to have to change your money because you crossed the border, and need to deal with someone in a language in which you don't have great facility who is likely to attempt to cheat you in the exchange? Is it conflict to haggle prices with an innkeeper or a guide? Is it conflict if your horse loses a shoe and you need to visit a blacksmith, or if you have to create shelter and fire in the wilderness to spend the night?

In addressing the problem of evil, one of the points I make is that we assess "the worst thing that could happen" based on things that actually do happen. If we lived in a world in which the worst thing that ever happened to anyone was the occasional hangnail, someone would be asking how a good God could permit hangnails. The point then is that we have no idea what God does not permit, because we have no experience of that which is prevented. So, too, in this context the notion of "conflict", a very relative term in general, seems to have been given a minimum threshold below which it doesn't count, but that threshold is unclear to me. I've run and played in games in which the worst conflicts for a very long time would not have reached what I perceive as Jay's threshold.

Of course, eventually something will usually occur which is conflict of a higher sense. Then again, my games drift a lot, and sometimes a player who has been going for months of real time and years of game time will decide he wants to do something else, and make radical changes in what he's after (like going dragon hunting). So it's not necessarily easy to answer that.

I've got one player who just successfully resolved The Prisoner of Zenda, and for his efforts has been given a competency and the castle at Zenda. He knows it's about 1897, and he knows (because he plays himself) that inside fifteen years World War One is going to break out in Europe, and he's sandwiched in there in the Germanic state of Ruritania. So he knows "conflict" is coming in a big way, and he's already started creating the finest fighting force the world will know for at least half a century. On the other hand, it's over a decade, and he's also building gardens, starting social service programs for the poor, investing in local industry, redecorating his castle, and otherwise just enjoying being a turn of the century nobleman and close friend of the King. I sometimes wonder, even worry, that it can't be much fun with nothing happening, but he assures me that he's having a grand time of it. The biggest "conflict" he's faced in the past several weeks has been difficulties in finding a competent household manager to work alongside his steward in keeping up the details of the property. He is enjoying it immensely. Of course, we "drifted" here. A few months ago he was up to his eye teeth in trying to maneuver around Black Michael and keep the King alive until he could get him to the throne. Before that he was training with Ninjas in a feudal Japanese setting, trying to bring down the oppressive government. Prior to that, he was a medic on a spaceship on a routine cargo run. So not all play has been this calm exploration. At the same time, he's in no hurry to get to the next conflict. He's enjoying this.

Looking back to Ralph, I'm wondering if this is the distinction you're drawing. Early in this thread I attempted to suggest that the movement from not knowing to knowing would be meeting the conflict. However, I have a great deal of trouble with your suggestion that there would then be "exploration" but not "creative agendum". It's my understanding of the model that exploration only exists through its expression through an agendum. If you don't have an agendum, you don't have exploration at all. I am aware that CA is nested within Exploration; but that doesn't mean E can exist without CA, any more than CA can exist without Techniques. Once you are "role playing" you are exploring with an agendum using techniques. If you don't have techniques, you aren't exploring; if you don't have an agendum, you're not exploring.

That's why I've argued that for the requirement of "conflict" to be definitional of any agendum (inclusively) is to fundamentally undermine the model. Exploration without an agendum cannot exist.

Now, if you'll see me that such matters as deciding which way to go, solving problems of where to stay, and other minor matters that might arise in the process of "exploring" are in fact minor conflicts; that conflict can be as little as "I don't know and I wish to know"; then I'll agree that how you handle conflict (and indeed what you recognize as being conflict at all) is revelatory of your agendum, and even (which I think may be an important insight, within my caveat) that "point of conflict" and "instance of play" may be equivalent.

However, saying that "I want to know what I don't know" is not conflict and that conflict is essential for creative agendum of any type comes to saying that pure exploration for its own sake is not role playing, and I think that would be fatal to the model.

--M. J. Young

[contracycle]

A Creative Agenda has no meaning whatsoever outside of conflict.  It is essentially, how the player responds out of game to conflicts presented in game.

I cannot see why this should be the case at all.

It seems to me bleed-over from the convention that character is nothing without conflict, drama is conflict etc.  Those may be true but I do not see that it is a universal necessity for creation, or the interest in creation.

[contracycle]

Rats, too late to edit my previous post.

I just wanted to add that I'm not particularly against the idea.  It may be that some relationship to conflict is implied or required.  I just don't see that, but I'd be open to discussing the argument that it should be, if one can be advanced.

[Valamir]

Ralph, you've surprised me. You're suggesting that it's possible to roleplay without a creative agendum;

Don't know why you'd be surprised this is essentially the same position I took back almost a year ago in the Clarifying Simulation thread.

In that thread there was alot of stumbling around what was going on in what I'd labeled Sim2.  A lot of references to Creative Invention and the like trying to come to grips with what the actual feature of Simulationism is, but knowing only that it must be something more than the absence of G or N.

Subsequent discussions on the role of Conflict and their relationship to Creative Agenda have clarified for me, I think, where that actual feature lies.  So my posts in this thread are really only an updated addendum to my posts in that one.

One thing that I continue to disagree with Ron on is the notion that Roleplaying doesn't start until you add Creative Agenda to Exploration.  And that Exploration by itself is not roleplaying.  I think there in lies some of the resistance to my declaration of "tourism" play (as a temporary place holder for lack of a better word for it) as being raw Exploration with no Creative Agenda.  People associate that with me saying then that its "not roleplaying".  I think raw Exploration is roleplaying...at least by the most fundamental notion of "playing a role".  It is essentially agenda-less play and the enjoyment from it is akin to the enjoyment one gets from watching a movie or reading a book with an added layer of interactivity.  In its purest form I think you get computer games like Myst where the puzzles are really secondary excuses to advancing to the next stage of exploration.

Mike asked if there were games in which there was never any conflict. There's a part of me that wants to say obviously not; but then, Jay seems to have limited what can be called conflict.

Well, I have to admit to not being completely sure what Jay's definition of Conflict is, and the word itself is a pretty nebulous thing to pin down.

But to me, my proto thoughts on the subject is that a Conflict is anything that has the potential to alter the world.  Where failure has consequences beyond simply failure.

So merely changing money at the border...no that doesn't strike me as a conflict because there are no consequences besides failure.  But if failing to change the money in a timely fashion resulted in being unable to meet the ransom demands of the kidnappers who require the ransom in Guilders rather than Florins...then that seems to me to have consequences beyond mere failure and thus is a conflict.  It is in the player's attitude and approach to such conflicts that IMO is where Creative Agenda is witnessed.

A potentially nebulous distinction to be sure, but at least you can see the direction of my thinking.

I've got one player who just successfully resolved The Prisoner of Zenda, and for his efforts has been given a competency and the castle at Zenda.....SNIP....  I sometimes wonder, even worry, that it can't be much fun with nothing happening, but he assures me that he's having a grand time of it.

I think this ties to the idea I noted about an Instance of Play being tied to the cycle of conflict, and notions that Mike and others have discussed in the various atomic threads about Instances of Play being nested within others.

The overall conflict that I see is that failure to prepare fully for the coming war will have consequences beyond mere failure.  That's a long term secular Conflict.  Within that Conflict there may be numerous other ones that arise and wrap up quickly.  The king's marshall jealous at the PCs growing military influence seeks to thwart his efforts to train and must be circumvented.  A lady's undesired advances are distracting the PC from important activity yet she must be kept happy because her family's support is vital.  Whatever you might have going within.  Conflict doesn't necessarily have to be life and death every moment of the game.

And yes there will be long periods of play in most games which are essentially just Raw Exploration themselves, but they are part of a larger conflict cycle (Instance of Play) for which there is a Creative Agenda for.

That's why I've argued that for the requirement of "conflict" to be definitional of any agendum (inclusively) is to fundamentally undermine the model. Exploration without an agendum cannot exist.

See above.  

I see no reason for that to be so.  I know that is Ron's assumption, but its not one I disagree with and freely admitt that my ideas expressed above violate it.

But since I don't see where the violation does any great damage, I'm not currently inclined to be concerned by it.

Now, if you'll see me that such matters as deciding which way to go, solving problems of where to stay, and other minor matters that might arise in the process of "exploring" are in fact minor conflicts; that conflict can be as little as "I don't know and I wish to know"; then I'll agree that how you handle conflict (and indeed what you recognize as being conflict at all) is revelatory of your agendum, and even (which I think may be an important insight, within my caveat) that "point of conflict" and "instance of play" may be equivalent.

I think I may have given you an idea of my thoughts on this above but to clarify.

"I don't know what's beyond the next hill, and I wish to know" by my current thinking is a conflict only in so far as failure to find out has repurcussion to the SiS beyond the player's disappointment at not finding out.  If failure to know has repurcussions to the world (scale is unimportant here, the repucussion could be simply a peasant women loses her dowry and can't get married, or as great as the end of the world) then I'm thinking its a conflict.  If the only consequence to failure is simply not knowing...then I'm currently not seeing that as a conflict.

Edit to note that one of the reasons I make this distinction is because without it, literally every single action ever taken becomes a conflict and the world loses all distinction.  Without such a limit than "I want to know if my character will sprain his ankle when he takes the next step...No?...how about the next one..." becomes a conflict* and thus renders the idea of conflict pretty pointless.

*clearly there are times when such a question may well be a conflict (say Sam and Frodo treking across Mordor) but here the distinction is that failure to take the next step has consequences beyond simply not taking the step.