RGFA GDS vs Big Model GNS: Inputs vs Outputs?

[Mark Woodhouse]

Unraveling the intersection of RGFA GDS and Big Model GNS

In observing the ongoing attempt to map Virtuality and GDS Dramatism into the Big Model, I've hit on (what I think is) a revelation. GDS and GNS aren't talking about the same thing. GDS is a model of decision-making, applied at the individual decision level. GNS is a model of outcome preference, applied at the level of an instance of play. Looked at in this way, GDS classifications more properly belong at the System level of the Big Model.

GDS is all about the kind of decision rules players use to assign credibility.

Gamist – we use a set of mechanics to determine credibility.

Dramatist – we use an aesthetic judgment to determine credibility.

Simulationist – we use logic to determine credibility.

The GDS decision is made every time a player attempts to introduce a fact into the SIS. The player states a proposal: "I waste him with my crossbow!" This proposal is evaluated either by Gamist means ("You've got a 30 Crossbow skill and he's only got a 4 Defense value – massive overkill, no point in rolling it. He goes down."), Dramatist means ("He's just a mook – he goes down."), or Simulationist means ("Hmmm... you've got line of sight, and you said your crossbow was out and cocked... you've got an 90% chance of a hit and if you do, a crossbow's pretty lethal – but he might get lucky.").

So GDS decision govern Input – what gets put into the SIS and what doesn't. Which is pretty much Lumpley Principle System territory.

In contrast, GNS decisions are all about Output – what the player expects to take OUT of the SIS, and how they go about ensuring it's available.

Gamist – Step On Up, the sense of accomplishment and mastery that comes from meeting challenges.

Narrativist – Story Now, the ability to make a statement about a significant human issue.

Simulationist – The Dream, a vivid experience of an imagined set of events that conform to a particular set of established standards (genre, realism, pastiche, etc.).

There's no clear mapping between GDS/Input decision rules and GNS/Output rewards of play, except to the extent that particular Techniques that facilitate one or another System may favor one or another GNS agenda.

Does this provide any useful perspective to the Virtuality/GNS-Sim split?

Tentatively,
Mark

[M. J. Young]

Pretty good.

GNS Simulationism is very much under scrutiny at the moment. Traditionally it's held closely to the immersionist priorities inherited from GDS, such as character identification, but some of us are arguing that these are trappings of a particular approach to simulationism, and not central to its identity.

However, I do agree that GDS seems to be about how we do it and GNS is more about why we do it (i.e., what are we trying to get out of it).

--M. J. Young

[contracycle]

I think this is roughly correct; you have gone slightly further than what has already been established between the two.

While GNS describes the Why we do it, it's diagnostic methodology is actual in play behaviour.  GDS does not appear to contain a specific methodology, and in my experience is prone to fruitless abstract discussions abouit conflicts of appropriate redibility-distributing decisions.

Despite initial reservations, I have found the GNS shift in emphasis from self-reported intent to observable behaviour substantially more useful; not least becuase it elemintaes much of the covert value judgement that goes in in discussions of intent.

And I think the splitting of things like Illusionism and Dramatism off from nebulous 'play preference' to functional tehnique makes much more sense than asserting that these must be intents becuase they are practiced.

[Caldis]

Yeah I think this is where my thoughts were headed in several of the threads taking place right now.  They are seperate things, seperate parts of the big model that may sometimes overlap but dont necessarily have to.

Two questions in my mind
Any ideas on terminology?  G,N, and S have been termed creative agendas; GDS should be termed?  Creative approaches?  

Where does GDS fit into the big model?  Does it belong on a level below creative agenda since it focuses on in game rather than the metagame decisions that must take place before it comes into play or is it something at the same level where each can influence the other and may sometimes overlap?

[ErrathofKosh]

This is an idea that I've been formulating and esposuing in various threads ever since M.J.'s Sim: Reflexive Play? thread.  The roles you assign to GNS and GDS here correlate very nearly with my thought that perhaps play should be diagnosed based on which "elements are explored" and which "elements are used to explore with."

Now, while I have come to the conclusion that that exploring a particular element is not truly effective in determining the GNS CA,  I still believe that certain elements are, generally, easier to explore in a particular CA.  A good example of this is trying to explore setting in a Nar game.  I fluctuate on whether this is possible or not.  Ralph Mazza makes a good case for this when he agrues for Alyria, but I'm still not totally convinced.

However, even if it good be done satisfactorily, I don't see much use lining up elements and CAs.  I think you've made a reasonable suggestion, but I also think that reconciling these two well-established schools of thought may be very difficult.  

That being said, I will shortly be posting my ideas on exploratory and explored elements in a new thread...

Cheers,
Jonathan

[M. J. Young]

Where does GDS fit into the big model?

Let me suggest that it is possible (and indeed I think it's probable) that this question doesn't have an answer; that is, "GDS" as such doesn't fit in the model at all, because G, D, and S are different kinds of things.

I would analogize it to asking where always plays a thief fits in the model. There are aspects of the model which relate to that, but it isn't a single item within the model. Prefers rules-light designs also is something that relates to the model in several ways, but not really as one piece of the model.

So too I suspect that threefold gamism, dramatism, and simulationism are looking at different things even from each other, and so don't have "a place" in the model, but several different places.

I admit, though, that my understanding of threefold is heavily influenced by GNS, so I could have that wrong.

--M. J. Young

[Marco]

I admit, though, that my understanding of threefold is heavily influenced by GNS, so I could have that wrong.

--M. J. Young

GDS is, to my understanding, talks about styles which are composed of goals of play and techniques to realize them. GNS (in common usage, anyway) talks about agendas and separates out techniques.

In theory this is fine.

In practice, since one must use techniquest to realize agendas, I think this is a useful linkage to make (although it doesn't have to be absolute). Consider that many of these links are already inherent in GNS (mostly in the Sim bucket: Pinball-sim, participationism, etc.)

Secondly: the usage of the terms from GNS and GDS are identical in practice, IME. If someone says they are going to run a Narrativist game they are implying the use of some techniques as well as an agenda. It might not be exactly clear what those techniques are (just as in the case of a person declaring they will run a Participationist game) but the areas the speaker is addressing are the same in both cases (how decisions are made and roles of the GM and players). This is the same for Virtuality or Dramatism.

I think the fact that GNS Sim is the most loaded with complementary techniques (often Illusionism, Participationism, Virtuality, etc.) is not coincidental. I think this is because  a lot of people (and I mean people who are conversant with the theory) see it as vague.

-Marco

[Mark Woodhouse]

...I still believe that certain elements are, generally, easier to explore in a particular CA.  A good example of this is trying to explore setting in a Nar game.  I fluctuate on whether this is possible or not.  Ralph Mazza makes a good case for this when he agrues for Alyria, but I'm still not totally convinced.

Tricky. I think part of the problem here is that - particular in Narr play - Setting bleeds into Situation very easily. Is Setting with front-loaded conflict (related to intended Premise) merging into Situation? I think of Midnight here - the setting makes certain Premises more accessible than others, by restricting Situation and Character among other means. There are plenty of other examples.

In general, I'd suspect that Exploration of Setting in Narrativism relies on Setting having Premise-relevant properties, and that's certainly a less "obvious" (and less naturalistic) thing to do than to embed Premise in Character or Situation.

But this probably should be in another thread.

Mark

[Mark Woodhouse]

GDS is, to my understanding, talks about styles which are composed of goals of play and techniques to realize them. GNS (in common usage, anyway) talks about agendas and separates out techniques.

In theory this is fine.

In practice, since one must use techniquest to realize agendas, I think this is a useful linkage to make (although it doesn't have to be absolute). Consider that many of these links are already inherent in GNS (mostly in the Sim bucket: Pinball-sim, participationism, etc.)

My intent is to explicitly call for the decoupling of Techniques from Agendas. The most we can say about a given Technique is that it is enabling of one or another agenda or that it is problematic for one or another agenda. I've seen way too many actual play examples of Techniques getting used in non-intuitive ways to see them as even generally reliable as markers for Creative Agenda.

Ideally, I'd like to see us spend more effort on cataloguing and defining Technique and developing a taxonomy of System elements which stands on its own rather than trying to map Technique to Agenda.

Secondly: the usage of the terms from GNS and GDS are identical in practice, IME.

MMV. One of the most vexing components of my own attempts to negotiate play contracts with players has been the "You keep using that word" problem of Princess Bride fame. I really want a vocabulary that is distinct between Input and Output systems. The Sim/Sim equivalency is particularly vexing.

Mark

[Marco]

MMV. One of the most vexing components of my own attempts to negotiate play contracts with players has been the "You keep using that word" problem of Princess Bride fame. I really want a vocabulary that is distinct between Input and Output systems. The Sim/Sim equivalency is particularly vexing.

Mark

Here's where I see the problem:

If a Creative Agenda is seen as a description of play (i.e. "I analyzed the play and found it to be Gamist") then it's improper to use the terms in a request save as an implication ("I wish that whatever we decide to do with the game, when we stop and analyze play, we will decide it was "gamist").

The decoupling of intent and analysis seems (I think) attractive in some ways but since a GM could go into a game with the rule that "at every decision call, I will promote challenge for the characters" and get a Narrativist game out of that (but that will not be the case reliably over many sessions) then I think it's misleading to suggest that a request for play that has a certain CA description doesn't contain an implict request for attendant techniques.*

Furthermore: since GNS is acutally a measure of what agendas were "socially reinforced" (meaning: appreciated) then they carry with them an implied element of intent anyway. If play centers on moral issues with an absence of Force but peope aren't too enthauistic and the energy is low then it's not clear if it's suitable to call the game Narrativist or not (I'm not talking about a failed game)--but it's certainly not true to say that the players are "Narrativists" (even if we see them engange in 100 sessions of Narrativist play) since we don't know if they'd prefer another form of play more.

On the other hand, if a Creative Agenda is seen as a *goal* of play then "Finding out what it would really be like to live in the Call of Cthulhu universe" doesn't fit anywhere unless Sim includes (or, better, is defined as) "What-if" virtuality. Yes, a post-moretm of the game might get it declared Narrativist--but not reliably if the Virtuality techniques are used and no special request or character composition is made to bring those moral questions into the game.

Where I see the real problem is this: if you treat CA's as high-level goals of play then Gamism, Virtuality, Participationism, and Narrativist play all share a top-level space as styles (and there might be more--but "I prefer rules-lite games" or "I always play a thief," IMO, isn't one of them).

If my stated goal is to have the situation include moral-questions and the technique of free-player-choice is used to dictate all GM decisions then I have a recipie for some sort of Narrativist experience.

(Note: directoral power need not be implied--only the bare minimum requirements of technique or system).

If my stated goal is Virtuality then, again, I have an objective and a minimal technique set that I can appeal to (initial situation may be dictated by the GM, most-realistic-outcome is the guiding force in GM decision making).

And so on.

So if CA's are "about intent but diagnosed by observed behavior" then treating them as a post-mortem doesn't make a lot of sense (the "observation-only" stance. To be useful (and, as they are commonly used here) the language has to be able to state a preference.

-Marco
* And even so, I don't know what a request for a game that analyzes as Sim is. The nearest I can tell is that it's railroaded and forcibly in-genre. If this is a legal request, how about "I'd like to play in this world but I'd like to see what it'd really be like and not be railroaded or forced around"--GNS as a description of play leaves me no way to request that.

[John Kim]

So GDS decision govern Input – what gets put into the SIS and what doesn't. Which is pretty much Lumpley Principle System territory.

In contrast, GNS decisions are all about Output – what the player expects to take OUT of the SIS, and how they go about ensuring it's available.  

I have to disagree with the idea of this conception, because in a tabletop or live-action RPG, input is output.  There is no filter which takes what I do and changes it into something else.  So while rgfa Threefold is phrase more as inputs, and Ron's GNS is phrased more as outputs-- these are largely referring to the same things.  The difference in phrasing is important, but I think they refer to the same underlying phenomena.  This was a point noted in 2001 in Scarlet Jester's GENder model essays (cf. my http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/threefold/">Threefold Model page),

GDS is about decisions. The Ron Edward's model is about techniques. GEN is about desires. Absolutely. Why did it evolve this way? Taking guesses based on information available I'd go with the following: I think that GDS got changed to the Ron Edward's model because Ron wanted a model to design games with, focusing on those aspects of games that he finds most interesting: stance and power distribution. The Ron Edward's Model got evolved to GEN because my group realised (and I believe RGFA understand this too) that the techniques that the Ron Edward's model advocates as the points of it's triangle are actually applicable to any player desire. That is, the Ron Edward's points are actually bottom level techniques that support top level desires (or decisions in GDS).

For example, in recent essays Ron notes that the transcript (i.e. what happened during a session) is insufficient to diagnose GNS.   In other words, the decision-making process itself is a visible part of play, and thus is a part of the output.  

My intent is to explicitly call for the decoupling of Techniques from Agendas. The most we can say about a given Technique is that it is enabling of one or another agenda or that it is problematic for one or another agenda. I've seen way too many actual play examples of Techniques getting used in non-intuitive ways to see them as even generally reliable as markers for Creative Agenda.

This is a common issue for GNS -- i.e. how do you identify GNS mode in terms of real, visible behaviors?  The quiz approach has largely been abandoned.  In my experience, there are two common answers:
1) GNS mode is identified by a subtle pattern or mixture of techniques.  There is no defined mapping, but rather certain people can see the pattern using an intuitive, holistic approach.

2) GNS mode is identified by non-system-related metagame cues -- such as how people nod their heads during the game.  By looking at the times when people nod their heads, you can determine the GNS mode.  

I think to make any headway at this, we need to tackle the mapping of techniques to goals.

[contracycle]

I have to disagree with the idea of this conception, because in a tabletop or live-action RPG, input is output.  There is no filter which takes what I do and changes it into something else.

Yes, there is.  The consent of the other players.  The system.  The  GM or other diagetic authority.

The input may have been "I make an emotional plea" and the response might be "thats an inapriopriate solution to the the challenge, you fail".  There is no guarantee that a proposition in the service of a given CA will be enacted as such.  There is no guarantee IMO that the input will accord with the output, the actual experienced action in the SIS.

[John Kim]

I have to disagree with the idea of this conception, because in a tabletop or live-action RPG, input is output.  There is no filter which takes what I do and changes it into something else.

Yes, there is.  The consent of the other players.  The system.  The  GM or other diagetic authority.

The input may have been "I make an emotional plea" and the response might be "thats an inapriopriate solution to the the challenge, you fail".  There is no guarantee that a proposition in the service of a given CA will be enacted as such.  There is no guarantee IMO that the input will accord with the output, the actual experienced action in the SIS.

Well, but that filter is itself input from other players.  "System" in practice is only what actual players do.  So I guess I should revise my statement to: there is no game output that is not input from one of the players (incl. the GM, of course).  

The larger point is still the same: that treating input and output as separate and distinct isn't functional.  In practice, blocking input is rare for most games.  Instead, the players will learn a mutually-agreeable system and play by it.  (For example, players declare "I try X" for questionable tasks rather than "I accomplish X"; understanding that the GM will then rule.)

[Mark Woodhouse]

In practice, blocking input is rare for most games.  Instead, the players will learn a mutually-agreeable system and play by it.  (For example, players declare "I try X" for questionable tasks rather than "I accomplish X"; understanding that the GM will then rule.)

I may have some broader comments once I've digested a little bit more, but this particular bit seems off to me. The players learning not to do something because they know it will not be allowed into the SIS just moves the filter out of the GM's hands and into the internal space of the players. Indeed, I suspect that one of the principal causes of frustration for players is when they learn this - that no matter what they do, certain things will just not be allowed to happen. This is a cornerstone of System Does Matter, as I see it - the rules + social contract must support an explicit way to handle offer and acceptance for any matter important to the players.

More generally, I do not see that blocked input is nearly as rare as you make it out to be - it may be true that in a group with strong learned behavior that most of the blocking is invisible because it happens at Intent in the IIEE chain (the player simply chooses not to propose something), but input is still strongly filtered.

One thing I note in some of the stronger GDS-Sim advocates is an emphasis on the role of the GM as preeminent in decisions. We should be careful to recognize that the GM has and retains whatever power he/she has in this regard only with the continued consent and connivance of the players.

I suspect I am wandering here, so I will conclude for now.

Best,

Mark