GNS Sim

[Marco]

Looking at the 3D-Model and The Big Model, I've come to the conclusion that I'm not sure what, definitionally, constitutes GNS Sim. Several things have been postulated but I'm not sure where people now stand.

A source of concern comes from what I'm going to call Story Play. I would call it Dramatic play--but that has problems (GDS Dramatism). This is play that is designed to be Dramatic and always interesting or exciting. If the PC's pursue an avenue of investiation the GM will work things out so that somehow it bears fruit.

If the players pick a random spot on the map to go to (in the most extreme case) and head there with high expectations, something cool will be there.

Now: this play might analyze to be either Nar or Gamist ... or maybe even Sim--but for the last (Sim) to happen then Sim cannot be "What-if" or Virtualist play since that's the one thing Story play ain't.

Story-Play is directly opposed to Virtualist Play.

This realization would seem to make most-plausible-play a technique since Story-Play could be Gamist or Narrativist (and therefore, reasonably "Sim," whatever Sim is)--but only if Sim isn't defined by being play that is an attempt to find out "what it's like to be there."

Some people don't see a whole lot of difference between what I'm calling Story-Play and what has been called Virtuality play.

But I think it's pretty clear there is a difference (the suggestion that Story-Games could be just as leigitimately lumped under Narrativist play led to discussions about gradients of Narrativism).

When John laid out a grid of the various 3D forms that corresponded to GNS modes, the upper-middle box was labeled "Mixed" meaning that play that was Immersionist/Distributed was usually, when categorized at all, categorized as mixed Sim-Nar or some such.

Code Select Expand


             ----Theme-----Immersion---Challenge--
             _____________________________________
             |           |           |           |
Decentralized |  GNS Nar  |   Mixed   |  GNS Gam  |
             |___________|___________|___________|
             |           |           |           |
Centralized   |  GNS Sim  |  GNS Sim  |  GNS Gam  |
             |___________|___________|___________|



It's in this Mixed Zone that  I think most of the contention occurs: Recently threads on Sim have suggested (these are my paraphrases):

1. That Sim is simply what has been called Virtuality play--"what if?" based play.

2. That Sim is detected by the presence of intellectual engagement only (as opposed to deep empatic emotions) by the players.

3.  That Sim games are denoted by some sort of meta-game "point" which acts as a filter for player-input.

4. That Sim is an attempt on the part of the players to "learn something" they couldn't otherwise learn in real life.

Recognizing that all CA's can have a pretty high emphasis (although perhaps not priority) on exploration and plausibility then we have the  following.

1. If Sim is a priority on plausibility (i.e. Virtuality: most-probable) then there is no slot in GNS-standard for Story-Games (as I've denoted them here) that aren't Gamist and have pre-created theme.

2. If the difference between Sim and Nar is the lack of emphatic or deep emotion with regards to human-condition stuff then that might be a determining factor--but what about the case of a book or movie that sitrrs deep emotions over which the reader or viewer has no control? That means adjusting Narrativist defintions.

3. A gating factor to player input would be fairly easily determined--but is this a technique or an agenda (I'm honestly not sure). Do gating factors, for example, preculde Gamist or Narrativist play too? I wouldn't necessiarily think so.

4. I'm not sure that play "to learn something" is necessiarily preclusive of Gamism or Nar play. If "learn-something" Sim is what might be called "Scientist play" where the player is focused on running experiments in the game world then I think a focus might more profitably be brought back to emotional investment on the part of the player (number 2) as a definition of player agenda.

I'm very interested in Number 3: Sim as a game with a "point"--I don't fully understand everything Ron meant by that--but I think that it might be valuable to look at.

I also think that Ralph's suggestion (as I understand it, #1) is viable and defensible--it does mean looking at how Story-Play gets categorized.

Finally: I think that the "Mixed" category in the 3D model is something of a weakness--how *I've* been addressing it is in terms of priorities: I have a secondary appreciation of Theme but a primary appreciation of "Immersion."

In my example I have been attributing one mode to the GM and another mode to my own play and expectations.

I'm not sure this is legitimate under the 3D Model and examining it might illuminate that Mixed Square.

-Marco

[M. J. Young]

I see your problem, and raise you two additional problems.

No, seriously, simulationism is proving to be very difficult. If you'll forgive this approach, I'm going to attempt to work not so much from your questions but from my understanding of the agendum.

Ron says that simulationism is about The Dream; it therefore involves the integrity of the game world. Ralph says that it's about What If, and therefore depends on all other variables being held constant. I say it's about discovery, and therefore there must be consistency in that which is explored to support discovery.

We aren't really that far apart, from what I can tell. Each of us sees flaws in the other positions. I think that The Dream tends to reflect subjective approaches but not objective approaches to the concept, and that What If as currently expressed puts too much emphasis on conflict. I think that Ron views my emphasis on discovery as being a confusing way of restating what he's already said. However, we all agree that this agendum is somehow related to examining the shared imagined space for its own sake, as contrasted with trying to manipulate it to some less related end.

You've put forward a method of play in which the referee creates interesting things wherever the players decide to have their characters go. This would seem, in your mind, not to be simulationist by any of these definitions, all of which seem to require that there be a fixed and stable world to explore--that were we to steal the referee's notes, we would find out what was happening everywhere, because in some sense it all exists.

Certainly a lot of simulationist play is like that; but I think that's confusing technique with agendum again.

No one creates the entire world in every detail before play begins; it's just not possible to know the contents of every shop, the personalities of every bum on the streets, the location of every building in a major city (I tried that one once). Part of the function of the referee is to fill in the gaps. That is nearly always so.

The questions then are, how big are the gaps allowed to be, and on what basis does the referee decide what should fill them?

The obvious simple answers reflect creative agenda very directly:

[*]The referee creates challenges for the players so that they can show their skills, indicating that the referee is playing (supportive/passive) gamist play.[*]The referee introduces issues related to premises recognized as important to the players so that they can respond creating theme, showing that he's playing (supportive/passive) narrativist play.[*]The referee decides what is most likely to be there, which is simulationist play.[/list:u]You propose one that doesn't seem to fit:

[*]The referee creates something interesting for the players to explore.[/list:u]The problem arises from the "interesting for the players to explore" phrase. Why is it interesting? We can usually spot things that are interesting because they offer challenge, and with a bit more difficulty perhaps we can spot things that are interesting because they raise premise questions. Yet I would say that if they are interesting solely because players are intrigued by the things themselves, that's simulationist play.

The question, then, is whether this goes against any of the current definitions of simulationism.

It's easy for me to say that it doesn't go against my definition. As far as I can see, the referee creates and reveals the world and the players explore and discover it. It doesn't much matter whether the referee has known for six years what's behind that door or invents it on the spot because you opened it--as long as you don't know whether it was there a moment before, you can't tell the difference during play. Thus discovery does not require absolutely that these things not have been invented on the spot; it only requires that to the players it appears as if it has always been there.

As to The Dream as a definition, I again don't see why instant creation of the world is necessarily inconsistent. What matters to the players is that the entirety seem consistent and complete, and not that there actually be a written record of it somewhere before they find it. In the main, most would rather believe that this existed before they found it, but in play they can't tell, and as long as they still feel as if the world is "there", there's been no breach of their agendum.

What If play requires one other factor, and that is that whatever is invented not only feels like it has always been there, but that it is thoroughly consistent with everything else known about the world. That's hardly an additional requirement, though. Nothing would seem consistent that was blatantly inconsistent. Even if this new piece is in some way anomalous, that's not necessarily going to break What If play if there's a reason for it being anomalous.

So I would say that you're describing simulationism, combined with a bit of no-myth technique. I don't see no myth as incompatible with simulationism; the referee merely creates consistently with that which is known.

--M. J. Young

[Marco]

You've put forward a method of play in which the referee creates interesting things wherever the players decide to have their characters go. This would seem, in your mind, not to be simulationist by any of these definitions, all of which seem to require that there be a fixed and stable world to explore--that were we to steal the referee's notes, we would find out what was happening everywhere, because in some sense it all exists.

(Emphasis added)

Hey MJ,
It's well said--and I think I get you, but I gotta disagree with that. I said that Story-Play can't be Sim IF Sim is defined as Virtuality. That's the only condition where it can't be Sim. My other definitions were:

[2.] Sim play is distinguished by a lack of deep emotional resonance on the part of the players towards human-experience stuff going on during play.

[3.] Sim play is defined by having some sort of point that acts as a gating factor to player and GM input.

[4.] Sim play is based on the players "learning something."

None of these, save maybe (and this is a stretch) number four require a "fixed and stable world to explore."

Now: let's say we are in a game and (using your quote) the "referee decides what is most likely to be there, which is simulationist play." In a vaccum this seems very plausibly like a good definition for Simulationist play.

However: That technique, the technique of choosing the most-likely choice, can apply just as easily to Narrativist or Gamist play and will be applied successfully with proper front-loading of initial situation and character.

So in short, no--I don't think so: The application of most-likely is a virtualist technique that can produce all three existant expressions of CA during play.

-Marco

[Ben Lehman]

This is just where I pop in and talk about the term that I coined and then ran away from me.

Virtuality, as a term, was never intended to be the whole of GNS sim, just a subset of it.  I offer a collection of such subsets http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=11317&highlight=subtyping">here  What connects these?  No idea.  Sim is a bit of a "black box" to me even still.

yrs--
--Ben

edited once: Ah, HTML tags... my old nemesis...

[eef]

I believe 'Simulationism' is poor terminology, and this poor terminology has produced a lot of confusion, this thread being an example.

Consider: a 'Gamist' cares about an RPG as a game, the same way a chess player cares about the game of chess. A 'Narrativist' cares about the story produced in an RPG, the same way an author cares about a story.  'Simulation' isn't an end in itself but a means to an end.  The word 'Sim' in GNS isn't the same type of word as 'Game' and 'Narr'.

Let me step outside of GNS, and consider how 'Game', 'Narrative', and 'Simulation' are used normally.  Games are basically ends in themselves.  I play a game to play a game.  Narratives are not quite ends in themselves, but authors produce a narrative for the enjoyment of that narrative.  When people make a simulaiton, it is invariably a means to a completely different end.  For instance, in my job I am currently simulating interest rate environments to estimate the profitability of financial instruments.  The sim is purely a means of getting to profit.

To sum up:  In normal discourse, 'Game' is a goal in itself,'Narration' is basically a goal in itself, 'Simulation' is a means to an end.

In RPGs, what is the end that Sim is a means to?  In my experience, it is the experience of playing an RPG and becoming a different critter for a while.  In the 3D model, this lines it up with Immersion pretty squarely.

Now, what does this have to do with us?  In abstract theory, it helps a lot to have words used as closely as possible to normal usage. I somehow don't think it's going to happen :-), but I'd like to change GNS to GNE for Game, Narrative, Experience.  Player experience is the end that Sim is a tool for.

[ffilz]

In RPGs, what is the end that Sim is a means to? In my experience, it is the experience of playing an RPG and becoming a different critter for a while. In the 3D model, this lines it up with Immersion pretty squarely.

Hmm, this leaves me out though. I'm not that interested in the game as a game (though I accept that it is a "game", and if people are playing the "game", the "game" needs to be good). I'm also not interested in creating a story for the sake of story. And I'm not really into imagining being a particular character. But I am interested in exploring the setting as just what it is, a simulation. So simulation resonates with me. Now I guess you might argue that it's immersion in setting instead of immersion in character, but I'd still say that I'm exploring and pushing the boundaries of the simulation (in fact, I often look for ways to improve the simulation).

Hmm, I may have just touched on what is so special about gaming for me. I'm still trying to figure that out, all I know is that gaming gives me fulfillment in a way that no other activity does (except perhaps building with LEGO, but that doesn't have the same level of problem solving that RPGs present, even if it does work on the same level of simulating something, and improving that simulation).

Frank

[contracycle]

[2.] Sim play is distinguished by a lack of deep emotional resonance on the part of the players towards human-experience stuff going on during play.

Really?  Why?  Gamism needs no particular resonance with human experience stuff either.

[3.] Sim play is defined by having some sort of point that acts as a gating factor to player and GM input.

Sim is not DEFINED by having a point.  Some sim CAN have a point.  These are very different.

[4.] Sim play is based on the players "learning something."

That is what I think, anyway.

However: That technique, the technique of choosing the most-likely choice, can apply just as easily to Narrativist or Gamist play and will be applied successfully with proper front-loading of initial situation and character.

Yes - the TECHNIQUE can be applicable to more than one CA.  Why is that a problem?  It would only be a problem if CA was defined by technique, which I don't think it is (or can be).

So in short, no--I don't think so: The application of most-likely is a virtualist technique that can produce all three existant expressions of CA during play.

No, Virtualism is a technique characterised by the consistent application of most-likely, and usually in the service of a Sim CA, I would think.

...

But I think it's pretty clear there is a difference (the suggestion that Story-Games could be just as leigitimately lumped under Narrativist play led to discussions about gradients of Narrativism).

I think your use of "story play" here is not very helpful.  What do you mean by story in this context?

That is, in my experience, I have resorted to "story play" - by which I mean, play framed around some idea that allows me to predict character movements to some degree of confidence - as a technique in support of "virtuality".  That is, I can do "hat would most likely happen" without also claiming to do "everything that happens", and better, I get a better worked out version of "what would happen" if I am in some way able to pre-specify setting, colour, context etc.

Therefore, I disagree that "story play" is necessarily the antithesis of "virtuality".  Some sort of structural convention just seeks to limit the amount of things that are subject to "what would happen" rather than dilute the purity of "what would happen".

[Marco]

This is just where I pop in and talk about the term that I coined and then ran away from me.

Virtuality, as a term, was never intended to be the whole of GNS sim, just a subset of it.  I offer a collection of such subsets here  What connects these?  No idea.  Sim is a bit of a "black box" to me even still.

yrs--
--Ben

edited once: Ah, HTML tags... my old nemesis...

Hi Ben,

Agreed--and I'm not trying to say that it "is Sim." Ralph defined Sim as a relation to conflict that was, IMO, pretty close to Virtuality. That would've left room for another relation to conflict (a CA in his framework) that was addressing conflict in (and this is my understanding, Ralph can correct me if I have him wrong).

So that was one definiton I wanted to get out there as a potential canonical Sim. While I think Ralph's schema is a very interesting one (and one that makes a certain amount of sense). I presently see Virtuality as a technique.

-Marco

[Marco]

Buncha questions snipped

If you weren't on the record as thinking I'm only here to play semantic games (or whatever you said exactly, I don't feel like digging up the quote right now) I'd be more inclined to answer these questions.

As it is, I think that:
a) most of this is addressed in my original post.
b) If you reference that post rather than my response to MJ in a PM, maybe we can discuss it there.

-Marco

[Marco]

Buncha questions snipped

If you weren't on the record as thinking I'm only here to play semantic games (or whatever you said exactly, I don't feel like digging up the quote right now) I'd be more inclined to answer these questions.

As it is, I think that:
a) most of this is addressed in my original post.
b) If you reference that post rather than my response to MJ in a PM, maybe we can discuss it there.

Edited to Add: That may be a bit short of me. I'll expand a bit.
1. I've said before in posts you've responsed to that I see gamism "emotional involvement" as distinct from Nar "emotional envolvement." I used the term empathic emotions in the original post.

2. I do see Virtuality as a technique.

3. I did define what I meant by Story-Play and explained that it was definitvely opposed to Virtuality (for purposes of this discussion)

etc.

If I thought this was simple misunderstanding I'd be happy to clear it up and keep clearing it up--but I considered your last few posts to be aggressive even after being asked to tone it down--and I have your PM to me which is, IMO, equally aggressive.

It's not that I want to, or plan to, ignore you. I think you're a bright guy who may have something valuable to add here. It's that when I sit down to try to answer this stuff I don't have a good reply to you given your present stance and the history of correspondence we've had.

-Marco

[Caldis]

I believe Walt nailed it in the Personal Agenda vs Social Agenda

Which brings me to that eternal pit of despair called "what is the Sim Creative Agenda?" Consistency, verisimilitude, causality -- they whiff. I don't need them from you, and you don't need them from me, the best we can hope for is not to screw it up for each other, and what kind of reason is that for me to drag my lazy ass to your place for an evening? Learning, discovery -- they're closer, if I want to learn from you and you from me. But a bit too specific. In the bottom line, what I want from you at my Sim table is for you to bring things into the Dream that I wouldn't have thought of by myself (while still fitting within our mutually expected constraints such as consistency etc.). "The unexpected," as I've put it before. If that's what I want most from you and you from me, then we can call the Creative Agenda Simulationist.

When you consider story based sim play then plot is one of the things that the GM is bringing to the table, how each character reacts to it is what the players bring.  The plotline is not really an important goal for the players it's just something they are reacting to.

[contracycle]

3. I did define what I meant by Story-Play and explained that it was definitvely opposed to Virtuality (for purposes of this discussion)

No, you didn't.  You did not explain what mode of play you meant, you simply asserted a definition by negative reference to another definition.

WHY is story play definitively opposed to virtuality.  Just because you say so?  I tried to explain above why I do not think they are anythng like necessary opposites - but that still depends on what you meant by story play.

None of these issues were addressed in the original post; its an ex cathedra statement of what you assert virtuality to be and "story play" - whatever that may be in actuality - to be.

I ask again: what do you mean by story in this context?  The address of a meaningful premise?  A 3-act play structure?  A triage of "virtualist" probabilities to reduce workload?  all of those could be referred to by "story play" and only one IMO would be directly incompatible with a Sim agenda.

[Marco]

I like Walt's formulation. I like it a lot. I want to look closely at it.

If we define GNS Sim as "What I want from other people, including the GM, is the unexpected elements they bring to the table" is that:

a) incompatible with a personal goal of, say, Narrativism: if I am grooving on the human-experience stuff implicit in the situation and taking non-forced action to address it, does that work still work and count as GNS Sim if the players aren't giving me social positive reinforcement for such play? Is that a legitimate way to look at it? In this case I want other people to add unexpected stuff to the game--and I don't really care if they're engaged by my answer of the premise question--I'm going to do that anyway.

I'm not sure if that's a proper way to formulate a description of play and preference under the model.

b) Is it possible to want Sim-input from some players and not others (for example: I'm okay with Sim-input from the other players--but I want thematic approval from the GM).

c) Is the division between Sim and Nar (absent railroading or force or whatever) that the "unexpected stuff" I get from other players doesn't engage me emotionally?

If it does--if some player's "unexpected input" just happens to interest me because of it's relation to premise--then have we crossed over into Nar play?

Or does Nar play, in this case, mean the other players must be enjoying my story only. If another player's play provides me with premise and I have an answer to it, and I emotionally respond to that, is it still Sim if/because the other player isn't engaged by the thematic quality of my play?

I think that separating out what I called Personal Agenda from Social Agenda would be very helpful in both my understanding of these things and in explaining/defining them.

-Marco

[Marco]

3. I did define what I meant by Story-Play and explained that it was definitvely opposed to Virtuality (for purposes of this discussion)

No, you didn't.  You did not explain what mode of play you meant, you simply asserted a definition by negative reference to another definition.

WHY is story play definitively opposed to virtuality.

When I introduced the term Story Play in the first post in this thread, I said what I was talking about. I wrote:

A source of concern comes from what I'm going to call Story Play. I would call it Dramatic play--but that has problems (GDS Dramatism). This is play that is designed to be Dramatic and always interesting or exciting. If the PC's pursue an avenue of investiation the GM will work things out so that somehow it bears fruit.

If the players pick a random spot on the map to go to (in the most extreme case) and head there with high expectations, something cool will be there.

We can call this something else. I don't care what we call it.

A long time back I had posited a game based on Silence of the Lambs. In this game the PC is playing an FBI agent on a case where the only plausible lead is to talk to famous, incarcerated, serial killer Hannibal Lecter.

It is presumed by the FBI (and, for my example, by the GM) that no other good leads exist--that is: the FBI has already done everything it can think of to catch the killer that on the loose and sending the agent to talk to Lecter is a long-shot--but one they think might just pay off (they have reasons to think so--and it happens they are right about them).

Now: Raven had asked--if the player doesn't have her character talk to Lecter, why not just have the cousin of the murder come forward with a new lead.

Why not? It keeps the game going and keeps the PC's refusal to play ball with Lecter and the FBI from being a frustrating, game ending, dead-end. It prevents long stretches of time spent by the player in other avenues of investigation that are really unlikely to yield anything (say, the player decides to re-examine the already found bodies over and over looking for new clues).

So why not manifest the cousin?

The reason it doesn't happen under Virtuality is that the GM doesn't think it's the most plausible thing that would happen. It wasn't going to happen before the player decided not to talk to Lecter, it's a major event--a cousin with heavy suspicions would tend to figure into the situation as envisioned. The GM may not have thought about the killer's relatives but, when he does, he decides that if any of them were likely to come forward that'd be important enough to have factored into his original conception of the situation.

The GM thinks (for this hypothetical) that all the physical evidence that there is to collect has been found by the FBI's experts already. There is a loose time-line wherein the latest victim will be killed if the killer isn't caught. If the PC doesn't explore this one good lead then the most probable event is that the victim will die.

So that's what happens.

The fact that everyone would probably enjoy the game more if the cousin came forward is immaterial if you are playing under a high virtuality framework.

That's the distinction I'm drawing.

If Raven is running the game then the play is Story-Like and the cousin appears because it keeps the game moving.

If Joe Virtualist is running the game the play is "what the GM thinks it'd really be like" and the player knows that keeping the game moving and interesting will not be a factor (or a very small factor) when it comes to determing what happens.

Joe Virtualist might manipulate pacing (skipping over time while the PC is incarcerated) or might manipulate level of detail of play (not playing out over trips to the bathroom)--but doesn't mutate situation in the interest of "keeping the story going."

-Marco

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I'm gonna have trouble with this thread.

The main thing is that I don't know "which Ron" is supposed to be contributing.

The secondary thing is that I do not find Virtuality to be a useful term yet. In fact, most of the terms which seem to be a "Creative Agenda via specific Techniques," which in the past did or did not include Illusionism depending on who was typing, seem to me to be in terrible disarray.

So if you want me to talk about Simulationism, let me know whether we're talking about clarifying the essays or about how I'd say it now. And spot me the complete disinterest in Virtuality, whatever it may or may not be.

This isn't a slam on Lee or John. I am disavowing all responsibility to account for any of the highly-emotionally-charged struggles over terms like Illusionism, Virtuality (I think), and Vanilla Narrativism. All of them confound Techniques with CA, or rather, the people using the terms do so regularly.

In fact, I suggest that all of the perceived problems with any of the Creative Agenda terms originate from mistaking them for terms like these. If CA could be understood as what it is - aesthetics - and Techniques could be presented as what they are - concrete stuff we do - then I think we'd actually get somewhere.

Marco, I might be going off the rails here in terms of thread topic, but I think my age-old claim that CA (although I didn't use this term back then) is explicable in concrete observations is what's been tripping all this up for ages. That claim is valid, but it does not mean, and never did, that a given Technique or set of Techniques were a CA. It seems to me that ever since I said that, you and several others have been driving like gangbusters to find out what Techniques I must be talking about, searching through mountains of posts to suss it out, and we always hit the same brick wall because I'm just not talking about Techniques per se - I'm talking about the CA arrow as observable through all the levels of the Big Model, with Social Contract being the big kahuna.

I really don't think that the easy and straightforward explanation of Simulationist play, which I would like to review right here, is going to be possible unless I get some confirmation about what I'm asking for in this post.

Best,
Ron