Celebrating Theme is Nar Equiv of the Gamist Crunch.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

People always seem to miss the Gamist definition, or miss a piece of it. Marco, no one in this thread seems to have said what they needed to say, although nothing is terribly wrong with what's been said. Maybe this will help.

Social cred in Gamist play has exactly the same role that it does in any sort of play. It's the matrix in which play is embedded. So any questions about solo play, for example, apply to "role-playing in general." My thinking about that can wait for another thread.

It comes up all the time when people discuss Gamist play because of the long-standing misapprehension that Gamist play must be "selfish."

But to focus on it as a unique definitional feature is to get off track. The unique definitional feature of Gamist play is not the social cred, but the social cred about personal strategy and guts. If these can be observed to be the "creative motor" throughout a full cycle of the reward system,* then we're talking Gamist play.

The proportions of strategy vs. guts, by the way, are highly variable. I think that has a lot to do with Gamble vs. Crunch.

Side point: what about the ostensible Gamist who just likes winning, without strategy & guts? I'm not convinced that this actually describes the example player who's been brought up, but let's say it does. In my view, such a player is a dysfunctional disaster - a wimp who likes the feel of winning but who cannot stand to lose. He'll do fine as long as he's safely mingled with non-Gamist other players. Put him in with real Gamists and he'd get mutilated.

Before discussing any more about this fellow or any other hypothetical/real fellows, I suggest that this thread, more than any other I've seen in recent history, needs to be founded on discussions of actual play.

Best,
Ron

* This is my current phrasing that I used to call an "instance." Usually requires a session at the very least, often more.

[Marco]

Hello,

People always seem to miss the Gamist definition, or miss a piece of it. Marco, no one in this thread seems to have said what they needed to say, although nothing is terribly wrong with what's been said. Maybe this will help.

I'm not complain'. Here is the actual play experience that springs to mind.

NOTE: this is the player of Roland Thunder in the After The War write-up in Acutal Play. He's hardly a disaster (and I realize no one said he was) and he's not selfish. He's one of the finest guys I game with. He also not hypothetical (and I realize that wasn't said either--but, you know, I wanna be real clear).

We started a 1st level game. Neither of us wanted to lose a character so we played carefully. He was a fighter, I was a magic user. It was *sorta* set in the Elric universe after the fall of Melnibone (except it wasn't that specific reality--just similar).

So we do some very careful adventuring and when the GM is not around, the fighter-player suggests doing a random dungeon for some level-appropriate treasure and Xp (we're gonna do this for a few hours until the GM gets back).

The system we were using for encounters was one that we'd created some time ago to make sure that the fights were pretty easy--they were "at level" meaning that we felt we could beat them even with just a (good) fighter and a (whimpy) magic user.

I didn't really *want* to, in that I was not jazzed by it, but he did. I think that he wanted:
a) a higher level character --and--
b) he enjoyed the exercise.

I was okay with going to third level (or whatever it was? Fourth?) but I didn't really enjoy the exercise per se--especially because, if I died, I'd lose my character. I'd get to make another character at the same XP level (our own little bit of drift) but I'd lose the cool history I had.

So we did it. We got some XP and a little bit of treasure and the GM came back and we returned to the game (which was a good deal more story-like).

Through out that game, he carefully tracked experience (including Xp for treasure which I didn't think much of) and very much enjoyed the minor combats we ran into (and would seek more if he thought it wouldn't upset me). I remember that he was big on totally clearing a level that we were well able to handle.

I don't remember if we did the random dungeon thing again in that game--but that's the part that really stands out to me as him saying 'I enjoy this.' (He enjoyed the rest of it too--but I, specifically, did not enjoy that).

Oh, and one other thing: he doesn't much care for resource management which, in AD&D is the big tactic. He'd even go so far as to declare limited use items to be 'junk' (he really didn't like AD&D magic users). But he did enjoy combat and leveling up.

Finally: his wish 'not to lose' is the same as mine. Neither of use 'enjoyed' taking major gambles with our characters. He was quite philosophical about a dead character (if he felt the kill was fair) but he didn't play bumpercars with his PC. He did like combat--but not high-risk combat. He didn't like combat for the guts and tactical aspect of it any more, I think, than I like Solitare for the 'guts and tactics' (no guts, no real tactics IMO).

Is that gamist play? There wasn't much guts involved. The GM coulda run us through that (in some cases we did run through that with a GM). But this was a functional bit of hack-and-slash in an otherwise story-like game.

-Marco

[Ron Edwards]

H'm, seems like low-stress Gamism to me.

To use the Solitaire analogy (a game I like too, so it's a good touchpoint), it's not like I stress about winning ... but there's some tactics there. Sometimes two possible moves are available, and I have to pick one. For example, if I can pull a card off a higher stack, I choose it rather than the card over the lower stack. Or decide whether to play a king from the draw rather than from a stack. That sort of thing. It's still tactics, even if one's whole ego isn't at stake. I certainly don't make such decisions randomly, and I suspect no one who enjoys Solitaire does.

In fact, the willingness to recognize that one has lost this time, for whatever reason (bad draw, early decision that turned out not to fly, whatever) is part of enjoying the tactics. That, in my mind, is part of "guts" - which I think is pretty important. Sometimes the guy who's less stressed about losing is the guy with the most guts.

You're right, though, that it's very different from the Wimp who cannot bear to lose, that I was describing.

Jay, I really think that your ability to communicate and debate your points in this thread will be made possible (not just enhanced) through discussions of actual play events and decisions. Marco has modeled the value of this approach perfectly, in one brief post.

Best,
Ron

[M. J. Young]

There seems to be a lot happening here; it's one of those threads I have to start answering before I finish reading, or I'll never get it all clear in my brain.

Marco: all social reinforcement can be internalized or externalized. That is, I can be proud of what I did because people saw it and were impressed, or I can be proud of what I did because had they seen it they would have been impressed. In Solitaire, it's almost always the latter--I feel like I did well, that I played well and I won, and that's something to respect. Maybe no one will ever know, but I know, and I respect myself a bit more for that success.

Caldis: the very point that is at issue here is the nature of play in which the character players are not contributing significantly. Traditionally this gets shoved into simulationism, as if illusionism is not dysfunctional if it is simulationist illusionism. What is being said here is that illusionism is always dysfunctional, and participationism does not automatically mean simulationism--it could mean gamism in which everyone is pretending that there is something at risk even though deep down they know there isn't, so they respect each other for the decisions that they're only pretending made a difference; it could mean narrativism in which only the referee addressed premise in any way.

Look at it from another angle. We all agree that gamism, narrativism, and simulationism can all be played with what might be called full open credibility: everyone has the right to make any statement about any object or event within the shared imaginary space which fits central agreements about that space. This is what GM-full play is all about. Most people are more comfortable if you dial that back such that the referee has more credibility, usually more credibility than the character players. On a thousand point scale, we can reduce the dial to 999 to 1 in favor of the referee and still have any one of the three agenda in play. Now, some people think that if you get rid of that last one increment of credibility in the hands of the players, you have simulationism. I say no. Either you have nothing at all as an agendum, or we have participationist gamism, narrativism, or simulationism, depending on whatever the only player who still has credibility is pursuing.

The essays are written with the idea that participationist narrativism can't exist and participationist gamism probably can't exist, so participationism must be simulationist. I'm saying that participationism is no less problematic for simulationism than it is for the other two agenda, and that it is entirely possible to have participationist play which is about glory or premise.

Back on the first page of this thread I made a post that I thought got to the heart of the matter. Participationism is possible in all three agenda; as long as one participant (the referee) is contributing to the shared imagined space and the others are approving what is contributed, we have an agendum functioning.

Ron: your hypothetical wimp is exactly the sort of player who wants gamist participationism. He wants to be made to feel like a winner without any real risk of losing. In the same way, a participationist narrativist wants to feel like he was part of this great meaningful story without having to make the decisions that matter.

On Solitaire: I learned a great deal about strategy in relation to randomized systems from playing that game. When I was a teenager, I would play it in my room (with real cards--personal computers didn't exist then), and if I lost, I would face all the hidden cards to work out exactly why I lost and whether I could have won had I played differently. I have a pretty good handle at this point on how to maximize my chance of winning that game, because, as Ron observes, there are better and worse moves. Most people never give this a thought--they'll tell you that you should make a certain move merely because you can make it, and that's often incorrect strategically.

--M. J. Young

[Marco]

MJ, I'm with you--I think it was an internalized reward. Who knows, maybe he was imagining an audience that would applaud his mad level-getting skillz. I don't know--I guess it doesn't matter. If we're going to allow imaginary audiences, I think I'll ignore the 'social' descriptor since, to me, that doesn't work with imaginary friends--but it's not a big deal.

Also: I agree with you all on the Solitaire thing.

-Marco

[Caldis]

Caldis: the very point that is at issue here is the nature of play in which the character players are not contributing significantly. Traditionally this gets shoved into simulationism, as if illusionism is not dysfunctional if it is simulationist illusionism. What is being said here is that illusionism is always dysfunctional, and participationism does not automatically mean simulationism--it could mean gamism in which everyone is pretending that there is something at risk even though deep down they know there isn't, so they respect each other for the decisions that they're only pretending made a difference; it could mean narrativism in which only the referee addressed premise in any way.

That's what I dispute.  Narrativism can not exist  with only the gm addressing premise.  The narrativist player is looking to express his take on the premise, he's there to create that address of premise by his actions in game.  He is not there to experience a game that has premise or addresses premise if he is not part of creating that experience, just as the gamist has to be involved in creating victory.  

Participationism involves giving up all thematic control to the gm.  That's acceptable to a gamist since he doesnt care about creating theme and to the simulationist since his goal isnt to create theme but to celebrate the existing theme.  Participationism is to the narrativist as a game where the gm made all the strategic decisions would be to a gamist, totally undermining the point of the game.

The simulationist is able to contribute in a game even if he is not contributing thematically.  In the current simulationist game that I'm invloved in there is very little in the way of theme being developed.  What I'm able to contribute to the game is mostly color and that's where I get my kicks.  My character is a merchant roguish scoundrel who is greedy and overconfident (gurps disadvantages) I enjoy acting foppish, tricking people out of their money and barging into situations where I dont belong.  Another player has a character who is a clean freak wizard with an intricate web of allies and rivals, he freaks out if he falls in the mud spends a lot of time in bath houses and if his rivals show up he revels in showing them up.  We each contribute to the game without contributing thematically.  When and if theme comes into the game it's controlled by the gm, we accept it and use it to showcase our characters foibles.

[Walt Freitag]

I find M. J.'s proposition very interesting.

I've tried to come to grips with the phenomena you're talking about here, or very similar ones, with the concept of zilchplay. The difference is whether we're focusing on individual participants (zilchplay is something an individual participant can do, but, probably, a whole group cannot and still be doing anything resembling role playing) or still trying to identify an agenda for the whole group (for which M. J.'s CA-specific flavors of participationism make better descriptors).

There's also this to consider: some individual internal motivations and rewards for play, though they probably exist, cannot be comprehended within the Big Model. The largest box in the Big Model is the Social Contract, which is entirely, um, social. Nothing in the Big Model is not within that social box. Hence, anything that is not in that social box is not part of, and not accessible to, the Big Model. This includes hypothetical "purely internalized" rewards.

This basic issue bites us in the ass every time we try to compare or apply non-social solitaire play to the Big Model.

Yes, there is plausible reason to believe that a solitaire (card) player finds the activity rewarding, and we can easily describe plausible reasons why such a player might find it so, even if the player never brags, compares scores, or communicates anything whatsoever with anyone whatsoever about that play.

Yes, it's quite plausible that some role players might also find some role playing rewarding for some or all of those same reasons.

But we can't recognize the existence of, categorize, or analyze the consequences of, those reasons in terms of the Big Model. Because they're nowhere in the Social box that is the Big Model's entire domain.

The way I prefer to think of it is this: to say that Creative Agenda characterizes or illuminates "how we have fun" in role playing is a slight overstatement. It actually characterizes "how we have fun socially" or, you might put it, "how we contribute to one another's fun." There might be all kinds of solo-fun going on too -- and promoting such solo-fun might very well be a worthwhile objective for a role playing game designer -- but solo-fun neither illuminates, nor is illuminated by, the understanding or identifying of Creative Agenda.

- Walt

[Silmenume]

Hey M. J.,

... Either you have nothing at all as an agendum, or we have participationist gamism, narrativism, or simulationism, depending on whatever the only player who still has credibility is pursuing.

The essays are written with the idea that participationist narrativism can't exist and participationist gamism probably can't exist, so participationism must be simulationist. I'm saying that participationism is no less problematic for simulationism than it is for the other two agenda, and that it is entirely possible to have participationist play which is about glory or premise.

Thank you for stating so succinctly what I have failed so miserably to do!  I'm not sure what side of the coin I am on regarding the above stated duality, however I want to make absolutely crystal clear that there must be uniformity in the way we apply the Model.  We can either recognize Zilchplay as the home of participationist play or we recognize participationist play as legitimate in all the CA's, but we can't simply shunt off participationist play off to a single CA.  What we currently have in the Model is the equivalent of Ptolomy's epicycles.

Caldis, I not championing for or against your position on the validity of pre-established form of outcome (the Theme in the case of Nar) as a CA, but what I am arguing against is the inconsistent application of that base principle of the Model.  Either "decisions that affect the form of outcome" are or are not the basis for CA definition, but you can't have "decisions that affect the form of outcome" be definitional for some CA's and not others.

... Participationism involves giving up all thematic control to the gm.

Actually that is synecdoche.  You have mistaken the whole for the one.  Participationism is the giving up all CA relevant input to the GM – not just Thematic input.

The simulationist is able to contribute in a game even if he is not contributing thematically.

Here we have a category error.  A Sim player is not going to be (mindfully – using Ron's usage) contributing to Theme by definition.  If he was then he would be playing Nar and not Sim.  The statement is just as illogical as saying, "A Gamist is able to contribute in a game even if he is not contributing thematically, or "A Narrativist is able to contribute in a game even if he is not contributing to the goal of Victory."  A Simulationist is not contributing to a Sim game if he is addressing Premise (contributing Thematically) or Challenge (contributing Strategically).  A Sim player is engaging in Bricolage, employing the elements of Exploration – but that only provisional at this moment (at best!) and certainly is not the point of this thread.

Hey Walt,

Just a few thoughts to consider.

First of all, unlike solitaire, there are always at least two players involved in roleplay as far as the model goes.  Exploration, by current definition, is the sharing of imaginings so that pegs the lower limit at two players, GM and player.  Thus even if there is only one player he is still interacting with another person – the GM.  His successes are still known to another.  This formulation still makes the situation/conditions of play social in nature.

Another way to look at the idea of rewards for effective play is that all rewards can only be "felt" internally.  So whether the impetus for the "feeling" of reward comes externally (from someone else) or internally (the "feeling" of a job well done) might one might (not should!) consider that where the impetus came from irrelevant as the "feeling" itself can only be experienced from within.

This may sound a little goofy but consider the Shared Imaginary Space.  All the players are not sharing a common thing (an imaginary space), but rather strive mightily, via the Lumpley Principle, to make sure they are all imagining the same elements which are construed to be in the "same space."  In both cases what is being imagined or felt can only reside within the individual.  Take away that individual and there is no imagining or feeling.

This last part has digressed far from this thread's original intention, and lest we awaken the ire of the gods of moderation let us either drop this particular topic or move it to another thread!

[Marco]

That's what I dispute.  Narrativism can not exist  with only the gm addressing premise.  The narrativist player is looking to express his take on the premise, he's there to create that address of premise by his actions in game.  He is not there to experience a game that has premise or addresses premise if he is not part of creating that experience, just as the gamist has to be involved in creating victory.  

Mmm ... here's what I'm thinking: remember my example with the Nazi turn-coat the players are sent to rescue? There's a reason I set that up. I think it's fair to call the GM a Narrativist if he or she is really interested in the ethical questions posed by the situation.

If, at the end of play, the two Sim players have not really engaged with the moral/ethical/human experience aspects of the situation (but did really love the game and had fun) I think it's fair to say the GM has played "Narrativist" andthe players played "Sim."

What it sounds to me like you're saying is that the title can only apply to players and not the GM. I dunno if that's true or not from the essays--but conceptually, that seems incomplete to me.

-Marco

[Caldis]

Actually that is synecdoche. You have mistaken the whole for the one. Participationism is the giving up all CA relevant input to the GM – not just Thematic input. ]

Not according to the glossary.

Participationism is "The Technique of using Force without the Black Curtain".  Force is "The Technique of control over characters' thematically-significant decisions by anyone who is not the character's player."

Now I know the glossary is provisional but this is exactly how I've always understood the term and how I've seen it used here.  I believe you are conflating the term to describe something it's not intended for which will cause all kinds of problems if we try and have a discussion using the term.

The problem I see with your definition is that if I am conciously giving up all CA related input to the GM then how can I possibly be expressing that agenda?  It seems disfunctional to me, you cant express an agenda if your input is irrelevant.

If, at the end of play, the two Sim players have not really engaged with the moral/ethical/human experience aspects of the situation (but did really love the game and had fun) I think it's fair to say the GM has played "Narrativist" andthe players played "Sim." ]

What your example shows is a gm who has set the game up for a narrativist situation but it doesnt show how he plays.  Has he expressed narrativism by trying to make the choice of what to do with the officer the central focus of play or has he drifted towards what seems to have been of interest to the others.  Maybe just tactical WWII combat.

[contracycle]

The problem I see with your definition is that if I am conciously giving up all CA related input to the GM then how can I possibly be expressing that agenda?  It seems disfunctional to me, you cant express an agenda if your input is irrelevant.

You cannot.  You are just participating, going along for the ride.

Participationism is the deferral of all CA-relevant of input to the GM consensually.

Illusionism is more like the GM arrogating control of all CA-relevant decision non-consensually.

[Marco]

What your example shows is a gm who has set the game up for a narrativist situation but it doesnt show how he plays.  Has he expressed narrativism by trying to make the choice of what to do with the officer the central focus of play or has he drifted towards what seems to have been of interest to the others.  Maybe just tactical WWII combat.

I agree that it's just a scenario set up (I said that in the post)--my question is: if the GM is providing the adventure because he or she is interested in the premise element of the situation, is it correct to say that the GM is exhibiting Narrativism?

If yes, then it's a case (in a one-on-one) that one person is Nar and one player is Sim (assuming the player is sim).

If no, then okay--I'm alright with that. But do the CA's really only apply to players and not to GM's?

-Marco

[contracycle]

The GM is a player.  So you have mixed game with one Narr player and two Sim players.  They may be exhibiting their individual CA's, or not, depending on how much support they get in so doing.  If they can play succesfully, they have likely negotiated some sort of drift.

[Marco]

The GM is a player.  So you have mixed game with one Narr player and two Sim players.  They may be exhibiting their individual CA's, or not, depending on how much support they get in so doing.  If they can play succesfully, they have likely negotiated some sort of drift.

So then MJ is right and Narrativism can exist with "only the GM addressing premise?" (which was what sparked this question)

-Marco

[contracycle]

So then MJ is right and Narrativism can exist with "only the GM addressing premise?" (which was what sparked this question)

Shrug.  Maybe.  Answering your question does not imply I have a developed view on MJ's proposition.  MJ was proposing participationist Narr specifically, btw.  It seems reasonable at first glance to me.