Is gamism about facing the challenge or wanting the rewards?

[GB Steve]

Or both or neither? I'm a little confused.

For example. 3e seems squarely aimed at ratcheting up challenges and giving just enough rewards so that those challenges stay interesting (i.e. achievable). When I play 3e, I try and play it with this in mind. It's about facing challenges and getting rewards: xp, getting those new feats etc. This sounds like a typically gamist approach.

[I can't actually do this for very long and soon get bored if this is the main focus of the game. That doesn't have to be the case in 3e/d20 but you need to work at it to avoid it, and games just seem to drift into this way of playing.]

On the other hand, we had a player who was solely focused on his PC being the best, getting all the cool gear, having the most interesting plots, almost always to the detriment of the other PCs (and players). He was not really interested in the challenge but focused entirely on the rewards. He was actually extremely risk averse.

For example, in an RQ game he bound the most humongous shade into his troll's mace and every time there was a fight it popped out and scared half the enemy force away. A shade is scary but not very tough. He would leave it out until it had taken about half its HPs in damage and then recall it. When it was pointed out to him that he couldn't tell how damaged the shade was, he never used it again. Apart from possibly being disingenuous, is this also a gamist approach?

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

There's a lot of variety in Gamist play, just as there is across sports and traditional games of all kinds. It's a big category and can "done" in all sorts of ways, at all levels of intensity, and in different sorts of "about what."

When talking about Gamism, I like to focus on a couple of things:

1. The social acknowledgment of one's achievement, which really isn't different as a phenomenon from any other sort of role-playing - it's just that people forget to mention or believe it, so I emphasize it.

2. Most importantly, a given participant demonstrates personal strategy and guts, in some fashion or another. This is a big deal - this is "why we play," in Gamist terms.

Since #1 is important for any Creative Agenda, clearly you can't have a Gamist group when everybody has totally different notions about #2. (This point is, again, not supposed to be a major revelation or any different from other Agendas).

Now, looking at your question with all this in mind, here's the scoop:

Challenge = the imaginary situation, which as you point out, can be difficult or easy or whatever - but it provides an arena for personal strategy and guts to be applied

Reward (in Gamism) = either closure ("game over") or the opportunity for new/better contexts for new Challenges - rebuilding one's player-character to whatever extent is a common example

So both have to be involved ... but which one provides a given person with his or her special fun is pretty variable. And the stress or difficulty or importance of either one varies widely too.

For instance, imagine a game in which Challenges are pretty mild and pretty predictable, but applying the Rewards (say, spending one's XPs) offers lots of ways to screw up one's character's effectiveness, as well as ways to excel.

By contrast, imagine a game in which how the Rewards are applied are pretty much set in stone, but the Challenges are extremely deceptive and extremely variable, in fact, mixed in with helpers and useful items which you might destroy if you don't role-play with careful strategy.

Or re-combine to taste, or do it differently. Lots of variety.

Does that help, or make sense?

Oh yeah! I respond to a lot of Gamist play much like you do - fun for a bit, then after a couple of cycles, getting restless with the whole shebang. But I've discovered that light, fun, fast Gamist stuff is great for me. If you haven't checked out The Great Ork Gods yet, then you really oughtta. Amazing.

Best,
Ron