The Forge Archives

This was also posted on my LJ blog.

A while back on IRC I said something along the lines of "I can enjoy any game, regardless of GNS, providing that the SC is functional, and the rules aren't actually broken." This claim was universally reviled. :)

So, the other night I was talking to Ben (Lehman) about some other stuff (why the current definition of Sim seems to me to have some holes in it) and I realized a better way to explain it:

Basically, Exploration is king. There's a reason it's the biggest layer after Social Contract. Exploration is the fundamental act of role-playing: making stuff up as a group. If you ask someone why he likes to role-play, you'll get a bunch of answers related to Techniques, Ephemera; usually Color and Setting figure highly. But Exploration is where it's at. We play to make stuff up with our friends. If we don't enjoy making stuff up, then we might as well stop now. GNS and all the rest is irrelevant. Exploration is what makes RPGs different from watching movies, from reading books, from writing fiction, from CRPGs. If you grok me here, the rest of this will be easy. GNS is a trivial consideration. It's a classification method. You use it to distinguish among different hows and whys of making things up.

If (some hypothetical) you enjoy making things up, then you will be happy as a weevil in biscuits in any game, regardless of GNS. The caveat is that you have to know what's going on. The game has to be functional. If the game doesn't work on the SC layer, then you never get to the whole "enjoyment of Exploration" aspect. If you go into the game, say, expecting to play Gamist, and two other guys are trying to play Nar, and some other guy is playing Sim - no one communicates, everyone assumes that *he's* doing it right, and everyone else is crazy / breaking the rules / whatever... then there's a problem.

That's where GNS comes in. It tells you what your options are. There's a whole big set of possible "things that can go on in a game." Reading Forge theory and GNS educates you to what those possibilities are *before* you go into a game. It's like manners training. You know how to behave in a wide variety of situations. There is no "GNS preference." GNS preference is a huge red-herring. There is only personal preference in terms of specific combinations of Techniques, Ephemera, Color, Setting, etc. Some biscuits have suger for some weevils. Other biscuits have cinnamon. Some are just plain. But they all taste good as long as the cook hasn't poisoned them.

Nathan, you are so bloody wrong. You are obviously a pinko-commie-bastard! You will be shot for treason, you stinking dirty ape! Die! Die! Die! And choke on your own vomit! (Ok, now this is me giving a big, rabid wink to Nathan.)

I get and agree what you're saying, Nathan, with the exception that I disagree with your conclusion about the importance of System.

Even though Exploration is King and you can make a go of a game given the proper SC, I'm not seeing how that makes System any less important in the sense that Ron's essay indicates it is important in. That is, certainly not the end-all, be-all of importance, but damn important to play, since System provides the medium through which the SC is enacted.

IE: The title/idea is that "System Matters" not that "System is All That Matters". Contrast with "System Does Not Matter".

As such, a functioning SC in a non-supportive (right word?) System (for that SC) is going to be troubled and quite possibly nullified (caveat: I'm not even sure one can have a functioning SC outside of actual play, given that the SC only has meaning in play).

Well, if we take system to mean the methods by which the SiS is explored / confirmed / created, then system is the means of exploration, and priveliging the one over the other is like, I don't know, priveliging means of transport over the landscape travelled.

And anyway, the cool kids all say situation is king these days...

Hello,

Since I see System as one of the five components of Exploration, I'm kind of puzzled about dichotomizing System and Exploration.

I'm also puzzled about the Creative Agenda point - because yes, it's not role-playing if there's no Exploration ... and hypothetically, it's still role-playing if there's Exploration but no Creative Agenda (see Zilchplay) ...

... but I never said that the presence of a CA is what defines role-playing. So pointing out that role-playing requires Exploration (an SIS) but not a Creative Agenda doesn't seem to me to be refuting anything.

My claim was and is that fun role-playing is best (most reliably) met by arriving at and reinforcing a locally socially-acceptable Creative Agenda. Not that people will be failing to role-play if they don't have one.

So overall, Nathan, it seems to me as if you're beating the shit out of two donkeys - but neither of them are the one I'm riding.

But perhaps I would say that, eh? As the author? So I'll yield the field to other posters for a while.

Best,
Ron

Hee hee hee.

Raven, don't, like, take the subject line too seriously. I tend to put a certain amount of zing into these to draw attention to them.

Systems absolutely still need coherent design. But, given a set of coherently designed systems, which one you actually play really doesn't matter that much on anything other than aesthetic principles.

Ron, as far as your comments go, this isn't actually aimd at you very much at all. There are places where I think the theory has holes, but this isn't one of them. This is mostly aimed at the way people use the theory. I'm always encountering people who say "Well, I don't like Sim much, so..." or "My GNS preference is such that Gamism..." etc. I hate that. These are big fat cop outs.

People do not *have* GNS preferences. Personal preference shows up on a way more specific level than the hugely broad GNS.

These sorts of statements usually seem to crop up when people are explaining why they can't enjoy a particular game. Such flimsy excuses displease me. G, N, and S are all fun. They are all cool. They are all good. They are all Exploration. I suggest that if the only reason you can come up with for disliking a game is "because it's Sim," then you haven't actually put enough effort into understanding what's going on in the game to know if you like it or not.

"Because it's Sim" is not an acceptable reason for disliking a game. "Because vampires aren't cool," might be. "Because I don't like Kung Fu," might be. "Because dice pools are more fun than linear rolls," might be.

Certainly, if you are exploring a fictional world, with a functional Social Contract, and everyone is having fun - then that's enough. Who cares about the rest?

But that is only because you've already taken everything. You've rolled the huge wooden horse into your city, and GNS is simply biding its time before it jumps out. What makes exploration fun? My Creative Agenda being met. That is nothing deep, it is more or less a truth by definition. What, then, is the kind of exploration I enjoy most? The exploration in which my Creative Agenda is being met, in other words, the exploration which in accordance with my GNS-preferences.

I don't see how you can escape this, except by claiming that either:
1. GNS is either an incoherent, a dysfunctional or an incomplete set of Creative Agenda's. (I am inclined to claim that it is incomplete, but will refrain from doing so here.)
2. Everybody enjoys everything equally.

So I have to agree with Ron.

The joys of posting at the same time. I see you do wish to claim that everyone enjoys all creative agenda's equally.

That strikes me as very strange. Some people like competitive games, some like dreaming away, and others like deep literature. I see no necessity of everyone liking all these equally. Why would roleplaying games be different?

Victor,

"Realizing a Creative Agenda" does not determine whether or not Exploration is fun. Exploration is "making stuff up as a group." If I personalize it, I get "I like making stuff up with my friends." This is the base-line, the prerequisite for role-playing. Exploration must be fun for it's own sake in order for role-playing to exist as an entertainment medium.

I think that most people assume that Exploration is "fun neutral," with the funness of a game being determined by what sort of CA is stacked on top of it. This is backwards. Exploration is baseline fun. GNS is fun neutral, because every GNS category can contain many specific combinations that you enjoy, or that you don't enjoy.

The point is that it is impossible to like a "Creative Agenda."

"Creative Agenda" is a broad classification layer. You cannot like Sim. You cannot like Nar. You cannot like Gam. You cannot dislike them, either. They are not entities. They are identification labels assigned to sets that contain millions and millions of specific combinations of the 5 elements, techniques, ephemera, etc.

These specific combinations are what you can like or dislike.

BTW, Ron has not disagreed with me, so far. The stuff that I've posted so far does not contradict the theory in any way that I know of. It contradicts how people apply it.

Quote from: Paganini
The point is that it is impossible to like a "Creative Agenda."

"Creative Agenda" is a broad classification layer. You cannot like Sim. You cannot like Nar. You cannot like Gam. You cannot dislike them, either. They are not entities. They are identification labels assigned to sets that contain millions and millions of specific combinations of the 5 elements, techniques, ephemera, etc.

These specific combinations are what you can like or dislike.

BTW, Ron has not disagreed with me, so far. The stuff that I've posted so far does not contradict the theory in any way that I know of. It contradicts how people apply it.

This is perhaps the clearest explanation of how I have been thinking about CAs recently, and I didn't even write it.

This is similar to how when talking about music some of my friends say they dislike Country, Soul, Funk, Jazz, and Blues but they love Rock. There are so many elements in common, so subtle differences, and so many performers and songs influenced by more than one genre that it's impossible to love every Rock song but hate all the genres that cross over so closely. The taxonomy may be accurate, but it's not precise. There are influences found in many songs that require an accurate labelling to include a slash or comma.

Likewise, RPGs are each at least a bit different, and gaming groups are each at least a bit different. It would be impossible to say that any small hint of what could be labelled Gam could ruin a whole session for someone who says they don't like Gamism. Gamism doesn't exist by itself, nor does Sim or Nar. Certain combinations of rules, decisions about those rules, goals, and other factors can be seen along a scale and then labelled as primarily one of the three. Judgements may be made in some cases whether one combination is "more Nar" than another, but both could have some Nar influence and be useful in a primarily Nar session.

In short, I think of CAs more as descriptive than prescriptive terms. That's the point I infer from the quote, too. Please let me know if I'm too far off base.

Huh.  I'm torn here - 'cause for me you're right, it isn't the Gam/Nar/Simness of play that dictates fun/not-fun, it's details.

But I know people who, if play is going to be all about challenge/competion, will literally WALK AWAY as soon as they identify that.  Ditto for Sim/Nar.

So - the far more common issue is the failure to coherently identify and persue a particular CA (so that the details end up not working), but I wouldn't go so far as to say there is NO like/dislike associated with the CA's.

I do tend to be happier in Nar than the others.  Which I agree is a very different statement than "I like Nar and dislike Sim/Game," but it also doesn't mean like/dislike of CA is meaningless  . . .

Gordon

Quote from: Paganini
"Creative Agenda" is a broad classification layer. You cannot like Sim. You cannot like Nar. You cannot like Gam. You cannot dislike them, either. They are not entities. They are identification labels assigned to sets that contain millions and millions of specific combinations of the 5 elements, techniques, ephemera, etc.

If this were true, GNS would be meaningless. There has to be some reason for the lines to be drawn in this particular way instead of any other. This reason is the psychological make-up of a human being. GNS is true (that is, GNS incompatibility, the most important result of the theory, exists) if and only if humans really are structured to conform to the classification. Consider: I have a need for moral deliberation, thus I like narrativist games that support it. This is a blanket preference exactly because it's arrived at through motivation - my agenda in playing is to create theme, so that affects my likings greatly. Of course other things affect my preferences, but I fail to see how this agenda preference couldn't exist.

Saying that I cannot like a creative agenda is akin to saying that I cannot distinguish between the agendas in actual play. Nothing is farther from the truth. The whole idea of GNS incompatibility stems from the situation where players are not happy with whatever agenda it is under question. By claiming that people cannot prefer an agenda you claim that there is no GNS incompatibility.

Quote
These specific combinations are what you can like or dislike.

On the other hand, if you mean that these specific likes and dislikes would just happen to align with the agendas, then you've just restated the empiristic requirements of perceiving agenda preference - the preference of the player is only perceivable in his attitudes towards ephemera. So if it just so happens that my particular likes and dislikes indicate a particular GNS preference, what would that mean to you? Is it that I like some modes more than others, or is it just coincidence to you?

As for the Exploration stuff, well, of course. Liking Exploration is important, but it's not a very strong requirement - all appreciation of art, both passive and active, is Exploration (what's more, all culture is Exploration), so what you're saying is just that a person has to be able to get a kick out of roleplaying to roleplay. That leaves it completely open yet to define the how of it.

Well, if all the details are geared towards competitive Gamism, and people dislike Gamism, I can see what you're saying, Gordon. In RPGs that aren't geared entirely towards one CA, though, the agreements of the the players about rules interpretations, uses of metagame mechanics, decisions about how often to invoke the rules, and lots of other matters can still come up with something that would be labelled as one of the three accepted CAs.

Something with no fortune mechanic and with conflict resolution could still be very Gamist. Something with few crunchy bits could still be Simulationist, so long as there's enough of the right fairly crunchy bits to make sense. Something with no bidding and with a strict fortune mechanic could still be Narrativist. It's just a matter of the winner of a fortune contest narrating instead of the winner of a bidding or voting contest. Would everyone who "likes Gamism" like having no fortune mechanic? Probably not. Would everyone who "likes Nar" like the storytelling decided randomly? Probably not. Would everyone who "likes Sim" like a Sim game with conflict resolution and only minimal crunchy bits? Not likely. None of these combinations may ever be popular, but that doesn't mean that the combinations can't exist.

Gamism isn't always even about competition between the players, anyway. Some gamist players are just fine min-maxing their characters to make huge shows of killing monsters along side other min-maxers doing the same thing. That's still likely to be labelled Gamist, don't you think? If the central point of the game is to overcome obstacles by making smart use of gamist techniques, I think lots of the details can be different from what you'd consider typical. I think the other CAs could be examples this way as well.

Now, I wouldn't say there's not a tendency in certain people to prefer the combinations that are predominantly labelled Nar, Sim, or Gam. I'm just saying, and I think it's also what Paganini is getting at, that it's not all of Nar, Sim, or Gam that is liked or disliked. At a fundamental level, they all have exploration in common no matter their differences. The details and combinations thereof about what tends to be explored and how are what people really like and dislike. You can say a duckbilled platypus is a mammal which lays eggs, has webbed feet, and has a bill. You could also say that it's a bird with fur that carries its young around after they hatch. It has elements of both. It obviously gets classified as one or the other, since they are different classes by definition (it's officially a mammal that has bird-like traits). If you like the platypus, that doesn't mean you like either birds or mammals. It also doesn't mean you dislike either of them if you dislike the platypus. It doesn't even mean you like or dislike marsupial mammals, or that you like or dislike animals native to Australia. It just means you like or dislike the platypus, and that's all.

I may be alone in this, but I don't like just making stuff up in the presence of my friends.  I like making stuff up and having that accepted, contemplated and reinforced by my friends.  I like my work to be noticed.

CA, to me, has always been about what I'll notice in other people's work, and what they'll notice in mine.  If that's mismatched then it leads to a mismatch of techniques and ephemera:  If you want to be recognized for exploring the dream, and I want to recognize you for exploring character choices, then you're likely to be upset when I scene-frame straight past all of the lush setting to the stark human conflict.

QuoteBasically, Exploration is king. There's a reason it's the biggest layer after Social Contract. Exploration is the fundamental act of role-playing: making stuff up as a group. If you ask someone why he likes to role-play, you'll get a bunch of answers related to Techniques, Ephemera; usually Color and Setting figure highly. But Exploration is where it's at. We play to make stuff up with our friends. If we don't enjoy making stuff up, then we might as well stop now. GNS and all the rest is irrelevant. Exploration is what makes RPGs different from watching movies, from reading books, from writing fiction, from CRPGs. If you grok me here, the rest of this will be easy. GNS is a trivial consideration. It's a classification method. You use it to distinguish among different hows and whys of making things up.

I think I understand what you're trying to say Nathan, but this is not really a very good way to say it.  People enjoy different things when the game, that is true.  But to say that those different things all boil down to "making stuff up" and then reducing Exploration down to "making stuff up" is a pretty drastic oversimplification of a whole lot of complex factors that are going on.

For some people the right stance is crucial.  This isn't just making stuff up...but HOW its made up.  You can have exploration out the yin yang but if you ask a died in the wool Immersionist to employ Director Stance they're going to balk.  Stance is a technique.  Should we there for declare "Techniques are King"?  Some people despise dice pools with a passion.  If you can twist their arm to even play a game with a dice pool it will start with 2 strikes against it.  Rolling dice is part of Ephemera.  Should we then declare "Ephemera are King"?

Obviously not, that would be over emphasising a single element and missing the big picture.  But that's what I see you doing with Exploration, and from my perspective that's missing the big picture.

Ephemera combine into Techniques.  Techniques resolve into System.  System effects changes to the SIS on the elements of Setting, Character, Situation and Color.  How players choose to employ the system and what changes they want to effect is informed by Creative Agenda and Social Contract.

All of those pieces work together in the Big Model.  If you want to say "The Big Model is King" and way more important than Creative Agenda on its own, I'd agree.  And I'm 100% sure Ron would agree (because he's been saying that for what...well over a year now...)

But if you want to point to just one particular part of the model and say "That's what its all about, that's where the fun is."  No.  I don't think that makes much sense.

This thread is all about synechdoche. Everyone who says "I like Gamism," or "I dislike Simulationism," is saying, "I identify certain unpleasant experiences that I have had with Simulationism."

Eero, for example, is saying "I have enjoyed actual play experiences that I identify as Gamism." This is cool. However, it does not mean that "you like Gamism." If I gamed with you for some specific amount of time - say, twice a week for a month - I'm willing to bet that I could design a Gamism-facilitating system that you would not enjoy playing. Does this mean you dislike Gamism? No. It means that the enjoyment of actual play does not depend on the Gamism-ness or un-Gamismness of that experience.

I like what Tony had to say in his post. That is all.