Topics and GNS

[Ben Lehman]

This is my 1001st post on the Forge and, as usual, I have a crazy idea about the internal structure of some theoretical construct.

*ahem*

Topics and GNS

I'd like you all to harken back to the ancient and hoary essay http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/1/">GNS and other matters of role-playing theory particularly, http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/3/">the GNS page of that essay, particularly the section about "premises."  Ron has specifically asked me not to use the term "premise" wrt to present day talk about that concept, because it conflicts with the modern use of premise as specifically related to Narrativism, and so out of respect for that I want to find a new term of what he is talking about, because I have some things to say about it.

I'm going to propose that we use "topic."  The use of this will be something like: "The topic of the game was 'which is more important, friendship or duty?"  Note that, wrt Narrativist games, topic is directly equivalent to premise.

Thesis is something about games that are played, not about game texts.  If any of y'all talk about game texts, I will kick your ass.

Topic is clearly something about the creative agenda of the game that you are playing.  There is no "right answer" to a topic question, the game can be resolved either way.  Topics structure how players relate to the game as an activity, a communication between the social contract level and the exploration level, if you will.  When I started thinking about it, though, I realized that there is a really deep symmetry in this aspect of them.

While looking at the following, check them out with regard to first, whether they have to do with things that are inside the Exploration level or outside it and, second, whether they are resolved by things that are inside the exploration level or outside of it.

Let's look at some Gamist topics:

Can we play well enough such that our party survives the perils?
Can I score more points than the other players?
Can we make our characters fall in love and live happily ever after, despite the fact that the world is against us?

Gamist topics are, as far as I can tell universally, framed with respect to the players of the game themselves.  They are not particularly about the imagined content at all.  The key to answering the topic question is the players themsevles.  Gamist topics are about whether or not you have the guts and skills to compete and win.

Furthermore, Gamist topics are resolved by the actions of the players themselves.  Again, what matters is you, the players, and your own abilities and motivations.

So we can say that a Gamist topic is framed wrt the players, and resolved via the actions of the players.

Now let's look at some Narrativist topics:

Is the life of a friend worth the safety of a community?
Is your duty to your wife greater than your duty to your country?

Narrativist topics, to contrast with Gamist topics, are framed with respect to the explorative content.  The concern about wife, the concern about the country -- that's a fictional wife, and a fictional country.  What the topic is regarding is definitely part of the exploration level.  This is true regardless of any meaning or symbolism it has for the players.

Conversely, Narrativist topics are resolved, like Gamist topics, by the actions and judgments of the players.  Is the life of a friend worth the safety of a community?  That question is ours to poke at and examine and work around and think through, as players, engaged participants in the game.  While what our characters think has an important effect on the explorative content, the most important thing is what we think about what they do.

So we can say that a Narrativist topic is framed wrt the explorative content, and resolve via the actions of the players.

Now, how about a Simulationist topic?

What does it feel like to be a vampire?
What does the King of Four Dragons require me to do?
How do various weapons harm or fail to harm a jabberwock, in specific causal detail?

Simulationist topics, like Narrativist ones, are framed wrt the explorative content -- this is not a real King of Four Dragons, nor are we discussing real vampires.  This is totally fictitious content that we are addressing with our play.

But unlike the other CA types, Simulationist topics are also resolved, as much as possible, by the explorative content.  It doesn't necessarily matter what we, as players, would "like --" the resolution is left up to the setting material, or internal causality, or something similar.  (I think.  This is the one I'm most unsure about.)

This is an interesting symmetry, to me.  Here are some thoughts:

Is there a category of play where the topic is formed wrt to the players and resolved via the explorative content?  I'm thinking "no" but I'm willing to be persuaded.

Are my classifications valid?  Is there a type of Gamist play, say, where topic is formed wrt the explorative content?  (I don't think so, but I'm just checking.)

Does the equals sign run the other way?  If all Gamist play has topics that are framed wrt to the players and resolved via the interests of the players, is all play with a topic that is framed wrt to the players and resolve via the interests of the players Gamist?  If not, what does this mean?

Am I just wrong?

Other words for "topic?"

Anything else?

[matthijs]

This doesn't make sense to me. Gamist topics and narrativist topics/premise are both about the player & the character, aren't they?

Gamist:
- Can Fred the Barbarian survive the Arena of Death?
- Can I manage my resources so that my character makes it through this challenge?

Narrativist:
- How does Fred the Barbarian manage when he's teleported to the Technocrats of Stella Barbara?
- How do people - and I - relate to the high level of technology in our society?

[pete_darby]

I guess I'd be with Ben on this one: for Gamism & Nar, the characters are the exploratory tools through which the player expresses their agenda; "Can Fred the Barbarian survive the Arena of Death?" is an exploratory question, and, if it really is the focus of the game, is indicative of simulationism. It's a question about the diagetic action of the SiS, not the skill, guts, etc of the player in strategically risking a resource (Fred) to prove skill. "Can I get Fred to survive the arena of death?" is a gamist question, because Fred is now the resource by which skill can be proved.

Similarly, "How does Fred the Barbarian manage when he's teleported to the Technocrats of Stella Barbara?" is an entirely sim question. It's about an imaginary person in an imaginary situation. As soon as the question becomes "What are the effects of technology on the individual?", we're probably in Nar territory.

The fact that we're using the characters in an imaginary environment doesn't make it "about" the characters.

Ben, I like this formulation a lot. If only because it kills the Beeg Horshoe stone dead (IMHO). The only caveat I have is that Nar questions tend to be in the form of "should" questions rather than "is" questions. "Should love be more important than duty", rather than "Is love more important than duty".

But that's just me.

[anthony kilburn]

Brace yourselves for an utter lack of proper Forge vocab....

Gamist:
- Can Fred the Barbarian survive the Arena of Death?
- Can I manage my resources so that my character makes it through this challenge?

I would almost think the goals of the game itself are driven towards player satisfaction.  Thus, if Fred dies, then the player cries and is unhappy.  He essentially lost.  In other words, the answers to these questions are definitive—with a proper "yes" answer—but only in regards to the player's perspective.

Fred is a tool of the player.  I could play Fred, Bob, or Carl; I'm not forming these characters for any other purpose than to reach the top of the mountain.  This victory is not Fred's—it's mine.

In playing "The Legend of Zelda", who cares about Link?  The story is interesting, but the players try to beat the game for bragging rights and a sense of self-victory.  Link is inconsequential.

(Don't mind me, just repeating my point over and over.)

Narrativist:
- How does Fred the Barbarian manage when he's teleported to the Technocrats of Stella Barbara?
- How do people - and I - relate to the high level of technology in our society?

Here, however, the goal of the "game" (if you can even call it that in this sense) is driven towards a collective story of characters.  I would hesitate to say it's entirely about the players because in some Narrativist games, your character may be predefined as different from yourself, thus creating different goals and agendas for player and character.

For example: A character may be "statted out" as different from myself in that he is very inhuman.  During play, although I may create an emotional connection to this inhumanity and the resulting drama, I myself do not possess the trait.  In the course of the game, I'm incorporating the character's wants (by taking on a role) and my own wants (by creating a dramatic story) into the game.

In fact, I'd almost go as far as to say that the character's needs are met exclusively, with the resulting drama meeting the player's needs as a by-product.



Maybe I got off track, but my view is thus:
-Gamist topics give "setting" and "character" as mere tools to achieve something outside of the game (as a player).  I don't think they're about characters at all.
-Narrativist topics concentrate more on the character than the player, but the real topic is the drama.


Hell: Gamist topics are about superlatives, while Narrativist topics are about intangible values and perceptions.


[I'm sure that reads like muck. LOL]

[Alan]

Gamist:
- Can Fred the Barbarian survive the Arena of Death?
- Can I manage my resources so that my character makes it through this challenge?

Narrativist:
- How does Fred the Barbarian manage when he's teleported to the Technocrats of Stella Barbara?
- How do people - and I - relate to the high level of technology in our society?

Hi Matthijs,

By Ben's suggestion, the gamist topic would require a reference to the player.  Not "Can Fred the Barbarian survive the Arena of Death?" but "Can _I_ design and direct Fred the Barbarian so he survives the Arena of Death?"  Without the I reference to the player, "Can Fred the Barbarian survive the Arena of Death?" is a "within the explorative context" issue resolved "within the explorative context" - ie it's simulationist.

Both your narrativist examples are simulationist too.  To make them narrativist, you'd have to reframe them in terms of a value judgement.

"Is barbaric freedom superior to technocratic organization?"

"Is technology good for society?"

--------------------------------------------------

I think Ben's proposed categories are fundimentally sound.  I have two ideas to suggest:

1) In answer to: Is there a category of play where the topic is formed wrt to the players and resolved via the explorative content?  How about certain kinds of therapy and training roleplay?  They attempt to address inidividual's real-world concerns through exploration.

2) I'd suggest that each topic is further focused on an arena of value judgement.  In Gamism, the value open to question is the player's skill, in Narrativism, it's the explorative issue, in Simulationism, it's the satisfaction of the simulation.  (In therapy, it might be how well the player benefits from insights.)  I think these are implicit in Ben's suggestions.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Ben, I think your distinction between player-agenda and fictional-characters for Gamism and Narrativism respectively is mistaken.

Those premises? "Wife," "country," and all that? Those are not specific to the fiction. They are real issues that only take hold insofar as they rock the real worlds of the real people.

Yes, even if it's set in 3012 A.D. or in a "land that never was." Even if "wife" expresses some kind of gender-bending deal in a triple-sex alien creature. Money is money, a romantic partner is a romantic partner, a community is a community, a message is a message, and a weapon is a weapon.

I consider the "can I get more points than the others" Gamist topic to be socially equivalent to the "can a wife express her love for her husband by cheating on him" (or whatever) Narrativist topic. Why? Because ultimately, both of them must be resolved in the one-time-only fiction, but never philosophically (permanently) for us in real life. And because our fiction, produced communally as it is, reveals ourselves to ourselves. Both Gamist and Narrativist play, in their fullest and most realized forms, are revelatory.

One more brief comment: Beware of parallelism. I've said 100 times that "one of these three is not like the others." If people go haring around looking for Sim equivalents that match the Gamist/Narrativist construction, then they'll hit a brick wall. Why this is, is beyond the scope of forum conversation (at least in the highly debased form that has prevailed in this forum over the last year or so), although for the record, Chris Lehrich came close with his prescriptive vs. descriptive comments.

Oh yeah ... sometimes I think there are two Bens. One is the guy I met at GenCon, the same one who took all that time to explain GNS on his LiveJournal, and the same one who sends me wonderful comments and questions. The other is the guy who gets notions into his head and seizes them, because they're "his," and has a real hard time accepting what another person might be saying regardless of its content. This one is used to being the main intellectual in a group.

I'm hoping I'm talking with the first one.

Best,
Ron

[Ben Lehman]

matthjis -- See Alan and Pete's responses.  I think what you've done is take some Gamist and Narrativist topics and turn them Simulationist.

Ben, I like this formulation a lot. If only because it kills the Beeg Horshoe stone dead (IMHO).

BL>  Not exactly dead yet, in my opinion.  See my comments to Ron below.

I think that resolving things strictly via explorative elements is impossible, and I think that this impossibility leads to a lot of frustrated sim play.

Hello,

Ben, I think your distinction between player-agenda and fictional-characters for Gamism and Narrativism respectively is mistaken.

Those premises? "Wife," "country," and all that? Those are not specific to the fiction. They are real issues that only take hold insofar as they rock the real worlds of the real people.

Yes, even if it's set in 3012 A.D. or in a "land that never was." Even if "wife" expresses some kind of gender-bending deal in a triple-sex alien creature. Money is money, a romantic partner is a romantic partner, a community is a community, a message is a message, and a weapon is a weapon.

I consider the "can I get more points than the others" Gamist topic to be socially equivalent to the "can a wife express her love for her husband by cheating on him" (or whatever) Narrativist topic. Why? Because ultimately, both of them must be resolved in the one-time-only fiction, but never philosophically (permanently) for us in real life. And because our fiction, produced communally as it is, reveals ourselves to ourselves. Both Gamist and Narrativist play, in their fullest and most realized forms, are revelatory.

I almost totally agree with what you are saying here.  I'm not entirely sure whether I'm mistaken about it.

One thing I had trouble with discussing this privately with Chris Edwards, and I think something that people who do a lot of serious theory, design and play are maybe going to have trouble with (so that's a bad on my part) is that I present "framed with respect to" and "resolved via" as equivalent statements.  They aren't.  "Resolved via" is vastly more important than "framed with respect to."  "Resolved via" is about the social elements of the game, about who gets credit for what, about the effect the game can have on our real life, even, I think.

The sole thing about "framed with respect to" is that it seems to me that most Gamist topics are best said "can {real person} do {game activity x}"  Just like chess is best discussed as "can Bobby checkmate Sam?" rather than "Can the black king checkmate the white king?"

That's a thing that a real person is doing in the world, with some motions in the SIS to be sure.  But the topic is about a real person, real world.

Whereas a Narrativist topic, as far as I can tell, is framed about the fictional content.  If we have a topic about "duty to your wife versus duty to your country," that's going to be a fictional wife and a fictional country in terms of the game.  I agree that it doesn't matter if it is an SF setting, or if it is a modern day setting, or if it is a "play yourself" game and you are playing you and your wife is playing your wife.  We're not going set it up so that your actual wife comes into conflict with your actual country, as that would probably be illegal and definitely immoral!  We're going to view the problem through a fictional lense.

"Should the black king checkmate the white king" could be a decent Narrativist topic.  Is war a valid means of solving problems?  What has the white king done to the black king in the past?  We could really explore this shit, if chess had any sort of structure that allowed us to.

Do we resolve it via our own judgements?  Yes!  Do we take away lessons we use in real life?  Yes!  Can it be directly speaking to the real emotional issues of the players!  Yes!  I'm just talking about the way a topic is framed (not resolved or interpreted or symbolic of) with respect to "imagined content or not?"  That's it.  It's a small thing, really, especially compared to "resolved via."

One more brief comment: Beware of parallelism. I've said 100 times that "one of these three is not like the others." If people go haring around looking for Sim equivalents that match the Gamist/Narrativist construction, then they'll hit a brick wall. Why this is, is beyond the scope of forum conversation (at least in the highly debased form that has prevailed in this forum over the last year or so), although for the record, Chris Lehrich came close with his prescriptive vs. descriptive comments.

BL>  I'm right there with you.  Check out what I just said above, about "resolved via" being way more important than "framed wrt."  I have stuff I want to say about Sim using this construction, the beginning of which I spilled to Pete, above, but I'm trying to hash out the basics first.

Oh yeah ... sometimes I think there are two Bens. One is the guy I met at GenCon, the same one who took all that time to explain GNS on his LiveJournal, and the same one who sends me wonderful comments and questions. The other is the guy who gets notions into his head and seizes them, because they're "his," and has a real hard time accepting what another person might be saying regardless of its content. This one is used to being the main intellectual in a group.

I'm hoping I'm talking with the first one.

Without getting too far into my psychology on a public forum, I hope you're talking to the first one, too.

yrs--
--Ben

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ben,

Interesting. I tend to focus very greatly on the real-person elements of fictional engagement, and word-choices that diminish that focus are always charged for me.

Another point: you may be shorting Gamist Exploration. In chess, yes, it's about Bobby checkmating Sam and the pieces are effectively irrelevant as entities aside from the rules they represent for Bobby and Sam. But in role-playing? I suggest that Gamist play often does employ and enjoy the distinctive imaginative "character in situation" fictional elements of role-playing.

I think a lot of people's troubled histories with Gamist play lead them to think otherwise, and perhaps these same folks' joy at discovering other agendas leads them to say, "Oh, these are the ways to play in which we care about our characters." (White Wolf texts are cetainly snooty about this issue in just this way.)

My suggestion then, is if Narrativist play is easily understood by you to be framed with reference to the fictional content, then that Gamist play is too - except perhaps in forms of Gamist play which are extremely charged with ruthlessness, i.e., the Hard Core and similar. Perhaps you've simply never enjoyed high-Explorative, low-Points of Contact Gamist play?

And as for my outlook, I tend to find Gamist and Narrativist play to be framed very well - outside of play itself - with reference to the real people and the easily-grasped, highly-engaging social bases for each of these modes of play.

Best,
Ron

[beingfrank]

Is there a category of play where the topic is formed wrt to the players and resolved via the explorative content?  I'm thinking "no" but I'm willing to be persuaded.

Just my first quick thought on reading this, but your notion of Humour as a CA might fit in here.

The general question might be something like:
What do we find funny?

And it's resolved via the explorative content:
This, man!

[M. J. Young]

I'm surprised that Ron has come so quickly to a conclusion on this. I'm still thinking about it. Particularly in view of Alan's suggestion concerning therapuetic play filling that fourth slot, I am considering it.

That's not to say I'm persuaded; it's just that I think I see the distinctions being made, and they seem to hold in many instances.

--M. J. Young

[Christopher Kubasik]

I'm not sure I buy this. Here's why...

In Story Now, the topic isn't the wife or the country or what have you. Those are the "chess pieces" the player manipulate through the game.

The Topic (or Topics) are the subjects the Players are making statements about with their PC's actions. In the example of wife and country, it might be obligation, or commitment, or what have you. The Players will negotiate these topics -- both for themselves and within the network of the group.

In Sorcerer, for example, Humanity checks are made for gains and losses -- depending on what the Players have their PCs do -- to themselves and other characters. But what constitutes a Humanity roll (either for gain or loss) is often up for discussion. (That's why the OOC chatter is so important for understanding what happened at the game.)

Was is loyalty? What is violence? What is selfish and what is an honest need? These are the Topics of Story Now. And they're open to honest discussion and exploration at the table. That discussion and exploration is the purpose of play.

And it's the Players that are doing the discussing and the exploring. They're making points to the other players, learning from the choices of the other players, challenging the other players (both IC and OOC), making statements NOT about the way the world is, but how they -- the Players -- see the issues of the living life as a human being -- at least at the moment.

Christopher

[ethan_greer]

My suggestion then, is if Narrativist play is easily understood by you to be framed with reference to the fictional content, then that Gamist play is too - except perhaps in forms of Gamist play which are extremely charged with ruthlessness, i.e., the Hard Core and similar. Perhaps you've simply never enjoyed high-Explorative, low-Points of Contact Gamist play?

I'm not quite following you here, Ron. What would be a sample Gamist Topic that was framed with reference to the fictional content?

Ben, I like what you've outlined here. It's a pleasing set of classifications. My question is, what's the practical application of this proposal?

Christopher, I see your point, but I'm thinking you're zooming out a little too far when you say that a Narrativist Topic has to be as abstract a concept as, say, trust, loyalty, obligation, etc. Reason being, you can sit down and play a game about, "Is your duty to your wife greater than your duty to your country?" But you can't really sit down and play a game about "Duty." It's just too abstract.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Ethan,

I have no idea what you mean.

In Sorcerer, for example, Humanity is often defined as a concept. Then the players use the fiction characters, objects and situations to put Humanity into concrete motion.

I mean, people do exactly what I'm talking about every time they play Sorcerer or Riddle of Steel (SA's are of course abstracts and need to be negotiated to one degree or antother) and Story Now HeroQuest play (relationships, attributes like Honerable and what not.)  It happens every day. I'm not zooming out to far. I'm stating precisely, in practical terms, what happens at these games.

And the thrust of the point is that when Ben writes, "Gamist topics are, as far as I can tell universally, framed with respect to the players of the game themselves. They are not particularly about the imagined content at all," he's using this on contrast to, in his view, the imagined content of a Narrativist game -- which he states is what a Narrativist game is about.

Which simply isn't true. The recents discussions about violence and what violence is that spread out across several sites recently make it clear that people think the "Warrior Spirit" (or justice, or honor, or courage, or whatever) are concrete to the people who care about these things. They're also not concrete enough that they don't require exploration. But that[i/] is what Story Now is about. Not the "wife," not the fictional "country," but the actual positions the players are taking at the table about these abstract issues.

If we had taken those discussion and that need to make oneself clear (to others as well to ourselves) and dumped them actively into an RPG session, we would have had kick ass game sessions of Sorcerer, or HQ or RoS. Yes?

But it would be the Player's engagement with the issues at hand, not the fiction elements, that would matter most.

Now, what "wife" means to a player, what "country" means to a player figure in to Story Now play as well. To the Players.

I'll quote Ron here: "I tend to focus very greatly on the real-person elements of fictional engagement, and word-choices that diminish that focus are always charged for me."

Exactly. Ben might say, "So we can say that a Narrativist topic is framed wrt the explorative content, and resolve via the actions of the players," but I wouldn't.

I'd say the Topic is framed wrt to the players, whatever they bring to the table about these issues, the real true content of what they care about violence, wives, family, and resolve via the actions of the players."

Ben's right. The wife and the country aren't real. But what the people actually care about the wife and the country are. And that's what makes Story Now play work.

Christopher

[Ben Lehman]

Chris -- your grammar (use of "but..." and so on) makes it look like you're disagreeing with me, but as far as I can tell, you aren't.

Framed with respect to..., in my post above, refers to exactly and only that the wife and the country aren't real.

Resolved via... refers to the rest of the stuff that you are talking about.

Did you read my first response to Ron, above?  I thought that I clarified a lot of this stuff there.

yrs--
--Ben

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Ben,

When you write:

"Gamist topics are, as far as I can tell universally, framed with respect to the players of the game themselves. They are not particularly about the imagined content at all."

and...

"Furthermore, Gamist topics are resolved by the actions of the players themselves. Again, what matters is you, the players, and your own abilities and motivations."

I can easily see simply slipping in the word Narrativist in place of Gamist.

Because the issues of "Marriage" or "Violence" are not "imaginary content." They're real things that the players really bring to the table. The games aren't about the fictional wives. They're about what people really think and feel and about wives.

And, again, what matters for the Narrativist play is "you, the players, and your own abilities and motivations."

See?

Christopher

PS... yes, I did read your response to Ron. I still think you're not grasping a vital point about Narrativist play.