Can GNS modes be identified outside of GNS conflict?

[Bankuei]

Hi Elliot,

However, Vanilla Narrativism seems to be a case of people playing in a Narrativist mode without "doing anything" that looks Narrativist (especially to them). If so, why should the model distinguish between Vanilla Nar and Sim?

The key feature of Narrativism is the group as a whole Addressing Premise- that's the only required feature of Narrativism*.  The reason that it is distinguished from Sim is that Sim play DOESN'T Address Premise- which is the "color" that we're looking for to tell the two apart.

The "doing anything" you're referring to -"Director Stance, atypical distribution of GM tasks, verbalizing the Premise in abstract terms, overt organization of narration, or improvised additions to the setting or situations"- are simply useful techniques that assist getting Nar play- but not required for it to occur.  Hence- Vanilla Narrativism.

There are two questions here: (1) What benefit do we get by defining play modes outside of clashes (or potential clashes, e.g. when designing). (2) If there is a benefit, how do we go about assigning observed play to one mode or another?

To your original question- "Is it possible to identify GNS outside of clashes?" the answer is yes.  So if the new question is if there is a benefit outside of clashes- then the answer is no.  But that begs another question- how many gamers can safely say there is no chance of clashes now or in the future?

But I doubt very many gamers have found their perfect match of group (with static membership) and chosen game, with little to no possibility of playing with new people or games in the future.  Aside from the few grognard groups that have settled in to their form of gaming until they die off, nearly everyone else either has a semi-solid group that shifts membership, and ends up playing at least a few different games over the course of their lifetimes.  Which means most everyone is living with the possible chance of clashes- and it's always good to prevent them rather than have to face them in play- just in the same sense that once you know you don't like a particular flavor (or happen to be allergic to it) you wouldn't want to keep eating it.

Chris

*Of course, for that to happen, everyone in the group has to have input and the outcome cannot be predetermined, but those are prerequisites, not seperate issues.

[Silmenume]

Hey Elliot,

As you can no doubt see that while what defines Nar and Gam (addressing Premise and Challenge respectively) has been pretty much settled how to define Sim is still very much in debate.

If you wish to gain some additional perspective on Sim and don't mind some heavy reading I suggest the following links -

Ritual Discourse in Role-Playing Games
Not Lectures on Theory [LONG!]
On RPGs and Text [Long]
Sim is Bricolage and makes myth - comments?
An effort to un-gum the Discussion.
1/3rd baked idea about Situation and Sim
Bricolage APPLIED (finally!)[/list:u]I hope this helps you in your learning process here at the Forge.

[ewilen]

Thank you, Jay. That is certainly my impression.

In fact I've been reading those same threads and articles lately (or they're on my reading list, and if I've missed any, thanks for helping me locate them). The concept of bricolage for which you appear to be one of the main advocates is an attractive idea to me.

However, getting back to Bankuei's post (hi, Chris) is this concept of "vanilla Narrativism" settled or in debate? Because even with Sim-as-bricolage, I'm not seeing where Vanilla Nar clashes with Sim at all. One player could be in Sim mode for an entire instance of play, while another player is addressing premise (but without using Director Stance, etc.), and neither need be any the wiser that there's no shared CA. Nor would a player experience "aesthetic discord" by being caught between Vanilla Nar and Sim.

If my impression is correct, that seems to conflict with the notion that you can only have one CA dominant at a time.

Something has to give in my scenario. Either my understanding of the exclusive dominance rule, or my idea of an instance of play, or the assignment of "Vanilla Nar" to Nar and not Sim. Another possibility would be that the criterion for distinguishing Nar and Sim, "Addressing Premise", can be boiled down entirely to emotional response, as suggested by cruciel. But in the latter case, I still don't see how that implies an interpersonal or intrapersonal clash.

[Bankuei]

Hi Elliot,

Vanilla Nar is a settled term- it refers to what techniques you go about achieving Narrativism.  In the same sense, we could coin Vanilla Gamism, as many Sim supporting games have the potential for gamist play as well.

What you may be thinking of is Hybrid play-

From the Prov. Glossary:

Play which combines two or more Creative Agendas. Observed functional hybrids to date include only two rather than all three, and one of the agendas is apparently primary or dominant, with the other playing a supportive role. See my review of The Riddle of Steel.

Though- this is usually applied on a group level- everyone is working with the same CAs in mostly the same way.

The idea that two different people can be getting two different CAs throughout play is one that hasn't been proven or disproven completely yet- the key factor is what happens when a situation appears that could support either CA- what does the group do?  And is it a generally consistant choice?  Does the different goals conflict, cause friction or disrupt play?  

If there never is a consistant method of dealing with this, such as, arguing, or if no one gets their CA kicks, then we're looking at Incoherence, rather than functional CA play for anyone.  So far, no one has produced a solid example of play or design that allows for different folks to consistantly get their CA at the same time- I suspect that whatever way the group as a whole decides "What happens?" must choose one way or another- must prioritize.  If it is possible, it has not yet been found how to produce it on a regular basis, if at all.

Chris

[ewilen]

Thank you, Bankuei. This makes me wonder, what does a clash between Vanilla Narrativism and Simulationism look like? Let's say that we're not talking about Participationist or Illusionist Simulationism. (Are there any examples from Actual Play?)

[Bankuei]

Hi Elliot,

I can't say I've experienced that clash really.  Whenever I run into "non-directed" Sim play, I run far away, very fast.  Perhaps that IS a Nar-Sim clash by itself, though I know personally that form of Sim play holds less than zero appeal for me and usually the folks who I find playing it not particularly my crowd.  Other Nar folks may have different stories.

I do think that the thing that drives me away, and may apply to others is that Nar play is very based on a "point"(Addressing Premise), while non-directed Sim play is very much not about a point.  I guess you could say it's like trying to play catch with someone who doesn't catch the ball- it hits them, they blink, then they blink again...  If you want the ball, you got to go pick it up yourself and throw it again.  After a point, there's no reason to throw the ball-  you're not playing catch in any sense of the word.

The clash is not so much about techniques here, it's about Creative Agenda- why we're playing in the first place.

Chris

[ewilen]

I briefly took conversation to PM with Chris, but I was just able to clarify where I'm going in this so I'm coming back into public in case others would like to contribute.

You wrote that you run away from "non-directed" Sim play. What I'm trying to find out about is Sim play that doesn't fall in that category, and which isn't Illusionist/Participationist. Does such play exist? If it does, what does it look like, and how does it differ from/clash with Nar?

I'm going to post the examples from my last PM over in Actual Play. I don't know if further theoretical discussion should continue here or in that thread.

Here's the link: Clarifying Sim vs. Vanilla Nar

[Jason Lee]

Just a note on hybrid play.  The existence of hybrid play is one of those things that is tied directly to the definition of Sim in use.  All identified and theorized (last I checked) hybrid play is either Nar+Sim or Gam+Sim. 

Let us assume hybrid play does exist.  This unavoidably leads to theories such as the Beeg Horseshoe Theory, which are not dependant upon an instance of play to make an analysis, due to the lack of an exclusive priority in Sim because of its unique ability to hybridize.  This renders the term hybrid obsolete due to all play being hybrid.  This requires a definition of Sim that is not exclusive - definitions based on exploration/causality/etc (the definition in the Sim essay).

However, in order to be able to identify GNS modes by when they conflict they must be exclusive priorities.  GNS makes its classification by choosing the dominant mode over an instance of play (a big lump of decisions, such as a session).  If there is no observable dominant mode then play is undefined (congruent).  Thus, hybrid play cannot exist.  As hybrid play does not exist a definition of Sim that is exclusive is required - one that is completely independent of exploration/causality/etc such as the learning/discovery definition.

Either way we end up with hybrid play not existing.  I've been away for a while, so perhaps things have changed, but I thought hybrid play was a dead concept seeing as it's just an ambiguous way of stating the Beeg Horseshoe Theory.  I suppose the concept could still apply to game design without applying to play.

[Jason Lee]

I'm not sure what "non-directed" Sim play means.  A creative agenda is a direction...  Sim lacking any guiding techniques?  Sort of Vanilla Sim?

Anyway... Vanilla Nar is, in my experience, most often adherence to character integrity.  By consistently doing what the character would do you end up with a theme built from the character's personality.  For exploration/causality Sim definitions there doesn't end up being a conflict, because causality techniques are all that's in use, which are said to be the domain of Sim.  I'm unaware of any identifiable techniques (anyone?) for the learning/discovery definition of Sim, so again no conflict arises.

An often-mentioned example is being confronted with a choice between doing what the character would do and what would make for an interesting story.  If you pick character it's Sim and if you pick story it's Nar.  However, if you have to make that choice what you actually have is a bad Nar, not Sim.  Character is central to story and you weaken the theme by making the personality of the character inconsistent.  Your audience no longer believes the character's motivations, so they can no longer empathize, and the theme is lost.

The distinction between Vanilla Nar and Sim/Char has always been the breaking point of GNS for me, so I'm again unsure if I can help clarify where GNS stands on the issue.  Sim/Char is my example here, but the same applies to other types of Vanilla Nar.  I just don't think they are nearly as common.

[Ron Edwards]

To be absolutely clear: any discussion of a contradiction between "playing my character right" and "playing for the sake of the story" is nonsensical.

In case anyone wasn't quite following Jason's point.

Also, I figure it's time to step in again. I am taking my time mulling over the Actual Play thread and in the interim, this one heated up again.

Point #1: yes, a Creative Agenda is always identifiable, if it's present, even in the absence of conflicts about CA. But you have to learn how.

Point #2: the difference between Vanilla Narrativism and Simulationism is easy as pie, because it's exactly the same distinction between any Narrativism and any Simulationism - the address of Premise. The "Vanilla" label is a red herring, and a holdover from the days when people were just a little too hung up on specific techniques (e.g. lots of Director Stance, etc) when discussing CA.

Best,
Ron

[Ron Edwards]

Also, there was a recent thread I was hunting and didn't find until just now. A whole hell of a lot of things I wanted to say here, I just said there, and the thought of reconstructing them was prohibitive. So without further ado, if you'd like, check out GNS for all that stuff.

Best,
Ron

[ewilen]

Thanks, Ron. I looked at the GNS thread; I may be missing something but what I mainly got out of it was a rejection of GNS as a "player type" schema. This is something that I've already absorbed (though I see it pops up in places in this thread). It's part of the reason why I emphasized the possibility that GNS clash might only affect one person who is "caught between modes"--like someone who enjoys creepy psychological thrillers, and also enjoys goofy character comedy, but hated The Cable Guy.

Point #1: yes, a Creative Agenda is always identifiable, if it's present, even in the absence of conflicts about CA. But you have to learn how.

Point #2: the difference between Vanilla Narrativism and Simulationism is easy as pie, because it's exactly the same distinction between any Narrativism and any Simulationism - the address of Premise. The "Vanilla" label is a red herring, and a holdover from the days when people were just a little too hung up on specific techniques (e.g. lots of Director Stance, etc) when discussing CA.

#1: I'm hoping my Actual Play threads (or some other) will help with the learning how part.

#2: Address of Premise, if I understand correctly, means that the players freely decide a moral problem in which their characters are implicated. (At least, assuming we're talking about the traditional one-player/one-character/minimal Director Stance arrangement.) I'm not sure, but I also get the impression that it's not quite enough for the players to have free rein, but also that the moral problem must be something that the players themselves approach as a moral problem, not a behavioral analysis. E.g., if a PC is a policeman who sees a beggar steal a loaf of bread, and the player approaches it as a matter of course that the character will arrest the wretch--no Premise. Or even if the PC is conceptualized as a kind-hearted person and as a matter of course he turns a blind eye--still no Premise.

This is where I remain hung up, because I'm trying hard to imagine an instance where the address of Premise clashes with the prioritization of Exploration. Is it that a player who is prioritizing Exploration is going to have his experience ruined by the appearance of a conflict that can't be dealt with in purely behavioral terms? Has this been observed in actual play? The closest I can think of in my Actual Play threads is my reaction to the death of Gilly (even though my character was denied the chance to make a moral choice). And secondarily, the instance where Hassan quit the party. But I think the Gilly issue was comparable to the DitV meltdown reported by Victor Gijsbers in his thread about the near-rape of a PC. Was that a clash between GNS modes?

As for Hassan going off by himself...hm. I've always conceptualized that more as a clash between being true to character and the social need to keep the party together for the sake of the gaming group's enjoyment. I think it was also a bit of negative commentary on my part about poor portrayal of character and motivation--an aesthetic judgment more than a moral one. In other words, Hassan may have had a (lower-case) premise of "Is it best to seek safety in numbers even if the rest of group appear to be lunatics?" And that may have been parallel to my aesthetic judgment, but the twain never actually met.

[ewilen]

I want to clarify something about the last sentence: as things turned out, it's clear that I did Address Premise. But I only did so because of what was, to me, a poor commitment to "realistic" simulation of character and situation.. In other words, even if I was doing Nar and the other players were doing Sim--had they been doing "better" Sim, the clash wouldn't have come up. Just as a player who is being finicky about the quality of in-game credibility could experience a problem even when the entire group is doing Nar. This is why I don't think the incident was GNS clash.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Elliott,

Maybe a little history is necessary. 'Way back in the early days of discussing my take on the Threefold Model, a particular conflict of ideas arose between me and my friend Ran Hardin. In a nutshell:

ME: "If you simply play characters, bringing strong imaginative and social commitment to their situations, you will be playing Narrativist."

RAN: "Hooey. I and lots of people do not want 'meaning' in any such Premise sense. We like slipping into character especially even when nothing happens of that sort. What do you call that?"

Back then (and this is way pre-Forge), I thought he was dead wrong and whatever he was doing was simply broken or Zilchy play, although I didn't have the terms for that. Can you see that at this stage, I'm agreeing with what you're saying now? Of course Exploration (although I didn't have that term or concept as I now use it) leads to addressing Premise. What else would you do with it?

But by the time I wrote "GNS and other matters of role-playing theory," I had realized that this viewpoint was hopelessly limited to Narrativist bias. Now, I had expanded the concept of Sim to include any such emphasis on "just" imagining - in other words, agreeing with Ran. You can "play your character" and not be addressing Premise. In fact, I decided, "play your character" can go with any Creative Agenda. Same goes for "imagine Setting real hard" or "really get into how the mechanics work," or any combination of these things.

Articulating this point, at that time, was very difficult, and you can probably see that it evolved through the course of the three supportive essays (Sim first, then Gamism, then Narr). Through writing those essays, I've become much better at describing Sim play in terms of what people are doing as opposed to what they're not doing. Therefore, instead of the problematic construction:

If they address Premise, it's Narr; if they don't (and don't Step On Up), it's Sim

... which is operationally at least fairly accurate, but definitionally weak (and unfairly hurls much dysfunctional play into Sim), I now have:

if they address Premise, it's Narr; if they Step On Up, it's Gamism; if they confirm the input/source material, it's Sim.

Now, this construction is easiest if we're talking about genre-emulative play, but that is only a subset of Sim. It also applies to the play common among engineering-heads who really want to concern themselves with how many charges the phaser has left (but are not Stepping Up), or to "put on my cape and be Vlad" play.

There are a few threads kicking around in which I talk about this confirmatory or celebratory discussion of Sim, or rather, articulating what it is in active terms. I'm not sure if you've seen them, but I'll do a little hunting.

Best,
Ron

[ewilen]

Hi, Ron. You know, those threads might be helpful but I think some actual examples such as I've solicited upthread might be even better. I.e., examples of non-Forced Sim play either from my AP threads or elsewhere. I seem to recall reading a comment by you that this is how you often play CoC.