Gamer Preferences Quiz

[quozl]

I just came across this at:
http://members.dandy.net/~mjyoung/gametype.html and first of all, I'm wondering do people here think it gives valid answers and secondly, if so, would it be helpful to publish individual scores in a sig line so we can tell where a person is coming from when they make comments?  

("Oh, they lean heavily towards karma resolution so now what they said about that makes sense.")

What do you all think?
---Jon

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jon,

I respect M.J. a lot, but I must say I have always disliked the very idea of the GNS quiz. I think it lends itself to causing many problems, primarily because it is a "person-classifier" rather than a "decision-classifier."

Also, most of those questions were built from dialogues with me on the Gaming Outpost, and those dialogues concerned specific sorts of (say) Narrativism and Simulationism. Therefore, I think most of the questions suffer badly from synecdoche - they home in on a traditional play-group with unstated 80s-style Simulationism as the priority, as opposed to play with fairly overt Narrativism as the priority, although the latter is often confounded with Director stance. The meaning of "story" in distinguishing between these two is a pretty specific thing, and doesn't correspond to the broad range of that word's meaning across role-playing in general.

I also think that DFK is being treated in a more particulate manner than it should be - most systems are a very solid, integrated blend of at least two, usually all three in practice.

I think M.J.'s quiz will definitely tell you specific things about the person who takes it (at least in terms of what they want to say about themselves) but that it's not a useful tool regarding GNS in particular.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

Aiii! Not the cold sleep example again! Please let's not start that debate up once more.

I had a slightly different opinion than Ron's but again it's not worth getting into here. There is plenty of discussion of it that can still be found on GO. Out of date discussion, to be sure, but you can see what people's opinions are of it there, and get a good idea of what theory was applied. If that doesn't suffice to explain the arguments, then you could post back here with quesions that might clarify anything left fuzzy. But, IIRC, it was mulled over quite thoroughly.

Mike

[quozl]

Since the results of the quiz are questionable, what do you think of the second idea I proposed in a modified form?  We could rank the styles of play we prefer in our sigs as so:

NSG/DKF

which would mean I prefer narrativism, then simulationism, then gamism, and I prefer drama resolution, then karma, then fortune.

Would that be helpful to anyone?

---Jon

[Seth L. Blumberg]

Would that be helpful to anyone?

Not to me--especially not the DFK part. Just saying "I like Karma better than Drama" (for example) is almost meaningless. Most systems include elements of more than one mode of resolution, and the way in which they are blended together is critical.

[Laurel]

Not only are systems usually a blend, but my own priorities and preferences are too situational regarding what game I'm playing, what goal I'm trying to achieve, who I'm playing with,  my mood, enthusiasm and whether or not mercury is in retrograde. :)

[Evan Waters]

One problem I noticed was that the definition of simulationism seemed to focus on "realism" as a quality, not necessarily what was consistent with the game world. If I was playing a game where there's a perfectly logical in-world explanation why cars explode when shot (say they're all fuelled by an efficient but extra-volatile liquid), I'd buy the "simulation" angle of the situation easily.

[Mike Holmes]

If I was playing a game where there's a perfectly logical in-world explanation why cars explode when shot (say they're all fuelled by an efficient but extra-volatile liquid), I'd buy the "simulation" angle of the situation easily.

Or if playing in a Simulation of an Action Movie, where all gas tanks explode. "reality" should always be exchanged for "reasonable setting causality".

One problem with looking at the survey at all is that it is now quite old and does not have the benefit of any of the debate that has occurred in between. I think the "reasonable setting causlity thing came after, so it wouldn't be refelected in the survery. Keep that in mind when checking the survey out. If one wanted to use it at all, it would certainly have to be updated a lot. It very much does not look at Narrativism with any of the more modern discussion behind it, for example. Also, it could be considered offensive to Gamists who have expanded their definition beyond what  the survey implies is the limit of Gamist play. Etc, etc.

The point with GNS continues to be not to segregate players and games, however, but rather to have them understand the ideas so that they can make their own judgements on what will work. The survey tries to act as a shortcut to that understanding, but is dangerous because it teaches by inference, not by rote. "I'm a Simulationist? Must be becasue I sad x in question y! Which means all Simulationists are x in y situations! Eureka." Which leads to all sorts of misunderstandings.

Mike

[Eric J.]

Now I have very little experience, but what I just saw seemed almost reprehensible...

What the heck?  The question of WHY you prefer something is just as, if not more, important than what decision.  It may seem like it does this, but it doesn't.  I make simulationist desicions as a GM and player because I find that a firm amount of consistancy of reality allows for more player driven actions and character development.  Do I care if a car explodes if I shoot at it? I don't see how you can quiz karma, drama, and fortune.  If you have no experience playing with each, then the quiz is inacurrate.  If you have experience, you know what you like and it makes the results of the test meaningless.  Degrees of G/N/S consistancy aren't accounted for.  Example: Question 3- is an obvious rules vs. protagonization.  Even as a simultaionist I still feel that it would make you a BAD Gm to kill off that character, unless in the most restricted of gamist play.  I feel that it is arrogant to make a quiz that is based off of an unproven psycology (even one with so much evidince and logical analysis.  My devotion to the scientific method is primary.), and that one thing is certain.  

Either I or M. Joseph Young has a large misunderstanding on how GNS works.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Fabrice G.]

Hi Pyron,

I think that the anwer is right here:

Mike Holmes wrote:

One problem with looking at the survey at all is that it is now quite old and does not have the benefit of any of the debate that has occurred in between. [...snip...] Keep that in mind when checking the survey out. If one wanted to use it at all, it would certainly have to be updated a lot.

My guess is that "your" GNS is now quite different that the one he used to built the survey.


Fabrice.

[Eric J.]

I guess that that does justify the difference.  Reminder to self: Don't come off to strong.  Don't come off too strong.  Don't come off too strong...

[contracycle]

I liked the quiz, although it needs to be rewritten and updated.  But I do think it is useful.

[M. J. Young]

Someone just called my attention to the presence of this thread here; I do appreciate that heads-up. I'm still getting the hang of how this forum works (I have been writing HTML for so long that I automatically put an "nbsp;" non-breaking space code after my periods for form, and it appears that this will only result in gobbledygook on this system, so I will try to avoid it--but I often do it when writing letters and other documents at this point, so if you see code thrown in, please forgive me for it).

Ron makes a good distinction between person-classifier and decision-classifier; it is difficult to create a quiz that will distinguish the two. In that regard, it is worth noting that three of the questions were originally his, with only minor modification, from his "Where the Rubber Meets the Road" posting (it had a different name in the thread title) at Gaming Outpost, in which he maintained that you would discover where your goals lay by examining how you would decide in each of these cases. There is an inescapable connection between what kind of people we are and what kind of choices we make (it works both directions, I think), so by presenting situations in which the various aspects of games are given as options it is hoped to get to an idea of how a person is likely to choose in related situations. It is imperfect; some of the imperfections are noted in the explanatory materials in the scoring section of the quiz.

Ron also has always objected to testing DFK in this way. Here he indicates that it is because "most systems are a very solid, integrated blend of at least two, usually all three in practice." I certainly agree with this; the question in my mind is not which would anyone use exclusively, but in which direction do your preferences lie. Also, Ron and I at that time disagreed about whether GNS was similarly something which was blended in games. I am the more persuaded that most gamers have mixed goals in this area, putting more emphasis on one or another, but rarely being entirely opposed to any. Thus the argument he makes against DFK would to my mind apply equally to GNS, and given that the quiz does not (as my http://members.aol.com/MarkJYoung/align.html">alignment quiz does) require that answers be exclusive, such blending of interests is measured by the quiz overall.

Evan Waters said, "One problem I noticed was that the definition of simulationism seemed to focus on 'realism' as a quality, not necessarily what was consistent with the game world." I do see that as a potential confusion about simulationism, and an effort was made to avoid it. The definition of simulationism stated (in part), "The game is a set of rules that define the world and the people and events within it, such that as you play you discover what might have happened in such a world." The answer about the car exploding which he cites is perhaps less clear than it could be; it was partially truncated from the original for space (one of the versions of the quiz is a BASIC program on which line lengths and screen lines are limiting parameters), but also because "a modern-day gritty secret agent RPG (no magic)" was specified in the question, which suggests inherently that this sort of realism is intended. I certainly agree that a simulationist game of an action hero setting would allow such cars to explode. Seth Ben-Ezra, who originally posed this question, thought that the simulationists (of which he claims to be one, to some degree) would be most upset by that aspect of the situation. For me, I think it may be my gamist side, but if the chief villain's car exploded on one shot, I'd stand up and cheer that we won the victory without loss of life on our side--and if my son was running the campaign, I would afterward wonder whether in fact the car was a decoy, and the villain still at large.

I am not certain why Mike thinks the quiz would be offensive to gamists; no one has said so before now.

The quiz does explain itself in the scoring section.  I see little danger of someone drawing the kind of conclusion Mike suggests. For each of the six aspects being examined, six concepts have been identified and connected to the questions. Thus, for example, Drama resolution will give you the chance to respond to ~allowing player concerns to affect game outcomes, ~having the referee steer events to a preferred conclusion, ~democratic resolution of outcomes, ~metamechanics such as plot cards, ~the value of articulate presentation in resolution, and ~players presenting evidence on which the outcome will be judged. Not everyone who prefers drama will like each of these aspects; yet they are each part of drama resolution. Not everyone who dislikes drama will be against all of these, but overall will rank them lower.

From Pyron: "The question of WHY you prefer something is just as, if not more, important than what decision." I certainly agree there. "I make simulationist desicions as a GM and player because I find that a firm amount of consistancy of reality allows for more player driven actions and character development." Well, yes and no. You make simulationist decisions because you have as a secondary goal the desire for the world to comport with a conception of some reality. You could run a game which plays like a dream, in which reality is not consistent but shifts to fit the desires of the moment. I have played in such a game, but do not find it much to my liking--it is not simulationist enough for me. Again, this doesn't mean realistic; it does mean having a coherent consistency to the setting which obeys predictable rules.

"Degrees of G/N/S consistancy aren't accounted for." Oh, that's why you rate your preferences, not merely check boxes. You say what is more or less like you, not what is exactly what you would do.

"Example: Question 3- is an obvious rules vs. protagonization. Even as a simultaionist I still feel that it would make you a BAD Gm to kill off that character, unless in the most restricted of gamist play." Let me blame Ron again for that question; it was one of his. There is a degree to which it tests simulationist, gamist, and narrativist leanings. I landed in what Ron said was the narrativist camp on that one--I regard it plot exposition, and would never hold it against the players. But I know a referee who, if the module said it went that way, that's how he would run it--and he runs some excellent, if deadly, games.

I do appreciate comments on the quiz. I doubt at this point that I'll revise it--too many people gave insights into the wording of each question to even begin to try to unravel why it says what it says in some places. But it does give me a better idea of how it works.

Oh, there was another point I wanted to address: "I don't see how you can quiz karma, drama, and fortune. If you have no experience playing with each, then the quiz is inacurrate. If you have experience, you know what you like and it makes the results of the test meaningless." You might think so. However, with the mailto version of the quiz, people are asked to predict where they will fall in each category and then answer the questions, and I process the results and send them back. It is often surprising how wrong the predictions are. This usually traces to a misunderstanding of one or the other. For example, think that drama mechanics is all plot cards, which they love, or referee fiat, which they hate, and so miss a lot of what it means in the whole. Thus people often think they do or don't like a particular approach to mechanics because they associate that with one game or one referee or one notion and miss the rest.

Thanks for reading. I hope this clears up some things.

--M. J. Young

[Ron Edwards]

Hi M.J.,

Welcome to the Forge! Like old times.

Best,
Ron

[M. J. Young]

I hope that's a good thing. I seem to recall words to that effect passing between Luke Skywalker and Han Solo as Jabba the Hut's thugs dragged them away.

But I'm pleased to be welcomed, and to have the opportunity to discuss things again.

Except that for some reason these forums have crashed my (Netscape 6.2) browser (in Windows 98) several times when I've tried to post, and I don't have any idea what is causing it.

--M. J. Young