G/N/S = 101

[John Wick]

The title of this forum "G/N/S: Game Theory 101" is a little... well, let me start again.

I really don't have any problem with it, the whole GNS thing. The way people use it rubs me the wrong way sometimes, but that's people, not the theory.

However, I have to say that I'm kind of unhappy with the title of the forum. There's an intimation that you have to understand GNS to understand game design.

In college, 101 rank classes (which sounds like a game term)are manditory. They are the basic classes, giving you groundwork to begin understanding the subject at hand.

I've never agreed with the concept of GNS. When I began designing games, I was completely unaware of it. I design games with absolutely no thought put toward it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: I don't think it is necessary to know or understand GNS to begin a journey of game design. Yes, it is a perfectly valid game design theory, but it isn't the only one.

Take care,
John

[Clinton R. Nixon]

As someone who's been behind GNS since he's heard of it, it might be a little surprising that I totally agree with John. I've seen and played great games from designers who'd either not heard of GNS or didn't use it from a design standpoint (7th Sea and Orkworld are great examples).

I don't think GNS is the only way to design a game--in fact, I completely disagree with some of the ways it's being used here, as I think it's only one model of how we can categorize games.

How to solve the problem, though--well, I don't know. I have to say that GNS is one of the things the Forge was built upon, and so some knowledge of it is required to have a discussion with many of the people here. Still, I think John's right, and I'm changing the forum names. Effective immediately, they're "GNS Model Discussion" and "RPG Theory".

[joshua neff]

I've been a GNS "supporter" (or "madman" as Paul Czege would say) for a while now, & I still am. But I have become quite tired of a lot of the debate over it. Mostly because I feel the model as it is works for me & is useful to me.
Anyway, I read this quote recently & thought it fit the debate here perfectly (& S. John Ross' rants on RPGnet against GNS & any other model even better). It's from Disappearing Through the Skylight by O.B. Hardison, Jr.:

On a Mercator projection of the world, America looks different from America on a Dymaxion projection, even though it is the same America. The two mapping systems are masks imposed on the world by men. Which map is right? The first answer is that both are wrong in the sense that they misrepresent the truth about the world. The world is round, not flat. Their wrongness is precisely what makes them useful. A flat map is much easier to use than a globe and also cheap enough so that you can mark it up, stick pins in it, throw it away when it gets dog-eared. Since both maps are useful, the second answer is that the right map is the one that tells you the lies you need to know.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

My thinking on this topic is ... well, a little different.

I regard GNS (or whatever functional versions of it emerge via debate) to be much like engineering principles that rely on physics. Know about them or not, they are still operative when inventing or dealing with their outcomes.

Take bridge-building. Before Newtonian physics was articulated, people built bridges, and quite a few of them did not fall down. Some, probably, were damn good bridges.

However, armed with Newtonian physics, not only could bridges be built better more consistently, but new applications or notions could be hypothesized, and tested.

EXAMPLES: GNS IN ACTION, BUT NOT INTENT
For what my opinion is worth, I consider Orkworld in particular to be an excellent role-playing game. It really works (various eensy hassles or necessary revisions notwithstanding). This means that John's experience and creative criteria are very sound. (Side note: I also draw attention to the fact that for this game, he served only one master, himself.) So he didn't use GNS theorizing as a basis? So what!!

The very same thing applies to Sorcerer. The bulk of that game was NOT written with GNS thinking as a basis. I do think that retrospectively, I was clearly aiming at one brand of Narrativism like a guided missile. I just didn't know the name for what I wanted.

OVERALL
Lest I be accused of gross arrogance, I definitely state that GNS as currently constructed may NOT be the Newtonian theory of RPG decision-making and hence of game design. I do think it's the best we've got so far. I also think that it needs, at the very least, tweaking in its phraseology, and quite possibly, some hefty revision.

I do think that there is a Newtonian physics equivalent to find. It can and will provide information to bridge-builders. Some will say, "Well, I knew that. Never put it that way, but I knew that." Others will say, "Screw that newfangled crap. We built it before and it stood up, and we'll do it again." Still others will say, "Hey, that explains it just right!" And still others will say, "Yeah, and you know what, if it's right, then I think that we might try this totally NEW way out ..."

Best,
Ron

[John Wick]

Jared once told me:
"Thinking outside the box is still thinking in context of the box. Just get rid of the damn box, man."

It was a wake-up stick I needed to be hit with for about a year.

GNS is a box. It's a 3-sided box, but it is still a box.

Take care,
John

[ This Message was edited by: John Wick on 2001-07-05 18:00 ]

[james_west]

On 2001-07-05 18:00, John Wick wrote:
GNS is a box. It's a 3-sided box, but it is still a box.

This is not necessarily a bad thing.
In fact, it's pretty much the point: Ron and others are trying to develop a fundamental theory of game design. In order to do so, you have to start developing principles and categories, which means boxes ...

[John Wick]

GNS is a box. It's a 3-sided box, but it is still a box.

On 2001-07-05 18:27, james_west wrote:
This is not necessarily a bad thing.
In fact, it's pretty much the point: Ron and others are trying to develop a fundamental theory of game design. In order to do so, you have to start developing principles and categories, which means boxes ...

Didn't mean to imply it's a bad thing. It's a _different_ thing. I try not to write or design in boxes.

Take care,
John

[Gordon C. Landis]

"Just get rid of the box" is a great insight.  Another "box" realization that means a lot to me - You're always in some box.  Always.  There is no "outside of all boxes."  Best you can do is pick your box, try and stay aware of it (flaws and all), and make the best of things from there.  Or move on to a new one.

So sure, get rid of a box if it's no use.  But that just means you've got a new box, partially defined by the absence of that other box . . . and about now a wooden stick hits me upside the head and a voice calls out "shut up and do something".  Guess I will - work, I'm afraid.  Maybe later I can figure what this all means to GNS . . .

[Damn, I guess I got one more bit to say before I can move on - following Ron's bridge/physics analogy, the bridge - if not the bridge designer - MUST be in the box called "physics".  Not a word I use lightly - MUST.  Maybe some folks make beter bridges if they don't worry about physics than if they do, but the bridge IS in that box.]

Gordon C. Landis

[ This Message was edited by: Gordon C. Landis on 2001-07-05 19:13 ]

[Mytholder]

While I'm not sure if we're going to come up with fundamental laws of game design through GNS, I do think it's a useful tool...and it's not as restrictive as the comments about boxes make it out to be. Some of John Morrow's models in recent threads seem to suggest the existence of regions of the model for which no game exists. Explicitly collabourative gamism and simulationism, for example...

[Ferry Bazelmans]

Actually, I think designing while "out-of-the-box" would just mean designing without specifically referring to GNS.

When I wrote Soap, I wrote it because I'm:

• A big fan of Once Upon a Time, but hate it when control is taken away by those generic category cards (item/person/etc.)


• A big fan of Slasher because of the hilarity that usually ensues (like having the slasher trapped in a doggydoor for five turns because every attempt for him to move is blocked)


• I've alway enjoyed the blatantly idiotic plots of soaps

Not because I wanted to make a narrativist game. I think I was designing while "out-of-the-box". Only later did people come along and say: "it's definitely narrativist".

Point is: who cares. As Ron say, wether or not you use the G/N/S, it's still there in your game.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Clinton R Nixon wrote:

I don't think GNS is the only way to design a game--in fact, I completely disagree with some of the ways it's being used here, as I think it's only one model of how we can categorize games.

Interesting comment, especially about how GNS is not the only model for RPGs.  I'd be interested in what such models would be.  (This should probably go in the other forum to keep the conversation on GNS)

Gordon C. Landis wrote:

Maybe some folks make beter bridges if they don't worry about physics than if they do, ...

This is quite possible.  Milage probably variies but I've been trying to actively design a narrativist game w/o success.  This is mostly because RPGs are an art and art doesn't work that way.  Not always.  Not for everybody.

It's sort of like over easy eggs.  The more I try to not break the yolks the more they break.  I've found if I  flip them like I just don't care they come out perfect.  Don't ask me why.  They just do.

Crayne wrote:

Point is: who cares. As Ron says, wether or not you use the G/N/S, it's still there in your game.

Perhaps more accurately is: Wether or not you use the G/N/S, your game is still there.

I'm ever so s-l-o-w-l-y coming around on the whole GNS thing.  I'm willing to admit that it may be a useful tool to some I will reserve my praise until I have seen a game designed with GNS specifically in mind (if you know of such a game, let me know).

TBH, while there may be some valid design principles in the GNS they are definately not the end-all and be-all of game design.

Personally I am what may be called a simulationist  These story-games are a little bit beyond me and most of the ones I have I either got for free or felt like I wasted my money.

I am very, very stuck on the idea of "you are your character" and cannot resolve myself to games where this is not necessarily true as being role-playing games.

This is where I'm coming from.

And this didn't stop me from buying Elfs Granted I picked it up more for the art (sorry, Ron) but the humor that is supposedly in the actual game mechanics was what made me pick it up.  Premise and other such features carry a bit more weight that the GNS when it comes to getting people to cough up some money for your product.  I didn't buy Sorcerer, the premise isn't my bag.  But I did buy Elfs.

Since I always finish with a very lame analogy:

Using the GNS is like blueprint building.  The GNS will tell you what kind of building  (house, garage, shopping center) what materials your will need and how to all goes together.

But it doesn't tell you what color paint to use, what sort of carpeting to have, where the building is located and several other things.

Yes, in this way I'm with Clinton.  It's useful, but only so far.

[ This Message was edited by: pblock on 2001-07-09 00:27 ]

[Ron Edwards]

Jack,

I have no record at all of you ordering Elfs. I assume that Verza hasn't processed your order yet, for some reason. Please let me know, by private e-mail, when you ordered - the USA holiday shouldn't mean squat, as they're based on Switzerland.

Also, I am reading your posts with some amazement. Did someone, anyone, ever say, "Use GNS to design role-playing games, because it's the be-all and end-all, it's all you'll ever need"? I now answer my own question: no one said that. If you read the original System essay, you'll see that I claim precisely the opposite - that resolution mechanics, for instance, are NOT dictated 1:1 by GNS.

Best,
Ron

[joshua neff]

I am very, very stuck on the idea of "you are your character" and cannot resolve myself to games where this is not necessarily true as being role-playing games.

I always find statements like this fascinating & frustrating, mostly because my difficulty is in comprehending why someone would have difficulty in accepting as "roleplaying games" RPGs that work differently than how the person usually plays.
Are you saying, pblock, that you are only comfortable with RPGs being in-character simulations? If so, I find that very strange. Why is it so difficult to imagine that RPGs could be different?
As I often say to my brother when he says "I can't believe such-n-such!"--"Maybe you should try harder."

Using the GNS is like blueprint building. The GNS will tell you what kind of building (house, garage, shopping center) what materials your will need and how to all goes together.
But it doesn't tell you what color paint to use, what sort of carpeting to have, where the building is located and several other things.

Going with that analogy, you can't paint or carpet a house that hasn't been built. And even if you don't use a blueprint to build the house, you're still using the principles behind blueprints to build the house. Or, as Ron said, whether or not you use GNS consciously or purposefully, it's still there behind the design.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

On 2001-07-08 16:30, joshua neff wrote:

Are you saying, pblock, that you are only comfortable with RPGs being in-character simulations? If so, I find that very strange. Why is it so difficult to imagine that RPGs could be different?

I suppose it's because in defining what an RPG is or in explaining to others why one would engage in such a pastime that is what I'd come with.

Give me a little credit, I'm trying.