is it the slice of the pie, or the size of the piece

[Valamir]

Marco's made this point many times.  Perhaps he'll want to chime in here.

[Le Joueur]

A flexible ruleset for a flexible campaign.  A three in one may be extremely difficult, but S with the ability to move to G?

...Play isn't always one thing, should a system be able to facilitate a campaign which may end up with a different focus?

I'd say, yes....

Really, who was it that said that many Narrativist games had to start out pseudo-Simulationist until they 'got up to speed' and the players 'took over?'

Fang Langford

[Mike Holmes]

Nip,

Do you have an example of such a "flexible" game? Does such a thing exist currently? If so, which is it?

Or are you saying that one should be made?

See, Fang's Scattershot is very much an attempt to create such a system. But you may note the difficulty that he's having with completing it. There's a lot of theory there behond how to accomplish it, and you should probably read up on it to get an idea of the means by which such might be accomplished. But it's still just theory at the moment.

Ron is very generous with saying that Universalis has some facility in this vein. I don't disagree with him. We put in rules that certainly facilitate to a point the kind of Transition (system enabled mode shifting) that's being discussed. But it would still take a concerted effort of knowledgable players to get the right effect vis a vis a particular mode. So, yes, it can be done in that case, but it requires near as much effort as drift. There is just a framework for the drift, if you will.

So, I feel fairly confident that there are few systems that really do or can appeal to all players in practice currently. Is it a laudable goal? I suppose. But it may yet be a long way off if at all possible.

In the meanwhile can we make games like Jakes that easily drift to one or the other mode of play? Yes, certainly. Is that all you're looking for?

Mike

[M. J. Young]

The general consensus of opinion at The Forge would seem to be that you can't design a game that supports all three modes of play, or "player goals" if you will, effectively. I understand that opinion, and can see why it is that so many games support one or another goal more effectively. I also am aware that my own game has been cited as simulationist (and praised for its coherence in that regard). But in play I think the game tends to shift to meet the needs of play.

Part of the reason for this is that in some ways the game rules function as much as a toolbox as a rules set. Frequently within the rules it specifically states that you can resolve an outcome with a particular method, or use another method, or another, depending on how accurate you want it or how quickly you want to handle it in play or other concerns. In practice, the game tends to adapt to the players, to a significant degree.

Another factor is that there is no reward system per se. One improves through practice and study, which means dedicating time to that. Players express their own personalities and goals and desires through their characters to a much greater degree (because they play themselves), so their interaction as characters in many ways models their interaction as players. Individual story lines are typical of the game, as characters are frequently split into independent adventures. If one player particularly wants to tackle dragons and become a great superhero of some sort, he can do that; the other players will respond accordingly, but they aren't at all disadvantaged if they choose instead to study medicine and physics or even if they choose to sit in the background and watch the stories unfold around them. Players are empowered because the stories are very much created in response to their choices.

I won't pretend it's perfect. Combat tends to slow the action more than most narrativists would like, although here, too, that is often a matter of player choices--if a character chooses to focus his abilities on combat skills and equipment, that's going to slow combat precisely because the player has chosen to focus on that aspect of his character. There are no gamist added rewards to success in the main; your reward is that you succeeded, and there aren't any experience points or character bonus abilities or anything on top of that.  But players with a great variety of goals and preferences often play together in the same game sessions without conflict, and get a lot of enjoyment from the fact that they can do and be whatever they wish, even if all they wish is to be observers, and still be involved in play.

Maybe it's drift; maybe the engine was designed to allow for drift. It was written before I, at least, had heard anything about GNS, and didn't consciously take those factors into account.  But I tend to drift between modes of play myself, and when others are refereeing the game still tends to move with me.

--M. J. Young