GNS a sign of sophistication and maturity...

[tldenmark]

Eventually any new human endeavour that becomes established starts to spawn it's "philosophers".  These people come in and try to explain things and put things in a box, and most importantly to -define- things.

Art for example has it's own vocabulary: light, shadow, form, perspective, color theory and so on.

I see this whole GNS thing as the beginning of that philosophy for RPG's.  It may only be the first awkward step, or it may turn out to be a valid, brilliant defination of games.

I've enjoyed seeing the progress and refinement of the GNS terms, and hope it leads to more understanding and higher thought for all those interested in gaming.

I still think it has a long way to go, and it may require a "Scott Mcloud's Understanding Comics" type treatment to really become meaningful.

[contracycle]

yes

[Gordon C. Landis]

(Not sure why I wrote up this detailed response - certainly, I don't mean to offend with a "point by point" reply.  But it got me thinkin', and so here're my thoughts)

>Eventually any new human endeavour that becomes
>established starts to spawn it's "philosophers".
>These people come in and try to explain
>things and put things in a box, and most importantly to
>-define- things.

And there are people that HATE that.  Sometimes, there are good reasons to HATE that.

>Art for example has it's own vocabulary: light, shadow,
>form, perspective, color theory and so on.

"But a REAL artist doesn't NEED to know all that, they can just CREATE."  And some great art has been created by folks with no clue about that vocabulary.

>I see this whole GNS thing as the beginning of that
>philosophy for RPG's.  It may only be the first awkward
>step, or it may turn out to be a valid, brilliant
>defination of games.

I think Ron et al will happily point to rgfa, Everway, and probably other places I don't know about as "first awkward steps", but it does seem to be stumbling along here - validity and brilliance will (or won't) appear as folks put stuff into use.

>I've enjoyed seeing the progress and refinement of the GNS
>terms, and hope it leads to more understanding and higher
>thought for all those interested in gaming.

Me too :wink:

>I still think it has a long way to go, and it may require
>a "Scott Mcloud's Understanding Comics" type treatment to
>really become meaningful.

I've also had that thought (and expresssed it here on the Forge, I think) - GNS is certainly the closest thing to "Understanding Comics" for RPGs I've seen.  If it keeps getting closer and closer to that . . . wow, that'll be great.  I plan to participate/help as best I can.

But great comics were around for years and years before Scott McCloud, and tons o'folks get tons o'fun reading 'em without ever even hearing about "Understanding Comics".  Useful to remember that, I think.

Seems like there was something else I wanted to say . . . .

[ah, came back to me when I posted and re-saw the thread title.  Because of that last paragraph, we need to be careful about associating GNS with "sophistication" and "maturity".  Yes, it can/could be a sign of those things, but the lack of GNS belief/support/understanding is NOT an indicator of a lack of sophistication and maturity.

Apparently, I'm the "don't get too wrapped up in ourselves" cop today :wink:]

Gordon C. Landis

[ This Message was edited by: Gordon C. Landis on 2001-07-25 18:24 ]

[Ron Edwards]

Hey there,

Obviously I appreciate the compliment presented in this thread. Among all the cries of "You shouldn't do this" and "You're not doing it RIGHT" over the last year especially, positive feedback is well worth it.

Gordon's right, of course, and the joke about the "Cult of Ron" carries with it a warning ... too much self-involvement, too much ego, and too much insider reinforcement, and all we have is a million bandwidth full of kibble.

I have a couple of yardsticks I use to evaluate the actual quality derived from my and others' continued attention to the theory-side of role-playing. In descending order of importance:

1) Are people having more fun with the actual hobby than they did before? So far the answer is yes. A substantial number of the people who contact this material find themselves changing habits, changing approaches, and having a better time.

Those who were already having a good time, well, that's great, and whatever they were/are doing to do this, the rest of us need that input. But I have observed that most role-players are not happy. The basic goal is observing people transforming from less happy to more so.

2) Are games being produced that people actually play and yet do not impoverish their creators? In many cases, the solution is to offer a free game. In others, it's a matter of deciding how to publish and under what terms. I really don't care if a game is free, $5, or $55 - what matters is that the creator has not been screwed either financially or in terms of ownership.

I do see games - and good ones - being produced by Forge members that probably would not have been so without the discussions here. I also hope that people who enter into the publishing game are doing with their eyes open and not merely repeating the cant that leaves us with empty bank accounts and boxes of unsold games.

As you all know, I've put my own money where my mouth is. Sorcerer is a test case for the indie thing.

3) Is the debate active and fruitful? This is harder to evaluate as a single person ... the trap is of course to recognize one's own words in the voices of others, and thus to think that all is well. Instead, I have to see whether the crucible of debate is really resulting in "items" of value, especially those which fire up our imaginations as role-players and as designers.

I hope that the GNS document issue, bloody as it was (and uncompleted as it is, since I'm supposed to be revising the latest copy right now), does produce such "magic items." I think that the discussions of protagonism and premise, of Currency (if it survives its current critique), of sexism, and reward systems, as well as others, all have the potential for doing so too.

This also means, of course, that the intellectual standards for interaction on the Forge have to be stricter than in the usual whee-golly, spouting-off atmosphere of internet discussions and forums.

ALL DONE
Anyway, I hope it's working. Those are MY standards for judging so. I'd certainly be interested in others' measures, if any, for evaluating whether the Forge is really contributing anything worthwhile.

Best,
Ron

Get this, I misspelled my own name the first time around.

[ This Message was edited by: Ron Edwards on 2001-07-25 22:34 ]

[tldenmark]

"But a REAL artist doesn't NEED to know all that, they can just CREATE."  And some great art has been created by folks with no clue about that vocabulary.

If you think a -real- artist doesn't need to know the vocabulary I'd like to point something out.  Look at art before the Renaissance, before they figured out things like perspective, anatomy, form and how light works.  Now, look at the art created after those terms were discovered, Rembrandt to Monet.

Eastern art has a very different philosophy about art, but they too have their own visual vocabulary they've developed.

Even "self-taught" artists need to know the vocabulary, they are very much being influenced by artists who have learned it.  Now in the case of art it is a 'visual' vocabulary that can be learned through viewing, and in that sense is universal.  So a "self-taught" artist is actually someone who has looked at other good art and learned from it, even if they don't know the words.  Though I bet if you go talk to any good "self-taught" artist they will know about things like reflected light, line quality and perspective.  All vocabulary terms invented during the Renaissance.

Every human endeavour develops and improves over time through the refinement and building of knowledge, or it dies.

This said, I can still very much enjoy a Jazz symphony, but don't have a clue how to read music, or anything about rhythm and harmony and all those other vocabulary words musicians know!

[Gordon C. Landis]

tldenmark,

I shoulda knowd better than to make a partially-formed comment about Art to an artist . . .:smile:

I put the "REAL artists don't . . ." stuff in quotes 'cause it's not something *I* believe, but you do hear people say it a lot, and their argument isn't COMPLETLY absurd (aren't the Lascaux paintings great art?  Aren't there individual pieces by someone who has "studied" only "life", not other art, that are remarkable?)

That said, your points all sound good to me - and given just how trully, abysmally bad *I* am at any kind of drawing/painting/sketching, I should probablly just shut up about Art now.

Gordon C. Landis

[tldenmark]

On 2001-07-25 22:00, Gordon C. Landis wrote:
tldenmark,

I shoulda knowd better than to make a partially-formed comment about Art to an artist . . .:smile:

I put the "REAL artists don't . . ." stuff in quotes 'cause it's not something *I* believe, but you do hear people say it a lot, and their argument isn't COMPLETLY absurd (aren't the Lascaux paintings great art?  Aren't there individual pieces by someone who has "studied" only "life", not other art, that are remarkable?)

That said, your points all sound good to me - and given just how trully, abysmally bad *I* am at any kind of drawing/painting/sketching, I should probablly just shut up about Art now.

Gordon C. Landis

[tldenmark]

On 2001-07-25 22:00, Gordon C. Landis wrote:
I shoulda knowd better than to make a partially-formed comment about Art to an artist . . .:smile:

Oops.  Sorry about the post above.

I love art.  The more I learn about it (the "vocabulary of art") the more I appreciate it.

That being said, everything Picasso ever did might as well be an excrement sandwich as far as I'm concerned.

So.  Let the Great Debate continue!

[Knight]

I'd agree that all great artists understand the theory, and that understanding the theory does not make one a great artist.  The untaught geniuses are people who intuitivly get the theory.  I tend to froth and rant when discussing the "catorgorisation = bad" issue, which would be out of place here, so I'll leave it at that.  

[ This Message was edited by: Knight on 2001-07-28 16:13 ]

[Mike Holmes]

I think you have it there.

While there may be a few savants out there and a few more who have internalized the art form by experience and do not refer to the vocabulary, there are many more in most arts who do use the vocabulary to good effect. And more importantly, there are those amatures like myself for whom intuitive understanding may not be forthcomming. For those like myself, the vocabulary may be invaluable. That is assuming that it is relatively accurate.  :wink:

Mike Holmes

[A.Neill]

Just to say I agree. When I first encountered GNS "out there" it came across as another taxonomy of role-players rather than an exploration of role-playing itself.

The model has had real value to me as I experiment with different styles of play. In particular it has persuaded me, as a GM, to give some real authorial power to players and to accept that players with a different approach to playing games are not lesser beings.

Of course it's early days, especially given that the nature of the variables themselves are still being debated, but honestly I think the gaming community and game designers are getting something out of this!

Just my tuppence worth.

Alan

[greyorm]

"But a REAL artist doesn't NEED to know all that, they can just CREATE."  And some great art has been created by folks with no clue about that vocabulary.

I think everyone has missed the point on this one: the fact that the artist who creates great art without knowing the vocabulary does not invalidate the creation and usage of a vocabulary, or the vocabulary itself.

Simply, the defined "boxes" of perspective, shadow, light, color, shape, line, contrast, compliment, etc. exist in the work of a great artist even if they do not have the vocabulary to define or use those terms.

Hence, on a related note, creation of a vocabulary, rather, creation of boxes of definition, are not constraints upon a thing but understanding of it that has moved from intuitive to conscious; one can still appreciate a thing and understand it.

But the main point I am making here is that the "boxes" don't vanish when the person stops knowing about them.

[Ron Edwards]

Hey everyone,

Since I believe no one actually CLAIMED that "naive artists" do not use the principles of art, everyone is basically agreeing with everyone else.

I'd like to declare that we've beaten the topic thoroughly into the ground and should really let it decompose in peace.

Best,
Ron

[TrizzlWizzl]

On 2001-07-25 17:50, tldenmark wrote:
Eventually any new human endeavour that becomes established starts to spawn it's "philosophers".  These people come in and try to explain things and put things in a box, and most importantly to -define- things.

Right.  Well, as a (for want of a better term) "postmodernist" I find the process of placing things in nice, neat little hierarchies a step backwards in the philosophical process.  I don't find the GNS model 'enlightening', I find it 'endarkening' because it seems to me that people are trying to find ways to respond to 'stances' and 'player types' and 'front seat/back seat' and 'models' so they don't have to deal with the simple fact that a game will be lame if no one's having fun.

If I walk away from a game having had no fun, it's not because I didn't 'take the author stance' at the appropriate time or my GM was a 'narrativist' while I was a 'gamist' or whatever.  It's because my GM ran his game poorly.  How do we know he ran the game poorly?  Well... I didn't have a good time.  Pud[proof]ding.

I would be waiving the GNS banner as high as anyone if I saw it being used to address the question of 'how do we give our players what they want, given the system?" but I don't.  I see it being used as an excuse to not give players what they want, regardless of system.  This, to me, is an ineffective way to think of RPGs.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

'how do we give our players what they want, given the system

"Our players," meaning the game comes from the GM, on high? I don't think so and I think there are several games that support me on this.

For too damn long the conventional wisdom of RPG Land has been "The GM gives the story to the players in His infinite wisdom and if the game goes well, it is to His credit. If it goes poorly, it is to His shame."

Well, the GM is not the be-all-end-all like he was back in '83. Yaddah yaddah, insert the Forge's modern RPG theory discussion here...