sim fidelity

[Emily Care]

Hello all,

The thread on order of sim elements inspired these thoughts in me, but they were OT enough that I figured I should put them on a different thread.

OK, so all roleplaying contains exploration of the 5 elements (setting, situation, system, character and color). Narrativist and Gamist gaming explore them with specific goals (exploring big P-Premise, or overcoming challenges, for example).  Sim is often seen as simply exploration of the 5 without these additional filters.  The GNS triangle is uneven, sim is either more or less than the other two approaches. But what if we think of sim play as just another filter? And each variety simulationism as its own unique take with a common goal: fidelity to a source referent.

Sim play may have many goals:   "Realism", Genre consistency,  or other specific goals that are analogous to model building: making a beautiful reproduction of something one has seen represented, the referent. This may be the real world, a novel, a genre, etc.  Play seeks to capture the "true thing" of the referent that it is the goal of play to explore & newly represent. Each mode of sim play has a filter question that gets asked of each game event. This question is the criteria for whether it rings with that truth or not.  All that system contains is used to ask the question.

From Ron's Sim essay (on Purist for System): "Purist-for-System designs tend to model the same things: differences among scales, situational modifiers, kinetics of all kinds, and so forth."

The filter for representation here is that the truth of physics etc. can be represented through the medium of mechanics. The filter is "what would happen in the real world". The genre is real world physics. :)

High Concept games fall under the consistency with genre etc. heading. "What will evoke the text/setting/perioed I'm representing best?"

I'm not so sure about Rules-lite Story or Character priorities but it seems like the path to truth here is about plausibly tying actions to character motivations.  The filter is "what would the character do".    

Narrativist and gamist decisions are seen as being metagame oriented because their goals deal with explicitly with the experience of the player. And in distinction, sim goals are seen as being about in-game elements. If sim goals are aspiring to the dream, that fidelity to whatever is being simulated, then these are still metagame goals, they simply masquerade as "in-game".  Each filter refers to the materials of the game world itself, so the fact that it still refers back to the experience of the participants may be overlooked.

Anyway, another set of $.02.

Regards,
Emily Care

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Emily,

You wrote,

If sim goals are aspiring to the dream, that fidelity to whatever is being simulated, then these are still metagame goals, they simply masquerade as "in-game". Each filter refers to the materials of the game world itself, so the fact that it still refers back to the experience of the participants may be overlooked.

Agreed in full! And stated better than anywhere else that I can recall. This is an issue that Mike Holmes and I (for instance) do agree on, but have a terrible time managing to articulate to one another's satisfaction when referring to it in short-hand.

Best,
Ron

[Le Joueur]

Narrativist and gamist decisions are seen as being metagame oriented because their goals deal with explicitly with the experience of the player.

Just once I was wondering when someone would point out that Simulationism's choice "to avoid meta-game" is a meta-game choice.  It's a common mistake to think that 'not making a choice,' aversion to choosing, is not a choice, because it is.

At each 'meta-game' opportunity, Simulationist Drift chooses to avoid the meta-game potentials - that is the Simulationist meta-game choice - not.

Any better?

Probably not, but it does mean that every mode makes clear meta-game choices.

Fang Langford

[talysman]

Narrativist and gamist decisions are seen as being metagame oriented because their goals deal with explicitly with the experience of the player.

Just once I was wondering when someone would point out that Simulationism's choice "to avoid meta-game" is a meta-game choice.  It's a common mistake to think that 'not making a choice,' aversion to choosing, is not a choice, because it is.

At each 'meta-game' opportunity, Simulationist Drift chooses to avoid the meta-game potentials - that is the Simulationist meta-game choice - not.

although that's true, Fang, I kind of thought that Emily was saying that Sim is metagame in another way. consider this: metagame decisions, as Emily states are concerns about player goals. Sim is concerned with in-game goals ... but this is a masquerade for a player goal, enjoyment through recreating a novel, historical time period, genre, real-world physics, or "emotional physics". or, as Emily puts it, fidelity (instead of premise or challenge.)

[Mike Holmes]

All I can says is, ayup. That's what I been saying all along. Thanks for stating it in a way that people can grok Em.

This does lead to some interesing cconcepts. It explains a lot of the Actor Stance play that occurs in Sim, for example.

Mike

[Emily Care]

Thanks all!  Glad to help lend clarity.

Fang:  What John said.  I see sim decisions as metagame choices too.  I think you and I are on the same chapter, if not the same page yet.  I agree that every mode makes metagame choices.

At each 'meta-game' opportunity, Simulationist Drift chooses to avoid the meta-game potentials - that is the Simulationist meta-game choice - not.

I'm not sure I got what you meant by this. But my rephrasing of this might be that "At each 'meta-game' opportunity Sim Drift uses versimilitude to a given text or referent as the primary criteria for decision making- that is the meta-game choice.

--Em Care

[Le Joueur]

So we all agree then?

That each of the GNS modes does prioritize something above and beyond 'in game' issues?

Narrativism = Edwardian Premise

Gamism = Competition (IIRC)

Simulationism = Fidelity (to

something)[/list:u]Great googlimoogly!

Fang Langford

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Fang,

Yes, we all agree - and I think we have all always agreed about this but had a hard time articulating it.

I think it's clear that "one of these two is not like the others," in terms of how one relates overt, non-Explorative agenda (social and aesthetic) to the act of play. That difference is what's been referred to, in the past, as "not metagame."

I think Emily's term "fidelity" is a much, much better way to articulate it, so that's what I'll being saying, along with stuff like "commitment to Exploration" and "the Dream," from now on.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

Yeah, Fidelity is a term we could have used long ago. Works well as a substitute for Verism...Vemisil..Vemersil..that other word, too.

Mike

[Emily Care]

Verism...Vemisil..Vemersil..that other word, too.

Yeah, considering I couldn't even spell it correctly in my post....  

here it is first and last time:

verisimilitude, dude.