Hybrids - looking for an understanding of

[Valamir]

So by this reasoning one could observe that virtually all commercial wargames are Gamist/Sims with a subordinate S.  The goal is clearly winning and driving your opponent from the field (or racking of VPs or whatever), but the measure of how "good" a wargame it is, is clearly reliant on the Sim to make it go.

One could also make observations about the split in the wargaming community over the validity of games in the "German Style" which are essentially pure G and devoid of Sim altogether (instead relying just on color to give a certain flavor to what is otherwise a purely abstract exercise).  Some old grognards (such as myself) love these things because they give you all the fun without the 100 pages of rules and 1200 counters and such.  Others decry them.  Which would seem to indicate different degrees of importance placed on the S in the subordinate role.   For those desiring a high degree of S backing the G (perhaps at times inverting which is subordinate) the German games are a complete failure.  For those whose interest in the S is less, they are fine.

To bring this back to RPGs then one could argue that almost all commercial RPGs that we've been thinking of as Simulationist are either:

1) Gamist games with substantial Sim support in a subordinate roll
2) Simulationist games with Gamism in a subordinate roll, which as you note is not a very well balanced state which usually results in the Gamism part running rampant and "breaking" the game much to the frustration of those seeking sim.

This in itelf opens up a couple of interesting thoughts:

1) is it even possible to design a Pure Sim game that doesn't have Gamist elements in there somewhere?  Is there a system that can't be "gamed"?  
2) if not, if there is no way to design a purely Sim game that is devoid of gamable elements, and if Sim with subordinate gamism is not a very stable hybrid form...is there such a thing as Simulationism, except as a theoretical construct?

This then brings us full circle to ideas that haven't been raised in a while about how Sim feels out of place with the other two.  Back to Jared's Beeg Horseshoe theory, and the idea of two axes (G to N and S- to S+) that you and Mike were discussing at Demon Con...

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ralph,

Be careful of falling into the Can You trap ... sure, you "can" get Gamism going in practically any Sim design which isn't headlocked through one person's fiat. But that doesn't mean that no solid Sim games exist. I suggest that relatively few of the games cited in my Sim essay are necessarily Gamist-facilitating.

Best,
Ron

[Wormwood]

Ron,

The odd thing about defining subordinate as supporting and augmenting the other modes, is that there is nothing to say that there need be a non-subordinate mode in play. I have good reason to believe that this very situation, is acheivable, and can even be designed.

Hybridization, with a non-subordinate mode seems to be a case of one-directional synergy, where decisions in the subordinate modes eventually provide an increased advantage to decisions in the non-subordinate mode.

With only subordinate modes, a two-directional synergy is required. For example, consider a game where the emergent phenomena of segemented conflicts creates opportunities character development. Likewise character development can then be built upon with further depth, permitting access to knew fields for the conflicts. In this way, presumeably, the game could provide a hybrid between gamist and simulationist modes, both being subordinate.

I suppose the real question, and the real debate about hybrids, is whether design can achieve fully subordinate hybrids, or if there will inevitably be a non-subordinate mode.

  - Mendel S.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Mendel,

You lost me entirely. I have no idea what you mean. Can you re-phrase, please, possibly with examples?

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

I think Mendel means that this implies that there are no games with equal hybridized modes. That this implies that all games must have ordinate and subordinate modes.

Mike

[Wormwood]

Mike, Ron,

Actually, I meant something sort of opposite. I think it's a very valid question whether there are "equal" hybrids. And from what I've seen, I'm of the opinion the answer should be yes.

Regardless of the answer though, it seems a point that should be discussed and perhaps even tested with designs.

  -Mendel S.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Thanks for the clarification, Mendel. Your point has to get back to the "play is real, design is facilitative" issue, before it can go further in my mind.

Are you talking about design which can be equally interpreted as [G facilitates S] or [S facilitates G]? Or are you talking about play in which G facilitates S as commonly as S facilitates G, and thus about design which facilitates such play?

Neither seems especially reliable to me. Your point appears pretty rock-solid in your mind, so I'm interested in which experiences of play lead you to this perspective.

Best,
Ron

[Wormwood]

Ron,

While design goals do not imply play results, it is certainly possible to bias those play result in certain ways, using play models and careful tuning of mechanical and setting elements. In this case, I'm advocating what I consider to be experimental game design, where games are designed to validate a given portion of theory via their play results.

In particular several such play results I have observed on some of my own designs indicate to me, that unbiased hybrids are possible, and in fact can be designed as such. At the moment this is at the initial analysis stage, and I have no clear idea if the trends seen are indicative. But it is interesting in the least that a game designed as an unbiased hybrid also appears to play as one. This is why I suggest this question needs to be asked, and investigated.

The game I'm referencing in particular is Pure Shoujo, linked off the website in my profile. I'm interested in determining if certain other games have similiar properties, but have yet to be able to test them, and in some cases finish the designs.

Well, I hope that clarifies my point,

  -Mendel S.

[Jason Lee]

Jason, the idea of classifying conflict seems interesting, but I'm not sure if those catagories are really descriptive or complete. Certainly both stance and exploration provide locations for player discord (a term I prefer since it is less ambiguous in terms of in game conflict). But there also seems to be a variety of other areas of conflict, such as system disagreements and agenda interpretation. Obviously the most any design can enact is a reduction in discord, not it's removal. Second, in what way is a stance conflict and an exploration conflict distinct, other than where they occur? Admittedly I'm playing devil's advocate here, but it seems that conflict analysis is sufficiently important that it deserves careful inspection.

Interesting questions...

Basically just where they occur.  Though, I was seeing Stance conflict more as a 'simultaneous write' error and Exploration conflict as a 'write to read-only device' error.  Regardless, all I've done is essentially split conflict into power struggles (stance/exploration conflicts) and taste preferences (non-mechanics conflicts).

But, I'm painfully off the current topic...

This then brings us full circle to ideas that haven't been raised in a while about how Sim feels out of place with the other two.  Back to Jared's Beeg Horseshoe theory, and the idea of two axes (G to N and S- to S+) that you and Mike were discussing at Demon Con...

Given the focus of values in Nar, the Beeg Horseshoe Theory would probably work a whole lot better with Dramatism (or something similar - story as a priority).  Heh, hell maybe roll-playing versus role-playing was all the more complicated it ever needed to be (I'm mostly joking...mostly).

As for the S- and S+, do you mean hybrids operating like?:

1) S + G = 0
2) S + N = 0

And I suppose the jury is still out on:

3) S + N + G = 0
4) N + G = 0


#1: Shadowrun
#2: TRoS
#3: Seems doable.  I can't think of a coherent example.
#4: Looks impossible given that all RPG's seems like an emulation of some sort.  I suppose if you weren't emulating anything...I can't think of an example of that.

EDIT:
I suppose there is a thread on #4 here.

[Valamir]

Actually Jason, I was referring to an idea Mike H. and Ron were talking about at Demon Con this past weekend which is why my shorthand notation probably didn't make much sense.

The idea being that there really is just Narrativism vs Gamism (and Mike actually made a similiar comment to yours about roll vs role playing) that exist as stand alone entities.  The S is then overlaid on top of either like a second axis so you could have high sim Gamism, or low sim Gamism; his sim Narrativism or low sim Narrativism.  I had had a similiar idea upon my initial exposure to GNS back on Gaming Outpost.  I think I even made an attempt at an ascii graph depicting it.

Mike will have to flesh the idea out further as a topic.

[Mike Holmes]

Mike will have to flesh the idea out further as a topic.

Sure, chuck me in the deep end.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Mendel,

Go ye forth and design! Which is to say, let's find out.

Best,
Ron

[Walt Freitag]

Responding belatedly to the congruence question...

Ron is correct that congruence is defined on the scale of individual decisions. (At the time that definition was formulated, GNS distinctions between individual decisons were also being discussed by most people here, even if that wasn't Ron's intended interpretation.)

I'm not certain whether Ron is claiming, in offering the cell analogy, that individual decisions are never identifiable as G, N, or S by observation. If that were the case, then clearly congruence (as defined as the inability to identify a particular decision as G, N, or S) would have no useful meaning at all within GNS theory, as all decisions in all styles of play would automatically become congruent.

If Ron is claiming that overall-observably-Simulationist (for example) behavior does not necessarily incorporate any individual decisions that are identifiably Simulationist, then congruence remains meaningful but (if the claim proves valid) becomes limited in applicability. The applicability is based on the hypothesis that a pattern of congruent decisions amounts to play that does not discomfit players with different creative agendas because its own creative agenda is not apparent. But if a bunch of unclassifiable (that is, congruent) decisions could add up to (for example) distinctly Gamist play, that hypothesis is placed in doubt.

On the completely practical level, congruence is about solving problems in play, and designing systems to avoid problems, by addressing the complaints of players who find that certain specific actions of other players get in the way of their creative agendas. It's addressing disease by treating the symptoms -- which is an often maligned approach to problem-solving, except for two things: (1) it's not always possible to cure the disease in any other way, and (2) if one can successfully and indefinitiely treat all the symptoms, that's just as good, from an operational standpoint, as "really curing" the disease. (It might be less desirable, if the symptom-treatments are more painful, costly, etc. than the "real cure," but it could also be the other way around.)

Congruence also, in practice, often comes down to compromise on the creative agenda level. Conflicting character goals, for instance, will cause few problems if all the players are on the same creative agenda page GNS-wise. "Let's explore what happens when a bunch of Hatfields and McCoys are trapped in a coal mine together," "Let's have a big fight between Hatfields and McCoys trapped in a coal mine together and see which side's players can kick more ass," or "Let's set up a conflict between clan loyalty and survival and see what kind of story happens" all have a good chance of success. But conflicting character goals combined with different GNS creative agendas is a recipe for disaster.

Therefore, a GM or a system might demand that players create characters with roughly compatible goals. This is a congruence constraint. A group of players with coherent creative agendas would probably find the constraint onerous. (It would, for instance, rule out the three Hatfield-McCoy scenarios just listed.) For a group of players with creative agendas split along GNS lines, though, such a constraint will result in a much better chance of functional play. The compromise is, if your creative agenda is something like "show your superiority to the other players by secretly working against them and destroying them from within," the system (or the GM) isn't going to let you do it.

Congruence draws upon GNS as a model of what the "disease" is (differening creative agendas between players) and as a way to analyze the observed "symptoms" and think up promising "treatments." If the treatments work, in the end it doesn't really matter whether or not the theory of the cause of the disease is correct, or applied as originally intended.

- Walt

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Walt,

You wrote,

If Ron is claiming that overall-observably-Simulationist (for example) behavior does not necessarily incorporate any individual decisions that are identifiably Simulationist, then congruence remains meaningful but (if the claim proves valid) becomes limited in applicability.

That's how I've always seen it.

I think your discussion about the Hatfields/McCoys scenarios and the role of congruence within it/them is brilliant. I totally agree with you.

It also reminds me of the difference between the implicit goals of the GNS material vs. those of Robin's Laws; his treatment suggests, to me, that the Congruence be favored to such an extent that the differing GNS goals are completely occluded throughout play.

Best,
Ron

[Stuart DJ Purdie]

Ok, I think I'm one the same page as everyone else now, thanks Ron.

I'd amend [defintion of hybrid] to exclude the "none" category, such that instead of "not corresponds to a single one," I'd say, "corresponds to two or more."

That was pretty much what I ment, just not what I said, unfortunatly. Although on reflection there may be a few things that bear futher discussion around that point.  I'm baking a few thoughts on that specific thing at the moment, so I'll bring this up in another thread shortly.

Issue #1 would seem to be the congruence thing.

Going from what Walt said, Congruent play is quite distinct from Hybrid play, other than that they both cross GNS boundaries.  (but see below)

Issue #2 is that business about Simulationism in playing The Riddle of Steel.

I think I've got that one sorted now:  With hybrid play with subordinate Sim, there is a firm commitment to exploration of some aspect(s) of play.  This need not be overt, as with all GNS / Social contract interactions, but is not present in a simple (i.e. non-Hybrid) N or G game.  For example, in RoS, there is a a firm commitment to the gritty realism, and depiction of swordfighting accuratly.  In Sorcerer, there is not, and even if a Sorcerer game was superficially similar, it would be quite different (much less detailed for one)  when blades were drawn.

That's the difference I was looking from between the background of eploration in a Nar game, and an N/s hybrid.

This does, however, open a new can of worms.  This is not something that can be played in a choice of modes - and thus is not a game where two players with differing GNS priorities can play.

In effect then, there are two types of Hybrids.  The first, the kind you mentioned in 'GNS and other matters' is the type where it can be played with metagame priorities - it has a broad range of applicability it can be spread over.  Are there any examples of this type extant?  Congruent play would then be an example of this type of hybrid, but the reverse does not hold.

The other type (Type II) is where the two modes are interwoven, and not seperable.  See RoS for an example.

This falls out from the catch-all defintion of hybrid.

If I'm not barking in the wrong forest here, then this may clear up some of the equal-hybrid vs subordinate mode hybrid stuff - everyone can be right, because they're talking about different things.  An 'equal parts' hybrid is logical, and probably required for a Type I hybrid, and the reverse is true for a Type II.

Note that the fabled N + S + G hybrid would be a very different beast if it was a Type I hybrid, rather than a Type II hybrid.  I'm not conviced that a Type II 3 mode hybrid is a workable entity, whilst I could see a Type I 3 mode hybrid.

Note also that the the two types of Hybrid mentioned here are not exhaustive - again, because of the open ended nature of the definition.  There may be other types of Hybrids too.

This would neatly explain some of the confusion I was having.

Stuart.