Is this really Nar?

[Jason Lee]

Chris,

I think I'm in agreement on all counts.

I'm not sure what rules or system he's running with, but the "comm system" example is rather a perfect example. It was a conscious decision of a player to institute the accidental eavesdropping, without any sort of "Roll % for accidentally leaving your radio on", or any such thing.

As a side note, this particular example happened during off-plot time - not exactly game time, just character chatter time.  Hence, no GM and no system - purely freeform.  The scene with the fight required the system (the system is a work in progress...will I ever finish it?), but we ended up erasing that anyway.  That's another reason I think I couldn't make the Sim/Nar distinction - no one setup a more standard plot-like conflict to analyse, it all just sprung out of character behavior.

[jdagna]

The unfortunate thing for GNS, and the fortunate thing for Conflict/Fidelity, is that I now see pure Sim play as a very tiny amount of play - as opposed to the awesome beast I once thought it was.

Here's actually part of my problem with the horseshoe theory, but let me address it in terms of this thread's topic of Sim/Nar play instead.  Maybe I'll jump back over to the other thread and expand on this when I'm sure what it's implications for the horseshoe theory would be.

There's this growing tendency to see Gamism as blue dye and Narrativism as red dye, and to say that anything not perfectly purple or perfectly white is just another shade of red or blue.  However, GNS speaks in terms of priorities.  Not every decision serves the main priority.  You could make 49% of your decisions in a Nar sense and 51% in a Sim sense and still be prioritized according to a Sim mode.

This is why I'm still not convinced we're talking about an example of Narrativist play.  It certainly has Narrativist elements, but I still feel like the priorities expressed stayed at least 51% Simulationist.

I think the key here is that I let my story goals define Luir's personality, as opposed to what would have been most accurate - which in this case would have been a completely arbitrary decision and I most likely would have made the same one anyway.

I don't want to argue with your interpretation of your particular play... but I think this situation is not always an instance of Nar play.  In fact, I make decisions like this all the time and consider it Sim play with emphasis on fun.  

Look at it this way: if my character's personality makes it seem that he's as likely to sit at home as he is to go out goblin hunting, I'll choose goblin hunting.  I've already ruled out dozens of things this character would not do (like mugging passers-by), it isn't against his personality - my main priority - and it's more fun than the other option.  Elements of this decision are not Sim-based, but the priority is still sim.  I simply give myself some author-stance leeway to make sure that I (and everyone at the table) have a fun night.

Maybe I'm more Narrativist than I think, but I firmly believe the presence of Author/Director stance and an interest in the story's quality can exist under a Simulationist priority.  This is why the GNS essay specifies that only one priority can manifest at a time.  Whatever takes precedence is the mode of play.  Analyzing secondary priorities leaves the behavioral clarity of GNS behind and I'm not convinced it adds very much to our understanding of play.[/quote]

[John Kim]

In much the same way, you're attracted automatically to what interests you; what interests you are moral and ethical questions, but you don't label them that way. You aren't exploring them through some philosophical treatise which keeps them at arm's length at all times; you're using story to become involved with them.

I don't know what you're doing between the issues, as it were (although I suspect the issues overlap and intertwine, as all great stories do). Some time back, John Kim described a game he was running for kids, and the way in which moral stories arose during play. I suggested at that time that he was running a game that ran as simulationism between the stories, but that when something latched onto the group they shifted to narrativism, and the game followed them.  

A few clarifications here.  The campaign was a game where the PCs were kids, but all of the players were adult.  (You might have known that, but the way you put it makes it sound like the players are kids.)  The original thread about the game is at http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=51181

I don't really like the idea of saying that the game shifted styles, simply because I felt I was rigidly consistent in my approach for this campaign.  Maybe it was hybrid Nar/Sim, but I don't think it switched back and forth.  On the one hand, it is true that  there would also be periods where it was mostly about the strangeness of the setting, but from time to time moral/ethical issues would come up.  I don't think that implies a shift in style, though.  Given the setup and characters, it is natural that they would face moral/ethical questions.  The magic system, in particular, was inherently loaded with moral choices.  

The impression I'm getting from your posts is the idea that players and/or GM may unconciously stray from asking "What would my character really do?" into asking "What would make for the best story?"  I don't think that happened in this game.  I mentioned before that the highlight of that campaign was when Yukiko (as played by Josh) went and picked up the magical rod of power, accepting also its curse.  This was an extremely powerfully-charged action in moral/ethical terms.  However, I also believe that Josh genuinely was thinking purely about "What would Yukiko do?"  

So on the one hand you are spot-on that both Josh and myself are interested in moral/ethical questions -- which you can attribute as why this event happened in some sense.  However, I don't think it is true that either of us varied our approach with the intent of causing this.  I certainly had absolutely no idea that any of the PCs would go for the rod.  Josh really likes to immerse in character, moreso than any of the other players.  Liz, say, complained at some points that play sometimes was dull (say when we played out their going to a resturant in the Bogart city) -- but Josh liked those parts.  

I guess the point here is that moral/ethical issues will come up -- in fact, may even be extremely likely -- simply from playing characters the way that one envisions them.  Now, the resulting story might not be a well-structured delving of that issue, but it may still be rife with issues.  I'm not sure what this means in terms of theory, but I thought I should say it.

[Jason Lee]

I don't want to argue with your interpretation of your particular play... but I think this situation is not always an instance of Nar play.  In fact, I make decisions like this all the time and consider it Sim play with emphasis on fun.

Argue away!  My interpretation isn't spoken from on high, it's just me trying to figure it out.

There's this growing tendency to see Gamism as blue dye and Narrativism as red dye, and to say that anything not perfectly purple or perfectly white is just another shade of red or blue.  However, GNS speaks in terms of priorities.  Not every decision serves the main priority.  You could make 49% of your decisions in a Nar sense and 51% in a Sim sense and still be prioritized according to a Sim mode.

[snip]

Maybe I'm more Narrativist than I think, but I firmly believe the presence of Author/Director stance and an interest in the story's quality can exist under a Simulationist priority.  This is why the GNS essay specifies that only one priority can manifest at a time.  Whatever takes precedence is the mode of play.  Analyzing secondary priorities leaves the behavioral clarity of GNS behind and I'm not convinced it adds very much to our understanding of play.

I'm getting the impression here that that 49% is actually what makes it Nar, because those Nar decisions could be said to be in conflict with a Sim priority, but the 51% Sim decisions are not necessarily in conflict with the Nar priority.

That's kind of what I'm liking about the Conflict/Fidelty approach.  49% Nar and 51% Sim can be a single priority.  From this we can draw that the player is slightly more likely to choose adherance to Fidelity over Theme, but without the confusion as to whether the mode is technically Nar, Sim or some combination thereof (because we just acknowledge it's a combination, as then figure out how much of one).

One of the hard questions about the Conflict/Fidelity model (connecting to something John L said) is that is this actually more clear?  Seems like it to me, but that's just one point of view.  I'm also drawing on a body of exists RPG theory knowledge.  Is this going to make as much sense to some who doesn't have that base? Or someone whose theory base is different?  Or someone who understands GNS better (I think we'll figure out the majority on this one in time)?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Chris and M.J. have done most of the work already! I'll pick out a few phrases and concerns, in a way which I usually scold people for doing, and for which I apologize in advance.

cruciel wrote,

How can you be prioritizing something you didn't do on purpose?

"On purpose" is an undefined concept. Psychologically, behaviorally, philosophically, or neurally, not one single person in the world can tell you what this phrase means. Its only understandable role in human affairs seems to concern responsibility for an action based on how internally verbalized the action was at the time. In other words, it's a negotiation about an action, at most. [To clarify: I am not discussing a situation in which one turns right instead of left and thus 800 people die in a fiery train crash the following day in Timbuctoo. I am discussing things like sleeping with your best friend's girlfriend, or interacting with other people concerning the imaginary events during a role-playing game.]

Justin wrote,

If I take 'story addressing a moral or ethical question' and swap it out with 'story that relates to how people think, feel, and what they believe' it works for me. Theme is all of a sudden a lot broader in my mind (whether or not there is actually any technical difference between those two statements).

Justin's swap is 100% valid. I consider the first phrase and the second phrase to be synonymous. This is a lot like Aidan's recent question that all came down to his preference for the word "values" over "morality/ethics," which I also consider synonymous.

Finally, we can't do the "how would the scene differ if it were Sim?" That scene only arose through Narrativist play and context in the first place. This is one of those "instance" moments - think session and even the whole "arc" at hand, not scene, when you're talking about identifying GNS priorities.

Best,
Ron

[M. J. Young]

Ron has done such a fine simple summary, I hesitate to write more; but there was something in Jason's post I wanted to highlight.

I'm getting the impression here that that 49% is actually what makes it Nar, because those Nar decisions could be said to be in conflict with a Sim priority, but the 51% Sim decisions are not necessarily in conflict with the Nar priority.

Exactly. As I said recently on one of these threads, people can often be in situations where gamist, narrativist, and simulationist "best choices" are all the same--the end-of-the-world-unless-you-save-it scenario shows this. "Priorities" mean "which way will you choose when they come into conflict?" Some of us really do play different ways in different games, or even in different situations in the same game; but overall there are always these moments when you have to decide which priority is going to direct the game.

On the conflict/fidelity model, I'll probably write more there, but in the main I think:

[*]Fidelity is an independent axis from GNS;[*]Simulationism is itself independent of Fidelity, remaining as a core play priority.[/list:u]
Thus you can vary the degree of fidelity you're including in play in all three modes, but that doesn't impact whether you're playing "more" or "less" simulationist--only the degree to which you expect everyone to stick to the established base.

More there, I'm sure.

--M. J. Young

[Jason Lee]

Justin's swap is 100% valid. I consider the first phrase and the second phrase to be synonymous. This is a lot like Aidan's recent question that all came down to his preference for the word "values" over "morality/ethics," which I also consider synonymous.

Minor correction, that was the swap I made.  Either way, the fact that that swap is valid cleared up a lot more me.  Can I assume that there will be some treatment on exactly what 'moral or ethical question' means in regards to stories in the Nar essay? (To prevent confusion from people like me who lack an understanding of literary theory and bring unwanted preconceptions about what that means into the definition.)

I'm getting the impression here that that 49% is actually what makes it Nar, because those Nar decisions could be said to be in conflict with a Sim priority, but the 51% Sim decisions are not necessarily in conflict with the Nar priority.

Exactly.

That pretty much clears up my final question.  Though, the fact that you can have less apparent Nar and still have it be technically Nar (because of the way Nar demands a decision be made) makes Hybrid play that cannot be defined as Congruent non-existent in my mind (making me wonder why we need the term Hybrid).  It's like Nar is California and Sim is Vermont in the electoral college.

As to your views on the square horseshoe I think we might have enough threads to address them in ;).

I think my questions about Nar have been answered.  Everyone has been most helpful and I appreciate it.  Does anyone else have anything unfinished that doesn't fit in one of the square horseshoe threads?  'Cause if I'm still on the mark, I'm good to go.

[Gordon C. Landis]

That pretty much clears up my final question.  Though, the fact that you can have less apparent Nar and still have it be technically Nar (because of the way Nar demands a decision be made) makes Hybrid play that cannot be defined as Congruent non-existent in my mind (making me wonder why we need the term Hybrid).  It's like Nar is California and Sim is Vermont in the electoral college.

. . .

I think my questions about Nar have been answered.  Everyone has been most helpful and I appreciate it.  Does anyone else have anything unfinished that doesn't fit in one of the square horseshoe threads?  'Cause if I'm still on the mark, I'm good to go.

I just wanted to expand a bit on the less apparent yet still technically Nar bit - which is, the exact same can be true of Sim or Game in appropriate situations (California and Vermont can flip-flop).  It's not that Nar decisions in particular have this attribute.  This was a big part of "understanding" GNS for me - that the decisions that are made when it is NOT possible to make a decision that is (to try out terminology I'm still a bit fuzzy on) Congruent that indicate a GNS preference.  A Hybrid would presumeably be when decisions made in those circumstances are not almost-exclusively from one of G, N and S.

Other than that - I've really enjoyed reading this thread,

Gordon

[Jason Lee]

I just wanted to expand a bit on the less apparent yet still technically Nar bit - which is, the exact same can be true of Sim or Game in appropriate situations (California and Vermont can flip-flop).  It's not that Nar decisions in particular have this attribute.  This was a big part of "understanding" GNS for me - that the decisions that are made when it is NOT possible to make a decision that is (to try out terminology I'm still a bit fuzzy on) Congruent that indicate a GNS preference.  A Hybrid would presumeably be when decisions made in those circumstances are not almost-exclusively from one of G, N and S.

Just to touch on the hybrid thing...I think it might be more like two California's (G and N) and a Vermont (S).  The thing here seems to be that, in my example, the play had a lot of Sim elements, but because Nar decisions were made the play was ultimately Nar.  The nature of Nar decisions, even a small amount of them, is that they shape the story.  The play here could only have been Sim if I had made no Nar decisions.  So, if hybrid play incorporates both Nar/Sim decisions (for example), then the so-called hybrid play is actually Nar play, because Nar has been allowed to shape the story.

This doesn't mean hybrid doesn't have use in game design, just that because GNS is a big picture (instance of play) sort of thing hybrid play that isn't Congruent (it is not readily apparent what the priority is) doesn't exist.

At least, that's what I'm seeing here.

[Gordon C. Landis]

Jason,

The point I was trying to make is that it is entirely possible (IMO) to switch every "Sim" and "Nar" in your most recent post, and it still makes sense.  If, at those key points where it is not possible to make a decision that is Congruent, you almost always make Sim decisions, your play will end up as Sim - even though there may have also been plenty of Nar-possible stuff going on.

Now, your point about how a Nar decision in some of those crucial moments can end up really bending play as a whole towards Nar seems pretty valid to me, and it is interesting how the nature of a "real" Nar decision has such ripple effects.  But I'm not sure it's all THAT different from what happens with Sim decisions.

Gordon

[Jason Lee]

The point I was trying to make is that it is entirely possible (IMO) to switch every "Sim" and "Nar" in your most recent post, and it still makes sense.  If, at those key points where it is not possible to make a decision that is Congruent, you almost always make Sim decisions, your play will end up as Sim - even though there may have also been plenty of Nar-possible stuff going on.

Now, your point about how a Nar decision in some of those crucial moments can end up really bending play as a whole towards Nar seems pretty valid to me, and it is interesting how the nature of a "real" Nar decision has such ripple effects.  But I'm not sure it's all THAT different from what happens with Sim decisions.

Ah, I see what you mean.  Hmmm...I'm not sure, the Nar ripple seems to have had a pretty strong effect in my example.  Does it for everyone? I don't know.  Sticking with that analogy ('cause I think it's neat) I can see Sim play as a still pond - unmolested by outside influences.  In my case a very deep and dark one.  If I keep occasionally drop in little Nar pebbles I'm never going to have that perfect stillness again.  And if the Gamist wind starts to pick up, my little ripples are gonna get all screwed up.

[John Kim]

Ah, I see what you mean.  Hmmm...I'm not sure, the Nar ripple seems to have had a pretty strong effect in my example.  Does it for everyone? I don't know.  Sticking with that analogy ('cause I think it's neat) I can see Sim play as a still pond - unmolested by outside influences.  In my case a very deep and dark one.  If I keep occasionally drop in little Nar pebbles I'm never going to have that perfect stillness again.  And if the Gamist wind starts to pick up, my little ripples are gonna get all screwed up.  

This resonates with an old observation about Simulation in the rgfa Threefold (which is different than GNS Simulation).  After a while of hashing things out, we eventually came up with a definition of Simulation which was negative.  Specifically, Simulation was defined as trying to minimize the affect of meta-game issues on in-game resolution.  That sounds like your analogy of lacking ripples.  

However, take it with a grain of salt, and remember that GNS Simulationism is different.

[jdagna]

Ah, I see what you mean.  Hmmm...I'm not sure, the Nar ripple seems to have had a pretty strong effect in my example.  Does it for everyone? I don't know.  Sticking with that analogy ('cause I think it's neat) I can see Sim play as a still pond - unmolested by outside influences.  In my case a very deep and dark one.  If I keep occasionally drop in little Nar pebbles I'm never going to have that perfect stillness again.  And if the Gamist wind starts to pick up, my little ripples are gonna get all screwed up.

I just don't see Sim play as that "fragile."  I may be in the process of having to complete redefine what I thought Narrativism was since it seems like I'm in the minority, but I have problems with a few key decisions coloring the entire scene.

Here's basically the way I have always seen it:

Sim play is essentially internally-driven (internal to the game world).  I liken it to a toy car rolling downhill - everything related to its performance comes from natural laws and its own design.  If the car is going to do something interesting, someone had better put it directly in the way.  Gamism and Narrativism have external drives (external to the game world, the meta-game interest in competition and story/theme).  Gamists and Narrativists want to tie a string to the car so they can make it turn at places they find more interesting.  

Someone who frequently tugs on the car is clearly prioritizing something other than exploration.  But is it fair to say that everyone who tugs on the string doesn't have Sim priorities?

This also seems to pretty well fit the horseshoe model where Sim play is fidelity driven and the others are driven by challenge versus theme, with a fidelity of the player's choosing (depending on how often he tugs on the string).  The only point of difference, I think, is on how much work it takes to leave strict Hi-Fi/Sim play behind.

Going by the this metaphor, you could design a game scenario with lots of challenge in it then push the car down the hill and let gravity do its work.  Likewise, you can load up thematic potential and then give the car a little push down the hill to see what happens.  As long as play remains internally-driven, you're still dealing with Sim play, aren't you?

After all, how many sim players strive to emulate the life of a laborer in a cog factory?  Very few, if any.  Why?  Because rolling three thousand times to see how your cogs came out is boring.  We want conflict, regardless of how we get it and how we respond to it.  Sim players have to set up that conflict - usually by declaring it in character creation and campaign design.  In the traditional social contract, only the GM can initiate new conflicts out of the blue, picking ones that will interest the characters.  

I don't know... maybe I'm just a Narrativist in Sim clothing and having trouble getting that because of how I confine Narrativist decisions to specific parts of play.  Since I'm usually a GM, it just seems that the creation of challenge and exploration of moral/thematic issues are still present in Sim play, they just aren't prioritized.

Going back to the original instance of play for this thread, I see quite a few occasions where the internal factors (game world realities) overrule external factors (the players' desire for interesting conflict).  The players decided to edit out a fight that started over a misunderstanding, without which there'd have been no fight.  And there are at least two instances where a decision is made by first consulting the character's personality for options, and then picking an interesting option from the list.

In my mind, players in a Narrativist mode would have had people looking for interesting options, and then picking ones they could justify based on personality.  Thus, it looks to me like Sim play (at least on Jason's part) among a group of players who want to explore issues of character and setting through an interesting conflict.

Am I just totally off base here?  If Sim is defined as narrowly as it has been recently, then it really looks like an Impossible Thing of its own.

[Mike Holmes]

It's exactly that I see some Sim in all play that has me posting the new Model, Justin. I agree with you a lot.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

This is a response to one of John Kim's points:

I guess the point here is that moral/ethical issues will come up -- in fact, may even be extremely likely -- simply from playing characters the way that one envisions them. Now, the resulting story might not be a well-structured delving of that issue, but it may still be rife with issues. I'm not sure what this means in terms of theory, but I thought I should say it.

You seem pretty hipped on the "intent" issue, John. Intent means absolutely nothing to me or to the current model. What you describe falls into the category of Narrativism, if resolving the issues in question turns out to be the identifiable priority of the people in play, eventually. From everything you've presented in your many posts about real play, that seems to be the case among your group.

I don't know what word to use ... whether it's "prioritize," "focus," or just plain "play," people always drag in this whole thing about "But what if I didn't mean to." It's totally irrelevant.

It all goes back to the Venn diagram, which I'm convinced is understood by only a handful of people. The whole point of such a diagram is that Exploration is a type of Social Contract, and that a GNS mode is a type of Exploration (specifically, an applied kind), and so on.

Hence, to play one's character (an Explorative act) such that a Narrativist (substitute G or S as desired) goal/mode is expressed is ... well, axiomatic. Making some sort of contrast out of these two things is literally absurd.

I am absolutely opposed to verbiage like "Play against one's character for the good of the story" to describe Narrativism. This is nothing but word salad; it carries no content at all. I think it's a referent to some form of dysfunctional play involving power-struggles over outcomes, but that's about as close to sense as I can make of it.

Best,
Ron