Play outside of either G, N or S modes

[Wormwood]

M.J.,

I essentially concur with your adjustment to the model. Well with the exception of the implicit motive. We can observe that Alice treats the game in favor of Bob's mode, but not that she recognizes this goal per se, rather her actions could be solely directed by her observations of Bob, and not of the "respect matrix" of the game. The extension I'm suggesting attempts to take the remainder of your observations further.

Consider:

Facilitative submodes can be observed through play. What happens when the play is chaotic in the standard mode, but one player can be identified as playing facilitative consistently. In this case it makes more sense that this player be considered playing in a facilitative mode (which due to it's implications of group facilitation, I've called Socialist).

Second, facilitative submodes have a definite and observable direction, sometime facilitation is directed at a given player, other times it is directed at the group as a whole. This distinction suggests a finer structure to facilitation, than simply a binary mode subtype.


In either of these cases, there is good reason to consider the facilitative sub modes as hybridizations with the standard modes and additional interactive modes. This extension is the crux of my suggestion. It is clear to me that the majority of discussion does not require this extension, but selected minority would be significantly benefited, and perhaps more discourse on less common topics could be achieved with the availability of a theory extension of this type.

Thank you for your time,

   -Mendel S.

[M. J. Young]

Mendel--it seems to me that facilitative gamism is still gamism, and is entirely distinct from facilitative narrativism. As someone who is usually behind the screens (far more so than out in front of them) I'm always involved in facilitiative play, and whether I'm facilitating gamism, narrativism, or simulationism is clearly very different in how I play/referee.

Also, I think it's established that one doesn't have to "know" that one is playing gamist to be doing it. Ron's point about "$#!+, I'm playing Narrativist!" puts this into stark relief. (I also agree that this supports his argument that "motive" is not the deciding factor.) If you're playing to explore an issue or theme, and I'm playing to help you explore that issue or theme, how is my play (as play, apart from my reasons for playing that way) not narrativist? If you're playing to impress the other players with your skill, and I'm playing to facilitate that, how is my play not gamist? The point is that we have agreed as to what makes the game "fun"--whether that's exploring theme or rising to challenge or experiencing realities. Even if what has happened is that I have recognized that this is what makes play fun for you, and am acting in a facilitative manner so that you will have fun, that still puts me solidly in whatever mode you are playing, as my actions must be consistent with your objectives.

Looked at another way, I've decided that whatever I do will help Mendel enjoy the game. If Mendel is gamist, I'll set up challenges for him "because Mendel would enjoy that." If Mendel is narrativist, I'll work on addressing theme "because Mendel would enjoy that." If Mendel is simulationist, I'll try to make the world more real "because Mendel would enjoy that." My motivation for doing what I'm doing is in each case that I think it would make the game more enjoyable for you; but I'm still moving into the GNS categories to accomplish that. I can't make the game more enjoyable for you without making it align with your GNS preferences, and therefore I can't do it without playing within that mode myself, whether actively or facilitatively.

Again, this is why Ron decries "motivation" as the foundation for GNS categories: it doesn't matter whether I'm playing narrativist because I want to create a good story which I will enjoy or because I want you to be able to create a good story which you will enjoy--what matters is that the in-game choices I am making facilitate narrativism.

So I'll agree that the distinction between active and facilitative play is important, but I don't think you create different GNS modes--just a different reason for being in a particular mode and a different way of expressing it which is already established as a viable aspect due to its use by referees.

--M. J. Young

[Wormwood]

M.J.

It is quite clear that facilitative gamism is distinct from facilitative narrativism, but in the same vein sim supported gamism is distinct from sim supported narrativism.

I agree that motive is largely irrelevent (well at least overt motive, that which we can observe), I was simply pointing out in your original post that you were implying specific things about motive, and that those were not necessarilly the case. As far as recognizing that what makes the game fun there are two things occuring, first the game play recognizes that two things make the game fun, first the standard mode, and second the facilitation. This later element is kept weaker, but is no more so than Sim supported games.

All in all I see many similarities between claiming that facilitative play does not imply a supporting mode and claiming that simulationism doesn't actually exist per se.

The key element where we disagree is when you mention that you are not able to help me enjoy the game other than to facilitate my mode. I find this worrisome, it's turning the accepted positive that you can do so, into the negative that there is no other option. In essence it refutes my arguement by assuming it is invalid in the first place, begging the question if you will.

I too have spent much time "behind the screen" in my experience facilitation is far more complex than you make it out. I beleive this avenue of investigation is preferable if only to afford facilitative play something other than the red headed step child status.

In my experience one element of facilitation that evidences itself in the Exploration derived meta-game (firmly entrenched in the same "level" as creative agenda, and hence a valid consideration for a mode) is that of test facilitation. Namely a facilitative player tests different options to determine what the targeted player(s) would most enjoy. This is a continual process, whose meta-game componant involves evaluating player enjoyment.

I think this area deserves further consideration.

Thank you for your time,

    -Mendel S.

[Stuart DJ Purdie]

What I was looking at was an example where Bob was playing in a defined mode (say, Gamist), and Alice was doing something different, and therefore  not Gamist), but was strongly tied.  I couldn't put that in one of the three modes.

I think I got myself in a corner with a fallacy based on shorthand (like most GNS queries tend to be).  Namely that Alice can't be playing gamist - she is not aiming to have her character engage in challenges, and is doing something quite different from Bob.

If she is [engaging in exploration], and if (as it seems) whatever she's doing only reinforces Bob's play, than whatever she's doing is defined, in GNS terms, as whatever Bob's doing.

What hit was MJ talking about the referee - if the term gamist can be meaningfully applied to a referee's play style, it must mean something different from what it normally means to someone whose' 'just' a player.  

Clearly, Bob is working mostly through his own PC.  Alice is also working mostly through Bob's PC.  Unusual, but still gamist play.

I was thinking that Gamist play was the clearest example of why Alice was doing something different from Bob (and I don't think it's coincidence that Mendel also picked Gamism as an example, either).  That's just baggage from 'conventional' games, however.  If you consider that they are both in Narrativist mode, then the fact that Alice is working mostly through Bob's PC, and thus still Narrativist, is easiser to accept (at least to me, anyway).  No idea why, but there we are.

One of the reasons I I don't think it's another mode is that I can't define it's impact on Exploration, without refference to what Bob is doing.  If it depends on what mode Bob is playing in, then that's a large difference from G, N or S, which can exist singular.  This would not be 'equidistant' from all of the other modes, but tied to one of them - which is quite a different level of existance from GN and S.

Stuart

[contracycle]

A question:  Is there another imaginable scenario in which we can see 'facilitative play' OTHER THAN introducing a new player to RPG?

I worry that this is such a specific case that the scenario cannot be generalised.

In reading the above thread, I would essentially agree that Alice is not engaging in a GNS mode.  She is not exploring for her own enjoyment; her own behaviour is subordinated, IMO, to a non-GNS priority: Bobs Fun.  So I would agree with that position, given the specific scenario.

I definately agree that if I am introducing a new player, I compromise my own stylistic preferences to facilitate the new players engagement with the game per se.  But: is this the ONLY meaningful example?  If so then I do not believe it is a general case which requires specific attention; it can be treated as the special case employed when introducing new players and can exist as an exception to the general rule of what RPG players do most of the time when they are playing autonomously.

[Wormwood]

Stuart,

I would agree the the major distinction to what we've been calling a social or interactive mode(s) and the standard or personal modes is that the former necessarilly requires the interaction element. I don't view this as an indictment against them as actual modes, rather as a reason to consider them an extension rather than as part of a base theory. In particular, few play examples of modes exist in an interaction vacuum, (the degenerate case of single player games aside), so I don't view this as a problem. During interaction these modes act very much like the standard modes, interacting with exploration in observable ways, in my book this at worst makes them pseudo-modes.

The real issue, it seems to me is whether the facilitation of other modes is always subordinate to the supported mode. Certainly the basic form is, but in some ways this is the definition of facilitating gamist, etc. Earlier in this thread I mentioned a gamist - simulationist trading to facilitate. If that discussion is understood correctly, then if the psuedo-gamist is at all concerned with Step on Up, then they are in fact playing gamist, where as if they are not overtly concerned with this, they are in fact playing simulationist. In fact, it is conceivable that the meta-game distinction (the only place where such a distinction exists) is unobservably different. In the very least it can be observed when this distinction is very difficult to make in practice. Further the same problem can arise in any cross-mode facilitation. This indicates that facilitation is very much it's own thing, and shouldn't simply be lumped in with the other forms.

It seems reasonable to extend the definition of mode to permit these entites, and in doing so, permit a discussion of their properties, rather than to disqualify them on unclear technicalities, and hence make the theory more cumbersome in this sense.


contracycle,

I'd offer an emphatic yes. Consider the following situations:

Synergistic players who work well as a team passing between them elements of the game best attuned to the players preferences.

A GM trying to decide what everyone is "really" in the mood for today.

Getting to know a player in expecation for any number of other elements, namely romance, later working together, improving friendship, or curiosity due to a recently unexplained change in play style.

Because you enjoy facilitating the game for the other players and constantly wish to re-evaluate your methods for this purpose. This to my mind is the key element, people can enjoy facilitating the game, regardless of standard mode, this enjoyment can be as great as that from any mode, and yet exploration takes place. This is the strongest indication to me that such a play type exists as a mode, even if a strange one.

Thank you for your time,

   -Mendel S.

[Alan]

I said this earlier, in a different way, but the point got lost:

I think GNS preference is about _means_ of decision-making not motive.

A preference for a GNS mode is like a preference for using one's dominant hand.  If Alice wants to help Bob into the rollercoaster, she's likely to use her right hand.

The motives for participating in play are at the social level - outside the Exploration, even though they may be epxressed within the Exploration.  Everyone has them.  Most often the motive is simply to have fun.

[Wormwood]

Alan,

Social modes are means to decision making. I've posted on this several times in this thread. Likewise, while there are motives which tend to be relevant to social modes, these are not the concept of social modes entire, just as the motives of personal modes are not those modes entire.

I think the confusion on this matter lies in the fact that in a specific example of this sort of play, there is a motive. But this is also the case for any specific example of a standard mode. The generalizations of those examples do not require the use of those motives, and rather attempt to describe the process (i.e. decision making) regardless of motives.
Thank you for your time,

   -Mendel S.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Mendel,

What I'm confused about is the "confusion" you mention. I don't see any confusion. M.J.'s supported my points, and (I think) you've agreed with him. So I don't see any point of contention or even of lack of clarity.

Best,
Ron

[Wormwood]

Ron,

The confusion I mentioned was the apparent assumption that social modes are purely based on motive.

The key issue in this debate is whether it is actively incorrect and / or unhelpful to broaden the class of creative agendas to include social or interactive creative agendas. I've agrued that this does not damage the existing model as an extension, and this has been largely ignored. Rather I've been told that this is an incorrect concept of the model because creative agendas are assumed to be the G, N, and S. Obviously this limitation needs to be removed or relaxed to permit an extension in that region of the model.

Is this relaxation warranted? No one has yet disputed the utility I have attempted to demonstrate. As such I propose to generate the extension, GNSI, which incorporates one or more interactive creative agendas in addition to the standard model of GNS. I will then attempt to demonstrate the utility of this extension through analysis application, both on site and otherwise. I believe this extension will provide a clearer understanding of such elements as drift, facilitative play, and effective play forms. I also suspect that it will shed sinificant light on observed hybridization and other aspects of simplifying the theory. Only time will tell.

As far as much of the debate on this thread, it has convinced me quite simply that interactive modes are not something which can easily be a part of GNS as such, an explicit and clear extension is required. It requires a significant amount of reanalysis, and will likely take some time before application, but is a necessary step to overcome the inadequcies of GNS for prescriptive modeling of play and game design.

Thank you for your time,

    -Mendel S.