Front-loaded relationship-driven Nar/Sim overlap

[Ben Lehman]

Hold on one second before closing...

Pending Ben's (probable) confirmation by that "orthogonal" he means "contradictory to,"

BL>  Affirmed.  I blame too much Chinese in my life and not enough English (The Forge is presently my major English language interaction...)

I also think that the heavy Sim players who Ron talks about are lying.

Heh. When I suggested an interpretation even half as extreme as this, I was roundly denounced as a mean, insensitive, biased, anti-creative lout.

BL>  Well, yes.  But you're a successful game designer and rather prominent theorist.  I'm a random consumer mouthing off on a bulletin board.  We all have our crosses to bear.  Do note that I followed it up with "they are talking past each other" which I elaborate on in this thread:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8113

albeit in somewhat malformed and incoherent language.

What's especially interesting is that the one person whose testimony outweighed all others in terms of establishing Simulationist play, in my mind, as an actual identifiable play mode (as opposed merely to a retreat from play modes) was Mike Holmes, who is now the Beeg Horseshoe's primary advocate ...

BL>  Could you or he point me to said threads?  I'm curious to read them, as I'm presently deconstructing the whole thing in my head.

yrs--
--Ben

[John Kim]

  I think the priority of play was Sim, with that interest in Story Now floating around but not prioritized.  I think that means a Nar prioritization could occur as play progresses.  I found it interesting that while the Shadows rules try to provide a lot of during-play (NOT front-loaded, or, not JUST front-loaded) Nar support via some different kinds of mechanics,  many folks in the group seemed reluctant to use those as fully as the rules text seemed (to me) to indicate is preferred.

Still, I can point to some very Story Now-compatible choices by various players.  It's the element vs. priority question, and if Story Now only pops out when it's convienent, and (more importantly) is stiffled by a commitment to pure Exploration, then it's not a priority.  That session of Shadows seemed to lean towards the pure Exploration.  

OK.  It seems reasonable and it matches what Tor thought.  I'm still not clear on how you judge this, though.  For example, which player choices seemed very Story Now to you?  Regarding Nar-supporting mechanics, do you mean the more director/author stance mechanics like Commenting?  

Really, I was pretty enthusiastic right after that session, having had a fun and interesting time.  It came as something of a shock when Tor said that he wasn't interested in further play because it was Sim -- which I guess is just a lesson that tastes differ.  To me, I think what made the session interesting was how it tackled various issues about class and mask in Victorian society -- things like Majors' homosexuality or Lydia's contrast between being a society widow and being a social reformer.  I guess what made it Sim was that these weren't structured as themes or Premise (?), but instead appeared haphazardly.  I'd be curious to hear more about your view.

[M. J. Young]

I'd like to answer the questions initially asked as well as I can.

I would say that this is front-loaded narrativism; there isn't really a simulationist element in it that I can see, because it's about addressing the issues.

As to what system to use, I won't say it doesn't matter, and I won't say that Multiverser would be best--but I will say that there is a significant degree to which the use of a front-loaded premise-laden setting inherently makes almost any system run more strongly narrativist.

In regard to the simulationist question, I've rolled off a new thread entitled http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8114">Clarifying Simulationism, which I hope does that.

As to the impact of setting on system, I'd like to explore that in another thread, http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=84398">Setting as an element of System on the RPG Theory board. I was pretty tired when I wrote that one, though, so I hope it's coherent.

--M. J. Young

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I'm pretty sure that this thread can be called closed. Correct me if I'm wrong, anyone, but this is the moment of going once, going twice ...

Best,
Ron