This thing called GNS

[Matt Snyder]

I've spent many hours slogging through Internet threads and posts. All in attempt, I suppose, to improve my understanding of my favorite past time, role-playing. As a player, GM, and even amateur game designer, I'm always struggling to improve my experience, ever searching for ways to make my role-playing sessions more enjoyable than not.

The usual arguments are familiar -- genre, rules heavy vs. rules light, story. Often, I quit lurking (as I usually do, rather than post or reply), throw up my hands and go read the New York Times or get back to work as I should. Sometimes it takes me a couple weeks to get the bad taste out of my mouth and return.

Once in a while, usually in RPG.net, folks would bring up this . I could see that the general reaction to this strange GNS thingy was that it had very little use. Folks whose posts I appreciated more often than not dismissed the argument as a largely fruitless exploration. I took that with a grain of salt, because I could also see that no one really agreed on what this whole GNS thing really meant.

Then, as a matte of mostly coincidence, I came to the forge and signed up. I had visited briefly before, but the discussions were, to me, largely unintelligible. I could not decipher the abstract, sometimes arcane language forum regulars seemed so interested in. "Ehh, not for me," I thought. More power to ya', but I'll stick to good ol' gaming, thanks."

So, after another round of throwing up my hands in frustration, this time at my beloved RPG.net, I came to the forge hoping to find something interesting. I registered, browsed the forums a bit, and then decided I really needed to read these essays by Ron Edwards to figure out what the hell was going on.

See, I met Ron Edwards, the CoRE, and a few others at GenCon. Had dinner at a Chinese place with a whole gaggle of interesting folks. I gotta say it was hard to get a word in, but like I said, it was an interesting crew.

So, I printed out Ron's essays, read and re-read, "GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory." Thick stuff in places, but damned interesting. I haven't managed to digest everything into a usable form. That is, I'm just not sure yet where I fit in, in terms of GNS and the related Actor/Author/Director stances. Oh, I think it's a useful categorization or operating language, if you will, for role-playing and designing RPGs. I'm just not sure where my experience or my preference fits in just yet (Simulationist?). More importantly, I'm not sure where my groups' playing fits in. And even more importantly, I'm far from certain of where we'll fit in the future!

What's important to me right now is that these essays annunciate almost precisely the struggle I've had in defining my goals (mostly  that ultimate goal, "fun") related to role-playing. For years, I've been trying rather unsuccessfully to articulate what role-playing is, for me and my players (I figured out the hard way that there ain't a universal RPG, nor is there one "right way" for everyone to go about role-playing). Getting my fellow players to discover their own goals and the goals of our group has been even more difficult.

I kept reading Ron's essay with my group in mind. The concepts he puts forth have illumined several of the sore spots among my group. For example, we've started more than half a dozen "campaigns" over the last several years. In each, the initial premise is usually very attractive for all, i.e. the "cool factor" is high. But, invariably these campaigns have fizzled, because either I as GM lost interest due to long periods without play, or becasue the make-up of the group changed.

Now, I still believe part of the problem is simply our inability to meet as frequently as we'd like. Time passes, and interest wanes. I also believe, however, that a sufficiently compelling Premise should motivate my group to play on. Instead, usually the cycle begins anew with an attempt, usually by me, to reinvigorate interest with a new initial premise, cool factor and all. I take full blame for that effect. My fellow players call this the Flavor-of-the-Week syndrome, to which I guiltily accede is true.

But at least now, I think, I'm beginning to ask the right questions. In the end, the toughest challenge, I think, is a two-parter. First, getting my fellows to acknowledge this kind of thinking about their role-playing. For the most part, I suspect they'd rather say, "Forget about it, let's just play." The second part is sharing accurately what Ron and others are postulating, and getting them to react to that.

Any advice or comments?

Matt Snyder
matt@chimera.info
http://www.chimera.info


[ This Message was edited by: chimera on 2001-11-02 12:42 ]

[ This Message was edited by: chimera on 2001-11-02 12:56 ]

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

I guess the only things I can say are "Thanks!" for deciding to see about the whole-schmegillah for yourself, and "Welcome!" to joining the discussion.

The part of your post that interested me was the reference to FUTURE role-playing. In my opinion, this was a very profound statement - it indicated that you are viewing your hobby as a changing activity and not as some immutable quality (some do see it this way).

As for your statements regarding your own group and your own play history, I'm curious about what games we are talking about. A while ago, a thread took off in an inappropriate forum that I would now like to repeat here, called "Profiling." I'll start it up immediately.

I also would like to see some people who have found themselves in exactly your position to speak up, regarding how they play now following some time on the Forge.

Best,
Ron

[jburneko]

Whoa, this sounds familiar.  I've been there, my friend, I've been there.  Here's my personal advice.  All this comes from my experiences and may or may not work for you.  Take and leave what you see fit.

1) Stay away from Jargon.  GNS, Stances, Premise.  It isn't for everyone.  As you say, most gamers, 'just want to play.'  If you want to introduce them to certain concepts do it through play by making suggestions.  For example I wanted more authorial thinking from my players.  Talking about author stance was confusing them to tears.  So I simply designed a scenario with a strong Narrativist Premise and said, "I've designed this scenario differently.  There are conflicts but no right or wrong choices.  Do as you see fit."  For more on the results see the Vanilla Narrativism in Action thread.

2) Stay focused on what YOU want out of roleplaying.  As a GM experiment with different design techniques and player expectations.  See which ones give you the most thrill.  Keep enhancing the elements you enjoy and down playing the elements you don't enjoy.  Will this alienate some of your players?  Possibily.  But until you understand what YOU want out of gaming you'll never be able to identify where the conflict between your interests and your player's interests really comes in which means if you're willing to compromise you won't know WHERE to compromise.

3) As you play analyize your players.  You've read the articles watch for those behaviors.  They're easy to spot.  I know my player's preferences and techniques like the back of my hand and a lot of them I've never discussed GNS with AT ALL.  Again watch for behavior that you enjoy and behavior that you don't enjoy.  Once you understand yourself and your players, communication can begin without necessarily getting all jargony.

4) I know very well the problem of getting excited over an idea and then have it fizzle.  This can come from one of two places.  The first is that there is a severe conflict of interest among the players and what they want out of the scenario.  The second is that you the GM lose interest in the material.  I find that I have a big problem with the second reason.  So the way I rectify this is that I no longer go for long term play.  I come up with short finite scenarios that will last about 6 to 8 sessions.  Then I put that game away and move on to another game.  My group plays round-robin games and round-robin GMs.  If for some reason you MUST have a long term campaign treat it like a TV show with seasons.  Do a 6 to 8 session scenario 'story arc' then play something else for a while.  Maybe a series of one shots with a funny game like Paranoia or Elfs.  Come back to the original game with the same characters and do another 6 to 8 session 'story arc' and so on.

Jesse

[Mike Holmes]

Hey C , welcome aboard. Holy smokes that's some opening post. Lesse...

On 2001-11-02 12:38, chimera wrote:
Once in a while, usually in RPG.net, folks would bring up this . I could see that the general reaction to this strange GNS thingy was that it had very little use. Folks whose posts I appreciated more often than not dismissed the argument as a largely fruitless exploration. I took that with a grain of salt, because I could also see that no one really agreed on what this whole GNS thing really meant.

That's a good point about RPGnet. Since there is even less consensus over there about what GNS is about, it is very hard for it to be used successfully. And since it is all jargon, it does confuse those who are unfamiliar with it. This is why were happy to have the Forge to muck around on.

See, I met Ron Edwards, the CoRE, and a few others at GenCon. Had dinner at a Chinese place with a whole gaggle of interesting folks. I gotta say it was hard to get a word in, but like I said, it was an interesting crew.

Which one were you? There were like 20 people at those tables. I'm the big guy who came in late and didn't eat.

Oh, yeah, we around here all like to hear ourselves talk (well at least I do). But that's another good reason for a forum such as this. :smile:

Oh, I think it's a useful categorization or operating language, if you will, for role-playing and designing RPGs. I'm just not sure where my experience or my preference fits in just yet (Simulationist?).

Yippee! More Simulationists! Setting exploratory or character exploratory? Just kidding. Hopefully we can help you figure things out. Easy question, what games do you play, and what seems to work best?

More importantly, I'm not sure where my groups' playing fits in. And even more importantly, I'm far from certain of where we'll fit in the future!

Hey, just thinking about it is a positive step.

What's important to me right now is that these essays annunciate almost precisely the struggle I've had in defining my goals (mostly  that ultimate goal, "fun") related to role-playing. For years, I've been trying rather unsuccessfully to articulate what role-playing is, for me and my players (I figured out the hard way that there ain't a universal RPG, nor is there one "right way" for everyone to go about role-playing). Getting my fellow players to discover their own goals and the goals of our group has been even more difficult.

Yeah, it's nice to have terms to discuss these things in.

I kept reading Ron's essay with my group in mind. The concepts he puts forth have illumined several of the sore spots among my group. For example, we've started more than half a dozen "campaigns" over the last several years. In each, the initial premise is usually very attractive for all, i.e. the "cool factor" is high. But, invariably these campaigns have fizzled, as either I as GM .

May not be a GNS issue at all. Lots of peole 'round these parts advocate set length games. If you play 20 times, maybe you've gotten all that there is to get out of the setting and premise. Even cosider just saying that a particular campaign will just go for six sessions and that'll be it? You can of course always renegotiate after it is complete. But better to end with a climax than just to fizzle out over time.

But at least now, I think, I'm beginning to ask the right questions. In the end, the toughest challenge, I think, is a two-parter. First, getting my fellows to acknowledge this kind of thinking about their role-playing. For the most part, I suspect they'd rather say, "Forget about it, let's just play." The second part is sharing accurately what Ron and others are postulating, and getting them to react to that.

You should try to open a dialog with your players on all fronts, but sometimes they're just stubborn. And given the density of the material, as you put it, it's not nice to hit them over the head with it all at once. Give it some time. In the meanwhile there are some diagnostics that we can perform if you'd like. It usually just takes a few questions to nail down a players preferences. Would you like us to take a stab at it?

Oh, and one more piece of advice that I've been giving out like candy the day after Halloween. If you're really interested in shaking things up a bit, play SOAP. You can download it from the library here. It's free, and it's easy to get your players to play as it only takes about an hour from beginning to end including chargen and learning all the rules. You can sneak it in as just something different to try before or after your regular game. Player reaction can shed a lot of light on how they feel about a lot of issues. Oh, yeah, and its fun.

Mike

[ This Message was edited by: Mike Holmes on 2001-11-02 13:15 ]

[Matt Snyder]

Ron said:
"As for your statements regarding your own group and your own play history, I'm curious about what games we are talking about. A while ago, a thread took off in an inappropriate forum that I would now like to repeat here, called "Profiling." I'll start it up immediately."

Thanks for the prompt reply, Ron. As for games, the answer is a not-too-surprising one. Mostly, we've stuck with AD&D or now D&D3E over the years. I managed to sneak in an interesting Call of Cthulhu-based campaign in there that I think was among our most successful efforts. We've also played a lot of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

Now, I'm almost ashamed to admit the limted scope of our role-playing in terms of its lack of innovation or experimentation. I don't think you frown on such games as sophomoric or anything of that nature. I play 'em, and I ain't ashamed of 'em. I guess I just mean to say our tastes have remained, whether rightly or not, a constant from our youthful preferences. That's partly because we've managed to stay together as a role-playing group since before high school, more than 10 years ago.

That said, I think we've tried very hard to address the mutability of our interests as we've aged. We have a decent understanding of what we're after when we play, but I think that understanding is fraught with misconceptions and faulty assumptions (that is, based on my opinion after having read your essays).

Lately, the group has shrunk to its smallest size in years, due to real-life considerations. Still, some quiet voice in me wonders if players who moved or chose not to play becaue they "didn't have enough time" would make time if their needs and desires in role-playing were addressed. I plan to give that some serious thought, as well as making a effort to identify my current fellow player's respective bents so we can indentify our group need and alter play accordingly.

[333Chronzon]

Hi Matt,

I just recently joined up here as well.

I'm mostly just lurking at the moment to get the hang of things.

There's alot of jargon usage, but I think that overall it;s extremely helpful toward getting a handle on some of the more 'squishy' issues surrounding 'roleplaying as a human behavior' meta-perspective.

Scott Bowen (Djt'Heutii)