Gamist Characteristics

[Ben Lehman]

Hi.

I've been doing a lot of thought recently into the methods and modes of Gamism, largely to help me with the design of http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8551&highlight=">Tactics.  I thought I would post some thoughts here.

I think that there are a lot of switches here, and any one of these can be the focus of play.  Different players focusing on different aspects may very well result in dysfunction.

Accumulative vs. Non-accumulative --

Accumulative Gamism is the sort of game that often gets dubbed "RPG" in video game circles -- as the character overcomes challenges, they become more capable of overcoming further challenges.  D&D 3.0 is an acccumulative Gamist game, as are most RPGs when played Gamist.

Non-Accumulative Gamism is the sort of game where your ability to overcome challenges is not directly related to your past performance on said challenges.  RPGs that do not award advancement based on achievement (such as many LARPs) are, when played Gamist, non-accumulative Gamist.  Board games are usually non-accumulative Gamist.  Note that this doesn't necessarily mean "no character advancement."  It means "character advancement is not tied to previous successes or failures."

I think that the difference between these two is vast, because it changes the focus of the game and, often, the experience of new players of the game.  (Older players are often spiteful of new players in Accumulative Gamist games, because they haven't earned their power, or they can't keep up.)

"Can You Take It?" vs. "Look, Ma, No Hands!"--

This is a rather simple division, but important -- Who sets the bar?  Is it an external "challenge director" or is it the person facing the challenge themselves?

Competitive vs. Cooperative--

In competitive play, the players are ranked and challenged individually, and the goal is to become superior to the other players.

In cooperative play, the goal is to overcome the challenge as a group, using the group's resources.

I believe that most RPGs are written for the second, but get drifted to the first by (I believe) reasonably dysfunctional groups.  It is certainly possible to play competive RPGs functionally (LARPs and Amber come to mind) but such play needs attention to be able to function.

Hardcore vs. Safety First -- more of a meter than a switch.

Hardcore players prefer to risk a great deal in challenges -- even their "right" to play the game.  This mode is often associated with "accumulation" (above), where in any given instance you are losing your sense of entitlement.

Safety First players aren't so much interested in the risks as the challenge itself.  Each challenge becomes a puzzle and an intellectual exercise -- in extreme cases, even a puzzle that can be replayed.  Success and failure are not as important as, well, the thing itself.

I have almost never seen explicit Safety First game rules (ressurection spells in D&D are perhaps a form of this.)  However, I have seen games drift this way many, many times.  Often, the players feel the need to justify it to themselves about how they aren't "cheating," which I feel is sad.  It's not really a less legitimate mode to play in.

Can people think of other such divisions?

yrs--
--Ben

[Mike Holmes]

Cool thread.

Accumulative vs. Non-accumulative --

I think an important consideration here is whether the accumulation is potentially negative. That is, can you fall behind where you started. In many cases in games like this the goal is to try to simply break even or better, and upward movement can't be taken for granted.

The problem with this is that you tend to then get both the "steamroller effect", where a player out ahead can easily stay ahead, and the "death spiral", in which a player losing tends to lose more and more until bottoming out somehow (death often, in the case of a character). There are ways around this, however, and I'd kinda like to see an RPG like this.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

That's a great breakdown of dials/switches.

I think that some of it overlaps, structurally, with other modes of play. In other words, what makes the use of these mechanics features Gamist, is the social and creative use to which they're put. But that's probably a no-brainer point, not worth developing ... my goal is make sure people don't point to isolated mechanics in various games, which happen to correspond with anything you've mentioned, and say, "So this makes it a Gamist game, huh? What if I don't play it that way? Huh?" and so on ...

One concern I do have is the competition/cooperation thing. I still like to think of competition existing within a framework of larger-scale cooperation, which can often be missed in such a dichotomy. In other words, raw and only competition, with no cooperative framework, simply becomes a direct fight. I think a lot of people think competitive play must automatically become Hard Core Gamism, and shy away from it accordingly, because they don't see how most competition doesn't have to go there.

Best,
Ron

[Rich Forest]

Nice breakdown Ben.  Here's another set of dials—

How is the outcome determined, and how does the player influence the outcome?

Here's what I'm thinking of.  When you look on the back of a German boardgame, you'll often find a bar graph that tells you who the game is for.  For example, the back of the game Babel, put out by Kosmos, has a bar graph with two bars, one for "Lucky Devil," and the other for "Planner."  Another game, Caesar and Cleopatra (published by the same company) has a bar graph with four types of play/player represented: "Lucky Devil," "Bluffer," "Ponderer," and "Tactician."  Each bar represents the degree to which this kind of play should affect the outcome.  It's a rough guide, but an interesting one, and I can see it applying to RPGs as well.  

These labels could be related to Drama, Karma, and Fortune, and how these affect game play.  Gambling, after all, is appropriate to Gamist play as well as does "bean counting."  Just looking at D&D (all versions, but especially 3e), you can see both of these at work.  I've seen it mentioned more than once in past threads that the broad spread of possible results and relatively meager effect of a +1 or +2 to hit on the d20 roll at low character levels doesn't stop people from being quite proud when they succeed in attacks or take down the enemies.  And I know of plenty of cases where a player has gained accolades for rolling a natural 20 at the right time, as if he had somehow controlled the motion of the die.  At the same time, as modifiers stack up over time, "bean counting" becomes more and more important, and the value of resource management for spellcasters is widely recognized.  We talked a bit about Drama, Karma, and Fortune in the context of gamist play a while back when I was green to the Forge and was thinking about Gamism in relation to design.  I think a bit differently about some of the assumptions I made in this thread, but you may find some relevant comments in the discussion.

Rich

[fusangite]

Having had some initial difficulties in comprehending the model, I now think (probably incorrectly) that I have a general sense of the minimum criteria for gamist play. It seems to me that what makes play gamist is the presence of victory conditions whether shared or individual.

[Ben Lehman]

I think an important consideration here is whether the accumulation is potentially negative. That is, can you fall behind where you started. In many cases in games like this the goal is to try to simply break even or better, and upward movement can't be taken for granted.

BL>  Isn't this, effectively, a hardcore/safety first meter?  Or is there some subtlety that I'm missing.  You're right that the two are related.

The problem with this is that you tend to then get both the "steamroller effect", where a player out ahead can easily stay ahead, and the "death spiral", in which a player losing tends to lose more and more until bottoming out somehow (death often, in the case of a character). There are ways around this, however, and I'd kinda like to see an RPG like this.

BL>  I agree that this is an issue in many campaigns, but note that this isn't necessarily a problem, if the game's plotting and design as "set up" properly for it.  Multi-Colored Box Basic D&D did a good job of this -- as the characters advance in power (sometimes quite rapidly) the challenges not only ramp up by change, allowing for more interaction and effect on the world (via noble status, political plays, etc.) Even onto the point of godhood.  Very well-done.
 Many games handle it poorly (D&D3, where you just keep dungeon crawling with higher stats) or not at all (a gazillion games that I can think of...)

One concern I do have is the competition/cooperation thing. I still like to think of competition existing within a framework of larger-scale cooperation, which can often be missed in such a dichotomy.

BL>  Very true.

In other words, raw and only competition, with no cooperative framework, simply becomes a direct fight. I think a lot of people think competitive play must automatically become Hard Core Gamism, and shy away from it accordingly, because they don't see how most competition doesn't have to go there.

BL>  Also an important point, and why I segregated the Hard Core and Competition switches.  It is quite possibly to play Safety First competitive, or Hard Core cooperative, and I believe that there is a good deal problematic combining of the categories.

How is the outcome determined, and how does the player influence the outcome?

BL>  Yup, that's a big one that I forgot.  I imagine that the breakdown would be something like the following:

Luck -- self-explanatory
Tactics -- making short-term decisions on the fly during play
Strategy -- Long term play, particularly with regard to character development, but also in interaction with the world at large.
Social/Psychological -- Bluffing and out of game manipulation.

Having had some initial difficulties in comprehending the model, I now think (probably incorrectly) that I have a general sense of the minimum criteria for gamist play. It seems to me that what makes play gamist is the presence of victory conditions whether shared or individual.

BL>  As I understand it, this is not quite it.  Gamist play is not necessarily competitive (personal victory conditions.)  In fact, quite a lot of gamist play involves shared victory conditions (can the party defeat the dragon?).  

Rather, to my eye, Gamist play is defined by the emphasis on overcoming challenges and difficulties.  Whether these challenges and difficulties are presented "externally" (from a GM or module) or "internally" (from within the player group) is not necessarily important.

yrs--
--Ben

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Quick clarification: the defining feature of Gamist play is the possibility of losing esteem, among members of the real live people, through the events and decisions of play. It doesn't have to be lot of esteem, nor does the loss have to be long-term. But putting in effort and attention to keep it from happening, or even better, to pump up the esteem if possible through one's decisions, is what makes Gamist play.

That's "Step On Up."  

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

BL>  Isn't this, effectively, a hardcore/safety first meter?  Or is there some subtlety that I'm missing.  You're right that the two are related.

Hmmm. Consider two games. One is D&D. Success is measured by levels which increase constantly. Consider another game in which you had only stats, and your stats were as likely to go down after the start as they were to go up. Basically, they'd go down for sure, if it weren't for astute player play which, on average, keeps the characters' stats about the same as what they were to start.

The reason I mention this is that, as a "win" metric, this version doesn't result in the character spiraling up in power (power makes more power easier to gain). Instead characters remain constantly about the same power, but you still have your metric.

The problem with this method is that players are likely to see this as not being successful. That is, the leveling mechanic in D&D provides a sense of accomplishment that my method does not particularly.

Other power curves are possible, as well. Like where the character's starting stats are the max, and they only strive to see if they can prevent them from going down. Could be used to great effect in a game that's supposed to have a dark mood to it.

Note, we're not talking about loss conditions here. These are just unusual metrics. Breaking even over time, preventing loss, all dealing with the same sort of metrics that would exist in games that had the upward spiral. These are all potential win conditions (especially in a system that doesn't have other conditions), in that the player does the best they can with regard to the metric. Which is all to say that they don't have to be "hardcore" at all. The bottom end of the scale in these cases dosn't have to be dire in any way. It doesn't have to involve character loss for instance. I'm only talking about the loss of what would otherwise be the victory points of the game.

Mike

[fusangite]

Once again, I think I get it and then....

Let me get this straight: are you saying that how you play doesn't alter people's opinions of you in Narrativist and Simulationist play? It seems to me that all play must be gamist because all play is predicated on a hierarchy for evaluating the quality of other players' actions.

[Rich Forest]

Hi Fusangite (er, do you have a name?)

I think the point Ron is making there is that we shouldn't forget that social esteem is important to gamist play.  There's been a historical tendency of folks to forget this social level of gamist play, or gloss it over, so Ron is just nipping that tendency in the bud.  He's learned to be particularly attentive to certain mis-readings of GNS, and he tends to be very good at consistently pointing them out to make sure they don't catch on.

the defining feature of Gamist play is the possibility of losing esteem, among members of the real live people, through the events and decisions of play.

...he was saying, "don't forget the importance of the real people and their social interactions here."

At least, that's how I'm reading it.  

What this does not mean, however, is that other modes of play pay no attention to social esteem among the participants.  It's all about the focus of the attention, in any of these modes, anyway.  If the focus of the participants' attention is on gaining esteem through creatively, strategically, or hell, even luckily overcoming challenges, that sounds like "Step on Up" focused play to me.  Whereas if the focus is on addressing the narrative premise through play, that sounds like "Story Now" focused play.  This is not to say that narrativist players cannot or do not recognize and praise really cool instances of addressing the premise.  Hell, yeah, they do.  If I address the premise in a way that just makes everyone sit back and say, "cool!" I'm still engaging in narrativist-focused play.  It's not gamist just because social appraisal appears.  Hell, since human social interactions of all sorts involve evaluation and appraisal, their presence or absence is not going to tell you a thing about GNS.  It's just, if I'm reading him correctly, that Ron wanted to make sure we weren't overlooking these social aspects of gamist play.

Rich

[pete_darby]

Once again, I think I get it and then....

Let me get this straight: are you saying that how you play doesn't alter people's opinions of you in Narrativist and Simulationist play? It seems to me that all play must be gamist because all play is predicated on a hierarchy for evaluating the quality of other players' actions.

Jumping in with my big boots here...

Firstly, I think you've pretty much "outed" yourself as a gamist with that: your play may be predicated on heirarchy for evaluating other players actions. Mine is sometimes, but more often it's driven by an almost fanatical curiosity about imaginary people, places, things and situations. I'd guess I'd have sim tendencies then. I've played in a few campaigns where that didn't matter as much as adressing a single question (is love stronger than death, frex); player status and a more general curiosity were sidelined. So that'd be generally nar.

Now, of course there's a degree of player jockeying for peer approval in all three, but for most of my play it's not as important as finding out what happens next (or, more importantly, what happens when I do this). In narrativist games I've been in, it's not been as important as finding answers (or at least examples) of the Big Question. Just as curiosity is an element in gamist and nar play (without a simulation, you got no situation), and the presence of a premise provides much needed OOOMPH for gam conflicts and sim exploration, it's not a question of what's present, it's a question of what's important to the players (gm included).

To you, peer perception is the key for your play: great! You're displaying a much greater degree of self awareness than I have for many years of play. And you also recognise that it's part of all play; where you're differing from "standard GNS", whatever the heck that is, is that GNS says that just becuase an element is present, it doesn't mean that it's the defining characteristic.

Darn, checking the topic review, Rich said this a lot quicker and less patronising. Ah well, imagine me saying this wearing a beany hat and a t-shirt with "That's No Moon" in Star Wars lettering on the front: that'll make you  treat me with the proper level of respect.

[fusangite]

Hey Pete,

Nice boots. Better slip mine on.

Firstly, I think you've pretty much "outed" yourself as a gamist with that: your play may be predicated on heirarchy for evaluating other players actions. Mine is sometimes, but more often it's driven by an almost fanatical curiosity about imaginary people, places, things and situations. I'd guess I'd have sim tendencies then. I've played in a few campaigns where that didn't matter as much as adressing a single question (is love stronger than death, frex); player status and a more general curiosity were sidelined. So that'd be generally nar.

In the play I'm involved in, by far the most important thing is figuring out how the main plot will unfold. The main thing that causes players to adversely judge others is if their play causes the session to digress away from what the majority perceive as the main plot. There is considerable disapproval for that. For instance, if someone wants to play out a romantic interaction between themselves and a peripheral NPC, this is viewed as wasting other players' time. If people get directions to a place they think it is important to reach, players will negatively judge people whose actions prevent or delay the party following them for reasons important only to that one player or her character.

Generally, in games I play in, there is a sense that the party should act co-operatively to overcome obstacles. What elicits disapproval is not inefficient use of the rules but breaks in group solidarity that prevent or hamper the party overcoming those obstacles on a habitual basis. (Naturally, everyone is indulged in pursuing non-party-related objectives occasionally but if a person habitually does so at the expense of the party, there is disapproval of that player's actions.)

It is clear that a hierarchy of good play vs. bad play is implicit in all models describing play. It just strikes me as sophistry to argue that this defines gamism.

Now, of course there's a degree of player jockeying for peer approval in all three, but for most of my play it's not as important as finding out what happens next

But that is the system whereby peer approval is given out in the games I am in so I'm just not comprehending these two as different things. Furthermore, I don't see a whole lot of jockeying going on in my games; peer approval isn't a very big issue. It's just that peer disapproval is one of (and not the most important by any stretch) the ways that the player consensus on narrative direction is maintained.

(or, more importantly, what happens when I do this). In narrativist games I've been in, it's not been as important as finding answers (or at least examples) of the Big Question.

This is a pretty articulate description of the priority system in my games.

To you, peer perception is the key for your play: great!

No it's not. You misunderstand me.

I realize that I'm coming off a little cranky here. Part of this is a fuction of my online versus in-person persona but part of it I think arises from the frustration I am experiencing in comprehending the GNS system. I am usually pretty good at comprehending new systems of thought and locating myself within them. I've now been discussing GNS for 4 days; I've read several essays about it; I've been able to consult the creator of the model and, still, every time I think I have a grasp of the system, I'm informed that I have seriously misinterpreted it. This is a highly unusual experience for me and is producing, therefore, an abnormal level of frustration.

Thank you all for your patience,

Stuart.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Stuart,

I'm not sure I see how you're being informed that you're misinterpreting anything. I was under the impression that, two days ago, you nailed it. Gamist you say, and so Gamist it is - I don't see any special reason to question or doubt that. To discuss it further, presuming that you're interested, we really need to get concrete in terms of actual play.

Maybe a lack of acknowledgment on the part of everyone else is the problem, and I'd like to call on everyone to recognize that.

I also suggest - and this is related to the desire of some posters to know, at least, your real first name - that your "on line persona" should be simply discarded when posting at the Forge. We really, really don't care about anyone except the real you.

I also think my post may have misled some people about the issue of esteem and approval. Rich in particular has re-stated my point in precisely the terms to express it far better than I did. If I'm not mistaken, his re-statement supports all of your conclusions rather than informs you that you're misinterpreting anything.

Best,
Ron

[fusangite]

Thanks a lot Ron. I'm most relieved by your post. As the author of the model, I obviously find your statement regarding my style of play rather more authoritative.

I think I'll enjoy it here.

Stuart.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Two neurons finally freakin' fired in the right direction. I think I was so wrapped up in composing my nearby "whole model" post that everything else sank beneath black water for a while ...

From my Gamism essay:

A few paragraphs back, I promised a definition for Gamism and here it is. It operates at two levels: the real, social people and the imaginative, in-game situation.

The players, armed with their understanding of the game and their strategic acumen, have to Step On Up. Step On Up requires strategizing, guts, and performance from the real people in the real world. This is the inherent "meaning" or agenda of Gamist play (analogous to the Dream in Simulationist play).

Gamist play, socially speaking, demands performance with risk, conducted and perceived by the people at the table. What's actually at risk can vary - for this level, though, it must be a social, real-people thing, usually a minor amount of recognition or esteem. The commitment to, or willingness to accept this risk is the key - it's analogous to committing to the sincerity of The Dream for Simulationist play. This is the whole core of the essay, that such a commitment is fun and perfectly viable for role-playing, just as it's viable for nearly any other sphere of human activity.

The in-game characters, [etc].

Many people, in discussing Gamism, have a hard time accepting that esteem can be "on the line" in non-Hard Core play. My habits of posting tend to focus on that.

However, the bolded text is the real point, and I should have brought it up much more carefully - that's what the play is about. For Gamist play, one's personal ability to strategize and tactify is currently under scrutiny from everyone else. What the variables are and when they "hit" before or during play, well, all those things are incredibly diverse. But make no mistake, Gamist play is about how well you do it. I stand by my point that this is absolutely distinct from either Simulationist or Narrativist priorities.

(To Ben Lehman and Jonathan Walton: competition may or may not be involved, but when it is, it reinforces and "juices" the essential issue. Step On Up doesn't require competition, but competition is very likely to occur in the presence of Step On Up.)

Best,
Ron