Another way that sim play is downright weird...

[pete_darby]

I'd go as far as to say that player interest in the inability of characters to adequately address the premise is in itself a good indicator of narrativist play, just as, say, the playing of an ineffective character may consitute a higher degree of Step On Up for gamist play ("anyone can survive Dark Sun as halfling assassin: I'm going to play as a one legged kobold mage with scrofula because I've got the cojones for it!").

Sim differs from nar and gam in this, but that's for another thread.

So here it is: the difference is that in sim prioritising play, there's no easy equivalent for the Character Thats Wrong For The Agenda.

The nar version of this is the character that doesn't address premise, but since premise is all around, the non-engagement of the character creates a tension that is dramatically interesting to the nar player. Similarly, the ineffective character in a Gam game can increase challenge, bringing greater step on up.

But in a sim game, what would the equivalent be?

Can't think of one that doesn't involve breaking the dream.

Any ideas, or is this, like the title says, another way that sim play differs from Nar & Gam?

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I think you're making a lot of sense.

It harks back to my issues with the terminology from Strike Force, a supplement for Champions, which identified player priorities (the Builder, the Combat Monster, etc). You'll recognize the categories; they've been adapted into many role-playing texts.

The problem with these is that they really don't say much about play. The one your post reminds me of was called the "Genre Fiend," and I always had trouble trying to satisfy what I perceived in myself and others to match with their category ...

... because for some, the term meant "Do it like the comics do" in the sense that you, now, were literally creating a comic of your own, which happened to exist in imaginary/communicative space rather than in written-up and illustrated pages. This virtual/mental comic would raise and develop the same issues as we were familiar with from comics, but what was said would be whatever it says, when we're done. Whereas for others, "Do it like the comics do" meant to repeat and celebrate exactly what existing comics have done, up to and including the points of the stories.

"How are we gonna play?"

"I'm a total Genre Fiend and would like everyone to buy into that, in combination with whatever else they want, for us to have a good time."

"Cool! I like Genre Fiend stuff too!"

And guess what? It doesn't work well. Fiend 1 and Fiend 2 have a problematic relationship when playing together, especially if one of them is the GM. Can they play together? Of course. What's it worth, in terms of satisfaction? I submit that it's rather low in many cases.

Best,
Ron

[pete_darby]

Isn't it annoying when you post something, then realise you know the answer?

It's bloody Worf, isn't it?

The character that seems to contradict the rules of the simulation, but forces greater exploration through reconciling it's presence within the simulation.

I'll leave this thread going in order that the great and good can tell me how wrong I am on all counts... or just as a quick rejoinder to the eternal "I'm not a munchkin, so I can't be a gamist!", etc. arguments.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Pete,

Ohhhhh, I don't know about that. Worf, like Data, seems to me to embody much of the basic theme of Star Trek: TNG, without any "threat" to that theme.

But who knows, I sense one of those foul Star Trek this-and-that discussions brewing if we go that way. I just deleted a paragraph that boded nothing good. I'm also getting very suspicious of non-role-playing examples of lit/fiction used for GNS-type discussions. They are almost entirely obfuscatory.

I think your basic point stands - theme is what it is, when present during Simulationist play, and characters either contribute to that or they're "in the way" ("you're playing wrong," etc, the fellow players say). An offbeat-looking character merely indicates a greater depth (I use the term loosely) of the theme in question.

Best,
Ron

[pete_darby]

Well, Worf's presence exemplifies one theme, while breaking part of the setting.

Getting back to RPG's, well, there's the laughing warrior in Glorantha. "All Humakti are grim death dealers... except him."

[Marco]

Can there really be a wrong character for the mode in any mode? I mean, the GM (or the game system) might present a particular premise for nar play--but I can ignore that and do nar-play wiht my own premise, right?

Or I can choose to do  no nar-play at all--but that's outside the scope of character choice.

You pointed out that weak characters have their place in gamist games (you just gotta play really carefully. AD&D puts *Everyone* in this mode at 1st level in a sense).

So I think the question is backwards--it isn't that there's no wrong character for sim (rare characters for the background, yes, but rare != wrong)--but that there are no wrong characters for any type of play.

-Marco

[Ian Charvill]

The sim equivalent in the character who is not of the world.  The Conneticut Yankee in your King Arthur's Court, the Thomas Covenant of your chronicle.  I'm guessing the default characters in Multiverser fall into this category.  They're not part of what's being explored but their existence forces the explored terrain into stark contrast.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi guys,

I think people are confusing "consistent with the setting" with "addresses Premise." The off-setting character can be seen in any sort of play, regardless of Creative Agenda. I don't see that it meets Pete's criteria at all.

I'm also convinced that a number of people really don't understand what I mean by the verb "address."

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

I'd love to see an expansion of "address."

-Marco

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Marco,

I think that's the question that you, and the few other people who find Narrativism as a concept to be a tar-baby, need to have asked all along.

Let's take it to another thread, because that's where it belongs. Not in this one, please.

However, as I've said in the whole-model post, that isn't going to happen until we get that whole-model thing established. I'd like to see you back in that thread first. Then, and only then, will I discuss within-Creative Agenda diversity.

Best,
Ron

[Gordon C. Landis]

I'm a bit confused, I think, about what's being talked about here.  But let me take a stab . . .

The Nar example has the character "not doing Nar" (which is not really saying anything - Nar isn't something that attaches to a character anyway), but the player still adds to the Story Now play of the group.  The Game example *kinda* has the character "not doing Game" (again, not really saying anything, with the added issue that instead of tallking about about in vs. out of a category, we're talking about good vs. bad within a category), but the player can still look at play through Step On Up, and add to the Step On Up feel for everyone.

So extending the analogy, what we're looking for is something where the character is somehow "not doing Sim," but still adds to The Dream?  Well, since The Dream is prioritization of Exploration, and NO roleplaying is void of Exploration, it's going to be tricky.  The best I can come up with is a character that is all about Nar or Game (again, this can only loosely be true since those labels don't really attach to charcaters), which the player uses to contribute to the overall Dream priority of the game.

Actually . . . I think I've seen that.  A mostly-functional way for a Game- or Nar-preferring player to adapt to a Sim-preferring group.

Does that make sense?

Gordon

[Ian Charvill]

To take a nother hack at it - and Pete, am I more on beam with this one or the last one - I think we need to isolate the Sim priority a little more.

So, e.g., Sim Exploration of Setting where the setting is multicultural.  The example would be a player creating a character who is a xenophobe.

I think we may also be able to say things like, low-tech savage in a sci-fi game.  I.e. the character itself makes it difficult to engage in the specific type of exploration that is being prioritised.

Pete?  Warmer or colder?

[jdagna]

I believe that a handicapped character fits the bill for the "ineffective character that still adds to the prioritzed element."  Handicaps make it difficult for a character to explore because there's a lot they can't do, can't experience or won't do.  However, the presence of the handicaps actually creates a situation worth of exploration in and of itself.

For example, my group right now is pressing on in an adventure despite a myriad of injuries.  We're now looking at issues like "How do you get down a ladder with a broken but splinted shin?"  If the priority really is Sim, the injuries are limiting their capacity to explore setting, but providing more opportunity to explore character/situation.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Justin, that doesn't work so well, because the "ineffectiveness" issue was posed for a Gamist context, not a Simulationist one.

I argue that your example using the injuries is very definitely Exploration-oriented, not "limiting" the Exploration at all. "Exploration" only means imagining what's going on together.

Best,
Ron

[pete_darby]

Okay, I obviously need to clarify my rules of engagement here.

This particular meander arose from the narrativism/ fatalism thread where I and several others were following a willo-the-wisp idea that narrativism may or may not be compromised by the ability of a character to have freedom of choice with regards to adressing premise.

Now, this was taking us into some very odd areas, because, as I said in that quote there, creative agenda is the agenda the players, not the characters. So, a character that doesn't enagage the premise, or rather is ill equipped to deal with the premise, may provide as good, if not better, nar fodder than a character who has been designed to embody the premise.

So that got me thinking... a nar player may take an unengaged character to the premise, in order to address the premise in a new way. What about gamists? Gamism isn't necessarily about playing the best character, it's about being the best player: sub-optimal characters present bigger challenges for providing optimal play. Sure, it's a different kind of gamism, but it arises from the same itch to prove oneself.

Now, one of the problems I get with discussing Sim is that it's my priority of choice, it's often relegated to a default category, and my preferred name for the prime motivator of sim gaming isn't The Dream, but Rabid Curiosity. Of course, for satisfaction of curiosity, the dream must be fairly robust, so I think me and Ron are close enough in outlook on this one that it probably only affects my mood during these discussions.

Now, if the priority of a sim gamer is keeping the dream alive, the character that apparently goes against the santicty of the dream, that goes against the established world, whether breaking canon setting, system, or colour, looks like it is breaking the dream, but is actually providing an opportunity to deepen the dream by exploring the boundaries, and reconciling apparent contradictions.

Taking my priority for sim players, rabid curiosity, as the signature, you could create a character that exhibited little or no curiosity about the world, or completely misunderstood it (a la Candide). Would that mean that you couldn't play him with a sim agenda? Hell, just thinking up a character like that in the middle of Glorantha's Hero Wars has already got my sim juices flowing.

So there seems to be no character which, by simple objective assessment, is a priori unsuitable for any given agenda.

Well, that's not true either, but as I see it, the inappropriate characters are actually the ones overly maximised at creation to fulfill the creative agenda.

The exemplars are simple: the munchkin character, so completely optimised at the outset that it is superior to any reasonable challenge. No step-on-up after the reveal of the character available, gamist is frustrated but doesn't know why (cough rifts mdc characters cough).

What about the nar character that completely adresses the premise at character creation? For example, if the premise is "Is love stronger than death?", one character you don't want to see is the man haunted by the spirit of his dead wife where they are both blissfully happy with the arrangement, and they are unassailable in this. So the answer to the premise is yes, and the only way the characters can be used to address the premise is to look at the suffering of other characters and go "well, our love is stronger than death, so there." It looks like it's addressing the premise, but it's actually eliminating it.

For the sim player, I'd say it's the setting prisoner: probably the creation of a type B genre fiend (as opposed to Ron as type A), this is a character sealed in amber at the point of creation, so utterly part of the dream the player cannot affect them, so utterly defined that there is little left to explore without removing them from their context.

Now, those cases are heavily overstated, and carry with them the baggage of a player mentality that thinks they can fulfill their creative agenda in character creation, and actual play is just an opportunity to display their mastery. Each character can be modified to satisfy the creative agenda they frustrate.

But, just to re-state: I was frustrated by the twin positions of "I'm not a gamer, I play sub-optimal characters for a greater challenge," and "I'm not a narrativist, I play characters that don't address the premise to show that the premise doesn't dictate my characters life." Both of which re-inforce the creative agendas they believe they are confounding.

I was looking for a similar position for the "I'm not a simulationist..." to which I think one answer is "... I always play outsiders to society, or rebels against authority, or wackos and oddballs." All of which scream "I want to explore even further than anyone else!"

Or perhaps "... I don't want to explore the whole world, I want my characters to be at the heart of their community and not go off exploring."

That noise you can hear is me chuckling... "welcome to simsville."

So in my ramble, I think I'm going to backtrack a little and propose a couple of principles.

Firstly, a character concept which deliberately challenges a creative agenda almost always re-inforces it.

Secondly, a character which compeltely satisfies a creative agenda before play can easily frustrate that agenda in play.