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

[John Kim]

Now you offer a hypothetical game where no one is addressing Premise, but "always applaud when Nar stuff is done, and sigh or look bored when Sim is done."  John, you can't applaud Nar stuff if the players aren't addressing Premise -- because Nar stuff *is* addressing Premise.  

Chris, you are applying absolute black-and-white criteria which IMO never occur in real-world games.  You are suggesting that the game is either (1) perfectly 100% Narrativist and Premise is always addressed, or (2) Premise is never addressed and thus players never have a chance to applaud.  That's a castle-in-the-sky criteria, IMO.  

There are plenty of games, I think, which have rare Narrativist moments.  I hear stories like this all the time...   There was a cool dramatic bit in one session of the campaign, and everyone loved it and applauded.  However, stuff like that didn't keep happening.  Instead they kept having kind of dull undramatic adventures, but despite the fact that everyone was discontented, nothing changed.  They either didn't know how or weren't willing to generate compelling material, even though they enjoyed it.  I'm sure this sounds familiar to many people.  

If you want a specific example, I'd point to the GURPS Space game that I played in during college.  Everyone loved the dramatic arc which my PC Cain went through, when he confronted his self-hatred as a cold-blooded assassin and went through horribly destructive means to save his artificial brothers / sisters.  However, the other players never generated such material on their own.  None of the other PCs had much life, IMO.  My impression was that after I left, it turned into a fairly cut-and-dried fight against the agency.  

Why not talk about your actual games?  Using all the data that the model asks for and we'll see what happens?  

With all due respect, I have talked about my actual games -- like my http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=7297">Shadows-in-the-Fog playtest, for example.  But despite having cited it in this thread, everyone seems to keep picking on the hypothetical examples and not saying a single word about the real example.  At the time of my report, Mike Holmes was the only person to comment, other than me and Gordon who were participants.

[Marco]

Chirstopher, and Raven,

The reason the IRC with no meta-channel is brought up is illustrated in this thread perfectly:

C. Edwards says: 'If that's all you've got, you may not be able to tell what mode play was in.'

Christopher in the other thread says: "You may be below the threshold of information necessary to tell."

Ian says: "Well, I think there's enough data to determine mode from stuff like selection of scenes or time spent."

John (at least) thinks that Matt implies: "Yes, there's enough because stuff actually happens (dice get rolled)"--but doesn't either in his original example or his clarification discuss the social-reinforcement that he thinks will be clear.

I say again for emphasis:
On this thread there isn't agreement as to whether the pure-IC-Channel-Game or always-in-character-larp contains enough data to make the distinction.

That's my question. Definitionally does it or does it not?

Also note Matt's example:

Think about playing Riddle of Steel (Premise = "What are you willing to kill for?"). A situation arises. You can think, "Hmm, what would my character do?" make a choice, then act. Chances are you can see this as either Sim. or Nar. Or, you can think "Hmm, is my character willing to KILL in this situation RIGHT NOW?" decide, and act. This is answering the premise. You swing the sword. Snicker-snack. Once we all see the act in play, we can evaluate that. "Wow, that guy's a cold-blooded bastard! Or a hero. Or whatever. Premise answered. Narrativism. Neato!

He says this gets cleared up when the player does it: when the rubber meets the road and dice get rolled:

This isn't some inner monologue! Players roll dice, use mechanics, talk out loud to each other, etc. Stuff actually happens and people interact to make the action happen. This stuff happening is the observable stuff that matters. This stuff answers the premise, not some silent introspection on the player's part. It is an observable instance by all folks at the table. It answers the premise, and is therefore narrativism.

Okay, I'm still listening: what is this stuff? How do I determine the Sim case from the Nar case by this stuff? If the answer is the player says "I'm addressing the question of Would My Character Kill for Glory?" then, well, maybe that's enough to be narrativist--maybe (I think Raven would disagree--if he sees Gamist behavior the statement doesn't stand)--but if all you have is a statement of in-character action, is that enought?

For example:

"I kill him." == Sim.
"My character, tears in his eyes at the act he's committing, slices his throat. == Nar.

I see no reason to think the above is the case--but, if all you have is in-character action statements (and statements of rule-calls "I roll a 6, that hits.") then is a long, on-going, string of such actions enough to determine mode?

I'd say the answer is no. But as I said, this has not clearly been stated yet. In fact, some of the posts seem to imply the opposite.

That's why saying I'm mutilating IRC is missing the point, Raven. The point is to use the extreme example to prevent lots of stuff that's not pertinent to the question from being brought up.

-Marco
[Also note: from Ron's recent post, Matt's example seems broken in GNS terms. Ron says he will never understand a statement "But my character would ... " and Matt's example begins with "Would my character ..." (which seems to be answered with: "my character would.")

Ron seems to put sub-text in his posts that I miss. Looking hard, I assume the 'But' in his example means the player is playing Sorceror and is trying to overr-ride the GM by saying "But *my* character wouldn't make a humanity roll now." This is pure guesswork. Maybe he finds Matt's example nonsensical.

To me, Ron's statement is taken in the form of:
GM: "Marco, you wanna see this guy dead?"
Marco: "But my character wouldn't--he's done stuff like that before so he'd understand it."

Seems like pure Sim-exp-character to me. If Ron doesn't understand the above statement that says some things about the model too, IMO]

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

State of the art: John, you're now arguing the other side of the case, or rather, the side of the case which has been presented by me and others for some time. Its key features are (1) Creative Agenda is indeed potentially fluid, and it's certainly negotiated, as it's constructed by real humans; and (2) social and interactive cues establish and reinforce Creative Agenda. Put "GNS" for Creative Agenda, and that's what I've been saying for years.

I don't see any reason to debate against my own argument. John, if you can see any basis for continuing to debate, it'd be good to know how your position is different from mine. As it is, your points aren't backing Marco up at all, as I see it.

Regarding your actual play accounts - they also illustrate my point perfectly. We (the audience for your posts) know nothing about how many people are in your group, how often they meet, who's related to whom, who's romantically involved with whom, who drives whom where, or any such thing. To me, this means we haven't received actual play accounts from you. I've read ... echoes of actual play, that's all.

I often ask about these things from people who post about their games. When Eric (Eric J.) presented an aggrieved call for help, including an elaborate account of what happened to the characters in play, it never occurred to him to point out that the group included his brother and that they were all under 16 years old. That turned out to be key (duh). And it's similarly key when the point is a more casual intellectual analysis rather than a cry for help.

Marco, I maintain my original position so far. But with one change: I thought of one thing that I can say that might make sense about your points.

It's this: all of your objections regarding Narrativism necessarily apply absolutely equally, and in every detail, to my take on Gamism. The social reinforcements are the same. The relationship of "personal agenda" to the imagined events is the same. Even many of the Techniques are the same. If that structure in Gamist play didn't raise your ire and doubt - and I recall that the Gamism essay drew great praise from you, in a thread you started just to say so - then why does it do so for Narrativist play? They are socially, emotionally, and procedurally being described in near-identical terms.

I now regret, very much, that I did not stick to my original guns that people are simply not ready to discuss the details of any GNS category or combination until they demonstrate full understanding of the model itself. I haven't seen that from you, your editorial suggesions notwithstanding. That's why this thread has been a humpbacked mess.

I suggest a new thread to discuss the model, per se. Narrativism, along with any other Creative Agenda imaginable, stands or falls with it.

Best,
Ron

[Christopher Kubasik]

John,

With all due respect in turn, I am not suggesting a game is 100% Nar or the Premise is never addressed.  In your example, you wrote the group "keeps failing to address premise."  I read that as they *don't* address the premise -- since they keep failing to do it.  You might have meant something less severe than that, but in my book, if I keep failing to do something, I'm not actually doing it.  I'm sorry if I misunderstood your intent.

As for your Shadow and Fog example.  You're right, you did mention it.  I apologize for making it sound like you hadn't.  I had read the thread, and in my response for the big Story Now piece I was working on I referenced it several times... so I was responding to it... But in my head (!)  My mistake.

I'll say this about that, though... With the limited information you've offered, everyone was on record as saying it was Sim... You wanted to argue otherwise, but for reasons everyone already argued, your concerns just don't hold water.  

Second, I'm with Ron about needing to know a lot more about the group: the Social Contract, the Creative Agenda and so on.  Marco can quote all he wants people who disagree with me about being able to name GNS matters with a *character's* single example of action.... But I think that's wrong.  That doesn't mean the model is wrong.  It just means that some folks are still working on grokking the model.  The truth is, that information is vital.  

I can only offer, John, that *more* information about more Actual Play, and more information about the Actual Play would be swell.

And now, thanks.  I've gained a lot from these discussions.  But I'll have to be passing for a while. If there are any questions to me haning in any of these numerous thread, please forgive my not getting back to them.  Got some other stuff to take care of.

Best,
Christopher

[contracycle]

That's my question. Definitionally does it or does it not?

I'll bite.  Yes it does.

If that, for all intents and purposes, is the entirety of the game as it exist(ed), then there it must be.  

Lets take a step back, though, and consider the infamous "instance of play".  This deliberate ambiguity is highly relevent, and for the purposes of this discussin I'd like to address two issues:

1] The instance as "moment", instant.  The singular events that catch the participants up in the excitement of play.
2] Instance as a period of observation of play, the duration of observation required to come to a more-than-ill-informed opinion.

The first of these is often used in example, and I think they often are indicative.  That is, the second form of "instance", the long term observation, will be looking for these events, as well as what is going on in betwen them.  

I'm going to speculate on some numbers I would require for my own satisfaction, themselves of course my own opinion, for the duration of observation.  I'd say, sucking my thumb vigorously, for table top play I'd want 100 hours of observation before I'd be in a position to articulate a first opinion.  At that point I'd be willing to openly discuss a "first impression", but I'd still leave a lot of room for doubt.

Looking back on the players I have played with longest, I'd guess I have a few thousand hours at least with some of them, conservatively.  Of these, I have pretty firm opinions as to their style.

It should be noted that I also consider the possibility that players may have a prefferred subordinate mode, and that players might migrate between modes over time.  If data arises which contradicts my expectations, I just try to incorporate it.

How much data would I need from an IRC log?  

First let me say I think such a log has to be considered a viable sample.  If thats the entirety of the game as conducted, thats what it was, and if CA was addressed it should be visible.  If there is an OOC channel, that must also be considered to be a component of the game record and be considered alongside the IC channel.

I'm not sure how much data to ask for, not being familiar with IRC play.  I'd still expect the rate of information exchange between participants to be pretty low, so I might look for 5 or maybe 10 times as much temporal duration as with FTF play, something in the region from several hundred to a thousand hours.  Methodologically, I would like to experiment with sorting statements by colour coding the participants, an then read through it several times paying attention to each particpant, that might prove interesting.  If there is an OOC channel, I'd want to do this with that displayed alongside and with both chanels time-stamped every five minutes.  Then every statment can be arranged in a table so that the sequencing is apparent.

It would be interesting to see such an array.  Do you get patterns of peaks and furries of activity, or short flurries?  Do all participants contribute equally, or to what proportion?  Do the size of the individual submisions and sequences of exchange show any patterns?  We should be able to detect the usual forms of play behaviours, asusming this sort of play actually works.  A dungeon crawl should be identifiable as such, with long patches of exchanges detailing mechanical resolution of set piece encounters.  GNS matters should be identifiable with their own characteristics: whether a players appears to engage with a particular form of play.  We should be able to detect type one instances of play in the quantity of text, the evident effort invested in its construction, and the degree to which the various participants seem concerned with he current subject matter.  I'd leave those more familiar with the medium to actually construct guidelines to go by.  What do you think, in the medium, would indicate "engagement"?

Obviously, as always, no estimate based on an observation, live or recorded, is anything but an opinion.  But if you can identify momens of engagement, and try to track what sorts of things appear to be engaging which players when and to what degree, hopefully this will at least be an informed opinion.  Ideally, you want to have a second opinion.  Possibly, the player can themselves provide one.

Lets assume I've been paranoically conservative at wanting a hundred hours.  Lets say I'd be willing to make a guess after an afternoons play, if I had to, assuming about 6 hours of play.  I'd still want something like 30-60 hours of text play given the limitations of the medium, as I see them, maybe someone could comment on a multiplier.  If you had such an organised log, I reckon you should be be able to observe something useful about the players styles, but it would be quite an exercise in text trawling.  It would probably be quite tiresome.

For most purposes, your own participation should be enough for you, I think, to make an informed opinion.  Can you not make out any differences between the quanitty and qwuality of the players individual engagement with the game from moment to moment?

[Paganini]

Chirstopher, and Raven,

The reason the IRC with no meta-channel is brought up is illustrated in this thread perfectly:

C. Edwards says: 'If that's all you've got, you may not be able to tell what mode play was in.'

Christopher in the other thread says: "You may be below the threshold of information necessary to tell."

Ian says: "Well, I think there's enough data to determine mode from stuff like selection of scenes or time spent."

John (at least) thinks that Matt implies: "Yes, there's enough because stuff actually happens (dice get rolled)"--but doesn't either in his original example or his clarification discuss the social-reinforcement that he thinks will be clear.

I say again for emphasis:
On this thread there isn't agreement as to whether the pure-IC-Channel-Game or always-in-character-larp contains enough data to make the distinction.

That's my question. Definitionally does it or does it not?

Hey Marco, I answered your question in this thread:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8699

Maybe you didn't see it? Maybe you disagree with my conclusion, but it'd be nice to have some acknowledgement, discussion, and so on.

EDIT: My post is at the very bottom of page 1, so I thought maybe it was overlooked.

[greyorm]

Your bus analogy is broken (as most analogies are--and if you rely on them it will simply produce more confusion). I think Narrativist play works just fine--you're imputing things to me I'm not saying. What I don't think works fine is the specific definition there-of.

No, I'm afraid that's not what the analogy was referring to (Narrativist play being 'broken') I fully recognize that you recognize that Narrativist play does work. But I won't pursue that analogy further since it's getting us nowhere.

Okay. Not to be snarky but are you certain that you *could* present them? Or that you'd present a lot of stuff that you felt pretty sure was Nar/Sim/Gam but that maybe wouldn't be clear to someone else?

That's what' I'm saying I'd expect.

Could I? Yes. Have I? Yes. In the threads about my Narrativist game.
Could someone interpret them differently? I suppose it is possible...but I've been mistaken for a Native American before because I have long, black hair...if you get what I'm saying?

Something I thought might bear mentioning, and others may or may not agree with this, but using GNS is an art, not a science.

Here, help me out with this Ex.Sit vs. Nar. thing, please? Give me two different groups, one playing Ex.Sit, one playing Nar. What are they doing, how are they doing it, etc. Now show me where the confusion comes in.

but if all you have is a statement of in-character action, is that enought?

The statement alone is not enough, no. There must be behavior to back that up. I would think that would have been foundational to a discussion of this subject, so why is it even being asked?

We KNOW the model functions on behavior, not intent -- it isn't even a question, it's an absolute standard -- so why is this being rehashed?

[Marco]

but if all you have is a statement of in-character action, is that enought?

The statement alone is not enough, no. There must be behavior to back that up. I would think that would have been foundational to a discussion of this subject, so why is it even being asked?

We KNOW the model functions on behavior, not intent -- it isn't even a question, it's an absolute standard -- so why is this being rehashed?

Contra Wrote of my quote:

[concerning] the pure-IC-Channel-Game or always-in-character-larp contains enough data to make the distinction.

I'll bite. Yes it does.

If that, for all intents and purposes, is the entirety of the game as it exist(ed), then there it must be.

(and he wants a lot of data--but remember, this is definitional)

I'm not sure you and Gareth are addressing the same thing. But you seem to disagree to me. And it looks like the disagreement is on a very basic level.

-Marco

[contracycle]

We are addressing the same thing, and we do not disagree.  No one statement of character action can ever be enough.

I argue that with a big enough sample, of in play behaviour whatever way that behaviour is constituted, play decisions as we understand them should emerge.

In this particular eddy of the whirlpool, the error has arisen from conflating  "a statement of in character action" with "the entire observation over a significant period of time".  That is precisely why I went to the trouble of outlining some firm numbers for what I would consider an acceptable period of observation.

[Marco]

Okay, cool--the statement looks like "with enought singularly-unidentifiable points of data a pattern will emerge." That does go with Raven's statement that it was more art then science.

-Marco

[Ian Charvill]

I was going to post on this at more length, but I think the exchange you just had with Gareth settles it.  My four of five points of the kind of thing you would look for in a pure in-character IRC game all assume a number of datapoints.  Creative Agenda is all about tendencies and you can't spot a trend from a single point on a graph.

Each data point has value but at the same time, they're pretty meaningless from a GNS point of view.  Imagine a picture on a PC.  Having information about the colour value and position of one pixel is going to tell you next to nothing about what it's a picture of.  Given enough of them though, you can start to tell what it's a picture of.  How quickly you can tell will depend on you an an observer but also at what pixels you have access to and what it's a picture of*.  The IRC-only thought experiment is like having a mask over part of the picture.  Whether you can still tell what it's a picture of just relies on how much of the picture it happens to occlude.  Given that it is a thought experiment you're going to get wildly different 'can you tell what it is yet?' responses, because no one can tell how big a mask it is.

HTH

* to complete your analogy your sim exploration of situation vs narrativism example consititutes to similar but by no means identical pictures, so it becomes harder to spot the difference with more limted information.

[M. J. Young]

Vincent Baker, Ralph Mazza, Joshua Neff, Jesse Burneko, Seth Ben-Ezra, M.J. Young, Christopher Kubasik, and Mike Holmes.

I made the short list.

I apologize for not coming to this sooner; I got in from UNY-con yesterday morning after driving eleven hours (not solid--stopped for gas and food, then gas again, then supper, then just to keep myself from falling asleep with an hour or so to go) at five, got the kids off to school, and collapsed for the day, then cleared out four days worth of e-mail and now am trying to catch up five days worth of forums (with a promise to my wife that I'll quit at one if I'm not done). Had I been here sooner, maybe this would all be clearer to me, as there would be fewer posts to resolve.

Marco, it is not necessarily the case that you "are a simulationist" or anything else for that matter. It is entirely possible that you're among those of us who drift. I'm narrativist when I play Alyria, and sometimes when I play in certain Multiverser settings; I'm often gamist in D&D (although I'm a conservative survival gamist--victory is living, in my view) and other Multiverser scenarios; I play a fair amount of simulationism as well. Some people always prioritize the same thing. I think of it, though, like trying to decide whether to watch a movie or play a game--both are enjoyable activities, but they are different kinds of enjoyable activities which I enjoy for different reasons. So, too, different creative agendae appeal to me on different levels. I enjoy winning. I enjoy exploring and debating and examining complicated issues. I enjoy learning and discovering (I actually like going to school; I just have to ignore the tests and grades aspect sometimes--and I also enjoy watching educational television, even when it isn't very good). You might be finding it difficult to pigeonhole yourself because you can't be pigeonholed. You might even have a group like that, which makes for wonderfully flexible play but is dratted difficult to categorize.

You're also running into the problem of congruence--situations in which any two (or all three) modes might lead to the same action. Of course if the setup presented is, "the world is going to be destroyed unless you save it", sim, nar, and gam players are all going to say, "then let's get started". I once proposed a game concept of being a member of a military unit in the jungles of Viet Nam, suggesting that in the field all gam, sim, and nar decisions are going to be terribly close in appearance. That's congruence; when it happens, it muddies the distinctions. Even there, sometimes there's divergence, and it can eventually lead to dysfunction through incoherence (and I believe I, at least, have referred to incoherent play before, meaning conflicts between players on GNS grounds).

That's a targeted response to something you wrote in a later post; I've got your first questions here and will get to them last, hopefully in something of an orderly fashion.

1. Since the "address of Premise" need not be conscious in the minds of the participants, the act of addressing is only relevant to an observer. So my questions are:

 a. If the game takes place on IRC, can there be such a thing as address of Premise or can any determination be made as to Creative Agenda (assuming the shared game-space only exists in the in-game channel)? Or does "address" only happen in person-to-person interaction? Given that *only* in game actions are available to any observer. Is pure IRC play GNS-modeless (since while there's assumed to be a Creative Agenda, a given, named mode is an observational statement).

I was going to say that this is like the old question of whether a tree that falls in the forest makes noise if no one hears it; but it isn't entirely. After all, if you define "noise" as vibrations of air, it does, and if you define it as interpreted in the mind it does not. In the case of creative agenda, it exists even if it is not observed or identified.

Sometimes you can't tell what's happening in IRC; that's not surprising--sometimes you can't tell by watching a group at a table. Sometimes what's happening in either place will be so blatantly evident (e.g., munchkin style gamism) that you need about five minutes to recognize it and again as much time to confirm your suspicions (although in such a short segment it is still possible that play drifted to this for a brief time).

The point is that creative agenda is involved even when the observer can't identify it. As to the minimum amount of evidence required, that can't really be quantified. Gareth has suggested a certain number of hours, and he might be right--but there's no guarantee that you would actually have sufficient information in that time if the group wasn't terribly focused, and it's entirely possible that you would see the trend clearly long before that.

b. When the action of game-play resembles a story there will always be theme and address of action/situation. How does one tell the difference between someone really interested in Exploration of a dramatic situation vs. address of premise since, essentially, both will always be happening. In other words, I see no instant of supposed Narrativist play that does not equal exploration of situation. I see no way to tell one from the other, save for empowerment.

Well, more on this in a moment, but for this moment I'll try to get some of it answered.

EoSit is generally about "what happens". We don't sit in judgment over what happens at all--we observe. It is in many ways experimental, and the results are always "interesting" in that way that is intellectually engaging but not challenging to our values. Nar is about testing our values, either by making the choices we would make or making the choices we wouldn't make, watching what happens precisely because we want to understand the consequences of moral choices. In a sense, the evil thing that a character does in EoSit isn't "evil"; it's "what he chose to do"--its moral value is incidental. In Nar, the moral value is key, never incidental.

2. Is player-empowerment important and implied in "address" (i.e. you will say the player must be empowered in order to address the premise)? If that's the case then:

 a. What's the cut-off point? There's a spectrum from the-GM-watches-while-the-player-tells-his-whole-story to the-game's-on-rails-so-strong-only-the-GM-ever-speaks. If empowerment *is* an issue then presumably there's a cut-off somewhere along that spectrum. I've never seen that expressed in any way that's useful to me as someone trying to determine if play is empowered. Where does the definition draw the line?

 b. Someone recently asked "how do the players overrule the GM?" in a Narrativist play discussion. Is that an important question? Should that be asked/answered for a discussion of Narrativist play?

The issue here actually is not how much empowerment the players or referee need to play narrativist, but at what point do they cease to be players at all?

I've dealt Bridge hands, and played them out, in all seriousness, alone; picking up each hand, evaluating what I can from it, making my bid, writing it down, taking the next hand, trying to clear my mind of what I know and work solely from what I can deduce, make the next bid, continue until the contract is settled and then do play--with each hand, doing my best either to make or to defeat the contract. I've got solidly gamist principles at work there, despite the lack of social context (I'm trying to impress and inform myself). I see no reason why a referee can't all by himself play a narrativist game in which the players are strictly observers--it's just that in that case only the referee is playing.

That's rather an extreme idea, but look at it from another perspective. Were we to have six people in the room, four of whom were playing a game run by the fifth, the presence of that sixth person in the room strictly as an observer would not alter the mode of play of the other five. If we reduced it to one player, one referee, and four observers, this would not change. When we get down to one player who is the referee, it still might be narrativist, as he uses the story he is creating to address the premise in his mind--it's just that the other five people in the room, whether or not they have characters, are no longer involved as players. They aren't playing narrativist because ultimately they're not playing.

They become players in a narrativist game when they've been allowed enough credibility in defining the shared space that they can make a difference in forming the answer to the moral question. That's what "address the premise" means: make a difference in forming the answer to the moral/ethical/personal question(s) raised by the game.

3. Since it seems that the Narrativist description of play only says "the play was observed to [address premise]" what is the purported value of that analysis? Is the implicit assumption made that if the play didn't end in a fire-storm argument that the audience enjoyed narrativist play? Is the assumption made that the players are Narrativists?

What is the value? Especially since:

 a. MJ notes that it's quite possible for a person to evidence a given type of play--but if it isn't their preferred form, they may do all kinds of things that, say, appear Gamist--but the observer must somehow correctly suss out that these are not "what really matters to them." (this seems to be the kind of intent-reading that the theory really tries to stay away from).

 b. Someone (Vincent I think) notes that in many situations people may play in a vigorous, lively matter that is not their preferred one.

I'll concede that when people play in a non-preferred mode it's difficult to tell that this isn't what matters to them. You see this frequently in groups with diverse preferences coming together through compromise--we'll all play gamist for a while, narrativist for a while, simulationist for a while, as long as we all get a chance to do what we love part of the time. You'll see it in games in which the structure of the "adventure" has been defined but the players are creating scenes outside that which address what they love. An example might be a dungeon crawl game with strong gamist setups in the dungeon, but players start to create character interactions and relationships and issues back at the inn which bring narrativist issues into the game--but still they are back in gamist mode when they go back to the dungeon to line their pockets with the money that funds their extravagant lifestyles and enables them to have those other opportunities. It's entirely likely that a group of narrativist players in this situation would play gamist during the dungeon crawl and then build interesting stories back in town on what the referee or module designer thought was their down time.

Still, in that situation you can see what the players are prioritizing. When they're following the preplanned scenario, they're gamist because that's what the scenario demands of them; when they get outside of that, they leap to narrativism. Why? They do so because that's what they really want out of the game. They do the other because they don't realize that they don't have to, or because it fits with their perceptions of who their characters are, or because it fills the gaps.

I don't think it's necessarily as difficult as you suggest to identify when players are doing what matters to them.

4. If I play a game and I know I am agonizing over moral choices and otherwise acting in a way that addresses a thematic question but the play for some reason "doesn't appear Narrativist to the observer" then what's going on? Is it correct to say that the play (let's assume it's a 1-GM-with-1-player game) is judged to be Gamist is it:

 a. More likely that the observer is in error if I, as a player, can point to a string of actions that everyone agrees *did* address the premise but which I seemed a bit reserved about?
 b.  More likely that I am playing Step-on-Up since I didn't *exhibit* the necessary threshold of excitement/engagement when making moral choices but seemed tense ('excited') when overcoming challenges?
 c. Clear that I am playing Gamist because that's what the observer saw and the label only applies to observed phenomena?

First let me cop that this is insufficient information; then let me rise to it anyway.

It is possible that you are playing narrativist by preference and gamist when the narrativist possibilities don't present themselves (as suggested). It could be that your observer has confused your annoyance and upset with the possibility that the challenges raised in the game are going to derail the interesting story you're pursuing with excitement at the challenge itself.

You do get to the problem of intent eventually; this relates to that.

5. People associated V:tM's talk of Story with the promise of Narrativist play. The slogan for Narrativist play is Story Now. Considering that Story is, at best, a misleading term, why do this? Is it that:

I don't want to quote the entire post, so I'll clip the choices and just attempt to answer.

The choice of "Story Now" as the banner for Narrativism confuses me, too, because I've come to accept that Story is such a loaded and misleading term (and already there have been threads here in which newcomers have assumed they knew what that meant and badly mangled narrativism based on that misunderstanding); however, hopefully the Narrativism essay will clarify it--then at least we'll understand why such a loaded term was used.

Let me address what it's supposed to convey.

It is easy in gamist and simulationist play to look back and see that a story was created, and even sometimes that it was a good story possibly having interesting moral themes.

You correctly observe that from an outside observational position you can't easily tell whether such as story "happened" incidentally or was the intent of the players. However, that is a critical difference. The narrativist is actively attempting to address the theme (and so create the story) while he's playing.

Looked at another way, the gamist is focused on overcoming the challenge. The watercooler stories he's going to tell about his game are going to be the ones in which they beat the orcs or the dragon, or solved the puzzle, or persuaded the king to fund their expedition, or something in which their prowess as players comes into play.

Here's an example that may be just wild enough to make the point. Years ago, Jan was running Star Frontiers (Volturnus modules) for Bob and me. At one point we attacked a pirate outpost, killed all the pirates, tapped into their computer, learned a lot of stuff including that there was a main pirate base two hundred miles away. We also learned that we had just captured a jetcopter capable of carrying 500 kg and six passengers. There were five of us, more than that much stuff, and two combat robots we had just gained--we didn't want to leave anything behind, and we wanted more information. We got on their communications system, called the main base, pretended we were the pirates. We told them that we had been attacked by the native monkeymen, our tech and doctor and chief all badly injured, and we needed help fast. Then we cut communications, opened the hanger, boobytrapped it, and waited. A few hours later, help arrived--a jetcopter with four pirates. We killed three in ambush, managed to gas the fourth and then question him at length--and then loaded everyone and everything into our two jetcopters, much to Janet's surprise and chagrin, for the journey to the pirate base. We bragged on that--well, twenty some years later, I'm still proud of that moment. That was gamism. I tell that story because we pulled a fast one--without a word to each other, we fell into the same plan and did an end-run around what was supposed to be a limitation built in to the module.

The point is, the fact that we tell that story says we were playing gamist, because we got excited about beating the situation to the point that we repeated what happened.


In the same way, simulationists are going to talk about the wonders of what they found, or discovered, or learned; and narrativists are going to talk about the moral and personal conflicts and issues with which they wrestled. Those are out-of-game cues to in-game creative agendae; but they illustrate the point: players will let you know what it is that really excited them about a game, if you let them.

Sure, sometimes it's hard to tell. It's still there.

It's narrativist because from moment to moment they were creating the story; they weren't much distracted from that by other things. Intent is involved (and before you jump on that, we'll get to it). It's the difference between whether players suddenly discover that they created a story and whether players were trying to do that all along.

Is that observable? It is; it isn't always clearly so. Congruence particularly makes it difficult. Yet you can sometimes see that players are trying to wrestle with issues through their in-play choices, as opposed to merely moving through the scenario the way they think it should go.

6. Several listed examples of Narrativist play deal with player empowerment (Raven's movement-rules-make-my-character-suck example) rather than with theme or premise. How far does address Premise go in:

 a. Ensuring that PC's are treated as "cool" or "allowed to do their cool moves."
 b. Ensuring that PC's don't suffer un-expected, unwanted, anti-climactic, defeat?

As someone has said, these are non-issues to a large degree. In all three modes players must be empowered to do what matters to them in that mode. Games that empower gamist choices and not narrativist choices can be frustrating to narrativists, but the reverse is equally true. A bunch of gamists playing Legends of Alyria discover quite quickly that there's nothing they can do to power up their characters--every strength is its own equivalent weakness, every weakness a potential strength, and no character is really stronger than any other. You need to give players the tools to do what they need to do to achieve their goals. That means player empowerment in the right vein. It's not really the degree of empowerment, but the nature thereof.

Somewhere in this I missed the part where you observed that "intent" was emphatically not part of the model. This probably requires a bit of historic review.

The original designation of the creative agendae was "GNS goals"; goals inherently meant that toward which the players were working, and that implied motivation and intent: why do we play, and what are we trying to accomplish by playing? The problem that arose was that words like "goal", "intent", and "motivation" were easily warped out of all context into something completely useless. For some, such things had to be specific and express to have any meaning at all; for others, it was easy to say that the intent or motivation was something completely different--more specific, or more general, or unrelated--to the ideas of the theory. "My motivation for play is that I want to sleep with Jessica" doesn't fit the GNS theory at all, yet people would insist that this is what motivation means.

Ron says you can't observe or demonstrate a motivation or an intent; you can only observe a conduct. Therefore, GNS is derived from the observation of conduct. He's biologist. I'm a theologian and a lawyer; I say that you can demonstrate motive and intent--that all of that observed conduct means nothing except that it demonstrates motive and intent (and I've got hundreds of years of criminal convictions "beyond a reasonable doubt" to show that ordinary people believed the intention of the defendant was proved beyond dispute). I don't mean specific intent; I mean general intent: the players intend to address a moral question, or explore a situation, or defeat a problem; they are motivated to play by the desire to do these things.

Now, you can ask players what their intent or motivation or goal is in play, and surprisingly they often don't know--or they "know" in some sense that isn't terribly helpful ("we're going to rescue the princess"--yes, but why?). Few have ever really reflected on the question, and when they do it often becomes muddled and confusing. Any theologian will tell you (if he's worth his salt) that what people do reflects what they really believe and really want--what they say only reflects how they perceive themselves, not who they really are. Even knowing our own motives and intents can be difficult at times. So (and Ron has somewhere agreed) GNS really is about what motivates a person to play, what his intentions are, what goals he seeks, what rewards he hopes to get from play--and about the means he uses to realize those things; but the best way to get to that is usually to watch what he actually does, and over time extrapolate why (most likely) he does those things. That's his creative agenda. It is an intent, a goal, a motivation--but it's most likely one somewhere below the level of consciousness that is easier to plumb by observing conduct than by asking questions.

I hope this helps; I'm running out of time for other posts, so I'm eager to know that this has made a difference.

--M. J. Young

[Matt Snyder]

That's what "address the premise" means: make a difference in forming the answer to the moral/ethical/personal question(s) raised by the game.

Hello, M.J. I just wanted to laud you for this excellent phrasing. I wish I had thought of that! It's succinct and imminently understandable. Oh yeah, and I happen to agree with it, of course. Thanks!

Also, as I posted on another thread, I was having doubts about the "intent" issue. You've handled it beautifully, and helped me, at least, come to a better understanding of where it fits in the model. Thanks again.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

In my view, M.J. has provided anything and everything possible to answer Jack's initial query.

Jack, are you good with it? Let me know.

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

MJ,

An excellent post both in logic and tone. It may come as no surprise that I agree with your statements about intent and raised some of my points to clarify that.

When there is an assumption of intent on the part of the players, the model works for me: play can be G/N/S even if it's not presently clear (i.e. after 100 hours of playing on IRC, I can say, well, hell, it looks like people are consistently playing "to win" so I'll call it Gamist and go with that).

When one takes the internal state of the players out of the model then it becomes "I'm making a difference in the moral question asked by the game" but because Joe the observer didn't get that, the play, by definition, wasn't Narrativist because it wasn't observed to be such. Which is goofy.

Since I believe one can infer internal state (i.e. assault with intent to kill) then that's fine.

But hinging the definition of a mode of play on what Joe, sitting next to me thinks, seems real subjective and unuseful.

So I agree.

Your take on Story Now is good (asking "What does that mean?" and being told it means "Story right now! wasn't enlightening.) The 'Now' bit is still misleading ("No set-up! There must be an answer to premise every second!") but I see what you're saying.

Despite having a long post, your comments were both insightful and easier to read than the vast majority of what came before.

It would be nice if that set the standard.

-Marco