Gamism is not competition.

[Mads Jakobsen]

I know it's been discussed a thousand times, but I must say it...

Gamism is not competition.

Most games are competitions (chess, football, warhammer). But a few is not (solitaire, peace chess (?)). Because games are so often competitions its tempting to say that games ARE competition, just like it's tempting to say that fairness/ symmetry is a prerequisite for games ("you have 8 pawns, I have 8 pawns").

To me it is obvious that gamist roleplaying, as it is mostly played, is an example of a non-competitive game. The players are not competing between themselves or with the GM, because if they did the game would end fairly soon with a clear winner ("Hmm, the GM won again. We must revise our tactics"). Roleplaying games nearly never ends soon with a clear winner.

Someone have suggested that gamists may in fact competing against themselves or set standards. I think that this is striving, not competition. Competition, as pointed out elsewhere, includes rivalry between persons. The first form of "competing" would just a well apply to the narrativist who strive to create a greater story, or simulationists who strive to build a more perfect virtual reality.

Gleichman has suggested that gamism is the test of skill, and it has been replied that so is doing anything, including playing narrativly, using your narrative skill (Yes there is such an animal). To that I say: Gleichman's definition may be thin, but at least it is not wrong.

A group could decide to test if it's members where gamists by playing a game of "Use your skill", and come away wiser. If they had a game of "Beat the others" they would probably come away with bugger all. If a player read the competition definition of gamist, even an obvious gamists would think "well, competition between players and GM's is childish... I think so, ergo I am... not a gamist."  

MJ

[Gordon C. Landis]

MJ -

It's tricky to respond to this, especially when what we're talking about are (mostly) linguistic issues, and it would seem English is not your native language.  But let me try:

First of all, here's the Webster's definition for compete - "to strive consciously or unconsciously for an objective".  So your use of "striving" in "striving not competing" is very relevant - but by the (first appearing) definition in Webster's (and - it seems to me - the definition in use in Ron's essay), striving IS competing.  The objective is NOT specified.

You say some games (like Solitaire) are not "competitions".  But again, under my understanding of the way the term is used in Ron's essay, Solitaire most certainly IS a competition.  The player is competing "with" the cards, in an attempt to gain (one objective, that IMO corresponds well to Ron's Gamism) the satisfaction of a "good game".  Or (another possible objective) to make money.  Or to "win".  But not NECESSARILY to win - they aren't forced to play AGAINST the cards.  Winning/losing is NOT a fundamental component of competing, only a possible objective.

There are, in fact, games (Gamist games) about creating a "greater story" (the Once Upon a Time card game is the most often cited example).  They involve narrative, but they are NOT Narrativist (as defined in Ron's essay) games.

You're right, if people think compete means "beat the others" (players and/or GM), many of 'em are unlikely to label what they do in RPGs that way.  To be fair, there is another definition of compete ("to be in a state of rivalry") that's kinda consistent with this.  And I'd have no problem with someone (Ron or whoever) coming up with different language.  But the fact is, the current language is perfectly "correct", as it does NOT mean "beat the others".  It means "compete with [something]" - perhaps "the others", perhaps yourself, perhaps the system.  The CONCEPT of Gamism, as explained in the essay and in discussion here, is very clear to me and entirely consistent with this understanding of "competition".  A good Gamist game is about good competition.  That may include winning/losing, or it may not.  It WILL include striving for an objective.

Wow, that's really more than I thought I'd say.  Hope it helps,

Gordon

PS - BTW, here's the etymology on compete: "Late Latin competere to seek together, from Latin, to come together, agree, be suitable, from com- + petere to go to, seek."  Wow,  "To seek together" - now there's a GREAT principle/definition for RPGs!  Make it "to seek [BLANK] together", fill in the [BLANK] with your GNS (or other) choice . . . pretty cool!

PPS - "consciously OR UNCONCIOUSLY"?  What should we make of unconscious Gamism?  Nah, I don't think I'll go there.

[contracycle]

Yeah - thats what it means, dammit, and no fricken gamist is gonna tell us otherwise, no matter how frequently or consistently they try.  Right?  Right.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Gordon has read and paraphrased my existing material on Gamism correctly. I have little to add at this point beyond the following.

1) Any number of people apparently conflate "competition" with "vicious," or "screw the other guy," or a generally negative deal of some kind. I agree that competition may become such things, but I disagree that it is one of them by default. [Please note that we are still discussing role-playing, nothing else.]

2) I have decided to let the fur fly about this issue without participating much. Lest I be accused of elitism, bear in mind that this is exactly what I did with the whole "what is Simulationist" argument - and given a lot of input, a lot of thought, and TIME, I was able to come up with the contents of the current essay, which oddly enough proved satisfactory to many.

In other words, I am interested in everyone's input and am paying attention. Eventually, results will appear. If I don't post to it, that does not mean I am (a) conceding a point or (b) ignoring or avoiding the issue.

Gareth, in particular, please do not assume you are being ignored. To all, please maintain clarity in your points, without snippy references or sarcasm.

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

Several of my group are *avid* nethack players (okay, Zangband but that's not so well known). You know Nethack, don't you? Random dungeons, random treasures, random monsters. Lots of cool interactions (if stuck with cursed boots of levitation, walk over a sink in order to drop--hmm ... I think that one's out of Nethack).

Anyway: for them (at least one of them) it's about the 'pure joy of character advancement.' Take a 1st level guy up to whatever. It's *definitely* a test of skill. It's the same vibe you get from Diablo ... and real similar to what they get from 'straight' D&D (or AD&D or 3e or whatever). Is it competition?

Words have connotations. I submit that competition implies competitors. Struggle (contra's suggestion, IIRC) doesn't (there may be other strugglers but they're not necessairly against you--they might be *for* you).

Achievement seems like a better word to me ("Achievist"?) since you might be attempting to attain victory over the others, the world, or even the GM.

-Marco

[Mads Jakobsen]

Enter linguistics.

When I wrote "Strive", I just meant it as a word that was better than competition. I might as well had written ambition, test of skill, struggle (thanks, Marco) or something about challenge (as long as it's understood it does not have to be fair). All of these are free from being (mis)understood as rivalry.

But are we just talking (mostly) linguistics?  

Some bits form "GNS AND OTHER MATTERS OF ROLE-PLAYING THEORY":

"Gamism is expressed by competition among participants (the real people)"
"Gamist Premises focus on competition about overt metagame goals. They vary regarding who is competing with whom (players vs. one another; players vs. GM; etc),"
"The range in Gamism: GM as referee over players who compete with one another, GM as referee over the players competing with a scenario, GM as opponent of the players as a unified group, or even no GM at all among a group of competing players. "

Exit linguistics, I believe.


Take your average gamer. Yes, he is a male gamist and he plays D&D. When he and his friends learned about roleplaying it was through some D&D manual that said stuff like "There is no winner" and "The DM is not playing AGAINST the players". The young male gamist and his group followed these wise rules for a time, but you know young people. They just had to break the rules to see what happened. You know what happened? It sucked. Every time. So now your average a-little-older-male-gamist KNOW that competition and RPG does not go together.

So when this average gamer reads about GNS, he is neither going to have an revelation on the spot and jump out of the closet a simulationist or narrativist, or he is going to go "Do they think I am a neewbie assassin-playing dork?".

He will not recognize himself in the above descriptions of gamism.      

MJ

[Gordon C. Landis]

Let me start by saying I think I understand Gamism, both the "term of art" used by Ron and the feel, mood and approach to RPGs that he/it attempts (partially unsuccsesfully, according to some) to describe.  I have played in many, MANY RPG sessions that are entirely compatible with both my understanding of Ron's definition and the feel described by others (like Brian).  I say this not in attempt to give "definitive authority" to my statements, but just to make it clear I'm not talking about a theoretical opinion here, I'm speaking from my personal, emotional experience in the area.  I enjoy and seek out the "Gamist feel" to this day.  I'm not so interested in it in my RPGs at the moment, but I need my Gamist fix from time to time, and if there aren't people willing to play a game of Titan or Settlers of Catan or the like, I can enjoy a Gamist DD3e dungeon crawl just fine, if not as a steady diet.

So . . . first point:  ARE we really just talking about language here, or is there something folks disagree about in the CONCEPT of Gamism that Ron puts forth?  If we simply replace all references to "competition" with references to "struggle" or "strive" or the like, is the issue resolved? If so . . .

Second point: Personally, I'm fine with competition for all the reasons covered in my first post.  I spent a lot of time rock-climbing in my mid-late 20's, and I was clear I was competing - with the rock, with my mental/physical limitations, and etc.  I most certainly was NOT competing AGAINST my climbing partner, who in fact was particpating in the activity WITH me, and whom I might rely upon to protect my LIFE as we "competed".  Competition implies (for me) only one competitor of neccessity, and when there are additional competitors they aren't necessarily against you.  That said . . .

Third point:  Rightly or wrongly (guess where my vote is :wink:), a fair number of people have negative connotations for "compete".  I have the same issue with "struggle" - I would NEVER describe the overall feel of Gamist activity as a struggle.  It might occassionally have the feel of a struggle, but not overall.  I like the "strive for an objective" language - true, you could say "Narrativists strive for the objective of a good story", but it is not the striving itself that is the reward for them, it is the story (or the participation in the creation of a story, to be precise).  Since I find the concept described by Ron's Gamist description entirely satisfactory, I'm fine with using different language to accomplish the same (to me) description.  But . . .

Final point:  If what is really happening here is that some folks disagree with the very concept of the definition Ron provides, not just the language used to reach that definition . . . let's talk about that, and not disagree about what the language "really" means.  While I've typed a lot of words expaining why *I* think the language is fine, it's the concept I care about, not the detailed language of the definition.  You can even use "struggle" if you want - while I can't promise not to shudder a bit when I hear it, I'll know what you "really" mean by it and that's where most of the value is anyway.

Again, hoping this is helpful,

Gordon

[Gordon C. Landis]

MJ snuck in a post while I was composing mine.  My opinion regarding "he will not recognize himself in the above descriptions of gamism" is "didn't he read 'GM as referee over the players competing with a scenario'"?

That's *exactly* (IMO) what he's participating in - "There is no winner" and "The DM is not playing AGAINST" the players" does not prevent the gaming from being about "competition".  Again, using a different word is fine by me - it's that thrilling challege to ones' skill/luck/etc. as you struggle and strive towards some objective or accomplishment.  That's what I understand "compete" to be.  Tell me that that's what "challenge" (my selection for the best "compete" alternative) means, and I'm fine.  Gamism is all about challenge, as in "rising to the challenge", acheiving a goal - or at least experiencing the thrill of striving towards a goal.  The payoff's right there, in that experience, and you need no hokey "well rounded narrative" or "accurately represented simulation" to acheive it.

I agree that the essay would be well served if this (most common and widespread, in my experience) form of Gamism were more strongly emphasized, and the ways in which it differs from more conflict-oriented competitive games were stressed.

Conflict - there's another good word.  But I'm tired of linguistic musings and disagreements - is the CONCEPT right?

Gordon

[Matt Machell]

You know, I think a good deal of the arguments in the forge result from Linguistic misunderstandings.

When you say Competition to somebody many people automatically assume it implies a winning/losing/against the others aspect, even if to you that is not implied.

This is both the beauty and tragedy of words, they mean different things to different people. They're caught up in connotations and personal experiences, whatever the dictionary definition might be.

Which is why nailing down Gamism will always be objected to by somebody, because unless you described exactly how you were using your terms, they'll make an assumtion. The best you can get is what the majority will agree with.

See, struggle also implies a win/lose situation to some people. So does Conflict. Strive might be better, but I'm sure somebody would object.

Just my thoughts.


Matt

[contracycle]

No, the concept is not right IMO.  I made it quite clear on the last outing of this debate that I reject Ron's description of competitive play, and his attribution of the meaning of such play to gamists.

The statement: "Gamism is expressed by competition among participants (the real people)" is false.  There is no competition among the participants becuase no meaningful competition is possible.

The statement: "Gamist Premises focus on competition about overt metagame goals. They vary regarding who is competing with whom (players vs. one another; players vs. GM; etc)," is false.  To the extent that any comeptition or strruggle is occurring in the game world, its really just a prop for the gamist to get their "challenge fix".  It has no need to be metagame more than any other style or set of goals.

The proposed range of gamism suffers from the following problems:
"GM as referee over players who compete with one another" - is a very rare style of RPG, because RPG is by its nature cooperative.

"GM as referee over the players competing with a scenario" is meaningless becuase a scenario is an inanimate object and thus cannot constitute a comeptetitor.  This one might be salvageable with a different terminology.

"GM as opponent of the players as a unified group" is meaningless because competing with God is Not Fun.  We are not Job.

"Even no GM at all among a group of competing players" is questionable at the least.  While narrative players might be able to operate in a GM-full way, a group of COMPETETITORS surely could not.  This model would only make sense for gamists if they were something other than competitors.

All of which has been pointed out at some length before.  The only room for linguistics in this debate appears to the extent that competition is being distorted to describe things that are not in fact competition at all.  And having imposed the label, corollaries are drawn from the term itself.  Rons descriptions of competitive RPG might be accurate descriptions of competitive RPG; but I do not think they are accurate descriptions of Gamism.

[contracycle]

On 2001-11-28 17:50, Gordon C. Landis wrote:
MJ snuck in a post while I was composing mine.  My opinion regarding "he will not recognize himself in the above descriptions of gamism" is "didn't he read 'GM as referee over the players competing with a scenario'"?

But the PLAYER is not competing with the scenario, the CHARACTER is.  The player is getting their jollies from the process and the vicarious experince of the challenge, but is NOT motivated by "competition".  Once again, competition with inanimate objects is meaningless; objects cannot experience rivalry, have no goals, have no motivations.  

Hmm, actually one can compete against objects in the sense of computer games, but in reality the object is maquerading as a human with motives and intent.

[contracycle]

Not only can I not see how competition implies anything other than win/lose, but I believe it was selected BECUASE it implied win/lose.

[greyorm]

...not see how competition implies anything other than win/lose...

I have to agree with that.  Competition, to me, also implies some sort of win/lose relationship.  To compete, in my mind, is to strive to attain victory.  One can only attain victory by causing failure; and that failure, in the context of RPGs, must be failure by another individual -- other players or the GM-as-NPC-goons.

In this context, it makes sense, but I don't think it is really saying what it should be, and should thus be retired.  Gamism is more about utilizing and caring more about the mechanical and statistical issues of play -- using them to advantage in attainment of goals -- than it is about "competing" and, hence, winning.
After all, there is already competition in both narrative and simulation, not necessarily among players, or even between player-and-GM, but among the characters invovled in the scenarios (and that includes both PCs, NPCs, and the world at large).

[Paul Czege]

Gamism is more about utilizing and caring more about the mechanical and statistical issues of play -- using them to advantage in attainment of goals...

There's something about this conversation that's fluttering around in my peripheral vision, and I can't quite figure out what it is. I had the same feel back when Brian Gleichman was arguing his definition of Gamism. There's something about the dispute over whether Gamism is "competition" that gives me this feeling. It's as if there's some important relationship that isn't being considered.

There's this notion of campaign play that we're all familiar with, where the purpose of play is to keep playing. In the context of campaign play, Raven's comments about Gamism being not so much competitive as it is a focus on using and exploiting the mechanics of the game system make a lot of sense. But translate that attention to the mechanical and statistical issues of play into a closed-ended, four or five session scenario, and isn't it then apparent that competition is really a part of Gamism?

Is the thing fluttering for attention in my peripheral vision the notion that differences in defining the nature of Gamism are arising from campaign vs. closed-ended scenario play preferences?

Paul

[Mads Jakobsen]

"Is the CONCEPT sound?"

There are two concepts afloat here.

1) "...players vs. one another; players vs. GM; etc..."
Just what it says.

This concept is rubbish.

2) "...players vs. one another; players vs. GM; etc..."
What Ron Really Means: the vs. / vs. bit is just there for the word count, what Really matters is the "etc", which obviously means a lot, including competing with nothing in order to gain Buddhistic enlightenment.

This concept might be sound. I can find nothing theoretically wrong with saying "Gameism is Competition/ Conflict /Smorgasbord, as Competition/ Conflict /Smorgasbord is defined here, namely as competing against an inner standard or striving or challenge or ambition inaction or test of skill or resource management or whatever." As an attempt to communicate RPG theory to the masses in order to prevent dysfunctional roleplaying, I find the method flawed, but then we are back to linguistics.

But then again, who knows? This way of describing gamism has not been put into words yet. It might turn out to be easy, and then we will all know that this discussion was just about semantics and communication. Or it might prove hard or impossible, and then we will all know that Something is Wrong in the state of GNS.

I would also like to add that this situation is volatile. It is the theoretical foundation of GNS that G, N and S is equal in value, and rightly so. But this is not the social reality of roleplaying. Gamism is the primitive form that most people start roleplaying in, and this means that all those lame, overeager novices are gamists, while narrativism is a lot more sexy, because a narrativist can claim to have "progressed beyond gamism". So if the credo "G, N and S is equal" is to be pushed forward, extra care should be given to a fair description of gamism.

MJ

PS: Didn't our average-male-gamist read the "GM as referee over the players competing with a scenario" bit? Maybe not. Maybe he didn't understand what exactly "competing with a scenario" means. Maybe he just blinked.