Gamism and Narrativism: Mutually Exclusive

[Ayyavazi]

Thanks again Rogerio

Yeah, I'm making a huge leap. I'm ok with that for the moment. What I want to discuss is that there is NO hybrid agenda.

Ok, Gamism and Narrativism cannot coexist, by definition.  Since redefining these terms seems to be impossible at this point, lets for the sake of argument create a new agenda: GammoNarrativism. If this is too similar to Gamism and Narrativism in terms of word usage, we can call it Storcompism, or Step On Up Into Story Now. In this agenda, here is the point of play: Esteem for gutsy actions and their consequences in story terms and challenge terms. Players are seeking to have lots of gutsy choices that they will earn esteem for, and those choices will also have consequences in the fictionl story. They aren't looking just for interesting consequences, and they aren't looking for just gutsy decisions. They are looking for both and are rewarded for both, not independent from one another, but fused together.

So, if a group has players pursuing Gamist goals, players with Narrativist Goals, and players with GammoNarrativist goals, it will still become dysfunctional. Only a group full of players with GammoNarrativist goals would have coherent ply (maybe) and non-dysfunctional play.

So, is GammoNarrativism possible?

Thanks again, and I hope Ron doesn't kill me for all of this stuff which he will see when he gets back from GenCon. Maybe he'll request a daughter thread for just him and me, I have no idea. But for now, lets continue.

Cheers,
--Norm

[Ralek]

This pace of posting is generally unhealthy for productive discussion so I'm going to let this brew here for a while. I do have an answer which I am not going to post at this time, to allow for others to present their point of view and possibly to allow Ron to answer as well.

As a side note, I think some of our conflicting views are at the definition level, especially by what we mean by point of play. I will expand on this as well when (and if) I reply.

[Ayyavazi]

I want everyone to know that if I weren't in a public place, I'd be laughing my ass off right now. I just finished reading the three SIM threads Ron recommended to me on page three of this discussion, and realized that yeah, he was right pages ago. This conversation is cleared up. I agree completely that Hybrid play must be impossible. Each of the Three agendas is an elegant construction in its own right, and must by necessity be mutually exclusive to each other agenda. This is all based on Point of Play. You cannot have two Points of Play at once. It is not humanly possible (unless maybe you have that split-the-brain surgery). Therefore, though agenda may switch back and forth from one session to the next, generally speaking, one agenda will be the primary agenda, and all others are relegated to techniques.

From here, I think the topic needs to move into my http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=28490.0   GNS and hierarchy thread. There, my ideas (which split off at one point) are now merging. I now think that all agendas can be present at once, but one agenda will reign king from cycle to cycle, and switching can only be easily accomplished with constant system drift, or with a purely flexible system and flexible reward structure within it. I apologize for wasting everyone's time. It seems everyone kept telling me the truth, but I was too caught up in one way of thinking to consider it. Perhaps my other thread suffers the same problem, though I cannot know for sure.

As is, I suppose the play example I used in this thread can be ported to that thread so that the discussion can continue. As is, I think this one is all set. Thanks again everyone,
Cheers,
--Norm