This is a question really asking 'If I choose to play things this way during a situation, does that change how the situation actually plays?'

Say we start with an example that can happen in real life. There are two men, both going to dinner with two ladies. The first man is going to dinner with one lady, because he wants a root. The other is going because he really likes the lady he's going to dinner with.

The first guy has figured 'Doing this equals getting this'. He doesn't understand it when he doesn't get a root, but the other guy does. He did the same thing, why didn't it work for him.

Clearly, he played it as a 'what you do' situation. However, it was a 'what you want' situation, ie involving judgement on character.

Now, lets change the result and say the first guy gets lucky. Now, there are two options as to why this could happen.
1. The woman misreads his character, miss reads what he wants (he likes me) and on that makes a decision to sleep with the toad.
2. The woman recognises what he's doing and what he wants, but it doesn't matter to her. She wants dinner and then a sleeping partner.

Now, what does the second example represent? Did his deciding to play it as a 'what you do' situation turn it into that type of situation?

He might be led to believe so. However, it has not changed. It's still a 'what you want' situation. However, it isn't about what he wants now, its about what the woman wants. He hasn't changed the situation type, its still the same 'what you want'. He's just shifted focus on to the woman's wants, because she is showing a lot more about herself than he is. She is showing either that she's perhaps naive in the first instance and perhaps a woman who is assertive and knows what she wants, in the second. Or they could indicate a whole bunch of other things about the woman. But certainly we learn more about her character than we do about him (learning he wants to have dinner to get sex isn't much, in comparison).

So, lets apply this to a roleplay session. What happens when situations are played in a 'Do this to achieve this goal', or 'Do this to explore what will happen'? Lets presume the groups agreed to play this way.

The question is, has their agreement to play in that style, actually changed the style? Or are they still in analysis of 'what you want/care about', but have shifted the focus from their characters to the NPC's of the world? Do we learn more about NPC's than PC's, from the NPC's reactions to the PC's?

I imagine these are good questions to ask.

Hey,

Someone else is going to have to field this one. Usually I'm right in there pitching when it comes to analogizing role-playing with sexual situations, but Callan, you've baffled me.

Something about intent and motives and ... huh?

Anyone?

Best,
Ron

Hi Callan,

I'm a bit lost, but willing to venture, let me know if I'm completely off topic here...

As far as intention vs. actual results, people sometimes go completely backwards about achieving their goals. That said, the only thing I can say is that if you are conscious and mindful of your goals, and what you are doing, you are more likely to achieve some results.

With that, realize that on the Social Contract level there's a lot going on that really results in the whether play is functional or not. When "everyone agrees" to play with Goal X, there are some issues that need to be addressed:

-Does everyone understand what Goal X is?
-Does everyone mean the same thing when they think of Goal X(in otherwords, not X, Y, and Z all under the guise of X)?
-Does everyone REALLY want X, or are some people being pushed into it by the crowd, or more dominant personalties?
-Is there(perceived or real) subcontext along the lines of a power struggle, ego attack, etc, that will result in lashing out, "punishment", etc through play?

You can find tons of threads here, other forums, and in many books when talking about "problem" play that is effectively stemming from one of the above issues. Mike's Rant on Sneaking up on Modes comes from people attempting X, which usually goes terribly wrong because they are unable to make the transition, though they may all REALLY want Goal X.

In the end, we can never really figure out everything that's going on in people's heads based on their words or "intents". We can only look at their actions, and compare them to their stated intents and try to figure out what's going on. If two people fight over every session, odds are its not about the rules, or "realism" or "fun" but simply that those two people like to fight.

As far as the shifting the focus from PCs to NPCs, you've competely lost me...If we're talking about the intent vs. the results of the folks at the table, the focus is really on the people at the table as far as I can tell.

Chris

I think what Noon is trying to get at is "Is there a difference in the end results between goal-oriented and method-oriented play styles?"
...which might help clear it up, but I think the other big thing that has people scratching heads is that you're barking up the wrong tree, from a Forge perspective.

You're talking about what we learn about the characters from the way the players are approaching play. Around here, as far as I can gather, there is a very strong undercurrent of 'the characters ain't nothin' but paper' - ultimately, it's the player who we are interested in learning about.

Goals vs methods is really a matter of prefered techniques. I think they do emphasize different modes of play, and different stances (author vs actor, in particular), but don't really by themselves give us a good idea of what the players are wanting out of play.

To answer your question directly ("If I choose to play things this way during a situation, does that change how the situation actually plays?") then I would answer: Yes, System Does Matter. The techniques we use can and will strongly affect how things play out.

Or I could be completely out to lunch...

James

Few, I didn't expect to be so incoherant!

Okay, I avoided some terms, in case I was using them incorrectly. But here, this example might help clear it up.

Now, say spider man is faced with rescuing Mary Jane or a bunch of kids. It's supposed to be about making a choice between them.

Now, say the player wants to approach it in a gamist sense (as I undestand it). His goal is to win. A full win involves rescuing both MJ and the kids via a plan to do this.

Or even say he approaches it in a simulationist sense (as I undestand it), seeing what doing this or that will produce in the situation.

Now, correlate this back to the guy dating the woman.
His goal is to have sex, so he makes a plan to do so. A gamist approach.
Or he is just having a shot, seeing if dinner ends up in sex. A simulationist approach.

But the thing is, the very principle of the test is not about WHAT happens, but WHY it happened. The test is about what that person cares about. You can not change the mode of the test, by just deciding to play it a certain way.

FURTHER more, attempting to change mode not only fails, but has negative ramifications. If the test is about what you care about, and you show up acting like its a game or pot luck, you tell the test very little about your character. Now, keep in mind, the NPC, the woman, isn't just part of the test, she can be considered to be being tested too.

Now, if she sleeps with him, we learn so much more about this NPC than him. She is either naive, and we discover her vulnerabilities and such, or we discover assertive and just wants dinner and sex, and more than that she's looking past his small mindedness for some reason. Interesting.

Pan back to the spider man situation, and instead of seeing just how much spider man loves everyone, we'll instead have more of an exploration of how pissed off MJ is when spider man plays it all like a game (or an exploration of her hero worship when she fails to see his tactics as treating it like a game/sim). We'll discover more about MJ, because from spider man we just learn that...yawn, he loves to win. Big deal.

Further, even if everyone agree's to play gamist or simulationist from the start...if the NPC's are played narratively, were going to end up having a narrativist exploration of their characters. Your setting yourself up to fall flat, if you have narrativist elements like this. They can produce so much material they dwarf the results of other elements. Even the absence of narrative material can dwarf other victories by the immensity of its absence (GM: 'The town cheers your victory and goes to bed', PC: 'Aww, that wasn't really worth it, was it?')

An example is where the player tries to play spider man in a gamist sense (and everyone agree's this is fine), to win that situation. Then he tries to go and talk to MJ, as if he were really just showing what he loved most (all life, whatever), when its clear to MJ he was living the moment like it was a game.

Even with an agreed mode shift, it was still a narrativist exploration of what you did (because the NPC's react), but worse, really we end up exploring just what those NPC's think of you. Your own characters motives are so small, the NPC's are dominating the narrativist limelight.

Of course, whether they actually take up that limelight or get played as cardboard, doesn't change the principle.

It's a suggestion that even if you save the world in a gamist mode or sim mode, little Timmy who witnessed it but did nothing produces a lot more material in terms of what he thought about it all. Following his thoughts would be richer than following the hero's exploits. In fact you sometimes see this in movies, like that arab dude in the thirtenth warrior. He wasn't the big dude who killed the enemies chief in the end...he was the guy that watched. Excuse the multi use of the word 'dude'.

It's also a suggestion that even if little timmy isn't there, the occasional flat 'We saved the world and...cough' is explained.

If you start letting narrativist get in there, the exploration of character can be so rich, so immense that even if it doesn't happen, it'll dwarf other accomplishments. Its presence or the hole where it should be but is absent, is so much bigger.

Your winning the flag is drowned out by what the world thought of it, or worse, it is drowned out by the silence when it comes to what the world thought of it.

Cough, actually my idea's advanced a little as I wrote. But even finding I was incoherant to others helped me explore it more :)

Noon,
I'm a real newbie here, as well... but let me try something...

I think part of your question may be heading in the wrong direction, because you are assinging GN or S motivations to "characters" instead of the players.

Example: While Spider-Man may attempt to try and rescue MJ and the kids, both, because he wants to win... that is just the character motivation. The player playing Spider-Man in this game, may actually be coming from a Narrativist mode, because the ultimate question for the player is "What does it mean to play-to-win in life?"

(In fact, this might actually be a Simulationist style... simulating the action of a "gamist" character... with a Narrativist mode/motivation.)

Ack... I think I just broke my brain.

Anyway... while interesting, I don't think you can really attach GNS motivations to "characters" since they are about the PLAYER motivations for gaming... not the character motivations for the actions within the game.

Or I could be totally wrong. :)

I'm not quite sure why the idea of attempting to save everyone's life is considered Gamist in nature. How about the character is simply compassionate is trying to aid as many people as his is physically, intellectually and most importantly, emotionally capable of? Said Sim based player might just be exploring the depth of said chararcter's compassion for the helpless.

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume.

I apologize for jumping in this manner, but I felt it important to bring this up especially when characteristics of GNS modes are being discussed.

RDU Neil wrote: Noon,
I'm a real newbie here, as well... but let me try something...

I think part of your question may be heading in the wrong direction, because you are assinging GN or S motivations to "characters" instead of the players.

Example: While Spider-Man may attempt to try and rescue MJ and the kids, both, because he wants to win... that is just the character motivation. The player playing Spider-Man in this game, may actually be coming from a Narrativist mode, because the ultimate question for the player is "What does it mean to play-to-win in life?"
*snip*

Hi Callan,

I think you may be using the GNS terms in a manner very different than what everyone else here is used to. NPCs cannot, and do not, produce any "mode" and cannot "be" in any mode. In fact, neither can the PCs. Only players(everyone at the table) can be part of any given GNS mode.

Any character, player or not, is incapable of "choking" or otherwise altering another player's agenda. Only players can do that.

Anything that happens in game, happens because somebody(at the table) makes it that way.

GNS mode, and all play, come about because the players make it happen, therefore, any changes in mode, or problems changing mode, are because of the players, not the characters.

As far as focus on "what says more about what character" its really dependent on the group, and how they play, not with a particular mode.

You might find it best to review the basic GNS essay, and digest it in chunks. That's what I had to do. And I'd only worry about it if you're really interested in it, there's no reward or degree for having grasped the theory here :)

Chris

Noon wrote:

RDU Neil wrote: Noon,
I'm a real newbie here, as well... but let me try something...

I think part of your question may be heading in the wrong direction, because you are assinging GN or S motivations to "characters" instead of the players.

Ah, now this is actually the important part, because the usual idea is that its just about players. The crucial part of it is that, yes, it starts with the player wanting something, but that is then expressed by their actions in the character. The player can want to switch mode, he can have full group agreement on switching mode, but his character doesn't switch mode with him. As long as there are witnesses in the game world who are played in a narrativist way, the possible narrative component dwarfs the gamist element, for example.

The other narrativist NPC's in the world choke any attempt at full mode change. Lets have an example I got from someone once:

The King is going to die soon, and we need a widget to find his air. There is little time to complete the quest.

Player A goes and slits the kings throat.

See, by the rules he doesn't age when dead, so they can just take their time, then raise him from the dead when they get back. WIN!


Now, you can clearly see if you have NPC's that are left to run in a narrativist mode in your world, the feedback from such an act would be so tremendous as to drown out the gamist benefit. Trying to play in gamist mode is drowned out by narrativist mode (and in this one, the GM can't suppress the problem by playing every NPC like cardboard, it would get even more silly). This is an example of mode switch being so problematic its impossible. And while its extreme, the principle extends to the spider man example and everywhere else.

If all NPC's were run in a gamist way, then there would be no problem. The kingdom would wisely nod at the PC's knowledge and the king would smile proudly at the PC as he had his throat slit. Huzzah.

Hi Chris,

Really, NPC's do enforce mode, because they were created to do so by the people at the table, as you say. You can say your game has a G, N or S slant, but if nothing is inserted into the shared imaginative space, then nothing is there. We decide the mode ourselves, but we set it by what we insert into the shared space. Certainly, if we want to talk to people, we don't put ourselves in a dungeon full of mindless killing machines. Those killing machines aren't IN a mode, but they clearly support one.

Anything that happens in game, happens because somebody(at the table) makes it that way.

Blankshield

Hi,

I mean narrativist in terms of exploring NPC's character. Typically such are designed/percieved to have ongoing memories. This isn't just about consistancy, its about narativist elements designed to be persistant. In other words, a tool for one thing which is designed to keep doing that, even if you want to go and do something else now. These NPC tools keep operating in each users mind at a narrativist character examination level, even as they attempt to play in another mode. Ignoring or supressing them doesn't change their nature because the player wanted to change mode.

Hmm. I wouldn't class your example as the height of gamism, actually. I would class it akin to sweeping all the chessmen off the board and saying "I win!" Gamist play, except at it's very farthest extremes, still stays within the rules - not meaning just the by-the-book mechanics, but also the scope of plausability and consistency.

Hi Callan,

I think you're misunderstanding a critical point. Characters do not enforce mode, HOW players(including the GM) USE characters(along with the other Explorative elements, Color, Setting, Situation, System) are what enforce mode.

I can give you a set of characters from any game text, and your group can play them in ANY mode. We have threads that show folks playing D&D in a Narrativist mode, Heroquest in Sim, etc. Characters alone, do not enforce anything. A group of techniques, utilized by the group, are what enforce anything and everything you see at the table.

The problem is, NPC's typically get designed in a narrativist way. They just live their lives and react according to character.

This presumably instinctual design element then goes on through its creation to fail to support gamist or simulationist style, because as they were built with a narrativism design, they support that.

Blankshield wrote:
Hmm. I wouldn't class your example as the height of gamism, actually. I would class it akin to sweeping all the chessmen off the board and saying "I win!" Gamist play, except at it's very farthest extremes, still stays within the rules - not meaning just the by-the-book mechanics, but also the scope of plausability and consistency.
James

Two key things you're missing here Neil.

The first can be found in your statement of "in my experience". While I have indeed seen and experienced the same sort of play, my experience with overt gamism has been much different. "Plausibility" was viewed in our group as yet another rules constraint. See, 'winning', means seeing who can use the rules most effectively to level up, get more stuff, and be acknowledged as MVP of the session. The key is staying within the rules, because otherwise you're just cheating and there is no bragging rights in that. For us, the rules of physics, were absolutely rules of the game. They weren't in the rule book, because they exist outside of mere game rules.

That's why for our group, the Dungeoneers and Willderness Survival Guides for AD&D1e were considered the absolute best gaming book ever written (at the time...now they make me shudder). They had rules for falling damage that included the difference between impact and abrasions from rolling down a slope. They provided a translation of reality into game mechanics. But we were still following the rules of reality before those books. We just had to adjucate ourselves.

So, sure, plausibility can get thrown out the window for certain types of gamist play (and for certain surreal psychodelic episodes in Nar play too), but that isn't a defining feature of Gamism. That's just one possible combination of techniques (once again a technique useable with a CA being confounded for that CA)


The other thing you're missing is labeling such non plausible play as a joke. You may not enjoy it, because in the weighted average of factors in a game, you give great weight to plausibility and verisimilitude when it comes to measuring your own enjoyment. But surely you must realize that you are merely expressing a personal preference.

I've also played in games where people jumped off of the cliff to save their lives. Its not necessarily silly at all. In fact, our group had a very enjoyable time exploring the ramifications of game rules. Consider: you are starting from the perception of "reality works this way, the rule violates reality, therefor the rule is a joke". Instead work backwards. "The rule works this way, therefor what does that say about reality in this world?" Reverse engineering the fabric of reality out of the game mechanics was quite enjoyable.

In other words take "of course hps don't really represent actual injury and the ability of a person to absorb more punishment than a herd of cattle" and turn it into "wait a minute, what if it does...hmmmm". It was certainly unusual, but in no way a "joke".

RDU Neil wrote:

Blankshield wrote:
Hmm. I wouldn't class your example as the height of gamism, actually. I would class it akin to sweeping all the chessmen off the board and saying "I win!" Gamist play, except at it's very farthest extremes, still stays within the rules - not meaning just the by-the-book mechanics, but also the scope of plausability and consistency.
James

James,
Just a question. This is only from my experience, but I would almost define gamist experiences as I have seen them as "well within the rules" but "well outside plausibility."

i.e. the main thrust is "if the rules allow it then I shouldn't be penalized for using the rules in a way they allow" Plausibility and consistency don't come into play... the great example is "Ok... large monster coming afer me, and I'm backed up to a sheer drop... but I have plenty of HP, so I'll just jump off the cliff, because the max it can do to me won't kill me, and I'll be fine to escape."

Blankshield wrote:
Valamir has answered most of this better than I could, so I'll just put in an example of what was abso-damn-lutely fantastic gamist play from my experience. A local I know designed a slow moving (monthly turns) fantasy politics game, very strongly influenced by A Game of Thrones, where each participant did not play a single character, they played a faction vying to rule the kingdom. It was a beautiful thing to watch. People would meet over coffee and broker deals, e-mail flew fast and furious, and once a month everyone sent in all the actions they were attempting that month. The 'GM' figured out what worked, what didn't and sent everyone the "what actually happened" turn result.

A [paraphrased - it was a while ago now] quote from one of the players to another: "You dirty S.O.B, you stabbed me in the back. That was completely uncalled for. I gave nothing to you except loyalty." pause, grin. "That was the most fun I've had in weeks."

RDU Neil wrote:
Ok... I get the idea of your game... but it doesn't strike me as Gamist, as much as delayed Sim of political situation. I guess, if the e-mails and coffee shop talk were all "metagame" and not "in character" then that is different... but the back loading of all details and actions by the GM into a "here is what happened" seems to me very similar to the Illusionist technique in a Sim game...

... though now that I think about it, this could be the Illusionist technique in a Gamist mode. I guess I would never have felt that a game about politics would ever be Gamist... since Gamist to me is munnchkin powergaming D&D. Maybe I just don't understand how a political game can have hard and fast "rules" to it... since it really seems to me that it would benefit those who were most charaismatic and influential in persuading the GM... rather than those who knew the RULES better.

Maybe I'm focusing too much on the game rule issue, and not as much on the "attitude" of the players. I guess you are saying than a rules light, no dice, political discussion RPG can be "gamist" because the attitude of the players is "who wins out over the others". It's not the system (though system does matter) but the desire of the players?

Am I getting that right?

Callan (Noon), is this discussion of Gamism relevant to your questions in this thread?

Everyone else, please wait on posting here until Callan replies.

Best,
Ron

Hi Ron,

It's, ah, drifted a little. I don't think I'll be able to tackle those actual play examples properly, so I'll move on, because its sort of about gamism in terms of trying to do one thing, while designing things another way.

It could all be summed up as simply deploying the wrong tools for the job.

If your group had agreed to do a lot of talking with NPC's, and then the GM plants you in a dungeon full of mindless killing machines, he's deployed the wrong tools for the job.

Now, if you had all agreed to play it like a game, to win or get as high a score as possible (whatever 'score' would mean for you), and then the GM deploys NPC's who react based on their character and subtle peculiarities of human nature, what has he done? Will these NPC/tools aid you to achieve your goal? And how will the players treat them…will they end up breaking these tools, as they try to use them the wrong way eg, treating basically human NPC's like their obstacles or objects to be pushed around, until that breaks any remaining concept that they might be human? How long will it be before the game worlds starts to fill with broken pieces?

I mean, why has the dungeon been a recurring theme in the hobby? Particularly for gamist sessions? Because none of these humanised NPC's, the ones which just aren't suited for aiding this type of game, are deployed. Typically mindless monsters or ones who speak in riddles rather than character, inhabit the place. Prisoners encountered are typically mindlessly happy to be rescued, and so weak they can't show any character through action. On with the game!

Mike has a post saying that you can't sneak up on mode. That the GM can't try to introduce a different mode by stealth, it has to be honest. So what happens when inadvertently the GM populates the world with human(or human like) NPC's, which don't aid the groups preferred mode? They inadvertently begin to change mode by stealth. Any effort put into them by a GM, will get channelled in a direction set by their design. The only way around it is to use them in a way against their design, or dismantle and recreate the tool instantly during play.

Chris:

I think you're misunderstanding a critical point. Characters do not enforce mode, HOW players(including the GM) USE characters(along with the other Explorative elements, Color, Setting, Situation, System) are what enforce mode.

I can give you a set of characters from any game text, and your group can play them in ANY mode. We have threads that show folks playing D&D in a Narrativist mode, Heroquest in Sim, etc. Characters alone, do not enforce anything. A group of techniques, utilized by the group, are what enforce anything and everything you see at the table.

Vallamir: I think your missing something as well.

A cliff, for example, is a wonderful tool to use for sim or gamism (or nar for that matter, but lets focus on the others).

See, a cliff doesn't care if your a hero...you fall down it, you take damage.
A cliff never falls in love and feels so good it decides to do less damage when you fall down it.
A cliff never decides all this killing is purposless and does no damage to you when you fall down it.
A cliff never grew up under a sacrifice faith and decides to do more damage to you when you fall.
A cliff doesn't have a good/bad day and adjust damage on that.
A cliff doesn't do more damage to you if you look at it funny.

A typicially designed NPC (those with human traits), who can dish out damage to you, can do all of these.

Gamism means sticking within the rules to get the big bragging rights. This NPC doesn't work via rules, to determine damage. A significant effect on your chance of winning is not based on rules. What does this do to your gamist goal, when this humanised NPC/tool is used in game?

Its an antithesis to gamism. The incorrect tool is spoiling the mode attempt.

Hi guys:

Noon wrote: Gamism means sticking within the rules to get the big bragging rights. This NPC doesn't work via rules, to determine damage. A significant effect on your chance of winning is not based on rules. What does this do to your gamist goal, when this humanised NPC/tool is used in game?

Hi Callan,

You will not find another person MORE in agreement with the fact that a tool has a specific use, it is an analogy I have been using for a long time here. What I am saying is that it is NOT the NPC that is acting in a different mode, but the GM who is playing that NPC.

Now, the questions that need to be asked regarding this are:
-Did the player(s) and the GM come into the game with different mode expectations?
-Did they verbally discuss it and have a miscommunication?
-Is either the player or the GM acting out of the "agreed" mode, and if so, is it out of habit, or "punishment" based on an ego power play, or some other issue?

Again, the ONLY point that we are not agreeing on is the source of the modes, and all I am saying is that the people at the table are the origin of all function or dysfunction. The character itself, does not exist, until someone plays them, and that someone is in control of how that character is played out.

Chris

Chris:

The character itself, does not exist, until someone plays them, and that someone is in control of how that character is played out.

Noon wrote:
WDFlores: My original post actually suggests more, but its become clear to me I need to establish some basics first. The primary hypothesis could be given as : Humanised NPCs cause significant friction against Gamist play, sometimes enough to break it.

Hi Callan,

I agree that inconsistancy in how characters are played will not fly for most groups. What I am saying is that however the characters were designed, before play doesn't matter. No one in a group will raise eyebrows about the character in play not matching up to the piece of paper they will never see.

No matter what you put on the paper, that alone cannot support, nor hinder any mode of play. It's only what is put forth in play itself and how its used with the other Explorative elements, that supports, or denies any given mode.

Chris

Hi James:
Your political example re-enforces the hypothesis. You can not approach a humanised NPC without either treating/making them two dimensional (damaging the tool) or exploring their character. If you approach them in a gamist mode, they loose dimension the more you try and use them in a mechanical principle for achieving a goal (hell, people do this to each other in RL, that's why I gave the dating example previously). The nebulous human properties of the NPC start to become concrete mechanical principles, two dimensionalising them. Either that or they clash with the gamist mode, as they resent the way your treating them and their reactions don't facilitate that mode (ie, they tell you to piss off cause they think you’re a con man). Broken tools or mode breaks.

But, you might say, only a blunt/mechanical approach makes NPC's end up becoming blunt/mechanical themselves. And a suave word or two will certainly help avoid the still humanised NPC from just thinking you’re a con man, showing them you nice and human will draw them back.

I have something controversial to suggest here (which I did earlier in the thread, too early). This isn't playing gamist. This is examining the character of a PC who lives his life like a grand game. By not being mechanical, and by letting NPC's examine your character (which lets everyone present do so too, including yourself), your actually examining character. It's not gamist, its narrativist character exploration. Your just so far in to this PC's compelling 'life lived like a game' that you think your gaming because the PC is gaming.

I would even like to suggest it was the initial gamist mode that, along with humanised NPC's, forced the mode change itself. The humanised NPC's just don't facilitate a win state for the player, these NPC's are just too nebulous to be manipulated aptly. However, the more PC character is engaged in play, the more it becomes clear the PC by himself CAN win. The more he asserts his humanised character, the more these humanised NPC's respond positively. The more the player explore the PC's character, the more his PC wins! The more the player changes mode, the more the PC, at least, can win.

Okay, that was too much at once. I'll prepare to be shot down. But I bet there's no one who doesn't find this a tiny bit interesting.

Chris:
One problem with this is that NPC's are heavily influenced from foreshadowed/assumed elements in the world which are common knowledge in the SIS. Eg, someone who comes from a village full of nose to the grind stone villagers, can only give a certain range without raising eyebrows.

Obviously, you can counter that by giving a back story as to why he behaves a certain way. The problem is, this typically fails to be done. A certain mode of behaviour isn't seen to be needed, the NPC then has nothing to say he'll act any different from where he came from. And typically they come from humanised little villages, towns or cities.

Unless you have the foresight to counteract this humanised background element, your going to end up with a humanised PC whether you like it or not. Part of what I'm suggesting is that that foresight is often lacking because no one thinks twice about whether its needed or not.

Noon wrote: I have something controversial to suggest here (which I did earlier in the thread, too early). This isn't playing gamist. This is examining the character of a PC who lives his life like a grand game. By not being mechanical, and by letting NPC's examine your character (which lets everyone present do so too, including yourself), your actually examining character. It's not gamist, its narrativist character exploration. Your just so far in to this PC's compelling 'life lived like a game' that you think your gaming because the PC is gaming.

[Edit: my browser missed that there was a second page to this discussion, so I posted something grotesquely out of date. Back soon....]

Hi Callan,

Noon wrote: I have something controversial to suggest here (which I did earlier in the thread, too early). This isn't playing gamist. This is examining the character of a PC who lives his life like a grand game. By not being mechanical, and by letting NPC's examine your character (which lets everyone present do so too, including yourself), your actually examining character. It's not gamist, its narrativist character exploration. Your just so far in to this PC's compelling 'life lived like a game' that you think your gaming because the PC is gaming.

Blankshield wrote: *snip*
Callan, I think you're misunderstanding a fundamental aspect of gamism. The character is not (necessarily) competing - the player is. I have never played gamist with a character who was 'out to win', excepting in the service of some other goal. Even in the standard example of the dungeon crawl, which most folks around here agree is pretty straight up gamism, the characters aren't going "I want to see if I can beat this", they are motivated by some in-game reason - money, or "save the town" or something like it. It's the player who wants to beat the dungeon.

Even, as in my politcal example, when the characters are competing, they aren't doing so "as a grand game" as you suggest. They are doing so for fairly complex reasons. Again, it's the player who is treating it as a game.

Character motivation is not what determines CA. Player motivation is. Or I'm completely out to lunch, and don't understand GNS at all.

James

Noon wrote:

Blankshield wrote: *snip*
Callan, I think you're misunderstanding a fundamental aspect of gamism. The character is not (necessarily) competing - the player is. I have never played gamist with a character who was 'out to win', excepting in the service of some other goal. Even in the standard example of the dungeon crawl, which most folks around here agree is pretty straight up gamism, the characters aren't going "I want to see if I can beat this", they are motivated by some in-game reason - money, or "save the town" or something like it. It's the player who wants to beat the dungeon.

Even, as in my politcal example, when the characters are competing, they aren't doing so "as a grand game" as you suggest. They are doing so for fairly complex reasons. Again, it's the player who is treating it as a game.

Character motivation is not what determines CA. Player motivation is. Or I'm completely out to lunch, and don't understand GNS at all.

James

Heya,

Indeed, what I need to add is that I don't believe in this 'I act/behave this way, but my character acts/behaves this way with zero influence from how I behave'.

The idea is that although you might want to play a hero who fights to save everyone, but as a player you want to win game goals, the two will influence each other.

Choices display character. Gamist play involves...making choices to win a game goal. The way you as a player make choices then determines the character that your hero PC shows, you can't get away from it.

The nail in the coffin is that your humanised NPC wouldn't see a hero who saves everyone, he'll see someone who's goal is to win (particular goals).

Noon wrote: And this smoke screen means he ends up exploring character as a primary goal. Narrativist mode.

Hello,

James (Blankenshield) and M.J., you're making sense to me, certainly. Callan, do you think you might have some synecdoche going on?

Best,
Ron

In terms of synecdoche as part of something being used to describe the whole, that could be it. Suppose out of three things you want to do, one is called horse riding, one piloting and one driving.

Now, you have 5 hours and you want to go horse riding. You spend 90% of that time in a car, so you can spend 10% of that time riding a horse. Further, you could have ridden a horse at the start of the five hours, but since cars were made available, not horses, you need to use one of those to get to where the horses are available.

Horse riding is what you want, horse riding is indeed what you did. And its clear you didn't go do the activity of 'driving', the use of the car was for reaching the goal of horse riding. When someone talks to you about what you did for five hours, they are going to talk with you about your goal, they are not going to ask how you enjoyed driving, because you've told them that isn't what you went out to do. They'll talk about the horse riding with you.

So, there is a lot of evidence there that what you did was horse riding. However, if horses were supplied at the start, you could have spent a lot more time on an actual horse. Indeed, if your desires lay with riding a horse, and for examples sake we say your skill is there also, for that reason, your probably not very good at driving a car. That poor car may get its gears ground, its bumper dinted and otherwise damaged/perhaps crashed, because your heart wasn't in driving it, obviously.

You can also scale the percentage the other way, so you spent 90% of the time riding a horse. It's hard to avoid thinking all you did was horse riding. But if horses had been provided from the beginning, it would still be higher.

Now, if NPC's are designed as 'vehicles' for a certain goal, then you want them all to be designed as the right vehicle to support your goal. It may be just a personal biassed opinion of mine that if someone spends a high percentage of there time in a car, even though they want to ride horses, the actual thing they were doing was driving, IMO. But certainly I can see that being in a car all that time didn't change their goal for them.

Anyway, its clear I'm either way off course here or too inarticulate to get anything across, so I'll read all replies to this and absorb them. But unless I definately think I can add anything more than I have already attempted, I wont reply as I think I've started to just repeat myself and drag out this post. I'd rather give up the last word than do that. Plus I think I've become more annoying than engaging.

Hi Callan,

Let me run with your car-driving/horse-riding analogy here - I'll assume a group of pepole drive together to the ranch, take a horseback ride, and drive back. GNS is not going to look at what percentage of time you spent doing what. It's not going to look at which activity you have more or less skill in. It's not even going to look at what your "intended goal" for the activity was. In talking with people about the experience (keeping this RPG/GNS specific, it's the group on the car trip talking to each other), it's not that you talk about the "goal" that matters - what matters is what you actually end up demonstrating is the priority during that time you spend. It would certainly be *possible* to be more excited about the driving than the riding, groovin' on how many MPG you got on the trip or how you did 90 past that speed trap and wasn't it lucky the cop already had someone pulled over. Just like it would be possible to be all about how cool it was to be out in the wilderness on horseback and what a great horse you got to ride, even if you spent most of your time crammed into the back seat of a car.

Merging this back into Gamism and humanized PCs, the question is: do the participants demonstrate that having humanized PCs (taking the car ride) is something they do (possibly even enjoy, to some degree) as part of an overall activity that prioritizies the Gamism (stuff about horseback riding), or does some Premise associated with the humanized characteristics of the NPCs (stuff about driving) grab them instead? If that DOES happen, than we have Nar rather than Gamism (even though they do end up riding horses during the process).

If you are saying that having human NPCs creates a possible Premise-grab situation that 2D NPCs don't have - sure, that sounds true. But possible Premise-grabs (and Challenge-grabs, and Dream-grabs) are found throughout play. Group-shared mode preference can generally can overcome that kind of grab - and just because a group prioritizes a particular mode doesn't mean they don't have other preferences. They may like humanized NPCs - it's just not allowed to be the whole point of play, because there's something else (Step on Up) filling that niche.

You can appreciate driving to your horse ride in a limo rather than driving there in a Yugo without changing the fact that the point was to go horse-riding, not to go limo-cruising. Or maybe you DO appreciate the limo more than the horse ride - which means the priority was there. It's only a problem if some people are trying to optimize the car trip while others are trying to optimize the horse ride.

Hope that makes sense,

Gordon

EDIT in a PS: I suppose in a situation where you have some folks who are pulled to (e.g.) Nar, but who have agreed to do Gamist in this particular game, keeping "temptation" away by not humanizing NPCs would be a fine strategy. I think I've seen an extreme version of this, where a Nar or Sim-focused roleplaying group that sometimes likes to Step on Up will do so only when they play a multiplayer board/card game - cutting out the usual RPG cues makes it OK to do something that normally ain't allowed to be a priority. So . . . synechdoceseems likely. Yes, it CAN be good to keep humanized NPCs out of Gamist play, for some groups and/or situations. No, that does NOT mean that ALL Gamist play has to keep humanized NPCs away or risk not staying Gamist.

Callan,

If you're saying that NPC design and manipulation can facilitate CA goals, i.e. that this constitutes part of the Technique toolbox, then I'll buy that. You can certainly design and use NPC's to help support Story Now, or Step On Up, or Dreaming.

I don't think, however, that it's a question of humanizing vs. dehumanizing. I think deeply real, human NPC's can be part of any game, regardless of CA. I also think that you can make them ciphers and still support any CA. It's just a question of what the purpose and structure of your game is.

In Sorcerer, for example, it's perfectly possible to make the NPCs' realness a part of the horror of your PCs' arrogance and ruthlessness. I think it could also be structured such that the NPCs' mechanical nature makes the PCs' focus on other areas of their own Humanity than their use and abuse of others.

In AD&D played as straight Gamist dungeon-crawling, it certainly makes sense to have the NPC's be blanks, mere allocations of statistics. But you could also structure a dungeon-crawl such that dealing with NPCs' complexities and foibles was part of the challenge of beating the dungeon.

Chris Lehrich

Seems to me, if you drove for 4 hours and rode for 1 becuase that was the necessary prerequisite for riding, then GNS could still say that riding was your favoured mode - because, when given the opportunity to make a decision, the riding was prioritised over the driving. Similarly, even if you had to get through many hours of Simmy slog for 10 mins of Narratavism, if thats when you perk up and look attentive, we can still identified your preferred mode. Whether or not you get much opportunity to indulge in your preferred mode is another question, one to do with what the group believes it is there to do.

It would certainly be *possible* to be more excited about the driving than the riding, groovin' on how many MPG you got on the trip or how you did 90 past that speed trap and wasn't it lucky the cop already had someone pulled over. Just like it would be possible to be all about how cool it was to be out in the wilderness on horseback and what a great horse you got to ride, even if you spent most of your time crammed into the back seat of a car.