I can't believe that I'm about to do this at this point.

If Gamism and Narrativism are the modes that are most accessible (am I using the correct terminology now - if not substitute the right words, y'all know what I'm talking about), then how did Sim play become so predominant. Such that it's the problematic mode that prevents so much entry into RPGs?

I really fear that one of two answers will seem to present themselves.

1. RPGs were played a lot by young folks like myself in the 1980s. Furthermore, it could be argued that the RPGs were ghettoized by social backlash against these activities. Meaning that only the nerds ended up playhing. Meaning potentially that the source of this gaming was socially underdeveloped players. Which actually relates to the second point.

2. Since gameplay has always had problems with coherence, Sim may have been found to be the "solution" to incoherence. That is, if we want story, and we don't know how to facilitate Narrativism, then we'll quash Gamism and get as close as we can with Sim. This is also known as the "Beeg Horseshoe Theory"

Now, I don't ascribe to either theory. So would someone please denounce these thoroughly and tell me where Sim does come from? In any case, it's obvious to me, as I've stated before, that the GM's were "to blame". I think that people predisposed with games enough to run them tend to be more the sim types. I think we asked for these games.

Mike

Hello,

The above was split from The roots of Sim (response to Narr essay), as it's kind of a hefty topic.

Best,
Ron

It's the same reason that more Etch-A-Sketch art depicts city skylines than horses. It's what the tools we were handed were helpful for creating.

- Walt

My gut, knee-jerk reaction is to make certain generalities about the people who had played RPGs at the time in question like your #1. i.e. many of them were computer programmers, and as such were concerned with making a computer model, such as it is. But, we have no real data about the roleplaying population, so such generalities are unfounded. SO we can drop that right now.

I'm not really familiar with the beeg Horse theory. Can you summarize?

Hi Mike,

To what level do you believe the roots of the wargaming crowd may have had an influence on the development of Sim gaming? I have a strong feeling that this might point us in the right direction.

Chris

Bankuei wrote: To what level do you believe the roots of the wargaming crowd may have had an influence on the development of Sim gaming?

Mike,

I cannot denounce those thoroughly, but I think I can speak to "something else" that is where Sim comes from - or at least why it's an actual functional play mode rather than "just" a rejection of Nar and Game.

The rejection of Nar and Game phenomena is real (though by no means all-pervasive), I think - this is why your 1 and 2 can't be entirely denounced. Trying to do Nar and Game can invite all kinds of social (social, NOT GNS per se) dysfunction distinct from the socail issues of play in general because of the nature of doing Step On Up or Adressing Premise in play. Rejecting them because of that can be an entirely rational ("natural", even, if we can confine that word to something meaningful in this discussion) reaction. The first question is, can you actually enjoy what is left when you do that? The next question is, do you really prefer that over what you might get if you could successfully navigate the problems of Game and Nar?

Since the answer to the first question is (IMO) "yes", the answer to the second becomes a matter of personal taste. That the answer to the first question IS yes is (maybe) questionable, but I'm prepared to defend it vigorously even though I try and steer away from Sim play nowadays. I will allow that it's perhaps a little surprising that the answer is yes, but when I think about various groups I've played with over the years, it becomes (to my mind) undeniable.

Because when you reject Nar and Game (for whatever reason - reaction to dysfunction or just plain not going there because of the nature of the tools and/or personal inclination) and Explore - just Explore, as its own priority - you (re?)find your ability to create/discover imaginitvely. As you do it, it does NOT have to serve any other end. You can take pleasure in the thing itself - because if the thing itself were not pleasurable, how would you ever have incentive to take it and use it towards other ends?

I've been thinking lately that it is *possible* that Sim play is later viewed by the participants through a Nar/Game-like filter - that Nar/Game-like sensibilities do apply, just not as a priority during play. And maybe without THAT fact, Sim wouldn't remain as widely "catchy" as it is. But certainly during play, that's not relevant - the group is (in various manners and styles) jazzing on Pure Exploration. And that's a heady drug. For some folks, being free from the confines of Game or Nar agenda HELPS, rather than hinders.

Now for some people, realizing that the problems that arise with a Game or Nar agenda are NOT irresolvable, that it is in fact possible to have a functional game that pursues those ends - well, when they realize that, the buzz from one of those agendas is bigger than that from The Dream. But for other people, it just isn't. They may have gotten there as a reaction (Beeg Horseshoe?), or simply by doing what seemed cool to them (E in GENder?) - but they are happy to be there. Pursuing THAT as their priority (with maybe G or N-like assesment of the RESULT of play occuring outside the gameplay itself) is exactly what they want.

Hope that's the kind of response you were looking for,

Gordon

I don't know if I can offer more than anecdotal evidence, but here's what I've got to offer, starting with the negatives to help define what I did want.

I did not go Narrativist for a very simple reason: I was sick and tired of everything having (or needing) a point. Now, don't get me wrong - I enjoy a good movie or book and like analyzing the theme and all the nuances. But real life doesn't play out that way for me, so literature and film generally ring hollow. I cringe when authors use ridiculous coincidences as a way to drive the story - I'd generally rather see something less scripted happen. If that would be nothing, then I've got no problem letting a story finish without resolution and without addressing Premise. Let people create meaning afterward if they want to.

I'm sure much of this stems from a desire to write which has been largely self-stifled because I can't seem to come up with anything "important enough". What I really need to do is let myself write the way I role-play, without trying to address anything, but that's a whole 'nother issue.

Now, the Gamist question isn't quite so clear-cut, especially since I've done my share of Gamist play over the years. However, I've never gone all-out Gamist for two reasons. First, I'm not really that competitive (no, really). I like being second place, where I can prove my merit but without having to spend time in the limelight or defending my position. Second, I feel like other areas are better-suited to competitive play: board/card games, sports and, let's face it, school and work. Also, role-playing has always been recreation for me, and the last thing I want is lots of serious competition and challenges when I'm trying to relax.

So, all I really wanted was a group dream. See the sights, exercise the brain, collaborate with each other and all within a structure that provided the answer to "what next?" if we ever got stuck. If all else failed, I could roll up a random encounter and keep going (not that we did that much). It's like a brain storming session with structure.

I feel very strongly that this free-form group dream is a desirable goal in and of itself, not just a compromise or rejection of opposites. There's just something truly freeing about a creative pasttime with neither a goal or a point (especially in a culture that tends to stress that everything should have both goals and points).

Anyway, in terms of gamer culture at large, I see both of the theories you point to at work, but I'm not sure they're really the driving ones for most people (such as myself). In fact, they both strike me as akin to correlational data like the statistic that crime rates parallel ice cream sales. Crime and ice cream are unrelated except that they both depend on warm weather and tourists to some degree. So the prevalence of Sim players may correlate with Sim-based coping strategies (essentially that's what both of your theories are), but a mere relation doesn't prove or imply cause and effect.

Mike Holmes wrote: 1. RPGs were played a lot by young folks like myself in the 1980s. Furthermore, it could be argued that the RPGs were ghettoized by social backlash against these activities. Meaning that only the nerds ended up playhing. Meaning potentially that the source of this gaming was socially underdeveloped players.

Mike Holmes wrote: 2. Since gameplay has always had problems with coherence, Sim may have been found to be the "solution" to incoherence. That is, if we want story, and we don't know how to facilitate Narrativism, then we'll quash Gamism and get as close as we can with Sim. This is also known as the "Beeg Horseshoe Theory"

John Kim wrote:

Mike Holmes wrote: 1. RPGs were played a lot by young folks like myself in the 1980s. Furthermore, it could be argued that the RPGs were ghettoized by social backlash against these activities. Meaning that only the nerds ended up playhing. Meaning potentially that the source of this gaming was socially underdeveloped players.

....I'm not seeing a GNS distinction on this basis. If anything, the subset suffering the least from perception as nerds that I've seen were Vampire LARP players -- which is highly GNS Simulationist. ...

Jack,

The Beeg Horseshoe is the graphical representation of GNS that puts G on one end of a horseshoe shape and N at the other, with S being the sliding scale that makes up the horseshoe instead of an independent priority. (Probably analogous to a horseshoe magnet, but I could be wrong about that.)

The two most relevant threads are:

The Beeg Horseshoe Theory (original post by Jared)
Beeg Horseshoe Theory Revisited (monster discussion courtesy of Mike)

*****

Which leads into John,

John Kim wrote: Eh? This seems backwards to me. Surely it would be more GNS-coherent to stick with the Gamism of games like Tunnels and Trolls or The Fantasy Trip. Shifting from that to GNS Simulationism would make incoherence worse, not better. Further, if Narrativism is more natural, then why would they shift from Gamism -> Simulationism instead of Gamism -> Narrativism?

Mike Holmes wrote: 1. RPGs were played a lot by young folks like myself in the 1980s. Furthermore, it could be argued that the RPGs were ghettoized by social backlash against these activities. Meaning that only the nerds ended up playhing. Meaning potentially that the source of this gaming was socially underdeveloped players. Which actually relates to the second point.

2. Since gameplay has always had problems with coherence, Sim may have been found to be the "solution" to incoherence. That is, if we want story, and we don't know how to facilitate Narrativism, then we'll quash Gamism and get as close as we can with Sim. This is also known as the "Beeg Horseshoe Theory"

John, Chris, Jason, I won't defend positions number one and number two, because I'm trying to get people to disprove them. It's like you guys aren't reading the rest of the post. Or are you just trying to play devil's advocate here?


I'm trying to be too clever here. To lay my agenda bare, to avoid further confusion like this, what I'm doing is trying to attack the supposition that Sim is a childish activity by presenting what I think are the biased projections based on what that would entail. That is, I think that the original argument has an agenda, and I want to expose it.

I'll put words into Jared's mouth because I don't think he'll mind. If somebody wants to warn him that I'm abusing him, please do - he'll find it amusing most likely. Jared says in the Beeg Horseshoe that Sim does not exist as a priority, but as an accident of play. That is, players too chicken to try to win or to try and create good story instead "retreat" into not doing either. Then they call it their "preference" so as not to have to admit to their lack of courage. Note that Justin cops to it above - he doesn't want to compete or work too hard to make a story (have to figure out how to balance plausibility and drama, you see), so he just ends up doing the easy part, just exploring.

So is Sim just "Mental Masturbation?" Are those who are self confident able to go beyond Sim and do what they really want to do, which is competing and making art, while the rest just hide from the fun?

Now, again, I don't buy this line of reasoning. So I'm asking for others to help me destroy it. But all I get ends up sounding like support.

Some say that it's the tools that we had, or the fact that we were wargamers. Heck, I resemble that remark! My first hobby games were Panzerblitz and Kingmaker (the same cousin who taught me that later taught me TFT). Wargames certainly have a sorta simmy feel, but aren't they undeniably Gamist as well? I mean, sure you can play a game as a test, but even then, aren't you trying to do well to simulate what the people "would do"? And aren't you proving that you're as smart as them or smarter by winning? Step On Up pervades these things. When you win, you stand up from the table and go, yeah!

From others all I get are circular arguments about how it's a preference. That's like telling me that if I'm afraid to go swimming in the deep end that it's OK because it's my preference. Based on that sort of reasoning, sure, whatever you do is OK. What I need is some support that simmies are actually the cool people, and doing it because they're bold in their persuit.

But I don't think that's forthcoming. Not because I buy the arguments above, but because I think that what really happens is that nobody plays Sim, period. At least not in the way that the model makes one think that people do. That was the point in my second stab at it in the link so thoughtfully provided by Jason.

To be more precise in what I mean, generally, the problem is that the current model makes Sim a separate priority from the other two. Well, think of it this way, we all prioritize all three modes. All the time. Now, what GNS says, and I agree, is that at times you have to "break" one way or another. That is, there are times when you have to make a choice that will be seen as Sim or Gam, or whatever. When you do so, you "reveal" your mode. It's at these times that the agenda is revealed.

Ron notes that this is generally true, and why to come up with the overall agenda you have to watch a lot of play. Looking for the obvious moments. Because, as Walt would put it, most play is congruent. You can't tell, looking at it what's being prioritized - really because this isn't one of those decisions that makes you reveal. In fact, like most decisions in play, they aren't really G or N or S at all. They're just exploration. The base of play.

So when can you tell a Sim decision? Well, it would theoretically be when a case came up in which one decision would be Gamist or Narrativist, and the other would be Sim. The thing is, Narrativism requires plausibility too (according to Ron). So looking at a particular decision how can you tell if it's Narrativist and not Sim? Well, because it creates some theme by adressing some premise.

Note that, other than saying that I'm not doing this, I can't identify it as Sim. Aha! See! Retreat! Nonsense. Why would I make that decision not to address a premise. Why not do that?

Think about it, for a second....

Because it's not plausible? That's the only thing that I can come up with. Basically, support of verisimilitude or whatever sim is, is supporting plausibility. So have I really decided to "just explore" or have I decided simply to defer making a thematic statement until a more appropriate time?

Same with Gamism. When presented with a choice to win or to be plausible, is going with plausibility really not facing the challenge? I can't remember who coined the term but doesn't the "Gentleman Gamist" defer the winning move simply to make the game more interesting - plausible in this case?

Yes, I might be a coward in either of the two cases. But then I can be a coward about putting the effort in to be plausible too. These are all bad forms of play. To say that this is what Sim is all about is to say it's bad play.

It's not. It's simply a matter of the choices made in play to maintain what is unique to roleplaying. I can tell a story, but that doesn't allow me to really Explore in RPG terms. I can play a game, but that doesn't allow me to Explore, either. Only in RPGs can we Explore. And when I'm doing so, I'm boldly saying, "This is neither a game, nor a story! This is a RPG and it kicks the asses of the other two because it has something that they don't, and can never have!"

So, sure we can talk all day about the priorites that people have, and when they'll break one way or another. Or what he agenda is as a group. That's all fine. But players who cherish exploration, and who prioritize it aren't retreating from Gamism or Narrativism. They're setting them aside temporarily in certain cases to ensure that the exploration isn't messed up. But as soon as the "crisis" has past, the player picks up all three, and continues to march towards story and victory.

Once again, none of this contradicts GNS fundamentally. But it allows us all to talk about our styles of play with pride and dignity again, and I'll bet that everyone who adopts this POV will have no further problem with GNS.

John Kim will see that his Water Uphil game was Narrativist in that it was about certain issues that the players and GM concocted on the spot, but that it also took pains to encourage factors that lead to plausibility. Marco will see just how his gameplay does promote Narrativism in a similar way, yet also takes pains at points to cherish the exploration.

Looking at Ron's latest definition for Narrativism, that it's about players feeling an emotional investment in what the character is doing...how isn't that absolutely all of roleplaying? When do I make a decision that says, "Hoo, don't want to be too emotional here." Nobody does that. What they may do is say at times, "Well, to be certain that there's a proper emotional payoff when the proper moment does arrive, I'll support the exploration here."

Sim supports Gamism and Narrativism. We "fall back" to it precisely because without it we'd be telling stories or playing games. In fact from another perspective, most play is Sim play because it's only at the moment of the "reveal" that we note Gamism or Narrativisim at all! While we're always exploring. I mean, if all we ever did was make purely Gamist decisions, we'd just be playing a game. If all we ever did was make Narrativist decisions, all we'd be doing is making a story.

So, Beeg Horseshoe it is. We Explore. Then, occasionally, we do Gamist or Narrativist stuff in that framework. How often this happens will vary by game. One can call prioritizing the exploration highly Simulationism, and that works. But it's unneccessary, and confusing, because it makes people think that there's no Narrativism or Gamism going on. They're there too. In every game, all the time. To the extent that they can be without messing up the particular group's sense of exploration.

This is all so crystal clear in my head, that the only thing that surprises me is that I still feel that my words aren't doing it justice. I think I have the solution to all the problems with the theory here if I could just get people to understand what I'm saying.

Am I getting through!

Mike

If I'm following you, Mike, you're saying, in effect, that Simulationism is roleplaying because the act of Exploration is the common act that underlies all roleplaying and both Narrativism and Gamism sit on top of it. It's this exploration that keeps Narrativism from just being collaborative writing and Gamism from just being a board game or something.

Is this what you mean?

I hear where you're coming from, Mike. I'll try to address the problem from my perspective, so we can see if we're any closer to a resolution.

now, Ron has expressed the opinion that the roots of Sim are in plain make-believe, which occurs early on, and that the early non-rpg versions of Step On Up and Story Now appear later as a development from make-believe. this leads to the conclusion that Sim is a sort-of throw-back mode and somewhat inferior, which was suggested by his first comments in the other Roots of Sim thread, although his later comments seem to be suggesting something different -- that Sim is a development of make-believe, the same as Gamist/Narrativist, but along a different "branch" of development, with Gam/Nar being two prongs of the first "branch".

still, there seems to be a lingering perception of Sim-as-make-believe that keeps popping up, which as you rightly suggest leads to the conclusion that Sim is some kind of "fallback" either because of the widespread immaturity of gamers or as a defense against incoherence.

I don't buy the idea of Sim-as-make-believe. I also don't buy Ron's idea of Sim being a problematic form of play that prevents rpgs from rising out of the ghetto. I think the ghetto-ization of rpgs is entirely due to content issues (fetishism, sexism, etc.) and the Illusionist approach to Sim. Illusionism is a valid form of play, but operationally it is "all players play Sim except one special player, the GM, who plays Nar". to enjoy Illusionism, you have to accept this usually unspoken approach to play -- and people who would prefer Gamist or Narrativist play immediately rebel against Illusionism because it strikes them as severly unfair. a non-Illusionist Sim game would attract more players, as would Gam or Nar games with Sim appearing only in a supporting role, if at all.

but back to Sim-as-make-believe. as I said, I don't agree with this: I think Exploration-as-make-believe is acceptable, but Exploration exists as a foundation for all role-playing, while Sim is Exploration-plus-something-else, as we've mentioned time and time again. still, no one has quite been able to explain what that "something else" is, although we know it has something to do with plausibility or verisimilitude or something like that -- taking Exploration a few steps further. it's the difference between pretending to be Captain Kirk and drawing up starship plans: both rely on make-believe, but one is a little more sophisticated, just not in the same way that Gamism and Narrativism are more sophisticated than plain make-believe.

I think the binary opposition between Gam/Nar and Sim is that of Self and Other, with "Self" meaning here the player. when a player has an internal priority of addressing a Premise (even one the player is has not fully verbalized) or makes decisions based on risking esteem to face a challenge, the player is prioritizing Self over Other. if, on the other hand, the player is more concerned with how the imaginary constructs of the character and setting fit together, worries about inconsistancies and gameworld plausibility, and so on, that is prioritizing Other over Self. I feel this is the fundamental difference between Exploration (imagining the Other) and Simulationism (focusing on the Other over internal concerns.)

does this answer the question?

Mike,

Mike Holmes wrote: John, Chris, Jason, I won't defend positions number one and number two, because I'm trying to get people to disprove them. It's like you guys aren't reading the rest of the post. Or are you just trying to play devil's advocate here?

talysman wrote:
I think the binary opposition between Gam/Nar and Sim is that of Self and Other, with "Self" meaning here the player. when a player has an internal priority of addressing a Premise (even one the player is has not fully verbalized) or makes decisions based on risking esteem to face a challenge, the player is prioritizing Self over Other. if, on the other hand, the player is more concerned with how the imaginary constructs of the character and setting fit together, worries about inconsistancies and gameworld plausibility, and so on, that is prioritizing Other over Self. I feel this is the fundamental difference between Exploration (imagining the Other) and Simulationism (focusing on the Other over internal concerns.)

does this answer the question?

Mike Holmes wrote: John, Chris, Jason, I won't defend positions number one and number two, because I'm trying to get people to disprove them. It's like you guys aren't reading the rest of the post. Or are you just trying to play devil's advocate here?

Mike Holmes wrote: It's simply a matter of the choices made in play to maintain what is unique to roleplaying. I can tell a story, but that doesn't allow me to really Explore in RPG terms. I can play a game, but that doesn't allow me to Explore, either. Only in RPGs can we Explore. And when I'm doing so, I'm boldly saying, "This is neither a game, nor a story! This is a RPG and it kicks the asses of the other two because it has something that they don't, and can never have!"

Mike Holmes wrote: Looking at Ron's latest definition for Narrativism, that it's about players feeling an emotional investment in what the character is doing...how isn't that absolutely all of roleplaying? When do I make a decision that says, "Hoo, don't want to be too emotional here." Nobody does that. What they may do is say at times, "Well, to be certain that there's a proper emotional payoff when the proper moment does arrive, I'll support the exploration here."

For the sake of argument let’s say that exploring is experiencing. Experiencing the act of creating and experiencing the results of said creations.

The fact that Exploration employs the tools of story creation suggests that Exploration is about stories, in the case of RPG’s acts of creation that can be reviewed as (fictional) stories. The question becomes what is meant by story. I am not interested in the form of story, but rather what stories mean to its listeners. We like stories not because they are “stories” but ultimately because what effect they have on us as consumers.

When I say, “Wow! That was a great story,” I’m a really saying that the events that were related to me resonated in my psyche and really moved me. I was not only involved but also engaged emotionally in a powerful way. Engaged emotionally does not automatically denote weepy melodramatic soap operas. Whatever was contained within really made my bell ring – and that is an emotive response. Pure and simple. It does not matter what emotions were engaged, it’s just that they were engaged effectively and in a satisfying manner.

Now we look at Sim. Sim via its priority on the act of Exploration, places its premium on the explored elements – story elements. The thing is that Sim is a creative and not (typically) a consuming process. At some level there has to be player input or there is no game, even if the input’s effect on the events is negligible. Thus in Sim we are not consuming a pre-created and closed story, but rather employing those explored elements in such a way that in the end look like a story. We know in Sim that story creation as a goal is not a priority. The question then becomes why are we employ these inherently emotion provoking elements? The answer lies in the question. Because they are emotion provoking. The exploratory elements are tools used to create or alter our emotions. This does not mean we cannot learn factual things, but emotions are always present. Even the employment RPG’s to “see what happens” or to “run an experiment” carries an emotive payoff in the form of satisfaction or disappointment.

Look at Gamism. It addresses the question of victory, but that begs the question of why? Why engage in a contest? Because the chase and the kill are viscerally powerful to those who engage in it. Gamism at its extreme is raw emotion payoff. Intellect is employed, but emotions drive and are the reward.

Look at Narrativism. It addresses (difficult) questions about us a humans and our condition - premises. These questions are interesting precisely because they are difficult to answer. Nevertheless they ultimately respond to or impact emotions – “human conundrums and passions.” The emotive reward I do not believe is as charged or as raw as Gamism, but they tend to be of a more profound and deeper nature.

Here’s the kicker though, I believe that Sim can encompass the raw energy of Gamism without being Gamist and be as thoughtful about the human condition as Narrativism without being Narrativist. Imagine a game that has the heart pumping adrenaline kick of Gamism and the heart wrenching character-revealing power of Narrativism. Now that would be a kick-ass game. It draws gamers and non-gamers like flies. Why? For the same reason that movies draw people in, because it is interesting and emotionally charged.

There seems to be reticence at this site to recognize or give legitimacy to exploring character while in Sim. Much lightning has been thrown regarding the idea of Sim as exploring geography/setting, but bring up the idea of exploring character and suddenly you’re either playing abashed Narrativist or that scary word – Immersionist. Sim can thrive on premise (or maybe premise laden bangs might be a better phrase), not because we are interested in creating a story or creating a theme, but for the very same reasons that a particular premise is interesting to Nar players it would be interesting for Sim players to struggle through (experience), dealing with that conundrum and its attendant passions. “Is the life of a friend worth the safety of a community?” I don’t know, and as a Sim player I literally don’t want the question stated/voiced overtly or participate mindfully in any way in the creation of that premise, nor am I particularly motivated by the thought of the answer, but I am highly intrigued by how I would struggle my through a situation that arose along those lines. That would be a challenging and emotionally charged situation that would be fascinating to work my way through. As a Sim player I am interested in the process, not the answer.

Life is emotion. The strength and endurance of a memory is strongly tied to its emotional intensity. A teacher tells you something about some 16th century king in France and its probably quickly forgotten, but live through a major earthquake and that memory is going to stay with you for a very long time. Emotions profoundly color memory and are essential in establishing meaning. Studies also show that emotions are used to make snap judgments when there isn’t enough time to think a situation through logically. Knock out or severely flatten someone’s affect and their personality evaporates and they lose motivation. We spend buckets of money and consume huge amounts of entertainment, which is an emotion feeding exercise. We are emotion junkies. Its all just a matter of what form that stimulus comes in.

We love stories precisely because they are emotively engaging. Sim is or can engage those emotions directly. It has all the parts necessary in the Explored elements, it just that Sim lacks structure. Sim (published) games are all about the clay and the tools that shape the clay, but say absolutely nothing about how to use them to create engaging things. Both Gamist and Narrativist go about to a greater or lesser degree suggesting or telling the players what they are trying to do and to some degree how to go about doing it. Some of it is implied, some overt. Sim games need the same elements to be engaging, it’s just that nothing ever gets said about them. The difference between Sim and Narrativism is that Nar is about creating a story via premise; Sim (when it is character or situation based – and the two can never be separate) is about living the story via the situation created by bangs or premise like conundrums. Is this the only way to play Sim, absolutely not. But what happens when all 4 Exploratory elements are employed effectively? Is this a way to open Sim up to lots of players and the public at large, yes. I’ve seen it and it is absolutely amazing. Its just hard because Sim (historically) has been so obsessed with rules that exploration techniques and theory are left completely unrealized.
Thus it might be said that historically Sim failed and Gamism and Narrativism succeeded precisely because they provided what was lacking in Sim. A direction and focus that does make it much easier for those emotive rewards to be gained. Sim has been largely left behind precisely because it failed to effectively employ/direct the very things which it has been endowed with, the narrative elements and the creativity of its players.

Sim is not just the rejection of Gamist or Narrativist leanings, it is a mode unto itself that offers that which cannot be offered by Gamist or Narrativist games alone. The exploratory elements are the building blocks of story. Gamism emphasizes the conflict portion of story. Narrativism emphasizes the character portion of story. Simulationism can be character and conflict, but historically it typically failed badly. Sim thus became a collection of niche interests and it is partly for this reason that Sim is so hard to quantify.

I am so all over the map on this I don’t know if I said anything worthwhile. I hope there is something that helps.

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume

Mike,

Try this:

Creative Agenda is all about what the participants are expressing themselves about through play. The game is a conversation the players are having. Creative Agenda asks, what is that conversation about?

If it's about the participants' own ability to play effectively or some other aspect of their own adaptedness (e.g. their ability to learn detailed systems, or their ability to creatively improvise) then it's Gamist.

If it's about an issue of emotional import to the players, using the imagined Elements as a medium or a symbolic language or a metaphor for doing so, then it's Narrativist.

If it's about the imagined elements themselves, a process of conveying their ideas about the imagined setting, characters, situation, (evolution of situation via) system, and/or color, then it's Simulationist.

Simulationism is therefore unique in a beeg horseshoe kind of way, but the distinction isn't the big deal you make it out to be. In all three cases, imagined elements are the language or ostensible subject matter of the conversation, but only in Simualtionism are they also the main import of the conversation, what the conversation is about.

Note that this "self-expression interpretation" of Creative Agenda doesn't remove all ambiguities. But, I believe, it reveals those ambiguities for what they are: controversies of interpreting the meaning of discourse. For instance, an observer can be uncertain about whether a game is Sim or Nar just as a reader can be uncertain about whether Moby Dick is "really about" whaling or salvation. Arguments about whether a player is exhibiting intrusive Gamist behavior in an otherwise Sim or Narr game parallel arguments by critics over whether or not a novelist is "just showing off" by including material that reveals impressive knowledge or insight or cleverness but is only tangentially related to the needs of the plot or the apparent message of the book.

If one believes that all discourse is laden with hidden meaning that overshadows the ostensible subject matter, so that for example when we discuss the plot twists in the latest episode of Angel we're really finding outlets for furtively discussing our own mortality ("or else why would such fantasy even hold our interest?") or we're really just interested in preening by showing off our own ability to engage in the discussion, then one would also conclude (as some have) that Simulationist play doesn't exist.

I don't hold that view; I believe I'm quite capable of getting together with some friends and talking about dungeons and dragons by playing Dungeons & Dragons, and it doesn't take a lot of effort (though it might take at least some tacit agreement) to refrain from talking about my own adaptive traits or embedded issues of deep emotional import in the process. Given the power and flexibility of metaphor, I don't think I can ever prove that when I play Simulationist I'm not really playing with a muted Gamist or Narrativist Creative Agenda, just as I can't prove to a die-hard Freudian that the whole enterprise isn't a form of surrogate sex by means of imagined phallic dragons in imagined vagina-like dungeons. As with all forms of self-expression, I rely on my audience to exercise some common sense and reason in interpreting my meaning.

- Walt

Hey, just a couple of comments on this.

1) I think that Sim play can, and in my experience playing my old namesake (Calithena) often did, revolve around Exploration of Character. My GM for most of her adventures is heavily Nar-oriented, and he put a lot of time into setting up the game in ways which would make for good story, but I as player was not for the most part participating in those choices qua moral or story-creating choices in any relevant way. In other words: he gave me situations with premise-addressing choices, and I made my decisions not by addressing that premise but by exploring the character. I've often made decisions myself as GM which indicated Nar preferences on my part, but when I was playing Calithena I often just spent my time wondering what she would do. (This infuriated poor Del, the GM in question, who often had to sit for a half-hour or longer waiting for me to figure it out.) Sometimes this was immersionist, but sometimes I was just exploring my idea of her and trying to figure out how she would react. Again, in most of those games most of the time, it was the GM providing the Premise which my decisions were addressing, but I wasn't deciding in order to address premise - I was deciding as part of my imaginative exploration of the character. I felt a moral responsibility to my character to get her decisions right.

(I've characterized a situation where I was playing Sim and my GM was playing Nar - a two player game, with tons of intense backwork on both of our part in between sessions. This connects to something about which I've been meaning to write here, namely that my former belief that drifting play is 'easier' or 'more natural' than many Forge luminaries suggest stems in part from the fact that a large fraction of my most interesting and intense RPG experiences have been one on one, either with me as GM or as player. It's easier for two people to get on the same page for drift than a greater number, especially if they love each other and are sensitive to each others' current needs. What I didn't realize is how exceptional these gaming situations were and how different they were from the larger group play that characterizes another large subset of my and virtually all of many people's gaming experiences. I didn't realize that I was two different gamers in the two different contexts.)


2. I think ultimately the question of whether Sim is a distinct mode in the absolute sense depends on whether you think curiosity is a genuine, independent form of human motivation, or whether it is always either sublimated desire of some kind, whether sublimated competitive/acquisitive desire or sublimated moral and/or narrative interest. This question goes way beyond anything we're likely to settle here, certainly anything we're likely to settle on the basis of gaming experience alone. In the meantime, I think as a matter of practical analysis I'm pretty happy with Ron's and M.J.'s observation that RPGs are finite time activities and that time spent on focused exploration (where you have a choice) is not time spent on competition or addressing Premise, ergo a separate, behaviorally identifiable mode.

(Personally amusing aside, which I can neither endorse nor entirely disavow: just now I can't help recalling Plato's tripartite division of souls, with the ideal state composed of a herd of desire-pursuing Gamists policed by the thumotic, morally committed Narrativists and ultimately ruled over by the philosopher-king Simulationists. These were divisions within the individual soul as well; everyone had all three, but categorizing persons depended on which mode was dominant within their soul.)

Hey Silmenume (Jay?),

Yeah you're saying something worthwhile, it just looks like you're talking about Nar instead of Sim ;).

I haven't made it all the way through the Nar essay yet, so I don't know if this big important thing is addressed...

I believe that understanding the entire definition of both Sim and Nar depends upon the conotations you apply to the following phrase: 'moral or ethical question'. How you interpret this little bit pulled from a source outside RPG's, from dramatic theory, determines how big Sim and Nar are.

Some of us are of the opinion Sim play is a rare form of play with Nar being about as common as Gam as is worth measuring. Others are of the opinion that Sim is a huge percentage of play, and Nar is this little weird Forge-game thing.

So, the difference, I guess, is whether or not it's a 'moral or ethical question' or a 'MORAL OR ETHICAL QUESTION'.

The following excerpt is taken from Making Shapely Fiction, by Jerome Stern:


Theme

When literary critics use this term, they generally mean the idea or point of a work. Writers are often made uncomfortable by questions like, "What is the theme of your novel?" It seems reductive, like someone asking, "What's the bottom line on this thing?" Writers hope that people will read and think about their work, understanding it through experience. Some writers respond evasively to questions about theme, saying things like, "It's just a story," or, as Mark Twain wrote in his notice preceeding The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot will be shot."

Other writers are more intellectual in their inspiration and more analytical about their creation. They clearly have a theme in mind, and their work is an exploration of a particular idea. Albert Camus or Jean-Paul Sartre used their fiction to discuss philosophical issues. Margaret Atwood and Robert Coover are explicity interested in political themes.

If you want to explore philosophical, psychological, or social ideas in your fiction, think of theme as akin to character, setting, or imagery. Themes, like characters, can advance the plot, contribute to the tension, be attacked, and suffer ironic fates. John Barth made his themes the central characters in the End of the Road and Giles Goat-Boy. Aesthetic ideas almost talk to each other in Julian Barne's Flaubert's Parrot. Saul Bellow's characters embody themes.

Though many writers like to think of themselves as primarily storytellers, yarn spinners, and fabulists, themes and ideas are inevitable. Every work raises questions, examines possibilities, and imagines the consequences of actions. You can't avoid meaning even if you want to.


I know he's not talking about RPGs, so a smidge of stretching applies. Whether or not there's a bit of mistaking the part for the whole in how people react to Nar, or how Ron has interpreted Premise I don't know.

Nar doesn't have to be wham-bam, in your face, here's the damn PREMISE. How forceful/mutatable you interpret the definition of Premise will greatly effect the scope that both Nar and Sim cover.

As we unearthed in the second beeg horseshoe thread listed above, 'moral or ethical question', is really just a GNS defense mechanism against having to argue about what the word 'story' means (leading me away from the 'Ron is mistaking the part for the whole' idea). Nar is about story, it just isn't worded as such.

This may be repeating myself, but - Mike, no one can fully "denounce" 1 and 2. They are quite plausible explanations that to my mind hold some grains of truth within 'em. But my recommendation is to abandon any inclination to denounce or be offended by them, and rather simply realize they are only PART of the story. Because what can be "denounced" is that 1 and/or 2 are the totality of sources for Sim - or even (depending upon opinion, somewhat) particularly important things about it. In other words, the key thing to remember about 1 and 2 is "true, but don't go and get all synecdoceous [sorry, I couln't resist] with that." Equally "denounceable" things can be said about the source of Nar and Game (the Hard Questions in each of Ron's essays are all about this, IMO - I see ALL those questions as equally challenging).

The other Sim parts/sources/reasons-why-it's-cool - hopefully I spoke to that some in my first post. I particularly like the way Walt spoke to it, and the way your second post did. The only bit I see as problematic in your second post is the claim that Sim only lives in a "crisis" and play in general then marches back towards story and victory. I mean, you are (IMO) correct that story and victory are always THERE in all game play, just like Exploration is always there, but remember that Creative Agenda is all about priority. Sim means we don't much CARE about story and victory, though they can be there and maybe sometimes we can even use 'em in the service of our Sim.

I've expressed my understanding of this in the past by saying little-s-sim, little-g-game, and little-n-nar are always present in every game, and GNS asks "which one does this actual instance of play capitalize?" Going capital-S doesn't mean you have to retreat from addressing a premise/engaging with a challenge, it means you advance towards a different goal. The goal of discovering/creating more Explorative material. Which, yes, you COULD then use to address a premise. Or not. As long as you stay at "not", you're prioritizing Sim. With pride and dignity. We are emotionally invested in the creation/discovery (I disagree with your summary that Ron makes emotional connection with character a unique feature of Nar) as a thing/process itself, not for what it brings to bear on problematic human issues and/or our ability to meet challenges.

As I said in my other post, I think there's an interesting question as to what it means if as a *result* of Sim play - but emphatically *outside* of play - folks DO consider the Premise/Challenge implications of that play. But that may not be relevant to your thread . . . hope my other stuff here was,

Gordon

Caldis wrote: You've explained Sim but not why it would draw so much attention. Why would it be the predominant style of play and rules systems? Why would a lack of interest in self cause such a stir?

I also question whether there really is a prioritization of the 'other', isnt it just a prioritization of ones vision of the other which is inherently about the self? Unless you are talking about the character rather than the player when describing self and other.

Sean wrote: (I've characterized a situation where I was playing Sim and my GM was playing Nar - a two player game, with tons of intense backwork on both of our part in between sessions. This connects to something about which I've been meaning to write here, namely that my former belief that drifting play is 'easier' or 'more natural' than many Forge luminaries suggest stems in part from the fact that a large fraction of my most interesting and intense RPG experiences have been one on one, either with me as GM or as player. It's easier for two people to get on the same page for drift than a greater number, especially if they love each other and are sensitive to each others' current needs. What I didn't realize is how exceptional these gaming situations were and how different they were from the larger group play that characterizes another large subset of my and virtually all of many people's gaming experiences....)

Jason a.k.a. Cruciel cited what Jerome Stern wrote: When literary critics use this term [Theme--ed.], they generally mean the idea or point of a work. Writers are often made uncomfortable by questions like, "What is the theme of your novel?" It seems reductive, like someone asking, "What's the bottom line on this thing?" Writers hope that people will read and think about their work, understanding it through experience. Some writers respond evasively to questions about theme, saying things like, "It's just a story," or, as Mark Twain wrote in his notice preceeding The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot will be shot."

Well, I thought I might as well jump in somewhere and get some more posts under my belt, but I wanted to wait until I found something I felt I might be able to contribute to or at least seek to set forth my own meager ramblings.

On that note:

Mike,

It seems as though what you're saying is that Sim is the actual parent of all role-playing. Now, I know that Ron's premise in the Creative Agenda/GNS is that there are three distinct styles of play. The Creative Agenda flows out of the Social Contract to "Explore". Role-playing games are all defined by "Exploration" and must fall within this category before being labelled in the Creative Agenda as "Gamist, Narrativist or Simulationist."

Are you suggesting that the "Explore" is actually Sim-gaming and subsequently that Sim is the curve in the BEEG HORSESHOE that keeps the whole shoe together? (i.e. Gamism and Narrativism draw themselves out of Sim in order to define their "uniqueness", but that they owe their "existence" to the "exploration" of Sim.)

What I'm postulating/thinking you're saying is that Gamist and Narrativist forms of play depend on Sim play in order to function -- they must have some form of exploratory in order to be RPGs, otherwise Gamism would revert to Chess/Checkers/etc, and Narrativism would become camp-fire stories and the like?

Just curious...

I haven't had time to read and respond to all this (too busy playing) but I wanted to say that I will eventually.

Quickly, Asrogoth, the current theory says that Simulationism is simply prioritizing Exploration over Narrativism or Gamism over the long haul. Read the Beeg Horseshoe thread to get the idea of what the model "looks" like.

Mike

Sean wrote: Hey, just a couple of comments on this.

1) I think that Sim play can, and in my experience playing my old namesake (Calithena) often did, revolve around Exploration of Character. My GM for most of her adventures is heavily Nar-oriented, and he put a lot of time into setting up the game in ways which would make for good story, but I as player was not for the most part participating in those choices qua moral or story-creating choices in any relevant way. In other words: he gave me situations with premise-addressing choices, and I made my decisions not by addressing that premise but by exploring the character. I've often made decisions myself as GM which indicated Nar preferences on my part, but when I was playing Calithena I often just spent my time wondering what she would do. (This infuriated poor Del, the GM in question, who often had to sit for a half-hour or longer waiting for me to figure it out.) Sometimes this was immersionist, but sometimes I was just exploring my idea of her and trying to figure out how she would react. Again, in most of those games most of the time, it was the GM providing the Premise which my decisions were addressing, but I wasn't deciding in order to address premise - I was deciding as part of my imaginative exploration of the character. I felt a moral responsibility to my character to get her decisions right.

[I think this stuff, discussing my example, is veering towards off topic for this thread. So maybe Caldis' last post and this one should be a new thread. Moderator call, I suppose.]

Hey Caldis,

If I had to characterize the sessions in question, which occurred mostly in junior high school and early in high school, I would say that Del was 'playing Nar'; that we were 'playing Nar'; but that I was 'playing Sim'. And that all three of these things were observable in our play, on the basis of the decisions we made. Del's Nar trumped my Sim in our games as characteristic of play as a whole during that period because he knew me and my character so well as to essentially create choices which were theme-laden whether I knew it or not, or cared, or was trying to address things at a moral or story level.

So I'd accept that we were playing Nar, but I still wouldn't say that I was, because at that time I still was under the delusion that 'making story' was the GM's business and that I was supposed to 'play my character'.

I disagree strenuously with your characterization of my play as Nar merely because I created the character and gave her the moral outlook that drove her choices. First of all, lots of characters played by and in hard-core Gamist RPGing have a moral outlook which drives their choices, ditto with Sim. The question is: what are you doing with that moral outlook and how does it affect play? Here are some examples of how I think of it:

In predominantly Gamist play, it only comes up for extra characterization and color, and to influence decisions that are relatively neutral tactically (e.g. "My father was murdered by orcs, so I go after the orcs instead of the goblins", where you're just confronted by an tactically indistinguishable mass of humanoids.)

In predominantly Simulationist play, you use the character's moral outlook as a beacon to tell you what you would do in that situation. Not: what do I want to do? (except in the sense that you want to do what you would do) or: "what would drive the story forward best here?" but: what would my guy do. This is exactly how I addressed Calithena's crises in junior high, and that's why I think I was playing Sim. I was not trying to create her story, or use her character to address the hard moral choices that Del was offering me: what I did was to think long and hard about what she was like until it seemed like I knew what sort of decision she 'had to make' because of 'who she was'.

In more Narrativist play I think there's often more of a tendency to find out 'who someone is' by seeing what they do and how they answer the question implicit in their Premise. Or if you want to forget the moral stuff, there's more of a tendency to say: hey, how can I make a cool story with this character, not, hey, what would this character do in this situation?

Now, ok, exploration of character of some kind will come up in play in all three modes, etc. etc. But the question is, when the hard decisions come up - when you have a choice between the different priorities, or when you're bummed out at the way something has gone to the point where you're considering fudging rolls, or when your players' actions (or your actions) have the chance of taking the game in two radically different directions, which way do you go?

In those games with Del, during the period in question, with the important points in the game, he almost always went Nar, and I almost always went Sim, in a way that would have broken a bigger game with people who weren't so close as we were and are. But it was definitely those experiences that made me think you could have coherent drift, because those games were really, really satisfying. But in retrospect I think it was the two-person format and our close friendship that really made this possible.

Sean wrote:
If I had to characterize the sessions in question, which occurred mostly in junior high school and early in high school, I would say that Del was 'playing Nar'; that we were 'playing Nar'; but that I was 'playing Sim'. And that all three of these things were observable in our play, on the basis of the decisions we made. Del's Nar trumped my Sim in our games as characteristic of play as a whole during that period because he knew me and my character so well as to essentially create choices which were theme-laden whether I knew it or not, or cared, or was trying to address things at a moral or story level.

So I'd accept that we were playing Nar, but I still wouldn't say that I was, because at that time I still was under the delusion that 'making story' was the GM's business and that I was supposed to 'play my character'.

Sean wrote:
I disagree strenuously with your characterization of my play as Nar merely because I created the character and gave her the moral outlook that drove her choices.

Caldis wrote: On a broader level I think that from what I've seen in the narrativism essay and in the discussion taking place on these boards I'd have to state that the only valid form of Simulationism is Illusionism.

Sean wrote: In predominantly Simulationist play, you use the character's moral outlook as a beacon to tell you what you would do in that situation. Not: what do I want to do? (except in the sense that you want to do what you would do) or: "what would drive the story forward best here?" but: what would my guy do. This is exactly how I addressed Calithena's crises in junior high, and that's why I think I was playing Sim. I was not trying to create her story, or use her character to address the hard moral choices that Del was offering me: what I did was to think long and hard about what she was like until it seemed like I knew what sort of decision she 'had to make' because of 'who she was'.

In more Narrativist play I think there's often more of a tendency to find out 'who someone is' by seeing what they do and how they answer the question implicit in their Premise. Or if you want to forget the moral stuff, there's more of a tendency to say: hey, how can I make a cool story with this character, not, hey, what would this character do in this situation?

2 things -

First - Bangs are not Force.

Force is "the final authority that any person who is not playing a particular player-character has over decisions and actions made by that player-character."

Bangs by their definition drive the player/character to make a decision right now, not deprive them of the final authority in making a decision.

Bangs are almost the opposite of force. I understand that force can subvert bangs, but by their very nature they are nearly opposites. One demands a decision; the other robs the player of the authority of a decision.

Second - I am going to move this part of the discussion to a new thread, but exploring character does necessarily comfortably contain the idea of plumbing the moral makeup of a character’s persona. There is nothing inherently Narrativist about moral questions and exploring character. Exploring a character's personality in Sim cannot automatically exclude certain portions of said character's personality makeup i.e., moral compass. This is the very issue I brought up in my earlier post saying that discussing character exploration quickly gets the effort labeled Narrativist. ANY portion of a character’s persona can be explored in Sim, including moral compass, it’s just how those issues come into play and how they are handled in game. Exploration in Sim does not say, "thou shalt explore character but thou shalt not explore the moral makeup of said character!"

It won’t be until later tonight until I can open the new thread.

Aure Entaluve,

Silmenume

edit - addition of quotes for clarification purposes

Silmenume wrote: 2 things -

First - Bangs are not Force.

Force is "the final authority that any person who is not playing a particular player-character has over decisions and actions made by that player-character."

Bangs by their definition drive the player/character to make a decision right now, not deprive them of the final authority in making a decision.

Bangs are almost the opposite of force. I understand that force can subvert bangs, but by their very nature they are nearly opposites. One demands a decision; the other robs the player of the authority of a decision.

Caldis - my creative agenda was focus on exploration of character. That was what I wanted to do with the game, visualize more and more deeply the character I had created. (Sometimes. This is not the whole history of my or even this character's play, only one important and somewhat theoretically interesting phase of my game-play, which I sort of wish now had come up in another thread if at all. This is my last post on the subject in this one.) My GMs creative agenda was making story out of that focus by putting her in situations where her choices would address premise. I was not addressing premise at the time and never gave it even a moment's thought.

Cruciel - one more time, we were addressing premise, perhaps, but I was not. Del was using my intense exploratory focus as a way of making story out of what we were doing.

Consistency of character, even moral consistency, does not, I think, imply anything about GNS modes. Lots of extraordinarily interesting paladins played in an entirely gamist mode in D&D. The theme is there, the premise is there, the deep moral beliefs are there, the well-thought out personality is there. What's not there is the decision to spend time on heavy exploration of this or the focus of play-decisions on challenging those beliefs to produce premise-rich story. So not Narrativist.

Sean,

I'll take your response to mean I'm off base, so I'll let it lie.

Except, I would like to make a note in response, and swing this back around to the topic. (I think, Mike? When you get a chance of course. I see that this thread has exploded on you.) The questions become "Can a player explore his character's moral decisions without being interested in those decisions, and hence prioritizing Nar? Is that then Sim? Then what's the point of Sim?" The Beeg Horseshoe (Mike's approach, not the Words-In-Jared's-Mouth approach) is intended to answer befuddling sequences of questions like that with answers other than: "Yes, yes, and nothing, respectively."

Hey cruciel (Jason)!

Fair enough on the definition issue.

I would guess, by your inclusion of the idea of Illusionism, that you believe Force (as you have defined it) has a somewhat negative connotation.

I do not agree that the DM laying conflict before the players requires that said players be deprotagonized. Illusionism is a process whereby the DM removes the players' choices regarding a situation/conflict and the players are OK with that. That the DM places a conflict before the players is not inherently deprotagonizing unless the social contract/system specifically empowers the players to make such decisions regarding situation/conflict. Unless the players have such power to choose, then bangs cannot by definition be Illusionist.

I do agree with you though, that when players are empowered to make situation choices that Bangs can require Illusionism, but that is not a generalized state. In Sim, the DM acting as an agent of "the world," has full authority to have events fall into the players' laps and not be Illusionism for the players have surrendered no power.

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume

PS - Yes you got my name right!

You've stated that you are done with the discussion so I wont persue this any further than simply saying that I would be interested to hear more about your player/gm - sim/nar split in the future and will look for the thread should you ever decide to start it up.

Sean wrote: Consistency of character, even moral consistency, does not, I think, imply anything about GNS modes. Lots of extraordinarily interesting paladins played in an entirely gamist mode in D&D. The theme is there, the premise is there, the deep moral beliefs are there, the well-thought out personality is there. What's not there is the decision to spend time on heavy exploration of this or the focus of play-decisions on challenging those beliefs to produce premise-rich story. So not Narrativist.

Jay,

Silmenume wrote: I would guess, by your inclusion of the idea of Illusionism, that you believe Force (as you have defined it) has a somewhat negative connotation.

I do not agree that the DM laying conflict before the players requires that said players be deprotagonized. Illusionism is a process whereby the DM removes the players' choices regarding a situation/conflict and the players are OK with that. That the DM places a conflict before the players is not inherently deprotagonizing unless the social contract/system specifically empowers the players to make such decisions regarding situation/conflict. Unless the players have such power to choose, then bangs cannot by definition be Illusionist.p

I do agree with you though, that when players are empowered to make situation choices that Bangs can require Illusionism, but that is not a generalized state. In Sim, the DM acting as an agent of "the world," has full authority to have events fall into the players' laps and not be Illusionism for the players have surrendered no power.

Caldis wrote: On a broader level I think that from what I've seen in the narrativism essay and in the discussion taking place on these boards I'd have to state that the only valid form of Simulationism is Illusionism.

which Jason a.k.a. Cruciel made when he wrote: I think our definitions of Illusionism are a little different too (or maybe I'm think more of Illusionist Techniques than Illusionism).

M. J. Young wrote:
So I don't understand why anyone would think simulationism is illusionist.

--M. J. Young

Here are my responses in order. Sorry for taking so long, and for the odd presentation below (rushed).

Jack, yes exploration is what makes RPGs different. When we discussed the "what makes something an RPG" threads, that special thing that I refered to was unfettered exploration. In other games, you can't really explore because they limit you to certain actions. This is a limited take, which makes more sense with my response to John L.


John, that "something else" that Sim has is merely the ways in which we maintain plausibility, or that immersive feel. The idea is that, in assuming that we can do "anything" with that "other" that you refer to, you have something that's unique to RPGs. That is, Ron has said that Sim is Exploration Squared, it's just more exploration, more of the time. I'm saying that it's devotion to maintaining that thing that is unique to RPGs. We're all saying the same thing in different ways. We're all saying it is special, and something that goes beyond mere child's play, yes.

As to your second point about whether sim is dominant, I think that texts that say that you should suppress your other drives are common to an extent. But their rules say otherwise. Hence the incoherence problem being common. In the texts trying to avoid incoherence, they end up saying that one should stay away from G and N. But in the rules you can see that they still want these things. They just haven't figured out how to do it right at that point systemwise (and maybe we still haven't). But this is about bad designs, not really sim games. I don't think there are really sim games from a system perspective.

One thing that Ron's never been able to explain to me is how come if "System Does Matter" the problems with the texts are so important? I mean, sure there's a second layer of icoherence there, but isn't it relatively minor? Or is text more important than we thought?


Jason, you'd have to expand that theory (dials on the parts of exploration) some for me to be able to comment on it. On your later point, Ron has changed from the "moral and ethical" definition. So much so towards "emotion" that I think that all play is co-opted to some extent (as you'll see below).

Force and illusionism issues come dow to a question of whether a player has been given the ability to play Gamist or Narrativist. Basically a participant (often the GM) can take that away. When that happens, then the players can only explore. I don't think that GMs often take away all Gam or Nar opportunities, but to the extent that it happens, the GM is making Sim the only mode available. I think it's possible that a GM may be able to do this with other modes, too, but that merely means that the player can't "play sim" (fail to play the enforced mode) on those occasions where the revealing decisions come up. Or, if they could, everyone would know that play had ceased being an RPG and had become a game or story.


Caldis, the "why" sim, is the same as "why play RPGs". That is, if sim is just more exploration, then we do it for the same reason that we do RPGs to begin with. If you play RPGs you're a simmie right from the get go. The only question is whether you also then do Gamism or Narrativism with your RPGing. Why do you see less of these modes with other people? Because they're prioritizing the reason they came to the table in the first place. I firmly believe that if people wanted to just play Gamist, they'd play chess or Advanced Squad Leader. If they really wanted to just create a story, they'd write (even collaboratively).



Jason, John K, et al. I did ask people to denounce the theories. It wasn't that that I was commenting on, but the apparent expectation that I would defend the positions I had asked for people to destroy.


John, I've always agreed with you that RPGs have their own aesthetic. That said, it isn't so different from literary or game aesthetics that we can't make comparisons. That is, it's no surprise to me that some people want to do their exploration in such a way that it produces something akin to a story in the literature sense. I mean, people often say, "I want to play something that feels like LOTR." What are we to assume from that?

Yes, there may be "reduction in emotion" from time to time, but my point all along has been that the emotional moments only happen sporadically anyhow. That is, yes you can have less active pursuit of, say, Narrativism. That doesn't mean that it never happens, however. By which I mean to say that even very occasional narrativism is still a draw for all RPGs. The same with occasional Gamism. I think that the game completely in one of the three modes is very rare to non-existent.


Silmenume, I think that exploration is not just creating and experiencing. If so, then painting would be an RPG. I'm not sure what you're saying when you say that RPGs use "the tools of story creation". That is these tools are just imagination. All imagination is about seeing things (characters) in places doing stuff. Stories are imagination written down in very specific ways. Yes, sometimes RPG play resembles a story, but the exploration element actually takes it beyond a story to something somewhat akin to actual experience. Wheras stories don't have that same quality because you can only recieve them. This is the unique part.

I do agree, however, that we don't sim out being cubicle workers (unless it's a Dilbert RPG), because we do want to explore something interesting. It's that "interesting" element, that makes RPGs automatically Narrativist. Until I hear of a RPG called "Boredom" where the idea is to play out the most unemotionally engaging elements of life that exist, I'll say that all RPGs have this small element of Narrativism. I think this is why the term premise was so problematic early on. I do think that every game has a Narrativist Premise, even if the emotional responses from it are subtle "Gee Whiz!" moments.

Gamism is the same. In some ways, Gamism is just "player Narrativism" in that it's not the player feeling for the character that happens, but feeling for himself.

I don't see the "problem" with character sim. But I think that for others that might have a problem, my take on things makes it easier to understand. Process, answer, it's all part of the same spectrum of play. I do agree that one can prioritize exploration in more ways than have been found to date.


Walt, I think Sim is unique, because, as all of play before the reveal moments, effectively, it's most of play for everyone. All the time. That is, the conversation is always "about" sim, it just takes breaks to be Gamist or Narrativist at times. If those opportunities are siezed upon whenever they appear, the game can be said to be Gamist or Narrativist depending. But that doesn't mean that exploration isn't happening before, and after. Just suspended for a while. What this means is that my model has no ambiguities. Play is "ambiguous," and therefore exploratory, until it becomes Gamist or Narrativist. It's not important to figure out what the ambiguous moments are because being Congruent (to use your term), they can't offend anyone. And that's what GNS is all about when the day is done. Who enjoys playing with whom.

Can moments that are G or N be on the borderline? Of course. But to the extent that they are, they're less likely to be offensive.


Sean, I refer you to the response I gave to Silmenume above. As Ron says, plausibilty has to exist for story to have weight. So, of course there's no problem with the idea of character sim. It's what you do until you decide to make a decision that addresses premise. In any case, I side with the side that says that all curiosity has a reason behind it. Ron would have to agree. Note that in Ron's model, "time spent" doesn't really mean anything. You don't typically play a little sim and then a little narrativism - there's an overall agenda to all play (which can change, but more glacially than my model). Again, there is no conflict in understanding to say that "prioritizing" exploration is simulationism. It just seems to lead to misunderstandings, IMO. I'm merely trying to restate the theory in a way that makes people understand how the things in question interact.

Did someone say that Drift was hard? I think that informed Drift is quite simple. I just think that the vast majority of Drift occurs without analysis. In any case, no doubt that it's easier to accomplish from the social aspect if there are fewer people - only stands to reason.

Your comments about Sim/Nar splitting get the same treatment as Jay's above. If they don't annoy anyone, then who cares what they are precisely. What you're describing is a coherent creative agenda, and that's all that matters.


Gordon, again, it's my supposition that points #1 and #2 are people discussing the bad reasons why these things do happen. So I agree with you. My point is that we shouldn't worry about the bad reasons, unless they're the primary reason, which I think they're not.

I don't think that Sim means we don't "care" about the other priorities. This is almost the central problem of perception that I'm trying to fix. If that's true, then sim doesn't exist. Because we don't ever stop being competitive emotional individuals. What Sim "is" is putting exploration first, despite still wanting the other two things. Yes, that's prioritization, and as I say repeatedly that this doesn't conflict with the original model. But the perspective is different - with my model, we're not retreating from the other two, we're prioritizing the third so that, if/when we get to the other two, they'll have meaning for us. Again, we play RPGs to explore. So "Sim" is just making sure that when we get to Gamism or Narrativism, that we're still roleplaying as well. It's the framework for all play. And for some players that needs more investment than other to stand up right. That doesn't mean that these players are uncompetitive, unemotional beings. We don't do sim because we don't care about the other two, we do it because we like the other two, and the other two would be worthless without sim (well, not if what you wanted was Monopoly in the first place).

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Silmenume, I think that exploration is not just creating and experiencing. If so, then painting would be an RPG. I'm not sure what you're saying when you say that RPGs use "the tools of story creation".

Mike Holmes wrote: Yes, sometimes RPG play resembles a story, but the exploration element actually takes it beyond a story to something somewhat akin to actual experience. Wheras stories don't have that same quality because you can only receive them. This is the unique part.

Mike Holmes wrote: I do agree, however, that we don't sim out being cubicle workers (unless it's a Dilbert RPG), because we do want to explore something interesting. It's that "interesting" element, that makes RPGs automatically Narrativist … Gamism is the same. In some ways, Gamism is just "player Narrativism" in that it's not the player feeling for the character that happens, but feeling for himself.

Mike Holmes wrote: Process, answer, its all part of the same spectrum of play.

Silmenume wrote: The tools of creation that I make reference to both constrain the scope of the imaginative efforts and aid in its employment.

...

The fact that RPG’s have certain tools of creation, system is the tool, the story elements the clay, makes it a creative process unique from other creative process.

Exploration, as indicated in the model IS a creation process. The process of Exploration is adding to the Shared Imagined Space. If a participant is not adding then they are not playing. This statement makes its time reference over the course of an entire night’s game – not moment to moment. Experiencing is the feedback loop between creating and gauging the results of said act of creating. I mean that both physiologically and experientially within the mind. The ears sense, but the mind assigns meaning.

I agree. Which makes me wonder why you poo-poo’d my statement that exploration is a creative and experiential process.

The thing is that Sim places a premium/priority on trying wed the “interests” of the PC and the player.

That desire to play an “interesting” character does not automatically equate to a Narrativist agenda.

I do not agree and again I think this may be another sticking point you having. Gamist and Narrativist play are product/answer oriented.

Hi Mike -

Let me just ask you about a couple of straightforward examples.

(1) My friend Jeff at www.curiousgames.net wrote and published a fantasy adventure boardgame. It has a bunch of different scenarios with different victory conditions. He gave the game to his neighbors and they told him that they loved it. Then he went over to play with them, and discovered that they completely ignored the victory conditions. They just liked to go around the map and see what was in the different squares for a few hours. They were exploring the setting, nothing more; that was the focus of their play.

(2) OK, so that's a boardgame, not an RPG. But why can't you have the same thing in an RPG? "I've always wondered what's in that forest at the edge of the map. Let's have our characters go there and see!"

I've seen adventures with little more pretext than this in a lot of well established campaigns. The players just want to explore more and know stuff that's going on. These adventures sometimes look like: GM describes; players experience and visualize, sometimes making choices ("OK, what do you do now?") that lead their characters towards an Exploratory goal.

Anyway, it's very easy for me to imagine whole adventures based on an agenda involving Exploration of setting in which the players exhibit no interest whatsoever in Step on Up or Story Now. It's a dull story, there aren't many problems to solve, the adventure looks like characters describing actions and the GM describing territory, with the ultimate goal being to find something out. I can have fun playing this way personally, and I know others who can as well, provided that the setting is well enough fleshed out to pique curiosity, to inflame our desire for discovery.

(Should that be it - "Simulationism: the Desire to Discover"? In some ways that seems pretty good to me, though I don't wish to deny that there's also an open-ended wonder involved in Sim exploratory focus sometimes too. But okay, sometimes we have undirected desires, what's the big deal there?)

Seems like role playing to me, doesn't seem like Nar or Gam, maybe there's some attenuated Nar or Gam in there, but the question is the distinct creative agenda.

FWIW I just use Exploration of Setting because I think it's the most obvious case of pure Sim play that most of us might have experienced at some point. I've attested to having done this in my youth with Exploration of Character, and I think that Color and System also can be like this - consider the magic research rules in Ars Magica as a possible example of rules facilitating Exploration of System with a more or less Sim agenda.

There are other problems with the horseshoe metaphor too, but since you (a) cede the practical argument that time for Sim is time away from the others, and (b) I think that there are clear Simulationist creative agendas over and above what's indicated by that practical argument, I guess I'm just not really seeing the point of your big picture, whether it's Dr. Beeg's old Horseshoe or some successor theory which resembles it in certain ways. I do like some of what you say in terms of psychological observations and thoughts about how we manage GNS priorities though.

Sean, it's a positivist view of Beeg Horseshoe. As opposed to the original version which was negative.

My model completely explains the behavior that you're talking about. It's just exploring. It hasn't added any Gamism or Narrativism. I'm not saying that exploration doesn't happen, I'm saying that it's all of roleplaying, and the only thing we're doing most of the time in RPGs. When I say there's "no Sim" I mean, that there's no time at which we aren't exploring, so there's no reason to say that we're prioritizing it. Because, to an extent we always are. Sometimes we suspend allow exploration to falter when reaching for Gamism or Narrativism. But we're never not exploring.

The point is that when you look at Sim as an agenda, saying that it means eschewing Gamism and Narrativism, I say that's just not what happens. You aren't retreating from those two things, you're just exploring in a way that, if you choose to do Gamism or Narrativism at some later point, it will be more congruent.

Another way to look at that, is to say that we're "prioritizing exploration" over Gamism and Narrativism, and that's valid. But what my take allows us to see is that it's a positive thing, a neccessary thing to do Sim. That it's not some retreat from better modes of play, which is what's being implied.

Note that nobody ever says that Gamism is a retreat from Narrativism. These two things are given their proper respect for what they are - additional bahaviors that can be added to exploration if you don't mind losing out on the feel of the exploration to some extent, and at the time that you do it. Simulationism is exploring, and not dropping that ball, such that you can do things with a motive that might promote Gamism or Narrativism or just Exploration, without losing the feel of the exploration.

That's where exploration is subltly different (IOW, why this isn't just the GENder model). Ron says that Narrativism must be plausible. Well, how plausible? To the level that a player demands plausibility, that's the extent that he wants the choices to be congruent between Sim and Nar. A decision with low plausibility, and high thematic potential would show as Narrativist. So we see that exploration to some varying extent is integral to Narrativism. The other two aren't integral to anything, a game can be just as Gamist or exploratory as you like independent of Narrativism.

Oh, so what's that urge to roam around and discover? That's narrativism. Yes, the emotional excitement of discovery is narrativist. It's Ron's statement that emotional engagement is thematic that shows that it's much wider than we previously thought, in fact, it includes all almost roleplaying to some small extent.

Mike

Hiya,

Mike, I'm understanding what you're saying fully, I think. But I think that Narrativism isn't quite as broad as you're saying:

so what's that urge to roam around and discover? That's narrativism. Yes, the emotional excitement of discovery is narrativist. It's Ron's statement that emotional engagement is thematic that shows that it's much wider than we previously thought, in fact, it includes all almost roleplaying to some small extent.

Risking having people miss the post directly above in order to post again....

Part of the problem is that I'm talking about the modes in two different ways. This has always been a problem. See, as an agenda, GNS means that Narrativist play (to pick on it), involves play that over time shows to be about creating theme. The theory does state that there are moments in any play where it won't stick to the agenda. A player momentarily changes to a mode of play that, if it were to be all of play, would consitiute a Sim or Gamism agenda. But as part of the overall agenda, it's still considered, overall, to be Narrativism.

But, see, the small moments are important. Little gns as someone proposed. Though the model is behavioral, behavioralism admits that motives are extant (though what they are is completely irrellevant). What I will say is that I think that motives to produce play in all three modes are probably present, if even only in tiny quantities for some motives, in just about every roleplayer.

Now, whether or not they act on these motives is the important part. But what happens is that the player shifts back and forth between play that indulges the motive to do gamism to the motive to do sim, etc. So, while overall there may be a particular aesthetic, it's composed of all of this "atomic" play as we used to call it.

The point is that a particular decision either shows that it is one of the modes, or it is congruent between two or all three modes. These congruent decisions can be indulgent of all three motives (or any two), regardless of the overall agenda. In that way, momentarily, a player can be playing Sim and Nar and Gamist, all at the same time for practical purposes. The general theory only says that the overall agenda becomes apparent when the revealing decisions come along which force one to pick an option that reveals. In the interim, it makes sense to say that the player is having any of their motives satisfied that matter to them.

This is important, because it clarifies some of the potentially contradictory statments that I've made above, if one assumes that I'm only talking about overall agendas when I use the terms I do.

BTW, this all implies something about a neat way to play, which I'll expound upon in another thread.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Jason, you'd have to expand that theory (dials on the parts of exploration) some for me to be able to comment on it. On your later point, Ron has changed from the "moral and ethical" definition. So much so towards "emotion" that I think that all play is co-opted to some extent (as you'll see below).

Ron Edwards wrote: My take is that Narrativism is based on emotional engagement with a problematic human issue, which seems a little more limited than what you're talking about.

That's my point again. Who knows when it's nar and when it's not? Hard to say, really. When the player is doing it, not just "because the character would" but "because it's interesting to me" is where I draw the line. Can you see how that would include everthing in RPG play? Again, like Sim is only shown when you fail to take an obvious nar hook, Nar only becomes apparent when you do something implausible, incongruous.

Again, it's not important to ask when nar begins. It's only important to know, for a specific group, what the minimum requirements are for each mode to be satisfied. Is it "narrativist enough" for them?

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: That's my point again. Who knows when it's nar and when it's not? Hard to say, really. When the player is doing it, not just "because the character would" but "because it's interesting to me" is where I draw the line. Can you see how that would include everthing in RPG play? Again, like Sim is only shown when you fail to take an obvious nar hook, Nar only becomes apparent when you do something implausible, incongruous.

Again, it doesn't matter if they can be separated. You're looking for a line that isn't set in stone, but determined by each group. In fact, for one group "moral" might not pertain at all, but "relationship based" is everything. Narrativism is different for each group, just as what makes for exploration support is different for each group. Hence why we say that there are many different sorts of agendas under each of the three umbrellas.

All I can say is that it's "something like" all those things you cite. It's what makes the player excited beyond competition.

Mike

Hey, Mike. I think I get what you're saying now. I don't know if I agree, but let me try to paraphrase first.

OK - instead of saying 'there are these three modes...', we should say: when you role-play, you Explore. Default role-playing is Exploration. which we now think of as Sim (it's Sim unless you do something else with it). On the other hand, you can also flavor your exploration with Nar or Gam, to taste. So instead of saying "Sim doesn't exist, because there's just Exploration", we say, "all role-playing is Sim, because we're always Exploring."

From there you want to use this new picture to shift the GNS rhetoric slightly. This would be useful in the sense that most of the smart people I know who reject GNS after (a) actually bothering to read a few threads or some of Ron's essays seriously and (b) being able to paraphrase some of the basic points of the theory for themselves, do so precisely because they think they enjoy 'multi-mode' play and that their players do too. Then we get into those nasty arguments about whether they're stick-in-the-muds who don't understand that it could be different, social geniuses who happen to have found a medium-large group who Drift together exceptionally well, or 'really deep down' players in a particular mode who don't realize that's what they are. Unproductive discussions ensue. So instead, you get all easy-breezy and say 'yeah, man, all games have all three, so, y'know, it's just a question of how much Gam or Nar you want, or whether you want to keep your beacon dead ahead on the Sim, but, y'know, it's not like you have to choose."

Actually, this might be a great way to package the theory to avoid that set of unproductive arguments. That's not my concern, but maybe it's of interest to some.

But anyway on to what does interest me, whether your picture adequately represents the facts. Certainly Sim/Exploration confusion is a recurrent cognitive problem with GNS and one which your model would help to subtly eliminate. On the other hand, let's consider the difference between Exploration and Creative Agenda, which is what's at stake here.

In some sense, if you're sitting down to role-play, you're trying to Explore, wanting to engage in exploration of shared imaginative space. Point to Mike. On the other hand, if you take role-playing activity as a given, then there's the question - where do you want to take this activity? Where do you want it to go? What do you want to do with it? What gives you the most joy when you're doing it? This I think is the question that Ron seems to be asking more often.

In other words I guess I think the issue is where the Creative Agenda box goes in the arrow diagram. It's inside Exploration in Ron's current articles. On the other hand, if you take the 'decision to role-play' as a decision to explore, and the Creative Agenda as how you're exploring, then there might be some sense to putting the Creative Agenda down as the very highest level. Not: "Let's explore; how do you want to do it? What do you want to focus on?", with the latter understood as secondary questions, but rather all three of those questions being answered together at the very top of a modified diagram.

I'm tempted right now to think there's some plausibility to this idea, actually, if I'm reading you right. Sim/Exploration confusion is still a confusion, in that you might think that because all role-playing is about exploration it's all Sim, and so should focus on exploratory detail (or at least be able to) in certain ways. But that would be wrong. But on the other hand it might explain how you could be, say, a really, really smart game designer in the seventies, eighties, or nineties and feel compelled to put all this Simmy stuff in your game because, well, that's what role-playing is, or whatever, because you were mistaking exploration for focus on exploration itself rather than focus on the flava of exploration you want.

I'll mull this over and see how you respond in the meantime.

Yes, to an extent, what I'm doing here is packaging. Thus, if you buy GNS, you ought to buy my theory as well - there's no real contradiction (Ron just shakes his head and says something like, "But that's just restating what I've been saying all along.") The point is that some people detect a bias in Ron's presentation whether it's there or not, and this causes misinterpretations, IME. I'm trying to present things in such a way as to have everybody creating games that respect the sim aspect once again.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote:

Silmenume wrote: The tools of creation that I make reference to both constrain the scope of the imaginative efforts and aid in its employment.
...
The fact that RPG’s have certain tools of creation, system is the tool, the story elements the clay, makes it a creative process unique from other creative process.

Maybe. I'd be more OK with the idea if we said it was a different medium, indicating that the tools even interact in different ways. That is, you can call people in a book or in an RPG characters - and in some ways they're similar. But it's the medium of the shared space that makes these things different in application.

Mike Holmes wrote: you can experience a play, I think…one can participate in creating a play.

Mike Holmes wrote: I don't even think that the sort of creation, experiencing, and participation that you'd get from Improv Theatre conveys this extra thing. In that case, you're creating for an audience, in no way are you associating yourself directly with the character.

Mike Holmes wrote: To an extent, it's creating the illusion that the virtual is real.

Mike Holmes wrote: The GM says, there's a street. You say your character crosses it. No gamism there, no narrativism, just exploration. You didn't say "I jump to the moon", because that wouldn't be plausible. You have the character perform a plausible action because you're prioritizing exploration. Note, you could take that moment to play gamist or narrativist, say, asking for a contest to dodge some oncoming traffic, or narrating how your character thought about his current moral dilemma and came to a decision about it as part of crossing the street. But you don't usually do that, you just cross the street. It's the majority of everyone's play.

Mike,

Thanks for clarifying your position and what you're trying to do. I thought that was in fact what you were attempting -- to provide Sim a greater piece of the GNS pie from what it was getting. It does seem to be the "Red-Headed Step-Child" among the GNS family.

It seems perfectly plausible that Sim is the default arena of play -- not as the focus of play, as some are wisely adressing -- but as the essential background and mock-up of the story.

The "Exploration" that is going on in RPGs is the Exploration of a Story, not Story Now, necessarily, but the "Story" that is being written by the GM and Players (or simply Players) through the specified approach of the Creative Agenda. Story is present in all three types of play.

What you seem to be saying is that in order for the Story to remain coherent or usable it must apply some form of Simulationism to the preferred form of play, be it G, N or S.

I think the biggest concern is that it seems as though you're elevating Simulationism (as some have already said) to the role of Exploration in Ron's model.

Would you address this idea of Hyper-Simulationism/Exploration? Is there no difference between Exploration and the Creative Agenda form of Simulationism?

Silmenume wrote:
I propose that playing Sim in NOT identical with plain old Exploration. Playing Sim, or making a choice to play Sim is not the same a merely idling along. By idling along I refer to those game times that Gamists and Narrativists mark until they can resume their “true interests.” The same can be said for Sim. When a player chooses to play Sim, he is actively addressing the exploration elements and amplifying some aspect of them. A Sim player who is addressing Sim interests is overtly/mindfully adding to one or more of the body of story elements. Thus Sim isn’t just a matter of not Gam and not Nar, but also not idling. Like Gam and Nar, Sim is active, and it is a creative choice.

Hi Mike,

The later paragraphs of my post aren't just about packaging, though. I see three options here, at most one of which can be true:

1) Current GNS: creative agenda within exploration as a whole, three different creative agendas. MJ is defending this position forcefully in that other thread right now.

2) What I took you to be proposing: creative agenda at the top level, coequal with or just inside social contract, always including exploration along with it, GNS modes as flavors of exploration rather than directions within the overall agreement to explore.

3) The 'Freitag theory', also discussed in the other thread: GNSZ, where people just play without any particular agenda in addition to the other three modes. This seems like implausible psychology to me, since surely you're trying to get something out of your play, no matter how incoherent, attenuated, or just plain weak your desires are, but who knows, Walt strikes me as an off-the-scale smart guy from his posts and may be on to something here.

1 and 2 (and 3, obviously) are not equivalent positions. 1 says: the agreement to explore within a social contract is one layer, and then creative agenda (the arrow) 'launches' that exploration towards particular goals (understanding that one's choice of creative agenda need not be conscious, etc.). 2 says: the choice to explore is already de facto a choice to focus that exploration in some particular way, and the layer of exploration outside of creative agenda is otiose.

Which is right?

Best,

Sean

Whew, swimming upstream to keep up.

Jay, I refer you to my response to MJ's post on the subject. http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9715
I think that covers what you're asking. In all other ways, I think we're in agreement on what RPGs are, and what the basis for play is.

Goth, I'm saying the one of two things is true. Either there is no sim, and we're just talking about crucial protection of something that's essential to RPGs when we say sim - the protection of the exploration. Or, Sim must be some priority to protect something else that's not covered by exploration alone. What that thing may be, I can't see, so I'm saying that they're one and the same. From that perspective, sim could be said to be protecting that which is essentially the base of RPG play. But that entials that gamism and narrativism be a retreat from sim play then as well.

Caldis, right on, man.

Sean, "otiose." Had to look that up. :-)
Ron's model doesn't change at all with what I've said. You can still look at an overall agenda of support for exploration, as Simulationist. And should in terms of that model.

The Beeg Horseshoe is all about how the three modes relate to each other inside the GNS layer. It says, essentially that sim is protecting that exploration arrow as it passes through. Gamism and narrativism are diversions of that arrow as it passes through the box. Such that on the other end are different techniques and such.

Does that help, schematically? See too the link above for my response there.

Mike