In an earlier thread, Player action/reaction to Situation key to CA, I had discussed that CA can only be measured and seen in operation in the address of Situation; everything else is a red herring. Addressing Situation is the pinnacle of our efforts as roleplayers, it is the pitch or the snap of the ball. All the other elements of Exploration (with the possible exception of Color) are the foundation upon which addressing Situation is made possible.

That being said, the question is, what is an observer looking for in the actions of the players when they are addressing (either directly or indirectly) Situation? Addressing Situation can be approached from three basic directions. By consistently choosing which direction one approaches the address of Situation, a player is in effect limiting their actions to certain realms. This consistent self-limitation of address of Situation has been labeled Creative Agenda. It is within these limitations of approach that our creativity is put to the test in a fashion that is intriguing to us as players.

Gamism limits the actions of the player to that of addressing the Challenge contained in Situation. Narrativism limits the actions of player to that of addressing the Premise contained in Situation. In both the CA’s something about character can be sacrificed to maintain the CA should the two come into conflict. Sim, by it’s demand for internal consistency, is really focusing on the consistency of character exploration, though no one has really understood that. As we have seen in all the other CA’s, internal causality is important, but in Sim it is, as an ideal, inviolable.

The limiting action of Sim is character. In other words what we can or cannot do is limited by character, both physical and especially personality. In this case we are willing to sacrifice other things, challenge or premise, to address situation via the limits of character. This is the constraining factor of Sim. In Sim, all Situation must be addressed in a manner that is constrained by the persona of the character and does not violate internal causality. While this can appear in Gamism and Narrativism, their own priorities, which by definition states only one thing can be prioritized – challenge or premise – means that internal causality can sacrificed when addressing situation directly (some sort of currency spent to alter the situation in a way that a character can not) or character personality consistency can be sacrificed. In Sim addressing Situation cannot be separated from addressing Character; that means Sim is about, for the players, addressing character via the address of Situation and the DM creating Situation so the players may address Character.

In Gamism the players must be addressing Challenge contained within Situation or they are not exhibiting Gamist behaviors. The result of addressing Challenge is victory or loss, but that may not always be what the players were grooving on. The players may enjoy the creativity involved in the address of challenge, but not be overly concerned with the actual winning or losing. However, it is inevitable that in addressing Challenge victory or loss will occur. The extreme form of the focus on victory of loss is called Hardcore. In the pursuit of the Hardcore the process of addressing Challenge is not an enjoyable end unto itself, but a tool merely employed in the effort to achieve the ultimate goal of victory. This result victory can only come after Challenge has been addressed and the players reflect back upon the process and make that determination. In most cases of play victory is a welcome by product of the enjoyable process of addressing challenge. For some victory is the only reason for addressing challenge.

I think there is a parallel in Narrativism. I believe most players who play Narrativism enjoy the process of addressing Premise contained within Situation as an end unto itself. However the extreme version of this style of play would be only interested in the created theme as a result of said play with little interest in the process itself other than a means. Like Gamism, the result theme can only come after Premise has been addressed and the players reflect back upon the process and make that determination. In most cases of play theme is a welcome byproduct of the enjoyable process of addressing Premise.

Sim is different in that there is no extreme of addressing Situation via character limitations that sacrifices something of the exploration process or the elements of Exploration. However, I do believe that like Gamism and Narrativism, most players enjoy, and are thus more motivated by the process of addressing Situation more than they are specifically of the results of said addressing action. In other words, it’s not common that players are more interested in the results than they are the process. In Gamism the players are into the Challenge, in Narrativism the players are into the Premise, and in Simulationism the players are into the Situation and their Character’s. Simulationism puts a premium on Character that Gamism and Narrativism do not. Narrativism can, and frequently does have lots of Character exploration as a result of address of Premise, but that is a byproduct of the process, not a CA goal. In Simulationism, we are simulating the life of a Character, and as we are roleplaying (exploring – reacting to situation) that means facing, making decisions about, and acting upon situations that such a character might typically encounter. Frex – a character playing a firefighter needs to face, make similar kinds of decisions and act upon situations that a firefighter is likely to encounter.

When faced with situations where individuals have expected roles, said individuals quickly and deeply assume said roles without consciously attempting to do so. Digging back almost 20 years to my college psychology class we read about an experiment conducted upon volunteers at a college whereby a group of students was broken into two groups with individuals in the roles of jailors and inmates. The people running the experiment made it very clear that anyone could drop out at anytime. If I recall correctly I think that the experiment had to be forcibly shut down after only a few days as the students involved had so deeply assumed/identified with their roles that when things did get physically violent they forgot that they could opt out. This donning of roles happens virtually unconsciously all the time in real life. The reason Simulationism seems so difficult when Gamism and Narrativism seem so easy to engage lies in the difficulty of an untrained DM to adequately create compelling settings and situations and to support player characters effectively. Give the players a compelling situation and the players will have no problem assuming a role and reacting to the situation from within that role, and this does not require the training of the player. People will react quite strongly to a strong situation. The reason it has seemed difficult for the players is because they have not typically faced strong, emotionally compelling situations. In order to be emotionally compelling the situation needs to feel real. Some might argue that one could be running and experiment and not be particularly interested in the emotional aspect. However, current research indicates that ALL decision making, no matter how logical or dry, has an emotional component to facilitate the decision process. In these people who have extremely flattened affects due to injury or some other cause, they are incapable of making a decision even though the rest of their intellect is fully intact. They can fully enumerate all the choices and the pro and cons, but they simply can’t choose.

And this is where I believe Sim game design has been missing the mark since the beginning. Sim game designers have focused on trying to create real via system, setting and color and have completely missed the most vital element of all – compelling (emotionally resonant or emotionally real) situation. Sim has gotten lost in technique and never got around to its action – creating compelling situations that players can be involved with emotionally and intellectually. Gamist and Narrativist CA’s expressed by the players seem easier because they can be expressed without the need of partnership with anyone, but a Sim CA does require not only that partnership between player and DM, but that the DM do a good job of creating Situation. People are not good creators of roles, just look at most movies and TV shows, however people are very adept, perhaps too adept, at falling into roles that are expected of them.

Some thoughts – hopefully they were cogent and worthy of reply.

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume

Silmenume wrote:

Gamism limits the actions of the player to that of addressing the Challenge contained in Situation. Narrativism limits the actions of player to that of addressing the Premise contained in Situation. In both the CA’s something about character can be sacrificed to maintain the CA should the two come into conflict. Sim, by it’s demand for internal consistency, is really focusing on the consistency of character exploration, though no one has really understood that. As we have seen in all the other CA’s, internal causality is important, but in Sim it is, as an ideal, inviolable.

Hey Caldis!

I appreciate your response and it did help clarify some things for me. With your clarification taken into account your statement helped me sharpen my position a bit. Something about Character is sacrificed when addressing Premise, that would be breadth of Character Exploration given up for the purposes of continual addressing of Premise, i.e. that a character must continue to act egotistical in order to address the premise of “does egotism leads to loss of friends”. I agree that my statement about consistency of character as you defined it was in error.

Thus, if it could be said that a player must play their character in such a way that a specific trait must be continually portrayed in order to address premise continually, then it could be said that Exploration of Character in Narrativism is typically more narrowly focused, not less intense or less interesting or less functional or less real, than Exploration of Character in Simulationism.

So one tell of Simulationism is greater latitude to Explore different aspects of Character than in Narrativism. I think this is an extremely important distinction between Narrativism and Simulationism.

I also think I need to amend a portion of my initial post. I said that Character integrity could be sacrificed in the pursuit of addressing Challenge. In fact it is here that we see the Tells of abashed Gamist play. That I still stand by. I believe that my error lies in my assessment of Narrativism. I believe that in Narrativism Situation integrity could be sacrificed in the pursuit of addressing Premise. Addressing of Character remains true and solid, though focused, but Situation is something that can be changed in a way that violates internal causality. This addressing of Situation is one of the Tells we see in abashed Narrativist play.

In Gamism Situation is sacrosanct.

contracycle in the Immersive Story Essay thread wrote: What I find aesthetically displeasing about creating my own objects is that it is borderline cheating in my eyes. As a self-identified gamist, the idea that I might be able to introduce new pieces to the board, as it were, to which my opponent had not signed up, would be grossly abusive.
Immersive Story Essay

Silmenume wrote:

In your example premise of “Does egotism lead to loss of friends,” if a player does not play their Character as egotistical then they have ceased to address Premise.

Very nice essay. Sounds pretty good to this Sim gamer.

I agree completely that many (most?) Sim games forget Situation. They produce numerous volumes of intricate source material, but leave me wondering what to do with it. How do I fit a character into this environment? What would that character want to do? What's happening in the setting?

(Transhuman Space springs to mind, as does it's pseudo-Gamist sibling, Jovian Chronicles.)

But then look at _Operation: Rimfire_ for Mekton. It's a horribly constructed rail-runner of an adventure that doesn't make any sense whatsoever and struggles through one of the patchiest settings I've ever seen. But I can dream up bunches of characters, envision countless scenes, and generally have tons of fun without even playing!

Sim needs a balance -- things must make sense, but they must also lead somehere....

John Stepp

Silmenume wrote: The limiting action of Sim is character. In other words what we can or cannot do is limited by character, both physical and especially personality. In this case we are willing to sacrifice other things, challenge or premise, to address situation via the limits of character. This is the constraining factor of Sim. In Sim, all Situation must be addressed in a manner that is constrained by the persona of the character and does not violate internal causality. While this can appear in Gamism and Narrativism, their own priorities, which by definition states only one thing can be prioritized ? challenge or premise ? means that internal causality can sacrificed when addressing situation directly (some sort of currency spent to alter the situation in a way that a character can not) or character personality consistency can be sacrificed. In Sim addressing Situation cannot be separated from addressing Character; that means Sim is about, for the players, addressing character via the address of Situation and the DM creating Situation so the players may address Character.

I do stand corrected. I can see Transhuman Space and Jovian Chronicles as Sim-Setting. And do humbly beg forgiveness for besmirching their good names. Even if I still can't enjoy them. :)

It seems odd to me that I feel closer to other creative agendas than I do to variations of my own preference. But that's likely a different topic....

M.J. raises an implication I've never considered -- Sim has a level of prioritization all to itself. WHAT are we exploring? For instance, are we exploring setting in preference to character?

Should we be closely looking at the different Sim priorities to better understand the beast? Has this already been thoroughly hashed out? Is it just a matter of taste? Silmenume and I seem to think the distinctions are important, but we might be blinded by prejudice.

Do the other two CAs have anything equivalent? The aforementioned preference for process or product might qualify, though it doesn't seem quite analogous to me.

John Stepp

I think that the relative importance of the five elements of exploration can vary from one game to another within any of the three agenda. It can perhaps vary most in simulationism, because that is the one in which situation and character can both be significantly de-emphasized.

That is, situation is of paramount importance to narrativist play and to gamist play most of the time; you generally address premise and face challenge in situation. In simulationist play, it doesn't have to matter. Narrativism frequently requires depth of character to address premise; Gamism usually requires emphasis on system to delineate challenge. Thus you have a great deal of situation/character exploration in narrativism and a lot of situation/system exploration in gamism. Simulationism historically has a lot of character exploration, but also has had a lot of system exploration and setting exploration, and even some color exploration (I've not played it, but I think Toon is largely exploration of color sim--don't hold me to the example).

So we've got more variation in the relative emphases on the elements in simulationism because there's less necessity for any one of them to be the focus to achieve the goal (the agendum). However, you do have this variation in emphasis on elements in the other two as well, as between pawn stance gamist play and heavy immersionist character-consistent gamist play for exploration of character--the difference between the knight who can win because he can effectively outfight everyone on the field, and the one who loses because it would violate his honor to strike without first issuing his challenge.

--M. J. Young

I’ve moved this post over from The Hard Question extended as a courtesy to M. J. Young. My apologies for pulling your thread in a direction that did not reflect your interests.

M. J. Young wrote: …characters are tools, and simulationist characters are tools for pursuing discovery.

M. J. Young wrote: If that discovery is setting or color, you could use random rolls to determine what to explore next without doing violence to the game.

M. J. Young wrote: There is simulationist play in which character integrity is paramount to the methods of exploration (usually because character is the object of exploration), and simulationist play in which characters don't even have personalities, because that's not important to what's being explored.

Emphasis mine.

M. J. Young wrote: Remember, there are five elements of exploration, and any creative agenda can address these in any combination…

Vishanti wrote: Sim has a level of prioritization all to itself. WHAT are we exploring? For instance, are we exploring setting in preference to character?

Vishanti wrote: Should we be closely looking at the different Sim priorities to better understand the beast?