OK, so Ben suggested the term "Virtuality" as a synonym for RGFA Simulationism in his Subtyping Sim thread -- which seems to me like a fair moniker. I'd like to talk about Virtuality and its relation to story a bit. I'd refer to my Threefold Simulationism Explained essay as a primer.

So in his Narrativist essay, Ron talks about Ouija Board play. From his description, this appears to be an offshoot of RGFA Simulationism, and is unrelated to the more common Illusionist/Participationist play. As he puts it,

Ron Edwards wrote: Taking this idea to role-playing, the deluded notion is that Simulationist play will yield Story Now play without any specific attention on anyone's part to do so. The primary issue is to maintain the facade that "No one guides the planchette!" The participants must be devoted to the notion that stories don't need authors; they emerge from some ineffable confluence of Exploration per se. It's kind of a weird Illusionism perpetrated on one another, with everyone putting enormous value on maintaining the Black Curtain between them and everyone else. Typically, groups who play this way have been together for a very long time.

My call is, you get what you play for. Can you address Premise this way? Sure, on the monkeys-might-fly-out-my-butt principle. But the key to un-premeditated artistry of this sort (cutup fiction, splatter painting, cinema verite) is to know what to throw out, and role-playing does not include that option, at least not very easily. Participants in Ouija-board play do so through selective remembering. I have observed many such role-players to refer to hours of unequivocally bored and contentious play as "awesome!" given a week or two for mental editing.

Picking up from Narrativism: Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury...

C. Edwards wrote:

John Kim wrote: But there's no obvious logical link between these two. i.e. I can be juiced by moral issues and still stick to in-character play.

Certainly, but if a situation presents itself to where sticking to in-character play doesn't address the moral issue to the player's satisfaction then a decision must be made. The player will lean one way or the other showing, in that instance at least, what the player is prioritizing.

There's lots of gray area there, I think. What are you prioritizing if you alter your character's action to better address the moral issue at hand but still feel that you've remained true to the concept of your character? Personally I think such instances are probably non-decision points as far as GNS is concerned.

Hey John,

When I say "at hand" I'm referring to any moral issue in the game to which a decision point has relevance. Pre-defined, spontaneous, big or little, it doesn't matter. The issue of whether the moral issue is pre-defined or generated by playing in-character isn't the focus here I don't think. It's how you react to the moral issue during play that matters.

A moral issue generated by playing in-character may necessitate fewer decisions of the in-character/Story Now variety when compared to a pre-determined moral issue. But I think that is probably a non-issue too.

At some point, a decision point may present itself that requires an obvious sacrifice of either "in-character" or "Story Now". How the player responds will show the player's priority, for that single decision. That's why an observable instance of play should be at least one to several game sessions in length. GNS is concerned mainly with an overall, big picture kind of diagnosis. It's not concerned with the scale of granularity that were discussing here.

John Kim wrote: I'm leaning with Mike here that Beeg Horseshoe might better explain this. In Revised Beeg Horseshoe Theory, as I understand it, this split shows the difference between High-Fidelity Narrativism and Low-Fidelity Narrativism. Hi-Fi means sticking to the character, but it is still Narrativism. i.e. The player is still enjoying it for Story Now, and is simply engaging in a trade-off between the believability of the story and the tightness of the theme -- both of which are important story qualities.

Now, the methodology of Ouija board play seems to be identical to Virtuality. The difference is that Ouija board players are defined as looking for "Story Now" as their goal, while RGFA Simulationists are not. As a specific example, I'd suggest my Water-Uphill-World campaign, which I discussed last year in the thread Confused over Simulationism + example campaign.

Valamir wrote: are you really saying that you wouldn't have minded in the least if the story that resulted from your Water-uphill campaign had sucked?

If when all was said and done you looked back over the events in play and said "man if this was a movie it would have been more stupid than a double feature of Starship Trooper II and Battlefield Earth" you wouldn't care. You'd have concluded with "what a great game"?

I find that very hard to believe...can you convince me other wise?
...
Maybe I'm just projecting my own assumptions here, but I find it hard to believe that you would have been equally satified if the story had turned out to be crap as long as the play was pure "virtuality".

Valamir wrote: Further I'd be inclined to suspect that if you have managed to produce consistantly good stories using pure "virtuality" techniques, that you probably aren't really using pure "virtuality" techniques. That you're using your exceptional skill as a GM to push here and nudge there to help ensure that the story isn't crap...

C. Edwards wrote: At some point, a decision point may present itself that requires an obvious sacrifice of either "in-character" or "Story Now". How the player responds will show the player's priority, for that single decision.

Hey Doc,

I'm not quite sure what you're asking for, but I'll give it a shot.

The essays are generally concerned about GNS on the macro scale, whereas I'm basically talking about the micro scale of GNS interactions.

When we play, we're constantly making decisions as to the "best" course of action (input into the imaginary space). The definition of "best" depends upon your goals (as a player) at that particular moment. Those goals will support and oppose, to varying degrees, one or more of the three recognized Creative Agendas.

Much of the time, input into the imaginary space will look completely innocuous to an observer (someone who is not the decision maker), even if the decision making process that leads to that input poses a quandary for the decision maker in terms of which CA to promote (note that it is in no way necessary for this to be a process full of GNS terminology). That is why the essays promote an "instance of play" as having a practical length of at least several sessions of play. It may take a good deal of play time to gather the observable data necessary to make any kind of determination regarding overall GNS preference.

Since I've spent a good deal of time examining my own behavior during play, I tend to come at GNS from the perspective of critical self-analysis. By observation of others we can only hope to deduce an overall, broad picture of GNS proclivities that gives us no insight into the detailed internal dialogue that takes place during the act of play. This tends to give the impression that the model deals only in large, absolute demarcations.

People often don't seem to realize that The Big Model, being top-down, isn't going to present them with a personal prescription, diagnosis, or examination of their own very individual style of play. There are far too many variables involved for that to happen. You have to meet the model half way.

I'm interested in a more granular exploration of player goals and decision making that I feel is best served by examining our own internal states during play. Many of the variables that add together to determine our overall GNS preferences can only be fully examined by looking inwards and putting ourselves under the microscope during play.

The critical decision points that we like to point out in theory as representative of generating observable GNS preferences are only a fraction of the number of decision points that, while relevant to the decision maker's internal GNS dialogue, give away nothing of our GNS preferences to an observer. We're dealing not only with the quantity and weight (degree of contrast to another CA) of decision points but also with their placement in a context in the imaginary space that will illuminate their relevance to an observer.

Basically, I'm just saying that The Big Model is possessed of myriad and hidden currents that you may not be aware of unless you dive deep. The gray areas that people like to point to as a failure of the model are there for a reason. They represent areas of complicated interactions between a mulititude of shifting variables.

Well, I think I've pontificated enough for now. Is any of that what you wanted to know? I'm certainly willing to continue discussing this if you have any questions, observations, or input.

-Chris

C. Edwards wrote: At some point, a decision point may present itself that requires an obvious sacrifice of either "in-character" or "Story Now". How the player responds will show the player's priority, for that single decision. That's why an observable instance of play should be at least one to several game sessions in length. GNS is concerned mainly with an overall, big picture kind of diagnosis. It's not concerned with the scale of granularity that were discussing here.

C. Edwards wrote:

John Kim wrote: I'm leaning with Mike here that Beeg Horseshoe might better explain this. In Revised Beeg Horseshoe Theory, as I understand it, this split shows the difference between High-Fidelity Narrativism and Low-Fidelity Narrativism. Hi-Fi means sticking to the character, but it is still Narrativism. i.e. The player is still enjoying it for Story Now, and is simply engaging in a trade-off between the believability of the story and the tightness of the theme -- both of which are important story qualities.

I'm with you here. What we're looking at is a spectrum defined by behavior and decisions up and down a scale. But you still can't escape that you may enounter a decision point that requires that you prioritize either fidelity or Story Now. It won't necessarily be a big trade-off, but it will be there.

Hey John,

John Kim wrote: I think the question was about how character is opposed to story in a larger sense. To me, that is exactly the opposite of how I generally conceive of story outside of role-playing. As I see it is books and movies, story flows from character, and indeed the moral conflict is primarily a tool for exploration of character.

John Kim wrote: But going Hi-Fi doesn't mean a trade-off with Story Now.

C. Edwards wrote:

John Kim wrote: I think the question was about how character is opposed to story in a larger sense. To me, that is exactly the opposite of how I generally conceive of story outside of role-playing. As I see it is books and movies, story flows from character, and indeed the moral conflict is primarily a tool for exploration of character.

During play I may (and have) need to decide if my desire as a player to address a moral issue in a particular way falls within the bounds of how I view my character. I often make the choice to go with my desires as a player and address the moral issue in the way I see fit. Those decisions often appear to the other players to be revealing aspects of the character.

C. Edwards wrote:

John Kim wrote: But going Hi-Fi doesn't mean a trade-off with Story Now.

No, not necessarily. But during play there can be times when the two are at odds. Despite the nice clean theories, in practice we all have our own unique limits as to how much (and what kind of) fidelity we need to keep our sense of verisimilitude afloat. When we throw the goals of the three CA's into the mix, and the various combinations of those CA's that each of us exhibits when we play, there are going to be clashes. Internally among each individual participant and among the participants themselves.

The good point about this model (RBH) is that it at least acknowledges that fidelity is not opposed to story. While moral theme is a quality of story, it is not the only one. Engaging character and rich setting are also qualities of story. The GNS line is that if I trade-off coherently-structured theme for depth and consistency of character, then I am abandoning "Story Now" for some non-story quality. I don't feel this is true. Deep, believable character is a positive quality of story, and just as central to story as moral theme is.

Hiya,

And let's not forget that Mike and I are agreed that his version of the Beeg Horseshoe contains no contradictions to the Big Model, but is arguably a better way of stating it from my attempts.

Best,
Ron

I'd just like to pop in a second and make a statement since, hey, it's my terminology:

I'm getting a wierd vibe from this thread.

I feel like John is saying "I took a walk, and saw some birds."

and Ralph is saying: "Well, if you went to the birdhouse straightaway, you would see more and different birds."

And John is saying: "Yeah, well, I like taking a walk, too..."

So I guess it seems like everyone is talking past each other. (In case the metaphor makes no sense, replace "take a walk" with "virtuality gaming" and "see birds" with "produce story.")

Uhm... I realized that this is my second post like this (everyone get along!) recently. I'm not sure if this is totally kosher so, mods, please contact me if it isn't.

yrs--
--Ben

Ben Lehman wrote: I feel like John is saying "I took a walk, and saw some birds."

and Ralph is saying: "Well, if you went to the birdhouse straightaway, you would see more and different birds."

And John is saying: "Yeah, well, I like taking a walk, too..."

So I guess it seems like everyone is talking past each other. (In case the metaphor makes no sense, replace "take a walk" with "virtuality gaming" and "see birds" with "produce story.")

Hey John,

In previous discussions, some people suggested that PC actions aren't distinguishing features of Creative Agenda. Rather, the issue is what the player is grooving on -- i.e. a Narrativist player will show more signs of satisfaction in the case of moral dilemma. Hence to observe CA, you need to focus on how players nod their heads and smile and such -- not on what happens within the Shared Imaginary Space.

Can you give some examples about what you are talking about here? My impression is that you say that certain moral choices are antithetical to Story Now. That is, if my PC is faced with a moral issue, if he does one thing it would be Story Now -- while if he does something else it is not. I don't see that. To take the example of the Water-Uphill-World campaign, the PCs were inherently faced with dilemmas from being trapped on an alien world. How can I tell which character choices would be Story Now, and which would not?

You're speaking as if GNS is news to me somehow.