While I read a lot here about characters and rules and GMing, I haven't noticed anything about the different types of player.
Amoungst my friends and the locals here we have noticed and named the 4 major types of player. But I was wondering if anyone knows of any different types.
1 - The Power Gamer - "I want the biggest and best whatever it is." Character stats are all important.
2 - The Rules Lawer - "But on page *** it says ******." Doesn't care what the Gm says, the rules say this and thats the way it should be.
3 - The Role Player - "But I need to emote and nail my hand to my head with for angst than is ever going to be called for." Doesn't care about the game system or even the setting very much, but would love to be on stage overacting if they weren't playing your game.
4 - The War Gamer - "How do I kill it!" Just looking for fights and the best way to win them.

Now I know no actual play is this straight forward, and in fact most are shades of grey from the 4 above examples.
But let me know if you what of a player who doesn't fit these at all.
Pagrin :-)

I know a lot of players who don't fit any of those.

Certainly I know players who do; but three of those "types" are typically gamist, and narrativism and simulationism just aren't terribly well represented by the ones you've listed.

Over the decades a lot of "gamer typologies" have been put forward, and they contain probably scores of variants. No less that Robin Laws is said to have published a typology recently. I haven't seen it, but I've heard that it's not terribly useful--that is, you can connect the large number of variant types he identifies with people you know, but it doesn't do anything to help your gaming to do so.

My brother says that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide all the people in the world into two kinds and those who don't. This sort of typing amounts to little more than name-calling, "labeling" the "troublemakers". It doesn't touch what the problems are, nor suggest ways of addressing them.

Might be useful, though, if you were interested in playing Hackmaster.*

--M. J. Young

*It has been suggested that the Hackmaster game book is not the game, but a prop for the game. The real game is that the players are playing stereotypical gamers of the sorts portrayed in Knights of the Dinner Table, and the role playing game rules exist to provide the context for them to express their gamer characters while imagining that their characters are playing characters within the game. Thus my notion is that you could identify such types and use them for character generation of the "outer tier" of Hackmaster play, such that someone could choose to play the power gamer, or the munchkin, or whatever.

M. J. Young wrote: Over the decades a lot of "gamer typologies" have been put forward, and they contain probably scores of variants. No less that Robin Laws is said to have published a typology recently. I haven't seen it, but I've heard that it's not terribly useful--that is, you can connect the large number of variant types he identifies with people you know, but it doesn't do anything to help your gaming to do so.

So, to see how much attention you should pay to structure, perform the following exercise. Give a score to each player, reflecting his apparent interest in structure and storytelling techniques. As with the similar system exercise (p. 11), you should use split scores for players with mixed tastes, and perform whatever other adjustments make sense for your specific group.
Storyteller +3
Power Gamer +1
Specialist +1
Butt Kicker +1
Casual Gamer +1
Method Actor 0
Tactician -3
...

I suspect you might be seeing my posting for being more than was intended. Please understand I am not meaning to be insulting to anyones playing or style of playing (Which, granted having reread my post it might seem that way.) Rather I was actually looking to see if there are other board styles of play which I hadn't listed.
The reason behind this is a few years ago I attended a seminar at a Con where these very models were used to define people, as a lead into improving a persons ability to GM.
Recently I had been thinking about the idea of arranging a similar seminar at a con I currently attend. Hench the need to update and improve on the data.
I also realized after the first posting that I left a type off the list.

5 - The Story teller - "I haven't read anything from your game but I suspect its going to be like this......." Will spin long and sometimes overly complicated plot threads, regardless of what the evidence in the game is pointing toward.
Pagrin :-)

Pagrin wrote: I suspect you might be seeing my posting for being more than was intended. Please understand I am not meaning to be insulting to anyones playing or style of playing (Which, granted having reread my post it might seem that way.) Rather I was actually looking to see if there are other board styles of play which I hadn't listed.

The reason behind this is a few years ago I attended a seminar at a Con where these very models were used to define people, as a lead into improving a persons ability to GM.

I've seen t his topic in a few places before and I'd like to contribute a possiblity that occurs to me. Typical 'problem gamer' typology is a classification of symptoms or symptomatic behavior of CA incoherence. These types wouldn't even be seen as problematic if they are participating in a group with coherent and aligned (or at least agreed) CA that agrees with the proclivities of the type.

I'm sure my observation is nothing new.

Trevis

Trevis: Of course, you are quite right. A better topic for a panel than "What to do with the problem gamer?" would be something more like "How to I form a coherent social contract with my gaming group?" Of course, a bunch of people are probably going to be scared away by "social contract" or just think you are being pretentious, so you might need a better way to word it.

This is probably obvious to a lot of people, but as Ron emphasizes in the Gamism essay, GNS incoherence is just one kind of incoherence and there are others. In the typology that Pagin gives, three types are Gamist (The Power Gamer, The Rules Lawer, and The War Gamer) and two types are Narativist (The Role Player and the Storyteller). However, with the exception of The War Gamer, all of these are pretty much inherently dysfunctional. Even in a purely gamist game with all gamist players, Rules Lawers and Powergamers are going to annoy the other players. And even in a purely Narativist game with all Nar players, The Role Player and the Storyteller are going to really annoy the other players, especially the "Storyteller" since he is hogging the spotlite and effectually deprotagonizing everyone else. This is purely a guess, but I would be willing to wager that whoever came up with this typology is probably very Sim (even if he doesn't think of himself that way). This is because each of these categories are examples of their Creative Agenda (Gamist for the first three and Nar for the other two) terribly misunderstood and stereotyped at their very worst.

I dunno. I don't find this question to be too offensive. After all, there are those who play this way. I've run across these stereotypical gamers in my travels. Then again, I'm using electronic media for players to play my games, so I'm practically inviting those who are:

A. Looking for a videogame. They expect to be rwarded for whatever they're version of "winning" is. A lot of people expect this actually, not just the powergamers. A lot of roleplayers expect rewards for roleplaying. I pointed out that the exciting storyline that resulted from their roleplay was the group's reward...they weren't buying it. I've met players who selflessly sacrifice themselves for the group only because they expect the GM to show compassion and ressurect them or make them gods.

B. Looking for a stage. This isn't something I consider too bad actually, as I look at RPG's as a medium for group stroytelling. But then, you have the player who consideres the other players to be the supporting cast of his or her personal epic. There have been games designed around this mechanic so we all know someone who plays this way. Roleplayers get sensitive about this one because hey, who hasn't gotten really deep in their characters, or had their GM mojo working (yeah, GM's will get lumped in here too if they handle their players too roughly)? It's those players who use roleplaying as a way of controlling all the characters in the game instead of just their own who have created the sterotypical "primadonna" roleplayer.

C. Working the system. Powergamers get lumped under this one too because they're usually only attached to the rules insofar as they benefit them. But c'mon, everyone knows a gameref. They're generally (when they're not pimping the rules for every advantage) just players who see these games, with their dice and their charts, as games of chance. They look at games from a different angle. The numbers and rules excite them moreso than the storytelling and character development. They're not bad players, they're just playing the wrong game.

I think Ron mentions something like this in one of those GNS articles, but after nearly three months, it still sails clear over my head.

D. Generals. Hey, with detailed weapon diagrams, complex troop formations, kinetic damage charts, energy absorption scales against composite armors, and all the other Clancyesque erratta that goes into some games out there, it's hard not to start thinking of yourself as Patton.

These players aren't bad players either, they're just thinking that, "If this is how the game is played, then these are things I have to know, this is how I must approach it." Come to think of it. this is generally the catalyst behind most of those stereotypes. Two people looking at the same thing and seeing two completely different things. If I had a better grasp of it, I'd make another reference to the GNS theorem here.

So while oversimplifying certain approaches to gameplay might strike some as offensive, lets remember that some of these simplified viewpoints lead back to concrete and established practices. It's just like when you get a poorly written review and you have to pick through it to see what useful critiques might be hidden in the self-indulgent crap that's been dumped all over your hard work.

...not that I've ever had a bad experience with a reviewer or anything...uhhh, heh heh.

Henri wrote: ... two types are Narativist (The Role Player and the Storyteller).

Henri wrote: This is purely a guess, but I would be willing to wager that whoever came up with this typology is probably very Sim (even if he doesn't think of himself that way).

Pagrin wrote: While I read a lot here about characters and rules and GMing, I haven't noticed anything about the different types of player.

3 - The Role Player - "But I need to emote and nail my hand to my head with for angst than is ever going to be called for." Doesn't care about the game system or even the setting very much, but would love to be on stage overacting if they weren't playing your game.

The initial post didn't offend me either. However, it did occur to me that such lists of stereotypes, as well as (hope I don't offend anyone) things like trying to assign players a spot under GNS theory, make it easy to overlook the complexities and individuality of a player. We need to be careful of finding one trait in a player that validates a particular classification ("Power Gamer," or "Narrativist", for instance) and then look no further.

Probably a no-brainer. But it just occurs to me that I don't really know what classification I fall under in GNS, if not all of them, and I don't know if any of the classifications offered up at the beginning of this thread suit me either. For instance, the thread I started over in Actual Play about how I disagreed with a GM on resolving a combat might make me look like I'm very into tactics and winning. But, in another Amber game I play, in combat I typically just say, "Charis [my character] becomes a whirling dervish of death." It depends a lot on the circumstance, my character, the GM, and the kind of game the GM is running.

This mostly occurs to me because, in the aforementioned thread, I felt very much like I probably came off as someone not interested in story but interested in "winning" or "things being done right," which generally isn't true. It was unique to that particular campaign and situation. I wouldn't want to be judged, labeled, and categorized by that one incident, nor, I think, would many others.

That said, I do know lots of people who do seem to fit those categories, even after I've given them a bunch of benefit of the doubt and tried not to take my first impression to the bank. I think we all know there's a certain amount of truth in stereotypes. We just need to be careful about assuming too quickly a person falls into one.

Henri wrote: This is purely a guess, but I would be willing to wager that whoever came up with this typology is probably very Sim (even if he doesn't think of himself that way). This is because each of these categories are examples of their Creative Agenda (Gamist for the first three and Nar for the other two) terribly misunderstood and stereotyped at their very worst.

timfire wrote: In other words, playing 'in-character' reinforces character stereotypes, which is a pretty Sim ideal. (Somewhere else someone commented that that Sim tends to reinforce stereotypes, but Nar likes to break character stereotypes.)

I'm not sure that the sterotypes are at all related to CA. CA shouldn't be classed as a stereotype as in a player being or not being 'gamist.' Once I understood the difference in CA's I've found that while I enjoy Narrativist play a great deal I also get a kick out of gamist play and can indeed feel very satisfied with Sim play (high concept usually.) Most people have put together the 'way you are supposed to play these games' from past expeirence. Either constructing straight out of rule books or being taught by joining other groups. Most of the groups I was ever involved with in my history contributed to my ideas of play but I now realize that many of them were either terribly incoherent by habit or the system they were using was incoherent or a combination of the two.

I would say that if any of these behaviors are standing out in play then it needs be addressed by figuring out what that type of play is really about. If it does have to do with an incoherent CA or merely with a players background (or maybe the person does have some pathological need to control the dynamic in a dysfunctional fashion) in any case it should be addressed. My point above was just to point out that one source of these dysfunctional behaviors can be CA incoherence.

But to make it clear a person is never a GAmist, a Simulationist or a Narrativist... It isn't a gene. They may simply play that way in a particular group or game. Maybe consistantly, maybe not.

Trevis

Doctor Xero wrote:

Henri wrote: This is purely a guess, but I would be willing to wager that whoever came up with this typology is probably very Sim (even if he doesn't think of himself that way). This is because each of these categories are examples of their Creative Agenda (Gamist for the first three and Nar for the other two) terribly misunderstood and stereotyped at their very worst.

I find this statement more than a little hypocritical, for it attacks the typology as being stereotyped and then indulges in one of the popular anti-Simulationist stereotypes.

Hello,

This thread needs to develop focus fast. Pagrin, for that to happen, you should consider what you really want from this thread. For instance, why bother typing fellow role-players at all? A lot of people (I am not one) think it's not useful, and some think it's even insulting. Just so everyone can understand you, what service does classifying role-players really provide?

Again, I do think it's useful. But I want to know if you do, and in what way.

And all of you, drop this wrangling about who's stereotyping whom, and even more, drop all the GNS references. I can't imagine how anyone would think they actually are going to make sense to Pagrin. Your job is to help Pagrin or find something else to do.

Best,
Ron

My I have opened up a storm haven't I. umm Sorry again if anyone was offended but that was not me intent. After all I am a role player as well.
As I said in my second posting I am looking at running a seminar about being a better GM and being a better role-player. In general term.
In order to do this you have to look at what is wanted out of a GM or player and what is not.
The easiest way to do this, is to creat simple sterotypes of the different types of people who play and look at eash one of them.
Now I know the examples I listed might have caused a fuss with some of you, but when I wrote them I was exagerating them to make them stand out. I have never met anyone who is entirely one of those types, but I know many how are shades of grey between them.
I am also aware that over the corse of time different forms of gaming have developed. When these sterotypes were created Freeforming didn't exist, neither did Multiforming, CCGs, and a lot of small styles of game, that have come and gone.
So in order to develop the notes to make a more up to date version of the seminars, I though I'd ask around to see it anyone has notice any other trends within players.
I don't and won't claim to know all there is to the different forms of gaming because I haven't tried them all. This doesn't mean they should be cast aside and not included in the seminar.
For those who felt from my first posting I was insulting or trying to promote one form over another, or for that matter just trying to stir up trouble. You are quite right to have defended yourselves. Indeed if the table was turned I would be one of the first to the flame war.
However as I said this was not my intent. If I offened, I'm sorry. I tend to type as I think, not after I think. :-)
Also please note that while I will use these models in the seminar notes, they will aslo be protrayed with a sense of humor to it, so as not to offend on the day.
As for focus. What I'm looking for is examples of people (Sterotypes) which don't fit me examples. (real or in general terms, either is fine.)
Pagrin :-)