I have been recently thinking more on the nature and interrelation of CAs and Techniques in the context of my recent essay.

I've been thinking a great deal on the idea that the road taken to arrive at a destination is frequently mistaken for that destination. As an example, mistaking Illusionism for Simulationism because Illusionist techniques are frequently associated with with Simulationism. Or mistaking Dramatism for a Creative Agenda when really it refers to a specific set of Techniques used to achieve a Creative Agenda. In other words, Dramatism is a road to an Agenda, not an Agenda in itself.

In processing these thoughts its become apparent to me the importance of having a clear understanding of what a Creative Agenda is and what a Technique is and how they relate to each other. You can see some of my thoughts on this in this post. To summarize I think its essential to have a clear and concise definition for each level or tier; and this definition should describe what each item in that tier is about...i.e. what distinguishes that tier from other tiers.


Along the way my efforts in this direction made it very easy for me to distinguish between Simulationism as a CA and Illusionism as a Technique. But when I started thinking about Narrativism things got a little murky. Then I hit on an idea that demurked it for me, but which essentially challenges the very nature of Narrativism.

In this post Marco indicates that since illusionism is a technique one should be able to play Narrativism in a purely Illusionist style, because if done properly, the players wouldn't know. I almost replied "no, illusionism is incompatable with Narrativism because Narrativism requires players empowered to address Premise" (Gareth made essentially this same point shortly thereafter).

I didn't press submit on that reply because it hit me that Marco was right. IF, in my mind, I have clearly articulated Illusionism as a Technique, and IF the tiers are separate and distinct, then it SHOULD be possible to apply any Technique to any CA. Clearly some combinations of Techniques will work better than others, but there really shouldn't be any that are simply absolutely incompatable period. If there is then there is too much overlap and either the Technique has been erroneously defined to include CA specific elements, or the CA has been erroneously defined to include Technique specific elements.


Then I thought...isn't player empowerment really a category of Techniques? Techniques that would include Director Stance, Author Stance, Kickers, various IIEE arrangements, and a variety of other things? Narrativist play might use any or all of these (or others not listed) to achieve a level of player empowerment that allows Premise to be addressed.

Premise CANNOT be addressed without some level of Player Empowerment. But Player Empowerment methods (whichever are used) are Techniques. So IF addressing Premise is the defining feature of Narrativism and IF addressing Premise requires Player Empowerment, then we have a situation where the tiers are overlapping...which in my mind is a huge problem.

Things that are irrefutably Techniques are being defined as being part of a Creative Agenda. If I wouldn't accept this with regards to Simulationism and Techniques like Illusionism (a category of Techniques itself). Then I can't very well accept this situation for Narrativism.

Player Empowerment methods are Techniques. They belong in the Technique tier and should not be part of any definition of a Creative Agenda nor should they be required for the definition of a Creative Agenda to be fulfilled. Therefor, Player Empowerment must be removed from Narrativism.

Narrativism must be defined in such a way that it is a functional Creative Agenda using Player Empowerment Techniques or without Player Empowerment Techniques.

But its been established that one can't address Premise without some level of Player Empowerment. Any example offered in the past has been explained as being not Narrativistic addressing of Premise but adhering to established theme (which has been called Simulationist in the past. I disagree that it is Simulationist, but clearly it isn't Narrativist either.)

So if you can't address Premise without Player Empowerment, and if Player Empowerment is a collection of Techniques, and if you can't overlap tiers and combine CAs and Techniques...then...

Addressing Premise cannot be a Creative Agenda.


Interesting says I...pretty radical...lets see where it leads.

Some of my recent thoughts have been influenced by the discussion around the 3D model idea.

In that thread the idea was put forth that Narrativism was really the combination of Theme with Decentralized Control. I questioned that this idea was missing the notion of Premise...but I think my above chain of thought helps reconcile this.


What then is the Creative Agenda we're currently calling Narrativism really? Since the current definition includes Techniques within it, it hasn't been distilled down to its essential core. What is that essential core, and what should we call it?

Theme. Theme is the essential core of the Creative Agenda. Ultimately after all is said and done, Theme is what Narrativists wish to wind up with. It is also what Dramatists want to wind up with. The difference lies in the combination of Techniques these players are willing to take to get there.

In other words, the problem I pointed out at the beginning of this thread, that of mistaking the road for the destination. Addressing Premise is not the destination. Theme is the destination. Addressing Premise is the road that Narrativists take to get to Theme. Illusionism (et.al.) is the road that Dramatists take to get to Theme.

These labels do not refer to Creative Agendas. They refer to a combined package of a Creative Agenda and a collection of Techniques commonly used to get to that Creative Agenda. This is what all of the "Subsets" referred to in the main GNS essays.

So Narrativism is not a Creative Agenda. The style of play we call Narrativism is a skewer that passes through a Creative Agenda and spears a number of Techniques. Dramatism is a skewer that passes through the same Creative Agenda and spears a different collection of Techniques. Niether is the essential core of the Agenda.


My definition of Creative Agenda from my essay is "the player's response to in game conflict". What then is the Creative Agenda that both Narrativism and Dramatism is skewering? What is the response to conflict?

I think its ultimately the Agenda of Theme. I'd call it "story" which I think is more correct but we all know what a bugaboo that word is. The "Themeatist" player (man, that word sux) will view conflict as an opportunity to pursue / follow / illustrate Theme. The techniques a Narrativist will use to do this differ dramatically from the techniques a Dramatist will use, but ultimately they are after the same goal...just with completely incompatable methods.


Similarly Virtualism I think can probably be described as being a Skewer that passes through the Simulationist Agenda. I'd be interested in hearing more specifics on which combination of Techniques best support Virtualism. I suspect that Purist for System and High Concept are likely also skewers that pass through Simulation and spear a different combination of Techniques.

Edited to add: I think that the Virtualism skewer likely spears many of the same player empowerment (i.e. free from railroading and Illusion) techniques that the Narrativism skewer does...which is probably why there's been significant back and forth on whether certain games described by Marco and John Kim are Sim or Nar.


A fairly radical departure...but at this point I'm seeing a lot of utility here.

Valamir wrote: IF, in my mind, I have clearly articulated Illusionism as a Technique, and IF the tiers are separate and distinct, then it SHOULD be possible to apply any Technique to any CA. Clearly some combinations of Techniques will work better than others, but there really shouldn't be any that are simply absolutely incompatable period. <emphasis added by me>

Ralph

Very interesting I think I almost went blind when reading it. I have a couple of questions though of I that will make some sense.

First, much of your argument weighs on Illusionism as an example of a Technique and the idea that any technique should be usable with an CA? Basically then, can you use Illusionism as a Technique for Theme and can you use all other Techniques with Theme as well? Obviously I am not asking you to go through every Technique and match it against every CA, but I would think ingeneral that Illusionism itself and the other techniques need to all fit in the same way with Theme as you suggest they do with Sim and Gamism.

Second, do these Skewers in Theme have comparable Skewers in G & S. You mention virtualism for Sim but is there an example for Gamism OR are Skewers even necessary for CA? That is some CA's have Skewers but it's not necassary for the CA to have.

There is a great deal to digest here and re-read and read back so the above are just 2 quick observations.


Sean

Hey Tim, actually I've argued pretty strenuously elsewhere that Illusionist techniques are quite common for Gamist Play. In fact, I think that may well be their most common useage.

1) The use of the Illusionist technique may be completely seperate from the points of Step on Up. In other words, the Gamist players could well embrace Illusionist / Participationist GM techniques as a way of teleporting them from one interesting challenge to the next without having to waste time in between figuring out what to do next.

2) The use of Illusionist techniques doesn't invalidate the Step on Up if it is used at the point of challenge. The GMs use of such techniques could well be part of the victory or loss conditions of the challenge. i.e. "We're so good, the GM had to manipulate the combat to make it a challenge and we still kicked its ass" (victory) or "We completely screwed up the encounter with the Frost Giants, the GM had to fudge a few rolls to save our characters" (loss).

In the loss condition, Step on Up has been achieved because there was a challenge and the player failed. The loss condition for Step on Up doesn't have to be Loss = Character Death. It could well simply be Loss = GM had to save us. Certainly less hard core, but still valid step on up.

Further the step on up might be Player vs Player, so the GM having to save one player's bacon while not having to do so for another player can equally be seen as victory/loss conditions.

ADGBoss wrote: First, much of your argument weighs on Illusionism as an example of a Technique and the idea that any technique should be usable with an CA? Basically then, can you use Illusionism as a Technique for Theme and can you use all other Techniques with Theme as well? Obviously I am not asking you to go through every Technique and match it against every CA, but I would think ingeneral that Illusionism itself and the other techniques need to all fit in the same way with Theme as you suggest they do with Sim and Gamism.

Second, do these Skewers in Theme have comparable Skewers in G & S. You mention virtualism for Sim but is there an example for Gamism OR are Skewers even necessary for CA? That is some CA's have Skewers but it's not necassary for the CA to have.

I'll just drop my two cents on the possible pragmatic outcomes this new view (which takes into account the ideas exposed in the New 3D model and Lee Short's What GNS is about) could generate.

As a total n00b in GNS and other rpg-theory related stuff, I think that the separating of CA and Techniques could help to make the whole model much clearer and easier to grasp.

The huge problem I encountered with the current GNS articles is that they are really long and complicated to read.
If you break up the descriptions of GNS into separate points, one could begin with the basic CA (now much shorter to read), then continue on with Techniques, and finally the rest of the articles (History, etc.)

The general picture comes along much quicker, and experienced "theorists" can refer with ease to precise parts of the model.


Now I do have a question on your essay itself:
Is there really a hierarchical arrangement between the different blocks? (two being clearly defined, others could probably be added)
Is CA definetly more "fundamental" than Technique, ie. does CA define/allow for Techniques or is the other way round also possible?


Hope this can be some food for thought ;)

Ralph,

Rather than discovering that narrativism isn't an agenda, I think you've just proved that not all techniques are universally applicable. And what's wrong with that?

Alan wrote: Ralph,

Rather than discovering that narrativism isn't an agenda, I think you've just proved that not all techniques are universally applicable. And what's wrong with that?

Valamir wrote:
2) The use of Illusionist techniques doesn't invalidate the Step on Up if it is used at the point of challenge. The GMs use of such techniques could well be part of the victory or loss conditions of the challenge. i.e. "We're so good, the GM had to manipulate the combat to make it a challenge and we still kicked its ass" (victory) or "We completely screwed up the encounter with the Frost Giants, the GM had to fudge a few rolls to save our characters" (loss).

Valamir wrote: Hey Tim, actually I've argued pretty strenuously elsewhere that Illusionist techniques are quite common for Gamist Play. In fact, I think that may well be their most common useage.

I also wanted to say, I've understood "addressing Premise" to basically mean "creating Theme," so to me, it looks like you're just arguing for a change in terminology. Do you see a significant difference between the concepts of "addressing Premise" and "creating/whatever Theme?"

I am really excited about your premise (no pun intended), Ralph. This thread seems to have the most potential of any I've read over the last several months for really tamping down some greater distinctions within the three-fold model of the Creative Agenda.

What other approaches can you perceive in your new distinction? Why is "pursuing a theme" the Agenda? Isn't this position present in both Gamism and Simulationism? Story Now seems to be different from the Thematic element of your claim.

I'm still a bit foggy and trying to muddle through, but I do like where you're trying to go (if indeed you haven't already gotten there!) :)

Valamir wrote: 2) The use of Illusionist techniques doesn't invalidate the Step on Up if it is used at the point of challenge. The GMs use of such techniques could well be part of the victory or loss conditions of the challenge. i.e. "We're so good, the GM had to manipulate the combat to make it a challenge and we still kicked its ass" (victory) or "We completely screwed up the encounter with the Frost Giants, the GM had to fudge a few rolls to save our characters" (loss).

Hi Ralph -

I wonder if this isn't a glass half-full/half-empty thing. I agree with you that Narrativism is often discussed in terms of particuar techniques, and your conclusion follows from that. But on the other hand many past discussions have also taken pains to boil things down to essentials, where something like 'theme' or 'moral/emotional charge' (or, actually, 'premise') gets pretty clearly articulated as 'the part of Narrativist play that really matters'.

I feel like I was bringing up some of these same points a few months ago, though not with the same level of expertise you and Mike bring to the table, but a variety of people persuaded me that they weren't relevant. Maybe I was wrong to be so persuaded; but if you think about CA in terms of what the players are trying to get out of play, I wonder if this doesn't turn into a kind of 'say it for yourself moment' which strips Nar down to its essentials rather than dwelling on the many intensively Nar-facilitating techniques which some Forge regulars both favor and have developed?

Functional Illusionism in Gamism: The player takes a risk which is ballsy but is not likely to result in death. Things go horribly wrong and the character is sliding down a slope towards water that will kill him. The GM secretly determines that she does not want the character to die.

She resolves to call for rolls (DEX, Climbing, whatever) each time narrating the character closer and closer to the water--but the character, assuming the player ever makes a roll, will not reach it.

The player makes the second roll (believing that a last-chance before death) and everyone is happy. Gamist cred has been lost or gained. The character is still alive. The GM doesn't have to worry about having miss-judged the risks or having an annoyed player.

But if it ever comes out, the player might object.*

Narrativist Techniques: If player-choice (what I think Mike called Player Input in his 3D schema) is considered a technique (and I think it should be using the Big Theory model) then what is described as Narrativist play is simply a preference for theme with the Player-Input-Dial turned all the way up.

A mode of play for which there is no agreed on GNS term would be the same preference for theme with the PI dial turned down or part-way down. This might be Dramatism. It might be Participationism--neither actually fit, however.

What that's really closest to is the standard take on GNS Sim (wherein there is a "point" to the game or a GM's story and players are expected to pretty much adhere to it).

-Marco
* Illusionism is a tough one since, in pure form, you never know it's there unless you catch the GM doing it and then, if you aren't pissed about it, the game is declared to have been participationism.

Valamir wrote: No, what I'm proposing is that Creating Theme isn't the Agenda. The desire for the resultant story to have a theme is the Agenda. Creating Theme / Addressing Premise is one way of accomplishing that. Reinforcing a predetermined theme through adhering to standard genre tropes would be another way of accomplishing that.

Marco wrote:
But if it ever comes out, the player might object.*

* Illusionism is a tough one since, in pure form, you never know it's there unless you catch the GM doing it and then, if you aren't pissed about it, the game is declared to have been participationism.

If the players are throwing down everything they have and the SIS is adjusted only according to "the GM's story" the players will likely cry railroading.

Valamir wrote:
No, what I'm proposing is that Creating Theme isn't the Agenda. The desire for the resultant story to have a theme is the Agenda.

contracycle wrote:
It is frankly none of the GM's business whether my character lives or dies. If we did not agree to Participationism, then the GM is cheating and this will likely cause a ruckus as you recognise. And despite your sarcasm, the distinction between consent and decepetion is highly relevant. It is precisely why people feel more than just loss if they are defrauded, but also insult. I find this blind-spot surprising from someone so interested in the allocation of blame.

Valamir wrote:
IF, in my mind, I have clearly articulated Illusionism as a Technique, and IF the tiers are separate and distinct, then it SHOULD be possible to apply any Technique to any CA.

Valamir wrote:
Premise CANNOT be addressed without some level of Player Empowerment. But Player Empowerment methods (whichever are used) are Techniques.

Alan wrote:
Indeed, but consider that no form of role-playing is possible without some level of player empowerment. A game without empowerment is the players sitting around a table, listening to the GM tell them what their character's do and experience. All RPGs use this particular technique: it's a matter of degree, not absense or presence.

Alan wrote:

Valamir wrote:
No, what I'm proposing is that Creating Theme isn't the Agenda. The desire for the resultant story to have a theme is the Agenda.

So, you're saying that the narrativist agenda is to end up, when the session is done, with a story that has theme?

That's not my experience. I realize that this is just one subjective anecdote, but I shall provide it anyway - because I feel strongly about it. I am not satisfied if the final result of play demonstrates theme. One can almost always find theme when looking back on a series of events.

What I find satisfying is being able to play moments of thematic importance as they happen - in the moment - Now! And I want to choose how they get expressed - not in some future result - but now. I don't think this is a subcategory if the narrativist preference, I think it's the defining feature.

Valamir wrote:
I'm not changing the Narrativist Agenda here. I'm just relocating it to a skewer through the levels of the model, rather than a layer of the model.

Valamir wrote:
Yes, the agenda part is to wind up with theme. But the Technique part is all about HOW you wind up with that theme...which is what your anecdote is about.

Alan wrote:
Part of a dramtist agenda may be to wind up with theme sometime during play.

Alan wrote:

Valamir wrote:
I'm not changing the Narrativist Agenda here. I'm just relocating it to a skewer through the levels of the model, rather than a layer of the model.

You've confused agenda with realization. I might have an agenda for story now, but be faced with techniques that don't satisfy it very well. No one ever said that a creative agenda is defined by how well it gets realized.

Valamir wrote:
Yes, the agenda part is to wind up with theme. But the Technique part is all about HOW you wind up with that theme...which is what your anecdote is about.

This overlooks a significant distinction:

Part of a dramtist agenda may be to wind up with theme sometime during play. A narrativist agenda is to have it _now_. That's not a "how do you get it" that's a goal or standard used to prioritize choices.

Marco,

The distinction is that a narrativist agenda does not require that the events taken as a whole have any particular structure. The narrativist agenda wants to address premise now - in every play decision the player makes.

Ralph,

Valamir wrote:
Both Narrativism and Dramatism can be said to have "theme at the end" so to speak...that's not anything I've invented, that's part of Narrativism since at least the big essay.

The difference has always been about how that theme gets set. ...
My point is that Addressing Premise is one road to the destination of theme.

Alan wrote: Marco,

The distinction is that a narrativist agenda does not require that the events taken as a whole have any particular structure. The narrativist agenda wants to address premise now - in every play decision the player makes.

Valamir wrote: You have a destination (your priority) and you have the road you will take to get there (your techniques). There are many different roads that may get you to your destination...some work better than others and some boil down to preference. There are other roads that will almost surely not get you to your destination.

Valamir wrote: Both Narrativism and Dramatism can be said to have "theme at the end" so to speak...that's not anything I've invented, that's part of Narrativism since at least the big essay. The difference has always been about how that theme gets set. With narrativism the theme gets established because players addressed premise in play. With Dramatism the theme gets established because players adhered to various genre tropes and conventions during play designed to lead to a specific theme. This is straight from the essays.

John Kim wrote: I'm going to nitpick a little here about calling this "Dramatism". (This goes for Marco and others, too.) Dramatism is not established Forge-specific term, and Dramatism in the rgfa Threefold was much broader than this. It isn't clear to me, at least, what people mean by "Dramatism". If we want to define a style based on pre-established theme and/or genre, maybe we could call it "Genre-ism" or somesuch?

John Kim wrote:
I think you have a good distinction here, but I'm a little wary about how it is being cast here. In terms of your road analogy, it is possible to care more about how you get there than where you are going. But the terms "priority" and "technique" seem to obscure that, by implying that it is the destination that is the priority.

I'm going to nitpick a little here about calling this "Dramatism". (This goes for Marco and others, too.) Dramatism is not established Forge-specific term, and Dramatism in the rgfa Threefold was much broader than this. It isn't clear to me, at least, what people mean by "Dramatism". If we want to define a style based on pre-established theme and/or genre, maybe we could call it "Genre-ism" or somesuch?

Hi Ralph,

Let me clear some things up here.

I disagree with the basic assumption that a narrativist creative agenda requires certain techniques. I think that I've always separated what one's agenda is, from how it is realized. It seems obvious to me from first principles.

I do agree that that requirement can be read from some of Ron's writings, particularly his gloss of Story Now. However, when I read that gloss, I take it as a round-about way of describing how the narrativist agenda is _best_ acheived, not as a rigid definition. I think the word choice of "required" is unfortunate.

--------

Here's my own explaination of the narrativist agenda:

The agenda prioritizes getting the juice by making a meaningfull decision in the moment. A decision is only meaningfull when there's a value standard to judge it by and, in fact, some consequences drawn from that judgement. I would assert that "making a meaningfull decision in the moment" and addressing premise are the same thing.

Now you might say: therefore "Premise" must be a technique. No, it is a situation - a confluence of fantasy elements (character, in game situation, setting), a value standard, and potential consequences.

Nor is "addressing premise" a technique. It is an act done when premise is available.

We might use techniques to make sure these opportunities to address premise happen often, but we can also just _find_ the opportunties in the flow of fantasy events in any role-play.


Hence addressing premise is something we seek, not a technique for reaching a goal.

------

Marco:

About theme and addressing premise:

Theme is a murky word, but the further I delve into fiction theory, the better I understand it.

Theme is not the premise, the value standard or the consequences. Theme emerges from a series of events that address a value standard in various situations and from various perspectives. In an rpg, theme may be produced by a series of events which address premise. I think of it as the byproduct of the real activity.

Now you might say: therefore "Premise" must be a technique. No, it is a situation - a confluence of fantasy elements (character, in game situation, setting), a value standard, and potential consequences. We might use techniques to make sure these confluences happen often, but we can also just _find_ them in the flow of fantasy events in any role-play.

Valamir wrote: [The Skewer that goes through Social, Exploration, CA, and Techniques could place the actual priority in different places along the skewer. In fact, as I mentioned above, discussions of the relative importance to the player of Techniques vs Agenda would be an interesting avenue to pursue.

I think that one could easily make a case that for alot of gamers the Creative Agenda isn't really their real priority at all. the Turku school for instance seems to me to prioritize the technique of immersion above anything and everything else. Its the Technique that's most important.

Valamir wrote:
So Narrativism is not a Creative Agenda. The style of play we call Narrativism is a skewer that passes through a Creative Agenda and spears a number of Techniques. Dramatism is a skewer that passes through the same Creative Agenda and spears a different collection of Techniques. Niether is the essential core of the Agenda.

I've been pleasantly encouraged by the ease at which a number of issues that we've wrestled with in various places fall rather nicely into place with only a relatively few minor tweaks.

Really the only thing that I've changed is to define CA in terms of conflict, define Instance of Play in terms of conflict cycle and determined to eliminate the overlap between techniques and CAs.

I agree that CA as I've framed it is really more appropriate called Conflict Approach, and the player's agenda is more properly defined by the skewer.

Conflict Approaches become simply Theme, Challenge, and Internal Causality. Players thus view conflicts as opportunities to illustrate thematic elements, opportunities for challenge or conflict, or opportunities to illustrate what "should" happen.

All of the various subsets of Gamism, Narrativism, and Simulationism thus become Skewers.

This visualization allows us to more easily keep the full model in mind when talking about play styles and gives us a starting point to discuss what aspects of Social Contract, what Exploration Dial Settings, and what Techniques might combine to deliver a particular play experience.

Valamir wrote:
I agree that Premise is situation, or more precisely Premise is found in certain situations. But I do think that addressing that situation requires techniques.

Hi Ralph,

In this model, how do you define "Technique"? Because it seems trivially easy for me to call, say, "measurable/discernable challenge result" a Technique that must be used in order for Gamism to happen, creating the same problem for Gamism that you posit for Nar/Empowerment.

Seems to me the core issue here is in distinguishing Technique from CA, but that the way those are distinguished is not by saying they don't overlap. Rather we must learn to recognize what is simply a Technique in use and what is an Agenda being realized. I agree this is a hard/confusing thing, but it is the core of GNS as a whole: recognizing that all play worth discussing in depth exhibits a CA, and learning how to seperate out that CA from everything else (i.e., Techniques, System, Explored Elements . . . maybe others?)

But you may be defining Techniques in a new way (or I missed a tweak that came up over the last few months - been away from the Forge a while, as you know). Because unless there's some special definition, I think it would always be possible to define a Technique that is "unique" to any particular CA-wording we come up with. We have to distinguish them in a different way because we can't keep 'em from overlapping. At least, that's how it looks to me at the moment,

Gordon

Dang, this has exploded.

I'm going to caveat that "Illusionism" is not "a technique" it is a combination of techniques which combine to create a referee style. "Participationism" is a closely related referee style which uses most of the same techniques. "Trailblazing" is a distinct referee style which uses mostly different techniques, and "Bass Playing" is different yet again. Each of these combines many techniques to the objective of a certain style of refereeing. The techniques used in illusionism are reasonably termed "illusionist techniques" and are used in varying degrees in each of the agenda. For example, I observed long ago and repeatedly since that the "moving clue" technique Ron recommends for facilitating narrativist play in a mystery adventure is an illusionist technique. Thus it is clear that illusionist techniques are compatible with narrativism, just as they are with gamism and simulationism. The question is not whether such techniques can be used, but how they can be used.

Otherwise, I agree that there's a serious problem with the notion that narrativism doesn't exist if the players corporately are not creating theme. Given that the referee is one of the players, if theme is created through play I'm not entirely certain why there is a suggested "minimum threshold" for the distribution of credibility to the other players, other than that there must be a minimum threshold in all play for there to be actual exploration occurring. Illusionism is problematic, in that by definition the players have less credibility than they believe. Participationism, however, is significant in this regard. If the character players have agreed that their part in the game will be to contribute color, and that the referee player will weave the story as it progresses, would it not be possible for this to be a narrativist address of premise? The alternative would seem to be to insist either that every participant in the game must make a specific minimum contribution to the development of the theme, or that there is a specific maximum amount of control over the theme permitted to any one player in narrativist play, neither of which seems to be as much about creative agendum as it is about technique. So I agree there. I'm not sure that means that "narrativism" as defined is mistaken; I think that narrativism as applied is mistaken.

I also think that Illusionism is a red herring in all these discussions; it should not be produced as an example of any agendum, because although it appears to be functional play it incorporates an inherent dysfunction: the system itself is not what the character-players believe it to be. To reference a concurrent discussion, the players think they have the power to break the vase by knocking it off the balcony, but they don't have that power--but the referee is not going to let them know they don't have that power. In illusionism, players have no credibility; the referee dictates the content of the shared imagined space, and the players accept it, making comments that have no functional impact on that shared imagined space. When the vase lands in the swimming pool and is unbroken, the players think it was just their bad luck, when it was actually entirely because the referee wanted the vase to remain intact and it didn't matter how he did it as long as the players didn't catch on that they lacked the power to break it. Since illusionism gives the players no credibility, exploration for them is limited to listening to the referee's story being told to them as if it were a story they were creating. Now, whether this is functional play in any agendum is doubtful. Yet I think it could be dysfunctional play in any agendum--you could have illusionist narrativism, illusionist gamism, and illusionist simulationism, in which the players think they've created something but unbeknownst to them all of their input has been negated and used to achieve the referee's ends. It doesn't matter what your agendum is. When you discover that none of your choices ever make any difference to anything that matters to you, either you shift to participationism because you're enjoying the movie, or you quit the game because you realize you have no control over anything. (I have seen both responses to illusionism.)

Also Ralph, when you say

I agree that Premise is situation, or more precisely Premise is found in certain situations. But I do think that addressing that situation requires techniques.

Excellent post, MJ--one thing: I don't think that the presence of Illusionism implies the players have no power--just that they don't always have as much as they might think.

The GM might generally play it straight but not allow the major enemy to be killed in the 'first act' (although if they manage to get him in the 'second act,' instead of the prefered 'third,' that's okay--or if they screw up and he gets them, well, that's the way the dice fell).

So I think there *is* a gradient and, thus, as a player, when I discover Illusionism I might not leave; not sign on to "watch the movie"; but rather: voice my expectation that there hopefully won't be too much of that.

If I'm a pure virtualist and the GM is constantly doing things to enhance the drama, eventually I'll want to leave--but if my concerns are simply more about player input, then the GM stoking the drama-level may not bother me (even if it means a minor loss of assumed power in a few cases).

-Marco

Marco wrote:
2. From where do you get your assertion that a Gamist doesn't care if your character lives or dies? I think that's just your own preferences speaking--there's nothing in the essay that discusses whether a GM might or might not have that preference.

Show me how, in the case of the character taking risk and failing, and being saved by the GM, the Gamist agenda hasn't been fufilled.

Yes, I agree that the player might object if they found out--but the play is still Gamist--the GM still qualifies as a Gamist GM, and the play is functional.

Gareth, this is blatant synecdoche. You're confounding one perfectly valid perfectly understandable way of achieving gamist priorities with all gamist priorities.

I can assure quite readily, that when step on up involves showing off to your friends what a masterful player you are that there can be zero difference between the failure condition being character death or failure condition being character would have died if the GM hadn't saved me.

Either way I screwed up, I was defeated, my gamer Fu was weak, and everybody at the table knows it.

THAT'S step on up in action. That's Gamism.


If for your particular brand of gamism you're not satisfied unless the failure condition is character death...great...but that's YOUR schtick. Trying to claim that's necessary for gamism is completely wrong.

Valamir wrote: Gareth, this is blatant synecdoche. You're confounding one perfectly valid perfectly understandable way of achieving gamist priorities with all gamist priorities.

Valamir wrote:
Either way I screwed up, I was defeated, my gamer Fu was weak, and everybody at the table knows it.

If for your particular brand of gamism you're not satisfied unless the failure condition is character death...great...but that's YOUR schtick. Trying to claim that's necessary for gamism is completely wrong.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough (although Ralph got it).

Imagine the character challenges a guardian on a bridge to a battle with staves to pass that way. The character goes out and they fight. The player makes two tactical blunders and is soundly beaten.

On the last roll, the player blows a DEX check and according to system moves "three yards to the right, falling down." That places him "off the edge of the bridge."

The GM has said below the bridge is a nasty rushing river (which would be impossible to cross and the character can't swim). The GM's take on the situation is that, yes, the character would probably pitch into the deep river ... and drown.

But he doesn't want the player to lose the character. He describes the character landing on the (previously described as treacherously steep) slope and therefore sliding down--but the GM secretely resolves that the character will never make it all the way down to death.

The player doesn't get any cred for kicking ass--he got beaten soundly. But the GM's asthetic is preserved by illusionism (the character continues, the player, although not enthausitic, accepted defeat as a possible outcome and is ready to continue).

Play is functional, gamist, and illusionist (un-caught).

-Marco

Previous response stricken

It seems to me that is a weak example. The fight is over if the player is knocked off the bridge - at that point the step on up stops. The defeat given by system is severe - effectively "be lucky to survive".

The GM intervening to make a character a lucky survivor does not frustrate gamist SOU; the player is reduced to hoping to be lucky, and that does not imply the same reqirement for demonstration of competence, strategy or guts.

So really you are showing an example in which a gamist SOU was completed , the challenge was lost, but then the player was saved from the claws of fate by the GM. This is not an example of gamist illusionism IMO becuase none of the SOU decisions were overruled by the GM.

contracycle wrote: Previous response stricken

It seems to me that is a weak example. The fight is over if the player is knocked off the bridge - at that point the step on up stops. The defeat given by system is severe - effectively "be lucky to survive".

The GM intervening to make a character a lucky survivor does not frustrate gamist SOU; the player is reduced to hoping to be lucky, and that does not imply the same reqirement for demonstration of competence, strategy or guts.

So really you are showing an example in which a gamist SOU was completed , the challenge was lost, but then the player was saved from the claws of fate by the GM. This is not an example of gamist illusionism IMO becuase none of the SOU decisions were overruled by the GM.

contracycle wrote:

Valamir wrote:
Either way I screwed up, I was defeated, my gamer Fu was weak, and everybody at the table knows it.

But they do NOT know it. They do not know it because the GM lied and saved me; thus it appears my Gamer Fu was strong, strong enough to escape by the skin of my teeth. My failure was NOT represented in the SIS and I gain kudos I do not deserve. That is not gamism, that is manipulation.

Marco wrote: Excellent post, MJ--one thing: I don't think that the presence of Illusionism implies the players have no power--just that they don't always have as much as they might think.

The GM might generally play it straight but not allow the major enemy to be killed in the 'first act' (although if they manage to get him in the 'second act,' instead of the prefered 'third,' that's okay--or if they screw up and he gets them, well, that's the way the dice fell).

So I think there *is* a gradient and, thus, as a player, when I discover Illusionism I might not leave; not sign on to "watch the movie"; but rather: voice my expectation that there hopefully won't be too much of that.

There seem to be different discussions going along, but from what I gather, no one really challenges the idea to separate destination and road anymore.

Ideas that I found interesting were that there could be a big number of skewers under your model, some of which would describe what GNS or other models describe, and some could represent play styles (that's what I understand the union of one (two?) CA and a set of Techniques describes) that seem to generate a lot of discussion, making them styles in their own right. One could even want to experiment an untried combination of techniques under the guidance of this model. (It's certain that some combinations won't work though).

The fact that CA is not necessarily the priority is also important to underline IMHO.

So, Valamir, when do you treat us with a nice and clean write up? :-)

Ideas that I found interesting were that there could be a big number of skewers under your model, some of which would describe what GNS or other models describe, and some could represent play styles (that's what I understand the union of one (two?) CA and a set of Techniques describes) that seem to generate a lot of discussion, making them styles in their own right. One could even want to experiment an untried combination of techniques under the guidance of this model. (It's certain that some combinations won't work though).

M. J. Young wrote:

Marco wrote:
So if you can't kill the boss in the first act but you can in the second even though the third would be better, that's not illusionism--that's illusionist technique used to preserve an important villain temporarily. The players still have the power to kill him. If the villain will die at the hands of the player characters in the third act, even if they give up and stop looking for him, that's illusionism.

--M. J. Young

Okay--so "Illusionism" is complete control and Illusionist Technique is limited control? I can dig that (if we get a glossary for it so everyone else agrees). I still would want to distinguish between what the GM is doing with that control (creating a structured story? Faking tough challenges? Faking a real-world in which dramatic things "happen by chance" but doesn't really conform to a specific story-structure ...)

But, yeah, I could buy that.

-Marco

Marco wrote:
I saw your previous answer. It indicates to me that you did understand the question as phrased originally and you stood by your original answer.

Hey Ralph!

Lots of ideas going on here, but there are a number of issues here that I would like to clarify before going further.

What is meant by Player Empowerment exactly? It is a very nebulous term that seems to have several assumed meanings in this thread. I have an idea, but I want to get to Illusionism first.

The next issue is that of Illusionism and what it means. Again it seems to have several assumed meanings working in this thread making fruitful discussion difficult. I also have an idea, (lucky you!) which actually dovetails nicely with your notion on the cycle of conflict.

As near as I can tell, with reference to Creative Agenda, and this thread is about CA, is that Illusionism is - Force applied to CA conflict decisions (the whole cycle of conflict) without player knowledge and thus approval.

This is a profoundly important idea.

What it amounts to is the unauthorized diluting or vacating of the players CA “statements”. IOW the player, if he knew, could not claim to have effectively Stepped on Up, or sweated out Theme, or paid the “true” price for navigating conflicts while staying true to social conventions within the Dream. (Note by statement I don’t mean making a speech – but the communication of an idea/concept through action{s})

Illusionism is a form of covert deprotagonism. If the players are aware of this process, and go along with it, then you no longer have Illusionism, but participationism. If not, then you have railroading. Obvious.

This brings us back to Player Empowerment. My feeling is that Player Empowerment is just a broader interpretation of protagonism – the player’s ability to make important decisions (untainted by Force) regarding any CA expressing conflict. IOW if scene framing does not impact disenfranchise the players CA expression then the DM making such an act is not deprotagonizing – no CA specific (conflict addressing) player decision has been vacated or diluted.

The problem then with the basic tenet of using Illusionism as demonstration of the faultiness of the definition of Narrativism as a CA lies in that definition of Illusionism is faulty, not that the definition of Narrativism is faulty.

ALL CA’s require Player Empowerment – definitionally.

I believe that Ron, with Narrativism being so close to his heart, and claiming that any Force in Narrativism is verboten, is proclaiming one-true-wayism. Logically following out from that position, one could claim that the only way to play Gamism is Hardcore. Why? Because any employment of Force vacates any victory. The Crunch is the functional form of Gamist participationism. The ultimate failure of any one-on-one combat is death. In The Crunch that particular outcome is not really permitted to come into being, but how can one who is engaged in combat – the act trying to kill your opponent who is attempting to use deadly force on you in return – not reasonably expect death as a viable outcome? Because all those present agree that despite the inherent deadliness of the act of combat, death will not be allowed to fall upon the player characters. How is this held up? Force. If it is possible for there to be functional Gamism with the acknowledged use of Force, why can’t their be functional Narrativism with the acknowledged use of Force?

Ron’s dismissal of the employment of Force in Narrativism as a shift to Sim only demonstrates a lack of understanding of Sim and an idealistic effort to protect the purity of the turf of Narrativism. His assertion that Force is pure poison to Narrativism is to discount the Crunch style of Gamist play.

Also I believe that Ron misapplies the term Illusionism in Narrativism precisely because he does say it is perfectly allowable in Sim. To whit – Illusionist play, by definition, is unknown to the players! As unknown as it is to the Simulationist it is equally unknown to the Narrativist! Ron conflated Illusionism with Force. Illusionism is a type of Force, one that is unknown to the players. How can Illusionism, successfully applied, poison Narrativism if the players never learn of it? Conversely why can’t participationism function in Narrativism? My main argument is that the other CA’s are as crushed under railroading as is Narrativism. The key to understanding this is realizing that which is being created is what is being created is altered or watered down. In Nar it is Story, in Gam it is Step on Up, in Sim it is the player test.

The argument “Get just one Story Now player into an Illusionist group, and the game becomes a battlefield for control and story creation” is problematic. By definition a group cannot be functionally Illusionistic. Either the players are aware of the Force and thus are engaging in participationism as a group, or the GM (or whoever is in that role) alone successfully expands the illusion to cover the actions of the new player as well and thus continues to maintain the Illusion. Illusionism, but definition is functional as long as no one knows that it is in operation. One can make the above phrase relate to Gamism as well – “Get just one Hard Core player into an Crunch group, and the game becomes a battlefield over challenge level and Step on Up”.

Narrativism is no more (accurately) defined by Player Empowerment than Gamism or Simulationism.

Valamir wrote: You have a destination (your priority) and you have the road you will take to get there (your techniques). There are many different roads that may get you to your destination...some work better than others and some boil down to preference. There are other roads that will almost surely not get you to your destination.
…
Yhis essay is about recognizing that there are destinations and roads, that they are seperate things, and that mixing them together is a big reason for alot of the confusion in the model. I'm not really changing anything about the model or Narrativism in particular. I'm merely tidying up the organization and presentation. In addition to simply being more clear how the parts fit together, I think it also will provide new avenues for investigation.

Valamir wrote: I agree that Premise is situation, or more precisely Premise is found in certain situations. But I do think that addressing that situation requires techniques.

What are you the player doing in that particular situation that can be said to be addressing the premise, vs. what you may do in that situation that wouldn't address any premise? Those things are techniques.

Valamir wrote: Really the only thing that I've changed is to define CA in terms of conflict

ALL CA’s require Player Empowerment – definitionally.

a few posts back I wrote:
I agree that CA as I've framed it is really more appropriately called Conflict Approach, and the player's agenda is more properly defined by the skewer.

Conflict Approaches become simply Theme, Challenge, and Internal Causality. Players thus view conflicts as opportunities to illustrate thematic elements, opportunities for challenge or conflict, or opportunities to illustrate what "should" happen.

All of the various subsets of Gamism, Narrativism, and Simulationism thus become Skewers.

Silmenune wrote: CA is primarily conceptual and drives Techniques and Ephemera.

(A CA cannot be directly expressed. It is the guiding interest behind the actions of the players. It is not directly seen/heard but felt. This is why the notion of a Creative Agenda was so long in the discovery.)

I'm often picking on Jay's posts, so I wanted to point up something I thought was important in this one:

Silmenume wrote: Illusionism is a form of covert deprotagonism. If the players are aware of this process, and go along with it, then you no longer have Illusionism, but participationism. If not, then you have railroading.

Valamir wrote:

ALL CA’s require Player Empowerment – definitionally.

If you change that to all CA's require players empowered to respond to Conflict as they desire; and you define functional Participationism as being roleplaying without a CA, yes. I don't disagree at all.

Valamir wrote: The outline of my thought process above focused on Narrativism because that's where the discussion was leading me down the train of thought. But while I didn't repeat the excersize for G and S above, I never said the same logic didn't apply.

Valamir wrote: All of the various subsets of Gamism, Narrativism, and Simulationism thus become Skewers.
…
The biggest change to the model this makes is to note that there are not just three Creative Agendas. If each Skewer is its own Creative Agenda, then there are lots and lots of Creative Agendas. For practical purposes the ones that are most similar can be bundled together under a single CA label and thought of as minor variants of each other.

Valamir wrote: So yes, the processes you are seeing as being part of the Creative Agenda, I see also. I see them as being the individual skewers, however, that encompass not only the Conflict Approach (or Conflict Response to avoid the CA abbreviation) but also all the other parts of the model right on down to the ephemera that you rightly point out.

Valamir wrote: I'm merely rearranging the structure to enhance understanding.

Artanis wrote:

Silmenune wrote: CA is primarily conceptual and drives Techniques and Ephemera.

Just to figure out if I'm getting this right:
If Techniques are part of System, does CA also drive the whole of System, and, continuing this thought, the rest of Exploration?

Artanis wrote:

Silmenune wrote: (A CA cannot be directly expressed. It is the guiding interest behind the actions of the players. It is not directly seen/heard but felt. This is why the notion of a Creative Agenda was so long in the discovery.)

So what Valamir would need to do is to, extract the "Guiding Interests" out of the GNS CAs to define what he has named Conflict Response just now?
But if it cannot be directly expressed, is Valamir's tentative doomed?

Maybe I should hold off until Ron posts his restrictions and clarifications for this forum, but I have time free at the moment, so . . . I'l try and make this short:

I agree with Jay that thinking of the skewers as specific implementations of CA is not particularly accurate within the theory, and I think it seriously muddies the whole point of what a CA is. On the other hand, I do think the skewers are important. Hell, they're capital-I, bolded, really, really Important. But that doesn't mean anything about the current G, N, or S has to change.

Simply and directly, I see a lot of value in the ideas in this (and other related) threads, but I have no understanding of why there seems to be a need to change the GNS mode definitions in order to pursue them. I would love to talk more about particular preferences within a skewer, and how Techniques cluster together to support particular play styles. But to my mind, "play style" is already a superset that includes under it (when applied to actual play) one of the three CA's. I do not see in Virtualism or Dramatisim anything that prevents me from asking "what is prioritized - Story Now or The Dream?" In fact, best as I can tell I need to have that answer, because it possible to prioritize either CA within the bounds of both Virtualism and Dramatisim.

That people care strongly about the play style issues involved in, say, Virtualism seems obviously true to me, and an important issue when playing/preparing for/designing a particular game. But the GNS CA's - the priorities of play - are not the three things that people care most strongly about, they are the three things that are ultimately distinct and mutually exclusive. Not of neccessity distinct and mutually exclusive at every instant of play - only neccessarily so when considered as the ultimate point of play (in a particular "instance").

CA's are certainly not the only things that are important about play styles. But we don't have to alter anything about those three agendas in order to talk about the other important stuff involved in play styles. At the moment, I don't see that we gain anything in attempting alterations at that basic, fundamental level. There are three CA's. There are many, many play style issues that people feel strongly about. Those two points are not antagonistic, and we don't have to invalidate/alter the first in order to constructively and meaningfully discuss the second.

Hope that makes sense,

Gordon

Silmenume wrote: Hey Christoph,
Welcome to the Forge!

Silmenume wrote:

Valamir wrote: I'm merely rearranging the structure to enhance understanding.

Aha! Nobel effort! However as I am thick in the skull, if you please, could you clarify what exactly you are trying to enhance understanding of? The Model? What constitutes a Creative Agenda? How a Creative Agenda functions? How an Instance of Play works? How to diagnose play? I’m really not trying to be provocative, I’m sincerely in the dark here.

Silmenume wrote: On the other hand I think the idea of skewers is profoundly useful for game design! By deciding on a line/skewer that penetrates all levels of the model I believe extremely novel approaches to game design can be discovered which might ordinarily be missed.

Silmenum wrote:

Artanis wrote: If Techniques are part of System, does CA also drive the whole of System, and, continuing this thought, the rest of Exploration?

That is an argument that I have put forth in the past, but that does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that it is proven or held to be true yet. I believe it to be so.

Hi, gang.

A couple pages back, Christoph (Artanis) wrote: Is there really a hierarchical arrangement between the different blocks? (two being clearly defined, others could probably be added)
Is CA definetly more "fundamental" than Technique, ie. does CA define/allow for Techniques or is the other way round also possible?

Silmenume wrote: On the other hand I think the idea of skewers is profoundly useful for game design! By deciding on a line/skewer that penetrates all levels of the model I believe extremely novel approaches to game design can be discovered which might ordinarily be missed.

And Alanis wrote: This is precisely why I got interested in the Forge in the first place. And as you say it, by clarifying the CAs, it will be easier to imagine new combinations of Elements of Exploration (Techniques included) with CAs.
I sometimes wonder if the G, N and S categories don't make make some people stiff ("this is most definetly Sim!" "just Sim-Illusionism!"). Even though Ron indicates that each category can encompass vast numbers of sub-styles, I believe that building this allowance to diversity directly into the model with the modular "skewer" approach could help people to visualize differences more quickly and with less preconceptions, if the particular "atoms" are correctly described.

In regards the narrativist creative agenda, I recently realized that Premise is a situation involving fantasy elements and a value standard. Such situations my occur more often with one set of techniques than with another.

I think techniques work together to create an environment. Different environments are more friendly to some creative agendas than others. I suppose that players might also develop a taste for the flavor of a particular environment itself.

Hello,

Alan's nailed it.

For what it's worth, in the diagram and explanations of the Big Model, Creative Agenda is depicted not as a layer but as an arrow which connects layers.

In reality, it is composed of socially focused and reinforced imaginative input - i.e. "role-playing."

As far as I can tell, therefore, I have already presented the point and content that Ralph (Valamir) has outlined so carefully.

As for Narrativism as a term, it astounds me that anyone thinks that it is defined by Techniques. The entire Narrativism essay disavows this idea, in detail. It is the name I've given to one of these arrows. It is not a layer. What Ralph is calling "theme play" is Narrativism.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote:
As for Narrativism as a term, it astounds me that anyone thinks that it is defined by Techniques. The entire Narrativism essay disavows this idea, in detail. It is the name I've given to one of these arrows. It is not a layer. What Ralph is calling "theme play" is Narrativism.

Best,
Ron

In Narrativist play, using Force by definition disrupts the Creative Agenda.

5. How Force relates to Creative Agenda is a matter for discussion. My outlook, which is not definitional, is that Gamist and Narrativist play are ill-suited to including Force, but do very nicely with replacing it with inter-player influence over one another's characters through explicit permission.

Hello,

What you're missing, Marco - and what you've missed from your first day at the Forge - is that pre-created Theme cannot be created in play. A pre-created Theme can only be accepted as a group constraint going into the process or be imposed by a player with extra authority during the process.

Narrativist play pre-supposes that Theme is not pre-created. Period. Hence Participationist play (which I stress is not an agenda but a set of Techniques) is not compatible with it.

Now is probably the time to make it absolutely clear what Simulationist play is, as far as my model is concerned. I've tried many ways and many times, and I have no particular hope it'll get across this time, but here goes.

Simulationist play is defined by confirming one's input, via the output.

You're a Star Trek fan? OK, then, let's play Star Trek. Whatever the agreed-upon important input is, its effect during play is supposed to get us Star Trek.

That input might be the funny-physics of the show. Fine - we work out what those are (or read them in the sourcebook, whatever) and put them into action via System.

Or that input might be the distinctive character interactions or political tropes of the show. Fine - we dedicate ourselves to depicting and reinforcing those issues through what our characters do, which is also System.

Or ... and so on. Whatever angle you choose as the motor for input, i.e. processing through System, the output should confirm that this is, indeed, Star Trek. To play in this fashion is a celebration of Star Trek.

It is absolutely irrelevant to the general concept of Simulationism whether a story is produced or not. It is, however, very important in terms of an applied instance of Simulationism whether a story is taken as one of our going-in constraints.

For instance, one group might be more interested in "being kitty-people fighting with ray-guns" than in "doing Star Trek." Their play-experience and attention to "doing the story right" will be very different from that of the Star Trek fans. However, the guiding aesthetic is the same: agreed-upon input, processing, confirmatory output.

Narrativist play, like Gamist play, is not confirmatory of anything that "goes in." In Gamist play, play itself determines who wins or does best in terms of personal strategy and guts. Similarly, Narrativist play is that in which only play itself determines how Premise is transformed into Theme.

To clarify about Narrativist play, think in terms of any story created by any person or group in some familiar medium like movies or novels. It is absolutely irrefutable that at some point in time, there was no story of this particular sort (medium, presentation, details, etc). But at some point in the creative process, a story did indeed appear.

Whatever happens at that transition is what happens during Narrativist play. It cannot be agreed-upon beforehand, nor can it be imposed by a single person in an "ah-ha" sense upon the others during the process.

To sum up, Marco, it is entirely irrelevant to me whether you agree with any of the above. The question is whether you understand it. To date, I have no sense of confirmation about this.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Hello,

What you're missing, Marco - and what you've missed from your first day at the Forge - is that pre-created Theme cannot be created in play. A pre-created Theme can only be accepted as a group constraint going into the process or be imposed by a player with extra authority during the process.

Ron wrote: "As far as I can tell, therefore, I have already presented the point and content that Ralph (Valamir) has outlined so carefully. As for Narrativism as a term, it astounds me that anyone thinks that it is defined by Techniques. The entire Narrativism essay disavows this idea, in detail. It is the name I've given to one of these arrows. It is not a layer. What Ralph is calling "theme play" is Narrativism."

I hate to come with these 'me too' posts, but I'd concur with Ron's assessment here (and did on page 1 of this thread) - in particular, because (a) I was confused, in a number of threads (the 'big fight' thread I got into when I first got here, and the 'social mode' threads from a couple of months back) between Narrativism-qua-CA and certain Narrativist techniques, and (b) several people's helpful responses to my confusion (Ron, Chris Kubasik, Raven, and MJ stick out most strongly in my memory - apologies if I'm forgetting anyone), which ultimately convinced me, wouldn't have made any sense if this wasn't the case.

Ron, the only place I disagree with your formulations above a little is that it's possible that a group could have, and display in play, a Narrativist CA, but be using techniques which don't facilitate it - thinking e.g. that the only way they can 'create story' in play is by having a certain percentage of that story 'built in' from the get-go, that's actually not strictly necessary, maybe even stifling, to what they're trying to do. What you'd see in this case would be a group that makes certain telling play-decisions in a Narrativist direction, but then also uses a number of techniques which don't support those decisions, maybe because of habit, or because of false beliefs about those techniques' efficacy, or because they're playing with a system that simply doesn't do anything to facilitate Narrativism so they handle that aspect with socially-agreed Drama resolution wherever they can and wherever doing so doesn't conflict with other system elements, etc. I'd be surprised if that conflicted with anything you actually thought (as opposed to implications one might take away from your words), though - these are just familiar 'goals of practice vs. techniques for achieving them' issues.

Marco's last post raises an important issue for me.

GM-force, creating-theme-before-play, etc. are techniques, yes? So are we asserting that theme created before play absolutely can't then be created in play? Put like that, it's a logical truth, so yes - point for Ron. But you have to be a little careful what consequences you draw from this, I think. It seems to me that you can certainly specify a great deal of the thematic, moral, and emotional content before play and still be 'playing Narrativist'. The Nar-facilitating designs on this site actually do that to a certain degree, by narrowing down the field of possible moral questions to the ones the game wants to facilitate addressing.

As long as the pre-game prep leaves some part of theme open for the players to address in play, though, so long as it's not e.g. assumed from the get-go that the characters always respond to certain morally/emotionally loaded situations in certain kinds of ways, it seems to me that you can still have Narrativist play, if the players seek out those decisions, care about them, and provide genuine input into them. And so you can have 'Illusionist Narrativism' just like you have 'Illusionist Gamism', but both depend on deception - this is just where you feel like your input is meaningful but it actually isn't. (Question, though: if no-one but the GM ever knows that you didn't make your own choices to Address Premise or Step on Up, but you feel like you did, don't you still get some satisfaction from it? I suppose the ethics of illusionism default to the ethics of dissimulation more generally.)

I think centralized vs. decentralized control is an extremely important issue. But it's not part of a 'creative agenda' to have centralized or decentralized control - that happens at the System level, I think. Different kinds of control can facilitate different CA. And there's surely a range of levels of centralized control possible for a Narrativist CA - the only thing that a GM absolutely has to leave space for in play theme-addressing decisions on the part of the players. But this can be done in a wide variety of ways corresponding to a wide variety of levels of centralized GM control.

I'd view the 'minimal' level of Narrativism then as being a game where, say, all the players at the table are committed to a very similar ethical system, and it's expected that certain kinds of decisions are always made a certain kind of way, but the GM maybe provides some 'temptation' to decide a different way, in which case the game mostly becomes a kind of self-confirmation or self-congratulation about one's own moral stance. I think this would still count as Narrativism if these 'toy' decisions were in some sense at the heart of play, though a very attenuated form of it, granted. The examples that spring to my mind are Dragonraid and the 'Crusades' style of D&D, but so as not to appear prejudiced against Christians I can certainly imagine a group trying to play Tribe8 or Witchcraft in a similar sort of fashion with a different ethical compass. (I wonder if Dogs in the Vineyard could lend itself to this for a very orthodox LDS play group?)

I guess Ron wants to read that kind of play as Simulationist because so much of the thematic space of the game is built in up-front. I think I see why he would say that, but I'm not sure I can agree. If the players make real decisions of this kind, seek out such decisions in play, and gain joy from these moments, then I'm not sure why it's not Narrativism, even if it's not a variety I imagine I'd have much fun with.

Or maybe I've gone completely off track here. More thoughts for the thread in any case.

Hi Sean,

Actually, I see that as minimal Narrativist play too, in theory.

The question this raises for me is, how hard is it to perceive when "we all could decide to do otherwise, we just won't" becomes "don't decide otherwise 'cause it's bad play"?

I suggest, now that I think about it, that perceiving that from the inside (i.e. as a participant) is pretty strong - in fact, when you're the odd man out in either direction, it's like getting whacked in the nose, the palpable disapproval is so evident, even when unstated.

I also think that this topic should become its own thread with strong emphasis on actual play experiences.

Best,
Ron

These last few posts illuistrate why I think that player input is a slide-bar--a gradient or spectrum, not an on/off switch.

-Marco

Hello,

The term "player input" is so vague as to be meaningless. All role-playing involves "input." Creative Agenda has always been an issue of what we're actually here to provide input (and process it together) for, as expressed in our actual play.

There is absolutely no controversy that I can perceive in this thread with any substance to it. Ralph, what's your call?

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Hello,

The term "player input" is so vague as to be meaningless. All role-playing involves "input." Creative Agenda has always been an issue of what we're actually here to provide input (and process it together) for, as expressed in our actual play.

There is absolutely no controversy that I can perceive in this thread with any substance to it. Ralph, what's your call?

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: There is absolutely no controversy that I can perceive in this thread with any substance to it. Ralph, what's your call?

As for Narrativism as a term, it astounds me that anyone thinks that it is defined by Techniques. The entire Narrativism essay disavows this idea, in detail. It is the name I've given to one of these arrows. It is not a layer. What Ralph is calling "theme play" is Narrativism.

Valamir wrote: Narrativism is absolutely defined by techniques. Not specific individual techniques that you can point to and and say "Technique A = Narrativism", but rather combinations of Techniques that either do or do not produce Narrativism.

Alan wrote:
Envision the technique environment as an interacting field of technique effects, some not covering completely, some interacting to produce interferance patters or even chaotic interactions that produce one or more strange attractors with plateaus between. Niche environments will appear on the irregularities and at the fringes. If everyone agrees to play in a niche-environment, an otherwise poorly-supported agenda could flourish.

Alan wrote:
I think this may assume that any set of techniques can completely preclude opportunites to exercise a given agenda.

Envision the technique environment as an interacting field of technique effects, some not covering completely, some interacting to produce interferance patters or even chaotic interactions that produce one or more strange attractors with plateaus between. Niche environments will appear on the irregularities and at the fringes. If everyone agrees to play in a niche-environment, an otherwise poorly-supported agenda could flourish.

Valamir wrote: It is absolutely possible to have narrativism flourish in an environment where the game rules poorly support it because the players are using Narrativist techniques to work around the game rule restrictions.

Alan wrote:

Valamir wrote: It is absolutely possible to have narrativism flourish in an environment where the game rules poorly support it because the players are using Narrativist techniques to work around the game rule restrictions.

Isn't that drift? One group might go around adding or adjusting techniques to stamp-out niches that favor gamist play - but that's drift -and the decision to make those changes is a collective decision that may well demonstrate the groups agenda preference.

Hello,

Ralph's called it, folks. Please take sub-topics to new threads.

Best,
Ron