In this thread Marco commented

I especially liked the expansion on Simulationism--I think it's good and well wrought--but it seems to me to leave out GDS Dramatism which, I do not think, would be accurately described as a "what if?" exercise.

I would also think that under "what if" play illusionism would likely be seen as more dysfunctional than it usually is (which I agree with--I don't think too many players would intentionally consent to what is usually described as illusionism at it's core).

If someone is playing to see "what if" and the GM isn't allowing "what if" but replacing it with "X" where "X" is the GM's desired outcome that would seem to be a flat conflict of interest.

That's interesting - and compelling. Because in my later experience especially, once everyone's on board with an accepted degree of Force from the GM, then no "illusion" is necessary.

Consider Simulationist play when Situation is king, as in my discussion of High Concept Sim.

When Force is high but there's no illusion, then more accurately, we're all illusionists when that happens, and the only ones being "fooled" are an entirely imaginary audience. This is what Mike calls Participation if I'm not mistaken, and it's quite fun.

Which would then seem to cast some shadow on the pride of GMs who consider their prime skills to be fooling the players into thinking they've directed the story, when all along he or she had control over the imaginary situation. Such a GM always perceives himself or herself as indispensable and necessary (for a good story, you know), and also that the fooling-part is essential.

Best,
Ron

P.S. This entire post assumes that the reader understands the definition of Force, which various recent threads indicate is not well-understood at all. Force per se is neither railroading nor any other awful/terrible thing. Once you get that point drilled in, then it's OK to consider that Force does not play well in Gamist or Narrativist contexts.

Valamir wrote: Illusionism then may be a technique used at the exploration level specifically to avoid having to commit to the uncertainties of a Creative Agenda.

Well, at this point I haven't spent a whole lot of brain cells cranking the idea of Illusionism through this idea, so "proposing" is probably a little too strong a word, more like ruminating...in a kind of "interesting lets see if this goes any where sense"

So I'm ruminating on the idea that Illusionist play is exploration only and doesn't involve a Creative Agenda. Or perhaps more precisely that the potential for Creative Agenda is subverted by the GM's sleight of hand.

I have a funny image in my head of players with a hook in their mouth trying to swim up one of the CA streams while the GM keeps realing them back in...

Other interesting possibilities to consider would be if the GM is actually playing with a Creative Agenda and using illusion to force the other players into the same Creative Agenda, in which case it might be interesting to discuss the possibilities of different CA Illusions

But again far from any actual proposal...just interesting musings at this point... (I feel like I should be sitting on the porch with a pipe blowing smoke rings...)

I've played in games where I, the player, demanded both Force, and the appearance of no Force. And It was functional for the most part. When it became problematic was when the Force became obvious.

(Once we were forced by the GM to see someone by men armed with crossbows - when it became apparent that we were going to fight them, he told us that they looked very high level. This was a mistake made from sudden need, not a problem with the overall CA).

As always, I buy "difficult" but not problematic other than that.

Dramatism is a GDS term no? Doesn't that make this an apples/oranges comparison?

Mike

Hello,

My contention from the beginning has been that Dramatism is a moving target - that whenever it's been discussed here, and when I call for specifics, the hitherto unified participants suddenly reveal that they've all been talking about different things.

Therefore when I say "Dramatism doesn't exist," it does not mean that any of the particular things which each proponent describes (Logan, Gareth [mytholder], John Kim, etc) does not exist, but rather that the label doesn't represent any entity that we can actually discuss.

Any disagreement with this point probably belongs in a thread of its own. My goal in bringing it up here is that Ralph has already stated that the term needs to be defined before it can be addressed, and I agree. But since the Illusionism topic seems completely disconnected and perfectly capable of being pursued, let's keep doing Illusionism here and look to another thread for the Dramatism.

Best,
Ron

I asked in another thread if the GM could create conflicts that encourage a particular Creative Agenda, and was met with a resounding "yes." This makes sense to me.

What it leads me to conclude then, is that the GM is capable, in an Illusionist game, of creating conflicts and outcomes to those conflicts which exhibit a Creative Agenda over the course of an instance of play. However, like the illusion of control, the players have no role, or rather they don't participate in the creation of this Creative Agenda. It's truly a one man show. That's not to say that Illusionist players don't still prefer one CA over another. I think rather that in this context, they expect an illusion that syncs with certain preferences. Yet, because they aren't aware of the GM making CA-based choices--even less so than non-Illusionist players--classifying the game under a GNS heading is particularly difficult for them. Rather, they are forced to consider the story in retrospect only, and that's when things get muddled. In other words, how can you recognize the kind of choices you are making if you aren't really making any meaningful choices to begin with?

Hey Ralph,

I think that one form of GM Illusionism applied to Gamism is one where the GM does not let the Gamble fail. IOW he removes the possibility for failure thus turning the game into the Crunch without the players’ knowledge and thus without their permission. By doing so the GM removes or lessens the risk involved and thus reduces the weight of what the player is trying to say/demonstrate about himself via his play.

Regarding Simulationist Illusionism I would posit the following. If the Illusionism is real, the players do know the GM is using Force (that their choices are being deprotagonized) and they are ok with that, then I would say that it is not a CA in operation because without the element of risk they players aren’t “saying” anything. It is, in essence, a form of Zilchplay – they are just plain Exploring what is already mapped out for them – which makes it essentially Setting.

Some thoughts.

Mike Holmes wrote: I've played in games where I, the player, demanded both Force, and the appearance of no Force. And It was functional for the most part. When it became problematic was when the Force became obvious.

(Once we were forced by the GM to see someone by men armed with crossbows - when it became apparent that we were going to fight them, he told us that they looked very high level. This was a mistake made from sudden need, not a problem with the overall CA).

Mike

Marco, if you want to discuss Force, then we can do that. I'm not sure that this is the right venue, and with respect, I'm not at all sure that you're entering the conversation with any desire to learn what I'm saying.

Again, this is not a slam. This is weary experience. I'm answering here in the idealistic hope that your recent participation at the Forge represents a new spirit of discourse for you, not just another iteration.

To review:

1. Force is when person A exerts control over the decisions and actions of person B's character. Note: not input, but control, or as Vincent would put it, person A has more credibility over the character than person B, despite how most people would say person B "owns" the character.

2. Force techniques vary widely, from pre-scene to post-action, from subtle to obvious, and more. Some GMs would be surprised to learn that I'd call their techniques Force, and might point to some other GM's very different set of techniques as a counter.

3. Force is a highly significant principle in play and cannot be neutral; either it's acceptable relative to every other aspect of play, by the group (most especially person B), or it's not.

When it is acceptable, then great! Participationism is the result, in which case person B doesn't care what the character decides as long as he or she gets to act it out, or as long as he or she gets input at one point or another, or similar. It is, I think, the core technique (or family of techniques) for Situation-heavy Simulationist play.

When it is not acceptable to the group or most especially to person B, then Force is a game-breaker. Railroading is only one manifestation of Force being judged unacceptable. One of my claims is that Gamist and Narrativist play both require very explicit limits, or even sanctions, on Force by the GM.

(Side note: yes, people other than the GM can exert Force.)

Illusionist techniques are, for the first time in our discussions, being discussed primarily as means of masking Force from participants who would otherwise object to it.

Am I making sense? When you read an example of Force, you might say "Ugh! Railroading," and you know what? Aesthetically and as a player/GM, I probably agree with you. But that doesn't mean that the same example of Force is going to be unacceptable to some other group (or even to me, if I've resigned myself to a form of play which, although I don't prefer it, I can enjoy now that I understand it better).

Best,
Ron

First, I haven't been following the whole "force" issue of late. I may be using an obsolete version of the term. In fact, my point is precisely that, at the point that it became obvious that the GM was manipulating the world to ensure that the plot he wanted would occur, that it became railroading, and not the functional forma of play that it had been previously. Railroading being defined as play in which control that the players demand, or at least the appearance of control, is visibly taken away from the players.

When I used the term "forced" (not force, but the other word in the latter paragraph) I was using it in a non-technical sense, to simply mean "made to comply." This wasn't merely "raising the stakes" this was promising to kill our characters if we didn't comply. There was no viable option not to comply - it would have made for a senseless end to the game. He knew that we would not go that way, so he wasn't offering a choice, but using his authority to ensure that the game went the way he needed it to go.

Mike

Hi there,

Mike, I'll clarify:

my point is precisely that, at the point that it became obvious that the GM was manipulating the world to ensure that the plot he wanted would occur, that it became railroading, and not the functional forma of play that it had been previously.

Mike,

I wasn't meaning to jump on the technical definition per-se. But the deal is this: If the GM had said "the hand of the plot comes down and prevents you from fighting the guys you could reasonably take on" I can't see players who are interested in a what-if style game being real happy with it--accepting it, maybe--but only in a "hey, we all need to get along" fashion.

Hence, Railroading. Maybe everyone went along with it--I might've--especially if the GM was inexperienced--but I don't know any gaming group that wouldn't consider that a hiccough.*

The reason I think Illusionist/Particiaptionist Sim (under Ralph's definition) play is basically non-functional is that it will break down explosively when someone's input is squelched and the rules or ambient situation say otherwise (i.e. when the GM changes situation to railroad the party by increasing the power of the men-at-arms).

It's my guess that any functional form of these games revolves around the GM making sure that the choice the player's freely want to choose is the choice he'd prepared for. Basically the GM being quite slaved to the player's desires and staying at least one step ahead of them while being very, very attentive to their probable choices.

When that isn't the case you see rails (changes in situation to ensure conformation). Maybe Force(?) (where the player's decision is literally made for him?)

I'm not clear where the more sublte-Force-techniques fall on this spectrum (or, really, what they are): but I can't see them as being acceptable to someone who is trying to find out "What it would be like" no matter what since there's a strong hand of a GM there.

If Dramatism is going to contrast to that then it's easy to distinguish the preferred technique: if the player values story-structure over choice-freedom then you get something like participationism.

If the player values choice-freedom over story-structure (but still values story-structre over what-it-would-be-like) then you get a preference for Dramatist systems (hero points, I imagine) and situations designed to produce a satisfying climax (but not forced to).

That's my take.

-Marco
* I have heard descriptions of games where the GM does, in fact, dictate *everything* and the players are locked out of decision making. The descriptions I've heard are always extreme edge condition gaming. They've usually been presented as such as well. I'm talking about important, during-play decisions here, mostly though. I've seen several PC groups catapulted into adventures with force/railroading/etc. techniques.

I draw a big difference between doing that at the start of play vs. doing that throughout play--although either is, IME, a mistake it's a matter of magnitude in difference and most of a "what is it like" POV isn't voilated by saying "so you're all in the King's dungeon" unless, like, the character can walk through walls and no one knows it ...

Hello,

Marco, that post of mine was too harsh. We've clarified the real point by private message, so on to discussing Force.

Best,
Ron

Something about my post wasn't coming through. I was posting a counter-example to the idea that illusionism was problematic. That is, for the vast majority of the play of that game, the GM used Force but in a non-visible way. We knew that he was using Force, and only objected to it when we could detect it. When we could, in the one case where the GM made the mistake in presentation, that was a breach of CA. Not because he used force, but because we could see him using force. Basically because it was ugly. Like a bad author using a deus ex machina.

Does that clarify at all?

I presented the "problem" because I felt that it illuminated the mode of play. Not to say that play was problematic. At the table, me and the other player frowned at the GM and said, "OK, we get the picture," and moved on with play. In dozens of sessions that was the only problem that I can remember.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Something about my post wasn't coming through. I was posting a counter-example to the idea that illusionism was problematic.

[snipped]

Mike

I'm really not getting the distinction you're making, Marco. The game was MERP, and I was playing, personally to feel like I was a Dunedain wandering around in Middle Earth. Pretty sim, in that I wasn't really too concerned with "story" or anything, just in playing around in Middle Earth. I spent a lot of time trying to get money to start my own kingdom, as a goal that I'd given the character.

It really wasn't "Story" at all. It was that we liked to feel that we were making our way in Middle Earth on our own, but expecting that the GM would make it interesting along the way. As such (especially given that Middle Earth is sparsely populated in terms of places where interesting things can happen), he had to force us to go where the action was. Typically with hints of treasure or the like.

Does that help?

Maybe I shouldn't have put in a personal example?

Mike

In this thread, Ron Edwards wrote: 1. Force is when person A exerts control over the decisions and actions of person B's character. Note: not input, but control, or as Vincent would put it, person A has more credibility over the character than person B, despite how most people would say person B "owns" the character.

However, in the Provisional Glossary, he wrote: Force

The Technique of control over characters' thematically-significant decisions by anyone who is not the character's player. When Force is applied in a manner which disrupts the Social Contract, the result is Railroading. Originally called "GM-oomph" (Ron Edwards), then "GM-Force" (Mike Holmes).

Hi M.J.,

The "thematically" is a straightforward error, from the beginning. My intent was to write "significant to Creative Agenda" in some phrasing and I used "thematically" as a place-holder - and since the resulting sentence wasn't obviously wrong, I never remembered to go back and fix it.

Very annoying. Wish I'd done it in some less-charged term.

Best,
Ron

Mike Holmes wrote: I'm really not getting the distinction you're making, Marco. The game was MERP, and I was playing, personally to feel like I was a Dunedain wandering around in Middle Earth. Pretty sim, in that I wasn't really too concerned with "story" or anything, just in playing around in Middle Earth. I spent a lot of time trying to get money to start my own kingdom, as a goal that I'd given the character.

It really wasn't "Story" at all. It was that we liked to feel that we were making our way in Middle Earth on our own, but expecting that the GM would make it interesting along the way. As such (especially given that Middle Earth is sparsely populated in terms of places where interesting things can happen), he had to force us to go where the action was. Typically with hints of treasure or the like.

Does that help?

Maybe I shouldn't have put in a personal example?

Mike

You keep using social contract. The part of the social contract that was the CA was that the agreement was that it would seem as though there was a set universe to play in, while in fact the GM would do what it took to make sure that interesting things happened.

Again, the breakdown wasn't that he did something that was a ret-con, but that he did it in such a way that it was visible. It's like watching a movie, and seeing the wires holding up the starship. The illusion of player control in an objective world is broken.

Also, it's not so much that it was a ret-con, as that we saw that the GM was making things up on the spot. In fact, I'm pretty sure that he didn't have a level set for the guys in question, or any stats. I'm sure his notes read, "the PCs are approached by guards who tell them that the Mayor wants to see them." (To be precise we were in Tharbad, and the ruler - whatever he's called - was the one who wanted to see us for a job). It was the way he presented the information, telling us that they were high level, and therefore weren't to be resisted, that was so obvious.

The obvious interpretation wasn't, "I'm going to make this an interesting challenge for you guys, should you try to go the other way," it was, "Quit trying to buck the road that I've got set to the adventure." Or, more literally, "I'm taking away your power here." The CA says that it's fine for him to take away our power to affect the course of events, he just can't shove it in our faces.

Now, this all said, even in a game like you describe, Marco, where there's a commitment not to change things, the GM still has this sort of power. That is, the GM is allowed in the CA that you describe to create the adventure up front, no? So, if, in the adventure, he has written that there are very powerful guards that the PCs can't resist, who come to make the PCs go somewhere, this can be just as obvious. That is, this is still amongst the most heavy handed of illusionism techniques, one that's likely to be seen through. In truely "open" sim, there are no pre-planned adventures of any sort, because to do so is to make the game not "open". In open sim, the players just say where they're going, and what they're doing. Anything else is either Illusionism, or Participationism, at least in part.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: You keep using social contract. The part of the social contract that was the CA was that the agreement was that it would seem as though there was a set universe to play in, while in fact the GM would do what it took to make sure that interesting things happened.

Again, the breakdown wasn't that he did something that was a ret-con, but that he did it in such a way that it was visible. It's like watching a movie, and seeing the wires holding up the starship. The illusion of player control in an objective world is broken.

Also, it's not so much that it was a ret-con, as that we saw that the GM was making things up on the spot. In fact, I'm pretty sure that he didn't have a level set for the guys in question, or any stats. I'm sure his notes read, "the PCs are approached by guards who tell them that the Mayor wants to see them." (To be precise we were in Tharbad, and the ruler - whatever he's called - was the one who wanted to see us for a job). It was the way he presented the information, telling us that they were high level, and therefore weren't to be resisted, that was so obvious.

The obvious interpretation wasn't, "I'm going to make this an interesting challenge for you guys, should you try to go the other way," it was, "Quit trying to buck the road that I've got set to the adventure." Or, more literally, "I'm taking away your power here." The CA says that it's fine for him to take away our power to affect the course of events, he just can't shove it in our faces.

Now, this all said, even in a game like you describe, Marco, where there's a commitment not to change things, the GM still has this sort of power. That is, the GM is allowed in the CA that you describe to create the adventure up front, no? So, if, in the adventure, he has written that there are very powerful guards that the PCs can't resist, who come to make the PCs go somewhere, this can be just as obvious. That is, this is still amongst the most heavy handed of illusionism techniques, one that's likely to be seen through. In truely "open" sim, there are no pre-planned adventures of any sort, because to do so is to make the game not "open". In open sim, the players just say where they're going, and what they're doing. Anything else is either Illusionism, or Participationism, at least in part.

Mike

Under what CA's would the above be:
a) Force?
b) Railroading?
c) Illusionism?

contracycle wrote:

Under what CA's would the above be:
a) Force?
b) Railroading?
c) Illusionism?

What is the question here? Why would they need to be any of them? I can't understand what this has to do with the scenario you give, or even what it has to do with Mike's point. The GM just setting up seom events that probably have a certain outcome does not need, it seems to me, to be described as either your a or b or c.

Marco wrote:
The point is to distinguish between someone with (for lack of better terms) a GDS Dramatist vs. a GDS Sim player's social contract. If my example isn't seen as Force or Illusionism under any CA (as you postulate) then I would contrast that to what *I* certainly see as 'railroading' (which might or might not be called Force or Illusionism) in his example of play.

I'm saying the Sim-as-"What-If?" play is a distinct social contract from Sim that includes allowances for the GM to change things as necessary to ensure that interesting things happen.

If my example isn't seen as Force or Illusionism under any CA (as you postulate)

contracycle wrote:

Marco wrote:
The point is to distinguish between someone with (for lack of better terms) a GDS Dramatist vs. a GDS Sim player's social contract. If my example isn't seen as Force or Illusionism under any CA (as you postulate) then I would contrast that to what *I* certainly see as 'railroading' (which might or might not be called Force or Illusionism) in his example of play.

OK. I'm not an advocate of GDS. This is a GNS forum. So you may well be the best placed person to tell us what the distinction between two aspects of the GDS model might be.

I'm saying the Sim-as-"What-If?" play is a distinct social contract from Sim that includes allowances for the GM to change things as necessary to ensure that interesting things happen.

Under GNS, or GDS, or both, or neither? You question seems to borrow from two separate models and I find it very difficult to follow.

If my example isn't seen as Force or Illusionism under any CA (as you postulate)

Once again Marco, that is NOT what I said. What I said was it NEED NOT be a or b or c necessarily. I didn't say it definitely was not; your scenario only seemed to show an intended effect following from cause. But no resolution is given so we don;t know what actually happened, or why.

Marco wrote:
I'm using GDS terminology because it's the "best fit" here, IMO--GDS Sim is pretty well described as playing "to see what would it really be like" ... or the usual take on the word "Simulationism." Also called Virtuality here recently.

That's opposed to play "for the story" where the GM is expected to manipulate things covertly or overtly to ensure a certain story-like outcome (plot-protection to save PC's from meaningless death, for example).

Under what Ralph is describing as GNS Sim on this thread and in his take on the theory thread which, as it turns out, is a lot like GDS Sim as I understand it (and that goes both for what Ralph is saying and GDS Sim--I might be misunderstanding either). That's what' I'm referencing.

Given the set up and a commitment to virtuality (i.e. the GM doesn't change things with intent to create a specific outcome--if the players get away, they get away) then what more would you need from "why" or "what happens?"

I don't think GDS Sim isn't covered under GNS Sim (and I don't think that's what John said)--it's that, IMO, GNS Sim lumps in various dramatic techniques that GDS Sim guys would (IME) think are railroading. It puts them all together.

When Ralph wrote his essay I noted that under his take on Sim I thought GDS Dramatism did not apply, he started this thread.

Under his take on Sim I would think that Illusionism would be considered dysfunctional. It's, commonly, not considered dysfunctional under normal GNS Sim, IMO.

Its precisely becuase it is not clear whether "story-like" means "like a story addressing of premise" or whether it means "following the structure of the (for example) the 3-act play". As I recall, the latter is identified as a subset of Sim and the former was re-badged Narratavism to underline the distinction.

OK. But in the scenario Mike offered, there was a clear-cut signal of the GM's purposeful intervention rather than a developement of cause and effect; so I don't follow what your example is trying to identify.

I see what you're trying to get at. And I agree with the Dramatism vs. Illusionism point, in general. But I don't think that Ralph's Sim is GDS Sim. That is, I think that Illusionism definitely falls under simulationism in GNS. And not dysfuncitonal simulationism, either. Because the area of conflict between these things is not in what's produces, but in how things are presented. This is the key distinction between the two models. Nobody actually cares about whether or not a "story" is produced, for instance. The only question is whether people feel that they have the ability to make these sorts of changes at the time in question.

Simulationism wants to seem like players have the ability to autonomously move their characters about inside of the SIS. Illusionism seeks to provide just that feeling, while actually giving the power of control of events to the GM. Yes, this is so that a certain outcome will happen, but that's precisely why Illusionism isn't a CA, but a sub-CA. It has the same goal as Simulationism in terms of feel, but varies in terms of results of play by wanting to create a story (or interesting action, or whatever). Wheras "open" sim wants to allow the players the same feel, but makes it easier by allowing most any outcome of play.

Does that clarify it for anyone?

Again, this is not to say that outcomes of play aren't important, they are. Just that GNS classifies three categories of CAs that are prone to conflict when decisions that indicate them in use are noted. As opposed to looking back at the product created.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: But I don't think that Ralph's Sim is GDS Sim. That is, I think that Illusionism definitely falls under simulationism in GNS. And not dysfuncitonal simulationism, either. Because the area of conflict between these things is not in what's produces, but in how things are presented. This is the key distinction between the two models.

Valamir wrote: Simulationism has long been a problematic agenda to understand. In my effort to more clearly define it I have elected to replace the Right to Dream with Discovery, not as an additional term, but because I think Discovery more accurately relates to what Simulationism is about. In my opinion, the Right to Dream is what all of role playing is about and is thus more accurately applied to Exploration than to Simulationism. Dreaming is a rather passive endeavor. But Discovery requires decisive action and focus and is more appropriately on par with the other two agendas.

I have also tried to return Simulationism to its roots which have been lost in the mists of ancient Forge discussion. The goal of Simulationism must be, can only be it would seem to me, to simulate something. Not to explore, not to just “see what’s out there”. Those are passive acts of observation. Simulation is like an experiment which seeks to answer the question “what if”. Before one can observe the results and get that answer, one has to set up the experiment and start it in motion.

Mike Holmes wrote: Simulationism wants to seem like players have the ability to autonomously move their characters about inside of the SIS. Illusionism seeks to provide just that feeling, while actually giving the power of control of events to the GM. Yes, this is so that a certain outcome will happen, but that's precisely why Illusionism isn't a CA, but a sub-CA. It has the same goal as Simulationism in terms of feel, but varies in terms of results of play by wanting to create a story (or interesting action, or whatever). Wheras "open" sim wants to allow the players the same feel, but makes it easier by allowing most any outcome of play.

Does that clarify it for anyone?

Hello,

That's an odd conclusion, John. I'll be interested in Mike's answer, but mine is a Scooby-like "Urh?"

I submit that Participationism is a very common, functional, and powerful approach that makes a great deal of Simulationist play possible, specifically that which relies on a steady GM hand on "the story." High Concept Sim is practically defined by Participationism, or rather, that's the approach which works best as opposed to Illusionism masking potential railroading.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: That's an odd conclusion, John. I'll be interested in Mike's answer, but mine is a Scooby-like "Urh?"

I submit that Participationism is a very common, functional, and powerful approach that makes a great deal of Simulationist play possible, specifically that which relies on a steady GM hand on "the story."

Mike Holmes wrote: Simulationism wants to seem like players have the ability to autonomously move their characters about inside of the SIS.

Mike Holmes wrote: That is, I think that Illusionism definitely falls under simulationism in GNS. And not dysfuncitonal simulationism, either. Because the area of conflict between these things is not in what's produces, but in how things are presented.

Mike

I can't say for certain where my redefined simulation falls with relation to GDS Simulation, but if John suggests its pretty close, then it must be.

But I have long been disatisfied at the way the "not G, not N" definition of GNS Simulation has resulted in Sim being the dumping ground for the most oddly eccelctic mix of completely uncompatable play styles in the model.

If the model is to be useful at identifying Inter GNS conflict than it should not give rise to situations where Intra GNS conflict is worse. Illusionism and Participationism is every bit as much in hostile conflict with "what if" play as "what if" play is with Gamism. Lumping Illusionism and "what if" play together in Simulation makes as little sense as putting Gamism and Simulationism together in the same category. It renders the distinction of the label all but meaningless and has been a key contributor to the endless cycle of "what is sim" threads we've had over the years (hell my very first serious postings here were on that very subject 3+ years ago)

I think the current GNS understanding of Sim was the result of alot of ancient Forge history in the early days before we had developed the Big Model, defined "system" via the Lumpley principle, or had first sought to pin down Shared Imaginary Space. I think the reason there is still the belief that Illusionism and "what if" Sim belong together in the same category is primarily one of institutional inertia.


When I wrote my essay my intention in the Simulationist part was to go back to the beginning on Sim and find a whole new avenue to go down. To do this I needed to define the principle that, to me, was the essential core of Simulationism. I believe my notions of simulation in the sense of a "what if" experiment is that essential core.

From there, I fully expect that ALOT of stuff that had previously been dumped into the Simulationist bucket over the years will fail to qualify as Simulationism under my definition. Marco immediately hit on the notion that Illusionism in particular will not qualify. This is unsurprising to me since Illusionism and "what if" sim have never played nice and IMO never should have been lumped together in the same category to begin with.


So if all of these perfectly valid forms of play can no longer be stuck in Simulationism where do they go? Well I think that ideas of SiS, system, and the Big Model now give us the tools we need to identify what these things really have in common.

One possibility is to push Illusionism and Participationism down to the Exploration level. For they represent the true desire to "Explore and nothing else"

A second possibility is to resurrect the idea of GDS Dramatism and see if there really is something there deserving of a seperate CA and where Illusionism and Participationism would find a home.


A third possibility, and currently my favorite, is to stop mistaking these things for sub-agendas and recognize them for what they are...Techniques. I think that Illusionism is a Technique by Big Model meaning, or perhaps more broadly, the name given to a collection of like minded techniques such as Roads to Rome and Creative Continuity, etc. As such Illusionism is not tied to a particular CA. It is not automatically Sim play.

I think Marco is spot on when he suggests that Illusionism could be attempted in conjunction with Nar play also. I suspect that Illusionism applied to Nar play would probably explain alot of World of Darkness play.

I've long thought that Illusionism's best partner is that particular form of Gamism where the players are really only interested in being transported from challenging encounter to challenging encounter but yet want to have an entertaining story as a back drop to their escapades.


For me, I'm not starting with any assumptions about what still is and isn't part of Simulationism under this definition. Is High Concept Sim even really Simulationism? Don't know. Haven't torn into it. Haven't sat down and isolated what the core concepts of High Concept Sim are and compared them to my definition of simulation as "what if" experiment. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

Point being I think its high past time we stopped making a big pile of everything that isn't G or N and then laboring to find a broadly vague definition of Sim to encompass them all. Find a definition of Sim that is as focused and clear a priority as G and N (which I've attempted to do), and then let the chips fall where they may.

I agree with this almost completely. The idea that the S/D incompatibility is less deep or severe than the S/N incompatibility doesn't ring true to me on any level.

-Marco

To me Illusionism and Participationism looks like incoherent play. The gm is free to address premise through his play, by setting up conflicts and manipulating how they turn out, while the players can only react in what they feel their characters appropriate manner would be. One is playing narrativist the rest are playing sim.

That only becomes disfunctional if the players want to be addressing premise and are restricted by the sim nature allowed to them or if they object to the premise addressing the gm is doing.

I always thought the model allowed for blends such as the above and decided the game was primarily sim or narrativist based on how much the players actions ended up addressing premise.

Saying that the model doesnt allow for this mix causes two problems in my mind, one is that sim can never attempt story or drama of any fashion because the gm will always be able to address premise, will have to in setting up a situation unless it is randomly and rigidly created beyond his control. The other is that sim is of very limited appeal, a necessary adjunct of the first problem.

Hiya,

Ralph, I was under the impression that we had decided long ago that Illusionism was the effect of a family of techniques, and thus might be considered a technique-category - and not associated with a given CA at all at the definitional level.

Procedurally, however, illusionist techniques tend to be deal-breakers in Gamist or Narrativist play, at least over time when they nearly inevitably become exposed.

As I understand it, that's where the state-of-theory stands - that one does not say "Illusionist play is Sim play," but rather, "Historically, Illusionist techniques find successful applications within Sim contexts."

A) Isn't that the state-of-theory? I think the Glossary entries are consistent with it.

B) Is that essentially what you're saying? In which case you're clarifying what's already being said, which is apparently very necessary, but not pointing out a hole or historically flawed portion of the existing theory, after all.

Best,
Ron

That's my understanding, Ron.

John, you bring up an interesting case. I made a very unclear statment - especially when taken out of context as you have done. Simulationism is making decisions such that the world seems objectively real to the participants - or, rather, that the other metagame agendas do not make it seem less so. One way to do this is Illusionism, in which case, the players demand the appearance of autonomy, as though they were active in the objective world. So I was just describing the one way that players get the feeling in question. Note that there are secondary aspects to all of these sub-CAs, so this isn't unusual. This is why we have sub-CAs.


OTOH, if, indeed, players have no power to explore, then they can't be rightly said to be roleplaying at all, can they? That is, if they can't say the least little thing about what their character do, or anything at all, then they're just listening to something like a story from the GM, right? Nobody would mistake this for a RPG.

That said, it's a functional activity for one "player" to have all of the power. I tell stories to my son every night. It's not an RPG, because of the lack of interactivity, but it's a positive activity. Given this, I assume that every power split that occurs is viable and valid.

Anyhow, the point is that for Participationism to be roleplaying at all, means that the player does have some level of control - enough to explore in some way, basically. So, if they do have some control, if they are exploring, then there's potentially that objective universe to explore, even if the GM is doing most of it himself. Simulationism is about the universe seeming to be objective. One way to get this is to allow the players autonomy, to allow the perception of autonomy, or just for the GM to provide it himself. A player always controls every character, doesn't really matter if it's the GM or somebody else in terms of CA. What matters for simulationism is that for the players in question that it makes the world seem like it's objectively extant.

Interestingly, this relates back to Ralph's claims about conflict. It's precisely the conflicts that the players are not allowed to address in Participtionism - if they could, then they could determine plot, which is exactly what GM authority is being used to provide instead. It's precisely play like this (and other sub-modes) that say to me that simulationism isn't at all defined by conflict. That, or Participationism is play without a CA. Which seems to be a contradictory statement. Or you could say that Participationism isn't Role-playing - but then you get into the same sticky areas that we're in with regards to CRPGS and solo RPGs. Is the ability to explore the SIS, even if in only limited form, role-playing?

As always my response to the question is to ask what good it does if you say no? Why not just call it participationism with all that entails in terms of "exceptions?"

Mike

Ron Edwards wrote:
Procedurally, however, illusionist techniques tend to be deal-breakers in Gamist or Narrativist play, at least over time when they nearly inevitably become exposed.

As I understand it, that's where the state-of-theory stands - that one does not say "Illusionist play is Sim play," but rather, "Historically, Illusionist techniques find successful applications within Sim contexts."

A) Isn't that the state-of-theory? I think the Glossary entries are consistent with it.

B) Is that essentially what you're saying? In which case you're clarifying what's already being said, which is apparently very necessary, but not pointing out a hole or historically flawed portion of the existing theory, after all.

Mike Holmes wrote:
Anyhow, the point is that for Participationism to be roleplaying at all, means that the player does have some level of control - enough to explore in some way, basically. So, if they do have some control, if they are exploring, then there's potentially that objective universe to explore, even if the GM is doing most of it himself. Simulationism is about the universe seeming to be objective. One way to get this is to allow the players autonomy, to allow the perception of autonomy, or just for the GM to provide it himself. A player always controls every character, doesn't really matter if it's the GM or somebody else in terms of CA. What matters for simulationism is that for the players in question that it makes the world seem like it's objectively extant.

Interestingly, this relates back to Ralph's claims about conflict. It's precisely the conflicts that the players are not allowed to address in Participtionism - if they could, then they could determine plot, which is exactly what GM authority is being used to provide instead. It's precisely play like this (and other sub-modes) that say to me that simulationism isn't at all defined by conflict.

That, or Participationism is play without a CA. Which seems to be a contradictory statement. Or you could say that Participationism isn't Role-playing - but then you get into the same sticky areas that we're in with regards to CRPGS and solo RPGs. Is the ability to explore the SIS, even if in only limited form, role-playing?

Valamir wrote:

My goals in the essay were these

1) Start with a definition of what Sim is...then see what does or doesn't fit into it.

2) Ensure that the definition of Sim parallels that of Nar and Gam. This is important to a) make all three equal, and b) make all Creative Agendas uniform with regards to what it is a Creative Agenda is about.

With this approach I wanted to avoid having Sim be the red headed step child its been since nearly the beginning.

If Creative Agenda's are to all occupy the same level of the model it is important that all Creative Agenda's address the same type of thing. You can't have 1 Creative Agenda that's primarily about Social Contract, and another that's primarily about Techniques, and lump them together in the same box (as an example). What then is the common thread defining what a Creative Agenda is and ensuring that all 3 Creative Agendas are uniformly about the same thing?

Conflict is what I found to be the defining feature of Nar and Gam play. How the players address conflict in the game is what distinguishes N and G. Since we are pretty secure in our definition of G and N and not very secure in our definition of S it seems quite reasonable to define CA in these terms.

So my starting premise then was that Creative Agenda is about the player's response to in game conflict. That's very clearly 100% what Step on Up is about. Its very clearly 100% what Story Now is about.

The role of Force in Nar play can be seen when the system imposes cause-and-effect on a character and the players would rather it not (there is a fear check that forces the character to behave in a fearful manner).*

The role of Force in Sim play (under Ralph's definition, which I wholeheartedly support and see, as he says, as quite different than the current status quo in some ways) is when the system (usually the 'GM-decides' part of System) imposes something on the characters that is not cause and effect.

But either way, Force is still in essence railroading which I'm going to re-state here as: taking the game in a direction the players don't want it to go by way of system manipulation ... usually by the GM.**

What this means is the following: if you have a game and you resolve NEVER to let it leave the rails but the PC's never try to leave the rails then the game could count as Narrativist for all anyone will ever care (your rails happened to coincide with the game going exactly where the player wanted it to in order to address premise in the player's preferred fashion).

I'd be skeptical about how long that arrangement would last--but I don't think it'd count as railroaded or force-ful (but maybe illusionist?) in any meaningful sense.

The same may be true of Sim games wherein the GM is willing to breach cause and effect but doesn't ever need to.

Again: how long that arrangement will last depends on the threshold of the players for anti-CA action in their game and the skill of the GM in applying illusory techniques (when it does breach).

But that means that a game where the players "do what the GM expects of them" (assuming they do not do it because the GM expects it but merely because it works out that way) is one where Force isn't necessary.

(and remember, what Force is seems to change from one preferred-CA to another ... and two players in a given game might have very different ideas of what Force is ... and the GM a third--but there you go).

So really, Force is always dysfunctional (under this construct) and is really a sub-set of railroading.

An example in 'Dramatist' play is when the GM plays 'by-the-rules' and an untimely character death results in contravention of the preferred CA that says PC death is only gonna happen during the climax.

The exception cases are, I think, where:

a) the GM is "railroading behind the scenes" but the players are happy. In this case it's perceptual: The players will complain if the causes for the manipulation are known but don't have an issue with the direction the game took. Example: the GM intervenes to save a character during Sim or Gamist play when that character should be dead. The player is happy to live--but will be annoyed if it turns out he 'lived through cheating.''

b) the game is assumed to be Participationism but the contract isn't explicit (i.e. in just about every garden-variety case ever seen). In this case I submit that we really don't know. The players may put up with some manipulation as a sort of "signal-to-noise-ratio" but we never found out if there was ever a case where the "chips were down" and it "really counted."

I wouldn't throw a fit if the GM amped the rider's stats to try to get me on the start of an adventure. I wouldn't *prefer* it--but I wouldn't go looking for conflict and power-struggle with the GM early in a game when little was at stake (which is how I imagine Mike's example).

But I'd certainly object or gracefully bow-out if the GM did that in a case where my chosen option really mattered to me and it was clear the GM was trying to nullify my power of choice for some reason.

In the functional case the GM manipulaitng things is like the moving-clue in Nar play (a presumedly functional case of GM manipulation). Same as Sim. And just as in Nar play if it takes me in a CA-violating direction, it'll be a deal-breaker.

This perspective makes me think that Force "does not play nice with Sim" just as Force "does not play nice with Gam or Nar."

-Marco
* Force in Nar play could also be to force an outcome of a scene against the way that a player's action would dictate. In this case the definition of Force lines up, IMO, exactly with Gamism Force and Simulationist Force in terms of what's annoying the player.

** That is, Force is a sub-set of railroading since railroading can be accomplished quite "ca-legally" by systemic manipulation of *setting.*

Ralph, your characterization of my reasoning process is faulty. I'm not starting from any such assumption, but asking the value of changing the current theory. That is, I can tell you what the definition of sim is as I understand it, why it exists as such, and why that includes participationism. I've done do repeatedly. In fact, I could attribute the same sort of motives to your argument. That is, I could say that you don't "get" sim as it stands, so you've created a criteria that you can understand, and forced the rest of the theory to adjust so that it fits the model that you can understand.

But I'll assume that you are arguing from a more rational basis than you would attribute to me.

What your version doesn't address is what value it brings to the model outside of idenitfication. More importantly, you still haven't addressed the problems with your modification to the model that I've brought up.

To reiterate, if I have a player who's playing Participationism, and another who's playing Gamism, I can tell you that they're going to have a CA problem. How is this not the Gamism/Simulationism problem? How does taking Participationism out of the model improve our understanding of the end results of different modes of play being applied.

Also I 100% disagree that Gamism and Narrativism are 100% defined by conflict. I've given examples repeatedly about evidence of play that is not conflict related in terms of determining mode, which don't get refuted, just ignored. If a player can determine mode without conflict, then other GNS analysis can apply to play that's not conflict related. Again, lets say that a particular player decides to have his character in play go to all of the weapon stores in the city to see where they have the best weapons, or the cheapest ones, or some combination. He has no money, so he doesn't buy, but he's exploring in order to have the information later. He says, "Someday I'll have the best sword in the land!" This is very clearly indicative of a Gamism mode of play. Non conflict involved, no repercussions, nothing that you'd call a conflict by your criteria. Yet the player opposite him, wanting narrativism, says, "Dude, you're slowing down the game. That stuff's useless. You're annoying me."

Completely plausible, completely analyzable, having nothing to do with conflict, but with the standard sorts of exploration that occur during play. GNS problems can occur because of this stuff. So how does it help if you eliminate it from being called part of the mode?

Again, if you want to say that conflict punctuates Modes, making them easier to discern at those moments, I'm all with you. But especially with sim, where the CA may tell you that you can't reasonably have a conflict at a given time, I think that it's unreasonable to assume that only conflict is telling.

Yes, I think that the issues of definition of these modes are complex. That said, I think actual idenification is quite easy. Just because the philosophical underpinnings of simulationism are complex doesn't make the model inaccurate. Special Relativity is very complicated, but closer to the truth than relativity or Newtonian Mechanics.

BTW, I use "seems" because given that the universes in question are fictional, they cannot "actually" be objective. In fact from an epistemological POV, nothing is objective. In any case, relative to the real world, the best you can hope for is the feeling of objectivity. This is key, and the problem that I have with some of Marco's POV. He seems to assume that there can be an actual objective world that exists. I'd say that a computer can at least give a steady state illusion of such a world, but you can't get that from a human. There's always the chance that the human is using Author stance, and you don't know it. The best you can get is trust that the human involved isn't channging the world behind the scenes.

In any case, this is not antithetical to simulation per se. That is all simulations are simulacra of reality. As such they have the advantage that the parameters of the simulation can be altered at will. If you really don't want this, then what you want is not a Virtuality, but reality. Again, those who want their Simulation to look as "hard" as reality as possible are "Virtualists." But not all simulationism requires this - just that internal causality be consistent. For instance, if a better way to model something is found, most simulationists will adopt the better model even amidst play, because it's not a question of the methods of determining what happens remaining unalterable as they are in the real world. It's a matter of the rules intending to model an unchanging Virtuality.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Ralph, your characterization of my reasoning process is faulty. I'm not starting from any such assumption, but asking the value of changing the current theory. That is, I can tell you what the definition of sim is as I understand it, why it exists as such, and why that includes participationism. I've done do repeatedly.

Commitment to the imagined events of play, specifically their in-game causes and pre-established thematic elements.

The imagination of fictional events...

In fact, I could attribute the same sort of motives to your argument. That is, I could say that you don't "get" sim as it stands, so you've created a criteria that you can understand, and forced the rest of the theory to adjust so that it fits the model that you can understand.

What your version doesn't address is what value it brings to the model outside of idenitfication.

More importantly, you still haven't addressed the problems with your modification to the model that I've brought up.

To reiterate, if I have a player who's playing Participationism, and another who's playing Gamism, I can tell you that they're going to have a CA problem.

How is this not the Gamism/Simulationism problem? How does taking Participationism out of the model improve our understanding of the end results of different modes of play being applied.

Also I 100% disagree that Gamism and Narrativism are 100% defined by conflict. I've given examples repeatedly about evidence of play that is not conflict related in terms of determining mode, which don't get refuted, just ignored.

Again, lets say that a particular player decides to have his character in play go to all of the weapon stores in the city to see where they have the best weapons, or the cheapest ones, or some combination. He has no money, so he doesn't buy, but he's exploring in order to have the information later. He says, "Someday I'll have the best sword in the land!" This is very clearly indicative of a Gamism mode of play.

No conflict involved, no repercussions, nothing that you'd call a conflict by your criteria. Yet the player opposite him, wanting narrativism, says, "Dude, you're slowing down the game. That stuff's useless. You're annoying me."

Again, if you want to say that conflict punctuates Modes, making them easier to discern at those moments, I'm all with you. But especially with sim, where the CA may tell you that you can't reasonably have a conflict at a given time, I think that it's unreasonable to assume that only conflict is telling.

BTW, I use "seems" because given that the universes in question are fictional, they cannot "actually" be objective. In fact from an epistemological POV, nothing is objective. In any case, relative to the real world, the best you can hope for is the feeling of objectivity.

Mike,

You have me wrong on the idea that I think there's a "real" imaginary world out there. I think if you check my writing you'll see I use the words 'commitment to virtuality' or some such.

That's important.

A Nar-inclined player has a *commitment* to addressing premise. That doesn't mean their every action, every noun and verb, or necessairly every scene will address premise.

A gamist has a commitment to challenge. The Gamist probably has a pretty high precedence on cause and effect in the game but that leads to uninteresting challenges then he'll be upset even though it's "fair and by the rules."

If a Sim-player has a commitment to virtuality (and I think he does) then a Sim player and a guy expecting participationism in the same game will cause problems in the same way that your sim player and a gamist player may.

That is:

1. they may NOT have problems if the elements of participationism are not used in a way that violates either's wishes.

2. If the Participationist expects plot-protection for the PC's and the Sim player expects internal-cause-and-effect let-the-dice-fall-where-they-may and there is an episode which results in a "meaningless" PC death then there *will* be exactly the same sort of intra-CA problem that is usually attributed here to inter-CA problems.

But, as Ralph notes: in the case of #1 there may be no conflict.

Why is that?

The reason is this. If we define Participationism as a commitment to story under the GM's aegis then we have done two things.

1. We have linked Participationism to story in such a way as to make it a GDS Dramatist phenomena. Irrevocably so in fact. The GM who is participationist is then *telling* a story. Not satisfying another CA.

2. In doing so the status quo means it CANNOT fit either Nar or Gamist by definition. Because there are only three bins it must therefore be Sim-ist. It can't be a technique since if it's to be functional then it has to be Sim-only. A gamist who loses "for the story" will be mad as will a Narrativist who wins for the GM's story when he tried to lose for premise (for example).

The GNS language used here answers the question for us without allowing any examination of whether or not Participationism fits under Sim. It has to. There's no where else for it to go.

But does it fit?

If we assume that 50% of Sim is "pure" sim or "pinball sim" then certainly Particiaptionism doens't fit there.

It only fits (I think, maybe) in High-Concept Sim? Right? That's the Dramatist lobe?

And if it's clear that the pin-ball sim player will have an objection of the exact severity and nearly identical nature to the Gamist or Narrativst objection ("My rightful input was squelched for someone else's concern--a concern I do not share") then what we have is not merely a scope issue but actually an agenda one.

For Gamism competition vs. Step-on-up is, IMO, scope--intra-part competition is simply expanding the scope of whom do we compete against.

For Narrativism, for example, the existence of directoral power or not is a scope issue: how much input will I have over the results of my actions (or how much input into the story).

But for Participation vs. Virtuality the issue isn't scope--it's one of intent. It's a question over what the GM's commitment to play is.

Participationism is only functional under one CA. Dramatism (High concept Sim, if we want to keep that--but, IMO, it doesn't make sense and is ugly).

Now, if we step back and make Particiaptionism a technique as Ralph suggests then Participationst Gamist play is possible. In this case the essence of Participationism is a commitment to a plot flow that follows a branching structure hinging on the outcome of challenges.

Win one? You get "transported" to another challenge in another scene. Lose it? Again you are "transported" to the next (a different one). In this case while there may be a story involved, the story does NOT relate to whether the characters succeed or not--that's up in the air ... and so the Gamist and the Participationist can happily coincide.

But it depends on where you slice it.

I greatly favor the Dramatist designation becasuse, in this case, the Participationist-Gamist game can simply be seen as the GM adding color to the priority (challenge) rather than intimating that "telling a story" is the GM's highest goal in play.

Put another way: does how the players get from one challenge to another *really* matter that much? Compare to the sorts of gyrations one must go through to do plot-protection in most games (dice fudging, dues ex machina, etc.)

-Marco

Marco wrote:
I greatly favor the Dramatist designation becasuse, in this case, the Participationist-Gamist game can simply be seen as the GM adding color to the priority (challenge) rather than intimating that "telling a story" is the GM's highest goal in play.

Put another way: does how the players get from one challenge to another *really* matter that much? Compare to the sorts of gyrations one must go through to do plot-protection in most games (dice fudging, dues ex machina, etc.)

-Marco

Caldis wrote:
The only problem I see with Dramatism as a creative agenda is the consideration of the players rather than the gm, whats their creative agenda? To me it seems pretty passive, they are not trying to create story they're just following along for the ride. Under Ralph's view of the model they have no creative agenda, they're willing to let the GM pursue his agenda they just explore.

Marco wrote: Well, Calids, if we make the 4th lobe then the CA would be 'Dramatism.' It'd be like what Mike was describing. Rather than a commitment to "what if?" the players are (I'd think) playing with a commitment to cooperate with the GM (and this may even involve co-creating the story, I would think) but the commitment is on keeping things interesting and moving in some direction rather than a real "what-if?" style play. Premise might get addressed and challenges will be overcome but not as a priority or driving force (again, this is conjecture).

John Kim wrote:
I'm not sure if I understand how you are proposing to define "Dramatism". Are you saying that Dramatism would include only those instances of play where the players are cooperating with the GM on story? Why wouldn't we keep the label "Participationism" for this?

As we defined it in the rgfa Threefold, Dramatism was broadly defined as pursuing "story" as a goal -- which meant whatever the participants themselves defined as the best story. It is, in my opinion, inclusive of most of what gets labelled "Narrativism" here, as well as most of Illusionism and Participationism.

I think that part of the problem is with definitional wars. On rgfa, posters who identified with drama resented the idea of being classified in the same group linear-plot games (similar to Illusionism and Participationism in Forge terms). On rgfa, Simulationist-leaning posters were essentially dominant after more prominent Dramatist-leaning posters dropped out. On The Forge, the reverse happened and the unpopular linear-plot games were classified with Simulationism.

Having a fourth lobe makes some sense to me, but I'd prefer that it not be called "Dramatism" if it is going to clash with the Threefold definition of Dramatism. I think it is confusing enough having clashing definitions as it is.

Valamir wrote: I've yet to see a two or three sentence definition of Simulationism that isn't a) self referential, b) based on Not N, Not G, or c) so vague as to be unuseable; and which defines sim as being something more than just exploration plus more exploration.

The definition in the provisional glossary reads:

Commitment to the imagined events of play, specifically their in-game causes and pre-established thematic elements.

So part one of the definition is simply "Simulation requires exploration" which is true of all roleplaying.

Yes I did create a criteria that I can understand, and I endeavored to frame it as clearly and concisely as I could...because a definition that cannot be understood and cannot be clearly and concisely articulated is useless.

The proof that you seem to be desiring to make is that if you can demonstrate that CA can be observed in situations of no Conflict, then my definition must be false.

Value? Ummm, my essay is full of explaining the value. How about finding a definition of Sim that doesn't allow tons of incompatible play styles to be included under the same umbrella simply because there's no where else for them to go?

How about finding a way to explain Creative Agenda in 8 words that doesn't rely on vague phrases or extended explanations and can be understood by someone new to the theory in short order? How about finding a way to actually start to diagnose an Instance of Play from when it begins to when it ends rather than having it be the black box where stuff happens that we can't actually define?

Those all seem pretty valuable to me.

Really Mike, as a supporter of atomic diagnosis of CA I figured you'd recognize the value in having a way to define an Instance of Play that allows it to be as long as an entire session plus (the kind of Instances Ron like to look at...the broad brush over arching conflicts) or as short as a scene or part of a scene (the kind of Instances where your atomic analysis could apply).

To reiterate, if I have a player who's playing Participationism, and another who's playing Gamism, I can tell you that they're going to have a CA problem.

Can you? I doubt it. In fact, I more than doubt it. I expressly state "no you can't". Especially since I have addressed this more than once already and indicated that I think Participationism and Gamism are fully compatable and that a great deal of traditional tactical gamist play is based on just such a system.

Further, I believe its been established (or at least agreed to by those weighing in so far) that Illusionism is a set of Techniques, not an agenda. If Illusionism is a set of techniques, then Participationism (which is nothing more than Illusionism without the veil) must also be a set of techniques.

Therefor you cannot say that the players are going to have a CA problem. If there is going to be a problem its going to be a technique problem not a CA problem.

I've yet to see any explanations of actual play that is devoid of conflict and which the agenda is clearly in evidence.

That includes this example:

<snip example>

To which I can only say, nonsense. This isn't clearly indicative of anything. There is no evidence whatsoever as to why the player sent the character to search weapons stores for the best weapons. It looks Gamist to you because that's what was in your head when you wrote it. It doesn't look gamist to me. I challenge you to find in the above any compelling evidence that Gamism is clearly the agenda at work here.

In fact, this very type of situation (of the "my character climbs the hill to see what's making the smoke" variety) has previously been used to "prove" that Simulation doesn't require conflict.

This only convinces me more that Conflict is the essential key ingredient. Given the above conflictless situation one could easily explain it as Gamism, Simulationism, or even Narrativism. One can't tell for sure, one can only read into it what one expects to see there.

But I submitt that if you rewrote the situation so that it involved a clear conflict according to the 3 features of conflict I proposed, and outlined the player's responses over the full cycle of that conflict (from recognition through resolution and denouement) that you would be in a much better position to make a definitive statement about which Agenda is at work.

Remember while you insist that you can determine CA outside of conflict that conflict is not simply the point of resolution. I've defined Instance of Play as being the entire cycle of conflict which includes both the build up to and the denouement as well as the climactic moment.

No conflict involved, no repercussions, nothing that you'd call a conflict by your criteria. Yet the player opposite him, wanting narrativism, says, "Dude, you're slowing down the game. That stuff's useless. You're annoying me."

Mike, I'm very surprised to see you making such sweeping claims about what a narrativist player would say. You know full well that being a narrativist has nothing to do whatsoever with being annoyed at shopping trips. You have no grounds at all to put words in the mouth of a narrativist player at this point based on what you wrote above.

The narrativist player could just as easily say "Dude, way to demonstrate your character's commitment to the idea that the best warrior is the one with the best weapon. That's a great way to address the premise of what defines a man? What he does or what he has? Can't wait to see that play out"

As in, outside of situations of identifiable conflict its impossible to determine CA reliably. Surely I've seen nothing in your examples to suggest otherwise.

There is a big difference between

a) expecting a simulation to be as objective as humanly possible given the limitations and constraints of modeling and the conditions under which the simulation is run. and

b) expecting a simulation to be as objective as the GM's whim feels like making it.

Simulationism accepts the former and rejects the latter.

Illusionism requires accepting the latter.

ergo they are incompatable.

Thanks Mike. I needed that post.

Best,
Ron

Simulationism is prioritizing exploration.

That's not self-referential, not a rejection of N or G (if so, then the definitions of N and G have the same problem), and it's not vague in the least. It means that when the player has a decision to make his agenda will be to consider the explorative or "what if" value to come up with his decision.

Just a "me too," Ralph. Nothing major.

Best,
Ron

First, in the Beeg Horseshoe, it's my point precisely that the bend of the shoe is Exploration. I say that about a jillion times in the big thread on that. I say that this correllates to Ron's definition of Simulationism as far as I can tell, if you have to put simulationism on the Beeg Horseshoe. But That's exactly why the model exists, so that I don't have to do that.

But it's also the point of the Beeg Horseshoe that all CAs that I've actually seen in action (no matter how I'd like to theorize about "conflictless" play) have conflict. But it's also the point of Beeg Horseshoe, that this is either Gamism or Narrativism when it happens. What you seem to be proposing is a third "prong" to the horseshoe. Which is what I'd object to.

Think about it this way. Ron says that narrativism, when it gets down to it, is being interested in the ramifications of a conflict, emotionally. Well, if I'm getting "Jazzed" about "what if" isn't that emotional? Put another way, give me an example of a "sim" conflict. I propose that conflict as a sorta literary term refers to what interests the player. If it doesn't, then as you say it's the "inconsequential" wood-carving case. Which is "just exploration."

Which is (to put the positivist spin on it so that MJ doesn't object), the player ensuring that the exploration is interesting by not marring it by going back down the prongs to boardgaming, or storytelling. That is, the positivist puts the arch of the horseshoe at the top, and makes going up to the top an act of creativity instead of an act of pusilanimously backsliding down to the bottom as one might assume. (Of course MJ may now point out the usual, that by making this different from the other two that it still marginalizes the activity in some way).



Anyhow:

There are only 2 possible interpretations of this sentence.

a) that when a player has a decision to make, his agenda will be to ONLY consider the explorative "what if" factors...in which case this is absolutely a Not N, Not G definition...or

Mike Holmes wrote: First, in the Beeg Horseshoe, it's my point precisely that the bend of the shoe is Exploration. I say that about a jillion times in the big thread on that. I say that this correllates to Ron's definition of Simulationism as far as I can tell, if you have to put simulationism on the Beeg Horseshoe. But That's exactly why the model exists, so that I don't have to do that.

But it's also the point of the Beeg Horseshoe that all CAs that I've actually seen in action (no matter how I'd like to theorize about "conflictless" play) have conflict. But it's also the point of Beeg Horseshoe, that this is either Gamism or Narrativism when it happens. What you seem to be proposing is a third "prong" to the horseshoe. Which is what I'd object to. [/qupte]

So given that:
we can agree that the bend in the horseshoe is exploration,
we can agree that all CAs involve conflict
we can agree that when conflict happens you move out of exploration and into the prongs.

What exactly is your objection to having 3 prongs instead of 2?

and if, as you note above, "that all CAs you've seen in action have conflict" what is your objection to defining CAs as being the player's response to that conflict? That seems to be the distinguishing feature we've both hit on that differentiates a CA from exploration.

I'm finding it harder and harder to determine what it is you're actually disagreeing with.

Think about it this way. Ron says that narrativism, when it gets down to it, is being interested in the ramifications of a conflict, emotionally. Well, if I'm getting "Jazzed" about "what if" isn't that emotional?

No more than getting jazzed about step on up is emotional, and you agree that that's not narrativism.


It seems to me that once we agree that it is conflict that moves us out of the base of exploration and into the prongs, then it must be the approach to that conflict that differentiates one prong from another.

That approach to conflict (or what I called "the player's response to conflict" in my essay) is Story Now for N-play. Step-on-up for G-play.

Why is it difficult to imagine a third approach to conflict that is neither N, nor G, nor just Exploration alone?

Why is it difficult to imagine that this third approach to conflict does not involve the emotional mano-a-mano engagement of step on up, nor the emotional addressing of premise engagement of story now; but rather the more clinical fascination with "what happens" of Discovery.

Why is it difficult to imagine that what all three of these things have in common, what sets them apart as Agendas that go beyond basic exploration is the requirement of proactive engagement on the part of the player?

When a player is interested in the resolution of situation on a visceral step on up basis to the point that they view conflict as an opportunity to demonstrate their prowess and actively seek out such opportunities, that's Gamism. When they aren't so interested, then its just the resolution of situation through system of basic exploration.

When a player is interested in the resolution of situation on an emotional thematic basis to the point that they view conflict as an opportunity to address premise and actively seek out opportunities for Story Now, that's Narrativism. When they aren't so interested, then its just the resolution of situation through system of basic exploration.

When a player is interested in the resolution of situation as a commitment to furthering the experiment of "what if" to the point that they view conflict as an opportunity for Discovery to "see what happens" and actively seek out such opportunities for the purpose of setting them in motion that's Simulationism. When they aren't actively pursueing opportunities to act as a catalyst to conflict and are just dealing with adversity as it comes up, that's just the resolution of situation through system of basic exploration.

You can say the exact same thing about the other two modes. In fact, you can say this about anything. That is, if I positively say that something is X when that's known to be mutually exclusive from Y and Z, then saying it's X automatically means that I've said that it's not Y and Z.

But that's not what's happening.

You can define gamism as Exploration plus something else without reference to N or S.
You can define narrativism as Exploration plus something else without reference to G or S.

Because both of them have actual meaningful definitions. The fact that they are also mutually exclusive and can be defined as Not N, Not S; or Not G, not S is irrelevant, because they don't have to be defined that way.

Only S cannot currently be defined as Exploration plus something else.
Only S can only be defined with the Not N, Not G property of being the third element of the mutually exclusive triad.

My desire is to a) acknowledge that this definition is insufficient as it currently stands, b) avoid simply defining it out of existance by replacing it with Exploration at the base of the horseshoe and not leaving a prong for it as your approach seems to be, and c) come up with a valid "Exploration plus something else" definition for S.

Valamir wrote: You say its not self referential, but in fact the entirety of the definition is self referential. All roleplaying is built on a foundation of exploration. All roleplaying must be committed to all of the elements of exploration. Can you say that a sim player cares more about Setting than a Nar player? Can you say that a Sim player cares more about Situation than a Gamist player? Can you say that a Sim player cares more about Character, or Color or System? No. No you can't. You can find examples where that is the case. But you can find the same examples among Nar and Gamist players too.

If you can't say that a Sim player cares more about setting, character, situation, color, and system, then saying "Prioritizing Exploration" is utterly meaningless. Exploration *IS* setting, character, situation, color, and, system. There is no point at which a Sim player can "prioritize" any of these things to a greater degree than a Nar or Gam player. Its a nonsensical statement.

Mike Holmes wrote: I
Simulationism is prioritizing exploration.

That's not self-referential, not a rejection of N or G (if so, then the definitions of N and G have the same problem), and it's not vague in the least. It means that when the player has a decision to make his agenda will be to consider the explorative or "what if" value to come up with his decision. Not neccessarily "what if I attack?" but also "What if I go over the hill? What will the character encounter?" And not just in terms of the results, but in terms of it being a simulation. That is, he considers the validity of his inputs as well to make the whole seem objective. Meaning that the player will only have the character go over the hill if it seems like "what the charcter would do." Not retroactively as an explanation for any other motive, neccessarily, but as the primary motive. This is important, the mode indicates that the player is as interested in setting up the feel of objectivity as he is in the outcome. Again, it's not just that it's all internally causal, but that it seems as if the causality comes from the world, and not from the player (again, as always, "seems", because the causality does come from the player).

Think about it this way. Ron says that narrativism, when it gets down to it, is being interested in the ramifications of a conflict, emotionally. Well, if I'm getting "Jazzed" about "what if" isn't that emotional? Put another way, give me an example of a "sim" conflict. I propose that conflict as a sorta literary term refers to what interests the player. If it doesn't, then as you say it's the "inconsequential" wood-carving case. Which is "just exploration."

ErrathofKosh wrote: I disagree. What is Challenge? What is Premise? SITUATION. Thus N and G players prioritize Situation. Sure, maybe they emphasize setting or character in their situation. But it's still all about situation. In S, situation is present, but it's not always the most important part of play. In fact, one of the big reasons it occurs in Sim is to help the player explore character or setting or even the system. The Dream includes situations, but it is not all situation. Challenge is situation. Premise is situation.

Here's what I read from the glossary:

Challenge
The Situation, i.e., adversity or imposed risk to player-characters of any kind, in the context of Gamist play. It's the imaginative arena for the Creative Agenda of Step On Up. See the Gamble and the Crunch.

Premise (adapted from Egri)
A generalizable, problematic aspect of human interactions. Early in the process of creating or experiencing a story, a Premise is best understood as a proposition or perhaps an ideological challenge to the world represented by the protagonist's passions. Later in the process, resolving the conflicts of the story transforms Premise into a theme - a judgmental statement about how to act, behave, or believe. In role-playing, "protagonist" typically indicates a character mainly controlled by one person. A defining feature of Story Now.

Valamir wrote: In fact, it is almost always situation that is being Simulated in sim play. One doesn't simulate being a noble knight. One simulates being a noble knight doing something. Doing something requires situation.

Explain to me how these do not transfer into in-game situation. How can you have either Premise or Challenge without situation? If there were no situation what would the G player have to surmount? What would the N player have to address?

In S you use situation to explore, in N and G you use everything else to explore situation.

No you can't have a CA without situation. You must have all 5 elements. I agree with that.And I'm not saying that that you can't explore situation in S or that you always have to use situation to explore in S.


What I'm not convinced of:
That G and N can explore all the elements.


I think they are concerned with primarily exploring situation, other explored elements are secondary or being used as tools of exploration.
If you can give a good Premise about setting, I'd like to see it. But, make sure it's exploring setting, not using setting to explore.

SO, if you want, you can say that I define two things by what they explore and throw everything else under a third category. But I see similarity in that category, not discord.

Cheers
Jonathan

I think they are concerned with primarily exploring situation, other explored elements are secondary or being used as tools of exploration.
If you can give a good Premise about setting, I'd like to see it. But, make sure it's exploring setting, not using setting to explore.

Valamir wrote:
So given that:
we can agree that the bend in the horseshoe is exploration,
we can agree that all CAs involve conflict
we can agree that when conflict happens you move out of exploration and into the prongs.

What exactly is your objection to having 3 prongs instead of 2?

and if, as you note above, "that all CAs you've seen in action have conflict" what is your objection to defining CAs as being the player's response to that conflict? That seems to be the distinguishing feature we've both hit on that differentiates a CA from exploration.

Think about it this way. Ron says that narrativism, when it gets down to it, is being interested in the ramifications of a conflict, emotionally. Well, if I'm getting "Jazzed" about "what if" isn't that emotional?

No more than getting jazzed about step on up is emotional, and you agree that that's not narrativism.

So Mike...

When a scientist is working out her discoveries, is that Step on Up, or Premise Now?

Yeah, yeah, I know, science isn't gaming. But I guess I just don't see why it's unreasonable to think that some people might just be interested in answering 'what if' or 'what is going on here' or 'what's behind that hill' type questions as a matter of pure curiosity.

So my question is: if so, then why isn't this a third CA for you? I especially see this with detailed game worlds, the curiosity angle overwhelming the others.

If not, then why not?

Or if I've set things up wrong, what am I missing?

One possible answer: you write - "To be interested 'outside' the character is to not be playing sim." Why not? Aren't all interests ultimately outside the character? And aren't you identifying sim more generally with immersive roleplaying here, which is only one variety of Sim?

I guess I just don't see why pure (player) curiosity can't be a motive for in-game action involving exploration of internal cause (and content).

Do you subscribe to a psychological theory that says pure curiosity is not a genuine human attitude?

Valamir wrote: [Its a subtle distinction, however. Do you have a setting without premise and then the situation gives the premise. Or do you have a setting with embedded premise and then the situation is the key to unlocking access to it. Very subtle. Too subtle I think to be basing major differences in Creative Agenda on.

I guess we are at an impasse Mike

I see you and I agreeing on 80% of the important stuff. Then I see a big huge glareing hole in your material that I think I have the other 20% to fill and you're not interested in filling it because you don't see that it exists.

Basically you're taking the "third prong" and just squishing it back down to the base of the horseshoe so once again "Simulation" is a big mixed up jumbled up mess of conflicting stuff...only now you're calling the mixed up jumbled up mess Exploration instead of Sim.

To which I can only shrug and say I'm 99% certain you're wrong.
I'm not 99% that my variant is right. But I am 99% certain yours is wrong. Because alls you've done is shuffled around the labels and not really addressed any of the issues. Same mistakes different geometric shape. The Beeg Horseshoe threads were instrumental as a source for my essay, they take a different angle than the original Big Model and so illuminate different stuff, but in the end I find BH incomplete and missing the boat on Simulation.

So maybe at some point we'll pick up the discussion again. But until then, I don't find your definition of Exploration / Simulationism to be any more functional then the one in the glossary.

How does the situation giving the premise and premise embedded in setting differ? It seems to me that you are making the distinction between a game with Premise given beforehand and a game where Premise is determined just prior to or in-game. Premise is still setting and character interacting to inform the players about human issues.

I think that ultimately, so long as illusionism is kept in Sim then there's going to be a fundamental area of the model that doesn't make sense. I believe Ralph's model works if we assume that Sim players are chasing "what-if" questions and realize that illusionist techniques work against that goal.

The idea that the model is somehow stronger for not addressing what is a fundamental disagreement in play-goals (albeit, yes, one that wasn't acknowledged here first) seems essentially incorrect to me.

Functional illusionism may be a technique and not a 4th agenda--however, the idea that illusionism as force is not as out of step with Sim-agendas as Nar-agendas (or Gamist ones) means that there is something about Sim-play that rather than being Exploration-squared is just really "seems like exploration"--something a massive number of Sim players don't identify with, IMO.

What makes this clear is that illusionism *is* functional in a certain mode of play. We call it Participationism. I'd say GDS calls it Dramatism.

In Participationist play the players could be said to be exploring story (as in, how, keeping with literary structures and working so that the transcript of play is something like a published work can we develop the situation). The priority however, is not what would happen from these starting conditons (that might lead to an untimely death)--although as with all CA's, the development of play must seem logical--but as with other actual named agendas the internal processes that the players go through are different and even alien to each other's.

This difference in thought processes is not I think the difference between step-on-up and competition amongst gamist players (a scoping issue of who-do-we-compete-with?). I think it's way more fundamental than that.

I don't think I'm the only one (GDS was largely based on that divide) and the thread discussing the differences was dropped pretty quickly.

-Marco

Valamir wrote: But I am 99% certain yours is wrong. Because alls you've done is shuffled around the labels and not really addressed any of the issues. Same mistakes different geometric shape. The Beeg Horseshoe threads were instrumental as a source for my essay, they take a different angle than the original Big Model and so illuminate different stuff, but in the end I find BH incomplete and missing the boat on Simulation.

I think that any attempt to make simulationism a mode that somehow matches Gamism and Narrativism is doomed to failure. Because Simulationism is fundamentally different than the other two. Those two are about how conflict is addressed, and sim is about how well you hide that fact. Separate, though inter-related concerns.

Mike Holmes wrote: Those two are about how conflict is addressed, and sim is about how well you hide that fact. Separate, though inter-related concerns.

Mike

I think that in sim there is more going on than just trying to answer the "what if" questions. The fact that one person controls how the simulation runs, and what the conflicts that allow the "what if" questions are, makes the scientific merit of the experiment questionable. There are plenty of assumptions that come into play with a sim agenda that really muddy the waters.

The first assumption is that there will be conflict or at least something that gets the players involved in the situation faced. This is inevitable everyone plays hoping to find something of interest no matter what their creative agenda. Players arent stupid they will be looking for the interesting things so it wont be hard to justify their characters latching on to whatever signs of conflict the gm sends their way. On the other side of the coin gm's arent stupid either they tailor the situation towards what the players signal they are interested in. I dont think it's a far stretch from this to participationism, it's a totally plausible result given the traditional style of play where the gm controls almost everything.

The other assumption that usually takes place is that a totally unfair situation will not come up. Dragons dont attack without warning in the middle of the night, the village doesnt get surrounded by an army of genocidal warriors. In situations such as these there are always escape routes for the characters even if realistically there shouldnt be, otherwise they dont come up. It's just a matter of degree in comparing this to an agreement that characters dont get killed in meaningless moments, whether through dice fudging or allowing fate points or drama points or whatever.

To me this means that sim is about something more than just finding out "what if", it's finding out "what if" with several caveats and addendums to the question. If people were really interested in answering what if they would remove the human input that muddy's the water. The game would be randomized entirely so that other factors couldnt spoil the validity of the simulation. Characters would be randomly generated, with traits and features that would determine their actions in the situations they faced. Yet games arent like that, over times games have become less and less like that. By allowing human input into how the simulation plays the question no longer is "what if" it's "what do you think would happen if" and that allows for interesting stories to develop within sim through participationism and even illusionism.

Caldis wrote: I think that in sim there is more going on than just trying to answer the "what if" questions. The fact that one person controls how the simulation runs, and what the conflicts that allow the "what if" questions are, makes the scientific merit of the experiment questionable.

The other assumption that usually takes place is that a totally unfair situation will not come up. Dragons dont attack without warning in the middle of the night, the village doesnt get surrounded by an army of genocidal warriors. In situations such as these there are always escape routes for the characters even if realistically there shouldnt be, otherwise they dont come up. It's just a matter of degree in comparing this to an agreement that characters dont get killed in meaningless moments, whether through dice fudging or allowing fate points or drama points or whatever.

If people were really interested in answering what if they would remove the human input that muddy's the water. The game would be randomized entirely so that other factors couldnt spoil the validity of the simulation. Characters would be randomly generated, with traits and features that would determine their actions in the situations they faced. Yet games arent like that, over times games have become less and less like that. By allowing human input into how the simulation plays the question no longer is "what if" it's "what do you think would happen if" and that allows for interesting stories to develop within sim through participationism and even illusionism.

Valamir wrote:

I tried to stress in my essay, that a sim player is one who looks for opportunities for their character to be a catalyst for conflict.

The GM in a sim game does NOT control what the conflicts are. That is anathema to a sim...except to the extent that certain conflicts are built into the initial set up of the game (i.e. "This will be a game about Jedi who are being hunted by the Empire pre Rebellion")

Part and parcel of what dedicated sim players had been harping on for some time is that players in a sim game must be free to respond as they wish. The player in a sim game has the ability to turn situations into conflicts based on what they do.

Again, I don't see this as being true of Sim at all. Sim requires that the elements of Exploration remain true to their nature. If it is part of a dragon's nature to attack without warning in the middle of the night, then NOT having that happen will be a breach of Sim expectations.

This sort of thinking, Caldis, is why various Sim players have been harping for years that the Forge's definition of Sim is broken. When you can quite naturally throw out a series of things that are "sim" to you...that in reality are diametrically opposed to the very philosophy of sim...then the definition we've grown used to using for Sim is very very broken.

I've seen wargamers player out an entire Napoleonic battle with thousands of miniatures with no written rules other than a time, distance, and figure scale and a list of what the various items used for terrain represented (depth of water of the creek, height of fence, etc.) Based solely on their own individual expertise of Napoleonic army capabilities they ordered their units around, fought a battle, adjucated casualties with no dice, no tables, no anything but their own pure negotiated system.

Caldis wrote: I think that in sim there is more going on than just trying to answer the "what if" questions. The fact that one person controls how the simulation runs, and what the conflicts that allow the "what if" questions are, makes the scientific merit of the experiment questionable. There are plenty of assumptions that come into play with a sim agenda that really muddy the waters.

The first assumption is that there will be conflict or at least something that gets the players involved in the situation faced.

The other assumption that usually takes place is that a totally unfair situation will not come up. Dragons dont attack without warning in the middle of the night, the village doesnt get surrounded by an army of genocidal warriors. In situations such as these there are always escape routes for the characters even if realistically there shouldnt be, otherwise they dont come up.

All he can know about what should happen in the setting is that by the time the first movie starts all Jedi should be dead. Since that is the case the first scene could realistically be the pc's on a small shuttle about to be blasted by a star destroyer. That would give an answer to the "what if" question but I doubt it would be fulfilling to the players.

Ralph:
The GM in a sim game does NOT control what the conflicts are. That is anathema to a sim...except to the extent that certain conflicts are built into the initial set up of the game (i.e. "This will be a game about Jedi who are being hunted by the Empire pre Rebellion")

But how can the conflicts not be controlled by the GM? In the example you give the GM decides what Imperial forces are on the planet the players begin, what they are doing, how powerful the force hunting the Jedi is. He sets the scene.

That desire to turn situation into conflict is not answering a what if question it's formulating one, and to me thats a seperate creative agenda from one that is trying to answer the question.

If so then they've turned their back on this situation and decided not to make a conflict out of it. Something they must be free to do in a Sim.

Nope, its the same one. They are seperate parts of the same thing. That's why I described Simulation as an experiment. Like any experiment first you decide what the experiment is...then you run it. Like any wargame, first you decide what variant scenario you want to test. Then you run it. In an RPG first you decide what Conflict you want to set in motion. Then you run it.

contracycle wrote:
Indeed. And if they are free to do so, who is to say they do not exercise that freedom? And that leads to the prospect that a large part (or all) of sim play chooses not to make conflicts. Which has more or less already been suggested in the idea that simn is conflict avoidant. At the very least, if Sim requires the freedom to decline conflict, then its value as a diagnostic feature vanishes.

I find this difficult to conceptualise. Specifically, I find this experimental behaviour difficult to conceptualise, let alone identify in actual play. I'd like to ask for examples of how you would see this sort of thing play out.

While it's concivable that there might be sessions in which "nothing happens"--perhaps the players just conceptualize the characters sitting home and being bored ... or captured in a prison cell, unable or unmotivated to escape, and the group decides to play out every minute of it for some reason, I think these are extreme edge cases rather than any kind of norm.

And I think that if, truly, nothing is happening (there is no conflict, no adversity, etc.) then they might be said to be agenda-less or dysfunctional.

I think the relevance of the science experiment to the creative agenda may create some confusion (from the phenomena as I see it). For one thing, science is usually dispassionate in theory--but in practice I expect most scientists are emotionally invested in their results ("I just invented anti-gravity!"). I don't think this analogy bends quite the way people are bending it for roleplaying.

I don't see play as a science experiment exactly: for me, the what-if nature of the play is the methodology by which decisions are made--and my primary motivations are in character.

The primary goal of play is still entertainment (i.e. no one will be thrilled if the session is boring or collapses to anti-climax) but that is the risk that's taken because the value of play derrives from a mind-set that allows that to come to pass (as opposed to Participationist play where that is not allowed to come to pass).

What you're suggesting here:

Indeed. And if they are free to do so, who is to say they do not exercise that freedom? And that leads to the prospect that a large part (or all) of sim play chooses not to make conflicts. Which has more or less already been suggested in the idea that simn is conflict avoidant. At the very least, if Sim requires the freedom to decline conflict, then its value as a diagnostic feature vanishes.

Valamir wrote:
I think you're finding difficult only because you're looking for something unusual to jump out at you. I can't offer that. Functional Sim play looks quite ordinary. Just as with any other agenda there is no magic sign that says "hey we're playing sim now'.

When faced with an Imperial Invasion of a planet, do the Jedi's attempt to flee? If so then the players have set up the experiment "Lets see if we can escape from an entire Imperial army". Do the Jedi's attempt to launch guerilla raids from the hills? If so then the players have set up the experiment "Lets see what a group of insurregents backed by a couple of jedi can do to thwart an entire Imperial army". Do the Jedi's attempt to surrender in exchange for the army leaving the planet? If so then the players have set up the initial experiment of "Lets see if our negotiations, jedi powers, and the desire of the commander to win accolades for capturing us will convince him withdraw" followed by the experiment "Lets see if we can escape from Imperial captivity now that we've surrendered".

Each of these decisions by the players is a valid and plausible approach by their character to the situation the GM offered. But each is a very very different scenario of conflict. .... Given that they could do anything, their choices are creating the arena of the conflict...they are setting up the experiment.

This decision to engage in a conflict is what moves us away from raw Exploration and towards a Creative Agenda. The "proactive" part is what distinguishes Sim from Exploration. Not Sim from the other agendas. Its then in all of the decisions that are made over the course of that conflict cycle that will determine whether the agenda behind this conflict is a G, N, or S one.

Hey Gareth, I'm not gonna go around and around with you on this. Its a freakin' analogy. Its one that resonates with me. If it doesn't with you because you have a different perception of what an experiment is...fine. Frankly nothing in your last post seems any more compelling to me than mine did to you.

It isn't all that important to the point of my essay.

But I will point out that your willingness to ascribe gamist motives to a single sentence of conflict set up...is horrendously misguided. Leaping to snap Agenda conclusions invariably causes more grief and confusion than anything.

The question I have, Ralph, is whether or not this mode of play as described can be shown to exist. I see sim as something that I do, and have no problem with the definition for as is. MJ seems to be the only real advocate for sim as something else who has examples of play that back this. That is, he's the "vocal" person rejecting the definition. Possibly Marco as well, but he's got a much more central position, I think.

The problem with MJ's points is that I think he's defining a phenomenon, but that it's not a mode because it doesn't represent a type of play that conflicts with the other two on the level that modes do. If at all. That is, "what if," discovery, these are not "the dream" to use Ron's term. These are additional to the dream. Now, you're calling these additions a mode (implying that the basic exploration is not one). The point is that the friction between the modes of gamism and narrativism both with simulationism is in terms of players not being willing to, in certain circumstances, go "beyond" exploration to do the things in question. That is, the priority is not to damage exploration by doing these other things.

Where's the mutual exclusivity of "What if" and N or G? Without talking about dysfunctional My Guy play, where is the asking of this question that bothers the G and N players? This is not a phenomenon that I'm aware of. Yes, it's a phenomenon that some players want this - it's just not a mode in GNS terms.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote:
Where's the mutual exclusivity of "What if" and N or G? Without talking about dysfunctional My Guy play, where is the asking of this question that bothers the G and N players? This is not a phenomenon that I'm aware of. Yes, it's a phenomenon that some players want this - it's just not a mode in GNS terms.

Mike

Valamir,

But I will point out that your willingness to ascribe gamist motives to a single sentence of conflict set up...is horrendously misguided. Leaping to snap Agenda conclusions invariably causes more grief and confusion than anything.

What-if (Virtuality) won't (intentionally) produce story and can't (IMO) be said to be "story now." That conflicts with N.
What-if won't guide you (consistently) to interesting challenges for the group. There can be anti-climax, avoidance, etc. That conflicts with G.
What-if won't (necessiarily) get you a good story in the transcript of play (a proposed value of participationism).

contracycle wrote:
Marco:

What-if (Virtuality) won't (intentionally) produce story and can't (IMO) be said to be "story now." That conflicts with N.
What-if won't guide you (consistently) to interesting challenges for the group. There can be anti-climax, avoidance, etc. That conflicts with G.
What-if won't (necessiarily) get you a good story in the transcript of play (a proposed value of participationism).

All of those seem a like like default sim to me, which will also not purposefully produce story and may discount challenge. So the term virtuality here, as characteristic of "what if", seems itself indistingishable from bog standard sim.

And it is unremarkable that sim doesn't server other agendas; so in this regard, the alleged exlcusivity of What If with N and G is only because... its sim by another name.

There is nothing inherent to the asking of what if questions that cannot appear in G and N (and I think it must appear in G); questionining, explorative behaviour is common in all modes.

Marco wrote: What-if (Virtuality) won't (intentionally) produce story and can't (IMO) be said to be "story now." That conflicts with N.

What-if won't guide you (consistently) to interesting challenges for the group. There can be anti-climax, avoidance, etc. That conflicts with G.

What-if won't (necessiarily) get you a good story in the transcript of play (a proposed value of participationism).

Mike Holmes wrote:

What-if won't (necessiarily) get you a good story in the transcript of play (a proposed value of participationism).

That's the same sort of tautological argument that Ralph is railing against. "What if" doesn't allow story now, so it's another mode. Why? Why doesn't "what if" allow story now? I propose that any "experiment" to have an "impact" on the player, falls under the sort of decision that Ron describes all the time as narrativism. See the section of the essay labeled something like, "What, I'm playing Narrativism?" Ron makes the description so wide that I really can't see any decision not falling under either that, or gamism.

And I really think this is what's going on. There are two goals with conflict - either you want to "win" (address player challenge) or you want to create theme in Ron's broadest sense. "Simulationism" relates to how willing you are, when the chips are down, to break a certain level of suspension of disbelief creating technique in order to get to this point.

People keep thinking that when I say this that I'm saying that G and N don't have plausibility or aren't based on exploration. Which I say is wrong. Because in most cases, you have conguence. The only time you can "tell" which mode is being employed, is when the gamism motive "shows" or the narrativism does, or there is a conspicuous absence of these (which, again, is likely to come about during actual conflcits but I posit can occur during any part of play - "about conflict" does not mean "only discernable with conflict").

Further, it's precisely my supposition that all games have some level of Simulationism, if you see it as support for exploration. That is, the only "conflict" between these things are when push comes to shove, and you go from a high level of plausibility (in terms of visibility of player intent) to a slightly lower one, not to a lack of plausibility. There is a certain level of plausibility that all groups have as a threshold which they will not dip below. The rule with an agenda is not that you shouldn't remain as plausible as possible all the time (in fact, most decisions are this plausible, and congruent), but that when you need to you can go as low on the plausibility scale as the threshold will allow. Beyond that, players get crinkled noses and dissaproving looks.

Simulationism, then is just having a very high threshold. Such that you can't see the Gamism or narrativism often if at all. Not that the motives aren't there. Just that you aren't allowed to go below that threshold that makes them invisible. Which is, yes, visible itself, and for a player in another mode is problematic.

These are the places where the GNS conflicts occur. Any model that doesn't consider where the conflicts actually exist, what makes the modes problematic with each other, or at least substantively different, is another sort of model entirely, and has all the ancient problems that the lack of mutual exclusivity (or, more precisely, the eventual need to be decided during an "instance" of play) bring about. Namely that everything becomes analyzable as an equal hybrid, and then you have the idea that you can create a game without conflicting modes of play, yadda, yadda.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: The question I have, Ralph, is whether or not this mode of play as described can be shown to exist. I see sim as something that I do, and have no problem with the definition for as is. MJ seems to be the only real advocate for sim as something else who has examples of play that back this. That is, he's the "vocal" person rejecting the definition.

Marco wrote:

The fact is, in virtuality--"what-if"--style play the GM will be asking him or herself "what would really happen here?"

That's what makes it distinct from other styles.

I think it's a fair assumption that the game will involve the players and some situation. But let's say the players are a paranormal swat-team ... like Hellboy ... and the situation is: they're sent on a mission. Are we reaching here?

Let's say the players all quit the force (unlike Hellboy they're not prisoners)--does the Virtuality GM stop them? No--he or she doesn't--not if it's not what the GM thinks would happen. The situation may be unavoidable: Sauron is invading the whole world. It may be personal. Either way, the players aren't guaranteed to interact under virtuality.

If the GM sets the game in a time where the PC's should be dead then the logistics of PC survival should be worked out before the game starts. If I want to play a mideval knight in your modern-day game then I should presumably spend the session roleplaying in a coffin?

Caldis wrote:
This is where GNS differs from GDS (at least the GDS I'm acquainted with from rgfa), it's not about what the people are thinking or how they are making decisions it's about the observable behavior that develops. What's observable is not a search for what would really happen but a committment to the SiS that requires a level of plausibility of the events. Not a search for the most realistic result but one that doesnt cause disbelief in the imagined reality.

Let's look at your example then. The Hellboy swat team have quit the force, the gm decides the most realistic outcome is the government will have them black balled and they are unable to find any free lance work or any situations of conflict. The players decide that it's most realistic that their characters will not turn to crime so they either have the choice of returning to the Hellboy team or moving to mundane occupations like bartenders, labourers or accountants.

The what if question is answered but I dont think the play is fulfilling to anyone. There is an inherent feature of the social contract that we are coming together to play out an interesting situation, to accomodate that either the players will have to participate with the gm's plot or the gm will bend his view of what's realistic and participate in the players choices and allow for new conflicts to develop even if they shouldnt.

I dont think this willingness to allow the unrealistic pertains only to before play. I think it's allowed during play as long as what is brought up has a plausible reason, not the most realistic but plausible. I read your latest example of play in the Actual play forum and I think it's an example of this. When your players asked the native tribe to help even though they had tried to end the world it doesnt seem like the most realistic result, a plausible one but not the most realistic.

Now it may seem like I'm defending the status quo and to an extent I am. I believe the definition of sim is a valid one and it describes an accurate break in creative agendas, ones that can cause arguments. I do however think that there are other lines that can cause just as much conflict between players. Virtuality vs. Participationism is one such break, for gamists the player who is competing against his fellow players in a group that is playing as a team against the gm is another such break.

Mike's new 3d model may be a better representation but I'm not entirely sure yet, still mulling it over.

Well, Caldis, you can assert that a virtualist GM would do something to intervine or would break the commitment to Virtuality but I could as easily argue that a Narrativist GM will eventually rope a character back "into line" for the "sake of the Narrative." If a player decides to have his character jump off a cliff the consequences will also "break the social commitment to situation being interesting" but no GM will save him.

And that kind of social contract (Participationism) gets lumped with Virtuality and it's a major blind spot.

contracycle wrote: Marco, I think you have grossly misunderstood Caldis argument. The point was that strict adherence to alleged "virtuality" (if such a thing exists), or more accurately IMO, the simulation, it can still lead to play that is Not Fun. And what we see in practice - certainly in my experience anyway - is that when even committed Sim players face the choice between a simulation of something boring, and a quick metagame negotiation to do something more interesting, they adopt the latter. Otherwise, we should be seeing games like Watching: The Paint Dry and Watching: The Grass Grow.

That is not at all you interpretation, which assumes a large degree of intent: you claim that it is the GM forcing them back into line. Where does this emerge from Caldis description?

to accomodate that either the players will have to participate with the gm's plot or the gm will bend his view of what's realistic and participate in the players choices and allow for new conflicts to develop even if they shouldnt.

Quite a big chunk of the rest of your argument makes no sens eto me at all I'm afraid, swerving as it does from sim to gam to narr and alleged virtuality and referencing GDS... I do not follow, and it seems awfully as if you are arguing your conclusion

Marco wrote:
That's precisely what I'm responding to. Neither needs to happen. There is a third alternative. The situation and setting (usually what was referrd to by you, I think, as both foreground and background) is designed to be pregnant with interest (both intellectual and emotional and relevant to the players and the characters)--and the players/characters interact with both fore-ground conflicts and back-ground environment. It may not be with the GM's "plot" (a word that, IMO, regretabbly, means, on The Forge a pre-determined outcome)--there won't be a 'plot.'

If, in the fairly extreme situation* of the Hellboy scenario, the players might decide that since quitting the team will result in them being blackballed and they aren't willing to turn to a life of crime, what they will do instead, perhaps, is do a great job, advance in rank, and then change their organization from the inside. They might also decide to "frag their commander" or perform some "intentional incompetence"--or otherwise address whatever issue is making them want to quit.

But what Caldis is proposing is that this change will happen during the game to salvage it. It doesn't--not under a strong commitment to virtuality.

I'm not surprised you say that. Having had PM conversations with you, it's clear we don't see eye-to-eye on many things. But if you consider that there is no good term for what I am describing in GNS other than virtuality and no good term for what GDS calls Dramatism in your lexicon, that might illustrate how the language you prefer to use doesn't really suit you here.

Here that has been "examined" and re-cast as a non-viable alternative (being hunted by their former employers, which was the situation removed from example A, has been replaced with an equally absolute and dire "black balling.")

Marco wrote: Well, Caldis, you can assert that a virtualist GM would do something to intervine or would break the commitment to Virtuality but I could as easily argue that a Narrativist GM will eventually rope a character back "into line" for the "sake of the Narrative." If a player decides to have his character jump off a cliff the consequences will also "break the social commitment to situation being interesting" but no GM will save him.

Consider this: GDS essentially lumped something like Participationism with Narrativisim. If I told you that the two forms of play were baiscally identical but for, oh, some minor style variations would you agree? I doubt it.

But that's missing the point: the mode of play is about commitment to "what I think is plausible" vs. "what I think would be a good story" (in the rawest of GDS terms).

In your case of the Jedi, you state that he should be dead so the player will get two seconds of in-game play before he's vaporized. If the GM is damn sure that's what would happen then the character's a no-go. If the GM thinks the character is plausible (maybe under "some condtions" then it's a go).

But if you factor out the gray areas and the congruence and get to a point where the GM has to decide between story and 'reality' then there's as big a difference as a player who decides between 'reality' and 'Premise.'

My problem with saying that V-vs.-P isn't the N-vs-G is, to date, other than asserting it's true, I don't see any argument for it.

I see some trivial similarities in modes of GNS Sim (and, honestly, I see more similarities between Nar and Participationism than I see with Virtuality and Participationism) but I see far more dramatic differences.

contracycle wrote:

How is this not existing GNS Sim?

It seems to me you want it both ways; you want play to explore What If, but when certain What If's are likely to be dull, then others are selected that are more interesting. So this is not really the exploration of a what if at all; its the avoidance of one.

But, A) it does in my experience, and B) your response is that it does, because instead of quitting you propose they find something more interesting, or restart with a new social contract specifying that the particular "what if... we quit" is not to be explored. So this does not appear to show the claimed commitment to virtuality. If the players were all committed to virttyuality, they should have stuck with the black-balling to fully explore the What If.

But I do have a good term for Dramatism in my lexicon: Participationism.

And I can't see the need for the term virtuality if it cannot be described by features that distinguish it from GNS sim.

But, if that is what alleged Virtuality produces, then that is what virtuality produces, isn't it? If the presumption is strict adherence to in-game cause and effect, then that blackballing by the employers may well be a naturally arising effect. There is no need to presume at all the GM is being coercive here; the GM is just running the model to its logical conclusion, arguably. Certainly, that was the scenario given.

Caldis wrote:
Try looking at it this way.
Under GNS all gamists are concerned with the challenges that come up in the game.

The simulationist is concerned with the plausibility of the game and that what happens feels believable.

All narrativist players want to be creating drama.

Participationists are engaging in a game where believability of the result is just as important as it is to the Virtualist, the only difference is in who controls the flow of the plot.

Caldis wrote: I'm not arguing that the GM would break the commitment to the virtuality, I'm just arguing that the commitment to virtuality isnt what has been described. It's not an attempt to discover what is the most realistic outcome, not a scientific simulation trying to provide an answer, but one where plausibility is required to give the virtuality an air of realism and the possibility of being true.

I'm not saying that play cant grind to a halt under virtuality because realism demands it. I'm saying if there is a plausible out, even if it's not the most realistic, then it's an acceptable venue to take the exploration.

Marco wrote:
It is GNS Sim--a subset of it (Virtuality) which is lumped in with Participationism and GNS declares the two similar. And they are, in the same way that Participationism and Narrativism are similar, i.e., trivially.

Caldis moved the goalposts back to "quitting is not a functional solution" so the players go elsewhere. The idea that any idea the players come up with must be functional and interesting is Participationism of a sort (one that's likely to be very taxing for the GM).

3. The GM, essentially without warning, has them be blackballed to the point where only a life of crime is viable (I would question the feasibility of this as a player--it sounds railroady to me--but I'll assume it's reasonable in the game).

Well, in your experience if it happens (A) then it's not a high commitment to Virtuality. It's more like Participationism ... or something.

Well, I didn't come up with it. I didn't even latch on to it first. I didn't start this thread and I didn't propose Mike's 3D model. So, you know, if I'm alone in thinking there might be a place for it that's news to me.

The GM isn't being coercive--what's unclear is why the players chose that course of action in the face of such sanctions.

Marco wrote:
But the key aspect to Dramatism is Drama--and the need for it. Virtuality may well lack drama: The players investigate avenue A, it's not dramatic for long stretches, if it fails to yield results they try avenue B.

contracycle wrote: I don't see how that is moving the goalposts. Your whole argument is that with a high commitment to "virtuality", the chips fall as they will. Caldis extenbded your example in which the result the virtuality mandates is one that presents problems for continued play. This is exactly what we would expect to see in a game in which "virtuality" was the primary driver.

Right - and here you are assuming baselessly that this is without warning, and an act of GM malice. You are warping the given scenario - the scenario that was proposed was precisely meant to elucidate what happens when the in-game continuity in virtuality produces a result that is perhaps not fun. You seem to be trying to dodge that by introducing a malicious motive to the GM.

The discussion of who gives the warning when appears moot to me. I'd expect players in a Con-X game, in line with genre conventions, to understand that "you can't leave the agency". That is a strong trope in quite a lot of adventure fiction, and I see no reason to presume that Caldis proposition is perverse in this regard.

No - its Sim. Its not participationism becuase they are not being lead by the GM's story - thats exactly why they were free to quit. In my experience with sim play, if the simulation produces a result that is not fun, play will break and a new arrangement will be made.

Fair enough. But I understand you to be arguing in favour of its introduction.

Yes, sure - but you;re argument was that virtuality was the play wtyle in which internal continuity was king, and everyone has that as their primary interest. So the question in response is: what happens when that internal continuity makes play no fun? You can't keep changing your own example and imposing further conditions on it to keep avoiding dealing with that question. And without that distinction, virtuality does not need to be thought to exist.

Imagine all the characters got arrested and imprisoned. Most sim players would probably say OK these characters are good as dead, or skip time till they are released, perhaps. I would have thought that according to the argument you present for virtuality, if the players were committed to virtuality, they would desire to play out their prison sentences. That is the naturally arising outcome of the simulated game environment, and authentic cause and effect, and according to the description of virtuality proposed, the players should seize on it with both hands.

But I have never seen that happen.

contracycle wrote: So for example, the classic clash between a Gamist player and a participationist GM is when the GM wants to have the characters captured and incapacitated, and the gamist player foils the capture or immediately escapes.

Now the GM may say that they wanted to enforce this action because of virtuality (thats what would happen given the initial conditions) or because of Dramatism (thats what needs to happen to make this entertaining).

So it seems to me that Virtuality and Dramatism are too sides of the same Participationist coin.

Hey guys,

I'm having an extraordinary amount of trouble figuring out what this latest conversation that gone on for the last couple of pages is even about.

Generally when a discussion between 2 people winds up being mostly a debate about what a 3rd person did or didn't say...its a clear sign that the topic has run its course.

If I'm wrong and there is some key issue here that is worth grappling with, then please start over in another thread so we can all follow along in the discussion.

But I'm thinking this thread is just about run out of usefullness...

I think Ralph's contention is correct, and the current definition of Sim is broken. In matter of fact, the definition is written such that Sim has become a ghetto for what doesn't fit in Nar & Gam, rather than a coherent play style in its own right -- which it should be.

As an example of what's wrong with the definition, consider the game Theatrix, which is Sim under the present GNS definition. Here's some text from David Berkman, one of the Theatrix authors, on how to run the game:

Race Bannon, ace pilot, wants to Immelman turn, barrol role between the tightly packed squadron of German bi-planes heading his way, avoiding loads of fire as he goes, and hook the blimp on the other side of that mess with a dangling line and hook as passes over it. Anyone else would be dead, dead, dead, but Race has a pilot Skill of 8.5, with a specialty in his own heavily modified Sopwith Camel, which he is currently flying. The description of the action is done with such flourish, and the eventual consequences of it are interesting, exciting, and, for your adventure, necessary. So you are heavily inclined to provide a success. I would also be heavily inclined to demand a Plot Point for this outrageous stunt, spent into the Descriptor 'Ace Pilot', and despite very much wanting to provide a sucess, I would hand over a failure of the Plot Point weren't spent. Why? Because Race is hogging the spotlight here. This is a Plot Point moment, and I ought to be sure that this act is within character conception (that it is Race's moment as opposed to some other character's, ie. he has the Descriptor), and that Race has saved a Plot Point to carry it off with (ie., that he has allowed others their moment in the sun, saving something aside for this moment, *his* moment).

I'm not arguing that the GM would break the commitment to the virtuality, I'm just arguing that the commitment to virtuality isnt what has been described. It's not an attempt to discover what is the most realistic outcome, not a scientific simulation trying to provide an answer, but one where plausibility is required to give the virtuality an air of realism and the possibility of being true.

Valamir wrote:
If I'm wrong and there is some key issue here that is worth grappling with, then please start over in another thread so we can all follow along in the discussion.

In general I think the policy at the Forge is that when the originator of a thread asks for it to be closed, it is closed...

Hey,

It's closed now. For future reference, the initiator of the thread may request the closure of the thread, and others are to respect that request by restraining themselves until I say one way or the other.

In very nearly all cases, the request is judged OK by me. I only say "No, keep going" if the thread-initiator is apparently trying to slam the door in order to have the last word. This has happened only once, I think.

Best,
Ron