I've been busy - hadn't got around to reading Ron's essay before now. So, my take on it:

First, it's marvelously well written - very rigorous. Even if you don't agree with parts of it, it is, at least to me, very clear what his position is. In fact, he's taken marvelous effort to avoid having those tedious terminology debates which I, at least, find so painful.

Next - I don't know if it's just because it's been percolating in my brain for so long, or reading this essay, but it's clear to me that one of my early posts at this site (theoretical game spaces) is pretty much completely missing the point. It is clear, from reading this article, that the only time at which GNS -really- applies is at the instant of any specific decision in actual play. Game design can facilitate making that decision one way or another, and you can have a tendency to make decisions in the same direction at all times, but what it boils down to is, at the point of a specific decision, which of the three is your priority.

This means that any discussions of a particular game being 20% narrativist, 10% gamist, and 70% simulationist are missing the point as well; you can't serve two masters. One of the three, at any specific decision making point, has to be your highest priority. It is tautologically impossible to have two highest priorities.

However, I return to the point that GNS only actually happens at decision making points in play. Which means that, while game design can facilitate decisions in one direction or another, I think that perhaps it is not quite so critical as Edwards frequently espouses.

For instance, in another thread Edwards says something which implies to me that his players have a tendency to slide along in essentially simulationist mode for a while, before becoming comfortable enough with the characters/setting/etc to take a more aggressive role in directing story. I find this to be a common phenomenon myself; it takes players a bit to become comfortable enough with the game that they're willing to take the sort of aggressive, story-creation responsibilities that are the hallmark of narrativism.

What this means, of course, is that it's pretty natural to slide back and forth between narrativism and simulationism. Which is not at all in conflict with the whole GNS thing since, as I keep saying, the proper time to apply the system is at the instant a decision is made. Which does not neccesarily imply anything about the way you make the next decision.

Of course, if you're too arbitrary or abrupt in how you change, you'll confuse heck out of your players, and they won't have fun. But it seems that once you've got a little practice at it, it's really not too big a deal for players to spend a fair amount of time "in the passenger seat" as it were, and only occasionally pushing their story priorities in any sense that is easily distinguishable from the way they behave in simulationism.

To attempt to be more concrete about it; a simulationist game is often driven by the GM's ideas about story. Narrativist games tend to be driven by the players' attempts to address their thematic concerns. However, after the players have established the conflicts, they can spend most of their time dealing with them in exactly the same way that they would deal with GM provided conflicts in a more simulationist game.

So my point is that I suspect that this is all rather more fluid in practice than was, at least to me, implied by the essay. Of course, since it wasn't explicitly stated, it's entirely possible that it was just me projecting it.

- James

Hi James,

And welcome back!! (This is your second post since you returned, but the first thread, so it's a good place for the welcome banner.)

To the potentially confused: james_west is one person, and James V. West is another; the latter is the author of The Pool and The Questing Beast, ie, Random Order Creations.

Thanks for the kind comments about the essay, and, to your possible surprise, I agree with you about the fluidity of the modes, from game to game, from instance to instance. It's probably not surprising that I think those "instances" are fairly broad in time, or rather, that a cluster of them in a game session tend to "clump up" in GNS terms.

As for the widespread perception that I take a hard-line about "one mode per person, one mode per game," this is as good a time as any to reveal my deeper view. I suggest that the hard-line as exists in my essay (which does not match the rigid one in quotes in the previous sentence) is a necessary one for the unhappy role-player.

Many unhappy role-players are prone to fall into the "catch-as-catch-can" trap, which is to say, "if we all just show up and play and try to get along, everything will be fine." Others are prone to fall into the "show up and let the GM sort it out" trap, which tends to be more stable for longer, but ultimately to fizzle when anything else fun or time-consuming presents itself.

Thus the essay has a certain scruff-of-the-neck quality, which the reader enters into once they get past the idea that "you're in Ron's head now." We'll talk about Gamism now. We'll talk about Simulationism now. Etc.

But a closer look at the essay will show, I think, that this hard-line is a matter of reading and consideration of the terms, not a prescription for the behavior of role-playing itself. In those terms, I agree with exactly what James is saying - nothing in the essay says anything about how much time a person necessarily must spend doing G, N, or S. It seems to me that once a person grasps the functional framework for expressing his or her goals in role-playing per se, that having different goals for different times/games is now possible, whereas before it was a muddled mess, in terms of behavior and fun.

[I should be clear here: any functional framework will do. If some of the other "boxes" models currently being presented have a similar self-help effect for others, then insert them in place of "GNS" above and I'm just as happy. I happen to think the GNS one works real well, but that doesn't mean we have to stop there.]

Which brings us to design ... just how "one mode per game" am I, anyway? Two points apply here.

1) It's not a matter of "one mode" in some sense of purity. It's a matter of coherence - can role-playing goals be met with the bloody thing? (Considering that it probably cost money, I think that if it takes tons of extra work and retrofitting to work at this most basic level, then failure after a certain degree is tantamount to swindling.)

2) The answer must be relative to existing games. If we look across existing games, I think that the vast majority of them are incoherent, largely due to crazy-quilt design: unconsidered combinations of imitated sections.

So my take on design is that coherent combinations of G, N, or S are possible - but we don't see them, and I strongly doubt that unconsidered, imitative design is going to produce them. In my view, the default coherent design is "the [G, N, or S]-facilitating game." Possibilities beyond that - remaining coherent but combining and changing among GNS - are legion, and they are also largely unknown. I see hints, and the recent discussion of Transition is a big leap forward in my view, but so far, not much concrete.

Best,
Ron

james_west wrote: Next - It is clear, from reading this article, that the only time at which GNS -really- applies is at the instant of any specific decision in actual play. Game design can facilitate making that decision one way or another, and you can have a tendency to make decisions in the same direction at all times, but what it boils down to is, at the point of a specific decision, which of the three is your priority.

This means that any discussions of a particular game being 20% narrativist, 10% gamist, and 70% simulationist are missing the point as well; you can't serve two masters. One of the three, at any specific decision making point, has to be your highest priority. It is tautologically impossible to have two highest priorities.

However, I return to the point that GNS only actually happens at decision making points in play. Which means that, while game design can facilitate decisions in one direction or another, I think that perhaps it is not quite so critical as Edwards frequently espouses.

james_west wrote: In another thread Edwards says something which implies to me that his players have a tendency to slide along in essentially Simulationist mode for a while, before becoming comfortable enough with the characters/setting/etc to take a more aggressive role in directing story. I find this to be a common phenomenon myself; it takes players a bit to become comfortable enough with the game that they're willing to take the sort of aggressive, story-creation responsibilities that are the hallmark of Narrativism.

What this means, of course, is that it's pretty natural to slide back and forth between Narrativism and Simulationism. Which is not at all in conflict with the whole GNS thing since, as I keep saying, the proper time to apply the system is at the instant a decision is made. Which does not neccesarily imply anything about the way you make the next decision.

Of course, if you're too arbitrary or abrupt in how you change, you'll confuse heck out of your players, and they won't have fun. But it seems that once you've got a little practice at it, it's really not too big a deal for players to spend a fair amount of time "in the passenger seat" as it were, and only occasionally pushing their story priorities in any sense that is easily distinguishable from the way they behave in simulationism.

To attempt to be more concrete about it; a Simulationist game is often driven by the GM's ideas about story. Narrativist games tend to be driven by the players' attempts to address their thematic concerns. However, after the players have established the conflicts, they can spend most of their time dealing with them in exactly the same way that they would deal with GM provided conflicts in a more simulationist game.

So my point is that I suspect that this is all rather more fluid in practice than was, at least to me, implied by the essay. Of course, since it wasn't explicitly stated, it's entirely possible that it was just me projecting it.

Hey,

I just noticed that James wrote this:

...the only time at which GNS -really- applies is at the instant of any specific decision in actual play....it's pretty natural to slide back and forth between narrativism and simulationism....once you've got a little practice at it, it's really not too big a deal....I suspect that this is all rather more fluid in practice...

And that Fang wrote this:

...as a publisher, the only thing I could do was provide a design....What I got from 'System Matters' was that I should make that product the best I could. A person should be able to play it without having to change it in any way. I think the argument that otherwise is lazy design....this 'fluid practice' would be...Transition...I have to say that if this is 'how people play' (including the designers themselves), then all the systems that focus on Narrativism alone aren't consistent with their use.

And I have to say Fang, that you slipped a pretty powerful pro-Scattershot statement in there without much fanfare. The Window has been described as "abashedly" Narrativist because it only goes halfway toward its stated objective. It ditches things like traditional improvement mechanics. It ditches things that sometimes get in the way of Narrativism, allowing a sort-of informal Narrativism, but without providing mechanics that actually facilitate Narrativism. Everway is similarly abashed. And what I think you're saying Fang, is that a Narrativist system which merely allows for sort-of informal Simulationism might be abashedly functional, but is just as incomplete a design. When you put it that way, it's an interesting assertion.

Paul

Paul Czege wrote: I just noticed that James wrote this:

...the only time at which GNS -really- applies is at the instant of any specific decision in actual play....it's pretty natural to slide back and forth between narrativism and simulationism....once you've got a little practice at it, it's really not too big a deal....I suspect that this is all rather more fluid in practice...

And that Fang wrote this:

...as a publisher, the only thing I could do was provide a design....What I got from 'System Matters' was that I should make that product the best I could. A person should be able to play it without having to change it in any way. I think the argument that otherwise is lazy design....this 'fluid practice' would be...Transition...I have to say that if this is 'how people play' (including the designers themselves), then all the systems that focus on Narrativism alone aren't consistent with their use.

And I have to say, that you slipped a pretty powerful pro-Scattershot statement in there without much fanfare.

Paul Czege wrote: The Window has been described as "abashedly" Narrativist because it only goes halfway toward its stated objective. It ditches things like traditional improvement mechanics. It ditches things that sometimes get in the way of Narrativism, allowing a sort-of informal Narrativism, but without providing mechanics that actually facilitate Narrativism. Everway is similarly abashed. And what I think you're saying, is that a Narrativist system which merely allows for sort-of informal Simulationism might be abashedly functional, but is just as incomplete a design. When you put it that way, it's an interesting assertion.

Hi there,

My current game design has moved away from "push the envelope" (e.g. Elfs) and into "slip it to them gently" - to provide very solid Vanilla Narrativism, which is not just "Simulationist but, um, with story, kinda." Sorcerer, I think, moves from fairly accessible to the old-schooler (OK, not comforting, but accessible) to the terrifying abyss in the supplements. But now, I'm interested in game design in which plain and simple Narrativist decision-making is not hard, or frightening, or high-pressure. Just fun, and so basic to the rules that all you have to do is play. Of course, that play just open another door to more authoring, with each repetition.

In fact, I just finished the first complete draft, which means this topic really ought to go to Design. But I do think the main point is relevant here - focused and easy-access Vanilla, rather than mint chocolate chip in a waffle cone.

Best,
Ron