We seem to be having several discussions lately questioning this aspect of the Big Model so it seems time to tighten up the definition in hopes of gettting everyone on the same page.

From the provisional glossary...

The aesthetic priorities and any matters of imaginative interest regarding role-playing. Three distinct Creative Agendas are currently recognized: Step On Up (Gamist), The Right to Dream (Simulationist), and Story Now (Narrativist). This definition replaces all uses of "Premise" in GNS and other matters of role-playing theory aside from the specific Creative Agenda of Narrativist play. Creative Agenda is expressed using all Components of Exploration, but most especially System.

Caldis,

While "what the players actions are causing in play now" may be useful for disecting certain kinds of dysfunction (but perhaps not others) I would ask what the broader application of that is.

I've found that conversations about roleplaying and analysis of what I enjoyed/enjoy in my play revolve more around "What I want and how I go about getting that" which the 3D model does help me articulate (the Big model can too--but I'm less clear what language to use to do that).

If I'm going to design a game that hasn't been played then a language suited to describing short time-periods detailing what was done in another game system back then seems overly tactical (tightly focused on a bunch of specifics) when it should be strategic (focus on objectives and aims the designer has).

When I sit down with a new, prospective GM and say "explain to me how you do things" a description of what was created over a short time in some game will, I think, be less useful to me than a discussion of guiding principles and point of view.

All of those do clearly come out of The Big Model--but I think the 3D Model (although I believe it could use some enhancement) goes directly to the point on that.

A further expansion on The Big Model could certainly fit the bill there--in order to do so I would want it to formalize the centralized/de-centralized descriptor in the 3D model.

-Marco

Caldis wrote: So how to define it then? I look to GNS since the definition recognizes them as creative agenda's. My anlaysis of GNS leads me to believe that creative agenda is defined by what the players actions are causing in play now. It's a very short term measure and that's why it allows simulationism to include games where developing a story is an important aspect of the game but it is spread out over a two year campaign with ones that have no goal of creating a story, in the short term they are both about simulating the results of what happens in this situation.

Caldis wrote: I think this works as a definition and allows us to use creative agenda to specify something distinct. I'm not sure that some of the recent proposals do this. The new 3d model for instance (and I note it doesnt use the term creative agenda) proposes a classification based on the presence of theme and how centralized the power structure is. This misses the question of time. Theme can still be a goal of a game and the players can be empowered to create it however they dont create it by their choices in game. As an example I'm thinking of a Gurps campaign I'm in where the GM has a plot going on in the background and where it usually shows up is in our choices between game. We are allowed to choose the direction of the game between sessions but when we actually play it's all very much simulation. GNS fairly accurately describes whats going on to me, I'm not sure that the 3d model does.

John Kim wrote: Hmm. OK, so here you're saying that short-term resolution defines what Caldis-Creative-Agenda is, right? So in this scheme, my Water-Uphill-World game and Marco's Salga-Del-Mundo game would both be clearly Caldis-Simulationist, because short-term everything was resolved by internal cause-and-effect.
Short-term action/conflict resolution (and even sometimes long-term resolution) is often said by people to be a Technique rather than a Creative Agenda. For example, several people have expressed that Virtualism is a grouping of Techniques.

OK, I'm not following this, and I think that's because I don't know much aobut the game you're talking about. Could you describe more about the GURPS game or give some references? How would you classify it in GNS terms and why? Conversely, how would you classify it in 3D Model terms?

Caldis,

I should remind you that at least three GNS-experienced people have looked at my writeup and deemed it Simulationist. One of the comments I got (at least twice) was that it seemed that way because I didn't specify how decisions were being made. I, myself, called it Nar-At-The-End since there was lots of exploration in the begining that led to climaxes with, IMO, very clear premises--but I was told by one fellow poster they weren't "up front" at all times during play.

Frankly, I don't see anything in my or John's game that could be called Story Now (as opposed to Story-Anything-Else).

Now, in your case, in the GUPRS game you say that you have the experience of being in the situation with no thought as to the big plot. Well, that's every bit of my play. I don't think "ooh, here's a plot point" or "what statement is this making? What statement do I want to make?" Nothing like that.

When you look at my play (take a look at the most recent game: After The War) do you see me wanting to create a story that tells how Mercy is greater than Justice? I find that a very misleading way to describe my Actor-stance play.

-Marco

This all ties in with Marco's words in the "3D Model" thread. I'll start with those, and work my way back to Caldis' point.

I think my question about the observation of Decentralized Immersionist achieving theme and then declaring them Narrativist is this: what does The Big Model say that's useful about that? (I'm not saying it says nothing--I'd really like to know what, that is valuable, could come out of that categorization)

As someone who also identifies with that mode of play, I think there's a reason I'm skeptical of a lot of the Nar-centered dialog that goes on here that doesn't fit that mode

Marco wrote: Caldis,

I should remind you that at least three GNS-experienced people have looked at my writeup and deemed it Simulationist. One of the comments I got (at least twice) was that it seemed that way because I didn't specify how decisions were being made. I, myself, called it Nar-At-The-End since there was lots of exploration in the begining that led to climaxes with, IMO, very clear premises--but I was told by one fellow poster they weren't "up front" at all times during play.

Lee Short wrote:
I think I see it, Marco. I'll admit I had the same reaction for quite some time. Going through The Azeel Campaign on actual play has pinpointed it for me: I think this is primarily useful for advice/techniques/rules about how to set up the Setting/Char/Sit/Color/Sys to get a game that will generate theme. When I think about John's Water-Uphill-World and, say, your 'typical' game of Sorceror, what they share in common is that they both set up the S/C/S/C/S so that Premise will be addressed. It's all about the front-loading; that's what they have in common.

I'm not saying that they've got nothing else in common; I just don't see what it is.

Off the top of my head, I think the same thing could be said about GNS-level Gamism -- to the degree it's really kept distinct from GDS-level Gamism.

Caldis,

Firstly what I like about the 3D Model is that it gives me language to discuss what roles I want the GM and/or players to take in play. Although those may well exist in the Big Model, they are not presently clear to me.

The terms I would most like to use (Virtuality vs. Dramatism) are contentious, ill-defined, and variously understood here.

Under the 3D model, I have a big-honkin' head start. In fact, if I tell the GM I want him or her to run the game in Theme/Dist mode while I willl play in Immersed/Dist mode (can I even do that?) then I get pretty close to what my wirte up concering roles and responsibilities was (I think).

I mean, it's not all there--and it's not all perfect--but right now if I say I like Nar play people ask if I'm drifting the game I wrote. NOTE: I'm not saying this is a correct stance or that the statement was made that I must be drifting it--but most of my game write-ups were judged not Nar by people familiar with GNS--but, clearly, asking for a Sim game won't get me where I want to be either.

There needs to be more work done on techniques. This may be the time to get to it--and that's a good thing.

Secondly, I you ask what players are creating short-term. I'm okay with that for now--but what is Sim? Exploration without theme or challenge?

Exploration is taken to be part of all role-playing. If Exploration = Sim then do we grade games by a per-hour basis?

-Marco

Hi Marco!
It's rather late at my side of the world (an hour past midnight) and my daughter will be up and about in six hours, so I'll keep this short.

I think it's important not to get stuck in terminology here. Trying to pinpoint exactly what CA your game actually was will, I think, require you to forget parts of what actually happened, in order to make it fit. Still sounds like Sim to me, with certain pieces of Gamism thrown in for pacing and challenge and some Nar associated techniques employed for a satisfying climax, which is useful for ending an extended one-shot in a clean way. However, it still seems to me that the core motivation for playing was sharing the Dream. So you spiced it up and rounded it off using techniques associated with other forms of play, which made it work better than it would have done without. This makes the CA at work not entirely "clean", in that you as a group accepted satisfaction of other kinds than the central CA has to offer. That doesn't make the style of playing and setting up games any less primarily Sim; because theories and models are the only actual clean things around.

I might have misunderstood your question or the topic now, but if so I'm going to apologize and claim the excuse of time of night and not-native language.
-E

Erling Rognli wrote: Hi Marco!
It's rather late at my side of the world (an hour past midnight) and my daughter will be up and about in six hours, so I'll keep this short.

I think it's important not to get stuck in terminology here. Trying to pinpoint exactly what CA your game actually was will, I think, require you to forget parts of what actually happened, in order to make it fit. Still sounds like Sim to me, with certain pieces of Gamism thrown in for pacing and challenge and some Nar associated techniques employed for a satisfying climax, which is useful for ending an extended one-shot in a clean way. However, it still seems to me that the core motivation for playing was sharing the Dream. So you spiced it up and rounded it off using techniques associated with other forms of play, which made it work better than it would have done without. This makes the CA at work not entirely "clean", in that you as a group accepted satisfaction of other kinds than the central CA has to offer. That doesn't make the style of playing and setting up games any less primarily Sim; because theories and models are the only actual clean things around.

I might have misunderstood your question or the topic now, but if so I'm going to apologize and claim the excuse of time of night and not-native language.
-E

Whoa. I just read through ”After the War”, which turned out to be a blast. My original assessment of CA was based on reading “Salga-del-Mundo”, and I’ll admit that this one made me doubt the validity of my earlier judgement. My main problem is that identifying Creative Agenda on basis of a written report is neither easy nor very reliable. If we recapitulate the definition of Creative Agenda from the glossary, we are talking about “The aesthetic priorities and any matters of imaginative interest regarding role-playing.” Furthermore it is widely accepted that creative agenda is expressed through actual play, not by reported preference. In actual play, creative agenda can be indicated by several phenomena, such as:


• Praise or scorn on any level communicated by players in response to SIS input by a player.
• Choice and avoidance of technique combinations.
• Drifting of rulesets employed.
• Point of reference selected by player for making choices about character action (Maximizing efficiency/Intensity of statement (?)/Reinforcing consistency)


Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head, and my access to knowledge about any of them is limited in this case. I have to make
guesses, inferring what your motivations were for choosing and playing as
you do, and how the group reacted to what happened. Therefore, as I have pointed out before, I think you are far more qualified to assess the CA of your play than I am. Your play could very well be narrativist. I have no way of actually knowing what’s the case in that respect.

Therefore I’d like to pose you some diagnostic questions back:

Did you in the course of the games appreciate or actively pursue instances
of choice of character action where “consulting the internal character”
could not give an answer or guidance as to which choice to make? Did the
group pursue these kinds of situations, and/or make an effort to set them
up? Did you as a GM attempt to put characters in situations of that kind?

A yes to those would be an indication of narrativism.

Would it have been appropriate (as in Social Contract compliant) within
these games for a player to introduce a major shift or turnaround in the
character through spontaneous invention of a background factor, and/or
employment of director stance to introduce a trigger for the change?

A no to that might indicate simulationism, of the specific kind I am
suspecting here.

I am hypothesizing that both of these games were revolving around exploration of character reaction to a situation frontloaded with some pretty heavy themes. However, the themes are external, and the characters connections to them are through plot hooks; the themes are not reflected within the characters. (If “After the War” had turned out to be about the dilemma of alienation by unique experience vs loss of identity through supression of past, this would have been different, I think.) This means that the character becomes a tool for accessing the thematic material created by the GM, producing emotional impact. It’s kind of like spinning the thematic wool of the situation into a beautiful yarn rather than pulling out your characters body hairs one by one to do it. I base that perception on a general impression of how the characters interact with the situation and the themes, the problem solving/mystery-unraveling approach evidently taken and the “party reaction” style of meeting a dilemma. But as I said, these are just impressions formed by my reading of your account of games that involved 2-3 others. And although I’ve tried to point out what I think, you can see I’ve realized that I’m not even able to pinpoint why I think what I do, having to resort to “general impressions” to explain it. I’ve tried to formulate some diagnostic questions, also being interested in general critique on their relevance, which I hope might make things a bit clearer. I'm sorry for not answering your questions in a clearer way, but its the best I can manage right now. I still think that my remarks about not getting caught up in finding the exact answer according to the model applies to some degree. The model is good, but reality is complex.


-E

Erling Rognli wrote:
Did you in the course of the games appreciate or actively pursue instances
of choice of character action where “consulting the internal character”
could not give an answer or guidance as to which choice to make? Did the
group pursue these kinds of situations, and/or make an effort to set them
up? Did you as a GM attempt to put characters in situations of that kind?

A yes to those would be an indication of narrativism.

Would it have been appropriate (as in Social Contract compliant) within
these games for a player to introduce a major shift or turnaround in the
character through spontaneous invention of a background factor, and/or
employment of director stance to introduce a trigger for the change?

A no to that might indicate simulationism, of the specific kind I am
suspecting here.

I am hypothesizing that both of these games were revolving around exploration of character reaction to a situation frontloaded with some pretty heavy themes. However, the themes are external, and the characters connections to them are through plot hooks; the themes are not reflected within the characters. (If “After the War” had turned out to be about the dilemma of alienation by unique experience vs loss of identity through supression of past, this would have been different, I think.) This means that the character becomes a tool for accessing the thematic material created by the GM, producing emotional impact. It’s kind of like spinning the thematic wool of the situation into a beautiful yarn rather than pulling out your characters body hairs one by one to do it. I base that perception on a general impression of how the characters interact with the situation and the themes, the problem solving/mystery-unraveling approach evidently taken and the “party reaction” style of meeting a dilemma. But as I said, these are just impressions formed by my reading of your account of games that involved 2-3 others. And although I’ve tried to point out what I think, you can see I’ve realized that I’m not even able to pinpoint why I think what I do, having to resort to “general impressions” to explain it. I’ve tried to formulate some diagnostic questions, also being interested in general critique on their relevance, which I hope might make things a bit clearer. I'm sorry for not answering your questions in a clearer way, but its the best I can manage right now. I still think that my remarks about not getting caught up in finding the exact answer according to the model. The model is good, but reality is complex.


-E

Marco wrote: I think this is close to the Actor-Stance/Author-Stance question on Narrativism--and while I think it's a common point of contention, I don't believe the present understanding of Nar-play holds it relevant.

In other words, I think your question is one many people have traditionally asked--but I think it's, ultimately, not an issue for the Creative Agenda.

I think your hypothesis about the front-loading being done by the GM is, for example, a non-issue.

Yes, the GM created a thematic situation--but Narrativist play allows for that.

Hi Erling,

The defintion of Nar play (AFAIK) is that the situation contains a premise question and the player's play answers it AND:

1. It is socially functional (i.e. other players approve)
2. The player is emotionally engaged with the premise question

As far as I know, that's it.

How the question got there, how the player related to it, what the other players do to make it functional--all that is up in the air.

From what I have read there is some contention around the following issue:

a) whether one must be "mindful" of the premise question in some way and what that means.
b) whether or not playing from within Actor stance and simply playing in character is at odds with the authorial type creative effort that some people impute to Narrativist play ("It's kinda like we all sit down to write a play")
c) (I'm adding this one) What Story Now means in reference to GM created situation and Actor-Stance PC's.

Now, I would consider this unresolved save for a few things.

1. Nathan and Vincent had a big thread on this (discussing stances) and they both agreed that Actor Stance-Nar (i.e. GM creates situation, player is immersed) is a valid form of Narrativism.

2. As per the recent discussions there can be varying "degrees" of Narrativism or at least various frameworks for player input and how "much" theme a player creates.

This leads me to believe that there is certainly room for GM created situation.

3. There has for a long time been Vanillia Nar and "Prevy" Nar play. This was (I think) usually more about "techniques" (Directoral Power and really unusual games) than about 'stance' per-se, but even at the basic level of distinction, Vanillia Nar play was pretty much what I describe (although usually with a lighter rules set. Over the Edge was in that category, IIRC).

So I think front-loading is a non-issue. I think that because I don't think it matters how the situation gets there. What matters is that the players are emotionally engaged with the premise situation.

-Marco

Here's what's I've been thinking lately:

1) Current status: "Creative Agenda" and "GNS Priority" are synonomous, just about.
2) Where we're moving to: Creative Agenda is a bigger thing, that includes a Priority called G, N or S.

The Social vs. Personal issue - among others - needs some work (and I'm going to be having spotty net access for the next month), but . . . I see real value (and accuracy, IMO) in being able to talk about some things (Virtuality, Dramatism) that were previously "just" Techniques as being part of a larger "layer" in the model - and it looks to me like we've found a way to do so without losing the power (and accuracy, IMO) of the GNS Priority-split.

Gordon

Marco,

Sorry for the delay in my reply, unfortunately life stepped in and had me running the past week never got a chance to sit down and write out what I was thinking.

I noticed something in your last post to me that goes back to my central point of this thread.

Marco wrote: Under the 3D model, I have a big-honkin' head start. In fact, if I tell the GM I want him or her to run the game in Theme/Dist mode while I willl play in Immersed/Dist mode (can I even do that?) then I get pretty close to what my wirte up concering roles and responsibilities was (I think).

Gordon C. Landis wrote: 1) Current status: "Creative Agenda" and "GNS Priority" are synonomous, just about.
2) Where we're moving to: Creative Agenda is a bigger thing, that includes a Priority called G, N or S.

That was a breach of Virtuality in that, I had not decided the reporter was snooping around and while I did specify that she had some "evidence of weird stuff happening out by where the character was" I did not specify recent photographic evidence (and even if she was out in the desert taking pictures the experiment site was very large--they wouldn't likely have met each other).

Caldis wrote:

That was a breach of Virtuality in that, I had not decided the reporter was snooping around and while I did specify that she had some "evidence of weird stuff happening out by where the character was" I did not specify recent photographic evidence (and even if she was out in the desert taking pictures the experiment site was very large--they wouldn't likely have met each other).

I would suggest that in such a case Marco’s reaction was typical. The creative form took precedence but an effort was made to avoid the breach of the guiding principles in the future.

Combats are often exciting, even for non-gamists ... even for Narrativists (the stereotype of the Narrativist who'll turn his nose up at a cool fight or deplore combat not directly related to a current story-line is, I think, fast vanishing--and not quickly enough for my tastes).

contracycle wrote:
As I understand your argument here, the fact that some challenge was interspersed in an allegedly N game demsontrates Dramatism. Maybe. However, in orthodox GNS, there is no problem with a generally N game having bits of S or G, so this does not indicate any problem with GNS at all.

Marco wrote:
I wasn't saying that challenge indicated Dramatism. I was questioning the statement that some kind of "creative form" took precidence over "guiding principles" which was what I thought Caldis' post seemed to imply.

Marco wrote: Considering that, several times, I discounted what I felt was the more dramatic or thematic option in favor of what I felt was the most probable aspect, I would hesistate to call, say, Dramatic play a "creative form" and virtuality a "guiding principle" instead of, say, vice versa.

-Marco

Caldis wrote: Rather than simulationist I would prefer to use immersion as the 3d model does, it better suits what I feel is going on. Finding out what it would be like if you were x character in y situation.

M. J. Young wrote: I can understand recognizing "finding out what it would be like" et cetera as being simulationist. The problem I have with "immersion" as a replacement name is that I think it leads to something that can only be seen as "pawn stance immersion", which if not inherently contradictory is at least counterintuitive. People do play "to see what it's like" without any character identification at all, strictly as observers.

Dammit,

Have I been stuttering lately? From Narratism: not a Creative Agenda ...:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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