I boldly propose in this thread that the Sim process is Bricolage and that the product created is Myth.

I list the following links that posters should read and be familiar with before those who wish to comment on this provisional assertion actually do so. Before anyone responds to this thread please read and take the time to understand the following four articles (I got the count right this time!) –

• On Charitable Reading. Read this post first.• Next read the article Ritual Discourse in Role-Playing Games. Unless I’m the only moron here, it will take more than one day to read and understand the article as it took me several days to read and process it. Read this article while keeping in mind the principles espoused in the post on Charitable Reading.• Next read this thread Not Lectures on Theory [LONG!]• Finally read the thread On RPGs and Text [LONG].

The pivotal ideas of Bricolage and myth are discussed in great detail in these three threads and article. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I didn’t find the subject matter all that easy, so again I plead, please take the time to read and understand the material, as it is absolutely vital to this thread.

So… any comments?

Well, only a "me too".

That is I think this is a useful distinction to draw. I agree that Story is used far too widely - I am dubious that a group of Simmers set out to creat or appreciate Story, even though all too often this is how the statement would be expressed. Story ahs acquired a virtuous ring, both in our media-saturated world as a whole and in our little RPG corner. I hope this will result in fewer presumptions of story and more willingness to disengage from story as an express goal.

Second, the identifyication of the process of bricolage allows I hope some opportunity to examine the way in which Potential Setting is transformed into actual gaming situation, as discussed on other threads. As a sally in that direction, I think we can see from bricolage principles that a heavy determinant in what gets picked up and used in actual game play is what is known to be available - that is, what exists in the bricoleurs available materials. I would think the appropriate methodology for controlling this process would include selection or winnowing of the available objects and perhaps signposting some of them as more or less available or important.

Yah. Mostly "me too." As I commented to Chris Lehrich in one of the threads that spawned this, I feel like I really need to go back to the literature and study up a bit before having a lot that's really rigorous to say.

However, I think it's dangerously reductionist to say that Sim is bricolage. More that bricolage is the primary thing that's going on in Sim play (but it happens in all CAs!). Don't forget highly Illusionist Sim play, for example, where the GM is really the only bricoleur at the table. The typically lopsided distribution of credibility in Sim play means that not all participants are equally engaged in myth-making - some are recipients (critical ones, to be sure) of the myth-product.

I think this is what's intended by Chris' notion of Sim as being a rather "abashed" sort of myth-making - it tends to reify the symbols it uses so much that the "playful" and creative aspects of bricolage are difficult to sustain.

Provisionally, though, I think it's valuable to see the the "confirmation of input" referred to by Ron through the myth-making lens.

Best,

Mark

Hi Jay,

I think you are in the position I was in back in 1999 or so. No matter how well (or badly, in my case) one articulates the process of creating stories in a mindful fashion, the argument will never convince anyone not to use the term "story creation" to describe their role-playing. The term simply has too much status associated with it, as Gareth has pointed out. Also, a focus on stories as product rather than process is nearly impossible to parse out through dialogue, especially if the person is ferociously defending his or her perceived status as an author of stories.

If we all, here at the Forge, suddenly found ourselves singing "Sim is bricolage, Nar is story-making" in harmony, it wouldn't change a thing - it would only be throwing up a wall in the faces of those role-players who, in all fairness, are using Sim play to make stories - just in retrospect or in pre-play prep, with the actual role-playing being essentially Color.

Perhaps at this point, it is best merely to enjoy the conclusion you've arrived at, recognize that it's certainly compatible with the existing theory, and then later, see if the term "bricolage" and similar become slowly incorporated into the jargon as (and if) they prove themselves necessary and useful.

Best,
Ron

Silmenume wrote: I boldly propose in this thread that the Sim process is Bricolage and that the product created is Myth.

I guess then that I'll be the first one to step out and disagree with this, if only in part. But before I can get to the meat of my disagreement, I'm first going to analyze the concept of CA.

The different Creative Agendas, are all, at base, attempts to answer the question What is fun about gaming? More precisely, the question that CAs answer is What is fun, in and of itself?. For an immersive Narrativist, his use of immersion is just a technique he uses to address Premise. So while his use of immersion is fun, it is not fun in and of itself; hence Narrativism's defining features do not include immersion. To the extent that our player finds immersion fun in and of itself, she is playing in the mode of a Creative Agenda other than Narrativism.

But Creative Agendas are more than just answers to the question 'What is fun, in and of itself?' If that was all there was to CA, we would have many many different CAs -- there would be one CA for players who get their fun from competing against the other players, and one CA for players who compete as a team against the difficulties that the GM has placed before them. In fact, both of these are examples of the Gamist CA. What draws them together is that they are both examples of the same class of answers to the question 'what is fun about gaming, in and of itself?' CAs are essentially categories of different kinds of fun. This makes sense: the purpose of the CA categories is to help design fun games; by distinguishing what the different kinds of fun are, we can make our game designs to cater to them.

Now, this is usually what people here seem to be talking about when they talk about CA. But, then again, they often seem to be talking about techniques or processes. I suspect that's just the occasional carelessness -- but I’m not really certain I’ve got this down yet.

How about I give an example that might make the difference clear?

------------------------------------

Here’s how I’m thinking one should make a CA categorization:

Let’s look at a couple of players that I know. I have GMed for them, so I know something of their preferences – though it did take me a bit of time to figure them out. I think that what these two players want from gaming is the feeling of empowerment. One of them has said as much; he wants to feel empowered in gaming as an escape from his daily life, where he feels powerless. This is an internal reward, based on the player’s identifying with the character – player empowerment in the game has a low priority with them (one of them practically demands participationism or illusionism).

How do we classify their preferred CA?

First we should determine if CA classification is in order – is there a reason why they are gaming, rather than watching a movie? I think so; no other medium offers the same potential for identifying yourself with a fictional character.

They don’t qualify as Narrativist, because they are not gaming to address issues, but rather to escape and avoid them.

They don’t qualify as Gamist, because they are not in it for competitive or other social rewards. They are both more than happy to play powerful characters facing paltry resistance – and still revel in their success.

They don’t want myth. They don’t care about myth. What they want is feelings of empowerment; myth is simply a useful tool to give them this. So they are not Simulationist as defined here.

What they really want is to heavily identify with a character who is successful and powerful – but how can we generalize this into a CA? I’ve only got one idea, and I’m not sure it’s a good one. But here goes:

We could simply call their CA “Escapism” and be done, but that’s unsatisfying – the whole point of CAs is to generalize into broad classes so that we don’t have 57 CA’s (and counting). Another angle would be to focus on the “identifying with a character” part in the above description and say that what they really value is Immersion. The relationship here is correct: “Attaining Feelings of Empowerment” is a subset of “Immersion”.

Let’s compare these people with the “Hard Core Immersives”. I’ve known several of them, though I’ve never gamed with one for very long. As near as I can tell, what they really want out of gaming is to be feeling & thinking what their character would feel & think. This is fun for them – and not just as a means to attain some other goals which are fun, it is fun in and of itself. Nearly everything else about gaming is, to hard core immersives, merely a technique to achieve immersion.

It’s possible that these two groups share the same CA. They both get their fun directly from identifying with their character.

Note also that some people use immersion as a technique to achieve Myth-making. These people are operating under the Simulationist CA (as defined here) and not the Immersion CA. Probably many of these people both view immersion as direct fun, and as a technique to indirect fun via myth-making. That means that they have more than one active CA. I don’t think that poses any problems for the Big Model.

------------------------------------------

If we define the Simulation CA as simply “the process of bricolage”, then I think we lose the difference between someone who thinks that bricolage is fun in and of itself, and the immersives that I have described above – and I think that’s an important distinction, especially as regards game design. The objective, presumably, is to design games that are fun. The best way to do this is to have a good idea of what is fun, for the game’s target audience. I think that defining sim as

I boldly propose in this thread that the Sim process is Bricolage and that the product created is Myth.

Lee Short wrote:
If we define the Simulation CA as simply “the process of bricolage”, then I think we lose the difference between someone who thinks that bricolage is fun in and of itself, and the immersives that I have described above – and I think that’s an important distinction, especially as regards game design. The objective, presumably, is to design games that are fun. The best way to do this is to have a good idea of what is fun, for the game’s target audience. I think that defining sim as

I boldly propose in this thread that the Sim process is Bricolage and that the product created is Myth.

misses this key distinction. A better definition would be to define the Simulationist agenda as ‘finding fun in the process of Bricolage itself rather than in any results that it brings.’

* Gamism: The process of addressing challenge -> Effective Strategy/Victory
* Narrativism: The process of addressing premise -> Theme/Story
* Simulationism: The process of Bricolage -> Myth

I dont have time to fully reply to this right now but I do want to make a few points.


First as Clerich pointed out in his post on myth sim does not create myth it may attempt it but it fails.

Second myth is an attempt to retell actual events in an artistic (if not dramatic) manner using objects that bring pre-existing meanings to the tale told. It has a story as it's basis. I question whether sim has any more focus on the meaning of the objects that appear in game then either gamism or narrativism do.

My conclusion would be that while sim may follow the form of myth, wandering seemingly meaningless storys that do have meaning for the participants, it fails to fulfill the function of myth.

Hey Ron,

Ron Edwards wrote: I think you are in the position I was in back in 1999 or so. No matter how well (or badly, in my case) one articulates the process of creating stories in a mindful fashion, the argument will never convince anyone not to use the term "story creation" to describe their role-playing. The term simply has too much status associated with it, as Gareth has pointed out. Also, a focus on stories as product rather than process is nearly impossible to parse out through dialogue, especially if the person is ferociously defending his or her perceived status as an author of stories.

Ron Edwards wrote: If we all, here at the Forge, suddenly found ourselves singing "Sim is bricolage, Nar is story-making" in harmony, it wouldn't change a thing - it would only be throwing up a wall in the faces of those role-players who, in all fairness, are using Sim play to make stories - just in retrospect or in pre-play prep, with the actual role-playing being essentially Color.

Ron Edwards wrote: Perhaps at this point, it is best merely to enjoy the conclusion you've arrived at, recognize that it's certainly compatible with the existing theory, and then later, see if the term "bricolage" and similar become slowly incorporated into the jargon as (and if) they prove themselves necessary and useful.

Halzebier wrote: I find the term [Bricolage] unfortunate because I've never come across it and I had to look it up in a dictionary.

Halzebier wrote: I personally like the idea - Ron's, I think - of calling it *celebrationism*.

Lee Short wrote:

Silmenume wrote:
I boldly propose in this thread that the Sim process is Bricolage and that the product created is Myth.

misses this key distinction. A better definition would be to define the Simulationist agenda as ‘finding fun in the process of Bricolage itself rather than in any results that it brings.’

Marco wrote:

Silmenume wrote:
* Gamism: The process of addressing challenge -> Effective Strategy/Victory
* Narrativism: The process of addressing premise -> Theme/Story
* Simulationism: The process of Bricolage -> Myth

Which I think would mean that, in fact, Sim enjoys Bricolage and Myth is the byproduct the same way that Story is the byproduct of Nar, not the point of play. I think that's part of his formulation.

-Marco

Caldis wrote: First as Clerich pointed out in his post on myth sim does not create myth it may attempt it but it fails.

Caldis wrote: Second myth is an attempt to retell actual events in an artistic (if not dramatic) manner using objects that bring pre-existing meanings to the tale told. It has a story as it's basis.

Caldis wrote: My conclusion would be that while sim may follow the form of myth, wandering seemingly meaningless storys that do have meaning for the participants, it fails to fulfill the function of myth.

I think my problem with this still remains: I don't see a distinguishing case between your scenario and Narrativist play.

An example from the previous Myth Thread
To demonstrate how social structures can overlap and collide, suppose the mugger was the police officer’s friend. Let us also say that the victim was some punk kid who was the son of powerful and corrupt nobleman who was making life very hard for his brother. So here we have this police officer who is a member of that structure know as the police, who’s relationship to that structure known as victim is both profession and antagonistic (which also means that police officer has a relationship to that structure known as lord of his brother), and who has a relationship to that structure known as criminal element that is called friend. All those relationships define the police officer’s character.

Hey Marco,

Marco wrote: I think my problem with this still remains: I don't see a distinguishing case between your scenario and Narrativist play.

An example from the previous Myth Thread
To demonstrate how social structures can overlap and collide, suppose the mugger was the police officer’s friend. Let us also say that the victim was some punk kid who was the son of powerful and corrupt nobleman who was making life very hard for his brother. So here we have this police officer who is a member of that structure know as the police, who’s relationship to that structure known as victim is both profession and antagonistic (which also means that police officer has a relationship to that structure known as lord of his brother), and who has a relationship to that structure known as criminal element that is called friend. All those relationships define the police officer’s character.

If the player is engaged by this as though he were the police officer making a tortous choice based on factors like loyalty, kinship, and a sense of justice (even if the player didn't articulate all of them) I can't see this being anything but Narrativist.

Let's say that the following transcript, which also happens to be a story, arose from one or more sessions of role-playing.

Lord Gyrax rules over a realm in which a big dragon has begun to ravage the countryside. The lord prepares himself to deal with it, perhaps trying to settle some internal strife among his followers or allies. He also meets this beautiful, mysterious woman named Javenne who aids him at times, and they develop a romance. Then he learns that she and the dragon are one and the same, as she's been cursed to become a dragon periodically in a kind of Ladyhawke situation, and he must decide whether to kill her. Meanwhile, she struggles to control the curse, using her dragon-powers to quell an uprising in the realm led by a traitorous ally. Eventually he goes to the Underworld instead and confronts the god who cursed her, and trades his youth to the god to lift the curse. He returns, and the curse is detached from her, but still rampaging around as a dragon. So they slay the dragon together, and return as a couple, still united although he's now all old, to his home.

The real question: after reading the transcript and recognizing it as a story, what can be said about the Creative Agenda that was involved during the role-playing? The answer is, absolutely nothing. We don't know whether people played it Gamist, Simulationist, or Narrativist, or any combination of the three…

Marco wrote: I can see it being 'sim play' if the player is not connecting with these issues in any strong sense (since that's part of the Nar definition) but that's it.

Marco wrote: The fact that the 'heat' of the Premise comes from social structures doesn't, to me, make any discernable difference.

Silmenume wrote:
I am rather confused about how you can determine what CA is in operation here. Just as Ron had indicated in his Narrativism essay, just looking at a situation indicates NOTHING about what the players are doing. It is ONLY by virtue of what the players are doing about those conflicts that conflicts can be sorted into CA categories. Since all that I have given you is fabula, it is impossible to determine what CA is in operation.

Remember – Narrativism is not defined by Premise rather it is defined by the addressing of Premise. It is categorically impossible to identify the CA of a conflict without the syuzhet – the player actions which demonstrate how they feel about or react to the conflict.

If the player is engaged by this as though he were the police officer making a tortous choice based on factors like loyalty, kinship, and a sense of justice (even if the player didn't articulate all of them) I can't see this being anything but Narrativist.

I can see it being 'sim play' if the player is not connecting with these issues in any strong sense (since that's part of the Nar definition) but that's it.

Jay:

Two social structures are NOT problematic human issues. Is a government a problematic human issue? Is a marriage a problematic human issue? Are courtship rituals a problematic human issue? Is a family a problematic human issue? No. Social structures can become the source of a problematic human issue, but in and of themselves social structures are not problematic human issues.

Simulationism is concerned with the sorting of these social structures, it is not concerned with the human issues that may arise or surround them.

lumpley wrote: Sorting social structures - "how do family and government overlap and collide?" for instance - is absolutely a problematic human issue.

Silmenume wrote:
Doesn't anyone see that happening? Every time someone sees the situation that I had presented, that everyone who claimed it was Premise had to add something (including the structure of a question) that isn't there? Sim doesn't add that extra layer to conceptualize or organize the situation into Challenge or Premise.

I think before any one else claims that there is Premise present, they should look long and hard and see how they are adding a layer of perception to the situation to conform it to Premise or Challenge. All I've given is naked situation. Not one bit more. All I have listed was the elements of the Situation, it is up to the posters to organize it into a form that suits your CA approach to conflict.

Actually I got it from this:

An example from the previous Myth Thread
To demonstrate how social structures can overlap and collide, suppose the mugger was the police officer’s friend. Let us also say that the victim was some punk kid who was the son of powerful and corrupt nobleman who was making life very hard for his brother. So here we have this police officer who is a member of that structure know as the police, who’s relationship to that structure known as victim is both profession and antagonistic (which also means that police officer has a relationship to that structure known as lord of his brother), and who has a relationship to that structure known as criminal element that is called friend. All those relationships define the police officer’s character.

...they are not taking a stand on the ethics of such a problem, but rather they are creating a system of behavior so that incest doesn't become a future problem.

I'm mostly with Jay on this one, but you've got to read that line charitably, Vincent. What Jay seems to be trying to say (and correct me if I'm wrong) descriptive organization is not the same as prescriptive organization. I would have chosen the term "morals" where Jay chose the term "ethics," personally. Ethics, according to my profesor of ethics (gotta love seminary training...), is simply an organization of behavior. Morality is the motive behind the ethic.

How is not the same as why. How social structures overlap and collide is not nearly as problematic a human issue as why social structures overlap and collide.

Silmenume wrote:

Caldis wrote: Second myth is an attempt to retell actual events in an artistic (if not dramatic) manner using objects that bring pre-existing meanings to the tale told. It has a story as it's basis.

Actually this is incorrect. Myth is not an attempt to retell actual events aesthetically, myth is a process who purpose is so out and provide solutions to problems. Look at the example of Bororo myth. Its not a recounting of anything that happened at all, but is the working out of a problem. Here is a link to that particular post which also has the added virtue of containing a brief explanation of what myth is and does. One of the most telling points about myth is that it is typically utterly non-moral or ethical in character. IOW myths don’t ruminate on social morals issues but provide practical solutions to problems. Also note the complete lack of narrative structure in the provided example. Also here is a link where Chris lists the various kinds of myth.

Caldis wrote: My conclusion would be that while sim may follow the form of myth, wandering seemingly meaningless storys that do have meaning for the participants, it fails to fulfill the function of myth.

“Wandering seemingly meaningless stories” is inherently incorrect in that myth is not story in either form or function. As far as fulfilling the function of myth I think too that is in error, what Chris seems to be saying, at least to me, is that Sim must ultimately fails to reach the scope and pervasiveness that myth must attain.

Ulitmately, though, it will be up to Chris to defend his positions.

Hullo Marco,

Marco wrote:

Silmenume wrote:
Doesn't anyone see that happening? Every time someone sees the situation that I had presented, that everyone who claimed it was Premise had to add something (including the structure of a question) that isn't there? Sim doesn't add that extra layer to conceptualize or organize the situation into Challenge or Premise.

I think before any one else claims that there is Premise present, they should look long and hard and see how they are adding a layer of perception to the situation to conform it to Premise or Challenge. All I've given is naked situation. Not one bit more. All I have listed was the elements of the Situation, it is up to the posters to organize it into a form that suits your CA approach to conflict.

What I'm not sure of is how to picture the Sim-player playing. Is he kind of pondering going:
"Hmm, I think the cop values the social connection of friends and a societal sense of justice in way that the victim isn't really all that innocent, and I rate that against how one measures the societal value of duty to his job ..."

Marco wrote: Then, yes, I would call that an analysis of social structures outside of viewing the situation as a human issue.

As I said, I could buy that--I had thought the immersed Sim player was said to "suffer right along with" the character. That's what confused me. Do I have that right?

Mark D. Eddy wrote: I'm mostly with Jay on this one, but you've got to read that line charitably, Vincent. What Jay seems to be trying to say (and correct me if I'm wrong) descriptive organization is not the same as prescriptive organization.

Mark D. Eddy wrote: I would have chosen the term "morals" where Jay chose the term "ethics," personally. Ethics, according to my profesor of ethics (gotta love seminary training...), is simply an organization of behavior. Morality is the motive behind the ethic.

Mark D. Eddy wrote: How is not the same as why. How social structures overlap and collide is not nearly as problematic a human issue as why social structures overlap and collide.

Caldis wrote: Note that Bororo myth is just a transcript, we have no idea of it's purpose or meaning.

Clehrich wrote: And, says Lévi-Strauss, the natives can hear this work, because they live it.

…

What I'd argue, though, is that the Bororo myth does have a lot of meaning – just not narrative meaning, which is to say that it's a myth but it <>isn't a story<>. You can have both together, but they're independent.

…

… is there no difference between a story and a myth? Because I think there most definitely is. If you look at the Bororo myth, that's not much of a story. Same with Hainuwele. The meanings of those myths lie at a different level and are expressed in a different fashion. To lump all that together, call it meaning, and say, "Yes, that's Nar by definition because it has meaning" seems to me pointless; further, it denies the very real difference between myth and story.

Emphasis added.

Caldis wrote: I think a problem you will have in using the term myth is that the definition of the word is as muddy as that of story.

clehrich wrote:

Caldis wrote: It may not be much as a story but it is an arguement for how the people should act. So if at the point the Dutch showed up and offered the trade goods someone stood up and created this story to try and influence the other tribesmen, it would be like narrativism. They are trying to give the story a moral meaning, teaching others on what is the correct action.

Yes, that makes sense to me, I guess. My sense is that people don't do this, i.e. get up and create myths to make arguments quite that way, but it's a fine distinction that's probably not worth getting into here.

Emphasis added

clehrich wrote:

Caldis wrote: But both would not be created at the same time is what I was getting at. They both may tell the same story but they are kept as oral history, retellings of what happened without value judgement. They were not both brought forward at some tribal meeting as arguements on how to treat the situation. They are artistic endeavours to retell what happened in an interesting way unlike the greek myths that told stories designed to highlight cultural beliefs like valour and courage and show the dangers of pride and arrogance. Those are more like narrativism.

Yes, and furthermore they link up one set of circumstances with a whole bunch of other cultural systems so that it all hangs together. Unlike Greek myths, as you say.

Emphasis added.

clehrich wrote:

Caldis wrote: My parallels may be off but the point I was trying to bring up and that I feel is still causing a lot of confusion here is that the stories themselves are not meant as tools to make a meaningful statement. The elements within them have meaning and together they tell what happened but they aren't intrinsically designed to say whether this was good or bad. They are artistic documentaries, oral histories.

If those phrases work for you, I'm cool with them. I'd just call that myth and have done, but whatever. But it does seem to me that the implication of your argument is that Nar, unlike Sim, really does try to construct stories that make meaningful statements. In Sim, it's about making the elements have meaning and link up cohesively. And I don't see that as the same thing. I guess you might say that I see it as a distinction between meaningful statement (= story = Nar) and system of meaning (= myth = Sim). It seems to me that a story in the Nar sense has to say something; a myth (or a Sim construct) has to be its own meaning and (part of) a system of meaning; in real myth, the two end up going together because we want to put the meaning we've discovered into practice, but this is largely denied in Sim because of Ethan's terrarium, or the consecration, or what have you: the wall between in-game and out-of-game is conceived as impermeable.

Emphasis added

Caldis wrote: Story is a broad term and myth requires them in at least the transcript of events form. Sim fails at myth because the items brought into the game do not necessarily have meaning for the player whereas for the mythmaker everything they use is used to bring a meaning into the myth.

Caldis wrote: …I personally believe the Sim essay as it stands does an excellent job of defining Sim.

Caldis wrote: One of it's strengths is that is has plenty of textual evidence from published games to support it's points.

Caldis wrote: If Myth and Bricolage are to become useful terms in the long run finding the evidence in gaming texts or in actual play will be necessary. That may be the next step for the debate, find text and bring it here.

Silmenume wrote:
This is the type of “suffering along with the Character” that an immersed Sim player might go through that I was talking about. While all this seems like a lot of different topics, it all really boils down to what you had indicated in your more stoic analysis. Except I as a play have strong emotional attachments and hatreds to all the characters and social institutions involved. Sometimes I would follow an emotional/gut response while other times I would “pull out” and be more detachedly analytical and make an overt effort to consider how I wish to “order my responsibilities” as well as to “shape my relationship” to the varied and many competing social structures my character is beholden to via my possible actions and choices (which includes the character itself!).

Silmenume wrote:

At this point, I am baffled by your statement of non-meaning. It’s a myth. If it was a narrative then we would have a better sense of understanding, but because it is myth and that that myth’s meaning is only understood within the larger system of meaning that we don’t have direct access to only supports the fact that the Bororo myth is a myth and not a narrative. Thematic stories are generalizable to all humanity that can be understood to all, as it were, while myths are specific to the cultures where they were created.

Silmenume wrote:

Caldis wrote: Story is a broad term and myth requires them in at least the transcript of events form. Sim fails at myth because the items brought into the game do not necessarily have meaning for the player whereas for the mythmaker everything they use is used to bring a meaning into the myth.

That characterization is not true. What is stated is that the “meaning structures” cannot or are not taken out of the game (or the ritual space), however the myths that are created can be very “meaningful” to the players – they just can’t be instituted in the real world (the profane/non ritual space). That is an EXTREMELY major point.

It is ONLY in this last step that Sim ultimately fails in the mythic process – the lack of transference to our daily lives. Myth created in Sim play (ritual/sacred) has meaning to those who created it but cannot be applied to or put into operation in our daily (non-ritual/profane) lives.

The reason Sim is said to fail myth is not in lack of ability to create meaningful structures, but in the lack of application of the created myths to guide us in our lives. IOW what’s the point of finding/creating a “truth” if we don’t apply it to our daily lives? See – myth is not only thing but process as well.

Silmenume wrote:
Doesn't anyone see that happening? Every time someone sees the situation that I had presented, that everyone who claimed it was Premise had to add something (including the structure of a question) that isn't there? Sim doesn't add that extra layer to conceptualize or organize the situation into Challenge or Premise.

Caldis wrote:
Story is a broad term and myth requires them in at least the transcript of events form. Sim fails at myth because the items brought into the game do not necessarily have meaning for the player whereas for the mythmaker everything they use is used to bring a meaning into the myth.

Caldis wrote:
I do see a relation between Sim and myth, but I also see connections between it and all of roleplaying. My biggest concern is the one you didnt really address in the last post. The term myth means many different things to different people, it is as convoluted as the word story. If you try and connect the word myth to sim someone who is playing in a game based on norse myth then he believes he is playing sim even if he's actually engaged in narrativism.

Hi. Just back from New Orleans, and look what's happened. Just a few remarks as I go through this....

Mark Woodhouse wrote: Yah. Mostly "me too." As I commented to Chris Lehrich in one of the threads that spawned this, I feel like I really need to go back to the literature and study up a bit before having a lot that's really rigorous to say.

However, I think it's dangerously reductionist to say that Sim is bricolage. More that bricolage is the primary thing that's going on in Sim play (but it happens in all CAs!). Don't forget highly Illusionist Sim play, for example, where the GM is really the only bricoleur at the table. The typically lopsided distribution of credibility in Sim play means that not all participants are equally engaged in myth-making - some are recipients (critical ones, to be sure) of the myth-product.

I think this is what's intended by Chris' notion of Sim as being a rather "abashed" sort of myth-making - it tends to reify the symbols it uses so much that the "playful" and creative aspects of bricolage are difficult to sustain.

Hello,

Those points seem to me to be cogent, necessary, and fruitful, Chris.

I do wonder whether"myth" is going to be an overall helpful term for many folks, partly because I think you're exerting an ownership over its meaning which may not get communicated or accepted. For instance, Chris Chinn (Bankuei) uses it very differently in his essay in Daedalus #1 as a near-synonym for Premise (as used here).

But as long as everyone is willing to see how that plays out over time, that's cool by me. No need to attack or defend a term, when it will necessarily defend itself via use and non-use in the long run.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: I think you are in the position I was in back in 1999 or so. No matter how well (or badly, in my case) one articulates the process of creating stories in a mindful fashion, the argument will never convince anyone not to use the term "story creation" to describe their role-playing. The term simply has too much status associated with it, as Gareth has pointed out. Also, a focus on stories as product rather than process is nearly impossible to parse out through dialogue, especially if the person is ferociously defending his or her perceived status as an author of stories.

Perhaps at this point, it is best merely to enjoy the conclusion you've arrived at, recognize that it's certainly compatible with the existing theory, and then later, see if the term "bricolage" and similar become slowly incorporated into the jargon as (and if) they prove themselves necessary and useful.

Halzebier wrote: I find the term [bricolage] unfortunate because I've never come across it and I had to look it up in a dictionary.

I personally like the idea - Ron's, I think - of calling it *celebrationism*.

Just a few notes on Lee's long post:

Lee Short wrote: The different Creative Agendas, are all, at base, attempts to answer the question What is fun about gaming? More precisely, the question that CAs answer is What is fun, in and of itself?. For an immersive Narrativist, his use of immersion is just a technique he uses to address Premise. So while his use of immersion is fun, it is not fun in and of itself; hence Narrativism's defining features do not include immersion. To the extent that our player finds immersion fun in and of itself, she is playing in the mode of a Creative Agenda other than Narrativism.

Now, this is usually what people here seem to be talking about when they talk about CA. But, then again, they often seem to be talking about techniques or processes. I suspect that's just the occasional carelessness -- but I’m not really certain I’ve got this down yet.

They don’t want myth. They don’t care about myth. What they want is feelings of empowerment; myth is simply a useful tool to give them this. So they are not Simulationist as defined here.

If we define the Simulation CA as simply “the process of bricolage”, then I think we lose the difference between someone who thinks that bricolage is fun in and of itself, and the immersives that I have described above – and I think that’s an important distinction, especially as regards game design. The objective, presumably, is to design games that are fun. The best way to do this is to have a good idea of what is fun, for the game’s target audience. .... A better definition would be to define the Simulationist agenda as ‘finding fun in the process of Bricolage itself rather than in any results that it brings.’

Hmm. This gets complicated.

Caldis wrote:

Silmenume wrote: At this point, I am baffled by your statement of non-meaning. It’s a myth. If it was a narrative then we would have a better sense of understanding, but because it is myth and that that myth’s meaning is only understood within the larger system of meaning that we don’t have direct access to only supports the fact that the Bororo myth is a myth and not a narrative. Thematic stories are generalizable to all humanity that can be understood to all, as it were, while myths are specific to the cultures where they were created.

I think we're almost on the same wavelength here just going in different directions. I'm saying that the Bororo myth has no meaning to us because we dont understand the meanings of the components that make up the myth. To the Bororo it tells a meaningful story because they can pick out the meaning whereas if they were to be told a thematic story that we are familiar with and understand it would leave them shaking their heads. Same job different medium of expression.

Caldis wrote: Story is a broad term and myth requires them in at least the transcript of events form. Sim fails at myth because the items brought into the game do not necessarily have meaning for the player whereas for the mythmaker everything they use is used to bring a meaning into the myth.

Silmenume wrote: .... What is stated is that the “meaning structures” cannot or are not taken out of the game (or the ritual space), however the myths that are created can be very “meaningful” to the players – they just can’t be instituted in the real world (the profane/non ritual space). That is an EXTREMELY major point. .... The reason Sim is said to fail myth is not in lack of ability to create meaningful structures, but in the lack of application of the created myths to guide us in our lives. IOW what’s the point of finding/creating a “truth” if we don’t apply it to our daily lives? See – myth is not only thing but process as well.

Caldis wrote: .... In myth the elements brought in have observable behaviors that give meaning to them before they become part of the myth. The mythmaker chooses them for those meanings and uses them to make a meaningful tale. The mythmaker has a whole lexicon of things that have meaning to not only himself but his entire culture, the same does not hold true for the sim gamer. I'm sure in the begininng the mythmaker faced the same problem however the mythmaker finding meanings is seperate from myth itself. The myth uses the meanings to tell the tale, it is not the search for them.

I do see a relation between Sim and myth, but I also see connections between it and all of roleplaying. My biggest concern is the one you didnt really address in the last post. The term myth means many different things to different people, it is as convoluted as the word story. If you try and connect the word myth to sim someone who is playing in a game based on norse myth then he believes he is playing sim even if he's actually engaged in narrativism.

Ron Edwards wrote: I do wonder whether"myth" is going to be an overall helpful term for many folks, partly because I think you're exerting an ownership over its meaning which may not get communicated or accepted. For instance, Chris Chinn (Bankuei) uses it very differently in his essay in Daedalus #1 as a near-synonym for Premise (as used here).

Chris wrote:

I dislike this term [celebrationism] a great deal, I'm afraid. This isn't a swipe at you, or Ron, but I think the term misses a good deal.

First, it is only applicable when there is a set block of source material, which is not necessarily the case in Sim.

Second, it suggests that the process in Sim desires primarily to enjoy (celebrate) that source material. Even assuming there is such source material, the Sim group may well wish to play with and distort it for other creative reasons. In many cases, this distortion may be sufficient that fans of the source material see the game as destructive or hostile to the material -- which says nothing about whether it's Sim.

I'd like to make a suggestion. Starting with Jay's proposition in this thread, "The Sim process is Bricolage and that the product created is Myth." The problem is that the term "Simulationism" is being overloaded. Essentially, people are arguing "Sim is X" vs "No, Sim is Y" -- where both X and Y are valid and interesting concepts, but they're trying to use the same word. For example, it seems like this view of Sim (myth-Sim) emphasizes lack of metagame mechanics and immersion. So, for example, myth-Sim probably does not include typical Theatrix play -- whereas Sim as shown in Ron's Sim essay (from Feb 2003) does.

Perhaps this could be formulated as an variant model and have a distinct name attached to it? Perhaps the "Story/Myth" model?

clehrich wrote:

Halzebier wrote: I personally like the idea - Ron's, I think - of calling it *celebrationism*.

I dislike this term a great deal, I'm afraid. This isn't a swipe at you, or Ron, but I think the term misses a good deal.

First, it is only applicable when there is a set block of source material, which is not necessarily the case in Sim.

Second, it suggests that the process in Sim desires primarily to enjoy (celebrate) that source material. Even assuming there is such source material, the Sim group may well wish to play with and distort it for other creative reasons.

John Kim wrote: For example, it seems like this view of Sim (myth-Sim) emphasizes lack of metagame mechanics and immersion. So, for example, myth-Sim probably does not include typical Theatrix play -- whereas Sim as shown in Ron's Sim essay (from Feb 2003) does.

It seems to me that this [about celebration] is begging the question. By the celebration-based definition of Simulationism, then if they aren't celebrating source material, then they aren't engaged in Simulationism. It's like saying, "Even if there is a Premise, maybe the Narrativists want to avoid it rather than address it." Well, if they're avoiding it, then they aren't being Narrativist.

In short: your concept of what the term "Simulationism" means may not be the same as what Ron thinks of for that term. It also probably differs from what I conceived of when I first started using the term in 1995 on rec.games.frp.advocacy. Having a different definition isn't wrong, but it needs to be communicated.

clehrich wrote:

John Kim wrote: In short: your concept of what the term "Simulationism" means may not be the same as what Ron thinks of for that term. It also probably differs from what I conceived of when I first started using the term in 1995 on rec.games.frp.advocacy. Having a different definition isn't wrong, but it needs to be communicated.

True, but I think the onus rests on you to demonstrate that what Jay's talking about, the whole myth-bricolage thing, is a subset of -- or a different thing than -- what Ron defines as Simulationism. To my mind, the argument here is that Ron's definition is solid as far as it goes, but that more precision is needed, and I think Jay is proposing bricolage as a way to gain that precision.

The Sim process is Bricolage and the product created is Myth

The Mythic-Bricolage process is Bricolage and the product created is Myth

clehrich wrote:

Now, this is usually what people here seem to be talking about when they talk about CA. But, then again, they often seem to be talking about techniques or processes. I suspect that's just the occasional carelessness -- but I’m not really certain I’ve got this down yet.

Here I think you're a little off-base. Ron is very insistent that CA is not about product. For example, if we have a transcript (in his sense) of a game, which is to say we have a post facto product description, we know nothing whatever about CA. CA is about how we get there, that is, it's about process. Jay's argument is that Sim is unusual in that it really isn't defined in terms of process, where Nar and Gam are. This is causing problems, because it makes Sim seem fundamentally different from the other CAs.

But this tendency to seek out CA after the fact, in product and not in process, is very common and somewhat unfortunate.

In your example:

They don’t want myth. They don’t care about myth. What they want is feelings of empowerment; myth is simply a useful tool to give them this. So they are not Simulationist as defined here.

Here I think Jay is being a tad sloppy. "They don't want myth" only in the sense that they don't really know what that means or what it's about. They may want empowerment, and they may achieve this through mythic processes a la bricolage. But that does not mean that they desire myth, at least not consciously.

Furthermore, no CA needs to be deliberate or conscious. It can be, but it needn't be. Sim in particular often resists such mindfulness. Thus it is certainly possible that the group "don't care about myth", yet nevertheless play hard-core Sim.

If we define the Simulation CA as simply “the process of bricolage”, then I think we lose the difference between someone who thinks that bricolage is fun in and of itself, and the immersives that I have described above – and I think that’s an important distinction, especially as regards game design. The objective, presumably, is to design games that are fun. The best way to do this is to have a good idea of what is fun, for the game’s target audience. .... A better definition would be to define the Simulationist agenda as ‘finding fun in the process of Bricolage itself rather than in any results that it brings.’

Simulationism cannot be defined as "the process of bricolage" full stop. No question there. What can be defined that way is bricolage, and that's a tautology.

But immersion is a Technique, a tool by which to achieve a gaming goal. And it is not at odds with the kind of constrained bricolage that I, like Jay, think is at the core of Sim. I agree with you fully that taking this sort of bricolage as the primary end unto itself is critical to what we're talking about as Sim, but I do not see why this cannot be achieved immersively.

John Kim wrote:
Bricolage is using only the elements "at hand", such as using a brick for a hammer because it is handy. However, GNS Simulationism is simply commitment to the imagined events -- where the events can be wholly original (i.e. more than just what is "at hand").

In practical terms, it seems to me that bricolage characterizes play which is bounded within a limited set of pre-generated source material -- either borrowed (i.e. a James Bond game or Buffy the Vampire Slayer game) or created prior to the game (i.e. homebrew setting). Meanings are then built within that limited set of materials which are "on hand". However, I don't think this reasonably covers games like Multiverser or Theatrix, or more generally improvised campaigns with frequent new material. Sure, you can try to say that the new material comes from somewhere and thus is "at hand" -- but then everything is bricolage.

Well, when Multiverser has, as one of its gameworld/scenario settings, "The Prisoner of Zenda," I'd say that you can perform plenty of bricolage with its elements.

The interesting thing about Sim as bricolage to me is that it does well for the contrast with Nar, but it doesn't do so well contrasting with Gam. This is apparently an artifact of Chris Lehrich's lack of experience with Gamist play, but it does need to be addressed.

Now, to answer Jay's question from a while back...

If we accept the assertion that Step on Up is about adressing Challenge, Story is about adressing Premise and Myth is about Bricolage, we need to be explicit about where the real difference lies. The difference actually lies in worldviews.

Gamism is a Darwinian worldview. "That which does not destroy us makes us stronger." The right tool for the right job used in the right way will reap us the rewards we want, and we need to compete to find these right things.

Narrativism is a moral worldview. "The play's the thing / to trap the conscience of a king." The why is more important than the how, and emotionally charged issues of human nature must be resolved.

Simulationism is a mythic worldview. "Let me tell you, O Best Beloved, of the times long ago.." The how and what are much more important than the why, and structures of meaning are created without resolution.

I don't know if this helps, and I think that my choice of quotes may be evocative of what I'm saying. But I can see how Creative Agenda is closely tied in to worldview, which explains why conflicting CA's lead to such bad dysfunction.

What do you think?