Over here in Early roleplaying and the interpretation of scripture I put out the idea that making rules is satisfying in a narrativist way. I thought I'd write up a quick mechanic to highlight what I mean and perhaps the play you'd get from this mechanic would reflect game experience of other poster as well as myself.

Okay, each player has 10 points. They can choose to spend up to 4 points at a time.

Now, you play with some system like basic D&D, AD&D or Rifts, or whatever system that has material, but not solidly bound in your opinion or in the opinion of the rest of the group. In other words, for you and the rest of your group, it provokes this (it doesn't matter if for anyone else, it's all solid and completely clear. As long as it's vague for you).

Now, you play the game as normal. And you make descisions on how rules turn out, as normal (note: It's best you don't write down house rules before play...these desicisions are more interesting when made up in play). The thing is, the players can at any time elect to spend points to show that something decided makes them not want to play.

Now the GM has to decide whether he keeps what he chose, or dumps it (if he dumps it, the player keeps his points and the GM makes up something else, which the player can challenge again, of course).

Now, if any player ends up spending all their points, they instantly become the GM! The current GM has lost his position...but in defence of what he cared about in interpretation! I would think this is very interesting to have seen. The previous GM get's 20 (not ten) points as a player now, and all other players double their current points (even if that takes them above 10 points). The new GM has complete control over whatever elements the previous GM introduced (another thing the previous GM risked for what he believed in). But then again the previous GM can use his points to challenge to (but he gets 20 points, rather than 10, to bang in the point that he's risking something by doing this).

That's it, in the rough.

I doubt anyone has had instant take overs mid sessions, but changes to who's GM'ing next because of how the game turned out, are clearly very common on various other boards.

I thought I might make the stakes involved a little more clear, so the omph of the design is clearer. Now most of you probably enjoy GM'ing and being a player. But I don't think that dilutes this as a conflict. For example, I enjoy store bought and cooking pizza. But if I go out to a pizza joint, I don't want to end up cooking. And if I start cooking, I don't want to end up buying a pizza. Switching between GM and player role is an issue in the same way. Well, perhaps I should have gone with some lead singer/drummer switch analogy.

Callan, I think the bidding-point system you're proposing is intriguing, but I don't see much Narrativist about it. In fact, this seems to me like a very strong Gamist metagame. We have players carefully spending or hoarding points in order to affect not necessarily the story, but the mechanics--and by extension, the way the mechanics are interpreted. This seems like a perfect example of the Crunch.

Meanwhile, I guess if we are playing d20 or Rifts, then we can take the assumption that whoever's the current GM is responsible for steering the story via world-building and NPCs. But that doesn't seem very satisfyingly Narrativist at all, even when the GM role is passed around. The challenging system doesn't handle conflicts between personal interest and plot twist--it handles conflicts between personal interest and rules interpretation.

What Brendan said. I think it's an intriguing metagame. But not really narrativism. Player power does not equal narrativism. Players making decisions about premises does. How does this promote that?

Actually I think it's a pretty modally neutral idea as you have it. In any case, I think that the underlying game would really inform the use of the metagame points. If, in fact, the underlying game were narrativism supporting, then they might get used in a way that was narrativism. But played over, as you suggest, Rifts, would definitely get Gamism most often.

Mike

Brendan wrote: In fact, this seems to me like a very strong Gamist metagame. We have players carefully spending or hoarding points in order to affect not necessarily the story, but the mechanics--and by extension, the way the mechanics are interpreted. This seems like a perfect example of the Crunch.

Meanwhile, I guess if we are playing d20 or Rifts, then we can take the assumption that whoever's the current GM is responsible for steering the story via world-building and NPCs. But that doesn't seem very satisfyingly Narrativist at all

Mike wrote: I think it's an intriguing metagame. But not really narrativism. Player power does not equal narrativism. Players making decisions about premises does. How does this promote that?

If, in fact, the underlying game were narrativism supporting, then they might get used in a way that was narrativism. But played over, as you suggest, Rifts, would definitely get Gamism most often.

Noon wrote:
Actually, TROS can be played that way. You need some sort of SC arrangement made if you want to play nar and not powerup gamism. Same here. Prolly same for all nar games, given nar's close relation to gamism.

Like Marco says.

You're hoping that this one thing will make for nar support.

The example that you give of the theoretical premise is not a premise because it has no specific kind of player interest. The decisions in question could be nar questions, or sim questions, or gamism questions that the player power given would support. For example, if I wanted a particular ruling to go a certain way, because I would win a combat, and that would make me look good, I'd be using this player power for gamism. Nar is about something akin to "moral and ethical" problems and that sort of thing. Questions where the player winning or losing can't be at question, and it can't be simply about making the "right" sim decision. Your mechanic doesn't narrow down the type of decision at all.


As for your players trying to figure out the gamism angle to presented nar situations...well, maybe they prefer gamism? Could just be tough luck for you, and they'll never like narrativism.

That said, what games have you tried on them? As we say, System Does Matter. If you're trying to get narrativism out of D&D, or Rifts (sim, game, whatever, it's not nar supportive), then I'm not surprised in the slightest that you haven't gotten a proper nar response. Tacking on a system like you're proposing, even if it did support nar, would be very hard pressed to change that. You can't put nar mechanics "on top" of a system that supports some other mode, and expect it to work. Never heard of such a thing working.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Like Marco says.

You're hoping that this one thing will make for nar support.

The example that you give of the theoretical premise is not a premise because it has no specific kind of player interest. The decisions in question could be nar questions, or sim questions, or gamism questions that the player power given would support. For example, if I wanted a particular ruling to go a certain way, because I would win a combat, and that would make me look good, I'd be using this player power for gamism.

Nar is about something akin to "moral and ethical" problems and that sort of thing. Questions where the player winning or losing can't be at question, and it can't be simply about making the "right" sim decision. Your mechanic doesn't narrow down the type of decision at all.

As for your players trying to figure out the gamism angle to presented nar situations...well, maybe they prefer gamism? Could just be tough luck for you, and they'll never like narrativism.

That said, what games have you tried on them? As we say, System Does Matter. If you're trying to get narrativism out of D&D, or Rifts (sim, game, whatever, it's not nar supportive), then I'm not surprised in the slightest that you haven't gotten a proper nar response. Tacking on a system like you're proposing, even if it did support nar, would be very hard pressed to change that. You can't put nar mechanics "on top" of a system that supports some other mode, and expect it to work. Never heard of such a thing working.

Mike

I'll give you a demo of what I mean. The first one is without any negotiation support, and is reminiscent of both conversations I've had and those that go on at the palladium boards ad infinitum.

Player: "Okay, so I won initiative, so I use my super TK power to grab the guy, spin so he doesn't face me and then rotate him so as to disorientate him. On my next turn I'll just start whittling him down with my gun, since he's going to be incapacitated for as long as I like anyway. Oh, and since I'm third level I'll do this to three guys at once."
GM: "I'll just roll their saves first"
P: "They don't get saves…TK just…happens"
GM: "How about them at least shooting at you over their shoulders?"
P: "That's why I was spinning them"

Okay I'm GM and at about this point I don't believe this is interesting step on up. It actually kills a lot of the intelligent moves that would otherwise be used, which makes the time I've invested in gaming not as interesting. Plus I'd have to spend more time on this to keep up the challenge with a move I don't actually think is cool (it doesn't get step on up appreciation from me).

On the other hand, this player may flake out with work concerns or just say they are 'too tired'. Which means my decision could loose me my GM position.

Additionally, perhaps their just isn't much opportunity to step on up in this system in a sportsmanlike way and they are working with what little they have.

Also I hate it for my secondary sim preferences reasons…TK guys aren't presented as being as boss as they would be in the setting, if they could do this. The infraction is grating and spoils part of my GM entertainment. (Note: Most games use sim as hybrid support, so I hope no one distracts the issues at hand with claims of CA clash).

Finally and most damning, this is my friend (or someone I at least feel friendly to…who else do you game with?). Will I crush what he clearly enjoys the idea of? Am I letting my enjoyment get ahead of theirs? Or am I just trying to get them out of their comfort zone? And if I am, then I'm doing so without system support here…damn, that's more pressure on me. Do I want that? Wouldn't it be easier to cave in?



Okay, now a second example with support from the mechanic I suggested.
Player: "Okay, so I won initiative, so I use my super TK power to grab the guy, spin so he doesn't face me and then rotate him so as to disorientate him. On my next turn I'll just start whittling him down with my gun, since he's going to be incapacitated for as long as I like anyway. Oh, and since I'm third level I'll do this to three guys at once."
GM: "I'll just roll their saves first"
P: "They don't get saves…TK just…happens"

Now, I think about some of those things from above. But the pressure is off me quite a bit…the player can use points if he cares about this. I don't have to second guess him…he is mechanically empowered to try and change things himself.

P: "Umm, I'll use two points on this"

Ah, so it is important to him. Interesting it's only two points though, not four. Now, do I want to get closer to loosing the GM role on this? Perhaps I can work something out…since instead of talking with him and neither of us having real clout, he has these points now. Ie, we have a resolution mechanic for discussion. That works for me to: Perhaps I decide not to work something out and stick to this...this is important to me and the player clearly witnesses it since the stakes are now made clear by the point mechanic.



Anyway, that's it. I can see the nar there in both examples, but I suppose it doesn't really matter if anyone else can, I proposed it's there because of the previous threads questions. It would seem to mechanically duplicate and assist coherent in game rules discussion that would happen in the other threads examples.

Treat it simply as a negotiation mechanic if you prefer. We don't need to go into what negotiation involves in real life stakes and choices. But this is my answer to those other threads.

Ah, I realised that A: I should have said telekinesis at first instead of casually saying TK and B: I should note that TK is not well defined in the Rifts book. A lot of talk in it about making objects fly around and using them as clubs, no talk about how this translates to moving the objects known as NPC's or PC's. Sorry to tack on an extra post for this.

Noon wrote: It's pretty clear people weren't just making up rules for no reason in the examples there. Some sort of enjoyment was prompting it. What was it? It certainly revolves around the problematic issues of how you shape other people enjoyment with rewards and punishment.

Gamism and Nar are close to each other because nar is a progression from gamism. Gamism is about using what you know to win. But what if you don't know how to win...what if both/all options are relatively nasty and there is no gamist tie breaker? Then you hit nar. Basically in regards to other peoples enjoyment it's a very problematic issue and often hit this point. There is no clear cut, yes/no answer. Your making nar descisions as you design a gamist game (it could even be nar descisions while designing a sim or even another nar game).

I mean, can you tell me what people like, so much so that I can wander off and make a best seller RPG? Or am I going to have to make some problematic descisions? It's nar...I'll get to your note on it needing to be ethical/moral below.

BTW, from latter in your post I think you've gotten the idea this is a nar metagame that then makes the game in question nar. No, as I said before to Brandon, you play the focus game in it's CA. If you play it gamist, then you play it gamist. That's not supposed to change.

The example that you give of the theoretical premise is not a premise because it has no specific kind of player interest. The decisions in question could be nar questions, or sim questions, or gamism questions that the player power given would support. For example, if I wanted a particular ruling to go a certain way, because I would win a combat, and that would make me look good, I'd be using this player power for gamism.

No, you'd be using it to support gamist design.

The wizards problem is nar, isn't it? In the game the question is what he'll risk his precious life resource for. Here, I'm risking my time as a player or GM, because something is important to me in gaming. It's important enough to risk some of my life span for. Okay, it's not like loosing months of ones life, but it is your-real-life. Possibly the immersive nature of the game makes you forget that and so it might dissapear as a stake.

Tacking on a system like you're proposing, even if it did support nar, would be very hard pressed to change that. You can't put nar mechanics "on top" of a system that supports some other mode, and expect it to work. Never heard of such a thing working.

Mike

Eh? TROS does just that?

Argh!

Me wrote: Anyway, I'm not trying to change the game's CA. If were playing Rifts gamist, were playing Rifts gamist.

Mike wrote: This isn't about the in-game situation. It's not CA. It's Social Contract level stuff where you're deciding what to play. There's no GNS at that level.

More importantly, let's say that you're right. As has been said many times before. Play that appears one way, but which overall supports a different mode of play is play of the supported type.

This is a little off topic, so I'm seperating it here:

Mike wrote:

Me wrote: Gamism and Nar are close to each other because nar is a progression from gamism. Gamism is about using what you know to win. But what if you don't know how to win...what if both/all options are relatively nasty and there is no gamist tie breaker? Then you hit nar. Basically in regards to other peoples enjoyment it's a very problematic issue and often hit this point. There is no clear cut, yes/no answer. Your making nar descisions as you design a gamist game (it could even be nar descisions while designing a sim or even another nar game).

This is a very confusing paragraph. I agree that there are some similarities between Gam and Nar, but I don't see Nar as "gamism with no best answer." I mean, that's probably how one gets narrativism from a gamism game. But a game designed ground up to be nar dosesn't have the gamism support at all.

Okay, how about we posit Game C: You can get 50 XP and an ally by defeating the monster, or get 500 XP and the potential ally holds you in contempt if you lose.

Mike wrote: Anyhow, your commets about design and play modes are opaque. GNS is about play, not about what the designer does - he can only attempt to support particular modes with his rules.

In fact Universalis has the Gimmick rule by which you make up other rules. So it's pretty darn similar to what you're proposing except with no GM switching condition. And I've said many times that I think that all of Universalis is CA neutral. So we agree there.

I'm just wondering then, if Universalis is so similar, and neutral, then why is your extra layer narrativism?

If you were just to say, "Hey, I want an extra layer where players design rules" then I'm right there with ya, you've got what you wanted. There's just nothing narrativism supportive about it. You say you don't want to change the CA, but add a layer on with another CA. But that layer isn't about play, it's about how to play. So it's not CA.

Is it somehow parallel to the narrativism CA? I think that's a senseless question. CA only applies to play. It's like you've said, "I'm going to give the buyer the ability to affect the design of their car, and the experience of doing so will be like driving a sports car." Design and rules alteration are not play. You're warping the meaning of narrativism so far that it's no longer useful anymore. Narrativism is precisely what bothers the people who want gamism in play, or simulationism. That is, it's part of a theory of play that looks at what is compatible, and how to make for better play internally. As soon as you apply it to something like design - well is there gamism design, too, where players compete? I mean, what's the point of calling it narrativism? How do we know any better about it now who will like it, what it'll conflict with, how to do it better?

We won't. Put it another way, what does it matter if it's narrativism?

The whole TROS thing is way off. A decision about an SA has in-game impact. If you did as you suggest, and made it not impact anything, then what would be the point of it (and in any case, this is the "contrary to fact" fallacy)? SAs are about play, not about design. You can't change the game rules by changing SAs. So I have no idea why you keep bringing this up as a parallel. SAs are a player making a decision about his character, and so CA related. Your mechanic is about a player making a decision on what the rules are like, and so not CA related.


On Gamism and designers, you're just trying to force things to fit your very odd perspectives. EXP that support narrativism is narrativism, not gamism. If, in fact, the reward can be used for one thing, but is given for another, you get incoherence, not bi-modal play. That is, when people try to give EXP for "Roleplaying" what happens is that some players see it as supportive of Narrativism, and play that way, and others see it supportive of Gamism and play that way. Because you can't play both ways at once, by definition. They might shift back and forth, theoretically, but generally players just pick one, and wonder why the other players aren't playing the same way. If, in fact, you make the spending end narrativism, too, then all you have is support for narrativism. Narativism is not, not, not, Gamism with no right answer. That represents a fundamental flaw in your preception of the model.

As for what you're doing, you're making the player the designer, yes. We agree. But that doesn't make that activity any more about establishing SIS than when you or I do it before the players get the product. CA is about play, meaning about establishing what happens in the SIS. Not about deciding how to establish what happens in the SIS.

Hackmaster as a LARP is an interesting idea that I'm not sure I agree with. But the CA support is set in stone in that game, it's intentionally stilted Gamism. The players have no choice about that if they play by the rules. So I'm not even seeing this as parallel. Again, you seem to be making the social contract level decision of what game to play to be a CA decision. Next you'll tell me that the decision of whether or not to get pizza, since it has an effect on the players and interrupts play is somehow narrativism. And then the decision to pay the light bill earlier that month is narrativism.

Narrativism is a term invented by one Ron Edwards to mean something very specific. "Like Narrativism" is simply a pointless thing to say. Why not say what you really mean instead so it makes some sense?

Mike

So you'd like to work out some shared terminology.

Okay, let me tell you a real life story and then we can try and work out some terms we both share: Okay, a friend of mine was doing work as a signing up guy for recycling. He was working with a lot of guys (who owned buisinesses) who were not primary english speaking. Eventually his boss proposed this to him; Sign up all these guys without actually getting their consent (as they'll never protest) and there's something in it for you...otherwise you'll loose your job.

How do you describe that position, in real life terms?

Further, how about this in game example: Your playing a god, and you determine stuff like when earthquakes happen and various natural disasters. You control them to an extent, but they are going to happen. Your a good god and your flock are basically a bunch of good people...but you have to inflict these disasters on them. But you can choose which groups of your flock get it. The question is, who? Basically none of them clearly and easily deserve it.

Now, is that shaping up to be the foundation to be a nar game? Obviously you could take it to gamism or just sim, but is it the sort of stuff that is probably going to prompt nar the most?

Finally, another game example: Your playing a supervisor of an office. You decide the rules. However, the rules you choose can spoil the lives of your co-workers. Also, these rules will affect your own work life and whether it's really worth the time you put into it. Basically, whatever rules you choose, you always seem to piss off roughly an equal amount of people. So who do you choose to piss off? Whoever you choose...what does that say about you?

Actually that last one reminds me of an Australian series called Grass Roots, about a local councils political machinations. Which doesn't help you visualise anything, except it made a pretty interesting series when I watched it. It was enough of a similar issue to make a compelling series from. Oooh, it reminds me of MDA as well...another show about medical insurance and the lawyers fighting it out over peoples deserving and undeserving ailments. Always left you thinking about the myriad issues involved, especially the 'did they deserve compensation' bit. Just mentioning this because these shows were compelling for...well, I can't use the word nar right now. What word would you prefer to use (assuming I described them in enough detail to decide)?

Now, not to get to ahead of myself. What if a roleplay session management, atleast IMO, reflects (in minature) the political mechanations depicted above. Mechanations which seem to lead to no clear answer, so your left to just pursue what you believe in.

Like I might want to depict the god game, or the council politics show/medical insurance show, what if I wanted to depict roleplay politics. And do you think it would be more friendly to a particular CA than the others, based on those things I'm suggesting it's similar to?

Noon wrote: So you'd like to work out some shared terminology.

Sign up all these guys without actually getting their consent (as they'll never protest) and there's something in it for you...otherwise you'll loose your job.

How do you describe that position, in real life terms?

Further, how about this in game example: Your playing a god, and you determine stuff like when earthquakes happen and various natural disasters. You control them to an extent, but they are going to happen. Your a good god and your flock are basically a bunch of good people...but you have to inflict these disasters on them. But you can choose which groups of your flock get it. The question is, who? Basically none of them clearly and easily deserve it.

What word would you prefer to use (assuming I described them in enough detail to decide)?

Mike Holmes wrote:

Noon wrote: So you'd like to work out some shared terminology.

No, I want to use the terms to mean what they've been defined to mean here. Sorry, but any use of the terms that reinterperets them without argument about whether or not it's a good idea to do so is a bad idea to me.

Sign up all these guys without actually getting their consent (as they'll never protest) and there's something in it for you...otherwise you'll loose your job.

How do you describe that position, in real life terms?

A moral dilemma. Had this been an in-game situation, it would have been supportive of narrativism. But it wasn't an in-game situation, so I'm quite sure that your friend didn't get the narrativism thrill of working through the situation.

It's precisely because the player is detached from the character and authoring him that he can enjoy his character being in sticky spots. Roleplaying games and real life are very dissimilar.

I'm not saying that people don't get social reinforcement from telling each others stories, or even that they can't enjoy being in a moral dilemma, just that these things, themselves, are not the creative act of roleplaying. Roleplaying is roleplaying, not all these other things. The thrill you get from roleplaying has an agenda. This is important because others may not share your agenda, or a particular system may militate for or against it. Outside of these considerations discussion of such agendas without this context is meaningless. The conclusions of the theory simply do not apply.

To use another analogy, it's like saying that the loan you gave Bob is a Home Mortgage. While it might have some superficial similarities, the fact that there's no contract, no home collateral, none of the legalities surrounding mortgages, etc, makes calling the loan a mortgage pointless. If you start doing this, then eventually the term mortgage becomes uselessly indistict from loan. The situations are not synonymous, so we should use different terms to discuss them when they're available.

And they are available in this case. Consider what happens if we say that the sort of mechanic that you're discussing supports narrativism. Can a player also use it to support Gamism solely, outside of the supposedly narrativism decision to support Gamism? Well, then we have narrativism supporting gamism. Which defies the definition of narrativism as mutually exclusive from gamism.

Part of the problem here, I think, is that you think that all of the talk about TROS being both Gamism and Narrativisim means that it actually has both agendas (and that, therefore any game can have two agendas). That would be a misunderstanding of the definitions, too. When I or others talk about it being partitioned off or something in terms of what it does, we're debating where the different sources of support come from and what the overall agenda might be that is supported. That is, as a game, nobody plays Gamism and Narrativism in TROS. As Ron points out in his essay, he thinks that it overall supports narrativism. If, in fact, there are strong gamism elements in the combat, and that some people will play to that, while others play to the narrativism outside of combat, then what you have is incoherence instead.

Again, you can say that your system is "switching" to narrativism and then back to gamism, but there's no "switching" inside of an overall agenda. In the end, if the underlying game is Gamism, then you'll find with your system that the agenda supported is gamism, and, most importanly that for players playing that way, any attempt to play another way will be problematic. That is, if somehow somebody does actually use the rules change system for narrativism, you'll have incoherence and a bad game.

To the extent that you don't think this would happen, then you agree that the overall supported agenda is gamism in the case of your system sitting over another that supports gamism. Again, "narrativism in support of gamism" is just gamism.

Mike

If I may crash this private party briefly, I'd like to mention here that IMO a lot of play in the world at present probably does switch back and forth in terms of CA. IMO all players engage with all 3 modes from time to time, and further, probably have a main subordinate mode. Theirs no methodological basis to this claim but that is how it feels to me, and I think to many of the players I have seen. And this can produce a form of play that makes most people happy most of the time IMO, but also leads to inevitable clashes some of the time.

Moving on to systems, and TROS specifically, a thought here might be that TROS enables *A* transition from one mode to another, a locally succesful transition from Gam to Nar. The SA's serve to integrate the act of combat with the addressing of premise. Describing TROS as Nar is perhaps not quite as illuminating as describing it as Sword and Sorcery Nar; that is, this feature enables it to produce *sword and sorcery stories* in the mode of fictional S&S. The general coexistance of N and G in TROS should not distract attention from their specific relationship. I don't think TROS could be used very succesfully for other types of stories (occurringly necessarily in Nar, of course).

I think this offers a point of entry into the discussion about whether or not *setting effects* are Nar, for that is how I see the conversation in regards nominally or actually ethical decisions in the course of play. I would actually like Ron to weigh in on this as we had a bit of a row about it once before, issues over politics and why Nar is generally conceptualised in regards sex and death. So what I would propose now is this, that the distinction lies in the immediacy of the relationship, and the physicality of it. Yes you can have ethical dilemmas about political problems, or those of criminal dishonesty or whatever, but if they are happening to strangers, or to strangers in abstraction, then they produce rather distinct effects, I think. Lawyers arguing for a client, even passionately, are not wrestling with the same kind of problem as trying to decide if you should tell your sister that her husband, your best friend, is cheating on her.

Returning to TROS, I think this perception disposes of the notional ethical dilemma of expending lifespan with TROS magic. This feature is clearly designed as a limitation, and although nominally a serious decision, unless you are heavily into an Ars Magica style of game the lifespan of your mage is unlikely to concern you much, IMO. And TROS is not built in that manner, so I don't think it can be said to be supportive of that as a serious concern, unlike the 'might of right' expressed in the combat mechanism. A game could be built around that central feature, perhaps as a serious Nar issue, but TROS is not that game.

A further issue which I think may distort some of the discussion is that it is still the case that we expect to play out a whole situation, or several situations, with one game. I'm not sure thats such a good idea any more, and that the search for hybrid or multi-modal facilitative games is a red herring. Perhaps instead there should be a search for methods of building a game that meets current situational need (both in game and out), and transitioning between games (rather than modes).

And round and round we go.

contracycle wrote: If I may crash this private party briefly, I'd like to mention here that IMO a lot of play in the world at present probably does switch back and forth in terms of CA. IMO all players engage with all 3 modes from time to time, and further, probably have a main subordinate mode. Theirs no methodological basis to this claim but that is how it feels to me, and I think to many of the players I have seen. And this can produce a form of play that makes most people happy most of the time IMO, but also leads to inevitable clashes some of the time.

Mike Holmes wrote:
So this is just yet the umpteen-zillionth attempt to make GNS about smaller units than it's actually about. At the very least, if we're going to use terms to talk about specific decisions like this, let's use some of the various models that have been generated to discuss this sort of thing (though I'd agree that using "Little S" and such is just irritating).

Mike Holmes wrote: I'm not saying that people don't get social reinforcement from telling each others stories, or even that they can't enjoy being in a moral dilemma, just that these things, themselves, are not the creative act of roleplaying. Roleplaying is roleplaying, not all these other things. The thrill you get from roleplaying has an agenda. This is important because others may not share your agenda, or a particular system may militate for or against it. Outside of these considerations discussion of such agendas without this context is meaningless. The conclusions of the theory simply do not apply.

And they are available in this case. Consider what happens if we say that the sort of mechanic that you're discussing supports narrativism. Can a player also use it to support Gamism solely, outside of the supposedly narrativism decision to support Gamism? Well, then we have narrativism supporting gamism. Which defies the definition of narrativism as mutually exclusive from gamism.

Noon wrote: Okay, now, that stuff in bold. Can we arrange some rules for that, so it's more organised? In as such that it'll end up fun more often than it would if there were no rules.

I just seem to have a perception that groups I've know and groups I've read about, have conflicts about choosing this. I'm thinking the individuals involced enjoy this, from many phrases I've noted where they are adamant about a particular play style in a sort of 'I'll persevere no matter what, with this CA'.

I thought it might be possible to make it an enjoyable conflict rather than an unpleasant one, by enabling everyone involved to more clearly see what things are important to each other...what aspects of play they'd give up playing/GM'ing for, rather than let those aspects leave play.