Okay, I've read the latest threads and I have tried to figure out if:

(a) they have changed my understanding of GNS Sim vs. GNS Nar
(b) they have changed how I'd express GNS Sim vs. GNS Nar.
(c) I understand this at all.

I'm most dubious about (c), but I think that (a) or (b) is possible. So I'm posting in hopes of some help.

1. Practical Explanation. My interest in distinguishing the two of these is that I'm trying to find out if what people say the model says about game design, and Incoherence in particular, is applicable to my gaming in some what that could present a fundamental improvement.

I have no luck assessing the agendas of other players I game with but I can assess the practical effects and what they say. I can also self-assess myself and see when I'm pleased with how things are working or less pleased (and then try to figure out why).

I certainly think some of my play fits the Nar profile on the face of it but I think that the techniques and mechanics I favor are all Sim. I don't understand the idea of story-before as anything but a hypothetical (I don't identify with the descriptions of it in any play I've ever seen). I recognize, however, that I might not see it--especially if it's tied to immersion or what might be considered the "mythic" quality of Sim play.

Basically, what this means is: I'm not sure if the play is Sim or Nar and I don't know how to figure it out from the essays.

At one point I'd hypothesized that my play was more-Sim in the begining of a game and we were exploring the situation (and had interest and engagement in figuring out what was happening) and then became more-Nar when the battle lines got drawn up (and I don't mean "the last climactic battle" but more like "half-way through").

However: I have no idea if this is a legitimate interpertation.

Examples for Contrast: My problem with Jay's Sim formulation has always been that it looks like Address of Premise to me from Actor Stance. Actor Stance is, IME, not all that well associated with Nar play (i.e. when you say "story on purpose" it doesn't sound to me like you are talking about immersed play).*

Part of my confusion with the language being used is as follows:

Myth vs. Premise: I'm not sure what the relevance of myth is to the player compared to Premise. I've seen suggestions that it is about social structures instead of "moral issues" but I think Premise is really "human-experience stuff" and therefore that includes social structures (well, problems with social structures).

Connection vs. Judgment: Narrativism is often described as being a judgment on some premise issue. However, I don't like that term: I can judge something without being really invested in it ("I conclude the Camery is less-value-for-the-money than the Honda Accord"). But if I connect to that issue ("Man, my whole livelyhood is riding on making the right choices with my meager funds!") then it seems more like a Premise issue to me.

So the examples I have seen where someone is judging what a character will do vs. connecting with what the character will do indeed seem to distinguish Sim from Nar--but on the basis of whether the person is actually invested as a player in the imaginary drama or invested in as an analyist.

Rejection of Input: I think (IMO) the clearest way to look at a functional CA is by what kind of input it doesn't get or doesn't admit. For example, we say that reliably the Narrativist will not be stopping to talk about things (ammunition) that we don't see as relating to a human-experience issue (that is: if for some reason ammo choice is important to the human experience issue, as when the character in a murderous rage buys special toxic-tipped bullets to ensure a kill as illustriative of just how mad he is, it'll be freakin' obvious why he's concerned about ammo).

To my understanding (previous to the bricolage/myth issue) Sim play rejects input because the other players (and/or just the GM) determine it doesn't fit the pre-established theme.

So if we're having a Sim game of CoC and a Sim player decides "what his character would do" is high-tail it out of there and take his family with him to ensure their safety, the other players might point out that there isn't much of a story if that happens and so he re-assess his character's behavior to have him stick it out.

NOTE: To my understanding this would be functional because the player is more concerned about the 'unfolding story' of play than responding to the (in this case, not felt) emotion of fear for one's loved ones. If the player really is connecting to a fear of his loved ones (even in the game) he may not think it's all that functional to stay and fight the lovecraftian horrors "for the story" (I think this is a simplistic case--but, hopefully, a pretty clear one as presented).

Now, if this is an accurate assessment then my question is this: how is either the process of bricolage or the product of myth interperted as to define this behavior (note: I'm not saying this is wrong--just that I don't get it)?

If one of the basic definitions of the character is that "he will stay and solve the mystery" then couldn't the bricloature ... brico ... the Player just, you know, change that?

If one of the functions of myth is that "we resolve the issue in a pre-defined way" then why is that "mythic?" I realize we don't mean real myths (in most cases)--but is it that everyone staying together to make a story they've agreed to make is some kind of group-thing vs. an individual thing (three Narrativists go in separate directions and then have to sit out 2/3rds of the game as the GM handles each one separate?)

Finally: Don't get me wrong here. I'm not down on the terms. I have read the descriptions. I think this is deep stuff and my background isn't all that well suited to it. However: when I look at my play (which most people I've talked to in PM or elsewhere, thinks is at least described as very, very Sim) I don't see the "items in the garage" being bricoled (!?) any more so than I see that as a basis for the imaginary manipulation any concept in, say, Gamist play.

And when I try to relate bricolage to building, like, a work of art with these things (which kind of makes some sense to me) I don't see how that's different for Narrativist play if you just define "art" as "that which has meaning to me."

So I'm kinda lost for the practical differences.

-Marco
* somone pointed out that the process by which we get games together which involves a multi-step feedback process of presenting basic, foundational, situation, making 'fit characters,' and then fleshing out the situation to cater to those characters is, entirely, an on-purpose activity.

Marco wrote:
I have no luck assessing the agendas of other players I game with but I can assess the practical effects and what they say. I can also self-assess myself and see when I'm pleased with how things are working or less pleased (and then try to figure out why).

And then it hit me. BAM! I can make a statement! Right here, right now, I can show everyone what it means to be a samurai. Honor versus duty, past versus future, what am I willing to give up for what I believe in. Not what would my character do, but what will my character do. It took me about 3 seconds to reach a decision, and then I pretended to take off my emerald bracelet and throw it on the floor, and I said "I am no longer a magistrate." And they all stared at me.

contracycle wrote:

Marco wrote:
I have no luck assessing the agendas of other players I game with but I can assess the practical effects and what they say. I can also self-assess myself and see when I'm pleased with how things are working or less pleased (and then try to figure out why).

Marco,

Over in Actual play, in the thread [L5R] GNS On Display, JMendez gave us what I thought was an excellent example of Narr in action:

Has anything like this ever happened to you? Do you think anything like this has happened to your players?

Marco wrote:
I saw that. Again: seems like immersive play vs. non-immersive play. Let's look at three different ways of approaching that situation:

contracycle wrote:

Marco wrote:
I saw that. Again: seems like immersive play vs. non-immersive play. Let's look at three different ways of approaching that situation:

No lets not. I only want to know if you, personally, viscerally, recognise that experience. At the moment I think you are saying "no", is that fair?

Hello,

I'll follow up on that answer. Marco, I'm not interested in whether you wanted to show the other folks all this stuff you're feeling. J did state it in this fashion, but that is just him. I'm interested in whether the other folks at the table recognized and enjoyed your experience of this sort, at the time.

Also, I have to say - is it not possible merely to drop this whole issue of "people told me I was playing Sim!" You seem to have hugged that to your chest for years now, in some kind of ... I don't know, deeply felt fashion. Bluntly, who cares? I certainly didn't tell you that you must have been playing Sim at any point, but I'm the one who seems to have to cope with your (?) resentment? confusion? what (?) about it. Like, a lot.

I thought we dealt with all that ages ago when I talked about the game-book extruding tentacles ... in fact, I just re-read that thread and couldn't find anything that failed to address what you've raised here.

What am I missing? One can play Narr with GURPS. One can play Narr with JAGS. Whether you are or not, is between you and ... well, you and you. Not me.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Hello,

I'll follow up on that answer. Marco, I'm not interested in whether you wanted to show the other folks all this stuff you're feeling. J did state it in this fashion, but that is just him. I'm interested in whether the other folks at the table recognized and enjoyed your experience of this sort, at the time.

Also, I have to say - is it not possible merely to drop this whole issue of "people told me I was playing Sim!" You seem to have hugged that to your chest for years now, in some kind of ... I don't know, deeply felt fashion. Bluntly, who cares? I certainly didn't tell you that you must have been playing Sim at any point, but I'm the one who seems to have to cope with your (?) resentment? confusion? what (?) about it. Like, a lot.

I thought we dealt with all that ages ago when I talked about the game-book extruding tentacles ... in fact, I just re-read that thread and couldn't find anything that failed to address what you've raised here.

What am I missing? One can play Narr with GURPS. One can play Narr with JAGS. Whether you are or not, is between you and ... well, you and you. Not me.

Best,
Ron

I have certainly said - with caveats though - that I think your play style is sim. Probably, maybe. I wouldn't bet 10 pence on being right though because I am so remote from the actual subject.

But in my view, your writeups have largely hindered rather than helped. In my totally subjective and unimportant opinion, I think they contain too much intellectualising of the experience. Thats why I just want to ask questions about your experience - not what you THINK about your experience.

The one thing I absolutely certainly do not want to do is get into another go-around of but-x-then-y-if-z. I also want to break out of having to address the game and all its players as whole. You should be able to give yes/no answers to these questions.

Do you recognise that experience yourself?
Do you think any of your other players would recognise that experience?

contracycle wrote:
Do you recognise that experience yourself?
Do you think any of your other players would recognise that experience?

Hey, :)

Ok, after reading the whole thread, it strikes me that I have been having this very same discussion with some friends here in Portugal. The mixup seems to be between Nar and Sim-Char. It is my view that these two are structurally very different, but the diference may be hard to spot, just like glass and lead crystal are structurally very different, but hard to tell apart, so to speak.

Marco wrote: I feel a gut-level emotion as though I am there, reacting to the horror of the question and to the difficulty of the choice. Certainly the person reacting is *me* and not 'my character' however, I have an imaginary context which gives the situation relevance through my character (Sim? Nar?)

This 3rd contains aspects of both.

Jay is the poster who posted to the GNS forums about a formulation of Bricolage/Myth. His handle is Silmenume. That's who I'm talkin' about.

Secondly: the I-as-me or I-as-my-character is, I agree, the important element. But ultimately, I think the only language we have to discuss the difference between the two in the context of RPG's is something like 'connection' or maybe 'emotional connection' (another term I've used "empathic emotions").

Edited to note: this 'connection' to events means in a personalized internalized sense. Kind of the difference that a person has when they are looking at a hypothetical ethics question vs. when they are faced with it, with real stakes.

If I am doing this:

But if you are enjoying yourself because you get to explore your character's actions and reactions when faced with a difficult choice, then you are probably enjoying the more Character-based Simulationistic aspects of role-playing. "What would my character do?"

If you are enjoying yourself because you get to put yourself in that position and feel the choice, even through the imaginary context, then you're enjoying the more Narrativistic aspects of role-playing. "What will I, as my character, do?"

Marco wrote:
Can you explain how the bricolage/myth formulation of Sim relates to pre-determined theme?

contracycle wrote:

Marco wrote:
Can you explain how the bricolage/myth formulation of Sim relates to pre-determined theme?

I hesitate to respond. This is my thought though: its like painting all the objects in the shed one colour.

Does that help?

These do not, to me, sound like the same thing. I don't see how bricolage implies a gating conditon. I don't see how adherence to that condition is necessiarily 'mythic.'

If Chris Lehrich were around I'd be staying away from this one -- nothing of what I'm about to say should be taken as authoritative.

The guy in the shed doing bricolage -- the bricoleur -- is putting old stuff together and making new stuff out of it. Bricoleur is just the French word for 'handiman'. He's not doing it for kicks though, he's doing it to serve a function.

Let's look at another jargon word Chris bought up - adequation. Adequation is to do with an analogy never being the thing it describes. It can just be a better or worse fit. Adequation is the process of making it a better fit.

So your handiman has a shed full of stuff and he's making a thing. He's never going to be able to make quite the thing he wants because he's got to make it out of pre-existing stuff. He's never going to quite have the parts he wants but he's got stuff that'll do -- stuff that's adequate.

Over time, collecting stuff, fitting it together in new ways, he might come up with better fitting stuff -- the process of adequation.

Let's take a break and go back in time. Elizabethan London, everyone's excited about the latest playwright and all the new things he's doing. Except there not. Nobody much cares about newness. They care about style and they care about tradition. How does this new guy tell the old tales. Marlowe retells Faustas, Shakespeare retells Hamlet, Webster...

Originality has a premium nowadays, but tradition still is hugely important, and people's takes on tradition. Bands cover bands. Fashions revive with a twist. Hollywood remakes the shows of our youth. Soap Operas tell endless variations of the same story.

Roleplaying is a very traditional form (who knows if it has to be, but it is). Dungeons and Dragons takes magic from Vance, demi-humans from Tolkein, and so on and so on. Glorantha raids Chinese myth for the east and Christianity for the West. The World of Darkness reworks archetypal supernatural figures: vampires, werewolves, ghosts, fairies. My Life with Master reworks ideas from a Hollywood subgenre of the Gothic novel. Inspectres reworks Ghostbusters. Dust Devils reworks the Western. Sorceror is omniverous, first reworking pulp fantasy (Sword&) before going on to pulp detective novels (Soul). Shadowrun reaches even further reworking Dungeons and Dragons itself, along with cyberpunk fiction.

Then there's a second level of reworking. My players are reworking Sorensen's dotcom reworking of Ghostbusters and putting it in an English landscape. Heroquest players rework Stafford's Gloranthan reworking of real world myths under the banner of Issaries' Golden Rule - Your Glorantha Will Vary.

Now think of how the game authors in each case -- and the role playing group beyond that -- are acting like the handiman in the shed putting together new things from old pieces.

Now, the point, and I think there is one:

<quote>Can you explain how the bricolage/myth formulation of Sim relates to pre-determined theme?</quote>

Now, I'm GNS agnostic, so I'm talking here in general terms. The absolute pervasiveness of bricolage in the history of roleplaying has lead to a limited scope in terms of output. If what you're interested in is making new things -- and making new themes is just a subset of the new things you could make -- making them only out of old things is going to limit you.

So, you're a "narrativist", you're authoring theme by mindfully addressing premise, there are going to be issues if bricolage is the only technique you've got. The best you can hope for is adequation -- pressing these old things into service of your theme. If your theme happens to be implicit in the preexisting material you have good shot, if it's not you're likely to become frustrated.

Example: Relationship Maps exactly as per Sorceror's Soul. This is a kind of pastiche. How well it works will depend on how closely you're interested in dealing with the implicit themes. You R-map a pulp detective novel of the kind Ron favours you will get a certain amount of moral darkness -- as per the source: betrayal, murder, blackmail, and so on -- along with stresses along the lines of blood and sexual ties because these are the first lines you map (sex ties are of course merely potential blood ties so you're looking at blood -- which is to say genetic* -- ties and blood ties in a party dress). Now Ron's an evolutionary biologist, so -- BANG -- this hits the button for him. It empowers his ability to address premise because it provides him with old stuff that works great for making the new stuff.

To be explicit: we're seeing bricolage in "narrativist" play. The stuff in the shed is adequate for the new stuff the handiman is putting together.

Now what happens if the stuff in the shed was inadequate? What would this do to the guy who was mindfully addressing premise? To go to another peice of jargon: deprotagonisation. To skip the jargon: it would suck. You'd be trying to make a new theme and it would come out looking more like a giraffe.

So "narrativism" can only use a subset of the tools and materials of the hardcore bricoleur.

Where does this stand in relation to simulationism and predetermined theme*? Simple: you just generate the themes implicit in the material. You play Call of Cthulhu, play with your shed full of Lovecraftian Things, and generate things with the same theme as Lovecrafts story. And because you set out to make something which was like what Lovecraft made, the thing you end up with having a Lovecraftian Theme isn't just all right, it's right on.

You're playing within the tradition and part of the game is to stay within the tradition.

I hope this has been a useful contribution to the thread.

Ian

* You can substitute who-cares-about-the-theme for predetermined theme for more off-the-wall creative "simulationist" play.

Wow Ian, I am blown away, thank you.

Ian's post is excellent. Marco, I want to make a couple of points that are more on the order of saying that I have similar questions to yours, but couched differently in a way that may help you make sense of them.

• I am not persuaded that Jay is primarily simulationist. For some reason he thinks he is, but he also wants to think he is. Every time he has attempted to reformulate simulationism, it has felt like he is either limiting it to his own play focus or trying to coopt significantly narrativist tendencies within it. I've probably had more arguments than I can remember when he has initiated some new "this is simulationism" conception. Of course, he has similar problems with me, and sometimes others have agreed that what he has said is simulationist (even when I didn't see it that way), but I would not conclude that anything is specifically simulationist because Jay says it is, at least at this point.• Now that I'm beginning to grasp the concept of bricolage (thanks, Chris), I'm inclined to think that it is not at all specifically indicative of simulationism, but rather is descriptive of exploration within the shared imagined space in any agendum. That would of course mean that it was highlighted in simulationism, because that's where exploration of a broader and more general nature comes sharply into focus (perhaps an oxymoron, but that's what I mean). It would still be not merely present but foundational to all agenda.


I hope this helps.

--M. J. Young

My reading of Bricolage was that it was essentially a fancy way of saying "Exploration" too, MJ.

I'll also note that parts of Jays recent threads where he starts to define the distinguishing feature of an Agenda is how they deal with Situation...is pretty much the point I made in my Model According to Valamir post where. I identified Conflict as the distinguishing feature...but there is no Conflict without a Situation...so I think the parallels are pretty close.

I'll also expand on one of your points about Jays play style and say that many of the parties who've spent a tremendous amount of time trying to pin down the nature of Sim and having trouble understanding it, and looking at it from all kinds of angles trying to get it to fit with their own style of play...are people who IMO have displayed Narrativist tendencies with great frequency. Marco knows I've called him a closet Narrativist on several occassions. Sometimes it seems those folks are bound and determined to call themselves Sim no matter what.

Of course I've also said the whole "what am I" sequence of trying to self analyse one's own play history to GNS and figure out which label to claim is a huge Red Herring, and if people would just stop doing that things would get a whole lot easier.

Hi

Ralph and MJ

Say you're playing an Inspectres type game where dice rolls give narrative rights. Say you make up something entirely true. That's pretty clearly exploration and it's pretty clearly not bricolage.

Two more examples: first, the Relationship Map example I gave earlier.

Also: your running D&D and you just read two fantasy books. You take the names from the first book and the plot from the second as the basis for your next adventure. This is clearly bricolage.

What do they have in common: they're both prep. Prep is before play; prep is not exploration per se.

I think it's pretty clear that bricolage isn't synonymous with exploration in Ron's Big Model. I suspect it sits at a technique level (or more correctly I think it's a family of techniques).

HTH
Ian

I think the important point they were making Ian is that it is not something related directly to any one agenda, so yeah you are probably right it's at the technique level.

Marco, did Ian's example of bricolage and sim help at all?

I'll give an example of what he called 'who-cares-about-the-theme' play.

Generic fantasy Gurps game. We've all created characters, taken advantages, disdvantages, and a list of quirks. The gm has thrown together a world based on various different cultures and has a plot or series of plots to keep the characters occupied.

Now let's look at at what Ralph calls a 'cycle of conflict'. The gm looks at the character sheets and finds something on one of them that ties into a plot he has developed. Let's say a wealthy merchant's niece has disappeared, one of the characters is a merchant so he uses that connection to give the plot to the players.

The players look at their character sheets, one notices a 'clean freak' quirk and so proposes the group move to a bath house to plan out their next move. At the bath house a character with high charisma, and fast talk skills come up with a plan to walk into her last known residence and charm information out of anyone there. Another character, a sneaky assasin/thief type come up with a plan based on her stealth skills to sneak into the place and gather information. A wizard character suggests finding an item that belonged to the girl so he can use a spell that will let him track the girl.

Eventually a plan is worked out and if the GM has decided that clues are there then it leads them on to rescuing the girl. Where again the players find aspects of their characters to guide their actions and the gm uses aspects of his world to guide the outcome. For instance if the characters have done anything illegal and left any evidence of their involvement they may have to deal with law enforcement.

So the plan succesfully resolves the situation and the niece is rescued. The wealthy merchant rewards the characters and the gm rewards the players with character points that they can use to increase the abilities they used in the game.

Marco, you've talked before about emotional invlovement. Can you see how the players in the above example are not emotionally involved in resolving the situation but they are emotional involved in bringing out those aspects of their character or the setting that they find important? I think this is what Ron meant when he talked in GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory, Chapter 2 about enhancing one or more of the listed elements. Can you see how plot can be the same as character or setting and getting it to happen in the way the GM planned can be as emotionally gratifiying as revealing those quirks in play?

Hello,

I've always hoped that the "emotionally involved" aspect of discussion could be put in better perspective.

The whole difficulty with Creative Agenda is that one's man's emotional involvement is another man's ho-hum, or at best, a means to another end. That's why Creative Agenda is diverse. It'd be so much simpler if we only had one, among us all.

Emotional engagement is not unique to Narrativist play. The reason people ever used that phrase was because they were trying to explain Premise to someone who wasn't see it.

When someone says, "But my guy fought a dragon, so that's a conflict, so that's Premise," then it's perfectly reasonable to say, but were you emotionally engaged in why he fought the dragon? "Oh!" says the guy. "No, I was engaged in whether my guy would die [whether I would lose]." It's a fruitful dialogue, especially if the other person is working from a Gamist perspective.

However, to take that exchange and then say, "Oh, so if I'm emotionally engaged in the situation, then it's Narrativist," is incorrect. Because Narrativist play is defined by the Premise being the target of the engagement, not on the engagement existing.

(I coulda sworn I wrote this exact argument a couple years ago ... oh well ...)

I hope that helps or makes sense.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote:
However, to take that exchange and then say, "Oh, so if I'm emotionally engaged in the situation, then it's Narrativist," is incorrect. Because Narrativist play is defined by the Premise being the target of the engagement, not on the engagement existing.

Caldis wrote:
Marco, you've talked before about emotional invlovement. Can you see how the players in the above example are not emotionally involved in resolving the situation but they are emotional involved in bringing out those aspects of their character or the setting that they find important? I think this is what Ron meant when he talked in GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory, Chapter 2 about enhancing one or more of the listed elements. Can you see how plot can be the same as character or setting and getting it to happen in the way the GM planned can be as emotionally gratifiying as revealing those quirks in play?

Hi Marco,

Nope, that's not what makes it Sim. Nope, nope, nope.

The way to put it is, when pre-defined theme is present in a game, Narrativist play is not possible. Because the cake is already baked, so you can't bake a cake.

Now, I strongly suggest - and look forward to discovering whether I'm right through personal experience - that your preferences are so strongly Narrativist that anything with thematic material in it, seems like Premise to you.

Give Marco a pre-defined theme? He'll turn it into Premise and make his Theme via Narrativist play. In other words, bake him a cake and he'll render it into baking materials, then bake a cake himself.

I only make these arrogant personal comments because it's a condition or outlook that I know very, very well from my own life. So either I'm right, via empathy, or I'm wrong and am projecting myself onto you. Dunno yet.

I think any joy, anger, sadness, or fear one feels as a result of an in-game situation indicates the existence of a human-experience issue with which the player connects. I think any action taken while feeling that emotion is, in any meaningful sense, a judgment of it.

Hey M. J.,

M. J. Young wrote: …but I would not conclude that anything is specifically simulationist because Jay says it is, at least at this point.

Ron Edwards wrote: But I suggest that you see Premise in it, and that the folks who are actually playing are seeing no such thing. They are seeing a venue in which they can rip raw emotions from their chest in a group-therapeutic context, and their mode of play is intended, through the presentation of theme-heavy situations, for each person to let these emotions "out" - not to extend judgment in a thematic sense. The role-playing per se is a safe-zone in which the emotional and social outlet is permitted, and as such, it is "just" Exploration (in comparison to Narrativism and Gamism) - i.e., Sim. It serves a Social Contract function, but the Exploration itself already has its theme (cake) rock-solid; the point of play is to eat it, not to make it.

Hey Jay,

Whew! I was concerned I'd gone over a line in dragging you into that conversation. Thanks for the confirmation; I'd also found myself wondering how to broach certain aspects of my impressions with you. (The plan was to get into the recent actual play thread, which I suppose I still ought to do.)

Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled thread topic ...

Best,
Ron

Hi guys,

I think this is fairly on track for this thread. So I'm gonna keep going with it.

Whether or not I'm unable to comprehend Sim, I can say that I think the 'threshold' for Nar play is a lot lower than many posters here. Specifically:

My understanding of Nar play is this: the player connects to some human-experience issue in the imaginary situation of the game and takes some action congruent with the player feeling that connection. That's it.

Edited to add: That's why I'd have said it was address of Premise and not Judgment of Premise.

'Judgment' is, IMO, the analysist's word (a critique of the action and not necessiarly the mind-set of the participant)--not necessiarily the word the player would use (especially if the player is in actor stance). When I analyze my play post-hoc I can say that "there was a judgment made." But I don't usually think about those judgments during play.

Here's an example of Jay's play:

This is the first test/difficult situation that this new player to our table faces. It is interesting to see how he will respond as there appears to be no good way out. The player is obviously stressed as he stammers and finds it difficult to make any decision at all. The GM is pulling at him from many different directions, and I know that I have been in his shoes many times before. The decision itself, while potentially interesting isn’t so important as “what it means”. I’m thinking during this process, is he going to make Gondor look good or bad? Is this whole situation going to go to pot? If he is weak this whole group could disintegrate. If he is weak then I know as a character that I can’t trust him when things get tough. I’m also wondering, is the player, Jesse, going to approach this like D&D (which was his primary game) or is he going to reach somewhere else? Is he going to play on loyalty or survivability? How serious do he see the situation?

When what character I am playing that night is eventually revealed to me I immediately think, “Oh shit. If I find anything that is of Númenórean make, I am going to have to make a grab for it.” See, unfortunately the very same stuff that Nicodemus is searching for is very probably Númenórean make and he would have the power of the party behind him. This has the potential for conflict written all over it. I am oath sworn to return all Númenórean artifacts and the character firmly believes that such items should not even touch the hands of those who are not of the line of the kings. Gulp…

This is also interesting to me, because this is the first player character to play evil in a way that is not “petty.” This is deep dark stuff – and there is much baggage associated with it. The player of the character has expressed concerns because certain situations might call for him to “go places” that might be very uncomfortable. I know that I can’t play evil for that very same reason – there are “places” that I just don’t wish to go to. Also there are general concerns around the table because the balance is already so far in the side of evil that bringing in more via player characters will only make matters that much hopeless. (We love the world kinda stuff) There will also come a time when we are going to be directly opposed to him and that is not looked forward to with any great enthusiasm. Ah… the lust for power!

I'm glad my post seems to have proved useful.

A note on usage: French lacks a present participle -- there is no literal equivalent of he is pottering about, the French would say he potters (il bricole). So there is no direct word for bricoling or bricolaging or whatever. So sentences like:

<quote>Addressing Premise, Addressing Challenge or Bricole(ing?) are the guiding forces driving and organizing/shaping the “sharing of imaginings” (Exploration)</quote>

Should most probably read:

<quote>Addressing Premise, Addressing Challenge or Bricolage are the guiding forces driving and organizing/shaping the “sharing of imaginings” (Exploration)</quote>

HTH

Ian

Marco wrote:

My understanding of Nar play is this: the player connects to some human-experience issue in the imaginary situation of the game and takes some action congruent with the player feeling that connection. That's it.

Caldis wrote:

Marco wrote:

My understanding of Nar play is this: the player connects to some human-experience issue in the imaginary situation of the game and takes some action congruent with the player feeling that connection. That's it.

I'd say this is pretty close Marco but you're definitely missing a couple things. The player has to have something to connect to and he must also be free to take that congruent action and have it be meaningful.

Take a look back at the example I gave earlier. The characters all end up taking on a mission that doesnt really have a lot of meaning to any of them. There's not a lot to connect to, sure there is a girl that's gone missing and that could be a tragic human issue but how does it relate to these characters? Let's say they do find out she is going to be sacrificed by an evil cult, what choice of action do the players have? Lastly and this may not have been clear in the example given but if the ramifications of their actions are simply that they gained character points and that the girl they rescued and the cultists that captured her rarely if ever show up in play again then in what way were the players actions meaningful?

Ok Marco let's take it one step further and look at a more difficult example. Jay (Silmenume's) actual play experience found here. He qualified it as the most emotionally heart wrenching moment of play his group has had. The players were immersed in the situation and empathically connecting with their characters. The main character accidentally kills Elronds sons. How did it come about? Not through a player connecting with a human issue and making a choice about it but because of the system that kept the players disoriented and allowed the gm to resolve things dramatically. I think their play has a strong emphasis on setting, system and situation, that at some points can seem like Narrativism and at some it may even be but for the most part it's not.

Caldis wrote: Ok Marco let's take it one step further and look at a more difficult example. Jay (Silmenume's) actual play experience found here. He qualified it as the most emotionally heart wrenching moment of play his group has had. The players were immersed in the situation and empathically connecting with their characters. The main character accidentally kills Elronds sons. How did it come about? Not through a player connecting with a human issue and making a choice about it but because of the system that kept the players disoriented and allowed the gm to resolve things dramatically. I think their play has a strong emphasis on setting, system and situation, that at some points can seem like Narrativism and at some it may even be but for the most part it's not.

Marco wrote:
Okay, let's do look at that.

I think the accidental slaying of the sons is simply situational. That is: it's something in the game world that the players and characters react to as opposed to any kind of CA-addressing action on a player's part.

The player is not pursuing a CA by accidentially slaying the sons: it's CA-neutral. It's a mistake on both the player's and the character's part.*

Caldis wrote:
But the slayings werent an accident, they happened very deliberately.

The system being used in the game was one that made these accidents very likely to occur, combine that with the GM's role in the system whereby he is free to manipulate events in virtually any manner to get an interesting outcome and voila you have an almost exact retelling of the Tale of Turin Turambar one of Middle Earth's greatest stories. They've managed through play to embed themselves in the dream and that's the heart of what Sim is about.

Marco wrote:
If the slayings weren't an accident on the GM's part then the tragedy was simply an expression of the GM's agenda for the game. Once it was manipulated to happen it's just situational material (as with any other GM introduced situation) and the players respond to it with whatever CA's they have (if they take action congruent with their own connection to those events then I would say their actions are meaningfully addressing those events).

Caldis wrote:
But Marco that event was what they found meaningful in the game. They were emotionally invested in what happened, not in how they reacted to what happened. It's not what their actions have created in the game it's what the game has managed to create through the use of the system they have in place. It's how true the game is to Tolkiens' works that matters to them.

Hiya,

From "GNS and other matters":

So in the course of Narrativist or Simulationist play, moments or aspects of competition that contribute to the main goal are not Gamism. In the course of Gamist or Simulationist play, moments of thematic commentary that contribute to the main goal are not Narrativism. In the course of Narrativist or Gamist play, moments of attention to plausibility that contribute to the main goal are not Simulationism. The primary and not to be compromised goal is what it is for a given instance of play.

Ron Edwards wrote: Hiya,

From "GNS and other matters":

So in the course of Narrativist or Simulationist play, moments or aspects of competition that contribute to the main goal are not Gamism. In the course of Gamist or Simulationist play, moments of thematic commentary that contribute to the main goal are not Narrativism. In the course of Narrativist or Gamist play, moments of attention to plausibility that contribute to the main goal are not Simulationism. The primary and not to be compromised goal is what it is for a given instance of play.

Is that all there is to it, or am I misunderstanding the current issue?

Oh, and is the current issue actually the thread topic?

Best,
Ron

Marco wrote:
I don't see how there's a bricolage effect involved in the actions the player's take wrt Elrond's sons being killed more so than an 'address' of the in-game tragedy.

contracycle wrote:
I'm sure this has already been pointed out in this thread: bricolage is a process of manipulating existing objects, not a CA. Full attention might be given to that process in the case of a sim gamer, but the apparent contradiction you appear to be constructinmg here between "an act of bricolage" and "an act of address of premise" is completely absurd.

Ron Edwards wrote:
Is that all there is to it, or am I misunderstanding the current issue?

Caldis wrote:

Ron Edwards wrote:
Is that all there is to it, or am I misunderstanding the current issue?

Yup, that's all it's about Ron. Showing how that's true in this instance.


Marco. It's very much about about the address of premise and not just the premise itself. Again in this instance who addressed premise? The GM through use of the system where he was free to manipulate events. He added theme to the game but where did the theme come from? An almost exact retelling of a Tolkien story. He's not making his own statement he's making Tolkien's point again. That's fidelity to the source.
Jay also admits that it's not just these big emotional scenes that bring the primary enjoyment to the game it's also the slow times, what's common to both? The fidelity to the source.

So you can talk about what the players would have done if they had the chance to save Elrond's sons but the fact is they never got the chance to show it. They can feel like they added to the theme by the grief their characters showed after the fact but in the longer sequence of the game do they ever get to do more than react to the situation? Are they more than just the bat boy handing the bat of to the player when it comes to injecting theme into the game?

Marco wrote:
What's the "main goal?" (from Ron's quote). How do we know what it is (and we have to before we can declare thematic contribution to the game to be not-narrativist; that statement is, in practical application, circular).

1. I think that if we describe the goal of the game in terms of fidelity to Tolkien's

Assuming that we are saying that "fidelity to the soruce" means "personal connection to human-experienece events in the game (the source?) as though they were real events" then I agree: the experiential aspect of the game is a big draw for many people but that's usually called immersion and is considered pan-CA.

The personal connection to an important human issue is characteristic of Narr.

Ian Charvill wrote:

If the bar's as low as connection, I don't see how any play can be classed as "sim".

Hello,

Warning: Long post ahead.

First: In regards to the original title of the post, I don't really think that "Address vs. Bricolage" exists in any kind of operative, observable sense. It's telling that Chris Lehrich ultimately chose to stick his "Bricolage Applied" thread into the RPG Theory forum and not this one. I don't think he's talking about anything necessarily specific to CA at all.

At the risk of murdering the man's theory with my thorough lack of qualifications, what I think he's talking about is that apart from all else, people play RPG's (to a great degree, anyway) to socially reinforce one another and create a sense of community and bonding. The bricolage analogy was one he picked out as a means of demonstrating how the manner in which people add stuff into their local play accomplishes that.

The ramifications are pretty sweeping, offering up a probable explanation for why incoherent designs continue to sell, how Drift can be a feature and not a bug, why groups with seemingly incompatible GNS preferences can actually get along and play nice with one another and be none the wiser... it's a ton of food for thought.

The act of associating things into your local game and having to deal with the complete ramifications of those things - this happens in just about every gaming group, everywhere, CA notwithstanding. Like in Lehrich's example, if you let someone do a fancy sidestep maneuver in your game, you have to accept that he's going to want to use it every time in a similar scenario - the addition extends beyond that moment of play, and carries things with it that are unanticipated yet must be made to work in the framework of the SIS.

As far as my play experience is concerned, just about everyone who roleplays does this. Being able to define the phenomenon and being conscious of it can aid the group on a purely social level, most of all, and prevent decisions that could, perhaps, jar some of the social dynamic of the group.

Yeah. We're still not talking about CA. Like any other technique we might use, bricoling (or whatever we're calling it) will be used in support of the predominant agenda at the table. The fact that it has a potentially unique presence in Sim play, to me, just has to do with the fact that it's a basic phenomenon over time in Exploration, and hence gets "squared" in that Sim way.

Ultimately, I think trying to bring bricolage firmly into a parallel with any CA is doomed to create confusion where none (or less) previously existed.

Second: IME, it's really, really difficult to discern CA "tells" if the gameplay is generally functional and everyone is having a good time. As per Ron's essay, he invented the theory because he observed that a lot of people just don't have fun playing RPGs, and no common vocabulary existed with which to diagnose why. It's easy to take GNS out of scope and try to tether all sorts of things to it that it, IMO, was actually not designed to do. Analyzing functional play is one of them, I think.

This is important, because devotion to any CA does not have to be a conscious process. I'd go so far as to say it isn't conscious more often than it is. You don't have to be "gaming on purpose" to do Nar. You don't even have to know you're doing it. What you know is that you totally dig playing RPGs with these people. The actual technical content of the stuff that happens is not as important as why you enjoyed it, for the purposes of determining your CA preferences. And if everyone's having fun, it stands to reason that it really doesn't matter.

In Jay's game, address of Premise might occur regularly as the result of the GM giving the players free reign over tough decisions. But if no one in the group gives that social support (read: acknowledgement) as being cool, and Jay really doesn't think about it (or sees it and doesn't care as much), but he /does/ get super jazzed about how believable and seamless Middle-earth becomes through the process of play... well, then he's got Sim preferences. The fact that he made a decision that could have been supported as Nar isn't relevant. What's he's interested in using Exploration for primarily is supporting Sim. If Gam moments or Nar moments occur in that, it's inconsequential.

Ultimately, any input in play is a tool to achieve a CA, and can be used in support of any mode. Solid story structure (or Situation-structure) can be a tool to achieve ideal Dreaming, or a tool to pinpoint appropriate moments to Step On Up. Precise world details can be used as a tool to provide stepping stones to situations, that then give opportunities for inserting thematic statements into the SIS. Challenging encounters can be used as a tool to enhance the drama and meaning behind a Premise-oriented decision. In some modes, these things are Why We're Here... in others, they're a means to another end. But they're all still there. The fundamental structures of Exploration never change... just the end that they are put to.

Now, the above would become relevant if, say, address of Premise took supremacy over time and started to make Middle-earth less seamless for him. And then the dichotomy would show itself - he has less fun, and says "things just don't feel right", and everyone else says, "But the story is so interesting," and he says, "Not in Middle-earth." It would be equally relevant if he found himself getting into it anyway, regardless of the break from "world-sense". Emotional committment is a red herring in this too, because it's going to appear as a natural consequence of that enjoyment, or vice versa, regardless of agenda.

Here's the thing: that relevance occurs when Jay is having significantly less fun than everyone else, or when a lot of people in the same game aren't really having fun. Being too conscious of how GNS functions in a coherent group can be almost as much of a hindrance as a help. You can easily get into the realm of trying too hard, and it can bust up things on a social contract level because you're no longer acting within the expected dynamic.

(Obviously, Jay's being used only as a hypothetical example here - In no way do I intend to comment with authority on what actually goes on in his group.)

So, Marco, what about your group's play are you trying to fix? Who's not having fun and why? What have they said about it? Do you think that understanding the bricolage analogy will help you in these aims? Is it worth it, if in fact the group is just fine without it? What's going on in your group right now that makes it so essential for you to identify their play as primarily Sim or primarily Nar?

I'm not trying to be critical. I'm just curious, in light of the above, and I think the answer could bring focus to the thread.


-Landon Darkwood

I'm going to do some self policing and split off to a different topic since this really has drifted away from anything to do with the thread title. (Apologies to Ron should have done this long ago.)

The one thing I want to leave here is an explanation of the tale of Turin Turambar and how it relates to Jay's play. It's a long tale but the part of it that relates to Jay's game comes at a time when Turin gets captured by a group of orcs. They torture him and leave him hanging tied to a tree. Turin's best and possibly only friend Beleg Strongbow manages to sneak in and rescue him. With a disoriented Turin laying on the ground Beleg uses a special named sword to cut the bonds. Tolkien describes it as fate taking a hand when the sword slips and pokes Turin in the foot. Turin wakes and fears the orcs have come back to torture him. A scuffle breaks out he gets the sword and kills Beleg.

Note all the similarites here. Captured by orcs, named swords, confusion, fate, important person killed by accident. It's all directly inspired by the story. While I wont say that the events were predetermined here I will say you can definitely see the GM nudging the game to play out in exactly this manner.

Ian noted just above that narrativism is about making a comment on the human issues, which I think is bang on, in this example no one is making a comment on the issues they are making Tolkiens comment.