I've been trying to get a grip on the big model for quite a while now. While I think I've gotten most of it, there's still an issue that keeps nagging me, regarding creative agenda. Also touched on the matter in this thread but it never really amounted to what I was looking for, since the actual play examples didn't really apply.

To begin with, I'll describe what, so far, I think CA is. It's what matters to the players, the reason they play. Creative Agenda is what you try to achieve, it's what's fulfilled when you have that magic moment (so far, it's never been more than a moment for me) where you feel the game is right, and where you feel you get what you came for. It's, so to say, the reason we're playing, our goal. Is this right? If not, I've gotten the wrong idea, and I'm nowhere near as close to understanding this thing as I thought I was, and I'd appreciate a bit of input on the matter.

Now, my problem is that there's a certain brand of creative agenda that I can't quite place. It's hovering somewhere between Narrativism and Simulationism. One day, I read a thread convincing me that it belongs in one, and another, I read an essay that changes that again.


Basically, what I'm looking for is the "story" of the character. It's when I sit, during the game, and decide something from the viewpoint of my character's story, kind of like an author designing telling the story about a character. I'm not really able to provide actual play examples beyond what I wrote in the thread above, because as concluded in said thread, the group I play with isn't exactly coherent.

However, let me pull out an example from another thread, Washing the blood.... In the 6th post of that thread, Solamasa writes:

"...and by the end of the previous session I had pretty much decided that Garrison's Peak would be Br. Hector's swan song. I was really savouring Hector's inability to reconcile his duty as a Dog with the shades of his past."

That's the kind of play I'm enjoying. It's where I sit, outside the character, and make decisions about his story.



What I'm trying to figure out is, where does it fit into the Big Model, and especially, into the three essays on CAs? I somehow alternate between thinking it's narrativism, untill I stumble upon some comment and realize that it seems to have nothing to do with premise, and thinking it's simulationism, but then realizing I'm in no way thinking about "what the character would do". One of these two notions has got to be flawed, or my misunderstanding is somewhere deeper in my perception of the big model, but either way, this is quite a stumbling block for my understanding of the Big Model at the moment. So, I'd appreciate any help in moving on beyond this point.



And on a last note, the chapter "Issues on the table" in the essay on "Narrativism: Story Now" has a line that I think matches my problem quite well:

"The first problem these audiences pose for me is that any point, example, or clarification I make that's specific to one of them is automatically misleading for the other."

The problem is, as far as I can see, that I keep running into these examples or clarifications, and I can't for the life of me figure out which of them are misleading, and which of them are actually appropriate.

Ahey, :)

xect wrote: That's the kind of play I'm enjoying. It's where I sit, outside the character, and make decisions about his story.
<snip>
it seems to have nothing to do with premise
<snip>
I'm in no way thinking about "what the character would do"

Hi xect,

I occassionally bring up this analogy when it comes to communication-

Patient walks into a pharmacy. "Give me medicine"
"Well, what's wrong with you?"
"I don't know, you tell me!"

From the little bit that you provided in the other thread, no one can give you helpful information. Either you do have some stuff in play that pushes you towards one of the CAs going on and you can't see it for yourself, or else as Ron pointed out, you don't, and no one can identify what's not available for them to diagnose.

As far things that might help you in understanding the model let's start with this:

Stance doesn't mean anything to what kind of CA you get.

In the character's head(actor), as an author(author) or making up fiddly world bits(director), none of that makes a difference as to what kind of CA you're going to get. So it's not worth examining as a focal way of figuring it out for yourself.

Second, the word "Story" is effectively meaningless because it means all kinds of things to all kinds of people. That's why saying, "My game is about story" is all kinds of useless for discussion. So, to try to narrow things down, let's try this:

If your character was presented with moral quandry, is it more important
to stick to what the "character would do" or is it more important to put in what YOU, personally, want to say on that issue?

Now before you answer- stop. Don't think hypothetically. Look back at your play history, examine play examples that you were personally in and chose one over the other. Maybe the way the group played was not conducive to one or the other, but that's important to note too. Maybe it's still too muddy to figure out from your memory, so maybe you should go play some more and pay attention the next time something like that comes up.

All in all- its not going to be too fruitful to shoot words back and forth across the internet ether- you can't upload your game experience for us, and the best we can do is try to pick out "tells" from what we read about from you. And that doesn't necessarily bring you to understanding either.

The only thing that will help you is your ability to identify what decisions are being made by the people at the table, yourself included. This means you have to shift the focus of attention away from what's happening in the imagined space, and pay attention to the what's really happening, and how the imagined stuff is being made or approved/disapproved of by the people playing. In fact, it may do well to practice that, forget all about theory or GNS and just note for yourself what you see happening. After you get a feel for that, come back and see how that fits into the theory.

It's easy to get lost in the words and forget that everything is built on actual play and understanding of actual play.

:)

Chris

JMendes

At first glance, seems to me that one of these must be wrong. When you make decisions about his story, you are either basing your decisions on your internal view of the character (what the character would do) or on some sort of thematic issue (premise).

1. The fact that premise is not immediately stateable does not mean that it is absent. (I think...)

2. The fact that you don't know what the character would do does not mean that you're not trying to do it like he would.

Thus, my question to you becomes: when you make a decision regarding your character's story, why did you make that decision?

Patient walks into a pharmacy. "Give me medicine"
"Well, what's wrong with you?"
"I don't know, you tell me!"

From the little bit that you provided in the other thread, no one can give you helpful information. Either you do have some stuff in play that pushes you towards one of the CAs going on and you can't see it for yourself, or else as Ron pointed out, you don't, and no one can identify what's not available for them to diagnose.

Second, the word "Story" is effectively meaningless because it means all kinds of things to all kinds of people. That's why saying, "My game is about story" is all kinds of useless for discussion. So, to try to narrow things down, let's try this:

If your character was presented with moral quandry, is it more important
to stick to what the "character would do" or is it more important to put in what YOU, personally, want to say on that issue?

Hi xect,

I'm not sure I understand that one. Are you trying to say that if play is incoherent and one's reasons for being there aren't being satisfied, there IS no creative agenda?

So when you ask, "What's my Creative Agenda" (which is exactly the same as asking, am I playing G, N, S, or what combination thereof) ... there's no answer. You are trying to satisfy one or some combination of them. You occasionally succeed. The experience of doing is so fleeting, and so isolated to particular moments rather than to sessions or cycles of reward, that there's not much point in further attempts at definition.

JMendes wrote: At first glance, seems to me that one of these must be wrong. When you make decisions about his story, you are either basing your decisions on your internal view of the character (what the character would do) or on some sort of thematic issue (premise).

Victor Gijsbers wrote: I suggest that xect's example of the bard is simulation of the epic genre of stories, not of character. Wow, he's thinking, that would be a cool (exciting, epic, colourful - not thematic) story! And he tries to achieve it.

bankuei wrote: Otherwise, we're pretty much stuck. You've got an idea in your head, and you don't have the words for it. You can't communicate it, and no one can "give" you better words to use for it.

xect wrote:
I can't think of any examples that revolved around a moral quandry per se, so I'll have to get back to you on that one when I think of an appropriate example.

John Burdick wrote: One of the recurring difficulties with understanding premise is trying to express the idea of moral question. People in the real world faced with the extinction of their language and literature do consider their cultural identity a deeply moral question. Whether you do isn't something anyone else can say. Maybe you care about real world cultures being destroyed, but that was irrelevant to your game.

Wait, this just struck me. How's this:

The border between Narrativism and Simulationism in the two is whether or not the decision to enter the forest was ultimately about values, or about experiencing the story of his rise to glory.

In a narrativistic game, the whole point of the story would be to question those values. If he discovered that what actually happened was that the culture destroyed itself from within BECAUSE of the lore he was there to get, would he still want to retrieve it and present it to the world? If he discovered that retrieving the lore meant risking not only his own life, but also those of the party members he'd begun to regard like friends, would he still push on?

In a simulationist game, the whole point of the story would be to play through the fulfilment of these values. It would be about how he gathered the lore, how he collected it, and how he was recieved when he got back out. Complications like the discovery that the lore was actually the source of the corruption in the forest would be color, it would be one of the challenges he passed on his way to his goal, rather than central to the game.

So, creating the story happens in both games, what's making the difference between the two CA's is which parts of the story that are, ultimately, the central ones. Am I on the right track there?

xect wrote:
Hold on a second. Are you saying that my decision to have my character enter the forest to recover the remains of the elven culture could be considered adressing a premise, even though I wasn't actually making the decision to adress a premise by doing it?

I'm aware that this isn't neccesarily the case, this is one of the points where I'll have to play to figure out more precisely what's going on inside my own mind, but could it have been? Is it possible to adress premise unconsciously, so to say?

The way I understood (and applied) the terms was:

Narrativism - playing to create a story.

Simulationism - playing to create an 'authentic' experience.

The two seemingly blend together, when you are trying to create an 'authentic' story or an 'authentic' story experience. SteveD over at the RPG.net boards is doing just that with his Firefly RPG.

But when 'authenticity' determines your choices what to do next, you switch from Narrativism to Simulationism, IMO.

Joe Dizzy wrote: The way I understood (and applied) the terms was:

Narrativism - playing to create a story.

Simulationism - playing to create an 'authentic' experience.

The two seemingly blend together, when you are trying to create an 'authentic' story or an 'authentic' story experience. SteveD over at the RPG.net boards is doing just that with his Firefly RPG.

But when 'authenticity' determines your choices what to do next, you switch from Narrativism to Simulationism, IMO.

xect wrote:
As far as I can see, the change in definitions from dramatism to narrativism meant that part of the games that focus on creating a story fell under the simulationist definition, namely those where experiencing the story is central to the game.

Joe Dizzy wrote: If I play to create a story, how is that playing Sim? Unless I'm trying to (re-)create a very specific kind of story?

xect wrote: Wait, this just struck me. How's this:

The border between Narrativism and Simulationism in the two is whether or not the decision to enter the forest was ultimately about values, or about experiencing the story of his rise to glory.

In a narrativistic game, the whole point of the story would be to question those values. (...)

In a simulationist game, the whole point of the story would be to play through the fulfilment of these values. (...)

So, creating the story happens in both games, what's making the difference between the two CA's is which parts of the story that are, ultimately, the central ones. Am I on the right track there?

Artanis wrote:
You can get stories out of all RPGs, AFAIK.

Here's what I had in mind when I used the word "story":

In "Narrativism: Story Now", Ron Edwards wrote: All role-playing necessarily produces a sequence of imaginary events. Go ahead and role-play, and write down what happened to the characters, where they went, and what they did. I'll call that event-summary the "transcript." But some transcripts have, as Pooh might put it, a "little something," specifically a theme: a judgmental point, perceivable as a certain charge they generate for the listener or reader. If a transcript has one (or rather, if it does that), I'll call it a story.

(...)

A story can be produced through any Creative Agenda. The mere presence of story as the product of role-playing is not a GNS-based issue.

Hi xect,

"Morality questions" sometimes throw people for a loop. A synonymous term I use is "Value statements". If the players are making value statements with the characters, using the characters to make statements on issues, then that's Narrativism. Now, you might not make a statement with every decision in play, but if it is the vital part of play that matters, then you're looking at Nar play.

But let's put down Sim & Nar for a second. What I'm reading from Kit's post, is an enjoyment of not just of character- but of protagonism. "My hero gets spotlight time", "My guy gets to do things that matter", or, perhaps, more tellingly, "The game isn't focused on the GM and his or her NPCs"

Is this more what your aiming for? The basic fulfillment that your character is actually a protagonist and not just a witness or camera to a set of events? That the focus of play, the spot light focuses around the PCs and not "plot" or NPCs?

Because if that's what you are looking for, that's protagonism. It can show up in any of the 3 Creative Agendas and isn't indicative of any particular one.

Is this closer to what you're looking at as the focus of your idea?

Chris

Artanis wrote: Here's what I had in mind when I used the word "story":

In "Narrativism: Story Now", Ron Edwards wrote:
A story can be produced through any Creative Agenda. The mere presence of story as the product of role-playing is not a GNS-based issue.

bankuei wrote: "Morality questions" sometimes throw people for a loop. A synonymous term I use is "Value statements". If the players are making value statements with the characters, using the characters to make statements on issues, then that's Narrativism.

Joe Dizzy wrote: As an english-lit major I always consider 'story' to be synonymous with 'narrative'. A simple enumeration of events ('transcript') does not qualify as a story.

xect wrote: But you can be focused on creating a transcript that qualifies as a story without play being narrativist.

Hi xect,

Consider this: "Chocolate ice cream tastes good", "People shouldn't kill each other", "Hiphop music is good"

All of these are value statements. We make them all the time, everyday, all day. I don't think there's many conversations we have where we don't make value statements. Sometimes these are matters of opinion and taste, such as the ice cream and hiphop statement, and sometimes these are addressing human issues such as the not killing concept.

We do this unconsciously. We're just saying what we feel or what we think. We don't hop onto a podium and go, "Ok, now I'm going to spew value statements for the people!". It's just something that happens. It's not confusing- it's a natural, common, everyday thing. Addressing premise is as simple as articulating an opinion(educated, uninformed, correct or completely wacky) about any human issue. It becomes a premise when two or more people address on the same issue, whether they are recognizing it or not.

Again(and again) there's not enough information to tell you what happened when you were playing that elf. You could have been playing gamism with the "retrieving bits of lost culture" as goal objectives for all I know. The pharmacy can't help you without more information. :/

Chris

Bankuei wrote: Again(and again) there's not enough information to tell you what happened when you were playing that elf. You could have been playing gamism with the "retrieving bits of lost culture" as goal objectives for all I know. The pharmacy can't help you without more information. :/

Sorry Xect for this thread-pirating, but I think it's necessary you get the point about story, in order to get a clearer picture of your CA.
And if the different people trying to help can't agree... :)

Joe Dizzy wrote: I think the using the word 'story' to describe two distinctive concepts was a bad choice, especially as the distinction between the two is essential to understanding Narrativism.

As an english-lit major I always consider 'story' to be synonymous with 'narrative'. A simple enumeration of events ('transcript') does not qualify as a story. A story is the intentional arrangement of events to relate an issue, question or value to the audience. With this in mind, narrativist play should be much easier to comprehend and spot.

Transcript: An account of the imaginary events of play without reference to role-playing procedures. A Transcript may or may not be a Story.

It is the aim to create a story and not merely a transcript, that drives narrativist play.

Artanis wrote: Xect, as I understood it, your two examples are spot on. It is just that I can't say for sure what you'd prefer, that will have to be your part of the analyzing ;)

Artanis wrote:
So yes, Forge-transcript can be a story.
On the other hand, I agree that Nar CA is to relate to an issue, question or value in the participants. But as Ron says, this needn't be intentional to be Nar.

In your words, yes, but not in Forge words.

Joe Dizzy wrote: People recognize between a story and a rambling series of events. One has 'a point' the other does not. Any game that tries to come up with a story that has a point is Nar, and THAT I think is always intentional. .

Hey, :)

I'm going to throw in my two bits again.

Joe Dizzy wrote: People recognize between a story and a rambling series of events.

xect wrote: The border between Narrativism and Simulationism in the two is whether or not the decision to enter the forest was ultimately about values, or about experiencing the story of his rise to glory.

Victor Gijsbers wrote: I suggest that xect's example of the bard is simulation of the epic genre of stories, not of character. Wow, he's thinking, that would be a cool (exciting, epic, colourful - not thematic) story! And he tries to achieve it.

xect:

I've been reading threads and articles at this site for a while now, and I'm probably as confused about this issue of sim v. narr ca as yourself. Bearing that in mind, I might suggest the following-

If you find that the bard's actions are very much tied to the setting and that is where you are getting your gamer happiness, you're probably in sim mode.

If you can imagine taking the core ideas of say saving the cultural artifacts of his people and transfer it to another setting, you're probably playing narr.

Here's my reasoning-
In the first case, the actions only make sense in the context of setting and situation. He's a bard, an elf, his homeland is falling into darkness. Bing! All of it is falling into place for you.

If, however, you can imagine yourself playing another character ( A native american archaeologist, a werewolf in W:tA ) dealing with similar issues and enjoying it, chances are good that the premise of the thing is what is engaging you.

Having said that, I seem to recall having a lot of confusion about the Big Model until a couple of things were pointed out to me:
CAs are a general series of tendencies expressed over a period of time. People can move between CAs, but will tend to gravitate towards one.

In different games, a player could very well enjoy an entirely different CA. Lots of people who post here enjoy a variety of games supportive of very different CAs. It is very likely to find that people might enjoy a very gamist dungeon bash and an occasional foray into more narrativist waters, or vice versa. On the whole, over the long term, however, people will tend to pick one CA that they like best.

There are on-going feedback loops within the Big Model. As your particular group finds what it grooves on, chances are good that there will be changes in play style. When those changes occur while the group is using a particular rules-set, drift occurs (AFAIK). Drift is nothing but altering the rulesset to better meet your needs/CA. A group might also change games, picking a rulesset that is more directly supportive of their overall CA.

On the downside: Even now, Sim design seems to be defined in the negative. Basically, if something can't readily be defined as gamism or narrativism, people tend to dump it unceremoniously in the sim category. Mind you, that's my opinion, and I'm sure others will very vocally disagree with that.

As for the bard example, I personally think you are dipping your toes into narr play. Whether you continue to explore that CA may well be dependant on the feedback you get from your group.

just some thoughts from another guy also muddling through these concepts,
Robert

Hi xect,

I am not able to understand where you're coming from in regards to this discussion. Here are the issues that I kinda see floating about, and I'm not sure what you're really driving at:

-What is the difference between Narrativist and Simulationist play?
-"I like this unnamed quality X, how do you define X in regards to the Big Model"
-What do these examples indicate in regards to the Big Model theory?
-Some other question you are unable to articulate?(help me out here)

First, the last 3 things are all things no one can help you with. As I said, there's not enough information for anyone to go on with regards to those questions. The onus is on you to provide more info or come at it from a different way for folks to be able to help you in regards to those questions.

In regards to Nar vs. Sim- the reason that Ron says that often examples are entangling is that people take the examples and run them to extremes without recognizing that there are more issues involved in them.

The simplest I can see it getting is:

Narrativism = Addressing Premise = Addressing human issues through play = Value statements through play. Hopefully you understand what it means to have a conversation with someone on a human issue ("Romance", "Violence", "Justice"), now think of the issue being addressed through play by the group(just like a group conversation). It happens in books and movies everyday. That is Narrativism.

Simulationism = Celebrating a Vision = Realizing the Dream = Fidelity to Canon/Realism/Idea in one or more people's heads. Maybe that idea, vision, dream is from fiction or cinema, maybe its just this vision that the GM has, maybe its what the group has agreed upon as "realistic". The focus of play is sticking to that "thing" as much as possible. Sim is easiest to identify when you see the lack of strategic focus/Step on Up and the lack of value commentary being played out by the players. That's Sim.

If this doesn't work for you as an explaination- I'm sorry, I've hit the end of my ability to describe it any better. Maybe someone else can find the right synonymous terms that unlock it for you, or perhaps the right experiences or understanding will come to you. The information you've given us insufficient to work with to pull out or provide examples to Nar vs. Sim. That's the best folks can do for you.

Chris

JMendes wrote:
Well, maybe lit majors agree most of the time, though certainly not every time, but the vast majority of people is not a lit major. Which is why the word "story" has to be used extremely carefully in a Forge context.

Now, gamist players would be entirely within their right to call their play "story". Why? Because it's all about the conflict and the overcoming of the challenge.

As such, "story=narrativism" is simply a fallacy, though one very easy to fall prey to.

xect wrote: The border between Narrativism and Simulationism in the two is whether or not the decision to enter the forest was ultimately about values, or about experiencing the story of his rise to glory.

Joe Dizzy wrote: Nar - play devoted to creating a specific 'transcript' (which I would call story) in play
Sim - play devoted to experiencing a specific theme/moment/idea/concept/etc. in play

What's kind of amusing is when your sim-play is devoted to experiencing story (as I defined it). Which I think was the case in xect's post and confused him.

Alan wrote:
I don't think that devotion to creating a transcript is anywhere in Ron's descriptions of narrativism. Nor is it in any of my experience in playing with that creative agenda. Your statement puts the focus on some final, after-play result. In fact, narrativist play looks for immediate gratification. That's why it's called Story Now!

Alan wrote: Your statement puts the focus on some final, after-play result. In fact, narrativist play looks for immediate gratification.

Marco wrote: Also: if by Story Now, you mean "Climax Now" I think that's how it's often communicated or understood (that game takes too much time setting up the conflict--it can't be Story Now).

Hi Marco,

When I talk about instant gratification, I'm speeking from personal experience, not from a text.

And no, it's not climax now. The climax is only one moment of addressing premise. When I play I prefer to have a premise choice in almost every scene - but each choice doesn't have to be big or climactic, it just has to have meaningful consequences.

Joe Dizzy wrote:
I'm not sure I understand.

How can 'climax now' work at all in a narrativist CA? The built-up to the resolution of a dramatic conflict is half the fun, cutting it out to rush to a conclusion would make that climax feel 'cheap' and 'unearned'.

xect wrote:

However, let me pull out an example from another thread, Washing the blood.... In the 6th post of that thread, Solamasa writes:

"...and by the end of the previous session I had pretty much decided that Garrison's Peak would be Br. Hector's swan song. I was really savouring Hector's inability to reconcile his duty as a Dog with the shades of his past."

That's the kind of play I'm enjoying. It's where I sit, outside the character, and make decisions about his story.

apparition13 wrote: Seems like Sim decision-making to me, albeit a variety that I haven't seen in posts frequently... in this case "tale" (to give Sim an inclusive definition), I'd call it a variety of Sim.