OK, I'm a newcomer to the forge, having stumbled onto the Lumply site and from there meandered over to here, and read up on a bunch of Ron Edwards' essays. From there I began corresponding with Ron, while also following a lot of threads on the forums. I had this written up to send to Ron directly, but then decided it might be a good topic to bring to the Forge Community directly, as an entry to the forums, and as a means of generating more varied feedback. So here we are:

I’ve been thinking over the three CAs and their relationship and I think I may have pegged what’s been bugging me. See, I really grok the Big Model as a whole, but I'm not sure I agree with where all the parts are placed. In particular, I am really starting to feel that Simulationism is *not* equal to the other CAs, or more to the point, that it’s not the same kind of thing (yes, I know that Ron and others have said as much, but I think the difference is more significant than it is commonly credited). Each CA has its own emphasis, Gamism’s being accomplishment/competition and Narrativism’s being premise/story. But Simulationism’s emphasis, Exploration, is not like the others in that it mustbe present even when not emphasized. If we’re not exploring anything, we’re not roleplaying, even if the Exploration is only a platform for tactical feats of addressing moral problems. Exploration IS the experience of the Shared Imagined Space. Without that SIS, we’re just playing a boardgame (in the case of Gamism) or philosophically pontificating (in the case of Narrativism). Heck, even most boardgames involves some degree of Exploration; you’re “simulating” the world of real estate speculation when you play Monopoly, or the thrill of military conquest when you play Risk, even if you don’t put a whole lot of effort into vividly imagining it. But Achievement and Premise are optional: groups can (and do) roleplay for years without addressing any personal crisis or moral dilemma in any real or dynamic way, and it’s possible (though by no means prevalent) to play without any sort of competitive factor or tactical element. PrimeTime Adventures strikes me as one example of a system geared toward the latter extreme. So Ron's statement that the three CAs float on a sea of Exploration really means that Simulationism is an emphasis on the foundation itself, rather than the things which you can build on that foundation, and as such is not the same kind of animal.

I know Ron mentions a similar claim by Scarlet Jester, and claims that Sim is equal because it can “over-ride either Gamist or Narrativist priorities.” But while I agree that it’s an important element, I don’t think it’s on the same *level* with the other two. It doesn’t belong on the same tier. Rather the model should be something like: [Exploration (subset:Simulationism) [CA (Gamism or Narrativism)[all the other stuff]]] with the understanding that Simulationism can override the Agenda in the lower tier, just as a breakdown in the Social Contract in a higher tier will severely hinder any activities in the lower tier.

The primary ramification of this rearranging of concepts is the realization that Simulationism is, in effect, the “default” mode of roleplaying. It’s simply what happens if people get together, create characters, and insert them into the SIS and play out their actions and circumstances, without trying to achieve spectacular feats or gain tactical advantage, or to inject meaning into the Explored events or wrestle with thorny problems. As Ron has said, when Gamism enters play, it tends to dominate Simulationism, either breaking down the causality of the “pocket world” or using that causality as an arena for competition. And when I was confused about how do differentiate Narr from Sim with pre-loaded issues, Ron basically said that any time you actively address premise, through dynamic character choice, you are playing Narr, and no longer Sim. In other words, until you take that step, you’re playing Simulationist, but as soon as you add anything that’s not mere Exploration, you’re then playing Gamist or Narrativist. Simulationism is defined by the absence of other elements, more than the presence of Exploration.

A footnote: In light of the above observations, I think the suggestion that “both Gamist and Narrativist priorities are clear and automatic. . .whereas I think Simulationist priorities must be trained” is best understood as arising from most people’s tendency to inject either Achievement or Meaning into leisure activities (even passive ones, vicariously: “That movie kicked ass!” Vs. “That movie was so touching.”), and roleplaying being no exception. Exploration for its own sake I can definitely see as an ingrown mindset that has been fostered as the hobby evolved, and this can of course put off many newcomers who want to know, “why does one play?” it’s almost like playing football without points or writing novels without plot. It’s great if one wants to do that, but it’s certainly not very clear or inviting to aspiring footballers or novelists to put forth that unique version as the whole of the activity.

So, any thoughts? Agree, disagree? Have I hit on something significant, or just stated the obvious? I do fee it's a significant observation because
even if there's no contradiction between this and the Theory as it stands, I feel the actual text of the GNS essays does point one in another direction. But maybe it's just me.

Peace,

Alls I can say Joel, is old news.

I'm glad that your reading of the theory has progressed to the point that you can make as well articulated an evaluation of the above, however. I mean that sincerely since the theory can at times be opaque and I welcome new folks who are dedicated enough to reach the point where you are now.

I suggest you do a search on the Beeg Horseshoe and on Sim1 Sim2 which will connect you about a bazillion pages of threads that look similar to your own.


Things not GNS

and

Clarifying Simulation

are particularly productive threads to revisit.

Maybe some folks will pop in with some particularly solid links also.


Keep in mind the following two important points, however.
1) those threads are older and opinions represented there may have changed.
2) don't comment in those old threads, but if something in one particularly grabs you, link to it and start a new one.


Other than that, I don't think I have anything more to say at this point that I haven't already said previously. For the record, my opinion on the Sim1/Sim2 split I espouse in the above links hasn't really changed. I still think that alot of play that gets (mis)labeled Simulationism is really just Exploration sans Creative Agenda.

I'm inclined to think the agenda of simulationism, is learning. And since learning is very passive, rather than doing something (like with gamism or nar), it seems not to be doing anything at all. And thus not an agenda.

Just a personal observation:
With a sim supporting design, players will often slip into either gamist or narrativist mode for awhile, but seem to eventually bounce back to sim for a while before drifting again. I'm not sure that this is as readily true for designs specifically meant to support narr or gam.

Basically, self identified simmers ( like yers truly) are greedy devils that want a bit of everything...

And the attempt to provide a bit of everything is both the beauty and bane of sim supporting design.

We don't want to fall into mistaking the existance of Exploration for simulationist creative agenda. Exploration exists in all role-play; the simulationist CA does not. Remember, creative agenda is defined by what a group prioritizes. The simulationist group will choose to abandon opportunities for player challenge or addressing a premise if doing so would violate the ideal they are trying to vivify.

Melinglor wrote: A footnote: In light of the above observations, I think the suggestion that “both Gamist and Narrativist priorities are clear and automatic. . .whereas I think Simulationist priorities must be trained” is best understood as arising from most people’s tendency to inject either Achievement or Meaning into leisure activities (even passive ones, vicariously: “That movie kicked ass!” Vs. “That movie was so touching.”), and roleplaying being no exception. Exploration for its own sake I can definitely see as an ingrown mindset that has been fostered as the hobby evolved, and this can of course put off many newcomers who want to know, “why does one play?” it’s almost like playing football without points or writing novels without plot. It’s great if one wants to do that, but it’s certainly not very clear or inviting to aspiring footballers or novelists to put forth that unique version as the whole of the activity.

So, any thoughts? Agree, disagree? Have I hit on something significant, or just stated the obvious? I do fee it's a significant observation because
even if there's no contradiction between this and the Theory as it stands, I feel the actual text of the GNS essays does point one in another direction. But maybe it's just me.

This is a very nice restatement of the Beeg Horseshoe theory. Welcome to the Forge!

I don't agree with the idea that "Simulationism is negative", though. I think that the persistent recurrence of the belief that this is so is to some degree an artifact of our theoretical abstractions and the correct claim that Simulationism is a redoubled focus on explanation.

In practice, though, the difference is between using exploration as a tool to get to something else, and exploration for its own sake, in terms of the social rewards and interest that get expressed by the various gamers at the table. This is a fuzzy line in some games, but not in many. The easiest examples are games with a Sim CA based on some existing and well-fleshed out secondary worlds: Call of Cthulhu, Middle Earth RP, Star Trek can all be played this way. You see at the table that the majority of the social rewards for playing come, essentially, from being able to celebrate and constantly reconfirm one's knowledge of the world in question. Recognizing a shoggoth from snippets of description, knowing which sub-species of elves someone is from from the kind of clothes he wears, getting minor engineering trivia from the episodes right: group laughter, knowing smiles, status in the group apportioned by knowledge of the setting and its conventions, etc. This activity may be the same thing that we all do, 'squared', but the social reward system that supports it, and the social dynamics of play, are pretty darn different.

This is why it's a CA: because exploration is getting socially rewarded, dominantly, even when it's not being used for anything else.

Some, though by no means all, people who love Glorantha, Harn, and Tekumel love them because like literary worlds they support this kind of play through the mass of loving detail accumulated for them over time.

Does this make sense?

komradebob wrote: Just a personal observation:
With a sim supporting design, players will often slip into either gamist or narrativist mode for awhile, but seem to eventually bounce back to sim for a while before drifting again. I'm not sure that this is as readily true for designs specifically meant to support narr or gam.

Heya,

Welcome to the Forge! I'd just like to pose as a question, "Why did you expect all three to be alike?" I personally don't see any need for any creative agenda to look, feel, or act similar to any other. They are completely different preferences of play. It works out that Gamism and Narrativism happen to be similar in certain ways, but it wasn't always thought to be so. Go back (if you can, not sure anymore) to ealier threads here and especially at Gaming Outpost. In the begining, Gamism wasn't given much thought at all and certainly wasn't seen as the twin brother of Narrativism. In my view, non-alike-ness doesn't mean non-existance. :)

Peace,

-Troy

Hello, and welcome.

As others have suggested, what you're proposing looks a lot like Beeg Horseshoe. And very well articulated, I might add. In general, I think Beeg Horseshoe is a useful way of looking at Sim, but I don't think it's the whole story.

Below is a link to a thread which espouses the take on Simulationism that I tend to favor.

If you include the linked threads, which you should, it's a lot - and I mean a lot - of heavy reading. You may or may not consider it worth your time. I found it fascinating and insightful.

Sim is Bricolage and makes myth - comments?

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

Valamir wrote: Alls I can say Joel, is old news.

Valamir wrote: I'm glad that your reading of the theory has progressed to the point that you can make as well articulated an evaluation of the above, however. I mean that sincerely since the theory can at times be opaque and I welcome new folks who are dedicated enough to reach the point where you are now.

Valamir wrote: I suggest you do a search on the Beeg Horseshoe and on Sim1 Sim2 which will connect you about a bazillion pages of threads that look similar to your own.

Sean wrote: I don't agree with the idea that "Simulationism is negative", though. I think that the persistent recurrence of the belief that this is so is to some degree an artifact of our theoretical abstractions and the correct claim that Simulationism is a redoubled focus on explanation.

Troy_Costisick wrote: I'd just like to pose as a question, "Why did you expect all three to be alike?" I personally don't see any need for any creative agenda to look, feel, or act similar to any other.

Troy_Costisick wrote: In my view, non-alike-ness doesn't mean non-existance. :)

Melinglor wrote: In a way, Sim is "Exploration plus nothing." in contrast to Narr and Gam's "Exploration plus this." And I'm not necessarily coming down on that, so pardon me if my descrition sounded that way.

What about Exploration of setting? of Situation? Aren't these canditates for Sim focus as well?

I do think you raise a couple of good points--one, that "pure" Narr or Gam implies a lack of connection with (and fleshing out of) the character. I think that's one thing that turns people off to, for instance, Narr , because it starts to sound like your character is just a Puppet for Prfemise, exactly analagous to Hard Core Gam with extensive Pawn Stance.

This leads into the other point of yours that I like, which is that Sim exploration can happen "at the same time as N or G." (I'm a bit confused at your "impossible thing" reference though: isn't the "Impossible thing" Forgespeak for undesirable cognitive dissonance? Thank you, though, for the opportunity to use the phrase "cognitive dissonance." :) )This is an integral component to the misgivings I've stated in this thread, and one of the logical problems that confronts me when I consider the "all or nothing" style claims made aboiut which CA exists in a given play instance is the simple question "how often must you (e.g.) address premise to qualify as playing (e.g.) Narr?" Presumably not every round of every session. So how much? Once per session? Once per half-dozen? Whole dozen? Once a year? Obviously the any answer will be rather subjective, though extreme infrequency should pretty obviously be a "disqualifier." But within reason, shouldn't frequency be keyed to the pacing of a particular group? I mean, unless a given character's life is JUST CRAMMED CHOCK FULL of moral dilemmas, angsty conundrums, and immediate threats to his way of life, there just won't be room to "address premise" at every turn. Consider:

"You walk into the bar. There's a greasy bartender who nods at you, and some guys playing pool, ignoring you."
"Um, well, gee, I just order a drink I guess."
"Aww, man! You TOTALLY blew the chance to address premise for your judgmentalism issues with personal hygiene, or your secret pleasure at humiliating overconfident pricks at pool."
"Well, gee, sorry, I think right now my guy just wants a drink."
"Tch! Simulationist! Get away from my table!"

An absurd conversation, yes, but while I would trust most mature adults to handle it more tactfully, that's the logical end of the idea that you have to Story Now or Step On Up at all times to qualify for N or G. But is there anything wrong with our hypothetical barfly NOt addressing premise at that particular moment, yet still claiming a Narrativist goal overall? We'll asume for the sake of argument that he does address Premise when fe feels it appropriate. Is there any reason we can't just call that Narr instead of some kind of SiiiiiiiiiiiimNARRsiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimNARRsiiiiiiiim hybrid?

Wow, sure went off, eh? I just meant to post a couple short quips. I guess it's late and the internal censors aren't firing. But hey, that's a pretty good representation of my raw feelings on this component of the Theory, and the core reason I'm looking at moving Sim over to another box entirely.

Must sleep Catch ya later.

Peace,

Joel: remember that creative agenda is defined by the instance of play. The agenda labels are also used for players, gaming groups, sessions or game designs, but in all these instances what is really meant is not that this particular thing is narrativist or whatever, but that this particular thing favors this particular creative agenda given a single instance of play. This is, however, an abstraction.

So, in practice you usually get a mix of the creative agendas. Most games, for example, support all three to some extent, giving rise to different drifts of the game to different agendas. As an example, Call of Cthulhu supports a kind of simulationism in keeping up a very historical feel of society, equipment, adventure content and such, not to speak of the whole "celebration of Lovecraft" thing. However, the same game also has pretty strong gamist elements in pitting the player strike team against a codified array of monster challenges, with explicit in-game mission of winning at all costs. Thus one could say that CoC is a "simulationist game" or that it is a "gamist game", but what you'd really mean is that "it's possible to drift CoC into focusing on only one of these at a time."

It's the same with a given play session or player: you might pick one agenda in one instance and another in a second instance, because of any multitude of reasons (usually because the situation doesn't connect you to your preferred agenda). Agendas are only singular in a single instance of play, because (we assume) you can't want two of them at once.

Did that clarify it at all?

Eero Tuovinen wrote: Agendas are only singular in a single instance of play, because (we assume) you can't want two of them at once.

Steve, let me elaborate on my understanding of the "many agendas at once" thing.

First, why I think it's significant: creative agendas are very much characterized by their property of being incompatible with one another. You could say that the only good reason for defining such agendas in one way instead of another is the incompatibility hypothesis: two creative agendas are distinct only insofar as their simultaneous existence causes GNS-incoherence. Without that incoherence there really isn't much reason to differentiate between the agendas. This is where most of suggestions for a fourth mode fail, because they don't fulfill the incompatibility hypothesis in actual play, and thus aren't really separate creative agendas.

Now, when you say that two agendas are possible in the same instance of play (I assume that this is what you mean by "same time", because otherwise I agree with you utterly, as evidenced by all the talk about creative agenda appearing as pure phenomenon only in instances of play), you're refuting the above incompatibility hypothesis. If two agendas can be functionally expressed at once, there's not much point in creative agendas in the first place apart from gratuitous labeling of stuff. This is why I think this is an interesting and important bit of GNS theory and not just a matter for empiristic experimentation.

OK, that being cleared up, next I'll say something about why I think it's not possible to express two creative agendas at once. (This has been discussed previously, by the by, if somebody wants to dig up links.) The key idea is to recognize that GNS describes agenda behavior in terms of player choice, not player psychology. Not all choices are agenda-significant, because they don't all address an agenda. For example, the choice of wearing blue socks to the session probably won't address any of the creative agendas, even when it's a choice. The crux is that we wouldn't call the choice to pick blue socks a choice expressing all three agendas, even if it's not clearly a choice for one of them.

This holds for your gamist example, too, Steve: the creative agenda of a player is not ever interpreted from his psychology, so we never need to consider whether he chooses to win because of gam, nar or sim priorities. If winning satisfies all of those priorities, that just means that the choice to win isn't a GNS-significant choice. You've opted to characterize this situation as the player holding all three agendas at once, but I think that that's psychologically inexact; a player in such a situation doesn't really have to make a choice between his priorities, so he naturally keeps the options open and doesn't commit to any agenda. So rather than saying that he's both gamist and narrativist, I'd say that he's neither at that moment. He's just doing base Exploration.

The real agenda situations come up when you have multiple options that exclude each other. These are the situations where you cannot express two agendas at once, because you can't pick both options. They are also the only situations relevant for GNS, because GNS is only about considerations of agenda discordance. The stuff that all folks can agree about, that's Exploration level basics. We're at the agenda level only when you can make "wrong" choices.

So, in summation: you can't express all GNS agendas at once, because if you do, your action is base Exploration and acceptable for all roleplaying. Nobody's going to complain about your socks at the table, because nobody has an agenda against them.

This made me think, though, about the case of expressing two agendas while excluding only one. I can imagine how this is possible in single instances, and it's certainly a GNS significant moment because it excludes that one agenda. Even then I think that one of the agendas is more important for the player psychologically, but as I just explained, psychology has little to do with GNS analysis. So perhaps combining agendas in a single instance of play is possible in observation? I don't know. Even in that case another instance of play could come up and require choice between those two agendas, so incoherence would still be possible.

Ralph - do you see any difference between 'exploration without an agenda' and 'incoherent play'? How does your view relate to Freitag's 'Zilchplay'? Just curious.

Melinglor wrote:

I scanned through my post and I don't think I ever caslled Sim "negative." What I did say was "Simulationism is defined by the absence of other elements, more than the presence of Exploration." But even if I had used the "N" word, I would stand by that as it's not a pejorative in this sense, and not Sim itself that's "negative"; rather, its focus is defined negatively by whaT it doesn't include. In a way, Sim is "Exploration plus nothing." in contrast to Narr and Gam's "Exploration plus this."

If you have two or more CA going in the same play-session firing more or less at random, that's called Incoherent play. Incoherence sometimes leads to painful play-experiences, including boredom, and sometimes does not.

There's also a thing where you Drift in an organized way between CA. A Champions game (one GM, me and one other player) was like this. Big focus on exploration most of the time, punctuated by battles in which naked Step on Up was the focus of everything. I think this was pretty deliberate with the three of us: the GM in this game had created a really interesting and elaborate setting that all three of us were interested in developing and exploring, but periodically we needed to beat our chests and yell. Because the three of us had been playing together off and on for like a decade by the time this game rolled around, we knew each other really well, so managed drift between Sim and Gam was pretty functional for us. This is the closest experience I have a 'supporting mode', but it's still not 'congruent play', which doesn't exist, but I digress.

So there's plain Incoherence and there's Drift and there's managed Drift. These are what 'expressing two CA at once' come to.

The 'instances of play' thing is interesting but also hard and confusing and I don't think we really know completely how to talk about it yet. In one sense play is obviously not 'made up out of its instances' in the way that a house is made out of bricks, yet in another sense there's nothing else for it to be made up of.

When you listen to music you might think of notes and passages as 'instances' of the music, and in a way you'd be right. But our experience of listening to music crucially involves also the anticipation of where the music is going, as when e.g. Beethoven plays around returning to the chord he started with for a long time without actually getting back there.

Ron's analogy to improvisational jazz is thus very apt, because in roleplaying we're working with this anticipation all the time, but we're also making the music as we go. So the 'instances of play' are forward-looking in the sense that 'instances of music' are, but we're creating the forward that they're going to. Together, as a group.

Sean wrote:
The 'instances of play' thing is interesting but also hard and confusing and I don't think we really know completely how to talk about it yet. In one sense play is obviously not 'made up out of its instances' in the way that a house is made out of bricks, yet in another sense there's nothing else for it to be made up of.

Hello,

Clarifications, speaking as current Forge participant rather than essay-author:

1. Eero, you have described my current thinking: the unit of play is a reward cycle. How that relates to sessions/scenarios will vary, but "moments" of play (i.e. a particular announcement, sentence, etc) are far too brief for CA-based analysis.

2. The "absence" concept of Sim is no longer my view - I now am considering Sim to be based on the input/output principle, that actual play is essentially a celebratory and confirmatory act toward some starting material or ideas. ("Genre" is not a valid paraphrase for this concept; I'm talking about what a group might do with a genre; also people might be interested in causal principles rather than genre trappings)

Best,
Ron

Ron:
It seems like your ideas have evolved over time. Is there any chance that you could be convinced to do a "State of the Theory 2005" essay?

NO. Sorry man, but the guy who wrote the essays is frozen in time with those essays, and the guy who just posted is me, today. I tried to lay out why I'm doing it that way in the forum sticky.

Another way to look at it is that the essays say what they say, and as of now, I'm just another guy who continues to think about them, in the same boat as the rest of you.

One last point: some of what I'm saying today is what I meant to say in the essays but didn't have the words for it, and some of what I'm saying today is altogether new stuff. Which is which, I am not sure.

Back to the topic.

Best,
Ron

Thank you, Ralph, for calling attention to the thread Clarifying Simulationism; I've repeated the link because for some reason the other link opened to the third page, and I (rather immodestly perhaps) think my opening statement on the first page is important to the discussion.

Melinglor: all simplifications of the model are flawed in some way, but most are useful in another way. I'm going to offer a simplification that might be useful.

• Gamism is exploration of all things with emphasis on meeting challenges and proving your ability to the other participants.• Narrativism is exploration of all things with emphasis on creating theme by addressing premise toward the creation of a story that has meaning to all the participants.• Simulationism is the exploration of all things with emphasis on the discovery/creation of new facets and unexplored aspects of the shared imagined space, new ways to combine information that yields new information.


Emphasis, in all cases, means simultaneously "that which the individual player finds fun" and "that which is encouraged by the gaming group through social reinforcement as the correct way to play". If these two are not the same, you have dysfunction--the player is trying to have fun doing something that the rest of the group regards as inappropriate.

Gamists will make discoveries and may even create themes; that's not what the game is about.

Narrativists may well rise to challenges and certainly will make discoveries; again, that's not what the game is about.

Simulationists almost certainly will face the occasional challenge and may well address premises which create themes; that is not what the game is about.

And like Ron, I think that the idea of Sim being "decisions not to prioritize this other stuff" does not represent my view exactly, although I can see it having been a way of describing my past statements. Narrativism and gamism are equally "decisions not to prioritize this other stuff". In all cases, this is by default--in the same way that deciding to go to Disneyworld in Florida is inherently a decision not to go to Disneyworld in California, in that the two objectives are (at one moment in time) mutually exclusive. Yes, in deciding to pursue exploration toward discovery (simulationism) you decide not to pursue theme or challenge; but the other agenda do the same in excluding each other and simulationism when they prioritize their emphases.

I hope this is helpful.

Footnotes:

The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast is a phrase used around here to refer to the conflict in rules texts which claim that a player fully controls his character while the referee fully controls the story. Details of that are anticipated in an upcoming Places to Go, People to Be article on theory, but you'd have to ask GBSteve when that's likely to hit the web.

After that, the three-episode series will conclude with a look at Creative Agenda, and I hope that together the set will provide a reasonably good primer on the current state of the theory, at least as I understand it. (The first, System and the Shared Imagined Space, is available, and covers the Lumpley Principle, credibility, stance, and authority, touching briefly on ritual and social contract. I hope you find them helpful.

--M. J. Young

Eero, you're post cleared up a lot of things for me. So the Creative Agendas are defined as being incompatible. Fair enough. I suppose then that the difficult part is to say what they actually are in such a way that this property holds. So that everything can be put into one of three boxes.

Next you say that there isn't always a GNS Creative Agenda. So these three boxes don't work for all play. Some play is outside the GNS partitioning. It's exploring without an agenda. Is it possible that most play in some groups is like this?

I'm also not sure about the agenda discordance. I thought GNS had moved beyond being a diagnostic tool. It's certainly not talked about that way by many people.

Sean talks about incoherence. Whilst I can see that creative agenda should be exclusive for one player, I'm not sure that players in the same group having different agendas is necessarily destructive. Unless the term 'incoherent' just means 'having different agendas' rather than the more usual indication that there is a problem. I'm sure there might be a problem, but not necessarily so.

We've got a powergamer in our group. Everyone is aware of his agenda and the games, the succesful ones, are couched in such a way that pander to this agenda without destroying the agendas of others. This seems to be what is called 'drift' or 'managed drift'. However that seems to suppose that the creative agenda of the group is unified but changes, whereas I can still see the case for different agendas managed to avoid destroying each others agenda. I think both things are possible and the reason for this is that whilst the SIS is shared, the sharing does not occur in any objective way. Each player is responsible for their own approach to the SIS, through their creative agenda.

Reward cycles I'm a bit confused about. These are when a payout is made in the currency of the game? Easily definable for MLwM but rather more difficult for other more complex games. And not necessarily relevant to the creative agenda, especially if your into Sim.

Maybe incoherence is more about rewards. I can see several CA existing in the same group, as long as each gets the appropriate reward. There is definitely scope for problems if that is not the case.

Looking at MJ Young's linked post suggest to me that it's not always easy to tell in which box players are situated, especially sim ones. Not in the least because the creative agenda is private an only accessible to others through the choices the player makes.

As for the next 101, from which I really should have remembered the "impossible thing", we're aiming for a pre-Origins issue which gives us a couple of weeks.

GB Steve wrote: I think the horseshoe idea shows that you can have two agendas at the same time. This is common in the real world. I think Bill Clinton called it compartmentalisation, and what about the kids, career, having it all debate? So why not in roleplaying.

Sean wrote: You mistake my issue.

Sean wrote: This kind of play exists, is common, and is completely functional for groups that enjoy it. So there's nothing 'second class' or 'unequal' about a CA that seeks it out; and it's not 'default roleplaying' as you said in your initial post.

Sean wrote: Play whose social and exploratory rewards come out of an intense focus on particular aspects of exploration, without getting into Step on Up or Story now, is Simulationist play. So I want to say that even though the CA itself may be 'defined by an absence' in terms of the theory, in terms of the kind of play that satisfies it the rewards and reinforcements are just as present, real, etc. as those of any other CA.

Sean wrote: The particular way it misleads people is by making them think that Beeg Horseshoe or something like it is true.

Ron Edwards wrote: I now am considering Sim to be based on the input/output principle, that actual play is essentially a celebratory and confirmatory act toward some starting material or ideas.

M. J. Young wrote: Simulationism is the exploration of all things with emphasis on the discovery/creation of new facets and unexplored aspects of the shared imagined space, new ways to combine information that yields new information.

Hey, just a quick addendum:

I had a look at the Beeg Horseshoe info and I think I know why everyone thinks I'm devaluing Simulationism. In the very fisrt post on the Horsehoe thread, Jared said "Simulation doesn't exist."

Well, I ain't Jered, and I ain't never heerd of no Horsehoe till you fellers pointed it out to me. SO rest asured, That's not where I'm headed with this, 'kay?

'Night.

Why does everybody call me Euro all the time? Is 'eu' somehow more common in English than 'ee'? Funny thing, that. I'm not currency, even when I'm current.

GB Steve wrote:
Eero, you're post cleared up a lot of things for me. So the Creative Agendas are defined as being incompatible. Fair enough. I suppose then that the difficult part is to say what they actually are in such a way that this property holds. So that everything can be put into one of three boxes.

Next you say that there isn't always a GNS Creative Agenda. So these three boxes don't work for all play. Some play is outside the GNS partitioning. It's exploring without an agenda. Is it possible that most play in some groups is like this?

I'm also not sure about the agenda discordance. I thought GNS had moved beyond being a diagnostic tool. It's certainly not talked about that way by many people.

Sean talks about incoherence. Whilst I can see that creative agenda should be exclusive for one player, I'm not sure that players in the same group having different agendas is necessarily destructive. Unless the term 'incoherent' just means 'having different agendas' rather than the more usual indication that there is a problem. I'm sure there might be a problem, but not necessarily so.

Reward cycles I'm a bit confused about. These are when a payout is made in the currency of the game? Easily definable for MLwM but rather more difficult for other more complex games. And not necessarily relevant to the creative agenda, especially if your into Sim.

Maybe incoherence is more about rewards. I can see several CA existing in the same group, as long as each gets the appropriate reward. There is definitely scope for problems if that is not the case.

Looking at MJ Young's linked post suggest to me that it's not always easy to tell in which box players are situated, especially sim ones. Not in the least because the creative agenda is private an only accessible to others through the choices the player makes.

Hey Melinglor,

I feel like you completely ignored every substantive point I made in my posts while harping on something I agree and agreed was a non-issue, so I'm bowing out of the thread.

You've got an exceptional grasp on the Big Model for a newcomer though - far better than mine was at a similar point in time - and I have no doubt that you'll get through this stuff. Figuring out where Exploration leaves off and Simulationism picks up is one of the trickiest things in the theory, but I expect you'll manage.

Best,

Sean

Hello,

Steve, you wrote:

Sean talks about incoherence. Whilst I can see that creative agenda should be exclusive for one player, I'm not sure that players in the same group having different agendas is necessarily destructive. Unless the term 'incoherent' just means 'having different agendas' rather than the more usual indication that there is a problem. I'm sure there might be a problem, but not necessarily so.

Melinglor wrote: Hey, just a quick addendum:

I had a look at the Beeg Horseshoe info and I think I know why everyone thinks I'm devaluing Simulationism. In the very fisrt post on the Horsehoe thread, Jared said "Simulation doesn't exist."

Well, I ain't Jered, and I ain't never heerd of no Horsehoe till you fellers pointed it out to me. SO rest asured, That's not where I'm headed with this, 'kay?

'Night.

OK, How's this for a positive spin: Defining something by an absence can be a Good Thing if the thing absent is berlieved to be bad or undesirable.

Take an extreme example: My social interactions are defined by (among other things) an absence of rape and murder. We can probably all get behind the idea that this is good. Some things are more subjective, such as my aforementioned absence of country music in my social gatherings. But for me, subjectively, that absence is very desirable. I think the "pure" Sim player can fairly be characterized as considering the absence "extra" ambitions over and above the Dream to be at best unnecessary and at worst ruinous and destructive to play. Thus in this instance absence is, for them, good. Consider an analogy: I grew up in a country church where the only poetry I was exposed to was "poetry with a point:" little ditties read before the congregation to provide some moral via object lesson or clever metaphor or mere blatant rhyming sermonizing. But for many people, having a "moral" for that mode of expression spoils the artistry of the poem--poetry is about the outpouring of raw emotion or the expression of pure aesthetic beauty. Such folk would probably say the rhymed atrocities read at my church weren't even "poems" at all, and would be quick to extol the vierues of pieces in which this sermonizing quality is absent.

I think where this differs from the "positive absences" of other CAs (e.g. Pure Narrativists certainly consider an absence of Step On Up to be good) is that the Simulationist stops earlier, at a different level. In a way (if you view the Model's spacial metaphor as heirarchical) you could almost say it's Gam and Narr that are secondary to Sim. In fact. that's just what you would expect a "Pure" Simulationist to say.

Put another way, I think perhaps Simulationists are content with the Dream as is. . .it's enough for them. They reach the point where things are entering the Shared Imagined Space "just so", so as to affirm and strenghten the particular quality that they value. It's like a person who lookas up at the stars on a clear night. . .and just keeps looking at them. While the person on his left is planning in his head how he might one day construct a rocket to reach those stars and exploit them, or battle aliens. . .he just stares. WHile the person on his right is pondering What It All Means, and wondering how man can ever cope when faced with the sheer magnitude of the heavens. . .our center man just stares. He smiles a slow smile, perhaps lays himself down on the grass, and stares for hours.

It many not be everyone's cup of tea (it's certainly not always mine, but it certainly seems positive to me. :)

Peace,

Sorry, Joel, I don't think it's going to work. That's basically a restatement of the same idea without changing the content hardly at all. We all understand that the idea of the definition in question is that the people playing this mode are rejecting something they see as bad. But that doesn't make it a non-negative statement. You're still defining sim by what it is not.

A true positive definition includes some unique reason for why sim players play sim. It can't be just "to avoid x" or to "just do exploration." Sim means more than that by anybody's definition. But some people want it to be about it's own goal. This is why people propose things like "discovery." Discovery, per MJ Young, would be to simulaitonism what step on up is to gamism, or story now is to narrativism.

Mike

Hmm. Seems to me that if someone's that touchy about what Sim should be, they're probably not entirely comfortable with their play style, or with applying the Sim label, or both. if a person is truly content with where they're at, in gaming or anything else, I wouldn't think a person would be terribly bothered by what direction the definition is approached from. In my (admittedly tentative) definition of Sim, it's the "enough-ness" of non-G or -N play that makes it good.

I'm aware that it was a mere restatement; that's because my view of what Sim is hasn't appreciatively changed. Just trying to bring out what I believe to be Positive (in a value-judgment sense) about my Negative (in a technical sense) definition. I thought that was what was implied in the suggestion to "put a positive spin on it the next time you make the statement."

But hey, I'm much more interested in working out the real, substantive questions of what Sim is, how it works, how it interacts with other elements, than with crafting the most ultra-diplomatic phrasing of my views, which are still in flux anyway. Maybe we can just take my "Gazing at the Stars" parable as a picture of what I find appealing in Sim, and leave it at that.

Anyway, as I said in an earlier post, I do like M.J.'s suggesting of Discovery as Sim's "thing." My only reservation is that the term "discovery" can be applied legitimately to any number of phenomena: "discovering' that my guy really can beat that dragon for instance, or "discovering" what choice my character makes in a tough situation. but that difficulty could be eliminated by specially defining Discovery for our needs. After all, we already have a slew of words ("Addressing," "Exploration," etc.) ith specialized Forge definitions. the definition would have to be fairly exact, though.

Actually, reading back through the posts, I see Young already states such a definition: "Simulationism is the exploration of all things with emphasis on the discovery/creation of new facets and unexplored aspects of the shared imagined space, new ways to combine information that yields new information."

Anyway, I think I'm just repeating statements from earlier posts, so that's enough for now.

Peace,

I'm glad I could help. Let me tackle this point:

Melinglor wrote: I guess the trick would be defining Dsicovery as a specific jargon term such that it excludes those two emphases. YOu almost seem to have that in your "unexplored aspects of the shared imagined space" phrase, except that a character's ass-kickery or personal moral fiber ARE part of the SIS.

M. J. Young wrote: I'm going to take exception to Mike saying that simulationist players get all defensive. I do play simulationist, and enjoy it; and I play gamist and narrativist as well, and probably always have.

The objection to putting simulationism on a different axis, or defining it negatively, is not so much that it relegates it to second class status as that it overly emphasizes how different it is.

M. J. Young wrote: The objection to putting simulationism on a different axis, or defining it negatively, is not so much that it relegates it to second class status as that it overly emphasizes how different it is.

Mike Holmes wrote: In case it wasn't clear, I was talking not so much about players in general, but you MJ, and some other posters here on The Forge. It's precisely your objections to which I was refering.

Hello,

I think this thread is starting to hit a second-order level of explaining and refining answers to questions, so it's time to call it a day.

Very constructive, though.

Best,
Ron

Agreed. And thanks. :)

(Edited to add: PS, Sorry 'bout the name thing, Eero. I never meant to mistake you for currency.)

Peace,