I thought this might be another angle to take at reducing the furor/missunderstandings around GNS - explicitly acknowledging where issues exist and where rational individuals may disagree. I've only got one so far, on the GNS/GDS issue:

"GNS sounds an awful lot like GDS." - There's no way around it - yes, it does. But as pointed out in the "Top misconceptions about GNS", the way GNS has chosen to deal with this is to do everything possible to stress that it is NOT GDS. A certain amount of confusion is understandable (especially if you've got prior exposure to GDS), if unfortunate - but at some point, ya just gotta ask folks to believe you when you say "these are not the same thing." GDS was valuable in the development of GNS, and is acknowledged as a "source", but in the end, GNS is an entirely separate theory. If you don't like the apparent overlap, you'll find folks who agree with you. If you don't like that GNS has chosen to deal with this apparent overlap by simply saying "no, we mean something different here" . . . that's a valid concern. Try not to let that interfere with your ability to accept that, in general, GNS folks *are* clear that GNS is not GDS.

Gordon

Gordon,

Good points.

I just thought of something that might help: the term "GDS" itself is something of an abomination, probably my fault in part. If I'm not mistaken, the proper name for the idea proposed by Kim et al. is "the Threefold Model," and "GDS" got constructed somewhere along the line during discussions elsewhere.

Now, if I'm wrong, and "GDS" is a plain old normal term that's been around for ten years, then so be it. But I wouldn't be surprised if sometime at GO, we got into the habit of saying "GDS" and sort of created that name without realizing it, when we should have stuck with "Threefold."

So maybe that might help, eh? "GNS" is the packet of jargon and hoo-ha represented by my current essay plus the assembled debates and discussions and refinements, starting about three years ago; "the Threefold Model" is the packet of jargon and hoo-ha represented by the archived discussions of the r.g.f.a. folks starting about or almost ten years ago. Historically, it should be understood that The Threefold inspired me (under the impression that I was merely adopting it) to write up GNS, in stages.

What do you think? A bit more attention to this terminological purity?

Best,
Ron

Come on. There are more important issues with GNS. How about citing some of Gareth and Fang's concerns, for example. I don't believe that they are all resolved, and some pose real sticky dilemmas. If this thread is meant to point out the points at which people rationally disagree, I think you need to include quite a bit more. The Forge is a more contentious place than that. Heck, even the GEN model should probably be mentioned.

Mike

If this thread is meant to point out the points at which people rationally disagree, I think you need to include quite a bit more. The Forge is a more contentious place than that.

Hi Gareth,

I especially like the word "just" in your sentences. If I take it out, a good 70% of the contentiousness disappears, and what fun is that?

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Hi Gareth,

I especially like the word "just" in your sentences. If I take it out, a good 70% of the contentiousness disappears, and what fun is that?

Mike Holmes wrote: Come on. There are more important issues with GNS. How about citing some of Gareth and Fang's concerns, for example. I don't believe that they are all resolved, and some pose real sticky dilemmas.

Mike Holmes wrote: If this thread is meant to point out the points at which people rationally disagree, I think you need to include quite a bit more.

Mike Holmes wrote: The Forge is a more contentious place than that. Heck, even the GEN model should probably be mentioned.

Gordon C. Landis wrote:
Since the Jester now disavows GEN, I think it lives now only in the influence it had on GNS.

On the Jester and GEN . . . sorry if I implied he'd abandoned GEN because he decided GNS is "better" - NO, he (last I saw over at GO) rejects 'em all. Theory is useless, categorization is counter-productive, it's all about communicating and focusing on ROLE playing - that's my paraphrase of the Jester Position.

So sure, GEN can be seen as a "challenge" to the GNS approach, but if you huff and puff, ain't no one gonna care if you blow that house down.

Gordon

Mytholder wrote: Narrativism shouldn't be one of the top three divisions. It's a subset of Dramatism with added player power, and putting it on the top level confuses things. The basic division should be world/story/game.

[quoteI can't even see "world" being segregated from "game" (or 'competition'), it's too 'oranges and IBMs' to me. I believe "world" is a valid value to place on play for far too wide a variety of reasons, few of which are orthagonal to 'competition.' In some cases, I see 'competition' arising from nowhere else but the "world." (Making points in the King's Court when there are no mechanics for it, is one example.)

For an rpg to be an rpg*, you have to have all three - world, game, and story, G&N&S. You can move towards one extreme or another, but you can remove one of the three entirely.

There are, I think, analogues to Narrativism in the other "regions" of the map. If everyone at the table knows enough about "how the world should be", if there's no need for the GM to be the guardian and arbiter of consistency and world integrity, then everyone can contribute to the Sim. I've seen it happen on occasion, where a player extrapolates from existing facts about the world, and the GM is unable to gainsay him because he's correct according to the Sim.

For gamism, it's trickier. I suspect empowering the players on a "metagame" level detracts from the challenge, it's a form of "cheating"...but I could be wrong. Just because the gamist version of narrativism isn't very good, though, doesn't mean it can't exist. Not every technique is appropriate to every style.

I like this theory. It's got symmetry. :-)

Mytholder wrote:

Le Joueur wrote: I can't even see "world" being segregated from "game" (or 'competition'), it's too 'oranges and IBMs' to me. I believe "world" is a valid value to place on play for far too wide a variety of reasons, few of which are orthagonal to 'competition.' In some cases, I see 'competition' arising from nowhere else but the "world." (Making points in the King's Court when there are no mechanics for it, is one example.)

For gamism, it's trickier. I suspect empowering the players on a "metagame" level detracts from the challenge, it's a form of "cheating"...but I could be wrong.

Being the bland, touchy-feely chick that I am who lacks the cerebreal horse power of the Forge's heavy hitters, I'm stuck going with the most basic and simple concern I can think of. Has it really been demonstrated, to any reliable degree, that GNS fufills its stated actual purpose to enable people to enjoy their role-playing more? Or does the time-energy that is required to get everyone involved in a game/gaming community on the same page of GNS comprehension actually backfire and cause people to enjoy their role-playing less?

Laurel wrote: Being the bland, touchy-feely chick that I am who lacks the cerebreal horse power of the Forge's heavy hitters,

I'm stuck going with the most basic and simple concern I can think of. Has it really been demonstrated, to any reliable degree, that GNS fufills its stated actual purpose to enable people to enjoy their role-playing more? Or does the time-energy that is required to get everyone involved in a game/gaming community on the same page of GNS comprehension actually backfire and cause people to enjoy their role-playing less?

I've got one, that I think is pretty hard-hitting, especially because it doesn't deal with the Narrativist side of the house:

I'd pretty much quit gaming. I re-read the GNS essay and sat down with the Gamist details and wrote a game from top to bottom to give me the maximum Gamist enjoyment. It's called Donjon.

It's also taken up at least 10% of the threads here in the last couple of weeks.

I'm gaming weekly again, enjoying the fiznuck out of it, and everyone I know that's played it is having fun.

I'd say that's a pretty good example of "GNS made my gaming life better."

I'd like to chime in on this (finally, GNS discussion that is not either very boring {to me!}, nor too abstruse for me to feel comfortable commenting on).

GNS changed my life. I had planned on having my first post here be an extended gush about what it did for me. Now I think I'll be more sober about it.

I had, like others I have heard on here, mostly quit gaming. I was running a game with non-gamers (a good first step) and once again feeling really frustrated even though my cleverness didn't seem to have diminished since my long-lamented Good Ol' Games of the 80s. I didn't understand why facing the game filled me with such dread, I didn't understand why a group of very smart players didn't "get it", I didn't understand why I could barely tolerate even hanging out with most other gamers.

I read The Essays. A few times. They helped me analyze my whole gaming history, the conflicts I'd had with players and the impotent solutions I had tried to apply to them, the rules and worlds I had tweaked and tweaked, each change either not working or greatly increasing my workload, leading to GM Burnout.

Everything became much, much clearer. I knew why I was unhappy. I knew why even the great games I had run still left me feeling so worn out. I knew why my then-current game had sand in its gears.

I unloaded about it all on my players, ditched the existing game completely, detailed world and all, and we started playing Sorcerer. It hasn't been perfect, but it's just getting better, and most important I'm having fun. More fun than I had when I was putting on performances that my old players still talk about, because I'm playing games the way I want to and I know how to advocate for what I want clearly (and I no longer use the GNS terminology to do this--it isn't necessary--but I never could have arrived at my own vocabulary without it).

I think this experience isn't too uncommon, and somewhat accounts for Ron's "cult" status.

--TQuid (J B Bell, having Clinton change the moniker)