Address of challenge involves expressing a plan, in anticipation of certain results despite the unknown factors/risks involved. Other players appreciate the address in terms of "Well, despite the unknown factors/risks, he's going to go with THAT plan. Intriguing!" often followed by the player thinking what they would do themselves, comparing that with the address so as to compare strategies, etc. It's a process of understanding.

However in roleplay, risks and results are largely left to the end users to determine. This creates a subtle yet crucial shift in the role of the other players (particularly the one who is supposed to determine these risks - typically a GM). This role makes it impossible for them to think "Well, despite the unknown factors…" because they themselves are determining these unknown factors! Their performing this duty, rather than actively trying to understand the address. Understanding which, if performed, is more than just listening and can be considered as much an action as actually making an address.

Even worse in terms of gamist agenda, this determination role is actually pleasurable. Tentatively I'll name it as a simulationist "address of causality". It being pleasurable is a huge problem, because that means the player/GM will pursue it with a vengeance. The first clash comes from the person who is supposed to be giving understanding, expecting it themselves for their address of causality.

The second head on collision is that gamism and sim have very different goals, of course. If the gamist address in any way reduces simulationist exploration possibility, the sim address will go into great detail to emphasize the exploratory angle. And EVERY gamist address reduces sim exploration, because reducing uncertainty is a core tactic. The very same uncertainty that supports sim exploration and opportunity for address of causality. While emphasizing the exploration frustrates the gamist as it unravels his plan over what seem to be mere technicalities. "Hey, why don't we just skip discussing how the technicalities work out and just see if my plan works?", says the gamist. "ARE YOU MAD!?", thinks the simulationist, seeing the gamist throw the baby out with the bathwater, since surely the plan is just there to trigger an exploration/address of causality?

Not to mention there is no "Let's see if my plan works out" option. As already noted, RPG's have largely left the determination of result to the players/a GM.

Even if, as GM, you stubbornly try to resist making a simulationist address, how the hell are you going to work out if the plan works or not? Such a plan MUST be made in the face of real risk, because if you as GM know there is no risk/uncertainty, you can't understand the players address of challenge by thinking "Well, despite the unknown factors/risks, he's going to go with THAT plan!". However, if you do figure out the risks, you can't understand him because your making your own address of causality and are working from an entirely different agenda.

That's the paradox of 'you can do anything!' systems in relation to gamism and gives us our title "The impossible challenge before breakfast". Is it any wonder that dice have remained so popular, as the GM can grind gears to a sim agenda address to figure out bonuses, but then grind gears and switch over to gamism frame of thought and let the dice determine the final result?

I say it's gear grinding, because it's hugely problematic. Address of causality is addictive, that's a huge incentive to 'not to let the dice get in the way'. Assuming the will is there to play gamist, the flesh is still weak - it's exhausting to keep switching between two agendas for every little action. And in the end, the players have a lot more fun than the GM, because they can stay focused on gamism the whole way through. Don't give me any "That's a GM's job" BS answer to that. It's just unfair and a "system doesn't matter" like cop out. Besides, rather than become martyrs so everyone else can have fun, GM's often switch fully to the more easily achieved sim agenda and state "The players are doing it all wrong!".

But I'm at a loss at to what to do to resolve this "Verbalised actions are processed intelligently rather than playing solely through a purely mechanical processing system/board game system" problem.

Outlining the problem has helped though. Thoughts?

Note: This thread is heavy on GNS stuff, but in the pursuit of a practical solution rather than discussing GNS itself. And this thread wasn't tested on animals!

Obvious first point that should be addressed: you're talking Task Resolution, not Conflict Resolution.  Conflict Resolution is a way around the problem you're prodding at, but I take it from your original post that it's not an option you're interested in exercising.  I may be wrong, but that's how it sounds.

If a game that purports to allow its players to do anything and the players elect to take it in a gamist direction, in order to fulfill that gamist agenda they're going to have to agree on some rough 'win conditions'.  Not end-game win conditions, but certainly agree on what's a success worth lauding and a failure worth snickering about.  In doing so, the players pretty much have to strip off a lot of the 'do anything' aspect and focus on the corner of 'anything' that they are imbuing with significance.  Hopefully, they're going to select something that the published system has good, solid, and relatively objective rules for.  If they choose to try and change the world of politics using the HoL system, however, I don't think it's much of anything besides an instance of using the wrong tool for a given job.

Callan wrote:
Even if, as GM, you stubbornly try to resist making a simulationist address, how the hell are you going to work out if the plan works or not? Such a plan MUST be made in the face of real risk, because if you as GM know there is no risk/uncertainty, you can't understand the players address of challenge by thinking "Well, despite the unknown factors/risks, he's going to go with THAT plan!". However, if you do figure out the risks, you can't understand him because your making your own address of causality and are working from an entirely different agenda.

Callan wrote:
But I'm at a loss at to what to do to resolve this "Verbalised actions are processed intelligently rather than playing solely through a purely mechanical processing system/board game system" problem.

Outlining the problem has helped though. Thoughts?

I think that John's right about the nature of the problem, and I also think that your creative agenda analysis is incorrectly complicating things. I keep thinking that it's established and common knowledge that each of the agenda has "active" and "passive" forms, that is, approaches that aggressively pursue the agendum and approaches that support that pursuit by others. Gamist play only works if at least one player is "active" and the referee is supportive. Supportive gamism means setting up the active player for challenges which will enable him to "strut his stuff", to test himself against something challenging. The gamist referee always does this; sometimes there are also supportive players in gamist games who also work to facilitate those opportunities for the active players.

That means there's really nothing "simulationist" about what a referee does in a gamist game, and there does not have to be. His job is to create situations which allow the players to show off. That's passive gamism.

Certainly some games give better tools for doing that than others, and I'm not saying that you never have simulationist referees running games for gamist players, but it's not a necessary dysfunction.

--M. J. Young

Hi John,

I like your layout to try and tackle this problem. But the distribution of subjective judgement/sim address can still easily occur at the same time a gamist address is being made (sim being asked for by the gamist address). Even if the opposition tactics are handed to another player, the GM enters sim mode to adjudicate the event. It's like he's left the room, in terms of playing the same game.

If you had something like the card game 'lunch money', with rules to encourage address of challenge being expressed, it's half way there. But in such a case, the address is primarily about working the numbers of the game, rather than engaging the game world to lever advantage.

One clumsy idea I had was a sort of passive gamism plan on the part of the player. The GM takes the situation at hand, goes into a simulationist trance ;) and figure out what will happen say in the next few hours of game time. What happens next is accompanied by concrete rules notations (to avoid latter ajudication needs). He doesn't say it, he writes it down. At the same time the player writes down their plan...which involves anticipating what events will happen and how they will exploit those events to best advantage (the player notes his anticipatory plan in concrete rules terms as well, which intermesh with those the GM is noting should they match each other)

Once they are both done writing, the gamist player shows and reads out his address. Everyone takes a moment to savour it, particularly the GM. Then the GM brings out his notes and reads them. This too will require savouring, as it is an address of causality by the GM and should have due respect. HOWEVER, we then need to switch back to gamist mode to see how the players plan/address intermeshes with the GM's notes and to evaluate him.

It's gear grinding, but it does stop the two agendas from trying to exist at the same time, while still allowing engagement of the game world.

Hi MJ,

You've only listed the referee's job as to set up the challenging situation. However, it requires more - the understanding of the address as well. It's picky of me, but the wording 'enable him to "strut his stuff"' and 'allow the player to show off' don't indicate any understanding to me at all in a play style. It'd be like narrativist play, but the GM says "Oh, I create situations that let the player get all dramatic and do his angsty stuff that he likes to do". That GM did not understand the players address. A GM who does understand, instead says "WOW! What a statement that player made!" (that's what I'm gunning for, but with a gamist agenda).

One of the best ways of not understanding a gamist address is if your in the middle of making a sim address yourself, in figuring out the results of the gamist address.

Could you give me some more information about the structure of play you were outlining, since I'm working from a small example and could easily have gotten the wrong end of the stick. :)

Callan wrote:
I like your layout to try and tackle this problem. But the distribution of subjective judgement/sim address can still easily occur at the same time a gamist address is being made (sim being asked for by the gamist address). Even if the opposition tactics are handed to another player, the GM enters sim mode to adjudicate the event. It's like he's left the room, in terms of playing the same game.

Callan wrote:
One clumsy idea I had was a sort of passive gamism plan on the part of the player. The GM takes the situation at hand, goes into a simulationist trance ;) and figure out what will happen say in the next few hours of game time. What happens next is accompanied by concrete rules notations (to avoid latter ajudication needs). He doesn't say it, he writes it down. At the same time the player writes down their plan...

I think John gave a pretty good insight into passive gamism, as it applies to the referee--getting your social esteem from setting up and running the game challenges well. You seem to think that all the assessment of what should happen must be simulationist, when it's just as gamist for the referee as it is for the player.

That is, the player thinks, if I can engage him at close range but keep out of melee, I've got the advantage, because my short bow is fast and accurate. The referee in turn thinks, that's an excellent strategy he's using, and this guy isn't going to last long throwing his darts; the best strategy he could employ is to close the gap to melee and use his sword. For those few minutes, the two are attempting to outmaneuver each other. If the referee has designed his scenario right, and the player has assessed the situation correctly, the player should be able to win by optimizing his abilities. The referee knows that if the adversary is drawn as smart and skilled, and played to optimal abilities, but the player beats him anyway, that will make the player look good.

There was a Star Trek Next Generation episode once when Data was on trial to determine whether he had the right to resign from Star Fleet.  Commander Riker was given the unenviable task of prosecuting the case, attempting to prove that Data was ultimately just a machine that belonged to Star Fleet, a piece of equipment. He did quite a good job of it, too. In the end Data was given the right to self-determination.  Riker attempted to apologize for the prosecution, but Data brushed it off.  Had there been no prosecution, Star Fleet would simply have refused to hold the trial and Data would have been ruled a piece of equipment. Because Riker not only agreed to prosecute the case but also did so with all stops pulled out, Data's victory was the more solid.  He needed someone to make the best possible case against him, so that when it was defeated there could be no question about whether he had really won anything.

In the same way, the gamist player needs the referee to run antagonists as smartly as he runs his own character, because he only shines brightest when up against the worst.

As to the number crunching, you're suggesting that these determinations of how much effect various tactical decisions ought to have on outcomes is inherently simulationist. Yet the gamist player is already making exactly those same estimations, choosing his weapons, his field, his maneuvers, whatever he is allowed to choose, with a view to getting the best advantage and an expectation of what that advantage would be, in in-game mechanical terms. For the referee to do the same can't be simulationist by necessity, because it's the same process.

What you say about the referee fairly adjudicating the outcome might apply to drama based resolution, where the referee would have to decide which character he thought did best.  Fortune and karma resolution systems already provide him with fairly solid authorities (in the form of die rolls and scores) on which to base his decision. However, even with drama resolution the referee can still maintain the integrity of making a fair decision even while playing the advocate against the player. Federal justices do it all the time, grilling an attorney during oral argument to force him to face the difficult questions of the case yet maintaining neutrality in the question in their own minds.  Just because I've invested thought into the best way to oppose your objectives does not mean I am of necessity opposed to you achieving those objectives.  I can be doing everything I can to stop you and rooting for you the entire time. I know--I've done this in play many times myself, throwing everything I have against a player while inwardly cheering him on. When he sees me smile, he knows that I'm impressed with his performance, and that he's beaten an adversary who I thought just might have beaten him.

It's late; I hope I'm making sense here. I probably should have stuck with "what John said", but hopefully there's something in this that will help.

--M. J. Young

I think John is correct--and I think a telling point is that:

(a) in a traditional RPG it's trivial for the GM to simply squash the PCs (as with making an impossible puzzle)
(b) your take on tradtional RPGs that don't limit what the GM can do (judging from an earlier post) means that you'd prefer the GM to really be playing the same (adverserial) game as the players.

While one could design a game that way, for traditional RPG's, the "good GM" (in cases like the ones I think you're talking about, anyway) is the one who makes a fair, interesting, and properly difficult challenge (as opposed to the killer GM who simply smashes players or the GM who simply hands out whatever the PCs want).

-Marco

Heya,

Correct me if I'm wrong, Callan, but you seem to be equating logical NPCs with a Sim Agenda.  IMO, that's a mistake.  All three agendas want NPCs, especially opposing NPCs, to act a logical well thought out manner.  Spontinaity is not a requirement for Gamists or Narrativists.  Just because a GM who is running a Gamist game does a little research to make his NPC samurai look, act, and live like real-life samurai doesn't make him a Sim GM all of a sudden.  IMO, that makes him a very compitent GM.  Now, if all of the sudden the focus of the game shifted from overcoming challenges to "what's it like to be a samurai?" then I'd definitely say we have a problem.

But to me, if a GM (or any player) takes a moment to think "who would X kind of person react in this sort of situation?" that doesn't mean we're suddenly Agenda-shifting.

Peace,

-Troy

First, great discussion folks.

I do sense one possible problem which is that you may be making the classic mistake, Callan, of mistaking exploration for gamism. That is, if, in fact, the exploration that the GM is doing is to determine a winner, that's gamism. Just as when a player strives hard to get bonus dice to emphasize a cool decision in Sorcerer that's not gamism, but narrativism. The question is one of agenda over an instance of play. So moments of cogitation on in-game causality do not a sim agenda make.

Now, there are certainly some GMs somewhere playing with a sim agenda with players who have gamism agendas. But that's not what I'm seeing you describe. Exploration that supports gamism is gamism. Only exploration for its own sake is simulationism.

I sorta make this mistake, too, when discussing gamism. That is, only discussing mechanically supported gamism as actual gamism. But consider a freeform game with little to no mechanics. That can be gamism too. Functional gamism even, if people can avoid the pitfalls of constant negotiation of the parameters. This strongly feels different than a game in which you have a system measuring "fairly and accurately" the player progress, but it's no less gamism for it. For example, when playing National Security Decision Making, the only rules about what you can do is that you can only do what your character and his "Cone of influence" could do in real life. As adjudicated by the judges who as former War College instructors have a good idea as to the answers. And it works excellent well.

Nobody in NSDM is trying to create plot, nobody is looking to explore the situation, everyone is trying to get the goals written down on their hand out. Stuff like "As the Head of the Chinese Air Force, obtain technology and materiel that will allow China to project more air power locally." Then you just explore finding ways to accomplish your win conditions (I got third with this position in a field of 60 one year, by buying planes from the Russians).

This sort of "situational gamism" is often overlooked. But no less important than mechanical gamism. Does it tend to be more problematic? Sure, I'll buy that. It's just not automatically dysfunctional.

Mike

These referee examples are racing ahead to his choices like choosing to close the gap and fight in melee combat, while slipping past the choice of how wide a gap between opponents there was to begin with, the choice that the NPC would have darts and the choice he would have a broadsword. It's understood that an umpire can take off his umpire hat and go field or bat. But what's been given so far is "If the umpire changes role and becomes a player, he's playing and that's gamism". Yes, it is gamism at that point (and I use that in my previous idea, having the GM explicitly shift roles). But that the threads topic is where he continues to wear his umpire hat (for whatever reason), when it's time for him to play now.

I'll give an example, but using a gamist address of challenge to set off a narrativist address of premise, because it's a lot clearer to see the distinction:

The players have decided on the plan that if they do the worst things, things no one else would dream off, that's how they get to the top of the drug empire. And indeed it works well. One day, a rival comes along. The players make the address that they will rape the rivals wife and hold a knife to her throat when he gets home. Then they will make their demands.

They do. The rival gets home, sees his wife at knife point and after a long, frozen moment, pulls out a gun and shoots his wife dead! Then he shoots the horrified PC's one by one, dead!

"WTF!!!" all the players cry in union at the same time.
"It's what he'd do!", the GM says in surprise at their reaction, and then again in indignant stubborn donkey mode.

Or say the rival doesn't shoot them, but gives into every single demand. It's a complete washout in terms of challenge…he just rolls over to every demand.

"Huh, he'd just give up all the money and power for his wife, without a lick of resistance?", the players say incredulously.
"YES!", says the GM proudly.
"Man, that's boring.", the players announce and the GM proceeds to get bitter about how the players play the wrong way.

Note: You probably realise I'm shamelessly ripping off Kieser Sosays (sp?) background story from the film "The usual suspects".

Clearly, either of these is more than just adjudicating. It's playing. A different game, but still, it's playing.

Why's it harder to see an address of causality occuring? Well, exploration in a gamist agenda is gamism. Exploration in nar agenda is narrativism. That's clear. I think the problem is that address of causality is being lumped in with exploration. In that, exploration in gamism is gamism, yes. And it's thought in the same way that exploration in gamism, that the GM was really excited to say, is just the same. But it aint.

It's that player investment which is the key difference. Take the nar example above (sans OOC chat). This could just as easily be an act of exploration (and thus matching the agenda it's embedded in - gamism). It doesn't have to be an address at all…if the GM isn't invested in it and thus isn't pushing it as an address, it's just plain exploration. What is important is whether the GM/that player is excited about it…it thrills him to say it and it's important to him to say it.

Really the big question is, when the GM is determining how the game world works (as the game/gameplay keeps asking him to do), what stops him from getting excited about any particular exploration he invents/discovers?

I'd say nothing can. Address of causality often sneaks up unbidden, a sudden moment of clarity, regardless of whether you wanted it to happen or not. And once it's happened it doesn't just go away. It's just like the nar example…if you decide Kaiser Sosay WOULD kill his wife, because that's explains him so well, can you just forget about that? Should you? And given the timing, this is going to happen a moment after address of challenge is made by another player. Hooo boy!

All I'm seeing above is a case of the GM playing sim, and the players playing nar, and the incoherence causing the typical problem. If the GM were exploring with an agenda that matched the players, then the problem would not occur.

You seem to be saying that sometimes GMs fall into sim without recourse - they can't control themeslves? Actually I know that's not what you're saying, but I still can't make heads or tails of it. Is it that, not understanding mode, they have "sim moments?" Heck, I understand mode and still have all sorts of "Sim moments." So? Does that make my play simulationism? No.

Mike

Callan wrote:
Really the big question is, when the GM is determining how the game world works (as the game/gameplay keeps asking him to do), what stops him from getting excited about any particular exploration he invents/discovers?

Hi Mike,

Mike wrote:
All I'm seeing above is a case of the GM playing sim, and the players playing nar, and the incoherence causing the typical problem. If the GM were exploring with an agenda that matched the players, then the problem would not occur.

You seem to be saying that sometimes GMs fall into sim without recourse - they can't control themeslves? Actually I know that's not what you're saying, but I still can't make heads or tails of it. Is it that, not understanding mode, they have "sim moments?" Heck, I understand mode and still have all sorts of "Sim moments." So? Does that make my play simulationism? No.

Callan wrote:
I think we may be hitting a terminology problem here, in that gamism or simulationism denote the entirety of play. So I can't talk about one being (inappropriately) inside the other - since the jargon doesn't allow for anything but ONE agenda existing through all players through the entirety of play.

I don't see "address of causality" as being definitional of simulationism, nor do I see its presence in simulationism to be any different from its presence in gamism or narrativism. I will agree that the importance of causality is more likely statistically to be found in simulationist games, but many gamist and narrativist games are quite clear about the importance of causality, and some simulationist games toss it out the window almost completely.

You're getting hung up in a misunderstanding of what simulationism is, such that you appear to think that anything that revolves around "what would actually happen" must be simulationist. It's not. Sometimes in any agendum "what would actually happen" is ignored, and most of the time in every agendum "what would actually happen" is followed. It does not make play simulationist if anyone falls back on causality to determine what happens, and it does not make play non-simulationist for causality to be ignored.

Does this clear up anything?

--M. J. Young

Hi MJ,

So far I've given several clear references to the player/GM getting really excited about saying what happens next, rather than saying it in a 'couldn't care less one way or the other' manner. A connection between "What would happen next" and sim is not being drawn. A connection between "What I'm really excited to say would happen next" and sim, is.

Based on that idea I'm focusing on how, during what is supposed to be a gamist agenda, the GM can get really excited about saying what would happen next. Which was of course, ironically, triggered by the players address of challenge.

Hi Contra,

Your first paragraph is basically what I was trying to say in the quote. Sorry to be confusing. I agree! And your second paragraph is what I'm getting at. :)

Ah, I see what you're getting at now. My apologies for being so obtuse.

My inclination is to write it off as ordinary appreciation of aspects outside the agendum of play. After all, I've been in gamist sessions where people have suddenly made cool contributions to theme because they could, but never really let go of the primary focus on showing off their ability in the challenge.  I've seen simulationists be impressed by a brilliant strategy without stepping outside the framework of their exploration. There's no particular reason why someone couldn't admire a "simulationist moment" within gamist play, and as long as everyone is still supporting the gamist hope to show what they can do, that does not derail gamism.

It's kind of like stopping to admire the flowers when you're at the Olympics. You're not there for the flowers, but you can still appreciate them.

--M. J. Young

Cool, understanding is underway! :)

Your right, MJ, each guy can admire the other. But what I'm getting at is when both parties are looking for admiration from the other at exactly the same time - and we get a mexican stand off. Say the olympic athlete is looking for admiration for his achievement, from the gardener. And at the same time, the gardener is looking for admiration from the olympic athlete for his gardening. Niether is giving understanding, because their sitting their waiting for it to be given to them.

This standoff can be regularly triggered because the address of challenge requires someone (typically a GM) to think ahead. Although most of the time the GM might say what happens next in a 'couldn't care less' way, there's a good chance that he'll think up something that excites him and he'll be excited to say what happens next. And looking for appreciation of that, while at the same time the gamist player is looking for appreciation of what he just did.

So who goes first? Who stops looking for appreciation first and instead gives to the other guy? My idea above is a clunky turn based solution to it, but I feel it'd be draining to use it more than a few times in a session (just too much perceptual mode switching, IMO).

Side conjecture, rambling: One of the worst things, I think, is that when the GM gets excited about what happens next it makes the richest gamist experiences (you really feel your taking on the world - what a challenge!). However, the lack of appreciation for what he says, penalises him for doing it. I wonder about the term 'Hard core' and rather it really about a lack of understanding, rather than a lack of exploration. With an old actual play account, I noted how I left the second poison save to the GM to remember, rather than applying it to myself. At the time I considered it an act of exploration based on his skill...if he forgot to mention the second save, that spider musn't have injected a full dose, or was low on venom since there were NPC victims when we got here. The interpretation of play events into the game world, creates exploration. Whereas, perhaps I was supposed to understand the GM's assertion that if you get poisoned, then causally in a minutes time you make another save and that's how the game world works. Frankly, I had zero understanding of anything like that.

Okay, that side note could get in the way of understanding. Please ignore if it does!

Can you give an example of a GM 'gamistically' appreciating a players address of challenge?

Other than
a) Great, your plan works!
b) Great, your plan is good, i'm giving you big bonus(es) to the resolution roll(s)!

What else is there?

Hi NN (No Name?),

There's thinking what you would do, if you were in his shoes. Would you come up with a plan that good? How do your tatics match with his? Are yours better? Perhaps better for this situation? Or can you learn something from his tactics? ETC.
Note: Your not asking yourself these things like it's a chore - if your playing gamist, then your so excited about his address, these questions start going through your head naturally.

But instead of thinking this, the GM is thinking of what happens next. Once he's done, he might start thinking the above, which is good. But if he's gotten excited about what happens next, he wont. He'll be looking for understanding himself.

It's a small point, but generally the referee and one player are not alone at the table.  Even when I run Multiverser games, I've got two to six players going, and each of them appreciates different things about each others' play. Thus given the social context of the game, it's entirely possible that some of the players are admiring the player's moves while others are admiring the referee's construction.

Apart from that, I do run a fair amount of one-on-one play, and I think that there is this mutual appreciation happening in those situations.  I can remember running Kyler through the terrorist tower (mentioned most recently on the Illusionism etc thread), and laughing aloud as he took on a terrorist several times his size and proceeded to destroy the guy with his martial arts skills. He knew I was impressed by what he did there. At the same time, I knew he was enjoying the unfolding of the scenario, which requires a lot of work from me in terms of timing and setting the scenes as they unfold. I don't have to stop appreciating what you're doing to wax in the appreciation you have for what I'm doing.

I am not saying that the dysfunction you cite doesn't happen, only that it is not, I think, inherent to the process.  It is more likely to be a problem if the simulationist referee thinks that the gamist player is "playing wrong" because he's not contributing to the dream appropriately but is trying to get glory for himself by doing things the character probably would not have done "if it were real".  In that case, the referee probably feels that the player doesn't appreciate what he's doing because the player isn't thinking in those terms at all, and the player certainly feels that the referee doesn't appreciate what he's doing because, frankly, he doesn't.  Even if the other players support either or both of these agenda, you've got a split table, and classic dysfunction revealing itself at a critical juncture. Dysfunction always is most evident at those moments when agendum is most important.

--M. J. Young

Hi MJ,

I agree with the first paragraph. I'd considered something like it as another type of solution - two players are supposed to be gaming sim with each other, using actions of the gamist as fuel for that. While two gamists use the sim players reactions and try to impress each other with how they can use that to best advantage.

On the second paragraph...I need more info. In nar, for example, you can challenge other players perceptions of a character and they become impressed. I remember an example of Tony's, where the other player set up the superhero to face off with his mind controlled love of his life. And he smashes her across the face. "Whoa, that's quite a statement" I think the example ended with the other player saying.

I think simulationist play can challenge perceptions in just the same way
"The strong beat the small"
"Ah, but look here, small and talented beats the strong!"
"Whoa, that's quite a statement!"

So I'd need more info on that to be certain it was an example of mutual agenda appreciation.

On the third point, I think if a rule set asks players to shift agenda, that rule set is drawing all the problems of a split agenda closer to happening. That sounds similar to what your saying. I think that good players and GM can get around that, but much in the spirit of the 'system does matter' essay, I'd prefer them putting their efforts into forfilling agenda.

I thought of another seperator: have the players write down a secret goal of their own devising that the GM doesn't know (they do show their fellow players). The players then try to achieve this in play, while keeping it secret (at the end of the session they show the GM their goal).

This means the two agendas simply can not merge to become just sim play. If you don't know the goal of the other person, you can't structure the game so as to fit their goal into a stimulating simulationists layout. You can't push for drift*. So the GM just arbitrates along, without really knowing what's important to the players. That way he can't start to structure play so that the important thing just happens to be at the end of a big simulationist exploration.

I imagine that could be quite shocking "But how do you co-operate to make a story then!?" and I'd reply "You don't. Yay!"

Once the sessions ended, you could go back and piece together a story from game events. But that's very different from making story creation a primary goal of play.

* The push either results in everyone going over to sim, or agenda clash as players push against each others wishes.

In most of the games I play in I either have some fuzzily defined goals or more concrete goals that are unstated.I don't see how this impacts the play especially: GMs, IME, are usually able to figure out what my characters are trying to do to some extent--or the situation is such that there are clear forces at work on my character and while the outcome of the events won't be specified by any one agency the dynamic is usually pretty easily understood.

1. I think you can get stories out of situation and character pretty reliably without needing active assistance on the part of the players during play. Wanting to produce a story during play has special meaning in this context but if what I want is a game-narrative with meaning and structure as in a story, I can get that reliably and from actor-stance if the characters and situation are properly designed. I don't see where your methodology precludes that.
2. The dynamic can still be cooperative or antagonisic or neutral (and, in fact, it can be, in some senses two of those at once--a GM can have sympathy for a PC's or player's desires while running hard-core opposition or making a random roll for the outcome).

I'm not sure hidden goals accomplish anything unusual--I think they are pretty much a default for many groups.

-Marco

Hi Marco,

I agree, GM's usually work out what the players in game goals are. And GM's usually do try to figure it out. But why is the GM trying to figure it out? What's the motive behind that?

My suggestion makes the divide explicit. Sure, you could try to figure it out, secretly. But that's really against the spirit of the rule the group has agreed to.

or the situation is such that there are clear forces at work on my character and while the outcome of the events won't be specified by any one agency the dynamic is usually pretty easily understood.

Callan wrote:
Hi Marco,

I agree, GM's usually work out what the players in game goals are. And GM's usually do try to figure it out. But why is the GM trying to figure it out? What's the motive behind that?

or the situation is such that there are clear forces at work on my character and while the outcome of the events won't be specified by any one agency the dynamic is usually pretty easily understood.

Not sure what you mean, could you describe that again?

1. I think your right. You could shape a nifty story where at the end the princess is saved (where the player decided to talk with the dragon). However, while your crafted story might be about a princess saved, the players completed goal was to make an ally out of a dragon and he doesn't care that much about the princess.

Stories usually resolve around what the protagonists cares about. Your going to have a tough time story making, when you don't know what the character/the player is actually invested in.

2. I'm not sure how you mean it could still be co-operative or antagonistic play on the part of the GM. If you don't know someones goal, it's very hard to foil it or help them with it. Are you saying this in conjunction with the idea that the GM will figure out your goal?

I don't think there's a motive per se. I think it's something that usually just happens. In most cases I can think of, player goals tend to be fairly grand things on the large scale and fairly simple on the small scale. "Firguring this out" doesn't require much beyond paying attention and seeing what someone is trying to do.

IME cooperation is an attitude. If I run things "straight" I can still cooperate or not with the player. An example is how I *explain* and *describe* the world. If I say "The merchant seems abrupt but is clearly looking for a deal" that conveys different information than simply doing the merchant's harsh dialog.

Callan wrote:
The players should keep missdirecting until the GM just quits trying to guess their goal. When I asked what the GM's motive is in trying to find out the goal I mean, why does he still try in the face of resistance?

Keeping the GM in the dark about player goals seems a tricky way to resolve GM complicity or opposition, to be honest it smacks of sim to me because what should the GM design as opposition? Whatever's realistic.... and besides, he'll be second-guessing what the players are doing to make the next challenge worthwhile. While I agree that GM assistence or overt opposition removes the joy of the challenge, and guaging player challenge is always difficult for a GM, however experienced, I think that secret player goals opens a whole new can of worms of problems, and can give rise to incoherence. I mean, how can GMs and players stay on the same page gamewise if they don't know what each other wants? With the lecherous elfophile example that Callan posted, where the player chases tail and screws up the GM plot, what's the point of the exercise? Sneaky goals to trick GMs, to avoid railroading?

I remember someone posted elsewhere, once upon a time, somewhere on this forum (how's that for a specific reference) that it is impossible to prevent player or GM abuse of the game if the participants involved are intending to do it. Secret goals usually arise because of bad GMs, but isn't this just a sign of incoherence in play?

To me it seems an intractable solution - on the one hand you have the GM 'railroading' in the loosest sense (presuming that in this case he is a good GM and is co-operative to player goals) because he is setting up situations that allow for player goals to be realised by setting the appropriate challenges. On the other, you have play running amok in all directions because the GM has no idea what the players are doing and the players are screwing with the GMs story ideas. The latter is all well and good, the GMs story ideas are not the player's, but it can go too far and lead to incoherence. A true story:

My brother has been running a WHFRP campaign for years now, that most of us try to politely avoid. Not because he is a bad guy, but he is playing a gamist game with a railroading narrativist storyline. Of course, one player in particular, who is far cannier than my brother is, gets a lot of satisfaction out of screwing with his plot. All the while pretending to go along with my brother's story, he almost deliberately chooses the opposite course of action that my brother had planned (i.e. making pacts with Chaos, snitching on the good guys, killing Dan's [my brother]'s preprepared allies, etc.). The way he does it is actually quite funny, to be honest I'm barracking for the player on this one (Dan is railroading after all).

As we are talking (or I am talking, am I talking in the right place) about old-skool Task Resolution sort of games, there's little way around it except by returning to randomised encounter tables and other sim-paraphenalia. I know I haven't answered a question here, I just think that secret player goals can cause a lot of problems. In a Conflict Resolution system, perhaps this would be a lot less troublesome, but for TR systems, it helps to have player goals explicit because the GM is the only one with the authority to construct a lot of the situations that would allow for the challenge to occur. Otherwise the players are going to be waiting around for opportunities for the secret goal to be realised "Hey, GM, I'm going to the tavern..... any hot elf chicks there?"

Justin

Excellent post, Justin!

Keeping the GM in the dark about player goals seems a tricky way to resolve GM complicity or opposition, to be honest it smacks of sim to me because what should the GM design as opposition? Whatever's realistic....

I mean, how can GMs and players stay on the same page gamewise if they don't know what each other wants?

To me it seems an intractable solution - on the one hand you have the GM 'railroading' in the loosest sense (presuming that in this case he is a good GM and is co-operative to player goals) because he is setting up situations that allow for player goals to be realised by setting the appropriate challenges. On the other, you have play running amok in all directions because the GM has no idea what the players are doing and the players are screwing with the GMs story ideas. The latter is all well and good, the GMs story ideas are not the player's, but it can go too far and lead to incoherence. A true story: