Hey Everyone!

The other day in my AP thread Vincent (Lumpley) made the following assertion in response to my claim –

lumpley wrote:

Silmenume wrote: Situation creation Mechanics have little or no place in Sim.

Dude, you create situation somehow. Even in simulationist play.

Hi Jay,

"The GM prepares an adventure" is a pretty common mechanic (rule, guideline, whatever) that informs a good many Sim games in play.  Alternatively, "The GM controls the world" without necessarily dicatating prepared events also pushes a lot of Sim games.  These ideas are usually explicitly written in most game texts which subscribe to that mode of play.

Chris

What Chris said.  Mechanics are more than rolling dice.  Note, "The GM prepares an adventure" is a pretty terrible rule, with a very low accuracy for hitting the group's goals in play, but is a rule nonetheless.  In a group that been running for a while, it accrues other qualifiers such as "Make sure there's at least one combat ever hour or so."  These rules aren't written down, but they inform situation creation nonetheless.

Also common: "This sourcebook is authoritative.  Pick something from these pages."  Call it the MERP method. 

I kind of think Vincent meant more that creation of Situation (in some way) is absolutely necessary for all manner or RPGs, so even if you have a formal Fortune or Karma-based situation creation system (as opposed to the Drama-based "GM makes something up",) there's no reason why it can't be used in a Simulationist game.

and, indeed, there are some Fortune or Karma-based mechanics used in some Sim games. wandering monster tables in D&D, for example, especially in the last few AD&D1e books, when there was plentiful advice on designing custom wandering monster tables that fit the typical population of an area and matched the rarity of each species.

I consider myself a minimalist Simulationist; I am interested in small rulesets that interact in complex ways to create Sim details of the world. I'm fascinated with Situation mechanics, and don't think they are anti-Sim in the slightest.

Bankuei wrote:
"The GM prepares an adventure" is a pretty common mechanic (rule, guideline, whatever) that informs a good many Sim games in play.  Alternatively, "The GM controls the world" without necessarily dicatating prepared events also pushes a lot of Sim games.  These ideas are usually explicitly written in most game texts which subscribe to that mode of play.

Note, "The GM prepares an adventure" is a pretty terrible rule, with a very low accuracy for hitting the group's goals in play, but is a rule nonetheless

Jay, I think it would be useful for you to concisely define what you consider to be a mechanic, and perhaps also to provide an example of actual Sim play in which Situation is absent, or does not arise mechanically. You raise at least once question, "do Vincent and I mean different things when we say mechanics?", that canot be answered unless you do, and similarly, I find your assertion about Sim's independence from Situation to be baffling.

Jay, sit down and think about and figure out how you've created situations in your game for the past however many years. (You may need to brush up on "what's a situation?" and "how do I identify situations in my play?" first.)

There are two possibilities. The unlikely possibility is that you've approached each new situation in a wholly unique way, carrying forward NONE of the lessons you've learned from previous situation creation.

The more likely possibility is that there's a body of flexible procedures you've developed over the years, which you apply as appropriate, mixing and matching. Sometimes you'll introduce a new technique, which sometimes will work so well you'll keep it, and sometimes won't so you drop it.

Over time, repetition makes a body of informal procedures, mere hit-or-miss guesses, into an unspoken and unwritten, but reliable, overall process. I'm talking about your situation creation rules evolving, over eight years of trial and error, into unwritten, unarticulated, unacknowledged mechanics.

"The GM creates and plays all the NPCs" isn't a rule; it's the public face of a whole bunch of informal rules, all kept and maintained by the GM and the players - and probably never, ever, ever talked about. These are informal rules like "whenever possible, have Severin mess with Damwild's stuff, not just Soraya's" and "don't pitch situations involving romance to Vincent, they'll dud" and "remember to consider the NPC's family's reactions." I consider these rules to be rules. I consider "mechanics" vs. "rules" vs. "guidelines" to be all the same kind of thing - what matters are the real procedures of play.

So Jay: if you want to understand a single thing I say, you need to understand that I'm talking about what the people at the table actually do, and you need to learn to recognize what, in play, you're actually doing.

-Vincent

lumpley wrote:

Silmenume wrote:
So how do I reconcile these two positions?

One is that I misunderstand what is meant by “Mechanics.”

Two is that Vincent has a very different understanding of Situation “creation” than I do.

Three is that Sim does not require Situation creation mechanics.

There are two possibilities. The unlikely possibility is that you've approached each new situation in a wholly unique way, carrying forward NONE of the lessons you've learned from previous situation creation.

The more likely possibility is that there's a body of flexible procedures you've developed over the years, which you apply as appropriate, mixing and matching. Sometimes you'll introduce a new technique, which sometimes will work so well you'll keep it, and sometimes won't so you drop it.

Over time, repetition makes a body of informal procedures, mere hit-or-miss guesses, into an unspoken and unwritten, but reliable, overall process. I'm talking about your situation creation rules evolving, over eight years of trial and error, into unwritten, unarticulated, unacknowledged mechanics.

Jay mentioned mechanics and Vincent replied with a more general statement about system.  I don't feel this invalidates any points, but the scope shift between comment and reply is important to notice.  Anyway... 

The distinction between formal/explicit and informal/implicit system is about perspective, not procedure of play.  If you are suddenly made aware of all the procedures you've been using to create situation, and you keep doing them, then they are all of the sudden formal mechanics without the actual procedure of play changing one whit.  You are still doing the same thing you were before, you just know you are doing it now.  Anything we say about mechanics we should be able to say about system and vice versa, excluding the above distinction.  If you already have a procedure for creating situation then being made aware of it (having it structured/explicit/formalized/written down/discussed/etc) should not impede your play but assist it, which leads us to the idea of intentionally designing games for specific types of play.  I suppose this line of thinking leads into how real the distinction between author stance (meta-game) and actor stance is, but I suppose that's a different topic.

As I read him, Vincent could care less what the players think the the procedures of play are, because what matters is that those proceedures are present.

Bankuei wrote:

Note, "The GM prepares an adventure" is a pretty terrible rule, with a very low accuracy for hitting the group's goals in play, but is a rule nonetheless

Also- usually that idea comes with anywhere from a few paragraphs to an entire chapter of advice and guidelines of how a GM is supposed to do that...

I think what Jay might want to consider is whether, in the games he plays, "situation creation mechanics" are distinguishable from "mechanics", how they're distinguishable, and when they're invoked.

I'm afraid its completely valueless and illogical to claim that "stuff I have done" constitutes a procedure, or that the patterns of habit constitute a mechanic.  In every respect Vincents paragraph about the "mechanics" of situation establishment is wrong; he is not wroing to describe this process, but he is wrong to label it as a process or mechanic.  A process is visible to all users, explicit, and exists external to the people employing it.  A mechanic must be formal, constructed, and organised, otherwise a pile of rocks would have to be construed as just as mechanical as an engine.

This IMo has badly derailed the topic.  The initial claim was, situation creation mechanics have no place in Sim.  The claim was not "there is no situation creation in Sim".  Parseing the statement as the latter meaning renders it valueless; why assume Jay doesn;t know what he is talking about and instead address the issue: are situation creation mechanics appropriate for Sim?

And in nthis regard I disagree with Jay.  I think Sim would benefit from proper situation creation mechanics, on the understanding that the players (of characters) will not want to engage with these mnechanics; that is, they should serve as prompts for the GM.  And I think this becuase I suspect that the habitual Sim GM thinks very little about the structure of the game as an entertainment, and that this can produce Sim games that are unfocussed and become steadily purposeless.

I agree with Gareth, generally. That said, I agree with the conclusions that Vincent was trying to get to with his original assertion. That is, while it's wrong to dismiss Jay's statemements using the term mechanics, the point is that mechanics and more general methodology and proceedure do share some similarities in the context of the discussion. That is, even if mechanics (using the more restrictive meaning that I've always pushed for) are used, that's really not so different from using other procedures for determining what happens in play situation wise.

So there are two topics for discussion here, and I'm not sure which Jay will want to see for the thread:
1. What the definition of mechanics should be.
2. Whether or not mechanics really are that different from less mechanical procedures as regards the context of the original objection. 
3. Both.

Mike

I was suggesting a slightly different angle.

Outside of roleplaying games, there are certainly games which provide analogies to "situation creation mechanics", as well as games which lack distinct "situation creation". For example, both Titan and Victory in the Pacific have hierarchical systems in which players first move pieces on a strategic board, then "resolve the situations" created in each location using a subsystem played out in a semi-tactical context. On the other hand, chess has exactly one mechanic which is played out "nonhierarchically" through the entire game; other games have multiple mechanics but little in terms of deep hierarchy. "Situation" in these games is not discrete but continuous, with any new situation evolving out of the same mechanics used to explore and resolve the previous situation. There's no hard and fast division between the opening and middlegame in chess, for example.

What I'm proposing is that regardless of whether we are talking about well-defined mechanics or freeform procedures, it is important to consider whether there is a hierarchy or division that separates "situation creation" mechanics/procedures from "everything that happens in the game". Personally, I think that RPGs tend to be hierarchical in this fashion (regardless of any GNS classification) but the hierarchical depth varies, as does the manner in which play moves up and down the hierarchy.

contracycle wrote: A process is visible to all users, explicit, and exists external to the people employing it. A mechanic must be formal, constructed, and organised, otherwise a pile of rocks would have to be construed as just as mechanical as an engine.

Hi Jay,

Say we were playing nar and the situation had been created that your murderous brother can be captured by you (but he'll be hung) or you can let him go (he'll murder more people).

What are situation creation mechanics in this instance? Mechanics which create that scene? Or mechanics which determine what happens next, based on the players choice?

Now, for sim, would mechanics that determine what happens next be as out of place? As out of place as any mechanics that make the nar players choice for him? Is that what you mean, when you say situation mechanics are out of place? Because a great deal of situation creation in sim is supposed to come from player address of causality, rather than mechanically determined?

I'm assuming alot, so I'm probably way off.

Thanks everyone for your input.

I feel terribly embarrassed as I must have posted my original thoughts in a manner which must have been opaque.  Contracycle, you are right, my “initial claim was, situation creation mechanics have no place in Sim.  The claim was not "there is no situation creation in Sim".  You are also correct in rephrasing the question as –

contracycle wrote: …are situation creation mechanics appropriate for Sim?

Callan wrote: Say we were playing nar and the situation had been created that your murderous brother can be captured by you (but he'll be hung) or you can let him go (he'll murder more people).

What are situation creation mechanics in this instance? Mechanics which create that scene? Or mechanics which determine what happens next, based on the players choice?

Callan wrote: Now, for sim, would mechanics that determine what happens next be as out of place?

Callan wrote: As out of place as any mechanics that make the nar players choice for him? Is that what you mean, when you say situation mechanics are out of place? Because a great deal of situation creation in sim is supposed to come from player address of causality, rather than mechanically determined?

contracycle wrote: And in nthis regard I disagree with Jay.  I think Sim would benefit from proper situation creation mechanics, on the understanding that the players (of characters) will not want to engage with these mnechanics; that is, they should serve as prompts for the GM

contracycle wrote: And I think this becuase I suspect that the habitual Sim GM thinks very little about the structure of the game as an entertainment, and that this can produce Sim games that are unfocussed and become steadily purposeless.

ewilen wrote: What I'm proposing is that regardless of whether we are talking about well-defined mechanics or freeform procedures, it is important to consider whether there is a hierarchy or division that separates "situation creation" mechanics/procedures from "everything that happens in the game".

Silmenume wrote:
Given your provisos, about the “players” not “engaging” said Mechanics, I’ll have to ponder your suggestions.  I, for example, will typically peruse the list of the 36 Dramatic Situations for inspiration when constructing scenarios for play.  However, I don’t regard them as a Mechanic because they don’t “spit out an answer” as to what to create for a specific night of play.  But, I do agree that such “lists” are extremely useful in inspiring the GM and keeping Sim games lively and interesting.

contracycle wrote: Funny you should mention “structure.”  However, I do agree with you on the whole.  But my question is, if mechanics which are inherently restructured and by their very nature do not involve the players, how can they keep track of what the players have already done up to the moment and include such actions in the current output?

Let's try to put this on an easier plane to discuss. Jay, would you say that the player creating the world in any way, other than the impact of the actions he directs his character to take, damage the sim CA? Is that a true statement? If I, as a player, am allowed to create a tower in the middle of a city, that's not simulationism? It has to be narrativism or gamism?

I'm trying to figure out where you draw the line. Because right now, it's starting to sound like you believe that sim play is equal to Actor Stance play.

Mike

Silmenume wrote:
... my “initial claim was, situation creation mechanics have no place in Sim."

Silmenume wrote:
If Situation is the interaction of Character and Setting, as per the Provisional Glossary, then in Sim there never really is a moment that is outside of Situation!

Silmenume wrote: However any mechanic that has an effect outside their avatar’s scope of abilities to effect the SIS is something that I believe conflicts with the Sim process of play.

contracycle wrote: Through the agency of the GM, which in sim games is equipped with both universal knowledge of the characters and unlimited authority with which to define the world.

Silmenume wrote: I, for example, will typically peruse the list of the 36 Dramatic Situations for inspiration when constructing scenarios for play.  However, I don’t regard them as a Mechanic because they don’t “spit out an answer” as to what to create for a specific night of play.  But, I do agree that such “lists” are extremely useful in inspiring the GM and keeping Sim games lively and interesting.

Joshua wrote:
That's Actor Stance, not Sim.

Okay I think we should all slow down on the rules and procedures of play talk. For this thread, it's like talking about an address of premise that was made and then asking 'so what procedure or rule did you use when you made up that address'. That ISN'T how address of premise is made, M'kay? :) And nor is an address of causality!

That said,

Hi Jay,

I'm glad I wasn't off base! Now, looking into this...

Given your provisos, about the “players” not “engaging” said Mechanics, I’ll have to ponder your suggestions.  I, for example, will typically peruse the list of the 36 Dramatic Situations for inspiration when constructing scenarios for play.  However, I don’t regard them as a Mechanic because they don’t “spit out an answer” as to what to create for a specific night of play.

With Mike, I think that Vincent has taken some liberties with the use of the word "mechanic"; however, John has cited the glossary, and if I'm reading the quotes aright, Vincent is using the term correctly. Thus, again with Mike, I'm inclined to wonder whether that is what the term ought to mean. I'm inclined to think of mechanics as discrete aspects which inform system, on reflection to be more on the order of authorities than system itself (in the sense that when you roll a die and check a chart, these are not the decision about what happens but the basis for asserting that decision; the system here is that someone has been given the credibility to translate the die roll and chart reading into a statement in the shared imagined space). That ought to be discussed.

On the other hand, Jay, you're doing your old synechdoche thing again, imagining that because your play is within the definition of simulationism it is the definition of simulationism. Situation-determining mechanics are very much part of many forms of simulationist play, even if they are not part of yours. Just a few that might be included in a simulationist game:

• A random events table. "Stranger comes to town," "Letter is received from relative," "Government issues new law," "Natural disaster destroys significant building," and other events which could happen and could lead to interesting play situations might be on that table.  Because these are things that happen once in a while that can't easily be drawn from the ongoing causal chain of play, injecting them from a randomized mechanic makes perfect sense in a simulationist setting.• A general effects roll.  Multiverser, of course, uses this to determine whether things are going generally favorably or generally unfavorably for the character. Since our universes have to deal with a certain amount of chaos theory, one can never be completely sure of the effects of any cause.  If the characters attempt to stir up good feelings about themselves, do their efforts actually cause the town to think well of them? For example, let's suppose they throw a lot of money buying drinks for everyone. This is intended to result in the men thinking they're good guys, and so building up a positive attitude about them. It might, however, backfire, resulting in the men thinking that the characters are showing off how wealthy they are, and the women thinking that the characters are trying to corrupt their men and make them drink too much, and the local cleric putting pressure on the town leaders to do something about this corrupting influence. Assuming task resolution (most common in sim games), there is no way to trace the causal chain without making assumptions. The GE roll provides those assumptions: did this work much as the players hoped, or did it backfire terribly? It's still perfectly simulationist, used thus; it just provides the answer to the uncertainty of how an action will be received by the majority of the people.• Random dungeon generation. Sometimes you can find these online (although the last one I used seems to have vanished, due I think to the tendency of students to post these on their university web spaces and then lose them when they leave school). These can be computerized, or they can be as simple as the old instant dungeons that used dice to determine what comes next (I recall there's one in the back of the OAD&D DMG, although I never used it). From one perspective, these save the referee a lot of trouble; from another, they remove his biases from the process. They create an objective reality, often on the fly, and so produce situation mechanically.

Those are just a few examples; I'm sure there could be others.

Certainly you can play in any agendum without "situation mechanics" of these types; you can also play in any agendum with situation mechanics.

That's quite apart from the problem that of course in every game, system conspires to create situation, and therefore there are techniques which do so. I think Mike and I agree that mechanics are one class of techniques, but that doesn't appear to be what the glossary says, so either we're misreading it, or it needs to be corrected, or we're mistaken.

--M. J. Young

Joshua wrote:
That's a typical division of credibility that appears in many games, but again, that is not Sim.

I think Mike and I agree that mechanics are one class of techniques, but that doesn't appear to be what the glossary says, so either we're misreading it, or it needs to be corrected, or we're mistaken.

Gareth, the second paragraph was more directed towards Jay than you; on that point you and I seem to be in agreement.  As far as the GM being the sole objective arbiter of the newtonian world, while that may create the sensation of an address of causality, I can't help but think it is in reality merely an address of authority.  There's no reason why a Sim game can't be constituted as an arena in which all player are invited to arbitrate and negotiate causality and/or genre conventions.

Which, to link this to the thread topic, suggests that a Sim game can employ situation creation mechanics (understanding that 'mechanic' means a way in which player input is communicated, ratified, and/or rejected) in such a situation.  I'd take the stronger case, that any game will utilize a situation creation mechanic, but I'd like to hear Jay's response before pressing on.

Jay,

I'm not going to restate what I and others have said before about how your preferred method of Sim play is not the same method all other Sim players prefer, since each time I say "I prefer Sim but don't have the same preferences as you do", you state that I am therefore not a Sim player.

nor am I going to focus on the definition of the word "mechanics". I am going to assume, as you do, that "mechanics" here means some kind of formal, public procedure, such as dice-rolling or point-spending or drama negotiations between players.

what I am going to do instead is focus on what I see as the root problem of this disagreement, which is best illustrated in this quote:

Silmenume wrote:

Callan wrote: Say we were playing nar and the situation had been created that your murderous brother can be captured by you (but he'll be hung) or you can let him go (he'll murder more people).

What are situation creation mechanics in this instance? Mechanics which create that scene? Or mechanics which determine what happens next, based on the players choice?

“Mechanics which create that scene?” – absolutely.  I would call any mechanic which via some meta-game manner lead to that scene a “situation creation mechanic” and something that do not fit in with Sim.

“Or mechanics which determine what happens next, based on the players choice?” – Depends if such choices are acted out via the Player’s agency within the SIS or using some sort of inter SIS mechanics that is not “connected” with their Character’s action within the SIS.  The former is not a Situation creating “mechanic” while the latter certainly is,” and for that reason I would say it would be conflicting with the Sim CA action.

Hey everyone,

I’m going to append this mess with a preamble saying this will probably be the most incoherent reply ever written –

Hi Callan!

Callan wrote: Okay I think we should all slow down on the rules and procedures of play talk. For this thread, it's like talking about an address of premise that was made and then asking 'so what procedure or rule did you use when you made up that address'. That ISN'T how address of premise is made, M'kay? :) And nor is an address of causality!

Callan wrote: I get the impression that 'mechanic' is very important here, in that it describes how the world works. Normally if you were playing and used a resolution mechanic, that's okay because the Player initiated that as part of him saying what would happen.  The mechanics are encapsulated within the Players assertion of how the game world works, thus the Player is in charge/protagonised. However, scene creation mechanics put the cart before the horse, as the mechanics are in charge of whether the Players assertion of how the game world works, does come to pass.

Callan wrote: Basically you need rules that don't screw with Player address (which is exactly what the other two agendas need as well). Way off?

Callan wrote: The difference with the 36 dramatic Situations process is that no one has asserted how the game world works yet...so no one's assertion is being screwed with. It's much like proposing to start a brand new narrativist game and saying 'And each PC is a murderer'. No one minds this, because they have made no statements yet about the nature of their characters.

Mike wrote: So there are two topics for discussion here, and I'm not sure which Jay will want to see for the thread:
1. What the definition of mechanics should be.
2. Whether or not mechanics really are that different from less mechanical procedures as regards the context of the original objection. 
3. Both.

Mike wrote: Let's try to put this on an easier plane to discuss. Jay, would you say that the Player creating the world in any way, other than the impact of the actions he directs his character to take, damage the sim CA? Is that a true statement?

Mike wrote: If I, as a Player, am allowed to create a tower in the middle of a city, that's not simulationism? It has to be narrativism or gamism?

ewilen wrote: "Situation" in these games is not discrete but continuous, with any new Situation evolving out of the same mechanics used to explore and resolve the previous Situation. There's no hard and fast division between the opening and middlegame in chess, for example.

contracycle wrote:

contracycle wrote: Funny you should mention “structure.”  However, I do agree with you on the whole.  But my question is, if mechanics which are inherently restructured and by their very nature do not involve the Players, how can they keep track of what the Players have already done up to the moment and include such actions in the current output?

Through the agency of the GM, which in sim games is equipped with both universal knowledge of the characters and unlimited authority with which to define the world.  Thats why I specifically mentioned character-playing Players, do distinguish them from the GM.  The GM is not getting exactly the same exporative buzz as the character-Players are, and can therefore utilise techniques that would be jarring to those Players.  THe GM can decide that the next scene should be such-and-such Because It Would Be Interesting in a way the Players cannot, I think.

timfire wrote: Also, Jay, I believe focusing on "mechanics" alone (whatever that means) is a red herring. RPG's do not live on "mechanics" alone. You should be considering all procedures of play, both informal and formal. This was one of the points Vincent was trying to make. If you only focus on formal procedures, and ignore the informal ones, you will arrive at bad conclusions.

timfire wrote: Umm, I believe that for the most part, all roleplaying is "inside" Situation. I find it hard to imagine something that is "outside" Situation.

talysman wrote: nor am I going to focus on the definition of the word "mechanics". I am going to assume, as you do, that "mechanics" here means some kind of formal, public procedure, such as dice-rolling or point-spending or drama negotiations between Players.

talysman wrote: the difference is: in Sim, all metagame mechanics receive Player input based solely on the SiS and any genre expectations or existing world facts, while Gam and Nar metagame mechanics allow input based on relationships between the Players.

talysman wrote: you haven't addressed the examples of non-metagame Situation creation mechanics that I raised before. perhaps you missed them... if there is a mechanic that states "the GM will periodically roll for wandering monsters, on a table that appropriately represents the monster types that frequent the area; this roll occurs more often if the party is noisier or if the dungeon inhabitants are otherwise alerted" that is a Situation creation mechanic. it is pure Sim, it is not metagame, and it's been used for many years. if there is a spell backfire table that allows results like "a demon is accidentally summoned" or "all monsters within range become alerted to the caster's presence and become hostile", this is a Situation creation mechanic. heck, Alignment is a Situation creation mechanic, since it can affect whether an encounter will be innocuous Color or a hostile Situation.

talysman wrote: if there is a spell backfire table that allows results like "a demon is accidentally summoned" or "all monsters within range become alerted to the caster's presence and become hostile", this is a Situation creation mechanic.

talysman wrote: heck, Alignment is a Situation creation mechanic, since it can affect whether an encounter will be innocuous Color or a hostile Situation.

talysman wrote: all of these are examples of non-metagame Situation creating mechanics that have actually been used in D&D, GURPS, and The Fantasy Trip. early D&D could be played either Gamist or Sim, as could TFT, and GURPS is obviously intended to be strong SIM. there are similar mechanics in other games as well. there's really a very long tradition of Situation creation mechanics in Sim.

Jay,

I think it might be useful to get a clear definition of "situation" on the table.  From the glossary, situation is "Dynamic interaction between specific characters and small-scale setting elements...".  This is, I believe, perhaps a bit confusing in its presentation.  I take you as reading this as being "Situation is the interaction between a character (or set of characters) and the setting."  I, on the other hand, read this as saying "Situation is an interacting involving: a character and at least on other character, or at least one character and the setting."  This means that the fact that two characters are brothers is situation (assuming that it meets the "dynamic" criteria anyway), or the fact that one character murdered another's family, or whatever else.

Under my interpretation, situation is often generated during character generation, often using the very mechanics of character generation (Think about all those "Has an enemy/ally" traits, that sets up an interaction between characters right there).  These do not seem at all antithetical to Sim play, at least from where I sit.

In a slightly different direction, and I think this one is important, you say

To me having a Player create Setting during play is the equivalent to a person playing chess against himself.  I would say that it is leading towards incoherent play – that being towards Zilchplay.  I believe that just like Gam and Nar, that the product of play in Sim is born out of the process of addressing the problems posed and answered via the SIS.  If Sim is the dialectic between Setting and Character, as I am proposing, then having a Player on both sides of the dialectic waters down the process as well as product.  Again this is a dial setting locally set, but the more often the Player are mechanically creating Setting then the more watered down the Sim process becomes.

LordSmerf wrote:
This seems a bit narrow.  What if I'm the player creating the tower for the benefit of some other player?  What if I'm shouldering, in some sense, the duties of the GM.  I'm clearly not playing chess against myself, and I think the analogy is flawed.  This point doesn't seem to speak to your main point  (That a player can not create a satisfying situation if he is in control of all elements, either by controlling all the characters involved or by controlling the setting and character involved).  With all that in mind, do you see how it's unclear that allowing players to control the setting, at least in certain controlled instances, does not violate at all what you seem to be getting at?  Or have I missed something key somewhere in there?

This all flies in the face of every conclusion that this community has come up with previously.

1. Character means that somebody plays a character. Which can be anything remotely animate, and doesn't mean one-player to one-character relationship.
2. Stance and mode are not linked. One can play sim as well in director stance as play narrativism. You're calling it incoherent without explanation doesn't refute any of this.
3. By your definitions tons of functional coherent play is relegated to simply being zilchplay. Exploration of the elements, previously thought to be possible for any of the five elements in any mode (questions of common-ness aside), you're now saying can't happen in some cases. Exploration of mechanics can't be simulationism. Has to be zilchplay. In all cases. Or maybe gamism or narrativism. But not sim.

This simply seems to be a damaging redefinition of sim that puts a hole in the overal model by declaring whole types of play as zilchplay.

Mike

Jay, in light of what people have been saying in this thread, and in particular in relation to Mike's last post, can I ask: is there a particular reason why you are so insistent that Sim play can only be the subset of techniques you use in play? we aren't telling you your play isn't Sim play or that you have to play with different techniques, but you seem to object very strongly to allowing other Sim techniques to exist. why?

also, why have you redefined what "Situation Creation Mechanics" means, this late in the thread? I didn't see where Vincent or anyone else defined Situation Creation Mechanics to include forcing characters to have specific emotional or other responses to elements introduced during play. why have you added that to the definition?

Jay,

If you create a definition of Sim that requires the GM to have a different agenda (one that engineers things) than the players, then by the group level definition of Creative Agenda that play is Incoherent.  Meaning, defining Sim as such means coherent Sim play is only possible when everyone is sitting around staring at each other and no one is creating any new elements, and functional Sim play is Incoherent.  Just a little logical trap.

Color affects Situation in all play.  Many elements we might refer to as genre are classified as color.  Color is instrumental in determining character motivations and how players resolve Situation.  There is no Situation outside color in Nar and Gam either.  It affects all aspects of play, even System.  The divisions of Exploration are purely artificial.  The categories don't actually exist in the sense of having boundaries.

I get the impression, as I often do, you are seeing Nar and Gam play as having discrete little chunks - Premise over here, Step on Up over there, Situation by the table, Character in the cookie jar...  Then Sim as being more fluid, with play just naturally flowing out of Character and Situation.  I don't know.  Maybe that's not how you see it, but if it is, it's just not true of Nar or Gam.  In fact, Sim has traditionally been regarded as the agenda more amenable to force and manufactured situation.  You may not regard Sim as such, but that’s okay.  It doesn't matter.  The point is that Nar nor Gam are very compatible with force.

I'm also not getting why this style of play you're talking about has to be called Sim.  Can it be called something else?  I'd just as soon the discovery definition of Sim not be called Sim either.  It's just confounding.  This often leads to "Sim is this.  No it can't be Sim is that" dialogues and no one is even talking about the same thing even though they are all using the same word.   Like saying I have to take my grandma into the shop. What the hell am I talking about?  A car, a piano, the doctor, what?  Even with a different name I would still point and yell "Techniques!", but then I'd at least know if we were talking about causality, bricolage or chicken soup.

Anyway, I think I'm straying away from topic.

Jason wrote:
I'm also not getting why this style of play you're talking about has to be called Sim.  Can it be called something else?  I'd just as soon the discovery definition of Sim not be called Sim either. 

I think your definition may be good Marco, but as for the term, are you using John Kim's definition? Or is that definition local to this discussion?

Mike

Mike wrote:
I think your definition may be good Marco, but as for the term, are you using John Kim's definition? Or is that definition local to this discussion?

Mike

Hi Thomas!

LordSmerf wrote: I think it might be useful to get a clear definition of "situation" on the table.

LordSmerf wrote:

To me having a Player create Setting during play is the equivalent to a person playing chess against himself.  I would say that it is leading towards incoherent play – that being towards Zilchplay.  I believe that just like Gam and Nar, that the product of play in Sim is born out of the process of addressing the problems posed and answered via the SIS.  If Sim is the dialectic between Setting and Character, as I am proposing, then having a Player on both sides of the dialectic waters down the process as well as product.  Again this is a dial setting locally set, but the more often the Player are mechanically creating Setting then the more watered down the Sim process becomes.

This seems a bit narrow.  What if I'm the player creating the tower for the benefit of some other player?  What if I'm shouldering, in some sense, the duties of the GM.  I'm clearly not playing chess against myself, and I think the analogy is flawed.  I'm clearly not playing chess against myself, and I think the analogy is flawed.

contracycle wrote: I think you are right on the money with this.  As you say, in certain controlled instances, the player can exercise quite a lot of control over situation, albeit primarily through the agency of the character in sim games.

contracycle wrote: Certainly, in my high school AD&D games, there was a lot of designing of castles and so forth with the rules that were found in the DMG.  Now some may point out, this is not strictly situation per se…

but lets imagine then that the GM takes advantage of the players development of a castle or similar and then gives them in-game problems to do with bringing this about, then the overall situation established by the players choices and actions becomes the venue for the GM's intervention and plot.

Another potential case, I think, may be if you wish to use the mechanics to portray social mores for sim purposes.  Perhaps you are playing a character from a society that practices a blood feud, and some relative of your PC has been bumped off.  Now falls to you the duty to avenge their death.  But, being as we are twentieth century  people and creatures of our time, this social imperative is unlikely to be as pressing to the players as it should be to the characters.  So perhaps we might then formalise, through system, a rule that in such circumstances a scene that resolves this blood-feud MUST be conducted.  We can do that without necessarily dictating that the character must seek actual bloody vengeance; but as long as the issue is not shuffled off the board, but is instead addressed in actual play, then the Sim ambition of exploring other realities has been reinforced.

Mike wrote: This all flies in the face of every conclusion that this community has come up with previously.

Mike wrote: 1. Character means that somebody plays a character. Which can be anything remotely animate, and doesn't mean one-player to one-character relationship.
2. Stance and mode are not linked. One can play sim as well in director stance as play narrativism. You're calling it incoherent without explanation doesn't refute any of this.
3. By your definitions tons of functional coherent play is relegated to simply being zilchplay. Exploration of the elements, previously thought to be possible for any of the five elements in any mode (questions of common-ness aside), you're now saying can't happen in some cases. Exploration of mechanics can't be simulationism. Has to be zilchplay. In all cases. Or maybe gamism or narrativism. But not sim.

Ron wrote: That throws a lot of observed play into non-GNS land: Incoherence at best, Zilchplay as well (and for the life of me I don't know why I resisted the concept of Zilchplay for so long when it's patently obviously common). A lot of what I might have tagged as Sim play four years ago, I would now call Incoherent, Ouija Boarding, Zilchplay, or Bitterest Gamer.

So yeah, I wouldn't doubt that a lot of people don't "find" Sim. Its functional manifestations are probably quite rare.

Mike wrote: This simply seems to be a damaging redefinition of sim that puts a hole in the overal model by declaring whole types of play as zilchplay.

Hi John,

talysman wrote: Jay, in light of what people have been saying in this thread, and in particular in relation to Mike's last post, can I ask: is there a particular reason why you are so insistent that Sim play can only be the subset of techniques you use in play? we aren't telling you your play isn't Sim play or that you have to play with different techniques, but you seem to object very strongly to allowing other Sim techniques to exist. why?

talysman wrote: also, why have you redefined what "Situation Creation Mechanics" means, this late in the thread? I didn't see where Vincent or anyone else defined Situation Creation Mechanics to include forcing characters to have specific emotional or other responses to elements introduced during play. why have you added that to the definition?

Jason wrote: If you create a definition of Sim that requires the GM to have a different agenda (one that engineers things) than the players, then by the group level definition of Creative Agenda that play is Incoherent.  Meaning, defining Sim as such means coherent Sim play is only possible when everyone is sitting around staring at each other and no one is creating any new elements, and functional Sim play is Incoherent.  Just a little logical trap.

clehrich wrote: There are always, somewhere deeply embedded in the vast nightmarish mess of little fiddly bits of a game as it gets actually played by actual people right here and now, a great many possible ways to chewing-gum-and-twine any disagreement whatever without referring upward in the hierarchy.  Many of the GM techniques discussed here over the years clearly demonstrate this.  The GM, in such a formulation, is emphatically not merely an arbiter, the mechanics guy who decides the implications of a higher-level set of concerns to the lower-level specifics of the moment.  Rather, the GM becomes a facilitator of ongoing bricolage.  His job, and it is a difficult one, make no mistake, becomes rather to see in every disagreement the possibility of a choice: to refer up, or to tweak across.

Red highlight added

Jason wrote: Color affects Situation in all play.  Many elements we might refer to as genre are classified as color.  Color is instrumental in determining character motivations and how players resolve Situation.  There is no Situation outside color in Nar and Gam either.  It affects all aspects of play, even System.

Color

Imagined details about any or all of System, Character, Setting, or Situation, added in such a way that does not change aspects of action or resolution in the imagined scene.

Jason wrote: The divisions of Exploration are purely artificial.  The categories don't actually exist in the sense of having boundaries.

Jason wrote: I get the impression, as I often do, you are seeing Nar and Gam play as having discrete little chunks - Premise over here, Step on Up over there, Situation by the table, Character in the cookie jar...  Then Sim as being more fluid, with play just naturally flowing out of Character and Situation.

Jason wrote: In fact, Sim has traditionally been regarded as the agenda more amenable to force and manufactured situation.

Jason wrote: The point is that Nar nor Gam are very compatible with force.

Jason wrote: I'm also not getting why this style of play you're talking about has to be called Sim.  Can it be called something else?

Marco wrote: I think a closer term is what, here, was called here Virtuality--the players completely immerse in an highly-internal-cause-based imaginary reality (although Jay leaves the door open for a lot more GM manipulation towards the dramatic than Virtuality did, IIRC).

Just to be clear, I’m not saying that there can’t be such “social rules,” I’m just saying to be “Sim” they need to be “socially enforced” within the SIS – not by a mechanic that lies outside the SIS.

Given your example of the “blood-feud” issue, I have faced that very problem in the game I play in.  I HAD to deal with that problem, but the manner in which it was “enforced” was via the consequences within the SIS.  If I did not pursue my filial responsibilities I would have faced all sorts of negative consequences that went any where from tribal expulsion, humiliation of my family, to the loss of my status as a man and a warrior in my tribe, to constant and relentless hazing from other member within my clan to loss of status in the tribe as a whole to the possibility that since I wasn’t willing to avenge my family that my whole family might be killed along the reasoning that if I didn’t value my family enough to avenge its loss – then no one else ought to value it either.  Such situations are just bursting at the seams with possibilities!  This is where things really start to get juicy – and this is exactly where one’s skills as a bricoleur really come forward.

To go to a “mechanic” to resolve or enforce this type of issue is to gut the game just as its starting to get hopping.  Using a mechanic to enforce a behavior at this moment seems to me to be the equivalent of rule forcing a chess player to “play” right in the middle of a game.  It’s exactly here that things are just getting at their juiciest best!

Note: crossposted.

\

Silmenume wrote:

Mike wrote: This all flies in the face of every conclusion that this community has come up with previously.

No.  Every conclusion this community includes myself and I have not concluded one and the same with every conclusion “this” community has come to. 

Sim has not come an effective or useful “conclusion.”

I don’t know how you fail to recall that I have agreed, many times in the past, that Character can mean anything remotely animate.  I have NO issue with that.  How many times do I need to defend myself on this issue?

Nor am I particularly sure what you mean by the notion of Character doesn’t mean one-player to one-character relationship?  I can fully understand how that works out when addressing Premise.  I can even understand how that can work when addressing Challenge if one considers “the Party” as a single functional “entity.”  Everyone at that point can be discussing the various means their various Characters can work together to address Challenge X.  Both of those modes of play have been “proved” as functional as a result of examining what the driving aesthetic interest is and demonstrating how such player-Character relationships can be altered without causing difficulty to the addressing process.  In fact through some particularly insight designs games have been produced where “many address one” has been proven to be highly functional.  Sim is not a focused addressing process.  In fact I think Sim process is exactly the reverse of G/N – which is one of the reasons why Sim has proven so stubborn to classification.  I think Sim is “one faces many (at the same time).”  And right now there is absolutely no reason in the Model to say why this cannot be.  None.

 I think this is a worthy direction of investigation and simple gainsaying isn’t going to prove me wrong

- it’s only going to slow down the investigation process to see whether my thesis has any merits.

Hell, the only stance I can legitimately be accused of actively referring to is an argument against director stance in Sim.

2b.  “One can play sim as well in director stance as play narrativism. You're calling it incoherent without explanation doesn't refute any of this.”  What do you mean I haven’t explained why this is incoherent?  I have argued and argued and argued that the Sim process of play is bricolage – which I have then argued puts the Player in the position of having to use ONLY what already exists as part of that aesthetic.

I HAVE explained why I think the “definition” of Sim is incoherent – or at least have made numerous efforts to do so.  I must say it is rather difficult to “refute” the current “definition” of Sim simply because there is no “encompassing” process definition of Sim to refute.

“By your definitions tons of functional coherent play is relegated to simply being zilchplay.”  I think this statement is also specious.  First is that many descriptions of Sim play are frequently lumped into the category of “30 minutes of fun crammed into 5 hours of playing.”  Second there is the idea that has been floated a number of times that functional Sim game are rare.

Ron wrote: That throws a lot of observed play into non-GNS land: Incoherence at best, Zilchplay as well (and for the life of me I don't know why I resisted the concept of Zilchplay for so long when it's patently obviously common). A lot of what I might have tagged as Sim play four years ago, I would now call Incoherent, Ouija Boarding, Zilchplay, or Bitterest Gamer.

So yeah, I wouldn't doubt that a lot of people don't "find" Sim. Its functional manifestations are probably quite rare.

3b.  “Exploration of the elements, previously thought to be possible for any of the five elements in any mode (questions of common-ness aside), you're now saying can't happen in some cases. Exploration of mechanics can't be simulationism. Has to be zilchplay. In all cases. Or maybe gamism or narrativism. But not sim.”

For the most part that is correct.  Oh it can happen, but it’s not an expression of CA.  Given that Exploration is defined as the “sharing imaginings” using a specific set of tools (the elements of Exploration) then Exploring the Elements of Exploration is a nonsensical statement.  

Exploration of mechanics can’t be Sim.  Absolutely.  It is Zilchplay if it is the mindful subject of the Exploration process.  In all cases.  Certainly neither Gamism nor Narrativism can “Explore mechanics,” simply because they are clearly defined as the mindful process of addressing Challenge or Premise.  I mean, what “imaginings” could be “shared” about mechanics (a credibility distribution system) via a Player’s Character actions within the SIS as he dealt with some conflict?  Is that even possible?

Also I don’t think, given the recent quote above, that Ron has too many troubles with the idea that a lot of play is indeed in non-GNS land.  I fully agree with his assessment.

I guess your right; such a formulation would “damaging” to the current definition of Sim.  But then that’s like saying chemotherapy is damaging to cancer cells or liposuction is damaging to fat cells.

Yes, to that which is chaff, it would remove it from GNS land as per the definition of the Model.  

Drilling down here.  The other stuff I either don't disagree with or looks like a sentence structure miscommunication (the force thing).

Silmenume wrote: In Nar and Gam color is specifically something that does not have an effect on Situation –

Color

Imagined details about any or all of System, Character, Setting, or Situation, added in such a way that does not change aspects of action or resolution in the imagined scene.

Color can amplify and enhance the game experience as a whole, but it is by definition inert with regards to Situation.

Jason wrote: The divisions of Exploration are purely artificial.  The categories don't actually exist in the sense of having boundaries.

What’s ironic here is that to the bricoleur you a correct.  Everything is open to use and change and makes no distinctions about what is open to use – via the bricolage process.  However, theoretically I think you are in error.  System cannot be mistaken for a Setting element right?  My Character cannot interact with a System element can he?  Nor is my roll of a die to distribute credibility among the Players with regards to a damage amount to be confused with Color, is it?  You’re right in that during role-play itself the totality of all the Elements of Exploration is certainly greater than the sum of the individual parts, if that is what you are getting at.

Jason wrote: I get the impression, as I often do, you are seeing Nar and Gam play as having discrete little chunks - Premise over here, Step on Up over there, Situation by the table, Character in the cookie jar...  Then Sim as being more fluid, with play just naturally flowing out of Character and Situation.

I think as long as the Players are facing relevant conflicts they are always Stepping on Up or getting Story Now.  But in the Gamism essay Ron makes many references to “Go Lengths” and in the Narrativism essay he frequently talks about rising tensions, ticking time bombs and climaxes – all things that suggest a certain quantization.  This is not to imply that Step on Up or Story Now happen at discrete moments during play, far from it.  What it means is that these modes of play do have certain inherent boundaries/delimitations that do have significance on the overall play process.  All I’ve been saying is that Sim does not have these inherent delimiters.

Sil wrote:

Just to be clear, I’m not saying that there can’t be such “social rules,” I’m just saying to be “Sim” they need to be “socially enforced” within the SIS – not by a mechanic that lies outside the SIS.  Given your example of the “blood-feud” issue, I have faced that very problem in the game I play in.  I HAD to deal with that problem, but the manner in which it was “enforced” was via the consequences within the SIS.  If I did not pursue my filial responsibilities I would have faced all sorts of negative consequences that went any where from tribal expulsion, humiliation of my family, to the loss of my status as a man and a warrior in my tribe, to constant and relentless hazing from other member within my clan to loss of status in the tribe as a whole to the possibility that since I wasn’t willing to avenge my family that my whole family might be killed along the reasoning that if I didn’t value my family enough to avenge its loss – then no one else ought to value it either.  Such situations are just bursting at the seams with possibilities!  This is where things really start to get juicy – and this is exactly where one’s skills as a bricoleur really come forward.  To go to a “mechanic” to resolve or enforce this type of issue is to gut the game just as its starting to get hopping.  Using a mechanic to enforce a behavior at this moment seems to me to be the equivalent of rule forcing a chess player to “play” right in the middle of a game.  It’s exactly here that things are just getting at their juiciest best!

Let me take a step back in this.

Jay, you seem to be under the impression that several of us (Mike and me, at least) are not listening to you, or at least are not giving due consideration to the possibility that your definition of Simulationism as Bricolage is the correct piece that makes sense of the entire agendum.

You are only partly right. It is not that we are refusing to listen to your revised definition of simulationism. It is that we listened to it, gave it serious consideration, turned it over with what we knew of simulationism, and rejected it as not matching the data we knew.

Mike and I are among a handful of people here who claim (and are recognized as claiming correctly) that we have played in simulationist games and enjoyed them. Thus some credit must be given to our assertions that your definition does not match our experience.

It certainly is not fair, however, for me merely to say that your proposed definition does not fit my experience (even if Mike and others who claim to have enjoyed simulationist play are saying the same thing) without giving more of an answer. I object on two fronts.

The first is that I have seen a great deal of quite enjoyable simulationism in which no one is trying to add anything or build anything from the elements provided. It is entirely about trying to experience what is known. What is it like to live in Arthurian England? Pendragon attempts to provide that experience, and no one who plays that game is trying to make Arthurian England anything other than what the book describes. Many, many people play simulationist games with the objective of experiencing a different world, or being a different person. Much genre-emulative play is geared to giving the players the experience of being there, whether it is noir or space opera or fantasy. Perhaps my understanding of "bricolage" is flawed, but I don't see how it relates to this kind of play, which is a valid and (for those who enjoy it) fun kind of play which has a clear agendum which has always to this point been identified with simulationism. If I were to accept your "bricolage" definition, I would have to discard this (and several other forms of play, such as Ralph's exploration of system by testing what actually happens given the mechanics rules) and begin the search for a new agendum which fits what it is these players--including I--are seeking.

More fundamentally, though, I cannot escape the impression, despite your protestations, that bricolage is a technique. Agenda are what it is you want to get; techniques are how you get it. In Narrativism, the agendum is to get ongoing story with dramatic tension and meaning. The use of techniques such as scene framing, director stance, premise questions, and other narrativist-facilitating mechanics are ways we can get that, but they are not exclusive ways. In Gamism the agendum is to show off, and the techniques involved in gamble and crunch are merely ways to provide the situations in which we show off. I am not going to attempt to give one simple phrase to define the simulationist agendum, since that is in part what is at issue. However, the problem with bricolage is that as it has been presented it is not the desired end but the means to the end; it is a process by which play is conducted; it is, in a word, a technique--what you do to get whatever it is you want.

Mike and I know what that "thing" is that we want. Ron calls it "The Dream". I call it "Discovery". In general, we agree that it is characterized by play that seeks to create a context and then experience it--but that the objective is not the creation of the context but the experience that comes from it. Bricolage is all about the process; agendum is about the desired outcome.

Thus experientially I find that there is simulationist play that is quite satisfying that involves nothing at all that fits what I understand to be your definition of "bricolage", while at the same time theoretically my examination of the process of bricolage suggests that it is a technique, not an agendum, a means and not an end, and so excluded from any definition of agenda, since it is established that agenda are independent of method.

I'm certainly willing to once more read through any explanation of Bricolage you would care to compose (although if you quote one from elsewhere I will probably only skim it, as I've read them all before). However, I can see only two possible outcomes. Either you will define bricolage in a way that completely removes the process elements from it and thus makes it nothing more than "experiencing what we have created"--not at all different from any other definition of what simulationism seeks--or you will repeat your assertions that the process is the objective, a position we have already considered and rejected and would rather not waste time considering yet again.

I hope this clarifies the situation. I certainly am not saying that bricolage is not simulationist; think it most certainly is consistent with simulationism (but not excluded as a technique from other agenda). I am saying that simulationism is not bricolage, because there is much that is good and valid simulationist play that does not at all mesh with what I hear you describing.

--M. J. Young

Hi Thomas,

LordSmerf wrote: Jay, I think this is where most of the confusion is coming from.  What you keep seeming to say is that "each Player (including the GM) has absolute control over their pieces of play, and that when it really comes down to it the fun is reached through some means other than mechanics."  But "Each Player has absolute control over their pieces of play" is a mechanic.  We tend to call it "fiat" or something like that, but it turns out that it really is a formalized way of interacting with the game in the exact same way that Universalis' "You have (almost) absolute control of the components that you pay to have control of." is a mechanic.

Mechanics

Individual and specific features of System; Mechanics in text form are "rules."

System

The means by which imaginary events are established during play, including Character creation, resolution of imaginary events, reward procedures, and more. It may be considered to introduce fictional time into the Shared Imagined Space. See also the Lumpley Principle.

Techniques

Specific procedures of play which, when employed together, are sufficient to introduce fictional Characters, places, or events into the Shared Imagined Space. Many different Techniques may be used, in different games, to establish the same sorts of events. A given Technique is composed of a group of Ephemera which are employed together. Taken in their entirety for a given instance of role-playing, Techniques comprise System.

Mike wrote: …It's just a disagreement on what a useful meaning for the term is. There was a whole long thread that considered terms like Mechanics, Rules, Text, Procedures, etc. I think this thread is moving to the other topic, so if anyone wants to discuss that definition, I think a new thread is in order.

Lumpley Principle, the

"System (including but not limited to 'the rules') is defined as the means by which the group agrees to imagined events during play." The author of the principle is Vincent Baker, see Vincent's standard rant: power, credibility, and assent and Player power abuse.

What you keep seeming to say is that "each Player (including the GM) has absolute control over their pieces of play, and that when it really comes down to it the fun is reached through some means other than mechanics."  But "Each Player has absolute control over their pieces of play" is a mechanic.

You keep saying "You can't have mechanics interfering", and then seem to turn around and say "Unless it is this specific set of mechanics."  Now, you're a smart guy, and I think you've got some good ideas, but you're presenting this one in a terribly confusing manner.  You say on the one hand that there should be no mechanics intervening in these circumstances, but then you present an actual play incident in which the situation is constructed out of a set of mechanics (namely fiat*).

While you say "There are no situation creation mechanics in Sim" you also seem to be saying "The GM creates situation" which seems to be a mechanic…

This is where all the confusion is for me, it sounds like you're saying that it's only Sim (or perhaps Sim is always best realized) if it uses this narrow set of mechanics for situation creation, and that strikes me as simply untrue...

Hey Mike,

Mike wrote:

Sim has not come an effective or useful “conclusion.”

That's your opinion. It works as defined just fine in my estimation, and have provided arguments as to why.

Mike wrote:

Sim has not come an effective or useful “conclusion.”

That's your opinion. It works as defined just fine in my estimation, and have provided arguments as to why.

But we've argued a lot about this, and came to the conclusion that Character doesn't have to mean one-to-many. Could you either refute our arguments or provide one of your own? Why must this be so?

The GNS model has a certain predictive value that's valuable, and part of that is based on the modes in question following Ron's description of them as decscribing all of RPG play in three broad categories. Your definition takes a portion of functional play and says that it has no mode. Wrecking the functionality of the model. Your have not said why this is either not so, or why the replacement is superior enough to ignore this. The only answer we get is that it makes more sense to you without argument.

If we can't get past the defintion of sim, then all of the questions of how things like Character relate to it are going to be meaningless. That is, we're going to disagree perforce until there's agreement on the original problem. To say that we're not making arguments against your position is to willfully ignore the arguments made.

- it’s only going to slow down the investigation process to see whether my thesis has any merits.

I see, we should merely accept what you say because you say it. To do otherwise is obstructionist. I see.

And have provided arguments that say why we disagree. To say otherwise is insulting.

As I've said, prove that sim is bricloage.

You've refuted the essay on sim? There is, in fact, a definition of simulationism that's widely agreed to and functional.

Ah, but we're just deluding ourselves. I see.

“By your definitions tons of functional coherent play is relegated to simply being zilchplay.”  I think this statement is also specious.  First is that many descriptions of Sim play are frequently lumped into the category of “30 minutes of fun crammed into 5 hours of playing.”  Second there is the idea that has been floated a number of times that functional Sim game are rare.

Not by anyone that I credit. This does happen. And it's a sign of the narrativism bias that this site has. The people who say this stuff are demonstrably wrong.

All you're doing here is proving that you have an axe to grind. "I play sim, people are saying sim is bad, therefore they must not be defining it right." Attack the notion that sim isn't fun. Not that the definition is wrong.

By the way, your definition of sim sounds like 5 minutes of fun crammed into 5 hours of play to me (whereas the other sim stuff that you leave out from your definition is fun when I play it). That's just my preference, however. Doesn't mean that it's not fun for others.

"A lot" is not the same as "All Sim" and these forms of play are not what I'm talking about in my definition.

Are you going to say that nobody who ever persued a sim agenda ever failed to do it well?

CA isn't only about the imaginings, but all of play.

”From the Provisional Glossary” wrote: Creative Agenda (CA)

The aesthetic priorities and any matters of imaginative interest regarding role-playing. ... Creative Agenda is expressed using all Components of Exploration, but most especially System.

That is, in determining incoherence it's not merely what's produced in the SIS that's important, but how it's produced. Expoloration of system, as opposed to, say, exploration of color where you wouldn't use system mechanics, is one way to do this.

I think it may be pricisely in focusing only on the SIS as the only determiner of Creative Agenda where you go wrong.

I'm talking about fun, functional play. Which must have a CA by definition.

You simply won't address that I have not only been a part of, but seen tons of examples of this sort of play that were fun. If they weren't sim, what were they? If "zilchplay != fun" then they couldn't be zilchplay.

Or am I lying to you?

Do you even read what you're writing?

Well, if you think we're beyond redemption, then write this as a manifesto and revolt

Of course, then you'll claim that the following is institutional...odd, though, that "Indie-rpgs" would be seen as "institutional." When we throw each other into the fire on each alternate Thursday. But if that's your POV...

As I have as well.  The most damming is that the current definition of Sim does not describe a process of play nor a define the product of play.  This condition fails the Model which is process driven.  I propose that Sim is Bricolage which is a process that creates a product and solves two major problems that currently plague the given understanding of Sim - 1.  No definition of process.  2.  No definition Product.  Now I may be wrong with bricolage, but it does more than what is currently offered with regards to satisfying the Model.

Hi Jason!

Jason wrote: …When System sets the feel (like swashbuckling versus gritty action) it defines Color, it sets the effectiveness of characters and makes actual statements about who those characters are, it defines the physics of the world and hence Setting, and so forth.

…

However, as we are working within the context of the Big Model, I can't reject it.  He's the rub though, you can't then reject it either when describing Sim….

Jason wrote: I think this is a good place for me to agree to disagree…

Would it make sense that if I see the same lack of delimiters in all play that I would be of the opinion that you're not getting Nar and Gam if you feel that that fluidity is a distinction between them and your play?

When I watch a movie, like Braveheart (because it's been on my mind for some reason), I don't see the theme as separate from the character motivations, or that the characters are defined independent of the setting, or that the moral of the story is driving the situations.  I don't see those nice little chunks in my play either.

Hi Thomas,

LordSmerf wrote: I realize that this wasn't in response to me at all, but I do want to address it: It is not at all clear to me what the prodcut of bricolage is.  So while you may have a process you don't really have a product here…

LordSmerf wrote: On the other hand, it's not clear to me what the "process" of Nar and Gam play are.  Saying that the process is "Addressing Premise/Challenge" isn't going to cut it either.  That tells me precisely zip about the process involved, or at least it tells me nothing more about what's going on than saying that the "Product of play is X".

"Narrativism wrote: Story Now requires that at least one engaging issue or problematic feature of human existence be addressed in the process of role-playing. "Address" means:

• Establishing the issue's Explorative expressions in the game-world, "fixing" them into imaginary place.
• Developing the issue as a source of continued conflict, perhaps changing any number of things about it, such as which side is being taken by a given character, or providing more depth to why the antagonistic side of the issue exists at all.
• Resolving the issue through the decisions of the players of the protagonists, as well as various features and constraints of the circumstances.

…

How is this done, actually, in play? It relies on the concept of something called Premise and its relationship to an emergent theme.

I already snuck Premise past you: it's that "problematic issue" I mentioned…

…But Narrativist role-playing is defined by the people involved placing their direct creative attention toward Premise and toward birthing its child, theme.

Red highlighting added.

LordSmerf wrote: So it strikes me that your "solution" doesn't actually solve the problem.  This is especially true as the generally accepted "product" of Sim play is the nebulous "Dream"

LordSmerf wrote: I think you would serve your position by laying out precisely what you think the product of bricolage is without referring to the process (saying "the product of bricolage is the thing that bricolage produces" is about as helpful as saying "the process of creating Premise is the process that creates Premise").

LordSmerf wrote: Alternatively, explaining what you understand as the process(es) behind Nar and Gam play so that we can compare those processes with bricolage might be valuable.

Hi contracycle,

contracycle wrote: You see, you say here that these issues were dealt with within the SIS.  Well, I'm sick to death of doing that.  The problem is then that I-the-GM have to do even more thinking for the player, second guessing for example, how much they even know about the blood feud principle. 

Previously, you suggested that players engaged with a particular topic can be taken to know something about it, but why should this be?  Surely, people primarily try to explore things they do not already know - or they explore things they do already know in search of unexpected and unpredictable emergent phenomenon.  So not only do I think it is unsafe to assume the players are well equipped regarding the topic of exploration, but worse, its probable they will be badly equipped.

contracycle wrote: For this reason I think having a systematic intervention can work as a representation of social expectations and mores.  Lets say my player balks at the taking of revenge and says seomthing like "violence doesn't solve anything".  My problem then is this: that sounds like such an ahistorical position to take, what does it mean?  doe it mean the player is knowingly violating the social mores to see what happens?  Or does it mean the player simply doesn't understand those mores?  I can;t tell, and so its difficult to judge how to procede.  But if this expeation were mechanically articulated, that confusion would evaporate - the players statement will HAVE to have been informed that a certain course of action is demanded by the setting.

contracycle wrote: Thats the kind of explicatory role I could see such mechanics serving, and I would suggest they would arguably be more valuable in sim than for any other agenda, as it is the agenda in which people are most likely going to be exposing themselves to unusual inputs, I would think.

I've gone off list to discuss with Jay. In case anyone wonders why I've failed to respond here. I think I'm pretty much done here.

Mike

To be an effective bricoleur said individual should have a decent working knowledge of the objects he’s likely to be employing.

Social structure is one of those categories of objects that the player will be faced with.  Such knowledge certainly does not need to be complete by any means, but to play without a basic understanding of the more salient social structures does severely restrict the options available to the Player when faced with a problem.  How does one justify a barbarian, FREX, not being familiar with the customs and mores of his own culture?

I know that probably sounded odd, but I included it as an example of the ideas I am trying to communicate.  You may disagree, and that’s totally fine, but I am trying very hard to give you and all some insight to what is going on in my mind.  See, I think that the heart of Sim lies in the source material, not in the mechanics.  IOW I think, and I may be completely wrong, that most people (not all) who want to play “Sim” do so because they were inspired by the desire to continue the experience of some setting they had seen/watched previously.

In your example, I don’t think as a GM you have to second-guess what the Player does nor does not know.  Just have the NPC’s react as they would given their culture and leave it up to the Player to try and muddle his way through – thus learning about the fictional culture (Setting) in the process of play.  This can be very interesting play as well.

That problem is easily solvable by having a village elder or a sibling or a parent or a spouse or a friend approach and lay out the parameters.

As I understand Sim, action is always demanded by Setting.  IOW that is a basic tenet of the Creative Agenda.  The challenge to the Player, where he is tested, is in the determination of just what his response will be.  This is partly why I don’t think that “Situation Creation” mechanics are necessary.  Situation will arise naturally enough if the GM throws socially based problems at the Players feet, which are grounded in the local conditions.

  The Dream, in order to expand and grow, requires the Players to bump into such problems and their efforts to deal with them based upon their Character’s own current conditions and cultural norms contribute to this very growth.  This growth cannot happen if a mechanic “resolves” the issue in lieu of the Player’s own creative input.

However a Player who has made the effort to read the source materials should have a knowledge of such cultural concerns.  It’s amazing how creative Players get when death is hanging on the line.  Such matters as cultural norms I do not consider rules/mechanics but Setting material.  And what’s particularly intriguing is that these cultural norms are plastic and can change over time under the right conditions – which is another reason why I think that ossifying them into actual “rules/mechanics” prevents this very evolution from happening.  IOW it is likely to interfere with the evolutionary effect of the bricolage process.

I fully agree that such knowledge is most critical to Sim play, but not in the form of mechanics, but in the form of background material.  That very material which is being celebrated – or conversely such knowledge can be learned through actual play once again obviating “the need” for such a mechanical enforcement.

Hi M.J.,

Thanks for your patience and thoughtful input.

M. wrote: Jay, you seem to be under the impression that several of us (Mike and me, at least) are not listening to you, or at least are not giving due consideration to the possibility that your definition of Simulationism as Bricolage is the correct piece that makes sense of the entire agendum.

You are only partly right. It is not that we are refusing to listen to your revised definition of simulationism. It is that we listened to it, gave it serious consideration, turned it over with what we knew of simulationism, and rejected it as not matching the data we knew.

M. wrote: Mike and I are among a handful of people here who claim (and are recognized as claiming correctly) that we have played in simulationist games and enjoyed them. Thus some credit must be given to our assertions that your definition does not match our experience.

M. wrote: The first is that I have seen a great deal of quite enjoyable simulationism in which no one is trying to add anything or build anything from the elements provided.

M. wrote: If I were to accept your "bricolage" definition, I would have to discard this (and several other forms of play, such as Ralph's exploration of system by testing what actually happens given the mechanics rules) and begin the search for a new agendum which fits what it is these players--including I--are seeking.

M. wrote: More fundamentally, though, I cannot escape the impression, despite your protestations, that bricolage is a technique. Agenda are what it is you want to get; techniques are how you get it.

…

However, the problem with bricolage is that as it has been presented it is not the desired end but the means to the end; it is a process by which play is conducted; it is, in a word, a technique--what you do to get whatever it is you want.

M. wrote: Bricolage is all about the process; agendum is about the desired outcome.

clehrich wrote: Essentially a structure is two things.  First of all, it is a pre-made machine, already pretty well tuned and running just fine.  We can slap it into any machine we want to build and know it will run in particular ways.  Second, it is the abstract formulation entailed by the machine.  This is the hard part.

…

So in addition to structure being a quality of the machine, it’s also an aesthetic constraint on what the machine ought to look like.  This has many, many layers—which we can roughly break down into those functions (practical, psychological, social) and some intellectual and aesthetic ideals of how we like things to be.

Red highlighting added.

M. wrote: I hope this clarifies the situation. I certainly am not saying that bricolage is not simulationist; think it most certainly is consistent with simulationism (but not excluded as a technique from other agenda). I am saying that simulationism is not bricolage, because there is much that is good and valid simulationist play that does not at all mesh with what I hear you describing.

Jay, let me posit you the following, I'll start with some establishing background:

We have the big model.  It has many layers.  The all encompassing social layer where werein lies the groundwork for how human beings are expected to interact with each other on a personal level at the table.  Creative Agenda which encompasses our underlying expectations of why we're playing in very broad terms.  Techniques which are the specific methods, conventions, and ways of applying (or choosing not to apply) mechanics and rules.  And finally ephemera which is the basic unit of action at the table such as speaking words or rolling dice or crossing off boxes.

Each of these layers are a collection of possibilities.  Each possibility in a layer can encompass a variety of different sub sets in the layer below.  "Make a skill check to determine if the character succeeds at a specified task" is a technique.  There are a lot of ways to accomplish that technique in a game.  Which dice to roll, what number to roll against, and whether high numbers are good or bad are all ephemera.  There is a virtually unlimited number of combinations of different ephemera that can produce that desired technique.  "Acting in character" is  technique.  Speaking in first person, affecting a specific accent, speach pattern, or mannerism while "in character", using props, getting up and moving around are all ephemera that can be combined to accomplish that technique.

Why one is using that technique instead of another, what purpose that technique is serving for play, how and when the technique is applied and what players are hoping that application will accomplish is all informed by the Creative Agenda.  Just as any given technique can have many different flavors depending on what combination of Ephemera are being used, so can any given Creative Agenda have many different flavors depending on what combination of Techniques are being used.

Techniques are an important layer of the big model, because it is the layer that is most easily seen and the layer that we most directly and obviously experience.  Ask any typical gamer how they like to play and what you'll get as an answer is a laundry list of their favorite techniques and assorted ephemera.  The danger here is to mistake the parts that are easy to identify (the obvious and readily visible techniques) for the underlying Creative Agenda. 

So enough background, I'll now get to my point.

I don't agree with MJ that Bricolage is a Technique.  As you rightly point out there's alot more going on in there then just a Technique.  Theres a certain approach to what's important, there's a certain shared aesthetic.  Bricolage, as you've described it is a far more complex thing than just a Technique.

But its also not a Creative Agenda.  As one example of why its not consider the following: You go to great lengths to describe as part of the process of Bricolage that its important that the players ability to have an effect on the game world be limited to the sort of inputs their character would have. Great, that's important to know.  But that's a Technique...its a Technique we already have a name for and have been discussing for some time called Actor Stance.  This particular Technique is essential to the proper functioning of Bricolage and that alone disqualifies Bricolage from being a Creative Agenda.  If Bricolage were truly a Creative Agenda I should be able to Bricol away with any combination of Actor, Director, or Author stance I choose (because Creative Agenda are not single technique specific).  I'm not going to use up space by listing a bunch of others, but there are a number of other essential features of the process of Bricolage you've described that are similarly specific Techniques.

So what Bricolage is, is an overall reason for playing combined with a certain subset of very specific Techniqes and Ephemera carefully chosen from all possible techniques and Ephemera to produce a highly desireable but very narrowly defined play experience.  You have an overall definition of what play looks like from what you (and your group) want to get out the experience, you know how you go about accomplishing that in play (which includes not only what you DO do during the game but what you WON'T do as well).  All of that, soup to nuts: Agenda, Combination of Techniques, Collection of Ephemera together rolls up into the play experience you label Bricoloage.

Fortuneately we already have a word to describe what that is, and its a word that we've been using for years...its called a Skewer.  If you visualize the big model like little discrete elements arranged into a stack of layers, a Skewer then is a particular combination of those elements that penetrates down through the layers skewering the desired elements from each layer and leaving the rest alone.  Bricolage is a Skewer.  Yes it skewers through the Simulationist Creative agenda, but then it goes on to skewer a very specific combination of Techniques and Ephemera unique to Bricolage.  The Simulationism that Mike and MJ have been describing is a different Skewer.  One that also passes through the Simulationist Creative agenda, but goes on to spear a completely different comination of Techniques and Ephemera that makes it look very very different from Bricolage.  Both, however, fall under the Sim Agenda.

I've long said that Skewers are the most interesting conclusion of the model and long felt that we can consider the structure of the model largely correct and complete when we can stop talking about how to define GNS and start talking about Skewers.  Noone plays Sim, or plays Gamist, or plays Nar...what we play are Skewers.  Like a good Shish Kabob we all have our favorite ingredients that we like to have stuck on the stick whenever we light up the grill...and those are our play preferences.  For some Immersion is an important ingredient on their skewer.  Some won't eat the kabob if its got percentile dice (Ephemera) on it.  Others really love to throw a huge hunk of Director Stance on the end.  After that the ingredients are pretty interchangeable.  Every game we play is a different Skewer because at the very least its got a different set of Ephemera (3d6 vs. a d20)...which is kind of like having the same main ingredients but varying the condiments.  Playing the same game with a different group (even 1 player different) is a different Skewer because what we spear through in the Social Contract layer will be different.  Hell, playing the same game with the same group on a different night may wind up with a different Skewer because of social events that just happened that color play that night (how charred is the mushroom this time around).

How we actually play...you, me, Mike, Ron, anybody...is a Skewer.  Skewers are fun.  Skewers are interesting.  Skewers are IMO the only thing left worth talking about in the Big Model*

Bricolage is a Skewer.  A very explicit combination of Agenda, Techniqes, and Ephemera elements that all combine together for a very specific play experience.  I'd also add, given the unique social situation of the play group from which you are drawing your experience from, quite a lot of Social Contract in the application of Bricolage as you've described.  Quite probably the first fully described, fully realized Skewer presented on the Forge congratulations.

I think the whole concept of Bricolage becomes much more useful, productive, and exciting as a Skewer and I hope you'll agree and begin to present it as such rather than try to stuff it in as a Creative Agenda where in just doesn't fit.

---------
*In my opinion Skewers are one use only items.  Any single individual Skewer exists only for that single specific instance of play and then is gone forever.  The next instance of play will be a brand new unique Skewer with subtle differences to the Social Contract Layer (a little more salt here, less pepper there) as the social dynamic within a group (even within a single play session) changes (in that sense Skewers are more like Fondue than Kabobs perhaps).

What we then more rightly talk about are families of Skewers...which are like recipies in that every time you make the dish it's going to be a little bit different, but still similar enough to recognize as that dish.  Bricolage is a family of Skewers.  Not only is how someone else experience Bricolage going to different from the way Jay experiences it because they're group will have a different social dynamic but they might also swap out a few other ingredients as well yet still have something identifiable as Bricolage.

Identifying the core specific elements that absolutely positively have to be on the Skewer along with commone variant ingredients is a fascinating subject.  Like a recipe, just how much can you change the ingredients for Aunt Edna's Rhubarb Pie and still be able to call it Aunt Edna's Rhubarb Pie...How can we come to recognize when its become Cousin Frieda's Rhubarb Pie instead...

Silmenume wrote:

Mike wrote: Ah, but we're just deluding ourselves. I see.

Engage in ad hominem all you want, I’m still gonna keep plugging along working at process and product while you take digs at me.

wrote: Could you please explain to me how me arguing something about theory means I am saying people aren’t having fun?  Could you make that connection for me please, because I’m not seeing it?....

wrote: I'm talking about fun, functional play. Which must have a CA by definition.

Not that I can find.

wrote: ...people can have fun throwing bottle caps at each other.  Not having a theoretically recognized or designated CA does not in any way “mean” people aren’t having fun.

Silmenume wrote:

M. wrote: If I were to accept your "bricolage" definition, I would have to discard this (and several other forms of play, such as Ralph's exploration of system by testing what actually happens given the mechanics rules) and begin the search for a new agendum which fits what it is these players--including I--are seeking.

This is very intriguing to me as I ask myself, “Why is this an issue?”  Why do you as a GM or a Player have to discard anything because of a theoretical construct?  You don’t have to do anything.  If the style of play you enjoy is functional – then God Bless!  By all means keep doing what is and has been successful and enjoyable to you!  But that does not illuminate what is going on as a process during CA expression as the Model has been formulated.  The Model is a theoretical construct that tries to explain observed human behaviors expressed during play – it is not prescriptive.  You can still continue to seek that which you enjoy in your games – my arguments have nothing to do with that at all.  That particular concern is a non-issue.  Conversely if it can be effectively argued that “bricolage” is something that is truly unique to a given CA and thus deserves it own “CA designation,” I have no problem with that either.

Valamir wrote:
I've long said that Skewers are the most interesting conclusion of the model and long felt that we can consider the structure of the model largely correct and complete when we can stop talking about how to define GNS and start talking about Skewers.

I can't myself see bricolage as a skewer; that would suggest bricolage would appear only in some sim games.  But, I also do not see why MJ says that accepting the thesis requires the abandoning of exploration of system - to revert to the initial example, nothing about the bricoleurs activity prevents them from flicking the power on and off for the toasters element and thereby learning more about the properties of the objects they find in their shed.  I don't see how or why the bricolage hypothesis contradicts anything.