First, I really don't know what I am talking about or what I think I'm doing walking into a roleplaying theory discussion. (I won't be hurt if you stop reading now.)

Second, I've been taking in GNS and other aspects of rpg theory, and loving it. But there is one aspect that I am unconvinced of: Ron's GNS prescription for game design. He says (I'm taking this from the appendix of Sorcerer, but it's other places):

I suggest that RPG system design cannot meet all three outlooks [G, N, S] at once.... One of the biggest problems I observe in RPG systems is that they often try to satisfy all three outlooks at once. the result, sadly, is a guarantee that almost any player will be irritated by some aspect of the system during play.... I suggest that building the system specifically to accord with one of these outlooks [G, N, or S] is the first priority of RPG design.

I'm not sure you have GNS down all that well which makes it hard to discussion your proposition.  Your play example sounds interesting but it doesnt really give us enough information about the interactions of the people at the table. I'm going to quote the example mostly for my own reference and then ask a few questions afterward.

Bloomfield wrote: Third, the actual play part: I remember a moment during a long-running RoleMaster campaign I ran as a teenager. One of the character didn't know her background and was the only one of her species (humanoid with wings, think female Gelfling) and slowly figured out that she was the daughter of a deposed queen. She did find her mother, who lived in exile but just as they met, the mother was assinated - and the character realized that she was walking into a deadly political intrigue. The player wept at the table. After many sessions seeking to find her most tangible link to an unknown past, and losing it again immediately. The moment sticks in my mind because I realized that I had transitioned from "Imagine yourself doing awesome things" to "telling a story together." (RoleMaster didn't enable this, but unlike other systems I've played it didn't get in the way either.) I agree with Ron that system does matter, and I am not trying the point that it all depends just on the players and the GM, anyway. I would have loved a system that supported my narrative agenda (embarrassing as that agenda now seems, looking back). I was building a Hero's Journey story, and in all of our minds game mechanics and the story were unconnected. Interestingly, I came across Ars Magica around that time and tried to switch the character to that system. The campaign fell apart and one of the reasons may have been that the flavor had changed so much. But there is a bit of irony to think that a more narrative system killed my story.

Hi Bloomfield!

As Caldis already said, Creative Agenda is not about a single decision or moment of play, but is seen in the entire run of a game (an "Instance of play"). This is one of the many differences between GDS (the threefold model of old) and GNS and the Big Model, and it's difference that trip a lot of people up (in many forum discussions people talk about "rpg theory" switching continuously between GDS and GNS and propagate this confusion)

So, nothing forbid a gamist game from having parts that address a premise, or from having something that that the player has to solve or fight using his strategic ability, in a Narrativist game (I am using "game" here as "the activity we do when we play", not the book or the box). GNS is never, ever, about the "presence" or "absence" of elements, because every rpg game has ALL these elements, in the course of play.

GNS is about PRIORITY.  Usually,the problems the player has to solve with his (or her) own strategic mind is not something that lessen his ability to address premise.  But what you do, when during the game a situation arise where they do? What is "good play" and "bad play" in your group for that game?

If the game is clear about this, this choice should not be problematic (for example, dogs in the vineyard is not about "winning" the conflicts, even if the player usually try to win them: addressing the premise is much more important, to the point that when you play DitV is accepted that you can, and should, lose conflict that you could win if you played "only to win". This is "good play" in DitV, the game book is very explicit about that. If you play DitV to win every single conflict without caring about the fictional situation and the premise it presents, you are playing "wrong" and the game book is not timid in saying you that)

But if the game book is not cleat, there are only two other alternatives: 1) the ENTIRE gaming group is "on the same page" about the way to play, so that they have a really good idea about what is "good play" and what is "bad play", and they can play without problems as in the DitV example above (but they are actually using rules of behavior that aren't in the book, rules they had to come up of their own, and it's not always simple or immediate) , or 2) they aren't.  So you have cases like the classic one where a character lose a conflict because of something he wanted to say with his/her character (even just "it's not right to attack people from behind, even if they are the villains") and the other players look at him like he was stupid or something like that, because in their mind "playing well" means "playing to win", and he has played very badly in their eyes. (and usually after a while they throw out from the group enough people to get to the situation (1) above, thinking that every other player in the world apart them is a bad player)

How can you play a game where you don't even know WHAT YOU SHOULD DO in these situations? When the rules don't even tell you if the objective of the game is to kill every other character in play or to create a story that means something to you? (Think about teaching chess to people without telling them that they should try to checkmate the other player's king, and then looking at them while they move their pieces in various directions without knowing what to do, then say to them "a good GM - <Game of Chess Master> - would know what to do, and would force other players to play in that way" and you have a good example of what role-playing has become in the Land of Incoherent RPGs)

"Writing coherent RPGs" is simply that: writing a game where is clear that the objective is checkmate the other player's king, and not a game that don't even tell you how to play.

Thanks for the response. I think you're right that I don't have GNS quite down, and like any newbie I am floundering around, trying to tell lack of comprehension from disagreement.

Caldis wrote:
First question about moving from "doing awesome things" to "telling a story together", what choices did the player make that was part of telling the story?  Was there anything she could have done that would actually change the story or was it more her actions revealing the story you had created for her?   Is she really part of telling the story or is she just "doing awesome things" inside the story you are telling?

If you have any more to say about what happened when you switched systems I'd be interested.  You say the flavor changed but what was happening in the fiction at the time?  How was the story progressing and how were the players involved in the progression of the story?

As for your last comment about mechanics it hints that you are looking to small scale when considering GNS.  A moment of challenge in a game doesnt equate with a Gamist agenda, likewise events in play feeling real dont equate to a Sim agenda. 

It seems like no one ever seems to "get" Ron's theory.  I blame the articles' poor use of language: too esoteric and too convoluted.  If there are a thousand people who have read them, then there are three thousand interpretations.

I propose a new design theory:

Step 1: Post your work on the first thoughts forum.
Step 2:  ???
Step 3: Profit!

Hi Bloomfield,

Bloomfield wrote: The coolest thing about good RPG systems happens when those mechanics feel a bit gamist (the reward system aligns with roleplaying incentives) and a bit simulationist (a drop in sanity/humanity feels real; mechanics do more than state who talks in what order under what constraints). In other words, I don't think I want G, N, or S purity.

Moreno wrote:
Hi Bloomfield!

As Caldis already said, Creative Agenda is not about a single decision or moment of play, but is seen in the entire run of a game (an "Instance of play"). This is one of the many differences between GDS (the threefold model of old) and GNS and the Big Model, and it's difference that trip a lot of people up (in many forum discussions people talk about "rpg theory" switching continuously between GDS and GNS and propagate this confusion)

So, nothing forbid a gamist game from having parts that address a premise, or from having something that that the player has to solve or fight using his strategic ability, in a Narrativist game (I am using "game" here as "the activity we do when we play", not the book or the box). GNS is never, ever, about the "presence" or "absence" of elements, because every rpg game has ALL these elements, in the course of play.

GNS is about PRIORITY.  Usually,the problems the player has to solve with his (or her) own strategic mind is not something that lessen his ability to address premise.  But what you do, when during the game a situation arise where they do? What is "good play" and "bad play" in your group for that game?

Chris_Chinn wrote:
Now, you can enjoy stuff like tactical bits, realistic rules, etc. without it changing the CA - it comes down to which one takes top precedence in shaping play.

Two terms which come to mind are: Versimilitude and Technical Agenda.   The first refers to a game giving a consistent quality of it's fictional world/experience, and the second refers to what you enjoy having in your mechanics of your game ("I hate dice pools" for example).

But it does feel like reducing Creative Agenda and GNS to terms of literary criticism rather than useful guides for game design.

Honestly, I meant literary criticism as in self-referential with little or no practical application for authors. :)

I am not sure I buy (or understand) the point about GNS being creative agenda only but doesn't require the absence or presence of certain elements (mechanics are elements, right?). There are big differences between mechanics in how explicitly the affect construction of the story. Does assigning narrative rights ever make sense if the agenda is G or S?

To put it provocatively, I am beginning to think that N is the only possible creative agenda for rpgs. S is appropriate for war games. G is for board/card games (marked by indifference to high levels of abstraction). S or G can't make good role playing games, because games with either CA can't help but be a war game or a board/card game disguised as rpgs.  (Perhaps The Forge is the wrong place to ask that question.)

Thanks for helping me understand this issue, coming late to the discussion.

Well, yeah, if your definition of rpgs doesn't include those other goals, naturally CA aspects of Big Model theory won't be very useful, and there really isn't much to discuss here. 

It's good to note, that, as far as the Big Model is concerned, those other types of play DO count as valid roleplaying, and it's important to note how they work in order to make sure you are clear to others in your designs/organizing games that you are not playing in those methods so you don't end up with 5 people trying to play 5 different games together (http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2009/12/19/a-way-out/ ).

As far as mechanics interfacing with CA - you have to remember it's how ALL the mechanics work together to create a Creative Agenda.

An Actual Play example was me playing Dogs in the Vineyard with a GM used to Illusionism, who flatly avoided the advice in the game to throw the conflicts and problems of the Town at the players. 

Though there's a lot of mechanics that make DitV a Narrativist game, that simple bit of stonewalling completely blocked the flow of play of dealing with the primary moral issues.

You can have 90% of the same mechanics support completely different CAs based on that last little bit.  (Interesting enough, that last little bit doesn't always produce the same things if you slap it on a variety of games...) 

Some common games that see this shift include - when people ignore Sorcerer's Humanity & Kickers, ignore Beliefs in Burning Wheel, ignore Spiritual Attributes in Riddle of Steel, whether the role of characters are to be "within" the setting or to shape it in Hero Quest, etc.

Obviously, though, if you don't consider other forms of play as "roleplaying" Big Model is going to be of very limited use to you anyway. 

If you are interested, try looking up some of those games in the Archive forums and looking at some of the discussions that ensued - a lot of people ended up talking past each other because of that little bit ignored or applied - but they're talking about two completely different ways to play, under the same game name.

Chris

Bloomfield wrote: Does assigning narrative rights ever make sense if the agenda is G or S?

I think you are mistaking creating a story together for narrativism and it's understandable because they do have some similarities but they dont mean exactly the same thing.  It's entirely possible to create a story as a group and not be playing in a narrativist fashion, Frank Tarcikowski has an example a few posts down of a sim game that was group created story but features no narrativism.  Likewise there are several examples of gamist play that include solid story and there's no guarantee that nar play is going to give you a great story.

So what's the big difference then?  What sets narrativism apart from story creation with any other agenda?  If we look back to the example you gave in your first post with the character discovering her lost past and we see that you are creating story as a group but what you arent doing is allowing the player to reveal the depths of what the characters is about, what they stand for and what they are willing to do and what that says about the character.  Mechanics in play are the least significant thing when it comes to those decisions and actions the player has the character take. 

So if resolution mechanics are so unimportant when it comes to CA then how does system matter?  It's in the bigger things, in creating situation and propelling characters into premise rich environments.  Look at things like Kickers in Sorceror or town creation mixed with the position of authority the dogs take on in Dogs in the Vineyard. 

Caldis, what do you mean by "system"?
When folks say "system does matter", they mean more than just what's typically called "mechanics" - the way you are told to use mechanics is another part of system, dubbed "procedures", and the very act of playing the game together involves a whole slew of agreements, i.e. the social contract.

To truly interact with a system, you have to use ALL the rules, unless certain rules are tagged as explicitly optional. If you pick and choose rules, that's Drifting, and it will change what the system can actually support. To go a little deeper: Dogs mechanics, taken one by one, are not explicitly "Narrativist". You have to be doing the whole thing, all at once, to get effective support for Nar play. Step-dice, for instance, could be used for anything; they aren't inherently Narrativist.

A given Agenda is a package deal - it doesn't have to be complicated, but Nar play needs player authorship for thematic content. It's gotta be in the rules, or you just don't have a Nar-supportive system. So, with Dogs, if you removed the escalation system... no, wait, if you just removed the player's choice to escalate/not escalate a situation, you would lose the Nar support. If players can't meaningfully give input on the themes of the game, it ain't Nar. Does that help at all?

I think we're pretty much in agreement Abkajud, I believe the Dogs system is very much a nar-facilitating system.  However even with its system you wont necessarily get Nar play.  You could easily take the system as written and play it in a gamist or sim fashion, it might not be the most compelling play but it would be possible.  To get Nar play out of any system you need the intent to use it to address the premise rich material the game gives you, a recognition between the players and the gm that what you are doing is adressing the premise, and the freedom to do so.   

I think the best description for what the rules of the game do, and things like conflict resolution mechanics are an excellent example, is give the game bounce.  Ron used it recently (I think) when talking about the energy in a game and comparing it to throwing a ball back and forth.  With the right ball when you throw it back and forth it has some bounce, it adds energy and life to the game you may be able to bounce it off something and get it moving in an entirely different direction.  A different ball however can just be a weight to toss around, it can be light and easy to throw about or it can be a dead weight dragging things down, either way they dont add anything to the game on their own.

Perhaps consider it like a guitar - you can flip over a guitar and use it as a drum - but it just doesn't work as well as a drum.