From the Ying in the Yang? thread.

Ron Edwards wrote: Hi there,

No one seems to be understanding my point: that "intent" as you see it is perfectly all right for you to be seeing. Thus I am not excluding it from the model - I am permitting you to customize the model in its "internal origins" or the psychology of it, if you will, as you see fit.

Best,
Ron

there's one point of phrasing I'd like to object to in your presentations, because it offers a lot of pitfalls and isn't actually part of my model at all.

but the model works without motives being explicitly identified.

Hi Ralph,

Aagghh!

OK, I'm better. The two statements you've quoted are not contradictory. The one is referring to a given person's understanding of GNS, and the (apparently irreversible) drive people have to link an internal "motivation" to a set of behaviors. I'm saying, "Go ahead, explain GNS in motivational terms to yourself as you see fit."

The other statement is referring to associating a given motivation with the written form of the model itself, or to turn it around, calling the GNS modes themselves motivations or intents. That's the "phrasing" that I am suggesting that people avoid. I still suggest this - the "customizing" that I'm suggesting above is not going to be compatible from person to person.

I say:

1) "Leave motivations/intents out of your direct reading of what I'm saying,"

2) "Put'em in as you see fit for your own peace of mind," and

3) "Realize that others are not going to share your outlooks when you talk about GNS (or anything else) in these terms."

All of these are complementary, not contradictory.

Everyone so far is saying, "But intentions have to be involved! Obviously you're talking about intentions!" I shrug. Feel free to think so and to interpret those intentions as you see fit; feel free even to discuss such thing among yourselves as long as no one is claiming to paraphrase or quote me in doing so.

Meanwhile, I'll be talking about what people do and say.

Best,
Ron

Ron,

I understand that you are trying to say that you neither support nor deny the application of intent/motivation to GNS discussions, but...

Ron Edwards wrote:
Your use of "motivation" isn't the same as mine. When I see Bob the Player say, "Yeah! You suck!" and eagerly grab the dice for his turn as his fellow player laughs ruefully, gazing at his failed saving throw, then I recognize one of the many kinds of Gamism in action ... or at least I'm alerted to keep an eye on how the group reacts over the course of the whole session to this sort of behavior. Three rounds later, the two players cooperate like fiends to double-team the troll wizard and a good roll saves their bacon - they high-five each other, and Sam the Player says to the GM, "Yeah! You suck!" and they all laugh, delighted. OK, I say, point 2 for Gamism goin' on here, and keep watching.

To you, I might be talking about "motivation." As with my comments above, that's your privilege and it's OK for you to perceive that. Don't let my claim that I'm not including motivation to confuse you - it does not exclude your interpretation, it simply means that you are free to add it without any input/specs from me.

Hi Jason,

Yes, I am saying that observing those players leads me to say, This is Gamism, regardless of whatever intents and motivations they might have. Or rather, whatever intents and motivations they have (which are forever and ever inaccessible to me and debatable whether they exist anyway), those things are resulting in Gamism.

You guys are so used to identifying behaviors with intents that what I'm saying is confusing you - even though my ultimate point is to free you from having to worry about it.

This confusion showing up when you deduce that GNS must correlate in my mind to a set of observable behaviors ... which is exactly how I've defined "goals and modes" from the beginning. Yes, GNS refers to a bunch of behaviors - we knew that. We can talk about what those behaviors are. We can use examples from play, we can categorize principles on which the diversity of each mode is based, etc. All that stuff. It's not an internal list of criteria, hidden from all of you, known only to myself - it's exactly what the essay describes.

Interested in whether someone's playing Gamist-ly? Look for the prioritized competition, scoring, winning, and reinforcement thereof across the group.

Interested in whether someone's playing Simulationist-ly? Look for the prioritized attention and commitment to the Exploration, reinforced across the group.

Interested in whether someone's playing Narrativist-ly? Look for the prioritized commitment to addressing Premise (as defined specifically for Narrativism), reinforced across the group.

Really, it's way easier than what you're confusing yourself with.

You also wrote,
Does this further mean then that one of the discussions you intended with GNS was a discussion about the behaviors that you think indicated a Gamist mode might be in play vs. the behaviors that I think indicated a Gamist mode might be in play?

In a word, yes. This is precisely the discussion that has been occurring for almost four years now, when people haven't been flipping out over "divisiveness" or "you can't label me" or other non-issues, which fortunately has died down over the last year.

From this discussion have arisen dozens of useful terms and concepts, e.g. Illusionism, Balance of Power, Stance refinements, Protagonism, and more. Hell, Exploration itself arose from discussions like this, and it totally revolutionized my outlook (compare System Does Matter to the big essay, for instance). I also recommend Fang's essays and terminology in the Scattershot forum, which I think are highly complementary to the GNS ones.

So yes, let's talk about those observable behaviors which we ascribe or categorize in GNS terms. That's what we've been doing all along.

Best,
Ron

Ron,

Thanks. This adds another layer to my understanding of the GNS theory.

I appreciate the clairification.

Cheers,

Jason

Ron, doesn't even the use of "prioritized" indicate a reference to motive or intent?

I'm not really disagreeing with you here. I know that you can observe GNS modes and preferences strictly by behavior. I just think putting a discussion of motive or intent in might help ease the confusion exhibited by some new readers - such as those who keep getting hung up on whether multiple modes can co-exist.

Let me analyze my own play as an example. In different sessions of play, I can be observed performing a variety of Simulationist and Gamist acts. There are instances of play that have strong Gamist tendencies, and other instances that have strong Sim tendencies. Narritivist tendencies are right out - when I want to do that, I write a story instead.

So, looking only at observable actions, you'd have a harder time coming up with a GNS mode. At GenCon, I got to play my own game as a player, and took the chance to show off, take some ridiculous risks and accrue a sickening body count. Was I being Gamist by competing with other players or the GM, or was it more Simulationist-Character, using a psychopathic character with a love of high body counts and a deep psychological need to prove her own worth?

From the observable evidence, I'm not sure you could tell because both are quite close. From my own examination of myself, I can easily tell you: that was Gamist, pure and simple. I was kicking back, showing off and not going to bog myself down with anything but Author stance. In fact, I said something to myself before playing that essentially boiled down to "I'm going to be Gamist today" even though I hadn't read the GNS essay yet.

In cases like this, looking at motive as well as observable action gives us a much more complete and definitive picture. It may not be as rigorous as looking at actions only (because motivation comes from the player, who is potentially unreliable).

So, I will definitely continue to think in terms of motivation because I feel it to be the core of GNS, even though I recognize that your "instances of play" does not need to use or address motivation.

jdagna wrote: Ron, doesn't even the use of "prioritized" indicate a reference to motive or intent?

I think the urge to ascribe intentions comes from using GNS to analyze someone else's game, scenario, or play.

I'm not saying that an observable behavior doesn't exist, but as jdagna points out, without a known motivation it's often unclear to an observer what a given instance of play is.

Subsequently, I don't think GNS is that useful as a tool for describing or analyzing someone else's play ("My players are a bunch of gamists.") It is a good tool for analyzing your own behavior and preferences.

-Marco

Ron is an excellent biologist, I believe; my strengths are in theology, philosophy, and law, primarily. That probably gives us very different vocabularies right up front, and very different approaches to certain concepts.

That said, I'm having trouble with his distinction between action and intent, particularly given the nature of the taxonomy. In law, the words intent and motive are extremely close in meaning, and difficult to distinguish. I might stumble into confusing them here, but will try to keep them distinct.

It has been observed that GNS "decisions" are identified by observing actions. This would be the scientific approach; it also strikes me as the only workable approach. However, I don't see how you can escape motives and intents in the process.

Several examples have already been adduced in which the actions of the players might or might not point to a particular mode of play. Our players giving each other the high-five after a particularly clever move resulting in a success looks gamist to us; but it could reflect any mode of play if it is accompanied by close character identification (immersive play) and the belief that this is expressive either of the present actions or the present emotions of the characters. Thus the action alone tells us nothing.

But, we are told, if we continue to watch play we will see additional actions which similarly could be gamist; or which equally could be narrativist or simulationist. Thus again each of these actions, in themselves, tell us nothing. And the sum of all we have learned from actions is nothing.

The only way any of these actions have any value in the question is by inference. We see the players congratulate each other, and we infer from that action a reason; that is, we create a hypothesis as to why they are acting in this manner. But this why is not inherent to the action; as we have seen, the same action could be based on any of several why's of which this is in our estimation the most likely.

Further, when we are inferring why the players did something, we are imputing intent or imputing motive. At least in the fields of law and theology, intent and motive are the ordinary answers to the question "why" when attached to human actions. Reasons and causes are also possible answers to that question; but in this context, they do not seem to be the sorts of answers we are seeking. That is, we could answer the question Why did George have his character attack the orcs in any of these ways:
--because the game rules suggest that attacking the orcs is the appropriate move to make at this time.
--because his anger at his mother needed to be vented and this was an acceptable outlet for that.
--because he enjoys beating the odds in the game.
Of those, the first would be a reason, the second a cause, and the third a motive. It is that motive that matters in the consideration of GNS. It is not exactly what the players and characters do in the game that informs us, but what we infer from what they do; and we are inferring why they do it, which is intent or motivation.

So, where am I missing it?

--M. J. Young

Hi M.J.,

All of your post, it seems to me, is a fine example of how you consider "intent" and "motive" to be intertwined with discussing GNS. None of your interpretation is going to cause trouble - it's yours and I'm happy you look at it that way.

Guys, it's painful, but you're going to have to live with it ... odd as it may seem, where you see obvious intent and motivation implied in identifying a set of consistent/coherent behaviors, I just shrug. It's OK. It's not a big deal, because it doesn't affect how we are able to speak about the actual stuff in action.

Just chalk it up to me being weird about something-or-other, and recognize that bringing these terms into discourse will cause more problems than it's worth (which no one has argued with, so I guess that's not a problem, I hope), and all is well.

Best,
Ron

Its not that we're trying to debate you or change your mind Ron.

In point of fact, I couldn't debate you if I wanted to, because I can't even fathom your statements.

From my perspective what you are saying isn't wrong...it isn't even possible. But since you aren't prone to making statements such as that, I have to assume that there is some reason you are saying something which on the surface seems like utter nonsense to me.

So, since your explanation up to this point has been to shrug and say it isn't necessary for me to understand (why do I get this image of a Vorlon encounter suit with a big grinning face on it...) I can only wait until you are feeling in an more explanatory mood, or have sufficient time, or get over whatever other hurdle is causing the shrugging.

Until then as far as I'm concerned GNS decisions remain entirely about identifying (or as MJ puts it impuning) player intent from observed behavior...because that's the only explaination that even remotely makes sense to me.

Marco wrote: I'm not saying that an observable behavior doesn't exist, but as jdagna points out, without a known motivation it's often unclear to an observer what a given instance of play is.

M. J. Young wrote:

Several examples have already been adduced in which the actions of the players might or might not point to a particular mode of play. Our players giving each other the high-five after a particularly clever move resulting in a success looks gamist to us; but it could reflect any mode of play if it is accompanied by close character identification (immersive play) and the belief that this is expressive either of the present actions or the present emotions of the characters. Thus the action alone tells us nothing.

Quite correct. Only after building up a picture of a sequence of actions, the intentionally fuzzy instance of play, would we be in a position to make a confident analysis.

But, we are told, if we continue to watch play we will see additional actions which similarly could be gamist; or which equally could be narrativist or simulationist. Thus again each of these actions, in themselves, tell us nothing. And the sum of all we have learned from actions is nothing.

Nope, you're falling into the trap of abtraction. To say that it is possible - IN THE MODEL - that the next decision will reinforce or challenge our perspetion of mode preference X is not to say that they are indistinguishable in the real world. The equal weight granted to these potential outcomes in the abstract model should NOT be projected back on to material reality.

The only way any of these actions have any value in the question is by inference. We see the players congratulate each other, and we infer from that action a reason; that is, we create a hypothesis as to why they are acting in this manner. But this why is not inherent to the action; as we have seen, the same action could be based on any of several why's of which this is in our estimation the most likely.

Again, you are using the abstracted nature of the model as an excuse to lump what would almost certainly, in practive, be very distinct behaviours into a single category. If we were to FAIL to come up with at least a tentative "why" from the "what" we saw, then the only answer would be that we do not know. But how probable is it that these two behaviours are really, over time, indistinguishable? About nil I'd say. And if we did find players whose decision pattern consistently refused to be categorised, then it might suggest that the categorisation is wrong.

Of those, the first would be a reason, the second a cause, and the third a motive. It is that motive that matters in the consideration of GNS. It is not exactly what the players and characters do in the game that informs us, but what we infer from what they do; and we are inferring why they do it, which is intent or motivation.

This might hold on the assumption that the behaviours are indistinguishable; unfortunately you gave us a list of potential motivations instead of a list of observed behaviours. Let us say in condition A, we have a player who makes their decisions after poring over the tables of modifiers, and shriek with joy at their lucky roll, and dance around the room beating their chest and yelling "I'm the greatest", then it seems reasonable to me to conclude that their motivation was probably gamist. In condition B, the mod tables are still consulted but the player responds entirely in character; attributes credit and luck to the character rather than the player. Again, it seems reasonable to me that these behaviours and their apparently implied motivations are indeed observable and useful.

The only rider is that A single gamist-type decision does not NECESSARILY imply a gamist mode for that player all the time; it may have been an aberration.

contracycle wrote:

Marco wrote:
Why? I suggest it is effectively impossible, under most circumstances, to understand the motivation. What we are able to observe are the actions carried out by the physical person; and on that basis we can start to analyse the range of observed actions and develop a model of their relationship. I say again: trying to comprehend something based on a notional state-of-mind is meaningless.

I also suggest that it is impossible, under most circumstances, to understand the motivation. I suspect that if one tries, one projects their own motivations over the person's ... leading to mis-reading the objectively observed facts (a player is rabidly acquiring power in AD&D ... his motivation is to win the upcoming dramatic showdown of good vs. evil which is what he feels must happen for Narrativist satisfaction with the story ... the GM recognizes the behavior as Gamist character building because that's how he'd play it).

-Marco

contracycle wrote:

This might hold on the assumption that the behaviours are indistinguishable; unfortunately you gave us a list of potential motivations instead of a list of observed behaviours. Let us say in condition A, we have a player who makes their decisions after poring over the tables of modifiers, and shriek with joy at their lucky roll, and dance around the room beating their chest and yelling "I'm the greatest", then it seems reasonable to me to conclude that their motivation was probably gamist. In condition B, the mod tables are still consulted but the player responds entirely in character; attributes credit and luck to the character rather than the player. Again, it seems reasonable to me that these behaviours and their apparently implied motivations are indeed observable and useful.

deadpanbob wrote: Except that G/N/S is a taxonomy that screams motivation - that answers the question "Why did he jump up and down and tell the GM he sucked when he made that role?" "Because he preffered to make a Gamist decision during that instance of play"

If we then go on to define Gamist play as being only those behaviors that model Gamist play, well then we've succeeded in creating a definition that has no use to me other than creating a layer of obscure jargon that doesn't have any meaning.

Mike,

Okay, so G/N/S is only a taxonomy of behavior. It groups behaviors into three categories and says "Everything that looks like this is Gamist behavior" and so on.

Yes, that is useful, to the extent that there is some rubrick for deciding what Gamist or Simulationist or Narrativist behavoir is - but when I've asked that question before I've been told that it is mostly a matter of opinion.

I don't misunderstand at all what Ron, or what you, are saying. I don't fail to see that GNS as written can be applied as a taxonomy of only behavior.

I just don't agree. It might surprise you to find out that I think behavior is a much more powerful predictor of people's preferences than attitudes, lifestyles, demographics etc.

However, that only applies, in my opinion and my experience, when the behavior can be easily categorized and is realtively definitive - like spending money on something. A person may express a motivation to 'simplify' their life, but if they then go out and purchase a subscription to several 'Simplify your Life' magazines, and buy lots and lots of products designed to simply their life, well, the behavior and the motivation don't exactly gee up in my mind.

But with a social activity like roleplaying, there is a lot going on. I can pretty readily tell the difference between most Simulationist behaviors that I've observed (always remembering that this is IMO) and either Narrativist or Gamist behaviors. But between Narrativist and Gamist behaviors there is a lot of overlap - barring the extreme examples both you and Ron have cited.

Take killing the baby orc - this could be viewed as Narrativist behavoir if you take out the motivation you ascribed to it: if I don't kill the orcs I don't get EXP. Unless the player expresses that motivation to you explicitly - how can you be sure that he/she isn't thinking that killing the baby orc is in line with the overall theme of the story?

See, to my eyes, its a lot easier to identify Stance than it is Mode. I can readily tell when someone I'm gaiming with (again, remembering that this is IMO) is in Director or Author or Actor stance. But as GNS points out, while some of the combinations are odd, any stance could potentially apply to any behavioral mode.

Maybe, my inability to distinguish between Narrativist behavior and Gamist behavior is precisely becuase I tend to favor both modes pretty equally (after an internal examination of my motives and the types of roleplaying that I enjoy).

I'm not going to argue that anyone else should look at motivations - or is hamstrung by my own perceptive limits. However, that doesn't mean that I need to necessarily agree with the statement

Mike Holmes wrote:
...the important thing with GNS theory is not to identify why players do what they do. It' is only to say that they do three different things. And to the extent that they do these things one can say that the player doing them likely (note, likely) prefers this sort of decision making for some reason. It does not matter for the purposes of he theory what that reason is (or reasons are). Only that they seem to have one.

Mike Holmes wrote:

That would be just great. But as all of us here seem to agree, no model is likely able to do that.

Mike Holmes wrote:

If I see a player kill the baby kobolds, because they aren't worth any EXP alive, then I will assume that this is a Gamist decision.

Mike

Marco, I had this big long reply to Mike forming in my brain, but thankfully, I read your post first and you succinctly summed up exactly what I was going to say.

In my mind to say "because it isn't worth EXPs alive" IS the motive, and claim its not is just playing semantics games for which I see no point.

Simply observing behavior in isolation tells us nothing. Character A kills Baby Kobolds could easily fit into any GNS stance. There's a wealth of potential premis exploration that could be going on in accepting the murder of infants because they are of a different race...pretty powerful metaphor actually.

Its only in the REASON for this decision that GNS has any meaning at all...and the reason why IS motive.

The decision was motivated by gamism, the decision was motivated by simulationism, the decision was motivated by narrativism. The motive is built into the very definition of the terms.

I have yet to hear how it can possibly work viewed any other way.

Hey Val,

We agree on something! (Arrgh--RUN!! Flying Pig!!) ;)

I suspect Mike might say (has said?) that it's a series of behaviors plotted like data points that tells you something.

I submit that even with lots of data, it's still subjective. A plotted point, in this case looks like several fuzzy spots--each sharp to the percent that it fits a given mode.

While I think that eventually some general determination might be made by a sort of monte-carlo technique (more fall within the gamist zone) it's basically still the projected motivation of the observer at work for each and every given point of data--and that will eventually drive the percentage.

-Marco

So G/N/S specifies behaviors rather than motives, priorities, ect.?
I agree with jason, et al that it doesn't make sense.

Interested in whether someone's playing Gamist-ly? Look for the prioritized competition, scoring, winning, and reinforcement thereof across the group.

Interested in whether someone's playing Simulationist-ly? Look for the prioritized attention and commitment to the Exploration, reinforced across the group.

Interested in whether someone's playing Narrativist-ly? Look for the prioritized commitment to addressing Premise (as defined specifically for Narrativism), reinforced across the group.

Marco...heh, I think we agree on far more than we disagree on. Its just more fun to discuss the disaggree stuff :-) Further, I agree with your comments on plotting points. To me, the purpose of the data points is precisely that...to allow us to infer through the collected behaviors the motivations we can't know directly. In fact, there are some other threads around here where I discuss decisions on the atomic level, and hypothetical "decision maps" which were essentially the same concept as a monte carlo simulation (except of course you can really rerun the same parameters 1000 times in reality).

James N. You've summed up exactly how I've been thinking of GNS all along. GNS is about motivations...we can't observe motivations, so we observe a series of behaviors and from this infer the G N or S motivation that lies behind them. That's why I was so floored by Ron suddenly yanking the motivation piece out of the theory...without it...it just stops working.

Well I couldn't disagree more - motivations are largely irrelevant, and are certainly of questionable reliability.

I tried to avoid this previously but really, the simplest example is politics. Almost everyone who engages in politics - please not not necessarily the party machine - does so to Make The World Better. Radically opposed Democrats and Republicans are motivated by the SAME GOAL; what they disagree on is the METHODOLOGY by which that goal is achieved.

It is therefore utterly useless to try to identify which party to support on the basis of their core motivation IMO - its either going to be essentially identical or hidden (in the case of the opportunist). But both sides can and do disagree over HOW to make the world better and what constitutes a better world in the first place.

Of course the model is subjective; it has to be. But you can sit back and think "I THINK that Bob is motivated by gamism on the basis of X and Y observations...". And you can attempt to verify that by interacting with their behaviour; you cannot investigate their motivations effectively.

Rons claim is this: according to his observations, those are the three broad categories into which Actual Play can be sliced, regardless of how or why this ocurred.

contracycle wrote:

I tried to avoid this previously but really, the simplest example is politics. Almost everyone who engages in politics - please not not necessarily the party machine - does so to Make The World Better. Radically opposed Democrats and Republicans are motivated by the SAME GOAL; what they disagree on is the METHODOLOGY by which that goal is achieved.

deadpanbob wrote:
Of course, no one gets into politics to further a personal agenda beyond making the world a better place. It's all about that call to serve. The lure of power, for instance, plays no part in anyone's motivation to become a politician. [/sarcasm].

You missed my point.

Voter A opposes racism, and therefore votes for a Democrat who advocates affirmative action.
Voter B opposes racism, and therfefore votes for a Republican who opposes affirmative action.

How are we to tell them apart based on motivation? And if there motivations are identical, should not their decision be?

"Lust for power" is precisely an imputation made of someone elses state of mind. It is unverifiable speculation and almost totally meaningless- - if asked if they "luisted for power", they would say no.

Equally, the REASON that someone thinks that G or N or S is "the best way to have fun" is much less unimportant than the fact that they DO think that G or N or S is the best way to have fun. To challenge the observation that behaviour is broken into these three categories you would have to depart from motivation and cite something observable.

contracycle wrote:

You missed my point.

Voter A opposes racism, and therefore votes for a Democrat who advocates affirmative action.
Voter B opposes racism, and therfefore votes for a Republican who opposes affirmative action.

Jason,

Don't forget that you can apply the concept of "motives/intent" as you see fit to the model. Once you've done that, its utility to you as a designer re-appears.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Jason,

Don't forget that you can apply the concept of "motives/intent" as you see fit to the model. Once you've done that, its utility to you as a designer re-appears.

The politics analogy brings up some interesting comparisons.

Politics gives us a powerful argument in favor of a "behavior-only" set of modes. In politics, those modes are easily defined, be they liberal/conservative or Democrat/Republic/Libertarian/etc. It is a good bet that you can tell a Senator's political mode (i.e. party) merely by observing his voting record. We really don't need a motive to determine this with great precision. On the other hand, motive may help. Does the candidate want to reduce government? He's probably conservative.

Politics provides us with a significant advantage, however. In politics, decisions are discrete and measurable. He voted yes or no (or didn't vote). He did so 51 times.

In a game environment, it isn't going to be so simple. Think of a simple decision in a game, for example: "You see a group of orcs." Some people charge in, others sneak around for an ambush, others simply avoid the orcs. Which of those decisions corresponds to which GNS mode? You can't say. Even a group of Gamists might argue which of the three choices to take - and the number of choices isn't even limited to three!

If gaming were as simple as politics we could say "Just look at the player's record" and establish his mode with great precision. We can still insist on measuring modes via behavior - it is still a valid approach. I just don't think it is sufficient given the complexity of the behavior.

Mike Young's example was perfect. "If I see a player kill the baby kobolds, because they aren't worth any EXP alive, then I will assume that this is a Gamist decision." We assume this is Gamist because prioritizing EXP is a Gamist mode.

If you remove the because and say "If I see a player kill the baby kobolds, then I will assume that this is a Gamist decision" you're left with a statement that just doesn't hold up any more. Without the intent behind the action, we cannot easily assign it to a mode. Gaming actions are just too complicated most of the time.

I think part of the disagreement here, especially Gareth's, stems from two different degrees of thinking about motive here.

When I use the word motive or intent I'm not referring to the deep dark secrets lying in the recesses of someones mind which even THEY probably don't understand, and often would flat out deny anyway.

Thus, when discussing why someone killed the kobold babies I'm not interested in knowing whether it was because of some long harbored resentment towards his baby brother. If this is the sort of motivation you're claiming is irrelevant, than absolutely, I'm with you. I'll label this "Psychological Motive" merely to distinguish it.

But one can't circumvent the "Game Motive" that is at work. As J's pointed out yet again "because they aren't worth XP alive" IS the only thing in that example that distinguishes G from N from S in the decision.

Instance of Play isn't going to get us there. No matter how many data points we collect, if they are all devoid of Game Motive they are never going to lead to a GNS determination.

Using these labels for clarification I stand firmly by my assertion that Motive (i.e. Game Motive) is completely inseperable from GNS. Or to put it another way. GNS does not exist in a meaningful way apart from this motive.

Valamir wrote:
Using these labels for clarification I stand firmly by my assertion that Motive (i.e. Game Motive) is completely inseperable from GNS. Or to put it another way. GNS does not exist in a meaningful way apart from this motive.

I must be some kind of freakin' idiot to jump into this discussion.

jdagna wrote: Mike Young's example was perfect. "If I see a player kill the baby kobolds, because they aren't worth any EXP alive, then I will assume that this is a Gamist decision." We assume this is Gamist because prioritizing EXP is a Gamist mode.

If you remove the because and say "If I see a player kill the baby kobolds, then I will assume that this is a Gamist decision" you're left with a statement that just doesn't hold up any more. Without the intent behind the action, we cannot easily assign it to a mode.

Ron wrote: When I see Bob the Player say, "Yeah! You suck!" and eagerly grab the dice for his turn as his fellow player laughs ruefully, gazing at his failed saving throw, then I recognize one of the many kinds of Gamism in action ... or at least I'm alerted to keep an eye on how the group reacts over the course of the whole session to this sort of behavior. Three rounds later, the two players cooperate like fiends to double-team the troll wizard and a good roll saves their bacon - they high-five each other, and Sam the Player says to the GM, "Yeah! You suck!" and they all laugh, delighted. OK, I say, point 2 for Gamism goin' on here, and keep watching.

contracycle:

Voter A opposes racism, and therefore votes for a Democrat who advocates affirmative action.
Voter B opposes racism, and therfefore votes for a Republican who opposes affirmative action.

How are we to tell them apart based on motivation? And if there motivations are identical, should not their decision be?

Seth L. Blumberg wrote: I must be some kind of freakin' idiot to jump into this discussion.

Seth L. Blumberg wrote:

In other words, the behaviors that indicate in which mode someone is playing in a given instance are not, repeat, not the actions of their character. They are metagame behaviors, and they exist in the social sphere surrounding the game.

(This was a revelation to me, and yet again transformed my understanding of GNS.)

I would like to throw something into the mix.

According to modern behavioral science, our feelings don't actually do anything. Consciousness - subjective experience,sentience - has zero behavioral manifestations; it doesn't do anything.

In technical terms: consciousness, subjective experience, is "epiphenomenal" - it is always an effect, never a cause.

I think that renders motivation, in the emotional sense, invalid as a determiner of GNS goals. Valamir's use of "game motivation" seems much more like a response to physical stimuli and that makes it, in my opinion, sound more plausible. Then again, I'm no scientist.

-Chris

C. Edwards wrote:
I think that renders motivation, in the emotional sense, invalid as a determiner of GNS goals. Valamir's use of "game motivation" seems much more like a response to physical stimuli and that makes it, in my opinion, sound more plausible. Then again, I'm no scientist.

Seth L. Blumberg wrote:

Ron wrote: When I see Bob the Player say, "Yeah! You suck!" and eagerly grab the dice for his turn as his fellow player laughs ruefully, gazing at his failed saving throw, then I recognize one of the many kinds of Gamism in action ... or at least I'm alerted to keep an eye on how the group reacts over the course of the whole session to this sort of behavior. Three rounds later, the two players cooperate like fiends to double-team the troll wizard and a good roll saves their bacon - they high-five each other, and Sam the Player says to the GM, "Yeah! You suck!" and they all laugh, delighted. OK, I say, point 2 for Gamism goin' on here, and keep watching.

In other words, the behaviors that indicate in which mode someone is playing in a given instance are not, repeat, not the actions of their character. They are metagame behaviors, and they exist in the social sphere surrounding the game.

We can limit our discussion to what is observable, but I feel that it's like studying a tree by only looking at its shadow.

I actually see three sides to this debate.

The side that make the most sense to me is that which maintains that conduct is only relevant as it implies motive or intent. Gamism isn't about what you do, but about why you do it. The same is true for simulationism and narrativism.

The side which opposes this maintains that we can't know motive or intent, we can only know actions. This seems to have the stench of Hume about it--we can't know reality, only perception. To take this seriously, it would seem that there are no gamist motives, only gamist actions; no narrativist intents, only narrativist choices.

But every time this side attempts to illustrate what it means, it slips into impugning motive.
In response to me,

Contracycle wrote: Again, you are using the abstracted nature of the model as an excuse to lump what would almost certainly, in practive, be very distinct behaviours into a single category. If we were to FAIL to come up with at least a tentative "why" from the "what" we saw, then the only answer would be that we do not know. But how probable is it that these two behaviours are really, over time, indistinguishable?

Mike Holmes wrote: If I see a player kill the baby kobolds, because they aren't worth any EXP alive, then I will assume that this is a Gamist decision. I can't see how it prioritizes verisimilitude, or narrativist premise. What I can't assume is what motive caused the player to do what he did.

Marco wrote:
Actually, that's a real good point--but while the "chicken dance" may indicate gamist behavior and someone saying "now ... to further the plot I do THIS!" will indicate Narrativist behavior, in the absence of such a motivation-explaining cue how does one judge?

M. J. Young wrote:

Mike Holmes wrote: If I see a player kill the baby kobolds, because they aren't worth any EXP alive, then I will assume that this is a Gamist decision. I can't see how it prioritizes verisimilitude, or narrativist premise. What I can't assume is what motive caused the player to do what he did.

I have yet to read a post here that explains how behavior can lead to classification without passing through the step of impugning motive or intent; in fact, it seems to me that the classification itself is defined by motive or intent. The majority seem to agree with this; the minority can't seem to explain otherwise without falling into some hidden trap of letting motive or intent in through the back door. It is there in all the posts on both of these sides.

contracycle wrote:

Even if the theory is wrong in some siginificant way, going out and accumulating the data which disproves it would lay the groundwork for whatever model, if any, should succeed it. We will necessarily have to speculate on the motivations of players in this process; we will have to ask questions, discuss our experiences, explore our own motives and those of our players - but to priviliege those aspects above what is observable would be to use the least reliable available data. When we see behaviour, we are seeing motive expressed - but it is the behaviour which is accessible.

I've made a great mess with my baby kobolds, haven't I. I should have left it to Ron. My point has been all along that I think Ron is correct. I hold no third position. If I've done a poor job of it, then my comments should be ignored, not disected.

That said, and at the risk of further complicating things, the baby kobolds example, is, to me all behavior. The definition of Gamism, is making decisions based on in game metrics or some sort of striving by the player. Or something to that effect. So, doing something for EXP is the behavior known as Gamism. If Ralph wants to call that a "Game Motive" then great. But that's just relabeling something we've already got a label for. Motives, I assumed would be what caused the player to "Make a decision based on in game metrics or some sort of striving".

This is entirely semantic. I see making a decision that follows certain criteria as a behavior (in fact it seems the very definition of a behavior). Ralph sees it as a motive. The point of our "side" has been and always will be that looking at the specific decision, what is observable most offten, and most importantly, is the behavior itself. And that we don't have to look any deeper than that. And in that, Ralph seems to agree. We don't need to look at what he calls "Psychological" motives.

So, since we seem to only disagree on terminology, I can only attack it sematnically. To which I'd say that unless we adopt Ralphs coventions, and even possibly then, calling the isms motives will be confusing to people who will think that we are looking beyond the "game motives". calling it behavior would certainly serve to maintain the distinctions between what certainly is notable behavior, and what are most certainly motives (Ralph's "psychological motives").

So that's my vote on what terminology to use.

Mike

P.S. Is it just me, or does it seem that in a roundabout way we're just rehashing the age old debate between Behavioralism, and Personality theory? And if so, isn't that a good reason to drop the debate (I certainly wouldn't claim to be an expert on any of this).

I think the crux of the debate for me is: "How can you identify, say, Narrativist behavior without a dead-giveaway (the player goes "mmm ... this will be good for the story")?"

If you can't then using GNS to analyze anyone else's play is an exercise in seeing what you want to see.

If you can, I'd like to know how.

If you're pretty sure you can most of the time, what are the objective-tells?

-Marco

I'm not sure where to begin to explain why I think you're wrong Mike...I'm not even sure if there's a point to it.

But I shall try.

You are saying that your baby kobolds example is a behavior. It isn't. It can't be.

"Player killed baby kobolds": THAT'S the behavior. That's what's observable.

"Because they aren't worth any XPs alive" This is NOT part of the behavior. It can't be because it isn't observable. We only know this is the reason he killed the kobolds because you told us, because he actually said it in the game. So if its not part of the behavior what is it? Its part of the REASON for the behavior. Its the part of the reason thats relevant for our purposes. This is the piece I called motive, and later called Game Motive to distinguish it from other issues that were muddying the discussion.

"Because they aren't worth any XPs alive" is the REASON...the "because" gives it away. Behaviors don't involve "because". Motives involve "because".


And this "because" is the key piece of the whole thing. "Player killed baby kobolds" tells us nothing about GNS mode. As has been pointed out above and won't be repeated again this sentence could be ANY mode.

GNS can only be distinguished from the "because". Without the "because" there is absolutely no way whatsoever to categorize any behavior as being G, N, or S. Playing in Character is a behavior. It does not equal Simulationism. Using the rules to help the character perform better is a behavior. It does not equal Gamism. Only if we know the WHY of these things can we determine one or the other. Without the "because" GNS is devoid of all meaning whatsoever.


But now we get to the good stuff. How do we uncover the "because" when players aren't so accomodating as to announce it? This is why, while the theory is about decision making, we can't look at decisions on an atomic level. Because by themselves...we can't. This is why Instance of Play becomes important. Because over time and enough observations we can (in a mental process much like trying to guess the right pattern in Master Mind based on vague clues) deduce or infer the "Because" even when its not explicitly stated.

What started me off on this whole road to begin with is Ron's claim that motive (i.e. the "because" part) isn't part of the model at all and if we put it there is our own customization. To which I say "Rubbish and Bollocks". The motive part is there; has been there since the beginning, and to say otherwise is to me complete and utter nonsense.

Including the idea of motive doesn't make the model harder to understand. Its the only thing that makes it possible TO understand.


Unless you, Ron, et.al. are prepared to make a laundry list of every possible roleplaying behavior and ascribe to that behavior a corresponding GNS mode, behavior by itself its insufficient for determining GNS.

Unless you are prepared to document a pattern of behaviors such as "in character dialog", followed by "ignoring a possible positive modifier", followed by "whatever" is and always is a Simulationist event without exception; behavior by itself is insufficient for determining GNS.

Behavior is what is observed. Motive is what is inferred from observing a sufficient amount of behavior. Motive is what translates to a GNS mode.

GNS is WHY a player chose to do A instead of B.

This is what I've said since the beginning. This is what I remain convinced of now.

Marco wrote: I think the crux of the debate for me is: "How can you identify, say, Narrativist behavior without a dead-giveaway (the player goes "mmm ... this will be good for the story")?"

If you can't then using GNS to analyze anyone else's play is an exercise in seeing what you want to see.

If you can, I'd like to know how.

If you're pretty sure you can most of the time, what are the objective-tells?

-Marco

Here's my definition for GNS modes.

(you can substitute any mode in the example, I just got tired of people always using N and G)

Observer sees behavors from player Y that cause the observer to think Y is making simulationist decisions.

Observer then introduces Y and the rest of the group to a game that
promotes simulationist decisions.

During ths game the Observers see's more behaviors from Y and the rest of the group that the observer believes are indicative of simulationist decisions. (doesn't have to be, and probably won't be the same behaviors as originally observed).

Thus the observer can conclude that these players are making simulationist decisions, because
1)The observers induction of the Game Motives from the behaviors are consistent with the definition of simulationism.(This requires the observer to understand the definitions of course).

2)Promoting these decisions has increased the behavior.


I don't think there ARE objective tell-alls, other than a player explicitly vocalizing their modivation, and even then you could be wrong. I think just having a good understanding of the people involved and the situation is the way to go.

Valamir wrote: You are saying that your baby kobolds example is a behavior. It isn't. It can't be.

"Player killed baby kobolds": THAT'S the behavior. That's what's observable.

"Because they aren't worth any XPs alive" This is NOT part of the behavior. It can't be because it isn't observable. We only know this is the reason he killed the kobolds because you told us, because he actually said it in the game.

"Because they aren't worth any XPs alive" is the REASON...the "because" gives it away. Behaviors don't involve "because". Motives involve "because".

Playing in Character is a behavior. It does not equal Simulationism. Using the rules to help the character perform better is a behavior. It does not equal Gamism. Only if we know the WHY of these things can we determine one or the other.

But now we get to the good stuff. How do we uncover the "because" when players aren't so accomodating as to announce it? This is why, while the theory is about decision making, we can't look at decisions on an atomic level. Because by themselves...we can't. This is why Instance of Play becomes important. Because over time and enough observations we can (in a mental process much like trying to guess the right pattern in Master Mind based on vague clues) deduce or infer the "Because" even when its not explicitly stated.

What started me off on this whole road to begin with is Ron's claim that motive (i.e. the "because" part) isn't part of the model at all and if we put it there is our own customization. To which I say "Rubbish and Bollocks". The motive part is there; has been there since the beginning, and to say otherwise is to me complete and utter nonsense.

Including the idea of motive doesn't make the model harder to understand. Its the only thing that makes it possible TO understand.

Unless you, Ron, et.al. are prepared to make a laundry list of every possible roleplaying behavior and ascribe to that behavior a corresponding GNS mode, behavior by itself its insufficient for determining GNS.

Unless you are prepared to document a pattern of behaviors such as "in character dialog", followed by "ignoring a possible positive modifier", followed by "whatever" is and always is a Simulationist event without exception; behavior by itself is insufficient for determining GNS.

Behavior: The actions of a person in response to stimuli

Stimuli: Something that incites or rouses to action

Motive: Of or constituting an incitement to action


Abridged from Dictionary.com

Seems to me that Motive and Stimuli share pretty similiar definitions as being somthing that incites to action.

Ergo

Behavior: The actions of a person in response to Motive.



I'm done now.

As long as we agree on the ultimate application, argueing over definitions is indeed pointless.

Damn, I had this great long response written when I figured out where the disagreement stems from.

Ron, your essay does not speak in terms of behaviors. It speaks in terms of "decisions." There is a vast difference between behavior and decision - since, for example, you could decide to do something, yet be prevented from expressing it as a behavior.

Perhaps I am missing it, but I always see GNS modes talked about in terms of priorities and decisions, never behavior alone.

Decisions include motive. "Killing baby kobolds beacuse they aren't worth EXP dead" is a decision. The behavior is merely "Killing baby kobolds." And the motive is merely "because they aren't worth EXP dead."

Thus, my point seems to be in keeping with the definition of GNS modes, except that I've been using the wrong terminology. Behavior + Motive = Desicision, and decision is the language of the essay.

Am I missing something here?

damion wrote: Here's my definition for GNS modes.

(you can substitute any mode in the example, I just got tired of people always using N and G)

Observer sees behavors from player Y that cause the observer to think Y is making simulationist decisions.

Observer then introduces Y and the rest of the group to a game that
promotes simulationist decisions.

During ths game the Observers see's more behaviors from Y and the rest of the group that the observer believes are indicative of simulationist decisions. (doesn't have to be, and probably won't be the same behaviors as originally observed).

Thus the observer can conclude that these players are making simulationist decisions, because
1)The observers induction of the Game Motives from the behaviors are consistent with the definition of simulationism.(This requires the observer to understand the definitions of course).

2)Promoting these decisions has increased the behavior.

Damion wrote: Observer sees behavors from player Y that cause the observer to think Y is making simulationist decisions.

jdagna wrote: There is a vast difference between behavior and decision - since, for example, you could decide to do something, yet be prevented from expressing it as a behavior.

M. J. Young wrote: Is not the desire to achieve simulationist results a motive or intent?

1) The fact that GNS is about motives doesn't mean that it is about deep subconscious causal factors or something of that nature. It can be about motives and not be about all possible motives.

2) The fact that someone tells us why they do something may be behavior, but as behavior it is only relevant as evidence of motive.

We would now be justified in reading both the statement and the action as evidence that the player was performing simulationist actions.

The statement made by the player that he is doing this to retain verity in the world is no less behavior than the action of killing the kobolds; and it is equally subject to interpretation, as to whether it actually represents his reasons for the action or not.

But those "reasons" for the action are precisely what GNS is trying to infer from the actions.

In the end we don't care whether or not Bob's character killed the baby kobolds, and we don't care what Bob said was his reason for doing so. We are only concerned with Bob's actual motives--"Reasons", if you prefer, as long as you don't confuse these with excuses--as a player for having his character take certain actions.

Mike Holmes wrote:

Again, you are saying that something that some people term behavior is called motive. I disagree. Purely semantic. In the end, what is it that we disagree on other than the definition of these terms?

from contracycle:
This is extremely confusing. You have just demonstrated that Bobs motive is unknowable, or not reliably knowable. You are now trying to construct a theory on data which you concede is both hard to get and unreliable! Does not sound like a very useful theory to me.

contracycle wrote:

jdagna wrote: There is a vast difference between behavior and decision - since, for example, you could decide to do something, yet be prevented from expressing it as a behavior.

In which case I would expect to see "I am frustrated" behaviour.

Justin,

"Behavior" and "motive" mean such different things to you and me that we're not going to be able to discuss this stuff in a medium like this one.

GNS is about decisions. To me, that's not necessarily motive and it is behavior. To you, it's necessarily both. Obviously, we are using "motive" to denote different phenomena, rather than disagreeing about a fundamental issue.

If you read all of my posts in this thread carefully, you'll see that no shred of discord needs to arise in our discussions of GNS due to this difference in terms.

Best,
Ron

Hi Ralph,

Gareth is correct in challenging your use of the courtroom analogy. That analogy properly belongs to my presentation of GNS.

It's surprising to many people, but "motive" is not a central issue in criminal law. The question in law is not examining beyond-reasonable-doubt of motive, but examining beyond-reasonable-doubt of commission. "Motive" gets brought in as a piece of that examination when physical evidence is lacking and it comes down to jury opinion of circumstantial stuff, but it doesn't have to be brought in if physical evidence is more conclusive.

Court methods "prove" nothing, despite the courtroom or Hollywood rhetoric. They provide, at best, rigorous defense of one interpretation of a given set of past events.

My judgment of what GNS modes are operative in a group exactly parallels the courtroom method, and for the same goals - not "true knowledge," but beyond-reasonable-doubt inference.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Hi Ralph,

Gareth is correct in challenging your use of the courtroom analogy.

That analogy properly belongs to my presentation of GNS.

Court methods "prove" nothing, despite the courtroom or Hollywood rhetoric. They provide, at best, rigorous defense of one interpretation of a given set of past events.

My judgment of what GNS modes are operative in a group exactly parallels the courtroom method, and for the same goals - not "true knowledge," but beyond-reasonable-doubt inference.

Best,
Ron

damion wrote:

There is a large difference between not being able to know something directly and knowing nothing about it. I'm sure there is someone here who can come up with a great quantum phsyics example. In generaly people can infer peoples motives from their decisions.

Oh indeed. If motive was completely opaque to us we would never be able to have consensual sex, and would not be here. We can infer motive motive from what people do - based on the collection of behavioural evidence. In the legal analogy you provide, of the differeing degrees of sanction, that evidence is partly interrogation - does the perps version of events stack up? If they say it was a crime of passion, can we find the third in the menages a trios to confirm the scenario?

Similarly with the kobolds scenario, we pretty much have a signed confession. When asked what their motive was they said they did it for the XP - there is no real reason to doubt their word. If they are later seen hunting for random encounters because, they say, they are only 10xp from levelling, this would be supporting evidence that it would be perverse to deny.

Speech and self description are also behavoirs. There is nothing preventing us from drawing conclusions about their motivations FROM THEIR BEHAVIOUR, including self expressive behaviour - which arguably all of RPG is. In fact we should do so, because it will enlighten our understanding of the behaviour. None of that prevents us chopping the behaviour up into categories if there seems to be reason to do so for descriptive and discursive purposes. If as claimed, the observed categories are actually distinct, and really exist, in that they are discrete, then we don't need to know what the actual motivations of any given player are to still make games. We can still think about how to do gamism well regardless of the individuals actual personal motivation.

What would be a Bad Thing, IMO, would be to fancy we can just figure out how everyone thinks. Sure, we could sit down and pull a bunch of "motivations" out of heads; but all these will be is projections of our own motivations. We will try to imagine how other people think... how reliable is that? And then we can procede to categorise people based on how WE think THEY think. How can we do that, given the differences in everyones personal life experience? I say thats impossible.

But I think we get a lot of milage out of looking at behaviour. For one thing, we dont have to speak the same language - RP in French is still G or N or S, (or so goes the claim). And RPG by 15 year olds and 45 year olds is still G, or N, or S despite the fact that there will probably be very real divergence between their actual motivations. We could still make a reasonable game recommendation.

jdagna wrote:
Where in "GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory" does it say that GNS modes are represented only by behavior? quote]

Dunno. Would putting that in as clarification solve the disagreement? Ron's call of course but would that clarity resolve the problem?

Apparently the problem is that "motive" means something to me that it does not mean to Ron; so, it seems, does "intent" and "attitude".

My problem is still this:

There is always a distinction between what he did and why he did it.

What he did is behavior; it is observable. Why he did it is not behavior; it cannot be observed, but can only be inferred from evidence.

What he did, by itself, never in any single or multiple case points to gamism, or to narrativism, or to simulationism. The only thing that can be said is that we infer why he did it from what he did, and this is not behavior.

What a player does is behavior, and evidence of why he does it.
What a player says is behavior, and evidence of why he does it.
But the very concept that a player has "goals" at all means that he is thinking, or feeling, or internally providing reason to his actions. That is, the behavior only gives us evidence that he has these goals; the pursuit of these goals, whether or not articulable, whether or not clearly understood by the agent, whether or not consistent, is the expression of something internal.

That is, when you say that a player tends to make simulationist decisions, you are saying that he tends to make decisions based on some internal drive or reason or desire to move toward simulationist goals. The very definition of simulationist goals implies some "reason" behind the decision.

You might say I am a conservative (although I recently was labeled a "liberal airhead" by one test); I tend to vote for conservative candidates. Now, you can observe that I vote for conservative candidates, and that I write in defense of certain conservative causes. These are behaviors. You might not know that concerns for oppressed minority rights have influenced me to oppose abortion, or that being near the poverty line has embittered me against social programs that are abused by the poor and unavailable to those barely above some arbitrary line--and if that's what you mean by "motives" they are generally not observable. But when you say that I tend to support conservative candidates, you are inferring from my conduct that I will take similar actions in the future; and those similar actions themselves can only be recognized by inferring something inside me. My actions tell you who I am; who I am tells you what I am likely to do. If you leave out the middle step--if you say that my past actions predict my future actions--you have limited the usefulness drastically.

That is, if I killed baby kobolds before, you can predict that I am likely to do so again. If I also killed baby orcs, you might be able to predict that I would kill baby gnolls. If I claimed it was because my character does not believe such creatures are redeemable, you can predict that I would claim that in the future. But you cannot claim that I am gamist, or narrativist, or simulationist without generalizing from the specific to the general, and that requires inferring that there is some overarching principle behind these actions, some internal something that causes me to take actions that are related to each other, not in such obvious and limited ways as expressed here, but in some broader way.

Let's do it this way.

--My character kills a room full of baby kobolds, and I say it's because of the experience points.
--My character steals a valuable piece of jewelry from the home of a nobleman he is visiting.
--I shout, "all right" when my character manages to get across a narrow slippery bridge to escape pursuit.
--I blow on the dice before I roll them, and say, "Come on, twenty!"
--My character flees from a dragon, leaving his long-time companions behind to face an unwinnable fight.

What is it that ties all these behaviors together in such a way that they will all be considered Gamist?

If you tell me that it is because they all demonstrate my desire to win, you have admitted that gamism, at least, is defined by the motivation of the player: motivated by a desire to succeed or win or beat the game.

The only other thing you can tell me is that through observation over time you have recognized that these behaviors tend to occur together, that is, that people who exhibit one of them tend to exhibit the others to some degree. But in that case, there is no meaning behind them except as collections of behaviors. They are, if you will, all "syndromes"--collections of symptoms occuring together with no identified cause. They are less than syndromes, because the tendency for them to occur together is itself a generalization. Ralph might not kill baby kobolds for experience points, although he always blows on his dice and gets excited by successes and steals from wealthy nobility--and he would never abandon his comrades to face their doom without him. Damion might easily kill baby kobolds and steal from noblemen and leave his companions to face the dragon, but he doesn't make such exclamations or blow on his dice. The model would seem to lose all relevance to game design or play, because all it tells us is "people who do this are somewhat more likely also to do that than are people who don't do this", like some marketing survey telling us that those who drink Coke will probably buy junk food and pop music. If GNS is nothing more than marketing theory, it is a lot less than most of us ever supposed.

Now, maybe you don't want to call that "motive"; but if "why" a player chooses as he does is at all relevant to the matter, it is more than merely behavior.

I'm sorry to push the issue like this, but I am very dissatisfied by the notion that the "why" behind the decisions is irrelevant to the model. The model itself seems to be an effort to generalize the "why" of player actions.

--M. J. Young

M. J. Young wrote: a distinction between what he did and why he did it.

On what basis do you make this claim? Apart form subjective experience, can you cite any research which attributes an ontologically independant existance to an entity called "motive"?

What he did is behavior; it is observable. Why he did it is not behavior; it cannot be observed, but can only be inferred from evidence.

Correct. That is why motive cannot play any part in a usable model. Only observation of BEHAVOIUR can provide date, FROM WHICH we can infer motive (unreliably).

The only other thing you can tell me is that through observation over time you have recognized that these behaviors tend to occur together, that is, that people who exhibit one of them tend to exhibit the others to some degree.

Yes. Thats a nice, safe, limited assesment of the avilable data, from which can safely procede to make opiniated speculations.

But in that case, there is no meaning behind them except as collections of behaviors.

Question: WHY shoudl there be meaning? What do you mean by meaning? And why is it not valid or useful to address tham AS behaviours?

They are, if you will, all "syndromes"--collections of symptoms occuring together with no identified cause.

Yes

Damion might easily kill baby kobolds and steal from noblemen and leave his companions to face the dragon, but he doesn't make such exclamations or blow on his dice. The model would seem to lose all relevance to game design or play, because all it tells us is "people who do this are somewhat more likely also to do that than are people who don't do this", like some marketing survey telling us that those who drink Coke will probably buy junk food and pop music. If GNS is nothing more than marketing theory, it is a lot less than most of us ever supposed.

I'm sorry but this is rubbish. The fact thatbthe model is NOT presecriptive, does NOT attempt to described something that is essentially invisible to us, and is not so arrogant as to presume it could identify other peoples thought processes based on nothing but navel gazing... these are its STRENGTHS.

I'm sorry to push the issue like this, but I am very dissatisfied by the notion that the "why" behind the decisions is irrelevant to the model. The model itself seems to be an effort to generalize the "why" of player actions.

It can quite conceivebly be USED to generalise motives as long as we do not confuse motivations with data. That is the PURPOSE of the model, nit its METHOD.

contracycle wrote:
Correct. That is why motive cannot play any part in a usable model. Only observation of BEHAVOIUR can provide date, FROM WHICH we can infer motive (unreliably).

It can quite conceivebly be USED to generalise motives as long as we do not confuse motivations with data. That is the PURPOSE of the model, nit its METHOD.

The claim that the model is ABOUT motive. It is not - it is about behaviour.

Taking the model as being ABOUT motivation gives us exactly the dilema identified: we can't derive motive from behaviour becuase in order to comprehend the behaviour we need to comprehend the motive. Motive is prior to behaviour.

Restricting the model to being about behaviour obviates that dilemma. Hence it doesn;t matter one jot what a given gamers actual motiovations are for us to constructively address system; you can do so on the basis of the behaviour they adopt while doing so.

so frex when MJ says:

That is, when you say that a player tends to make simulationist decisions, you are saying that he tends to make decisions based on some internal drive or reason or desire to move toward simulationist goals. The very definition of simulationist goals implies some "reason" behind the decision.

Hi Ralph,

Gareth and I have been rock-steady on our points throughout the thread. I think that you (and everyone else on the thread) might do well to read it over from the beginning - the phrases that you are finding reasonable now are not very much like the ones you were using back then.

A lot of people have been mis-reading me to say that GNS does not and can never involve what you are calling motives. That's not what I've been saying. I've been saying that everyone is free to infer the role of motive as they see fit, and we all can talk about sets of decision-making and so forth without muddying the waters with motive-terminology.

I strongly suggest that a re-read of this thread will reveal that this discussion is largely over. I'm not closing it - wouldn't dream of it, at this point - but if it starts goin' 'round and 'round with layered justifications of "what I meant was," then I will.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: A lot of people have been mis-reading me to say that GNS does not and can never involve what you are calling motives. That's not what I've been saying. I've been saying that everyone is free to infer the role of motive as they see fit, and we all can talk about sets of decision-making and so forth without muddying the waters with motive-terminology.

Hi Justin,

Sorry, man, but the dictionary won't help. There's a whole wealth of academia which sounds a hell of a lot like this thread - i.e., confused - so turning to it won't help much either.

If you'd like to discuss what I mean by "behavior," then contact me by private email. As long as we agree on the passage of mine that you quoted, then this discussion can be over.

Best,
Ron

Ron:

Two questions arise:

Firstly: The original GDS rgfa threefold was all about intention and motivation. Isn't it unusual to take that and make a model independent of intent and motive?

Secondly: The GNS model is about increasing one's fun. This is an internal state...

I think the problem is that half the people in this discussion are looking at wants/motives/intents, and half are looking at practise.

For example, I could have Gamist intentions, but end up playing in a Simulationist game. I'm unlikely to be happy, unless I also like Simulationism and recognise that I'm not going to get Gamist enjoyment out of this particular game. When intent and practise match, we tend to enjoy ourselves because we're getting what we want.

The GNS model as worked out by yourself, Ron, works well for looking at practise - probably reflecting your "hard" science background. Perhaps if someone from a more soft science (psychology being the obvious example) collaborated with you on the model it could cover both?

Arthur,

As I've stated several times, the very words "intent" and "motive" are not defined well enough across their users to be helpful. Using these words will introduce a great deal of fuzziness into the discussion, because of their incredibly wide range of meanings.

You're mis-reading me to say that things these words may denote are necessarily excluded from the model. Instead, as I've said, many things that these words are used for (sometimes) are part of the model, as encapsulated in the words "decisions" and "goals."

It seems as though people are very uncomfortable with the freedom I'm suggesting they employ. Arthur, whatever and however it is that you see "intent" or "goal" involved in the GNS model, go right ahead and see it that way - do not read my statements as excluding that perception on your part.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: It seems as though people are very uncomfortable with the freedom I'm suggesting they employ. Arthur, whatever and however it is that you see "intent" or "goal" involved in the GNS model, go right ahead and see it that way - do not read my statements as excluding that perception on your part.

Hi Arthur,

I don't know which of your questions you're asking about. Could you state it in full, please?

Best,
Ron

Hi Arthur,

I don't know which of your questions you're asking about. Could you state it in full, please?

Also, regarding bringing others into the essay or argument, that's what this whole forum is. Since the essay is specifically my interpretation, it's not a "Forge manifesto" except insofar as people agree with it. I use this forum as a kind of shared brain to continue modifying or clarifying my ideas.

Finally, sometimes folks are a little too free in ascribing this-or-that argumentative standard to the "Ron's a scientist" box. Y'all might want to hold off on that kind of reasoning.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: I don't know which of your questions you're asking about. Could you state it in full, please?

Hi Arthur,

Such a terminology might be useful to someone. I suspect trying it at the group level would largely generate a thread much like this one - interminable and circular agonizing over what motives are.

In order to be valid, it would have to leave Gamism, Simulationism, and Narrativism out of the term-structure, such that these things were results, not causes. Similarly, the terms and associated concepts which are identified with GNS priorities (respectively, competition, Premise/Theme, and Exploration) would have to be left out.

It would also have to leave "fun," "enjoyment," and "socializing" out of the terms structure, as those are the universals.

Best,
Ron

Hi Ralph,

Gareth and I have been rock-steady on our points throughout the thread. I think that you (and everyone else on the thread) might do well to read it over from the beginning - the phrases that you are finding reasonable now are not very much like the ones you were using back then.

Hey,

My apologies for riling you. Clearly our mutual interpretations of the very "what we said" have been incompatible from the beginning, which is only to be expected when discussing motives.

Right then. As I've said, your interpretation (as just stated) is yours to bring to the essay. If it strikes you that the essay makes no sense without it, then all the better that you do that.

As for this thread, it stands as is for whatever it's worth, and let the reader decide for himself, from now on. Unless anyone wants to keep going (I don't see why, but ...).

I think the benefit is that we are all agreed regarding the courtroom method being the right "what mode is that" investigation model.

Best,
Ron