This occured to me over in the RPG theory forum in the Techniques thread after the eläytyäists came up.

That is the purpose of role-playing and how this may differ from goals.

I started thinking along these lines after briefly glancing at the Turku School's documents were they seem to be putting the simulation above all else Actually, immersion. It looks like very, very strict guildlines about being your character in the game world over all other concerns.

I say seems and looks because I haven't read or understood their intent fully, but this is what it looks like so we'll leave the eläytyäist where they are and talk about some fictious group who I thought I saw.

In any case, such focus on any goal is laudable, but it begs the question: for what purpose?

Why should I immerse myself completely into my character and take the ascribed vow of chastity?

This notion is somewhat half-baked and is still frozen in the center.

This may b the reason why simulationism, as per past threads is the oddball of the three fold. As Ron put it, I believe, the gamist and narrativist boxes are inside the simulationist box.

Perhaps is a goal without a defined purpose?

I suppose ultimately the purpose is to entertain, but that's true across the board, so we can leave that aside.

The gamist may pursue the goal of excellence in playing the game with the sidenote purpose of fashioning a story?

The narrativist may pursue the storytelling goal with the purpose of getting better at crafting stories by these means i.e. playing the game?

The simulationist, at least as I understand it, seems to have a non-goal of representing the world, seemingly without purpose?

I may be way off base here, but it seems to me that there's the goal which is pursued in the technique of the game, and then the purpose which may be the same as the goal or may be different.

It seems to make more sense than to worry about multiple goals, but maybe it's splitting hairs.

Hmm, well, I don't think the sim is WITHOUT purpose. In many ways what intrigues me as a GM is to take players into a mindest they are not normally familiar with and saee how they interact with their environment, in thew terms that the environment sees itself. My goal, then, is perhaps "insight into the human condition"; by experiencing different (esp. social) reward schemes and sources of legitimacy, I am exploring the interactop of individual and society. A big chunk of my GMing can be thought of in much the same terms as experimental archeology, with a large and obvious list of caveats.

I have been thinking about this in plot terms, as I have kinda coime to the conclusion that I don't really operate according to a clear premise; and in fact I feel mildly uncomfortable with the idea, expressed by other posters, of "lecturing" my players. I just want to see what they will do; that is what bakes my biscuit, and to this end I am more drawn to social situations rather than a torturous conflict between characters.

Obviously, this operates contrary to Narrativism, as the experimental nature of the exercise must be adandoned for "good story"... and the gamist aspects are just there to keep us in certain bounds, as I see it.

Anyway, just thoughts.

Gareth (contracycle),
Your take on GNS in the above post contains much evidence that you may not be understanding it. For one thing, to interpret Narrativist-Premise as preaching is not correct - Premise poses a question or issue, but does not answer it, and in fact places the responsibility for answering it firmly in the hands of the players.

For another, Gamism is not synonymous with boundaries or constraints; all role-playing has them in one form or another.

Jack,
I see your distinction between purpose (the person) and the goal (the behaviors, actually). Again, though I tend to let the former take care of itself. Whatever drives a person toward, say, Narrativist behaviors and decisions during play is his or her business, in my view.

Best,
Ron

Hi Ron,

I'd be happy to concede any ground on the GNS front, but I'm not sure we are not talking at cross-purposes.

In regards premise, someone else posted a remark to the effect that they felt (rightly or wrongly) that they were in some way making players leap through hoops to prove the GM's, well, premise. Lajos Egri, who I am reading at the moment, fairly hammers at the idea that the author must a) believe and b) prove their premise in the course of the work; regardless of whether the audience accepts the answer offered by the author, the play itself must procede with the premise as a tacit law of nature. Further, he remarks that characters embody their own premises, but these are only important.useful inasmuch as they support the central premise.

This presents me with several problems. Firstly, my objective is much more experimentation than exposition; I am not, or at least would be uncomfortable, setting up a whole game to "prove" my outlook of the world, partly because the immense authorial power I weild prevents anything resembling objectivity. Secondly, given my rather uncommon political stance, I do not want to be accused of using my games as a pulpit to preach from - which appears implicit if I am to both believe and then prove a premise. What I'm saying is that I am not sure how to deal with this contradiction.

As for rules, lets say that from my perspective, the rules exist mostly to define the worlds behaviour in a dynamic sense; to provide the cause-and-effect that keeps all the particiapants, player and GM alike, on the same page, as it were. Frex rules for Humanity or Cyberpsychosis enforce a genre convention on the game space by realising this idea mechanically, rather than as a bit of flavour text. The imposition of these rules defines the space in which the game occurs, to at least some extent.

Lajos Egri, who I am reading at the moment, fairly hammers at the idea that the author must a) believe and b) prove their premise in the course of the work; regardless of whether the audience accepts the answer offered by the author, the play itself must procede with the premise as a tacit law of nature.

players = audience

Right, this is true, and whats more in an RPG I think it would defeat the purpose to subordinate PC premises to the GM's premise. But I think Egri's central point holds: without some sense of conscious direction, you lose momentum and, umm significance.

Obviously, there is probably little from the theatre which can be ported directly to RPG's for precisely this reason; I guess it comes down to finding techniques for this sort of thing that work in the multiplayer, and perhaps multidirector, environment. None the less, getting all this stuff is both useful and worthwhile; although I cannot take anything over directly, the points he makes about the significance of premise, rising conflict etc, have been a real eye opener. I already have my first synopsis written with the tools of Egri and Theatrix, and its miles better than the kind of thing I have been producing to date.

On 2001-08-14 10:32, contracycle wrote:

Right, this is true, and whats more in an RPG I think it would defeat the purpose to subordinate PC premises to the GM's premise.

Jesse just said was I was thinking of saying, only better. So I'll shut up now. Except to say I agree with him.

Oh, & to add:
Yes, the GM can come up with the Premise-with-a-capital-P for a narrativist game & tell the players "I have this idea for a run, & the Premise is blah-blah-blah". The players can all say, "Bugger that, I'm not interested, I'd rather play with such-&-such as a Premise". Or they could be as enthused as the GM & say, "Hell, yeah! I'll make a character to push that Premise!"
Another alternative is for the group to get together & collectively ask "What do we want to play?" & together come up with a Premise that everyone is enthused with. It doesn't have to be enforced by the GM to the exclusion of what the players want to do.

I'm interested by jburneko's idea of "preaching" - could I ask for an example from acutal play, to see if it fits the idea I have?

On 2001-08-14 18:40, Knight wrote:

I'm interested by jburneko's idea of "preaching" - could I ask for an example from acutal play, to see if it fits the idea I have?

Frankly, all of you are amazing. This thread is great. It all makes fabulous sense and offers insight to everyone.

Best,
Ron

Ron said you are all amazing so I say you are too..

:razz:

seriously though, this is a great thread. Kinda makes me self conscious though.. next time I GM a game I'm going to be half concerned with "how" I'm GMing it.
To further extrapolate on the "preaching" comments, ableit changing topic, what about the GM who has a specific story he/she want's to follow and won't be averted? As an example...

Years ago in a Rifts campaign our party was assaulted by a rather large force of coalition nasties. Under normal circumstances we would have been able to defend ourselves, and possibly even prevail without having to retreat. The problem was, our Glitter Boys were both heavily damaged and my character (a crazy) had made an obnoxious roll and was having problems with the local wildlife. (he thought the trees were trying to have a staring contest with him) So we were in essence crippled. What keyed me in to the fact that we were just characters in a rigid storyline (instead of characters creating our own story in this imaginary world) was the fact that
A) we were there. If the GM wanted us dead, that's understandable, if he didn't he should have ditched the encounter, or lightened it.

and
B) Without shuffling for papers or rolling dice, or looking at and sheets.. suddenly a group of 20 SAMAS power armor show up and start fighting along side us and send the Coalition boys packing.
(it's worth mentioning this group leaned heavy towards Gamist, so if you didn't roll it, it didn't happen. i.e.: We were made to roll damage for shooting humans (sdc damage) with rail guns (mdc damage))

The rest of the party (all gamist players) were happy that they got to live on to the next scene and possibly gain even more experience without having to die. For me, it ruined the rest of the game. If the outcome and events were TOTALLY preset then what was the point for my character? He was a man with no further control over his destiny than to either assume or avoid injury and possible death.

Was I wrong? Should GMs completely prewrite an adventure? How much is too much direction? Where is the line between "good story" and "singular plot directing"?

T

Hey T,

It all depends on whether CREATING a good story is a priority or not. If not, then fine - let the other priorities rule, and let "story" exist only in its most superficial sense, as a series of causal events.

But if creating a good story IS the shared goal at the table, then my claim is as follows:
* The often-repeated roles of the GM as the story author, and of the players as protagonist-movers, are unsound. *

It is flatly impossible for the GM to generate the story and for the players to direct the actions of the protagonists. One or the other has to "give."

The solution I have been touting as "Narrativism" is a pretty damn big topic. It relies on the concept of Premise, on the concepts of player-authorship, and a very different role for the GM (a very big role, but different). Take a peek through some of Jesse Burneko's threads about it; a lot of great stuff is in there.

Best,
Ron