In a lengthy series of recent threads, there has been debate about various possible "new" models and, among other things, their relationship to GNS.

I could quote extensively; instead I'm just going to point backwards to:

Confused Agendas and Practicality
Aesthetics and Conveying Reality
Aesthetics and Reality
Elegance and Deliberateness
Creative Agenda == Explorative Agenda?

All but the last of these became contentious, something I'd like to avoid here. There are also a stack of others on Creative Agenda, but I still get lost. At any rate, I have a question, and I think it's a GNS And the Big Model question, first and foremost.

Now in the second of these threads, Ron posted this schema, apparently from the soon-to-be-posted Gamism essay:

[Social Contract [Exploration [GNS [rules [techniques [Stances]]]]]]

All GNS is is a bridge between #1 and #2: the creative agenda

I understand Premise to be Narrativism's Creative Agenda. That is, this:

[Social Contract [Exploration [GNS [rules [techniques [Stances]]]]]]

[Social Contract [Exploration [What would you do for power? [Sorcerer's rules [techniques [Stances]]]]]]

[Social Cotract [Exploration [What's it like to be a Hermetic Wizard in Mythic Europe? [Ars Magica's rules [techniques [Stances]]]]]]

Hi there,

I think some of these points might help out.

The remark you quote is not off-the-cuff at all. I did not pose "Creative agenda" as a new category or level of classification, but rather as a blanket term for the GNS modes, which is to say, "Now that I'm Exploring, what does my Exploration seem to be 'for'?" Hence the name: Creative (Explorative) Agenda (Goal). It's a terminological replacement, not a new concept at all. You can call the brackets for the GNS category Creative Agenda, I suppose.

That's why you're right in saying that "What will you sacrifice to gain power?" is not a Creative Agenda. It isn't. It's one of many potential Narrativist Premises (now the only use for the term "Premise," I think), which is "deeper" than Creative Agenda in the model.

If I may be permitted a certain cattiness, just for a moment, I think a number of people saw a Kewl New Term in "creative agenda" and instantly went searching for a Kewl New Notion that it "must" be talking about.

Now, you're right in thinking that Genre is associated with Exploration. From my essay,

A "genre" is some combination of specific setting elements, plot elements, situation elements, character elements, and sometimes premise elements, such that by hearing the term, we are informed what to expect, or in role-playing terms, what to do. On the face of it, the concept would seem to be useful.

The problem is that genres are continually being deconstructed and re-formed, with elements of one being re-combined with others. This is occurring as a non-planned or non-managed historical phenomenon throughout all media. Therefore "genre" may be a fine descriptive label for what is or has been done, but it's not much help in terms of what to do or what can be done.

In many cases, a given genre label will convey to a close group of people a fairly tight combination of values for these variables. However, the same genre label loses its power to inform as you add more people to the mix, especially since most labels have switched meanings radically more than once. And even more importantly, new combinations of values for the key variables may be perfectly functional, even when they do not correspond to any recognized genre label.

Therefore when someone tells me that a game (or story, or whatever) is based on a certain genre, I have to ask a few more questions - and sooner or later, I get real answers in terms of Character, Setting, Situation, or Color. Only then can an initial Premise be identified, and then the next step toward functional, enjoyable role-playing may occur.

Thanks, Ron & Vincent.

Let me see if I've got this straight:

1. Social Contract --> folks get together
Q. "What are we going to do, guys?"
A. "Role-play by the following basic rules of sociality."

2. Exploration --> Characters + Setting = Situation, with Color
Q. "What are we going to explore?"
A. Characters + Setting, spun the following Colorful way

3. Creative Agenda --> G/N/S/Hybrid
Q. "What's that exploration going to be for?"
A. GNS answer (super-roughly-and-horribly-distortingly Winning/Ethics/What-if)

4. Premise
Q. "Why are we going to do that?"
A. Not just Winning, but beating the GM; not just ethics, but issues of power; etc.

5. Rules
Q. "How are we going to do that?"
A. Specific mechanics

6. Techniques (I'm not sure about this)

7. Stances
Q. "How will we look upon ourselves and our characters as we do so?"
A. Mostly Author, or Director, or Actor, or whatever

Is that about right? Would I be more or less on the money if I said that the hierarchy happens because when the gang gets together, it goes through these steps; if they go through out of order, they end up having to go back and fill in, then go back through in order, or else they end up in incoherent no-fun hell? That is, if they skip over Creative Agenda and go straight to rules, they either have to go back and do Creative Agenda and then re-check that the rules are OK, or they end up with rules that don't serve any Creative Agenda well.

So "Creative Agenda" is more or less equivalent to that ugly term GNS preference/priority/emphasis, yes?

As a final check, all GNS modes do lead to Premises, but they're of radically different sorts; thus Vincent's "What would you do for power?" and "What's it like to be a Hermetic Wizard in Mythic Europe." Is that right?

Sorry, I just want to get this straight in my head. Thanks.

Chris

Hi Chris,

So far so good, except for one thing: eliminate your #4. The way I'm looking at things now, I'm not calling anything Premise except the Egri-style Premise, and that's just down there in Narrativism.

Really, once you get the Creative Agenda understood, it all becomes way easier.

In Narrativism, you do that by finding the Premise (sensu stricto, Egri only). In focusing on that, you do "Story Now." Now dive down into your steps #5-7.

In Simulationism, you do that by specifying the relationship among the five element, which is to say, validating one another's "Right to Dream." Now dive down into your steps #5-7.

In Gamism, you do that by caring about what's at stake at two levels, most importantly the personal-esteem one, hence, you "Step On Up." Now dive down into your steps #5-7.

[hybrids eliminated from the above list just for brevity's sake; fill in as you see fit]

Here's a news flash: I am very greatly tempted, and have been for a few months, simply to drop the terms Gamism, Simulationism, and Narrativism entirely and to replace them with the catch-phrases above. Everyone, please don't enter into a debate about that. Just letting you know where my head's at.

Oh yeah, final point: Techniques refers to all manner of rules-interpretations and interactions which get things done during play. Illusionism is a technique. Narration-trading is a technique. "One caller per party" is a techique. And so on; there're many of them, perhaps hundreds.

Best,
Ron

Hi folks,

I think Creative Agenda simply made a lot of sense to me(even when it was called premise with a small "p"), just because in the broadest sense its "What this game is about", which, I think is really the point where players and designers have to meet, if no where else. I just wanted to thank Chris for bringing up good questions, and Ron for clarifying. On a side-note, Ron, those taglines have done wonders for me in terms of "nailing it down" or encapsulating the GNS ideas in soundbites(granted, you have to look deeper, but when you pull your head out of the theory, you know you got it right when they make sense). Story Now blew me away, and is what I consider the most important message out of Sorcerer and Sword.

Chris

[Social Contract [Exploration [GNS [rules [techniques [Stances]]]]]]

That's actually not a bad idea John. I believe the intent is to draw upon the idea of Venn diagrams to get these concepts and their interrelations accross...very difficult to draw in ascii...but I think its entirely possible that some of these overlap 2 or several rather than being strictly nested.

Hello,

John, in the essay from which the schema was drawn, and I believe in the section that I posted earlier, but *not* quoted here by Chris, I specify that techniques' position is not fixed where they're placed.

Best,
Ron

From my point of view:

With Baseline and Vision you are going to have a fundamental disconnect with Exploration and GNS (which I'm not saying is bad).

Baseline and Vision both contain elements of System, Setting, Character and Color (genre and how mechanics express genre), but not all the elements. Realism and genre divide things up differently than Exploration, they include things it does not, and vice versa (good reasons why neither term belongs anywhere near the GNS model). BV and Exploration just don't mesh in my mind.

GNS expresses how System Does Matter by defining the priorities of the players. Baseline and Vision expresses how System Does Matter by defining how a game can properly convey its intended play experience. GNS matters because it's about what the players want. Baseline and Vision matter because it's about expressing the game's concept. They just don't mix because they are coming from completely different angles.

A creative agenda (note the non-caps) defined for Exploration/GNS will have a different focus than one defined for Baseline and Vision. Or, to put it more simply: I agree with the following quote:

Chris wrote: By one interpretation, this relationship between Realism and Genre is the same as Creative Agenda. If that's correct, I don't see how "what will you sacrifice to gain power?" is a Creative Agenda. If on the contrary "what will you sacrifice to gain power?" is a Creative Agenda, I don't see how Realism and Genre are identical to Creative Agenda.

This thread has been useful in clarifying some issues that seemed less clear to me in the earlier threads that Chris cites. But as cruciel observes, there are still some unresolved issues about where or whether Baseline-Vision enters in to the present hierarchy. I appreciate what cruciel has pointed out, but I have a slightly different take on where B-V fits in (or doesn't fit in as the case may be).

Here's my thinking. As I understand what the B-V folks were articulating in prior threads, on one level B-V would seem to enter into the hierarchy at #2

2. Exploration --> Characters + Setting = Situation, with Color
Q. "What are we going to explore?"
A. Characters + Setting, spun the following Colorful way

At any rate, the point is that the game exists in a state of tension between Baseline and Vision. When a dramatic situation comes up, it's dramatic because it's unclear which side is going to win out. For example, suppose our superhero character is Very Tough -- that's his power, it seems. So when he runs across that highway to save that baby, we've got a dramatic situation: (1) does he make it alive, unhurt, etc.? (2) does he save the baby?

Baseline is pulling toward (1) no, and thus (2) no.
Vision is pulling toward (1) yes, though maybe dinged a bit, and (2) probably yes.

3. Creative Agenda --> G/N/S/Hybrid
Q. "What's that exploration going to be for?"
A. GNS answer (super-roughly-and-horribly-distortingly Winning/Ethics/What-if)

Eric,

As long as this seems to have turned into a B/V discussion, which wasn't particularly my intent, let me respond to your points.

zhlubb wrote: Here's my thinking. As I understand what the B-V folks were articulating in prior threads, on one level B-V would seem to enter into the hierarchy at #2

In the Ars Magica example this would be the tension created by a) the medieval setting and the players' expectations of the level of realism entailed by this setting and b) the presence of real magic and orders of mages as well as the game's assumption that the players will create characters who are mages or who frequently encounter the presence of magic in an otherwise "realistic" historical setting.

Now here's where I'm likely to anger some people--and if I do I apologize in advance--but it seems to me that running throughout most of the posts about the "interest" generated by exploring the B-V tension are largely Sim priorities. In Chris' example, the drama (interest) created by the B-V tension inheres in an exploration of a feature of setting as well as the mechanical or otherwise in-game resolution of a particular conflict that highlights this tension within the setting. From my view, these all seem like Sim priorities to me.

If B-V can propose other GNS responses to the tension presented by B-V, then I still wonder what it is doing that isn't already being addressed by the various GNS modes/responses at #3. Why can't we just make B-V a subset of #2?

I will confess that much of the Baseline/Vision stuff was dense and boggling and that I skimmed quite a bit of it; but as Eric "Zhlubb" clarifies it, I think that he's right to put it at the level of exploration, and as such it has no more to do with Creative Agenda than anything else that exists at that level--which is to say it is indeed the foundation on which creative agenda builds, but it is not in any way determinative of what the creative agenda is.

Chris, you propose a gamist and a narrativist direction that could be taken from the same foundation which Eric uses for his clearly simulationist one. Yet I think in doing so you demonstrate exactly what I'm saying: that baseline/vision has nothing to do with creative agenda beyond that established for the exporation level generally. I'm inclined to think that B/V is little more than a way to envision settings. Situation and color may be influenced by this (I wouldn't say incorporated), but that's always the case. If you do a medieval fantasy setting, you can have a range of situation and color, but the setting itself does set some limits on what is possible.

So you suggest the Ars Magica B/V, and we draw from it three directions:

• "exploration of a feature of setting as well as the mechanical or otherwise in-game resolution of a particular conflict that highlights this tension within the setting"• "the moral use of magic in the context of a Christian society where most assume that all magic is dubious or even demonic"• "acquire riches/power/wealth etc. without being seen to have a vast advantage".

You've agreed that these are, respectively, simulationist, narrativist, and gamist agendae.

The simulationist one amounts to "let's explore this setting."

The narrativist one amounts to "this setting provides an opportunity to explore this issue."

The gamist one amounts to "can we beat the game given the restrictions imposed on us by this setting."

In that sense, B/V may be a very useful tool for helping to define and devise settings, but it has no more relation to GNS/Creative Agenda than any other tool which helps devise settings. Yes, you can set up tensions within the setting itself, which then may be explored (simulationism) or ignored, used as the foundation for moral issues (narrativism) or ignored (as so many do with alignment in D&D), regarded as the strictures within which the character must struggle (gamism) or, again, ignored. I'm sure many people have played Ars Magica in all three of the modes you've identified, but perhaps many more have played it without ever giving a thought to the fact that "this isn't real"--whether because they took the description of the book as both baseline and vision, or they found it close enough to the baseline they drew from other fantasy that there was no significant vision involved.

That's where I think we are with it at this point.

--M. J. Young

M.J.,

You wrote: In that sense, B/V may be a very useful tool for helping to define and devise settings, but it has no more relation to GNS/Creative Agenda than any other tool which helps devise settings. Yes, you can set up tensions within the setting itself, which then may be explored (simulationism) or ignored, used as the foundation for moral issues (narrativism) or ignored (as so many do with alignment in D&D), regarded as the strictures within which the character must struggle (gamism) or, again, ignored.

Thanks Chris and M.J. for our thoughtful responses.

In my original post I never intended to make this a thread about B/V, so please feel free to return to the other issues raised in Chris' original thread. My only point was that given the hierarchy that Chris elaborated, B/V appeared to enter in at #2. Only when the B/V folks started to talk bout the "purpose" of the B/V tension (i.e. that it could generate "interest") did it start to get muddled for me. From my view, all the varieties of "interest" generated by B/V seem adequately covered by the familiar GNS terms.

As a cracking open of the black box of Exploration, B/V would seem to have a useful application as a design tool. Not being a designer myself, I can't really speak to Chris' intriguing suggestion that perhaps more possibilites exist for hybrid games that deliberately seek to incorporate all three GNS modes while remaining coherent and functional. I know Fang's Scattershot sought to be a hybrid of Sim and Narr priorities, but this is the first post I have read that suggests a hybrid of all three. Very ambitious and certainly worth the attempt.

Eric

clehrich wrote: M.J.,That's sort of what I said at the outset of B/V: that it has little or nothing to do with GNS (Creative Agenda). Walt neatly described this as a way of cracking open the "black box" of Exploration (i.e. level #2), and the more I think about it, the more I think that's correct.

I can't verify whether it was Ralph or not, but I can confirm that it wasn't me.

- Walt

My apologies for the mixup -- it was indeed Ralph (Valamir) who brought up the black box analogy.

As to Eric's (zhlubb) points, I just want to keep whatever discussion B/V is currently happening -- which seems to me a good discussion -- relatively tightly woven to the questions of Exploration and Creative Agenda (GNS). On the issue of hybrids, this seems to me a difficult issue in GNS theory, and something that could be opened up by moving back toward Exploration and asking how we get from one to the other.

On the problem of generating "interest," that's perhaps an unfortunate choice (by me!) of words. What I mean is that the same sort of situational tension that causes a group to "know" that die-rolling (or whatever) is required is the sort of tension that tends to generate play focus. At least, it ought to be this way: this is the point of Mike's Rant, I think, that we don't want to stop and go through 87 charts to deal with something we don't care about, but we really don't mind a lot of complexity on the stuff we think is most important to the game.

My suggestion, then, is that by thinking carefully about B/V and their relationships, one can pick out the sorts of things that are likely foci of play, and from that start thinking about mechanical design or resolution.

Chris

Given the recent discussion, could you recap what you currently see as the definitions of Baseline and Vision?

Mike