I've been thinking about what a hybrid is lately, particularly after
Decision Merging: An Appoach to Hybridization. What it mostly inspired in me is confusion over what a hybrid is.

My original working defintion was: A game that, without modification, may be played without Drift, in more than one metagame GNS mode.

Checking the original sources, I found the Ron's 'System doesn't matter' doesn't mention hybrids. In 'GNS and other matters ...', a definition of hybrid is given as:

Ron Edwards wrote: two modes can exist side by side in the design, such that differently-oriented players may play together

Ron Edwards wrote: A game whose rules include facilitating elements for more than one mode of play. Observed functional hybrids to date include only two GNS modes rather than all three, and one of the modes may be considered primary or dominant, with the other playing a supportive role.

Stuart DJ Purdie wrote: My original working defintion was: A game that, without modification, may be played without Drift, in more than one metagame GNS mode.

If a hybrid allows two players with differing metagame priorities to play together ..., then how can one be subordinate to the other?

Additionally, if in a hybrid a player's metagame priority is allowed to wander between the two GNS modes, then, if the supportive mode is Sim, meaning that expolration of some aspect is prioritised, how does that differ from non-hybrid play with either a Gamist or Narrativist goal, where it is well accepted that exploration is integral to all RPG's, and constitutes an important part?

Sailing off into another direction quickly, it's my observation that most players have a hybrid style of play; for them, the corresponding game that supports their style meets their needs.

Since one dimension of prioritizing is the frequency of choices made in a session by a player (the choices of choices, sorry) two players with differing "hybridizations" can play together, both drawing on the choices offered from the same game.

That is, the "Sim/Nar" player will make "Sim" choices more frequently than the "Nar/Sim" player from a game with oh, 50/50 split between Sim and Nar elements.

I don't think "hybrid" should be at all interpreted as perjorative.

So far, in what I've seen there are three main ways a game can support multiple modes coherently:

1) A game can manage drifting, allowing different groups to adjust fluidly to different modes. Essentially this is facilitated drift.

2) A game can permit multiple modes, and is design (intentionally or accidently) such that an arena of decision catagories do not interfere with each other. This seems to be the standard idea of congruence.

3) A game can permit multiple modes and is designed (intentionally or accidently) such that some arenas of decision catagories are indistinguishable in terms of decisions reached. This is the idea I mentioned before about decision merging, it's also a form of congruence, although one that didn't seem mentioned in particular.

The sense I got was that technically the later two are functional hybrids, but I'm unclear if the first is considered such or not. In fact it seems there is a general confusion on that matter.

The idea of subordination seems directly related to the scope of decision classes (i.e. the portions of the general class of decisions which fit a given mode, which are subsequently supported by the game). A game which subordinates one mode but permits both to be played has a larger scope of decisions classes belonging to the dominant mode, and fewer belonging to the subordinate one. In both cases it is vital to realize that almost no games support a given mode fully. Rather a given game supports a variety of decision classes which are predominantly of it's primary mode.

(As I write this, it occurs to me that I may be using the term decision class for what is typically called Creative Agenda, blame the mathematician in me.)

Well I hope that's food for thought,

-Mendel S.

Wormwood wrote: 3) A game can permit multiple modes and is designed (intentionally or accidently) such that some arenas of decision catagories are indistinguishable in terms of decisions reached. This is the idea I mentioned before about decision merging, it's also a form of congruence, although one that didn't seem mentioned in particular.

MK, definitely Hybrid should be seen as positive. Incoherent means that due to poor design more than one mode is supported in such a way as to make it difficult to impossible to play due to the supporting rules interfering with each other. That's the pejorative term.

I think people have misinterpereted caveats that attempting hybrid designs is difficult and often becomes incoherent, as saying that they're bad. On the contrary, from one POV, that being that presumably they are more able to support a wider variety of players, they are a great goal. Hence the love of TROS. This isn't to say that "single mode" games aren't a good idea as well, just that it's a design choice.

I've said, and most agree, I think, that most players shift between modes with great regularity. Rare is the "mono-mode" player, IMO. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that all players can enjoy all modes, and that dislike of certain modes is mostly due to player history encountering modes that were either presented dysfunctionally, or in such a way as to quash other favored modes.

Chris, Mendel, I'd say that Congruence, and similar tactics like Mendel has in the other recent thread, are tools to achieving good Hybrid designs.

Mike

Chris,

I was referring to the reference on the first post on Decision Merging. In that thread, I have at least one example of a game design which fufills this idea, at least significantly.

Implicit in some of the discussion of congruency is the sense that there are two dangers in inconsistent modes (or decision classes in general). First is the failure of the game to manage the different approaches, and so a break down of the systems that help support each character. Second is the meta-game discord of incoherency. This is possible even in a congurent system. Put simply, even if two different decision classes do not conflict in actual play the holders of the two classes may view each other's actions as problematic regardless. Convincing the simulationist that the die-hard gamist isn't going to tear down the setting's consistency, and convincing the gamist that the simulationist will be an interesting competitor are both non-trivial.

The distinction I see between 2 and 3 is that the later is a subclass of congruency which:

a) is easier to design and fully implement (i.e. it can permeate a design, rather than just be an option in a larger design goal).

b) helps address meta-game conflict between decision classes.
c) attempts to bring to light a form of trivial congruency where approaches do not conflict due because they cannot be distinguished on the play level.

In some sense, I view this as designable congruency, although it is certainly possible to design games with other forms of congruency.

I hope that helps,

-Mendel S.

If memory serves...

#3 is actually the definition of Congruent - as defined in the GNS and Congruency thread.

Grr...which thread? This one or Pan Reward-ism? Well, I'm already typing.

The idea I threw out in the Pan Rewardism thread was an attempt at something Congruent. I think the key to Congruent play is priority non-interference. I think any mechanics designed to force another playing into a mode will make it go splat. I cannot recall where (maybe the Star Wars threads in Actual Play), but I do recall some discussion of Congruent play from the GMing angle and how Robin's Laws basically amounted to techniques to accomplish that. I think this is also key to actually getting Congruent play - GMing senarios specifically with that intention. The book can encourage this kind of behavior, but a lot of it rests in the group's approach.

#2 is the common definition of a hybrid game - the combat system might be Gamist, the narration mechanics are Nar, etc. Sort of like individual game elements are mini-games/wrappers that don't overlap with each other if they conflict in priority...or something like that. I think hybrid is generally used more loosely though.

#1 seems like the definition of Abashed.


Correct me if my definitions are off.

******

I've been having this brewing idea that system level conflicts can be defined as either and Exploration or Stance conflict.

An Exploration conflict is where one Exploration element is railroaded as variable control in order to facilitate exploration of another. The conflict occurs when a player wants to explore the controlled element. As you cannot explore something being railroaded a player/player power struggle insues over the element.

A Stance conflict is just a power struggle over something, like two players thinking they both have Director power over the Cheetos.

Every other GNS conflict that occurs to me seems to be some sort of taste preference, a more social conflict. Sam doesn't like it when you're inconsistent, Ned hates your lack of theme, Gary just wants to kill the damn orcs, etc.

Which all makes me think GNS actually sits above Exploration, closer to the Social level....but I'm veering way off course now.

*****

Anyway, I think the system can design itself such that Exploration and Stance conflicts to do occur, but other conflicts are kinda left needing to be encouragement about how to structure the social contract.

Who knows if this holds water...just a thought.

Hi there,

It's always helpful to go back to the real variables at hand, which are features of actual play.

QUICK SIDE POINT
1. Number of modes per game group, given a single instance of play to look at. For present purposes, let's call an instance a session, with the proviso that stuff happened during that session and people got into it. So, number of modes per game group means different people with different goals/priorities of play.

2. Number of modes per person, again, given the same amount of time and content of play. Here we're looking just at one person.

I'm happy with letting #1 vs. #2 above just be an irrelevant variable; if Bob's Narrativism aids and abets Sam's Gamism, then cool, and similarly, if Bob goes on a Gamist toot which sets up and abets his later Narrativism, then also cool. I took the time to clarify the difference, though, so it doesn't become a red herring regarding my next points.

In both cases above, I'm not interested in little piddly flashes or details - if for thirty seconds, someone feels kind of odd that the Schmeisser submachine-gun fired for X combat rounds without a chance to jam, I really don't care, given that the rest of the session he or she was completely jazzed about the chance to level up faster than the person to the left.

TO THE POINT
So what makes hybrid play? When we look at that one instance and see that Mode X and Mode Y were firing on identifiable cylinders in some kind of functional (= fun) way. Hybrid play is therefore a subset of Coherent play, just as single-mode play is. I make no apologies for considering Coherent play good, and Incoherent play bad; the terms are inherently judgmental in my articles.

Now, what's all this about one mode being subordinate to the other? A lot of people forget that I am very uninterested in internal states, i.e., the GNS inside one person's head (if any). I'm interested in the communicative, social interaction among people; that's the only place I look for GNS in action. Therefore ...

I suggest that when zones or spheres of GNS-incompatibility arise during play, then one has to give way, in order to preserve the social fun. I also suggest that when hybrid play is going on, these chances for incompatibility crop up pretty regularly. If we're talking about Sam and Bob, side by side, when their characters are dealing with the same stuff in a way which affects them seriously, then either Sam's priorities will have to give way to Bob's, or vice versa. If we're talking about Bob by himself, then the same applies to his own different modes.

See, that "Bob by himself" bit is important. He's not really by himself. He's playing with others. If he just pixie-leaps about among Gamist and Narrativist priorities, it's confusing to everyone else, and in many cases will screw up their respective participations, if they can't tell which is the "real" goal.

Here's my claim, then: that over the course of that instance of play, and remember that it probably includes dozens of decisions and interactions among everyone at the table, play is functional insofar as everyone knows what the hell everyone else is up to, in GNS terms. I am talking about all play, including and perhaps most especially including play among people who never heard of GNS and wouldn't care if they did. So the idea is that if more than one mode is identifiably operative during the instance, it's not because people do a 180 every few minutes, but because what looks like a bit of a 180 is actually serving the interests of the "larger" direction.

AND NOW ABOUT TEXTS
Looking over my essays, I'm seeing that I made a mistake in restricting most of the hybrid discussion and definitions to design, rather than play. With any luck, I just corrected that.

Let's take a look at The Riddle of Steel. We have some hefty Simulationist elements of play, both in terms of "realism" and in terms of the player getting into the character's head (specifically offense and defense during combat). Yet numerically, the Narrativist elements of play so greatly override nearly any possible decision made in line with the Sim mode, that there's no way, without Drifting, for play actually to climax based on Sim priorities. Those Narr elements, the Spiritual Attributes, can only serve the player priority of whatever it is play is supposed to be about, thematically. They don't even operate as a constraint, as the player may change them almost at will.

The Simulationist elements of this game provide a chassis of gritty causality which is then rather brutally kicked and beaten, through the sheer weight of dice bonuses, into a thematic engine for players' "statements" regarding what's important, in ethical and moral terms ("values," if you will, Aidan). The Sim serves the Narr. The Riddle of Steel promotes, in my view, remarkably good Coherent play, specifically Narrativism with strong Simulationist hybrid support.

Again, though, this is all design. It doesn't speak to those whose standards for increasing the Spiritual Attributes drop below the recommendations made in the text, or to those who limit how frequently they may be spent to 0 for character improvement (which also opens the door for changing the SAs' content). It doesn't speak to those who simply throw the SAs out, when they rightly recognize that these rules practically cannot help but give Narr play a constant headlock on the Sim play.

Before I go on, Stuart, is this making any sense? Addressing any points or issues that led you to start the thread? Is there anything I'm failing to recognize about what you're asking?

Let me know so my next post can stay on the track that you're on.

Best,
Ron

Hi Mendel,

Technically, only #3 is a description of congruence. The definition of congruence is precisely the indistinguishability of which decision-making priority is being used to make a decision or a series of decisions.

Consistent congruence throughout play would therefore in theory obviate any internal or external failure to handle or accept a player's decisions, based on the simple principle that if no observer can tell what the decision-making priority was, the decision cannot be in any meaningful way incompatible with some other expected priority.

If decisions are identifiable as to their priority, but they manage to somehow not interferere with other players' different priorites, then something other than congruence is going on -- most likely a form of segmentation of play, where each players' imaginative space is shared primarily with the GM and only minimally if at all with the other players'; but other possibilities have been discussed, such as deliberately crafted "asymmetrical" play where one player's e.g. Simulationist agenda actually supports or enhances another player's e.g. Narrativist agenda and vice versa.

Other than this terminological fix (which makes your point simpler; what you're talking about as a "subclass of congruence" is in fact the entirety of congruence and a subclass of hybridization techniques in general), I agree with everything you've said, except that pervasive congruence is easier to design than other, mostly undefined, forms of functional hybridization. I haven't seen enough congruence-promoting design to come close to being able to gauge its relative difficulty.

On the previous thread I mentioned two examples of pervasive Gamist-Simulationist congruence from actual practice: "Save the world" scenarios, and traditional dungeon crawling with typical traditional "chaotic greedy" characters. In both cases, character behavior exhibiting maximum fidelity with the imagined game space will be all but indistinguishable from character behavior supporting a Gamist priority on mastering the challenge. In the first case this is due to a specially constrained situation (no sane character given the need and the ability to save the world would act other than to attempt to do so to the best of his or her ability); in the second, a special constraint on character personality.

While in practice these examples of congruence are generally achieved by adding constraints within a more general system, there's no doubt that systems could be designed with the same or similar constraints built right in. But I haven't yet seen any mechanisms suggested for promoting pervasive congruence that don't amount to significant constraints on character or situation. Even constraints in other elements of exploration might not suffice. A prison setting, for example, is highly constrained but could easily support incongruent G, S, or N decision-making in the absence of further constraints on character and/or situation, such as it being a WWII prison camp where everyone's cooperating to dig an escape tunnel.

- Walt

Jason and Walt,

Thanks for clarifying my misuse of congruence. (Yet another reason to suggest a lexicon is needed.)

I'm quite wary that the discussion has shifted to several topics which did not lie within the intent of the original author. As such perhaps a new thread or two would be preferrable. In expectation of such a thread, I'll keep my response short. (I'd post my own split, but I've already started a thread on this matter)

The two issues as I see it:

Jason, the idea of classifying conflict seems interesting, but I'm not sure if those catagories are really descriptive or complete. Certainly both stance and exploration provide locations for player discord (a term I prefer since it is less ambiguous in terms of in game conflict). But there also seems to be a variety of other areas of conflict, such as system disagreements and agenda interpretation. Obviously the most any design can enact is a reduction in discord, not it's removal. Second, in what way is a stance conflict and an exploration conflict distinct, other than where they occur? Admittedly I'm playing devil's advocate here, but it seems that conflict analysis is sufficiently important that it deserves careful inspection.

Walt, the key reason why we disagree about the ease of producing congruence is that most game design exploits congruence, rather than designing it. Most games are designed quite accidently with some region of congruence. Taking that game and constraining the play to just the arena of congruence will suffice to make what is likely an unplayable mish-mash into a functional hybrid, albeit quite limited. Actually designing the support for different decision classes to be indistinguishable seems to have no such limitation. Very little work has been done in intentionally designing such games, however.

I hope that is food for thought,

-Mendel S.

Ron Edwards wrote: Hybrid play is therefore a subset of Coherent play, just as single-mode play is.

Ron Edwards wrote: I suggest that when zones or spheres of GNS-incompatibility arise during play, then one has to give way, in order to preserve the social fun.

Ron Edwards wrote: Here's my claim, then: that over the course of that instance of play, and remember that it probably includes dozens of decisions and interactions among everyone at the table, play is functional insofar as everyone knows what the hell everyone else is up to, in GNS terms.

Ron Edwards wrote: Let's take a look at The Riddle of Steel. We have some hefty Simulationist elements of play, both in terms of "realism" and in terms of the player getting into the character's head (specifically offense and defense during combat). Yet numerically, the Narrativist elements of play so greatly override nearly any possible decision made in line with the Sim mode, that there's no way, without Drifting, for play actually to climax based on Sim priorities. Those Narr elements, the Spiritual Attributes, can only serve the player priority of whatever it is play is supposed to be about, thematically. They don't even operate as a constraint, as the player may change them almost at will.

Hi Stuart,

Excellent - looks like we're making sense to one another.

You wrote,

Hybrid seems to be a catch-all term for functional play that does not correspond to a single one of the GNS metagame proiorities.

Can you define what subordinate means in this context?

Hi Ralph,

By "subordinate," I mean that the mode of play in question can be identified through observation, but we can also identify that another mode is in action as well (could be sequential or almost simultaneous, I think) - and that the features of that second mode are amplified or focused by the presence of the first. The second mode is dominant; the first is subordinate.

I'm kind of stuck for a better example than The Riddle of Steel ... but maybe the G/S examples might help. Think of a role-playing situation in which the primary goals at the table are Gamist, and in which the "stakes" involve character survival, character profit, and completing a given mission, more or less in that order. I'm thinking of Shadowrun, and an interesting detail is that inter-player competition is probably relatively low. In this case, the Gamist "weight" or "confirmation" comes from the players' ability to employ the in-game details like equipment, mobility, firepower, and deployment, both in terms of prep for the mission and of the inevitable unknown factors that will crop up during the mission.

So in this case, up to a certain extent, the more in-game Sim is involved in contributing to those details (the weight of the SMG, the effects of a bullet wound to the thigh, the movement rate of the corporate assassin), the more intensity is imparted to the Step On Up. What keeps it from becoming wholly Sim is the Step On Up itself, as communicated across the people in play almost all the time (and which would be absent in Sim play). I'd also expect a certain amount of metagame mechanics in there in order to allow for metagame agenda to override the Sim-looking mechanics on occasion, especially in terms of burning resources for immediate bonuses, and similar.

All this is distinct not only from Sim by itself, as I mention above, but also from Gamist play by itself, in which the Explorative elements aren't expected to accord with anything except the ability of the in-game Situation (Challenge, in my new essay) to promote Step On Up, at all times. Tunnels & Trolls play remains the best example - the weapon weights and damage ratings, for instance, have literally nothing to do with any conceivable in-game consistency or cause; a weapon weighs more because it does more damage, as a direct means of effectiveness trade-offs for the player to strategize about, and that's that.

Best,
Ron

So by this reasoning one could observe that virtually all commercial wargames are Gamist/Sims with a subordinate S. The goal is clearly winning and driving your opponent from the field (or racking of VPs or whatever), but the measure of how "good" a wargame it is, is clearly reliant on the Sim to make it go.

One could also make observations about the split in the wargaming community over the validity of games in the "German Style" which are essentially pure G and devoid of Sim altogether (instead relying just on color to give a certain flavor to what is otherwise a purely abstract exercise). Some old grognards (such as myself) love these things because they give you all the fun without the 100 pages of rules and 1200 counters and such. Others decry them. Which would seem to indicate different degrees of importance placed on the S in the subordinate role. For those desiring a high degree of S backing the G (perhaps at times inverting which is subordinate) the German games are a complete failure. For those whose interest in the S is less, they are fine.

To bring this back to RPGs then one could argue that almost all commercial RPGs that we've been thinking of as Simulationist are either:

1) Gamist games with substantial Sim support in a subordinate roll
2) Simulationist games with Gamism in a subordinate roll, which as you note is not a very well balanced state which usually results in the Gamism part running rampant and "breaking" the game much to the frustration of those seeking sim.

This in itelf opens up a couple of interesting thoughts:

1) is it even possible to design a Pure Sim game that doesn't have Gamist elements in there somewhere? Is there a system that can't be "gamed"?
2) if not, if there is no way to design a purely Sim game that is devoid of gamable elements, and if Sim with subordinate gamism is not a very stable hybrid form...is there such a thing as Simulationism, except as a theoretical construct?

This then brings us full circle to ideas that haven't been raised in a while about how Sim feels out of place with the other two. Back to Jared's Beeg Horseshoe theory, and the idea of two axes (G to N and S- to S+) that you and Mike were discussing at Demon Con...

Hi Ralph,

Be careful of falling into the Can You trap ... sure, you "can" get Gamism going in practically any Sim design which isn't headlocked through one person's fiat. But that doesn't mean that no solid Sim games exist. I suggest that relatively few of the games cited in my Sim essay are necessarily Gamist-facilitating.

Best,
Ron

Ron,

The odd thing about defining subordinate as supporting and augmenting the other modes, is that there is nothing to say that there need be a non-subordinate mode in play. I have good reason to believe that this very situation, is acheivable, and can even be designed.

Hybridization, with a non-subordinate mode seems to be a case of one-directional synergy, where decisions in the subordinate modes eventually provide an increased advantage to decisions in the non-subordinate mode.

With only subordinate modes, a two-directional synergy is required. For example, consider a game where the emergent phenomena of segemented conflicts creates opportunities character development. Likewise character development can then be built upon with further depth, permitting access to knew fields for the conflicts. In this way, presumeably, the game could provide a hybrid between gamist and simulationist modes, both being subordinate.

I suppose the real question, and the real debate about hybrids, is whether design can achieve fully subordinate hybrids, or if there will inevitably be a non-subordinate mode.

- Mendel S.

Hi Mendel,

You lost me entirely. I have no idea what you mean. Can you re-phrase, please, possibly with examples?

Best,
Ron

I think Mendel means that this implies that there are no games with equal hybridized modes. That this implies that all games must have ordinate and subordinate modes.

Mike

Mike, Ron,

Actually, I meant something sort of opposite. I think it's a very valid question whether there are "equal" hybrids. And from what I've seen, I'm of the opinion the answer should be yes.

Regardless of the answer though, it seems a point that should be discussed and perhaps even tested with designs.

-Mendel S.

Hi there,

Thanks for the clarification, Mendel. Your point has to get back to the "play is real, design is facilitative" issue, before it can go further in my mind.

Are you talking about design which can be equally interpreted as [G facilitates S] or [S facilitates G]? Or are you talking about play in which G facilitates S as commonly as S facilitates G, and thus about design which facilitates such play?

Neither seems especially reliable to me. Your point appears pretty rock-solid in your mind, so I'm interested in which experiences of play lead you to this perspective.

Best,
Ron

Ron,

While design goals do not imply play results, it is certainly possible to bias those play result in certain ways, using play models and careful tuning of mechanical and setting elements. In this case, I'm advocating what I consider to be experimental game design, where games are designed to validate a given portion of theory via their play results.

In particular several such play results I have observed on some of my own designs indicate to me, that unbiased hybrids are possible, and in fact can be designed as such. At the moment this is at the initial analysis stage, and I have no clear idea if the trends seen are indicative. But it is interesting in the least that a game designed as an unbiased hybrid also appears to play as one. This is why I suggest this question needs to be asked, and investigated.

The game I'm referencing in particular is Pure Shoujo, linked off the website in my profile. I'm interested in determining if certain other games have similiar properties, but have yet to be able to test them, and in some cases finish the designs.

Well, I hope that clarifies my point,

-Mendel S.

Wormwood wrote: Jason, the idea of classifying conflict seems interesting, but I'm not sure if those catagories are really descriptive or complete. Certainly both stance and exploration provide locations for player discord (a term I prefer since it is less ambiguous in terms of in game conflict). But there also seems to be a variety of other areas of conflict, such as system disagreements and agenda interpretation. Obviously the most any design can enact is a reduction in discord, not it's removal. Second, in what way is a stance conflict and an exploration conflict distinct, other than where they occur? Admittedly I'm playing devil's advocate here, but it seems that conflict analysis is sufficiently important that it deserves careful inspection.

Valamir wrote: This then brings us full circle to ideas that haven't been raised in a while about how Sim feels out of place with the other two. Back to Jared's Beeg Horseshoe theory, and the idea of two axes (G to N and S- to S+) that you and Mike were discussing at Demon Con...

Actually Jason, I was referring to an idea Mike H. and Ron were talking about at Demon Con this past weekend which is why my shorthand notation probably didn't make much sense.

The idea being that there really is just Narrativism vs Gamism (and Mike actually made a similiar comment to yours about roll vs role playing) that exist as stand alone entities. The S is then overlaid on top of either like a second axis so you could have high sim Gamism, or low sim Gamism; his sim Narrativism or low sim Narrativism. I had had a similiar idea upon my initial exposure to GNS back on Gaming Outpost. I think I even made an attempt at an ascii graph depicting it.

Mike will have to flesh the idea out further as a topic.

Valamir wrote: Mike will have to flesh the idea out further as a topic.

Hi Mendel,

Go ye forth and design! Which is to say, let's find out.

Best,
Ron

Responding belatedly to the congruence question...

Ron is correct that congruence is defined on the scale of individual decisions. (At the time that definition was formulated, GNS distinctions between individual decisons were also being discussed by most people here, even if that wasn't Ron's intended interpretation.)

I'm not certain whether Ron is claiming, in offering the cell analogy, that individual decisions are never identifiable as G, N, or S by observation. If that were the case, then clearly congruence (as defined as the inability to identify a particular decision as G, N, or S) would have no useful meaning at all within GNS theory, as all decisions in all styles of play would automatically become congruent.

If Ron is claiming that overall-observably-Simulationist (for example) behavior does not necessarily incorporate any individual decisions that are identifiably Simulationist, then congruence remains meaningful but (if the claim proves valid) becomes limited in applicability. The applicability is based on the hypothesis that a pattern of congruent decisions amounts to play that does not discomfit players with different creative agendas because its own creative agenda is not apparent. But if a bunch of unclassifiable (that is, congruent) decisions could add up to (for example) distinctly Gamist play, that hypothesis is placed in doubt.

On the completely practical level, congruence is about solving problems in play, and designing systems to avoid problems, by addressing the complaints of players who find that certain specific actions of other players get in the way of their creative agendas. It's addressing disease by treating the symptoms -- which is an often maligned approach to problem-solving, except for two things: (1) it's not always possible to cure the disease in any other way, and (2) if one can successfully and indefinitiely treat all the symptoms, that's just as good, from an operational standpoint, as "really curing" the disease. (It might be less desirable, if the symptom-treatments are more painful, costly, etc. than the "real cure," but it could also be the other way around.)

Congruence also, in practice, often comes down to compromise on the creative agenda level. Conflicting character goals, for instance, will cause few problems if all the players are on the same creative agenda page GNS-wise. "Let's explore what happens when a bunch of Hatfields and McCoys are trapped in a coal mine together," "Let's have a big fight between Hatfields and McCoys trapped in a coal mine together and see which side's players can kick more ass," or "Let's set up a conflict between clan loyalty and survival and see what kind of story happens" all have a good chance of success. But conflicting character goals combined with different GNS creative agendas is a recipe for disaster.

Therefore, a GM or a system might demand that players create characters with roughly compatible goals. This is a congruence constraint. A group of players with coherent creative agendas would probably find the constraint onerous. (It would, for instance, rule out the three Hatfield-McCoy scenarios just listed.) For a group of players with creative agendas split along GNS lines, though, such a constraint will result in a much better chance of functional play. The compromise is, if your creative agenda is something like "show your superiority to the other players by secretly working against them and destroying them from within," the system (or the GM) isn't going to let you do it.

Congruence draws upon GNS as a model of what the "disease" is (differening creative agendas between players) and as a way to analyze the observed "symptoms" and think up promising "treatments." If the treatments work, in the end it doesn't really matter whether or not the theory of the cause of the disease is correct, or applied as originally intended.

- Walt

Hi Walt,

You wrote,

If Ron is claiming that overall-observably-Simulationist (for example) behavior does not necessarily incorporate any individual decisions that are identifiably Simulationist, then congruence remains meaningful but (if the claim proves valid) becomes limited in applicability.

Ok, I think I'm one the same page as everyone else now, thanks Ron.

Ron Edwards wrote: I'd amend [defintion of hybrid] to exclude the "none" category, such that instead of "not corresponds to a single one," I'd say, "corresponds to two or more."

Ron Edwards wrote: Issue #1 would seem to be the congruence thing.

Ron Edwards wrote: Issue #2 is that business about Simulationism in playing The Riddle of Steel.

Stuart, you make a good case. I agree with the idea of distinct types of hybrid play as you describe. And I've always maintained that congruent play, if it exists (and I think we're reaching consensus that it does) is either one specific subtype of hybrid play, or something that's not quite hybrid play at all.

Ron, thanks for the clarification on the "is there such a thing as an S decision?" issue and the non-atomicity of GNS. I now believe I fully understand your position on this. For the time being, I neither agree nor disagree with it, pending further thought.

[An aside -- My efforts to describe and understand Congruence are motivated by wishing to account for it, having observed it in actual play. I'm very interested in understanding its downsides (iow, though I do see it as a useful tool in the toolbox I'm not trying to promote it beyond its merits). Examples like the Hatfield-McCoy scenarios and understanding the adaptive nature of compromises like "no strong inter-character conflicts" in an environment of incoherent systems and haphazardly-drifting play could extend the practical applicability of the GNS model. I'm thinking, specifically, of eventually being able to drop the defensive "if your play works for you then you can ignore GNS" shield and being able to talk about, "here are some compromises you might not even be aware you're making, which you have the option to dispense with once you put into effect that System Does Matter."]

The interesting thing about TRoS as a hybrid example is that the Sim-heavy and Nar-promoting aspects are both wrapped in hard mechanics. If some groups prioritize the Sim over Nar and others the inverse, reflected largely in how they handle the use of SAs within the leeway the rules allow, then by a sort of fixed point theorem there should be a midpoint where S-N are in equal balance. That point probably is unstable as Ron claims, but since all this is happening through mechanics, adding a mechanical "governor" (think steam engines) seems at least a theoretical possibility.

- Walt