Before reading the Gamism essay ( http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/21/ ) and the example game ( http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/22/ ), I found the presence of the GM to be problematic for purely gamist games. Now, after reading them, I still do. Can you truly have competition when there is a GM controlling the game?

Let's use the example game Black Fire (or Black Bood, the name I prefer). As I was reading the game, the GM seemed out of place during the Playing In phase. I thought something like Jonathan Walton wrote ( http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6364&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=7 ) would work better to "up the ante" in the spirit of competition. Would Black Fire work better without a GM? I think Ron has his doubts from reading his Playtesting Concern #3 but I'm not sure to what he's referring to when he asks if Playing In is really roleplaying.

Please keep comments focused on the example game as I know this discussion could get off-track quite easily.

H'lo,

My thought is that the Playing In phase is about as straightforward standard role-playing as you can get. Say I'm playing Kell, the skulls-only example character in the rules. Let's say Kell has no current stated Goal (as in the rules) and is in some town, and that the GM has a Monster storymap going on.

Here we are, in the Playing In phase, and some stuff has already happened. The player's figured out that a Haunt is around. So play would look something like this:

GM: All right, you're in the graveyard of the town, way up on the face of the southern hill.
ME: I'm using necromancy to divine where the Complication is in this situation. [describes cool necromantic divination]

[skull-based resolution ensues as in the rules, player beats the generic target number]

GM: It's Rorik. The Haunt lives in the well that you saw him visiting.

ME: I'm going straight to that tavern where he hangs out. I push open the door and enter. Is Rorik in there?

GM: It's dark and musty inside, and there are seven guys, including the one behind the bar. They all kind of loom at you. The biggest one is Rorik, all right. He stands up and spreads his arms: "Aren't you done with insulting my family?"

ME: "There's nothing left to insult, kinslayer. It's over."

GM: The six other guys all suddenly wilt and collapse upon themselves with their skin flaking and crisping like paper, as smoke streams from their mouths. It coalesces into the Haunt.

OTHER PLAYER: Oh dude!

ME: That does it! "No more killings, you fucker! You and the Haunt are going down!"

GM: Well now, that's a Goal, isn't it?

ME: Ay-up. I'm going to banish its ass. Gimme some Black Dice.

... et cetera. The idea is that the GM has the storymap and plays the NPCs, and the player-character enters scenes and does stuff just like you would in most RPGs. All of the details above like the tavern, the well, and whatnot were established by the GM earlier based on both prep and improv; I'm not talking about radical Director stance for the player at all. So it seems to me that the GM role in Black Fire is a really central and important thing. I don't really have any functional vision at all about how the game could be played otherwise.

By addressing Rorik directly, the player can remove the Complication from the storymap and therefore get rid of the Penalty die that applies to the eventual confrontation with the Monster that's going on.

What do you think?

Best,
Ron

quozl wrote: Before reading the Gamism essay ( http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/21/ ) and the example game ( http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/22/ ), I found the presence of the GM to be problematic for purely gamist games. Now, after reading them, I still do. Can you truly have competition when there is a GM controlling the game?

In the forthcoming article, I wrote: Because the point of [gamist] play is to overcome the challenge, it is not usually effective for the player facing the challenge to decide that he was successful. Since it is also possible that the players may find themselves in competition, it would be equally problematic for that decision to be made by a potentially opposing player. It is important to gamist play...that the player who determines the outcome does not himself have a stake in the outcome. This is why traditional games placed this power with the referee. He was viewed as the neutral arbiter, and as long as the players trusted his neutrality he could determine what occurred in the game world without problem. It is not impossible to eliminate the role of the referee from gamist play, but to do so the design must clearly establish who has credibility under each circumstance, so that disputes do not occur over success and failure. Too much player credibility can actually thwart gamist play preferences, since a player who can merely decide his character has been successful has lost all sense that there was any challenge to the victory.

I guess my trouble is that I don't see the GM getting to enjoy the spirit of competition in gamism.

I enjoy gamism but the mere presence of a GM distracts me as they are not playing to win and therefore seem to go against the grain of the gamist game. Donjon seems to solve this as the GM is in competition with the players. Universalis and Soap solve it by giving everyone GM power. I think the mechanic proposed by Jonathan Walton (referenced above) would also solve this problem.

Perhaps this is only a problem for me and most others have no problem at all playing gamist with a GM. But then again, I see many gamists turning to computer RPGs, board games, and miniature games. And that brings me to another question: Warhammer Fantasy Battle used to (at least in the 3rd edition) advocate having a GM for its miniature battles. Does anyone actually play that way or do most gamists find having a GM distracting, like I do?

Hi Jonathan,

Ralph and I once had a phone discussion about the roles subsumed under the completely inadequate term "GM" which I wish had been recorded by some FBI bug. We have to put aside all the stuff associated with the term as it applies to historical Simulationist play, and think only in terms of Step On Up.

Does a GM get to participate in Gamist play? If we're talking about Step On Up, the answer is yes - and it's very much like the bassist concept for Narrativist play. The GM facilitates the players, and (just as in Narrativism) lots of different ways might be employed. Remember, Challenge is always subordinate to Step On Up, so the imagined events in the game-world (and the GM's disproportionate power over them) are not permitted to screw up the fun-ness of the Step, but rather exist to give it more power. That is the key role of the GM in Gamist play.

Now, if we add competition to the mix, then that's a whole new question: does the GM get to compete? The answer is, potentially, yes, which unfortunately tends to throw people into a whole recursive loop of defensiveness and fear, in discussions. That's because they (rightly) fear the Hard Core. So let's just agree to stay out of the Hard Core, in terms of the discussion, and stay with the question ... and the answer is still yes. What does that mean? It means that the GM competes, but using a different rules-set from the other players. They compete using rules-set A, he competes using rules-set B. A and B are compatible and, in fact, necessary to one another.

Here's where the wails start: "But the GM can always just choose to win!" Um, no. There speaks the non-Gamist who fails to understand the social coooperation underlying competition. Cheaters are pussies. Pussies get ostracized. It's the quickest and most functional self-correcting social interaction in all of role-playing, and hence is rarely if ever an actual, observed problem outside of adolescent groups.

Tunnels & Trolls is easily shifted to this mode of play, and I think many of its early supplemental material demonstrates it in full, especially anything written by Greg Bear or Ken St. Andre.

Best,
Ron

Hi guys,

speaking from both sides of the Gamist table, as a GM, I've found that my personal challenge to fulfill is to make a difficult, yet fun and managable challenge for the players. I consider rather much like "level designing" in video games. You have to have enough novelty, enough strategy going on to make a given challenge interesting, you also need to leave enough strategic options(power ups, items, places to take cover, stuff to push over on bad guys, etc.) to give the players something to work with.

As a Gamist GM, I usually feel satisfaction when the players pull up a strategy that I didn't expect and successfully pull through.

I'd say the closest game that explicitly states these sort of goals is Rune, where whoever is GM'ing is getting "victory points" for beating down, but not killing off or completely defeating the PCs. In other words, the push is for a "close call with comeback", except for me, this is all personal satisfaction, no victory points involved.

Chris

Hi Chris,

Right - what you're describing is a Step On Up GM (who uses Challenge to facilitate that agenda), but with the red dial set low.

Best,
Ron

First, thanks for the discussion. It's really helping these thoughts coalesce.

More questions: if the GM uses ruleset B and gets "victory points" by challenging the players, how is the GM competing? More specifically, who is the GM competing against?

Hi Jonathan,

You're trapping yourself in a circular argument - with my example, I'm predicating that the GM and players are competing. For what, specifically? Who knows? That's Step On Up plus competition for you; the rules-sets could contain "Victory Points" or they might not, at all. The key issue at stake is always degrees of social esteem.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Hi Jonathan,

You're trapping yourself in a circular argument - with my example, I'm predicating that the GM and players are competing. For what, specifically? Who knows? That's Step On Up plus competition for you; the rules-sets could contain "Victory Points" or they might not, at all. The key issue at stake is always degrees of social esteem.

Best,
Ron

Hi Jonathan,

Step On Up = some element of social esteem is on the line

Challenge = the imaginary venue in which Step On Up stuff is evaluated (= Situation)

"Victory Points" are metagame mechanics which permit Step On Up to be quantified. Whether they are used as such is up for grabs, game to game or group to group. (Look at it this way: in some basketball, which team wins is being quantified, but what really matters is who personally scores hoops in the most skilled way, i.e., all net, or with the most difficult shots. Which team wins isn't such a big deal. These guys are using very different Step On Up from, say, a regional-trophy-oriented prep school set of players.)

"Experience Points" in AD&D (1978-79, Gygax) are Victory Points that have feedback effects at the Challenge level; i.e., to use the basketball metaphor, the more points you score, the better at scoring you become.

Now, competition is an add-on, meaning that if person A gains a Step On Up "point," someone else has to lose some. Furthermore, it can be identified as an add-on at both the Step On Up and Challenge levels, independently. You seem a little hipped on this aspect of Gamist play, for some reason, but really, it's an add-on. Arguably, among-person competition isn't consistently possible outside of Gamist play, but it doesn't have to be there to define Gamist play.

In previous, pre-essay discussions, I used the term "competition" to indicate the Step On Up interactions (betraying my sociobiological approach, actually), but apparently this didn't sink in for hardly anyone. I've cut back on my definition of competition to accord with what others usually mean by it.

Does any of that help at all?

Best,
Ron

quozl wrote:
O.K., you just blasted apart my entire way of thinking about this. Are you serious when you say the issue at stake is social esteem? This is totally unlike what I've been comparing it to: the competition amongst wargamers.

Valamir wrote: If you don't think that the primary issue at stake among wargamers is the social esteem of being the Europa player everyone fears to play against you haven't hung out with enough wargamers ;-)

What are wargamers competing for? Status. After all its not a real army, they are not in danger of being drawn-and-quartered if they lose, their houses will not be razed to the ground or their family sold into slavery.

But win or lose does impact their status amongst their peers, and their own assesment of themselves. You slap yourself on the forehead as a symbol of recognition of your own blunder. It is complimentary if the others joke about having to go 2 on 1 against you to get an even match. Sometimes people forge themselves a little nich that nobody else inhabits, becoming a specialist in a particularly outre or unpopular force set.

As Bankuei suggested, I feel the GM joy lies in the production of challenging and interesting problems, that are neither just a hassle or too daunting. At another level, arguably the GM is competing with other (perhaps notional or potential) GM's for players to a certain degree.

All that said, I'm still inclined to see to much emphasis placed on active competition; I still lean toward an analasys in which gamism is something more like "exploration of process" or similar; for which purpose, I suggest, competition is employed as a means rather than an end. There is an attraction in seeing all the moving parts of the machine at work, as it were, and you never get a better perspective of the whole machine in operation than you do as GM.

Ron Edwards wrote: Does any of that help at all?

Best,
Ron

Ron made some short remarks on http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=3085&highlight=gambling#3085gambling.

It's nice to see this integrated into the play mechanics. Perhaps when some gamers put down Narrativist play, they do so out of an unfounded fear that one of the great pleasures of gaming -- alea, gambling on chance -- will drop out. Black Blood/Fire puts that pleasure in the forefront.

Would it be ok to try it out with my ESL class?

Hi EP,

Sure. Of course, I don't have any idea what you're talking about regarding the ESL class, but, sure.

Best,
Ron

I didn't know how you felt about people kicking around your ideas w.o. your permission, so I just wanted to ask first.

ESL connection is simple. I have a bunch of undermotivated post-adolescent males who would rather play Counterstrike until 3 am than study. So I need a couple of hours of activity that requires them to speak and read. I am latching onto a Gamist game because it will play on their competitive instincts. The storymap will require them to do spontaneous writing, they will have to improvise dialogue, and when they are finished they will have to write the saga of their character.

If it works out, then I will continue on to a narrativist game -- HeroQuest probably w. setting generation shared among the participants. The narrativism will have a gamist component. Frex, the more sentences about your hero that you can generate in 5 minutes, the more abilities he/she/it will have.

So that's what I meant by the ESL connection. The gamism of the game feeds back into game activities intended to improve language skills.

Wow! I'm honored. I would very much like to see a detailed breakdown about how this project goes.

Best,
Ron

Pre-Game Strategic choices could involve weapons with distinct advantages. Frex:

Holy Ungent: 1 bonus sword when fighting fiends
Sword: 1 bonus sword when fighting Undead (cuttin' headz)
Spear: One bonus sword when fighting Beasts
etc.

I had two questions:

When does "playing in" end? After everyone has reached their Goal. Must a character get to the crisis point in a storymap before other characters get a chance to play?

That's it really.

Oh yeah, in game resources.
So I meet my goal of "gain loyalty of Fleetwood Bandits"
What happens next?
Are they a "monster" or "character" that I can send around to do my bidding.
If I am in the same scene with my ally how is combat resolved? Does each participant in a combat get a chance to initiate an attack? Who goes first?

That's after going throught the rules last night. Hope my questions aren't too incoherent.

Whoops, missed these.

When does "playing in" end? After everyone has reached their Goal. Must a character get to the crisis point in a storymap before other characters get a chance to play?

So I meet my goal of "gain loyalty of Fleetwood Bandits"
What happens next?
Are they a "monster" or "character" that I can send around to do my bidding.

If I am in the same scene with my ally how is combat resolved? Does each participant in a combat get a chance to initiate an attack? Who goes first?

I had to simplify the resolution system to make it compatible with the language level of my students.

However, the playing up/playing in distinction, competition for scarce resources, storymapping, monsters attacting story map, have all been kept.

I will tell you how it goes.