OK, the subject here is Ben Lehman's description of a common style of his games, detailed more in this thread.

The key point about this style is that it handles all in-game interactions as simulation: i.e. the setting and characters are all narrowly kept to how they were designed in the initial setup. This matches my description of my Water-Uphill campaign from a Feb 2003 thread. It also sounds reflects a lot of Bruce Baugh's essay on Situationist Gamemastering.

First of all, I'd like to settle on a name for this. Is "front-loaded Nar/Sim" a reasonable label for it?

Second, I'd be interested in people's thoughts on their preferred rules system for such games. I used to use the Hero System for most of my games. In my opinion it worked great within the set of players that I had in Chicago. The drawback I have found since then is that it is very difficult to teach to new players. I don't have a general preferred system at this point. What system do you prefer for this -- or if like me you don't have one, what sort of a system would you be looking for? (I have some further thoughts on this but they'll take some time to compose.)

I love Hero System, but I do think that you must have been lucky to overcome the Gamism that exists in the system. Or maybe you were Hybridizing that as well.

Anyhow, most of what I like from Hero System is available in simpler form in Hero Quest. And I find it enables exactly the sort of play that I think we're talking about. It doesn't model detail in resolution, but one can spec out things in great detail quickly when neccessary, as only one simple number on the same scale is ever needed.

For example, I can say that a castle wall has a 3w (23) resistance to climbing, and a 15w4 (95) resistance to being smashed (a giant with a similar strength might be able to do it).

Anyhow, I love the ease with which this modeling happens. As far as NPCs, having one with a Vengeful 10w1 is a really cool way to remind you of the character's priorities that comes out in play. I feel that relationships are similar, but for those with problems with that sort of rule, it's easily just dropped.

Mike

If I'm reading this all correctly, you're talking about what amounts to a Nar/Sim RPG where the Sim is a fairly structured situation provided through setting and color -- presumeably by the GM -- which is then gamed in using primarily Nar and Sim techniques.

So the 'front-loading' comes from the GM prebuilding not just the overall setting, but sort of stacking the deck in terms of what role the player characters will play in the coming scenario. You aren't dictating the end-condition, but you've made the starting conditions very particular and biased towards a particular set of priorities. It sounds like the PCs aren't just encountering the Relationship Map, but are actually given a specific role within it.

At least, that's what I got from the "You are church missionaries of a generally Good Church who for the most part have Right on your side" example.

I'd have to go with Ron on not calling this primarily Sim gaming. There's too much Nar in the setup. The players get to set their own priorities in terms of what they do and where they go, but because of their predetermined role, there are very specific ranges of reactions the NPCs are likely to have to those actions.

I think the difference I see between this and more 'straight' Sim play is what seems to me the tight coupling of the characters to the relationship map. That drifts Nar for me.

Does that make sense, or have I misunderstood something?

In terms of systems, well, I wouldn't do this with Hero. Hero is the game which made it clear to me that character building is a skill that the players have to develop to get the most out of the game. It's a kind of gamist front-loading of using it, if you will, and as you note, it's hard to teach it to new people. That lead me to largely abandon it, unless playing with other people who already know it as well as I do.

If I am reading all this correctly, I'd say any low gamist, high sim game could be used thusly. Too much Gamism can lead to abandonment of the Nar elements and the Sim elements which do tie to the Nar elements, I suspect.

BRP would work, I think. The Sim stays out of the way of the Nar with it, for the most part. I'd avoid GURPS, Hero, and other games with a lot of fiddly gamist optimizing in the rules. But that's just me, assuming I am reading this all right...

Hiya,

At the risk of analyzing in the absence of specific play data (but extrapolating backwards based on lots of your play-posts, John), I'm gonna say - Narrativism with strong Explorative foundation.

So, this can mean any number of things depending on what's Explored (character psychology with no quantitative mechanics, tactical decisions in combat with overwhelming quantitative mechanics, to name a couple), but the common feature is the defining one for Narrativism: commitment to thematic play, in which the "theme" isn't pre-set but is produced through what happens during play.

By "front-loaded," I think we're talking about a very strong emphasis on Situation, and I'm instantly put in mind of HeroQuest and Alyria. These are games in which the locale and the immediate issue there "sweep up" or already include the player-characters - and more importantly, do the same for the players. Ummm, add Castle Falkenstein and to some extent The Dying Earth as well.

In my terms, I call that Situation and Setting based Premise. By "Premise," I mean, issue or grabby problem. It fires up the people at the table, in terms of (ummm) the "human condition."

What's not front-loaded, if I understand correctly, is a great deal of "What I have to say about that" power in the hands of everyone at the table, in terms of character actions. Dice could be heavily involved or not, character/personality mechanics could be heavily involved or not, etc, etc. What matters is that nothing in the processes of play is oriented toward stifling a person's ability to comment upon the issue at hand, through the medium of play itself.

I strongly suspect that a lot of people who read "Simulationism relies on Exploration," failed to read further to the part, "to the exclusion of thematic or competititive-based priorities," and mistakenly tagged themselves as Sim-players.

This error has the extremely negative effect of ghettoizing all Narrativist play into pervy Narrativist play alone. Which incidentally cuts most Sorcerer games right out of the category.

Best,
Ron

Anya, I think the style we're talking about is more a case where the GM (or possibly the players) have designed the game (by which I mean the campaign/characters/relationships) so that Nar play results even if the players think in Sim terms.

I called it front-loading because the only place where Narrative issues are a conscious priority are at the beginning. After that, Sim issues are the conscious priority... but the situation was designed such that any exploration ultimately has to deal with the Premise.

It's kind of the opposite of No Myth style. Instead of changing the GM's plans to increase interest and involvement, the GM designs it so that interest and involvement are inevitable in that situation. A bunch of priests in a little town full of rivalries could sit around twiddling their thumbs and have interesting things happen anyways. And, Ben designed the city such that any decision the players make automatically has the kind of moral and thematic importance that fits Nar modes.

As for systems... I've always played this way and was actually a little surprised to learn that other GMs did it differently. I have used many systems and found that most of them supported this style. Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play has always been my favorite, but it worked pretty well in Palladium and GURPS as well.

Hello,

Justin, you're falling into the "consciousness" trap. Narrativist play is defined by observable commitment to getting that Premise turned into Theme. It doesn't have anything to do with the internal experience of doing so, which may be as "intuitive" and "unintentional" or any similar term as you please.

With that in mind, your "Sim" becomes Narrativism, with a strong Explorative foundation.

Now mind you, many a GM has made the error of thinking the Exploration alone can do the job of producing Theme, basically wanting Narrativist results to emerge from wholly Simulationist play. That is a pipe dream and often produces fizzled, frustrated play. Such a group often switches games in the hunt for the Perfect Setting that will Do It This Time, unaware that their own commitment to "playing in character" or similar stuff is hampering their ability to mean their own goals.

But that's a pitfall, and a slightly different topic. What you describe is indeed possible, fun, and wholly Narrativist play.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: I strongly suspect that a lot of people who read "Simulationism relies on Exploration," failed to read further to the part, "to the exclusion of thematic or competititive-based priorities," and mistakenly tagged themselves as Sim-players.

Hi Ben,

Yeah, you're approaching the Beeg Horseshoe idea, and that is not a bad thing.

The only reason I'm not agreeing with you (and by extension, with Mike) about it is that many people have insisted to me, either angrily or with the gleam of inspiration in their eyes, that "Dream Only" role-playing is indeed precisely what they want, and precisely what they do. It's their testimony I'm relying on.

The first and foremost reason is that this, essentially, relegates Sim to the "baseline RPG" experience which, quite frankly, it isn't, or ought not to be. I think that this assumption does two things:
1) It relegates Sim games to a "theoretically uninteresting" ghetto.
2) It relegates Nar and Gam games to a "not really RPGs" ghetto.

Ron Edwards wrote: Justin, you're falling into the "consciousness" trap. Narrativist play is defined by observable commitment to getting that Premise turned into Theme. It doesn't have anything to do with the internal experience of doing so, which may be as "intuitive" and "unintentional" or any similar term as you please.

If I'm not mistaken, we're cross-posting quite a bit, responding to posts that precede what the person wrote most recently.

I'm gonna slow down and let everyone get their words in edgewise, and if possible, everyone, please read everything.

Best,
Ron

justin wrote:
A bunch of priests in a little town full of rivalries could sit around twiddling their thumbs and have interesting things happen anyways. And, Ben designed the city such that any decision the players make automatically has the kind of moral and thematic importance that fits Nar modes.

Well, I'm not sure if this is consistent with current clear and established GNS theory, but here's how I think about it: in addition to being "priorities," Story Now and Step On Up can also slide in there next to the five Explored elements as "mere" interesting parts of the shared, imagined environment.

You know how in Nar or Gam play, some part of the Dream (Explored elements) MUST exist, it (they) just isn't (aren't) being prioritized?

In Sim play, Story Now and/or Step On Up CAN exist, they just aren't being prioritized. (So can lots of other things, like non-Nar "story")

Also, in Gam play Nar can exist as an element, or in Nar play Gam can be an element. Element vs. Priority, that's the distinction that's driving me here, and (this is the part that may not be acceptable in current GNS theory) a Priority is just an Element granted particular importance by the group.

Does that lead to odd situations, like play that prioritizes The Dream which also contains a lot of Story Now? Sure. But GNS makes the observation that some elements just can not always share Priority status with other elements. One day, your Story Now and your Dream are going to be heading towards each other at 120 mph, and unless you pick one of 'em to flinch, you're going to end up with a heck of a wreck. Likewise, if your Step On Up prioritized game contains a lot of world/setting-focused Dream elements, you better either have a traffic cop or an ambulance standing by. Now, there are some good traffic cops out there (there are ways to mitigate the problems of conflicting G, N and S), and some people just aren't bothered by a periodic wreck (referencing Ron's post about fizzled, frustrated play: for some people, it's more like "our Sim 'in-character' need has frustrated our pursuit of Theme (we tried to have a Dream element and a Story Now element both be priorities)? Oh well, it was neat while it lasted, and it will be neat again in the future.").

Well . . . maybe not. Reading back over this, I think I'm reconstructing some big chunks of GNS by looking at it this way. But - something about prioritized vs. present seems an important here.

Gordon

First of all, a topic check: the question is about the particular style of play I mentioned, and game systems supporting it. Ron suggested "Narrativism with strong Explorative foundation" as a name, but that seems vague to me. Do you think that is really specific to front-loaded games as described?

AnyaTheBlue wrote: The Nar doesn't come from the situation you've got set up, but the combination of the situation, your belief/knowledge of your players, and your understanding of their likely actions. The players are part of the mix. If they don't commit to exploring your narrative structure it won't happen. The fact that they have to commit to the exploration of the themes you are throwing out makes it Nar, not Sim.

AnyaTheBlue wrote: Sim (for me) is stuff like rules for intricate politics and mechanical effects and stuff like that. Hero and GURPS.

I guess I'm in for a penny, in for a pound!

John Kim wrote: First of all, a topic check: the question is about the particular style of play I mentioned, and game systems supporting it. Ron suggested "Narrativism with strong Explorative foundation" as a name, but that seems vague to me. Do you think that is really specific to front-loaded games as described?

John Kim wrote:
I guess an the important thing to me is that the players need to commit to picturing their character and imagining what their character would do. As long as they do that, it doesn't matter to me what they think of "themes" as a word or concept.

John Kim wrote: Er... I think I mentioned that the Hero System was my favorite system for running these front-loaded sort of games for a long time, and with a set of veteran players, I was perfectly satisfied. Extra Credit is a Hero System game. Maybe your mention of those systems was supposed to evoke something in my mind that it didn't? For example, how are intricate politics incompatible with story or theme?

Anya, I think you might be a little tied up in your association of rules and Sim play. They do go together nicely, but I can explore small-town relationships without any relationship mechanics in place. It also isn't necessary for it to be an accurate model. They key is simply a prioritization of exploration.

Back to the larger topic and everyone's points... perhaps I should simply wait for the Narrativist essay before even bothering to continue, since I've touched on this before and always wind up feeling there's something I'm not quite grasping in Narrativist modes.

Here's the bottom line for how I play (which, I think correpsponds closely to what Ben and John are also talking about). When I play, I like the intellectual meat introduced by deep moral or thematic issues. However, my real priority is on standard Sim issues: a focus on Exploration and the internal consistency of "the Dream." I am actually bothered by the thought that someone might stop in the middle of a session and think "What can I do that will help this story have them x?" However, I'm not bothered by the idea that a GM might create a campaign while thinking "Let's set something up that will cause players to explore the way religion affects the relationships in a previously-stable and isolated environment."

Thus, the GM has front-loaded Nar elements into the campaign. They're going to come up, one way or the other, unless players refuse to play in the given campaign.

Nar players are going to fit right into this and have no problem developing the themes. They're the ones I'm going to become annoyed with. "Oh, great... Joe is subtly rewriting his character again for maximum drama. What a loser."

Gamist players will miss the point altogether - they're trying to "win" in a situation that can only be won if the player creates his own arbitrary victory conditions. I generally wind up thinking something like "Congratulations, your character has become rich and powerful, leaving a wake of misery and dischord behind him. You must be so proud of yourself."

Sim players couldn't care less about the theme... but the very nature of the setting produces a theme as they explore it. What that theme is differs from one game to the next, as John described with his "Extra Credit" scenario, but it always winds up coming out of play. My thoughts about these people might be "Fred's accurate portrayal of his character in this situation has really shown how important honesty really is."

Now, the general consensus here on the Forge is that what I'm describing in the "Sim" part is really Narrativist. I can understand why people say that, particularly in light of the behaviorist approach taken by GNS. The players may be intending one thing, but they wind up actually doing another (instead of, or at the same time).

I like the term "front-loaded Nar/Sim" because it describes the fact that you get Nar play thanks to the initial situation, despite a general commitment to Sim ideals throughout play. The GM is probably the only person aware of the Nar elements. Even in a strictly behavioral approach, I like this term better because, the commitment to consistently always overrides commitment to theme. In other words, if you have a choice between a cool story and playing your character well, I'll fully expect you to play the character and forget story. My reading of what John and Ben describe makes me think they'd agree with this. (BTW, given two choices that are consistent with character, I'd encourage players to take the one that provides the coolest story).

"Narrativist with emphasis on Exploration" seems almost like an oxymoron to me, since Sim play is defined as "emphasis on Exploration" There's the additional problem that the Exploration has a higher priority than the Narrativism except when the GM is creating the campaign.

Perhaps a "Story Now Sim" term might be even better? I don't know if Story Now really describes what we're talking about either since the story now elements are pretty much front-loaded too.

Does this make sense to everyone else?

I'm really out of it, and I've been posting like a fiend today, so I probably should wait till the morning before replying.

But I'm going to throw caution to the wind and try to make two very small points briefly (Ha!).

jdagna wrote: Anya, I think you might be a little tied up in your association of rules and Sim play. They do go together nicely, but I can explore small-town relationships without any relationship mechanics in place. It also isn't necessary for it to be an accurate model. They key is simply a prioritization of exploration.

jdagna wrote:
When I play, I like the intellectual meat introduced by deep moral or thematic issues. However, my real priority is on standard Sim issues: a focus on Exploration and the internal consistency of "the Dream." I am actually bothered by the thought that someone might stop in the middle of a session and think "What can I do that will help this story have them x?" However, I'm not bothered by the idea that a GM might create a campaign while thinking "Let's set something up that will cause players to explore the way religion affects the relationships in a previously-stable and isolated environment."

Thus, the GM has front-loaded Nar elements into the campaign. They're going to come up, one way or the other, unless players refuse to play in the given campaign.

jdagna wrote:
I like the term "front-loaded Nar/Sim" because it describes the fact that you get Nar play thanks to the initial situation, despite a general commitment to Sim ideals throughout play. The GM is probably the only person aware of the Nar elements. Even in a strictly behavioral approach, I like this term better because, the commitment to consistently (simulate? --Dana) always overrides commitment to theme. In other words, if you have a choice between a cool story and playing your character well, I'll fully expect you to play the character and forget story.

Justin (and everyone, really),

Story Now means the answer to the theme MUST be created by the players during play. Ron's "What's not front-loaded" paragraph of his assesment is, it seems to me, critical - without that, it's not Nar. When you say "Sim players couldn't care less about the theme," you fall back into the intention/behaviorist thing - for this purpose (and I'm speaking ONLY of this purpose) it doesn't matter what I, or you, or they may think they care about. The question is, what are they doing?

Exploring/developing theme (via whatever means - "in-character" thinking, subtle or nor subtle rewriting, whatever) in play? Nar. Reveling in the Dream, marveling at the implications of how character and situation intersect (to the exclusion of whatever thematic interpretations might be possible)? Sim.

So I see "Narrativism with strong Explorative foundation" (Story Now priority with a heavy emphasis on some particular Dream elements) as the full description. When a particular kind of play style (e.g., "in-character") is an important part of the Explorative foundation, these folks are getting awful close to the Impossible Thing (hope folks understand that reference - a search on that phrase will turn up more threads than you want to read, I'm sure).

So the question comes up, how are you going to do that? That's where "front loaded" comes into it, maybe - part of a technique to make acheiving the goal possible. That's where intentions become important/relevant, too - establishing that the intended priority for play is Nar, and that the intended means to get there is GM-loaded situation, with the players creating theme-ready characters but not directly interacting with theme during play (I think not interacting with theme AT ALL gets us into The Impossible Thing category, so to be clear - I'm not talking about that). My experience is that when the players know ("consciously" or not) that Story Now is the Priority of play, this front-loading can work.

Of course, as play progresses you sometimes need to "re-load." Which some folks find offensive - they might be better off pursing what I'll call Simulationism with a strong Nar interest - Prioritized exploration of some particular Dream elements with a strong interest in Story Now. The priority vs. element/interest distinction I tried to make in my earlier post, which may not actually work in GNS as it now stands.

Summary - maybe we need to split the "front-loaded" part out of the literal play priority people are speaking of here, and make it part of one technique for acheiving that priority. So I'm left with Ron's name and/or my rewrite of it as the label John is looking for. I'm no help on the system question (I'm thinking on it, though), and I take the "front-loaded" phrase and point to it as a useful technique in pursing this kind of play - a technique that he is already well-aware of and quite accomplished with.

Less help than I'd hoped to be,

Gordon

I've gotta go back and read this thread *very* carefully. Very. It's *intriguing.*

But from what I've gleaned so far, I have a few comments.

1. Ron's comment about searching for the right system to produce themed story is a good one. And really, a lot of Narrativist systems sort of do (really 'assist with' but if they're strongly focused it can be, I think, harder to avoid hitting theme than not) just *that*.

2. Knowing your players. I agree with John that in some cases it might not be necessary--although I *suspect* that in the case of the Convention Game there are some fairly strong campaign-created motivations present (I could be wrong about this--but for, what?, 4-hour games? I would *suspect* there's some pretty obvious problems to be solved or whatever). Having a good extant motivation (and a willing participant) is a good substitute to having insight as to what *really* interests someone.

But mostly: I suspect that a lot of my success with themed games (I identify greatly with how John runs his games) has come from creating situations that I know will enthuse my players (well, almost all the time. I don't hit a home-run everytime I run a game).

And that's important: if I can present player X with a situation with no planned resolution--but lots of interesting possibilities that I know the player will find *irrestible* to get deeply involved in then for all practical purposes (in a sense) I might as well be railroading.

Since I suspect the way I said that is objectionable, let me try another way: if, in the town scenario, the players decided to just "dibble" (I don't know exactly what that means--but it sounds right) then 1 of 2 things will happen:

a) not a whole hell of a lot.
b) some agent already in motion in the game will act on them.

In the case of a) they may be bored. In the case of b) it's (IMO) legitimate (assuming that the acting agent is consistent with the world and the method of acting isn't in violation of social contract--i.e. they aren't "captured without any dice rolls and thrown in the dungeon by the captain of the guard") but is pretty sub-optimal (IMO).

But if the GM is pretty darn sure that they *will* get involved then the eventualities of a) or b) are far less problematic for the group. Part of that is knowing the players (or, hell, at least the skill of 'reading' a new player accurately).

3. I use JAGS for that mode of play (who knew). Before that, I used GURPS. Before that: Hero. Before that a bunch of different things (and I'm playing in an AD&D3e game and just ran Savage Worlds--and someone wants me to run Little Fears so that's not *all* I do).

But one of the reasons that I chose the generic systems is because what I'm running rarely lines up with a published world/genre. Something like Unknown Armies would suit me (I think) pretty well--but essentially I'd just be using its engine as a generic system--and at that point I might as well go with something that has out-of-genre flexibility should I want it.

-Marco

Hello,

Lots of stuff to respond to in this thread. I'm going to try to make some general points, rather than comb through individual ones. If you really want my feedback on a specific point, please let me know.

1. Gordon's first post in this thread is key. It is 100% consistent with a section of my GNS essay which, I suspect, very few people manage to process:

For a given instance of play, the three modes are exclusive in application. When someone tells me that their role-playing is "all three," what I see from them is this: features of (say) two of the goals appear in concert with, or in service to, the main one, but two or more fully-prioritized goals are not present at the same time. So in the course of Narrativist or Simulationist play, moments or aspects of competition that contribute to the main goal are not Gamism. In the course of Gamist or Simulationist play, moments of thematic commentary that contribute to the main goal are not Narrativism. In the course of Narrativist or Gamist play, moments of attention to plausibility that contribute to the main goal are not Simulationism. The primary and not to be compromised goal is what it is for a given instance of play. The actual time or activity of an "instance" is necessarily left ambiguous.

Over a greater period of time, across many instances of play, some people tend to cluster their decisions and interests around one of the three goals. Other people vary across the goals, but even they admit that they stay focused, or prioritize, for a given instance.

Ron Edwards wrote:

Hey Seth, can I cue the "Exploration/Dream" diatribe? Way back when, during various GNS controversy discussions at the Gaming Outpost, I endured my share of people rhapsodizing about how pure, and how glorious, role-playing without reference to (as I now call them) Step On Up and Story Now is, and how beknighted and indeed selfish I am to inflict these two priorities onto others. Seth did a nice job of explaining all of this while struggling not to kill me through resentful thought-waves at the same time.

Gordon C. Landis wrote: Summary - maybe we need to split the "front-loaded" part out of the literal play priority people are speaking of here, and make it part of one technique for acheiving that priority. So I'm left with Ron's name and/or my rewrite of it as the label John is looking for.

Gordon C. Landis wrote: When you say "Sim players couldn't care less about the theme," you fall back into the intention/behaviorist thing - for this purpose (and I'm speaking ONLY of this purpose) it doesn't matter what I, or you, or they may think they care about. The question is, what are they doing?

Exploring/developing theme (via whatever means - "in-character" thinking, subtle or nor subtle rewriting, whatever) in play? Nar. Reveling in the Dream, marveling at the implications of how character and situation intersect (to the exclusion of whatever thematic interpretations might be possible)? Sim.

Hi John,

Appologies if the Sim vs. Nar stuff distracts from the purpose of the thread - my problem is that I think "front-loaded Nar/Sim" is pretty much a meaningless label within GNS, whereas (unlike Justin) I find "Nar with heavy emphasis on particular Explored elements" to be quite reasonable (per Ron's post above). Front-loading the Nar may be one way to allow for the heavy emphasis on particular Explored elements to occur and for theme to still be created, but that doesn't turn the play into Sim. The play would turn into Sim if the heavy emphasis on particular Explored elements was allowed to trump the Nar prep. At which point, the prep is only "Nar" in the sense that there was some interest expressed in Story Now, but since it wasn't prioritized, play as a whole (for that foggily-defined "instance") wasn't Nar.

You ask a good question about observable differences, and examples are always tricky. The cop-out is that with enough play time, in actual practice it becomes pretty easy to observe the cues - play becomes focused on the cascading implications of particular decisions/events, with no need or interest in connecting that to a theme. Or something that's a bit less-than-perfectly connected to in-game causality is allowed to slide, because someone thinks it will illuminate their thematic reaction to play.

Shadows in the Fog - I'm not sure. Tentatively, and allowing for the important caveats about limited time, a fair amount of available time spent on prep rather play, general "I don't know these people very well" issues, and (VERY importantly, I think) a "playtest" rather than "play" focus . . . I think the priority of play was Sim, with that interest in Story Now floating around but not prioritized. I think that means a Nar prioritization could occur as play progresses. I found it interesting that while the Shadows rules try to provide a lot of during-play (NOT front-loaded, or, not JUST front-loaded) Nar support via some different kinds of mechanics, many folks in the group seemed reluctant to use those as fully as the rules text seemed (to me) to indicate is preferred.

Still, I can point to some very Story Now-compatible choices by various players. It's the element vs. priority question, and if Story Now only pops out when it's convienent, and (more importantly) is stiffled by a commitment to pure Exploration, then it's not a priority. That session of Shadows seemed to lean towards the pure Exploration.

Then again, I find that some time spent in pure Exploration can help stir-up the stuff needed to get our teeth into Story Now - that is, in some ways Explorative play can be "prep" for Nar. So - a very tentative Sim read from me.

Gordon

I actually think the "why's it matter?" question is brilliant.

The idea that play should be that quantifiable that close to the line has always struck me as bogus (I thought I was in the minority in thinking that--but it looks like maybe not). Sure, if there were a meter that would ping when there was an according-to-God instance of Narrativist play or Sim play or whatever, then yes, you'd see a winner. But if the split was 49/51 then I don't think any human alive could *know* they had the correct answer from watching.*

I've yet to see the real value in analysis of play at the table (I'm not saying there is none--just that I don't see it--on the other hand, I see all kinds of value in analysis of one's own intentions and how well those are borne out by System which, appearently, I'm alone in). But still the not-so-new idea that play can and will be some kind of split should lead directly to the idea that when you're on the line it can get blury.

Not only do I see no problem with that, I think it's one of the clearest and most powerful statements in a thread that's full of 'em.

-Marco
* And I think observer bias is at least as bad as denial on the part of a player as to what his/her true intent is so I don't see anything more objective about one mode than the other. I'm damn sure I'm in the minority there.

Um, it doesn't matter. As has been said a jillion times, the only time GNS does matter is when it is observable that there's a problematic difference in play styles. If the differences aren't observable, then there's no problem, right?

Mike

I haven't seen any real lip-service paid to the idea that it'd be hard to tell. When John asked what's my style, if the answer was "somewhere between sim and nar--and even if I was there it might be hard to tell" I missed it.

The fact that John is doing something I really identify wiht that *might* be sim or might be nar is, to me, pretty enlightening (especially since the answer is that it could go back and forth over time and--if that's not all that uncommon then just chalk it up to another casualty of really bad short-hand).

(Also: I realize no one has said they couldn't tell--Ron said "why's it matter?" but still, I found it enlightning. I suspect that one's ability to be certain about these things--especially in borderline cases is directly porportional to their degree of observer bias).

I also think it's cool that at least one other person finds a universal system valuable for this kind of play.

-Marco

John Kim wrote: Well, my question was about "front-loaded" play, not about all possible play. If you want to start a more general talk about Sim vs Nar, I would say that needs to go into a different thread. The topic here is specific to front-loaded play. You could say that there are two subtypes: front-loaded Sim and front-loaded Nar, and we can talk about observable differences between the two.

Whoa. Just... whoa. That's a lot of posts.

There is no way that I have the time to respond to all of these individually, much I would like to. I'm going to go with a general review.

In general, I am perfectly happy to accept that front-loaded (such as my example) premise is still Nar play, and that front-loaded conflict (such as an Amber throne war) is still Gamist play, despite the fact that the play is actor-stance. The description of two modes and a chassis fits quite well, and makes me happy.

Ron, can I have permission to post "No" and a link back to this thread every time someone claims that "actor stance is completely orthogonal to Narrativist goals?" Because, you know, that would really make me happy. It would make me even happier if everyone started doing it. That, I think, was the largest stumbling block for me figuring out what this Narrativism thing was all about: "Gee, that sounds an awful lot like my playstyle, but I play strictly Actor stance, so it can't be..." I say :-P

I think it really needs to be clarified whether GNS theory is a treatment method or an analytical theory. It can be both, certainly, but in that case people need to stop saying "that case doesn't matter because it isn't dysfunctional."

I also think that the heavy Sim players who Ron talks about are lying. Or, rather, that they are Ron are talking past each other. I say this because I have played with a group of such players for the last 4 years or so. These are people (myself included here) who go to weekend long LARPs strictly for the joy of staying in character for 80+ hours...

(Let me tell you, it's pretty cool to dream in-character.)

We are not saying that they do not enjoy struggle (moral or material). We are saying that they enjoy struggle as an in-character, rather than out-of-character, device. Thus, by the definitions discussed in this thread, we are usually playing Narrativist or Gamist, and usually a combination of both.

A longer post of this last topic will be forthcoming, which may also include my theories on Gamist Sorcerer play.

yrs--
--Ben

Are you sure you're not misunderstanding the use of the term orthogonal?

My interpretation of "X Stance is orthogonal from Y mode of play" is someone saying "whether or not you play X stance is an entirely different axis from whether or not your mode of play is Y."

Because actor stance is completely orthogonal to narrativist goals, at least in my understanding of the terms. It's at a 90 degree angle for them, a different axis, a separate decision from what Narrativist goals are.

Am I missing something, are you, or are we both?

Double post.
damn the back button!

Pending Ben's (probable) confirmation by that "orthogonal" he means "contradictory to,"

Ron, can I have permission to post "No" and a link back to this thread every time someone claims that "actor stance is completely orthogonal to Narrativist goals?" Because, you know, that would really make me happy.

I also think that the heavy Sim players who Ron talks about are lying.

Hold on one second before closing...

Ron Edwards wrote: Pending Ben's (probable) confirmation by that "orthogonal" he means "contradictory to,"

I also think that the heavy Sim players who Ron talks about are lying.

Heh. When I suggested an interpretation even half as extreme as this, I was roundly denounced as a mean, insensitive, biased, anti-creative lout.

What's especially interesting is that the one person whose testimony outweighed all others in terms of establishing Simulationist play, in my mind, as an actual identifiable play mode (as opposed merely to a retreat from play modes) was Mike Holmes, who is now the Beeg Horseshoe's primary advocate ...

Gordon C. Landis wrote: I think the priority of play was Sim, with that interest in Story Now floating around but not prioritized. I think that means a Nar prioritization could occur as play progresses. I found it interesting that while the Shadows rules try to provide a lot of during-play (NOT front-loaded, or, not JUST front-loaded) Nar support via some different kinds of mechanics, many folks in the group seemed reluctant to use those as fully as the rules text seemed (to me) to indicate is preferred.

Still, I can point to some very Story Now-compatible choices by various players. It's the element vs. priority question, and if Story Now only pops out when it's convienent, and (more importantly) is stiffled by a commitment to pure Exploration, then it's not a priority. That session of Shadows seemed to lean towards the pure Exploration.

I'd like to answer the questions initially asked as well as I can.

I would say that this is front-loaded narrativism; there isn't really a simulationist element in it that I can see, because it's about addressing the issues.

As to what system to use, I won't say it doesn't matter, and I won't say that Multiverser would be best--but I will say that there is a significant degree to which the use of a front-loaded premise-laden setting inherently makes almost any system run more strongly narrativist.

In regard to the simulationist question, I've rolled off a new thread entitled Clarifying Simulationism, which I hope does that.

As to the impact of setting on system, I'd like to explore that in another thread, Setting as an element of System on the RPG Theory board. I was pretty tired when I wrote that one, though, so I hope it's coherent.

--M. J. Young

Hello,

I'm pretty sure that this thread can be called closed. Correct me if I'm wrong, anyone, but this is the moment of going once, going twice ...

Best,
Ron