Hi All,

Look. This whole "intent" / "observation" / "analysis" thing has gotten way out of hand, so let me offer this:

I live in Los Angeles. And that means folks are wierd and believe in wierd things. Like psychics, for example. And, weirdly, people often say *I'm* psychic. But I'm not. (At least I don't think I am.)

Why do they say this? Because I pick up on little bits of behavior that seemingly shouldn't tell me as much information about a person as they should and draw accurate conclusions that surprise those around me.

I'll say, "Is she having trouble with her husband?" -- having never met the husband, and no mention of the marriage coming up, but I'll be right. She is.

I'll say, "Are you all right? Is someone sick." And she'll start crying, relieved she can talk about the illness of someone close to her.

I'll be at the beach, reading, and a little boy will come up and put his hand on my shoulder and start talking, and I'll notice his mom alone a few yards over and I'll think -- "Dad's not quite in the picture... He's not completely gone, but he defeinitely not showing up as a dad." And I'll talk to the mom (really hot, 30, in this great black bikini, so of course I talk to her), and find out she and her husband are seperated, the father was supposed to have the boy that day, mom and dad got into a fight and he blew the whole thing off... Ignoring his responsibilities and leaving the boy withe a resentful mom.

Now. I've been paying a lot of attention to little boys lately: how they're doing, are they acting out, are they confident, are they afraid. And I've been paying attention to their relationships with their fathers. Just accumulating little mental notes of behavior. (I'm doing this because I hope to be a father some day, and I'm trying to learn how to do it well.)

And when a little boy randomly and uninvited puts his hand on my shouler, I just start drawing out the information, noticing who's around, noticing how mom is dressed and so on. And all these things begin to coalesce into conclusions. And my conclusions are often right on.

Why? Because I'm psychic?

No. Because I pay attention.

That's what I tell people. "No. I just pay attention."

You can see the same thing in the film "Mystic River." Laurence Fishburn's character, "Whity" is talking to Kevin Bacon's character about how he can tell Sean Penn's character did time in prison. "You can see it in the hunch of his shoulders. Somebody does time never loses that."

Bacon says, "Give him a break. He just lost his daughter."

"That's the pain he's having in his stomach. The shoulders is prison."

He's a detective, he's been traing himself to pay attention to tells. Just like that folks.

Now. Is it a one to one ration of clues: A random boy comes along to a random man who's sitting calm and comfortable and leans on him for support so it's clear there's trouble in his parent's life? No. Of course not.

It's a collection of clues, that I, apparently, sift through with little thought. You line them all up, you start getting a picture.

Now. I'm a professional writer. I've been a professional actor. I've directed actors and had to get them to portray cues to an audience in behavior to make things as clear as possible as to what's going on. So putting together all these clues is somethign I'm used to doing. It's not a big deal to me.

I suggest Ron has done a lot of the same work in terms of RPGs. He's paid attnetion to certain behaviors, paid attention to circumstances and health or frustation of play, began drawing conclusions, and now is pretty good at pulling together disperate clues that mean almost nothing by themselves and drawing accurate conclusions. And, for those who want to learn, he's offering what he knows to others.

Is this a big deal? No. Is it a science? I have no fucking clue. Is it an art -- that's how I would put it, but that's my training. (Ron's training is heavily in the sciences, so he might take the opposite track.)

But really that's not what matters.

It's paying attention. That's all.

And finally, in the same way I'm watching how father's behavior interacts with their sons (and how husbands and wives interact -- my life is full of too many couples who are just picking at each other all the time and I don't want to go down that road...) the observations go two ways.

I can observe and collect data. And I can observe and change my behavior. I can even, if someone asks, make suggestions about changing behavior to people who want different results in their life.

For example: A man claims he wants to be a writer. But he isn't writing. Now, his intention is one thing, but, if he records in fifteen minute blocks how he's actually using his time each day, he discovers he spending hours of each day surfing internet port. Now he's got data.

But he can still go two different ways here. He can look at the data and say, "Jesus, I gotta be a writer," change his behavior and write instead of surf. Or, he can look at the data and say, "You know what. I clearly don't want to be a writer." And now he surfs porn happily.

Its the same with GNS. The data observed of mode of play might reveal that the player, despite his desires, isn't taking action to match his desire, and so only need change his action. Or, he might disocver that what he thought he wanted to do isn't what he wanted to do so he can relax his grip on what actions he thought he was supposed to be doing, and enjoy something he thought he wasn't supposed to want/do/enjoy.

In short... None of this is mysterious. Not to me anyway. If it frustrates some people that some people pay attention and infer correctly the batches of data we get... I'm truly sorry. It's not my inention to cause anyone anxiety about the objective nature of reality. But as far as I'm concerned, all of this is objective -- it's just not something I could probably write a book about because the data sets are constantly wide and specific to the circumstances (this boy's attitude, this mom alone on the beach, this Saturday afternoon, this bikini, his boy's desire to lean on a man's shoulder), that makes it impossible to say, "Look, this one bit of data means *this* and *this* alone."

But conclusions can still drawn if we've been collecting patterns of observed behavior and train ourselves to reconfigure the data into new patters to yield new conclusions.

By being aware of this we can point each of ourselves (and our RPG group) toward making active choices for our behavior to get more of what we want. -- even if we might not have had a clear idea of what we wanted before we took note of what we were actively doing.

This makes our play sessions more of what we want them to be -- if only because we become more aware of what we're doing, and thus can decide to do more of it, less of it, or something else completely. For me, that's the GNS part of the Model, and it works find.

Best,
Christopher

What he said.

Best,
Ron

He's right about Ron doing this sort of thing habitually, BTW. Anecdote:

At Gencon, I'm playing in a Sorcerer demo game, and I say something that's very to-the-point & important for my character. Ron interrupts play for a second and says, "Did you see that the other two players just involuntarily nodded their heads at what you said? That's cause it was just right. You get an extra die. That's in the rules."

Sorry, not terribly topical, I just thought it was funny that Chris mentioned this sort of thing (observing interpersonal signals) and it happened to be exactly what Ron did when I first met him. :)

Jesus CHRIST!

*Not* very topical?????

That's exactly the topic -- the idea that Ron *pays attention* to two fellow players nodding their heads at a choice you've made.

Yes, man! Exactly!

That's the whole Social Reinforcement thing that confounds so many, but, for the life of me, seems kind of like riding a bike to me.

And here's the key thing... You've opend up the topic, that's all. You've added the two players who nod their head. Yes, Ron's observing them nodding their head -- because you did the "right" thing -- but the key is, these two players, without having to check in with each other, nodded their head in response to your choice.

You were paying attention, because you made a choice that group obviously felt (and yes, I mean in a kind of touchy-feely aesthetic way) was right; your fellow players were paying attention because they nodded with a quiet agreement of "rightness" that something "right" was happening at the table, and Ron was paying attention -- so he could catch the rightness happening and give you a reward.

This is it exactly. Because think of what game sessions would be like if everyone was working along the same agenda, leaning in slightly to pay attention, pick up the next cue, offer up the next cool, right thing, so the group felt like they were making something up that also worked "right."

In other words, Ron's jazz improv band anology: the players having to pay attention to one other, knowing when to take focus, give up focus, hit a new tempo, whatever, grooving off each other because they all know when its working and when its not, and they're smiling as their doing it because its working out good.

I played that way in long stretches of Jesse's Gothic Fantasy Sorcerer game. It was great.

This is all Ron's offering.

But it requires real attention, real investement in other people, real allowance for real enjoyment and excitement to be revealed in front of other real people. It means admitting to others and to yourself what turns you on.

And I gotta say, I can't say I've seen a lot of that in the hours of RPG I've logged over my life time.

To go back to the examples at start of thread then, the point is not to look at other people, even your fellow RPGers, as these things you might pass by like so much flotsam, but to assume you are supposed to invest in them, pay attention, and care.

Without that you're just a would-be artist drawing the same anatomy diagram over and over. So you can draw a perfect set of bones correctly? The real trick is to take that knowledge, find a subject that compells you (a man, a woman, a scene) and committing to drawing that, paying attention to *that* with everything you care about it, and sharing it with the world.

Best,
Christopher

OK, maybe it was topical. Thanks, Christopher. :)

Christopher Kubasik wrote: This is it exactly. Because think of what game sessions would be like if everyone was working along the same agenda, leaning in slightly to pay attention, pick up the next cue, offer up the next cool, right thing, so the group felt like they were making something up that also worked "right."

Back of Sorcerer dust jacket:

You've never seen role-playing like this before.

... often dismissed as nigh-unforgivable advertisement hyperbole.

However, put the emphasis on "seen," rather than "this," in the very biblical sense of "to see."

Yes, that was indeed what I had in mind when I decided to use that text, and I did anticipate the most common mis-reading. It's worth it for the instances of payoff, when they arrive.

Best,
Ron

Christopher Kubasik wrote: In short... None of this is mysterious. Not to me anyway. If it frustrates some people that some people pay attention and infer correctly the batches of data we get... I'm truly sorry. It's not my inention to cause anyone anxiety about the objective nature of reality. But as far as I'm concerned, all of this is objective -- it's just not something I could probably write a book about because the data sets are constantly wide and specific to the circumstances

"...or are you just not observant enough to see the grey areas and ambiguities that my more sophisticated eyes have picked out?"

John,

You didn't actually mean to type that, did you?

But moving on.

There are models and there are models. I can show you fifteen ways that artists use to determine the proportios of the bodies they are drawing. Each of them contradicts the other, but each one of them gets the job done.

As far as I'm concerned, if Ron's model doesn't help you that's fine. if you have another way of looking at role playing games, that's fine.

The post above was in reference to people who seem flumoxed by the idea that one can gather what might seem like obscure data, tied to specific circumstances, and, gathering it all up using past observations, draw actual, acurate conclusions. When people demanded this practice be deemed a failure because it's not an exact "science" -- I felt compelled to point out this kind of thing goes on all the time in life. It was my intent that the post would get people to get off the "Ron's Model Can't Tell Me This Instant of Play Is GNS Except in the Imagination of the Observer so its a Failure at Objective Reality" bandwagon. The post demonstrates, from specific examples from my life, that we make this kind of inferences, correctly, all the time.

And yes, when it comes to RPGs, I use the filter of GNS. I have found it to cover all aspects of RPG agendas at the table.

If it doesn't work for you, again, fine.

But I swear to God, I can't imagine an artist who uses the sternum as the unit of measurement running after an artist who uses the head all the time going -- "The Head's innacurate for measuring the body! The head's inacurate!"

I mean, John. What do you want? What are you so angry about?

Best,
Christopher

Christopher Kubasik wrote: *snip*

This makes our play sessions more of what we want them to be -- if only because we become more aware of what we're doing, and thus can decide to do more of it, less of it, or something else completely. For me, that's the GNS part of the Model, and it works find.

Best,
Christopher

You know, I've got to add one more thing.

I noticed at the end of your post this interesting phrasing:

"That's what this forum (GNS Model Discussion) is supposed to be about, right?"

There seems to be an inference that I jumped tracks by bringing up all those real life issues that aren't about gaming, and left gaming (and GNS) behind.

I want to make this clear: Ron's model is not just about GNS. It actually got more to do with how people live their lives than I think most people assume. That's why Ron will think it significant that Pyron's relatively young and playing with his brother in the group.

You, on the other hand, seem to want to approach all of this with as much seperation between "the game" and "human beings" as possible. You seem determined to peg hole whether GNS "works" with using only ingame text. In your actual play posts about your games we get detailed descriptions of amusing monologues, but I have no idea who you play with, where you play, how long you play, how you gathered your group or anything.

You might say, "Those things don't matter." I susepct you will. (I could be wrong.)

Which simply shows, (if this is your view) that Ron's model really isn't a consideration for you. It really is just a lense that will be useless to you.

Ron's working with acutual human beings, how they're using their time, and how to use their time to get more of what they want. The playing of the game doesn't happen independet of the people, and GNS is not something that exists in some free floating ether of "gaming."

This is one of Ron's aggressive points: that gamers tend to hide their hobby, tend to dissaciate from their actual desires and taste when gaming, and generally hide their true interests in the cause of "at least playing a game." In short, the hobby of gaming, which Ron loves, currently produces people who are socially disfunctional. And Ron, in his essays, has clearly set up a model that begins with social functionality first, which then leads through several steps into GNS and then past GNS into techniques... and then the ephemera.

I bring this up not because I expect any kind of "Wow," response from you, by the way... It's a note for people looking on. I think your desire to strip any concerns of gaming theory about from human beings -- the specific human beings, playing at a specific time and place, is telling. I think its significant, and I thought it should be noted.

Christopher

Ron Edwards wrote: What he said.

Best,
Ron

Hey John, you actually make a good point about the differences in observation. One thing I wanted to note though, is that it makes a big difference in exactly what you're observing.

You've posted a couple examples of your games here (as has Marco) and almost universally they are described from the point of view of the character. What the characters were involved with and what they did. When you touch upon the players at all (at least to my recollection) its again in terms of what the players were doing/thinking about regarding "in game" stuff.

Now I can't say for sure, but I suspect that since this is how you wrote the examples that you wanted to use for illustrative purposes in various threads that this is where the focus of your observations lie.

Much of the observations about GNS, however, lie above this. What the characters did is (to make a sweeping generalization that there are no doubt exceptions to) is pretty irrelevant. How the players reacted to what the characters (and other players) did, however, speaks volumes. Not reacted in terms of "your character did that, so my character will do this" but reacted in terms of: laughed, scowled, clapped their hands with glee, rolled their eyes, shouted "way to go" etc.

You and Marco have both submitted examples of play in which you wanted commentary on what GNS says about them, but in nearly all cases there is little to no description of these human factors.

When a player spends 15 minutes looking up combat modifiers in the book, this tells us little (one can comment on this alone, but its speculative and subject to a high degree of error).

When a player spends 15 minutes looking up combat modifiers in the book, and the other players are calling out "don't forget this", and "ohhh, good idea, I wouldn't have thought of trying to get that one worked in" this tells us much much more. When one of the other players rolls their eyes, sighs and shouts "fer chrissake can we just roll the damn dice already"...that tells us still more.

Its the reactions of the people playing that really helps zero in on the Creative Agenda at work.

I submit, honestly submit for your consideration cuz I clearly don't know the answer, that while you are likely every bit as observant in terms of a "raw attribute score" as anyone else here, that its likely directed at different things. And that quite possibly, the kinds of things that Ron and Christopher are talking about are things that they have been more observant about than most of the rest of us.

Valamir wrote: I submit, honestly submit for your consideration cuz I clearly don't know the answer, that while you are likely every bit as observant in terms of a "raw attribute score" as anyone else here, that its likely directed at different things. And that quite possibly, the kinds of things that Ron and Christopher are talking about are things that they have been more observant about than most of the rest of us.

Andrew Martin wrote:

Valamir wrote: I submit, honestly submit for your consideration cuz I clearly don't know the answer, that while you are likely every bit as observant in terms of a "raw attribute score" as anyone else here, that its likely directed at different things. And that quite possibly, the kinds of things that Ron and Christopher are talking about are things that they have been more observant about than most of the rest of us.

I totally agree. One has to watch the players, not their characters.

Gordon C. Landis wrote: Which is not to say (I hope) that what the characters do is irrelevant - after all, what the characters do IS something that the players are doing.

Excellent insight. Oddly, one of my earliest RPG articles was Intuition and Surprise at RPGnet, in which I outlined something very like this: defining intuition as subconscious processing of subliminally acquired information.

John's point is well made--and yes, he did mean to write what he wrote, but not in an offensive manner. The point is that it might be that he's not seeing the details you are seeing that lead you to GNS conclusions, or that he's seeing greater nuances of details between the cracks that blur the distinctions you're making. As Ralph notes, it's not entirely a matter of how observant you are; it's in part a matter of what you tend to observe. When I did a lot of counseling, I often found I was able to get to the heart of people's problems that they had failed to recognize themselves, because there were cues in what they told me (often over the phone) which pointed to their blind spots. Back in college I used to correctly guess people's majors based on first impressions in meeting them. Yet I don't have near the practice observing creative agendae in games, and probably don't notice them so readily. I will spot a grammatic error in a forum post as obscure as wrong antecedent or improper parallelism or a split infinitive (and it will often irk); but I can walk through a room and not know whether anyone was in it, nevermind whether there was anything on the floor. To a degree, we train ourselves to observe what matters to us and to ignore what doesn't, and breaking out of those boundaries is not so easy.

I don't know how relevant that all is, but I do agree that there is something intuitive--in my sense of the word--in identifying creative agendae.

--M. J. Young

Christopher,

Thank you. That was a very helpful post. I think that this post dovetails nicely with Ron's recent essay discussing Creative Agenda. And also, I think that you have managed to overcome any lingering objections that I may have had to GNS. Well, sort of. Read on.

First, some history. I've been around the Forge for a while, and I have been one of the voices who insisted on the existence and validity of roleplaying that focused exclusively on Exploration (i.e. Simulationism). I will confess to throwing my hands in the air at several points and saying to myself, "Fine! Let them be that way." But, like a moth to a flame, I was always drawn back to the discussion. But I think that, this time, I've figured it out.

I've been sold on the idea of GNS for a while. The idea of seeking a coherent playstyle makes a lot of sense to me, and indeed, GNS has enabled me to enjoy a broader range of roleplaying games than I might have otherwise. Before GNS, I probably would have turned up my nose at a game like Rune. Now, I can revel in the obvious Gamism and enjoy it, rather than trying to Drift it to something more "story-oriented" or "immersive".

However, I have always been turned off to the scientific overtones that it has taken. I have been of the opinion (and continue to be of the opinion) that the heart of any creative activity resists analysis. In other words, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Much of the labeling that has been done around here has seemed to operate on a different principle. Oft times, GNS discussion has seemed to revolve on a "higher" theoretical plane, without coming home to roost in a practical way that affects actual play. And, most importantly, GNS discussions seem to float in the realm of the ideal, without any of that horribly messy mucking around with actual people. ;-)

Now, I'm not saying this to open old wounds. Rather, I am saying that this post is the missing piece in the GNS puzzle which solves most of my problems. Ron, you asked about what you have been failing to communicate regarding GNS. I think that this is it. I believe you when you say that this has been your goal all along; I know that you have expressed frustration in the past because you have desperately wanted to get past having to prove GNS over and over and over again. But I think that you have communicated this entire model as a scientific abstraction, instead of what it is: a way of understanding people.

Now, I want to draw attention to the words that I just chose. You'll notice that I did not say that GNS is a way to classify people. Rather, it is a way to understand people. To explain what I mean, I'm going to cite to the old "four humors" personality typing.

I'm sure that many of you are familiar with this. There are supposedly four general type of people: melancholics, phlegmatics, cholerics, and sanguines. Each type has different characteristics that manifest in different ways. For instance, I would probably be classified as a melancholic (and anyone who knows me would agree). I'm a perfectionist, detail-oriented, artsy, and easily depressed. (Thus the reason that Alyria is taking so long, but I digress....) Many folks cite to this model as being helpful to understand people.

Now, there are any number of problems with this model, but I'm going to cite the most obvious one. No one fits neatly into any of the categories. For all that I tend to fit well into the melancholic mold, I also exhibit behavior that can fit into any of the four categories. So what am I? There is really only one answer to that question: Who cares? Because, in the end, the goal is not to understand the model. The goal is to understand me. And no scientific model will gain you this knowledge. It's a matter of developing a relationship with me. Being my friend. Getting to know what I like and don't like. Figuring out what excites me in general, or what scares me, or what bores me.

To those that have been taking notes, this is what Ron calls Social Contract. And I completely agree that this is the foundation for roleplaying. How can it be otherwise?

But, you see, something clicked as I read Christopher's excellent post. You see, I've never had to diagnose the Social Contract of my gaming group. Until I moved to Peoria, my gaming group was comprised of my wife and sisters. I already know them. I know what they like and don't like, what "taboo" topics are acceptable and where the "off-limits" areas are. I even knew what they were looking for in a roleplaying game and was able to balance their desires in a way that was pleasing to both of them. It was all clicking well because we already knew each other.

Now, I could take the tools of GNS and pick apart our gaming, but I don't think that it would be helpful. GNS is supposed to be a starting point to help players to achieve a better understanding of each other. But we were already there. No wonder I haven't cared to discuss or develop the tools. I haven't needed them.

Now, if I'm right, and the goal is to understand other people, not classify every player behavior, then the nature of our questions change. For example, there is an ongoing discussion about Exploration of Character vs. Narrativism. May I advance the question, "Who cares?" I speak as someone who has run a game for players who fell somewhere on both sides of this fuzzy divide. Is there a difference between the two? Maybe. The only difference that I can think of, though, is fairly small.* But if the goal is to understand people, how big of a difference is it?

In the companion thread, Walt Freitag uses the example of weapon selection in his critique of the "few key decisions" paradigm. He questions whether we can determine GNS from such decisions. I would agree. However, I would also ask that we step back from the question even further. Is the goal to classify this decision (weapon selection) into a GNS category? Or is the goal to understand why the person made the decision? The first question is, ultimately, unanswerable. The second question is much more helpful, although the answer may not fit clearly into a GNS category. To run with Walt's example, I could easily see two of the players from my old gaming group selecting a weapon from a large number of choices with a great deal of flourish. Gabrielle would have wanted to pick a weapon that symbolized her character's method of dealing with conflict (or at least the particular conflict at hand). So the selection of (say) an electrified two-handed sword would have been for the purpose of character exposition. Crystal would have wanted to pick a weapon that would "feel natural" to her character and fit with her internal image of her character. On the gripping hand, Adiel would not have cared to make such a selection for exactly the same reasons that the other players did care to make the choice. Similar GNS priorities, completely divergent decisions. Analyzing these decisions in a vacuum to determine GNS priority would be difficult, if not impossible. (Again, Walt's post discusses this well.) However, for me, understanding these decisions was easy, because I understood my players, and they understood each other.

And, I've got to say, some of the best roleplaying I've ever done was with this group. I can honestly say that every single roleplaying session that we had ranged from good to great. And I think that there were really only two reasons for this:

1) We understood each other
2) We were willing to put each other's desires first

On Friday we're heading back to Erie, and I'm planning on doing some roleplaying with my family. (I'm planning on running Jailbreak for Unknown Armies.) I'm really looking forward to it, and I think that you can understand why.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

*The ony difference that I can see is that the Narrativist pursues a Premise for the story as a whole and sees his character as fitting into that Premise, while the Explorationist pursues a Premise that is contained within his character. These two goals can peacefully coexist, so long as the selected Premises do not clash with each other.

P.S. I just realized that the tone of my post may have come off as strident or accusatory. It is not intended to do so. Rather, it was a flash of revelation that I wanted to share with all of you.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

First, an answer to Christopher's question: I'm not angry. As MJ correctly interprets, my phrase of me- unobservant vs you-unobservant was an exagerration showing two extremes among many possible truths. What I want is to analyze more about how GNS decisions get made, especially the Nar/Sim distinction.

M. J. Young wrote: As Ralph notes, it's not entirely a matter of how observant you are; it's in part a matter of what you tend to observe. When I did a lot of counseling, I often found I was able to get to the heart of people's problems that they had failed to recognize themselves, because there were cues in what they told me (often over the phone) which pointed to their blind spots. Back in college I used to correctly guess people's majors based on first impressions in meeting them. Yet I don't have near the practice observing creative agendae in games, and probably don't notice them so readily.

M. J. Young wrote: To a degree, we train ourselves to observe what matters to us and to ignore what doesn't, and breaking out of those boundaries is not so easy.

I don't know how relevant that all is, but I do agree that there is something intuitive--in my sense of the word--in identifying creative agendae.

Hi John,

I'd like to draw your attention to the scope of what I call an "instance" of play. I've usually said, a full session and quite likely more. Another poster (Gareth? in a rush, sorry) recently said he'd want 100 hours of actual play, if not more.

Your example of Tor's line of dialogue illustrates a major procedural problem with how you're looking at the model, in this case, Creative Agenda. I already think your focus on Explorative content (what the character did, what the character said, etc) is in the main misplaced, but this is something different: Your scale of real-time real-people observation consistently seems too short.

One line? One scene? One character-decision? To me, this is like looking at a strip of eight frames in a film reel and talking about the theme or social significance or what-have-you of the whole film.

Best,
Ron

Christopher said a lot of excellent stuff about observation, intuition, etc…including:
>> one of Ron's aggressive points: that gamers tend to hide their hobby, tend to dissaciate from their actual desires and taste when gaming, and generally hide their true interests in the cause of "at least playing a game." In short, the hobby of gaming, which Ron loves, currently produces people who are socially disfunctional.(snip)<<

Now, I haven’t actually read any of Ron’s articles in this regard (was it an article that he wrote, or was this in different threads?) However, I recently wrote an article about this very topic, and why it is that gamers feel compelled to ‘hide’ their hobby. My point was that the act of role play doesn’t have a bad wrap, just the act of role playing for entertainment because of the perceived content and broken business models upon which the ‘industry’ rests. I guess I see the broken hobby in the big picture, which is in the marketing techniques, the kinds of materials produced, and how and who they are distributed to. So maybe I don’t see GNS as a specific way to fix all of these ills. It could be applied to ‘materials produced’ to be sure, but there’s other reasons why the hobby fails. I have said once, and will say again, I truly believe that gaming could be a mainstream hobby if presented correctly. Although getting into that really shoots this thread in a different direction. As far as using observation skills and all of that other goodness you were talking about, yes. Yes. And yes. Beautifully put. I really enjoyed what you had to say on the subject. :)

Ron Edwards wrote: Your example of Tor's line of dialogue illustrates a major procedural problem with how you're looking at the model, in this case, Creative Agenda. I already think your focus on Explorative content (what the character did, what the character said, etc) is in the main misplaced, but this is something different: Your scale of real-time real-people observation consistently seems too short.

One line? One scene? One character-decision? To me, this is like looking at a strip of eight frames in a film reel and talking about the theme or social significance or what-have-you of the whole film.

Hi John,

Credit given. I hope that others can see the point; it's a big problem in discussing these issues.

Hi Lisa,

I'm with you on all points, especially the industry & marketing ones. I do not offer my notions about GNS as a cure-all, and most especially not an economic one. You might check out my older essay "The Nuked Apple-cart" and my economics comments in my reviews for an introduction to my thoughts on that.

Best,
Ron

Hi John,

You ask "but how do you know whether it was Premise or Exploration that they reacted to?", and I think that's an excellent question. Here's how my thinking ran in the Shadows in the Fog example - I took peoples' reaction to Tor's statement to be on-par with the reaction to Jim's portryal of Dr. Conybeare. That is, appreciation of how well-done and "appropriate" the comment was, just as we appreciated how well Jim was able to portray a bright-though-pedantic professor-wannabe whose notions were rejected by his peers.

I contrast that with when Liz had Arabella impressivly assist Dr. Westerbrock. Perhaps because that moment was rather absent of any personal portrayal by a participant, it seemed more clear to me that the extent to which folks were appreciative of that moment would be more obviously Premise-related. When in subsequent discussion you brought up Tor's comment in light of what later happened with Arabella . . . yeah, the reaction begins to (possibly) take on a different tone in that light. At the time of play, I did NOT connect the two. Your later comments made me see a possible connection, which (if play had continued) might have led me/us to ask folks what it was about Tor's comment that struck them. Which would then help us see if Sim or Nar was the priority of that play.

And my point in running through that is to say . . . I'm not sure there's an easy answer to your excellent question that is generally applicable, and I don't think anyone claims that there is. You look in all the places you can look to figure it out, and a lot of the time you will. If not - you have to keep looking.

Of course, any help about how and/or where to look is always good . . .

Gordon

Hello,

The big issue here is that Exploration and Premise are not alternative or opposed things.

Somehow, some way, someone got the idea that "if I Explore and like it, I must be playing Simulationist."

This is false. All role-playing relies on Exploration. All Creative Agendas are expressed via Exploration (hence the positions of the brackets/boxes).

Another issue is the fascination with one player at a time. Although Creative Agendas are contributed to individually, it's the interaction and usage of play-input among the members of the group that reveals them.

Tor's portrayal was Explorative. Given. But me saying that is GNS-irrelevant.

The only GNS question is whether Tor's portrayal fed into Narrativist leanings in combination with his own later role-playing or with others' later role-playing, over time. The only way to answer that question is to look at the interactions, gestures of appreciation, or any other confirmatory behaviors among the real people when the "pick up Tor's action, use it or reference it here with this action," event occurred.

Best,
Ron

Thanks Ron - that's a very clear discussion, to me anyway. I don't *think* I said anything to contradict it, and I certainly didn't mean to if I did. Explorative + prioritize The Dream vs. Explorative + prioritize Story/Premise Now.

In the example at hand, most of the interactions earlier on were looking to me like Explorative + prioritize The Dream, so I saw Tor's statement and the reaction to it as compatible with that. Subsequent interactions can be seen to call that into question - over time (which, in this example, we probably didn't have enough of), we'd find out which really predominates.

Which is maybe just saying: as long as you just keep trying to answer the question - and remember to look at the real people when doing so - you're likely to do OK. Leaving the most substantive answer to "how do you know whether it was Premise or Exploration that they reacted to?" (caveats like Exploration meaning *prioritized* Exploration taken) as simply "over time. If it's not clear in that set of interactions, look at the next ones."

Which is perhaps not as much help to John as I might hope, but certainly doesn't leave the issue unresolvable.

Gordon