I probably shouldn't start this thread; I'm too far behind on what was posted over the weekend as it is. But if I don't, I'll forget, and it will be lost for some time.

Walt recently wrote Questioning the "few key decisions" paradigm, and I commented there that that particular method of GNS analysis only worked if (and you can read the rest in that thread, because it's not particularly relevant here).

Yet it stirred in my mind that I had several times spoken of basing an analysis of creative agenda on the nature of the stories told by the players. I'm the more persuaded that this can be one approach to diagnosing creative agendae among the players.

The basic approach would be to ask the players to tell you about their games, but not to tell you in log format what happened--rather to ask the players to tell you what was really good, exciting, or memorable about the recent game sessions they played. I think (and this is a bit theoretical here, but it comes from watching a lot of people tell game stories) that whatever excited the players about the game, whatever they thought worth repeating the next day or the next week, that's going to reflect their creative agenda significantly.

Thoughts?

--M. J. Young

P.S.--my Latin isn't so good, but my son suggests that Post Ludem means After Game.

I'll weigh in with a solid opinion, if nothing else: I think that's a fantastic idea. Cracking the black box that is the C.A. has been a hope of mine for a long time (cf. old threads about Aesthetics & Design, which discuss something different but which swayed into trying to crack the C.A. for playgroups too). And I think that this insight may present the first real fissure we could get our collective theoretical icepicks into.

I would suggest that as a first-order approach, we might begin with a tabulation of Post Ludem styles. Try to compile a list of the ways and forms used by players to describe their games, a la the Robin's Laws dissection of player types, although I'd much rather launch from a blank slate than work by extension of that taxonomy. (That dissection is, however, probably connected to what I'm proposing - maybe, in fact, these Player Types are closer to fave Creative Agendas and only GNS-linked because of the intrinsic connection between C.A. and GNS. This might explain why his taxonomy ends up sitting outside/beside/disconnected from the Forge body of theory, as exemplified in Ron's This Is It... because Laws is addressing Creative Agenda primarily, which we've left dark and spooky up 'til now.)

Then, in the second-order step, I'd throw out the taxonomy we just wrote. It's the exercise of generating such a taxonomy that I think would be useful, not the product; indeed, IMO spurious taxonomies are the death of many a strong theoretical debate, and more frequently misused than anything else except statistics. But I would hope that, in the process of listing and brainstorming the forms of Post Ludem experience, some patterns would emerge which we could seize on as the beginning of something more general.

I'll definitely have to sleep on this... but it feels like an extremely worthwhile exercise.

As a first cross-reference (since I just finished reading it), I recommend (and will type up if asked, though it's long) the beautiful dissection of "the forms of written history" in Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, page 734 in the paperback edition. In brief, scholar Zhu Isao dissects all writings on history according not to their content, but to their form, painting four broad categories with wide strokes... "dharma history" or the progressive mode, "entropic history" or the satiric mode, "comedy," and "tragedy," the latter two subject to particular redefinitions inside this monologue. It is less the content of this analysis that I recommend, though again I'll have to sleep on it - there might be some direct correlations or inspirations there - as the shape of the analysis... the way in which he manages to (mostly) sidestep content and focus on the way the stories are being told, with the assumption that the same history could be told in any of the four modes. The same trick could serve us very well...

- Eric

MJ, I almost posted exactly this same strategy over in that thread. Whenever I have a new player in one of my groups I always ask them to describe the best gaming experience they've ever had (and identify elements that made it good). The results always scream GNS, even if the actual behavior during play might have been convergent. The fact that memories are imperfect causes the unimportant or incoherent elements to drop out, highlighting priorities and preferences beautifully.

Hi M.J.,

Yes.

I don't know what else there is to say.

Christopher

Hi M.J.,

Yes. That people don't do this baffles me and always has.

I do it all the time, both with potential fellow players and with people on-line.

Does no one read Actual Play threads? I consider it to be the most significant and important forum at the Forge, for many reasons. I bring it up here because you can see me and others practicing this principle over and over, especially when someone is crashing and burning over some messed-up situation in their game.

Best,
Ron

jdagna wrote: MJ, I almost posted exactly this same strategy over in that thread. Whenever I have a new player in one of my groups I always ask them to describe the best gaming experience they've ever had (and identify elements that made it good). The results always scream GNS, even if the actual behavior during play might have been convergent. The fact that memories are imperfect causes the unimportant or incoherent elements to drop out, highlighting priorities and preferences beautifully.

Hello,

The best place for such posts is Actual Play. That's what that forum is for, with the GNS-side of the current topic being an add-on.

I extremely strongly agree with you, John. The more such posting, the better the Forge becomes. People might be interested in my Arrowflight and Haven posts, for instance - "Ron goes Simulationist and talks about it."

Best,
Ron

Actually, I've found those posts very interesting Ron. Actual Play is almost always the first forum I hit when I log in to the Forge. I don't always have anything useful or insightful to say or ask, though.

Hey M.J.,

The basic approach would be to ask the players to tell you about their games, but not to tell you in log format what happened--rather to ask the players to tell you what was really good, exciting, or memorable about the recent game sessions they played.

Can I ask if you consciously chose the "about their games" and "recent game sessions" wording out of a perception that a similar "good, exciting, or memorable" inquiry about favorite characters is of less value? If so, why do you think? For reference, I give you Christoffer Lernö's What's your favorite character of all time? thread from the inactive Forge Birthday forum. How do you think his "favorite character/why/favorite moment" inquiry does at producing useful information about Creative Agenda?

Paul

Paul Czege wrote: Can I ask if you consciously chose the "about their games" and "recent game sessions" wording out of a perception that a similar "good, exciting, or memorable" inquiry about favorite characters is of less value? If so, why do you think?