I think one of the reasons the people have a hard time grappling with the idea of a creative agenda is that CA is the expression of desire unexamined.

What I mean is thus. Humankind has a tremendous capacity for self-delusion. Many people truly and fiercely believe that their stated objects are their true motives for action. Yet how many times have we heard people say they want to lose weight while they pop open a soda? If their desire was to truly go on a diet then there would be no problem. However, there is a disconnect between what they say, and truly believe is their desire, and the expression of said desire (their pattern of behavior). The difficulty in getting individuals to see this disconnect can be seen in the immensity of efforts expended during psychotherapy in trying to make people aware of these disconnects between their self-perception and their behavior. It is no easy task to accomplish for many reasons, not the least of which is that these disconnects serve an important purpose, whatever that purpose may be.

I think creative agenda falls into a similar area. Players may say they like X agenda, or describe a “style of play” they say they enjoy and be very adamant about it, but their behavior (the expression of their true though unexamined desire) belies their convictions. The fact that their (true) behavior stems from an unexamined desire (by unexamined I mean the individual is unaware that it exists thus have not overtly tended to it) makes it especially frustrating when the desire is unfulfilled. The person becomes frustrated because not only is their desire being unmet, they are unaware of the reasons why. They cannot articulate what it is they are seeking so they become angry.

This is the reason why I think that disparate creative agendas at a game can be sooooo rancorous and divisive. It is the id, unnoticed, seeking satisfaction and finding its efforts being hamstrung. It is a restless hunger that is not being ministered to. Until one becomes aware of the nature of that hunger it will become impossible to consciously direct effects at either satisfying it or mitigating it. Never the less it is a powerful drive once unleashed and I believe it is the driving energy behind such aggressive behaviors, overt or covert, that find expression when the game is dysfunctional.

This is not say that roleplayer need psychotherapy if they are unhappy at the game, rather I was using it as a yardstick by which we can get a measure of the difficulty it is to get someone to see something about themselves that is disconnected from their behaviors. The fact is we are currently living in a culture, at least here in the US, which discourages self-examination. Better to be expressive than reflective, as it were. The act of discourse is much more important than the content of discourse. This is brightly manifest in the old adage in Hollywood, “Bad press is better than no press.”

I don’t know if this says anything important, but I thought it was some sort of an epiphany.

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume

I agree entirely - well said - and I think it does lead us to at least one new place:

How, then, do we tell what a gamer really wants?

If asking him questions about his desires is an inadequate technique, which is something with which I think we largely agree, then what techniques do we have to tell what someone really does want? There's been a little bit of discussion here about this, but the exploration of this topic has been pretty shallow. Can we improve on this?

We've seen a lot of back-and-forth on the idea of watching a few key decisions,, we've seen M.J.'s suggestion of Post Ludem analysis, and there are probably other threads I've missed. Ron advocates, essentially, "Watch for where they're nodding during play," which seems equally powerful. But right now it's scattered tricks and techniques - can we improve on that?

One option which comes fascinatingly to mind: We design a diagnostic game.

This is based on a preceding idea which I know isn't new but for which I can't immediately find crossreferences. That thought is that one could take a playgroup and run a short sequence of short but heavily GNS-biased games, and use their reactions or even their overt commentary on which games had been their favorites to gauge their real preferences (and to clarify them for the players themselves).

As a test run, for example, you might run Ninja Burger, My Life With Master, a one-session Millenium's End mission, Rune, an in media res The Questing Beast tale with pregens, and, say, Mongrel. Each of which could be done in one solid session, I think, if one were trying. I've suggested two of each mode in an effort to reduce bias based on non-GNS preferences, such as "I hate ninjas" or whatever; I'd add a quick Sim:Character game to the mix if I could think of one, to add to the Sim:Rules/Setting of M'sE and the Sim:HighColour/Setting of Mongrel. But I couldn't think of one, and I suspect Sim:Character is one brand which could easily run through all the rest and hide amongst any of the others, more readily than any other preference.

(If one were feeling sneaky, one could build into (for example) the Rune game a Sim:Character diagnostic for any player who you suspect of leaning strongly that way - the "favorite weapon" which isn't as effective as another one carried, that sort of thing.)

Thing is, I'm not sure if spending six or seven weeks diagnosing your group's GNS preferences is really worth it. I wouldn't bother, other than that all the games on that list are ones I'd enjoy anyway; the exercise generally doesn't seem worth the candle.

But could we compress this? If we had one game which were designed for this end, which was playably incoherent and could remain playable even as each player Drifted it in the direction of his preferences, then we might have a very valuable tool. Due to incoherence, it might be less fun than others, but then again, if we could design it so that each player could Drift it independently, it might end up more fun than many games if your group is strongly disparate in preferences.

I can see a few ways to handle this.

1. Rules which can be customized per player, by the player. This by itself would be something neat to design a game around. Who says everyone at the table has to be using the same rules? In weaker form, you might run three concurrent currencies, which can be spent to activate mechanics tailored to one GNS mode or the other; which currency someone reaches for would tell you a lot, if the currencies were otherwise balanced. [I just realized that this is something I'm already doing, to a limited degree - see this thread about halfway down.]

In stronger form, you could actually let players 'tune' the mechanics in the direction of their choice, as they play, such that each player ended up using mechanics which supported their preferred mode of play. This may be an impossible challenge, but it's at least theoretically feasible. Basically, open up the knobs and dials that we would normally fix during game design, and make those serve instead as part of their character sheet.

[Example: Make it a cinematic game. There's a place on the character sheet for "Camera Position." Choosing 'Close Focus' for this variable gets you some strongly Actor Stance, Sim:Char supportive, mechanics. Choosing 'Swooping Focus' (think action movies) gets you some action-oriented mechanics which will please Gamists among others - this is not the only such dial, we don't need to pin it down with one choice. Choosing 'Wide Focus' gets you strong Directorial power, lets you step into the shoes of NPCs in other peoples' scenes, and gives you access to strong tools for addressing Premise.]

2. Go one beyond Fang's efforts, and make a game which does what I'll call fast Transition. This probably needs prewritten scenario(s) to make it work, at a guess. Set it up so that it begins, say, with immersion in a whole new world, strange customs and new characters and a whole lot to learn about it, but very little plot content, moral content, or real challenge. It's a Sim playground. Then, perhaps in the next session, bring in the hidden conflicts, moral depths, and choosing of sides. Build the conflict so that it's not necessary that all the PCs end up on one side or the other, and so that they bring much of the conflict to the table with them, initiating it through their own desires and through a good solid Author/Director-stance toolset. Maybe the second session opens with an OOC discussion of possible Premises and runs from there, exploring those issues as the focus of this session. Push those conflicts hard toward tension and player choices in how they'll act when the crunch comes - but don't bring on the crunch. Third session, "open up" the character sheets in a way that just wasn't really done until now; stop ignoring stats that you'd been ignoring, and have character effectiveness be the primary tool with which they finalize the conflict that was generated in session two.

Then, when all is said and done, ask them which session was the best one.

Interestingly, the above sounds an awful lot like Multiverser play, if I'm not mistaken (not having read it). A little more deliberate in its structure, maybe, especially with the day two - day three transition. But awfully reminiscent.

Like the other tools, this would be far from perfect... but as an indicator, it strikes me as a good one.

Now once again, is GNS diagnosis worth running several sessions of a diagnostic game? Certainly depends on your degree of current dysfunction. Which, in turn, suggests something... write such a game/scenario combo, and "market" it as The Game to Run When Your Game Needs a Break. With the GNS diagnosis tools, and some suggestions on what to do based on what this shows you, hidden under the surface of that tagline.

Hmmm...

- Eric

Eric a.k.a. Harlequin wrote: How, then, do we tell what a gamer really wants?...

Rate each of these statements as to how interested you would be in taking action based on what it says.


• There is a dragon terrorizing the northern prairie, and the king has offered a reward for whoever can stop it from preying on the livestock.
• The chancellor seems loyal to the king, but he spends a lot of time as guest of the king's half-brother, whose aspirations to the throne are strongly suspected.
• Beyond the mountains there is an ocean on which floating islands drift, made of interwoven roots so that a man can walk on them but they form to the surface of the water.
• The prophet of the state church has publicly announced that the king should pay tribute to the emperor of the distant empire whose armies are even now approaching, but the king insists that the people rally to fight against this and trust God to aid and defend them.

Hiya,

M.J. and Eric, doesn't that all seem kind of backwards to you? It does to me.

I am less interested in using "what makes players happy" as a means to decide their GNS preferences, than in using GNS preferences/vocabulary to see whether "be more happy" can be achieved in practice.

But perhaps we're merely hitting the difference between "basic" and "applied" aspects of investigation.

Best,
Ron

Ron, I think the disconnect is that I have several players who don't know what they want, and I don't know what they want. I'd use GNS to help clarify this, but since they don't know what they want or would enjoy, and I don't know either, it's a little tricky.

After that, absolutely; if I knew how GNS would help them out, then never mind the analysis, the point is to make them happier.

M.J., I'm with you on the "Where's (D), All of the Above?" protest. But I'm not sure how common that is. Getting someone to take the 'hooks' test once and then again a month later, however, might yield something interesting.

- Eric

Silmenume wrote:
What I mean is thus. Humankind has a tremendous capacity for self-delusion. Many people truly and fiercely believe that their stated objects are their true motives for action. Yet how many times have we heard people say they want to lose weight while they pop open a soda? If their desire was to truly go on a diet then there would be no prolem.

You know, it just seems that I can't make a post without some important error to save my life!

Though everyone understands what I meant I am going to post the intended sentence anyway because my error keeps mocking me! Here we go -

Many people truly and fiercely believe that their stated objectives are (represent) their true motives for action.

Failure to edit within the window strikes again!

Harlequin wrote: Ron, I think the disconnect is that I have several players who don't know what they want, and I don't know what they want. I'd use GNS to help clarify this, but since they don't know what they want or would enjoy, and I don't know either, it's a little tricky.

After that, absolutely; if I knew how GNS would help them out, then never mind the analysis, the point is to make them happier.

I'd say that the above is true, but biased toward experienced gamers - because I have several players who are newish to the hobby and are easily made uncomfortable by unexpected elements, and in that instance I'd say that "build it and they will come" is a flawed proposition.

However, it is a very solid point, and pretty much argues against any building of diagnostic tools per se. I think the idea of the Multiverser-esque "diagnostic scenario" is still an interesting one, though... because I don't agree that there's no validity in knowing what people prefer, even if they'll like any coherent nonobjectionable game - see the distinction?

- Eric

So, you're saying make the first game session, short, powerful and punchy so as to highlight the CA? So that you'll know right off if you've got something that works? I'd go with that.

What I'm saying is that "instance of play" is something that relates to something like a session-long period of play. So any test ought to be at least that long - anything shorter is likely to provide false analysis. So, if a shorter test isn't viable, then why not play to test? I mean, after all, playing is fun. Just don't get invested in the idea that the game is going to go before hand.

I'm not saying that it's useless to know a group's predilections. I'm saying that the best way to determine them is to observe play. Once you know that they like T&T, you might want to try Rune as another Gamist game. Seems obvious to me.

Mike

Ron Edwards wrote: M.J. and Eric, doesn't that all seem kind of backwards to you? It does to me.

My suggestion to people looking to find out what their preference is, is to realize that all three are fun. Once you do that, then you'll be satisfied playing in any coherent game.

That's kinda my point. I can't say that this will be true for everyone, but I think that there's no reason why players must have a preference. Given that, I think players are limiting themselves if they decide that they only like one or two modes. What I think most people are saying when they say they prefer one mode over others is that this is the mode in which they've had the most coherent play, and hence the most fun. If they experienced coherent play in other modes I think they'd learn to like all three.

In any case, your point about play is invalid. I'd reject a game based on any of those critera you mentioned, potentially. Playing a game tells you whether you like it in terms of GNS as well as anything else. I mean, if you can't tell GNS preferences from play then GNS doesn't make any sense to begin with. So play is a perfectly valid, if labor-intensive, way to determine preferences. The thing is that the labor is fun for the most part.

Don't segregate yourself by finding a "preference", play all coherent games.

Mike

What M.J. said, in terms of a diagnostic having value.

Mike, your suggestion amounts to "learn to like the CA right here," which is both valid and useless, when faced with dysfunction. If there's a disconnect about the CA and neither party can usefully articulate his vision, even if they might both be comfortable with a single CA if they could express it, then this advice is meaningless; it'll only help over the long, long term (years of gaming). What if heavy Gamist play continues to make my fiancee uncomfortable after years of gaming together, even when the CA simultaneously supports the Nar play she desires? "Get over it" lacks a little something, don't you think? Luckily, she's articulate and has a good feel for her desires. Map her onto a nervous, less articulate victim, and bang - dysfunction, and nobody knows why.

On a more subtle level with regards to your previous post, I'm not sure we're quite connecting. The objection that a sub-session test is too short to reveal anything is correct but not relevant; the diagnostic proposals on the table (the tunable mechanics, the three-session S/N/G hat trick scenario, etc) do recognize this fact. Yes, you'll have large error bars, but right now we're not even generating the data, we're just intuiting it long-term. I would hope that with a well-built diagnostic tool we'd improve our accuracy, that being the point. I also don't think that's an unrealistic goal.

And there's an interesting assumption here:

So, you're saying make the first game session, short, powerful and punchy so as to highlight the CA? So that you'll know right off if you've got something that works? I'd go with that.

When I say "Coherent CA" that denies that dysfunction can occur at that level. That is, if you have dysfunction, stop playing the game you're playing and play someting in which you can forge a coherent CA. That won't garuntee that they'll like it (though I think it's likely), but it will garuntee that you'll know then what they like.

What you're model seems to be is
1. Dysfuncitonal play
2. Diagnostic tool
3. Functional play

What I'm saying is:
1. Dysfunctional play
2. Functional play

In either case the functional game might be rejected on other grounds, but you skip the diagnostic part which sounds like a chore.

Make the first game session powerful and punchy, according to the CA as you see it.

I would define a disconnect as a player's misunderstanding of the CA, inability to play to the current CA, or being confronted with an obstacle which hinders or prevents him from playing to the CA.

Incoherent text is one source, but it's not the only one. A perfectly coherent text can nonetheless support the different CAs of two different play groups. If a player went from one to the other, carrying his expectations with him, then he'd be in a disconnect state from the second group's CA.

Or the coherent CA may be difficult to connect to. I'd say that Continuum, to pick one, is reasonably coherent - there's a slight incoherency at the mechanical level but it's readily Drifted into a coherent state, and has little to do with the occurrence of disconnects. But it's also a very difficult game to adapt to, because it skews so many of your fundamental assumptions about the world. I'd say that a large part of the appeal of Continuum's CA, as we played it, involves the frequent joyous cries of "Ow, my brain hurts, give me more!". But until a player really gets into this aesthetic, there's a disconnect with the CA. In this case, hopefully, it's temporary - but it might not be.

Similarly, when you assert,

... and play someting in which you can forge a coherent CA. That won't garuntee that they'll like it (though I think it's likely), but it will garuntee that you'll know then what they like.

It appears to me the meaning of disconnect is not fully understood, especially in the context of my post. I use disconnect in reference to a psychological state of cognitive dissonance. The point of my original post was not that people don't understand creative agenda but rather they either refuse to acknowledge they have one, yet they do express one during play, or that they say they enjoy a certain "style of play" (which they may or may not accept as Creative Agenda), then express another during play.

It is recognizing that they have a cognitive dissonance in operation that humans have such a hard time with, including players.

Aure Enteluva,

Silmenume.

Right, and my point is that if you have the right system all this comes above board, and the problem ceases to exist. That very much the cognative dissonace occurs because the system is subtly driving activity which is counter to the player's stated goals. You can fix that in one of two ways. Either you can make the player aware of the dissconnect, or you can just alter the system so that he can't make inappropriate assumptions about what it will produce. As a designer, I choose the latter. As a GM I work for the first.

Mike

Mike, I'm not sure whether I'm getting you clearly here. Let me attempt to present some distinct cases, and see if I have it right.

I understand that dysfunction occurs if the game system is incoherent enough that a player can draw the wrong message from it, for example trying to play narrativist against an engine that includes narrativist jargon in the text but whose design is strongly gamist. The solution you seem to be proposing here would be to play a game that is fully coherent, such that the player won't get the wrong message from the text, and thus will play in a manner appropriate to the rules.

However, doesn't dysfunction occur if the player brings contrary expectations with him which are not derived from the text? As an extreme example, couldn't someone fall into a Sorcerer game and play as fully gamist as possible, causing dysfunction as he crashes into the narrativist structure of the engine?

What I'm getting at is if the dysfunction is caused by dissonance within the rules text itself, obviously that is best addressed by getting a different rules text; but if the dissonance exists between player expectations and the game engine, having a fully coherent game engine which is fully at odds with the player's approach is going to be just as dysfunctional as having a fully incoherent game engine.

So do you mean that this case doesn't really happen because a fully coherent rules text will inherently cause people to find their ways into the mode of play the game supports? Or do you mean that if the dissonance is between a fully coherent game engine and a player's contrary play preferences the solution is to find a game that is fully coherent and supports the preferred style of play?

I find it difficult to accept that dysfunction caused by player expectations never occurs with fully coherent rules systems. Are you suggesting that?

--M. J. Young

M.J.,

I'm not trying to answer for Mike--just presenting a case to see if I understand.

What I believe Mike to be arguing is that dysfunctional play is the result of both rules and players. When the two don't match people become unhappy. Nothing new here.

The rules of a game are always working to encourage a particular type of play. In a coherently designed game, the rules of a game will encourage one of GNS. An incoherent game doesn't know what the hell it's trying to do.

A player also confuses matters. He has certain expectations that he might have derived from either the game text, his own personal experiences/past preferences, or the current group he's playing with. When those expectation run up against a contrary set of rules, you get dysfunction. Of course you can have perfectly coherent rules and dysfunctional play. Both design and player-expectations have to get along.

The way I see it, you can fix dysfunction in one of two broad ways. Either you get a new set of rules, or you get a new set of expectations.

This can be accomplished on either the design end or from the play/GM end. All a designer can do is try his best to design coherent rules/game text (the whole package). In this way, a plyaer receives no misconceptions about the game from within the text itself. A well designed game will encourage a certain focus (read GNS priority). If players try to use the rules for something else, then it's an expectation problem.

Now, on the other end, players can do quite a bit to fix dysfunction. If the rules are dysfunctional, they can try to mend them or just plainly throw them out in exchange for something else. If the rules run contrary to their expectations, then they can try to mold the rules or throw them out in exchange for something more in line with their creative agenda.

Alternatively, the players can change their expectations (if only for the duration of the session). This is where things can get very difficult.

Sometimes, players are the product of years and years of expectation reinforcement. As Mike said, one solution is to make the players realize that what they want and what the rules are built to do is very different. Sometimes just knowing why things aren't working can help a player to adjust. What happens if that personal adjustment is just too drastic for a group? Well, then they have to change the rules. Now, I'm kinda assuming here that all the players share the same expectations. This is of course, rarely true. If one player is on his own, then he may have to find a different group with expectations closer to his own. Notice, that loner player is still just changing the rules (not his expectations), albeit in a more extreme way.

I think in the long run, finding the right group is a great way to go. However, if players open themselves up to all sorts of play, and realize that any of the GNS priorities can be fun, then that goes a long way to creating successful play. In reality, you probably need a little of both--an agreeable group with people that aren't locked into some vision of the one true way.

This focus on text-based incoherency puzzles me - yes, guys, we get it. But see my previous post... IMO text-based incoherency may actually be the rarest form of CA disconnect. I give a cascade of other examples in that text, none of which have yet been addressed; Mike, from this end it feels like you're dodging the question on this issue.

Let us assume that all the CAs we are discussing are, themselves, coherent; the CA makes sense and is fun for some of the players, it is intuitive to some of the players, and it flows naturally out of the text as written. Mike asserts that this should "subconsciously" produce functional play; I deny the assertion, and point to my previous examples.

Tim, your expansion of the concept does seem to cover Mike's stance... but it again ducks the question of non-rules-based disconnects from the CA, suggesting only that the player "change expectations." While this works, it's exactly what is made difficult by the point of this thread - that neither the sufferer, nor his fellow players, are necessarily in a position to identify the specific expectation which is being disappointed, because the verbalized expectation is often an incorrect reflection of the true desire. Hence the question, how do we identify what needs to change?

Speaking of which - Silmenume, I think we should pick one definition for "disconnect" and stick with it. I introduced the term afresh, I wasn't trying to mirror what you'd been talking about with the internal disconnection between true desire and expectation of desire; I was talking about the more prosaic disconnect between true desire and actual play, with the psychological disunity you describe as the corollary factor which makes fixing that disconnect seemingly impossible. Does that make sense? So, at least internally to this thread, we need to be careful about our terminology. I suggest that a "disconnect" stay with my usage, a disconnect of this player from that existing CA, and that we use some other term (I was using "inarticulacy" but there's probably a better word) to reflect the internal dissonance.

Does that help get this thread back on track?

- Eric

There is no such thing as "text-based incoherrence." Never has been, never will. Incohrence is play that has these problems. Texts can be a contributing factor, as can player's preconceptions. There are loads of reasons.

That's not the point. I'm saying don't allow any of the reasons to interfere. Don't let bad text, player expectation, anything, prevent you from presenting a clear CA. Get the idea across, and then play that way. The disconnects will vanish.

It seems odd to me that the people here understand what Creative Agenda is, but then seem to assume that CA problems will still arise. If you know what the problem is, then you can address it, right? Since understanding the theory, the only times that I've had a problem with establishing a clear CA was when I was using a text that was confusing. OK, I'll say it, it was GURPS. If GURPS has a clear CA that it promotes, then it's my fault for trying to do something different than that with it. The difference between my agenda and the text's agenda was confusing.

Whatever the fault, if I'd only been playing a system that clearly supported the method of play that I wanted to establish, I don't think that I would have had any problems. Indeed, I haven't in any other game that I'd played in for years now since doing this sort of analysis.

So, what I'm saying is that all you need to do is present a game with a coherent CA, and players will know right off if they want to play it. And you'll have, after only one "instance" of play worth of "testing", an idea of at least one sort of CA that they'll be willing to accept.

Perfect example: I was playtesting Universalis, and I described (only described, didn't even need to play), the Creative Agenda to one of my players - all the standard hooha about it being Collaborative Storytelling, and what that means, etc, etc. Right away he told me that he wasn't interested. In a way, given what I'd discerned from his previous preferences, I wasn't surprised at all. Only his clarity on the issue surprised me.

Mike

P.S. Note that he's the kind of player that I find to be an exception to the rule about players being generally acceptive of CAs. He's got stong opinions about things, and even little differences become huge for him. Knowing that, I didn't even give trying to convince him to play a second thought.

Mike Holmes wrote: It seems odd to me that the people here understand what Creative Agenda is, but then seem to assume that CA problems will still arise. If you know what the problem is, then you can address it, right?...

Whatever the fault, if I'd only been playing a system that clearly supported the method of play that I wanted to establish, I don't think that I would have had any problems....

So, what I'm saying is that all you need to do is present a game with a coherent CA, and players will know right off if they want to play it. And you'll have, after only one "instance" of play worth of "testing", an idea of at least one sort of CA that they'll be willing to accept.

Eric wrote: "Hence the question, how do we identify what needs to change?" In direct response, I would point to Mike's reply. By establishing a clear CA from the get-go, you can help players to identify where the game is heading, how it's going to get there, and whether or not individual players are going to "mesh" well with the CA. I do think that with and open mind, and some skill, it's possible for players to generate functional play from that discussion alone.

Here's a question: Do you think it's easier for players to voice their like/dislike for a CA during the pre-game CA discussion, or wait and see their reactions to specific instances of play? I'm actually tempted to argue for the former. Perhaps actual play would confuse the player, making it harder for him to differentiate between an overall creative agenda preference, and an in-game event that may not have gone his way? Perhaps I'm talking about two things that are actually the same?

I think the question eventually becomes, how do you present a clear CA, and then how do you go about playing "that way?" I tend to agree with M.J. when he says that even if all the players and the GM know and understand the goal CA, it's not going to guarantee functional play. I don't necessarily think that Mike was arguing anything of the sort however. By identifying what the group's collective goal (CA) is, it's much easier to work towards functional play. Bottom line is, and this is what can become a very big problem, it takes skillful roleplaying to keep a CA on track if players are new to the style.

Testing for preference would become difficult if the players involved have a hard time making the understood CA properly come to life. If players naturally and consistently drift back into Gamism for example, then you don't really have a very accurate test for Narrativist oriented play. How can a GM or other participating players help to make that CA be all that it can be?

Thanks again Tim.

I find it difficult to believe that you mean simply explaining the creative agenda to the group and gaining everyone's agreement to try it will eliminate dysfunction.