This discussion is split from Schizo Exalted.

Funksaw wrote: If Narrativism isn't about telling/creating a narrative, then wouldn't it be a bit of a misnomer? And you're right, charcters with a weak defense in design have nothing to do with narrativism in design. In execution however, a narrative GM would be more likely to forgive or work around a character's weak defense for the purpose of a story.

Noon wrote: You know, I think the real problem is a lack of cooperation between players and GM. These powers are leading to 'The game ends in 5 minutes because we know everything' or 'The GM's creative drive is stymied because we just skipped a bunch of well crafted material, ie we saved 10 minutes and in the process hurt the GM's desire to perform'.

Really it could be better handled just by the GM saying before game "Okay, you guys have powers that could answer all questions in five minutes, probably and/or they'll mean you'll skip interested material. Now, if you guys do that and don't want the game to finish that quick/miss out on interesting stuff, your going to have to think about that when using the power...and when you do use them, I'm going to ask you how its still limmited enough so that it only advances you in a cool way and doesn't end the session. Let's co-operate so you can use the powers AND enjoy a solid and filling session."

greyorm wrote: *snip*

Noon wrote: You know, I think the real problem is a lack of cooperation between players and GM. These powers are leading to 'The game ends in 5 minutes because we know everything' or 'The GM's creative drive is stymied because we just skipped a bunch of well crafted material, ie we saved 10 minutes and in the process hurt the GM's desire to perform'.

Really it could be better handled just by the GM saying before game "Okay, you guys have powers that could answer all questions in five minutes, probably and/or they'll mean you'll skip interested material. Now, if you guys do that and don't want the game to finish that quick/miss out on interesting stuff, your going to have to think about that when using the power...and when you do use them, I'm going to ask you how its still limmited enough so that it only advances you in a cool way and doesn't end the session. Let's co-operate so you can use the powers AND enjoy a solid and filling session."

Suppose I prefer Simulationism -- going along with this metagame intrusion into my character's behavior and the use of his abilities would seriously disrupt the truthfulness of the game's reality -- it would break my suspension of disbelief and thus ruin the experience of the game for me.

As a Gamist, imposing limitations on my tactical options solely for the sake of "more play time" would be counter to my entire desire for play, because progression through the game and meeting the challenges placed there to be overcome is what the game is all about for me.

As a Narrativist, I might balk at the idea that the point (the Premise) of play is being tampered with by artificial means solely for the observance of pre-existing (but as yet unplayed) events, thus rendering the entire exercise of examination futile or suspect because it is tainted by outside control factors.

So while your suggestion would work, what I believe you are suggesting here is a style of play known as "Illusionism" or, given that the players are notified ahead of time, "Participationism" (IIRC).

Quite frankly, I can't stand either (which isn't to say some people don't enjoy it). I, however, will read a book if I want this sort of experience.

My solution is to call for more rigorous GMing: if your players can "solve the mystery" in five minutes by use of a well-cast spell, well, you suck as a GM, or at least as the designer of adventures.

Step down and hand off to someone who can hack it, or learn some different ways to run a game -- such as basing play around player input and acting solely as a referee and guide/narrator, rather than a storyteller or "the guy with tonight's adventure" or in this case "the guy with interesting stuff."

It seems obvious to me that events which can be solved in five minutes by player use of granted powers means the adventure design itself is broken, simply for failing to take the game's own rules into account in its design, and thus relying on everyone "ignoring the man behind the curtain."

Well, I've read the relevant material. I just reject it, is all. It's why I don't post in the GNS section. Having read it, I think Narravitism is mostly used because of legacy drag from USENET, not because of any essential merit that the word possesses.

Outside of GNS, the term "narrative" has a real meaning that can be applied to RPGs. I think it's a touch counterproductive to wholly relagate the term to GNS. For example, I'm interested in game development as a narrative project that has some interest parallels in postmodern literature, like Foucault's Madness and Civilization. Working with Mage across multiple developers, there's really been a multiplicity of narratives about what the game's about, where it's been and where it's going, from development, freelance and fan sources.

If I ever talk about this, I'm going to use the word "narrative" over and over again.

I'm also somewhat dismayed at the casual rejection of some of the classic ideas behind talking about roleplaying. It looks to me like this is counterproductive ivory-tower building. People *really do* have a sense that dice rolls sometimes interfere. They *really do* work on collaborative storytelling in their games. Ignore that, and you're basically talking about games in a manner that's not really relevant to most roleplayers.

Now as to the issue at hand: It's just bad GMing. But everyone miscaulculates and everyone had brain hiccups, so in that context, the solution is to collaborate with the players on a solution or toss a backup plan in. Wing it.

eyebeams wrote: I think Narravitism is mostly used because of legacy drag from USENET, not because of any essential merit that the word possesses.

Outside of GNS, the term "narrative" has a real meaning that can be applied to RPGs. I think it's a touch counterproductive to wholly relagate the term to GNS.

eyebeams wrote: Well, I've read the relevant material. I just reject it, is all.

People *really do* have a sense that dice rolls sometimes interfere. They *really do* work on collaborative storytelling in their games. Ignore that, and you're basically talking about games in a manner that's not really relevant to most roleplayers.

No, its called collaboration. We cut a deal amongst ourselves as a group on how things work. You could still called that illusionism, but quite frankly if everyone is happy with deal made...what practical use is your terminology?

If part of the deal is that they take some responsibility for their actions/play, then it isn't my fault.

'player use of granted powers is always legit and not to be undermined'.

Greyorn and MJ:

I think Funksaw was using Narrativism in a literary sense sense, not a threefold sense, and that it was a mistake to take him to task for his usage instaed of asking for clarification, establishing terms and then attempting to mediate.

Greyorn, I thought it was pretty obvious that you devalued traditional critical perspectives like concerns about the impact of dicerolling and "storytelling"; you practically derided them. I explained why I think that's a mistake.

MJ, I normally don't post here because I don't think my objections would really be relevant vis a vis people developing their ideas along GNS lines. If I reject the premise, I can't really contribute to its refinements.

But since you asked, I will respond, briefly:

Ron's article posits that a system must offer a form of exclusive satisfaction. It's a no-brainer to say that you can't please everyone all of the time, but his definition goes beyond that and says that an RPG design can't simultaneously satisfy the three three broad models of play that he identifies. I think it's too rigid and that it stifles discussion that derives from games that don't use it for these reasons, among others:

* The model assumes a degree of control over how an RPG is interpreted that most authors, including myself, would be very reluctant to assert. This is why successful RPG designs offer multiple redundant toolkits. There seems to be a sentiment here that such designs are "incoherent" or the result of errors. They aren't.

* I also believe that these formal categories don't reflect the dynamism of real gaming groups. Real gaming groups rarely have a stylistic mission. They bounce all over the place. GNS doesn't exploit this; indeed, it seems to take an explicit stance against it, by advising designers not to make allowances for that dynamism. In the games I run and play in people jmp from simulation to straightforward tactical play to ethical quandaries all the time. What GNS has been useful for is asking exactly how a game should model things that have traditionally been left as abstractions, but this isn't necessarily unqiue; Pendragon is an example of a game that raised the same kinds of issues.

Getting back to toolkit appraoches, they pop up because the group will want different toolsets to suit their mood. Sometimes you want a detailed simulation of computer hacking. Sometimes it's just a success/failure question meant to set up on dramatic set-piece or another. These happen with the same game and the same players, and in most cases, everybody is just fine with it. But according to GNS, this is "incoherent."

* The three categories tend to bleed into each other so thoroughly that the exceptions eventually fail to prove the rule. If I make all rolls in the open in a major combat and refuse to mediate chance with determinism, that's a sign that the combat is truly consequential, rather than spice. Players react accordingly and are sometimes inspired to do a great deal of interior roleplaying about these consequences, and the rules engine, as a simulation of the world, is put to the test. What kind of play style is this, then? If we make any assertion about it, we doubtlessly won't cover the gamut of reactions to be found in my group -- and, I suspect, most groups.

There are other reasons, but again, I don't think it would really help people in this chunk of The Forge with whatever they're doing.

I think that players must be understood in terms of their complex subject position and how they mediate the experience at the table. I may write about this another time, but it doesn;t really have much to do with GNS, so it won't be here.

Hello,

Malcolm, on the off-chance that you're interested, perhaps the bevy of misconceptions you've reeled off in that post will be laid to rest by this thread: The whole model - this is it.

Best,
Ron

With all due respect Ron, I don't believe this clarification addresses my specific concerns.

First of all, it still emphasizes the designer and text's authority (it's "creative agenda" -- the implication is that this ought to be tightly defined and that groups that want to digress into tengential styles of play should just be out of luck) too much to really fly with me.

Secondly, the creative agenda is problematic in of itself. I think it's trying to pit the square peg of a typical roleplaying group into the round hole of a consistent, relatively static social contract and shared vision. I believe that individual points of divergence are an asset, not a flaw (though it is of course possible to have too much of a good thing).

Your response to this objection (which seems to hash out in this forum as people saying that they're enjoying themselves) implies that objectors are either unknowingly following your model or are deceiving themselves. I don't think this is particularly persuasive.

Finally, I don't see anything where you retract your old assertion that different styles (such as the three braod ones in your model) that these equire elements to be excluded, rather then included.

Having quietly watched GNS discusssion evolve over the last few years, I think that at this point, GNS is better defined as a manifesto, not a theory. You have strong ideas about the way games ought to be designed and as a result, people have put together the odd excellent game, so there's certainly no shame in GNS as a manifesto. I just don't find the aspiration to totalize this manifesto useful or conducive to discussing what's actually going in in many games, especially if it's something like Exalted, which is both extraordinarily popular and doesn't adhere to GNS values.

A few years ago I talked to you about this on GO, and we agreed to disagree, because we look at this sort of thing from two fundamentally different methodologies (for one thing, I'm very interested in post-structuralist perspectives on gaming, which I recall you don't have any use for). So I continue to disagree, but I don't mean to cast aspersions on the validity of your project. I just can't get behind it.

eyebeams wrote: I think Funksaw was using Narrativism in a literary sense sense, not a threefold sense, and that it was a mistake to take him to task for his usage instaed of asking for clarification, establishing terms and then attempting to mediate.

Greyorn, I thought it was pretty obvious that you devalued traditional critical perspectives like concerns about the impact of dicerolling and "storytelling"; you practically derided them.

This is an addendum to the above, an attempt to clarify exactly what is being discussed here between Malcolm and I.

You stated in your most recent post that:

eyebeams wrote: I thought it was pretty obvious that you devalued traditional critical perspectives like concerns about the impact of dicerolling and "storytelling"

People *really do* have a sense that dice rolls sometimes interfere. They *really do* work on collaborative storytelling in their games.

Hi all,

I put together my response to eyebeams/Malcolm's concerns about GNS-in-general in a new thread here . If nothing else, maybe that'll help keep it out of this thread.

Gordon

Hello,

As far as this thread is concerned, I really don't see that it's accomplishing much, or for that matter that it's about Narrativism or Illusionism.

It is now closed.

Best,
Ron