I was very unhappy with Mike Holmes' conclusions in The Roots of Sim II (in his post of February 9th, if it has continued), so I'm starting a new thread to push for a new term, a new distinction, that marks simulationism as distinct rather than default.

The attitude generally seems to be that at any moment at which you are not actively pursuing narrativism or gamism, you are "defaulting" to a simulationist mode. I don't believe the Creative Agenda model intended this, and I don't think it's true.

It is generally agreed that all modes of role playing are founded on Exploration, that this is what we are doing, in that we are creating events in the Shared Imaginary Space through exploration. What a Creative Agenda means is, this is what we are attempting to explore.

In Narrativism, we are exploring Premise; we seek to resolve conflicts of a moral, ethical, or personal nature into answers, and so explore moral and, if you'll permit me, spiritual truth. The thing we hope to gain is meaningful stories, or in a single word, Answers.

In Gamism, we are exploring challenge; we seek to overcome obstacles of a sort which tests our abilities as players--whether we can solve the puzzles ourselves or tactically organize our character actions to defeat the enemies, it's about proving our own abilities. The thing we hope to gain is Glory.

It has been correctly observed that when we are not actively pursuing Answers or Victory we are still role playing; we are still exploring. The mistake that is made is that this means we have fallen into Simulationism by default. That's not at all true.

Creative Agenda might be compared to steering a car. When I drive, my hands are almost always on the wheel (well, at least one of them). When I come to a bend in the road, I turn the wheel; when I come to a turn I wish to make, I turn the wheel more sharply; when the road is slick or odd, I may hold the wheel straight. Most of the time that I am driving, the car is going straight, and would continue to do so without my assistance. If the road is straight and level and my alignment is good, I could let go of the steering wheel and continue to go in the correct direction. Yet my hand is on the wheel because I am responsible for steering the car even when that means nothing more than keeping my hand on the wheel until it's time to turn it again, preventing it from going off course rather than keeping it on course.

I say that this is like Creative Agenda because during narrativist and gamist play we are not always steering the car; but we are always keeping our hands on the wheel. We're still playing narrativist or gamist when we're not actively doing "it", it's just that at the moment we're going straight and don't need to do anything but rest our hands on the wheel and let it move forward.

Why isn't this simulationist play? It is not simulationist play because at those moment we are not pursuing simulationist goals or objectives; we are still pursuing narrativist or gamist goals or objectives, but doing so in a quiet exploratory mode.

If I'm right, then there's an "it" that defines simulationism, something that is actively pursued in the simulationist model (consciously or unconsciously, just as in the other models) which is not merely exploration and yet is like exploration.

There is. I would like to call it Discovery. It is the pursuit of knowledge about the setting, character, situation, system, or color--not the mere testing of it for gamist ends, nor the examination of it for narrativist ends, but the study of it for simulationist ends. Gamism seeks Glory; Narrativism seeks Answers; for Simulationism, "It" is Understanding.

This is why the Beeg Horseshoe theory doesn't work; this is why I find Mike's conclusions in the cited thread lacking. They fail to recognize that the pursuit of understanding is the specific positive goal of Simulationism. If you are not seeking that as an end in itself, then you are not playing Simulationist; you are merely in the quiet exploration mode in whichever Creative Agendum you are pursuing.

Simulationism is not the default mode into which we fall when we don't play the others; it is a positive mode which must be entered by choice to the same degree as the others. It is something we do.

I do hope we can grasp this idea that simulationism isn't some second-class member of the triumvirate. It is every bit as focused and independent as its companions.

--M. J. Young

This speaks to me. On the one hand, I've always disliked negative definitions, on the other, I very much feel something present--as opposed to two things absent--when playing S. So, I agree that it should be possible to get a positive definition on S play.

As a side-effect, that would make GNS-classification a lot more reliable. We currently have a G-test and an N-test, and if you fail both, you must be playing S. Not having any redudancy when the tests are both abstract and based on concepts that are necessarily somewhat fuzzy• makes reliable classification difficult. Having an S-test would go a long way to help that.

Discovery is, I think, a hole-in-one for the positive property. Discovery for the sake of discovery, as opposed to discovery in service of some other goal. I've found that one way to get people thinking about why they want to discover is to ask them, "What do you like better, a good question or a good answer?"

Some people see questions as precursors to answers, others see answers as the way to ask even more interesting questions. A similar question would be, "What is more interesting, the journey or the destination?"

SR
--
• In the non-pejorative sense of Fuzzy Set Theory.

MJ, I'm trying to make Simulationism the most important mode, not some "second-class" thing. I'm trying to make Gamism and Narrativism the "second-class" things to the primary form of play Simulationism. This is why I say that I'm against the Beeg Horseshoe theory as it stands. I don't know how you could read all that I've posted, and not see that. The entire point of the last thread was to discredit the idea that sim was somehow the product of bad or accidental play, but a positive thing.

Forgive the ad hominem, but it sounds to me like you have some paranoid fantasy that I'm some shill for the opposing side who's trying to pull a fast one on everyone, and convince them that sim is bad because it's better than the rest. I've tried to explain this before, but still you persist in seeing me as doing the opposite of my intent. Why do you insist that by looking at the fact that Sim is defined as prioritizing exploration, the primary activity of RPGs, that this means that Sim must somehow be a secondary activity? My whole point in the previous post is that, without exploration, we're not roleplaying. So Sim, then, is ensuring that we're roleplaying. A very postitive thing, IMO.

Your position is unfathomable to me. It's like I've espoused some political position like a Pro-life in order to protect innocent lives, and you're telling me that I'm threatening innocent lives by adopting it. I don't want people to denigrate Sim, I want them to realize that they need to understand that it's always a priority. Inescapable. Unlike Gamism and Narrativism which only show up in an identifiable way occasionally.

As for the wheel analogy, we don't know if the hand is on the wheel or not, nor do we care. That speaks to motives, and the theory is behavioral. All that matters is that some players complain if the car to go one way, and others complain if the car to go another. As long as the car goes a direction that everyone likes, nobody cares how it gets there. That's exactly my point. Maybe you are actively supporting exploration, maybe you're doing something else, but until the car makes a turn, it doesn't matter. IOW, I have no problem with your model to that point. I've said that Sim is something like "default" (actually never used that term, that's yours), but that's just to get people to understand. In actuality, it doesn't matter if it is "default" or an active choice. In the end, its the choice that we're making almost all the time.

The GM says, there's a street. You say your character crosses it. No gamism there, no narrativism, just exploration. You didn't say "I jump to the moon", because that wouldn't be plausible. You have the character perform a plausible action because you're prioritizing exploration. Note, you could take that moment to play gamist or narrativist, say, asking for a contest to dodge some oncoming traffic, or narrating how your character thought about his current moral dillemma and came to a decision about it as part of crossing the street. But you don't ususally do that, you just cross the street. It's the majority of everyone's play.

Now, the problem I have with the idea of Discovery as a concept, is that it's a goal. GNS isn't about goals, or motivations. Those things don't matter, because there's no way to know if the behaviors involved in persuing these goals will conflict. Basically, you're trying to make GNS more than it is overall by assigning goals to the play. Making it an entirely different model that you're espousing at that point.

I wouldn't say right off that your model is wrong, but I think you'd have to posit it as something else entirely before we could even discuss it sensibly. It could even be a part of CA for all I know. It's just not GNS. For it to be so, you'd have to point to some behavior that was discovery based that was different, somehow, than exploring.

GNS accurately discusses the points where potential group friction occurs, IMO. One of them is the point where a player decides to take the exploratory approach over the gamism or narrativism approach at some point. All I've said, is that, Simulationism is going with the exploration approach at that point, and that I feel that this is done not to spite gamism or narrativism (which indeed would make it an immature act), but because if we're to have any gamism or narrativism at all (assuming that you want them at all, which you might not), you must prioritize exploration to some extent at all times.

SR, the entire GNS model is based on negative descriptions. There's no way around this. I mean, all three can be said to have their positive aspects exploration, challenge, theme. But when it comes down to it, its all about what annoys people. Nobody ever said, "That guy creates too much theme," or, "Hey, stop exploring!" No, what they say is, "You didn't use good tactics," or, "You aren't being realistic." This is very important. To that extent, a "Narrativist" is that person who notes when players aren't doing their best to create theme, rather doing something else. So, very much, the definition of Narrativism is "not doing something else". The mutual exculsivity of the three modes, is what makes them potentially problematic. Hence, to an extent, all modes are defined by that which they aren't. Simulationism is as much "not doing gamism or narrativistm" as much as it's "prioritizing exploration." Just as gamism is not only "addressing player challenge" but also "not doing simulationism or narrativism."

Mike

Don't ask me why, but the following quote made me think of this topic, form this thread

Shreyas Sampat wrote: It is an interesting setting, not a detailed one, that is a plus. Detail does not correlate with interesting, either.

Very simply, for some people, plausibility or whatever you want to call that special property of RPGs that put you in them, doesn't come without a certain level of detail.

Remember that across all agendas there are many different sub-categorizations. There's no "right" way for everybody to get their support for exploration, just many different ways. Detail is one.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Very simply, for some people, plausibility or whatever you want to call that special property of RPGs that put you in them, doesn't come without a certain level of detail.

Detail in Sim helps to support the shared imagined reality, the Dream. The richer the details the greater the chance that a player will find the Imagined Reality experience rich as well. There is no one to one corrolation on this, just a tendency.

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: Hmm. Unfortunately, this covers all the agendas. Detail in Narrativism help produce plausibility in whatever events occur. Detail in Gamism would identify elements of tacticle/strategic purpose. In either the detail made just be flavoring. What does it do for Sim?

Let me start by apologizing to Mike for any confusion I might have with his posts. I will confess that that is a very long thread that sprang quite a bit over the weekend (I have a commitment that keeps me away on Saturdays), and I was having a bit of trouble sorting it all out in my own mind.

However, I still disagree with his position as described here.

Mike appears to be saying that whenever we are not prioritizing Nar or Gam agenda we are prioritizing a Sim agendum. I am saying that exploration as the core medium of what we are doing is distinct from exploration (which I am calling discovery) prioritized.

I do recognize that Mike is one of the leading proponents of simulationism as a valid mode of play; he saw it before I did, I think, although that's going back a few years. I may have this wrong at some point; but I don't think this is that point.

Mike Holmes wrote: Why do you insist that by looking at the fact that Sim is defined as prioritizing exploration, the primary activity of RPGs, that this means that Sim must somehow be a secondary activity? My whole point in the previous post is that, without exploration, we're not roleplaying. So Sim, then, is ensuring that we're roleplaying. A very postitive thing, IMO.

As an example, Mike wrote: The GM says, there's a street. You say your character crosses it. No gamism there, no narrativism, just exploration. You didn't say "I jump to the moon", because that wouldn't be plausible. You have the character perform a plausible action because you're prioritizing exploration.

He also wrote: GNS isn't about goals, or motivations. Those things don't matter, because there's no way to know if the behaviors involved in persuing these goals will conflict. Basically, you're trying to make GNS more than it is overall by assigning goals to the play.

He wrote: It's just not GNS. For it to be so, you'd have to point to some behavior that was discovery based that was different, somehow, than exploring.

I may be way off-base here -- Mike, correct me if I am -- but I thought the point of the street-crossing example was precisely intent. There's a kind of passivity, I suppose, in Sim, because the reason to cross the street is simply to explore.

I cross the street. Why? To see what's on the other side? Why? Because I don't already know, and I'd like to see what the GM has in mind. Why? Repeat last answer, ad nauseam.

Seems to me that Mike is saying this:

Nar: I cross the street -- to address the Premise currently at stake.
Gam: I cross the street -- to win (okay, I know, to step up...).
Sim: I cross the street -- to see what else there is to do.

I think the point is that the last is implicit in the other two. That is:

Nar: I cross the street -- to address the Premise -- and I believe or hope or think that what I will find there will help me to do this.
Gam: I cross the street -- to win -- and I believe or hope or think that what I will find there will help me to do this.
Sim: I cross the street -- to see what I will find there.

Since both Nar and Gam must explore the other side of the street to achieve their goals, but for Sim simply crossing the street meets the primary goal, therefore Sim is implicit in Nar and Gam and thus the foundation of gaming.

Have I got that right, Mike?

Chris Lehrich

Mike Holmes wrote: SR, the entire GNS model is based on negative descriptions.

clehrich wrote:
Sim: I cross the street -- to see what I will find there.

M. J. Young wrote: Simulationism is exploration plus exploration, as it were; that's why Ron calls it "Exploration Squared". It is not what we do when we aren't doing the other two; it is not what we do that supports the other two. Exploration alone, the creating of the shared imaginary space, is not sufficient to be simulationism. It has to go beyond that, to be exploration with an objective of discovery for its own sake.

As an example, Mike wrote: The GM says, there's a street. You say your character crosses it. No gamism there, no narrativism, just exploration. You didn't say "I jump to the moon", because that wouldn't be plausible. You have the character perform a plausible action because you're prioritizing exploration.

This, I think, is where we are diverging. At that moment, in this example, you are not prioritizing anything. Why did you have the character cross the street? To get to the other side? To what end? To find out what was there. To what end? I don't know. But ultimately it is that question that matters to your creative agendum. Generally you probably didn't know what else to do, so you're marking time--which is mere exploration, not prioritization of exploration. If you went across the street to see if you could learn something about the villain, then you are still prioritizing whatever you were prioritizing before when you confronted the villain. If you crossed the street to get to the weapons store, you're still involved in prioritizing whatever it is that is involved in that. If your inn is across the street and you are returning to it--why did you cross the street?

If you crossed the street only because the referee said it was in front of you and that's the direction you were going, you're not prioritizing anything; you're barely even exploring, although you are exploring. It's not your priority.

Walt, that's getting close. "Split sim" how? This response intends to cover MJ's response as well.

Zilchplay is irrellevant to both my model and the original one in one way. Because in both models the only thing that creates an agenda or an annoyance, are those moments that aren't zilchplay. So, sans that, the original model says that Sim is a moment where you could have promoted gamism or narrativism, but you didn't. That's a negative view, however.

If you had a moment where you could go gamist, and did, then how would you know it? I mean, play can be congruent (zilchplay is), so if you're playing such that sim and gam are both supported, then you don't really know the priority at that point. Right? It can only be that you don't support sim, when it becomes obvious that you're playing gamist, right?

But what does that mean?

If sim is just more exploration, and gamism and narativism have exploration, then how can you fail to support sim when playing in these forms? Where would the conflict come in? Because you're not supporting that "extra" exploration that makes it "squared"? I'm not buying it.


No, I agree with MJ that when you do gamism or narrativism that you're not doing something, something that's unique to sim. He wants to call it discovery, but I don't think that we need another term. I think that it's exploration. That you when you're playing gamist, or narrativist, you're not exploring. You're dropping that exploratory feel. Else you're playing congruently, and there's no conflict at all.

Ron does have his "Dream" thing - is that the same as your "discovery" MJ? Interesting that nobody has brought that up so far. I too find it lacking in describing what's going on in RPGs.

Anyhow, either I'm with MJ that if exploration underlies all play that there's something unique to sim that is supported by it that's not being identified, and being put off as exploration squared. Or, exploration does not underlie all play, and is dropped by gamism and narrativism.

I ascribe to the latter view. That "real" gamism, and "real" narrativism are characterized by moments where the game temporarily fails to have that quality that characterizes RPGs, exploration.

Now all the gamists and narrativists will get up in arms about this. But what my original point is, is that I think that these conflicts are rare. That is, I don't think almost anyone plays gamist or narrativist per se. I think they play some hybrid overall supported by exploration. That the moments that they "fail" to explore are short enough that they don't really constitute a failure in the long run. They are hybrid.

Sim is the same. I don't think that anyone "fails" to do gamism or narrativism completely. These are all prioritizations, and as such, include the other forms implicitly. Meaning that Sim is just that form that reinforces the feel of RPGs, while not retreating from gamism or narrativism (and not not retreating if you can see what I mean).

All modes are sorta Hybridized. That is, they have elements of more than one mode. If Hybrid means "equally prioritized" then we should avoid that term, and instead call it Mixed or something. Ron talks about modes "In support" of each other. That's probably what we're talking about here. Essentially a lot of what I'm saying that it's no longer so simple as to be able to look at a mode and say, aha, sim!. You have to look at the supporting modes. When you postulate play that's sim with gamism supporting, suddenly it becomes obvious that sim isn't a retreat from gamism. It's doing something important in addition to gamism.

What's the important part? Lots of exploration.

Any help?

Rob, sorry about the SR thing. I disagree that you can create tests that test for G that aren't essentially tests of Not S and Not N. Same with N. GNS is about conflcits. The only time something is effectively G or N or S is when it's not something else, so that it makes someone annoyed. Like I say above, it's not really gamist until a simulationist is pissed off. If it's not pissing off the simulationist, then it's functionally hybrid. By definition.

Mike

I'm not sure that I would categorize "zilchplay" as congruent. From a N or G standpoint that sort of play can be seen as "not getting in the game", not being focused and engaged in play.

Does "zilchplay" correspond to S in that manner? I dunno, still contemplating some of the ideas in this thread.

-Chris

It's "congruent" in that nobody who's looking for support of any mode will complain about it. Unless, interestingly, they were "purely" narrativist or gamist. In which case, they'd say that this play is completely ancillary. Like theories of directing movies that bemoan the scene where the guy drives up, gets out of the car, and walks inside the building. To those people, you're not "really playing" then. Because to them the exploration elements are useless. They really want to play a game or write a novel.

To the extent that's true, Zilch is more closely related to exploration and sim that any other mode.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Walt, that's getting close. "Split sim" how?

Zilchplay is irrellevant to both my model and the original one in one way. Because in both models the only thing that creates an agenda or an annoyance, are those moments that aren't zilchplay.

So, sans that, the original model says that Sim is a moment where you could have promoted gamism or narrativism, but you didn't. That's a negative view, however.

If you had a moment where you could go gamist, and did, then how would you know it? I mean, play can be congruent (zilchplay is), so if you're playing such that sim and gam are both supported, then you don't really know the priority at that point. Right? It can only be that you don't support sim, when it becomes obvious that you're playing gamist, right?

But what does that mean?

If sim is just more exploration, and gamism and narativism have exploration, then how can you fail to support sim when playing in these forms? Where would the conflict come in? Because you're not supporting that "extra" exploration that makes it "squared"? I'm not buying it.

No, I agree with MJ that when you do gamism or narrativism that you're not doing something, something that's unique to sim. He wants to call it discovery, but I don't think that we need another term. I think that it's exploration. That you when you're playing gamist, or narrativist, you're not exploring. You're dropping that exploratory feel. Else you're playing congruently, and there's no conflict at all.

I think we're mostly saying the same things. I agree that Sim can only be detected in cases where gamism and narrativism are rejected (and that those also share the same qualities). My point you quoted was just to say that the other modes are the same in this way, to prove that there must be something special to sim (exploration).

So your split theory is that Sim is about encountering (creating, or discovering another's creation) of something unexpected? How must that neccessarily conflict with narrativism and gamism? If it's only "the unexpected that is also exploration" then I'm failing to see it as independent of exploration, or, indeed by the definition of exploration, of any other form of play. If it's unexpected sim stuff, you're creating a tautology.

What am I missing?

Mike

On another thread, Sean wrote:

3) The 'Freitag theory', also discussed in the other thread: GNSZ, where people just play without any particular agenda in addition to the other three modes. This seems like implausible psychology to me, since surely you're trying to get something out of your play, no matter how incoherent, attenuated, or just plain weak your desires are, but who knows...

I was going to post this right after M.J. popped up this thread, but I was busy and tired. Shame on me. I'm going to try to be concise, but I hope my point doesn't become unclear in the process.

I think M.J.'s "it" is the only viable definition, from our current options, that makes sense in the model.

Defining Sim in reference to Exploration isn't going to work. Exploration Squared, More Exploration, or Exploration Whatever leads us into a circular definition of Sim. By roleplaying you're Exploring, within that layer rests Creative Agenda - the purpose behind your Exploration. The purpose behind Exploration can't be Exploration, it's tautological.

A negative definition of Sim, the priority that isn't Nar/Gam, isn't going to work either. Doing nothing isn't a goal (Yes, we could argue the details of this, but I hope you take my meaning. M.J. has already hit this one, so I'm just repeating.).

This is in addition to the arguements that these both bring up about quantity of Exploration. As if roleplaying is five subroutines you have to distribute processing power across, and that if you could just cut mental resources from Creative Agenda you could pump more into Exploration. This hinges upon viewing the mental process of roleplaying in a way that I think is incorrect - viewing the actual mental process in the same five little chunks the model groups roleplaying elements into.

Either definition leads to a need to fix Sim; such as with the Beeg Horseshoe Theory, or by being more radical and declaring it doesn't exist.

This "it" has to be able to stand independently within the [Creative Agenda] layer as a clearly conflicting priority. Is Discovery/Understanding/Knowledge "it"? I don't know - I don't see Discovery consistently conflicting with theme or challenge, but I'm willing to accept that it's the language and not the concept that's failing. I remain open-minded, but skeptical, that this "it" exists. This seems to tie into the fundamental nature of human curiosity.

M.J., I think you're on the right track and I want to be on that train with you, but I'm uncertain I'll get off at the same stop.

Walt,

What I'm hearing is that zilchplay is exploration without intent, so to speak. Or role-playing that neither engages nor expresses any creative agenda and is in fact reactive to the catalyzing input of another player's expression of their creative agenda, though it may not appear to be so.

Sounds good, and I'd love to see sim split up into something managable that people could agree exists. But can play really be unmotivated? In the model, as soon as two or three come together and play, you've got creative agenda. You're positing a world where (perhaps) the most common situation is a game where one person (the gm) has a CA, and most others (the players) don't have one, or at least may get on just fine without one. That's a very different world than the one that gns has been thought to inhabit.

When do you cross out of zilchplay? Is that a personal decision? Is it based on the other players' interest in what you do? If not, how do we discern whether an action is "expected" or not? A player may put a lot of care and thought and hold attachment to an action that another would judge to be formulaic. This reminds me of the concept of pastiche, also. How attached to the concept of expected/unexpected are you? Do you see zilchplay as being limited to actions that seem formulaic?

Just trying to get clearer. Hope it's of use.

And cruciel: I agree. Perhaps that's a good approach--determining exactly what the point of conflict is between sim and other priorities. If it isn't versimilitude (either to a source or to continuity within the game world), since that underscores everything, what else is it that we mean by sim?

I'm starting to wonder if we're boxing ourselves in by thinking in the same categories over and over.

Regards,
Emily

Emily Care wrote: And cruciel: I agree. Perhaps that's a good approach--determining exactly what the point of conflict is between sim and other priorities. If it isn't versimilitude (either to a source or to continuity within the game world), since that underscores everything, what else is it that we mean by sim?

I'm starting to wonder if we're boxing ourselves in by thinking in the same categories over and over.

Thanks for the input, Walt. I am going to have to consider your Zilchplay category; my initial reaction is that it never adds up to an "instance of play" until something is prioritized, but that sounds silly. More to the point, I'm not persuaded that your characterization of module play goes that direction--you wind up with "let's prioritize exploring what this module is about", and whether it's setting or situation or system (or even character, as in the characters presented in the module) you're focused on exploring some aspect of the shared imaginary space provided by the module that wasn't there without it. This might be "vanilla simulationism"; I'm not sure yet.

Mike Holmes wrote: So, sans that, the original model says that Sim is a moment where you could have promoted gamism or narrativism, but you didn't. That's a negative view, however.

Mike further wrote: If sim is just more exploration, and gamism and narativism have exploration, then how can you fail to support sim when playing in these forms? Where would the conflict come in? Because you're not supporting that "extra" exploration that makes it "squared"? I'm not buying it.

Mike next wrote: No, I agree with MJ that when you do gamism or narrativism that you're not doing something, something that's unique to sim. He wants to call it discovery, but I don't think that we need another term....

Ron does have his "Dream" thing - is that the same as your "discovery" MJ? Interesting that nobody has brought that up so far. I too find it lacking in describing what's going on in RPGs.

Mike wrote: Anyhow, either I'm with MJ that if exploration underlies all play that there's something unique to sim that is supported by it that's not being identified, and being put off as exploration squared.

Just noting that I cross-posted with the last three posts, which were all good; I'll be thinking about them.

--M. J. Young

Wouldn't you know, everytime these boards get hot on Sim, I start work again with 15 hour days and can't get involved!

Fascinating reading all!

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume

Mike Holmes wrote: If it's not pissing off the simulationist, then it's functionally hybrid. By definition.

That's interesting, Walt. What you describe sounds like low-protagonism exploration. And I suppose what's being debated here, again, is whether

a) low-protagonism (or just low-engagement more generally) exploration is just a mild form of Sim (traditional GNS), or

b) whether all RPGs start out tacking towards this goal, while some choose to go full speed ahead on it, and others tack towards Gam or Nar instead (Mike's rewrite of Beeg Horseshoe, which posits the underlying reality of gaming as a sort of low-grade exploration with elements of all three, and the question is which you want to focus and why), or

c) whether this sort of play shouldn't count as Sim (because there's no 'squared' in the exploration) and rather should be regarded as its own distinct mode (Freitag).


(b) could be made consistent with (c) if we wanted to give the modes a 'hard' reading. On the other hand, I'm trying to push Mike (and at least some of the things he's said imply this, though others may not) towards a softer reading: what he's saying is something like 'RPGing starts out essentially Sim, with elements of the other two modes, and then, if you want, you can really focus on one of those elements to make your gameplay more intense'. In other words, Mike's emphasizing the choice to intensify your gaming as a positive rather than warning abuot the dangers of incoherence as a negative. (There's also this stuff in what he writes about Sim being the 'purest mode' or whatever, but I don't really care about that. Plus even if he's right that all RPing starts out Sim, it's still a genetic fallacy to suppose that that's thereby 'pure' in any positive sense. All meat starts out uncooked.)


I'm trying to look at this thing in terms of the Big Model, where people form a Social Contract to Explore and within that develop a Creative Agenda that they want to pursue (and which, on Ron's view, actually drives their gaming decisions).

Insofar as I see Mike as saying anything different than what I think I've seen Ron saying, it seems to be something like this: the Social Contract to Explore is already a Creative Agenda, whether known to the agents involved or not (who of course can also not be aware that they're forming a social contract or reflected on the fact that what they're doing in a general way is exploration of shared imaginative space, blah blah blah). So that when you set out in a group to Explore there's already a creative agenda involved in some sense, from the very beginning. You might discover more what that agenda is through play, just like you might realize things about the social contract in play, or you might develop your understanding of the possibilities of exploration through play.

Now you might note that some role-players don't seem very clued in about the possibilities of play, or basically just want someone else to tell them a story, or never really get intense or focus on anything. Is this a separate mode? Partly the dispute here is terminological, but: if I understand what Mike's saying right, it can't be a genuinely separate mode on his view. On the other hand, there is room for Z within traditional GNS, but it's a weird sort of room: the players are deviating from Z every time they make any decision which affects game-play. So it has to be full-on GM storytelling plus lots of illusionism. And even then, I suppose, we have to ask about the GMs desires: he doesn't seem to be playing Z, and his desires seem to be dictating what the group's doing. So the game as a whole still seems like it can't be Z: it's just the GM's creative agenda being 'shared' or 'enforced' on the rest of the group.

OK, so these are some of my thoughts on that.

M. J. Young wrote: The character has discovered the mobile home, a converted truck with a gasoline engine for the electrical generator and a diesel engine for mobility. He needs fuel for it. Remembering that most gasoline engines can be adjusted to run on alcohol, and that alcohol is created by the action of yeast on sugars, he gathers a large amount of the sweet grass, mixes it with some water, adds a bit of yeast, and attempts to ferment and distil fuel. It works; he winds up with a black tarry substance which he discards. This substance hardens to something very rock-like; he realizes he has a building material. He starts to build walls to protect his area against the more dangerous creatures that roam the plain; he builds machines to make cloth, rope, and paper from the fibers of the plants; he builds a kiln to make pottery from the clay-like soil, and a water tower so he can pump water to it and have water pressure here--gradually he builds a city. Studying the native creatures, he realizes one of these has a high concentration of sulphur in its system, an element he has not seen since his arrival. Contriving a way to dig below the water table, he proceeds to search for this and other materials which might be useful in his quest to understand the world in which he is stranded. I know that he is playing simulationist, not because he is not playing gamist or narrativist, but because he is prioritizing efforts to understand and use the world around him.
--M. J. Young

Just a quick thought on 5 hours of sleep...

I posit that in very low intensity exploration it is virtually impossible to distinguish agenda precisely because those "agenda decisions/choices" are so infrequent and so low intensity and the social rewards and social reinforcements are so low key that distinguishing data points get lost in the background noise.

As player interests/motivations/drives (emotional investment?) become more focused or intense the "agenda decisions" become more pronounced and play (the exploration action) starts taking on notable CA characteristics. Where is this transition from "zilchplay" to CA play takes places is a gray area, much the question posited in another post about when is a game "Narrativist" enough not to be considered "Simulationist" anymore.

This low intensity style of play (straight Exploration - not Sim) I would call, and I do not mean this with any negative connotations on any level, a "beer and pretzels" game. In this style of game the social aspect is the highest reward and the game itself is more or less just an excuse for people to get together in some form of communal activity. Something akin to penny ante poker.

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume

Ah - so it's back to the 'social' mode, now, is it?

I don't think 'beer and pretzels' should be used this way, FWIW. "Beer and pretzels" gaming has always pretty clearly denoted low-intensity Gamism in my lexicon. Tunnels and Trolls, OD&D & 1e, WFRP, and even Fantasy Trip all can be used to facilitate this in my experience. I believe there are mechanical features of 3e which tend to ramp up the Gamism out of the 'beer and pretzels' area, as I suspect (no play experience) would Rune. (Like, I might add, penny ante poker - though as with 3e you have to 'work against the system' here to keep it low-intensity, since the chief way to make poker more interesting is to bring more money into it. I made $50 + a week playing poker in high school, played even with some semipro gamblers in grad school, and have a friend who's played in the World Series twice and done OK, so I'm not just talking out of my ass here - it's a common feature of casual poker games that they tend to get less and less casual as time goes on, which takes conscious effort on the part of most participants to avoid.)

But OK, that's an aside. Silmenume, you seem to be using "Sim" as a kind of term of praise, and I'm not sure that's where we should take it, though it does make your view line up with Walt's in an interesting way. As far as I can see, if a play-group makes decisions, those decisions involve some kind of goals, and though play can be arbitrarily weakly attenuated, we can characterize the direction those goals are taking the group, and since Z (straight exploration) is by definition directionless, whenever the group is doing anything at all that affects the game, they aren't really playing Z.

It is true that if what a group wants is low-intensity gaming, GNS may not be of much use to them. If they're happy just sort of wandering around, making decisions on the spur of the moment, etc., then maybe that's all there is to say about that. But I still think their play could be properly characterized in GNS terms, based on whatever decisions they were making. Maybe it's just important to remember that people can be happy with that, and that 'incoherence' or 'weak attention to Creative Agenda' is only a problem if a group wants to ramp up the intensity of their play in some way.

It's like this: if you see someone playing tennis badly, you ask them: don't you want to do better? Here, hold the racket like this. But then if they say: listen, thanks, man, but I just hack on the weekends, I don't really care about getting any better than I am, then in a sense that's OK, though we might wish they were more devoted to their chosen game. The thing is, since role-playing doesn't _have_ to involve 'winning' and 'losing', people playing low-intensity G, N, or S aren't necessarily 'playing badly' in the way that the tennis hacker is; they're just not interested in some of the deeper Step on Up/Dream/Story-Creating possibilities of what they're doing. They don't want to intensify or cohere whatever G, N, or S is already in their play. But that doesn't mean it's not there.

Jay, that's always been part of the model, as I understand it. Agenda only becomes notable in certain circumstances.


Caldis, you're reading my mind. I'm not even sure that MJ's examples would ammount to "Instances of Play" to Ron. They're more the elements that add to the mix, as I see it.


Sean, simulationism is only "pure" in the sense that nothing has been added to the base element. Any attempt by anyone to see some pro-sim agenda here is doomed to failure, because I play with plenty of narrativism, and, some would say, a potentially dangerous amount of competitive gamism. Note my ideas about how to "game" My Life With Master, a game which others would call purely narrativist.

What I want to see, laid bare, is people think in terms of hybrid models. I don't want them to say anymore "Is my game Sim or Nar?" when it's plainly supportive of both in some ways. That is, Ron is right that there's a priority somewhere, but it doesn't negate the importance of the "supporting" modes of play. Meaning that no mode can be ghetoized as a retreat from another when in fact, they aren't in that the other mode is actually "back-supported" by the first.

I'm glad that you see this as also positivist, Sean, when there is the negativist part of my argument that still says that GNS is all about establishing coherence (or more extrememly as I say avoiding the incoherence of players pissing each other off).

the Social Contract to Explore is already a Creative Agenda

Hello,

One of the most important passages in "GNS and related matters of role-playing theory" is this:

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

Yep, we're on the same page. The only problem that I have with the "little g" sort of description is that it's hard to discuss. I'd like it to have it's own terminological set.

Any ideas anyone?

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Jason, you're making my arguments for me by pointing out what can't exist. Again, like MJ, I think that you're just failing to see that "it" is just exploration, and therefore why the relationship is special.

Hi Jason,

It seems to me that you might be reading too much into the idea of the "independence" concept. I deliberately left the cognitive or creative interrelationships among GNS priorities untouched in my first big essay, and my subsequent three essays have focused on how they have been observed to inter-related in practice, historically.

How they really interrelate in terms of baseline concepts and potential has always been left blank. For example, I never proposed nor supported the idea of a "triangle" or indeed any sort of "space" they occupy as zones or points or anything else.

So it's not like there's an existing physical/spatial model for them that Mike is proposing an alternative to. Because I say they are distinct in observation (see my quote above) does not mean I think they are three independent zones or points in some weird sort of psychological-axes space.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: [snip]

So it's not like there's an existing physical/spatial model for them that Mike is proposing an alternative to. Because I say they are distinct in observation (see my quote above) does not mean I think they are three independent zones or points in some weird sort of psychological-axes space.

Hi Jason,

I found these a bit ago:
Hybrids - looking for an understanding of has a little bit of my more recent thoughts in there.
Decision merging: an approach to hybridization demonstrates that odd little "how Mike" and "how Ron" think about the same thing
Can a game designer work for all three (G/N/S)? has more to do with customizing a game through play, without necessarily devaluing the other modes of play

I dunno if they'll be interesting, but who knows, they might help someone see how this comes up every so often.

Regarding hybrid play, I think that I see the term a little differently from the way Mike does. I think he's talking about the "little g, little s, little n" that can crop up in the way I quoted my essay about above. Whereas I see those as "fuzz blips" which aren't really worthy of a GNS name (although I could be wrong about that), and hybrid play as whole shifts among the group, 'way up there in the model, to play This Way for Now, as a supportive mode for another mode which is When We Get Back To It, in which those shifts are playing a specific facilitative role toward that second (main) one.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Regarding hybrid play, I think that I see the term a little differently from the way Mike does. I think he's talking about the "little g, little s, little n" that can crop up in the way I quoted my essay about above. Whereas I see those as "fuzz blips" which aren't really worthy of a GNS name (although I could be wrong about that), and hybrid play as whole shifts among the group, 'way up there in the model, to play This Way for Now, as a supportive mode for another mode which is When We Get Back To It, in which those shifts are playing a specific facilitative role toward that second (main) one.

This talk of hybrids reminds me of a situation I've watched develop over the past few months. I play regularly in a gurps game run by a professor at the local university. He was running this game and playing in a 3rd edition d&d game.

The reason he started up this game was because he wasnt satisfied with the other, he stuck with it for awhile but eventually it just became not worthwhile for him and several of the other players in that group. In discussing it with him he stated the reason for leaving was that it was pretty much hack and slash nothing more, not much story holding it together. The game focused on lengthy planning sessions trying to figure out how best to overcome the enemies the gm had planned for the week, followed by the actual battle and afterwards the gm would go over what their best plan of attack would have been.

So it clearly sounded like it was a conflict between gamist and simulationist preferences but here's the funny thing, I've played in his game for a solid year now and find his games to be fairly gamist. He has a detailed world built up and it retains a sense of consistency but the point of the game seems to be about the challenges. Usually a mystery to figure out or a task to overcome with limitless solutions and generally a big combat scene that is incredibly tactically challenging.

It's obvious his prefences lie somewhere within the sim/game mix which would normally be considered a hybrid, or maybe he's a gamist using sim for support. If restricted to choosing one mode as his preffered I would have to say gamism. The interesting point to me is that he had a conflict with a mode of play that was the same as his own for reasons that were outside of his preference. It seems to me that Mike's model solves the conundrum, sim was present in both but his gm only addressed it at a superficial level whereas his desire was more in the mid range.

Caldis wrote: Can he not also be "stepping on up" to the challenge of surving the foreign landscape? Can he not also be trying to survive so he can address the issue present in your example of the narrativist?

He later wrote: So it clearly sounded like it was a conflict between gamist and simulationist preferences but here's the funny thing, I've played in his game for a solid year now and find his games to be fairly gamist. He has a detailed world built up and it retains a sense of consistency but the point of the game seems to be about the challenges. Usually a mystery to figure out or a task to overcome with limitless solutions and generally a big combat scene that is incredibly tactically challenging.

Hey Sean,

I did not realize, that even after my disclaimer, that the phrase, “Beer and Pretzels,” would be controversial. I will refrain from the use of that particular phrase in the future. But before I leap away from that topic, I think it is interesting to note that your definition of “Beer and Pretzels” also encompasses the idea of low intensity, which was exactly what I was aiming at.

One more point and then onto the meat of my post. I am confused by your assertion that you think that I am using “Sim” as kind of term of praise. The thought never entered my mind so I am not sure where it is in my post. It is either not there and you misinterpreted me, by which remedy let me assure you that I am not intentionally using “Sim” as a kind of term of praise or it is in my post and I too self-blind to see it and I request that you point it out to me so that I may better police my own postings so as to avoid this error in the future. Thank you!

Sean wrote: Maybe it's just important to remember that people can be happy with that, and that 'incoherence' or 'weak attention to Creative Agenda' is only a problem if a group wants to ramp up the intensity of their play in some way.

Mike Holmes wrote: Jay, that's always been part of the model, as I understand it. Agenda only becomes notable in certain circumstances.

M. J. Young wrote:
GNS doesn't say that there won't be discord between people in the same agendum; it says that there will be discord between people with conflicting agenda.

It's not the same thing.

--M. J. Young

Thanks to all for an illuminating discussion.

Jay, I like your phrase 'weak expression of creative agenda' better, because it avoids the cognitivist implications of 'attention'. Assuming that the players of a game (including the GM, if any) are doing things that reflect their desires for what they want to get out of the game, and assuming that it is meaningful to talk about human action in terms of belief/desire psychology (materialist and behaviorist skeptics are referred to Daniel Dennett's article "Three Kinds of Intentional Psychology" - he's on your side in terms of metaphysics, and he still thinks that what the cognoscenti call 'folk psychology' is a predictive theory of human action) regardless of consciously expressed motives etc., talking about this as expression of those desires seems to be a better way to put it all around.

The only reason I suggested that you were using Sim as a 'term of praise' is because you were distinguishing S from Z, as Walt seems to. We can drop the praiseworthy connotations of that for S, if there ever were any, which I'm happy to take your word that they're weren't, and just talk about whether this distinction exists. I apologize for the suggestion. As to 'beer and pretzels', we're all free to use the language the way we like, and I agree with you about the low-intensity connotation, but I do think this phrase almost always refers to low-intensity Gamism in my experience with it, and that I've generally used it that way.


Mike, I like your interpretation of my paraphrase of you as 'seeing Ron's arrow', and insofar as you're right that does serve to eliminate differences between you and Ron except on matters of emphasis. The fact that you and Ron both feel that those are the differences tends to bolster that impression.


I'm tending to look at it like this. People come to the table to explore; they make decisions which they at least like to pretend (even in Walt's example as he stated it) are influencing the shared imaginative space of the game. Actually, even in heavy Illusionist games, they are influencing it in some sense: something besides the players' decisions (say, one player, the GMs, decisions) are determining the outcomes, but the players are still determining, say, how they arrive at the predetermined outcomes.

The overall (little-g, little-s, little-n, and I think using different terms for these might potentially be more misleading, because the way you diagnose capital-letter GNS preferences in a player is to look at which of these decisions he or she (a) gets the most enjoyment out of and (b) makes most frequently) pattern of these decisions tells you something about the creative agenda preferences of the players. Some people may be happy to bop around with spontaneous decisions of different types.

On the other hand, frequently RPG groups get into trouble because there is a conflict between more strongly felt GNS preferences, which are neither stated well nor dealt with well, among the players. And also, there are a lot of really exceptional joys to be gotten out of RPGing with a creative agenda that focuses intensely on one mode of play, which are hard to get out of attenuated play. (And infact 'casual', attentuated play often seems to break down because one or two players get the bug of this more intense mode of play and others don't want to follow along.)


I think that if there's any phenomenon which mirrors what I take Walt and Jay to be pointing to here it's the happiness of some groups that play very attenuatedly, without intense focus on any decision type, to keep playing that way.


So at this point I'm sort of torn. On the one hand, I believe that people playing this way will probably be at least roughly diagnoseable with some kind of overall preference within any given game, G, N, or S. On the other hand, if they're happy with what they're doing, they might resist an intensification along any of those axes: they might make decisions not to explore intensely, or not to step on up, or not to get too hard-core into the story, because they just want to keep floating along. And in this sense, because they make negative decisions about the intensity of any of the three modes, it might make sense to talk about Z as a fourth preference - this one really defined negatively, as Sim should not be in my opinion. It's the creative agenda that says 'hey, let's not focus on any overall creative agenda, let's just bop around in the shared space and focus on whatever butters our muffin at the time, with the understanding that if your muffin gets too heavily buttered consistently in one direction you either need to lay off or find a new game'.

So: decisions in play are always understandable as little-g, little-s, or little-n, at least barring finding some new form of focus. And many games will have a creative agenda which involves focusing on one of these and making play more intense: the capital letter modes. On the other hand, there's also an overall creative agenda which is explicitly aimed against heavy focus, which we're calling "Zilchplay", but since that's negative and implies to me an absence of player desires, which is incoherent, I'd prefer C, "Casual Play", as the title, if this exists.

So I have two questions:

(a) For Walt and Jay: is this a reasonable way of thinking about what you have in mind? Would you accept this analysis? Any quibbles?

(b) For Mike, MJ, and Ron: would this way of looking at things be acceptable to you? If not, why not?

Of course, anyone else is welcome to join in on either or both questions too.

Post moved to zilchplay thread.

Jay wrote: In Simulationism the player is directly adding new pieces to the body of the Explorative elements.

If Mike is arguing that there's a bit of simulationist-like conduct supporting narrativism and gamism, I'm ready to agree; I expect he will also concede that there is a bit of narrativist-like conduct supporting simulationism and gamism, and a bit of gamist-like conduct supporting simulationism and narrativism. The question is not whether we're involved in forms of play that look like each other. The question is whether our reason for playing is primarily one or another of the three big aspects.

As Ron says, only one of the three things can be most important to you over a period of play; the others are just things you do because they support what you want to do.

Hey Sean,

Sean wrote: People come to the table to explore; they make decisions which they at least like to pretend (even in Walt's example as he stated it) are influencing the shared imaginative space of the game.

Sean wrote: So: decisions in play are always understandable as little-g, little-s, or little-n, at least barring finding some new form of focus.

Sean wrote: On the other hand, there's also an overall creative agenda which is explicitly aimed against heavy focus, which we're calling "Zilchplay", but since that's negative and implies to me an absence of player desires, which is incoherent, I'd prefer C, "Casual Play", as the title, if this exists.

Hi Jay,

Your final epiphany nails it, as far as I'm concerned.

There's a section in GNS and Related Matters of Role-playing Theory called "Does it exist" (or something like that), and then there's the big ol' Simulationism essay itself ... both of those express my thinking on the topic, and I think they're consistent with your point.

Best,
Ron

Silmenume wrote: I just had another epiphany that demonstrates that Sim is not self-same with exploration. Sim does not allow for the dynamic addressing of formalized systems, which can be allowed for in Nar. Both CA’s employ the Exploration elements, but each prioritizes which elements are most important and which are not to be messed with. Exploration as a whole says nothing about which elements are allowed or not allowed to be added to, while Sim has very clear strictures about what portions of the Exploration elements are subject to dynamic addressing and in what manner they are to be addressed.

Pretty much right on the nose.

I am not sure that I buy the Discovery idea per say, but it does vigorously address the idea of 'a' goal in Sim that is distinct from the act of Exploration as a process that is occuring in all three CA's.

Aure Entaluva,

Silmenume