The Forge Archives

First see http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=56049#56049 for the main thread. This is basically split from it and is a discussion on how I feel what I was writing about there is relevant to the GNS paradigm.

Simply, I am proposing that perhaps there exists a layer of Exploration of Player (or Self) within Simulationism in many of the games we play -- and hence in games people in general play. Emphasis on it and enjoyment derived from it will vary accordingly.

While I think this is happening in many games, I haven't really seen any commercial games that have taken the ball and specifically ran with it, though I think many game designers hope that their games could teach their players about themselves. Yes, some schools and educational systems use role-playing type activity to achieve educational goals. Maybe these things are a form of role-playing with emphasis on Exploration of Self.

Certainly game systems could be tweaked around this emphasis. The reward system seems especially embedded into very idea. Whatever knowledge you take from the game, you can consider your reward. Anyway, I'm not going to rave about system at this point.

What do you think, is Exploration of Player a "real thing" or am I seeing phantoms?

Joachim Buchert

Hi Joachim,

Unless I'm missing something, you're using Exploration in some kind of funny way. Its technical meaning re: my essay n' stuff is "to imagine," especially in terms of the group interactions.

To Explore the self, then, is hard to understand. If you mean the real person and his or her behaviors, that's a reality, not a topic of imagination. If you mean the social, interactive construct that we buy into about ourselves, and create among one another, then that's Social Contract.

So what do you mean? Can you give me an example? I'm pretty sure that what you're talking about cannot be Exploration.

Best,
Ron

Seems to me that Joachim is using 'exploration' in the more traditional sense.  As is 'finding yourself' is an 'exploration' of the self.  I don't think he ever intended to use 'exploration' per the GNS in this instance.

For that matter, I hardly think that 'finding yourself' in gaming is even limited to one mode of the GNS.  I mean, isn't the Exploration of Edwardian Premise based upon choosing one that 'gets to you?'  That makes it 'finding yourself' in gaming doesn't it?

Let's calm down on the terminology nazism, okay guys?  Joachim apparently meant something other than 'GNS Exploration;' no harm, no foul.

Fang Langford

Hi there,

If so, then that's so. But it's not Nazism, Fang. "Exploration" as a term was born out of a tremendous wave of effort, debate, and occasionally barely-restrained homicidal impulses back in the day at the Gaming Outpost. What it refers to is tremendously important for understanding our hobby, and some effort to preserve its integrity as a term is therefore valuable, in my view.

The trouble is that people often confuse themselves simply by grabbing terms and combining them, and the combination sounds like something that must be important, and yet it doesn't make sense ... and then the theory as a whole seems flawed through no fault of its own. This used to happen all the time with the phrase "Exploration of Premise," which is nonsensical.

If all that's being discussed is "self-expression" or "self-discovery," then I consider the issue to be pretty mundane. As I mentioned recently in another thread, the answer is Yes - just as with any social, leisure activity, and if Joachim thinks role-playing has unique features in this regard, I'd like to know what they are.

If, on the other hand, Joachim is driving at something that uses the technical term Exploration just as it applies to (e.g.) System, then I don't understand what he means and would like to know that in order to discuss its merits.

Best,
Ron

It was mostly your very critical, short tone that I was painting.  You keep snapping off these really quick, sharp answers and it starts sounding like 'end of quarter' is really frazzling you.  I know you want to be concise, but this still sounds a bit dismissive.

'Dunno, probably just me....

Fang Langford

Quote from: Ron Edwards
Unless I'm missing something, you're using Exploration in some kind of funny way. Its technical meaning re: my essay n' stuff is "to imagine," especially in terms of the group interactions.

Something to add to your essays the next time you edit them.  I read all the articles in the Articles section of this website, and it always seemed to me that "explore" carried a little more baggage with it than simply to imagine.  The meaning I saw developed in the essays was a tad more than just imagination, explore more than implies discovering something new.  Imagination isn't always about that.  You can play RPGs without discovery.  Explore has connotations and questioning someone's definition of a word when it lines up with the dictionary because you've redefined it and/or limited it's scope for use in your essay is a bit odd.

Seeing the clarification that you mean "imagine" rather than "explore" is very helpful.  Thanks for the clarification.  It makes everything you've written "click" a lot better.

Not trying to be contentious.  Just sharing how it was very simple for me to assume you were using the actual definition of a word in your essays and how that might give your readers impressions contrary to what you're trying to communicate.

Nathan

Hi Nathan,

The trouble is, any word chosen to indicate this concept is going to have the problem you describe. I tried "Premise" to give the "point of Exploration" more weight, and that didn't work at all. I recently posed "creative agenda," which already is being mis-read as something unique rather than simply the necessary interface between Exploration and GNS (i.e., G, N, and S are creative agendas).

When a term is posed or coined, it's a historical event - a moment, in the context of the debate as it stands at that moment. No one can tell, later, which connotations are going to be brought or projected into its use. Only willingness to understand where and how the terms arose, as well as a willingness to delve into the local meanings of their use, can resolve the problems that these connotations cause.

For example, "natural," in Darwin's day and among the people he debated with, meant "material and physical, the outcome of interacting physical events." In more common parlance, it most often means "right and proper, purposeful, harmonious with other things." This combination of meanings, applied to "natural selection," led to horrific misuses and misunderstandings of his concepts both in the late 1800s as well as today.

All analysis suffers from this problem. When you discuss issues, new concepts arise and demand terms - terms chosen thus take on local meaning, called jargon. Jargon is on the one hand the bane of people's access to the ideas, and on the other, utterly necessary for arriving at and discussing the novel concepts.

The term "strategy" in Game Theory, as applied to animal behavior, is another good example. The uncritical reader 'ports many connotations about the internal state of the animal which behaves, concerning whether it "means" to do whatever it's doing and so on, and comes up with (as seems to him) trenchant criticisms of the current conclusions ... and has already completely missed any chance of really participating in the actual discussion unless he's willing to back up, when corrected. It really doesn't matter what "strategy" is said to mean in the dictionary; the dictionary's goal is to be all-inclusive of potential meanings, whereas the local discourse's goal is profoundly the opposite.

Unless every new concept gets called an utterly novel name, like wooblex or pifflesperg or whatever, the problem remains as an integral part of the process of discourse and potential innovation.

At the time it was posed by the Scarlet Jester, Exploration as a term provided the phenomenal benefit - uncontroversial to anyone involved - of clarifying the goals of what had been called Simulationist play. At the present point, this might appear like no big deal. But if you could look at the RFGA and Gaming Outpost discussions (the latter of which being lost to us), you'd see how this issue stalled everything regarding discussing role-playing.

Since then, I've taken that term and co-opted it - just as any evolving discipline does with available terms - and altered its relationship to both GNS as a whole and to Simulationist play in particular, while preserving (I hope) its essential positive contribution.

The price of this process, if the Forge is not to become an insulated and ultimately unhelpful endeavor, is that we all need to be willing to explain, specify, and locally correct the usages of these terms - especially in terms of the most common projections based on non-jargon usage. It's not Nazism, nor is it the result of picking "bad" or "confusing" words in the first place.

Joachim, any word on this topic, specifically the questions I posed to you above?

Best,
Ron

P.S. Very slowly, over time, words that really cause trouble (especially if they have multiple jargon meanings) do tend to get phased out. The above-mentioned Premise, used inclusively across GNS goals, for instance, seems like it's on the way out for good. With any luck, "creative agenda" will take its place and its own pitfalls will at least be easier to negotiate than those of inclusive-Premise.

From "GNS and Other Matters," as well as from the discussions here, it appears that "Explore" means "imagine and utilize."  So far so good, I think.  But where I'm getting lost, Ron, is when you say:

QuoteTo Explore the self, then, is hard to understand. If you mean the real person and his or her behaviors, that's a reality, not a topic of imagination. If you mean the social, interactive construct that we buy into about ourselves, and create among one another, then that's Social Contract.  [Emphasis added]

Assuming for a minute that we take Joachim at his word, he's talking about "imagining and utilizing" the self through play.  Why is this such a problematic concept?  It sounds like subject-philosophy to me.  The issue here would thus be a way of talking about subjectivity, and enacting it, through formulating a deliberate fiction, i.e. the character's subjectivity.

The emphasized phrase suggests that the GNS model requires an absolute division between "reality" and "imagination," one which is insupportable in other contexts.  If there's some baggage hiding here, some reason why the division has to be absolute, then that needs to be stated overtly.  It most certainly cannot be assumed.

I'm not quite sure where Joachim wanted to go with this, but I certainly don't see why it's a problematic proposal in itself.

Hi there,

This is why I never use the terms subjective and objective ...

Chris, I see your point, but I'll just wait on Joachim's clarification. I'm pretty sure that he means the second category that I listed, anyway (the self as internal-cognitive and external-social constructs), which is consistent with your interpretation, I think.

If people are happy with the second category and consider the first invalid in the first place, then that's OK.

Best,
Ron

I think some confusion may be arising from another common use of exploration: "exploration of Premise."  The 5 system elements are in-game elements.  Discovery of Self and Exploration of Premise are metagame.  Ron calls them creative agendas.  The relationship between the two categories is that the creative agenda shapes the way that the 5 system elements will be explored, and the system elements are the media through which the agenda is pursued.  Too bad "exploration" works so nicely for both activities.

Actually, there is at least one game, Jared's 8 that makes the player's personality a system element.  

Getting back to the original post:

Quote from: JoachimSimply, I am proposing that perhaps there exists a layer of Exploration of Player (or Self) within Simulationism in many of the games we play -- and hence in games people in general play. Emphasis on it and enjoyment derived from it will vary accordingly.

I agree.  This is an aspect of play that has always appealed to me.  I see it as just another creative agenda, like the various sim (purist for system, high concept, etc.), narrativist premise and gamism.  Part of the Premise of KPFS is to plunge you into the worst parts of yourself, and then have you come out feeling compassion for those parts.  I've used roleplaying for self-discovery in most campaigns I've been part of regardless of system or GM intent, but then, that's because its one of my primary loci of engagement. :)

Let's see does it make sense to add Discovery of Self to the different types of simulationist play?  I'd imagine that it is primarily pursued through character, and what is being sought after is acquiring experience or information about the truth of who we really are through our imaginative experiences.   I bet it could also be sought through the other elements as well, and certainly would be enhanced by judicious applications of color, setting and situation.  Therapeutic roleplaying (role reversals etc) are pretty much just very focused play of this type, using (possibly) just situation and character.  

Honestly, the more I think about it, the less GNS feels like a three-fold anything.  It seems more like simply the Exploration Model (Exploration of 5 system elements+Creative Agenda). There can be any number of creative agendas each of which is addressed through the use of system elements but with unique emphases.  The sim group may just be a family of related agendas.  I'd add Social in too as another class.  

--Emily Care

Hi Emily,

I'd really like to avoid the term "Exploration of Premise." I'd call it Creation or Establishing Premise.

And I hope people understand that "creative agenda" is a general term for the specific applications of Gamist, Narrativist, and Simulationist priorities. Creative agenda is not independent of or separate from GNS (and diversity thereof).

Best,
Ron

Quote from: Ron EdwardsI'd really like to avoid the term "Exploration of Premise." I'd call it Creation or Establishing Premise.

Can do. It is confusing to use the same word for both.

Quote from: RonAnd I hope people understand that "creative agenda" is a general term for the specific applications of Gamist, Narrativist, and Simulationist priorities.

So "creative agenda" would be a specific instance from a single campaign or game?  One could say that any given game has a creative agenda which will reflect the GNS priorities of the participants?

Thanks for the clarification.

--Emily Care

While I understand the discussion of terminology, I think that it has taken away from the initial question which I think is rather interesting.  I would like to talk about the phenomena which Joachim first brought up, and settle on the terminology for it after discussion.  

Quote from: Daredevil/Joachim BuchertI am proposing that perhaps there exists a layer of Exploration of Player (or Self) within Simulationism in many of the games we play -- and hence in games people in general play. Emphasis on it and enjoyment derived from it will vary accordingly.
...
What do you think, is Exploration of Player a "real thing" or am I seeing phantoms?

This rings very true to me.  Two good examples were (1) cross-gender role-play, especially on online MUD/MUSH games; and (2) playing yourselves in an extraordinary situation as PCs -- such as gaining superpowers, travelling through time (cf. BTRC's Timelord game), or visiting another dimension.  

I have done #1 but not #2, though I have talked with friends who have done it.  Online cross-gender play was very interesting, because it made me reflect on how subtle aspects of behavior are interpretted in terms of gender.  For example, there was a quest that I was on where we played word games.  I felt I was dropping out of character during it, and I wondered about feminine vs masculine game playing styles.  

What I note about both of these is that they are typically very unstructured, which seems to me to be Simulationist in GNS terms.  MUDs have this especially because of the nature of the medium where PCs drop in and out fairly randomly.  Thus, quests and scenes are formed out of whoever happens to be around -- i.e. there isn't a strong Premise that is being addressed.  

Role-playing yourself is I think typically done by a group of friends playing face-to-face.  While it is generally has a structured plot, I would think the PCs lack dramatic focus compared to games where the PCs are designed with story in mind.  On the other hand, you might say that the setup itself is a form of Narrative Premise.  For example: "What would you do with superpowers?" is pretty clearly a moral/ethical question.  On the other hand, from what I have seen the focus of play tends to be "What would you really do?" rather than "How can you best address the Premise?"  I don't think I can get too far in analysis, though, since I haven't played such a game first-hand.

Quote from: DaredevilWhat do you think, is Exploration of Player a "real thing" or am I seeing phantoms?

I personally think that all human activity boils down to a form of exploration of self. People play sports to test their physical abilities. People fill out the Crossword to test their mental abilities and so on. The whole point seems rather matter-of-fact to me, really. I suppose it could be argued that most published RPGs have been preoccupied with escapism, which also says something about yourself but only a few make you take a hard look at yourself, for whatever reason and from whatever angle.

Quote from: Jack Spencer JrI personally think that all human activity boils down to a form of exploration of self. People play sports to test their physical abilities. People fill out the Crossword to test their mental abilities and so on.

Well, by the same token, all of human activity produces a narrative, and all activity has challenges, etc.  The point of the GNS model is that it divides based on how much priority is put on a given focus.  I think the issue is: if priority is put on exploration of self (such as in the examples I gave), what does this mean in relation to other GNS priorities?