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From Narrativism: Story Now

QuoteThe hard question
I suggest that both Gamist and Narrativist priorities are clear and automatic, with easy-to-see parallels in other activities and apparently founded upon a lot of hardwiring in the human mind (or "psyche" or "spirit" or whatever you want to call it). Whereas I think Simulationist priorities must be trained - it is highly derived play, based mainly on canonical fandom and focus on pastiche, and requires a great deal of contextualized knowledge and stern social reinforcement. This training is characterized by teaching people not to do what they're inclined to. No one needs to learn how to role-play, but most do need to learn to play Simulationist, by stifling their Gamist and/or Narrativist proclivities. Such training is often quite harsh and may involve rewards and punishments such as whether the person is "worthy" to be friends with the group members.

If the typical role-playing preferences among humans are Gamist and Narrativist, then play based on these modes should be easy to pick up, easy to spread, and easy to sell, and I think it is all three. However, since the typical role-playing text and typical training is Simulationist, the net effect is to bump the majority of interested people away from the hobby after first contact, and to consolidate the Simulationist primacy in all evident features of the hobby, as opposed to the potential ones. This is one of several reasons why the hobby remains decidedly fringe.

So the first question is, how about you? Are you Simulationist-by-habit, which is to say, well-trained to this mode by the first group you encountered? If so, is that what you really want? If so, then excellent. But! If not, if you'd rather be addressing Premise, then you have a lot of habits to break - perhaps even those which, in your mind, originally defined the activity.

This is where I really get lost.  If the Gamist and Nar play is so friggin' easy, why is it so hard to explain what they are and demonstrate them in a FUNCTIONAL game.  I've never encountered a functional (by this I mean, long lasting, continuous, integrated story over a significant number of gaming sessions) game that wasn't based in what is defined here in disparaging language as Simulation-by-habit.  

I also disagree that Gam and Nar are natural proclivities that have to be suppressed.

I know that wasn't what I wanted when I first started.  It wasn't like I felt the Sim nature of AD&D that was my first intro to RPGs was alien.  Nothing else could be further from the truth.  It was like coming home, and I didn't even know I had been gone.  My first thought, I can remember distinctly, was, "You mean I can BE this person... this character.  I can not just read about walking in a dark forest full of monsters, but actually BE in that forest, walking in the shoes of the warrior, squinting through torchlight, feeling the fear and apprehension as my sword ways heavily in my sweaty grip?"

That, to me, has always been, and always will be what playing an RPG is about.  I want it to be virtual reality.  To say this is unnatural and needs to be trained... well, I find that a problem...

... but as I type this, maybe not.  Maybe that is why I have had to work so hard to find good long term players.  Why I used to be so frustrated at the lack of compatibility in my style and others.  What I felt so naturally was clearly NOT the same thing as what others wanted.  Issues with gamists I understood.  It was natural to take anything called a game, and try to figure out how to "win."  

Nar play baffles me.  While I enjoy a game with subtext and meaning... such content LOSES all meaning to me, if it doesn't come about organically within a Sim environment.  

It seems to me that it is the GMs job to provide the illusion of Sim for the others, while staging appropriate situations for addressing Premise, but in a way that flow organically from the imaginary world, or at least appears to do so.  The better the GM, the better the experience.

A video game example is most appropriate.  If I am playing FPS, and I shoot at a window in one game, and nothing happens, I'm probably disappointed, because I wanted the window to shatter.  The game that provides me with this more complete simulation is much better, even if that is the only difference in the game.

GTA is a great example.  As brilliant as GTA3 was, simple things like being able to fall out of a moving car in GTA: Vice City, compared to always having to stop the car to get out as in GTA3, was a massive improvement in the enjoyment of the game.  The simulation was more complete.

That is what I want in my games... as a player to be convinced by the simulation that I AM that character for a little while, that I exist in a world that exists whether I'm there or not.

It is as a GM that I've had to train myself to not enact it the same way.  I have to see a big picture, as the question, "Why does this world exist?  What is the meaning of this existence?  Why do things happen... not just cause and effect."  I have to provide meaningful decision and questions that allow for events to be "a story" but I have to do it from the non-immersive Director stance, and make sure that the players see behind the curtain as little as possible.  As a player, I don't want to see behind the curtain... in fact I want the curtain to cease to exist... this has always been my natural stance, and for my part I think might be the main issue with my grasping GNS.  GNS supposes that I've had to learn to ignore the curtain, when that was always my first inclination.  I have to learn to even see the curtain (as a player) let alone move behind and in front of it freely.  THAT requires training.

To the extent, is GNS flawed because it presupposes a specific mental preference (Gam and Nar, but not Sim)?

From Narrativism: Story Now

QuoteOuija-board role-playing
Here's another outcome for the faulty Simulationist-makes-Narrativism approach. Actually, it's the same phenomenon as Simulationism-makes-Gamism, which I discussed in "Gamism: Step On Up" (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/21/) as "the bitterest role-player in the world." I consider the Narrativist version to be the "most deluded role-player in the world."

How do Ouija boards work? People sit around a board with letters and numbers on it, all touching a legged planchette that can slide around on the board. They pretend that spectral forces are moving the planchette around to spell messages. What's happening is that, at any given moment, someone is guiding the planchette, and the point is to make sure that the planchette always appears to everyone else to be moving under its own power.

Taking this idea to role-playing, the deluded notion is that Simulationist play will yield Story Now play without any specific attention on anyone's part to do so.

Not "without any specific attention on anyone's part"... but not necessarily on the part of the player.  The GM, absolutely, must give attention to this, in the scenarios they present, in responding to character actions, and in discussions with players (metagame) before or after the actual play.

Just not as much for the players "in the game"... because damnit, it ruins the friggin' mood!  If it is going on insider their head... fine for them, but don't spoil it for the others.  Staying "in character" and only acting "based on information their character has" does not diminish making choices.  If it does, it is probably because the player has chosen to try and simulate a character that doesn't address the issues the player finds important.  If that is the case, they need to change characters.  (This could be an point on the "Charcters that Click" thread as well.)

The disparaging of the Ouija board is basically denying that the illusion is important.  The desire for that particular illusion is my primary reason to be a player in an RPG... though I won't enter synecdosh (sp?) by saying it is THE way to role play.

QuoteI've never encountered a functional (by this I mean, long lasting, continuous, integrated story over a significant number of gaming sessions) game that wasn't based in what is defined here in disparaging language as Simulation-by-habit.

???

This is like saying "I've never encountered a functional fruit  that wasn't an orange (by functional I mean round, covered in a thick orange rind, and full of vitamin C).


I mean really, your definition of funcitonal play requiring a continuous integrated story over many sessions is bizarre.  Kind of stacks the deck there, no?

Quote from: Valamir

QuoteI've never encountered a functional (by this I mean, long lasting, continuous, integrated story over a significant number of gaming sessions) game that wasn't based in what is defined here in disparaging language as Simulation-by-habit.

???

This is like saying "I've never encountered a functional fruit  that wasn't an orange (by functional I mean round, covered in a thick orange rind, and full of vitamin C).


I mean really, your definition of funcitonal play requiring a continuous integrated story over many sessions is bizarre.  Kind of stacks the deck there, no?

Maybe, but this may be why I don't go to Cons or enjoy that kind of experience.  A single play session, no matter how interesting it might be, is very unsatisfying (and therefore, not functional for my needs) because it is not part of a larger story, a larger world, a piece of a larger simulated existence.   I just find it hard to care.  

Maybe it does stack the deck, but forget that for a moment.  If this forum is about discussing GNS and exploring it, then answer my question.  Is GNS flawed because it presupposes that G & N are natural, and S is not?

I think you've already found the answer to that question right in the material you first quoted from.

QuoteSo the first question is, how about you? Are you Simulationist-by-habit, which is to say, well-trained to this mode by the first group you encountered? If so, is that what you really want? If so, then excellent. But! If not, if you'd rather be addressing Premise, then you have a lot of habits to break - perhaps even those which, in your mind, originally defined the activity.

emphasis mine.

So is that what you really want?  If so Excellent!

Wheres the flaw?

Quote from: ValamirWheres the flaw?

I think the flaw for Neil is the suggestion that Gamism and Narrativism are "intuitive modes" where as Simulation requires training, which does not jibe with his self assesment as a "intuitive simulationist".

RDU Neil,

I totally sympathize with you.

I think a lot of people get into role-playing because of the simulationism.

In a lot of cases, it is a natural choice. If you are a budding geek in junior-high, chances are you don't like your life too much. I know I didn't. I found comfort in RPGs because: a.) they weren't competitive b.) they let me escape reality for a bit and c.) I was encouraged to imagine and create.

Were those early games derivative pastiche? You bet.
Did I enjoy them? Hell yeah!
Did I have to be taught to function in Simulationist mode? No way.

Later on, after playing with some groups that were mired in dysfunction, I started to long for what I now see as Narrativism. I was older, more cynical. But the point is, I "discovered" Nar goals after long years of happy and natural Sim play had faded.

Perhaps people like you and I are just the exception to the rule.

Quote from: RDU NeilIf this forum is about discussing GNS and exploring it, then answer my question.  Is GNS flawed because it presupposes that G & N are natural, and S is not?

You should have a look at the recent threads (from January):
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9542">The Roots of Sim (Response to Nar Essay), and
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9642">The roots of Sim II.  

Basically, others have also questioned whether S is "not natural", and I think it remains a controversial point.  Personally, I think that S is something of a catchall.  It is often characterized as "Exploration for Exploration's sake", whereas I think that there is most certainly processes underlying that enjoyment which are not yet well understood.

Neil,

I don't know if I can answer the question in general but I can relate a usefull anecdote.  The other day I was talking to my girlfriend about Sorcerer and I mentioned that I think a difficulty some of our players have is realizing that Sorcerer not only asks you to player your character but to be art director and stunt coordinator for the environment around them.

Players don't summon demons in Sorcerer because in their brain they don't know what demons they CAN summon; as in what demons already exist out there in the setting for them to contact.  Rather than imagining a demon and then acting like it's been out there for their summoning the whole time.  On top of that they are used to thinking that magic and what it looks like is something that exists outside their character so creating all the color details of what a ritual consists of, what the air smells like, how the world contorts when a demon enters it and so on feels awkward.

I mentioned all this to my girlfriend and she said "I don't understand why. It's MY demon after all."  You see my girlfriend was not a gamer when I met her.  To her, on a natural gut level instinct, she not only owns her character but everything that is IMPORTANT to her character.   Her character's appartment belongs to her, the player, because it is an extension of her character.  Her character's sister belongs to her because that too is an extention of her character.  She takes ownership and authorship very easily of anything she feels is important or an extension of her character concept.

She does this very naturally and yet when I started describing GNS to her she self identified as a simulationist because "plot logic" is very very very important to her but she's very much a Narrativist because her character and her character's issues (Premises her character embodies) are the focus of her play.  In fact I was very Simulationist focused when we first started playing and the games were very frustrating for her because she kept talking about how her character was being underminded all the time.  By that she meant everything that was important to her character concept was being swept aside in favor of the current "adventure" or "scenario" at hand.

Does that make any sense?

Jesse

It also pre-supposes that long lasting, coherent gamist and nar campaigns never happen.

Now, I know the former happen. Dear god, do they happen. Round here, the longest lasting D&D campaigns are gamist in character, as are the big RIFTS campaigns. The same guys, with the same GM, iterating over challenging each other.

I'm pretty sure the latter happen: god knows how many articles I've read over the years on running campaigns like Soap Opera's or ongoing serials, specifically talking about running cmapaigns on addressing the character's personal issues, which is not necessarily nar, but strongly supports it.

Also, any long running campaign, in order to maintain coherence, must be developing a body of history and information that informs the play, and pressurizes the players to acknowledge it, but this, again, is not necessarily sim, if all that information is doing is helping to establish the shared imaginary space in which gam or nar play is the purpose.

"Being" the character, acting as a 3-fold model simulationist, doesn't map 1-to-1 with simulationist play in this model. Even depth of simulation doesn't. "Being" the character can be as much about addressing premise as exploring character.

Just becuase theme & subtext arise from internal cause, it doesn't necessarily follow that play must be sim in this mode: in fact, the model is predicated on theme & subtext being necessarily addressed within a simulated, imaginary space, otherwise it's not an RPG. If the premise isn't addressed within the shared imaginary space, it's not an RPG, it's a literature discussion.

The Ouija board is disparaged in the Nar essay, because it's a metaphor for players who want to address premise, but instead of thinking about the issues of the character as issues per se, they pile on more and more detail to the character description, in the hope that making the character more "real", with more detailed history, and physicality, and associations, premise will be magically addressed by simulating the character with more and more systems and rolls and checks and attributes...

And all it takes is to look and say "What are this guys issues? Why do they matter to him? What's he going to do about it? What does that say?" and boom, narrativism.

It doesn't sound to me like this is happening with the play you're talking about: you're happy to look back at the session and see where the GM has put theme to work within the world, but detailing the world, deepening the detail of the dream, takes precedence over the story or the game when push comes to shove.

Now, I don't know if I agree with Ron over the source of Sim being an artifact of the history of RPG's. I think it's a natural by-product of human curiosity (which to me is the soul of this model's version of simulationism), the urge to explore the "worlds of what-if", to rip-off an old comic book. To me, though, the fact is that conventional RPG's, given their heritage, are actually an odd form of Sim compared to that seen in other avenues (fantastic literature, frex), in that it's bound up with mechanical rules, funny dice, saving throws, etc etc etc, rather than the wonder of curiosity, and the application of "common sense" to what's going on.

But that's just me. And I think you adequately answered Ron's hard question for sim players. If I can take the liberty of paraphrasing you: "Nuh-uh, Ron. Ya got me all wrong."

But I also think you're identifying any game with a long lasting, solid basis of exploration as sim by definition, whereas, to my eyes, any long lasting game has a solid base of exploration by aggregation.

Quote from: jburnekoI mentioned all this to my girlfriend and she said "I don't understand why. It's MY demon after all."  You see my girlfriend was not a gamer when I met her.  To her, on a natural gut level instinct, she not only owns her character but everything that is IMPORTANT to her character.   Her character's appartment belongs to her, the player, because it is an extension of her character.  Her character's sister belongs to her because that too is an extention of her character.  She takes ownership and authorship very easily of anything she feels is important or an extension of her character concept.

She does this very naturally and yet when I started describing GNS to her she self identified as a simulationist because "plot logic" is very very very important to her but she's very much a Narrativist because her character and her character's issues (Premises her character embodies) are the focus of her play.  In fact I was very Simulationist focused when we first started playing and the games were very frustrating for her because she kept talking about how her character was being underminded all the time.  By that she meant everything that was important to her character concept was being swept aside in favor of the current "adventure" or "scenario" at hand.

I think You are confusing player control over  character-related elements with Narrativism. It is my (possibly incorrect) understanding that GNS has nothing to do with how much player control is involved. In fact, many of the things you mention (player specifying details about character homes and relations) can crop up in any creative agenda.

The point isn't that no one gets Simulationism intuitively, but that for the majority of people (ie: people as a demographic group), Gamism and Narrativism are more intuitive. What do most people do best? Act, or tell stories about something?

Grandpa always tells stories about Vietnam, and you think, as a listener, "Damn, that event was cool!" or "terrifying" or "sad" -- rarely do you think, "Damn, I wish I'd been in Vietnam!" The emotional experience-event is the interesting part, not the event itself without that end investment.

Or to get really mystical for a moment, for most people, the destination is the point, rather than the journey.

Act, or compete?

To make this point by example, think about need for all the "enraged horror" at munchkinism, power-gaming, et al? Unless it is a real, actual "problem" -- meaning that people are trying to "Step On Up" naturally -- and another segment of gamers is trying to stop it from cropping up? If it weren't a common occurence, would so much of the text on the play of RPGs be devoted to correcting common Gamist behaviors in players?

The point is not that people can't act naturally, but that less people act than tell stories or compete. And yes, this is a gross oversimplification. Let's not analyze it to death as a metaphor, please.

Quote from: greyormGrandpa always tells stories about Vietnam, and you think, as a listener, "Damn, that event was cool!" or "terrifying" or "sad" -- rarely do you think, "Damn, I wish I'd been in Vietnam!" The emotional experience-event is the interesting part, not the event itself without that end investment.

I would argue that Grandpa's stories would rarely address any premise. The tendency for people to tell stories relates not to Narrativism in my book, but to role-playing in general.

But I do take your point about Gamism. It is not hard to see that at least a vocal majority of folks are about the challenge. I just think that Sim is more natural than was represented by Ron's essay.

QuoteSorcerer not only asks you to player your character but to be art director and stunt coordinator for the environment around them.

Sounds like MY kinda game!!!

sorry... I love coordinating fights... I love thinking visually while I play, both as player and GM.  I just spent all day today coordinating a fight for a L5r CCG card, kung fu craziness like you wouldn't believe!

Sorry, that is a bit flippant, but using art muscles is a very similar process to using RPing muscles... getting back to the topic at hand...

I know Neil pretty well, we've gamed a long time.  Only two campaigns have stood the test of time.  His champions game and my fantasy game.  Others have been tried, but tend to go by the wayside after awhile.  And while I laughingly bristle at "hard to get dedicated players"... since I've been there a long, long time.  

I THINK what has gone on long term is that each campaign has constantly shifted from G to N to S (or in any combo order you wish to put them in).  Each new player shifts balance at the table.  Each player who can't make it that evening shifts balance.  Each new story idea shifts balance.  If we've been doing weeks and weeks of hard ass politics, soul searching and the repurcussions & responsibilities of Power, seems like a good ol' Gamist shoot 'em up is sure to follow.

But I think both campaigns are COMPLETELY and SUCCINTLY  about GM (a element of the world... What does it mean to the overall picture?  What does it mean to the Player Characters?  What does it mean to the Players (although that is a question I'm only starting to ask since being here with any lucidity).

Heck, Champions presumes "folks have superpowers"... how does the individual react.  How does society react.  How does the world change.  One can be a Gamist or Narrativist or Simulationist and find fun things to do within this context and answer some of those questions.

I guess what I'm sneaking up and asking myself is this:  Does it matter what the GM is?  As long as she/he is respectful and provides enuff playing blocks and different types of blocks at the table to accomodate the Players.  

Maybe I'm stubborn... and this has been my problem... I react as I see fit, with the character at hand, regardless if the GM is out to provide Combat Hurdles (Gamist for example sake) or Neat Bits and Customs (Sim) or Foreshadowing, Denoument and other literary/story techniques (Narr).  No matter what the world is, it is my job as Player to react to it...

QuoteGrandpa always tells stories about Vietnam, and you think, as a listener, "Damn, that event was cool!" or "terrifying" or "sad" -- rarely do you think, "Damn, I wish I'd been in Vietnam!" The emotional experience-event is the interesting part, not the event itself without that end investment.


I would argue that Grandpa's stories would rarely address any premise. The tendency for people to tell stories relates not to Narrativism in my book, but to role-playing in general.

Okay, my follow up question is this;  I wouldn't want to be in Viet Nam firefight or be up to my waist in Zombie parts in some dungeon crawl... But I sure want to put my character there!