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This thread is to discuss the experiemental design of a GNS Congruence game. This stems from M.J. Young's post here.

I've already designed a game which, in observing play, manages to retain congruence between a variety of creative agendas, including those from each catagory of GNS. The game in question is Pure Shoujo. (Character Sheet)

The design principles behind this game are based in holistic design where all elements of the game are designed to interface directly with the other elements of the game, rather than using an outside design goal. The result is a process extremely well suited to congruency.

The major theoretical implication of Pure Shoujo is that the congruently supported creative agendas of a game are always a strict subspace of all possible creative agendas. Focusing this subspace to a single catagory such as Gamism is typically quite viable, but there are many subspaces that can span all three catagories. While it may be harder to do so, this does not make it an impossiblity. The intent to design a game which congruently supports all creative agendas is foolish, especially since it is quite likely to be impossible to build a game which congruently supports all creative agendas under one catagory, such as congruence among all possible premises in Narrativism.

I hope that helps,

   -Mendel S.

Where do you see the support for the Gamism?

I'm might buy that it has sim/nar congruence, maybe. But I'm not seeing any gamism at all. Now, maybe that's because I'm not perfectly familiar with shoju convention. But even if it involved kicking creatures asses intermittently, it would still seem to me that the focus of the game is on the relationships (and I'm guessing rightly so). So I'm not seeing what the player is trying to excel at.

Remember that doing good narrativism is narrativism, not gamism.

Mike

Mike,

Pure Shoujo supports gamism by the structure of play, and the strategy behind relationships. It also rewards gamist approaches by incremental improvements of character effectiveness. In practical play, the gamist is typically the player who wants to pull off the most impressive play (unexpected relationship), either through affecting the game play or through social aptitude.

I hope that helps,

  -Mendel S.

Quote from: Mike HolmesWhere do you see the support for the Gamism?

I'm might buy that it has sim/nar congruence, maybe. But I'm not seeing any gamism at all. Now, maybe that's because I'm not perfectly familiar with shoju convention. But even if it involved kicking creatures asses intermittently, it would still seem to me that the focus of the game is on the relationships (and I'm guessing rightly so). So I'm not seeing what the player is trying to excel at.

Remember that doing good narrativism is narrativism, not gamism.

The gamism would be in collecting cards quickly and thus advancing your character.  But this brings up the fuzzy issue about storytelling gamism.  There seems to be agreement that there can be gamism in storytelling games like Once Upon A Time and Pantheon.  However, it seems to cause trouble with diagnosis -- I suspect because most people .  For example, you see no Gamism.  In contrast, I don't see where Narrativism fits in.  As I read it, there are definite goals expressed here by what your card is: so you might play it to put together an interesting story around that, or to collect the most cards.  But there doesn't appear to be anything about consistently addressing a moral or ethical question per se.

Actually, I agree with your last statement, John. The only decisions that the player has is upon whom to play the cards in question, and when. As I said, it seems actuallyt pretty strongly sim in that it's just trying to emulate shoju at all costs.

I knew the power up would get mentioned. What does the player do when more powerful, however? I really don't see much use in it. That is, I can't see a player thinking that a more powerful shoju manga character would be more interesting/fun than a weak one. The reward itself is important in determinging what the reward system promotes, yes. But it's secondary to the behavior rewarded, and in this case, I'm not seeing much incentive coming from powering up.

The system seems to be all about maneuvering to be able to play the cards, about the romance - as it should be.

That's not to say that some player might not choose to hang on the idea of powering up. To the extent that the game incentivizes different things this way, however, there's a second thing that has to be proven to prove congruence. That is, not just that all three are promoted, but that for any given action that all three seem to be satisfied.

So, if there's a player playing who's manipulating the system just to get power, even though he has to use the cards to do it, do you really think that'll look precisely the same for that player as the player who's in it for the relationships?

To the extent that this is not true, what we have is a game that promotes incoherent play, not congruence.

Mike

Quote from: Mike HolmesThat's not to say that some player might not choose to hang on the idea of powering up. To the extent that the game incentivizes different things this way, however, there's a second thing that has to be proven to prove congruence. That is, not just that all three are promoted, but that for any given action that all three seem to be satisfied.

So, if there's a player playing who's manipulating the system just to get power, even though he has to use the cards to do it, do you really think that'll look precisely the same for that player as the player who's in it for the relationships?

To the extent that this is not true, what we have is a game that promotes incoherent play, not congruence.    

Hmmm.  So generalizing, are you saying that Simulationist/Narrativist Agenda-based mechanical rewards promote incoherent play?  That makes a certain amount of sense to me.  i.e. Handing out XP rewards for "intense exploration" or "addressing premise" means that there is a split between (1) collecting points as a goal (which would be gamist), and (2) the actual end goal of non-gamist creative agenda.  So these sort of point rewards are attempts at congruence which may not actually live up to that.  

Personally, I've been using attendance rewards for a while (which are real reward systems but aren't creative-agenda-specific).  From in the past, my observation of subjective mechanical rewards (for things like
role-playing and so forth) was that they amounted to playing up to whoever the judge was -- i.e. either wheedling the GM for GM-judged rewards, or playing for popularity in the case of voting systems.  I would characterize those as attempts at congruence.  Whether they work or not is a matter of opinion and preference, I think.  I was not too fond of them.

I'm saying that if the rewards are gamist for doing something sim or nar, then that may lead to incoherent play. I'd at least like an argument as to why it would not.

Attendance awards are neutral in terms of what GNS behavior they are rewarding, IMO. But on the other end, depending on what they are used for, that can have a definite GNS effect. Attendance rewards for power ups would tend to be Gamism promoting, I'd think. Not much but some.

OTOH, if they were presented just as the result of time passing in-game or something, just the experience for time passing for the PCs, then that would be pretty sim (and not really a reward at all, IMO).

Mike

It's probably best to elucidate some ways the different creative agendas were seen.

Gamism was evidenced by the upmanship of the most impressive play.

Simulationism was evidenced by adherence to the genre norms using active play.

Narrativism was evidenced by investigations into the definition of a relationship.

Accumulation of cards and accumulation of character effectiveness are all means to these goals, but due to the ephermal nature of both of these features they were prevented from dominating play. Congruence was primarilly evidenced by players (even those schooled in GNS) being unable to determine each other's play priorities, and even some confusion about what priority they were using. ("I'm trying to play Sim so why am I playing Gamist?")

In practice the reward system is only facilitative, not central to the player agendas.

I hope that helps,

   -Mendel

Quote from: WormwoodIt's probably best to elucidate some ways the different creative agendas were seen.

Gamism was evidenced by the upmanship of the most impressive play.

"Impressive" in what way? Again, if it's just a good job at creating theme, then that's narrativism. It's always a player challenge to create good narrativism, no matter what the system. Just because it's a challenge doesn't make it Gamism. Gamism has to be about prioritizing something other than Plausibility or Theme for it to be Gamism.

So, John is right, this makes Pantheon and such hard to judge. But, in those games, the reward itself is the player "winning". As the reward is not at all in-game, this makes the case more clear. In this game, the reward is a power up. Which would be gamist if there was some point to powering up that I could see. The game isn't about killing things, however, so I'm not even sure what use powering up is at all.

QuoteSimulationism was evidenced by adherence to the genre norms using active play.

Narrativism was evidenced by investigations into the definition of a relationship.

Every game has some support of plausibility to some extent - this doesn't mean that it automatically supports simulationism. If that were true, then one could say that Sorcerer was a congruently simulationism producing game along with narrativism, because the play produced adheres to genre norms. In fact, every narrativism producing system could be said to be congruent then. (This all relates strongly to the Beeg Horseshoe theory, actually. It's precisely this perception that people have that makes the Beeg Horseshoe the better explanation of GNS, IMO. It's the normal GNS that makes people think that "real narrativism" doesn't have support of genre norms. It doesn't say that, but people come to think that somehow.)

Does the game promote players prioritizing this in a way that never conflicts with the player expectation of creation of theme? That is, are all "plays" automatically in-game plausible, just because they follow some romantic formula? Will they always seem to all players to create theme?

Remember that simulationism is the reduciton of the appearance of metagame agenda. Given that the cards are totally metagame, it seems to me unlikely that this would actually support simulationism. Unless they really do force the player to do the genre things, in which case it's hard to see where the player has the choice of theme.

QuoteAccumulation of cards and accumulation of character effectiveness are all means to these goals, but due to the ephermal nature of both of these features they were prevented from dominating play. Congruence was primarilly evidenced by players (even those schooled in GNS) being unable to determine each other's play priorities, and even some confusion about what priority they were using. ("I'm trying to play Sim so why am I playing Gamist?")

Remember that many decisions are opaque in any game. In the end, did you look at play overall? Who was encouraging who for what sort of play? GNS is about prioritization - can you say that nothing seemed more likely than anything else?

QuoteIn practice the reward system is only facilitative, not central to the player agendas.

Facilitative to what? If it's not "central" then it's not likely to be supporting Gamism so strongly that the players are prioritizing Gamism at all.

Mike

I think Mendel you might be confounding "elements of" with "supporting a creative agenda".  The Creative Agenda is whichever element is the central driver behind the choices a player makes holistically over the course of an instance of play.  Individual elements within that play that may seem touch on other agendas are fine.  Their presence does not automatically indicate incoherent play; nor do they necessarily indicate support of more than 1 agenda.  

As I said in another thread recently

QuoteSimply allowing players to scratch the gamist itch is not the same thing as supporting a gamist agenda.

By way of analogy, you have a paved road or a dirt road.  Simply throwing some dirt onto the paved road doesn't suddenly make the road simultaneously paved/dirt.  Its still a paved road with dirt on it.  Similiarly dumping a patch of black top down on a dirt road doesn't suddenly make the dirt road a hybrid.  Its just a dirt road with a patch of pavement.

Same thing with Creative Agendas.  Throwing a taste of tactical choice into a sim game doesn't suddenly make the game support Gamism.  It just makes it a sim game with some tactical choice in it.

Mike,

The major point of confusion seems to be the need to make the game mechanical award system the crux of any creative agenda. This is highly suspect as no player in any of the playtests appeared to prioritize these elements.

Instead there were individuals focusing on making the game more like shoujo manga, individuals attempting to make the most surprising or difficult play, and individuals who were attempting to plumb the group's definitions of the relationships (i.e. what is true love, really?). This could be observed during the sessions (with different players and at times players changing creative agenda) as well as being supported by discussion after the game. What makes this game congruent is that these disparate creative agendas did not cause any observable incoherence, either from observation or the perspective of the players.

As far as play group specific concerns, this is why I used different play groups each playtest. I also did not find any significant meta-game influence of creative agenda, nor the indications in the players when the game was discussed.


Ralph,

I'm not saying that all three creative agendas are prioritized by a player at once, or even that a single player prioritizes multiple ones, but rather that the observed play shows these agendas, and shows no incoherence either from the game or between players, and does so across play groups.


I hope that helps,

   -Mendel

I have been intrigued by this thread, but hesitant to jump into it. I would very much like to see a coherent game, but my initial reaction was that this is not it.


Mendel's last post suggests that it might be, and I should consider it further; but I do want to clarify some things. Mostly I agree with Mike.

Quote from: However, I must disagree with what MikeRemember that simulationism is the reduciton of the appearance of metagame agenda.

I think this is part of why Mike prefers the horseshoe and I don't. I am persuaded that Simulationism does have a metagame agendum, and that such techniques as director stance for character players and no-myth play are not entirely inimical to it. They are just highly unusual.

However, for a game to promote congruence, it has to be the case that all three agenda lead to the same choices, or at least to compatible choices. Confronted with a situation, the Narrativist will do either X or Y, because each of these addresses the premise. In that same situation, the Gamist will do either X or Y because these appear to be sound choices to show his skill at winning the game. The Simulationist will also choose between X and Y because these seem like what would really happen and lead into possibilities for greater discovery about the elements within the game world. Now, that list of X and Y could extend to ten thousand different possible choices that a player could choose; but every option that any player could choose must simultaneously address premise, rise to challenge, and consistently explore discovery.

My thread attempted to make this possible in essence by boxing the characters into a realm in which choices were extremely limited. Because of the uncertainties of the moral situation of Viet Nam, killing everyone in a village or sparing them are both moral statements addressing premise--are the lives of these people worth risking our own if we choose wrong? At the same time, it is unclear which is the better tactical choice, and a gamist could choose either based on such information as he had. Similarly, both are very realistic, enhancing and comporting with the reality of the situation and so increasing the opportunities to explore what that would have been like. In the end, no matter what a player chose to do or how many times he made choices in the game, you couldn't tell by looking at the choices or at the degree of approval anyone gave to any of the choices who was playing by what agendum. The possibilities were intrinsically limited.

Thus far what I'm seeing here is a game which drifts easily, in which players are encouraged to accommodate each other's tendencies to drift. I don't see real coherence yet. I don't see how the gamist choice is the narrativist choice and the simulationist choice every time, or even every time it matters to the gamist or the narrativist or the simulationist. That's where the rubber meets the road: when a player makes a choice that matters to him, does it matter to the other players, and do they find that the decision supports what they want from the game?

Multiverser is completely driftable, in large part because the players do not have to interact with each other's characters. If John gets into a serious consideration of the morality of enslaving orcs as part of an effort to civilize them while destroying their homelands in the name of progress, that doesn't have any impact on the fun Chris is having trying to outfight and outmaneuver the Federation chase ships that are closing on him. If the choices you make don't matter to me, then we've made something comfortably driftable; we haven't really created coherence until the choices you make in pursuit of glory are the same ones I would have made in struggling with moral issues and the same ones Ralph would have made to see what the world is really like for its own sake.

I'm still interested. Your post suggests that something interesting is going on here, and it might be coherence. I don't see it yet.

--M. J. Young

M.J.,

As far as I can see it there are three possibilities:

1) The play groups examined are highly atypical, so the results are invalid.

2) The game becomes drifted in order to satisfy a single possibly two creative agenda(s) at a time.

3) Actual GNS congruence occurs.

The first possibility is unlikely, but not impossible, however I attempted to minimize this by different groups being used for each test.

The second possiblity seems far-fetched as well. In particular this would imply that at any given time at most two creative agendas where supported, contrary both to observations and player comments.

There were no signs of continuous drifting. While some drift did occur, at the beginning of each game, this occured in the same manner in each playtest, indicating the need to make some corrections in the next draft of the design.

Multiverser seems very good at drifting, but for the same reason Pure Shoujo should be very difficult to drift, because the player interaction  cannot be separated out.

As far as choices are concerned, there is some difficulty in using this as analytical evidence of congruence, simply because creative agenda is not observable enough on that level. I could easily argue that the set of game choices that are reasonable (in that they support, not merely allow) in each creative agenda are nearly the same sets.  This should be a sufficient, but not a necessary condition for congruence. However, attempting to argue in this forum over the inclusion of particular elements in these sets is a futile exercise, since both sides can present an infinite number of examples with nothing being determined.

What I can offer is that decisions observed in play test have the mutual support property you are looking for. I can also point out that the creative agendas I mentioned previously value the same game elements, in roughly equal quantities, for example: in terms of rewards (none value the basic reward system highly, but only as a means to an end) and in terms of outcomes (building to relationships gives fertile ground for all three agendas, playing relationships helps enhance this). This is the closest I can suggest in terms of an analytical decisions comparison, since the values of the agendas will roughly translate to the decisions made. But trying to make this translation definite runs into the natural differences between players.

I hope that helps,

   -Mendel S.

Very interesting thread, I agree.

One possible pitfall for this discussion: for congruence to be a useful and distinct concept, it's necessary to distinguish it from coherent hybrid play. Coherent hybrid play would visibly support expression of all three agendas simultaneously without dysfunction. Congruent play would avoid any specific agenda being overtly expressed. Saying things like, "it can't be congruent, where's the support for Gamism as a priority?" kind of misses the point. (It would be quite reasonable, though, to say "it can't be a coherent hybrid, where's the support for Gamism as a priority?" See the difference?)

Since congruence is a constraint on player decision-making (or equivalently, a constraint on player self-expression), built-in constraints on character decsisions should be a hallmark of games designed to promote congruent play. M. J.'s Vietnam game and Pure Shoujo both exhibit this characteristic, but go about it in two entirely different ways. M. J.'s game via a constrained situation, and Pure Shoujo through giving the cards a lot of authority in shaping the type of developments most crucial to the story in its genre, namely the characters' relationships.

Quote from: MendelInstead there were individuals focusing on making the game more like shoujo manga, individuals attempting to make the most surprising or difficult play, and individuals who were attempting to plumb the group's definitions of the relationships (i.e. what is true love, really?).

I'm sure some are eager to point out that "making the game more like shoujo manga" isn't a specifically Simulationist concern, "attempting to make the most surprising or difficult play" isn't proof of Gamism, and "attempting to plumb the group's definitions of the relationships" isn't necessarily "addressing Premise" in the Narrativist sense. Those arguments support the hypothesis that the game promotes congruent play! (At the same time, they're arguments against the notion that the game is a coherent hybrid.)

Another element that I believe might facilitate congruence (though it shouldn't be a necessary element, as the Vietnam concept shows) is True Shoujo's prescription of "fanciful, bizarre, and genuinely amusing" outcomes. Expressions of an agenda through comedy are generally more indirect or blurred. Outside of role playing gaming, making controversial points or even "preaching" when expressed through comedy are more tolerated than the same ideas expressed through "serious" drama or impassioned speeches. I think it's fair to say that even with competitively focused players, the intensity of Step On Up in a game of charades or tiddlywinks is, on average, far less than it is in, say, high-stakes poker. Premises in Sorcerer invite more intense emotional involvement than premises in the Show Biz (classic cartoon characters) LARP. It's not that comedy is any less effective a vehicle for self-expression. Comedy just seems to make that self-expression more adaptible to dissention or distraction.

For those reasons, I think it's possible that Mendel's experiment does demonstrate functional congruence. What I'm missing is a clear sense of how the game is conducted between the dealer setting the scene and a player making a roll on a relationship card. Does the same player narrate a whole scene? Do they take turns within a scene, or between scenes? Can they interrupt each other, for other than a challenge/dispute or a vote to end the scene (such as, to insert ideas of their own into the scene)? Who decides which characters are at a scene, or are all current characters at every scene?

- Walt

Quote from: M. J. Young

Quote from: However, I must disagree with what MikeRemember that simulationism is the reduciton of the appearance of metagame agenda.

I think this is part of why Mike prefers the horseshoe and I don't. I am persuaded that Simulationism does have a metagame agendum, and that such techniques as director stance for character players and no-myth play are not entirely inimical to it. They are just highly unusual.

Damitall MJ, you know that I don't think that simulationism doesn't have a metagame goal. You're attacking a statement made in short that should have included, "Other than it's own metagame agenda, which it to have events seem to emanate from an actual (though not actual) setting." And I was the proginitor of the idea that director stance and such wasn't inimical to these things, so please don't paint me as otherwise.

What I'm saying is that when a person plays a card, "In order to make the most difficult play", then it's going to be pretty obvious that this is a Gamist act. If they play it in a narrativism way, then that will likely be obvious, too, at that point.

I think that something slightly different from Congruence per se is going on here. That is, play seems coherent, but not because of Congruence, or because of a single GNS support making play actually coherent (or more appropriately functionally hybrid). I think that the players merely refused to be bothered by the incoherence. That is, I think that as long as the game produces in-game effects that meet the sim requirement, then they're comfortable with any metagame requirement.

This is, IMO, slightly different from congruence as defined. In Congruent play, there are no "tells" it seems to me. That is, there are two levels being considered here. The first is whether the action is plausible, and the second is whether the action displays metagame agendas (other than the sim one). This is, yes, the Beeg Horseshoe in effect.

That is, some players require only that the actions be plausible and then refuse to be annoyed by any other metagame if that condition has been met. Other players require not only some level of plausibility, but the absence of the CA which they do not like.

We'll call them:
Player A: who just requires plausibility.
Player B: who requires adherence to his particular GNS agenda.

For player A, this "semi-congruence" of having all events be plausible is enough to make play enjoyable. For player B, either play must be all in the agenda that he wants to see, or play must be congruent, meaning that there are no "tells" that play must be other than his agenda.

Making congruent Gamist play the equivalent of "stealth" Simulationism and  Narrativism.

Does that fit your definition, Walt, or is Congruence the lesser requirement, where events merely need to be plausible?

Mike