The Forge Archives

Here's a thought that has been brewing since "creative agenda" was mentioned as a possible solution to the confusion around Narrative (or whatever) Premise vs. general overal game premise . . . Over in this thread, Ron said:

QuoteAll GNS is is a bridge between #1 and #2: the creative agenda that's established, shared, or (all too often) a source of contention among the people who are role-playing.

A little while back in this thread, I said:

Quote(I'm trying out this careful use of Exploration and creative agenda, and I almost collapsed something like self-discovery in as PART of the creative agenda - but I think that'd be a mistake; isn't creative agenda specifically and ONLY about the intersection of Exploration with G, N and/or S?  Other desireable aspects/outcomes of play are  . . what?  Part of the "something fun to do" box that surrounds Exploration?)

So . . . I'm thinking that if my statement is true - if the concept that Ron is calling the creative agenda in his quote is really only about the intersection of the Explorative elements of Character, Setting, Situation, System and Color with G, N, or S priorities, the term Explorative agenda would be more accurate.

It would also allow for a general use of creative agenda that included things like self-discovery (from thread referenced in my quote), social desires (hang out with friends), and anything else that isn't really directly influenced by GNS choices.  Your creative agenda might "prioritize" an outcome for the game play like self-discovery, and there may be some few (or many) particular Explorative agenda that work for that.  While there are cross-influences, like Ron is always mentioning in his "nested boxes" analogies, the most rigorous GNS conversations talk ONLY about the Explorative agenda a particular group has, not their overall creative agenda.

Just my thoughts, and I may not quite be grasping how Ron is meaning to use creative agenda, but I thought I'd get this out for possible discussion,

Gordon

Well, yeah, pretty much. I mean, I agree with you about the terminology and the role of the terms.

I was kind of striving for something that was both accurate and easy to grasp, without containing any specialized terms like Exploration. "Creative" captures it, to my way of thinking, because that's what Exploration does, after all. And Explorative-agenda seems to me perhaps too easily confused with the specific agenda/mode of Simulationism.

But hey, anyone's thoughts are welcome on the matter. I'm hoping to simplify the explanations of the boxes-thing without losing accuracy.

Best,
Ron

I guess my concern was that creative agenda is SO general, folks are going to add things in there that shouldn't be added.  But yeah, Explorative agenda does have a danger in that it might look like Sim-agenda.  On the other hand, helping people understand that Exploration applies all of to G, N and S ("The Narrativist Premise of our Explorative agenda was . . .") isn't a bad thing.

Not the biggest of issues, but anything that can help people understand the areas in which GNS applies AND the areas where it doesn't is a good thing by me.

Gordon