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OK,

So I have this essay now on Threefold Simulationism (which is IMO distinct from GNS Simulationism).  So I wrote this essay delving into the topic.  At first I thought I would touch it up more, but then I thought that people here will probably have very good comments on it -- so I'm exposing it in rough draft form and asking for comments.  It's complete but may need some copy editing, and maybe I should throw in some more references.  

http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/threefold/simulationism.html

So I figure I'll have one revision to finalize it after discussion here.

The article makes it seem like there are no antagonists in Sim play.  This may be unintended, but it reads that way to me.  I would say that Sim play has plenty of antagonists that can be presented to the PCs along the way without PC exploration (assuming a "standard" RPG with players and a GM).  What differentiates Sim play versus Narrative play is that there is no drive to a climax in the story, per se.  The GM adventure prep style should generally be of a "wing it" variety where the GM defines details of background, locations, NPCs, and crucially NPC motivations.  The GM may have NPCs may act directly against the PCs and the PCs will respond.  Or the PCs may act inadvertantly act against a NPC motivation and the NPC will respond accordingly. The difference is that the GM does not have a specific end state in mind.  The Big Bad Guy may die ignamously with a cheap shot arrow to the head or the PCs may fail and the Big Bad Guy actually brings armageddon on to the world.  The GM in Sim play will let the players' actions affect the world and the game world will affect the characters.  No punches held back.

I'm still digesting "Immersion" as a subtype of Sim.  I'm not sure if I agree with that or not.  To me another variant of Sim would be to be detached from the character in favor of the system ("I know my character would does 'X' and  not 'Y', even though 'Y' is more beneficial from a meta-game sense") Or maybe that is Immersion?

Hello,

John, that's a fine article.

Umberhulk, when you refer to "Narrative play," I hope you're not referring to Narrativist play by the GNS definitions. Because everything in your post after that describes Narrativist play, if we're using those definitions, not Simulationist. And if we're going by John's definitions, then I don't know what you mean by "Narrative play" at all. We should probably discuss that in another thread, because I don't want to hijack this thread about Narrativism.

Therefore I hope the following is just a quickie question and answer:

It seems very clear to me that Narrativist play in your scheme, John, would simply be a sub-set of Simulationist play as you've laid out here. "Premise-addressing" would just be another way to do it. Where we'd differ, perhaps, is that I would claim that an out-of-game mindfulness expressed as social reinforcement about the process is necessary, entirely in defiance of the "in-game cause" rubric for Simulationist play.

Am I right about that?

Best,
Ron

Hmphf.  For narrativism, I may be confusing Credibility Distribution/Stance with Narrativism.  Regardless, I don't feel that changes my take on Simulationist.


Here's a definition of simulation from Webster:

Quote3 a : the imitative representation of the functioning of one system or process by means of the functioning of another b : examination of a problem often not subject to direct experimentation by means of a simulating device

To me, this is a functional definition of roleplaying itself.  But more specifically, it deals with games that have rules that are true to the subject matter.  In my mind, Champions is still the pinnacle of simulationist design for super heroes, because it modelled super hero comic books in play better than any other system.  Simulationist play, in my mind, would be players staying true to the form of the subject that the system is simulating.  So, to be true to form of comic books, Champions has to have both Super Heroes and Super Villians.  So, if the players are playing Super Villians, then the GM will need to introduce Super Heroes to maintain the simulation.  This is why Sim play can have antagonists, in that it maintains the simulation of the subject area.  Another part of Sim play arises from the "examination of the problem," in this example what happens when Super Heroes and Super Villians fight?  The simulation represented by the game system is the method of examination, so the outcome of any results from the game system trump any concerns of character or plot.

Umberhulk, as Ron indicated, both Threefold Sim and GNS Nar strongly reject the GM having a prepared ending in mind for the adventure.  Having a prepared ending is generally termed "Illusionism / Participationism" here on the Forge.  In the Threefold it is considered to be part of Dramatism; while in GNS it has been considered to be part of Simulationism.  

I see it mainly as the uneasy marriage of simulation-style action resolution with literary pretensions -- such as in "Vampire: The Masquerade".  Both Threefold Sim and GNS Nar consider this incoherent.  Their resolutions to the incoherent matchups are somewhat different, though.  

Quote from: Ron EdwardsIt seems very clear to me that Narrativist play in your scheme, John, would simply be a sub-set of Simulationist play as you've laid out here. "Premise-addressing" would just be another way to do it. Where we'd differ, perhaps, is that I would claim that an out-of-game mindfulness expressed as social reinforcement about the process is necessary, entirely in defiance of the "in-game cause" rubric for Simulationist play.

Am I right about that?  

I'm not sure.  There are very definite similarities (like rejection of planned plot), and I think that there may well be overlap, but I don't think Narrativism is a subset because there is definitely Narrativist play which is not Threefold Simulationist.  It seems like most of the talked-about Narrativist systems are pretty anti-simulation, rejecting in-game cause.  

I'm not quite sure I understand the difference you cite.  Out-of-game mindfulness of what?  I don't think you mean conscious mindfulness of Premise, since you were pretty clear that such isn't necessary for Narrativism.  Or would you say that a general out-of-game mindfulness of narrative is important even if the Premise itself isn't?  Or maybe this is an overlap point: Narrativism doesn't say that conscious mindfulness of Premise is necessary, but it encourages it.  So overlap games would be those where there is subconscious attention to Premise but conscious attention to in-game cause.  

I'm tempted to draw parallels to method acting, which has the goal of facial expressions and speech -- but suggests the actor simply relax her body and pay attention to internal character thought processes.  Conscious attention to the internal, and the subconscious handles external projection.

Content stuff:
Let me test my understanding.  What is [basically] being referred to in the essay is Open Play (Pinball Sim, Plotless-Background Based).  Given, Open Play is specifically a GMing style, but same idea right?  If true, then I think it's clear (and good). I'm going to try to get a member of my group to read it and see if this paragraph:

Quote from: John KimMany gamers worry that this approach will lead to nothing happening. The PCs will walk around and look in different places, not find anything special, and be bored. Indeed, if the players are conditioned to expect a prepared adventure, this can be just what happens. The players search around for hints about what the GM wants them to do, and fail to find it. But by adjusting play, a different dynamic emerges.

... sticks with him at all, because me just saying doesn't seem to be.

GNS Comparison Stuff:
The whole 'Conflict and Drama' section smacks of Nar, at least to me anyway.  Maybe that's the overlap?

Quote from: UmberhulkTo me, this is a functional definition of roleplaying itself.  But more specifically, it deals with games that have rules that are true to the subject matter.  In my mind, Champions is still the pinnacle of simulationist design for super heroes, because it modelled super hero comic books in play better than any other system.  Simulationist play, in my mind, would be players staying true to the form of the subject that the system is simulating.  

First of all, I would dispute that there is any one thing which is staying true to fictional subject manner.  What is staying true to comics?  Do you just draw up a comic book during the session?  If not and you change things, then what do you change?  Do you change structure to try to match the themes of comic books?  Or do you try to give a sense of structure: the frame-by-frame passage of time?  Or do you try to convey the ethos of the world?  

I like Champions a lot, and yet I would say that most of its successes are because it is different than superhero comics.  For example, it is fundamentally false to comic books to specify, say, that Firestar's fire bolts have a 500 meter range.  Champions calls for detail and specificity in superpowers far beyond the loosely-defined powers of comics.  It also has no handling of pacing for fights or otherwise to try to get them to match the very deliberate dramatic pacing of comics.  At the most basic level, comic-book writers don't roll dice to write their stories -- as the authors of Theatrix were quick to point out.  

Critics of Champions are quick to point to these as flaws.  However, I don't think this is clear.  They mean that Champions does not strictly emulate comic books -- but that may mean that Champions works better for role-playing.  

One can make a case that "simulation" can be used to mean "strict emulation of other fictional forms".  Ron tends to call this "pastiche" and classified it with GNS Simulationism.  But Threefold Simulationism was based on a different sense of the word and rejected this.

Back to the dictionary definition of simulation again:

Quoteexamination of a problem often not subject to direct experimentation by means of a simulating device

Fictional systems/subject areas are not subject to direct experimentation, therefore a simulating device (a roleplaying game, in this sense) has to be used for that experimentation.

And that is what "Simulationist" means to me: the statisfaction gained from the experimentation. So "simulationist play" would mean play supporting experiments in the simulation (the roleplaying game).

What drives an experiment?  The problem.  I would say the problem can be constructed from either gamist scenarios or narrative assembling of story elements.  A gamist scenario for example would be "Who would win in a fight underground in a subway, The Thing or Mr. Fantastic? And I want to rate them on time to victory, minimization of property damage, and potential for future combat."  A narrative assembling of story elements would be "The Thing, Mr. Fantastic, NY City Subway station, The Thing is berserk because of a diabolical mind ray, Mr. Fantastic must protect the innocent."  Push the experiment's "GO" button and see what happens.  Did the results of the experiment give you accurate insight to the simulated system (Fantastic Four comics)? What conclusions can you draw from the experiment?  Or is the simulation's model wrong?  If so, what needs to be done to fix the model?  The answers to those questions have to do with social contract between the players and the players and the system modelers.

When you push the "GO" button, the players are playing a part in the simulation model.  Therefore, they must act in context of the simulation model in order for the experiment to have any validity.  This is "Simulationist Play," in my mind (when I was refering to staying "true to form" in my last post).  Therefore, if the player is playing the part of a super hero they must keep in context everything that they know about that super hero and how that super hero would respond in that situation at that point in time and as a player act according to that myopic view point.

QuoteI like Champions a lot, and yet I would say that most of its successes are because it is different than superhero comics. For example, it is fundamentally false to comic books to specify, say, that Firestar's fire bolts have a 500 meter range. Champions calls for detail and specificity in superpowers far beyond the loosely-defined powers of comics. It also has no handling of pacing for fights or otherwise to try to get them to match the very deliberate dramatic pacing of comics. At the most basic level, comic-book writers don't roll dice to write their stories -- as the authors of Theatrix were quick to point out.

Incidentally, both Marvel and DC have comics that do specify that sort of detail in a sort of a "Jane's for Super Heroes" kind of way.   Regardless, the fact that there is no deliberate pacing in Champions makes it seem more like a simulation to me.  But the simulation model itself (the roleplaying game) is built to support the types of experiments that you want  to conduct in it, so the simulation model either leans either more toward Gamist (in the case of Champions) or Narrativist (like TRoS).  Simulation does not exist for simulation's own sake, it has to tell you something about what is being modelled or it is pointless.

Hi Umberhulk,

QuoteSimulation does not exist for simulation's own sake, it has to tell you something about what is being modelled or it is pointless.

Temperamentally speaking, I agree with you. But observationally, apparently quite a few role-players emphatically state that this is, indeed, exactly what they are all about.

Some are focused entirely on Character Exploration with a specific lack of interest in thematic resolutions (John, this is very different from your approach to character, if I'm not mistaken).

Some are focused entirely on the imaginary-physics and logistic elements of the situation, and whether the system hums correctly in resolving it.

Some are focused on that imaginary world and their characters are essentially a pair of eyes through which they get to view it, step by step.

Some are enjoying emulating a particular kind of story; they enjoy its features and familiar theme with almost exactly the same kind of approach as the setting-folks above.

Still others combine these interests in a variety of ways.

When I ask any of these folks about Premise or Step On Up stuff, they emphatically tell me, "No! I get what you're saying, and I specifically reject exactly, exactly those things as the source of my fun."

It's still not really my interest in role-playing, but it's what they tell me, and who am I to say they're lying?

For my model, this aesthetic ideal is almost exactly what defines Simulationist play (as far as I can tell). For John's, I'm not sure - the Threefold seems to hop up and down the levels of my big model in a way that I've never quite been comfortable with, so I'll be interested to see what he says.

Best,
Ron

Quote from: Ron Edwards

QuoteSimulation does not exist for simulation's own sake, it has to tell you something about what is being modelled or it is pointless.

Temperamentally speaking, I agree with you. But observationally, apparently quite a few role-players emphatically state that this is, indeed, exactly what they are all about.
...
When I ask any of these folks about Premise or Step On Up stuff, they emphatically tell me, "No! I get what you're saying, and I specifically reject exactly, exactly those things as the source of my fun."

Well, what is the point of simulating something for another thing's sake?  I mean, suppose your game is "true" to comics books -- or suppose your game addresses a Premise.  Who cares?  That just begs the question of why should you do the other thing.  What is the point of reading comic books, or watching sports, or dancing, or stamp collecting?  What tangible reward does your role-playing accomplish that Simulationist "pointless" role-playing doesn't?  It's not like it's going to put clothes on your back or food in your mouth.  

It seems to me that at least some of desire for a "point" to role-playing amounts to a need for external validation.  That somehow if role-playing is true to comic books or literature then it is OK, but if it isn't then it is pointless.  Simulationism is precisely the rejection of this.  That role-playing need not be emulation of some other form in order to be valid.

QuoteSome are focused entirely on Character Exploration with a specific lack of interest in thematic resolutions (John, this is very different from your approach to character, if I'm not mistaken).

Some are focused entirely on the imaginary-physics and logistic elements of the situation, and whether the system hums correctly in resolving it.

Some are focused on that imaginary world and their characters are essentially a pair of eyes through which they get to view it, step by step.

Some are enjoying emulating a particular kind of story; they enjoy its features and familiar theme with almost exactly the same kind of approach as the setting-folks above.

Still others combine these interests in a variety of ways.

Ron, that is what I see as the fun gained through the experimenting with a simulation.  But to run a proper experiment, some test elements needs to be defined.  It sounds like the people you describe run very broad scoped tests, but that does not mean that more pointed tests are not possible.

The other dictionary definition of simulation is "a sham object: counterfeit".  I personally don't like to play a sham.  If I did I'd play the computer game PQ :-).

Perhaps I have my own model here and I fundamentally disagree with the assumptions of the other models being discussed.

Anyway, instead of wrapping my mind around this, I should get back to data modelling for software, but I seem to love the debate too much...

Best,
-Brodie

Hi Brodie,

I think one of the big standards for this forum is that alternate models for role-playing are welcome - but the purpose isn't to butt them against one another in terms of which ones we (for lack of a better word) believe. I, at least, am not debating which model (the Threefold, mine, or presumably yours) is better.

Well, not at this point, and not in this thread, anyway.

So I'm hoping that we can all participate in this thread with an eye toward understanding what John's saying, and only then moving (if we do) toward comparative quality/utility debate. Without that shared understanding, then I think the presumed debate would be an abominable waste of time.

Best,
Ron

Understood.  I went through a self-learning/discovery process as part of my postings.  I had no intention of derailing this thread.

Quote from: UmberhulkBack to the dictionary definition of simulation again...

And that is what "Simulationist" means to me

Occasionally we have these discussions which might be called jargon debates: does the word mean what you say it means? In these discussions, people used to quote dictionaries quite a bit, and sometimes still do. The problem is, in a jargon debate, a dictionary is not particularly useful. The question isn't how the general public uses a particular word or what it means in common parlance. The question is what does the term mean when used in the context of this specific scholarly pursuit.

What a computer literate person calls hardware could not be obtained from a hardware store, and before computers became ubiquitous if you referred to your computer components as hardware to someone not literate in the field, they wouldn't understand what that had to do with nails and rakes and light fixtures and the other things that to them were hardware. So, too, when we say that this is simulationist, we mean this is an example of the type of play we have agreed to call simulationist, without particular regard to what a dictionary says about the derivation of that term.

It should be fairly obvious from looking at the other two main terms. There is little in the word game that would explain with any precision the meaning of the term gamist, and we have gone around and around about how difficult a term narrativist is because everyone starts by assuming that they can derive an understanding of it from the word narrative. Simulationism is in a loose way related to the word simulation, but the term doesn't appear in the dictionary as such, and the meaning of the word simulation is inadequate to derive the meaning of the term simulationism.

It certainly complicates the matter that both the Threefold and the Agenda models use the same term to mean different things; both are in some sense connected to the idea of simulation, but they are connected in different ways. For Threefold, Simulationism is primarily about in-game integrity of character and world, such that nothing should happen that doesn't flow from what has already happened (that's really rough); it's about techniques and style. For Agenda, Simulationism is primarily about the discovery of aspects of the world, the character, and the game, understanding what things are and how they work; it's really about goals and (at the risk of bringing back the debate) intents. There is some overlap, but I think all three approaches recognized by Threefold and all three agenda recognized by Agenda overlap each other without much clear correlation.

Talking about what simulationism means to you is certainly valid; but then, you have to clarify whether you mean[list=1][*]This is what I understand simulationism to be as described in Ron Edwards' Creative Agenda model;[*]This is what I understand simulationism to be as described in the RGFA Threefold model preserved by John Kim;[*]This is a style of play which I call simulationism, without any particular reference to what that term means when used by anyone else.[/list:o]
In the third case, you're certainly welcome to use any words you want; but do you suppose you might consider finding a different term? After all, we're already pretty confused with having the one word used in two distinct ways by the existing models.

--M. J. Young

I fully agree, and as a relative newbie I am still getting a handle on that jargon.  However, all these models with their separate jargon are all discussing the same real life subject area.  Eventually, as the theories mature, a consensus will be reached on the terms and syntax of the modeling language.  Ahh, many debates to come! :-)