benlehman | GNS / Big Model Open House

Hi.

I know that a fair share of RPG theory interested folks read this blog.

I'd like to test my own understanding of GNS / Big Model.

So:

I will answer any questions about the Big Model or GNS that you have, if you ask them in response to this post or in a private e-mail to me.

It would help if you would first read the essays here and here. These other ones won't hurt. Just the top part of the last two is fine.

a few ground rules:

1) I'm going to try to explain a theoretical model to you. I don't want to argue whether it is right or wrong. You can come to your own conclusions about that. If you post, I will assume that you are trying to understand the model, no more, no less.

1a) If you want to destroy the model, may I suggest that understanding it is a good first step?

1b) So no "that's stupid," stupid though it may be. "That doesn't make sense, please explain it a different way" is fine.

2) I will not diagnose GNS goals of games I've never played. I will not discuss any theory applying to LARPs, because they are complicated. I will not discuss books, movies, plays, improv theatre, ballet, or any other artform in the context of GNS, because doing so is stupid. I will discuss games which I have played, as examples, but pretty much only at the request of the GM who ran said game.

2a) If you ask about the GNS of your game, do not take a diagnosis that isn't what you want it to be to be an insult. It isn't.

3) I may add ground rules as things progress.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

On further thought, could you clarify: "Just understand that having two goals is not the same thing is having one goal which happens to be two."? I really am not sure what you're saying with that...

Are you saying "Yes, you can pursue two (or three) CA's simultaneously, but they are still seperate CAs?" That seems totally obvious. And since you are contending that CAs can't really talk about the moment to moment stuff (i.e. who you're screwing at this precise moment in your threesome), then I'm not really seeing how they're useful beyond saying "I care not at all about Theme" or "I only want competition", both of which are probably pretty shaky statements on their own...

To restate: from your earlier stuff you seemed to be saying "Creative Agenda is all about who your 'steady' is." And just above you said "Or you don't [have to pick a steady]." So... Creative Agendas are most definitely not mutually exclusive, in fact you can have multiples at the same time...?

Thomas

Okay, there are several things going on here, in terms of ways that CAs can occupy a game session.

1) Switching, as described to Dev below.

2) Congruency. As far as I can tell, usually one is being used to support the other. For instance, it is very easy to play Riddle of Steel in such a manner that the Narrativism supports the Gamism -- being dramatically appropriate literally helps you win fights.

3) Incoherence (?). You have two things you want to do with the game, usually manifested as two players who cannot be patient and wait for switching or do not trust switching to occur. Neither of these agendae is top priority, and they don't necessarily work together. While it is possible to concoct a scenario which satisfies both of them, you are in the perilous situation of working towards two different goals at the same time. This is, most likely, going to prove impossible in the long run.

The question mark is because my "Incoherence" here is not exactly the same as Ron's "Incoherence." Mine is a smaller portion, a subset, of general incoherence.

yrs--
--Ben

I'm not sure I buy those as the only three possibilities... In fact I would suggest that there are a number of very good games that facilitate multiple CA's (some even to equal extents).

An example of Gamism facilitating Narrativism (maybe?): Primetime Adventures fanmail. You "score points" for doing stuff people like which is presumably(?) thematic. Heck, maybe it's just gamism supporting functional social interaction...

An example of Gamism and Narrativism working together: Capes. I know it's not a game for everyone, but it seems to me that the mechanics simultaneously, and equally, support "competition" and "theme". I suppose it could be argued that the competition is used to produce theme, but that theme isn't used to produce competition in the game, but I'm not sure if that's accurate or not.

So, if CA's are, as you say, merely goals, simply "what do I want to get out of play?" then that seems to indicate that they aren't actually mutually exclusive. Or that it is possible (possibly not even all that difficult) to facilitate more than one CA, at least under this definition...

Thomas

I want you to purge from your mind for a second the idea that competition, point scoring, or play towards a goal as Gamism. That is just as inaccurate as saying that the presence of imagined material or the presence of continuity represents Simulationism. Second, I want you to purge from your mind any concept that specific systematic mechanisms ensure that play will conform to a particular creative agenda. That's wrong. This post () is, seriously, required reading if you want to talk with me about this. Not what I have to say about congruency, which is a sidenote, but the general point about Creative Agenda and text. See Ron's "tentacle theory" below.

I have no interest in talking about creative agenda wrt text, in abstract. I don't think it is reasonable to even *start* to do that. I am only interest in talking about creative agenda wrt to play. Therefore, to talk about creative agenda wrt text, we need to talk about play wrt text. Got it?

PrimeTime Adventures: Okay, as someone who is a committed Gamist player, this system gives me absolutely no Gamist satisfaction. The approval of my peers? Yes, of course! But every game, with any CA, should give me that. Where are the hooks, the tactical points, the strategizing, the chance to show my guts? Totally not present.

Capes: Okay, looking at this from the point of view of a committed Gamist player, I can see getting into it. There is a lot of place to strategize, form and break alliances, build resources (inspirations/story tokens) and such. Other people's debt management is a great source of tactics.

Now, I have only played one scene of Capes. So all I can do is speak about it like the designer speaks about it. But Tony seems to say that the aggressive, strategic play is entirely in service to the story production (see Congruency.) And I have a tendency to believe him.

So does this mean that Capes can be played by a mixed group of Gamist and Narrativists? Uhm, heck no. In fact, in the one scene I played, I was already starting to get really rankled at Tony, who engineered high debts for Sydney and I, then created conflicts to allow us to exhaust that Debt and accumulate a pile of story tokens. If that had kept up for another few sessions -- I probably would have quit the game.

Does that make anything clearer?

yrs--
--Ben

Quick note, your post below (the link to the old Forge post) doesn't do much for me other than say "Hey, you and Ben are on the same page when it comes to ideas of facilitation." So, we agree there as far as I can tell.

"So does this mean that Capes can be played by a mixed group of Gamist and Narrativists? Uhm, heck no. In fact, in the one scene I played, I was already starting to get really rankled at Tony, who engineered high debts for Sydney and I, then created conflicts to allow us to exhaust that Debt and accumulate a pile of story tokens. If that had kept up for another few sessions -- I probably would have quit the game."

Could you elaborate on this a bit? I'm not seeing where the fundamental "we can't facilitate narrativism and gamism simultaneously in play" is... Probably because I don't have enough information.

The text vs. play thing. Again, we're on the same page. I'm using sloppy language, so I guess the confusion is my fault...

Thomas

Thomas --

Are you talking about having multiple CAs in play?

Or supporting multiple CAs in text?

This is important.

yrs--
--Ben

In play, man, in play! We're on the same page with regard to text... :)

Thomas

Thomas --

You can have both narrativism and gamism at the same time in a game. Heck, I've done it. Check out my three things again and notice if one of them doesn't fit what you are thinking of.

Also -- do you have a particular game, which you have played, in mind? Is this about your Capes play? 'cause, if it is, I'll dig up the transcripts.

yrs--
--Ben

Yeah, actual play. And Capes comes most strongly to mind at the moment. Unfortunately, this is all recent play (post-actual publishing) and all of it has been face to face, so there's no transcript work (or really even any Actual Play post work) on it.

So, I'm not sure that other than a long back-and-forth question-and-answer session that we can easily say "Oh, that's what you're talking about." Though I'd love to see you prove me wrong. :)

Thomas

Well, cool. It is about play.

Can you write it up and we'll talk about it once I have a friggin' clue what's okay on?

yrs--
--Ben

Uh, this post.

CA Classification and Game Systems (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=12002)

yrs--
--Ben

GNS / Big Model Open House

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