GNS / Big Model Open House

[benlehman]

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.

Comments

[lordsmerf.livejournal.com]

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

[benlehman.livejournal.com]

Thomas --

Are you talking about having multiple CAs in play?

Or supporting multiple CAs in text?

This is important.

yrs--
--Ben

[lordsmerf.livejournal.com]

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

Thomas

[benlehman.livejournal.com]

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

[lordsmerf.livejournal.com]

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

[benlehman.livejournal.com]

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