benlehman | GNS / Big Model Open House

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.

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Doyce's Theory wiki (http://random.average-bear.com/TheoryTopics/HomePage) might be helpful too.

Well, I've read several articles on GNS, and I think I understand what they're getting at... it seems to me that the defense of the theory/model rests on what seem to me to be straw man arguments - synecdoche. Thoughts?

Here's my question, inspired by the above comments:

If I am having fun creating stories with my RPing that are not necessarily thematic, that don't worship any particular genre or source restrictions, and that are not competitive in nature, what am I enjoying?

In other words, does the GNS model have a place for playing based on the simple enjoyment of collaborative creativity?

I understand N to be focused on a premise, a theme, a question, whatever. Something meaningful. Something particular.

G is competition/achievement/overcoming challenges/showing off, which does not usually apply to what I'm talking about.

S is the closest, but the articles make it sound like I would try to be true to something, like source material, realism, etc. I want to explore characters and settings, but I am not obsessed with making them absolutely coherent or establishing a detailed world.

I want to play conflicts and drama. I just don't care if it has an overarching theme or premise to it, it can be anything about human drama and interaction that's interesting and intense.

What is that? Dramatic character exploration in Sim? Unfocused Nar? What? :)

In Narrativism's "Story Now," what exactly is meant by "story"? I understand it isn't the transcript of the events in the game. Edwards seems to make "story" synonymous with "theme" in Story Now (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html), but is that all it is?

And am I supposed to put the question mark in the first sentence inside or outside the quotations? ;)

Edwards lists a handful of Techniques:

The panoply of Techniques being employed over time either satisfy or fail to satisfy one or more Creative Agendas. Techniques include IIEE, Drama/Karma/Fortune, search time & handling time, narration apportioning, reward system, points of contact, character components, scene framing, currency among the character components, and much more. Each of these terms represents a range of potential play-methods. I consider the two most important Techniques to be reward system and IIEE (see glossary).

What other techniques are there?

The more I read about gaming theory, the more I want to ignore it.

Hey,
Reading through these essays, I have found myself getting bogged down in a lot of terminology that did not seem to address what I was interested in from my roleplaying. My current driving interest is to construct a realistic persona and see how they would act in a set of given circumstances. Yes, it sounds simplistic - but that is what I am looking for. I am pretty sure that is not a Gamist philosophy, but I have issues classifying that into either N/S.

Your thoughts on where that fits into the theory?

Ben,

I'm very interested in your breakdown of Polaris in Big Model terms. I assume you think its design is Coherent. Why? How do the Techniques advance your design goals?

You did ask for it... this is less an "I don't know" and more of a "I think, but have been told differently" thing.

My understanding is that any single decision point can be recognized as being primarily made from the standpoint of one of the three Creative Agendas. This seems logical, right-thinking, and entirely plausible to me. On the other hand I have been told that GNS can't actually be applied to a single decision and is instead a look at an overall trend in play (over a session or two perhaps). This seems insane to me, and I'm curious to hear your answer:

Does GNS measure Creative Agenda (or at least which of the three modes is primary) for each decision, or is that impossible and it can only look at trends? If it can only look at trends, what are they trends of if not decisions?

Thomas

So, why are there 3 CA's, taxonomically breaking down into the G/N/S? If it's about the varied things your thinking at a moment, aren't they're an infinte number of CA's?

Also: imagine a game where everyone, all at once, switchs agenda gears. Like, we're all coherently on the same page for playing gamist-ly during one scene. Then the next scene, we're all playing into a major Nar agenda. Pretend this system also changes along with our agenda, and not getting in the way. Is this impossible, or just hard?

(The real question is at the very bottom, above my name. The rest is skippable.)

Superfluous introduction

On definite problem for a lot of people (me for example) is mixing GNS with ol' threefold. Before I heard of GNS, we who considered us to be immersionists more than anything else always saw the simulationist as the great enemy. With the gamist and the dramatist (as it was called) we felt quite closely related. But those simulationist were of a kind noone could understand. It was the anti-thesis of immersion.

Then GNS comes, picks the word 'simulationism', tries to avoid 'immersion', but when under pressure puts that as a part of simulationism. When put together with your old anti-thesis you get mad, of course. I gather this is way some of us always talk about GNS in curse words.

The point

Even if I'm still not a fan of GNS, (but that's beside the point) I now think that I understand the basis of GNS a bit better. But I'm not sure; so I ask.

I have read quite a bit about GNSm but it's hard to understand Edwars articles I must say. I'll give it a try, how correct is the following.

G,N and S respectively is three different decision rules for players regarding how the play their characters and should not be applied to all of the game.

In Gamism the characters actions are governed by the players whish to win or reach a certain goal.

In Narrativism...I can never understand this. But somehow the characters action don't always have to based in the actual SIS. (I don't want you to explain this, that is not the question.

In Simulationism (and this is the real question) characters actions are based in the SIS. *Is this a valid simplification of simulationism?*

/Sven Holmström - polyfem.blogspot.com (a quite Swedish take on role playing)

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CRISIS ON INFINITE AGENDA

GNS - really basic question