"Gamism," The Forge, and the Elephant in the Room

[pemerton]

I think of him as a thinker, rather than a writer, honestly.

I'd add - my understanding is that he's trained as a biology scholar, not a humanities scholar. Given that the task he's undertaking is an essentially literary one, I tactually hink it's a pretty impressive effort.

I also play other (non-D&D) systems, because 4E does not support all agendas/styles. I think those other systems do what others say they see in 3.5 better than 3.5

This is the reason why I personally have little interest in playing 3E.

Given that simulationists have better alternatives, why not try to push them out too and leave yourself with just the narrativists?

Ssshhh! You'll blow the cover on my secret ambition!

 

[innerdude]

Why are you posting on a board dedicated to a game that is based on a hacked tabletop wargame centered around Step On Up play simply in order to tell people who like this style that they are having BadWrongFun?

Gah, I had a lengthy post all typed up and making final edits, and somehow I closed the window.

I'll say in short:

I'm not claiming Gamism is BadWrongFun. Read my OP: I really, really like Gamism.

I just find it disingenuous to claim that Gamism can really be "the point" of an RPG. An RPG exists as a way to facilitate a certain kind of shared sociality, and RPG rules exist to ensure that sociality is stable and enjoyable for the participants.

When I'm talking about "social contract," that's what I'm talking about. You're right, every group's contract will be different. But what I'm saying is that an RPG group's social contract, whatever it is, must necessarily include the clause, "We're playing a roleplaying game, and not something else."

This is a binary--no group can both be "Playing a roleplaying game," and "Not playing a roleplaying game" at the same time. And what I'm saying is that regardless of group and RPG system, that agreement stays in effect. That every RPG group's social contract includes the clause, "We're playing a roleplaying game," and thus includes some sense that there is a shared sociality around what they're doing.

And an RPG's rules are ultimately designed to support that sense sociality first. If a person decides that "gaming" an RPG's "rules" is fun, and they like the "competition," whether between players, or in the challenges of the GM, that's their prerogative. But the rules don't fundamentally exist for that reason. In other words, Gamism is necessarily always a function of "drift." You can "drift" a game towards Gamism--sometimes very effectively--but PURE Gamism (i.e., Gamism unmixed with anything else) fundamentally ignores the aspect of shared "pretending" and sociality.

And if a game's rules do fundamentally exist to provide total Gamist experiences, it's probably not an RPG, but something else.

And that's totally cool. Just don't conflate the two.

Neonchamelon, you stated that Gamists can get experiences in RPGs that they can't get anywhere else. I agree with you. I just happen to think that the reason that's true is because RPGs provide experiences that are inherently not Gamist that Gamists don't get elsewhere. Gamists don't like RPGs because they're Gamist, they like RPGs because they're RPGs--i.e., they fundamentally contain elements that reach beyond Gamism. And my point is, they have to, to be considered an RPG at all.

 

[innerdude]

Ssshhh! You'll blow the cover on my secret ambition!

LOL, truth be told, I'm very much entrenched in the Narrativist camp. I generally prefer my Narrativism to be at least partially grounded in Simulationism, because I feel that exploration of human emotional condition carries more weight when it's more firmly based in reality than otherwise.

But even then, currently I'm much more attracted to systems like FATE, and The One Ring, with their emphasis on narrative control to create interesting situations, than I am in any iteration of D&D (If I want action-heavy, moderate Simulationism mixed with drifted Gamism, Savage Worlds is much, much easier to use to scratch that itch).

 

[Crazy Jerome]

And an RPG's rules are ultimately designed to support that sense sociality first. If a person decides that "gaming" an RPG's "rules" is fun, and they like the "competition," whether between players, or in the challenges of the GM, that's their prerogative. But the rules don't fundamentally exist for that reason. In other words, Gamism is necessarily always a function of "drift." You can "drift" a game towards Gamism--sometimes very effectively--but PURE Gamism (i.e., Gamism unmixed with anything else) fundamentally ignores the aspect of shared "pretending" and sociality.

My disagreement here is that to the extent that the above quote is correct, you can substitute "simulationism" or "narrativism" (or probably any number of things, such as "drama") into the place of gamism, and it will still be equally true. You seem to be suggesting, if I read you correctly, that there is something inherently simulationist or narrativist about a group making a social contract to pretend. This I reject as thus far unshown by this discussion. It seems to be the premise rather than the conclusion of the arguments thus far.

I'll even go so far as to say that it is entirely possible to have a social contract to pretend without any of the GNS elements present. One easy way is to drop any pretense of story. "Hey, I'm being an elf. Isn't that neat?" "Oh yeah, can I be a gnome?" "Sure." "What are we doing?" "Oh, just hanging around being and elf and a gnome." "Cool." My early frustrated storyteller remembers scenes like this when I was around six. The "icky girls" always seemed to want to play this way, for some reason.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

As far as I'm concerned, the primary usefulness of the whole GNS discussion is as an ongoing thought experiment. To the credit of the Forge folks, I think they take that attitude on their better days. People sometimes want to see the stuff as insightful theories or even settled boundaries.

However, its useful purpose seems to be to churn up your mind, and thus cause you to think about the relationships of players to characters to rules to system to social contract. Then put it aside and go make a game, play it, examine the play, tweak it, and so forth. It doesn't so much provide answers as it does provoke useful questions.

 

[pemerton]

An RPG exists as a way to facilitate a certain kind of shared sociality, and RPG rules exist to ensure that sociality is stable and enjoyable for the participants.

But this is equally true of parlour games and light card games, which nevertheless are played to win and lose.

 

[LostSoul]

And an RPG's rules are ultimately designed to support that sense sociality first. If a person decides that "gaming" an RPG's "rules" is fun, and they like the "competition," whether between players, or in the challenges of the GM, that's their prerogative. But the rules don't fundamentally exist for that reason. In other words, Gamism is necessarily always a function of "drift."

Gamism or Step on Up is the fundamental reason all the rules in my 4E hack exist - and that goes for the setting, how authority is distributed, and why the players assume roles (ie. "role play").

 

[Rogue Agent]

That said, I found that I actually agreed with most of his explication of Gamist/Narrativist/Simulationist theory, and the theory's general taxonomy.

First:

GNS was originally based on the Threefold Model developed on rec.games.frp.advocacy back in the late '90s. The Threefold was very specifically aimed at describing what motivated GMs to make specific decisions: Does this simulate the game world (simulationist)? Does this make for a good story (dramatist)? Does this make for a good challenge (gamist)? The theory applied to people insofar as GMs and players would generally have preferences for the types of decisions they would like to be made.

I once read a pretty good summary of what Edwards did in developing the GNS. I can't find it at the moment, so I'm going to re-summarize it: Basically, Edwards had a real passion for a narrow slice of Dramatism. He defined that narrow slice as Narrativism. This left him with a bunch of dramatist play-styles that no longer fit in Narrativism, so he basically shoved most of those into Simulationism (which he didn't appreciate or understand very well).

This, of course, is a complete mess. It works fine if your Gamist or if you fall into the narrow slice of dramatist that Edwards defined as Narrativism. But the Simulationist wing of the model was a complete mess. You can see this very clearly in later discussions at the Forge where adherents of the GNS keep describing Simulationism as incoherent (or struggling to find coherent in it): It was incoherent because Edwards had made it that way.

Board games are one type of social experience, and RPGs are another, but to a Gamist, the ultimate purpose of them is the same--to "win" the "game."

Second:

While same gamists may want to "win the game", they're just a narrow (arguably dysfunctional*) wing of gamism. In similar fashion, there's a narrow wing of dramatists who want to "tell my story" (and will sit there lecturing their players through cut-scenes) and a narrow wing of simulationists who will spend 2 hours resolving 10 seconds of action using a dozen minutely detailed tables.

(* Although there's really no reason why you couldn't design an RPG to accommodate them. Arguably Descent is that game.)

None of these narrow wings actually tell us much about the bulk of players pursuing that agenda. Most gamists are actually just interested in facing and overcoming challenges (often using creative tactics both in-game and metagame). And that's been pretty much a core property of RPGs since Day 1.

I would, personally, argue that a central flaw in both the Threefold and GNS is that you can't satisfy multiple stances at once. (People may have blurred values, but the Threefold argues that any decision has to be purely one or the other; and the GNS holds that rules have to purely pursue one agenda or they lead to brain damage.) Whereas, in practice, this is usually quite trivial if you're not dealing with radicalized purists: You can have the goblin cave with a sufficiently plausible ecology and behavior pattern to satisfy the guy who wants the game world to feel real; which is also a solid challenge to satisfy the guy who wants to overcome such things; which is also rife with inter-tribal political agendas that satisfy the guy who wants a story-riich environment.

And, even moreso, the desires of the agendas actually overlap quite a bit: Challenge is the stuff of powerful stories; stories are only effective if you can believe in them; and so forth.

Does this mean that Gamists can't, or shouldn't be accommodated at all? No, but it does mean that the primary focus of RPGs should never primarily be the "G."

tl;dr One of the central principles of both the Threefold and GNS is that different gamers have different opinions about what's important. Congratulations, you have an opinion different from gamists. So what?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Neonchamelon, you stated that Gamists can get experiences in RPGs that they can't get anywhere else. I agree with you. I just happen to think that the reason that's true is because RPGs provide experiences that are inherently not Gamist that Gamists don't get elsewhere. Gamists don't like RPGs because they're Gamist, they like RPGs because they're RPGs--i.e., they fundamentally contain elements that reach beyond Gamism. And my point is, they have to, to be considered an RPG at all.

OK. I'm going to try to disprove this one by counter example.

Old School Tomb of Horrors. It is a RPG scenario and something that can only really be run in a RPG.

However it's pure gamism and all about Step On Up. That stuff about staying in character? Unnecessary and not used by many groups for that module. After all, PCs won't survive. About the story? The story is barely there. It's all about Step On Up in an absurd situation.

So you can have an RPG without many narrativist trappings. Tomb of Horrors demonstrates how.

On the other hand an RPG is an RPG. The game is part of the name. And you can only get rid of the game by getting rid of the rules (not that there's anything wrong with freeform).

I'd therefore argue that Narrativists like RPGs because they are Gamist - i.e. they provide an arena for conflict and a mechanism for conflict resolution. And this is more fundamental than Gamists liking RPGs because they are Narrativist.

 

[tomBitonti]

But this is equally true of parlour games and light card games, which nevertheless are played to win and lose.

Although, often folks play such games to have a fun evening with friends, and the "winning" aspect, while present, is an occasional benefit, not something that all around are trying especially hard to do.

For truly serious competition, there is a whole higher tier of effort, and of meta-play (think about serious poker, or of pool sharks).

Players play to win, yes, and to have fun, too, and trying too hard to win can take away a lot of the fun.

TomB