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

[S'mon]

Edit: I'm not that happy with this post, but I don't have time to rewrite it; I hope you'll get the points even though they are not well expressed...

I get that you disagree with us.

 

[BryonD]

Note that Neonchameleon didn't says "without ANY narrativist trappings", he said "without MANY narrativist trappings".

I think it would be pretty much impossible to run an RPG session that completely eliminated the trappings of one of the three agendas in Threefold and/or GNS theory.

Agreed on both points.

I was just extending that to the idea that you could functionally run ToH as a pure board game and zero narrative elements, but a vast selection of rules. If you really wanted to do that.

 

[pemerton]

Just to add my two cents I think it is practical to distinguish between simulation, which strives for varying degrees of realism (RQ and Harn), and Emulation which strives to capture the feel and "laws" of genres (Buffy and Savage Worlds).

This is, at least roughly, the distinction between purist-for-system simulationism and high concept simulationism.

I think of RM, RQ and Traveller as paradigms of purist-for-system, and CoC as a paragon of the latter.

As I've said upthread, it's no surprise that those who enjoy "storyteller" type systems find the GNS analysis problematic - it's aim is to provide an interpretive account of (what Edwards finds to be) the inadequacies or balance-of-power problems with those games.

 

[S'mon]

This is, at least roughly, the distinction between purist-for-system simulationism and high concept simulationism.

Yeah, I meant to say it earlier - that terminology really sucks.

IMHO YMMV etc.

 

[Bedrockgames]

.

As I've said upthread, it's no surprise that those who enjoy "storyteller" type systems find the GNS analysis problematic - it's aim is to provide an interpretive account of (what Edwards finds to be) the inadequacies or balance-of-power problems with those games.

But as I pointed out many of critics of GNS are just as hostile to storyteller systems as Edwards was.

 

[BryonD]

You are reading the "reason" somewhat backward to the way I had taken it - and this might explain the sinister intent you see.

Instead of "they were calling the GM a referee for the reason that they wanted to promote or encourage gamism", I read it as "what they were engaging in (and assuming as the "natural" way of things) was gamism; for that reason the word 'referee' seemed a natural one to use for the GM".

I called it "spin", not "sinister intent".

But anyway, my point is that A and B are unrelated.
I don't really care if you want to say A lead to B or B lead to A.
I still disagree and I think a simple examination makes it apparent that the term had nothing whatsoever to do with thoughts of "gamism" either as a cause or as an effect.

 

[Rogue Agent]

It's also why those discussing GNS find it difficult to discuss GNS Simulationism in a meaningful, coherent, or consistent fashion.

But I have yet to see anyone come up with a very clear division or taxonomy - and I'm not convinced it's meaningful or worthwhile. I love playing to a Simulationist agenda at times, but my experience of it is that the exploration that forms its core is too freeform, too variable, to make classification really useful.

Case in point.

That does not make it an "inferior" way to play in the slightest - and maybe if we'd all stop being so goddamned touchy all the time a lot of these debates might be a lot more productive.

Did somebody say it was an inferior way to play? I must have missed that.

Sure, it's possible - I've experienced it. But do the players focus no making the story? No - the GM does. That makes it a game focussed on exploration - exploration of the situation the GM creates (and maybe also the world setting and the characters the players are playing, depending on the proclivities of those involved). Focus over all else on exploration is Simulationism as defined in GNS, therefore it is a correct classification as far as it goes - the "cap fits".

Hmm... I think you might want to go back and try re-reading my post and/or the thread. The bit you're quoting there was specifically and explicitly talking about dramatism, not simulationism.

With that being said, it sounds like you're of the school of GNS thought that attempts to make the incoherent GNS Simulationism semi-coherent by defining it as "exploration" (usually by using multiple and mutually contradictory definitions of "exploration" to pull it off). (I believe this originates from a later Edwards essay, but it's been awhile since I really delved into this stuff.)

But, as you've noted, this doesn't actually solve the problem. In fact, it perpetuates it: Not only does GNS Simulationism remain a bizarre amalgamation of Threefold Dramatist and Threefold Simulationist agendas that's "too freeform" and "too variable" to be useful, but you've simultaneously scooped out large chunks of Threefold Simulationism and orphaned them completely.

The result is a theory which is incoherent, confusingly labeled (since simulationism is no longer focused on simulation), and incomplete even within the simple boundaries of what it's trying to discuss.

Ultimately, the only real way to "fix" GNS theory is to go back to the very beginning and fix the initial error of moving dramatist agendas (which are naturally related to other dramatist agendas) into simulationism. The theory would still have some problems, IMO, but it wouldn't be fundamentally flawed from square one.

 

[S'mon]

Ultimately, the only real way to "fix" GNS theory is to go back to the very beginning and fix the initial error of moving dramatist agendas (which are naturally related to other dramatist agendas) into simulationism. The theory would still have some problems, IMO, but it wouldn't be fundamentally flawed from square one.

Yes, I think that's exactly right.

The ironic thing is that when most people who haven't ploughed through a ton of Edwards essays talk about G N & S, they actually use those terms in the earlier threefold model GDS sense - they say Narrativism, but their use of the word is identical to Dramatism. They thus accidentally recreate a functional model out of the dysfunctional mess of GNS.

I used to correct them, but now I think they're doing it right. The GDS split is intuitive and can actually be useful; whereas pushing people to use the correct definitions of a bad model seems like a bad idea.

OTOH, Edwards is a terrible theorist but a fantastic publicist. I doubt I would even have heard of GDS if not for him and his GNS. So maybe he did a good thing, in a strange and indirect way.

 

[pemerton]

The ironic thing is that when most people who haven't ploughed through a ton of Edwards essays talk about G N & S, they actually use those terms in the earlier threefold model GDS sense - they say Narrativism, but their use of the word is identical to Dramatism. They thus accidentally recreate a functional model out of the dysfunctional mess of GNS.

I agree that this happens, but don't agree about the functionality of the resulting model - what it results in is posts where games relying upon heaps of GM force to produce a story in spite of the action resolution mechanics get lumped together with games that try to ensure that the action resolution mechanics themselves will produce a good story without the GM needing to exercise force in the same way.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Someone pointed this thread out to me:

Here

I think it may shed some light on resentment by simulationists to GNS.

Also in post number three Ron says he classifies gamers using GNS.