I don't think moments are sufficient.
Vincent Baker (from here and here):
So you have some people sitting around and talking. Some of the things they say are about fictional characters in a fictional world. During the conversation the characters and their world aren't static: the people don't simply describe them in increasing detail, they (also) have them do things and interact. They create situations - dynamic arrangements of characters and setting elements - and resolve them into new situations.
They may or may not have formal procedures for this part of the conversation, but the simple fact that it consistently happens reveals some sort of structure. If they didn't have an effective way to negotiate the evolution of situation to situation, their conversation would stall or crash.
Why are they doing this? What do they get out of it? For now, let's limit ourselves to three possibilities: they want to Say Something (in a lit 101 sense), they want to Prove Themselves, or they want to Be There. What they want to say, in what way they want to prove themselves, or where precisely they want to be varies to the particular person in the particular moment. Are there other possibilities? Maybe. Certainly these three cover an enormous variety, especially as their nuanced particulars combine in an actual group of people in actual play.
Over time, that is, over many many in-game situations, play will either fulfill the players' creative agendas or fail to fulfill them. Do they have that discussion? Do they prove themselves or let themselves down? Are they "there"? As in pretty much any kind of emergent pattern thingy, whether the game fulfills the players' creative agendas depends on but isn't predictable from the specific structure they've got for negotiating situations. No individual situation's evolution or resolution can reveal a) what the players' creative agendas are or b) whether they're being fulfilled. Especially, limiting your observation to the in-game contents of individual situations will certainly blind you to what the players are actually getting out of the game.
That's GNS in a page.
************
Let's be clear about my assertion.
<begin assertion>
If we collaboratively address theme, we were playing Narrativist for the entire time it took us to address the theme. A session, several sessions, a whole summer's play - whatever.
If we collaboratively address theme for three sessions in the middle of a campaign but not for the whole campaign, we weren't playing Narrativist the whole time, just for those three sessions. It's very important to note that it takes significant time to address theme: one character decision, one scene, is VERY RARELY sufficient.
<end assertion>
If you defy that, then you don't understand Narrativism. There is no other definition for Narrativist play than "we collaboratively created theme."
Furthermore: "Vincent identifies adding theme in a couple of places in the originating post, and says 'But this must sacrifice integrity of the Sim.'"
No. Never.
Taking on human issues requires us to own the source material, to work with it, and to not revere it.
If you sacrifice the integrity of your character, of the setting, or of the in-game causality, you have irrevocably [wrecked] Narrativist play, just as badly as every other kind of play.
Revering your source material is a whole different thing than relying on its integrity.
******
Hey friends, this is really important.
I know GNS. I know it approximately as well as any other living person does.
If you're, let's say, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, Ralph Mazza, Paul Czege, one of that crew - I'll debate with you what the definitions really are.
Otherwise, I'm going to ask you to take my word for it.
Narrativism, Simulationism, Gamism - they operate at a time scale you can generally measure in hours. They are not present in moment-to-moment decisions.
They may or may not have formal procedures for this part of the conversation, but the simple fact that it consistently happens reveals some sort of structure. If they didn't have an effective way to negotiate the evolution of situation to situation, their conversation would stall or crash.
Why are they doing this? What do they get out of it? For now, let's limit ourselves to three possibilities: they want to Say Something (in a lit 101 sense), they want to Prove Themselves, or they want to Be There. What they want to say, in what way they want to prove themselves, or where precisely they want to be varies to the particular person in the particular moment. Are there other possibilities? Maybe. Certainly these three cover an enormous variety, especially as their nuanced particulars combine in an actual group of people in actual play.
Over time, that is, over many many in-game situations, play will either fulfill the players' creative agendas or fail to fulfill them. Do they have that discussion? Do they prove themselves or let themselves down? Are they "there"? As in pretty much any kind of emergent pattern thingy, whether the game fulfills the players' creative agendas depends on but isn't predictable from the specific structure they've got for negotiating situations. No individual situation's evolution or resolution can reveal a) what the players' creative agendas are or b) whether they're being fulfilled. Especially, limiting your observation to the in-game contents of individual situations will certainly blind you to what the players are actually getting out of the game.
That's GNS in a page.
************
Let's be clear about my assertion.
<begin assertion>
If we collaboratively address theme, we were playing Narrativist for the entire time it took us to address the theme. A session, several sessions, a whole summer's play - whatever.
If we collaboratively address theme for three sessions in the middle of a campaign but not for the whole campaign, we weren't playing Narrativist the whole time, just for those three sessions. It's very important to note that it takes significant time to address theme: one character decision, one scene, is VERY RARELY sufficient.
<end assertion>
If you defy that, then you don't understand Narrativism. There is no other definition for Narrativist play than "we collaboratively created theme."
Furthermore: "Vincent identifies adding theme in a couple of places in the originating post, and says 'But this must sacrifice integrity of the Sim.'"
No. Never.
Taking on human issues requires us to own the source material, to work with it, and to not revere it.
If you sacrifice the integrity of your character, of the setting, or of the in-game causality, you have irrevocably [wrecked] Narrativist play, just as badly as every other kind of play.
Revering your source material is a whole different thing than relying on its integrity.
******
Hey friends, this is really important.
I know GNS. I know it approximately as well as any other living person does.
If you're, let's say, Ron Edwards, Mike Holmes, Ralph Mazza, Paul Czege, one of that crew - I'll debate with you what the definitions really are.
Otherwise, I'm going to ask you to take my word for it.
Narrativism, Simulationism, Gamism - they operate at a time scale you can generally measure in hours. They are not present in moment-to-moment decisions.
And now Edwards, from here:
Simulationist play works as an underpinning to Narrativist play, insofar as bits or sub-scenes of play can shift into extensive set-up or reinforcers for upcoming Bang-oriented moments. It differs from the Explorative chassis for Narrativist play, even an extensive one, in that one really has to stop addressing Premise and focus on in-game causality per se. Such scenes or details can take on an interest of their own, as with the many pages describing military hardware in a Tom Clancy novel. It's a bit risky, as one can attract (e.g.) hardware-nuts who care very little for Premise as well as Premise-nuts who get bored by one too many hardware-pages, and end up pleasing neither enough to attract them further.
If your Torchbearer play had those "pages of hardware" - ie not just your curiosity about the world, but actual play over a span of time in which the focus of play was on unfolding and revealing the world - that's interesting, and different from my experience. In my reply to which you replied, I was envisaging something more like what Edwards calls the "exploratory chassis" for narrativist or gamist play.[/url]
