Dealing with logical but gamebreaking requests

[Doug McCrae]

Thank you for reminding me what a horrible man Edwards is.

He certainly runs a tight ship over there. My main problem with him is I can't understand what he's talking about. And I'd really like to, I like GNS, but my understanding of it, such as it is, comes from others.

 

[steeldragons]

Forgive the acronymical ingnornace, but to what does "GNS" refer?...and how does it play into the RPG schema?

--SD

 

[ExploderWizard]

Forgive the acronymical ingnornace, but to what does "GNS" refer?...and how does it play into the RPG schema?

--SD

GNS Theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Check out the wiki. That should give you the basics. Then you can come back and argue about how right or wrong it is with the rest of us.

 

[steeldragons]

GNS Theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Check out the wiki. That should give you the basics. Then you can come back and argue about how right or wrong it is with the rest of us.

Ok. Don't know that this is necessarily "argument" type stuff. Seems to fall under the massive umbrella of "individual player [or gaming group] preference."

From the Wiki:

The GNS Theory, as originally developed by Ron Edwards, is a relatively amorphous body of work attempting to create a theory of how role-playing games work. Primarily, GNS Theory holds that participants in role-playing games reinforce each other's behaviour towards ends which can be divided into three categories: Gamist, Narrativist and Simulationist.


Strictly, GNS theory is concerned with players' social interactions, but it has been extrapolated to direct game design, both in and outside the world of RPGs. A game can be classified according to how strongly it encourages or facilitates players reinforcing behaviours matching each category. Game designers find it useful because it can be used to explain why players play certain games.


Ron Edwards later discarded GNS Theory in favor of The Big Model, which includes the GNS categories as different kinds of creative agenda.

After seeing this, I have seen/knew what GNS meant...just hadn't had enough coffee. haha.


As for a "game theory" I think I really only agree with the last sentence: GNS are kinds of "creative agenda", and more accurately "play style preference", but not "defining/explaining" what D&D is.


That's how it strikes me, anyway.
--SD