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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5791026" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think this is the type of game with which GNS has the most trouble, because GNS is predicated on this being a dysfunctional approach.To set up an analogy: if an account of literary forms can't really find room for Tom Clancy, is this an idictment of the account, or is it consistent with the fact that Clancy is not really literature (despite being popular)? It's against forum rules to express a view on this (as far as gaming is concerned), but I think that this is one important issue for GNS and the playstyles whose legitimacy it excludes.I think this is part and parcel of GNS being an interpretive account of a creative activity. To continue my analogy - should readers of Clancy react negatively to a literary theory that dismisses Clancy? Or should they reevaluate their own tastes in literature? I'm not suggesting one answer or the other is to be preferred, but it is not a sufficient refutation of a critical analysis of literature that it would force the second (reevaluation) alternative.Similarly, Edwards wants simulationists - particularly a certain sort of storyteller simulationist - to reevaluate their RPGing. He thinks what they're doing is a defective form of the activity. This is what some criticism calls for, and criticism of this sort is not per se flawed. It depends on the arguments presented.From <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=24" target="_blank">that post</a>:This is not to say a person cannot demonstrate more than one of the priorities. However, in my experience, a person WILL tend to emphasize one of them, or have a favorite among the three. At that point, I say, "You are [fill in]." . . . Sure, they might not be constrained to "their" outlook 100% of the time. I am not claiming that sort of rigidity; it's not like having blue eyes or brown eyes. But the actual classification of the behaviors, especially when they are consistent over time for a person, is valid. Therefore I make no apologies regarding my points in this thread. Obviously those points don't apply to the (hypothetical) individuals who slip and slide among the three priorities like little pixies. My points DO apply to the many people I have known, seen, communicated with, and role-played with.So I am a narrativist who can also enjoy light gamism, and modest doses of CoC or RQ/RM simulationinsm. [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] sounds more like a slipping and sliding pixie!Whereas I tend to agree with Balesir - what would it be but narrativism? There's no doubt that Edwards, in his "official" definitions of narrativist play, states it too narrowly than he actually uses the term.Perhaps, for certain senses of "exploration". The contrast, for me, is between "pre-given" vs "determined via play".In some games, the outcome of challenges is pre-given (eg because the GM will fudge to make sure that the PCs survive a fight). In other games, the outcome of challenges is determined via play, including the decisions of the players.In some games, the thematic/story content is pre-given (eg classic D&D alignment rules pre-determine what counts as moral or immoral behaviour). In other games, the meaning of thematic content is determined via play, including the decisions of the players.(Note that "determined via play" here is very different from "improvised by the GM". The key point is that the decisions of the players, as expressed in the actual course of playing the game, make a difference to the outcome.)These contrasts obviously are not the only way in which the ideas of exploration, pre-given, determined via play, etc can be articulated. But this particular articulation does capture something of great importance to me in RPGing, and The Forge is the first place where I encountered this stuff being set out in some detail, with a degree of sophisticiation and with reference to a wide range of RPG systems. I think the distinction, in GNS/big model, between "agendas" and "techniques" is a bit unstable, as your examples show.Edwards himself notes the drifting of Champions play from purist-for-system goals towards gamist or narrativist goals - but the underlying mechanical chassis remains the same. Burning Wheel is a contemporary game whose underlying mechanics are highly purist-for-system, but which is intended to be played in a more narrativist fashion. It is an interesting illustration of what you need to do to get that sort of outcome: in BW, it is particularly (i) the guidelines to GMs for adjudicating failure (focus on intent rather than task), (ii) the PC advancement mechanics (which give players an incentive to sometimes take on challenges that they can't overcome), and (iii) overlaying a fate point system on top of the personality/disadvantage mechanics.I've played RM with a drift to narrativism, but not as coherently as BW - a host of table understandings that it's hard for me to fully identify, but the existence of which becomes obvious when I look at the mainstream of RM play on the ICE boards, were central.And I'm sure there is plenty of drifting of high concept games to narrativist play - personality mechanics, fate point mechanics and the like would again be obvious focal points for this sort of drift.This was mentioned upthread. As I said earlier, Edwards is not making a hypothesis to be tested via market research. He's putting forward an interpretive theory, to be "tested" by its capacity to deliver insight into human activity and self-understanding. My own view is that this cannot be value-free (because people cannot get the requisite degree of evaluative distance from their own activities). But as I also said, the best interpretive theories, for my money, utterly kill market research for power and insight.WotC's research may well have helped them sell books. But I don't know that it adds a lot to our understanding of RPGing as a creative human endeavour.On these boards, I think that Justin Alexander = The Beginning of the End.</blockquote>

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