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Message: <blockquote data-quote="nnms" data-source="post: 5804314" data-attributes="member: 83293">My opinion of GNS Theory is that it has been developed way beyond what is easily accessible to the casual reader.  The original terms, Gamism, Narrativist and Simulationism are so poor that they immediately cause misunderstanding among the reader.  Even those at the heart of working on this model of rpg theory have abandoned them in favor of a "Step On Up", "Story Now!" and "The Right to Dream".I think creating the barrier to understanding so people actually have to engage with the theory before they think they know what the terms mean and start arguing was a great move.This may be a mean thing to say, but I don't think the majority of Enworld posters can meaningfully discuss this model of RPG theory after reading a single wikipedia entry.  Or taking a poll.Speaking of the poll, I don't believe the threefold model was ever meant to describe people.  Saying you're 33% this and 24% that and 43% the third thing sort of shows that you missed the boat on the theory.  It's about priorities of play in specific instances of play, not how many % of each you are.Probably the biggest weakness of the whole theory is its strength.  It's robust and developed enough that it is no longer really accessible.  Even at The Forge, talking about it was abandoned in favor of only talking about actual play.  A theory disconnected from reality, after all, is a bad theory.I'm not trying to be elitist here, I'm just warning of potential pitfalls of discussing the three fold model as well as discussing it outside of the context of specific instances of actual play.</blockquote>

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