GNS - which are you?

[der_kluge]

AdamantineAngel recently pointed me out to these articles over at Indie-rpgs and I thought it would be neat to see what people tends towards here.

Read the following article (or at least skim it) and then choose from the poll which one you think best describes you.


The relevant bits:

Gamist Premises focus on competition about overt metagame goals. They vary regarding who is competing with whom (players vs. one another; players vs. GM; etc), what is at stake, victory and loss conditions, and what particular sort of strategizing is being employed. Gamist play also varies widely in terms of what is and is not predictable (i.e. randomized), both in terms of starting positions and in terms of ongoing events.

Can I play well enough such that my character survives the perils?
Can I score more points than the other players?
And much more, depending on the arrangement and organization of the participants.


Narrativist Premises focus on producing Theme via events during play. Theme is defined as a value-judgment or point that may be inferred from the in-game events. My thoughts on Narrativist Premise are derived from the book The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri, specifically his emphasis on the questions that arise from human conundrums and passions of all sorts.

Is the life of a friend worth the safety of a community?
Do love and marriage outweigh one's loyalty to a political cause?
And many, many more - the full range of literature, myth, and stories of all sorts.


Simulationist Premises are generally kept to their minimal role of personal aesthetic interest; the effort during play is spent on the Exploration. Therefore the variety of Simulationist play arises from the variety of what's being Explored.

Character: highly-internalized, character-experiential play, for instance the Turku approach. A possible development of the "vampire" premise in terms of Character Exploration might be, What does it feel like to be a vampire?
Situation: well-defined character roles and tasks, up to and including metaplot-driven play. A possible development of the "vampire" premise in terms of Situation Exploration might be, What does the vampire lord require me to do?
Setting: a strong focus on the details, depth, and breadth of a given set of source material. A possible development of the "vampire" premise in terms of Setting Exploration might be, How has vampire intrigue shaped human history and today's politics?
System: a strong focus on the resolution engine and all of its nuances in strictly within-game-world, internally-causal terms. A possible development of the "vampire" premise in terms of System Exploration might be, How do various weapons harm or fail to harm a vampire, in specific causal detail?
Any mutually-reinforcing combination of the above elements is of course well-suited to this form of play.

edit: crap, I was going to make this a poll. But I guess it doesn't have to be...

 

[TheEvil]

It is never to late to make a poll, just edit your post.

For myself, unless driven in a Narativist or Simulationist direction by the GM/players, I tend to default to Gamist. My goal at that point tends to be to have fun in a social context of for my character to survive and succeed at whatever the plot happens to be.

The games when I am driven to be something other then a Gamist tend to be the ones I enjoy most and remember years later.

Given that viewpoint, I am not sure how I think a poll about this should be set up.
Complicated...

 

[Psion]

40 Sim 40 Gam 20 Narr

Though I find the Forges threefold definitions a little off for my use, and prefer RGFA's

 

[Ry]

70 Narr, 30 Gam, although I've always prefered the term "Dramatist" rather than "Narrativist" on that part of the scale, since it also helps denote non-narrative elements of dramatic play that neither Gamist nor Simulationist capture. For example, in my campaigns, there is very little that would be denoted as constructing or conveying themes - but both gamist and simulationist considerations take a back seat to character development and opportunities for in-character thinking.

 

[SpiderMonkey]

I tend to be primarily Narrativist, and as a DM, I would say it's almost 50/50 between the other two as a secondary concern/style. As a Player, I'd still say Narrativist, but Gamist tends to creep in their a little more.

 

[S'mon]

I'm with Psion. As GM I tend to run a Gamist/Sim mix, which I think is the classic D&D approach (2e drifted heavily Sim, 3e lurched heavily back to Gamism). I very much enjoy Dramatic games (similar to Nar concept), but while I love to play Narrativist I'm not, so far, a particularly Nar-oriented GM. As a player, the sessions that will always stay with me were indeed the ones that addressed some Premise, some question about my character's personality, and about life in general. Generally though *as GM* I'm not very comfortable putting a Premise in the centre of a D&D scenario. Maybe that will change. My current campaign is off to a great start and there are many interesting questions about the PCs that might be addressed in-play.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I advise using great caution when applying Edwards' definitions, because I believe that part of their function is to establish a straw man which he can then knock down, thereby making his conclusions seem inevitable.

Edwards specifically states that according to his view, Gary Gygax is a very hardcore Simulationist. I think that this tells us more about Edwards than it does about what a Simulationist is.

By Edwards' definitions I am also a Simulationist, as is pretty much anyone who plays a system where you micromanage details like initiative scores, "to hit" rolls and damage with separate rolls.

In other words, everyone who plays D&D is a Simulationist.

With definitions like Edwards', I could prove that the Pope was a Protestant.

 

[der_kluge]

It is never to late to make a poll, just edit your post.

You can't do that, not once you've saved it. Oh well. the diversity of responses will make it a complicated poll, anyway.

Given that viewpoint, I am not sure how I think a poll about this should be set up.
Complicated...

heh.

 

[der_kluge]

I would say I'm probably 70% Simulationist, with 15% each narrativist, and gamist.

 

[S'mon]

I agree that the Threefold Model G/D/S is probably better than Edwards' GNS. Edwards does tend to put Nar in a privileged position while lumping D & S together into S. And if he thinks Gygax is S he hasn't read Gygax's intro to the 1e DMG.