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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8631861" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Surely, though, this leads to two things:1. If decisions are being made all the time, then whether there are decisions isn't an interesting thing to analyze. We know that answer, it is "yes, always."2. Since we know there are always decisions, it becomes interesting to ask what is being decided (or decided about), and why, and perhaps even by whom."Why," of course, has multiple possible answers, hence my reference to Aristotle's theory of causes earlier. My game-purposes, being a design thing, are "formal" causes, the form or concept which motivates game-making. Player motives, on the other hand, are "final" causes, the end-point or destination which motivates game-playing. (In the classical example, the "formal" cause of "table" is a design which features a flat surface large enough to be useful and sufficiently-supported to not break, while the "final" cause of "table" is the things a person would want a table for, e.g. dining.)With my game-purposes taxonomy, the thing-being-decided(-about) is the first part of each pair, the concept or focus. Then, the act of making or testing those decisions (and dealing with their consequences) is the second part of each pair. Values-and-Issues is design geared around having players decide about Values (choosing what things they are willing to seek despite difficulty), and then Issues are where those decisions get tested (conflicts that must be "resolved" somehow, whether through success, failure, abandonment, complication, etc.) Conceit-and-Emulation is design geared around embracing a Conceit, some core theme or tone (deciding a theme to explore, as one would explore an artwork) and then taking action to Emulate related works or genres, to manifest or portray that theme in a (hopefully) satisfying way.This might show that people want...not necessarily mixed ("incoherent") creative agendas in the GNS sense, where one is trying to actively do (say) C&E truly simultaneously with G&S, but that they are generally not entirely satisfied by exclusively following one and only one of these taxonomies with no variation. They may flock to a game because of some main focus, e.g. GURPS is frequently cited as a "purist-for-system" Sim game (and from what little I know of it, I would definitley put it in G&S) or D&D as a fairly strongly Gamist game (what I call S&A), but most people seem interested in seeing at least a little of a second game-purpose, sometimes a third or even all four. Hence you have people who will make openly S&A-related arguments (e.g. the brouhaha over silvery barbs, or before that, bless at release), but then the very same people will advocate the use of illusionism or (sparing/cautious) fudging, which at least on the surface is a clearly C&E thing.* And then, again, sometimes the very same people will argue that "hit points" have to be physically rooted, because the name of the spells that restore them refers to "curing" things and the characters are aware of needing to have something restored to them that they have lost, which is about as purely Groundedness-and-Simulation as one can get (spell names and character behaviors are the Groundedness that must be reasoned from; Simulation thus mandates that the HP-related behaviors of characters must be physically rooted, regardless of what consequences this may have).I think the big revelation that GNS gave, and the reason why whenever it comes up there's always either someone wanting to talk about it or (at least as common if not more common) someone denying this idea, is that Values-and-Issues play IS a design-worthy game-purpose, and that there are players who wish to experience the concepts, situations, and moods fostered by such design. (This, Clearstream, would be an example of a point where I start from one of my game-purposes, V&I, and then extrapolate plausible player-motives that might exist in relation to it, intentionally stepping beyond the limits of my taxonomy.) Rather, IRL, this developed reversed from my phrasing: there were players who felt their needs were not being satisfied, so they talked about what they were wanting, and then extrapolated back from that to what kinds of design would proactively support their interests, ultimately articulating their concept of "Narrative"/"Story Now"/Values-and-Issues design.It is possible that there may still be other, undiscovered game-purposes out there. I've no idea what they might be, as my efforts are meant to be descriptive rather than prescriptive, but I find the thought exciting.*It's possible I may just not be seeing the other ways to view it, but fudging and illusionism seem to openly defy all three of the other game-purposes. It defies G&S by being not grounded--it's an artificial manipulation of the world. It defies S&A by invalidating the scoring metric and (thus) devaluing the Achievements (the success is not earned by skill, but dispensed by the DM). And it defies V&I by deprotagonizing the players. Yet it fits beautifully in C&E, because the Conceit is (more or less) Pulp Action, and Emulating that requires trimming out "unacceptable" results.</blockquote>

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