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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5609428" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think that Classic Traveller would be a good example of an early attempt at the sort of player-driven sim you're describing here.I wonder, though - Does even purist-for-system sim have a tendency towards becoming GM-driven just because, in practice, the GM becomes the custodian of the "truth" about the world and its internal causal processs (whether mechanical processes in Traveller, or cultural processes in RQ)?Maybe I've missed something, but all I see here is that both G and N involve exploration of the shared fictional world. Which is true. But doesn't exhaust what they aim at, as priorities for play.I think that you're asking the notion of "consistency" to do too much work. When I think back to discussions on these boards, for example - like the one on ElfWitch's "Should this be fixed?" thread - the contrast between priorities doesn't turn on consistency, but on the basis for extrapolation from one ingame event to the next. Consistency is an outer parameter here - but there is a difference between asking "What would happen next?" and "What would be fun but not utterly absurd if it happened next?"I think this is true to an extent, although I think when he deploys the conception, as opposed to when he discusses it, he does a better job of illustrating what it involves. (Again, the classificaiton of Dying Earth as aimed at supporting N play, even though it's not aimed at addressing a moral premise, is an instance of this.)But I'm enough of a modernist myself to think that there is a difference between constraints on extrapolation of the sort that I've mentioned above in this post. And it is these differences that mark the G/N vs S contrast.My interest in GNS theory is threefold. First, I'm a professional theoriser, and I like to have a theory that intellectualises my hobby.Second, I'm a long time GM, and I like to have a theory that allows game rules and actual play experiences to be analysed and interpreted in a way that helps me GM (and the proof of the theory, for me, has been its practical payoff in this respect).Third, a lot of discussion on ENworld presupposes a certain sort of orientation in play - somewhere between purist-for-system sim and Gygaxian-style exploration-heavy gamism. Given that I play in quite a different fashion, I find that a theory that articulates that alternative approach gives me a stable base from which to engage in those discussions.</blockquote>

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