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Chauncymancer
2012-01-23, 05:29 PM
My senior thesis project just got accepted:
To survey my local gamer population, determine if significant GNS preferences exist within that population, and to determine if the heterogeneity or homogeneity of playgroups has any relationship to player satisfaction with that playgroup.

The first stop on my research project is:
1. Locate a good survey of GNS preferences.
Can anyone help me with this? I'm googling like mad, but now that the flame war's a smolder fight many old GNS links are dead.

NOhara24
2012-01-23, 05:40 PM
For those uninitiated...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_Theory

Tyndmyr
2012-01-23, 05:40 PM
Here's the issue. GNS isn't actually a theory in the scientific sense. It's not as if they started by gathering evidence, and built a theory to explain the results. No, they built the theory first, starting designing games based on it, most of which failed immensely, and formed a community in which the proponent of the theory happily bans people who disagree with him. Hell, GNS doesn't even use words to mean the normal, standard things that their definitions describe them as.

This means that in doing a survey, most people are going to not know what GNS is...of those already familiar, most will have an undying hatred of it, and will likely refuse to partake in your quiz, skewing your data.

So, no, there's not really useful data about GNS. Frankly, at this point, I don't think there really can be. I would strongly advise attempting the issue of surveying your gaming community from a more general perspective, instead of tying yourself to such an unpopular/controversial philosophy.

Delwugor
2012-01-23, 06:02 PM
Wasn't GNS dropped by the guy who came up with it?

horseboy
2012-01-23, 06:15 PM
Yeah, GNS just boils down to personal opinion of the designer: "Why games I like (Narrative) are superior to games I don't like (Stimulationist), oh, and there's a bunch of games I don't give a rat's ass about (Gamist). There's really nothing "scientific" to study.

Crow
2012-01-23, 07:40 PM
Well, it sounds a little like the OP might be trying to determine if GNS is a viable theory. He would be remiss if he abandoned his project just because the majority of people believe it is not. Even if he comes to the conclusion that GNS is bull****, he has still reached a conclusion, provided he abides by scientific method. I'm curious how this can be done through a simple survey without the survey itself altering the results to a predetermined end.

You should probably just look for volunteers to take a Gaming Survey, and administer the survey privately, so as not to contaminate your subject pool as well.

Personally, I am with the GNS is bull**** crowd. For the record. Also, I'm worried at what institutions consider to be "research" these days.

Maerok
2012-01-23, 07:42 PM
Oh I loved my senior thesis! It was on the development of fantasy writing through the 20th century. Lovecraft, Howard, Tolkien, etc.

I'd have to go with everyone else on this and say GNS is kind of unfavored.

erikun
2012-01-23, 08:03 PM
I've found GNS to be a load of bunk. "Gamist" only works if you take it to mean solely randomized chance, the three points don't seem to conflict beyond seeing the purest form in a RPG system, and you will see a greater conflict on where to allocate limited resources in development to each principle (along with art, advertisement, setting development...) than you will between the three principles.

That doesn't mean you could not find a survey about it, but you'd want to be careful that it doesn't turn out too biased. As others have pointed out, some people aren't going to be familiar with the theory or definitions used, so asking something like "Do you prefer a Gamist, Narrativist, or Simulationist type of system" could end up producing junk data rather than anything valuable.


Sidenote: If you have a large enough body to survey, you might change the order of the choices with the various groups. I've heard that most people, when presented with an irrelevant choice, with frequently pick the first option. This could skew your data heavily towards one option, when the actual result should come out as "most people don't care".

Nerd-o-rama
2012-01-23, 08:07 PM
Polling random jerks on the internet about inane and arbitrary labels made up by some random self-important jerk on the internet: science, apparently.

Yora
2012-01-23, 09:20 PM
Is "GNS does not have any widespread acceptance among the surveyed group" a viable outcome for your research? If the validity of GNS is required for your research to be of any value, I'd seriously get the topic changed.

If you want to find out if GNS does have actual applications or not, then feel free to go with it. But I have very strong suspicion the answer to that is already known and you'll only presenting proof of that.

stainboy
2012-01-23, 09:56 PM
Yeah, GNS just boils down to personal opinion of the designer: "Why games I like (Narrative) are superior to games I don't like (Stimulationist), oh, and there's a bunch of games I don't give a rat's ass about (Gamist). There's really nothing "scientific" to study.

This. You can't pin Ron Edwards down to a consistent definition of any of the three terms, but least of all Simulationist because it's merely the set of all things he doesn't like.

I'd actually describe Gamist as games Ron Edwards is afraid to pick a fight with. Why is 3e "openly gamist?" Because all the GNS articles were written during the height of the 3.0/OGL boom, and arbitrarily classifying 3e as "gamist" was a way to avoid picking a fight with the big dog. Why is Amber Diceless "gamist?" Because Eric Wujick wrote articles for the Forge, and it would have been a faux pas to put his game up for criticism.

The purpose of GNS theory is to hide Ron Edwards' personal agenda in a bunch of objective-sounding jargon. Nothing more. Most of the people who parrot his theories are guilty of the same dishonesty. "Oh, you like D&D? So you're a Simulationist gamer? Is that really what you want? Really? Really? Are you sure?" Even if you answer yes, you implicitly label yourself as a "simulationist" and undermine any further argument you might make.

It's a damn shell game. The con isn't to get you to pick the wrong cup - it's to get you to to pick a cup at all.

Anxe
2012-01-23, 10:39 PM
I'm not seeing any problem with GNS after reading about it on the wiki. Not sure where all the hate is coming from...

As for the survey, in order to remain unbiased I think it should start off with an adventure choose-your-own-story of some kind. The survey can then ask the readers questions about what they liked in the story and what they didn't like. That way you avoid emotional attachments to certain systems.

But really I think you're gonna have to come up with the survey on your own and finetune it a little bit to make it unbiased. I also feel this is a good thing to post online and then throw a link out on these forums or other roleplaying games forums.

Chilingsworth
2012-01-23, 10:40 PM
Out of curiosity, OP, what is your major? (Or if this thesis isn't for a graduate program, what class is this thesis for?)

Also, if you need a guinea pig, I volunteer.

stainboy
2012-01-23, 11:40 PM
I'm not seeing any problem with GNS after reading about it on the wiki. Not sure where all the hate is coming from...


The Wikipedia entry glosses over a lot of parts of the theory that don't make any sense. If you want to form an opinion about GNS you should really start here: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/

Dr Bwaa
2012-01-24, 12:40 AM
Wow, there's a lot of GNS-hate being tossed around, despite it being (as far as I can see) a non-assumed, somewhat minor part of a perfectly good thesis topic. It seems to me that it's only being mentioned as an efficient way to bring up the (uncontroversial, I hope) fact that different people may want different things from their games, and/or different things from different games.

OP, I don't know of any decent science behind it, but I'd happily discuss my personal experiences with you if you end up going that route (PM me if so; there's no guarantee that I'll check the forums with any regularity).

Jerthanis
2012-01-24, 01:11 AM
My more hardcore RPG group had a thorough round of discussions about GNS for a few months following our discovery of the theory. Much of our discussion was in pinning down exactly what each term meant, and arguing over which games fell into which categories. We basically came to the conclusion that Ron Edwards didn't know what words in the English language meant, but that the words he happened to choose for his bizarre space-definitions actually worked pretty well for describing three aspects of RPG design. We use those words as a convenient shorthand to explain quickly how a game feels to us.

I might explain to a friend that the Smallville RPG is highly simulationist because it simulates the rules of a soap opera, but that it's also narrativist to only a slightly smaller extent because your chances of succeeding at things and the rewards you aim to acquire stem from furthering the story in specific ways.

Basically, we use the words associated with GNS to talk about RPGs, and the fact that he brought up the theory in the first place caused us to have a lot of very illuminating discussions amongst ourselves about the deeper underlying principles of roleplaying, but the theory itself is largely just a confusing, inaccurate mess at best.

So for me, if you were to ask which of the three I prefer, I'd probably say "Narrativist", but wouldn't mean exactly what Ron Edwards meant by Narrativist. The reasons for friction amongst members of my group don't often come down to differences in our GNS preferences. One of my friends is extremely Gamist in his approach to RPGs, but we have almost no conflict in our playstyles.

Blacky the Blackball
2012-01-24, 05:16 AM
This. You can't pin Ron Edwards down to a consistent definition of any of the three terms, but least of all Simulationist because it's merely the set of all things he doesn't like.

I'd actually describe Gamist as games Ron Edwards is afraid to pick a fight with. Why is 3e "openly gamist?" Because all the GNS articles were written during the height of the 3.0/OGL boom, and arbitrarily classifying 3e as "gamist" was a way to avoid picking a fight with the big dog. Why is Amber Diceless "gamist?" Because Eric Wujick wrote articles for the Forge, and it would have been a faux pas to put his game up for criticism.

The purpose of GNS theory is to hide Ron Edwards' personal agenda in a bunch of objective-sounding jargon. Nothing more. Most of the people who parrot his theories are guilty of the same dishonesty. "Oh, you like D&D? So you're a Simulationist gamer? Is that really what you want? Really? Really? Are you sure?" Even if you answer yes, you implicitly label yourself as a "simulationist" and undermine any further argument you might make.

It's a damn shell game. The con isn't to get you to pick the wrong cup - it's to get you to to pick a cup at all.

Don't forget the attempts to force you to pick a cup by describing any game that isn't on one of those three ill-defined extremes as "incoherent"

horseboy
2012-01-24, 06:15 AM
The purpose of GNS theory is to hide Ron Edwards' personal agenda in a bunch of objective-sounding jargon. Nothing more. Most of the people who parrot his theories are guilty of the same dishonesty. "Oh, you like D&D? So you're a Simulationist gamer? Is that really what you want? Really? Really? Are you sure?" Even if you answer yes, you implicitly label yourself as a "simulationist" and undermine any further argument you might make.
From what I've seen of the GNS believers, they rarely have any experience at anything more than one or two systems. When you actually start pinning them down on systems, they'll (eventually) admit to having not played most of the ones they're talking about. Ron set himself up as an "expert" and "kids today" are conditioned to believe an expert regardless of what they say so they believe him.

I'm not seeing any problem with GNS after reading about it on the wiki. Not sure where all the hate is coming from... Did you ever deal with a fanboi who can't tell you why their choice is better except that it "just is" and they won't get out of your face about it? Yeah, that's a GNS believer.
My more hardcore RPG group had a thorough round of discussions about GNS for a few months following our discovery of the theory. Much of our discussion was in pinning down exactly what each term meant, and arguing over which games fell into which categories. We basically came to the conclusion that Ron Edwards didn't know what words in the English language meant, but that the words he happened to choose for his bizarre space-definitions actually worked pretty well for describing three aspects of RPG design. We use those words as a convenient shorthand to explain quickly how a game feels to us.
Yeah, if you take "Gamist" to mean "Game mechanic quality", "Simulationist" to mean the systems ability to maintain verisimilitude, and "Narrativist" to mean the systems ability to coherently tell a story, then you've got the three pillars of what makes an RPG an RPG. Without Game rules you're just doing the "Bang! I got you", without Narrativism you're just playing 40k, Without verisimilitude you're just left with cake.
Then there's the false choice of "You must choose one over the others, or else it's objectively worse than a system that does!" I'd think 4th edition with it's subjectively "betterness" after sacrificing narrative and simulation for the sake of Game would have been the final nail in GSN theory.

Autolykos
2012-01-24, 06:29 AM
First, get your terminology right. GNS is a hypothesis at best, not a theory (since it hasn't been tested AFAIK) - no matter what the Wiki says. But probably not even that, since it doesn't make any testable claims (the physicist in me says at this point "this isn't even wrong" and urges me to forget about it).
If you want to do anything of scientific value with it, you'd first need to develop it to a proper hypothesis and devise something to test it. Possible things to test would be:

- Can gamers really be covered with those three groups, or is there a fourth one?
- Is every person/game a "pure" type, or are there mixed ones? Is perhaps everyone/-thing a mix with different proportions of those parts?
- Is it really impossible/hard for different types to play together? Is the friction generated between them what the hypothesis says or something different?
- Do player groups really just prefer systems fitting to their subtype, or is some difference actually preferable? How about mixed types? Is it possible to design a system with minimal friction for everyone?

These are just some examples to set you on the right train of thought - I'm sure you can think of your own ones.

TL;DR:
GNS isn't a theory, it's a mess. To do science with it, you first need an unambiguous definition of the terminology, make a testable hypothesis and test it.

Chauncymancer
2012-01-24, 03:01 PM
I've never got this many responses on a Playground thread:smallredface:

I'm finishing my undergraduate degree in Psychology/Philosophy with a senior lab in social psychology. So I suppose the thing to start with is that in psychology, a theory on a topic explains the relationship between all the variables (so the theory of gravity would include gravitons, higg's bosons, mass, meters, fields, etc.) and a hypothesis is one causal relationship between the variables (if distance goes down and higg's density remains constant, gravitational attraction increases). So we can correctly refer to GNS as a theory, but it may be a bad theory, unsupported theory, psudeotheory, etc.

This being my first foray into research I'm starting easy: Regardless of what Ron may want us to believe, there are two claims I believe I can pull out of GNS.
1. People prioritize between the three corners.
2. Game sessions including players with different priorities will be less fun ("incoherent") than games where every player has the same priorities.

So I'll be wandering down to my local game stores and testing these claims against reality.

Yora
2012-01-24, 03:05 PM
1 is a viable idea, which is the reason that some people seriously consider the whole thing.
But 2 is completely impossible to test. How do you quantify fun? And the group dynamics of playing RPGs are so complex that the game itself is only one small part of people having a good time.

Manateee
2012-01-24, 03:19 PM
If you're going to try to quantify GNS, I recommend stocking up on aspirin.

And maybe rogain as an investment for the near future.

stainboy
2012-01-24, 05:21 PM
Chauncymancer, how do you define G, N, and S? You're the one writing the polls, so what you think the terms mean probably matters more than anything Ron Edwards wrote.

Sith_Happens
2012-01-24, 07:20 PM
Psst... What if this is actually some kind of blind study?:smalleek: That was a joke. I'm perfectly aware that ethics dictate that the participants know that they're taking part in *a* study at the very least.

nedz
2012-01-24, 08:38 PM
GNS is supposed to be a theory about game systems, but you can run a variety of game types under any system. Now some may be better choices than others, but then some of us like a challange :smallsmile:

It is also possible to run a game which swings wildly between all the corners, and there are really more than three I suspect. My favourite is the surreal corner :smallbiggrin:

I wouldn't call any of this science; except in the sense that most sciences started out by catagorising things. GNS is more like literary criticism.

Chauncymancer
2012-01-25, 01:12 PM
Maybe I should say this:

GNS is not the science.
This thread is not the science.
In about a month, I am going to be DROPPING THE SCIENCE ALL UP IN Ron Edwards theory.

In preparation for that, I'm nailing down GNS (not Edwards, mind you) to some testable claims. For example,

1. A game session is contained within a single Instance of Play (TM)
2. A single Instance of Play (TM) can only adequately serve one Creative Agenda (TM)
3. Particular Creative Agenda's (TM) exist at a given time in players.
4. Inadequately serving a player's particular Creative Agenda (TM) at the time of play will diminish fun.
[Conclusion] Groups with two or more Creative Agendas (TM) will have less fun than homogenous groups.

I'm determining that 1-4 are statements made in GNS (what I want your help with) arguing that 1+2+3+4= My Conclusion, and then testing my conclusion.

So, to refer back to the OP, did anyone supporting GNS ever put forward a rubric or survey or quiz indicative of "What it really meant" to feel like some Gamism tonight or to have a long term propensity for Narrativism?

Kalirren
2012-01-25, 03:34 PM
Glad to hear about someone actually trying to do this. As you've framed it, that's a rather testable theory now, isn't it? (I expect the theory's conclusion really won't hold up because its premises are flawed, but I'll suspend judgment until I see your work.)

As you've framed it in your 4 restated premises of GNS theory, what it sounds like you need to do is videotape sessions, make transcripts, pick out decisive elements of the groups' interactions, classify those elements into G, N, S modes and then analyze the players' responses for satisfaction.

Why do you need a survey of GNS preferences? To answer your question as far as I know the correspondence, the one time Ron Edwards himself tried to comment on a game of a friend of his who submitted a transcript, he got into a dispute with his friend over what mode his friend liked. So no, I doubt anyone's ever formulated a workable rubric.

If you do end up doing this, submit to IJRP.

Autolykos
2012-01-25, 05:02 PM
GNS is not the science.
This thread is not the science.
In about a month, I am going to be DROPPING THE SCIENCE ALL UP IN Ron Edwards theory.

In preparation for that, I'm nailing down GNS (not Edwards, mind you) to some testable claims.Now THAT'S the spirit! May our words be tender for tomorrow we might have to eat them.

But seriously, that looks like a proper hypothesis (in the definition favored by natural sciences) you could test, as long as you have a way to quantify fun (but just asking the people - perhaps indirectly or with catch-questions - might be close enough). Now you just need to lock a good collection of GMs and players with different styles in a basement, supply them with coke, chips and pizza and get going.

Beleriphon
2012-01-25, 05:40 PM
1 is a viable idea, which is the reason that some people seriously consider the whole thing.
But 2 is completely impossible to test. How do you quantify fun? And the group dynamics of playing RPGs are so complex that the game itself is only one small part of people having a good time.

The same way psychologists test for happiness. There are in point of fact scales and tests that can be used, and are hundreds of questions long, that test of how happy a person is compared to other people of the same general type. There's also the old social survey of just asking "Was this fun for your group". The important thing there is to make sure the whole group is interviewed as a group and then individually.

My advice, find some actual papers in some psych journals and use similar methods to those researchers for the surveys. You can probably find some of the social happiness type surveys online and modify them to suit your needs.

Dr Bwaa
2012-01-25, 10:32 PM
Psst... What if this is actually some kind of blind study?:smalleek: That was a joke. I'm perfectly aware that ethics dictate that the participants know that they're taking part in *a* study at the very least.

If you didn't call it a study and just cited "gamers' opinions posted in gaming forums on the topic", this conversation would still probably be viable.

Sith_Happens
2012-01-25, 11:04 PM
DROPPING THE SCIENCE ALL UP IN

New favorite phrase.:smallbiggrin:

WalkingTarget
2012-01-26, 02:55 AM
My 2 cents:

One of my old college buddies is friends with Mr. Edwards. I've hung out with him a few times and have even gamed with him. He's not a monster - removing the anonymity of the internet might have a blunting effect on some of that.

That being said, the best I can say about GNS, personally, is that it kind of works as a method of describing a particular preference in game design (which it called Narrativist). In my opinion, it doesn't sufficiently say anything useful about other games or styles of play, but it worked as a means of saying what was different about the games he and his supporters wanted to play that weren't available otherwise.

It's attempts to be some all-inclusive thing obfuscated that a bit, but that's what I got out of it.

Acanous
2012-01-26, 03:58 AM
So.. is that /thread? Or are you looking for volunteers?

I did notice that among my gaming group over the years, we started out with a simulationist bend (What would you do if you were X), moved into more of a narritive (The DM controls all) and eventually meandered over into gamist territory (If I can beat anything the DM throws at me, I can write the story without having to dm!)

RPGs in general have moved much like that since their inception- look at DnD as a primary example. Accoarding to Gygax, it took multiple gaming sessions before anyone thought to *Name* their characters.

Now it's in it's gamist phase.

Assuming, that is, we can use GNS as an accurate form of measurement :p

horseboy
2012-01-26, 06:20 AM
So, to refer back to the OP, did anyone supporting GNS ever put forward a rubric or survey or quiz indicative of "What it really meant" to feel like some Gamism tonight or to have a long term propensity for Narrativism?
It wasn't for GSN, but I did take a "gamer" survey thing where they did transcribe a couple of our sessions and give us an exit interview type thing back in the 90's for a friend who went to ASU. They might still have her research. I doubt it, but hey, there's at least some of it's done for you if you can find it.

blackseven
2012-01-26, 08:17 AM
As a general observation, I think the major problem with GNS is that it is pretty useful as a descriptive tool, but it seeks instead to be prescriptive theory, and fails badly at it.

More to the OP:



1. A game session is contained within a single Instance of Play (TM)
2. A single Instance of Play (TM) can only adequately serve one Creative Agenda (TM)
3. Particular Creative Agenda's (TM) exist at a given time in players.
4. Inadequately serving a player's particular Creative Agenda (TM) at the time of play will diminish fun.
[Conclusion] Groups with two or more Creative Agendas (TM) will have less fun than homogenous groups.

Looking at this as a (wannabe) philosopher (not a social scientist), I have to guess that Premise 2 is the one you will be testing.

Premise 1 is definitional. Someone will have to accept it for the study to even be considered - I am assuming you are using "Instance of Play" as a specifically defined term within the context of the study, and not to be thought of as a general use term.

Premises 3 and 4 seems like uncontroversial assumptions. They are not necessarily true but I don't think anyone would object to them as the weakest part of the argument.

Radar
2012-01-26, 12:48 PM
One thing I would like to mention: as much as fun can't be quantified overally, it can be quantified for particular individuals - we do that all the time. Extracting any useful information out of that is another matter. I'd propose a working hypothesis, that if 4th point is true, then in an enivroment with high ammount of gaming groups with high mobility of it's members (such as PbP gaming forum) homogenous groups should be more stable. It should be possible to test such a hypothesis statistically.

Tyndmyr
2012-01-26, 12:52 PM
One thing I would like to mention: as much as fun can't be quantified overally, it can be quantified for particular individuals - we do that all the time. Extracting any useful information out of that is another matter. I'd propose a working hypothesis, that if 4th point is true, then in an enivroment with high ammount of gaming groups with high mobility of it's members (such as PbP gaming forum) homogenous groups should be more stable. It should be possible to test such a hypothesis statistically.

You can quantify it overall if you're willing to collect a sufficiently large amount of data...but to the best of my knowledge, information on this topic is limited.

Radar
2012-01-26, 01:26 PM
You can quantify it overall if you're willing to collect a sufficiently large amount of data...but to the best of my knowledge, information on this topic is limited.
I wouldn't be so sure of that. You would have to establish a way of comparing amount of fun being had. Considering that everyone has different tastes, I have no idea, how would one construct a measure of fun, unless one does some neurochemical study (i guess, it could be doable that way, but it's out of my expertise).

Tyndmyr
2012-01-26, 01:31 PM
I wouldn't be so sure of that. You would have to establish a way of comparing amount of fun being had. Considering that everyone has different tastes, I have no idea, how would one construct a measure of fun, unless one does some neurochemical study (i guess, it could be doable that way, but it's out of my expertise).

Psychological tests for evaluating level of happiness are a thing. Same basic principles. Like I said, you'd need rather a large amount of data to get anything relevant, but it's doable at least in principle.

Tiki Snakes
2012-01-26, 01:36 PM
One thing to consider, before going too far, is that from my experience of threads discussing DNS theory, is that the official definitions of each catagory don't infact match very closely at all with what it sounds like they are meant to describe.

If you go by what they seem to be describing, it almost works to describe several major themes or factors in gaming, but if you go by the actual definitions as put forward in the real theory, then...well, it's just an incoherant mess that doesn't actually match the catagory names even and certainly has little value as any kind of theory describing anything much at all.

Radar
2012-01-26, 01:59 PM
Psychological tests for evaluating level of happiness are a thing. Same basic principles. Like I said, you'd need rather a large amount of data to get anything relevant, but it's doable at least in principle.
Truly interesting! One learns new thing every day.

Anxe
2012-01-27, 01:35 AM
I finished reading the GNS article on The Forge and I think I get what you guys were upset about. He introduces and defines a lot of terms in the first 2/3. Some of the words don't fit very well (Exploration being one that stuck out for me), but such things always have to happen when you're trying to define something unambiguously. I'm a biochemist and I have to refer to pipettes all the time. Apparently they pipet stuff and I can't just call them the tube that sucks and dispenses liquid.

After the first half he starts assuming that a Gamist person can never have fun with a Narrativist person or that a Gamist person can not also be a Simulationist. That's the part that I didn't like. Is that how everyone else felt who posted here?

As for the psych survey. It sounds super interesting. You might want to just focus on whether the initial premises are true, before going into the stuff he assumes near the end. Then you could do more. Or maybe not. I don't know much about psych studies.

blackseven
2012-01-27, 03:28 AM
After the first half he starts assuming that a Gamist person can never have fun with a Narrativist person or that a Gamist person can not also be a Simulationist. That's the part that I didn't like. Is that how everyone else felt who posted here?


I can't speak for *everyone*, but back when the GNS debate was really hot, I know a LOT of people had problems exactly with what you outlines.

I think GNS does a decent enough job of *describing* what 3 broad categories of RPG-gamers there are (yes there may be more but I think the 3 capture the VAST majority of players.) It also does a good job of generalizing exactly what different experiences they seek, how to meet those expectations, and why conflicts may arise based on the nature of the game system/environment.

However, his SOLUTION is a problem. He says, instead of trying to compromise in writing the rules system or playing at the table, each system or group MUST choose 1 of the 3 as their focus and basically shun the other 2. He then labels any attempt to compromise in system or playgroup as "incoherent." He also has a weird hierarchy of how any "compromise" will inevitably degenerate toward one pole dominating - ie, he says compromise is impossible in practice. Which is contrary to the experiences of much if not most or even all of actual players in real life.

mcv
2012-01-27, 08:03 AM
Wow, there's a lot of GNS-hate being tossed around, despite it being (as far as I can see) a non-assumed, somewhat minor part of a perfectly good thesis topic. It seems to me that it's only being mentioned as an efficient way to bring up the (uncontroversial, I hope) fact that different people may want different things from their games, and/or different things from different games.
It's true that different people want different things from their games, but GNS is a lousy way to classify it. Simulationism is a really gigantic bucket that contains a lot of very different aspects to playing. Narrativism is supposed to be something magical that's apparently impossible to define, and any attempts to define it seems to result in aspects that are also common in play styles that GNS tries to describe as simulationist.

More damningly, GNS doesn't define the terms it's discussing other than in highly convoluted circular definitions, and many words mean something completely different from what they generally mean to normal gamers.

In short, it's just not a very useful theory. The stated goal seems useful (many have tried something similar before), and if you study it, there really are a few gems hidden inside, but as a whole, as a theory, it's crap.

mcv
2012-01-27, 08:44 AM
I did notice that among my gaming group over the years, we started out with a simulationist bend (What would you do if you were X), moved into more of a narritive (The DM controls all) and eventually meandered over into gamist territory (If I can beat anything the DM throws at me, I can write the story without having to dm!)
This paragraph shows one of the many easily made misunderstandings about GNS. Narrativism isn't about the GM narrating a story. Far from it. Narrativism, as described by GNS is mostly about players deciding where the story goes. Or maybe not where the story goes, but how the story gets there. Players tend to have a lot of control over the story.

So how does that differ from Simulationist games where the players have the freedom to set there own goals? That's a really good question that isn't properly addressed by GNS, but mostly, it's sort of like this:

In Narrativism (N from now on), the game is directly about addressing specific themes and (moral?) choices by the characters.
In Simulatinism, the game mechanics are supposed to simulate how the world operates, and the choices are handled in a systemless/common sense way. (That's what people tend to call roleplaying.)
N seems to be about focusing the game mechanics directly at making those choices. Or at the success/failure of what you're trying to accomplish, which is something completely different, but apparently it also fits in N. The important thing is that actual plausibility of what happens is not part of the system. That's done systemlessly/with common sense. It does mean that you can use the exact same mechanics for epic fantasy, gritty modern, superhero or SF, without having to worry about all the fantasy/SF/super powered aspects in the system.

An N game could be something like this:
Player rolls.
GM: "You succeed in dispersing the crowd. How do you do it?"
Player: "There happens to be a helicopter passing over. I shoot a grenade at it, and the burning wreckage lands in the middle of the crowd, who quickly disperse."

That's how much narrative power an N game can put in the hands of a player.

mcv
2012-01-27, 08:57 AM
This being my first foray into research I'm starting easy: Regardless of what Ron may want us to believe, there are two claims I believe I can pull out of GNS.
1. People prioritize between the three corners.
2. Game sessions including players with different priorities will be less fun ("incoherent") than games where every player has the same priorities.
Keep in mind that one of the GNS corners (Simulationism) is an entire building in its own right. As far as I understand, character-driven drama can be S, but open-ended sandbox exploration is also definitely S. Highly tactical encounters can be S. Not everybody likes all those types of S. Some of them can go well with G or N, but don't have to.

Tyndmyr
2012-01-27, 09:37 AM
After the first half he starts assuming that a Gamist person can never have fun with a Narrativist person or that a Gamist person can not also be a Simulationist. That's the part that I didn't like. Is that how everyone else felt who posted here?

That's a large part of it.

Additionally, I feel like those are not the only three motivations for gaming. Consider the social gamer. He's not that fussed about the game itself, but plays because it's what he and his friends do when they hang out. He may enjoy the game a bit for other reasons as well, but the primary reason he plays is that it's a fun time with friends, and he's unlikely to play in a game with strangers.

Where does he fit into GNS?

mcv
2012-01-27, 09:56 AM
Additionally, I feel like those are not the only three motivations for gaming. Consider the social gamer. He's not that fussed about the game itself, but plays because it's what he and his friends do when they hang out. He may enjoy the game a bit for other reasons as well, but the primary reason he plays is that it's a fun time with friends, and he's unlikely to play in a game with strangers.

Where does he fit into GNS?

Officially, not very well, I think. Personally I think this kind of casual gaming is most compatible with gamism, because I feel that's the easiest, most straight to the point way of roleplaying.

In fact, I think there's a chronological ordering in the GNS styles. G is easiest to get. You play a character, the GM throws obstacles and challenges at you, and you've got rules on how to overcome them. Easy. Don't worry about why goblins and skeletons are living close together in the dungeon.

After a while, you start to notice that the world, the characters or the stories make no sense. Goblins and skeletons living closely together? How this weapon or skill works is completely unrealistic. And why are we even doing this? What is my motivation? That's when you move to S. You want plausible reasons to enter that dungeon, or you want a plausible reason why the dungeon is laid out the way it is, or you want rules that let you do the things that you would plausibly do in that scenario. There are many, many different aspects to this, and some people care about character motivations while others care about realistic rules or a immersive world, but these are all aspects about which you could be unsatisfied in gamism.

But while you are trying to build a story out of a big bag of plausible elements, it turns out that the focus is mostly on the world, the individual motivations or even on the increasingly detailed rules, while the stories that come out of it aren't making a lot of sense. Motivations are incompatible, combat takes too long, and it seems there's a fight for the limelight between different characters, the world and the system. So drop all the crap, and focus on the story, and on the different ways in which various characters want to interact with the story. One character might have inner demons to fight or something in his past, another is simply good at something, or there's some aspect of the world that's relevant to him. Focus on those, and have the system interact with all those player motivations equally. That's sort of what Narrativism is really about when you get right down to it, I think. N is about bypassing all the heavy handed stuff from S while keeping the awesome bits in a light-weight system. I think.

I admit I'm unsure about that third step, but the first two make sense to me. I'd love to heard opinions or improvements on this.

Anxe
2012-01-27, 10:50 AM
Edwards does address social gamers a tiny bit. He refers to them as "Audience players." However he just says he's not going to talk about them. I think he ignores the social gamer because within his system of each person only fitting into one of the archetypes (NO hybrids!) the Audience player should not care which system is being used.

My sister is a pretty good example of an Audience player. She played with my and my friends for a couple years because they were her friends too. I usually made her characters for her and she didn't care about being effective in our mostly Gamist atmosphere. She was just there to hang out.

My group has only played D&D 3.5 (Gamist system?), so I don't have much experience with "Narrativist" systems. However, we can still be Narrativist when playing 3.5. It just involves handwaving the rules occasionally. Recently the PCs volunteered for one job (preparing the army), but there was another job I wanted them to do at the same time (negotiating before the battle). We just handwaved it and said they could do both. Not a realistic handwave (Simulationist) or one for the sake of competition (Gamist). It was clearly a Narrativist decision.
As mcv said, we "dropped the crap and focused on the story."

It seems like the people who have replied think that Gamist, Narrativist, and Simulationist (and Audience as well) are the best labels out there for most playstyles. Any thoughts on others to include or changes to be made between the 3(4)?

mcv
2012-01-27, 11:24 AM
I think Simulationist players can easily be subdivided into Deep Character Roleplayers, Explorers, Tacticians, and possibly a few more. It's big bucket.

Anxe
2012-01-27, 08:12 PM
Gamists can be divided into competition with the DM and competition with each other.