Drifting toward a better Sim
John Adams:
Wow! Jay ... thank you for your interest and your cogent reply.
My group's play consistently tried (and miserably failed) to support all 3 CA's without recognising them as such. Because we're good friends it seldom got to the level of full-blown CA conflict; I think each of us gave up on individual CA's somewhere along the way. We figured, "heck, what I want would be great fun, but it just isn't possible" or "we almost got it that time! Let's try it just one more time ..." but without the Big Model our chances or realizing any CA were almost nil. So I agree we've never seen the Sim CA firing on all cylinders. We've come close to a CA every now and then, but never for a full reward cycle.
I can see pretty clearly now how my desire for Nar guided this last campaign especially. Unfortunately, when I started I didn't have the tools to actually get there. I've been trying to run "the GM's story" for decades and it has never really worked, so my motivation to run or play in a successful Nar game is very high.
But I also have a strong Sim impulse. I put bathrooms in my dungeons for Pete's sake! I do enjoy deep-diving into the history and culture of the world and letting that drive play. We had that in this game too, but it wasn't The Priority of play. All of the characters were tied into the fabric of the world and of their culture, they just weren't tied to each other or the "GM plot".
Someday I will have scratched my Nar itch and I'll want to go back to do some Sim; when I do I hope there is a system (or I'll write one) which focuses and drives Sim play as well as DitV drives and focuses Nar play. I disagree that "mechanics that 'control' or 'drive' play are anathema to Sim", or rather I don't see why that must be so. The designer needs to be very careful answering the question "what are you simulating?" and hammer that answer home. It's OK to have 170 pages simulating medieval combat if that's what your game is about but to use such a system for any other purpose would be madness. I freely claim ignorance here, maybe you're right but I see it as more of a "here's why we mostly ignore the rules, historically" than "this is a necessary feature of Sim." It seems to me many designers are looking at Sim now, so maybe 2008-2009 will see some amazing new Sim designs. Surely there's lots of new ground to break.
Silmenume:
Hi John!
It's me again.
So are you gonna run a dyed in the wool Narrativist support game for your current group or are you going to step out just so that you can get a real solid taste of what its all about? I ask because if you are going to run a purposefully designed Nar game for your current players it might be a great opportunity to plumb your players interests. Who is reacting how to what situations? How do they regard the mechanics with regards to the play “experience.” Help? Hinder? Why... (just a little market research – through a partially silvered mirror that is >:o) )
Gosh! I just went through your whole post, albeit quickly, but I could not find the section where you made a quick assessment of your players' CA interests - if it was even in this particular thread. Doh! I'm not sure how much back reading you've done but if you haven't you should know that interviewing you players about their CA interests doesn't work. You have to watch your players in action. It's the small fleeting things that give the signals that you need to look for. If I recall these indicators are called “tells.” Another important idea, and I think it has already been brought up in this thread, you can't “sneak up” on a CA. You just have to make a clean break of it and move on to a well designed functional game system designed for a particular CA. Watch for tells. IF your players agree then run a rock solid “Nar” game for a few sessions and then switch to and run a solidly “Gam” game (In the Gamism article Ron included such games as Tunnels&Trolls, Kobolds Ate My Baby and Ninja Burger as representative) for a few sessions. Watch your players. Note who is reacting to what. This process should help with diagnosing the “true” CA's of your players. It is possible for players to enjoy multiple CA's, but from what I have read this is only likely to happen once said player understands what CA's are all about and makes a conscious effort to play in these different modes of play. Finally, there are no known functional hybrids.
Now about what I have both spent much time thinking about and playing – Sim.
For starters Sim is most certainly not “about details,” ad nauseam. While it is amusing to note that you had the care to “put bathrooms in [your] dungeons,” that level of attention to detail is not particular to Sim. Sim is a CA and as such is process oriented, just like Gam and Nar.; its something that all the players at the table are doing.
Having all the social structures in your game is “good,” but I am baffled about the statement that they weren't the “Priority of play.” Social structures and such are the fabric of the fictional world in which the player characters do their thing. They are neither the priority or not the priority of play, they are just a necessary element of play. You need a chess board to play chess; its not “about” the chess board but it does have a vital role in the game.
All this blather being said, I am curious as to what the Priority of your play was.
See, (pulls out, a hopefully non offensive, soap box) I find the ideas of a “GM plot” as well as the ubiquitous “adventuring group” to be as toxic to Sim as predetermined story is to Nar and as GM fudging is to Gamism. Ultimately the “GM plot” means deprotagonizing the players because, at the end of the day, the “world” is going to end up at a certain predetermined situation irrespective of player input. The most powerful and pernicious tool in the GM shed to accomplish this is the “adventuring group.” The rationale that a group of individuals, and frequently a group that is composed of some diametrically opposed individuals, not only does but must stick together for so long for no rational reason is ludicrous; yet such a structure is presumed to be vital to a long running a campaign. (...or a short one for that matter.)
Because in both cases the players are deprotagonized and what is worse is that they aren't consciously aware of it, yet their play is affected as they eventually stop inputting. They sit back and let the GM do all the thinking for them – as is necessary if one has a plot to follow AND the players have to stick together.
There are other ways to handle this that allow for real player input. Whether or not these particular techniques are vital to Sim or are just a subset of a greater set of tools I don't know.
First get rid of the “plot” and “motivate” you major (and even minor) NPC's instead. Think in terms of desires, not end points. This allows events to change without the GM sitting there facing a situation where he MUST deprotagonize his players because he just doesn't know what else to do. THE PLOT MUST BE PROTECTED AT ALL COSTS! :) So rather than getting into a rigid plot paradigm start to scheme and machinate instead! Put events into play but let the players have an effect, if they do something that would have an effect, and think how the NPC would react. Rather than forcing your players, be flexible with your NPC's. This is where they will shine anyway. Just as how players deal with conflict illuminates their characters so too how the NPC's react to the players illuminates them as well.
Get rid of the fixed adventuring group! Let the players motivate their characters and let them act on those motivations (this includes giving them the freedom to respond to conflicts anyway their see fit for their characters to react). So your saying, “how in the world do you run such a game?” The solution is simple, the execution less so. Aggressive framing at the beginning of the night, have the player generate a folio of characters, over time preferably. You don't have to worry if someone gets killed, he's still in the world with other his characters. The main (NPC) players are still in the world doing their things. Making sure everyone is at or near the same level is no longer an issue. The players get to play and taste all sorts of things now. Hero one night, coward the next. Idealist one session a cynic on another. Don't think class – think personality.
.....
There's more that I want to say, but I'm kinda blanking out at the moment. However, I leave you with a gift! ;o) Here is a link to a post I made about 3(!) years ago with a whole bunch of links in it that you might find relevant.
John Adams:
That's a long post Jay, but I think this will answer most of it: over the last year and a half I worked in 2 sessions of Capes and a roll-up session of Dogs with the initiations. There was a strong visceral response from some of my players and they weren't shy about telling me. Not fun for them. OK then, moving on.
So I'm going to put together a new game of Dogs, network with some new players and hopefully get in on a variety of Nar games. Maybe then I'll think about some Sim.
David Berg:
Hi John,
In case you ever decide to throw a different Nar wrinkle at your old play group, I just wanted to mention that the first Nar game that "clicked" for me was PTA. I could customize it to taste, whereas Dogs is very much a certain thing, and isn't my personal cup of tea.
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