Gamism and Narrativism: Mutually Exclusive
Ayyavazi:
Hello all,
Thanks for the responses. It feels good (in an odd sort of way) to know that I have a thread that is interesting for people and sparks new and creative thought (at least I hope its doing that, rather than simply giving people a chance to espouse their deeply held convictions).
That said, I am sad that Ron will not be able to answer my questions until after GenCon. All in all, I suppose it can wait. The situation is hardly life or death.
But, as for techniques not applying to Creative Agenda, I am surprised that you thought I meant that at all. Perhaps I wrote something that sounded like that (an example would be great). But, my intention is to show that because of the close nature of techniques (and groups of techniques) to Creative Agenda, and the given definitions of creative agenda, no hybrid play is allowed. What I mean is this: Each agenda is defined by being THE point of play. It automatically excludes any notion of hybrid play because then it would not be the only point of play, it would be one of two or one of three. Therefore, if everyone insists on keeping the agendas as they are, then new agendas need to be explicitly created and termed so that we can begin to discuss them. Sadly, I am not sure if such a path is worth treading until Ron is able to respond to my earlier post.
And for those of you who have repeatedly focused on the strong tactical play, please read this carefully. Our enjoyment did not come ONLY from the tactical play. It came from taking the risks and coming out on top. It also came from whatever (if any) small narrative moments were occurring in the fiction. For example, one time my character threatened a group of goblins that I would kill their children (whom I was keeping hostage at my magical fingertips) if they didn't throw down their weapons. Their response (calling my bluff, or even, just sheer desperation) forced me to address just how far my character would go to accomplish his God's and the State's will. The point was, he was beginning to care about the Goblins, even though he shouldn't have.
Either way, the point is that we weren't getting fun from just a combo of tactics and narrative. Some of the fun came from the backslapping on good choices. Essentially, within those moments, we had a dual purpose at the table. We wanted to address premise (assuming it was there) and we wanted to be esteemed for our tactical choices.
Ron had previously addressed this by saying that by being able to fully enjoy the addressing of premise, we were now open to enjoy other aspects of the system that were not necessarily narrativist in design. I think that though this has some truth in it (being that overall, we played narrativist), I also believe that in our geeky gamer hearts, we enjoy the backslapping just as much, and perhaps more, at least in the moment.
Cheers,
--Norm
Ralek:
Hi Norm,
The struggle you are going through in understanding what the Creative Agendas mean and how they apply is something I've stuggled with a few years back and you seem to be stuck roughly on the same points I was. It makes no sense to analyze Creative Agenda moment to moment. It can only become apparent after a full reward cycle, an instance of play.
Also, CA is entirely personal, there is no such thing as a group CA, although when everyone in the group shares the same CA during the same instance of play, play is considered coherent and, generally speaking, more fun.
Should also be noted that your own point of play can vary from one instance of play to another even with the same group and using the same system. Your "point of play" can vary between instances of play, but it is prevalent throughout a single one.
Explaining why you can only analyze CA after a full reward cycle is something entirely non-trivial and I'm going to try using an analogy. Let's talk about TV series and more specifically the TV drama ER. If you look at an individual episode of the series as a whole, its genre is pretty easy to identify. If you dissect that same episode into its individual scenes, you'll have some action moments, some comic relief moments and some dramatic moments. In fact all those elements are pretty much necessary for the episode to work and deliver its full dramatic impact, but you won't call it a comedy or an action show. You can enjoy the comic bits or the action bits tremendously, but that's not why you watch the show. By the same token, someone who likes comedies or action shows but dislikes soapy dramas, will not like an ER episode even if its a particulary comic or action oriented one.
Hope I made some sense.
Cheers,
--Rogerio
Ayyavazi:
You made plenty of sense. Its just the sense you are making that I have a problem with. :-)
Here's the thing. Ron has said that a person does not have a GNS specifically. That agenda is a group thing that pierces all aspects of the model. To me, this means it should be observable at all points, like in your scene to scene description. The biggest punch is at the end of the whole show, slightly less so per season, per episode and so forth. But if people can play any agenda and enjoy it, which seems to be what is being said by saying that people don't possess an agenda, they play it, then that means that the definition you give of agenda doesn't serve to address hybridization at all. All it says is that there may exist a play agenda that is hybridized Narrativism-Gamism, but Narrativism by itself can never be combined with Gamism. That sounds like we are just arguing the terms.
I am not trying to come off harsh or angry, because I am neither. I am just trying to understand. If I have to stop using Gamism and Narrativism in order to get my point across, I will. But this whole definition gripe is starting to be a little annoying. How are we supposed to discuss hybridized play if everyone keeps saying that by definition it can't happen? And every time I have seen an actual play post dissected, it seems like someone calls the CA, and there there may be some back and forth before it settles on one. If someone argues that there were two, it gets argued down to one, and the other was just exploration of other techniques that happened to generate lots of fun, rather than the possibility that there were two agendas present simultaneously, one more prominent than another. But I am probably ranting.
I do thank you for your input, especially if you think that we have similar problems, or at least you identify with my struggle. I would like to know more of your thoughts on this issue.
Cheers,
--Norm
Ralek:
Quote from: Ayyavazi on August 11, 2009, 09:31:42 AM
To me, this means it should be observable at all points, like in your scene to scene description. The biggest punch is at the end of the whole show, slightly less so per season, per episode and so forth. But if people can play any agenda and enjoy it, which seems to be what is being said by saying that people don't possess an agenda, they play it, then that means that the definition you give of agenda doesn't serve to address hybridization at all. All it says is that there may exist a play agenda that is hybridized Narrativism-Gamism, but Narrativism by itself can never be combined with Gamism. That sounds like we are just arguing the terms.
I believe you missed my point related to dissecting a full episode scene to scene. When someone is watching an ER episode and they utterly enjoy a comic relief moment, that doesn't mean they enjoy comedies (altough they may), it means they enjoyed that scene as it relates to the whole episode. The same way if you see someone utterly enjoying crunchy tactical combat in D&D it doesn't necessarily mean they are playing a Gamist agenda (although they may), it just means they enjoyed that tactical combat as it relates to the whole instance of play. To begin to garner what that person's priorities during play are, you have to take into consideration the whole instance, from start to end of the reward cycle. You can't determine or classify a single moment in play as belonging to one agenda the same way you can't determine a TV series genre from a single scene.
I think the thing you are stuggling with comes from the fact that you are trying to connect single moments in play to agenda where this itself contradicts the agenda definition. You are looking at someone who seems to be enjoying a crunchy tactical combat in D&D and labelling that as gamist which is grossly incorrect. You have to look at why he is enjoying it, what else did he enjoy, was he more worried about the consequences of said combat? Would he still enjoy that combat if there were no consequences?
In your own play, would you enjoy the tactical elements if there were no moral choices to be made and no thematic material to address? If not, then you (probably) don't like the tactical combat. You like the tactical combat when it serves as a tool to determine the consequences or causal effects of the choices you made when addressing the thematic material. Just because you really want to win and make every effort to make sure you do win, that doesn't mean you are stepping on up, it just means you are invested in the combat and the potential consequences.
Just because agenda pierces all aspects of the model, it doesn't mean it should be observable at all points. It IS present at all points, but you can't observe it without looking at the whole. Going back to my analogy, you can't also determine genre from a single scene. A scene doesn't have a genre. To understand the point of a scene, you have to look at the whole thing.
--Rogerio
Caldis:
Norm, I looked back over the thread and I have to ask what has changed in your thoughts since you wrote this?
Quote from: Ayyavazi on July 28, 2009, 04:42:05 AM
So, in a system that attempts to equally reward more than one style of play, it can successfully reward them. But by doing so, groups will be split based on their basic desires of play. Gamists will ruin it for Narrativists and vice-versa. The only way a group could enjoy such a game is if everyone was on the same page, essentially making one whole set of reward-cycles useless and ignored.
So, in a game like mine (the DnD game I mean), players can't pursue both agendas at the same time, because to pursue gamism mars the pursuit of premise driven play, and vice versa. Any game that hybridized the two would need to somehow string its conflicts together so that both styles were rewarded in such a way that they complimented each other, with the Step On Up always reinforcing the Story Now, and the Story Now always providing a means to Step On Up. I dare say such a game has not been designed thus far, and whatever system is developed to do such a thing would be rightly called revolutionary.
But in the end, I think it means that for the moment, until such a game is designed, I understand and agree that the GNS agendas are mutually exclusive.
I think this is an excellent example of why Hybrids dont work in action. Ron picked it out in his followup and I think this post and his reply pretty much answer all your questions. Do you see something that remains unanswered?
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