Addition to GNS Model
rgrassi:
Hi,
Quote from: Marshall Burns on July 07, 2009, 03:19:47 PM
This is touchy. All roleplaying is about "let's see what happens."
I think that roleplaying (especially tabletop with human players) is "let's decide what happens."
The way how things to happen are decided vary according to system used.
Getting back in my corner... ;)
Rob
JoyWriter:
I think the fact that something can exist fleetingly in another CA doesn't stop it having it's own "place" where it gets centre stage. I remember playing this game with a friend of mine in primary school, which was basically setting up random sentence generators and having a chat to them. Really funny, and so much easier now we have easily available computing. We didn't decide anything, we just enjoyed poking things and seeing what happened.
The randomness sounds pretty like your example Marshal, (which is really funny in an absurdist kind of way) only I'm a bit older now and I want to upscale the principle to bigger, more adult things. I like guessing and being proved wrong, in a way that turns red herrings into the main plot and obvious next steps into nothing at all, but in a way that makes sense with hindsight.
So what's the bit that gets centre stage? Well Ron posted this before:
Quote
For a given instance of play, the three modes are exclusive in application. When someone tells me that their role-playing is "all three," what I see from them is this: features of (say) two of the goals appear in concert with, or in service to, the main one, but two or more fully-prioritized goals are not present at the same time. So in the course of Narrativist or Simulationist play, moments or aspects of competition that contribute to the main goal are not Gamism. In the course of Gamist or Simulationist play, moments of thematic commentary that contribute to the main goal are not Narrativism. In the course of Narrativist or Gamist play, moments of attention to plausibility that contribute to the main goal are not Simulationism. The primary and not to be compromised goal is what it is for a given instance of play.
What if the main goal is surprise? Surprise that expands the predictive imagination? It can be absurd, but it doesn't have to be.
Now what do I mean about expanding predictive imagination? Well when we look ahead in a game and try to work out what happens next, we may only see so many paths. The fact that "anything could happen" because we are making it up is not strictly true; despite the fact that we could in theory say anything, we can get stuck and not be able to think of any, or maybe only three or four. So what if the game encourages you to look in more different directions, and subverts and expands your expectation? Well if your anything like me, then you get this wonderful feeling of the world opening up, of freedom, because now there are more ways to go than there were before. Now with that I can laugh or go ooh or aha or all kinds of other responses, but that's why for me it hits home; it expresses the openness of the future, and gets you more creative and open to meet it.
Maybe people can pack that into another creative agenda in a smooth and harmonious way, but beware of the temptation to say, "we just do that as a side effect, therefore it is always a side effect".
Nexus6:
Hey all! Thanks for the thoughtful responses. I've been sifting through all the various forums and trying to figure out how to respond to everyone. That being said, I don't think this will respond to everyone, but there are a few important things I want to respond to:
-I think JoyWriter understands what I'm getting at, and their last post is a spot on. These sort of moments can exist within any CA, just as an overwhelmingly Gamist event can occur in a primarily Narritavist campaign and so on. But why can't the idea of events forming themselves inform the entire campaign?
Quote from: JoyWriter on July 08, 2009, 07:15:33 AM
What if the main goal is surprise? Surprise that expands the predictive imagination? It can be absurd, but it doesn't have to be.
Now what do I mean about expanding predictive imagination? Well when we look ahead in a game and try to work out what happens next, we may only see so many paths. The fact that "anything could happen" because we are making it up is not strictly true; despite the fact that we could in theory say anything, we can get stuck and not be able to think of any, or maybe only three or four. So what if the game encourages you to look in more different directions, and subverts and expands your expectation? Well if your anything like me, then you get this wonderful feeling of the world opening up, of freedom, because now there are more ways to go than there were before. Now with that I can laugh or go ooh or aha or all kinds of other responses, but that's why for me it hits home; it expresses the openness of the future, and gets you more creative and open to meet it.
Nail on the head. Surprise is the real key to this idea. And not just for the players, for the GM as well.
-rgrassi said something that I really like. Most roleplaying does seem to be, "let's decide what happens." "Let's SEE what happens" just brings a whole new sense of wonder and possibility to the idea.
-Marshall Burns posted a (very funny) example of some actual play he thought was relevant to this topic. I'm not sure it is, but I can't tell by the description. Marshall, how did those events arise? Did the GM know the temple of rats was there? Was there anything surprising to all parties? A random element is key in the idea of Emergentism that I'm talking about. But random in the sense of a dice roll, not "I just thought of this random thing" so much. But that's a sticky area, because too many random rolls and you take away all choice. There has to be a balance.
Anyway, I still think that this idea is worthy of constituting a different CA, though I can see how people are relating it to Exploration and such. Maybe I'll clear my head a bit and post something else on that, but for the time being, like I said, JoyWriter seems to be spot on.
-Morgan
Rustin:
Perhaps it's the Fruitful Void of that groups' particular Story Now agenda.
Caldis:
Quote from: JoyWriter on July 08, 2009, 07:15:33 AM
I think the fact that something can exist fleetingly in another CA doesn't stop it having it's own "place" where it gets centre stage. I remember playing this game with a friend of mine in primary school, which was basically setting up random sentence generators and having a chat to them. Really funny, and so much easier now we have easily available computing. We didn't decide anything, we just enjoyed poking things and seeing what happened.
This little example may or may not meet the criteria for a seperate agenda but I dont see how it matches the op's example. His game didnt contain randomly created nonsense that you try and jumble together to create something interesting. Instead there was a specific setting, situation and characters whose interaction brought about new and unexpected results. I think this is the heart of exploration or shared imagined space and why we play with other people rather than just sit around imaging things on our own. We dont necessarily know how things will turn out or what others will do, which is both a challenge and an opportunity. When you can take that opportunity and run with it it's a pretty amazing thing but it can also be tough when someone comes up with something totally unexpected.
Take this thread as an example. http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=12467.0
The players are suprising or maybe emergent content is coming about from each participants input but it's clearly not just surprise they are playing for or rather they have a focus to how they are bringing about those surprises. There isnt enough in your example to say what the focus was for your game but I dont see any action taken on the part of the participants to bring about those surprises. I do see a commitment to the situation, setting and system used and that combination brought about the surprise.
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