Addition to GNS Model
Caldis:
Yeah that makes sense to me and it is different than GNS. I dont see it as an agenda that is guiding your entire groups play however rather it is a momentary reward that has come about because your group had a smoothly functioning agenda.
Let me give you a quote from Ron's Narrativism:Story Now essay. "Creative Agenda is the blanket term for people's demonstrated goals and desired feedback during play. In the past, I called it "GNS." Since all of this is enclosed in Social Contract, GNS-stuff is not only "what I want" but also "what I want from role-playing with this group of people."
So when we're looking for an agenda we're not just looking for that "Emergent" moment you described in your example but how with this group of people you are able to get to that moment. I believe there are a lot of different ways to get to those moments and you can get to them, though they may look different, with each CA. You've mentioned a few things that helped you get to this moment, things like grapple and strength checks but really those are only small parts of the whole. There's a king and centaur guards and a situation where the characters being pushed towards a portal. What decisions or actions did you as GM or the players involved take to get you to that point?
Jasper Flick:
To me, your centaur is a fun example of going with the flow and responding to player input. Personally, I do all that all the time, regardless whichever CA might be at work.
I guess this is Emphemera and Technique stuff. They might facilitate a certain CA well, but they aren't CA themselves.
So either this thread will become "What is CA anyway?" all over again. Or it might deal with the presence of "Emergentism", not as a CA, but as a Technique, versus the lack thereof. Or I failed to grasp the issue.
Gamism and Narrativism: Mutually Exclusive is the latest topic with the ubiquitous CA troubles, where Ron gives a nice pig-lover example and links to the Frostfolk threads. Higly recommended!
Ayyavazi:
I can't recommend the Frostfolk threads enough. They helped me to understand Narrativism extremely well(at least I think they did).
Also, the aha moment you are referring to with the centaurs seems to parallel the frostfolk thread very well.
I just have one question for you about this idea that the story emerges without people being aware of how it will go ahead of time: You were the GM, and you obviously knew what was beyond the portal. You weren't in the dark at all about what challenges were upcoming, the only thing you didn't expect was that the players would co-opt one of your NPCs for not just the session, but the rest of the campaign. Surely you had knowledge (at the very least a glimmer of an outline) of the vague directions you wanted the story to progress in. Unless you are speaking of everyone not knowing where the story is going, it seems like what you did would be better termed Intergrationism, by which players integrate each other's ideas constantly, never knowing the end result. But it sounds to me very narrativist. Then again, I'm new to all of this, so take it with a BIG grain of salt.
Cheers,
--Norm
Marshall Burns:
This is touchy. All roleplaying is about "let's see what happens." The distinction between Creative Agendas is why we care what happens.
But there's a little more to it than that, because sometimes the reason we care what happens is just because it's fascinating (or funny or cool or whatever) in itself. We just celebrate the happening, for itself, because it's neat. Kinda like model trains. For example, look at this (fairly brief and funny) playtest report: [Super Action Now!] Bubba Bad's bad day. Is this the sort of thing you're getting at, Morgan?
I'd like to say more, but I need the answer to that question first, otherwise I'll just be going off on something irrelevant.
-Marshall
Alan:
Hi Nexus,
Check out Ron's post to another recent thread
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=28247.msg265990#msg265990 where describes Exploration as the platform that supports a second construction of Creative Agenda.
I think your example of the centaur NPC being promoted by events from spearcarrier to companion is an example of imagination at play, which is essentially Exploration. What do you think?
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