Quote from: Benoist;725408I think the categories themselves are horseshit.

In case it wasn't clear, I agree.

Quote from: Omega;725433Reading over some of this stuff. I think your comment was fairly on target. You see it in other gaming circles as well. Though not on the GNS scale.

Yup.  People aren't comfortable just saying "I like XYZ", they've gotta turn it into some kind of object truth based on principles.  It's kinda weird.

The funny thing is, if it was just put forth as "hey, how do you make games to help teach a particular style of playing", then I'd be a lot less critical of it.

I didnt mind the Stances, which Im relativelly certain were being discussed on Usenet years before GNS. I think they were much more useful for discussing approahes to game design and identifying what players want from a game. Though it needed a lot more expansion, theres many more stances than Edwards identified.

Quote from: S'mon;725361So by your given standard the shared narrative authority stuff from S John Ross (I think) in 4e DMG2 makes 4e D&D a Narrativist game

Mabye. I think 4e D&D lends itself well to a light narrativism covering a fairly narrow range of themes (namely, those that can be dealt with in the context of interpersonal fantasy violence!). But the shared narrative stuff in DMG2 I see as somewhat orthogonal to that, and I personally find it can cause issue with players squibbing - which goes back to my preference for GM authority over scene-framing.

This could be used for high concept sim as much as for narrativism if the players, in deciding (say) who's in the tower over the hill, had more regard to preserving the purity of the prior fiction than to pushing their own thematic/evaluative agenda.

Rather than the DMG2-style shared narration, I think the Burning Wheel sort of stuff - which Mearls also has hints of in his most recent Legends & Lore column - is closer to my mark: the players help put together the "big picture" for the campaign (this is the thematic stuff, and the who/where stuff), but then it's the GM's job to take that and actually feed it into play in a way that puts the players (and their PCs) under pressure (this is the same "no squibbing" thing).

Quote from: robiswrong;725398I do believe that V:tM (or possibly a different WW game) was the original impetus behind the theory

I think that's right.

I personally think that the biggest issue with the theory is its classification of purist-for-sim and high concept sim as both sim modes. While this is technically correct within the theory's definition of "exploration", I don't think it captures the typical motivations or rationales of those two sorts of game. Yet issues around high concept sim, and its relationship to narrativism, and also to mechanical techniques inherited from a D&D that was written to support Gygaxian "skilled play", are in my view at the heart of Edwards' problems with Vampire, and similar problems that others have with 90s 2nd ed AD&D.

And to head off on a related tangent: The most popular contemporary form of high concept sim must be the Paizo adventure path, and I think understanding how that sort of game works, and why some people like it and others don't, doesn't really have much in common with thinking about games like Runequeset, Traveller or Rolemaster. I think it also shows that Edwards' was wrong, or at least not completely correct, when he looked at 3E D&D as primarily a gamist engine. For instance, when people talk about the flexibility of 3E/PF, and of customisability, and of the ability to really develop a particular character concept in detail, I think these are the sorts of desires for a game that - in GNS terms - fall within the ambit of high concept sim. And Paizo seems to be delivering on it with no obvious meltdowns so far - or at least none that are obvious to this outside observer.

Quote from: TristramEvans;725480I didnt mind the



Though it needed a lot more expansion, theres many more stances than Edwards identified.

I don't mind stances, but I do have one issue with them: at least as defined by Edwards they are certain logical or analytical categories, but discussion of them often proceeds as if they are empirical or psychological categories. Hence you see it suggested that a player can't make a choice, in play, that occurs both within actor and director stance - whereas my own play experience actually makes me think this is quite common.

For instance, the player, knowing that his/her PC is in a kitchen arguing with the chef and feeling that his PC is at the stage where violence would ensue, says "I look around for a pan and pick one up so I can clock the chef over the head with it". That piece of action declaration doesn't require departing from the perspective and motivations of the PC - and so takes place in actor stance - but also has a small bit of director stance built into it - namely declaring the existence of a pan in the kitchen.

I therefore think that Edwards - and many others - are wrong to think that immersive play is tightly linked to a pure actor stance approach. "Immersion" clearly is a psychological state, but I don't think there is any tight link between psychological states and the logical categories of action declaration that are defined as stances.

Hi, pemerton, and welcome. (This is a belated reply to your post yesterday. I'll reply to today's later.)

Quote from: pemertonThe key issues for me are (i) who gets to decide what counts as the (morally) right or wrong choices within the fiction (eg what should the PCs do; who is the BBEG; etc), and (ii) who gets to decide what the focus of play will be in story terms (eg what sorts of places will the PCs go to, what sort of people will they meet, at least in general terms; etc).

In both cases I prefer that the players rather than the GM have the overall authority here (though when it comes to the details of scene-framing I favour GM authority, so that the players aren't tempted to squib). And I've long disliked mechanical alignment (I dropped it in the mid-80s), and I find Edwards's simulationism essay gives a good explanation for the connection between my play preferences and my dislike of mechanical alignment.

Thanks, that's interesting. Personally, I've also rarely played with alignment. I would note that it is one of the least-imitated aspects of D&D in other RPGs. Most RPGs don't require that actions be classified as morally right or wrong, which means that players can judge each other on right and wrong.

Regarding (ii) - your wanting focus to be directed by players, I think that is a common preference in RPGs. A key follow-on question is how players should express control over the focus of play.

A) One way for players to express control is through character action. i.e. The players want to meet some farmers, so they have their characters travel out to the countryside. This sort of control is a part of some kinds of sandbox play. The GM sets up the map - but the map allows the PCs to choose where they go and who they meet.

B) Another way for players to express control is through metagame action. So, the players might spend a token and say that they are framing a scene where the PCs talk to some farmers.

One argument I frequently had with others at the Forge was that they consistently refused to acknowledge that in-character action could have any power. My question for you would be - given your interest in player control, do you have any feelings about these different types of player control.

Quote from: pemertonAs I understand it, the play I like is narrativist play (Edwards's term) and at least one mode of dramatist play (John Kim's term?). In his "Story Now" essay Edwards suggests that the difference in terminology is, at least in general terms, merely terminological - he wants to use "drama" to describe a resolution mode and so wants something else to describe the "dramatist" orientation of play.

I think Edwards has a clear inconsistency in his essay between his formal definition of narrativism and the examples he gives: he classifies The Dying Earth as supporting narrativist play, although it doesn't satisfy his formal requirement of having players address a moral or heavily thematic question of human existence.

This is part of the huge problem I have with Ron's definitions - even more so with Simulationism. Basically, Ron wanted to include dramatic play with GM-controlled story into Simulationism, along with other dramatic play that he didn't like. This made the categories highly non-intuitive - such that Ron and others would regularly ignore their own definitions and drop back into the more intuitive definitions that Simulationism is about in-character play and environment (i.e. simulation), while Narrativism is about story.

Quote from: pemerton;725491I don't mind stances, but I do have one issue with them: at least as defined by Edwards they are certain logical or analytical categories, but discussion of them often proceeds as if they are empirical or psychological categories. Hence you see it suggested that a player can't make a choice, in play, that occurs both within actor and director stance - whereas my own play experience actually makes me think this is quite common.

For instance, the player, knowing that his/her PC is in a kitchen arguing with the chef and feeling that his PC is at the stage where violence would ensue, says "I look around for a pan and pick one up so I can clock the chef over the head with it". That piece of action declaration doesn't require departing from the perspective and motivations of the PC - and so takes place in actor stance - but also has a small bit of director stance built into it - namely declaring the existence of a pan in the kitchen.

I therefore think that Edwards - and many others - are wrong to think that immersive play is tightly linked to a pure actor stance approach. "Immersion" clearly is a psychological state, but I don't think there is any tight link between psychological states and the logical categories of action declaration that are defined as stances.

I agree mostly. Im reminded of a story I heard a long time ago about a GM describing an impromptu freeform rpg where it was just him and one player in a sci-fi setting. The player was "Dirk Dashing, Space Captain", or something to that effect, and the premise was retro-Golden Age Science Fiction. Beyond that, everything was just spur of the moment streaming consciousness, the GM and player riffing off one another. At one point the player says " I use my anti-gravity belt to float up above the crowd". I still recall specifically the GM's response when writing about it later: "of course he has an Anti-Grav belt. Why else would he have mentioned it?"

Thats an extreme example of what I would call the "common sense factor" in Immersion. If a player is in a kitchen, and they say "I grab a knife put of the drawer", that doesnt break the immersion because I as GM didnt describe the drawer having a set of cutlery in it. And there's no "mother may I?" necessary on the player's part to wait for that specific bit of info before taking that action. Its just a shared assumption about what it means for that character to be in that place, in that situation. The assumption is actually because of and maintains immersion, rather  than suddenly becoming a storygame moment, or something.

This is actually how I explain the use of "Story Points" to my players when playing Dr. Who. Not "heres a metagame mechanic that you as author of this character's story can use to alter or add to the plot", rather "heres a method of establishing a common sense assumption without having to break the flow of the game by pausing to wait for GM approval".

I dont find this contrary to immersion in any way, rather quite the opposite. Although Im also not certain that its a matter of switching stances from Actor to Author.

I would want to do a full revision of what stances mean before I agreed to thier use as diagnostic tools, obviously, and yes, I dont think they should ever be mistaken for psychology. For me, thier use mainly would come from evaluating mechanics in a system outside of gameplay: "Does this mechanic interact with an Actor stance or does it force the switch to an Author stance when its used?" for example.

Quote from: TristramEvans;725551Thats an extreme example of what I would call the "common sense factor" in Immersion. If a player is in a kitchen, and they say "I grab a knife put of the drawer", that doesnt break the immersion because I as GM didnt describe the drawer having a set of cutlery in it. And there's no "mother may I?" necessary on the player's part to wait for that specific bit of info before taking that action. Its just a shared assumption about what it means for that character to be in that place, in that situation. The assumption is actually because of and maintains immersion, rather  than suddenly becoming a storygame moment, or something.

I look at a lot of the "declaring a detail" use of Story Points/whatever to be similar to that, but I'd like to expand a bit.

There's things like grabbing a knife in a kitchen that are just obvious (though where the knives are stored is a separate question, and may be interesting based on the situation...).  There's also things that just make no sense, like "is there a unicorn in the kitchen?" in a CoC game, or less egregiously, "is there a drill press in the kitchen?"  In both cases, it's easy enough just to say "no, of course not."  It's a ridiculous request (barring the situation being set up that the kitchen was under construction).

But there's a lot of stuff in the middle.  "Is there a wrench in here?"  Well... maybe.  Maybe someone left one there.  It's not *automatic*, but it doesn't strain credulity.  That's the kind of thing that the GM might roll for - and that's where I see use of metagame resources - to shift that "maybe" into a "yes".

Quote from: TristramEvans;725551I dont find this contrary to immersion in any way, rather quite the opposite. Although Im also not certain that its a matter of switching stances from Actor to Author.

There's a lot of things that can break immersion.  A lot of that is based on what people are used to.  I don't find a quick break to Author Stance more immersion-breaking than a much longer period looking up tables, for instance, or counting squares on a map.

Quote from: TristramEvans;725551I would want to do a full revision of what stances mean before I agreed to thier use as diagnostic tools, obviously, and yes, I dont think they should ever be mistaken for psychology. For me, thier use mainly would come from evaluating mechanics in a system outside of gameplay: "Does this mechanic interact with an Actor stance or does it force the switch to an Author stance when its used?" for example.

Yeah.  A number of the observations/ideas from the Forge - the supporting stuff - seem useful.  But the high-level conclusions are what I pretty strongly disagree with.  I find Vincent Baker's articles on clouds and boxes interesting and good food for thought in terms of game structure, for instance.

Quote from: robiswrong;725443In case it wasn't clear, I agree.

*nod*

I think the whole premise of a "creative agenda" is a red herring. Likewise to qualify the ulterior motive going on in any particular decision taken during the game as it is played out, for that matter, because to me part of the point to playing a role playing game is to not have an ulterior motive in such processes, that is, you are in situation and the back-and-forth between players and GM happens completely organically from the world's standpoint, when the game takes a life of its own, without any regard for meta-game rationalizations - whether that's "what would logically happen in this situation," "it makes it better for the story," "it makes for a game that's more fun," or whatever else.

That's what I personally call role playing.

So the notion of cultivating particular "creative agendas" or overt, outside of the game rationalizations of what's going on in the game, with the aim of justifying particular decisions or uses of rules or events in the game or whatever else, or the intent/process of codifying each particular motivation in order to consciously design games that cater to these, for that matter, actually runs contrary to the whole point of the role playing experience itself, from my standpoint.

To make that clear, what I'm talking about here has nothing to do with "sim" or what is "realistic" or any particular intent to "simulate" something through the game, IMO. So the pigeonholing into Simulationism can go hang itself, as far as I'm concerned.

Quote from: Benoist;725558*nod*

I think the whole premise of a "creative agenda" is a red herring. Likewise to qualify the ulterior motive going on in any particular decision taken during the game as it is played out, for that matter, because to me part of the point to playing a role playing game is to not have an ulterior motive in such processes, that is, you are in situation and the back-and-forth between players and GM happen completely organically from the world's standpoint, when the game takes a life of its own, without any regard for meta-game rationalizations - whether that's "what would logically happen in this situation," "it makes it better for the story," "it makes for a game that's more fun," or whatever else.

That's what I personally call role playing.

So the notion of cultivating particular "creative agendas" or overt, outside of the game rationalizations of what's going on in the game, with the aim of justifying particular decisions or uses of rules or events in the game or whatever else, or the intent/process of codifying each particular motivation in order to consciously design games that cater to these, for that matter, actually runs contrary to the whole point of the role playing experience itself, from my standpoint.

To make that clear, what I'm talking about here has nothing to do with "sim" or what is "realistic" or any particular intent to "simulate" something through the game, IMO. So the pigeonholing into Simulationism can go hang itself, as far as I'm concerned.

I think I get what you are saying and if so, this has been in the back of my mind as well. GNS kind of brings these agendas (even ones done in the name of immersion) to the forefront artificially, but most people dont think like that or play like that. You just kind of play naturally. A person observing might sense you are cutting across different agendas or goals useing whatever model they happen to come up with, and then conclude something is wrong, because the focus in their view should be on one of these constructs. But gaming works best in my opinion, when you are not thinking about that stuff...at least for me.

Quote from: pemerton;725491I think that's right.

Cool.  And I think that Forge-theory, *especially* the high-level conclusions makes far more sense when viewed from that angle.

Which isn't surprising - most non-rigorous analysis of things ends up being colored by the context that they were spawned from.  Richard Bartle's classification of MUD players (aces, hearts, clubs, diamonds) makes a *lot* more sense if you've played his game.

Do you have any comments on my other issues with GNS theory?

Quote from: pemerton;725491I personally think that the biggest issue with the theory is its classification of purist-for-sim and high concept sim as both sim modes.

I think it's indicative of the larger problem I have with GNS - namely that the GNS modes are an overeager generalization, and of little use as a primary categorization method.

Quote from: pemerton;725491And to head off on a related tangent: The most popular contemporary form of high concept sim must be the Paizo adventure path, and I think understanding how that sort of game works, and why some people like it and others don't, doesn't really have much in common with thinking about games like Runequeset, Traveller or Rolemaster.

I think it's more interesting to look at the players in AP-style games and what they get out of them.  Apart from the common social needs that are served by almost any RPG, I see (primarily):

1) The ability to have complex set-piece battles
2) Lowered GM prep
3) Character build opportunities
4) Tactical combat
5) A consistent story
6) (For PFS) the ability to maintain a character beyond a particular GM

Most of these center around 'game-like' behavior.

Quote from: pemerton;725491I therefore think that Edwards - and many others - are wrong to think that immersive play is tightly linked to a pure actor stance approach. "Immersion" clearly is a psychological state, but I don't think there is any tight link between psychological states and the logical categories of action declaration that are defined as stances.

As I've said above, I think that immersion is a very *personal* thing, and what breaks immersion will be different for different people.  I think it's relatively clear that spending more time in actor stance is beneficial to immersion.  I also think that spending more time focused on "the fiction" - the stuff that's being imagined - is helpful to immersion.

Apart from that, certain things will be immersion-breaking to some people, and not to others, based upon personal preference and (my opinion) familiarity.

I think there's an interesting stance that's often ignored - that's the stance that you frequently see in heavy conflicts where the player is focused on maximizing their effectiveness in terms of counting specific squares, or hunting for bonuses, or doing other math-related things rather than focusing on "the fiction".  I'd probably call that something like "Player Stance", or "Chessmaster Stance".  I think "Player Stance" is pretty clear in that the player is acting as a game player, and making mechanical system-level decisions, but it's also rather confusing with the fact that a player is, well, a player.

Quote from: Benoist;725558because to me part of the point to playing a role playing game is to not have an ulterior motive in such processes, that is, you are in situation and the back-and-forth between players and GM happen completely organically from the world's standpoint, when the game takes a life of its own, without any regard for meta-game rationalizations - whether that's "what would logically happen in this situation," "it makes it better for the story," "it makes for a game that's more fun," or whatever else.

That's what I personally call role playing.

Yeah, I see what you're saying in terms of "agenda" implying some overt overarching goal.

But at the same time, I think that when presented with a choice in a game, players have some way of evaluating what is the best action to take.  Whether that's based on what is most advantageous to them, what their character would likely do based on that character's personality, what would be interesting to do, what makes the biggest explosion, what's the most depraved thing they can do, etc.

In most players these things are probably mostly unconscious, and it's a blend of several different things, at differing ratios for different players.  "I'll do the most advantageous thing for me, unless it's grossly out of character" vs. "I'll do the most in-character thing, unless it's grossly disadvantageous", for instance.

But for most players, I do think it's a blend, and I think these kind of blended priorities lead to the most interesting play.  "What my character would do" without consideration for "what is advantageous" can quickly lead to one-note characters with no apparent survival instinct.  "What's advantageous" can lead to extremely dry RPG and no sense of character.  "What's an interesting story" can just lead to utter chaos.  And "What's the most depraved thing I can do" or "what makes the biggest explosions"... well, enough said about those.

Quote from: Benoist;725558So the notion of cultivating particular "creative agendas" or overt, outside of the game rationalizations of what's going on in the game, with the aim of justifying particular decisions or uses of rules or events in the game or whatever else, or the intent/process of codifying each particular motivation in order to consciously design games that cater to these, for that matter, actually runs contrary to the whole point of the role playing experience itself, from my standpoint.

If viewed as a conscious, meta-level activity, I entirely agree.  However, I do think it's useful to understand what the different expectations of players are, and what they value, and to at least think about *why* they make the decisions they do.

As far as catering towards one or the other, I think a better way of looking at game design is to design a game that, as much as possible, unifies the three - one where doing "what your character would" is the same as "what makes an interesting game" and is the same as "what is advantageous."

I also dislike the term "creative agenda" for a number of reasons, and the idea of "agenda as an overarcing, conscious, meta-level decision criteria" is certainly one of them.  The other big one is "creative", as it implicitly ranks "gamism" and "simulationism" as lesser.

From a blog post I wrote last year:

QuoteOne of the very real problems of trying to divine players' interests, whether it's Mr Laws' game styles, or the Forge's 'Big Model(s),' or Fred Hicks' "secret language of character sheets", is that playstyle pigeonholes rarely provide even a useful fraction of the whole story. Looking at my quiz results, it's not the Tactician result which tells you most about my gaming style, but rather the bunch sprint between Method Actor, Butt-Kicker, Storyteller, and Power Gamer, all in roughly equal measure. I want action and system mastery and deepening characterisation and the opportunity to weave my character into the history of the game-world.

When I think about campaigns in which I've played, it's these qualities against which I judge how much I enjoyed the experience, not whether my character fought a duel on the deck of a burning galleon or if I adequately demonstrated my pike-and-shot tactical acumen. A referee who looks at my quiz score and tries to engage me with the equivalent of a minis skirmish game won't even be close.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;725559I think I get what you are saying and if so, this has been in the back of my mind as well. GNS kind of brings these agendas (even ones done in the name of immersion) to the forefront artificially, but most people dont think like that or play like that. You just kind of play naturally. A person observing might sense you are cutting across different agendas or goals useing whatever model they happen to come up with, and then conclude something is wrong, because the focus in their view should be on one of these constructs. But gaming works best in my opinion, when you are not thinking about that stuff...at least for me.

Kinda yeah. Way before anything like these theories existed, I used to say, that when I could step out of the game table as GM, have a dump, and come back to the table with the players still in character discussing what they were going to do or role playing this or that, that was a good game. It's basically what I'm talking about here: when the game takes a life of its own and it just unfolds naturally, whether you roll dice or not, whether you are in deep immersion or not (so there's a distinction I'm making here, i.e. I'm not talking about immersion proper).

Quote from: robiswrong;725564If viewed as a conscious, meta-level activity, I entirely agree.  However, I do think it's useful to understand what the different expectations of players are, and what they value, and to at least think about *why* they make the decisions they do.

I think these are rather specific to any particular moment and circumstance in a game, rather than broad categories you can pinpoint and pigeon-hole decisions into. I think that actually creating any type of categories like this is more of an obstacle to good game design than it helps, because you're just adding another layer of theory between your design and its object, when design to me should be practical and directly about its object, rather than any abstract representation thereof.

Quote from: robiswrong;725564As far as catering towards one or the other, I think a better way of looking at game design is to design a game that, as much as possible, unifies the three - one where doing "what your character would" is the same as "what makes an interesting game" and is the same as "what is advantageous."

I'd say that it depends on what you want to accomplish with your design. I'll give you that having an idea of where you want to go with your game, no matter how you call it, is good for your game in the end. But however you structure your thinking and craft distinctions in order to isolate different goals and meet them, these things to me are and should remain specific, rather than be construed as general and all-encompassing. When you make generalities out of such concepts is when you start artificially separating games, gamers or whatever into this or that category, and that way madness lies. That's not to say that labels can't be useful, as when you might say this or that is a "story game" or whatnot, but it should be remembered these are imperfect categorizations at best.

Likewise, "high versus low fantasy" and all that - the last thing a fantasy writer should worry about while writing his stories is whether they fit into high or low fantasy or whatever, I'd say. Just concentrate on what it is you are writing, whatever it ends up being judged as being, from a critic's point of view.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;725567From a blog post I wrote last year:

Yeah.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;725567From a blog post I wrote last year:

Law's Gaming Styles is just a poll.  Unlike professional pollsters who can construct a poll to inform or disinform as the case may be, amateur pollsters who attempt a complex poll almost without exception color the questions with their own biases.

I don't know if Laws even made the poll questions originally.

Robin Laws is not an IC-Immersive roleplayer or "World in Motion" DM by any stretch of the imagination.  Not only thinking RPGs create stories, but actually create a literary work of art, his gaming styles more correctly apply to people who enjoy narrative metagame and to a lesser degree tactical metagame.  Similar to RE's classifications, Law's Styles don't work very well dealing with players who prefer IC-Immersion and don't care or think about meta concerns when playing.

Most of the people who I know care a lot about Immersion say the styles kind of fall down when applying to them, almost all of the people I know who say the styles fit them well aren't concerned much with immersion.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;725567From a blog post I wrote last year:

I totally agree on pigeonholing players.  That's kind of a recurring theme with what I've been saying - instead of categorizing players, I find it more useful to identify the things they look to get out of RPGs.

I find that more useful because there's no mutual exclusion involved, and a player may even have needs that are mutually exclusive - they just meet those needs at different times and with different games.

Quote from: Benoist;725577I think these are rather specific to any particular moment and circumstance in a game, rather than broad categories you can pinpoint and pigeon-hole decisions into.

Agreed, and I think that the factors involved are probably greater and more specific than we give credit for - even metagaming things like "if we do this, I know that Bob is just gonna go nutso again, so I'm going to argue against it."

An awareness of the factors that may go into decision-making is probably useful.  Optimizing around a particular type of factor is less so, I think.  After all, I strongly believe that in most cases there's a number of factors that go into a particular decision, so why optimize around one?

Quote from: Benoist;725577I think that actually creating any type of categories like this is more of an obstacle to good game design than it helps, because you're just adding another layer of theory between your design and its object, when design to me should be practical and directly about its object, rather than any abstract representation thereof.

Yes, a design that is geared towards meeting some abstract representation or arbitrary set of rules is less interesting to me than one that's geared around making a good play experience.

I think that thinking about these things can provide some structure for thinking about *why* things are working they way they do (or don't!) in a game that's being designed, but they're a means, not an end.  And certainly with any theory/structure/model there's the chance of people putting the cart before the horse.

Quote from: Benoist;725577I'd say that it depends on what you want to accomplish with your design. I'll give you that having an idea of where you want to go with your game, no matter how you call it, is good for your game in the end. But however you structure your thinking and craft distinctions in order to isolate different goals and meet them, these things to me are and should remain specific, rather than be construed as general and all-encompassing.

Well, exactly.  That's why I keep focusing on "needs" - they're specific, individual, not categories, and not exclusive within a single gamer, even if the needs are themselves exclusive.

I do think that if you have a game that is supposedly about politics and social encounters, and the only reward mechanism is from killing people, that there's a mismatch in your design.

Quote from: Benoist;725577When you make generalities out of such concepts is when you start artificially separating games, gamers or whatever into this or that category, and that way madness lies.

Absolutely.  That's why I've been pretty much arguing against categorization all along, and more about identifying traits (needs).  Calling a gamer a "tactician" says a lot about not only what they like, but what they don't like.  Saying that a player "likes tactical combat" says absolutely nothing about what else they do or don't like, and allows for them to like games that don't include tactical combat, so long as they include other things that that particular player likes - much in the same way that me liking steak doesn't mean I demand steak is in every meal, because hey, I like chicken, too.

I think that's actually an amusing analogy - separating gamers into "ist" types is about as useful as calling someone a "steakist" because they like steak.

Quote from: Benoist;725577That's not to say that labels can't be useful, as when you might say this or that is a "story game" or whatnot, but it should be remembered these are imperfect categorizations at best.

The map ain't the territory.

Quote from: Benoist;725577Likewise, "high versus low fantasy" and all that - the last thing a fantasy writer should worry about while writing his stories is whether they fit into high or low fantasy or whatever, I'd say. Just concentrate on what it is you are writing, whatever it ends up being judged as being, from a critic's point of view.

Totally agreed.  The measure of the game is if people are having fun with it.  That's all.  Anything else is just a tool to help achieve that goal.

Quote from: CRKrueger;725582Most of the people who I know care a lot about Immersion say the styles kind of fall down when applying to them, almost all of the people I know who say the styles fit them well aren't concerned much with immersion.

I think that the "Method Actor" category is intended to include immersive play.  It's a relatively weak fit given the *description* of the type I've seen.  But given that method acting is about the actor immersing themselves into the character, and relying upon their natural emotions and reactions rather than "faking" them, it seems appropriate.  But I do think there's a split between players that see their characters as an outlet of creative energy, and players that truly are primarily interested in immersing in their characters.  I'd actually argue that the former is more related to the "Storyteller" type using Laws' classification, but again, it just shows the weakness of any kind of broad categorization.

Quote from: CRKrueger;725582Law's Gaming Styles is just a poll.  Unlike professional pollsters who can construct a poll to inform or disinform as the case may be, amateur pollsters who attempt a complex poll almost without exception color the questions with their own biases.

I don't know if Laws even made the poll questions originally.

Robin Laws is not an IC-Immersive roleplayer or "World in Motion" DM by any stretch of the imagination.  Not only thinking RPGs create stories, but actually create a literary work of art, his gaming styles more correctly apply to people who enjoy narrative metagame and to a lesser degree tactical metagame.  Similar to RE's classifications, Law's Styles don't work very well dealing with players who prefer IC-Immersion and don't care or think about meta concerns when playing.

Most of the people who I know care a lot about Immersion say the styles kind of fall down when applying to them, almost all of the people I know who say the styles fit them well aren't concerned much with immersion.

The poll results often reflect that bias. Storytellers and Tacticians are almost always the two most popular results. (See here.)

I scored Tactician/Specialist/Method Actor which I think is broadly accurate, but it lacks any of the nuance of my own personal style; and I do care about immersion.

EDIT: post lost due to some sort of log in error.