As the sun set on the Threefold, it rose on GNS.
GNS followed on the heels and built upon the ground of Threefold, however in many ways they were worlds apart. Where the Threefold was only concerned with individual decisions by players and GMs, GNS would seek to define entire game systems. Where the Threefold was interested only in expressing the ideas of individual, GNS would seek to be a movement to change the hobby. Where the Threefold by error uplifted Simulation, the GNS would by intent trumpet Narrativism. Where the Threefold was a reaction to being attacked, GNS would be the attacker.
Ron Edwards took many of the original concepts of the Threefold and turned them on it's head around 1999 with the publication of System Does Matter. Here he replaced the Threefold's Drama with the term Narrativist and redefined the other two terms (Gamist and Simulationist) although he kept the wording.
The goal was completely different from that of r.g.f.a, here the intent was to define game systems (not individual decisions) by the three concepts. And further and more importantly he would claim "a good system is one which knows its outlook and doesn't waste any mechanics on the other two outlooks." This was a radical departure from the Threefold who viewed individuals as commonly using all three elements throughout a game session.
Thus, according to Edwards a game was to be judged as to how well it allows you to play in one of the three modes, which by nature means that it could not let you play in any of the other two. Games that did this would later be labeled coherent, those that failed this test would be labeled incoherent.
Armed with this new vision, Edwards set out upon a crusade to remake the hobby replacing such inferior (to his mind) work as the incoherent World of Darkness games (which according to him preached Narrativist play while only offering Gamist mechanics).
Towards this end, he took sole control of what was once a website called Hephaestus' Forge from his partner E P Healy sometime in 2001. The site would undergo changes that made it into a platform for further development of the GNS theory where once before it supported any and all free rpgs offered oline. Renamed The Forge, it holds the definitive articles on GNS.
Message forums were added to the site, and this by nature attracted a number of people previously involved in the Threefold or other theory debates including myself by invitation.
It soon became clear however that this wasn't r.g.f.a, for this place was even less accepting of disagreement and more than willing to enforce it by moderation. I broke all contact early on when the site admins edited a posters comments that reflected poorly upon the supporters of the new model (without informing the poster or making a notation of the action). The effect was to make my own reply to the now edited article appear far over the top. Any and all posts by me and links to my works at the site were pulled by the Admins at my request after a short firestorm.
In short order, entire threads would be managed and locked when they in Edward's view diverged from the core (now GNS) intent of the site. The original offer to build new theory and rpgs was found to have a serious limit- only as long as they met Edward's approval.
For the next few years the site's forums saw limited and focused debate effectively limited to believers as Edwards sought to refine his model. During this time his distain for corners except Narrativist would become clear as this quote on Simulationism shows
"Paul and I are now thinking that Simulationism is NOT an actual outlook or goal, unlike Narrativism or Gamism. Nor is it a "design dial," as many have suggested.
No, we think that Simulationism is a form of retreat, denial, and defense against the responsibilities of either Gamism or Narrativism."
Gamism would fair somewhat better than Simulationism, but would still be characterized as being more akin to board games rather than rpgs, and in terms unfamilar and unacceptable to the typical role-player. From 1999 on Edwards would author additional articles on his model expanding on his concepts of how rpgs should be designed. These are jargon filled almost beyond belief. Those interested can review them themselves here.
What is striking about these events is both what it has in common with the original Threefold and where it differs. Both were models developed by someone who heavily favored one of the corners, and both refused outside suggestions for change or improvement. Edwards however took GNS places where the Threefold never stepped- outright dismissal of one of its corners, intense criticism of various RPGs and gaming styles, and to a mission that would make new rpgs that were in all ways better than any that came before.
The Threefold was a human failure due to lack of prespective. GNS was from the start an ego driven obesssion.
Finally in December of 2005, Ron Edwards closed the Forge's message board on GNS theory with the following 'Graduation' statement:
"This forum is no longer available for posting. It has served its purpose: to develop a sensible framework for discussing play, and the children of play, design and publishing. That framework is available as the Big Model."
Any future exchanges on GNS (or the Big Model that evolved from it) at the Forge were now shut down. The model was perfect, the stage set. It was time to go forth and multiply.
Next, the Swine Wars...
Parts I, III, IV, V
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I think that the only safe thing to say about GNS is that it was set up to analyze "play at the table" and that judging games as well as players was part of how it got used.
The problem with 2001-2004 GNS discussion was that it existed in a pretty dysfunctional mess of, again, identity politics. There were actually certain common 'cycles' of argument wherein something would start out posed in one way and then the framing would change based on what someone disagreed with.
What "GNS was about" was one of these cycles: you'd get people straight-facedly stating that it *didn't* judge games (there was a claim, last year, on RPG.net that it didn't declare game systems dysfunctional--only play--by a long-time staunch GNS proponent)--or that it was *not* properly used to judge *people* (something Ron came out and admitted he did in the thread you quoted).
By 2005 we had Brain Damage and a lot of the nonsense didn't hold up (it was hard for people to say that the theory wasn't either (a) at its core insulting or at least (b) had its author-as-authority saying some pretty hair-singing things. The Brain Damage argument, well supported by the rest of the theory since the Big GNS article ("narrativist players are especially screwed") was whacky enough that it no longer had the air of a real, hard-core academic formulation.
What really hurt was that the only good argument from the model was that of appeal-to-authority: how'd you judge a game? Hundreds of hours of observed play with different groups--something that almost no one could back up or quantify. What did Simulationism mean? Appeal to what Ron said in this-or-that thread or Vincent's final 'once you get Nar you see Sim' were about the best a skeptic would get.
With people quoting various posts or packages at each other I think that making any global claim about GNS (now and then) has to be given in the larger context (i.e. "These parts of the theory say X, these posts/articles/whatever say Y--I hold with Z.")
-Marco
Gee Marco, you jumped ahead to part 3. The impact of GNS and the 'Swine Wars'. I was going to look at the infamous Brain Damage posts there.
But no problem, I still have new stuff to say :)
As for what GNS says, I take Ron at his exact word. It's his model and for good or bad- he gets to define it. Not others who seek to cover for him or the model.
Yup, GNS was far too judgemental, and worse impossible to truly discuss since the entire conversation was laden with obtuse jargon. Jargon that only seemed to further confuse those who first heard of them and then sometimes angered them when they found out what it meant, if there any agreement at all to its meaning. Marco has it cold when he says GNS was all about the politics of identity.
Nothing is more exclusionary than a bunch of people who discuss RPGs with terms like "The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast", and take it seriously.
Best I can say about GNS and by extension the Big Model is that it apparently does a good job of helping to explain the design for a very specific type of game. The rest of RPGdom is pretty much left out.
The best I can say about GNS is that it sometimes saves me the trouble of reading the rest of somebody's post.
Zweihander- Indeed. I think the intend was exclusionary from the first. The articles and posts are filled with statements about how previous authors did things wrong. At times they took wide swings at the entire hobby.
Jamused- lol.
I think "Brain Damage" was around when a lot of people stopped dabbling in that whole scene and gave it up as a bunch of jargonistas engaging in the aforementioned identity politics.
But again, let's not get ahead of things. :) Excellent examples of the early attitudes towards other play types.
Zweihander:
I'm sure "The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast" sounds more like a childsbook's title than a relevant finding in RPG theory, but I must admit it's by far the most influential eye-opener I ever received from reading other people's thoughts about RPGs.
Even if today we're sure it's not the way to go, I think that we are a bit too dismissal when it comes to GNS. Certainly at that time, people thought it shows "what is bad play," which is not a good thing. Now I think, it really showed us "where can play differ in a meaningful way from older games." And I'm glad it did.
The "The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast" is only meaningful to people who insist on it being meaning, i.e. to those who think the GM does control 'story' instead of just the world and the NPCs.
Thus if you're into making a serious error up front, you can double down with GNS.
I'm a Forgite, and I come in peace. ^_^ Hopefully, I'm not toooo late to add my two cents, but I just found this blog tonight.
I think that there's a great deal of meaningless navel-gazing and blather that goes on at the Forge, but that doesn't mean we don't have some pearls shine through all the crap.
I won't disagree for a second that Ron Edwards is a really intense guy, someone who's very passionate about his ideas and without any hesitation when it comes to expressing disagreement. Yes, he can be a little intimidating.
But once I heard that one of his earliest RPG designs was called "Bullshit-less" (seriously, he mentioned that in one of the articles), I realized he and I were coming from a similar place, as far as frustration. I've been playing RPGs for about 13 years, and in that time, I have tried over and over again to find a mainstream RPG that does what I want it to do, i.e. that lets me have a character whose stats are more like story possibilities than just video game powers.
Wraith: the Oblivion was probably the closest I ever came to a mainstream RPG whose rules encouraged you to tell a story, but even then there were so many stumbling blocks that I never got a game off the ground.
Say what you will about the Forge, and I honestly won't find fault with your frustration. But the Impossible Thing Before Breakfast is a fundamental concept that was well-worth the frustration and wank to get to:
The idea is this: an RPG book tells you that the GM has absolute control over the story, and that the players have absolute control over their characters within it. It's so common in RPG texts, in those "What is roleplaying?" sections (and who knows where those came from, anyway?), that I'm sure a lot of people would read that idea and say, "So?"
Well, I say, have you ever really wanted to do something with your character, something plot-related (as opposed to some specific tactic or action), and the GM wasn't having it? What if your GM was really accommodating, but there was nothing in the rules to encourage him? What if the rules encouraged him, but didn't actually provide methods of doing so?
Those three problems are present in every mainstream RPG I've come across. Narrativism, or the exploration of a moral dilemma as the goal of play, is what it is because the rules make you do just that, to explore a theme, a moral quandary or dilemma. To do X is to make a statement about the quandary, as is doing Y. To do nothing is, too, and should be used as fodder for pushing the play along further.
It's like how the movie Dark Knight builds and builds to make a statement about human nature: the Joker and Batman are symbols, so is Harvey Dent. In several situations, people are given the chance to kill others to help themselves, and we see very different answers to this quandary. Good stories are driven by choices - even the most well-written tale of plain old bad luck can only go on so far before the futility of it all is just maddening, not to mention unreal.
Even if we're talking about other agendas for play, this still holds true - whether it's tactical decision-making, or the way in which you thoroughly immerse yourself in your character, that part of it that makes you a player is the part where what you do matters. I've had enough GMs who flat-out contradict and shut down my ideas that I can say consensus-building, rather than making power-plays, is the way to go.
That's all the Forge is about, at its core - saving the GM some headache about making the game awesome, and doing that by finding new, system-supported ways to give the players more creative input.
To be honest, yeah- you're rather late. Not just to this blog entry, but late to a GNS debate as a whole. It's not that big of a deal lately.
Still, thanks for the comments. Your focus on Narrativism, and the idea of a 'player vs. GM' conflict that is behind so much of the Forge vision nicely highlight some of what I touched on above.
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