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+</article/1/>
+*GNS and Other Matters of Role-playing Theory*
+by Ron Edwards <mailto:sorcerer@sorcerer-rpg.com>
+
+Copyright Adept Press 2001
+
+*Introduction*
+My straightforward observation of the activity of role-playing is that
+many participants do not enjoy it very much. Most role-players I
+encounter are tired, bitter, and frustrated. My goal in this writing is
+to provide vocabulary and perspective that enable people to articulate
+what they want and like out of the activity, and to understand what to
+look for both in other people and in game design to achieve their goals.
+The person who is entirely satisfied with his or her role-playing
+experiences is not my target audience.
+
+Everything in this document is nothing more nor less than "What Ron
+Thinks." It is not an official Dogma for the Forge. It is not a
+consensus view of members of the Forge, nor is it a committee effort of
+any kind. It is most especially not an expectation for what you're
+supposed to think or believe.
+
+However, it does stand as the single coherent body of theory about
+role-playing at the Forge, and its lexicon is definitive for purposes of
+discussion there. I am satisfied with it, but I'm not unreasonable
+either, so it is not immutable. Please deal with it in one of the
+following ways: identify an inconsistency, ask for clarification and
+examples, or otherwise address its content critically. I am perfectly
+willing to amend any content, if I'm given a substantive reason to do
+so, and to give credit for the insight.
+
+I request that all discussion of this material be based on careful
+consideration. Snap judgments, unsupported value judgments, neophobia,
+taking offense, and other juvenile reactions are not welcome.
+Furthermore, I am well aware that my GNS notions vary greatly from the
+original Threefold Model (or GDS), and that my categories of Stance
+differs from those originally proposed. Identifying these differences
+does not constitute a criticism.
+
+I have been extensively influenced by the work of others and have
+incorporated it in ways which make sense to me. Concepts that were
+originated and developed by others are credited in the acknowledgments
+at the end.
+
+*Contents*
+Introduction
+
+   1. Exploration
+   2. GNS
+   3. Stance
+   4. The Basics of Role-playing Design
+   5. Role-playing Design and Coherence
+   6. Actually Playing 
+
+Acknowledgments
+
+</article/2/>
+*_Chapter One: Exploration_*
+
+When a person engages in role-playing, or prepares to do so, he or she
+relies on imagining and utilizing the following: *Character*, *System*,
+*Setting*, *Situation*, and *Color*.
+
+    * Character: a fictional person or entity.
+    * System: a means by which in-game events are determined to occur.
+    * Setting: where the character is, in the broadest sense (including
+      history as well as location).
+    * Situation: a problem or circumstance faced by the character.
+    * Color: any details or illustrations or nuances that provide
+      atmosphere. 
+
+At the most basic level, these are what the role-playing experience is
+"about," but to be more precise, these are the things which must be
+imagined by the real people. In this sense, saying "system" means
+"imagining events to be occurring."
+
+*Exploration and its child, Premise*
+The best term for the imagination in action, or perhaps for the
+attention given the imagined elements, is *Exploration*. Initially, it
+is an individual concern, although it will move into the social,
+communicative realm, and the commitment to imagine the listed elements
+becomes an issue of its own.
+
+When a person perceives the listed elements together and considers
+Exploring them, he or she usually has a basic reaction of interest or
+disinterest, approval or disapproval, or desire to play or lack of such
+a desire. Let's assume a positive reaction; when it occurs, whatever
+prompted it is *Premise*, in its most basic form. To re-state, Premise
+is whatever a participant finds among the elements to sustain a
+continued interest in what might happen in a role-playing session.
+Premise, once established, instils the desire to keep that imaginative
+commitment going.
+
+Person 1: "You play vampires in the modern day, trying to stay secret
+from the cattle and coping with other vampires." [See atmospheric, grim,
+punky-goth pictures]
+
+Person 2: "Ooh! Cool!"
+
+Person 2 might have liked the grittiness of the art, the romance of the
+word "vampire," or the idea of being involved in a secret mystical
+intrigue. Or maybe none of these and an entirely different thing. Or
+maybe all of them at once. It doesn't matter - whatever it was, that's
+the initial Premise for this person.
+
+Premise is a metagame concern, wholly different from the listed
+elements. They are the imagined (Explored) content of the role-playing
+experience, and Premise is the real-person, real-world interest that
+instils and maintains a person's desire to have that experience. At this
+early point, though, Premise is vague and highly personal, as it is only
+the embryo of the real Premise. The real Premise exists as a clear,
+focused question or concern shared among all members of the group. The
+initial Premise only takes shape and shared-focus when we move to the
+next chapter.
+
+*Why "genre" is not part of the lexicon*
+I do not recommend using "genre" to identify role-playing content. A
+"genre" is some combination of specific setting elements, plot elements,
+situation elements, character elements, and sometimes premise elements,
+such that by hearing the term, we are informed what to expect, or in
+role-playing terms, what to do. On the face of it, the concept would
+seem to be useful.
+
+The problem is that genres are continually being deconstructed and
+re-formed, with elements of one being re-combined with others. This is
+occurring as a non-planned or non-managed historical phenomenon
+throughout all media. Therefore "genre" may be a fine descriptive label
+for what is or has been done, but it's not much help in terms of what to
+do or what can be done.
+
+In many cases, a given genre label will convey to a close group of
+people a fairly tight combination of values for these variables.
+However, the same genre label loses its power to inform as you add more
+people to the mix, especially since most labels have switched meanings
+radically more than once. And even more importantly, new combinations of
+values for the key variables may be perfectly functional, even when they
+do not correspond to any recognized genre label.
+
+Therefore when someone tells me that a game (or story, or whatever) is
+based on a certain genre, I have to ask a few more questions - and
+sooner or later, I get real answers in terms of Character, Setting,
+Situation, or Color. Only then can an initial Premise be identified, and
+then the next step toward functional, enjoyable role-playing may occur.
+
+</articles/3/>
+*_Chapter Two: GNS_*
+
+Talk to someone who participates in role-playing, and focus on the
+precise and actual acts of role-playing themselves. Ask them, "Why do
+you role-play?" The most common answer is, "To have fun."
+
+Again, stick to the role-playing itself. (The wholly social issues are
+real, such as "Wanting to hang out with my friends," but they are not
+the topic at hand.) Now ask, "What makes fun?" This may not be a verbal
+question, and it is best answered mainly through role-playing with
+people rather than listening to them. Time and inference are usually
+required.
+
+In my experience, the answer turns out to be a version of one of the
+following terms. These terms, or modes, describe three distinct types of
+people's decisions and goals during play.
+
+    * *Gamism* is expressed by competition among participants (the real
+      people); it includes victory and loss conditions for characters,
+      both short-term and long-term, that reflect on the people's actual
+      play strategies. The listed elements provide an arena for the
+      competition.
+    * *Simulationism* is expressed by enhancing one or more of the
+      listed elements in Set 1 above; in other words, Simulationism
+      heightens and focuses Exploration as the priority of play. The
+      players may be greatly concerned with the internal logic and
+      experiential consistency of that Exploration.
+    * *Narrativism* is expressed by the creation, via role-playing, of a
+      story with a recognizable theme. The characters are formal
+      protagonists in the classic Lit 101 sense, and the players are
+      often considered co-authors. The listed elements provide the
+      material for narrative conflict (again, in the specialized sense
+      of literary analysis). 
+
+Collectively, the three modes are called *GNS*. Stating "GNS," "GNS
+perspectives," or anything similar, is to refer to the diversity of
+approaches to play. One might refer to "GNS goals," in which case the
+meaning is, "whichever one might apply for this act of role-playing."
+
+GNS is the central concept of my theorizing about role-playing. It is
+necessary for understanding how Premise is developed, and it provides
+the context for the later points in this essay. However, it is not
+sufficient, and the three modes themselves do not address any and all
+points about role-playing.
+
+I disavow either GM-centric or player-centric applications of GNS. The
+terms apply to real people engaged in the act of role-playing, and the
+distinction between GM and player is irrelevant for this purpose.
+However, the reverse is meaningful: given a GNS focus of play, GM and
+player roles take on specific shapes, or specific ranges of shapes.
+(This issue is discussed later.)
+
+*Labels*
+Much torment has arisen from people perceiving GNS as a labelling
+device. Used properly, the terms apply only to decisions, not to whole
+persons nor to whole games. To be absolutely clear, to say that a person
+is (for example) Gamist, is only shorthand for saying, "This person
+tends to make role-playing decisions in line with Gamist goals."
+Similarly, to say that an RPG is (for example) Gamist, is only shorthand
+for saying, "This RPG's content facilitates Gamist concerns and
+decision-making." For better or for worse, both of these forms of
+shorthand are common.
+
+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. The
+actual time or activity of an "instance" is necessarily left ambiguous.
+
+Over a greater period of time, across many instances of play, some
+people tend to cluster their decisions and interests around one of the
+three goals. Other people vary across the goals, but even they admit
+that they stay focused, or prioritize, for a given instance.
+
+*Developing Premise into practical form*
+Again, all three modes are social applications of the foundational act
+of role-playing, which is Exploration. Taking that into a social,
+role-playing circumstance, the people get more concrete about a shared
+Premise, and thus their decisions acquire a GNS focus of some kind. To
+play successfully, the members of the role-playing group must be, at the
+very least, willing to acknowledge and support the focused Premise as
+perceived by one another.
+
+The developed or focused Premise is no longer a noun ("vampire") or
+image, but has become a question, challenge, or provocative issue.
+
+Gamism and Narrativism each encompass a wide range of variation for
+Premise, including variations that differ drastically from one another.
+This is why "a Gamist," for instance, does not necessarily enjoy any and
+all Gamist play or have the same priorities as any and all other
+Gamist-oriented role-players. The same applies for Narrativism.
+Simulationism is a bit different in its details, but in its way also
+includes a wide range of variation and approaches to play; therefore the
+insight that not all Simulationist-oriented play is alike applies here
+as well.
+
+*Gamist Premises* focus on competition about overt metagame goals. They
+vary regarding who is competing with whom (players vs. one another;
+players vs. GM; etc), what is at stake, victory and loss conditions, and
+what particular sort of strategizing is being employed. Gamist play also
+varies widely in terms of what is and is not predictable (i.e.
+randomized), both in terms of starting positions and in terms of ongoing
+events.
+
+    * Can I play well enough such that my character survives the perils?
+    * Can I score more points than the other players?
+    * And much more, depending on the arrangement and organization of
+      the participants. 
+
+The key to Gamist Premises is that the conflict of interest among real
+people is an overt source of fun. It is not a matter of upset or abuse,
+and it is certainly not a "distraction from" or "failure of" role-playing.
+
+    * A possible Gamist development of the "vampire" initial Premise
+      might be, Can my character gain more status and influence than the
+      other player-characters in the ongoing intrigue among vampires?
+    * Another might be, Can our vampire characters survive the efforts
+      of ruthless and determined human vampire hunters? 
+
+*Narrativist Premises* focus on producing Theme via events during play.
+Theme is defined as a value-judgment or point that may be inferred from
+the in-game events. My thoughts on Narrativist Premise are derived from
+the book The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri, specifically his
+emphasis on the questions that arise from human conundrums and passions
+of all sorts.
+
+    * Is the life of a friend worth the safety of a community?
+    * Do love and marriage outweigh one's loyalty to a political cause?
+    * And many, many more - the full range of literature, myth, and
+      stories of all sorts. 
+
+Narrativist Premises vary regarding their origins: character-driven
+Premise vs. setting-driven Premise, for instance. They also vary a great
+deal in terms of unpredictable "shifts" of events during play. The key
+to Narrativist Premises is that they are moral or ethical questions that
+engage the players' interest. The "answer" to this Premise (Theme) is
+produced via play and the decisions of the participants, not by
+pre-planning.
+
+    * A possible Narrativist development of the "vampire" initial
+      Premise, with a strong character emphasis, might be, Is it right
+      to sustain one's immortality by killing others? When might the
+      justification break down?
+    * Another, with a strong setting emphasis, might be, Vampires are
+      divided between ruthlessly exploiting and lovingly nurturing
+      living people, and which side are you on? 
+
+*Simulationist Premises* are generally kept to their minimal role of
+personal aesthetic interest; the effort during play is spent on the
+Exploration. Therefore the variety of Simulationist play arises from the
+variety of what's being Explored.
+
+    * Character: highly-internalized, character-experiential play, for
+      instance the Turku approach. A possible development of the
+      "vampire" premise in terms of Character Exploration might be, What
+      does it feel like to be a vampire?
+    * Situation: well-defined character roles and tasks, up to and
+      including metaplot-driven play. A possible development of the
+      "vampire" premise in terms of Situation Exploration might be, What
+      does the vampire lord require me to do?
+    * Setting: a strong focus on the details, depth, and breadth of a
+      given set of source material. A possible development of the
+      "vampire" premise in terms of Setting Exploration might be, How
+      has vampire intrigue shaped human history and today's politics?
+    * System: a strong focus on the resolution engine and all of its
+      nuances in strictly within-game-world, internally-causal terms. A
+      possible development of the "vampire" premise in terms of System
+      Exploration might be, How do various weapons harm or fail to harm
+      a vampire, in specific causal detail?
+    * Any mutually-reinforcing combination of the above elements is of
+      course well-suited to this form of play. 
+
+The key to Simulationist play is that imagining the designated features
+is prioritized over any other aspect of role-playing, most especially
+over any metagame concerns. The name Simulationism refers to the
+priority placed on resolving the Explored feature(s) in in-game,
+internally causal terms.
+
+*Controversy: is that third box really there?*
+It has rightly been asked whether Simulationism really exists, given
+that it consists mainly of Exploration. I suggest that Simulationism
+exists insofar as the effort and attention to Exploration may over-ride
+either Gamist or Narrativist priorities.
+
+Some of the following examples refer to RPG rules and text; I am
+referring to people enjoying and preferring such rules and text (i.e.
+the people, not the game itself).
+
+Concrete examples #1: Simulationism over-riding Gamism
+
+    * Any text which states that role-playing is not about winning;
+      correspondingly, chastising a player who advocates a character
+      action perceived as "just trying to win." [This example assumes
+      that the text/game does not state story-creation as an alternative
+      goal.]
+    * Using probability tables in character creation to determine
+      appearance, profession/class, or race, based on demographics of
+      the community of the character's origin. 
+
+Converse: Gamism over-riding Simulationism
+
+    * Characters teaming up for a common goal with no disputes or even
+      attention regarding differences in race, religion, ethics, or
+      anything else.
+    * Improving character traits (e.g. damage that may be taken) based
+      on the amount of treasure amassed. 
+
+Concrete examples #2: Simulationism over-riding Narrativism
+
+    * A weapon does precisely the same damage range regardless of the
+      emotional relationship between wielder and target. (True for
+      RuneQuest, not true for Hero Wars)
+    * A player is chastised for taking the potential intensity of a
+      future confrontation into account when deciding what the character
+      is doing in a current scene, such as revealing an important secret
+      when the PC is unaware of its importance.
+    * The time to traverse town with super-running is deemed
+      insufficient to arrive at the scene, with reference to distance
+      and actions at the scene, such that the villain's bomb does blow
+      up the city. (The rules for DC Heroes specifically dictate that
+      this be the appropriate way to GM such a scene). 
+
+Converse: Narrativism over-riding Simulationism
+
+    * Using metagame mechanics to increase the probability of task
+      resolution, with NO corresponding in-game justification. "Apply my
+      bonus die to increase my Charm roll," in which the bonus die is
+      not "will" or "endurance" or anything but an abstract pool unit.
+    * A player is chastised for claiming a PC motive that "stalls out"
+      story elements (conflict, resolution etc). Example: player A is
+      pissed off at player B, who has announced "I say nothing," in
+      certain interactive scenes, when player A is aware that the PC's
+      knowledge would be pivotal in the scene.
+    * Using inter-player dialogue and knowledge to determine character
+      action, then retroactively justifying the action in terms of
+      character knowledge and motive. "You hit him high and I'll hit him
+      low," between players whose characters do not have the opportunity
+      to plan the attack. [This example could also apply to Gamism
+      over-riding Simulationism; the two are quite similar.] 
+
+In conclusion, Simulationism exists as an established, real priority-set
+of role-playing, with its own distinctive range of decisions and goals.
+
+*Controversy: "But I'm story-oriented"*
+A great deal of intellectual suffering has occurred due to the linked
+claims that role-playing either is or is not "story-oriented," and that
+one falls on one side or the other of this dichotomy. I consider this
+terminology and its implication to be wholly false.
+
+"Story" may simply mean "series of caused events," in which case the
+issue is trivial. However, most of the time, the term is more specific.
+More specific meanings of "story" may be involved in role-playing in a
+variety of ways. Narrativism is a no-brainer in this regard, as it is
+defined by the metagame attention to creating a story of critical merit
+(i.e. "good"). But story-creation and its elements are certainly
+possible, although not prioritized, in both of the other modes. Most
+generally, there are (1) forms of Simulationist play with a strong
+Situation focus, which provide a story for the participants to imagine
+being in; and (2) forms of Gamist play in which dramatic outcomes are
+the stakes of competition, which produces story as a side-effect of that
+competition.
+
+More specifically, to observers who are not considering goals and
+decisions of play, the following three, very distinct sorts of play are
+superficially similar and often confounded.
+
+    * Narrativist play with a Setting-driven Premise.
+    * Simulationist play in which Situation is being preferentially
+      Explored, perhaps with an elaborate published metaplot in the form
+      of short stories or novels.
+    * Gamist play in which Drama mechanics (see the fourth chapter) are
+      used as a strategy-element, making use of a complex set of
+      circumstances, Setting and Situation) for material. 
+
+Similarly, the same confoundment may occur regarding the following
+(which share regions of potential overlap with the three above in terms
+of "story," as well):
+
+    * Narrativist play with a Character-driven Premise.
+    * Simulationist play in which Character and Situation are being
+      Explored.
+    * Gamist play in which Character improvement or other development is
+      at stake, and character behavior or attitudes are limiting factors. 
+
+Story-stuff and/or character stuff is so important to all these
+approaches that the differences in processes and point of role-playing
+are easy to miss, or, disastrously, easy to deny. Three people
+attempting to role-play with one another in a vampire-character game,
+but each representing one of (say) the first three perspectives, are
+going to have a hard time, even if they assured one another that they
+were fully committed to "the story." How and why the difficulties arise
+are discussed throughout the remainder of the essay.
+
+*Misunderstandings of GNS*
+By far and away, the worst misunderstanding of GNS, with the worst
+consequences, arises from synecdoche, confounding the part with the
+whole and vice versa. (I'll use Simulationism as my stand-in term, but
+any of the modes could be named here.)
+
+    * Mistaking the whole for the part, within a mode: claiming that any
+      Simulationist-oriented person must enjoy all Simulationist play.
+    * Mistaking the part for the whole, within a mode: claiming that a
+      particular sort of Simulationism is Simulationism (and nothing
+      else is).
+    * Mistaking the whole for the part, for all of role-playing:
+      claiming that in role-playing at all, one must be engaged in
+      Simulationism somehow.
+    * Mistaking the part for the whole, for all of role-playing:
+      claiming that a particular sort of Simulationism is role-playing
+      (and nothing else is). 
+
+Synecdoche may be committed by someone who has recently or imperfectly
+learned some GNS vocabulary, who in his enthusiasm is disrespectful to
+modes of play besides his favorite. However, it is also tremendously
+widespread among those role-players who do not know, or even who
+disparage, a critical approach to the activity, but commit synecdoche
+using terms like "realistic" or "story." In either case, this fallacy is
+disastrous. It results in bad feelings, fizzled games, and rejection of
+role-playing.
+
+Other common misunderstandings of GNS include:
+
+    * Ascribing any sort of geometric shape or variable-space to these
+      terms. Such ideas are often interesting but they are not formally
+      part of the definitions. (For instance, there is no such thing as
+      a "GNS Triangle.")
+    * Confounding Simulationism with the term "realism." Much of
+      Simulationist play and game design has indeed focused on
+      generating realistic outcomes, but this is a historical subset of
+      the mode rather than part of the mode's definition.
+    * Stating "see what happens" as the definition for any of the modes.
+      All role-playing is about "seeing what happens." This is a good
+      example of whole-for-the-part synecdoche.
+    * Mistaking the shorthand of "He's a Narrativist" (or either of the
+      others) for a limiting statement that the person is incapable of
+      any other mode of play.
+    * Mistaking any of the listed elements for one of the modes, e.g.,
+      such that attention to character must be Narrativist, or attention
+      to setting must be Simulationist, or attention to system must be
+      Gamist.
+    * Projecting judgment and value-judgments into the terminology, such
+      that the speaker or listener perceives one of the goals to be
+      placed higher or better than the others. Gamist play, for
+      instance, is often unfairly marginalized.
+    * Perceiving the terms' purpose as a means to classify game design.
+      They are used relative to game design, but again as shorthand:
+      calling an RPG a "Narrativist design," for instance, really means
+      "This RPG's content facilitates Narrativist play."
+    * Failing to understand the terms' actual purpose: to enable people
+      to enjoy their role-playing more. 
+
+Note: "synecdoche" is pronounced "sin-ECK-doe-key." Think Schenectady
+and vasectomy. If you can make a good limerick out of these three words,
+I'll give you a prize.
+
+</articles/4/>
+*_Chapter Three: Stance_*
+
+Chapter Two was about what a person wants out of role-playing; this
+material is about specific acts and moments of role-playing, that is,
+what a person does. *Stance* is defined as how a person arrives at
+decisions for an imaginary character's imaginary actions.
+
+    * In *Actor* stance, a person determines a character's decisions and
+      actions using only knowledge and perceptions that the character
+      would have.
+    * In *Author* stance, a person determines a character's decisions
+      and actions based on the real person's priorities, then
+      retroactively "motivates" the character to perform them. (Without
+      that second, retroactive step, this is fairly called *Pawn* stance.)
+    * In *Director* stance, a person determines aspects of the
+      environment relative to the character in some fashion, entirely
+      separately from the character's knowledge or ability to influence
+      events. Therefore the player has not only determined the
+      character's actions, but the context, timing, and spatial
+      circumstances of those actions, or even features of the world
+      separate from the characters. 
+
+In most of the stance-discussions, we've considered players rather than
+GMs because the player:character relationship is usually 1:1 and very
+intimate. I think that GMs employ stance too, however, that discussion
+awaits development.
+
+*Stance and GNS*
+Stance is very labile during play, with people shifting among the
+stances frequently and even without deliberation or reflection.
+
+Stances do not correspond in any 1:1 way to the GNS modes. Stance is
+much more ephemeral, for one thing, such that a person enjoying the
+Gamist elements and decisions of a role-playing experience might shift
+all about the stances during a session of play. He or she might be
+Authoring most of the time and Directing occasionally, and then at a key
+moment slam into Actor stance for a scene. The goal hasn't changed;
+stance has.
+
+However, I think it's very reasonable to say that specific stances are
+more common in some modes/goals of play. Historically, Author stance
+seems the most common or at least decidedly present at certain points
+for Gamist and Narrativist play, and Director stance seems to be a rarer
+add-on in those modes. Actor stance seems the most common for
+Simulationist play, although a case could be made for Author and
+Director stance being present during character creation in this mode.
+These relative proportions of Stance positions during play do apparently
+correspond well with issues of Premise and GNS. I suggest, however, that
+it is a given subset of a mode that Stance is facilitating, rather than
+the whole mode itself. Some forms of Simulationism, for instance, may be
+best served by Director Stance, as opposed to other forms which are best
+served by Actor Stance. Similarly, some forms of Narrativism rely on
+Actor Stance at key moments.
+
+Consider the previous example of a group who has arrived at the
+agreement to role-play a vampire-character game, with three members who
+have radically different GNS and Premise approaches but share a
+superficial commitment to "story," undefined. What sort of Stances might
+be most common during play, from each of them? (In this example, each
+person represents one possible approach within each of the modes, and
+does not represent the entirety of a mode.)
+
+    * One player is interested in competing, using his or her
+      real-person influence and strategizing about dramatic outcomes to
+      "score higher" than the other players, so he or she spends a lot
+      of time in Author/Pawn Stance.
+    * Another is interested in experiencing and Exploring the nuances of
+      the story as it is presented from an external source (perhaps a
+      sourcebook and/or a GM), and spends a lot of time in Actor Stance.
+    * The third is interested in generating climactic and
+      conflict-resolving moments derived from his or her character's
+      decisions, and so those decisions are most likely going to be
+      determined from Author Stance (but not Pawn). 
+
+Conflicts may well arise among these players as their decisions
+regarding their characters and expectations of one another disrupt the
+various goals. Stances and their impact on both the outcomes and
+experiences of play may be understood as part of the mechanisms of
+achieving GNS goals.
+
+Let us take pity, though, and suggest that they do happen to share
+enough Stance preferences, of some sort. They don't have to be exactly
+alike! Getting the most out of a GNS mode of play does not mean cleaving
+unswervingly to a Stance, but arranging Stances relative to specific
+types of scenes, decisions, and moments of play. Again, speaking
+historically rather than by definitions,
+
+    * A Gamist approach to Stances usually involves preserving the
+      Author-power of Pawn Stance in competitive situations, such that
+      the player is not hampered in the range of possible options.
+    * A Narrativist approach to Stances usually involves keeping Actor
+      Stance confined to limited instances, such that Author and
+      Director Stances may generate a lot of metagame impact on the
+      storyline.
+    * A Simulationist approach to Stances usually involves designating
+      when Actor Stance, the default, may be exited. 
+
+So our vampire-interested players may take individualized approaches to
+Stance within one of these goal-orientations (or some other
+GNS-reinforcing conformation). Insofar as those differences facilitate
+similar goals, and hence cannot be too different in the crucial
+instances of play, all is well.
+
+*Misunderstandings and complications*
+A great deal of attention and rhetoric is devoted to "in-character"
+(*IC*) and "out-of-character" (*OOC*) role-playing, but I think that
+this topic is not related to Stance. IC role-playing, at its most
+literal, means that the role-player is using first-person diction to
+communicate the character's actions, and OOC role-playing means that he
+or she using third-person diction. However, that issue and the
+decision-making aspects of the Stance issue do not precisely correspond.
+Otherwise-excellent discussions and guidelines can be derailed or
+muddied by this problem. In the text of Nobilis, for instance, IC/OOC
+terminology is consistently used to indicate, as far as I can tell,
+Actor vs. Author Stance.
+
+Another common misunderstanding of Actor Stance is to confound it with
+"acting" in the histrionic, communicative sense - using a characteristic
+voice, gestures, and so on. The communicative and demonstrative aspects
+of "acting" are not involved in Actor Stance at all, which only means
+that the player is utilizing the character's knowledge and priorities to
+determine what the character does.
+
+Taking the above two points together, Actor Stance may be seen in the
+most technical-realist style play (which may use entirely third-person
+diction) as well as in the most channel-the-PC Turku play (which may use
+entirely first-person, in-character-voice diction).
+
+*Immersion* is another difficult issue that often arises in Stance
+discussions. Like "realism" and "completeness" and several other terms,
+it has many different definitions in role-playing culture. The most
+substantive definition that I have seen is that immersion is the sense
+of being "possessed" by the character. This phenomenon is not a stance,
+but a feeling. What kind of role-playing goes with that feeling? The
+feeling is associated with decision-making that is incompatible with
+Director or Author stance. Therefore, I suggest that immersion (an
+internal sensation) is at least highly associated with Actor Stance.
+Whether some people get into Actor stance and then "immerse," or others
+"immerse" and thus willy-nilly are in Actor stance, I don't know.
+The term Audience Stance has been proposed elsewhere, but at this point
+I am not convinced that the phenomenon exists. It remains as a potential
+topic for discussion.
+
+</articles/5/>
+
+*_Chapter Four: The Basics of Role-Playing Design_*
+
+System, system, system. Or more appropriately, design, design, design.
+The listed elements in Chapter One (character, situation, color,
+setting, system, initial premise) may be organized to facilitate greater
+*coherence* in Chapters Two (GNS, developed Premise) and Chapter Three
+(Stance), and thus to facilitate more enjoyable play. This principle is
+often summarized in the catch-phrase, "System does matter."
+
+By "coherence," I mean the degree to which a group of people can hit
+upon and sustain a shared Premise (or topic for Exploration, in
+Simulationist play) - and by definition, continue to enjoy the social
+role-playing activity consistently. The people do not need to agree in
+every detail or event of play, and they certainly do not have to conform
+to a single, immutable Stance or GNS profile. However, to role-play
+together most successfully, their shared agreements do need to go beyond
+simply sharing the initial Premise. To whatever extent they do this,
+they are cohering.
+
+At the last check-in, our vampire-friends have turned out to be a
+coherent bunch. Now their attention turns to the actual, physical item
+called the role-playing game. What is in it?
+
+This chapter is devoted to a lexicon for discussing the mechanical
+components of role-playing, in the service of eventually addressing how
+design affects coherence in the following chapter. I see two
+interrelated elements of design: *Character* and *System*.
+
+*Character*
+This terminology is intended to dissect out the procedural components of
+the imaginary entity called "my character." The idea is to form a basis
+for character creation that is integrated with the game's general design
+goals, whatever they may be.
+
+As I see it, there are three very large components to a character. I
+also think they always apply; in other words, role-playing necessarily
+demands all of the three to exist. Design, on the other hand, sometimes
+leaves one or more unstated, in which case the missing elements are
+overtly or covertly inserted during play.
+
+*Effectiveness* includes any numbers which are used to determine success
+or extent of an action. In Fortune-based systems, these include the
+familiar to-hit, skill success, damage rolls, and anything like these.
+In Karma-based systems, it would be the basic values, e.g. Everway's
+Element scores or Amber's attribute scores; in Drama-based systems,
+Effectiveness is governed by rules of dialogue. (See below for
+discussions of Fortune, Karma, and Drama.)
+In looking over a character's Effectiveness material, you get an idea of
+their "niche" or sphere of influence, what they're good at and what they
+aren't.
+
+Effectiveness is often "layered." In discussing Effectiveness, one needs
+to be careful to distinguish between the actual value and the means by
+which it is derived, because often a step of the process is named
+instead of the Effective value itself. For instance, the points spent on
+basic attribute scores in Champions pass through an exchange rate, such
+that three points result in one more unit of Dexterity. Furthermore, the
+Dexterity score itself passes through a division by three or five, and
+in some cases an addition of 11 as well, in order to arrive at a value
+that is actually used in play (an Effective value).
+
+In contrast, a non-layered Effectiveness value is determined, recorded,
+and used as such without derivation. The scores for Earth, Air, Fire,
+and Water in Everway are divided up from 20 points or less, and they are
+used at their respective values during play. The score for Focus is set
+from 1 to 10 when making up a character in Zero, and that value is used
+as such during play. Three descriptions of a puppet's abilities ("This
+puppet can shout really loud") in Puppetland are determined during
+character creation and are used without modification during play.
+
+*Resource* includes any available usable pool upon which Effectiveness
+or Metagame mechanics may draw, or which are reduced to reflect harm to
+the character. The obvious ones are Endurance, Sanity, or Hit Points (or
+even "lives" in frequent-resurrection games), but this category also
+includes breadth and depth of spell knowledge, for instance, or even the
+character's cash resources. Experience points, in some system, act as a
+resource for certain mechanics.
+In looking over a character's Resource material, you get an idea of how
+tough, (un)stoppable, and "fueled" they are.
+
+*Metagame* includes all positioning and behavioral statements about the
+character, as well as player rights to over-ride the existing
+Effectiveness rules. Thus it includes stuff like relationships
+("Hunteds" in Champions) and limitations on behavior (Psychological
+Disadvantages, alignment), as well as *metagame mechanics*, like Trouble
+or Luck Points or what-have-you, which permit re-rolls or other
+overrides of the baseline resolution system. Clearly, material within
+metagame may directly affect Effectiveness and Resource, as with Trouble
+giving bonus dice in Orkworld, or in other games it does not, as with a
+Code Vs. Killing in Champions being taken to limit a character's actions
+without a formal effect on any other mechanics of play.
+Metagame issues are intimately related to *Balance of Power*, which is
+defined as the relative degrees to which players and GMs are privileged
+to have an impact on the events of play. In looking over a character's
+metagame material, you get an idea of the behavioral parameters within
+which the player is at least nominally committing to stay, and the
+rights to over-ride the system via metagame mechanics.
+
+Regarding all three components, named features on character sheets may
+find themselves in one or another category from game to game. Money, for
+example, is a Resource in a game of GURPS, an Effective value in Call of
+Cthulhu, and Metagame in Champions 3rd edition.
+
+*Currency among the three character components*
+*Currency* represents the relationship among the three components, both
+during character creation and during play. Its name comes from the
+observations that (1) "amounts" may be shifted and exchanged within and
+across the three components during character creation, and (2) that
+features or use of one category may have an impact on the use of the
+others during play.
+These exchange mechanisms among the three categories may or may not be
+overt (e.g. a system of points to spend). We can look at two different
+RPGs and compare how the three categories are distributed, and under
+whose control.
+
+Character creation varies tremendously across role-playing games. We see
+tons of methods, distributed in tons of ways even within single games:
+random vs. point-allocation, layered vs. not-layered, explicit vs.
+implicit currency, fixed vs. flexible relationship among the three
+elements, and more. I do not claim that there is any one best way. I do
+think that most character-creation design has been imitative and
+tweak-oriented, rather than conceptually integrated with any general
+goal of the RPG's design. I also think that certain designs are
+fundamentally flawed, at least for specific modes of play; my
+attributes/skills argument is an example.
+
+Some games are practically defined by the open spendability of an overt
+currency, e.g. GURPS. Others are fixed solid as rocks among and within
+the categories, e.g. D&D of whatever vintage. "Class," for instance,
+usually refers to a specific way to affix currency among the categories;
+having different classes means standardizing different "nodes" of
+currency combinations.
+
+Looking across RPG designs, I see that many games permit "trading" both
+within and between the categories during character creation, often with
+a rate of exchange.
+
+    * If you drop your Strength, you can buy up your Dexterity or if you
+      drop your Strength, you have more points to buy skills. These
+      examples remain within the general category of Effectiveness.
+    * If you drop your Strength, you can buy up your Endurance or Hit
+      Points or whatever. This would be crossing categories from
+      Effectiveness to Resource, as would be increasing your Luck Points
+      at the expense of points for abilities. 
+
+I suggest that such trading (with or without an overt, generalized
+Currency) is fraught with peril, for two reasons. The first is the
+existence of breakpoints of Effectiveness, and the second is that
+soybean trading is almost impossible to avoid. Both of these are greatly
+heightened when the mathematics of character creation include ratios.
+
+Here's an example of breakpoints: effectiveness in Champions is largely
+based on division of scores, like 1/3 of your DEX or 11 + STR/5, or
+stuff like that. Therefore breakpoints are crucial - everyone ends up
+with DEX of 20, 23, or 26, for instance; any other score is only
+minimally useful and wastes points that could be spent better elsewhere.
+
+Soybean trading occurs most often when "derived attributes" are
+involved. The famous Champions trick is certainly familiar to many of
+us: buy up your STR (1:1) and END (1:0.5), which automatically raises
+your REC 1 point. Now buy down your REC, which gives 2 points back. Net
+gain: 0.5 points. Do this 10 times, and your gross is 10 points of STR,
+20 points of END, and 5 points of pure profit.
+
+Currency applies during play as well as during character creation. At
+the most obvious, the expenditure or loss of Resources may affect
+Effectiveness, as when one runs out of spell points or when damage
+accumulates such that ability scores are reduced. Metagame may be
+similarly affected by Resources, as when one must draw upon a point pool
+in order to re-roll dice, and that pool is used up. More subtly,
+multiple other relationships occur in multiple RPGs, such as a
+Meditation ability that permits recharging a Resource more rapidly.
+
+Currency is also related very intimately to Reward System and (for lack
+of a better term) Punishment System, because these feed back into the
+elements of Currency at every moment during play. Improvement processes
+are a common sort of Reward System, but not the only kind; damage and
+death for the character are a common sort of Punishment System, but not
+the only kind.
+
+Reward systems have been very deeply researched by me, but they await a
+rigorous discussion, as the baseline concepts of GNS, Stance, and the
+components of Currency must all be integrated. Some of the issues include:
+
+    * What is being rewarded? Attendance? Role-playing per se? Player
+      actions? Outcomes of conflicts? In-game moments?
+    * Who is being rewarded, the player or the character?
+    * Are reward systems necessary? At what scopes or time-frames of
+      play are they more or less important?
+    * If we are talking about character improvement, how does it
+      proceed? Linearly or exponentially? If exponentially, is the
+      exponent positive or negative?
+    * Do changes in the values and aspects of the character affect the
+      exchange rate of Currency itself? 
+
+Given the astounding importance of Currency among the various components
+of Character, designers of role-playing games would do well to consider
+all of the following.
+
+    * What the three categories are.
+    * All of them do exist in the act of "playing" a character.
+    * How, when, or if exchange is involved among the categories, which
+      is to say, not just among the "named items" on the sheet.
+    * Subdivisions, nuances, and layering within each one. 
+
+Unfortunately, I think that many RPG designers were and are flying
+entirely by the seat of their pants. Their attention was on in-game
+named elements like "strength" and "percent to hit" rather than
+Effectiveness. Such an approach to character design allows latitude for
+all sorts of emergent properties, such as the point-mongering in
+Champions or the mini-maxing in most late 80s games, or any number of
+other "take-over" elements of play that subvert the stated goals of the
+design.
+
+I think that a more fundamentals-based approach to the design process
+would yield less problems of this kind. Without a vocabulary of the
+fundamentals, we'll end up with endless permutations of the same
+currency-mismatches and confusions with nearly every "new" game. In
+fact, that's exactly what we do have.
+
+*System*
+RPG resolution systems are a daunting topic, and the following is
+limited only to the broadest issue, Event Resolution.
+
+For Event Resolution, the relevant terms are Drama, Fortune, and Karma
+(often called DFK). These terms describe the mechanical and social
+means, among the real people, by which an imaginary action or event is
+determined to occur.
+
+    * *Drama* resolution relies on asserted statements without reference
+      to listed attributes or quantitative elements.
+    * *Karma* resolution relies on referring to listed attributes or
+      quantitative elements without a random element.
+    * *Fortune* resolution relies on utilizing a random device of some
+      kind, usually delimited by quantitative scores of some kind. 
+
+Each one of Drama, Karma, and Fortune deserves massive dissection. My
+on-line discussion of Fortune-in-the-Middle as a facilitator of
+Narrativist play is a good example; so is my comparison of flat/linear
+curves with separate/incorporate effects.
+
+These three types of resolution may be combined in a near-infinite
+variety across the various elements of RPG design; few or no RPGs fail
+to make use of at least two of them. I also claim that they may be
+combined in near-infinite variety across the various GNS goals. No
+particular one of them corresponds to any (entire) one of the GNS goals.
+Most importantly, I do not think that Drama methods necessarily
+facilitate Narrativist play. However, I do suggest that a game system
+may be organized such that a GNS subset and developed Premise are more
+understandable; this topic is developed further in the next chapter.
+
+Resolution systems often include metagame mechanics, as mentioned above,
+which permit a player to over-ride the "usual" resolution system of the
+game. These are found in a wide variety of combinations in functional
+terms as well as DFK terms.
+
+    * The over-ride may occur before, after, or in place of the regular
+      system mechanic.
+    * The over-ride may or may not rely on resources of some kind.
+    * The over-ride's version of DFK may mirror the usual system's
+      version of DFK, or it may differ dramatically. 
+
+Example #1: a certificate in Prince Valiant may be redeemed (lost) for a
+player to state that the character instantly subdues an opponent. The
+mechanic replaces the usual resolution system (comparing tossed coins),
+which is simply ignored. This illustrates a Drama metagame mechanic
+replacing a Fortune baseline mechanic and relying on an irreplaceable
+Resource.
+
+Example #2: a bonus die in Over the Edge may be added to a player's
+roll, increasing the chance of success. The die is not permanently lost,
+but may not be used again during the same session. This illustrates a
+Fortune metagame mechanic added into a Fortune baseline mechanic,
+relying on a replaceable Resource.
+
+By definition, the character's role in the "decision" side of the
+over-ride is retroactive, and therefore the very existence of metagame
+mechanics is linked to Author or Director stance.
+
+*Switches and dials*
+The organization of the components of resolution, considering both
+Character and System together, may be thought of as *switches* and
+*dials*. Switches are discrete elements (values or terms) of the
+character that are set in place; they may have different settings but
+once set they are fixed. Dials are continuous elements (values) that may
+vary from high to low along a range. Switches and dials may be
+completely separate, or they may contain one another as well.
+
+Most character creation methods that include classes or clans, or that
+involve picking one item each from two lists, are utilizing large-scale
+switches, in which smaller dials are embedded. By contrast, most
+character creation systems that include a pool of points which may be
+freely distributed about options are utilizing a large-scale dial, in
+which smaller switches (e.g. behavioral limitations) are embedded.
+Plenty of other possibilities, as well as overlaps between these two,
+are in evidence as well. I am happy to provide examples as part of an
+ongoing discussion.
+
+(In either case, the method of "setting" may be either through personal
+choice or through randomized methods; for purposes of the current
+discussion, it doesn't matter which.)
+
+In looking at the diversity across RPGs, one may contrast what's held
+constant and what's permitted to vary, during character creation. What
+elements affect one another during play? What pieces may trade among one
+another during character creation? Even more fun is the hidden stuff,
+such as how Drama methods ("saved actions") are employed to change the
+order of action in the middle of combat resolution in an otherwise
+highly Fortune-driven system, or when Metagame (calling attention to
+another player's character's "alignment") is used to limit a
+competitor's options.
+
+I think that we are nowhere near arriving at a meaningful taxonomy for
+understanding how these combinations are organized across existing and
+potential RPGs, and furthermore that the discussion is long overdue. The
+following chapter begins a discussion of how the combinations relate to
+Premise and GNS.
+
+*Even more stuff to discuss later*
+The following topics have all been researched by me across the vast
+majority of role-playing game designs since the invention of the hobby.
+Some of them have been broached in public forums, and others have not. I
+have avoided discussing them to any depth, given the general lack of
+understanding of the foundational principles of this essay, but I would
+very much like to develop them in the future.
+
+    * The relationship among announcing an intended action, initiating
+      but not completing an action, determining the completion of the
+      action, and determining the effects of an action.
+    * The order in which the above events are conducted by the real
+      people, rather than by the in-game causality. This general
+      principle is illustrated in a local way by the
+      Fortune-in-the-middle concept.
+    * Search time and handling time, as defined in my essay "System Does
+      Matter."
+    * Probabilities in general, including issues of flat vs. linear
+      curves, separate vs. incorporated effects, replacement vs.
+      non-replacement results, and more. This discussion would include
+      the interesting sub-topic of the critical and fumble concepts.
+    * Target number methods in contrast to opposed-resolution methods.
+    * Task vs. conflict resolution; i.e, what precisely is being
+      determined by a unit of effort (system) by the participants. This
+      issue is central to the design of many Narrativist-facilitating
+      games, but could well be developed, in distinct ways, across all
+      three modes.
+    * Scene resolution vs. action resolution, which is not the same as
+      task vs. conflict resolution. Scene resolution first appeared as a
+      Gamist device in Tunnels & Trolls, disappeared from design
+      philosophy for over a decade, then was resurrected as a
+      Narrativist device in Story Engine.
+    * Distinctions among systems for symbolically-significant actions
+      (e.g. magic), as well as between them and systems for mundane
+      actions. 
+
+*A popular misunderstanding*
+The term "diceless" entered the role-playing lexicon with the appearance
+of the revolutionary RPG Amber, but it almost instantly acquired nuances
+of meaning far beyond its literal content. Dicelessness has been
+associated with story-orientation (so-called), with creativity, with
+"mature" abnegation of "power-gaming," and generally with anything that
+the user of the term happens to like and in which dice are not involved.
+This use of the term is nothing more nor less than a value judgment and
+is properly ignored.
+
+Even more confusingly, the term seems to be applied across extremely
+different things in the text of role-playing games. To call Amber or
+Puppetland diceless is literally correct, and it happens to correspond
+with their reliance on Karma and Drama methods; however, to call Castle
+Falkenstein diceless is literally correct but functionally meaningless,
+as its system is wholly Fortune-based. The text in the game undergoes
+many gyrations to extoll the nuances that cards bring to role-playing,
+but the fact remains that its card system is a Fortune system. The text
+of Everway, on the other hand, openly acknowledges that its optional
+card use is also the game's Fortune component.
+
+And most importantly, I see no particular reason to associate
+"dicelessness" or even the lack of any Fortune methods with Narrativism.
+Again, and as discussed in more detail in the following chapter, the
+range of DFK variants and combinations within each of Gamism,
+Narrativism, and Simulationism is very broad. The otherwise excellent
+game Theatrix mistakenly identifies the lack of dice with a heightened
+focus on story creation, and this patently absurd identification spread
+rapidly through role-playing culture in the early 1990s.
+
+*Where's our vampires?*
+The example used so far has taken a brief rest for this chapter, because
+the players are making the horrendous mistake of buying, without
+consideration of any technical issues presented so far, the most widely
+advertised, best-illustrated RPG available - that is, strictly on the
+basis of Color. Their fate will be presented in the next chapter.
+
+</articles/6/>
+
+*_Chapter Five: Role-playing Design and Coherence_*
+
+This chapter investigates how role-playing design is involved in
+facilitating or inhibiting coherence. I think that all three modes of
+play have been present in role-playing since its invention in the 1970s.
+But design is a different issue. Because most of the history of RPG
+design proceeds from variation among what already exists, with changes
+usually appearing in discrete features rather than in foundational
+principles, the priorities and goals facilitated by the designs show
+extremely recognizable trends.
+
+It may fairly be asked, how can GNS be applied to design features, when
+few if any RPG designers know about it, or even care? I use a physics
+analogy: prior to the insights of Newtonian physics, bridges could be
+built. Some of them were built rather well. However, in retrospect, we
+are well aware that in order to build the bridge, the designer must have
+been at the very least according with Newtonian physics through (1)
+luck, (2) imitation of something else that worked, (3) use of principles
+that did not conflict with Newtonian physics in a way that mattered for
+the job, or (4) a non-articulated understanding of those principles. I
+consider the analogy to be exact for role-playing games.
+
+Therefore, the theory-principles or stated intent of the designer, if
+any, are irrelevant to the analysis of the RPG designs. For instance,
+John Wick had no interest in GNS or any other theory when writing
+Orkworld. However, he has a keen sense of practical role-playing and a
+clear vision of the "ways" he envisioned Orkworld play to proceed. In
+order to produce that game, he utilized and developed principles of
+Narrativism, metagame mechanics, and focused Premise on Character and
+Situation, precisely as outlined in the theory. He just did not
+articulate them overtly.
+
+In terms of design, the issue is incoherence, defined here as failure to
+permit any Premise (or any element of Exploration) to be consistently
+enjoyed. I think that any and all RPG designs have some identifiable
+relationship with the GNS modes, out of the following possibilities.
+
+    * Focused: the design facilitates a specific, identifiable Premise
+      (or area of Exploration).
+    * Semi-adaptable: the design is at least compatible with more than
+      one Premise and/or Exploration across GNS goals. (Whether this
+      category even exists, or whether it merely reflects correctable
+      incoherence, is debatable.)
+    * General: the design facilitates a specific mode, but permits a
+      range of Premises or Explorations within that mode.
+    * Kitchen sink: the design utilizes layers and multiple options such
+      that any specific point of play may be customized to accord with
+      GNS goals. (This design often ends up being a general
+      Simulationist one, however.)
+    * Incoherent 1: the design fails to permit one or any mode of play.
+      In its most extreme form, the system may simply be broken - too
+      easily exploited, or internally nonsensical, or lacking meaningful
+      consequence, to pick three respective possibilities for Gamism,
+      Simulationism, and Narrativism.
+    * Incoherent 2: more commonly, the design presents a mixed bag among
+      the modes, such that one part of play is (or is mostly)
+      facilitating one mode and other parts of play facilitate others. 
+
+In terms of actual play, yes, one "can" bring "any" GNS focus to "any"
+RPG - but I argue that in most cases the effort and informal redesign to
+do so is substantial, and also that the effort to keep focused on the
+new goals as play progresses is even more substantial. This chapter
+discusses why that effort needs to be there at all.
+
+Throughout this chapter, cut me some slack on the terminology. Saying
+"Gamist design" or "Gamist RPG," is a short way of saying, "RPG design
+whose elements facilitate, to any recognizable degree, Gamist priorities
+and decision-making."
+
+*Design and Premise*
+Facilitating a metagame concern (a developed Premise) differs greatly
+from Exploring a listed element as a priority. To address a Premise, the
+imaginary, internal commitment to the in-game events must be broken at
+least occasionally during play, to set up and resolve the issues of
+interest in strictly person-to-person terms. To Explore the topic in the
+Simulationist sense, breaking the imagined, continuous in-game causality
+is exactly what to avoid. The at-first attractive idea that a system
+could easily encompass, say, Character-based Premise and prioritized
+Character Exploration is actually utterly unworkable.
+
+To illustrate this principle, let's take just one aspect of role-playing
+design: the terms and qualities used to denote a character. How are
+these things involved in Premise or focused Exploration?
+
+Facilitating Simulationism is all about Exploring the designated
+element(s). The most important priority is that the stated features
+express linear, in-game-world causality. That is why the most prevalent
+version of Simulationist character design relies on Nature-Nurture
+distinctions, using layered qualities, for a large number of attributes
+and abilities. Other sorts of Simulationist design may employ different
+methods, but the commitment to in-game, linear causality remains the
+priority.
+
+Facilitating Narrativism relies on bringing specific Premise and the
+ability to have an impact on it into the foreground, over and above any
+"descriptive" or "explanatory" elements. Distinctions between attributes
+and skills, for instance, is irrelevant. A big tough fighter and a small
+lithe fighter may well be described, in game terms, with a single
+identical "fight" value, perhaps modified retroactively during play for
+especially-appropriate situations. A character may have features for
+completely metagame concerns, such as "plot points" or similar things.
+
+Facilitating Gamism is a matter of knowing what is relevant to the
+stakes, competition, and conditions of victory or loss. Features of a
+character are either complicators or focusing points of the character's
+strategic possibilities. (Side note: Gamist character design may be very
+complex, in which the complication is itself part of the competitive
+arena, or it may be very streamlined if the competition concerns other
+issues.)
+
+Rules regarding both Character and System also facilitate a GNS goal by
+facilitating (or even demanding) particular Stances. For instance, an
+explicit metagame mechanic automatically entails using Author or
+Director stance, whereas a Psychological Limitation of the
+GURPS/Champions tradition automatically entails using Actor stance to
+some degree. Secondarily, these Stance-directing mechanics affect GNS
+focus.
+
+As always, synecdoche confounds the issue. Historically, certain
+combinations of DFK and Character building, with their attendant impact
+on Stance and GNS, have become so entrenched that many people actually
+identify them as "how role-playing is done," without realizing the range
+of design that they are missing.
+
+*RPG design and GNS, historically*
+Pending a really good history of role-playing games, this brief and
+GNS-based summary will have to do. Arising as it did from wargaming in
+the middle 1970s, the earliest RPG design reflected its Gamist +
+Simulationist roots. However, within a year, design philosophies split
+very fast across a brief Renaissance of largely-forgotten games that
+spanned nearly all of the GNS spectrum, and then two trends "settled
+out" to remain stable until the early 1990s.
+
+The first of these trends was an ongoing series of imitations of
+post-tourney D&D, with its halting and incoherent mix of Gamism and
+Simulationism. The second was a development of Simulationist principles
+in several trajectories, based on different models, including the
+following.
+
+    * The RuneQuest system from the Chaosium (extremely coherent,
+      emphasizing System and Setting), developing both in the series of
+      games from that company as well as in its imitators.
+    * The interesting mutual relationship between four editions of
+      Champions and effectively two of GURPS (moving from incoherent to
+      coherent, emphasizing System), which provides the model for the
+      vast majority of new games.
+    * The AD&D 2nd edition (mainly incoherent, emphasizing Setting and
+      Situation), developing in the huge setting-based proliferation of
+      TSR products into the early 1990s, as well as in a host of
+      small-press imitators. 
+
+Around 1990, first Narrativist-facilitating methods became widely
+established, and then full-bodied Narrativist games appeared in 1994.
+About five years later, simultaneous with the appearance of innovative
+competitive games (not RPGs, but rather Cheapass Games), overtly Gamist
+RPGs appeared.
+
+(A fascinating story of economics and industry hassles underlies this
+history, but I regretfully have to stay on-topic. Another time.)
+
+Or to put it another way, RPG design through most of the hobby's history
+has been largely devoted to Simulationist priorities. This is not to say
+that the full range of this mode has been represented or all of its
+potential developed.
+
+The sub-set of Simulationism most fully developed during the 1980s was
+"realist" (a form of Situtation) and "genre-faithfulness" (System with
+strong and various other co-emphases). Some conventions of these
+approaches include identifying Fortune methods with the imaginary
+physics of the setting and a commitment to extensive search and handling
+times. The sub-set developed later used the previous one as a
+foundation, but lightened the details and concentrated on Character,
+Setting, and Situation in its most external form of published metaplot,
+as a determinant of large-scale events during play.
+
+Quite a lot more has occurred in Simulationist design, of course. Not
+surprisingly, the variety among coherent Simulationist design is
+extensive, indeed, vast, because the key to design is which elements are
+being Explored.
+
+    * Character: Unknown Armies
+    * Setting: RuneQuest, Pendragon, Usagi Yojimbo, Jorune
+    * Situation: Call of Cthulhu
+    * System: GURPS, Champions 4th edition (or rather, the Hero System),
+      Fudge, Multiverser
+    * Situation and Setting: Feng Shui, Cyberpunk 2020
+    * Character and Setting: Legend of the Five Rings, Nephilim, Albedo,
+      Ars Magica, Nobilis 
+
+This is not to say that any RPG will illustrate one of the above
+categories so clearly; the listed titles are among the shining lights of
+coherent Simulationist design. Most RPGs are cobbled-together pieces of
+these and other games, generating a vague and internally-incoherent
+Simulationism with, at best, isolated design features or Color that are
+interesting. The topic of incoherence is developed more fully below, but
+for now, consider Kult - how can archetypal (fixed) character design be
+compatible with Character Exploration? The answer is that it can't, and
+that nearly all of the character development material in the basic rules
+is scrapped in application, which turns into pure Setting Exploration
+instead.
+
+Much Narrativist and Gamist play during the 1980s occurred as
+"rebellious" play in groups using primarily Simulationist systems. This
+is probably why elements of Narrativist and Gamist play are often
+perceived as cheating by those who are strongly committed to the
+Simulationist designs of that period, or mistakenly identified with
+"ignoring the rules."
+
+Overt Gamist RPG design is very rare. I think it takes a central role
+only in D&D well before it acquired its "A," in Tunnels & Trolls also in
+the late 1970s, and, less coherently, in Shadowrun and Rifts. Arguably,
+quite a lot of live-action role-playing of Vampire, Amber, and other
+games has drifted into Gamism in application, but not in the texts. Only
+very recently has overt, even enthusiastic Gamist design been
+resurrected, in D&D3E, Rune, Pantheon, The Adventures of Baron
+Munchausen, and Ninja Burger.
+
+Gamism clearly includes a wide range of the role of Fortune, such that
+some games have a high random element and in others it is very low or
+absent. Also, the GM's role varies widely, up to and including being
+completely absent. I look forward to the continued appearance and
+widely-ranging development of Gamist RPGs as well as to informed
+discussion of the principles that are involved in playing them.
+
+Overt Narrativist RPG design is a latecomer, with the exception of the
+few glimmers appearing in the late 1970s and early 1980s, of which
+Marvel Super Heroes is the sole survivor. The first thoroughgoing
+Narrativist game since then was Prince Valiant, in 1989. Although both
+games were based on source texts, their designs did not recommend
+Exploring the canonical settings so much as using the texts' authors'
+philosophy of story creation as a model for creating new stories entirely.
+
+A veritable Renaissance of Narrativist design occurred in 1993-1994 and
+continues to this day. Its published pioneers include Over the Edge and
+Everway; then Theatrix, Zero, Castle Falkenstein, Extreme Vengeance, and
+The Whispering Vault, as the next wave; and then Maelstrom/Story Engine,
+followed by Hero Wars, as games which provided utterly novel approaches
+at the metagame level. But the published games are only one side of the
+story, given the proliferation of Narrativist development in the
+underground, beginning with The Window and Wuthering Heights and setting
+the stage for the publications of games like Sorcerer, Orkworld, and
+Little Fears.
+
+In most Narrativist designs, Premise is based on one of the following
+models.
+
+    * A pre-play developed setting, in which case the characters develop
+      into protagonists in the setting's conflicts over time. Examples
+      include Castle Falkenstein and Hero Wars.
+    * Pre-play developed characters (protagonists), in which case the
+      setting develops into a suitable framework for them over time.
+      Examples include Sorcerer, Everway, Zero (in an interesting way),
+      Cyberpunk 1st edition, Orkworld, and The Whispering Vault. 
+
+I have observed that when people bring a Narrativist approach to
+Vampire, Legend of the Five Rings, or other game systems which include
+both detailed pre-play character creation and a detailed, conflict-rich
+settting, they must discard one or the other in order to play enjoyably.
+
+Given the widespread use of Author and Director stance in Narrativist
+role-playing, the functional result is to spread tasks and creative
+roles left for the GM in most other play among all participants. These
+systems may accurately be considered GM-full, rather than GM-less.
+
+Finally, several of the games mentioned above as well as others are
+probably best considered "abashedly Narrativist" rather than thoroughly
+focused on this mode, insofar as the overt philosophy of play in the
+texts is about creating stories, even about the players having co-author
+status, but various elements of design stop short of the goal. The
+aforementioned Marvel Super Heroes, Cyberpunk 1st edition, The Window,
+Everway, Obsidian, UnderWorld, and Little Fears are good examples.
+
+*The new revolution*
+Recent directions in RPG design are breaking new ground across GNS,
+especially in terms of how Stance relates to the modes. Only now are we
+seeing such things as mechanics-driven Director Stance in Simulationism
+and in Gamism. It's also nice to see Narrativist design following up on
+the precedent set by Prince Valiant, with Premise based on Situation
+(The Dying Earth).
+
+Fortune methods may clearly be employed extensively in the service of
+metagame goals. I specifically disavow the popular notion that these
+methods serve only for in-setting probabilistic modeling, and the
+associated notion that they have little place in Narrativism or Gamism.
+I would very much like to participate in a discussion of Fortune systems
+acting as a "springboard" for metagame priorities in Narrativist play,
+as suggested by the designs of InSpectres, The Pool, The Framework,
+Munchkins, and others.
+
+Another new development is an explicit opening statement about the
+social context of play, often with a fairly strong GNS focus. I think
+this is an astoundingly important element of game design and
+presentation, and it's interesting to review older games to see how they
+did or didn't manage to communicate it. The typical trends among them
+are the following.
+
+    * The purpose and perspective of the game is scattered across
+      several places, rarely at the beginning, and is often referred to
+      rather than addressed directly.
+    * The purpose and perspective of the game is justified because it
+      corresponds to what, according to the authors, role-playing
+      obviously is (i.e., the synecdoche fallacy).
+    * The purpose and perspective of the game claims to satisfy anyone,
+      in blatant contradiction to the game's content and design. 
+
+One of the benefits of the GNS perspective is the willingness to accept
+that other outlooks or priorities exist besides one's own. Therefore, in
+many of the new games, the social contract is both more explicit and
+less dismissive, which I think is functional, honest, and fair.
+
+Dozens of topics remain, many of which have been researched by me but
+have not been broached in public.
+
+    * DFK combinations across RPG design history, in both basic
+      resolution and metagame mechanics.
+    * The history and development across RPGs of trading within
+      components of Currency or across them.
+    * Random vs. nonrandom elements of character creation contrasted
+      with those of event resolution.
+    * Distinctions between successful actions and significant consequences.
+    * Personality mechanics, divided into two main schools derived from,
+      respectively, Call of Cthulhu and Dungeons & Dragons.
+    * Fundamental aspects of character-player relationship based on
+      levels of remove.
+    * The consequence of character death or incapacity on the player's
+      participation in the game. 
+
+I would very much like to host a sort of "Discuss this game" exercise at
+the Forge regarding given RPGs, not to label them "G, N, or S" in a
+superficial way but rather to dissect their function in the full
+knowledge of the listed elements, Stance-facilitating features, all
+aspects of design including the issues listed above, comparisons with
+ancestral, contemporary, and derivative games, and much more.
+
+*Metagame considered further*
+Metagame mechanics appeared mainly as Narrativist "coping mechanisms"
+when playing games that were largely 80s-Simulationist designs (which
+does not mean these games were "bad" or represented the whole of
+Simulationist potential). An extreme, early example would be TORG's
+character-card privileges; a more typical example would be Over the
+Edge's bonus dice.
+
+In later RPGs with overtly Narrativist resolution systems, metagame
+mechanics have again become rare. For instance, in Hero Wars, neither
+bumping success levels nor bidding Action Points are metagame mechanics,
+but simply the basic resolution system. They most resemble metagame
+mechanics from earlier games, but now, in an overtly Narrativist design,
+they are front-and-center rather than secondary overrides.
+
+*Balance, so-called*
+"Balance" may rank as the most problematic term in all of role-playing.
+What in the world does it mean? Equality of some kind? Fairness of some
+kind? Whenever the term is brought up, the discussion cannot proceed
+without specifying further regarding the following issues.
+
+    * Balance of what? Components of the characters? Specific sets of
+      components?
+    * Or perhaps it's balance of actions, in which case, is it of
+      opportunity, or of consequence?
+    * Balance among whom? Players or characters? Both in some way?
+    * To what end? (Citing "fairness" is tautological.)
+    * Shifting the issue, perhaps it's a matter of balance within a
+      character, rather than among characters.
+    * And extending the issue, should balance be concerned with initial
+      starting points of characters or with the processes of change for
+      the characters, or both? 
+
+Currently little insight arises from discussions of balance, as it
+inevitably wanders about these issues without focusing. The issues
+themselves, on the other hand, are very interesting. Therefore the term
+is much like "genre," in that discussion might as well focus on the real
+issues in the first place and never use the term at all.
+
+Finally, a common misconception is to identify any concern with equality
+or "even-ness" among characters with (a) balance per se and (b) Gamism.
+I disavow any suggestion that Gamism as a whole is necessarily concerned
+with balance, or that concerns with balance (of some kind) necessarily
+indicate a Gamist approach. For instance, the parity of starting point
+totals across a group of GURPS characters most likely indicates a
+commitment to the consistency of the Explored Characters with their
+Situation and Setting, rather than to any concern with "fairness" or
+"leveling the playing field."
+
+*Hybrids and drift*
+Can multiple GNS goals be satisfied by a single game design? It may be
+possible, but it is not easy. As mentioned before, merely aligning
+topics of Exploration with those of Premise is probably not effective. I
+conceive of two types of *hybrid*: (1) two modes are simultaneously
+satisfied in the same player at the same time, of which I am highly
+skeptical; and (2) two modes can exist side by side in the design, such
+that differently-oriented players may play together, which might be
+possible. Some possible candidates for the latter include these.
+
+    * G + S: Rifts.
+    * N + G: Champions 1st-3rd editions; I'm interested as well in
+      seeing the upcoming Elfworld and a proposed game from Hogshead
+      Publishing regarding fantasy weaponry.
+    * N + S: Little Fears and UnderWorld (these games' degree of
+      "abashedness" exists squarely on the border of the two modes). 
+
+*Drift* is a related issue: the movement from one GNS focus to another
+during the course of play. I do not think that "drift" reflects
+hybridized design (in which both modes are indeed present), but rather
+correctable incoherence (moving toward coherence in one mode).
+Historically, drifting toward Gamism is very common; it isn't hard to
+understand that a frustrating and incoherent context can be turned into
+an arena for competition. Internet play has illustrated some distinctive
+drifting: Amber moves from abashed Narrativism either to Simulation with
+Exploration of Character or to Gamism with the emphasis on interpersonal
+control; Everway moves from abashed Narrativism to Simulationism with
+the emphasis on Exploration of Situation.
+The 1990s transitional game offers a good example of driftable design:
+Simulationist resolution with strong metagame mechanics, highly
+customizable character, setting, and situation, with or without
+exhortations to "story." Fudge and The Window are perfect examples, on
+either side of Simulationism or Narrativism, respectively, as the stated
+emphasis.
+
+*Incoherent design*
+Unfortunately, functional or nearly-functional hybrids are far less
+common than simply incoherent RPG designs.
+
+The "lesser," although still common, dysfunctional trend is found among
+the imitators of the late-1970s release of AD&D, composed of vague and
+scattered Simulationism mixed with vague and scattered Gamism. Warhammer
+is the most successful of these. Small-press publishers pump out these
+games constantly, offering little new besides ever-more baroque
+mechanics and a highly-customized Setting (Hahlmabrea, Pelicar,
+Legendary Lives, Of Gods and Men, Fifth Cycle, Darkurthe: Legends, and
+more). Another, similar trend is the never-ending stream of GURPS
+imitators.
+
+The "dominant" dysfunctional system is immediately recognizable, to the
+extent of being considered by many to be what role-playing is: a vaguely
+Gamist combat and reward system, Simulationist resolution in general
+(usually derived from GURPS, Cyberpunk, or Champions 4th edition), a
+Simulationist context for play (Situation in the form of published
+metaplot), deceptive Narrativist Color, and incoherent
+Simulationist/Narrativist Character creation rules. This combination has
+been represented by some of the major players in role-playing marketing,
+and has its representative for every period of role-playing since the
+early 1980s.
+
+    * AD&D2 pioneered the approach in the middle 1980s, particularly the
+      addition of metaplot with the Dragonlance series.
+    * Champions, through its 3rd edition, exemplified a mix of Gamist
+      and Narrativist "driftable" design, but with its 4th edition in
+      the very late 1980s, the system lost all Metagame content and
+      became the indigestible mix outlined above.
+    * Vampire, in the early 1990s, offered a mix of Simulationism and
+      Gamism in combat resolution, but a mix of Narrativism and
+      Simulationism out of combat, as well as bringing in Character
+      Exploration. 
+
+The design is hugely imitated, ranging from Earthdawn, Kult, and In
+Nomine, to the mid-1990s "shotgun attack" of Deadlands, Legend of the
+Five Rings, and Seventh Sea.
+
+All of these games are based on The Great Impossible Thing to Believe
+Before Breakfast: that the GM may be defined as the author of the
+ongoing story, and, simultaneously, the players may determine the
+actions of the characters as the story's protagonists. This is
+impossible. It's even absurd. However, game after game, introduction
+after introduction, and discussion after discussion, it is repeated.
+
+Consider the players who were excited about the vampire concept for
+role-playing. What happens when they try to play Vampire: the
+Masquerade? Well, they try to Believe the Impossible Thing, and in
+application, the results are inevitable.
+
+    * The play drifts toward some application of Narrativism, which
+      requires substantial effort and agreement among all the people
+      involved, as well as editing out substantial portions of the
+      game's texts and system.
+    * The play drifts toward an application of Simulationism in which
+      the GM dominates the characters' significant actions, and the
+      players contribute only to characterization. This is called
+      *illusionism*, in which the players are unaware of or complicit
+      with the extent to which they are manipulated.
+          o Illusionism is not necessarily dysfunctional, and if
+            Character or Situation Exploration is the priority, then it
+            can be a lot of fun. Unknown Armies, Feng Shui, and Call of
+            Cthulhu all facilitate extremely functional illusionism.
+            However, it is not and can never be "story creation" on the
+            part of all participants, and if the game is incoherent,
+            illusionism requires considerable effort to edit the system
+            and texts into shape. 
+    * Most likely, however, the players and GM carry out an ongoing
+      power-struggle over the actions of the characters, with the
+      integrity of "my guy" held as a club on the behalf of the former
+      and the integrity of "the story" held as a club on behalf of the
+      latter. 
+
+The players of the vampire example are especially screwed if they have
+Narrativist leanings and try to use Vampire: the Masquerade. The
+so-called "Storyteller" design in White Wolf games is emphatically not
+Narrativist, but it is billed as such, up to and including encouraging
+subcultural snobbery against other Simulationist play without being much
+removed from it. The often-repeated distinction between "roll-playing"
+and "role-playing" is nothing more nor less than Exploration of System
+and Exploration of Character - either of which, when prioritized, is
+Simulationism. Thus our players, instead of taking the "drift" option
+(which would work), may well apply themselves more and more diligently
+to the metaplot and other non-Narrativist elements in the mistaken
+belief that they are emphasizing "story." The prognosis for the
+enjoyment of such play is not favorable.
+
+One may ask, if this design is so horribly dysfunctional, why is it so
+popular? The answer requires an economic perspective on RPGs, in
+addition to the conceptual and functional one outlined in this essay,
+and is best left for discussion.
+
+*The one true game*
+What a wonderful ideal: an RPG design that satisfies any participant,
+with no stress, no adjustment of any part, no potential for
+interpersonal disagreement, and no unnecessary preparation. The
+"universal game."
+
+Bluntly, it's a moronic concept, existing only to whet frustrated
+consumers' appetites for an upcoming product. GNS goals differ among
+people, preferred variants of each GNS mode differ among people, and
+system mechanics necessarily facilitate a limited range of these
+preferences, or facilitate nothing at all. All of us would do well to
+look in the mirror every morning and state, "There is no universal
+role-playing game."
+
+However, the term "universal" is also used for a rather sensible and
+functional RPG design option, which is much better described by the term
+*general*. A general game design holds constant one or two of the listed
+elements of role-playing (Character, Setting, Situation, System, Color)
+and provides guidelines for customizing the other elements. GURPS and
+Fudge are perfect examples, as are the plethora of their imitators:
+System is held constant and made very clear; Setting and Color are
+specified prior to play by the GM and similarly made clear and specific;
+and then Character and Situation are customized.
+
+A general game design is really no more than extending the original
+notion from AD&D of System, Setting, Situation, and Color being highly
+fixed, with Character being the main thing to customize. Other
+combinations are possible, as in Sorcerer and Orkworld, in which System
+is highly fixed, then Character and Situation are customized, and
+finally Setting are customized (Color's place differs between these two
+games).
+
+In other words, the so-called "universal" model for RPG design is really
+a general design, and a coherent general game sits as firmly in its GNS
+orientation as any other. The key issue is to avoid confounding it with
+"universal" in the sense of "satisfies any and every possible
+role-playing participant."
+
+*Misunderstandings*
+A number of code-phrases to describe RPG system and goals have arisen as
+role-players struggled to match their interests with the spectrum of
+available games, but most of them lack substance.
+
+    * Rules-heavy vs. Rules-light: this dichotomy is vaguely oriented
+      toward high vs. low search and handling time, but it is confounded
+      a great deal with so-called realism and so-called story. (This
+      confusion is a product of the transition design period of
+      1990-1991, exemplified by Fudge and The Window.) The concept of
+      rules-focus, in terms of goals and modes, has not entered the
+      popular understanding of the hobby.
+    * Completeness: as far as I can tell, this term relies on as
+      thorough a presentation as possible of all the listed elements,
+      apparently such that Simulationist play of any emphasis can pick
+      and choose which aspects to emphasize, by elimination rather than
+      by creation. 
+
+</articles/7/>
+
+*_Chapter Six: Actually Playing_*
+
+It all comes back to the social situation, eventually, because
+role-playing is a human activity and not a set of rules or text.
+Coherence is expressed as a social outcome; it must apply all the way
+into and through actual play. I suggest that preparing for and carrying
+out the role-playing experience in social terms, well above and beyond
+considerations of system mechanics, is most coherent from a GNS and
+Premise perspective.
+
+Role-playing is carried out through relying upon the real, interpersonal
+roles of living humans, yes, even of opponents. If people do not share
+any degree of either Premise focus (either Gamist or Narravist) or an
+Exploration focus (Simulationist), then their different assumptions,
+different expectations, and different goals will come into conflict
+during play. When that happens, the uber-goal of "Fun" is diminished.
+Perhaps the people continue to play together solely to interact
+socially, but the actual role-playing is, effectively, gone.
+
+*But it's just a game!*
+This phrase is an alarm bell. Oh, it looks like an attempt to
+reconciliate disagreements by calling attention to fun and the shared,
+social context, but it disguises something far more unpleasant.
+
+The first tip-off is that the phrase is not literally meaningful. What's
+the "it?" Role-playing, of course, but dismissed, via the singular short
+pronoun, as simple, straightforward, intuitively grasped, and singly
+defined. And what's a "game?" Not defined at all. The use of "game" to
+refer to role-playing is completely historical and carries no
+informational content beyond its indication of a leisure activity.
+
+The ugly truth is that this phrase is not reconciliatory at all. Rather,
+it is code for, "Stop bothering me with your interests and accord with
+my goals, decisions, and priorities of play." I strongly urge that
+individual role-players not tolerate any implication that their
+preferred, enjoyed range of role-playing modes is a less worthy form of
+play.
+
+*What's a GM and what's a player?*
+Like it or not, among any group of people contributing to some
+constructive activity, there exists a the aforementioned Balance of
+Power: some hierarchy and way to organize who gets to influence and
+approve of outcomes. For the activity to succeed, some form of *social
+contract*, or reciprocal obligations, must be in place.
+
+In role-playing games, the issue of the social contract becomes quickly
+confounded with the distribution and difference in the roles of GM and
+players. Entirely aside from any formal rules-oriented or
+procedure-oriented authority, what kind of authority or status does a GM
+have over or with the players anyway? Is he or she the physical host,
+using physical living or work space for the game? If not, does that
+change or limit the GM-ness? How about a faculty member running games
+with students in a campus club? How about romance issues; if single, is
+he or she automatically the focus of personal attention from other
+single people in the group?
+
+Most of these issues cannot be addressed from the perspective of game
+design, but they are real nonetheless. Where the game design and
+GNS-based approach to play can help is in putting all the issues of the
+role-playing itself above-board. Given clear roles, purposes, and
+respective obligations of GM and player - which in most RPG designs are
+left open or badly mis-stated - the group may avoid getting its
+role-playing issues mixed up with its social ones.
+
+How might a GNS perspective help keep that GM/player understanding
+clear? Historically, the terms cover very diffferent ranges within each
+of the modes.
+
+    * The range in Gamism: GM as referee over players who compete with
+      one another, GM as referee over the players competing with a
+      scenario, GM as opponent of the players as a unified group, or
+      even no GM at all among a group of competing players.
+    * The range in Simulationism: GM as channeler of external source
+      material, GM as the fellow Actor responsible for the landscape and
+      NPCs, GM as referee of the physics and internal consistency of the
+      imaginary universe, GM as covert author.
+    * The range in Narrativism: depending on the degree of coauthorship
+      of the players, the traditional tasks of the GM may vary all the
+      way from one centralized GM to a situation in which all the
+      players are mini-GMs. Interestingly, this is the one mode in
+      which, throughout its range, no role for an "impartial referee" GM
+      is possible. 
+
+One last note about Gamism: the shift from tourney play, in which many
+groups of players competed for time and kill-count as they were "run
+through" identical adventures, to single-group play led to many design
+holdovers that often lead to frustrating experiences. These are almost
+all based on the shift from the GM as referee, with the opponents being
+other groups, to the GM as opponent - and the players, rather sensibly,
+turning from competing with an invincible opponent (the holdover from
+the referee status) to competing with one another.
+
+A final issue about GM and player(s) concerns who is expected to be
+entertaining whom, in some kind of dichotomous way. Evidently this is a
+matter of some emotional commitment, prompting the same defensiveness
+and hurt feelings as the mention of "immersion." Therefore I am
+personally willing to let it lie.
+
+*Organizing a role-playing session*
+With a few exceptions, most role-playing texts completely ignore the
+actual human logistics of play, although these are hugely important in
+application. How can one possibly participate in a social, leisure
+activity without considering all of the following?
+
+    * The number of participants and the extant relationships among them.
+    * The time to be spent playing, in terms of hours per session and
+      the number of sessions per unit of real time (week or month,
+      e.g.), the anticipated number of sessions, and so on.
+    * The event-scope of play; that is, when and how often units of
+      satisfaction for the participants occcur (here the GNS perspective
+      is tremendously useful, because it identifies the instances of
+      satisfaction).
+    * The necessary time and effort to be spent in preparation, and by
+      whom. 
+
+When AD&D was released in its late 1970s form, its content encouraged a
+"more is better" approach. The more players, the better. The more time
+spent, the better. The longer the sessions, the better. The longer the
+sessions continued, the better. Nearly all role-playing games used AD&D
+as the starting point for presentation purposes, even those with vastly
+different systems and philosophies of play, and so this dysfunctional
+approach remains with us to this day. The term "campaign" is especially
+misleading, as in wargaming it denotes a specific set of events from
+point A in time to point B in time, whereas in role-playing it denotes
+playing indefinitely.
+
+For those forms of role-playing that emphasize "story" in the general
+sense (see Chapter Two), this approach is completely unsuitable. What is
+a "story" to be, in terms of individual sessions and all-sessions? In
+role-playing culture, one is often assumed either to be playing a
+"campaign," which means it should go on forever, or a "one-shot" session
+which aside from the connotation of being superficial is simply too
+short for many sorts of stories. The functional intermediate of playing
+the number of sessions sufficient for the purpose of resolving a story
+is nowhere to be found in the texts of role-playing.
+
+On the smaller scale, successfully preparing for individual sessions is
+especially integrated with GNS and Premise. Consider the historical
+tendencies among the modes, in terms of how a series of events emerges
+through the course of play. (These do not represent either a complete or
+definitional list, but simply historical examples.)
+
+    * Linear adventures, in which the GM has provided a series of
+      prepared, in-order encounters.
+    * Linear, branched adventures, in which the GM has done the same as
+      above but provides for the players proceeding in more than one
+      direction or sequence.
+    * Roads to Rome, in which the GM has prepared a climactic scene and
+      maneuvers or otherwise determines that character activity leads to
+      this scene. (In practice, "winging it" usually becomes this method.)
+    * Bang-driven, in which the GM has prepared a series of instigating
+      events but has not anticipated a specific outcome or
+      confrontation. (This is precisely the opposite of Roads to Rome.)
+    * Relationship map, in which the GM has prepared a complex
+      back-story whose members, when encountered by the characters,
+      respond according to the characters' actions, but no sequence or
+      outcomes of these encounters have been pre-determined.
+    * Intuitive continuity, in which the GM uses the players' interests
+      and actions during initial play to construct the crises and actual
+      content of later play. (This is a form of "winging it" that may or
+      may not become Roads to Rome.) 
+
+Roads to Rome and Linear/Branched play are extremely common in published
+scenarios with a strong Simulationist approach. Linear play relies on
+extreme commitment to the Situation, and thus works best for
+Situation-intensive Simulationist play, as in many Call of Cthulhu
+scenarios. Bang-driven (formalized in Sorcerer and Sword) and
+Relationship map (formalized in The Sorcerer's Soul) are best suited to
+Narrativist play. Intuitive Continuity may do well for a variety of
+modes that emphasize either Character actions being pivotal
+(Narrativism) or Character Exploration (Simulationism). Again, all of
+this is speaking historically and not at all in terms of potential.
+
+Gamist play was not included above, mainly because it has been so badly
+marginalized during most of role-playing history. To date, most scenario
+construction oriented in this direction has fallen back on the
+late-1970s tournament model or the survivalist model found in many video
+games. The Hogshead family of Gamist RPGs ('Baron Munchausen, Pantheon)
+has broken this mold and I have no doubt that much more variety remains
+to be developed.
+
+*Dysfunction: when role-playing doesn't work out*
+Great Googley-Moogley, let me count the ways.
+
+The clearest case is straightforward. People do exist who will
+habitually disrupt a role-playing group for whatever reasons of their
+own, and the only solution for dealing with such people is to exclude
+them from play.
+
+But let's consider people who do want to role-play together, and have
+even established an interest in the most basic, embryonic form of an
+initial Premise. What dysfunctions may arise?
+
+Emotional tensions between people may override the role-playing. It can
+be romance, or money issues, or who's giving whom a ride home, or any
+number of similar things. My claim is that a lot of times, people get
+all upset at one another about game stuff (tactics, rules, etc) when the
+real problem is this people stuff. Such problems must be dealt with
+socially and above-board, because no in-game mechanisms can help;
+in-game issues are symptoms rather than causes.
+
+I think the most common dysfunction, however, is GNS incompatibility. At
+the highest-order level, if the people simply have entirely different
+goals, then actual play continually runs into conflicts about priorities
+and procedures based on those different goals. I think everyone who's
+familiar with the theory knows that this is a "no fault, no blame"
+criterion. I like potatos, you like pink lemonade, have a nice game with
+your own group.
+
+More difficult incompatibilities also exist within each of G, N, or S.
+People may share the the large-scale GNS goal, but be accustomed to or
+desire different standards for Balance of Power, preferred stances,
+notions of character depth, the distinction between player success and
+character success, and many related things. In this case, dysfunction
+arises from (a) trying to resolve the differences during play itself,
+and (b) anyone being unwilling to compromise about the differences.
+
+Drift is the usual method for dealing with this level of discord. It is
+a fine solution for resolving within-mode differences, if everyone is
+willing to give a little. However, drift has a dark side, or
+degeneration, the disruption or subversion of the social contract such
+that what is happening is not more fun, at least not at the group level.
+Gamism is often pegged as the culprit when players shift from the stated
+or agreed-upon mode of play and turn upon one another as opponents, but
+it's better considered degeneration with Gamism merely being the
+direction. The usual effect of degeneration (any kind, not just this one
+little Gamist sort), if people continue to play, is to play without
+committing to anything at all.
+
+The tragedy is how widespread GNS-based degeneration really is. I have
+met dozens, perhaps over a hundred, very experienced role-players with
+this profile: a limited repertoire of games behind him and extremely
+defensive and turtle-like play tactics. Ask for a character background,
+and he resists, or if he gives you one, he never makes use of it or
+responds to cues about it. Ask for actions - he hunkers down and does
+nothing unless there's a totally unambiguous lead to follow or a foe to
+fight. His universal responses include "My guy doesn't want to," and, "I
+say nothing."
+
+I have not, in over twenty years of role-playing, ever seen such a
+person have a good time role-playing. I have seen a lot of groups
+founder due to the presence of one such participant. Yet they really
+want to play. They prepare characters or settings, organize groups, and
+are bitterly disappointed with each fizzled attempt. They spend a lot of
+money on RPGs with lots of supplements and full-page ads in gaming
+magazines.
+
+These role-players are GNS casualties. They have never perceived the
+range of role-playing goals and designs, and they frequently commit the
+fallacies of synecdoche about "correct role-playing." Discussions with
+them wander the empty byways of realism, genre, completeness,
+roll-playing vs. role-playing, and balance. They are the victims of
+incoherent game designs and groups that have not focused their
+intentions enough. They thought that "show up with a character" was
+sufficient prep, or thought that this new game with its new setting was
+going to solve all their problems forever. They are simultaneously
+devoted to and miserable in their hobby.
+
+My goal in developing RPG theory and writing this document is to help
+people avoid this fate.
+
+</articles/8/>
+
+*_Acknowledgements_*
+
+Thanks are due to everyone who has taken the time to discuss the issues
+with me over the years. Specific intellectual debts are owed to the
+following people. In no particular order:
+
+The members of the rec.gaming.faq.advocacy discussion group, most
+especially John Kim, for the Threefold Model and Stance. I owe an
+immense debt to all members of these discussions for raising all the
+right issues. However, I have altered just about everything very
+drastically, and "Director stance" is my contribution.
+
+Robin Laws for his essay regarding Art vs. Game in the text of Over the
+Edge, as well as for nearly single-handedly revolutionizing RPG design
+throughout the 1990s. (And he's still going, too; it's really frightening.)
+
+The Scarlet Jester (real name withheld) for the concept of Exploration.
+However, I acknowledge that he does not approve of the definition and
+use I've made of it, and any problems or inconsistencies with the listed
+definition and use are solely my responsibility.
+
+Jonathan Tweet for DFK, from his text in the game Everway, as well as
+for many other things. My re-statement of the definition of Drama has
+been approved by him.
+
+Christopher Kubasik for his "Interactive Toolkit" series of essays.
+
+Lajos Egri for his 1946 book, The Art of Dramatic Writing, for the
+foundation of my thoughts on Narrativist Premise.
+
+Logan Hunter for his original compilation of the theories from a variety
+of discussions and for his construction of Balance of Power.
+
+Jim Henley for his term "abashedly Narrativist" regarding Everway, which
+admirably describes a whole family of RPG designs.
+
+Gordon Landis for his input regarding Drift.
+
+The FUZION Lab Group for their presentation of switches and dials in the
+text of Champions New Millenium. I have expanded their
+Simulationist/general material into a much broader scheme regarding all
+of DFK diversity.
+
+Jesse Burneko for his input regarding illusionism.
+
+Gareth-Michael Skarka for his description of Intuitive Continuity in the
+text of UnderWorld.
+
+If I have overlooked anyone's input, please remind me and I'll include
+you in the acknowledgments.
+