barf forth apocalyptica > roleplaying theory, hardcore

Moving on from "GNS"

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Paul T.:
Vincent,

You've mentioned elsewhere that you feel it's time to put some of the Big Model in the dirt, and to move on to better ways to understand games.

What was the turning point, in your mind, on this topic? When did you start feeling this way and why?

How much of it is a problem with the Model itself, and how much of it is a problem with the conversations it generates?

lumpley:
Oh sure.

So the Big Model is full of little taxonomies, right?

DFK. People said, "what about [this rule], is it D, F, or K?" The correct answer is: who cares? D, F and K are obviously just placeholders for the interesting thing to examine, which is the actual working of the rule itself.

Now, DFK is trivial, so it was easy to realize the correct answer. People only bothered to ask for about a month, and then everybody realized the correct answer and nobody asked after that.

IIEE. People said, "what about [this rule], is it II*EE, IIE*E, or what?" The correct answer is: who cares? I, I, E and E are obviously just placeholders for the interesting thing to examine, which is the actual working of the rule itself.

FitM/FatE. People said, "what about [this rule], is it FitM or FatE?" The correct answer is: who cares? FitM and FatE are obviously just placeholders for the interesting thing to examine, which is the actual working of the rule itself.

Stances. People said, "what about [when I did this], was it Actor Stance, Author Stance, or Director Stance? Or maybe Pawn Stance?" The correct answer is: who cares? the stances are obviously just placeholders for the interesting thing to examine, which is what you actually did.

Authorities. People said, "what about [when I did this], was I exercising Content Authority, Backstory Authority, or what?" The correct answer is: who cares? That list of "authorities" is obviously just a placeholder for the interesting thing to examine, which is what you actually did. (And furthermore, casting it as a question of authority in the first place is a bad idea. It's the worst idea in RPG thoery. Yes, worse than "if the GM can't arbitrarily kill any PC with no warning, it's not really an RPG," or any other bad idea you care to mention.)

For a long, long time, maybe embarrassingly long, I thought that GNS was an exception. That G, N, and S were "observed," true categories of play. I'd say things like "you know how most of the taxonomies in the Big Model are just, like, placeholders for the interesting things? GNS is the exception. G, N, and S are for real."

But one day, maybe 4-5 years ago, I caught myself, and said, "self, are you positive?"

And I concluded that when people say, "what about [this time we played], was it G, N, or S?" the correct answer is: who cares? That list of creative agendas is obviously just a placeholder for the interesting thing to examine, with is the actual working of that time you played.

Interpreting it into a box is not the same as understanding it, and, in fact, might be the opposite of understanding it.

So that was the turning point for me.

I'm saying that the model itself is obsolete. It is 100% about the Big Model itself.

-Vincent

Paul T.:
This is totally fascinating to me, because I'd always assumed that the "G, N, and S" modes *were* effectively placeholders.

Kind of like how you can have an appetizer, a main course, and a dessert. We can all describe features those three things generally have, but still end up being wrong about any particular dish.

I suppose I'm beginning to realize that this conceptualization might not have been as "kosher" as far as the Big Model went as I thought.

All those other things, in the meantime, I took as being a little more "solid", in effect. And, looking at it now, there's no reason to see it that way: of course the same kind of logic applies.

Now, next question:

Given that this kind of understanding is, by definition, limited, what's the next step?

I would imagine you would still agree that these placeholders and concepts allowed us - as a hobby - to make great strides, both in design and in conversation, from where those thingss we were fifteen years ago.

How do we move forward, if we are to discard so much potentially useful jargon?

And is that, indeed, something you are recommending?

lumpley:
We're already moving forward. We have been for years! There's no "next step" but to keep playing, making, and talking about games.

What I'd say is that the Big Model busted some designers (including me) out of some bad conventional thinking, in approx 2002-2007, and then spent approx 2007-2012 bumping up against its own limits. When the Forge closed in 2012, the Big Model was declining in energy and relevance and had been for a few years.

So it's up to Big Model theorists to catch up with what's happened since, if they care to.

The old jargon won't help them do it!

-Vincent

Paul T.:
Thanks, Vincent.

I think a lot of us find some of the ways of thinking (and related vocabulary) from the Forge discussion very useful. Where do we go looking for new ways of thinking and new vocabulary?

I'm not particularly aware of any, with, perhaps, the exception of some of your "lumpley" discussions on game objects and so forth. Is there anyone else out there you think is worth checking out?

Also, how did the Big Model's proponents end up "butting up against its limitations"? Can you see some design features which you see as being symptoms of that problem? How did those designers move past those limitations?

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