Theory ramblings

[jeregenest]

larpwriting has thrown down the gauntlet and said that LARPers are ignorant in theory and that you need to understand GNS to write a good LARP (which means by association you need GNS to write a good RPG). I do agree (though don't have the experience or the bitterness he comes across with about people who hate theory) that a discussion of theory is a good thing for our craft, for any craft. I just find the emphasis on GNS problematic.

He's making a fundamental mistake, which is basically thinking GNS is a theory, which its not. It is neither descriptive nor predicative. What it is is a manifesto (unless you go pre-Forge and than its a meme-quiz). And personally not a very good one. So on that level he's wrong, LARPs do have many, many examples of manifestos, which are all on the level of GNS, so you could easily choose one of those other ones and say the exact same things he's said in that post.

That all said, I do look forward to his subsequent posts as larpwriting has always proven himself an insightful commentator.

Comments

[telepresence.livejournal.com]

Are any pro-GNS/Forge people capable of writing about this stuff without the asshole tone?

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

No, but then one can equally say the folks who find the Forge/GNS thing foolish also fall into the habit of assholery.

Like me, I still can get foaming at the mouth when the subject comes up. You would think that after all these years I'd calm down.

[foxtown.livejournal.com]

You!? Foam at the mouth? Never!?

:P

[foxtown.livejournal.com]

<- ignorant

GNS?

[sophistbastard.livejournal.com]

GNS and Other Matters of Role-playing Theory (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/1/)

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Kirby, kirby, kirby....

How can you still be innocent after all these years? I'm pretty darn impressed.

And I blame you for getting Ars Magica discussed in earnest in my hosue for the first time in 5 years. Expect to hear more later.

[foxtown.livejournal.com]

Of course you can blame me. I still enjoy the game. A lot. I wish you stil enjoyed running it.

I just don't tend to theroy craft my role-playing. I don't read websites about it. The farthest I have gone is to read the Scion forum since I am running a game. Oh and I read project Redcap back in the day.

To me role-playing is something I do with people, face to face. I like talking about it, but I haven't gotten into the habit of using the interwubs to read about it.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Should come as no surprise that I hold to the idea of Socrates that "The unexamined life is not worth living."

That holds as much to roleplaying as it does anything else in my life. My gaming is better because I consider that, and to consider that I seek out others thoughts.The same way I seek to understand myself politcally, or as a husband or a father through the writings and thoughts of others.

[foxtown.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. You are very introspective.

I am rather extrospective or whatever the word is, so I do not really investigate things on my own. But when faced with others I will happily look deeper. I bet there were plenty of philosphers that had my attitude as well as yours.

Basically if no one else cares then why should I mentality.

[sben.livejournal.com]

This talk of Ars Magica and enjoying running it made me think of Vincent Baker's unfinished noodlings (http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=86) about how he might run a game with the same setup. (In case you hadn't seen it and it's interesting and/or inspires your own thoughts.)

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Vincent and I often have discrepancies about what counts as fun.

The only reason I'd consider playing Ars Magic is to tap into its core of youthful exhuberence. A core that has been well worn down by the fans of the game.

I don't want to play sanctuary in trouble, or baroque politics. I want to play "Heh look we have cool powers and the world is fresh and life is wonderful, well except for everyone who isn't.

In short I will run Ars Magica as if a young David Bowie and a young Iggy Pop were just figuring out how cool it is to be wizards and on your own.

[sben.livejournal.com]

Vincent and I often have discrepancies about what counts as fun.

I'd noticed (though still thought it was worth passing on).

In short I will run Ars Magica as if a young David Bowie and a young Iggy Pop were just figuring out how cool it is to be wizards and on your own.

That sounds like a lot of fun. (And I am shocked, shocked, to hear references to David Bowie and Iggy Pop coming from your household.)

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Its rather uncharacteristic I know.

[sophistbastard.livejournal.com]

I don't tend to think of GNS as a be-all, end-all theory, but I do think that GNS / The Big Model is part of an important language that serious theorists should have. Like any theory except my own, I only use bits and pieces of it at any time, though.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

For me GNS is too much pop-psychology that ignores any of the vaid approaches in favor of a bizzarre group of prouncements that make little sense.

And the cult-like attitude of its proponents make real discourse next to impossible.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. Also, while the old rgfa (rec.games.frp.advocacy for people not familiar with the old usenet days of gaming theory) GDS theory was clearly flawed and incomplete, one of my primary dissatisfactions with GNS theory is that it not only added nothing of use to that theory, it removed most of the usefulness that was there by splitting narrativism off from dramatism and then stuffing the rest of dramatism into simulationism, resulting in the S in GNS being utterly devoid of meaning. The effect is similar to someone reworking the classical distinction between tragedy and comedy by deciding that every comedy that isn't a romantic comedy is a tragedy.

Of course the entire Big Model essentially consists of Ron Edwards looking at rgfa terminology and throwing away the bits that disagreed with his agenda. I'm particularly unfond of the removal of the in-character stances (aka the conflation of actor and in-character stance). I find the Big Model is best ignored as a worthless rip-off.

[ozarque.livejournal.com]

Far more ignorant ... ignorantest of all. What's a LARP? What's an RPG? What's a GNS?

No need to clutter up your LJ with answers to my questions, which are undoubtedly stupid as well as rhetorical. I just wanted to let you know my predicament.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Sorry about that, sometimes I forget to filter posts.

An RPG is a roleplaying game, basically descended from Dungeons and Dragons and a way of codifying lets-pretend. There are basically three varieties: trabletop (like D&D most everything is described), LARP and computer gaming (which has its own sub varieties and all the people)

LARP is “live action roleplaying game”. Its lets pretend with movement. It goes from boffer-fighting (hitting people with foam weapons) to something that’s a lot more like improve-theater, without an audience.

GNS stands for “gamist-narrativst-simulationist” and it’s a hotly contented set of ideas in a very, very, very small branch of the hobby, of which I’m a member. As I sometimes like to say its an attempt to describe rpg aesthetics by a bunch of folks who have never studied aesthetics and would rather see everything described as if computer science was the only acceptable lens to describe the world.

Basically it’s all tempest in a tea-pot. But it is my tea-pot so the water is comfortable.

As a side I can’t count the amount of times I’ve used you as a reference in the area as much of your academic and popular writing is relevant.

[foxtown.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. I remember “gamist-narrativst-simulationist”, I just forgot my acronyms.

[ozarque.livejournal.com]

Thank you -- for all the information, and for the encouraging words.

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

I'd be more interested if the post you link to wasn't full of nonsense like
"Do not be an ignorant" (I'm reasonably sure "ignorant" isn't a noun), or "Georges Melies was a prodigy. He produced five hundred films in a small Paris Studio, most about two to fifteen minutes. Only one is recognizable today, “A Voyage to the Moon,” and that mostly from a still shot showing the moon with a projectile lodged in its eye" which makes me wonder whether Melies's other 499 films are today usually mistaken for radishes or paperback novels, since they're so unrecognizable as films.

I wouldn't normally comment on or even mind the sloppy writing, but as part of a harangue intended to shame your prospective audience into respecting you? You come across as Dewey Cox.


This next song, I wrote for all the people in this country that I feel don’t have a voice. Well, maybe the Commander-In-Chief will hear you this time. This one’s for the so-called Commander-In-Chief, wherever you are. Wherever your heart is...

Dear Mr. President
I want you to know
I am deeper than you
Listen and learn
My heart is a chapel
My head is a steeple
My arms are the people
And the people now yearn

I stand for the midget
I stand for the Negro
I stand for the Injun all hopped up on booze
I stand for the Jap
And I stand for the beaner
I stand, yes, I do, for the Christ-killing Jew

And I stand for the dyke
And I stand for the retard
I stand for the Chinaman washing my socks
I stand for the bum
And the pimp and the bugger
And the cripple that lives on my street in a box

To conclude Mr. President
I'm not at all hesitant to tell you I think the First Lady's a fox
Her husband the jerkoff has ruined my country
That's all for today sincerely D. Cox

[spiritseeker.livejournal.com]

I believe the word is "ignoramus", which is almost as much fun to say as "macerate".

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

There is that as well.

[spiritseeker.livejournal.com]

Even were it a theory or model system, understanding the model system does not necessarily lead to being able to successfully or practically apply it.

Case in point. terriergirl was stuck in the parking lot at school. She was shoveling out her car as she watched a fellow graduate student slide all over the parking lot, eventually winding up deep in a snow drift at the bottom of a hill. She shoveled him out of his car, got the car back to a safe spot and sent him walking home. When she asked what his major was (hoping for the punchline she got) he said "Physics."

Understanding the physics of gravity, friction and moving bodies gave this guy, who grew up in a much warmer climate, not a clue of what to do in snow. Where as my sister, who couldn't solve a physics problem if her life depended on it, has lived in snow country and can navigate the ugliest roads in bad weather. Models don't mean jack if you don't know how to apply them. And once you know how to apply them, models are only good for sorting out the details, because the rest becomes intuitive.

But here I am, preaching to the choir.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

Nicely done at that.