Are you a gamist, narrativist or simulationist?

[Hory]

(This is like that Andhaira thread, only sirius).

GNS Theory holds that participants in role-playing games reinforce each other's behaviour towards ends which can be divided into three categories: Gamist, Narrativist and Simulationist.

Gamism: This perspective espouses competition among participants and focuses on conditions for winning and losing based on strategies of play, with the game acting as an arena for competition.

Narrativism: This perspective focuses on the creation of a story of literary merit (according to the standards of the participants), including player protagonists and a cohesive theme. The Premise of the game should embody an ethical/moral conflict, and the game provides the materials for creating the narrative.

Simulationism: This approach encourages enhancing one or more of the five elements of RPGs (Character, System, Setting, Situation, and Color) to heighten "experiential consistency" and maintain logic within the bounds of the game. Exploration of Character is a form of this approach, as is exploration of Setting and Situation.

Of course, most games contain elements of each category, and some perhaps in equal measure. Just as well, players may find a certain combination optimal. That's why I've included intermediate categories in the poll.

For example, here's how I see some CRPGs:

Diablo - Gamist
Torment - Narrativist
Fallout - Gamist-Narrativist
Final Fantasy - Gamist-Narrativist (bad at both)
Unreal World - Gamist-Simulationist
Morrowind - Simulationist

So let's see once and for all what tastes codexers have.

 

[DraQ]

NS. Definitely.

 

[JarlFrank]

Gamist-Narrativist-Simulationist

Because I love all of it. I love narrative [<3 PST], love good gameplay and challenges, and I love games that are as realistic as possible.

 

[sheek]

"GNS Theory"...

 

[Darth Roxor]

NS. Definitely.

I guess I'll join the nazi crowd (kraut?) then.

 

[Hory]

NS. Definitely.

Gamist-Narrativist-Simulationist.

And which games fall into these categories?

 

[Hobo Elf]

NS all the way. I don't really care for competition.

 

[Darth Roxor]

NS. Definitely.

And which games fall into these categories?

Betrayal At fucking Krondor.

 

[JarlFrank]

NS. Definitely.

Gamist-Narrativist-Simulationist.

And which games fall into these categories?

Currently? None that I know of. Arcanum... I think that would be NS. Morrowind... that would be NS too. I definitely like NS. Wizardry... that would be GS. So basically, what I want would be a mixture of Wizadry and Arcanum with a bit of Morrowind thrown in. A game that focuses on all three and manages to do each one well. With the current state of the market, it's unlikely to happen though.

 

[Liberal]

National-Sozialistische RPGs.

 

[JarlFrank]

National-Sozialistische RPGs.

I would love to play one of those.

 

[Shannow]

Gamist > Simulationist >> Narrativist

All important but that is the priority I'd choose.
I wanted to vote Gamist-Simulationist since you even have it in your examples but it's not one of the options. Tsk, tsk.

 

[Liberal]

So this all comes down to Liberalism vs. Nazism vs. Communism yet again.

 

[Hory]

Betrayal At fucking Krondor.

Indeed, I haven't really played it yet.

I wanted to vote Gamist-Simulationist since you even have it in your examples but it's not one of the options. Tsk, tsk.

"Simulationist-Gamist" is in the poll. The order of the terms isn't meant to imply a priority...

 

[Ebonsword]

Gamism: This perspective espouses competition among participants and focuses on conditions for winning and losing based on strategies of play, with the game acting as an arena for competition.

Based on the above definition, how do you have a single-player game that's "Gamist"?

Who are you competing against?

 

[Hory]

Against the artificial intelligence and the conflicts that the developers scripted. That's one of the reason that I don't like rogue-likes and why I think that "gamist games" will usually be more fun in multiplayer. Compare, for example, the experience of single-player to multiplayer in Blizzard or id's games.

 

[MetalCraze]

GNS definitely. The more stuff in my game the better.

 

[Lemunde]

Pure simulationist. For me, the other two elements are there to enhance that experience.

 

[Oarfish]

Dwarf fortress is an attempt at simulationist narrative, working from the convincing premise that most computer game plotlines are so unimaginative that they are computable. I can't think of any other attempts outside of compsci papers except for except for historical simulations, but the narrative content in those is usually pretty anaemic.

Having the grandson of Urist be actually motivated by the loss of his ancestors fortress to a dragon 80 years earlier and asking you to join his quest to liberate is, bar the god awful poetry the core of a Tolkien novel. DF will be capable of emergently producing such plot lines with you as a primary actor within a couple of years.

Assuming he doesn't go (more)nuts or stave to death.

 

[zerotol]

I am someone who enjoys all three, i just play different games to enjoy them.

If i want to play really gaming style, i play an Fps or RTS.

Or turnbased games

for narra & sim i play rpg.

 

[mondblut]

GS all the fucking way.

And Morrowind is much more gamist than URW. URW is a chemically pure simulationist.

And your implication that Fallout and FF fall into the same category is appaling. FF is narrativist with very little gamist included, Fallout is mostly simulationist with some narrative.

 

[Hory]

And your implication that Fallout and FF fall into the same category is appaling. FF is narrativist with very little gamist included, Fallout is mostly simulationist with some narrative.

I think you're looking at quality rather than quantity. The simple fact that in FF you spend ridiculous amounts of time in combat makes it part-gamist. In Fallout, I spend a lot less time in combat. Yes, the FF combat is pretty shallow, but that doesn't make it a narrativist game. The narrative is shallow too. It's bad game containing similar proportions of both elements.

 

[Applegate's Breasts]

I like Marc LeBlanc's 8 kinds of fun straw man rather than this GSN shit.

Sensation
Game as sense-pleasure

Fantasy
Game as make-believe

Narrative
Game as unfolding story

Challenge
Game as obstacle course

Fellowship
Game as social framework

Discovery
Game as uncharted territory

Expression
Game as soap box

Submission
Game as mindless pastime

 

[Balor]

Definetely NS too. Feel free to quote me out of context .

Of course I'm not completely alien to gamism, but it's definetely not really important for me.

Basically, it's like

|----------------|------------|-----| 100%
Similationist Narrativist Gamist.

 

[mondblut]

The simple fact that in FF you spend ridiculous amounts of time in combat makes it part-gamist. In Fallout, I spend a lot less time in combat.

Well, you spend a lot of time in combat in every CRPG, even in such supposedly pure narrativist games as Torment or Bloodlines. What matters is how detailed, complex and realistic combat is (for simulationism) and how fun, rewarding and affected by previous rewards it is (for gamism). FF has none of the first and very little of the second. Fallout has more of the first than of the second, methinks, making it more of a simulationist RPG than gamist one. If we're assigning subjective values, FF would be like G10 S0 N90 and Fallout G20 S50 N30.

JPGs are all about narration, combat is a sort of a silly minigame that serves very little actual purpose in there, despite its ridiculous amounts.

Anyway, the most important thing about GNS theory is that the 3 elements are mutually exclusive. The more a game gears towards one, the more the other two suffer.