| I am a gamist. I play larp as a game to 'win.' |
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I am a narrativist. I play to create a good story |
| 8 |
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I am a simulationist/immersionist. I play to get into my character's head. |
| 17 |
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Prodigal
 
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We've discussed GNS on here before. While not perfect, it can be a useful framwork. I'm interested to see what sort of distribution people fall into when they self-categorise themselves.
------<insert really amusing sig here>
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Prodigal
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Prodigal
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This could probably have done with being phrased as 'I *primarily* play to...' because most LARPers I've encountered have mixed motivations at some level.
Also I'd like to defend GNS as not just 'jargon' - it's helped me when reffing CUTT to be able to think about what different types of players want from a game and how to satisfy them all without having them step on each other's toes too much. Obviously it's a vast oversimplification but so are many useful models of human behaviour.
It's also valuable as a tool to help people admit that they want different things from LARP and that wanting the other things is just as valid, rather than 'obviously a LARP should be like this, you are wrong and I can't understand your motivation / your motivation is bad and wrong'.
Maelstrom: Jessily the Wemic, previously Tourmaline of Weaver
CUTT: Kerriville the Ninth, previously Ref 07/08
EOS: Study the Venin
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Champion
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| I'm all three and more. I Don't think I could actually answer this poll. Matt J
If I wanted to listen to an arsehole, I'd fart!
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Prodigal
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This could probably have done with being phrased as 'I *primarily* play to...' because most LARPers I've encountered have mixed motivations at some level. That why I phrased it as '*most* agree with.' I too have found it a useful simple framework.
------ <insert really amusing sig here>
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Prodigal
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| I was thinking about this recently, in the context of a (minor) disagreement with an event organiser. When deciding what my character does next, I view this as a primarily IC activity; the character's actions are primarily decided by what's going on around him, and what his attitude is to that stuff. For example, this has led me to killing other people's PCs when OOC I realised they were much more useful to me/the players alive, but they had done something which meant I felt compelled to kill them IC. This is, I guess, primarily Simulationist. Other players (and the event organiser in question) seem to prefer making decisions (or expecting decisions to be made) on the basis of benefit for the "player team". This is a kinda semi-IC semi-OOC basis on which to make decisions, and I guess is primarily Gamist. Finally, there are yet others who make IC decisions based on what's best for other people's fun or for the story more widely. These self-sacrificing folk are, I guess, Narrativist. They are useful distinctions, although everyone's a bit of everything, in truth... --- I like the hearts, spades, clubs and diamonds model too, though -- and possibly more. In short
---
Joe Rooney, the Enemy Of Fun
Insurrection LRP: high fantasy in a dystopian setting. First event: 24-26 October 2008, in Leicestershire. Book online!
Bladelands: Raoul Ortez - heretic, medium, bodyguard and scumbag
EOS: staff (probably the best job in LRP!)
Joe R's LARPCard
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Knight
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Warning, Pointless Wordy Theorist Stuff coming up...
Again, the problem occurs that Narrativism as described by the GNS system is not how it's being described here.
The whole 'Narrativism is about creating a story' is a trap that everyone seems to fall into - in particular those people who care about/take an interest in game theory. Which leads to the general feeling amongst the roleplay community that theorists are rp snobs who think that 2/3s of roleplayers don't know how to make a story properly. Not True!
GNS reckons that all forms of roleplay are about creating a story, and each of G,N,and S describe how that happens. Everyone gets the concept of Gamism and Simulationism, but Narrativism less so - mostly because it's name is misleading.
From the original Narrativism essay:
'Narrativism: Story Now requires that at least one engaging issue or problematic feature of human existence be addressed in the process of role-playing. "Address" means:
* Establishing the issue's Explorative expressions in the game-world, "fixing" them into imaginary place.
* Developing the issue as a source of continued conflict, perhaps changing any number of things about it, such as which side is being taken by a given character, or providing more depth to why the antagonistic side of the issue exists at all.
* Resolving the issue through the decisions of the players of the protagonists, as well as various features and constraints of the circumstances.
It really isn't this whole 'characters make decisions based on what's best for the story' etc.
My personal opinion is that Narrativism just doesn't happen in large scale LRP, as the level of direct narrative control required to effect it is prohibitive, and I've yet to see this opinion contradicted in practice.
Nath - I suspect people would respond better if the poll was 'I like immerse myself in my character more.' or 'I like to compete against other players more' The whole explicit GNS thing is a bit of a turn-off for most, and has a lot of bad associations.
Snobby Theorist Rant over...return to what you were doing :-P
LT - Evan Kinmarc - Scout-y, Healer-y, Ritual-y Armengarian Type
EOS - Luca Demetrius Shard - Rapidly Cooling Corpse
Insurrection - Dr Julius von Bismarck - Reader in Applied Social Physiology (with horns!)
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Prodigal
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GNS reckons that all forms of roleplay are about creating a story Indeed. GNS was developed by narrativists. As for narritivism not working in large scale larp, I see your point. However, it doesn't stop narritivists trying it. I have sometimes wondered where the maelstrom gods would fall on the GNS model  i agree a less explicit use of GNS in the survey would have produced different results. Actually, this is what I wanted to look at - the fact that simulationists/immerionists are more interested/comfortable with larp theory that narrativists. Research done using qualititive interviews suggests larpers tend to fall in a 2:1 split in favour of narrativism, regardless of immediate play culture or which country they are from.
------ <insert really amusing sig here>
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