GNE Model v0.1

Players of RPG type games have a primary reason they enjoy playing.  This can affect they types of games they enjoy, the way in which they approach the game, and how they react to other players' approaches.

Game

The player derives enjoyment from playing the game well.  Both "power gamers" and "serious roleplayers" fall into this category.

Narrative

The player derives enjoyment from the narrative told through the game.  "Railroading GMs and Modules" fall into this category.

Experience

The player derives enjoyment from the experience of the game.  "Social gamers" and "Immersive players" fall into this category.

Games

Successful games can either enhance one of these approaches, or accommodate multiple approaches at the same time.

Groups

Some approaches work well together, while others may find certain approaches detract from their enjoyment of the game.

A social gamer (E) might enjoy playing with a railroading GM (N), a power gamer (G), and a serious roleplayer (G).  

A serious roleplayer (G) focused on contributing to the narrative may not enjoy a game run by a railroading GM (N).

A deeply immersive player (E) may desire all other players share their focus, dress in costume, and live in Norway.

A power gamer (G) and a serious roleplayer (G) focused on performance may frequently step on each others toes.  The social gamer (E) may find this amusing.


Next steps:

If someone has a good word for "Experience" that starts with "U" that would be a most excellent contribution. :haw:

Umm... what you are describing is basically just GNS with a bias against Narrative, instead of for it.
Same old, same old.

Any theory that tells me what roleplaying should be (as opposed to what it actually is) falls flat for me.

Quote from: alexandroUmm... what you are describing is basically just GNS with a bias against Narrative, instead of for it.

Actually, it's the original rec.games.frp.advocacy Threefold (the GDS) which, from a GNS perspective is biased against Narrativism in much the same way the GNS is biased against Simulationism.  At this point, I'm pretty wary of any theory that limits gaming preferences to only a small number of categories.

I tend to agree that the general three-part model thing is flawed, but if you're interested you might want to look at the old Threefold Model stuff I have.  Also, in 2001, Scarlet Jester on Gaming Outpost put together a bunch of stuff on what he called "GEN" or "GENder" theory -- where the E was for Exploration.  It's pretty similar to what you say, I think.  

The Threefold Model

That includes the original rgfa stuff and some Gaming Outpost archives.

Seriously, why every other theory tries to work with thee categories. Was there some mass accident with circular saw, and lot of players now miss significant amount of fingers or what?

Judging simply from the perspective of other models, they usually work with several axis and the amount of combinations is pretty huge. I belive the oversimplification provided by GNS (or thereefolded for that matter) is too much, to be of any use. Although Threefolded at least juggle with the idea od social preference, as far as I remember.

Quote from: AlnagSeriously, why every other theory tries to work with thee categories. Was there some mass accident with circular saw, and lot of players now miss significant amount of fingers or what?

What generally happens is that such models start out as a contrast between two types of games (the GDS started out as "world-based" vs. "story-based") and then they realize that there are other games that don't fit those two categories so a third category gets defined that's never as clearly defined as the other two.

Quote from: AlnagJudging simply from the perspective of other models, they usually work with several axis and the amount of combinations is pretty huge. I belive the oversimplification provided by GNS (or thereefolded for that matter) is too much, to be of any use. Although Threefolded at least juggle with the idea od social preference, as far as I remember.

The simplified models are generally good for dealing with one single issue (which is generally the one they were created to address) but can be pretty useless for dealing with other issues.

Quote from: John MorrowWhat generally happens is that such models start out as a contrast between two types of games (the GDS started out as "world-based" vs. "story-based") and then they realize that there are other games that don't fit those two categories so a third category gets defined that's never as clearly defined as the other two.

True. That's why this kind of model usually ends with two better and one worse approaches. Sigh.

Quote from: John MorrowThe simplified models are generally good for dealing with one single issue (which is generally the one they were created to address) but can be pretty useless for dealing with other issues.

I tend to disaggree with this one. The simplified model might very well be absolutely useless if it adress the issue that actually has more than two poles or more than one dimension. Say you want to describe something like social preference and end with the people who tend to be alone, tend to be social and something between. That is great, but somehow not much helping...

If you would go deeper you might find out that some people are alone and happy that way, some are alone because they worry, some are alone because... some are social because they like it, some feel it like responsibility etc. Now at the end you might find out that some alone and social people have much more in common than they have within the group you first tend to put them in.

Simple model must have some grounding in reality. Otherwise it is not helping, it is just conserving dogma.

Quote from: AlnagSeriously, why every other theory tries to work with thee categories. Was there some mass accident with circular saw, and lot of players now miss significant amount of fingers or what?

Judging simply from the perspective of other models, they usually work with several axis and the amount of combinations is pretty huge. I belive the oversimplification provided by GNS (or thereefolded for that matter) is too much, to be of any use. Although Threefolded at least juggle with the idea od social preference, as far as I remember.

There have been plenty of two-sided descriptions of role-playing, like D&D's "Kick In The Door" versus "Deep Immersion Storytelling" or the age-old "role-playing vs. roll-playing".  

There are also several four-way typings, like Glenn Blacow's 1980 article Aspects of Adventure Gaming that divided play into Power Gaming, Role-Playing, Wargaming, and Story Telling.  Similarly, Sean K. Reynolds supposedly analyzed the 1999 WotC marketing survey Breakdown of RPG Players to divide players into "Powergamers", "Thinkers", "Storytellers", and "Character Actors".  

Robin Laws' expanded Blacow's aspects into seven Player Types for his "Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering".

The Forge also came up with the 3D Model of Role-playing that has nine categories.  

Just putting together lots of axes doesn't end up having much interest, though, in my opinion.  For example, Leon von Stauber put together a A Proposal for Campaign Classification on rgfa, but unless there is some sort of structure to this, it just becomes an infinite list of adjectives that one can apply to a campaign.  

It does seem to be true that there aren't many five-way models.

Quote from: jhkimThere have been plenty of two-sided descriptions of role-playing, like D&D's "Kick In The Door" versus "Deep Immersion Storytelling" or the age-old "role-playing vs. roll-playing".

Actually, the D&D contains "Kick in the Door" vs. "Deep Immersion Storytelling" and "Something in between". And also see the "Other style consideration" with promise of another axis  - "Serious vs. humorous", "one vs. multiple characters per player". So it is actually three or maybe even six... or more.

Quote from: jhkimSimilarly, Sean K. Reynolds supposedly analyzed the 1999 WotC marketing survey Breakdown of RPG Players to divide players into "Powergamers", "Thinkers", "Storytellers", and "Character Actors".

And fifth type "basic roleplayer" (or something in between) so it is actually the five-way model you search for.

Quote from: jhkimRobin Laws' expanded Blacow's aspects into seven Player Types for his "Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering".

And later in DMG II he comes with these traits and incentives "accumulating cool powers", "kicking butt", "brilliant planning", "puzzle solving", "playing a favourite role", "supercoolness", "story", "psychodrama", "irresponsibility", "setting exploration", "the outlier" and "lurker" which is twelve if I am not mistaken.

Quote from: AlnagI tend to disaggree with this one. The simplified model might very well be absolutely useless if it adress the issue that actually has more than two poles or more than one dimension. Say you want to describe something like social preference and end with the people who tend to be alone, tend to be social and something between. That is great, but somehow not much helping...

That doesn't disagree with what I was saying.  I said that the simplified models "can be pretty useless for dealing with other issues."  But that doesn't preclude them from being "generally good for dealing with one single issue (which is generally the one they were created to address)."  That's because the single issue that such models were generally created to address are single-axis two-sided problems, or problems where a single-axis is the most obvious manifestation of the issue.

Quote from: AlnagIf you would go deeper you might find out that some people are alone and happy that way, some are alone because they worry, some are alone because... some are social because they like it, some feel it like responsibility etc. Now at the end you might find out that some alone and social people have much more in common than they have within the group you first tend to put them in.

Of course.  But that's not the issue the model was designed to address.

Quote from: AlnagSimple model must have some grounding in reality. Otherwise it is not helping, it is just conserving dogma.

While I think the GNS has some distinct problems which come from borrowing ideas from another model (the GDS) without fully understanding that model, I do think that these models have some grounding in reality.  The GDS started out with people trying to explain why they don't want story sensibilities to be used to determine what happens in the game setting.  They want their games to be world-oriented rather than story-oriented.  That's the heart of the GDS and, for making that distinction, it works pretty well.  It's useless, however, if you want to distinguish a Forge Narrativist game from a railroaded GDS Dramatist game because that's not what it's designed for.

Quote from: AlnagAnd later in DMG II he comes with these traits and incentives "accumulating cool powers", "kicking butt", "brilliant planning", "puzzle solving", "playing a favourite role", "supercoolness", "story", "psychodrama", "irresponsibility", "setting exploration", "the outlier" and "lurker" which is twelve if I am not mistaken.

And I think it's a far better approach to give different preferences their own category than to try to shoehorn them in to an existing category.

Quote from: AlexandroUmm... what you are describing is basically just GNS with a bias against Narrative, instead of for it.
Same old, same old.

Not really, no.

In particular:

"Game" is not the same as "Gamism" in GNS.  "Serious roleplayers" can also include the "serious storytelling" player.

"Narrative" is not the same as "Narrativism" in GNS.  It's not about wanting to create a narrative -- it's the enjoyment of a narrative.  Wanting to know what happens next. "I can't wait to find out how it ends!"  It's also not a judgement against "Railroading".  I think it's a valid and enjoyable play style -- it's only secret railroading that I dislike.  (Not the TV show!  The show is totally awesome!!!)

"Experience" is not the same as "Simulationism" in GNS or "Immersionism" in early 3-fold model.  It includes the concepts in Kyle's "Cheetoism", Immersionism / LARP, as well as the core of Jeff's Retro-Stupid-Pretentious model.

Quote from: John MorrowThe simplified models are generally good for dealing with one single issue (which is generally the one they were created to address) but can be pretty useless for dealing with other issues.

I agree -- it's a simplified way of looking at things, and looking at things in more depth and/or really getting into designing a game should be done more seriously without relying too much on any 3 letter theories.

Seeing people still discussing other 3 letter theories ad nauseum, I thought to offer an alternative theory.  If simplified models are your thing, you might as well use one that works a bit better.

While I'm only half-serious about the overall value of this model, or ANY 3 letter model, I AM serious about thinking this is a superior model to the others currently available.

I'm still trying to think of new terms that will make it spell something more foolish. :haw:

I find that any time you start trying to crap players and games into boxes, you automatically fail.

Real life isn't that simple.

Stop wasting everyone's time and just go play something.