A couple of classes of objections I'll address as a group:

Objection:  

DM wants to hide/obfuscate some feature of an encounter area.  Player editing of the space could contradict the DMs plan.

Response:

How much of this is metagaming and how much is immersion?  Are you asking your PLAYERS to discover, by trial and error, question & response, the clue that is available, or do you think that the CHARACTERS really wouldn't notice if they were in the space?

If its the former, I'd submit to you that this creates an unnecessary distraction for the Storytellers and the Thinkers.  Neither is really all that interested in having to interrogate the DM to get information - both would prefer to be given critical information that their characters would know or detect so they can get on with their gaming experience.  Don't ask them to metagame and everyone will be happier.

If its the latter, then I see two sub-scenarios:

A: The absence of a thing is meaningful.  In this case, a player editing something into the encounter accidentally negates a part of the DMs setup.  Telling this player they cannot perform the edit reveals the sensitive nature of the edit and "gives away" all or part of a puzzle.

For problems of type A, check your assumption again that the CHARACTERS wouldn't notice the absence.  The example of the gelatinous cube-cleaned encounter area is a pretty good one.  Would the CHARACTERS not notice that instead of the "funk of a thousand years", the room is spotless?  It's totally OK in my opinion to call a do-over. "Players, I forgot to tell you a piece of information your characters would know - this area seems much cleaner than the rest of the dungeon so far.  There's no dirt or debris in this area." (Just don't make it a habit, or your players will go right back to the Socratic Method of roleplaying.)

Second, would refusing the edit convey meaningful information in a positive way?  "You try to scoop up some dust, but are surprised to find that the floor is cleaner than you expected."  To me, this is great gaming - the players have done something rational, the DM has conveyed information that they got from that action, but the players are still expected to figure out what to make of the information.  This is essentially Fallout; the character failed the challenge, but came away with something valuable anyway.

Third, be flexible.  How damaging is the edit, really?  Is it reasonable that the Cube can't get into this space for some reason?  Is it necessary that this particular Cube cleans down to the bare stone?  Could the Cube be easily swapped out for some other creature that doesn't cause areas to be cleaned?  What if the characters never find the Cube anyway - does it really exist in the first place?  It's part of the DMs job to react on the fly to the things the PCs do, within reason.

You've got to have more tools in your toolbox than DM fiat.

B:  The presence of a thing is meaningful.  In this case, a player editing something into the encounter accidentally negates a resource challenge planned by the DM.  Telling this player they cannot perform the edit either causes an anachronism (the edit is reasonable, ergo the refusal is DM fiat), or it gives away a clue (the edit is reasonable, but the refusal reveals that the DM wants the edit to represent a resource challenge), or it represents a magic bullet (the DM is surprised by the edit and the scenario didn't anticipate it, reducing or negating what would otherwise be a meaningful challenge seemingly "on accident").

First, this is a seemingly solved problem in many regards.  If you wish something to be a part of a puzzle or a quest chain, make it unique.  Don't require a generic torch - require a torch that burns 2x as hot as normal and is recognized as such by the characters when they acquire one.  Don't accept just any holy water, require that it be consecrated in a specific place by a specific cleric to do the job.

Second, if the item is mundane and reasonable, suck it up.  So they manage to bypass some portion of your adventure plan by editing in a key item.  If you based that on assuming that they wouldn't have access to something you've made a whole host of other assumptions that are dangerously unlikely too.  Other than some A4-style "you start out naked" framing, PCs are notorious for showing up with all manner of goods & raw materials tucked away "just in case".  Frankly, you should be able to turn this on a dime anyway and just swap out some other mundane thing for the item they've edited into the encounter without doing much harm whatsoever to your plan.

Third, you had better be sure that you're in alignment with your players that this is the kind of game they want.  If you personally enjoy these kinds of scenarios, but your Storyteller and Thinker players find them irritating, you'd be better off trying a different kind of encounter.  If everyone in the group wants these kinds of puzzles, suggest to the group that they refrain from editing items into encounters unless they feel its absolutely necessary (i.e. do a reverse metagame - agree ahead of time that things which are not described are not present).

On the whole, these seem like fairly technical concerns which are really straw-men arguments against a perceived loss of DM control.  I suspect that in practice, few if any of these things would prove to be unfixable either in realtime, or in-between sessions with the DM reworking minor parts of the plan.

Objection:

The players wish to suspend their disbelief and engage with the game as if the game world were real; interacting with it without any editing function whatsoever.

Response:

Character Actors love this kind of experience.  Its like following a script:  You do and say such and such, the other actors do what they're expected to do, and the story emerges as a result.  But those players are on their way out of the hobby; reframing D&D to avoid their particular concerns is a mistake.

This is also really a continuum argument, not a binary argument.  As much as some might like it, the DM is not a virtual world simulator, and isn't able to actually pre-build a world and then allow players to interact with it.  

DMs are CONSTANTLY making up responses to player input.  Is there really such a difference between:

Player:I search around in the debris and find a half burned torch!

and

Player:  I search around in the debris looking for something to light the webs on fire.  Do I find anything?

DM:  (consults notes listing all the things in the debris)  Yes, you find a half burned torch.

or, what is even more likely:

DM:  (pretends to consult some notes, decides that the request is reasonable) Yes, you find a half-burned torch.

This is really a question of AGENCY.  WHO is doing the editing?  The Player, or the DM?  If, in order to enjoy the game, you have to feel totally disempowered, relying on the DM to make each and every decision about the world, you're asking for a game where the Storyteller Players are going to be extremely frustrated and unhappy, and the Thinkers are going to rathole the group regularly as they plumb the depths of what the DM will and will not allow, searching for the limits to the problem domain.

On the other hand, if YOU wish to ask the DM to shoulder that load, but don't require the other players at the table to relinquish their right to edit, you have preserved your own illusion of virtuality without limiting your friends' desires to contribute differently.  This is really an issue of selfish vs. selfless playstyle.

And if you really can't be happy unless you're in a virtualized world where the players have no editing powers whatsoever, well, the current genration of MMOs is really extremely good at that kind of experience....

RyanD

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;427492How do you mean "monetized per player"? The RPGA is free. It's been free for a decade.

I just mean that in the sense that I feel RPGA players would be on the whole more likely to purchase current game materials. I may actually be mistaken - I'd be interested in seeing any data on purchasing patterns among RPGA players if it's out there.

Sorry to be unclear.

Ryan, your logic is a tortured one when you're dismissing other posters' points, claiming their positions as attacking straw men, while at the same time throwing out canards like an attachment to a GM's carefully laid plans, or "maybe you'd be happier playing an MMO - it does what you seem to want much better." The second is especially poor form coming from a man with professional ties to an MMO company who just hasn't been able to resist dropping hints at the mind blowing conceptual leaps the industry has to offer in that field - apparently, a motion render of a rippling satin dress to which, trust me, the video file can't hope to do justice.

It is especially frustrating that you are to so great a degree privileging jargon over practice here - "I clean off the dust" - "There's not really much dust anyway" becomes okay if you convey it as "Fallout," a la DitV? That's nonsense. Games have not unwittingly been developed around storygame design principles to which only recently have we been revealed the names. It's one thing to present a design - another to distort practice such that you present it as  a deliberate, but merely imperfect reaching toward your design.

If the problem is just DM pixel-bitching, the easy solution is just the open-endedness implicit in tradtional D&D - player editing is over-elaborate and has questionable follow-on effects. You've even said that if a player's edit compromises the DM's inflexible bottleneck, the DM can always shift what's needed behind the curtain to maintain the bottleneck - why would you want to do that? The virtue of D&D is its open-endedness and the ability to interact with a fantasy world as if it were real - why close that off, editing or no editing, by making an end-run around the players' lateral thinking? You have an artificial problem, a clumsy solution, and you're selling the clumsy solution by saying "don't worry, though, you can always sneak the artificial problem back in without anyone noticing?"

If under D&D, your platonically worst possible DM can screw the players by dismissing the player's lateral thinking, under "New D&D" the same platonically worst possible DM can screw the players by playing a shell game to dodge the PC's editing authority. It's like the "black knight" problem you alluded to DitV as the fix for - it's not a fix at all, it's just a different model open to the same problems. Does the new problem stand on its own virtues? Matter of taste. I'm interested in hearing more of the actual elements of new D&D - the waste of time is the RPG-theory sales pitch.

Quote from: RSDancey;427537...
How much of this is metagaming and how much is immersion?  Are you asking your PLAYERS to discover, by trial and error, question & response, the clue that is available, or do you think that the CHARACTERS really wouldn't notice if they were in the space?

... for the Storytellers and the Thinkers.  Neither is really all that interested in having to interrogate the DM to get information - both would prefer to be given critical information that their characters would know or detect so they can get on with their gaming experience.  Don't ask them to metagame and everyone will be happier.

Are there really any half-decent GMs out there who don't consider it a good idea to give players the relevant information which their characters would notice?

For instance, the DM who ruled that my orc cleric in 3.5 was going to be arrested for speaking some Black Speech tongue in the tavern when he swore in it. I mean, c'mon. If the use of the Black Speech tongue is actually a crime, and if every peasant knows that, I think my orc cleric (with his average Int and high Wis) will KNOW that. Not telling me then deciding I got arrested without giving me the chance to reconsider - WTF?

But that's an instance of a DM acting like a twat. (The guy's alright actually and his DMing decisions aren't usually THAT bad...) But why would you need to spend time discussing this point? It's bleeding obvious. Sure, there might be the odd REALLY BAD GM out there, but why worry about that one particular isolated problem?

Also, you keep banging on about Storytellers and Thinkers, but it's JUST NOT RELEVANT TO YOUR EXAMPLE. If ANYONE wanted to engage in the socratic method, it would be the Thinkers. Power Gamers want to be able to get on with the action, not spend hours quizzing the GM. Character Actors want to enjoy immersion in their character's viewpoint, not spend hours thinking up stupid questions for the GM.

The way you handle this as a GM is give out the relevant information and give out some red herrings as well. What's the big deal?

QuoteA: The absence of a thing is meaningful.  In this case, a player editing something into the encounter accidentally negates a part of the DMs setup.  Telling this player they cannot perform the edit reveals the sensitive nature of the edit and "gives away" all or part of a puzzle.

For problems of type A, check your assumption again that the CHARACTERS wouldn't notice the absence.  The example of the gelatinous cube-cleaned encounter area is a pretty good one.  Would the CHARACTERS not notice that instead of the "funk of a thousand years", the room is spotless?  
...
Second, would refusing the edit convey meaningful information in a positive way?  ...

Third, be flexible.  ...

You've got to have more tools in your toolbox than DM fiat.

Let's start with the obvious.

Quote... Telling this player they cannot perform the edit reveals the sensitive nature of the edit and "gives away" all or part of a puzzle. ...

THIS IS SIMPLY GOING TO BE A PROBLEM IF YOUR DEFAULT MODE IS ALLOWING PLAYERS TO EDIT THE GAME-WORLD - AND DOES NOT ADMIT OF A CASE-BY-CASE SOLUTION!!! THE PROBLEM STEMS FROM HAVING THE "say yes or roll dice" RULE AT ALL IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! ONCE YOU HAVE IT THERE'S ALWAYS THAT RISK UNLESS YOU HAVE NO SECRETS!!!

Irrelevant that the characters might or might not notice a clean floor - you're relying on a trivial example. The important examples are of cases where there is nothing at all for the characters to notice immediately, but you have to refuse the edit for still secret reasons which the characters could not yet know, but once you refuse the edit, may guess.

Irrelevant that sometimes giving info might add to the game. Sometimes it might ruin the game. That's far more important. I do NOT want to have to slow down my GMing to decide whether something is positive or negative before I am allowed to engage my instinct/fiat.

Yes, be flexible. But irrelevant. You can always be flexible, rule or no rule.

And ultimately, even with your qualified version of say yes or roll dice, it's STILL about GM fiat, just more constrained.

QuoteB:  The presence of a thing is meaningful.  ...

First, this is a seemingly solved problem in many regards.  If you wish something to be a part of a puzzle or a quest chain, make it unique.  ...

Second, if the item is mundane and reasonable, suck it up.  ... PCs are notorious for showing up with all manner of goods & raw materials tucked away "just in case". ...

Third, ... If you personally enjoy these kinds of scenarios, but your Storyteller and Thinker players find them irritating, you'd be better off trying a different kind of encounter.  ...

On the whole, these seem like fairly technical concerns which are really straw-men arguments against a perceived loss of DM control.  ...

First, I do not want to fill my game with innumerable unique items, nor do I want to constrain the way I plan for games by having to include unique items. How artificial.

Second, I don't care if an item seems mundane or reasonable to you, in some situations the absence of mundane reasonable items (e.g. rations) may be a lynchpin of the game.

Third, I dismiss your Third point because you're just harping on about Storyteller and Thinker players, when (1) you've NO proof of your suggestion that Character Actors are leaving the hobby, and (2) it's probably the Thinkers who would enjoy these sorts of puzzle most anyway.

Finally, these are NOT straw-man arguments. I'm trying to get you to understand how complete GM fiat is a fantastic tool for many ends. Gygax, Arneson & co came up with the gaming model we know today for a reason. It's tried and tested and it WORKS. Other models may also be viable, but the single, all-powerful GM is a GREAT model for any kind of roleplaying game where you are NOT aiming for collaborative creative involvement of players in the world-editing process (a kind of storygaming) nor for purely fair wargaming.

QuoteObjection:

The players wish to suspend their disbelief and engage with the game as if the game world were real; interacting with it without any editing function whatsoever.

Until you accept that Character Actors are still a real part of the tabletop RPG hobby - or to put it facetiously that people who are interested in ROLEPLAY are still ROLEPLAYING at the tabletop - your arguments on this point are wholly without merit.

What's more, we all know that players are cleverer than they are given credit for. Illusionism, which you encourage, has its limits in the context of railroading - that much is trite -, and it also has its limits in the context of "say yes, or roll the dice". Not least of which, if it's written in the DMG, some clever player is going to read it and know what you're doing, possibly because he also DMs occasionally (not necessarily a bad thing!).

Another thing. Ryan if your argument were correct that only Storytellers and Thinkers are really left in the hobby, the correct prediction would be Apocalypse Now.

Thinkers want out-and-out challenge and are prepared to manoeuvre the game in intricate and complicated ways to win.

Storytellers want whatever "story" means to the people who produced your survey results, which sounds like "an interesting succession of in-game events" to me. They may be prepared to manoeuvre the game in intricate and complicated ways to get "storytelling" to happen, whatever that means.

These are the two most outright opposed of the four main kinds of gamer you identify. They each come at least very close to having what GNS would call a creative agenda - Thinkers are pushy "gamists", and Storytellers are pushy something else. They are both going to be, on the whole, pushy about their thing.

Character Actors, as long as they get a chance to roleplay, they are happy. Cos you can roleplay anywhere, in any context. As a fight's about to start, you can roleplay yelling or cowering or damning your foe's mother. Story come, story go; combat come, combat go. They can fit with anyone. As long as it isn't CONSTANT hack n slash, of course, with no opportunity for roleplay. But Storytellers and Thinkers probably wouldn't want that either.

Power Gamers, as long as they get a chance to kick butt, they are happy. Their fights can be fitted around "story", or can be set in a strategic context. They, like Character Actors, are easy to please.

You see, the more "Strategic" you are, the more focused you are on long-term control of the direction that the game takes. The more "Tactical" you are, the more focused you are on short-term experiences.

People who want short-term experiences are easy to please because short-term experiences of any kind can slot into anyone's long-term game-plan.

It's when you have two conflicting long-term game-plans that conflict may emerge.

So, Storytellers and Thinkers are the hardest two segments of gamers to square with each other of all.

So, on this (probably more or less correct) logic and your (highly dubious) premise, games now have to be written for not 56%, but 34% of the gaming population of 1999 (plus a few hangers-on). What's more, as on your premise 56% of those gamers are still playing, if this logic is correct (which it may be) and if your premise is correct (which I doubt), NO game is going to be suited to more than 60% even of the current market. It's almost as if we may as well all pack up and go home now.

And I refuse to believe that.

Quote from: Omnifray;427551Another thing. Ryan if your argument were correct that only Storytellers and Thinkers are really left in the hobby, the correct prediction would be Apocalypse Now So, games now have to be written for not 56%, but 34% of the gaming population of 1999 (plus a few hangers-on). What's more, as on your premise 56% of those gamers are still playing, if this logic is correct (which it may be) and if your premise is correct (which I doubt), NO game is going to be suited to more than 60% even of the current market. It's almost as if we may as well all pack up and go home now.

And I refuse to believe that.

I have a real problem with the segmentation study for another reason.

I don't think you can split gamers down into different segments; I think that all players have at least some of the segments described 'within them', it's just that the proportions are different person by person. So I might be 43% Thinker, 17% Power gamer, 30% Character Actor, and 10% Story Teller, for example. This means I'd come across in the segmentation study as a Thinker, but actually the other three things added together are more important to me than 'Thinking' is.

Further, I would say that anyone that indexes over 50% on any one axis will be vanishingly rare. This is bourne up by the fact that each segment ended up with a 22% share, with the remaining 12% being undecided. This would equate with the 'average' score in my version being 22/22/22/22/12 - to get over 50% you'd have to be way out of this average range.

Am I right - I don't know. But the numbers as presented so far support this view just as well as the 'discrete segement' version, and it fits my own experiences of what gamers are like rather better.

There are reasons to be skeptical of the study and of how Ryan is reporting it, but your objection doesn't seem to appreciate what cluster analysis is.

Quote from: RSDancey;427537And if you really can't be happy unless you're in a virtualized world where the players have no editing powers whatsoever, well, the current genration of MMOs is really extremely good at that kind of experience....

RyanD

Neverwinter Nights didn't replace 3e eight years ago for me, and EVE still doesn't satisfy my ability to interact with the world in limitless ways.

"Sandbox" as EVE may be, it's still contained within a box, and that box has plenty of limitations.

I mean, I started with video-games well before I ever even knew what D&D was.  I was playing NWN, a faithful adaptation of the 3e rules, an easy-to-use module maker, and live virtual DM client, before I ever sat down at a table  -- I was playing online with live groups of people doing actual role-play in persistent world servers.  If video-games were able to provide a better experience in terms of playing "my guy in a fictional world", why would I have ever put up with all of the "inconveniences" of tabletop?

I'm not against player narrative authority, and in fact I like it.  But I just don't see how, for those interested in playing "their guy" only, a world based on current software limitations could ever live up to anyone's expectations.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;427565There are reasons to be skeptical of the study and of how Ryan is reporting it, but your objection doesn't seem to appreciate what cluster analysis is.

Thanks for the article link, Elliot. As I would understand it (re: what glazer said) what's useful to take away from such a study is that if you have a significant grouping of people who enjoy six specific elements, it's likely that if you have people known to enjoy the first five of those elements, you've probably got good grounds that something featuring element six will appeal to that set of people too. Does that make sense?

(For my part I find more to question in how the conclusions of the study make a convincing case for Ryan's design proposals.)

Quote from: Peregrin;427568If video-games were able to provide a better experience in terms of playing "my guy in a fictional world", why would I have ever put up with all of the "inconveniences" of tabletop?

I'm not against player narrative authority, and in fact I like it.  But I just don't see how, for those interested in playing "their guy" only, a world based on current software limitations could ever live up to anyone's expectations.

I'd be interested in hearing about if there was any market data suggesting an above average popularity of MMORPGs in people interested in traditional, non-RPG character activities like stage and film acting.

Quote from: Omnifray;427551Another thing. Ryan if your argument were correct that only Storytellers and Thinkers are really left in the hobby, the correct prediction would be Apocalypse Now.

Quote from: Col Kurtz looks at the hobby from 2005-2010The horror!  The horror!

Quote from: OmnifrayThinkers want ...

Storytellers want ...

Character Actors ...

Power Gamers ...

You are again mistaken in your mis-categorization of the segments.  I'll repeat.

All hobbyist tabletop RPG players desire the following in their game,regardless of their sub-segment:

* Strong Characters and Exciting Story
* Role Playing
* Complexity Increases over Time
* Requires Strategic Thinking
* Competitive
* Add on sets/New versions available
* Uses imagination
* Mentally challenging

You persist, for some reason, in trying to position the segments as exclusionary of these things (or inclusionary only of parts).  This is the fallacy of losing the forest for the trees.  Zoom your perspective out.

Let's look at one aspect:  Role Playing.

Storyteller:  "Role" - means "role in the story".  Am I the young kid becoming a man?  The Fallen Hero searching for redemption?  The pampered princess learning how the Real World works? The servant of a jealous God, bringing the Word of Truth to the unrighteous?  "Playing" - means "how I make this development happen".  I seek opportunities to advance my character's story, and by extension, the narrative of the whole group.

Power Gamer:  "Role" - means "role in the party".  Am I the Tank, the Healer or the Damage Dealer?  "Playing" - means "how I roll the dice to make my character work."

Character Actor:  "Role" - means "virtualizing my character and working to reflect my character through my deeds & words".  "Playing" - means "my decisions in the game are based on what I perceive to by my character's knowledge, motivations, abilities, insights, and desires."

Thinker:  "Role" - means "what I do to help the party succeed".  I solve puzzles and mysteries.  I connect the dots so that the others see how the threads in the story weave together.  I think outsize the box and attempt to solve problems creatively.  "Playing" - means "I do my best to out-think the DM and the scenario, to come up with the best course of action for the circumstances, and to be prepared for the kinds of challenges I expect to face during current & future encounters."

The Storytellers & the Thinkers share a long-term view of play.  The Character Actors and the Power Gamers share a short-term view of play.  In a world where the core TRPG audience consists of Storytellers and Thinkers, the balance of design should shift to reward this long-term perspective, and reduce the need for and impact of short-term perspective.  (Please don't convert that into "get rid of", "reduce" is a long way from "remove".)

Storytellers and Thinkers create good synergy.  Thinkers are constantly feeding raw material into the Storyteller's narrative.  The Storyteller is crafting sense out of the Thinker's rather abstract actions, which enhances the experience for the Thinker - adding relevance post-facto.  Key insights may come from the Storyteller, who has a sense of pacing and flow.  Key insights may also come from the Thinker who has a sense for the way the parts of the narrative fit together.

There was a time when a lot of D&D players engaged in robust long-term play.  Back when they were playing characters who expected to hold land, build structures, and engage in substantial activity outside the adventure.  3E doesn't support much of that, and 3.x never spent much time on it at all.  So this may in fact be more of a call to redress a decade's mistaken imbalance in perspective, rather than (for this one point) a fundamental redesign of the game outright.

RyanD

Quote from: RSDancey;427574Storytellers and Thinkers create good synergy.  Thinkers are constantly feeding raw material into the Storyteller's narrative.  The Storyteller is crafting sense out of the Thinker's rather abstract actions, which enhances the experience for the Thinker - adding relevance post-facto.  Key insights may come from the Storyteller, who has a sense of pacing and flow.  Key insights may also come from the Thinker who has a sense for the way the parts of the narrative fit together.

I would like to note that for both Storyteller and Thinker you present the game situation in terms of the narrative (which I continue to believe exists only post-facto to begin with) - which would seem, from your description of both player personalities to be the storyteller's goal and, and to relegate the thinker's place to that of a facilitator that goal. I wonder, is the player interested in interacting with the game world as a concrete phenomenon actually a "Storyteller," as you describe the thinker as "rather abstract? I would consider address of theme to be the more abstract process.

Quote from: RSDancey;427574There was a time when a lot of D&D players engaged in robust long-term play.  Back when they were playing characters who expected to hold land, build structures, and engage in substantial activity outside the adventure.  3E doesn't support much of that, and 3.x never spent much time on it at all.  So this may in fact be more of a call to redress a decade's mistaken imbalance in perspective, rather than (for this one point) a fundamental redesign of the game outright.

While for the most part I agree, I think it is misleading to characterize various elements as "outside the adventure;" rather than as part of it - this is, I think, a problem exemplified by the 3e/4e "encounter" model, but as much or nearly so in the model of "scenes" as addressed variously by 2e and neo-story models alike - the metagame privileging of artificial frames of interaction with fixed solutions, rather than a holistic interaction of place and character.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;427565There are reasons to be skeptical of the study and of how Ryan is reporting it, but your objection doesn't seem to appreciate what cluster analysis is.

Blimey, that's a data dump and no mistake. I'm afraid you'll need to explain in simpler terms why people can only belong to one segment, because I'm not getting it from the link.

Quote from: RSDancey;427574You are again mistaken in your mis-categorization of the segments.  I'll repeat.

All hobbyist tabletop RPG players desire the following in their game,regardless of their sub-segment:

* Strong Characters and Exciting Story
* Role Playing
* Complexity Increases over Time
* Requires Strategic Thinking
* Competitive
* Add on sets/New versions available
* Uses imagination
* Mentally challenging

You persist, for some reason, in trying to position the segments as exclusionary of these things (or inclusionary only of parts).  This is the fallacy of losing the forest for the trees.  Zoom your perspective out.

Let's look at one aspect:  Role Playing.

Storyteller:  "Role" - means "role in the story".  Am I the young kid becoming a man?  The Fallen Hero searching for redemption?  The pampered princess learning how the Real World works? The servant of a jealous God, bringing the Word of Truth to the unrighteous?  "Playing" - means "how I make this development happen".  I seek opportunities to advance my character's story, and by extension, the narrative of the whole group.

Power Gamer:  "Role" - means "role in the party".  Am I the Tank, the Healer or the Damage Dealer?  "Playing" - means "how I roll the dice to make my character work."

Character Actor:  "Role" - means "virtualizing my character and working to reflect my character through my deeds & words".  "Playing" - means "my decisions in the game are based on what I perceive to by my character's knowledge, motivations, abilities, insights, and desires."

Thinker:  "Role" - means "what I do to help the party succeed".  I solve puzzles and mysteries.  I connect the dots so that the others see how the threads in the story weave together.  I think outsize the box and attempt to solve problems creatively.  "Playing" - means "I do my best to out-think the DM and the scenario, to come up with the best course of action for the circumstances, and to be prepared for the kinds of challenges I expect to face during current & future encounters."

The Storytellers & the Thinkers share a long-term view of play.  The Character Actors and the Power Gamers share a short-term view of play.  In a world where the core TRPG audience consists of Storytellers and Thinkers, the balance of design should shift to reward this long-term perspective, and reduce the need for and impact of short-term perspective.  (Please don't convert that into "get rid of", "reduce" is a long way from "remove".)

Storytellers and Thinkers create good synergy.  Thinkers are constantly feeding raw material into the Storyteller's narrative.  The Storyteller is crafting sense out of the Thinker's rather abstract actions, which enhances the experience for the Thinker - adding relevance post-facto.  Key insights may come from the Storyteller, who has a sense of pacing and flow.  Key insights may also come from the Thinker who has a sense for the way the parts of the narrative fit together.

There was a time when a lot of D&D players engaged in robust long-term play.  Back when they were playing characters who expected to hold land, build structures, and engage in substantial activity outside the adventure.  3E doesn't support much of that, and 3.x never spent much time on it at all.  So this may in fact be more of a call to redress a decade's mistaken imbalance in perspective, rather than (for this one point) a fundamental redesign of the game outright.

RyanD

In your arrogance and pedantry Ryan it is YOU who completely miss the point, and the forest for the trees, and accusing me of missing the forest for the trees is frankly hypocritical.

The real meaning of my earlier post does not depend on exclusivity of preferences. I could very easily have phrased it thus, to exactly the same effect:-

If I understand your study correctly,

Thinkers are those gamers who are most likely to prioritise Thinker-type gaming, which means outhinking the GM, other players or whatever.

Storytellers are those who are most likely to prioritise Storyteller-type gaming, which means focusing on interesting in-game events [including the GNS-so-called-narrativist themes/premises you list].

Powergamers are those who are most likely to prioritise kicking butt.

Character Actors are those who are most likely to prioritise actual roleplay.

So, you can see from this summary that there is a natural tension between the things that Thinkers prioritise and the things that Storytellers prioritise for exactly the same reasons I gave in my earlier post. The fact that Thinker also require a baseline minimum of Storytelling and may enjoy more, and that Storytellers also require a baseline minimum of Thinking and may enjoy more, is utterly irrelevant.

Basically you are relying on nothing more than semantics and sophistry to refute my arguments. You objections do not go to their substance.

Except for your artificial and empty rhetoric about Storytellers and Thinkers synergising with each other. But I could make similar rhetoric about any two types in combination. Power Gamers love conflict; conflict is conventionally considered the substance of Story. There you go. Synergy number one.  Character Actors make the elements of Story more vivid and evocative by playing their characters with dedication; Story provides the setting for that. There you go. Synergy number two.

As for the old castle-building etc. theme which I recall quite clearly from BECMI D&D, I don't see why Character Actors wouldn't often want that - to have castles and estates as an extension of their character, if they are playing that kind of character.

Disclaimer:- I have never studied statistics formally. The first I have ever heard of cluster analysis has been this thread, and the first serious look that I have taken at its techniques has been just now in response to reading the Wikipedia link (above).

I considered this document:-

http://www.2dix.com/view/view.php?urllink=http%3A%2F%2Finfo.wlu.ca%2F~wwwpsych%2Fgebotys%2Fcluster.pdf&searchx=cluster%20analysis%20examples

Cluster analysis for clustering "cases" such as individual gamers is most often based on distance measures. Distance measures involve combining differences in multiple variables between individuals - for instance, you could cluster characters by combining differences between them in Str, Int, Wis, Dex, Con and Cha (notice I still use the traditional ability score order - this is because I played real D&D).

This was the key text for me:- the text at the link talks about how you mathematically combine the different numbers (basically it's (X1-X2)^2 + (Y1-Y2)^2 + (Z1-Z2)^2 where X1 is Bill's Str, X2 is Bob's Str, Y1 is Bill's Int, Y2 is Bob's Int, Z1 is Bill's Wis, Z2 is Bob's Wis etc), and then says -

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It seems to me, though I suppose I could be wrong, that it MUST follow that even if you weight variables in standardised form, each variable's weight is inversely proportional to how many variables you admit to the process. For instance, if you only admit Str, Int and Wis, each of these ability scores will individually make far more difference to your clustering than if you admit all 6 ability scores including Dex, Con and Cha.

It therefore seems to me that the whole clustering process is going to be massively dependent on how many variables you admit to the process and what those variables are.

What's more, the whole hypothesis of the method is that the variables are NOT independent. If you admit lots of variables which correspond statistically to each other in fact, the result must be that the clusters reflect those variables disproportionately. This skewing must become even more pronounced if some of the variables are in fact to some extent reflections of the same underlying data.

For instance, if you ask your system to produce TWO clusters and the variables you admit are:-

Total Wealth, Income, Pension Size, Value of Main Residence, Value of Vehicle

... plainly you are very likely to get clusters of Rich and Poor.

Now, if your survey on roleplayers asks lots of questions about things like:-

- do you like Story in your games?
- do you play Storyteller games?
- do you like to explore themes and premises in play?
- do you like your games to have identifiable plot?
- do you like to see characters develop as the narrative continues?

... then each of these feeds into the Storyteller style, and you are very likely to end up with a Storyteller cluster at some point because people who tick one of these will often tick the others.

So, clustering may be great for clustering cases based on variables which are more or less independent of each other, such as do you like the taste of fair trade coffee, what is your income, are you male or female, what is your attitude to fair trade ethics, etc., BUT where many of the variables are closely connected, in my largely as yet ignorant view the whole premise of clustering may be flawed.

Clustering should NOT reliably and frequently produce a neat, symmetrical set of groups along the 22/22/22/22 lines. I'm not saying it never can.

And the WotC study for all I know may be perfectly valid.

But if you select a range of variables many of which correspond with each other very VERY closely, your clusters are I think bound to end up reflecting those in effect pre-selected groupings.

The analysis of roleplayers is I think in huge danger of falling into that trap because so many of the factors likely to interest researchers are likely to correspond closely with other particular factors also of subjective interest to the researchers. In other words, where things are of subjective interest to the researchers, the researchers may ask many questions which are in essence about those same things, and fewer questions about things which do not hold so much interest for them. The clusters will then inevitably reflect the researchers' subjective interests.

That, at least, is my suspicion.

In other words if the researchers asked lots of questions about butt-kicking (or which were inevitably closely connected to butt-kicking), lots of questions about plot (or which were inevitably closely connected to plot), lots of questions about roleplay (or which were inevitably closely connected to roleplay) and lots of questions about strategy (or which were inevitably closely connected to strategy), even if they asked some questions about other things, those 4 clusters were more or less preordained to emerge.

Now all you have to do is have your researchers rank people in relative rather than absolute terms (e.g. Bill does not have a Strength score on an absolute scale from 3 to 18, but has an average, below average or above average score compared to the group's average Strength) and you are almost guaranteed a symmetry of emergent groupings, depending on how you work out the relative values / averages. Such an analysis would then tell you more about the researchers' subjective interests and methods than about the actual reality on the ground.

And it would have the seductive veneer of science.

I'm not for a moment saying this is what WotC did. I'm sure they have great people on the job. But for me to accept your cluster analysis as giving meaningful information about what drives gamers and makes them tick, I would need to look at the original study and its methods in detail and the questions asked and variables selected. I just don't have the data to accept your conclusions.