Quote from: aramis;321857I came to that same conclusion back in 1990. Radically different playstyles in one group leads to one or the other being unhappy with the way things happen, sometimes both.

GNS sounds like formulating a self-fulfilling crap prophecy, to me. You basically ignore shades of grey and promote the idea that there are three clear cut game styles, with the underlying concept that anything in between is dysfunctional, so that only the three play styles described by the theory remain.

It's self-contained logic. It's fallacious.
In the end, promoting GNS theory is just playing gaming politics.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;321848This is, BTW, one major point on which Sett and I are in total agreement. Ron Edwards is a pseudointellectual using opinions gleaned from a pseudoscience to give the veneer of intellectual depth to his nonsense (a "trompe l'oeil" theory).

I like to wish to highlight, that I´m not NOT talking about GNS = pseudoscience. He is actually teaching this "story animal"-crap at american undergrad courses, and he drew conclusions he totally meant as written (i.g. brain damage) from one of those "classes". A class on "biology and movies" or somesuch.

Quote from: Settembrini;321869I like to wish to highlight, that I´m not NOT talking about GNS = pseudoscience. He is actually teaching this "story animal"-crap at american undergrad courses, and he drew conclusions he totally meant as written (i.g. brain damage) from one of those "classes". A class on "biology and movies" or somesuch.

I'm talking about evolutionary psychology as the pseudoscience. GNS is just a layer of scum floating atop that cesspool.

Quote from: aramis;321857I came to that same conclusion back in 1990. Radically different playstyles in one group leads to one or the other being unhappy with the way things happen, sometimes both.

You just have to focus on building consensus. It's easy to do (and to learn to do if you're not sure of how to), but it's rarely done.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;321741The idea that the Forge has taken over D&D is hyperbolic...

Clearly, clearly, that's 4e is the world's first Forgian MMO.

Seanchai

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;321886You just have to focus on building consensus. It's easy to do (and to learn to do if you're not sure of how to), but it's rarely done.

Consensus building is easiest done by, when confronted with someone who is the outlier, uninviting them rather than changing the whole group.

GNS is one set of tools for finding out what one likes. What the forgites have done after that is, well, pretty immaterial.

System does matter. If it didn't, everyone would still play OE D&D.

And not everyone will play the same way. I don't like munchkins in my groups. I don't want to build consensus with them, either. I want them to go play in their own group of munchkins and leave me and mine alone.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;321884I'm talking about evolutionary psychology as the pseudoscience. GNS is just a layer of scum floating atop that cesspool.

Why would you say that? Though I am no specialist on that branch of psychology (I work in clinic and HR), what I've read seems like plausible science. There is much to learn, of course, but the basic ideas make sense on an evolutionary framework.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;321886You just have to focus on building consensus. It's easy to do (and to learn to do if you're not sure of how to), but it's rarely done.

Yes, I definitely agree.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;321886You just have to focus on building consensus. It's easy to do (and to learn to do if you're not sure of how to), but it's rarely done.

I agree on this.  IF your players aren't total cocks, then generally they're willing to bend a little so everyone can have fun.  The magic group of people who all want the exact same thing in a game basically doesn't exist in the real world, and I'm inclined to be suspect as to how much actual play anyone who claims they'll only play with such a group actually has.

Quote from: Imperator;321961Why would you say that? Though I am no specialist on that branch of psychology (I work in clinic and HR), what I've read seems like plausible science. There is much to learn, of course, but the basic ideas make sense on an evolutionary framework.

Evolutionary psychology is basically more "state of nature" theorising dressed in a lab coat.

Here's a laundry list of complaints:

Its experimental support is very hazy once you get beyond very basic statements.

No one's really sure of what the evolutionary pressures on early hominids were (or even if they were constant) or which mental modules evolved in response to those pressures and which are carry-overs from previous species or cultural.

Evolutionary psychology has yet to provide any model of how epigenetic and cultural changes would interact with genes, or explanations of how that would affect the predominantly gene-oriented theories currently held in evo psych.

It has no predictive power, and a very poor capacity for generalisation. The explanatory power of most evo psych statements is very little. Its explanations tend to lack causal aspects, except in the loosest sense of the term "cause".

Many adherents of evo psych imply that 20th century Western society's morals are direct responses to paleolithic evolutionary pressures without adequately explaining how the morals of other societies that differ are able to do so while still being responses to those same pressures.

Etc.

This is not to deny that the human brain is the product of evolution, or any such thing. It's simply that the underlying conceptual structure of evolutionary psychology as it currently exists (not as it could, should, etc.) is pretty intellectually bankrupt. So long as "nature vs. nurture" is an ongoing concern, the field really isn't going to get anything significant done.

This is a problem for psychology more generally, but things like clinical psychology can study modern humans and work backwards to figure out how genetic factors and other factors are interacting with one another. Evo psychologists can't observe the actual cognitive evolution of modern humans, and this means that the field has a speculative, philosophical element that requires more rigorous conceptual work than it currently has.

Quote from: aramis;321857I came to that same conclusion back in 1990. Radically different playstyles in one group leads to one or the other being unhappy with the way things happen, sometimes both.

The keyword here being "radically".

From the point of view of Forge theory, all playstyles conflict with each other in a radical way. The Forge defines playstyles based on the extremes of Gamism, Narrativism, and Simulationism, and defines them so that they are mutually incompatible.

On the other hand, if you read Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering, in which Laws sets out his ideas, you get more fine nuances. Firstly, there's the idea that not all playstyles are radically different - some of the styles Laws talks about can work pretty well together, especially if you cram the game with the sort of thing which both styles like. Secondly, there's the idea that players don't pursue their own playstyle to a radical extent - in other words, most reasonable people understand that group activities involve a certain amount of mutual compromise, and you can't have it all your own way all the time.

Sure, there's still the possibility that some people's preferences are so divergent that it's impossible to reconcile them and they'd be better off playing in different groups, and Laws acknowledges that, but at the same time people need to distinguish between "things which aren't to my taste, but which I can live with" and "things which completely wreck a game for me", otherwise you end up rejecting campaigns which might have been perfectly enjoyable for you if you'd have given them a try.