Catalyst Castle

This is part 3 of a discussion I began last month. The object of this discussion is to help myself and those I role-play with get more out of our games.

In part 1 I talked about something called the GNS theory devised by a man named Ron Edwards. If you haven’t already, or need a refresher, you can read part 1 here. The basic gist of the article was that most people tend to gravitate towards one of 3 preferences for play, those being Gamism, Narrativism, or Simulationism.

In part 2 I talked more in depth about Simulationism, my personal preference for play. You can read the article here.

Now I’ll give you a summary of Ron Edwards’ article on Gamism. This essay was a little less clear than his essay on Simulationism, so I hope I can do a decent job of summarizing it. If you’re interested, you can read the full essay here. (If you want the really short summary, skip to the last 3 or 4 paragraphs of this article.)


Edwards begins by explaining how gamism takes place on 2 separate levels: the out-of-game real people level, and the in-game character level. He says the following about what it means for the real people:

The players, armed with their understanding of the game and their strategic acumen, have to Step On Up. Step On Up requires strategizing, guts, and performance from the real people in the real world. This is the inherent "meaning" or agenda of Gamist play (analogous to the Dream in Simulationist play).

Gamist play, socially speaking, demands performance with risk, conducted and perceived by the people at the table. What's actually at risk can vary - for this level, though, it must be a social, real-people thing, usually a minor amount of recognition or esteem. The commitment to, or willingness to accept this risk is the key - it's analogous to committing to the sincerity of The Dream for Simulationist play. This is the whole core of the essay, that such a commitment is fun and perfectly viable for role-playing, just as it's viable for nearly any other sphere of human activity.

He then explains what it means for the player-characters:

The in-game characters, armed with their skills, priorities, and so on, have to face a Challenge, which is to say, a specific Situation in the imaginary game-world. Challenge is about the strategizing, guts, and performance of the characters in this imaginary game-world.

For the characters, it's a risky situation in the game-world; in addition to that all-important risk, it can be as fabulous, elaborate, and thematic as any other sort of role-playing.

I think the key here is his use of the phrase: “Step On Up”. Imagine a carnival game, such as ring-toss. The game attendant announces “Step on up!” to potential players. When a passerby chooses to “Step On Up”, they are accepting the challenge and putting something on the line. The game will require at least a minimum of skill or good fortune. If they win, they get a prize and they look good in front of their friends. If they lose, they’ve lost the price of admission, or have to settle for a consolation prize. Gamism is about integrating that kind of challenge into roleplaying.

Next, Edwards talks about the role of competition in gamist play:

Competition is best understood as a productive add-on to Gamist play. Such play is fundamentally cooperative, but may include competition. That's not a contradiction: I'm using exactly the same logic as might be found at the poker and basketball games. You can't compete, socially, without an agreed-upon venue. If the cooperation's details are acceptable to everyone, then the competition within it can be quite fierce.

So what is all this competition business about? It concerns conflict of interest. If person A's performance is only maximized by driving down another's performance, then competition is present. In Gamist play, this is not required - but it is very often part of the picture. Competition gives both Step On Up and Challenge a whole new feel - a bite.

How does conflict of interest relate to Step On Up and to Challenge? The crucial answer is that it may be present twice, independently, within the two-level structure.
• Competition at the Step On Up level = conflict of interest regarding players' performance and impact on the game-world.
• Competition at the Challenge level = conflict of interest among characters' priorities (survival, resource accumulation, whatever) in the game-world.

Edwards goes on to discuss competition further and how it might factor into a game in different ways. Players might be competing directly with one another for impact on the game-world. Players may not necessarily be competing, but player-characters might be. Players might compete against a Game Master. Players might cooperate with a Game Master, while the player-characters compete against the Game Master’s NPCs.

Many RPG texts either imply or state outright that “winning” is not part of the game. Edwards explains how this is not really true, or at least, doesn’t need to be:

I'm defining "winning" as positive assessment at the Step On Up level. It even applies when little or no competition is going on. It applies even when the win-condition is fleeting. Even if it's unstated. Even if it's no big deal. Without it, and if it's not the priority of play, then no Gamism.

Because gamism is specifically about facing challenges of one kind or another and either succeeding or failing, the game must provide clear choices for players and player-characters. Choice is important because only through choice can there be consequences.

Edwards give two example of how challenge can manifest in a game, which he calls the Gamble and the Crunch:

The Gamble occurs when the player's ability to manipulate the odds or clarify unknowns is seriously limited. "Hold your nose and jump!" is its battle-cry. Running a first-level character in all forms of D&D is a Gamble; all of Ninja Burger play is a Gamble. More locally, imagine a crucial charge made by a fighter character toward a dragon - his goal is to distract it from the other character's coordinated attack, and he's the only one whose hit points are sufficient to survive half its flame-blast. Will he make the saving roll? If he doesn't, he dies. Go!

The Crunch occurs when system-based strategy makes a big difference, either because the Fortune methods involved are predictable (e.g. probabilities on a single-die roll), or because effects are reliably additive or cancelling (e.g. Feats, spells). Gamist-heavy Champions play with powerful characters is very much about the Crunch. The villain's move occurs early in Phase 3; if the speed-guy saves his action from Phase 2 into Phase 3 to pre-empt that action, and if the brick-guy's punch late on Phase 3 can be enhanced first by the psionic-guy's augmenting power if he Pushes the power, then we can double-team the villain before he can kill the hostage.

The distinction between Gamble and Crunch isn't quite the same as "randomness;" it has more to do with options and consequences. Fortune can be involved in both of them, and it doesn't have to be involved in either.

Edwards has this to say about what might constitute success in an RPG:

So what constitutes "success" at the Step On Up and/or Challenge level during play? Is it the right to keep playing? Improving one's character's effectiveness, begging the question of what for? Getting some kind of "victory points"? The metagame/game relationship between these is phenomenally important. I think that, in Gamist play, the metagame-part is the key one - a completely informal Social Reward (e.g., "Killed more goblins than you!", even in a game-system which confers no consequence for doing so) can easily outweigh an in-game one.

Edwards’ essay also talks about some of the problems that can arise with gamism:

The core problem in Gamist dysfunction is not knowing what the Step On Up is actually about. […] The other, more extreme dysfunction arises from the player who is basically a poor sport, or, "the Wimp," which is unfortunately the most common dysfunctional Gamism.

Reading the essay, and reading a lot of talk from various RPG blogs and forums, reveals that a lot of people look negatively on gamism in RPGs. Edwards defends it as a valid element of roleplaying:

Some folks seem to think that Gamist play lacks variety, to which I say, "nonsense." Scrabble is "always the same," and it's fun; simple games do not mean simplistic, shallow, or easy. What matters is whether the strategy of the moment is fun. Well-designed, multiple-edged Step On Up activities with fully-developed competition are endlessly diverting and provide an excellent basis for friendship. Anyone who thinks that such things in role-playing necessarily cannot be fun and will necessarily destroy social interactions is badly mistaken

Ron Edwards ends his essay with this “hard question” about Simulationism:

Why is role-playing your chosen venue as a social hobby? There are lots and lots of them that unequivocally fit Step On Up with far less potential for encountering conflicting priorities: volleyball, chess, or pool, if you like the Crunch; horse races or Las Vegas if you like the Gamble; even organized amateur sports like competitive martial arts or sport fishing.

Do you play Gamist in role-playing because it doesn't hurt your ego as much as other venues might? Is role-playing safer in some way, in terms of the loss factor of Step On Up? Even more severely, are you sticking to role-playing because many fellow players subscribe to the "no one wins in role-playing" idea? Do you lurk like Grendel among a group of tolerant, perhaps discomfited Simulationists, secure that they are disinclined to Step On Up toward you? In which case, you can win against them or the game all the time, but they will never win against you?

So, here’s the short summary of what I got out of Ron Edwards’ essay:

Gamism is about a figurative “Step On Up!” call. The game presents a quantifiable challenge to the players, the player-characters, or both. Success and failure each have their own consequences. The fun comes from accepting the challenges, having something at stake, and making choices that have real consequences.

Competition may be a part of gamist play, but that doesn’t necessarily have to mean competition between players or between player-characters. Competition between PCs and NPCs is a valid form of gamism, but the challenge has to be real, not just a carefully orchestrated illusion set up by the GM.

In general, I think I prefer to have gamism in my board game and card game experiences, and keep my RPG experiences gamist-lite. I do, however, like the idea of players and PCs being given real challenges where their choices and strategies matter, and success or failure holds real consequences. I also don’t mind heavy gamism in RPGs that are designed to have short runs, such as my Dual of the Fates RPG (currently in beta-testing).