Gamist, Narrativist, or Simulationist: which are you?

[Darren Dirt]

I was talkin' to Cap'n ... um, Mr. Analog today, and it got me to thinking... What makes some people find WoW fun, while others enjoy CoH, some love Doom but could never get "into" Deus Ex? *cough*mybrother*cough*



I just found this today, got me thinking:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_Theory

The GNS Theory, as originally developed by Ron Edwards, holds that participants in role-playing games can be divided into three categories: Gamists, Narrativists, and Simulationists. Strictly, GNS theory is concerned with gamers, but it has been extrapolated to direct game design, both in and out of the world of RPGs. Game designers find it useful because it can be used to explain why players play certain games.



The theory developed out of the Threefold Model that defined Drama, Simulation, and Game as three paradigms of role-playing. The concept first appeared in the rec.games.frp.advocacy newsgroup, and the name "Threefold Model" was coined in a post made by Mary Kuhner in 1997 which outlined the principles of the theory. [1]



In his article "System Does Matter"[2], Edwards said that all participants in RPGs hold one of three mutually exclusive perspectives or aims. He wrote that enjoyable RPGs focus on only one of these perspectives and that it is a common mistake in RPG design to try to satisfy all three types. It is for this reason that the article could be seen as a warning against generic role-playing game systems made by larger developers[3]. The three GNS perspectives Edwards defined are:



Gamists who play for competition and challenge

Narrativists who play for story and characterization

Simulationists who play to explore and experience

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Personally, I guess I'm more "Simulationist" than the other two... I like story and characterization, but only if it is solidly integrated in exploring a big and novel world. I enjoyed Serious Sam on the PC, with its paperthin story/characterization. I loved Deus Ex, with its much richer story and especially characterization -- yet I tried replaying it through and I found I was mostly trying to "relive" the novelty of exploring such a realistic, immersive world. Even in CoH, I will often read the Story Arc descriptions, but while I am relatively-mindlessly blasting those nasty villains, I am looking around at the burning walls or the caved in metal sculptures and the like in some of the new maps... Not caring as much about "why" I am there fighting evil in the first place.



Heck, I even recently launched in an Atari ST emulator the classic "Sundog: Frozen Legacy". Brought back memories, but it's so time-consuming and since I had played it through already maybe 16 years ago, I doubt I'll take the time to do so again... The exploring novelty is pretty much gone.



So yeah, that's me in a nutshell: "My 5 year mission, to explore strange new worlds..." <-- Jeepers, might even be the primary motivation for my choice of fictional literary works, hmmm...



- - -



Soze what about youze guyz?

[Mr. Analog]

All of the above.



EDIT



No, wait, I only like games where I can kill turtles to save a woman.

[Shayne]

I perfer the multiplayer aspect of many games.  I find nothing more fun then taking the last corner of a race, in PGR3, beautifully thus taking the lead and winning.



Ive been so busy gaming this last 2 weeks with WoW, PGR3 and Perfect Dark that im basically in gamer heaven.  I have yet to play ANY of the single player in Perfect Dark yet ive put in a good 10-15 hours of multiplayer (fantastic btw).

[Thorin]

So that'd make you a Gamist, then, right Shayne?



Me, I'd probably guess that I'd be a Narrativist, if I were to play online games.  Does this GNS theory apply to paper-and-pencil RPGs as well?

[Darren Dirt]

So that'd make you a Gamist, then, right Shayne?



Me, I'd probably guess that I'd be a Narrativist, if I were to play online games.  Does this GNS theory apply to paper-and-pencil RPGs as well?

It seems that the rest of the Wikipedia article mentions other applications for this kind of theoretical categorization. Like any social science, it's not "science" but rather "theory". But it's thought-provoking, to me, asking what a person finds fun, or motivating, in any kind of entertainment experience... And since most of us are gaming addicts to some degree, I put it out there for the community

[Fedora Gal]

I am definitely a Narritivist, all for the characters and story, if I can't get a feel for my character and who they are, or have an in-depth story to get involved in I get bored fairly quickly. It's why I love to RP so much, got into a new guild in Eq2 and we actually have full blown on-going interactive story lines it's wicked fun, and much more interesting than the usual lvl grind.

[Tonnica]

I can't say I favour any particular one of the three. In fact what I look for is a game that has at least a little bit of all three. Competiton and challenge? Unreal and Gran Turismo. Story and characterization? Okage: Shadow King and Ys. Explore and experience? Katamari and City of Heroes. Each of these games except for Okage also have an element of the other two facets to it.



Interesting theory though. Brings to mind a question like "if you could only pick one game that fit under one of these three specifications, what would it be?". In that case I'd probably err on the narrativist side. The challenge can be too much or too little, and the game can be linear, but I have to keep myself from putting my fist through the screen when everyone in the game is an unlikeable dip.