Gamism: Step On Up

by Ron Edwards

I owe thanks to Clinton R. Nixon, Rob MacDougall, Gareth Martin, Mike

Holmes, Gordon R. Landis, Ralph Mazza, Jonathan Walton, Paul Czege, Jared
A. Sorensen, Grant Gigee, Christopher Kubasik, Jake Norwood, and Peter Adkison for their comments on the draft version of the manuscript. All errors, misattributions, inconsistencies, whatever, are mine.
This is the second of three essays on the three modes of role-playing collectively
referred to as GNS, as presented in my essay GNS and related matters of roleplaying theory. The first of the three "support" essays was Simulationism: the right
to dream. These essays' purposes are to clarify many aspects of their parent essay, to present the ideas that have always awaited a more general understanding
of my basic points, and also to refine and develop the concepts based on the
years of discussion and input from others at the Gaming Outpost, RPG.net, and
the Forge.
This one's about Gamist play.
Gamism was originally identified in the RFGA Threefold Model of role-playing
styles, and I think from its first mention, nearly everyone has said, "Oh, yeah,
Gamism," with little debate about its qualities. Moving through my own reconstructions of the Threefold into GNS, whether early or late, and through the
GENder model proposed by the Scarlet Jester, both Gamist play as an activity
and people's instant, easy acceptance of its category have received little attention. Apparently, one just knows it upon sight.
But do we really? References to Gamism tend to be dismissive, superficial, and
often backhanded ("except for the Gamists," "my inner Gamist," etc). With respect to the members of the RFGA discussion group, I think they categorized
Gamist play mainly in order to sweep it out of the realm of further dialogue, in
order to concentrate on issues that I would now primarily identify within Simulationist play. I also think that most, although not all, subsequent discussion has
been similar. Yet that exceptional bit, here and there over several forums, indicates far less consensus out there than might have been expected or assumed.
I'm going for a real look at the category for its own sake. In some ways I'm kind
of a case study of the problem, but I hope also part of the solution as well; my
own views have changed immensely since I referred to Gamist players as "space
aliens" years ago on the Gaming Outpost.
Here's what I wrote for my big and admittedly dry essay, "GNS and related matters of role-playing theory":
Gamism is expressed by competition among participants (the real people); it includes victory and loss conditions for characters, both shortterm and long-term, that reflect on the people's actual play strategies.
The listed elements [Character, Setting, Situation, System, Color] provide an arena for the competition.

And this needs revising for several reasons. First, "among the participants" is too
vague, at least from the standpoint of most readers. I was thinking of anyone
involved in the play of the game, permitting just who competes with whom to be
customized, but most people seem to think I mean "players" in the widely-used,
non-GM sense, and object to that. Second, the term "competition" gets right up
people's noses. Lots of terms have cropped up: Struggle, Striving, Challenge, and
more. Some of that debate seems to be procedural, some of it ideological, and
some of it social. Although I can't hope for unilateral agreement about the fundamentals of Gamist play, I think I've managed to figure out where all of the
consternation - and the hot emotions underlying it - comes from. It's not merely
semantic. I hope this essay manages to clear up any confusions about my position on the matter and perhaps manages to set a better basis for continued debate.
Some threads to check out include: Gamism and Premise, Gamism is not competition{/url], All out for Gamism, and Getting in touch with our inner Gamist. They include plenty of good points, but, my own posts included, I think they mainly
illustrate the problems involved rather than offer anything concrete.
So the first step is to renounce a judgmental and dismissive approach about
"those awful Gamists." The second is to renounce the less-judgmental but
equally-dismissive "those Gamists" attitude, which might be called the NIMBY
view. And then, finally, to renounce the sort of guilty-liberal, halting, apologetic
defensive line as well. Just bouncing among these, without ever coming to grips
with the actual phenomenon itself, is enough to fill a few dozen thread-pages
within days, so it's time to put all that aside and focus.
Every reader of the first draft wanted me to define Gamist play right here, in this
spot. I refused, to the wrath of Lit-101 teachers everywhere. You gotta go
through the next sections to get there.

Back to Exploration
Just as in the Simulationism essay, I'll start by considering the big picture in
which GNS issues are embedded. It might be written out like this in a Venn diagram:
[Social Contract [Exploration [GNS [rules [techniques [Stances]]]]]]
Every inner "box" is an expression or realization of the box(es) it's nested in. For
example, Exploration is a kind of Social Contract, and a given GNS mode is a
kind (specifically, an application) of Exploration.
1.

Everything occurs embedded in the Social Contract, which includes

many things about play and not-play, especially the Balance of Power.
2. Exploration is the primary act of role-playing, composed of five parts
with some causal relationships among them.
3. The "modes" of play (because they have to be expressed via communication and play itself, not just "felt") are currently best described as Gamist, Simulationist, or Narrativist play. Play (as opposed merely to
hanging out with friends) cannot occur without such an agenda. I'm now
using the term "creative agenda" to refer to the three modes as a concept, replacing the small-p "premise" term in the older essay.
4. Techniques of play include many different relationships among rules,
people's decisions, announcements, and similar. "System" (or rather

textual system) interacts with Techniques all the time, in terms of things
like Currency, Resolution (including DFK, IIEE; see Glossary), and Reward systems. Which of these is inner or outer is debatable and probably variable, although I've diagrammed it in keeping with the idea that
techniques are applied within a framework of rules. In keeping with the
Venn concept, techniques are local expressions of Social Contract, Exploration, and GNS modes, just as rules are.
5. Actual play shifts quickly among Stances. Stances, unsurprisingly, are
very local applications of rules and techniques, all in the service of Exploration and the larger-scale GNS mode in action.
So to talk about any GNS category, the place to start is that box. Exploration is
composed of five elements, no sweat: Character, Setting, Situation, System, and
Color ... but it's not a hydra with five equal heads. These things have creative and
specific dependencies among one another, and now's the time to reveal a filthy
secret about them.
It's this: Situation is the center. Situation is the imaginative-thing we experience
during play. Character and Setting are components that produce it, System is
what Situation does, and Color can hardly be done without all this in place to,
well, to color. Situation is the 400-lb gorilla of the five elements, or, if you will,
the central node. It's central regardless of how much attention it's receiving relative to the other components.
Gamist play, more than any other mode, demands that Situation be not only
central, but also the primary focus of attention. You want to play Gamist? Then
don't piss about with Character and/or Setting without Situation happening, or
about to.

The definition at last

A few paragraphs back, I promised a definition for Gamism and here it is. It
operates at two levels: the real, social people and the imaginative, in-game situation.
1.

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).
2. 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.
3. 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.

4. 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. Challenge is merely plain old Situation - it
only gets a new name because of the necessary attention it must receive
in Gamist play. Strategizing in and among the Challenge is the material,
or arena, for whatever brand of Step On Up is operating.
Gamist play and design is very diverse, partly due to the relative emphases of
these two layers, as well as how they are best met in that particular game. At the
crudest lens-setting, one can contrast those who emphasize Challenge and drop
the Step On Up to a faint roar, as opposed to those who diminish the Challenge it's always there, though - and focus on the Step On Up.

Terms 'til you squeak

The game to the Gamist
What does "game" mean, anyway? Wouldn't that be good to know before talking
about Game-ist? As it turns out, not really, no more than "simulation" helps with
discussing Simulationist play. The term "game" is good enough for our purposes
(as a root for the "ist"), but not especially rigorous or interesting. So many different things get called games that it's hardly worth considering a blanket definition. To call all of role-playing a "game," the term must be so broadly defined
that it excludes any agenda beyond socializing.
There's one specific aspect of the term that needs some scrutiny, though - its
judgmental content. Phrases like "It's a game," or better, "It's just a game," or,
"It's the game" illustrate that the term tells us nothing; the meaning lies in the
inflection. The phrase might be saying that "it" is utterly trivial: "it's just a
game." Or it might be saying that "it" demands our constant and committed
attention: "that's the game."
So, I think more sensibly, it's good to look inside Gamism to see the game there what is it? It's a recreational, social activity, in which one faces circumstances of
risk - but neither life-threatening nor of any other great material consequence.
All that's on the line is some esteem, probably fleeting, enough to enjoy risking
and no more. Think of a poker game among friends with very minor stakes, or a
neighborhood pickup basketball game. Taking away the small change or the
score-counting would take away a lot of the fun, because they help to track or
prompt the minor esteem ups-and-downs. This is Step On Up. It is "just a
game," yes, but "it's the game," too.
With any luck, now that I'm claiming two things are being labeled rather than
one, perhaps some of the debate about the label in question can settle down. At
the Step On Up level, what's at stake? A bit of esteem, as stated above. But what
about? Here's point #1: what's really at stake can be totally overt (the basketball
score), or it can nonverbal or otherwise subtle (who sinks the best single hoop,
regardless of which team wins). All that matters is that it must exist embedded
in the real-life social interaction.
Think of the following:

how performance is assessed, including a range of severity for joshing,

praise, and criticism

the parameters of engagement - rules you do not break, in order to enjoy

playing changes in the field of play, whether in space or time, making it
impossible to stay with a single approach

The competition boogeyman

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.
Role-playing texts never get this straight. For them, it's always either competition or cooperation, one-other, push-pull, and often nonsensical. The following
is from Fantasy Earth, Basic Rules (1994, Zody Games, author is Michael S.
Zody):
... while board games and wargames have winners and losers, roleplaying games do not. Rather than being competitive, role-playing
games are cooperative. The players all work together and win and lose as
a team.
I consider the above text to be inherently contradictory. Versions of it can be
found in quite a few role-playing games, especially those with fantasy settings
and a fairly high risk of character death.
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 gameworld.

Think of each level having a little red dial, from 1 to 11 - and those dials can be
twisted independently. Therefore, four extremes of dial-twisting may be compared.
1.

High competition in Step On Up plus low competition in Challenge =

entirely team-based play, party style against a shared Challenge, but
with value placed on some other metric of winning among the real people, such as levelling-up faster, having the best stuff, having one's
player-characters be killed less often, getting more Victory Points, or
some such thing. Most Tunnels & Trolls play is like this.

2. Low competition in Step On Up plus high competition in Challenge =

characters are constantly scheming on one another or perhaps openly
trying to kill or outdo another but the players aren't especially competing, because consequences to the player are low per unit win/loss. Kobolds Ate My Baby and the related game, Ninja Burger, play this way.
3. High competition in both levels = moving toward the Hard Core (see below), including strong rules-manipulation, often observed in variants of
Dungeons & Dragons as well in much LARP play. A risky way to play,
but plenty of fun if you have a well-designed system like Rune.
4. Low competition in both levels = strong focus on Step On Up and Challenge but with little need for conflict-of-interest. Quite a bit of D&D
based on story-heavy published scenarios plays this way. It shares some
features with "characters face problem" Simulationist play, with the addition of a performance metric of some kind. Some T&T play Drifted
this way as well, judging by many Sorcerer's Apprentice articles.
Things get more complex than this, because different roles for GM and players
lead to combinations of the above categories within a single game. For instance,
players can cooperate as a party and compete with the GM, for instance, given a
rules-set that limits GM options (a combination of #1 and #2). This shouldn't be
confused with cooperating with one another, cooperating with the GM, and
competing against the GM's characters (#4).

Reality check
I might as well get this over with now: the phrase "Role-playing games are not
about winning" is the most widespread example of synecdoche in the hobby.
Potential Gamist responses, and I think appropriately, include:
"Eat me,"
(upon winning) "I win," and
"C'mon, let's play without these morons."
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 wincondition 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.
Textually, so many games say "it's not about winning" and then immediately
provide extremely clear win/loss parameters for play. Sometimes I think it's
because people believe that players are inherently Gamist and have to be appeased in some way. This uneasy waffling or endless qualifying shows up most
often in fantasy games whose authors would like play to be about something
else, but just can't quite believe that players would agree.
From the introduction to RuneQuest, second edition (The Chaosium, 1978, 1979,
1980; specific author for this text unknown; game authors are Steve Perrin, Ray
Turney, Steve Henderson, and Warren James):
The title of the game, RuneQuest, describes its goal. The player creates
one or more characters, known as adventurers, and playes them in various scenarios, designed by a Referee. The Adventurer has the use of
combat, magic, and other skills, and treasure. The Referee has the use of
assorted monsters, traps, and his own wicked imagination to keep the

Adventurer from his goal within the rules of the game. A surviving Adventurer gains experience in fighting, magic, and other skills, as well as
money to purchase further training.
Now all that's pretty Gamist stuff of a late 1970s vintage, right? Get this, which
follows immediately:
The adventurer progresses in this way until he is so proficient that he
comes to the attention of the High Priests, sages, and gods. At this point
he has the option to join a Rune Cult. Joining such a cult gives him
many advantages, not the least of which is aid from the god of the cult.
Acquiring a Rune by joining such a cult is the goal of the game, for only
in gathering a Rune may a character take the next step, up into the ranks
of Hero, and perhaps Superhero.
All right, that bit about joining cults still seems kind of Gamist, right? About
getting more effective and so on? Great ... except that the GM controls the High
Priests and sages. Why would he, whose job was just stated to be to "keep the
Adventurer from his goal," have them recognize the Adventurer in the first
place? Either they do, and the GM must abandon the stated goal, or they don't,
and that whole paragraph becomes gibberish.
Bear in mind as well that "Hero" and "Superhero" are never defined, and indeed
never again mentioned anywhere in the rulebook. See what I mean about waffly
and uncertain text? Such text is the default explanation for role-playing, with
very few exceptions, until the publication of Vampire in 1991. Even since,
though, it's still the standard for fantasy games. The following is from Legendary
Lives, second edition (1993, Marquee Press, authors are Joe Williams and Kathleen Williams):
The players are impromptu actors within the scenes created by the referee ... The fun comes from interacting with the other characters and with
the imaginary world created by the refereee. For the duration of the
game, try to immerse yourself in the role. [Sim so far - RE]
...
The first goal of a player is survival. Yes your character can die during an
adventure, and a dead character is completely gone. If your character is
smart enough, bright enough, or lucky enough, he or she will survive to
reap the benefits of becoming older, wiser, and more powerful.
[Wowsies, eh? Then text follows which backpeddles rapidly and tries to
explain why character death isn't losing. -RE]
As a contrast, some texts make no bones about this issue and indeed leap in with
both feet, as in Kobolds Ate My Baby! third edition (2001, Ninth Level Games;
authors are Christopher O'Neill and Daniel Landis):
How to win!
... unlike your average role-playing game, KOBOLDS ATE MY BABY!
Third Edition has winners (and losers). Truth be told, it mainly has losers! Anyway, the winner is the player who, at the end of the game, has
the most Victory Points. Most games continue until a certain condition
is met, generally when all the babies are gone ...

Yee-ha! But that's a recent example. To get back to the dark and steaming roots
of the first wave of role-playing innovation, check this out from The Basic Game
chapter in Tunnels & Trolls, 5th edition (1979, Flying Buffalo Inc; author is Ken
St. Andre, with possible edits or additions by Liz Danforth):
Every time your character escapes from a tunnel alive, you may consider
yourself a winner. The higher the level and the more wealth your character attains, the better you are doing in comparison to all the other players.
From the Adventure Points chapter in the same text:
As long as a character remains alive - regardless of how many adventures he or she participates in - you are "winning." If ill fate befalls the
character, or if you overextend yourself in playing your character's capabilities, the character dies and it is your loss. Of course, these games allow you to play any number of characters (sometimes referred to as a
"stable of characters") and some will survive and advance, and everyone
wins in the end.
This seems a bit softer, until one notices that although winning is qualified by
quotes and extra text, loss significantly is not.
Further text in the Adventure Points chapter of the same game repeatedly provides big payoff for rash, risky, but tactically-imaginative action, if the character
survives. One small part rewards role-playing, but:
Any points awarded in this category should be given to those players
who are doing an exceptionally good job only, thus making the game
more of a challenge to all.
In other words, "challenge" is the first priority and immersion (for lack of a better word), cooperation with the GM or his story-plans, or in-character consistent
play, are to be conducted and evaluated in that context. They are, as well as anything else like character survival or achievement, to be competed about.
I love the T&T and Kobolds texts. They are refreshing, spunky, and even inspiring: "Step on up, buddy!" Open Gamism is completely accessible, completely
functional, and extremely fun. You see, it all goes back to how the Step On Up
social stuff is perfectly capable of enjoying the in-game Challenge, Situation
stuff, and how they're not the same thing. In these games, the idea is to keep the
Challenge whimsical enough that its occasionally-extreme consequences don't
reflect proportionally on the player's emotional stakes of the moment.
T&T is not the be-all and end-all of Gamism, although it was probably the first
utterly explicit Gamist role-playing text. Not all Gamist play is alike! It ranges
across a great deal of structural, social, and imaginative diversity, which is why
this essay still has a long way to go.

Structural basics
Grant Gigee provided some comments that I think speak more closely to the
issue than anything I could come up with:

Conflict and choice: Clearly, both terms can also be applied to Narrativism, but I think they are very evocative and, combined with challenge,
concisely convey the important values of Gamism. Conflict is crucial to
narrative, but while one can explore the back-story or the setting, or
whatever, and while one can explore the moral ramifications of those
choices, folk like myself would rather get right to the high points - the
points of greatest tension which lead to the greatest accomplishment.
[emphasis mine; that's where the Step On Up lives, right there - RE]
Choice is important because only through choice can there be consequences. The
reason most Gamists play wizards over fighters lies not in avoiding conflict but
in having choices. The fighter's choices are all front-loaded - which sword (the
best one), which armor (the best one), etc - while the wizard's are more immediate: which spell at what time.
Valid Gamist conflict and valid Gamist choice lead directly to strategy and tactics, which I like to think of in two ways. The first way is the interplay of resources, combined arms, either-or decisions, effectiveness, point-husbanding,
and similar game-mechanics acumen. Two articles to review regarding these
sorts of strategy and tactics in Gamist play are Elements of tactics and Elements of
strategy by Brian Gleichman. The second way is all about bending parameters,
lateral thinking, and occasional banzai, which is to say, one's ability to shape the
actual play, or the importance of its parts, through sheer interaction with it and
with other people.
In trying to back up a little and look at things more generally than individual
moments of successful tactics, I came up with two new terms. I'm not sure
whether they're profound or just obvious, so consider'em informal at this point.

The Gamble and the Crunch

Challenge is the Situation faced by the player-characters with a strong implication of risk. It can be further focused into applications, which individually tend
toward one of these two things:
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 (see Diplomacy for a
non-RPG example). Also, look out for jargon: "Crunchy" is a gamer term for
detailed and layered rules; "crunching" is a long-standing term for maximizing
Effectiveness by manipulating a system's Currency. Neither of these are Crunch
as I'm defining here.

Who vs. whom: the source of adversity

Adversity is necessary to role-playing; without it, nothing happens. The term
requires two analyses.
1.

Who's the source of adversity in Gamist play? This is a layered question

based on the Step On Up and Challenge levels. Step On Up adversity
simply means demanding high attention to System operation and the
responding emotional "on-button" from the person. It's the "social
heat," if you will, as well as whatever cognitive demands are imposed by
the System. Optionally, as described above, person-on-person conflict of
interest might be involved as well, bringing in competition at this level.
Without the competition, the adversity needs to come from some extraplayer source, whether a GM or a publication or some confluence of
both. With it, of course, the source of adversity arises among the players; this is usually an add-on to the GM/publication adversity rather
than a substitute.
2. What are its imposed dangers? This seems more straightforward at first,
as Challenge adversity means risk to the characters in some way. But
about what? Options range from character survival to abstract Victory
Points, with a huge range of possibilities in between. Also, optionally,
character-on-character conflict of interest may be involved as well, again
setting up the possible inclusion of competition as a "heater-up" for adversity.
Clearly, these are not really independent! The Challenge adversity sets up all
sorts of System demands and risks to the characters, which in turn can provide
the motor for the Step On Up adversity to kick into action. That's a powerful
phenomenon; arguably, it was the core of D&D play becoming a popular hobby
at all in the mid-1970s, based on organized tournaments.
But all the possible combinations are overwhelming - whose strategizing is opposed to whose? If a GM is the source of adversity, to what extent is he or she a
potential competitor as well? What are the differences between GM as referee, as
judge, and as player of opponents? Is player-effort a team thing or an "every
man my enemy" thing? The general answer to these and similar questions can
only be "Yes," then parsed very specifically both by game design and by group
preferences. Social Contract issues such as whether maps, notes, and dice-rolls
are hidden or open all rely on the answers. But those are only some of the possible questions. Here are others.
1.

How long is a "go"? Which is to say, what are the units of reward and
loss, and how are they distributed through the time of play? Compare
losing a round in a video game with loss in a football game, and consider
whether a fight scene in a role-playing session is a piece of a very long
conflict called a Delve, or whether it's the moment of truth, right there.
Is player-character death, for example, like losing the ball for a first

down for the other side, or missing a touchdown, or losing the whole
game?
2. How is Fortune involved, and when? Oh, there are so many ways:
player-character creation, the typical resolution mechanics, any suddendeath resolution mechanics, reduction of abilities or resources, preparation for a crisis, the crisis itself ... To flip to the other side, what's the
role, if any, of allocation-strategizing points or resources?
3. Neither of the above can be considered without thinking about the relative importance of Effectiveness and Resource, and how they relate to
one another, or, on a more imaginative/scenario level, the relative distribution and positioning of the Gamble and the Crunch.
4. To what degree is conflict-of-interest involved, for both the Step On Up
and Challenge levels? Similarly, and this of course is mainly a social
question, what degree of ruthlessness is involved?
5. What is the Challenge about? Further, how imaginatively committed to
it, moment by moment, are people expected to be? I suggest with great
fervor that combat is only one form of conflict, and character survival is
only one in-game metric for success.

A look at reward systems

I generally refer to Stakes in Gamist play to discuss what's at risk and what
stands to be gained at both the Step On Up and Challenge level. I think successful Gamist play needs to include both the loss and gain conditions for the Stakes,
not just gain. This gets really tricky, because the "metric" of what's being assessed at the Step On Up level is only sometimes overt. Add to that the concept
of Stakes relative to the competition within each level, if present, and things
suddenly get complicated.
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.
In taking this idea to design, my mind kind of balks at the tricky mix of Exploration and Competition, and how to keep them from being at cross-purposes. It is
really hard to conceive of Gamist reward mechanisms that are both consistently
satisfying across long-term play and meaningful at the Step On Up level. Abstract victory points are arguably quite weak; "you win" means nothing if it, well,
doesn't do anything. The more-commonly seen metric of character survival is
badly broken, in a variety of applications. If character death is temporary, it's
not much of a loss condition, but if it's not, the game is often forced to abandon
the loss condition such that people can continue to play.
Character improvement ("advancement") is even more problematic. The basic
issues it raises are:

How tough and effective should a starting character be? If it's too high,
then there's no reason to improve; if it's too low, the early stages of play
depend far too much on GM mercy.
What kind of rate is involved, relative to the challenges as time goes by?
The effectiveness-increase can form an exponential interaction with the
character's ability to increase further, which in most cases breaks the
game or reduces all confrontations to statistical grinds rather than Step
On Up crises.

Reward systems remain the current most challenging sector of game design, for
many reasons, not the least of which is no clear idea of for how long or at what
scale "successful play" should be rated. I look forward to experimentation and
debate that can help resolve some of the issues for Gamist play.

The joys of Gamism

It is way cool, in a game which utilizes point-construction of characters, to allocate them such that the character "hums" - that is, he (or she or it, henceforth
"he") can do what you'd like him to do without running out of energy too fast,
can go where he needs to go, and take a hit without crumpling - or, in games
which are less about moving places and hitting one another, the character can
actually get X done in a way which makes anyone else say, "Whoa, good one!"
Nocturne, my Champions super-hero, steps through the wall and freezes the
villain The Crippler in his tracks with a burning blue look. He glides straight to
the uber-villain, the Blood Queen, where she stands before the technological
cross (on whom is crucified Nocturne's buddy, Warp), ignoring the zots and
shots of the henchmen, and says, in deadly tones, "Where ... is ... our ... son?"
Presence attack roll!
It is totally cool, in a game with a well-constructed IIEE component, to strategize
one or more characters' actions such that their effect and timing delivers a phenomenal wallop, or more generally, has a distinctive and exciting effect on play.
Demon-boy's acrobatic attack provides the diversion, as Hurricane-girl's
wind-storm scatters the henchmen, opening up a channel for Metal-guy to hurl
Claw-man straight into the Menace. As expected, Claw-man takes it on the
chin, but that removes the Menace's saved action (which we all knew he had;
he had that smirk), and that's when Eyebeam-man's blast hits, shattering the
tank behind the Menace to release the wave of radioactive fluid and to wake
the sleeping alien within ...
The very meaning of cool beans is to husband resources intelligently, such that
when you really need that Endurance, or the story points, or those hit points, or
that final charge in the magic staff, they're there. Yzorn, the young mage,
dodges once, twice, and again, eluding the jaws of the summoned wolf, costing
Engarad more and more energy until the animal fades into smoke. Then,
"Catch this!" he cries, at last loosing the lightning bolt and crisping his foe into
an ashy column, which slowly fragments under its own weight.
Nothing is more cool than putting the character or whatever at risk, whether in
Gamble or Crunch circumstances, and seeing the system deliver its punch relative to your tactics. Roichi, my Blue Islands ninja, reaches into the folds of his
black gi to produce, rattle-rattle the dice, a packet of Hot Sauce! Shimatta!

It is the essence of coolness to see the legitimately avoidable twist be avoided, or

fail to be avoided. "Boy, that troll was a lot easier to kill than I expected," says
the player. I, the GM, smirk. "You're growing ... turning hairy ... your armor and
clothing crack and stretch off of your body ... horns sprout on your -" "Hey! I'm
turning into a troll, aren't I?" "Yup ... cursed to clean up the first level, just like
your predecessor, who's turning into a dead human, by the way." "Shit! That
makes sense! We should have figured that out!" Heh, heh, heh ...
All of the above are fun during any role-playing, but from a Gamist perspective,
the point is for one's acumen to be acknowledged - it's a matter of pure pride.
You grokked the system just right for that particular situation; you took into
account all the possible variables of the moment. If such a perspective, and all
these events, are combined together and experienced as part and parcel of the
Exploration - which is to say, the social, imaginative "scene" - then Gamist play
is under way. I maintain this experience cannot be achieved through any physical sport, through any virtual interface, or through any medium whatever aside
from table-top role-playing. The rush is, I think, unique to the medium.

The Hard Core

So far I haven't mentioned any negative connotations to Gamist play, despite my
hints in the beginning of the essay. The time has come to explain why many
people hate and fear any sign of Step On Up, let alone competition, in and
among the adversity-situations of their role-playing. It's due to a possible application of Gamist principles to their "perviest" extreme, which is to say, the highest degree of person-to-System contact during play. When you sacrifice Exploration to get to this degree of contact in Gamist play, you have entered the Hard
Core.
The Hard Core occurs when Gamist play transmogrifies into pure metagame:
Exploration becomes minimal or absent, such that System and Social Contract
contact one another directly, and, essentially, all the mechanics become metagame mechanics. It's usually, although not always, the result of high competitive
actions at the Step On Up level, which then "eats" the Challenge level such that it
is literally and nakedly an extension of Step On Up and nothing else. Roleplaying in the Hard Core is very much like playing competitive video games or,
for that matter, like playing that old junior high school favorite, Smear the
Queer, with egos rather than bones and blood on the line.
I perceive four distinct Hard Core applications. They all very easily become dysfunctional, but, contrary to popular belief, quite a bit of Hard Core play may be
functional if the Social Contract is being reinforced rather than broken. None of
them combine well with secondary Simulationist or Narrativist priorities, which
is one reason that people often confound the Hard Core with playing Gamist at
all. That's an error, though, because the Hard Core is just as incompatible with
high-Exploration Gamist priorities as well.
It's time to introduce the "M" word too. The term "munchkin" gets thrown
around a lot in reference to Gamist play, and one of the big points of this essay is
to show that it applies to too many different things to be useful. I'll discuss this
further in the Troubles with Gamism section below, but for now, just bear in
mind that Hard Core role-players are often called munchkins by others, including non-Hard Core Gamists.

Turnin' on each other

Gamist play already presupposes some pressure among members of the group.
Now add to that not only conflict-of-interest at the Challenge level, but open
acknowledgment of one another's player-characters as the only engaging source
of Challenge - and given the absence of Exploration, directly applying to a Step
On Up struggle for dominance. So now you have both little red dials up to 11,
and the arena of resolution is simply whose characters survive mutual attacks.
Turnin' often arises from when the "official" Challenge parameters are shown to
be uninteresting for one reason or another, such as when losing one's character
to GM-run foes turns out not to mean much in Step On Up terms - i.e., when the
GM kills characters at whim. It's typically dysfunctional when it arises from this
or similar sources.
However, I also think Turnin' is the least threatening Hard Core application,
because when it's integrated into other enjoyable aspects of a system, it can actually be a wonderful addition to play, as illustrated by the wizard-economy of
spells for rogues in T&T or the magic items rules in Elfs. After all, character conflict-of-interest is not necessarily Hard Core, nor is it even necessarily a Gamist
issue at all. However, given that its extreme form is dysfunctional, many game
texts have mistakenly urged various ways never ever ever to permit intercharacter conflict of interest, in order to stave it off.

Powergaming
This technique is all about ramping a system's Currency, Effectiveness, and reward system into an exponential spiral. As a behavior, it can be applied to any
system, but most forms of D&D offer an excellent inroad for it: after a certain
number of levels achieved, the ability to deliver damage and remain invulnerable
itself provides ever-increasing ability to achieve yet higher degrees of damagedelivery and hit-point resources.
Like Turnin', Powergaming doesn't necessarily destroy the enjoyment of play,
and unlike Turnin', it may even remain functional in full-blown Hard Core form.
Some Exploration may well be maintained, at least minimally, and the effectiveness-spiral might play a strategic role rather than to dominate fellow players.
However, it's fair to say that Powergaming is only functional if everyone is committed to it, and it carries dangers of leading to Breaking (see below).
To prevent Powergaming, many game designers identify the GM as
the ultimate and final rules-interpreter. It's no solution at all, though:
(1) there's no way to enforce the enforcement, and (2), even if the
group does buy into the "GM is always right" decree, the GM is now
empowered to Powergame over everyone else.

Calvinball
This is the famous "rules-lawyering" approach, which is misnamed because it
claims textual support when in reality it simply invents it. Calvinball is a better
term: making up the rules as you go along, usually in terms of on-the-spot interpretations disguised as "obvious" well-established interpretations. It basically
combines glibness and bullying to achieve moment-to-moment advantages for
one's character. A Calvinballer may also be adept at bugging the GM about some

rules-detail often enough that a goodly percentage of the time yields a reward for
it, but not often enough to tip everyone else off to what's going on.
The big trick of Calvinball is pretending to be still committed to the Exploration.
That makes it especially well-suited to disrupting Simulationist play from the
older traditions, because the other players' commitment to the integrity of the
Dream can be co-opted into one's Calvinball strategy, exploiting the others' willingness to enter into the rules-debate in hopes of a compromise, which of course
is not forthcoming. Calvinball then quickly transforms into a struggle for control
over what is and is not happening in the imaginative situation.
One mistaken solution to this tactic is to hide the rules from the players in some
kind of laughably-secure "GM book" or "GM section," as well as to enforce the
ideal of Transparency. The other, more common solution is simply to continue
adding rules forever and ever, amen, in order to account unambiguously for any
and all imaginable events during play.

Breaking the game

Here's the most extreme form of the Hard Core; it's the only one that I can't
imagine is functional in any circumstances. Breaking the game is defined as
rendering others' ability to play ineffective in terms of any metric that happens
to be important in that group. Theoretically, any and all games are breakable:
one can always sweep the pieces off the board. But I'm talking about doing so in
the context of identifying internal inconsistencies or vulnerable points in the
design, breaking the game by playing it and rendering the Exploration nonsensical.
Here's the key giveaway in terms of system design: it is Broken (i.e. Breaking
consistently works) if repetitive, unchanging behavior garners benefit. The
player hits no self-correcting parameters and is never forced to readjust his or
her strategy. The principle can be applied in multiple ways, both two common
ones include:

Exploiting point-based games which rely on layered Currency, such that

points may be spent cheaply for disproportionately high gain, often in a
self-sustaining fashion. The classic example is the Recovery attribute in
Champions, which was increased by spending points on Constitution
and Strength, but could be bought down, and the points thus gained
could be pumped back into Strength, thus raising REC to levels beyond
the original value. Champions also featured a means of decreasing powers' cost by increasing a divisor value, and strategizing the relationship
to this divisor with other means of point-reduction became an art form
in many groups.
Exploiting announcement/order-of-action systems to acquire perfect
can't-hit-me-I-hit-you combinations, multiple-action combinations, and
similar. Most games which feature powers or advantages that the order
of action are vulnerable to unforeseen stacking with these effects.

Breaking the Game isn't quite the same thing as Powergaming, because once a
game is Broken, the group rarely continues to play. However, the latter often
leads to the former, because Powergaming reveals vulnerable points in game
design that are then Broken. Trying to prevent this one-two combination of behavior has led many game designers mistakenly to provide endless patch rules,

full of exceptions to cover the exceptions, none of which accomplishes anything

except to open up even more points of vulnerability.

Diversity of Gamist design

Considering all these different concerns, perhaps finally the variety of Gamist
role-playing design can get its long-awaited, long-denied day in the sun. I've
taken a few variables from the Structural Basics section, mainly the ones that
can be ascribed to specific game texts rather than the less-tangible, more locallydefined ones.

The degree of Exploration relative to Step On Up

The role of Fortune in resolving Stakes-relevant conflict in the game
How much Gamble vs. how much Crunch
The length of a "go," or unit of play necessary to see how well someone
does
The local units of local loss - how you can tell when someone doesn't do
well
The degree of metagame mechanics available

Mano a mano
These are duelling games. They're generally written as self-governing, which is
to say, no GM necessary, although sometimes a gentleman's agreement about
some things is necessary. For instance, in Wizard duels, a player is expected to
be truthful when his character's illusion spell is disbelieved. Also, sometimes a
Referee or "monster player" is recommended if people want to play in teams
rather than against one another.
Melee/Wizard - Exploration is low, role of Fortune medium, Gamble even with
Crunch, "go" length = one fight, units of local loss = PC death, degree of metagame is nil
Lost Worlds - Exploration is low to medium, role of Fortune medium, Crunch
slightly higher than Gamble, "go" length = one fight, units of local loss = PC
death, degree of metagame is nil (or high if choosing the character in the first
place is considered)

Dungeon crawl
The classic Exploration paradigm, and arguably the progenitor of the multibezillion dollar computer-game industry. The characters must traverse and
navigate a dangerous environment and reap the rewards of their discoveries and
combat acumen relative to the spiralling risk.
Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition - Exploration is medium, role of Fortune is
high until after 10th level, fair Gamble and later mainly Crunch, "go" length = a
delve, units of local loss = death, degree of metagame = nil
Deathstalkers (System & Setting) - Exploration medium-to-high, Fortune high at
low levels especially, Gamble at lower levels with more Crunch at higher ones,
"go" length unknown, units of local loss = character death, degree of metagame
is nil

Forge: Out of Chaos (Character & System), - Exploration is a solid medium, role
of Fortune is medium, Gamble mixed evenly with Crunch, "go" length = expedition, units of local loss = PC death or lack of levelling, degree of metagame is nil
Rune - Exploration is low, role of Fortune is medium to high, Gamble mixed
evenly with Crunch, "go" length = expedition, units of local loss vary across several variables, degree of metagame is nil (or high if the GM-round-robin is considered)
Donjon - Exploration high, role of Fortune is high, high Gamble vs. low Crunch
(almost all Abilities are really the same thing - a mechanical way to win), "go"
length is a delve, and individual "Donjon Levels", units of local loss = destruction of equipment and character inconvenience (death is extremely rare), degree
of metagame = quite high

Elaborate setting
This brand of Gamist play evolved almost instantly, beginning with maps and
supplements like the World of Greyhawk. It offers a few special problems, the
main one being an ongoing Simulationist "creep" in the evolving texts, edition
by edition, which can trip up the Gamist priorities of special interest ... in other
words, GNS-based Incoherence. One reader even proposed the term "Power
Simulationism" for such games, and stated, "These games are the least rewarding to me because they feel like kicking a man when he is down."
Stormbringer 1st edition - Exploration is high, role of Fortune is extreme, both
Gamble and Crunch at different instances of play, "go" length = adventure scenario, units of local loss = death, degree of metagame = nil (perhaps a bit in
demon creation)
Rifts (with some Simulationist design as hybrid support) - Exploration is medium-low, role of Fortune high at low levels, low at higher levels, mixed Gamble
and Crunch, "go" length = firefight, units of local loss = death (or perhaps loot),
degree of metagame = nil
Shadowrun (also a Simulationist hybrid) - Exploration is high, medium to high
Fortune, mixed Gamble and Crunch (higher Crunch in longer-term games), "go"
length = a black-ops mission (a "shadowrun"), units of local loss = character
death, loss of profit, degree of metagame varies by edition
Age of Heroes - Exploration is high, role of Fortune is strong but easily assessed,
mainly Crunch, "go length = set pieces, loss = characters' agenda per set piece,
degree of metagame = nil [note: This game is not based on a canonical setting,
but rather on procedures and rules-categories corresponding to a setting type,
relating to "adventure fantasy" much as early Champions relates to comics; as
such, it is probably the single representative in the category without Coherence
problems]
Deadlands - Exploration is high, Situation, role of Fortune is medium, mainly
Crunch, "go" length = adventure scenario, units of local loss aren't well defined,
degree of metagame is minor but consistently present

Whimsical whackiness
These are usually humorous spinoffs of dungeon crawls.

Tunnels & Trolls - Exploration medium, role of Fortune high, emphasis on

Gamble, "go" length = level, units of local loss = PC death or diminishment of
abilities, degree of metagame is low except for some whimsy
Kobolds Ate My Baby / Ninja Burger (Situation & System) - Exploration low-tomedium, role of Fortune is extreme, extreme emphasis on Gamble, "go" length =
one dinner/mission, units of local loss = victory points (less so, PC death), degree of metagame is medium (often obstructive to others)
Elfs - Exploration is medium, role of Fortune is high, mixed Gamble and
Crunch, "go" length = adventure scenario, units of local loss = immediate advantage, degree of metagame = medium.

Gimme some story

These games shift the venue of Step On Up from in-game character action resolution to metagame narration rights, which may or may not entail greater character effectiveness.
The Adventures of Baron von Munchausen - Exploration = medium, role of Fortune is nil, mainly Crunch, "go" length = one tale, units of local loss = control of
the narrative, degree of metagame is total. Arguably, this game is more appropriately placed in the "almost role-playing game" category along with Bedlam,
De Profundis, and Once Upon a Time.
Pantheon - Exploration = high, role of Fortune is minor, mainly Crunch, "go"
length = one story, units of local loss = points, degree of metagame fairly high

Is d20 Gamist?
D&D3E is certainly strongly oriented toward Gamist play, but as for d20, what is
it, structurally?

levels to describe character attack-options and hit points - but not necessarily levelling-up as a major feature of play
classes and possibly races, but these are meaningless on reflection - a
game can have one or twenty classes; they are strictly a method for establishing resource categories
Six attributes - but with any relationship to effectiveness that you want;
one can even tack on another system for primary Effectiveness variables, as in D&D3E

All one really has is a flat-curve resolution method in 5% increments against

target numbers, with (a) possible re-rolls (which is what "extra attacks" are), (b)
a resource mechanic relative to character survival, and (c) lists of powers. I've
concluded that d20 takes on a game-identity to the extent that a designer customizes Resolution, Currency, and Reward into a particular shape. Therefore to
"use d20" means one of the following:

to imitate or augment an existing form (supplemental material for

D&D3E)
fundamentally to write your own game (Mutants & Masterminds)
and I should mention some attempts at the latter which look more like
the former (Star Wars d20, Spycraft)

No wonder it's impossible to discuss d20 sensibly! There's no game there, not
even a System. Therefore it passes out of the range of topics for this essay; d20
presents a fascinating economics and marketing phenomenon, but I think it's
only meaningful in those terms.

Historical perspective
How is Gamist design distributed across games throughout the hobby's history?
I'm now talking about explicit design features and facilitative text in gamebooks, not play itself. My essay A hard look at Dungeons & Dragons addresses some
of the factors that underlie this section.
The most striking feature across role-playing history is the astonishing shift in
the late 1980s from assuming that Gamist play was the default to practically
nothing - limited mainly to "old AD&D," various D&D imitators, Shadowrun, or
Rifts.
I think this rarity is mainly a matter of rejection by texts that facilitated other
preferred modes of play. I specifically include AD&D2 to be included in this
shift, as I consider it to be mainly incoherent with various and sometimescontradictory doses of Simulationist design scattered throughout, going all the
way back to the Wilderness Survival Guide and the Dragonlance modules. I also
think that the various setting-derivative AD&D2 boxed sets of the early 1990s
(Al-Qadim, Dark Sun, Planescape, et al.) explicitly facilitate Illusionist Simulationist play.
A similar textual rejection can be found in the publications of Lion Rampant and
later (same company) White Wolf, many of which explicitly condemned Gamist
play in subcultural terms. In many ways, this can be seen as a reclamation of
"hip" for role-playing, or at least for a given company's role-playing products.
In spite of all the textual rejection, I also think that the dearth of texts reveals
nothing about the commonality of Gamist play - I suspect that Drift has kept
Gamist play alive and quite active, even in the absence of coherent games to use
it for, especially for AD&D2, Champions, Amber, and Vampire (see the GNS
section below). Discussing why such an overt, accessible, and functional brand
of play did not act as a solid demand on the marketplace of game design must
await more discussion of game-industry economics.
Then again, perhaps my surprise is a matter of my own subcultural limitations,
if related hobbies are considered. Gamism remained alive and well among computer games like Rogue, Nethack, Ultima library (later to become Ultima
Online), Zork, Advent(ure), MUDs, MUSHes, MOOs, Everquest, Amethyst, and
many more. Unfortunately, I'm an ignoramus about this entire hobby, and any
insights into its history, play preferences, economics, and what-all would be very
welcome at the Forge.
Oh, and let's not forget that card game that showed up at the game store counters a decade ago. I think that Magic: the Gathering is best described as a portable, customizable wargame - and that part of its popularity may be ascribed to
the fact that the customers of the day had never seen a wargame before. Unsurprisingly, a whole sector of people who were involved in role-playing suddenly
discovered the hobby they'd been looking for.
From a role-playing design perspective, Magic and many other customizable
card games reminded people of a principle that had been abandoned for almost

a decade: (1) that competitive Step On Up is actually fun, rather than automatically Broken; (2) that elegant and highly-prioritized game design permits easier
entry and more satisfaction in play; and (3) that Exploration may be customized
to taste, rather than considered an all-or-nothing variable.
Finally, Gamist play has also cropped up across many products which are sometimes called role-playing games, but are just a little off my personal undefined
cognitive space for that label, mainly due to the role of "character" and certain
aspects of how resolution is addressed. All of them utilize control over narration
as one of the variables of play, thus shifting around the privileges of a traditional
GM role, and all of them are explicitly about winning the game much as one
wins a traditional card game. They include Once Upon a Time, The Adventures
of Baron von Munchausen, and Bedlam, and many others seem to be on the way
as well. As with the customizable Magic-type games, already they've prompted
many changes in role-playing, most notably in terms of formalizing and permitting shifts among who gets to narrate the outcomes of a given resolution mechanic.

GNS issues
Memetic power
Nothing beats Gamism - once you have Step On Up in action, it takes over. The
main reason is simple: Step On Up is a recognizable, common, coherent, and
rewarding aspect of human behavior, which is why we see it all 'round the place.
Role-playing is just another venue. So, basically, everyone gets it, and once present, Situation becomes Challenge, and the cognitive fascination with esteem
relative to performance becomes the order of the day. It doesn't rely on any particular game mechanic to be present - consider that any metric for social esteem
is a candidate for Step On Up, and that any element of in-game content is a candidate for Challenge. You're bound to find someone's own personal profile for
these in the game-content somewhere!
It also takes over easily mechanically in many instances of game design, especially in Simulationist-facilitating games, in two ways. The first way is to perceive system-based opportunities for advantage: breakpoints in point-allocation
design, stacking of options into unique effects, and similar. Such things are often
offered as neat add-ons in otherwise-Simulationist designs, but they take over
fast when character niche-protection switches into literal character-defense. The
second way, unsurprisingly, is through reward systems: a traditional characterimprovement system can switch to a fully-social Step On Up reward system any
time anyone wants, especially since it's self-perpetuating.
Clinton provided this example:
... find a copy of Player's Option: Skills and Powers for AD&D2. It took
the broken Simulationism of that game and added a huge layer of Gamism to the construction of characters. I remember making up some serious monstrosities with this book.
The most common Gamist-Drift events in my experience are found in the following games:

Gamist-Drifted Champions falls into two types: point-strategizing or

movement/action-strategizing. The reward metric is plain old success in
in-game conflicts, or demonstrated "superior knowledge" of the game's
mathiness.
Gamist-Drifted Amber is characterized by Drama-bullying toward Situation-control, essentially an unstructured version of Pantheon. It can also
include point-mongering depending on certain rules-interpretation. The
reward metric may be in-game social advancement (e.g. Throne War) or
simply moment-to-moment struggles over who's in charge of the narration.
Gamist-Drifted Vampire consists of extensive breakpoint exploitation.
The metric is Champions-like character effectiveness, specifically who
can ignore as well as deliver the most damage. More subtly, it's also
coolness, whoever gets to be perceived as the most real-Goth of the
bunch. Many Vampire LARPs tend in this direction as well, with the
added benefits of singles-bar interactions.

All of the above tend toward Powergaming as well, with attendant shifts to the
other branches of the Hard Core over time.
The common reaction to this easy transition, for non-Gamist-inclined players, is
pure terror - it's the Monsters from the Id! In-group conflicts over the issue have
been repeated from group to group, game to game, throughout the entire history
of the hobby.
One such thing is a tug-of-war regarding following rules vs. not-following rules.
What the rules actually say becomes yet another variable even as people argue
about whether they should be followed, and when both of these issues are firing
at once, nothing can possibly be resolved. The result is always to consider either
following or ignoring rules to be "right" when it goes your way.
Another tack is for some groups and game designers to treat Gamism's easy "in"
as a necessary evil and to take an appeasement approach. The "Id" can be controlled, they say, as long as the Superego (the GM) stays firmly in charge and
gives it occasional fights and a reward system based on improving effectiveness.
This approach may rank among the most-commonly attempted yet leastsuccessful tactic in all of game design. It will never actually work: the Lumpley
Principle correctly places the rules and procedures of play at the mercy of the
Social Contract, not the other way around. Therefore, even if such a game continues, it has this limping-along, gotta-put-up-with-Bob feel to it.

Hybridization
Simulationist play is an excellent "subordinate" mode for Gamist play. A game
designed toward this sort of play is also open to functional Drift toward Simonly as people toss out that "weird stuff" or that "powergamer" stuff. See Rifts,
Shadowrun, and Age of Heroes.
However, Gamist play is a terrible "subordinate" mode for Simulationist play,
because it takes over in a heartbeat, for all the reasons listed above. I should
clarify, however, that I'm talking strictly about play itself, not texts. Looking at
texts through several editions, the overwhelming tendency is to Drift toward
Simulationism. I think this phenomenon has several causes, including pseudosolutions for trying to prevent Gamist play, specifically the Hard Core.

Gamist and Narrativist play have an interesting relationship, but it's hard to see
or understand unless you have experience with solid non-Simulationist game
play, which very few role-players have. Nearly all of us have dealt mainly with
Sim-design and Sim-assumptions, with both Gamism and Narrativism as semidysfunctional interfering priorities, and resulting in a lot of compromises rather
than solutions. We know that when Simulationist play is involved and either or
both Gamist and Narrativist play crops up, then a terrible struggle emerges
among the modes. The entire White Wolf line of games represents a fascinating
case study of the phenomenon, starting with Vampire and, in my view, culminating with a Narrativist direction with Adventure!. Another case study is the history of the Hero System, which by fourth-edition Champions was resolved in
favor of Simulationist design.
But if Simulationist-facilitating design is not involved, then the whole picture
changes. Step On Up is actually quite similar, in social and interactive terms, to
Story Now. Gamist and Narrativist play often share the following things:

Common use of player Author Stance (Pawn or non-Pawn) to set up the

arena for conflict. This isn't an issue of whether Author (or any) Stance
is employed at all, but rather when and for what.
Fortune-in-the-middle during resolution, to whatever degree - the point
is that Exploration as such can be deferred, rather than established at
every point during play in a linear fashion.
More generally, Exploration overall is negotiated in a casual fashion
through ongoing dialogue, using system for input (which may be constraining), rather than explicitly delivered by system per se.
Reward systems that reflect player choices (strategy, aesthetics, whatever) rather than on in-game character logic or on conformity to a prestated plan of play.

Which is a really long-winded way of saying that one or the other of the two
modes has to be "the point," and they don't share well - but unlike either's relationship with Simulationist play (i.e., a potentially hostile one), Gamist and Narrativist play don't tug-of-war over "doing it right" - they simply avoid one another, like the same-end poles of two magnets. Note, I'm saying play, not players. The activity of play doesn't hybridize well between Gamism and Narrativism, but it does shift, sometimes quite easily.
Obviously, if the group is disinclined to do this, it can't happen. So in Gamist vs.
Narrativist play, absent Simulationism, it may be a matter of "what we wanna
do," and a very easy adjustment to system to reflect that in many cases, because
how we "do" things is very similar already.
The key to the shift seems to be the reward system, not resolution - not about
"how we decide what happens" so much as "how we decide that we're having
fun." How a group plays Toon, for instance, depends wholly on whether Plot
Points are used for scoring or whether they're employed as a multiple-author
cartoon-story creation device. Similarly, the weak endgame of Once Upon a
Time is resolved locally per group based on whether the group acceptance of the
Ending card or the emptying of one's hand is the metric for ending the game.
If the reward system is less abstract and embedded deeply into the rest of the
game, as with Sorcerer and Rune, shifting priorities becomes less easy. The Dying Earth provides a phenomenal example of Narrativist play using previously-

Gamist methods, minimizing Drift with three things: non-spiraling game interactions (rock-paper-scissors), limiting returns (e.g. negative exponential improvement), and overwhelming rewards that promote an alternative metagame
priority better suited to Narrativism.
The history of Tunnels & Trolls offers, I think, one of the most powerful examples of the phenomenon in the theory of game design ever, back around 1980. I
cannot recommend reading and playing T&T highly enough to the student of
Gamist and Narrativist play. I also recommend reading all of their solo adventure scenarios, with special reference to date and author, and also as many copies of the magazine Sorcerer's Apprentice as possible. Here's a conceptual hint:
the T&T reward system doesn't award experience points for finding or spending
money, but that design feature has nothing to do with "realism" at all. It's set up
to prevent double-dipping, which is to say, gaining both attribute improvement
and better weapons, armor, and spells through one metric. Thus "money" in this
game is really a parallel Adventure-Point system for improving character features that are not attributes.

Balance: the sort-of issue

"Balance" is one of those words which is applied to a wide variety of activities or
practices that may be independent or even contradictory. (See the linked threads
in the Glossary.) The word is thrown about like a shuttlecock with little reference
to any definition at all. That's the current state of the art. So I'm taking time-out
on the Gamism-only discussion to go on a full GNS balance rant, because the
assumption that Gamist play is uniquely or definitively concerned with "balance" is very, very mistaken.

Overall
1.

2.

3.

4.
5.

Compare "balance" with the notion of parity, or equality of performance

or resources. If a game includes enforced parity, is it is balanced? Is it
that simple? And if not, then what?
Bear in mind that Fairness and Parity are not synonymous. One or the
other might be the real priority regardless of which word is being used.
Also, "Fair" generally means, "What I want."
Are we discussing the totality of a character (Effectiveness, Resource,
Metagame), or are we discussing Effectiveness only, or Effectiveness +
Resource only?
Are we discussing "screen time" for characters at all, which has nothing
to do with their abilities/oomph?
Are we discussing anything to do at all with players, or rather, with the
people at the table? Can we talk about balance in regard to attention, respect, and input among them? Does it have anything to do with Balance
of Power, referring to how "the buck" (where it stops) is distributed
among the members of the group?

They can't all be balance at once.

Within Gamist play

1.

2.

3.
4.

5.

Parity of starting point, with free rein given to differing degrees of improvement after that. Basically, this means that "we all start equal" but
after that, anything goes, and if A gets better than B, then that's fine.
The relative Effectiveness of different categories of strategy: magic vs.
physical combat, for instance, or pumping more investment into quickness rather than endurance. In this sense, "balance" means that any
strategy is at least potentially effective, and "unbalanced" means numerically broken.
Related to #2, a team that is not equipped for the expected range of potential dangers is sometimes called unbalanced.
In direct contrast to #1, "balance" can also mean that everyone is subject
to the same vagaries of fate (Fortune). That is, play is "balanced" if everyone has a chance to save against the Killer Death Trap. Or it's balanced because we all rolled 3d6 for Strength, regardless of what everyone individually ended up with. (Tunnels & Trolls is all about this kind
of play.)
The resistance of a game to deliberate Breaking.

Within Simulationist play

I am forced to speak historically here, in reference to existing and widespread
Simulationist approaches, not to any potential or theoretical ones. So think of
Call of Cthulhu, GURPS, and Rolemaster as you read the next part.
1.

One fascinating way that the term is applied is to the Currency-based relationship among the components of a character: Effectiveness, Resource, Metagame. That's right - we're not talking about balance among
characters at all, but rather balance within the interacting components
of a single character. I realize that this sounds weird. Check back in the
Sim essay to see how important these within-character interactions can
be in this mode of play.
2. And, completely differently, "balance" is often invoked as an antiGamist play defense, specifically in terms of not permitting characters to
change very much relative to one another, as all of them improve. This
is, I think, the origin of "everyone gets a couple EPs at the end of each
session" approach, as opposed to "everyone gets different EPs on the basis of individual performance."
3. Rules-enforcement in terms of Effectiveness, which is why GURPS has
point-total limits per setting. Note that heavy layering renders this very
vulnerable to Gamist Drift.

Within Narrativist play

This gets a little tricky because I can't think of a single coherent Narrativist game
text in which balance as a term is invoked as a design or play feature, nor any
particular instance of play I've been involved in which brought the issue up. But
I'm pretty sure that it's a protagonism issue.
1.

"Balance" might be relevant as a measure of character screen time, or

perhaps weight of screen time rather than absolute length. This is not

solely the effectiveness-issue which confuses everyone. Comics fans will

recognize that Hawkeye is just as significant as Thor, as a member of the
Avengers, or even more so. In game terms, this is a Character Components issue: Hawkeye would have a high Metagame component whereas
Thor would have a higher Effectiveness component.
2. Balance of Power is relevant to all forms of play, but it strikes me as especially testy in this mode.
That's the end of my balance rant, but I beg and plead of anyone who reads this
essay: I would very much like never to hear again that (1) Gamist play must be
uniquely obsessed with balance, or (2) if play is concerned with any form of balance, it must be Gamist. These are unsupportable habits of thought that pervade
our hobby and represent very poor understanding of the issues involved.

Pitfalls for Gamist design

Elegance is the key - which is to say, each piece of the system does what it does,
has the implications that it has, and doesn't create wonky spirals or novel relationships that devalue the Step On Up or Challenge parameters. Easy to say, eh?
Well, it's damned hard to do, as many an inventor of a new board game or new
card game can attest.
Defend against Breaking through elegance, not through patch rules. Eliminate,
from the ground up, all recursiveness, nonfunctional layers, and mathematical
ratios.
Fortune should be present for a Gamist reason, for instance, to introduce uncertainty at specific points, for specific impacts on the goals of play. It can be very
rare to absent, or wildly and constantly present, but whatever it is, it needs to
"spike" the play-experience rather than dilute it. Using Fortune to model the
statistical vagaries of in-game physical effects should be a secondary concern, if
present at all.
A Double-Hose occurs when features of a character are forced downward by a
low score in some other feature, and when both features are important. In Tunnels & Trolls, for instance, a low Strength and Dexterity limit one's choice of
weapons to lower-damage items, as well as lower the "adds" (bonuses) for attacks. If you must have a Double-hose, make it easy to replace or recoup
"losses," and also make it easy to escape the Hose soon through character improvement.
Beware of end-runs which permit a Challenge to be solved without the requisite
Step On Up ability or competence. Playtest the game multiple times with people
who are determined to beat it.
Do not confuse character improvement for "winning," especially if the process is
slow and painful. On a related point, do not set the venue and length of a "go,"
which is to say a unit of success or failure at the Step On Up level, equivalent to
the entirety of a long-term, no-set-end, many-session game.
Don't be a weenie - include loss conditions that can be recognized and that do
not undercut play. Decide whether such a loss ends the game as a whole or permits it to continue, but do not commit the common mistake of "loss means sit
out" - this is not viable for roleplaying. As soon as you have to let people win so

that they'll keep playing, the relationship of Step On Up to Challenge dies nastily, leaving no alternative but to reinvent the game in Hard Core form.
Beware of Heartbreaker design, particularly the Fantasy ones. Such games are
wonderful to write and often very enjoyable among one's group, but ultimately
of little interest to anyone else. More subtly, don't fall into the trap of providing
Gamist design-features as an appeasement strategy - do it or don't.
Here's my current shot at a little Gamist design: Black Fire. It's even more alphaalpha than Mongrel was, for the Simulationism essay, so let's see what happens.

Troubles for the Gamist

GNS incompatibility
The basic hassle arises due to Gamism's "easy in" during play. If one or two people get the bug, so to speak, and no one else does, then GNS incompatibility
disrupts play. This specific problem - the Drifted-to-Gamist ensconced in an
otherwise-oriented group - is so common among Simulationist play especially
that it, like the Hard Core, gets labeled with munchkinism. It's usually seen in
texts from bitter non-Gamists and their "grow up from munchkinism" rants.
The following is from the GM section of Arrowflight (2002, Deep 7, author is
Todd Downing):
Dealing with Munchkins The other side to the "cheating" coin is the
competitive gamer, a breed also known as "Munchkin." Munchkins are
players who dilute the experience through a combination of rulesmongering and overt cheating.
[alarming rant snipped; includes examples of lying about dice rolls RE]
The best games are those where everyone is playing a role, striving for a
goal and working as a unit (that doesn't mean that every character must
like every other character, but player must at least properly play the role
they've chosen). If you find a Munchkin in your midst, there are numerous ways to deal with him, depending on the offense:
[methods follow, all relying on the GM having final say in any aspect of
the game - RE]
... most players are at least conscientious and intelligent enough not to
harm their own playing experience as well as that of the other players,
but the exceptions are out there. As they say, "there's one in every
group." You don't have to tolerate them in yours.
Downing's prose is clearly angry. To him, any degree of striving for advantage
among players, for anything, constitutes breaking the Social Contract, to the
same degree as lying about dice outcomes. Let's break that down, though. He
doesn't mind striving for a goal, as long as it's an in-character, in-game goal, and
much Gamist play can be consistent with that. And much Gamist play also prioritizes working as a unit with other players. All that's left is the "playing a role"
distinction, and Downing's real beef seems to be that "playing a role" is not these
players' first priority, i.e., they are not Simulationists in the mode that is reinforced throughout the text of Arrowflight.

Although I understand where he and many other authors are coming from,
which is GNS-synecdoche pure and simple, this and similar anti-Gamist texts go
too far - Step On Up play, even with a dose of competition, does not deserve
being labeled unconscientious and unintelligent. Basically, the authors confound
two things.

The player who turns any instance of play into social power-tripping, rivalry, rancor, and disruption. I shall call this person "the Prick." The
important thing to realize is that this person is not a Gamist at all, and
that Pricks disrupt any form of play; a Simulationist-Gamist mismatch
is one thing, but stubborn disruption is another. The fault lies at the Social Contract level, not at the GNS level.
The person who really wants to play Gamist but is in the wrong group,
giving rise to secondary dysfunctions of various sorts. This person is
usually derided as "the powergamer" or "the munchkin" by the others,
but I hasten to add that the fault lies with the GNS mismatch, not with
the person as a social human, and that his or her mode of Gamist play
may not even include the Hard Core.

This section is perhaps harsh on the Simulationist approach and assumptions. I

also need to acknowledge that a bored Gamist-inclined player, seeing no engaging Challenge, has been known, on occasion, to turn his attention toward the
Hard Core, specifically Turnin' and Breaking the game. If it's clear that the other
individuals don't appreciate this, and if he or she continues, then what's happened is the Birth of a Prick that some better understanding of contrasting GNS
goals might have prevented. I used to see this all the time in Champions groups,
and it's horrible. I can at least sympathize with where Downing's coming from.

Troubles within Gamism

Now I'm talking about troubles within Gamism rather than with it. All three
modes boast an array of specific dysfunctions, and here are the sorts that Gamists encounter among their own. (Side point: Simulationist dysfunctions include The Impossible Thing, Transparency, and placing "realism" as the core
value; Narrativist dysfunctions include railroading, sizzle over steak, and interfering through deprotagonism.)
The core problem in Gamist dysfunction is not knowing what the Step On Up is
actually about. It results in all kinds of things, most usually ramping-up the
competitive levels and shifting to the Hard Core, usually in the form of Turnin'
and Calvinball beyond what other members of the group want to do. A related
problem concerns Author vs. Pawn Stance, which is to say, differing standards
for moment-to-moment Exploration of Character. When I see a player completely abandon all Stances but Pawn through several scenes of play, it's like the
sinister drumming emanating from the leafy jungle the night before the massacre. Many a GM in a Gamist-oriented group strictly enforces justifications of
characters' behavior in an attempt to stave off the problem, although frankly, if
he has to resort to decrees, threats, and pleas, it's probably already too late.
These "core" issues should look similar to the GNS-mismatch issue described
above, because it's the Birth of a Prick all over again, only within the Gamist
mode.

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. It has its parallels in other Step On Up, non-role-playing activities; people are sure to recognize them from their hobbies.

Critical commentary that goes beyond simple joshing or observation

into abuse: "You suck," delivered to someone who happened to roll a 1
rather than a 20; this is often combined with an inability to tolerate
joshing oneself. (What degree of verbiage counts as abuse varies from
group to group.)
Manipulating the others' parameters for how-to-play, e.g., tattling to the
GM that so-and-so is violating his or her character's alignment.
Stating what another player "should have done" as a form of constant
criticism. This is a bigger deal than it looks, as in Gamist play, it's all
right not to make the best choice all the time, but personal choice in the
Crunch or Gamble is sacrosanct. Essentially, it constitutes protagonism
in Gamist play. The Wimp de-protagonizes other players' characters all
the time by de-valuing the players' decisions from his armchair. Breaking the Contract: if I can't win, I'll take my football and go straight
home; or lashing out at allies as if they were foes; or being socially obnoxious until granted an advantage or perceived entitlement.
Plain wussy-cheating: stating it was "in" when it was "out," and similar,
and pouting when the tactic doesn't work, usually escalates to breaking
the baseline cooperative Social Contract that underlies the Step On Up
in question.

Bluntly, in any context besides role-playing, this kind of behavior will get your
ass kicked for you, or at the very least, instantly excluded from the activity. It's
simply not socially tolerable. The real question is why it's widely observed in the
role-playing hobby, for which I can see two reasons.
1.

Wimpiness is often observed among young people as they work out the
"rules of life" through all sorts of play-activity, among other unpleasant
behaviors such as bullying. This is why adults usually don't play with
kids unless they can enforce certain social standards, i.e., act as social
mentors in addition to playing the game.
2. I think that the Social Context of role-playing is currently in disarray.
It's out of the scope of this essay to go into the issue in detail, but see the
Social Context discussion on the Forge for some notions. The short version is that friendships cannot be placed at stake based on in-play events
- if they are, then Step On Up places way too much pressure on the
agreement to play together at all.
Confusingly, many Gamist-oriented players call Wimpiness "munchkinism,"
making three distinct uses for the term so far.

The bitterest role-player in the world

Meet the low-Step On Up, high-Challenge Gamist, with both "little red competition" dials spun down to their lowest settings.

This person prefers a role-playing game that combines Gamist potential with
Simulationist hybrid support, such that a highly Explorative Situation can
evolve, in-game and without effort, into a Challenge Situation. In other words,
the social-level Step On Up "emerges" from the events in-play. This view, and its
problematic qualities, are extremely similar to that of the person who wants to
see full-blown Narrativist values "just appear" from a Simulationist-play foundation. It's possible, but not as easy and intuitive as it would seem.
His preferred venue for the Gamist moments of play is a small-scale scene or
crisis embedded in a larger-scale Exploration that focuses on Setting and Character. In these scenes, he's all about the Crunch: Fortune systems should be easy
to estimate, such that each instance of its use may be chosen and embedded in a
matrix of strategizing. Point-character construction and menus of independent
feats or powers built to resist Powergaming are ideal.
As for playing the character, it's Author Stance all the way. He likes to imagine
what "his guy" thinks, but to direct "his guy" actions from a cool and clear Step
On Up perspective. The degree of Author Stance is confined to in-game imaginative events alone and doesn't bleed over into Balance of Power issues regarding
resolution at all.
Related to the Stance issue, he is vehemently opposed to the Hard Core, even to
any hints of it or any exploitable concepts that it seizes upon most easily. For
instance, reward system that functions at the metagame level is anathema: not
only should solid aesthetics should be primary, but he is rightly leery of the Hard
Core eye for such reward systems. "Balance" for him consists of the purity of the
Resource system and unbroken Currency. It's consistent with the Simulationist
Purist for System values and represents further defenses against the Hard Core.
He probably developed his role-playing preferences in highly-Drifted AD&D2 or
in an easily-Drifted version of early Champions, both of which he probably describes as playing "correctly" relative to other groups committed to these games.
This man (I've met no women who fit this description) is cursed. He's cursed
because the only people who can enjoy playing with him, and vice versa, are
those who share precisely his goals, and these goals are very easily upset by just
about any others.

His heavy Sim focus keeps away the "lite" Gamists who like Exploration
but not Simulationism.
The lack of metagame reward system keeps away most Gamists in general.
Hard Core Gamists will kick him in the nuts every time, just as they do
to Simulationist play.
Most Simulationist-oriented players won't Step Up - they get no gleam
in their eye when the Challenge hits, and some are even happy just to
piddle about and "be."
Just about anyone who's not Gamist-inclined lumps him with "those
Gamists" and writes him off.

I've known several of these guys. They are bitter, I say. Imagine years of just
knowing that your "perfect game" is possible, seeing it in your mind, knowing
that if only a few other people could just play their characters exactly according
to the values that you yourself would play, that your GM-preparation would pay

off beyond anyone's wildest dreams. Now imagine years of encountering all the
bulleted points above, over and over.
At present, I have no suggestions to help them, just as I cannot help those who
expect to see "story" consistently emerge from play that does not prioritize it. I
hope some dialogue at the Forge might come up with some solutions.

What I like about Gamism

Gamist-inclined players tend to be unashamed regarding their preferences.
Their role-playing is easily understood, diverse in application, unpretentious,
and often perfectly happy with its role relative to the person's social life at large.
The Gamists have a lot to teach the rest of the hobby about self-esteem.
Some folks seem to think that Gamist play lacks variety, to which I say, "nonsense." Scrabble is "always the same," and it's fun as hell; 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 fullydeveloped 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 what's needed is better, more diverting, and more multiply-angled design.
D&D3E and Rune are just the start, and their overt roots in 1970s-style dungeon
crawls indicate, I think, that the hobby's efforts in Gamist design are so far limited to getting its first steps re-created properly.
What I'm calling for is a better appreciation for functional Gamist role-playing,
overtly and even joyfully stated in the games' design and texts. Given the introduction of D&D3E, I think this long-unmet need is being satisfied without my
help, but I also think that lots of people might enjoy Gamist play that's not D&D
style fantasy. Why not whole new venues, such as romance, or sports!
Good new designs remind largely unexplored. Where are the sensible reward
systems that integrate Challenge and Step On Up in some way, and are not
wholly defined by increasing Effectiveness values or promoting tug-of-war over
narration? Where are the loss conditions that are not recursive regarding continued play?

The Hard Question

Each of these three essays concludes with a challenge to the role-player who
prefers the mode under discussion. For the Gamist, the question is, why is roleplaying 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; hell, 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?
I accuse no one of affirmative answers to these questions; that's the reader's
business. But I do think answering them should be a high priority.

Glossary
See the Glossary in the other essays as well as definitions and explanations in
the "GNS and related matters" essay.
Actor Stance
the real person determines the character's decisions and actions using
only knowledge and perceptions that the character would have.
Author Stance
the real person determines the character's decisions and actions based
on the real person's priorities, Author Stance includes two subcategories
in "Author" Author Stance, the person then retroactively "motivates" the
character to perform the acts in question; in "Pawn" Author Stance, he
or she does not. Pawn Stance is often identified with Gamist play, but
this identification is false for either Stance or Mode.
Balance
this term is undefined. See the discussion in this text.
Balance of Power
how the "buck stops here" authority regarding resolution in play is distributed among members of a role-playing group. This term was first
applied to role-playing interactions by Hunter Logan.
Breaking the game
a dysfunctional technique of Hard Core Gamist play, characterized by
rendering other participants' efforts ineffective without recourse.
Calvinball
a potentially-dysfunctional technique of Hard Core Gamist play, characterized by making up the rules of a game as it is played, especially in the
immediate context of advantaging oneself and disadvantaging one's opponents. "Tagged you! Tags mean you're out!" "It's Tuesday! Tagging
doesn't work on Tuesdays!" This term, obviously, is pulled from the
comic strip Calvin & Hobbes.
Challenge
the Situation of play in the Gamist context, specifically, adversity or imposed risk to player-characters of any kind. It's the imaginative arena for
the more general Social Contract of Gamist play, called Step On Up.
Character Components
the features of a role-playing character. All are present for all characters,
even if one or more is not explicitly part of the textual rules. See Effectiveness, Metagame, and Resource; also see Currency.
Coherence
any functional combination, including singletons, of GNS priorities.
Please note that "coherency" is not a word.
Congruence
refers to play in which two or more different GNS modes may be expressed in such a way that they neither interfere with one another nor
are easily distinguished through observation; the term was coined by

Walt Freitag in GNS and "Congruency". I am revising the term to "congruence" in the interest of grammar.
Creative agenda
the aesthetic priorities and any matters of imaginative interest regarding
role-playing; replaces all uses of "premise" in the original essay aside
from the specific creative agenda of Narrativist play (for which the term
"Premise" is retained); Step On Up, The Right to Dream, and Story Now
represent the creative agendas, respectively, of Gamist, Simulationist,
and Narrativist play.
The Crunch
an application or type of Challenge, based on high predictability relative
to risk.
Currency
the rate-of-exchange relationship within and among Character Components.
DFK
specific resolution mechanics; see Drama, Fortune, and Karma
Director Stance
the real person determines aspects of the environment relative to the
character in some fashion, entirely separately from the character's
knowledge or ability to influence events. Therefore the player has not
only determined the character's actions, but the context, timing, and
spatial circumstances of those actions, or even features of the world
separate from the characters. Director Stance is often confused with
narration of an in-game event, but the two concepts are not necessarily
related.
The Dream
commitment to the imagined events of play, specifically in-game cause
and pre-established thematic elements. As a top priority for roleplaying, the defining feature of Simulationist play. See my essay
Simulationism
the right to dream.
Dysfunction
simply, role-playing which is not fun. Most Forge discussions presume
that un-fun role-playing is worse than no role-playing.
Effectiveness (a Character Component)
any quantities used to determine success or extent of an action.
Exploration
social and personal imagination, creation of fictional events through
communicating among one another.
The Gamble
an application or type of Challenge, based on high risk relative to predictability.
The Hard Core
Gamist play with minimal or even absent Exploration; see Breaking the
game, Calvinball, Powergaming, and Turnin'.
Hybrid
role-playing with two identifiable GNS priorities in action; empirically,
one is apparently always subordinate to the other, and a threesie game is
as yet unknown.
IIEE

Intent, Initiation, Execution, and Effect - how actions and events in the
imaginary game-world are resolved in terms of real-world announcement and imaginary order of occurrence.
Incoherence
incompatible combination of GNS priorities, applies by definition to
play, but often applied secondarily to game design. Abashedness represents a minor, correctable form of Incoherence.
The Lumpley Principle
"System (including but not limited to 'the rules') is defined as the means
by which the group agrees to imagined events during play." The author
of the principle is Vincent Baker, see Vincent's standard rant
power, credibility, and assent and Player power abuse.
Metagame (general) - all aspects of play that concern non-Explorative matters or
priorities; in terms of my layered model, Social Contract and GNS (creative
agenda).
Metagame (a Character Component)
all positioning and behavioral statements about the character, as well as
player rights to over-ride the existing Effectiveness rules.
Metagame mechanics
where System and Social Contract meet, without Exploration as the medium.
"Munchkin"
a derogatory term used in several different ways, including by nonGamists vs. Gamists in general, by Hard Core or heavy-Step Gamists vs.
Wimps, and by high-Exploration Gamists vs. Hard Core play.
Powergaming
a potentially dysfunctional technique of Hard Core Gamist play, characterized by maximizing character impact on the game-world or player
impact on the dialogue of play by whatever means available.
Resource (a Character Component)
any available usable pool upon which Effectiveness or Metagame mechanics may draw, or which are reduced to reflect harm to the character.
Reward System
enjoyability payoff that prompts further play, usually expressed in Explorative terms but not restricted to Exploration.
Screen Time
the extent of attention afforded to a given player's Explorative contributions from the other participants.
Social Context
positioning of one's role-playing hobby relative to other humans outside
one's gaming group, whether they are role-players or not. See Social
context.
Social Contract
all interactions and relationships among the role-playing group. All roleplaying is a subset of the Social Contract.
Stakes
what stands to be lost and/or gained during Gamist play; the term may
be applied at either or both Step on Up or Challenge levels of play.
Stance
cognitive position of real person to fictional character (see Author, Actor, and Director Stance definitions). Coined by the RFGA on-line discussions.

Step On Up
social assessment in the face of risk. As a top priority of role-playing, the
defining feature of Gamist play.
Story Now
producing, heightening, and resolving a Premise. As a top priority of
role-playing, the defining feature of Narrativist play.
System (character creation, resolution including IIEE, reward system, metagame mechanics)
the means by which imaginary events are established during play (see
the Lumpley Principle).
Turnin'
a potentially dysfunctional technique of Hard Core Gamist play, characterized by treating one another's characters as the primary source of
Challenge.
Wimpiness
a dysfunctional form of Gamism characterized by poor sportsmanship,
i.e., the unwillingness to accept a loss.