Happy New Year all y’all…
Those of you who’ve been following me for years know that I like to end — or start — or both — my year with reflective, pontificative, navel-gazing bullshit. Mainly so I can stop doing real work before the holidays and not start again for a few weeks into the year.
For today’s rambling Bullshit, though, I want to channel my inner angry old man yelling at clouds to get off his lawn — which I never do — and reflect on a change in the roleplaying gameplay culture I’ve been watching develop for a few years now. One I don’t personally like. But unlike many of my other old man rants, this one ain’t unique to me. I know for a fact that it’s leaving lots of Game Masters — and many players — increasingly dissatisfied with their roleplaying gaming experience. Especially certain, specific roleplaying gaming experiences.
Yes, I think this shift is the reason why a certain greatest roleplaying game in the entire world is struggling to fill its GMing rosters. And why lots of independent content creators who used to exclusively publish crap for that certain system are now publishing videos with titles like “Five TTRPGs You Should Be Playing That Aren’t That One Game.”
Now, I realize it’s the one-year anniversary of WotC’s gigantic “fuck all y’all content creators” and then they’re saying, “Gotcha! It was just a joke! That’s what we do here! We joke! Don’t we have fun?” And, yes, that’s probably a part of why many content creators have jumped ship over the last eleven months. But I, personally, think that only sped up a trend that was already happening. By January of last year, D&D had already been bleeding off GMs and content creators for some time.
But this ain’t an academic paper and I don’t care about proving that I’m speaking for anyone but myself. So, I ain’t gonna try to justify all that, “… and I’m not the only one who thinks so” crap. I don’t care if you believe or agree with me and I never have. Smart, clever, gaming geniuses agree with me. If you want to be one of those other people, that’s your choice and your problem. I don’t care.
I want to look at the shift itself. The emerging playstyle. And propose that it is probably here to stay. We’re just gonna have to add another letter to that bullshit GNS acronym. For better or for worse. I ain’t saying we have to accept it or embrace it or facilitate it — because I sure as shit don’t plan to — but we do have to know it’s out there and individually and collectively decide what to do with it.
More importantly, though, I want to clarify and formalize some shit I’ve been saying for a while. And draw some actual conclusions from them.
See, this pile of Bullshit started with a desire to put an end to some e-mails and arguments. Over the past while, I’ve coined — and refined and repeatedly used — two disdainful terms for the way certain people approach D&D. And, based on questions and comments I keep receiving, lots of you still don’t understand those terms. It’s just that, in planning and outlining that clarifying article — yes, I do plan and outline even these rambling piles of Bullshit — in planning and outlining that article — well, I plan and outline a lot of them — in planning and — I plan and outline some of them — in planning…
When I tried to write that damned article, I realized those two terms are inextricably connected to each other and to a certain approach to D&D play that seems to be coming up a lot in everything from public convention and store games to online streamed games. And one that underpins a lot of published gaming advice and even published products. It’s an approach that WotC has been subtly supporting and encouraging and even emphasizing in their latest product and playtest releases. And it’s an approach that’s different enough — if very subtly — from the other common approaches to playing D&D to warrant being called a unique style of play.
And that brings me to my first actual heading…
Act I: Talking Playstyle
Playstyle is a hard thing to nail down. First, because it’s one of those words lots of people use without really knowing what it actually means. And second, because it’s something people are really stupid about.
For example, lots of dumbasses struggle to grasp the difference between being definitive and being descriptive and that certain things — like subjective play experiences and approaches — can only be described in vague, nebulous terms of trends and patterns of behavior across broad swaths of a given audience.
Lots of dumbasses also struggle with the difference between a game’s mechanical rules and how a game is actually played. They insist that the rulebooks define how the game is played and that, therefore, the question of playstyle is really a question of playing the right way as the designers intended and playing wrong.
Then some dumbasses mistake personal preferences for value judgments or objective statements of design quality. They believe that what they like is good — or good design — and what they dislike is bad — or bad design or broken design — to such a degree that they can’t even see that’s what they are doing. They also can’t tolerate any objective discussion of the negative qualities of shit they like or the positive qualities of shit they hate.
But, some dumbasses forget how much psychology underpins gameplay such that it is possible to analyze games objectively from a standpoint of social or psychological strengths and weaknesses or even to analyze games in terms of whether they’re healthy or unhealthy pursuits. And there’s a subset of those dumbasses who don’t understand that shit can feel good, but still be bad for you.
And, of course, other dumbasses don’t understand that people analyze costs and benefits differently. So they can’t fathom why someone would accept the costs of engaging in unhealthy-but-good-feeling behavior and that that might actually be okay provided it is a conscious choice and not willful ignorance.
The point is, when I’m talking about this playstyle shit, I’m waving my hand vaguely in some direction and saying, “See those people over there? See how they all seem to be playing D&D a certain way and see how that’s different from how all those other people are playing D&D? See how there are patterns of behavior? Let’s call that a Playstyle and then look at how it might impact the psychology of gameplay, game design, and the consequences thereof.”
I might even add something like, “… and I think those consequences are more negative than positive and I therefore wish the game designers would take a more active hand in encouraging alternative styles of play.”
Do you think we can handle that shit like mature adults?
I don’t care; I’m forging on anyway.
How to Play D&D
But what the hell actually is playstyle? What does it mean to discuss “how people engage with D&D?” Because obviously, there’s more to it than just “how to play D&D.”
After all, it’s pretty easy to explain how D&D is played. If you’re a sexy gaming genius like me, anyway. I’ve done it tons of times. Sing along…
You create a character that represents you in a fantasy world of adventure. Your Game Master will describe the situation your character finds itself in. You’ll then decide what your character says and does. The Game Master will determine and describe the result of those words and deeds, using a bunch of rules and dice as necessary. And round it round it goes.
That’s how you play D&D.
At least, that’s what you actually do at the table. But how do you decide what your character does? How do you decide what character to make? How do you decide what goals to pursue? What strategies to employ?
It doesn’t matter how you, personally, answer those questions. It’s those questions — or rather that one question, “How do you decide what to do” — wherein Playstyle lives. And while you might be one of those dumbasses who knows, absolutely, that there is a definitive right way to make those choices and it’s really obvious from the rulebooks, the actual correct truth of the matter you’re incapable of comprehending as a dumbass is that it’s a very open question. Especially when it comes to tabletop roleplaying gaming.
If we were talking, say, Magic: the Gathering or Terraforming Catan or whatever, it’d be a different story. Those games have very firm goals and very limited interactions. While play strategies vary from game to game and player to player, most players know the game’s about making the choices that maximize the odds of victory. No one playing Terraforming Catan is thinking, “As the CEO of Globex Corp, maybe I’d cut costs and line my own pockets even if it meant the terraforming project would fail.”
Hell, some people do stupid bullshit like that. Look at all the Magic: the Gathering players who add crappy cards or discard good cards because they’re building some lame-ass theme deck. They don’t care if they maximize their odds of success as long as all their cards fit with the Steppen Wolf theme they’re building.
Tabletop roleplaying games are so open-ended and unconstrained that the idea of playing to maximize the odds of victory is impossible just because there are so many possibilities and incomparables and unforeseeable consequences. Just as in real, actual life. Moreover, the use of the word roleplaying suggests strongly that players should — to some degree — consider their character’s nature or personality or background when making choices.
And that’s the space where “how do you play D&D” becomes a super complicated question.
Pat answers are easy enough. I can say, “Just make the choice you think your character would make” — and I do; I think that’s a solid and easily grokkable summary of what roleplaying actually is — but even that leaves a lot of room for thought and interpretation and argument. And no one actually does just that. Consider, for example, the classic issue of whether a person’s playing right when they choose a character action that sabotages the party’s chances of success because they honestly believe that’s the action their character would take.
If you can get past the dumbass value judgments and stop fighting over personal preferences as if they’re objective facts, you’ve got to admit that’s a pretty complicated question. And it’s hard to answer. Especially when you then add in the psychology of cooperative social play.
It’s also important to remember that most people don’t think about this shit consciously. They just play the game. Most Game Masters don’t either. They just run the game. And most designers just build the mechanics they think will lead to a fun game. And that’s how it’s got to be anyway. Most players are terrible at understanding why they do what they do. And Game Masters have no idea what their players are thinking and how their players are making choices. They only see the behaviors; they’re guessing at the motives.
And everyone — especially you — are so bogged down with biases that you can’t think objectively about this without serious effort, training, and the shattering of deeply held beliefs. Which is something most folks — especially you — just can’t handle.
As if that ain’t bad enough… there’s also the question of how people even learn how to play D&D.
How You Learned D&D
You didn’t learn D&D from the rulebooks. No one does. And that’s not because most of you don’t even read the effing rules. And it’s not because the rules are badly written and don’t teach you how to play. It’s because humans don’t learn how to do things by reading about them. Humans learn to do by watching other humans do and by doing themselves.
You might have learned enough to start playing D&D from a book, but your actual gameplay approach — how you decide what to do — emerged from your gameplay experiences and your exposure to others playing the game. It’s an intuitive, experiential process. One you don’t even consciously know happened. And the end result is a complicated, subjective, personal approach to D&D. One that’s unique to you but is nonetheless a product of your interactions with everyone you’ve played with and every bit of gaming media you’ve consumed.
And while your playstyle is personal and unique, it’s also similar enough to lots of other peoples’ styles that it can be usefully described and analyzed. Or rather, the gameplay behaviors that result from your approach — the things you do at the table as a result of your playstyle — can be described and analyzed.
There are lots of such descriptions floating around the gamesphere. You’ve heard terms like Minmaxer and Powergamer and Munchkin and Thespian and Murderhobo and Gnomish Bard and Asshole and Metagamer and Wallflower, right? Well, those are playstyles. Just don’t be a dumbass. Don’t forget that those terms describe people’s behaviors, not their motivations. You can never know what’s in someone’s head. And don’t attach value judgments to this shit.
Of course, there are more academic, pseudoacademic, and designer-oriented terms too. Take the classic Gamist-Simulationist-Narrativist Trinity that I’ve railed against before. And note that I’ve only railed against it because it’s presented as definitive and exclusive. Every gamer is either a Gamist or a Simulationist or a Narrativist and those words are always spelled with capital letters. If the GNS morons were less rigid and categorical about the whole damned thing, I’d be more comfortable flinging those terms around.
Also, do not confuse any of this with my game-design approach darling, MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research or Quanitic Foundry’s Gamer Motivation Model. That shit ain’t about playstyle, but rather about play aesthetics. That shit is about why players play the games they do, not how they play them. Playstyle is about the Dynamics of Play, not the Aesthetics of Play. But that’s a subtle point I’ll be explaining another time after enough of you ask enough questions about it.
Honestly, the easiest way to really grasp this playstyle stuff is to just ask people, “How do you play D&D” and then listen real close to the answer. People will generally reveal their own playstyle in the answer. Some will say, “It’s a game of fantasy adventure; you create a hero and go on quests and get treasure.” Others will say, “It’s all about telling a fantasy story with a group of friends.” Others will say, “It’s an escapist fantasy about pretending you’re a character in a fantasy world.”
My point is, though, that whatever term fits you and however you describe what D&D is about, that’s the result of your play experiences and the gaming media you’ve consumed. That’s how it is. The designers didn’t do that. They can’t.
But that — and literally every word I’ve typed so far in this article — is just background. It’s context. It’s me telling you how to think about this playstyle crap in general. Mainly so you aren’t blindsided in Act III of this article with me talking about playstyle.
Meanwhile, though, Act II… which has nothing to do with Playstyle.
Act II: Create and Portray Through Pushbutton Play
For the last few years, I’ve been eviscerating certain increasingly common player behaviors — and design approaches — with such frequency that I’ve had to invent new insults for them. For instance, a few years ago, I started pissing and whining about this thing I called Push-Button Play. And in the last eighteen months — give or take — I started swearing about something I called Create-and-Portray Play.
I did explain those phrases. Several times. And my explanations got deeper and bigger and more complicated each time. And with every explanation, I lost a few more of you. I know because some of you have started using my terms and you keep using them wrong. And others of you keep asking me to explain them. The whole point of this article — which I’m getting to 2500 words in as is par for my course — the point of this article is, in essence, just to clarify those two terms.
But I suspect those clarifications will be way quicker and easier because of the 2500 words of context I piled on top of them. Which is good because I have some more rambling bullshit about Playstyle to follow the clarifications.
Push-Button Play
A long time ago, I described this certain style of play in which players respond to every in-game situation by scanning their character sheet for a specific skill or ability to use on that situation. The players then expect the GM to ask for a single rolled check that, if successful, resolves the situation. The clearest example of Push-Button Play is this sentence…
Can I roll Persuasion to convince the guard to let me go?
Why’d I call this Push-Button Play? Because I likened it to treating skills and abilities like buttons to press on a controller. Or rather, because it’s like a player clicking on skills and items and then clicking on in-game obstacles and expecting the obstacles to just go away as if they were playing one of those point-and-click adventure games.
The problem is… that’s actually just how you play D&D. Or any roleplaying game. Apart from the problem of players using skill names to declare their actions, Push-Button Play is really just players declaring actions and then rolling checks to overcome obstacles. At my own table, the rogue player will sometimes say, “I try to pick the lock,” and I will say, “roll a Lockpicking Skill check,” and they will say, “I rolled 17,” and I will say, “huzzah and forsooth for the lock is opened by your skillful skill use.” How is that not Push-Button Play?
Well, it is. But it’s the okay kind. Because this shit’s more complicated than it seems.
Push-Button Play is about how much goes into declaring an action. How high a hurdle must a player clear before I allow them to roll a die to overcome something or make some progress. If the player needs to say no more than, “I would like to convince the guard to set me free,” to get a Charm Check, that’s Push-Button Play. If the player instead must decide what to say and how to say it before they get to touch the dice, it’s not Push-Button Play.
But Push-Button Play isn’t about action resolutions. It’s about patterns and expectations. There will always be actions as simple as, “I pick the lock” or “I plead with the guard.” That’s the nature of things. The issue is how often there’s more than that. Do the players ever face challenges that require them to make more than one, simple declarative sentence that’s synonymous with a character skill or ability? How often does that happen? And how do the players respond when it does? Does it surprise them? Do the players object? Do the players say things like, “Why do I have to tell you where I’m searching? I have the Search skill! My character knows where to Search!”
When players think their job is to pick the right skill or ability for the problem and roll a die to fix it, that’s Push-Button Play. When the players think their job is to describe their character’s approach to a problem and then roll whatever dice are required — or not required — based on their character’s skill and abilities, that’s not Push-Button Play. And that’s true even when describing an approach is as simple as saying, “I beg and plead” and the resolution is as simple as rolling a sixteen or better with your Charisma die.
And given that long-ass speech about playstyle, it’s way easier to grasp this shit, isn’t it? Let’s do another.
Create-and-Portray Play
I coined the term Create-and-Portray Play to describe players creating fully realized and detailed characters at the start of the game and then striving to stay true to that character vision in their roleplaying throughout the game. And, once again, it seems like I’m just describing roleplaying, doesn’t it? That’s what roleplaying means.
I think that whole Playstyle prelude to this discussion will help you see what I’m getting at. Because, again, this is about patterns and expectations and approaches.
Create-and-Portray Players create characters with clearly defined motivations, personalities, beliefs, goals, and fears right from the get-go. Their character’s character doesn’t emerge from gameplay and it doesn’t change as the game plays out. The character is fixed from the start. At least in roleplaying terms.
What’s the alternative? It’s a character that takes time to emerge. Over the first several sessions, the character’s personality and quirks appear at the table. Or they disappear. Or they change. The character is shaped through play. Meaning, specifically, that the character’s character is molded by the character’s interactions with other characters and the world and also by the player’s interactions with the other players at the table.
So a player might notice they’ve been playing their character a certain way over the last few sessions and may then decide that that represents a particular personality quirk. It wasn’t planned or intended, it just happened, and the player is choosing to run with it. Likewise, a player might notice something they planned just isn’t working. Maybe a quirk of personality just isn’t coming up. Or it’s leading to strife. Or maybe an intended social dynamic isn’t happening. Say, for example, the player wanted their character to take a leadership role. That’s their vision for the character. But, in play, the party isn’t allowing itself to be led and the character, thus, isn’t falling into that role. The player might discard that vision for their character’s role and even adjust the character’s personality as a result.
It’s down to approaches and expectations, right? Create-and-Portray Players believe that they’re supposed to define a fully realized character and then bring that character to life through play. That’s just how you roleplay. It’s how you play D&D. The opposite is the player who believes their goal is to find their character gradually through play and to allow that character to evolve as the game plays out.
I hope that shit makes sense because I can’t think of another way to explain it. With the context of playstyle, though, it should be enough. It better be. Because it’s time for Act III.
Act III: Putting the Pee in GNS
Let me try to tie this shit up with a neat little bow. I’m probably going to confuse the issue somewhat and end up with ten thousand new questions and complaints, but that’s okay. I know I’m going to have to revisit this topic. Probably next month. Because I recognize I need some space now to think through what all this crap means. Do keep in mind that this article started with me just explaining two dumb terms I coined and evolved into what you’re reading now. Dynamically. Through play. I mean writing.
What I propose is that Push-Button Play and Create-and-Portray Play are behaviors — not styles — but that they tend to emerge from players who have internalized a certain Playstyle. A new Playstyle. One no one’s really defined yet. And while that Playstyle has probably always existed on the fringes of tabletop roleplaying gaming, it’s become much more commonplace in the last several years. Perhaps, it’s even become the predominant style of play. At least in certain systems. And that’s due to a combination of cultural shifts and a new audience discovering the tabletop roleplaying gamespace.
But I’m going to hold off on discussing the causes and implications of all this shit. Partly because, as I said, I need to let it all marinate in my brain juices but also because I need to filter my own biases out of this mess. This demands some cold, objective analysis and I can’t provide it yet because, frankly, the playstyle I’m proposing is one I viscerally hate. Players of this style are players I don’t want to share tables with. And there are actually precious few styles of play I’d actually say that about.
I propose that to the G, the N, and the S, we add a P.
Some players see D&D as a Game. They think it’s about overcoming obstacles, winning adventures, accomplishing goals, and advancing characters.
Some players see D&D as a Narrative. They think it’s about telling a story of fantasy adventure and they want to share the most interesting story possible.
Some players see D&D as a Simulation. They think it’s about entering a world as a character and dealing with it as it is. Whatever happens happens.
And now, some players see D&D as a Performance. They think it’s about putting on a show. They have a role to play and they’ve got to play it to the hilt. In the most interesting and engaging way possible.
It’s obvious how that leads to Create-and-Portray Play. The challenge of the game comes from staying as true to your character vision as possible and demonstrating that character to the rest of the table. Hence, it doesn’t matter whether a Created-and-Portrayed character is less dynamic and interactive than other characters. Hence why such players can’t start with a blank slate and why some even struggle with a random character. They need to be comfortable wearing the character like a skin.
But how does Push-Button Play emerge from a Performance mindset? It’s like this: the Performance player doesn’t see the game as about overcoming obstacles and facing challenges. Really, it doesn’t matter whether the characters overcome obstacles or not. Either way, there’s a role to play. Thus, die rolls aren’t about success and failure. They’re not about the outcome. Instead, they’re performance prompts. They tell you — the Performance player — how to portray the action in question. Hence why such players prefer to describe their own actions. And why such players consider being able to describe their own crits and kill shots however they want to be a reward. And hence also why such players often play their results more dramatically when the die shows a very high or very low number. Because the die itself is part of the performance prompt.
When you see Performance as a playstyle — and as one that’s different even from Narrative play — a whole lot of player behaviors suddenly make sense. Especially behaviors exhibited by gamers who entered the hobby through D&D and in the last decade or so. Because, while there have always been Performance players, there’s been a big influx of them lately. In the past, Performance play was probably seen as a subset of either Narrative or Simulation play depending on how it emerged at the table because it wasn’t that common. But now it is. And so it’s obvious those players are thinking about the game differently on some fundamental level.
Today, I’m not saying whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. Hell, I’m withholding any opinion beyond, “This ain’t my personal jam” right now. And I will say that I’m already recognizing that I’ve been too hard on certain behaviors because of my own biases.
That said, I’m most likely going to be ripping this style a new asshole in the near future. And hopefully, with that promise, you’ll forgive me for just defining what I see as a new — and currently popular — tabletop roleplaying gameplay style and for having a more general discussion of what playstyle means and how it’s different from play aesthetics.
Meanwhile, though, I can’t stop any of you from lambasting — or celebrating — Performance play. Or telling me that I’m full of shit and that it’s not really a unique approach of its own that’s even worth discussing. I just ask that you keep a couple of things in mind before you spew your opinions all over my comment section.
First, note that this shit has happened before. The playstyle you enjoy today? It was new once. D&D was basically 90% Simulation until the Hickmans demonstrated what else it could be in 1983. And that was in response to a similar playstyle emergence in the community. And as Simulationy as D&D v.3 might have appeared, it was also the first edition that offered actual game-design tools and structures that let GMs build more sophisticated Gamist games. So if you don’t see D&D as a let-the-dice-fall-where-they-may hex-crawl war-game simulation, you’re the end result of an emergent style of play that got big enough to warrant support.
Second, you’re biased. You’ve got a personal preference and that preference is D&D the way you play it. Whatever you’re feeling right now? Whatever response wants to jump out of your fingers? It’s emotional. It ain’t objective and it ain’t critical. You can cake it in objective terms, but that won’t be intellectually honest. You’ll allowed to have your emotional responses and you’re allowed to voice them. More power to you. Just see them for what they are and try to temper that shit a bit, okay?
And because I, myself, am admitting my own biases, let me end by saying this…
Fuck Performance Play. Seriously. It’s shit.
Whats interesting is that between the GNSP styles, some of them pull away from each other while others pair more agreeably.
Games (just in general) tend to have a back and forth rising action akin to a Narratives rising action, and Games (just in general) have a climax where the rising action culminates (the winning player won because of the game actions they took in previous turns) and Narratives also have a climax that is penned from the rising action.
While a Simulation doesn’t tend to mesh with Games at all. A Game is literally representing your actions with something else (real estate with red plastic houses in Monopoly, a v8 engine with a video game controller in [pick any racing game], etc). A simulation wants everything to be reality as much as possible, while a Game resists it.
Simulations and Narratives also don’t mesh the greatest, as Narratives want interconnected plotlines and hooks, as well as an endpoint to reach to achieve satisfaction/catharsis. Simulations dont interconnect because life doesn’t interconnect (at least, not as much), and the only endpoint of life is death. Death, while it can function as an endpoint for a Narrative, doesn’t do it justice.
A Performance wouldn’t jive with a simulation OR a game, but does match with Narrative with its spotlighted characters, and any Performance still offers a story, even if its just bare bones.
(in summation)
Games like Narratives (and vice versa)
Game dislike Performances and Simulations
Narratives like Performances and Games
Narratives dislike Simulations
Simulations like Nothing
Simulations dislike Performances, Games, and Narratives
Performances like Narratives
Performances dislike Games and Simulations
—
IDK, based on those arbitrary distinctions and connections, it looks like the Objectively Single Best Way to Play is pursuing a Narrative. That must mean that Simulationist/Gamey/Performance playstyles are Wrong and Bad 😉 /s
Sounds like you have a strong bias against Simulationists.
There are good/bad sides to each style.
A good Simulationist wants to push buttons. They like doing things simply to see what they do. Every campaign is basically just a sandbox to them. They will chase every hint, leave no rock unturned, simply to know what happens. They approach things with an open mind. It’s hard to get them to pay attention to the story if it’s meant to be a narrative – yet paradoxically, they are probably the most engaged with it in that they’re actually doing something to drive it forward.
A bad Simulationist insists on… well, the simulation being “realistic.” If that guy at the gym can’t lift 300 pounds, the fighter can’t. Nevermind that there is magic and dragons in the setting. They will ignore rules if it doesn’t mesh with what they are trying to simulate. They will pester the GM when the simulation breaks with the actual mechanics. (“But GM, I can do X, why can’t I extrapolate to do Y?”) It can get out of hand and it can put a damper on everyone’s mood.
Now, as a simulationist, I can tell you that I get along with Gamists, and do AWFUL with Narrativists. I’m sure you can wax and wane about their virtues. But every Narrativist I know is so … inflexible, when it comes to their character’s story. No matter what I say, or do with them, everything twists and feeds into the story they want to tell with their character. And if they feel their character would do something awful – either in the role play sense, or from a gaming perspective – they absolutely would, ‘because that would tell an interesting story.’ Once they see the “end point,” they push to accomplish it and ignore any sway from other players, the world, etc.
Or, to put it differently: “No matter what button I push, with the Narrativist, the result is the same.”
Sounds like you have a strong bias against Narrativists.
Funny how that works.
I’m not going to hide it. I’ve had all sorts of people break/ruin games I’ve played in, but none have left me saltier than the sea than Narrativists.
But it’s not like I haven’t tried to tell stories. A lot of my early attempts at GMing, I did have a story to tell. But it made me look at players like their actions were predictable things I can plan around and freeze up when they went off script. When things didn’t happen the way I expected or wanted them to, I got frustrated because the story wasn’t going the way I planned.
My more recent (and coming up to a year now!) attempt, I just wrote scenarios instead. There are NPCs, with goals and backgrounds (some admittedly quite DEPRESSING). There are two large threats in the background. I have general ideas of how things are. Things move along as I think they would at that point of time.
But there is no “planned” story. I don’t have an ending planned. Players are aware of points of interest and a bunch of problems people are having. They decide where they want to go, and what they’re doing. I write the scenario, they determine what gets touched on and the outcome, and I slot that information in for the next scenario.
And I mean, the players keep coming back. So I must be doing something well.
Maybe I’m way off base, but I think there’s elements of the Performance play style that also manifest in what outwardly seem like Gamist stuff, not just S and N. Particularly as it relates to mechanical character builds and game balance. The pure gamist (who, of course, does not exist) says “hmmm, there’s a lot of creatures immune to sneak attacks, I should weight that as a factor in picking options that use sneak attacks as I try to maximize damage,” whereas the pure performance player (who again doesn’t exist) says “its unfair that the game designer or the GM use creatures immune to sneak attacks, I shouldn’t be punished for taking those options.”
Maybe its just that those kinds of behaviors irritate me much the way the Performance stuff you mentioned does, and they’re not really related. My 2 cents anyway.
I’d argue that performance players love when creatures are immune to sneak attacks, for example. It’s another performance prompt, and if it’s negating a key class feature that means its a big one that they can play to the hilt. It’s related to one particular behavior I’ve had players pull before that I hate, the “I’m giving myself disadvantage on this attack because I’m afraid of X”. I’ve had players, who I now recognize might have been performers, who loved that stuff. They didn’t care if their attack hit, they loved that they go to use the rules of the game to amplify their performance. Except they didn’t because I didn’t let it fly.
As I’m typing though, thinking it over, they might dislike the negated sneak attack example because in many cases they want to be able to define their characters moments. They see a fight in which their utility suddenly drops as a big inflection point for their character and resent the GM for not allowing them control of the timing of that moment.
The bit about being upset over Sneak Attack definitely exists in the player base, but I’m not sure it’s performance related… there’s an undercurrent of entitlement somewhere but I’m not sure where it’s from aside from a lot of modern games and players. It could be chalked up to narrative or gamist or performance depending how you look at it.
I’ve always felt as if these playstyles are also defined by what element the player most cares about. Simulationist players care most about the fictional world (and its inhabitants) : discovering it, interacting with it. Narrative players care most about the story, whether creating it or watching it unfold. Gamist players care most about skill, either player or character skill or both. And Performance players care most about their character. So it can be a very selfish playstyle, but it doesn’t have to.
IMO, players who create a very static character and just broadcasts their traits at every occasion are only one subset of Performers. A Performer can also be interested in portraying the way their character is impacted by their world and story and relationships, which means paying close attention to the stuff happening around them to then use it as a jumping-off point for their performance. Selflessness motivated by selfishness, if you will.
Full discosure: I do think I’m at least partly a Performer, though I try hard to be the second kind, so I’m hardly objective there.
I think if you’re truly interacting with and allowing other players and the world to impact your character you’re not primarily playing in the Performer style. I think as a playstyle, it implicitly puts the other players in the audience. They’re here to watch your performance. But if you’re interacting with them, that’s not the case. You might still be concerned about performance in the sense of acting, and want to do it well, but I don’t think it’s the same as the Performance playstyle.
Performers don’t have to have static characters. I’ve encountered a variation where a player shows up at my table with a character and tries to tell me what their character arc is going to be. This used to baffle me, because how could they know when nothing has happened in the campaign yet, but makes more sense to me now. Even thought their character will (theoretically) be dynamic, they are still an individual creation detached from the game the rest of us are playing. It’s basically telling the table that they’re going to be supporting players in your character’s story.
If for example, a group of theater kids formed a TTRPG group with complex interpersonal relationships and had a lot of quasi-improv scenes focused on that drama, what would you call it? It certainly wouldn’t be Gaming. I wouldn’t say Narration either because they wouldn’t necessarily be looking for the best twists and story beats, just riffing off each other and seeing where it takes them. Simulation doesn’t seem right to me either since they’d be interacting more with each other than the world, though I could be wrong. I’d say it’s Performance, with the other players being at the same time fellow actors and the audience.
And this ties into the current popular media in the role playing realm. What are the top, most popular D&D streams/players/channels? A group of ex/current theater types or improv gurus. Those brought a lot of new people to the hobby, but all those people came in with a certain learned playstyle, or at least a playstyle expectation.
I have had a similar discussion come up about the combat as war / combat as sport divide.
When we play combat as war, my players feel it is unfair when the monsters outsmart them or they get in over their head and attack something too powerful for them to handle in a straight fight.
When we play combat as sport, the players feel railroaded when they can’t outsmart the monsters or farm stuff that is too weak the threaten them.
In the end, we decided on calling the desires style of play “combat as performance” where the players get to show off their cool powers and feel tough and smart without actually needing any tactical acumen to pull of a victory.
Honestly the rise of this approach to play has completely changed a lot of how I run games as a GM. Mostly because I find it really frustrating to be on the opposite side of the screen from players who favour create-and-portray and push-button play.
Stuff like, I just won’t let players make a character before the first session — won’t even give them the list of allowed options. So they won’t come to the table with a pre-characterized character.
And responding to stuff like ‘can I roll persuasion?’ with ‘maybe, how do you try to do that?’ In nearly all situations.
And not allowing players to describe their own kills, crits, successes, or failures. Which I use to allow occasionally but now keep running into players who just… Assume they get to take over as narrator for the game any time they roll a big number.
… Which, again, I admit is entirely because I find it frustrating to deal with as a GM. And I absolutely will not run a game if I am to frustrated to at least to get something out of it to ferl ‘worth’ running a d&d game rather than anything else i could be doing with my weekends.
(And tbh when I have tried to run games that got frustrating to run, the quality of the game I run drops off *really* fast. I’d rather run no game than a bad game.)
Even how I answer “what should I do?” From new players has changed. I went from “what do you think your character would do?” To “what would you do if you were an elf cleric of a chaotic luck deity about to be eaten by a horrible mix of bear and owl?”
This seems like really useful and specific advice. Thank you. I think I might try that out and see how it goes.
Personally, I tend to like playing with this kind of player as much as any other. A bad performer hogs the limelight and tries to push their story onto everyone else, but a good one can be a blast to play alongside by playing their part well and assisting the GM with the flashy narration. Let’s not forget that all those games shared through online media drawing in new players drew them in because the games are fun even for spectators. It helps that my own GM playstyle is heavy on improvisation and prediction, with less story beats I want to try and hit myself and more of a “living world” approach that can easily accommodate the stories this type of player likes to tell.
On my end it’s more a style clash I think.
I do a lot of open, improv-heavy games, but I generally want players to interact with the world, and their characters to be influenced by the world and their interactions with it, with most of the stories and interesting stuff and character development emerging from gameplay, at the table.
But that doen’t tend to happen if the player has a story they are trying to tell, or a heavily pre-written character concept, or takes control of the narration of results.
I also make a lot of adventures, dungeons, puzzles, etc. Explicitly to challenge the player — not their character. Which means stuff like ‘would my character be smart enough to suggest the solution to this puzzle to the group?’ Or ‘can I roll and int check to solve this problem? diplomacy to achieve this outcome?’ Is missing the point. It’s trying to use the character’s numbers/skills, to avoid the player having to come up with a solution, that is more likely to work if they can think of one that benefits from those numbers.
Which often indicates that the game I want to run and they want to play are not aligned, and that sort of disconnect needs to be addressed, even if the result is ‘I won’t run that game because I don’t find it worth my time/effort to do so. If that is what you are seeking, you would be happier if you go find a GM who likes running that sort of game.’
I’ve been formulating a personal theory about the different editions of D&D that basically says each edition is the best edition for something. 0e does pure terror, 1e is stepping into a fully fleshed out world, etc. My go to for 5e has been that it’s the best one to watch somebody else play. I guess for some people that’s not the insult I’ve increasingly meant it to be.
I didn’t remember what GNS referred to (if I ever knew), and it’s not clearly explained in this article until “Act III … “. Please consider placing explanations of core terms/concepts at-or-before their first use in an otherwise self-contained article.
(I’m not trying to be jerk. I’m trying to make a clear, concise request without being wishy-washy or indirect. )
Session zero should have a Myers-Briggs inspired test for GNSP and then the GM can tell…
Oh wait wait no its just horoscopes for gamers, never mind. It seems to be an unhelpfully reductive definition of playstyles that maybe on a good day could help you understand why certain players at the table aren’t getting along, or not meshing with your GM-ing style. But some people are just dicks.
Maybe useful for you:
https://quanticfoundry.com/
It’s one thing for acting to be part of the game, it’s completely different when acting becomes the game. I’m pretty sure the intent of the game was to be cooperative and tactical. If you take out either of those two you’ve got a conceptually different game. I’m not (and not not) sold on the P being separate from N & S… As a Gamist, just don’t willingly F up our chances of victory without a really really convincing argument (not a lawful stupid or chaotic nut job argument).
Part of the appeal of Tabletop RPGs: The game tends to turn into what the group wants to play. Given human nature, this varies from group to group. Often quite drastically.
Angry, you’ve completely explained a problem I’ve been having with my campaign. Thank you.
I have a Create-and-Portray style player, but didn’t have the terminology until now. They had a character they were super excited to play before the campaign which I thought was great because of investment. However problems quickly turned up because the character regularly refused to cooperate with the other players or interact with the encounters. This got to the point of inter-character conflict and turned into inter-player conflict.
I stepped in, and the reasons I got from the player for their behavior was “I didn’t engage with encounters because it wasn’t something my character was interested in” and “My character was offended by the other character and will now refuse to cooperate with them”. The player also made it explicitly clear that they valued their character more than playing the game and demanded the other players reroll characters if the game were to continue.
I was mind blown that this was even a possible play style and that anyone could comprehend that this was what D&D was. Your post makes this much clearer, thank you!
You’ve hit on something that I’ve learned over the years: “I’ve got this character I really want to play!” can either be a massive boon, or a death sentence, depending on the person who said it. Like you said, it can speak to a person with a great deal of investment in their character, who will therefore have a great ability to roleplay that character in any and every situation. Opposite side of that coin, though, is the full-tilt diva who has only one desire – ramrod their personal narrative into the world, regardless of who it harms, fictional character or player at the table alike.
Selfish jerks who don’t care about the other people in their group will never be fun to play with. It doesn’t matter what their play style is–whatever it is, they will tend to take it to the extreme in very selfish ways.
“I only care about overcoming obstacles, winning adventures, accomplishing goals, and advancing characters. I don’t care about any of the rest of it.”
“I only care about telling a story of the most interesting fantasy adventure story possible. I don’t care about any of the rest of it.”
“I only care about feeling like my character is dealing with the world as it is–whatever happens happens. I don’t care about any of the rest of it.”
“I only care about bringing my fully realized character to life. I don’t care about any of the rest of it.”
But the problem is almost never that a good person is incapable of using a particular play style in a way that makes things fun for everyone (themself, the other players, and the DM). The problem is almost always that a selfish jerk is unwilling to do so. And no play style is going to look good if you only look at it as it is abused by selfish jerks.
Performance as a playstyle preference is a thing I’ve experienced many times, with players actually using the P word to describe what they aim to do during a game.
However, while some of those like to Create-and-Portray, others prefer improvisation – their main interest is in performing a character, but they discover who that character is through play.
As for Push-Button play, I’ve never seen it from Performancists (yeah, that’s a word), only from Gamists. Not saying it doesn’t happen, I’ve just not seen it.
It strikes me as essentialism versus existentialism. PBPers and C&Pers believe that PCs not only have an essence that precedes their existence (which they do, to some extent, as fictional constructs of race, class, etc.) but also exist only to express that essence. I find this completely antithetical to the unique promise of TTRPGs, but that may just be due to my existentialist bias. 🙂
While not directly related, this reminds me of a video I watched by People Make Games about Jubensha. It appears to be another modern gaming phenomenon with a heavy emphasis on performing as role-playing. Perhaps there’s some reason that performance is a hit in these times.
Thanks to being in bed with the flu for a week I am finally caught up. Thanks for all of the high quality output all these years. You have again managed to write something to think about.
In a sense it makes sense that performance is part of TTRPGs and I think it has been a part of D&D for a very long time. It is natural that people reading (fantasy) novels and watching movies want to portray some of the characters from those stories or bases on those stories. And then you get Drow as a playable race and splatbooks with abilities like two weapon fighting. And people will want to show these cool ideas off. The problem with TTRPGs is that after starting the evolution of the story and the character is partly/largely out of control.
I am not completely convinced by the argument that push-button-play is a result of ‘performance’. You could also argue that it could also be the results of a gamist approach: there is an obstacle and you throw the best possible ability at the obstacle; the player is only engaging with the game mechanics. Both ‘performance’ and ‘push-button-play’ seem to stem from a lack of engagement with the story and world.
I think what you’ve identified as performance play has long been a recognized play style under the “cultures of play” model, generally referred to in that model as “OC” (short for Original Character). It has probably always existed to some extent, and WotC started actively supporting it as far back as the release of 3e, but it has definitely become much more prominent recently, likely due in part to so many new players being introduced to the game through live streamed games like Critical Role.
Interesting.
I’m feeling “performance” as an overlay, not a fourth style, so far. Perhaps leaning too heavily on the “behaviors” component. I wonder if that is because of the specific examples brought to light so far, or perhaps even the title “Performance”.
I also feel that there is a “meta” component here that aligns with pejorative views of Gamist and Simulationist as well…even more deeply than with Narrativist. Hence the overlay feeling I guess. In short, the versions of each that call attention to their performance within that specific playstyle.
Curious to see where this goes.
About the Take the classic Gamist-Simulationist-Narrativist Trinity, it might my own bias, but it seemed to be implied in the article that they are mutually exclusive categories. Even the Performance gamestyle.
I think that those are probably more different dimensions/attributes of the actual gamestyle and should be observed together and rated.
So someone gamestyle could be express as
G=5/10
S=2/10
N=7/10
P=4/10
Than you can then express in the form of a web/spider/radar chart.
So a player with a gamestyle that is
G=1/10
S=1/10
N=9/10
P=9/10
Would be more satisfied by a ttrpg like Fiasco
Etc.
The Push-Button Play approach is probably a mix of High Performance with High Gamist, because you rely on game rule to express your Performance and Create-and-Portrey is probably the approach used by people who have a high Narrative and High Performance, etc.
The “GDS” framework that GNS grew out of/was a response to *did* acknowledge that people could care about more than one of the attributes, and to varying degrees. I wasn’t there, but the Arbiter of Worlds Substack has a good explanation of the history: https://arbiterofworlds.substack.com/p/a-manifesto-in-defense-of-simulationism
What sets GNS apart from competing theories is that they believe that every game should focus on just one of G, N, or S, and if they don’t, the game is “incoherent”.
Speaking of preferences not being binary, I think I’m somewhere in the middle when it comes to Performance. I do feel like I need something to latch onto from the start, even if it’s as simple as “an optimistic young man who grew up in the slums and dreams of becoming a master swordsman”. Otherwise, if I started with a blank slate and just observed my emergent character traits every time, I feel like I’d just be playing myself. (Yeah, in a sense, every character you play is a version of yourself, but I feel like I have a different experience when I can be like “OK, I played a cheerful and ambitious fighter in the last campaign, this time I’ll play a hot-headed but intellectual cleric.”) However, I’m always open to development and change, depending on how the campaign actually plays out. I wouldn’t come in with a character arc planned (unless a GM asked me to), but, let’s say, if my initial vision of the character is as a notably arrogant person, I might have some vague idea of how they might learn to be less arrogant over time.
And it’s on that basis – that a game must focus on one aspect of gamer motivation to the exclusion of the others — that I actually reject GNS. I also find GNS quite incomplete as compared to other models of gamer motivation and engagement, such as my personal favorites, the MDA approach to game design and the Quantic Foundry Gamer Motivation model. And I find that GNS also offers very little in terms of actionable design advice compared to other, more complete models. Then again, GNS is not an actual, academic model. It’s just a bunch of gamers shooting the shit and coming to conclusions.
Totally. I don’t think it’s even possible to focus on just one of the three — some compromise between them is needed to make things feasible and enjoyable to actually play at the table.
(Also, friggin’ Ron Edwards redefining more and more things into the Narrativism bucket and then turning around and going “Does Simulationism even exist?”)
Something I meant to include but forgot (when I ran over the length limit and rewrote my comment from memory) was that when I think about what I enjoy, I do appreciate the story that comes out of the game…but by that, I just mean the players and GM roleplaying the PCs and the world, respectively. When I read things written by self-described exponents of Narrativism, they seem to be bringing in all this extra baggage, like that you need narrative *mechanics*, or that you need to have a literary theme in mind up-front for the story to be about.
I am assuming that social media and Twitch especially, including Critical Roll and other livestreamed sessions have led to a lot of this. Social media is basically one giant performance machine, demanding increasing outlandish actions to get attention. I can see how people watching and enjoying livestreams would see those as a performance, be attracted to it, and almost see their job in the game as entertaining, impressing, and gaining attention from the rest of the group. If that’s your motivation, it can easily become self centered and lead to conflicts with a True Gaming Master.
I do it all 4 ways, because I’m a maverick and I do what I want. Since 198-fuckin’-8. And I’m a ham, so what you call “performance” playstyle comes natural to me, because I wanna have fun and I want you to have fun. So.
Fine! Fine. Deny yourself my entertaining shenanigans. Your loss, matey.
Honestly? I think it’s the proliferation of actual plays. Huge chunks of the new players in the hobby are either getting hooked from actual play podcasts/shows or actively trying to “learn” how to play from the content.
The most popular actual play content tends to cast people with strong acting, theater, comedian, and improv backgrounds. This was likely thier first and strongest hobby/developed group of skills before joining the gaming space. A chunk of these performers are just following the money and where they know they can be successful. These actors lean on their performance skills and are trying to sell a product; themselves. A new gamer and viewer of this content could reasonably see this and think “this is how I should play this game” and follow suit.
It’s hard for an objective observer to view this content and take it for what it is; entertainment. Most of these actual plays are not great representations of an actual ttrpg experience, some have flat out prewritten results. What makes an entertaining ttrpg actual play is often antithetical to good player or GM behavior. When everything is a performance it can rip a player out of looking at a situation tactically, destroy a cohesive world narrative, and pull group immersion into attention on the single self.
I agree, I think players (or GMs!)who are Performing suck. I am unsure if I would call this a fourth playstyle or a collection of bad behaviors that maybe can be corrected over time, the same way some players hog the spotlight or other players name their character “Stinky McButtFace IV.” A Performer who believes they are trying Narrativist play could be advised that pre-defining the character arc means there isn’t a Lagos Egri style Premise Choice , which is what they’re trying for? (*). A Performer who leans Gamist is only interested in challenges that match their character sheet? You’ve already got the answer: If they ask for the roll, that’s bad. If they ask about the action and the GM defines the roll (You’re lying to the guard to get them to let you go, roll Deception, not Persuasion), it’ll retrain them. In my experience, a Performer is either constantly breaking Simulationist Play or it’s ignored as “that thing that Pauline does”, and THAT problem solves itself depending on the table’s tolerance for Pauline. Summary: Maybe it’s playing badly and it shows up in different ways at different tables, rather than a fourth playstyle? Is there an example of a good TTRPG play where everyone is playing more or less Performance style? (*)Footnote: There IS a difference between a Character who, as part of their Narrativist play, is presented with a Choice and refuses to change (which looks like refusing a character arc) and a Performer who only wants to Change in the way that they thought they would at level 1: There are “Theater Kids’ who are good at Improv and Acting and some that are bad at it. We’re mostly not nerdy professional actors and comedians.
This gave me a new frame of reference for all the Powered by the Apocalypse clones going around. They’re too stripped down for simulationists. Gamists can’t usually solve with character builds. Narrativists can watch the story unfold. But the games are practically tailor made for a performers mindset. You’re given a specific archetype for a particular game style. Character development is baked into the playbooks both in acquired benefits and acquired weaknesses.
Personally, I’ve found that I prefer big, cruchy system like 3.P and Gurps and M&M, but I have had fun with the right PBTA game.
Interesting. I suspect there’s a balance of all 3/4 behaviours in players, and we probably want some balance? E.G. No gamist behaviour would make the party ineffective and an easy TPK, but too much we call munchkins? Is this true of all the behaviours?
Also interesting how the behaviours emerged over time, and then get supported by rule sets. Do they follow societal trends? Is performist behaviour in TTRPGs just a reflection of performist behaviour in society/culture? (E.G. a focus on forging your identity and being true to yourself). Do the other behaviour reflect earlier societal trends?
Can certainly see WotC trying to support this behaviour with the proliferation of “races” (not actually races! At least D&D2024 seems to be getting one thing right) and stuff like Strixhaven.
You mentioned in a previous article about players who bring fully formed PCs with novella backstory being less attached to their PCs than those whose PCs evolve and are formed/discovered during play. Is that related to this somehow?
Thank you for some very thoughtful and useful stuff on how monster kindreds should be played (and how that relates to monster alignment).
And from your reply to Camille, I learn that monster/kindred alignment can actually be useful for something.
I look forward to eventually learning what (if anything) you suggest using player character alignment for.
Oops, this reply was intended for a different post. My apologies for the error.
Now that you mention it, I think one thing that encourages Performance behavior is, in fact, D&D 5E itself. The process of creating ideals/bonds/flaws during character creation seems to imply that that’s the bare minimum you have to do to have a character, and the entire inspiration mechanic is basically telling you to perform those traits.
Even without Inspiration, there’s long been a type of player whose shtick is basically just “Look how quirky my character is! Aren’t I creative?” and you can end up with a campaign where every encounter becomes “about” how quirky that character is. But I think that explicitly adding a mechanic that makes DMs go “good little player, have a cookie” in response to “””””good roleplaying””””” has only increased that tendency.
(My group has basically ignored the Inspiration mechanic — the GM said, early on, “I have too much to keep in my head. You guys can give each other inspiration as you see fit.” Then we players didn’t get into the habit of doing it, so it’s just not being used.)