Brilliant Gameologists Forum
Show Stuff => The Meta Show => : Shoggoth November 06, 2008, 02:38:44 PM
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I don't know how interested you guys would be in doing a show about it, but I would LOVE to hear a show about GNS theory. It may be just a little too meta or esoteric, but as Gameologists I'd love to get your take on the merits/flaws/gaping holes/usefulness/pretensions of GNS and the theories it came out of (SSS? I think?). You could talk about the Forge movement at the same time were you so inclined. I'm pretty deeply interested in this stuff, but I don't know how much the general gaming public knows about it.
Personally, I think GNS is a VERY useful tool but not a complete theory at the present time. But again, I'd love to get your take on it.
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I had to look this up. Interesting stuff. I think it would make a good analytical episode.
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I read the GNS theory a few months ago when reading the game Sorcerer. I started a discussion on this with my gaming friends and wow - what an argument came out from that!
One person was absolutely offended that he was being pigeon-holed into a specific gaming category. Another person totally rejected the theory purely based on the names of the concepts ("gamist", "strategist", "narratist"). The rest of us had hours of good-quality discussions about what we like in a game, where we see ourselves in the GNS theory, etc.
At the end of it even though people didn't agree with the GNS theory our gaming group was better for having had a long and detailed discussion about our playing styles.
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It seems to me to be valid more in "some people like more of A, an average amount of B, and little or no C." versus some other arrangement rather than "you are a _____."
I want to simulate a world's "reality" and have a good story. Which am I? Both.
Seconding the call for a show. This needs a good and through discussion.
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I want to simulate a world's "reality" and have a good story. Which am I? Both.
As stated in the article I read (which appeared to be the initial introducing of the concept), it's not so much a description of a person, but of each individual action they take. In any given situation, though, there is usually a "dominant" factor.
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I read the GNS theory a few months ago when reading the game Sorcerer. I started a discussion on this with my gaming friends and wow - what an argument came out from that!
One person was absolutely offended that he was being pigeon-holed into a specific gaming category. Another person totally rejected the theory purely based on the names of the concepts ("gamist", "strategist", "narratist"). The rest of us had hours of good-quality discussions about what we like in a game, where we see ourselves in the GNS theory, etc.
At the end of it even though people didn't agree with the GNS theory our gaming group was better for having had a long and detailed discussion about our playing styles.
Interestingly enough, every time GNS is brought up to new people, they immediately try to categorize the "kind" of gamer they are, as though it were a Meyers-Briggs personality test. I did this too.
It's far more useful to use it as terminology to discuss in meaningful terms different gaming techniques, system designs, and play styles. For that, it's fantastic. It's particularly useful for diagnosing dysfunction in gaming groups (Tom is playing his character very gamist, but Fred want's something more narrativist out of the game. The system is schizo, so how do we deal with this?).
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Our next show touches on GNS.
Basically GNS is an old and awkward taxonomy.
It served the use of moving the gaming world away from the limitations of games like DnD. But now it is showing its age.
So we talk about it in the next episode.
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Our next show touches on GNS.
Basically GNS is an old and awkward taxonomy.
It served the use of moving the gaming world away from the limitations of games like DnD. But now it is showing its age.
So we talk about it in the next episode.
I agree that GNS is pretty awkward, particularly when Edwards tries and only partially succeeds in defining "Narrativism". However, I'm curious as to whether you think there is a better alternative out there which as concise?
I look forward to hearing your comments in the next podcast!
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We just finished recording this episode! We ended up turning it into a 2 parter because it got so long but it gives Part 2 a lot more time to talk about GNS. It will be released on November 24th.
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GNS is bullshit, and makes the most useless people feel as if they are justified in making, running or playing shitty games.
If you're one of the three, you have a hard time being the other two. Yet if you are either of the other two, you can do all three. Well.
With a Gamist game, you can still Tell Stories and have the game Simulate the world you're trying to create.
With a Simulationist focus, you can have a balanced game and tell stories.
With every Narrativist focused player, DM or system, you can't have a balanced game (not the focus to have balance, remember?), nor does your game even begin to simulate the square story that you've been trying to hammer into a round hole (since the rules are based on bullshit, not hard math).
Seriously, every Game-Balanced and Simulation-Focused game that I have run has had more credible, more outlandish and less hackneyed stories than and of the "Narrativist" stories that I've heard from anyone elses game.
Railroading "storytellers" can go drink hemlock tea for all I care. I find their games offensive, unbalanced and most importantly, the one thing that they are trying to do, tell stories results in the most unforgivable of crimes. They fail to tell good stories. Always. With such a great focus on a pre-set story, any deviation makes them uncomfortable and they do everything possible in order to bring the game back to their planned out storyline.
At the very least, gamist games tend to be balanced, and Simulationists games tend to help the players believe that they are in the world that their characters are in.
If I wanted that shit I'd play a Japanese "rpg."
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GNS is bullshit, and makes the most useless people feel as if they are justified in making, running or playing shitty games.
You're pretty angry about this! Did GNS beat you up every day in middle school?
If you're one of the three, you have a hard time being the other two. Yet if you are either of the other two, you can do all three. Well.
With a Gamist game, you can still Tell Stories and have the game Simulate the world you're trying to create.
With a Simulationist focus, you can have a balanced game and tell stories.
With every Narrativist focused player, DM or system, you can't have a balanced game (not the focus to have balance, remember?), nor does your game even begin to simulate the square story that you've been trying to hammer into a round hole (since the rules are based on bullshit, not hard math).
Seriously, every Game-Balanced and Simulation-Focused game that I have run has had more credible, more outlandish and less hackneyed stories than and of the "Narrativist" stories that I've heard from anyone elses game.
Railroading "storytellers" can go drink hemlock tea for all I care. I find their games offensive, unbalanced and most importantly, the one thing that they are trying to do, tell stories results in the most unforgivable of crimes. They fail to tell good stories. Always. With such a great focus on a pre-set story, any deviation makes them uncomfortable and they do everything possible in order to bring the game back to their planned out storyline.
At the very least, gamist games tend to be balanced, and Simulationists games tend to help the players believe that they are in the world that their characters are in.
If I wanted that shit I'd play a Japanese "rpg."
OK, it's pretty clear to me that you've only sort of understood GNS, and also that you have run into people who are terrible GMs or players who MISUSE GNS theory to excuse really terrible play. GNS is useful for analyzing the mechanics of a game system, and they're useful for analyzing group dynamics, but none of the three "types" requires the system to be terrible and the GM to be an asshole.
A Narrativist game is NOT a game where the GM gets to have unlimited GM fiat to tell the story, because "story" is all that matters. Nor is it a game where the players get to dictate stuff just to screw YOU over, because them having CONTROL of the "story" is all that matters. In fact, trying to run a Narrativist game using a system that is optimized for Gamist or Simulationist play (most of them!) is kind of tough.
And no, Narrativist games AREN'T balanced in the same way that Gamist games HAVE to be, because they aren't meant to play the same way. D&D is focused on turn based combat - therefore, it needs to be balanced so that everybody at the table can feel like they aren't marginalized and can have a good time. Manipulation of the system is the whole point. In a game like Dogs in the Vineyard, the game is balanced completely differently because rather than addressing the question "What can the CHARACTER do this turn?" it addresses the question "How can the PLAYER have a stake in this challenge, and how far is he/she willing to go to get what they want?" If the system is designed well, then it handles this stuff. No need for railroading GMs.
Also, keep in mind that there is NO SUCH THING as a "pure" Narrativist game, or a "pure" Gamist game, if only because the players will bring their own agendas to the table regardless of system design. The biggest mistake people make when they get into GNS theory is the misconception that you can apply a single label to what they're doing.
Oh, and BTW, World of Darkness is NOT, and HAS NEVER BEEN a Narrativist system. EVER. In fact, it DISCOURAGES Narrativist play with the system.
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Oh, and BTW, World of Darkness is NOT, and HAS NEVER BEEN a Narrativist system. EVER. In fact, it DISCOURAGES Narrativist play with the system.
Sorry about the huge snip, but how *would* you classify WoD by GNS? The rules are so shonky it can't be narrativist, and the fact that you can't kill someone by throwing them off a roof unless they bounce off some scaffolding suggests that it isn't simulationist. You insist it isn't narrativist...
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Oh, and BTW, World of Darkness is NOT, and HAS NEVER BEEN a Narrativist system. EVER. In fact, it DISCOURAGES Narrativist play with the system.
Sorry about the huge snip, but how *would* you classify WoD by GNS? The rules are so shonky it can't be narrativist, and the fact that you can't kill someone by throwing them off a roof unless they bounce off some scaffolding suggests that it isn't simulationist. You insist it isn't narrativist...
WoD is an incoherent system, which isn't really surprising seeing as how it was written way back in the day. It was an attempt to create a Narrativist game, but it was still mired in the simulationist styles of the times, so they just worked in a whole bunch of GM fiat and scaled back the "excessive" ruleset that would make the game "seem" game-y. Hence, rather than having a bunch of stats with numbers and sub-stats and whatnot, you just do 5 dots for each thing. Rather than have some complex combat system, make it a rules-lite combat system which is just an application of the skill system. Unfortunately, they didn't ADD the ruleset needed to really deal with Narrativist goals, they just stripped down the standard Simulationist ruleset (making it difficult to play in that way), made it really easy to break for maximum "character control" (making it difficult to play Gamist) and put in all that text about "The Storyteller is always right" to make the "Story" thing work. Oh, and they added a whole game-world to play around in, which is the only thing they ever did right.
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I just went researching to find a term for my last reply, and I discovered that Ron Edwards has moved away from GNS and towards something he calls "The Big Model". I'm gonna have to look into that.
Also, I suspect that this thread is in the wrong place now. :(
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You know, it's probably not a good thing that after reading your opening post, the first thing I had to do was crack open Wikipedia.
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You know, it's probably not a good thing that after reading your opening post, the first thing I had to do was crack open Wikipedia.
No, it's actually a lot better than you think.
The Forge wasn't exactly a good place, just a place to push this pet theory//model of one of The Forge's Higher Ups. I only encountered GNS when on an other web forum myself.
Personally, I tend to find that I want mechanically balanced games that are set in a place that is believable (and the rules make it believable). The "story" in my games is the result of the first two being good.
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I still have no idea what the hell you're talking about. No big deal, though, it just means that I'm barred from contributing to a discussion you're having about games and gameology.
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You know, it's probably not a good thing that after reading your opening post, the first thing I had to do was crack open Wikipedia.
No, it's actually a lot better than you think.
The Forge wasn't exactly a good place, just a place to push this pet theory//model of one of The Forge's Higher Ups. I only encountered GNS when on an other web forum myself.
Personally, I tend to find that I want mechanically balanced games that are set in a place that is believable (and the rules make it believable). The "story" in my games is the result of the first two being good.
Say what you will of GNS theory and Ron Edwards, but the Forge has been a place for some really amazing game designers to discuss and hone their ideas. Games like My Life With Master, Sorcerer, Dogs in the Vineyard, Misspent Youth, Polaris, Shock, and a ton of others have come from the designers who get together and discuss gaming theory on that board.
From your comments you sound like someone who likes one style of play and really dislikes some others. That's cool, but it doesn't make those other styles crap like you think it does.
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I wouldn't worry about learning the intricacies of GNS.
What you might like to know is that it was one of the major attempts to classify games in such a way that better games could be devised from principals rather than random ideas.
A similar taxonomy is the Alpha-beta-gamma concept of social dynamics. Alphas are leaders, betas are followers and gammas are loners. This allows you to see that there are principals behind social dynamics. And this model starts to evaporate when you look at it very closely, just like GNS.
So what did GNS show?
1 People like games that do different things
2 Games are capable of being different from one another
3 People like different games at different times
4 Different games address different needs
Seems obvious when you just say it, but it is a huge innovation.
This now aging idea is not understood by most game designers. Unfortunately there is a sense of arrogance because the people in the know are a sort of clique.
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Say what you will of GNS theory and Ron Edwards, but the Forge has been a place for some really amazing game designers to discuss and hone their ideas. Games like My Life With Master, Sorcerer, Dogs in the Vineyard, Misspent Youth, Polaris, Shock, and a ton of others have come from the designers who get together and discuss gaming theory on that board.
The most important thing is not that they came up with GNS.
Rather they just tried to figure out the truth.
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I wouldn't worry about learning the intricacies of GNS.
What you might like to know is that it was one of the major attempts to classify games in such a way that better games could be devised from principals rather than random ideas.
This right here is the reason why I have been so enchanted with GNS theory. I do realize that it's not perfect; I put it in the same sort of classification as the Meyers-Briggs or Enneagram personality profiles. They're useful as tools for discussing the subject, but if you really get down into it they just aren't complete or granular enough to properly serve as a complete theory. But I LOVE theoretical frameworks, and gaming as a whole has really suffered from a lack of any attempt at intellectual rigor for a long time now.
This now aging idea is not understood by most game designers. Unfortunately there is a sense of arrogance because the people in the know are a sort of clique.
If I had a dollar for every person who told me they didn't like GNS because "That guy who wrote it sounds like a stuck-up asshole" I'd have one less car payment to make. :lmao
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Say what you will of GNS theory and Ron Edwards, but the Forge has been a place for some really amazing game designers to discuss and hone their ideas. Games like My Life With Master, Sorcerer, Dogs in the Vineyard, Misspent Youth, Polaris, Shock, and a ton of others have come from the designers who get together and discuss gaming theory on that board.
The most important thing is not that they came up with GNS.
Rather they just tried to figure out the truth.
Josh, what do you mean by this? I can't figure it out.
Shoggoth, thanks for the kind words about Misspent Youth (http://misspentyouthgame.com/). I never much discussed theory on that board, but I am sort of second-generation from those who did. Misspent Youth is inspired by amazing games like Primetime Adventures (http://www.dog-eared-designs.com/games.html), shock: social science fiction (http://www.glyphpress.com/shock/), and My Life with Master (http://www.halfmeme.com/master.html), all of whose designers did discuss theory there as far as I know.
As far as how useful GNS or The Big Model are? As a designer and a player, it's been inordinately helpful to me to have my consciousness raised about the issues brought up by it. Specifically, the idea that rules actually really matter, that you can design a game that does things, that following rules is worth trying, that games ought to make a certain kind of fun more likely otherwise what's the point, etc. Knowing there are tendencies in play styles is also useful. Being able to separate "realism" from the creation of a compelling narrative was another eye opener.
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GNS is similar to ISO 9000, 6-sigma or 5S.
None of those replaces intelligence or common sense, they just help people fake it.
Like most conceptualizations the important part is not making it, rather walking the road.
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GNS is similar to ISO 9000, 6-sigma or 5S.
None of those replaces intelligence or common sense, they just help people fake it.
Like most conceptualizations the important part is not making it, rather walking the road.
I'm not sure that's an apt comparison.
ISO 9000 and the like is (unless I'm mistaken) essentially a checklist of best practices for running a business. It provides a way to A) check off the things you're doing right/wrong and B) allow for certification of your business from an outside agency to promote positive spin to your customers.
GNS is not really a checklist. You can't use it to make games like that. It's really more of a stab at an underlying theory of gaming - why we do it, different ways to approaching it, etc.
It's certainly not at a level where it could be taught in a college classroom. But what it does do is get people thinking about these things. As Robert said, it presents concepts to a potential game designer beyond mathematical system coherency and "good writing".
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GNS is similar to ISO 9000, 6-sigma or 5S.
None of those replaces intelligence or common sense, they just help people fake it.
Like most conceptualizations the important part is not making it, rather walking the road.
I'm not sure that's an apt comparison.
ISO 9000 and the like is (unless I'm mistaken) essentially a checklist of best practices for running a business.
Yes you are mistaken. ISO is a process, it is a philosophy that can be used as common sense by those who have none.
The ISO process itself is very much like GNS.
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Oh, and they added a whole game-world to play around in, which is the only thing they ever did right.
...and then proceeded to bury said world in meta-plot, which never works out well, IMO.
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Yes you are mistaken. ISO is a process, it is a philosophy that can be used as common sense by those who have none.
The ISO process itself is very much like GNS.
The main similarity I see is in how both are misused. My experience with companies striving for ISO9000 certification was not a particularly good one; they ignored the underlying philosophy, and simply treated it as a rote process to follow. ("If we do X, Y, and Z, we will be a good company.")
Like GNS, going through the motions without understanding the underlying reasons didn't produce very good results.
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Oh, and they added a whole game-world to play around in, which is the only thing they ever did right.
...and then proceeded to bury said world in meta-plot, which never works out well, IMO.
Yeah, I can't argue with that.
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None of those replaces intelligence or common sense, they just help people fake it.
Like most conceptualizations the important part is not making it, rather walking the road.
As far as how useful GNS or The Big Model are? As a designer and a player, it's been inordinately helpful to me to have my consciousness raised about the issues brought up by it.
I'm a little confused by this. GNS is a system to help people who are not intelligent to fake it, but a published game designer who's game several BGs love found GNS helpful to him in his understanding of game design? Does that mean that Robert Bohl is faking it?
I'm not trying to be disingenuous, I'm just point out how broad of a brush your painting with in these statements.
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None of those replaces intelligence or common sense, they just help people fake it.
Like most conceptualizations the important part is not making it, rather walking the road.
As far as how useful GNS or The Big Model are? As a designer and a player, it's been inordinately helpful to me to have my consciousness raised about the issues brought up by it.
I'm a little confused by this. GNS is a system to help people who are not intelligent to fake it, but a published game designer who's game several BGs love found GNS helpful to him in his understanding of game design? Does that mean that Robert Bohl is faking it?
I'm not trying to be disingenuous, I'm just point out how broad of a brush your painting with in these statements.
Does ISO help, yes. But if it was so great why Six Sigma and 5S and the one with the tigers? ISO helps people fake it, but it is not true understanding. One of the tenents of ISO is that you should do the most efficient process everywhere you do that process. A revelation only to the dense. Sigma 6, that the slowest process determines the rate of the line. 5S, if people know where to find things they can work more efficiently.
Similarly GNS tells you things. If you are savvy you already know them, if not you learned something. Heck I learned something from GNS, it validated many of the ideas I had come up with on my own (that and fate, karma, drama resolutions).
But there are deeper truths behind the approximations of GNS. Also there are games that if you were shackled by the concepts of GNS you would likely not invent. Fate and burning wheel in particular. I think you'll see that GNS tends to help design the type of games it has helped design. But there are more games on heaven and earth than dreamed of in your GNS theory Horatio.
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Let me clear something up about my earlier statements. GNS did not teach Ron anything more than he learned in the process of making GNS. A statement that seems obvious, but it is important. There is more to gaming then GNS. And I think that it's flaws are realy beginning to show.
It certainly changed the world of games, but it's time has come. I don't want to study GNS as the truth, I want to look at games and figure the truth out.
Ps-i don't want people to think that they are dumb if they learned from GNS. For me it validated 10 years of research.
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Let me clear something up about my earlier statements. GNS did not teach Ron anything more than he learned in the process of making GNS. A statement that seems obvious, but it is important. There is more to gaming then GNS. And I think that it's flaws are realy beginning to show.
It certainly changed the world of games, but it's time has come. I don't want to study GNS as the truth, I want to look at games and figure the truth out.
Ps-i don't want people to think that they are dumb if they learned from GNS. For me it validated 10 years of research.
Thank you for the clarification.
Certainly there is more to gaming than GNS, and I think Ron Edwards would agree with you. The Big Model is a reflection of that understanding, and I'm sure he doesn't consider THAT to be the Grand Unified Theory of gaming. I suppose it's possible that he does, but I hope not; I certainly don't.
The reason that I always try to defend GNS against all of it's many detractors is because I feel that while GNS and TBM are not perfect theoretical models by any means, the ideas explored in those essays are valid. At one point many of them were truly groundbreaking.
I know for myself, when I first read GNS, many of the ideas in there were ones that I'd already personally developed; others I'd contemplated but had not formalized. Some of the implications of those ideas as explored in GNS really floored me. Is it the end all and be all? No. Is it worthwhile to read through and at least give some thought to? Absolutely.
This implied idea that it is better to come up with all of your own ideas really bothers me, to be honest. There is no discipline that I can think of where the teacher will tell you that the textbook is worthless because you should be able to figure it all out yourself. No one will tell you not to read the textbook on Geometry because everyone else of merit is on Diff EQ now, so really, shouldn't you have figured that out by yourself? The entire point of written language is that pioneers can pass their ideas onto the next generation, who will be able to move beyond with those ideas into new areas. Build on those ideas, don't throw them out!
I wouldn't ever tell someone that GNS is perfect. Nor would I tell them that it is outdated crap. I tell them to go read it, think about the ideas in there, and come to their own conclusions. Anyone else is a pedant.
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I think you'll see that GNS tends to help design the type of games it has helped design. But there are more games on heaven and earth than dreamed of in your GNS theory Horatio.
I actually have a pet theory about this that I can't prove easily, but that I think makes a fair bit of sense.
People are different in the amount of abstraction and conceptualization they are comfortable with. Some people like things to be very concrete - we will be at place X at time Y, the job will require these 5 things, if I save $6/day for the next month I can afford to buy myself Z, etc. More abstract people like to leave things open, are more comfortable with improvisation, and tend to be more concerned with what they COULD do than what WILL happen.
I think that this personality trait has a direct correlation to the kinds of games you like to play. If you are a very concrete person, you probably want a coherent, inclusive ruleset that clearly defines what you can and cannot do, and it's doubtful that you want to play a story game with a skeleton ruleset and improvisation on the spot as a primary objective. On the other hand, if you like abstraction, a rule system where one roll can be made to resolve any type of conflict, and the focus of the game is an concept or story conceit is what you're looking for. Of course, not may people are at the far poles of the axis, so people generally like a bit of both, but they usually have a preference.
GNS is EXTREMELY conceptual. It tries to take all of the nitty gritty details of system design and player experience and abstract them out into these sweeping generalizations in an attempt to explore the idea of "what IS this gaming thing we're doing?". Conceptual people say "Gosh, look at those neat ideas!". Concrete people say "This claims to be about how system affects gameplay, but there's nothing in here about how to make a better system. All it does is try to stereotype me!".
So there's a correlation there. If you are a game designer who thinks conceptually, you will probably make conceptual games, and GNS will probably intrigue you. If you are a game designer who thinks very concretely, you will probably make mechanical games, and GNS will infuriate you.
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One thing I'd like to see incorporated into any "Grand Unified Theory of Gaming" is the fact that play has purposes beyond "having fun." Basically, I'd like it to incorporate the research done into the nature of play by various anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists.
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One thing I'd like to see incorporated into any "Grand Unified Theory of Gaming" is the fact that play has purposes beyond "having fun." Basically, I'd like it to incorporate the research done into the nature of play by various anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists.
Ahh, that's it there is no grand unified theory, there cannot be. Until we have a grand unified theory of humanity we cannot expand it to a grand unified theory of gaming.
So there's a correlation there. If you are a game designer who thinks conceptually, you will probably make conceptual games, and GNS will probably intrigue you. If you are a game designer who thinks very concretely, you will probably make mechanical games, and GNS will infuriate you.
In any and all cases, If you are interested in learning about GNS then do so.
In any and all cases, learning GNS is not required to make games
In some cases it may be helpful and in some it may be detrimental.
And In any and all cases, GNS does not replace real knowledge about the nature of games and gaming.
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In any and all cases, If you are interested in learning about GNS then do so.
In any and all cases, learning GNS is not required to make games
In some cases it may be helpful and in some it may be detrimental.
And In any and all cases, GNS does not replace real knowledge about the nature of games and gaming.
People made good games before GNS, and they'll make good games after, whether or not they've read it. No argument there.
I'm curious though. What constitutes "real" knowledge, and what is NOT "real" knowledge? I wasn't aware there was anything such as fake knowledge.
Do you mean real experience? I agree that someone couldn't read GNS, having never played a game, and write a RPG.
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In any and all cases, If you are interested in learning about GNS then do so.
In any and all cases, learning GNS is not required to make games
In some cases it may be helpful and in some it may be detrimental.
And In any and all cases, GNS does not replace real knowledge about the nature of games and gaming.
People made good games before GNS, and they'll make good games after, whether or not they've read it. No argument there.
I'm curious though. What constitutes "real" knowledge, and what is NOT "real" knowledge? I wasn't aware there was anything such as fake knowledge.
Do you mean real experience? I agree that someone couldn't read GNS, having never played a game, and write a RPG.
"Real" knowledge is playing actual games and doing play research in the real world. Not just playing but objective analysis.
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In any and all cases, If you are interested in learning about GNS then do so.
In any and all cases, learning GNS is not required to make games
In some cases it may be helpful and in some it may be detrimental.
And In any and all cases, GNS does not replace real knowledge about the nature of games and gaming.
People made good games before GNS, and they'll make good games after, whether or not they've read it. No argument there.
I'm curious though. What constitutes "real" knowledge, and what is NOT "real" knowledge? I wasn't aware there was anything such as fake knowledge.
Do you mean real experience? I agree that someone couldn't read GNS, having never played a game, and write a RPG.
"Real" knowledge is playing actual games and doing play research in the real world. Not just playing but objective analysis.
More to the point, real knowledge makes predictions and is falsifiable.
As such, GNS theory isn't a theory at all... because it cannot be tested. It does not make predictions that you can test, and if it doesn't do that, it doesn't tell you anything you can use.
It's just another bean-sorting system, somewhat like the Meyers-Briggs personality type inventory, in that it appears superficially insightful, is intellectually seductive, but is ultimately based on a bunch of nonsense dreamed up by a non-expert, published without testing, and no more valid than a horoscope.
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Hi Welcome
(http://i573.photobucket.com/albums/ss174/e_quality/Thread_Necromancy.jpg)
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Uh, no, a conversation like this is "timeless" and no worries at all about resurrecting it.
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Hi Welcome
http://i573.photobucket.com/albums/ss174/e_quality/Thread_Necromancy.jpg
(http://i.imgur.com/fxJ7e.jpg)
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and in strange topics even death may die.
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My theory is I play tabletop games because they are fun.
For some serious laughs, look up everything TheRPGPundit has to say about that elitist wankery. Hi-larious!
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Theory is important, it helps us think about games. Much of the thinking about games at the forge and on Vincent Baker's blog has helped me to think about the games I play. Rejecting thinking about games and saying "I just like to play" is pretty bullshit. Theory has it's place and I think we need well thought out deeply reasoned conversations in order for the hobby to grow.