GNS Theory; What Are Your Thoughts?

[Keklas Rekobah]

... Here's a pertinent question -- Assuming that you buy and run published adventures, would you rather have one that devotes different portions to different types of gamers and addresses all more-or-less equally, or one that focuses more space and effort on one type to give those players the best possible experience and assumes that other types will get their due in different adventures?

I would rather have an adventure that devotes different portions to different types of gamers and addresses all more-or-less equally; but I would like to see it done in a subtle way in one package, rather than see three versions of the same adventure in the same package. Otherwise, I can see a simple adventure being more tedious than a 747 flight manual...

"For Gamist players, turn to page 13 ... for Narrativists, turn to page 24 ... for Simulationists, turn to page 35 ... for Gamist / Narrativist groups, omit pages 17, 25 and 26, and apply a +3 DM to the encounter table in Appendix B ..."

 

[aramis]

I'm in the "Write it as a signle cohesive adventure" crowd; odds are if you try to accomodate too much, you get mush.

 

[Ptah]

...

This is the single most important error of the Edwards School.... That a game supports one and only one of the agendas; it's a logical fallacy that undermines just about everything Edwards was initially trying for... and anyone insisting that people fall into just three categories needs to review a statistics class.
...
Heck, I know people who are pretty firmly in the middle of the graph. They have equal disdain for excesses of story as for excesses of rules for the sake of rules, victory for the sake of victory, or simulation when it slows things down...

Agreed, why Edwards took what could have been a basis for a discussion and turned it into a crusade is beyond me. I refer to the infamous "brain damage" comments and other drum pounding that was (or maybe still is) the hallmark of The Forge.

 

[Icosahedron]

Here's a pertinent question -- Assuming that you buy and run published adventures, would you rather have one that devotes different portions to different types of gamers and addresses all more-or-less equally, or one that focuses more space and effort on one type to give those players the best possible experience and assumes that other types will get their due in different adventures?

I'd prefer to see one style, or at least something that is pitched to a specific audience.

Recently, I downloaded a huge bundle of games and adventures and I've been going through them to sort the wheat from the chaff. I know what I like, I know what my players like, and if the game/adventure isn't what I want, it goes in the 'delete' folder. However, I'd hate to pay out for a specific product and then regret it cos I can only use a third of the material - I might as well write my own.

I think if you try to please everybody, you'll please nobody. What could have been a really good Narrative game ends up being a bad compromise of rules-heavy munchkinism, for example, or what could have been a tight, rules-focused, crawl ends up being a useless novel-in-disguise.

Better to be up front with what you're trying to do, attract the right audience, and don't disappoint them with compromise, IMO.