GM types by Georgios

[Ben Finney]

Howdy all,

Someone calling himself only "Georgios" posted the following
German-language article to their weblog:

<URL:http://georgiosp.blogspot.com/2007/05/georgios-spielleiter-typen.html>

He then kindly translated the text to English on a web journal:

[...] I felt that recognizing player types was only half the
battle and for a good game the players would also need to know
what kind of GM they were dealing with. Therefore I came up with
these GM types, which you're all free to comment on or maybe even
use to your advantage.

The World Builder [...]
The Duelist [...]
The Plotmeister [...]
The Master of Ceremonies [...]
The Actor [...]
The Director [...]
The Provider [...]

I've tried phrasing the descriptions as positively or objectively
as I could. There are of course many negative variants of those GM
Types [... which doesn't negate the value of any particular type].

<URL:http://gamecraft.7.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?p=4245&sid=979cd77e045397024eb52dfd5bc35951#4245>

It's refreshing to see a discussion of different GM styles without
necessarily invoking negative descriptions. Reading the different
types, it does seem that each one has a good chance of being fun for a
group if done right.

The ensuing web forum discussion mostly involves self-classification
by various people (there's even a quiz, heh), which I suppose is only
natural.

What might be far more interesting is for GMs, after thinking about
what types they feel they exhibit, then asking their play group to do
the same judgement. There are sure to be differences; it would likely
be instructive to think about what that means for how your group sees
your GMing behaviour.

[gleichman]

Post by Ben Finney
The World Builder [...]
The Duelist [...]
The Plotmeister [...]
The Master of Ceremonies [...]
The Actor [...]
The Director [...]
The Provider [...]

Those remind me of a GM version of the player groupings presented in one of
the old (very old now) Champions products. It had things like Pro from
Dover, Builder, etc. There's been a number of them over the years.

I like them better than the type of stuff you find in the old Threefold, GNS
and stuff specifically because they are almost never negative. Rarely are
they exclusive either. For example IMO a good GM should have elements of all
the above in them.

The downside is that I've never been able to select one that that I thought
was primary for myself. Picking one for my players is easier, likely because
I spend so much time attempting to understand their gaming desires.

[Ben Finney]

Post by gleichman
I like them better than the type of stuff you find in the old
Threefold, GNS and stuff specifically because they are almost never
negative. Rarely are they exclusive either. For example IMO a good
GM should have elements of all the above in them.

Yes, though they'll be present to greater or lesser degrees in any
individual, and likely to vary over time in the same individual too.

Post by gleichman
The downside is that I've never been able to select one that that I
thought was primary for myself. Picking one for my players is
easier, likely because I spend so much time attempting to understand
their gaming desires.

That's why I suggested it would be far more interesting for a GM to
have their play group assess the GM's style by these classifications.
One could get a fresh idea of how one's behaviour is perceived.

[gleichman]

Post by Ben Finney
That's why I suggested it would be far more interesting for a GM to
have their play group assess the GM's style by these classifications.
One could get a fresh idea of how one's behaviour is perceived.

Depends.

IME most players aren't interested in that sort of thing. For example, my
favorite GM years ago found the original Champions article and the reaction
to it was basically the same for everyone playing in his group. "That's
cute... so what are we going to do tonight".

Gamers that are interested in the theory side of things (even something as
light as this) are rare. One of simple examples of that is the fact that
very few (I don't remember any) of the posters here over the years had any
regular from their group also posting.

[psychohist]

Regarding categories similar to:

The World Builder [...]
The Duelist [...]
The Plotmeister [...]
The Master of Ceremonies [...]
The Actor [...]
The Director [...]
The Provider [...]

Brian Gleichman posts, in part:

Those remind me of a GM version of the player groupings
presented in one of the old (very old now) Champions
products....

I like them better than the type of stuff you find in
the old Threefold, GNS and stuff specifically because
they are almost never negative. Rarely are they exclusive
either.

None of the threefold categories is any more negative than the above,
in my opinion. People who dislike story oriented games are likely to
consider gamesmasters who are 'plotmeisters' to be bad gamesmasters,
and the same might apply to 'directors' and 'actors'. Personally I'd
have to question why a gamesmaster was primarily an 'actor' in his own
game, rather than facilitating that for the players. Those just
reflect my own preferences, though; there are people who really like
the kinds of games I dislike the most.

The arguments surrounding the threefold were fundamentally arguments
about what sorts of games people personally found to be good, combined
with a sprinkling of incredulity that other people could enjoy
different kinds of games.

I find nonexclusive 'types' to be less than useful, myself: if you
can say "all of the above", they don't serve any real purpose as
categories or types. Nonexclusiveness applies better to attributes -
things like, "does a lot of preparation" or "has a big miniatures
library".

Warren J. Dew

[Ben Finney]

I find nonexclusive 'types' to be less than useful, myself: if you
can say "all of the above", they don't serve any real purpose as
categories or types.

They don't need to be exclusive to be descriptive of an individual. We
merely need to describe what *aspect* is dominant or little-expressed
in a person's behaviour, either overall or on a given occasion. For
that purpose they're a useful vocabulary.

[Erol K. Bayburt]

Post by psychohist
The arguments surrounding the threefold were fundamentally arguments
about what sorts of games people personally found to be good, combined
with a sprinkling of incredulity that other people could enjoy
different kinds of games.
I find nonexclusive 'types' to be less than useful, myself: if you
can say "all of the above", they don't serve any real purpose as
categories or types. Nonexclusiveness applies better to attributes -
things like, "does a lot of preparation" or "has a big miniatures
library".

A lot of the argument about the threefold concerned how exclusive the
three corners were, whether one could claim e.g. "I'm both a
simulationist *and* a gamist" rather than just "I'm a mix of
simulationist and gamist; sometimes I give priority to simulationism
at the expense of gamism, and sometimes to gamism at the expense of
simulation."

But from the very beginning the proponents of the threefold did claim
that most GMs were mixed cases rather than pure corner types.

[gleichman]

Post by psychohist
None of the threefold categories is any more negative than the above,
in my opinion.

That may be more because of where you sat in the Threefold debates than the
reality of it.

In definition- sim excluded all meta-game influence- you don't get more
exclusive than that. Further such a definition is exactly what I meant by
negative (i.e. defined by what it won't do) and I recall you yourself
pointing this fact out back in the day. The very first thread stated that
the whole reason it was presented as a triangle was it's exclusive nature.

In practice- things were even worse.

Post by psychohist
Nonexclusiveness applies better to attributes -
things like, "does a lot of preparation" or "has a big miniatures
library".

I see those labels as attributes. What else would you use them for?

[psychohist]

Brian Gleichman posts, in part:

In definition- sim excluded all meta-game influence-
you don't get more exclusive than that. Further
such a definition is exactly what I meant by
negative (i.e. defined by what it won't do) and I
recall you yourself pointing this fact out back in
the day.

Ah, okay. I thought you meant "negative" in the sense of "portraying
certain game styles as bad or invalid."

Regarding the list of gamesmaster types Ben mentioned:

I see those labels as attributes. What else would
you use them for?

I took them to be categories, rather than attributes. Ben called them
"types", which to me implies exclusivity.

Warren J.Dew

[gleichman]

Post by psychohist
Ah, okay. I thought you meant "negative" in the sense of "portraying
certain game styles as bad or invalid."

No, not directly anyway.

But it's worth noting that people did feel that the D and G corners
were poor portrayals of their style. I consider the gamist corner for
example to be dysfunctional if used as is, and others (Brett
immediately comes to mind as the most vocal) thought the same of the
Drama corner.

Post by psychohist
I took them to be categories, rather than attributes. Ben called them
"types", which to me implies exclusivity.

Ah.

I don't know about those Ben referenced specifically, but the
Champions article also used the term "types" and specifically stated
they were not exclusive and that a single person could have any or all
of them in varying strengths. The goal according to that article was
to understand the types and to attempt to determine which were
strongest and most desired in your own group. Then the game's
storyline could be adjusted to match.

For our group at the time, it was stating something that was already
being done by the primary GMs. So the article had no impact except in
places like this where I can reference it as one of the methods we
used in building our campaigns.

I can understand how the method would have little value to you, with
the concept of campaign storyline being a non-issue in your world.

[George W Harris]

On Tue, 07 Aug 2007 07:52:09 -0700, gleichman <***@hotmail.com>
wrote:

:On Aug 7, 9:23 am, psychohist <***@aol.com> wrote:
:> Ah, okay. I thought you meant "negative" in the sense of "portraying
:> certain game styles as bad or invalid."
:
:No, not directly anyway.
:
:But it's worth noting that people did feel that the D and G corners
:were poor portrayals of their style. I consider the gamist corner for
:example to be dysfunctional if used as is, and others (Brett
:immediately comes to mind as the most vocal) thought the same of the
:Drama corner.

Which is a misuse of the Threefold, since it was
created and intended to be used as describing individual
GM decisions. Trying to shoehorn individuals into the system
is the type of abuse that leads to hard feelings.

[psychohist]

Brian Gleichman

But it's worth noting that people did feel that
the D and G corners were poor portrayals of
their style. I consider the gamist corner for
example to be dysfunctional if used as is, and
others (Brett immediately comes to mind as the
most vocal) thought the same of the Drama corner.

I don't remember Brett specifically, but I do remember there were
other people who generally preferred resolution for a story (D/drama)
who did not have a problem with the model. They may or may not have
found it useful for themselves, but they recognized there were
tradeoffs and that different people preferred different tradeoff
solutions, and that even if they personally did not find the model
useful, other people might.

I can even see why the model might be less useful for those who think
of roleplaying as joint storytelling; it's a model of how in game
events are resolved, and the mechanisms of resolving in game events
are perhaps a smaller portion of what they're interested in, since a
lot of storytelling is presentation and other purely metagame issues.

I think, however, that most of the people who objected to existence of
the model itself simply didn't believe that there were people with
preferences different from their own. In my experience, while there
are reasonable and tolerant people who generally prefer resolution in
favor of a better story, the story camp also has more than its share
of people who believe that their way of running games is the one
correct way. Alternatively, perhaps people who prefer telling stories
are also more likely to write usenet articles; I don't know.

I do think that the gamist corner has received the least exploration,
and has the largest number of people with misconceptions about here.
I would still like to understand it better, but it's not so easy as
just reading one article, no matter how well written.

Warren J. Dew

[gleichman]

Post by psychohist
I don't remember Brett specifically, but I do remember there were
other people who generally preferred resolution for a story (D/drama)
who did not have a problem with the model.

I'm surprised you don't remember Brett, for much of the time period of
my posting I considered him the most significant Drama style poster
here although he rejected the threefold concept itself.

Our differing memories are lIkely due to a difference of perception,
perhaps caused by bias (including myself in there). I can't really
recall any posters of significance who were both pro-drama and pro-
threefold, at least any that lasted any time. Same with gamism. Best
case was those who didn't strongly care enough to take much of a side.

But that was a long time ago, and even my memory is fuzzy.

Post by psychohist
They may or may not have
found it useful for themselves, but they recognized there were
tradeoffs and that different people preferred different tradeoff
solutions, and that even if they personally did not find the model
useful, other people might.

I'm of the opinion that one could agree with that (as I do), and yet
strongly disagree with the details of the Threefold.

Post by psychohist
I think, however, that most of the people who objected to existence of
the model itself simply didn't believe that there were people with
preferences different from their own.

While there are clear examples of those who fit this profile, I'm
going to have to disagree as far as a blanket statement. For one, I
object to the model and I certainly believe people have different
preferences. Further I knew some of the others who objected as well as
one can know someone online and have carried off-group exchanges with
them after the death of this group- your description does them a
disservice.

Further I think there are those people who would appear to match your
description, not because they do- but because they appear to because
they are unable to express their objections.

Post by psychohist
I do think that the gamist corner has received the least exploration,
and has the largest number of people with misconceptions about here.
I would still like to understand it better, but it's not so easy as
just reading one article, no matter how well written.

There were very few gamists to ever post here. As you've said before,
most are busy playing games instead. And most gamists are happy with
mainstreams rpgs like D&D and the like.

[psychohist]

Brian Gleichman responds to me:

I'm surprised you don't remember Brett, for much of
the time period of my posting I considered him the
most significant Drama style poster here although he
rejected the threefold concept itself.

I remember the name, I just don't remember enough to associate him
with a story orientation or threefold rejection. David Berkman was
the real extremist in that regard, but that was before you started
posting here. I think of Russell Wallace as being something of a
story person, though that may just be by comparison with myself, and I
do have the impression he likes to run different kinds of campaigns at
different times. I seem to recall that Brandon Blackmoor and a
majority of the other r.g.f.mod founders thinking that stories were
the ultimate purpose of roleplaying games as well.

Regarding my comment:

They may or may not have found it useful for
themselves, but they recognized there were
tradeoffs and that different people preferred
different tradeoff solutions, and that even if
they personally did not find the model
useful, other people might.

Brian:

I'm of the opinion that one could agree with that
(as I do), and yet strongly disagree with the
details of the Threefold.

I hadn't thought there were very many details; it's a pretty simple
model. What details are you thinking of?

For one, I object to the model and I certainly
believe people have different preferences.

You object, in the sense that you think that other people, for example
I, should not use it? Or you disagree in the sense that you think a
variation or a different model would be more accurate or more useful
to yourself? I was only talking about the former.

There were very few gamists to ever post here.

People I think of as being in that category include yourself, Brad,
and Will, and perhaps others as well. This is not to say you're
similar in other ways, of course. I tried to learn from your points
of agreement and disagreement, though there was a certain amount of
noise to filter out.

Warren J. Dew

[Russell Wallace]

Post by psychohist
I remember the name, I just don't remember enough to associate him
with a story orientation or threefold rejection. David Berkman was
the real extremist in that regard, but that was before you started
posting here. I think of Russell Wallace as being something of a
story person, though that may just be by comparison with myself, and I
do have the impression he likes to run different kinds of campaigns at
different times.

In truth, all my campaigns have a fairly similar mix: large dollops of
dramatism and simulationism, a smaller but nonzero amount of gamism in
that I like to set up tough-but-fair challenges for my players. So I
think you're right, in that you're more towards the simulation and less
towards the story end of things than I am.

This came up a couple of days ago, in the latest session of my current
campaign, with a player whose style is more dramatist and less
simulationist than mine. His character correctly realized that pacifist
and moral relativist philosophy is ultimately inconsistent with
membership of the Order of Serene Guardians of Humanity and therefore
resigned the latter and rode off into the sunset, so the player asked
whether he could play one of Windermere's Bonded volunteers (who lacked
the vitally important nanomachine implants) and have his new character
be just as powerful as a Guardian, but even before I replied he'd
realized the answer was no. Why? Because of something I said at the
start of the session:

GM: Also a small retcon...
GM: I had described the power stations as running on geothermal energy.
At Jin Li's prompting, I ran the numbers and found geothermal just isn't
enough, so they actually contain fusion reactors. Everything else still
works as before.
Ryan: How do fusion reactors last this long?
Ryan: And wouldn't those make a really really really big boom?
Ni Jun: (They filter Deriturm, or heavy water, straight out of the
surrounding ocean)
GM: Fuelwise, they run on deuterium, of which there is more than plenty
in the ocean. Maintenancewise, the nanotech maintenance systems already
referred to...
Ryan: Allright.....
GM: As for big boom, not in the nuclear explosion sense - fusion
reactors don't do that - though there will certainly be secondary
explosions.

The player correctly reasoned that a GM who would trouble to thus crunch
the numbers in a game that was advertised as anime genre, would also be
unwilling to break established setting logic to make a new character
more powerful; and he was right. He applies that in his own game too -
no insult to him there, last time there was a problem, he and I talked
it over until I understood where his dramatist logic was coming from, so
I could propose a solution that would let his story work as intended,
while still letting my character's strategic planning also work.

So there you have it, no straw men, three good GMs well and practically
described as mostly sim, some of both, and mostly drama. The Threefold
does work at least somewhat well in practice.

[Beowulf Bolt]

Post by Russell Wallace
So there you have it, no straw men, three good GMs well and
practically described as mostly sim, some of both, and mostly drama.
The Threefold does work at least somewhat well in practice.

Likewise, at the time of the Berkman arguments and Threefold debates,
I would have considered my style mainly a mix of gamism and
simulationism. My last campaign, however, jinked firmly towards the
dramatist corner to my satisfaction and those of my players.

Do I need the Threefold model to account for that? No. However I
will credit the Threefold and associated debates to really opening my
mind to think about the decision-making process. Without that, I would
never have thought to run a campaign in a style that I had never before
personally encountered. And the Threefold model (or Fourfold) still has
a large impact on how I think about such things.

Biff

[gleichman]

Post by gleichman
I'm of the opinion that one could agree with that
(as I do), and yet strongly disagree with the
details of the Threefold.
I hadn't thought there were very many details; it's a pretty simple
model. What details are you thinking of?

The core concepts of the threefold is ok. People like different things
in their games, and dislike different things.

Beyond that, I think the whole model itself (i.e. the details) are at
best stating the obvious, at worse actually harmful to understanding.
It's also as far as models go, it is put together inconsistent manner
and that allow kills it IMO.

Post by gleichman
For one, I object to the model and I certainly
believe people have different preferences.
You object, in the sense that you think that other people, for example
I, should not use it? Or you disagree in the sense that you think a
variation or a different model would be more accurate or more useful
to yourself? I was only talking about the former.

At one time I would have said the latter, now I'm ready to say the
former and oppose in general any similar model.

Now mind, that's stated as a blanket and it isn't. In your specific
case, I'm not worried about you using the model. Nor am I opposed to
such lightweight use as Russell details in a post here. However I'm
rather certain now that it would have been best that Mary never
attempted to use it- her entire series of posts on D&D recently has
shown that she has seriously overthought and overapplied the model and
it's become self-defeating for her.

I've noted the same mindset elsewhere with the similar (if far more
objectionable) GNS model.

[psychohist]

Brian Gleichman posts regarding application of the threefold:

At one time I would have said the latter, now I'm ready
to say the former and oppose in general any similar model.

Now mind, that's stated as a blanket and it isn't. In
your specific case, I'm not worried about you using the
model. Nor am I opposed to such lightweight use as Russell
details in a post here.

Maybe it's just me, but with that many exceptions, it seems to me
you're hardly objecting to the model at all, only to misapplication of
it. Perhaps what I think of as the model is much less than what you
think of as the model.

However I'm rather certain now that it would have been
best that Mary never attempted to use it- her entire
series of posts on D&D recently has shown that she has
seriously overthought and overapplied the model and
it's become self-defeating for her.

I didn't have the impression that her shift to AD&D3 was primarily a
result of the threefold.

I do think the threefold was an input; she did mention early on
thinking that it helped to know that her then current dissatisfaction
with her gaming experience was not necessarily due to a lack of story,
but instead due to a lack of game, and I think she was correct with
respect the the campaigns she ran for her husband, if not necessarily
for the campaigns her husband ran for her.

My impression, however, is that her shift to AD&D3 is more a result of
insufficient time available for gamesmaster preparation, forcing her
to use published D20 modules. Clarification from Mary would be useful
here.

Warren J. Dew

[gleichman]

Post by psychohist
Maybe it's just me, but with that many exceptions, it seems to me
you're hardly objecting to the model at all, only to misapplication of
it.

I'm objecting to any serious application of it, with the possible exception
of the Sim corner anyway (which is by far the most narrowly defined).

Post by psychohist
I didn't have the impression that her shift to AD&D3 was primarily a
result of the threefold.

No, but her approach to running D&D and her expectation of what a good
gamist campaign would be like was. And there in was the source of her
problems.

[psychohist]

Brian Gleichman posts, in part:

No, but her approach to running D&D and her expectation
of what a good gamist campaign would be like was. And
there in was the source of her problems.

I wonder if the problem that you noticed were the same ones that I
noticed. Can you give some examples of how she could have handled
things better?

Warren J. Dew

[gleichman]

Post by gleichman
No, but her approach to running D&D and her expectation
of what a good gamist campaign would be like was. And
there in was the source of her problems.
I wonder if the problem that you noticed were the same ones that I
noticed. Can you give some examples of how she could have handled
things better?

I would have to go back and review the threads for details (it's been
a few weeks since they were posted), but here are three general 'after
action' thoughts on it.


Mary's inability to exchange D&D's reality for her own was something
of a surprise to me, but upon reflection something I should have
caught on to it before. Mary isn't really sim on some of these points,
but rather dysfunctional gamist as she assumes the Game Layer (http://
www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/elements11dec02.html) is the whole of
gamist (and sim I might add) play (as the Threefold says it is) and
it's not.

This caused her to focus too much on CR ratings, failed logic trips
due to over-thinking game mechanics (Sniper Rifles being one example
that recent came up), the mechanical effects of Angels rather than the
their greater role in the campaign, etc. And I might add, completely
skipping over the Paladin 'fluff' and thus missing the whole point of
how and why to play the class. The result fails even the most basic
'good play' tests, but Mary feels unable to draw any other conclusions
and further is unwilling to even consider that she should.


Additonal problems were caused by the GM's failure to review the
planned adventure and tailor it to the player(s). While some would say
that a Sim focused GM of course would never alter an adventure in that
fashion, a Gamist one *must* taking into account the types of
encounters their players like and dislike as well as their preferred
approaches and level of skill with the system being used. In that
adventure review, plot elements that players would object to on the
grounds of logic or morality need to be addressed as well as they can
derail the adventure.


The Threefold concept of 'fair challenge" drove too much of her
thought and reaction. Anyone who fixes on 'fair challenge' is due for
disappointment. They should instead look for interesting resolution
points- which is a different matter. And realize that it isn't
uncommon to fall short and long of that target in individual examples.
Expecting each encounter to be fair and challenging is failure by
expectation, and a better goal is to shoot for one outstanding
encounter per 'storyline'. And it would also be wise to keep in mind
that it likely won't be the one you thought it would be.

[psychohist]

Brian Gliechman responds to my request for examples of how Mary could
have handled her D&D module campaigns better. The response seems to
me to highlight some of the problems, but I'm having trouble
extracting the examples on doing better, so I'm mostly asking for
clarifications here.

Mary's inability to exchange D&D's reality for her own was
something of a surprise to me, but upon reflection something
I should have caught on to it before.

By "D&D's reality", are you talking about the D&D game world, or about
play of a D&D game? Based on the rest of your post, it seems like the
latter, but I'd like to make sure.

This caused her to focus too much on CR ratings, failed
logic trips due to over-thinking game mechanics (Sniper
Rifles being one example that recent came up), the
mechanical effects of Angels rather than the their
greater role in the campaign, etc.

It's not clear to me what you think she should have done instead. Do
you think her approach of "play the rules as written" was flawed, and
she should have had the gamesmaster do more fudging? Or are you just
saying she should have put less trust into things like CR ratings? Or
was her handling of all of that okay, but she should also have
considered other factors like how Angels fit into the religious
background of the campaign, and thus perhaps whether to fight them at
all?

Additonal problems were caused by the GM's failure
to review the planned adventure and tailor it to the
player(s). While some would say that a Sim focused
GM of course would never alter an adventure in that
fashion, a Gamist one *must* taking into account the
types of encounters their players like and dislike
as well as their preferred approaches and level of
skill with the system being used.

I don't see what "sim" has to do with things here. However, it does
strike me that taking these things into account and making adjustments
for them would add back much of the work she was trying to save by
using published modules. Is what you're saying here that there isn't
really a shortcut to running a good campaign, or at least that modules
aren't it?

In that adventure review, plot elements that players
would object to on the grounds of logic or morality
need to be addressed as well as they can derail the
adventure.

How should they be addressed? For failures of logic, is the
appropriate solution to simply ignore them - "it's only a game", a
comment I've heard frequently in other contexts - or to patch them up
so things make sense?

With respect to morality, I seem to remember a case of a temple of an
evil cult off in the middle of nowhere where it didn't seem like any
of the cult members had actually done anything wrong, at least as far
as Mary could tell. What's the appropriate solution here? Accept an
artificial definition of "evil" that reflects the wearing of black or
white hats, rather than the actual doing of evil deeds? Or should we
instead assume that the cultists are evil because they have indeed
done evil deeds in the past - or do we need to go further and actually
illustrate those evil deeds, in flashback sequences or something?

I have a feeling the answers to a lot of these questions will seem
obvious to you, but I honestly don't know what the appropriate answers
are in that style of game.

Warren J. Dew

[gleichman]

Post by psychohist
By "D&D's reality", are you talking about the D&D game world, or about
play of a D&D game? Based on the rest of your post, it seems like the
latter, but I'd like to make sure.

Actually the first was primary in my mind when I wrote it. Mary set out to
play D&D and the chosen module as written, and that requires accepting the
assumptions of the D&D game world. Instead she nit-picks, from the common
idea of NPCs who send characters on quests instead of going themselves to
why Angels require tests by battle for healing. Either learn why D&D works
this way (and there are reasons it does), or just accept that it does.

If you have a goal, stick to it. If you can't, change it. Not so much a
'gamist' approach as common sense for life in general.

Post by psychohist
It's not clear to me what you think she should have done instead. Do
you think her approach of "play the rules as written" was flawed, and
she should have had the gamesmaster do more fudging?

I'm no fan of GM fudging and really wouldn't suggest it to anyone. Nor would
I ever suggest I suggest "playing the rules" as written in a real campaign
(a few tests games is another matter) because it's certain those rules
weren't designed for you.

For example it isn't rocket science to know that a simple CR rating can't
take into account the skill level of the players, the GM, and what they like
or dislike from all the options the D&D ruleset provide for combat
encounters. What players may or may not take for spell selection, which
optional rules they selected, to say nothing of house rules which are nearly
universal in gaming. These things are in combination beyond the ability of
CR to account for.

Which is why something like CR didn't appear for years, and why I consider
it's inclusion in D&D to be something of a mystery.

Post by psychohist
Or
was her handling of all of that okay, but she should also have
considered other factors like how Angels fit into the religious
background of the campaign, and thus perhaps whether to fight them at
all?

She certainly should have done that.

Post by psychohist
I don't see what "sim" has to do with things here. However, it does
strike me that taking these things into account and making adjustments
for them would add back much of the work she was trying to save by
using published modules. Is what you're saying here that there isn't
really a shortcut to running a good campaign, or at least that modules
aren't it?

Modules are shortcuts in the sense that core plot, maps and the like are
suggested. But they can't ever be a replacement for GM judgement, and can't
replace all work. Again the module wasn't written for the specific group and
may include unacceptible plot elements, requirements of certain character
build styles, spell selection, etc.

A module is like buying clothes off the rack. You either live with the poor
fit or do some tailoring. Mary wasn't willing to do either.

Post by psychohist
How should they be addressed? For failures of logic, is the
appropriate solution to simply ignore them - "it's only a game", a
comment I've heard frequently in other contexts - or to patch them up
so things make sense?

Depends, I would have little problem in Mary's place in just passing over
the 'errors'. The ones she detailed weren't so much error anyway then they
were just setting elements she didn't understand.

For example, A powerful NPC doesn't come with us on the adventure. As a
Player, I shrug and go on- my character doesn't know why although he may
wonder. As a player, it doesn't ruin the game for me as I can imagine dozens
of likely reasons.

If one can't do this due to personal requirements, add a reason or change
the module.

Post by psychohist
With respect to morality, I seem to remember a case of a temple of an
evil cult off in the middle of nowhere where it didn't seem like any
of the cult members had actually done anything wrong, at least as far
as Mary could tell. What's the appropriate solution here?

It's D&D, if they show as evil to 'detect evil' especially that of a
Paladin, they are evil. They have killed the innocent, etc. It's known and
it's a given. The details of the evil don't anymore than reason for the NPC
not coming above did- and the answers are the same. Assume it and go on
playing, or give a reason horrid enough to justify the natural D&D
assumption of wasting the bastards.

[psychohist]

Brian Gleichman responds to me with a number of good suggestions and
observations on using published D&D modules.

Instead she nit-picks, from the common idea of
NPCs who send characters on quests instead of
going themselves to why Angels require tests by
battle for healing. Either learn why D&D works
this way (and there are reasons it does), or
just accept that it does.

Okay, I'm curious - why does it work that way?

It's D&D, if they show as evil to 'detect evil'
especially that of a Paladin, they are evil. They
have killed the innocent, etc. It's known and
it's a given.

Okay. That wasn't obvious to me. My guess is that it wasn't obvious
to Mary either.

Warren J. Dew

[Rick Pikul]

Post by psychohist
Brian Gleichman responds to me with a number of good suggestions and
observations on using published D&D modules.
It's D&D, if they show as evil to 'detect evil'
especially that of a Paladin, they are evil. They
have killed the innocent, etc. It's known and
it's a given.
Okay. That wasn't obvious to me. My guess is that it wasn't obvious
to Mary either.

Well, it's not obvious because it's not actually true.

While having an evil alignment is by far the most common reason to detect
as evil, it is not the only way.

Also, even when the evil detected is based on alignment, there is no
difference detected between the guy who is just barely of an evil
alignment, (e.g. someone who needs to only give a single copper to a
beggar to change that E to an N), and the most vile man in history:
Provided they are of the same level.

[gleichman]

Post by psychohist
Instead she nit-picks, from the common idea of
NPCs who send characters on quests instead of
going themselves to why Angels require tests by
battle for healing. Either learn why D&D works
this way (and there are reasons it does), or
just accept that it does.
Okay, I'm curious - why does it work that way?

Having not read the module question it's difficult to be specific, but
the general catch all reason for D&D is that is the way it is because
that's the way it is :)

Basically D&D is (in Threefold terms) a gamist system and it has
gamist modules written for it, so naturally it set up the challenge
and adventure and then got anything that would interfere with it (like
helpful NPCs and free healing) out of the way so you'd have to deal
with said challenge and adventure. It wasn't interested in Sim
concerns of why they were out of the way and so either didn't answer
it, or answered it halfway. Anyone intending (as Mary was) to play as
close to the rules as possible using the modules as written has to
start with that understanding.


That said, it's not difficult to put in the why if you really need it.
The original source materials for fantasy or a look at real life often
reveals very possible and likely answers.

Trial by Combat is a classic of Knightly adventure, often over things
that seem silly to us. Passage over a bridge, or an alliance against a
villian- things we either would give by reasoned thought or not
oppose. This is simply how people in that source material thought. Aid
should only be given to those worthly, and proof by arms is the
greatest proof of being worthly. The movie Excalibur is a nice example
of this when the Queen is insulted and the King calls for a champion
to defend her- for no Knight can be defeated if he is fighting for a
true cause, thus the battle would completely prove the nature of the
Queen's actions.

The Angel's trail by battle easily falls into this classic mode of
thought. You want healing? Prove your worth for it, draw your blade!
If the player wins, they are true and worthy and get the healing. If
they fail, they lacked the worth to win.


As for the NPC stepping out of the way, if one needs to look for
reasons here you don't have to look no further than real life. I'm the
technical lead for my team at work, responsible for the health and up
time for hundreds of servers and with the greatest degree of knowledge
and experience. If a system affecting even thousands of end users goes
down, I don't leap up and take over the resolution (beyond perhaps
giving advice) until the people original assigned the task fail and
deadends. Anyone with management experience should understand why.

Fantasy settings easily share the same reasons, and add more besides.
Remember Gandalf's statement upon lighting a simple fire in the high
pass? Paraphrased it was "And here for any who know how to look is a
beacon that says Gandalf is here".

Post by psychohist
It's D&D, if they show as evil to 'detect evil'
especially that of a Paladin, they are evil. They
have killed the innocent, etc. It's known and
it's a given.
Okay. That wasn't obvious to me. My guess is that it wasn't obvious
to Mary either.

Mary seemed to pay no attention to anything in the rule books other
than the pure mechanic systems. There is a ton of background in there
explaining the nature of alignment and Paladins. Reading that in a
serious manner should have provided all the information needed.

And if that failed, the module itself should have worked, the
reasoning is simple: ...the only way to get the item is to attack the
temple. The temple is noted as Evil, that likely means that the module
considers that justification enough for the Heroes to attack. Ah, that
seems to fit with the background information in the books...

Instead Mary decided the module was stupid, and that an attack on evil
was evil. Mary might be able to get a job with the New York Times, but
she certainly isn't ready to play D&D with that mindset.


I should at this point make one note. The module might actually be
bad, I haven't read it and there such things a bad modules. However
nothing in Mary's posts gives me cause to think so.

[John Morrow]

Post by psychohist
I don't remember Brett specifically, but I do remember there were
other people who generally preferred resolution for a story (D/drama)
who did not have a problem with the model.

Here is a thread from 1998 that I still reference as a fantastic example
of the harm that assumption clash and style clash can cause in a game:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.frp.advocacy/browse_thread/thread/92d021f2f973f19d/

It get's particularly interesting when Tonio Loewald shows up to tell his
side of the story.

John Morrow

[gleichman]

Post by John Morrow
Here is a thread from 1998 that I still reference as a fantastic example
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.frp.advocacy/browse_thread/t...

Brett leaving r.g.f.a was a significant event for my own relationship
to r.f.g.a in general and the threefold specifically. While he and I
were very different in just about every way, one thing we did share in
common was the feeling that the Threefold badly mislabeled our style
of play (his being story focused and mine being game) with terms that
we felt were off the mark at best and dysfunctional at worst.

One of example of this was his claim that a story focused campaign
required a firm simulationist element, this mirrored my own thought in
respect to Gamism. Yet in Threefold terms this was rejected (as the
model defined the corners as exclusive), and any accepted post on
Drama rejected it as a basic assumption.

The result was that the Threefold didn't speak to Brett or myself (and
any number of others who came and left over the years), but it still
stole terms we'd like to use for their original meanings- and made
them the private property of a few core posters here- who would then
label us with them, thus we'd have to bare their baggage.

The stealing of common terms was perhaps the Threefold's worse crime.
If they had names like the Champions player types talked about here
recently (World Explorer instead of Simulationist for example) I think
things would have been different as that method implies a more
specific view of approaching games than the Threefold, which implies
by both it's form and practice (i.e. the rejection of any expansion)
that three styles is all there is. Saying I'm not a much of World
Explorer is a lot easier than saying I'm not a Simulationist because I
know for a fact that Simulation is very important to my gaming style.

Often someone would point out that the Threefold terms were specific
and unrelated to their common meanings, but that did nothing to alter
one's instinctive reaction upon seeing the term, and was worse than
ineffective for anyone new to the group as we flamewarred our way
through the same old points upon each arrival.

Even granted all that, that view was completely undermined by the
rejection of expansion. Ok, so Gamist means this very narrow slice..
can I have a term to cover.. "NO! It covers everything that needs to
be covered!". Sigh.


I've also come to reject the claim that the Threefold was useful in
understanding other styles. Warren has spent what seems a significant
degree of effort understanding mine- but often notes that he still
doesn't. Mary burned *years* trying to run a good gamist campaign, and
can only produce broken illusions of the same and rants about her
failures here. I think part of the problem in both cases is that the
Threefold is limiting their vision too much for them to succeed.

The Threefold basically made it impossible for people to define
themselves in their own way, and thus it was completely counter to
what is often claimed to be it's original goal.

[psychohist]

Brian Gleichman posts, in part:

The result was that the Threefold didn't speak to Brett or
myself (and any number of others who came and left over the
years), but it still stole terms we'd like to use for their
original meanings

One of the issues with trying to figure anything out is that one comes
up with new concepts for which there isn't any preexisting
terminology, or comes up with precise definitions for concepts that
were previously fuzzy. One has to use some kind of terminology for
those concepts.

Yes, this often conflicts with other peoples' use of the same words.
That's why, when trying to enter an ongoing discussion on a topic, it
behooves people to understand the definitions that are being used,
first. The term "work" has a very precise definition in physics; if
you want to understand or use physics, where work is defined in terms
of force and distance, it's pointless to insist on using your own
preexisting definition of the term that is married to concepts like
money and labor that have nothing to do with physics.

I disagree that your own or others' definitions of "simulationism" are
any closer to the "original" meaning of the word than the use of the
term with respect to the threefold. For that matter, what you mean by
simulation is almost certainly different from what Brett meant by
simulation. It's better to avoid the term and use other terms that
are less confusing, like "realism" or "accuracy" or "consistency".

I do agree that use of the term "simulationism" has caused confusion,
and I tend to avoid it for that reason. However, I don't agree that
using different terminology can entirely prevent the problem. I
strongly suspect that I would have similar problems with Champions'
use of the the term "world explorer" that you have with
"simulationism" in the threefold. It just happens to be that the
Champions term doesn't step your your toes, so it doesn't bother you.

I've also come to reject the claim that the Threefold was
useful in understanding other styles. Warren has spent what
seems a significant degree of effort understanding mine-
but often notes that he still doesn't.

Understanding isn't a binary thing. I believe I understand your
gaming style, including its gamist elements, much better than I did
when you first showed up in the newsgroup. However, I think there are
things that I still don't understand fully and would like to
understand better. Likely that will always be the case, no matter how
much I do come to understand.

I'd also note that the elements of your gaming style that I'm most
interested in now have, I suspect, little to do with gamism. It
strikes me, for example, that your concept of what a paladin should be
is orthogonal to the issues that the threefold addresses. In fact,
that's one of the reasons I'm interested in exploring it: it seems to
be a game style issue that has nothing to do with the threefold.

Warren J. Dew

[gleichman]

Post by psychohist
Yes, this often conflicts with other peoples' use of the same words.
That's why, when trying to enter an ongoing discussion on a topic, it
behooves people to understand the definitions that are being used,
first.

That would have weight if I was engaging in a field that had a Newton
and hundreds of years of successful applied application of his work.

Here we have a bunch of gamers, each no better than the others. You're
no Newton (nor am I of course), there hasn't been any true application
of note, and I have as much right to define or reject terms as you.
And that is the heart of the problem, for a disputed term to be
selected in any serious group of people- it has to be peer reviewed
and accepted. Nothing of the kind happened here; instead it was
printed by Kim's heavy hand in the FAQ and forced down everyone's
throat.

The result should have been predictable. And it could have been
avoided.

Post by psychohist
I disagree that your own or others' definitions of "simulationism" are
any closer to the "original" meaning of the word than the use of the
term with respect to the threefold. For that matter, what you mean by
simulation is almost certainly different from what Brett meant by
simulation. It's better to avoid the term and use other terms that
are less confusing, like "realism" or "accuracy" or "consistency".

I recall Brett's posts rather well, and don't recall any serious
difference with Brett on that matter. In games, Simulation (unlike the
threefold) had decades of practical, accepted and applied use that was
ignored by r.f.g.a.

Post by psychohist
I
strongly suspect that I would have similar problems with Champions'
use of the the term "world explorer" that you have with
"simulationism" in the threefold. It just happens to be that the
Champions term doesn't step your your toes, so it doesn't bother you.

I doubt it because Champions doesn't have a term called "World
Explorer", it would have been yours completely to define and sub-
divide.

Paired words like that offer great freedom as it's immediately obvious
that one is speaking about something more specific (much like Brian
Gleichman instead of just Brian) as well as offering a much reduced
chance of duplicating some other model. To my knowledge, there are
only three or so attempts to build a rpg model in such terms- r.f.g.a
could have 'owned' their choices whole cloth.

But instead they took Drama, Game, and Simulation- words used by many
gamers and turned them on their heads. I'm almost surprised they
didn't claim rpg as a term that meant "only campaigns ran in Mary's
style", for it would have made as much sense.

Post by psychohist
It
strikes me, for example, that your concept of what a paladin should be
is orthogonal to the issues that the threefold addresses.

As I feel my entire method of play is beyond the threefold, I wouldn't
be surprised.

[psychohist]

Brian Gleichman posts, in part:

Here we have a bunch of gamers, each no better than the
others. You're no Newton (nor am I of course), there
hasn't been any true application of note, and I have as
much right to define or reject terms as you.

The same word can have different meanings depending on context.
Within the context of the threefold, and this group, terms like
"simulationism" were fairly generally accepted as labels for a
particular concept.

If you or anyone else wanted to accept the model, but use different
labels, you were free to start using your own labels, and to suggest
that others do likewise. I tried doing this myself with the
threefold, but doing so does come with a cost of having to constantly
remind people of what the variant label means, until it becomes
accepted within the group, if ever. As a result, I haven't completely
switched to using "world oriented" in place of "simulationist".

If you or anyone else wanted to discuss different concepts, you were
free to come up with your own model, and define your own concepts and
suggest your own labels for them. You could even reuse the same
labels for those different concepts if you wanted to, and if you
weren't concerned with the confusion that might result.

To the extent that "rights" are involved, I'd say that the originator
of a model will obviously be the first one to define the related
terms. With respect to the threefold, it's kind of hard to say
exactly who the originators were, but ultimately the most common
terminology was accepted by the regulars in the group at the time.
Other people are still free to use different labels for the same
things, or the same labels to mean other things, of course - but it
behooves everyone to define their terms if they want to avoid
misunderstanding.

In games, Simulation (unlike the threefold) had decades
of practical, accepted and applied use that was ignored
by r.f.g.a.

I don't agree. In wargaming, there has always been a tension between
the use of "simulation" to mean "having predictive power about the
outcomes and flows of battles", the way Dunnigan tried to do things in
his designs, and the using it to mean "including a greater level of
detail", an approach that was taken to its limits in games like
Tobruk. Any application of the term in roleplaying games has been
even more vague. In any case, I don't know of any use of the term
"simulationism" - with the suffix - predating the threefold in either
area.

I do agree that terms and definitions were incorporated into John
Kim's FAQ prematurely, and lack of updating eventually resulted in
that FAQ becoming worse than useless. None of the regulars ever
claimed that the FAQ was definitive, though; I don't think the
regulars or the model can be blamed for newcomers mistaking the FAQ
for "truth" rather than for "one person's understanding at one single
point in time".

Paired words like that offer great freedom as it's
immediately obvious that one is speaking about something
more specific (much like Brian Gleichman instead of just
Brian) as well as offering a much reduced chance of
duplicating some other model.

I agree it reduces the chances of duplication; I don't agree that it's
a panacea. Misunderstandings can still arise, and sometimes adding
words can make things more misleading, rather than less. All that
said, I often use two words rather than one - as in "world
orientation" - for just this reason.

At any rate, none of these things are criticisms of the concepts of
the threefold model itself; they are only criticisms of the
terminology that some people used for it. That's not to say the
concepts couldn't be criticized - of course they can be - but that's a
separate issue from criticism of the terminology.

To my knowledge, there are only three or so attempts to
build a rpg model in such terms- r.f.g.a could have
'owned' their choices whole cloth.

But instead they took Drama, Game, and Simulation- words
used by many gamers and turned them on their heads.

The tradeoff was between longer terms that would be clearer to
newcomers to the group but more cumbersome in discussions between
regulars, and shorter terms that regulars would immediately understand
but would have to be explained to newcomers. Given the concepts would
probably have to be explained to any interested newcomers anyway, I
don't think choosing the latter was necessarily a mistake.

Warren J. Dew

[psychohist]

I wrote:

If you or anyone else wanted to discuss different
concepts, you were free to come up with your own
model, and define your own concepts and suggest
your own labels for them.

To clarify, I don't mean to imply that you didn't do this; you did on
a number of occasions, and I think those discussions were useful.

Also, I went back and checked some of the discussions involving Brett
Evill, and I think he did some of this too - and in the posts I
reread, he seemed happy to use terms like "realism" and "faithfulness
to the setting" that did not conflict with the threefold.

I do now remember that the way he came across to me was as a "one true
way" person, and he seemed unwilling to accept that others, including
myself, might actually dislike some of the things that he seemed to
think everyone should want in their roleplaying.

Warren J. Dew

[gleichman]

Post by psychohist
If you or anyone else wanted to accept the model, but use different
labels, you were free to start using your own labels, and to suggest
that others do likewise.

What we were free to do was be ignored and labeled by the threefold
anyway. And that's what happened.

Post by psychohist
If you or anyone else wanted to discuss different concepts, you were
free to come up with your own model, and define your own concepts and
suggest your own labels for them.

Many of the people involved didn't want models and labels of any kind,
I include myself in this group.

Besides, we already put this to the test. A fair number of models
started here in r.g.f.a, the old FAQ covered a good amount of them,
and I even a had a few myself although they were never judged worthly
of being included in the FAQ. How many of those were ever talked about
outside the post they were first put forth in?

One or two maybe, for an addition couple of threads at best? Anyone
here remember any of them?

But the threefold is remembered- with hatred by many. Why is that?
Likely not for the reasons you're giving here. Terms and such you
claim would apply to all of them- but only the threefold caused raging
flamewars. But then again, only the Threefold stole terms, excluded
addition, accused people of being too stupid to understand it, etc.

Post by psychohist
To the extent that "rights" are involved, I'd say that the originator
of a model will obviously be the first one to define the related
terms.

And that is plainly false, the first one to apply labels and gets a
critical mass of like thinking people behind them gets to frame the
debate- and gets to cause the resulting problems if the model fails to
gain wide acceptance.

Post by psychohist
I don't agree. In wargaming, there has always been a tension between
the use of "simulation" to mean "having predictive power about the
outcomes and flows of battles", the way Dunnigan tried to do things in
his designs, and the using it to mean "including a greater level of
detail", an approach that was taken to its limits in games like
Tobruk.

And I disagree with this, seeing "greater level of detail" as but one
approach to the Simulation within that hobby and not a Simulation goal
itself. Also Tobruk was hardly the limit.

Post by psychohist
At any rate, none of these things are criticisms of the concepts of
the threefold model itself; they are only criticisms of the
terminology that some people used for it.

Since the FAQ and it's surpporters only defined the threefold by
terminology, it's selection thereof is rather critical I would think.
It controlled the terms and blocked the exchange of thoughts here. I
can't imagine any other criticism being needed.

Well, it was a horrid model besides.

Post by psychohist
The tradeoff was between longer terms that would be clearer to
newcomers to the group but more cumbersome in discussions between
regulars, and shorter terms that regulars would immediately understand
but would have to be explained to newcomers. Given the concepts would
probably have to be explained to any interested newcomers anyway, I
don't think choosing the latter was necessarily a mistake.

Given the number and quality of people we lost due to the threefold
flamewars, I disagree.

[George W Harris]

On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 13:52:22 -0700, gleichman <***@hotmail.com>
wrote:

:
:Besides, we already put this to the test. A fair number of models
:started here in r.g.f.a, the old FAQ covered a good amount of them,
:and I even a had a few myself although they were never judged worthly
:of being included in the FAQ. How many of those were ever talked about
:outside the post they were first put forth in?

That's the nature of the marketplace of ideas.
If no one finds an idea interesting or useful, it falls to the
wayside.
:
:One or two maybe, for an addition couple of threads at best? Anyone
:here remember any of them?
:
:But the threefold is remembered- with hatred by many. Why is that?

Many? Many found it useful, and still do. That's
why it was discussed so much.

:Likely not for the reasons you're giving here. Terms and such you
:claim would apply to all of them- but only the threefold caused raging
:flamewars. But then again, only the Threefold stole terms,

Using applicable terms is more sensible than
calling decision-making techniques glorknost,
fibblegist and skaaarn.

:excluded
:addition,

I see you don't recall that it was originally the
Twofold.

:accused people of being too stupid to understand it, etc.

I don't recall anything in the model about the
Too Stupid To Understand It vertex. But then, you
accuse people who use variant paladins of playing
them wrong. Not the most accepting of others styles,
are you?

[John Morrow]

Post by psychohist
I think, however, that most of the people who objected to existence of
the model itself simply didn't believe that there were people with
preferences different from their own.

I'm not sure that's true. Bruce Baugh, for example, was a pretty vocal
detractor of the Threefold yet he said he found Glenn Blacow's model
somewhat useful. In retrospect, with some experience arguing against
another model as an outsider (the Forge's GNS), I think the problem is
that it really is difficult to discuss the problems of a model or concepts
that don't fit the model well when people insist on framing everything in
terms of that model. I never grasped out frustrating and annoying that
was as an insider in the Threefold, but understood it after arguing as an
outsider to the GNS.

Henry Ford said of the Model T, "The customer can have any color he
wants so long as it's black." When a model like the Threefold or GNS
take over, it becomes a lot like, "You can talk about any type of game
you want as long as it's one of these types." And if what you want to
talk about doesn't fit those types or the distinctions between those
types don't illustrate the distinction that you want to make, you are
out of luck.

And to make it clear, I think all of this is often entirely unintentional.

John Morrow

[psychohist]

John Morrow posts, in part:

In retrospect, with some experience arguing against
another model as an outsider (the Forge's GNS), I
think the problem is that it really is difficult to
discuss the problems of a model or concepts that
don't fit the model well when people insist on
framing everything in terms of that model.

I think that problems with a model and concepts that don't fit the
model are two different issues.

To discuss a model intelligently, whether to point out problems or
otherwise, requires understanding the model first. If one doesn't
understand the model in the first place, any criticism is likely to
end up being irrelevant and unrelated to the model.

If one wishes to discuss concepts that don't fit into a model well,
obviously it's not going to be useful to talk to people who are only
interested in discussing things that model covers. That's not a
problem with the model; it's just different people not having common
ground for discussion.

My brief experience with The Forge and GNS bore this out. I got to
the point where I understood GNS well enough to understand that it was
a quite different model from the threefold, and I think I corrected
some people who thought it had subsumed the threefold. They weren't
really interested in discussing things unrelated to the GNS framework,
and I didn't personally find it a useful framework, so I quit posting
there. There's nothing wrong with that.

Flame wars here about the threefold, subsequent its initial
development, have generally been with people who actually claimed to
want to discuss things within the threefold, rather than wanting to
discuss things unrelated to the threefold. If they had been willing
to bring unrelated topics up, and were interested in examining them
rigorously, I think many regulars would have been happy to
participate.

Warren J. Dew

[Beowulf Bolt]

Post by psychohist
Flame wars here about the threefold, subsequent its initial
development, have generally been with people who actually claimed to
want to discuss things within the threefold, rather than wanting to
discuss things unrelated to the threefold. If they had been willing
to bring unrelated topics up, and were interested in examining them
rigorously, I think many regulars would have been happy to
participate.

In all fairness, I recall a lot of flamewars that started when thread
drift brought the Threefold into the debate or people started trying to
apply the Threefold to every problem in sight, whether or not it fit
(and often over the objections of the people introducing the problem).

I can understand why people who don't like the Threefold model would
have (and did - vehemently) object to this.

Biff

[gleichman]

Post by psychohist
If they had been willing
to bring unrelated topics up, and were interested in examining them
rigorously, I think many regulars would have been happy to
participate.

My experience was quite different. The threefold would be inserted
into just about anything, no matter how unrelated. Few of the regulars
had your mindset of it as a narrow model and applied it in mass to
everything.

Nor do I think the people who complained about it didn't understand
it. I think that is a knee jerk equaling "people who disagree with me
must be stupid". It is perhaps the best statement about how the
threefold divided people and prevented exchanges.

[George W Harris]

On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 12:47:35 -0700, gleichman <***@hotmail.com>
wrote:

: I think that is a knee jerk equaling "people who disagree with me
:must be stupid".

You mean like "People who play paladins
differently are doing it wrong"?