The flavours of Tension in the 3-way model (Part 1)

(If recent days are anything to go by, this post is going to be generally viewed by a few people, maybe discussed a bit...but lose traction pretty quickly.. then in 10 to 1t5 years, it'll suddenly be popular. Maybe the ideas in it will be announced by someone who happens to be the indie darlig of the scene in the mid to late 2030s, and I'll say things like "I was saying this years ago"... anyway, here goes.)

If you're still with me in this description of how I see the mechanisms at play in a TTRPG session, you'll accept the ideas that there are three different forces at play, and there are three different types of session those forces will be looking for. Two of the forces are personified by the participants in the session, the GM/Narrator, and the Players, while the third force is embodied by the rules being used as a framework for the session. Each of these pulls on the others, and it's the interplay of the ways that they pull that makes (or breaks) a session. Remember that each of these ideas is stereotypes, many of the people involved in a gaming session will be a blend of these descriptions. 

Let's start with the types of tension that might be felt by the GM/Narrator.

Gamist GM/Narrator

A person facilitating the game in this way is aiming to produce a fair and balanced experience for the other participants. They will often be a "rules as written" type of facilitator. They may not be particularly concerned with the way the story unfolds, and will often doivided the session into encounters to be "won" or "lost". They may have a preconcieved notion of how the session may be modified based on the wins or losses obtained by the players, typically in accordance with the written rules of the game. The Gamist typically has an end point in mind, and all decisions will lead to that climax. In some cases they might have a few potential end points, but either way, they're aiming toward a conclusion.  

Tension with a Gamist Player

There shouldn't be any major existential tensions between a Gamist GM/Narrator and a Gamist player. In this case, both are looking to work within the rules of the game, and both are looking for a definitive conclusion with a winner and a loser. Naturally, the gamist player is aiming toward themselves being the "winner" of the session, but like a game of chess, they'll probably be willing to sacrifice things, people, or relationships to get there. The tension between gamists in this regard is the tension of two competitors angling to get the edge in the situation, knowing the rules, knowing how to use those rules to their advantage, and maybe knowing how to bend those rules to keep their opponent on their toes. Knowing the rules of the dungeon-bash might see an old-school DM facing off against a group of murder-hobos... they both know how the game is played, with ten-foot poles, flasks of oil, killing the kobolds and goblins and not worrying about the ethical dilemmas, the aim is just to get in and get out with the least damage and the most treasure. As long as they both play by the rules, the game is good, but metagaming is frowned upon because that's being caught playing with the rules rather than playing within them.

Tension with a Narrativist Player

A Narrativist player starts with a situation, and lets it play out, following the story where it leads them. They often aren't looking for the end of the story, they just want it to keep going and keep evolving. The rules of the game are less important than the story unfolding during the session, and this is where they will often come into tension with the Gamist GM/Narrator. The Narrator will be looking for ways within the framework of the rules to bring the story to a head, while the player will be looking for ways to prolong the story. It all ends up a game of cat and mouse, where tje cat is trying to end the game by ending the mouses story, and the mouse is struggling to keep the game going by staying alive a bit longer and not making a mistake. If these two participants realise how each other is playing, and accept this, the tension can be played with...however, if they don't accept one another's play style, the Gamist GM/Narrator will often complain that their player isn't playing the game properly, and the player may be upset with a railroaded story where their narrattive decisions make no apparent impact on ongoing session play. If the Gamist GM/Narrator can focus on what happens non-diegetically, and can guide the way the rules impact the story, they can allow the Narrativist player to focus of the diegetic elements of the game. The catch is knowing and accepting boundaries, and working with them as creative tools in the liminal shared imaginary world of the session, rather than considering them obstacles to overcome.

Tension with a Simulationist Player 

A simulationist player is looking to experience a form of escapism within a familiar world or paradigm where they feel a range of emotional beats and interact with a range of expected encounters that give a sense of verisimilitude to the world portrayed in the setting. The important thing is not the winning or losing, nor is it the telling of new tales with an unknown ending. The aim is to maintain familiarity, it's why this player is engaged in the hobby, this is their comfort zone. Something similar in an adjacent hobby might be a cosplayer who always portrays a specific character, they know this character and attend conventions hoping to interact with other cosplayers who portray characters from the same world. If those other cosplayers respond with the right words and actions, the cosplayer is happy and but as soon as they deviate from the expected scripts they feel betrayed. The tension here is like the narrativist player wanting certain diegetic factors from their session, but in this case the Simulationist player doesn't aim to keep the story going by following evolving character goals and relational dynamics revealed in the session, they aim to keep the story within the parameters that they accept as the limits of the setting. The Simulationist player will often be the one complaining "but she wouldn't react that way", "but there's meant to  be a door on the other side of that wall" (maybe adding specific movie quotes or episode references to back up their comments). To the Simulationist player, a Gamist GM/Narrator is trivialising their world to s series of contests, rather than allowing the exploration and experience of a setting they love. To work with this sort of player, the GM/Narrator can set their challenges in a non-diegetic way, using the rules of the system, while allowing the Simulationist player to anchor those challenges in the context of the world, perhaps making their character a lore expert in the setting to capitalise on the player's knowledge... using it as an advatange rather than a disadvantage.
 

Narrativist GM/Narrator

A person facilitating the game this way desires an artifact of play in the form of a story that unfolds as a chronicle of the events encountered. While a gamist may set specific challenges, and a simulationist confines themselves to the established oeuvre and dogma, the narrativist simply lets things follow a natural course of escalation, or meandering slice-of-life storytelling that has no set goal. They will typically kick things off with a starting situation, throw in a couple of motivational drivers in the form of relationships or rumours, then let the players direct their characters as they see fit... following along and providing repercussions to actions where necessary. 

Tension with a Gamist Player

A gamist player is looking to find the rules, play within the rules, and exploit the rules to gain an edge. In this way they might be considered a finite game player (of we were to appropriate the terminology of James P. Carse), while the Narrativist GM/Narrator is an infinite player looking to expand the parameters of play so that the story can theoretically continue indefinitely. The frustration here is twofold. The infinite GM/Narrator will often provide story hooks that don't seem advantageous to the player, so the hook will be ignored even if it provides an interesting story-line, they will similarly retcon actions and add new context to previous scenes in the attempt to expand play, only to have the player complain that the new twists in the story no longer provide value for them. The flip-side to this is that the player is looking for the non-diegetic advantages that give the the power fantasy they are looking for in the session, but the flux of the infinite either gives them option paralysis or renders their benefits irrelevant in the face of changing parameters. The gamist player feels deprotagonised because they aren't getting the power trip they expect from a session. The Narrativist GM/Narrator feels that the one-track mind of the player isn't allowing for a wider scope of session development. I've seen this personally, and have heard many anecdotes where this works as a rough explanation of the circumstances that have led to games breaking down.

Tension with a Narrativist Player

A Narrativist GM/Narrator and a Narrativist player will typically only come to tension when they have different ideas about where a session's story seems to be heading, and how they believe different events in the stories past may be building context for actions that are currently taking place. The story at the heart of a TTRPG session is always going to be a gestalt entity, it wad mentioned previously that if a GM/Narrator has dominance in the tension they might as well be a novelist writing their own book. Both agree that the story needs to move forward, the tension is purely based on which way forward the story should go. Here's where an element of simulationism (what does the setting say is likely to happen?) or an element of gamism (what do the rules say is likely to happen?) needs to be added to the mix to resolve the issue... note that even a vote of "what do the majority of participants agree to?" is functionally a rule in this circumstance. If everyone agrees, the story just keeps moving onward in a straight trajectory, nothing influences it's inertia... this is where the whole idea of "vector theory" began, and where this whole idea of the three way tension began it's creative journey.

Tension with a Simulationist Player 

This type of player wants to spend time in an imagined environment with their friends. If there's any story, that might be a bonus, but if there's too much character development then the imagined environment might start to look different to the setting that they came for. They're probably here for "slice-of-life" scenes and vignettes that don't change the environment or characters in major ways, and moments that reflect events that they've seen in the setting previously. If a Narrativist GM/Narrator is here for the dynamic changes to relationships and elements of the setting, they'll often be expected to find some way to retcon significant events and wind them back in some way to restore the normalcy. Perhaps the Gamist is looking for an end point (where they are the winner, or where they may start the contest again), the Narrativist is looking for an eternal trajectory to infinity so the stories can continue forever, and the Simulationist is looking for cycles so they can keep travelling without end, but keep revisiting their comfort scenes on a regular basis. The tension could be resolved by ensuring their are fixed points in the session, characters that either can't be killed or are replaced by simulacra who have the same function as previous incarnations, or perhaps there are certain characters and places that are regularly talked about but they are generally off-limits in the regular session play. Perhaps if a game is set in a well-known IP, such as the setting of a TV series, the events of the game can parallel the storylines of the show, discussing such things from another perspective. Thus allowing the simulationist to regularly check in with their reason for being here, while allowing their own tale to move forward with limited interaction with the show's main characters. It will take a bit of work, but once again could make for some fun stories where the IP at the heart of the simulation starts pulling it's own tensions on the setting.

Simulationist GM/Narrator 

A person facilitating the game this way has a distinct setting or core concept at the heart of their sessions. They could be providing a environment that reflects a well known IP, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, The Office, What we do in the Shadows... or they could be simulating the types of unfolding narrative of murder mysteries, police procedurals, isekai anime, or generic cyberpunk. Each of these settings has it's own operating rules and procedures, some written, some unspoken buyt generally acknowledged by fans. Often, I've seen that the type of GM/Narrator who runs sessions like this will be a person who wants to play a game in this type of setting, but never gets the chance so they run it instead (often inserting the kinds of characters they want to see in such a setting as their NPCs). A Simulationist facilitating the game will typically be aware of the characters, the locations, the tropes, the existing storylines. They will typically work to funnel the session's encounters and storylines to specific set pieces that reveal their understanding of the setting to the players they are providing a game for. They'll allow exploration of the world, and interaction with characters to an extent, but they'll know where the soft barriers are to the players, and know the specific lines that shouldn't be crossed without risking a fracture to the setting's reality. 

 

Tension with a Gamist Player

The Simulationist GM/Narrator has snippets of static moments in their mind, where the tensions of relationships n the setting have led to dramatic moments, perhaps those moments are won or lost, perhaps they change the course of history in the setting, but it is the moment where the characters are embodied and the players feel their place in the shared liminal world that drives them. The Gamist player wants to win that moment, regardless of whether such a win would disrupt the world around them. The Gamist knows the rules, and probably understands the mechanisms that drive the setting better than the individuals who live within it. They're well represented by the types of player who want to build a "peasant rail-gun". Such a concept may be valid according to the rules as written in the game, but they certainly don't fit the spirit of the game, and don't make sense in the world being simulated by those rules. Even though it's been fashionable in many game circles over the past two decades to continually say "Yes, and...", when it comes to dealing with such a situation, the Simulationist GM/Narrator sometimes has to say "NO". Once something like this is allowed, the setting becomes irrevocably broken. It's the "Game Over" that the Gamist seeks, but probably not in the way they expected.

Tension with a Narrativist Player

A Narrativist player will follow the story wherever it may lead, regardless of the impact it has on the setting, and when they are denied the opportunity to pursue the story they will often feel like they have been railroaded and deprotagonised. That kind of makes sense in simulationist play, because the aim of the session is not about having agency and making a difference, it's about feeling a part of the world, perhaps exploring how it makes you feel and how it changes you, rather than how you change it. To deal with a Narrativist, it's probably best to focus on stories being a path of self-discovery or develop a reward cycle that encourages exploration and discovery more than anything else. The Narrativist should always be encouraged to tell stories that reinforce the concepts of the setting, or to incorporate ideas that the group has already accepted as a part of the world. It's not so much that other stories can't be told, but those other stories should be rare and elusive...those are the stories of other settings.

Tension with a Simulationist Player 

The biggest tension between a Simulationist GM/Narrator and a Simulationist player will be the underlying assumptions of how the setting works and how it's meant to make the group feel. Does a game set in the Dreamlands of the Cthulhu Mythos work better if it leans into the fantasy or the horror of the environment? Does a steampunk story lose it's flavour if magic is introduced? Does a Star Wars story need Jedi as a background element (at the bare minimum)? Every setting is a medium through which stories are told, and once the message has been crafted by the writer, it is up to the recipients of that message to decode it in a way that makes sense for them. The aim is to keep enough of the setting a mystery for everyone to fill in a few blanks of their own with the subconscious understanding of the world, and thus allow them to take on a meaning of their own story within that setting. (This is probably getting a bit too vague and nebulous, so I'll leave it there.)

 

Perhaps the biggest points of this post are that there will always be tensions, and that tensions aren't always a bad thing. If you know what sorts of tensions to expect, you can work with them to your advantage in a game session. If you don't know what sorts of tensions to expect, they can blindside you and shatter the experience. I'm sure there are plenty more tensions out there, ones that I've seen and forgotten about, a,long with the ones that I haven't seen. If you're reading along and have noticed some glaring omissions, or maybe have some ideas and wonder where I might slide them into the system described, send me a response. I'd love to hear from you whether it's in a few days, or a few years.