Threefold model
role-playing game model
The threefold model or GDS theory of roleplaying games is an attempt to distinguish three different goals in roleplaying. In its original formation, these are: Drama, simulation, and game. It was the inspiration for subsequent theories, such as the GNS theory, which retained a three-way division but altered other aspects of the model.
The model
In its most formal sense, the threefold model claims that any single gamemaster (GM) decision (about the resolution of in-game events) can be made in order to further the goals of drama, simulation, or game. By extension, a series of decisions may be described as tending towards one or two of the three goals, to a greater or lesser extent. This can be visualised as an equilateral triangle, with a goal at each vertex, and the points between them representing different weightings of the different goals. As a consequence, a player or GM can characterise their preferred gaming style as a point on this triangle, or (since no real precision is implied) in words such as "mostly gamist" or "dramatist with a bit of simulationist" or "right in the middle".
Another consequence of the model is the claim that by advancing towards one of the goals, one is moving away from the other two. Thus a game that is highly dramatic will be neither a good simulation nor a challenging game, and so on. This assertion has been widely challenged, and led to criticism of the model.
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This entry incorporates text from “Threefold model” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.