The Big Model, by Ron Edwards

The Big model

'A group of friends gets together (Social Contract) and decides to play a roleplaying game about superheroes in love (Exploration). They use a set of tools (Techniques) to do things in the game (Ephemera). The decisions that they make in terms of what things to explore and how to explore them compose their Creative Agenda.'

This is a more all-encompassing model of how a role-playing game works, the original GNS theory has been condensed into the Creative agenda, while all the elements used to achieve the creative agenda have been shown as well as how they inter-relate.

• Social contract is the context in which all roleplaying occurs.
• Exploration is the definition or role-playing. The players explore the world, theme, situation and characters. The elements that players will explore can further be broken down into 5:
• Characters - The fictional beings which the players focus on. Divided by control.
• Setting - The imaginary place and time which the role-play is set.
• Colour - comprises all the details which give the game a certain flavor but do not affect the development of a situation.
• Situation - The players motivation to act, without a driving force or juxtaposition the players will have no need to act and therefor will not.
• System - is the procedures by which those elements change and develop. Usually worked out by a 'Dungeon Master' beforehand, akin to the written story plan.
• Technique - The system with which the players decide what happens within the game, this can range from dice rolls to card drawing.
• Ephemera includes what the players say, what dice they roll, what the dice results are, how they react to each other's contributions, and much, much more. Ephemera is the "meat" of play, the medium by which the rest of the game operates.
• Creative agenda can be found at the heart of all, and can be defined as the 'reason to play'. This is the objective of the player or what they want to achieve; there are many different objectives for players even when playing the same game. This was originally definied as GNS theory, and as such it breaks down into the same three basic concepts:
• Simulation (the right to dream) This creative agenda emphasizes appreciation for nuanced development of character, setting, and color to no other end than creating a holistically consistent experience.
• Gamism (step on up) is based upon the imaginary world being an arena to proove the abilities of the player, emphesising mastery of the systems and clever use of the character as the values to determine a good player
• Narritivism (story now) attempts to use the elements of exploration to create an engaging story that addresses a "premise" to produce a theme. Premise in this context is a defining question or theory (e.g.You must protect the ones you love). The primary focus is exploration of this theme.

Of course this system is not without criticism. The model is predated by some of the biggest and most successful games (D&D, world of darkness), therefor it's usefulness is questionable. The theory is also Totalist, as it seeks to encompass all definitions of role-playing, meaning that anything that it cannot explain seems dismissed. Another critique of the big model is it is disconnected to the study of the arts in a broader sense, and finally it seems to have no definition for 'immertionist' gameplay.

I will keep these critisisms in mind, however I do not believe it is fair to critisise a game for the successes of the games that predate it. I also believe that while it can be considered totalist it can also be recognized as a broad definition instead of a rigid set of rules. As for the disconnection to the broader study of the arts that is something I will have to keep in mind; it is noteworthy that the theory does not relate to other studies of drama or storytelling. Finally I will study immertionist play as a possible exception to this theory.

Immersion 

(copied from the RPG talk wiki)

Immersion can be described as the sense of a virtual reality experienced in a role-playing game. It includes such experiences as empathizing with a character, responding to narrative elements, and making decisions in-game rather than using meta-game thinking. For the player, immersion generally means geetting into their character and imagining something of their experience. For the gamemaster, immersion can be trickier to describe, but might involve imagining the world, reacting to the PCs as characters, and treating NPCs as entities with their own motivations and rationales for existence.
Immersion is roughly the antonym of Meta-Gaming. For this reason, immersion often represents an opposed viewpoint to theories based on goal achievement, such as GNS Theory. While someone engaged in immersion might experience a sense of the dramatic or a thrill at overcoming a challenge, the experience is immediate. Hence, an immersionist could share the same goal as a Power Gamer but have a markedly different play experience. While The Big Model partly came about to describe this type of involvement, ultimately this model breaks down because of the problem with simulation when applied to an immersive experience and the lack of description for what it means for someone to feel immersed. You can believe in a simulation and agree with its accuracy without being engaged.