This isn’t good sociological theory, because it’s based on one man’s observations rather than actual research. You can see this in the evolution from the threef

This isn’t good sociological theory, because it’s based on one man’s observations rather than actual research. You can see this in the evolution from the threefold model —- it’s just “my experiences are different, therefore.” That said it was important to say system does matter. Lots of fruitful discussion came out of these models. They’re just not particularly rigorous. It’s also worth noting that the Wikipedia article is incorrect. Ron didn’t intend to say “players have one of three mutually-exclusive perspectives,” although given that the original essay said “I’m a hard-core Narrativist” it’s easy to understand where people get that impression. But Ron has a series of posts about picking up Tunnels and Trolls and playing with the Gamist creative agenda: he thinks that games should have one clear perspective, and that you should play them with that perspective. But any given player may well enjoy one, two, or all three of the styles at different times.