Honestly though, my role-playing game should include Role-playing, Imagination, and be Mentally challenging? That's like saying chickens have core values which include beaks, feathers, and eggs.
Nice line - sorry I haven't got any XP for you.
But I'm also going to try and use your weight against you in a mighty judo-throw: notice that you didn't confine "mentally challenging" to being a desideratum for gamist play. I think in 4e the central role of carefully-calibrated challenges is similar. It certainly emphasises the situation/encounter as the site of play, and thereby downplays traditional D&D-style exploration. But these encounters don't have to be challenges in the step-on-up sense.
your playstyle is simply not explicit in the core 4e texts.
I think it's rather implicit in the skill challenge rules, and also in James Wyatt's famous "say yes" and "skip to the fun" advice, and a bit more overt in the cut-and-paste by Robin Laws from the HeroQuest revised rulebook into the DMG 2. (The problem with this cut-and-paste isn't that it's unclear about playstyle, but that it doesn't explain how to adapte the HQ techniques to the different mechanical environment of 4e.)
I agree it's not as clear as in rulebooks like Marvel Heroic or Burning Wheel. But nor is the gamist idea - there is nothing analogous to (for instance) Gygax's description of skilled play in the closing pages (before the appendices) of his PHB, and his invocations of skilled play throughout his DMG. So someone who came to 4e with gamist expectations might read it that way, but someone who came with narrativist or high-concept sim expectations I think could equally read it that way. (I think it doesn't have an easy reading for those with process-sim expectations - which turns out to be a good chunk of the 3E player base.)
Nearly EVERYTHING in the "prima facie" presentation of the 4e ruleset, ESPECIALLY in the original "Core 3," is all based on scene-level, encounter based challenges, with combat being the primary "frameset," and skill challenges the secondary.
<snip>
Because powers are the primary mechanical construct used by players to face encounter challenges----which forcefully communicates to the player, regardless of any surrounding material, that facing and defeating challenges is, in fact, the primary function of the 4e game itself.
That is 100%, unequivocally a gamist mindset.
<snip>
Most typical gaming groups are going to play it straight up---"Here's a challenge, use your resources to defeat it."
That is the ultimate expression of gamism. There's literally no other way to interpret it.
The relevant factor is that one approaches a unit of play (probably an encounter or adventure in D&D) as a challenge to the players' skill, not the degree to which that challenge is formidable.
<snip>
The idea of playing for/against some kind of challenge rating is very fundamentally a Gamist motivation, AFAICT. The very idea is only marginally (or perhaps tangentially) applicable to Simulationism and almost nonsensical within the context of Narrativism.
"Here's a challenge, use your resources to defeat it" describes Burning Wheel as much as 4e. But Burning Wheel is an obviously narrativist-oriented game.
This is really the same point as in my response to Ratskinner earlier in this post: all RPGing is, in some sense, a challenge to the players' skill. The hobby provides mental diversion. "Step on up" is about making that challenge to the players' skill the raison d'etre of play.
Here is one of the most succinct descriptions of narrativist play that I know:
One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . .
[O]nce the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.
This is a playstyle in which the PCs (and the players in playing them) will confront challenges. We can only tell if the play is gamist rather than narrativist if we know what is the biggest concern for the players: to put it roughly, winning (= gamist); or story consequences carrying thematic weight (= narrativist).
The following text from the 4e PHB (p 258) and DMG (p 103) to my mind suggests that it is an open question which way that game is meant to be played:
Quests connect a series of encounters into a meaningful story. . .
Most adventures are more complex, involving multiple quests. . .
You can also, with your DM’s approval, create a quest for your character. Such a quest can tie into your
character’s background. . .
When you complete quests, you earn rewards, including experience points, treasure, and possibly other kinds of rewards.
***
You can present quests that conflict with each other, or with the characters’ alignments or goals. The players have the freedom to make choices about which quests to accept, and these can be great opportunities for roleplaying and character development. . .
You should allow and even encourage players to come up with their own quests that are tied to their individual goals or specific circumstances in the adventure. Evaluate the proposed quest and assign it a level. Remember to say yes as often as possible!
It's true that quests bring rewards (XP and treasure) but all these do - given the 4e "treadmill" - is propel the PCs through the default "story" of D&D (kobolds to Orcus). So this is not inherently gamist.
If, as you suggest, levelling moves you through the various tiers of monsters (rules as suggested), without changing the relative difficulty of the game, then its no different from Mario or Sonic reaching different tiers of levels or "worlds". Yes, the colors change from green to purple and the monsters in 4e change from kobolds to orcs. However, the overall function of the game remains relatively consistent, with only changes in complexity.
<snip>
Consider what must be prepared to service the different play agendas: for Narrativist play, some sort of dramatically rich conflict/theme must be presented...that whole thesis/antithesis thing. Do those come with challenge ratings? Not in any way I'm aware of.
I agree that if the "story of D&D" that unfolds in 4e play as a factor of (i) XP gain and levelling and (ii) the default monsters in the MMs were mere colour, that would be consistent with gamist play and a serious impediment to narrativist play. But is it meant to be mere colour? I personally don't read the books that way - eg The Plane Above has a discussion of "journeying into deep myth" in order to change the mythic history of the setting which wouldn't be out of place in a HeroWars sourcebook. I think the core mythology and cosmology has been deliberately written so that it can be played as more than simply colour - that if the players want to sink their teeth into it, there is something to latch onto.
As for whether thesis/antithesis comes with challenge ratings - it does in HeroQuest revised (or, rather, DCs are set according to a table that correlates the current location within the rising action with the average strength of the PCs), and that's not an obstacle to narrativist play in HQ. In fact it's core to it. The transparency of 4e's challenge maths supports the use of story elements in a way that conduces to the whole thesis/antithesis thing. It's at odds with a certain sort of simulationism, which wants the story to be the outcome of whatever the mechanics dictate rather than making the mechanics the servant of a certain genre and story orientation, but not with narrativism. (Nor with gamism, obviously. I don't dispute the utility of these techniques to what I've called "light" gamism. Just that they imply or entail it.)
in D&D the player makes tactical decisions for the character. This kinda conflates whether that difficulty level applies to the characters or the players or both. While gamism would worry about difficulty level for the player, simulationism would recognize it for the character. IME, narrativist games don't really have challenge/difficulty level for either.
This is an interesting point but I'm not sure where to take it.
HeroQuest revised has difficulty levels, as I mentioned above, but (by D&D standards) no tactics (a character might have a "tactical genius" ability, but using that is - in terms of the mechanics of play - no different from using the "hulking brute" ability). Burning Wheel has little to no difficulty levels (though the Adventure Burner, which cites 4e in its bibliography, pays more attention to the issue, concerned mostly with threats of anti-climax in solo boss confrontations) but does have very heavy player-side tactics. (And I think TRoS is similar.)
I think the extent to which a game requires a high degree of player tactical engagement is mostly orthogonal to its GNS orientation, although I guess the presence of such stuff does open the door to gamist drift in an otherwise non-gamist oriented game.
the presence of such things doesn't require play to be strongly Gamist. However, they permit it in a way that isn't possible in games without such things.
I think, given my comment just above the quote, that I think it is the extent of tactical/mechanical player decision-making that is required that determines how wide the door is open to gamist drift. (Though T&T shows that luck-based rather than skill-based gamism is equally possible, and a game like HeroQuest could be played in this sort of way, even if that's not perhaps it's natural orientation.)
the whole point of "Gygaxian Naturalism" is that it makes an attempt to provide some semi-realistic context for the gamist challenges--which 4e has virtually none of, and in fact makes a POINT to go out of its way to downplay. There's almost zero of this same "naturalist" approach to encounters in 4e.
This I don't agree with. Saying that "powers" aren't naturalistic is no different from saying that initiative roles, 1 minute rounds and hit points aren't naturalistic. "Gygaxian naturalism" is, at least as I understand it, about the gameworld. 4e opts instead for a high mythic gameworld, but within those story parameters - which have their origins in classical myth, not in the 4e designers' heads - the encounters certainly make as much sense as Zagyg's imprisoned demigods on the Nth level of Castle Greyhawk.
I suspect your narrativist "scene framing" approach is far from common to the 4e crowd at large.
I agree. I suspect the default is very close to what seems to me to be the default for 3E - namely, adventure-path play which is a mix of (ocassionally, perhaps often, illusionist) gamism with GM-driven story serving some sort of high concept simulationist goal.
If "pemertonian scene framing" for 4e was easy to "grok," and was providing the same kinds of experiences as it is for your group for the D&D fan base at large, then why did the bulk of the fan base--to say nothing of the company that produced it--largely abandon it?
<snip>
RPGs only matter as an entertainment form BECAUSE they inherently offer more than "step on up."
I think "step on up" - eg Tomb of Horrors, White Plume Mountain, Ghost Tower of Inverness (and these surely are all borderline cases at best of "Gyaxian naturalism", but I think are close to the core of the classic D&D experience) - has shown it has an attraction that can stand the test of time. I find [MENTION=6688858]Libramarian[/MENTION] the best advocate for this style of RPGing on these boards.
I remember pointing Libramarian to
this passage from Ron Edwards, in which Edwards describes his frustration with some D&D-inspired fantasy heartbreakers (a term he coined):
The key assumption throughout all these games is that if a gaming experience is to be intelligent (and all Fantasy Heartbreakers make this claim), then the most players can be relied upon to provide is kind of the "Id" of play - strategizing, killing, and conniving throughout the session. They are the raw energy, the driving "go," and the GM's role is to say, "You just scrap, strive, and kill, and I'll show ya, with this book, how it's all a brilliant evocative fantasy."
It's not Illusionism - there's no illusion at all, just movement across the landscape and the willingness to fight as the baseline player things to do.
I had seen some D&D players complain that Edwards' characterisation of these games in these terms was dismissive or demeaning, but I find it a fair characterisation of a core RPG gamist experience, and I was pleased that Libramarian agreed. Edwards goes on to claim that "energy and ego . . . are fine things, of course, but it strikes me that playing with them as the sole elements provided by the players is a recipe for Social Contract breakdown." But it doesn't strike me that way.
As to why do this sort of thing via an RPG rather than (say) a boardgame: any number of reasons. Continuity of characters and/or of gameworld. The ability to make intelligent use of fictional positioning, which can only work in a game adjudicated by a human referee (this is certainly key to those classic D&D modules). Even sheer pleasure in the "talk-y" medium of RPGing.
As Edwards says in
a different (and later) essay,
Gamist-inclined players tend to be unashamed regarding their preferences. Their role-playing is easily understood, diverse in application, unpretentious, and often perfectly happy with its role relative to the person's social life at large. The Gamists have a lot to teach the rest of the hobby about self-esteem.
Some folks seem to think that Gamist play lacks variety, to which I say, "nonsense." Scrabble is "always the same," and it's fun as hell; simple games do not mean simplistic, shallow, or easy. What matters is whether the strategy of the moment is fun. Well-designed, multiple-edged Step On Up activities with fully-developed competition are endlessly diverting and provide an excellent basis for friendship. Anyone who thinks that such things in role-playing necessarily cannot be fun and will necessarily destroy social interactions is badly mistaken
I really can't agree with the idea that gamism is any sort of threat to the purity of RPGing.
