Just as a point of intellectual history: you do realise, don't you, that The Forge is quite hostile to White Wolf/Storyteller, and largely indifferent to D&D but with a mild sympathy for its classic/OSR version.To be fair, The Forge had come up with those terms years before, a continuation of the Three-fold Theory that arose out of the edition-war-like (actually Storyteller v D&D) Role v Roll debate.
For someone who gets worked up about what you see as falsehoods by critics of 4e, though, you don't hold back in posting nonsense about The Forge and the "threefold model".Obviously, I don't put much stock in the Forge, creative agendas, GNS, Threefold theory, or Roll v Role.
From "Simulationism: the Right to Dream":Simulationism: An irrational, uncompromising, preference not for an actual simulation (like, say civil war re-enactment), but for bad games that are bad in the ways a game would have to become if it were adapted to function as a simulation, instead - even though the games in question simulate nothing.
However, contrary to some accusations, [simulationism is] not autistic or schizophrenic, being just as social and group-Premise as any other role-playing. The key issues are shared love of the source material and sincerity. Simulationism is sort of like Virtual Reality, but with the emphasis on the "V," because it clearly covers so many subjects. Perhaps it could be called V-Whatever rather than V-Reality. If the Whatever is a fine, cool thing, then it's fun to see fellow players imagine what you are imagining, and vice versa. (By "you" in that sentence, I am referring to anyone at the table, GM or player.) To the dedicated practitioner, such play is sincere to a degree that's lacking in heavy-metagame play, and that sincerity is the quality that I'm focusing on throughout this essay. . . .
Pound for pound, Basic Role-Playing from The Chaosium is perhaps the most important system, publishing tradition, and intellectual engine in the hobby - yes, even more than D&D. It represents the first and arguably the most lasting, influential form of uncompromising Simulationist design.
Pound for pound, Basic Role-Playing from The Chaosium is perhaps the most important system, publishing tradition, and intellectual engine in the hobby - yes, even more than D&D. It represents the first and arguably the most lasting, influential form of uncompromising Simulationist design.
From "Gamism: Step on Up":Gameism: the Roll opposite of Narrativism, gameists are shunned and reviled for their bizarre expectation that any RPG, by virtue of the G, could in any way be held up to any standards of what makes a game any good at all.
References to Gamism tend to be dismissive, superficial, and often backhanded ("except for the Gamists," "my inner Gamist," etc). . . .
[T]he first step is to renounce a judgmental and dismissive approach about "those awful Gamists." The second is to renounce the less-judgmental but equally-dismissive "those Gamists" attitude, which might be called the NIMBY view. And then, finally, to renounce the sort of guilty-liberal, halting, apologetic defensive line as well. . . .
Gamist play, socially speaking, demands performance with risk, conducted and perceived by the people at the table. What's actually at risk can vary - for this level, though, it must be a social, real-people thing, usually a minor amount of recognition or esteem. The commitment to, or willingness to accept this risk is the key . . . This is the whole core of the essay, that such a commitment is fun and perfectly viable for role-playing, just as it's viable for nearly any other sphere of human activity.
[T]he first step is to renounce a judgmental and dismissive approach about "those awful Gamists." The second is to renounce the less-judgmental but equally-dismissive "those Gamists" attitude, which might be called the NIMBY view. And then, finally, to renounce the sort of guilty-liberal, halting, apologetic defensive line as well. . . .
Gamist play, socially speaking, demands performance with risk, conducted and perceived by the people at the table. What's actually at risk can vary - for this level, though, it must be a social, real-people thing, usually a minor amount of recognition or esteem. The commitment to, or willingness to accept this risk is the key . . . This is the whole core of the essay, that such a commitment is fun and perfectly viable for role-playing, just as it's viable for nearly any other sphere of human activity.
From Narrativism: Story Now:Narrativism: the Role half if the Role not Roll debate, fanatically dedicated to the proposition that bad rules make good games, and that it is impossible to RP if you touch dice. If you must touch dice, their relationship to the all-important narrative should be as abstract & non-deterministic as possible.
There cannot be any "the story" during Narrativist play, because to have such a thing (fixed plot or pre-agreed theme) is to remove the whole point: the creative moments of addressing the issue(s). Story Now has a great deal in common with Step On Up, particularly in the social expectation to contribute, but in this case the real people's attention is directed toward one another's insights toward the issue, rather than toward strategy and guts. . . .
A protagonist is not "some guy," but rather "the guy who thinks THIS, and does something accordingly when he encounters adversity." Stories are not created by running some kind of linear-cause program, but rather are brutally judgmental statements upon the THIS, as an idea or a way of being. That judgment is enacted or exemplified in the resolution of the conflict, and a conviction that is proved to us . . . constitutes theme. Even if we (the audience) disagree with it, we at least must have been moved to do so at an emotional level. . .
Fortune-in-the-Middle as the basis for resolving conflict facilitates Narrativist play in a number of ways.
* It preserves the desired image of player-characters specific to the moment. Given a failed roll, they don't have to look like incompetent goofs; conversely, if you want your guy to suffer the effects of cruel fate, or just not be good enough, you can do that too.
* It permits tension to be managed from conflict to conflict and from scene to scene. So a "roll to hit" in Scene A is the same as in Scene B in terms of whether the target takes damage, but it's not the same in terms of the acting character's motions, intentions, and experience of the action.
* It retains the key role of constraint on in-game events. The dice (or whatever) are collaborators, acting as a springboard for what happens in tandem with the real-people statements.
A protagonist is not "some guy," but rather "the guy who thinks THIS, and does something accordingly when he encounters adversity." Stories are not created by running some kind of linear-cause program, but rather are brutally judgmental statements upon the THIS, as an idea or a way of being. That judgment is enacted or exemplified in the resolution of the conflict, and a conviction that is proved to us . . . constitutes theme. Even if we (the audience) disagree with it, we at least must have been moved to do so at an emotional level. . .
Fortune-in-the-Middle as the basis for resolving conflict facilitates Narrativist play in a number of ways.
* It preserves the desired image of player-characters specific to the moment. Given a failed roll, they don't have to look like incompetent goofs; conversely, if you want your guy to suffer the effects of cruel fate, or just not be good enough, you can do that too.
* It permits tension to be managed from conflict to conflict and from scene to scene. So a "roll to hit" in Scene A is the same as in Scene B in terms of whether the target takes damage, but it's not the same in terms of the acting character's motions, intentions, and experience of the action.
* It retains the key role of constraint on in-game events. The dice (or whatever) are collaborators, acting as a springboard for what happens in tandem with the real-people statements.
I agree re 4e and gamism - though [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] on these boards articluated a coherent gamist version of 4e which is nothing like Gygaxian "skilled play" but rather is quite "light", and is about showing off your schtick in a given encounter.Of course, nobody actually uses those Forgite terms accurately anyway.
When people call 4E "gamist", for example, I can't help but laugh and roll my eyes. 4E is probably the version of DnD least suited to a Step On Up creative agenda. Meanwhile it maps to "simulationism" pretty cleanly with its fidelity to heroic fantasy genre emulation.
All of which ignores the fact that Forgite creative agendas refer to gameplay table experiences and not to actual game systems.
What a joke!
[MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] used to argue that 4e is a type of high concept simulationism as you suggest - I tend to agree with [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION], that it is best suited to "story now" instead. Not that it couldn't be done in a high concept fashion, but I think that would tend to make for more tedious play because the "heaviness" of the mechanics would still be there, but they wouldn't be giving as much payoff (with the outcomes pre-settled) as they do with a more "story now" focus. And I think it's pretty obvious how many 4e mechanics exhibit the features of FitM resolution that Edwards calls out in the passage I just quoted.
EDIT: Just saw this follow-up post:
Absolutely! There is a very frequent assumption, in posting on these boards, that the only reliable way to get "story" in RPGing is through GM-railroading.most of what gets passed off as "story-focused" or "story-oriented" play around these parts, and would probably get labelled as "narrativism" as a result, is pretty much GM-authored railroading plot --- and therefore the complete and polar opposite of Story Now play. So, for example, when the developers of 5E went around claiming it was more a more "story-focused game" or that "it was hard to find the story in 4E" they meant, respectively, that 5E is more amenable to railroaded GM plot and 4E made it more difficult to play in this way. What generally passes for "story" or "narrative" in popular RPG discussion is the GM's plot.
We recently had a big thread about it.
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