While I agree with everything you say, the last sentence is not really on point. Sometimes, people have a vision, and others don't see it.
As I noted in another post - there is a difference between design and art, and you've hit it.
While I agree with everything you say, the last sentence is not really on point. Sometimes, people have a vision, and others don't see it.
Perhaps, but you can compel behaviors. This is the sort of thing I get at when I talk about making roleplaying and metagaming indistinguishable from each other.You can't make empathy out of mechanics.
Keep in mind that GNS was loaning and modifying an earlier set of concepts that had been circulating on the Internet in the hobby, namely GDS (Gamism, Drama, Simulationism), so "simulationism" as a TTRPG concept doesn't originate in GNS. If there was an "equivocation" of the term, it was already present prior to GNS.
I would argue that most tables could find happiness just by switching up players, eliminating the "one player" that people don't gel with, inviting new players, or taking on a new DM.
Sure, but there are lots of tables with lots of different situations. Diagnosing what is happening is the first step. There is no silver bullet, and there very well could be no problem at all.
If "what I want to achieve" is not strongly aligned with someone else's needs or desires, what you have isn't design, it is art.
One of the problems with GNS is that it denied fellowship was one of the reasons players played a game. In other words, it was developing a theory of fun that kept excluding exactly why many or even most people found the game fun.
I had to find the right people and the right structure/system.I would argue that most tables could find happiness just by switching up players, eliminating the "one player" that people don't gel with, inviting new players, or taking on a new DM.
You are not dumb. On the surface, games are games. Naturally, we want to pick our friends and family first when it comes to fellow gamers. Though, I have found sometimes your best friends make the worst gamers. Folks often see the forest for the trees when it comes to something as nuanced as RPGs. Design in communication for work groups is as important as mechanical design.I had to find the right people and the right structure/system.
Until I had a conversation with Ron I was still putting too much emphasis on the system to facilitate things. Afterwards I focussed on finding the right people and it worked out. Part of that process was realising I couldn’t just play with friends because some of them wanted fundamentally different things than me. I mean it seems blindingly obvious in hindsight so maybe I’m dumb.
I had to find the right people and the right structure/system.
Until I had a conversation with Ron I was still putting too much emphasis on the system to facilitate things. Afterwards I focussed on finding the right people and it worked out. Part of that process was realising I couldn’t just play with friends because some of them wanted fundamentally different things than me. I mean it seems blindingly obvious in hindsight so maybe I’m dumb.