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With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5986636" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>No one. But given that more good and influential games have come out of the Forge than from Justin Alexander, I'm happy to defer to their expertise, at least in a preliminary way!</p><p></p><p>I also generally think it's preferable to describe someone's playstyle in a fashion they accept, rather than one they don't. "Dissociated" is obviously intended to be pejorative - it is the stalking horse in an argument that 4e is a tactical skirmish game, after all.</p><p></p><p>"Dissociated" also implies, what is false, that there is no importance to the fiction in metagame-heavy play. As if, unless the correlation between mechanics and fiction is established before play, as inherent to the rules themselves, then it has dropped out altogether. Given that some of the best RPGs around don't work on this principle, however, it is obviously false.</p><p></p><p>Returning to the Forge, Ron Edwards <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/" target="_blank">wrote</a> <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/21/" target="_blank">about</a> what Justin Alexander calls "dissociated mechanics" nearly 10 years ago, and managed to do it in a way that is not pejorative to anyone:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Consider Character, Setting, and Situation - and now consider what happens to them, over time. In Simulationist play, <em>cause </em>is the key, the imagined cosmos in action. . .</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">Clearly, System is a major design element here, as the causal anchor among the other elements. . .</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">Resolution mechanics, in Simulationist design, boil down to asking about the cause of <em>what</em> . . .</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">Before talking about dice or other specific resolution mechanics, I'll discuss two elements of Resolution which are rarely recognized: the treatment of in-game time and space. These are a big deal in Simulationist play as universal and consistent constraints, which must apply equally to any part of the imagined universe, at any point during play. . .</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">In-game time at the fine-grained level (rounds, seconds, actions, movement rates) sets incontrovertible, foundation material for making judgments about hours, days, cross-town movment, and who gets where in what order. . .</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>f Simulationist-facilitating design is not involved, then the whole picture changes. Step On Up is actually quite similar, in social and interactive terms, to Story Now. Gamist and Narrativist play often share the following things: </em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>*Common use of player Author Stance (Pawn or non-Pawn) to set up the arena for conflict. . .</p></em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></p></em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>*Fortune-in-the-middle during resolution, to whatever degree - the point is that Exploration as such [ie establishing the content of the fiction] can be deferred, rather than established at every point during play in a linear fashion.</p></em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></p></em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>*More generally, Exploration overall is negotiated in a casual fashion through ongoing dialogue, using system for input (which may be constraining), rather than explicitly delivered by system per se.</p></em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></p></em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>*Reward systems that reflect player choices (strategy, aesthetics, whatever) rather than on in-game character logic . . .</p></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>If you read Edwards' contrast between design that supports simulationism and design that supports gamism (step on up) or narrativism (story now), you can basically see every point of the debates over 4e's mechanics already played out:</em></p><p><em></em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>*the contrast between establishing fiction via mechanics that reflect ingame causal processes (the "sim crowd") and having the mechanics set parameters within which the fiction is then established via "casual negotiation" (the "4e crowd");</p></em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></p></em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>*related to that, the use of FitM mechanics, which of course defer establishment of the content of the fiction ("Schroedinger's wounds", "fighters with spells");</p></em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></p></em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>*the use of Author stance ("immersion-breaking, metagaming mechanics").</p><p></em></p><p><em>Instead of writing a rant about how 4e is a tactical skirmish game, Justin Alexander could have just provided some links to a well-established and calm-headed analysis. And pointed out that some RPGers are going to enjoy only sim/immersion play, while some others might enjoy a bit of non-sim play, and that one group should avoid 4e even while the others might want to check it out.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>I find this a little hard to follow. But as I understand it, you prefer the system to tell you what is happening in the fiction, rather than to have to consciously establish that yourself.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>That's true of a lot of dismissive terminology. Of course, the stakes in RPG play and design aren't very high, so I'm hardly on a crusade. But I do like to be able to talk about my hobby in a way that acknowledges different approaches without automatically judging some of them to be merely tactical skirmish games linked by freeform improv.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5986636, member: 42582"] No one. But given that more good and influential games have come out of the Forge than from Justin Alexander, I'm happy to defer to their expertise, at least in a preliminary way! I also generally think it's preferable to describe someone's playstyle in a fashion they accept, rather than one they don't. "Dissociated" is obviously intended to be pejorative - it is the stalking horse in an argument that 4e is a tactical skirmish game, after all. "Dissociated" also implies, what is false, that there is no importance to the fiction in metagame-heavy play. As if, unless the correlation between mechanics and fiction is established before play, as inherent to the rules themselves, then it has dropped out altogether. Given that some of the best RPGs around don't work on this principle, however, it is obviously false. Returning to the Forge, Ron Edwards [url=http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/]wrote[/url] [url=http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/21/]about[/url] what Justin Alexander calls "dissociated mechanics" nearly 10 years ago, and managed to do it in a way that is not pejorative to anyone: [indent]Consider Character, Setting, and Situation - and now consider what happens to them, over time. In Simulationist play, [I]cause [/I]is the key, the imagined cosmos in action. . . Clearly, System is a major design element here, as the causal anchor among the other elements. . . Resolution mechanics, in Simulationist design, boil down to asking about the cause of [I]what[/I] . . . Before talking about dice or other specific resolution mechanics, I'll discuss two elements of Resolution which are rarely recognized: the treatment of in-game time and space. These are a big deal in Simulationist play as universal and consistent constraints, which must apply equally to any part of the imagined universe, at any point during play. . . In-game time at the fine-grained level (rounds, seconds, actions, movement rates) sets incontrovertible, foundation material for making judgments about hours, days, cross-town movment, and who gets where in what order. . . [I]f Simulationist-facilitating design is not involved, then the whole picture changes. Step On Up is actually quite similar, in social and interactive terms, to Story Now. Gamist and Narrativist play often share the following things: [indent]*Common use of player Author Stance (Pawn or non-Pawn) to set up the arena for conflict. . . *Fortune-in-the-middle during resolution, to whatever degree - the point is that Exploration as such [ie establishing the content of the fiction] can be deferred, rather than established at every point during play in a linear fashion. *More generally, Exploration overall is negotiated in a casual fashion through ongoing dialogue, using system for input (which may be constraining), rather than explicitly delivered by system per se. *Reward systems that reflect player choices (strategy, aesthetics, whatever) rather than on in-game character logic . . .[/indent][/I][/indent][I] If you read Edwards' contrast between design that supports simulationism and design that supports gamism (step on up) or narrativism (story now), you can basically see every point of the debates over 4e's mechanics already played out: [indent]*the contrast between establishing fiction via mechanics that reflect ingame causal processes (the "sim crowd") and having the mechanics set parameters within which the fiction is then established via "casual negotiation" (the "4e crowd"); *related to that, the use of FitM mechanics, which of course defer establishment of the content of the fiction ("Schroedinger's wounds", "fighters with spells"); *the use of Author stance ("immersion-breaking, metagaming mechanics").[/indent] Instead of writing a rant about how 4e is a tactical skirmish game, Justin Alexander could have just provided some links to a well-established and calm-headed analysis. And pointed out that some RPGers are going to enjoy only sim/immersion play, while some others might enjoy a bit of non-sim play, and that one group should avoid 4e even while the others might want to check it out. I find this a little hard to follow. But as I understand it, you prefer the system to tell you what is happening in the fiction, rather than to have to consciously establish that yourself. That's true of a lot of dismissive terminology. Of course, the stakes in RPG play and design aren't very high, so I'm hardly on a crusade. But I do like to be able to talk about my hobby in a way that acknowledges different approaches without automatically judging some of them to be merely tactical skirmish games linked by freeform improv.[/i] [/QUOTE]
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