D&D General Supposing D&D is gamist, what does that mean?

[Paul Farquhar]

Please (1) stop presenting your opinions about 4e as facts, and (2) take your Edition Warring elsewhere.

Sorry, I can be more specific. The fist thing you do when you set out to design something is define your parameters. The more tightly you define your parameters, the better your design (so theory says). So 4e was an excellent product for those people who fell within the parameters. It was only bollocks for those who did not.

 

[Umbran]

I'm just here to cast shade and laugh...

All this pseudointellectual discussion about what something is and is not is a complete waste of time.

Mod Note:
For a waste of time, you sure are spending time on it.

If you don't like the discussion, don't take part. I will help you not take part in this thread.

 

[Arilyn]

D&D was invented long before all this game theory nonsense was invented, and is all the better for it. My game has always worked for me, because like the original designers, I go with my gut. It's no use to me, because it makes no sense to me. It would be as useful if it was in Elvish. Just a bunch of made up words.

What theory says people do has little relationship to what people actually do (you can say the same about educational theory too). Trying to apply it to D&D was why 3e and 4e were so f-ed up.

There has been "game theory nonsense" long before D&D. D&D triggered a lot of discussion about game theory as soon as it came out back in the '70s.

If the terms do not make sense to you, it is simply because they are unfamiliar. I absorbed the meaning of these terms by reading posts on threads like these. It's not as if the proponents of Story Now write short posts! And they are more than happy to answer questions.

Learning about how role playing games work, and the differing styles players adopt is fascinating to me and very much has enriched and broadened my play. Educational theory btw, is also extremely useful in determining how people learn and can help shape best practises.

If this topic bores you then, like others have asked, why are you commenting on this thread?

 

[hawkeyefan]

More than that, I think it's actively harmful, as is the elitism that goes with it.

Using terminology that is not understood by a majority "feels very much contrary to the spirit of the community" to me.

I know that you already were modded, but I wanted to just respond so that maybe you’ll see these two points and consider them.

First, no one’s attempting to not include others. Many, many attempts to summarize the terms and ideas have been made in this thread. Links to the source material have been provided. If you still are unsure about something, you should ask or research it on your own. Don’t blame others for your lack of understanding.

Second, I’ve benefitted greatly from my time here discussing these kinds of things. My games have improved and I’ve broadened my tastes. As a result, my players have benefitted from them. And while I can understand that sometimes we can overanalyze things, and that there are times where going with my gut makes sense, that doesn’t mean that these discussions have no place. They’re basically an attempt to understand that gut instinct, the “why does this feel right/wrong” of it.

So having benefitted from these discussions, it feels really irksome when others come in and say that they’re useless or harmful.

 

[Micah Sweet]

One of my own issues is that I think that it ignores how individuals can have various agendas but to varying degrees of priorization and preference. It may be that Person A finds themselves at odds with Person B, because while both Person A and Person B have Simulationist agendas at a table that prefers Simulationist approaches, Person A prefers Simulationist > Narrativist > Gamist while Person B prefers Simulationist > Gamist > Narrativist. An individual likely has hues of competing agendas at play in a game, possibly depending on what the game is engaging or how they are feeling in the moment.


The language of "scene framing" or "setting the scene" is definitely a common part of many TTRPGs.

This snippet is from the introduction of the playtest book for Stonetop (a PbtA game that is a Dungeon World hack):

This point is elaborated with greater depth and breadth in the rest of the book, particularly as part of a GM's responsibilities.

Similarly, while not necessarily using the language of "scene framing," Fate uses similar ideas:



As well as Cortex Prime:



Green Ronin's Fantasy AGE Core Rulebook:


The One Ring 2E:


Sometimes, however, language of "setting the scene" is used instead of "framing." But "setting the scene" and "framing the scene" are for all intents and purposes virtually synonymous or, if not, at least areas of significant overlap.

The Black Hack 2E:


Call of Cthulhu 7E Keeper Book:


Cypher System Rulebook:

Fair enough. The only one of those rulebooks I've read is The One Ring 2e, and I must have missed it there. Certainly the concept exists, as you say, across many RPGs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I know that you already were modded, but I wanted to just respond so that maybe you’ll see these two points and consider them.

First, no one’s attempting to not include others. Many, many attempts to summarize the terms and ideas have been made in this thread. Links to the source material have been provided. If you still are unsure about something, you should ask or research it on your own. Don’t blame others for your lack of understanding.

Second, I’ve benefitted greatly from my time here discussing these kinds of things. My games have improved and I’ve broadened my tastes. As a result, my players have benefitted from them. And while I can understand that sometimes we can overanalyze things, and that there are times where going with my gut makes sense, that doesn’t mean that these discussions have no place. They’re basically an attempt to understand that gut instinct, the “why does this feel right/wrong” of it.

So having benefitted from these discussions, it feels really irksome when others come in and say that they’re useless or harmful.

I think it's quite useful. This discussion has helped me articulate exactly why I don't like narrativist games. Now that I understand what their agenda is and the various approaches intended to achieve it, I can reject it personally with a clear conscience, or even dabble in it knowing why those mechanics exist.

For example, I have spent a lot of time recently examining Star Trek Adventures with an eye towards running it for my friends. While not really a Story Now game, it does have some mechanical elements that lean that direction (more than most versions of D&D, anyway). Understanding the agenda behind those mechanics will inform my running of the game, hopefully for the better.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think it's quite useful. This discussion has helped me articulate exactly why I don't like narrativist games. Now that I understand what their agenda is and the various approaches intended to achieve it, I can reject it personally with a clear conscience, or even dabble in it knowing why those mechanics exist.

For example, I have spent a lot of time recently examining Star Trek Adventures with an eye towards running it for my friends. While not really a Story Now game, it does have some mechanical elements that lean that direction (more than most versions of D&D, anyway). Understanding the agenda behind those mechanics will inform my running of the game, hopefully for the better.

This is great. As someone that does love SN, among other games, I'm actually excited for someone to grasp the concepts and then decide it's not for them. Far better than the usual denial that SN is even a thing.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I don't think that game theory is waste of time and I like thinking about games and what makes them tick and how to better build games that do what I want. but I have to say that GNS model simply doesn't seem like a good model to me. In any thread it is brought up, half the discussion is fighting terminological quagmire and meta discussions about the theory. And the theory has obviously been constructed from very specific perspective by people who have very specific desires for games. If you don't share that perspective it simply appears unintuitive and the divisions in it illogical. Narrativism category is crazy narrow and bizarrely specific, whilst simulationim category lumps massively different things with different and often conflicting design agendas together.

To this day I don't really understand what Forge 'narrativism' is and why a 5e GM using player created backstories to set up situations that dramatically resonate with the characters is not that, but a 4e GM giving XP for a character fulfilling a player declared goal is!

 

[Ovinomancer]

I don't think that game theory is waste of time and I like thinking about games and what makes them tick and how to better build games that do what I want. but I have to say that GNS model simply doesn't seem like a good model to me. In any thread it is brought up, half the discussion is fighting terminological quagmire and meta discussions about the theory. And the theory has obviously been constructed from very specific perspective by people who have very specific desires for games. If you don't share that perspective it simply appears unintuitive and the divisions in it illogical. Narrativism category is crazy narrow and bizarrely specific, whilst simulationim category lumps massively different things with different and often conflicting design agendas together.

To this day I don't really understand what Forge 'narrativism' is and why a 5e GM using player created backstories to set up situations that dramatically resonate with the characters is not that, but a 4e GM giving XP for a character fulfilling a player declared goal is!

This keeps getting said, but the author of tge essay, Edwards, enjoys many different types of games in the model. So, no, it's not nearly as biased as claims make it out to be. Frankly, these claims are really just a form of ad hom -- attacking the motives of the speaker rather than what's said.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Cool. Where is that in the 5e DMG? I'm wondering if you can find something that passes the same robustness qualities applied to player created quests in 4e.

Well, duh. Of course a fixed module cannot account that. But perhaps they should publish advice on how to build campaigns that do?

Though hopefully something far more elaborate than the throwaway line in 4e. But 5e DMG is pretty damn lacking. They could easily publish a whole Advanced Campaign Builder's guide or some such.