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

[clearstream]

I think... bolding!

Your latest looks interesting, but the last half is hard to read!

 

[pemerton]

Your latest looks interesting, but the last half is hard to read!

I've edited to fix my tags.

 

[clearstream]

I think @niklinna referred to this upthread:

Talk to someone who participates in role-playing, and focus on the precise and actual acts of role-playing themselves. Ask them, "Why do you role-play?" The most common answer is, "To have fun."​

​

Again, stick to the role-playing itself. (The wholly social issues are real, such as "Wanting to hang out with my friends," but they are not the topic at hand.) Now ask, "What makes fun?" This may not be a verbal question, and it is best answered mainly through role-playing with people rather than listening to them. Time and inference are usually required.​

​

In my experience, the answer turns out to be a version of one of the following terms. These terms, or modes, describe three distinct types of people's decisions and goals during play. . . .​

"In my experience" succinctly captures both the appeal and at the same time the incompleteness or opportunity for mismatches of the theory.

Collectively, the three modes are called GNS. Stating "GNS," "GNS perspectives," or anything similar, is to refer to the diversity of approaches to play. One might refer to "GNS goals," in which case the meaning is, "whichever one might apply for this act of role-playing." . . .​

​

Used properly, the terms apply only to decisions, not to whole persons nor to whole games. To be absolutely clear, to say that a person is (for example) Gamist, is only shorthand for saying, "This person tends to make role-playing decisions in line with Gamist goals." Similarly, to say that an RPG is (for example) Gamist, is only shorthand for saying, "This RPG's content facilitates Gamist concerns and decision-making." For better or for worse, both of these forms of shorthand are common.​

Upthread, I posted the following:

So, to ask whether or not D&D is (eg) gamist is to ask what sort of RPGing do D&D players, on the whole advocate or else to ask what sort of RPGing does D&D, as a RPG, emphasise?

So let's talk about journalling RPGs. Examples include Thousand Year Old Vampire, Trading Places, The Ground Itself. It's possible we could call these simulationist, although typically journalling RPGs lack causality (although that isn't an obstacle using my definition.)

What do we call touristing-RPG play (i.e. fascination with world without imagining characters to be autochthonic or protagonists)?

What is it when the focus of play is inventing recipes for baking? If mechanical and metagame challenge is absent and no one is worried about character development or resolution of premise?

Where does freeform RPG land, where there are no mechanics and challenge is not stressed?

Why isn't high-concept sim it's own agenda, if that really is the agenda embraced by the world's most successful RPG? Is it really right to sweep it under the rug of simulationist?


[EDIT Maybe some of these questions amount to asking - what is it when we want to have performance without risk? What agenda is that? It can't be gamist, if gamist is performance with risk. It's not simulationist. It can't be narrativist if it is not concerned with character development or resolution of premise. If it is foremost, desire for expression which may be propelled by prompts and shaped by rules.]

 

[soviet]

I think you can make a strong argument that post-Gygaxian D&D is the poster child of GNS incoherence, and that the history of edition wars and arguments over GM fudging are primary symptoms of that. You have essentially two sides, both of which have seen what D&D 'should be' and have drifted or cultivated their own implementation to make that vision work. Both sides are playing functional games, but they cannot necessarily see the work they have done to get there and are thus not talking a common language when they speak to the other side.

 

[clearstream]

I offer this

Situationist or Challengist (formerly known as gamist) - performance with risk / overcoming a challenge.
Performist or Expressionist (formerly unknown) - performance without risk / processing and expressing.

 

[clearstream]

I think you can make a strong argument that post-Gygaxian D&D is the poster child of GNS incoherence, and that the history of edition wars and arguments over GM fudging are primary symptoms of that. You have essentially two sides, both of which have seen what D&D 'should be' and have drifted or cultivated their own implementation to make that vision work. Both sides are playing functional games, but they cannot necessarily see the work they have done to get there and are thus not talking a common language when they speak to the other side.

@Hussar perhaps made a similar point earlier, and I have of course been irksomely skeptical of knowing what RPG is played without knowing the cohort of players (i.e. the game is settled in the interpretation of the cohort).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Have you read the 4e text on player-authored quests? It's not just a "throwaway line". Here is a reposting of a quote of some of the relevant text.

Yes.

Hundreds of words is not a "throwaway line".

That text is mostly about the quest in general, not solely about player created quests.

And the system of player-authored quests is not a "GM giving XP for a character fulfilling a player declared goal". It is a player "establishing the fundamental story framework of an adventure" by "giv[ing] [their] DM ingredients".

A player playing Keep on the Borderlands can declare a goal (eg I will eliminate the shrine of chaos!). But the content and scope of any such goal is limited by the material prepared by the GM. The player can't declare, as their goal, I will recover the remains of my mother from the shrine of chaos because the shrine has no remains in it, of a PC's mother or otherwise. The player can't establish the fundamental story framework of an adventure.

I don't think the significance of recovering one's parent's remains from the Fortress of the Iron Ring, and recovering them from the Temple of Pelor, have the same dramatic significance. They signal different things - different story frameworks, and different thematic contexts for that story, and likely different resolutions.

I've quoted the text. It gives the example of the mother's remains being in the Fortress of the Iron Ring; and it refers to "contributing ingredients".

And it refers to player creating quests, which are defined as fundamental story frameworks. It's obviously not talking about players looking over the GM's map, seeing "Here be dragons", and saying "Wouldn't it be cool to loot a dragon's lair!" That doesn't involve the players contributing any ingredients, nor establishing any fundamental story frameworks.

I think you're overinterpreting it. I don't think the intent is for the player to invent a whole specific named fortresses that now exists. If they intended that to be the case, they would have spelled it out far more clearly. It says: "tied to their individual goals or specific circumstances in the adventure." To me the latter reads as referring to circumstances that already exist in the adventure, not the player inventing those circumstance. I feel you're trying to smuggle setting editing powers with the ability to set goals by conflating these things.

Not that giving players such a setting authority is a problem, but no I don't believe that was the intent. But I'm not sure we can do much more at this point than agree to disagree, as we don't have much to go by and this has become like trying to decipher the meaning of some vague old religious text.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Why?

There is much more pop than classical music listened to. Does that mean that classical, folk, etc should all be bundled into "acoustic" while we need a dozen different categories of "pop"?

Broadness refers to definitional breadth, not popularity. GNS is like if a music theory claimed that all music can be divided to three categories, classical music, popular music and avant-garde jazz.

He then considers reasons why someone, or a group of people, might engage in this activity. He sees three reasons:

* To enjoy and experience the fiction for its own sake - he calls this simulationism;​

​

* To show that one can "win" by using one's character in the fiction to overcome challenges that occur within the fiction - he calls this gamism;​

​

* To author fiction with a "point" via the play of the game, just like other storytellers in other mediums do - he calls this narrativism.​

And we can instantly see that the last is not like the others. It is much narrower and more specific. If you gave these to some random person who knows nothing off the theory, they would grok the first two, albeit they might be puzzled why the first is called simulationism as enjoying fiction is not a simulation.

Also, I don't think these definitions even hold. How doesn't a high-concept sim have 'a point?' Do participants of narrativism not enjoy the fiction they produce?

EDIT: What is the difference between "GM referencing player-authored backstory" and "story now". Perhaps none - that can be one mode of setting up a story now situation! But most often I think it's not. Most often the "point", if there is one, has already been established, and when it happens in play it is about the experiencing and perhaps evincing of that established point. The "point" is not being established and tested in play. (A similar though non-backstory-related example is playing out one's PC's descent into insanity in CoC.)

Be concrete. What are these 'points' like? Certainly any good backstory is not 'finished,' it is a springboard with bunch of open questions.

 

[clearstream]

I think you're overinterpreting it. I don't think the intent is for the player to invent a whole specific named fortresses that now exists. If they intended that to be the case, they would have spelled it out far more clearly. It says: "tied to their individual goals or specific circumstances in the adventure." To me the latter reads as referring to circumstances that already exist in the adventure, not the player inventing those circumstance. I feel you're trying to smuggle setting editing powers with the ability to set goals by conflating these things.

Not that giving players such a setting authority is a problem, but no I don't believe that was the intent. But I'm not sure we can do much more at this point than agree to disagree, as we don't have much to go by and this has become like trying to decipher the meaning of some vague old religious text.

Looking at the game text

Player-Designed Quests 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!

You can also, with your DM’s approval, create a quest for your character. Such a quest can tie into your character’s background. For instance, perhaps your mother is the person whose remains lie in the Fortress of the Iron Ring. Quests can also relate to individual goals, such as a ranger searching for a magic bow to wield. Individual quests give you a stake in a campaign’s unfolding story and give your DM ingredients to help develop that story.

It's up to the DM. The player's ideas are giving them ingredients.

It might be an observation they make that leads them to adopt a quest of their choosing. It’s a point of reference that the players can refer to and that the characters might be able to return to.

When you’re devising a simple adventure, one to three basic seeds are enough to get you started. A classic dungeon adventure uses three: The characters set out to explore a dangerous place, defeat the monsters inside, and take the treasure they find. One simple quest can be enough, such as a quest to slay a dragon. You can combine any number of basic seeds to create a more multifaceted adventure. The more seeds you throw in the mix, the more intricate your adventure will be. You might add timing elements to one or more of the seeds to create more depth in your adventure. Once you have your seed or seeds, you can start getting specific.

The instructions on creating a quest in core don't mention player authorship. To me the meaning conveyed here leans more toward the player pointing out people, places, situations etc that they are interested in exploring further (which is how many folk have always run D&D) and the DM fabricating that into a quest. But consider also this from the DMG2 (4e)

A sense of shared authorship between you and the players can begin before you start playing, when you create a campaign. Convene with your group and ask them to help you create a campaign arc from the ground up.

That concretely articulates an intent or interest that the designers had in encouraging player-authorship. Whatever reticence they felt earlier they were able to shed here. On balance, I agree with you that the core game text is ambiguous: if all one had is core, one could feel one was doing nothing different from other editions. Re-reading core with the benefit of later official material, I feel one has to grasp the meaning differently, i.e. as meaning to encourage player authorship. Thus I agree more with @pemerton and others, on balance.

 

[pemerton]

I think you can make a strong argument that post-Gygaxian D&D is the poster child of GNS incoherence

I didn't realise this was controversial! It sits on the thin borderline between cooperative gamism and characters-face-problems high concept sim. Hence, as you say, fudging debates, modules with clues to be discovered that have failsafes to make sure even "losing" players discover the clues, etc.