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

[Crimson Longinus]

Or is it just that they're defined by a 'how' you are already used to? That you (and many others) simply take as read?

No.


From my earlier post:

Also, further ponderings: Lets say I take a Story Now engine, some Powered by Apocalypse thing and then proceed run a game where the primary reasoning for how to frame things is not related to the dramatic needs of the characters, but evoking some particular feel and perhaps a genre. Like proper no myth, no prep, but the focus on evoking, say, a gothic horror feel. (And specifically in generic sense, so that it is not personal horror tailored to these characters.) What I am doing? Is this now a high concept sim too?

People seemed to agree that because what is no longer narrativistic, it is now a sim even though how remains the same. Now I think it is absurd to call this a sim, but that seems to be what GNS decrees...

 

[clearstream]

Incoherence =! Dysfunctional

Yup, acknowledged that the claim is

Incoherent play is considered to contribute to Dysfunctional play

 

[soviet]

No.

Which sim and gamist games have players directly authorised to introduce characters and facts to the game without the GM having a veto?

Which sim and gamist games require the GM to frame play around the goals and relationships of the PCs? Such that different characters would mean an entirely different campaign?

Which sim games forbid all forms of GM fudging?

 

[Starfox]

Simulationism and gamism are not absolutes. Are there games that are more gamist than DnD? Yes, Monopoly is an example. Are there games that are less gamist? Yes Harnmaster is an example. And so on. If you want to call a particular game gamist or not depends on your own preferences, your own golden spot of perfect balance.

And the same applies to basically everything else.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Which sim and gamist games have players directly authorised to introduce characters and facts to the game without the GM having a veto?

I don't know and I didn't make up the definitions. But according to them a game that allows this wouldn't be narrativist if:

Which sim and gamist games require the GM to frame play around the goals and relationships of the PCs? Such that different characters would mean an entirely different campaign?

The logic based on which GM frames things was something other than this.

And certainly we easily can do the former without the latter and latter without the former, so I am not sure why they should be married.

 

[clearstream]

What is your measure of the functionality of 5e? Or of designer success?

I base it on tens of thousands of player self-reports praising how functional they find 5e is for them to play. I note that for a wide range of players with diverse priorities, the game continues to function successfully, satisfying their differing needs.

I see endless threads about problems in 5e, which - as @Ovinomancer has posted just upthread - need to be resolved by making choices about play priorities. And the points on which those threads focus - the relationship between adventure day pacing, resource recovery, GM control over the fiction, player's being able to optimise their play (eg via nova then rest), fudging, whether or not a GM should stick to their prep, etc - are exactly what one would expect from a game that straddles the line between high concept sim with a focus on characters-face-problems, and party-based step-on-up play.

I feel you commit here to a false dichotomy. It's not an affront for us to admire the craftsmanship of the 5th edition game designers. It doesn't belittle other games. It doesn't even mean it is our favourite game at the table. I think folk here are on the whole extremely well informed, conscious of their own tastes and those of others, and able to enjoy different RPGs in different moments or moods.

We can appreciate the quality of 5e's game design and see the edition's faults, at the same time.

How is this evidence of the game being "more functional"? More functional than what? What is the success, other than commercial?

Hopefully you will recollect the following from the article linked up-thread to research aiming to better understand the experiences players prioritised.

We also have data that suggests that most groups are made up of people who segment differently (that is, monolithic segmentation within a gaming group is rare), and in fact, having different kinds of players tends to make the RPG experience work better over the long haul.

My meaning is that the game designers had motive for belief that D&D would be more functional - "the RPG experience work better over the long haul" - if different kinds of players were present together in a session.

Given 5th edition is often described as centrist (or words to that effect - not taking a stand) I describe how it looks to me, i.e. that it appears that the designers successfully followed their systematic analysis (and I would guess other research in their possession.) I would go further and speculate that they versed themselves in previous editions and a wide body of influential RPG titles as part of their commitment to their craft.

 

[Thomas Shey]

GEN better still, as it moves away from grouping diversely complex objects of study into three sets based on the analyst's biases.

Eh, I don't think that's entirely fair. While there was some problems with GDS in this regard (the Simulationists had a tendency to have tunnel vision about the other agendas), it was possible to get broad general agreement by having the model developed by multiple people of varied agendas. That's what I suspect went off the rails with GNS; one person had too much influence over it.

Any schema with only three categories is going to combine things that are nothing alike, or to be more accurate - that are alike based on subjective appraisals. They appear alike because one adopts or empathises with the agendas.

But again, the tendency can be hosed down when you had multiples involved with different ones. There was a lot of niggling detail that was controversial, but the big things were either outside the normal scope of the Threefold (the repeated Social question) or were cases of some people who were not really aligned with an agenda wanting to make it into something the majority didn't (Sim and genre emulation, which very few Sim proponents thought belonged there--or perhaps more accurately, was only argued by people who considered themselves Sim in an entirely different way than anyone else did--and even most of the Dramatists thought made more sense in Drama).

Now, that doesn't mean Gen's attempt to separate off the, I guess I'd call it layers, going on is not valid; but I don't think the connects in GDS were invalid or biased to any great degree, they just lacked nuance that Gen at least attempted to bring to it.

 

[clearstream]

As a tongue-in-cheek aside, I am beginning to believe that D&D's "gamist" character can also be evidenced in how D&D is seemingly discussed by its more fervent fans in terms of "winning" and "popularity," which is likewise used to deflect unwelcomed criticism of the game or subject it to the discomfort of theoretical analysis. This is to say that there is an underlying sentiment that any and all game analysis doesn't matter because "D&D won."

Praising 5th edition design seems to evoke an almost allergic reaction for some here at en-world. Honestly, I could give a fig about one or other RPG winning. I'd never frame it that way, and if I did it would be Thousand Year Old Vampire or something of that ilk, doing something powerful and novel. Nor for me is it a matter of popularity: you have to go deeper than a simple count of purchases. Read the words of players enabled by 5th edition to enjoy RPG together. Look at the many kickstarters offering intriguing 5e mods. And so on.

I can admire 5e design in the same way that I can see that my VW Golf is a well-designed car. Expert professionals invested the best of their endeavours into understanding users, crafting and tuning it. It's not at all a matter of winning or popularity, and certainly not aiming to deflect criticism (as if that were possible.)

You speak of subjecting 5e to the discomfort of theoretical analysis. Ironically, it is the theoretical analysis that is discomforted.

 

[Aldarc]

Praising 5th edition design seems to evoke an almost allergic reaction for some here at en-world. Honestly, I could give a fig about one or other RPG winning. I'd never frame it that way, and if I did it would be Thousand Year Old Vampire or something of that ilk, doing something powerful and novel. Nor for me is it a matter of popularity: you have to go deeper than a simple count of purchases. Read the words of players enabled by 5th edition to enjoy RPG together. Look at the many kickstarters offering intriguing 5e mods. And so on.

I can admire 5e design in the same way that I can see that my VW Golf is a well-designed car. Expert professionals invested the best of their endeavours into understanding users, crafting and tuning it. It's not at all a matter of winning or popularity, and certainly not aiming to deflect criticism (as if that were possible.)

I am not talking of admiring 5th Edition's design or not. And there is plenty of praise for 5E on this forum, more so than either scorn or indifference combined. I would hardly call this forum allergic to praising 5e's design. But maybe that happens when any slight is construed as the greatest of all possible slights. It's worth considering, however, that my self-professed tongue-in-cheek post was not meant to be a springboard for your apology of 5e, as I was criticising not 5e, but the gamist attitudes of its more fervent fanbase that views criticisms of 5e in terms of "winning" or "popularity."

You speak of subjecting 5e to the discomfort of theoretical analysis. Ironically, it is the theoretical analysis that is discomforted.

I am talking of people. Neither 5e nor the theoretical analysis are persons who can feel discomfort.

I will personally say that my greatest discomfort stems from your unwarranted attempts to try to reverse my statement and project discomfort on to me, @clearstream.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That's really well put. To those of us who have played all or nearly all versions of D&D, 5e can feel like the version with the least emphasis on wargamerish challenge. One can't rule out the possibility that it is easily-overcome challenge, that is desired, rather than say steep-challenge: and that would still be challenge. That is, one perhaps shouldn't conflate focus on and satisfaction from challenge with focus on and satisfaction from steep challenge.

I believe I even mentioned that one of the complaints directed at GDS Gamism that never got acknowledged was the inclusion of "fair" in its definition of challenge.

[EDIT I notice I was drawn to write "wargamerish challenge" above. I wonder if that is the source of my discomfort with "gamist"? That what everyone describes is only a traditional wargamerish form of mechanical challenge. The space not covered by simulationist and narrativist, contains far more than that. One could say - oh well, keep "gamist", and come up with further subjective agendas, while feeling disappointed that narrativist was built on a far more robust feeling investigation of story than gamist has been on gameplay.)

It depends on how you feel about the early D&D heist play style. A lot of that would be treated as gamist, too, but it wasn't wargamey in the sense most people would see it.