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

[Crimson Longinus]

It's not useless. I can use it pretty easily to differentiate between gamism and narrativism, for example. What you're saying is that the Kingdom portion of taxonomy is useless because it only says Animal and can't tell me the difference between a platypus and an elephant. Okay, that doesn't make it useless. But the essays on the S in GNS actually do go to a higher detail and talk about different ways it can function while retaining the one large scale differentiable trait.

"All animals can be divided into three categories: Vertebrae, Arachnida and Metazoa." Very useful!

If one category applies to effectively every instance to the things being categorised, it is useless as a categorisation!

 

[Ovinomancer]

"All animals can be divided into three categories: Vertebrae, Arachnida and Metazoa." Very useful!

If one category applies to effectively every instance to the things being categorised, it is useless as a categorisation!

Wait, you're saying that simulationism, as defined, encompasses all forms of play? Bold claim, and quite incorrect.

 

[niklinna]

Since this argument seems to be about the GNS definiton of Narrativism, I will be more explicit about that.

Why does any model need to be symmetrical?

That is a weird question. Like sure, like I said earlier, you certainly could define all music belonging to three categories: classical music, popular music and avant-garde jazz, but wouldn't that be weird and make you suspect that the classifier had some agenda?

You're giving an example of three categories that clearly don't even cover the gamut of musical genres.

That has nothing to do with symmetry. Why do the baskets at any given level need to be the same size?

What would a dramatism basket be? What subtypes other than GNS Story Now Narrativism would it contain?

Genre emulation as well as other concern directly related to drama that do not qualify for Story Now Narrativism. If you want character drama and want explore feeling of the characters then you care about dramatism even if you wouldn't approach it in the Story Now way. Basically get that stuff out of simulationsm, as it has jack-all to do with properly mechanically representing the functioning of a semi-automatic rifle.

Edwards clearly and explicitly distinguished between various kinds of simulation. You keep ignoring significant distinctions he did in fact make. He also explicitly avoided talking about genre emulation and gave reasons why.

It seems now that your concern is that dramatism is split across two categories in the GNS model. Why can't you just draw a circle that encompasses those two? It's totally a thing.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Wait, you're saying that simulationism, as defined, encompasses all forms of play? Bold claim, and quite incorrect.

Perhaps try reading before hitting the reply button? My posts tend not to be very long or convoluted.

But yes, if simulationism "indicates an attempt to evoke, within the experience of playing the game, some specific effect or aspect," like the post I quoted says, then pretty much every RPG is that. Can't you claim that for example Apocalypse World isn't doing that? That is is not trying to evoke a certain vision of an apocalyptic world?

 

[Campbell]

Perhaps try reading before hitting the reply button? My posts tend not to be very long or convoluted.

But yes, if simulationism "indicates an attempt to evoke, within the experience of playing the game, some specific effect or aspect," like the post I quoted says, then pretty much every RPG is that. Can't you claim that for example Apocalypse World isn't doing that? That is is not trying to evoke a certain vision of an apocalyptic world?

Not as the fundamental goal of play though. It's certainly not built to engender that as the top priority in its players.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm not so sure I agree with this last bit. First of all, the modern understanding of OSR as a thing, and its attributes was certainly not developed in the late 1990s. Nor do I think that the people writing GDS stuff back then had a lot of commonality with the true old time play. Honestly I think what is mostly called 'OSR' today is HEAVILY revisionist and fails to understand a lot of what was going on in mid '70s play and thinking. So I would discount any notion that GDS is especially well informed in that sense. I think it would also be dangerous to assume what experience or attitudes people who have done later work on RPG theory have or had at some point in the past. For all you know Ron Edwards was the hardest core classic dungeon crawl advocate of all times in, say, 1981.

The latter bit is at no point my point, but as to the former--it heavily depends on how narrowly you're defining "true old style play". I'd strenuously argue that at least the small number of Gamist proponents were absolutely familiar with it, but I'm also not interested in getting sucked into a New True Scotsman argument.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Why do the baskets at any given level need to be the same size?

Size, as the same definitional scope. Yes, I feel that is good practice unless you have some bias and want to intentionally elevate some specific aspect.

Edwards clearly and explicitly distinguished between various kinds of simulation. You keep ignoring significant distinctions he did in fact make. He also explicitly avoided talking about genre emulation and gave reasons why.

It seems now that your concern is that dramatism is split across two categories in the GNS model. Why can't you just draw a circle that encompasses those two? It's totally a thing.

This is exactly what I'm doing. And I'm suggesting that it makes more sense for that circle be the definition of the big basket. My argument is that the things I'd put in dramatism basket have more in common with each other than the things Edwards puts in simulationsim basket.

Now these are of course partly in the eye of the beholder, but I'm hardly alone in making similar observations.

But of course none of these categorisations are 'real' they're social constructs trying to classify other social constructs. It's not like we can take a DNA test of a genre emulation to see whether it is more closely related to narrativism or to process simulation!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Not as the fundamental goal of play though. It's certainly not built to engender that as the top priority in its players.

How would it look different if it was?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Since this argument seems to be about the GNS definiton of Narrativism, I will be more explicit about that.

Why does any model need to be symmetrical?

"Need" is a loaded term. I think, however, as its currently constructed its poorly serving anyone outside of Nar sensibilities because of its narrowness.

What would a dramatism basket be? What subtypes other than GNS Story Now Narrativism would it contain?

How about people who are collectively directing the play of a game toward a desireable outcome in terms of theme, characterization and coherency of plot? Its not just a top-down railroad, as all participants are steering, but it isn't Story Now. So where does that currently go? Any attempt to claim its Gamism or Sim seems exceedingly dubious, but I'm suspecting from my reading in this thread that proponents of Story Now really don't want it in Nar as its currently defined.

 

[clearstream]

We could also compare games to other "abstract" tools, that is, tools that exist as created rules and ideas rather than as physical objects, to try to keep the analogy as close to the original thing as possible. Which could lead us to questions like:

• What purposes are there for mathematics?
• Why do people choose to use mathematics?

In a formal sense, the only purpose of mathematics is to reveal logical relationships between elements of some kind of system.

Or the science of patterns, but isn't mathematics not one tool or even one kind of tool, but many? As say a language is not murder mysteries or game texts. Mathematics is more the substance from which tools are crafted, just as wood perhaps was the substance from which your table was crafted.

To head off a (possibly quite interesting) dive down a long and twisty rabbithole, what question do you want to answer, and can you disambiguate somewhat more crisply by rephrasing your question?