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

[Thomas Shey]

I imagine it's because people looking for G or S were already well-served by existing games and presumably happy in their gaming. The people consuming theory were (and are) people looking for something not already being catered for effectively. GNS in articulating N play gave shape to what that might be.

By the same token, people attending garages overwhelmingly own vehicles that need to be repaired.

Which just reinforces my point that in the end of the day GNS was all about Nar and everything else was an afterthought and shows it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Oh, absolutely! I would like to see much more discussion about how you can make the agendas harmonise and support each other. It just seems that it is an article of faith to some that this cannot and shouldn't be done, so it must be denied that it successfully happens in games like Apoc World and 5e D&D. The concept of 'incoherence' is harmful and should be dropped.

I don't think its impossible to combine them, or a bad thing to do, but I do think there are always tradeoffs in doing so, and someone strongly oriented to one of them may find the tradeoffs unacceptable. That's a world apart from saying never to do it though.

 

[Aldarc]

Which just reinforces my point that in the end of the day GNS was all about Nar and everything else was an afterthought and shows it.

I'm glad that your preconceived conclusions could be so easily reinforced through your confirmation bias. Now you don't have to change your opinions about anything. Good talk. Good talk.

 

[Campbell]

All most of us are saying on the incoherency score is that within a given moment of play that everyone playing the game should have unity of purpose and clear expectations of what is required of them. That we should not be playing at cross purposes. That the game mechanics should support us rather than get in our way. That we should take our cues from the game we are playing.

That's not to say that our priorities need to be the same for every moment of play, just that when we shift our priorities we should do it together with clear expectations of what we are doing with mechanics that actually support us or least do not get it in our way.

These conflicts of agendas between players and frustration with playing games that do not support them are not just theory to me. I have had direct experience of this things happening at the table again and again. Not that you can never through design and effort help resolve tension between the various agendas, but that doing so involves prioritizing moment to moment.

I have even often experienced an internal conflict between agendas. This was especially true for games like Vampire and Legend of the Five Rings where doing in genre things almost always involved not playing well. It's why I am so thankful for FFG's excellent takes on Star Wars and Legend of the Five Rings. Their great High Concept designs help me resolve my inner strife.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

One is High Concept the other is Purist-for-system. The essays make this distinction under simulationism. So... sure, only if your taxonomy intentionally stops at too high a tier. Like saying Animal, Elephant and Animal, Platypus are the same thing if you stop at Animal.

We've been around on this before, and you seem hellbent at stopping at a high level and ignoring the sub-groupings below. GNS does this.

However, this is one of my issues with GNS, in that it's structure allows for this kind of argument to be easily reached. While I agree that internal cause is the key thread between high concept and purist-for-system (or process sim), the grouping of things that value very different kinds of internal cause makes it very easy for people that don't grok this to dismiss the entire theory by misunderstanding this. It's obfuscated enough that it's an easy target.

I understand that the subcategories exist. But if we assume that the theory is no biased, then breadth of every basket should be roughly equal. So that two different things in sim basket are not vastly more different than two different things in nar basket. And I don't think this is true. Also, why nar basket has no subdivisions? Because it actually is 'size' of subdivsion of the other baskets!

If the point is genre evocation -- and by this I mean the point of playing the game is to experience the genre -- then it's sim. The point of AW isn't to experience the genre. It's not to recreate Mad Max or any other genre story. All of that is background to what the game is getting to. So AW doesn't emulate genre and genre is not the point of playing AW. If, as @pemerton notes, you jump into an AW game to revel in some glorious post-apoc tropes, you're going to be first confused and then disappointed when the game doesn't deliver this.

Your arguments treat story now as a version of dramatism, despite being told multiple times it is not. You also state that it should be easy to move from story now to simulationism with no changes to a game that was built from the ground up to enable narrativist play and avod simulationism. You deny it in your airy claims that you can mix and match GNS agendas freely, despite the point of the essays to be to identify competing agendas. You deny it in that people that do play the way you do not are telling you that you have a misunderstanding about what's central to their play (at least some of it, I engage many agendas across many games). The root of your argument is that these aren't separate things, but rather just loose descriptions, but my experience, and the experience of many other posters you've engaged, is that these are separate things. You aren't allowing for a difference of opinion, but instead a hard statement that says "your play isn't what you say it is."

Meanwhile, on the other side, no one is denying your play at all. Looking through the lens of GNS doesn't require denying play -- it's pretty open to any kind of play and makes no normative statements about play (why would it, the author enjoys multiple agendas himself!). It's not saying that your play doesn't exist, nor are the other posters.

Holy hyperbole, Batman! Me wanting to lump narrativism with dramatism is no more erasure or denial of playstyle than you wanting to lump non-story-now dramatism with simulationism. And yes, of course all these are 'loose descriptions' this is not hard science.

Also, me saying that I think some pseudo-intellectual framework about elf games is flawed is not a personal insult to you. It wouldn't be that even if it was your theory and it isn't.

Let me provide some examples of how your assumption on harmonization doesn't really work. You, @Crimson Longinus, are on record that hitpoints have to have at least some "meat" component because the healing spells say "wounds" in them.

Good, thank you, this indeed is a great example!

So, to you, it does not make sense that you'd have a spell "cure light wounds" if it isn't curing actual wounds. This is simulationist -- not because it's emulating anything, but because it's valuing some internal cause.

Close enough.

But, let's say a player named Bob sat down at your table and insisted that there is no "meat" to hitpoints, that they're just a game element that only tells us things when they're gone and otherwise don't have any fictional attachment, Bob is clearly engaged in some gamism.

Bob cares about the functioning of HP as defeat-o-meter in the game, right? As long as they do that, Bob's good?

These two things cannot be harmonized. What you value -- that internal cause -- is not at all what Bob values here, and these are going to conflict. Maybe, if Bob is cool, and you're the GM, this gets glossed over. Bob doesn't care you're narrating wounds because he's happy that the game still works out and he can just ignore your narration (although this opens up the question of if your narration really matters at all -- is it even engaging internal cause or is it largely meaningless?).

In such situation these things are weakly harmonised. Every participant gets what they want, there is no conflict. Probably 'good enough' for many tables, though ideally Bob would pay attention to the fiction too and I would pay attention to the gamist 'win conditions'. And as we both can do those things without harming out primary desire, we might as well and everyone is on the same page and perfect harmonisation has been achieved!

But if the roles are reversed, and Bob is the GM, he never bothers to narrate anything for hitpoint damage because it's not a thing to him. You, however, are not getting served any internal cause, and are, in fact, getting the opposite -- no internal cause. You are now unhappy in play. This is an unharmonizable agenda conflict under GNS. You are receiving incoherent play because you expect one thing but are receiving something else.

Sure. That you could in theory harmonise two things doesn't mean that this is always done.

What's going on in this example, is that there are two desires that are very different, but they actually work on different levels, so at least in theory they can be harmonised. That we supply the HP with fiction doesn't diminish their function as gamist tool. Thus it is perfectly possible to fulfil both goals at the same time. Much harder conflict to solve would be if different desires existed on same axis. Like in the other tread where this came up some people had different fiction they wished to associate with the hit points (they measure will to live instead of injury.) Now harmonising those is next to impossible!

The issue with the incoherence of course is not the idea that different desires might conflict. Of course they can! It is the idea that they automatically will, and that the GNS baskets are any sort of sensible indicator of on which axis the conflict will be most likely to occur.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

All most of us are saying on the incoherency score is that within a given moment of play that everyone playing the game should have unity of purpose and clear expectations of what is required of them. That we should not be playing at cross purposes. That the game mechanics should support us rather than get in our way. That we should take our cues from the game we are playing.

That's not to say that our priorities need to be the same for every moment of play, just that when we shift our priorities we should do it together with clear expectations of what we are doing with mechanics that actually support us or least do not get it in our way.

These conflicts of agendas between players and frustration with playing games that do not support them are not just theory to me. I have had direct experience of this things happening at the table again and again. Not that you can never through design and effort help resolve tension between the various agendas, but that doing so involves prioritizing moment to moment.

I have even often experienced an internal conflict between agendas. This was especially true for games like Vampire and Legend of the Five Rings where doing in genre things almost always involved not playing well. It's why I am so thankful for FFG's excellent takes on Star Wars and Legend of the Five Rings. Their great High Concept designs help me resolve my inner strife.

This is all well and good, but I honestly do not believe that these agendas are as objective and clearly definable as many would think. They are muddy and subjective. Like if I want to experience a visceral protagonism of a space pirate, why I need to decide whether I care more about visceral protagonism or being a space pirate? Why these need to even be two different agendas, I'd see it as one agenda that doesn't really make sense to me if we dissect it.

 

[Umbran]

I'm glad that your preconceived conclusions could be so easily reinforced through your confirmation bias. Now you don't have to change your opinions about anything. Good talk. Good talk.

Mod Note:
Even if you are correct, you have put it in a form that is pretty much guaranteed to be rejected and likely make things worse. Next time, if you must, at least try to make it constructive.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm glad that your preconceived conclusions could be so easily reinforced through your confirmation bias. Now you don't have to change your opinions about anything. Good talk. Good talk.

I've explained how I come to this conclusion. If that's not good enough for you, just be snarky about it and move on.

Bluntly, much of this conclusion was formed in this thread. Prior to it I considered GNS an attempt to fix the flaws in GDS by moving around things that didn't actually net out better. Now I've concluded it actively made it worse, and I did not walk in with that opinion. So your statement doesn't match reality, but I'm glad you've found an easy way to disregard me.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I understand that the subcategories exist. But if we assume that the theory is no biased, then breadth of every basket should be roughly equal. So that two different things in sim basket are not vastly more different than two different things in nar basket. And I don't think this is true. Also, why nar basket has no subdivisions? Because it actually is 'size' of subdivsion of the other baskets!

No. You're doing an is/ought thing. GNS isn't saying how games ought to be, but rather classifying what is. That doesn't require any kind of symmetry to avoid bias -- in fact, often a forced symmetry is a sign of bias! To give the obvious example of life taxonomy, there are far, far, far more things under the phylum Arthopoda in the Kingdom Animals than there are under all of the rest of the Animals phyla combined! This isn't showing bias. Your premise here is badly flawed.

Holy hyperbole, Batman! Me wanting to lump narrativism with dramatism is no more erasure or denial of playstyle than you wanting to lump non-story-now dramatism with simulationism. And yes, of course all these are 'loose descriptions' this is not hard science.

No. Dramaticism's definition denies narrativism. Narrativism isn't a subset of dramaticism, it's a different objective thing. Dramaticism is focused on telling a good story. Narrativism doesn't care about that at all. Saying narrativism is a form of dramaticism is denying narrativism.

Putting Dramaticism into Simulation in GNS doesn't erase dramaticism because sim in GNS hold to internal cause. Telling a good story holds to good internal causes. These are chosen for the outcome, but a good story has a throughline of good internal cause. This is different from the process-sim or purist-for-system end of simulationism, but that's because that end cares about different sources of internal cause -- they also don't care about story but rather that the system generates logically following fiction.

So, no hyperbole, you're showing you do not understand the distinction of what narrativism is, that or not understanding how dramaticism was defined. And your combining of the two erases one.

Also, me saying that I think some pseudo-intellectual framework about elf games is flawed is not a personal insult to you. It wouldn't be that even if it was your theory and it isn't.

Yes, well, when you say that my play must just be me being engaged in pseudo-intellectuallism (ie, false thinking) it's kinda hard to then say it's not a personal insult. You've just engaged in an ad hom again, here. You keep engaging ad homs. At some point, the denials of making it about the people and not ideas stops working.

I'm not like angry or raging or anything. I post forcefully when I'm cheerful. I'm not that, either, here, just tired and frustrated with hearing the same things over again from people unwilling to even consider that I'm not an irrational person engaged in pseudo-intellectualism to lie to myself. I mean, the usually paired accusations of elitism are missing, so kudos on that.

Good, thank you, this indeed is a great example!


Close enough.


Bob cares about the functioning of HP as defeat-o-meter in the game, right? As long as they do that, Bob's good?


In such situation these things are weakly harmonised. Every participant gets what they want, there is no conflict. Probably 'good enough' for many tables, though ideally Bob would pay attention to the fiction too and I would pay attention to the gamist 'win conditions'. And as we both can do those things without harming out primary desire, we might as well and everyone is on the same page and perfect harmonisation has been achieved!

No, because there's not agreement and shared agenda here. This only works because Bob is being good natured and just ignores the GM, and because the GM is using hitpoints in a gamist way (no mechanics changed) and pretending to simulation. Hitpoints are still not actually simulating anything if Bob can freely ignore the narration -- there's no internal cause to the narration that requires Bob to pay attention to it.

But, that aside, we're still in a place where the goals aren't harmonized because no shared agenda. Bob and the GM are playing different games that happen to overlap -- they are not harmonized and working with each other, they're both engaged in their own play and choosing not to have it interfere. If your definition of "harmonize" is this, then I'm okay with 'sometimes you can just ignore a different agenda at the table and get away with it.' People are capable of all kinds of things, and, given so many stories told at ENW that mirror this, it seems like it's a common thing to ignore bits that bother you so you can continue to play.

Sure. That you could in theory harmonise two things doesn't mean that this is always done.

What's going on in this example, is that there are two desires that are very different, but they actually work on different levels, so at least in theory they can be harmonised. That we supply the HP with fiction doesn't diminish their function as gamist tool. Thus it is perfectly possible to fulfil both goals at the same time. Much harder conflict to solve would be if different desires existed on same axis. Like in the other tread where this came up some people had different fiction they wished to associate with the hit points (they measure will to live instead of injury.) Now harmonising those is next to impossible!

The issue with the incoherence of course is not the idea that different desires might conflict. Of course they can! It is the idea that they automatically will, and that the GNS baskets are any sort of sensible indicator of on which axis the conflict will be most likely to occur.

You just papered over a conflict by pointing out that, in one configuration, it can be ignored. This is a fairly interesting statement, which I covered above -- the ignoring is because the description of hitpoints as wounds does no further work and has no further meaning so the gamist can just ignore it as flavor. You haven't actually implicated simulationism here. Sorry, didn't really mean to pick a trick example but it seems I have. So let's explore something related but different. Bob's PC takes a major hp hit -- say 90% in one go. The GM narrates that this shatters Bob's arm (using GM fiat to do so). Bob doesn't care, because it doesn't really matter. He goes to swing his greatsword at the foe, but the GM interrupts and asks how he's swinging a greatsword with one hand? NOW Bob is incensed, and now we have a clear conflcit in agenda. The GM has narrated something that adheres to their internal cause assessment, but Bob doesn't want any of that -- he still has hp left so should be at peak fighting condition! You cannot harmonize these things.

But, if you insist, and since it's your assertion, please do come up with a scenario in play that harmonizes two agendas. If any rules need to be changed or a ruling made to enable it, please call this out.

 

[kenada]

I mean, ask yourself some time why the vast majority of people who defend it are people who value Nar. Look around for how often in any threads (and I don't mean just on ENWorld which could be argued to contain a disproportionate number of people who are unlikely to find any theoretical model useful) you get people who would primarily indicate they identify their agenda with GNS Gamism or Simulationism. Why do you think that is? Are they that rare? Or is it that the construction on both the other wings looks so defective to people interested in those area that they just dismiss the model and move on?

It could also be those other agendas have their own jargon, which acts as a shibboleth for in-group membership. Using different jargon (e.g., GNS jargon in an OSR community) identifies you as an out-group member, which can illicit negative responses regardless of how useful the other jargon is. Eventually, one just stops trying to engage.