What distinguishes it from Sim?
In my view, a couple of things distinguish The Dying Earth RPG from sim.
(1)
Here is Edwards on high concept simulationism: "The process of prep-play-enjoy works by putting "what you want" in, then having "what you want" come out, with the hope that the System's application doesn't change anything along the way."
The Dying Earth doesn't work in that fashion. The participants have to actually deliver "what you want" by way of their play along the way. They have to be Vancian authors.
(2) In the same essay, Edwards contrasts some behavioural parameters mechanics:
Consider the behavioral parameters of a samurai player-character in Sorcerer and in GURPS. On paper the sheets look pretty similar: bushido all over the place, honorable, blah blah. But what does this mean in terms of player decisions and events during play? I suggest that in Sorcerer (Narrativist), the expectation is that the character will encounter functional limits of his or her behavioral profile, and eventually, will necessarily break one or more of the formal tenets as an expression of who he or she "is," or suffer for failing to do so. No one knows how, or which one, or in relation to which other characters; that's what play is for. I suggest that in GURPS (Simulationist), the expectation is that the behavioral profile sets the parameters within which the character reliably acts, especially in the crunch - in other words, it formalizes the role the character will play in the upcoming events. Breaking that role in a Sorcerer-esque fashion would, in this case, constitute something very like a breach of contract.
The complex one: Consider the behavioral parameters of a knight player-character in The Riddle of Steel and in Pendragon. This one's a little trickier for a couple of reasons, first because Pendragon has two sets of behavioral rules, and second because both games permit a character's behavioral profile to change.
1) The Pendragon knight includes a set of paired, dichotomous Traits (e.g. Worldly / Chaste) which are scored numerically, and which change scores inversely. They are used either (a) as behavior-establishers (roll vs. Cruel to see whether you behead the churl for his rudeness) or (b) as record-keepers for player-driven behavior (you beheaded him? Check Cruel, which increases its chance to raise its score later). The Riddle of Steel knight has no equivalent system to (a); all character behavior is driven by the player. Its Spiritual Attributes, however, do rise and fall with character behavior much as Pendragon's (b).
2) The Pendragon knight also may develop one or more Passions, which are expressed in the form of a fixed set of bonus dice for actions that support that Passion. These are established through play and may increase, although not decrease; different Passions may conflict within a single character. The Riddle of Steel's Spiritual Attributes (Drive, Destiny, Passion, Faith, Luck, and Conscience) act as bonus dice much as in Pendragon Passions but (a) may be individually eliminated and substituted with another Spiritual Attribute by the player with very little restriction, and (b) are intimately connected to the most significant character-improvement mechanic.
I suggest that both games include the concept that personal passion is a concrete effectiveness-increase mechanic, but that Pendragon does so in a "fixed-path-upwards" fashion (when the knight's passions are involved), whereas The Riddle of Steel does so under the sole helm of the player's thematic interests of the moment. Furthermore, the latter game directly rewards the player for doing so.
I may be a little biased about this issue, but it seems to me that a character in Narrativist play is by definition a thematic time-bomb, whereas, for a character in Simulationist play, the bomb is either absent (the GURPS samurai), present in a state of near-constant detonation (the Pendragon knight, using Passions), or its detonation is integrated into the in-game behavioral resolution system in a "tracked" fashion (the Pendragon knight, using the dichotomous traits). Therefore, when you-as-player get proactive about an emotional thematic issue, poof, you're out of Sim. Whereas enjoying the in-game system activity of a thematic issue is perfectly do-able in Sim, without that proactivity being necessary.
In The Dying Earth, the resolution system is based on rerolls until you win or stop spending the points to power the rerolls. So the player is able to be proactive about resisting persuasion and resisting temptations. And also has a degree of control over how the pools are replenished or grown. So it is closer to (a sillier version of) the "thematic time-bomb" than either of the Pendragon approaches.
I think these are the two features that lead Edwards to consider it a narrativist RPG. I think he's right, based on both reading the text and a (small amount of) play experience. It's actually a little bit like Wuthering Heights, another game that I think Edwards is correct to characterise as narrativist, even though there is a surface-level resemblance between a Wuthering Heights PC sheet and a Pendragon one.
The game is certainly NOT about character development in any substantive sense.
<snip>
I don't think any character's core character traits would ever be challenged by activity within the game.
Character development plays no role at all in The Dying Earth RPG! The rules are clear on this. Edwards is aware of it.
All this shows it that not all narrativist RPGing is about character.
Here is Edwards again:
Situation-based Premise is perhaps the easiest to manage as GM, as player-characters are well-defined and shallow, and the setting is vague although potentially quite colorful. The Premise has little to do with either in the long-term; it's localized to a given moment of conflict. Play often proceeds from one small-scale conflict to another, episodically. Good examples of games based on this idea include Prince Valiant, The Dying Earth, and InSpectres. . . .
Situation doesn't have any particular role or importance to the Setting, either in terms of where it comes from or what happens later. The setting can be quite vague and might even just be a gray haze that characters are presumed to have travelled through in order to have encountered this new Situation.
This type of Premise does carry some risks: (1) the possibility of a certain repetition from event to event, but probably nothing that you wouldn't find in other situation-first narrative media, which is to say serial fiction of any kind; (2) the heightened possibility of producing pastiche; and (3) the heightened possibility of shifting to Gamist play. . . .
[A] very common misconception [is] that if enjoyable Exploration is identifiable during play, then play must be Simulationist or at least partly so. This is profoundly mistaken: if you address Premise, it's Narrativist play. Period. If the Exploration involved, no matter how intensive, hones and focuses that addressing-Premise process, then that Exploration is still Narrativist, not Simulationist.
That's why Feng Shui and Hong Kong Action Theater are hard-core, no-ambiguity Simulationist-facilitating games including their explicit homage to specific cinematic stories, and that's why The Dying Earth facilitates Narrativist play, because its Situations are loaded with the requirement for satirical, judgmental input on the part of the players. . . .
For a Narrativist-oriented game, the touchpoint throughout should always be, what's the Premise? I think stating it right out in front of everybody is the best way to go, or a version which is easily customized further. An alternative might be to inspire the Premise through Exploration-discussion, but it's risky - doing that usually works only for Situation-based Premise games, like The Dying Earth.
This is also why when
@Crimson Longinus says there are no sub-types of "story now"/narrativism in Edwards' model he is wrong. There is the low/high-risk dimension (The Dying Earth is low risk - Edwards correctly groups it with those games that are, "for lack of a better word, "lighter" or perhaps more whimsical - they do raise issues and may include extreme content, but play-decisions tend to be less self-revealing"). And there are character-driven, setting-driven and situation-driven approaches.
To reiterate: the difference between the latter, and simulationism, is the dependence upon actual player input of evaluation/response/judgement.
