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

[Ovinomancer]

I don't doubt this.



I am merely trying to pin-point where the difference lies. And if someone claims that difference is that X doesn't happen in 5e play, but to me it seems obvious that it does, then I either have misunderstood what they mean by X or they have mistaken what kind of things occur in 5e play. In either case it is better to clarify the matter.

Now, I responded to you again, but I have no interest in this sort of meta discussion about how to discuss, so either address my actual points or let it go.

Your points have been discussed, and you haven't acknowledged or altered your understanding. If you don't want this to be a topic of discussion, please stop responding to deny by insisting that things must be a way others are telling you they are not. That should solve the meta-discussion problem quite nicely.

 

[clearstream]

Then I would consider that a player desire, rather than a game-purpose.

I'm not quite following this. If it is something a player desires from their play and aims for, can you clarify how it is not their purpose? Perhaps there is a semantic issue clouding this, as desire is listed among synonyms for purpose. Can it be restated in different language?

 

[clearstream]

Responding to @EzekielRaiden's critique, to make explicit the purposes supposed to be implicit in each binary. Gamist urges or purposes then might include

Perform (Skill - Arena)
System or some authorities define skill, which is then tested or expressed in some arena of proof (can be multiple). This is a satisfying and thrilling aspect of gamism, that we see everywhere. Balance is most at issue to this binary. Nod to @EzekielRaiden for this one of course.

Gamble (Offer - Risk)
An offer made for the consideration of some stakes at some odds. A good example is the likelihood of terminating use of a character costing at least the time invested in developing it, in exchange for increased future power. Often connects with Skill - Arena, but isn't Skill - Arena. For example, high Skill may produce a confidence that the odds are better. Or risk taking in the Arena may result in the Skill display becoming more thrilling. Note the evident mapping of this and the binary above, to Edwards' "performance with risk".

Transcend (Tempo - Flow)
Tempo is the ratio among players of opportunities to influence the game state. Flow is the state and experience of effortless performance. The two are connected (in games) by the necessity of becoming one with tempo in order to enter flow. Flow isn't only a consequence of system (or tempo) so it can occur elsewhere. Group flow is also possible.

Control (Construct - Perfect)
Perfection is the neurotic satisfaction in a tidy or controlled game state. Construction includes constructing a collection, and is found in all the places that players can make a choice to achieve a satisfying neatness and completeness. In RPG, it's noticeable in choices on offer in a system that "click" together. It can be mistaken for a concern for balance, where it is in fact concern for preservation and fulfillment of pattern.

This continues to form part of a skeptical position as to what we can conclusively say taxonomically about games (i.e. that we can't conclusively say anything.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

Fair enough! I didn't exist at that point (stupid lousy linear time), and don't know the period well, so I stuck to modest claims.

I figured as much; because of my particulars of arc of play in the D&D part hobby (started in the OD&D period, left for greener pastures when AD&D came along, stuck a toe back in during the AD&D2e period because it seemed more practical for a play-by-post I was wanting to do at the time, then left again until 3e, left yet again after 3.5, played one campaign of 4e, then went out again until the PF2e game I'm in) I've simulataneously got a perspective some younger individuals don't, and at the same time missed a lot of things because, on the whole, D&D hasn't really been my gig (out of the 40 years I've been in the hobby maybe 8 of it was spent in D&D or D&D adjacent games?). So I try to be clear on what I know and what I don't.

That's not really what I meant though. Inconsistency implies a waffling inability to commit. That certainly happens, but I also see behavior that reflects a hierarchy of interests.

While fair, I think it can also apply to people who don't think about how they're applying one standard to one part of play and a different one to a different. Its one thing when they do so deliberately, another when they just don't think about it.

Nearly everyone cares about world consistency somewhat, but some prize it so much they'd rather not sacrifice it without great need. Many like real challenges and earned victories, but some like them so much they'll give up world consistency for it. Likewise for other possible orderings. There's also some "virtue ethics"-like thinking involved, both within a given virtue and between distinct virtues. In (Aristotelian) virtue-ethics thinking, the correct balance point between extremes (e.g. what qualifies as "courage" between the extremes of "cowardice" and "foolhardiness") necessarily depends on context. Further, there may be contextual preference between different virtues; courage may outrank kindness when lives are on the line, but this might be reversed when teaching a child. It can be difficult to keep the two distinct from each other.

All reasonable. I was mostly only responding to cases where the differences are being produced by subconscious reasoning. I sometimes think people who do it consciously are inconsistent, too, but that's contextual.

@Manbearcat I have little to add, other than as said above, players are sometimes interested in fulfilling different agendas in different contexts. More or less, a good hybrid game is one where the players' wants are satisfied by artfully switching between agendas/modes/etc., such that the layering or embedding actually causes better alignment rather than worse.

Right. My note was that this is complicated by the fact people are often really not that good at presenting expectations in enough detail to be useful.

 

[Manbearcat]

@Manbearcat I don't disagree that any of that can occur--but frankly it doesn't look any worse than a lot of other ways for expectations and results being at odds. That seems more of an issue of communication breakdown (which, to be clear, is massive common in the hobby) than because there were different agendas at work. From past experience, that could have happened if only one was.

I don’t disagree with you that social contract and communication issues and “differences of perception of events when complex issues arise” are a thing.

I do however disagree with the idea that “pretty much everything that happens in an ttrpg session is indicative of <any of the 3 problems listed above> and therefore it is unnecessary to develop a corpus of clearly codified provisions and constraints upon social exchange which negotiate and mediate these complex issues before they arise.” Philosophy, segments of religion, law, code, mediation, and even things like sportsmanship exist precisely to clarify and resolve these complexities before they manifest to the point of “social-fabric-destroying-umbrage.”

In TTRPGs (aligned with this conversation), this is the work of clarified and transparent design goals leading to clarified and coherent play goals + procedures + orientation to play by the constituent participant roles + best practices which leads to relatively seamless conversations and pacing (the kind that isn’t overburdened with and bogged down by the equivalent of “social pixel-bitching” or resolving passive-aggressive or overt rancor in-situ).

If I took the lieutenant off the proverbial table (I removed it from GM deployable assets) and I’m expecting that “win” to be honored (Gamism), it would help if there was actually encoded forbiddance of my GM basically “shadow redeployaing the lieutenant asset” via Genre Emulation (the story coheres better from a dramatic arc perspective or a genre logic perspective if the the lieutenant gets away!) or Process Simulation (of course a member of the rank and file steps up to fill the hierarchical vacuum of the fallen lieutenant…this is Hierarchy Natural Law 101!), thus negating my earned success and attendant favorable gamestate!

Or if, like Cortex+’s Doom Pool, there were clarified, table-facing procedures to allow the GM to make a move to allow “the lieutenant asset to be refreshed” (and whatever fiction the game allows to support this gamestate).

You can instantiate “the great lieutenant refresh problem” in dozens of reskinned configurations in any given TTRPG game.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, I'm very much against conflating "are you a bad enough dude to save the president?" play with exclusively violent conflict. Score can be applied to almost anything, cooperative or competitive. A game about being chefs where the players are cooperating (to win awards for their restaurant) and competing (to win top prize/top position within it) should theoretically involve no violent conflicts at all, despite the presence of many knives, but can still be thoroughly Score-and-Achievement focused with only a thin veneer of the other things.

Its largely an artifact of RPGing being focused on adventure fiction. While there's some theoretical models in there for competitive but non-violent gamist play (man against nature has some potential for example) mechanics are rarely developed enough for it, and frankly, freeform play in that area rarely involves people as a group who are knowledgeable enough to make it work that way). But there's nothing intrinsic in gamism that requires violence; that its usually the part that has a lot of that engagement is a largely historical artifact of the evolution and development of RPGs.

(I've often thought even some trad games could use better developed subsystem for this reason, but that tends to go up against the resistance a lot of people have to "complexity").

This is part of why I struggle to fit this dichotomy into the same space as the ones I have already. For this dichotomy, it seems to be something fundamental to game design generally; pacing and fluidity are vital components of seemingly all "active" media things (that is, music, movies, games, performances) and even some forms of "passive" media (literature and poetry). That obviously means it is something worth including in one's design, but this seems a matter of polish, rather than one of purpose. A well-made game (of any kind) should have good tempo so that it flows.

I'd tend to agree. Like the infamous Social discussion back in the r.g.f.a. days, it seems on a different tier of interest than the others at hand.

 

[Thomas Shey]

1. How specialized the High Concept play it promotes/typifies really is. The degree to which fidelity to narrative expectations, genre tropes, and especially preconception of character and setting elements are considered valuable represents what I consider to be an extremely specialized form of play. An extremely popular form, but one no less specialized than Apocalypse World, RuneQuest or B/X in my book.

Just out of curiosity, if its extremely common, in what sense are you using "specialized" here?

I should clarify that I do not think the argument is made deceptively. It merely feels deceptive because the degree to which genre tropes, narrative expectations and preconception of character/setting are valued is considered a baseline part of RPG play (within the scope of the argument) when those things are not valued nearly to that extent in other forms of play.

Well (and I'm not trying to dismiss your views here), if those things are not valued in those other forms (at least within what we think of as the RPG hobby), but those other forms are comparatively uncommon, is it actually inappropriate to do that? I mean, I've mentioned that old style hardcore Simulationism was probably relatively rare even when developed, and when viewed in the overall set of modern RPG play is probably rare enough to be viewed as virtually extinct. Does that sort of purist form then deserve the same weighting as other forms?

 

[Manbearcat]

@Manbearcat I have little to add, other than as said above, players are sometimes interested in fulfilling different agendas in different contexts. More or less, a good hybrid game is one where the players' wants are satisfied by artfully switching between agendas/modes/etc., such that the layering or embedding actually causes better alignment rather than worse.

See my post directly above as I address this.

I would dispute the “satisfied by artfully switching” claim. At least I’ll dispute it as anything approaching “best practices.” I’ve seen a sort of absence of intentful, clarified design (let’s say) fail over and over again precisely because “artfully switching” amidst a minefield of potential failure points is extraordinarily difficult. It often leads to some instantiation of “the great lieutenant refresh problem” I cited in my post above.

Last night, in the Stonetop game I run for @Ovinomancer and @hawkeyefan and two other players, we got through an enormous amount of content in 2.75 hours of gameplay (likely 3-4 times the content that your average D&D game resolves in the same time). No “social pixel-bitching.” No rancor (overt or passive-aggressive). Never a single need to “artfully switch between agendas.” This is because system coherently integrates Gamist and Story Now priorities, people understand the rules/procedures/principles, and all the stuff to make the above possible is deftly and functionally offloaded onto system (preempting any instance of conversation or experience dysfunction before it is made manifest).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don’t disagree with you that social contract and communication issues and “differences of perception of events when complex issues arise” are a thing.

I do however disagree with the idea that “pretty much everything that happens in an ttrpg session is indicative of <any of the 3 problems listed above> and therefore it is unnecessary to develop a corpus of clearly codified provisions and constraints upon social exchange which negotiate and mediate these complex issues before they arise.” Philosophy, segments of religion, law, code, mediation, and even things like sportsmanship exist precisely to clarify and resolve these complexities before they manifest to the point of “social-fabric-destroying-umbrage.”

I don't think its so much unnecessary, but often less than useful because it ends up making assumptions that look good in theory but are not congruent with people's actual wants and needs in the wild. I'm a big proponent of having some terminology to help with discussion, but I'm also pretty firm in that I think as a model develops, it tends strongly to make overly specific assumptions of how it applies. That's a big part of my objections to the exclusivity part of GNS; I don't think it much resembles what most people want in play. It well represents a few very specific subsets of play at the price of not engaging well with the rest.

This does not mean I don't think its worthwhile to delve into a bit deeper into what people actually want from a game than is usually done; but I don't think an overly detailed model actually helps with that in some cases, and in the end, the biggest issues aren't about not having the terminology to talk about what people want, and people not wanting to talk about it all for various reasons that no set of terminology and modelling will help.

 

[Thomas Shey]

See my post directly above as I address this.

I would dispute the “satisfied by artfully switching” claim. At least I’ll dispute it as anything approaching “best practices.”

And that's where I leave you. I think Ezekial is exactly right here, and the fact you've seen a lot of failure states shows more about how difficult it is to get people to commit to what they want than it is that wanting varied things is intrinsically a problem.