D&D 5E [+] Explain RPG theory without using jargon

[Crimson Longinus]

"What's over that hill over there?" is a puzzle.

No it's not. That's not what people mean they talk about puzzles in RPGs. And yes, it is jargon, but you know what it actually means.

 

[niklinna]

Again, explicitly not true. "Few" is just as wrong as "no". Designers and players have always been inventing and reinventing RPG theory since at least the mid-to-late '60s, and pieces of it go as far back as 1812. The conversation did not start with The Forge. The Forge did not invent these tools. It's entirely repetitive of what's gone before, it simply supplied new names to some very, very old concepts. The Forge is certainly the first place many modern gamers had heard about these concepts, but in no way did The Forge invent them nor was RPG theory deficient prior to The Forge. "Those who don't study the past are doomed to repeat it." Gamers ignored their past, The Forge simply repeated what was already there.

You seem to think I said "if you don't have Forge theory". You seem to think I asserted that the conversation started with The Forge. You seem to think I asserted that The Forge invented these tools. You seem to think I asserted that whatever RPG theory existed prior to The Forge was deficient. I asserted none of those things:

All that said, though, if you have no theory or model of this stuff, and the problem does occur (and the problem does occur, in my own experience and in that of friends and folks I read online), you have few tools with which to address it. GNS isn't the only theory or model, of course, but it does speak explicitly to the problem of players coming into conflict over creative agenda/interests. It gives us tools to look at a game or situation and evaluate ahead of time how much we're likely to enjoy it, or how we can change it to be more enjoyable.

I've been pretty clear in other posts that I think GNS has serious flaws, and I have not once asserted that it was created out of nothing or that other theories do not exist or are invalid or worse than GNS. And yet I and many others find GNS/Forge theory a useful tool, among the many we have at our disposal.

 

[niklinna]

No it's not. That's not what people mean they talk about puzzles in RPGs. And yes, it is jargon, but you know what it actually means.

I'm not going to dredge up the full quote chain, but it seems pretty clear to me that while puzzles as you described are pretty clearly GNS Gamist, the argument that the Gamist combat munchkin should therefore love them doesn't hold water. GNS categories don't exclude other or subsidiary categories. In fact, it goes to some pains to subdivide its Simulationist category into quite a few subcategories, a point which people have taken as grounds for complaint that the buckets aren't the same size. Here we have a clear example of the Gamist bucket being a little bigger than we thought, and I'm sure the same applies for Narrativist. We just haven't explored or catalogued those spaces as thoroughly.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm not going to dredge up the full quote chain, but it seems pretty clear to me that while puzzles as you described are pretty clearly GNS Gamist, the argument that the Gamist combat munchkin should therefore love them doesn't hold water. GNS categories don't exclude other or subsidiary categories. In fact, it goes to some pains to subdivide its Simulationist category into quite a few subcategories, a point which people have taken as grounds for complaint that the buckets aren't the same size. Here we have a clear example of the Gamist bucket being a little bigger than we thought, and I'm sure the same applies for Narrativist. We just haven't explored or catalogued those spaces as thoroughly.

Right. But what good is the overarching main category then? It obviously is not enough to align gaming preferences of the group, and for most of these proper divisions don't even exist. And like I pointed out, often we might end up with the same outcome from justifications from different categories. So the main categories seem just rather arbitrary and pointless, and probably more hindrance than a help.

I don't think 'six cultures of play' is comprehensive either, but I'd wager people would have much better luck with matching gaming preferences via that.

 

[Campbell]

Players in exploration focused games are not doing something all that dissimilar from going through escape rooms. I personally consider that a form of puzzle solving. We have to leave room in discussion for contextual meaning. Otherwise we have to create even more jargon to clarify our intent.

At the end of the day telling people how they are allowed to talk about stuff and what they are allowed to talk about has a chilling effect on open discourse. Forcing people to jump through elaborate hoops to participate is not good for the culture of this community.

 

[Charlaquin]

Let me put this in a different way.

You're running 5e. The party is engaged in a combat. They're doing poorly, due to a terrible run of dice, and cannot take much more. Maybe they can win through the current opposition, but it's dicey. However, the encounter budget for this fight includes two more foes, and they're slated to enter combat next round from an adjacent room. This will almost certainly result in a TPK. Do you send them in or quietly take them off the table?

If you send them in, you're choosing to prioritize gamism. This is the challenge that was fairly created, fairly entered, and fairly played. You're going to play the game, and let the outcome be what it is based on that alone.

If you take them off the table, you're choosing to prioritize simulationism. Not being pulped is more fun, and you're going to employ a cause/effect schema the encourage that fun by manipulating the causes prior to entry. What's on your prep is not important, what's in the game is, and if you take the additional foes out, then you're preserving the play in the mode that you think everyone wants more. (This is High Concept Sim, where the effective cause effect is the abstract concepts of storytelling and fun -- this tells a better story).

This kind of thing happens all the time in D&D games. And you cannot serve both in this moment, you have to choose.

Ok, so once again, the idea that these things can come into conflict is a big ‘ol “Yeah… so what?” The notion I take issue with is that they will always come into conflict; that they cannot be satisfied simultaneously. Also, what if my reasoning for sending them in is that the way I’ve set up the world means that’s the most logical and internally-consistent thing to happen? Isn’t that simulationism? What if my reasoning for taking them out is that I made a miscalculation in building the encounter and it’s not a fair challenge, but I realized this and want to correct the mistake? Is that not gamism? Seems like either decision could be framed either way, which doesn’t speak well of the consistency of this theory.

 

[Campbell]

Nevermind.

 

[niklinna]

Right. But what good is the overarching main category then? It obviously is not enough to align gaming preferences of the group, and for most of these proper divisions don't even exist. And like I pointed out, often we might end up with the same outcome from justifications from different categories. So the main categories seem just rather arbitrary and pointless, and probably more hindrance than a help.

I think it's a matter of scope and abstractness. Whether a player likes word puzzles or combat is pretty obvious and specific, and easy to address. Have more/fewer/no word puzzles, or combat, or balance their amounts to how many people at the table want them. Whether a player likes to face challenges of rules-mastery and see numbers of some kind go up, better than exploring the game world or facing fictional dilemmas, is rather broader than the particular kinds of challenges and things being counted, and requires more abstract analysis to address.

I don't think 'six cultures of play' is comprehensive either, but I'd wager people would have much better luck with matching gaming preferences via that.

I agree, particularly as it is descriptive of actual communities of people who associate based on their shared preferences!

 

[Jack Daniel]

So essentially, what I'm gathering from this thread, is that the GNS terminology isn't just mildly misleading, it's an outright detriment to understanding the theory. If I understand this correctly…

1. "Narrativism" has nothing to do with producing narratives and everything to do with putting characters on the spot, forcing them to make tough decisions, to find out "who they really are" (i.e. the same reason that your college creative writing professor told you that every story must have a central conflict). "We explore feelings, not dungeons," to mangle an aphorism. It would be better called dilemmaism (plus something, something, no pre-planned outcomes).

2. "Simulationism" has nothing to do with game-worlds being simulations (i.e. game rules as the "physics" of the fictional world) and everything to do with ensuring that game outcomes match expected genre tropes. A game designed to produce any satisfying three-act narrative isn't narrativism, it's simulationism, because it's simulating the general framework of a story. (But games that aim for, e.g., horror movie tropes or four-color supers comics also fall under this umbrella.) This agenda would be less opaque if it were outright termed genre emulationism.

3. "Gamism" is actually the agenda that prefers rules that are tight, predictable, physics-like simulations of the game-world. They don't have to hew to our reality; they just have to be verisimilitudinous enough that the participants can suspend disbelief. But rules have to put constraint on the fiction — because you can't have honest challenge if the world is unpredictable and arbitrary. We could perhaps facetiously rename this agenda to rules-not-rulingsism; but I think the more prosaic rules-as-physicsism would be less inflammatory while still being accurate enough to get the point across. (OSR-style D&D would land firmly in this camp most of the time, only drifting into simulation to the extent that some of its mechanics — like hit points, or XP-for-treasure — are deliberate attempts to replicate sword & sorcery tropes.)

My tongue-in-cheek tone aside, how am I doing?

 

[Charlaquin]

So essentially, what I'm gathering from this thread, is that the GNS terminology isn't just mildly misleading, it's an outright detriment to understanding the theory. If I understand this correctly…

1. "Narrativism" has nothing to do with producing narratives and everything to do with putting characters on the spot, forcing them to make tough decisions, to find out "who they really are" (i.e. the same reason that your college creative writing professor told you that every story must have a central conflict). "We explore feelings, not dungeons," to mangle an aphorism. It would be better called dilemmaism (plus something, something, no pre-planned outcomes).

2. "Simulationism" has nothing to do with game-worlds being simulations (i.e. game rules as the "physics" of the fictional world) and everything to do with ensuring that game outcomes match expected genre tropes. A game designed to produce any satisfying three-act narrative isn't narrativism, it's simulationism, because it's simulating the general framework of a story. (But games that aim for, e.g., horror movie tropes or four-color supers comics also fall under this umbrella.) This agenda would be less opaque if it were outright termed genre emulationism.

3. "Gamism" is actually the agenda that prefers rules that are tight, predictable, physics-like simulations of the game-world. They don't have to hew to our reality; they just have to be verisimilitudinous enough that the participants can suspend disbelief. But rules have to put constraint on the fiction — because you can't have honest challenge if the world is unpredictable and arbitrary. We could perhaps facetiously rename this agenda to rules-not-rulingsism; but I think the more prosaic rules-as-physicsism would be less inflammatory while still being accurate enough to get the point across. (OSR-style D&D would land firmly in this camp most of the time, only drifting into simulation to the extent that some of its mechanics — like hit points, or XP-for-treasure — are deliberate attempts to replicate sword & sorcery tropes.)

My tongue-in-cheek tone aside, how am I doing?

I have no idea if these descriptions are accurate or not, but I would definitely say that OSR playa is more about putting characters into situations that create dilemmas than about rules-as-physics engine. Rules-as-physics is more a hallmark of 90s and 00s gaming - 3e, GURPS, and their ilk.