Why Jargon is Bad, and Some Modern Resources for RPG Theory

[Crimson Longinus]

@pemerton like the last time you brought this up, this doesn't make any sense to me, and I don't understand why morality would have anything to do with simulationism. The association seems truly bizarre.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yes! That would be a sensible definition! That also is what I (and I'd wager most people) actually mean when talking about simulation in RPGs (when not specifically addressing GNS.)

This distinction could be heavily ascribed to the fact almost all the GDS simulation proponents were of a particular stripe of immersionist playstyle; they absolutely did not want to do anything that was not an in-character decision unless it could be pushed down to a pretty much reflexive state (so that most strongly representative mechanics were just an expression of all that immersive decision making.

This is why, for such people, strongly genre-convention games were a nonstarter, in the way the dramatists and gamists (or even less strong simulationists that, say, weren't so attached to immersion); there was no possible way to engage with them without being aware of the genre tropes, and that meant one of two things: either everyone else was too (at which point the whole complexion of the setting changes; as noted it moves villains intrinsically into tragic figures because they can never win but are compelled to try anyway, and that's just the tip of the iceberg) or only their PC is aware of it, at which point they are pushed into being, by the standards of the setting, insane. The way they wanted to play and that sort of genre (and there are others) simply wouldn't work.

The fact its also a pretty brightline distinction even for people more willing to, say, play from authorial stance is to some degree a happy coincidence.

 

[Thomas Shey]

To me that's more an issue in what an attack roll is meant to represent (mapping mechanics to fiction). If billed as a "to hit" roll, the name is pretty clearly indicating that a miss means you don't hit. If not billed as such, I'm fine with an attack success/fail governing degrees of damage instead. It's just a different way of dividing up the fumble/miss/hit/crit range. If such things aren't presented in terms of damage-whittling at all, you have something different again.

One of the things that came up a while back is D&D in particular struggles with the fact that from the start its wanted to have its cake and eat it too about what its combat process represents. That leads to the eternal grind about what hit points actually do and don't represent, where if it had been set up so they were clearly an unequivocally a narrative conceit from get-go it'd at least be a nonissue (it likely would have, and still would be, unsatisfying to to a fair number of people but it at least would have had some clarity).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think you might have lost me a bit here. If the thesis is that GNS doesn't really address 'S' systematically, then how would that relate to it being a contrast between very strongly Narrativist games and very strongly what Ron presumably would label High Concept Simulation? None of these games has a Gamist agenda whatsoever, and even in something like GDS terms I would say they are about as far from 'G' as you are likely to get in mainstream games.

I'm going to strongly disagree thatn Champions does not have a pretty noticable Gamist agenda, and though I don't think it consciously realizes it, so to a lesser degree does Vampire. Champions also has an overlay of dramatic/narrative and genre emulation on it, but if its recieved criticism its very much because of its gamist and simulationist (in the GDS sense) elements.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think you'd have to be MUCH more specific about what these things that GDS unpacks actually are and how that both explicates an agenda/design space and how it does so in a way that GNS fails. I'm not sure that's a topic for this thread, and I certainly understand if it isn't interesting enough to pursue (it will no doubt be contentious for some, lol).

I don't think I'd have trouble making the distinction (I was around during the second half of its development), but you're probably right about the latter. Among other things someone would likely come out and play they "realism/versimilitude is just another genre" card and my eyes would roll so hard you'd be able to hear the sonic boom from wherever you live.

 

[Thomas Shey]

@Malmuria

I fundamentally disagree that a game like Blades in the Dark or Apocalypse World is fundamentally less focused than adventure games like D&D 5e or Conan 2d20. You have to basically ignore the entirety of the game's text and deal with counterproductive procedures to get anything close to the same sort of play. The same could be said for the opposite direction by the way.

I agree that a game like Monsterhearts or My Life With Master is more thematically focused than 5e or Exalted, but then again so is Vampire and L5R. It's not like a trad versus Story Now thing. It's a game to game thing.

Connotationally I also really dislike the focused/narrow bit because it feels like saying traditional games are for everyone and these other games are for weird people.

I'm not sure I agree with you about your general point here, but more about this part: is a specialized tool less valuable and more only for weird people than a generalized one? Though I'm a big fan of generic systems (because its not uncommon for me to want to run campaigns there's no specialized system suitable for the job), I don't consider a specialized system inferior to the generic one; to the contrary, if you're using it for its intended purpose I'll absolutely agree that its usually superior, leaving aside any learning curve and acceptability issues, which are mostly social in nature.

Basically, whild I might use Fantasy Hero or Sabre Fantasy for a given fantasy game that doesn't match up, most likely if I want to run a game in Middle Earth I'm probably going to use The One Ring.

Also the idea that like you can have the same sort of play experience without the technique and discipline I know is required to get you there is the biggest fundamental issue I have with that particular notion.

This I tend to agree with. As I've come to understand PbtA games, I think I'm much clearer on what sort of effect they're trying for. If I was genuinely trying for that, I'd largely avoid moving outside how they expect to be played (though I'll note @EzekielRaiden seems to have had some success doing so for his purposes, but that may be a "closest available tool" issue).

It just happens to be that for the most part what PbtA games are aiming for is not something I or (more importantly) most of my players happen to want. In fact in some areas its diametrically opposite of what they want.

 

[Campbell]

@pemerton like the last time you brought this up, this doesn't make any sense to me, and I don't understand why morality would have anything to do with simulationism. The association seems truly bizarre.

If it helps replace simulationism with play that reinforces character concept, genre and narratives tropes. Pendragon is the quintessential example of what we would call High Concept Simulation. Its focus is feeling like an Arthurian tale. It's passions are there to ensure play resembles Arthurian drama.

A good example of the difference between Story Now play and play that reinforces character concept, genre and narratives tropes is Burning Wheel and Exalted Third Edition. Both make the characters central play, but where Burning Wheel questions those beliefs Exalted wants the player to have their character hold to those beliefs in order to play out something that's a mix of wuxia and Greek Tragedy. You get rewarded for staying true to your beliefs and punished for straying from them in Exalted. Burning Wheel just wants you to engage with them.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If it helps replace simulationism with play that reinforces character concept, genre and narratives tropes. Pendragon is the quintessential example of what we would call High Concept Simulation. Its focus is feeling like an Arthurian tale. It's passions are there to ensure play resembles Arthurian drama.

A good example of the difference between Story Now play and play that reinforces character concept, genre and narratives tropes is Burning Wheel and Exalted Third Edition. Both make the characters central play, but where Burning Wheel questions those beliefs Exalted wants the player to have their character hold to those beliefs in order to play out something that's a mix of wuxia and Greek Tragedy. You get rewarded for staying true to your beliefs and punished for straying from them in Exalted. Burning Wheel just wants you to engage with them.

Ah, I see, I get that. It just that such personality mechanics are pretty rare, and I wouldn't in any way see them as an essential simulationistic element.
I generally greatly dislike mechanics that dictate how characters should behave.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I always took it that GNS 'Sim' is about systems in which the environment is a source of constraints. Whether in Process Sim where the game may attempt to use mechanical and game design features to impose realistic real-world (or alternate world) constraints, or in terms of High Concept Sim where the game may attempt to impose or prioritize specific concepts and focus play around them. There ARE important differences, but each of the 'S' sub-agendas does share certain key traits. Playing in a way that focuses on those agendas tends to have key similarities for this reason. Again, I'd appeal more to @pemerton here, as he seems to have all the relevant citations near to hand.

I think I understand the commonalities being claimed; I'll just again suggest that these commonalities range from trivial to irrelevant to people focused on "process sim", and often may not be much more so to people who really don't care about that but do care about genre emulation.

Essentially, cats and dogs have a lot of common traits including being mammalian predators, but that doesn't mean their similarities are particularly relevant to people who have a preference in one direction or another. So you have to ask what purpose your classification of them is actually serving.

That's been my argument; the narrowness of Nar's classification means it served some actual purpose. Its not clear to me that GNS sim's classification really does.

Sure, and GNS also separates these things, while recognizing that they do share the trait of imposing constraints. While they may do so for fairly different ends, the means are functionally similar and lead to similarities in play, as well as (probably more importantly from Ron's perspective) similarities in game design.

I just don't really agree that they do. Again, genre constraints are a fundamentally story based concern; they're designed to produce a particular look and feel and enable particular kinds of stories. GDS sim actively rejects story as a reason to structure things in such a way.

I mean, GNS actually REALLY WELL describes 3e D&D! And for exactly the reason that its various agendas all seem to fall within 'S' primarily.

Its not the things a model successfully describes that is the sign of its value; its the number of ones it fails. It somewhat describes D&D because the latter tries to be all things to all people.

The way some people see it as a purist-for-system process sim,

I'd tend to describe that in terms that are not particularly charitable, to tell the truth. I don't think its really defensible once you get into its guts at all. I think the confusion about what D&D is doing is largely a consequence of it having been used as the all-purpose fantasy tool for so long people don't even recognize the possibility they're hammering nails with the wrench sometimes because they're so used to doing it.

I'm not entirely sure how, for example, GDS approaches explaining that. I'm not saying it can't, but TBH it doesn't seem to really go there at all AFAICT.

See above. I mean, honestly, to use a particularly well known example that originally set of GNS development, there were people who were certain Vampire was a narrative game, and banged away at those nails for all they were worth. As best I can tell, D&D for a long time (I won't speak particularly of 5e, though not much I've heard counters this) is a largely gamist structure overlayed on a genre focused target (with the note that its largely become its own subgenre), with some dollops of dramatist and simulationist fragments here and there. But most of the latter is vestigial, and most of the former is being done on levels that the game only passingly helps you with.

 

[Campbell]

@Thomas Shey

I think the distinctions we raise are only banal to those who take exploratory as a given. As defining what it means to play a roleplaying game.