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<blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 5462105" data-attributes="member: 15538">But that only makes a difference if the players in a narrativist game are willing to depart from the thematics and tropes of the genre. Obviously, in a game that is going to be &quot;D&amp;D enough,&quot; that's just not going to happen. Again, I am only talking about situations where the goals of simulation and narrativism are congruent, where it would be against the original premise to depart from either the integrity of the world (which embodies narrative) tropes or the narrative (which exists within a universe consistent with the narrative). Obviously, you can play &quot;narrativist&quot; games that do not substantially simulate any genre, and you can play genre games that do not care about the thematics of the source material.... but if you construct a game that is faithful to the storytelling tropes of the original, it both simulates the original poetics and allows exploration within the same field of options as the original.Any sufficiently developed &quot;narrativist&quot; game will create a self-consistent reality which simulates other games played with the same system. In other words, sim. If you move away from mechanistic resolutions, you might be able to more narrativist, but there would be nothing stopping you from going freeform simulation, instead. Ron likes to say that the agendas exist in play, in player priorites, but that flies in the face of &quot;system matters.&quot; If system matters, I find it difficult to imagine a counter-argument to what I am saying. I can see that 4e went for more abstraction, more &quot;storytelling&quot; in some aspects, but it remains the game that simulates itself, the game of winning the game that it is, the narrative of what happens when you play the game that is 4e. 4e has its faults, but it does not lack congruence between its narrative tropes, its creation of the imaginary world, and in-game player rewards. I think the reason some people like 4e is that they like where it leads them; it is a &quot;three color&quot; system, completely &quot;abashed&quot; if not incoherent. But it definitely works on its own terms. I think a reason a lot of people don't like 4e is that it so clearly communicates what they think you are going to be doing with it, and a lot of people don't want to do that.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pawsplay, post: 5462105, member: 15538"] But that only makes a difference if the players in a narrativist game are willing to depart from the thematics and tropes of the genre. Obviously, in a game that is going to be "D&D enough," that's just not going to happen. Again, I am only talking about situations where the goals of simulation and narrativism are congruent, where it would be against the original premise to depart from either the integrity of the world (which embodies narrative) tropes or the narrative (which exists within a universe consistent with the narrative). Obviously, you can play "narrativist" games that do not substantially simulate any genre, and you can play genre games that do not care about the thematics of the source material.... but if you construct a game that is faithful to the storytelling tropes of the original, it both simulates the original poetics and allows exploration within the same field of options as the original. Any sufficiently developed "narrativist" game will create a self-consistent reality which simulates other games played with the same system. In other words, sim. If you move away from mechanistic resolutions, you might be able to more narrativist, but there would be nothing stopping you from going freeform simulation, instead. Ron likes to say that the agendas exist in play, in player priorites, but that flies in the face of "system matters." If system matters, I find it difficult to imagine a counter-argument to what I am saying. I can see that 4e went for more abstraction, more "storytelling" in some aspects, but it remains the game that simulates itself, the game of winning the game that it is, the narrative of what happens when you play the game that is 4e. 4e has its faults, but it does not lack congruence between its narrative tropes, its creation of the imaginary world, and in-game player rewards. I think the reason some people like 4e is that they like where it leads them; it is a "three color" system, completely "abashed" if not incoherent. But it definitely works on its own terms. I think a reason a lot of people don't like 4e is that it so clearly communicates what they think you are going to be doing with it, and a lot of people don't want to do that. [/QUOTE]

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