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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 5648434" data-attributes="member: 27160">Of corse they don't - the (published) system used never determines what agenda is in play; Edwards talks rather about supporting specific agendas.  My belief is that D&D has always supported a Gamist agenda best, even though many aspects of the system have been conflicted and even incoherent at times. All RPG systems are, to some extent, "just a mechanical way of modeling something in the game".  To support Simulationist the rules simply have to do this without unduly encouraging player competitive skill use or thematic input and thus encourage a focus on "stepping up" or "theme addressing".  I think all editions of D&D do encourage "stepping up", because:a) The trope of "Adventuring" assumes that the PCs will engage in deracinated conflict activity with more-or-less arbitrary goals in order to "progress" (i.e. get more powerful and capable of killing stuff).b) The rules for combat, exploration and damage involve player skills (resource management, such as hit points, memorised spells, magic item uses, tactics such as flanking in 3E and weapon selection in all editions, etc.)c) There are rewards that are clear to the players for winning encounters - treasure and experience points.  These don't have to be unevenly split - mechanically supported inter-player rivalry in the same group is a hard-core Gamist option, not an absolute requirement for all Gamism. It's certainly clear that 3E/PF has more simulationist-supporting elements than 4E, but 'continuity' is a requirement for all roleplaying, not just Sim.  3E/PF certainly make more attempt to "model the game world" as a focus with some priority than 4E does - but compared to games like HârnMaster or Pendragon it's pretty weak fare, I think. The older editions talk a good line, here, but don't really deliver.  What mechanical aspects really have bite, here?For Gamist play I don't see meta-game mechanics as required at all - it is, after all, all about the game.  Burning Wheel seems more like the benchmark for this - or Pendragon, again.  Or even Call of Cthulhu. But in a universe that somehow accommodates "adventurers" that become as powerful as small armies without having the political system fall apart.  Again, I think earlier editions talk the talk for this, but ultimately fail if put under any stress at all; either the PCs are the only uber-powerful characters (in which case who do they fight, and what happens if they decide the 'powers that be' need to be subject to 'regime change'?) or they are not (in which case, why the heck isn't the ruling class exclusively composed of "adventurers" and thus utterly unlike any "medieval" model?).It's clearly partly a matter of personal aesthetics, but I have, in times past, tried quite hard to make D&D work for me in this respect - with no success. Huh??  The players determine the actions of their characters, using tactics and resource management in doing so.  "Meta-game mechanics" are not required - just ways for player skill or daring to make a difference (even if the main skill in use is blagging the DM to let you get away with something not specifically covered by the rules - IME a common "skill application" in older editions).Actually, player and DM ability to "trump" the normal systems for "story" reasons or "character play" reasons are distinctly anti-gamism.  I don't actually think they are the best way to approach supporting Narrativism or Sim, either, but they are at least "admissible" there. Prerequisites are a model of motivations and personality rather than a way to demonstrate system mastery to get the "best" ones?  Yeah, well, I guess you could view them that way.  I have never seen them actually used that way, though. Oh, agreed.  The "non-realism" is really nothing to do with why I think D&D is Simulationist-supporting; I think it isn't Simulationist supporting because its system elemets encourage another play agenda and it doesn't, out of the box, model a coherent world setting. 4E is much better as a gamist supporting system than 3E - I agree completely. Gamist play isn't done by the characters - it's done by the players.  The players are thus the only ones that need to be aware of the incentives towards Gamist focus. They push you to "step on up" to adventures and encounters and beat them.  Inter-player rivalry is hard-core gamism, but not a requisite for "soft gamist" play.  If you choose for your character to go into business as a storekeeper, you don't get xp, so you don't get levels, so you don't get cool stuff.  Sounds like incentive to "step on up" to the in-game challenges, to me. Survive and gain levels, sure.  And get phat loot.  How many D&D gamers have you listened to expounding (at enormous length, perhaps) about their unfeasibly-high-level character?  Or about the named-because-they-are-super-hard monsters they have "killed"?  And did this start with 4E?I think what you are seeing is the shades around the edges.  When I compare D&D in any edition with games really designed to support Simulationist or Narrativist play, I can see shadows of such support in D&D, but it's all just flitting around a solid core that has always been fundamentally Gamist supporting and incentivising, as I see it.</blockquote>

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