Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8619064" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Yeah, this is something a LOT of people don't seem to realize. That is, the entirely and intentionally gamist mechanics of yesteryear can begin to seem simulationist--or, if you prefer, can become &quot;genre simulationist&quot; for the genre of the game itself--when the genre becomes so ingrained, people no longer think of it as a genre but just as &quot;what is done.&quot; And that's what an awful lot of the openly &quot;gamist&quot; elements of early D&amp;D--like AC, HP, Vancian spells, etc.--have become for many &quot;simulationists&quot; today. The mechanics are still gamist. They're just so familiar or entrenched that no one thinks to question them.Hell, the very concept of &quot;levels&quot; is a gamist chunking up of both personal experience and the dungeons themselves in a purely gamist way: &quot;level 3&quot; characters were, in some sense, those equal to the challenge of the &quot;third level&quot; depth in the dungeons. But people accept it--hell, they accept it to the point of making tropes like &quot;Take a Level in Badass.&quot;From what I can see, while those do have &quot;spell scrolls&quot; in the sense of &quot;a scroll which contains magic writings, and thus enables magic to be performed even by those who do not practice it, but they do not have &quot;spell scrolls&quot; in the sense of consumable objects. In King of Elfland's Daughter, the only mentions of &quot;scroll&quot; are a letter sent by the King to his daughter, which carries his &quot;rune&quot; that more strongly resembles a magical trap than a spell proper--the magic triggers the instant she &quot;reads&quot; the rune and sears away any connections she might have to the mortal world. Meanwhile, from what references I can find, the Grey Mouser does not consume the scroll when he casts from it--the words remain on the page, and in fact people refer to the text as saying that he can cast the spell with his eyes closed, meaning he really only uses the scroll as a starting point, much closer to the stereotypical &quot;reading a spell from a grimoire&quot; format, which is well-precedented in literature (heck, C.S. Lewis used it in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when Lucy Pevensie goes to read the spells from Coriakin's spellbook.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8619064, member: 6790260"] Yeah, this is something a [B][I]LOT[/I][/B] of people don't seem to realize. That is, the [I]entirely and intentionally[/I] gamist mechanics of yesteryear can begin to [I]seem[/I] simulationist--or, if you prefer, can [I]become[/I] "genre simulationist" for the genre [I]of the game itself[/I]--when the genre becomes so ingrained, people no longer think of it as a genre but just as "what is done." And that's what an [I]awful lot[/I] of the openly "gamist" elements of early D&D--like AC, HP, Vancian spells, etc.--have become for many "simulationists" today. The mechanics are still gamist. They're just so familiar or entrenched that no one thinks to question them. Hell, the very concept of "levels" is a gamist chunking up of [I]both[/I] personal experience [I]and[/I] the dungeons themselves in a purely gamist way: "level 3" characters were, in some sense, those [I]equal to the challenge[/I] of the "third level" depth in the dungeons. But people accept it--hell, they accept it to the point of making tropes like "Take a Level in Badass." From what I can see, while those do have "spell scrolls" [I]in the sense of[/I] "a scroll which contains magic writings, and thus enables magic to be performed even by those who do not practice it, but they do not have "spell scrolls" [I]in the sense of[/I] consumable objects. In [I]King of Elfland's Daughter[/I], the only mentions of "scroll" are a letter sent by the King to his daughter, which carries his "rune" that more strongly resembles a magical [I]trap[/I] than a spell proper--the magic triggers the instant she "reads" the rune and sears away any connections she might have to the mortal world. Meanwhile, from what references I can find, the Grey Mouser does not [I]consume[/I] the scroll when he casts from it--the words remain on the page, and in fact people refer to the text as saying that he can cast the spell [I]with his eyes closed[/I], meaning he really only uses the scroll as a starting point, much closer to the stereotypical "reading a spell from a grimoire" format, which is well-precedented in literature (heck, [I]C.S. Lewis[/I] used it in [I]Voyage of the[/I] Dawn Treader, when Lucy Pevensie goes to read the spells from Coriakin's spellbook.) [/QUOTE]

Verification