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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8619208" data-attributes="member: 6790260">No? I'm assuming exactly the opposite. Rules can be (and, for some games, are) the means of producing an imagined reality in the first place. The imagined reality only comes after one or more rules have been chosen, in that case.The mechanic was--with as much certainty as we can have about such foggy past events--developed because it served a game balance function. It then became a source of fiction: if this is how spells work, then the world must look like X and Y. Being gamist in origin implies no limit whatsoever on what can arise from the resulting mechanics.You keep getting caught up on this and I just...I really don't understand it. All I'm talking about is where things got started.* Did the designer start from fiction they knew to be true, and then extrapolate mechanics from those truths? Did they start from mechanics they knew they wanted to include, and derive what that must say about other things? Or did they start from asking about the kinds of story they wanted to see happen, and thus determine what fiction is required, and/or what mechanics would permit or foster such stories?Like...let me break down that second question there. "A mode of creatively expressing an imagined reality." Does that reality already exist, in the sense that you have invented it and could describe its characteristics to others? That sounds simulationist: you have a world that is, and must determine how it works from its nature. The imagined reality is "already there," and one describes how it goes about its business via creating new mechanics. In this circumstance, fiction leads mechanics; you know what the world already is, and the mechanics are whatever either must follow, or (more often) one reasonable thing that could follow from the world being whatever it is.But, instead, it might be the case that the world doesn't exist, in the sense that you haven't populated it with any fictional entities or behaviors, and are instead going to figure out what entities or physical laws that world should possess given the rules you wish to use for it. That's a gamist way of doing things. It starts from the rules, and from that foundation, spins the world into fictional existence. The imagined reality is not "already there," instead it follows after the rule-making.Spell scrolls, HP, and a variety of other things followed after their selection as game mechanics. That does not, in any way, reduce or deny the power as tools-of-reality-description of these mechanics. The existence of these things has, demonstrably, driven an enormous amount of fictional events--across thousands or even millions of campaigns across D&D's near-50-year lifetime. But there can be difficulties that arise from using tools with one clear and intended purpose in ways rather outside that intended purpose. Choosing to say, "This is a bedrock part of this fantasy, what rules does that imply?" is a perfectly valid thing to do, but it is worth remembering the origin.Is the problem that I'm using the word "fiction" here? Like, do you think that I'm saying that it is UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE to write a story inspired by game rules when I say "mechanics led the fiction"? Because that's not at all what I'm saying here.*I should say, I did also allow for things to get started in more than one place. Gamism and simulationism are hard to mix, but it can be done. The other two possible pairs--G/N and S/N--generally mix relatively well, so it's entirely possible to do something like "I think point-buy games are neat and want to tell a story about tragic magical-girl protagonists, what fiction can I derive from this?"</blockquote>

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