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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6073774" data-attributes="member: 42582">[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION], that sounds right to me.I agree that my game is much lighter than thinks like Life With Master or even Sorcerer (as I understand it - a game I know about but don't know).But I think the connection between Edwards' technical account of narrativism, and thematically heavy and avant garde premises, is purely an accident of what those designers were up to aesthetically. And the &quot;tell&quot; in Edwards' own essays is his categorisation of The Dying Earth as a narrativist game - though it's thematically very light, as you'd expect.In your description, the &quot;premise&quot; comes in at (3) - &quot;the GM is guided more by what would be a cool/interesting/fun result than by Simulation concerns&quot;. Jonathan Tweet talks about the same sort of approach in Over The Edge - which leads Edwards to classify it as pioneering narratitivst design. (And Over the Edge is a little bit avant garde, but not really that heavy in its themes.)I also agree with you that in a certain sort of D&amp;D the gap between &quot;cool&quot; and &quot;simulation&quot; may not be that big! I think this is part of the charm of D&amp;D, and it's similar to how the classic megadungeon design closes the gap between &quot;gamist challenge&quot; and &quot;simulation&quot; by internalising metagame requirements like levels, monsters in discrete bunches, treasures to loot from them, etc into ingame features of the world. The Dying Earth RPG is pretty similar in this respect too (unsurprisingly, given D&amp;D's historical connection to Vance) - the world is wacky enough that light-heartd wit results just from engaging with it!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6073774, member: 42582"] [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION], that sounds right to me. I agree that my game is much lighter than thinks like Life With Master or even Sorcerer (as I understand it - a game I know about but don't know). But I think the connection between Edwards' technical account of narrativism, and thematically heavy and avant garde premises, is purely an accident of what those designers were up to aesthetically. And the "tell" in Edwards' own essays is his categorisation of The Dying Earth as a narrativist game - though it's thematically very light, as you'd expect. In your description, the "premise" comes in at (3) - "the GM is guided more by what would be a cool/interesting/fun result than by Simulation concerns". Jonathan Tweet talks about the same sort of approach in Over The Edge - which leads Edwards to classify it as pioneering narratitivst design. (And Over the Edge is a little bit avant garde, but not really that heavy in its themes.) I also agree with you that in a certain sort of D&D the gap between "cool" and "simulation" may not be that big! I think this is part of the charm of D&D, and it's similar to how the classic megadungeon design closes the gap between "gamist challenge" and "simulation" by internalising metagame requirements like levels, monsters in discrete bunches, treasures to loot from them, etc into ingame features of the world. The Dying Earth RPG is pretty similar in this respect too (unsurprisingly, given D&D's historical connection to Vance) - the world is wacky enough that light-heartd wit results just from engaging with it! [/QUOTE]

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