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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7314922" data-attributes="member: 42582">I agree that they weren't doing it at the start. Even without having been there (either in time or location), when you look at how Gygax describes &quot;successful adventuring&quot; in his PHB it's clear that he's describing a wargame/boardgame, but with much greater flexibility around &quot;the fiction&quot; because of the role of the GM and the conceit that there is no inbuilt constraint on permissible &quot;moves&quot;.But there are at least two features inherent to the game that push towards, or at least hint at, the approach we're discussing.One is &quot;mechanical&quot; in a loose rather than strict sense: if I can have a Strength trait whose numerical rating is not so much an input into mechanics in the strict sense but more of a consideration in adjudicating the fiction, then why not a Luck trait? A Hopeless Romantic trait? Etc.AD&amp;D heads this off at the pass by turning the traits from these &quot;rated descriptors&quot; into mechanical inputs in the strict sense, and D&amp;D has kept that up since. (Except perhaps in 2nd ed AD&amp;D, when I think the stats were once again envisaged as closer to descriptors, but this time to guide the players' characterisation rather than adjudication of the fiction in the context of action declaration.)But the other avenue of development in principle remained open.The second feature that pushes away from the gamist/wargame style is that the game clearly involves a shared fiction which is an intricate and intimate part of play in a very different way from (say) the flavour text on a Magic card, or even the flavour of a card in a Middle-Earth collectible card game, or the flavour in boardgames like Talisman, Mystic Wood, Wrath of Arshadalon, etc.When you look at the games coming out a few years down the track (say RuneQuest and Classic Traveller) it seems fairly clear that these were intended to evoke and involve story in a different way from classic dungeon-delving. (Though they didn't necessarily know how to actually pull that off in a design sense.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7314922, member: 42582"] I agree that they weren't doing it at the start. Even without having been there (either in time or location), when you look at how Gygax describes "successful adventuring" in his PHB it's clear that he's describing a wargame/boardgame, but with much greater flexibility around "the fiction" because of the role of the GM and the conceit that there is no inbuilt constraint on permissible "moves". But there are at least two features inherent to the game that push towards, or at least hint at, the approach we're discussing. One is "mechanical" in a loose rather than strict sense: if I can have a Strength trait whose numerical rating is not so much an input into mechanics in the strict sense but more of a consideration in adjudicating the fiction, then why not a Luck trait? A Hopeless Romantic trait? Etc. AD&D heads this off at the pass by turning the traits from these "rated descriptors" into mechanical inputs in the strict sense, and D&D has kept that up since. (Except perhaps in 2nd ed AD&D, when I think the stats were once again envisaged as closer to descriptors, but this time to guide the players' characterisation rather than adjudication of the fiction in the context of action declaration.) But the other avenue of development in principle remained open. The second feature that pushes away from the gamist/wargame style is that the game clearly involves a shared fiction which is an intricate and intimate part of play in a very different way from (say) the flavour text on a Magic card, or even the flavour of a card in a Middle-Earth collectible card game, or the flavour in boardgames like Talisman, Mystic Wood, Wrath of Arshadalon, etc. When you look at the games coming out a few years down the track (say RuneQuest and Classic Traveller) it seems fairly clear that these were intended to evoke and involve story in a different way from classic dungeon-delving. (Though they didn't necessarily know how to actually pull that off in a design sense.) [/QUOTE]

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