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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4045479" data-attributes="member: 42582">The reason I was tempted to equate your use of "narrativist" with "railroading" was because of sentences like the above, which refer to "narrative DMs".I am not talking about a certain style of GMing. I am talking about a certain style of play which emphasises player control and protagonism. My feeling is that what you mean by "narrative DMing" is an obstacle to, not a facilitator of, the sort of game I am describing. Because - if I have the proper conception of what you are referring to - the "narrative DM" tends to impose his or her own conception of the gameworld on the players (including by ignoring the action resolution rules when the PCs are involved in the action).True. I'm also pointing out that it won't necessarily work for a game in which the players want to make thematic statements as part of the point of their gaming. Because (to borrow a phrase from you that you used upthread) it is prone to produce "mother may I" play, which is highly deprotagonising.Well, the necessary rules for a simulationist game are also quite light (eg Moldvay basic played a certain way, which is at least hinted at in the advice to GM section, with its example of assigning percentage chances of success to unusual actions attempted by PCs;  or Call of Cthulhu in the high-concept domain).But just as there is a certain logic in purist-for-system design that pushes towards RM or RQ (as has been seen in some posts on this thread), so I think there may be a certain logic in narrativist design that pushes towards rules, including action resolution mechanics, that allow players to override the GM's opinion when it comes to certain elements of the gameworld.This again confirms my sense that you are describing a game in which the GM has a very high degree of power in setting the agenda (both metagame and ingame) - what the Forge would call "High Concept Simulationism". I am talking about a situation where the players take control. Hence the importance of dice and action resolution mechanics - they resolve conflicts. But they do not have to do so by modelling the ingame physics (again, I'll mention HeroQuest and The Dying Earth as real-life examples).I try to avoid them when I can, but sometimes a technical vocabulary helps, and the Forge terms provide the best I know of for talking about RPGs (though I think that the assimilation of Purist-for-System simulationism - which seems to be fairly attractive to you, certainly to robertliguori and maybe also to Celebrim - with High Concept Simulationism, which no one here really seems to be plugging for, can cause confusion).Well, whether or not a lot of D&D players like narrativist play (in the Forge sense) is I think up for grabs. Many of the changes to 4e seem intended to facilitate gamist play, but will also (in the process) create space for a certain type of vanilla narrativism (IMO). Some of the designers have posted on this forum in a way that (again, IMO) confirms that this is non-accidental (eg Chris Sims on one of the hit point threads from a fortnight or so ago).Not wanting to do a complete thread derail, but in all the debates about 4e vs WoW I think one thing that table top RPGs offer which computer RPGs cannot is the possibility of narrativist play (in the Forge sense). Whereas computers can do a certain sort of gamism, and a certain sort of simulationism (both purist-for-system and high-concept).So I'm not surprised that 4e is being designed so as to make more space in its rules for this sort of play.</blockquote>

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