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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 5785407" data-attributes="member: 87792">I strongly disagree.  To people who like Step on Up play, RPGs can challenge them in ways no boardgame can.  That's a unique venue. On the other hand to simulationists, the World of Warcraft is massive and consistent if not coherent.  The World of Eve is ... something that can not be matched on the tabletop and is an incredible thing to explore.  Even at the non-MMO level, the worlds of Mass Effect, the Witcher, Dragon Age, KOTOR, and Skyrim (to name the first few that spring to mind) provide a huge amount to explore - and far more given the time constraints than any DM could handle. Given that simulationists have better alternatives, why not try to push them out too and leave yourself with just the narrativists?  Especially as an RPG is an RPG - there is nothing inherently simulationist about a Role Playing Game - but the very name itself says that they are (and always have been) gamist.  D&D explicitely grew out of wargaming and as such is one of the most gamist strands of RPG.  To me that sounds more like narrativist desires.  The gamists I know would most enjoy running around pwning stuff with a 6" knife, a long stick found lying on the ground, 50' of twine, a barrel full of rotten apples, the shards of a broken mirror, and four chickens.  On the other hand, give them the ability to rewite reality with a click of their fingers and they will take it because it's the best tool available. The power fantasy is IME a narrativist fantasy, not a gamist one.  But when the narrativists demand the power, the gamists will push what can be done with whatever they are given right to the limit.  Exalted is not intended to be a gamist game and it's not one real gamists favour.  But let gamists loose on Exalted without an explicit social contract and things get ... scary. A note to any offended simulationists or narrativists: I'm no more in favour of kicking you out than I am gamists.  And that's the point. Never played Diablo.  But Eve creates vast amounts of Simulationist challenges.  And here I'm going to emphatically disagree with you on two points. 1: You seem to assume there is one "social contract of RPGs".  You can play two different RPGs with the same group of people and they will have different social contracts.  PVP in D&D is one thing and would probably get you kicked out of most of my groups unless there'd been a long narrative arc leading into it (paladin vs cleric, each with ideals that demanded something different).  PVP in Paranoia is ... encouraged.  Which just demonstrates that when you talk about "The social contract of RPGs" you are talking about something that does not actually exist. 2: RPGs evolved from pure gamism.  Especially D&D.  Gygax and Arneson were both very, very, very gamist.  And Arneson got the idea for D&D from Braunstein and really stepping on up with an approach that said "that which isn't banned is allowed".  Tomb of Horrors is about as pure gamism as it gets.  Are you trying to redact it from the hobby?  Who are you competing against?  Competing against each other is a bad thing at the table.  But IME most gamists aren't competing against their fellow players.  They are competing against the challenges thrown by the gameworld.  The original purpose of the rules existing was for tabletop wargaming.  This is historical fact.  You seek to throw the entire history of D&D out of the game.  Once again you have invented out of thin air "the social contract of roleplaying games" when there isn't one.  I'll put up with behaviour in Fiasco that I'd potentially end a friendship over in a long running campaign game.  Gamism exists in RPGs because humans like challenges.  Gamism exists in D&D because the historical roots and ongoing patterns of D&D are gamist.  I know you don't like gamism.  In which case I have to ask something: Why are you posting on a board dedicated to a game that is based on a hacked tabletop wargame centered around Step On Up play simply in order to tell people who like this style that they are having BadWrongFun?</blockquote>

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