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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5792274" data-attributes="member: 42582">First, can I say that I'm really enjoying this thread, and just wanted to thank everyone who's conrtributing to it!I'm not sure about the polarisation - to the extent that it occurs, I think it's side effect rather than intention.The main way that Edwards articulates the difference has a signficant historical (rather than conceptual) dimension: many high concept games have inherited (from D&D, either directly or via mediation) action resolution systems with a somewhat purist-for-system orientation, but then hedge these in or water them down in order to produce a narrower range of mechanical consequences that will help produce the desired genre outcomes in play. (Reducing the prospects of PC death would be one common example of this sort of "hedging".)The main conceptual difference, I think, is that purist-for-system wants a mechanic for everything - as Edwards puts it, the system itself becomes a signficant focus of play - whereas high concept is more interested in treating the system as a means to an end (the ends of setting, character and/or situation) and so can handle system compromises or limitations when focus moves away from those ends of play.I'm not sure that 4e is more narrow in the playstyles it supports than earlier editions. I think that it is more upfront than earlier editions about its orientation, and also - it turns out - that the sort of game for which it is best suited appears to be less popular than WotC hoped.As to D&D's popularity, I'm in no position to judge how much that turns on being first to market, and how much that turns on the details of the mechanics.I think that one stage (late 80s-ish?), ICE - publisher of RM and Middle Earth RP (a RM light system) - was the second-biggest RPG publisher.Again, I'm not sure that 4e is as narrow, in comparison to earlier editions, as it is portrayed. I think it is true that there was an apparent willingness to drift earlier versions moreso than 4e.I think some other factors were also at work - for example, it seems that the expectation that those with non-simulationist preferences should subordinate those preferences in order to unite a group around a system like 3E was stronger, and more effective, than the expectation that those with simulationoinst preferences should subordinate those in order to unit a group around a system like 4e. I think that this relates to the overall significance of simulationist design as the mainstream of RPGing since at least the mid-80s, and the default expecation for how mechanics should work, even among some of those whose goals for play were frustrated by those mechanics.Modern art is an interesting phenomenon, connected also to intellectual, political and emotional responses to the first world war undertsood as marking the end of a certain illusion about the character of modernity.The broader question, of the relationship between "cultured" experiences/preferences, and "folk"/"popular" experiences/preferences, is complicated, and can also lead in directions in breach of board rules. But I think that the subsumption of cultural production under the imperatives of commercial production is an important transformation - something which begins in at least the second half of the nineteenth century (and which romantics, both conservative and socialist, such as Ruskin and William Morris wrote extensively about).I remember some time last year eyebeams (I think) had a post on these board saying that there is a widespread self-delusion among gamers, of themselves as immune to or above commercial/corporate spin, when in fact they are very easily manipulated by well-judged commercial/corporate endeavours. A factor in this, I think, would be that for many gamers a signficant part of their self-identification and self-validation is bound up in their consumption of cultural products which are privatised and commercialised in a way that traditional folk culture is not.I think a lot of the conversations about the OGL and Pathfinder exhibit curious features resulting from this particular state of affairs - the fact, for example, that Paizo is able to present itself, or be presented by its fans, as almost a countercultural underdog, when in fact it is a highly successful commercial venture based on selling subscribers a luxury prodcut in quantities that they will probably never have the time to use for its ostensible purpose (namely, RPGing).The announcement of 5e/D&Dnext is another interesting example of the intersection of cultural and commercial imperatives in a way that seems to involve a degree of willing cooperation by customers in a type of wilful blindness about their relationship to the producer of the product in question.I don't know if you know Edwards' <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/12/" target="_blank">nuked applecart</a> essay, but it can be seen as a Morris-style call for authenticity and "craft" in RPG production and the relationship between production and consumption. And I think that there is a non-accidental connection between his views about the RPG industry, and his approach to thinking about RPG play.</blockquote>

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