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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JonWake" data-source="post: 5810989" data-attributes="member: 95255">Well there's your problem right there.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />GNS is more of a metatheory of how players and the rules system interact during play. You can't necessarily look at a game system and say, 'ah yes, this is a Gamist system', because the system in and of itself only has life when its played around the table. Narrativist, or "Story Now" play emphasizes the dramatic (as in, traditional drama) aspects of play. A game system that encourages Story Now play places greater emphasis on the premise behind the play. So if the premise is "only the good die young", the mechanics might be built around rewarding selfish action in the short term and making life difficult for virtuous characters.  Fiasco is built around to encourage Story Now play. But that is all a system can do: encourage.Gameist, or "Step on Up" play is all about using the players intelligence and wits to make victory happen. It emphasizes tactics and resource management, and a system that wants players to Step on Up will make their tactical choices the most important aspect, sometimes to the extent of breaking the game if the players don't think tactically. The Burning Wheel's Duel of Wits mechanic is definitely about Step on Up gameplay.Simulationist, or "Right to Dream" is all about exploring the setting and tropes therein. It has nothing to do with 'realism' or 'verisimilitude', it has everything to do with having the freedom to poke around the edges of a game world. The systems of simulationist encouraging games try to make the game world as consistent as possible. Call of Cthulhu encourages a simulationist bent, but so does Marvel Superheroes Diceless.I don't think 3e and 4e have differing creative agendas. I think they put the emphasis in different places. 3e gameplay was definitely about Stepping Up, but in the context of play it led to a weird kind of Simulation: the cart went before the horse. People started treating the game worlds as if the strangeness of the system logically led to bundles of Wands of CLW, half-dragon half-faerie ninjas wandering the realm, and 15 minute workdays. The rules were deeply about a coherent simulation, but it was of an absurd world.4e, on the other hand, decided it would simulate a particular experience of Step on Up play. Which is sort of ground breaking for a mainstream RPG. The friction occurs from the people who never bought into 3e's implied setting or gamestyle, or who want to tell a different kind of story than 4e's structure allowed.5e seems to be on the right track: make a generic base game that can accommodate any agenda (within the middling bounds), and add modules that tweak it this way or that. Hell, Monte is even talking about making the game table discuss what kind of game they want to run before play starts. That's straight out of the Forgie handbook.</blockquote>

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