NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="resistor" data-source="post: 5132288" data-attributes="member: 9142">Or you draw the definitions differently.  This is one of the reasons why I buy into GDS much more than GNS.  Here's my opinion on how things work in GDS terms:Gamist - Something that is enjoyed by the act of overcoming some challenge. In-game balance (as in, all the characters having equal ability to contribute to success) is important in this paradigm.Dramatist - Something that is enjoyable by the act of creating an interesting story.  Narrative balance (as in, all the players having equal ability to contribute to the story) is important in this paradigm.Simulationist - Something that is enjoyable by the act of emulating an imagined setting.  Verisimilitude (as in, maintaining a degree of "realism" to the setting) is important in this paradigm.In contrast to GNS definitions, I would tend to put most genre-emulation techniques under dramatism rather than simulationism.  I view genre emulation as being part of "making a good action/horror/whatever story," rather than as part of "simulating an action/horror/whatever world."------It's also worth noting that sometimes the concepts of in-game and narrative balance get conflated.  To illustrate the difference, I'll pull examples from FATE 2.0:In FATE, every character has "aspects," which are sort of free-form ability scores.  Examples could range from Hercules having "Strength of the Gods" to Indiana Jones having "Whip & Fedora."The two primary mechanics in FATE 2.0 are: 1) Spending a FATE point to invoking a positive aspect to help you on some challenge. Hercules spends a FATE point to invoke "Strength of the Gods" to break down the iron-bound door.2) Earning a FATE point by accepting a compel to act in compliance with a negative aspect.  Indiana Jones is compelled to risk himself to grab his fedora as the stone door closes on it.  He can either spend a FATE point to resist, or earn a FATE point for accepting the compel.In FATE, an "optimized" character with lots of broad, positive aspects isn't actually very powerful, because the game mechanics encourage balance at a narrative level: a character with all-positive aspects will run out of FATE points, while a character with all-negative aspects will have lots of FATE points and nothing to spend them on.  Players, then, are motivated to create characters with a balance of positive and negative aspects (or even aspects that can be either positive or negative).This then ensures that all the players have balance degrees of narrative input, as they are all required to spend some time acquiescing to the narrative influences of others (accepting compels to gain points) in order to fund the instances where they want to take control of the narrative (by spending those points to fuel aspects).</blockquote>

Verification