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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5760890" data-attributes="member: 42582">His blog doesn't even talk about narrativist design. Nor does it explain <a href="http://critical-hits.com/2008/03/05/dd-xp-interview-sara-girard-rob-heinsoo/" target="_blank">what Rob Heinsoo meant</a> when he said that 4e design was influenced by indie RPG (=narrativist, or do you disagree?) design. Nor does he say anything about Robin Laws work on DMG2, which cribs a good chunk of the GMing advice from HeroQuest Revised (presumably a narrativist rather than a gamist game). Nor the significance of "say yes" and other techniques discussed in the DMG, which come primarily from narrativist-leaning than gamist-leaning games, don't they?And then there is also the recognised fact that similar mechanics, with a strong and predictable metagame dimension (ie mechanics that differ from simulationist ones in just the manner that 4e's do) can support either narrativist or gamist play, depending on what sorts of behaviours by the participants receive social endorsement at the table (see, for example, the discussion of this phenomenon <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/21/" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html" target="_blank">here</a>). For instance:Gamist and Narrativist play often share the following things: *Common use of player Author Stance (Pawn or non-Pawn) to set up the arena for conflict. This isn't an issue of whether Author (or any) Stance is employed at all, but rather when and for what. *Fortune-in-the-middle during resolution, to whatever degree - the point is that Exploration as such can be deferred, rather than established at every point during play in a linear fashion. *More generally, Exploration overall is negotiated in a casual fashion through ongoing dialogue, using system for input (which may be constraining), rather than explicitly delivered by system per se. *Reward systems that reflect player choices (strategy, aesthetics, whatever) rather than on in-game character logic or on conformity to a pre-stated plan of play. Which is a really long-winded way of saying that one or the other of the two modes has to be "the point," and they don't share well - but unlike either's relationship with Simulationist play (i.e., a potentially hostile one), Gamist and Narrativist play don't tug-of-war over "doing it right" - they simply avoid one another, like the same-end poles of two magnets. Note, I'm saying play, not players. The activity of play doesn't hybridize well between Gamism and Narrativism, but it does shift, sometimes quite easily.This passage picks up all the features of 4e that are being objected to in this thread (and its cousins on this board): immersion-killing author stance; fortune-in-the-middle ("Schroedinger's wounds"); exploration ("realism") negotiated among the participants subject to constraints from the mechanics, rather than delivered at every point in play by those mechanics.Because 4e supports both aesthetic/thematic rewards (because of its integration of story elements with mechanical elements) and "cool move, dude" rewards, it can shift between rewards in the way Edwards describes.Who claims that the designers aren't aware of why many RPGers don't like 4e? The designers are aware of the obvious features of the game - it's metagame, fortune-in-the-middle mechanics, its support of author as well as (sometimes over) actor stance, etc. No one that I'm aware of denies that the game has these features. That it has them is obvious.This doesn't show the game is poorly designed. Nor does it show that it can't support a variety of non-simulationist playstyles.</blockquote>

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