Opinion: But It's So Gamist!!

[Hussar]

Something I've seen a number of times on the forums are complaints about how 4e is too "gamist". How this or that element is only being done for gamist reasons. Even the idea that gamist approaches are killing simulationism.

To this, I say, "Good."

Now, before you kill me with a simulated dead fish, hear me out.

The point of gamist mechanics is to create robust rules that work in as wide of variety of situation as possible. Gamist mechanics are situation agnostic - you should be able to apply gamist mechanics every time and they should give you a predictable result.

The opposite is not true of narrative or simulationist mechanics. Take, for example, the level limitations on demi-humans in 1e and 2e. This is an example of a narrative simulationist mechanic - the purpose of the level limitations was to create a world which was humanocentric, which is in keeping with the feel of the edition. There were two problems with this though:

1. If you wanted to create a world that wasn't humanocentric, you had to do lots of work. Stripping out the level limits pretty much meant that there was no reason to play a human at all. All other races were simply better. That's fine if you want to eliminate humans entirely, but not if you want to keep humans as an option.

2. If you only played at certain levels in the game, the limitations didn't really work. What happened in play was players simply chose races that had a high enough "ceiling" and the limitation didn't come into play.

/edit - I has been pointed out to me that this was a gamist element done to promote parity between the races. I disagree. This was done to make your game look like Greyhawk. As a mechanic to balance the races, it can only be seen as an utter failure.

3e went with a gamist approach. Instead of limiting demi-humans, they raised the bar for humans. Now, all races are theoretically on par powerwise. Granted, they didn't exactly do a stellar job with half orcs and half elves, but, the concept is still there. Now, it didn't matter which race you took, everyone started on a level playing field. If the DM wanted a world with a particular demographic makeup, he could simply rule that from fiat. The world that he creates will limit the races.

Take another example. Combat vs non-combat creatures. Combat creatures are based on what I think is a gamist approach. Non-combat creatures are not. Turning an encounter with a combat creature into a non-combat encounter is ridiculously easy - just don't fight. If the party comes up to an ogre and the ogre says, "Hey, youse guys! Me no fight! Me talk!", you've pretty much guaranteed a non-combat encounter.

OTOH, an encounter with say, a dryad is extremely difficult to turn into a combat encounter. A CR 3 creature doing d4 points of damage, that can cast Suggestion 1/day isn't a combat encounter, it's a speed bump. At 14 hp's, the fighter's first attack is going to kill it.

So, to make a dryad a combat encounter, we have to add all sorts of things to it - either templates or class levels. Both of which is fairly time consuming for the DM. And, that assumes a reasonably experienced DM who can suss out the fact that this creature is about as much threat as a wet tissue to a 3rd level party.

Now, the rules certainly fit the narrative simulationist (?) concept of a dryad, but, in actual play, she doesn't work very well. If the encounter isn't combat, then we don't need combat stats, and, if the encounter is combat, it's not exactly nail biting.

From my point of view, I'd much, much prefer rules that work most of the time to rules that only work within a certain narrative framework. It makes D&D a much better toolset for me. If you limit your rules to only function within a particular framework, you wind up with games like VampiretM. Great game, but, the narrative of the game is locked tight with the mechanics. Changing the narrative spawns an entirely new game (a feature that White Woflf has exploited to great advantage) and makes homebrewing pretty difficult.

/edit - Again, my bad. I believe the proper term here is that VtM is simulationist - the rules are enforcing a particular setting.

OTOH, having gamist rules means that you can simply fit a narrative over the rules. Generally not a hugely difficult option. It took En Worlders about 2 pages of thread to come up with a very interesting background narrative for the level restriction on rings for example (thanks to Irda Ranger). Going the other direction is far and away more difficult.

/edit - My terminology is all screwed up. I'm going to try to fix it. If you disagree with my term, please ignore it and try to fight past the urge to correct me. I'm learning.

 

[Xyl]

Hear, hear.

 

[rounser]

OTOH, having gamist rules means that you can simply fit a narrative over the rules.

No. The gamist rules can destroy suspension of disbelief for sake of an elegant mechanic, and prevent the possibility of stories you might want to push because the precious crunch needs to be consistent.

e.g. "Warlords" don't make sense in a D&D party IMO, and them using magic makes even less sense, yet the gamist rules suggest they exist, because they're fun to play. I'll have to ban them. This is easy to do in this case, but what about deeply rooted gamey things that don't make sense?*

And it's not an either/or thing. There's always a temptation to get lazy and compromise flavour for crunch because it makes your rules more streamlined, but the answer is to go back to the drawing board and come up with a better rule that meets both needs, not just the gamist one.

What WOTC should have done is gone, "hey, nice rule, but all magical rings not functioning except at high level just doesn't make sense, and conflicts with genre assumptions. Let's try some other way." They didn't. The game is worse for it.

*: By "don't make sense" I mean in terms of genre context. Giant, firebreathing lizards make sense there - those wings are really big. Magic makes sense there. Near-impossible warrior feats make sense there, but within limits - really superpowered stuff without the influence of magic or "epic power of legends" doesn't make sense there.

 

[Wormwood]

Hear, hear.

I'll second that.

 

[Cadfan]

*shrugs*

I think that this "gamist" vs "simulationist" dichotomy is just another tempest in a teapot. I don't think that 4e is any more gamist than previous editions, and I think that, for the most part, "gamist" is the new "too anime." Its a buzzword people use to say nothing of worth.

The closest I can come to an objectively "gamist" change in the rules is the fact that the skill set has been reduced to no longer include non adventurer type skills. In terms of making the game "too gamist," this is pretty weak.

 

[apoptosis]

Something I've seen a number of times on the forums are complaints about how 4e is too "gamist". How this or that element is only being done for gamist reasons. Even the idea that gamist approaches are killing simulationism.

To this, I say, "Good."

Now, before you kill me with a simulated dead fish, hear me out.

.........

The level limits I think were actually gamist concerns. They wanted to balance other racesa ability for multi-classing with humans which cant.

That they might not have worked well is more indicative of poor gamist design (depending on what the actual overall design goal was).

Otherwise if your conclusion (they wanted a humanocentric world) is true it still wasnt narrativist but simulationist. They were creating a humanocentric world. They used rules so that PCs would then have to follow this through. Otherwise consistency would have led to why can PC dwarves become level 20 and the rest of the dwarven world cannot.

The bit about the Dryad is also pretty much simulationist vs gamist as well.

A dryad is a dryad regardless of whether she is a combatant or not is a simulationist approach.

A gamist approach would be that she is too low-level to be a threat so she is not encountered

A narrativist approach to the dryad would be rules that facilitate encountering the dryad because the dryad is important to the goals of one of the characters or not encountering the dryad because she is irrelevant to the characters (or to the story itself, but the story should reflect the goals of the characters).

The level restriction on rings seems to be completely gamist. They dont want characters below a certain level having rings (same with available slots).

That it can have an ad hoc explanation is irrelevant (though it makes some people feel better). It is being made to have some consistency or rationalization to the game world (explanation for why) but it is a game design decision that looks to be pretty gamist.

A narrativist approach would be rules that that allow the ring to be gained at an important time in the story as dictated by the narrative and the goals of the characters (players).

I generally dont like gamist approaches unless i am going to run a limited-time dungeoncrawl type adventure (I think 4E will be awesome for many of the old modules like white plume mountain)

Things that are important to gamist design choices are generally not important to me.

I dont care about rules that strive for character power balance in combat

I dont really care about having turns where characters don't have an applicable action

Sometimes narrativist and gamist design choices tend to have similar results.

I used to love simulation-based games...but tend to not play them anymore in favor of more narrativist games.

narrativist games tend to focus on story now. simulation games dont (you encounter things based on the logic of the world), while gamist games are generally uncaring about this facet.

 

[Cadfan]

What WOTC should have done is gone, "hey, nice rule, but all magical rings not functioning except at high level just doesn't make sense, and conflicts with genre assumptions. Let's try some other way." They didn't. The game is worse for it.

*: By "don't make sense" I mean in terms of genre context. Giant, firebreathing lizards make sense there - those wings are really big. Magic makes sense there. Near-impossible warrior feats make sense there, but within limits - really superpowered stuff without the influence of magic or "epic power of legends" doesn't make sense there.

I know this is going to be ignored until the book is released, but I'm going to toss it out there anyways. The idea that magic rings not functioning until high levels "doesn't make sense" is only valid if you also assume that no reasonable explanation is given for why this is so.

We already have an entire rules system premised on one fundamental assumption: that at certain levels you can't do certain things, but that once you gain a level or two, you can. I don't often say this, but if that fundamental assumption is "too gamist" for you, then D&D is not your game.

Now, can level limits on rings be worked into that set of assumptions? We won't know for sure until we see the rules, but I expect that a coherent, internally consistent explanation can be crafted to explain why.

 

[rounser]

I know this is going to be ignored until the book is released, but I'm going to toss it out there anyways. The idea that magic rings not functioning until high levels "doesn't make sense" is only valid if you also assume that no reasonable explanation is given for why this is so.

Irrelevant. There's no genre-based reasonable assumption for it, because the genre doesn't support it. It's a D&Dism, and one there for gamist reasons.

We already have an entire rules system premised on one fundamental assumption: that at certain levels you can't do certain things, but that once you gain a level or two, you can.

The fantasy genre can accept people getting more powerful in and of themselves with no problem. A ring, on the other hand (hehe, pun!), is not part of that. Being able to unlock "some powers of a staff" because you're too low level ala Raistlin and his Staff of the Magi is one thing, whereas "all magical rings, everywhere, won't function until you're this powerful" is world defining and genre violating.

I don't often say this, but if that fundamental assumption is "too gamist" for you, then D&D is not your game.

D&D is my game, and you'd do well to drop the patronising tone. You just have to realise that we're not arguing in black and white terms, here - that what you say is just a tendency, not an axiom. Leveled power gain just happens to support both simulationist genre norms and gamist power gain needs. That ring thing doesn't.

And I'm not even upset about the rings, I'm more sort of "meh, who cares". But certain other things they've done do push my buttons, so it's a convenient example.

 

[Hussar]

I freely admit that my use of terms might be flawed. I tried.

If another term would make more sense, feel free to substitute that one. I'd rather not get dragged into semantic debates.

Rounser - your entire argument hinges on the idea that your suspension of disbelief is the same as everyone else's. If someone else has no problems with Warlord's using quasi-magical abilities, then your concerns go straight out the window.

"It doesn't make sense" is extremely subjective. Your "doesn't make sense" doesn't really make me blink. I simply don't care that rings don't work until certain levels. D&D has always had magic items that function like this - scrolls don't work right for lower level casters, Instrument of the Bards. Never mind that they divided magic items by level right off the bat - minor, medium and major magic items, separated by price with higher level items causing all sorts of problems with lower level characters.

To me, this is simply extending an existing game element.

 

[IceFractal]

It's not that it shouldn't be gamist, it's that it's possible to be mostly gamist without sacrificing other elements entirely, and they don't seem to be spending much effort to do so.

For instance, the Pit Fiend's lack of Fast Healing. Compared to the two auras, two ongoing damage effects, and minions, tracking fast healing would be a minimal amount of work in combat. And while it may not have much effect on combat, it makes a huge difference outside of it. Previously, Pit Fiends were self sufficient. Now, they need medical attention after each fight, in the backstabbing environment of Hell. Not a good trait for an infernal ruler.

And then there's the SLAs. No, the Pit Fiend doesn't need a bunch of combat spells. But adding a few situational SLAs for magical communication, seeing invisible creatures, and countering common assassination tactics would add very little to the complexity of running one. But since it doesn't have those, we get a supposed infernal ruler that can't counter any tactics beyond brute force.

It's like saying that since huge submarine sandwiches can get messy, all sandwiches can now only have one ingredient. There's a middle ground here!