Opinion: But It's So Gamist!!

[Cadfan]

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.

See, I think that comment is objectively absurd. The fact that something hasn't previously been done in the genre doesn't mean that it can't be done in the genre, or that it somehow isn't part of the genre. So what if rings previously didn't have a rule that only powerful individuals could master them. All that's needed to make that idea part of the fantasy genre is a coherent, genre-worthy explanation for why that is true.

"Rings are semi sentient items of power, and can only be mastered by a powerful individual who utilizes the following rituals of control. A lesser man attempting these rituals will most certainly fail, and is liable to destroy himself in the process."

BAM! Simulationism achieved. And that's just something I thought up in about 30 seconds. I'm sure plenty of people could do better.

If your real objection is that this sort of rule for rings is too world defining, as you lightly suggest in your previous post, you would do well to make that argument instead of one which is clearly incorrect. To that argument, all I can say is that I think I might like the world they're defining, and I'm sorry if you do not.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think that this "gamist" vs "simulationist" dichotomy is just another tempest in a teapot

Friggin' YES.

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.

I wonder when people will stop making accusations based on 3e rules. It's totally, completely possible for 4e to reconsider the dryad as a combat monster who still fills the role of "pretty girl in the woods." Honest. I mean, look at that big 4 right before the little e. That means "new edition."

the narrative concept

There is no "THE" narrative concept. There are actually many narrative concepts of various items, some of which are more or less archetypal than others. The dryad as "horrible bush monster" is a narrative concept. It's just an unnecessary narrative concept given the fact that the pretty forest girl concept can STILL make for an interesting, powerful encounter (e.g.: a good game).

I mean, D&D is predicated mostly on the idea that good stories and good games can and should go hand-in-hand.

 

[rounser]

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.

This is just a longwinded way of saying, "it's subjective". Yes, it is.

That doesn't mean it's not a concern. Again with the shades of grey, you're not 100% right! Neither am I! Just because it's subjective doesn't mean it can be dismissed totally, though, as a lot of people seem to care about things like the ring thing, for instance.

All you have is an opinion, and that's all I've got to, and yet, here you are trying to axiomatically dismiss the opinions of others, when they've clearly outlined that their concerns have basis, blow by blow. You're free to dismiss them personally, but that doesn't make you right.

 

[mmadsen]

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.

That bit at the end is the key point: only being done for gamist reasons. There's nothing wrong with balancing gamist concerns, but there are many, many ways to balance gamist concerns, and not all of them have a plausible simulationist rationale; they don't all make sense.

This should not be gamism versus simulationism. We should be looking for crunch and fluff to meet both sets of concerns.

 

[apoptosis]

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.

I wasnt trying to get into semantics as that is always pointless.

I think the entire discussion about the three is to highlight was is important to the designers and the players of the game. This impacts certain decisions that are made.

It goes to WHY are you playing this RPG and what is important to you.

Gamist - It is a game

Simulationist - It is a way to immerse yourself in a fictional world through your character

Narrativist - It is a way to tell an exciting story about the characters (or your character)

No one is all one or all the other and there can be a lot of overlap.

If you are going shopping in a role-playing game.

A gamist system might just let you buy whatever you want up to the regulations of the rules

The simulationist player might enjoy haggling with the NPC for all of their shopping needs and might enjoy the dialogue with the shopkeeper

The narrativist would probably skip it if the shopping trip wasn't important to the story or the characters goals.

 

[rounser]

See, I think that comment is objectively absurd. The fact that something hasn't previously been done in the genre doesn't mean that it can't be done in the genre, or that it somehow isn't part of the genre. So what if rings previously didn't have a rule that only powerful individuals could master them. All that's needed to make that idea part of the fantasy genre is a coherent, genre-worthy explanation for why that is true.

I'm not saying it's not possible, or shouldn't be done, just that it shouldn't be done in the core if D&D's ability to stay something approximating a "Fantasy World Construction Kit" is to be maintained. In a supplement, go sick.

You can argue that D&D never was representative of anything but D&D fantasy, but you cannot argue that it isn't a step away from "fantasy genre norms" in that the former editions were closer than 4E, because they lacked this D&Dism (i.e. "the ring thing").

And please drop the rhetoric - what I'm saying isn't absurd, and what you're saying isn't objective.

 

[marune]

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 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:

Level limitations = a way to support a narrativist play ??? Explain me this one !

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.

In many opinions, VtM is more sim than nar.

 

[apoptosis]

Level limitations = a way to support a narrativist play ??? Explain me this one !



In many opinions, VtM is more sim than nar.

Absolutely. VtM billed itself as a storytelling engine that had no rules to really facilitate this in play.

It had very little narrativist mechanics (maybe the humanity rules)

 

[Lord Zardoz]

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?*

The gamist rules you cite would only have an impact on the narrative element of the game where those rules are in conflict with preconceived notions you bring into the game.

I have not seen anything that suggests that Warlords use magic. They do not cast spells, and they do not appear to have supernatural based abilities (as in abilities that would not function in an anti-magic field). I am going to assume you are talking about the healing surge abilities.

Trying to map a HP based system where each HP represents a given scratch or wound just does not work. No DM is going to be able have a mid level or higher D&D character feel endangered or threatened by a dagger, when using the rules as written. The game system as a whole is full of such examples, but the most egregious have to do with the HP system.

Suspension of disbelief is important. But having an entertaining game system is yet more important. As a result, there are some things that may make sense from a narrative standpoint that simply are not a good idea. Relegating the cleric to the position of combat medic is a bad idea, since he does not get to do much that can be considered cool Having a wizard be inhumanly powerful is great for creating a sense of awe with respect to magic, but it does not do so well for the guy who prefers to kill things with his sword. The presence of magic item shops in a D&D game does not help narrative suspension of disbelief, but neither does having every item you need show up in the inventory of the bad guys you kill. Having no restrictions on magic item use may be convenient for narrative purposes, but as 3rd edition proved, it just does not work out in practice.

Ultimately, skewing towards gamist type rules may hurt narrative. But skewing towards roleplay rules that may suit story creates worse problems. Classes that are unbalanced at the back end because 'a guy with a sword should be like an elite athlete while a magic user should be a mortal godling' are one result. Rules that allow a DM to force a railroad on the players just because it is convenient are another. Nothing I can think of can make a player angrier than immortal NPC's that they ought to be able to kill but cannot because the DM does not want them to.

Now, perhaps many of the problems I have noted are not problems for you in particular, because you are a good DM. Ok, I have no problem with that reasoning, as long as you also keep in mind that half of all Dm's are going to be below average.

Within any pen and paper role playing game, the story or narrative is only as good as the DM, but the game is only as good as the rules. I will take a good game with a crappy DM over a bad game with a good DM any day.

Narrative is easier to fix than unbalanced or impractical rules.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[rounser]

The gamist rules you cite would only have an impact on the narrative element of the game where those rules are in conflict with preconceived notions you bring into the game.

"Preconceived notions" is just another way of saying "genre norms".

I have not seen anything that suggests that Warlords use magic.

There was mention of minor magical abilities on the front page.

Suspension of disbelief is important. But having an entertaining game system is yet more important.

It's not an either or thing. You don't sacrifice one for the other and call it "job done"; you try to cater for both, and reach compromises that support both.

If you don't do this, we may as well all be playing a game called Hwungs & Djorks, and I'd be talking about how my 4th level character of class Raggascallion, race Wibblejubbler used his nuclear hiccup to destroy the planet your character-army was on, before we started forced time travelling based on the outcome of a psychic rock-paper-scissors game.

Now, Hwungs & Djorks is a really fun game to play, but no-one wants to play it because it's nonsense. No-one wants to play a Raggascallion, write about worlds where they exist, or adventures involving using nuclear hiccups to destroy frothing mobs of Hwungs. If only they bothered to play, they'd find out it was fun, but they can't believe in it, don't think it's cool, and don't want to invest time and effort in such things.

That is reductio ad absurdum, but it illustrates the point, and paying some respects to genre prevents this scenario. The point of contention is how many D&Disms the game can support in the name of gamism before it alienates the player base, or weakens D&D in general, making it not even capable of approximating the genre it was originally intended to somewhat model.