Opinion: But It's So Gamist!!

[BryonD]

But your argument doesn't make sense either given or absent all of that. If everything in D&D needs to obey a fantasy trope that "the man on the street" knows and understands, then we can eliminate... well, anything that's original to D&D that wouldn't immediately be familiar to the layman. How many people know what a mind flayer is? (Outside the people I currently game with, I can count *one* friend who'd know.)

That isn't what he said.
There is a difference between introducing an idea that is new and contradicting something the man on the street would take for granted.

 

[Alnag]

No matter how many times was GNS proved wrong, it will still be quoted over and over and over. D&D is so exceptional, that an effort to artifitially push it into some pigeon-holes is futile effort not worth time or brain-activity.

 

[BryonD]

Wow -- I have been DMing D&D for a long time, and after reading this, I really have no idea how anyone could ever have fun playing D&D with all this heavy game-philosophy hanging over them.

Quite frankly, I could care less if a campaign or system or play-style is gamist, simulationist or narrative. Mostly, all the games I have played are an amalgam of the three.

It's sad.... my game table is full of D&D mutts. I can't imagine that 99.9% of the players and DMs out there really care one way or another. If it's fun to play, and the story is good, then all is well in RPG Land.

My group doesn't sit around talking about gamist vs. simulationist stuff.
But the implications of it have a big play into resolving the very big "If" in your last sentence.

If the game misses the boat, my group will simply tell me it wasn't as fun and they would prefer to go back to something else. How the gamist/simulationist piece plays into this doesn't even need to be understood by the people playing. But it does need to be understood by game designers how people react to these elements if they want to design a more appealing game.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Oops.

 

[ruleslawyer]

That isn't what he said.
There is a difference between introducing an idea that is new and contradicting something the man on the street would take for granted.

Not really. I think he was exaggerating the strength of that assumption. "The man on the street" probably doesn't think a lot about how magic rings work to begin with; if you told him that all those other rings that were mentioned in the beginning of the movies (and he might not even remember that scene) only worked for really powerful people, he would probably have no problem with that. I'd say that the assumption that, oh, all dragons breathe fire (hm, that one doesn't work in D&D either, eh?) is a stronger and more universal one among people unfamiliar with D&D-specific tropes.

The point is that many, many D&D-specific tropes "contradict" general fantasy/mythic representations of same. (The subsidiary point is that this whole ring thing is too fiddly to be something the man on the street would "take for granted," but that's neither here nor there.) What's a gorgon? Why are there multiples of everything from the Pegasus to the Hydra to the Chimera? Why don't all hydras regenerate? Why are elves shorter than humans? The list goes on and on.

 

[Hussar]

Nitpick

All hydras do regenerate in 3e.

Just sayin'

As far as contradicting the "man on the street", well, honestly, who cares? The Man on the Street coming in to D&D is going to be smacked in the face with so many things that contradict common stories that "You can only ever wear two rings" is going to be VERY low on the radar.

 

[ruleslawyer]

That was precisely my point. D&D has had its own mythology for decades; pretty much every game does. (I mean, why can't Mr. T have a Night Elf Mohawk?) Changing that mythology is par for the course with any new edition, and hardly unique to D&D as RPGs go. As to the ring thing: It's not even like there isn't mythological/folkloric precedent for it, as I noted abovethread, but OTOH, it's not like D&D's ever seemed to *need* that kind of precedent.

(I meant regenerating heads (and I was thinking 1e/2e... D'oh!) but yeah, good point there. )

 

[Roman]

By the Forge definitions, no one's a simulationist. The GNS terms refer to units of play only. A game system can be said to support a style of play, as 4e is being said to support gamism.

That said I've seen a few people claiming to be 100% simulationists or whatever. Though in practice virtually everyone prefers a mixture of G, N and S. I'm mostly gamist, for example, but I certainly make plenty of DMing decisions on the basis of what's plausible, which is simulationist decision making.

In my question, "am I a simulationist" I was not trying to ask whether the concerns I have stated make me a 100% simulationist or 100% narrativist or 100% gamist. Rather, insofar as those and similar concerns are important to me, would they fall into the simulationist category or is it a different category entirely (though I am pretty sure it is not the gamist category and probably not the narrativist one).

That does not mean that I do not care for other aspects of the game - I do - but I was trying to clear up my terminology.

I agree with those who say gamist concerns should not take precedence over other concerns. I can only speak from personal experience, but a degree of simulationism* is important for me, whether I am in the role of the player or the role of the DM, but especially in the latter.

It is precisely because of what I perceive to be utter disregard for simulationist* concerns during 4E design that I am now heavily leaning towards staying with 3.5E. I do not want to commit myself to not switching over yet, as something might yet convince me that my assumptions about 4E were wrong, but the chance of that is not very high. If somebody else buys the books (so that I don't have to pay for them) and wants to run a 4E game, sure I will not boycott the game on that basis, but I am not planning on buying the books myself or running a 4E game.

Note that this situation arises despite the fact that to some extent I do look to gamist and narrativist aspects of the game too and the fact that I like some things about 4E (for example, that characters get something at every level).

*I am not sure I am using the right terminology. I don't care for names such as "Golden Wyvern Adept" and the like that might be considered simulationist. I am concerned, however, about the referencing of durations and frequency of action use to gamist councepts such as 'encounters', about the removal of non-combat powers from monsters, about the inability to be bad in a skill and the like. Given these facts, am I a simulationist or something else?

 

[LostSoul]

Rather, insofar as those and similar concerns are important to me, would they fall into the simulationist category or is it a different category entirely (though I am pretty sure it is not the gamist category and probably not the narrativist one).

I think it's hard to say. What is it about those mechanics that concerns you?

 

[BryonD]

Not really.

I don't think or claim that the man on the street gets hung up on it.
But I think saying that the man on the street assumes anyone can wear a ring is reasonable and saying the man on the street doesn't know what a mind flayer is is an unrelated and different issue.