D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[The Firebird]

And they do?

4e is D&D. Objectively, it is. This isn't my decision. It's the decision of the people who are legally entitled to make things called "D&D".

If you don't like that, well, I'm sorry, your opinion is factually invalid. You can still have factually invalid opinions. Lots of people do.

Your use of 'legal' suggests a specific frame by which to judge. There's no reason why we should accept that. If someone buys the legal rights and calls monopoly "D&D", that doesn't change things, metaphysically.

Anyway this kind of naming debate is not going to be productive--especially if we use language like "factually invalid"--so that's all I say.

 

[Eric V]

Your use of 'legal' suggests a specific frame by which to judge. There's no reason why we should accept that. If someone buys the legal rights and calls monopoly "D&D", that doesn't change things, metaphysically.

Anyway this kind of naming debate is not going to be productive--especially if we use language like "factually invalid"--so that's all I say.

But all you can say is that it doesn't feel like D&D to you. That doesn't mean it isn't D&D.

I am not a fan of 3e (except under specific circumstances) at all, but I would never think "that's not D&D."

 

[FrogReaver]

And they do?

4e is D&D. Objectively, it is. This isn't my decision. It's the decision of the people who are legally entitled to make things called "D&D".

If you don't like that, well, I'm sorry, your opinion is factually invalid. You can still have factually invalid opinions. Lots of people do.

The claim is particularly risible when 4e has far^100 more similarities to any other version of D&D than it does to any other TTRPG...except the ones consciously made by 4e creators or 4e fans trying to specifically emulate it.

But go off, bud. Tell me all the ways 4e is somehow an alien from Mars masquerading as D&D. Tell me how the opinions of all the people who loved the Fourth Edition of Dungeons and Dragons are all wrong, because other people think 4e cannot possibly be D&D.

And there it is. It’s not good enough for me to say some people feel it’s not real d&d. I have to submit that their opinion is wrong despite us both knowing their meaning of ‘real d&d’ refers to a concept other than its legal identity.

Just note. I’m not the one making those kinds of demands here.

 

[Enrahim]

A bit more from Tuovinen that seems relevant to this thread:

the term “princess play” is not intended to be disparaging. I do not think that playing princess is a shameful activity. If you do, you might need help, because you’re criticizing a very common childhood game. The name comes, of course, from the common role-adoption game that children like to play, which I believe to present a creative agenda that is essentially similar to the enjoyment a roleplayer gets from a role meaningful to them. That is, it is exciting to pretend to be a princess or a fireman or rock star or astronaut or whatnot because you get to pretend to engage in exciting activities and be treated differently from usual.​

​

Simmy games that particularly rely on princess play as entertainment usually encourage players to develop their characters quite freely, and often offer very empowering character roles. The ideal princess play game will feature a wide variety of appropriate situations where the player gets to “act out” the role, with the other players offering affirmative reactions and feedback that make the role feel more real. The veritable philosopher’s stone for princess play games is the question of how to get players to rely on each other as interactive companions; the history of the traditional roleplaying game is a history of adventuring parties; there is a clear desire for inter-party role-affirming play (the dwarf and elf should both want to bicker to affirm their roles as the dwarf and the elf), but how do you actually get the players to do the legwork in a foundationally passive rpg culture? It’s a conundrum. . . .​

​

Probably the most archetypal Sim roleplaying game is created by combining GM story hour with princess play: the GM’s task is to bring an exciting story (a series of scenes with content, that is; having a plot is technically speaking just a stylistic issue), while the players’ job is for each to create a character inherently exciting to play. Fun is had when the GM gets to put out their play, and the players get to enjoy playing a role emotionally meaningful to them in the GM’s story. Success requires understanding how both the GM story hour and princess play work as core activities, so the game can be structured in a way that makes justice to both. Definitely possible.​

This seems to be what 5e aspires to, at least based on some of the core elements of its rulebooks. I'm curious about DaggerHeart in this context too - calling @Campbell and @zakael19.

I think the boundary between "princess play" and character-oriented "narrativism" can be a thin one: it's a small move from being the exciting role to wondering about the exciting role. @Campbell, I'd love to hear any thoughts you have on this given your experience with both sides of that boundary.

I am not Campbell, but as I read it it the external expression might be almost identical, but the purpose in the persons mind is different. The one pursuing a simulationistic agenda want to feel like the character, and learn about how they perceive the world. Someone pursuing a narrativistic agenda will want to express how they perceive the character.

In this regard I would actually think D&Ds system is better geared toward the narativistic agenda than the simulationistic agenda. There are plenty of tools the player can grab to to show off what the character can do. But there are preciously little support for how the world is supposed to respond to that character. This is for instance leading to the classic trope where the PC group of "monstrosities" enters the all human village, and everyone there go on with their life as if this is completely normal.

Edit: Thinking more about it, the simulationist approach can also include a curiosity as to what the character can do, and how that will effect the world. This is probably closer to the princess play as described here; and this D&D is much better suited for. So I retract my conclusion regarding D&D. D&D seem to be better geared toward princes play than I thought as it provide the tools to do cool stuff with the character that can be applied at all time.

So I think the main conclusion still is - it mostly depends on what is going on in the player's head. D&D provide lots of tools that is cool to examine and explore, but also a lot of potential for a certain kind of character expression.

 

[zakael19]

A bit more from Tuovinen that seems relevant to this thread:

the term “princess play” is not intended to be disparaging. I do not think that playing princess is a shameful activity. If you do, you might need help, because you’re criticizing a very common childhood game. The name comes, of course, from the common role-adoption game that children like to play, which I believe to present a creative agenda that is essentially similar to the enjoyment a roleplayer gets from a role meaningful to them. That is, it is exciting to pretend to be a princess or a fireman or rock star or astronaut or whatnot because you get to pretend to engage in exciting activities and be treated differently from usual.​

​

Simmy games that particularly rely on princess play as entertainment usually encourage players to develop their characters quite freely, and often offer very empowering character roles. The ideal princess play game will feature a wide variety of appropriate situations where the player gets to “act out” the role, with the other players offering affirmative reactions and feedback that make the role feel more real. The veritable philosopher’s stone for princess play games is the question of how to get players to rely on each other as interactive companions; the history of the traditional roleplaying game is a history of adventuring parties; there is a clear desire for inter-party role-affirming play (the dwarf and elf should both want to bicker to affirm their roles as the dwarf and the elf), but how do you actually get the players to do the legwork in a foundationally passive rpg culture? It’s a conundrum. . . .​

​

Probably the most archetypal Sim roleplaying game is created by combining GM story hour with princess play: the GM’s task is to bring an exciting story (a series of scenes with content, that is; having a plot is technically speaking just a stylistic issue), while the players’ job is for each to create a character inherently exciting to play. Fun is had when the GM gets to put out their play, and the players get to enjoy playing a role emotionally meaningful to them in the GM’s story. Success requires understanding how both the GM story hour and princess play work as core activities, so the game can be structured in a way that makes justice to both. Definitely possible.​

This seems to be what 5e aspires to, at least based on some of the core elements of its rulebooks. I'm curious about DaggerHeart in this context too - calling @Campbell and @zakael19.

I think the boundary between "princess play" and character-oriented "narrativism" can be a thin one: it's a small move from being the exciting role to wondering about the exciting role. @Campbell, I'd love to hear any thoughts you have on this given your experience with both sides of that boundary.

More thoughts later, but DH expects that the characters are “protagonist-heroes in a story.”

 

[Enrahim]

I view genre simulation as the more general term. ‘Real Word-like’ would just be one specific genre or aspect of a genre.

The blogger agrees. He talks about them separately, but points out this relationship. As I said, summaries are going to oversimplify

 

[The Firebird]

Frankly, it comes across to me as when they didn't want genre emulation in nar (in the old days, it absolutely would have been in dramatism) they had to put it somewhere, and it made no sense at all in game, so sim got it by default.

Yeah, this seems right to me.

Its occurrence is the result of people bringing in assumptions from other games; for example, that because skills are internal in one game, they must necessarily be internal in another game, because "that's just how skills work in RPGs".

That's not a very charitable way to phrase it. Better is "they prefer skills to be internal"--it doesn't assume your interlocuters are just misinformed.

Summarising a huge very technical post like that without grossly oversimplifying will be a very tall order. But I will give it a try partly to also try to organise my own new thoughts.

The main thesis is that the defining aspect of the simulationistic mode is that its play reward loop is dominated by curiosity being satisfied. This as opposed to naritivism which has self expression as the key part of the reward loop, and gamism that has ambition.

So a key aspect to discuss the simulationistic mode is to look at what the player's are curious about. Different techniques are good for different kinds of curiosity. Among those potential techniques are world simulation, and genre emulation.

End of summary, adding some examples of my own.

For instance it you wonder what would happen if the greek and roman pantheon met, you likely would look at how to do genre emulation of ancient myths. However if you are curious about what would have happened if Alexander the great with his peak army suddently was time shifted to year 0AD then you might rather want to look for some solid world simulation to help you figure out that.

If you have ideas for what would be really cool if Alexander had done in that situation and want to explore those, then maybe you would want to look into narativistic techniques.

A reasonable summary imo. The argument falls apart with the whole "narrativism = self expression, gamism = ambition, simulation = curiosity"...that is way too pat for me. Then there are cases were simulationism is used to create realistic enough rules but those rules are intended to be optimized and exploited as in a game...see 3.5, the TippyVerse, or Crusader Kings, and so on.

In this regard I would actually think D&Ds system is better geared toward the narativistic agenda than the simulationistic agenda. There are plenty of tools the player can grab to to show off what the character can do. But there are preciously little support for how the world is supposed to respond to that character. This is for instance leading to the classic trope where the PC group of "monstrosities" enters the all human village, and everyone there go on with their life as if this is completely normal.

It also satisfies gamist agendas, via the character optimization discussions.

This is what I meant earlier, you can see the categories straining. A good taxonomy should clarify things--a whale is not a fish. And that is not really the case here.

 

[Enrahim]

It also satisfies gamist agendas, via the character optimization discussions.

This is what I meant earlier, you can see the categories straining. A good taxonomy should clarify things--a whale is not a fish. And that is not really the case here.

I had to retract my conclusion regarding D&D character system being better for nar. It seem similarly good for sim.

And this sort of shouldn't come as a big surprise. D&D 5ed is known as the big behemoth that is doing "everything" ok, but nothing great. So to find it has elements that is useful to players independent of creative agenda should come as no surprise..

 

[The Firebird]

I had to retract my conclusion regarding D&D character system being better for nar. It seem similarly good for sim.

And this sort of shouldn't come as a big surprise. D&D 5ed is known as the big behemoth that is doing "everything" ok, but nothing great. So to find it has elements that is useful to players independent of creative agenda should come as no surprise..

Right; but here's what the blog says about hybridization:

I’ll also say a few words about hybridization, the theoretical notion of achieving multiple CA modes at once: historically Forge theory has entertained the idea, and particularly Sim-hybrids have seemed like credible propositions, possibly because Sim has often been viewed as a weak and pliant creative agenda that is easy to satisfy “on the side”. The development of the theoretical concept of “reward cycle” largely laid these concerns to rest by describing how coherent hybrid modes work: the hybrid game is actually, in structural terms, running multiple concurrent creative processes that are largely creatively independent of each other. Hybrids are theoretically possible but rare in practice due to how much easier it is for the humans playing the game to maintain a singular focus. This goes as much for Sim hybrids as anything else, and if doing a Sim hybrid seems more feasible, it’s because you’re thinking of a Simmy agenda that is relatively weak and yelding to begin with, and therefore easily satisfied.

"Rare in practice" doesn't square with "the most popular RPG", unless you assert that the majority of 5e games are only using a subset of the systems with a clearly defined creative agenda. Which is not my experience.

 

[Enrahim]

A reasonable summary imo. The argument falls apart with the whole "narrativism = self expression, gamism = ambition, simulation = curiosity"...that is way too pat for me. Then there are cases were simulationism is used to create realistic enough rules but those rules are intended to be optimized and exploited as in a game...see 3.5, the TippyVerse, or Crusader Kings, and so on.

The creative agendas are describing state of mind of the participants of the activity. The forge idea was that a game would be better if it was specialized toward one of these. The entire background for "better" was the observation that games generally wasn't specialized.

Making a game with a hodge podge of mechanics anyone can find some fun with wathever they want to do if they just put in the effort is quite straight forward. Creating a game that tells clearly who it is for and how it should be played, that effortlessly gives a consistent outstanding experience when this is followed is another matter entirely.