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<blockquote data-quote="Libramarian" data-source="post: 6298882" data-attributes="member: 6688858">I don't think you're being fair to [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] or the Forge's Big Model. The Big Model calls out Gamism and Simulationism as valid creative agendas and I think Ron Edwards' essay on Gamism is actually very good. Pemerton basically understands classic D&amp;D-style gamism, he's just not interested in it. I gather that he ran Rolemaster for many years, which (AFAICT, never played it) encourages the players to spend even more time in emotionally neutral planning and simulation than early D&amp;D.The early Forge discussions were biased against simulationism, but I think because they saw RPG theory at the time as dominated by implicit simulationism (&quot;simulationist by habit&quot;) so they were trying to shake this up by taking an anti-simulationist stance* towards game design. This approach created many dud games that nobody plays anymore, but I think it was an interesting experiment. I must recognize that to some extent I owe my nuanced (as I like to think of it) understanding of the supportive and &quot;texturizing&quot; function of simulationism to all the hours those guys wasted playtesting games like The Pool and Donjon.* It's true that you still see the influence of this nowadays when posters here say things like &quot;D&amp;D has never been a very good simulation so therefore it should be even less simulationist&quot; which really doesn't make any sense by itself.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Libramarian, post: 6298882, member: 6688858"] I don't think you're being fair to [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] or the Forge's Big Model. The Big Model calls out Gamism and Simulationism as valid creative agendas and I think Ron Edwards' essay on Gamism is actually very good. Pemerton basically understands classic D&D-style gamism, he's just not interested in it. I gather that he ran Rolemaster for many years, which (AFAICT, never played it) encourages the players to spend even more time in emotionally neutral planning and simulation than early D&D. The early Forge discussions were biased against simulationism, but I think because they saw RPG theory at the time as dominated by implicit simulationism ("simulationist by habit") so they were trying to shake this up by taking an anti-simulationist stance* towards game design. This approach created many dud games that nobody plays anymore, but I think it was an interesting experiment. I must recognize that to some extent I owe my nuanced (as I like to think of it) understanding of the supportive and "texturizing" function of simulationism to all the hours those guys wasted playtesting games like The Pool and Donjon. * It's true that you still see the influence of this nowadays when posters here say things like "D&D has never been a very good simulation so therefore it should be even less simulationist" which really doesn't make any sense by itself. [/QUOTE]

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