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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 6301774" data-attributes="member: 3192">There's little common ground between storygames and D&D so as not to appear as the same hobby. But I believe there always is between people, so I'm open to try.Think of boardgames, card games, wargames, sports, and puzzles. Rules define mathematical objects and conform a space (cards, dice, fields, equipment, etc.) to represent those objects. So we have balls, bats, lines, distance measurements, clocks, a whole ton of different stat and score keeping, and everything else represented in the objects. Game mechanics are the constructs created by rules to enable game play. Puzzle mechanics operate near identically, but for a few commonplace differences (e.g. solo play, needing to solve the pattern in whole for a puzzle - not reach an objective/game state). Game mechanics are the result of mental engineering, while gameplay is a player operating those mechanics (giving thought to them, performing them, etc.)Conflict Resolution isn't a game mechanic, but it lies at the bottom of the PM theory for games promoted by the Forge. At the core of that belief is: You express yourself inevitably with story. I do too. They are irrefutably in conflict. Then we ironically engage in Neopragmatism to decide whose story gets added to our ongoing narrative. (An ironically held false belief that we then hold the same "shared" story).The Big Model puts forth all games, play and mechanics, as exclusively consisting of the above. No mathematical constructs are referenced at all. Nor pattern recognition required to play games and puzzles - something at the heart of all other game play.D&D uses the whole plethora of game mechanics as mathematical objects, but these are all presented as the designs (maps) hidden behind a screen. It is a codebreaking more in line with the game Mastermind and situational puzzles than anything published lately. Actual D&D game play is navigating and operating these mechanics, like solving a maze, though certainly not all deciphering is spatial. Dice rolling is stopping play and the players relying on what they believe the odds are compared to what the referee/DM knows they are behind the screen. The odds are predefined in the game before the campaign even begins for how any the current state of the board allows one action over another. To me this is so different from telling stories as to be called something entirely different in the avenues of human endeavor. Game. Not story. This is up to the GM to create before play. Like what is Air? Fire? Water? What makes up the insides of creatures? And what goes in and what comes out of them? And what is a goblin anyways? Frankly there's probably not much difference between goblin dung and human dung to help out here. Most GMs I know treat goblins like humanoids (though they could be a trapezoids, simulation isn't the point here). IOW, a human variant though probably a far offshoot of a common ancestor depending on how the game's genealogy is preset. I'm guessing it will look and smell and taste and feel like dung. It will stick like dung and be soft when hot or hard when cold, just in smaller goblin-sized droppings. But of course all this depends upon the code the DM is using for that particular campaign. And what does comparing the dung to one's own mean? It depends on the PC's race, maybe what they ate recently, their averaged diet. I mean, they're going to have to provide some for comparison.In terms of game designs I know (but wouldn't reveal so they can still be played) I think a lot of it would depend on if the creature was a named NPC and was being tracked separately because of it. These histories mean a lot more detail is available for that creature - for example, a history of diet specifics rather than racial averages. But generalized results are okay in D&D. It's potentially very high definition for a game, but beer and pretzels at heart in the end. We don't need to know every atom or molecule here. Some players making stuff up by reading into the situation is possible and often fun.</blockquote>

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