Simulationism vs. Gamism Deathmatch: There can be only one!

[Cam Banks]

D&D 4e will simulate a game of D&D amazingly well.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[DandD]

No, it won't be D&D, haven't you heard it?

I mean, they did away with THAC0, and introduced Feats and all that other stuff...

 

[LostSoul]

Narrativism always has gigantic armies of evil mooks at its disposal which don't have to worry about things like logistics and supply lines.

And you never know when Narrativism is going to pull something like "Love conquers all" and earn a victory out of nowhere.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Simulationism decided to stick with the one-on-one fight because to do otherwise would have risked bringing Narrativism in, and Narrativism always has gigantic armies of evil mooks at its disposal which don't have to worry about things like logistics and supply lines. In a one-on-one fight, Simulationism could at least rely on Gamism's sense of fairness to give both sides a fighting chance.

Shhh... don't mention the mooks thing; skeptic doesn't like it when you bring up all the narrativist elements of 4E.

 

[marune]

Shhh... don't mention the mooks thing; skeptic doesn't like it when you bring up all the narrativist elements of 4E.

It is true that 4E borrows some techniques from other RPGs that can support narrativist play.

The skill system changes and the tools for creation of encounters on the fly are both of them.

Hopefully, those changes don’t seem to conflict with the Sim/Gam aspects of the system.

Will they make D&D more fun ? Yes, for both DM and players. Will they really change the supported kind of play (mixed Sim/Gam) ? No, that's not enough.

 

[Celebrim]

But the simulationist army turned out to be just a bunch of minions and got slaughtered to a man...

Ha! Not in my simulation. Most of my major countries could have held off the army from 'Red Hand of Doom' just fine. In fact, that army looked remarkably like the elite corp of an army from one of my major countries. The main difference is that if some diety had taken a direct hand in pulling an army like that together, it would have gotten smashed immedietely because every single diety with a stake in the country would then feel it within thier rights to pull together an army to defend thier turf. If Tiamat can do it, why are the good gods standing around twiddling thier thumbs instead of rounding up a couple hundred lammasu, androsphinx, storm giants, treants, bronze dragons and the like to help thier side out? I mean, having heroic champions is nice and all, but why make them do all the work? Why leave everything up to a handful of, lets be honest, mere mercenaries. Why risk losing when you don't have to? Why let your people suffer at the hands of an evil diety when you could do something about it?

That's simulationism. The heart of simulationism is that this isn't taking place on a stage or a game board, and hense the NPC's exist and are doing things even when the PC's aren't.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

The Sims: D&D is the next add-on right?

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Will they really change the supported kind of play (mixed Sim/Gam) ?

You can't change what wasn't there.