D&D General Supposing D&D is gamist, what does that mean?

[Jer]

Not sure why anyone would ever think CoC wasn't simulationist.

Because outside of the Forge "simulationist" means GURPS or some other game attempting to achieve a level of verisimilitude that Call of Cthulhu frankly isn't trying to achieve at all.

The terms are meaningless unless you've actually dove in to familiarize yourself with the vocabulary at a level that most people aren't willing to do. Throwing them around on a gaming message board and expecting people to understand what you're talking about is ridiculous, especially since some of the folks around here may not have even been in elementary school when the Forge and it's vocabulary was actually making its impact.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The old World of Darkness games are heavily simulationist. Yes there is a lot of talk in the books about drama and narrative, but the mechanics themselves do not empower the players to drive the story. Instead the mechanics directly control the PC's actions at times (frenzy etc.) and the GM is explicitly encouraged to direct events towards their own story ideas. It is very much about GM as auteur with the players acting out their parts, chewing up the scenery and bringing the detailed, heavily codified setting to life. It was precisely this dichotomy between what the game seemed to offer and what it actually did that led to the development of narrativist systems in the first place.

(I loved the oWoD, it was just that the game design technology wasn't quite there yet to support its ambition.)

Not sure why anyone would ever think CoC wasn't simulationist.

Yes, task resolution is simulationistic, but I feel it would be misleading to say the games themselves are simulationistic, as that is not actually their point nor focus of the play. But yes, I grant that several mechanics in those games are simulationistic.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Because outside of the Forge "simulationist" means GURPS or some other game attempting to achieve a level of verisimilitude that Call of Cthulhu frankly isn't trying to achieve at all.

Yes. And It's not that I don't see some mechanical similarities between GURPS and WoD games, but as those games seem to have so different goals and the feel they aim for, that it seems misleading to me to lump them under the same banner and any system that attempts to do seems to be missing something rather fundamental.

 

[soviet]

Yes, task resolution is simulationistic, but I feel it would be misleading to say the games themselves are simulationistic, as that is not actually their point nor focus of the play.

Not true at all, both games are expressly designed to simulate what would happen in their respective setting. You seem to be thinking that simulationism necessarily = detailed realism which is not the case.

 

[soviet]

Yes. And It's not that I don't see some mechanical similarities between GURPS and WoD games, but as those games seem to have so different goals and the feel they aim for, that it seems misleading to me to lump them under the same banner and any system that attempts to do seems to be missing something rather fundamental.

Have you read the simulationism essay?

 

[Jer]

Yes. And It's not that I don't see some mechanical similarities between GURPS and WoD games, but as those games seem to have so different goals and the feel they aim for that it seems misleading to me to lump them under the same banner and any system that attempts to do seems to be missing something rather fundamental.

I think it's fine to lump them under the same banner in the sense that they're both traditional games that share a lot of assumptions of what an RPG is. For example, they both put a heavy emphasis on modeling a character can do rather than what the place of a character in a story is. They share a lot of similarities in a lot of respect because they grew out of the same frameworks of what role playing was and how you approached it.

My issue is that by attempting to tie it up in a neat little bow and calling it "simulationist" it confuses people as to what the argument is all about rather than helping them to understand your point because the reaction of an average gamer is "Vampire isn't trying to simulate things - it's not Phoenix Command or GURPS - it's a storytelling game" if you aren't steeped in the jargon of the Forge and know what they mean by the term "simulationist" when they say it. That makes the jargon more harmful for discussion, rather than helpful, now that we're well past the days when the Forge was a going concern.

 

[Campbell]

Yes. And It's not that I don't see some mechanical similarities between GURPS and WoD games, but as those games seem to have so different goals and the feel they aim for, that it seems misleading to me to lump them under the same banner and any system that attempts to do seems to be missing something rather fundamental.

The taxonomy certainly isn't perfect, but the model does separate High Concept and Process Sim. It would proably be better to have a better name for High Concept Sim. However a taxonomy that does not differentiate between games like Fate, Swords of the Serpentine, Seventh Sea Second Edition and games like Dogs in the Vineyard, Apocalypse World and Sorcerer is just as fundamentally flawed.

 

[Oofta]

Every RPG has shared fiction. That's the point of RPGing.

Here's a very simple resolution system for a RPG:

* When I declare an action for my PC I flip a coin. If it comes up head, I get to say what happens to my PC. If it comes up tails, the GM gets to say what happens to my PC.​

Where is the simulation in that RPG system?

Have you ever played a RPG that is not D&D or a derivative? Have you played any of the games I identified as having no simulationist aspects: HeroWars, HeroQuest and HeroQuest revised; Maelstrom Storytelling; Marvel Heroic RP; In A Wicked Age; Agon; Cthulhu Dark; The Green Knight?

Let's just look at The Green Knight, which is easy to describe. Each PC has a Dishonour score. When you attempt an action, it must be classified as either honourable or dishonourable. If the action is honourable, it succeeds if you roll above your Dishonour, and if you succeed your Dishonour steps down while if you fail it steps up. If the action is dishonourable, it succeeds if you roll below your Dishonour, and your Dishonour steps up.

What is that simulating?

Presumably you've heard of Apocalypse World, which has spawned a whole family of RPGs (PbtA - "Powered by the Apocalypse"). Here is what Vincent Baker, the designer of AW, says on p 288: "The entire game design follows from “Narrativism: Story Now” by Ron Edwards." How is this consistent with "GNS" not being useful? It led to the most influential contemporary RPG design.

As I explained above, we're speaking different languages. I mean, I got the definition that only games such as chess and MtG are truly gamist was from a blog post on this very topic. The world that MtG exists in doesn't really matter, there is no characterization, no decisions not completely covered by the rules. Any game where you are interacting with the world instead of another player (GM doesn't count) or where every decision is not dictated by a small set of rules is for me going to be somewhat simulationist. If a game is so limited that I would not consider it at least somewhat simulationist then I probably wouldn't even consider it an RPG. Pandemic for example has you working as a team, but every action is dictated by cards and abilities, every world event is dictated by a set of concrete rules.

Maybe my definition is meaningless to you. But you also claim D&D is not at all simulationist which I also disagree with. I don't see the point to continuing a conversation when what you mean and what I mean by the same words and phrases means different things.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't know what RPGs you have experience with.

If you have never played a RPG other than D&D and its derivatives, most of the Forge discussion will not be meaningful to you.

For similar reasons, if you have never seen a movie other than a MCU one and the latest rom-com, most of the discussion on a film studies blog will not be meaningful to you.

But if you've played a bit of Apocalypse World, or a bit of Marvel Heroic RP, then you'll see straight away that there are approaches to RPGing that are different from D&D's.

I've played Apocalypse World a bit, enough to know how it works. Its the jargon terminology I have issue with. What does narrativist,gamist, and simulationist mean if its not the natural language definition, and why can't we just use terms that don't require an advanced gaming degree to discuss?

For the record, I have significant experience in all versions of D&D, TSR Marvel, Fantasy Flight Star Wars, classic Traveler, Mutants & Masterminds, all versions of Cyberpunk, various Palladium games, and all versions of L5R, to name a few off the top of my head.

 

[soviet]

can't delete message