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

[Fifth Element]

If D&D did include all parts of the GNS model, D&D would be a mess of incoherency.

Only if the proponents of the model are correct in their claim that mixing types results in an incoherent game. There is no evidence that their claim is true, and as such you have no basis here. If you don't presuppose the truth of this claim, there's no reason to believe incoherency will result.

 

[soviet]

Only if the proponents of the model are correct in their claim that mixing types results in an incoherent game. There is no evidence that their claim is true, and as such you have no basis here. If you don't presuppose the truth of this claim, there's no reason to believe incoherency will result.

Tell me you haven't read the articles without telling me you haven't read the articles. Incoherence is where a game tries to focus on more than one agenda, so the statement you disbelieve is definitionally correct.

Whether incoherence is necessarily bad or not, or whether it can be ameliorated or not (it can) are the questions you mean to ask.

 

[kenada]

Incoherence is only an issue with incompatible agendas. Torchbearer arguably does both Step On Up and Story Now (I’ve found myself pursuing both agendas — though not at the same time). On the other hand, trying to do both Story Now and trad (High Concept) is not likely to work because the techniques of one will push you away from or undermine the other.

 

[Hussar]

Only if the proponents of the model are correct in their claim that mixing types results in an incoherent game. There is no evidence that their claim is true, and as such you have no basis here. If you don't presuppose the truth of this claim, there's no reason to believe incoherency will result.

To be fair though, most of the issues with D&D can be traced practically directly to incoherence in design. As differing goals clash, the game becomes messy. The gamist elements often clash with simulationist ones, for example, and trying to fix that can make things worse when no one is willing to try to understand the underlying goals in the first place.

Perfect example is the caster rules about not wearing armor and no weapons. That was a purely gamist decision. Wizards don't get armor or weapons because they are meant to be artillery analogues. So, easy to kill but incredibly devastating on the battlefield. But, then the Sim crowd came along and tried to create a reality around this concept and we got all sorts of wonkiness like, despite my character being incredibly smart and quite possibly strong enough, I can never learn to use a sword or wear a suit of chainmail. Because it "interferes with casting".

But, that doesn't seem to apply to clerics... because cleric magic and wizard magic are different. Not sure how they're different and they both use identical rules and often are casting the identical spells, but, they're just... different. So, my wizard can't wear leather armor and cast Detect Magic, but, my cleric can. And this is simulation?

That's just one example, but, I'm sure there are loads and loads more. And, let's be honest, there's a segment of the fandom that is actively hostile to anything even remotely approaching narrativist approaches. The whole "entitled player" schtick is 100% grounded in a complete opposition to anything narrativist being added to the game. So, while D&D is mostly gamist with a layer of sim on top, the whole body of narrativist approaches gets 100% blocked from the game.

If mixing was okay, then, we'd actually be allowed to have the odd narrativist rules module. But, the fandom absolutely will not allow that.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That's just one example, but, I'm sure there are loads and loads more. And, let's be honest, there's a segment of the fandom that is actively hostile to anything even remotely approaching narrativist approaches. The whole "entitled player" schtick is 100% grounded in a complete opposition to anything narrativist being added to the game. So, while D&D is mostly gamist with a layer of sim on top, the whole body of narrativist approaches gets 100% blocked from the game.

If mixing was okay, then, we'd actually be allowed to have the odd narrativist rules module. But, the fandom absolutely will not allow that.

I don't think that's hostility to narrativist (or at least in an older parlance, dramatist) directions; its just privileging who's supposed to the the ultimate master of what direction that goes.

Honestly, for a long time D&D has looked like a gamist structure with a strong dramatist string through it. There hasn't been any notable simulationism in it for a long time; what's there is mostly heritage rather than deliberate choice.

 

[Malmuria]

All this to say, system clearly matters. And I think looking back on freeform RPs (be they in forums or MMORPGs), the experience they offer is quite narrativist: Everyone shares considerable control over the narrative and you're expected to use this power wisely to see where the story will be led now.

My impression is that story games are not the same as freeform rp in this sense. That is, story games have rather precise allocations of narrative authority, and this precision (which is not necessarily “crunchy” mechanically) is what appeals to storygame enthusiasts, because then they aren’t relying on unspoken assumptions of narrative goodwill.

 

[Malmuria]

To be fair though, most of the issues with D&D can be traced practically directly to incoherence in design. As differing goals clash, the game becomes messy. The gamist elements often clash with simulationist ones, for example, and trying to fix that can make things worse when no one is willing to try to understand the underlying goals in the first place.

Perfect example is the caster rules about not wearing armor and no weapons. That was a purely gamist decision. Wizards don't get armor or weapons because they are meant to be artillery analogues. So, easy to kill but incredibly devastating on the battlefield. But, then the Sim crowd came along and tried to create a reality around this concept and we got all sorts of wonkiness like, despite my character being incredibly smart and quite possibly strong enough, I can never learn to use a sword or wear a suit of chainmail. Because it "interferes with casting".

But, that doesn't seem to apply to clerics... because cleric magic and wizard magic are different. Not sure how they're different and they both use identical rules and often are casting the identical spells, but, they're just... different. So, my wizard can't wear leather armor and cast Detect Magic, but, my cleric can. And this is simulation?

That's just one example, but, I'm sure there are loads and loads more. And, let's be honest, there's a segment of the fandom that is actively hostile to anything even remotely approaching narrativist approaches. The whole "entitled player" schtick is 100% grounded in a complete opposition to anything narrativist being added to the game. So, while D&D is mostly gamist with a layer of sim on top, the whole body of narrativist approaches gets 100% blocked from the game.

If mixing was okay, then, we'd actually be allowed to have the odd narrativist rules module. But, the fandom absolutely will not allow that.

I’m not sure this kind of thing is actually that much of a problem. It might be something like an annoyance, expressed as, ‘I don’t like this particular dm/player,’ but it’s not something that necessarily leads to people deciding to drop dnd, or even deciding to leave a table with people with whom they are otherwise friends. And if they want to gain more clarity as to why their table might be having disagreements, I think they would get more mileage turning to Robin Laws player types, for example as glossed here by Matt colville:

 

[Campbell]

The vast majority of Story Now games do not provide players with any more narrative authority than they would have in a traditional game. Rather they tend to expand the system's say and provide additional constraints on both players and GMs. For example, players actually have substantially more narrative authority in a traditional game like Mutants and Masterminds than they would in Masks while Masks puts additional constraints on players like Influence, Conditions and various moves designed to make them feel like teenagers.

 

[Campbell]

My stand on coherency is that it is coherency in the moment that matters. That as players of a game we should be sharing the same goal in any given moment, but that fundamental creative agenda can change from moment to moment and should be clear to everyone at the table.

 

[Micah Sweet]

To be fair though, most of the issues with D&D can be traced practically directly to incoherence in design. As differing goals clash, the game becomes messy. The gamist elements often clash with simulationist ones, for example, and trying to fix that can make things worse when no one is willing to try to understand the underlying goals in the first place.

Perfect example is the caster rules about not wearing armor and no weapons. That was a purely gamist decision. Wizards don't get armor or weapons because they are meant to be artillery analogues. So, easy to kill but incredibly devastating on the battlefield. But, then the Sim crowd came along and tried to create a reality around this concept and we got all sorts of wonkiness like, despite my character being incredibly smart and quite possibly strong enough, I can never learn to use a sword or wear a suit of chainmail. Because it "interferes with casting".

But, that doesn't seem to apply to clerics... because cleric magic and wizard magic are different. Not sure how they're different and they both use identical rules and often are casting the identical spells, but, they're just... different. So, my wizard can't wear leather armor and cast Detect Magic, but, my cleric can. And this is simulation?

That's just one example, but, I'm sure there are loads and loads more. And, let's be honest, there's a segment of the fandom that is actively hostile to anything even remotely approaching narrativist approaches. The whole "entitled player" schtick is 100% grounded in a complete opposition to anything narrativist being added to the game. So, while D&D is mostly gamist with a layer of sim on top, the whole body of narrativist approaches gets 100% blocked from the game.

If mixing was okay, then, we'd actually be allowed to have the odd narrativist rules module. But, the fandom absolutely will not allow that.

I think you're right that there is strong opposition to narrative elements being baked into the game, but I think people would be ok with an optional rules module like in the DMG. I don't want narrative rules in the PH I'll have to work around at my table, but I have no objection to them being used at another table.