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

[niklinna]

To respond and consider your point, I think that the reason you don't roll for weather in those scenarios is because the weather isn't setting the tone or playing a role in constructing the outcome of those scenes-- town is safe from the depredations of nature, particularly in the milieu Torchbearer emulates, and so the tone of the story demands that weather be more impactful outside of town than within.

Each phase has its own random tables of events/weather. They serve the same purpose—to affect the challenge that players/characters face (in either direction)—with different skins for tone. The camp and town event tables have their ample share of depredations and calamities (rockfalls, raids, plague, fires), but they are more prominently suited to the environment and the activities the PCs will be engaging in. For example, the weather table might have an entry that affects Dungeoneer or Pathfinder skill tests, because those are things you you do in Adventure phase, while the town events table might affect your Steward or Resources tests, because those are the things you do in town. Anything else in the text is slight window dressing, leaving deep exposition for purposes of tone or story to the GM (sometimes overtly so).

One of my key ideas tends to be that "game elements" like mechanics, procedures, feats, whatever, have a feel to them, a texture that, through the player's utilization, experience, or use of those elements conveys theming-- a kind of playable literary device if you will, and that most conventionally simulative and gamist elements are actually textural (of or pertaining to texture, as opposed to textual, to be clear with the semantics.)

See the link in my previous post about wandering damage tables. Texture does matter, but it's the surface layer, an element I don't think gets much attention in game theory discussions. Maybe folks regard it as too obvious, or if not provided by the rules/module, it's something any GM can easily fill in?

In other words "What feeling does this element create, and how does that inform the feel of the story?" In this instance, the gap that you've highlighted seems to be drawing the participants attention to the weather in some instances, but not others, probably to shift the tone of those instances when it does matter. Doubly so if it has mechanical impact, it is a means by which the environment-- Tolkien's "Wilderness" to borrow the concept, makes itself known to the participants. If say, things are harder to do in the rain, that drives home it's impact on the scene-- the dreariness and exhaustion, which sounds like the point of grind mechanic, from what you're saying (and also knowing Torchbearer is FITD, I'm imagining it as not being entirely dissimilar to BITD's Stress mechanics, conceptually.)

Torcherbearer is based on Burning Wheel, but the point stands. Anyhow, the thing is that, while Torchbearer makes a nod to the texture by having events or weather in the appropriate phases, and that does contribute to the tone, the players focus very quickly on the mechanical challenges presented—which also contribute to the tone of dreariness, exhaustion, or whatever.

Meanwhile in the tone of the milieu, town is a place of safety, where the players can find comfortable refuge away from the rain, they don't have to worry about it there, so its touch is gone, along with the cloud it puts over the narrative.

The section of the book containing towns is titled, "Safe Havens and Other Poor Assumptions". In Torchbearer, town is not a refuge, it's just a different pile of crap to deal with.

In other words the uneveness of the mechanic creates a kind of "Ludonarrative Harmony" between the narrative ideas of the wilderness as a place of stress /town as a place of safety, and the player's feelings of tension and frustration during each portion of the game. Similarly, from a simulation perspective, it doesn't have meaningful effects anymore because you're safe and can just go inside-- the game doesn't need the information for the simulation to impose logical effects on you, because there are none to impose, its giving the weather variable a null value while you're in town.

I'm not sure what you mean by "unnevenness of the mechanic", but if it's simply the fact that we have different wandering damage tables for camp, town, and journey/adventure, I think that was just done for variety. The tone remains one of desperate scrabbling amid adversity and danger, regardless of where you are.

 

[clearstream]

Weberian ideal types are models. They are not predictive - they are analytical and interpretive.

Classifying artistic or philosophical movements is a type of model. (A model for systems of ideas and practices.) This is not predictive. John Rawls is dead, but that doesn't mean we can't discuss the extent to which he is a Kantian - but we're not trying to predict what he will write next!

We can predict that if John Rawls is dead then we will not find John Rawls alive.

[EDIT I read that "An ideal type is an analytical construct that serves the investigator as a measuring rod to ascertain similarities as well as deviations in concrete cases... They are used as conception instruments for comparison with and the measurement of reality." There is no lack of implied predictive power.]

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

All obstacles in a RPG are part of the fiction. That's what makes it a RPG.

So any RPG gameplay that focuses on overcoming obstacles involves thinking about the fiction.

But does the play, and the system that drives it, reinforce experiencing the fiction for its own sake? In Torchbearer, the answer is "no". The way the players parcel and allocate their resources does not do that. The way resolutions are established does not do that. The fact that the conflict resolution system is more like Tunnels & Trolls than like RM or RQ means that it does not do that.

And none of this is because Luke and Thor were aiming to foster simulation but failed! It's because they wanted a game that would, in its basic structure and ethos of play, emulate Moldvay Basic.

Maybe I'm missing something, given that I haven't any experience of the game, but in what way does the system not reinforce the experience of the narrative, that lays it out so starkly for you?

It was described to me that you would roll for weather, which would then affect something called an 'obstacle rating' suggesting things are harder to do in the (lets say) in the rain, and that this would contribute to a mechanic that measures how much the character is 'ground down' before they rest. How doesn't that reinforce the narrative? The player should feel a sense of building baggage from the mechanic as their grind increases and they tire, and seek refuge in civilization, they should resent adverse weather because it makes things harder and tires them out.

That all sounds copasetic with reinforcing the fiction?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Why do you not make a Weather table roll in Camp and Town phases? Why does this not hit the litmus test for "gamist nonsense (that violates or is at least at tension with internal causality and your ability to immerse within play?" I'm particularly interested in your response to this CL, given your litmus test in the past for "gamist nonsense."

I'm neither of the two you directed this to, but even among people who prefer primarily focused simulation play, there's always the question of relevance. One of the "gotchas" you'll see get launched at people who like simulation elements is "Why this not that? What's the line?" and to some extent its always kind of a silly reductio ad absurdem. Because in practice, no matter how much you prefer that, there are going to elide for simple practical reasons; that doesn't mean you're not committed to that, just that you stuck with the intrinsic limitations of time and process.

I'm less sold on this with "Camp", but I can see the Weather rolls not being particularly relevant to what's going on in Town phase in the vast majority of cases; at that point it can be dismissed as perhaps desirable but unnecessary background color.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Each phase has its own random tables of events/weather. They serve the same purpose—to affect the challenge that players/characters face (in either direction)—with different skins for tone. The camp and town event tables have their ample share of depredations and calamities (rockfalls, raids, plague, fires), but they are more prominently suited to the environment and the activities the PCs will be engaging in. For example, the weather table might have an entry that affects Dungeoneer or Pathfinder skill tests, because those are things you you do in Adventure phase, while the town events table might affect your Steward or Resources tests, because those are the things you do in town. Anything else in the text is slight window dressing, leaving deep exposition for purposes of tone or story to the GM (sometimes overtly so).


See the link in my previous post about wandering damage tables. Texture does matter, but it's the surface layer, an element I don't think gets much attention in game theory discussions. Maybe folks regard it as too obvious, or if not provided by the rules/module, it's something any GM can easily fill in?


Torcherbearer is based on Burning Wheel, but the point stands. Anyhow, the thing is that, while Torchbearer makes a nod to the texture by having events or weather in the appropriate phases, and that does contribute to the tone, the players focus very quickly on the mechanical challenges presented—which also contribute to the tone of dreariness, exhaustion, or whatever.

The section of the book containing towns is titled, "Safe Havens and Other Poor Assumptions". In Torchbearer, town is not a refuge, it's just a different pile of crap to deal with.


I'm not sure what you mean by "unnevenness of the mechanic", but if it's simply the fact that we have different wandering damage tables for camp, town, and journey/adventure, I think that was just done for variety. The tone remains one of desperate scrabbling amid adversity and danger, regardless of where you are.

Understood, thanks for insights, now incidentally when you say "anything else in the text" what are you referring to?

 

[niklinna]

Maybe I'm missing something, given that I haven't any experience of the game, but in what way does the system not reinforce the experience of the narrative, that lays it out so starkly for you?

It was described to me that you would roll for weather, which would then affect something called an 'obstacle rating' suggesting things are harder to do in the (lets say) in the rain, and that this would contribute to a mechanic that measures how much the character is 'ground down' before they rest. How doesn't that reinforce the narrative? The player should feel a sense of building baggage from the mechanic as their grind increases and they tire, and seek refuge in civilization, they should resent adverse weather because it makes things harder and tires them out.

That all sounds copasetic with reinforcing the fiction?

It's not whether it reinforces the fiction—it's how. The mechanics involve dealing with numbers and math and rolling dice, which reinforces the fiction of a difficult situation, but which, for some people, distracts them from the narrative elements of the situation and feels more like bookkeeping.

 

[niklinna]

Understood, thanks for insights, now incidentally when you say "anything else in the text" what are you referring to?

Here are some short examples from the game (from different tables):

• 5 Vermin. Vermin get into one character’s pack and ruin their rations (game master’s choice). Roll 1d6 for amount ruined.
• 13 Rare herbs. The flora of this place can be harvested to make healing poultices that grant +1D to Healer tests.
• 6 Bad temperature. Extreme cold (or heat in hot caves) makes you uncomfortable: +1 Ob to all tests during this camp phase.
• 6 Festival. The streets are blocked by parades, and the market is closed.
• 9 Labor strike. The guild hall is closed. No services available.
• 10 Visiting nobility. They smell nice, are polite and make no imposition.

The entries could have just given bare mechanical effects (lose 1d6 rations, no shopping, "nothing of note happens"). But instead they provide some minimal rationale for the mechanical effect, which maybe saves the GM a little mental effort. But they are free to alter or embellish it as much as they want to reinforce the fiction, and some are even potential hooks for action, but what that action might be is left to the GM/players.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

It's not whether it reinforces the fiction—it's how. The mechanics involve dealing with numbers and math and rolling dice, which reinforces the fiction of a difficult situation, but which, for some people, distracts them from the narrative elements of the situation and feels more like bookkeeping.

Well right, but we're in the weeds of some pretty dense frameworks , I think they were attempting to discuss more than their own personal threshold for crunch tolerance.

Here are some short examples from the game (from different tables):

• 5 Vermin. Vermin get into one character’s pack and ruin their rations (game master’s choice). Roll 1d6 for amount ruined.
• 13 Rare herbs. The flora of this place can be harvested to make healing poultices that grant +1D to Healer tests.
• 6 Bad temperature. Extreme cold (or heat in hot caves) makes you uncomfortable: +1 Ob to all tests during this camp phase.
• 6 Festival. The streets are blocked by parades, and the market is closed.
• 9 Labor strike. The guild hall is closed. No services available.
• 10 Visiting nobility. They smell nice, are polite and make no imposition.

The entries could have just given bare mechanical effects (lose 1d6 rations, no shopping, "nothing of note happens"). But instead they provide some minimal rationale for the mechanical effect, which maybe saves the GM a little mental effort. But they are free to alter or embellish it as much as they want to reinforce the fiction, and some are even potential hooks for action, but what that action might be is left to the GM/players.

Gotcha.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This is not "narrativism" in Edwards' sense. It is high concept simulationism - ie exploration, but of genre rather than of reality-modelling system. (What @EzekielRaiden upthread labelled emulation.)

Its also, as I note, one of the problems with that model, and to me shows that leg of the triad is being defined by people primarily concerned with dramatist/narrativist concerns. While genre emulation is a problem child with all these related models, it makes even less sense to toss it into simulation (given the concerns of those who prefer that) than it does where it went in GDS (dramatism). It appears to be there because putting it in nar didn't suit Edwards model of that, and even he couldn't find a reason to foist it on gamism.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Its also, as I note, one of the problems with that model, and to me shows that leg of the triad is being defined by people primarily concerned with dramatist/narrativist concerns. While genre emulation is a problem child with all these related models, it makes even less sense to toss it into simulation (given the concerns of those who prefer that) than it does where it went in GDS (dramatism). It appears to be there because putting it in nar didn't suit Edwards model of that, and even he couldn't find a reason to foist it on gamism.

Tangentially, can you even exit genre-emulation to arrive at reality modeling? I feel as though the layer of interpretation intrinsic to RPGs would necessitate that 'reality' be a genre in and of itself, where your impressions of what's realistic would shape the constraints of the emulation.

Separately, is it weird that I think I would consider genre emulation to be 'gamism' because it seems to manifest itself primarily in 'game feel' -- e.g. emulating horror = the feeling of horror out of the mechanics and their theming.