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

[Campbell]

Story Now isn't collaborative storytelling done in the moment. The breathing heart and soul of Story Now comes from embracing what we called The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast - the conceit that it is impossible for a GM to control the story while the other players play the main characters.

Jesse Burneko's The Other Impossible Thing Before Breakfast is also instructive - That is, it is impossible for the players to control the story while the GM controls the antagonists. You simply cannot have legitimate adversity without legitimate risk.

Story Now play basically came from one particular way discussed to resolve The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast. Ron called it Bass Playing.

From the outside, it may be difficult to distinguish illusionism, particpationism, and trailblazing from each other. In each case, the referee has created a story and the players are following it. The illusionist referee has locked the players into his story without telling them this. The participationist referee has their consent to locking them into his story. The trailblazer is dependent on their good faith effort to follow his clues so that his story will be told. Yet in the end, it is almost always the case that the player characters have lived the story which was prepared by the referee. The fourth approach to play, known as bass playing, is completely different from these.

Ron Edwards identified and named bass playing, with reference to the role of the bass player in a jazz or rock band. The bass player sets the beat, probably the mood, the key, and the changes in the music, but he almost never plays the melody. That's given to the other instrumentalists to provide. In the same way, the bass player referee sets up the world, the mood, perhaps the situations, but then falls into the background and allows the players to improvise, he merely supporting their efforts, bringing changes when it will work for them, and keeping it moving at an acceptable pace.

In this resolution of The Impossible Thing, the referee controls the story in the sense that he sets up the world and the situation, and so decides what the story is about and where it begins; but he does not control how it ends, or how it reaches the end, because that depends entirely on the choices made by the players expressed through their characters. In the end, the story will be as much a surprise to him as to anyone else. Bass playing is the freest and most interactive approach to play. However, it demands that the players not expect the referee to tell them what they should do. The players should do what they want to do, to make things happen that interest them. It is thus in some ways the most surprising approach and most difficult to implement. Quite a few independent game designs attempt to encourage this approach to play.

At heart Story Now is basically a rejection of both GM as Storyteller and the collaborative storytelling process of something like Seventh Sea Second Edition, Fate or GUMSHOE. Instead, we each take on our respective responsibilities - players play dynamic protagonists, GMs frame dynamic conflicts. We all see where it naturally leads. It's an inversion of the Dramatist play priorities in pretty much every way. Putting them in the same bucket makes no damn sense to me.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And I still think you're seeing a more narrow range of play options than the Dramatists of r.g.f.a. talked about. Some did, indeed, view proper story as a cooperative process rather than than what you're referring to--but not all of them. But some also thought there was value in seeing where the story goes without putting their thumb on the scale. They just thought the things acceptable to Simulationists (like dead ends) and Gamists (like anticlimax) were unacceptable. If I had to point to a modern game that fits their mode, it probably would be some of the PbtA games. I know those are sometimes considered primarily gamist, but that's again because GNS gamism is kind of borked up--fail forward and "failure is interesting" would have not played well with the few of us back then, and I still think most people focused on the game elements would look at one or both of those askance.
But that class of old dramatists would have found both of them very functional, not because they're cooperative, but because they avoid cooperation while still make sure that things move forward to some kind of conclusion. I'm not sure how the intrinsic power sharing would have played (the only people who were really hardcore about GM authority were the hardcore simulationists, largely because they didn't want to engage with it at all as players, but a non-GM-top-down approach was kind of in its infancy conceptually at the time).

 

[GMforPowergamers]

But that's the problem; I also think they serve different purposes. For the most part, the kind of people interested in genre coherence are almost entirely separate from those interested in setting coherence. They frequently work at active cross-purposes.

where does this fit:
I want to play superheroes..like superman and batman. then when I get into game I say it's dumb another player doesn't wear a mask, and expects glass and an act to hide his identity... and then complain the other character another is playing is just as bad... of course the rich loner who is never seen during the day and disappeared for a few years right before the masked vigilante appeared is the vigilanti... why is everyone so dumb in this world....

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It's a throw-away line that a few people have blown into massive proportions.

From 4E DMG, p103.

"Player-Designed Quests. You should allow and even encourage players to come up with their own quests that are tied to their individual goals or specific circumstances in the adventure. Evaluate the proposed quest and assign it a level. Remember to say yes as often as possible!"

That's literally it. The whole thing right there.

they also suggest somewhere that you write down quests and spell out to the players "if you complete X you will get Y xp"

I love that and still do it in 5e

 

[Thomas Shey]

where does this fit:
I want to play superheroes..like superman and batman. then when I get into game I say it's dumb another player doesn't wear a mask, and expects glass and an act to hide his identity... and then complain the other character another is playing is just as bad... of course the rich loner who is never seen during the day and disappeared for a few years right before the masked vigilante appeared is the vigilanti... why is everyone so dumb in this world....

That's a pretty clear attempt to force a superhero game into a simulationist view, where it doesn't work very well. Because once you start pressing on that hard at all, almost no part of superhero settings stand up. You can have a people-with-powers game, but it won't look much like a superhero setting.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But that's the problem; I also think they serve different purposes. For the most part, the kind of people interested in genre coherence are almost entirely separate from those interested in setting coherence. They frequently work at active cross-purposes.


On the other hand, people concerned with genre coherence are also often, if not always interested in some degree of dramatic consistency.

I'd read Edwards explanation. I simply don't buy it. It places two things in the same bucket that serve too radically different purposes, and separates off one of them from the category that shares purposes with it. He shows the same lack of understanding of the desires those pursuing simulationist concerns do that the simulationists in r.g.f.a. did for those pursuing gamist concerns.

Edit: to make it extremely clear, I do not think that the Forgeite version of Simulationism works even as a guidance tool for writing good simulationist games, because it contains two targets within it that are not only not the same, they are actively opposed in likely the majority of cases (though this is dependent on my argument that there are hard and soft genres, and presenting one is far from presenting the other).

Are they really? I mean, lets imagine people playing a supers game in DC Universe. Don't you think they're going to have some interest in the setting as well as the genre? I mean, AT LEAST they're likely to evoke that setting as a tool, like I know some stuff about Aquaman because its canonical to the setting. Likewise I almost certainly want this game to be in keeping with the genre (it could hardly not be and succeed, and here genre and setting are likely to be somewhat closely tied together).

Beyond that, are the game design strategies, techniques, and tools really all that different? In either case you want to emphasize certain kinds of elements, certain kinds of outcomes, and certain kinds of narratives. Similar design choices are likely to be a result.

So, I see nothing about Setting Simulation and Genre Simulation that are OPPOSED, and it is likely at the very least that anything which supports one is not going to cut against the other, as setting and genre seem like things that are usually developed hand-in-hand in most cases. Now, if you are creating your own entirely novel settings and genres, then perhaps this might not hold so strongly, though it still seems like there's some relationship there. However I'm loathe to call that 'simulationist', though perhaps there isn't a better label for it in GNS (and I don't have a problem with just not sticking to GNS, its only one possible analytical framework).

 

[overgeeked]

Story Now isn't collaborative storytelling done in the moment. The breathing heart and soul of Story Now comes from embracing what we called The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast - the conceit that it is impossible for a GM to control the story while the other players play the main characters.

Jesse Burneko's The Other Impossible Thing Before Breakfast is also instructive - That is, it is impossible for the players to control the story while the GM controls the antagonists. You simply cannot have legitimate adversity without legitimate risk.

Story Now play basically came from one particular way discussed to resolve The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast. Ron called it Bass Playing.



At heart Story Now is basically a rejection of both GM as Storyteller and the collaborative storytelling process of something like Seventh Sea Second Edition, Fate or GUMSHOE. Instead, we each take on our respective responsibilities - players play dynamic protagonists, GMs frame dynamic conflicts. We all see where it naturally leads. It's an inversion of the Dramatist play priorities in pretty much every way. Putting them in the same bucket makes no damn sense to me.

So a more common way to refer to Story Now would be emergent story. The players play their characters, the DM controls the world, you all play to find out what happens. The Powered by the Apocalypse motto is a call for Story Now, aka emergent story.

 

[Ovinomancer]

where does this fit:
I want to play superheroes..like superman and batman. then when I get into game I say it's dumb another player doesn't wear a mask, and expects glass and an act to hide his identity... and then complain the other character another is playing is just as bad... of course the rich loner who is never seen during the day and disappeared for a few years right before the masked vigilante appeared is the vigilanti... why is everyone so dumb in this world....

Under "Player, Jerk."

 

[Ovinomancer]

So a more common way to refer to Story Now would be emergent story. Players play the characters, DM controls the world, you play to find out what happens. The Powered by the Apocalypse motto "play to see what happens."

Given your past posts on this, I thinkbthere,'s still a large misunderstanding in here. Because I'm sure you'd claim based on this that your approach to FKR meets this, but FKR is pure Sim, and not at all Story Now.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Under "Player, Jerk."

yes 100% accurate. also see:
player, doesn't know what they want
and
player, not a real comics fan