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

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah. I can totally see that @The-Magic-Sword. Let’s be honest here. Gamist games are closest to how most games are played. Everyone knows how to play gamist games. We’ve been doing it since about the time we leaned to walk.

Narrativist games are probably the most different from other games which make them a lot less intuitive for people to just pick up and play.

And even in a narrative focused game, there can be different expectations than the system at hand provides. The whole PbtA "play for complication" approach would be a massive turn-off for most of both my groups' players, even though I get what they're trying for, because they'd end up focusing on how the system forced problems and end up feeling their characters were incompetent, and no framing would help.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I got the that they were asserting that it's possible and desirable for participants to pursue/fulfill different agendas on the same events, and in satisfying ways for those participants, but not that it's necessarily easy. I think it requires deliberate design by the system creator, curation by the GM, or proactive interpretation & action by a player.

Like I said though, the article is unapologetically incomplete and sloppy, but it was a refreshing instance of somebody at least providing an alternative to GNS instead of just criticizing it. And if anybody here does know of other game design theories/models, I'd love to know about them!

Reading it a second time, and some of the comments, I'm pretty sure they didn't understand Story Now. Too many times narrative is used, like caring about narrative, that I've further convinced that the response failed to understand what it purports to be reacting to. Further, it really is only functional if the structure of play is GM centered, with the GM curating play, which again completely negates Story Now.

Taking that in consideration, the framework here is extremely limited. The goals discussed are what most hope to get out of a trad game, or a high concept sim with gamist element toggles, like D&D (primarily HCS but combat being Gamist toggle).

 

[pemerton]

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.

I write academic work that uses ideal types as an analytical tool. From time to time I teach Weber. Ideal types are not used to make predictions. They serve other explanatory purposes - for instance, understanding why certain patterns recur. Not all accounts of why patterns recur are used to make predictions. For instance, historians and political sociologists who write about similarities and differences between (say) the politics that emerged between the World Wars, and the politics that has emerged since the early 1990s, are seeking to explain certain trends. They are very rarely attempting to predict when those trends will manifest again, or what precise form their manifestation might take.

Prediction as a goal of theory-building is prominent in some fields, but not in all domains of knowledge.

Literary criticism uses theories and even models too, but is not trying to predict anything. Edwards work, in methodological terms, has parallels to literary criticism and parallels to interpretive sociology. Despite his (then) day job as an academic biologist, it has almost nothing in common, methodologically, with the laboratory sciences.

 

[pemerton]

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.

I already posted about this upthread. To repost:

Edwards inherited a three-fold distinction from earlier discussion. He changed the label "dramatism" to "narrativism" because the word "drama" already had a different meaning - Jonathan Tweet (the same one who designed 3E D&D) had used it, in his game Everway, to describe a type of resolution process (drama, karma, fortune - ie talking; comparing fixed values; rolling dice or drawing cards).
<snip>

Edwards identifies four main creative priorities in RPGing:

* Experiencing a metagame-free system in operation, unfolding an imagined world before your eyes ("purist for system simulation") - RuneQuest as presented and as typically played is the paradigm of this;

* Experiencing a GM's presentation of a setting and/or story ("high concept simulation") - early WoD is the paradigm of this; 2nd ed AD&D had a lot of it too; I think that a lot of adventure path play is like this;

* Playing well and/or testing your luck - "winning" the game, beating the dungeon, showing off your skill as a player - classic (Gygaxian) D&D is a paradigm of this; Tunnels & Trolls has a lot of this too; I think 3E had a lot of this too, in its approach to PC build ("optimisation") and combat resolution (finding and deploying "I win" buttons);

* Addressing a theme/premise via play, the idea being to "challenge" the participants in relation to values or emotions, and to find out how they react and enjoy sharing those responses, in something like the way other "high" art forms do - Apocalypse World is a paradigm of this; so is Edwards's game Sorcerer; Greg Stafford's Prince Valiant is a much "lighter" example (melodrama rather than genuine drama).​

Because the first two are both about prioritising what the participants experience rather than what they bring to the process of play, Edwards puts them both in one of his three baskets - the simulationist one. But obviously they use very different techniques - RQ-type RPGing is all about the purity and robustness of the mechanics, and how they reveal the fiction without the need for curation or participant intervention; whereas "storytelling"-type RPGing often downplays mechanics and focuses on the GM's role as a curator and presenter of the fiction.

Edwards notes that the third and fourth priorities often use very similar techniques - fortune-in-the-middle resolution, for instance - but he keeps them separate because they are different in terms of creative priority.

There is also Campbell's post upthread:

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.

Edwards's characterisation of two sorts of simulation as simulation is not arbitrary. In both cases the goal is a certain experience of the fiction for its own sake. He is very clear that they use different techniques.

In my view much of the discussion in this thread, and perhaps on these topics in general, becomes muddied by the fact that discussants want to talk about techniques as if that settled the issue of creative agenda. Edwards is very clear to keep them distinct. And I think this is part of the strength of his analysis.

For instance, and to point to another difference between RM and RQ:

In RQ, PC development is primarily driven by random improvement rolls. In RM, PC developement is chosen by the player. Thus, the player can use PC development to send signals to the GM in a way that support narrativist play. This is a real thing that I've experienced, and shows a technique that was intended, initially, to serve a simulationist purpose - the PC improving in accordance with their will and ability to learn - being drifted to serve a narrativist purpose although the actual PC build mechanic hasn't changed.

And the distinction between techniques and creative agenda is also crucial for understanding a lot of D&D play, given that most D&D players use closely related techniques (PC build and resolution mechanics, GM pre-authorship of setting elements and situations for the players to engage via their PCs, etc) but some use this for fundamentally gamist play, while others are predominantly aiming at high-concept sim, focused (as Edwards puts it) on characters-face-problems. Most discussion and conflict in the D&D-verse seems to revolve around this difference of agenda. Part of what prevents amicable separation or recognition of differences seems to be a premise that shared techniques must entail shared creative agenda.

 

[pemerton]

Earlier I believe @pemerton asked what I meant by "distributing" the narrative power. This is what I mean (in the sense that D&D does not generally do such distribution, but DW does). My players can make moves and do important things and I am beholden to them: I must answer certain questions truthfully, or accept certain assertions, or provide certain responses, whether or not I like doing so, because the rules tell me to do so, and these are rules the players can easily invoke on me

<snip>

Meanwhile you also have very much more mild things, like 4e daily powers (especially for Martial characters). There, it's not so much telling the DM what to do as it is just declaring that a certain situation is in fact true this time, not because one has turned the crank of the world until that situation inherently arose, but because the game mechanics just give you the power to declare that that situation is true now and then.

I think it is very easy to exaggerate here, and I see those exaggerations put forward quite a bit. To the detriment of sound analysis. I think you are at risk of exaggeration in your post: hence my post!

The capacity that a 4e martial daily power gives to a player to add to the fiction is no greater than the capacity that a player in Chainmail had to add to the fiction by saying "My wizard casts Cloudkill". And probably less than the capacity of a player in AD&D who says "My wizard casts Monster Summoning I". Any player action declaration has the potential to add to the fiction, and will do so if it is successful.

The capacity of a player in Dungeon World to oblige the GM to say things - eg via Discern Realities - doesn't seem much greater, to me, than the capacity of a player in Moldvay Basic to oblige the GM to say things by saying "I open the door - what do I see?"

The difference lies in the principles that govern how the GM responds. What distinguishes narrativist from high-concept sim play, as a general rule, is not the authority structures over PCs and backstory, but rather the principles that govern how that authority is to be exercised. Even Burning Wheel is pretty conventional most of the time, although of course it has Wises checks and Circles checks (which do not exist in AW or DW). The GM frames scenes, handles backstory, manages pacing, and narrates consequences of failure. That's not wildly different from 5e D&D!

But the principles that govern how this is done - including but certainly not limited to the role of GM prep - are wildly different.

 

[pemerton]

Narrativist games are probably the most different from other games which make them a lot less intuitive for people to just pick up and play.

Edwards had a conjecture, that narrativist/"story now" RPGing would be appealing to people who aren't generically game players, but who enjoy artistic and literary pursuits. I don't know if this conjecture has been borne out! But Vincent Baker has a nice tip of the hat to it, when - in the how to set up a campaign section of In A Wicked Age - he notes one of the required components as a bottle of wine, and directs the participant who completes their PC sheet first that now is the time for them to open and pour the wine.

 

[pemerton]

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?

I think I referred to reinforcement of the experiencing of the fiction for its own sake.

Torchbearer makes it an overt goal for the player to keep their PC alive. You character can die from hypothermia and its consequences. So when the GM tells you about the rain and the cold, you are not experiencing the fiction for its own sake. You have a concern: keep my PC alive. You know that there is a rules framework - the Grind - and its interaction with the rules for failed tests - which means that your PC could die. So you start thinking about ways of keeping your PC alive. Do I have a cloak? If I put it on, how does that affect my inventory load-out? Is there another, or better, way to get the buff against rain and cold that I would get from my cloak?

This is related to what @niklinna posted, upthread, about the "heavy" and the "intrusive" nature of the mechanics, but it's not just that. It's about the rationale that drives the engagement with the fiction. It is not being experienced for its own sake. And the player's concern about hypothermia and death is not flowing from an experiential immersion in their PC and in the fiction the GM is narrating. It's driven by a grasp of the way the game sets up challenges and consequences and demands that resources be managed. It's comparable to the way that a player of classic D&D would worry about wandering monsters. That's neither a result of, nor a concern to, experience the fiction for its own sake!

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.

Sure. The game is nicely designed, and its colour is spectacular.

But the game is not deigned to generate a reinforcement of the experience of the fiction for its own sake. And I think trying to play it in that fashion would tend to produce an untenably high rate of PC death.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think it is very easy to exaggerate here, and I see those exaggerations put forward quite a bit. To the detriment of sound analysis. I think you are at risk of exaggeration in your post: hence my post!

The capacity that a 4e martial daily power gives to a player to add to the fiction is no greater than the capacity that a player in Chainmail had to add to the fiction by saying "My wizard casts Cloudkill". And probably less than the capacity of a player in AD&D who says "My wizard casts Monster Summoning I". Any player action declaration has the potential to add to the fiction, and will do so if it is successful.

The capacity of a player in Dungeon World to oblige the GM to say things - eg via Discern Realities - doesn't seem much greater, to me, than the capacity of a player in Moldvay Basic to oblige the GM to say things by saying "I open the door - what do I see?"

The difference lies in the principles that govern how the GM responds. What distinguishes narrativist from high-concept sim play, as a general rule, is not the authority structures over PCs and backstory, but rather the principles that govern how that authority is to be exercised. Even Burning Wheel is pretty conventional most of the time, although of course it has Wises checks and Circles checks (which do not exist in AW or DW). The GM frames scenes, handles backstory, manages pacing, and narrates consequences of failure. That's not wildly different from 5e D&D!

But the principles that govern how this is done - including but certainly not limited to the role of GM prep - are wildly different.

What would you say, then, about the position that 4e is a mild foray into "Story Now" territory? Because that's a position I know several posters around here have made at various points. If I have misunderstood or exaggerated these things, then what does make it (however limitedly) "Story Now" such that it differs from other editions of D&D (particularly 3e and 5e)?

 

[clearstream]

I write academic work that uses ideal types as an analytical tool. From time to time I teach Weber. Ideal types are not used to make predictions. They serve other explanatory purposes - for instance, understanding why certain patterns recur. Not all accounts of why patterns recur are used to make predictions. For instance, historians and political sociologists who write about similarities and differences between (say) the politics that emerged between the World Wars, and the politics that has emerged since the early 1990s, are seeking to explain certain trends. They are very rarely attempting to predict when those trends will manifest again, or what precise form their manifestation might take.

I was sensing some hard/soft sciences head butting

Prediction as a goal of theory-building is prominent in some fields, but not in all domains of knowledge.

Literary criticism uses theories and even models too, but is not trying to predict anything. Edwards work, in methodological terms, has parallels to literary criticism and parallels to interpretive sociology. Despite his (then) day job as an academic biologist, it has almost nothing in common, methodologically, with the laboratory sciences.

I'd like to check something before putting this to rest, about the consequences of GNS theory for game designers and players. Consider this example,

Incoherence: Play which includes incompatible combinations of Creative Agendas among participants. Incoherent play is considered to contribute to Dysfunctional play, but does not define it. Incoherence may be applied indirectly to game rules. Abashedness represents a minor, correctable form of Incoherence.

Suppose some designers and players know the theory well enough to understand what is being said here and see how they can associate some of their priorities with agendas. Given GNS theory does not predict that what it observed will manifest again,

• The game designers cannot draw any conclusions from it to helpfully inform the game design work they are in the process of doing. The theory has nothing to say on the outcome of their work when they design for incompatible combinations of creative agendas. Their game might equally turn out to be functional or dysfunctional.
• The players cannot draw any conclusions from it to helfully guide their play. The theory has nothing to say about the enjoyment, delight, success etc of their play when they include incompatible combinations of creative agendas. Their play might equally turn out to be functional or dysfunctional.

The theory isn't predicting anything, it is explaining the set of designed games and real play reports that existed at the time the interpretation and analysis was performed. There's no reason to suppose that its interpretations and analyses will explain any future phenomena, no matter how apparently related they might be to the original objects of study.

I'm not here trying to say that the theory should or shouldn't be anything: as always my principle interest is to understand what something is. Is what I say about the consequences correct (which to my reading seems to be implied by your comments) or can you dispel misapprehensions?

 

[pemerton]

What would you say, then, about the position that 4e is a mild foray into "Story Now" territory? Because that's a position I know several posters around here have made at various points. If I have misunderstood or exaggerated these things, then what does make it (however limitedly) "Story Now" such that it differs from other editions of D&D (particularly 3e and 5e)?

I absolutely think that 4e forays into "story now" territory. I believe I was the first person to assert this on ENworld, maybe the second following @LostSoul.

But I don't see that as having much to do with different allocations of authority - those differences are genuine (player-authored quests; magic item wishlists) but modest. In a player-authored quest, it is still the GM who does the scene-framing. With a magic item wishlist, it is still the GM who decides when a treasure parcel is discovered.

I see it as having to do with how authorities are exercised. A player-authored quest obliges the GM to use their authority over scene-framing so as to advance the player's desired quest. A magic item wishlist obliges the GM to use their authority over when treasure is discovered so as to enable the player's PC to discover the desired magic item.

In some ways it's similar to what I posted upthread about Apocalypse World:

On the surface, its allocation of functions to the GM and the players is very "traditional".

But as soon as we drill below the surface, we can see that it upends that "traditional" approach completely, because of the expectations it puts on the players to drive play through their PCs (a bit like a classic sandbox, but even moreso, and with emotional connections and relationship really being foregrounded) and on the GM to keep buiding up the pressure via those soft moves, which will eventually explode into trouble, because someone is going to roll 6- some time soon.

What makes 4e distinctive is the capacity it gives to the GM to respond to players' driving play - because the scene is the site of action, and all PC builds are (roughly, if the game isn't being distorted too badly by some broken builds) equally mechanically capable and (very important) on the same resource load-out and recovery schedule. So the GM can just frame scenes in response to what the players have their PCs do, and what their quests are, and see what happens. There is no need for GM curation of an "adventuring day", for GM curation of "spotlight balance", for GM curation of anything much.

And the game lacks those features of D&D that (to borrow Edwards's words) tend to reinforce simulationist priorities - there's no signficant duration tracking (around spells, healing times, etc), no scry-teleport-fry that pressures the GM to prioritise pre-emptive worldbuilding, non-combat is resolved via a skill challenge which is a closed scene resolution framework that doesn't need GM secret backstory to make it work, etc.

Don't get me wrong - I love (pre-errata) Come and Get It. But (in my view) it's not that pretty modest narration-sharing, or the other bits I mentioned, that mark out the fundamental contrast between 4e D&D and 2nd ed AD&D, 3E and 5e. Rather, it's the other things I've pointed to.