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

[AbdulAlhazred]

"Once you have the player’s answer, build on it. I mean three things by that:
(1) barf apocalyptica upon it, by adding details and imagery of your own;
(2) refer to it later in play, bringing it back into currency; and (3) use it to
inform your own developing apocalyptic aesthetic, incorporating it—and
more importantly, its implications—into your own vision."

I think it kind of means the opposite. The reason you ask questions is in order to know what the player's and their characters care about, how they see the world, and thus how you can put pressure on them, get them cooking, and boiling over! There is no 'your own vision', not really. As GM your role in PbtA is to put the pot on the flame and make it boil! The players will decide what goes in the pot. How will that taste in the end? Who knows? Cook to find out!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think it kind of means the opposite. The reason you ask questions is in order to know what the player's and their characters care about, how they see the world, and thus how you can put pressure on them, get them cooking, and boiling over! There is no 'your own vision', not really. As GM your role in PbtA is to put the pot on the flame and make it boil! The players will decide what goes in the pot. How will that taste in the end? Who knows? Cook to find out!

But that's the thing. It is both. It absolutely is both. There definitely if advice to pepper everything with crazy apocalypse flavour. And this in any way or form doesn't harm the other functions of the rules, they enhance each other. And that's the beauty of it, it is ingenious, and I really don't understand why people need to bend over backwards to deny this due some ideological commitment to imaginary agenda purity ordained by some theoretical model.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Now this I'm going to disagree with.

Say you want to do a Ticking Clock scenario. The PC's must travel from Point A to Point B or Bad things Will Happen. Looking at the three approaches does highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each one.

In a heavily Sim game, these scenarios don't really work very well. After all, it's mostly just a basic math question. The train leaves at 5:25 traveling at 50 Km/h. Can it reach the next stop, which is 100 km away in under 2 hours? Well, yes. It can. And, in a Sim based game, the DM shouldn't be adding things to the game specifically to slow that train down because that's not really sim anymore. Anything that slows that train down should arise from the setting itself and if there isn't any reason (outside of dramatic tension ones which are off the table) for the train to slow down, then the train doesn't slow down.

In a more Gamist game, the question actually changes. It's not Can the PC's arrive in time? No. The question is now, "What resources will it cost to reach the destination on time and will the PC's be able to deal with the challenge at the destination after having spent resources?" It's all about resource management and whatnot. Which in turn, inspires different possible approaches - maybe a sort of gauntlet challenge where the point of play is to make it to the end; or maybe some sort of resource attrition to make the final challenge more challenging. Or some combination of the two. It's entirely possible that the players will never reach the destination, or, may reach the destination too weak to resolve the challenge, or maybe will blow through the entire thing by clever play. It's one long challenge with lots of moving parts.

In a more Narrativist game, the question changes again. Getting to the end isn't really in question at all. You WILL get there in time. The question is, "What are you willing to sacrifice to do so?" Is your shining knight on his trusty steed willing to kill his horse to get there on time? Are you willing to forced march through the night, leaving companions behind, knowing that they will likely die, to weak to defend themselves from the dangers pressing in? Are you willing to make a deal with some Bad Thing and succeed at some great personal cost? And the answering of those questions is the point of play. Getting to the destination and stopping that Bad Thing isn't really the point. That's (most likely) going to happen. The question is, at what cost?

So, no, I think the threefold model does a really good job when it's used the way it's meant to be used. It identifies strengths and weaknesses in approaches and suggests possible ways forward. Which is exactly what a model should do.

I'm going to quibble.

The Sim game you need to look at process sim vs high-concept. A process sim the question is still in play because the process still includes random elements. You will travel, and make choices about the travel, but the process sim is going to use something like a random encounter table, which may very well result in a breeze of a trip or gruesome failure. Whatever happens, though, you can chart a throughline and present the cause throughout. "We failed because a dragon ambushed us." "We got lucky that the goblins were friendly." That kind of thing.

The High Concept game, though, could very easily look like a planned, exciting set of encounters along the way with the fight at the end, but only after a convenient campsite is found to allow a good rest. Here play is about the GM's curating the play so that it has the right pacing and content, but will get to the end point as needed. This is simulating the story, where the causal throughline isn't the process, but rather the shape and structure of the planned tale.

You're pretty good on the Gamist bit, except that failure is still very much on the table -- has to be. This is about the GM having a set of solid, challenging encounters set up to test the players, and the players are trying to reach the end of this with enough oomph to carry through the final, goalline encounter and win. The GM is setting up 'balanced' encounters of the appropriate challenge and players are looking to overcome that challenge through their skilled play.

Narrativst, though, I think you made an early error. The narrativist game is probably going to skip the travel altogether because that's not addressing a premise or question, and just skip to the juicy bits that are. You've presented a structured scenario -- make the travel to get to the lair/whatever and do the thing. This just doesn't exist in narrativist play, except by accident and then only visible after play is done. Talking about it from that viewpoint is a large part of confusion about narrativism because the result looks like play that could occur in one of the agendas above. But the means used to get there are different, and starting at the beginning, you cannot tell what shape the end will be.

 

[Ovinomancer]

But that's the thing. It is both. It absolutely is both. There definitely if advice to pepper everything with crazy apocalypse flavour. And this in any way or form doesn't harm the other functions of the rules, they enhance each other. And that's the beauty of it, it is ingenious, and I really don't understand why people need to bend over backwards to deny this due some ideological commitment to imaginary agenda purity ordained by some theoretical model.

You mean like how you're using "flavor" here when the term simulationism doesn't mean this? If it's bending over backwards to hold to the model when you challenge the model, well, okay then. Seems like a low bar, but I'm bendy.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You are. Every time you say that genre emulation and narrativism can easily coexist (and do) you are denying what narrativism is. This is despite being told, by multiple people, and multiple times, that these two things don't coexist because they're are looking for opposed things.

Does playing Apoc World feel like your character is living in crazy and unpredictable post-apocalyptic world? Yes it does, genre emulated!
Does Blades in the Dark feel like you're bunch of criminals pulling dangerous heists? Yes it does, genre emulated! Hell, even complete with genre appropriate flashbacks! (Seriously, mechanic for 'how I set this up' flashback in a heist game! Not genre emulation? Please! )

And that I deny the validity an exclusionist theoretical model is not denying anyone's experiences.

 

[Campbell]

But that's the thing. It is both. It absolutely is both. There definitely if advice to pepper everything with crazy apocalypse flavour. And this in any way or form doesn't harm the other functions of the rules, they enhance each other. And that's the beauty of it, it is ingenious, and I really don't understand why people need to bend over backwards to deny this due some ideological commitment to imaginary agenda purity ordained by some theoretical model.

All of that flavor has a purpose. It's not there to be enjoyed independently or for the GM to enjoy thinking about abstractly. It's there to pull everyone into this visceral moment where everything is on the line and see what happens next. Whenever it gets in the way of maintaining the visceral feel or momentum of play, we toss what we were thinking of and come up with new stuff. This is not about ideological commitment. It's honestly about not giving a damn when I'm running this kind of game, about just embracing that intensity and passion above everything else. Bringing it every moment of play from either side of the screen.

It's not that setting or genre are irrelevant or not part of the appeal. It's about where we place our mental focus and energy and what we are willing to sacrifice to keep the game focused on what we want to focus on.

 

[Hussar]

I'm going to quibble.

The Sim game you need to look at process sim vs high-concept. A process sim the question is still in play because the process still includes random elements. You will travel, and make choices about the travel, but the process sim is going to use something like a random encounter table, which may very well result in a breeze of a trip or gruesome failure. Whatever happens, though, you can chart a throughline and present the cause throughout. "We failed because a dragon ambushed us." "We got lucky that the goblins were friendly." That kind of thing.

The High Concept game, though, could very easily look like a planned, exciting set of encounters along the way with the fight at the end, but only after a convenient campsite is found to allow a good rest. Here play is about the GM's curating the play so that it has the right pacing and content, but will get to the end point as needed. This is simulating the story, where the causal throughline isn't the process, but rather the shape and structure of the planned tale.

You're pretty good on the Gamist bit, except that failure is still very much on the table -- has to be. This is about the GM having a set of solid, challenging encounters set up to test the players, and the players are trying to reach the end of this with enough oomph to carry through the final, goalline encounter and win. The GM is setting up 'balanced' encounters of the appropriate challenge and players are looking to overcome that challenge through their skilled play.

Narrativst, though, I think you made an early error. The narrativist game is probably going to skip the travel altogether because that's not addressing a premise or question, and just skip to the juicy bits that are. You've presented a structured scenario -- make the travel to get to the lair/whatever and do the thing. This just doesn't exist in narrativist play, except by accident and then only visible after play is done. Talking about it from that viewpoint is a large part of confusion about narrativism because the result looks like play that could occur in one of the agendas above. But the means used to get there are different, and starting at the beginning, you cannot tell what shape the end will be.

Fair enough. I wasn't terribly concerned about the exact details. I was simply trying to show how (even a flawed) understanding of GNS leads to useful examinations of games.

 

[hawkeyefan]

But leading the buyers to think that Wraith the Oblivion and Twilight 2000 provide basically similar experience is perfectly fine?

I know it’s been many pages, but I thought this post would be a potentially good discussion point.

What do you think makes these games different? We can talk about the obvious things like genre and mechanical rules differences and the like, but I expect it’d be more interesting to look at them from a process standpoint.

How are they different in that way?

How are they similar in that way?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Does playing Apoc World feel like your character is living in crazy and unpredictable post-apocalyptic world? Yes it does, genre emulated!

You have a low bar. Apocalypse World doesn't operate via genre logic. You aren't going to experience a Mad Max movie by playing Apocalypse World. It doesn't deliver these things. Is the post-apoc flavor? Yup. Is this sufficient to say that the point of the game is to experience the genre of post-apoc? Nope.

GNS is about the agenda of play -- what do you want most out of this play. AW doesn't deliver post-apoc experience as the focus of play. It uses the genre to place the fiction and only as much as needed. A game set in a blank, white, four walled space doesn't resonate well, so there's enough setting to place the play and that's it. Play isn't about experiencing the genre, but about your character. Setting details only come up as needed and when they add flavor because they are never the focus of play. You will never have moments where you're discussing the scarcity of water in the worlds, or how water exists, or even where it is any any point of play. If it comes up, it will be set dressing only.

If this is sufficient for you to claim simulationism, then you're showing that you do not understand how that is used or defined in GNS. If you're merely claiming "genre emulation" as some thing you've defined yourself to mean something, then it's largely irrelevant to the discussion of GNS. Feel free to create your own model, and we can discuss that elsewhere. I'd be happy to discuss what you mean by genre emulation and how it identifies and separates games (so far, I don't see it being absent in any game, but you tell me how it's useful in your thread about your model).

Does Blades in the Dark feel like you're bunch of criminals pulling dangerous heists? Yes it does, genre emulated! Hell, even complete with genre appropriate flashbacks! (Seriously, mechanic for 'how I set this up' flashback in a heist game! Not genre emulation? Please! )

That's a genre? Flashbacks are genre? The mere presence of a flashback mechanic is enough to satisfy genre emulation? Apparently genre is a very broad term with how you're using it. Also, entirely irrelevant to the discussion of GNS, as I note above.

And that I deny the validity an exclusionist theoretical model is not denying anyone's experiences.

Sure. I agree. However, you're telling me my play and what I want from it doesn't exist and is instead the same as this other thing I tell you it is not. Ditch the models -- you've not yet successfully described what I'm getting from play and have instead substituted in this thing that I do not want from play. And you've done this by smearing terms to be as generic and wide as possible in the hopes that it nets my play somewhere so you can claim it. It still doesn't, but by maintaining you efforts you're denying my play exists at all.

A more fruitful discussion would be to start by acknowledging my play, asking questions to understand it, not refute it or make it sound like something else, and when you've grokked it enough you can describe it back to me such that I recognize it, then you're on solid ground to refute it. Prior to that, you're just lancing strawmen.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, I argue that 'world integrity' really doesn't exist in RPGs generally because the nature of the world is so underspecified that it is entirely impossible to determine in any way what the actual constraints are.

You wouldn't be the first person to make that argument, but traditional Simulationists would just disagree with you, and I think I'd have to join them.