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

[soviet]

So, 5e is a weird thing, where the players can be engaging in a gamist way, but the GM is fully in HCS sim. This is because the combats are so available to the GM putting their thumb on the scale, both in design and in play. There's no way for the players to ever know if the GM just didn't push the planned second wave to compensate for their bad rolls or a bad tactic, or vice versa -- no way to know if the second wave was always planned and not a reaction to the quick dispatch of the first.

And then there's the thing that some players might want the feel of the challenge, but not actually challenge. 5e does this very well, where failure is rarely actually on the line, but the concern it could come is often present.

Now, none of this is to suggest that a table can't lean hard into 5e gamism and drive it that way. You can, but the system isn't super helpful here because so much of it requires GM rulings to even operate.

I agree, it sometimes feels like a shallow veneer of gamism on the player-facing side over a high concept sim reality. The truth is that most of the fights in our 5e campaign are so piss easy that my efforts to think about them tactically were just unnecessary.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think these examples do an excellent job of showing why mechanics designed to enable Story Now play do not translate well to games where players are free to move about the setting and poke at it without it poking back forcefully. The sort of power plays that get cited here largely do not happen because players have to deal with the current conflicts they face right now.

Also there's no real way to get out of that conflict loop. No matter how powerful you become in the setting meaningful threats are coming your way. You're the king now? Congratulations. Heavy is head that wears the crown. Rich? More money. More problems. No matter what scenes will be framed. Fortunes will rise and fall. I have had characters ascend to these sorts of heights even fairly early in games. Nothing is ruined.

On the other hand, there are very much people who find that sort of approach at some point becomes the dreaded treadmill; it can very much start to feel that at least some of the threats are (and I'm aware of some of the loading in this word) contrived.

 

[Thomas Shey]

However you put it. I can also just point out that players in some games have authority which is potentially game-breaking in a technical sense, but they are no more likely to use it that way than the GM is in a classically run 5e game.

Perhaps this shows my cynicism about people on both ends of a typical game table, but from where I sit that's not as strong a statement as I suspect you think it is.

 

[soviet]

On the other hand, there are very much people who find that sort of approach at some point becomes the dreaded treadmill; it can very much start to feel that at least some of the threats are (and I'm aware of some of the loading in this word) contrived.

Almost like they have different agendas!

 

[Thomas Shey]

I agree, it sometimes feels like a shallow veneer of gamism on the player-facing side over a high concept sim reality. The truth is that most of the fights in our 5e campaign are so piss easy that my efforts to think about them tactically were just unnecessary.

There are a number of reasons why if I'm playing a D&D-adjacent game, 5e is not it.

That said, its always a fine line here in a hobby where some people will engage strongly and some people just want to cruise casually through, and they are not uncommonly at the same table, especially since few groups respond all that well to regular deaths, let alone TPKs.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Almost like they have different agendas!

Yup. As I've noted, one of the most telling things back in the GDS days was to see how people who saw themselves predominantly in one camp or another reacted to anticlimax. Sim proponents just considered it the price of doing business Dramatists a failure state, and with Gamists it often depended on how it'd had occured.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I agree, it sometimes feels like a shallow veneer of gamism on the player-facing side over a high concept sim reality. The truth is that most of the fights in our 5e campaign are so piss easy that my efforts to think about them tactically were just unnecessary.

You obviously need to start to pick fights against insane odds like my players seem to be doing!

 

[niklinna]

Yup. As I've noted, one of the most telling things back in the GDS days was to see how people who saw themselves predominantly in one camp or another reacted to anticlimax. Sim proponents just considered it the price of doing business Dramatists a failure state, and with Gamists it often depended on how it'd had occured.

So what I'm hearing is that Sim folks are less likely to be disappointed, therefore we should all do Sim. Dramatism is to be avoided at all cost!

 

[Thomas Shey]

So what I'm hearing is that Sim folks are less likely to be disappointed, therefore we should all do Sim. Dramatism is to be avoided at all cost!

Well, you get to at least shuffle around what they'll be disappointed by.

 

[soviet]

You obviously need to start to pick fights against insane odds like my players seem to be doing!

I've started worrying less about doing the smart play and just going for the most fun or spectacular play. I recently took the Toughness feat just to give myself even more insulation against consequences when I pick craziness over tactics.