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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8622596" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I found it not very enlightening because the statement effectively boils down to the conversation between <a href="https://collation.folger.edu/2012/05/crocodile-may/" target="_blank">Antony and Lepidus</a>:"This thing is a perfect simulation of itself" is, in fact, literally an actual joke <a href="https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2013-07-19" target="_blank">made by SMBC</a>. Almost a decade ago, in fact. Likewise things like "Buffyspeak." Hence I found it not very enlightening. Telling me the game simulates itself, that it works how it works because that how it worked before, and that changing it makes it "stop feeling like D&D," just...doesn't give me much information to work with.I'm really not very "trad," at least not as explained in cultures-of-play article linked upthread, because I extremely highly value player contributions. Maybe, maybe "neo-trad," but as noted by Charlaquin, much of the pushback against 4e was that it moved in a storygame direction. There is no culture of play (that I can identify, anyway) that fuses "neo-trad" with "storygame" in any meaningful sense, but that's really the only thing that could capture what I really go for.I want a game that plays very well as a game, and which can be learned. As a result, I value balance, rule transparency, and excellent support for DMs and players alike. I want a game that empowers players to explore their characters' stories and enrich the world we play in. I do, as DM, take a prominent role in developing a story, but I would consider it a major failure if my players EVER felt they were just exploring a prewritten story I made. And I want a game that marries "using the mechanics" to "invoking a story," ideally bi-directionally: to use the mechanic is to tell a story, and to tell a story is to invoke mechanics (at least eventually).I consider the first point to be pretty purely gamist, and everything I've read about "gamist" goals seems to agree. The second is somewhat neo-trad, but shorn of concern with 3e-style "game as physics engine" simulation. The third is storygame. None of the given cultures of play seems to match that mix.The given description of "trad" play did not seem to reflect much concern with balance at all. Indeed, it seemed to be rather strongly against that. E.g., the article explicitly associated "trad" play with the phrase "roleplaying, not rollplaying," which is a phrase I outright loathe. It's...also a bit weird that you present "trad" play as opposed to railroading, since the article in question (almost explicitly) ties "trad" to a rise in railroading: "The PCs can contribute, but their contributions are secondary in value and authority to the DM's. If you ever hear people complain about (or exalt!) games that feel like going through a fantasy novel, that's trad."Further, it is the very ultra-high-simulationist aspects of neo-trad that don't suit me. I don't give two figs about whether there's a universal, consistent, diegetic explanation for why martial powers can only be used once per encounter; I care that martial characters get to be distinct-but-equal teammates and active participants in, and creators of, cool story. I do value consistency in the world, but not to the point that "rules that play worse even if they conform to fantastic realism better" nor "rules that hinder theme and tone but procedurally generate a self-consistent world" are actual priorities for me. Clunkier or off-tone rules are a serious flaw that I would rather see removed, so long as the cost to fantastic realism is light. For example, I 100% support the oft-maligned "firecube" rules in 4e, because they provide an enormous benefit in speed and simplicity in exchange for (what I consider) an extremely small sacrifice in simulating real physical things (namely, that you move about 40% faster along diagonal directions than rectilinear ones.)</blockquote>

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