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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8629457" data-attributes="member: 42582">The purpose of simulationist play is to enjoy the fiction - the imagination - for its own sake. In the context of Macbeth, this would be enjoying both the progression of story elements - witches, murders, forests, etc - and also the characters as revealed in soliloquy. The contrast would be staging a production of Macbeth.A person who stages a production of Macbeth may also come to enjoy the performance for its own sake, but that's not the typical reason for doing it. Putting to one side purely utilitarian motives like I got paid to stage a production of Macbeth, the person staging the production normally thinks they have something to say or contribute or convey by doing so.The comparison to "story now" RPGing is not perfect, but it is there. Whether or not one comes to enjoy the fiction for its own sake, that's not the agenda. The agenda is to say something during play. Hence the definining feature of simulationism, which is playing to enjoy the fiction for its own sake is not present in other agendas. There is a difference between goals and byproducts.There is also a difference between a fiction with a point and setting out to create a fiction with a point via the process of RPG play.I am not obfuscating. I am talking about goals of play. Agendas. Priorities. You seem to be ignoring that. Which is odd, if the goal is to understand a theory of creative agendas!No it doesn't. They're mutually exclusive. A RPGer who is exploring something that has been established in advance of play cannot, at the same time make a call, in play, about what that thing is. As soon as you do the second, you are no longer doing the first.Probably the best-known manifestation of this is every debate ever that arose from the GM's enforcement of alignment in D&D play. But it comes up in all sorts of other ways too. For instance, if the GM has already decided that the outcome of a particular action declaration will result in defeat for the PC (eg on the basis of prep), then a player who declares that action cannot be testing whether or not following a certain conviction is the only way to succeed. This rules out a whole host of fantasy-thematic-story-now RPGing; and pushes towards expedience-oriented RPGing. This is a very common refrain in the history of D&D play (see eg every thread ever that lamented the prevalence of "murder hobos").My own view, based on observation and others' reports of play, is "no" because the GM has already authored the answer to the test. Ie the GM is doing exactly what Vincent Baker tells the DitV GM not to do, namely, "playing god" and deciding what loyalty, fidelity, etc require. The player is exploring the GM's established view of the theme, not making their own call via the play of the game.What examples do you have in mind? As I posted, I'm sure it's happening somewhere but I don't see examples of it in the accounts of 5e play that I read. These seem to involve GM-authored plot hooks that establish the villain; GM determinations of what various values, commitments etc demand; and working out character concepts in a way that does not actually put them to the test.</blockquote>

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