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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8629667" data-attributes="member: 42582">As I've posted already upthread (I think), when I first read Edwards's essays, in 2004 I think it was, I was in my 15th straight year of playing Rolemaster as my main system. That continued for nearly 5 more years.I regard myself as deeply steeped in an understanding of the process sim/purist-for-system agenda, and thinks Edwards account is far more insightful than anything else I've read about it. (Around the same time I spent a fair bit of time on the ICE boards: many RM players there, but few of them seemed to have any serious grasp of how the game worked in a deep sense, or what the causes were of recurrent issues that that sort of RPGing presents.) Just as one minor example, Edwards essay explains, very clearly, why every RMC includes a new variant initiative system - and of course my own version of RM had its own bespoke initiative system, which would from time-to-time cause issues precisely because (as Edwards points out) initiative does not really satisfy the internal-cause-is-king demand of simulationist play.I also have done enough 2nd ed AD&amp;D play (as player, rather than GM) and CoC play (likewise) to have a relatively good grasp of high concept sim as an agenda, and again think Edwards does a good job of identifying where the pressure points arise in that sort of play. The continued occurrence, on ENworld, of discussions and debates that are clearly explicable in terms of high-concept-sim vs gamist conflicts-of-agenda only reinforces that impression. Part of what makes systems like Fate or GUMSHOE stand out is that they seem to have resolved many of those pressure points.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8629667, member: 42582"] As I've posted already upthread (I think), when I first read Edwards's essays, in 2004 I think it was, I was in my 15th straight year of playing Rolemaster as my main system. That continued for nearly 5 more years. I regard myself as [i]deeply[/i] steeped in an understanding of the process sim/purist-for-system agenda, and thinks Edwards account is far more insightful than anything else I've read about it. (Around the same time I spent a fair bit of time on the ICE boards: many RM players there, but few of them seemed to have any serious grasp of how the game worked in a deep sense, or what the causes were of recurrent issues that that sort of RPGing presents.) Just as one minor example, Edwards essay explains, very clearly, why every RMC includes a new variant initiative system - and of course my own version of RM had its own bespoke initiative system, which would from time-to-time cause issues precisely because (as Edwards points out) initiative does not really satisfy the internal-cause-is-king demand of simulationist play. I also have done enough 2nd ed AD&D play (as player, rather than GM) and CoC play (likewise) to have a relatively good grasp of high concept sim as an agenda, and again think Edwards does a good job of identifying where the pressure points arise in that sort of play. The continued occurrence, on ENworld, of discussions and debates that are clearly explicable in terms of high-concept-sim vs gamist conflicts-of-agenda only reinforces that impression. Part of what makes systems like Fate or GUMSHOE stand out is that they seem to have resolved many of those pressure points. [/QUOTE]

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