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Supposing D&D is gamist, what does that mean?
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8634639" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Meant to reply to this earlier and forgot.</p><p></p><p>I find this overall assertion, that there is a <em>hard, absolute gap</em> between "this is what we are setting out to do" and "these are the steps we take to do it." Even the essays I've read from Edwards seem to pretty blatantly dance on this line, despite his repeated insistence that a creative agenda and mechanics are totally distinct things.</p><p></p><p>Now, I do take the point that a tool used to pursue an end is different from both the process of getting to that end as well as the end itself, just as the <em>Dawn Treader</em> is different from both the titular Voyage and its intended destination. But it seems just as silly to adamantly insist that there is no such thing as a "Gamist element" of design as it would be to insist that a sailing ship isn't an element of travelogue storytelling (which VotDT is). If you have a ship, and that ship serves a plot critical role in facilitating the overall purpose of telling a story about a long journey through lands strange and wondrous and dangerous, then that ship is a travelogue element, even if "ship" in the abstract can be employed in a variety of ways without necessarily making the story a travelogue story.</p><p></p><p>So, the "gamist elements" would be the techniques, tools, incentives, and design structures which facilitate or (preferably) push the action of play toward a Gamist experience: the designed components of the game which clearly serve the Gamist purpose for which the game was written. Which seems to be pretty much what you said I was saying, so that's good.</p><p></p><p>And yes, Edwards seems to be describing (with his kinda odd magnet metaphor) what I would call "layering" the two together. You have oil on top and water beneath, and sometimes you rise into the oil, sometimes you sink into the water. You can't really be centered in both places at the same time, but you can fluidly (heh) switch between them.</p><p></p><p>This is also useful because, as I have said elsewhere, I find that every pair of game-purposes has some things in common and some things opposed, and this seems a strength rather than a weakness. As I think I have already said (but might be mistaken), it seems to me somewhat capricious how GNS put two of its "creative agendas" that seem to move in opposite directions in the same bucket, when each of them has independently several symmetries with other agendas too, yet no combination occurred.</p><p></p><p>E.g. we could have <s>lumped together</s> <em>treated as one concept</em> together what I call C&E and V&I into a "Mythopoeic" category (differentiated mostly by whether it is Story Before or Story Now), and likewise placed both Gamism and "process" Sim into a "Systematic" category (both care deeply about rules, but for totally different ends). Perhaps, for V&I/C&E, calling the former "protagonized" Mythopoeia (Story Now) and "High Concept" Mythopoeia (Story Before). Point being, even if he meant for them to be four distinct things, his choice to give two the same category with a modifier muddies the issue rather than clears it up.</p><p></p><p>Overall, and this may be something Edwards said already and I just haven't read it (or forgot), I find G&S/"process" Sim to be the most picky and exclusive of the bunch, a real stickler for doing things its way or not at all. C&E/"High Concept" Sim is arguably the <em>most</em> amenable, so long as Conceit is overall served satisfactorily (another major difference between the two). S&A and V&I fall somewhere between, but due to their quirks they just so happen to be able to stay out of one another's way pretty well.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8634639, member: 6790260"] Meant to reply to this earlier and forgot. I find this overall assertion, that there is a [I]hard, absolute gap[/I] between "this is what we are setting out to do" and "these are the steps we take to do it." Even the essays I've read from Edwards seem to pretty blatantly dance on this line, despite his repeated insistence that a creative agenda and mechanics are totally distinct things. Now, I do take the point that a tool used to pursue an end is different from both the process of getting to that end as well as the end itself, just as the [I]Dawn Treader[/I] is different from both the titular Voyage and its intended destination. But it seems just as silly to adamantly insist that there is no such thing as a "Gamist element" of design as it would be to insist that a sailing ship isn't an element of travelogue storytelling (which VotDT is). If you have a ship, and that ship serves a plot critical role in facilitating the overall purpose of telling a story about a long journey through lands strange and wondrous and dangerous, then that ship is a travelogue element, even if "ship" in the abstract can be employed in a variety of ways without necessarily making the story a travelogue story. So, the "gamist elements" would be the techniques, tools, incentives, and design structures which facilitate or (preferably) push the action of play toward a Gamist experience: the designed components of the game which clearly serve the Gamist purpose for which the game was written. Which seems to be pretty much what you said I was saying, so that's good. And yes, Edwards seems to be describing (with his kinda odd magnet metaphor) what I would call "layering" the two together. You have oil on top and water beneath, and sometimes you rise into the oil, sometimes you sink into the water. You can't really be centered in both places at the same time, but you can fluidly (heh) switch between them. This is also useful because, as I have said elsewhere, I find that every pair of game-purposes has some things in common and some things opposed, and this seems a strength rather than a weakness. As I think I have already said (but might be mistaken), it seems to me somewhat capricious how GNS put two of its "creative agendas" that seem to move in opposite directions in the same bucket, when each of them has independently several symmetries with other agendas too, yet no combination occurred. E.g. we could have [S]lumped together[/S] [I]treated as one concept[/I] together what I call C&E and V&I into a "Mythopoeic" category (differentiated mostly by whether it is Story Before or Story Now), and likewise placed both Gamism and "process" Sim into a "Systematic" category (both care deeply about rules, but for totally different ends). Perhaps, for V&I/C&E, calling the former "protagonized" Mythopoeia (Story Now) and "High Concept" Mythopoeia (Story Before). Point being, even if he meant for them to be four distinct things, his choice to give two the same category with a modifier muddies the issue rather than clears it up. Overall, and this may be something Edwards said already and I just haven't read it (or forgot), I find G&S/"process" Sim to be the most picky and exclusive of the bunch, a real stickler for doing things its way or not at all. C&E/"High Concept" Sim is arguably the [I]most[/I] amenable, so long as Conceit is overall served satisfactorily (another major difference between the two). S&A and V&I fall somewhere between, but due to their quirks they just so happen to be able to stay out of one another's way pretty well. [/QUOTE]
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