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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8639693" data-attributes="member: 82106">Sure, but what is the 'gamist view' here? I mean, I think its possible to construct a 'mystery story' for instance, conceptually, but its going to be hard to do so in a gamist fashion. The basic 'tooling' of classic D&amp;D or 5e doesn't really help you at all. Furthermore the story is wide open, you cannot say there are only certain possible suspects, that the motives are really XYZ, etc. D&amp;D at least also lacks any sort of progress structure, so neither is there some sort of signifier of 'achievement' nor is there even an indicator of progress! In fact progress is a hard thing to even consider, as if it turns out you were wrong at some point, you can end up right back at zero, or even worse off than you started. I'm not saying it would be impossible to construct gamist RPGs that dealt with the subject of mysteries or conspiracies or such stuff, it is just that they wouldn't look at all like D&amp;D! I do not believe that you can do this sort of stuff in a way I would call gamist in D&amp;D, at least not modern D&amp;D. The problem with going back to really old school techniques, like just having the GM narrate the results of PC actions, is even that doesn't guarantee the adventure will 'work' (IE the PCs may never choose to search the dresser and so never find the vital clue). The other observations about lack of ways to measure achievement or skill also still apply. It seems vastly likelier that any sort of social conflict adventure of the 'conspiracy', 'mystery', or even just general social conflict, is going to rapidly become some sort of HCS or process simulation kind of affair, and process sim is probably going to break down too! (too many variables to simulate, though there might be ways to mitigate that).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8639693, member: 82106"] Sure, but what is the 'gamist view' here? I mean, I think its possible to construct a 'mystery story' for instance, conceptually, but its going to be hard to do so in a gamist fashion. The basic 'tooling' of classic D&D or 5e doesn't really help you at all. Furthermore the story is wide open, you cannot say there are only certain possible suspects, that the motives are really XYZ, etc. D&D at least also lacks any sort of progress structure, so neither is there some sort of signifier of 'achievement' nor is there even an indicator of progress! In fact progress is a hard thing to even consider, as if it turns out you were wrong at some point, you can end up right back at zero, or even worse off than you started. I'm not saying it would be impossible to construct gamist RPGs that dealt with the subject of mysteries or conspiracies or such stuff, it is just that they wouldn't look at all like D&D! I do not believe that you can do this sort of stuff in a way I would call gamist in D&D, at least not modern D&D. The problem with going back to really old school techniques, like just having the GM narrate the results of PC actions, is even that doesn't guarantee the adventure will 'work' (IE the PCs may never choose to search the dresser and so never find the vital clue). The other observations about lack of ways to measure achievement or skill also still apply. It seems vastly likelier that any sort of social conflict adventure of the 'conspiracy', 'mystery', or even just general social conflict, is going to rapidly become some sort of HCS or process simulation kind of affair, and process sim is probably going to break down too! (too many variables to simulate, though there might be ways to mitigate that). [/QUOTE]

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