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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Starfox" data-source="post: 5597886" data-attributes="member: 2303">Many see gaming as a three-legged beast, with the legs being game styles; Simulationist - Gamist - Storytelling. And I agree, this is a good way to describe how we play games and what gaming styles different games cater to. As can be seen in my Sig, I consider myself a Storyteller first. But I also enjoy Simulationist and Gamist elements, and I see no real conflict between them. I think the three elements all contribute to a good game and will try to explain how.Storytelling is my main interest. But for a story to be good, it has to be believable - which brings in a degree of simulationism. While telling my story, the players make informed decisions, and if the world does not make sense, they cannot do so. Also, for the game to be enjoyable, it has to play well - a Gamist concern. Resolving the use of a skill has to be fast and easy. At times the player characters are represented by miniatures on a game board and we play a tactical game with many links to the story and if this tactical game sucks or gives weird result the story suffers.Likewise a good board game (I think we can all agree board games are mostly gamist) becomes even more enjoyable to me  if it it is about something (simulationism) has some background (storytelling). I find pseudo-historical games like Puerto Rico or fantasy games like Smallworld more enjoyable than abstract games like Othello.And finally (I think you can guess what's coming) a simulation game like Russian Front or Campaign of North Africa becomes better if it describes an interesting situation (story) and has smooth mechanics (game). A combat flight simulator becomes more popular if the action takes place in WWII than on an exercise range in the Nevada desert, even tough its likely far more dogfights have been played out in Nevada if you include training runs.In conclusion, the ideal game has more of ALL the elements; better game design simply crams more quality into the game than poor game design. Game design is not a matter of Simulation VS. Story VS. Gamism. It is the art of taking these three elements and making them reinforce each other. This has the added benefit of supporting multiple gaming styles, even in the same group; if I want to play a story-driven game or if I enjoy moving pieces on a battlemat matters little if the game played supports both. This is NOT the same as more rules; . Simulationism tends to rules bloat and minutia, but this is balanced by gamist concerns. The ideal of gamism is to have playable rules, which often means less is more. So yes, there is a conflict here - and the art of game design is to balance these elements to include as much as possible of each.Now, of course, it comes down to what games we think fill what roles to what degrees - something I'll leave to the edition wars.</blockquote>

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