The Death of Simulation

[marune]

Pretty much that.

When I started playing AD&D, I had a DM that we consider to be a tyrannical Evil DM, but today I understand he was a narrativism aficionado.
He was the kind of DM that used to give xp bonus and penalty regarding roleplaying. When sessions ended, he decided if it was a productive session not by the overall fun and good time, but by how well the story was developed and how far we went into his plots.
Once we are debating about gaming styles and I proposed a "fictional" gaming situation to better understand his style. I said: "The PCs manage to create a brilliant plan to steal a very powerful magic item from a blacksmith. The plan is flawless and there is nothing in the rules or in the gameworld (and in the blacksmith's house) preventing that plan to work. Would you allow them to steal the item?"
He answered: "No. The story is more important, if PCs get that item, the story and the plot is gonna change too much, or will be ruined. I'll just create some metagame situation, anything, but they will never put their hands on that item. No matter how good their plan is."

When character's achievements may be limited for the sakes of the story, you are playing a narrativistic game.
When they are limited by the sakes of game balance, it's a gamist game.
Simulationist games are limited only by in-game circunstances, never by metagame or metastory intrusion. And DMing is much more complicated

Sorry, but you understand nothing at narrativist play.

One of the most basic idea of narrativist play is that the story isn't already written by the GM.

 

[Lanefan]

Welcome to the truly heroic world of simulationist.

"We don't need special metagame rules to make our characters heroes, cheats are for cheaters. Just give me the same tools that everyone else gets, let me perfect them using my own effort and I'll show what heroism is all about. We don't need "Destiny" points to artificially create memorable moments, or even to save our skin. If we die, we die. Life is cruel and sht happens, but when we manage to achieve something truly important, something that really makes a difference to the world, it's gonna be memorable because it was "real", not fabricated by cinematic rules.
In Simulationist gaming, heroism does not dictate actions. Actions dictate heroism. Heroes are made with choices, hard work, bravery and a bit of luck. We forge our destiny instead of being carried by it. Our characters make history instead of being made by the story."

Yep, that about sums it up...with a dash of humour thrown in.

And pemerton, good call: I *am* a 1e kid, to this day!

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

Sorry, but you understand nothing at narrativist play.

One of the most basic idea of narrativist play is that the story isn't already written by the GM.

Then I am *completely* misunderstanding the term.

"Narrativist" to me implies the presence of a *narrator*, who serves the essential function of telling the story or at least keeping it moving. Sounds like a DM to me.

Lanefan

 

[marune]

Then I am *completely* misunderstanding the term.

"Narrativist" to me implies the presence of a *narrator*, who serves the essential function of telling the story or at least keeping it moving. Sounds like a DM to me.

Lanefan

That's probably why it was renamed "Story now"

I won't go in a GNS / Big model explanation here, look at my sig / TheForge.

 

[tomBitonti]

Some Ideas

I've not played in a narrative game, so I don't feel qualified to comment on such games. (But see below, as narration is an important part of my games.)

For "Simulationist", I view games that create a model, then have players basically run through that model, with little game master intervention. That is, strictly and fully modelled.

For "Gamist", I view games that immerse players in more or less abstract "Games" that do little to convey any kind of realistic scenario.

As for "Realism", I discount this as an actual goal and insteal look to "verisimilitude" and "immersion". I want to be able to take myself outside of the specific rules and describe a scenario -- using a simple narrative description -- and have the players imagine what their characters would do -- again using simple descriptions, then have the game evolve an outcome that the players have fun with, and believe. Within this outlook, I look for the rules to be sound "arbitrators" of the outcome. The rules provide a common framework so that I can play the game with my friends, and add in both structure and uncertainty.

From this point of view, all of the rules have to "make sense". This seems best captured as being "non-arbitrary" and "amenable to interpolation". For example, the rule on no rings until 10'th level. That sounds like legacy weapons, only applied to rings. So, the basic idea is sound. But it breaks down in the interpolation part. There ought to be some "1/2" power ring that can be worn at 5'th level. Or, there ought to be more classes of items, not just rings, that have this sort of limitation. Having just the rule with rings, and with hard points that magically map to the range of available levels, feels a bit arbitrary.

If we look at another rule, the 5' step. That is a little odd, but one can picture that while you are engaged with an enemy in a sword fight, you ought to be able to adjust your position a little. The rule is a little arbitrary, but it has a sense to it that makes it acceptable.

Now, let me imagine an ability that wreathes your sword in flame when you get a critical on an opponent, and not provide any background reason for it. That to me sounds gamist. You can have a fun game using that as a rule, but without some grounding, the rule doesn't fit into role playing. This gets at a fundamental aspect of role playing, which is that it must tie to some imaginable explanation. If you added the rule to balance the fighter against mages, but provided no explanation, that's gamist. On the other hand, the fighter was a member of a desert tribe devoted to the sacred phoenix, who had imbued their weapon with the sacred fire of the phoenix, then the ability makes sense. (But has become a specialized class ability and a magical one.)

 

[marune]

Now, let me imagine an ability that wreathes your sword in flame when you get a critical on an opponent, and not provide any background reason for it. That to me sounds gamist. You can have a fun game using that as a rule, but without some grounding, the rule doesn't fit into role playing. This gets at a fundamental aspect of role playing, which is that it must tie to some imaginable explanation. If you added the rule to balance the fighter against mages, but provided no explanation, that's gamist. On the other hand, the fighter was a member of a desert tribe devoted to the sacred phoenix, who had imbued their weapon with the sacred fire of the phoenix, then the ability makes sense. (But has become a specialized class ability and a magical one.)

That would be hardcore gamism yeah.

Let's hope that 4E will be a good high-Exploration gamist RPG (your second example even if I don't like the "make sense" thing).

 

[pemerton]

In narrativistic gaming, the PC do have the right to affect the gameworld, they are supposed to have that right because they are the "protagonists", the world is made around their existence.

Again, I would want to point out that the key rights-holders in narrativistic play are not the PCs, but the players. Their PCs are simply one element of the gameworld that we can imagine the players having the power to affect. Their PCs also provide a conduit through which they can affect other parts of the gameworld. But the players might also have the power to affect parts of the gameworld that are neither their PCs, nor causallly connected in the gameworld to their PCs. Apoptosis has given an example of the players having the ability to spend Plot Points (or whatever you want to call them) in order to (for example) decide that a certain sort of NPC lives in a particular example. Another would be the ability of the players to make it the case that incriminating evidence exists in a safe, by deciding to have their PCs look for such evidence in the safe, and then having their PCs succeed in the ensuing conflict (this example was given upthread, I think, in relation to conflict resolution mechanics).

Also, there is no such thing as railroading in simulationism

Not in the sort of simulationism you are describing, which seems roughly to be what Ron Edwards calls "purist for system", and what some others call "sandbox play". But a lot of high-concept simulationism (eg CoC, or any D&D play in which alignment figures prominently) can have strong railroading elements (eg failed San checks in CoC, or alignment imperatives in D&D).

"Narrativist" to me implies the presence of a *narrator*, who serves the essential function of telling the story or at least keeping it moving. Sounds like a DM to me.

As Skeptic's reply implies, "narrativism" is a bit of an unhappy term. But the idea is not that there is a single narrator, but rather that the players as well as the GM have narrative control (ie can determine what happens in the gameworld).

Most mainstream RPGs allow players to do this only in very special cases. Thus, most allow the players to choose their profession (there are some exceptions even to this, like RQ, classic Traveller, and arguably D&D rolling 3d6 6 times in order). But once they have built their characters, the players have no other power to change the gameworld except by declaring actions for their PCs, and using the action resolution mechanics (which are understood as modelling the ingame reality), and/or relying on GM fiat, to resolve those actions. So most of the time ingame outcomes are dictated by the dice rolls &/or GM adjudication. The players can't simply declare that the gameworld is a certain way. Furthermore, in many games the players do not even have an unfettered right to decide what their PCs think or intend (eg my PC has the "Sullen" disadvantage, so I have to RP her in that way or else I'll lose XP).

Games designed to support narrativist play tryto get rid of mechanics that limit the players' narrative control (this would mean getting rid of personality trait mechanics, alignment mechanics etc), and also to introduce mechanics that enhance that control. One common one is Fate Point mechanics, which in various ways allow players to override dice rolls or change the results of dice rolls. Another different narrativist mechanic is one suggested by the 4e designers in a sidebar on p 20 of W&M: if the players go to one of the PoL, then unless they stick their nose into someone's dirty business they won't get attacked. A gameworld that follows this logic is one in which the players have a limited power to choose when their PCs are exposed to adversity, as they can avoid that risk by having their PCs go to a PoL. This contrasts with more traditional D&D, which assumes that the GM has a prerogative to start an encounter with the PCs at any time.

(There is a thread on DM-proofing 4th edition where I am arguing that 4e has a lot of features that seem likely to increase players' narrative control - for me this is an attractive feature of 4e, but I think it is part of what is making some others, like Reynard for example, more doubtful about it.)

When I started playing AD&D, I had a DM that we consider to be a tyrannical Evil DM, but today I understand he was a narrativism aficionado.
He was the kind of DM that used to give xp bonus and penalty regarding roleplaying. When sessions ended, he decided if it was a productive session not by the overall fun and good time, but by how well the story was developed and how far we went into his plots.

What you are describing is not narrativism, because so far from being play aimed at giving the players narrative control, it seems to have deprived them of any. It sounds to me like poorly-executed high-concept simulationism.

Railroading never makes sense. It depends on your definition of railroading, but I like to say that it is when your ability to make meaningful choices has been taken away.

I'm happy with the definition. And I agree railroading doesn't really make sense. But if one has to locate it in the GNS framework it can only count as simulationist, with the game mechanics being drama and the GM being empowered to override any counter-drama with his or her own.

Not a fun playstyle, but quite a few 2nd ed AD&D modules went pretty close to it, if not all the way. And many more RPGs encourage it, by telling the GM to override the action-resolution mechanics if necessary to keep the story on the rails.

 

[pemerton]

I fail to see how providing a streamlined system for statting NPCs prevents a more simulationist favoring DM from creating NPCs using the PC build rules.

It doesn't. But it does free up space for narrativist or gamist play.

On the other hand, I do see how not providing a streamlined method forces a more gamist or narrativist leaning DM into a certain style.

Yes, because it limits both the players and the GM's capacity to introduce game elements that suit their purposes, by requiring those elements to be build via a process that models the ingame process of personal development.

At this point we have very little to base these assumptions on, correct? If there are specifics I would like to see them.

I think there are quite a few specifics. I won't rehash my argument here, but it's running on the DM-proofing thread - my initial argument is at post 122 and it drags on from there (if you're not persuaded by my initial argument, I don't know that there is much else in my later posts that will persuade you - they are clarifications, not really additions).

Finally, I would also like to add that most of the NPCs in 3.5 (monsters primarily, but occasionally a few humans in modules) had supernatural, extraordinary and spell-like abilities. There were no rules on assigning them, and it was also a system distinct from PC generation.

This is true to an extent, but greatly complicated by the presence of the ECL rules. At least in principle the game seems to aspire to every creature being PCable. This gets in the way of gamism (because it makes it hard to build monsters which are good opponents in part just because they have features which would be untenable for a balanced PC). It doesn't necessarily get in the way of narrativism, except that it burdens the system with mechanics that are unnecessary (in so far as narrativist players may well not care that PCs are built under mechanics which have no ingame meaning).

If this is the qualification for simulationists 'extinction' (which it isn't) then it would already be dead (and it's not).

The line was meant more as a quick quip than a detailed argument. I guess I was indicating that the abandoning of simulationist design goals for NPCs (ie once they are no longer built in the same fashion as PCs, we are basically precluded from supposing that the PC build rules model an ingame process) is a paradigmatic example of the anti-simulationist trend of 4e.

 

[LostSoul]

"Narrativist" to me implies the presence of a *narrator*, who serves the essential function of telling the story or at least keeping it moving. Sounds like a DM to me.

Narrativist play is about answering moral questions. It's important that these answers are not front-loaded into the game or the setting; they have to be the personal beliefs of the players.

I think "Thematic" is a better name.

 

[pemerton]

Narrativist play is about answering moral questions. It's important that these answers are not front-loaded into the game or the setting; they have to be the personal beliefs of the players.

I think "Thematic" is a better name.

I'm not sure the questions have to be moral ones, or at least not in any narrow sense of that word. But I agree that it does involve the development and exploration of themes in the course of play itself. So the non-front-loading that you mention is very important!