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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bastoche" data-source="post: 4028510" data-attributes="member: 306">I see a lot a confusion between instances of play (and the reason in the eyes of the players as to why they happen) vs GNS emphasis.In all "3" styles of play, you can see elements of the others happen IMO. However. In gamist play, the players want to get challenges vs rewards the most. In sim play, they want to get exploration the most and in nar play, they want premise adressing the most.IMO what confuses the issue is the compromises needed in all styles of play vs the other style to acheive versimilitude.I'll try to explain how I understand RPGs and we'll see if it helps any. If not, ignore me <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" />Rules are to RPGs what laws are to society. They are written in order to encourage players/people to observe certain behaviors around the table/in the community. The rules themselves aren't GNS per se just like laws aren't morals per se. However, the rules/laws are written to "force" the players/citizen to act in a certain way that emphasise a style of play/that is moral.Why rules? The first reason is that not all players agree on what should happen in the imagined universe, why should it happen and how. If it was that easy, you wouldn't roll dice and have rules and you would have a bunch of people telling a story togheter.Why play? people play for a reason and "fun" is WAY to broad a word. WHAT is fun? For some, it's bashing tougher and tougher monsters and seeing is character evolve (in terms of "kewl pawa" acquisition). For others, it's to experience an alternate life/universe "as if they were there". And for others, it's to play with the idea that imagined characters acts for a reason. That's in very rough lines.Now *what* rules? It's is paramount to fun that the players around the table agree beforehand what kind of gaming behavior they want to see at the table. In gamist play, the game is a bit at the metagaming level where people are expected to know the rules, in terms of tactics, in order to make efficient characters within the team. Think of the typical fighter + cleric + rogue + wizard party. If you imagine 3 "gamist" players with one "whatever else" player, you could end up with a power attacking cleaving fighter with a great sword and full plate low dex high str and con, a buffing cleric and a dual wielding rogue where the fighter tries to flank with him as much as possible. Now if the wizard player spends feats on 2-w fighting, exotic weapon (bastard sword) and spends all his cash on magic weapon. Or worst yet get armor pro and wear full plate and never casts any spells for whatever reasons, he will be frown upon.In sim play, IMO, the idea is to ideally get 0 metagaming. Everything is tied to the inner logic of the rules/characters/imagined universe. For example, a thief named bobba fet in a high concept high exploration of a historical setting set in medieval europe, he'll be shown the door. Or ninjas <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" />In nar play, once again, everything is at the metagaming level. Characters acts the way they do either because the player thinks it's cool despite any attention to in-game logic or because it is directly tied to a theme they want to emphasize.Now can you see a tactic savy guy in sim play? sure. Can you see a challenge savy guy in nar play? Certainly! What makes the disctinction between these "local" instances of play is the level of importance the players around the table give to specific "behaviors" (in terms of challenges, inner-logic and theme adressing)For example, having a long term plot in sim play either clashes with inner logic or requires some form of rail roading. Why? because in sim play, the players WANT to play their characters according to and only to some inner logic. If that inner logic goes against the intended plot, you crash the plot. If the GM "forces" the player to follow the plot, then that GM is denying that player to ability to explore the inner logic of the game/character. Now one could say "why not making characters that are made so that the inner logic follows the plot?" To which I would say "then you aren't siming anymore, you got metagaming in to make *something* happen during to game solely on the base of player priority -> illegal meta gaming in pure sim play!"In other words, it's pointless to say that "you can do that in X or you can't do that in Y etc". What matters is what YOU (and your fellow players) want the game to be about (in terms of behaviors). At that point, you could probably imagine any "hybrids" of play as long as there aren't opposing expected behavior (when you pick a part of gamism, you leave that part in other styles etc).That being said, the first paragraph above says that rules are to game what laws are to society. Some rules better encourage some specific behaviors than others. At which point one can coin a G or a N or a S to a given system. Hope this helps...</blockquote>

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