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The Death of Simulation
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<blockquote data-quote="Bastoche" data-source="post: 4029046" data-attributes="member: 306"><p>The "reason" in nar play is NOT from the character, it's from the PLAYER. That's where the difference lay. Although I admit my previous wording was confusing.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes and no. Yes on the first sentence, absolutly. But no for the rest in the following sense:</p><p></p><p>you could indeed imagine players using all 3 styles of play. HOWEVER, it may not be one sim, one nar and one gam (for example) in a GIVEN instance of play. It would either lead to each saying of the others that they do "bad roleplaying" or would lead to both incoherent and unfun play.</p><p></p><p>What makes more than one style works is when ALL players act gamist in a given situation, sim in another given situation and then nar in some other. For example you could imagine a game with a heavy nar social system rules with a strong gamist combat rules. Typical "traditionnal" "mainstream" D&D is sorta like that. Probably moreso in 2E. In fights, you are full blast gamist. With proficiencies, you are sim and you could have players approach the alignment issue in a nar way.</p><p></p><p>This is not "in theory". I've witnessed games with sim and gam and nar players mixed together and it's always a disaster. About 90% of "player problems" thread on ENworld should rather be read as "we're a bunch of gamist players, give us ideas to trick the sim guy into playing gam". Or "we're a bunch of sim players tell us how to leash the gamist" (which usually words as "how do deal with a munchkin/powergamer". (BTW IMO "munchkin" is a type of dysfunctionnal gamist play where the player cheats to beat the game, often also to beat the other players).</p><p></p><p>Hope it clarifies.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well what I can say from experience is that there exists some fairly "easy" fix to (say) 3E to make it more sim. Think damage reduction, removal of hit points, and all the other "D20 3E fix" you can find on the web. Still as long as you keep levels and magic items and most spells, it still bears a strong gamist part. However, I VERY strongly think that no nar play could ever be achieve with D&D except with 2E because that system did not support any style at all and required. no. Demanded heavy house ruling to make it playable (which is probably why is was so bad after all lol).</p><p></p><p>In all three cases, to stick with my rules/law analogy, the reward system acts like "fines" in real world or prison time but "the other way around". (the former "rewards" proper behavior while the later "punish" unsuited behavior).</p><p></p><p>In all cases, the principle behind rewards is that they make you better at earning rewards.</p><p></p><p>For example for a gamist game like D&D 3E, you gain XP and treasures when you beat "challenges" (AKA monster or traps in this context) which grants levels which in turn makes you better at bashing monster, therefore earning more rewards.</p><p></p><p>So to get back to your point, in 3E, nothing encourage the players to act "in a nar way" since it doesn't grant XP. Group of players in which the DMs grants XP for "good roleplay" could both fit the nar or sim agenda depending of when, why and how such XP is granted. You could, for example, imagine a group of players who earns XP when they follow the plot that the GM wrote. Assuming the players have a way to "figure it out". In other words, without tweaking, D&D cannot address any other styles than gamist play. and IMO the amount of tweaking to make it somewhat nar isn't worth the trouble... or it means rewrite to whole thing in which case it's not D&D anymore <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></p><p></p><p>As a side point: Now read in a new light people who'd like to see a classless D&D. They are either sim or nar but they pretty sure as heck ain't gamist and should've dumped the game a while ago.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Bastoche, post: 4029046, member: 306"] The "reason" in nar play is NOT from the character, it's from the PLAYER. That's where the difference lay. Although I admit my previous wording was confusing. Yes and no. Yes on the first sentence, absolutly. But no for the rest in the following sense: you could indeed imagine players using all 3 styles of play. HOWEVER, it may not be one sim, one nar and one gam (for example) in a GIVEN instance of play. It would either lead to each saying of the others that they do "bad roleplaying" or would lead to both incoherent and unfun play. What makes more than one style works is when ALL players act gamist in a given situation, sim in another given situation and then nar in some other. For example you could imagine a game with a heavy nar social system rules with a strong gamist combat rules. Typical "traditionnal" "mainstream" D&D is sorta like that. Probably moreso in 2E. In fights, you are full blast gamist. With proficiencies, you are sim and you could have players approach the alignment issue in a nar way. This is not "in theory". I've witnessed games with sim and gam and nar players mixed together and it's always a disaster. About 90% of "player problems" thread on ENworld should rather be read as "we're a bunch of gamist players, give us ideas to trick the sim guy into playing gam". Or "we're a bunch of sim players tell us how to leash the gamist" (which usually words as "how do deal with a munchkin/powergamer". (BTW IMO "munchkin" is a type of dysfunctionnal gamist play where the player cheats to beat the game, often also to beat the other players). Hope it clarifies. Well what I can say from experience is that there exists some fairly "easy" fix to (say) 3E to make it more sim. Think damage reduction, removal of hit points, and all the other "D20 3E fix" you can find on the web. Still as long as you keep levels and magic items and most spells, it still bears a strong gamist part. However, I VERY strongly think that no nar play could ever be achieve with D&D except with 2E because that system did not support any style at all and required. no. Demanded heavy house ruling to make it playable (which is probably why is was so bad after all lol). In all three cases, to stick with my rules/law analogy, the reward system acts like "fines" in real world or prison time but "the other way around". (the former "rewards" proper behavior while the later "punish" unsuited behavior). In all cases, the principle behind rewards is that they make you better at earning rewards. For example for a gamist game like D&D 3E, you gain XP and treasures when you beat "challenges" (AKA monster or traps in this context) which grants levels which in turn makes you better at bashing monster, therefore earning more rewards. So to get back to your point, in 3E, nothing encourage the players to act "in a nar way" since it doesn't grant XP. Group of players in which the DMs grants XP for "good roleplay" could both fit the nar or sim agenda depending of when, why and how such XP is granted. You could, for example, imagine a group of players who earns XP when they follow the plot that the GM wrote. Assuming the players have a way to "figure it out". In other words, without tweaking, D&D cannot address any other styles than gamist play. and IMO the amount of tweaking to make it somewhat nar isn't worth the trouble... or it means rewrite to whole thing in which case it's not D&D anymore ;) As a side point: Now read in a new light people who'd like to see a classless D&D. They are either sim or nar but they pretty sure as heck ain't gamist and should've dumped the game a while ago. [/QUOTE]
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