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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5959276" data-attributes="member: 42582">In the same spirit, I'll quote (again) a key passage written by Ron Edwards, in his <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/21/" target="_blank">"Gamism - Step On Up"</a> essay:Gamist and Narrativist play have an interesting relationship, but it's hard to see or understand unless you have experience with solid non-Simulationist game play . . . f Simulationist-facilitating design is not involved, then the whole picture changes. Step On Up is actually quite similar, in social and interactive terms, to Story Now. Gamist and Narrativist play often share the following things: *Common use of player Author Stance (Pawn or non-Pawn) to set up the arena for conflict. This isn't an issue of whether Author (or any) Stance is employed at all, but rather when and for what. *Fortune-in-the-middle during resolution, to whatever degree - the point is that Exploration as such can be deferred, rather than established at every point during play in a linear fashion. *More generally, Exploration overall is negotiated in a casual fashion through ongoing dialogue, using system for input (which may be constraining), rather than explicitly delivered by system per se. When you look at that list, you see all the features of 4e that generate so much hostility:*Author stance to set up the "arena for conflict" (ie players make choices for their PCs not because they are "playing their PCs" but because they think this will produce an interesting situation for play), and more generally a downplaying of "exploring" the fanatsy world for its own sake. A simple example is that the game takes for granted that players won't have their PCs try to use their Decanter of Endless Water to make money in the desert).*FitM, and the negotiation of the details of the fiction more generally in a casual fashion within parameters/constraints set by the mechanics, rather than reading them off the mechanics. This is exactly what [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] is talking about. 4e is very overt about this, and extends it to active abilities (powers etc) as well as the more traditional passive ones (hp, saves).It is not crucial to RPGing that the mechanics actually determine, at every point of play, what is happening in the fiction (or, in Herremman's words, that the action resolution mecahnics actually resolve something). It can be sufficient that the mechanics settle parameters for subsequent narration.Some of these repeated proposal for simulationist "fixes" to 4e, and to FitM and similar mechanics more generally, seem to be motivated by a genuine surprise that anyone might prefer, at least sometimes, or for some RPGing purposes, a game that plays in the way that Edwards describes. But it is true.A simple recent example from my 4e game: the dwarf PC was having his dwarven engineers and artisans reforge Whelm (a dwarven thrower hammer) as Overwhelm (a mordenkrad). I was resolving this as a skill challenge. The PC wizard had succeeded in containing the magical forces (Arcana success). The dwarf had made sure the engineers had the right equipment (Dungeoneering success) and he was keeping them focused on the task as the magical forces grew in intensity (Diplomacy success). He said prayers to Moradin, but these weren't enough (Religion failure). As I described the dwarven artisans having trouble getting a solid grip on the hammer head, so that they could beat it into shape, the player of the dwarf asked "Can I stick my hands in and hold it - making an Endurance check?" (his Endurance skill bonus is a lot better than his Religion bonus!). I answered that he could, though it would probably hurt his hands quite badly. So he did, he made the Endurance roll, with the dwarf steadying Whelm with his bare hands in the forge the artisans were able to get a firm grip with their tongs, and Whelm was reforged. (And the wizard used Remove Affliction to try to alleviate some of the damage from the burns.)This is the sort of thing which is easy to do in a fortune-in-the-middle system in which the relationship between fictional content and mechanical outcomes is negotiated in a casual fashion using the system for inputs and constraints. Whereas resolving it in a simulationist system would be much harder, because apart from anything else they tend not to have well-developed systems for resolving non-humanly-possible but non-magical heroic action (there is no way this could be done in Rolemaster, Runequest or Burning Wheel without spellcasting, for example).I'm not saying that this laid-back approach to resolution is everything. It depends, for example, upon a robust and shared sense of genre limitations around the table. 4e has a lot of features to help deliver this: D&D traditions, plus the default world, plus the tiers of play, etc. (So the player of the dwarf in this example would have accepted a "No, you can't do that!" answer back in heroic tier.)But the fact that it's not the be-all-and-end-all doesn't make it anything less than a completely viable way of RPGing.(As I posted in the other thread, a Wound/Vitality system has the additional weirdness that it keeps FitM and loose narration for part of the system - hp loss - but not the rest of the system - wounding. I don't really understand the reason for this sort of split personality - I want to go one way or the other.)</blockquote>

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