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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9093757" data-attributes="member: 71699">It feels like this can be read in two ways, one of which I heartily agree with! Two recent essays on simulationism that have influenced me are <a href="https://www.arkenstonepublishing.net/isabout/2020/05/14/observations-on-gns-simulationism/" target="_blank">Tuovinen</a> and <a href="https://arbiterofworlds.substack.com/p/the-philosophy-of-simulationism" target="_blank">Macris</a>.Pursuing the reading that I agree with - I feel you are right that once we set aside the dichotomy we possibly assumed (as contrasted by you at the top of your post) it opens our eyes to a much broader range of approaches. Two recent game texts that speak to this are Fantasy Flight's Legend of the Five Rings, and Chaosium's RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. You've focused on setting, but let me shift that a bit and say that the essence of simulationism is focus on subject.In L5R players are "samurai, who are torn between their personal desires and their sworn duties" while RQ "lets you experience that [mythological] state of mind and explore that [sacred] way of life through the mythic realm of Glorantha." Defining features of the L5R setting (of Rokugan) include the celestial order and the code of bushido, in RQ, Genertela is part of a mythological world in which gods, spirits and sacred acts are visible, active, and necessary. In both game texts, considerable investment is made up-front to situate your character into setting... but is it setting that is the focus, or the affordances for roleplay that separates characters from our ordinary world and make them suitable for exploration? That is, of the tension between their desires and duties in a strictly organised society, or of their sacred heroism in a vividly mythological reality. I don't think we have to answer this question in just one way: the game designs offer utility for multiple modalities.Anyway, long-story short, to me your closing thought in your OP is superb. It might be you specifically want to focus on setting-sim, but I am not sure that it is quite that simple. I suspect that setting itself is serving purposes connected with what it is possible to explore via roleplay. It seems easy to think "well, I want to explore Glorantha" but that is not at heart what RQ is about. Not that simply. Exploring Glorantha is about exploring the sacred and mythological. You can easily see the similar argument with regard to Rokugan.</blockquote>

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