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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DracoSuave" data-source="post: 5613034" data-attributes="member: 71571">A more accurate designation would be system-enforced themism vs player-inspired themism.  Neither of these concerns have anything to do with smiluation--Planescape, for example, has absolutely no means to simulate the tone.  It simply has the tone and players are free to narrate it or not.That simply reduces 'high concept simulationism' to the idea that a game has a specific tone.... that makes Ravenloft 'high concept simulationism' because it has a horror tone.No arguing that.So the second a game has a set genre, tone, or theme it suddenly turns from narrativist to simulationist, regardless of whether the game system itself has means to support that simulationism?That's why I say they might as well have 'role playing game.' By this definition, D&D is a simulationist system because it carries a continual tone involving the attainment of power and escalation of stakes, inherent to the game system on a fundamental level.The system does not reward breaking away from the fact you're in a game with levels kicking down doors and slaying monsters.OtE is a postmodernist game tho, which the game mechanics are designed to support.  In a sense, would that make it a 'Higher Concept Simulationist' game?That's why I dislike the term... it -really- is so broad it has absolutely no meaning.  Once set in stone, it's impossible to find anything that isn't 'High concept simulationist' if it isn't rolemaster-like.That's where the conclusion 'simulationism might as well mean "roleplaying game"' comes from.So?  Doesn't change its meaninglessness as a phrase by itself, when other, more precise phrases, meaning more precise things, are available.Where did I say I hated the gamist approach?  I'm simply stating what it is:  A system designed to be internally consistant as a game, rather than as a vehicle for simulationist OR narrativist purposes.  Initial iterations of D&D did this because there simply was no concern for those things... they weren't concepts in rpg design because rpg design was a brand new thing.I am trying to understand but the phraseology and definitions used are loose and poor at best.  I understand enough to understand (and respect) the complaint against Planescape as a game.  However the game isn't 'simulationist.'  It's a setting that has a tone.  That's not 'simulationism' as the tone is not enforced by the system in any way.  It's simply there.  You can take the information provided, and remove the tone, and everything plays just as well.How is that simulationist when the system does not attempt simulation?I don't dislike simulation.  I recognize cause and effect; things that were invented prior to game design incorporating ideas of hard simulation (Rolemaster) or narrative focus (storyteller) simply don't have those ideals in the design, any more than TVs are going to have color before color tvs were invented.It's not a disparagement at all.</blockquote>

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