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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Malmuria" data-source="post: 8653562" data-attributes="member: 7030755">I don't have a problem with jargon per se.  The difficulty I have with jargon is that framing a discussion or argument in particular terms assents to the validity of those terms.  So if we ask, is dnd 5e simulationist or gamist, we're assuming those terms, within a specific model, are valid ways of talking about games.  So, if you happen to be even a little bit skeptical that your own experiences of play fit so neatly into those categories, you still have to explain your position using them.  So you have some people that want to say that their experience is that the game they play combines G, N, and S--because those are the categories on offer--and other people saying that's categorically impossible.   Forge terminology, in particular, exacerbates this problem because it appears, to me at least, as both an expansive and relatively closed system.  It's important (for me) to keep in mind that it's a mean to an end, which is better communication.  A shorthand works very well for some people given the way they learn.  It does not work well for others, and for those people if you are really and sincerely trying to communicate with them, you try another approach. (Or you keep talking past each other for 100 pages...)And if I was going to introduce forge theory to someone in, say, my Call of Cthulhu group, I would frame it that way.  I would say, "here are some people who looked at Vampire, CoC, Dnd, and said definitely not that."  It's a relevant framework for people playing "storygames," especially those games that grew out of that scene, even from those designers that have continued to evolve in their thinking past the forge model.*But the forge doesn't do that, because as Snarf says, it presents itself as a neutral, unbiased theory of all rpgs.  So it looks the Call of Cthulhu player, and says, you play those games because you like participationism, you liked to be railroaded through gm storytime, you like games with GM fiat and low player agency.  Aside from being a condescending approach, it also shuts off the theory to experiences that can't already be fit within its schema.  I mean, I'm into marxist theory, but I can recognize that his philosophizing about linen production in the 1840s is maybe not relevant in every way to how capitalism works in the present day (but then, that's the whole point of the approach--you don't start with the idea, you start with the material reality).This is probably ungenerous of me, but I feel there is something intentional about laying claim to those particular words.  Recently on these boards, I was introduced to the notion of "high concept simulation."  <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/" target="_blank">Edwards writes</a>This is heavily clipped; Edwards' writing is verbose, digressive, a dense mix of references to other forge-theory proper nouns (a mini-glossary is provided at the end of this article), with a dash of characteristic corny phrasing ("kewlness"?).  That aside, what I see here are two things: 1) a concerned attempt to put dividing wall between popular 90s games, including adnd 2e, CoC, and WoD games and his domain of Narrativism.  To the point where the former are defined through genre, aesthetics, and even story (albeit not capitalized and in quotation marks), but are still not "narrativist" (sorry...Narrativist).  Any film, art, or literary critic would look askance at this distinction.  2) As described above, the tone and style of writing presents "high concept sim" as simply a neutral phrase of description, but we see by the end this is tendentious.  This article is not for people who like playing these games, it's for his particular audience of people who look at those games and say definitely not that.  Which would be fine!  But Edwards for some reason needs to define for other people why they like those games  (incidentally, this is why I think his whole "brain damage" argument is not just a distasteful side-conversation, but actually speaks to a pervasive condescension throughout what I've read of his writing).*on designers who were deeply influenced by but have also moved past:[MEDIA=twitter]1280348673474351104[/MEDIA]</blockquote>

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