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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6240782" data-attributes="member: 42582">I wondered if that would be controversial!I was thinking of classic Gygaxian D&amp;D as the most gamist: the whole &quot;skilled play&quot; thing, and the notion that in a porperly run game PC level is a rough proxy for player skill.I agree that 3E is the most process-sim, but [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] and others have persuaded me that 4e is perhaps the best adapted to high-concept sim. (Let's find out what it's like to be heroes with an epic destiny awaiting us. 2nd ed AD&amp;D aimed for high-concept sim but had no mechanics to supportit). And 4e doesn't have the same opportunites as 3E for gamist play in build, because of its greater mechanical rigour and transparency on both player and GM side; nor the same opportunity for gamist play in either XP or treasure acquisition (the DMG description of these as &quot;rewards&quot; is a clear misnomer, given tha acquisition of treasure is simply a function of levels ie XP, and XP are earned automatically for playing the game).The inadequacy of 4e as a D&amp;D gamist vehicle is visible, for instance, in the frequent criticism that D&amp;Dnext is meant to &quot;fix&quot;, that gaining levels and finding +1 swords and in general getting bigger numbers doesn't actualluy make your PC any better because everything scales up. (In the fiction, of course, your PC is getting better, so this is not a criticism from the high-concept sim side. It is a criticism from the gamist side.)By &quot;failure&quot; I meant &quot;less successful than necessary to be sustained&quot;, so on that I think we're agreed.On fragmentation - I think the audience was always fairly diverse. The present fragmentation is a new commercial state of affairs (because of the emergence of PF, and the commercial effects of the OGL/SRD more generally) but I don't know that it's a new state of affairs as far as the preferences and styles of the player base are concerned.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6240782, member: 42582"] I wondered if that would be controversial! I was thinking of classic Gygaxian D&D as the most gamist: the whole "skilled play" thing, and the notion that in a porperly run game PC level is a rough proxy for player skill. I agree that 3E is the most process-sim, but [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] and others have persuaded me that 4e is perhaps the best adapted to high-concept sim. (Let's find out what it's like to be heroes with an epic destiny awaiting us. 2nd ed AD&D aimed for high-concept sim but had no mechanics to supportit). And 4e doesn't have the same opportunites as 3E for gamist play in build, because of its greater mechanical rigour and transparency on both player and GM side; nor the same opportunity for gamist play in either XP or treasure acquisition (the DMG description of these as "rewards" is a clear misnomer, given tha acquisition of treasure is simply a function of levels ie XP, and XP are earned automatically for playing the game). The inadequacy of 4e as a D&D gamist vehicle is visible, for instance, in the frequent criticism that D&Dnext is meant to "fix", that gaining levels and finding +1 swords and in general getting bigger numbers doesn't actualluy make your PC any better because everything scales up. (In the fiction, of course, your PC [I]is[/I] getting better, so this is not a criticism from the high-concept sim side. It is a criticism from the gamist side.) By "failure" I meant "less successful than necessary to be sustained", so on that I think we're agreed. On fragmentation - I think the audience was always fairly diverse. The present fragmentation is a new commercial state of affairs (because of the emergence of PF, and the commercial effects of the OGL/SRD more generally) but I don't know that it's a new state of affairs as far as the preferences and styles of the player base are concerned. [/QUOTE]

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