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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4508477" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't think he limits it to discussing moral matters. But he does suggest that narrativist play must address moral or ethical matters. I agree that this is too narrow (eg Edwards seems not to have read Neitzche, who presents a plausible case for the difference of the aesthetically appealing from the moral), but that is a quibble with an excessively narrow conception on his part of literary or aesthetic merit. It is not an objection to the structure of GNS theory.I think that it is hard for D&D to address what modern people would regard as moral matters, because D&D is mostly about brutal combat and most modern moral dillemas begin from some conception of the value of life and the wrongness of (much) killing (pre-4e alignment is a mostly unsuccessful attempt to try and stipulate by way of game mechanics that this dissonance does not exist - and is for that reason perhaps the most anti-narrativist of all traditional D&D mechanics). But D&D (and fantasy RPGs in general) can address ethical questions about the nature or purpose or worth of a certain sort of life, provided that the ethical is allowed to reach beyond the moral into the more purely aesthetic (in a Neitzchean sort of way, perhaps).That is probably too simplistic. But it is an obstacle for narrativist play if the issues of moral or aesthetic decision are already predetermined. In playing narrativist Star Wars, it would have to remain the case that anger leads to the Dark Side (this is a given for Star Wars), but Lucas's moral judgement about the wickedness of the Dark Side would have to be up for grabs during the course of play.I haven't played "morally ambiguous" Star Wars, but I have GMed a game in which one PC sacrificed another on the altar of Hextor before going on to become an ally of Vecna in his quest to become Emperor. That PC prospered, while another PC who was an ex-slave, and was campaigning to free the slaves, and who lived a comparatively normal and non-sociopathic life, suffered many vicissitidues with ignoble consequences. I don't know if the player of the sociopath really thought that what his PC was doing was morally permissible, or constituted a good life, nor whether he personally shared the contempt and condescension towards the other PC that his PC displayed in the gameworld. But I do know that the game could not have worked if there were already mechanics in play that predetermined an answer to these questions about what constitutes an ethically viable life.Agreed - although the "redemption" scene might well occur in a narrativist game. The death flag used in a simulationist game would typically be a way of nudging the game away from "purist-for-system" simulationism (of the RQ/RM/Traveller variety) and towards "high concept" or genre simulationism (of the Call of Cthulhu/Ars Magic variety) - the death flag would then support genre simulation by preventing certain sorts of genre-breaking events happening in the game.A recurring criticism of GNS is that it distinguishes narrativism from high-concept/genre simulationism, but that in practice these two sorts of play travel closely together (eg both are concerned with the production of story). My own view is that Edwards is right to draw the distinction, because (as drawn by him) it turns on the crucial question of "whose story" or "whose thematic vision" - and genre simulation is primarily about retelling someone else's story and inhabiting the thematic vision that the original author has already predetermined.But I readily admit that to identify this as the crucial question is already to adopt a certain aesthetic preference that not everyone may share - especially those who, like many fantasy RPGers, are fans of genre literature and film.I did enjoy this particular post. Thanks.</blockquote>

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