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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6109141" data-attributes="member: 4937">You are familiar with the concept of stakes right?  In normal process simulation, the stakes on something like a ride check are clear to all parties - I either stay on the horse, or I don't depending on the fortune result.  In the case of a perception roll, it's usually something like "I either gain a bit of information, or I don't."  In your game, that's exactly how you set the stakes on the perception check.  The player knew the stakes ahead of time and knew that they would be resolved basically according to process.  The player made a good check, and you decided that this should give more information to the player and you improvised a reasonable genera relevant hidden fact about the document.  On that level, we can't distinguish your game from a standard simulation game.   In both cases, the DM can decide that it is interesting for the hidden fact to be present, and in both cases the DM can improvise the fact based on player engagement with the setting.   There are possibly but not necessarily some differences in motive, but mechanically things work the same.I want to specifically point out some things that probably didn't think to do.  You probably didn't think at the time, "If he fails the perception check, I'll improvise a contact poison on the document."  Both you and your average sim DM would see that as being too antagonistic - 'Shrodinger's Trap' is probably a very bad idea.  Both you and your average sim DM want to encourage engagement with the setting and the system, not discourage it.  Likewise, it probably didn't occur to you to 'let it ride' and let the resolution of all the exploration hinge on this one roll, or to let failure on this perception roll indicate that no further clues could be found in the room.  The reason is you knew implicitly or explicitly that the stakes being set was only, 'Is there something interesting about this document or not?'Because you don't understand it's basis.  I'm arguing that while distinctive narrative play does exist, the "standard narrativist model" you keep linking to doesn't adequately or correctly describe its distinguishing features.   Yes,  it is certainly true that there are some sorts of play that don't fit into what I think is wrongly labeled "the standard narrativist model", but that isn't sufficient to prove that it is a good description.  Before it is a good description it must fit all sorts of play we'd describe as 'standard narrativist' and exclude all sorts (not just specific sorts) that we wouldn't.  I personally think the author makes the mistake of focusing too much on the mechanics of play, and too little on the techinique, agenda, and color of play.  The mechanics of play themselves cover way too much ground and don't tell us much about what makes the games he is discussing unique in their core experience from lots of other games, including normal D&D play.On some level I agree, but I would point out that 'irrelevant' isn't the same as absent.  Gygaxian play is often, indeed I would argue normally, played with dramatic tension.I've seen it fit that model.  If you look back at the 1e advice on running a prepared module, there was an assumption that the text was incomplete and the skilled DM would expand upon it and incorporate it within his own game in an interesting manner.  Have you ever played I6: Ravenloft, where as the player the town was attacked by giant zombies and you needed to organize the townsfolk into a militia to protect themselves before going on to confront Strahd?  I have.  Have you ever played I6: Ravenloft as the DM, where one of the inhabitants of the village was a young psionic assassin, who used his talents to hunt undead and protect the town, and one of your PC's fell in love with him and their romance - and the threat to the lover because of Strahd's jealousy - was part of the emotional basis for the conflict with Strahd?  I have.  But even if we don't talk about how skilled DMs will improvise on a modules text, what is the funeral scene in I6 but dramatic play?  Or forget I6, because its not part of an adventure path, right?  Well, what about the desert of desolution series?  You can do the same thing in them.  What about the DL series?  You can do the same thing in them.  Imagine how they play if the players use their own characters rather than pregenerated ones, and the DM tailors the stories dramatic conflicts to those characters rather than the pregenerated ones - not that using the pregenerated ones means the play isn't about drama.  The same is also true of modern APs.   You are right only in as much as you don't have to do this, but then I'd argue that its possible to play one of the games he describes in the manner he describes and largely make dramatic play irrelevant as well (or at least to the same degree).No, they don't.  The modules just have to assume that they do, because there isn't space available in the limited text to provide for every contingency of the players departed from the standard course of action.  But, talk to the guys that turned DL into primerally a naval campaign based in the players taking the PCs where they thought the action was.  Were they suddenly not playing D&D?  Was it suddenly a narrativist game?Again, not the same thing.  Once you assume 'the model' doesn't adequately describe standard narrativist play, this sort of line of thought goes away.  Yes, things obviously differ between my game and Manbearcat's, but we have to actually define that it is rather than assuming what it is.   For that matter, I again argue that your assumption here that you and Manbearcat are playing the same sort of game doesn't totally hold up for me.  Manbearcat's description of how he's handling stakes doesn't full correspond to your game.  Moreover, I'd argue that you - like most good DMs - aren't playing a single purist game, but are instead pullling different tools in to fit different agendas of play in different situations.   There is more here than exists in your philosophy.  What I'm saying is that a) there are more different descriptors than GNS, b) GNS aren't separate buckets but continuims, and c) scene to scene and moment to moment in play, there can be different agendas on display and resolution systems being used and that this has always been true of D&D in actual play and even in the stated guidelines.</blockquote>

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