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Gamism vs Simulationism

What kind of fag are you?


  • Total voters
    93

PorkaMorka

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I only play RPGs and (non-RTS) strategy games. It turns out that it is very difficult to make a truly rewarding and engaging game system for solo play on the computer, when you exclude all action elements. Most computer game systems are quite flawed and unbalanced and this becomes apparent quite quickly when you study the system seriously. Also, most computer game designers are not actually very good at game design. They don't need to be as computer games usually sell based on more superficial factors. As such, I feel that gamism is a deeply flawed and pernicious philosophy for computer games.

I prefer games that create a "fake simulation". I say "fake simulation", because it's not feasible to simulate reality and they shouldn't even try. But I do want them to create a system with rules that vaguely approximate reality and then simulate the game result according to those rules.

For example, take Silent Storm. Silent Storm has some level of "fake simulation" of the laws of physics. Consequently, many interesting emergent results are possible in the game system, without specific scripts. Each bullet is tracked, even if it misses. Terrain destruction is modeled at a relatively sophisticated level. Not only does this increase the fun factor, but it makes gameplay more interesting, as characters can make holes in the floor and climb through them or shoot enemies through walls. Additional room for creative solutions to tactical problems is created by the fake simulation.

Imagine an alternative version of Silent Storm without fake simulation. Instead of pretending to simulate each bullet, you simply roll the dice to determine whether or not a hit is scored and discard missed bullets. Essentially, combat would be resolved like AD&D, but with different formulas. This game would be much, much worse than the real Silent Storm. It wouldn't be worth playing because Silent Storm doesn't actually have well designed or balanced game mechanics. The fake simulation is actually what makes Silent Storm worth playing. Otherwise, you might as well skip it and play a better game.

Speaking of D&D... all my favorite RPGs are based on D&D, which is an extremely gamist system. But D&D was designed by professional P&P game designers, not by computer game designers. It has decades of playtesting and thousands of hours of playtesting behind it. Consequently, it is a lot better designed than homebrew game systems created by lower skilled computer game designers operating under tight time constraints. You might think that this is a controversial point, but it's not. P&P games sell based on the quality of their mechanics, computer game mechanics sell based on graphics and sound, their mechanics just have to seem decent during a short demo. Due to their superior game mechanics, games that copy D&D rules faithfully are awesome, without exception. But D&D is long dead and most similarly well designed systems are not popular enough to get faithful, licensed computer game adaptations. As such, we're stuck with homebrew systems created by low skill computer game designers. These designers should include an element of fake simulation to mask their mediocre game mechanics.
 

IDtenT

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Are you arguing that Starcraft is not the epitome of gamism? Do you not agree that arcade gaming is at its core gamism?

I think you are just kidding, IDenT, but in case you are not, you must be using a different definition of Gamism than mine. Gamism is aterm that describes a certain type of narrative in a P&P RPG game. Namely, one where the different players try to outdo each other. It isn't really about playing a game (which all RPGs, and all board games, and all computer games are) or about the challenge aspect of gameplay (which all games have). It is a specific way to build narratives, specifically, building them like a game of outdoing each other.

I have myself adapted it to single player CRPGs where the term is hard to fit, after all, there are only two players, and one of them is incapable of understanding what a narrative is. But still, I think the idea behind what I call gamist CRPGs and gamist P&P RPGs is similar enough to work. But many gamist CRPGs aren't about direct, sportive challenge like Starcraft or LoL, or whatever else have you. My favorite gamist P&P games are all about inventing stuff in the game fiction, like early D&D. This game has a really crappy formal battle system. But the idea is that you can attempt about anything in the game, and the DM should rule your chances of success reasonably. In fact, it is a common complaint of 4e players that warriors in the early editions could only attack during combat, when this is missing the point. Warriors could do anything they could imagine, even trying to target specific body parts, try swashbuckling maneuvers or whatever. It is just the the GM should use his commons sense to rule how this goes, not ready made game rules. In other words, games with combat as war, with really asymmetric powers and options can be gamist. In fact, I find them much better gamist RPGs that the alternative.
Let's run with it. When competing for high scores at an arcade, are you not trying to outdo each other? The narrative is built around gaining a higher score. (It also depends on what you call narrative. Is level building part of the narrative? Take Quake III as an example. What narrative exists and how does it exist?)

Absolutely no fucking person (maybe spergs) actually want a simulationist RPG. It would be the most tedious, unenjoyable shit imaginable. All the sim-fags (read: LARPers) want is a game that disguises it's gameisms with shit that doesn't break their suspension of disbelief, e.g. complain about Gorky17's chessboard combat but blow loads over JA2.

edit: also, lol at suggesting c+c is simulationist.
Let's the outside the PC gaming world at the moment. Let us think real life. Let us think competition. Sport, right? Ok. Sport. What is the appeal to sport? Winning? Yeah. Winning is an important part, but winning isn't what drags in the spectators. It's the class. The class of a cover drive. The class of a fifty meter try. The class of a 90 yard running fly half. The class of a home run with three on the base. The class of a curled in left foot strike into the net from 30 yards. That is what makes sport. Not winning. Winning is a bonus.
 

groke

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Let's the outside the PC gaming world at the moment. Let us think real life. Let us think competition. Sport, right? Ok. Sport. What is the appeal to sport? Winning? Yeah. Winning is an important part, but winning isn't what drags in the spectators. It's the class. The class of a cover drive. The class of a fifty meter try. The class of a 90 yard running fly half. The class of a home run with three on the base. The class of a curled in left foot strike into the net from 30 yards. That is what makes sport. Not winning. Winning is a bonus.

:hero:

This post is too classy to argue against.
 

DraQ

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Gamists are, of course, sad wankers who despite having vague, gut desire of simplicity and elegance keep blundering around cRPG genre which offers neither in search of their gamist fix instead of heading for proper :obviously: gamist systems like Go that offer both.

:martini:


Also, I am sure we and simulationfags can fully agree that narrationfags have no honor, like women, and deserve utmost despise.
Storyfags merely cannot into comuputers. They fail to understand that as a medium computer games can only offer truly interactive storytelling through simulation.
 

Bruma Hobo

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WTF do jrpgfags have with that? They are closet adventure gamers.
Combat devoid of logic and divorced from the setting (martial artists fighting tanks for example), linear level design and lack of non-combat RPG mechanics to maximize balance and challenge, abstract shit like limit-breaks and trading cards in combat, and so on. Japan cannot into simulationism.


Is this another "LARP" discussion, dammit?
This thread has nothing to do with LARP, sorry.



OP cannot into definitions and mixes up "gamists vs simulationists" with "combat-fags vs story-fags"

:declining:
Don't call me storyfag, you fag.

I opted to go the easy way using wikipedia's definitions:
Gamist refers to decisions based on satisfying clear predefined goal conditions in the face of adversity: in other words, on the desire to win. As Ron Edwards mentions in Gamism, Step on Up:

I might as well get this over with now: the phrase "Role-playing games are not about winning" is the most widespread example of synecdoche in the hobby. Potential Gamist responses, and I think appropriately, include:

"Eat me",
(upon winning) "I win",
and "C'mon, let's play without these morons."

These decisions are most common in games which pit characters against successively tougher challenges and opponents, and may not spend much time dwelling on why the characters are facing them in the first place. Gamist RPG design tends to place a strong emphasis on parity in character effectiveness: that is, the idea that all player characters should be (at least when properly built or optimised over time) equally strong and capable of dealing with adversity.

Combat is frequently heavily emphasised, as is a diversity in options for short-term problem solving (i.e., long lists of highly specific spells or combat techniques). Randomisation (i.e., Fortune methods) exist primarily to provide a gamble and allow players to risk more for higher stakes (for instance, attempting a more effective hit in combat requires a penalty on the dice roll), rather than modelling strict probability.

Examples include, Magic: The Gathering, Chess, and most computer games.



Simulationism refers to a style of play where the main agenda is the recreation of, or inspiration by, the observed characteristics of a particular genre or set of source material. Physical reality might count as source material for these purposes, but so might superhero anthologies, or any other literary, cinematic or historical milieu. Its most frequent concerns are internal consistency, analysis or modeling of cause and effect, and informed speculation or even extrapolation to the point of satire. Often characterised by concern for the minutiae of physical interaction and details of setting, Simulationism shares with Narrativism a concern for character backgrounds, personality traits and motives, in an effort to model cause and effect within the intellectual realm as well as the physical.

Simulation-inclined players are more likely to talk of their characters as if they were independent entities with minds of their own, and model their behaviour accordingly. (For example, they may be particularly reluctant to have their character act on the basis of out-of-character information, and indisposed to tolerate such behaviour in others.) Basically similar to the distinction between actor and character within a film or play, this stems from the sense of objectivity that a Simulationist strives for. Character generation and the modelling of skill growth and proficiency can be very complex and highly detailed.

Like Narrativists, Simulationists are highly intolerant of obvious railroading, but for different reasons: because it betrays the implied agreement that "internal cause is king". However, many Simulationist RPGs recommend "Illusionism" to create a story – in essence, the subtle manipulation of in-game probability and environmental data to funnel or nudge PCs toward predefined conclusions. For example, Call of Cthulhu's foremost concern is recreating the mood of brooding horror and cosmic insignificance of the Cthulhu Mythos, and makes heavy use of illusionism to craft grisly fates for the players' characters, thereby maintaining consistency with the source material.

Much of the Simulationist aesthetic revolves around promoting the daydream of a self-contained bubble universe that operates independently of player volition, with the result that many Simulationist techniques are both deterministic and relatively hands-off: events unfold on the basis of internal rules, not because the player decides it. Combat might be broken down into discrete, semi-randomised steps for modeling the input of attack skill, weapon weight, defence checks, armour, body parts and potential for critical damage, separately. That said, however, some Simulationist RPGs focus on the exploration of entirely different aspects of their source material, and may have no concern for realism at all. Toon, for example, is solely concerned with emulating cartoon hijinks. Others, such as GURPS and FUDGE, take a moderately realistic core system as their baseline, which can be extended or modified by optional sourcebooks or special rules.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_Theory

And of course I know there are some differences between P&P gaming and computer games.
 

mediocrepoet

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I tend to be a simulationist. I prefer it when characters I create have abilities that seem to hang together well for a person rather than some hodgepodge of stuff that makes him the ultimate fighter or whatever. As well, in a game world, I think that rules should shift to try and depict the realities of that world rather than have a shift for game balance or what have you. This sort of setup starts creating its own challenges and difficulties in a game, so it isn't necessarily adverse to "gamism" it's just a different focus on how things are put together.

At the same time, this is all broad strokes. I don't necessarily care whether or not you can bake bread in your game or whether my PC/party has a home they can decorate (or at all) or going the RoA route of having to ensure your guys are wearing warm clothes so they don't catch the sniffles, etc.
 

Alex

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Let's run with it. When competing for high scores at an arcade, are you not trying to outdo each other? The narrative is built around gaining a higher score. (It also depends on what you call narrative. Is level building part of the narrative? Take Quake III as an example. What narrative exists and how does it exist?)

No, it isn't about being told a story. Most games tell you story. It is about building one. If you are playing pacman, for example, mostly, you are not building a story around the high score. You may have a few moments playing pacman where the adrenaline, the tension and all make you really feel like you are it. Maybe the pink ghost keeps getting you, so you playfully create an animosity with it. But even then, this is a really abstract, almost absent narrative. It is too weak to really be called an RPG, and thus be related to gamism. The game is about beating the high score, not about making a story around it, and it provides the player no tools to do so. If you take Might and Magic, or Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup, the game gives you various little things with which to build a narrative yourself. It gives you abstract systems, much like a simple strategy game. But also gives you context and tools that react in a way your narrative would expect them to react. Whether you are a group of adventurers who get to each time more ridiculous levels of power, sometimes scraping by, but eventually defeating the big evil in the tower or a lone necromancer who invades the gnoll fortress on level 7 and raise several of them to hunt the living, the game gives you tools to make those stories. To choose and play roles for your characters. Doom, on the other hand, is about blowing things up and finding hidden passages,

You may not agree with this definition of RPG (mondblut certainly is raging by now), but that is the on implied by the use of GNS terms. It was made in the Forge, an old RPG theory site who closed last year. They tried to identify various aspects of how RPG games are played. One important part they identified were the elements of exploration (character, setting, situation, system and color). These are elements of the imaginary stuff going on in the player's heads, the narrative. They pretty much never consider the "rules" as separated from this. In fact, they consider it when people start playing rules only, without going back to the narrative, to be a problem. If the game doesn't have this element, they wouldn't really consider it an RPG.

All that said, feel free to mean challenge by gamism if you want. I am trying to explain what I understand of the terms, but I really care very little for semantics. As long as the people reading you understand what you are talking about, I couldn't care less what terms you use.

Gamists are, of course, sad wankers who despite having vague, gut desire of simplicity and elegance keep blundering around cRPG genre which offers neither in search of their gamist fix instead of heading for proper :obviously: gamist systems like Go that offer both.

:martini:

I dunno DraQ. On one hand, I think you might enjoy the kind of combat as war gamism that people in OSR circles like. On the other hand, you would probably get pissed at how ad hoc the simulation systems in those turn out.

Also, I am sure we and simulationfags can fully agree that narrationfags have no honor, like women, and deserve utmost despise.
Storyfags merely cannot into comuputers. They fail to understand that as a medium computer games can only offer truly interactive storytelling through simulation.

I would say Plasnescape: Torment came the closest of being a Narrativist computer RPG, and it had awful little simulation in it. On the other hand, I am a big fan of the Storytron project by Chris Crawford. The problem with simulation is that a computer can't really understand a story, so if we are going to have something interesting here, we will need it to have certain static elements too. Still, I think a good mix of these elements will make an awesome game yet.

Unorus Janco

I think that Mr. Edwards misses the point a bit with simulationism. This is kind of stupid to say, I think, specially since he created the term, but his initial dissertation mixed with simulationism the idea of railroading. simulationism doesn't really require that, but it is somewhat widespread in more simulationist games of old, like some of the white wolf adventures where the PCs were really just watching the true main characters (all npcs) play out the story while sending them in meaningless errands. White Wolf wasn't the sole culprit in that area either.
 

MMXI

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As Alex and others have been hinting at, I don't think the op's use of "simulationist" and "gamist" quite matches up to their intended meaning in GNS. But ignoring that and discussing the actual message of the op...

We all know this, while gamists only care about challenge, simulationists want to experience the game-world through their character/party. So, what kind of player are you? This is Wizardry vs Ultima, bitches.
I don't think you're being entirely fair here. "Simulationists" may care about challenge just as much as "gamists", and Wizardry vs Ultima isn't a great example considering almost all of Ultima's simulation works outside of character statistics. In fact, if you limit simulation to functions of character statistics and the game world, the Wizardry games arguably have more than any Ultima game, especially if you weigh the functions according to the challenge they pose to game completion.

I think the Codex became very gamist lately with the rise of JRPGfags and mondblutians, and this would be the reason of the decreasing popularity of C&C compared to other desirable features like turn-based combat and full party creation.
But C&C has nothing to do with this. If you define C&C as actions having consequences then all games have C&C by default, regardless of whether they have a focus on simulation, narrative or whatever. If you define C&C like most people around here do, as in things like branching dialogue and branching quest chains, this is merely analogous to the highly restricted form of gameplay required in narrative heavy games: a crude brute force equivalent to simulation/mechanics in order to cope with the limitations of hard coded narratives. Either way, this is nothing to do with simulation vs combat. I'm one of the biggest "anti-storyfags" around here yet I'd place myself firmly in the simulation camp.

When it comes to RPGs, I don't think turn-based combat is much of a detriment to simulation. I'm all for broad simulation while keeping combat turn-based and movement grid-based, for example. One of my favourite combat systems (though perhaps more in theory than in practice) is Wizard's Crown's. It's very much on the simulation end of the combat spectrum, probably more so than any other (turn-based) RPG I can think of.

I don't think party creation is particularly "gamist" either, so I'm not sure what you're getting at there.
 

tuluse

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There are games where the only C&C is to keep playing or quit. There is no long term resources management or branching anything. CoD is one such game.
 

Murk

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There is no mutual-exclusivity between C&C and being a gamist.

C&C is not just picking which storyline option you want to experience in terms of plot. C&C is about having the game react to your choices that are both micro and macro in a manner that fits the system that the game is using.

I find it hilarious that people somehow thing C&C is just CYOA shit. I'm sure that this is the part where I'm supposed to say something like "storyfags" or what-not but I really don't care to make such hyperbole strawmen.
 

laclongquan

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There should be a "kingcomrade dont give a flying fuck" option.

Anyway, what is this? There's a perfectly good :unbro: fist icon and you have to go and steal it? Take this
10s88cy.png

Hey thanks for that nifty "Sorry. This person moved or deleted this image." notification!
Okay, my bad. Take this as consolation
10s88cy.png
 

Cool name

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If I do follow the definition given in this article I do consider myself a simulationist. A videogame or pen and paper campaign built with a certain level of simulation in mind does create its own narrative and is naturally immersive in a way a game built around creating a particular narrative or a challenging game can be. I do believe Draq to be right when he does say no true interactive narrative can develop without this 'simulation.'
 

DraQ

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I would say Plasnescape: Torment came the closest of being a Narrativist computer RPG, and it had awful little simulation in it.
Actually, while I hold PS:T in great esteem, I'd say it failed at being a *computer* RPG.

Pretty much all this game had to offer to a player could be just as easily conveyed by CYOA book, character sheet, some illustrations and an audio player.

All the remaining stuff boiled down to:
-annoying running around simulator.
-annoying and shitty IE combat.
-impressive, but primitive animations.

The last one was noninteractive and could be supplanted by adding a video player to our list of PS:T playing provisions. No computer necessary.
The problem with simulation is that a computer can't really understand a story
Indeed, but RL also doesn't understand a story, yet it doesn't prevent it from being the greatest source of them.
Our minds evolved to make sense of events in the context of our environments and other events. We naturally craft stories out of series of events bound by RL logic and even invented stories featuring completely fantastic settings tend to feature very similar kind of logic. If computer can to some extent run even a crude and coarse simulation of such logic, then it won't have to understand what makes a story - it will be the player, who will act, react, and make stories out of ensuing events.

This said, I wonder what makes narrativist-gamists tick? I understand the point of gamism and simulationism. I think I know what narrativism is about too. I fully understand both the interests of gamist-simulationists and narrativist-simulationists, but what the fuck are narrativist-gamists interested in?

a09d80.png

As represented in the diagram above, what do they want from their games?

Any NGs here who could clue me in?

When it comes to RPGs, I don't think turn-based combat is much of a detriment to simulation.
We've been at that.

TB has it's share of problems when it comes to simulation, but phase based not necessarily so. The main difference between RT and PB comes to tradeoff between timing control (RT wins) and parallel control over multiple characters (PB wins).

Absolutely no fucking person (maybe spergs) actually want a simulationist RPG. It would be the most tedious, unenjoyable shit imaginable.
You, sir, are a fucking moron.

All the sim-fags (read: LARPers)
Larpers are those sad wankers, who like their games *not* include stuff in the form of mechanics as they would doubtlessly find it too constraining regardless of implementation. They revel in LARPING stuff disregarding or going against mechanics of simulation so they are polar opposite of simfags (though they may be Sims-fags).

Being neither gamefags nor storyfags as well, they must be something other and far more vile - they are fagfags.

Please don't pretend you understand terms you have no clue about again.
want is a game that disguises it's gameisms with shit that doesn't break their suspension of disbelief, e.g. complain about Gorky17's chessboard combat but blow loads over JA2.
Yeah, yeah.
You discovered games run on NUMBARS.
You so smrat.
:roll:
*pat pat*

edit: also, lol at suggesting c+c is simulationist.
There is nothing in C&C that goes *against* simulation. Events both in real life and any reasonable setting have consequences, so good simulation should simulate this aspect as well.

There are just two different approaches to C&C - simple, but constrained "bifurcated rail" of narrativists and more ambitious simulationist approach which may be somewhat daunting for certain types of C&C.
 
In My Safe Space
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There is no mutual-exclusivity between C&C and being a gamist.

C&C is not just picking which storyline option you want to experience in terms of plot. C&C is about having the game react to your choices that are both micro and macro in a manner that fits the system that the game is using.

I find it hilarious that people somehow thing C&C is just CYOA shit. I'm sure that this is the part where I'm supposed to say something like "storyfags" or what-not but I really don't care to make such hyperbole strawmen.
Exactly. For example using up resources or going through some risk (oh wait, you can't have risks in SFL games because you always succeed.) to get a powerful item may make a profound impact on the later story.
 
In My Safe Space
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Actually, while I hold PS:T in great esteem, I'd say it failed at being a *computer* RPG.

Pretty much all this game had to offer to a player could be just as easily conveyed by CYOA book, character sheet, some illustrations and an audio player.

All the remaining stuff boiled down to:
-annoying running around simulator.
-annoying and shitty IE combat.
-impressive, but primitive animations.

The last one was noninteractive and could be supplanted by adding a video player to our list of PS:T playing provisions. No computer necessary.
Yeah. I'd rather play PS:T as a visual novel than a IE game.
 

Infinitron

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I have to say that I don't agree with the people who think PS:T should have been a visual novel.

I think the thing that made PS:T so special was how similar, yet still completely different it was from the standard high fantasy Baldur's Gate. The similarities made you appreciate the differences.

You could see how the game was putting all of this weird stuff on a framework that was never really meant for it. Like it was mocking high fantasy conventions right down to the level of the game engine itself.
 

zeitgeist

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I think the thing that made PS:T so special was how similar, yet still completely different it was from the standard high fantasy Baldur's Gate. The similarities made you appreciate the differences.

You could see how the game was putting all of this weird stuff on a framework that was never really meant for it. Like it was mocking high fantasy conventions right down to the level of the game engine itself.
Interesting point. I'd say that, if it was actually a visual novel or a CYOA, it would've never reached the popularity and reverence it did in its IE incarnation. Not even close.
 

Infinitron

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I think the thing that made PS:T so special was how similar, yet still completely different it was from the standard high fantasy Baldur's Gate. The similarities made you appreciate the differences.

You could see how the game was putting all of this weird stuff on a framework that was never really meant for it. Like it was mocking high fantasy conventions right down to the level of the game engine itself.
Interesting point. I'd say that, if it was actually a visual novel or a CYOA, it would've never reached the popularity and reverence it did in its IE incarnation. Not even close.

Definitely true.
 

Mastermind

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Combat devoid of logic and divorced from the setting (martial artists fighting tanks for example)

This is a shitty complaint. Were Greek legends "divorced from the setting" too? If anything, Western RPGs need more stuff like martial artists fighting tanks. A simulationist high fantasy RPG would restrict class choices to varieties of mages and maybe rogue/diplomat type classes for non-combat gameplay.
 

MMXI

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When it comes to RPGs, I don't think turn-based combat is much of a detriment to simulation.
We've been at that.

TB has it's share of problems when it comes to simulation, but phase based not necessarily so. The main difference between RT and PB comes to tradeoff between timing control (RT wins) and parallel control over multiple characters (PB wins).
Of course turn-based has its share of problems when it comes to simulation, but this argument is only appropriate when we talk about the depth of simulation and not the breadth. Unless you're modelling things such as combat in a physically correct manner you'll always be able to simulate "deeper", with exact hit detection and accurate force calculations for strikes. But when you can only issue commands every 10 seconds (phase-based), or each character performs 10 seconds of actions sequentially (turn-based), it's worthless modelling the effects of individual grains of sand moving in the wind. There comes a point where the depth of simulation is too great for the granularity of player input.

But then we come back to the whole real-time/action gameplay versus abstract wargame-like gameplay which obviously affects just where that point is. If you're wading into battle in an action game-like fashion you can do with the more detailed simulation. The problem is this isn't what RPGs should have, because RPGs aren't action games and should never be real-time. Therefore a "go prone" ability should increase your armour class versus missiles, reduce your armour class versus melee attacks and halve your movement points, instead of actually reducing your target area and constraining your limbs by changing the shape and position of your character's model.
 

Weierstraß

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The three categories are unfortunately named. Simulationism implies certain complexity and realism, narrativism gives the impressions it's about telling a good story or having "choices and consequences", and gamism can sound silly because in the end they're all games.

At their core RPGs are about the player picking an action and the rule system answering with the outcome. The interesting thing in the design of the rules is choosing how to determine the outcome. Choosing the outcome of a sword swing based on the sword's quality, the skill of the character swinging and the armor of the character swung at may seem like a trivial solution to arrive at but the question can be asked even there? Why should we consider the armor of the character swung at?

The most obvious answer here is the simulationist answer. We should consider the armor when resolving the sword swing because we know the attack would be affected by the armor. That's not the only answer though, the same mechanic can be motivated as gamist with the addition of an equipment system makes a more interesting game.

These three of of course just rough super-categories, Gamism can be split into many different purposes (action, tactics, resource management) as can Narrativism (drama, funny, scary) and realism in Simulationism doesn't have to mean exact real world realism (you can still have magic if you want! And turn-based!). The important thing here is consistency. If the game sometimes tells the player "this is what happens, because it's the more interesting game" and other times "because it's realistic" the player will feel that inconstancy.

Now this may differ from the original GNS theory, but so be it. The important thing to me is having a useful tool to look at game design with, and that is what this is rather than something I use to categorize my own tastes, I don't necessarily want to create the same games I want to create (and we've all seen people behind good games turn out to have terrible taste in games themselves).

This view can be generalized to all game design but I think the more discrete points of resolution in RPGs gives it a particular clarity, and that's the reason I'm particularly interested in RPGs in the first place. So to answer the question of "which one I am": I don't know.
 

Bruma Hobo

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You might be right, maybe I'm just mixing shit up.

I always thought that simulationists wanted to experience the setting, combat and dangers through their characters (their stats and actions). For example, having to find and mix reagents to cast spells in Ultima would please simulationists, while gamists would consider it a waste of time due to its lack of real challenge. That's not a proper RPG mechanic, but a good addition to a simulationist RPG. The same with having to interact with objects and NPCs, or the world reacting to the virtue score of the main character.

For the same reason, simulationists would want some C&C in their games because being unable to act in some ways is too jarring. Like the possibility to being able to kill NPCs (for whatever reason), and proper consequences to those actions, like having to fight guards, lose karma points or annoy the gods.

World building would be another big thing. Gamists may expect appropriate and balanced encounters to his level and constant challenge (not talking about level-scaling here), while simulationists would prioritize world consistency, even if that means the possibility of finding dragons too early on the game.

Again, I may be completely wrong, sorry about that. Time to read some more.
 

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