I always find it interesting when people try and bring up GNS in the context of a CRPG. GNS is a theory attempting to explain table top RPG player motivations. Table top RPGs are extremely different than CRPGs. Anyone who plays both should understand this. Tabletop Role Playing is primarily a social activity and GNS has to do with trying to model what players want out of that social activity. CRPGs are a primarily solitary activity with radically different means of interacting(A video screen displaying sound and video with some sort of controller for the player to give inputs into) with a player than P&P RPGs.
Yeah, so?
You can still divide players by their GNS tendencies, because they still reflect in their cRPG priorities like they do in PnP RPG ones.
in cRPGs narrativists prime interest is story. They want good and engaging story, branching or not, and will happily gobble up restrictions and even some contrivances if they think it improves the story.
At best they will be PS:T (in particular) or Witcher fans.
At worst they will be biowhores excusing away shitty inconsistencies and derp because they story needs them.
Gamists are primarily interested in game as, well, game. Winning and how it plays while holding story and verisimilitude in disregard.
At best they will like good crawlers and similar games (like Wizardry 8).
At worst they will either experience severe butthurt because someone disabled kill XP removing their favourite exploit of earning XP for
de facto the same thing several times over (or killing questgiver after turning in quest for exta XP) or barred them from from pickpocketing, being given then looting the exact same unique sword to equip their dream party with three copies of it (that's the degenerate munchkin variety that also manifests in PnPs), or will be hopeless scrubs butchering internal consistency, verisimilitude and fun for the sake of balance (slightly less lowbrow than munchkins but still a waste of meat).
Simulationists care little for preestablished stories and care little for balance on its own. All they want is stuff making sense and mechanics reflecting the setting well.
Stuff that prevents them from doing stuff they just came up with that should be possible in the setting throws them into full rage mode, so does breaking consistency or otherwise fudging stuff.
At best they will like stuff like Fallouts (at least original dilogy) and TES2-3.
At worst... fuck, I don't know.
MESOLARPSing bears some similarities to simulationism going degenerate, but unlike simulationism it completely disregards mechanics actually in place, instead , so I'm not sure if it's an example.
When CRPGs are largely social activities then they are usually MMOs. When talking about MMOs the more relevant and useful way to classify player motivation is the Way Bartle broke it down; killer, achiever, socializer, and explorer.
Which has fuck-all relevancy, since we're not discussing MMOs and despite being social they are usually far more different from PnPs than cRPGs are because it's impossible to maintain chosen GNS convention within them due to having no impact on who you meet in game.
It is fine to talk about simulationism in video games but you aren't talking about the S in GNS when you are. You'll notice it's always simulationists that want to bring up GNS when talking about CRPGs. This is because GNS elevates simulationism to an equally valid goal compared to the others. Table top and Video Games are radically different experiences. Just because they share some similar terms and some common influences does not mean that a theory meant to explain tabletop player motivations is accurate or useful when explaining Video Game player motivations.
I have nothing against simulationism and do enjoy games that are complex and realistic, but the way that simulationism interacts with the rest of the game systems in a video game is not the same way that it interacts with narrativism and gamism in tabletop RPGs. If you emphasize simulationism in a video game to the detriment of both gameplay and narrative you are not going to produce a good game. At best you may produce a game that appeals to a extremely niche group of autists. Any simulationism in Video Games needs to support the gameplay and if possible the narrative as well.
For what it's worth I would consider myself a Simulationist with Narrativist leanings if I were to be classified according to GNS regarding how I play tabletop RPGs. But to repeat myself in order to add emphasis, P&P RPGs and CRPGs are entirely different animals.
And that's just plain bullshit.
If anything simulationism, in videogames at the very least, is *the* king.
Unlike live GM, computer will not adapt its storytelling to players actions beyond what's specifically scripted, which effectively reduces any narrativist videogame to, at best CYOA, at worst rollercoaster with some tacked on mechanics for progressing.
That's not a good use of interactive medium.
Unlike PnP, cRPGs pit you against limited and exploitable AI and often give you unfair advantage in form of savescumming. It's very hard to make them meaningful in the gamist sense and the fact you no longer compete with another person doesn't help either.
However, unlike a bunch of dice, paper and slow meatbags, computers can grind a lot of numbers really fast and as we have learned you can technically simulate pretty much everything but grinding sufficient amount of numbers.
Therefore, while computers won't provide much in the way of flexibility if you feed them conventional scripted narrative, piling up sufficient amount of interlocking mechanics and giving it and player enough room can create fresh and unexpected situations - not just to the player but even devs themselves.
With sane system design and programming plus a bit of luck those situations won't even be bugs.
I think they can get these souls right if they have their own set of mechanics (like Spirit Eater) instead of as an explanation for everything, contrived or not.
That's the problem here - if souls are to be a blanket assplanation for much of the stuff in the setting, then it's going to suck.
I don't think I've ever seen a blanket explanation not go hilariously wrong.
Or just number the attributes since you're going for an abstracted rather than a simulated system anyway. "Attribute #3 - Governs Damage and Healing". (Just imagine all the butthurt.)
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