In my perspective, when it comes towards how a 'game' fits in the scale. Gameism is "Rules for Play" Narrativeism is "Rules for Narrative/meta" Simulationism is "Rules for the World". Its basically what the rules choose to 'emphasize', for example, a Powered by the Apocalypse styled game is Narrativeism because the rules dictate the 'narrative' of the game. Like Blades in the Dark has a "flashback" mechanic, not an actual chrono power, but a 'narrative' one. A Simulationist ruleset would basically have 'rules for the world', where even if the players never 'interacted' with something, there's a rule that will simulate the town going about its business. This would be your Burning Wheel where all your stats are built out via your background to 'simulate' your upbringing. And a Gameism ruleset would almost play out like a board game, it's more about the balance or how fun the 'game mechanics' is to play with, and that it will be more willing to hand wave certain details if it makes the rules more clunky. You could argue D&D 4E was like this as it 'played' like an MMO. Or heck, the ultimate 'gameism' game would be Gloomhaven, as its a 'fun board game'. Obviously its not a one or the other thing, games mix all these aspects together. Dread is the perfect example of a combination Narrativism and Gameism RPG, while Call of Cthulu would be a Narrativeism and Simulationism game, while 5e could be argued as Gameism and Simulationism until they started pushing a Narrativism spin on it with later expansions and the like. So yeah, thats my interpretation.
I would argue that one of 5e's strengths is narrative rules. The background system is similar to the aspect system for FATE. It doesn't get addressed enough in my experience though. Inspiration, which is a role play mechanic, gets moved to a gameism mechanic.
@@douglasphillips5870I disagree, the initial strength is that 5e played with more simulationist/gameism rulesets, while it does have some meta rules to it (Inspiration being a meta currency, as there's no in world/game way of getting Inspiration other than via the favor of the GM). Simulationist because a lot of the rules deal with very specific 'in world' aspects or attempt to replicate said things. Like Exaustion, Carry limits, a lot of the 'non optimal' magic spells are more simulationist leaning as its about explaining how one can do X in this world with magic. While a lot of the Gamism aspects, like critical successes, are very game focused. As mentioned, D&D 5E leans very heavy into this. Yet, after the initial creation of the rules, WotC has started pivoting towards more 'narrative rules' aspects of the game that were never there and the game was never built for. Along with just expanding outside of its realm into trying to play various scenarios that the game cant really do, and frankly, things no one really asked for.
This is how I see GNS with regards to TTRPGs: 1) G (Gamism) concerns itself with the procedures of play. The higher the G rating, the greater the demand to attention to the procedures of play at the expense of immersive activities (i.e. roleplay, exploring one's environment and collecting information via the senses, etc.). High G rating TTRPGs play very much like board games. 2) N (Narrativism) concerns itself with generating a story (NOT telling a story, because to tell a story implies that the story exists beforehand and is awaiting dictation). The higher the N rating, the greater the focus on genre emulation. In Narrativist TTRPGs, the fiction primarily dictates the physics, not the game mechanics. 3) S (Simulationism) concerns itself with calculating the world and its physics via game mechanics. The higher the S rating, the more physics interactions are covered by the rules, as opposed to GM fiat. Typically, a high S rating TTRPG will place high value in game mechanics that represent diegetic elements in the game world (i.e. Willpower instead of Plot Points, tracking ammo instead of running out of ammo on a fumble, etc.). On the roleplaying side of things, simulationism seems to concern itself primarily with character immersion. To keep these three factors segmented is fallacious, as each TTRPG has varying degrees of all three aspects and as each hobbyist has different preferences towards the combination of all three aspects. As a player and a GM, I prefer the Narrativist playstyle with some simulationist considerations, such a spatial-focused inventory management (i.e. no human kangaroos), character immersion, and non-nit-picky diegetic elements (i.e. yes to Willpower pool; would prefer usage dice for resource tracking to counting my arrows or rations). This style of play allows for speed of play and focuses on what's happening in the narrative, which matters more to me than precisely calculating the world or playing out a skirmish board game.
I was online and active in the RPG scene during the heyday of the Forge and GNS. So like Elrond, let me set the record straight: The Forge was a site propagated by elitist armchair gaming pseudo-intellectual morons who had to quantify the fun of RPGs because games made them bored and the reason is simple and explained eloquently by Harvey Danger in the lyrics of the song Flagpole Sitta - if you're bored then you're boring. They did not take this introspection to heart, and instead thought "these games are all designed wrong". Enter GNS, their initial consideration of how to quantify said fun. While never (or possibly often behind closed doors) spoken, Gamism (the properties of a game designed to be a game and have meta goals, etc) and Simulationism (the properties of a game designed to simulate a world, real or fictional) were considered 'bad wrong fun' and Narrativism was considered 'The One True Way'. Narrativism was specifically playing a game which had to have an overarching narrative theme and tone pointed toward a given outcome. This isn't simply a focus on 'storygaming' or the roleplay facet of RPGs. This is "the game should exist to tell a very specific sort of story, and if it doesn't then it's not a good design." Because 'game theory' in this sense, is specifically about game design and design goals, those goals being met making a game considered fun or competent by the weights and measures of the elitist pricks of the Forge. Hopefully you follow because I'm getting annoyed just explaining it. So I don't like Rifts. The design of the system feels bad. Nothing in that system gels with me. I've attempted to make characters and hated every step of the process. I have never played the game itself. Now, I could make a website talking about why my subjective opinion is objective truth (or scientific, by labeling it 'theory') and multiple essays explaining why people who play Rifts are brain-damaged (this is not hyperbole, at one point one of the 'luminaries' of the Forge called oWoD Storyteller players brain damaged en masse) and therefore become an elitist prick, or I could merely hold that opinion to myself and allow people to continue playing Rifts even though I don't like it because to each their own and who am I to tell them otherwise? The rational person picks option B. Those who frequented/contributed to the Forge picked option A. At some point they switched gears and while never disavowing GNS and continuing to talk about it, they wrote a new 'theory' called 'The Big Model', but it didn't have the marketing or gusto that GNS did (I don't even remember what The Big Model was about). Eventually, like all stupid pointless things enjoyed by pricks, the Forge closed up shop after declaring victory. Now more than a decade later, the games they made are whispers in eternity. Farts in the sandstorm of forever. Nobody plays them. Nobody's even heard of them. They had all the impact of Ozymandias' reign. Only the silly GNS terminology remained. A term they hilariously considered defunct. If Ron Edwards was so right about game design and the philosophies behind them, where is his RPG Sorcerer now? It's in the bit bucket of the internet. A colossal failure because pseudo-intellectual armchair gamers suck at game design. And his 'masterpiece' Sorcerer existed in an impotent attempt to take down Vampire, not D&D. Much of the Forge's ire was pointed toward Vampire/WoD with D&D as an incidental target of opportunity (as it was considered "the kids game" and therefore not really a worthy adversary), and much of the theory/idiocy existed prior to the conception of the OSR. I remember because I was there at the start of that as well.
I'm aware of Edwards' brain damage diatribe. A couple of designers from the Forge, Vincent Baker and Luke Crane, did eventually become relevant (I've played two Crane's games, but none of Baker's). As for the Big Model, I'm planning to do a video about it, but I need to do a lot more research first.
@@allseeingeyetrpg Probably depends on what sphere you're in. The closest Vinnie Baker came to relevance in my sphere was when he was conscripted to write a LotFP supplement and instead wrote a Dungeon World supplement (making him nearly relevant, then swerved right back to complete irrelevance). Ken Hite had the same mission at the same time and succeeded with flying colors. Ken Hite has cemented himself as a consummate professional. Luke Crane's fondness for procedure overshadows and overbears the novelty of his game's mechanics. He seems to write games that play themselves, is what I'm saying. This is an opinion of the original Burning Wheel and when he recently-ish decided to make an "OSR" game called Miseries & Misfortunes. It is aptly named, in my opinion, but at describing its players rather than its characters.
@@Eron_the_Relentless I say Vincent Baker is relevant because Apocalypse World spawned an entire genre of TTRPGs. For that, if nothing else, he's earned his place in the history books. I'm pretty sure Luke Crane's OSR-adjacent game is Torchbearer, given that I've played a full year of it (I've also played a couple of sessions of Burning Wheel). While his games definitely are procedural, I don't see that as a bad thing. Again, it's subjective, but you really have to think strategically about everything your character does (which I enjoy). It does nothing to diminish the actual roleplay, at least in my experience. But to each their own.
@allseeingeyetrpg This is all very subjective, hence my discussion of spheres. Personally I think anything that came out of The Forge pointed at Narrativism was a substantially weaker at it than Over the Edge. Which is a RPG penned in 1992 before The Forge existed and one of the potential originators (and arguably the perfecter) of trait systems. To be fair I don't really like any games its inspired either (Fate, etc), nor it's current edition. I've been around long enough to become very, very complicated in my tastes. In the OP I thought you might have wanted to hear from someone actually there, I was merely here to give my perspective. I think I've done that now.
@@Eron_the_Relentless Funnily enough, Over the Edge is the second RPG I ever played (this was back in 2018, long after its heyday). I'm always happy to hear from people in the comments, and I do appreaciate your viewpoint. I disagreed with you on the impact that narrativism and the Forge have had on RPGs (because their grubby fingerprints seem to be everywhere these days), but what we seem to agree is a) that what makes an RPG good is ultimately subjective, and b) that Fate is an awful RPG
I found the Forge too late to participate, but I tried very hard to understand it. One of the key things Ron was pointing out was "incoherence" - that a game will claim it supports a particular style of play while the game mechanics either do nothing to support that style of play or actively work against it. The main example of this was Vampire the Masquerade, which claims to be a game of immortal power politics and tragic romance, but in play the rules push it towards a playstyle that is best described as "trenchcoats and katanas". From that point of view, Ron's original critique of games like D&D isn't so much that they are "too focussed" on Gamism, but that they claim to be ABOUT heroic adventurers and exploits worthy of legend while not providing any rules support for much more than "Fantasy F'in Vietnam". That's not to say that people don't use these games to run immortal romantic intrigue or high fantasy king-making, but they do so IN SPITE of the rules text, not because of it. Also, Ron seemed to quite like the OSR guys because at least they knew what they wanted and designed games to support it, and he's also a huge proponent of self-publishing. From a Simulationist point of view, "the rules support combat but get out of the way when you want to roleplay". Narrativist games were seeking to find a way to mechanically support story elements instead - to focus the gameplay on motivations, decisions, and outcomes. Some are rules light and some are crunchy as hell. It's also not to do with railroading in the sense of forcing a particular outcome or making people play out a predetermined story; that's anathema to Narrativism, where the catch-phrase is "play to find out" and mechanics are there to give you concrete answers about which way the story goes, rather than leaving it up to arbitrary GM fiat. Don't forget that System Matters means not just "the rule book maters" but also the table culture and rules actually used in play. Also I think technically that a game or rule can't be classified as G, N or S, but rather a particular system will support either G, N or S playstyles at the table. And Ron points out that by his definitions at least, the three styles are incompatible, and attempting to combine them will lead to incoherent play - the sort of thing you see when half your D&D group is trying to beat the dungeon using the least resources, while the other half of the group is playing fantasy soap-opera and making sub-optimal decisions because "it's what my character would do". I can't speak to how the theory has been used and misused in the intervening time to stoke divisions or resentment or misunderstandings. It's an interesting model, and once I wrapped my head around what a Narrativist game looks like, it made me realise that most games - D&D, Vampire, GURPS, Call of Cthulhu... they are all the same basic structure, just with different dice, numbers, and terms. I think this is why so many RPG design forums get posts asking banal questions like "what dice should I use for my game?"
Great comment, a lot of good points. I didn't want to fixate on V:tM too much, as while I have the PDFs for 5e, I've never read them, let alone played them. When I mentioned railroading, I was specifically thinking of Lady Blackbird (an indie RPG that emerged from the Story Gaming successor forum, which can only be used to play one-shots with a single pre-determined outcome). Although I've never played a PbtA game, but I've always lived by Vincent Baker's philosophy of "play to find out" myself. As I said, it's a useful theory with good ideas, but it gets mired in squabbles over definitions
@@allseeingeyetrpg I feel like Lady Blackbird always starts out the same way, but could end in any number of ways depending on the players' choices and the outcomes of the rolls? I just had a quick look over it, and I can see how the Obstacles and Difficulties section looks like a list of things you need to do, but I think they are intended as difficulty benchmark examples and thematic inspiration, not a rigid checklist you need to stick to.
I think this is a great descriptor of what G, N, S theory tried to achieve but like most academic work, was taken personally or as a type of insult when being used by a bunch of non academics. Ron was an academic and tried to approach the topic as such, but his work was fundamentally misunderstood and misused by a bunch of people. He tried so many times to explain what he meant or correcting other people that he got frustrated and decided that he needed to make a new model. The problem wasn’t the theory, it was people’s understanding of it. That and Ron is a bit of a bull in a china shop socially speaking.
One way to describe GNS from a high vantage point is to say it takes the Mechanics -> Dynamics -> Aesthetics model of analysis in board games, plucks out three of the aesthetics as worth special consideration, and then advances the claim they are incompatible in a single game.
Really interesting thoughts! I don't have any strong feelings one way or another about this, I'm not much aware of discourse in the ttrpg community so this is the first I'm hearing about this. I wonder if there's connection to design goals within video games splitting narrative, player interaction, and simulation into three distinct but overlapping elements. Or possibly the plot, characters, settings triangle from written fiction. Different artists, audiences, and works have different goals I guess.
Given how old and obscure GNS theory is, I doubt it's influenced video games too much. However, I suspect modern video game design has started bleeding into TTRPGs - there's just so many more resources online for videogame design, that anyone wanting to learn tabletop design will inevitably stumble upon them
GNS theory is hated because it's a lot of poorly defined meta concepts that ultimately serve a demonstrably incorrect foundation. It has been aptly demonstrated that certain mechanics can and will serve multiple roles at once, that what players take out from it is subjective, and that trying to break it down to the 3 for player enjoyment doesn't work because players can enjoy multiple things at the same time anyway. The whole theory is unsound in premise. Not to mention that the terms within, like simulationism, are poorly defined. For example you define narrativism as Centering play on player goals and decisions and conflict therein. Which means if I added a gamist mechanic that can create drama is that now a narrativist mechanic? These definitions do not have the ability to distinguish lines between them, nor have I seen any that do in a meaningful way. Ultimately GNS theory itself adds really nothing meaningful or productive to the conversation and yet for years people kept referencing it like is had some sort of secret sauce when all it was was psuedo nonsense. That's why people don't like it. It's a big fat nothing burger. It's only relevant because it brought concepts like narrative more to the forefront, but GNS didn't invent them, nor do you need to understand GNS to understand these concepts. So while GNS is relevant to understanding the history of rpg development, it's not relevant to understanding how rpgs work.
I lean towards "N" pretty heavily, narrative trumps everything. But I do understand these other styles quite well. I'd personally add two more axis of movement. "Finickyness" instead of crunchy, which is how granular the rules of the game are. This would make the likes of Shadowrun and GURPS *very* Finicky, while something like PbtA or FATE are not. This could either be the number of sub-systems in a TTRPG or how wildly detailed they can get. The other axis is GM Control. This adds in the high control railroaders and the low control gameplay styles of collaborative game running or worldbuilding.
i remember arguing about crunch and using the word simulationsist prior to knowing this traingle existsed and had some guy arguing about simulationist games aren't crunchy and i was losing my mind trying to say i dont want to play a rules heavy game that simulates phsics and takes 5+ rolls or conditions into play per action being taken. Ahh those were the days, then he linked me to this thoery on wikipedia lol
Weird i always thought 5e was a simulationist game. Climb that wall. Roll an athletics check. Look at the statue. Perception check. Versus an emulationist game. I want to climb up that wall and look at the statue. Ok you do it. (GM and Players continues telling story)
Technically yes it is, but 5e is arguably the second-least simulationist edition of D&D after 4e. It doesn't have modifiers for, say, high and low ground that earlier editions had. I'd also say it struggles with simulating a realistic world, as the rules as presented would break the economies and healthcare systems of the pseudo-medieval societies it's meant to depict. Nevermind that weapons weight about five times what they realistically should (a greatsword isn't a barbell, it should only weight like 3-6lbs).
Let me take the example of climbing a wall. If your character wants to climb a wall, you flip a coin. They succeed at heads and fail at tails. The simulationist criticism of that would be that some people are better in shape than others and/or have experience with climbing. Also, some walls are easier to climb than others, and equipment should also play a role because climbing a wall is way harder if your backpack weighs as much as you do. Ideally, the game should produce a result for the action that simulates all those circumstances. The advantages of that are that it makes the world more believable and that it enables strategic decisions. For example, I could have my character buy proper climbing gear if I expect climbing to become relevant. I could have the character devise a way to get their backpack up without carrying it while climbing. D&D5 has a very flat competence distribution and few ways to represent the differences of approaches to a problem.
@@allseeingeyetrpg Even the most simulationist editions of D&D have been clear that there's no reason for a world to stay even vaguely grounded and pseudo medieval if more than 1% of the world has the capability of even low level characters
I think the problem I see is in my mind gameism and simulationism are two opposites of a scale... And narrative is sort of off doing its own thing. Like, well, a gameist take on a war is chess. Maybe checkers. You aren't simulating anything, it is clearly just a game... But chess clearly tells the story (one might say a narrative) of a military conflict. Then a simulationist take... That's just a war game. It also tells the story of a military conflict but the mechanics try their best to simulate reality. And then, well, you could put Narrative and Abstract on opposite sides of a scale and you got yourself a "Game Design" political compass. Checkers is more abstract than Chess, for example. Problem is, TTRPGs are all narrative games. As far narrative as a game can go. Then you take that and try to argue which is more narrative and it just ends up making everyone mad. At least that's my take.
I don't think narrativism and abstraction are opposites, though. If anything, narrative-heavy games tend to abstract a lot of the detailed spot rules that simulationist games rely on (exact ammo tracking, bonuses and penalties for everything, etc), so the mechanics can "get out of the way" of the story. Rather, I think simulationism and abstraction are opposed, with gameism and narrativism as another opposing axis. You can build a narrative out of chess, but the rules themselves don't do anything to help you. Likewise, the most extreme narrative game is just everyone sat around a fire telling a story, without any game rules, victory conditions, etc.
We roleplay everything in our liveplays. Combat included. Never go out-of-character for the entire session, everything is rounds. Gamemaster never moves characters or interacts with the players (Unless the GM embodied an NPC or the GM is narrating the vicinity of the characters. We dont play RPG's like a boardgame (95% of games you see on YT do)
@@allseeingeyetrpg As a GM, do you allow your players to move your npc's? of course not... Players should always indicate where they move. 99% of liveplays show the DM/GM is moving the players characters without the player saying anything. (and willingly because they have been conditioned with bad habits... I had those bad habits too, until I changed the way we played. Our games became more involved and way better experiences than than the boardgaming we used to do.
@@28mmRPG Ah I see what you mean now - it wasn't clear if you meant the GM moving PCs or the GM moving NPCs. Honestly, this seems like a matter of personal preference. I have no issue personally with "boardgame" elements in RPGs, and I have no issue with players discussing the game out-of-character (it facilitates clear communication at thet table). That said, I still insist that players narrate their character's actions, and that they have in-character justifications for everya ction their character takes. This works for my players and I, just as I'm sure your methods work for you.
@@allseeingeyetrpg back in the day, we never used maps and minis, we never board-gamed RPG's, We roleplay in RPG's. D&D3 started making D&D into a boardgame and nobody roleplayed after that, and when people say they roleplay... they are not actually roleplaying. I'll play Descent or Gloomhaven (boardgames) to boardgame. RPG are roleplaying games, not boardgames, but Hasbro has changed roleplay into boardgame and people bought into it. Roleplay is a lost art (but I'm one of very few trying to keep it alive) You play any other RPG's besides D&D?
@@28mmRPG I started out doing everything in theatre of the mind, but online play over the pandemic introduced me virtual tabletops and game maps. I found that I really enjoyed making game maps, and so that's why I've kept on with maps/grids. As for systems, I have played D&D before, yes, but I'm not playing at the moment. I'm currently GMing Cyberpunk RED and playing Pathfinder 2e, and I've previously played an OD&D hack, Over the Edge, Conan 2d20, Savage Worlds, Torchbearer, and a few other games in one-shots.
I’m like eight minutes in and I feel like I’m reading an eight year olds PowerPoint You found something interesting to talk about and I’m absolutely going to listen to this, and this comment just gives you more engagement but if you take anything away from this comment, you can always improve But step one is probably not putting the wrong words in your slides
In my perspective, when it comes towards how a 'game' fits in the scale.
Gameism is "Rules for Play"
Narrativeism is "Rules for Narrative/meta"
Simulationism is "Rules for the World".
Its basically what the rules choose to 'emphasize', for example, a Powered by the Apocalypse styled game is Narrativeism because the rules dictate the 'narrative' of the game. Like Blades in the Dark has a "flashback" mechanic, not an actual chrono power, but a 'narrative' one.
A Simulationist ruleset would basically have 'rules for the world', where even if the players never 'interacted' with something, there's a rule that will simulate the town going about its business. This would be your Burning Wheel where all your stats are built out via your background to 'simulate' your upbringing.
And a Gameism ruleset would almost play out like a board game, it's more about the balance or how fun the 'game mechanics' is to play with, and that it will be more willing to hand wave certain details if it makes the rules more clunky. You could argue D&D 4E was like this as it 'played' like an MMO. Or heck, the ultimate 'gameism' game would be Gloomhaven, as its a 'fun board game'.
Obviously its not a one or the other thing, games mix all these aspects together. Dread is the perfect example of a combination Narrativism and Gameism RPG, while Call of Cthulu would be a Narrativeism and Simulationism game, while 5e could be argued as Gameism and Simulationism until they started pushing a Narrativism spin on it with later expansions and the like.
So yeah, thats my interpretation.
I would argue that one of 5e's strengths is narrative rules. The background system is similar to the aspect system for FATE. It doesn't get addressed enough in my experience though. Inspiration, which is a role play mechanic, gets moved to a gameism mechanic.
@@douglasphillips5870I disagree, the initial strength is that 5e played with more simulationist/gameism rulesets, while it does have some meta rules to it (Inspiration being a meta currency, as there's no in world/game way of getting Inspiration other than via the favor of the GM).
Simulationist because a lot of the rules deal with very specific 'in world' aspects or attempt to replicate said things. Like Exaustion, Carry limits, a lot of the 'non optimal' magic spells are more simulationist leaning as its about explaining how one can do X in this world with magic. While a lot of the Gamism aspects, like critical successes, are very game focused.
As mentioned, D&D 5E leans very heavy into this. Yet, after the initial creation of the rules, WotC has started pivoting towards more 'narrative rules' aspects of the game that were never there and the game was never built for. Along with just expanding outside of its realm into trying to play various scenarios that the game cant really do, and frankly, things no one really asked for.
This is how I see GNS with regards to TTRPGs:
1) G (Gamism) concerns itself with the procedures of play. The higher the G rating, the greater the demand to attention to the procedures of play at the expense of immersive activities (i.e. roleplay, exploring one's environment and collecting information via the senses, etc.). High G rating TTRPGs play very much like board games.
2) N (Narrativism) concerns itself with generating a story (NOT telling a story, because to tell a story implies that the story exists beforehand and is awaiting dictation). The higher the N rating, the greater the focus on genre emulation. In Narrativist TTRPGs, the fiction primarily dictates the physics, not the game mechanics.
3) S (Simulationism) concerns itself with calculating the world and its physics via game mechanics. The higher the S rating, the more physics interactions are covered by the rules, as opposed to GM fiat. Typically, a high S rating TTRPG will place high value in game mechanics that represent diegetic elements in the game world (i.e. Willpower instead of Plot Points, tracking ammo instead of running out of ammo on a fumble, etc.). On the roleplaying side of things, simulationism seems to concern itself primarily with character immersion.
To keep these three factors segmented is fallacious, as each TTRPG has varying degrees of all three aspects and as each hobbyist has different preferences towards the combination of all three aspects.
As a player and a GM, I prefer the Narrativist playstyle with some simulationist considerations, such a spatial-focused inventory management (i.e. no human kangaroos), character immersion, and non-nit-picky diegetic elements (i.e. yes to Willpower pool; would prefer usage dice for resource tracking to counting my arrows or rations). This style of play allows for speed of play and focuses on what's happening in the narrative, which matters more to me than precisely calculating the world or playing out a skirmish board game.
I was online and active in the RPG scene during the heyday of the Forge and GNS. So like Elrond, let me set the record straight:
The Forge was a site propagated by elitist armchair gaming pseudo-intellectual morons who had to quantify the fun of RPGs because games made them bored and the reason is simple and explained eloquently by Harvey Danger in the lyrics of the song Flagpole Sitta - if you're bored then you're boring. They did not take this introspection to heart, and instead thought "these games are all designed wrong".
Enter GNS, their initial consideration of how to quantify said fun. While never (or possibly often behind closed doors) spoken, Gamism (the properties of a game designed to be a game and have meta goals, etc) and Simulationism (the properties of a game designed to simulate a world, real or fictional) were considered 'bad wrong fun' and Narrativism was considered 'The One True Way'. Narrativism was specifically playing a game which had to have an overarching narrative theme and tone pointed toward a given outcome. This isn't simply a focus on 'storygaming' or the roleplay facet of RPGs. This is "the game should exist to tell a very specific sort of story, and if it doesn't then it's not a good design." Because 'game theory' in this sense, is specifically about game design and design goals, those goals being met making a game considered fun or competent by the weights and measures of the elitist pricks of the Forge. Hopefully you follow because I'm getting annoyed just explaining it.
So I don't like Rifts. The design of the system feels bad. Nothing in that system gels with me. I've attempted to make characters and hated every step of the process. I have never played the game itself. Now, I could make a website talking about why my subjective opinion is objective truth (or scientific, by labeling it 'theory') and multiple essays explaining why people who play Rifts are brain-damaged (this is not hyperbole, at one point one of the 'luminaries' of the Forge called oWoD Storyteller players brain damaged en masse) and therefore become an elitist prick, or I could merely hold that opinion to myself and allow people to continue playing Rifts even though I don't like it because to each their own and who am I to tell them otherwise? The rational person picks option B. Those who frequented/contributed to the Forge picked option A.
At some point they switched gears and while never disavowing GNS and continuing to talk about it, they wrote a new 'theory' called 'The Big Model', but it didn't have the marketing or gusto that GNS did (I don't even remember what The Big Model was about). Eventually, like all stupid pointless things enjoyed by pricks, the Forge closed up shop after declaring victory. Now more than a decade later, the games they made are whispers in eternity. Farts in the sandstorm of forever. Nobody plays them. Nobody's even heard of them. They had all the impact of Ozymandias' reign. Only the silly GNS terminology remained. A term they hilariously considered defunct.
If Ron Edwards was so right about game design and the philosophies behind them, where is his RPG Sorcerer now? It's in the bit bucket of the internet. A colossal failure because pseudo-intellectual armchair gamers suck at game design. And his 'masterpiece' Sorcerer existed in an impotent attempt to take down Vampire, not D&D. Much of the Forge's ire was pointed toward Vampire/WoD with D&D as an incidental target of opportunity (as it was considered "the kids game" and therefore not really a worthy adversary), and much of the theory/idiocy existed prior to the conception of the OSR. I remember because I was there at the start of that as well.
I'm aware of Edwards' brain damage diatribe. A couple of designers from the Forge, Vincent Baker and Luke Crane, did eventually become relevant (I've played two Crane's games, but none of Baker's). As for the Big Model, I'm planning to do a video about it, but I need to do a lot more research first.
@@allseeingeyetrpg Probably depends on what sphere you're in.
The closest Vinnie Baker came to relevance in my sphere was when he was conscripted to write a LotFP supplement and instead wrote a Dungeon World supplement (making him nearly relevant, then swerved right back to complete irrelevance). Ken Hite had the same mission at the same time and succeeded with flying colors. Ken Hite has cemented himself as a consummate professional.
Luke Crane's fondness for procedure overshadows and overbears the novelty of his game's mechanics. He seems to write games that play themselves, is what I'm saying. This is an opinion of the original Burning Wheel and when he recently-ish decided to make an "OSR" game called Miseries & Misfortunes. It is aptly named, in my opinion, but at describing its players rather than its characters.
@@Eron_the_Relentless I say Vincent Baker is relevant because Apocalypse World spawned an entire genre of TTRPGs. For that, if nothing else, he's earned his place in the history books.
I'm pretty sure Luke Crane's OSR-adjacent game is Torchbearer, given that I've played a full year of it (I've also played a couple of sessions of Burning Wheel). While his games definitely are procedural, I don't see that as a bad thing. Again, it's subjective, but you really have to think strategically about everything your character does (which I enjoy). It does nothing to diminish the actual roleplay, at least in my experience. But to each their own.
@allseeingeyetrpg This is all very subjective, hence my discussion of spheres. Personally I think anything that came out of The Forge pointed at Narrativism was a substantially weaker at it than Over the Edge. Which is a RPG penned in 1992 before The Forge existed and one of the potential originators (and arguably the perfecter) of trait systems. To be fair I don't really like any games its inspired either (Fate, etc), nor it's current edition.
I've been around long enough to become very, very complicated in my tastes. In the OP I thought you might have wanted to hear from someone actually there, I was merely here to give my perspective. I think I've done that now.
@@Eron_the_Relentless Funnily enough, Over the Edge is the second RPG I ever played (this was back in 2018, long after its heyday). I'm always happy to hear from people in the comments, and I do appreaciate your viewpoint. I disagreed with you on the impact that narrativism and the Forge have had on RPGs (because their grubby fingerprints seem to be everywhere these days), but what we seem to agree is a) that what makes an RPG good is ultimately subjective, and b) that Fate is an awful RPG
I found the Forge too late to participate, but I tried very hard to understand it. One of the key things Ron was pointing out was "incoherence" - that a game will claim it supports a particular style of play while the game mechanics either do nothing to support that style of play or actively work against it.
The main example of this was Vampire the Masquerade, which claims to be a game of immortal power politics and tragic romance, but in play the rules push it towards a playstyle that is best described as "trenchcoats and katanas". From that point of view, Ron's original critique of games like D&D isn't so much that they are "too focussed" on Gamism, but that they claim to be ABOUT heroic adventurers and exploits worthy of legend while not providing any rules support for much more than "Fantasy F'in Vietnam". That's not to say that people don't use these games to run immortal romantic intrigue or high fantasy king-making, but they do so IN SPITE of the rules text, not because of it. Also, Ron seemed to quite like the OSR guys because at least they knew what they wanted and designed games to support it, and he's also a huge proponent of self-publishing.
From a Simulationist point of view, "the rules support combat but get out of the way when you want to roleplay". Narrativist games were seeking to find a way to mechanically support story elements instead - to focus the gameplay on motivations, decisions, and outcomes. Some are rules light and some are crunchy as hell. It's also not to do with railroading in the sense of forcing a particular outcome or making people play out a predetermined story; that's anathema to Narrativism, where the catch-phrase is "play to find out" and mechanics are there to give you concrete answers about which way the story goes, rather than leaving it up to arbitrary GM fiat.
Don't forget that System Matters means not just "the rule book maters" but also the table culture and rules actually used in play. Also I think technically that a game or rule can't be classified as G, N or S, but rather a particular system will support either G, N or S playstyles at the table. And Ron points out that by his definitions at least, the three styles are incompatible, and attempting to combine them will lead to incoherent play - the sort of thing you see when half your D&D group is trying to beat the dungeon using the least resources, while the other half of the group is playing fantasy soap-opera and making sub-optimal decisions because "it's what my character would do".
I can't speak to how the theory has been used and misused in the intervening time to stoke divisions or resentment or misunderstandings. It's an interesting model, and once I wrapped my head around what a Narrativist game looks like, it made me realise that most games - D&D, Vampire, GURPS, Call of Cthulhu... they are all the same basic structure, just with different dice, numbers, and terms. I think this is why so many RPG design forums get posts asking banal questions like "what dice should I use for my game?"
Great comment, a lot of good points. I didn't want to fixate on V:tM too much, as while I have the PDFs for 5e, I've never read them, let alone played them. When I mentioned railroading, I was specifically thinking of Lady Blackbird (an indie RPG that emerged from the Story Gaming successor forum, which can only be used to play one-shots with a single pre-determined outcome). Although I've never played a PbtA game, but I've always lived by Vincent Baker's philosophy of "play to find out" myself. As I said, it's a useful theory with good ideas, but it gets mired in squabbles over definitions
@@allseeingeyetrpg I feel like Lady Blackbird always starts out the same way, but could end in any number of ways depending on the players' choices and the outcomes of the rolls? I just had a quick look over it, and I can see how the Obstacles and Difficulties section looks like a list of things you need to do, but I think they are intended as difficulty benchmark examples and thematic inspiration, not a rigid checklist you need to stick to.
I think this is a great descriptor of what G, N, S theory tried to achieve but like most academic work, was taken personally or as a type of insult when being used by a bunch of non academics. Ron was an academic and tried to approach the topic as such, but his work was fundamentally misunderstood and misused by a bunch of people. He tried so many times to explain what he meant or correcting other people that he got frustrated and decided that he needed to make a new model. The problem wasn’t the theory, it was people’s understanding of it. That and Ron is a bit of a bull in a china shop socially speaking.
One way to describe GNS from a high vantage point is to say it takes the Mechanics -> Dynamics -> Aesthetics model of analysis in board games, plucks out three of the aesthetics as worth special consideration, and then advances the claim they are incompatible in a single game.
I'm not too familiar with the MDA theory, but I might need to give it a deeper look.
Really interesting thoughts! I don't have any strong feelings one way or another about this, I'm not much aware of discourse in the ttrpg community so this is the first I'm hearing about this. I wonder if there's connection to design goals within video games splitting narrative, player interaction, and simulation into three distinct but overlapping elements. Or possibly the plot, characters, settings triangle from written fiction. Different artists, audiences, and works have different goals I guess.
Given how old and obscure GNS theory is, I doubt it's influenced video games too much. However, I suspect modern video game design has started bleeding into TTRPGs - there's just so many more resources online for videogame design, that anyone wanting to learn tabletop design will inevitably stumble upon them
GNS theory is hated because it's a lot of poorly defined meta concepts that ultimately serve a demonstrably incorrect foundation.
It has been aptly demonstrated that certain mechanics can and will serve multiple roles at once, that what players take out from it is subjective, and that trying to break it down to the 3 for player enjoyment doesn't work because players can enjoy multiple things at the same time anyway. The whole theory is unsound in premise. Not to mention that the terms within, like simulationism, are poorly defined. For example you define narrativism as Centering play on player goals and decisions and conflict therein. Which means if I added a gamist mechanic that can create drama is that now a narrativist mechanic? These definitions do not have the ability to distinguish lines between them, nor have I seen any that do in a meaningful way.
Ultimately GNS theory itself adds really nothing meaningful or productive to the conversation and yet for years people kept referencing it like is had some sort of secret sauce when all it was was psuedo nonsense. That's why people don't like it. It's a big fat nothing burger.
It's only relevant because it brought concepts like narrative more to the forefront, but GNS didn't invent them, nor do you need to understand GNS to understand these concepts. So while GNS is relevant to understanding the history of rpg development, it's not relevant to understanding how rpgs work.
I lean towards "N" pretty heavily, narrative trumps everything. But I do understand these other styles quite well.
I'd personally add two more axis of movement.
"Finickyness" instead of crunchy, which is how granular the rules of the game are. This would make the likes of Shadowrun and GURPS *very* Finicky, while something like PbtA or FATE are not. This could either be the number of sub-systems in a TTRPG or how wildly detailed they can get.
The other axis is GM Control. This adds in the high control railroaders and the low control gameplay styles of collaborative game running or worldbuilding.
i remember arguing about crunch and using the word simulationsist prior to knowing this traingle existsed and had some guy arguing about simulationist games aren't crunchy and i was losing my mind trying to say i dont want to play a rules heavy game that simulates phsics and takes 5+ rolls or conditions into play per action being taken. Ahh those were the days, then he linked me to this thoery on wikipedia lol
Weird i always thought 5e was a simulationist game.
Climb that wall. Roll an athletics check.
Look at the statue. Perception check.
Versus an emulationist game.
I want to climb up that wall and look at the statue. Ok you do it. (GM and Players continues telling story)
Technically yes it is, but 5e is arguably the second-least simulationist edition of D&D after 4e. It doesn't have modifiers for, say, high and low ground that earlier editions had. I'd also say it struggles with simulating a realistic world, as the rules as presented would break the economies and healthcare systems of the pseudo-medieval societies it's meant to depict. Nevermind that weapons weight about five times what they realistically should (a greatsword isn't a barbell, it should only weight like 3-6lbs).
Let me take the example of climbing a wall. If your character wants to climb a wall, you flip a coin. They succeed at heads and fail at tails.
The simulationist criticism of that would be that some people are better in shape than others and/or have experience with climbing. Also, some walls are easier to climb than others, and equipment should also play a role because climbing a wall is way harder if your backpack weighs as much as you do.
Ideally, the game should produce a result for the action that simulates all those circumstances. The advantages of that are that it makes the world more believable and that it enables strategic decisions.
For example, I could have my character buy proper climbing gear if I expect climbing to become relevant. I could have the character devise a way to get their backpack up without carrying it while climbing.
D&D5 has a very flat competence distribution and few ways to represent the differences of approaches to a problem.
@@allseeingeyetrpg Even the most simulationist editions of D&D have been clear that there's no reason for a world to stay even vaguely grounded and pseudo medieval if more than 1% of the world has the capability of even low level characters
@@nicholascarter9158 True, however 5e in my view does a particular poor job of explaining how character abilities would impact a game setting.
I think the problem I see is in my mind gameism and simulationism are two opposites of a scale... And narrative is sort of off doing its own thing.
Like, well, a gameist take on a war is chess. Maybe checkers. You aren't simulating anything, it is clearly just a game... But chess clearly tells the story (one might say a narrative) of a military conflict.
Then a simulationist take... That's just a war game. It also tells the story of a military conflict but the mechanics try their best to simulate reality.
And then, well, you could put Narrative and Abstract on opposite sides of a scale and you got yourself a "Game Design" political compass. Checkers is more abstract than Chess, for example.
Problem is, TTRPGs are all narrative games. As far narrative as a game can go. Then you take that and try to argue which is more narrative and it just ends up making everyone mad.
At least that's my take.
I don't think narrativism and abstraction are opposites, though. If anything, narrative-heavy games tend to abstract a lot of the detailed spot rules that simulationist games rely on (exact ammo tracking, bonuses and penalties for everything, etc), so the mechanics can "get out of the way" of the story. Rather, I think simulationism and abstraction are opposed, with gameism and narrativism as another opposing axis. You can build a narrative out of chess, but the rules themselves don't do anything to help you. Likewise, the most extreme narrative game is just everyone sat around a fire telling a story, without any game rules, victory conditions, etc.
We roleplay everything in our liveplays. Combat included. Never go out-of-character for the entire session, everything is rounds.
Gamemaster never moves characters or interacts with the players (Unless the GM embodied an NPC or the GM is narrating the vicinity of the characters.
We dont play RPG's like a boardgame (95% of games you see on YT do)
What do mean by "the GM never moves characters"?
@@allseeingeyetrpg As a GM, do you allow your players to move your npc's? of course not... Players should always indicate where they move. 99% of liveplays show the DM/GM is moving the players characters without the player saying anything. (and willingly because they have been conditioned with bad habits... I had those bad habits too, until I changed the way we played. Our games became more involved and way better experiences than than the boardgaming we used to do.
@@28mmRPG Ah I see what you mean now - it wasn't clear if you meant the GM moving PCs or the GM moving NPCs.
Honestly, this seems like a matter of personal preference. I have no issue personally with "boardgame" elements in RPGs, and I have no issue with players discussing the game out-of-character (it facilitates clear communication at thet table). That said, I still insist that players narrate their character's actions, and that they have in-character justifications for everya ction their character takes. This works for my players and I, just as I'm sure your methods work for you.
@@allseeingeyetrpg back in the day, we never used maps and minis, we never board-gamed RPG's, We roleplay in RPG's. D&D3 started making D&D into a boardgame and nobody roleplayed after that, and when people say they roleplay... they are not actually roleplaying.
I'll play Descent or Gloomhaven (boardgames) to boardgame. RPG are roleplaying games, not boardgames, but Hasbro has changed roleplay into boardgame and people bought into it. Roleplay is a lost art (but I'm one of very few trying to keep it alive)
You play any other RPG's besides D&D?
@@28mmRPG I started out doing everything in theatre of the mind, but online play over the pandemic introduced me virtual tabletops and game maps. I found that I really enjoyed making game maps, and so that's why I've kept on with maps/grids.
As for systems, I have played D&D before, yes, but I'm not playing at the moment. I'm currently GMing Cyberpunk RED and playing Pathfinder 2e, and I've previously played an OD&D hack, Over the Edge, Conan 2d20, Savage Worlds, Torchbearer, and a few other games in one-shots.
Because is total bullshit.
I feel like the grammar police, but God
Please proofread your writing or at least copy paste your words into a Google doc
I’m like eight minutes in and I feel like I’m reading an eight year olds PowerPoint
You found something interesting to talk about and I’m absolutely going to listen to this, and this comment just gives you more engagement but if you take anything away from this comment, you can always improve
But step one is probably not putting the wrong words in your slides
They don't hate the theory - they hate the douches who use it (badly).