Pitfalls of Nar Design (point 4)

[trechriron]

Point 4 (summary):  Sole reliance on deepening and detailing any aspects of exploration are misguided...

I am confused on specifically what this is referring to.

Is this addressing weather generators, encounter tables, structured magic effects tables and the like?

Could someone offer some examples of these pitfalls.

Thanks!

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Point 4 (summary):  Sole reliance on deepening and detailing any aspects of exploration are misguided...

I am confused on specifically what this is referring to.

First, welcom to the Forge.

Aspects of exploration refers to the five elements of roleplaying: Setting, System, Situation, Character, Color. Prioritizing or deepening and detailing any of these is, by definition, Simulationism.

So the issue is more a G vs S thing than the items you list, although those items *could* be involved in this issue.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Welcome! Thanks for reading my essay and taking the time to post.

Those are indeed pretty good indicators of the pitfall that I'm talking about in the essay, but (a) they are only indicators, and (b) there are lots of equivalents that look pretty different.

So to clarify (a), if a game text came along in which, say, weather tables were included and - how about it? - apparently using that mechanic did a great job of encouraging or facilitating addressing a Premise ... then it wouldn't negate my point. But yeah, historically, such material tends to detract from facilitating Narrativist play, especially when it concerns terrain, travel, and modeling the local ecology.

Structured magical effects, however, are a bit of a wild card in your example. Structure (e.g. this-happens-when-you-roll-83-on-d100) is often an extremely important part of focusing any Creative Agenda. As I mentioned in the essay, Narrativist does not equal free-and-wild improvisation, and in many cases, strict and detailed outcomes are a major component of play, when they focus Premise-addressing.

And to clarify (b), game text that might seem 100% reversed from the kind of material you're talking about might, in fact, be playing exactly the same role relative to Narrativist play. A good example is a stern warning against using out-of-character knowledge in any identifiable way. On the face of it, such warning has nothing to do with weather charts and tables, and in fact, might be construed as encouraging a psychological ("role") mode of play as opposed to stochastic ("roll") mode. Sure, these are opposites - but both find extremely full expression within the category of Simulationism, when Story Now is absent.

[Does that mean that using OOC knowledge is Narrativist? No, it doesn't, which I hope isn't confusing to anyone reading this post.]

Anyway, let me know whether this was helpful, and thanks again.

Best,
Ron

[John Burdick]

Point 4 (summary):  Sole reliance on deepening and detailing any aspects of exploration are misguided...

Personality, virtue, or honor rules that deepen or detail exploration of character can be mistaken for Nar favoring features. White Wolf is big on using the Nature trait and virtues to reward and channel exploration of character. In HackMaster, players are supposed to optimize play for EPs, GPs, and honor points. A good character showing mercy gains the player gamist benefits for good play. An evil cleric that goes around healing people loses honor for being a wuss.

In both of these examples the preferred choice is already known. In both cases the reward is character effectiveness to perform actions.

My group is having good results with detailing exploration of character with the explicit purpose of enhancing Sim.

John

[trechriron]

First off , Thanks for the welcome.  I have been lurking and reading articles (and checking out games) for sometime now.  I think I have the jist of it, so now to embark on the actual design.

Thanks for the responses all of you.  Ron gave me some food for thought and I think John helped clarify some specifics I needed to wrap my brain around it.

I guess the next step is to roll up my sleeves and post some stuff over in design and see where I am at! :-D

See you around...