Advice for new DM

[virgil]

Well, now I'm getting confused here. I'm reading the primary GNS article as we speak, and I'm hearing almost directly contradictory opinions as to what gamist/narrativist/simulationist (especially simulation) mean to you people. My prior post pretty much sums up what they mean; so I'm confused how these variants cropped up.

[PhoneLobster]

1177548080[/unixtime]]Well, now I'm getting confused here. I'm reading the primary GNS article as we speak, and I'm hearing almost directly contradictory opinions as to what gamist/narrativist/simulationist (especially simulation) mean to you people. My prior post pretty much sums up what they mean; so I'm confused how these variants cropped up.

uh

re: my earlier posts on the topic

GNS couldn't find its own ass with both hands since day one.

Think of that as an omen predicting its long term value and consequent history.

It IS the D&D alignment system.

[virgil]

That seems more a problem with the people that advocate the categories, not the actual idea behind GNS itself. I don't see where there is all this vaguery with it...

Gamist - Engrossed in seeing your character advance, with little "in character" thought
Narrativist - Engrossed in storytelling, with little mechanical thought
Simulationist - Engrossed in rules simulating an effect, with little thought towards the story or your character

[Catharz]

Huh, so I'm a gamist while I'm not gaming, a simulationist in combat, and a narrativist otherwise.

Isn't that basically anyone who bothers writing up his character, and who occasionally runs into non-combat situations?

[virgil]

Frequently, yes. The difference is that I know people that are almost solely gamists. They truly play and consider their characters like we would play Final Fantasy or World of Warcraft. When it comes to non-combat situations, they clam up. When it comes to battle, they pay attention well enough to not die, but don't otherwise care overly much about the rules other than how it can advance their character. They don't even mind too much when they're about to die, and are already plotting and scheming how to build the next one.

And I know those that are heavily simulationist. They have a set guideline for rules, both mechanical system and how their players behave when they DM, and deviations from such make them twitch (or punish if they're DMing).

Narrativists are commonly some of the more dice-lite versions of players for World of Darkness.

I almost equivocate GNS Freud's Id/Ego/Superego concept. Well adjusted people have elements of all three, but there exists those that have one trait predominant (or notably lacking).

[User3]

1177555666[/unixtime]]Frequently, yes. The difference is that I know people that are almost solely gamists. They truly play and consider their characters like we would play Final Fantasy or World of Warcraft. When it comes to non-combat situations, they clam up. When it comes to battle, they pay attention well enough to not die, but don't otherwise care overly much about the rules other than how it can advance their character. They don't even mind too much when they're about to die, and are already plotting and scheming how to build the next one.

And I know those that are heavily simulationist. They have a set guideline for rules, both mechanical system and how their players behave when they DM, and deviations from such make them twitch (or punish if they're DMing).

Narrativists are commonly some of the more dice-lite versions of players for World of Darkness.

I almost equivocate GNS Freud's Id/Ego/Superego concept. Well adjusted people have elements of all three, but there exists those that have one trait predominant (or notably lacking).

Thats a somewhat skewed definition of gamism.

Gamism is about competition. Its about "stepping up". Now, that competition can be at a number of levels, and these levels are completely independent. (Meaning you could compete at 3 and not 1, etc...).

(1) character vs. character. This isn't a battle to the death, but the two characters competing to kill the most monsters (a la gimli and legolas), or to make the most impressive hit, or deal the most damage in a round, or whatever.

(2) character vs. world. No real explanation needed.

(3) Player vs. Player. The players compete in buildcraft.

(4) Players vs. DM. Ok, this is pretty degenerate, but it happens. Some people really play like that.

Gamists really get into the mechanics at the level they're competing. This means that a level 1 competition will have them paying a lot of attention in combat.

There's an excellent essay a_psh linked at one point about gamism... ask him on the WotC boards for a link explaining gamism.

[Neeek]

1177532735[/unixtime]]The funny thing is that, not bending the rules to let NPCs and PCs die ends up being more memorable.

It depends. I've played in "let the dice fall where they may" games where characters dying essentially killed the plot: Our party face (my character), who due to various events, had far more information than the rest of the party, and was their employer. He died at lowish level. Without him, the plot had to be severely retconned, to make it make any sense at all.

[Crissa]

'GNS' could also be seen as a three dimentional chart about how someone expects their character to advance:

Power (Gamist) is important;
World (Simulationist) is important;
Story (Narrativist) is important.

It's just another way of looking at the old Story vs Rules dichotomy. When given a roll, there's three ways to look at it: Was the die roll (randomness) important; was the result supposed to make 'sense' in the story; or which result would have been the 'best'.

But the whole where it came from seems really dumb.

-Crissa

[Desdan_Mervolam]

To my experience, GNS is like every other attempt to partition gamers into "Camps". It's at least a little accurate, not nearly absolute, and far, FAR too often used as justification to make someone feel better about elitistly deriding someone else's playstyle.

-Desdan

[Judging__Eagle]

Well, yeah, you can't really use GNS as a model since it's inherantly flawed.

The problem is that there are people who favour N or S style gaming or at least 'want' that style to be more prevalent in their game.

Which doesn't end up happening b/c they keep unintentionally either shattering the fourth wall or do things that make suspending the players disbelief really hard.

I tend to call it the Forgotten Realm's syndrome: the GM self-inserts to keep some arbitrary plot on course. Removing a sense of immersion on the part of the players if it's done in a crude manner.

Really, if the DM simply wants to railroad the PCs, they should simply pretend that the PCs work for a very powerful mage who dumps them in front of their next mission's LZ and picks them up at set time X or when they radio in for pick up.