Genres and Settings for Roleplay

Wikipedia lumps them together, and that's confusing as much as misleading, as I'll discuss below

What Genres x Settings Exist in Roleplay, and whats missing?

There are 24 genres listed in Wikipedia, Some we can discount instantly, for roleplay, and some, well, they're not genres, they're settings, I don't know why they're lumped together and I don't remember why I seem to have a very strong memory learning them as very separate structures. Maybe my High School teacher had strong, logical reasons and I agreed with him/her on the subject:

You can go to the Wiki List I'm working from:

Genres:

Action, Adventure, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Horror, Mystery, Paranoia, Political, Romance, and Thriller are all Genres, in the more truer definition. They have a distinct set of feelings, we could even cross reference feelings to come up with these.. Excitement, Discovery (location), Laughter,  Discovery(events of dubious nature), Extrinsic Emotion, Disgust , Discovery (events), Helplessness, Machinations? Love, Fear.

This suggests that while there are definitive lines in the sand, Thriller, Horror and Paranoia all stem from Fear of the Unknown, Violence and Control. And Crime, Mystery and Adventure are all subsets of Discovery.

Sagas seem to be a sub genre that, due to the title, historical nature of the story, are just included in genres, that said, Its possibly both a genre and a setting, as to qualify, it needs to be OP stories of Vikings doing heroic deeds. Personally that's just stylistic representation of Historical Adventure.

BUT, you can mix these.

Yes, Its very easy to mix many of these, because they are emotional, Start with some discovery, that leads to fear, causes problems with sickness and is conquered with laughter. But your audience will come out at the end, unable to pinpoint why it was good, IF it was good, Which is why movies stick to one or two of them, and books two or three.

Also, some of them destroy each other if not done right. Comedy done as laughter will bring down the Horror, Paranoia, Thriller and even Mystery. Yet releasing tension with the right dark humour can control the audience.

Settings

So, our Settings are, Fantasy, Historical, Western, Urban/Modern, Science Fiction, Science Fantasy. Even said, Western is technically just Historical,, else should we break out Classical, Medieval?

So, Non realistic and Realistic events before now, now, and in the future? The problem with this, is the purpose of the setting is to evoke an understanding of the culture, timeline, technology and way of thinking of a given people. Fantasy is commonly Tolkienised, with Elves, Fairies, Dwarves and Orcs. While Magical effects added to Medieval History would be Merlin and King Arthur. Which is why Historical Fiction exists as a Genre, too many styles of Fantasy, means the Setting needs to be split to understand which Audience you're trying to connect to.

Magical Realism, refers to magic existing, yet not changing the very underlying world. Harry Potter may have influenced this break away. The Muggle world is our world, and we are unaware of the magic going on. This can also include the Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Modern Witches, maybe even Cthulhu style games (though, typically Cthulhu is more Late Victorian era)
 
Its Curious, that while Historical fiction, Magical Realism and Sagas are separated out, Punk, Space Opera, Science fantasy and Apocalyptic settings all come under the "science fiction" Setting, Yet, when you say Science fiction, several people will not think any of those genres, instead jumping to Star Wars Styled settings as the 'default.

So, for the purposes of this post, Our Real settings are , Classic, Medieval, High Fantasy, Pirates, Western,  Modern, Post Modern,  and Science Fiction.

How are these not Genres?  

First, we defined that Genres are constructs of Feelings you get from watching a movie, You can have multiple feelings, but to get a real sense of a specific feeling you don't invoke more than a few.

Settings are different, its a set of background rules, an understanding of what kind of people will be in the world, how they act and react, and most importantly, No Cross Over. You cannot have High Fantasy and Western, You can add off world races to western for spice, or you can add gunslingers to Merlin's Castle, but the underlying core is defined, When you say western to 50 people, you'll get several identical key points. Sure Science Fantasy and Science Fiction are well defined, Star wars vs Star Trek, explainable science vs hand-waved science. Yet at the end of the day, spaceships, laser guns, alien races, in space, all say science fiction.

I have heard the argument, but wait, Sailing ships, Blunderbusses, Island Races on the High Sea, all match the underlying theme, which is why Treasure Island so easily ported over to Treasure Planet. Yet state those 4 elements to 50 people, and I doubt anyone will say Post Modern, or Classic.

What of Philosophical? and Absurdist/Surreal/Whimsical, Satire, Social or Speculative?

Speculative, IS roleplay, we are speculating, if a person existed, in a defined world, what would happen if they chose to make a given action, such as explore a dungeon, with a sword. Not to say, that the game can't involve speculation within itself, like a meta inception. See more on this below.

The Same 'could' be said of Philosophical? Are we exploring possible Utopian or Distopian societies to understand ourselves better?

Satire exists as a form which is referenced by real life events, or in some cases, recognized events from an existing story, bent in a way to be different. Yet it cannot exist as a genre unto itself, So its more a modifier of an existing genre. Also In roleplay, since we use memes, references to existing works, understandings of the world through other mediums, such as movies, books, then all roleplay is a form of Satire.

I can speculate, that playing a Surreal Setting, might be fun for a session, a dream sequence, it'll be hard to pull off, explaining to players that they swim through colours, and experience smells as experience points, yet the underlying problem is that a setting evokes an understanding of the world, to make decisions, but a surreal world would be so without proper understanding, it would destroy the fabric of what makes the roleplay game work, and be fun.

And Social is just the Indian term for Modern.

 So the verdict?

Two Genres and One Setting. This would be the most likely definition for a roleplay system. Not to say elements of others are absent, just that to be easily identified to an Audience.

This gives us Seven genres, (Action, Comedy, Discovery, Drama, Political, Romance, and Thriller) with 8 Settings, (Classic, Medieval, High Fantasy, Pirates, Western,  Modern, Post Modern,  and Science Fiction.) giving us a final 64 possible "categories" defined. With the Two Genre Possible structure, and given that not all Genres can go together, it looks like we can have around 500 odd Slightly broader categories.

Some of them, we know exist, Action Adventure High Fantasy = D&D. (Paranoia based) Thriller 1950s Modern = Cthulhu, Action Comedy Science-Fiction = Alpha XXX Blue.

If we went through all 500 Categories, would we find an obvious choice for all? or would it be hard? Would we start reaching empty gaps? and would those gaps be interesting to make a campaign for?

As a random example (as I roll d8s), Discovery Romance Western, gives me Indiana Jones,

So I chucked up a spreadsheet, I got these:

Comedy	Thriller	Post Modern
Discovery	Action	Post Modern
Drama	Romance	Science Fiction
Romance	Comedy	Pirates
Action	Discovery	Western
Thriller	Action	High Fantasy
Political	Romance	High Fantasy

• As discussed, Comedy Thriller is going to be hard to do as a roleplay.. Movies, such as, Evil Dead 2 is a tad more comedic, as is Shaun of the Dead, so its plausible some good players and GMs could pull this off. The Comedy aspect, suggests a light system. 
• Discovery Action, Post modern, might be game plots based on National Treasure, Maybe FATE or Gumshoe could work as a system for this.
• Drama Romance Sci Fi makes me think of Battlestar Gallactica.
• Unsure what Romance Comedy Pirates would be as a game, like roleplaying in Pirates of Penzance. Could be fun for a session, but not long term.
• Action Discovery Western, a very likely scenario. I've run one of these with my system, yet I know there are western style RPGs that do this already.
• Thriller Action High Fantasy, well, I'm running one of them right now.. so that's obvious.
• and lastly, Political Romance High Fantasy. I get the impression that Lamentations of the Flame Princess is like this. but I'm probably very wrong. This does like it would be difficult to find such a game focussed on it. 

So, it does indeed seem like there are holes, and the question is.. Is it interesting to explore the gaps

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Final Notes

From that quick little attempt, Its obvious to me that Action + adventure, and Action + Discovery is going to have a roleplay game out there for each possible genre, and likely each sub-genre.

Thriller is also a genre that will likely have a decent amount of games, even if they are all Cthulhu rip-offs.

Comedy, while it happens in roleplay often, because strange things happen, and there are gonzo styled games that try to evoke comedic moments, I think its harder to 'make' a comedic roleplay game.

What might be the genres we find gaps are going to be Drama, Romance and Political, and maybe that's because they don't lend themselves to roleplay as much as we like, or they're tacked on...poorly, by the rule-set being used.

When two combatants go against each other, several factors, such as weapon, skill, armour, and timing come into a turn by turn structure of combat. The outcome are wounds, dismemberment or death, so its vital to understand this and make it as fair as possible.

Yet many RPG system treat the nuances of politics, diplomacy, romance, persuasion, charm, conflict, lies, deception and perception as a single die roll. An entire campaign, hinged on the single arbitrary roll.

This is one of the reasons, I decided that all aspects of roleplay should, if players want it, have a play by play rules for each of the common aspects of roleplay.

I've blogged a little about this, but I think its time to take it further..         

DD12 Cataclyzm Playtest Diary

I've been playtesting Cataclyzm to get a feel for how the game flows well, as its not a traditional roleplay and has moments where even I as GM get fazed and left wondering if I'm making a fun game or forcing an idea. So I decided to blog my thoughts..

DD12 Cataclyzm Playtest Diary #1

A Typical Afternoon in Cataclyzm.

Cataclyzm has alot of great ideas, but alot of crummy ones too, so I've decided to play test them out, and see what works and what sucks.

First Characteristics: Most games start with long sessions to create characters, but the draw back is, long character creation = far less desire for players to lose their character. Also, rolling vs choosing, both have their draw backs, but what about situational voting?

So what we do in Cataclyzm is give the group the choice.. Here is the situation.. who is going to volunteer to solve it, why are you volunteering, because you're the best at it, group votes if they should be "the best" or "just good", if they are "the best" they should also choose something their 'not so good at' to balance..

i.e. The Players awoke in darkness, tore the membrane/cloth that covered their face and looked around, the first thing they saw was some insane crossbred horse/turtle with a mouth of teeth. The first to get up and go towards it, would likely be the most courageous, the group votes him "most" courageous, a 21 is assigned as his courage score, and he steps forward to the beast.

As play progresses, We discover who our archer/ranger is because one of them decides he wants to throw a rock, and he wants to be good at it. We discover who our warriors are, because the grab rocks and start stabbing at the thing, one is a fast warrior, the other strong.. again, because the group voted yes to each of them being 'good' at it.

Imagine its dark, that head is twice as large and 7 ft tall!

When One of the group got bitten, the question was.. Do you have enough health to survive this? why? do you have any skills that might mitigate this situation?

As the turtles neck spun around in his direction, our warrior quickly turned his body away at an angle, the bite was harsh, but escaped being deadly as his bones halted the crushing jaws of the beast, just long enough for him to pull free.. a gaping wound, but one that could be survived.

Of course, We can't all be heroes in all ways possible. eventually most players had 3 defining stats of 21, 19 and 17, with 3 counter stats of 4, 5 and 6, while other players had more averaged 18, 16 and 14, with a 6, 7 and 8, the rest of the numbers were in the 10-11 range..

Play testing, I had allowed players to 'spend' the spare points to round out their characters, but they of course min-maxed a few stats, for the future I'll ensure the rule is 'average' out the remaining points.

Skills:

At first I was all "Oh you can be anything you want, are you a medieval peasant, or a caveman or a guy from present day earth or someone from star wars or warhammer 40k", the caveat is, they have to take skills relevant to their character, not the situation.. Also, their characters all have amnesia to begin with, "who am I" so their skill list is empty.. the problem is, they take skills as they need them anyway, not skills that are character relevant, but situationally useless, I'm going to have to bring in some kind of lists and have them roll or something, players could later invent their own lists and hand them to the GM.. they know what skills they 'might' get, but not when they will 'remember', or they could even not remember anything and just learn their skills from the GM never really knowing who they are until weeks into the campaign.

Again, this is to get the game flowing fast, decisions in character creation slow people down, take away the choice and direct their agency into interpreting the situation, gives players creative freedom with creative barriers, often best used when you're not sure whats best.

As the character settled down for the night, lost as to their place in the universe, the pondered their existence. They chewed on their uncooked turtle-horse leg meat, tended their acid wounds, and kept watch.. for the endless night sky and vague silhouettes in the lichen-glow suggested any manner of nasties, ready to devour them.

Ok, so lose the trees, the sunset, the glowing tents, pretty much all light.. so.. nothing like this photo.

Careful what you say you may ruins someones play.

This blog goes into a few different topics, I'll try to break it up with headings.Mostly its about GMing

Pro GMs Chatting with Casual GMs

Sometimes when your talking to someone that seems to understand what your saying, is on the same page as you, you might get a bit deeper into the topic, but if the other person wasn't really there on the same page, and they have a different world view on the topic, your deeper thoughts can trigger negative thoughts. 

I belong to several RPG chat groups. Its quite common to engage in discussions about new rules. Its as common to me that people pull the strings of rules to see if they are knotted well, or robust enough, so that players won't pull said strings in the middle of the game.

When describing how the players can or might pull at the strings, examples are given.

So, when I saw a fellow community member mention a new rule, I did what I thought was normal and pulled some of the strings of the rule, presenting ways in which a player or a situation could ruin the rule.

Instead I offended the guy, he got extremely defensive of his rule, politely attacked me and when I apologised, politely slapped my face. I was of course miffed, I had too late realised it was a public post, not a group post, so I was likely jumping into his realm and just rambling on about his rule having holes.

Facepalm: Meaning, Oh, Oh sorry, I made a mistake, my bad.. lets look at this differently.

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Player Agency: This was my point in the pulling of strings. And brevity was my downfall.

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I have often forgotten that I'm not thinking about things like others do, and I often don't want to write a paragraph of explanation to get people onto the same page as myself. So I'll often not bother, but when I think that I'm talking to a fellow games master / games designer, I just jump straight in, and I'll talk at the person, like they know exactly what I'm talking about. which often gets mis-interpreted.

Gamesmastering is not simple or easy

Case in point: Story Telling is an Art, not just in that its artistic, but that it requires an artist, to get it right. One key factor that many casual GMs will quote "its just a game". The problem is that regardless if they think its a game or not, Its also an exercise of the mind, it teaches us things, about ourselves, our players, and the world in which we live.

If you present your players with a cliff, and they talk about how to scale UP this cliff, they spend minutes talking about pitons, rope, how far up is it, your players are engaing in player agency, you've given them a chance to shine, for them to solve the problem in a creative way. Do they have pitons, do they have rope, does anyone have the climb skill, do we have spells that can break the laws of gravity, can we go around? Is there anyone nearby that can supply us with tools for scaling? should we actual scale it? is it a good idea. The discussion of how to solve the problem is players engaging in the game. Its part and parcel of roleplay.

You know what it also does? it teaches players, regardless if you want it to or not, it teaches them to be creative in their ability to solve problems. It makes them better people.

Its one of the reasons why Roleplay IS such a great medium. The Agency of creative thought.

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Two ways you can destroy this part of a roleplay experience, either directly or indirectly, is to take away this agency, the players choice in what solution should they use. Because players will often, if not always, take the path of least resistance.

The First, is why the above disagreement happened: Give players an out. Give them the choice to teleport the simple material objects, pitons and rope, to their characters, without any consequence.

If players can, teleport or retroactively buy components, tools, arrows and the like directly to their character, they will always do so. No need to ask around town before leaving, 'what kind of terrain will we cross' and pre-buy the goods needed, No need to worry about packmules for the goods, nor the path chosen, to get to the quest, not even a care, if the character steps on a weight based trap.. his back pack is now empty, but later, it'll be retroactively full, breaking the immersion of the game.. 

The Second, slightly less common, is when the solution is so impossible to solve, that the players, having 0 agency in the situation can only give up, a frustrated GM can't understand why the players can't see the forest for the trees, and the frustrated players can't understand how the GM can think they CAN see the forest, since they're in a desert.

As an example, back at our cliff, no material objects and the instructions clearly say they need to walk this direction, but the players are being chased by a dragon. They cannot think how to solve it, the GM keeps saying he's given them all the hints, and yet the dragon arrives, the GM has to fudge the encounter (the players gain too much XP and become OP for the rest of the campaign) change the plot (the big nasty dragon is actually goblins in disguise, but if that's so.. then how did the goblins manage to enact all those creature powers & fly & breathe fire?) or stick to the reality and kill off the party with a single flame of the dragon.

Face Palm.

The GM points out after killing off the players, that they needed to 'walk' up the cliff, its enchanted. The quote "walk this direction" was so obvious.. was it not? 

Well, unless the players had ANY experience that walking up the side of the cliff was even possible.. this is 0 agency.. they can't make the choice, because they can't foresee it being possible.

The Problem is that Casual GMs might see that arriving at the cliff without pre-purchasing pitons and rope, as 0 player agency, so giving them a retroactive purchase seems like a good idea.

But its not. because you made the choice for the players: You will need equipment, I want you to use equipment, but I know you won't buy the right stuff, so I'll let you buy it retroactively. you took away their agency.

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Player Agency, Don't take away choices

I had a player, who wove elven nets into his clothes, and carried a ball of string. He'd tie objects to his body as A) access easy items and B) crude armour. When in town, he'd buy up sets of things that he felt were needed by the group. often he was asked "why are you buying a fishing hook? we're going to a dungeon!

I had another player who would guide the group on regular outings to find rare and curious material components for spell casting. Each and every time, he'd end up with something curious, and as often as not, the group would encounter some creature, guarding its lair or out hunting or protecting its territory. Not often so horrible, but always a welcome side quest, with XP.

Another player, loved to try out different woods to craft arrows, sharpening his skills as a fletcher. At one point he managed to craft a masterwork redwood sapling arrow with a crystal holder head, allowing a crystal of ice to create his +6 distance +3 armour penetration +6 ice damage arrow , which helped take down a malicious fire demon. 

If I played any of those games where arrows, spell components or mundane equipment and or backpack arrangement was cast to the side by the game or the GM, those players would not still be talking about those events, to this day.

Player Agency allows players to choose to create interesting games, They can do things, without needing to change the plot or rules or interfere with the world building.

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Yet.. for all that's said and done.. players need choice.. so if your players are new.. get them used to the nitty gritty to start with, get them experienced with how it 'can' be done.. then after 5-10 sessions, let them relax on those rules, and present them with faster approaches to do the same thing.

in Dungeonworld, we have a thing called "down time" between adventures, Its done instantaneously for us, but takes weeks in game: Often while the warrior is healing, the mage gathers components, the rogue brews up potions, the archer crafts arrows and the merchant straps all these crazy things to his next set of armour.. Facepalm. 

My Thoughts on Pay-to-Play in roleplay, As a Full-time Paid GM.

At the height of my career, I was taking home almost 6 figures as a paid Gamesmaster. This is my story.

Pay to Play? Gotta be worth it

From 2003 to 2013, I was a travelling English Teacher, I started raw, I didn't know what I was doing, and frankly, it surprises me still that I managed to pull it off. The number 1. thing I did was to learn how to do what I was supposed to be doing every night, until I was as good as I said I was in the interview, it took 3 years.

In 2003, I left Australia to travel the world, and promptly ran out of money. So I needed money. I took on a bar-tending job in Shanghai during the evenings and started teaching English during the day.

I discovered after about 6 months, that I knew nothing of my own language, school had not trained me anything more than nouns, verbs and adjectives, and I still suffer to correctly Capitalise my words.. I capitalise when I emphasize, so if you want to read things in your head, like I say them, then raise your inner voice every-time you see a capital.

So I learned, I downloaded books on the subject of teaching, I studied English for myself and I got better at it.. and I discovered that there was a part of language teaching that I excelled at..

Roleplaying.

In Teaching, Roleplaying is a set of circumstance that puts the student into the 'role' of a person who needs to speak English, in order to get through the task. This might be getting through customs, or buying shoes in a shop, or business negotiations to strike a deal.

For a Gamesmaster, Roleplaying is of course So much More! These books on how to teach? were trying to tell me how to 'teach' with 'roleplaying' OMG I was laughing at it all..

So after getting my feet as a teacher, I started introducing the art of actual roleplaying to my students. I started with the TV series 'lost'. My students were to learn new words each week, so I would write up 20 new words that made sense to learn while being 'lost' on an island.. we put those words into sentences, played the scenario, the students would need to use the words, to survive.. plank of wood, hammer, nail, rope, rope bridge, chasm, I was feeding them clues on how to solve the puzzle, but since the words were not known to them, it was a puzzle unto itself.

the players... ahem,,.. students.. loved it, they came back for my, my classes got more interesting and the students grade went up.

The only problem was management.. when they saw we were playing games.. they thought it was a waste of money and dropped the courses.. until later, when I would provide them with statistical evidence that gaming lessons had a more than 30% improvement in language retention that all other lesson types.. I did this by running the same grammar lessons with one group and no roleplay, I had more than 50 groups, of around 4-6 students a group, at approx 2 years per student of learning, the lower end of the spectrum was 30% improvement, for students that were roleplaying..

That was when I went full time.

Now, jump back in time, remember how I used to run a games club for kids? That was Sunday afternoons, 5 hours, each kid paid $2 to come to the club each week, plus membership fees of around $10 a year, eventually we got up to 3 GMs and a profit of around $60 a week from sales of drinks, minis and entry fees, what I learnt from that was how to set up and run a game fast, how to keep the plot hooks going at the end of the session "Come back next week, same bat channel, same bat time" and how to keep the 'customers/players happy'

A few years later, Instead of catering to the Junior Roleplayers, I had a few phone calls to my club, asking if I could come out to their place and run a game. To begin with, It didn't quite feel right to ask for money, so I simply asked that they chipped in for the pizza and I'd supply the game, but after the first 2 sessions, I was losing cash on the deal as I had to transport myself across town, supply the dice, pencils and paper to the guys, charactersheets and such, so I asked them, would they be ok with chipping in for the costs, $20 a month would do it, else I couldn't afford to cross town for this group of strangers, they agreed and I got my next round of experience as a paid GM.

So, when I was showing my clients the difference between boring class results and roleplayed results, I had more than enough confidence to talk about how I'd been doing this years before and how easy it was to set up and run, I guess my sales pitch succeeded, because they agreed and I was roleplaying, primarily, for the bulk of my income from around 2009/2010.

I was, I consider myself, to be extremely lucky, to be in the right place, with the right experience, to be able to offer this unique service which had proven results, but I knew the laws of supply and demand, so I offered this service, but at a premium price. 2x 1.5 hour lessons, twice a week for $90 an hour, per 'group'. They accepted for those students who wished to participate. which was maybe 90%.

In such a closed environment, I was able to have groups run synchronously in the same world, meeting the same NPCs, either before or after previous groups, the logistics and economy of each group affecting any later groups, "Oh sorry sir, a group of adventurers just bought my finest sword just last week". I could even allow 1 of the groups to be the bad guys, having them just ahead of other groups, plotting evil, leaving traps and ambushes along the way, before they settled down in a well defended location, and only when a player from one group disguised his character as evil (and he asked the group if he could join, because he wanted to play an evil character too) could he then reveal himself at the last possible moment and foil their plans.

After watching this Legacy style play, I invited several other GMs I knew from other countries to participate. One from Estonia, one from latvia, Germany, England and the US, to have their 'groups' running in the same world, I sent maps of events via email to the GMs and their groups interacted, somewhat, with my groups.. I even got my old players from Australia to join in via skype for some epic moments.. it was amazing.

But real life, always seems to throw you a curve-ball.

My boss, who approved the games for the majority of my client base, and his boss who joined in once or twice, moved on, and the new guy was more hard-nosed to the idea of 'games as education', the country went into turmoil over govt restrictions, another of my clients warned me that things were going to get difficult in the next few years, so I left, returned to Australia and decided to knuckle down and get my degree, get my site up and running, and after raising some funds, publish my game.

I've run some Legacy style games since then, gotten my old Russian players and even the American players to join in, I think its the angle that sets my gaming apart from others, knowing that any NPC can often be a PC from another group, seems to wake players up just a tad more and take notice.

 So, my thoughts on Pay to Play

I've talked already in a previous post about how I think you need to bring more to the table than just 'run a game' to be a professional GM. To me, that's attention to detail in your world, your NPCs and being able to run your game without a rulebook. This usually means a working knowledge of Physics, Human communication, Psychology, Cultures other than your own, Sleeping outdoors, walking in caves, fighting in the rain, anything that gives you an edge from any other guy that just 'reads the rules and runs a module'.
When your paying to play a game, you're paying for the convenience of having a GM that is prepared and unable to flake and players of a like minded attitude of "I'm paying to be here, so I'm not going to mess around, or waste time with off topic chatter or argue about rules", Other players are there for the same reason you are, to have fun in the limited time you have, because you work hard, want to rest up, relax and play a game, and you only have 4 hours spare on a thursday night to do so. You could spend $30+ at any number of events IF you had the right friends and the timing was right for that particular time frame, so why not spend your $30 sitting down, relaxed at a table, with some like minded adventurers who wish to get their game on.

As a Paid GM, I love having players that are ready, attentive, pay attention to the details, play in character, don't cancel unless its actually important and bow out if its not the right group, the right setting or the right game, rather than stay 'because its your friends' and disrupt the game for everyone else.

Veterans Day in your world

After seeing so many of the 11/11/11:11 posts, I was reminded of an old TV-show that had rigged up a trap to go off and shoot anyone trying to access a treasure chest. It was such a moment in my childhood that I never forgot, So I was going to write about that..

But then I saw a photo-shoot of returned, healed veterans, missing arms, legs, both, faces from burns.. and for a moment I thought.. no-one in a fantasy world would be coming back like that, they'd either die.. or get miracle cures / limited wish back to full health.. but I asked myself again..

What would happen to veterans in our fantasy worlds

Our lives are affected by events around us, what we see, how other people explain what they see, and the cumulative effect it has upon us.

So When roleplay characters have events around them, their lives will be affected as much.. yet I get the feeling that maybe some GMs forget to add that to their games and worlds.

How Often have you had NPCs in taverns talk about the last great war, how it affected them, what they did, their stories. More interestingly, how did the non-worldly events change things. Magic can be both napalm and airstrikes, tactical strikes and reconnaissance, so would a medieval war be like we think of a medieval war? or would it be more on par with WWI & II, even some of the skirmishes being played out now.

What of Healing? If a cleric or three exist on the battlefield, wouldn't they be the no.1 target for all strikes? Mass heals, miracle cures, Resurrection for the top brass or greatest heroes? Surely the local kings would be half decent warriors, and would go into battle daily, with the knowledge that no matter what, they'll be alive again the next day.

I don't know about many systems, but my Clerics gain XP for healing, based on the wound and how much healing took place. After a week of constant, regular healing, plus surgery, they'd gain a level or maybe two, sure the diminishing returns would take out some of the smaller HP heals, but any mid level Cleric/Priest with a minor in healing, is going to get more than half a dozen levels from just being on call.. 

and if they were running M.A.S.H. I'd have some epic level doctors by the end of the campaign.

What of the wounded? the dying? ok guys, rush them all into this 10x10m room, and I'll mass heal everyone to stop bleeding and close severe wounds.. then the junior clerics can take over and do some extra healing on the severely wounded, and within a few days the entire platoon would be back on their feet, right as rain.

Only the dead would be the limiter, so get those clerics in some arrow resistant armour, out on the battlefield, and heal them before they die, not much, just enough to survive the trip back to hospital.

Wars would go on for much longer. Soldiers would gain enough XP to level up, by the end of a campaign, you'd have an army of 3rd or 4th levels.. that's a scary thought.. maybe that's why they go fighting, for massive XP boosts.

Sieges might be the same, except a few mages that summon up food would counter the main problem, and the sight buff spells would take care of sappers and other tricks from the enemy..

Again Mages, they could do all the fighting, summon up creatures, back him up with a cleric to cover the possible backlash and damage.. (Magic the Gathering?)

begs the Question.. why hire, train and pay an army, if a few mages and clerics would do.

Would War even exist in such a fantasy world? could it still exist? The enemy declares war on your kingdom, so you send over an assassin, kills the opposition king, then maybe a bard, disguised using voice and illusion spells, pretends he's king for a bit, strikes up a treaty, then retires, to allow his 'friend' (you) to rule his lands too.

But the question in the beginning is, if wars are changed, people arn't coming back missing parts, burnt faces, and the greater populace doesn't see this, how will they be affected.. how will they think about wars.. just some crazy game played by kings? go off, have a good fight, don't get killed and you'll be right? return all levelled up? ready to be a hero?

Doesn't feel ok to talk about it in such glib terms, but I think that's the survival mechanism kicking in, so would a medieval person feel the same way about it, not having yearly reminders?

Devils Advocate to RPG-think

An interesting read at the ConTessa blog, about worldbuilding and how 'trope-heavy' RPG worlds are broken:

When Game Mechanics Drive World-Building, part 1.

and

When Game Mechanics Drive World-Building, part 2

Got me thinking about how this is a very simulationist way of thinking (I use the term only because I have yet to find/invent something better), but I wanted to address the many points, and posting heavy text blocks in someone elses blog seems.. excessive.. or even rude.

So I'm going to play:

Devils Advocate to RPG-think

I won't assume you've read the article, instead I'll sum up the points and address them from the narrative perspective. 

1. Magic Shops: The Premise

So, the idea is, that in each and every town is a supposed magic shop full of ingredients and components, spell books and scrolls, potions and the like. The likelyhood of this happening is next to zero, so why does every fantasy RPG do it?

Lets set up some understandings. to be an RPG world, you can't have just one set of heroes. Its not a 'these are the only heroes there are' story, because if it was, the entire premise of anyone having magical potions available for heroes is preposterous. Every single potion, scroll or magical weapon would be unique items, made by unique people, for unique reasons.

Ye Olde Madgick Shop

So then we are left with two possibilities: The world has a fair number of heroes, or the world is filled with heroes.

With a filled with heroes concept, then its obvious that every town or village should have a magic shop. They become the 7-11 of the fantasy world. This in itself should require the simulationist GM to need to label the bottles 'McDonalds Healing Potion" or "Healthy Meal" with 1 potion, 1 ration and 1 charm (one use) resist all.

The 'fair number of heroes' premise, would be something more akin to a car salesman. you're not going to make sales often, but when you do, you pay all your bills for the year.

Personally I like this idea.. little old man, alchemist, retires, has a little shop front, makes salves for the locals, in case they scratch their knee, but need to dance that evening. but once in a while, he breaks out the expensive stuff for the heroes that pass through, the gold they dump on him, buys the next 2-3 sets of ingredients to brew them up again, pay off any debts/tabs built up since the last time, plus some change to buy Christmas gifts for the next 10 years.

For Narrative GMs:

Players are not really taking note of the reasons for the magic shop to exist. There doesn't need to be a magic shop in every single town, it just so happens, there is in every town the players happen to go in.

2. Thieves Guilds: The Premise.

 

Suprisingly (or not) finding images of a Theives Guild was hard
Mostly just in game images. Art by Isriana

Here, the idea is that, since earth has very little proof of guilds of thieves existing, therefore, they didn't exist. This suggests that they were just good at what they're supposed to do. Remain hidden from public. The Mafia always seemed like a thieves guild to me.

Moreover, the concept is that any kind of 'guild for one class' would have far reaching effects upon the world at large, heirachy, dues to the city council, power play, etc.

Now, the effect would be far more prominent if we have a filled heroes world because almost every hero would belong to a guild, and there would be some kind of guild in-fighting.

A fair heroes world, would be more likely to have singular guild halls, with affiliations to other guilds. Asian fighting schools had this, students could travel to a nearby town and talk to the dojo master about his own master, and if they were friends.. he could stay for the night, maybe even train somewhat.

For Narrative GMs

Unless your plot involves or revolves around the interplay between guilds, there is no reason for the players to see any. Ignore this and include them as you will.

3. Temples for each god: The premise

 

City of Churches You'd need a city just to fit one of every church - Art by Chao Yuan Xu

For each Cleric/Paladin/Priest to access their spells, they need to pray to their god in a specific temple? I was not aware of the rule myself, but even if we disclude(yes, the taking out of an included item) the requirement, pretty much most villages have a local temple to the local pantheon.

I'm not really at all sure why this is considered strange. All across Europe I saw temples and churches to multiple religions, if the town was big enough. Cities would have hundreds of them. Not one temple would turn away a person who wanted to pray, regardless of religion.

Now, sure, maybe some gods hate other gods, so praying in a rival gods temple might be considered rude or worse. But surely the gods wouldn't require their followers only worship in a temple. They'd lose half their followers (I was mid adventure, but my god didn't answer me, so we called off the quest)

For Narrative GMs

Again, your players are traveling to places where your god has sway, unless the plot requires that your cleric has limited access in these lands, creating a power sink for the group, to make the next scene more dangerous (and the players have to think more with a low/no powered cleric).

Conclusion

Worldbuilding, can be in many ways, the opposite to Plot building. Maybe instead of Narrartive vs Simulation, it should be called world-built or plot-driven styles of play.

For Narrative/Plot driven play, there is no need to care if your world 'works' or not, the shop keeper is surly because the story works best that way, not because he had a bad argument with his wife the night before, about the lack of flowers for her anniversary.

But for World Builders, these things are critical. You can't have magic shops, thieves and fighters guilds and player specific temples in every town, you need to map out the influences of each of these forces, and how they came about in the world, to ensure that they are robust. 

More to come on this train of thought.   

FATAL Critical Failures!

For a blog I'm doing research for (will edit link in here after I post it) I was researching other games systems, ones that did things poorly or horribly, and what they did that I should avoid for my own. During the process, I encountered some interesting (and shocking.. NSFW.. I mean for the average non roleplayer its Extremely NSFW in which writing I found my self cringing and re-writing this blog) roleplay systems, amongst the complaints from standard systems, Often people would cy...

At Least its not F.A.T.A.L!

Oh, and Gang Rape was the
plot for character
team building / formation.

For those not in the know.. FATAL is a system, created by Byron Hall, who probably didn't do a lot of market research into making RPGs, but did a lot of research into medieval environments, much of which seems to be D&D, medieval movies from the 80s, maybe some shlock horror, the Rutger Huer Movie "Flesh & Blood", typical teenage basement dwelling humour.

Whats not surprising is the amount of flak he got for daring to publish his ideas (well, a PDF at any rate). As it stand FATAL is listed as the worst, for all time so far, worst RPG system ever..

So of course I had to download it.

I downloaded the first version : Fantasy Adventure To Adult Lechery

The title gives away main reason why people hate it.

This the 2nd version cover..
The More safe for work version

Its a Great big overly detailed, and I mean comparative to Rolemaster or GURPS overly detailed, list of so many things a Gamesmaster should consider (and then discard what doesn't match their system) when designing their own system, Its just that FATAL included ALL of them.. 900 pages of rules and rules and rules..

Now, there are some glaring problems with it.. Layout, Design, 900 pages, tables of tables.. It could be salvageable, if it had some kind of underlying something to it worth salvaging. The book goes into great detail about diseases, phobias, psychological traits, aspects of dealing with life as a medieval peasant. Occupations, Skills and Equipment.. all before telling me how to play the Friggin game.

And Oh, My Gawd is it overdone.. 4 lines to explain what water is, another 4 for milk!.. If players need a Thesaurus of common terms, maybe you have the wrong kind of players..

So I'm not going to go any further, (as much fun as it could be) into picking apart a bad system, Discussing how, splitting it into Standard rules, Gamesmasters rules and the Adult material could have helped, nor how the Structure or format needed to be more player friendly..no, others have done before me. I'll focus instead on what a lot of people have focused on.. poorly.. the Adult Lechery.

If you read the reviews and counter reviews of the author, you'll come across how the bulk of people focus on the fact that your character can have an [here it is... no.1 reason for its ranking ] anal circumference, because, if and when you get raped, you need to know how much pain you're going to be in.

In comparison to the size of this blog.. that one line represents the percentage of filth in the book. But for 900+ pages, thats still 20 odd pages of filth.. and another 100 pages of dubious material.. And for typical human reasons, its the only thing anyone will ever remember of it.

So Why Write about this filth?

Normally I might read up on hundreds of pages of articles, double check my references, make sure what I'm writing about has plausible credibility to it.. I do the same for my own system. I might never point out some things I read, because its not what I like to share with others..

Yet like a car accident, We imagine how it might have been us.. and I looked back at my earlier works and wondered... would I have been so unlucky if I published in 1998?

Total 100% accurate of how players
Act in game, but real life?

Then, while travelling by train across south Russia these last few days, I had some pdfs in my tablet I could read, and one of them was Critical Failures. .. About a DM who has the power to send his a group of players, who are behaving like the worst players you could get, to the fantasy world they're playing in, when their behavior gets them into trouble, time and time again...

I didn't feel like I was reading something that someone had made up, I know people that behave that way.. I don't roleplay with them, and probably never would, but I remember being 12 and sorta maybe acting that way. So I could identify easily with who they were

The writing of Critical Failures is poor, language badly chosen, some serious flaws in the style, but heck, its better than mine half the time, and at least the guy wrote it and made it available for download.

But the funniest part for me, I didn't feel like they were playing D&D, even though that's the parody the author went for. No, I felt that they were playing FATAL.. and Byron Hall was the DM, and the RPG Net were the players... and then I took a look back at the RPG environment of the 80s and 90s and felt sorry for the Author of FATAL.. because it looks like that's what he's gone and done.. Made the RPG for the audience that has since, grown up, while the Author had not.

In the 80s all manner of things, with 20/20 hindsight, seems racist, sexist, misogynist immature and just plain wrong. RPGs were not immune, depending on the system & Gamesmaster, Characters would typically devolve into murder hobos, ultra powerful bad guys, or all manner of worse. Half of today's memes are based on 80s RPG fail.

So FATALs Author seems to be a GM whose inclusiveness went over board.  instead of putting down his foot and saying.. "hey guys,too much.. this is never going to be popular on the market.." no, instead the author thought that all roleplayers were like his group.. raping and pillaging across his game world.. so he added more rules to match all the consequences..

I got out of the standard roleplay scene when this seemed to be happening around me. Players were joining the brand new Vampire games, where killing and raping innocents became part of the norm. The teenage angst of lack of control in the real world bleeds into the control they need to exert in the roleplay world, lashing out at anything that offends them, and with power, allows them to avoid or beat back any social problems that may arise.

Lessons to be learnt

It asks the question, Why do we roleplay? Is its the Escapism? to get away from this world that we lack the skills and control needed to be successful and the desire to be so? To go to a place (even if its in our minds) to be able to be skilled, powerful and in control?

Is this an immature desire? I've had maybe a few handfuls of 'adults' in my life try to tell me that roleplaying is a childish thing, and that I should grow up. Now that I'm 40, a dad, I've researched what games are, what play is, what is a roleplay game, and how roleplay has a very critical aspect of learning about it. Gamification is mired in roleplay, Schools actually teach us to role play scenarios out, in order to solve problems.

"Train A is headed from the West at 20km an hour, Train B from the East at 30km an hour, they start 100km apart, at what point do they crash?"

Albiet, your not playing a Train, but the puzzle is set in a way that allows the student to visualize the problem in real terms, which is one of the cores of what a roleplay game is.

The Concept of Games & Play has been coming up in my discoveries over the last few years, and I'm quite seriously considering my PhD in this field. How much of the desire to roleplay is the desire to escape our own mundane vs the playground of the mind to learn?

Conclusion

My Own system went through stages, Complex, Simplified, Improvements, Mess, Restructuring. If I had published at any stage prior, I'd expect to be ripped to shreds by the RPG community for attempting to publish anything less than a half decent set of rules.

The current 'popular' RPG seems to be rules lite, narrativity styled RPGs, possibly due to the influx of females to the gaming industry over the last 20 years, So attempting to bring a new system, more complex than most, is bound for failure, let alone adding sexuality (No, mum, not that kind of roleplay), obfuscated layout, and adult themes (plus, claiming its all historically accurate).

Yet I have a complex system, So I guess I have empathy for this guy.. he thought that his differentiation, that 'thing' which would make his game interesting, is the first person to publish a game which dealt with the smut & puerile humour that many games devolve into. To cater to those teenagers and their angst at a lack of sexual experience. Not realising, that is the worst kind of roleplay, and the community as a whole would rather pretend it never existed, than admit that yes, once, they too tried to 'get it on' with a barmaid, and the teenage GM asked to roll for penetration.

Post Script

Further topics on this to come:

* Will Roleplaying games of the future be boring, or will Roleplay become obsolete, if we get too politically correct?

* How to Use failed roleplay systems, and identifying failure within successful systems, to build a better system. (Building a better mousetrap?)

* What IS roleplay, and what IS a roleplay Game? Does a conversation about a vorpal sword working on a Jabberwickerbasket count?


p.p.s. I Always thought it would be fun to run a roleplay group of evil (i.e. bastard) characters, while several other roleplay groups of good guys were hunting them...

Coins Part Two:, Currencies and Culture

In Part One, I wrote about How Coins should affect your pickpocketing, Less common for many campaigns is the travel aspect of currency, crossing borders, finding that the shop keepers will look suspiciously at your coins, bite them, probably refuse them even, or in some cases, recognizing that you are a foreigner, take advantage of the fact and give you far less worth for them.

$18.50 for a cup of coffee, seems a bit steep? 

Yes but sir, this is New York, Starbucks New York 

Welcome to America!

Currencies & Culture

The second part of my post/blog is about different cultures & currencies. Quite frankly, I don't think the average GM is going to go to the lengths needed to get something realistic. So I'll chop this into two parts, Casual gaming, and Hard Gore GMing.

Standard RPG start location: Corner Tavern
Art by Duran3d

The Idea here is to give players a bit more understanding that they're not in Kansas anymore, having players go to a shop, buy gear, stay in a tavern/Inn, hear about the latest quest by the fire, after buying an old man a drink is ok for your starting shtick, but if you cross the border into another country, teleport into other continents, or different worlds, then it should only be used as a joke that the players walk into a bazaar, buy some gear, stay in a motel and hear about the latest quest by the cooler, after buying the old lizardwoman a drink.

To get the players to feel like they are in strange lands, its the little things that really get under their skin, and make it seem like they have traveled.

Currency is the first thing they should notice when trying to do anything. Different currencies, different rates of exchange, different ways of buying, selling, stacking.

In China, I went to the museum of Currency, the reason why the Chinese coin looks the way it does, is because its not the whole coin, its the handle of a small blade of metal.

The Little Ring on the end? Became the Coin you know.

So whats to say this practice isn't more widespread? Why does a coin need to be the standard? In a fantasy world, where a knife is probably something everyone has, and possibly two or three of, maybe the common dagger becomes the 'standard' by which all wealth is measured?

For my own players, I tried out the idea of metal rings, players noticed the locals wore a large number of rings, smaller bronze looking metals on their pinkies, and larger flatter engraved rings on their indexes, soon enough when they went to buy something, the shop keeper wouldn't sell them anything, kept treating them like lower class citizens, why? because they obviously had no money to spend, their hands were bare. Sure they may be dressed in some nice gear, but if they don't have coin to spend, their just there to waste time.

Exchange rates, and I don't mean between the players own currency, and the new country, but the rate of coinage in the new country. Sure its a little easier to just 10:1 exchange all coins, but its also very stale. Historically, most counties had far different rates, 12:1, 15:1 or 24:1 were common enough, Look at our own coins, 10p, American 25c, Australian 50c, Dollars and Pounds? Names are different, coinage is different, that's just the generic English speaking ones, Why are fantasy coins always 1 gold, 1 silver, 1 copper? And if your in some kind of place where the race is different enough, lizardmen don't necessarily have 4 fingers and a thumb, so why would they even count in sets of 5 and 10? surely their entire culture would count in 4 and 8, make them much better programmers.

Historically, The English Traded with Florence, who manufactured the gold coin then known as the British florin, but prior to that, they still used all the Egyptian, Greek and Roman coins that were still floating around. So Shouldn't the coins from your worlds be a mixture of previous cultures, other cities who manufacture coins, and the like?

Have a look at this: Medieval Money document for a better understanding.

Also, Crypts and Dungeons that are hundreds of years old, shouldn't have a currency that matches modern currency. In some of the better 'published dungeons' I've read, have larger than normal coins (1.5 times size, but lower grade, so possibly worth less to the average person, but maybe more to collectors (mages who might perform magics on old coins for information). Old coins might have wording on who they belonged to, leading to the discovery of an ancient king, and hopefully his tomb.


Ok, so I did point out that I'd dabble in some Hard Core WorldBuilding, This isn't for the feint of heart, but this is what I did for my own game world:  

An Early Gamesmaster Screenshot, depicts the territory of 6 players

Firstly, I designed and ran an 80+ player game of fantasy/civ that I wrote, to get an idea of what kinds of places would exist, what metals they mined and how much trade existed between players to get a proper set of stats to work with. I Asked players to nominate their coins from the metals that they mined, and as the game progressed they added a second and third coinage.

If a player was trading with another, they were given the choice to 'exchange at the border' or 'allow the use of other currency', the former had a more strict control over internal wealth, but also travel and spies.

The Image shows the 'route' of spies from the Necromancers Caravan to the town just south of the capital.

So, with several different metals, useful as coinage, several different countries, some trading and some not, I ended up with over 300 different coins, names and exchange rates. The Games setting duration was over 120 years, so this also left me with some awesome interest pieces.

The Above map, gave me 2 major Crypts, 4 adventure hooks, 6 races, 36 cultural issues amongst 4 races, encounter maps for each hex, and basic stats of 13 large towns/cities.

Apparently, these guys at Fantasy Coin can make your worlds
coins for you, might consider an investment.

As time went on, The Mining Races obviously became the producers of coinage, if not the raw materials, So their coin ratios become more common for the bulk of the kingdoms to whom they dealt with. My Main 'homebase' for my current roleplay team, deal with the rare Hearth Elven Platinum Brindir, High Dwarven Gold BeardClips (rings that can be worn on the pinky by humans), North Human Golden Crowns, Forest Elven Zircon Rounds, North Human Pewter Guilders, Deep Dwarven Silver Curls, Coastal Lizardmens Silver Claws (thimbles, that stack), The High Kings Silver Coin and His Brothers, High Lords Silver coin, (Interchangeable to other races, but illegal to own in opposite countries) Copper and Bronze coins, seem to be interchangeable at this point between most cultures, as long as they weigh the right amount, peasants and locals will trade in weight of copper coins, because its too easy to re-mint your own, and each local lord re-mints them with his own face on one side, and the kings face on the other side.

For Simplicity, Beards and Crowns, Rounds and Guilders, Kings Silver or Lords Silver, and Copper Coins are the currencies most players dealt with in this region. Yet, only 100km to the south east, They deal in Crowns, Guilders, Florins, Pennies and Bitz.

So whiles the Dwarven Crowns and Curls can be used interchangeably between the two major cultures, none of the other coins are legit currencies, requiring traders to visit 'merchant banks' or jewelers to make exchanges, often losing a percentage of the real worth, or resorting to barter, if they don't intend on staying and value their own currency.

Real gold you say? Hmm, lemme just bite it

My players have attempted to thwart the system, finding the right exchanger and making a small profit on the exchange, using their high charisma character for the deal, but after getting their high intelligence guy to do the maths first. With the lack of real travelers, the real worth wont be found out, and likely the exchanger will pass on the cost to 'collectors' at a later point.
    

[Thoughts] Roleplay Gamers, World Simulation Vs / And Story

I wrote this topic several moths back, after discussion online about Simulation vs Story, then recently someone pointed me in the direction of the GNS Theory from Ron Edwards and Aaron Hoffmans opinion of it. Yes, it seemed to match up with my Simulation vs Story theories, but introduced the third Gamist (which I always thought of as a immature board gamer who disrupts the real RPGers)  to the table.. So now I've had to re-write this blog notes:

Arguments of World-Simulation vs Story-Roleplayer, now add Board Game Geek and maybe a Gamificator for good measure! 

Are you a board gamer, a war gamer or a listener?

My Initial foray into the psychology of roleplay was about the two. Simulationist vs Storyteller. This was aimed more at GMs, I felt that often a Storyteller was more railroady. The Players make some choices that follow the story that the GM (or for World of Darkness, the actually storyteller) has in mind, and provided the GM is the wolf and the players are sheep, they all get to have their own kind of fun.

Can you tell that I'm a Simulationist?

I have/had/will have again players who care not for their character sheet, level progression, bonuses, etc, they want to act out their part, partake in the story and enjoy themselves. They ask the rules lawyers what would be the best choice in their character progression. My own system was designed to guide these players to make it easier for them, the player is a fighter? he fights? he gets experience as a fighter and his fighting skills get better. He knows he's a fighter and feels like a fighter, so there is no need for him to care about min/maxing his skill set with a stealth attack or a spell, and besides, he's probably forget to use them, because when a creature walks into the dungeon, the fighter grabs his weapon and fights.

https://xkcd.com/393/

Then there are the rules lawyers, they study their own numbers with meticulous care, and make sure that they have their stats just perfect, balanced in the best way possible. and I'm covered there, because I think that way myself. (I think that to be a half decent game designer, you sorta need to be a rules lawyer to GM)

But when I encountered board gamers, I was always under the impression, they had just not yet learnt how to roleplay, and like a child in school who just doesn't get the lesson, they lash out in ways to 'make the game fun' or 'amp up the excitement' I never once thought that this was a sub-group unto itself.

GNS Theory

Firstly, While a long time reader of Psychology profiling, Personality Bartle Tests, GNS is new to me, so forgive me for the errors in interpretations, this is my own take on what 've read so far.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_Theory

So Gamism is when you make the decisions based on extrinsic motivators. You form a party, and you are instantly friends, because that's the way the game is played. You go to the tavern and talk with the old man, to get the quest and then you complete the quest and get the gold and the girl/boy/victim and save the day. Because its a game, man! Meta Gaming could be considered gamism, checking on your friend in another room because you know that he just fell in a pit of acid, but you state.. "I haven't seen GunThar in a bit, I might just go check on him. "

Board Games that mimic roleplay (Descent, Heroquest, Talisman) are very Gamist, its practically the definition of a Gamist Game. So Often when I was balking at D&D and Pathfinder, It wasn't that those games suck, it was because they cater to the Gamism mentality, which I like some of, but as a Simulationist, I can't cope with. [I re-wrote the rules to Heroquest just months after I got it for my 14th Christmas to include XP]

Narrativism is roleplaying. Special voices, being angry or sad at appropriate moments, making sure you make choices, not based on if its the smartest thing to do, or the most efficient, but because its what my character would do. Well, maybe that's the simulationists perspective on Narrativism.

I've noticed alot of games are pushing towards Narrativism recently, which I applaud when done well, but they seem to be pulling away from the other end of the spectrum(s) Games coming out with little to no rules, arbitrary decision making, the GM is more like, telling a story, and the players are like, following along.. like Vampire, but without a character-sheet and experience points.

Simulationism is a Virtual world, Immersion by the players is achieved by making sure nothing outside of the parameters of the world, and rules, is broken (except the occasional 4th wall for humour). The game rules ensure that the world and its 'defined bubble of physics' is kept whole, so the players can make decisions quickly to create a fun experience.

Now, its pretty true that not many games can achieve this, and the ones that do are sometimes so grey/bland across their system, that takes away from the game play itself. I've read from some posts, players quoting how little fun it is to create a character and then get killed in the first session, because of realism. GMs are expected to fudge the dice to keep players alive long enough for the plot to become apparent, then if the player makes a stupid move, its his own fault after that.. Not every tavern would have an old man, and not every quest should be tailored for the players level.

Now, while I tend to lean towards the Simulation, I am trying as hard as possible to find the middle ground in all three. Or.. possibly, if I was to follow other theories.. all four:

http://www.whatgamesare.com/2011/12/the-four-lenses-of-game-making.html