Quote from: jhkim on March 10, 2023, 12:31:14 PM
Hey, Alexander. I'm generally in agreement with you -- but this part feels off. I haven't played your games yet, but I've enjoyed other simulationist games like Traveller and HarnMaster - so I think I might. But I also enjoy a bunch of gamist games and dramatist games including story games and others. Those include some of my favorite games, like Monster of the Week and others. I don't like all games -- there are some that are definitely outside my taste range, but I can enjoy a pretty wide variety.

But here, you're effectively dumping on other RPGs in order to promote your style. There are a lot of different things that make RPGs special, I think. And to me, one of the things I hated about Ron Edward's GNS was how he disparaged games that other people liked, and made it out that his preferred games were somehow objectively superior and doing what RPGs are supposed to. I think you're edging too far in that direction here. 

Oh gosh. I don't mean to disparage anyone's RPGs. I have a huge collection of RPG games that I think are excellent and nothing but respect for a great number of designers who have preceded me and been my contemporaries. I called out designers by name in every game I've written that I praise.

All I'm trying to articulate is an "essentialist" aesthetic position. According to essentialism, each artistic medium has certain advantages over other mediums; those advantages form the "essence" of that medium. For instance, movies can offer enormous spectacles of light and sound. They cannot offer a close and personal view of the actor in real time. Nor can they offer 20 hours of intricate story. So, when I evaluate the greatness of movies, I prioritize (and actively seek out) movies that offer me enormous spectacle. When I go see plays, I want players that are up close and personal dramas, like David Mamet. When I watch TV shows, I prioritize those that offer me long-form storytelling. And so on. Once photography became better at photorealism than painting, the "essence" of painting became capturing momentary impressions (impressionism) or impossible angles (cubism) etc. 

As an essentialist, I believe that agency in an open world is the essence of an RPG, and that's the position I articulate. If you disagree... that's OK. I don't have a monopoly on aesthetic truth. Most people today reject essentialism, partly because postmodernism rejects essentialism on a metaphysical level, and partly because essentialists do a bad job of explaining why X is the essence and not Y. Most people favor a purely subjective aesthetic theory where "everything is good to somebody" and "it's all just taste and opinion." And that's fine. I am not going to argue with someone who believes that.

I don't find subjectivity very helpful to me as a designer or consumer or gamemaster. So I have articulated a philosophy about what I like about RPGs that guides how I design them and run them and I hope that the predictability of my style and my openness about my philosophy helps guide people who'd like my games to play them, and helps people who'd hate them, steer clear of them and not waste their money. Does that make sense?

QuoteI agree that agency is important, and that it can be expressed through simulationism. But there are a lot of situations where if properly simulated, the players do *not* have much agency -- like if they are on a one-way path, or they are given a magically-enforced quest, or they are prisoners with only one choice of escape. It's important for simulationist agency that players have both knowledge and power to make significant choices. That is mostly on the GM, but I think it is important to recognize how rare that is, and support it in advice and preparation. 

I agree with this sentiment and discuss it in my book.

QuoteSome story game advocates suggest that the only way to have real agency is GM-like power over background, and while it's wrong, railroading continues to be a big problem in TTRPGs.

They absolutely make that claim and I think they are wrong because GNS theory is wrong. GNS theory dismisses what it calls "stance" as a second- or third-tier aspect of design, while I believe it is a central defining trait of an RPG. If you're in what they call "author stance" you're not playing an RPG, you're playing a story game, which is (IMO) as different a genre from RPG as RPG is from wargame. GNS treats "authorial agency" as identical to "actor agency" when they are distinctly different in my terms.

PS I recognize I am speaking in broad black and white terms here. Obviously the reality of all aesthetics and all games is shades of gray. Car Wars is both a wargame and an RPG. FATE is both an RPG and a storygame. And sometimes people want that hybrid experience and that's great. For purposes of announcing my simulationist manifesto, I think broad strokes are helpful in clarifying where I stand but I don't want to come off as a caricature of myself like folks sometimes do on Twitter due to the short form.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 10, 2023, 01:50:29 PMThere's nothing particularly controversial behind the idea that to emulate some genres, you'll need to back away a little from simulation and game in favor of drama, maybe even to the point of adding mechanics for drama.  After all, Hero Points have been around a long time.

The first game to have anything like Hero Points was the original Top Secret. But these points were only used to save a character from death. In effect, they were simply a replacement for hit points. But they were not created because they were needed for genre simulation, they were created because the rules system in Top Secret failed to simulate the genre that the game was ostensibly about.

Champions, OTOH, didn't have anything like Hero Points because that game was designed from the ground up to simulate comic book superhero combat. So there was no need to have a extra mechanic just to fix the game when the rules failed.

As for some sort of meta currency being required to simulate particular genres, I've long said that they are not only unnecessary, but actually inhibit what they claim to promote simply by virtue of their being a limited resource which encourages player to horde them (often to the point where the game rules add an additional complication just to force players to use them). There is nothing you can do with narrative devices that can't be done with just good GMing practices.

I'll even go one step further to state that all simulation is genre emulation. If you have a realistic military game, then your genre is milsim. If the game is going for a more Hollywood war movie feel, then that is a separate genre.

This is also why there will always be a genre defined limit on player action. You cannot run a game for any period of time if players are truly allowed to do anything they want.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 10, 2023, 01:25:15 PM
A critical hit rule can easily be all three of GDS at once in the same package.  It's dramatic when it happens, and the uncertainty of when it will happen produces tension and surprise.  It's a game mechanic that the players can try to use to their benefit or at least take into account when deciding their optimum course.  It simulates that some blows are just that much nastier than others, and when that happens is not entirely under the attacker's control.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 10, 2023, 01:25:15 PM
Push it far enough, a critical hit rule will drop one or more of the GDS elements.  It's not enough to say that because critical hits are a model in Game X, that they are still a model in Game Y, when they no longer really simulate anything directly in the setting but simply add drama or game widgets to play with.  Maybe not the best example, because it is hard to conceive a critical hit mechanic that doesn't simulate at all, but I hope it clarifies what I mean.

The example of critical hits doesn't seem directly to illustrate genre emulation. Also, here your "all three" description sounds exactly like the old GDS FAQ:

Quote4) Don't those categories overlap?
It is true that these goals are not constantly at odds. On the short term, a given conflict might happen to be both a fair challenge and realistically resolved. However, every game will have problems, including undramatic bits, unrealistic bits, and unbalanced bits. The Threefold asks about how much comparative effort you put into solving these.

Even a perfectly simulationist or gamist campaign will have dramatic bits in them. After all, people will tell stories about things that happened to them in real life, or even about what happened in a chess game they were playing. Similarly, a dramatist campaign will have some conflicts that are a fair challenge for the players, and some events that are realistic. But an equally-skilled gamist GM, who doesn't put excess effort into the quality of the story, will be able to make better challenges. Similarly, a simulationist GM, who focusses only on in-game resolutions, will be able to make things more "realistic" for that game-world.

For a critical hit mechanic, the specific implementation of a given critical hit mechanic might be more dramatic (or comedic), more realistic, or more tactically engaging.

---

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 10, 2023, 01:25:15 PM
I would suggest instead that both emulation and narrative (in the normal, useful sense of "narrative") cross all the GDS boundaries.  Or to confine it to emulation in particular, the simulation can emulate, the game can emulate, and the dramatics can emulate.  How each one goes about it is naturally somewhat different, but the result is similar.  Maybe not as satisfying for any specific individual in some specific case, but similar.  In fact, I don't think you can really approach satisfying genre emulation in  the meatiest sense of the phrase without having the emulation driven by all three.

Can you give a more specific example of this? Your example of critical hits didn't seem to relate at all to this part of genre emulation. As I would call it in GDS terms, genre emulation is textbook dramatism. You're trying to emulate a genre. There can be different methods of achieving that goal, but they're working towards the same outcome. In the end, how well one accomplishes that goal would be in how well the feel of the genre was conveyed.

What a (f)artful deconstruction to separate the drama, narrative, and simulation from the D&D game just so that you can complain about multitasking.

Quote from: amacris on March 10, 2023, 04:25:25 PM
As an essentialist, I believe that agency in an open world is the essence of an RPG, and that's the position I articulate. If you disagree... that's OK. I don't have a monopoly on aesthetic truth. Most people today reject essentialism, partly because postmodernism rejects essentialism on a metaphysical level, and partly because essentialists do a bad job of explaining why X is the essence and not Y. Most people favor a purely subjective aesthetic theory where "everything is good to somebody" and "it's all just taste and opinion." And that's fine. I am not going to argue with someone who believes that.

I'm fine to agree to disagree about this specific essentialist position. But what I wanted to emphasize is that I can disagree with this philosophy, but still enjoy your game. You earlier posted that if someone disagreed with your position, they "won't like my games at all". I doubt that's true.

Quote from: amacris on March 10, 2023, 04:25:25 PM
According to essentialism, each artistic medium has certain advantages over other mediums; those advantages form the "essence" of that medium. For instance, movies can offer enormous spectacles of light and sound. They cannot offer a close and personal view of the actor in real time. Nor can they offer 20 hours of intricate story. So, when I evaluate the greatness of movies, I prioritize (and actively seek out) movies that offer me enormous spectacle. When I go see plays, I want players that are up close and personal dramas, like David Mamet.

There are objective differences between media, but there are different ways to interpret those that can result in different tastes. I see your position as your taste, but other people might slice things differently.

Objectively, one can get a much closer look at the actor's face in a movie than one can in a typical theater, thanks to camera close-ups. Because of this, historically, movies prompted a huge shift in acting style to emphasize more subtle emotional cues in facial expression as opposed to emphasizing voice and body. Some actors also think that having to repeat an emotional performance five times a week for months on end results in a less intense performance, compared to capturing the best take once on camera.

Also objectively, one of the objective features of live entertainment is the audience knows the performers can make a mistake or get something unexpected. That can be used for drama -- but I think it is even moreso a big part of why improv comedy, magic shows, and circus are popular genres of live entertainment. I can enjoy Mamet plays, but (for example) the last play I saw in the theater was a local production of the comedy "The Play That Goes Wrong" which was hilarious. I've enjoyed the film versions of that -- but seeing it live gave an "in-the-moment" the feeling that things really could go wrong.

The point is that there can be different interpretations of objective differences.

Quote from: amacris on March 10, 2023, 04:25:25 PM

Quote from: jhkimI agree that agency is important, and that it can be expressed through simulationism. But there are a lot of situations where if properly simulated, the players do *not* have much agency -- like if they are on a one-way path, or they are given a magically-enforced quest, or they are prisoners with only one choice of escape. It's important for simulationist agency that players have both knowledge and power to make significant choices. That is mostly on the GM, but I think it is important to recognize how rare that is, and support it in advice and preparation. 

I agree with this sentiment and discuss it in my book.

Thanks. That's "Arbiter of Worlds", right? I'm sold on getting a copy.

Quote from: jhkim on March 10, 2023, 04:56:00 PM

The example of critical hits doesn't seem directly to illustrate genre emulation. Also, here your "all three" description sounds exactly like the old GDS FAQ:

I may be using genre emulation more broadly than GDS accounts for.  I'm talking about a particular set of rules applied to a campaign, run by a GM, in whatever system is applied at the table (both written and unwritten) to evoke what the GM (and possibly players thinking on that level) want to achieve.  That is, not "4 color comics" but "4 color comics the way we people here at the table envision them in the context of the setting in which we are playing".  Because my focus is trying to drag the theory kicking and screaming back to practical cases.

Any given critical hit rule, applied to that setting, almost assuredly will shade one way or the other in favor of simulation, drama, or game.  I don't disagree with that at all.  However, in context, I'm objecting to the idea that genre emulation is merely a special case of simulation  by pointing out that just because a critical hit rule could be in Game X for mere simulation, that it therefore makes it a simulation rule.  I'd have the same objection to collapsing all of genre emulation into drama. 

Not to mention there's always the danger when deconstructing something that the essence gets lost in the shuffle.  It's almost like thinking of a biscuit (unsweetened rising bread for you non-Americans) as nothing but flour, milk, egg, and salt--as if the mixing, heating, and chemical changes related to both didn't contribute to the final thing. 

Quote from: Dispotatic254 on March 10, 2023, 05:10:47 PM
What a (f)artful deconstruction to separate the drama, narrative, and simulation from the D&D game just so that you can complain about multitasking.

I kind of have to agree with this.

In the time and place I came up with RPGs, it was just a given that as a GM you're simultaneously trying to run a game that gives players freedom to decide what they want to do, while also being a fun game, while also being "realistic" enough for suspending disbelief, and also providing the experience of an interesting story.

And we held this ideal for good reasons, even if we weren't conscious of them in the moment. First, because as human beings, these are all itches we all have that all need to be scratched from time to time. And second, because as human beings, we are also unique and all have our own different preferences. But the only time your players are going to be carbon copies of you is if you're playing with yourself. And that's the only time one gamer's preferences are the relevant measure of actual play.

Players, perhaps, have the luxury concerning themselves only with the aspects of play they enjoy. GMs, on the other hand, need to be able to play any hand they are dealt. It's a tall order for sure. It's a lot to expect from a GM. That's why we keep working at our craft and trying to get better. If you're isolating certain aspects of the RPGs as not appealing to you, not important to you, not your thang, then you're not working on it, you're not getting better at it, and you're just not as good a GM as you could be.


So I propose via mid-80's bicycle movie analogy, that there are just two cultures of TTRPGs. Falling off the bike happens in both cultures.

The difference is, the culture I come from is like Rad where Cru Jones gets back on the bike and trying again until he learns to airwalk. Even if he has to take pointers from Aunt Becky.

Weird RPG theory adherents are like Paul Reubens in Pee-wee's Big Adventure, falling off his bike and claiming "I meant to do that."

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 10, 2023, 06:28:22 PM

Quote from: jhkim on March 10, 2023, 04:56:00 PM

The example of critical hits doesn't seem directly to illustrate genre emulation. Also, here your "all three" description sounds exactly like the old GDS FAQ:

I may be using genre emulation more broadly than GDS accounts for.  I'm talking about a particular set of rules applied to a campaign, run by a GM, in whatever system is applied at the table (both written and unwritten) to evoke what the GM (and possibly players thinking on that level) want to achieve.  That is, not "4 color comics" but "4 color comics the way we people here at the table envision them in the context of the setting in which we are playing".  Because my focus is trying to drag the theory kicking and screaming back to practical cases.

Any given critical hit rule, applied to that setting, almost assuredly will shade one way or the other in favor of simulation, drama, or game.  I don't disagree with that at all.  However, in context, I'm objecting to the idea that genre emulation is merely a special case of simulation by pointing out that just because a critical hit rule could be in Game X for mere simulation, that it therefore makes it a simulation rule.  I'd have the same objection to collapsing all of genre emulation into drama.

My impression is that the genre you choose before starting the game (if by "genre" you mean anything like horror/scifi/fantasy/pulp) is going to impact your dial for simulation before you can make any adjustments. How granular you want your skill system at the price of a robust class system seems to be the biggest indicator of that without getting all "storygame" about it.

Quote
Not to mention there's always the danger when deconstructing something that the essence gets lost in the shuffle.  It's almost like thinking of a biscuit (unsweetened rising bread for you non-Americans) as nothing but flour, milk, egg, and salt--as if the mixing, heating, and chemical changes related to both didn't contribute to the final thing.

Spot on metaphor!

Quote from: Lunamancer on March 10, 2023, 07:46:30 PM

Quote from: Dispotatic254 on March 10, 2023, 05:10:47 PM
What a (f)artful deconstruction to separate the drama, narrative, and simulation from the D&D game just so that you can complain about multitasking.

I kind of have to agree with this.

In the time and place I came up with RPGs, it was just a given that as a GM you're simultaneously trying to run a game that gives players freedom to decide what they want to do, while also being a fun game, while also being "realistic" enough for suspending disbelief, and also providing the experience of an interesting story.

And we held this ideal for good reasons, even if we weren't conscious of them in the moment.

Odd phrasing, but I get it.

Quote
First, because as human beings, these are all itches we all have that all need to be scratched from time to time. And second, because as human beings, we are also unique and all have our own different preferences. But the only time your players are going to be carbon copies of you is if you're playing with yourself. And that's the only time one gamer's preferences are the relevant measure of actual play.

Players, perhaps, have the luxury concerning themselves only with the aspects of play they enjoy. GMs, on the other hand, need to be able to play any hand they are dealt. It's a tall order for sure. It's a lot to expect from a GM. That's why we keep working at our craft and trying to get better. If you're isolating certain aspects of the RPGs as not appealing to you, not important to you, not your thang, then you're not working on it, you're not getting better at it, and you're just not as good a GM as you could be.

I don't have a problem with someone liking one element more than the others, instead of a cooked biscuit we might refer to something like a Neapolitan ice-cream cone where you can prefer the vanilla over the chocolate or strawberry, but you don't buy that ice-cream to throw out two-thirds of what's there just because its not vanilla... and in a sundae it would be covered in syrups and nuts and whipped cream anyway, and also more likely in a waffle bowl (food metaphors can get too complicated).

Quote
So I propose via mid-80's bicycle movie analogy, that there are just two cultures of TTRPGs. Falling off the bike happens in both cultures.

The difference is, the culture I come from is like Rad where Cru Jones gets back on the bike and trying again until he learns to airwalk. Even if he has to take pointers from Aunt Becky.

Weird RPG theory adherents are like Paul Reubens in Pee-wee's Big Adventure, falling off his bike and claiming "I meant to do that."

You've perfectly described why sincerity is better than irony right there.

Quote from: Dispotatic254 on March 10, 2023, 10:22:24 PM
I don't have a problem with someone liking one element more than the others, instead of a cooked biscuit we might refer to something like a Neapolitan ice-cream cone where you can prefer the vanilla over the chocolate or strawberry, but you don't buy that ice-cream to throw out two-thirds of what's there just because its not vanilla... and in a sundae it would be covered in syrups and nuts and whipped cream anyway, and also more likely in a waffle bowl (food metaphors can get too complicated).

That reminded me of that episode of Seinfeld about the muffins. The PCs recognized that the top of the muffin is always the best part. And so one of the NPCs decided he would make just muffin tops. And the idea was a flop. So he asked one of the PCs where he went wrong. She explained to the NPC that you have to make the entire muffin, not just the top, in order to make the top good. I mean you really can't have a top half without a bottom half. Hilarity ensued when they also learned it's not so easy to just throw out the stumps.

Maybe there should be a goal of RPG play called Muffinism.

Quote from: Lunamancer on March 10, 2023, 07:46:30 PM
In the time and place I came up with RPGs, it was just a given that as a GM you're simultaneously trying to run a game that gives players freedom to decide what they want to do, while also being a fun game, while also being "realistic" enough for suspending disbelief, and also providing the experience of an interesting story.

I think there's an important point in here, which also explains why GNS theory "There can be only ONE (play agenda)!" was so destructive. Players typically want freedom of choice, and to be challenged, and a feeling of immersion, and a satisfying 'story' experience - though by the latter I mean something you can look back on with satisfaction, NOT the experience of in the moment story-creation promoted by Forgeists.

So in the classic dungeon delve, the players get to decide what to do, where to go, what tactics to use. They use their wits and PC resources to face the challenge. They experience the 'you are there' feeling, as if they were really walking the dungeon halls (unlike when eg playing a dungeon boardgame). At the end they return from the Underworld with their wounds and their boons, back to the World of Men. It's a miniature version of the Heroes' Journey - there's a satisfying 'story' there.

Quote from: S'mon on March 11, 2023, 02:33:46 AM
I think there's an important point in here, which also explains why GNS theory "There can be only ONE (play agenda)!" was so destructive. Players typically want freedom of choice, and to be challenged, and a feeling of immersion, and a satisfying 'story' experience - though by the latter I mean something you can look back on with satisfaction, NOT the experience of in the moment story-creation promoted by Forgeists.

100% spot on. I've been yelling at the Forge types for over 20 years over exactly that point. But the fact that you have to stop and clarify what you mean by story shows that their bad seeds are still bearing rotten fruit.

I reject the idea that there's only a story in hindsight. If you're reading a story or watching a movie or something, and you pause in the middle of it, you're perfectly aware that you are experiencing a story. And the same is true when you're playing an RPG. At any moment, in realtime, you're experiencing an unfolding story.

When you're doing Foregist story creation, it's actually less obvious to me and I think more a debatable point whether you're really experiencing a story in-the-moment. And it's because the act of authoring muddies the waters. If you're reading a thriller, how much nail-biting suspense can you really feel if you're scrawling onto the margin of the page what happens next?


And I think this is the real origin of viewing "railroading" negatively. Again, in the time and place I came up in RPGs, the GM was god. Period. End of story. Go cry about your "agency" somewhere else. But even though GMs could control every step of the way how the game plays out, they usually didn't. Because they wanted to be surprised, too. They wanted to experience an unfolding story and realized it doesn't work when you're simultaneously trying to author that story.

QuoteSo in the classic dungeon delve, the players get to decide what to do, where to go, what tactics to use. They use their wits and PC resources to face the challenge. They experience the 'you are there' feeling, as if they were really walking the dungeon halls (unlike when eg playing a dungeon boardgame). At the end they return from the Underworld with their wounds and their boons, back to the World of Men. It's a miniature version of the Heroes' Journey - there's a satisfying 'story' there.

Absolutely!

Quote from: Lunamancer on March 10, 2023, 11:20:53 PM

Quote from: Dispotatic254 on March 10, 2023, 10:22:24 PM
I don't have a problem with someone liking one element more than the others, instead of a cooked biscuit we might refer to something like a Neapolitan ice-cream cone where you can prefer the vanilla over the chocolate or strawberry, but you don't buy that ice-cream to throw out two-thirds of what's there just because its not vanilla... and in a sundae it would be covered in syrups and nuts and whipped cream anyway, and also more likely in a waffle bowl (food metaphors can get too complicated).

That reminded me of that episode of Seinfeld about the muffins. The PCs recognized that the top of the muffin is always the best part. And so one of the NPCs decided he would make just muffin tops. And the idea was a flop. So he asked one of the PCs where he went wrong. She explained to the NPC that you have to make the entire muffin, not just the top, in order to make the top good. I mean you really can't have a top half without a bottom half. Hilarity ensued when they also learned it's not so easy to just throw out the stumps.

Maybe there should be a goal of RPG play called Muffinism.

I haven't seen that episode myself but I unerringly believe that you have imparted deep and sage wisdom of the most puissant baking arts.

Quote from: S'mon on March 11, 2023, 02:33:46 AM

Quote from: Lunamancer on March 10, 2023, 07:46:30 PM
In the time and place I came up with RPGs, it was just a given that as a GM you're simultaneously trying to run a game that gives players freedom to decide what they want to do, while also being a fun game, while also being "realistic" enough for suspending disbelief, and also providing the experience of an interesting story.

I think there's an important point in here, which also explains why GNS theory "There can be only ONE (play agenda)!" was so destructive. Players typically want freedom of choice, and to be challenged, and a feeling of immersion, and a satisfying 'story' experience - though by the latter I mean something you can look back on with satisfaction, NOT the experience of in the moment story-creation promoted by Forgeists.

So in the classic dungeon delve, the players get to decide what to do, where to go, what tactics to use. They use their wits and PC resources to face the challenge. They experience the 'you are there' feeling, as if they were really walking the dungeon halls (unlike when eg playing a dungeon boardgame). At the end they return from the Underworld with their wounds and their boons, back to the World of Men. It's a miniature version of the Heroes' Journey - there's a satisfying 'story' there.

Right. The Ron Edwards approach of classifying games into one of three GNS categories is dumb, since the standard is hybrid -- which was originally recognized in the Threefold. But having the language to talk about "this muffin is too sugary for my tastes" is useful -- when one person might want a heartier bran muffin and one person wants a sweeter blueberry muffin.

This long predates both the rgfa Threefold and Edwards' GNS. Back in the 1980s, I remember playing in D&D tournament modules at conventions as a teenager, and I felt how artificial the tournament structure was to provide fair challenge -- but other people clearly liked it. Different dungeons have a different balance of elements. The 1980s tournament dungeons put a higher priority on fair challenge, with the goal of declaring a winner among different groups who tried to get through it.

Glenn Blacow published his fourfold "Aspects of Adventure Gaming" in 1980 - of (1) Power Gaming, (2) Role-Playing, (3) Wargaming, and (4) Story Telling. Like the Threefold, he was clear that games had different hybrids of these.

Of the two D&D games I first ran at conventions back in 1985, one was a comedic romp (dramatist) - and another was a detailed dungeon with a focus on internal logic of layout.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 10, 2023, 06:28:22 PM

Quote from: jhkim on March 10, 2023, 04:56:00 PM
The example of critical hits doesn't seem directly to illustrate genre emulation. Also, here your "all three" description sounds exactly like the old GDS FAQ:

I may be using genre emulation more broadly than GDS accounts for.  I'm talking about a particular set of rules applied to a campaign, run by a GM, in whatever system is applied at the table (both written and unwritten) to evoke what the GM (and possibly players thinking on that level) want to achieve.  That is, not "4 color comics" but "4 color comics the way we people here at the table envision them in the context of the setting in which we are playing".  Because my focus is trying to drag the theory kicking and screaming back to practical cases.

To be clear, I use "genre emulation" to mean trying for the feel of a pre-existing genre of fiction like books, films, TV, etc.

It seems like you are using "genre emulation" to mean any game trying to achieve anything. Technically, one can say that there are genres of games (i.e. casino card games, Euro board games, etc.) and genres of simulation. But if one goes with that, then "genre emulation" just describes all TTRPGs that try to achieve anything. That makes the term less useful, IMO, because it doesn't describe anything that distinguishes some games from other games.

Quote from: jhkim on March 11, 2023, 03:02:30 PM
It seems like you are using "genre emulation" to mean any game trying to achieve anything. Technically, one can say that there are genres of games (i.e. casino card games, Euro board games, etc.) and genres of simulation. But if one goes with that, then "genre emulation" just describes all TTRPGs that try to achieve anything. That makes the term less useful, IMO, because it doesn't describe anything that distinguishes some games from other games.

No, that seesaws too far the other way, though I can see how what I said would create that impression.  I'm basically talking sub genre, or maybe sub, sub genre.  There's "heroic fantasy".  Then there's "heroic fantasy with a dash of sword & sorcery in a dungeon crawl" sub genre.  Or even mashups.  Mashups aren't technically a genre, but they are certainly genre emulation, in that when you start blending the sources, there is some fidelity to the various sources.

When I say that if I ran Star Wars, it would be using a customized version of the Toon engine as part parody, that's not a genre as such.  Yet, we could talk about what it would mean to tweak Toon in order to keep the parts of the space opera/space fantasy genre mixed in with wacky cartoons.  I'd be seeking emulation in a way that can be communicated.