I have seen the topic come up where people suggest the characters live or die by their own actions and the luck of the dice. It seems their interpretation of Game Master (GM) is one of complete neutrality. Furthermore, it seems that favoring the PCs somehow lessens the PC’s accomplishments.
I do not subscribe to this philosophy. Furthermore, I believe it is a tell tale sign of a gamist. Perhaps that sounds too much like I am judging. It is true I do not like gamist philosophy. I have more than my fair share of baggage which unfairly prejudices me against the gamist philosophy. That is probably better left for another thread.
Does being a gamist GM equate to being more of a referee than a co-author? Surely even the most gamist GM must acknowledge they ‘win’ any GM vs. PC conflict. Does this regulate the gamist GM to unsympathetic observer? I also do not think anyone is 100% anything, so what does this mean to someone 50% narratavist 50% gamist? Where is the line in the sand between letting the rules of the system and the dice dictate the results vs. the story?
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I have seen the topic come up where people suggest the characters live or die by their own actions and the luck of the dice. It seems their interpretation of Game Master (GM) is one of complete neutrality. Furthermore, it seems that favoring the PCs somehow lessens the PC’s accomplishments.
I do not subscribe to this philosophy. Furthermore, I believe it is a tell tale sign of a gamist. Perhaps that sounds too much like I am judging. It is true I do not like gamist philosophy. I have more than my fair share of baggage which unfairly prejudices me against the gamist philosophy. That is probably better left for another thread.
Does being a gamist GM equate to being more of a referee than a co-author? Surely even the most gamist GM must acknowledge they ‘win’ any GM vs. PC conflict. Does this regulate the gamist GM to unsympathetic observer? I also do not think anyone is 100% anything, so what does this mean to someone 50% narratavist 50% gamist? Where is the line in the sand between letting the rules of the system and the dice dictate the results vs. the story?
As you decided to use 'Gamist' in a derogatory fashion, I would doubt that you are going to receive any valuable responses with this post.
I am a 'let the dice fall where they may' DM and I don't believe that the differences between the 2 are much at all. Are my games more deadly? Slightly. Are they more fun? Depends on personal opinion. My players enjoy the thrill of knowing that they could die at any time. Killed one last session, as a matter of fact. He made a blundering mistake, compounded by his poor planning and a Bar-Igura teleported away with him and proceeded to tear him up. I could've pulled punches or not teleported away but that seemed to scream 'cheesy'. He got reincarnated and managed to come back as the same thing he was (much to my disappointment).I craft a nice story and my players love the times I run.
Gamist?
Narratavist?
How about I am a DM. A damn good one too.
To crap on my style of gaming by tossing about a term like 'gamist' is pretty ridiculous. I guess your way is the only correct way to game.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Hi, CourtFool.
I guess that when I put on a DM-hat, I'm neither so much a "gamist" or a "narrativist", per se. I want my friends, the players, to have a good time. Part of that is setting up reasonable challenges for their characters, that give each PC a chance to shine somewhere along the way, and involve the kinds of encounters that I think my friends would like to work through.
So, if there's somebody who loves to figure out mysteries, I'll be more likely to put in some mysteries. If I've got a couple of people who think it's fun to play wargames with the miniatures and battlefield-manipulation magic, then I'll want to make sure that i include those kinds of encounters.
I'm a "narratist" only to the extent that I'm playing with people who like a lot of narrative facets to their game. (Greyhawk survived for a long time with parties that just show up outside the next dungeon, looking for experience points and loot.)
Part of having a good time with my friends is honesty. I may try to fool them, but I'll never lie to them.
If there isn't a secret door in the antechamber, but people stil want to search, I'll roll the dice and tell them they don't find anything, because I don't want them to be able to tell the difference between a secret door they don't find, and no secret doors at all.
But I won't roll the attack die, get a result of '20', and announce that the ogre swung and missed the PC-on-her-last-legs. If my friends find out that I'm not going to let their characters die in combat, then combat becomes a less harrowing experience, and it's not as much fun anymore.
Hi, Chris. It sounds like you assume the philosophy of your current players.
My old Army buddies and I played for three years with an open agreement that we would not kill the PCs. It never lessened combat. There was always something else on the line besides death. Something worth fighting for. I found success an equally motivating factor as surviving.
My first response is to bristle at your characterization of a gamist DM (which I consider myself more of than narrativist or simulationist), but thats probably more my issue than yours. Just note that your post comes off smacking (to me, at least) of anti-gamist agenda.
Ahem.
That said, even being more gamist, my first assumption when I sit down at the table is that the goal of everyone sitting down to play - me included - is to have fun. Period, the end, stop.
However, I also think there is "shallow" (or immediate) fun vs. "deeper" (or long-term) fun. Having a table where the PCs always succeed, regardless of their choices - while it provides some shallow fun (much like flipping on cheat mode in a video game) - doesn't provide a lot of long-term fun (in my experience, YMMV, etc etc). It might be cathartic, but over time its simply not emotionally satisfying (the deeper fun part).
That said, a player down as the victim of repeated bad luck might get some slack cut from me as a GM, whereas a player that is the victim of their own poor choices absolutely won't. (And yes, I realize that can be subjective, although typically I have the most objective view of it at the table.)
Here's the long view of it, as well: some deaths make a campaign better, not worse. Heroic, "I'll hold the pass while you get the villagers to saftey" deaths ROCK! At the conclusion of the last campaign, a group of PCs sacrificed themselves to save the world. Thats great stuff, and we'll all be talking about it for ages. Also, they can be learning experiences - another PC died earlier in the campaign, due to poor choices of the group (it wasn't even his choice), and they talk about that moment and why and have vowed not to let that happen again. You can't script that.
On the flip side, during the first adventure in a prior campaign, a character rolled poorly on a climb roll (a roll the module made them have to make) and then poorly again on a recovery roll, and fell to her death. Pointless and stupid and no one's fault (except maybe the designer). We immediately introduced a reroll mechanic (this was 3.0 prior to Action Points) and used it then and there.
As a GM I try to take pride in making sure that everyone at the table has fun, me included - and that means taking cues from players. I don't have a line in the sand, a hard and fast rule. Usually I let the dice fall where they may, unless it "feels" right to do something else. And that feel is usually all about fun.
While I'm thinking about it, though, as a player what I fear absolutely more than anything else is a DM with an agenda. If they're into their story and want certain events and actions and things to happen to further that story (ie, a strong narrativist DM - hah!), then I've learned to run for the hills. ;)
As you decided to use 'Gamist' in a derogatory fashion, I would doubt that you are going to receive any valuable responses with this post.
I guess I really need to review my post more closely. I sincerely apologize for insulting you, Fake Healer or anyone else. Please allow me an attempt to salvage this thread.
I concede I do not like the gamist approach. I also acknowledge it is no less valid than my own preference. Did I offend you by belittling the gamist approach or suggesting you are a gamist because of your style?
on RPG.net there have been "definition and label wars" lately min-maxer,
powergamer, munchkin, ruleslawyer, gamist all those things have been lobbed back and forth. people either taking pride in or offense at in turn.
gamist is pretty new to me. I guess I do not know what most people mean by it or whatever the opposite(s) would be.
I agree that the heroic death is awesome. It adds to the story and therefore I feel it is more of a Narratavist or even Simulationist trait.
Death from a botched roll on something unimportant is not fun for me. Granted this is a personal preference and if you are a fan of critical fumbles, more power to you. I just do not think it adds to the story. Does it add to a game? Sure. Failure lies in wait around every corner adding to suspense. Doesn’t that make it Gamist? Even Simulationist if you are running a realistic and/or grim campaign.
SavageRobby brings up an excellent point about Narratavists who railroad their players. I avoid them as well and I would agree that a Gamist is far less likely to railroad players. A Simulationist is just as likely, in my opinion.
I consider myself a Naratavist and I do not think I railroad my players. In fact, I take the opposite side which is probably just as bad. I give my players too much freedom and I think they often feel overwhelmed and floundering. But that is a topic for another thread.
Why is being labeled a Gamist such a bad thing? All three styles are equally valid. I think it is useful to find your preference so you easily identify others with the same preference for a better match. Yes, I do not like Gamist philosophy. I apologize if I came off as ‘putting down’ Gamists. Why should you care what I prefer? I probably do not like your religion either. :)
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The philosophy of being a DM really comes from ones gaming history and how one reacts to these situations. You DM the game that you always wanted to play in. And as anyone who has ever tried to order a single pizza with 3 or more toppings for 4 or more people can tell you, not everyone agrees on everything.
I am a Gamist DM, and sometimes, I wish I wasn't. Those times usually are when the roleplaying starts getting relaxed. Why, then, am I a gamist DM?
Because my first major DM's decided to Mary Sue one another in their own games, and because they were making a story and anything that detracted from that story was ignored or severely punished. I don't really have a term for this style, but it incorporated the ideas that the characters never died, that the story must go on, that player choices have zero effect on what they'll be fighting and that any RP that isn't interesting to them equals less XP to be garnered by those doing said RP.
My reaction to the above was at first annoyance, and then resentment. From there I wanted change, and became a Gamist DM. I allowed characters to die based on the dice, my storyline came second to the players (unless I ran an AP, but the players were warned beforehand), there were no Mary Sues and I always tried to have at least two encounters per session that each character would shine.
And at the end of the day, I can still admit that yes, my RP moments are abrupt (less than 15 minutes) and my characters are less than legendary (no chosen ones when death is prevalent). But I also admit that no one will ever walk away from my game complaining that they never had a chance to shine or that I ignored them for 12 hours.
Mary Sue: mar-ee soo; 1. v. The act of giving a person you have some relationship with more than any other person in that relationship. Example: Mary Sue gets whatever she wants. 2. n. A person who garners more attention, praise, roleplaying time and magic items than any other person in the gaming group.
I have seen the topic come up where people suggest the characters live or die by their own actions and the luck of the dice. It seems their interpretation of Game Master (GM) is one of complete neutrality. Furthermore, it seems that favoring the PCs somehow lessens the PC’s accomplishments.
When I was just an ankle biter my father once told me that nothing easily gained is worth having. That's a philosophy that has severed me well in both roleplaying and in the real world. So yes, as I GM I see my role as a neutral arbitrator of events and yes I do believe that favouring the PCs knocks them down a peg from hero to mere actor.
I do hide some die rolls that need to be hidden (secret doors, spotting, hiding etc) but all GM combat die rolls are done right there in the centre of the table for all to see. I don't fudge and my players know that.Does being a gamist GM equate to being more of a referee than a co-author? Surely even the most gamist GM must acknowledge they ‘win’ any GM vs. PC conflict. Does this regulate the gamist GM to unsympathetic observer?
I don't like jargon labels, the reason no DM is a 100% "Gamist" or whatever is because Gamist is a simplistic and artificial pigeon hole. That said I do see the role of a DM as a referee rather than a co-author. The co-authoring work I do is done before I even get to the table. As a GM I do the back ground stuff, sketch a rough plot, determine NPC motives and actions but once I'm at the table it's the players who are in control.
As for a DM 'winning' a conflict, well that's just pure nonsense from a referee point of view. How many referees win sporting contests? Or how many judges win an arts prize? In my gaming the players are completely and solely in the spotlight, they own any success or failure.You see for me, I've done all the hard work before the game. I get my entertainment by watching the players tell me a story, it maybe a classic heroes journey or for that matter a tragedy.
Part of the problem you think you perceive is the mistaken belief that a good story involves PC success. Really this is just the Hollywood movie concept of a story. There are lots of other types of stories, what about Greek tragedies, Shakespeare or even French art house films where nothing really seems to happen?
I do sympathise with the PCs but I'm not going to step in to save them just because I'm fond of a character. Frankly the death of a sympathetic character is always more poignant (ie more entertaining) than the death of a character I could not careless about and I think that goes for both the DM and the player.
The Troll
What is the definition of "gamist GM"?
I don't believe in pulling punches or beefing them up with my awesome GM skills personally, however there can still be a great deal of behind the scenes fine tuning that players don't see. Therefore, I don't see the connection?
I concede that labels are imperfect. Our names are not a complete summation of us as individuals. However, they are quite useful as a means of identifying us.
Just-A-Troll got me thinking when he said, “As for a DM 'winning' a conflict, well that's just pure nonsense from a referee point of view.” I think we are all aware that there are GMs who feel it is them vs. the players. That is a whole other issue that I think has been covered before.
What interested me is the thought that a ‘referee’ can not ‘win’. Does that mean a GM with this philosophy is decidedly not gamist? Does the label only apply to those involved in the contest or does it also apply to the impartial observers? Yes, labels are imperfect. I still think they are useful.
To those of you who let the dice fall where they may, do you ensure encounters are balanced with the capabilities of the characters? Or is the world a dangerous place where the characters can stumble into something far exceeding their capabilities?
To those of you who let the dice fall where they may, do you ensure encounters are balanced with the capabilities of the characters? Or is the world a dangerous place where the characters can stumble into something far exceeding their capabilities?
Yes ... and yes. I do my best to balance encounters they need to face (to complete a module, advance the AP, whatever). However, in my game worlds, not all encounters are ones they need to face. In fact, some they darn well better not, or they'll get crushed. I do try to do my best to let them know somehow when they're severely outclassed, and there is no "punishment" for running away (or avoiding a fight in the first place). Those are both valid strategies.
We also don't base XP on killing things and taking their stuff, so that helps the mentality as well.
As for the GSN labels, I think they're useful for describing tendencies, but thats about it. Kind of like "pocket passer" or "running quarterback" in football terms - a useful definition as far as it goes, but by no means a complete picture. It helps to provide a frame of reference for a player or GM, but it certainly doesn't define or confine them (or me).
Ron Edwards, in attempt to come up with some theory to better define roleplaying, wrote some essays on
Simulationism, Gamism and Narrativism.
It's bit 'heavy' and academic compared to the old powergamer vs storyteller vs buttkicker etc, but I found it interesting reading.
What is freaking me out the most about this post (and many I have seen recently)is that Court Fool is SERIOUS! Dang! I thought CF just mocked my posts! Now I'm thinking the guy is not just stirring the pot but a hard core GM/ DM/ Player!
My respect for Court Fool. And yeah, I think I run a game much like you do. If a die roll would wreck the story and ruin the game experience for one of my friends (all my players are my friends!)then I fudge the roll. I avoid save or die spells in D&D for that reason alone. Bad dice, end of story.
I believe a lot of my baggage comes from being in too many games where if you did not min/max your character and always make the most tactically sound decisions based on out of character knowledge you were remorselessly killed and ridiculed for being ‘stupid’.
I have to say I've been all three at various times in my career as a GM (it's been a long career, but let's not get in to that :)). At this moment in time I think I tend to be narrativist. Each has it's good and bad elements, but I try to follow the maxim 'all things in moderation'. I don't always succeed, but I try.
To that end, I see how my decision / dice roll / whatever would affect the game. Would it be fun? Bad? Advance the plot? Obviously these are often split-second decisions so they're often awry, but that's my philosophy - the game is supposed to be fun, and I try to make it so.
Labels help, I suppose, but I try to think of it as a big Venn diagram, using the labels as labels for each of the circles. I try to stay in the middle. ;)
From looking over these comments, it makes me wonder if people belonging to one "camp" or the other can all trace it back, at least in part, to a bad experience with people from the "other side."
I guess you could say I'm a Gamist, if that means what I think it means. I've always referred to my style as Referee.
Some of my early experiences with RPGs came from a DM who dropped rocks on PCs if they stepped one foot out of the storyline and frequently put in NPCs that we were meant to fight, but meant to beat us due to their overwhelming power.
I've also had gaming friends who prefer a more Narrative style because their early experiences came from having their less-than-optimal character killed over and over.
From looking over these comments, it makes me wonder if people belonging to one "camp" or the other can all trace it back, at least in part, to a bad experience with people from the "other side."
That is a very good point and I believe it goes far beyond just RPGs. For anyone who is interested, my philosophizing goes far beyond taking cheap shots are fellow gamers. Zhuangzi suggested that our perspective is colored by our past experiences.
I imagine most of us are a fairly moderate mix of all three labels. Anyone who is extreme in any category is likely shunned by most gamers.
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Labels help, I suppose, but I try to think of it as a big Venn diagram, using the labels as labels for each of the circles. I try to stay in the middle. ;)
This one gave me a chuckle only because I have a coworker that always wants to describe things in terms of Venn diagrams...and I mean everything.
I'll be honest, I prefer the narrative approach, but certainly do not think that there isn't value of at least leaning in the direction of simulationist or gamist. I have played with a DM who was 100% gamist, and frankly it's been the worst role-playing experience of my life. I've also played with a storyteller in Vampire that had a story and damnit, he was going to tell it (100% narrativist) and frankly the game got not fun when my character started to "not fit" into his narrative. My absolute best (and favorite GM) to date was a narrativist, and his ability to throw rules out the window and go with the flow when needed was legendary.
My feelings is that we're all sitting around the table to have fun. Moreover, I'm sitting down with friends to have fun. Only one of us is particularly powergamy, and the rest of us pretty much focus on non-optimized characters. That does mean that as a DM I do need to flub what's going on in order to make sure people at the table are still having fun (and frankly, 3/4 of the time, death just isn't fun). I've also killed my fair share of characters, but it was always due to it feeling right for the story, in response to a particularly gutsy (and known dangerous) move, or when the player was just being a total and complete moron.
I understand there are plenty of other styles of DMing, but apparently I'm not a terrible DM (people still come back and ask me to run games), so I think I'll stick with the style I've developed.