Avrei preferito un altro thread, chi cerca "simulazionismo" questo thread non lo troverà mai... :roll:
Comunque, in breve, il simulazionismo è la celebrazione di qualcosa di preesistente. Se sia il Gamismo che il Narrativismo vertono sull'apporto PERSONALE di ciascuno (in un caso nelle scelte tematiche, in altro nelle scelte tattiche), nel Simulazionismo invece il gioco sta nell'ADEGUARSI. Ad un idea di "genere", o di "simulazione", l'idea è che la costruzione di uno specifico tipo di esperienza sia la cosa fondamentale e che gli imput personali dei giocatori, come tante formichine, siano asserviti a questa costruzione.
Faccio un esempio pratico: hai visto Evangelion (l'esempio mi è venuto in mente perchè 'ho rivisto recentemente). Beh, l'ha scritto un narrativista. Esprimere il suo imput personale sul tema ha preso la precedenza sull'adeguarsi al "canone" dei cartoni di robottoni.
Poi, come sempre accade, una creazione personale crea un genere. E ci sono i simulazionisti che poi ti fanno altri 40 anime come Evengelion...
In campo creativo, funziona sempre così. C'è il primo, che ci mette qualcosa di personale. Poi tanti altri copiano e creano "omaggi" all'opera originaria. Si potrebbe quindi dire che il primo ha un ottica narrativista e gli altri, gli "omaggiatori", simulazionista. Vista così, è veramente dura per i simulazionisti, visti come meri "scopiazzatori", ma non c'è da stupirsi: quando parliamo della creazione di film, di anime, etc, è chiaro che parliamo di un campo in cui la creatività è valutata moltissimo, e quindi è normale che sia un ottica più vicina a quella del narrativismo (magari, i produttori hanno un ottica più simulazionistica... "copiate!")
Ma il gdr non è solo creazione. C'è, nel fandom, un certo elemento di passione o vero e proprio amore per un opera PRE-ESISTENTE. Ed essendo gente che si trova per giocare, non è che si possano criticare tanto se vogliono semplicemente "giocare a Star Wars" o cose simili.
L'articolo sul Simulazionismo su The Forge è il più vecchio, e anche il più superato. (tanto per fare un esempio, all'epoca di quell'articolo si tendeva a considerare gran parte del gioco "tradizionale" simulazionista, mentre invece poi con la definizione di Zilchplay e un ottica diversa sull'incoerenza adesso il gdr tradizionale viene considerato in gran parte incoerente o zilchplay, e del rimanente la parte del leone la fa il gamismo. Il simulazionismo vero e proprio è molto, molto più raro di quanto sembrava quando fu scritto quell'articolo.
Alcune "correzioni" o spiegazioni migliori sul simulazionismo si trovano negli articoli successivi. Per esempio, dall'
articolo sul narrativismo:
I receive a lot of emails like this one from Landon Darkwood:
I think I may have had a revelation.
... In your Simulationism essay, you have this: "'Story,' in this context, refers to the sequence of events that provide a payoff in terms of recognizing and enjoying the genre during play."
Is this the key to distinguishing the [Narrativist vs. Simulationist] play modes? My intepretation of this statement is that in Simulationist gaming, a long and complex story might come about and be part of play, but only for the express purpose of bringing about all the appropriate genre elements in the game as part of the internal consistency of the Dream. i.e., a Sim game Colored with elements from Chinese wuxia movies might have a multilayered story involving class conflict, people being trapped by their social position, repressed romance, heavy action, a sorcerer and his eunuch henchmen - but these are all trappings of the genre. So, their inclusion in the game, part and parcel as they are to the Dream, isn't Narrativist because no one is creating a theme that isn't already there. In other words, it's just played out as the Situation part of the Exploration; because the Dream calls for it, there just so happens to be a kind of intricacy involved.
In Narrativism, by contrast, the major source of themes are the ones that are brought to the table by the players / GM (if there is one) regardless of the genre or setting used. So, to sum up, themes in Nar play are created by the participants and that's the point; themes in Sim play are already present in the Dream, reinforced by the play, and kind of a by-product.
Am I on this now?
"In a word," I replied, "Yes."
Narrativism has a single definition, but it's difficult to articulate for people grappling with muddled RPG terminology. As far as I was concerned, not only had I presented what Landon said in "GNS and other matters of role-playing theory" (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/1/), I'd repeated it dozens of times in forum discussions. In fact, I'd said it in the message to Landon that immediately preceded this reply. But he had to say it himself, with his own use of words like "just" and "genre." I am now convinced, after many such exchanges, that an "experienced" role-player comes to this conclusion only by working it out in his or her own terms and examples. Ho lasciato l'ultimo pezzo perchè sono giunto alla stessa conclusione: la differenza fra le creative agenda ciascuno la deve "scoprire" o verificare nel proprio gioco, è difficile da capire nelle parole di altri.
Sempre dallo stesso articolo, il concetto di Pastiche nel gdr:
The other way: pastiche
What happens when you want a story but don't want to play with Story Now? Then the story becomes a feature of Exploration with the process of play being devoted to how to make it happen as expected. The participation of more than one person in the process is usually a matter of providing improvisational additions to be filtered through the primary story-person's judgment, or of providing extensive Color to the story. Under these circumstances, the typical result is pastiche: a story which recapitulates an already-existing story's theme, with many explicit references to that story.
Is pastiche necessarily bad and evil? No. Is non-pastiche necessarily incredibly good? No.
Here's a little dialogue between me and one of the first-draft readers of this essay:
Jesse: Now we come to a point of personal confusion. Pastiche. I still don't get it, in any medium. If the Situation involves "...class conflict, people being trapped by their social position, repressed romance..." and the GM lets the players resolve it anyway they like, then how is that not Narrativist?
Me: It is Narrativist. What you're describing is not pastiche, or more clearly, it typically does not produce pastiche. The key is the "resolve it any way they like" part.
Jesse: Similarly if I'm writing a story and I make a check-list of items I feel like I "need" to include to tell the "kind of" story I want to tell, and I have a character experience and resolve those things, then how have I not written a new story?
Me: You have. What you're missing is that pastiche does not do this at all - instead, it references existing works in order to re-invoke what they, originally, provided for the reader/viewer, rather than doing it on its own. Die Hard is an outstanding movie. Passenger 57 stinks on ice. Why? Because Passenger 57 is only enjoyable if it reminds you, successfully, of Die Hard. Same goes for Broken Arrow, Con Air, and a slew of similar films. [Disclosure: I do enjoy many of these films, on the basis of the "reminder" alone. - RE]
And it's not a matter of "who does it first." Die Hard works because it nails its Premise, with the explosions and one-liners all being supportive of that goal. The other movies fail to provide Premise of their own, merely using the explosions and one-liners to remind you of Die Hard, and by (putative) extension, tapping into Die Hard's Premise through association alone.
Jesse: I guess I'm having trouble resolving a couple of things. Either I can't imagine the items listed above being included in the absence of Premise or I'm too stuck on the idea that there's nothing new under the sun. I mean how many romantic comedies are written off the premise, "true love can only be found by putting aside petty differences." Are you saying that 90% of romantic comedies are just pastiche? And if you are saying that, then aren't you putting kind of a tall order up if for something to be Narrativist it has to say something totally unique that no one has ever said before?
Huh, I just noticed that I did shift focus from repetition of elements that express a Premise to repetition of Premise itself, so maybe that has something to do with my confusion.
Me: Yes, it does. With any luck my text above has helped. It's not the "new-ness" of the Premise or theme, it's its presence and power in the particular story. Pastiche has no such presence or power, just reminders of them in other stories through common motifs. Many romantic comedies are indeed pastiche (some of them quite clever), but a certain number of them are not - and whether they say the same thing as, say, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes or The Devil and Miss Jones is irrelevant. The point is whether they as self-contained stories actually do say it, or anything at all.
Jesse: I'm just still a little confused between Narrativism and Simulationism where the Situation has a lot of ethical/moral problems embedded in it and the GM uses no Force techniques to produce a specific outcome. I don't understand how Premise-expressing elements can be included and players not be considered addressing a Premise when they can't resolve the Situation without doing so.
Me: There is no such Simulationism. You're confused between Narrativism and Narrativism, looking for a difference when there isn't any.
My final point for this issue is that creating pastiche is primarily a form of fandom, pure homage to an existing body of work. Most High Concept Simulationist play gravitates toward it, and some game texts are explicitly about nothing else. Sempre dallo stesso articolo (sì, si capisce meglio il Simulazionismo leggendo l'articolo sul narrativismo. Come dico sempre, ciascuno specifica e costruisce sul precedente)
In all role-playing, the player-character is the lens of the Creative Agenda at work. That's right, I said all role-playing.
* Simulationist = the character "fits" - its setting, capabilities, outcomes, behavior patterns, and so on, all reinforce the Dream for everyone.
* Gamist = the character is a direct opportunity for player-strategy. Its construction doesn't hamstring the player (except with agreed-upon handicaps) and permits him or her to Step On Up.
* Narrativist = the character's predicament is how Premise is seen/felt in full, and what he does, and what happens is how a theme is realized.
Se hai letto l'essay sul simulazionsmo, qui poi c'è un errata corrige piuttosto grossa:
The grim epiphany: Narrativism and Simulationism
This section supercedes the section "El Dorado and Drift" in my essay "Simulationism: the Right to Dream" (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/).
I'll begin by identifying a very common misconception: that if enjoyable Exploration is identifiable during play, then play must be Simulationist or at least partly so. This is profoundly mistaken: if you address Premise, it's Narrativist play. Period. If the Exploration involved, no matter how intensive, hones and focuses that addressing-Premise process, then that Exploration is still Narrativist, not Simulationist.
That's why Feng Shui and Hong Kong Action Theater are hard-core, no-ambiguity Simulationist-facilitating games including their explicit homage to specific cinematic stories, and that's why The Dying Earth facilitates Narrativist play, because its Situations are loaded with the requirement for satirical, judgmental input on the part of the players.
"El Dorado" was coined by Paul Czege to indicate the impossibility of a 1:1 Simulationist:Narrativist blend, although the term was appropriated by others for the blend itself, as a desirable goal. I think some people who claim to desire such a goal in play are simply looking for Narrativism with a very strong Explorative chassis, and that the goal is not elusive at all. Such "Vanilla Narrativism" is very easy and straightforward. The key to finding it is to stop reinforcing Simulationist approaches to play. Many role-players, identified by Jesse Burneko as "Simulationist-by-habit," exhaust themselves by seeking El Dorado, racing ever faster and farther, when all they have to do is stop running, turn around, and find Vanilla Narrativism right in their grasp.
However, what about subordinate hybrids? Simulationist play works as an underpinning to Narrativist play, insofar as bits or sub-scenes of play can shift into extensive set-up or reinforcers for upcoming Bang-oriented moments. It differs from the Explorative chassis for Narrativist play, even an extensive one, in that one really has to stop addressing Premise and focus on in-game causality per se. Such scenes or details can take on an interest of their own, as with the many pages describing military hardware in a Tom Clancy novel. It's a bit risky, as one can attract (e.g.) hardware-nuts who care very little for Premise as well as Premise-nuts who get bored by one too many hardware-pages, and end up pleasing neither enough to attract them further.
Historically, this approach has been poorly implemented in role-playing texts, which swing into Simulationist phrasing extremely easily, for the reasons I describe in "Simulationism: the Right to Dream". You cannot get emergent Narrativist play specifically through putting more and more effort into perfecting the Simulationism (which requires that the Narrativism cease), no matter how "genre-faithful" or "character-faithful" it may be. I consider most efforts in this direction to become reasonably successful High-Concept Simulationism with a strong slant toward Situation, mainly useful for enjoyable pastiche but not particularly for Narrativist play at all.
The key issue is System. Narrativist play is best understood as a powerful integration and feedback between character creation and the reward system, however they may work, in that the former is merely the first step of the latter in terms of addressing Premise. Whereas the usual effect in High-Concept Simulationist play is to "fix" player-characters appropriately into the Situation for purposes of affirming the story-as-conceived, especially in terms of varying effectiveness at specific task-categories, and reward systems in these games are usually diminished and delayed to the point of absence. Games which stumbled over this issue include Fading Suns and Legend of the Five Rings, both of which require extensive Drifting to achieve even halting Narrativist play despite considerable thematic content.
The more successful primarily-Narrativist, secondarily-Simulationist hybrid designs include Obsidian, to some extent, possibly Continuum if I'm reading it right, and The Riddle of Steel as the current shining light; I also call attention to Robots & Rapiers, currently in development. 
