Why use D&D for a Simulationist style Game?

[pemerton]

When the kids start debating whether Batman can dodge the playing cards, the rules offer a common ground and a set of tools with which to reach an answer.

<snip>

Because the rules are tools for answering questions about the fiction, however, they can't be separated from it. When the rules say that Batman can only throw 3 Batarangs per day, that is a statement about the fictional world. It shouldn't be necessary for the kids to dream up ad hoc rationalizations for why Batman is choosing not to throw any more Batarangs. The rules have no authority over what Batman chooses to do, only over the results of his decisions.

With due respect to Dausuul, this is a non-sequitur, and an attempt to stipulate what RPG rules must/should be rather than an attempt to examine what, historically, they actually have been.

For instance, Basic D&D says that a 1st level fighter can only take X hit points worth of damage per day, but that is not a statement about the fictional world. It is a statement at the metagame level, that gives instructions to the game players about how to resolve combats involving that fighter. To work out why the first hit which did X/2 hp of damage didn't kill the fighter, but the second hit which did X/2 hp of damge did kill the fighter, the kids have to dream up "ad hoc rationalisations" eg that the first hit was only a graze, but the second hit was a stab to the chest. The rules don't, themselves, convey any of this information.

Nor do the AD&D rules tell us why a 1st level fighter only ever gets a chance to strike one telling blow per minute, whether fighting a peasant or a demon. This is left to "ad hoc rationalisations".

Contrast, say, RQ or RM, in which the rules do convey this sort of information.

A rule that says Batamn can only throw 3 batarangs per day with any chane of success is a rule about what it is fair for the kids to have Batman do in their game. It's a bit like a rule when playing armies or cops-and-robbers that says you get 3 lives. There is no ingame explanation for why you get 1, or 3, or 10 lives. The kids have chosen a number that they think is fair and fun. The batarang-attack-rationing rule is in exactly the same category.

(Also, the rule does answer some questions about the fiction - eg it tells us whether or not Batman uses attacks other than his batarangs - it just doesn't answer all of them - eg it doesn't tell us why Batman uses attacks other than his batarangs. That is left to "ad hoc rationalisation" - which, of course, is what some of us call "playing the game".)

(I haven't met a sim espousing person though actually say they wanted these things just the anti-sim people).

1. Wound system. Lingering injuries. Etc. NO. We just want basic D&D hit points.
2. Hit location, complex plotting of combat manuevers, or anything like it. NO we just want a simple fighter. Attack, hit damage.
3. Excessively complicated tables, rules, etc... for any aspect of reality. NO. We would like some easy to use ad hoc rules that give the feel of reality in play.

Unless you think I was just making stuff up on the other recent thread that discussed these things, you have encountered such a person online - namely, me. (And if you think I'm anti-sim, then you haven't been following my posts very closely. I GMed Rolemaster for 19 years. The reason I think Ron Edwards' descriptoin of purist-for-system sim is terrific is because it captures exactly what motivated me during those 19 years. And the fact that Burning Wheel's Fight! system satisfies so many of these desiderata is part of what makes it appeal to me.)

If you go to the ICE boards you'll find many more posters like me, who want the things that you descibe as key elements of a sim game.

Rolemaster, HARP and RQ players absolutely want a wound system, a hit location system, and non-ad hoc rules. (Obviously they don't want excessively complicated tables - by definition, no one wants rules that they would judge to be excessively complicated; they want rules that are appropriately complicated.)

As far as combat manouevres are concerned, these are actually a bigger deal in 3E and PF than in RM, RQ or HARP, mostly because they have to exist parallel to the hit point rules. Whereas in RM, say, Grappling is just another crit table, inflicting debuffs in the same sort of fashion as does the Puncture or Slash crit table.

Frankly, if you are happy with abstract AC, abstract rounds, abstract action economy and abstract hit points, I don't know in what sense you are playing sim. All the classic sim games (RM, RQ, C&S, GURPS, HARP, etc) are characterised by departures from these features of D&D's combat mechanics: they introduce armour-as-damage-reduction, hit location, wounds, parrying, continuous (or at least somewhat continuous) initiative, etc.

The most sim-oriented "modern" game I know is Burning Wheel, and it's melee combat system (Fight!) is the same in nearly all these respects: hit location, wounds, parrying, continuous initiative, etc. (But like D&D (and classic Traveller), it does use armour as hit negation rather than damage reduction.)

As abstract as some of the rules in earlier editions of D&D before 4e, I still believe they hold more aspirations of simulation than 4e in many ways.

<snip>

if we were to compare multiclassing rules, for example, 4e drops a lot of the simulation aspects the previous editions held. In an effort to enable the player to create their particular character concepts, players can multiclass their fighter PC for an individual wizard spell to add to their suite of powers. There's barely even a nod to simulating a character gradually growing in wizardly power

The character grows in wizardly power - first s/he has none, then s/he has some - access to one 1st level spell. That's growth.

If the player then wants his/her PC to have access to more wizard spells via substitution feats, those feats have to be acquired (by gaining levels) and spent on new powers. That's more growth.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

For instance, Basic D&D says that a 1st level fighter can only take X hit points worth of damage per day, but that is not a statement about the fictional world.

Unless it is, which is how I would run it as a process-sim. It's just a fact of the world that this particular dude can take so much punishment before going down.

I mean, there's nothing stopping you from running it that way. I'm sure lots of people did, and still do. You could also not ​do that, if you think it's too silly.

 

[pemerton]

Unless it is, which is how I would run it as a process-sim. It's just a fact of the world that this particular dude can take so much punishment before going down.

Based on my familiarity with what I have called the "classic sim" games, and the communities around them (especially the Rolemaster and HARP communities found at the ICE boards and before that at the Guild Companion), I think there is one main reason why this is not satisfactory: it requires a notion of "punishment" that has no connection to actual, real-world biological systems.

For instance: for a real world person, being run through the chest will kill you whether or not you have a graze on your forearm. But in D&D, on the Gygaxian reading of hit points (which itself requires what [MENTION=58197]Dausuul[/MENTION] calls "ad hoc rationalisations") you never get run through until you have first had your foream grazed.

This also fails to satsify your own consistency requirement - because in the game mechanics a damage roll of 4 is different from a damage roll of 5, but in the fiction they might both mean the same thing - being run through the chest. Also, in the fiction being run through the chest is different from being grazed on the arm, but in the game mechanics these might both be represented by a damage roll of 4.

The only reading of hit points that satisfies the "consistency" requirement takes them even further from real-world bioloical systems: in effect, shaving of hit points becomes like shaving off wood or chipping away at a stone block: literal ablation which is certainly one mode of punishing certain material things (though not the only way - they can be broken without being abraded) but has no connection to biology or physiology.

 

[pemerton]

For me, the core point of [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s OP is that D&D is not a sim system in the way that GURPS, RM, RQ, C&S, HARP, etc are sim systems:

*It uses hit points rather than modelling biological injury processes;

*It uses AC rather than modelling dodging and parrying and armour absorbing/turning blows;

*It uses a sometimes baroque initiative system and action economy rather than trying to model continous motion and physical action;

*It uses classes and levels rather than some sort of skill system to try and model the diversity of human learning and knowledge/skill acquisition;

*Etc.​

These are observations, not criticisms.

Plenty of posters, on this and on previous threads, reply by saying that the D&D rules are "sim enough" for them, or give them as much sim as they feel they need, relative to complexity, or avoiding death spirals, or whatever other consideration is underpinning the compromise.

For me, the significance of this is that, once you recognise that you are compromising with sim for some other reason, how can you then look at a game that draws the line of compromise in a different place and say that - unlike your game - it is not an RPG at all? Or lacks verisimilitude in some fundamental way? It may not be a game that you want to play, because it doesn't draw the compromise where you would prefer it to be drawn. But presumably other reasonable and rational people might drawn the line of compromise somewhere else.

 

[Ratskinner]

As I use the term, it means that the outcome of any action depends solely on what the action is (within the game world), and not how you choose to represent it (with game mechanics).

Practically speaking, it means that anything (monster, item, spell, etc) must have one true set of stats which accurately reflect what it is, to ensure that it has consistent interactions with everything else within the game world. You can't have a mechanical difference between two things​ unless it reflected an actual in-game difference between those things.

By "stats", may it be presumed that you mean numbers with rules-defined utility? That is, an object isn't just "made of Iron", you need to say that it has...frex: "Hardness 20" (or maybe the rulebook says somewhere that an Iron object has "Hardness 20").

I ask because it would seem to me that, under such a rubric for internal consistency, you are faced with the prospect of writing a very large, if not ever-increasing set of rules. That is, "Hardness 20" is meaningless data without surrounding rules defining what that means or how it might interact with the other numbers on other game entities through actions. Does this (particularly your first paragraph) mean that actions must all have some kind of functional or numerical impact (or potential impact, in the case of failure) on the "true stats"? That is, is it necessary to define all actions (or categories of action)? This seems to me to be at odds with your other preference for the system to not get "caught up on details". (And maybe they just are at odds...it wouldn't be the first time.)

 

[Tony Vargas]

That would certainly meet a minimal definition for internal consistency, although I'm not sure that it would be terribly interesting as a game. Believe it or not, I actually do care about the game aspect of it, even if I hold the sim aspect as a higher priority.

Interesting, because the sim stereotype is of very detailed and realistic rules.

Practically speaking, it means that anything (monster, item, spell, etc) must have one true set of stats which accurately reflect what it is, to ensure that it has consistent interactions with everything else within the game world. You can't have a mechanical difference between two things​ unless it reflected an actual in-game difference between those things.

That would seem at odds with the answer, above: that a minimalist resolution system would be internally consistent. Now, it looks like, you'd need a mechanically unique resolution for each and every thing that has an 'in game difference.'


It's strange that a style called 'simulation' would have such a fluid and hard-to-pin-down definition.

It reminds me of Princess Bride "you keep using that word..."


I mean, what's really going on? Are there really multiple styles all fighting over being called 'sim?' Why? What's so great about the word that owning it is more important than accurately describing each style? Or is there one style of 'sim,' but it's just so complicated and nuanced that there's no way to pin it down? Or is there something else behind all the seemingly-contradictory requirements and caveats and must-haves and must-never-haves?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Based on my familiarity with what I have called the "classic sim" games, and the communities around them (especially the Rolemaster and HARP communities found at the ICE boards and before that at the Guild Companion), I think there is one main reason why this is not satisfactory: it requires a notion of "punishment" that has no connection to actual, real-world biological systems.

That's just talking verisimilitude, though - "true-to-life" -ness - which is not necessary for internal consistency. If people are trying to simulate real life, then it wouldn't be satisfactory to them. Those are the people who want lots and lots of complex rules, because they're trying to accurately represent real life which is incredibly complex.

As far as I understand the various terms and factions, the aspect which is important to me is the "process sim", which is just what I had stated - that the game mechanics reflect the reality within the game world, so you can use the game mechanics to determine what happens within the game world. Kind of like that whole "game rules as laws-of-physics" thing, which people talk about.

This also fails to satisfy your own consistency requirement - because in the game mechanics a damage roll of 4 is different from a damage roll of 5, but in the fiction they might both mean the same thing - being run through the chest. Also, in the fiction being run through the chest is different from being grazed on the arm, but in the game mechanics these might both be represented by a damage roll of 4.

That's just a simplification, looking at a single metric. You could have a light stab to the torso, or a serious wound to the arm, and have them both represented as 4 damage; in much the same way that you could have a television and a bowling ball which each weigh 15 lbs - they are similar in at least one important way.

By internal consistency, though, you could not have the same spear through the torso represented as either 4 damage or 5 damage. By definition, there would have to be something to distinguish those wounds, in order to merit the mechanical distinction - in this case, it's easy enough to say that an impalement for 5 damage is a wound that is larger and deeper than an impalement for 4 damage. If you tried to say that the same exact impalement was either 4 damage or 5 damage, and either way could be accurate, then that would be as nonsensical as saying that this one specific bowling ball weighs either 15 lbs or 12 lbs, and both numbers are accurate.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

By "stats", may it be presumed that you mean numbers with rules-defined utility? That is, an object isn't just "made of Iron", you need to say that it has...frex: "Hardness 20" (or maybe the rulebook says somewhere that an Iron object has "Hardness 20").

Numbers certainly help to maintain consistency. I mean, look at Pathfinder, with all of its fiddly little rules. Or GURPS, for that matter. Both systems go into some depth about material properties, with lots of numbers, and it certainly helps them to be more consistent. You never end up with mithral in a Pathfinder game which doesn't "behave like mithral".

You don't actually need those numbers, though, as long as what rules you do have serve to reinforce the existing truths. You don't need to know that iron has hardness 8 and 12hp per inch of thickness, as long as you know that it's strong enough to forge swords and armor but is sundered easily by adamantium. (Although, if you ever do need to figure out how much damage it takes to carve through a 5-foot thick iron wall, you would probably want to keep that consistent for the next time you have to do so.)

 

[The Crimson Binome]

That would seem at odds with the answer, above: that a minimalist resolution system would be internally consistent. Now, it looks like, you'd need a mechanically unique resolution for each and every thing that has an 'in game difference.'

Because the game rules are necessarily less complex than the underlying reality, it means you will always get some things which are different within the game world, but which use identical mechanics. You'll just never get the same thing within the game world, which uses different mechanics.

You could have a light torso wound, or a heavy arm wound, and they might both be represented as 4hp of damage. Just like you could have a baseball bat or a cricket bat, and they would each be represented with the stats for a club, because their real in-game-world differences aren't great enough to warrant mechanical distinction.

I mean, what's really going on? Are there really multiple styles all fighting over being called 'sim?' Why? What's so great about the word that owning it is more important than accurately describing each style?

Blame GNS theory. I'm usually the first person to defend it, but even I will admit that it has problems. In this case, the problem is that it's the only theory that has any popularity, so everyone tries to fit their own personal opinions into one of the three categories.

Which isn't to say that it's entirely worthless, of course. If someone was running one of those ultra-detailed games like GURPS, I could join and I would be confident in the fact that it wouldn't break internal consistency. I just can't guarantee that it would satisfy me at a gamist level.

 

[pemerton]

You could have a light stab to the torso, or a serious wound to the arm, and have them both represented as 4 damage

But neither of these wounds is fatal, whereas some 4 hp wounds are. Which is the source of the inconsistency.

That's just talking verisimilitude, though - "true-to-life" -ness - which is not necessary for internal consistency. If people are trying to simulate real life, then it wouldn't be satisfactory to them. Those are the people who want lots and lots of complex rules, because they're trying to accurately represent real life which is incredibly complex.

As far as I understand the various terms and factions, the aspect which is important to me is the "process sim", which is just what I had stated - that the game mechanics reflect the reality within the game world

My point is that all the classic "process sim" games had a conception of the processes they wanted to model that was prior to the game rules - namely, they wanted to model the processes of real-world biological and physical systems and their interactions. For instance, they want a sword fight in the game to resolve in more-or-less the way that it would in real life.

The idea that you would settle on an essentially arbitrary system of mechanics, and then read the gameworld off that, is one that I have never encountered except among a few posters on this board (you being one of them). It has no precedent in the history or culture of the classic sim RPGs.

Which is not a criticism, but an observation that I think is relevant to [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s OP. When Hussar is referring to sim play, I believe that he, like the classic sim RPGers, is assuming that we have a prior conception of the causal processes that our rules are meant to model.