Of Mooks, Plot Armor, and ttRPGs

[Umbran]

That just the "magical elf-game" argument again.

Only slightly, and I suspect not in the way you think. My position isn't "fireballs are fantasy, so you aren't simulating something realistic."

There are good reasons why most simulation games take a narrow focus on their domain - the broader the domain gets, the more heavyweight and complicated the mechanics of simulation must be. And for tabletop play, this is humans going stepwise through those mechanics. But RPGs are not limited in domain much at all.

Thus, the weight of mechanics needed to do a solid simulation of an entire fictional world in an RPG (of any genre - like, say, the Bourne movies, which are pretty solidly mundane, not magic elves) is just plain burdensome.

The compromise is typically picking the bits you really want give simulation attention. This is an entirely reasonable choice. But it compromises the sim-dominance in the game.

This doesn't mean the playstyle is "invalid". I have played too many hours of sim-heavy games to think that. It does mean that having this as the primary focus of the activity seems a weird choice that could use explanation.

I like fantasy and science fiction. I also like history. Fantasy RPGs combine these things very effectively, and I'd prefer the parts of those RPGs that correspond to reality to actual model it as closely as is practical.

I have a story I could relate about such, but it is late. Perhaps Ill get to it tomorrow.

For the record, Civilization is my favorite video game of all time. I prefer Civ V.

Civilization is awesome. No argument there.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not @Micah Sweet (obviously enough), but I think that there are some fairly straightforward answers to this question, which deny the premise.

As a GM, and the author of a setting, if you want to find out what happens when people are "let loose" in your world, then RPGs are quite good for that.

As a player, if you want to find out what happens as you (via your PC-avatar) wander around a world, and you want a type of response that is more nuanced then a computer game might provide, then RPGs are also quite good.

I'd expect that the first of these, at least, is something that Micah Sweet could relate to.

I'm actually pretty good with both.

 

[Lanefan]

Moreover, my own comment to Lanefan about putting the cart before the horse with trying to "merge the fantastic into the realistic" was NOT an attempt to discredit the simulationist point of view or invalidate it in anyway. Instead, my message was more about the approach of merging these things when it comes to D&D. My own opinion when it comes to D&D is that rather than trying to merge the fantastic into the realistic is the reverse: i.e., merge the realistic into the fantastic.

Personally I see the two bolded things as being pretty much the same: the intent in either case is to seamlessly merge them together.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yet, you could now be accused of tarring them all with the same brush. I mean, there are NUMEROUS examples of classical musicians and groups, even symphony orchestras of great repute, playing with rock bands, for instance.

And I think you know perfectly well I'm referring to the ones that made that claim. (If it was about the elitist reputation, the reputation is real whether justified or not).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Labeling the people whom you don't agree with as 'elitist', 'dismissive', etc. is simply failing to address their arguments, it is nothing more than ad hominem really. Not that there aren't people like that, but let them earn the label, we don't have to throw it around.

And the specific people I was referring to have earned the label. That was the point.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, but what I'm saying is that that is still a genre.

"Genres" are not a fixed set. It would be incorrect to say, "It isn't Sci-fi, it isn't Fantasy, it isn't True Crime, Noir Dectective, etc... so it is no genre at all."

"Genre" is more like "identifiable style" - your set of expectations about its characteristics defines it.. So, "Fantasy actively avoiding the less naturalistic bits," winds up as a genre of its own. The fact that we can point to some sim-heavy fantasy games as a group demonstrates this.



That's fine. You can even give the popular name for it - "people with power". Heck I've run some "people with power" games. Totally a genre!

The difference is, its not being done to aim at a genre. It might end up falling in one, but I don't thing that's the same thing.

 

[Aldarc]

I've seen both "authenticity" and "verisimilitude" used in the past. It should be noted than depending on exactly what its being discussed for simulation the distinction between those and "realism" can be--subtle. The useful reason to substitute them is it largely allows avoidance of some of the all-or-nothing discussions that have cropped up in this very thread.

IMHO, it's less of an "all-or-nothing" approach when it comes to "realism." As I said before, it's fine when if you know the points you are willing to subordinate realism to other game or setting needs. However, what a person thinks a realistic game/setting/system looks like can almost feel like a Rorschach test into what "realism" matters as well as what their sense of "realistic" entails.

So a world that's strong enough to stand without the PCs, or that isn't particularly interested in them or any story you're going to actually tell, is often a good sign that it's a world I, ironically, actually want to play in.

In DND terms, if I strive to just be a normal adventurer in your world-- that experience should be the hook.

This sentiment here is one reason why I think that "imaginary naturalism" works as a term for what's being described, at least in part. The world will outlast the PCs and is outside of their control. The world is unmoved by and uncaring about the PCs and their dramatic needs. And in some regards the mechanics somehow are revealing of the "nature" of the world and represent a certain truth about it.

ETA: that music argument that started as mostly innocuous hypothetical went down a weirdly hostile rabbit hole.

 

[pemerton]

ETA: that music argument that started as mostly innocuous hypothetical went down a weirdly hostile rabbit hole.

Remember, it's elitism to think that Beethoven is a better composer than Ringo Starr!

 

[Aldarc]

Remember, it's elitism to think that Beethoven is a better composer than Ringo Starr!

I would prefer not engage that point; however, some people are clearly using this digression to grind their axes about other genres of music and musicians with charges of elitism and nonexistent claims based on imaginary scenarios. I see nothing gained from this digression, but I already see a lot that has been lost in what feels like a lot of back and forth passive aggressive posting.

 

[Cadence]

I bet she wouldn't have gone there if it was about someone actually good, like John Williams.



;-)