Systems That Model The World Rather Than The Story

[Reynard]

TBH, I don't think many systems are designed as physics engines, they're designed as games, successfully or not, to be balanced, playable, and fun.

They get used that way, tho, because, whatever the intent, the rules of the game are de-facto laws of physics.
It can just end up, yknow, very Terry-Pratchet-esque physics.

It's just shorthand.

 

[pemerton]

Systems that determine emotional states of NPCs are not any better than the GM looking at the motivations and circumstances of those NPCs and deciding what happens next in that context. Not that some variable outcomes can't be informative, but I have never seen a system that takes enough inputs that in the end the GM isn't interpreting the results anyway.

I don't know that this is actually true of all morale systems (for instance), nor that the same statement couldn't be made about punching people or punching walls. But in a "simulationist" game, for better or worse we're committed to handing at least some of this to the system to determine.

What practical issues in play are caused here?

Just one example:

Rolemaster, and similar systems, pay a lot of attention to the passage of in-game time: spell casting times, ritual times, healing times, travel times, times to manufacture things (typically magic items but sometimes weapon and armour also).

In these systems, it also typically makes a big difference if someone is ambushed armed and armoured or unequipped, or (in the case of a spell-user) at the start of the day when they're full of spell points or at the end of the day when they have few or none left.

So the players pay a lot of attention to these things, build plans around them, etc.

But if the occurrence and timing of events like ambushes (ordinary ones, or scry-teleport-fry ones), visits from important people, presence of possible contacts in the market, etc is all just decided by the GM (because there is no system to support this) then the players' planning and decision-making around the parameters of time, place etc may become largely illusory.

This creates pressure, on the GM, to make decisions about these events in ways that will honour the players' decisions and planning - but that sort of approach to GMing directly undercuts the "simulationist" ethos, and there's also a real question as to what it means to honour decisions and planning in a context where its relevance/success depends so heavily on GM decision-making.

As I posted upthread, for me this is not an abstract concern. It's the hard-earned lessons of GMing 1000s of hours of Rolemaster.

 

[John Dallman]

Yeah, but how many people are going to have someone who has that experience with everything liable to come up?

Everything? Pretty much never. Enough to help? Quite often, with some effort.

 

[jdrakeh]

Two games immediately pop into my head when I think of systems meant to model a/the world first rather than the story: Chivalry & Sorcery (especially first and second edition) and HarnMaster (especially 3rd Edition and Gold, both by different publishers).

 

[Reynard]

I don't know that this is actually true of all morale systems (for instance), nor that the same statement couldn't be made about punching people or punching walls. But in a "simulationist" game, for better or worse we're committed to handing at least some of this to the system to determine.

Just one example:

Rolemaster, and similar systems, pay a lot of attention to the passage of in-game time: spell casting times, ritual times, healing times, travel times, times to manufacture things (typically magic items but sometimes weapon and armour also).

In these systems, it also typically makes a big difference if someone is ambushed armed and armoured or unequipped, or (in the case of a spell-user) at the start of the day when they're full of spell points or at the end of the day when they have few or none left.

So the players pay a lot of attention to these things, build plans around them, etc.

But if the occurrence and timing of events like ambushes (ordinary ones, or scry-teleport-fry ones), visits from important people, presence of possible contacts in the market, etc is all just decided by the GM (because there is no system to support this) then the players' planning and decision-making around the parameters of time, place etc may become largely illusory.

This creates pressure, on the GM, to make decisions about these events in ways that will honour the players' decisions and planning - but that sort of approach to GMing directly undercuts the "simulationist" ethos, and there's also a real question as to what it means to honour decisions and planning in a context where its relevance/success depends so heavily on GM decision-making.

As I posted upthread, for me this is not an abstract concern. It's the hard-earned lessons of GMing 1000s of hours of Rolemaster.

I'd prefer if we did not burn this thread into yet another argument about agency and GM authority, which seems to be the direction you're heading.

Suffice it to say that I think the system should cover how the punching works, and the participants should determine how the characters they control respond to the punching.

 

[pemerton]

Suffice it to say that I think the system should cover how the punching works, and the participants should determine how the characters they control respond to the punching.

Rolemaster has a Depression critical strike table (in RMC III) - we used it a lot in our play. In Classic Traveller, which can be played as a pretty tight "simulation" game, PCs are subject to the morale rules.

But that is distinct from the issue that I described, which caused one campaign to nearly collapse, and then finally to collapse. And developing ways of handling it was what enabled a second campaign to be resolved successfully.

 

[Reynard]

Rolemaster has a Depression critical strike table (in RMC III) - we used it a lot in our play. In Classic Traveller, which can be played as a pretty tight "simulation" game, PCs are subject to the morale rules.

I would never force players to submit to morale rules. It is up to them to play their characters.

But that is distinct from the issue that I described, which caused one campaign to nearly collapse, and then finally to collapse. And developing ways of handling it was what enabled a second campaign to be resolved successfully.

I'm glad you found a solution.

 

[Aldarc]

I would never force players to submit to morale rules. It is up to them to play their characters.

It’s why I never force players to submit to combat rules. It’s up to them to play their characters and determine when they they are physically affected. If they feel, for example, that their character would dodge that attack, then they do.

 

[Reynard]

It’s why I never force players to submit to combat rules. It’s up to them to play their characters and determine when they they are physically affected. If they feel, for example, that their character would dodge that attack, then they do.

There are games that let you do that. But they aren't "sim" games so they are beyond the scope of this thread. Thanks.

 

[pemerton]

It’s why I never force players to submit to combat rules. It’s up to them to play their characters and determine when they they are physically affected. If they feel, for example, that their character would dodge that attack, then they do.

And the slightly less tongue-in-cheek version of this is an otherwise RM-ish game that is supplemented by Fate/Hero/Action points that allow a player to "buy off" a consequence in combat, so as to preserve the player's conception of and/or desires for their PC.