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lowkey13
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*Deleted by user*
So what you're saying is that their experience doesn't matter....but you care about their experience?
It's not whether you win or lose; it's how you place the blame!
Not even close. Try again.
I’m genuinely asking for clarification. You said both those things....and they seem contradictory to me. How do you reconcile them?
I’m genuinely asking for clarification. You said both those things....and they seem contradictory to me. How do you reconcile them?
Both things are not contradictory. It's all in the context. They don't matter for the purpose of determining if there is increased realism. I can personally care about what they experience without it having to do with realism at all. Those are two separate things. That's why I've said that increased realism on a particular topic won't happen in my game if it affects the enjoyment of my players.
I don't know about Max's answer to this, but I'd like to take one last stab at this, even though I addressed this before (perfect being the enemy of the good, etc.).
Think of it not in terms of a TTRPG, but in terms of a computer model of something. Let's say ... a computer model of the epidemiological spread of disease!
Now, imagine back in the day, with limits on processors. Someone would have to program a very basic, limited model. It couldn't possibly capture all the vagaries of actual disease, right? It would be exceedingly basic. Now, maybe someone would say, "Hey, why bother. That's not realistic." Because it wasn't perfect. It wasn't .... reality. But it was more real than not having any model at all.
And this is important, because once it's there, then you can at least have a conversation about how to improve that model- how to make it more real (or more authentic, or more closely matching the actual spread of disease). Get it?
It's the same here. Having a model in a TTRPG (like the disease table in 1e) is "more real" than not having it in the game. But that's not really the point; the point is that once you do that, you can then improve upon the model (or not) because you have a baseline comparator.
Because it's not all subjective. Because disease does happen and spread in a certain way, and it can be modeled.
Now, that's why people talk about whether something is "simulationist/realistic" or not. And, again, it's okay if it's not (I'd argue that TTRPGs are not very good at it, and this shouldn't be a goal). But to say that people just can't understand what this even means seems .... to me ... like sohpistry, because these are generally understood ideas and concepts. It doesn't mean it's a laudable goal, but it does mean that most people have a general idea of what is being discussed, even to the extent of going back and understanding the debates of the last several decades in TTRPGs, and the debates in wargaming as well.