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Why use D&D for a Simulationist style Game?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6349727" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>- emphasis mine</p><p></p><p>Back in the day, when I was playing AD&D and I and almost everyone else in my groups assumed that the ultimate goal was to obtain realism plus versus clearly spelled out exceptions to reality in the rules that pertained to the specifics of the game universe (magic, if you would), one of the show stopping arguments was over realism. Realism was something anyone could appeal to when they didn't feel that the rules as written or the DMs ruling matched up with reality. What for example was the realistic way for infravision to work? Was it realistic to model a dog as having much higher than written Int and Wis for the purposes of detecting invisible creatures given the dog's incredibly acute senses of smell? Just how fast could a giant eagle ferry a small army up a cliff? How long would it take for wood to cure? Bringing in a specialist book of knowledge to the table was about as good as bringing in a rule book if it had numbers that pertained to the question in play. How much weight could a 2" hemp rope lift?</p><p></p><p>Of course, quite often such an authoritative source to inform our simulation was not on hand. People relied on the best informed guess based on their prior conceptions of the causal processes. </p><p></p><p>Of course, anyone can tell you that quite often these guesses were wildly off, particularly in the case of those made by 17 year old nerds convinced they knew a little of everything. Not only were their spectacular arguments that derailed play for hours, but I'm sure a lot of gamers on these boards can tell you horror stories of GMs whose house rules and rulings were based on their prior conceptions of the causal processes where they were just wildly off base in terms of not only realism, but how well their custom smithed rules matched reality and how gameable those rules actually were.</p><p></p><p>I think we all had some ideas about what the idea rules would model that D&D didn't. For example, I was for example pretty sure that D&D needed to focus much more clearly on the value of parrying attacks. In particular, I was pretty sure that weapon length needed to be a much bigger factor in play than it was based on my experiences in fencing and weapon play. And that was just one of several areas that I felt needed revisions, if ever I could figure out a good mechanic for doing so. For example, I was pretty sure D&D needed explicit mechanics for tripping, disarming, grappling and other sorts of alternative attacks - or at least better than the ones in the DMG which were really broken (and abused by me as a DM for keeping low level monsters relevant). </p><p></p><p>Almost invariably among people with strong prior conceptions of the causal processes involved, two mechanics that repeatedly came under fire were hit points and Vancian spell casting. They didn't 'make sense'. They weren't 'realistic'. Even to the extent that 'health' could be quantized, it certainly shouldn't increase with experience. To a large extent I accepted these sorts of arguments and didn't question them, though in general, I didn't know exactly what to replace the ideas with. </p><p></p><p>It was only when I actually abandoned D&D in frustration with its lack of 'realism' and started playing and examining the alternatives, that I began to question the assumptions behind 'hit points aren't realistic'. Largely this is because I found that all the systems created by people with strong opinions that D&D wasn't realistic and who were trying hard to create process as simulation were in fact failing in that hard, and not only failing in the their goal of being more 'realistic' but producing arguably worse games. Instead of being more realistic, what they really turned out to be was the published equivalent of that guy who had house ruled a bunch of 'realistic' stuff that was really just based on his on preconceptions of what the causal processes for simulating realism should be. They weren't in fact actually the causal processes of reality. They were just preferences based on the assumption that this sort of causal process would produce more realistic answers than that sort of causal process, even if in fact the range of results and the likelihood of results no more matched reality than the simplier systems with different assumptions that they had replaced.</p><p></p><p>The problem with saying that if you don't have hit points you are more purist for sim is that life doesn't actually work like the other system whatever it is (wound tracks, inflicted conditions, etc.) either. If you step back from the individual elements of the process and looked at the inputs and outputs from a black box perspective, the ones with the more moving parts weren't necessarily doing better at producing answers to the questions. The things that they were modeling can't easily be quantified in real life either, and the individual pieces weren't necessarily any better fits to reality.</p><p></p><p>Believe it or not, this didn't initially deter me in the slightest. I was so convinced that there was a pony in their somewhere, that I just kept right on refining. You could in fact get there. I could see it. Many of the rules in GULLIVER had some basis in actual physics. It was being informed by actual reality. But it turned out that reality was ungamable. The final iteration of this, the bottom of the rabbit hole, would be turning to a physics book as the authority source for your process simulation. It became clear to me long before that that it was never going to work, and it was only then that I started putting my assumptions to the test. </p><p></p><p>Turns out hit points are just as much process sim as wound tracks and inflicted conditions. You just have to give up your biased preconceptions about what a realistic model would look like and start asking, "What is the real question I'm trying to answer in this contest/scenario?"</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6349727, member: 4937"] - emphasis mine Back in the day, when I was playing AD&D and I and almost everyone else in my groups assumed that the ultimate goal was to obtain realism plus versus clearly spelled out exceptions to reality in the rules that pertained to the specifics of the game universe (magic, if you would), one of the show stopping arguments was over realism. Realism was something anyone could appeal to when they didn't feel that the rules as written or the DMs ruling matched up with reality. What for example was the realistic way for infravision to work? Was it realistic to model a dog as having much higher than written Int and Wis for the purposes of detecting invisible creatures given the dog's incredibly acute senses of smell? Just how fast could a giant eagle ferry a small army up a cliff? How long would it take for wood to cure? Bringing in a specialist book of knowledge to the table was about as good as bringing in a rule book if it had numbers that pertained to the question in play. How much weight could a 2" hemp rope lift? Of course, quite often such an authoritative source to inform our simulation was not on hand. People relied on the best informed guess based on their prior conceptions of the causal processes. Of course, anyone can tell you that quite often these guesses were wildly off, particularly in the case of those made by 17 year old nerds convinced they knew a little of everything. Not only were their spectacular arguments that derailed play for hours, but I'm sure a lot of gamers on these boards can tell you horror stories of GMs whose house rules and rulings were based on their prior conceptions of the causal processes where they were just wildly off base in terms of not only realism, but how well their custom smithed rules matched reality and how gameable those rules actually were. I think we all had some ideas about what the idea rules would model that D&D didn't. For example, I was for example pretty sure that D&D needed to focus much more clearly on the value of parrying attacks. In particular, I was pretty sure that weapon length needed to be a much bigger factor in play than it was based on my experiences in fencing and weapon play. And that was just one of several areas that I felt needed revisions, if ever I could figure out a good mechanic for doing so. For example, I was pretty sure D&D needed explicit mechanics for tripping, disarming, grappling and other sorts of alternative attacks - or at least better than the ones in the DMG which were really broken (and abused by me as a DM for keeping low level monsters relevant). Almost invariably among people with strong prior conceptions of the causal processes involved, two mechanics that repeatedly came under fire were hit points and Vancian spell casting. They didn't 'make sense'. They weren't 'realistic'. Even to the extent that 'health' could be quantized, it certainly shouldn't increase with experience. To a large extent I accepted these sorts of arguments and didn't question them, though in general, I didn't know exactly what to replace the ideas with. It was only when I actually abandoned D&D in frustration with its lack of 'realism' and started playing and examining the alternatives, that I began to question the assumptions behind 'hit points aren't realistic'. Largely this is because I found that all the systems created by people with strong opinions that D&D wasn't realistic and who were trying hard to create process as simulation were in fact failing in that hard, and not only failing in the their goal of being more 'realistic' but producing arguably worse games. Instead of being more realistic, what they really turned out to be was the published equivalent of that guy who had house ruled a bunch of 'realistic' stuff that was really just based on his on preconceptions of what the causal processes for simulating realism should be. They weren't in fact actually the causal processes of reality. They were just preferences based on the assumption that this sort of causal process would produce more realistic answers than that sort of causal process, even if in fact the range of results and the likelihood of results no more matched reality than the simplier systems with different assumptions that they had replaced. The problem with saying that if you don't have hit points you are more purist for sim is that life doesn't actually work like the other system whatever it is (wound tracks, inflicted conditions, etc.) either. If you step back from the individual elements of the process and looked at the inputs and outputs from a black box perspective, the ones with the more moving parts weren't necessarily doing better at producing answers to the questions. The things that they were modeling can't easily be quantified in real life either, and the individual pieces weren't necessarily any better fits to reality. Believe it or not, this didn't initially deter me in the slightest. I was so convinced that there was a pony in their somewhere, that I just kept right on refining. You could in fact get there. I could see it. Many of the rules in GULLIVER had some basis in actual physics. It was being informed by actual reality. But it turned out that reality was ungamable. The final iteration of this, the bottom of the rabbit hole, would be turning to a physics book as the authority source for your process simulation. It became clear to me long before that that it was never going to work, and it was only then that I started putting my assumptions to the test. Turns out hit points are just as much process sim as wound tracks and inflicted conditions. You just have to give up your biased preconceptions about what a realistic model would look like and start asking, "What is the real question I'm trying to answer in this contest/scenario?" [/QUOTE]
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