Why use D&D for a Simulationist style Game?

[Jester David]

This is a Granny Smith vs Golden Delicious argument.


When you compare two things pulled from a very narrow selection, you will always be able to find the differences. No matter how similar things are, you can always find differences. Granny Smith apples are more green while Golden Delicious are yellow. Smith is more bitter while Golen are softer. D&D is more abstract and GURPS is more sim.
But as soon as you widen the selection, the similarities outweigh the differences. Comparing Granny Smith and Golden Delicious to a pear reveals the former have the same size, shape, rough texture, thickness of skin, and a more similar taste. The pear has a vastly different shape, is much softer, and has a radically different taste. When you compare D&D and GURPS to something remotely comparable, like Descent or Battletech, both seem like models of simulation and verisimilitude.
But pears and apples are still pretty close. We still haven't quite hit the cliche that is apples and oranges. Which would be games as different as chess or Magic the Gathering.


D&D is has elements of sim. Because, like all RPGs, it's tied to a narrative that evokes the real world. The mechanics have to remotely match the narrative, and mechanics that are impossible to narrate become problematic.
Mearls had a good example of this in one of his Legends & Lore articles. When fighting a big monster (say a dragon) the players might opt to duck behind a pillar for cover. They don't need to know that cover exists as a mechanic or know how it works. But they're doing the action anyway because it makes sense: keep a big hunk of stone between you and the giant monster with a breath weapon. That's inherently simulationist.
The player could turn around and push over the ruined pillar, potentially bringing the roof down on the dragon. Unlike cover, there are no rules for "topping a pillar" or "roof falling on dragon" but the action can still work and have positive consequences because the game reflects the narrative.

You can't choose to hide behind a pillar in MtG, or make creative use out of the environment in Battletech. You're bound by the rules. While you can roleplay, talk in character, add a connective narrative between sessions, and the like the games are still as limited by the rules as video games.


There are less sim RPGs on the market, but these tend to be much, much less crunchy than D&D. Things like the Marvel Heroes game and, to a lesser extent, Fat, where you might not necessarily narrate individual rounds of combat and instead describe scenes. Instead of hiding behind a pillar to gain cover you instead gain cover and then describe how you gained it.

(The big exception to this being hitpoints and armour class. Which are much closer to the effect then cause abstractness of story manipulation games. You survive the hit because you had lots of hit points and the DM narrates how that worked. But those are really the exception.)

 

[evileeyore]

Why stick with it? Because to most people who play D&D, there effectively are no other RPGs.

My anecdotal evidence belies your statement.


In my last group D&D was simply the game "no one hated so much we wouldn't play it".

4 of us 'preferred' GURPS*. 1 was a Rolemaster fanatic. One was an "and girlfriend" who played whatever was on the table (good roleplayer, lousy with rules).

*Out of that 4 one was a CoC fanatic, one a CP2020 fanatic, one liked both GURPS and AD&D equally, and I'm the GURPS fanatic.

We tended to play D&D because it does mindless fantasy better (and had far more published modules and campaigns than other systems). But we did run other games (notably Shadowrun and GURPS).


My previous group played a mix of total a homebrew system (used for sci-fi military and dark fantasy games) and Masterbook games (Shatterzone and a home campaign based on Cast A Deadly Spell).


The previous group played Shadowrun, Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer Fantasy, and V:tM.


The previous group played GURPS (my high school group, I was the ST and had just discovered GURPS).


The previous group played AD&D, Star Frontiers, Gamma World, Call of Cthulhu, and D&D BECMI (because I was the DM and those were what I owned).


The previous group was my first (early '80's) and we played D&D BECMI, Rolemaster, Star Frontiers, Gamma World, Top Secret, Boot Hill, Paranoia, Call of Cthulhu, and some homebrew stuff (which was mostly us doodling about with the way rules worked).





In all but the last group (or first if you want to count it that way) the other players were involved in other gaming groups where D&D was but one system of many that they enjoyed. Indeed, I've only met a few people in my 30ish years of gaming who've only ever played one game system. And only two people who were so "invested" in playing only one system that they'd actually turn down playing another system.

 

[Tony Vargas]

My anecdotal evidence belies your statement.


In my last group D&D was simply the game "no one hated so much we wouldn't play it".

That's actually an example of his statement, not a contradiction of it. If you have a group of gamers, and the one game they can agree on playing - even if all of them would much rather play something else - is D&D, /it's effectively the only game/.

 

[evileeyore]

That's actually an example of his statement, not a contradiction of it. If you have a group of gamers, and the one game they can agree on playing - even if all of them would much rather play something else - is D&D, /it's effectively the only game/.

Somehow I failed to read one word, "effectively", when I read his post.

However my last group was a bit of an outlier to my other experiences where we played a fairly large variety of games.

 

[Hussar]

D&D is sim. And gamist. And narrative. Because D&D, more than any other RPG, is about what people do at the table with it rather than the system in isolation.

Why stick with it? Because to most people who play D&D, there effectively are no other RPGs. They don't care if some other game theoretically does something better than D&D. If they have fun playing D&D, why switch to another game?

In short, system matters far less than RPG forum theorists want to believe.

That I probably agree with. It's not that the game does X well or badly, it's that people are simply unwilling for many reasons to try anything else.

 

[Hussar]

Eh... Here's a pretty good summary of what I think most people would say...




I also think you're stuck in absolutes. I think very few gamers want a pure simulationist experience... or a pure gamist experience or even a pure narrativist experience. I think that the majority of people actually want some of each (to taste of course) in their roleplaying and thus D&D not only being the first, and the most popular but also having an "ïncoherent" design was able to scratch the itch of those who wanted a nice helping of simulationist play without being bogged down or beholden to it (Again especially when tweaked to taste) especially if it was only minor adjustments one had to make to reach the level of simulationist play you wanted in the game.

I think where I take issue here though, is that making D&D work as a simulation takes far, far more than "minor adjustments". The idea of HP being real, for example, isn't a minor adjustment, it's a complete change to the intentions of the game. Heh, to bring up a personal bugaboo, ruling that looking at a medusa turns you to stone requires actually specifically changing what the rules say.

It's not that you are making minor changes here. The changes are actually pretty wide reaching and to reach any sort of modelling, you pretty much have to change every single rule.

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]: I am curious do you feel the same way about those who were fans of 4e's nod to narrativist play? I mean there's FATE, MHR, Heroquest along with a slew of other games more suited to narrativist play much better then 4e was... so why play 4e? Honestly my theory is it's very similar to the reasons I stated above (People can derive fun in multiple ways and thus an "ïncoherent" game can often suit them better than a game that leans too heavily in one area... (even if they do favor one type of fun a little more than the others) but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts...

[/quote]

Thing is, there's a difference here. No one claims that 4e isn't narrativist right out of the box. You can't. It's right there in the rules. Those things that you claim are "anti-sim" are narrativist. You admit that 4e borrows narrativist elements do you not? The concept behind Skill Challenges is pulled straight out of narrativist games. Warlord healing, Come and Get It, and various other player driven narrative mechanics are narrativist based concepts.

In D&D, there aren't simulation mechanics to be had. They have to be added in, because when you use D&D mechanics, you rarely, if ever, model anything that is happening in the game world. All you are doing is resolving an action in a very gamist fashion.

Again, using D&D mechanics, in any edition, show me why D&D combat isn't the same as Final Fantasy combat where your character shakes slightly then an enemy has a -X HP number show up above his head. Thing is, you can't. Adding in the narrative of the combat is something you have to do, it's not part of the mechanics. The mechanics only tell you when something is alive or dead. It doesn't tell you anything in between. It could be a swashbuckling fight a la the duel in The Princess Bride, or it could be Final Fantasy 2. Mechanically, there is zero difference.

But to get that swashbuckling fight, you have to add in the narrative. 3e and 4e added in a little by using the battle map and making movement and position more important, but, that's very, very minor and not what most people point to when they talk about how D&D simulates things.

So, that's the difference for me. 4e, while it might not be the best narrative game on the market, does have, right out of the box, a number of narrativist elements. D&D, though, really doesn't have simulationist elements and never did.

 

[Hussar]

/snip



You can't choose to hide behind a pillar in MtG, or make creative use out of the environment in Battletech. You're bound by the rules. While you can roleplay, talk in character, add a connective narrative between sessions, and the like the games are still as limited by the rules as video games.


/snip

I find it interesting that you have to actually pick two non-roleplaying games to find examples of not being able to tie the narrative to the mechanics. I mean, Battletech is pure simulationist as a board game. You are looking at a tabletop war game. That's about as rooted in sim play as it gets. It might have some wonky bits, but, it is a simulation.

Choosing to hide behind a pillar can be done in a gamist RPG or a Narrativist one as well though. In a Gamist game, Cover gives X bonus. What that cover is, doesn't really matter, so long as you can gain cover. In a Nar game, you could claim cover and then add in the pillar (the James Bond RPG allowed you to spend Bond points on exactly this), or you could use the pillar and gain cover as needed.

None of that is particularly simulationist. Sim play is not "How do we make a coherent story". Sim play isn't concerned overly with story elements. Sim play is a means to model HOW something happens in play. If your only concern is hiding behind something and gaining cover, all three styles can do that quite easily. Heck, even Battletech has cover rules. MtG, true, doesn't since it's far too abstract to be able to deal with that.

But, in what way is MtG not a simulation of two very powerful wizards duking it out? Abstract, sure, but, I've been told that that's perfectly acceptable as a simulation, we shouldn't get bogged down in granularity. Two powerful Walkers are fighting it out using their minions that they summon. The minions are limited by their natures (so consistency is maintained) and the reality of the fight is consistent for all participants - no one can add or subtract anything. How is this different from a D&D fight between two powerful wizards?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I think where I take issue here though, is that making D&D work as a simulation takes far, far more than "minor adjustments". The idea of HP being real, for example, isn't a minor adjustment, it's a complete change to the intentions of the game.

Using HP as an objective measurement of physical toughness isn't a minor adjustment, though. It isn't an adjustment of any sort. It's just a literal reading of the rules. It doesn't accurately reflect the description of Hit Points that they give in the book, sure, but the rules of the game never adequately supported that description anyway. The rules of the game said that you lost Hit Points when someone swung a sword that overcame your armor, or when you fell off a cliff, but not when you were tired or scared or Enfeebled or cursed or any of the other things that should have caused your Hit Points to go down if they were trying to stick with their description.

Using objective Hit Points is an honest attempt to make sense of things, and it works.

In D&D, there aren't simulation mechanics to be had. They have to be added in, because when you use D&D mechanics, you rarely, if ever, model anything that is happening in the game world. All you are doing is resolving an action in a very gamist fashion.

Let's look at crafting in 3E, because those are very simple rules that probably mirror what other DMs ruled in prior editions when there were no rules for that sort of thing. At its most basic, you buy some materials and spend some time building a thing, and then make a check to see whether or not it was successful.

Would you say that's a simulation of any sort? Because I would. It's a very simple one, sure, but it's really all that you need. Anyone, no matter who they are, has to spend time and money in order to build a thing, unless there's some good in-game reason for why they don't need to - special feats or class features which allow them to spend less money for parts, or craft faster due to superior skill, or access to a ready supply of existing parts. The rules of the game reflect only the truth that exists within the game world.

 

[Hussar]

Using HP as an objective measurement of physical toughness isn't a minor adjustment, though. It isn't an adjustment of any sort. It's just a literal reading of the rules. It doesn't accurately reflect the description of Hit Points that they give in the book, sure, but the rules of the game never adequately supported that description anyway. The rules of the game said that you lost Hit Points when someone swung a sword that overcame your armor, or when you fell off a cliff, but not when you were tired or scared or Enfeebled or cursed or any of the other things that should have caused your Hit Points to go down if they were trying to stick with their description.

Using objective Hit Points is an honest attempt to make sense of things, and it works.

I think the operative word here would be, "to you". It makes sense to you. Objective HP to me are completely meaningless. A 100HP elephant and a 100 HP halfling barbarian mean that HP have no objective meaning whatsoever. Some things have lots of HP because they are really big, like an elephant or a dinosaur. Some things have lots of HP because they are really fast and nimble, like a halfling barbarian or a kobold fighter. But, HP have zero objective meaning. They are always subjective. The HP you have are based on a number of factors, most of which are "What would make this a more fun game?"

The idea that HP are objective is pretty easily disproven. And note, there are a number of things that make your HP go down without actually physically injuring you. Spells like Phantasmal Killer certainly.

Let's look at crafting in 3E, because those are very simple rules that probably mirror what other DMs ruled in prior editions when there were no rules for that sort of thing. At its most basic, you buy some materials and spend some time building a thing, and then make a check to see whether or not it was successful.

Would you say that's a simulation of any sort? Because I would. It's a very simple one, sure, but it's really all that you need. Anyone, no matter who they are, has to spend time and money in order to build a thing, unless there's some good in-game reason for why they don't need to - special feats or class features which allow them to spend less money for parts, or craft faster due to superior skill, or access to a ready supply of existing parts. The rules of the game reflect only the truth that exists within the game world.

But, that's not actually how crafting works. When you craft something, so long as you can beat the DC, you cannot fail to craft it. The only question is how long does it take you. You cannot actually fail to craft something. And, again, there is nothing being modelled here. You start with tools and sticks, spend your time and gold, and you get your arrows or armour or whatever. It's no more simulation than what you would do in Everquest. It's maybe, kinda, sorta simulating something, but, not really. As I go up levels, I can craft more complicated things, or I can craft simpler things faster, but, that's about it for the craft skill.

Never minding, of course, that in gaining those levels, I didn't have to craft anything. I can now make very excellent glassware because I killed lots of goblins.

Of course, there's always Craft's cousin, the Profession skill, which is about as far from simulation as you can get. Spend your time, make your check, make that much GP.

And, of course, you are also limiting yourself to a single edition Saelorn. D&D doesn't begin and end with 3rd edition. Non-Weapon Proficiencies in 2e were even less simulation. And 1e didn't have them at all.

You might be able to make an argument for the craft skill. I can see that. But, that's a pretty corner case element. Or, put it another way, if I remove the craft skill from D&D, a lot less tables would see much of a difference than if I added a wounds/vitality points system to D&D or changed the HP system in any way.

 

[Greg K]

D&D doesn't begin and end with 3rd edition. Non-Weapon Proficiencies in 2e were even less simulation. And 1e didn't have them at all..

Wrong. 1e did not have them in the PHB or DMG. However, it did have Non-Weapon Proficiencies. Non-Weapon Proficiencies first appeared in the 1e supplements Oriental Adventures, The Wilderness Survival Guide, and the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide.