D&D General D&D isn't a simulation game, so what is???

[Lyxen]

This perspective always baffles me. A simulation, in order to actually BE a simulation, has to tell you something about what it's simulating. In other words, if I make a computer simulation of a car in a wind tunnel, that simulation will tell me how air moves over that car. It might be a good or a bad simulation, that's not the point. The point is, in order for it to be a simulation of a car in a wind tunnel, it HAS to tell me how the air moves over the car.

But nothing in D&D does that. Nothing in D&D answers the question of how. It barely answers what most of the time. If a character attacks a monster and hits for 5 points of damage, absolutely nothing in the system tells you anything about what just occured. Sure, you can make up some sort of narrative, but, any narrative you create is equally valid. The monster took 5 points of damage because it feels really bad about my poor swordsmanship is just as valid as I hit it with my sword.

There are two reasons for which your reasoning here is improper:

1. You have an unreasonable expectation of what a simulation means. If you really expect this, no TTRPG will ever bring you the amount of narrative that you want. Even Runequest, which will tell you that out of a 9 points blow to your leg, 3 will be absorbed by your armor, and the remaining 6 will hit you so hard that your leg is disabled and you cannot stand on it, but it's not severed or permanently incapacitated, even then you will not have the narrative of where the blow actually struck, what damage it did do, are tendons severed or not, is bone fractured, etc. And it will not differentiate between a crushing blow from a mace, a slash from a sword, or a stab from a spear unless it's a special blow, and will not differentiate with the same wound received from a spell like Disrupt. There are more realistic "real world simulation" than D&D, but there are also many very successful games that are way less detailed and a lot more abstract, they are all simulators of something, but there are various levels, D&D is somewhere in the middle of simulation but it does not make it better or worse than other games. There are games which are way more abstract but they all simulate something, with more or less details, just like flight simulators from 30 years ago were much less detailed than the ones that we have today, but they were still simulators. As for your simulation of the car in the wind tunnel, it can similarly be more or less detailed, but even a high level one is still a simulator, just not as precise a one as something with 3000000 cells.
2. You are mistaken about what D&D simulates. It does not simulate reality, it simulates fantasy worlds where wounds are very rarely detailed and are usually shrugged off in a few moments because the cinematic of the genre and its consumers demand it. See an example below.

So, in what way is D&D a simulation of anything?

D&D is a very good simulation of the genre book/movies. For example, when Aragorn goes over the cliff and falls unconscious, he realistically would have died from his injuries, but even if he did not, he would have taken weeks to be even slightly operational again. Instead, after looking weak until his horse takes in to Helm's Deep, and looking vaguely tired during the talks, he fights all night as if nothing had happened, and is even more impressive at dawn than before. This is what D&D simulates, without any level of detail, bur frankly, who the hell cares about the details of Aragorn's injuries when everyone expects - and indeed it happens - that with a short rest he will be fighting at 100% all night ?

 

[DND_Reborn]

Step 1, the step everything that's tried to make D&D into a simulation skips over with much glee and enthusiasm, is to ask what you're simulating? Earth with a vague veneer of magic sloppily smeared over it? The feel of a specific genre of fantasy replete with tropes? A specific franchise? A world of your own devising?

Great points!

1. Earth-like (gravity, food and water needed, speed of creatures, etc.) with magic/fantasy added at a low or rare level -- which is then a world of my own devising.

In D&D, I track things like encumbrance, food, water, travel times, fairly strictly. Spending money in a tavern for food and lodging isn't hand-waved away.

When I say low or rare level of magic I mean, as examples:

A) Spellcasting is rare. In D&D terms, less than 1% would ever make tier 2 or higher.

B) Most magic items are rare, but tend to be more powerful. You won't find a +1 weapon, but a dragonslaying sword sure-- if you can find it.

C) Expendable items are not as rare. Potions are not common, but a wealthy merchant or tradesman might have enough gold to buy one from an apothecary, etc. A crystal or gemstone might be used to "store" magic as a source of power, enabling a caster to cast more spells, etc.

D) Fantastic creatures are also rare, but not unknown. Inhabitants know what a dragon, werewolf, displacer beast, etc. are but might go their entire lives without ever seeing such a creature--except perhaps in a carnival show or something?

Step 2 is how deep do you want to simulate? Are you that mad lad who made Dwarf Fortress who wants to eventually simulate every cell and molecule? Are you okay with some fudging to come up with a reasonable facsimile? Are you willing to do the research into aaaalll the many discipline you will be judged and judged harshly on by the internet to simulate everything?

Deep, but not too deep?

Fudging and on-the-fly rulings to have a reasonable facsimile is fine (for the most part). Examples of things in D&D that don't model real-world things well are the aforementioned use of longbows (and crossbows! a real "heavy crossbow" would only be fired about once every 3-4 rounds in D&D, not once per round!), the idea that most flying creatures dashing would barely be able to remain aloft.

Lack of rules/systems to allow PCs to sprint or jump anything close to real-life. This isn't even including the "stretch" to heroic fantasy that I would be happy to have in the game.

I'll give you an example of movement, in 5E D&D terms, that I've been considering:

1) Base speed of medium humanoids (in general) should be 25, not 30, given the 6-second round. This allows humans to walk at 2.84 mph, instead of 3.41 (speed 30) mph. It makes the dash a jog at about 5.7 mph (a speed accepted widely as a jog).

2) Adding a "run" at x3 speed and a "sprint" around x5 or 6 provides rules for PCs to actually move. Adding considerations around duration, terrain, etc. would be easy enough without making it too complex really.

3) Actually having a simple rule for using Athletics with movement such as jumping, climbing, etc.

And speaking of climbing, even if in difficult terrain, D&D says you can climb 10 feet per round. Yeah, I don't think so...

As far as combat is concerned, again in 5E terms, I am not as hit locations, etc. unless the game has a more realistic system. But I know a lot of the things I would like if I continued to mod 5E would be better suited to a video game, where the game can track everything instead of the player doing it.

So, deep enough I suppose but not so deep that the round-to-round bookkeeping becomes too labourious.

Hopefully that helps.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

"I'm telling you son not to do the things I've done, walk away from trouble if you can..."

I have been down this long road and it is a waste of time. A good simulation is what ever is strong enough to hang your suspenders of disbelief from. They all break down somewhere or they become not a game.
There are two paths you can take, more complex rules, or less or at least very simple task resolution that can be coloured to fit the narrative.
I have walked this road, GURPS, Rolemaster and so on and I came back to D&D in the end.

By way of background consider wargaming.
let us day you want to model Punic War era. You can look at various battles, look at the numbers, and assign attack and defence values to the various armies that you get similar outcomes and away you go.

You can work out the manpower per meter of frontage of engagement and try and work out with the various weapons the chances of each line breaking the other. (May be experiment with reenactors) and come up with numbers

or you can have an expert on warfare of the era call it. The latter is free Kriegspiel.

All are equally valid and none are particularly realistic, at lot depends on what you want out of it.

The more complex the rules, the more to remember and more time to resolve and you will still get odd corner cases that will strike you as unrealistic. Judgement calls can be used to overwrite unrealistic elements of any given rule but that does not mean that everyone at the table will have a consensus as to what might really happen.

Edit: See also this post Me else where on ENWorld on realism

 

[Cadence]

Lack of rules/systems to allow PCs to sprint or jump anything close to real-life. This isn't even including the "stretch" to heroic fantasy that I would be happy to have in the game.

I'll give you an example of movement, in 5E D&D terms, that I've been considering:

1) Base speed of medium humanoids (in general) should be 25, not 30, given the 6-second round. This allows humans to walk at 2.84 mph, instead of 3.41 (speed 30) mph. It makes the dash a jog at about 5.7 mph (a speed accepted widely as a jog).

2) Adding a "run" at x3 speed and a "sprint" around x5 or 6 provides rules for PCs to actually move. Adding considerations around duration, terrain, etc. would be easy enough without making it too complex really.

3) Actually having a simple rule for using Athletics with movement such as jumping, climbing, etc.

And speaking of climbing, even if in difficult terrain, D&D says you can climb 10 feet per round. Yeah, I don't think so...

Whenever I start to go down this rabbit hole, I wonder how much of an effect encumbrance, height, and exhaustion have.

How does the Olympian runner/swimmer/ jumper do in a second try immediately after the first one? Fifth one of the day? After a long day of marching the day before? Without a hot tub and rubdown after?

How do they do if they're a foot shorter?

How do they do if wearing jeans and a t-shirt? A leather jacket? Carrying a sword? Wearing a 50 lb pack? Wearing plate mail? Putting any thought at all into dodging people trying to hit them with a sword?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Although I've enjoyed playing and tweaking 5E D&D, we all know it is not a simulation game. But it got me wondering, since I have heard of many other RPGs but not played many "fantasy/D&D-style" RPGs, maybe members here might know of an RPG that IS more of a simulation game?

D&D 5e I'm going to argue is a simulation game - but what it's a simulation of is previous editions of D&D and of fantasy CRPGs (most of which are based on things based on D&D). It is not in any way attempting to simulate the real world or anything that heavily outside itself.

If you want a pretty good physics sim of a game there's GURPs. If you want to simulate living in a specific dark fantasy world Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay with its careers, injuries, madness, and unique magic is good - and Runequest and Pendragon are also recommended, and The One Ring is of course excellent.

For more generic genre emulation there is, of course Fate - and I'm trying to think of a good specific game using the Apocalypse World engine (AW is of course brilliant for post-apocalyptic games, and Monsterhearts amazing - but Dungeon World is a bit of a letdown). And if heists are your thing then Blades in the Dark is incredible.

 

[Cadence]

Do people wearing armor spend less of their effort parrying and dodging than those without armor? If so, should armor wearing give a bonus to hit relative to not wearing armor?

 

[Lyxen]

Do people wearing armor spend less of their effort parrying and dodging than those without armor? If so, should armor wearing give a bonus to hit relative to not wearing armor?

Having worn fairly heavy armour for LARPs, I can tell that I'm considerably easier to hit when wearing it (it's usually compensated by gaining the capability to ignore some hits). The genre is also full of stories of heroes using their armor a bit like a shield and ignoring blows that they know are going to hit the armor, or even using their armor actively to deflect blows. I don't know whether it's realistic or was actually used by people wearing strong armor, but the problem is that D&D is not built on that paradigm at all. In RQ, you can choose not to parry to attack more if you trust that your armor is going to take blows from you, but D&D mixes up a lot of things for simplicity...

 

[DND_Reborn]

Whenever I start to go down this rabbit hole, I wonder how much of an effect encumbrance, height, and exhaustion have.

Right, but the point is we all know (hopefully) that they should have some effect, but in D&D many things that should impact other things are ignored completely.

Again, I'll reference shooing a longbow. To draw and notch an arrow, pull and aim before firing, and release, takes time. The draw weight of a longbow can vary greatly according to the user. As such, a strong archer would take a high pull weight bow because it will allow for further shots and more powerful ones. This is why, especially a longbow, should allow for a PC to add STR mod to damage instead of DEX if they want to.

Shooting a longbow is tiring. Even a trained archer will fatigue quickly if they continue to fire shot after shot. Lactic acid builds up and they quickly will find they reach muscle exhaustion and cannot shoot effectively. To maintain a decent rate of fire, a longbowman would have to decrease their rate of fire to delay fatigue. D&D doesn't model this fact at all--which is fine, it was meant to be simple. But with all this in mind, the idea of shooting 2-4 arrows in six seconds will a FULL pull is patently ridiculous.

With a shortbow, with a much less draw weight, sure, I suppose 2 shots in 6 seconds might be possible, even to maintain it, but otherwise with a longbow not at all.

Differences in arrow types should also affect range and damage. Ranges should be adjusted for "volley" attacks versus "targeted" attacks, and arrow weights are just crazy off. You would be closer to 8 flight arrows per pound and 5 war arrows per pound, not 20!

Do people wearing armor spend less of their effort parrying and dodging than those without armor? If so, should armor wearing give a bonus to hit relative to not wearing armor?

Yes, IMO after doing research and reading about the purpose of armor. However, even plate armor was VERY mobile and meant to be so. The idea you don't gain any DEX mod to AC in heavy armor is silly. You are still going to try to avoid being hit (a natural response), but because of the weight (and fatigue from wearing heavy armor) and the protection you know the armor provides, you aren't going to expend as much energy trying to avoid being hit.

For 5E, wearing armor already gives a bonus to being hit relative to not wearing armor due to the limit on the DEX mod you can apply.

But, again talking in 5E terms, if you are easier to "actually hit" while in armor, you should gain the benefit of damage reduction against all those hits--which D&D doesn't do. It models it instead by making you less likely to take damage (i.e. your higher AC). It isn't my preferred model because it causes the whole "is a hit really a hit" discussion, but I can understand the design philosophy well enough.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

I don't personally care about the level of accuracy, realism, or simulation that the OP is interested in--as I get older I usually want less detailed combat, and more focus on dramatic choices and consequences--but they made a request, and are looking for suggestions. Why bother blatantly threadcrapping by trying to talk them out of what they're interested in pursuing? Especially given that there are systems out there that are, in fact, much more simulationist than 5e?

I'm begging you to remember and accept that there are RPGs out there that aren't D&D. Pointing out that 5e doesn't do a given thing or take a certain approach doesn't have to be an invitation to constantly ride to its defense.

 

[Umbran]

This perspective always baffles me. A simulation, in order to actually BE a simulation, has to tell you something about what it's simulating. In other words, if I make a computer simulation of a car in a wind tunnel, that simulation will tell me how air moves over that car. It might be a good or a bad simulation, that's not the point. The point is, in order for it to be a simulation of a car in a wind tunnel, it HAS to tell me how the air moves over the car.

But nothing in D&D does that. Nothing in D&D answers the question of how. It barely answers what most of the time.

So, having written high energy physics simulations for research (which I mention to give context, not to claim authority over simulations, in general), I have to disagree with you. Simulations can be, and often are, constructed to give you results like the real world (the "what") without giving you accurate information about the underlying actions that bring the results about (the "how").

Indeed, when a simulation does tell you how something happens, that is usually because you already have a theoretical model, and you built the simulation to test if that model to see if it then produces the expected results.

D&D doesn't have a theoretical model underlying it, so it won't tell us how the world operates. It will only tell us the results of that operation.

Mind you, I also am not a fan of "it is a simulation, we just don't know what it is simulating" take on it - that seems to reduce the term "simulation" to meaninglessness. By that logic, the mug of tea I'm drinking is a simulation, too.