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

[pemerton]

That's what I mean by "the rules are inviolate"

The rules I was referring to, in my contrast between a system like RM or RQ where the mechanics (aspire to) dictate the fiction and one like DW or Agon where the mechanics establish parameters around permissions to make things up, are rules in the real world.

I don't think even they need to be inviolate, personally: if a rule seems likely to produce a wonky result in a weird corner-case, the table might agree to suspend it for that moment of resolution.

But I had taken you to be referring to the (imagined) rules that operate within the fiction.

I guess I took the tone of your post to be that simulationist design is very hard; but the best-known examples (RQ, RM, C&S, Champions/Hero) have been around for a long time and still look mostly like they did 40 years ago. Whether they're fun or not is obviously a matter of taste (I GMed RM as my main RPG for about 20 years, but would never pick it up again as a GM - Burning Wheel does everything and more that I would want from RM or HARP). But they pretty much deliver what they promise on the box!

 

[pemerton]

I don't see Burning Wheel as simulationist, even though it does have quite a weight of rules that aim to simulate something envisioned to have happened in the real medieval world.

As I posted, BW uses the trappings of classic simulationist RPGs for PC build. The PC sheet would warm the cockles of a RM player's heart! The Lifepaths are amazing. As a player, you can see the internal causal logic of the system manifesting in the process of building your PC. The contrast with PC build in (say) 4e D&D, or Agon, or even Prince Valiant, is striking.

(There is also a contrast here with Torchbearer, which uses much the same basic character sheet, but uses a much less simuationist, much more "Pick one from list A, and one from list B, and . . ." approach to PC building. As befits its character as a homage to Moldvay Basic.)

But actual play of BW is not simulationist at all! There is a superficial illusion of simulation in the rules for setting DCs, and for building a dice pool (if artha are ignored); but as soon as you get to the rules for narrating failures, and the rules for using or awarding artha, it becomes evident that these key drivers of play do not have any sort of goal of modelling in-fiction causal processes.

The Riddle of Steel is similar in many ways, which is why it's fitting, and not coincidence, that Norwood wrote the Foreword for more recent editions of BW.

Possibly Traveller aims to simulate a far future and in most respects fails epically to produce anything plausible: I always took the game to aim to simulate the far future of space operas. To quibble, given the absence of the present or even past existence of the far future Traveller simulates, it should be ruled out as a simulation. (Or we need to loosen the terms we might have committed to above.)

Traveller PC build is, like BW's, highly simulationist - the lifepath process models the unfolding of the character's career. We get aging, and the notorious survival checks. (Yes, these also serve a risk-vs-reward function, but that doesn't stop them being part of the causal modelling, like RM's fumble rules.)

The combat is similarly simulationist, although light on the details of injury (swooning/lightly unconscious, in a coma, dead) and (like BW, interestingly) adopting armour-as-defence-buff as opposed to RM's and RQ's armour-as-damage-reduction.

But non-combat resolution is a mix. The patron encounter system can be understood and applied in a simulationist spirit, and so can the rules for writing computer programs. But the rules for chases (found in the Air/Raft skill entry, I think), for encounter avoidance, and for using vacc suits without incident - just to pick a few examples - are much closer to AW-style "moves" than to processes for modelling in-fiction causal processes. They set parameters around who can say what, but they don't tell us what has happened in the fiction. Someone has to make it up - usually the referee by default, though Traveller is pretty open to player input.

RQ is really one of the more perfect simulationist games. Bushido, and EPT might be others.

EPT - at least in its classic OD&D-ish version - does not strike me as simulationist very much at all. It's kind of like NWP-proficiency era AD&D, but its resolution processes don't model in-fiction causal processes, and thereby determine the fiction, very much at all.

RM and RQ aspire to have all the salient fiction yielded by the processes of action resolution. And the more they fail to meet that aspiration, the more they fail their design goal; whereas DW does not have any such design goal - it expressly embraces the notion of the GM making up fiction as part of making soft and hard moves within the parameters of permission granted by the game system.

Interesting observation! I really need to think on that.

It's the core of purist-for-system (or "process") simulation RPGing, which I think is pretty key to what the OP has in mind (though the OP isn't using that specific terminology).

I know that 3e and its descendants are thought of as "simulationist," but I don't personally think they do very well at achieving that end.

There are three reasons I don't think of 3E as a remotely successful simulationist design.

First, its core resolution framework remains AC, hp and saving throws, and these are no more simulationist in 3E than they were in Gygax's AD&D.

There are other parts of the system - its rules for combat manoeuvres and skills - that are closer to simulationist design, but they get swamped by the second and third reasons:

Reason two: PC build is not remotely any sort of attempt to model in-fiction causal processes (only prestige class requirements get even with cooee of this). At each point - building a 1st level PC, levelling up, choosing feats and multiclassing, etc - it is just "pick from list A, pick from list B". Related to this is that a PC sheet is not even close to a total picture/presentation of the PC.

Reason three: the system allows numbers to stack, and to grow, in ways which are purely mechanical in their significance but don't actually mean anything in the fiction. What is +30 natural amour, in the context of even a god of forging finding it a great task to forge +6 plate armour, which grants a bonus of around +15 to AC? It's just a number. Likewise having a +20 STR bonus, or +60 as opposed to +50 to pick pockets, etc.

 

[pemerton]

Maneuvering in battle is far different from just cruising around at "I need to get from point A to point B" speed.

I think cheetahs tend to reach their highest speeds "in battle" ie when bringing down prey. Don't they?

 

[pemerton]

Given that RM really doesn’t “simulate” reality, but just abstracts it in a more complex way, I’m not sure that changes my view here. You enjoyed the complexity in that it gave you more seeds around which to imagine things, which is cool. But it’s no more a simulation of combat than dropping watermelons off rooftops and imagining they are people is a simulation of automotive safety. (Sorry, best analogy in the moment.)

EDIT: But, yes, upon further reflection you raise a good point: my original phrasing was too narrow, and enjoyment of more complex games isn't necessarily because one enjoys the crunchiness itself. The extra details can also stimulate the imagination. But I'll stick with my claim that this doesn't make it "simulation".

Maybe what I should have said is, “More complexity still doesn’t make it a good simulation, so if that’s your goal it’s not going to succeed. But there are other perfectly good reasons for enjoying more complex games.”

I've posted a completely workable notion, upthread, of what makes a RPG a simulation. It has the virtue of broadly corresponding to Forge usage (at The Forge it is called purist-for-system simulationism) and to widespread usage on ENworld around a decade ago (when it was called process simulation).

In a simulationist RPG, applying the rules and determining outcomes tells us what the salient fiction is that comes next. In a non-simulationist RPG, applying the rules confers permissions and sets parameters for saying what happens next, but they leave it up to one of the participants to actually establish the salient fiction. Simulationist mechanics achieve this by modelling/representing the imagined in-fiction causal processes.

(That's not to say simulationist mechanics don't permit choices, but those choices should model choices that are actually being made by the relevant character in the fiction, and hence that are part of the modelling of the in-fiction causal processes.)

RM, RQ and HARP all broadly fit under this notion of simulationism. Dungeon World, Agon, T&T and Prince Valiant don't. As I posted not far upthread, Burning Wheel presents itself at first blush (ie in PC gen) as rather simulationist, but it then reveals its true non-simulationist colours when the action resolution procedures are described.

So, so far from it being necessarily false that this sort of simulationism is unattainable, it is fairly easy to attain it: just pick up a copy of RQ, RM or HARP! (Or Hero, I guess, but I don't know it anywhere near as well.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The rules I was referring to, in my contrast between a system like RM or RQ where the mechanics (aspire to) dictate the fiction and one like DW or Agon where the mechanics establish parameters around permissions to make things up, are rules in the real world.

I don't think even they need to be inviolate, personally: if a rule seems likely to produce a wonky result in a weird corner-case, the table might agree to suspend it for that moment of resolution.

But I had taken you to be referring to the (imagined) rules that operate within the fiction.

I guess I took the tone of your post to be that simulationist design is very hard; but the best-known examples (RQ, RM, C&S, Champions/Hero) have been around for a long time and still look mostly like they did 40 years ago. Whether they're fun or not is obviously a matter of taste (I GMed RM as my main RPG for about 20 years, but would never pick it up again as a GM - Burning Wheel does everything and more that I would want from RM or HARP). But they pretty much deliver what they promise on the box!

I haven't played those systems you give as examples, so I can't speak to their success, but given how often they're referenced I assume they do quite well. Overall, though, I do think simulationist design is difficult, in a way that narrativist and gamist design necessarily aren't, namely, that they have a sort of "additional requirement" outside of the question of whether they function as designed. A narrative-focused design is simply interested in whether it is effective at producing the types of narrative experiences the designer seeks. A gamist-focused design is in some sense even easier, since it only needs to be "a good game"; I don't actually think that makes it easy in an absolute sense, but relative to the others, it is the easiest of the three.

Simulationism cannot just produce sensible results, though. It must be sensible at all the points between input and results, and it must be so even when subjected to unusual or unexpected inputs. That's what makes it hard. A hardcore gamist that runs into unusual or unexpected inputs is likely to just shrug and say "that's how the game works, you learn to play with the rules you have." (Though such areas are likely to get errata or updates in future revisions if they work substantially against the intended spirit of the game. This shows up a lot in how computer games are designed.) A narrativist game has more standards to meet, because it must produce an experience that reflects the right tropes, story pacing, etc. and those things are much harder to test than encounter pacing, HP recovery rates, resource schedules, etc., but those things are still in general referenced to a finite and somewhat definite list of things that need to be achieved (hence why most narrative games focus on a single genre rather than trying to capture ALL narratives EVER.) But a simulationist game can break down in its simulationism even if all the parts are working as intended, purely because you feed them data that wasn't expected or ask a question no one previously thought to ask. Your later examples with the places that 3e D&D fell down on simulation are exactly those sorts of places; the earlier ones, by comparison, are the gamist legacy of D&D that is too traditional for all but the hardest of hardcore simulationists to jettison (though you did, and still do, see a lot of people trying to rework AC as DR, for example, showing that even with some of those things, the urge toward greater simulationism is there.)

 

[dave2008]

Next, allow skills to grant variable boosts like they used to. For instance, a DC 10 Strength (Athletics) check might increase your Dash multiplier from x2 to x3, allowing you to move 120 feet (remember to add the original 30, which I included). DC 15 would be x4, for a total of 150, DC 20 is x5 for 180, and DC 25 is x6 for 210 total. At 210, you are basically Usain Bolt. Without Athletics proficiency and a decent Strength score, you aren't likely to make those higher DCs. If they seem too low, bump them all up by 5 even.

This is an interesting idea, but IMO it doesn't simulate reality. As a really strong person, trained in Athletics could in theory reach Usain bolt speeds rather frequently, and conversely Bolt would fail quite a bit. Yet, that is really not the case. The Mountain, though incredibly strong and athletic, likely couldn't catch me in a foot race, let alone Bolt. IMO, you need a specialized trait / feat (s) to do it justice. Which sounds right to me. Bolt is not only strong (but not really much stronger than me in HS - I could squat over 600 lbs) and Athletic, he is particularly gifted to run fast (additional training and/or natural talent). That isn't really covered by a broad skill check IMO.

@dave2008, FWIW I ran in high school and college as well, but my longest event was the 1/4-mile (which frankly, I hated doing when I had to!).

I started with the 200 - 400, and then moved up to the 800. That was my sweet spot. I had always had better endurance than most and better speed than most and that is a good combo for the half-mile. I only trained for it one year in HS and walked-on in college, but a heart condition sideline me and then life (aka girlfriend / partner).

 

[dave2008]

I think cheetahs tend to reach their highest speeds "in battle" ie when bringing down prey. Don't they?

No, they reach their top speed in chase. In battle, in an encounter, they are much slower. Typically barely moving at all.

 

[pemerton]

No, they reach their top speed in chase. In battle, in an encounter, they are much slower. Typically barely moving at all.

I'm not sure where you are drawing the boundary between pursuit and combat. It seems odd that a gazelle doesn't need to roll initiative when a cheetah is bearing down on it!

 

[pemerton]

I do think simulationist design is difficult, in a way that narrativist and gamist design necessarily aren't, namely, that they have a sort of "additional requirement" outside of the question of whether they function as designed. A narrative-focused design is simply interested in whether it is effective at producing the types of narrative experiences the designer seeks. A gamist-focused design is in some sense even easier, since it only needs to be "a good game"; I don't actually think that makes it easy in an absolute sense, but relative to the others, it is the easiest of the three.

Simulationism cannot just produce sensible results, though. It must be sensible at all the points between input and results, and it must be so even when subjected to unusual or unexpected inputs. That's what makes it hard.

I'm not sure the actual history of RPG design bears this out. The simulationist systems invented 40 years ago still seem to be leading exemplars of that mode of play; but really strong "story now" RPGs had to wait until fewer than 30 years ago to be invented, and fewer than 20 years ago to achieve anything like mainstream recognition.

A simulationist game doesn't always need to be robust when subject to unusual or unexpected inputs: if these are genuine corner cases, it may be possible for the system to be fudged by the GM. That's obviously not ideal, but it can be a working compromise. An understanding that players won't try and push those limits (eg that they won't set out to invent machine guns that would test the workability of archery-oriented missile fire rules) can also help here. Conversely, some crappy simulationist design comes about when a system designed for one set of parameters is extended to another - I don't think the gunfire rules in Spacemaster, for instance, are really very robust or workable, though I'm sure there's a table somewhere that once had a good time with them.

If you've never played RQ or Pendragon, I recommend that you give one of those systems a try. (I don't think RM or HARP are really viable for dippings-of-the-toes, but BRP-type systems are.) I think you might be surprised how effective they are in play; although also perhaps brutally disappointed by what happens to your PC when physical threats arise!

 

[DND_Reborn]

This is an interesting idea, but IMO it doesn't simulate reality. As a really strong person, trained in Athletics could in theory reach Usain bolt speeds rather frequently, and conversely Bolt would fail quite a bit. Yet, that is really not the case. The Mountain, though incredibly strong and athletic, likely couldn't catch me in a foot race, let alone Bolt. IMO, you need a specialized trait / feat (s) to do it justice. Which sounds right to me. Bolt is not only strong (but not really much stronger than me in HS - I could squat over 600 lbs) and Athletic, he is particularly gifted to run fast (additional training and/or natural talent). That isn't really covered by a broad skill check IMO.

Sadly true, but this unfortunately is the failing of skills in general in 5E, and especially Athletics.

Very few people who would have proficiency in Athletics would be equally adept at climbing, lifting, jumping, running, sprinting, swimming, etc.--everything this cluster-skill does, which let us not forget also is involved in combat with grappling (wrestling) and shoving. Why have it be so many different aspects of physical ability? Couldn't you just give martial classes two more skill proficiencies and let them pick their specialty? After all, wouldn't Strength be the better indicator of "general" ability in Athletics? You have 4-5 skills for the mental abilities, so why not have 4-5 for Strength: Athletics (climb/jump/swim), Brawn (lift/shove?), Grapple, Run (jog/run/sprint) or something??

After all, they didn't group deception, intimidation, and persuasion together? Yet all of those skill are really just a single skill: Influence if you look at it like Athletics, with a different method of how you influence someone-- lie to them, threaten them, or convince them.

I started with the 200 - 400, and then moved up to the 800. That was my sweet spot. I had always had better endurance than most and better speed than most and that is a good combo for the half-mile. I only trained for it one year in HS and walked-on in college, but a heart condition sideline me and then life (aka girlfriend / partner).

This emphasizes the above point. You might be fast, but I was faster. Yet you had better endurance (despite my efforts at cross-country in the fall season) so would beat me in the 800 (maybe even the 400? My best was only 52.5, so decent but not great...).

In short, I was a better sprinter in all likelihood, but you were a better runner. I also did long jump and had a best of 20.5 feet in high school, but I KNOW I didn't have a STR 20!!! Heck, back then I could barely do a single pull-up, but I could leg-press over 1,000 lbs. yet I weight just 145!

In general, for "Athletics" I was a decent climber, poor lifter (upper body) but great lifter (lower body), good jumper (my best high jump was 5'9" and I am just under 5'8" tall), good jogger (sub-5-min mile) and runner (52.5 400-m), great sprinter (10.9 100-m), and a decent swimmer, not to mention decent grappler/shover maybe...

A trait or feat for speed alone could be the good way to go, after all we have the Powerful Build trait for lifting, but I would rather see the rules/mechanics and skills be more robust to reach the goal because I don't want traits for every aspect of "Athletics".

It is one reason why I liked the skill web in Shadowrun (2e and 3e) with general skill/ specialization/ and concentrations.