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

[Hussar]

As others noted, RQ has hit points. IIRC C&S has levels (my books were destroyed a few years ago by a flood). Both have been cited as simulationist.

I'd argue that it's not HP specifically that's the problem. You certainly can have sim systems that grant numerical values to various elements (whether a Body/Stamina divide system, or a HP location system like in Battletech or I'm sure there are a thousand others). It's that in D&D, HP loss doesn't tell you anything. The mechanics are not tied to any information other than the loss of HP. It's a number that goes up as you level up (again, not really simulating anything other than D&D itself - the idea that killing orcs makes us harder to kill is pure gamism) but never actually informs anything that happens in the game.

HP in combination with other systems certainly can tell us more about what is happening in the fiction as it happens. As I mentioned upthread, Battletech uses a Hit Location System with specific results for attacks. An attack that does not penetrate armor only does armor damage, and the value of the armor of that location is decreased after a hit. Missile barrage attacks are grouped into smaller sub-groups, with each subgroup striking a different location, simulating the idea of a barrage, rather than a concentrated attack like you would get from an directed energy weapon. Once you get through the armor at that location, you begin damaging internal systems in that location, potentially destroying weapons or even limbs, which again, have additional effects.

IOW, from beginning to end, I can tell you exactly what happened to that Mech and why it's now a smoking ruin on the battlefield.

THAT'S what a simulation system looks like. It seems to me that people who are arguing for D&D as a sim system haven't actually played a simulationist system before. The truly funny thing is, if you were to suggest D&D as a sim system to people who exclusively play simulation games, they'd giggle at you. The only people who think that D&D is a sim game are people who play D&D and don't play sim games.

 

[Cadence]

So, basically, AD&D. No damage types, heck, OD&D would fit here - no differentiation in damage between weapons. All you are missing is damage on a miss.

They didn't keep the player hit points secret from them in AD&D, did they?

So AD&D gets a 2.33 if 3e/5e get a 3?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Trivially. By having mechanical processes that do tell us something about the fiction. As has already mean mentioned upthread, RM and RQ are paradigm examples.

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There are also games that don't use hit points at all; attacks translate directly into wounds (usually with consequences) if they do anything considered meaningful (you can make an argument they ignore scratches and bruises below a certain threshold, but that's an issue-of-scale that's going to come up with anything). The D6 System does that with its default damage, for example, as did True20.

There seems to be some strange vibe in this thread, that the measure of quality of an RPG is that it satisfy the simulationist design paradigm. That's why in this post I've pointed out that some important designers - Gary Gygax, Robin Laws - have deliberately used resolution systems that are not simulationist, and have written explanations of how and why they are not simulationist.

Yeah. As I've noted, the original of the simulationist/dramatist/gamist triad very carefully spelled out that preferences for one (or a combination) of these were just that--preferences. They were only value judgments in the sense that a given person would place more value in one emphasis over the other, but the preferences themselves were entirely subjective.

There's also another strange vibe, that all of those players - such as @Thomas Shey and me - who stopped playing D&D back in the day because of (among other things) simulaationist preferences, were wrong about D&D: as if it really does provide the same sort of information about the fiction, via the same sorts of resolution processes, as (say) RM. Which is bizarre: systems like RM, RQ and the like were deliberate reactions to the lack of simulationist resolution in D&D combat (and other elements of the system too, like PC build). And Gygax's essays on hit points and saving throws, in his DMG, were deliberate defences of his non-simulationist design against those reactions.

I honestly wonder if its to some degree the all-things-to-all-people effect (or what I've sometimes cynically called "so its a desert topping AND a floor wax!" when I've hit it about games--originally regarding the way some Fate proponents used to push it), or the idea that somehow a game is insufficient if it doesn't serve every player and GM's purposes, so one's favorite game clearly must do that. I mean, even the one really strong combination D&D/simulation proponent in this thread admits it was/is as much that he could get players for D&D when he likely couldn't have for anything else (or, as I've put it, a wrench is a pretty lousy hammer--but if its all you've got, its all you've got).

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Consider an actual example. Looking at my copy of RM Classic Arms Law, I see that a giant warrior ant attacks with a 35 Medium Pincher attack. Let's suppose that two such ants attack a character who (via whatever previous turn of events) has been disarmed (and so can't parry), and who is wearing a chain shirt (but with no greaves or shield), and who has a +5 defensive bonus from Quickness.

The GM rolls for the ants: 36 and 69 respectively. Adding each ant's offensive bonus, and subtracting the PC's defensive bonus, we get totals of 66 and 99. Consulting the Beak/Pincher attack table, looking at the column for Armour Type 13 (chain shirt), we see results of 2 and 10AS. The "2" means that the ant has caused some bruising and surface level abrasion: the player subtracts 2 points from the character's concussion hits total, which is a figure that determines whether or not bruising and blood loss are debilitating you (upthread I posted some of its parameters: roughly, the range for humans is 20-ish to 150-ish in the conscious range, depending on the degree of body development, and 50-ish to 100-ish in the unconscious range - this is all "meat", to use the terminology of hp debates).

The "10" means that the other ant has caused slightly more serious bruising and abrasion, and the AS means that there is also a roll on Column A of the Slash Critical table. Suppose that roll comes up 58: the table says "Minor thigh wound. Foe takes 2 hits/rnd and must parry next rnd. +3 hits." So we know that the bruising/abrasion from the second ant's bite sufficient to cause 13 concussion points loss - enough to somewhat debilitate a feeble scholar but nothing that would set back Conan - and has also caused bleeding from the thigh, at 2 concussion hits per round. The rules provide further details on the debuffs to actions that flow from bleeding, how easy bleeding is to heal (1 to 5 points per round can be staunched using first aid, whereas 6 to 10 points per round are more serious and require more skilled non-magical treatment, or more powerful magic), the risks of a staunched wound reopening should strenuous activity be undertaken, etc.

Whether this PC lives, falls unconscious, or dies, we know what has happened in this 10 seconds of being bitten by giant ants. If the PC falls unconscious due to blood loss, we know where they were bleeding from, and also which ant delivered the more severe bite. The mechanical records of damage suffered - 15 concussion hits lost overall, plus 2/rd from the thigh - corresponds clearly to something that the PC is experiencing in the fiction - being worn down by bruising and abrasion, plus having a cut opened up on the thigh.

And while RQ or another hit-location oriented system would likely not give you this much detail short of a critical hit, it would still tell you if you'd actually took meaningful actual physical damage and where it was located; in fact the scope of the individual wounds would likely tell you the scope of magical healing to fully deal with the matter, even if the level had not reached impairment (and it might very well have while still not risking death appreciably).

(Though never a RM player, because, honestly, the tables put me off, I've also played other games that would have given this much data in the past--Greg Porter's first game system that was used in the first editions of Timelords, SpaceTime and WarpWorld come to mind here).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yes, because there is absolutely no space between a system that simulates nothing, gives you no information - a @pemerton rightly points out, the only thing we know is the character died, had the character not died, we'd know nothing - and a system that is so intricately detailed that only a computer could do it.

This is the argument that gets put forward every time. It's nonsensical. Heck, even a simple system that differentiated Body Points (of some sort, actually representing physical damage) and Hit Points (representing luck and everything else) would tell us a lot more about what happened than D&D does. Adding in one simple mechanic would go a long way. But D&D doesn't even have that.

My 100 HP character loses 99 HP and you cannot tell me anything about what happened. The only thing you could actually tell me is that that ONE HIT that put me over the threshhold of 0 HP might have been caused by physical trauma. Maybe.

Yeah. Even other big-amorphous-blob hit point models (as I heard someone refer to them years ago) at least tell you that hit points actually represent damage; that is to say there's not this "Well its some undefined mix of injury/luck/skill but you can never say how much or which from any given attack."

 

[Krachek]

It is very funny to talk about simulation in a fantasy universe, knowing that simulation at the base is a try to study or represent real phenomena into an abstract way.
Trying to simulate a manticore, well is an impossible task. You can guess that it should fly that or that other way, but overall it is pure fantasy and mind game. There is no hope to simulate any Manticore nor any other Monsters in DnD.

 

[Thomas Shey]

They didn't keep the player hit points secret from them in AD&D, did they?

So AD&D gets a 2.33 if 3e/5e get a 3?

Honestly, in OD&D its not even clear if the player was to generate his own hit points, let alone know their current state. I literally didn't realize until earlier this year that the OD&D book tells the GM to generate character attributes, not the player. I never actually saw this done this way, but who knows how it went elsewhere?

 

[Thomas Shey]

It is very funny to talk about simulation in a fantasy universe, knowing that simulation at the base is a try to study or represent real phenomena into an abstract way.
Trying to simulate a manticore, well is an impossible task. You can guess that it should fly that or that other way, but overall it is pure fantasy and mind game. There is no hope to simulate any Manticore nor any other Monsters in DnD.

You can, however, simulate certain elements of it, given some basic assumptions. For example, manticores, for all their chimeric oddity, are treated in myth as animal like, so you could assume they bleed, can be disabled if you do enough damage in the right places, and other things. You can't really simulate how they fly short of a lot of background development on how magic and other counterfactuals in the setting works, but just the fact they're unreal doesn't put them completely beyond simulation; something completely beyond simulation is also, effectively, beyond rules.

 

[Krachek]

You can, however, simulate certain elements of it, given some basic assumptions. For example, manticores, for all their chimeric oddity, are treated in myth as animal like, so you could assume they bleed, can be disabled if you do enough damage in the right places, and other things. You can't really simulate how they fly short of a lot of background development on how magic and other counterfactuals in the setting works, but just the fact they're unreal doesn't put them completely beyond simulation; something completely beyond simulation is also, effectively, beyond rules.

Indeed you can put various armored and equipped man vs an aggressive lion into a cage and then try to elaborate some equation to predict and reproduce the fight with different variable.
That would be a start to make a simulation of a fighter vs a manticore.
I doubt that hit points and AC will emerge as key concept from such a simulation.

 

[Oofta]

Yes, because there is absolutely no space between a system that simulates nothing, gives you no information - a @pemerton rightly points out, the only thing we know is the character died, had the character not died, we'd know nothing - and a system that is so intricately detailed that only a computer could do it.

This is the argument that gets put forward every time. It's nonsensical. Heck, even a simple system that differentiated Body Points (of some sort, actually representing physical damage) and Hit Points (representing luck and everything else) would tell us a lot more about what happened than D&D does. Adding in one simple mechanic would go a long way. But D&D doesn't even have that.

My 100 HP character loses 99 HP and you cannot tell me anything about what happened. The only thing you could actually tell me is that that ONE HIT that put me over the threshhold of 0 HP might have been caused by physical trauma. Maybe.

Meh. If you are simulating combat you can add all sorts of granularity. Ultimately though it's just fluff. Fluff that doesn't really matter if you don't want to introduce death spirals.

Different people just have different preferences on how much fluff (and corresponding overhead) is worthwhile.

You can pontificate all you want, but it's just a game and no game can truly simulate reality. That may bother you but it works for most people and for many other games.

 

[Hussar]

It is very funny to talk about simulation in a fantasy universe, knowing that simulation at the base is a try to study or represent real phenomena into an abstract way.
Trying to simulate a manticore, well is an impossible task. You can guess that it should fly that or that other way, but overall it is pure fantasy and mind game. There is no hope to simulate any Manticore nor any other Monsters in DnD.

I don't think that's right. Simulations don't necessarily study or represent real phenomena. You most certainly can simulate things that don't exist.

Good grief, the entire genre of Science Fiction is predicated on the question of what happens when you add X where X is often something that not only doesn't exist, but often can't ever exist. Dune's Spice comes to mind here. Yet writing about a universe where we have a limited substance that allows for instantaneous travel, extends life and can do all sorts of other things is quite possible.

So, no, a simulation doesn't have to be based on anything real. You just need a system which sets initial parameters (which need not be reflected in reality) and then have that system tell you information about what happens once you set things in motion.

Granted, what's a "real phenomenon" does seem to change rather a lot over time.