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

[clearstream]

Above, I just wrote that

I think that a simulationist design wants the trap to seem in play alike to a real-world reference point for traps. We have a vein of discussion that is prioritising mandated narration. I'm not sure yet if that is right.

As a thought experiment, let's suppose that RQ comes to us with an alternative mandated narration. Hit locations are rethemed as coloured wibbles. So I have my purple wibble, my orange one and so on. Damage is rethemed as ennui. So I might have taken 2 ennui to my purple wibble. I'll call this RQ*. Just like RQ, RQ* has prescribed consequences for taking too much ennui to a wibble. When my purple wibble takes too much ennui, I can't do anything but flare about fastidiously. After two rounds of flaring about, I fall into a long funk.

The point of this thought experiment is that RQ* is mandating narration exactly as much as RQ. Everywhere RQ has pre-authored or mechanically narrowed narrative, so does RQ*. Is RQ* simulationist?

[EDIT This thought was inspired by @Hussar's thoughts on traps, which focuses on mechanics driving a specified narrative, and not the realism of those mechanics or that narrative.]

 

[Hussar]

When the ants bit M, I narrated biteyly

How do you know the ants bit M? What tells you in the mechanics that the ants bit M?

 

[Hussar]

Above, I just wrote that



As a thought experiment, let's suppose that RQ comes to us with an alternative mandated narration. Hit locations are rethemed as coloured wibbles. So I have my purple wibble, my orange one and so on. Damage is rethemed as ennui. So I might have taken 2 ennui to my purple wibble. I'll call this RQ*. Just like RQ, RQ* has prescribed consequences for taking too much ennui to a wibble. When my purple wibble takes too much ennui, I can't do anything but flare about fastidiously. After two rounds of flaring about, I fall into a long funk.

The point of this thought experiment is that RQ* is mandating narration exactly as much as RQ. Everywhere RQ has pre-authored or mechanically narrowed narrative, so does RQ*. Is RQ* simulationist?

[EDIT This thought was inspired by @Hussar's thoughts on traps, which focuses on mechanics driving a specified narrative, and not the realism of those mechanics or that narrative.]

No, it's not. Because a wibble has no meaning outside of the game. It only exists within the game. Thus, you cannot generate any meaningful narration from it. Wibble has exactly the same meaning as Hit Points. Hit Points only exist within the game and have no actual meaning any more than the suit of a card has any meaning outside of a card game. The fact that you pulled a spade or a club from a deck of cards doesn't tell you anything unless you attach some meaning to those suit beforehand.

This gets us right back to the basic disagreement I think. You seem to think that a simulation can be solely self-referential. I do not. A simulation that is only referencing the things within that simulation and does not correlate to anything about what that simulation is trying to simulate isn't a simulation. A simulation has to actually correlate to something outside of the simulation or it's not actually simulating anything.

Is this what you mean by "pre-authored words"? Because, I'm sorry, I really don't know what that means. Aren't all words pre-authored?

 

[Hussar]

Actually, thinking about it, I think I'll step back and lurk for a while. I would like to thank @clearstream for being really patient in this discussion and engaging so productively. It really has been a pleasure. But, I don't think I'm being constructive here, so, I need to take a bit of thinking time.

 

[clearstream]

How do you know the ants bit M? What tells you in the mechanics that the ants bit M?

As GM I declared ants swarming to and intent on biting M. Our fictional positioning thus was queried and all agreed that it followed. Therefore I made attack rolls taking parameters from ants and character as inputs. Some hit so I rolled pirecing damage. All along I narrated results while players narrated actions, fears, squirming etc.

The mechanics don't stand alone in RPG. Fiction + mechanics is what creates the distinctive and coherent experiences of RPGs.

 

[clearstream]

No, it's not. Because a wibble has no meaning outside of the game. It only exists within the game. Thus, you cannot generate any meaningful narration from it. Wibble has exactly the same meaning as Hit Points. Hit Points only exist within the game and have no actual meaning any more than the suit of a card has any meaning outside of a card game. The fact that you pulled a spade or a club from a deck of cards doesn't tell you anything unless you attach some meaning to those suit beforehand.

This gets us right back to the basic disagreement I think. You seem to think that a simulation can be solely self-referential. I do not. A simulation that is only referencing the things within that simulation and does not correlate to anything about what that simulation is trying to simulate isn't a simulation. A simulation has to actually correlate to something outside of the simulation or it's not actually simulating anything.

That happily matches my intuition. What counts isn't that the designers provided descriptions (what I've called pre-authored narrative), but that those descriptions "correlate to something outside of the simulation". I don't believe we have to give up on the mechanics including or narrowing fair descriptions, we just need to add that the descriptions must seem to us right for the reference.

It therefore appears to be crucial to simulationist games that their simulation is modelled on a reference. That has to be an existing world - real or fictional - because if it is not then how can we say if the descriptions are right? That suggests an interesting opportunity for the game designers. They can simulate any preexisting reference. Thus, where they wish to simulate something that doesn't exist in our real world, they just need to locate or create a reference.

That could entail that @Thomas Shey's idea about Earthdawn is right. The designers commit to a construct for hit points and it is then simulationist to model and have rules using that construct as a reference. I propose that simulationist games aren't differentiated from others on the mechanics yielding fiction, rather they are differentiated on having a preexisting reference that the mechanics yield fiction descriptive of.

The failing (to be simulationist) of 5e hit points then is not the simplicity of the mechanic (that's just an argument over preferring more moving parts) but the failure to commit to a construct and model that construct. Traveller is simulationist not because there is a real galaxy that Traveller tech etc is modelled on, but because there is a preexisting reference that Traveller intentionally models (multiple references in fact). In this light, EPT might fall back into the simulationist fold... or at least be hovering somewhere nearby.

Coming back to moving parts, possibly there is some threshold for "enough", but dashed if I can see how one firms that into anything but a weak and somewhat partial definition. Consider, for instance, that RQ fails to model individual fingers and toes... but surely a sword swing could take off a finger!?

Is this what you mean by "pre-authored words"? Because, I'm sorry, I really don't know what that means. Aren't all words pre-authored?

I mean in contrast to authored on the fly with our play. The game designers pre-authored the words, i.e. wrote them at a time prior to our play. We will recite or synthesise from their words rather than freely author our own.

It's not now at issue because I believe we are defining whether or not a designed game is simulationist. Not whether a group's play is.

 

[clearstream]

A simulationist design is one whose models and rules take inputs and produce results including fiction correlated with pre-existing references; so that we know when we say what follows that our fiction accords with the reference.

 

[Oofta]

Something that should be clarified here too.

Saying that D&D is not a simulation is not in any way an indictment of D&D. It's not. It's not a negative thing in any way. It's no different than saying chess isn't a simulation. That's not an indictment of chess. It's just that D&D isn't really a simulation game and generally doesn't work like one. And, frankly, has never been intended to be one.

I know we've been going on and on about HP and combat, but, let's step to the left into the skill system. It's all pass/fail. There's no real narrative generated here at all. We don't know how you did anything. When you succeed on a climb check, you climb half your speed. Ok, fair enough - but, if you fail that check, what happens? All we know is you don't move forward. That's it.

And, where it gets really weird is in social skills. You want to make the bartender friendly so you can pump him for information. So, Diplomacy check. There's no real narrative generated there. What did you say? How did you do it? No idea. And, not only that, but, any narrative you do before the check can be invalidated by the check itself. In one way, it's kinda/sorta simulationist in that you shouldn't narrate anything until after the check - but, again, any narrative you come up with is valid, the fluff doesn't matter, to use the terms in this thread.

Imagine a more sim approach. The two characters set goals for the interaction, the bartender wants to upsell his wares and the PC wants to pump him for information. Each character has a pool of "social HP" that are ablated by successful checks by the opponent. So, in the first round, the bartender wins, the PC loses some "Social HP" and has to buy a more expensive drink. In the second round, the PC wins, rolls well for his "social damage" and wins the encounter.

There, now we have a narrative that is generated by the mechanics, although with lots and lots of room to come up with various narratives, but, some narratives are off the table because now we have some information to work with.

Maybe in your game nothing is said to get a diplomacy check. It's certainly a valid way of playing. In my games either we RP it out or, if the player is not comfortable with that, they at least have to tell me what they're saying.

I think of D&D as a fantasy world simulator. Yes, much like sex scenes in many books the text fades to black, but you still know what happens even though it doesn't go into detail. I don't need the level of detail you seem to need, and honestly I'm not even sure what level of detail would satisfy people or why it would matter unless you're dealing with injuries that have a mechanical effect. So yes, I use my imagination to fill in the blanks. I assume everyone that plays D&D does that on a constant basis. Doesn't mean that just because the book doesn't tell me details that those details don't exist.

Simulation is such a broad term though, obviously it means something different to you than to me. Ask 10 people what level of simulation D&D is and perhaps you'd get 10 different answers. End of the day? Who cares?

 

[Hussar]

The point is @Oofta, if the system actually were sim based, you wouldn’t have to fill in ALL the blanks.

That you free form rp social interactions doesn’t suddenly make the game a fantasy world simulator. The fact that you HAVE to free form the rp and quite often have the mechanics contradict the rp simply highlights this fact.

As to level of detail, that’s easy.

Any.

Any detail.

That’s it. That’s all it takes. Any. It’s not about level of detail. It’s about having any detail at all.

 

[Oofta]

The point is @Oofta, if the system actually were sim based, you wouldn’t have to fill in ALL the blanks.

That you free form rp social interactions doesn’t suddenly make the game a fantasy world simulator. The fact that you HAVE to free form the rp and quite often have the mechanics contradict the rp simply highlights this fact.

As to level of detail, that’s easy.

Any.

Any detail.

That’s it. That’s all it takes. Any. It’s not about level of detail. It’s about having any detail at all.

We disagree. I have as much detail as I want or need. How you would add detailed fluff to hits in a consistent fashion is something I discussed above. How do you have something that can encompass being bitten by an ant, hit by a sword, crushed by tentacles or smashed by a giant's club?

But you keep insisting that just because a giant ant has an attack described as a bite that somehow you don't really know that the target was bitten. By a giant ant. That something is missing ... you just insist that you need "more".

Kind of like saying something is bad and then when people ask how to improve it you respond by saying "make it better". It's a pointless, meaningless argument if you can't back it up.