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

[Hussar]

I'm saying it's just about as useful to argue about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin at this point.

We have different definitions of simulation. I disagree with what I feel is an extremely narrow minority view. Or maybe it's a majority view amongst a certain cadre. Or maybe it's just that people I actually play with (who are generally not gaming geeks, not that there's anything wrong with being a gaming geek) would not agree with your definition. I think it's useful to count D&D (and HD) as a simulation, but one that on a scale of 1-10 is lower on the scale or about a 3. I'm not sure how you would get a playable game that is focused at the individual person level like D&D to get much better than about a 5-6 because of the complexity you would need.

But I don't care any more. Continue your philosophical debate.

P.S. Angels don't dance. They're far too serious for such frivolity.

No, we don't actually all have different definitions of simulation. Pretty much everyone in this thread has come to a fairly decent consensus of what simulation is.

Simulation: A system where the system produces information for the user beyond references within the system itself.

 

[Hussar]

As a side note, the more modern version of V&V (Mighty Protectors) still uses Power (you're misremembering the name of the calculated value, Hussar; it was also used to fuel some powers), but instead of taking off all damage from Power first, you take off up to a tenth of your Power on it before anything goes to hits. So while you're still energized and not fatigued, you can avoid more of the actual damage at the price of getting more and more tired.

Heh, I was pretty close for a system I haven't read in decades.

My point still stands though. The system provides information beyond self-reference.

 

[Thomas Shey]

after thought, it may be easier to simulate a fantasy world than a real world.
a fantasy world is only a bunch of subjective assumptions that you choose, and thus the simulation may always be online we these assumptions.
In DnD you wake up at full hit points, the simulation always work! But if you compare it to real world it will be a lame!

As I noted, that works if its a setting assumption that everyone will heal overnight. I doubt that's how most people perceive it, though.

(And of course, the one problem when a setting gets too generically alien to ours is that players have to keep more and more balls in the air to make intelligible decisions. In the Earthdawn example I used there were a few broad strokes--magic was endemic, all PCs were adepts, monsters were all over the place, dungeons (kaers) were present in large numbers--but most of the personal don't-behave-like-real-world things tended to be individualized, in relatively small numbers, and some of them specialized.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

Heh, I was pretty close for a system I haven't read in decades.

My point still stands though. The system provides information beyond self-reference.

Yup. Jeff Dee is, if anything, relatively hostile to dramatist concerns (I got kicked off his FB feed not long ago for taking him to task for some language assuming such things were "objectively" less roleplaying oriented than not doing so). Incarnations of V&V lean into simulationist concerns more than almost any other superhero game I know without breaking genre.

 

[Oofta]

No, we don't actually all have different definitions of simulation. Pretty much everyone in this thread has come to a fairly decent consensus of what simulation is.

Simulation: A system where the system produces information for the user beyond references within the system itself.

You and a few others have agreed to a definition that I find pointless. You have to have some way of measuring durability in combat. There are only so many ways of doing that. I don't see how any would truly meet the criteria.

If I play a racing simulation that tracks the gas in the tank, the car works just fine up until the moment it doesn't. I don't see much difference between that and HP yet but I doubt anyone would claim that fuel is not part of a simulation.

I don't think your definition is widely accepted or useful. Nor is this conversation.

 

[Umbran]

But it's also a silly argument so I don't really care.

But I don't care any more. Continue your philosophical debate.

I don't think your definition is widely accepted or useful. Nor is this conversation.

Mod Note:
At this point, this reads like disrespect. Several posts worth of it, to be honest. And that's a problem.

For something that has so little value to you, you seem very... engaged. You know, sometimes, folks have difficulty disengaging from an argument. We can simply remove you from the discussion, if you can't do it on your own. So, think about how you want this to end, and choose your actions accordingly going forward, please and thanks.

 

[clearstream]

@pemerton @Campbell @Thomas Shey I may have managed to avoid being clear about the significant way in which I agree with the arguments you have been making about weight, focus or preponderance. I mean to agree that weighting matters, as suggested by "Internal cause is king" (although I'm not fond of that wording for all kinds of other reasons.) Up thread I suggested that

One might picture a scale where on general approach and balance of mechanics its ICE=8, RQ=5, 5e=3.

What I mean here is that normally we should only call games with a weighting 5+ simulationist. I believe we're aligned on that.

A simulationist RPG is one whose models and rules preponderantly take inputs and produce results including fiction, correlated with pre-existing references; so that players know when they say what follows that their fiction accords with the reference, and the imagined inhabitants of the world may know its rules.

Simulationist is a quality afforded to a game by how strongly it fits the above. It is not generally useful to call D&D simulationist, even though we cannot rule out a group inferring its references and emphasising correlations so that it plays as a simulationist game in their sessions.

@Hussar Comparing your #556 with my #546, what I see are equivalent levels of simulationism given players grasp the references sincerely. Vitality is equivalent to having half-or-more hit points remaining. A DM narrates palpable hits only below half. In one cosmos, people can talk about bigger is tougher. In another, they can talk about more heroic is tougher and luckier.

 

[Hussar]

@Hussar Comparing your #556 with my #546, what I see are equivalent levels of simulationism given players grasp the references sincerely. Vitality is equivalent to having half-or-more hit points remaining. A DM narrates palpable hits only below half. In one cosmos, people can talk about bigger is tougher. In another, they can talk about more heroic is tougher and luckier.

But, again, there's nothing in the system that's pushing in either direction. Both are perfectly plausible under the mechanics. So, sometimes something has lots of HP because it's big, sometimes because it's really skilled.

The real problem comes when you try to match the two against each other.

Think about it this way, how exactly do you narrate a 3 foot, 25 pound halfling getting hit with a critical hit and maximum damage from an Ogre and not even showing a wound? After all, if my halfling is sufficiently high level, that's entirely possible. It does make for some really weird interactions. And, even then, you can't really narrate palpable hits below half because, well, anything you narrate can be contradicted so quickly. If that ogre crits that halfling, driving him to a bit over half his HP, and you narrate that as this massive blow that slams into the halfling, doing some bodily harm, and then the fight ends, the halfling Second Winds and takes a short rest and is now back to full HP, no magic at all, then that narration doesn't really match the events of the game.

It doesn't really work if bigger=tough and heroic=tougher try to coexist in the same game space.

 

[clearstream]

But, again, there's nothing in the system that's pushing in either direction. Both are perfectly plausible under the mechanics. So, sometimes something has lots of HP because it's big, sometimes because it's really skilled.

There are many plausible alternatives for every mechanic discussed in this thread.

The real problem comes when you try to match the two against each other.

Think about it this way, how exactly do you narrate a 3 foot, 25 pound halfling getting hit with a critical hit and maximum damage from an Ogre and not even showing a wound? After all, if my halfling is sufficiently high level, that's entirely possible.

If halfling is at half or more HP, a DM is instructed to narrate like this. "It crits and your luck or will to live let's you avoid visible injury. You're unlikely to be so lucky twice!"

It does make for some really weird interactions.

It's a different cosmos from our real one. In that cosmos, luck fends off visible injury from ogre crits. Folk there can self-report on their luck.

And, even then, you can't really narrate palpable hits below half because, well, anything you narrate can be contradicted so quickly. If that ogre crits that halfling, driving him to a bit over half his HP, and you narrate that as this massive blow that slams into the halfling, doing some bodily harm, and then the fight ends, the halfling Second Winds and takes a short rest and is now back to full HP, no magic at all, then that narration doesn't really match the events of the game.

This is mired in assumptions that do not apply in the D&D cosmos.

It doesn't really work if bigger=tough and heroic=tougher try to coexist in the same game space.

We don't have to decide on that, as they don't.

 

[opacitizen]

a swords & sorcery medieval fantasy style RPG that is more of a simulation than D&D???

D&D is a simulation. Only it's not reality it simulates, because our reality does not involve obviously working sorcery (hence it's "reality" and not "fantasy".) What D&D simulates is fantasy, a world of folklore and tales and such where magic is obviously real, and where magical creatures like your manticore can exist with their three heads and magical capabilities... which (may) include flying — with a physiology that in reality would be impossible (let alone capable of any kind of flight, unless you gave it bird bones and a truly huge wingspan.)

While I do understand what you're looking for, I think your request is paradoxical, self contradictory. You want simulation and sorcery/fantasy in the same sentence? (My answer would be Warhammer FRP 2nd edition, though. A lot more realistic than D&D, overall. Until it comes to magic. Which isn't realistic in any system.)