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

[EzekielRaiden]

The biggest benefit of D&D style spells is its all-or-nothing, and it forces some planning on people (in the case of prepared casters), so its easy to understand why it was attractive in a gamist fashion.

Yeah, this is something a LOT of people don't seem to realize. That is, the entirely and intentionally gamist mechanics of yesteryear can begin to seem simulationist--or, if you prefer, can become "genre simulationist" for the genre of the game itself--when the genre becomes so ingrained, people no longer think of it as a genre but just as "what is done." And that's what an awful lot of the openly "gamist" elements of early D&D--like AC, HP, Vancian spells, etc.--have become for many "simulationists" today. The mechanics are still gamist. They're just so familiar or entrenched that no one thinks to question them.

Hell, the very concept of "levels" is a gamist chunking up of both personal experience and the dungeons themselves in a purely gamist way: "level 3" characters were, in some sense, those equal to the challenge of the "third level" depth in the dungeons. But people accept it--hell, they accept it to the point of making tropes like "Take a Level in Badass."

King of Elflands Daughter, apparently. Also Grey Mouser.

From what I can see, while those do have "spell scrolls" in the sense of "a scroll which contains magic writings, and thus enables magic to be performed even by those who do not practice it, but they do not have "spell scrolls" in the sense of consumable objects. In King of Elfland's Daughter, the only mentions of "scroll" are a letter sent by the King to his daughter, which carries his "rune" that more strongly resembles a magical trap than a spell proper--the magic triggers the instant she "reads" the rune and sears away any connections she might have to the mortal world. Meanwhile, from what references I can find, the Grey Mouser does not consume the scroll when he casts from it--the words remain on the page, and in fact people refer to the text as saying that he can cast the spell with his eyes closed, meaning he really only uses the scroll as a starting point, much closer to the stereotypical "reading a spell from a grimoire" format, which is well-precedented in literature (heck, C.S. Lewis used it in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when Lucy Pevensie goes to read the spells from Coriakin's spellbook.)

 

[clearstream]

From what I can see, while those do have "spell scrolls" in the sense of "a scroll which contains magic writings, and thus enables magic to be performed even by those who do not practice it, but they do not have "spell scrolls" in the sense of consumable objects. In King of Elfland's Daughter, the only mentions of "scroll" are a letter sent by the King to his daughter, which carries his "rune" that more strongly resembles a magical trap than a spell proper--the magic triggers the instant she "reads" the rune and sears away any connections she might have to the mortal world. Meanwhile, from what references I can find, the Grey Mouser does not consume the scroll when he casts from it--the words remain on the page, and in fact people refer to the text as saying that he can cast the spell with his eyes closed, meaning he really only uses the scroll as a starting point, much closer to the stereotypical "reading a spell from a grimoire" format, which is well-precedented in literature (heck, C.S. Lewis used it in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when Lucy Pevensie goes to read the spells from Coriakin's spellbook.)

I imagine you're not denying that those magical tales were sources of inspiration for D&D magic, so I suppose what you say amounts to a concern that D&D didn't mirror the magic systems in the books. That is quite explicable because there are no magic systems in books. The authors of static linear stories don't have to contend with the use and reuse of runes etc by endlessly ingenious players. The magic of stories was translated into game mechanics, mutatis mutandis.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Talking about Assetto Corsa and simulation?


Would playing D&D better prepare me to delve into large underground complexes and take the best stuff out of it???

 

[clearstream]

Yeah, this is something a LOT of people don't seem to realize. That is, the entirely and intentionally gamist mechanics of yesteryear can begin to seem simulationist--or, if you prefer, can become "genre simulationist" for the genre of the game itself--when the genre becomes so ingrained, people no longer think of it as a genre but just as "what is done." And that's what an awful lot of the openly "gamist" elements of early D&D--like AC, HP, Vancian spells, etc.--have become for many "simulationists" today. The mechanics are still gamist. They're just so familiar or entrenched that no one thinks to question them.

Hell, the very concept of "levels" is a gamist chunking up of both personal experience and the dungeons themselves in a purely gamist way: "level 3" characters were, in some sense, those equal to the challenge of the "third level" depth in the dungeons. But people accept it--hell, they accept it to the point of making tropes like "Take a Level in Badass."

What you describe is an exciting and foreseeable impact of games on human culture. Formerly, games were inspired by static, linear, non-interactive stories. That was constraining, because games are dynamic, non-linear, and interactive. What we see today are numerous instances where inventive elements of stories emerge from games. It's a miscategorisation (or gate-keeping) to exclude those elements as geunine human stories.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I imagine you're not denying that those magical tales were sources of inspiration for D&D magic, so I suppose what you say amounts to a concern that D&D didn't mirror the magic systems in the books. That is quite explicable because there are no magic systems in books. The authors of static linear stories don't have to contend with the use and reuse of runes etc by endlessly ingenious players. The magic of stories was translated into game mechanics, mutatis mutandis.

I mean...wasn't that what was already being said?

No one denies that magic writing existed before D&D. For God's sake, we have curse tablets dating back to at least pre-Roman Greece, and that's only the ones I've personally researched. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were heiroglyphic curse tablets from Ancient Egypt that are much, much older.

What I (and, as I understood it, the person you were talking to) was highlighting was very specifically the "consumable" or "destructive" nature of the thing. Other than Jack Vance and D&D, magic never works in that way. And yes, we are quite literally talking about it being mechanicized (mechanized?)--that the very clearly gamist mechanics may have drawn on literary or mythic/historical precedent, but their gamified nature was very intentionally front and center.

Vancian fire-and-literally-forget spells--and their analogues in things like "spell scrolls that crumble to dust when used"--are essentially without precedent anywhere outside of D&D and Vance's own work. The closest you get is potions, and potions are inherently consumable because, y'know, you literally consume them. Making the actual spells themselves consumable, that's a purely gamist D&D invention; it's just become so ingrained that some people no longer notice how openly gamist it is due to familiarity.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

What you describe is an exciting and foreseeable impact of games on human culture. Formerly, games were inspired by static, linear, non-interactive stories. That was constraining, because games are dynamic, non-linear, and interactive. What we see today are numerous instances where inventive elements of stories emerge from games. It's a miscategorisation (or gate-keeping) to exclude those elements as geunine human stories.

I'm...not doing that?

I'm not talking about story-making at all.

Where on earth did you get the notion that I was?

 

[clearstream]

What isn't really possible though, is doing it at the time. You can't narrate actions until well after the action is completed because there are so many things that can invalidate a narration.

That doesn't match normal experience playing D&D. What it could be a symptom of is a GM narrating results prior to concluding the game process. An example might be halfling luck. When a 1 is rolled, the process isn't complete because we need to account for a world in which some creatures are preternaturally lucky. To narrate early would be akin to narrating the result of Arms Law combat prior to the step of consulting a table.

 

[clearstream]

No one denies that magic writing existed before D&D. For God's sake, we have curse tablets dating back to at least pre-Roman Greece, and that's only the ones I've personally researched. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were heiroglyphic curse tablets from Ancient Egypt that are much, much older.

What I (and, as I understood it, the person you were talking to) was highlighting was very specifically the "consumable" or "destructive" nature of the thing. Other than Jack Vance and D&D, magic never works in that way. And yes, we are quite literally talking about it being mechanicized (mechanized?)--that the very clearly gamist mechanics may have drawn on literary or mythic/historical precedent, but their gamified nature was very intentionally front and center.

Vancian fire-and-literally-forget spells--and their analogues in things like "spell scrolls that crumble to dust when used"--are essentially without precedent anywhere outside of D&D and Vance's own work. The closest you get is potions, and potions are inherently consumable because, y'know, you literally consume them. Making the actual spells themselves consumable, that's a purely gamist D&D invention; it's just become so ingrained that some people no longer notice how openly gamist it is due to familiarity.

Again, your complaint here seems to be that some fiction isn't mirrored in game. I'm not following how that is our razor between simulationist and not simulationist. Are you saying that the mechanical nature of Arms Law look up tables for hit results excludes them from being simulationist? Seeing as they're a game construct (real fights don't use look up tables.)

[EDIT RQ POW sacrifice for rune spells by Rule Lords / Priests might be a good point of comparison. Or investment of points in truestone. I had RQ down as simulationist. No longer?]

 

[clearstream]

I'm...not doing that?

I'm not talking about story-making at all.

Where on earth did you get the notion that I was?

Ah, good then. I mistakenly understood you to be putting the creativity of game designers in a separate category from the creativity of story writers. So that anything a game designer creates could not be based on imagined references beyond the mechanic itself (except where they can point to exact matches with pre-existing linear narratives.)

My take is that the game designers imagined a world that they felt was best represented by spells written on scrolls and consumed when used. A world that was just as valid imagined by Gygax or Arneson as it would have been by Dunsany or Leiber. Essentially, if the concern is that the game designers translated that world into forms accomodating the expected modes of consumption (or use), then every game mechanic under discussion suffers that objection.

The act of game design is an act of story-making: but rather than making one story in a world wholly controlled by the author, you are making every possible story that others might tell in that world. That is so effortful, that at present we experience a lot of limitations in what we can achieve. One take is that TTRPG designers have learned that it is more profitable to guide players to fabricate purposefully, than to provide that fabrication pre-authored for them.

 

[Hussar]

That doesn't match normal experience playing D&D. What it could be a symptom of is a GM narrating results prior to concluding the game process. An example might be halfling luck. When a 1 is rolled, the process isn't complete because we need to account for a world in which some creatures are preternaturally lucky. To narrate early would be akin to narrating the result of Arms Law combat prior to the step of consulting a table.

Ahh, sorry, bit of confusion there. You most certainly can and do narrate effects in D&D as they happen. We all do it. But, we also mostly ignore fact that the narrations we make would make zero actual sense because they are so often contradicted a very short time later. But, in the process of play, we all have pretty much zero short term memory and no one remembers what you narrated two rounds ago, let alone in a previous combat. Yes, yes, I know you remember that one fight in clear detail, but, I'm more than willing to bet that if someone were to run a session with, say, four combats in it, then question the players at the end of the session about the details narrated during the combat, you'd get a pretty broad range of answers and most of them would be wrong.

Because it's all so fuzzy and wibbly wobbly, we just don't worry about it that much. Which is why we talk about making these coherent narratives out of D&D. It's not that the narratives are actually coherent, it's just that we all spackle over the inconsistencies and forget most of it immediately afterward anyway.

Which is where a sim system steps in. In a sim system, the system is guiding you towards making coherent narratives that can't be immediately contradicted. Because we actually have some idea of what happened and what didn't happen, we can more reliably narrate events. Imagine two systems where we do zero flavor narration, only the game terms.

D&D- hit 5 damage, hit 10 damage, miss, hit 5 damage, miss, miss, hit 10 damage target dies.
Sim system - Possible hit averted by parry. Hit 5 damage. Miss because of dodge. Hit 5 damage. Hit but damage Soaked no damage. Hit 5 damage. Target dies.

In the sim system, you actually have something, very, very bare bones, but something of a narrative there. In D&D, there's nothing until the target dies.