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

[DND_Reborn]

Because the question you have to ask if you're looking for something in a simulationist light is, "what is it trying to simulate?"

Yes, that is absolutely true. What I disagree with is the idea that you have to have the concept for something to simulate first and THEN come up with the mechanic / rules to carry out the simulation. When you are developing something, you can decide what mechanics / rules you want to use first (for whatever reason--balance, convenience, etc.) and then come up with a rational for why that system simulates your rational well (or well enough for your interests...).

Let's taking long jumping again. This is a real-world action which can be simulated in any number of ways. At some point, a designer for 5E might have been looking at a bunch of Strength scores and realized using that score would make a good upper limit for long jumping. They might not even have been thinking about long jumping necessarily when it came to them. In this fashion, the mechanic was developed before the real-world action it simulates (poorly--- but oh well) was applied.

Now with spells. You can look at your game design and think, "Hey, if you sum up your character levels additively, that number would make a cool spell point pool to cast from." You could very well use that number of other things, but choose to use it to simulate the amount of magic a creature can draw on. You don't have to think about the game and say, "We should have magic (in the game/ world) be represented by a pool of spell points inherent to each creature. How can we generate those points?"

Whether the mechanic comes first or the concept it simulates comes first is immaterial for whether or not that mechanic simulates that concept well or accurately. So, in the simulationist light, I am always asking "what is it trying to simulate?" but also (and very important to me) is "how accurately does it simulate it?" and finally "is it too cumbersome to use in the game?"

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yes, that is absolutely true. What I disagree with is the idea that you have to have the concept for something to simulate first and THEN come up with the mechanic / rules to carry out the simulation. When you are developing something, you can decide what mechanics / rules you want to use first (for whatever reason--balance, convenience, etc.) and then come up with a rational for why that system simulates your rational well (or well enough for your interests...).

Yeah, afraid I can't follow you here, man. As I said, a set of rules doesn't become a simulation retroactively; if you disagree, then we just disagree.

Edit: To not be as terse, the big reason I believe this is the case is that it destroys any utility to the term. After all, you can retrofit any mechanical decision so that it "makes sense" in setting; it may make your setting progressively more weird and alien, but you can do it. At that point it becomes almost useless to talk about, and doesn't tell you much of anything in terms of what you're actually looking for in design.

 

[Oofta]

I think if you're not willing to accept "simulation" in this kind of discussion is a term-of-art you're going to keep finding them frustrating, Oofta.

Different people are going to have a different definition of what simulation means. I go by the dictionary definition, not yours. Is D&D gamist? To a certain degree, all games will be.

By your definitions, many things that people consider simulations would not be. Another random example would be space flight sims such as Eve Online [full disclosure, I don't play the game]. It's not realistic because it has FTL. How the specifics of how several things work were made up for the game, although of course the base concepts were there. Or take the Star Wars star-fighter games. Obviously space fantasy and not particularly realistic with things like magic shields. What are shields? Blasters? Who knows! I'm sure some book somewhere has come up with techno-babble to justify it, but if you apply the same logic you're applying to D&D I don't think any of the space sims would be considered simulations. That would be fightin' words in some corners.

I don't see why when the fiction was established matters, it's still just fictional make believe. If a Star Wars game introduces a new type of weapon (or any other space sim) that has not appeared in any other does that make it less of a sim?

So I simply disagree and you claiming to be right based on the criteria that you established (or found some blogger so you can appeal to authority) doesn't change that. Whether something is a simulation for a fantasy world is always going to be opinion.

EDIT: in a sense if we're discussing the current version of D&D, then the fiction for how magic has been previously established. By Vance, of course, but also by previous editions of the game. It is kind of a chicken-or-the-egg situation but many things are.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Yeah, afraid I can't follow you here, man. As I said, a set of rules doesn't become a simulation retroactively; if you disagree, then we just disagree.

Agree to disagree then. I figured it was heading that way, since I believe we both understand the other's perspective--even if we don't agree with it.

Edit: To not be as terse, the big reason I believe this is the case is that it destroys any utility to the term. After all, you can retrofit any mechanical decision so that it "makes sense" in setting; it may make your setting progressively more weird and alien, but you can do it. At that point it becomes almost useless to talk about, and doesn't tell you much of anything in terms of what you're actually looking for in design.

No issue. My perspective is more that people stumble on things all the time by mistake or not meaning to and realize it is great for whatever they can use it for. When we are discussing not-real things, like spells, it can really go either way. For real things, like jumping, we typically will have the concept in mind when trying to develop mechanics to simulate it.

Been fun.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Different people are going to have a different definition of what simulation means. I go by the dictionary definition, not yours. Is D&D gamist? To a certain degree, all games will be.

Like I said, if you think going with a dictionary definition where pretty much everyone else in the thread is using a term-of-art (even if they're debating where the lines are) is useful, shine on man.

 

[Mannahnin]

But D&D wasn't a setting-specific game system with a predesigned setting that had strong rules about how magic worked in-setting. Its inspiration for magic were avowedly fueled by multiple sources, where is its magic system looks like (and only somewhat) one of them. It would have been entirely possible to have a system that would have looked a bit more like a broad swath of them, but that's not the route it took. As I said, the "why" can't be but speculative, but given what we know of the history of the game, the likeliest case is that a convenient and strategically interesting magic system was more of a priority than representing anything in specific (this is in contrast to the spells, which are, like a lot of things in D&D, clearly derived from multiple fictional sources, though how precisely they work and certainly how they were levelled was again almost certainly a gamist decision).

My theory is that the Vancian system only directly represents Vance's stories, but that it also provides a convenient in-game rationale for why mages don't just fire spells off willy-nilly.

In other swords & sorcery fiction, in Tolkien, etc. we usually don't hear tell of explicit limits on how often mages can cast spells/invoke powerful effects. But for one reason or another (there's often some vague, unquantified mention of it being risky, or physically/psychically taxing or exhausting for the caster) mages don't cast spells constantly, unless they're some kind of godlike antagonist. Using Vance's system provides an explanation, as well as a convenient power limiter on player-controlled Magic-Users.

 

[Oofta]

Like I said, if you think going with a dictionary definition where pretty much everyone else in the thread is using a term-of-art (even if they're debating where the lines are) is useful, shine on man.

Some people are, some people aren't. There is no one true definition, just because some people agree with you doesn't make a difference.

 

[Thomas Shey]

[Never mind. Should know better.]

 

[Hussar]

That's exactly what I'm saying. Both are causal chains. Both articulate some but not all change along the timeline. The difference is a matter of granularity, where in all cases the count of change omitted is far vaster than the count of change articulated.

Well, I suppose. But, again, to me, it's the difference of not having any information with which to base a narrative on and at least having any information. Sure, you could make the system more granular than what I wrote as a sim. Of course you can. But, notice, you cannot even begin to ask any of your questions about a D&D combat.

It's not a difference of a little or more, it's a difference of zero and any.

 

[Hussar]

Typically the designer has in mind a world they are aiming to create. Not usually all of that world at once of course.

This I think I'll disagree with. It think that a game designer typically has a game they have in mind that they are aiming to create. Then they mold the narrative of the game world around that game in order to make it more interesting to the players. Level limits in AD&D were there as a balancing mechanism between humans and demi-humans. People then incorporated it into the narrative and created worlds where level limits were an actual thing in the world.

I really don't think most game design starts at the level of developing a world first.