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

[Hussar]

I don't see why when the fiction was established matters,

Which is why you aren't having the same conversation as the rest of us. For us, when the fiction is established is the core of the issue. If you cannot establish the fiction as it occurs, then it's not a simulation. If the fiction can be rewritten after the fact, then it's not a simulation.

You are simply insisting on a definition - as you say, the dictionary definition - that no one else here is using and that's why you can't seem to reconcile what we are saying.

 

[Campbell]

I think any definition of simulation that could be used to refer to Pathfinder Second Edition, Unity RPG, Dogs in the Vineyard, Exalted Third Edition, Sorcerer, Nightmares Underneath, Magic the Gathering, Call of Duty, Overwatch, Eve Online or World of Warcraft has pretty much lost any meaning as something worthy of discussion. By the way I love all of the games I have mentioned other than EVE and Call of Duty.

 

[Hussar]

I think you have your logic reversed, still. If I say A occurs, then I know that all not A does not occur. If, however, I say that some set of not A doesn't occur, I cannot say that A occurs because there's still some set of not A that isn't precluded. So arguing from the position of not A being precluded means simulationism isn't sufficiently distinct because lots of rules include precluding sets of not A. Take hitpoints -- if I take hitpoint damage but still have hitpoints left, then "you die" or "you fall unconscious" or "you turn into a black hole" are precluded by the system. This isn't sufficient to say that hitpoints are simulationist. And we can say some set of A is required by not losing all your hitpoints -- we do know something about the fiction here that isn't negative -- you are absolutely, positively still in the fight.

That's not quite what I'm saying though. It's Set A occurs and Not Set A does not occur. We don't know specifically what Set A is, and we don't need to. But, we do know, from the mechanics, that Set A doesn't include Not Set A. And, note, losing all your HP is not necessarily part of Set A or Not Set A unless the character has actually lost all their HP. We know that 's not part of the narrative because the character has not lost all their HP. So, why would you include "lost all HP" in the set of narratives of a character who has not lost all their HP? The character didn't spontaneously turn pink either, but, we don't generally include that in either set.

Arguing from the negative here doesn't really work.

I.. what? That opening is pure special pleading -- you've just handwaved away the entire point of defining simulationist rules. That point is so we know them when we see them. But, here, you've literally said that rules that aren't simulationist can pass your test but that doesn't matter because they're... I dunno why they'd get the special privilege here.

As for Blades, no, again. If the result is 4-5, the GM cannot narrate failure and MUST narrate success with a complication or cost commiserate with both Effect and Position. On a 3-, the GM cannot narrate success and MUST level a cost or complication commiserate with Position. In all cases with Blades, the result absolutely precludes fiction but doesn't tell you what actually happens in the fiction. These mechanics provide who gets the "say" in the outcome and puts constraints on that say, but do not dictate what happens in the fiction at all. Success can be a wide range of things, cost and complication can be a wide range of things. The outcome of the dice don't dictate fiction, they dictate who gets to say what about the fiction.

Well, it does kinda, sorta have a Set A and Not Set A, but, again, the sets are so large that they become rather fuzzy. To some degree the outcome of the dice dictate the fiction in the sense of a "good" or "bad" result, but, even then, we're not even so much talking about the exact things that happen at the time, but, adding a complication that may or may not have any logical connection to the narrative of the game. The complication could be something not directly related to what you're doing right now. An ally could be compromised, in some fashion, on a complication, for example, which has no direct causal link to what the character is doing right now. Thus, it's not a simulation since there is no actual causal chain in the fiction that results in the complication. I'm trying to rob a store (ok, bad example but work with me) and fail, so, an ally who is not involved in any way with my robbery, is kidnapped by a rival gang.

So, yes, absolutely there's no simulation going on there because the mechanics don't actually tell us anything about what's happening in the game. I failed, so, my ally is kidnapped. That's not simulation at all, it's very strongly narrative play. So, you're trying to apply the definition I'm using - the results of an action give us Set A and Not Set A as guides to narrative, and insisting that a system where actions give us Set A, Not Set A as well as Sets B, C, D and E, none of which need to be causally linked to Set A or Not Set A fits the definition I'm suggesting.

 

[Hussar]

I think any definition of simulation that could be used to refer to Pathfinder Second Edition, Unity RPG, Dogs in the Vineyard, Exalted Third Edition, Sorcerer, Nightmares Underneath, Magic the Gathering, Call of Duty, Overwatch, Eve Online or World of Warcraft has pretty much lost any meaning as something worthy of discussion. By the way I love all of the games I have mentioned other than EVE and Call of Duty.

It totally agree that the definition of Simulation that I've been pushing here wouldn't play to most of those games. Magic the Gathering, for example, while potentially generating some form of narrative in play, certainly isn't meant to. There's no sense whatsoever that the players are supposed to generate any sort of narrative in play.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

Eh, I think its six of one, half dozen of the other any more. Sometimes someone has a system they want to create and just layer a setting to one degree or another around it; sometimes someone wants to represent the setting they have in mind (though there's no assurance the system design to go with it will be ideal for that setting; its not like its unknown for setting and system to be out of sync with each other such that the system seems unlikely or impossible to create some of the fiction you get with the setting).

 

[pemerton]

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.


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

It's possible to treat hit points as a simulationist mechanic. Some of us think the resulting fiction is too silly to take seriously.

For instance, the frost giant minions in my 4e version of G2 had 1 hp each. This doesn't have the same meaning as a feeble commoner with 1 hp. It means that, when a mid-epic hero strikes a well-aimed blow at one of those giants, the giant will fall. A simulationist reading makes the giants absurd.

EDIT: A further thought on this.

Edwards refers to the "imagined cosmos in action". What I've described above, about frost giant minions, is the opposite of that.

On a simulationist approach, we find out the narrative/"story" role of a frost giant - was this giant doomed to fall to a single blow? - by applying the mechanics and seeing the cosmos in action. So unless doomed to die in a single blow is itself a phenomenon of the imagined cosmos, we only find out afterwards whether the giant was one of the doomed. (Eg in RM, the first PC to hit it double-open endeds their crit roll and brings the giant crashing down.)

Whereas 4e's approach is to settle the fiction/narrative/"story" first - this is a doomed frost giant - and then to build a mechanical structure that will give effect to that. So it's not the imagined cosmos in action - rather, the design an application of the mechanics puts a "metagame" thumb on the scales.

I think a leading example of the "metagame thumb" approach to action resolution is Robin Laws's HeroQuest revised, where difficulties are set purely by reference to pacing (basically, the longer the players' string of successes, the harder things get, until they fail). But AW and its immediate offshoots also have this, in that the spread of results - 6-, 7-9, 10+ - is constant, and is not varied to reflect ingame difficulties/obstacles. And this is also for pacing/narrative-type reasons.

I think, for me, the clarity of the differences across these various ways of approaching action resolution is what makes me relatively comfortable in classifying particular mechanics and their associated procedures and implementation methodologies as simulationist, or not.

 

[Ovinomancer]

That's not quite what I'm saying though. It's Set A occurs and Not Set A does not occur. We don't know specifically what Set A is, and we don't need to. But, we do know, from the mechanics, that Set A doesn't include Not Set A. And, note, losing all your HP is not necessarily part of Set A or Not Set A unless the character has actually lost all their HP. We know that 's not part of the narrative because the character has not lost all their HP. So, why would you include "lost all HP" in the set of narratives of a character who has not lost all their HP? The character didn't spontaneously turn pink either, but, we don't generally include that in either set.

This is kinda a muddle. You started by saying that simulation is saying that Not Set A doesn't happen -- that it's a negative test and if things are precluded (Not Set A), then we have simulation. My counter is that this describes many types of mechanics, including those that aren't simulationist at all. Here you've moved to saying that there's some Set A of things that are directed to happen. This does mean some Not Set A cannot happen, by logical exclusion not the mechanics intentionally excluding these things as a special case. However, since the breadth of Set A is indeterminate in your action and can be extremely broad (to the point of very few things in Not Set A), we're still including many, many mechanics that aren't simulationist in your conjecture.

Again, the problem here is trying to define simulation with the negative space instead of the positive space.

Well, it does kinda, sorta have a Set A and Not Set A, but, again, the sets are so large that they become rather fuzzy. To some degree the outcome of the dice dictate the fiction in the sense of a "good" or "bad" result, but, even then, we're not even so much talking about the exact things that happen at the time, but, adding a complication that may or may not have any logical connection to the narrative of the game. The complication could be something not directly related to what you're doing right now. An ally could be compromised, in some fashion, on a complication, for example, which has no direct causal link to what the character is doing right now. Thus, it's not a simulation since there is no actual causal chain in the fiction that results in the complication. I'm trying to rob a store (ok, bad example but work with me) and fail, so, an ally who is not involved in any way with my robbery, is kidnapped by a rival gang.

Yes, it's not a simulationist game. It doesn't have simulationist mechanics. But it meets your claim of the mechanics establishing some form of Not A. The argument that there some unstated dial of the size of Not A versus A that steps in to say this isn't simulationist but the attempted definition still works is what I was pointing out as special pleading.

Meanwhile, if you say that simulationist mechanics direct a specific A -- that there's a mandated fictional change by the resolution of the mechanics -- you evade this particular problem because BitD doesn't mandate any A, just a set of Not A.

So, yes, absolutely there's no simulation going on there because the mechanics don't actually tell us anything about what's happening in the game. I failed, so, my ally is kidnapped. That's not simulation at all, it's very strongly narrative play. So, you're trying to apply the definition I'm using - the results of an action give us Set A and Not Set A as guides to narrative, and insisting that a system where actions give us Set A, Not Set A as well as Sets B, C, D and E, none of which need to be causally linked to Set A or Not Set A fits the definition I'm suggesting.

Set B, C, D,... insofar as they are different from Set A are definitionally Not Set A. You've made a formal logical error in that last sentence.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's possible to treat hit points as a simulationist mechanic. Some of us think the resulting fiction is too silly to take seriously.

For instance, the frost giant minions in my 4e version of G2 had 1 hp each. This doesn't have the same meaning as a feeble commoner with 1 hp. It means that, when a mid-epic hero strikes a well-aimed blow at one of those giants, the giant will fall. A simulationist reading makes the giants absurd.

Mook rules and simulationism are never going to play well together, since normally those are an abutment of dramatist and gamist concerns.

 

[clearstream]

Eh, I think its six of one, half dozen of the other any more. Sometimes someone has a system they want to create and just layer a setting to one degree or another around it; sometimes someone wants to represent the setting they have in mind (though there's no assurance the system design to go with it will be ideal for that setting; its not like its unknown for setting and system to be out of sync with each other such that the system seems unlikely or impossible to create some of the fiction you get with the setting).

Regarding our last few pages, I feel my proposed definition still works. Intuitions diverge as to whether the reference must be preexisting or can be first articulated in the form of the game model and rules. Some may be satisfied just so long as it exists in the final product.

 

[clearstream]

It's possible to treat hit points as a simulationist mechanic. Some of us think the resulting fiction is too silly to take seriously.

For instance, the frost giant minions in my 4e version of G2 had 1 hp each. This doesn't have the same meaning as a feeble commoner with 1 hp. It means that, when a mid-epic hero strikes a well-aimed blow at one of those giants, the giant will fall. A simulationist reading makes the giants absurd.

We could take the minions to be unlucky and without will to live, but I felt the interesting question that you highlight is whether there can be an absurdist or surrealist simulationist game? One option is to say it's impossible, albeit it is likely intuitions will diverge as to what counts as absurdist or surrealist (are not many of the fantastical worlds of RPG to some extent absurd?)

Edwards refers to the "imagined cosmos in action". What I've described above, about frost giant minions, is the opposite of that.

For me personally, 1 hit point minions were never part of a world I wanted to imagine. I'd separate that out from saying it is impossible for anyone to imagine a cosmos in which they fit.

I think a leading example of the "metagame thumb" approach to action resolution is Robin Laws's HeroQuest revised, where difficulties are set purely by reference to pacing (basically, the longer the players' string of successes, the harder things get, until they fail). But AW and its immediate offshoots also have this, in that the spread of results - 6-, 7-9, 10+ - is constant, and is not varied to reflect ingame difficulties/obstacles. And this is also for pacing/narrative-type reasons.

I think, for me, the clarity of the differences across these various ways of approaching action resolution is what makes me relatively comfortable in classifying particular mechanics and their associated procedures and implementation methodologies as simulationist, or not.

It feels like very much a case of - we recognise them fairly easily while finding it extremely difficult to define a universal razor. As I noted up thread, Wittgenstein famously used games as an ideal example of family resemblances in PI. Perhaps his arguments encourage skepticism about there being an essence of simulationist RPG? I'm reasonably happy with my definition,

A simulationist design is one whose models and rules preponderantly take inputs and produce results including fiction, corelated with pre-existing references; so that we know when we say what follows that our fiction accords with the reference, and the imagined inhabitants of the world can know its rules.

but I've noticed another problem.

A gamist RPG element is primarily designed to make easy and/or engaging play (those aren't always easy to combine

I'm aware "engaging" is doing some heavy lifting in this sentence, so to make it clear what I mean by it is it makes the play element interesting to do, whether or not you're immersing well or connecting with the story of the game.

Also note I mention "element". You can have a game that is very simulationist or dramatist in some areas, and very gamist in others.

Suppose we agree that a gamist design is one that is easy and engaging/interesting to do. Do we then agree that a simulationist - being not gamist - must be one that is not easy and not engaging/not interesting to do?

I feel reluctant to dismiss the possibility of finding RQ or ICE engaging or interesting, so if I adopt this definition must I be saying that the sole quality amounting to gamist design is play that is easy to do!? That feels like an impoverished definition (and I'd note the gap between the definition of gamist here and definitions of gamism elsewhere.)

The problem, anyway, is that in this thread many posters have said this or that element is gamist and not simulationist. I don't see how that can be judged unless they have a definition for gamist in mind that can be articulated and sustained. I guess folk could say something like - element X is uncategorisable, but certainly not simulationist. I don't think that is the sort of argument being made however. I think it is more of the form - element X can be categorised as gamist, and gamist is not simulationist, therefore element X is not simulationist. But if gamist isn't defined, the "therefore" in that sentence doesn't work because we can't rule out the union of G() and S().