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

[clearstream]

I don't know what the "its" refers to in the final clause. The imagined inhabitants of the World of Greyhawk can, I assume, know its rules, but they can't know the rules of Torchbearer which is the system I am currently using to run games set in GH.

In that case, you would be counting Torchbearer as not a simulationist game, because it's rules don't correlate with the imagined world in a way that inhabitants can know.

I also don't find the notion of "say what follows" very applicable to simulationist resolution processes. The process tells you what follows, so there is no need for an additional injunction to say what follows.

Using ICE as an example, one GM might be interested in narrating to the level of granularity Arms Law provides and be satisfied with the pre-authored text for it. Another could be interested in narrativing to an even greater level of granularity than that and therefore lack sufficient pre-authored text. A third may be interested in nearly, but not quite, as much granularity as the first, and prefer to narrate based on direction rather than recite pre-authored texts. In all cases, I do not see how we could count as simulationist an approach that does not equip players to say something that follows.

[EDIT Noticed though, that "something that" is probably better wording than "what".]

 

[hawkeyefan]

Really? No bullet ever grazed someone's skull leaving only a scratch?

Sure, that's happened. But as we all know, what else has happened is that people who have been shot in the head die instantly. This is something that is quite possible when a person gets shot in the head. I think we can all agree on that, right? That guns are deadly and it often only takes one bullet to kill someone?

So, if a game is attempting to simulate gunfights, the mechanics must allow for this possibility in some way. The system should also allow for flesh wounds and similar types of things that really happen, yes, but they must allow for the entire range of outcomes that can happen when a person is shot. A Level and Hit Point system renders the ability to portray a one-shot-kill almost nil. If simulation is a goal, then such a possibility should not be almost nil.

A simulation is going to allow for the one-shot-kill that is quite possible in a gunfight. Having levels and additional HP that make that impossible is pretty much the opposite of a simulation. Your HP as fuel gauge analogy doesn't really work because in a gunfight, someone who is incredibly skilled, a veteran of many battles, and otherwise ready to fight can take one step onto the battlefield and be killed instantly. In other words, a game system has to allow for all the fuel to be drained in one go if it's actually trying to simulate how gunfights work.

The lethality of a gunfight cannot be measured as a steadily consumed resource like gasoline.

Being high level protects a character from that in D&D. Being a veteran of many battles does not protect anyone from that in real life.

This is why D&D in general, and Hit Points specifically, are not simulative. They are game mechanics meant to facilitate fun play that's supposed to mimic adventure fiction.

We wouldn't normally say that someone whose skull was grazed by a bullet was shot in the head. As the post you quoted said, I was picking up on @hawkeyefan's example, which was not an example of a person being grazed by a bullet.

Again, if you're saying that every gunfight in D&D begins with several exchanges of merely grazing fire before finally a serious injury occurs, and that that's a simulation of how the fantasy world works, well you're positing something that I find too silly to incorporate into my own RPGing.

"Ha ha nice try, but you'll have to shoot at me at least 10 more times in order to land a kill shot!!!"

 

[clearstream]

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.

That's not really apposite to my arguments. I'm agreeing that based on a preponderance of certain features we can pragmatically call some games simulationist and others not. I'm adhering quite fast to my definition.

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

Some like only some references: I say that is picking-and-choosing. Some say the timing of a reference's creation matters: I say it only needs to be found in the final product. Some count in only some levels of granularity or detail: I say all game systems elide or omit detail.

It's pragmatic to call some games simulationist and others not simulationist, even though underlying that they fall along a scale. D&D might be a 3. ICE an 8. Pragmatically, we should call 8s simulationist and 3s not simulationist. My definition indicates that via "preponderantly".

 

[pemerton]

Using ICE as an example, one GM might be interested in narrating to the level of granularity Arms Law provides and be satisfied with the pre-authored text for it. Another could be interested in narrativing to an even greater level of granularity than that and therefore lack sufficient pre-authored text. A third may be interested in nearly, but not quite, as much granularity as the first, and prefer to narrate based on direction rather than recite pre-authored texts. In all cases, I do not see how we could count as simulationist an approach that does not equip players to say something that follows.

"Narrating based on direction" does not strike me as particularly simulationist, although perhaps you have an example in mind? (Eg upthread I mentioned that RM, unlike RQ, doesn't always give left or right side of the body, but that sometimes that is answered by other parameters of the situation, like knowing which side of the character a biting giant ant was on.)

In that case, you would be counting Torchbearer as not a simulationist game, because it's rules don't correlate with the imagined world in a way that inhabitants can know.

Upthread I pointed to a number of ways in which Torchbearer, while keeping some of the elements of PC build found in Burning Wheel, drops the simulationist aspects of PC building (ie BW lifepaths) in exchange for "choose from list A and list B and . . ." (ie class, hometown, social, specialty, PC relationships with a cap of 3, starting gear limited by carrying capacity).

The conflict system is not simulationist at all, given that outcomes are based on a negotiated compromise.

Non-conflict action resolution isn't either - it has some simulationist trappings, in the way obstacles are set, but the actual resolution process allows all sorts of non-simulationist interventions (choices about fate and persona, nature, traits, etc) and then the way consequences of failure are narrated is not simulationist at all (and is, rather, an example of the GM saying something that follows).

The systems for scene-setting - especially camp and town phase - are also very non-simulationist, even moreso than Gygax's city/town encounter matrix in Appendix C of his DMG.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Some like only some references: I say that is picking-and-choosing. Some say the timing of a reference's creation matters: I say it only needs to be found in the final product. Some count in only some levels of granularity or detail: I say all game systems elide or omit detail.

This, then, implies that literally all games are simulationist, so long as someone finds them to simulate something. I don't think that's very useful. That's why I consider the origins of a mechanic, and contrast them against their current usage, which absolutely can vary.

HP, levels, Vancian spellcasting, and a variety of other D&D mechanics were chosen specifically for their gamist attributes--or, at least, we can be as certain about this as we can about anything involving the creation of D&D, since its original creators are now dead. These mechanics have, in the time since, become ingrained in the overall...I dunno what you'd call it. Zeitgeist? Collective unconscious? of TTRPGs, and indeed gaming more widely. As a result, many people now take these things as givens of TTRPG play, and thus consider them "simulationist" for that reason. However, I assert that those rough edges, which are often overlooked or denied by modern players (e.g. glossing over the very poorly grounded nature of discontinuous levels and à la carte multiclassing, arguing that HP must in fact be meat points and not nebulous "you're still allowed to play" points) are the original gamism shining through under the modern usage, and that it would in fact behoove many people who want a simulationist game to sit down and really think about whether they want to keep such gamist elements.

---

As for the previous poster who asserted that these things are impossible to mix together...I just don't see it, and having (re)read the assertions from the horse's mouth, I fundamentally disagree with the author. I don't see a fundamental disconnect between "moments of drama" and "moments of well-defined conflict," because a conflict can be quite well-defined without taking a side. E.g., if one has a conflict between two factions, one can have skirmishes between those factions be very well-defined things, embedded in the higher space of siding with one side, the other, both, or neither. Alternatively, you can have things like Dungeon World's Undertake a Perilous Journey roll: the players clearly have a gamist goal (survive the journey without suffering excessive losses), but meeting that goal may require tough choices if the players do not roll very well. That's a narrative situation embedded in a larger game context, and yet both things are tied together by invoking the Undertake a Perilous Journey roll.

That sort of thing is what I mean by a single mechanic fulfilling multiple goals at the same time, either one embedded inside the other, or the two invoked sequentially, or the two invoked in distinct senses, but either way, a single mechanical action contributes to both. Gamism and simulationism are often (though not always) the hardest to reconcile on this front, because of what they "care about" so to speak, but even then they can work in tandem.

 

[FrogReaver]

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

I actually find them to be quite simulationist.

We want a game where our hero can quickly take out specific non-important NPCs in combat because that’s what happens in the movies. Minion rules are great for that.

Perhaps we should differentiate with outcome simulation and process simulation.

 

[FrogReaver]

Prince Valiant allows encounters to emulate/simulate heroic fantasy fighting. It doesn't use hit points.

Likewise for Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy (ie Marvel Heroic RP adapted for FRPGing).

I think you are too quick to point out counterexamples instead of simply introducing more specific criteria such that my statement is true.

Maybe we should start here: in a game with d&d like mechanics, hp are essential to produce heroic encounters where the heroes or villians aren’t randomly defeated by a random blow. For these types of games hp is an essential mechanic to get the desired simulation.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I actually find them to be quite simulationist.

We want a game where our hero can quickly take out specific non-important NPCs in combat because that’s what happens in the movies. Minion rules are great for that.

Perhaps we should differentiate with outcome simulation and process simulation.

That is genre emulation, a specific and natrativist concept. The kind of simulation most are discussing here is reality simulation (by certain standards of reality relative to the setting).

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

I think that's defensible, but I may be being fussy about what translates into "final produce"; for example you could conclude the D&D magic system is simulationist because by this time there's been much water over the bridge of justifying it. On the other hand, to me it looks like an example of after-the-fact retrofitting, because OD&D was so minimalist that there was no explanation for it whatsoever. On the gripping hand, that can be just written off to OD&D's general schematic nature (its explanation for almost any of its extent mechanics was next to nonexistent), as I gather the B/X and AD&D lines may have made some attempts in this direction. In any case I stand by the idea that its awfully specific for a game that clearly didn't start out with a well defined setting conceit, and think its origin was clearly involved with gamist convenience in mind.

 

[Oofta]

I think that's defensible, but I may be being fussy about what translates into "final produce"; for example you could conclude the D&D magic system is simulationist because by this time there's been much water over the bridge of justifying it. On the other hand, to me it looks like an example of after-the-fact retrofitting, because OD&D was so minimalist that there was no explanation for it whatsoever. On the gripping hand, that can be just written off to OD&D's general schematic nature (its explanation for almost any of its extent mechanics was next to nonexistent), as I gather the B/X and AD&D lines may have made some attempts in this direction. In any case I stand by the idea that its awfully specific for a game that clearly didn't start out with a well defined setting conceit, and think its origin was clearly involved with gamist convenience in mind.

But don't all fictional mechanisms start with some goal of "how can I make this fit"? People don't just say "magic works this way for my novel" for abstract reasons. It's "magic works this way because it works better for my plot and world building." Star Trek had teleporters because it was cheaper, not because there was some over-arching logic.