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

[clearstream]

Going with the previous that talks about the feeling of the fantasy environment, playability was also certainly important.

A thought I had about that is that to call rules gamist is like calling writing literary. When a designer creates a model and rules correlating to a reference, they are expressing themselves creatively in the medium of games. They aim to craft successful rules just as much as a writer aims to write successful text.

In that sense, gamist is not at odds with simulationist, rather it is perhaps just applied incorrectly in this thread due to overlooking the act of expression via a medium.

 

[pemerton]

This was probably in response to my claim that a set of rules that represent things that are not possible for the occupants of the setting to know (that is to say, primarily, hardcore genre convention rules that virtually demand that the occupants not acknowledge them) are not, in and of themselves, simulationist rules

We are in agreement on your claim.

Another example is hit points in D&D: hit points generate a D&D genre convention that the heroes (and their antagonists, if we ignore 4e minions and AD&D kobolds) are typically unable to be killed by a single sword-blow: there must be some back-and-forth in the combat before a resolution is obtained (I've read somewhere that Gygax liked the back-and-forth of Robin Hood vs the Sheriff of Nottingham).

But your claim is about the non-simulationist character of rules that represent or give effect to genre conventions, where it is the genre conventions that the world inhabitants cannot know.

Even where RPG rules do represent things that the world inhabitants can know - eg how a -10 penalty in RM represents a modest degree of pain or impairment - the inhabitants don't know the rules of the RPG that we are all sitting around playing in the real world! They only know the represented things.

Rolemaster characters are presumably often aware of the things those bonuses represent.

Absolutely, as per what I've written just above. But they don't know about the bonuses themselves, which are a game device! (In Vincent Baker's language, they are a "cue" - something that exists in the real world, that we RPGers use to help sort out the content of our shared fiction.)

The question is more relevant to Savage Worlds characters, however: do they understand Wild Cards are a thing? In a purely simulationist view they could because the benefits of being one are potentially visible, especially when watching such a character over time. If not (and I believe the answer normally is "not") why not? My answer would be because it doesn't represent a theoretical reality of the settings involved; its a dramatic conceit.

Even on the simulationist reading, they don't know about the Wild Cards - just about whatever it is in the posited fiction that we RPGers use the Wild Cards to represent/model.

 

[clearstream]

Absolutely, as per what I've written just above. But they don't know about the bonuses themselves, which are a game device! (In Vincent Baker's language, they are a "cue" - something that exists in the real world, that we RPGers use to help sort out the content of our shared fiction.)

Through repeated practice, an experienced character can be expected to have an intuition or natural awareness of those bonuses. Suppose there was a harsh penalty for wielding an X against a Y, and a strong bonus for wielding a Q against that Y. That practiced and experienced character will be aware that it is unfavourable to go with X vs Y, and better to prefer Q. One can even imagine an assiduous captain maintaining statistics on X vs Y and Q vs Y, and being able eventually to approximate the actual values.

EDIT To me system values are perforce content of the fiction for games that are simulationist (or perhaps more that there is no difference between saying we use them to sort out our fiction, and saying they are content of that fiction). Example: Where the rule offers %rate and that rule is believed to correlate with the cosmos, then the inhabitants must be able to perform statistical analysis to find that %rate. I am not saying that they will, or that it would be easy, but that it is necessarily possible that they could.

EDIT2 I am picturing that their awareness and responses to these hidden laws of their cosmos is part of fiction set there. Example: Advised by the assiduous (and attractive, but not distracting) Captain C, Princess P trains her cohort to fight well with Qs, as she knows that Queen B's bats use Xs. Captain C being a PC, at that. Silly example, but perhaps you see the direction of thought: I have the characters aware of the laws of their world. How far one wants to take that is a matter for prudence, presumably.

Even on the simulationist reading, they don't know about the Wild Cards - just about whatever it is in the posited fiction that we RPGers use the Wild Cards to represent/model.

This utility is one motive for incorporating @Thomas Shey's observation into my definition. it provides a lense or razor, allowing us to perhaps find agreement on some rule that the inhabitants couldn't possibly know (not even my assiduous captain). Bear in mind that by "know" I'm not saying that they can guess the exact words of the game text and many wouldn't know even the approximate values therein.

EDIT If we did agree that the inhabitants couldn't possibly know a rule (even approximately) then such a rule would be interesting to look at to understand more about what to count in/out as simulationist.

 

[Thomas Shey]

We are in agreement on your claim.

Another example is hit points in D&D: hit points generate a D&D genre convention that the heroes (and their antagonists, if we ignore 4e minions and AD&D kobolds) are typically unable to be killed by a single sword-blow: there must be some back-and-forth in the combat before a resolution is obtained (I've read somewhere that Gygax liked the back-and-forth of Robin Hood vs the Sheriff of Nottingham).

But your claim is about the non-simulationist character of rules that represent or give effect to genre conventions, where it is the genre conventions that the world inhabitants cannot know.

Even where RPG rules do represent things that the world inhabitants can know - eg how a -10 penalty in RM represents a modest degree of pain or impairment - the inhabitants don't know the rules of the RPG that we are all sitting around playing in the real world! They only know the represented things.

Absolutely, as per what I've written just above. But they don't know about the bonuses themselves, which are a game device! (In Vincent Baker's language, they are a "cue" - something that exists in the real world, that we RPGers use to help sort out the content of our shared fiction.)

Even on the simulationist reading, they don't know about the Wild Cards - just about whatever it is in the posited fiction that we RPGers use the Wild Cards to represent/model.

Very well. I thought you were disagreeing with this point from your post.

 

[Thomas Shey]

EDIT If we did agree that the inhabitants couldn't possibly know a rule (even approximately) then such a rule would be interesting to look at to understand more about what to count in/out as simulationist.

This sort of hard edged genre emulation has always been something of a sticking point in these discussions. It was clear over time that the really hardcore simulationists in the old r.g.f.a. days just really didn't find it possible to engage with hard genre games in the way they wanted to (which is different from saying that such games couldn't have simulation elements, but some of the core elements just didn't work when approached that way). It was interesting in a darkly humorous way to watch the Forge bat them out of dramatism/narrativism into sim because it made their model untidy.

 

[clearstream]

This sort of hard edged genre emulation has always been something of a sticking point in these discussions. It was clear over time that the really hardcore simulationists in the old r.g.f.a. days just really didn't find it possible to engage with hard genre games in the way they wanted to (which is different from saying that such games couldn't have simulation elements, but some of the core elements just didn't work when approached that way). It was interesting in a darkly humorous way to watch the Forge bat them out of dramatism/narrativism into sim because it made their model untidy.

I suppose each model has its descriptive virtues and failings. The GEN 2-tier model rejects any necessary polarisation.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I suppose each model has its descriptive virtues and failings. The GEN 2-tier model rejects any necessary polarisation.

I'm conflicted about that. In principal I don't find it objectionable to include two or all three in a game, but I can't help but think that's because I'm willing to compromise some things for other things. I know there are absolutely people who don't want anything to do with virtually any of the mechanics related to dramatist/narrativist concerns for example, and are resistant to even more structural efforts to push that. So while I don't object in principal, I think for a fair number of people, the pieces of rope don't meet in the middle.

 

[clearstream]

I'm conflicted about that. In principal I don't find it objectionable to include two or all three in a game, but I can't help but think that's because I'm willing to compromise some things for other things. I know there are absolutely people who don't want anything to do with virtually any of the mechanics related to dramatist/narrativist concerns for example, and are resistant to even more structural efforts to push that. So while I don't object in principal, I think for a fair number of people, the pieces of rope don't meet in the middle.

Would you call The One Ring simulationist?

 

[pemerton]

Our imagined inhabitants of GH can't know the rules of TB because of gaps in correlation between TB and GH. They can know (via intuition and investigation) the rules if ICE because of correlation between those rules and GH.

As I've posted, I don't agree.

The rules of Rolemaster, for instance, tell the players at certain points to roll d% and then consult a table. The imagined inhabitants of GH cannot learn about that rule. That doesn't stop the rule being an important component of a simulationist resolution system.

Imagining what the inhabitants of the world could know about the rules, is for me a powerful lense for understanding what is or should be counted simulationist. It seems necessarily true that if the game rules correlate to the reference world, then its imagined inhabitants must be able to infer them.

I don't think this is true at all.

For instance, everything in RM is based around d% rolls, -10 penalties and the like, and looking up charts. I don't think the inhabitants of GH can work this out. As I posted upthread, it is a type of breaking of the 4th wall.

Through repeated practice, an experienced character can be expected to have an intuition or natural awareness of those bonuses. Suppose there was a harsh penalty for wielding an X against a Y, and a strong bonus for wielding a Q against that Y. That practiced and experienced character will be aware that it is unfavourable to go with X vs Y, and better to prefer Q. One can even imagine an assiduous captain maintaining statistics on X vs Y and Q vs Y, and being able eventually to approximate the actual values.

Putting to one side its enlightenment anachronism, one can imagine a character in the WoGH doing research to establish how things work in the world of GH. Imagining that does not depend upon using any particular RPG system.

Some RPG systems purport to model or represent - via their PC build, or action resolution, or setting-and-framing rules - some of the more salient processes and principles that the imagined research discovers. Rolemaster is an example.

That doesn't mean that the research will discover those RPG rules! I never have, but could, use RQ to play a game set in GH. That would be a different set of rules from RM, but that wouldn't change what an imagined in-world researcher would learn by researching the WoG.

 

[clearstream]

As I've posted, I don't agree.

The rules of Rolemaster, for instance, tell the players at certain points to roll d% and then consult a table. The imagined inhabitants of GH cannot learn about that rule. That doesn't stop the rule being an important component of a simulationist resolution system.

You might be reading in something that I am not saying. Let's ask some questions

• Can they infer the contents of that table i.e. the possible outcomes as facts about their world?
• Can they infer given careful observation the rate of those outcomes?
• Do we anticipate that they can experience some of those outcomes, in their world? e.g. a shattered knee (RM)?

It's true that they wouldn't learn that there is a rule instructing a player to consult a table. What they would know however is that if this happens then at least these outcomes (those on the table) are possible. A player can imagine their character talking about that - "Oh yeah, bites from giant ants? Could break bones. Might destroy organs... but that's extremely unlikely."

[EDIT So where a putatively simulationist mechanic is perfectly simulationist, it is necessarily true that it maps to facts found in the reference world. Of course, all simulationist mechanics are approximations, and therefore they only approximately map to those facts. The same conclusion mutatis mutandis applies.]

I don't think this is true at all.

For instance, everything in RM is based around d% rolls, -10 penalties and the like, and looking up charts. I don't think the inhabitants of GH can work this out. As I posted upthread, it is a type of breaking of the 4th wall.

Okay. We'll just need to agree to disagree, as I am having difficulty resolving the contradictions in your thought here.

Putting to one side its enlightenment anachronism, one can imagine a character in the WoGH doing research to establish how things work in the world of GH. Imagining that does not depend upon using any particular RPG system.

The results of that research - what they learn - is anticipated to not invalidate the particular RPG system, where that system is simulationist.

That doesn't mean that the research will discover those RPG rules! I never have, but could, use RQ to play a game set in GH. That would be a different set of rules from RM, but that wouldn't change what an imagined in-world researcher would learn by researching the WoG.

You would be using BRP I believe, and not RQ. Where that is counted simulationist, then it's statistical shape will now be learnable by the researcher. Note that I am not saying GH as simulated by RM will be the same GH as that simulated by BRP. If we sincerely take each to be a simulation, differences between the systems must amount to differences between the worlds.

[EDIT Given they are approximations, there might be enough wiggle room for them to amount to the same world. I am making my arguments first from the viewpoint of a perfect simulation, and then applying it to imperfect simulations with the necessary adjustments. I am not always spelling that out because it seems obvious... but perhaps it's best I note it here.]