D&D General On simulating things: what, why, and how?

[Manbearcat]

What sim aspects do I want in my D&D? Well, I want them to be in play insofar as they yield a comprehensible experience for all the participants that is sufficient to play a game. So GMs need to rely upon them to frame scenes and players to functionally navigate their decision-space which affects the gamestate (and the shared imagined space) in a way that is predictable and rewarding.

This isn’t color (like modern D&D encumbrance/Loadout/inventory). It’s individually consequential things that intersect with each other part to make a weighty (in the play), coherent whole.

So I’m my D&D when it comes to “sim stuff “, I would like:

* A Loadout/Inventory/Encumbrance system that makes sense with choices that consistently matter.

* Build mechanics + Action resolution mechanics that are tightly and coherently integrated so that every “unit” (PCs, NPCs, Towns, Adventuring Sites, Topographical inputs like Terrain/Hazards, Portents, Journeys, Parleys, Haunts, Combats, Camping/Taking Watch, etc etc) of play brings what it should bring into each scene for vital, vigorous, dynamic, thematically coherent and potent play. Play where each participant can make system/character/situation/setting based inferences that are consistently reliable so they can navigate a weighty decision-space and consequence-space of chunky moments of play…and nothing more (no meaningless cruft)…anything more (like a preoccupation with color) is distracting cruft that I want removed from my brain, from their brains, from our conversation, and our navigation of play procedures.

* Tags/Keywords/Currencies (meta and actual) that are elegant and comprehensible in their representation of stuff in our shared imagined space and exchange for stuff in a way that nets a vital and vigorous play space when managing decisions around them.


And I want all of this “sim stuff” table-facing, clearly encoded, handling-time-friendly, and tightly integrated.

 

[Campbell]

I think if we are aiming to portray a setting that feels like a real place it's important that we are consistent - that the overall fiction coheres with itself. Otherwise, we are just speaking to idiosyncratic aesthetic preferences. To me picking and choosing when and where to apply different standards is not treating the setting like a real place that can be meaningfully explored.

Like of course people still eat, get diseases, break their bones, etc. It all just still has to pass a credibility test for me. Like if I can reasonably fight an ancient dragon with my 3 best buddies it should take a fair number of goblins to be a meaningful threat and my athleticism outside of combat should match what I am capable of inside of it.

I am fine with a more down to earth approach that still includes fantastic elements as long as it's consistent. A warrior in RuneQuest is basically still a guy in a world where fantastic creatures and magic exists, but they aren't going off into the outer planes to wage war against Hell itself. They won't go around fighting giants and will likely be concerned about getting into fights with other warriors.

From my perspective it's all about coherence.

The reason I drive this point so hard as the passe way people seem to be using simulation as code for my idiosyncratic aesthetic preferences are better. I mean when you see all these callouts about anime it obviously does not seem like this is in any way related to a coherent approach to the game's setting.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Look, as far as some sort of 'simulation', I am not really looking for game mechanics that try to tell me what my view of things should be. I need, everyone needs, coherence. Settings pretty much invariably include a default assumption that things work like in the real world. This is the only way we can REASON about what is going on. Likewise people behave like people, otherwise we cannot reason about them. Regardless of genre or agenda or anything else every game, every fiction in general, has these characteristics.

I just don't know why some model has to exist of this. Its enough that the table agrees "this is the kind of fiction it is" (genre/tone/setting) and that should MOSTLY be enough. So, there's not a need for systems to tell us how far we can jump and etc. It is what it is. If we all see it as comprehensible and coherent with the rest of the fiction, that's all that matters. We saw the fictional position, we reasoned about things, we were able to make decisions and consequences followed in expected ways.

So, I would like it best when there isn't some sort of 'toggle' between what I can do in fiction and what I can do in mechanics. People have been focusing on D&D fighters, but it is just an example. D&D particularly is a peculiar game this way. Like, wizards are just guys, there's nothing weird about them, except they cast these crazy spells. I mean think about virtually every other fiction you ever read/watched/played this was not true!

 

[Manbearcat]

I just don't know why some model has to exist of this. Its enough that the table agrees "this is the kind of fiction it is" (genre/tone/setting) and that should MOSTLY be enough.

Just going to grab this part of your post to excerpt my thoughts above.

The “sim” I want out of system is that it does sufficient table-facing, transparent, robust work that our play conversation isn’t burdened by really any of what you’re talking about above; little to no “this is the kind of fiction this is” clarifying talky.

I don’t want to waste conversation/play time on calibrating or recalibrating this stuff during play. I want all of our play and each of our minds to be focused as much as possible on the play of the game itself and as little as possible on calibrating our individual and collective User Interface of mechanics : shared imagined space. If we’re spending a bunch of time on that crap, I’m not pleased. Either there is a system problem or there is a user problem (eg they don’t know the system or their brains aren’t correctly oriented/uploading things or I’m not communicating well enough) that needs to be corrected.

 

[pemerton]

I think the argument is that EVEN IF you were, as a mundane human (which many people would consider fighters to be) the most bad-assed of all mundane humans on planet Earth, you'd be lunch for the likes of a dragon. You'd be lunch for the likes of a mad raging bull elephant (seriously google 'elephant attacks') to be perfectly honest. and a 5e elephant is a snack for a fairly likely sort of 5e dragon. A 20th level fighter can beat this dragon, but how? He'd have to be FAR beyond human levels of performance in many areas, realistically to stand any chance at all.

I've bolded the bit of your post that really resonated with me.

When I think of RPG mechanics being simulationist, I have a similar sort of idea to what @Hussar does (if I'm properly reading his posts). I want the mechanics to tell me what is happening in the fiction. This is the great appeal of a system like Rolemaster or RuneQuest.

Whereas HD, hp, AC, damage dice, saving throws - the core apparatus of D&D - don't do that. Mathematically, the relevant numbers applied in accordance with the relevant rules will tell us what happens and whether the dragon or the fighter wins the fight. But how did the fighter do it? The system doesn't tell me. And that lack of information is reinforced by other parts of the rules that tell me that the fighter is not Beowulf or even Aragorn - can't hold their breath for hours, can't forced march for days without ill effect. (What does Eomer say? "Wingfoot, they should call you," or something very similar.)

I don't get why people would want to say "you're a mythic hero who's a superhuman badass but you needs to run, jump and carry in amounts that I can observe in the real world". That the characters being played are not mundane and are not limited to real world actions, be it by magic or skill.

Like if I can reasonably fight an ancient dragon with my 3 best buddies it should take a fair number of goblins to be a meaningful threat and my athleticism outside of combat should match what I am capable of inside of it.

These posts convey well what I'm trying to get at above.

If a game's mechanical system tells me contradictory things about the same bit of the world - in this case, how tough and athletic the high level fighter is - then any sense of simulation is spoiled.

This is an issue that has plagued D&D from its beginnings, because of the failure to factor level and its concomitants (saving throws, hit points, to hit bonus, etc) into all aspects of the game that involve the fiction they pertain to: toughness, endurance, prowess, etc. If my fighter can kill a wyvern or a dragon in a one-on-one melee, why are they not able to hold their breath for hours, go without water for weeks, etc (think about REH's Conan being crucified but not dying in "A Witch Shall Be Born").

This is actually why I found 4e D&D super-verisimilitudinous, even though its resolution processes are not simulationist in the jargonistic sense used by Ron Edwards.

EDITED to add a missing "not" in the final sentence.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mod Note:

Over the past several pages, there seems to be a rising tide of a variety of low-key questionable posting habits that are starting to raise people‘s temperatures. Individually, not too bad, but as they aggregate, they aggravate. Let’s all dial it back a notch before things get out of hand.

 

[pemerton]

I think if we are aiming to portray a setting that feels like a real place it's important that we are consistent - that the overall fiction coheres with itself. Otherwise, we are just speaking to idiosyncratic aesthetic preferences. To me picking and choosing when and where to apply different standards is not treating the setting like a real place that can be meaningfully explored.

Like of course people still eat, get diseases, break their bones, etc. It all just still has to pass a credibility test for me.

<snip>

I am fine with a more down to earth approach that still includes fantastic elements as long as it's consistent. A warrior in RuneQuest is basically still a guy in a world where fantastic creatures and magic exists, but they aren't going off into the outer planes to wage war against Hell itself. They won't go around fighting giants and will likely be concerned about getting into fights with other warriors.

Burning Wheel is very similar to RQ as you describe it here.

Even a very powerful warrior - say, Power B8 and weapon skill of B6 or B7 - won't have a chance against a dragon, which - per the Monster Burner - can easily do a fatal wound (Severe, Traumatic or Morta) with its talons or jaws (IMS B6, B12, B16 and B7, B13, G1 (=B17) respectively, where the strongest human might have a MW tolerance of B14 (8s in both Power and Forte) which would mean Severe B12 and Traumatic B13). The talons have Versus Armour of 2 and the jaws 3, which means even wearing full plate you need to roll 3 or 4 successes on your 6 dice to avoid that damage. And of course if it breathes it fries you, because all the incoming damage is in the Grey shade (so B17+) which is a Mortal Wound for any warrior who is not somehow enchanted or Heroic in their stats.

The dragon's own resistance to damage is immense (as befits its size): B10 is needed for a Superficial and G4 (= B20) for a Light Wound - and the IMS for the PoB8 warrior with a sword will be B6, B11, B16 (but with VA 2, so the dragon needs to roll 3 successes on its 4 armour dice to avoid the wound). Because the worst the warrior can do to it is a Superficial, it can afford to attack without worrying about parrying on every action.

For the warrior to be able to beat this dragon, they need something remarkable to occur that steps up their abilities - a Dragon-Slaying Sword that lets them do Grey rather than Black-shade damage (G6, G11, G16 will absolutely make the dragon sit up and take notice!), something that steps up the warrior's own resistance to wounds, etc.

The last time I did a dragon fight was in 4e D&D, and of course it was completely different from how it would be in BW. The PCs were in their flying tower, and there was a Frost Giant chieftain riding the dragon, and in the end the PC fighter was the one to get the kill by leaping off the tower onto the back of the dragon and pinning its wings so that it crashed. The whole thing was maximum gonzo, and there was no sense at any point that the epic tier fighter was someone might worry about getting tired hiking through the woods!

 

[pemerton]

I would prefer always-on supernatural might over 4e's 'powers' that are often hard to explain from simulationistic angle.

What does "simulationistic" mean here? Not the same as the OP, I'm assuming.

 

[pemerton]

I think the kind of "simulation" the OP is talking about is the kind we see in fiction- the world generally works like the real world where not otherwise specified.

That is the kind of simulation I mean, and if that hasn't been clear before, please take it as my stance now.

I thought the OP was also talking about rules; whereas here you seem to be describing some premises about the shared fiction.

For my part, my models for FRPGing tend to be JRRT and Arthurian romance, REH and similar S&S tropes, Wuxia films, and (to a lesser extent) Ursula Le Guin. None of these really presents a world that works like the real one: they present worlds in which some expected tropes are present, but there's no attempt to actually create a working conception of a viable human society.

I think superhero comics (not the Watchmen, but the ones that the Watchmen is critiquing) are another good example of this approach: if we as readers ask why Storm spends her time fighting Magneto and Doctor Doom rather than remedying droughts and floods that threaten thousands or even millions of lives, we're missing the point of the story. Similarly, if in a typical FRPG context we expect the clerics to use their abilities to stop plagues, and the druids to use their abilities to ensure harvests, and the wizards to use their abilities to power machines, the world is going to quickly stop looking like any of the ones I mentioned above!

I wonder how many people claiming that simulation can't and doesn't exist in a fantasy RPG are also 4e fans?

See my post upthread about Burning Wheel. And also some of my posts about Rolemaster. And RuneQuest. There can be FRPGs that try and convey an idea of "realism" and what it might be like to be a knight fighting a dragon. But D&D is not one of them. It just piles on numbers and feeds them through a resolution process.

4e is the most visceral version of D&D I know, because of how much it emphasises positioning, recovery, and effects other than hit point attrition. So moreso than other versions of D&D we get to see what is happening in the fiction. But the result is not gritty in any fashion. It's gonzo!

The issue here is that D&D has always assumed all monsters can be fought conventionally, with blasty stuff and (magical if necessary) slice 'n' dice. It's not an issue of clever tactics or special McGuffins; its just a question of how awesome you are.

<snip>

In D&D, you can literally stand there and hammer at the beast until it's dead. It's definitely an obstacle to simulation, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying if it's something we care about.

But as per my post upthread, if you ignore the simulationist impulse here, but apply it in another domain where exactly the same bit of the fiction is on display (ie the physical prowess of a Hero or even more powerful fighter), then verisimilitude breaks down. If, once we pay attention to what is happening in the fiction, we see how physically unstoppable the Hero is, then everything else in our fiction should reflect that too.

As I've said before, my primary focus in regards to simulation and verisimilitude is in worldbuilding. Personal PC combat obviously is a lot sketchier that way. I still try as best I can, because that's what I like.

I don't see D&D as very simulationist in this respect either, because its default world is full of ancient ruins filled with monsters and treasure.

My favourite two D&D settings are Greyhawk (which I also use for Rolemaster and Burning Wheel) and the 4e default setting (I don't call it "Nentir Vale", because when I ran 4e I used a bit of the old B/X map of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos but was still able to completely implement 4e's setting). Both settings support some key tropes for FRPGing, though the 4e one is more "cosmological" whereas GH is a bit more "grounded" (while also having a central area which very conveniently has coasts and pirates, rogues and cities, slavers, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, desert and knights - it's like REH's Hyborian age compressed into a modestly-sized hex map).

But if, in play, I need an evil cultist or a mad dark elf or whomever it might be to turn up, then they turn up! I will write-in whatever backstory is necessary and appropriate, but I won't worry too much about (for instance) where their income and subsistence are coming from in the context of a pre-modern largely agrarian economy, or who exactly taught them how to read and write.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

What does "simulationistic" mean here? Not the same as the OP, I'm assuming.

I'm referring to well known issue with (I'm already sorry that I mentioned this) "disassociated mechanics." Especially with martial powers it often was rather unclear how their usage limits related to the reality being modelled. So instead of say, Captain America having "Flip a Car" power they can use once per scene, I would just prefer the Captain America to have physical stats that allows them to flip cars.