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

[robus]

In my ideal system PCs could exceed their stamina pool at the risk of exhaustion and/or HP loss. Same for all classes for that matter, the more you push beyond normal limits the bigger the risk. Kind of like lifting weights to the point that you pass out.

Me too. I want spellcasters, for example, to struggle to maintain concentration as they‘re under attack. Fail your concentration save? You can take a level of exhaustion to keep it up. Of course eventually it’ll kill you . Exhaustion should be an option to let PCs push their performance for a special outcome

 

[Oofta]

Sure. I think the thing with Blades is that it elides at least some of that prep on the characters part through a few different means; the Engagement Roll, Gear/Loadout, and Flashbacks. The system is helping to portray this by having these mechanics.

So would you say that the chronology of events is important to your sense of verisimilitude?

Occasionally we'll skip over or narrate the prep phase just to save time, but I do prefer chronological order for this type of thing. Primarily because a discovery or failure can lead to different actions.

So then do you think it's about the process? That we largely mimic the actual process that's taking place for the characters, in so much as we are able to do so sitting at a table and talking? So we as players follow roughly the same steps as the characters... first we research the place, then we decide what to bring, then we fill our packs, then off we go.... is that what makes it a simulation?

Can there be a breach to that sequence while still maintaining simulation? Or is that it, once there's a compromise, that's it? I think the way most RPGs play must allow some of this, no? If so, then what is it that causes issues for people?

There are times when someone will narrate something that happened in their past, often things I've discussed privately with the player offline. So I may ask them to describe a childhood friend they parted with on bad terms because they may show up as an NPC.

But that's background history, probably not what you're thinking. There can be times when minor things come up, but it rarely has much direct impact on the action at hand. It's more likely to be "did I remember to tell my neighbor to water the plants".

Well, it's interesting. I hear the term "quantum equipment" often on this topic. But that's not what it is, really. It's just a matter of WHEN a fictional element is established. In the fictional world, of course you had the Holy Hand Grenade all along. How did you know to bring it? Well the dice will help us determine that, but there must be a reason because there it is.

Compare this to the process of a Knowledge check of some sort in D&D. The DM introduces some new element....the Rabbit of Caerbannog. The player of the Ranger says "Do I know anything about that?" and the DM calls for a roll. Success! He knows about it's big pointy teeth and its meanstreak that's a mile wide.

When did he learn this? Just then in that scene? Of course not. He learned it earlier in his life as a ranger, and we as the audience just learned of that.

Is this different than the gear? Do you think of this as a simulation or something else? Are we simulating the learning of esoteric information in any way? Is this not "quantum knowledge"?

Quantum equipment was mentioned above, I was just using it as shorthand. When it comes to knowledge, I try to base it at least a little on character background. If they were an acolyte at the church of Antioch, it's likely they know all about the holy hand grenade. Maybe it's just random knowledge they picked up along the way, like how I know that fo mant spiders not every strand in their web is sticky and they try to climb on those. Why do I know that? Heck if I remember.

Yeah, I agree with you here, it's definitely just a preference.

I think there's this weird line between immersive story telling, simulation and genre emulation. Flashbacks can be an important story telling tool, but they can also be disruptive. But playing D&D, for me, is not us being actors in a movie. It's one thing for the PC to expound on something that happened in the past or to relate some story and quite another to affect the current state because of a flashback.

So, yes, for me using flashbacks would make the game feel more artificial than it really is. Sounds like Blades is emulating a heist movie with all of the genre affectations that involves which could include surprise reveals for even the player of the character (maybe?). It's a different way of developing a character and story. That doesn't make it wrong, just pushes it more towards heist movie exposition emulation. So yes, it would feel less like a simulation [in D&D's case of a world as depicted in a fantasy novel] and more like emulation. One is "let's create a shared experience about what it could be like to live in a fantasy world" the other is "let's create a shared experience about our favorite heist movie".

 

[Oofta]

Me too. I want spellcasters, for example, to struggle to maintain concentration as they‘re under attack. Fail your concentration save? You can take a level of exhaustion to keep it up. Of course eventually it’ll kill you . Exhaustion should be an option to let PCs push their performance for a special outcome

I've even toyed with the thought of taking physical damage for casters in order to cast spells when they're out of spell slots. However, I would want it to be a risky thing to do. Same with a fighter in that they could perhaps get an extra action surge but it's going to strain them (take HP damage) and risk exhaustion.

When the chips are really down and you have to do something, I want the wrenching pain, nosebleed, people yelling "Stop! You're going to kill yourself!" moments.

 

[robus]

It's the claim that making it up before is more real than making it up during. It's a pretty BS argument that says that timing is the critical factor in something being arbitrary or not when we're talking about made up things, which are never non-arbitrary.

Agreed, but when I said I adjusted HP during a combat in another thread it didn’t go down well .

We play this game instead of computer RPGs precisely because it’s run in our brains and not in some prescribed, and thus heavy (and necessarily constrained), simulator ruleset. The few times the designers try to prescribe an actual simulation mechanic (such as falling damage) it’s a pretty poor analog.

What we have in D&D is mostly an uncertainty resolution engine, which is great because that’s any easy thing for all players to agree on and there are simple things to earn that boost your chances of succeeding.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Agreed, but when I said I adjusted HP during a combat in another thread it didn’t go down well .

Some of us don't really want to play tennis without a net.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Ah, we've reach peak Fisking. Was wondering when that would happen.

It is arbitrary. There's nothing to assess. If your argument is that people can make assessments non-arbitrarily, I'll agree, but there has to be something to assess. What you're assessing is arbitrary -- someone made it up. You can lend credibility to an assessment of a made up that to get it from made up (and arbitrary) to non-arbitrary. Doesn't work that way. It's like saying that I have 1 unicorn and 1 unicorn so I have 2 unicorns. I actually have unicorns because I was able to math how many unicorns I have! No, unicorns are still made up, math doesn't save this. Only, this argument is worse because not all assessments are non-arbitrary to begin with, only some, so you're using a statement that's not necessarily true on something made up and claiming it's now non-arbitrary. Dude, just no.

And, for fictional reality, no again. The difference here is just that I describe the wall first, and then make my arbitrary judgement, and then determine the outcome. That's the D&D way -- "there's a cliff (insert description here), DC 15 to climb. <clatter> 16 does it, you're at the top." The other way is to have a fixed arbitrary judgement, determine the outcome, then describe the wall and attempt together. "there's a cliff, so you'll have to do something about it before (whatever reason the cliff is an obstacle happens). Okay, I'll try climb it, <clatter>, um, 7? Sure, the cliff provides some easy handholds, but there's a tricky part that has you execute a jump form one handhold to another. When you do that, you belt pouch snags a rock and rips, spilling coin everywhere down the cliff. You can easily make it the last few feet, but lose 1 coin." Here, at the end of the process, we can't tell one from the other, really. They both present a coherent fictional process and chain of events. So, no, there's not something different in that way. What you're reaching for is the "I like task resolution over conflict resolution," and "I like fortune at the end mechanics rather than fortune in the middle." Valid arguments, but if you're calling what you're calling sim, not ones that actually offset that. You need to work on your definition by way of first principles -- this is sim, and so I can look at game mechanics and evaluate them. What you're doing is saying "this thing I like is sim. But those other things I don't aren't. Because reasons (which shift around as needed to make the argument). Back up and come around at this from a the start with a clear idea of what you want sim to be. And if you aren't goring some of your own sacred cows, you're not doing it right because you're bending to keep your likes on the right side of the line.

I like 5e. But I'll gore it all day long when I analyze it because it is an incoherent mass of crazy. Fun crazy, but not coherent crazy.

The "this part isn't much of a simulation" is, again, arguing over the price. Let's not. The ad/disad analog was a tad bit of a trick, sorry, because that's determined by the outcome of a previous move, which looks just like the one you're tossing out as not sim. Again, sorry, didn't really realize I had done that because I didn't really anticipate your line of argument here. I dislike gotchas in discussion almost as much as in game.

As for the last, yes, they are very much equally arbitrary. You're just restating the argument that if I arbitrarily imaging a thing (or someone else does for me) before an action, that somehow my deciding on a DC for that action with regard to the made up thing reifies it (another great word, which means treating abstract things as real -- hint, this doesn't make them real) into suddenly being objective and non-arbitrary. It's the claim that making it up before is more real than making it up during. It's a pretty BS argument that says that timing is the critical factor in something being arbitrary or not when we're talking about made up things, which are never non-arbitrary.

There's an easy test for whether or not you are really ever 'simulating' anything at all and that would be to look at the range of your difficulties. If you're really simulating reality then MANY things will be impossible, and MANY things will be trivially easy, and there will then be some things in-between. If everything is pretty much in that in-between range, then you're not building your numbers on the basis of any realistic assessment of the world, you are building it on an assessment of what will make the game fun! 99.9% of everything in D&D is decided like this. Dragons can be stabbed with swords (at least by fairly experienced fighters) because THAT IS FUN. Cliffs can generally be climbed with SOME difficulty by pretty much whomever tries to climb them.

There's no evaluation of factors here, just 'what is fun'. So, the answer to the OP's question actually is "nothing", lol.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Right. So you're critiquing the accuracy of the simulation. The specific issue of granularity you note is inherent in basically any skill system, and something the writer needs to tackle when writing such.

I think "general athleticism" is rather sensible thing to measure in a game that doesn't specifically concentrate on athletes. Real athletes of course are better in some areas than in others, but almost all of them are better in all of them than me! There certainly is a lot of cross compatibility in competence across different facets.

The same applies to any skill. Are people really equally knowledgeable all facets of history? Cannot I be specialised in Cormyrian history? Or even more narrowly to some specific aspect of Cormyrian history? And you of course could model this, giving characters "expertise" to just specific application of the skill. I'm pretty sure there are some features like that, but IMO, such accuracy is rarely necessary. I give such to NPC specialists sometimes though.

But if you don't think this is simulation, (and same question for everyone really) what you think would be simulation then?

But how is it a simulation? My character plays baseball for 5 years and suddenly he's a world class swimmer, it isn't any kind of simulation of anything in the real world at all. It isn't even a terribly accurate DEPICTION. Why does being 'proficient' in Athletics in 5e grant a certain bonus? Why not some other bonus? Why is it a FIXED bonus? Its simply a completely gamist concept that exists to encourage players to have their characters consistently address problems in specific ways. Beyond that, you don't know the particulars of any particular instance of use! I come to a wall, and I say "well, I'm going to climb this wall." Nobody evaluates the condition of the wall (nobody even KNOWS it, it could be wet, slippery and moss-covered so that even world-class climbers have no chance at all to scale it). Instead I get some DC, which may be 'easy', 'moderate', or 'hard' mostly depending on the GM's evaluation of how likely it is that climbing or not climbing will advance the plot in keeping with his needs or convenience. Perhaps now and then a GM RANDOMLY GENERATES how slippery it is. But having seen enough stone walls, its pretty clear to me that whether or not one is mossy is going to depend on a range of factors, most of which are not actually even known (season, climate, type of stone, degree of maintenance, other factors related to moss growth of which I am too ignorant to even list let alone factor into a game).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But how is it a simulation? My character plays baseball for 5 years and suddenly he's a world class swimmer, it isn't any kind of simulation of anything in the real world at all. It isn't even a terribly accurate DEPICTION. Why does being 'proficient' in Athletics in 5e grant a certain bonus? Why not some other bonus? Why is it a FIXED bonus? Its simply a completely gamist concept that exists to encourage players to have their characters consistently address problems in specific ways. Beyond that, you don't know the particulars of any particular instance of use! I come to a wall, and I say "well, I'm going to climb this wall." Nobody evaluates the condition of the wall (nobody even KNOWS it, it could be wet, slippery and moss-covered so that even world-class climbers have no chance at all to scale it). Instead I get some DC, which may be 'easy', 'moderate', or 'hard' mostly depending on the GM's evaluation of how likely it is that climbing or not climbing will advance the plot in keeping with his needs or convenience. Perhaps now and then a GM RANDOMLY GENERATES how slippery it is. But having seen enough stone walls, its pretty clear to me that whether or not one is mossy is going to depend on a range of factors, most of which are not actually even known (season, climate, type of stone, degree of maintenance, other factors related to moss growth of which I am too ignorant to even list let alone factor into a game).

It is unfortunate that you have chosen to engage in this no true Scotsman exercise. I have already addressed the specialisation and granularity issue, and of course someone evaluates the conditions, the GM when they decide the DC. Deciding DCs based on railroady purposes like you suggest is not what the game advices the GM to do. But yes, if they did that, then that certainly would seriously harm the validity of the simulation.

But I repeat my question: tell us what you think is required for mechanic to be a simulation and give us some examples of such mechanics.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Simulation is not reality. We can simulate things that have never happened. Most simulations will have guesses, black boxes that simplify reality. The rock climbing simulation mentioned above just uses a slightly more granular set of guesses and assumptions than what D&D uses. We use simulations because we don't want to or cannot observe actual events. Simulations can, and do, simulate events or processes that have never happened and may never happen. They're "what if" scenarios like the CDC using a zombie apocalypse to simulate actual disease vectors.

I don't know what other word to use, and see no value in redefining the word "simulation" so narrowly that it cannot be applied to many aspects of an RPG. But this thread long ago devolved into bickering about game theory and it never goes anywhere.

Well, I don't think I'm actually redefining it at all! I mean, take the CDC example. The 'zombie apocalypse' is just saying "oh, lets simulate some unknown disease by giving it these parameters of contagion and calling it 'zombie apocalypse'" Now, I'll grant that, to the degree someone had a specific concept of a zombie apocalypse, and then set the parameters of the model such as to match that concept, that there's certainly an element of simulation. I'd note however that the the CDC simulation is a VASTLY more sophisticated thing than any RPG! It also fits my earlier FORMAL definition in that it is a set of interrelated models that are run ITERATIVELY in time steps.

So, I agree you can label things in a simulation as fantastical things, like zombie plagues. I also understand perfectly well that there isn't some exact cutoff point that says "below this level of fidelity its not a simulation." I just know that if we don't draw some lines someplace then things get ridiculous and people start calling D&D Combat a 'simulation', which IMHO is pretty much making the term meaningless. Beyond that, I have a DEEP suspicion and plethora of RPG experience that tells me MOST of these numbers that are coming up in these 'simulations' are set for purely gamist reasons, at which point calling it a simulation is really not appropriate at all IMHO.

 

[niklinna]

Since people have been talking about dragons—there's a fun bit in here about tripping a dragon while it's flying. BOOM! Straight down it goes to the ground, instantly, lots of damage.



Good times.