Why do RPGs have rules?

[pemerton]

You cannot answer Clearstream's questions if you have no mental model of a bear.

Children can answer @clearstream's questions. Because they have beliefs about, and ideas about, bears, water, wells, etc.

But if is able to use some language to describe things = is simulating, then it seems to be the notion of simulation has been deprived of meaning.

A wind tunnel isn't just a collection of beliefs and ideas about wind: it has a very specific, technical relationship to the phenomena it models. A weather forecasting model relies less on physical instantiation, and more on mathematical reasoning, than does a wind tunnel, but it still has quite specific, technical relationships to the phenomena it models.

If someone describes (say) the setup in Graham Greene's The Quiet American to someone who's not read the book, and then asks them to guess how it turns out, that person might be able to extrapolate from what they've been told. They might even do a good job (especially if they have some knowledge of Greene as a writer). But that's not a model of anything. It's just reasoning.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, yours was not a simulation in the context of an RPG. A lightning bolt won't blast a house in two, so that was purely a non-simulation(but cool) fantasy moment.

Remember, simulation in the context of an RPG =/= simulation in the real world.

Particularly given your final sentence, how do you know it was not a simulation? That is, how do you know that lightning bolts won't blast a house in two? I mean, I extrapolated from the extent fiction (a storm, in an area with a house). The players appeared to accept it as realistic (ie (i) that a lightning bolt might strike a house where a ritual has just gone terribly wrong, and (ii) that it might split the house in two).

(And here's a picture of a lightning bolt smashing a tree: Man screams in panic as roof is smashed by lightning Suppose instead that it smashed the central post of the house, it seems to be the house might well be blasted in two!)

 

[clearstream]

I would agree that the bear example is a poor one. I'd much rather read an actual play example that helps illustrate what folks are trying to say. But folks seem reluctant to share those.

It seems like a bit of color and nothing more. It didn't become meaningful in any way. I don't see how such a detail couldn't be narrated as part of setting the scene. On its own, it feels pointless and incomplete regardless of play priority.

Awhile back we were discussing simulationism and naturally earlier thought on the subject came up. Questions like this one often arise

"If it's Simulationism, then what's it Simulating, and what form does the resulting Simulation take?"

To which one possible answer is that

"the term is is defined locally and historically, and not really descriptive as such"

Such a take might appear to either deny the possibility of simulationist play, or express skepticsm as to the possibility of knowledge about simulationist play. But the discussion goes on to accept the possibility and develop some knowledge about it

"Baseline Simulationist practice
The five elements of role-playing as laid out in my GNS essay are obviously where we start. Modelling them is the ideal. My first point about that is that the model need not be static; dynamic characters and settings, for instance, are perfectly valid Simulationist elements. My second point is that different types of Simulationist play can address very different things, ranging from a focus on characters' most deep-psychology processes, to a focus on the kinetic impact and physiological effects of weapons, to a focus on economic trends and politics, and more. I'll go into this lots more later.

The second point is that the mechanics-emphasis of the modelling system are also highly variable: it can handled strictly verbally (Drama), through the agency of charts and arrows, or through the agency of dice/Fortune mechanics. Any combination of these or anything like them are fine; what matters is that within the system, causality is clear, handled without metagame intrusion and without confusion on anyone's part."

You might at this point recognise the author, Ron Edwards. Someone who so far as I can tell had no empathy with simulationism, but (or on account of that) was able to discuss the mode with a certain objectivity. He lands on

"Internal Cause is King
Consider Character, Setting, and Situation - and now consider what happens to them, over time."

He gives the mode the byline "The Right to Dream" and concludes that it is focused on having the experience for its own sake. Perhaps without noticing that this is true of game play in virtue of being game play. He questions whether enjoyment of the experience for its own sake can really stand up, in the long term.

My thinking is in part based on his discussion. I say there is a model and the group has heuristics that map to future states. There should be nothing surprising there. It's practically a restatement of what a game is. However, in the immersionist or simulationist play I'm concerned with there are some things that matter

• That there should be referents, which can be previously imagined (i.e. preestablished) referents. That means I am not sure that no-myth play can be simulationist.
• That the functions themselves (heuristics, whatever you want to call them) are proper subjects for attention. I'm not just interested in the scene elements (e.g. the bear in the Goldilocks scene) but also in imagining the relationships and dynamics. I ought to know why the bear is thirsty and have in mind a cause (function, heuristic.) I have in mind simulation, not narration.

Those factors to me make it right to say that simulation is being used or done, and to find other descriptions inaequate. I would say that other descriptions reveal more attempts to understand the mode using the language of other modes, with foreseeable lack of success. It is separated from ordinary language use in the ways I have outlined.

 

[loverdrive]

This is untrue in 5e. Not everything is a knowledge check and many things are just automatic yeses with no check of any sort. Knowledge is a significant part of the game, but it's not even close to being everything.

If you are talking about dice rolls, they have nothing to do with it, "knowledge check" is a term from fighting games, and I've included the definition right into my post: "things that work if and only if the opponent has no clue how to deal with them".

Here's a more in-depth one from the glossary:

Testing whether your opponent understands how to beat a certain attack or strategy. If they don't, you loop it until they die. Gimmicks are often good examples of knowledge checks; these attacks tend to have somewhat non-obvious answers that need very specific practice to stop, but knowledge checks don't have to be obscure or wildly unsafe.

You can test more basic things too, like whether your opponent knows there is a gap in your string, or if they know how to punish certain marginally unsafe attacks. You're basically asking your opponent "how well do you understand the basics of this matchup?" and if they answer poorly, you'll win pretty easily.

The only way, say, GWM can work if GM doesn't know how to shut it down. Or SS+XE. Or any other possible build and strategy.

In 5e D&D the DC is the deciding factor. Sure the DM decides the DC, but a DM acting in good faith isn't going to abuse the DCs. Your argument up there relies on extreme bad faith by a DM, which is extraordinarily rare.

So... the success is determined by whether the GM is "acting in a good faith" (aka her willingness to crush PCs underfoot). I see.

@loverdrive , it boggles the mind to hear you say that you've never seen players who are noticeably bad at 5E. How is this possible?

I've seen people who haven't figured out the game yet, yeah.

Just like I've seen people who don't know where block button is located in Mortal Kombat. But they aren't bad at Mortal Kombat, they aren't even playing the damn game yet!

 

[clearstream]

Particularly given your final sentence, how do you know it was not a simulation? That is, how do you know that lightning bolts won't blast a house in two? I mean, I extrapolated from the extent fiction (a storm, in an area with a house). The players appeared to accept it as realistic (ie (i) that a lightning bolt might strike a house where a ritual has just gone terribly wrong, and (ii) that it might split the house in two).

You gave the answer already, in a previous thread. Internal cause is king.

 

[pemerton]

I'm not trying to dismiss simulation as a goal, or a mindset... I'm trying to understand what it involves. Because I think it has to be something beyond mere plausibility because that's present in non-simulation focused games.

Well, I know two versions.

(1) The mechanical game system plays a primary, sometimes even sole, role in determining what happens next. In this case, the Orcs have a "% chance to sacrifice prisoners" rating, and the GM rolls this for every appropriate time period of play. The AD&D Monster Manual has a lot of this sort of thing. So does Rolemaster. By contrast, 4e D&D and MHRP have very little.

(2) The GM plays a primary role in determining what happens next. In this case, the GM decides when it "make sense" for the Orcs to sacrifice their prisoner.


In (1), the GM also experiences the simulation unfolding. In (2), the GM doesn't as they are authoring it. It is a "simulation" only from the perspective of the players.

 

[Manbearcat]

This conversation is so weird.

Simulationist/Immersionist priorities (and the TTRPG play that undergirds it) are about an epiphenomenon. They're about the expectation of, and meeting, an experiential quality (exclusive to a participant in question) of "being there." Its like the Turing Test of TTRPGs and the experience of play is the AI trying to convince you that its not an AI. If the experience passes the Turing Test then the gameplay experience passes muster. What might facilitate one person's experience and attendant Turing Test result of the exact same conversation, ephemera, procedures in meat space (the TTRPG play) might foil the same for the person to their left or right.

 

[pemerton]

Acceptance that it is possible to take a sincerely simulationist approach to RPG. That there may be an effort not solely to make stuff up, but to make that stuff up in a certain way.

I regard myself as something of an expert on "simulationist" RPGing. I GMed Rolemaster for nearly two decades (thousands of hours). I know (or once knew) RQ fairly well. I've played quite a bit of Classic Traveller.

I'm not confused about those game systems, or how they differ (or can differ) from (say) Agon 2nd ed, or MHRP, or 4e D&D.

But no one here seems to accept my account of how those games permit the participants to "make stuff up in a certain way". So, like @hawkeyefan, I'd be interested to hear what others think that way is. So far all I've heard is "plausible extrapolation" which does not distinguish between RPGs; and (from @FormerlyHemlock) without a metagame agenda which I think can benefit from extrapolation. (Eg producing the experience of "being there" looks like a metagame agenda to me.)

 

[clearstream]

Well, I know two versions.

(1) The mechanical game system plays a primary, sometimes even sole, role in determining what happens next. In this case, the Orcs have a "% chance to sacrifice prisoners" rating, and the GM rolls this for every appropriate time period of play. The AD&D Monster Manual has a lot of this sort of thing. So does Rolemaster. By contrast, 4e D&D and MHRP have very little.

One way this comes about is when a GM and/or players shift into designer mode and externalize the model and functions they have been using. Often in the process investigating phenomena for the sake of modelling them, or other models for the sake of refactoring them for better fit with their intended play. ("We don't care that much about ballistics, let's simply this part.")

(2) The GM plays a primary role in determining what happens next. In this case, the GM decides when it "make sense" for the Orcs to sacrifice their prisoner.

In (1), the GM also experiences the simulation unfolding. In (2), the GM doesn't as they are authoring it. It is a "simulation" only from the perspective of the players.

In (2) the GM can enjoy embodying the simulation, i.e. instantiating models in their mind and notes, and having ideas or rubrics for causality. GM can experience the simulation unfolding. I have certainly experienced that when I have been GM, and I have heard others attest to it.

Even so, I share your feeling that there is a sense in which it is only a simulation from the perspective of the players. And then, only for those players who consent to it. More perhaps needs to be said about that.

 

[pemerton]

You gave the answer already, in a previous thread. Internal cause is king.

OK. We can ask how this is operationalised. We won't get there by pretending that imaginary things actually have causal properties.

In RM, RQ, Travller, etc, the way this is operationalised is to rely on actual causal processes: dice rolls.

In systems that depend on GM narration and extrapolation (what Tweet and Edwards call "drama" resolution), the way we get it is by authorising one person to decide what the internal causes and effects are. As I posted not far upthread, that may produce something for the players in which internal cause is king. But the GM needs to have some other maxim by which to make decisions, as they can't look to their own decisions as a touchstone prior to making them!