D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Hussar]

Having a scene where the dragon destroys the home town of the heroes and there's a scramble to escape and save those that they can, cool. But walking down the road and you get turned into ash? No thanks. There used to be a style of tournament play where the odds of your survival were extremely low. It was fine, even fun now and then as long as you knew what to expect going in. But if you have a DM that has you write up two characters and then proceed to kill the entire party off one by one? That's what we called a 1-time DM.

Huh. Funny how this runs rather counter to your insistence of logical simulated worlds. Your world functions as a relation to the level of the pcs. Some events are off the table, not because they don’t make sense but because they would not be fun for the players.

:hrm:

You spent a lot of pages claiming that you would NEVER run your game this way. That everything is always a logical extension of the setting. Yet here you are saying that doing that makes you a terrible DM. So which is it?

 

[Lanefan]

Having a scene where the dragon destroys the home town of the heroes and there's a scramble to escape and save those that they can, cool. But walking down the road and you get turned into ash? No thanks. There used to be a style of tournament play where the odds of your survival were extremely low. It was fine, even fun now and then as long as you knew what to expect going in. But if you have a DM that has you write up two characters and then proceed to kill the entire party off one by one? That's what we called a 1-time DM.

That's odd - that MO has worked for me for over 40 years now.

All it needs is to set up the fiction such that it lets them roll up and bring in replacements for their dead so the party doesn't just whittle down to nothing.

 

[Hussar]

Which is an incredibly arbitrary definition you alone have created. If that works for you, great.

No.

A simulation must provide some information about how a result was achieved. A system that provides only results is not a simulation. That’s not an arbitrary definition I’ve made up out of nothing. That’s what simulation means.

Otherwise any and all systems are simulations. Rolling dice in monopoly is a simulation if we, the players, add a narrative as to why I moved from location A to B. Obviously ridiculous.

 

[Lanefan]

While I agree with you that a discussion during the game is generally fine, I don’t think that in a case where it may make sense to make a ruling and then move on, that you can’t change your mind afterwards. There’s no reason to retcon anything… just, going forward you follow the new ruling.

The way I see it, any subsequent play that occurred based on the overturned ruling is (or should be) invalidated because it was in effect done in error.

Getting it right the first time is not always possible, of course, but it's an ideal to strive for; and IMO the price to pay for getting it wrong is that you've stuck yourself with a precedent that you maybe didn't want.

 

[Faolyn]

You might want to address this to @Maxperson who disagrees with you.

I have him blocked, so it's unlikely he'll see me.

 

[Lanefan]

No.

A simulation must provide some information about how a result was achieved. A system that provides only results is not a simulation. That’s not an arbitrary definition I’ve made up out of nothing. That’s what simulation means.

I disagree.

What we're trying to simulate are observed results in the fiction that are consistent with themselves, and thus give the setting a foundation to build on. As such, we can - if we want - then insert narrated processes on a case by case basis that reasonably led to those results.

It's the same issue as being expected to show your work on a math exam. The actual process is irrelevant. All that matters is that you get the right answer and know how to replicate whatever process you used, even if you can't explain or show that process. (I ran into this all the time in school: I'd often consistently get the right answer but if asked to show my work I'd have no idea what thought processes led me to getting that answer, I just knew I could do it again if I had to)

What is means in the game context is that narration does most of the simulative work in terms of explaining process (there's a sharp stone that frayed through your rope) while the mechanics are left to produce the result (you fell down the cliff).

 

[pemerton]

But Micah explicitly told you that you were not GMing wrong. See, here:

In the passage you quote, @Micah Sweet refers to for me and my table. Which does not address what I asked, which was How can an episode of play of Marvel Heroic RP be wrong from the perspective of D&D?

 

[The Firebird]

In the passage you quote, @Micah Sweet refers to for me and my table. Which does not address what I asked, which was How can an episode of play of Marvel Heroic RP be wrong from the perspective of D&D?

You stated:

"That would be like me telling you you're GMing D&D wrong because you're not calling for Burning Wheel-style blind declarations in combat."

He explicitly said you were not GMing wrong. So you misunderstood him when you wrote that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In the passage you quote, @Micah Sweet refers to for me and my table. Which does not address what I asked, which was How can an episode of play of Marvel Heroic RP be wrong from the perspective of D&D?

I wasn't referring to the game system, just the events that occurred as you explained them. Had those events occurred in that way in my game, I would have a problem with it, because I don't play games where those events as they occurred are perfectly fine, like MHR. You obviously do play such games, so there's no problem for you.

Not sure why you're banging on about this.

 

[definiteFreakyFishGuy]

No.

A simulation must provide some information about how a result was achieved. A system that provides only results is not a simulation. That’s not an arbitrary definition I’ve made up out of nothing. That’s what simulation means.

Otherwise any and all systems are simulations. Rolling dice in monopoly is a simulation if we, the players, add a narrative as to why I moved from location A to B. Obviously ridiculous.

Sorry for cutting in. I've been following this thread for a while, and I am intrigued by what you are sharing and I'd like to understand better. I've been throwing around the term "simulation" left and right without much thinking.

Is this definition of simulation you are using a widely accepted one in the context of TTRPG, or a broader context? Would you mind pointing me to a source? Apologies if the source was already provided—it's really hard to search through these posts.