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

[clearstream]

I harp on this specifically because it so clearly illustrates the fundamental disconnect between the way (process) "simulation" is talked about, and the way it's actually done in practice. Folks, here and elsewhere, talk about it as though its target were to resemble objective, observable truths and verifiable logic as much as humanly possible. This is false. It would be lovely if it were true, but it isn't. What people actually want is the feeling that it resembles objective, observable truths and verifiable logic. The unkind way of phrasing that is "truthiness"; my preferred way is "groundedness".

Something can be objectively disconnected from how reality works--genuinely in defiance of known, albeit obscure, data--but still feel "realistic" or "verisimilitudinous" because it matches our intuitions and allows us to apply intuitive, naturalistic reasoning to such situations in a (in-the-fiction) consistent way. That's because it feels grounded, even if we later learn that it isn't actually how things work. Groundedness is influenced by IRL truth, but not determined by it. It's mostly a function of intuition and received wisdom.

That's well stated. I suspect that when it comes to TTRPG game mechanics, whatever "simulation" they are doing is seldom validated to ensure results fit with real-world observations. That sometimes seems to be almost beside the point, based on the game mechanics folk concerned with process-simulation seems satisfied can meet its standards. That's setting aside cases where there can be no real-world observations... which are probably rarer than one might expect due to the prevalence of type-III facts. In any event, TTRPG mechanics are more often validated to ensure results fit with the intended played-experience.

Wargaming mechanics are an exception, in that they are often validated to ensure results fit with historical data. WRG and DBM rules being examples. Designers like James F Dunnigan were both wargames designers and military analysts. I don't know whether or not the RM or RQ rules were explicitly validated that way. The rules on chariots and phalanx formations in RQ seem likely to have been at least strongly informed by historical research. But then who is to say that the distribution of the Battle skill roll made to move a phalanx forward with a rate of 2 looks anything like the distribution of real phalanx leaders in successfully advancing their phalanxes at double-time!

For some, these sort of expectations about reenactment table top wargaming mechanics have carried forward into TTRPG. I could get behind an advocate of process-simulation who was making those sorts of arguments. Few game mechanics meet that standard, however.

 

[Enrahim]

Ahh, we're back to everything is simulation. I mean if asking the DM, outside of the game, a series of questions to create content for what you are doing, and that counts as simulation, well.... I'm thinking most people would balk at that idea. The DM in a D&D game has no idea what is behind a door. He asks a series of yes/no questions and it is narrowed down to half a dozen orcs are behind the door. All of this is done in play, during session.

And this would be simulation?

I don't see the problem?

Updating Conway's game of life by hand can be a tedious task, and are far from immersive. But I don't think you would make the claim that this wouldn't be doing a simulation?

I think the reason people would balk at the idea of the DM aking a series of yes/no questions to determine what is behind the door is similar to the reason most people would balk at doing Connway's game of life by hand. It wouldn't be that it is not a simulation. It is that we generally have far superior ways of doing such simulation available to us, that is much more suitable in an environement where several people are waiting for the outcome so they can do something they find more fun than "mechanics".

 

[Enrahim]

You are adding the word "complete" here to create an argument I am not making.

The system alone produce ANY information that then guides the narration which assures it makes diegetic sense. The DM makes stuff up after the fact is the opposite of diegetic. A mechanic that only works by rewriting the past cannot be diegetic.

Exactly. You so you see the danger of using imprecise language? I was using the word "seed" in the other extreme interpretation, I guess that might be more to your liking? I really wonder how a mere guide can assure the final produced narration to make diegetic sense tough? I would think a corrupt interpreter would be able to twist most prompts into nonsense? Unless the guideline is itself directly uses the problematic concept of diegetic.. (I.e "Make a diegetic narration that...")

In which case I guess D&D indeed is diegetic in this sense given typical general GM guidance. For instance a failed climb roll (alone) translates to the narrative guidance: " Make a diegetic narration that describe a failed climb attempt". This seem to match your description?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That's well stated. I suspect that when it comes to TTRPG game mechanics, whatever "simulation" they are doing is seldom validated to ensure results fit with real-world observations. That sometimes seems to be almost beside the point, based on the game mechanics folk concerned with process-simulation seems satisfied can meet its standards. That's setting aside cases where there can be no real-world observations... which are probably rarer than one might expect due to the prevalence of type-III facts. In any event, TTRPG mechanics are more often validated to ensure results fit with the intended played-experience.

RE: bolded bit, this is where my greatest frustration lies.

Because that thing--that thing right there--is precisely what "process" sim fans reject about other approaches. They so, so often deny that there is any "intended play-experience" (that's happened several times in this thread); that there is a fitting to such an experience, and instead claiming there is an external thing enforcing such-and-such approach. They so often declare that that non-use of a played-experience standard is part of the point!

But when understood in this way, we see that "process" sim....isn't really any different from any other approach. There's a specific played-experience the rules are designed to cultivate. That design exploits abstraction, the nature of human attention, and various other tricks and quirks to try to cultivate a particular feeling, a particular lived-through experience. We can test those rules to determine whether or not they actually do achieve that experience, and that's one of the key components of game design. The pretense that there isn't an intended experience, that the mechanics must be designed to be totally experience-agnostic, is incredibly frustrating because it leads to all sorts of cul-de-sacs and argumentation dead ends.

Wargaming mechanics are an exception, in that they are often validated to ensure results fit with historical data. WRG and DBM rules being examples. Designers like James F Dunnigan were both wargames designers and military analysts. I don't know whether or not the RM or RQ rules were explicitly validated that way. The rules on chariots and phalanx formations in RQ seem likely to have been at least strongly informed by historical research. But then who is to say that the distribution of the Battle skill roll made to move a phalanx forward with a rate of 2 looks anything like the distribution of real phalanx leaders in successfully advancing their phalanxes at double-time!

Sure, for actual wargaming, those mechanics are fit for purpose; I don't really challenge that. (I mean, that's literally why FKR came into being--it alleged that all this effort spent on trying to achieve this was worse than just having an expert evaluate what players felt like doing.) But the point is that these mechanics were retrofitted to small-group fantastical adventuring. If you stick extremely closely to the rigid Gygaxian standard, you can kinda-sorta see the analogy at work.....but D&D almost never sticks to it that hard, even for OSR fans.

For some, these sort of expectations about reenactment table top wargaming mechanics have carried forward into TTRPG. I could get behind an advocate of process-simulation who was making those sorts of arguments. Few game mechanics meet that standard, however.

Most assuredly.

 

[pemerton]

In Ironsworn (sorry to bring this up again, but, it fits my example well and ... well... I just really like the system ) there is a mechanic called Ask the Oracle. What happens is when you get a result but you are unsure exactly how that result was achieved, you Ask the Oracle - a series of yes/no questions that may be weighted (instead of 50/50, you could make it 75/25 yes/no) at the DM's prerogative to generate a seed of an idea.

So, in play, the characters fail to reach a waypoint while traveling from A to B. The DM knows that the party is traveling through a magical forest of the elves, but, doesn't really have an idea about why the characters failed. So, Ask the Oracle - Is the problem magical (yes), is it a monster (no), is it a trap (yes) - ahhh, ok, now I've got enough of an idea seed to build a narrative. Cool. No problems.

Now, no one is going to claim that this mechanic is simulationist or diegetic. At least I don't think anyone would. This is simply a mechanic that spurs creativity. That's what it's there for. ((Plus, Ironsworn being primararily a solo-RPG, needs some way to give the player a way to move forward that doesn't solely rely on that solo player)) No problem.

My question is, what's the difference between Ask the Oracle and Ask the DM? After all, in both cases, the DM in question is still using the setting and the "logic" of the world to create a narrative. I ask "Is the problem magical" because the character is traveling in a magical forest. The trap question is inspired by the fact that elves don't like visitors. So, the narrative is very much informed by the setting. But, again, none of it is even remotely simulationist. Even if the results are ultimately diegetic (there really IS a magical trap in the forest in the game world) the means of creating that diegetic element isn't remotely diegetic.

When a DM does the same thing - plonks down a magical trap that causes misdirection while traveling through the magical woods, why does it suddenly become simulationist? The method for creating that magical trap had nothing to do with any in game process. But, if the party got lost and the DM decided that the party got lost because of a magical trap in the magical forest, people are claiming that the mechanics are simulationist because the party got lost using the skill system of the game. In 5e D&D, that would likely be the result of a failed Survival check. Or is the DM forbidden from adding a magical trap in the magical forest in response to a failed check? If the DM is forbidden from doing that, why? What about the mechanics says that the DM must not add a magical trap in a magical forest?

I think the sort of thing you describe - whether generated via the Oracle or via the GM's imagination - is one of the things that Sorensen's principles 3 and 4 are meant to exclude. The magical trap is, after all, very similar (in structural/process terms) to the startled chef.

Ask the Oracle is generally used as a tool to support the simulation. The questions are assumed to be limited to what could be reasonable simulation outcomes.

But all creative additions to the fiction will satisfy this constraint. So I don't think it can tell us much about whether or not an approach to resolution supports simulation.

 

[pemerton]

Problem with the runes example was not that it was made up on the spot. If the GM had decided on the spot before any roll was made what the runes said, I think noone would have had a problem with it (Edit: OK, if we have some fanatic Soerensen disciples here, that might make an exception). If you think that was the problem you have really missed the point!

Also thinking that the issue is that the player being involved in making it at the spot is also missing most of the point. If the player had been asked on the spot to honestly state what they they would think the runes were most likely to mean, I think several (but not all) that has argued against the runes example being sim would have accepted that as sim.

It is the feature that a player/character wish was the stakes of a check (and that the check is presented to be based on something completely different than the character's "wishing" ability), that seem to be the thing most are choking on.

It's the hope arrived by a Solitary Traveller who is a Cunning Expert. His hopes are likely to be accurate - it's not a punt in the dark.

This is why I find this notion of "reality warping", "wishing ability" etc so frustrating. It is projecting something onto the resolution framework that is not part of it, while ignoring key parts of that same framework.

From a simulationist perspective a roll isn’t simply to establish whatever new fiction the player/dm desires (within constraints).

Nor is this the case in MHRP (and my fantasy hack of it).

the probabilities of the roll don’t match the probabilities of the outcomes in the fiction.

The conjecture of a learned, experienced, trained etc person is more likely to be correct than the conjecture of an ignorant, inexperienced person.

The inference, If X is a disputed proposition of physics, and Einstein conjectured it to be true, then it is more likely to be true than one might otherwise suspect is sound. Einstein doesn't cause it to be true: but his genius as a physicist means that his conjectures tend to track the truth.

Likewise in the runes case: the conjectures as to meaning, from that particular PC, tend to track the truth. If it was highly unlikely that those runes in that place could reveal a way out, then the character wouldn't have conjectured that they do.

The world cannot be changed as it must be adhered to. This in no way shape or form prevents adding to the world as long as it doesn't contradict adherence.

Now the runes are back in as "simulationist". After all, the world was "adhered" to.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Exactly. You so you see the danger of using imprecise language? I was using the word "seed" in the other extreme interpretation, I guess that might be more to your liking? I really wonder how a mere guide can assure the final produced narration to make diegetic sense tough? I would think a corrupt interpreter would be able to twist most prompts into nonsense? Unless the guideline is itself directly uses the problematic concept of diegetic.. (I.e "Make a diegetic narration that...")

In which case I guess D&D indeed is diegetic in this sense given typical general GM guidance. For instance a failed climb roll (alone) translates to the narrative guidance: " Make a diegetic narration that describe a failed climb attempt". This seem to match your description?

I'm not Hussar, but no, that would not pass muster for me. By that standard, everything is always diegetic so long as we can sufficiently retrofit it to have been diegetic all along, and that's pretty obviously A Problem.

If I may, let me give you an example of something I have advocated many times in other threads, and called "diegetic" without being particularly challenged over it. Specifically, when I have advocated against fudging, by recommending that one make one's intrusions diegetic.

That is, I have a big beef about fudging. Since I know not everyone uses the word in the same way, when I use the word, I mean, "secretly modifying rules-results (e.g. ignoring dice, adding or subtracting values, etc.) to fix a specific result, concealing this from the players, and preventing them (as much as one can) from ever discovering it." I consider this inherently deceptive (you are, after all, making the players think the rules are being followed when they aren't), and I see it as genuinely negating the ability to learn from the consequences of one's choices. I know this view is controversial and I really don't want to debate about this in this thread, please understand that I am using this solely to give an example of diegetic gameplay which people have not previously contested re: diegetic-ness. Cool? Cool.

My proposed alternatives to fudging, in order from most to least preferable (but also most-prep to least-prep) are: 1. Building stuff into the world itself in advance, that supports your intrusion into the rule resolution; 2. (this is the important one) "make it diegetic" by having your intrusion be an observable phenomenon, at least in principle; or 3. Clearly specifying (whether before or after the roll, but preferably before) that the results you aren't comfortable with are off the table, and something else will happen instead.

That #2 technique, which I have many many times called "make it diegetic", refers to NOT simply secretly electing to ignore the rules when it suits you, but making any such event part of the world. It's not just that the goblin priest managed to ignore that lucky crit that should've killed it after only one round--somehow, a terrifying power has clearly "spared" (in a most gruesome way!) the goblin priest, powering him even through wounds you KNOW are lethal. It's not just that the monster got a crit on the brand-new player and would've killed their character outright in the middle of their very first session--clearly some kind of providence saved them. But who? What? We'll have to find out!

Here we can see the clear separation, and how I am advocating for the removal of that separation. Despite being an interference with the rules, fudging is inherently not diegetic. It's not part of the world--it's pretending that the world actually is one way when the rules clearly and reasonably (as in, no "abstraction was stupid, stick with the world" retort here) say the world should be a different way. When you make it diegetic, and specifically diegetic and reasonably discoverable (meaning, the PCs don't need to roll three consecutive nat-20s to find out--the chance of discovery is reasonably high), you hard avert basically every problem I have with fudging. Now, even though the rules are no longer entirely sacrosanct, we can tell that the GM interfered. We can see it, and we can now account for it--the GM can't just invoke this any time it suits, it's a part of the world, one that perhaps could be mitigated or even subverted to the PCs' aid.

That is what making a mechanic diegetic looks like. A milquetoast statement like "when the roll is a success, give narration that makes sense" is....not that. It's not enough. The GM may be speaking diegetically (their narration usually is meant to be accurate to the world regardless!), but the preceding mechanical expression is not diegetic.

 

[pemerton]

Elaborating on my point not far upthread, that inferences like If X is a disputed proposition of physics, and Einstein conjectured it to be true, then it is more likely to be true than one might otherwise suspect are sound:

The following counterfactual claims can both be true, of the same person at the same time:

(A) If I were to jump out the window, I would plummet to my death.

(B) If I were to jump out the window, I would be fine - because I would jump only had I arranged for crash mats to be placed below it, so I didn't get hurt by the fall.​

The difference between, when evaluated as true, is the degree of time and change over which the evaluation takes place: for (A), the time of evaluation is the immediate context of the utterance; whereas for (B), the time of evaluation stretches back into the past.

(I'm taking the examples from here: https://academic.oup.com/mind/article-abstract/108/431/427/985811)

We can create parallels for the climbing case:

(C) If I were to fall while climbing, I would have lost my grip immediately before falling.

(D) I am strong, so if I were to fall while climbing, it would only be if I had been careless, allowing my rope to run over a sharp edge and thus be severed.​

Which sorts of narrations are permitted in RPGing? How do they relate to the resolution framework?

If time must always run forward in narration as it does in the fiction, then (A) and (C) are OK, but (B) and (D) are ruled out. (C) is OK, because the failed roll can be correlated with the loss of grip, and then the fall occurs and is resolved. But (D) is ruled out, because when the roll is failed D reaches back into the fiction's past, and the way the character has laid their rope, to explain the fall.

 

[clearstream]

I think the sort of thing you describe - whether generated via the Oracle or via the GM's imagination - is one of the things that Sorensen's principles 3 and 4 are meant to exclude. The magical trap is, after all, very similar (in structural/process terms) to the startled chef.

But all creative additions to the fiction will satisfy this constraint. So I don't think it can tell us much about whether or not an approach to resolution supports simulation.

See also my #19,520 on Oracles in Ironsworn.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Elaborating on my point not far upthread, that inferences like If X is a disputed proposition of physics, and Einstein conjectured it to be true, then it is more likely to be true than one might otherwise suspect are sound:

The following counterfactual claims can both be true, of the same person at the same time:

(A) If I were to jump out the window, I would plummet to my death.​

​

(B) If I were to jump out the window, I would be fine - because I would jump only had I arranged for crash mats to be placed below it, so I didn't get hurt by the fall.​

The difference between, when evaluated as true, is the degree of time and change over which the evaluation takes place: for (A), the time of evaluation is the immediate context of the utterance; whereas for (B), the time of evaluation stretches back into the past.

(I'm taking the examples from here: https://academic.oup.com/mind/article-abstract/108/431/427/985811)

We can create parallels for the climbing case:

(C) If I were to fall while climbing, I would have lost my grip immediately before falling.​

​

(D) I am strong, so if I were to fall while climbing, it would only be if I had been careless, allowing my rope to run over a sharp edge and thus be severed.​

Which sorts of narrations are permitted in RPGing? How do they relate to the resolution framework?

If time must always run forward in narration as it does in the fiction, then (A) and (C) are OK, but (B) and (D) are ruled out. (C) is OK, because the failed roll can be correlated with the loss of grip, and then the fall occurs and is resolved. But (D) is ruled out, because when the roll is failed D reaches back into the fiction's past, and the way the character has laid their rope, to explain the fall.

I love this.

I particularly love this because there are plenty of things that happen in "process" sim play that are absolutely in the vein of D. Almost all descriptions of weapon attacks end up working this way, for example.