What makes setting lore "actually matter" to the players?

[Thomas Shey]

Do folks actually consider D&D to be simulationist games? I find that a weird one as the power levels of PCs definitely removes them from the realm of any coherent relation to anything found in reality. Or do I have the definition simulationist games wrong?

"Simulation" does not necessarily have to map to our reality. Some people even think it meshes okay with genre emulation, but I personally think that's a different beast.

But going down that rabbithole would be a massive side-trip for this thread, I think.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Except that so much of it is completely toxic. SO MUCH GRIPING. You'd think most of them would find a different game, one they actually like.

Bold of you to think they wouldn't find some set of problems with any other game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Do folks actually consider D&D to be simulationist games? I find that a weird one as the power levels of PCs definitely removes them from the realm of any coherent relation to anything found in reality. Or do I have the definition simulationist games wrong?

My preference is for lower power levels than modern WotC usually rolls with, but reasonable simulation can make a difference there as well (as with A5e and it's extensive exploration rules).

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't really know you, but you seem to me to be the sort of person who's able to recruit entirely new players into the hobby. It's what I do, and it ensures my preferences will exist in sufficient quantities that I can continue to run my games my way for as long as I wish.

I'm pretty awkward socially (my wife and I are virtually convinced I'm on the spectrum), but I am working on it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Oh, believe me, I get it; I'm a poster on a D&D-centric board who really doesn't want anything to do with D&D proper, even if I don't have the hate-on about it I did 40 years ago. Only reason I'm here, honestly, is the other places I've found that are broader the tone puts me seriously off, and some D&D-adjacent discussion still involves topics that have wider reach that I find interesting, and there's some broad discussion here (such as this thread, even if it does tend to lean into D&D just because of where we are).

Yeah, I really miss D&D-adjacent discussions here. But most of them are still tagged WotC 5e even though the topic can usually apply to many other games, and I'm not allowed to post there anymore.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Bold of you to think they wouldn't find some set of problems with any other game.

Would be an awesome new thread though.

 

[SableWyvern]

I'm pretty awkward socially (my wife and I are virtually convinced I'm on the spectrum), but I am working on it.

Fair enough. Although, keep in mind that you can also get your existing players to do recruiting for you. About half of my current group was brought in by other members of the group.

I'm aware that I've got it pretty good and sometimes I fail to appreciate that getting a good group together can be difficult, and perhaps I've had a lot of luck in the regard. But, whatever the case, I absolutely believe that one of the greatest things I have going for me with respect to this hobby is that I've never been reliant on the wider community or the industry to provide me with players nor does that wider community set expectations for what or how we play.

 

[GobHag]

Do folks actually consider D&D to be simulationist games? I find that a weird one as the power levels of PCs definitely removes them from the realm of any coherent relation to anything found in reality. Or do I have the definition simulationist games wrong?

There's this term called Gygaxian Naturalism.....

 

[Lanefan]

Do folks actually consider D&D to be simulationist games?

Modern D&D? No. Some versions of TSR D&D could certainly be used for simulation without too much tweaking, and 3e in its hamfisted way tried its best.

4e went full-on gamist, and 5e kept some of that.

I find that a weird one as the power levels of PCs definitely removes them from the realm of any coherent relation to anything found in reality. Or do I have the definition simulationist games wrong?

You're right in that in any version the higher the PC levels get, the worse things become for simulation purposes.

 

[Lanefan]

To expand on this a bit - and to (gasp!) bring it back toward the thread topic - setting lore is far more likely to matter to the players in a simulationist type of game than it would in a gamist type of game, because the lore is an integral part of the world they're trying to simulate.