Search results

That level of detail? How about ANY level of detail? A simulation, in order to actually be a simulation, MUST inform the user something about what happens when the simulation is run. And D&D doesn't. It doesn't tell you anything. The mechanics do not inform the narrative at all. How can...

Heh. Just to inject a little levity into the conversation:

Because that's the BASIC DEFINITION of simulation. If the game rules do not tell you why something happens, then they are not simulating ANYTHING. So, no, D&D absolutely does not simulate a heroic fictional world. It really doesn't. You have added all of the simulation yourself. At no...

And that is perfectly fine. Hell, I totally agree.

Take something like Warhammer Fantasy. It's a pretty deeply trad game. At least earlier editions of it are. I'm unfamiliar with later editions to be honest. But, in Warhammer Fantasy, the narrative is actually driven by the mechanics. If I attack something, the system tells me not only...

Yup. The lockpicking example. In the random encounter, it doesn't matter what the PC's do, where they are or any actions they are taking. It's 6 PM and the DM has decided (through the die roll) that an encounter will occur. Nothing the PC's could do could change that. But, no, I don't see...

You're not quite getting my point. It's not that it has to simulate reality. It's that a simulation has to simulate something. Anything. For something to be "Verisimiltudinous", the system has to actually inform the narrative. And in D&D, it never does. The system in no way tells you what...

You're missing the point of simulation. At it's base, a simulation, in order to actually BE a simulation, must tell the person simulating something, information about whatever is being simulated. Urg, that's a horrible sentence. :D My point is, if you have a simulation about how a yo-yo...

Y'know, you are right. The random encounter isn't there because he screwed up some roll. That's absolutely true. However, the random encounter is generated because of a failed roll. Exactly the same completely arbitrary way that a random encounter is generated because the DM picked a...

I imagine that this is far, far more likely. Portraying the Chinese as aggressively fielding warships is not going to fly, like, at all, in China. And then "losing" to the Americans? Yeah, no. And, the Japanese "losing" (and I'm using scare quotes here because nobody really loses in the...

But, you do. This is exactly the same process that you use. You choose to have an event occur (or rather the dice choose for you) and you then backfill the scene and the narrative to make that event fit into whatever is going on in the game. There is no difference here. You keep trying to...

And there we have it perfectly laid out. The encounter is rolled FIRST. THEN the scene is created to make the encounter flow in the fiction of the game. The ONLY reason that this area has tall grass is so the DM can justify the ambush. Or, the ground will be soft enough to dig holes to...

For the players maybe. But, for the DM? Seriously?

That's the thing. There is no difference. The "random encounter roll" is not connected to anything other than, as you say, having this encounter. It's circular. It's not connected to the game world. It's not connected to anything the PC's are doing. No matter what the PC's are doing, at 6...

This could easily be true. The PC's spot the ambush because the grass wasn't long enough. They succeed on their perception check, so, now the grass is not long enough to hide the ambushers.

No. It absolutely does suddenly change height. You describe it as some grass over there and nothing else. That means that the players have a very incomplete view of the scene. That the grass might be long enough for someone to hide in is absolutely something that adventurers traveling...

Oh, come on. The ONLY reason the grass suddenly becomes long is because of the ambush, not the other way around. The DM wouldn't have even bothered describing the grass until the encounter occurred. Let's not pretend otherwise. Do you seriously describe the length of grass every single minute...

And, thus we keep up the pretense. Ask yourself this. Why did that group of monsters just happen to meet the party at that point in time at that location? It was all randomly generated. There is absolutely no difference between deciding that one completely arbitrary random roll results in an...

Your wandering monsters magically teleport to whatever location the party happens to be at the arbitrarily determined time span. The scene arbitrarily manifests itself to fit whatever the completely arbitrarily determined event has been created. There is no difference.