takasi
First Post
I took a hiatus from D&D around the time 3.5 was announced (SWG and WoW gladly accepted me at their table). At the tabletop I tried out Chainmail and then D&D Miniatures in 2003 (and Eberron brought me back to the RPG in 2004). In Chainmail, distances were expressed in inches, and hit points and damage were expressed in increments of 1, 2, 3. So a first level commoner would have 1 hp and do 1 point of damage, whereas a 1st level barbarian might have 3 hp and do 2 points of damage. When they converted Chainmail stat blocks to D&D Miniatures, they converted hit points and damage to increments of 5. Anything less than 5 hit points was like a copper piece.
After a few levels, to player characters, who move the camera of the world so to speak, the value of a copper piece (and more importantly, the gain from investing the time to manage them) decreases significantly. What would happen if you got rid of copper pieces from core D&D? Would it be horrible for simulationism? How much would trivial things cost then? How much is a chicken? A loaf of bread? At some point in the game, even 1 gp is pretty small, so why not keep track of everything in platinum? It's a matter of DM micromanagement. The core rules can just describe items in terms of platinum, but eventually the PCs may explore something that the DM needs to adjudicate or describe in terms of a smaller amount. You could say 500 chickens cost a platinum, and work the math from there, but it's easier for simulationism to have a system that focuses on the commoners of the world.
I have a player who recently pointed me to GDS theory and said he fears 4E will not allow the level of simulationism he's looking for in an RPG. He's also a rules lawyer, and I commented to him that one of the drawbacks of (I think GNS called it Purist for System?) simulationism is that it's dependent on the players and the DM feeling comfortable enough to use the rules to simulate something. For example, few would say they feel comfortable enough to objectively simulate a fight with 50 or more opponents purely using the d20 combat rules. Alternate rule systems can be used instead, like mob rules or Chainmail or charts from a sourcebook or something else, but the model for combat will not be the same that's applied to a small skirmish (even though you could technically use the same model). If a DM does not have these rules available, or doesn't understand them, then he might avoid adjudicating large attacks from a simulationist perspective even though there is nothing inherent about the base 3.5 combat rules that prevents large battles from happening.
More importantly, looking through the eyes of the game world mass combat is often very frequent and its adjudication, from a simulationist perspective, has a very significant impact to the setting. In Burning Sky, for example, Ragesia's progress should be on everyone's lips. However, I can't objectively simulate every single battle that's going on, yet there's no in game reason why the players can't continuously follow the news.
And just as a DM has to compromise on what he will and won't simulate, game designers have to compromise by deciding on the scope of what their rules will simulate. For example, around 2001 I wanted to run a naval combat game but there were no naval combat rules for d20. It's just one aspect of the world that they decided to ignore. They had to compare 'how much core book space would we need to devote to creating this subsystem' vs 'how many DMs out there really want to simulate this'? And for players who were in game worlds where naval combat has an important impact on the setting, the lack of rules meant DM weren't comfortable objectively simulating the outcome and so often times wouldn't. Or if it was based on a DM making a judgement call, the players lost a sense of understanding the process used to determine the outcome. A simulationist player probably wouldn't feel as comfortable spending a lot of time as the captain of a ship if he doesn't understand how the ship functions beyond the DM's whim.
In 3.5 there are a lot of questions that aren't answered by the core rules. This is where the mentality of simulationism has to be factored in. I may not know how long it takes for a 30 foot tall tree to burn down, but as long as I'm making that decision based on my understanding of how the world works instead of how many rounds would be fun or whether the tree is important to the theme of the story, I'm practicing simulationism. But do you trust the DM to do this? If you don't, and you want to look for rules beyond what the DM has made then simulationism depends on how comfortable you are with the rules and how well the rules simulate the world.
Going back to hit points being 1-2 per HD instead of 5-10 and wealth described in platinum, would you trust the DM to simulate the damage of a cat scratch or the cost of a chicken based solely on what's 'realistic' to the game world instead of what's fun or good for the story? The rules can always be added later too (good opportunities for 3rd party companies), if I needed them.
It's like the 'Standard Adventurer's Kit'. Some hardcore simulationist players in my group don't like the concept at all because it glosses over one subsystem of 3.5 (very minor mundane item management). My argument for using the kits isn't for gamist or story purposes, it's to help with abstraction. It's not like you can't change the contents or manage what's in the kits, but it seems, to me at least, like the level of simulationism is too detailed in comparison to how much the rest of the world is managed. The level of abstraction may be 'streamlined', but it doesn't prevent you from adding a more complex layer of simulationism to it. It's like a thieves toolkit. Do we need to simulate exactly what's in it? Or exactly how he disables a particular trap? It's just another layer of abstraction that allows simulationism to exist without being too complex than what a table feels comfortable with.
Why put one aspect under a microscope but only give a peripheral look at other aspects? Which elements of the setting are important to manage and why? I think these are interesting questions for a DM to review when running a campaign, and also when choosing a game system. Which aspects of 4E are they streamlining? Will the abstraction help players take on a simulationist mentality? Which aspects of the 3.5 system make it difficult for a table to feel comfortable with using the rules?
After a few levels, to player characters, who move the camera of the world so to speak, the value of a copper piece (and more importantly, the gain from investing the time to manage them) decreases significantly. What would happen if you got rid of copper pieces from core D&D? Would it be horrible for simulationism? How much would trivial things cost then? How much is a chicken? A loaf of bread? At some point in the game, even 1 gp is pretty small, so why not keep track of everything in platinum? It's a matter of DM micromanagement. The core rules can just describe items in terms of platinum, but eventually the PCs may explore something that the DM needs to adjudicate or describe in terms of a smaller amount. You could say 500 chickens cost a platinum, and work the math from there, but it's easier for simulationism to have a system that focuses on the commoners of the world.
I have a player who recently pointed me to GDS theory and said he fears 4E will not allow the level of simulationism he's looking for in an RPG. He's also a rules lawyer, and I commented to him that one of the drawbacks of (I think GNS called it Purist for System?) simulationism is that it's dependent on the players and the DM feeling comfortable enough to use the rules to simulate something. For example, few would say they feel comfortable enough to objectively simulate a fight with 50 or more opponents purely using the d20 combat rules. Alternate rule systems can be used instead, like mob rules or Chainmail or charts from a sourcebook or something else, but the model for combat will not be the same that's applied to a small skirmish (even though you could technically use the same model). If a DM does not have these rules available, or doesn't understand them, then he might avoid adjudicating large attacks from a simulationist perspective even though there is nothing inherent about the base 3.5 combat rules that prevents large battles from happening.
More importantly, looking through the eyes of the game world mass combat is often very frequent and its adjudication, from a simulationist perspective, has a very significant impact to the setting. In Burning Sky, for example, Ragesia's progress should be on everyone's lips. However, I can't objectively simulate every single battle that's going on, yet there's no in game reason why the players can't continuously follow the news.
And just as a DM has to compromise on what he will and won't simulate, game designers have to compromise by deciding on the scope of what their rules will simulate. For example, around 2001 I wanted to run a naval combat game but there were no naval combat rules for d20. It's just one aspect of the world that they decided to ignore. They had to compare 'how much core book space would we need to devote to creating this subsystem' vs 'how many DMs out there really want to simulate this'? And for players who were in game worlds where naval combat has an important impact on the setting, the lack of rules meant DM weren't comfortable objectively simulating the outcome and so often times wouldn't. Or if it was based on a DM making a judgement call, the players lost a sense of understanding the process used to determine the outcome. A simulationist player probably wouldn't feel as comfortable spending a lot of time as the captain of a ship if he doesn't understand how the ship functions beyond the DM's whim.
In 3.5 there are a lot of questions that aren't answered by the core rules. This is where the mentality of simulationism has to be factored in. I may not know how long it takes for a 30 foot tall tree to burn down, but as long as I'm making that decision based on my understanding of how the world works instead of how many rounds would be fun or whether the tree is important to the theme of the story, I'm practicing simulationism. But do you trust the DM to do this? If you don't, and you want to look for rules beyond what the DM has made then simulationism depends on how comfortable you are with the rules and how well the rules simulate the world.
Going back to hit points being 1-2 per HD instead of 5-10 and wealth described in platinum, would you trust the DM to simulate the damage of a cat scratch or the cost of a chicken based solely on what's 'realistic' to the game world instead of what's fun or good for the story? The rules can always be added later too (good opportunities for 3rd party companies), if I needed them.
It's like the 'Standard Adventurer's Kit'. Some hardcore simulationist players in my group don't like the concept at all because it glosses over one subsystem of 3.5 (very minor mundane item management). My argument for using the kits isn't for gamist or story purposes, it's to help with abstraction. It's not like you can't change the contents or manage what's in the kits, but it seems, to me at least, like the level of simulationism is too detailed in comparison to how much the rest of the world is managed. The level of abstraction may be 'streamlined', but it doesn't prevent you from adding a more complex layer of simulationism to it. It's like a thieves toolkit. Do we need to simulate exactly what's in it? Or exactly how he disables a particular trap? It's just another layer of abstraction that allows simulationism to exist without being too complex than what a table feels comfortable with.
Why put one aspect under a microscope but only give a peripheral look at other aspects? Which elements of the setting are important to manage and why? I think these are interesting questions for a DM to review when running a campaign, and also when choosing a game system. Which aspects of 4E are they streamlining? Will the abstraction help players take on a simulationist mentality? Which aspects of the 3.5 system make it difficult for a table to feel comfortable with using the rules?
