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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Galloglaich" data-source="post: 4746634" data-attributes="member: 77019">I think this is a really good point. I believe the problems with "realistic" simulationist combat in RPG games is that it wasn't actually based on anything real, but rather on the assumptions of game designers who probably had never been in a fight in their life and knew nothing about Medieval combat. You end up with highly abstracted rules systems which try to be both balanced and realistic, but end up complicated, counterintuitive and hard for non-gamers to get into. Which contributes to shrinking rather than growing the RPG genre. To me 4E / WoW represent totally giving up on the simulationist idea in favor of creating the ultimate "gamist" / balanced un-breakable systems, which have the theoretical advantage of being relatively simple.  But layers of complexity do start to accumulate with WoW for example as there seems to be a perpetual 'leak' where they are constantly trying to fix something which players figure out how to break. When I designed the codex, I found that the actual historical martial arts techniques written down in 500 year old Medieval books worked very well with the real physical qualities of pre-industrial weapons and armor from a game play point of view. I learned that by taking a more "Simulationist" basis than 99% of RPG combat systems, my system also became more balanced (and there fore "Gamist") than the original 3.5 combat system, and this was verified when we did mathematical analysis of the system later on.  One example of this, in most RpGs a dagger is a weapon which barely does any damage. This is because weapons are typically measured by their damage, which leads to a really wierd concept that daggers are sort of nuisance weapons that do less damage than say, a staff or a hatchet. In reality of course, a 14" specially hardened double edged knife is extremely dangerous, and historically was used to finish people off because it was better at getting around or through armor and causing catastrophic wounds. It was the dagger, not the sword, that was in fact the quintissential medieval weapon, carried by every warrior who ever went to combat, because people back then knew only very well that a sword fight can all too easily turn into a wrestling match, (especially if both opponents have armor) and a dagger is the best way to finish a wrestling match. A stab wound from a sword and a stab wound from a 14" dagger are essentially identical. Getting your throat slashed by a 14" dagger is no less catastrophic than by a 48" longsword. The real difference between the two is that a dagger is faster and handier at close range, while a sword has more reach, is better for defense, and can perform certain types of cuts better. If you accept this reality as a game designer, you will find that other things, like how armor or armor-piercing weapons work, or how a staff or a mace work, how the historical fighting techniques work, all fit together correctly and in balance. If you throw it out the window you have to invent some strange rules (like that swords only cut and can't stab, or that a breast plate covers the whole body, etc.) in an ultimately doomed attempt to balance things out. Once we accepted this basis, we found that we could pick a level of abstraction up a bit from the very granular, which was one of the assumptions always made in old attempts to do realistic combat systems. So we could actually make it faster too, in my opinion. That said, personally, I don't like the GNS theory from the Forge, I think the concepts like "Gamist", "Simulationist" and "Narrativist" are too narrow and limiting, and become self fullfilling prophecies. They resulted in some very good games like Burning Wheel and Sorcerer, but I don't think they really encompass RPG design genre. I personally believe the term "Gamist" was invented to denigrate DnD in particular. Regardless, as you point out, if you use these models you will often find they are not mutually exclusive. But there is no doubt that people have different goals in how they want to play and design RPGs, and there is nothing wrong with thinking about how that works.  I've heard the term "Immersionist" bandied about, which is probably closer to what I want to experience when I play an RPG. G.</blockquote>

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