Contemporary Simulationist TTRPGs [+]

[MichaelSomething]

Did we mention Pioneer yet?? I might have missed it browsing through this thread?

I assume having someone with NASA experience write your space TTRPG qualifies it as simulationist??

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mongoosepublishing/the-pioneer-rpg-explore-the-solar-system

"Pioneer was written by software architect Dr. Sandy Antunes, whose space-science experience with NASA, the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), and several universities makes Pioneer authentic and realistic. The project was further developed by Traveller veterans Chris Griffen and Geir Lanesskog."

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm not sure that Simulationism has been the default assumption for a long while or the prevailing agenda of D&D. Dare I say but I think that D&D has fundamentally privileged Gamism. There are definitely simulationist elements, but I think that they are layered to various degrees on top of a Gamist base. For example, criticism that D&D wasn't simulationist enough is what led to the development of games like RuneQuest and its BRP family of games.

It is not the main agenda of D&D, but certain amount of it is assumed as a default. Earliest editions were rather bad at it, but that is not necessarily by choice rather than the designers were still figuring out things. But yes, this spawned other games that did it better. 3e has a lot of simulationism in it (again, not necessarily done well, but the intent is clear.) And the edition that most openly moved away from this is the one that tanked, so certainly people still expect some of it.

Do you have examples? I would love to hear them.

I mean pretty simple mechanic that a lot of game has where we have number measuring the diegetic capability of the character rolled against number that measures the diegetic difficulty of the task and from this we draw the odds of success (or better yet, odds of achieving various degrees of success,) is simulationistic in the way I like. This is a simple abstaction that represnt causality that actually exists in the setting. Note that some games such as Burning Wheel has superficially this structure, but then they draw odds of things that are not causally connected to the things these numbers represnt from them, which weakens it as a simulation.

 

[Enaknomolos]

Did we mention Pioneer yet?? I might have missed it browsing through this thread?

I assume having someone with NASA experience write your space TTRPG qualifies it as simulationist??

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mongoosepublishing/the-pioneer-rpg-explore-the-solar-system

I wasn't that jazzed about Pioneer; but looking at the preview and what we know so far, I think that it is a strong contender for a version of contemporary simulationist as a style. By that, I mean rather than trying to tie 'contemporary' to some ultimately arbitrary time period, 'contemporary' is about the content of the game: reflecting wider shifts in the hobby while still being sim.

Here are some things that about Pioneer that might count as contemporary simulationist in this way:

1. Made by experts in the relevant domain: it wouldn't be fair to say that this never happened in older games, but a lot was done by amateurs trying their best in a pre-internet era. This led to a lot of questionable choices. Armour and arms in TSR D&D, for instance, aimed at some sort of historical verisimilitude, but missed it.
2. Putting the sim under the hood: Mongoose Matt has said that one of the aims with Pioneer is that the maths for space travel is right without forcing the players to actually do the maths. That way those that know and care can be happy that the simulation is right, and others can just enjoy the in-game consequences of the simulation. To me, this is a big shift from 1980's sim.
3. Combat is de-emphasised: often the emphasis of older sim games was wound location tables, coolness under fire, and so on. In contrast, combat looks to be a marginal part of Pioneer. From a sim point of view, this is interesting. The expectation in older RPG's for frequent dramatic and interesting combats (outside of mass battles) is, after all, usually pretty unrealistic even when looking at much more violent periods than the present.
4. A sim approach to narrative: this uses a lot of older tools, but I think in a slightly more conscious ways. Using events in character creation, rumour tables, and so on to let provocative situations arise fairly naturally.

Obviously, I don't really know if Pioneer will live up to all that; but I think it's an interesting picture of what contemporary sim could be.