Contemporary Simulationist TTRPGs [+]

[Deset Gled]

Well, those militaries have had people studying military conflict for decades. And those definitions probably don't actually map to when the last person got shot all the time, do they?

You figure Joe, who was a farmer last week and now is fighting off the goblin horde, has that kind of understanding? Or even anyone who isn't in a formal military organization?

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say here.

My point was that we can have things like "encounters" and "fights" that we talking about in discrete terms as a simulationist concept, where dbm was claiming that framework would be gamist or narrativist.

I assume that Joe could tell you he got in three fights last week: one at work, one at a bar, and one at the Molly Hatchet concert. Joe could identify when each one started: when he slapped his boss, when that dude broke his beer bottle and threatened him, and when he spit on the couple in the row in front of him. And Joe could tell you when they all ended: when he got thrown out, when security split them up, and when he got knocked out.

That framework of identifying what an encounter is, when it starts, and when it stops does not require specialized training. It can also be formalized in military theory for those that want a higher level of pedantry. But either way, it is a model in games that directly matches and simulates how people experience life. For certain lifestyles, of course. Military, Molly Hatchet, whatever you're into.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

Is Shadowdark situationist? It's new. It's trying to make the matter of a torch and light important. It seems to attempt to simulate it with a variety of rules that seem to simulate real torch use... within reason.

What about Dune it's new? It uses abstract rules of Assets. But it has houses and positions, and armies and guns and espionage and secrets... and it seems to want to simulate all of the features, plots, and political ties of Dune and real politics in general. While the abstraction of Assets helps mechanics stay somewhat easy to digest, it has a LOT of different bespoke ways to utilize very specific concepts in simulating political strife and warfare. Heck, they went as far as to try and simulate the person shield and knife fights with rather overblown rules...

 

[dbm]

Yes it could.

You are missing my point. Your position was that encounter based duration was simulationist. My point is that there is nothing which a character can observe which defines an ‘encounter’ and so that only exists in either the context of the game (‘roll initiative’) or a scene. So such a rule is gamist or narrativist in nature.

Anyhow, we seem to have a difference of opinion.

 

[dbm]

the abstraction of Assets

First, no game is 100% any style of game, that was the main error of the Forge IMO - that they wanted games to be pretty much one thing only.

Abstraction is an interesting concept in game systems, and it starts to move away from simulation in my mind. Consider super powers as a genre.

When GURPS does supers, you work out the damage required to punch through tank armour based on its damage resistance and structural hit points, and this will tell you how much strength you would need which in turn tells you how much you should be able to lift. It also means that you would probably reduce a normal human to a fine red mist if you were to punch them. That’s a strongly simulationist approach, since the implication of being able to punch out a tanks is logically extrapolated to other applications of strength.

But supers aren’t actually very simulationist themselves, genre tropes tend to be much more important. If you look at strongly narrative supers systems their powers are much more abstract and map to more specific applications of those abilities in genre. So while the play experience is closer to what you might see in a comic or supers film it doesn’t necessarily map to what would happen ‘in reality’. But that’s ok - we aren’t playing in a worlds that is itself highly simulationist.

I don’t think the 2d20 system is strongly simulationist due to the meta currencies baked into the system; they are again a much more gamist or narrative concept.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You are missing my point. Your position was that encounter based duration was simulationist. My point is that there is nothing which a character can observe which defines an ‘encounter’ and so that only exists in either the context of the game (‘roll initiative’) or a scene. So such a rule is gamist or narrativist in nature.

Anyhow, we seem to have a difference of opinion.

And there is nothing that a person can observe in the real world directly that tells me how the smartphone I'm tapping away on works. It might as well be magic as chips and electronics.

Likewise I can tell inputs and outputs - and IRL we can tell when a fight starts or ends even without a full strict formal definition. Characters can observe that.

 

[Aldarc]

But supers aren’t actually very simulationist themselves, genre tropes tend to be much more important. If you look at strongly narrative supers systems their powers are much more abstract and map to more specific applications of those abilities in genre. So while the play experience is closer to what you might see in a comic or supers film it doesn’t necessarily map to what would happen ‘in reality’. But that’s ok - we aren’t playing in a worlds that is itself highly simulationist.

Agreed, though I tend to couch my language less in absolutes like "aren't actually" and more into language like "aren't necessarily." This is one reason why I said this earlier:

Somewhat, and I see the point you are trying to make. Where I would push back is that FKR could potentially be used for more genre emulationist play. So "what would be most... thematically appropriate" might be the guiding logic "to model function of a fictional world" for a superhero game run by FKR principles. That may include pushing the action to more interesting directions. I think that it likely depends on the FKR group/GM.

 

[dbm]

there is nothing that a person can observe in the real world directly that tells me how the smartphone I'm tapping away on works.

Does its battery recharge when you move from room to room? Because that’s what ‘encounter based powers’ do.

 

[pemerton]

Hi! I wanted to start a Plus thread for people to talk about Simulationist TTRPGs, especially for people who love simulationism, with a special focus on the contemporary landscape of Sim-focused games. What (relatively) new Sim-focused games are out there from the past fifteen or so odd years? How do new approaches to Sim perhaps differ from older Sim-focused games? That sort of thing.

I'll mention Torchbearer 2e.

It has skill-based PC build, where the PCs have long skill lists (a bit like the classic sim games such as RM, albeit a little more streamlined in some respects).

Conflict resolution is a bit more abstract than a classic sim game - although it still has armour as damage reduction and injuries and death spirals - but leans into a fairly tight correlation between the fiction and the outcomes, but mediated via group consensus on what "should" happen, rather than just relying on the mechanics.

It has rules for carrying stuff and rations and resting etc that are (in my view) far more manageable than more traditional ones, but still have players worrying about their gear and having to make real decisions about trading off rest vs shopping vs will I be able to afford my tavern bill. It's the only RPG I've played where PCs' shoes where out travelling, and the players have to make an agonising choice about whether or not their PCs can afford to acquire new shoes (especially if they're in a little village without a market).

It has rules for building new settlements, for settlements growing or declining, which fit in relatively few pages.

I think many fans of sim who like the foregrounding of detail, the colour that results, the "closeness" of play to the fiction, might like this game. (But those who like sim as a way of disclaiming decision-making won't like it as much.)

 

[Deset Gled]

Deleted.

 

[Umbran]

And there is nothing that a person can observe in the real world directly that tells me how the smartphone I'm tapping away on works. It might as well be magic as chips and electronics.

Maybe you have missed the point - upthread, folks mentioned that their idea of simulationist games included something akin to how the character thinking about their world ought to mirror the player thinking about the rules.

If we are taking that as a point, then if the rules are encounter-based in some way, instead of time-based, the character should be able to think in similar terms. If the character doesn't have a clear way to know what an "encounter" is, maybe simulationist rules should avoid "encounter" based mechanics.

Basically, I think the idea is that simulationist games should tend to avoid construction made of ease of game. "Encounter" is a game term, not a simulation term. This makes sense if you go just one step down - you don't want characters thinking in "rounds" do you?