D&D General D&D isn't a simulation game, so what is???

[Thomas Shey]

This parallels my journey but with clear differences. I was also solid gamist/simulationist though I did not mind dramatist intrusions but I really wanted immersion(realism) and drifted toward MERP, Rolemaster, GURPS and Warhammer initially. I eventually came to the conclusion that MERP/Rolemaster or GURPS all failed in various corner cases, driven in part by my tendency to min/max.

One of the hardest things to do as a gamist is learn you're not doing yourself any favors pressing on the soft spots in a system.

My resistance to dramatist elements decayed over time anyway; unlike the hardcore simulationists on RGFA, I kind of wanted to engage with some games that have heavy genre conventions (like superhero games) and you really just can't do that without accepting some dramatist conceits. Its long since reached the point where I'm more about how jarring the dramatist elements in a game system is to me, and things like whether the particular methods of handling metacurrency have undesirable consequences on a social level than being really resistant to them. I'm still closer over to being a trad gamer than someone like, say, Pemberton I think, but the drift between what I'd have been like in 1980 and what I'm like in 2022 is pretty noticeable (well, and the fact even cases that aren't my cuppa I'm not exactly hostile to, which I don't know that I'd not have been back then; Fate didn't work for me, but I can understand what other people get out of it, for example, and off ona different line, same for PbtA).

Warhammer I still really like, though not the lore, but it will kill every player over time. Good for a sandbox campaign, I guess but I prefer a more cinematic style.

BRP derivatives run in that direction too, though I was pleasantly surprised how less-prone to this Mythras was.

So eventually I drifted back to D&D via Palladium. That is Palladium to 3e, wargames like Advance Squad Leader also helped me in my journey.

Well, the fact modern D&D versions are rarely as schematic as OD&D (thus being more appealing to me on game engagement grounds) and that I'm less bothered by the lack of any simulationist concern worth mentioning has made me more accepting there; I don't like 5e itself, but that's got to do with a bunch of individual mechanical choices rather than objections to it in total. Unfortunately, at least one of them is very core to the design.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't agree with this. I don't think it is an impenetrable barrier; but I don't think it is a hindrance. This is because unless the in-fiction causal processes are Toon-like, there is no guarantee that they will produce drama. And hence mechanics committed to modelling them likewise can't have such a guarantee.'

I'm assuming you mean it is a hindrance here, and back in the day that was a sharp line that was often drawn on RGFA; the simulationist proponents absolutely saw it a virtue that there was no such assurance; it felt artificial and forced to them if there was.

 

[Thomas Shey]

For me, the greater failings in realism were around economics, motives for war (why war?) and if war is to be assumed, the (im)possibility of defence.

I felt Traveller offered space opera, not futurology. It mapped well to sci fi I'd been reading.

Which, of course, was its purpose. Its why even modern incarnations of it can sometimes seem to have more than a hint of zeerust about it; even with some updates its designed to simulate a future the way 50's and 60's SF saw it as being, not the way modern SF often does.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Whenever you try to predict the future you are going to get stuff wrong. In the 1970s the technology behind mobile phones was just as much a fantasy as antigravity. No way to tell which was achievable and which was fantasy.

Uhm. Don't think I can agree. There's a considerable difference between, effectively, an engineering problem and a theoretical jump. There was nothing about small portable communication devices that looked impossible in the 70's, which you can't say about antigravity. The fact the former would be based around, in essence, repeater stations was not a theoretical jump.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think "realism" is a secondary, though not at therefore irrelevant, concern.

The key feature of simulationist mechanics is that they model/express the in-fiction causal processes. Classic Traveller PC gen does this even though it is in some sense rather approximate and/or unrealistic (eg no one ever changes jobs) and does not have anything but a very intuitive set of criteria for accuracy (ie our sense, as RPGers, of what work will be like in the Far Future).

When I ran one of my daughters through a little Traveller session, she complained about the ridiculousness of a "Far Future" in which there is no mobile telephony - only walkie-talkies - and in which people still drive cars (her PC used Mechanical skill to break into and hotwire one). In that sense, she found the setting unrealistic. But she had no issues with understanding the mechanics, and how they related to the fiction.

Contrast Torchbearer, when she asked why using a trait against yourself gives you checks? Ie she had simulationist intuitions, and didn't understand what was happening in the fiction that was being modelled by this process. I explained that nothing was; that it's a gameplay conceit.

I don't think that either EPT or RM really simulates a culture. They depict cultures, and their depictions have an intricacy, richness and vividness that contrasts with (eg) Ghost Tower of Inverness or Desert of Desolation.

In this respect I would contrast the Pendragon Winter Phase, which tries to model certain cultural processes (marriage, child birth, estate management) with rolls and modifiers that are supposed to model/express in-fiction causal processes.

I see it as about the degree of engaging and plausible character of the fiction. To me it is separate from simulationism as a feature of mechanical design, and the way mechanics relate to fiction.

We can see this also by looking at HeroWars/Quest, which is just as steeped in the fiction of Glorantha as RQ is, but is not remotely simulationist in either its PC build or action resolution procedures.

I don't agree with this. I don't think it is an impenetrable barrier; but I don't think it is a hindrance. This is because unless the in-fiction causal processes are Toon-like, there is no guarantee that they will produce drama. And hence mechanics committed to modelling them likewise can't have such a guarantee.

I think it's no coincidence that even a system like BW, with clear simulationist influences on its approach to PC build and to setting obstacles, eschews simulation completely when it comes to framing scenes and establishing the consequences of failure. Conversely, when I was young and hence had not worked out that Classic Traveller could be played in a PbtA style, and instead was applying simulationist sensibilities as much as I could to encounter design, consequences, etc, the result was boring situations and boring play. Probably quite true to the imagined Far Future, which is full of bureaucrats and mortgages and bills of lading, but not very conducive to satisfying play!

See, I have your daughter's problem. I prefer to minimize gamist conceits as much as possible, particularly as it relates to pushing a narrative.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Just a note that back in the RGFA days, most of the simulationism proponents were also immersives; and a number of them claimed not to be gamists (as I recall there were only two of us in the heyday of the old Threefold discussion period that set claim to that leg). Their position seemed to be that it didn't matter to them how much mechanics were involved so much as the input producing the sort of output they expected in a consistent way (and weren't at all sanguine about a GM being able to do this without mechanical support).

Just for what its worth.

That is basically where I stand now.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm assuming you mean it is a hindrance here, and back in the day that was a sharp line that was often drawn on RGFA; the simulationist proponents absolutely saw it a virtue that there was no such assurance; it felt artificial and forced to them if there was.

Again, this is basically where I stand.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Its a consistent position. I have some serious trouble understanding how you ever saw D&D as a great tool for the job, but at least what you want is coherent.

 

[Hussar]

Again I find myself seeing that presentation matters so much more than substance.

If square fireballs tip you over, then how do you reconcile the fact that 5e is meant to be played theatre of the mind?

If the inaccuracies of a square fireball are a problem imagine how wildly inaccurate TotM play is. No one can possibly accurately track the relative positions of five PCs, a pet and a dozen bad guys round by round.

TotM play is one long exercise in (summons @Ovinomancer) fudging constantly. Whether something is in an area of effect has far more to do with the mood of the DM than anything else.

And let’s not forget that TotM was the baseline assumption before 3e and it wasn’t until 4e that the game defaulted to battle map play.

If anything 4e is actually a more accurate simulation, at least as far as representing the physical positions of combatants, than any other version of Dnd.

 

[Oofta]

Again I find myself seeing that presentation matters so much more than substance.

If square fireballs tip you over, then how do you reconcile the fact that 5e is meant to be played theatre of the mind?

If the inaccuracies of a square fireball are a problem imagine how wildly inaccurate TotM play is. No one can possibly accurately track the relative positions of five PCs, a pet and a dozen bad guys round by round.

TotM play is one long exercise in (summons @Ovinomancer) fudging constantly. Whether something is in an area of effect has far more to do with the mood of the DM than anything else.

And let’s not forget that TotM was the baseline assumption before 3e and it wasn’t until 4e that the game defaulted to battle map play.

If anything 4e is actually a more accurate simulation, at least as far as representing the physical positions of combatants, than any other version of Dnd.

Umm...5E is intended to be played any way that works for the group. I personally have never cared for ToTM so I don't use it.

ToTM vs grid is just a preference.