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

[clearstream]

No, it really isn't. In many systems, the system will tell you directly what happens. You can certainly claim that the character was killed by bites, but, that's entirely on you, not the system. The system didn't tell you that. All the system told you was that the character lost enough HP to die. Since HP don't actually mean anything and don't map onto any specific result, any result is acceptable.

You ask "How much of our narrative do we need prescribed for us by written game rules?" In a simulation system, the answer is ANY. You need at least a tiny, tiny sliver of an answer if you're going to claim that the system is a simulation. If the system cannot give you any answers (or, in the case of D&D, any answer you care to narrate is acceptable) then it's not a simulation.

IOW, I say that your character M died of embarrassment. Use the mechanics to prove me wrong. You can't. And that's the point.

I can use the mechanics to prove you wrong. We all witnessed turns and attack rolls (mechanics) for the ants biting, associated with the Bite action on the creature stat block. We saw that the rolls had a given likelihood to hit, and where they hit we saw that they did piercing damage (mechanics). We all saw that the accumulation of piercing damage mechanically associated with the bites of the ants caused M's death.

Which doesn't mean that you must have narrative follow mechanics. Obviously you don't need that. You DO need that for a simulation though. If you want to definitively answer what happened, then you need some form of simulation. If you cannot definitively answer any questions, then it's not a simulation.

As I show above, I can definitively answer the question that the cause of M's death mechanically was the biting ants. Other mechanics were at play also, such as the ants' ability to reach M by closing with M and so on. The cause was robustly attributable, because in the absence of the cause (biting ants, via the combat mechanics) M would not have been dead.

Take a system I do know better - Battletech. In BTech, you roll your attack, then you roll your location for damage. Then there are a number of potential follow up effects depending on the damage done. I can definitively say that your Mech fell down because that PPC blew off it's hip actuator. That's a (very simple and not terribly accurate) good example of a simulationist system.

I like your idea that if we can attribute the cause of something via the mechanics, then the game is a simulation. You haven't yet shown how 5e is separated from the other games on that basis however.

 

[Hussar]

But, HP don't equal anything. The only thing you can say is that the character lost enough HP to die. Piercing is a purely mechanical element that has no actual simulationist meaning. Losing X HP to an attack doesn't actually MEAN anything.

You can certainly choose to associate it with the bite. That's fine. But nothing in the mechanics says that you have to. I say the character died of embarrassment and you cannot actually turn to the mechanics and prove me wrong since HP don't mean anything.

 

[Oofta]

But, HP don't equal anything. The only thing you can say is that the character lost enough HP to die. Piercing is a purely mechanical element that has no actual simulationist meaning. Losing X HP to an attack doesn't actually MEAN anything.

You can certainly choose to associate it with the bite. That's fine. But nothing in the mechanics says that you have to. I say the character died of embarrassment and you cannot actually turn to the mechanics and prove me wrong since HP don't mean anything.

If HP don't mean anything, how could any game satisfy your definition of determining cause of death? Would you have to simulate forces and break out your copy of Gray's Anatomy along with detailed rules on crush and ripping force to determine that the femoral artery was severed?

Every game has to have some level of abstraction.

 

[clearstream]

But, HP don't equal anything. The only thing you can say is that the character lost enough HP to die. Piercing is a purely mechanical element that has no actual simulationist meaning. Losing X HP to an attack doesn't actually MEAN anything.

In 5e and RQ, there is no consequence for losing hit points until a specific threshold is reached - the last point, either in sum (both), or in a location (RQ) - until then hit points are only numbers. They're just a track on the sheet that tells us when we'll apply some level of constraint over further action declarations for a creature.

In 5e at tier 4, where characters are far beyond mortal metabolisms, hit points are still doing their job: informing players at what threshold to constrain further action declarations. RQ isn't designed to present that kind of play. In fact, I think 5e succeeds most in that it encourages an imaginative playstyle, with an abundance of miraculous things PCs can do. RQ is more muted.

But here we come back to saying only that to be simulationist, our real world must be the reference. And we lack explanation for what allows us to make exceptions here and there, without being accused of picking-and-choosing.

You can certainly choose to associate it with the bite. That's fine. But nothing in the mechanics says that you have to. I say the character died of embarrassment and you cannot actually turn to the mechanics and prove me wrong since HP don't mean anything.

I think you are saying that it matters to you that the game designers instruct you in writing that hit points are always physical injury. I dislike the idea that where the game designers do not do so, you are at a loss and may refuse to say what follows or play sincerely. So I'll leave it to you to advise on that. For whatever reason, you feel bound by what the designers say, and don't feel you must follow what your group at your table says.

So you might say, a simulationist game is one in which descriptions are narrowly defined: so in our example, hit points can't be luck, fatigue and ultimately flesh, but must be defined narrowly as flesh? Even though as @Oofta points out, they do a very bad job of modelling real trauma.

 

[Oofta]

In 5e and RQ, there is no consequence for losing hit points until a specific threshold is reached - the last point, either in sum (both), or in a location (RQ) - until then hit points are only numbers. They're just a track on the sheet that tells us when we'll apply some level of constraint over further action declarations for a creature.

In 5e at tier 4, where characters are far beyond mortal metabolisms, hit points are still doing their job: informing players at what threshold to constrain further action declarations. RQ isn't designed to present that kind of play. In fact, I think 5e succeeds most in that it encourages an imaginative playstyle, with an abundance of miraculous things PCs can do. RQ is more muted.

But here we come back to saying only that to be simulationist, our real world must be the reference. And we lack explanation for what allows us to make exceptions here and there, without being accused of picking-and-choosing.


I think you are saying that it matters to you that the game designers instruct you in writing that hit points are always physical injury. I dislike the idea that where the game designers do not do so, you are at a loss and may refuse to say what follows or play sincerely. So I'll leave it to you to advise on that. For whatever reason, you feel bound by what the designers say, and don't feel you must follow what your group at your table says.

So you might say, a simulationist game is one in which descriptions are narrowly defined: so in our example, hit points can't be luck, fatigue and ultimately flesh, but must be defined narrowly as flesh? Even though as @Oofta points out, they do a very bad job of modelling real trauma.

Think about what a game would have to track in order to be a better simulation. You have where the injuries are, how severe they are. An injury could be anything from a minor strain to blunt force trauma that will kill a character in a couple of hours because of internal bleeding but for now is just slowing down reaction to a severed spinal column from a lucky blow in the right location. Then you have to add in adrenaline, stamina, has the person's vision been impaired or is the strength of their blow weakened because of that muscle damage. Oh, and don't forget to add in the mental aspect of things, many athletes will tell you that the mental game is nearly as important as the physical when it comes to winning or losing. In D&D all of that is simplified down to HP.

Obviously this is all on a scale. On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being completely unrealistic to 10 being real life, where you put D&D is a matter of opinion. D&D is not totally realistic, but it's not completely arbitrary either, I'd set it around a 3. But to say that you can't tell that Bob died from an ant bite when the ant has a bite attack that hit and was followed by Bob dropping to zero is asking for something no game can realistically provide.

 

[clearstream]

But, HP don't equal anything. The only thing you can say is that the character lost enough HP to die. Piercing is a purely mechanical element that has no actual simulationist meaning. Losing X HP to an attack doesn't actually MEAN anything.

You can certainly choose to associate it with the bite. That's fine. But nothing in the mechanics says that you have to. I say the character died of embarrassment and you cannot actually turn to the mechanics and prove me wrong since HP don't mean anything.

Perhaps I can put my meaning a better way

• Mechanically, hit points in RPGs are a gauge with a threshold at which constraints are applied to further declarations by the given entity.
• In RQ, that mechanic applies to hit points in sum, and for hit locations that each have their own guage and threshold. In 5e, that mechanic just applies in sum.

Based on those two points alone, we might want to say that we separate RQ from 5e as simulationist on the grounds of greater granularity, but you seem to have added something more.

• Descriptively, game designers sometimes provide pre-canned narration for hit points. In RQ, that is that they are physical injury (not resilence to psychological trauma, good luck, etc). In 5e, they're toughness - how well you endure (I don't think anywhere in 5e your chosen fiction of embarrassment is sustained, FWIW).
• The ambiguity of 5e hit points bothers you, so seem to want to say that to be simulationist also requires pre-canned narration.

I think the problem with requiring granularity is to say how much is enough? I notice folk apparently arguing that granularity in some areas is more important than others, so another problem is what areas must be granular? Must a group care about hawk flight speed to be simulationist? What about if they had tremendous granularity on baking, would that count or is no amount of granularity in one area enough to make up for a lack in another? How does one avoid it coming down to matters of taste or just differing concerns?

And then the problem with requiring pre-canned narration is that I would say that it is sufficient that there is a model and rules whose performance and results are consistent and can be interpreted so that the group can say what follows given their context. Something I have in mind is that pre-canned narration surely cannot save an inconsistent or faulty mechanic?

Thus I so far do not see a convincing razor for simulationist in what you have said. More personal preferences and attitudes. There might be something in arguing for a threshold of granularity + pre-canned descriptions. And although I like the idea of being able to prove connection with mechanics, as I see it, it relies on selective blindness. We ignore lack of connection at a myriad of points, to put laser focus on connection sthat jar with our tastes.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If HP don't mean anything, how could any game satisfy your definition of determining cause of death? Would you have to simulate forces and break out your copy of Gray's Anatomy along with detailed rules on crush and ripping force to determine that the femoral artery was severed?

Every game has to have some level of abstraction.

The difference is hit point damage in a lot of system is directly associated with concrete effects. Most systems with hit location effects, whether they bookkeep individual locational hit points or not, have the damage location have a direct effect on character functionality; the arm will stop working, the leg injury will slow you down, the moderate high damage will leave one of X impairments.

D&D hit points tell you only one thing--you're X closer to dying. Otherwise you can't say anything authoritative about the difference between someone with 40 hit points and 1 hit point from the mechanics; you have to apply a layer of fiction entirely separately. You can't even say how badly wounded someone is, because the same number both refers to a badly wounded person and someone who just is not very durable in the first place.

Addendum: And to respond to Clearstream's argument a bit, even though some hit location systems have thresholds, the combat system is still at least telling you explicitly that damage to them is actual physical trauma. D&D does even do that to damage at all.

Again, you can argue this approach is a virtue from some perspectives, but its hard to argue that it isn't low information content compared to damage in most other approaches, and thus doesn't simulate much in and of itself.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Obviously this is all on a scale. On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being completely unrealistic to 10 being real life, where you put D&D is a matter of opinion. D&D is not totally realistic, but it's not completely arbitrary either, I'd set it around a 3.

I would agree on that scale D&D 5E would be around 3. I was looking for a RPG where it would be closer to a 7. I don't want it to be too cumbersome or anything like getting out medical journals and such, but something "more" than D&D's 3 would be good for me.

I have started researching some of the suggestions people made, so again thanks to all for the options!

 

[clearstream]

The difference is hit point damage in a lot of system is directly associated with concrete effects. Most systems with hit location effects, whether they bookkeep individual locational hit points or not, have the damage location have a direct effect on character functionality; the arm will stop working, the leg injury will slow you down, the moderate high damage will leave one of X impairments.

D&D hit points tell you only one thing--you're X closer to dying. Otherwise you can't say anything authoritative about the difference between someone with 40 hit points and 1 hit point from the mechanics; you have to apply a layer of fiction entirely separately. You can't even say how badly wounded someone is, because the same number both refers to a badly wounded person and someone who just is not very durable in the first place.

Can you say how this is not simply a statement about concerns or tastes? Both are consistent. Both provide gauges with thresholds triggering constraints. 5e offers additional mechanics for managing constraints in the form of exhaustion and conditions.

As an aside, the comment about the same number includes an assumption about the meaning of HP. Better to think in terms of individual gauges as in any system a mouse should die to less force than a person.

 

[Oofta]

The difference is hit point damage in a lot of system is directly associated with concrete effects. Most systems with hit location effects, whether they bookkeep individual locational hit points or not, have the damage location have a direct effect on character functionality; the arm will stop working, the leg injury will slow you down, the moderate high damage will leave one of X impairments.

D&D hit points tell you only one thing--you're X closer to dying. Otherwise you can't say anything authoritative about the difference between someone with 40 hit points and 1 hit point from the mechanics; you have to apply a layer of fiction entirely separately. You can't even say how badly wounded someone is, because the same number both refers to a badly wounded person and someone who just is not very durable in the first place.

Which is why I ranked D&D as a 3. I can't imagine a game that didn't require a computer being much higher than a 7 on the simulation of combat scale.

My scale and judgment is obviously pretty arbitrary. I'm just saying that it's a spectrum, what you prefer on that spectrum is a preference. I prefer fast paced, relatively frequent combat, I don't want a lot of overhead during combat and I don't want death spirals. So D&D works for me. Other people, other games will have different preferences.

HP and it's higher level of abstraction, I believe, is one of the main reasons for D&D'Souza continued growth and success. That doesn't mean it's for everyone or that there aren't viable alternatives.