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

[Cadence]

 

[Cadence]

 

[clearstream]

You're trying to make a narrow focused discrimination based on motivation and thought process for the origin of fiction. I don't see the point, it's still total fiction. In addition D&D's magic is called Vancian magic because Jack Vance came up with the concept first. Gygax and Arneson may or may not have picked it because it also served their purposes, but they did not invent the idea.

To my mind, one just resists the initial impulse that a simulation must have a preexisting reference. One motive for doing so is that otherwise one unreasonably excludes game creation as a form of imaginative expression in its own right. In the past, Jo Writer wrote stories about worlds they imagined. Now and in future, Jo Designer will craft games about worlds they imagined.

 

[FrogReaver]

I am using emulation and simulation as synonyms here. Sorry if that's confusing.

Np. Wasn’t clear initially and I was just confirming.

 

[FrogReaver]

To my mind, one just resists the initial impulse that a simulation must have a preexisting reference. One motive for doing so is that otherwise one unreasonably excludes game creation as a form of imaginative expression in its own right. In the past, Jo Writer wrote stories about worlds they imagined. Now and in future, Jo Designer will craft games about worlds they imagined.

I think as with most creative endeavors it’s the chicken and the egg. Another place we see this is the character creation process. Sometimes we have an idea and find mechanics to suit and sometimes we have mechanics and find an idea to suit, but most the time we are starting somewhere in the middle and iterating until we find something acceptable both in concept and in mechanics.

 

[Oofta]

To my mind, one just resists the initial impulse that a simulation must have a preexisting reference. One motive for doing so is that otherwise one unreasonably excludes game creation as a form of imaginative expression in its own right. In the past, Jo Writer wrote stories about worlds they imagined. Now and in future, Jo Designer will craft games about worlds they imagined.

I agree that it feels somehow dismissive to say that game designers are not also authors.

But we also do have preexisting references, which is one of the strange aspects of this. Very few authors other than Vance had any kind of explanation of how magic actually worked at the time D&D was written, it was either all-powerful mage, supernatural being or novice playing with power they didn't really understand. I'm not sure what would have qualified as preexisting if Vance doesn't count.

 

[Krachek]

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Hit points definition didn’t change much since first edition, despite the many debates seem to proove the opposite.
gygax words are still valid in 5ed. And I perfectly agree on this to play my game in 2022.

 

[niklinna]

The lethality of a gunfight cannot be measured as a steadily consumed resource like gasoline.

But what if you shoot the car in the gas tank?

 

[Thomas Shey]

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So, basically it was a gamist decision fundamentally, which is what I've been saying.

 

[Oofta]

But what if you shoot the car in the gas tank?

Well, apparently according to Mythbusters (may the show rest in peace) shooting a gas tank doesn't do much of anything. They even tried incendiary tracer rounds and it did nothing other than punch a hole in the tank.