Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8608636" data-attributes="member: 42582">I've posted a completely workable notion, upthread, of what makes a RPG a simulation. It has the virtue of broadly corresponding to Forge usage (at The Forge it is called purist-for-system simulationism) and to widespread usage on ENworld around a decade ago (when it was called process simulation).In a simulationist RPG, applying the rules and determining outcomes tells us what the salient fiction is that comes next. In a non-simulationist RPG, applying the rules confers permissions and sets parameters for saying what happens next, but they leave it up to one of the participants to actually establish the salient fiction. Simulationist mechanics achieve this by modelling/representing the imagined in-fiction causal processes.(That's not to say simulationist mechanics don't permit choices, but those choices should model choices that are actually being made by the relevant character in the fiction, and hence that are part of the modelling of the in-fiction causal processes.)RM, RQ and HARP all broadly fit under this notion of simulationism. Dungeon World, Agon, T&amp;T and Prince Valiant don't. As I posted not far upthread, Burning Wheel presents itself at first blush (ie in PC gen) as rather simulationist, but it then reveals its true non-simulationist colours when the action resolution procedures are described.So, so far from it being necessarily false that this sort of simulationism is unattainable, it is fairly easy to attain it: just pick up a copy of RQ, RM or HARP! (Or Hero, I guess, but I don't know it anywhere near as well.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8608636, member: 42582"] I've posted a completely workable notion, upthread, of what makes a RPG a simulation. It has the virtue of broadly corresponding to Forge usage (at The Forge it is called [i]purist-for-system simulationism[/i]) and to widespread usage on ENworld around a decade ago (when it was called [i]process simulation[/i]). In a simulationist RPG, applying the rules and determining outcomes [i]tells us what the salient fiction is that comes next[/i]. In a non-simulationist RPG, applying the rules confers permissions and sets parameters for saying what happens next, but they leave it up to one of the participants to actually establish the salient fiction. Simulationist mechanics achieve this by modelling/representing the imagined in-fiction causal processes. (That's not to say simulationist mechanics don't permit choices, but those choices should model choices that are actually being made by the relevant character in the fiction, and hence that are part of the modelling of the in-fiction causal processes.) RM, RQ and HARP all broadly fit under this notion of simulationism. Dungeon World, Agon, T&T and Prince Valiant don't. As I posted not far upthread, Burning Wheel presents itself at first blush (ie in PC gen) as rather simulationist, but it then reveals its true non-simulationist colours when the action resolution procedures are described. So, so far from it being necessarily false that this sort of simulationism is unattainable, it is fairly easy to attain it: just pick up a copy of RQ, RM or HARP! (Or Hero, I guess, but I don't know it anywhere near as well.) [/QUOTE]

Verification