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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 8614044" data-attributes="member: 71699">There seems to me another way of grasping your comment here (one that I'm not sure from what followed that you intended.) You might recall earlier I suggested that a simulation has a reference (in the sense of that which it simulates).Perhaps an RPG is simulationist if <ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">it intends our real world as a reference, excluding fictions and beliefs,</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">it is granular and prescriptive enough on all included real-world phenomena that interest us,</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">we find ourselves able to suspend disbelief in respect of the simulation(s) of the included phenomena.</li> </ol>An alternative definition is that an RPG is a simulation if<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">the output of the mechanics of that RPG include granular descriptions of what we must imagine in the fiction</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">"must" means that a reasonable player would have and would need no alternative to imagining what is described</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><s>we never need to author descriptions on-the-fly</s></li> </ol>3. is unreasonable of course, as we do need to author descriptions on-the-fly for everything the mechanics don't describe, but I find it quite tricky to say what is going on here. One could say - "as to what the mechanics describe, we need not author fiction" - but that would be true no matter what the mechanics describe.I think one has to add the two definitions together to get to simulationist. In both cases, there are a lot of subjective variables<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">what counts as granular enough?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">what interest us?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">where are we able to suspend disbelief?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">what is our experience of the real world (suppose a person who regularly fights giant ants in chainmail says of Arms Law that it's nothing like that?)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">what if a group has a different idea of what is reasonable?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">why are fictions and beliefs excluded? what about simulationism of cultures and societies (and economics, which might straddle domains)</li> </ul>Maybe you need the first definition to say what descriptions are good? To prevent a nefarious designer replacing all the words in arms law descriptions with things that have nothing to do with meat. "Concussion" becomes "embarrassement" and so on. The model and rules remain exactly the same. (This last has always been a key challenge for me where folk argue for pre-authored descriptions. What if a group dislike, distrust or doubt those descriptions? Do they still say the game is simulationist?)</blockquote>

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