Death of Simulation?

[Wulf Ratbane]

Indeed, from Mike's latest Design & Development article, we can even assume that the definition of "encounter" may undergo a change. He's clearly lumping a number of dungeon rooms together as a single encounter there.

Not exactly... He may simply be eyeballing the map and saying, "All the guys in these rooms could probably, and would probably, come to join the fight before the PCs have a chance to catch their breath."

 

[Celebrim]

The bones outside the cave isn't particularly simulationist, it's either narrativist or gamist, depending on whether the DM expects the PCs to fight or flee, respectively.

I don't want to turn this thread into a big GNS theory fight. Suffice to say that I agree that there could be gamist, narrativist, and simulationist reasons for the bones to be outside the entrance of the lair, and more importantly gamist, narrativist, and simulationist reasons why the lair itself is there.

In D&D, the gamist stance is if it is there, it is because it is a challenge to overcome. And, if a challenge to overcome, then it must be defeated through combat because that is how the reward of the challenge (XP, loot) is earned. Because of the nature of the XP system in D&D, the mechanics encourage gamists to see the game as being about entering and winning combats. Thus, the presence of a lair of an undefeatable foe (at this juncture) is likely to be seen as an unfair challenge. Historically, D&D has always given suggestions to aspiring DM's to structure thier games such that the players don't (or even can't) run into things that they can't defeat in a straight up fight so many even experienced D&D players may have never actually had an out of context experience where they meet a hostile or potentially hostile monster that is more than they could handle in combat.

The question is the degree to which this is codified in the rules.

 

[Mouseferatu]

In D&D, the gamist stance is if it is there, it is because it is a challenge to overcome. And, if a challenge to overcome, then it must be defeated through combat because that is how the reward of the challenge (XP, loot) is earned.

This, however, has already been countered by the fact that 4E includes social interaction/challenge rules, as well as rules for treating an event like climbing a mountain as an "encounter."

I don't know how that plays into your theory of the game getting more gamist, but it certainly suggests that not all challenges are set up to be combat-oriented.

 

[TerraDave]

I guess like Doug said...getting eaten by the dragon goes against the whole storrytelling thing, (since such an event might effect the story).

But in a true gamist, er, game, you probably need to loose sometimes. It is a game afterall. And you just replace/restore the charecters, and continue.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Not exactly... He may simply be eyeballing the map and saying, "All the guys in these rooms could probably, and would probably, come to join the fight before the PCs have a chance to catch their breath."

I believe that in 4e adventures, they will be written up as "one encounter". It will explicitly say that when you get into battle with one, the rest will all come. That's what I got from the article.

As for the simulationist thing, I agree that dragon bones warding players off depend purely on their mindset. If you are running in a "consistent and logical world" then the players should be able to use all sorts of logic in order to figure out what the bones mean:

Well, in this world it is a known fact that some people are much, much better at fighting than other people(i.e. level 10 fighters are WAY better than level 1 warriors). We are level 5(which, in a simulationist system the players wouldn't know. However, they WOULD know that orcs, goblins, and the like are REALLY easy for them to beat even though the guards in town have a hard time beating them). So, the bones in front of the cave could be non-combatants who were scooped up by the dragon and couldn't fight back, 1st level warrior guards who tried to kill the dragon and failed, or they could be the heroes of forgotten ages who tried to kill the dragon thousands of years ago. Plus, if tales are told of the weak dragons (the ones that are CR 4 and the like) then it's possible the PCs have heard about dragons much easier to kill.

Unfortunately, in the above example, there is no way to know for sure. Using even a simulationist stance. That's kind of the problem with the simulationist stance in D&D. In the real world people were afraid that there might be dragons in a cave because NO ONE could defeat them. Think about it, it didn't matter how good you were with a sword, it's 20 feet long and can kill you in one bite or set fire to you immediately. In that sort of world, sure...you see signs of a dragon and you DON'T GO IN. However, in the D&D world levels and classes change all that. It's now a consistent fact that as you get more experience fighting monsters you go from a lowly villager to someone capable of taking the full force of a ancient dragons breath 2 or 3 times without dying and who can take on hundreds or thousands of orcs by himself without even getting hurt.

As long as that fact remains it has to become PART of the simulation. So, players have to know that they might be capable of taking on an enemy way too poweful for other people. Otherwise they'd be deathly afraid of any monster above CR 3 no matter what level they get to. That doesn't make for a very fun game("There is a BEHOLDER in that cave? I'm not going down there! Those things can disintegrate you! Sure, I survived the last 25 times someone tried to disintegrate me...but THIS time I might die.")

As for the "per encounter" abilities. I don't see any problem with them. Like anything it's how you describe them. I can see it already being described as a "partial vancian system". Some spells are so difficult to cast that you need an hour to prepare them and can only do so after 8 hours of rest. Some are easier to cast and can be prepared in about 30 seconds, but you need to be at peace and relax for the 30 seconds. Your mind can't be worrying about dying or your friends dying or having loud noises around. However, in those 30 seconds you can prepare all of you "easier" spells. This essentially limits them to "per encounter".

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Tying spell usage to meta-game concepts ("the encounter") breaks the versimilitude of immersive D&D for some gamers.

It shouldn't, however.

In the D&D / d20 systems which use per encounter resources (Bo9S, SWSE), "per encounter" really means "It takes a short period of meditation / rest to get it back."

In SWSE, it takes 1 minute of rest to refresh your Force Power suite. While you could do this during combat (by spending 10 full-round actions not doing anything and being helpless), there's seldom a reason to.

I can't believe that the designers would make such a grievous error as to drop that sort of in-game rationale in the new 4E system.

 

[RSKennan]

I was surprised to see this thread. I've been rejoicing that the purely gamist stuff was getting trimmed, and that the door was opening more for Simulation and Narrativism. Goes to show, given the same facts, perceptions vary.

The key for me is that the simulation is changing, not going away. Now instead of trying to simulate the real world one minute, and who knows what the next, it seems that the designers are going with simulating action-adventure fantasy media. This may seem more gamist, as in doing so, they make a tighter game, but things like maneuvers for weapons, repaired attacks of opportunity, straightening out once and for all the fact that one attack roll can represent more than one attack, what they seem to be doing with hit points and critical conditon, etc., make for a better simulation of the source material. D&D still seems to be simulating something, but now it's genre instead of some flawed value of reality.*

Since the source material is what it is, these changes also serve narrativist goals of making things more storylike. Add to that the (for now optional) nonviolent conflict resolution system, and story people have a lot to look forward to.

*The one thing I'm concerned with that may prove me 100% wrong is Mearl's ideas about nerfing things like the rust monster with temporary consequences that wear off in a few minutes. That kind of stuff kills drama faster than (insert something that kills drama here). If there's a truckload of that kind of thing I'll be unhappy for a few minutes and promptly write a book of optional rules to put it the way I like it. Other than that though, I really respect and admire Mearls' ability and feel like things will turn out well. There are a lot of other opinions involved in the process, and even if he still feels that certain monsters or spells need to be nerfed or altered to work better as a game, I'd hope that other people would outvote him in favor of good story and drama.

 

[Celebrim]

The key for me is that the simulation is changing, not going away.

I confess I hardly understand a word you are saying. It's like we are speaking a completely different language. Since when does a narrativist approach require a detailed social conflict resolution system? Maybe I'm confused, but wouldn't the classic example of a narrativist approach be the referee listens to the role play and decides what outcome is the most dramatic? Isn't it the classic narrativist approach to resolve conflict in favor of a character's goals, not a character's skills?

*The one thing I'm concerned with that may prove me 100% wrong is Mearl's ideas about nerfing things like the rust monster with temporary consequences that wear off in a few minutes. That kind of stuff kills drama faster than (insert something that kills drama here).

Speaking of narrativist games, from what I can tell D&D is going to adopt the Toon mechanics for 4E. So, maybe you aren't far wrong about dropping gamist considerations after all.

 

[psionotic]

I'm still not sure I understand what the 'simulationist' elements of D&D are?: 'Realism' was never the game's stated goal, and this goes as much for resolving a swing of a sword at an armored opponent as it does for the flight ability of mighty, magical dragons. Hit Points, Armor Class, and levels are the most abstracted, metagame concepts that exist in RPGs, and D&D has had them since the beginning, would probably not be D&D without them. And spells per day are as much of a metagame conceit as spells per encounter, ie., both are completely arbitrary, designed as two different ways to balance a game.

The more 'realism' that gets packed into the rules, the more 'true' of a simulation D&D becomes, but it also becomes slower, and in my opinion, less fun. Since D&D has always been a very poor simulation, I'm all in favor of shifting the game as far to the gamist side possible without totally destroying suspension of disbelief.

The problem is, of course, that no two people's disbelief crumbles at the same point.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I'm not a big fan of that. There's such a thing as being "too designed", and I'm afraid of the game moving in that direction.

I don't *want* my players to see the cave that is the lair of a dragon, outside of which are scattered the bones of high level adventurers or whatever, and think that at lvl 3, they can go in there, because they're not confronted with things too tough for them. I prefer the simulationist approach where it's a living world, and the players need to choose which threats they're going to deal with, and know when they're in over their heads. That way, I can have the dragon be there, and be a looming threat, but be something which they know they can't tackle early in their careers....then, when they're lvl 12, and they come back, they'll be able to tacitly see how much they've advanced.

Banshee

How, exactly, does anything in D&D, 3rd or 4th edition, prevent that? Dragon is too tough for the party. Evidence of this is strewn around. Clear hint from DM to avoid the cave: check. You could even have hints of this in town where they talk about all the adventurers who died trying to kill the dragon.

No one is forcing you to place CR-appropriate encounters everywhere in the game world. There is no suggestion that you do this, except that you might not want to cause a TPK. But the same goes for 1st edition. Only in 1st edition there was no good way to determine how strong a monster was except eyeballing it. But in 3rd and, presumably, 4th edition, there is nothing saying, "if your party is 3rd level, you must roll on the 3rd level random encounter table for all encounters. Or else."