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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4035476" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think part of the OP's point is that it is up for grabs what the rules are when the PCs are not involved.Right.I think an issue that this thread has raised is this: if the rules are silent on the matter (as D&D seems to be, in contrast with purist-for-system simulationism) then is it "breaking the rules" to do what the OP suggested.I think that these comments miss a crucial presupposition of the OP and most of those posting sympathetic responses: that there is a crucial difference between situations in which PC/player protagonism is at stake, and situations (like off-scene NPC lives) in which it is not. The OP is not talking about situations in which protagonism is at stake.There is one category of person in the gameworld. It's just that some people in the gameworld (ie the PCs) happen never to suffer certain sorts of misfortune. By analogy, Frodo and the Proudfoots are the same sort of hobbit, but (as it happens) Frodo never suffers certain sorts of misfortune. Protagonism is not an ingame status, it is a purely metagame status. If it doesn't threaten your suspension of disbelief in other media, I don't see why, of necessity, it must do so in a fantasy RPG.Prof Phobos is extending the OP's point to cases where player protagonism is simply asserted by consent at the table ("We slaughter the skeletons", "We overcome the town guard") rather than game mechanics. I don't understand why, of necessity, such a set of rules (consensual drama in place of randomised action resolution mechanics) should make the players feel impotent, given that it is their request and consent that gives rise to it.There is a rule: "If the players and GM agree, it happens." The suggestion that this sort of play (which is very common in many RPGs, and is not expressly excluded by the D&D rules) is "mother may I" play is - if I may be blunt - ridiculous.Again, to suggest that any non-simulationist ruleset will produce feelings of having been cheated is, in my view, ridiculous.That's one way to go. The problem is, it means that there is no King who is both vulnerable to horse-falls AND well-trained (= focus, specialised, improve critical) in swordplay. And this in itself puts limits on the gameworld that can easily seem arbitrary.It's not as if the anti-simulationists haven't thought of the things the pro-simulationists are suggesting. It's that they, for various reasons that are cogent for them, have decided to play the game a different way.That's one way to do it. RM goes in a similar direction. But it is not the only way. And this sort of simulationism has the tendency to produce rules bloat (and again, from long experience, I'd put RM forward as an example).Fair enough. But I hope my point still made sense (more or less).Agreed. But problems can also arise from the sort of system that the OP and others are talking about. For example, there may be corner-cases about what constitutes "relevant to player/PC protagonism." For me, the important point from this thread is not that simulationism is fatally flawed, but that it is not the only way to play an RPG.And in my view the important thing to remember is that what you assert to be obviously true is in fact up for grabs. The rules (via their silence) leave it up for grabs, and this thread makes it obvious that different people play in different fashions.Come over to the Death of Simulation thread and join with the dark side!</blockquote>

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