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<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5510071" data-attributes="member: 54877">This is one of the classic lines that divides so much talk of simulation: The difference between simulation of result versus the simulation of process. For &quot;the genre of D&amp;D&quot; as a whole, as it is often played at the table, 4E actually does a decent job of simulating results. A group of adventures go into danger; fight some monsters with appropriate powers; prevail, run, or die; and get some treasure. And the wizard gets his results via magic while the barbarian gets his by smashing things. &nbsp;Some people prefer results via process so much that they will never enjoy this, though. They are the same people that prefer GURPS over Hero on the grounds of &quot;realism,&quot; when what they really mean is that GURPS Fantasy has a &quot;spell&quot; called &quot;fireball&quot; that you have to get through a bit of a process, and when the character casts it, it works through the &quot;magic&quot; process. Where as, in Hero, you have an effect, probably &quot;Energy Blast,&quot; that is bought to a certain amount and with certain characteristics, and then described as &quot;fireball.&quot; Any process in Hero short of targeting and damage has to be supplied by the group at the table.&nbsp;However, the latest versions of GURPS and Hero are closer on this question than they have ever been, and even back in their GURPS 3E and Hero 4E days were far closer than D&amp;D 3E and 4E are on this question.&nbsp;Compounding all of the above is that people have always disagreed as to what D&amp;D (any version) should be &quot;simulating&quot;--whether via process or result. There are, to give just one trivial example, people who are quite happy if the process is so favored where &quot;combat is deadly&quot; even if this leads to the genre being &quot;adventures go into peril and don't come out again.&quot; And there are equally people who are quite happy if the results are so favored where &quot;adventures go in and often come out&quot; even if the process is &quot;rolled some skill checks that were practically foregone conclusions, laughed and talked in character, and got the treasure--which was a fair maiden's kiss.&quot; &nbsp;Not there is anything wrong with either of those, or a host of other examples that could be used, but pretending that one set of rules could really make both happy has always been the 40 pound weight on the legs of D&amp;D while it tried to sprint. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5510071, member: 54877"] This is one of the classic lines that divides so much talk of simulation: The difference between simulation of result versus the simulation of process. For "the genre of D&D" as a whole, as it is often played at the table, 4E actually does a decent job of simulating results. A group of adventures go into danger; fight some monsters with appropriate powers; prevail, run, or die; and get some treasure. And the wizard gets his results via magic while the barbarian gets his by smashing things. Some people prefer results via process so much that they will never enjoy this, though. They are the same people that prefer GURPS over Hero on the grounds of "realism," when what they really mean is that GURPS Fantasy has a "spell" called "fireball" that you have to get through a bit of a process, and when the character casts it, it works through the "magic" process. Where as, in Hero, you have an effect, probably "Energy Blast," that is bought to a certain amount and with certain characteristics, and then described as "fireball." Any process in Hero short of targeting and damage has to be supplied by the group at the table. However, the latest versions of GURPS and Hero are closer on this question than they have ever been, and even back in their GURPS 3E and Hero 4E days were far closer than D&D 3E and 4E are on this question. Compounding all of the above is that people have always disagreed as to what D&D (any version) should be "simulating"--whether via process or result. There are, to give just one trivial example, people who are quite happy if the process is so favored where "combat is deadly" even if this leads to the genre being "adventures go into peril and don't come out again." And there are equally people who are quite happy if the results are so favored where "adventures go in and often come out" even if the process is "rolled some skill checks that were practically foregone conclusions, laughed and talked in character, and got the treasure--which was a fair maiden's kiss." Not there is anything wrong with either of those, or a host of other examples that could be used, but pretending that one set of rules could really make both happy has always been the 40 pound weight on the legs of D&D while it tried to sprint. :) [/QUOTE]

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