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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 6261212" data-attributes="member: 22779">I'm not sure that's right though.&nbsp; I could determine the results of combat by flipping a coin.&nbsp; Heads your character dies, tails, the monster dies.&nbsp; That's about as abstract as it can get and the action of flipping a coin bears nothing on the events in the game.&nbsp; IOW, a game of Monopoly is not an abstract simulation of economics.&nbsp; It's a game that uses some of the trappings of economics to drive play, but, there's nothing actually being simulated here.The same goes for D&amp;D combat mechanics.&nbsp; None of the things being determined by the mechanics - success or failure of an attack, amount of damage taken, that sort of thing - bears any direct relationship to the events in the game.In other words, a person in a D&amp;D world has no idea what his BAB is, nor can he know what his level is.&nbsp; These are game elements that have nothing to do with the game world.&nbsp; Only in the most bizarre, OOTS style world, could a person in a game world jump off a cliff, safe in the knowledge that he or she has enough HP to survive the drop.&nbsp; A simple HP count is not simulating anything because there is no correlation between the world and the loss of HP.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 6261212, member: 22779"] I'm not sure that's right though. I could determine the results of combat by flipping a coin. Heads your character dies, tails, the monster dies. That's about as abstract as it can get and the action of flipping a coin bears nothing on the events in the game. IOW, a game of Monopoly is not an abstract simulation of economics. It's a game that uses some of the trappings of economics to drive play, but, there's nothing actually being simulated here. The same goes for D&D combat mechanics. None of the things being determined by the mechanics - success or failure of an attack, amount of damage taken, that sort of thing - bears any direct relationship to the events in the game. In other words, a person in a D&D world has no idea what his BAB is, nor can he know what his level is. These are game elements that have nothing to do with the game world. Only in the most bizarre, OOTS style world, could a person in a game world jump off a cliff, safe in the knowledge that he or she has enough HP to survive the drop. A simple HP count is not simulating anything because there is no correlation between the world and the loss of HP. [/QUOTE]

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