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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4219061" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't think that this thread is the place to defend either Ron Edwards (about whom I know nothing other than his essays on The Forge, which I have read and which I admire) or the utility of his classificatory scheme.But I will say that there is such a thing as a simulationist RPG. I have GMed one for the past 18 years, weekly for many of those years, now closer to monthly. That game is Rolemaster. I have also played other simulationist games such as RQ, CoC and (to a lesser extent) Classic Traveller. These games exist, and people (including me) play and enjoy them.The notion that "simulationism" is a pejorative term I find bizarre. It's the only useful conceptual device I've encountered for describing the design logic and aesthetic of the main game that I play - that is, Rolemaster. And the main thing that has helped me become a better Rolemaster GM, by helping me understand it's design logic and limitations, is Ron Edwards' essay on simulationism, and particularly his analysis of purist-for-system design.So far from being a useless nomenclature, I think that the reaction of many players to 4e mechanics illustrates the utility of the Forge terminology: it almost exactly parallels (for example) the sorts of arguments against the role of Spritiual Attributes in TRoS that Edwards discusses in his review of that game; it almost exactly parallels arguments I was having 18 months ago on the ICE forums discussing the differences between RM and HARP and the direction that an RM revision might take; there is a division in gaming aesthetic and preferences that it is useful to name, and the contrast between simulationism on the one hand, and gamism/narrativism on the other hand, seems to capture it pretty well.Even <a href="http://www.critical-hits.com/2008/03/05/dd-xp-interview-sara-girard-rob-heinsoo/" target="_blank">Rob Heinsoo</a> has used the contrast to try to explain the design direction of 4e.As you probably know, Forge terminology distinguishes between the former (purist-for-system) and the latter (high concept). Again, as you probably know, Forge terminology distinguishes between high and low search and handling time mechanics (which would seem to differentiate your two designs in at least one respect). Furthermore, there is no special reason to think that two simulationist games have to use the same mechanics even if they are both crunch-heavy: compare parrying in RQ to parrying in RM.What your second design would also permit is a degree of FitM: having determined the consequences of the bullet, the player or GM could narrate its precise cause. RQ and RM do not permit this (having complex hit location systems). Classic Traveller does (having only generic stat damage but no mechanic to tell us what sort of physical injury any stat loss represents). Your second design is therefore perhaps more open to be drifted in a narrativist direction.Then different games get written. Compare RQ 3rd edition to RM to Ars Magica to Chivalry and Sorcery for various ways of designing mechanics of various degrees of complexity to model what would, to any outsider, have to be regarded as pretty much the same genre: dark ages/medieval fantasy.I don't know how familiar you are with methodology in the social sciences, and particularly with Weber's notion of the "ideal type". I see the Forge nomenclature as playing that sort of role: it is not necessarily the case that any game design is absolutely one thing or another (contrast Hero or RM, for example, each of which has highly metagaming, and therefore potentially narrativist or gamist character build rules, with RQ or Classic Traveller, both of which lack such rules), but these ideal types of simulationism, gamism and narrativism are nevertheless very useful in describing and analysing particular features of game systems which make them prone to support (or not) a particular play experience.</blockquote>

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