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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5956625" data-attributes="member: 54877">The simulation of the steps to get from A to B--in contrast mainly with result-simulation which is ok with abstraction or even non-intuitive methods, as long as the final result is in accord with the rest of the game. Rough examples: Process-simulation: Every swing of the sword is an attack roll. When you hit, you do damage. At higher levels, you get more attacks in a given unit of time. Result-simulation: You swing a few times (whatever makes sense in the round), all rolled up into a single attack roll. You might get increased damage as you level. In both cases, you can set up the math so that the damage works out about the same. Someone was waving a sword around, and goblins ended up dead. The differences will come in how the mechanics work with other parts of the system. Process-simulations tends to break down if you are serious about the simulation but try to keep them simple. Result-simulations can have non-intuitive results for some people, but tend to be more resilient across the whole system. And of course, neither is usually found in a pure form. These are both in contrast to gamist and narrative constructs which often may work very similarly, but are not explicitly concerned with either the process or the results matching exactly something in the game world itself. For example, fate points that let you narrate your way out of trouble are metagame, and need not simulate something in the game. Naturally, because result-simulation is so elastic, however, you can often have gamist or narrative mechanics that work a lot like result-simulation and vice/versa. (A thin patina of "in game results" on an otherwise gamist mechanic can pass for result-simulation if you don't look at it too close.) The assumption that process simulaton is automatically the correct way to do X in D&D, as opposed to one possible way, is the root of a considerable amount of disagreement on these boards--and indeed, the root of many letters to Dragon, long before anyone thought to give names to these distinctions. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> (The assumption of process-simulation as "the way" to do things is also not an infrequent source of lousy software design by amateurs, but I digress.) Oh, and pemerton, I'll need to spread some more XP.</blockquote>

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