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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8961338" data-attributes="member: 42582">Rolemaster does not really purport to simulate a world. It is purist-for-system in the sense of the <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/" target="_blank">Right to Dream</a> essay. Here's how these games are described:These games' five-element structure is consistent: System + Color thereof, Setting, then Character + Situation. I'm trying to think of one which switches the role of character before setting, which might include some some superhero games. It might seem odd that Color is placed so high in priority, but consider the engineering-text model for the game text of GURPS - this is, actually, Color for System. . . . Purist-for-System designs tend to model the same things: differences among scales, situational modifiers, kinetics of all kinds, and so forth.I think that Rolemaster might be another game that puts Character ahead of Setting.The significance of this description becomes clearer when we see how "High Concept" or "genre" simulation is described:At first glance, these games might look like additions to or specifications of the Purist for System design, mainly through plugging in a fixed Setting. However, I think that impression isn't accurate, and that the five elements are very differently related. The formula starts with one of Character, Situation, or Setting, with lots of Color, then the other two (Character, Situation, or Setting, whichever weren't in first place), with System being last in priority.In other words, a system like RM or RQ - and also at least some approaches to Classic Traveller - prioritises system, a mechanical process of resolution which itself establishes colour and "theme" in the sense of focusing on those issues of scale, kinetics etc that are mentioned. The goal isn't to model a world: it's to make certain elements of the fiction salient, and to then have a mechanical resolution process that can take those as inputs and generate appropriate outputs. If the system breaks down when the parameters are varied even within reasonable limits, or if it needs intervention from a human operator to ensure that results "make sense", then the game is not doing what it is mean to do.Whereas high concept/genre sim is quite different: the point of the PC build rules, for instance, isn't to produce mechanical elements of character that feed into a resolution engine: it's to produce characters with clear (and often colourful) descriptors which can then be fed into setting and/or situation. And there is a significant expectation of human operator intervention to make sure that those descriptors and that colour are respected in the outcomes of play. Every CoC or D&D module that has advice to the GM on what to do if the players miss a necessary clue, or every bit of advice about not rolling the dice and just going with what "makes sense" for the character, is something that would be out of place in purist-for-system play but is part and parcel of high concept sim play.This is how we can tell that, within this taxonomical framework, 5e D&D is essentially a high concept/genre sim game. The closest D&D gets to being purist-for-system is if played in a type of AD&D style that differs from Gygax's own "skilled" play and focuses more on letting the system do its own thing for its own sake. The known problems with this are that AC, hit points, saving throws and even spell slots don't make much sense when looked at through this lens - they're hard to take seriously as "models" of anything in the fiction - and so the natural drifts towards vitality + wound points, armour as damage reduction, all take place, and we end up in the same general terrain as RM, RQ, C&S etc. I'm sure you're familiar with that drift because you were there the first time it happened in the late 70s/early 80s and have no doubt seen versions of it (even, on these boards, [USER=29398]@Lanefan[/USER]'s versions) played out again and again and again.</blockquote>

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