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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8962402" data-attributes="member: 42582">But now it's not a simulation! It's not a model of anything. It's just a process that takes inputs and generates outputs - a closed process, to use @AbdulAlhzard's term.Which is just what I posted way upthread.(I mean, Torchbearer uses a lot of random tables to determine camp events, town events, tavern rumours, etc. That doesn't make it a simulation of anything - it just means that at certain points it is a mechanical process rather than participant decision that determines what happens next.)I've done as much purist-for-system simulationist RPGing as anyone posting in these threads, overwhelmingly Rolemaster.The difference between resolving a Climb check in RM, and resolving a Climb check in Burning Wheel, is marked. That difference is what reveals that one of them is a simulationist RPG and the other is not, even though the two PCs sheets look very similar (heaps of stats, heaps of derived stats, long skill lists with ranks, very similar equipment lists, etc).But the difference consists in the process. Resolving a Climb check in RM is very close to a closed process. In BW it is not closed at all.To try and add to this by saying, eg, that RM tries to simulate a world, just generates obfuscation and invites @AbdulAlhzared to reiterate his point that the model is woefully inadequate for anything but combat, and even when it comes to combat far from perfect - just as one example, the most recurrent in our RM play, the purely artificial split of activity into rounds with initiative at the top end can effect resolution (especially the interaction between (i) movement, and hence position and (ii) active defence, and hence liability to be harmed).</blockquote>

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