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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8963137" data-attributes="member: 42582">I agree with this, but with two caveats or glosses.(1) I think, in a RPG, the "board state" has to include fiction (or at the very least point to some fiction) as well as statistical/numerical/geometric facts. Otherwise we're in boardgame territory. This is why all the classic purist-for-simulationist games move away from hit points: hit points are a statistical/numerical fact, but barely point towards any fiction. Some RPGing can handle that deferral of the fiction (ie until someone is reduced to zero hp, we don't really know what happened) but it's intolerable to the purist-for-system impulse!(2) I think the connection between whatever they say about the world is true and the impulse to realism is more than coincidental. The first is easier to accept, it seems to me, the more that the second is satisfied.  Thus, for instance, someone who accepts the first and then tries to apply it to D&D hp-based combat confronts the fact that this character is hit again and again with a sword, yet not dead nor even (it seems) set back in ability. Which suggests a type of absurd reality (if we ignore the impulse to realism) or else suggests that, in fact, what the mechanics are telling us is not true of the world, but rather (as Gygax set out in his DMG) is a type of "deferral" of the fiction until we sort the whole thing out. (Later on, the approach that Gygax described very clearly in his DMG, with reference both to hp and to saving throws, would be labelled "fortune in the middle". That idea of "in the middle" (of the resolution process) corresponds to my language of "deferral" of the fiction.)This quoted sentence could be taken straight from <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/" target="_blank">the "right to dream" essay</a>!For instance:Consider Character, Setting, and Situation - and now consider what happens to them, over time. In Simulationist play, cause is the key, the imagined cosmos in action. . . . What makes [RPGs] Simulationist is the strict adherence to in-game (i.e. pre-established) cause for the outcomes that occur during play. . . . To talk about [in-game time and space], let's break the issue down a little: <ul style="margin-left: 20px"> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">In-game time occurs regarding the actually-played imaginary moments and events. It's best expressed by combat mechanics, which in Simulationist play are often extremely well-defined in terms of seconds and actions, but also by movement rates at various scales, starship travel times, and similar things.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Metagame time is rarely discussed openly, but it's the crucial one. It refers to time-lapse among really-played scenes: can someone get to the castle before someone else kills the king; can someone fly across Detroit before someone else detonates the Mind Bomb. Metagame time isn't "played," but its management is a central issue for scene-framing and the outcome of the session as a whole.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Real time is, of course, the real time of play as experienced by the people at the table. I think comparing between its flow and that of the in-game time is a crucial issue as well - when is a huge hunk of real time necessary to establish a teeny bit of in-game time, and vice versa?</li> </ul> . . . [Consider] the Simulationist view of in-game time. It is a causal constraint on the other sorts. One can even find, in many early game texts, rules that enforce how in-game time acts on real time, and vice versa. However, most importantly, it constrains metagame time. It works in-to-out. In-game time at the fine-grained level (rounds, seconds, actions, movement rates) sets incontrovertible, foundation material for making judgments about hours, days, cross-town movment, and who gets where in what order. . . . The causal sequence of task resolution in Simulationist play must be linear in time. He swings: on target or not? The other guy dodges or parries: well or badly? The weapon contacts the unit of armor + body: how hard? The armor stops some of it: how much? The remaining impact hits tissue: how deeply? With what psychological (stunning, pain) effects? With what continuing effects? . . . In [purist-for-system] design, there's no possible excuse for any imperfections, including scale-derived breakdowns of the fundamental point/probability relationships. The system must be cleanly and at the service of the element(s) being emphasized, in strictly in-game-world terms. A good one is elegant, consistent, applicable to anything that happens in play, and clear about its outcomes. It also has to have points of contact at any scale for any conceivable thing. It cannot contain patch-rules to correct for inconsistencies; consistency is the essence of quality. As I see it, Purist for System design is a tall, tall order. It's arguably the hardest design spec in all of role-playing.As someone who has done a lot of purist-for-system RPGing (with RM as my principal game of choice), I regard the quoted essay text, as well as the quote from [USER=6690965]@Pedantic[/USER], as accurate analyses of how this sort of RPGing works.This relates to my point above about the tensions between "the impulse to realism" and "treating what the mechanics say about the fiction as true".My views on this are basically the same as the designers who created RQ, RM, C&S and similar games. I regard the fiction in which "hits" in the D&D sense are taken literally to represent being stabbed by a sword as too silly for words. And so if I want a resolution system that supports a purist-for-system approach I use one that doesn't have that implication - eg RM as I've mentioned several times now.Conversely, when using hp I adopt a non-purist-for-system, fortune-in-the-middle approach. My own view is that 4e D&D is the apogee of this approach as far as D&Disms like hp, saving throws, classes as the core of PC build, etc are concerned.</blockquote>

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