D&D General On simulating things: what, why, and how?

[hawkeyefan]

As I said, I occasionally allow quantum gear if it makes sense. For the most part though, it's all dependent on the work they put in ahead of time in the background and investigation they do before attempting to get the McGuffin. So by the time they head to the McGuffin HQ, they should be ready. Depending on how well the investigation goes, I may tell them what they know, even giving them summary bullet points. This is especially true if the initial footwork was done the previous session.

Sure. I think the thing with Blades is that it elides at least some of that prep on the characters part through a few different means; the Engagement Roll, Gear/Loadout, and Flashbacks. The system is helping to portray this by having these mechanics.

So would you say that the chronology of events is important to your sense of verisimilitude?

To me preparing is half the fun, and potentially half the risk, of planning an incursion. It's also more simulationist to assume the characters don't know everything about the super secret lair. Talk to the wrong people or say the wrong thing? You may tip your hat (helmet?) and give the BBEG a heads up. You may exceed my expectations and I'll grant some other benefits I would not have otherwise. It also involves more than just equipment of course, you could gain allies or make additional enemies along the way. Planning for major events can take up an entire session.

So then do you think it's about the process? That we largely mimic the actual process that's taking place for the characters, in so much as we are able to do so sitting at a table and talking? So we as players follow roughly the same steps as the characters... first we research the place, then we decide what to bring, then we fill our packs, then off we go.... is that what makes it a simulation?

Can there be a breach to that sequence while still maintaining simulation? Or is that it, once there's a compromise, that's it? I think the way most RPGs play must allow some of this, no? If so, then what is it that causes issues for people?

When it comes to quantum equipment I can then think about the preparation and think about whether or not there's a reasonable chance the PC would have known to bring X. If they go into a room and you need the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch to kill the guardian, did the PCs have any reasonable way to know they'd encounter the Rabbit of Caerbannog? Could they have known it if they had talked to the right person (no chance) or have there always been rumors of the fell beast that the PC could know (roll a check) or is it fairly common knowledge (automatic)?

Well, it's interesting. I hear the term "quantum equipment" often on this topic. But that's not what it is, really. It's just a matter of WHEN a fictional element is established. In the fictional world, of course you had the Holy Hand Grenade all along. How did you know to bring it? Well the dice will help us determine that, but there must be a reason because there it is.

Compare this to the process of a Knowledge check of some sort in D&D. The DM introduces some new element....the Rabbit of Caerbannog. The player of the Ranger says "Do I know anything about that?" and the DM calls for a roll. Success! He knows about it's big pointy teeth and its meanstreak that's a mile wide.

When did he learn this? Just then in that scene? Of course not. He learned it earlier in his life as a ranger, and we as the audience just learned of that.

Is this different than the gear? Do you think of this as a simulation or something else? Are we simulating the learning of esoteric information in any way? Is this not "quantum knowledge"?

Of course it's just a preference. Do you have the mastermind just hand you the blueprints perhaps with an explanation or do you have to find someone you can bribe to get the blueprints. It can go either way, neither is wrong.

Yeah, I agree with you here, it's definitely just a preference.

 

[Manbearcat]

The OP wanted to have a friendly discussion about how people use simulation in 5e. At this point, more than half of the posters are trying to prove to the other half that simulation isn't actually a thing in 5e, and those who think otherwise are essentially fooling themselves. How is that not bad faith?

And Micah Sweet accusation of threadcrapping?

The lead post was about Simulation - How and Why? That is 100 % what the Ancient Wyrm vs Fighter conversation is about!

One of the primary tenets of 5e design was that they were going to start with the fiction of D&D and build mechanics through natural language that hews to that. This might have been the very first designer goal we saw out of Mearls, Crawford et al.

The issue I’ve been angling at is that the problem that D&D has and needs to resolve (see Simulation - How and Why?) is that one of its two staple classes (Fighter and Wizard) fights monsters (even lower tier ones like Trolls, Ogres, Giant/Ethereal Spiders, Displacer Beasts, Wyverns) where the fiction requires superhuman athletic prowess to merely survive sparring with let alone actually slaying the creature! But then this superhuman athletic prowess inexplicably disappears outside of the fiction of combat!

That is not Fiction First design (as was intended)! That’s Fiction Never!

And then people point to the Mechanics (Mechanics First) as their cue for the fiction! This was not the design intent of the 5e designers! Things have become inverted.

See @Ovinomancer example of DW for how Fiction First design and play resolves.

You're the one with the giant dragon shaped strawman. Dragons are not kaiju in D&D, the closest we have is the tarrasque. D&D is not The Hobbit, Smaug was a unique creature and last of it's kind. He was also killed by a single (magical?) arrow, all it took was for Bard to know where to hit. You haven't "proven" anything and obviously it's arguable because I'm arguing it's not the whole picture. There's no reason to believe a D&D dragon would not be easily killed with modern military equipment. In fact, we have stats for a rifle in the DMG, a single bullet from a rifle causes 2d8 damage. Given a platoon of soldiers with fully automatic weapons, and it would not take that long to take out the dragon based on the rules of the game which informs us what dragons are in D&D.

But it also doesn't matter because it has nothing to do with the OP's question. I fully accept that D&D is simulating action movie logic. That magic is inherent to the world and it's denizens. That doesn't mean that there aren't many simulationist aspects to the game. There are also narrative aspects to the game, game rule aspects, on and on.

So, no I don't see why these impossible to kill dragons keep showing up, or how they're even relevant.

Where is this strawman you’re accusing me of? What argument have I distorted or misrepresented? And why are you leading with that (inexplicable) accusation rather than addressing the receipts (which you fail to address)?

Here is a tutorial on how strawmanning works (feel free to reference it in the future):

Person 1: Subset of thing x (D&D Ancient Wyrms) is inspired by thing y (Smaug) from thing z (The Hobbit).

Person 2: All of thing x (D&D) isn’t thing z (The Hobbit).

That format is a strawman.

Can we get back to those receipts that you didn’t address (which was the point of my post)?

Late AD&D w/ FR Greybox > Master Set > Immortals Set > 2e > 3e > 4e.

29 years minimum of Ancient Wyrms of calamitous size in the fiction of D&D. If you need exact sizes, you can find actual metrics for everything listed in 2e, 3e and 4e with lengths of 88 - 150 ft, wingspans of 150 ft, weights from 165000 lbs to 1.28 million lbs (again, already referenced…3 times now).

And to get back to the thrust of the post (and the point of engagement with the thread), how do we resolve the discontinuities of Fighter athletic prowess in combat and out of combat (Simulation - How and Why?)?

My proposal for actual Fiction First design and play (Simulation - How and Why?)? Make them more physically capable than they presently are and make that scale through the levels such that Epic Tier (where they’re clashing with Ancient Wyrms) sees superheroic Fighters.

Discontinuities resolved.

And much easier to GM (framing endgame obstacles and resolving action declarations - setting DCs and saying “yes” or “no” to action declarations - becomes more intuitive and easier with an established and functional baseline).

 

[Micah Sweet]

I appreciate the response. I'm looking for examples.

What is an element of worldbuilding for which you use simulation? Do you look at actual maps and then create yours with those in mind? Do you research geographical features and make sure that you portray those accurately? Like, deserts forming on one side of mountains, for example.

What is it about the Worldbuilder's Guidebook that makes you think it's a good resource for this? Or ACKS; you've mentioned it's the best worldbuilding game you've seen.... why? What does it do well?

I do try to portray geographical features accurately, and the Worldbuilder's Guidebook is a great tool for that. As for ACKS, it is extensively researched using available historical record combined with mathematical extrapolation to create verisimilitudinous economic and political systems; all of its books are created with this priority in mind.

That's about as specific as I feel like getting at this point. I'm starting to feel like you're trying to trip me up.

 

[niklinna]

I used to play Guild Wars 2. They have a lot of giant dragon battles in which mobs of player characters get repeatedly mowed down while waiting for the dragon to even land, and when it does, it looks like they're all trying to give the dragon a bad pedicure while getting stomped and swatted around. Well the melee ones anyhow. The rangers are busy trying to do long-distance acupuncture on four-inch-thick scales and the casters are waving what might as well be hair dryers in the dragon's general direction. But those puny attacks, en masse, manage somehow to kill that humongous gigantic armored creature. It's great fun! I haven't even mentioned the dragon's special abilities.

Oh by the way, that part where the dragon lands, generally requires cannons (which the players sometimes get to operate, so, cool!). Plural, as in multiple cannons. Of course since there are cannons, you'd think they would be the primary mechanism for killing the dragon, but I guess that isn't considered as much fun as scale-equivalent nail files and needles and hair dryers. Although in the scripted main storyline you actually do take down the BBEG dragon with a cannon while flying on an airship. That fight is tremendously boring so I could see why they ditched that for the open-world fights.

(I also tried Final Fantasy 14 for a while, and remember a dragon fight, I think at the beginning of the Heavensward expansion, where I couldn't even zoom the camera out far enough to see more than its leg. Talk about kaiju. Pretty sure there were no cannons there, though, just nail files and needles and hair dryers.)

 

[hawkeyefan]

I do try to portray geographical features accurately, and the Worldbuilder's Guidebook is a great tool for that. As for ACKS, it is extensively researched using available historical record combined with mathematical extrapolation to create verisimilitudinous economic and political systems; all of its books are created with this priority in mind.

That's about as specific as I feel like getting at this point. I'm starting to feel like you're trying to trip me up.

No, I'm not trying to trick you. I don't have an ulterior motive. Unless you mean trying to trip you into saying something more than general statements...in which case, yup, totally guilty.

Just hoping for some specifics that actually show how simulation comes into play in world building. Hoping for that discussion folks were lamenting never happened.

But no worries, I'll stop.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I do try to portray geographical features accurately, and the Worldbuilder's Guidebook is a great tool for that. As for ACKS, it is extensively researched using available historical record combined with mathematical extrapolation to create verisimilitudinous economic and political systems; all of its books are created with this priority in mind.

That's about as specific as I feel like getting at this point. I'm starting to feel like you're trying to trip me up.

I... what? Let's imagine, for a minute, that @hawkeyefan isn't the mild mannered interlocutor that he is, and isn't displaying genuine curiosity. Let's imagine he's a flea-bitten troll looking to really trip you up and make you look silly. How on Earth does that work if you're doing the things you like to do in the way you like to do them? How can you possibly be tripped up explaining how you play? I mean, if you like it how it is, what's the fear?

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, I'm not trying to trick you. I don't have an ulterior motive. Unless you mean trying to trip you into saying something more than general statements...in which case, yup, totally guilty.

Just hoping for some specifics that actually show how simulation comes into play in world building. Hoping for that discussion folks were lamenting never happened.

But no worries, I'll stop.

How specific do you need me to be? Do I need to show the math?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I... what? Let's imagine, for a minute, that @hawkeyefan isn't the mild mannered interlocutor that he is, and isn't displaying genuine curiosity. Let's imagine he's a flea-bitten troll looking to really trip you up and make you look silly. How on Earth does that work if you're doing the things you like to do in the way you like to do them? How can you possibly be tripped up explaining how you play? I mean, if you like it how it is, what's the fear?

I'm sorry, this whole discussion is making me defensive.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I'm sorry, this whole discussion is making me defensive.

Why?

Edit: you don't really have to answer, but it's a good question why this conversation would make one defensive. I haven't been defensive, and I've been called names and told I'm acting in bad faith when I'm not.

 

[robus]

Did you grab it and use your foot to trip it? Did you put both hands on it and just push it over? Since 5E's "shove" doesn't differentiate between a shove and a trip or do some sort of hip toss, we just don't know. So, this is the narrative provided by the player and/or DM as to the "how" is accomplished.

This came up in our game one time when a player wanted to trip a flail snail. I ruled that the snail couldn’t be tripped because its center of gravity is too low. The player went with a different approach.

To me this indicates that there is a simulation and it’s running in the DMs head. After all we’re the ones who have to make the constant adjudications and we turn to the rules to assist in that where they can. But first the simulator has to determine that the result is uncertain.