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

[Crimson Longinus]

It is a more realistic modelling of the fiction of D&D dragons than plate armored knight with a sword going toe-to-toe with one and having a chance of killing it. Especially pre-5e dragons, which would be immune/resistant to all that modern weaponry because it's not at least +1.

I don't agree at all. Which is not that I think a plate armoured knight (or a group of them) being able to take down a fire breathing dinosaur is necessarily super realistic, it just is at least conceivable, unlike such lizards prevailing against modern military which is just patently absurd.

Really? How far can a level 20 fighter with a 20 STR jump?

Well, not far enough! I'd be fully on board with high level fighter's capability to perform amazing athletic feats scaling up.

 

[Ovinomancer]

What?


You didn't? Then why are you arguing with me? I never stated anything remotely like the latter half of this statement.

Maybe take some time later and read through it carefully. I've been led to understand that there's not much time on breaks to really get into things.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I can't tell if you are honestly confused or trying to be cute.

The point of simulation is that when a rule causes a result it does so because that is what would happen in the world based on the agreed upon reality of that world. As opposed to causing a result because it makes for the best narrative, or because it makes for the most fun play (importantly both of those regardless of the reality of the world; sim results can and often do result in good story and/or fun, but as a side effect).

The realism of the world as it relates to the real world is only important insofar as the person seeking sim declares it so. I, for example, like it to feel "real" enough to be familiar and relatable, but not necessarily mundane. In my youth I was a US Army infantryman. I know what it feels like to travel for miles through the swamps of Georgia and sleep with the bugs and snakes, and get woken up in the middle of the night by a raid (at least during training). So I personally desire sim that is that stuff plus more, and I can imagine the "more" as dragons instead of tanks and orcs instead of Blue Team.

OK, but the breakdown here is that when you call something 'simulation' you are then saying that it has to be 'realistic', but there's no possible measure of such realism. Your dragon and my dragon can be completely different and operate by utterly different rules and yet neither of us can say that one can claim realism and the other cannot. Beyond that you actually ESCHEW realism for exactly the reasons that you decry! Your 'realistic' dragons can fly because that makes a fun game! Your 'realistic' fighters can kill these 40 ton flying predators with hand weapons because that is what makes a fun game! Calling it 'realism' and demanding a 'good simulation' is IMHO mere rhetorical high ground! lol. It has no objective meaning or value at all.

I mean, I'm VERY happy to debate with you, maybe even totally agree with you, on what makes D&D enjoyable and how a 5e dragon statblock perhaps gives us a good way of implementing a bunch of tropes, etc. I just literally cannot even comprehend the idea of realism in this genre. I mean, sure, we could theoretically produce a bunch of rules for mosquito bites, damp camping locations, half-cooked rations, wet boots, etc. I do think that in general 'mundane stuff' needs to work in a way that is comprehensible to the players and as a default it makes sense for these to be moderately realistic at some level. So, yes, gravity works, people need to eat, dirty water is bad for you, etc.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think you are missing the forest for the trees here.

If I say I want some sim elements surrounding,say, wilderness survival, it is clearly true that not all games,or even versions of D&D, treat the issue with the same degree of simulation. Some games don't model it at all, others give it short shrift, and yet others make an attempt to model it as well as that game's mechanics might.

Okay. Which games?

Also, what you seem to be saying here... correct me if I'm wrong... is that "having mechanics for" = "simulation". Is that right?

I think maybe part of the issue is that a lot of the people in this thread arguing that D&D or even RPgS in general can't do sim is that those people are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. They are saying because dragons aren't real or because Constitution doesn't really model health and fitness you just CAN'T do sim and your shouldn't even try (and, weirdly, that if you do try you are a gate keeping ogre).

Not only does sim not have to be perfect for it to be a viable and fun part of the game,it doesn't have to apply equally across all aspects of the game. You can have heroes that both fight dragons and have to poop.

I didn't comment on any of that, really. I asked what games don't depict some kind of world that roughly ("if you squint") models the real world. I'd honestly love to hear examples. I'm having trouble thinking of many.

Can you name some?

 

[Mannahnin]

You were one who though that flying, fire-breathing T-Rexes bringing down a modern society armed with missiles, tanks and supersonic aircraft was somehow more realistic. To me that seems way more absurd outcome than that a crack team of super-skilled renaissance badasses having a fighting chance against that giant lizard.

I don't think that's an accurate characterization. He was pointing out that humans fighting dragons with rockets is a much better simulation of how real people would need to fight such a creature than doing it with swords, lances, or arrows. And yeah, that's pretty inarguable.

But in a world with fireball and holy smite, aren't they equivalent?

Not really? Lances, arrows and swords aren't fireballs.

Sure, fighting magic with magic makes sense, but then we're outside the bounds of simulation, as @AbdulAlhazred and @Manbearcat have pointed out. There's no longer any common reference point in reality for us to refer to and say we're simulating.

I personally DO like to try to simulate SOME parts of reality. Again, I've often played in games where, presented with a load of treasure weighing X, or a dragon corpse weighing Y, that needs to be extricated from some place and transported back to town, we plan out those logistics with reference to real world measures and objects and wagon capacities and so forth. And that can be a fun game (assuming people in the group don't find it tiresome and boring), and feel grounded. And my impression is/was that this is the same kind of thing you're talking about.

But the other guys do have a point that some stuff in D&D just defies attempts to connect it to reality, and on that stuff, we have to acknowledge that we're no longer simulating reality, we're doing genre emulation, I guess.

The tricky bit, I think, is to kind of consciously figure out where our boundary lines are, and make sure we're on the same page with our group about them. Because if the DM's ideas conflict with the players' about what's realistic and what we're glossing over or writing off as magical, we get clashing expectations and loss of fun.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I don't agree at all. Which is not that I think a plate armoured knight (or a group of them) being able to take down a fire breathing dinosaur is necessarily super realistic, it just is at least conceivable, unlike such lizards prevailing against modern military which is just patently absurd.

I disagree it's conceivable. Like, at all. Because the fiction of those dragons is the same in both -- Reign of Fire is 'what happens if D&D dragons are released on the real world." Massive, impossibly fast, impossibly armored, strong, acrobatic flying beasts that breathe fire!

I mean, realistically speaking, it took considerable effort to crack open a fully armored knight. There armor was impressive, and hard to breach, requiring specific techniques and tools to do so (the evolution of battlefield weapons clearly shows this, with anti-knight weapons being picks and long knives used to get into the cracks after you grounded the opponent). Swords were one of the worst weapons to use against a knight.

Dragons are even more impressively armored than the best knights, but the same hand weapons are conceived to be able to harm them.

Late era breastplates are effectively bulletproof. A dragon's armor is significantly improved over this. Reign of Fire actually did a pretty good job of realistic extrapolation.

Well, not far enough! I'd be fully on board with high level fighter's capability to perform amazing athletic feats scaling up.

Sure, but that's not how it is, is it?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I’d imagine those taking the opposite stance are considering the stat blocks/attributes “its properties,” invented though they may be.


And, similarly, seeing the relevant rulebooks as that meaningful process.

Sure, it was all designed at some point and is, of course, fantastical rather than necessarily bound by real world constraints. But when individual elements are designed within (almost) any game they must eventually collide to determine the result. So one might even simply see any amount of play as some move toward simulation. And the more definition you add, the further that dial turns.

Those designs and rules may be subject to modification and most often don’t have any real, historical basis (even when they capriciously attempt to emulate it), but the agreed upon framework at any given point suffices as that process.

But that makes 'simulation' merely a sort of tautological and meaningless term. Its just saying "whatever the game does, that's simulation." I don't see that as a very useful kind of definition, personally...

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But the other guys do have a point that some stuff in D&D just defies attempts to connect it to reality, and on that stuff, we have to acknowledge that we're no longer simulating reality, we're doing genre emulation, I guess.

The tricky bit, I think, is to kind of consciously figure out where our boundary lines are, and make sure we're on the same page with our group about them. Because if the DM's ideas conflict with the players' about what's realistic and what we're glossing over or writing off as magical, we get clashing expectations and loss of fun.

Right. Like is the guy fighting the dragon just a normal person, who can just do that because they're the main character and thus have insane plot armour, or are they actually a mythic hero, who literally is not the same than a normal person from our modern world. The former is more of an emulation, the latter a simulation. The fighter's high combat stats actually simulate them being a superhuman badass.

 

[Mannahnin]

Really? How far can a level 20 fighter with a 20 STR jump?

Well, not far enough! I'd be fully on board with high level fighter's capability to perform amazing athletic feats scaling up.

Sure, but that's not how it is, is it?

Yeah, this is one of the places where D&D kind of conflicts with itself. Under the rules in 5E, even a 20 Strength 20th level Fighter's ability to jump distances is bounded by a rough approximation of real world human jumping. Honestly less far than real world Olympic jumpers can get with optimal conditions, but I get that it's a rough approximation.

But at the same time that D&D is telling us that the human Fighter, even the very highest level one, is still bounded within real life human achievements as far as the athletic feat of jumping goes, it's telling us that he can effectively fight and defeat a giant dinosaur in melee with a sword. :/

 

[Reynard]

Okay. Which games?

Also, what you seem to be saying here... correct me if I'm wrong... is that "having mechanics for" = "simulation". Is that right?




I didn't comment on any of that, really. I asked what games don't depict some kind of world that roughly ("if you squint") models the real world. I'd honestly love to hear examples. I'm having trouble thinking of many.

Can you name some?

For Example: gaining levels of exhaustion due to forced march in 5E is a sim mechanic. Whether it is technically realistic is beside the point. It is attempting to model, within the context of the game, that pushing yourself will tire you, and being tired will affect your performance.