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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 8671951" data-attributes="member: 177">Gotcha.One problem with the real world is that, honestly, most of it is mind-numbingly mundane.  The other problem with it is that the parts that are exciting are such that if you are not an expert, if you make one mistake, you're dead.  GMs and Players are not, typically, experts at the exciting parts of the real world - or at least not with many of them.  In addition, most of the time we design things such that the simulation is not the goal - it stands between the PCs and the goal, as a complication - you must climb the ice-covered mountain (and we simulate that climb) in order to get at the white dragon that has been plaguing the town.  This means that, from the player's point of view, the simulation is something extraneous.So, in order to make simulating the real world worthwhile, 1) The GM typically has to pick up a simulation created by someone with greater expertise, and then 2) the GM typically has to add in a layer of abstraction between the players and that simulation - lean on the characters being experts, rather than the players.  This can lead to giving various characters spotlight time, but it means the players don't actually make the decisions relevant to the simulation.  And then, we are left wondering what the point of the simulation really was.So, when, how, and why are answered by finding the times when simulation doesn't meet the usual issues of simulation.1) When it is not mind-numbingly mundane - How many pairs of socks, or torches, a character is carrying may be meaningful insofar as getting trench foot or having your light go out in a dungeon are bad, those choices are not typically interesting.  2) When it is something for which expertise is less relevant - When the point of the simulation is to explore the thing being simulated, and nobody is expected to understand it to start with, and not understanding it won't kill the characters3) When the thing simulated is central to the issues the PCs are choosing to deal with.</blockquote>

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