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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8672966" data-attributes="member: 42582">RPGs use mechanics to generate agreement on the shared fiction. That's their principal function. They're not needed to maintain verisimilitude, and I already posed a very well-known example of how they threaten verisimilitude. Another example has been given in this thread: the mechanics for gaining levels in D&D.I'm familiar with the technical term (or jargon) simulationism to describe an approach to RPGing, and some mechanics and techniques that are associated with that approach. But as per the OP, that is not what this thread is about.Using simulation in it's ordinary sense, as quoted by [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER] not too far upthread, there cannot be a simulation of an archmage blasting a Type VI demon with a lightning bolt, because there are no correctness conditions.Rolemaster resolves it one way - the archmage spends spell points, the lightning bolt is resolved (mechanically) in the same way as a shot from a bow would be (using an attack table and associated crit tables), the demon's toughness is represented using devices including concussion hits ("meat points") and crit reduction (comparable to the SIZ stat in RQ) and perhaps spells that provide it with resistance to the elements.AD&D resolves it a different way - the archmage expends a memorised spell (from a limited pool), the lightning bolt is resolved quite differently from how a bow attack would be (auto-damage with a save for half), the demon has a magic resistance stat and a saving throw and hit points, and it's far from clear what each of them corresponds to in the fiction (according to Gygax, both the hit points and the saving throw represent luck and skill, among other things; we're never really told what magic resistance is). The demon is as tall as a Fire Giant but has fewer hp (about the same number as an elephant) and does far less damage with its attacks; so it's not really clear what any of this is supposed to correspond to in the fiction either.Burning Wheel resolves it yet a different way - the archmage performs a spell casting action which generates the possibility  of "tax" (ie tiredness/exhaustion due to spell use), the attack is resolved differently from how a bow attack would be in some respects (auto-hit if the spell is cast successfully) but similarly in other respects (roll a die to determine the severity of the attack), and the upshot of the attack is a wound rated somewhere between "less than Superficial" (ie no effect) up to "Mortal" (ie the demon dies).Which is the more accurate simulation? I assert that there is no answer to that question. (I can tell you which is more or less simulationist in the jargonistic sense, but again that's not the OP wanted to talk about.)</blockquote>

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