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General Tabletop Discussion
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On simulating things: what, why, and how?
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8676757" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>What game world? The one that says "Oh, there's a cliff here." There is nothing which constrains any characteristics of this cliff; it is merely an imaginary thing. There's no world with plate tectonics and erosion and etc. that forms cliffs. Instead it is simply something that someone imagined would be there. It could be 30' high, 300' high, 3000' high, or heck its a fantasy world it could be 3 million feet high! It could be made of any sort of rock, or cheese, or demon flesh. Maybe it has overhangs, maybe its wet, maybe its dry, maybe it is sheer, maybe not. Perhaps there are paths going up, or not. ALL of this is entirely up to the GM and probably most of it wasn't specified when some line was drawn on an imaginary map and the words "The Great Cliff" were written on it. At most there's some general 2 sentence description. At SOME POINT there's some level, some decision point, where the GM or some writer or other decided "well, this cliff better be a DC 20 climb check because <story logic reason here>" or at best because he didn't have his coffee that morning and felt mean! </p><p></p><p>And no, the books CANNOT provide any more meaningful advice here! There is nothing to provide! Its up to the lady describing the cliff, 100% up to her and nobody and nothing else! All they could do is discuss the possible story uses of cliffs and examples of how they have been used in games past.</p><p></p><p>It depicts that one is harder than the other. I don't think that is meaningfully a 'simulation', we don't know why one is harder, and we have no justification for why my guy with a total +3 to his cooking skill can make one on an 8+ (65%) and the other on an 18+ (15%). It isn't somehow related to anything in the real world, it is just some numbers that were pulled out of thin air and used to depict that one is harder than the other. Nor are these DCs meaningful in any way to model some question like "would it be easier to make macaroons or leap out the window and land without injuring myself?"</p><p></p><p>Fantasy cannot be simulated! I mean, I agree with you that being 100% absolutist about it in the sense of "you cannot simulate falling in D&D" is kinda extreme, if D&D has a decent enough model of damage and whatnot, maybe we can, and nobody can logically draw some exact lines here. Still, tractor beams CERTAINLY cannot be simulated, no more than fireballs can, they are both utterly fantastic constructs of imagination not subject to ANY laws, as are cliff faces and such things. I am sort of able to simulate falling in a pit because once I've decided there's a 20' deep pit with a hard stone floor I've PRETTY MUCH figured out all the relevant factors. </p><p></p><p>So, going back to the cliff example above. If we have once (say in some previous adventure) already nailed down all the factors, and we now we say to ourselves "how hard would this baby actually be to climb" at least we're in a situation similar to the pit. Maybe someone can then write some little mini-game that simulates that situation. I don't think that means that the general workings of the 5e skill system has any character of simulation to it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8676757, member: 82106"] What game world? The one that says "Oh, there's a cliff here." There is nothing which constrains any characteristics of this cliff; it is merely an imaginary thing. There's no world with plate tectonics and erosion and etc. that forms cliffs. Instead it is simply something that someone imagined would be there. It could be 30' high, 300' high, 3000' high, or heck its a fantasy world it could be 3 million feet high! It could be made of any sort of rock, or cheese, or demon flesh. Maybe it has overhangs, maybe its wet, maybe its dry, maybe it is sheer, maybe not. Perhaps there are paths going up, or not. ALL of this is entirely up to the GM and probably most of it wasn't specified when some line was drawn on an imaginary map and the words "The Great Cliff" were written on it. At most there's some general 2 sentence description. At SOME POINT there's some level, some decision point, where the GM or some writer or other decided "well, this cliff better be a DC 20 climb check because <story logic reason here>" or at best because he didn't have his coffee that morning and felt mean! And no, the books CANNOT provide any more meaningful advice here! There is nothing to provide! Its up to the lady describing the cliff, 100% up to her and nobody and nothing else! All they could do is discuss the possible story uses of cliffs and examples of how they have been used in games past. It depicts that one is harder than the other. I don't think that is meaningfully a 'simulation', we don't know why one is harder, and we have no justification for why my guy with a total +3 to his cooking skill can make one on an 8+ (65%) and the other on an 18+ (15%). It isn't somehow related to anything in the real world, it is just some numbers that were pulled out of thin air and used to depict that one is harder than the other. Nor are these DCs meaningful in any way to model some question like "would it be easier to make macaroons or leap out the window and land without injuring myself?" Fantasy cannot be simulated! I mean, I agree with you that being 100% absolutist about it in the sense of "you cannot simulate falling in D&D" is kinda extreme, if D&D has a decent enough model of damage and whatnot, maybe we can, and nobody can logically draw some exact lines here. Still, tractor beams CERTAINLY cannot be simulated, no more than fireballs can, they are both utterly fantastic constructs of imagination not subject to ANY laws, as are cliff faces and such things. I am sort of able to simulate falling in a pit because once I've decided there's a 20' deep pit with a hard stone floor I've PRETTY MUCH figured out all the relevant factors. So, going back to the cliff example above. If we have once (say in some previous adventure) already nailed down all the factors, and we now we say to ourselves "how hard would this baby actually be to climb" at least we're in a situation similar to the pit. Maybe someone can then write some little mini-game that simulates that situation. I don't think that means that the general workings of the 5e skill system has any character of simulation to it. [/QUOTE]
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