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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8678953" data-attributes="member: 82106">I'm sure in the entire history of the world that a number of people got jumped by a bear and had to fight with it. 99.9% of them were promptly mauled/eaten. Undoubtedly one got very lucky and impaled the bear on his spear and killed it. I mean, that is one of those things about ACTUAL combat, the outcomes are less a matter of some process being worked out, and can be more just 'that one bit of luck', so there's much more of a 'long tail' in outcomes than D&amp;D will generally produce. Honestly, such long tails are not usually that desirable in RPGs where it is expected you will progress to higher degrees of power over time, as it will tend to mean every PC gets one day of bad luck and goes down forever.This is just one of the many fundamental ways in which the depiction in an RPG needs to NOT be a simulation, not just &quot;is a poor simulation&quot; but needs to actively AVOID being one. This is a big reason I don't generally like using the term, as it implies a set of goals and constraints that are different from what actually apply to most RPG design and play.Then you cannot simulate it, that would be a nonsensical thing.Well, I don't know what you mean by 'game theory definitions', I am primarily working from the common dictionary definitions. RPGs generally have reasons to NOT want to actually simulate things, even if they could in principle (which amount to 'Reality is not as fun as you think'). Its just a different set of incentives, and that's not even getting into the non-existent stuff that is impossible in the real world, and so definitionally cannot be simulated unless we really stretch our definition to the point where it seems unuseful anymore.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8678953, member: 82106"] I'm sure in the entire history of the world that a number of people got jumped by a bear and had to fight with it. 99.9% of them were promptly mauled/eaten. Undoubtedly one got very lucky and impaled the bear on his spear and killed it. I mean, that is one of those things about ACTUAL combat, the outcomes are less a matter of some process being worked out, and can be more just 'that one bit of luck', so there's much more of a 'long tail' in outcomes than D&D will generally produce. Honestly, such long tails are not usually that desirable in RPGs where it is expected you will progress to higher degrees of power over time, as it will tend to mean every PC gets one day of bad luck and goes down forever. This is just one of the many fundamental ways in which the depiction in an RPG needs to NOT be a simulation, not just "is a poor simulation" but needs to actively AVOID being one. This is a big reason I don't generally like using the term, as it implies a set of goals and constraints that are different from what actually apply to most RPG design and play. Then you cannot simulate it, that would be a nonsensical thing. Well, I don't know what you mean by 'game theory definitions', I am primarily working from the common dictionary definitions. RPGs generally have reasons to NOT want to actually simulate things, even if they could in principle (which amount to 'Reality is not as fun as you think'). Its just a different set of incentives, and that's not even getting into the non-existent stuff that is impossible in the real world, and so definitionally cannot be simulated unless we really stretch our definition to the point where it seems unuseful anymore. [/QUOTE]

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