D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[AlViking]

The reason hit points are not a simulation is not because they are not granular. It's because they don't model anything. They are just a countdown clock.

Saving throws in classic D&D are likewise just a mode of plot armour, as Gygax explains in his DMG. 3E and 5e change this, taking them in a more simulationist direction with the well-known result that fighters go from being good at saving to being bad. With the Indomitable class ability being a further non-simulationist patch for this problem.

On surprise, I've got nothing to add to what @Hussar and I have already posted.

Every game has abstractions. Simulations do not recreate complex systems with 100% accuracy, a supercomputer could not perfectly model a realistic swordfight. I guarantee that SpaceX engineers ran a whole lot of simulations on the designs of their starship rockets and none of them predicted it would blow up on every test so far.

Granularity does not define whether or not something is a simulation. As far as what Gygax said, I still don't care.

 

[AlViking]

This isn't my experience. Competent people make their own luck, along these sorts of lines:

So you think people in the real world affect the world around them through competence and not just by what they say and do?

 

[clearstream]

That literally does not answer the question. What does simulating mean? You've made clear that "simulating" is perfectly compatible with genre conventions, gameplay contrivances, and thematic/dramatic patterns rather than, if I may use my own words, fidelity to the physical processes of a world.

From discussion here and elsewhere, simulationism seems to label game play characterised by i) giving the imagined world precedence and ii) addressing it as if it were independently real. Tenacious differences of view in this thread may well be down to acceptance or rejection of that mental model.

I like both Tuovinen and Sorensen's concepts of simulationism, while on the whole accepting Baker's current view of GNS. Where I might differ from Baker is in seeing "simulationism" as having currency as a broad label for multiple modes of play / things games can do. Which likely commits me to reading Tuovinen as describing six things a game can do, rather than one.

Games needn't be doing just one thing at a time, and as regards what they do they can differ in degree. Referring to my notion of games as tools, the ways a group of players uses a game adjusts their play. And note the silence in my proposed characteristics on what should be counted important about the imagined world and how that should be treated.

For instance, a game can meet both of my proposed characteristics without worrying about "fidelity to the physical processes of a world" if those physical processes aren't counted important enough to receive treatment for play. "Simulationist" games do not have to be about every possible feature of the imagined world! They can focus on some features over others. And they can render some features with fidelity while glossing or ignoring completely others.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not appealing to authority: I'm describing a fairly well-known RPG rulebook.

You are trying to support your point by referencing the words of a prominent figure in the hobby whose stated views in this circumstance align with your rhetoric. How is that not appeal to authority?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure. But it doesn't make a large difference to whether or not it is "quantum". That doesn't depend upon why the roll is made.

Again, you are welcome to have that opinion. I simply disagree.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Isn't it? If the roll succeeds, isn't the success in the fiction because the character was skilful?

Depends on what factors into the roll, and what exactly the roll determines.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The thing you quoted said nothing about your views.

It said that the game under discussion--D&D--is not a very good simulationist game. As in, the claim that its rules are not well-constructed for the purpose of simulating things with granularity and precision, but instead relies significantly on things that are opposite to simulation, such as genre conventions, thematic or dramatic considerations, and gameplay contrivances that could very easily have been less contrived.

The level and focus of contrivance has varied significantly over the editions, I would note.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So DMs never factor in, for example, the party's stealthiness for what results might come up on a wandering monster roll? I can literally say I have seen more than one DM apply such a thing (e.g. the party scout's Stealth bonus reducing the result of a wandering-encounter roll so that lesser or even empty encounters are more likely). So like...even that isn't the absolute hard-and-fast line you seem to think it is.

I don't factor that into the roll. I might factor it into whether or not there is a roll, or how often. But what might be there has nothing to do with how sneaky the PCs are.

 

[Umbran]

I can't help it if you don't understand what the word simulation means.

But, you can help making it into a personal jab. You just chose not to. And that's on you.

If folks are no longer interested in being kind and respectful, I recommend they leave the discussion.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not telling you what your view is.

I'm telling you about D&D. The idea that hp, saving throws, surprise rolls, etc are "simulationist" isn't one that I can credit.

You really seem to enjoy beating the undead horse of hit points. Or rather, the 100% verisimilitude straw man likes to do that.