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

[Lanefan]

I've taken the liberty of adding numbers to your list below, to make it easier to speak to specific points without having to retype or paraphrase each one.

I had expected simulationism to involve things like:

• 1 - There is a world, and it operates exclusively by consistent, physics-like rules
• 2 - Those rules are never mere reified genre conventions nor thematic/dramatic considerations
• 3 - Even where magic is involved, it is (as TVTropes would put it) "Magic A is Magic A", meaning, the magic is just bonus physics
• 4 - Extrapolation is done in, to at least some extent, a procedural and iterative way whenever possible
• 5 - To paraphrase from that manifesto linked like 40 pages back but which got a lot of positive attention from "sim" fans, all game mechanics are always wrong, but we build them so most of the time, they are usefully wrong
• 6 - Concessions made simply for a better experience of play (e.g., to balance contrasting options so that nearly all choices are almost purely qualitative, functionally not quantitative) do not occur, period
• 7 - Other than creating what content is in the world to be revealed, the GM simply must not consider thematic or dramatic concerns (e.g. pacing, rising/falling action, the intrusion of complication, etc.)
• 8 - Other than creating their characters and having (very limited) control over their backstory, the players generally should not (note, not "must not" as with the GM) think in terms of story, unless one or more characters are trying to tell a story through their deeds
• 9 - The world has what one might call "inertia" for its contents: things don't change unless acted upon by forces in the world
• 10 - While the GM has an overwhelmingly powerful degree of control over what such forces there are, how strong they are, and where/when they apply, there is (apparently) something of a "gentleman's agreement" situation that such power should only be used in ways that are as close to perfectly realistic and consistent as possible

I could list out contrasting points for all three of my other "game-(design-)purposes", albeit perhaps with slightly less granularity.

Points 1 through 4 - bang on.
Point 5 - game mechanics and abstractions are often more a "necessary evil", play can't functionally happen without them but they're also recognized as being an imperfect representation.
Point 6 - another necessary evil, and kept to a dull roar when there's an avenue to do so.
Point 7 and 8 - again bang on.
Point 9 - mostly applicable to the short term or here-and-now. Long-term change is fine; a PC jumped a few centuries into the setting's future or past can expect to find some differences, and it'd be odd if they didn't.
Point 10 - the DM is bound by the simulation just as much (if not more) than are the players.

 

[Lanefan]

Thank you for pointing this out! I have done some work to try to clean up the D&D combat terminology, and this particular spell has stood put like a sore thumb. It really deserves a rename, but I still haven't found a good candidate as "restoration" is already sort of taken.

Revitalize?

 

[Lanefan]

To me, it appears what sets off alarm bells for sim players is the appearance of "contrivance" in the results being selected by the DM.

Exactly.

I'm reading a book at the moment - an enjoyable story so far other than that the amount of contrivance, where the protagonists arrive at just the right place at the right time for something to happen, is already becoming very annoying.

 

[AlViking]

That's as it is, but my statement still stands for probably the majority of games out there; a dead end can be, if not planned for, a true dead end.

Then my statement stand still stands as well. Don't plan out a dead end. That should be pretty fundamental to design in any game and doesn't require any other technique.

 

[Lanefan]

Well, I defer to your direct experience, though I would also assume Wesley has literally run the same scenario or very similar ones literally 1000's of times at this point. Presumably every single thing that can come up in 99% of games has already been accounted for. Sort of like if I ran B2 1000 times!

Didn't Dave describe his runs of that as being pretty hectic?

The play was hectic at times for the players but sure didn't seem so for him. If he talked much about prior runs of the game I didn't catch it (I was running on GenCon sleep cycle i.e. barely any sleep for three days at game time), but he did give us the story about how he came up with the game in the first place, as part of the pre-game prep talk.

 

[AlViking]

But the end results are the same, so it's not actually any different.

If consequences like the ones you've explained happen every time there is a failed check it becomes obvious.

 

[Enrahim]

I don't really agree, because I'm not here to do freeform roleplaying; as such, a GM can "really know their stuff" and it doesn't help with a substandard rules system, because interacting with rules in a game way is part of what I'm there for. You can argue that matters more in some areas than others, of course, but I actually expect rules to support what I'm trying to do, not just to not actively interfere in most things. "Just not interfere" is an overly low bar as far as I'm concerned.

Yes. My statement is one that was intended to be taken with a solid handfull of salt (a grain won't cut it). But I think there is an important seed of truth in that statement. Indeed what can a rule hope to do when you have a really competent GM running the show? I think the key answer here lies in that the ideal rules are ones that do not come in the way of the GM as they are doing exactly what the GM would have ruled in their absence. As such the rules themselves doesn't help themselves as restrictions on the game but rather they can be helpful as a communication tool effectively getting the players on board with the GM vision for how the game should be played, and what is the player's options and responsibilities in the game look like, without the GM having to figure out how to communicate their thinking themselves.

The idea here is that a GM that know their stuff understands that structures are needed to make for a good gaming experience, and hence even if put in a situation that were advertised as pure freeform they would introduce structures strongly corresponding with well established patterns of game design.

So as the ideal system in this case would be the one the GM designed themselves, and in such a system no rule would be in the way. However most GMs don't have the luxury of having time to write, the gift of words to express their insights, and players willing to read trough their homebrew tome. Hence the need to pick an off the shelf system. And it is in this sense I think the best those rules can hope for is to not be in the GMs way. Any that actually is in the GMs way are likely providing a lesser experience for the players than what we would have got if the GM could have reigned free from it.

 

[AlViking]

I don't recall mentioning rules at all in my post.

The clear implication and the obvious answer given the nature of the arguments on this thread if you're so concerned about bad module design that the rules should change. You don't really expect anyone else to believe otherwise, do you?

 

[Lanefan]

If nothing happens prevents the game from continuing then I consider it poor GMing.

Where I consider it poor play by the players.

If nothing happens, it's on them to find or create a way to make something happen. Only in the extremely-rarest of circumstances will that be impossible.

 

[AlViking]

Where I consider it poor play by the players.

If nothing happens, it's on them to find or create a way to make something happen. Only in the extremely-rarest of circumstances will that be impossible.

In theory you could have a module where you need the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch to defeat the Monster of Caerrbanog with it's sharp pointy teeth that go right for the jugular except that the HHGA is locked in a chest. If you're unable to pick the lock on the chest, it's game over.

I don't remember ever actually experiencing it in nearly half a century of gaming where the GM gates the entire future of the game on a single check, no ifs-ands-or-buts but it could hypothetically happen. Occasionally we haven't gotten our mitts on the golden bright shiny thing, but that's not game ending.