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

[Lanefan]

No. My issue is that (i) it's utterly routine for the GM to make a decision to narrate/introduce some bit of fiction prompted by some at-the-table process (eg rolls that determine that an encounter occurs, that a PC is surprised, etc), but (ii) the example of (i) which is narrating a cook based on a failed check is being described by you and others as if it's some wild departure from typical RPG practices.

EDIT: Here's Exhibit A:
Had the check to climb succeeded, the GM would never have narrated that crumbling rock.

Yet maybe she would: "Despite the crumbly rock and unsure footing, you make it to the top....". This narration efficiently does two things at once: it correctly narrates the check outcome and also serves to telegraph to anyone else thinking of trying that climb that it maybe ain't as easy as it looks.

 

[pemerton]

i feel like you must've been told several times over by now, please stop claiming no-one's explained it to you: the difference is that in being decided beforehand the result and state of the world is independent and in no way influenced by the outcome of the skill check.

So you would never describe a failed climb check as being the result of a handhold crumbling? Because you would never narrate the fiction in response to a player's rolled check.

 

[Hussar]

I don't agree with that premise. Why must the system tell me why the climb check failed for it to seem real(have verisimilitude)? If the DM narrates a rock bearing my weight crumbles and my PC falls, that makes it seem real.

But, again, that's my point. The DM narrating that has nothing to do with the system. That's the DM ADDING verisimilitude. The DM could narrate anything and the system does not contradict anything he says. Unless the system is providing some information about the narrative, it's not simulating anything. You're simply retroactively adding narrative that makes sense to you. Which is fine. That's what we all do. But, that doesn't magically make it simulation.

 

[AlViking]

And if more folks held a position like this, I wouldn't have nearly as much of a problem.

Instead, there have been several folks across this thread who have declared D&D to be not only very good for sim, but among the very best for it, dismissing the parts that welcome adjustment, as you say.

If one chooses to use it because it is more convenient, even if it requires adjustment, that's a perfectly valid stance to take. "I prefer D&D for sim because it's what all of my gaming group knows and enjoys" is a great reason, hands down. "I prefer D&D for sim because it's an innately great game specifically for sim play" is...questionable at best, and folks have gone quite a bit further than "it's an innately great game for sim".

I view D&D from a sim perspective, pretty much every group I've played with the majority have. I don't recall people saying it's the best sim, just better than some.

 

[Hussar]

Something I found interesting about @Hussar's viewpoint is that it seemed formalist. Formalism says that the game is only played if it is played according to its rules. Play that doesn't follow the rules doesn't count as meaningful play. That could lead to worries that wherever the rules don't narrate what happens, it perforce goes unnarrated. I think there are two quite straightforward responses to this:

That's not quite right.

There's no problem in the DM adding in the narration. That's perfectly fine and totally understandable in the case of D&D.

I'm arguing against the idea that the D&D rules are any sort of simulation. Since the mechanics don't inform the narrative in any meaningful way, all narrative is generated by the DM and not by the rules. Thus, any notion of simulation comes from the DM and not the mechanics themselves. IOW, for a game to be considered to be a simulation, the game itself has to inform the narrative in some meaningful way.

None of this refers to the game as being meaningful or is even a remote judgement on the game itself. It's a judgement on the idea that D&D is some sort of simulation.

 

[The Firebird]

See, this is where I assert that you are just confused about how fiction works. The fiction is not being changed. It is being authored: everyone agrees that there are strange runes; no one knows what they are or do; now a roll has been made, and we all know what the runes are - they are a secret message about how to escape the dungeon.

Well, it is being changed...but I'll accept your terminology because nothing hinges on it, imo. I don't like play that authors key details of the world as a result of player skill checks because it inappropriately mixes the players actions with the world.

Back in the late 70s/early 80s, it was common (or at least it seemed common to me) to find discussion about what to do if the players had their PCs go down a stair or through a door to a part of the dungeon that the GM hadn't yet keyed. (And perhaps hadn't even yet mapped.) Various solutions were given; one is Appendix A of Gygax's DMG (random dungeon generation).

But no one described this as changing the fiction. It's just authoring it.

This goes back to the 'random rolls are fixed' idea. I don't think there is more to add there. What Gygax is describing differs in a crucial way from the rune example because of its independence from player skill rolls.

This is a factually false description of play. The player did not try to, or need to, convince me that something will make a good story. He declared an action, and we resolved it using the rules of the game.

I assume the GM is exercising some editorial control...as @Campbell said, things have to be credible. What happens if the player says "Hmm, maybe if I read the runes I attain all of my goals instantly and my enemies perish". Is that a valid move? 10+ and you win?

No. If you read the account of play, you'll see that they were teleported by a Crypt Thing. Maybe you're not familiar with the Crypt Thing: it's a classic D&D monster from the Fiend Folio, and it has the ability to teleport its victims to a random location within the dungeon. In the account of play, I explained how I adapted this creature, including its teleport ability, to my fantasy hack of MHRP.

Think this is a response to a quote from someone else that mixed with mine.

This is not accurate either. The player, playing his PC, expressed a hope as to what the runes might be, and decided to try and decipher them. The appropriate roll was then made, and the PC succeeded in deciphering them and found his hope to be fulfilled.

I'm not stating specifically what would have happened on a success or failure...just that on a success, the world will be authored to give a good result, and on a failure the world will be authored to give a bad one. I dislike that.

 

[Lanefan]

Absolutely not.

"There is an iceberg ahead" is only a complication if the person at the helm doesn't know how to pilot their ship. The iceberg simply is not a complication if you have a competent, observant pilot at the helm.

Assuming the ship can be turned in time to miss the iceberg.

That's what did in the Titanic: the ship's design was such that it took so long to turn that, even with a competent helmsman putting the helm hard over on first warning, they still hit the iceberg anyway on a glancing - but deadly - angle. (subsequent analysis holds they'd probably have been better off had they not turned and instead hit it head on, but that's a different issue)

That the ship was going too fast for the conditions wasn't the helmsman's fault.

You are correct that physical things which could become complications, such as the iceberg itself, are there regardless IRL. But whether or not they actually DO become complications is a direct function of the skill of the person doing the task.

Not necessarily, see above.

 

[AlViking]

No. If you read the account of play, you'll see that they were teleported by a Crypt Thing. Maybe you're not familiar with the Crypt Thing: it's a classic D&D monster from the Fiend Folio, and it has the ability to teleport its victims to a random location within the dungeon. In the account of play, I explained how I adapted this creature, including its teleport ability, to my fantasy hack of MHRP.

This is not accurate either. The player, playing his PC, expressed a hope as to what the runes might be, and decided to try and decipher them. The appropriate roll was then made, and the PC succeeded in deciphering them and found his hope to be fulfilled.

You don't know what would have happened on a failure. Nor do I. It was some years ago now, and I have no idea what the state of the Doom Pool was.

The player hoping it was something dictated that it was the thing they hoped for because they succeeded. They shaped the world to what they wanted because of a good roll.

That's vastly different than a GM filling in a few details that have no mechanical impact on the state of the game.

 

[The Firebird]

That level of detail?

How about ANY level of detail? A simulation, in order to actually be a simulation, MUST inform the user something about what happens when the simulation is run. And D&D doesn't. It doesn't tell you anything. The mechanics do not inform the narrative at all.

How can something be a simulation if it doesn't actually simulate anything?

I don't think "simulationism" is the best term for what people are looking for in fixed world play. People didn't like "verisimilitudinous" either. So I'll stick with fixed world. I've used it throughout and no one has complained yet

 

[AlViking]

Because that's the BASIC DEFINITION of simulation. If the game rules do not tell you why something happens, then they are not simulating ANYTHING.

So, no, D&D absolutely does not simulate a heroic fictional world. It really doesn't. You have added all of the simulation yourself. At no point is the system simulating anything. The fact that you straight up say, "why should the game rules tell us why or how" something happens means you actually don't know what the word simulation means.

This system is only a simulation because you like it and you think that you like simulations. But, it's pretty clear here, you don't actually know what the word means. A simulation that does not tell you how or why is not a simulation.

Simulations frequently gloss over details and the rules cannot fill in all the details for everything. You don't get to decide which details are important for anyone but you.