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

[Thomas Shey]

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.

Wow. Can't say anyone I've known who leans into the sim end of games would probably be going for D&D as their game of choice. Admittedly, its been many years since I knew many people who ran that way, but D&D wasn't it then, for any number of reasons (mostly that almost every mechanism in the game tends to fail the sniff test fairly frequently there, usually because of excessive (and sometimes odd) abstraction).

 

[pemerton]

My experience is that trying to succeed at a task in these games becomes a game of "what is the maximally beneficial thing I can say to the GM that they will find credible". Or "how can I convince the GM that my fictional positioning allows me to use my skill with the biggest bonus". That sort of thing.

I have never found this. And I play with players who are pretty experienced, and some of whom are pretty hardcore wargamers.

The whole framing around "convincing the GM" is what is odd to me. It suggests a lack of sincerity in engagement with the shared fiction. There also seems to be a lack of attention to the way in which consequences and actions are related. Eg in my 4e D&D game the Dwarf Fighter/Cleric had mediocre social skill bonuses, as is unsurprising for that build of PC. But the player nevertheless declared social actions from time to time, because he found himself in situations where his character wanted to persuade people to his point of view.

Having typed that previous couple of sentences, maybe it's not a lack of attention but rather a sense of choosing the optimal path to the finish line - as opposed to a sense of a character who has things they want to achieve, and so declares actions in pursuit of that, not all of which will involve abilities where the character is strong.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Then I guess I don't know what you're saying.

I was responding to Micah (I think)'s line "You can always do something else." My reaction was that outside of sandboxes, if the GM has not been careful, there may not be anything else useful to do. It was, again, a caution that single points of failure can indeed be a thing, and they don't just exist in prewritten scenarios; a GM who hasn't entirely thought things through can walk the players into one without intending to.

 

[Maxperson]

....

Which is literally what was being described.

There IS a cook around, somewhere--her position isn't quantum, it is not currently known, in part because they're probably moving about. You don't precisely know where. Full success? You hear the cook tooling around and waited until they were gone. Partial success? Well, at least in Dungeon World, we have player's choice of contextually-appropriate danger, suspicion, or cost: danger could be "you stumble right into the cook you didn't hear", suspicion could be "you pass yourself off as a new-hire handyman, but the cook is going to be checking that you're doing actual work around the house", and cost (as I referenced before) could be "you sacrifice one of your lockpicks, making it harder to pick any future locks, but you're able to slink away before the cook sees anything amiss." It depends on: what makes sense, what develops the situation in a way that invites action on the player's(/players') part(s), and what unexpected things come out of player action (sometimes, but not always, because of die rolls).

First, they aren't probably moving about. Very few people are constantly roaming around the house at every minute of the day. They are probably in the same place they have been for a long while, which for a cook would be in the kitchen during daylight hours or early darkness when morons will try to pick a lock in front of tons of witnesses, or asleep when the smart crooks are picking locks in the middle of the night.

Second, it is quantum since you've tied to to an unrelated die roll. The pick locks roll is in no way related to whether or not the cook is in the kitchen or in her sleeping quarters.

So no, it isn't what was being described. What I described was the cook being at that spot, and I will quote it since you appear to have missed it, "If the cook is present on the other side of that door regardless of success or failure." If the cook won't be there regardless of the pick locks roll, then you aren't describing what I said, literally or otherwise.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think I got the first part of that (though that gets back to what I said is a low bar) but I'm not sure I understand the second.

Many games, including D&D, may have Sim or Narrativist-leaning mechanics in different parts of their rules, without being fundamentally a Sim game or a Narrativist game.

As an aside, if rules in a book are such an important part of your RPG enjoyment, what kind of gaming do you enjoy and what system provides the firm rules support you require?

 

[Hussar]

Not everyone accepts @Hussar's definition even if we understand it.

Then give me a definition of simulation that explains how a simulation is a simulation while at the same not not providing any information in regards to whatever it is it is supposed to be simulating.

 

[pemerton]

"But there is no normative basis I can see for the assumption that any sort of fiction should be prepped." In RPGing in general there isn't. In a game where the GM sells in their game as one that has an extensive prepped fiction to explore and interact with, then there is a normative basis that the fiction should be prepped

This is a tautology, or close to one: if the GM has promised X then the GM should provide X. I don't think much of the discussion is driven by people not appreciating the truth of this statement.

 

[Maxperson]

I refer you to @Maxperson's example of the "quantum crumbling rock" for climbing. It is impossible, when playing D&D in anything even close to its conventional method, for every bit of fiction to be specified in advance and treated as an input into the resolution process.

The rock is pre-established and is there whether they climb or not.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Wow. Can't say anyone I've known who leans into the sim end of games would probably be going for D&D as their game of choice. Admittedly, its been many years since I knew many people who ran that way, but D&D wasn't it then, for any number of reasons (mostly that almost every mechanism in the game tends to fail the sniff test fairly frequently there, usually because of excessive (and sometimes odd) abstraction).

What games would you expect a Sim GM to go for? And what sort of GM would you say goes for any version of D&D, if it definitely isn't one who likes Sim?

 

[Maxperson]

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.

Okay, but that's not what I argued. I asked WHY the system has to be the one to the lifting in order for there to be verisimilitude. Also, even with the DM doing the heavy lifting there, it's still simulating gravity. The PC falls purely be the rules mechanics. A fall is caused by gravity. The fall simulates gravity on a PC that has come loose somehow from the wall(or whatever) that he is climbing.

The DM description can vary, it MUST vary within the bounds of the gravity simulation provided by the rules.