The troubleling thing with the conversation is that while 1 and 2 might be right, trying to nail down anything more spesific is so extremely contextual that the conversation stalls on trying and failing to define an aproperiate context. The big one is what we aim to simulate. An airplane simulation are not particularly supported by tables for effect of diseases, while a war simulator probably have little use for an skill for providing sharp art critisism.
I mean I don't think that's necessary in the slightest unless we're specifically trying to
make a new sim game. Then, yes, we would need to do that.
In a truly context-free case, we would simply be evaluating whether a game's mechanics serve the goals for which they were designed, or not. So a flight sim would be evaluated on how well it achieves the goals of a flight sim, which are (generally) accurate instrumentation, accurate aerodynamics for the plane you're flying, accurate communication between flight control and pilot, support for dead reckoning, reasonable complications arising in circumstances that warrant it (e.g. sudden horrific turbulence on a clear sunny day would be very strange and un-simmy, while butter-smooth flight during a storm would likewise be un-simmy).
However, since we're in a conversation about TTRPGs, and specifically ones with sufficient commonalities to D&D (given where we're having this discussion), that already gives us an enormous context base to draw on. That is, the game in question must be:
- Fantasy-based, rather than sci-fi, supers, noir, etc. (specific settings may bring these in, but the game itself is based in fantasy)
- Class- or archetype-based in some sense
- Cooperative (it is possible to run D&D competitively, but that's not what its rules are designed for)
- Overall combat-oriented, but not exclusively so
- Involving dice as the primary, but not exclusive, means for introducing unexpected events/results
That already gives us an enormous number of points of comparison. It is, for example, why almost no one who advocates a "simulationistic" perspective
directly uses the word "realism", because they have understood that that term is inherently vulnerable to a very obvious attack, one that is almost impossible to defend against: it's a fantasy, it has magic and dragons etc. (Of course, I find that many, many,
many of the arguments that attempt to evade this are simply "realism with more steps", e.g. trying to use "verisimilitude", which lacks the "it has to be like Earth" element...only to then
smuggle back in the "it has to be like Earth" element through ideas like naturalistic reasoning or "well the correct starting point is Earth unless told otherwise". In other words, they are literally just restating "realism", but trying to make it
sound like it isn't just "realism" restated by splitting a problematic concept into two parts that seem milder in separate form.)
Another dimension is that the entire simulation entusiast sphere is split into the mechanics vs rulings lairs dating back to the kriegspeil/free kriegspeil split. Those in the first lair would typically put simulation mechanics in category 1, while the other might rather say they hamper simulation (though maybe not go as far as claiming them to be fully incompatible like category 2 suggest). And this gets even harder when the majority of the players liking simulation isn't even aware of this split, and happily mix stuff from both lairs.
Well. You may or may not already know this, but I frankly don't have a lot of patience for the FKR crowd's absolute utter disdain for rules. So I'm...not really going to
care what they think? They're already starting from a "death to rules!!!!" attitude, which means there's no
point in trying to converse with them to begin with. They've excluded themselves from the discussion by
having that "death to rules!!!!" attitude; it isn't productive for them to contribute because the only contributions they could make are some flavor of "you're all wrong, why are you even bothering to talk about this?!"
It doesn't help when you have the fact that the simulation in it's own is generally not an end goal in itself, but rather itself being a central support for a wide range of experiences. So even in the same scope of simulation, a technique that strictly speaking supports the simulation can hurt one of the experiences the simulation is supposed to support. This phenomenom is hard to isolate, and hence conversations could be quick to bundle such techniques (unprecisely) into category 2 rather than cathegory 1.
I don't see how that
isn't the end goal though? Like that seems pretty specifically to BE the end goal. That's why, for example, when I talk about good game design as being games that testably produce the experience for which they were designed, I get a ton of pushback against it
especially from the pro-simulationist crowd (regardless of whether they're FKR or non-FKR, to be clear). Their goal
isn't to produce a particular experience through game design--it is instead to make rules which meet certain aesthetic and procedural requirements. (I'm
especially not persuaded by those rules-aesthetic arguments, because I have seen FAR,
FAR too many cases where rules primarily designed to
appear aesthetically pleasing were actually actively antagonistic to producing an enjoyable experience, even to the people who WANTED those rules to have such an appearance.)
That means it seem relatively easy to get an agreement that 1 and 2 exist, and similarly it sort of follows that 4 should make sense (Edit: however counting type 1 techniques is good metric. Even a system with technique A and B might be worse than one with only technique A if there are some unfortunate interactions between A and B. I am sceptical if a metric between category 3 systems purely in terms of "simultionism" can make sense. This is why find the idea of a "simulationistic game" silly, as simply the absence of forced simulation breaking mechanics seem like a very low bar to pass to me. This is generally not the criterion used with the classifications I have seen attempted)
3 I have not seen much evidence for, and I think the proponets for that is a small minority.
I've seen this frequently, specifically on here, and I could name (but would prefer not to name) at least one person whom I believe holds such an opinion.
However actually concretising 1 and 2 beyond "existence" tend to fail due to the above problems. Actually I find it quite amazing how fail roll could be narrated as success without complication seemed to be universally recognised as category 2 among the self proclaimed sim fans in this thread (I don't count myself among them) - but if you look at it the key rationale for this classification differed even among them.
But...that's...that is LITERALLY saying this whole conversation is just impossible. Nobody can discuss "simulation". It's a private language. Each and every person has their own totally distinct idiosyncratic meaning which is completely incapable of interacting with anyone else's meaning. No two people can ever enjoy the same sim game, because no two people can
ever agree on what "sim" means.
Given the frequent and broad agreement between posters just in this thread, let alone in the TTRPG discussion space overall, I simply cannot accept that this is true.
Especially because the fact that different people come to the same conclusion from different directions doesn't mean they disagree! I can prove that the square root of two is irrational by at least two fundamentally different methods (one being purely algebraic e.g. proof by contradiction via prime factorization, the other being geometric e.g. Tennenbaum's proof.) Does that mean that I disagree with myself because I can reach the same conclusion via different paths? That sounds flatly ridiculous to my ear.
This is why I say that these attempts have not been fruitful. It is not denouncing the abstract concept that some techniques might be better for sim than others. It is descriptive of the state of the discurse I have seen.
But that description is nothing more than "Discussion is impossible." I reject this; the fact that we have
had discussions--and that sim fans in this very thread have frequently agreed on many, many more points than they disagree--strongly indicates that this assertion is simply wrong.
