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

[hawkeyefan]

The version of 5e I play? Absolutely yes.

Okay, cool. It sounds like you’re making a distinction between standard 5e as written and what you play.

What do you do to make it more sim-focused? Do you add some rules or change some or just focus on certain things?

 

[clearstream]

Olay. Which mechanics in D&D are not simulative based on your definition? Like which rules are examples of the other two types (I’m assuming you mean gamist and narrativist here, but perhaps I’m wrong?)?

That's an interesting line of investigation. To tease out a possible confound, suppose arguendo that

i) players can have purposes for choosing rules and how they follow those they choose​

ii) rules can be designed to constitute and regulate play along lines fashioned by designers​

iii) the play itself is an unguaranteed synthesis between these player purposes and designer rule fashioning​

iv) rules are not "read into" that synthesis in isolation: they work together with other rules, principles and examples​

​

That rules are teleological without being a guarantee of result could confound or beg questions of the like - what makes a rule simulative? Upthread I said that I thought many would accept the D&D Weather rules as "simulative": why? Is it "simulative" just because it acts to conform what is said to the represented subject?

Were the above right, you would be asking which mechanics in D&D do not act to conform what is said to a represented subject. A hitch there is that almost all rules in D&D have that purpose. An example of what I mean is that the rules for the Ranger class act to conform what is said in play to an imagined fantasy profession. Another example is that the rules for the light spell act to conform what is said in play to an imagined world containing inhabitants able to cause objects to emit light.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Here is what I find funny (and I haven't read all the posts, but just a post here and there)

Ron Edwards does this deep theory crafting on RPGs - talks about Simulationism etc.
But then when it suits the argument, people here imply D&D isn't simulationist at all and pushback against D&Ders defending their game as being an S-game.

So which is it? Was Ron completely off the mark and we throw away his theory crafting in the bin or do we acknowledge that there is simulationism in D&D?

 

[Don Durito]

Were the above right, you would be asking which mechanics in D&D do not act to conform what is said to a represented subject. A hitch there is that almost all rules in D&D have that purpose. An example of what I mean is that the rules for the Ranger class act to conform what is said in play to an imagined fantasy profession. Another example is that the rules for the light spell act to conform what is said in play to an imagined world containing inhabitants able to cause objects to emit light.

It's also sometimes argued that D&D is a genre in itself, which could mean it is simulating itself.

Where I balk however is at situations where the rules themselves possibly don't simulate the implied world. Do the people in the setting know that a high level Fighter in the setting has nothing to fear from a peasant with a crossbow or that they can survive a 100 metre fall?

If the answer is no then that's a distinction from something like Earthdawn where all of the D&D type tropes are specifically and clearly setting elements

 

[Enrahim]

GMs don't use player moves. GMs use GM moves. Mind, depending on the game in question, it's possible for a GM to create a move associated with a place or NPC that they made that mimics a PC move.

(In case you weren't aware, GMs can create moves for their NPCs and locations.)

Also, moves aren't used "at will." They have to be triggered. And moves aren't special abilities or skills. They are specifically responses to narrative events. When X happens, Y results.

Exactly what I thought.

 

[Lanefan]

Why is who separating what?

Why is the GM separating the party? Very often, because it makes things more difficult and potentially more interesting and dramatic. It's an adventuring trope with a long history, after all.

Most often IME it's not even the GM doing the separating: the players/PCs do it to themselves either by accident (e.g. a wild magic surge puts some of them somewhere else) or intentionally (you three go that way, we'll go this way).

 

[Lanefan]

Nice shifting goalposts there.

Why did you fall? What happened? You failed the climb check and fell. The mechanics are entirely silent about why you fell.

But the fiction isn't. To wit:

--- I stepped off (or was knocked off) of a flying object or platform and fell
--- I got panicked into running off a cliff and fell
--- my Fly spell ran out and, as it didn't come with the cushy 5e safeguards built in, I fell
--- something shook the tree I was hiding in, I lost my grip and fell
--- someone cut the rope I was hanging on to and I fell
--- the illusionary floor (or other type of pit trap) fooled me, I stepped on to it and fell

The majority of dangerous falls are IME for reasons other than failed climbs.

Why did you take damage? Maybe magical falling pixies stabbed you on the way down. Prove me wrong.

Technically the fall itself doesn't damage you, it's the very sudden stop at the end that hurts.

And how can I prove wrong that which doesn't exist?

 

[Lanefan]

The fully reactionary role of GMs in these games (once the initial premise is presented) is one of those things one can point to that to my mind proves that there is more of a difference in playstyles than just whether or not principles of play are written down.

Although in this respect one can argue narrative and sandbox games are the same, as ideally once play gets going in a sandbox game the GM is also fully reactionary.

The main difference might be that the sandbox game has more behind the scenes prep going for it, but that's not necessarily always the case either.

 

[Lanefan]

If it's OneTrueWayism to make a judgment that "thinking deeply" about a topic is superior to "not thinking deeply" when discussing said topic, then I am happy to accept the title.

Sometimes "not thinking deeply" is the way to go, though, because "just do it" gives better results.

Many times this holds true in sports: a player will go into a slump and the main reason turns out to be that the player was overthinking what had to be done rather than just letting muscle memory and training take over. Playing music can be the same way - everything goes great till you start thinking about it, then it all goes to hell (leastwise that's how it worked for me).

When I'm in the midst of running a game, stopping to analyse what I'm doing would ruin whatever momentum I've got built up.

And when I'm not in the midst of running a game, I've got better things to think about.

 

[Lanefan]

Because it makes it seem like a creative agenda is something a player is, rather than something they pursue.

When I play Daggerheart, I’m pursuing a primarily narrative agenda. When I play OSR, I’m pursuing a sim agenda. When I played Pathfinder, I was pursuing a gamist agenda.

I was not any one of those agendas during the games I played. I was simply me, consciously pursuing those agendas.

Which mostly just serves to prove you're more flexible than some.

I've known some very gamist players, who will take any situation and play it gamist all the way. All that matters is a) the rules and b) the dice-rolling. Abstraction all the way.

I've known some, but fewer, quite simulationist/realist players (and to an extent, I'm one) who want their fantasy grounded in reality in order to make it easier to imagine, and who want abstraction to take a back seat when-where it reasonably can.

I can't say I've ever known any hard-core narrativist players, but in fairness they'd probably run screaming from our games anyway.