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

[clearstream]

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?

This echoes the "diegetic" requirement in Sorensen's manifesto, adding a second condition. Roughly, rules are

"simulative" when they act to conform what is said in play to a represented subject and​

such things as inhabitants that are part of subject, are affected by them in all the ways not defined as exceptional​

What the "not defined as exceptional" part means is that you evidence a normative belief (which must come from somewhere, such as our real world) that peasants co-habiting an imagined world with D&D high-level fighters ought to be aware of fictional facts such as that crossbows can't harm them. That doesn't withstand further rules that could create exceptions to it, such as a rule that peasants for some reason were oblivious to (and presumably forgetful about) the powers of high-level fighters.

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

I like this contrast with Earthdawn, where it's true that adepts and their disciplines are woven into namegiver societies. It seems to exemplify that designers can fashion more concretely "simulative" rules (assuming the definition above is right) if they tie their game to one imagined world. D&D, in aiming to support multiple worlds, is unable to say as much: it's impossible to say whether a given rule turns out to satisfy both parts of the definition without knowing the imagined world at each table.

 

[Lanefan]

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

The fourth one might want to use the word "conflict" rather than "combat", to allow for settings or games where social and-or environmental elements provide the challenges rather than foes to be physically fought and defeated.

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.)

Well, that's kind of exactly what I want: in effect, Earth with extras. Lots and lots of extras, maybe, but still Earth with extras.

Or, put another way, a fantasy setting that could, in its universe, both a) include Earth and b) have a consistent and viable explanation for the physics of why magic works on the fantasy world(s) but not here; such that someone standing on the fantasy world might look at a specific dim star among many other dim stars in the night sky and in fact be looking at our Sun.

'Cause that's what makes this fun: not just coming up with these fantasy worlds but imagining, in a sci-fi way, that's they're actually out there and all we Earthlings have to do is find a way to get to them.

 

[clearstream]

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?

Edwards ultimately decided simulationism doesn't exist. So...

More seriously, to my reading Edwards gives an interesting analysis of some things that can be done with games that have been gathered under the irredeemably vague label "simulationism". When I read his analysis I take into account his lack of empathy with the experiences players seek under that label, and the probable limits of his sample sizes (e.g. for actual play and testimony to what was experienced).

More importantly, Edwards is not the sole analyst of "simulationism". Other great analysts include Kim and Tuovinen, and we have Sorensen's manifesto (and others of its ilk from the FKR movement) and Baker's critiques. It doesn't matter that Edwards be exactly right or wrong, only that his analysis contributed to the body of theory.

As to what that body of theory says about D&D, above I have made some suggestions.

 

[Lanefan]

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?)?

For WotC-era D&D:

Gamist - snap to grid; movement in squares or 5-foot steps; area-of-effect rules
Gamist - overly-fast hit point recovery through rest; fully-functional at 1 h.p. and dead or dying at 0
* Narrativist? - hit points as (some degree of) plot protection
Gamist - cyclic turn-based initiative and combat; strict action economies

Some other things most certainly not simulationist but I'm not sure where else they fit:

No intrinsic stat differences between species (e.g. a Goliath and a Gnome have the same strength range)
Different rules for PCs vs NPCs in the setting
* Arbitrary limits on spell preparation, spell casting, ability use, martial maneuver use, etc.
A lot of things to do with timing and how long certain actions take

And that's just off the cuff - there's loads more I've missed, I'm sure.

The ones marked with a leading '*' above are those that most people generally accept and live with for playability and-or balance reasons, mostly because changing them involves pretty much rewriting the entire game from scratch. The others are fairly easy to fix.

 

[pemerton]

Why did you fall? What happened? You failed the climb check and fell. The mechanics are entirely silent about why you fell. Why did you take damage? Maybe magical falling pixies stabbed you on the way down. Prove me wrong.

And what does the fall damage actually mean? How did I land? What body part is injured? I've taken "damage" but, that actually has no diegetic meaning in the game world because Hit Points have no diegetic meaning in the game world.

This is where @AlViking's use of that specific definition falls apart. His definition specifically states that all mechanics must be diegetic and that abstraction should be reduced to the point where all mechanics can be used diegetically. That's straight from the post. Nothing in D&D is actually diegetic. You fell because you failed a climb check. That climb check doesn't actually tell you anything, other than you fell down.

For mechanics to be diegetic, they MUST inform the narrative. That's what diegetic means. If the mechanics do not give any information with which to form a narrative, then they are not diegetic and fail to be part of simulationist as defined.

I'm prepared to accept that, in most D&D play, there are broad genre conventions and table understandings that rule out the "pixies stabbed you" hypothesis. But otherwise I fully agree (as per my "heart" reaction to your post).

When I discovered Rolemaster, in early 1990, what blew me away was that it did answer all these questions: the resolution tables provide information about what is happening in the fiction, yes often at a modest level of abstraction, but more than simply a result. And when it comes to injury (and healing), the detail is intricate!

There are non-simulationist break-points in RM - initiative is the obvious one, which is why, over the course of RM2 + 7 RM companions + RMSS, there were probably a dozen variant initiative systemseach one trying to establish a workable framework for near-simultaneous resolution while also accommodating the key mechanic of splitting your melee combat bonus between attacking and parrying.

But pointing to D&D hp as a remotely "diegetic" mechanic is just not plausible to me. The payer of the high level fighter knows that no single crossbow bolt can be fatal, that they can jump over the cliff and be assured of survival, etc. And the notion of "action movie physics" doesn't help - the protagonists in action movies don't know that they're invulnerable (unless there is some breaking of the 4th wall going on), and that is part of what is crucial for generating the tension - the audience becomes invested in the character's fear/concern/danger even though, intellectually, the audience knows the character will survive.

Now if someone says, All content in my shared fiction flows from the GM - and so, for instance, there will be no startled cooks narrated in response to failed attempts at burglary - that's fine. And I accept that that is a simulationist intuition. But as long as they're using D&D combat resolution, hit points, etc, I don't see how that makes their game any more simulationist than my BW game, which uses fail forward consequence narration but has a PC sheet and a combat system that any old RM player could jump for joy at.

 

[Don Durito]

Is there any reason someone couldn't just say "I prefer to resolve skills checks in a simulationist matter" regardless of what they might do in other aspects of the game?"

I mean it makes sense to me, skills after all come from a more simulationist branch of the hobby originally and were largely backported into D&D. D&D is something of a patchwork of pieces added and taken away over the years.

The whole thing with the cook does strike me as odd (not wrong as such, but if a GM did that I think I would be a bit startled). I think it's largely because of the granularity of the roll to pick the lock on the door. If I had that as a result in a game it would follow from a more zoomed out approach - I'd have the player describe their approach and make a single intrusion roll for the whole house.

To my mind there's something odd about the roll to pick a specific lock and then zooming right out - like the two things are at somewhat different scales - or the resolution coming from one approach to gaming and the result coming from something quite different so that they combine in a somewhat dissonant manner.

 

[Enrahim]

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).

How can you evaluate a spesific game in a truely context free case? The game under evaluation seem to be context? This thread have touched upon a lot more games than D&D.

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

I don't think even this level of context have been established for this thread. I am pretty sure runequest, rolemaster, apocalypse world and burning wheel has been some of the bigger ones making an entry.

My post is based on even bigger generality than this thread though. And even within the scope of D&D crawling a dungeon, there are a quite big width in possible primary focus for simulation based on group interest, each providing different answers to what is helpful vs hindering rules (simulate calustrophobic dread, simulating combat, simulating faction interactions, simulating dungeon ecology, simulating archeology, simulating resource logistics)

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.)

Yes, and no. I think you point to another dimension that make conversation difficult.

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?!"

Trouble is, if you dismiss this thinking you have also dismissed the thinking behind most of D&D sim. You have planted yourself solidly in the kriegspiel lair what simulation is concerned, and from that view D&D is of course an abomination that is completely useless for sim purposes. There is nothing surprisingnor new hei, just an expression of a more than 100 year still unresolved fundamental disagreement. So you here neatly demonstrate the problem I pointed out

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.)

The goal isn't to produce a experience through game design. Reformulating what you quoted from me here: The goal is to produce a simulation that supports many experiences trough game design. This is a completely different design philosophy. One is not better than the other. I happen to prefer the games from the later design for campaign games as they tend to provide more variation. I find games from the first design school excelent for one shots as they provide for a better experience in the field they are designed for.

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.

Of course. Hadn't there been any, this wouldn't have been a phenomenom to speak out against

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.


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.

No. I do not claim conversation is impossible. I just have observed that whenever this conversation arises it tend to get derailed. I actually cannot think of a single time I have seen this topic been discussed without devolving in at least of the manners described. I hope there has been such discussions, though. And my motivation for bringing this problem up is the hope that awareness of the challenges might help produce more fruitful discussions in the future.

(Side note - of course you can prove irrationality of square root of 2 in any number of ways. Start making claims about one of them being more "fundamental" or "elegant", and watch how the mathematicians erupt into a flame war. Yes, I have witnessed the equivalent of this)

 

[Hussar]

No. Any narration is NOT valid. A narration needs to fit the narrative of what is going on. Unless you are playing some sort of silly humor game, pixies showing up to stab you representing a failed climb check doesn't fit the narrative of climbing a cliff and failing a climb check.

Slipping fits it. A rock coming loose fits it. The rope breaking fits it. A lot of things do fit it, but narrative requirement is just a distraction in any case. Regardless of whether you slip or pixies stab you, you are FALLING. That represents GRAVITY taking over and pulling you down as happens in a FALL. It is in fact simulating falling. Whether you take damage or not depends on how far your fall, much like in real life.

It's a simple simulation, but it is in fact simulating the process of falling. You don't need to know the cause of the fall to simulate a fall.

But it doesn't simulate the process of falling. It only tells you the result that you fell down. That's it. It could be gravity or it could be anything else. Heck, I could have teleported really hard to the bottom. The point is, we don't know. And, please, don't just focus on the one example to the exclusion of all else. What does it mean when I roll high on a performance check? What does it mean when I roll average on an Animal Handling check? After all, according to you, these are both simulating something. So, you should be able to use the mechanics to come up with a definitive answer. One that excludes other answers. That's what a simulation does. It tells you HOW something happened.

These rolls are not simulating anything. They are simply giving you results. Results without any process. That's not what a simulation is.

This is why it's so baffling to see people champion D&D as a simulationist game. It's so bizarre. It's like watching people INSIST that a Ferrari is a fantastic off road car. I agree that it's a great car. I agree that it's totally fun to drive. But, it is, in no way an off road car (and please don't point to the various off road Ferrari's out there. Please don't be that pedantic.) I get that you want simulation. I love that idea. I love sim games. I think they're great. I have played lots of them and I absolutely adore them.

But none of them have ever been D&D.

 

[Enrahim]

To me, it seems highly relevant to understanding free kriegsspiel that the referee is (or is intended to be) an expert in the activity they are adjudicating (ie the command of units in battle, and whether the commands are effective).

Yes, this is the common counter - and there has never been possible to reach an agreement on where the limit for sufficient competency lies. We have the hardliners on one side that rejects the notion any sort of expertise can justify the removal of mechanics, while the hardliners on the other side seem to think any average human are going to be sufficiently competent to surpass mechanics - especially in the presence of non-mechanical support material.

Most seem to be somewhere between these extremes. A common division line seem to be that most people do not feel themselves competent to simulate combat without mechanical aid, but assume themselves competent enough to simulate basic social interactions better than typically proposed mechanical attempts at simulating this.

What RPG has a failure narrated as a success without complication?

Woopsie. (Emphasising the "without" would have been even more helpful, as I misread this at first)

I also am a bit dubious of the notion of "self-proclaimed sim fans in this thread". I'm a self-proclaimed sim fan - 1000s of hours of Rolemaster; Burning Wheel, which as I've said in much of its PC build, in much of its approach to setting up skill checks and the like, and in its combat resolution is more simulationist than any version of D&D; a lot of Classic Traveller play, which is also a pretty sim-y game. But I assume that I don't get to count as a "self-proclaimed sim fan" because I also have no objections to the startled cook in a game that permits that sort of approach to a failed roll.

I don't have any objections to it's use in those games either. To me that still doesn't exclude the posibility of this technique falling in under what i thought @EzekielRaiden intended to describe with their category 2?

 

[Don Durito]

Most seem to be somewhere between these extremes. A common division line seem to be that most people do not feel themselves competent to simulate combat without mechanical aid, but assume themselves competent enough to simulate basic social interactions better than typically proposed mechanical attempts at simulating this.

I think it's more that you can say the insult your character spouts at the courtier directly to the GM, but he may have something to say* if you demonstrate your character's disembowelling cutlass move on his midsection.

*Such as "Help!" or "Aaaah" or "Somebody call the Police".