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

[FrogReaver]

Because "simulationist" refers to your purpose of the activity. You do indeed simulate something, but that is not the purpose of that activity. As such you are appear to be willing to make decissions that might be problematic in terms of what you are trying to simulate, if it serves this primary purpose.

I’m not sure simulation is a purpose. Simulation may underlay and underpin a purpose and set of preferences, but I’m not sure that most players or games have that as their primary purpose. Maybe none, but I’ll leave that door cracked because it’s the internet.

 

[FrozenNorth]

That mirrors the other experiences I've had when DMs make bad decisions on how to run something or with a ruling. If you just talk to them, it quickly becomes apparent that they really want to make things fun and enjoyable for everyone and will alter how they do things.

Contrast that with an actual bad DM who when you talk to him refuses to listen and basically says my way or the highway when the players are not having fun and try to talk to him about it.

This is broadly my perspective as well, with the caveat that the first category is the precisely the category that benefits from written rules and clear GM advice and best practices.

Plus, your specific example pretty much describes the best case scenario for giving advice: the giver has 20+ years experience and the recipient is inexperienced, and the GM is contravening a clear rule that is impacting the fun of everyone at the table.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Ok. So let me clarify. The player decided that as the alternative of thiefling was not on the table, they rather wanted to make a new human fighter character. This using the normal rules of the game with no extra limitations from the DM in terms of mechanics. The player then decided to go treasure hunting. The player actions, prepared content and rules resolution over several sessions of play put the character in posession of significant funds. The player then decided to put these funds toward establishing a new town. Having accomplished this the player decided to seek out the legendary dragon that had been mentioned as part of some random lore dump far earlier in the campaign. They succeeded in finding the dragon, but the stats of this important entity (established years ago) alongside the rules of the game established the character's heroic demise.

I find spelling this out to border on writing the infamous "what is roleplaying games" found at the start of every "stand alone" rpg. I really did not expect that would be neccessary to do to someone with more than 26700 reaction score on an RPG forum. If this is the kind of misreading that has prompted some of your previous replies, then I really can understand how that can cause some major confusion.

I mean, you are the one who very specifically said this was a person who had a world they would have used as a novel, they just decided their skills weren't adequate, so they decided to run it as games instead.

I don't feel like it's somehow a blatant misreading to say, "If you made a world for being a novel, you're probably going to be much too precious about that world."

 

[Enrahim]

I’m not sure simulation is a purpose. Simulation may underlay and underpin a purpose and set of preferences, but I’m not sure that most players or games have that as their primary purpose. Maybe none, but I’ll leave that door cracked because it’s the internet.

Well, that is my understanding of how the word "simulationist play" has been used. If this kind of play doesn't actually exist, I guess any claim @pemerton doesn't play simulationistic shouldn't be controversial at all? (And I am very open for that posibility)

 

[clearstream]

So D&D is simulationist, whereas T&T is not, because D&D includes weather rules? How many tables use those rules? To what end?

I mean, my Torchbearer 2e game features weather, environmental effects, PCs being Afraid, Angry, Hungry and Thirsty, Sick, Injured and Exhausted. Objects can (and have) been broken. Does that mean that my TB2e play is simulationist? Is simulationism now defined in terms of topics dealt with (in the rules, and/or in play)?

Those are exactly the sorts of questions I would like to answer. Another poster has waved dodging and parrying around as signal mechanics for simulative systems, but one game they identify as "simulationist" lacks dodging, while D&D has both. And there are other problems with their notion, given they seem to think some mechanics fully explain what to narrate into the fiction.

As you know I think TTRPGs should be understood as tools with which players fabricate their play. Like traditional tools (hammers and so on), TTRPG texts don't do the work themselves... placing the text on the table does not result in any play at all unless players interpret and implement it. Tools, being normally teleological, can vary in how well they support various ends, and a similar observation may be made of the whole toolbox... although it is hard to say how much is enough. Do I need both a baiting knife and a filleting knife to fish successfully, or might I make a prize catch with only the rod and line?

I'm thinking of something like, a game text is more rather than less "simulationist" when

the text contains some sufficiency of mechanics productive of a "simulationist" experience of a subject when used in accord with its principles and for that purpose​

This doesn't say anything about how well "simulationist" experiences of subjects can be met outside of text -- the door is left open to FKR -- but it does say how a text may be judged. It caveats on a per experience per subject basis, of course, but that has already been said and I think accepted by most in this thread.

The bolded words are those I suspect are heavily contended, but I can scarcely rule any game out as simulationist if I haven't yet shown with annotated examples from actual texts (rather than vague handwaving) how I identify a simulative mechanic. And said how much is enough.

 

[Enrahim]

I mean, you are the one who very specifically said this was a person who had a world they would have used as a novel, they just decided their skills weren't adequate, so they decided to run it as games instead.

I don't feel like it's somehow a blatant misreading to say, "If you made a world for being a novel, you're probably going to be much too precious about that world."

I said nothing about the purpose. Rather the opposite.

If you had been a better writer you might perhaps been able to get a novel or two out of it.

This indicate a self awareness that novels isn't your thing - so why make a thing for that purpose? The Tolkien reference was also meant partly to guide you into the right mindset. I think the common understanding is that he didn't make his legendarium for the purpose of writing novels, but that he just happened to be a good enough writer to be able to produce novels based on his homebrew world.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I said nothing about the purpose. Rather the opposite.

This indicate a self awareness that novels isn't your thing - so why make a thing for that purpose? The Tolkien reference was also meant partly to guide you into the right mindset. I think the common understanding is that he didn't make his legendarium for the purpose of writing novels, but that he just happened to be a good enough writer to be able to produce novels based on his homebrew world.

That certainly was not my understanding of his work. Almost precisely the opposite.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I mean, you are the one who very specifically said this was a person who had a world they would have used as a novel, they just decided their skills weren't adequate, so they decided to run it as games instead.

I don't feel like it's somehow a blatant misreading to say, "If you made a world for being a novel, you're probably going to be much too precious about that world."

if they were a better writer maybe they would have made a novel about the world, but they weren't so they didn't, but they saved the ideas, they reused them, this doesn't mean they will railroad their players into a plot that they didn't end up writing, if tolkien hadn't ended up writing LOTR that doesn't mean he couldn't of used the ideas he had about middle earth, about men, elves, dwarves and hobbits, about locations like fanghorn forest, the misty mountains and mordor to let the players run about wherever they like and play in a kickass campaign driven by what the players wanted to do, and the one ring could've remained undiscovered and irrelevant in gollum's cave because the group never chose to go there.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

if they were a better writer maybe they would have made a novel about the world, but they weren't so they didn't, but they saved the ideas, they reused them, this doesn't mean they will railroad their players into a plot that they didn't end up writing, if tolkien hadn't ended up writing LOTR that doesn't mean he couldn't of used the ideas he had about middle earth, about men, elves, dwarves and hobbits, about locations like fanghorn forest, the misty mountains and mordor to let the players run about wherever they like and play in a kickass campaign driven by what the players wanted to do, and the one ring could've remained undiscovered and irrelevant in gollum's cave because the group never chose to go there.

But that definitely won't ever result in being told you're wrong because the setting bible says so.

Y'know. The setting bible you aren't allowed to see because it contains spoilers.

We already had that argument to death, a thousand or two posts ago.

 

[clearstream]

That certainly was not my understanding of his work. Almost precisely the opposite.

My understanding was the opposite (of the opposite). I believe the novels post-date the world creation.