I was agreeing that you raise some pertinent questions, and proposing that a step in answering them will be to
identify what makes a mechanic productive of simulationist experiences of a subject; which could differ per experience, per subject
identify what counts as a sufficiency of such mechanics; given folk seem to be partial to some and not other mechanics
I haven't ruled out the possibility that simulationist experiences of subjects are only identifable in play, and can't be identified in texts!
Do you have anything to say about these things?
I mean, it seems fairly obvious - doesn't it? - that
simulationist experiences of subjects are only identifiable in play. Given that the experiences that are being referred to are play experiences, how would they be otherwise identified? Perhaps we could
predict that a certain rules text, if followed, would lead to simulationist experiences, but that doesn't seem the same as
identification.
When it come to such predictions, as well as identification of experiences that have occurred and looking for correlations, to me there seem to be some fairly well-known RPG rulebooks: RuneQuest, Rolemaster, C&S, GURPS, HERO, Pendragon. Tuovinen mentions Battletech (as was discussed upthread). But my view in this respect - that is, my nomination of candidate texts - seems to be controversial, for reasons that aren't clear to me.
I believe at that point it was mainly the notion that simulation should produce result independently of certain things. There was seemingly a dependency that broke this independence (the exact nature of this has been the topic of pages worth of posts as far as I could see and I am not sure how it concluded).
In simpler words, the presence of a map there just seemed awfully convenient.
Independent of what certain things?
And how does that relate to "convenience"? Are you now saying that if
the GM decides to introduce strange runes that have useful information that makes play not simulationist, because "convenient"?
I am not grasping what you, and those other posters who seem to be agreeing with you, mean by "simulationism". Unless it just means a preference for GM narration of the fiction. But in that case, why not just come out and say it?
Some posters could have in mind experiences they equate with "simulation", that the particular example in some way impinges on.
Perhaps they do. But what are those experiences? And what makes them "simulationisit" in character?
It is not simulation as the causality is messed up. We have PC with some rune reading skill value or such (and possibly some DC or similar for the task?) and then from this we derive odds of something completely unrelated, namely the runes being beneficial or bad news. Furthermore we have the player of the reader decide the potential outcome, yet their character is not deciding it. This is almost total disassociation between the mechanical process and the process that takes place in the fiction, thus it is not a simulation.
On the odds:
Let's suppose that there is an X% chance of the character being able to read the runes, which is not independent of the character. And then there is a Y% chance of the runes being <this rather than that>, which is independent of the character. X and Y can be combined to produce a Z% chance, which is not independent of the character.
This is what D&D does this in at least some combat resolution: there is an X% chance of the character throwing a spear on target, which is not independent of the character. And then there is a Y% chance of the target dodging the spear heading towards them, which is independent of the character. X and Y are combined to produce a Z% chance, which is not independent of the character.
On the process:
As I already posted upthread, the player is not
deciding what the runes say. They are
hoping the runes say <this rather than that>, and the dice roll determines whether this is the case or not.
If they hope, and
the GM decides that their hope comes true, does that make it simulationist? What if the GM rolls on their Strange Runes table, and the player gets lucky - does that make it simulationist? No process used at the table is going to emulate the actual process of actually writing runes. Which ones make for simulationism?
I have my own views about the answer to this question: they are based on 1000s of hours of play of Rolemaster, and a lot of play of other RPGs that involve mechanics that try hard to model ingame causal processes. But my answers tell me that, for instance, the approach to weather and the environment in TB2e is more simulationist than in typical D&D; and that Fight! in Burning Wheel is far more simulationist than typical D&D combat. Whereas in this thread I am being told that D&D combat and falling rules are simulationist-oriented rules in a way that some of those other RPGs are not.
I think causality is often messed up if we are thinking just about what we do at the table. Resolving hit locations in RQ being a clear example.
Likewise stop-motion resolution in contemporary D&D combat.
Or not knowing whether "I hit you for 8 hp of damage" is a nothing-burger or a fatal wound until we apply the result to the target's hp tally.
Or not knowing that the rope is running across a sharp stone, or that the climber is grabbing hold of crumbly rock, until
after the roll to climb is made.
This is why I am having trouble working out why some of these causal "violations" are being characterised as simulationist, and some are not.
