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

[Hussar]

It doesn't. It however should aim to reflect the reality of the fiction it is depicting, and presumably in the fiction some things are more difficult than others. Granted, as taking account everything is impossible, simulation can be simplified. However, not taking into account a major factor like this definitely makes it weaker simulation than one that takes it into account.



All of these games set the DC (or equivalent) by the difficulty of the task in the fiction. If you are not doing it that way, then you are simply doing it wrong, which is what breaks the simulation.

Sorry. Nope. That's not how they work.

The DC is set by the skill of the character. Not by the task. It might be modified by the task, but, generally it isn't. If you are setting the DC by the task in GURPS, you are not playing the game as it is meant to be played. Same with early era D&D. The chance of the thief to open that lock is set by the level of the thief, NOT by any external factor. That's why retries are not allowed.

 

[pemerton]

I mean, you altered your game world in response to a magical event. That treasure didn't exist in your game world before the drawing of the card (or you wouldn't have had to create a map to find it, you would have already known where it was). Now, the Deck of Many Things isn't supposed to do that. It's supposed to provide a treasure map to an existing treasure.

So, no, the mechanics here aren't diegetic or simulationist. After all, you are creating setting material for something that specifically does not allow for something new to be created. You get a treasure map from the Deck. The deck doesn't then create that treasure, location and guardians. Those are meant to have always existed in the game world. Which means the DM now has to go back and rewrite (in a very small part) his game world to accommodate this. And we've been told repeatedly that rewriting your game world is anathema to simulation. SImulation is a living world that reacts to the actions of the characters. Plonking down entirely new setting material without any explanation is the opposite of how simulation has been described by any camp.

Schroedinger's treasure!

Sorensen addresses this, in part at least, in principle 3:

If the GM is also author, designer, and creator of the fictional world, they must adhere to the fictional world created before play begins. Once at the table, the world cannot be changed except by purely diegetic means.​

To me, this is ambiguous as to what the GM is allowed to do during breaks in play. And the more permissive a group is about that - the GM can author the world between sessions, or during a coffee break, or during a five-minute time out called after a card is drawn from a DoMT - then the less meaningful the constraint becomes.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sorry. Nope. That's not how they work.

The DC is set by the skill of the character. Not by the task. It might be modified by the task, but, generally it isn't. If you are setting the DC by the task in GURPS, you are not playing the game as it is meant to be played. Same with early era D&D. The chance of the thief to open that lock is set by the level of the thief, NOT by any external factor. That's why retries are not allowed.

Eh. Whether you apply difficulty directly or by modifying a roll is basically irrelevant; the probabilities are and whether the adjustment of same seems to fit the setting/situation.

 

[Lanefan]

The character is experiencing climbing, Max.

They are not experiencing dice rolling or modifier checking or arithmetic.

This seems to come down to a simple question of whether diegetics can survive being put through the strainer of the abstractions we need in order to play the game.

I'd somewhat hesitantly say that they can, most of the time, for purposes of determining what is diegetic and what isn't.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Sorry. Nope. That's not how they work.

The DC is set by the skill of the character. Not by the task. It might be modified by the task, but, generally it isn't. If you are setting the DC by the task in GURPS, you are not playing the game as it is meant to be played.

That means it is set by the task! In GURPS you modify the skill by the difficulty of the task. Same than in RQ. This is calculating the odds by comparing the skill value and the difficulty value. The exact same thing than happens in 5e, it is just formulated differently.

Discussing with you is rather frustrating,as you seem to be completely unaware of how the systems you talk about actually function, and what the mathematics of them mean. Like you think that subtracting difficulty from the skill and rolling under the skill is materially different from adding the dice roll to the skill and trying to beat the DC. That's just wild!

Same with early era D&D. The chance of the thief to open that lock is set by the level of the thief, NOT by any external factor. That's why retries are not allowed.

Yes, which makes it a poor simulation.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm assuming the map that you printed is meant to be the same as the map that exists in the game world. It doesn't have any information on it that would be impossible for someone in the game world to have? ((As in, number keys, as an easy example)).

Correct. I have a second, DM-side version of the map with lots more info on it.

So, yes, the map is certainly diegetic. The printed map is an clear example of diegetic. But, even without a physical map, it would still be diegetic because it exists in the game world.

Is it simulationist? On it's own? Kinda? I mean, you altered your game world in response to a magical event. That treasure didn't exist in your game world before the drawing of the card (or you wouldn't have had to create a map to find it, you would have already known where it was). Now, the Deck of Many Things isn't supposed to do that. It's supposed to provide a treasure map to an existing treasure.

So, no, the mechanics here aren't diegetic or simulationist. After all, you are creating setting material for something that specifically does not allow for something new to be created. You get a treasure map from the Deck. The deck doesn't then create that treasure, location and guardians. Those are meant to have always existed in the game world. Which means the DM now has to go back and rewrite (in a very small part) his game world to accommodate this. And we've been told repeatedly that rewriting your game world is anathema to simulation. SImulation is a living world that reacts to the actions of the characters. Plonking down entirely new setting material without any explanation is the opposite of how simulation has been described by any camp.

This is one of those "fill in a blank spot on the map" situations. The treasure is on a small, otherwise unremarkable, and as yet unvisited island off the coast of the main region where things have been based; and it's not the sort of thing anyone else would be likely to find or, even if they did, recognize for what it was.

Spoilered just in case any of my players wander by........

Spoiler

The treasure is a deposit of ore out of which can be smelted adamantium (a.k.a. vibranium), the rarest metal on the planet. As the PC who got the map is a Dwarf who has already encountered adamantium in her past, this seemed to make sense as a treasure in a variety of ways. All the Dwarf has to do is find it, get rid of some surface threats that live on the island, and start digging.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, which makes it a poor simulation.

Isn't it just an abstraction/simplification? As in, all locks and traps are about the same in their mechanical complexity.

The AD&D DMG does have rules (fairly punitive ones) for adjusting the difficulty of climbs; the level of the intended victim adjusts the difficult of picking a pocket (level serves as a proxy for alertness/awareness here); OA has rules for the effect of squeaky floors on moving silently; and from memory the DMG rules for seeing invisible things can also be used for critters that are good at noticing hiding thieves (eg by their smell).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Isn't it just an abstraction/simplification? As in, all locks and traps are about the same in their mechanical complexity.

It is, but one which makes the simulation substantially weaker.* All locks are not of same complexity.

The AD&D DMG does have rules (fairly punitive ones) for adjusting the difficulty of climbs; the level of the intended victim adjusts the difficult of picking a pocket (level serves as a proxy for alertness/awareness here); OA has rules for the effect of squeaky floors on moving silently; and from memory the DMG rules for seeing invisible things can also be used for critters that are good at noticing hiding thieves (eg by their smell).

And including that makes the simulation stronger.

* Which of course is a trade-off all mechanics must make to certain degree.

 

[Hussar]

So according to you, the guy who wrote a manifesto on what simulationism is has restrictions so strict that any game that claims to be simulationist can't actually be simulationist? No GM can pre-establish every cobweb, every blade of grass. Every game only exists because there are players who use the rules of the game to resolve uncertainty. Games have to rely on randomization or some other rules mechanism as abstraction of the action in the fiction.

No game could meet your extremist interpretation. That's why the manifesto also talks about abstractions, that play is the focus of the game, that no fictional world can ever be perfectly simulated.

That's not true.

Any game which has mechanics which provide information as to how a result is achieved satsifies diegesis and any reasonable definition of simulation. I've provided numerous examples of both.

You're just unhappy because the definition doesn't include what you are doing.

 

[Hussar]

OR! One can be really good at improvisation and make up lots of details on the spot.

But, I was told, repeatedly in this thread, that that is not simulationist. That making things up on the spot - like the meaning of runes - is not simulationist. You must not improv setting details if you wish to run simulationist games, goes the argument.

Note, I do not agree with that, but, that's what I've been repeatedly told.