NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9714541" data-attributes="member: 71699">Apologies then, as I most likely misapprehended your post. Someone (maybe [USER=6795602]@FrogReaver[/USER]) had raised the notion of a player authoring an unembellished one million gp into a dungeon.When play has a preexisting subject, I suppose one could 'test' appreciation by seeing what players feel and know about it. When play has an incomplete imaginary subject that is to be completed as part of play, how can one 'test' appreciation? What if some narration seems at odds with the imagined subject to everyone else at the table?If someone lays claim to a simulative experience following processes one discounts from being "simulationist" then are they to be suspected of "faking" that experience? One worry I have about [USER=22779]@Hussar[/USER]'s definition is that if D&D processes are excluded then must I say that every D&D player who tells me they have simulative experiences is lying to themselves?I felt that if it leads to a claim that certain texts are more "simulationist" than others, it must at least be about their content. I take [USER=22779]@Hussar[/USER] to be pursuing "process simulation", if I understand correctly how others have used that term. That implies to me a standard for processes embodied in texts with notional consequences for play. With in mind [USER=7025508]@Crimson Longinus[/USER]' emphasis on an association between the mechanical process and the process that takes place in the fiction, I ventured a description upthread of what that might amount to (rephrased here)One way [to understand a game mechanic] is to deconstruct the mechanic picturing that each element is assoicated with something in the imagined world. Processing the mechanic can then be pictured to track with diegetic objects and events. Phenomena felt to matter to subject ought to receive treatement this way. An element of a mechanic should be associated with each significant feature. The result of enacting the mechanism ought to depend on each such element at the point and to the extent that whatever it is associated with is intended, predicted or observed to bear upon it. How that goes is then available to be revealed in narration. RQ combat attempts that sort of arrangement. A hit location table is associated with each creature. Modifiers to things like dodging are associated with what characters are carrying. Strike ranks are associated with weapons and actions. But no one should picture that just because statement of intent and movement of non-engaged characters are processed before melee, missile and spell resolution, that's how combat plays out in the world. I don't see why that needs to be muddied by worrying about what is done with those mechanics in play. What if they fail to be productive of simulative experiences? One of the challenges for process simulation has always been the cost of achieving it. I found the "Redbook" magic rules for C&S nigh-unplayable due to the effort demanded to bring them to the table, but I wouldn't rule C&S out as a landmark in process simulation.Apologies, but I am not grasping your doubt here. Why would my account of simulationism exclude your example?I don't either. My conception of "neosim" goes far beyond those wargaming-esque limits. Or to put it another way, why would war be the only proper subject for simulation? (Surely a rhetorical question, if ever there was one!)</blockquote>

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