Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Simulation vs Game - Where should D&D 5e aim?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6297885" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I can see what you're saying, but personally I have some reservations about putting it that way, because it seems to beg the question already in favour of one rather than another approach to constructing the fictional events that make up a roleplaying experience.</p><p></p><p>For instance, in LotR the orcs from Isengard and Mordor don't fight in a spirit of "sport" rather than "war". They are savage, do not honour the laws of war (eg they desecrate the bodies of the dead and hurl their heads into Minas Tirith to try and break the defenders' morale), and use underhanded tactics like blowing up walls. From the perspective of the protagonists the war is real and bitter.</p><p></p><p>The difference from real life is that the heroes consistently get lucky, roughly in proportion to their dedication and commitment. So Aragorn receives the Palantir just in time to learn of the pending amphibious assault from Umbar. At the same time he receives a reminder and a portent to take the Paths of the Dead, which happen to be the only way to get to the south coast in time to stop the corsairs. Which portent happens to be brought by his Dunedain comrades, whom he will need to join him as part of his strike force. He then travels the Paths of the Dead and arrives in the south just in time. Then a change in the wind brings him to the Pelennor just in time to help turn the tide of battle there. A series of contrivances by the author bring about the dramatic result; but from the perspective of the protagonists this is just how things happen to unfold. <em>They</em> are not engaged in sport, but in dire warfare.</p><p></p><p>I think simulationist rules tend not to produce such contrivances. Hence they also tend to discourage that sort of emotionally committed risk taking by the players. In the end they can discourage all risk-taking full stop, and you get thief-on-a-rope Tomb of Horros of scry-buff-teleport assaults in high level Rolemaster or 3E.</p><p></p><p>My own experience is that when simulationist mechanics yield the result I have just described, they can actually harm immersion because they discourage certain sorts of emotional commitment (alternatively, they support immersion but all the PCs are somewhat amoral, calculating mercenaries - I think "murder hobos" is the technical term!).</p><p></p><p>I don't think I was saying that at all. I didn't say anything about harmony, nor about the various art forms you mentioned.</p><p></p><p>I was saying that simulationist RPG mechanics tend not to produce emotionally and dramatically satisfying situations and resolutions to those situations. My evidence for that claim is many many years of play experience with systems like Rolemaster, Runequest and Traveller.</p><p></p><p>In my view the explanation is, ultimately, fairly simple. Emotional and dramatic satisfaction depends upon contrivance; whereas the aim of simulationist RPGs like those I've described tends to be to avoid contrivance. For instance, in a fantasy adventure story, if a protagonist is ambushed (or otherwise attacked by an overwhelming force) the author will typically write in a dramatic contrivance to ensure that the protagonist is able to escape, or be captured rather than killed, etc. (For instance, in LotR the hobbits are kidnapped rather than killed at Amon Hen; Gandalf arrives in the nick of time with Erkenbrand and the Ents at Helm's Deep; the ring is dropped in Mt Doom before Sauron's host can win the battle outside the gates of Mordor; etc.)</p><p></p><p>Systems like RQ, RM or Traveller are not designed to foster that sort of contrivance. For instance, in a simulationist system of that sort, there is generally no resolution framework which lets (say) Gandalf's player (in a Helm's Deep scenario) or Eomer or Merry's player (in a Ride of the Rohirrim scenario) or Han Solo's player (in a Death Star assault scenario) invoke some sort of "fate" or "destiny" or "this is a really big deal for me and my friends" ability that would help his/her PC arrive in the nick of time. Rather, it is all worked out be reference to impersonal movement rates and terrain rules and the like, with the emotional stakes or investment of the protagonists having no bearing on the resolution.</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure who you think you're arguing with here, given you're replying to a post in which I said that D&D does not inherently involve telling stories.</p><p></p><p>It would help, I think, if you took more seriously what I wrote rather than so readily projected your preconceptions onto it. Given that I denied that D&D must involve storytelling, I can hardly have asserted that it is a "storygame" (whatever exactly that is?). But D&D inherently involves fictions - collections of imagined, non-real objects and events that figure in the resolution of players' moves.</p><p></p><p>As for all personal experience being narrative stories I have never asserted this, nor ever believed it, given that 20 years ago I wrote a MA thesis defending an empiricist conception of phenomenal exprience along the lines of G E Moore and A J Ayer.</p><p></p><p>I don't agree with this. At any given point in D&D, the options open to the players are, in practice, unlimited. For instance, if the GM describes the PCs walking across a stony ground, the players have whatever options they can think of to investigage stones, pick them up, try and use them to advantage (eg throwing them at nearby things to see what happens, etc).</p><p></p><p>Fiction is not a narrative term that limits thought experiments to liteary theory. Quine, for instance, one of the greatest of American analytic philosophers and in no sense a literary theorist, was writing in Word and Object and other books 50-odd years ago about the fictional character of thought experiments, counterfactual claims, and the like, and their relationship to scientific method.</p><p></p><p>In contemporary anlaytic philosophy, I would say that "fiction" is contrasted with "falsehood" in this way: a false statement is one which is uttered with the intention that it be evaluated in relation to the actual world, and when so evaluated turns out to be false. (Mistakes, lies, etc are all falsehoods in this sense.) A fictional statement is one which would be false if evaluated in relation to the actual world, but which when uttered is intended to be evaluated in relation to some non-actual, imagined state of affairs. (A countefactual statement is on some views a form of fictional statement, but not on all views, as many think that the states of affairs against which counterfactuals are evaluated aren't imagined but rather real.)</p><p></p><p>The results of special relativity obviously are not fictions. But the thought experiments used to help illustrate and prove it are. There never was a train running down an infinitely long track at a quarter of the speed of light. It's imaginary - a fiction.</p><p></p><p>(How can investigation of a ficiton help establish a truth? Any number of ways, but in the case of special relativity it's in part because the specification of the fiction inclues details that can be plugged into non-fictional rules to do with motion and geometry.)</p><p></p><p>For what it's worth, none of this descibes play at my table. Dice are rolled on the table and their results read and applied. If we don't want PCs to die, we play a game whose resolution rules don't lead to PC death. If a particular result is necessary for the game to proceed then dice won't be rolled ("say yes or roll the dice").</p><p></p><p>I think we have to be careful with some of these generalisations. For instance, Runequest is much more of a simulationist game than any edition of D&D, but has much fewer and simpler rules than 3E or 4e D&D, and probably than at least some ways of playing rules-and-option-heavy AD&D.</p><p></p><p>I don't know - by these criteria nearly any RPG is simulationist if played in the way you describe; but some fail because they don't have crafting rules. That's a slightly idiosyncratic requirement, in my view. As best I recall Runequest doesn't have such rules; but it is one of the few games to have detailed rules for tithing and provision of other religious services in order to progress through religious hierarchies. But it would be equally odd to say that all games, if they're to count as simulationist, must have rules for that sort of religious progression.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6297885, member: 42582"] I can see what you're saying, but personally I have some reservations about putting it that way, because it seems to beg the question already in favour of one rather than another approach to constructing the fictional events that make up a roleplaying experience. For instance, in LotR the orcs from Isengard and Mordor don't fight in a spirit of "sport" rather than "war". They are savage, do not honour the laws of war (eg they desecrate the bodies of the dead and hurl their heads into Minas Tirith to try and break the defenders' morale), and use underhanded tactics like blowing up walls. From the perspective of the protagonists the war is real and bitter. The difference from real life is that the heroes consistently get lucky, roughly in proportion to their dedication and commitment. So Aragorn receives the Palantir just in time to learn of the pending amphibious assault from Umbar. At the same time he receives a reminder and a portent to take the Paths of the Dead, which happen to be the only way to get to the south coast in time to stop the corsairs. Which portent happens to be brought by his Dunedain comrades, whom he will need to join him as part of his strike force. He then travels the Paths of the Dead and arrives in the south just in time. Then a change in the wind brings him to the Pelennor just in time to help turn the tide of battle there. A series of contrivances by the author bring about the dramatic result; but from the perspective of the protagonists this is just how things happen to unfold. [I]They[/I] are not engaged in sport, but in dire warfare. I think simulationist rules tend not to produce such contrivances. Hence they also tend to discourage that sort of emotionally committed risk taking by the players. In the end they can discourage all risk-taking full stop, and you get thief-on-a-rope Tomb of Horros of scry-buff-teleport assaults in high level Rolemaster or 3E. My own experience is that when simulationist mechanics yield the result I have just described, they can actually harm immersion because they discourage certain sorts of emotional commitment (alternatively, they support immersion but all the PCs are somewhat amoral, calculating mercenaries - I think "murder hobos" is the technical term!). I don't think I was saying that at all. I didn't say anything about harmony, nor about the various art forms you mentioned. I was saying that simulationist RPG mechanics tend not to produce emotionally and dramatically satisfying situations and resolutions to those situations. My evidence for that claim is many many years of play experience with systems like Rolemaster, Runequest and Traveller. In my view the explanation is, ultimately, fairly simple. Emotional and dramatic satisfaction depends upon contrivance; whereas the aim of simulationist RPGs like those I've described tends to be to avoid contrivance. For instance, in a fantasy adventure story, if a protagonist is ambushed (or otherwise attacked by an overwhelming force) the author will typically write in a dramatic contrivance to ensure that the protagonist is able to escape, or be captured rather than killed, etc. (For instance, in LotR the hobbits are kidnapped rather than killed at Amon Hen; Gandalf arrives in the nick of time with Erkenbrand and the Ents at Helm's Deep; the ring is dropped in Mt Doom before Sauron's host can win the battle outside the gates of Mordor; etc.) Systems like RQ, RM or Traveller are not designed to foster that sort of contrivance. For instance, in a simulationist system of that sort, there is generally no resolution framework which lets (say) Gandalf's player (in a Helm's Deep scenario) or Eomer or Merry's player (in a Ride of the Rohirrim scenario) or Han Solo's player (in a Death Star assault scenario) invoke some sort of "fate" or "destiny" or "this is a really big deal for me and my friends" ability that would help his/her PC arrive in the nick of time. Rather, it is all worked out be reference to impersonal movement rates and terrain rules and the like, with the emotional stakes or investment of the protagonists having no bearing on the resolution. I'm not sure who you think you're arguing with here, given you're replying to a post in which I said that D&D does not inherently involve telling stories. It would help, I think, if you took more seriously what I wrote rather than so readily projected your preconceptions onto it. Given that I denied that D&D must involve storytelling, I can hardly have asserted that it is a "storygame" (whatever exactly that is?). But D&D inherently involves fictions - collections of imagined, non-real objects and events that figure in the resolution of players' moves. As for all personal experience being narrative stories I have never asserted this, nor ever believed it, given that 20 years ago I wrote a MA thesis defending an empiricist conception of phenomenal exprience along the lines of G E Moore and A J Ayer. I don't agree with this. At any given point in D&D, the options open to the players are, in practice, unlimited. For instance, if the GM describes the PCs walking across a stony ground, the players have whatever options they can think of to investigage stones, pick them up, try and use them to advantage (eg throwing them at nearby things to see what happens, etc). Fiction is not a narrative term that limits thought experiments to liteary theory. Quine, for instance, one of the greatest of American analytic philosophers and in no sense a literary theorist, was writing in Word and Object and other books 50-odd years ago about the fictional character of thought experiments, counterfactual claims, and the like, and their relationship to scientific method. In contemporary anlaytic philosophy, I would say that "fiction" is contrasted with "falsehood" in this way: a false statement is one which is uttered with the intention that it be evaluated in relation to the actual world, and when so evaluated turns out to be false. (Mistakes, lies, etc are all falsehoods in this sense.) A fictional statement is one which would be false if evaluated in relation to the actual world, but which when uttered is intended to be evaluated in relation to some non-actual, imagined state of affairs. (A countefactual statement is on some views a form of fictional statement, but not on all views, as many think that the states of affairs against which counterfactuals are evaluated aren't imagined but rather real.) The results of special relativity obviously are not fictions. But the thought experiments used to help illustrate and prove it are. There never was a train running down an infinitely long track at a quarter of the speed of light. It's imaginary - a fiction. (How can investigation of a ficiton help establish a truth? Any number of ways, but in the case of special relativity it's in part because the specification of the fiction inclues details that can be plugged into non-fictional rules to do with motion and geometry.) For what it's worth, none of this descibes play at my table. Dice are rolled on the table and their results read and applied. If we don't want PCs to die, we play a game whose resolution rules don't lead to PC death. If a particular result is necessary for the game to proceed then dice won't be rolled ("say yes or roll the dice"). I think we have to be careful with some of these generalisations. For instance, Runequest is much more of a simulationist game than any edition of D&D, but has much fewer and simpler rules than 3E or 4e D&D, and probably than at least some ways of playing rules-and-option-heavy AD&D. I don't know - by these criteria nearly any RPG is simulationist if played in the way you describe; but some fail because they don't have crafting rules. That's a slightly idiosyncratic requirement, in my view. As best I recall Runequest doesn't have such rules; but it is one of the few games to have detailed rules for tithing and provision of other religious services in order to progress through religious hierarchies. But it would be equally odd to say that all games, if they're to count as simulationist, must have rules for that sort of religious progression. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Simulation vs Game - Where should D&D 5e aim?
Top