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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6297982" data-attributes="member: 42582">Fair comment. Cthulhu likewise, substituting &quot;pulp horror&quot; for &quot;medieval chivalric romances&quot;.By &quot;simulation&quot; I was meaning process-simulation (= purist-for-system simulation, in Forge terminology) - such as one finds in RM, RQ and Classic Traveller.Upthread, in post 46, I mentioned two sorts of RPGers who are interested in story as an outcome of play (and perhaps there are others?): &quot;Forge-y narrativists and old-fashioned 90s-style railroaders&quot;.The idea that &quot;we're supposed to win&quot; and &quot;we're going to win&quot; belongs to 90s-style railroaders. That's a mode of play that I personally dislike greatly. (And I have a fairly expansive conception of what counts as 90s-style railroading - for me it covers adventure path play.)&quot;Forge-y narrativism&quot; is closer to where I'm at. For me, the key aspect of contrivance is not that the PCs will win, but that wins or losses will occur at points that matter. A slogan I have used in the past is &quot;no failure off-screen&quot;. To use one of the LotR examples again, in the sort of play the Battle of the Pelenor fields is absolutely not going to be lost because of a random roll on a weather chart to see which direction the wind is blowing. But it might well be lost because the PC who confronts the Witch King fails to defeat him.The key to this sort of play is tight scene-framing. I think causal-oriented simulationism is the enemy of tight scene-framing, because the causes leak out from one scene to another in ways that have no bearing upon dramatic significance. [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s example of bean-counting in GURPS (or Rolemaster; or certain approaches to AD&amp;D, for that matter) is one common example of this: consequences of no dramatic significance start to be more important in shaping the transition from event to event than dramatic considerations about what matters in a thematic/dramatic sense.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6297982, member: 42582"] Fair comment. Cthulhu likewise, substituting "pulp horror" for "medieval chivalric romances". By "simulation" I was meaning process-simulation (= purist-for-system simulation, in Forge terminology) - such as one finds in RM, RQ and Classic Traveller. Upthread, in post 46, I mentioned two sorts of RPGers who are interested in story as an outcome of play (and perhaps there are others?): "Forge-y narrativists and old-fashioned 90s-style railroaders". The idea that "we're supposed to win" and "we're going to win" belongs to 90s-style railroaders. That's a mode of play that I personally dislike greatly. (And I have a fairly expansive conception of what counts as 90s-style railroading - for me it covers adventure path play.) "Forge-y narrativism" is closer to where I'm at. For me, the key aspect of contrivance is not that the PCs will win, but that wins or losses will occur at points that matter. A slogan I have used in the past is "no failure off-screen". To use one of the LotR examples again, in the sort of play the Battle of the Pelenor fields is absolutely not going to be lost because of a random roll on a weather chart to see which direction the wind is blowing. But it might well be lost because the PC who confronts the Witch King fails to defeat him. The key to this sort of play is tight scene-framing. I think causal-oriented simulationism is the enemy of tight scene-framing, because the causes leak out from one scene to another in ways that have no bearing upon dramatic significance. [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s example of bean-counting in GURPS (or Rolemaster; or certain approaches to AD&D, for that matter) is one common example of this: consequences of no dramatic significance start to be more important in shaping the transition from event to event than dramatic considerations about what [I]matters[/I] in a thematic/dramatic sense. [/QUOTE]

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