Simulationists, Black Boxes, and 4e

[mmadsen]

I can understand that there are people that prefer that the world building logically emerge from the rules of the game in a one to one mapping fashion.

I don't think anyone has suggested a perfect one-to-one mapping. The issue is not that the rules fail to explain the whole game world; it's that the explicit rules often contradict the game world the GM's building -- or that everyone implicitly expects from having read Tolkien, Howard, etc.

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

And yet although that armor exists in the story and the mechanics, it is not available to PCs as "loot", because it is a given that PCs are not interested in monsters' equipment (not even if it was magical). Yet what if your players argue that they want to sell kobold armor in town? What if one of the monsters has a better armor (in mechanical terms) than one of the PCs, and the player would like his character to use it?

To me it seems that 4E mechanics and story exist on two "layers" of reality: PCs live on one, and the rest of the world live on the other. Whenever an encounter/challenge happens, those layers partially -- but never completely -- interact with each other. And maybe it's just me, but this feels... weird?

This is exactly right. The two basicaly exist in parallel, only touching where they need to. In the instance of the characters wanting to sell the kobold armor, I would ask first, to who? Then I would ask, don't you have better things to do as heroes than become used kobold armor traders? If the answer to the second is no, then I would say that it is either a GM problem or a group vision problem. I would not like to play in a group where the best thing to do at the moment was to take up a trade as a "Dead Monster Surplus" salesman.

I don't think anyone has suggested a perfect one-to-one mapping. The issue is not that the rules fail to explain the whole game world; it's that the explicit rules often contradict the game world the GM's building -- or that everyone implicitly expects from having read Tolkien, Howard, etc.

I personally feel that the less that you rely on the rules to give you fluff, the better the game runs. 4e seems at this point to be designed with modularity in mind, and with an extreme bump in narrative power. Both should enhance the ability to "simulate" any genre you would like. Even if it will contain elements that "simulationists" won't like.

 

[mmadsen]

I think more abstract rules, such as T&T, support simulationism better in that they produce fewer WTF moments. By virtue of telling the players less about what is going on, they break suspension of disbelief less.

Well said.

When it comes to superhero gaming I'm very much a simulationist. I love the crazy comic book universe but I don't think any rpg has come remotely close to mirroring it. You'd need rules for characters being more powerful in their own books, remembering and forgetting their powers as required by the plot and having a different personality depending on who the writer is this week. Nobody but me really seems to what this level of madness however. Strangely this kind of sim isn't consistent at all. Not when you're trying to simulate an inconsistent universe.

Now you're getting silly.

With D&D I feel the great strength is the core rules - class, level, hit points, etc - not the simulation of fiction or reality. They're not particularly G, N or S. Their major selling point is ease of use, their simplicity.

I agree that D&D's strength has never been its ability to simulate either reality or fiction. I wouldn't agree that its strength is its ease of use though. If you ignored most of the rules, which most people did, earlier editions -- original D&D, Basic D&D, AD&D -- could be simple to use, and later games made no effort to be easy to use -- but the real strength has always been an unpretentious emphasis on fun gaming. People like classes, levels, hit points, dungeons, etc., often for reasons they themselves don't quite understand.

 

[Andor]

This is exactly right. The two basicaly exist in parallel, only touching where they need to. In the instance of the characters wanting to sell the kobold armor, I would ask first, to who? Then I would ask, don't you have better things to do as heroes than become used kobold armor traders? If the answer to the second is no, then I would say that it is either a GM problem or a group vision problem. I would not like to play in a group where the best thing to do at the moment was to take up a trade as a "Dead Monster Surplus" salesman.

All I can say is that this would be a game breaker for me. If I can't loot the monsters armour because it's just pixels on his sprite... Then why the hell am I bothering to sit at your table when I've been able to get that level of game for 20 years from a nintendo? It absolutely shatters immersion for me.

It may not suit your narrative purposes as GM to have my character do so, but I really couldn't care less. I am at the table to play my character, not dance as a puppet in the stage direction of your narrative masterpiece. Do the players have a duty to further the GMs plot? To a degree, yes. But I have seen games absolutely destroyed by a GM who insisted on trying to tell a story none of the players were interested in.

One of the great advantages of PnP games over CRPGs is the flexibility and degree of immersion possible. 4e, oddly, seems to be moving away from that. In a CRPG I can only solve a problem in a way the programmer anticipated. In a PnP game, being able to solve a problem only in a way the GM anticipated is a callsign of a very poor GM. The hallmark of good GMs is the ability to roll with whatever surprises the PCs come up with. The ability of a game to allow or discourage this is less a matter of the rules themselves than a matter of the attitude the rules suggest to the players.

It's been said that there are two basic systems of law. One is "What is not permitted is forbidden." the other is "What is not forbidden is permitted." The same holds true for RPG design. Previous editions of D&D have always emphasised the importance of the GM for adjudicating situations the rules didn't cover. In other words there was no pretense that the rules covered all situations and yet the PCs could attempt actions outside the rules. The attitude I seem to see in the 4e rules, and the 4e fans, is the opposite. "Can I do X?" "Do you have a power for X on your sheet?" "No. " "Then no."

And that worries me.

 

[Lanefan]

All I can say is that this would be a game breaker for me. If I can't loot the monsters armour because it's just pixels on his sprite... Then why the hell am I bothering to sit at your table when I've been able to get that level of game for 20 years from a nintendo? It absolutely shatters immersion for me.

It may not suit your narrative purposes as GM to have my character do so, but I really couldn't care less. I am at the table to play my character, not dance as a puppet in the stage direction of your narrative masterpiece. Do the players have a duty to further the GMs plot? To a degree, yes. But I have seen games absolutely destroyed by a GM who insisted on trying to tell a story none of the players were interested in.

One of the great advantages of PnP games over CRPGs is the flexibility and degree of immersion possible. 4e, oddly, seems to be moving away from that. In a CRPG I can only solve a problem in a way the programmer anticipated. In a PnP game, being able to solve a problem only in a way the GM anticipated is a callsign of a very poor GM. The hallmark of good GMs is the ability to roll with whatever surprises the PCs come up with. The ability of a game to allow or discourage this is less a matter of the rules themselves than a matter of the attitude the rules suggest to the players.

It's been said that there are two basic systems of law. One is "What is not permitted is forbidden." the other is "What is not forbidden is permitted." The same holds true for RPG design. Previous editions of D&D have always emphasised the importance of the GM for adjudicating situations the rules didn't cover. In other words there was no pretense that the rules covered all situations and yet the PCs could attempt actions outside the rules. The attitude I seem to see in the 4e rules, and the 4e fans, is the opposite. "Can I do X?" "Do you have a power for X on your sheet?" "No. " "Then no."

And that worries me.

Me too.

Well said.

Let's see what kind of tone the DMG takes toward this sort of thing...we might yet be pleasantly surprised...or not... (no, I have not seen the DMG yet)

Lanefan

 

[lutecius]

Me too.

Well said.

Let's see what kind of tone the DMG takes toward this sort of thing...we might yet be pleasantly surprised...or not... (no, I have not seen the DMG yet)

Lanefan

Sure, it adresses these issues. And the solution is...(drum rolls)...Rituals (ta-daa)!

 

[Lizard]

This is exactly right. The two basicaly exist in parallel, only touching where they need to. In the instance of the characters wanting to sell the kobold armor, I would ask first, to who? Then I would ask, don't you have better things to do as heroes than become used kobold armor traders? If the answer to the second is no, then I would say that it is either a GM problem or a group vision problem. I would not like to play in a group where the best thing to do at the moment was to take up a trade as a "Dead Monster Surplus" salesman.

The problem with this attitude is that it constrains what an RPG can/should be. If you say, "We don't need rules for buying/selling, because Heroes Don't Do That!", you've just sliced off massive chunks of campaign possibilities (the merchant campaign), as well as plenty of chances for interaction with the locals.

A surprising number of players LIKE dealing with minutae, and besides, knowing they CAN is often enough. It's amazing how many players will try to do something just because the rules say they can't. And there's better ways to deal with wannabe armor merchants than fiat denial -- start seriously tracking encumberance, reminding them that carrying armor is a lot harder than wearing it. They want to hire hirelings? Labor trouble, bandits, they need food and water for the mules, and, suddenly, it's not worth it to haul that kobold armor back to town -- a fact driven home by having a price for what it's worth already in mind.

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

All I can say is that this would be a game breaker for me. If I can't loot the monsters armour because it's just pixels on his sprite... Then why the hell am I bothering to sit at your table when I've been able to get that level of game for 20 years from a nintendo? It absolutely shatters immersion for me.

I can understand a level of immersion necessary, but why would you assume that there needs to be rules for looting armor? Make it up. For WotC, the name of the game is to design rules for things that are fun and common, give simple rules for adjudicating outside of the normal rules, and depend on a DM to make stuff up that is outside the norm. The first order of business is to cover things that are fun. Looting crappy kobold armor is not particularly exciting. It is a resource, so I guess there are people who will do it, but aren't there better things going on in the campaign?

It may not suit your narrative purposes as GM to have my character do so, but I really couldn't care less. I am at the table to play my character, not dance as a puppet in the stage direction of your narrative masterpiece. Do the players have a duty to further the GMs plot? To a degree, yes. But I have seen games absolutely destroyed by a GM who insisted on trying to tell a story none of the players were interested in.

I have seen games destroyed by railroad GMs as well. I want nothing to do with them. I have also seen games destroyed by players that want to become miners instead of going on a great quest. I want nothing to do with them either. See you mistakenly assume that when I brought up narrative devices that I meant that the GM should have sole perogative for deciding the narrative. I hate that. I just also don't want to be bound slavishly to inconsistencies that the rules pump out, all in the name of "simulating" a living world independent of the PCs, and making the rules "consistent" between PCs and NPCs. I am mostly a player so I often side with giving players more narrative choice, but to create any sort of plot or feeling of discovery, you have to give at least some narrative choice to the GM. In a three way split of power between the players, the GM, and the rules, in my books the rules only get enough power to pre-emptively avoid arguments and to inject a degree of random chance. Rules don't create living worlds, great imaginations do. Rules create inconsistencies in living worlds. Good rules are flexible and abstract to avoid as many inconsistencies as possible.

One of the great advantages of PnP games over CRPGs is the flexibility and degree of immersion possible. 4e, oddly, seems to be moving away from that. In a CRPG I can only solve a problem in a way the programmer anticipated. In a PnP game, being able to solve a problem only in a way the GM anticipated is a callsign of a very poor GM. The hallmark of good GMs is the ability to roll with whatever surprises the PCs come up with. The ability of a game to allow or discourage this is less a matter of the rules themselves than a matter of the attitude the rules suggest to the players.

I very much agree with the first statement here. The rest doesn't folow from that though. 4e seems to be taking power from the rules and giving it to the players and GM. I will be interested in seeing how all the narrative devices that have been discussed here on EnWorld turn out, but from a lot of the guesses by a lot of people so far, it seems that there is a greater degree of freedom to approach problems in 4e than in any earlier edition. Skill challenges are likely a good example. I think that you get right at this with the last two sentences here. The ability to just roll with it is not within the rules. It is the ability of the play group to go beyond what is explicitly laid out in the rules, and enhanced by the tools that the rules give to step outside them. (Sounds kinda wonky, but I hope I have maid it clear enough.) I really think that "Exception based" will turn out to mean "freedom from emergent rules inconsistencies in game play."

It's been said that there are two basic systems of law. One is "What is not permitted is forbidden." the other is "What is not forbidden is permitted." The same holds true for RPG design. Previous editions of D&D have always emphasised the importance of the GM for adjudicating situations the rules didn't cover. In other words there was no pretense that the rules covered all situations and yet the PCs could attempt actions outside the rules. The attitude I seem to see in the 4e rules, and the 4e fans, is the opposite.

<snip, example of bad DMing>

And that worries me.

I think that you have nothing to worry about. The unified mechainc is the set of rules that tell you how to accomplish anything that you may want. Then they added another level to this that they have called "Exception Based Design". This says, here is the generic ruleset, and then here is how we propose to do these common thematic things in a way that violates these rules. It does not follow that you can only do the exceptions. Just that you can use them as templates for how to go outside the rules. I think that this might be the heart of the matter. Many people do not like exceptions to the rules. It breaks consistency, making things appear less fair. The falacy there is that there doesn't need to be fairness between PCs and NPCs, because the NPCs don't really exist. There has to be fairness between participants, not imaginary constructs.

EDIT:

The problem with this attitude is that it constrains what an RPG can/should be. If you say, "We don't need rules for buying/selling, because Heroes Don't Do That!", you've just sliced off massive chunks of campaign possibilities (the merchant campaign), as well as plenty of chances for interaction with the locals.

A surprising number of players LIKE dealing with minutae, and besides, knowing they CAN is often enough. It's amazing how many players will try to do something just because the rules say they can't. And there's better ways to deal with wannabe armor merchants than fiat denial -- start seriously tracking encumberance, reminding them that carrying armor is a lot harder than wearing it. They want to hire hirelings? Labor trouble, bandits, they need food and water for the mules, and, suddenly, it's not worth it to haul that kobold armor back to town -- a fact driven home by having a price for what it's worth already in mind.

Very good points, but I think that I would rather just agree not to be so minutia based in my campaign decisons. I understand that it marginalizes some play styles. I just think that the majority of players (sorry, not able to back that up) would rather Do Fun Things than play merchants. Any merchant campaigns would be more fun anyway if there was an elemant of haggling and deal making anyway. Running a business is not fun, but pretending you do, making deals, making money, and ignoring all the frustrating crap, that sounds more fun. No need for explicit rules.

 

[Andor]

Sure, it adresses these issues. And the solution is...(drum rolls)...Rituals (ta-daa)!

That actually made me LOL.

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

Yeah I liked it too. Too many unknowns are used as either the panacea or doom of the new edition. Funny.