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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4244957" data-attributes="member: 42582">More or less. Even then it's tricky: RM has very detailed critical results for combat (no interpretation necessary) but more abstract result descriptions for non-combat endeavours (so some interpretation necessary). CoC uses about the same level of abstraction for both combat (hit points) and sanity (san points) which both require a degree of interpretation.But, as another poster explained:Even RM or RQ have a little bit of this eg in RM, you have to narrate whether a miss resulted from a poor aim or a dodge (though, in melee, the rules give a dice roll to tell you whether you missed, were shield-arried or were weapon-parried - no-on said this is a rules-light game!).I think that systems like RQ and RM get surprisingly close, provided that the game confines itself to a certain sphere of activity: roughly, small-scale combat and magic, small-scale social interaction, etc. The interaction between these micro-matters and large scale events (wars, famines, weather etc) has to be pretty-muched handwaved. But provided that this is not the main focus of the game then the GM handwaving that stuff won't really count as railroading, and nor will it impede on the low-level simulationism.A combination of the odd bit of abstraction, together with a "social contract" understanding that certain emergent phenomena that are not core to the game will be disregarded (and related bugs not exploited) typically does the job. (This sometimes happens in wargame or boardgame play also.) One implication of this is that simulationist play is likely to work better with a play group who have played together enough to generate common expectations and understandings as to the limits of the rules.Another implication is that purist-for-system plus sandbox play is a recipe for rules and social contract headaches.Good points. With respect to the bit about turn-based activity: the number of variant initiative and action-resolution systmes that have been published for Rolemaster, to try and resolve this conundrum, is truly frightening!The second is trying to generate outcomes in the gameworld. But each dice roll used in that process is not itself representational (eg extended contests in HeroWars).Well said.Let's put to one side the pure simulationist, for whom the point of the rules is to create the world. Even for the narrativist, there can be a virtue in having some constraints. As I explain in another post, this is part of the attraction, to me, of the use of a sim-heavy system (RM) for narrativist play.Nom's sample mechanics, by imposing no constraint on player narration, support one sort of approach to the narrativist agenda. Sim action-resolution mechanics coupled with metagame character build and encounter design support a completely different approach: they don't deliver the world (because the metagame delivers both antagonists and protagonists) but they involve each player, unavoidably, in a very intricate narrative that (for the right play group) may be just what is required to achieve their narrative purposes.But your second paragraph comes close to contradicting your first: either we have utter GM fiat, which is barely roleplaying, or else the players have to make it all up, at which point the purpose of play is not to explore an imaginary world (because the rules aren't delivering that experience) but to do something else (either win ie gamism, or have the players engage in meaningful descriptions ie narrativism).I think that this is a common misinterpretation (on these boards, at least) of "narrativism". Further evidence that the GNS terminology may not be the most transparent.</blockquote>

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