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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8629362" data-attributes="member: 16814">Simulationism is about internal cause.  This is about flavor.  Making the world full of flavor doesn't mean that the way the fiction unfolds adheres to internal cause.  This is the wrong take.  What this means is that you do NOT have play where the characters are doing mundane or normal things.  Mad Max has many moments like this -- AW isn't about those moments.  This is the "skip to the fun" part from 4e that was so strongly criticized.  Again, looking at internal cause, this discards that because how you get from moment to moment isn't at all considered or really of interest.  This actively discards internal cause as any part of framing scenes -- instead action, question, and putting pressure on dramatic needs is what's happening.So, in the usual loop of almost every RPG, you have two parts that iterate -- setting the scene and resolution.  This agenda addresses how you set the scene, and tells you to do so not because it makes sense from previous fiction, but instead to only do so by getting directly into the action.  It's not about internal cause.The second half, resolution, is what the next agenda quoted, "Play to find out what happens," talks about -- the one you didn't discuss above, instead quoting the "look through crosshairs" principle.  Play to find out is absolutely not about internal cause, because the way that the system resolves things mechanically does nothing at all for internal cause -- roll 2d6 and you succeed on 7+ is not associated with any cause or effect consideration.  Nor is the part of consequences happening on 9-.  So, when considered here, play to find out is about not having any ideas about what could happen throughout play -- not just the resolution of an action or a combat or scene, but the entire session, the entire game, even.  No plans, no pushing into a direction, and certainly no considering resolution from the point of view of internal cause.  You have to discard this agenda point to be able to control how moves resolve and regain direction and internal cause over outcomes.No, this is about how you are supposed to bring maximum pressure onto things the players have told you they care about and want to see in play.  This absolutely discards internal cause, because you aren't bringing this pressure because some other event caused it, or it follows, but because this makes for exciting play and puts the question to the things cared about.  It's totally not simulationist, which would instead be telling you to think about what has happened and present a logical outgrowth of that.  This is not that.Agreed -- you seem to be under a strong misapprehension as to what simulationism is in this context, so probably best not to have to repeat.No.  This is about giving the players the power of input.  If the player answers your question, you are bound to use that answer.  This isn't just asking questions and picking what you like out of that and doing that.  You have to honor the answers -- "use" the answers.  Not consider them, use them.  As such, player answers can totally obviate any sense of internal cause, and they must be used.  This isn't about simulationism, it's about injecting more places for things to matter to the players and more questions to find the answer to.No.  This, again, isn't about that, it's about how the GM should be making choices for the game, and telling the GM to discard internal cause in favor of unreliability -- the exact opposite of an internal cause argument.  It's saying ramp things up unexpectedly by adding complications or framing scenes where danger is sudden and surprising -- not danger that makes sense from what's going on or what's happened.  Violates internal cause.Almost none of it is about evoking a feel -- because you get the same principles in Masks, which isn't about that, or in DW.  Same conceptual things.  Yet, people that try to use PbtA for high-concept sim find that the system does not work well at all, and that's after they misinterpret or discard the principles.What you've done is come at the principles and not read what they say directly, but through the lens of what you expect.  As such, you've added meaning where it doesn't exist, and failed to see it where it does.  It's a hard shift -- I had trouble with it certainly.  But the motivated lens you've used to look at this is showing very strongly in how you're not reading what's said and doing only that, but how you've assumed it must mean to do these other things you're familiar with.</blockquote>

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