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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RareBreed" data-source="post: 9150161" data-attributes="member: 6945590">I've made many a post lamenting the lack of "reality modelling" in today's games.  Just recently, I made a post in another thread about why I believe these game systems have fallen out of favor. I believe that reality modelling in gaming has essentially gone extinct (even in indie games) for one big reason: time.  It takes a lot of time to learn, and it takes a lot of time to play games which factor in more of "how the world works".  Since the 90s, with the advent of the internet and home computers, our choice of entertainment has become truly dizzying.  Games have to compete with so much now, that it needs to be quick to pick up, and quick to play.  Back in the 80s when you had to wait until 8pm once a week to watch your favorite TV show (no binge watching!), I spent many a night poring over a game or supplement after school for hours.  That's just not going to happen for many people nowadays.People just don't want (or have time) to invest time in any kind of skill.  I've talked to a few people in their early to mid 20s and asked them why TikTok had become so popular.  I asked "why not youtube?  There's tons of videos there too".  They said "they are too long".  I was like, oh dear.   At work, many fellow engineers don't want to take the time to learn a challenging new language like rust, haskell or lisp.  I've given up even trying to get others onboard, even though in the long run, using the right tool for the right job will simplify their work lives (I don't ever want to see another null pointer exception in my life, but my coworkers don't seem to care).This is a sad state of affairs, because like money, a little investment up front yields big dividends.  But trying to get people to do this investment is like pulling teeth.Before going farther, I'll explain what I consider "reality modelling" to be.  Some will say it is about "realism" and claim "there is no such thing", or some other straw man.  The problem with thinking like this is ignoring what model means.  A model is a stand in for reality, not reality itself.  But the closer it can approximate reality, the more useful it becomes.  Anyone who dares to suggest that a system like Hit Points, where a character is absolutely fine until reaching 0 points is no less realistic versus a game that actually models things like bleeding, broken bones, structural damage per hit location, etc....clearly has either never played a game with such modelling or is apologizing for their favorite game's lack of said features.  Claiming  "I like hit points because they make game play more smooth" is a far cry different from "hit points model health as realistically as a system an EMT would be comfortable with".So, in the definition above I said the more useful it becomes.  I believe this is the point of contention with people who want games that focus on the story.  They will ask "how is it more useful?  In the storytelling is all mindset, what matters is the thematic arc of a game, what the episode means, and not the details of how the sausage was made.  This is where I will stand on my hill and die on it and claim that is putting the cart before the horse.  The "how" of things are story hooks that give more meaning in two ways.  They provide more visceral detail than when everything is abstracted away, and if the model is good enough, frees us from plausible denial in how things wound up the way they did (ie, the story arc).But reality modelling goes deeper than just combat.  Take for example lifepath systems, or literal world building.  In that sense I will say that Traveller kick started a lot of these deeper concerns.  One's character could even die during chargen in Traveller!  I've always liked lifepath systems, due to preventing what I call the "Professor with Artillery skill" when a player is allowed to choose whatever skills they want for their character concept (GM to player, "so, how exactly did your PhD wind up knowing how to shoot heavy weapons even though he has no other obvious military background/skills?"). And because Traveller had a huge universe with thousands of worlds, they came up with an elaborate system for generating worlds based on star type.  And because it was a Sci-Fi game, what Sci-Fi game worth its salt doesn't have lots of rules for starships?  They took this to a zenith with 2300AD's Star Cruiser rules, which pretty much required a calculator or spreadsheet, and made the designer think about cross section size for visibility/reflection purposes.</blockquote>

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