The Death of Simulation

[Raven Crowking]

If, before play, we have already agree what counts as bad, then it is hard to see how we can meaningfully explore that in the game

Ye gods forbid that one can have a game mechanic for "bad" and still explore whether it is "really" bad.

D&D has a game mechanic for "evil"; clearly that precludes all scenarios in which "good" PCs support an "evil" character because they believe that doing so is better for everyone.

I've had PCs discuss religion with evil priests, specifically discussing aspects of human sacrifice. I can say, without fear that I will not be contradicted, that they certainly explored the theme of whether the end justifies the means -- as well as the nature of evil -- in a simulationist game with a mechanic that defines both "good" and "evil" in game terms.

Is there anyone in this thread who actually imagines that they couldn't do this?


RC

 

[marune]

The theme isn't necessarily the point in narrativist play, nor is it necessarily not the point in simulationist play. I don't believe that theme is exclusive, or even necessarily more strongly developed, in either narrativist or simulationist play.

If some folks get together and say, "Let's explore the theme of whether the end justifies the means" both styles of play can be used, equally effectively, for this exploration.

RC

A theme is not a question but an answer to a premise (Does the end justify the means?).

In Sim play, one explores the answer, the theme.

In Nar play, one explores the premise, the theme is the result of this exploration.

For example, in Sim play a character would be built around one of the possible answer, possibly with a background that justify his choice.

Instead, in Nar play, we are looking for the player's response during play, when the final answer is given, the story is over.

That's why a 2E paladin is a narrativist nightmare, most of the interesting premises' answers are hard-wired into him from the start. Coherently, the player is punished if he goes outside of it (stripped of his abilities).

 

[gizmo33]

In honor of the "death of simulation", here's a transcript of the last time I'll ever play an RPG:

DM: You walk into a tavern and they're selling soup, you're really hungry and if you don't buy some I'll take away Con points.

Me: Ok, one bowl of soup it is.

DM: That'll be 8,590 gp.

Me: That's exactly how much money I have! Whassupwitdat?

DM: Oh - I want to explore the theme of poverty and hunger.

Me: Well why is the soup 8,590gp? Is it really soup? Maybe it's a bowl full of fairies? Maybe I want to explore the theme of what it would be like to play an RPG that is a simulation. Hey, DM, are you just too lazy to look up the price of soup in the DMG? It's not my fault you flunked history. Are you still angry about that time that someone told you that their character ought to be able to break down that door because they were able to break a board in karate class?

DM: Ok, so anyway you see a dragon about to eat a halfling to your right, and a cleric stealing money from a sleeping beggar to your left...

Me: Wait a minute! Two seconds ago I was trying to buy soup.

DM: Well that was two seconds ago and this is now. What? Do you expect some sort of real world simulation where there's some kind of connection between past and future events? Next you're going to want me to roll on disease tables or something. Get with the time Gizmo! This is 4E! You can ride gumdrop steeds into battle and if you whistle the song that I have in my head right now I'll give your character a vorpal blade. Now stop complaining and roll for initiative against the giant version of yourself that's just appeared...

Seriously, I just don't get this narritivist thing. Just because you don't feel like keeping track of gold-pieces, for example (like in an Arthurian knights game or superhero game) doesn't mean that some sort of basic reality on the subject isn't assumed to exist at some level. Every RPG I've ever played has assumed that past is connected to present somehow. Sure, it's nice when a story evolves, but the the story doesn't evolve at the expense of basic plausiblity. So are we really just talking about handwaving certain details?

And what does it mean to "explore" a theme in a game like this? So what if my character pays the 8,000 gp for a bowl of soup? Do NPCs then teleport in and tell me how they feel about it? Do I spend an hour telling my fellow players how I feel about it? Do I get to go back in time and change it from a soup to a sandwich? Change it so that I'm doing the selling? How much "exploration" can really go on if you're just going to present one set of circumstances and then move forward based on one chosen reaction?

And if a DM is somehow uncomfortable with rules or dice telling them what happens in the game, then how in the world are they doing to deal with players telling them? IME people that complain about "simulationist" stuff do so because they resent their players telling them how things are going to be (ie. "but the rules say the wall is a DC 15 to climb!"). The exact thing that you should NOT have a problem with if you're now going to run the game on the basis of "whatever the players want." (And why would the rulebook for such a game be more than a page?) I guess my confusion or objections are probably conventional, but I don't even recognize the game that's being described with the narrativist thing.

 

[marune]

How much "exploration" can really go on if you're just going to present one set of circumstances and then move forward based on one chosen reaction?

Ok, I hope this one is a troll but anyway...

Ever saw a movie or series like 24 ? That's basically what happens in them.

Indeed there is some "narration" between the conflicting scenes (where the rules are used), done by the GM or the players.

Edit : some Nar games have more structured narrative than what I suggested above (Soap comes to mind).

 

[pemerton]

The theme isn't necessarily the point in narrativist play, nor is it necessarily not the point in simulationist play. I don't believe that theme is exclusive, or even necessarily more strongly developed, in either narrativist or simulationist play.

This suggests to me that you are using "narrativist" - or, perhaps, "theme" - in a different sense from many of the other posters on this thread.

I think that Skeptic, Lost Soul, Apoptosis and I are all using "narrativism" to mean (roughly) play in which the point of the play is for players to make statements about some thematic premise, which statements develop that theme. (If the premise is thought of as a question, then the statements worked out in the course of play would constitute answers to it.)

This understanding more or less entails that play in which the point is not the theme (ie in which the aim of play is not for the players to engage with and develop the theme through their play) is not narrativist play.

Ye gods forbid that one can have a game mechanic for "bad" and still explore whether it is "really" bad.

I want to know more about the mechanic. Of course the game can take place in a world with a received moral code, and narrativistically explore the merits or limitations of that code. I don't think, however, that this is how alignment in D&D is generally used - "good" and "evil" as used in D&D appear to be intended to carry roughly their ordinary meanings in English, and thus to figure in moral inference in the ordinary way.

Keeping this in mind, contrast two facts of entailment: "X believes that Z is bad" does not entail that Z is bad; "Z is bad" does entail that Z is bad. The gameworld with the received moral code is built up of propositions of the first sort, but the D&D gameworld appears to be built up of propositions of the second sort. If you treat them as really propositions of the first sort, then what we get is that the Seven Heavens are the planes of "so-called" goodness, and the Abyss a plane of "so-called" wickedness (and we might ask - so-called by whom?). At that point, why not just drop "Good" and "Evil" as mechanical descriptors and replace them which such traits as "Blessed by the Heavens" and "Empowered by the Abyss", introduce such propositions into our gameworld as "Most humans think that the Heavens are good, but Orcs think that of the Abyss" and leave the players and GM to work out for themselves the moral truth of the situation. (This is an elaboration of my earlier Team A/Team B remarks to Psion.)

D&D has a game mechanic for "evil"; clearly that precludes all scenarios in which "good" PCs support an "evil" character because they believe that doing so is better for everyone.

I don't imagine that it does, unless the PC is a Paladin who wants to remain such. But as I posted in reply to Psion (and also in more detail in reply to Kamikaze Midget on the recent Blood War in 4e thread) I don't see how this on its own allows for thematic development. If what the good PCs are doing, in supporting the evil NPC, is really good, then there was no choice. If it is really evil, then they will (in the long run, at least) lose their status as good. Where is the capacity for players to answer a question about good and evil?

My impression is that, in practice, it is not uncommon in such situations for high-intensity alignment debates to erupt at the gaming table. But a peculiar thing about D&D is that its alignment rules tend to shift all those moral arguments to a non-game space (eg messageboard alignment threads) whereas in narrativist play these arguments would be unfolding within the course of play itself (that being the point of narrativist play intended to develop moral themes).

I've had PCs discuss religion with evil priests, specifically discussing aspects of human sacrifice. I can say, without fear that I will not be contradicted, that they certainly explored the theme of whether the end justifies the means -- as well as the nature of evil -- in a simulationist game with a mechanic that defines both "good" and "evil" in game terms.

Does "they" denote the PC and NPC, or does it denote you (the player) and your fellow players (including the GM)? I have no doubt that simulationist play has scope for various characters to debate points of morality and religion. But the point of narrativist play (in the sense in which most of the participants in this thread are using that term) is for the players to engage in the questioning and answering.

I could play a simulationist game in which my character is an Aristotelian quite well, playing my PC and arguing out the merits of Aristotelianism against some Kantian NPC. But if that was all that the game permitted, it wouldn't be a game in which I actually got, through the very act of play, to make a statement about the truth or otherwise of Aristotelianism. For that to be the case, I would have to be able to do something else as a player, like have my PC change opinion, or perhaps (adopting a more authorial stance) to play out my PC as having a non-flourishing life as a result of being an Aristotelian.

But in D&D it would be very odd to have my good PC change alignment and decide that good isn't good at all - the very statement sounds contradictory, and once I put the first "good" inside inverted commas (and thus say that "good" isn't good at all) then we are back in the situation where Team A and Team B would be better labels, and the Seven Heavens are simply so-called good (so-called, presumably, by the dominant human religion).

For similar reasons, it would also be very odd for me to adopt author stance towards my PC and try to show that adhering to good ideals will lead to personal ruin, unless again "good" means simply "so-called good".

Is there anyone in this thread who actually imagines that they couldn't do this?

Well I'm in the thread, and I not only imagine but believe that alignment mechanics of the D&D sort (ie which actually make assertions about what is good and what is evil, rather than simply telling us that some people in the gameworld have beliefs about good and evil) are an obstacle to narrativist play intended to answer moral questions. I have experienced it at the gaming table, I have seen it reported on innumerable message board threads and letters to the forum in Dragon, and I have sketched some of the theoretical explanation for it above.

As I noted in my earlier post, those rules aren't necessarily an obstacle to a different sort of narrativist play - for example, one which takes the mechanically defined moral standards for granted and addresses the question of whether corruption is an inevitable feature of human life. But to be honest I have never seen a published example of D&D play that addresses this question (perhaps some early Greyhawk play is an example of such, but I am far from sure).

 

[pemerton]

Gizmo, I'm not sure how to respond to your post because I'm unsure whether it's sincere or not.

So two comments only: (i) your example (which illustrates overwhelming use of force by the GM and appears to give the player no room to make any statement, in the course of play, about any of the putative themes that are at stake) is of a type of high concept simulationist play, not narrativist play; (ii) your comments about mechanics seem not to distinguish between the players getting what they want (which is the chance to make a statement that develops the theme in question) and the PCs getting what they want (which is, in your example, some soup) - but until this distinction is drawn (and thus the role of the metagame appreciated) it is hard to even talk meaningfully about the difference between simulationsit, narrativist and gamist play.

 

[Antonlowe]

I didn't check to see whether anyone already nitpicked your nitpick, but in the English system, the pound is a unit of force, which means that it is also a unit of weight. It goes by different names (poundal, pound-force) depending on the context in which it is used (physics, engineering, etc.). The reason why it is often used as a unit of mass is because in certain contexts there is a unit of mass which is defined in terms of the number of pounds of force a quantity of matter exerts due to Earth's gravity. So a 1 lb. object exerts 1 lb. of force when on the surface of the Earth. For clarity, these units are often differentiated as pound-force and pound-mass, but most often the pound is used as a unit of force and other units of mass such as the slug or poundal are used, which provides a better system because you don't need an extra multiplier to provide Newton's second law.

So if we're using the pound as a unit of force, a ship in a low-gravity environment would indeed weigh nothing and thereby satisfy the restrictions of the Mage Hand spell.

Traditionally, the unit of force in the imperial system is the 'slug' (not kidding) and not the pound force, or the pound.

 

[LostSoul]

Note: Just finished watching the hockey game - we were robbed! So if I come across as snarky or harsh, I don't mean to.

Seriously, I just don't get this narritivist thing. Just because you don't feel like keeping track of gold-pieces, for example (like in an Arthurian knights game or superhero game) doesn't mean that some sort of basic reality on the subject isn't assumed to exist at some level. Every RPG I've ever played has assumed that past is connected to present somehow. Sure, it's nice when a story evolves, but the the story doesn't evolve at the expense of basic plausiblity. So are we really just talking about handwaving certain details?

No, you're right - basic reality has to exist at some level. You need that plausibility. You just don't focus on the details at expense of theme.

And what does it mean to "explore" a theme in a game like this?

Well, maybe you just got back from the dungeon, your pack stuffed with gold, looking to burn it on magic items, ale, and whores.

You're approached by the cleric who's been helping you out since level one. He tells you that the orphanage burned down and they need some cash to get it back in shape. What do you do?

Let's say you tell him to get lost - the cleric in your party can cast Raise Dead, you don't need him or his wands of cure light wounds any more.

The next time you're in town, the streets are full of urchins. The DM asks for a Spot check - the DC's pretty low, since the 7-year-old commoner who's trying to cut your purse has a low Sleight of Hand skill. You deal with him however you want.

You sit down at your favourite tavern. You notice new whores in the back room. A lot of them are young. Really young. What do you do?

etc.

That's probably a pretty common scenario.

 

[LostSoul]

The theme isn't necessarily the point in narrativist play, nor is it necessarily not the point in simulationist play. I don't believe that theme is exclusive, or even necessarily more strongly developed, in either narrativist or simulationist play.

Hey RC;

I think we're just working from different definitions. It's probably better to call "narrativist" play "thematic" play.

Now I'm going to head over to the sandbox thread and try and learn how to run that sort of game - I've never done it before, and it sounds like fun.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Traditionally, the unit of force in the imperial system is the 'slug' (not kidding) and not the pound force, or the pound.

No, the slug is a unit of mass. It is equal to 14.5939 kg, according to Wikipedia, who cite Shigley, Joseph E. and Mischke, Charles R. Mechanical Engineering Design, Sixth ed. McGraw Hill, 2006. I'm too lazy to go digging in my basement for my own textbooks, so I'll leave it at that.

edit: Hey, waitaminute. If you had actually read my earlier post, you'd see that I in fact mention the slug as one of the units of mass used to make the English system coherent...and by coherent I mean that the equation F=m*a is true, which isn't the case if you use the pound as both a unit of mass and a unit of force, as convenient as it is to do so for the sake of certain calculations.