Raven Crowking
First Post
Bastoche said:
The point, as I understand it, of simulationist play is to determine what happens, how it happens, and at what cost.
RC
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The Death of Simulation
- Thread starter Charwoman Gene
- Start date
The point, as I understand it, of simulationist play is to determine what happens, how it happens, and at what cost.
RC
Simulationists don't care about realism, rules simulating real world physics, etc.
Simulationism is only about having an in-game rationalization for everything that happens in the game. If the rules allow the DM to give in-game explanation for everything in the rules, even if it's a poor attempt like "that martial power is per encounter because the enemy won't fall for the same trick again" I'll be happy and satisfied, TYVM.
Characters can't speak or understand "metagamish". If we can't translate that to "ingamish", character immersion is hurt, and the gameworld starts to fall appart.
Simulationism is only about having an in-game rationalization for everything that happens in the game. If the rules allow the DM to give in-game explanation for everything in the rules, even if it's a poor attempt like "that martial power is per encounter because the enemy won't fall for the same trick again" I'll be happy and satisfied, TYVM.
Characters can't speak or understand "metagamish". If we can't translate that to "ingamish", character immersion is hurt, and the gameworld starts to fall appart.
ainatan said:
There are definitely two camps among players who enjoy "Simulationist" play, and it's one of my biggest gripes with the divisions, since people who love it when their games simulate a reality and people who love it when their games simulate a genre are both lumped under "Simulationist", but they rarely would want the same sort of mechanics. There's definitely some overlap, certainly, but there's heavy metagaming involved in genre simulation - characters are expected to just not do things that are out of genre. For the genre simulator, "Why can't I use this super attack twice in a row?" can be answered by "Do you see heroes in the source material using their ultimate attacks over and over again in battle, or just once to end the fight? HINT: Not the former.", while there absolutely has to be a non-metagame rationale for the reality simulator.
Note that I say a reality, not reality. White Wolf's games, for instance, have always been strongly supportive of reality-simulationist play because they take strong steps to remove solely metagame conceits - heck, several character statistic terms (for example, Blood Points in Vampire: the Masquerade and motes of Essence in Exalted) are also actual setting terms that can be and are analyzed and studied. Heck, scene-length Charms are so common in Exalted - and so much precedent for this sort of thing is given - that experienced Exalts probably have a good idea of what a scene is!
I don't know about GNS, but I don't consider "genre simulation" to be simulationism. The logic of the rules, their rationalization are based on the assumption that they are there to create the simulated genre's atmosphere. Rules are there to enforce the game to be just like that movie's stories. What genre simulation has are "metastory" explanations. It lacks in-game rationalization so, IMO, it's not not simulationist.Imban said:
Yeah I know. I just have diferent understadings. I consider "The Purist for the system" to be simly simulationism, "High concept simulationism" or "genre simulation" is narrativism/cinemativism and what The Forge calls narrativism is not even roleplaying game, it's storytelling game.skeptic said:
But that's another discussion for another thread, and I hope, another forums
skeptic said:
See, the WoD games are full of in-game rationalizations, from my point of view. There are a few things (the Masquerade itself) which receive "plot protection" above and beyond rationalization, but people will usually accept that because it's the premise: "Vampires exist, and control society while being hidden from it."
I just think any system of categorization that lumps GURPS and Wushu together is pretty clearly doing things wrong.
ainatan said:Yeah I know. I just have diferent understadings. I consider "The Purist for the system" to be simly simulationism, "High concept simulationism" or "genre simulation" is narrativism/cinemativism and what The Forge calls narrativism is not even roleplaying game, it's storytelling game.
But that's another discussion for another thread, and I hope, another forums
IMO, the difference between "genre simulation" and what I believe you call "narrativism/cinemativism" is who says what is "in-genre" and "out-of-genre" (i.e. forbidden during the game, or at least frowned upon). In the former, the genre is built-in in the rules via internal logic while in the later, the genre is hard-wired by the players into the characters/game world (and via game mechanics).
I think the simplest way to define simulationism in it's essence is by the (ideal) absence of metagaming.
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Raven Crowking said:
The "at what cost" aspect is paramount to nar play IMO and quite in contradiction to sim play. If you don't think it is, you're not really talking about sim play IMO.
The "at what cost" part assumes and forces acheivement. What I mean by that is that the characters will achieve what they were made up for. It's inevitable. However, the game mechanics will imply a myriad of paths as to how that come to pass.
It goes against sim because in sim, you do not know if the characters will acheive what they want to acheive or not. As soon as you introduce a mechanic that garantee a specific outcome, you're not siming anymore. And if you do not have a garantee concerning a certain "end game event" than the bit about "at what cost" becomes meaningless. It may only bear a meaning if the goal is acheived. And in sim play, you cannot have that sort of garantee else you're not playing a "100%" sim game, whatever that means.
Anyone who tried to "adress premise" in an actual sim game knows that it just don't happen. It turns into "guess work" because the GM gives "hints" to the players that aren't obivous because the players aren't the same persons as the GM and they don't see the imagine universe the same way as the GM do. Skeptic can testify on this. If you want the players to acheive a specific goal in gamist and sim play, you must use railroading. If the players don't mind being railroaded there is no problems. However if you want to give the players and GM a tool or tools to avoid railroading while still going on a "main plot" then you got some nar play going on. At least a certain fraction of it.
It's an out of game agreement about what the players will do. Assuming the GM wants to see the whole plot being resolved, there has to be a mechanic to allow it which either scale down the "challenges" in gamist play or goes against "internal logic" in sim play.
From the latest Design & Development article:
"Finally, it had to be believable within the heroic-fantasy milieu of D&D. (Believability isn’t the same thing as realism—an error which has ruined more games than I can count.)"
"Despite some quite elegant concepts, none of our radical new ideas met all the criteria necessary, including simplicity, playability, fun, and believability."
"It had to be at least as much fun as what already existed, and it had to be at least as believable as what already existed."
"Maybe they were playable but too abstract to feel fun or believable, or they were believable but too complicated to remember."
Simulationism is not dead at all. Let's celebrate!
"Finally, it had to be believable within the heroic-fantasy milieu of D&D. (Believability isn’t the same thing as realism—an error which has ruined more games than I can count.)"
"Despite some quite elegant concepts, none of our radical new ideas met all the criteria necessary, including simplicity, playability, fun, and believability."
"It had to be at least as much fun as what already existed, and it had to be at least as believable as what already existed."
"Maybe they were playable but too abstract to feel fun or believable, or they were believable but too complicated to remember."
Simulationism is not dead at all. Let's celebrate!
