The Death of Simulation

[Campbell]

I think we're getting dragged down into definition hell. The way I look at is that pure simulation is imersion oriented. Any exploration of theme is purely accidental once play has begun since the principle goal of simulation is fidelity to character and world. The simulationist player is not trying to make a statement when his character is faced with any given decision - rather he is solely concerned with how his character would react. Likewise a pure simulationist GM does not care about exploring theme when creating game material - rather his primary concern is fidelity with previous material. A simulationist GM does not include orc babies because he is aiming to explore the nature of an orc's violent tendencies - the orc babies are there since orcs have babies.

On the other hand, a nar agenda involves a certain amount of seperation between character and player. While fidelity to character might impact the decisions a nar player makes, he is principly concerned with the best way to make the statement he wishes to make. He will often make decisions that do not have the highest degree of fidelity with what is known about his character.

Of course the waters are pretty muddy since pure sim and pure nar types are relatively rare. Additionally, examples are usually not that effective unless they actually address player thought process and active communication. There's no way to tell from a story hour if a given game focused on sim or nar concerns.

 

[pemerton]

In a nar game, you can explore the costs of achieving Y, but not the costs of attempting to achieve Y?!?

These would be two different themes to be explored.

So, a sim game is the one in which, when you explore a theme, you can fail, but a nar game is the one in which, when you explore a theme, you can never fail?

In a good narrativist game, when the players set out to explore a theme, they do not fail to do so (ie fail to explore that theme) - just as, at a good poker night, one doesn't fail to play some poker.

Now, if the theme to be explored is "The cost of achieving Y" then achievement of Y has to be a given. How the RPG actually guarantees the achievement of Y is a different matter, and might depend on what Y is. Maybe the setting has it built in (eg Dying Earth takes for granted that the cost of dealing with wackos will be explored, because towns populated by wackos are build into the setting). Maybe the players have Fate Points which give them force in respect of certain crucial ingame matters on which Y's realisation turns. Or whatever.

Sure, if you want to explore a theme in a nar game, you cannot know if the theme will be explored unless the players are willing to make it happen. And if you want to explore a theme in a sim game, you can only do so if the players are willing to make it happen.

I think that Lost Soul and Bastoche are right - that what you're describing here is the difference between narrativist play and narrativist play ie no difference at all.

If the players all choose to develop a theme, and make that part of their play, they are playing narrativist. (Now maybe what you mean is that the players choose to explore someone else's development of a theme eg they choose to play the DL modules, and to enjoy immersion in the narrative that the novel and module authors have already created. That wouldn't be narrativist, it would be high-concept simulations - but also, it wouldn't involve any development of any theme, because the authors have already done all that.)

 

[Bastoche]

I think it boils down to definition hell like someone mentionned. I strongly think that what you refer to RC is nar play. You just coin it a sim name and I fail to see why. Yes theme can be explored in a sim game but unlike nar play, it is not the point. As soon as you make it the point, you slip into nar territory.

All the supplementary conditions you add to sim play to make it adress a theme/premise make it nar no matter if the rules system you actually use isn't.

In other words, yes you can take a sim game (like gurps) and add a layer of theme adressing via players agreement but you've just added a "house rule" to make theme happen which boils down to layering a nar part (via house ruling) into the game.

"Adressing theme in play" is THE definition of nar play. (a)

"Exploring the system/characters/setting" is THE definition of sim play. (b)

You can then imagine a game 100% (a) which would be 100% nar and a game 100% (b) which would be 100% sim. You suggest going from (b) toward (a) and I assume you have more than 50% (b) and the rest (a) and you want to still call it sim. You can certainly continuously go from (a) to (b) and vice versa. I think our disagreement lay on what level of mix you stop to call a game (b) and call it (a) or vice versa. IMO, a 20% (a) 80% (b) I call that a sim-nar game. It IS sim and it IS nar. What I'm saying is that a game that is not 100% (b) cannot be simply described as being a sim game.