The Death of Simulation

[apoptosis]

Why? How is storytelling at all related to the gamist approach?

The way I see it, the gamist DM considers it all a game, and therefore tries to make the decisions that will be most "fun" for the players, whereas the simulationist DM tries to make the decisions that will seem most like "what should happen" by the rules of the campaign world.

The way I see it, the advantage of gamism is that "unfun" and frustrating situations are mostly avoided. No one needs to make a roll to see if a robber comes along and kills the party in their sleep.
But taking it too far ruins the suspension of disbelief.

The advantage of simulatism are more difficult to define in my opinion. I once ran a completely simulationist homebrewed game that had about two or three pages of rules and relied on realism for everything else. The game had all sorts of problems of course. It had combats, and nearly all of them were fairly anticlimatic, as the players would find very creative, and overpowered ways to kill off their enemies. However, coming up with clever ways to use their abilities ended up incredibly satisfying for the players. I wouldn't run a totally simulationist game to often, and it is hard to get attached to characters if they can die on a moment's notice. But it is a very nice breath of fresh air.

My own personal opinion but i generally dont think DMs run games in a gamist fashion. I think DMs might enjoy games with gamist types of rulesets though.

Just a general perception and could be convinced otherwise.

 

[rounser]

I"ve never really understood Narativism.

At a guess:

Sacrifice gamist fun and fairness, and simulationist verisimilitude and suspension of disbelief, so long as it makes a good yarn? There's a lot to be said for that, too, because a good yarn grabs the emotions. Ideally you want a balance of all three, I'd suppose, but good storytellers and stories are few and far between so it's easier to shoot for gamey fun and worldbuilding verisimilitude cool factor.

Come to think of it, that's sort of what the sacrifice WOTC is making with regard to putting gamist over simulationist comes down to; making a fun and fair game, but not a believable one. And if you can't believe in a fantasy world, what's the point of it at all?

Fantasy has to be careful with verisimilitude, because it's living on the edge of suspension of disbelief anyway. WOTC is going a bridge too far with this one IMO (e.g. a 4E "warlord" is nothing except a bunch of abilities just slapped together because they're fun, but there's no fun to be had in a broader sense if your imagination doesn't buy what the heck this anachronistic archetypeless "class" is doing there in the first place).

 

[apoptosis]

You know, those might not have been the best example, because it throws "realism" in with things, that was a mistake. Dwarves make a good example, because they aren't real.

Simulationist: Dwarves are belligerent so they get -2 Charisma.
Gamist: We don't want to over penalize dwaven sorcerers, even if it is against type. No Charisma penalty.

I have no idea where Narativists fit in with this example, though... I've never really understood Narativism.

I dont think in all cases there are 3 options (nar, sim or gam). The above is a situation where there might not be a narrativist approach to a design decision.

I dont generally consider gamist, simulationist or narrativist design decisions to include fun as an objective as it all depends on whether gamism, simulation or narrative is what you are considering fun in a specific case.

 

[Blackwind]

Well, I'm just going to say something that seems really obvious to me, and I can't believe no one has come out and said it already...

This whole discussion is a confused mess because certain posters have failed to define their terms. Half of us are talking in Forgespeak (not necessarily a bad thing) and half of us are assuming that 'simulationism' means realism, which is a common-sense thing to assume if you're not familiar with Forgist game design theory.

So, just to clear things up: in the game design jargon used on the Forge, which is a website about (mostly) indie RPG design, the term 'simulationist' has a specific meaning. If you want to know what that meaning is, these articles will help.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/system_does_matter.html "System Does Matter," a brief article that defines Gamism, Narrativism, and Simulationism.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/ "The Right to Dream", an essay exploring Simulationism.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/20/ "A Hard Look At Dungeons and Dragons," an essay looking at D&D from the perspective of Forgist game design theory.

For those of you with no interest in delving into this stuff, and who just want a succinct summation of what Simulationism means in Forgespeak:

"Simulationist. This player is satisfied if the system "creates" a little pocket universe without fudging. Simulationists include the well-known subtype of the Realist. Good games for Simulationists include GURPS and Pendragon." --Ron Edwards

Hope this helps.

 

[Cbas_10]

I have no idea where Narativists fit in with this example, though... I've never really understood Narativism.

Simulationist: Dwarves are belligerent so they get -2 Charisma.
Gamist: We don't want to over penalize dwaven sorcerers, even if it is against type. No Charisma penalty.

Again...not sure which label I should apply to myself, so here is my entry to the take on dwarves:

Me: The book says Dwarves get a -2 charisma. It is pretty interesting to say that dwarves are surly, sometimes belligerent, and generally just not the friendliest lot. -2 Charisma makes sense....so there we go. I might have something more interesting to add to dwarves, but, as I don't want to spend time and effort on more rules, I'll just include more of the intricate aspects of dwarven life in the game's storyline instead of mucking around with MORE numbers and rules.

or the short version: Book says they get -2 charisma, and book says they "tend to be gruff and reserved." No problem...lets move on to playing with information as presented.

The real kicker is.....how to justify the ring deal in the same manner?

 

[apoptosis]

Well, I'm just going to say something that seems really obvious to me, and I can't believe no one has come out and said it already...

This whole discussion is a confused mess because certain posters have failed to define their terms. Half of us are talking in Forgespeak (not necessarily a bad thing) and half of us are assuming that 'simulationism' means realism, which is a common-sense thing to assume if you're not familiar with Forgist game design theory.

So, just to clear things up: in the game design jargon used on the Forge, which is a website about (mostly) indie RPG design, the term 'simulationist' has a specific meaning. If you want to know what that meaning is, these articles will help.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/system_does_matter.html "System Does Matter," a brief article that defines Gamism, Narrativism, and Simulationism.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/ "The Right to Dream", an essay exploring Simulationism.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/20/ "A Hard Look At Dungeons and Dragons," an essay looking at D&D from the perspective of Forgist game design theory.

For those of you with no interest in delving into this stuff, and who just want a succinct summation of what Simulationism means in Forgespeak:

"Simulationist. This player is satisfied if the system "creates" a little pocket universe without fudging. Simulationists include the well-known subtype of the Realist. Good games for Simulationists include GURPS and Pendragon." --Ron Edwards

Hope this helps.

I shied away from Forge definitions (love the Forge) only because there is so much discussion their as to the meanings of the terms.

I tend to hedge a bit with their definition of narratavism and am a little more broad consider it is a design decision in developing rules that help craft a more compelling story for the participants and give more narrative control to the GM and/or players at the expense of gamism or simulation.

 

[apoptosis]

Again...not sure which label I should apply to myself, so here is my entry to the take on dwarves:

Me: The book says Dwarves get a -2 charisma. It is pretty interesting to say that dwarves are surly, sometimes belligerent, and generally just not the friendliest lot. -2 Charisma makes sense....so there we go. I might have something more interesting to add to dwarves, but, as I don't want to spend time and effort on more rules, I'll just include more of the intricate aspects of dwarven life in the game's storyline instead of mucking around with MORE numbers and rules.

or the short version: Book says they get -2 charisma, and book says they "tend to be gruff and reserved." No problem...lets move on to playing with information as presented.

The real kicker is.....how to justify the ring deal in the same manner?

It is a little trickier if instead of dwarves you use the entire debate about gender modifiers. They are simulation, but generally dont hold to a gamist perspective.

Once again narrativist I would consider uncaring in this regard.

 

[Kraydak]

It is important to realize that Simulationism and Gamism are not mutually exclusive. For example, if the level of Simulationism is too low, suspension of disbelief is lost, and Gamism goes down the tubes. I, for one, am perfectly happy with non-RL rules of physics (falling damage). Its a magical world, it doesn't work like ours.

On the other hand, I require that NPCs behave sanely (if they are sane, of course, but thats the norm). To pick a recent example, the 4e Pit Fiend does not behave sanely. A creature of his powerlevel would accumulate wealth and magic items. He should choose a strong weapon that complement his abilities and provide offensive flexibility rather than a weak one which is helpless against people who defend themselves against his other attacks (100% fire damage, 100% of the time leaves you vulnerable to fire resistance).

I hate effects that differentiate between PCs and NPCs (such as NPCs with PC class levels getting bonuses for free to make up for not wearing gear, but not getting those bonuses for free if they have gear). Note that action points differentiate between *heroes* and *non-heroes* and, as such, merely mean that the universe considers some people more important than other.

It should be obvious, now, that I fear for my suspension of disbelief, come 4e.

 

[Remathilis]

The real kicker is.....how to justify the ring deal in the same manner?

DM: You open the chest. There is a scroll of Delayed Blast Fireball* and a Ring of Lesser Awesomeness.
PC1: Awww. I can't use either of them. I'm not competent enough of a wizard to learn to cast that level spell, nor do I possess the inner fortitude to unlock the magic of the ring. Perhaps next when I gain more experience and stamina, I can use both items, but right now they're going into the Bag of Holding...

 

[IceFractal]

Or handwave it with an Eldritch Machine and get on with the damn story?

Well that's the crux right there. If you're a fan of emergent gameplay and inventing within the system, there's nothing to "get on with". What you're doing right there, figuring out how to make the starship move - that's the fun part! Not that slaying foes and seeing the story come together can't be fun too, but poking the system to see what happens is as imporant as any of them.
[sblock=On that subject]An alternate propulsion method, not as efficient as Mage Hand but less wording-dependent and easier to port between systems, is using Energy Push as your base spell, the target being a construct chained to the ship, with sufficient energy resistance/DR to avoid any damage from the spell.

The amount of force exerted on the ship depends on how dense you can make your construct, while keeping it within a size category larger than the propulsion components. Since we're dealing with actual force rather than raw velocity now, smaller ships will speed up faster.

Of course if you were to make the entire ship an intelligent item, and thus a creature, all kinds of options become available.[/sblock]
Thinking about the whole simulationist/gamist/narrativist thing, I guess what I'm personally after with simulation is the emergent properties aspect. I'm not sure that it's inherently linked to simulation, but it does seem to flourish better there.

The problem is that often, from a gamist standpoint, emergent properties seem to be looked at as bugs to be fixed; "That 'knock over enemies' power can be used to move heavy things uphill? Errata it, that's not what it's supposed to do." And to be fair, quite a few emergent properties are on the order of finding that you can kill people really easily with what was designed as a minor utility spell.

A narrative standpoint isn't necessarily hostile to emergence, but it doesn't provide any either. If you just handwave the propulsion as an eldritch machine, there's no emergence involved - you haven't discovered anything, and it wasn't a surprise how it worked because you decided how it worked.


But honestly, isn't it fun when you get something out of a system that you didn't put into it directly, and the rules didn't say was there? Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but I hope it's not sacrificed entirely.