Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="IceFractal" data-source="post: 4017194" data-attributes="member: 27704">Simulationist doesn't have to mean realistic, in any way relating to the real world.&nbsp; A system with giant space hamsters where gravity fluctuated based on the day of the week could be highly simulationist, if it had internal logic and stuck to it.&nbsp; It just means that the system has internal &quot;laws of physics&quot; (metaphorically speaking), and it sticks to them whether or not that's balanced, whether or not it makes a good story.&nbsp; You can get several benefits from this, of which approximating reality more closely is only one possbility.&nbsp; &nbsp;Another is emergent gameplay/properties.&nbsp; It's ironic that while many people are trying to put emergent gameplay into electronic games (see Spore, for example), it no longer seems welcome in &quot;modern&quot; tabletop RPGs.&nbsp; Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about:A while ago, in a thread not that far away, there was a discussion on how to visit other planets in a D&amp;D setting, using existing material.&nbsp; Teleport requiring familiarity, a ship to actually fly around looking for them was needed.&nbsp; One of the proposals was, once the ship was in space, to use a large array of &quot;Mage Hand&quot; magical traps to propel the ship forward at high speed.&nbsp; This was made possible by the fact that once in space, the ship's lack of weight put it within Mage Hand's limit.&nbsp; Not only was this an interesting idea, but it had emergent properties.&nbsp; Just like many hypothetical space propulsion systems in science fiction, it didn't work within a gravity well, and thus required the ship to stay in space and send down shuttles to explore planets.&nbsp; This wasn't something added to the rules, it naturally occured from the interaction of existing components.Now this couldn't have occured in a purely gamist system - it relies entirely on the kind of loopholes and secondary effects 4E is trying to stamp out.&nbsp; And it would only occur by pure chance in a storytelling system - if having a starship is part of the story, you don't need to figure out the cheapest way to construct it. That kind of creativity - not just thinking of an interesting thing, but figuring out how to construct it within the game system; and emergent gameplay, where unexpected things that neither the players, DM, or game designer expected can turn up - that's what I'm looking for in simulationism.And while 3E certainly isn't pure simulation, and 4E doesn't discard it entirely, the amount of it does seem noticably reduced, from what I've seen.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="IceFractal, post: 4017194, member: 27704"] Simulationist doesn't have to mean realistic, in any way relating to the real world. A system with giant space hamsters where gravity fluctuated based on the day of the week could be highly simulationist, if it had internal logic and stuck to it. It just means that the system has internal "laws of physics" (metaphorically speaking), and it sticks to them whether or not that's balanced, whether or not it makes a good story. You can get several benefits from this, of which approximating reality more closely is only one possbility. Another is emergent gameplay/properties. It's ironic that while many people are trying to put emergent gameplay [I]into[/I] electronic games (see Spore, for example), it no longer seems welcome in "modern" tabletop RPGs. Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about: A while ago, in a thread not that far away, there was a discussion on how to visit other planets in a D&D setting, using existing material. Teleport requiring familiarity, a ship to actually fly around looking for them was needed. One of the proposals was, once the ship was in space, to use a large array of "Mage Hand" magical traps to propel the ship forward at high speed. This was made possible by the fact that once in space, the ship's lack of weight put it within Mage Hand's limit. Not only was this an interesting idea, but it had emergent properties. Just like many hypothetical space propulsion systems in science fiction, it didn't work within a gravity well, and thus required the ship to stay in space and send down shuttles to explore planets. This wasn't something added to the rules, it naturally occured from the interaction of existing components. Now this couldn't have occured in a purely gamist system - it relies entirely on the kind of loopholes and secondary effects 4E is trying to stamp out. And it would only occur by pure chance in a storytelling system - if having a starship is part of the story, you don't need to figure out the cheapest way to construct it. That kind of creativity - not just thinking of an interesting thing, but figuring out how to construct it [I]within the game system[/I]; and emergent gameplay, where unexpected things that neither the players, DM, or game designer expected can turn up - that's what I'm looking for in simulationism. And while 3E certainly isn't pure simulation, and 4E doesn't discard it entirely, the amount of it does seem noticably reduced, from what I've seen. [/QUOTE]

Verification