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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gizmo33" data-source="post: 4028112" data-attributes="member: 30001">Well, obviously I was trying to be funny/light at the beginning but at the root of the humor was a serious statement about the stuff I don't get.  My point was basically this - keeping track of what happened in the past, assuming that NPCs react to you according to some sort of world logic and not according to some sort of story needs, basing character power on past accomplishments etc.  Those are all things I think of with regards to "simulation", and they're at the core of the basic RPG that I'm familiar with.  Suggesting that adding story elements to the game is somehow in conflict with simulation is, so far as I've followed this, unconvincing.  In fact, at the risk of being too blunt, a story that doesn't take seriously the versimiltude of the environment, IMO is lame.  That doesn't mean that you play out any details you don't want though.In fact, it seems to me that every single aspect of the published rules are based on simulation.  Take orcs for example - you don't just pick whatever HD and damage, etc. you want for them based on how "scary" you want them to be in the particular story.  Or rather, you could, but "basic" stats are given, which IMO heavily implies that there is some sort of "average" orc out there, a very simulationist concept.  Random tables for treasure, assigned damage dice for weapons, etc. - all of these are suggestions of a model for some sort of reality.  I hope what I'm saying is not controversial, so I must be missing the point.Seems to me that "narrative" RPGing at first is just overlaying story elements on top of the game.  For example I might extend the background of an adventure a little, and predesign some elements so that, in spite of the dice-rolling in the game, I'm 90% certain that certain events will occur that will continue to develop my "plot".  At that level, I don't see how any of this is in conflict with simulation.So take it to the next level.  I'm only "90%" certain, as I said above, that a certain event will occur.  For example, during a fight with some mooks, the PCs all get killed, and never reach the bad guy.  This happens because sometimes the dice come up all 1s.  At this point, the "narrativist" DM says "you know, at the this point I'm so commited to my set of events occuring for my campaign that I'm going to dispense with the rules.  I'll say the PCs all live because of deus ex machina.  Game on."This STILL doesn't break simulation - because it's not against the logic of the fantasy world for an angel to come down and raise everyone from the dead (or whatever other explanation is given.)  All that happens here, all that's really broken, are the rules used to adjucate the situation.  Now I've never understood why a TPK from some mooks is any less of a story than the PCs surviving and listening to the BBEGs speech at the end.  The only difference I see is that the PCs/DM had their heart set on one outcome, while the dice dictated another one.  In fact (and I've seen others state this on this board), my "narrative" style is to really find the story in what events occur rather than engineer it.  I wouldn't say I'm any less interested in the story than another, just less inclined to want to pre-engineer the story, because I would just choose another format of creative expression (ex. writing a book).  So I don't find using dice to be more sim than narr.  The issue seems rather what kind of control you want over what you're doing.  People who want a story to develop from the game, I suppose, are more eager to dispense with the dice rolling and have a system where events are determined more from the decisions of the group.  AFAICT that's a different mechanism for determining the outcome of events, but it doesn't make things less of a simulation.</blockquote>

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