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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5263926" data-attributes="member: 42582">Fully, fully agreed. And it seems to come throug in so many ways - the arguments about departures from gameworld canon, for example, or the view that alignment disputes can be resolved by setting up ever-more elaborate tables of "good" and "evil" actions.Also known as "literary criticism written by engineers".By way of disagreement - I mostly read nonfiction, but two pieces of literature I've read/seen recently are "The Wind Up Bird Chronicle" and "Waiting for Godot". Both are gripping, compelling stories that speak to the human condition. Neither is inherently believable.At least as I read them, the point that Doug and Mallus are making is that the quality of a story doesn't turn primarily on the accuracy of the geography, or the plausibility (considered in and of itself) of the ecology, or even of the sociology (can someone please explain Middle Earth's economy to me? how does the Shire have such a high standard of living when it is essentially an autarky?). What it does turn on is, of course, a bit tricky to specify and a matter of contention - but both Doug and Mallus seem to be favouring some sort of humanistic aesthetic. I certainly think that makes sense for an RPG, which is about the deeds of human (even if in elven guise) protagonists.As a Rolemaster grognard I arc up a bit at this! I don't think it's such a strongly anti-sim position. You can play a purist-for-system sim game, like Rolemaster, in a way that focuses on important story elements rather than gameworld/canon minutiae. In a game like RM (and RQ) the purist-for-system elements are confined very much to the personal level - PCs/NPCs/monsters, rules for interpersonal interactions (whether talking or fighting), jumping over ditches etc. The economics, geography and sociology are left outside the scope of the build and resolution rules - but these are the things that are at stake in the believability/ fan vs creator question, I think.Having calmed down a bit, and conceding a bit more that it is a position with elements of anti-sim: it's certainly anti-Traveller, which (via world creation, animal creation etc) does try to incorproate geography etc into its purist-for-system mechanics. And it's anti a type of "gamist" sim which emphasises operational detail like tracking ammunition, setting maximum gp limits on purchases in various settlements, etc (the sort of stuff that often comes up in discussions of a game's "economy").</blockquote>

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