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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9342317" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think you haven't quite responded to my post.Now, saying the preceding is going to generate some frustration, so I'm going to try and carefully explain what I said, and what I mean. I think the point I am making has significance for understanding one form of the "pull to purist-for-system simulationism" beyond just our interaction in this thread.So, I posted thatSo I referred to actual fiction that is actually created, with an example.But your reply is about possible fiction that might be created using the rules and procedure in question - your "automatically" is an adverb that characterises that possible fiction.The fact that a procedure permits arbitrary or unrealistic decision-making is, for some RPGers, a reason to avoid it. This is in my view one of the big pulls to purist for system approaches. Doubly so when those possible outcomes are envisaged as being among what is possible in the fiction - because the decision-procedure is taken to be a model (in some loose sense at least) of the in-fiction causal process.For me, a big part of learning how to achieve more compelling fiction in my RPGing was cultivating the ability to distinguish between the method that is used at the table to generate an outcome and the process in the fiction that generates that outcome. 4e D&D, for instance, relies heavily on this distinction; so does any system that doesn't use "objective" difficulties (say, MHRP, or Apocalypse World); and so does any system that uses "intent and task" or similar "fail forward" consequence determination (Burning Wheel and Torchbearer are two examples; and this is generally how I run Prince Valiant also, although its rules are a bit less clear on the matter).Anyway, for me that was the main thing I thought of in response to your post. The secondary thing I thought of is that, if anyone is not on the same page about how long it might take to recover from some injury in the context of the events of game play (eg "Now we've arrived at Constantinople, has my shoulder recovered?") then we can discuss and resolve. My personal, practical experience is that - in the context of a pretty non-gamist approach to play - this is not a high-stakes, conflict-prone discussion.</blockquote>

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