What Does "Simulation" Mean To You? [+]

[A_Carrington]

It would be a tautology if I hadn't presented examples of what it represents, certainly.

 

[Reynard]

It would be a tautology if I hadn't presented examples of what it represents, certainly.

Except they were all "damage is this, so this is damage." You did not actually make an argument that damage represented a thing in threads fiction. What you did was define "damage" as "anything" and that tautolohical.

 

[soviet]

Except they were all "damage is this, so this is damage." You did not actually make an argument that damage represented a thing in threads fiction. What you did was define "damage" as "anything" and that tautolohical.

Agreed. 'Hit points measure how much damage you can take, and damage represents how many hit points you lose'.

 

[AlexofBarbaria]

a training and-or experience+ process

+ - which experience points model beautifully!

Depends what you get XP for. Getting XP for finding gold coins makes no sense as a simulation of skill acquisition.

However it enhances the immersiveness of the treasure-finding moment by facilitating emotional bleed between the character and their player -- the character knows more money = more power, and the player knows more XP = more power, so they're both on the same page emotionally in that moment.

Interesting example of a non-simulationist mechanic enhancing immersion.

 

[FrogReaver]

Well, the core problem is the DM using the term "realistic" when they really mean "verisimilitudinous".

Sim priorities are more focused on the setting following its own internal logic, even if that logic isn't "realistic."

The core problem with Hit Points in sim play is that people have trouble accepting the fairly obvious narrative that Hit Points provide supernatural resilience, and those supernatural properties should be known and understood within the setting.

As soon as you try to handwave away that a character with 150 HP won't take an action that can't kill them (like jumping off a cliff for 20d6 damage) because it isn't "realistic", you're building in a tension within 2 Sim priorities (modeling Earth-like behavior and modeling a supernatural not-Earth fantasy world.)

I don’t know the at you are wrong but I’d just add that a setting following it’s own internal logic is more realistic than a setting that doesn’t have an internal logic to follow

 

[Maxperson]

The character's hit points simulate how much punishment he can take, and the falling damage rules simulate damage from impact. It doesn't matter if a level 20 fighter can survive a fall that I can't. The game isn't simulating me, it's simulating a level 20 fighter, which is something that only exists in the game.

Factorio is certainly absurd in comparison with real life, I don't know many people who can carry around 320 oil refineries in real life, but it is nevertheless a simulation. It just happens to be simulating things that are impossible in reality, like most games do. Similarly, the rules for pretty much any spell simulate impossible things. They're still simulating things.

Are there any rules that don't simulate anything? Maybe the rules for gaining experience from slaying monsters? I guess that's largely a philosophical position.

Fantasy realism is a thing. Magical creatures like dragons exist inside that fantasy realism. The game builds in magic rules and magical exceptions for things like dragons and spells, but not other things like voluntarily stepping off a 1000 foot cliff, which is why we say it's unrealistic.

If the rules built into the setting a rule/lore that the gods never allow anyone to take damage when they fall, slowing them as if under a feather fall, then it would qualify as fantasy realism.