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.

 

[Maxperson]

Level doesn't have to be a purely-metagame element in the slightest, and can very well exist in the setting. All it needs is that some sort of in-setting training is required in order to level (which IMO should be the case anyway).

There's real-world examples* of "levels" all over the place, mostly to do with having to complete or fulfill one step in a training and-or experience+ process, and prove you have done so, before moving on to the next.

* - Grades 1 to 12 in school. Belt colours in martial arts. Apprentice-journeyman-master in trades. Loads of others.
+ - which experience points model beautifully!

The problem is what do those things really represent. For all we know each student goes up 3 levels before getting a new belt color and not 1 level.

Level is purely a player mechanic and not a part of a setting that isn't like those anime shows where the protagonist can just call up his or her numbers. No official D&D setting can do that.

 

[Maxperson]

No. They ARE how much damage your can take before being taken out of play. They don't represent anything in the fiction, though. The are purely a gamist construct. If they were simulationist, your weight and size would have a biig impact, and your skill level with picking locks certainly wouldn't.

They represent skill, luck, meat, divine intervention, etc. that help you to escape serious injury. They are only abstract in that you don't know what a specific hit point represents until it is used up and the DM describes the attack and damage.

 

[Maxperson]

Except when they represent luck. or skill. Or a close shave. Which we have had so many arguments over it is baffling that one would actually assert "they represent damage."

1st level fights: The ogre swings at you with his club and it connects causing 12 points of damage, obliterating your spine and sending you spinning into the void. Roll a new character.
10th level fighter: The ogre swings at you with his club and it connects causing 12 points of damage, grazing your shoulder. Your turn.

1st level fights: The ogre swings at you with his club and it connects causing 12 points of damage, obliterating your spine and sending you spinning into the void. Roll a new character.

10th level fighter: The ogre swings at you with his club and and you deftly deflect it with your shield. Even that glancing blow sends a jolt of pain down your arm. Take 12 points of damage.

Hit points are not just meat. The ogre didn't connect with the 10th level fighter, because if he had he would have fared as badly as the 1st level fighter. His skill, though, gave him more hit points allowing him to deflect the blow where the 1st level fighter wasn't skilled enough to survive.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The problem is what do those things really represent. For all we know each student goes up 3 levels before getting a new belt color and not 1 level.

Level is purely a player mechanic and not a part of a setting that isn't like those anime shows where the protagonist can just call up his or her numbers. No official D&D setting can do that.

Not that "official D&D settings" have anything to do with this specifically.