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

[Argyle King]

Conan is regularly defeated, even if he can't die for plot reasons. Sometimes even just he's sneaking down the corridor and some mook guard sneaks up on him and knocks him out -- so he can wake up in a prison cell and romance the evil king/warlord/necromancer's beautiful daughter/assistant/etc. I don't know if I'd call it Deus ex machina, but it definitely qualifies as protagonist-centric-outcome (unimportant people in the same situation would be executed before they woke up).

Right, I agree with that. He's still presented as someone who can (and does) fail.

While his immense skill and prowess might help insulate him from failure, he's never presented as immune to it - even when it's mundane.

 

[Argyle King]

He does kind of tank an entire army in The Scarlet Citadel, until the dark wizard Tsotha-lanti hits him with a Hold Person.

I guess, kinda, but I don't necessarily see that story as being the same as a wuxia protagonist or a high-level D&D 3.5 fighter facing an army on the battlefield.

Could be bias memory on my part because I have not read the story in a while, but I think there's some attempt to use skill, strategy, and the close-quarters nature of a dungeon to help things seem somewhat credible.

 

[Pedantic]

I think it means you care about trying to get it right. You care that it feels right. You think 'maces are better against platemail while polearms are better against horses' or something and so you have rules that create that effect, or you play in some way as though it's correct within the fictional world: 'Horsemen eh? I'll run and get my halberd'.

I don't think it necessarily means 'I will now exhaustively research primary sources on medieval combat to make sure my assumption matches the data'. If I think it's right, and you think it's right, and it seems to make logical sense that it's right, and we play on the basis that it's right... I don't think that's insincere, even if a medieval cavalryman would say we were wrong.

Also I'm not sure that 'exploration of the shared fiction' necessarily means 'exploration of whether it's realistic'. An example might be again in a medieval game where sincere exploration of medical treatment might involve leeches, humours, and so on, but definitely won't involve germ theory. Here what's real and what seems to the characters to be real are entirely different.

I think this is on point. It does not matter whether the proposed setting truths resemble reality, and it's a mistake to look for more authority in that resemblance. That's substituting the inspiration for a given system for system itself.

The point is to then be able to reason about the setting through the knowable and learnable interactions of those truths. If falls don't work as you expect them to, then the problem is the design of the rules, and they must be changed for falling to work differently. It is irrelevant if the outcome in any way resembles falling in the real world, only that a character in the fiction can understand it. Now I think there's room at that level to start willing about how much abstraction is acceptable, and there's a competing desire to limit the mechanical fidliness of the rules to prevent player disengagement, but the core design ask of "tell me how things work, and be consistent" is clear.

Muddling that up with realism or genre norms is the usual mistake that comes up in sim discussion.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think this is on point. It does not matter whether the proposed setting truths resemble reality, and it's a mistake to look for more authority in that resemblance. That's substituting the inspiration for a given system for system itself.

The point is to then be able to reason about the setting through the knowable and learnable interactions of those truths. If falls don't work as you expect them to, then the problem is the design of the rules, and they must be changed for falling to work differently. It is irrelevant if the outcome in any way resembles falling in the real world, only that a character in the fiction can understand it. Now I think there's room at that level to start willing about how much abstraction is acceptable, and there's a competing desire to limit the mechanical fidliness of the rules to prevent player disengagement, but the core design ask of "tell me how things work, and be consistent" is clear.

Muddling that up with realism or genre norms is the usual mistake that comes up in sim discussion.

Well, I think I'd argue that those both are going to set some of how players expect things to work, and if you want to steer around them for any reason, you're fighting against that impulse at least.

 

[pemerton]

Perfectly possible yes, playing in a simulationist way doesn't require a simulationist game. Playing with a toy car doesn't mean you have to race, games/systems put pressure so that the games are a certauin way but that pressure can be ignored or overpowered depending on the players.

Your reference to "pressure" here makes me thing I may have not properly understood your earlier post - apologies for that!

I now am inferring (I hope correctly!) that when you referred to a "focus on the interaction and exploration of the 'game world' itself" you meant that sort of interaction/exploration for its own sake. (That is, independent of or without regard to any sort of "pressure".)

If I've got that right, then I think you're right back in the Forge/GNS/Ron Edwards meaning of "simulationism". And I agree that that's a reasonable sense of the term, in the context of RPGing. Though I think the interaction/exploration can be focused on things other than the setting. There can be exploration of character for its own sake (eg at least some approaches to Pendragon, with its rules for passions and traits and so on); of situation for its own sake (eg at least some approaches to CoC, where making sense of the mystery and horror doesn't have a "complete the adventure" focus but more of a "bask in the radiance of horrors humanity was not meant to know" focus); and of mechanical system for its own sake (eg at least some moments of Rolemaster play, where there is just pleasure in seeing how the mechanical interactions and consequences unfold).

Ron Edwards says (I know this sounds lame) in the Sim essay that exploration of the shared fiction must be sincere. To me that means you care about getting it right. You're at least curious about what's beyond verisimilitude. Otherwise, why are we playing sim in the first place? Verisimilitude is good enough to support other creative agendas, but the point of Sim is exploration for its own sake. You don't explore that which you already know. I don't think GNS would consider your attitude acceptable on the social contract level for a sim game.

I think sincerity can also mean a willingness to accept what is revealed. In the context of purist-for-system sim - that is, sim which prioritises exploration of the mechanical system itself (and RM is a poster child for this sort of play) - I think this mode of sincerity is important. Everyone at the table is committed to treating the mechanical system as accurate.

In my Rolemaster group, when we found the system produced results that we couldn't all commit to, we would change the system. Sometimes that was in favour of accuracy/realism; but often it was more about making the system hang together in a way that we could all accept as coherent, and hence that wouldn't strain our commitment to accepting the outcomes it produced.

 

[pemerton]

Even so, there is a sim aspect to REH's writing because a lot of things just kinda make sense. Even Conan needs an army to fight an army. It's not uncommon for a wizard trying to cast some elaborate and time-consuming spell to just be stabbed as a way of stopping it; in contrast, when powerful magic does actually happen, it carries a lot of weight.

I don't think that it really makes sense to talk about a "sim aspect" to fiction writing. Simulation is an attitude towards, or an approach towards, playing RPGs, that is concerned with how the various participants orient themselves towards the shared fiction (both as an input into, and an output of, their collective game-playing activity).

There is no shared fiction of that sort in fiction writing. REH is unequivocally the author; and you and I and other posters in this thread are unequivocally the audience/readers.

 

[Pedantic]

Well, I think I'd argue that those both are going to set some of how players expect things to work, and if you want to steer around them for any reason, you're fighting against that impulse at least.

I mean, I'm firmly in camp "we wrote 300 page books about it, you can read them." But also, that's honestly fine, as long there are answers. It's one thing for a player's expectation to not align with an outcome, it's quite another for there not to be a knowable rule that set the outcome, and that rule needs to then yield consistent results with further reasoning and exploration.

 

[GobHag]

I now am inferring (I hope correctly!) that when you referred to a "focus on the interaction and exploration of the 'game world' itself" you meant that sort of interaction/exploration for its own sake. (That is, independent of or without regard to any sort of "pressure".)

Yes, or at least a primary goal with other aspects being secondary(but might still be important)--Challenges must be overcome by interacting/exploring the game world, dramatic stories must be couched in the verisimilitude of the game world, I get to be this cool dude who is connected to this game world's history/lore

 

[MichaelSomething]

Which is fine, except a video game very rarely if ever has to narrate what that loss of hit points looks like in the fiction. The little red-green bar is enough.

In a TTRPG, however, we don't often have a red-green bar equivalent, expecting instead that the effects from taking hit point damage will be verbally narrated or described somehow, be it by the GM or a player or a combination of both. And that's IMO where a lot of the meat/not-meat debate comes from, the questions of a) what does this actually look like in the fiction and b) how does one narrate it.

Thank Gygax me and my friends were never picky on that end. Losing a lot of HP being bad was good enough for me.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I disagree. They are abstract only in the sense that they aren't specified until you use them, but all uses are sim. A giant scorpion attack that scratches you and inject poison simulates that experience. A sword swing that is parried a fraction of an inch before going through your throat simulates a hit that does skill damage. And so on.

Hit points are abstract in that way so that they CAN simulate all the different ways you could be damaged and not be constrained to Dragonball Z type hit points where everything bounces off your face until you fall unconscious.

Fate points are only abstract in the sense their effect isn't specified until you use them. And are abstract in that way so they CAN simulate all the different ways things could happen. Fate Points are therefore a great sim tool.