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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dbm" data-source="post: 9813279" data-attributes="member: 8014">I think it is useful to remember <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong" target="_blank">George Box</a> when thinking about simulation: “all models are wrong, some are useful”. It’s often applied to physical laws like Newtonian Physics versus General Relativity - both will tell you what effect gravity will have on a body and while General Relativity might give you a more ‘accurate’ result it is much more complex to generate and the Newtonian calculation is adequate for most people’s application.That’s why the complexity of rules isn’t a decider for ‘simulation or not’ in my book. There is another deciding factor and for me that is whether a character can extrapolate meaningfully from what they are experiencing or have presented before them. That starts with non-controversial things like objects fall, fire is hot and builds up to whatever extreme or novel circumstances they may find themselves in.For me, the benefit of this as a player is that I can take all the evidence my character knows from the game world and then make meaningful choices when presented new things. A big monster is likely to be tough, strong and hopefully slow as big things usually are, for example. This is what makes simulationist systems particularly useful for exploratory games about going out, finding new things, and interacting with them.Critically, when I make a choice I feel that it was mine to make and I’m not relying on the GM / table thinking ‘that’s cool - let’s go with it to make a great story’. That’s perfectly fine for a system which is aiming for genre emulation, but that is different from world simulation.</blockquote>

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