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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 5636358" data-attributes="member: 54707">Sometimes I think people totally misunderstand  what I mean by mentioning gaming as a "training simulation" and game realism as  a training tool, or even using gaming to play out real life problems. So I  thought I might explain my position a little better. This is not meant as a  criticism of your comment of course, merely a clarification of my  position.   For instance in an RPG like D&D you're not  gonna have exact one to one representations of the scenario you might face in  real life, nor will you have exact correspondence to the problems you'll face in  real life. Game events are representative, not exact copies of real life  events. Games often have imaginary correspondences and correlations, not actual  or exact ones, though sometimes they can come awfully close. (And I guess I  first noticed this type of correlation through playing historical wargames, but  I also early on noticed the real potential in RPGs in this respect, especially  because of the way in which RPGs play out. They are "open behavioral  systems.")   If I were running an Op to attack an offender who  has taken hostages then I could play out (and have) a real life simulation or a  training exercise to do so. That is often excellent training. However it is also  predicated upon a rather rigid script which assumes that the simulation perp  will recite as would a real life perp. This is rarely the case precisely because  good guys and bad guys rarely think and act alike (or they'd be the same in  nature and behavior, and they are not) and unless the training target has  studied offender behavior it's rarely a complete training scenario at best. And  that's not even counting things like mentally disturbed or radicalized  opponents, who are often very unpredictable (especially to those who typically  write training scenarios, and assume everyone wants everything to turn out well,  when this is not true at all). And finally there is always the scenario where  unexpected elements appear (such as citizens unaware of the danger) or targeting  mistakes, where the wrong target or locale has been picked, or the Intel is bad.  The last especially is rarely considered in training scenarios but it happens  often in real life. And I have also written "real life dangers and disasters"  like these into gaming scenarios on more than one occasion to hear a player say,  "man, I'd hate that to happen in real life." But because they've gamed it, they  know it as a possibility.   Terrorists, criminals, the deranged, etc. rarely  act and react as you expect them to and unless you get very good at copying  and/or anticipating their behavior most training simulations are rather stale,  rote, and predictable. Many times they are completely misleading, not  intentionally so, but merely because they are so rigid in conceptual structure.  Often they use completely artificial and inanimate targets who are not thinking,  reacting opponents - and this is the key to why gaming often allows a much  looser, but vastly superior "behavioral simulation." (Now, as triaging methods  have improved over time so have training simulations, but for the most part most  remain extremely primitive when it comes to considerations of the real  behavioral nature of the potential enemy faced.)   In game, action and reactions are limited only by  the referee's and player's imaginations. Often they are intentionally trying to  outwit and out-maneuver each other. So although an in-game attack by six Goth  desperate raiders is not like getting caught in a full-blown looting riot in  a gang neighborhood, it can and often is a much better "mental and behavioral  simulation" than any training scenario using static or artificial or narrowly  trained opponents, and teaches much more flexible, out-of-the-box thinking and  reaction methods to those running through the scenario. (This of course assumes  good, flexible, referees and smart, adaptable, players with interesting and  chanllegening situations to play.)   Plus in games you can often insert environmental  obstacles which make the mental preparation for a difficult situation far more  interesting and challenging than you can running through a basically static  training field you have faced a dozen times and already know by heart. That is  in a game you can constantly insert new situations, new characters, new  environments, new obstacles, new dangers and therefore if it is done correctly,  train harder (at least mentally, at skill use, and behaviorally) than the  situation you're likely to face in real life.   It is often said "Train like you fight," but it is  always much better to "Train harder than you fight."   So I am not saying games offer a one-to-one  correspondence between a real life scenario and an imaginary one. But they can  often offer a better than one-to-one correspondence, at least in certain  respects, than many current training scenarios and programs. Because they are  more flexible and unhindered by preconceived expectations and resource  limitations.   And the same is true in the same respect for games  used as Problem-Solving tools. Games are not problem-solving tools of exacting  realism, but then again if they were they'd offer only already known options of  operation. Instead games often allow you to step outside of the problem, or step  back into the problem, in a unique, unorthodox and non-linear approach to  problem resolution.   And that's what I chiefly mean when I say gaming  is so useful in these regards.</blockquote>

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