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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7731683" data-attributes="member: 42582">This is a mixture of confusing and error.Gygaxian &quot;advancement by wealth&quot; isn't a simulation of anything, and the rulebook (DMG, somewhere around p 81) tells us so. It's a system for rewarding skill in playing the game.If you replace it with &quot;advancement by fighting&quot; then you get a game that rewards skill at combat design and play rather than skill at dungeon-delving - but no version of AD&amp;D has sufficiently rich combat rules for the requisite differences in skill to be demonstrated, and hence for this to be really tenable.You could equally have a system that rewards XP for every monster/NPC befriended, and that would be just as quanitifiable. (Charm spells make people friendly - it's in the description. So do successful reaction rolls, per the relevant charts.)The number of gp in a sack, and the nunmber of hit points whittled away, aren't uniquely quanitiable. They just happen to be what Gygax quantified in his original design, for his purposes. The bizarre reification of them by players of subsequent editions which retain them simply out of habit or emulation is something I continue to be mystified by.But if you want a simulation then RuneQuest is obviously superior, and extremeley workable. Even Burning Wheel is superior, although not designed to serve a primarily simulationist purpose.I've just been looking at the Book of Lairs II (published by TSR in 1987). Every &quot;lair&quot; begins with a list of &quot;hooks&quot;, which say things like &quot;If there is an elven PC, a hybsil from the forest comes to him/her and tells him/her of the Hybsils' troubles with the gnolls&quot;. That is framing the PCs into an encounter. It's a pretty basic bit of GMing technology.This is also bizarre, but for different reasons.(1) It posits an aim of play (&quot;entering the dungeon&quot;) which makes virtually no sense in simulationist terms.(2) It avoids all questions of &quot;framing&quot; by simply eliding them - somehow the PCs know a dungeon is there (but no one ever walked up to them and told them, or asked them to do something about it), and somehow the PCs have existence and motivations (but the world beyond them never actually acted upon them in some proactive fashion), but the dungeon itsel is inert until the players have their PCs interact with it.It is possible to play a game that exemplifies (2) - Moldvay Basic is the best published example, but the whole of classic D&amp;D is all about this style of play - but it only avoid GM &quot;framing&quot; by compleltely abandoning any pretensions of world simulation.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7731683, member: 42582"] This is a mixture of confusing and error. Gygaxian "advancement by wealth" isn't a [I]simulation[/I] of anything, and the rulebook (DMG, somewhere around p 81) tells us so. It's a system for rewarding skill in playing the game. If you replace it with "advancement by fighting" then you get a game that rewards skill at combat design and play rather than skill at dungeon-delving - but no version of AD&D has sufficiently rich combat rules for the requisite differences in skill to be demonstrated, and hence for this to be really tenable. You could equally have a system that rewards XP for every monster/NPC befriended, and that would be just as quanitifiable. (Charm spells make people friendly - it's in the description. So do successful reaction rolls, per the relevant charts.) The number of gp in a sack, and the nunmber of hit points whittled away, aren't uniquely quanitiable. They just happen to be what Gygax quantified in his original design, for his purposes. The bizarre reification of them by players of subsequent editions which retain them simply out of habit or emulation is something I continue to be mystified by. But if you want a [I]simulation[/I] then RuneQuest is obviously superior, and extremeley workable. Even Burning Wheel is superior, although not designed to serve a primarily simulationist purpose. I've just been looking at the Book of Lairs II (published by TSR in 1987). Every "lair" begins with a list of "hooks", which say things like "If there is an elven PC, a hybsil from the forest comes to him/her and tells him/her of the Hybsils' troubles with the gnolls". That is framing the PCs into an encounter. It's a pretty basic bit of GMing technology. This is also bizarre, but for different reasons. (1) It posits an aim of play ("entering the dungeon") which makes virtually no sense in simulationist terms. (2) It avoids all questions of "framing" by simply eliding them - somehow the PCs know a dungeon is there (but no one ever walked up to them and told them, or asked them to do something about it), and somehow the PCs have existence and motivations (but the world beyond them never actually acted upon them in some proactive fashion), but the dungeon itsel is inert until the players have their PCs interact with it. It is possible to play a game that exemplifies (2) - Moldvay Basic is the best published example, but the whole of classic D&D is all about this style of play - but it only avoid GM "framing" by compleltely abandoning any pretensions of world simulation. [/QUOTE]

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