What sort of simulationism do YOU like?

[loseth]

What do people want when they say they are simulationist? Some people want realism or verisimilitude.

Realism (Encarta definition): The simulation of something in a way that accurately resembles [reality].

Verisimilitude (Oxford definition, my emphasis): The APPEARANCE of being true or real.

Verisimilitude is simple enough—it’s when the designers of a game try to make it feel like it imitates reality, whether or not it actually does. On rare occasions, achieving verisimilitude may actually involve going against reality because the average player’s beliefs about what is true may conflict with what is actually true (this is especially likely, IME, to be the case when it comes to weapons and combat).

But realism isn’t as straightforward as verisimilitude. In my travels in the lands of RPG game design, I’ve found that people often use ‘realism’ to mean three different things: realistic detail, realistic probabilities and both. So, let’s establish two different kinds of ‘realism’:

Realism (detail): Providing a mechanically-detailed game system that marries up its mechanical detail with narrative details of things that really could happen (adjusting for the non-existence of a small number of game conceits).

Realism (probability): Providing a game system that causes things to happen with roughly the same frequency they would in reality (again adjusting for a small number of fantastic conceits of the setting), maybe with lots of detail, maybe not.

So, for example, FBI: the Roleplaying Game’s designers may have spent weeks on end scouring reports of FBI shoot-outs and found that an agent’s chance of dying in a fire-fight is 0.8% and their chances of suffering a non-fatal injury 2.7%, while the chance of any given criminal dying in a fire-fight is 2.8% and their chances of taking a non-fatal injury 6.3%. But the game doesn’t focus much on combat, so whenever there’s a fire-fight, you just roll d100 for each character, with agents dying on a 1 and being injured on a 2-4, while criminals die on a 1-3 and are injured on a 4-9. This system has very high realism (probability) but low realism (detail). I’ve seen other game systems (won’t name names to avoid a flame war) that claim to be very realistic, but actually have very high realism (detail) combined with low realism (probability).

However, sometimes simulationists want a system that simulates something other than reality. More often than not, that ‘something other’ is the tropes of the particular genre they’re playing in. So, for example, if dragons in Western pseudo-medieval fantasy are usually powerful and dangerous, and you’re playing a Western medieval fantasy RPG in which all dragons are cute and cuddly, you might complain that the game is failing to simulate genre well. Similarly, if superheroes in comics & movies always survive falls of a few hundred feet or less, but your game has falling rules that put them at risk of dying from such falls, then again you could say that the game is not very simulationist in terms of genre emulation.

There may be other forms of simulation, but these are the ones I’m most interested in.

So, posters of EN world, I ask you: which sorts of simulation do you like in your games?

NOTE: None of these types of simulation are mutually exclusive, so the poll is multi-choice.

 

[Fenes]

I want internal consistency in a genre. I do not want to have to ask myself why there are castles if every second mage can cast Fly. I don't want to ask myself why there are famines if there are enough clerics around to create food and water for 10 times the population. And so on.

 

[Reynard]

So, posters of EN world, I ask you: which sorts of simulation do you like in your games?

NOTE: None of these types of simulation are mutually exclusive, so the poll is multi-choice.

I chose versimilitude (most important) and genre emulation (with the caveat that most genre's I shoot for aren't realistic, but are internally plausible and often "gritty").

 

[Psion]

I went none of the above.

What simulation is desirable in a game varies strongly depending on the interests of the players and the ease of implementing the simulation playable. Realistic damage resolution is satisfying, but demanding to implement. Realistic economics seems to be a pet adoration of some gamers, but I personally think it's not worth the effort.

So, my philosophy here is to spend your rules time simulating things that the players actually care about and can be done without undue loss of playability.

Genre emulation is another sticky wicket. I think it's a motivating cause for writing and playing a game in the first place, but too many people was rules effort simulating something that happened in a book or show that only happened due to the existence of author fiat or is a function of the media (book, film, etc.) more than the genre. I call this "media emulation" and think that the temptation to engage in it should be resisted. Stamped out, really. You should only be borrowing stuff from books or movies for your game if it works well in the context of a game.

 

[Derren]

I want internal consistency in a genre. I do not want to have to ask myself why there are castles if every second mage can cast Fly. I don't want to ask myself why there are famines if there are enough clerics around to create food and water for 10 times the population. And so on.

Seconded.

 

[Dan Bell]

Since HarnWorld has magic, monsters, orcs, dwarves & elves I picked "Verisimilitude". Harn's trademarks are internal consistency & detail so those might work also, but the fact it does have the above keep it from being a puesdo historical type of setting.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

I want internal consistency in a genre. I do not want to have to ask myself why there are castles if every second mage can cast Fly. I don't want to ask myself why there are famines if there are enough clerics around to create food and water for 10 times the population. And so on.

Thirded.

 

[jdrakeh]

I chose versimilitude (most important) and genre emulation. . .

Same here, though my own caveat is that verisimilitude doesn't matter much to me in D&D as it isn't at all designed to offer that kind of support (so its absence is no big deal). When I want verisimilitude, I play HarnMaster or other games designed specificaly to facilitate it.

 

[Merova]

I went none of the above.

Genre emulation is another sticky wicket. I think it's a motivating cause for writing and playing a game in the first place, but too many people was rules effort simulating something that happened in a book or show that only happened due to the existence of author fiat or is a function of the media (book, film, etc.) more than the genre. I call this "media emulation" and think that the temptation to engage in it should be resisted. Stamped out, really. You should only be borrowing stuff from books or movies for your game if it works well in the context of a game.

I think that the problem that you're describing comes from an incoherent mix of simulationist and narrativist desires. In simulationist genre emulation, the goal is to explore the world as defined within broad genre conventions. Good examples of this type of game includes Mutants & Masterminds, Call of Cthulhu d20, Skulll & Bones, and Testament. These games provide all of the basic mechanics required to emulate the general feel of an established genre. However, they don't cover every particular stunt that may be found within the source material, but that is not their premise. The focus is exploartionism, not imitationism. Examples of failed simulationist genre emulation includes Dragon Lords of Melnibone, the Foundation superhero game, and the Book of Erotic Fantasy.

In narrativist genre emulation, the goal is to allow player to craft a narrative that enables a perfect duplication of all the particular narrative elements found within the genre's established canon. This is an important part of playing within a game world that has an established "continuity," such as the Star Trek universe, the Buffyverse, or the DC/Marvel universes. Good examples of this type of game includes Sorcerer, My Life with Master, and Unknown Armies. The mechanical design allows the players to influence the particulars of a narrative event, shaping it to duplicate an event out of the genre canon. Examples of failed narrativist genre emulation includes Whispering Vault and Amber Diceless Roleplaying.

I enjoy playing and running either style of game, but their goals are different. To blend the two styles is a mistake, IMO.

---Olivia

 

[loseth]

I chose versimilitude (most important) and genre emulation (with the caveat that most genre's I shoot for aren't realistic, but are internally plausible and often "gritty").

I think that sums up my preferences nicely. I basically don't mind suspending my disbelief concerning the main fantastic conceits of a setting (e.g. magic exists and is controllable, dragons are real, etc.), but I want the fictional world to work in a way that would seem 'real' if those fantastic conceits were true. Bending reality outside the main conceits or failing to follow through with the logical consequences of those conceits starts to hurt my ability to immerse.