Why do RPGs have rules?

[Micah Sweet]

I see how it’s a priority for you. That if simulation as you’re describing it is in conflict with gamism or narrativism, then your priority is simulation.

I think my questions are more how is it achieved. Because how a dragon attacks is entirely up to the GM. There’s no baseline to simulate from. Yes, we can all suggest that certain tactics are likely better than others… but that assumes a lot about a dragon. There could be reasons the dragon has to land… perhaps it can only maintain flight for so long. Perhaps it has a massive ego and needs to crush foes directly. Any number of other traits or factors could come into play here.

But of it’s all just up to the GM, then I get that the GM is deciding what makes the most sense to them… but I’m just unsure how one outcome in a range is decided upon.

For instance:



What does this mean? How would one accomplish having lightning bolts strike where the players aren’t involved?

There could and should be reasons why a dragon wouldn't attack optimally, yes. But as the DM, if you're not thinking of those reasons when you're running the dragon, but are instead thinking it would be nice if the PCs without ranged attacks could contribute, then imo you've stopped simulating.

 

[AnotherGuy]

How do the players now that reaching out to those ex-Alliance members wouldn't (say) attract the attention of assassins who would kill them; or trigger a curse that has been set up to secure the sequestration of all ex-Alliance members from any who might try and ally with them against Tiamat? Or any of dozens or hundreds of other fictional possibilities?

Parking those examples, and let's instead say
(a) what is the difficulty and danger associated with the above exercise; and
(b) what is the opportunity cost gained/lost.

So for (a) as in most endeavours the PCs undertake, they are unaware of the difficulty and the danger that would exist. At the outset the danger for such exercise would presumably appear low - certainly lower than the quests offered within the AP;
For (b) things are less clear because several options appear before them, but time is a constraint and they have to manage which quests are likely to be most beneficial weighed up against difficulty and the expected cost in time.

The point I was making being that player skill exists, whether it be strategically in combat or thinking out the box and not selecting one of the obvious linear storylines offered within an AP.

To me, this also relates to the notion of simulation = GM extrapolates what they regard as plausible from both the revealed and the secret fiction. The GM knows whether or not the various possibilities I've mentioned are part of their notes. The players don't. So from the players' point of view, just about any outcome could be a manifestation of a "simulation".

Although I did not enter the discussion about simulation, I agree with the above.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

What does this mean? How would one accomplish having lightning bolts strike where the players aren’t involved?

I feel compelled to channel Toot-toot from the Dresden Files:

Sanya listened in bemusement at first, but then blinked, slid his sword away, and held up both hands. He said something that sounded somber and very formal, and only then did Toot’s ire seem to abate. He said one or two more harsh-sounding words toward Sanya, added a flick of his chin that screamed, So there, and turned back to me.

“Toot,” I said. “How is it that you speak Russian?”

He blinked at me. “Harry,” he said, as if the question made no sense at all, “you just speak it, don’t you? I mean, come on.” He gave me a formal bow and said, “How may I serve you, my liege?”​

How could you NOT make something happen, if you want it to be so? If you want lightning to always strike houses in AdventureWorld, then lightning always strikes houses in Adventure World. People will go outside when it rains. Sages will have theories about why. Etc.

 

[hawkeyefan]

There could and should be reasons why a dragon wouldn't attack optimally, yes. But as the DM, if you're not thinking of those reasons when you're running the dragon, but are instead thinking it would be nice if the PCs without ranged attacks could contribute, then imo you've stopped simulating.

Right, that makes sense as a priority of play. Or of GMing, at least. It’s likely not to be clear to the players. I’m not sure if that matters or not to folks… I expect it varies.

What do you think about the players’ view?

I feel compelled to channel Toot-toot from the Dresden Files:

Sanya listened in bemusement at first, but then blinked, slid his sword away, and held up both hands. He said something that sounded somber and very formal, and only then did Toot’s ire seem to abate. He said one or two more harsh-sounding words toward Sanya, added a flick of his chin that screamed, So there[/i[, and turned back to me. ​

​

“Toot,” I said. “How is it that you speak Russian?” ​

​

He blinked at me. “Harry,” he said, as if the question made no sense at all, “you just speak it, don’t you? I mean, come on.” He gave me a formal bow and said, “How may I serve you, my liege?”​

How could you NOT make something happen, if you want it to be so? If you want lightning to always strike houses in AdventureWorld, then lightning always strikes houses in Adventure World. People will go outside when it rains. Sages will have theories about why. Etc.

Well just deciding that something happens moves us away from what I think of as simulation. I think of simulation as starting with something external, right? Some process or event that we’re trying to replicate in some way.

So to use the dragon as an example, how do we replicate a fictional creature? I expect you’d say we give it some thought and ask “what would happen if…” as you mentioned. But then there are all those many factors to consider. The dragon’s intellect and cunning, its ability to communicate and work with others. Its stamina for flight, its ego and other personality quirks… all those factors that need to be considered, how are they determined?

It seems to me that all of that is up to the GM, right? If the GM is the source of all those factors, then they’re determining the thing that’s being simulated. And that doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to me.

So if you’ve decided your dragon is clever and cautious and can fly for extended periods with no problem, then you have your dragon attack the PCs from the air at a distance, never getting close enough for them to do much… you’re simulating.

If I imagine my dragon as cruel and megalomaniacal and overconfident with a desire to see its foes crushed in its claws, and so my dragon attacks from the air and then lands and closes with the PCs… I’m also simulating.

Are both of these true? If so, how do we keep it all straight? I mean, did I design my dragon that way for the purpose of including all the PCs in this scene? Or did I design it that way because it felt right? Is there tension there between simulation and narrative or gamist goals?

If the GM decides all the factors that need to be considered for simulation, then is it simulation?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Right, that makes sense as a priority of play. Or of GMing, at least. It’s likely not to be clear to the players. I’m not sure if that matters or not to folks… I expect it varies.

(A) What do you think about the players’ view?

Well just deciding that something happens moves us away from what I think of as simulation. (B) I think of simulation as starting with something external, right? Some process or event that we’re trying to replicate in some way.

So to use the dragon as an example, how do we replicate a fictional creature? I expect you’d say we give it some thought and ask “what would happen if…” as you mentioned. But then there are all those many factors to consider. The dragon’s intellect and cunning, its ability to communicate and work with others. Its stamina for flight, its ego and other personality quirks… all those factors that need to be considered, how are they determined?

It seems to me that all of that is up to the GM, right? If the GM is the source of all those factors, then they’re determining the thing that’s being simulated. And that doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to me.

(C) So if you’ve decided your dragon is clever and cautious and can fly for extended periods with no problem, then you have your dragon attack the PCs from the air at a distance, never getting close enough for them to do much… you’re simulating.

If I imagine my dragon as cruel and megalomaniacal and overconfident with a desire to see its foes crushed in its claws, and so my dragon attacks from the air and then lands and closes with the PCs… I’m also simulating.

(D) Are both of these true? If so, how do we keep it all straight? I mean, did I design my dragon that way for the purpose of including all the PCs in this scene? (E) Or did I design it that way because it felt right? (F) Is there tension there between simulation and narrative or gamist goals?

If the GM decides all the factors that need to be considered for simulation, then is it simulation?

(A) I mentioned a couple posts upthread that I don't think players need to have bought into the notion of simulationism per se in order for it to be simulationism--you don't need to explain GDS to them. They do need to be okay with the implications or they'll have a bad time, e.g. expecting the dragon to land and give them a fair fight but then it doesn't. (Honestly I haven't ever had this be a problem for long, because unhappy players IME adapt to the reality of the gameworld. E.g. if it's 5E, the barbarian's player makes a fiendlock and starts playing her more often than the barbarian because she can hit flying creatures with Eldritch Blast.)

(B) I actually don't necessarily start with something external. If I'm trying to build a reasonable fantasy ecology and economy, for example, I start by trying to reason out food production, population density, internal tech levels, and social structures. And because I'm not strictly simulationist about worldbuilding, I inject a constraint that there needs to be a compelling reason for the players to kill monsters and get rewarded for it, instead of e.g. getting arrested, or starving to death as unemployed hobos. I also like it if society is kind of corrupt and selfish (like Ebenezer Scrooge or worse), so that players have the opportunity to make a positive difference if they so choose (helping widows avoid starvation, buying children out of slavery and teaching them to read, etc.).

That doesn't sound to me like what you're referring to as something external.

(C) Yes to C.

(D) That looks like a yes too. Different dragons behaving different ways looks fine to me.

(E) Beats me. As I mentioned, I'm personally less strongly simulationist when worldbuilding than when running the game. At the point where the dragon is attacking some humans, I'm no longer thinking about WHY I made a megalomaniacal dragon who likes melee combat.

(F) Yes there's tension. The whole point of the Threefold Model (GDS) is to give us a language for describing this tension so we can talk about the tradeoffs and effects. Unlike Ron Edwards's GNS model, there's no stigma of "incoherency" cast on anyone who likes a non-pure mix of some of each G/D/S. Everyone is probably a mix of all three! I know this may sound like it conflicts with (E) above but if I thought hard about any given dragon I could probably tell you whether I had my G hat on or my S hat when I invented any given feature of that dragon.

 

[clearstream]

For pemerton's sake let me clarify that my, FormerlyHemlock's, stance on the bolded point is the opposite: to the extent that the GM's motivations are solely about faithful extrapolation within-world and not with metagame factors D or G, the game is in S mode.

Ah, right. I recall we discussed that up thread and I agreed with you that GM generally shouldn't build the world around metagame concerns. I took @pemerton to be asking - generally - can GM make use of non-diagetic mechanics? CR being offered as an example. The answer is "yes". GM will often make use of non-diagetic mechanics.

Reflecting on your comment here, I see that their meaning probably was as you have taken it. Something like - should GM use CR to ensure constant encounter fairness no matter where the characters go? To which the answer as others have said is an obvious "no". That would be building the world around a metagame concern.

I've honestly never given much thought before to whether player attitudes or metagaming can affect how simulationist a game is. I do not mind in the slightest if players burn trolls with fire based on player knowledge, even for PCs who are completely new. PCs have lived for decades or centuries in their world; who am I to say they couldn't possibly know anything about trolls?

There are moments surrounding play in which players might also use such mechanics. During play, players can find that reminding themselves overtly about such mechanics will be jarring to the goal of immersion. Exploiting them, doubly so. That doesn't apply to GM as referee.

Your trolls example I would contend is not one of metagaming, because you have decided that characters living in a world know something about it.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Your trolls example I would contend is not one of metagaming, because you have decided that characters living in a world know something about it.

More like I haven't changed my trolls to subvert player knowledge, and am studiously neutral on the question of what the characters know on this subject or have discussed among themselves while the players and myself weren't watching.

(If I want the characters to definitely know something I will find a way to tell them onscreen, which might be as simple as a Physiology check.)

For example, if I decided that trolls in this world are made out of nitroglycerin and explode violently when exposed to flame, I know that players don't know that at the metagame level (unless they guess based on friendly conversation in another context, like a movie we watched together!). I may or may not go out of my way to make sure the characters know.

What's important to me here is that I'm not obligating my players to have to pretend not to know things they actually do know in order to roleplay effectively. They can choose to pretend ignorance of a given fact if they find it easy and fun; but if it's not easy and fun I'm not going to make their lives harder by asking them to roleplay a version of themselves who is roleplaying the character without that bit of knowledge. Too Inception!!!

 

[clearstream]

Well just deciding that something happens moves us away from what I think of as simulation. I think of simulation as starting with something external, right? Some process or event that we’re trying to replicate in some way.

That sounds right to me.

So to use the dragon as an example, how do we replicate a fictional creature? I expect you’d say we give it some thought and ask “what would happen if…” as you mentioned. But then there are all those many factors to consider. The dragon’s intellect and cunning, its ability to communicate and work with others. Its stamina for flight, its ego and other personality quirks… all those factors that need to be considered, how are they determined?

It seems to me that all of that is up to the GM, right? If the GM is the source of all those factors, then they’re determining the thing that’s being simulated. And that doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to me.

So if you’ve decided your dragon is clever and cautious and can fly for extended periods with no problem, then you have your dragon attack the PCs from the air at a distance, never getting close enough for them to do much… you’re simulating.

If I imagine my dragon as cruel and megalomaniacal and overconfident with a desire to see its foes crushed in its claws, and so my dragon attacks from the air and then lands and closes with the PCs… I’m also simulating.

Are both of these true? If so, how do we keep it all straight? I mean, did I design my dragon that way for the purpose of including all the PCs in this scene? Or did I design it that way because it felt right? Is there tension there between simulation and narrative or gamist goals?

If the GM decides all the factors that need to be considered for simulation, then is it simulation?

If you go in with the premise that GM decisions cannot be counted as simulation, then you will (as I have said to others above) be left with no explanation. You've implicitly ruled out from first principles the possibility that "GM decides" can equate with simulation through the way in which they decide.

So lets start there, yes. GM decides. What's at issue is how they decide. Above I said that I could not tell from one written example whether simulationism was being performed, and I queried what was meant by "extrapolates". The quick definition I find of extrapolates is - "extend the application of (a method or conclusion) to an unknown situation by assuming that existing trends will continue or similar methods will be applicable." Some are content to leave that as an "authorial decision" which seems to resist further scrutiny. Perhaps some sort of dualistic explanation involving a creative spirit comes into play.

Setting aside the possibility of a creative spirit that pops ideas into our heads at the moment we need them, I am going to offer the wild thesis that what GM decides is motivated. Above have been discussed the possibility of motivations that are non-simulationist and I agree that what GM says next can be motivated by a diversity of goals and concerns. That is, I agree that non-simulationist play is possible.

As to simulationist play, it relies on assuming, adopting and establishing referents and relationships. A model, if you will. This is a process as fluid and incomplete as thought. When the GM is asked to decide what the dragon will do (where dragons have been established as a referent) they deliberate upon its properties and relationships, and come to a verdict about how it will behave. It will behave as dragons do, and there shall be a behaviour distinctive of dragons (or at least, this kind of dragon) in the world, which will go on to be true at all places in times (barring impinging circumstances.)

Very often GM will not rely on their cognitive powers alone to achieve that. Game texts, lore, additional game design, often in incompletely externalised form. That is, a sketch of a mechanic for dragon behaviour might connect with a partial model of dragon behaviour GM has in mind. From time to time GM will be tasked to judge things outside their current model (which, it bears restating, is necessarily and pragmatically incomplete.) They do so with respect for the coherence of their model i.e. within the scope of their conferred expertise in the imaginary domain.

I can see two ways this can be misunderstood (and there are no doubt others.) One is on metaphysical grounds. As I alluded to above, under certain world views all of this is unnecessary and improbable. A creative spirit (or something equally inscrutable) really does pop ideas in our heads. Perhaps the spirit can be informed by frameworks and develop feelings about what sorts of ideas are good ones, but this must always fall short of any sort of dispositional model. Another is taking the differences between model representation on organic neurological structures and model representation on other architectures to rule out the former. Especially without making any allowance for the playful purpose (low-stakes) and constraints (comparatively low-investment) of the former. There might even be an assumption that all this has to play out in a highly self-conscious mode of thinking. That, too is mistaken.

 

[clearstream]

More like I haven't changed my trolls to subvert player knowledge, and am studiously neutral on the question of what the characters know on this subject or have discussed among themselves while the players and myself weren't watching.

(If I want the characters to definitely know something I will find a way to tell them onscreen, which might be as simple as a Physiology check.)

For example, if I decided that trolls in this world are made out of nitroglycerin and explode violently when exposed to flame, I know that players don't know that at the metagame level (unless they guess based on friendly conversation in another context, like a movie we watched together!). I may or may not go out of my way to make sure the characters know.

What's important to me here is that I'm not obligating my players to have to pretend not to know things they actually do know in order to roleplay effectively. They can choose to pretend ignorance of a given fact if they find it easy and fun; but if it's not easy and fun I'm not going to make their lives harder by asking them to roleplay a version of themselves who is roleplaying the character without that bit of knowledge. Too Inception!!!

That's interesting, because on surface you are allowing a metagame concern (player knowledge from other campaigns) to influence your world building assumptions (that characters in this world know something about trolls, and that trolls in this world might fit that knowledge.)

One way to see that is as a pragmatic compromise, rather than necessarily ideal. Another way is to just note that players are going to come into the game world with all kinds of assumptions that - ordinarily - are just going to stand. Things fall down, for example. It's a game. The simulationist isn't looking to build a universe from first principles.

 

[loverdrive]

RPG playing is a skill like any other. You can reject truth all you want, but it won't change.

Yeah, maybe. A skill that is impossible to test (and one that bears exactly zero difference on the outcome of the game anyway)

What a ranked competitive leaderboard for dnd would even look like?