Why do RPGs have rules?

[clearstream]

You can read the essay on this:

Setting-creation and universe-play mechanisms​

Another derivation of the Purist for System approach brings the Setting creation process directly into play itself. The System-driven elements of the Setting are as "active" as any particular character might be, during play as well as during preparation. Basically, the setting is played, even created, as a part of regular play.​

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Boink! I just realized that the original Traveller, or at least one way to play it, represents an example of this approach. Star system and planet creation are written right into the process of play, such that adventures and missions become not only a means of enjoying and improving characters, but also a means of enjoying and basically mapping the game-space.​

Using this sort of game, you are not going to get Middle Earth or Glorantha, which are both highly curated worlds intended to generate particular thematic experiences.

I mention such procedures as candidate lusory means only. Given that "simulationism" is distinctive because world facts are predicated by the internal logic of the world, just so long as that remains king what precludes a highly curated world intended to generate particular thematic experiences?

An alternative is that games like RuneQuest that have been held up as exemplars of simulationism are not simulationist. Another is that the simulationist principle is not yet fully defined.

 

[Bedrockgames]

That's not the issue. Upthread, you posted (and I quoted) "I based everything on how medieval villages worked and how interpersonal relationships between humans work." The relevant issue here is not trust, it's expertise.

I would say trust is huge here, much more so than expertise (at least for me as a player). I have been in Rob's games and the reason I enjoy them, and the reason the world he presents feels real, and the reason you feel like you are really there, comes down to how he thinks about the role of the GM, how he behaves as a GM towards the players and that he strives for a consistent world. He is also one of the more knowledgeable GMs I have met on real world subjects, but what this conversation misses is this isn't about creating a 100% true simulation of reality, it about creating a lifelike world the players can inhabit.

In terms of expertise on the Middle Ages, that is obviously going to be tricky as the middle ages cover an enormous expanse of time, over vast geographic and cultural regions and our understanding of it is constantly changing. The key thing for me is consistency not expertise. I did take a number of medieval history courses in college, certainly not an expert, but the medieval world Rob presented, obviously shaped to certain D&D-ilke fantasy conceits, was highly navigable. He put considerable thought and weight into institutions. Were they accurate to what a scholar might want? I don't recall, but to me that wasn't the point. The point was having institutions that felt real, made sense, and operated in ways consistent enough that you try to function within them as a player. Having it based on real history also helped because that gave it added depth and made it recognizable. So where the interpersonal relationships thing became useful was our characters had a role inside those institutions, and those were connected to things like our family relationships. It all felt very plausible, immersive and like we had deeper connections to the setting that enabled a better scenario to unfold

 

[Bedrockgames]

OK. I don't really know how to make this fit with "I based everything on how mediaeval villages worked". That seems like a historical thing.

I can't speak for Rob, but my impression is he is saying it is a fantasy setting that draws inspiration from history. That is very different from running a historical campaign. I've run a number of those and they are a different beast entirely in terms of research (I always end up torturing myself when I run historical campaigns because I want to know all the information I can about this specific the players are passing through or about some other relevant detail and that kind of research can often take more than the hours of prep time a GM normally has). But being historically minded with your research in a setting is different. Like Rob said he uses it to fill in a lot of key details but there will be huge gaps, which are areas you leave to the imagination. There are also going to be parts of the setting you intentionally want to be different. Some people take history whole cloth, others just use it as a spring board to further groundedness and ideas. It also isn't something that needs to be comprehensive. What these details add is a word I know a lot in this thread will hate: verisimilitude. It also makes for more depth to engage in and embeds real world processes, simplified granted, that makes for a more consistent and believable world. Personally I don't need the GM to be an expert in everything. I once had a GM, to be clear not Rob, who totally understand trade and politics in the historical periods he was drawing from (largely the ancient and medieval worlds). But his understanding of ancient religion was highly anachronistic (which as a history student I picked up on, but it wasn't immersion killing because I wasn't immersed in a setting that was 100% faithful to the Roman pantheon and to Roman religion, I was immersed in the world the GM was presenting to us).

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't really follow this. I would trust MI Finley or Inga Clendinnen, above the typical FRPG GM, to be able to imagine the range of human personalities that might be encountered in a given social situation from a non-modern historical period.

My own experience of discussions on RPG forums suggests that most FRPG GMs don't have a very strong sense of those possibilities at all.

I think your bar is not any where near where most people into this style of gaming would set it. So if you were to be into what we are calling simlulationism (which I points towards the style of gaming people like me and Rob often gravitate towards, but isn't really the language I think either of us would use to describe it), you may well need to find a GM with a mind and background like MI Finley to enjoy I don't know. All I need is someone who puts thought into making characters with motivations that feel believable. I am not particularly worried about whether they line up with what experts in different fields might say about human personalities (just the GM basing it on what they have seen living in the world is enough for me). If the GM wants to go that extra step and research psychology or other areas to flesh out characters, that is fine, but I am not looking for NPCs who can be clinically diagnosed. I am looking for NPCs who act like people I have seen in the real world.

Also it is worth pointing out this area of play in this style is rarely an issue. It is one of the parts of play where I almost never hear anyone complain (and it isn't like the people I interact with in gaming don't voice their criticisms when they have them). So this argument probably isn't one that is likely to persuade or have much relevance to them.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It very clearly says it was created by angels via a song to achieve Eru's vision. Does that sound like a geological process to you? It sounds like magic to me.

The formation of mountains is a geological process. You said that Tolkien describing that process as angels singing songs was a simulation.

Or, at least, that's how it read. If you meant something else, what did you mean?

 

[aramis erak]

For a lot of people, for a long time, learning to RPG has mean learning the tenets/ethos/techniques of "sim" play. Roughly: the GM creates a world and establishes some scenario/possibility within that world; the players create PCs whom the GM frames into that scenario/possibility; the players start declaring actions; the GM has overall authority/responsibility for "what happens next".

I don't agree. Many people are coming in via groups using AWE/PBTA, and a lot of 90's and 00's players came in via WWG's WoD systems. Most of that later might be doing sim, but when one starts with VTM 1E, there are constant reminders to allow for various narrative bypasses - both NumDice>Diff && no roll = 1 Success, and spend 1 WP to add +1 success to either method (roll or NumDice > diff).

Most D&D players are getting game first, not sim-first, especially given the "build optimizers" subset of players, who are maybe 20-25% of the various people I've had show up at table when running D&D AL tables. Especially since 5e basically discounts the simulationist agenda... the bounded accuracy is gamism. The balanced encounters are gamism.

Another variation, coming up in recent pages of this thread, is the extent to which the GM uses systematic methods (like weather charts, random events charts, whatever) rather than unfettered invention. The former are often seen as "more sim" or "more realistic" because they disclaim authorship.

Many of those are gamist, as the intent is to be interesting challenges, not of need sensible for the setting.
Similarly encounter tables.
How they're set up affects the utility for sim.

Hexcrawling and random encounter tables can be simulationist, or can be procedural gamist. Traveller is largely "because they make good tools for stories." (very close paraphrase of Marc Miller.) They're there for a dramatic utility... tho' many assume them sim and others assume them gamist. Really, Traveller is a pretty middle of the triangle game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Okay, so it was a legal requirement. In gaming, GMs don't have the legal requirement, so the benefits of high fidelity (e.g. for falling damage) take a back seat to usability (being able to actually compute what happens to Bob after falling off a 30' siege ladder without stopping the flow of play), so we tend to use very simple simulations with lots of things pre-computed. Which is the answer to the thread question BTW: that's why we have rules in RPGs, to make play simpler and more predictable for GMs and players.

You acknowledged yourself that the key characteristic of a simulation is using a model to update itself (you didn't say this part, but updates are done using certain rules and inputs). I get the sense that in your business, the simulations were closed simulations that took no inputs, but in other kinds of simulations including training simulations and gameplay, user or player input is one of the things which, together with the model state, is used to update the model.

Your 1980s experience has led you to believe that high-fidelity safety simulations are the only kinds of simulations, but that's not the case.

This is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT. Calling what GMs do, in any meaningful sense whatsoever, simulation is simply ridiculous and brings the term to utter meaninglessness. You have no model, and no simulative process at all. So, as I have said before, using the term 'simulationist' etc. is up to you, but trying to then draw some sort of conclusions on the basis of an idea that what you're doing IS a simulation, category error. That's the last word, sorry. Why don't we all just disengage from this pointless sim discussion? It will never go anywhere. I don't find your position compelling, and you are clearly not going to alter it, so we might as well discuss other things where we might gain some useful insight instead.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT. Calling what GMs do, in any meaningful sense whatsoever, simulation is simply ridiculous and brings the term to utter meaninglessness. You have no model, and no simulative process at all. So, as I have said before, using the term 'simulationist' etc. is up to you, but trying to then draw some sort of conclusions on the basis of an idea that what you're doing IS a simulation, category error. That's the last word, sorry. Why don't we all just disengage from this pointless sim discussion? It will never go anywhere. I don't find your position compelling, and you are clearly not going to alter it, so we might as well discuss other things where we might gain some useful insight instead.

I totally get not agreeing. People sometimes have to agree to disagree. I don't get the angry dismissiveness of these kinds of posts. People use words in different ways. Someone calling a game style simulationism, doesn't have to mean they are accurately modeling physics or something. We are simply talking about approaches to and ways of thinking about RPGs.

 

[clearstream]

This is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT. Calling what GMs do, in any meaningful sense whatsoever, simulation is simply ridiculous and brings the term to utter meaninglessness. You have no model, and no simulative process at all. So, as I have said before, using the term 'simulationist' etc. is up to you, but trying to then draw some sort of conclusions on the basis of an idea that what you're doing IS a simulation, category error. That's the last word, sorry. Why don't we all just disengage from this pointless sim discussion? It will never go anywhere. I don't find your position compelling, and you are clearly not going to alter it, so we might as well discuss other things where we might gain some useful insight instead.

Like others, I don't agree with your take. Your concerns as to precision and detail don't amount to definitions of what is/is-not a simulation.

 

[Maxperson]

Dunno - was Eru a geologist?

No idea. You don't have to be when you are all powerful and can just make the world match your vision with a song.