Why do RPGs have rules?

[FormerlyHemlock]

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.

False. You have a model (the gameworld) and may have a principled procedure for updating it using itself and some set of inputs (stochastic inputs and/or player inputs). To the extent that these principled procedures are the source of model updates, that's a simulation. It's not a high fidelity engineering-oriented simulation like the ones you used back in the 1980s, but it's not supposed to be. You simply have an incorrect and overly narrow conception of what a simulation is.

"That chihuahua is not in any meaningful sense a dog. Calling him one brings the term to utter meaninglessness. I had a dog in the 1980s, and if he hadn't been strong enough to pull a 200 lb. sled people would have died! You have no dog there 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.

Yeah, I'm done there. I'm glad my curiosity is satisfied now but there's nothing more to say. Thanks for explaining your background.

 

[Maxperson]

The formation of mountains is a geological process.

Show me the geological process whereby the mountains form via song and magic? Because if you can't, then you also cannot say that it happened in Middle Earth, because popping into being fully formed to meet a vision is NOT a geological process.

You said that Tolkien describing that process as angels singing songs was a simulation.

It simulates how his world was created, yes. It was created through magical song to achieve his vision. Nothing about geology anywhere there.

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

I meant what I said. That you assume from my post that the song created a geological process to make the mountains tells me a lot about why you are having such trouble understanding me or my playstyle. It appears that you are adding things to the style and posts that just plain aren't there which causes yourself confusion.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I've bolded two words. In the quoted passage they seem to be treated as meaning the same thing, but that doesn't seem right.

Not to me. To me "fits" seems to be an informal metric, and "gives priority" appears to apply to a decision which uses that metric as one of several inputs to (ultimately) decide whether the bolt of lightning strikes the house or elsewhere.

I can tell you that I narrated something that struck me as conforming to the established fiction - rain, and gloom, and a dramatically failed attempt to bind an evil spirit into a magician's spell book. It seems that you, @Maxperson and @FormerlyHemlock regard what I did as non-simulationist.

I would say you're attributing opinions to me, again, which I have never expressed. I don't have an interest in drilling down on the details of how magic works in your world and how often it strikes houses.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

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.

And that in turn aids roleplaying, because you can better use your natural intuitions as a human being for problem solving.

 

[robertsconley]

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 think this from later in your post illustrates why trust is important.

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.

You respect Ms Clendinnen knowledge and background enough to trust her that how she handles the roleplaying will be and feel authentic. Trust her judgment as to what rules the campaign will use to reflect how the setting works and so on. This does imply being a blind follower but rather interacting with a colleague who has demonstrated they are well-versed in the subject matter.

I am simply going on what you said: that you based everything on how mediaeval villages worked. The "available information" here includes extensive scholarly research. Making "the best of" that means engaging with it in a serious fashion.

Now maybe you meant that "I based everything on my rough-and-ready sense of how mediaeval villages worked". I don't know - I'm just going on what you posted.

If you don't I understand where I am coming from then I refer to @BedrockBrendan point of view here

https://www.enworld.org/threads/why-do-rpgs-have-rules.697430/post-9043133

I will try once again with a specific example.

The players want to buy an existing building or some land. What is the price? Sure you could look up various historical documentation and pick a time and place to model one's own setting pricing from. But there is a problem, that if you are not aware of can't lead to incorrect assumptions about the price to buy a piece of land. Namely that unlike the modern era, real estate wasn't sold at a profit in western Europe.

Instead the concept of Just Price meant that the "price" was basically what it cost to acquire the land or build the buildings. If you bought land that was worth £100 and it had £50 of improvement in buildings then it price was £150. If you were to sell it, it price still would be £150.

Land and building were built as income producing investments and were sold rarely as a result. Plus the church (and many other non-christian cultures) viewed profit and interest rates as sinful or wrong. In Western Europe this basically meant customary prices (sometimes enshrined in law) were fixed.

Specifics varied by region, culture, and time. But this and the fact that real estate often came with obligations and rights is what set medieval (and earlier times) land ownership apart from modern real estate.

Undoubtedly many will hop on and say "Rob what about X, Y, and Z?" Sure but most of those details starts with the fact that most pre-modern cultures folks had a firm idea of what things were worth and if you tried to go above that you suffered socially as a result. I.e "The Just Price". How this was implemented differed from time period to time period and by region.

A campaign set in medieval times will be more accurate if it used the idea of the Just Price, especially for real estate.

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.

Campaigns set in specific time periods in specific regions require more research because the whole point of the campaign is to pretend to be characters doing things in that time and place.

With my own setting, I can take various details from different regions and cultures and combine them in something original that fits the setting and medieval time period. It helps to understand why details developed in the first place in our history as some existed because of specific circumstances.

This is Scourge of the Demon Wolf, yeah? Scourge of the Demon Wolf

From that summary it's not clear how religion figures in it. It makes it seem an essentially atheistic setting, like REH's Conan.

Elder Anselm is the "parish priest" of Kensla and a major community leader. If things were normal the community leadership would consist of him, the Reeve, and the Baron's bailiff. With the bailiff being the final authority except on matters of religion.

But things are not normal and the bailiff is dead. Depending on how events go, Reeve and Elder Anselm will disagree on what actions to take and this will results in complications for the party.

I attach a summary of the different events that may result from the players undertaking the adventure.

Also to understand what this list means

 

[hawkeyefan]

Show me the geological process whereby the mountains form via song and magic? Because if you can't, then you also cannot say that it happened in Middle Earth, because popping into being fully formed to meet a vision is NOT a geological process.

Mountains forming is a geological process.

You are correct that magical beings singing mountains into existence is not a geological process. It's an author making up stuff that he wants to be true in the fiction he's creating.

That it's not relying on real world causality is what makes it not a simulation.

It simulates how his world was created, yes. It was created through magical song to achieve his vision. Nothing about geology anywhere there.

How does it simulate anything? What is being simulated?

Additionally, if this is a simulation, what methods of creating fictional content are not simulations?

I meant what I said. That you assume from my post that the song created a geological process to make the mountains tells me a lot about why you are having such trouble understanding me or my playstyle. It appears that you are adding things to the style and posts that just plain aren't there which causes yourself confusion.

I'm not really assuming anything. I've said how it sounds, and I've asked you to clarify what you meant. You've now repeated that Tolkien authoring magical phenomena is a simulation. I don't see how that can be. And if it is, then I don't see what doesn't qualify as a simulation using this definition.

 

[Maxperson]

Mountains forming is a geological process.

Really? Show me the real world geological process of poofing a mountain into existence via magic.

You are correct that magical beings singing mountains into existence is not a geological process. It's an author making up stuff that he wants to be true in the fiction he's creating.

Yep.

That it's not relying on real world causality is what makes it not a simulation.

Show me where real world is the only thing you can simulate? I can simulate a fantasy reality just fine in my fantasy games. I built fantasy components which can then be used to inform future events to simulate that fantasy reality.

Additionally, if this is a simulation, what methods of creating fictional content are not simulations?

Those that fail to build off of any foundation. Take @pemerton's lightning example. He failed to establish prior to that bolt that lighting bolts are super duper powerful in that fantasy world, so splitting a house in half was unrealistic and did not simulate lightning properly. Had he established prior to that bolt that lightning was super duper powerful in that fantasy world, then splitting the house in half would have been realistic for that setting and would have simulated said super duper powerful lightning.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

Well, that trend kinda feeds on itself for two reasons: casual-play groups (i.e. many if not most groups) aren't always very welcoming to hardcore optimizers, and AL is often seen as the place for hardcore players to go.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Really? Show me the real world geological process of poofing a mountain into existence via magic.

There is no such example. I didn't say there was. I said that the formation of mountains is a geological process.

Show me where real world is the only thing you can simulate? I can simulate a fantasy reality just fine in my fantasy games. I built fantasy components which can then be used to inform future events to simulate that fantasy reality.

What model is being simulated? There needs to be a model of some sort. We only have the real world to use as an actual model for how mountains form.

Otherwise, it's just imagination. Which is fine... but then it loses the lofty claim of being "more realistic" than other methods. Which is, I expect, the actual issue that most folks have.

Your take on simulation leaves no difference between actual simulation and simple imagination.

Those that fail to build off of any foundation. Take @pemerton's lightning example. He failed to establish prior to that bolt that lighting bolts are super duper powerful in that fantasy world, so splitting a house in half was unrealistic and did not simulate lightning properly. Had he established prior to that bolt that lightning was super duper powerful in that fantasy world, then splitting the house in half would have been realistic for that setting and would have simulated said super duper powerful lightning.

Setting aside that I thought the lightning bolt example that @pemerton shared involved magic... we're not just back to the idea that everything must be known prior to being introduced in play. How can we possibly address all such instances ahead of time? It's a strange requirement that I expect most people don't even attempt to adhere to.

 

[pemerton]

An alternative is that games like RuneQuest that have been held up as exemplars of simulationism are not simulationist.

No.

Simulationism is a mode of RPGing. It's not a general account of how fiction is authored. In RQ, creating the setting is not part of play - Greg Stafford already did that. This doesn't mean that the play of RQ is not simulationist.