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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 9031206" data-attributes="member: 6785785">But if I'm the person who created the "there" and also created the "dragon" then of course I can decide that a dragon would be there. In this case, it appears that I am simulating my imagination. Oh, absolutely! Having evidence of things happening beyond the PCs immediate area is a way to help portray the world in a way that feels more real. I just don't think it needs to involve simulation. You can just make up stuff. Which sounds like what would be happening with mention of a random lightning strike or two, and many other examples that have been offered as simulation. I think your mention of tables is a key element here. I feel like that is what helps maintain some kind of simulation that doesn't just devolve into the GM deciding things. So if you have a weather table, and the results on the table have taken into account the kinds of weather possible for the time of year and location, and then you roll on the table, that to me seems far more like simulation than simply deciding on one of those results. When I think of simulation, I think of the outcome of the simulation being beyond control. That's usually the point of a simulation... to see how things turn out. Simply deciding the outcome seems contrary to the idea of simulation, in that sense. This is why I'm struggling to accept a GM deciding the outcome as an example of simulation. I think that this then leads us to deciding the method of determination. How we decide what's on the tables and similar concerns. I feel like these things must be considered. If you don't think about game concerns or dramatic concerns, then play is likely to suffer for a variety of reasons. Like, if a first level party wanders into the lair of some truly dangerous monster like a great wyrm or something similar... this thing can stomp them out easily, no matter what they do. Do we just have it do so? Do we have it speak to them instead? Does it consider them below its notice? Do we signal its presence in some way so maybe they avoid it? If "what would the dragon do" isn't tempered at all by these considerations, then it incinerates them and play ends. Same thing with a group of 18th level characters who wander into the kobold den. Is this common in simulation play? Something tells me it's not. And the reason MUST be dramatic or gamist concerns. I feel like if these are removed entirely, then the GM is just deciding how everything goes without any consideration for the satisfaction of the players. This is likely my biggest gripe with simulation...it's utterly indifferent to the quality of the experience for the participants. Where as the players' experience is essential to gamism and narrativism.</blockquote>

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