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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9084922" data-attributes="member: 71699">I find this sentence hard to parse. If I understand it correctly, it characterises what is described in sentences above it as "immersive, non-contrived, casality-respecting". So I will read them in that light.I don't follow why you think sim play must be breezy Free Play. Threats specific to PCs or Stonetop sound ideal for investigating subject: what it's like to be "the heroes of an isolated village in a fantasy iron age"? How would we see what it is like to be heroes if there are no threats?This sentence led me to believe you wanted to stress a hard-out nar approach, but maybe not? That heroes should have powerful instincts, and that those might clash reminds me of status and honour in Bushido. It will deliver a powerful appreciation of subject. Instincts can be used as engines for premises... but there are a myriad of ways that can be managed and played out."Touring." I've read this word or variants on it a few times in your post, so I take it that's your view of how sim should go. But I don't understand what you mean by "players don't get to reveal the setting's dramatic needs as the main course at their leisure". Sim isn't specifically pursuing dramatic needs, so that seems aligned.When I first read this, I took you to mean that you were wholly driving and responding to dramatic protagonism; so much so as to crowd out everything else. But I see now that the words here don't say that. Once again, I am not seeing how "a leisurely pace" is required to appreciate a subject. Rather, I see it as simply - not all groups want to rush things. They will dial pacing to suit themselves in any mode.Yes, it can be ok with that. I'm assuming for the sake of argument that the bolded sentence must be read to not contradict the one I quoted at top. The contiguity or otherwise of time is just a technique, usable by sim. Our perspective on a causal chain need not be linear (there's no reason I couldn't run a sim campaign about time travellers!) Subject is in my opinion best appreciated through its change/evolution. The very concept of cause is connected with change. So none of that is automatically deal-breaking, albeit the impact will depend on how it is managed at the table.Those volitions are not specifically protected in sim play. Why would they be?To answer this, I would need a concrete example. One you believe specifically thwarts sim interests. The overall reward structure and the mechanical instances that I have so far read through aren't problematic. "Did we learn something about the Wider World or its history?" mark XP, is especially on target.It was this paragraph more than any other that led me to assume you were speaking of driving dramatic protagonism to a degree that drowned out everything else. I'm not planning to do that.So then why run leisurely Setting Tourism? If faster paced, more driven play interests you more? (Is that every session?) That aside, FR is a mediocre choice of subject for sim, because it is a patchwork. 3.x was something of an optimiser's playground, which could sometimes break subject on the anvil of gamism. Stonetop is much tighter: to me it is a better subject. That's probably just down to taste!EDIT Bottom line, I readily accept that you drive Stonetop in a way that thwarts certain purposes such as those connected with sim play. That's more or less what I took you to be illustrating on first read through (now I am not quite so sure.) But this is like my Arena of Death example. I could easily run RuneQuest in a way that forestalled sim purposes. Yet it's obviously mistaken to take that to mean that RuneQuest can't serve sim purposes!</blockquote>

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