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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6660782" data-attributes="member: 82106">Consider how a 'simulationist' approach to this might be constructed. The question in this case, can the dwarf withstand the forge and hold the hammer, can be broken down into elements. The first question is which elements are relevant. The hotness and 'power' of the forge is some sort of baseline here. However, a LOT of other factors could be included, and the more that are, the 'more faithful' the simulation is. So what is the dwarf's CON, that factors in, what is his STR, that factors in, how much help is he getting from Moradin, that factors in (and that might be purely modeled by bonuses that have to be gained in explicit ways, from items, spells, etc). Level CAN be used as a factor, presumably as a proxy for 'mettle', luck, and some of that divine favor. In an idealized system however they would appear as separate factors that could be applied differently in different situations (IE luck in combat might not translate to luck at gambling or forging weapons). The real difference here is just the way that things are broken down. In 4e's sort of 'subjective' approach you picked a number, based basically on dramatic considerations, and maybe tweaked it a bit, certainly for any explicit resource use or something that was calculated to increase the odds. But overall its pretty much one base number. The ideal simulationist is cataloging all possible factors.It just gets muddy in that IMHO the 'simulationists' are really not trying to simulate anything, because nobody really ever knows enough about all but the most trivial game situations to really accurately judge DCs in any objective fashion. The above example is a great one, you can't possibly equate this dwarf's actions to the real world, unless you just discount anything in the fiction that isn't realistic and mundane, at which point the answer is "its impossible, when you stick your hands in 900C fire they burn away in seconds" (which is literally true BTW, you'd get maybe 5 seconds, tops). So ANY DC that anyone contemplates that is achievable is based on some other agenda, or else has to be based on unknowable factors like the effects of magic, which is effectively whatever the GM wants it to be.This is the process by which I came to the conclusion that gamist or dramatic considerations are really the driving agendas and its better to set DCs by what serves them best. You can now refer back to a gamist agenda, the game as a contest, and justify that DCs AUGHT to be 'neutral', that is set without reference to any specific narrative considerations at all, but this is now revealed to be an extreme gamist agenda of a certain sort, not 'simulationism'.</blockquote>

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