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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 6354672" data-attributes="member: 22779">Yeah, I think Pemerton hits it on the head nicely.&nbsp; If the mechanics are a &quot;black box&quot; as to how something is resolved, then it isn't simulating anything, IMO.&nbsp; To me, that's the difference between D&amp;D and what I would consider to be a sim game.&nbsp; Once initiative is rolled, there is a black box around the combatants which precludes us from using the mechanics to determine what is happening in the fiction.&nbsp; All we know is who won or lost.So, I do disagree with you that this is a granularity issue.&nbsp; It's not that we have less information in D&amp;D than in other systems.&nbsp; It's that in D&amp;D, we don't have any information at all.&nbsp; How did my character die?&nbsp; Well, he ran out of HP.&nbsp; What does that actually mean in the game world?&nbsp; Well, we don't actually know, based on the mechanics.&nbsp; We can make up narratives that the table finds acceptable, but, there is no correlation between the mechanics and the narration, other than in very, very fuzzy ways.&nbsp; My character lost HP, so, the DM narrates that he got scratched in the arm.&nbsp; It's pretty much purely freeform.The mechanics themselves, however, do not generate anything.&nbsp; I can't look to the mechanics and say, &quot;Yes, this or that happened.&quot;&nbsp; All I can say is that &quot;something&quot; happened.&nbsp; At the end of the day, it's not an issue of &quot;relatively complete&quot; vs &quot;pretty vague&quot;.&nbsp; It's an issue of &quot;any information at all&quot; vs &quot;no information at all&quot;.&nbsp; And I think that many gamers have internalised the fact that we aren't actually getting any information from the mechanics to the point where they no longer realise that they are making up the narrative largely whole cloth.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 6354672, member: 22779"] Yeah, I think Pemerton hits it on the head nicely. If the mechanics are a "black box" as to how something is resolved, then it isn't simulating anything, IMO. To me, that's the difference between D&D and what I would consider to be a sim game. Once initiative is rolled, there is a black box around the combatants which precludes us from using the mechanics to determine what is happening in the fiction. All we know is who won or lost. So, I do disagree with you that this is a granularity issue. It's not that we have less information in D&D than in other systems. It's that in D&D, we don't have any information at all. How did my character die? Well, he ran out of HP. What does that actually mean in the game world? Well, we don't actually know, based on the mechanics. We can make up narratives that the table finds acceptable, but, there is no correlation between the mechanics and the narration, other than in very, very fuzzy ways. My character lost HP, so, the DM narrates that he got scratched in the arm. It's pretty much purely freeform. The mechanics themselves, however, do not generate anything. I can't look to the mechanics and say, "Yes, this or that happened." All I can say is that "something" happened. At the end of the day, it's not an issue of "relatively complete" vs "pretty vague". It's an issue of "any information at all" vs "no information at all". And I think that many gamers have internalised the fact that we aren't actually getting any information from the mechanics to the point where they no longer realise that they are making up the narrative largely whole cloth. [/QUOTE]

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