Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Why use D&D for a Simulationist style Game?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 6354672" data-attributes="member: 22779"><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[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]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Why use D&D for a Simulationist style Game?
Top