Quote from: Maarzan;895150If you continue and then go back sometime later surely. This is why in a sim game you would (need to) directly focus on the critical dialogue and the need to give everyone the opportunity to set focus.

This is entirely beside the point. If you DON'T go back and replay the skipped time, you end up with different results than if you did. It's that simple. Again, compression and skipping are different things and lead to different results. I can recognize the difference and I see that you can too.

And how on Earth would you know a dialogue would have been critical if you skipped it??

By the way... I just realized that you are echoing my very own guidelines for handling time skips that I presented earlier in the thread. The difference is that I recognize them as time skips, and that the decision about what to skip over is a narrative decision, not one of simulation.
 

QuoteAnd if those are personal definitions, my failure to represent general definitions or your lack of understanding will probably have to be decided by some more other readers.

This isn't actually true. Readers forming personal opinions will in no way change the facts of whether or not you are employing your own personal definitions. At one time, public opinion was that the world was flat. This did not in fact mean that the world was flat. Fact is not changed by opinion. This is faulty logic on your part.

Though readers may well attribute my misunderstanding to your near impenetrable grammar in the post under discussion. I won't rule that out as a possibility.

QuoteCurrently I am assuming the last part.

Given your demonstrable failures in logic over the course of such a short post, I am not placing a lot of faith in your assumptions.

If the dialogue didn´t get played out when it was its time, then the standard simulation procedure kicks in: either a formularic abstraction before the information is needed or the assumption of inertia.  

I already wrote here that getting back is something that will break in a sim, but probably not in a narrativistic game.

It doesn´t get skipped in simulation. It gets processed in whatever mode the current level of abstraction provides:
Not having happened leads to not being critical. To happen and thus get critical, you have to focus or otherwise operate effectively immediately in the flow of time and order.

While facts are not an opinion, I must tell you that your opinion about the facts here are most probably wrong.

Quote from: Maarzan;895140Or to sum up 100+ pages:

If you don´t tell us positive what is a "good narrative" for you, we can only use our definition of "good" and the widest definition of comaptibe narrative and then the answer is "nothing needed to do, things are fine, thanks", which is probably not helping you, when you have seen the need to open the thread in the first place.

But we know what is needed from the simulation side and we can and will call "stop" when you are deviating from the simulation part of the headline.

That's an accurate summation.

Quote from: Maarzan;895152If the dialogue didn´t get played out when it was its time, then the standard simulation procedure kicks in: either a formularic abstraction before the information is needed or the assumption of inertia.  

It seems that you are saying that for a conversation to be important in a setting run by principles of simulation then the conversation has to  have occurred. If the conversation didn't occur, it couldn't have been important and thus any such conversation is assumed to have been unimportant.

Did I understand you correctly?



Details on semantics

• By an important conversation, I mean a conversation that meaningfully effects or changes the characters or the game world in some way.  
  

• A conversation occurs in a simulated world if it is played out, either in detail or abstract or if it is deemed to have occurred by the GM. So conversations may occur between NPCs that are unknown to players, where the GM accounts for the effects of the conversation without playing the conversation out in some solitary fashion. For example, two NPCs may be deemed to have had a conversation in which they formed an alliance. This alliance will effect the PCs and the game world even though the GM never bothers to determine the exact wording of the conversation that formed the alliance. The conversation is deemed to have occurred and to be important.
  

Quote from: Manzanaro;895089Here's something I wanted to point out. It occurs to me that some of you probably see some sort of conflict between my talking about authoring things into the game while still abiding by terms of simulation. But here is the thing:

We all acknowledge that the underlying model of the gameworld is not complete, and that occasions will arise whereby the GM needs to author stuff in to fill in the gaps. Now, when I find myself in this situation as a GM, I generally try to fill in the gaps based upon tenets of simulation even though it is not necessarily filling in the gaps via an actual process of simulation. Think about that and see if it makes sense.

What you're doing is expanding the rules of simulation to address the "gaps". This is in essence the key feature of AlphaRole, the fictitious role playing system that can expand itself and simulate human decision making. In the beginning, when there was no TTRPG, the initial rules were authored by the creators, packaged and sold and now thought to be rules of simulation by you.

QuoteNot exactly it isn't, no. In fact, if you have been paying attention you will find that I have strenuously questioned the very idea of a TTRPG which is 100% simulation. It is about getting a good narrative while keeping integrity to the rules of simulation when they are called upon. So for instance, by combat or any other place in which there are clearly defined areas covered by rules of simulation.

You take what's based on the rules as written to be "simulation" and anything authored "on site" by the GM to be authored and question "the very idea of a TTRPG which is 100% simulation". But how did those initial rules come to be and what distinguishes them from similar rules developed "on site"?

Take for example a long sword which is actually quite ineffective against full plate. Gygax made these rules about maces, swords, clubs, etc. against leather armor, chain mail, etc., and when arriving at full plate he added +1 or +2 to the difficulty of hitting, making the sword actually very effective against plate. All this was in turn packaged as a book and sold. You take it, play along for years and then I come along. I change the rules a bit (author them) and make them better represent the behavior of sword vs plate as researched through a few videos and tapestries. Question: which is "authored" and which is "simulation" and why?

QuoteSo when you make some encounter checks and say, "Okay, three days pass as you travel with nothing happening," did you fast forward time or skip it?

You skipped it. How can we test this? Just ask yourself any number of very simple questions. For instance, "What conversations took place between the PCs over these 3 days that just passed?" And, of course, you don't know, because that time was skipped. If it was fast forwarded we could review events all along the compressed timeline.

Are you serious? Did they not cover any distance? Did they just moonwalk on the same spot for three days? No, obviously not, they moved and covered the distance. It wasn't skipped because it had an effect of covering the travel distance. Now let me ask you, "What conversations take place between PCs as you cover 100' of a tunnel?". As players you probably just say, "We move 100' up to the open archway making sure to check for traps.". It's very possible that the PCs are actually chatting a bit or making jokes and comments as they move along which you as a player don't actually narrate, for example: "Hot as hell in here., Yeah man, but it's a dry heat!". According to your definition we just skipped it. Also, if during combat the clash of sword vs shield from my attack scares some birds into flight and I don't actually "simulate" and narrate them from my round to the next, did I fast forward it or just skip it?

According to your definition everything is skipped because it's impossible to account for every single bit of detail in the world as time flows forward. Unless of course your first name is Matrix and your last name is Architect.

Saurondor, might I suggest you look up the word "tenets"?

I swear to God... You and that "AlphaRole" crap at every turn...

Please stop trying to foster your idiotic obsessions off on me.

Seriously dude... If I am after this stupid Alpha Role Super Simulation thing of yours, how is it that these other bozos are reading the same posts and saying I don't want simulation at all?

Answer: none of you are reading what I am saying with the slightest fucking degree of impartiality. You filter everything through your own biases and end up beating on some stupid straw man position with no resemblance to shit that I am actually fucking saying.

And by the way. If the GM is assuming my character is talking in a dungeon crawl when I have made no such indication? That GM is dumb.

Manzanaro, allow me to revisit your protagonist (Solo) vs stormtrooper issue. I believe you're clouding the conversation with terms like "interesting", "authoring", "simulation", "skipping", "fast forwarding", etc. The idea of "simulation" that you seem to be selling us on is something that is mechanical and involves dice, but if I come up with some other means this is authoring, regardless of the fact that maybe the rules in the rulebook you bought were authored as well and recreate a "reality" quite different from the "real reality" as portrayed in the sword example in which the sword in the game behaves quite differently from the sword in the player's real life.

Now please allow me to revisit the stormtrooper vs Solo scene. Let's place the players inside a black box in so we can't know if they're "simulating", "authoring" or whatever. Question is, will Solo survive? Yes or no. Like a flip of a coin. Your expectation is yes. Let's look at the following graph:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]7[/ATTACH]

It shows the uncertainty of the outcome of a flip of a coin. When the coin is fair the odds are 50-50 and the uncertainty is greatest (marked as red dot). When the coin has two tails the outcome is always certain (1, marked in cyan). When the coin is loaded the outcome is mostly tails, but sometimes a head does come up (green dot).

Your particular case of Solo vs the stormtrooper is the cyan dot. Solo always comes out victorious because he's the protagonist and you expect the protagonist to survive always. It doesn't matter what happens inside that roleplaying black box, it doesn't matter if it's rules of simulation, authoring, if you skip time or simulate or whatever, Solo always survives, just like the two tailed coin always lands on tails.

Now, let us open the black box and see what's inside. Did Solo survive because I said so? Authored. Did Solo survive because I followed a game mechanism that allowed me to spend a point and in spite of the situation Solo survived? Authored. Or did Solo survive because I followed a game mechanism that simulates every blast shot and Solo survives in spite of the risks? Simulated. Now the later, the simulation, can lead to Solo's survival because a) sheer luck that Solo doesn't take enough damage to die, b) the mechanism doesn't actually deliver damage. Option a can't provide us the guaranteed solution, option a is not the cyan dot, it's more like the green dot on the graph, option a is not the two headed coin because every so often Solo can die if we replay the scene over and over again enough times. Option b can be the cyan dot, but can be very boring if all the mechanics can do is simulate damage, the only way to ensure the cyan dot through "damage resolving mechanics" is that Solo never gets hit. A long an certain succession of misses.

I believe this 100+ page conversation boils down to this. Where is your game at? The red dot in which adventuring is a flip of a coin? Cyan dot in which your adventure is a certain thing and at best you're rolling dice to "fill in details", but the outcome is certain and authored? Or is your adventure the green dot? A point in which you as a player have certain influence on the outcome, but said outcome is not certain.

Quote from: Bren;895047Of course it can be done [with another type of dice ]. Rolling two 20 sided dice (or those wonky 10-siders) lets you make a percentile roll which gives you increments of 1%. Allowing for multiple die types and combining those with rolling multiple dice at once or in succession there is an unlimited degree of precision that one can choose to apply. As an example, it would be easy to roll multiple D20s of different colors at once to be differentiate odds of 0.1% (3 dice), 0.01% (4 dice), etc.

Also by using multiple colored or sized dice one could, in say Runequest 1-3, roll all the dice to hit, for hit location, and for normal damage all at the same time and just read off the relevant results. I've never done that because I don't see any advantage to combining the sequential, independent rolls into rolling a handful of dice. Similarly, I don't see any advantage in combining the to hit roll and the damage roll into rolling two, three, or more dice all at the same time. Horses, courses, and all of that.

Sure, I agree with you. I can also roll 4d10 and obtain percentile with two decimal precision, like 3.45% or 0.12%. Now based on my new acquired ability to roll really small numbers I can look back at the encounter and resolve the whole encounter based on three rolls: one for the attacker, one for the defender and an initiative check (which can sometimes be excluded). See, given a particular protagonist and opponent I can determine a mean time to death, or amount of rounds my character can endure such punishment. A graph for that would look something like this:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]8[/ATTACH]

(source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_distribution)

The odds of a 1st level (or 1 HD) monster dying in the first or second round is high against a high level opponent or HD monster. On the other hand the odds of a sudden death of a 10th level character in the first rounds is very low. These two values are indicated as lambda = 1 and lambda = 10, k is the number of rounds I'm expected to survive.

The cumulative graph looks something like this:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]9[/ATTACH]

Now let me take my 4th level character (lambda = 4) and roll 2 decimal precision percentile: 56.51%. Now for the 1HD goblin the GM rolls 76.85%. On the graph my 56 something is slightly above the 4 survived rounds and the goblin's 76 something is slightly above the 2 survived rounds. I killed the goblin during the second round of combat.

There, I resolved combat with two rolls and since I beat by more than one round survived I don't even need to roll initiative. This simplification can be done because my capacity to deliver damage and the goblin's capacity to deliver damage is not a function of current hit points. It's a simple thing to program a computer to run a series of attacks and graph the odds of surviving the attack of a creature with one attack that delivers 1d6 HP of damage and has a 20% chance of hitting me. I don't even need to know the hit die of the creature as long as the hit die don't affect odds of hitting. My character's mean time to death depends on the odds of getting hit and the damage delivered per hit, It doesn't depend on the creature attacking me having 1HP or 100HP.

Now, if my character's ability to deliver damage depended on my character's hit points each round, well things change radically. But hey, as Lunamancer said, such things are irrelevant. Or are they?

Note:

• Given the dice can now roll as low as 0.01% there's the odd chance I die on the first round of the attack, but that's a very slim chance indeed!
• Initiative would matter if we survive the same amount of rounds. If we both survived 2 rounds whoever hit first on that second round takes out the other.

Quote from: Saurondor;895227There, I resolved combat with two rolls and since I beat by more than one round survived I don't even need to roll initiative. This simplification can be done because my capacity to deliver damage and the goblin's capacity to deliver damage is not a function of current hit points.

You can only resolve the combat with two rolls because you assumed both combatants fight to the death. Whereas in an actual combat one or both combatants may choose to retreat after incurring damage. This means your programmed outcome is not an accurate simulation of what could happen if everything was played out. It also means that initiative now matters.

I'll also note that, if you assume both combatants attack and fight to the death, you don't need a die roll for both attacker and defender. You can simplify the result to a single die roll.

If this isn't obvious, consider that you could create a matrix every possible roll by combatant 1 along one side and every possible roll by combatant 2 along the top. This matrix would allow you to calculate the possibilities of the matrix of outcomes and create a single table to roll against.

QuoteIt's a simple thing to program a computer to run a series of attacks and graph the odds of surviving the attack of a creature with one attack that delivers 1d6 HP of damage and has a 20% chance of hitting me. I don't even need to know the hit die of the creature as long as the hit die don't affect odds of hitting. My character's mean time to death depends on the odds of getting hit and the damage delivered per hit, It doesn't depend on the creature attacking me having 1HP or 100HP.

Again I will note that you are assuming both combatants fight to the death. If you don't assume that, the hit points of the creature certainly matters since they may choose to retreat and end the combat with possibly no one dying (as may your character).


Note: I'm not checking any of your math here. For discussion purposes, I'll assume it all checks.

Quote from: Bren;895255You can only resolve the combat with two rolls because you assumed both combatants fight to the death. Whereas in an actual combat one or both combatants may choose to retreat after incurring damage. This means your programmed outcome is not an accurate simulation of what could happen if everything was played out. It also means that initiative now matters.

Well handling such a situation is trivial. I can subtract one from the outcome and that would place me one hit short of death, or a similar probability distribution can be graphed for first blood (rounds until hit). In this later case damage doesn't even matter. In either case initiative would only matter if the values as similar. That is they come within one point of getting hit first or one round short of death.

Yet you're general point is well taken. It is not as simple as I make out to be, but also not that complex as one may think. Sure magic and other powers may complicate things, but overall it's a combat of attrition. My point is not to convince players to switch to a single role mechanism for a whole encounter, but rather to show how a system can be represented in a totally different, but functionally quite similar way. That there is actually very little real "information" extracted from the dice. Sure, in a "real played out combat" we'd probably spend minutes rolling initiative, calculating modifiers, keeping track of hit points etc. Spending say 10, 20, 30 minutes or more! Yet overall that information IS IRRELEVANT as long as it's decoupled from the effect my character has, that is as long as current hit points don't affect combat effectiveness. Sure, we might think it's relevant because at some point we might retreat, because we won'f fight to the death, etc., but relevant as it may seem for such a decision making process it's still easy to keep simplifying.

The point is to also bring attention to this "simulation" process and invite readers to compare it to "authoring". It's my observation that Manzanaro seems to tag "simulation" as something "immaculate" whereas "authoring" is tainted by human bias (of course I could be wrong, at it seems I usually am :rolleyes: ).  I could just rule that my character beats the goblin hands down, but that might not be well taken because "simulation" is better. Yet from the angle I'm presenting here the "all mighty simulation" seems very lame. My character's survival depend not on my actions, once my "mean time to death" is rolled the outcome is only beneficial to me if the goblin rolls lower and that has nothing to do with my character. In spite of the subjective and personal nature of authoring, can we really say such a "simulation" is better?

Dude... Yes the rules are authored. But guess what? The game rules don't exist in the game world.

We are talking about why things happen in the game world, not about who wrote the rules.

And as I have told you repeatedly, your idea that I see simulation as immaculate and authoring narrative directly as tainted is an assumption that is both unfounded and asinine.

Why are you still puzzling over this when I have directly told you it is not my position and repeatedly asked that you stop using me for your straw man nonsense?

Quote from: Manzanaro;895279And as I have told you repeatedly, your idea that I see simulation as immaculate and authoring narrative directly as tainted is an assumption that is both unfounded and asinine.

Why are you still puzzling over this when I have directly told you it is not my position and repeatedly asked that you stop using me for your straw man nonsense?

Because you repeatedly refused to accept that human input not based on a written part of the rules is authoring even when such input is consistent with the simulation.

I think you mixed your words there a bit unintentionally, but I will respond to what I believe to be your point.

I can tell you a story, entirely authored by me, that is consistent with given parameters of simulation.

That does not actually make my story itself a simulation.

Or, alternatively in case I missed your point, altering the rules of simulation is not an alteration to the underlying model, but to the process by which we will advance the model as the simulation proceeds.

Quote from: Saurondor;895270Well handling such a situation is trivial.

I wouldn't say it is trivial. I'll agree that it is possible to do in theory. You are still simplifying the inputs for decision making.* There are far more factors that weigh into a decision to continue or attempt to end combat. In addition to one's current hit points, movement rates, initiative rolls, amount of damage inflicted, what rolls succeeded and failed, damage inflicted, armor absorption or effect, all provide input on the opponent's capabilities for attack and defense and that information varies based on what gets rolled for all the various parts of combat. To use a simple example, seeing that the opponent hits on a 9 on a D20 provides different information than seeing that the opponent hits on 19 or on a 3. If the opponent hits on a 3 a combatant may decide to immediately retreat despite the amount of damage inflicted or hit points remaining because he may assess that he is greatly outclassed in ways other than who has the most hit points remaining. Similar information about relative capability is revealed when your character fails to hit his opponent on an 18 or even a 19.

Quote...but overall it's a combat of attrition.

This is a point with which I strongly disagree. That is only the case if decisions on retreat, negotiation, and surrender are ignored. In realty (and thus in any realistic simulation) combat is won when at least one opponent stops trying to win. That can even occur with minimal or no attrition in combat. The occasional historical won based on maneuver alone would be a real world example of this. The recognized morale affect of attacks from the flank and rear would be another.

QuoteThat there is actually very little real "information" extracted from the dice.

Again I think there is more information that can be extracted than you are accounting for in your simplified model.

QuoteYet overall that information IS IRRELEVANT as long as it's decoupled from the effect my character has, that is as long as current hit points don't affect combat effectiveness.

I disagree with your premise. It is not difficult to create a function for the change in combat effectiveness based on current status (be that hit points, damage to locations, fatigue loss, or what have you). It will complicate the calculation of cumulative probabilities, but it doesn't make them impossible or even particularly difficult to calculate. Such a function is far less difficult than an attempt to represent how a human might use the wide variety of available information inputs (knowledge of both A's and B's attack, defense, damage capability, armor, initiative, current hits, etc.) to decide whether or not to continue the combat. For any given person, I submit there is unlikely to be a consistent formula or function that will represent how those various factors impact the decision to continue or end combat. Even if there was a consistent formula, players and GM are unlikely to have sufficient data to be able to deduce a function or formula.

Quote from: Saurondor;895270The point is to also bring attention to this "simulation" process and invite readers to compare it to "authoring"...

...In spite of the subjective and personal nature of authoring, can we really say such a "simulation" is better?

I'm not following your point here. Can you please try rephrasing?




* This tends to be more strongly the case for PC decisions, since GMs frequently use some method of significantly simplifying the NPC decision making process. The morale tables from early D&D and requirements for morale checks would be an example of a simple function for determining when an NPC retreats. It ignores a lot of possible inputs. Leaving such things to DM judgment. So to use my earlier example. If the Orc Chieftain realizes that the PC just hit him on a 3, that should probably force an immediate morale check with a penalty.

Quote from: Manzanaro;895304I can tell you a story, entirely authored by me, that is consistent with given parameters of simulation.

That does not actually make my story itself a simulation.

Isn't the real question not if it is itself a simulation or not, but rather if it can be told apart from a simulation?

Quote from: Bren;895306There are far more factors that weigh into a decision to continue or attempt to end combat. In addition to one's current hit points, movement rates, initiative rolls, amount of damage inflicted, what rolls succeeded and failed, damage inflicted, armor absorption or effect, all provide input on the opponent's capabilities for attack and defense and that information varies based on what gets rolled for all the various parts of combat. To use a simple example, seeing that the opponent hits on a 9 on a D20 provides different information than seeing that the opponent hits on 19 or on a 3. If the opponent hits on a 3 a combatant may decide to immediately retreat despite the amount of damage inflicted or hit points remaining because he may assess that he is greatly outclassed in ways other than who has the most hit points remaining. Similar information about relative capability is revealed when your character fails to hit his opponent on an 18 or even a 19.

Yes, but they're pretty much summed up in the PC's MTTD roll (mean time to death). Let's say you roll for your PC, and without seeing my roll for the creature you can then fold and retreat from the encounter, but if you stay in the fight and I roll above you your PC is either dead or captured. So then you could choose differently when you roll a MTTD of 3 rounds vs a MTTD of 10 rounds. You'd be more inclined to stay in the fight and see my roll if you have a high MTTD.

Yes I agree with you that the individual rolls are providing information and it feels like you get more. Just like keeping track of weapon, shield and armor damage "adds more information", at least on the character sheet. But if the sword is as sharp, the shield as strong and the armor as effective when they are at 100% of their structural capacity as when they're at 1% then it really doesn't affect play until it reaches 0%. Sure, it might affect your projection of the game, but at that point in time it does not affect the game itself (your or your opponents effectiveness), and if you have repair magic as you have healing magic then it only becomes a "projection issue" if it exceeds a certain point in which your magic runs out and that might only trigger an early return to town.