Quote from: Agkistro;886434I disagree with the premise of the OP that simulationist rules can ever be seperated from narrative rules in the way suggested.

Condolences on this being your first post. I agree with you that the premise may be a little shaky. I think you can talk about simulation and narrative and separate concepts. But they are definitely not mutually exclusive things to begin with. They frequently blend naturally, and trying to separate them only ever makes both for weaker simulation and weaker narrative.

QuoteYou don't need a special mechanic for 'creating dramatic tension' if the scenarios are set up in such a way that a lot is actually riding on old-fashioned to-hit rolls and such.

I don't think this is what's being discussed here at all. Though I tend to agree with you. Renowned director David Mamet would agree with this as well. Presumably he knows a thing or two about drama.

QuoteIt's been my experience that dramatic tension and current 'narrative' mechanics are actually at odds more often than not.

I often point out that virtually every game in the known universe sets the rules in opposition to the goal. In football, you have to get the ball into the right endzone. But just to fuck with you, they're going to start you on the opposite end of the field, make strict rules regarded forward progress, and.. oh yeah, put 11 really big dudes in your way. Without a doubt, that's what creates the drama and tension. Only in RPGs do we theorize that the rules of the game ought to be aligned with the goal. That said, it does not surprise me in the least when you say that rules specifically crafted to create drama and tension consistently fail to do so.

QuoteI'm a GM 75% of the time, but when I do play, nothing kills the dramatic tension any more than knowing the rules (or the GM, outside of the rules) has a web of safety nets to keep anything bad from happening to a player's character without their consent.

I'm also a GM at least 75% of the time. On those rare occasions when I do play, there is nothing quite like the character you worked to level up being down to his last few hit points during a classic dungeon crawl. If you're an avant-garde drama whore who wants players to feel genuine emotion, that's exactly how you fucking do it. Though it has to happen organically.

QuoteThe first time I run out of hit points and discover that a new system is doing the whole "Make an easily-passable roll every combat round, and if you pass you are totally fine, if you fail you move one small increment closer to death and roll the same easy task again next round" or "Spend a Protagonist Point to recover" and I start to feel like I'm a spectator listening to the GM tell me a story, or that I'm a kid playing lets pretend.

Well, in the end, we are just playing let's pretend. As I've mentioned earlier in this thread, having rules fulfills the role that foreshadowing fills in a story. It provides a reasonable explanation for strange or extreme events to maintain and facilitate the suspension of disbelief. Because if you are going to play let's pretend, you may as well do it right.

Quote from: Lunamancer;886341Um. It's clearly you who are the one that is failing in basic understanding. I did not use the word machine. I said mechanical, as in "not having or showing thought or spontaneity." You've been terming everything else as meta. But my game world (and I imagine most GMs) includes denizens who do show thought and spontaneity. So your definition is inappropriate.

That bit where you take on the role of characters? That's not called simulation. By anybody other than you and apparently Bren.

Seriously. How do I explain things to people who refuse the point and whose entire debate style is grounded in manufacturing fake points of view for the opposition?

Even in the post you are responding to I make it very clear that no rules of simulation are complete and that no RPG is going to advance entirely upon the rules of simulation.

I guess that you and Bren believe that pretending to be an imaginary character is some sort of magical act whereby that character springs to life and has freewill by which he determines his own actions.

But guess what? You are unequivocally wrong if that is what you think. You are generating that characters dialogue and desired course of actions. You are authoring that character; whatever you might claim about feelings of immersion you are still dictating the actions of an imaginary character.

And then we refer to rules of simulation to see how those actions work out. Except in cases where we don't and the GM, or some other player, simply narrates how things unfold.

Quote from: Agkistro;886434I disagree with the premise of the OP that simulationist rules can ever be seperated from narrative rules in the way suggested.  You don't need a special mechanic for 'creating dramatic tension' if the scenarios are set up in such a way that a lot is actually riding on old-fashioned to-hit rolls and such.
     It's been my experience that dramatic tension and current 'narrative' mechanics are actually at odds more often than not.  I'm a GM 75% of the time, but when I do play, nothing kills the dramatic tension any more than knowing the rules (or the GM, outside of the rules) has a web of safety nets to keep anything bad from happening to a player's character without their consent.  The first time I run out of hit points and discover that a new system is doing the whole "Make an easily-passable roll every combat round, and if you pass you are totally fine, if you fail you move one small increment closer to death and roll the same easy task again next round" or "Spend a Protagonist Point to recover" and I start to feel like I'm a spectator listening to the GM tell me a story, or that I'm a kid playing lets pretend.

If you think I have been endorsing "narrativist mechanics" you are wrong.

Quote from: Manzanaro;886452If you think I have been endorsing "narrativist mechanics" you are wrong.

I didn't really give much thought to you as a person or what you might endorse.  I know you were just presenting it as a hypothetical. I'm just saying I think there is plenty of potential for dramatic tension and narrative opportunity in a game with pure 'simulationist' rules,  with no narrative mechanics necessary.  If you agree, that is cool.

In answer to your question about how I promote narrative in simulationist games, I find a big trick to it is to adequately narrate failure.   I've played in/seen games where if you miss or otherwise fail a roll, the GM is like "Nope" and moves on to the next person. It gives the impression that a player is only allowed to play their character if they pass a skill check.  It's important to narrate a failed roll as a thing that actually occurred in the game, and describe it in terms that gives the player something to work with, and validates their character theme.

Quote from: Agkistro;886458I didn't really give much thought to you as a person or what you might endorse.  I know you were just presenting it as a hypothetical. I'm just saying I think there is plenty of potential for dramatic tension and narrative opportunity in a game with pure 'simulationist' rules,  with no narrative mechanics necessary.  If you agree, that is cool.

I not only agree, but that is the entire premise of this thread.

Quote from: Manzanaro;886451That bit where you take on the role of characters? That's not called simulation. By anybody other than you and apparently Bren.

According to you. But that and a pile of shit will buy you a pile of shit.

You're essentially saying if you go jump into the holodeck and stab some guy with Excalibur and see what happens, whether he lives or dies, that's simulation. But if you hand him Excalibur and see what happens, what he will do as ruler, that's not?

Go ahead. Call forth any one of your imaginary friends to say they agree with that.

How about paper trading on the stock market? Simulation or no? What are the mechanical rules that determine stock prices?

How about Yale professor John Geanakoplos when he does a classroom experiment on price discovery and sets students free to exchange money for game tickets? Simulation or no?

Let me make this shorter. How many real world examples of simulation of human systems--wherein you set up conditions, put one or more humans in the middle of it, and see how it turns out--must I provide before you man up and just admit you're wrong, that you've been wrong this whole time, and your definition of simulation (and that of your imaginary friends) are shit?

Quote from: Lunamancer;886464According to you. But that and a pile of shit will buy you a pile of shit.

You're essentially saying if you go jump into the holodeck and stab some guy with Excalibur and see what happens, whether he lives or dies, that's simulation. But if you hand him Excalibur and see what happens, what he will do as ruler, that's not?

Go ahead. Call forth any one of your imaginary friends to say they agree with that.

How about paper trading on the stock market? Simulation or no? What are the mechanical rules that determine stock prices?

How about Yale professor John Geanakoplos when he does a classroom experiment on price discovery and sets students free to exchange money for game tickets? Simulation or no?

Let me make this shorter. How many real world examples of simulation of human systems--wherein you set up conditions, put one or more humans in the middle of it, and see how it turns out--must I provide before you man up and just admit you're wrong, that you've been wrong this whole time, and your definition of simulation (and that of your imaginary friends) are shit?

You can have 2 guys fight under rules of simulation. The Sims is a simulation if you just let it run, and people in that simulation fight, have babies, go to jobs... all kinds of stuff. Where it becomes a game is when a player steps into the simulation by directly controlling a character. At that point, the behavior of that particular character is no longer simulated but everything else still proceeds according to the rules of the simulation.

Argue that point, you miserable fuck.

(By the way folks, if it seems like I am being super rude to Lunamancer? You have not seen the PMs this dude has sent me. I'll leave it at that.)

Quote from: Manzanaro;886451That bit where you take on the role of characters? That's not called simulation. By anybody other than you and apparently Bren.

The simulation of the world must necessarily include some means of simulating the actions and choices of the people in the setting who are not the player characters. So the role of the NPCs is part of the simulation.

QuoteI guess that you and Bren believe that pretending to be an imaginary character is some sort of magical act whereby that character springs to life and has freewill by which he determines his own actions.

No I don't think it is magical.

But when I figure out what the NPCs are doing to do next, I don't do so based on an authorial point of view. Nor do I make that decision as a means of furthering a particular dramatic arc or resolution. I try, to the best of my ability given my limited, time, intelligence, and resources, to select an action that makes the most sense for that character to select based on the current situation as that character understands it. If there is than one choice that makes a reasonable amount of sense, I will typically use a die roll with weighted probabilities to select among the various reasonable actions.

The more you type, the less I understand of what you think a "simulation" of an RPG setting actually is.

Quote from: Manzanaro;886468Argue that point, you miserable fuck.

Argue what point? You've just proven how dishonest you are by evading the other examples.

Quote from: Lunamancer;886473Argue what point? You've just proven how dishonest you are by evading the other examples.

Let me spell it out for you: As soon as a person directly controls an element of a simulation, that element is no longer simulated. (Although the results for a course of action involving that player controlled character may still be simulated, what the player controlled character chooses to say and attempt to do is very clearly no longer determined by the rules of simulation.)

Use this as applicable for any example you care to name.

Quote from: Bren;886472The more you type, the less I understand of what you think a "simulation" of an RPG setting actually is.

I can't compensate for your shortcomings.

And when you say that you don't decide what characters do from an authorial point of view? Sure you do. That is exactly what you do. You don't think an author considers a character's motivations and all that kind of thing the same way you do? And then they make up what characters do. The only difference is that they don't then refer to rules of simulation to say exactly how things turn out.

Quote from: Manzanaro;886474Let me spell it out for you: As soon as a person directly controls an element of a simulation, that element is no longer simulated.

But economic and market simulations, emergency preparedness and CDC epidemic outbreak activities and drills, and many real world military war games use direct control of a human agent by a real human as a key and necessary part of the simulation.

Any definition of "simulation" that would exclude those common types of simulations seems curiously chosen and unapt for simulations of RPG settings.

Quote from: Manzanaro;886475And when you say that you don't decide what characters do from an authorial point of view? Sure you do. That is exactly what you do. You don't think an author considers a character's motivations and all that kind of thing the same way you do? And then they make up what characters do. The only difference is that they don't then refer to rules of simulation to say exactly how things turn out.

I don't think that very many authors (if any) assign weighted probabilities and randomly determine key decisions by their characters when writing a story. Nor that their decisions are made with no regard to dramatic outcomes or possibilities.

Do you have some evidence that this is a common means of authorial decision making?

I'm the last one that would be breaking up a academic dick-waving contest, but I feel like somebody has to point out that the whole "Narrativist/Simulationist/Gamist" thing was made up by some nerd* on the internet in the 90's, and has been used very loosely and by lots of different people in lots of different ways since then.  It's not geometry. It's utterly pointless to discuss what is 'actually' simulationist and what is 'truly' narrativist.  It's not the kind of thing people can be wrong about, so I honestly don't see why there's a fight happening over it.

It seems like there must be some way to actually discuss what you mean without fixating on who's using the proper semantics.
 






*Yes, I know which nerd.

Quote from: Manzanaro;886474Use this as applicable for any example you care to name.

How about start with the ones I fucking named?

An experiment, a game of sorts, to simulate how price discovery in a market wherein students are allowed to negotiate any price they choose with any other student they choose, with no limit on how many students they choose? Sure, you can say the students are playing a game if that makes you happy.

The sum of the actions of the students is still simulating a market, like a machine with human parts rather than sprockets. Human decision-making rather than rules. And human choices are not tractable in the same way rules are. They do not confine themselves to your myopically narrow and useless definition.

Are you denying this is a market simulation?

Quote from: Bren;886483But economic and market simulations, emergency preparedness and CDC epidemic outbreak activities and drills, and many real world military war games use direct control of a human agent by a real human as a key and necessary part of the simulation.

Any definition of "simulation" that would exclude those common types of simulations seems curiously chosen and unapt for simulations of RPG settings.

A person takes control and sees how effective their actions are in the context of the simulation. The behavior of the human agent is no longer simulated. It really is not any more complicated than that.

This same response applies as an answer to Lunamancer's post above.

QuoteI don't think that very many authors (if any) assign weighted probabilities and randomly determine key decisions by their characters when writing a story. Nor that their decisions are made with no regard to dramatic outcomes or possibilities.

Do you have some evidence that this is a common means of authorial decision making?

To the extent you do that than I think you could argue that you are simulating the behavior of those characters. I do kind of doubt that you include the entire spectrum of possible responses in your impromptu probability charts however.

I also doubt your approach is exceedingly common, if you want to talk commonality for some reason, as I have never seen it suggested anywhere else by anyone. However, commonality is really neither here nor there.