Quote from: Bren;886743I'm unclear what point you are making. If your point is that a simulation is not a perfect replica of the thing that is being simulated...well of course it isn't. Nothing that isn't the thing itself will be a perfect replica and no reasonable person should or would expect a simulation to be identical in every respect to the thing it represents.

Well I see three cases:

a) Airbus 320 simulator
b) Airplane landing gear hydraulic lockup
c) Dragon flight simulator

Case a is the most common one. There's an airplane and you simulate it. The amount of "realism" depends on the computational power and the simulator at Airbus will be a lot closer to the real thing that the one running on someones home computer if for no other reason than computational power.

Case b is something that's not factored into the simulation because the sim designers did not know the landing gear can lock up in that way. The discrepancy between the simulation and real life can't be alleviated by simply adding a more powerful computer and a bigger video card.

Case c is the interesting one and the one that concerns us if we enjoy fantasy role playing games. There are no dragons and there is no point of comparison between the simulation and that which it intends to represent. Someone can say that a certain simulator is bad because they've flown Airbuses and they don't perform that way the simulator portrays them, but nobody has ever flown a dragon. So when I claim dragons don't fly a certain way it's my word against the game designer's word. How do I know the simulator is right or wrong? It becomes more of a personal choice and preference.

Quote from: Saurondor;886735Actually it doesn't have to be a facsimile to anything. There are no dragons so you really can't create a simulationist fantasy setting that is facsimile to dragons because there is nothing to be facsimile to.

That's a silly argument. One can imagine a dragon. You can create a facsimile to the imagined creature.

QuoteI'm not sure it even needs to be semi automated either. It need to be repeatable though.

Wait.

So if we simulate a hero attacking an orc via an attack roll, it could come out hit, miss, fumble, crit, hit but all harm being absorbed by armor, hit or crit doing enough damage to kill, and so on. I would expect to repeat the same situation and get the same results. This is still a simulation.

Now some hardcore STEM-brained guy might say, well, maybe the exact result isn't repeatable, but the probability distribution ought to be repeatable. To which I still say nay.

Yeah, with the simple example I just gave, yeah, that ought to be repeatable in a probabilistic way. However, there can be examples that require human input. I'm imagining a duel between powerful characters in the Lejendary Adventure system (not important you know exactly how the game works), where hit probabilities are 99% and damage bonuses are sufficient for a one-hit-kill. But you can opt to use an attack to parry, you can also opt for multiple attacks where each attack is weaker. The optimal combination depends on what you're opponent is going to do.

What makes this example interesting is if you were to try to repeat it, you might make different decisions as to how many attacks and how many parries to take (there are other options as well). So it won't even give you repeatable probability distributions.

This is another characteristic of human systems. They do not allow for repeatable experiments.

QuoteWithin limits two distinct events under the same circumstances should have similar outcomes. Here is one of the situations in which simulations seem to fail reality. Simulations fail to recreate the very unexpected and very impacting situations that do arise in reality. How do you simulate that?

Genuine novelty. It is a bitch.

But actually this post made me think of a film recommendation. You've probably already seen it, but watch it again with this in mind. Groundhog Day. The protagonist is cursed to repeat the same day over and over and over again. The upshot is he faces sort of a repeatable simulation. He learns to "game the day" in a sense. He is able to try, try again so he can sleep with any woman he want. Except, of course, the main love interest in the story. She's harder to bed. At one point, they have this magical romantic moment. He gets close. But then botches it at the last minute. He wants to repeat it again so he can do better next time. But no matter how he tries, he is never able to recreate that magical moment.

It's kind of like that.

A system that can do that is the holy grail of simulations.

Quote from: Lunamancer;886791That's a silly argument. One can imagine a dragon. You can create a facsimile to the imagined creature.

Well of course it would be a facsimile of the imagined creature, but not of a dragon. If I lived in the mid 1800s I could imagine and Airbus and create a facsimile to the imagined Airbus, but how would this image compare to the Airbus. I'm quite confident the facsimile would be a perfect match to the imagined Airbus, but would that imply a perfect match with the real Airbus 150 years later?

Regarding your whole repeatable argument. I understand you're totally against it. You must be really into chaos theory, no wonder you like that movie. So please explain to me how this works? I'm in the Airbus and I push the throttle forward and what? The airplane pulls backwards? I didn't reverse thrust and spoilers are down. What happened? Given the same payload and airport do I sometimes v1 at 150 knots, sometimes at 220 knots and sometimes at 50 knots? Hey forget the checklist, I'll set flaps at whatever! Will pulling on the stick dive the aircraft? I know there can be unexpected things like engine surges, malfunctions, sucking in birds, turbulence (weather is on of those random chaos like things), accidental fires, etc.

Wonder why Airbus spends so much money building simulators and airlines training their pilots in them if the airplane is going to do whatever it feels like. You should provide consulting services to them, send them the movie, explain, save them millions and take 10%. You'd be rich.

Quote from: Manzanaro;886779So how do we promote these things as a GM, while remaining true to the rules of simulation that govern the game?

By correcting wrong thinking gamers have.

Quote1. A PC dies and nobody really cares. Like literally, I have seen parties just strip the dead dude of his valuables and move on without any sort of remark.

I've seen this. It's just extremely, extremely rare. It's far more common that players do the exact opposite. The entire campaign must come to a halt until they get the fellows raised somehow. Even in cases where a character is stricken with lycanthropy or turned into a ghoul, even as I allow the player the unique opportunity to basically play a monster, the majority of players seek to reverse this before all else. A small minority decide, what the way, when's the next time I'll be able to say I played a were-sabre tooth tiger.

Even unimportant stock NPC hirelings are often mourned. Not the majority of them. But sometimes due to deed, or luck, or sometimes even just a cool name, it sticks out in the players mind, and they are honored.

Quote2. No one has a sense of who the characters are and what motivates them, and indeed there is a common style of gaming which actually seeks to de-emphasize PC motives because strong individual motives can cause party splits where motives collide and can act as barriers to PCs becoming engaged in the GM's preplanned adventure.

A common style of gaming? Is that what they're doing at the kiddie table these days? Early-Mid 90's style of 3+ page background notes was definitely ridiculous and counter-productive. A 3-line max explanation of what drives the character, however, triggers the imagination.

As to fears of inter-party conflict, this again is attributable to wrong-brained thinking. The same kind of thinking that imagines there can be conflict among players in a game group due to different preferences. Anyone is fully capable of playing (or, in the case of a character, adventuring) completely on their own. The reason one joins a group, knowing full well he may have to make concessions, is that the advantages of being in the group outweigh the cost of what you're giving up. It's a trade up. Always a trade up.

Characters with strong motives, no matter what the precise motives are, will find advancing in skill, experience, and gaining wealth and items of lore will help achieve the ultimate goals. Being part of a strong team is an excellent means for obtaining the skills, experience, wealth, and magic. It never need be more complicated than that.

A noble child of a deposed king? Great. Adventuring to gain skills and experience, items of lore, develop a reputation, gain wealth, forge relationships, attract followers, assemble an army... all to one day re-take your birthright. But in the mean time, you've got the right drive to be a great party member.

Convicted thief on the run? Great. Adventuring to gain skills and experience to stay one step ahead of the law, gain wealth to have material security even while living off the grid, items of lore to have some trick up your sleeve in case you ever get close to getting caught. Some day you'll clear your name, or else capture a seat of power that leaves you untouchable. But in the mean time, you've got the right drive to be a great party member.

Disenchanted crusader? Great. Adventuring to gain skills and experience to renew your faith, items of lore to smite the greater enemies of your god, gain reputation to attract new followers to the cause. Some day you'll make reparations to those wronged during the crusade with the wealth you'd gained. But in the mean time, you've got the right drive to be a great party member.

Seeker of ultimate arcane knowledge? Great. Adventuring to gain skills and experience to understand more powerful magic, collect items of lore to amplify your powers and further you in your quest, gain wealth to build a library for your studies. Some day, you'll uncover the deepest secrets of the cosmos. But in the mean time, you've got the right drive to be a great party member.

Quote from: Saurondor;886793Wonder why Airbus spends so much money building simulators and airlines training their pilots in them if the airplane is going to do whatever it feels like. You should provide consulting services to them, send them the movie, explain, save them millions and take 10%. You'd be rich.

Physical/mechanical systems obey different rules from human systems. Physics and the natural sciences allow for repeatable experiments. Social systems and human behavior, not so much. It's the great folly of 20th century economics and social sciences to assume they can ape the methods of the physical sciences. No mental/emotional disorders have been cured, no uber-mench mentality created, meanwhile what engineering and technology have accomplished is nigh miraculous.

Think of programming a computer. You'll spend 90% of your time debugging because the slightest out of place character throws off the whole thing. Regardless of whether your error is major or miniscule, you can always try, try again. Fix the code, recompile, and you essentially get a do-over.

Now compare that to dealing with a human. You can make a spelling or grammar error and they still know what you're talking about. You don't have to be that perfect. What you can't do is continue to stab them in the back thinking you'll always get another do-over until you get it right.

Another difference, if you push an inanimate object to the north, if anything it's going to budge and end up somewhat more north than when you started. If you try to push a person to the north, they may very well push back and end up somewhat more south than when you started. In many cases, the way people commonly think things work in reality do the exact opposite in human systems.

Quote from: Lunamancer;886798Physical/mechanical systems obey different rules from human systems. Physics and the natural sciences allow for repeatable experiments. Social systems and human behavior, not so much. It's the great folly of 20th century economics and social sciences to assume they can ape the methods of the physical sciences. No mental/emotional disorders have been cured, no uber-mench mentality created, meanwhile what engineering and technology have accomplished is nigh miraculous.

Think of programming a computer. You'll spend 90% of your time debugging because the slightest out of place character throws off the whole thing. Regardless of whether your error is major or miniscule, you can always try, try again. Fix the code, recompile, and you essentially get a do-over.

Now compare that to dealing with a human. You can make a spelling or grammar error and they still know what you're talking about. You don't have to be that perfect. What you can't do is continue to stab them in the back thinking you'll always get another do-over until you get it right.

Another difference, if you push an inanimate object to the north, if anything it's going to budge and end up somewhat more north than when you started. If you try to push a person to the north, they may very well push back and end up somewhat more south than when you started. In many cases, the way people commonly think things work in reality do the exact opposite in human systems.

Not quite sure what you're trying to say with all this, but I believe you're confusing repeatable with predictable. No flight is going to be the same for a pilot and yet a pilot can train in a flight simulator because it trains the pilot in what to expect.

In a video game the simulation is the same, it's printed on the DVD or Bluray media, it can't change and the gaming console lacks the AI required to reprogram it. Yet every game played is different. It might be similar to others, but not exact.

The same applies for the orc attack. In some cases you might miss, and in other cases you might hit. Each iteration of the simulation might be different, but you don't change the rules from one iteration to the next, change the dice rolled to attack and the dice rolled for damage. Do you?

So I guess you thought I meant that the outcome would be the same every time. That's not a simulation, that's a book, and not precisely the follow your own adventure type.

Quote from: AsenRG;886718Oh! Great, I thought I'm the only Referee with such weird ideas. Most seem to be considering this stuff "wasting time".
Me, I call it "establishing relationships to help in immersion".


And here's a trick I have used to save the campaign after one of the very few TPKs I've seen.
"...and so they died, said the shepherd. I saw it all from the nearby hill. Since then, the goblins are ever bolder, and the baron's men extract additional toll for protection!"
That was, of course, the intro for the new characters.

Yeah, I like both these things. In fact, in the last superhero game I ran, we did an entire session which consisted of the team getting together for Thanksgiving dinner at one of the character's mom's house.

The characters were: a former big league hero from the 70s who had disappeared for decades after a crushing personal defeat and had been living as a homeless vagabond; an American soldier from WW2 whose brain had been installed into a Nazi robot; another American soldier whose brain had been put into the body of a pig that had been made immortal by the sorceress Circe; a faerie changeling recently awoken to his magical nature; the inventor of a nigh impenetrable battle suit who suffered from a debilitating muscle atrophying disease; and an alcoholic mutant master of electricity.

That session ran the spectrum from very amusing to heart warming to dramatic, and it very much helped to define the characters and their relationships and add some weight to future events.

But in this case, my players knew that the intent was exactly this kind of exploration, and I was able to mainly be hands off about the whole thing. I think that in many cases, if you do this kind of set-up you might just end up with the players just staring at each other blankly, wondering what they are supposed to do, or expecting the GM somehow hand them moments to be played off of.

Anyway, I also like your TPK solution. That was a very cool way to maintain narrative continuity and avoid the whole, "Guess that campaign was a wash!" factor which tends to be players first reaction to a TPK in my experience.

Quote from: Manzanaro;886776I can't really imagine a flashback rule being a simulationist rule, though I suppose it's possible.

"If you take Amnesiac, the GM might call for a flash-back".
The GM decides to trigger it like that (bad, triggery GM)!
"You see the gang's leader. You remember a time when helicopters were passing over your head, and you were staring in those same eyes. You were running from a chase, and he was blocking your way, dressed in an enemy uniform. What did you do?"
Obviously neither the character nor the gang-leader would die, so the GM knows there's first help nearby...and the gang-leader has a twin. But how did this fight end?
Did you show mercy to a defeated enemy? Ran from him? Achieved mutual respect? Tried to kill him?
There's your reaction modifier coming:).

Quote from: Manzanaro;886811But in this case, my players knew that the intent was exactly this kind of exploration, and I was able to mainly be hands off about the whole thing. I think that in many cases, if you do this kind of set-up you might just end up with the players just staring at each other blankly, wondering what they are supposed to do, or expecting the GM somehow hand them moments to be played off of.

Communication is key.
Also, you want to do that only with players that don't expect something has to happen every time - or even better, after you've shown that building relationships always matters in this game, maybe at a later point!

Or, if you want something to satisfy a player looking for some action, just have a sniper with a soft spot for family gatherings looking at your activities. He just can't pull the trigger while you're having a nice family time...
Is anyone going to break the spirit? Guess who the sniper is going to focus on from now on:D!

QuoteAnyway, I also like your TPK solution. That was a very cool way to maintain narrative continuity and avoid the whole, "Guess that campaign was a wash!" factor which tends to be players first reaction to a TPK in my experience.

Thanks. Though I'm pretty sure I could do better, if I had thought more about it.

After 41 pages of this I said this about applying the term "simulation" to RPGs:

Quote from: JoeNuttall;884411The fault lies is taking a word used to describe something, divorcing the word from the thing it is describing, honing the definition into some quasi-academic definition, and then reapplying the term and finding it doesn't fit what it was originally describing

And we've had another 20 pages of precisely that – from a starting point where we used the term "simulation" to describe what people were doing, it was then argued what the word "simulation" meant, then applied this term back to what people were doing, and thus argued that they weren't doing "simulation", and in fact that by this definition, "simulation" was impossible. Except it isn't because it was just a word being used to describe what people were doing. This is (to say the least) an unproductive argument.

Quote from: DouglasAdams"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

There's a different issue with the term "narrative", which in general was used to mean when dramatic concerns affect what happens in the world. This is a useful concept for discussion. However it then seems to get applied to everything – and this broadening of the term until it applies to everything is as useless as the narrowing of simulation.
 
To instead address the aim of the thread – one way I make my games more engaging is to make them like a Victorian novel – full of unlikely coincidences – but also interesting red herrings. For example in my current game the PCs have just rescued someone from the Sorcerers' Guild, and the head of that guild has now vanished. They went to the King's Palace to report this to the King but they had to wait in line for four other groups to make their representation to the King. If all these were red herrings it would be more realistic, but also not very interesting – so they've guessed *one* of these items is relevant to them, but they don't know which one. They can't all be deep plots, but I don't want them to be boring time-wasters, so they all lead to something of varying levels of interest.

The one that surprised me was the obsequious man applying for the post of "Carpeteer to the King" with the gift of a carpet. The group all assumed this was comic relief – except one who suspected that the sorcerer was hiding in the carpet and demanded it be unrolled. The carpeteer was actually planning to steal valuables from the king and had a thief hiding in the carpet who was going to steal some items and be brought back out in the old carpet. I never expected this plot to be unmasked, and now they're in the King's favour!

Quote from: Saurondor;886799Not quite sure what you're trying to say with all this, but I believe you're confusing repeatable with predictable. No flight is going to be the same for a pilot and yet a pilot can train in a flight simulator because it trains the pilot in what to expect.

I'm using repeatable in the sense of "repeatable experiment" and it is the correct usage of term. I think the confusion stems from I wasn't 100% sure what you were asking. As far as what I was saying, I believe it's plain as day. Human systems work differently from mechanical systems.

QuoteIn a video game the simulation is the same, it's printed on the DVD or Bluray media, it can't change and the gaming console lacks the AI required to reprogram it. Yet every game played is different. It might be similar to others, but not exact.

Yes, but video games are also unsatisfactory to many role-players, myself included, because they cannot exercise common sense. I've seen many a console controller destroyed over the divide between what a player expects vs how the code executes.

QuoteThe same applies for the orc attack. In some cases you might miss, and in other cases you might hit. Each iteration of the simulation might be different, but you don't change the rules from one iteration to the next, change the dice rolled to attack and the dice rolled for damage. Do you?

In the case of the generic orc attack? Certainly not. Whether I'm designing or evaluating a game or deciding if or how I want to run it, I loosely bring in Pareto's 80/20 rule, where in the context of rules, I expect 20% of the rules to cover 80% of everything that will come up in the game. So I expect the standard operating procedure (or core mechanic, whathaveyou) to work well--to be a good simulation--in at least 80% of all cases.

Now that still leaves as much as 20% of other cases, the special cases where the standard/core rules may not apply. Maybe the game has explicit exceptions, like the assassination table footnote I've been referencing. But I think more important is that the game provide an overriding philosophy. For example, in AD&D 1st Ed, the rulebooks DO take the time to explain hit points, how they do not all represent physical toughness and so forth. So when I do see the assassination table footnote, it requires no further explanation. I understand fully why that exception would be there. And if I happened to miss a footnote (like I did for 11 years) it doesn't preclude me from making judgment calls that are consistent with how the overall system works.

And consistency is important, right?

Honestly Joe, I don't think the distinction is complicated at all. Some people just like to argue and I made the mistake of thinking they were trying to understand what I was talking about rather than wanting to attack and dismiss what I was talking about.

Anyway, as far as your advice goes, I appreciate you taking the time to write it, but manufacturing coincidences in the manner of Victorian literature is about as non simulation based as it gets as far as I can see the term having any meaning at all.

Yes, we can get "good story" out of an RPG if we treat it as a narrative in which we can simply author unlikely coincidences at our discretion. But that's pretty much the opposite of what I am talking about.

Quote from: Lunamancer;886884I'm using repeatable in the sense of "repeatable experiment" and it is the correct usage of term. I think the confusion stems from I wasn't 100% sure what you were asking. As far as what I was saying, I believe it's plain as day. Human systems work differently from mechanical systems.

There's this thing called tolerance. Not all experiments turn out the same as in exactly the same, and even the most finely machined tool has a tolerance value greater than zero.

Yes, human systems work differently from mechanical ones, but they can still be measured and quantified. For example predicting election outcomes.

Human systems working together with mechanical systems do gain an extra degree of complexity. That is why simple mechanical ' rules' when combined with human players create very interesting dynamics.

Quote from: Manzanaro;886888Anyway, as far as your advice goes, I appreciate you taking the time to write it, but manufacturing coincidences in the manner of Victorian literature is about as non simulation based as it gets as far as I can see the term having any meaning at all.

You're doing it again!

Quote from: Manzanaro;886888Yes, we can get "good story" out of an RPG if we treat it as a narrative in which we can simply author unlikely coincidences at our discretion. But that's pretty much the opposite of what I am talking about.

I now see for myself why this thread has turned out the way it has...

Quote from: Saurondor;886894Yes, human systems work differently from mechanical ones, but they can still be measured and quantified. For example predicting election outcomes.

How do you mean? I can tell you with exact certainty that elections are not repeatable experiments. They fall under case probability, not class probability, because the variables are too numerous to be able to look at a history of elections and derive anything of significance.

Polling and mock elections also fail to be accurate predictors. Even polling conducted immediately before the election is less accurate than prediction markets. Prediction markets not only out-perform last-minute polling by a half percentage point on average, they do so much further in advance of the election. How do prediction markets work? Not by "the scientific method" of physical sciences.

QuoteHuman systems working together with mechanical systems do gain an extra degree of complexity. That is why simple mechanical ' rules' when combined with human players create very interesting dynamics.

Only if they are set up to do so. Most RPGs I pick up are garbage. It seems like the designer has thoroughly stamped out anything unforeseen from happening. High-level Lejendary Adventure combat, as I alluded to earlier, is maddeningly complex. The rules themselves are extremely simple. It gives a few interesting options. But as for what you should actually do in order to win the dual defies game theory. Game theorists would probably disagree, but they would probably also be proven just as wrong as they are about the prisoners dilemma.

Quote from: Lunamancer;886884In the case of the generic orc attack? Certainly not. Whether I'm designing or evaluating a game or deciding if or how I want to run it, I loosely bring in Pareto's 80/20 rule, where in the context of rules, I expect 20% of the rules to cover 80% of everything that will come up in the game. So I expect the standard operating procedure (or core mechanic, whathaveyou) to work well--to be a good simulation--in at least 80% of all cases.

Now that still leaves as much as 20% of other cases, the special cases where the standard/core rules may not apply. Maybe the game has explicit exceptions, like the assassination table footnote I've been referencing. But I think more important is that the game provide an overriding philosophy. For example, in AD&D 1st Ed, the rulebooks DO take the time to explain hit points, how they do not all represent physical toughness and so forth. So when I do see the assassination table footnote, it requires no further explanation. I understand fully why that exception would be there. And if I happened to miss a footnote (like I did for 11 years) it doesn't preclude me from making judgment calls that are consistent with how the overall system works.

And consistency is important, right?

You raise some interesting points here that deserve a response of their very own.

First of all your not changing anything in your example but rather you're citing an exception already in the rulebook. Secondly if the rule system doesn't cover a certain situation we need to look at why. It simply can't be resolved? In this case do we halt the game or do we create a new rule to handle it? Can it be resolved but not to my satisfaction? Then I adjust an existing rule to account for the discrepancy. In the former I'm not changing any rule as there was no prior role to modify. In the later I am modifying the rule, but only for that specific case, and the rule remains unmodified for the other 80% of the cases. Either way once established if you come back to reliving this case you don't create yet another exception, you use the previously created rule our rule modification. Hence it's repeatable.

This highlights the importance of simulations to many. Once set and agreed upon it's application is repeatable even if it was unique at one point (first  time around). This is contrary to my experience in other games in which things get interpreted over and over again within the context of the current scenario.

That's why I mentioned that a simulation is a means for communication. I create my game and my setting and communicate it though the simulation. If I have a warrior in a futuristic Mesoamerican mechanized armor and an Aztec styled anti matter macuahuitl, I can guess how it behaves in combat and rule as we go along or resolve according to the simulation which should recreate the behaviour just as the game designer envisioned it.  The later might come with benefits and limitations which might not be in the best interests of my narrative agenda  or the equipment might sound great on paper, but the rules feel to clunky, slow, inconsistent and full of exceptions to make me feel confident in creating a story around it.