Quote from: Bren;889638Pendragon would typically involve dice rolls for opposing Traits or Passions. So you might notice that.

For example, if you want to see if your character will accept the surrender of the infamous Black Knight who killed your father. You might choose to make an opposed roll of your Mercy trait vs. your passion of Hate the Black Knight. If Mercy wins, your knight accepts the surrender. If Hate wins you refuse his surrender and probably continue to attack the Black Knight. If neither roll wins, you the player are free to decide what your character does.

You mean notice because I hear the dice rolling? Or because I notice (perceive) some inconsistency in the outcome?

Quote from: Saurondor;889644You mean notice because I hear the dice rolling? Or because I notice (perceive) some inconsistency in the outcome?

Because you hear the dice rolling or the player stating what sort of rolls they are making.

Quote from: Bren;889648Because you hear the dice rolling or the player stating what sort of rolls they are making.

Right, and I agree with you. I'm curious to hear what his response will be.

Quote from: Manzanaro;889573If a character says something in a game it happens because a player said it happens. If my fighter attacks an orc, he does so because I SAID he does, tjan we refer to rules of simulation to see how it turns out.

I don't even know what you are thinking when you say that stuff doesn't happen just because someone says it does.

LOL. Seriously? I can explain your two above examples by repeating what I already stated and you pretended you read: the players are allowed to make those determinations because the game allows them to. Your general argument that these things happen because you said so is false. And it's proven false by the existence of a counterexample. And you know what's especially great about the counterexample? It's your fucking example in literally the next paragraph you wrote!

QuoteI am a player and I say "Just then, I find a million gp in a bag of holding" and you say " no you don't," which one of us is right? You are!

See? So I guess your character doesn't just do stuff because you said so. Your character does some stuff when you say so but not other stuff because that's how the game works.

QuoteAll narrative authority IS is the ability to NARRATE an event and HAVE IT BE TRUE in the gameworld.

False! See? You just gave me an account of what narrative is and how it works, and it's false. Proving that you can give a false narrative. Narratives are never required to be true.

QuoteIt is REALLY amusing to see you raging against the idea of rules that allow us to simply SAY what happens in the gameworld. How would we even play without such rules?

LOL! Seriously? First you say I'm wrong that it's actually the rules which allow you to attack an orc when you say you are, or disallow you to find gold when you say you are. And now you're claiming that rules allow us to do stuff is something I'm denying or think is a bad thing?

QuoteI am still just shaking my head here... I am starting to feel like the communication barrier is due to some kind of weird superstitious thinking on other people's part.

The communication barrier is due to your own dishonesty.

QuoteLike I say, "Players author the dialogue and actions of their own individual characters," and I am stating an uncontestable truth. Players state what their imaginary CHATACTERS do.

Uncontestable truth? One more time, here's you contesting it:

QuoteI am a player and I say "Just then, I find a million gp in a bag of holding" and you say " no you don't," which one of us is right? You are!

But everyone else is the problem.

QuoteAnd the response I get is "Nobody is authoring shit! They are saying what their characters would really do!"

Really? I said nobody is authoring shit?

QuoteYou are MAKING THESE THINGS UP IN YOUR HEAD. Just like an AUTHOR does when he writes a NARRATIVE about a character. And so those are the words I use.

What does a non-fiction author do? He's not making stuff up in his head. But he may write a narrative to put the facts in perspective. All authors narrate but only some of them make up the characters and events they're writing about. Narrating and making stuff up are two different things.

QuoteIf you truly have some procedural method of determing a characters words and actions? Fine you are simulating.

As human action is non-deterministic, I object to the use of the word "determining." I would accept "guide" as a substitute. And yes, I do have a procedure to guide character interaction with regards to influence and persuasion.

Quote from: Saurondor;889592Is there a way to differentiate this as an observer? Say you're looking at a player interpreting her character, she has some "key points" that define her character. She's playing out what the character does which has nothing to do with what she would actually do in such a situation. Can you, as an external observer, notice if she's "authoring" this as you say or playing by "pendragonish" character simulation rules? If so, what gives her away?

I'd never played pendragon before, hadn't been familiar with what it had going on there, but near as I can tell, it's very similar to something I'd developed independently based on the science of human action. I tried to put numerical ratings for things like passions to make it something you could roll dice against. I ultimately scrapped it because human priorities are strictly ordinal, not cardinal. When you try to apply numbers to these things, you don't get results that are consistent to actual human behavior.

Don't get me wrong, doing something like what I scrapped or like what Pendragon is doing I feel is going to make character interactions ten times more interesting than going without any personality traits marked down at all. But ultimately, if you want maximum authenticity, you can't have numbers attached to it, you can't dice against it. You can't substitute mechanics for role-play.

I have zero problem with people wanting to go a Pendragon route. It sounds like a lot of fun. And it sounds like it's a much closer simulation to human behavior than what you find in most RPGs. It's just not accurate to say keeping the idea but dropping the numbers and the dice is lesser simulation when in fact it is greater simulation.

Quote from: Saurondor;889589Sounds more like your forcing a difference between narrated and simulated and making things very very very very HARD on you.

I'll give you an example of a mechanism I worked on for a modern warfare game (the type we usually think of as simulationist) and you tell me if I'm simulating or narrating.

I took two die rolls, opposing, one for the GM and one for the player. Each die roll represents the "reality" of each side and what matters is actual roll difference and not who is higher or lower than who. If the die rolls are similar the "realities" match if they're very different the "realities" are quite distant. If I want to hit you and we roll very similar to each other or even a 0 difference it so happens that you're standing in the wrong place at the wrong time and you just got hit. If the difference is very large then my "reality" was not able to "impose itself" on yours and you walk off unscratched.

With this simple system in mind I then took off to talk with people who've served (aka experts) and watched loads and loads of videos (combat cams) and researched a lot. I then made this small program that ran thousands of thousands of sample combats and I twitched the modifiers, values and ranges until I saw what I deemed a good representation of what I had gathered through my research. I took note of these values and then wrote them down into a rulebook. I had "trained" the system.

Now, technically I'm not simulating every single element in using a weapon, or combat maneuver or whatever. I didn't break down combat into its components in hopes that the resolution of these individual steps would lead to a "combat simulation". Clearly you can't really say that there are a lot of steps that lead up to this thing called "simulation", but yet, by interpreting some simple rolls you can "narrate" a pretty awesome (and realistic) gunfight without too much delay.

The question to you is: When using this system, am I simulating or narrating?

There is absolutely nothing forced or hard about it. I could take some random stranger off the street, have him watch a TTRPG session, and say, "Hey, keep track of the things that happen over the course of the game and sort them into two categories: 1. Things that happen just because someone said they happen and 2. Things that happen due to a mechanical process of simulation," and even a typical small child could sort the two with ease.

As far as your hypothetical system goes? You are attaching a gameplay mechanic to the determination of who has narrative authority. This is what we typically call a 'story game' and I talked about this much earlier in the thread. Further attaching considerations of simulation factors to weigh who gets narrative control is fine, but you have left out how this would work, and exactly how much narrative control players would have when it comes to the actual outcome. What does the roll represent? What does it simulate? If you can answer this question for yourself than there you go. If the roll doesn't simulate anything than it isn't a rule of simulation.

Quote from: Saurondor;889592Is there a way to differentiate this as an observer? Say you're looking at a player interpreting her character, she has some "key points" that define her character. She's playing out what the character does which has nothing to do with what she would actually do in such a situation. Can you, as an external observer, notice if she's "authoring" this as you say or playing by "pendragonish" character simulation rules? If so, what gives her away?

What does it matter if the observer can differentiate? I am talking about why things happen in an RPG, not why an observer might think they happen if they have incomplete information.

I can fudge the dice all day, and tell my players that I am using rules of simulation, when in fact I am overriding these supposed rules in favor of my own authored results.

Similarly, I can have a branching corridor in a dungeon, but have the players end up in the room of my preference regardless of which direction they go. This is called "illusionism" by many people, and what it is is simply using narrative rules while pretending to use rules of simulation.

Quote from: Lunamancer;889700See? So I guess your character doesn't just do stuff because you said so. Your character does some stuff when you say so but not other stuff because that's how the game works.

Dude. It's because the rules don't give the player narrative authority. They give it to the GM.

I honestly do not believe you teach communication at all, because you are stupid as a bag of rocks. You talk without listening.

Quote from: Lunamancer;889703I have zero problem with people wanting to go a Pendragon route. It sounds like a lot of fun. And it sounds like it's a much closer simulation to human behavior than what you find in most RPGs. It's just not accurate to say keeping the idea but dropping the numbers and the dice is lesser simulation when in fact it is greater simulation.

This is like saying, "I handle combat by dropping the numbers and the dice and just saying what I think happens based on my own extensive combat experience and this is a "greater" simulation than D&D gives by far."

You simply seem unable to differentiate between 'depiction' and 'simulation'. You simply authoring what happens may indeed possess great verisimilitude for your listeners... but it is NOT a simulation.

Quote from: Manzanaro;889721There is absolutely nothing forced or hard about it. I could take some random stranger off the street, have him watch a TTRPG session, and say, "Hey, keep track of the things that happen over the course of the game and sort them into two categories: 1. Things that happen just because someone said they happen and 2. Things that happen due to a mechanical process of simulation," and even a typical small child could sort the two with ease.

As far as your hypothetical system goes? You are attaching a gameplay mechanic to the determination of who has narrative authority. This is what we typically call a 'story game' and I talked about this much earlier in the thread. Further attaching considerations of simulation factors to weigh who gets narrative control is fine, but you have left out how this would work, and exactly how much narrative control players would have when it comes to the actual outcome. What does the roll represent? What does it simulate? If you can answer this question for yourself than there you go. If the roll doesn't simulate anything than it isn't a rule of simulation.

For example, your group is taken by surprise and attacked, you fire at the bush in the whereabouts of where you believe fire is coming from. You roll your dice, as a GM I roll mine and take note of what happens and I tell you nothing aside from maybe describing how your gunfire rattles the bush. What do you do? Will you move, lay low, what?

Another example, you fire at a rooftop from your HUMVEE as your convoy moves along. You roll dice and I roll dice. I determine the amount of combatants hit and suppressed, and indicate that to you. Feel free to further describe what happens in the scene. How the building's top gets hammered by the bullets, how bits and pieces fall out, maybe one of your targets falls off.

As you can see I'm not rolling for every single bullet fired, most of the time I'm not even rolling for damage, and I'm not keeping exact tabs on ammo either. Why? Because it doesn't add to the "realism" and it just slows down the game. I'm adding just enough so your character feels different from other characters, so one weapon is distinctive enough from another to matter, so a character with no sniper training can't pick up a sniper rifle and start picking off targets off a mile away. Of course you can use a sniper rifle, but not as effectively as a sniper, skill matters and it matters a lot more than things like scope modifiers and other perks.

On the other hand I'm not setting up a roll that when you succeed allows you to narrate the scene as you probably envision it in a story-game. Something like "Hey, I pick up the sniper rifle, use one point and blow off the tire of that truck 800 meters out that's moving off towards the setting sun in the horizon". Not really going to happen unless your character has the skill, and then, even then, it won't be something like "Wow, just barely made it, well the bullet flies off and nicks a branch just in time to get diverted back on course, clipping the tail of a flying pigeon before hitting the front tire through and through cutting even the break line and making the truck steer off uncontrollably over the cliff.

Of course, as a group of players you can add a "point" system that you can use during rolls that would turn your character into Simo Häyhä for that one critical shot in the game and allow anyone on the table to have authoring control during the game. Actually, you can allow authoring control without the point system too. To me they seem like two detached game elements which can be used independently or combined depending on the interests of the players.

Quote from: Manzanaro;889721"Hey, keep track of the things that happen over the course of the game and sort them into two categories: 1. Things that happen just because someone said they happen and 2. Things that happen due to a mechanical process of simulation," and even a typical small child could sort the two with ease.

As has been pointed out to you many times now, you are wrong about what the word simulation means. Something can be a simulation without being a mechanical process. Since the English meaning eludes you, maybe a semi-mathematical or set theoretic formulation will be more clear.

   (i) a simulation ≠ a mechanical process

(ii) simulations ⊄ mechanical processes

Hence the two categories you listed are not exhaustive and your claim that everything that is not a mechanical process is "authoring" is wrong.

Quote from: Manzanaro;889723Dude. It's because the rules don't give the player narrative authority. They give it to the GM.

I honestly do not believe you teach communication at all, because you are stupid as a bag of rocks. You talk without listening.

You're the one who keeps insisting on using the wrong definitions of words after being corrected on them repeatedly. Narrative just doesn't mean what you insist it means.

QuoteThis is like saying, "I handle combat by dropping the numbers and the dice and just saying what I think happens based on my own extensive combat experience and this is a "greater" simulation than D&D gives by far."

No. It's not like saying that at all. Though I already anticipating your moronic and dishonest bullshit argumentation in an earlier post:

QuoteI've observed in this thread a lot of people cling to one or two of the above categories and assume all simulation fits that form. They revolt against examples where a different take on simulation better fits a different category of action, disingenuously applying the differing definition to an example of action from a category their own definition is best serving.

So give it up already.

The physical world is deterministic, driven by things we can measure. A billiards ball moves in a certain direction at a certain speed, not because it has a goal or because it wants to get there in a hurry, but because it was struck by an object with a certain weight and density at a certain angle at a certain speed. All these things are measurable and can be put into numerical form. This is very different from human action which is willed. Human preferences and priorities are strictly ordinal, not cardinal. If you try to attach numbers to them, you get results that are inconsistent with actual human behavior.

I like the following foods in the following order: Orange juice, broccoli, cookies, and then milk. If I attach numbers to these--and I'll use variables here to avoid loss of generality--my preference for OJ is a, broccoli is b, cookies is c, and milk is d, such that a > b > c > d. So what's my preference for broccoli + OJ, vs cookies + milk? Is it a+b, which is greater than c+d? To the contrary, cookies and milk sound more appealing to me that broccoli and OJ. The numbers are misleading.

Notice typically in RPG combat we keep the human choice and the physical mechanics separate. You choose which weapon to use, you choose who to attack. But then the physical swing of the weapon itself and the effects of its physical impact against your opponent are handled by dice. We don't roll dice to determine which weapon you use and then roll dice to determine who you attack with it, or even if you attack. Nobody would call that a good simulation. But idiocy like that is what you're limiting social encounters to with your definition of simulation.

QuoteYou simply seem unable to differentiate between 'depiction' and 'simulation'.

No. Depicting something would fit the correct definition of narrative, which you seem to have trouble with.

Simulation is the imitation of the operation of a process or system over time. The act of simulating something first requires that a model be developed, this model represents the key characteristics or behaviors/functions of the selected system process.

So, if it is true what I say that human preferences are strictly ordinal, and that this lends itself to observable behaviors that are different from a cardinal (numerical) weighting of personality traits, then it is important that the simulation model reflect that.

You might say I'm mistaken about the nature of human action. And if that is the case, then indeed if I create the simulation model based on my understanding, it would be an inferior simulation. Just like if you're wrong about the nature of human action, the simulation model you find ideal would in fact be inferior.

If you say I'm "categorically wrong" about simulation, it's just because you refuse to accept that you're wrong about what simulation means. If you want to argue who's social interaction simulator is better, it really boils down to an argument about the nature of human action, which is off topic for this thread, and which I assure you you will lose anyway.

So basically, you're being dishonest by continuing to insist that what I'm describing isn't simulation.

QuoteYou simply authoring what happens

Authoring. Another word you're not using correctly. Authoring basically means writing. It could also mean programming. So if I'm creating a simulation, yeah, technically that's authoring. So I can't deny that I'm authoring. I'm not writing down a record of my actual play. So the ONLY sense in which I'm authoring is in the sense that I'm creating a simulation.... which contradicts the latter half of your sentence.

Quotemay indeed possess great verisimilitude for your listeners... but it is NOT a simulation.

Just learn what the fucking words mean.

Simulation is a process aimed at imitating something. The closer the process is to the thing being imitated, the better a simulation it is.

Narration is just a telling of events. It is not the creation of events. There are a million ways to narrate the same thing. And there is no requirement that the narrative be true. Narratives can be and often are embellished.

An author is one who writes. This can also mean one who writes a program or creates a system. Authoring means writing. Or the act of creating a system. A fiction author wears multiple hats. He creates the fictional events, or at the very least sets up a system to help create the events (some authors explicitly aim to "free their characters from the tyranny of the narrative") and they also write the actual account of those events for an audience to read. An author of non-fiction, on the other hand, does not create events. He merely writes an account of them.

Quote from: Lunamancer;889802Simulation is a process aimed at imitating something. The closer the process is to the thing being imitated, the better a simulation it is.

Closeness of the process is irrelevant. What matters is the closeness of the relevant results. I would have said, simulation A is a better simulation of thing X than is simulation B, if and only if simulation A tends to yield relevant results that are closer to the results provided by thing X than does simulation B.

Quote from: Bren;889807Closeness of the process is irrelevant. What matters is the closeness of the relevant results. I would have said, simulation A is a better simulation of thing X than is simulation B, if and only if simulation A tends to yield relevant results that are closer to the results provided by thing X than does simulation B.

I can agree with that with the caveat that it depends on perspective.

Suppose I have a driving simulator arcade style machine, only it's programmed so that the car turns left when you turn the wheel right and vice versa. Over time, a driver could learn to compensate for that. If I'm an outside observer of this simulation, I could look at the results and think the simulator is a good and accurate one. From the perspective of the driver, however, it's quite backwards.

You might actually want to go and design a combat system such that determinations of if you attack, who you attack, and with which weapon are all determined by dice. Now it may be you've done such an excellent job making a random selection system that to the outside observer, it seems pretty accurate. But to the person actually playing the character, he is aware he's not actually making these choices for himself. Such a simulation would fall flat to him.

Quote from: Lunamancer;889809You might actually want to go and design a combat system such that determinations of if you attack, who you attack, and with which weapon are all determined by dice. Now it may be you've done such an excellent job making a random selection system that to the outside observer, it seems pretty accurate. But to the person actually playing the character, he is aware he's not actually making these choices for himself. Such a simulation would fall flat to him.

Why? It is, as you mention, a great simulation. If the player is not concerned with taking such decisions as who is attacked, with what weapon, etc., then it might be quite fitting. An example of this may be a mass combat system or the actions of a retainer or maybe the player is more into social interaction and the whole combat thing is something that can be simulated in an automated way.