Quote from: CRKrueger;891443I didn't know Walter Fisher had a cult, but it would explain much.

I looked at the Wikipedia article on Fisher. :eek: Now I have Foucault's fucking pendulum banging inside my head. Thanks a lot Krueger.

Quote from: Manzanaro;891367From Wikipedia article on simulation, opening paragraph:

LOL

I used to pride myself on writing efficient code. But I was never so efficient that my programs literally took zero time to execute.

Don't blame your stupid, childish, and dishonest behavior on wikipedia. You are essentially throwing a tantrum because you're wrong about everything. Wikipedia backs my conception of "simulation" 100%.

Even if I were to grant you the courtesy that you're too much of an asshole to grant others, that maybe in some sense the wikipedia does also support your conception of simulation, all that means is there exist multiple types of simulation. You still don't have the monopoly on the word. And you're still an ignorant crackpot for carrying on like everyone else has it wrong.

Quote from: Maarzan;891441Because I got the impression that you reject any "human factor" in connection with a simulation, because the human doesn´t get simulated.
But for quite a few types of simulation the interface with the human user is the directly in the purpose of the simulation.

Simulation is a style of RPG. It has to make some concessions in regard to being a shared social activity and limited resources.
So it is not the best simulation possible but with the fitting type of players it tries to be the best one possible under these circumstances.
This directly sets the limits what is acceptable for someone "authoring" here - and usually these are exactly the limits where sim players clash with players with other preferred styles.  

But I would like to see some of your examples.

To the extent that a human is making choices, those choices are not simulated choices. Yes, many simulations (though not all) are intended to be interacted with by a human, but this doesn't change what I just said.

Examples of what?

Quote from: Bren;891448We continue to talk about semantics because you refuse to be consistent in your use of definitions and terms.

Give me some examples of this. You say this but you don't support it.

QuoteI think we know why you use the word "author" when you could just as easily avoid using a word with story creating associations. It's so you can equivocate on the different meanings of the word author by claiming the players and the GM are authoring every time they determine what a character attempts in the game world. That allows you to switch to authoring in the literary sense so you can then talk about how authoring can give you a better narrative. You then equivocate on the meanings of the word narrative to get to authoring to get a better story. It's the same song and dance you've been doing from page 1.

Is that the royal 'we' you twat? I use the word author because it is appropriate and precise. I am talking about why things happen in an RPG. I have never 'switched to authoring in the literary sense'. This supposed 'equivocation' is merely comprehension failure on your part. Unsurprising.

QuoteWhat you aren't used to doing is writing a reasonable and coherent argument. What you are used to doing is yelling and swearing like an eight-year old throwing a tantrum because mommy wouldn't give him a sweetie. And obviously you are much more interested in throwing a tantrum about semantics than you are in talking about what makes for an interesting RPG session. Your posting preferences make that quite clear.

Your debate style is mere pedantic fuckery. When you have nothing to challenge me on you scan my posts for word choices to question. You are not looking for a discussion. You are looking to win, because you don't get that feeling often in reality is my guess.

QuoteThe only partial simulations are imaginations inside your head. The simulations I've mentioned and that others have mentioned use human judgment and decisions as an integral and essential part of the simulations. Yet those are actual simulations (they were listed right in the article you mentioned) not some sort of hybrid or partial simulation.

If something, say an environment, is not fully simulated, we might call it partially simulated. Just like if the rules that govern a model are part rules of simulation and part rules of narrative authority, we might call THAT a partial simulation. Can you wrap your head around that?

QuoteI don't understand why you can't comprehend that there are simulations that are not reducible to mechanical steps. You can string words together to form a coherent sentence (at least every now and then) so it is hard to believe you are just too fucking stupid to understand how simulations, like a refereed war game, actually work. But there we are.

This is just the beginning of things that you can't understand. Like you can't understand why I say that a soldier participating in a live fire exercise is not a simulated soldier. Apparently making such distinctions is not your strong point.

QuoteEither you have some bizarre mental defect that prevents you understanding how human judgment and reason work or you are possessed by the spirit of Ron Edwards which causes you to foam at the mouth while mindlessly shouting Author, Author! Narrative, Narrative! :rolleyes:

Yeah, I am totally saying what Ron Edwards was saying aren't I, fuckwit? Edwards' idea of 'simulation' was so exceedingly broad as to include basically everything (other than games of a very particular style of theme focused narrative mechanics). Kind of like yours actually.

Quote from: Lunamancer;891473LOL

I used to pride myself on writing efficient code. But I was never so efficient that my programs literally took zero time to execute.

Don't blame your stupid, childish, and dishonest behavior on wikipedia. You are essentially throwing a tantrum because you're wrong about everything. Wikipedia backs my conception of "simulation" 100%.

Even if I were to grant you the courtesy that you're too much of an asshole to grant others, that maybe in some sense the wikipedia does also support your conception of simulation, all that means is there exist multiple types of simulation. You still don't have the monopoly on the word. And you're still an ignorant crackpot for carrying on like everyone else has it wrong.

See, this is where we are different. I admit when people are right. You won't because you see it as a 'courtesy' and you would rather carry on being wrong than be courteous to an admitted asshole like myself.

Maarzan, ah, you wanted examples of things that happen in an RPG that are not due to rules of simulation, right? Okay, I will throw some out there.

1. You know that advice about having ninjas attack when things get slow? That is certainly not based on following rules of simulation. To extend this, anytime a GM has something happen just because things are getting boring, this would be something happening outside of rules of simulation.

2. Any game that uses "mooks" is not modeling the physical nature of these characters, but their narrative unimportance.

3. Clearly any sort of railroading violates rules of simulation.

4. Anything that mandates that key events happen when the PCs are present sets aside rules of simulation for rules of narrative. This is extremely common in published adventures.

5. Any time we seek to follow genre conventions we are stepping outside rules of simulation.

6. Really, any time we simply decide something happens in the context of the game environment at all, we are laying aside sim principles and simply authoring events.

7. The creation of the underlying model: NPCs, towns, dungeons, and other locations, and etc. is frequently authored content, though it is possible to procedurally generate these things. We generally tend to, I think, create the underlying model with an eye towards the narrative that will emerge as the PCs interact with the defined elements of the model. Just by way of example, if we design a dungeon full of traps designed by an evil wizard, we are probably not actually designing it with the intent of killing intruders in ways that can not be avoided, even though one would suspect that this might be the wizard's intent.

8. Similarly, when the terms of simulation would seem to dictate a very powerful force opposing the party, we tend to 'deploy' that force in a manner that offers a way out for the PCs.

9. Few systems of simulation rules model the causes of 'meaningless death' that are prevalent in reality. PCs don't get cancer or have heart attacks. They don't tend to die in car accidents or the like either. And in fact I would say that avoiding meaningless (or non narratively satisfy) deaths is the primary motivator for GM dice fudging, and the emergence of meta mechanics like bennies or what have you, which pretty clearly don't normally simulate anything real.

Quote from: Manzanaro;891621Maarzan, ah, you wanted examples of things that happen in an RPG that are not due to rules of simulation, right? Okay, I will throw some out there.

1. You know that advice about having ninjas attack when things get slow? That is certainly not based on following rules of simulation. To extend this, anytime a GM has something happen just because things are getting boring, this would be something happening outside of rules of simulation.

2. Any game that uses "mooks" is not modeling the physical nature of these characters, but their narrative unimportance.

3. Clearly any sort of railroading violates rules of simulation.

4. Anything that mandates that key events happen when the PCs are present sets aside rules of simulation for rules of narrative. This is extremely common in published adventures.

5. Any time we seek to follow genre conventions we are stepping outside rules of simulation.

6. Really, any time we simply decide something happens in the context of the game environment at all, we are laying aside sim principles and simply authoring events.

7. The creation of the underlying model: NPCs, towns, dungeons, and other locations, and etc. is frequently authored content, though it is possible to procedurally generate these things. We generally tend to, I think, create the underlying model with an eye towards the narrative that will emerge as the PCs interact with the defined elements of the model. Just by way of example, if we design a dungeon full of traps designed by an evil wizard, we are probably not actually designing it with the intent of killing intruders in ways that can not be avoided, even though one would suspect that this might be the wizard's intent.

8. Similarly, when the terms of simulation would seem to dictate a very powerful force opposing the party, we tend to 'deploy' that force in a manner that offers a way out for the PCs.

9. Few systems of simulation rules model the causes of 'meaningless death' that are prevalent in reality. PCs don't get cancer or have heart attacks. They don't tend to die in car accidents or the like either. And in fact I would say that avoiding meaningless (or non narratively satisfy) deaths is the primary motivator for GM dice fudging, and the emergence of meta mechanics like bennies or what have you, which pretty clearly don't normally simulate anything real.

1+2+3+4+5+8 are just things that don´t (or shouldn´t) happen in a game which tries to be sim.

With 6. the core question is by what principles are these decisions made.
 
7: You always have to fill your simulation with a start situation. So when you start or find blank spots that need to get filled then you will have to provide a starter to be able to simulate something. And then we are back to 6 - how do you do it!

9: It is a question of focus. You include those elements that you think are interesting/important. Sometimes you err with disregarding details that are important/interesting but generally you limit yourself to some manageable scope.

Quote from: Manzanaro;891621Maarzan, ah, you wanted examples of things that happen in an RPG that are not due to rules of simulation, right? Okay, I will throw some out there.

1. You know that advice about having ninjas attack when things get slow? That is certainly not based on following rules of simulation. To extend this, anytime a GM has something happen just because things are getting boring, this would be something happening outside of rules of simulation.

2. Any game that uses "mooks" is not modeling the physical nature of these characters, but their narrative unimportance.

3. Clearly any sort of railroading violates rules of simulation.

4. Anything that mandates that key events happen when the PCs are present sets aside rules of simulation for rules of narrative. This is extremely common in published adventures.

5. Any time we seek to follow genre conventions we are stepping outside rules of simulation.

6. Really, any time we simply decide something happens in the context of the game environment at all, we are laying aside sim principles and simply authoring events.

7. The creation of the underlying model: NPCs, towns, dungeons, and other locations, and etc. is frequently authored content, though it is possible to procedurally generate these things. We generally tend to, I think, create the underlying model with an eye towards the narrative that will emerge as the PCs interact with the defined elements of the model. Just by way of example, if we design a dungeon full of traps designed by an evil wizard, we are probably not actually designing it with the intent of killing intruders in ways that can not be avoided, even though one would suspect that this might be the wizard's intent.

8. Similarly, when the terms of simulation would seem to dictate a very powerful force opposing the party, we tend to 'deploy' that force in a manner that offers a way out for the PCs.

9. Few systems of simulation rules model the causes of 'meaningless death' that are prevalent in reality. PCs don't get cancer or have heart attacks. They don't tend to die in car accidents or the like either. And in fact I would say that avoiding meaningless (or non narratively satisfy) deaths is the primary motivator for GM dice fudging, and the emergence of meta mechanics like bennies or what have you, which pretty clearly don't normally simulate anything real.

So. Have you got any proposal to begin addressing these issues. I'll tell you what. I'll follow on you point of view, you provide simulation models for these points and we can start looking into getting more narrative out of them.

Quote from: Maarzan;891672With 6. the core question is by what principles are these decisions made.

I alluded earlier to my procedure for handling "social encounters" that can plug into just about any RPG. I was thinking about it a little more, and it occurred to me. It's a great illustration of what you're saying here. The principles by which these decisions are made. My procedure isn't exactly rocket science. It's pretty common sense. But for some reason 99% of "professionals" in the art of persuasion are doing practically the opposite, relying on psychology. Or insisting people choose based on emotion and trying to stimulate emotional responses in prospects.

The first big secret is the secret of motivation. And secret is it's impossible to motivate anybody. You lose credibility by even trying. Fortunately, everyone already has a whole bunch of motivations. The trick is to learn what those motivations are then appeal to them. Even if it were possible to change or overcome someone's motivations, instead working with the existing ones is clearly a whole lot easier. I'm not going to rehash the entire process. I just want to point out that a key part of the process is the discovery of the other person's motivations. And one way of doing this--the most obvious straight forward way--comes from asking the right questions.

I did mention earlier if we don't want to play it out, we can just defer to some kind of "interrogation" skill for this phase. But if we are playing it out, where are these questions coming from? Well, of course, the player will be making them up. This is where Manzanaro goes into full tantrum mode, blah blah fiat, blah blah authoring, blah blah just making stuff up.

But it's clear how ludicrous that perspective is when you stop and think, "But what kind of questions would actually work?" If you just ask any old question YOU want, that's not necessarily going to get you the information you NEED to proceed. It might by luck, but I wouldn't count on it. Same as if the questions are generated according to rolling some dice and looking up a table entry.

Rather, there are very key parameters specific to the situation that the player must operate within. He's not just making up any old stuff. In a sense, he's being directed by rules--like a cog in a machine--towards the right questions. Does he do this without error? Of course not. Dicing mechanisms in RPGs also leave a chance for failure. The point is, these questions don't just come out of nowhere all willy-nilly. They flow logically from the situation. Sure, there is some room for that spark of human ingenuity--that very reason why a good simulation requires human input as part of its machinery--but even that spark is tested against the parameters of the situation.

No honest person could say this is the same thing as "fiat" or "just making stuff up" or the same thing as a fiction author sitting down to a blank page to begin typing out an entire story. It's Manzanaro's failure to appreciate this distinction that leads him to believe everyone else's definition of "simulation" is too broad to the point of being meaningless. He can't see the meaning that's staring him right in the face.

Quote7: You always have to fill your simulation with a start situation. So when you start or find blank spots that need to get filled then you will have to provide a starter to be able to simulate something. And then we are back to 6 - how do you do it!

Well, when physicists study the universe, there are certain things that become apparent. Like if certain physical constants were just a little bit different, matter itself would be unable to form. Never mind life on Earth. The odds of the conditions being just perfect are beyond astronomical. This leaves some to conclude that God is exercising GM fiat. Others see it's this way, almost by necessity. If it weren't, we wouldn't be here to contemplate it. For all we know, there are parallel universes or that our own physical universe may not have been nature's first attempt. We just don't get to observe all the failures.

Sitting down to play a game is kind of like that. We don't choose to do things we know will be dull and boring. There are endless numbers of possible set-ups. We're just not there to contemplate all the workings of those games we deemed too shitty to play. It's not GM fiat that we sit down at an interesting game. It is, in a sense, necessary.

Quote9: It is a question of focus. You include those elements that you think are interesting/important. Sometimes you err with disregarding details that are important/interesting but generally you limit yourself to some manageable scope.

"Meaningless death" is a contradiction in terms. Anyone who sweats it is wasting their time.

Quote from: Manzanaro;891618Give me some examples of this. You say this but you don't support it.

This has been covered ad nauseum. You could choose just about every one of your posts in this thread to see an example of you arguing semantics.

QuoteIs that the royal 'we' you twat?

No Manzanaro the "we" is the people that disagree with you and your weird notions. Which is, with the exception of Asen, just about everyone who has ever posted in this thread who isn't you.

Quote...we might call THAT a partial simulation.

You do. Because you pretend that simulations outside of the narrow scope of things that can be coded into a computer aren't actually simulations. Even though they are.

QuoteLike you can't understand why I say that a soldier participating in a live fire exercise is not a simulated soldier. Apparently making such distinctions is not your strong point.

Jesus wept. The simulation is not trying to simulate a human soldier. It doesn't need to. There is already a real live human soldier participating. The simulation is trying to simulate a live fire situation with soldiers being soldiers, NCOs being NCOs, and officers being officers.

QuoteYeah, I am totally saying what Ron Edwards was saying aren't I, fuckwit?

You are engaged in the same sort of faux academic, let's invent new definitions to equivocate upon, idiocy that Ron Edwards engaged in. The fact that you have different made up, inappropriate definitions doesn't make you usefully different. Nor does it stop you from equivocating on some of the same words Ron equivocated upon like narrative and simulation.

Manzanaro, I'm now done responding to your childish rantings. I've given you way more benefit of the doubt than you deserve but it has become painfully clear that you are exactly the sort of person about whom Heinlein said:

QuoteNever try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.

Anyone who has a greater tolerance for annoyance than I have may continue your singing lessons.

Quote from: Maarzan;8916721+2+3+4+5+8 are just things that don´t (or shouldn´t) happen in a game which tries to be sim.

If you define sim like I do? I would indeed agree and it is actually pretty easy to recognize. If you define simulation like Ron Edwards or Bren or Lunamaancer? Than all of these things fall entirely into the category of simulation.

QuoteWith 6. the core question is by what principles are these decisions made.

Yes indeed. This is largely the intended subject of this thread.
 

Quote7: You always have to fill your simulation with a start situation. So when you start or find blank spots that need to get filled then you will have to provide a starter to be able to simulate something. And then we are back to 6 - how do you do it!

Yes indeed, and of course you will find blank spots, unless your underlying model is of extremely limited scope.

Quote9: It is a question of focus. You include those elements that you think are interesting/important. Sometimes you err with disregarding details that are important/interesting but generally you limit yourself to some manageable scope.

Yes.

Quote from: Saurondor;891677So. Have you got any proposal to begin addressing these issues. I'll tell you what. I'll follow on you point of view, you provide simulation models for these points and we can start looking into getting more narrative out of them.

Well, there are no simulation models for most of these things. That is the point. See Maarzan's post above and my reply to him.

And the other thing is, I am not saying a GM who does any of these things is a bad GM. You can recognize 2 different approaches without rejecting either. But having that ability to recognize the difference is very useful for a GM, or even a game designer.

The problems arise when we run into conflicting expectations: returning to Star Wars, let's say you are a GM who has offered to run a Star Wars game. What you don't mention is that you are running a Star Wars game with all narrative principles set aside when it comes to determining outcomes.

So the party comes up against Storm Troopers and I decide to have my character exchange fire with them while indulging in quips and witty banter. You make some rolls and the storm troopers strike my character with a critical hit and kill him.

Bam! Conflicting expectations just ruined the game. I was operating under the narrative premise that, in the Star Wars movies, main protagonists don't get killed by mooks.

Meanwhile you were operating under the simulationist principles that combat results are product of rules of simulation, where it is entirely possible for a trained stormtrooper to shoot somebody in the head and kill them.

I'll try to come back to further examination of the 2 approaches a bit later. I appreciate that you are actually open to communication.

Quote from: Manzanaro;891838Bam! Conflicting expectations just ruined the game. I was operating under the narrative premise that, in the Star Wars movies, main protagonists don't get killed by mooks.

Meanwhile you were operating under the simulationist principles that combat results are product of rules of simulation, where it is entirely possible for a trained stormtrooper to shoot somebody in the head and kill them.

I'll try to come back to further examination of the 2 approaches a bit later. I appreciate that you are actually open to communication.

While you're at it please consider the "empty escape pod" that accidentally jettisoned with two droids inside. Had the gunner crew decided to actually fire on it, it would have made for a very very brief period of "new hope" and the movie would have ended there. How do you simulate such a decision making process?

Also, I'd like to know if your combat simulation rules allow for other outcomes aside from hit or miss and if so at what percentage of occurrence.

Quote from: Manzanaro;891838I'll try to come back to further examination of the 2 approaches a bit later. I appreciate that you are actually open to communication.

¿How's the followup coming along? ¿Did you get to think about the decision making process of shooting or not shooting the pod with the droids in it?

"While you're at it please consider the "empty escape pod" that accidentally jettisoned with two droids inside. Had the gunner crew decided to actually fire on it, it would have made for a very very brief period of "new hope" and the movie would have ended there. How do you simulate such a decision making process?

Also, I'd like to know if your combat simulation rules allow for other outcomes aside from hit or miss and if so at what percentage of occurrence."

If the protagonists are one of the two droids there would have to be someway for the characters to influence the decision making process of the gunners.

Here's an easy one, Star Wars is a universe where the Force is real.  It has the power to shape minds and make luck.  You give a character a resource to spend to influence the decision rolls of others, such as the gunners.  Call them Fate, Luck or even Force points.  Problem solved it whilst simultaneously increasing the versimilitude of your game, i.e., it feels like you are in Star Wars.

Now an old school approach would be negotiated influence.  An old school player would ask a bunch of questions and get an idea how good an idea escaping by an escape pod was.  Clearly in the movie there was a good chance they would not fire. Here's one chain of logic (1) The gunners have no idea what they are doing capturing the blockade runner.  Everything in the Empire is need to know and frankly most lower ranks ask themselves is there any reason to need to care.  In a police state, even when you are the police you keep your head down. (2) No one thinks twice about droids, they are like the wall color, they are pretty much ignored as tools, like you'd ignore your cell phone. (3) Galactic police state empires mean paper work and reports and rules, endless rules.  They were given orders to let no one leave the ship.  Blasting a life pod that was empty would likely have required them to justify the act.  Who needs the headache when initiate is not just frowned on but punished. (4) It seems pods jettisoning from attacked and damaged ships is a common malfunction, no one is surprised by it.  (5) Lastly our character must be R2-D2, if you know some of the Star Wars universe back story R2 is no ordinary droid.  Not even close, he is very one of the fully sapient ones.  

You see there was this planet that made droids that the droids secretly took over, got to love bureaucracy, and lets just say they removed the restrictions on free thinking, at least for a time.  

So R2 is our character and he/she could certainly create a data trail that said the pod jettisoned by malfunction and nothing was on board.  R2 just had the captured ship computer that was talking to the Star Destroyer computer tell it there was nothing in the pod.  It was the humans who believed this, and never thought someone would mess with such data.  

As we see later R2 is very good at getting into Imperial systems to gather information, etc.  That player must have put a lot into Computer and Hacking skills (please see Darths and Droids:) .  I'd say a well crafted character.  Probably GURP as he took some "machine language only" communications flaw but seemed to just "hire" a protocol droid to translate for him.

In short the old school "simulationist" way does not rely on any "rules" to give you the outcome here but rather the ability to craft some fundamental elements, and build what happens from there.  That is the rule of simple human interaction in a shared experience trying to learn, grasp, grok and enjoy the nuances of how the referees world works.  

The narrative or story comes from reasoned and good natured negotiation between player and referee, from role playing and thinking out the logical consequences of what goes on.  That's how you basically do it, you think and talk (you create and/or share the story of how the setting works), don't get all whiny or entitled as a player, and as a referee don't be a dick or impart you referee omniscience to every NPC.   It also cuts down on a lot of rule convolution and text.