So Bren, when you come up with all these details, you do so purely from a perspective of what is "realistic" and logical for the setting? Whether these details actually end up generating an interesting narrative is of no concern? Hmm.

So where I would say, "There is definitely going to be a competing circus, and in fact, it will be one run by a genuinely ruthless competitor, and I will be very much looking for ways to get some drama out of that rivalry, while faithfully adhering to the rules of simulation where they come into play; you, on the other hand, would say, "Realistically for this setting there is about a 3% chance of a rival circus and I rolled and there's not, so let's see what else I can think of to roll for."

See, MY Gamemastering 101 is a bit different than yours, and includes the principle that it is the GMs responsibility to make things interesting. While a hastily written set of rules for Sim Fantasy Circus, may indeed result in interesting gameplay, it may also result in what is basically just a very dry business simulation. And, also? To be realistic? I don't know feed consumption rates for various animals. I don't have rules that dictate ticket prices the market will bear. I don't know exactly how long it takes 12 guys to set up.a giant circus tent. Unless I am an expert in everything (like you?), I am not going to be able to accurately simulate every possible field of endeavor that the PCs may choose to engage in. So what I will VERY OFTEN DO, rather than constantly stop the game so I can do research on a given topic, is simply wing it: glossing over details that I find uninteresting, using skill checks to stand in for things that I don't have the knowledge to examine in greater detail, and maintaining a focus on INTERESTING events and situations rather than, say, the microdetails of circus animal care and transport, and economic factors that would be central to any sort of "accurate" business simulation.

Quote from: Bren;894992I've seen a number of folks get hung up on this point. In game systems that use separate rolls to hit and for damage and especially where the to hit roll determines a binary result of hit or miss, rolling a good hit on the to hit roll doesn't mean what you think it means. It means the same thing that a roll that barely hits means. It means you hit. Now roll to see how much damage your hit did.

It may not be intuitive to your way of thinking. You may not like it. You might prefer different rules.

But from a system standpoint, that is what the roll means. If you need a 13 or better on D20 and there are no critical hits in the system (which is how OD&D worked) then rolling a 13, a 19, or a 20 mean the exact same thing. "You hit." None of those rolls is better than nor worse than the others. If you want to know if the 19 was actually a good hit (i.e. it did a lot of damage), then you need to see what you rolled on the damage dice. Which are, as you point out, independent of the roll to hit in such a system.

What happened is that you allowed your incorrect intuition of how the system works and what each roll represents to give you a false expectation of the likely outcome.

Bren, I know perfectly well how the system works. There's no incorrect intuition. I'm working outside the way the system works, working to define the system based on the reality I wish to model instead of accepting the reality the system generates. This to address issues that I consider lead to the situation Manzanaro cites involving the stormtrooper and protagonist.

Now, that being said, it's also possible to join both rolls into one. The issue is that it's not possible with a d20 to obtain steps less than 5%, so a second roll is needed. Question is, can this be done with another type of dice and if so how?

Quote from: Saurondor;895022Bren, I know perfectly well how the system works. There's no incorrect intuition. I'm working outside the way the system works, working to define the system based on the reality I wish to model instead of accepting the reality the system generates.

Let's just agree you want to use a different model that doesn’t treat damage independently of a roll to hit.

QuoteNow, that being said, it's also possible to join both rolls into one.

Of course. And since Pythagorean solids have at most 20 sides, it isn't possible to use increments of less than 5% without rolling more than one die or using some other means of generating random numbers. Once you are rolling more than one die, I don’t see any objective difference to how you parse up whether you hit and by how much. One may have subjective preferences...but that's all they are.

Parenthetically, I wonder how much people’s formative gaming experiences affect their subjective preferences.

Personally, since OD&D didn't differentiate between the result of a hit I never really attributed a roll of 19 or 20 as being better (other than that they would hit against some better armor classes) than a roll of 15 or 16. One hit was as good as another since damage (and abstractly hit location, force of the hit, penetration, etc.) was being determined by a completely independent roll for damage. And since after OD&D I played Runequest where hit location was separately determined by a second independent roll from chance to hit I never considered that a to hit roll of 36  should be better than a to hit roll of 63 (so long as both rolls were simple successes).

QuoteQuestion is, can this be done with another type of dice and if so how?

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

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

Quote from: Manzanaro;895019So where I would say, "There is definitely going to be a competing circus, and in fact, it will be one run by a genuinely ruthless competitor, and I will be very much looking for ways to get some drama out of that rivalry, while faithfully adhering to the rules of simulation where they come into play; you, on the other hand, would say, "Realistically for this setting there is about a 3% chance of a rival circus and I rolled and there's not, so let's see what else I can think of to roll for."

Given how human behavior works if there is another circus that overlaps the PCs area of activity at all the odds of rivalry would be high. Tribalism, business competition, supply and demand, and all that. If there is no rival circus, there is probably a one or more reasons why there is no competition (not enough population, cultural taboo about circuses, travel in the region is too difficult due to wandering monsters, impassible mountains or swamps, not enough oases or not enough water at the water holes to support a big circus on the move, diseases that kill circus animals, insufficient number of bearded ladies and clowns for hire). Trying to overcome those challenges would be interesting to some people.

QuoteSee, MY Gamemastering 101 is a bit different than yours, and includes the principle that it is the GMs responsibility to make things interesting.

Which takes us back to your very first post where "interesting" to you seems to have more to do with fictional literature, cinema, and TV than seeing what happens in a simulation of a realistic world in motion and whether or not the plans of the PCs are successful.

QuoteWhile a hastily written set of rules for Sim Fantasy Circus, may indeed result in interesting gameplay, it may also result in what is basically just a very dry business simulation.

If running a business like a circus seems dull to you, then maybe you (that is the players who want to run a circus without considering whether it would be fun to do) shouldn't have decided to run a business.

If players insist on doing things that they find boring, I don't really see that my job as the GM is to add attacking ninjas to the world just to liven things up for the wankers who decided to run a grocery store (or do some other thing they find dull) instead of trying to overthrow the baron (or doing some other thing they are likely to find interesting). All this is why I said, more than once now, that the first step is to ask the players what their plan is for forming a circus.

If the business details aren't interesting to them (and the business side isn't interesting to many people, much less many players, while clearly it is to some people and some players) then the GM can abstract the business elements of the game to focus on the elements that the players have made part of whatever their plan happens to be. Or, alternatively the GM can let the players realize that running a business isn't fun. Then the players say something like, "Hey, you know what, forming a circus was kind of fun, but running one is boring. Let's sell the circus and buy a ship so we can smuggle contraband into the Kingdom of Law." Now the GM needs to figure out what parts of ship movement, combat, and the smuggling business the players are interested in.

Asking them often helps.

QuoteUnless I am an expert in everything (like you?), I am not going to be able to accurately simulate every possible field of endeavor that the PCs may choose to engage in.

I'm not an expert in everything. But I am interested in most things and don't mind doing some research in the things I don't already know and remember something about. Frankly, you seem much less interested in a whole lot of the details of a world.

If no one is interested in certain details then by all means use a more abstract method for managing those elements of the world. If you really would rather just make up stuff on the fly without taking the time or making the effort to have the details make sense or to use an abstract method of simulation that's fine too. Obviously simulation isn't really your primary concern at that point. But it doesn't appear to be the primary concern of most GMs. And it's barely a secondary concern for many.

Bren it's really amusing how you constantly try to sneak little insults into the discussion at every turn. Why not just openly insult me where you feel it is appropriate (like I do you) and than you can focus your actual discussion on the content rather than ways of working in all the baseless little insults about how shitty a GM I must be and how uninterested in reality etc.

Quote from: Manzanaro;895066Bren it's really amusing how you constantly try to sneak little insults into the discussion at every turn. Why not just openly insult me where you feel it is appropriate (like I do you) and than you can focus your actual discussion on the content rather than ways of working in all the baseless little insults about how shitty a GM I must be and how uninterested in reality etc.

The point I see here is that you decide ex cathedra what can be labeled "interesting" and set this to whatever "story qualities" you prefer.

If we have a game, that has as a (I assume priorly negotiated) focus of simulation as indicated by the headline, then changing things high-handedly away from simulation to make things "more interesting" according to "better story" is shitty GMing!

Of course there will be decissions to be made and some may get wrong and some have some leway in what direction they fall, but you start already with the intent to deviate from the preagreed path and thus kind of cheat.


Maarzan, who really liked the accounting side of running a castle or a mercenary mech unit. Heck, I started as "castelan" before I had my first own character for some guys that had just reached name level and cleaned up a monster infested castle.

Quote from: Manzanaro;895066Bren it's really amusing how you constantly try to sneak little insults into the discussion at every turn.

I guess it's nice that you are amusing yourself. I don't intend to sneak in any insults. Nor do I know what you think you read in my last post that you think was intended as an insult, sneaky or otherwise.

As far as your capability as a GM, you don't seem very interested in simulation. You have a narrow, mechanistic, and somewhat static view of what simulation is in general and what simulation means and can include in table top RPGs in particular. All that seems clear from the totality of your posts in this thread.

You seem a lot more interested in literary and cinematic framing, terminology, and tropes than you do in the outcomes of simulation and you seem to see those auctorial activities as inherently yielding more "interesting" outcomes than any realistic simulation. That too seems to be the gist from the totality of your posts in this thread.

Neither of those traits make you a shitty GM. But since people in general tend not to be very good at stuff that doesn't interest them and that they don't practice, that likely means you aren't very good at creating new rules of simulation or following them beyond what the game designer has already provided.

So overall, I don't see simulation as one of your GM strengths. Which while it doesn't make you a shitty GM, it does make your thread title a bit ironic.

So, to respond more fully now that I have a bit of time.

Quote from: Bren;895050Which takes us back to your very first post where "interesting" to you seems to have more to do with fictional literature, cinema, and TV than seeing what happens in a simulation of a realistic world in motion and whether or not the plans of the PCs are successful.

"Interesting" means "interesting". How do you expect me to define the word? How do you define it? If someone finds something interesting that thing is interesting to them, simple as that. Literature, cinema, oral story telling; the authors of these things usually strive to be interesting. Not many people set out to craft boring and uninteresting narratives. Just like most GMs try to run interesting games. They don't just sit there rolling up random events while their players watch and hope that something interesting gets rolled up.

A simulation can be interesting, but unless you are relying upon pure happenstance, it tends to benefit from a guiding hand to determine what parts of the simulation get focused on and how the results of that simulation are presented in a narrative fashion.

QuoteIf running a business like a circus seems dull to you, then maybe you (that is the players who want to run a circus without considering whether it would be fun to do) shouldn't have decided to run a business.

Notice that, "We want to form a circus," does not necessarily correspond to, "We want to engage in a circus business simulation based on your particular notions of how to simulate such a thing. We want to wallow in economic data and trivial business decisions."

QuoteIf players insist on doing things that they find boring, I don't really see that my job as the GM is to add attacking ninjas to the world just to liven things up for the wankers who decided to run a grocery store (or do some other thing they find dull) instead of trying to overthrow the baron (or doing some other thing they are likely to find interesting). All this is why I said, more than once now, that the first step is to ask the players what their plan is for forming a circus.

I expect that they were probably hoping it would not be boring. What do you think? And I haven't suggested throwing in random ninja attacks have I? In fact, in an earlier post I spoke out precisely against that very thing. Why create false positions for me, Bren?

QuoteIf the business details aren't interesting to them (and the business side isn't interesting to many people, much less many players, while clearly it is to some people and some players) then the GM can abstract the business elements of the game to focus on the elements that the players have made part of whatever their plan happens to be. Or, alternatively the GM can let the players realize that running a business isn’t fun. Then the players say something like, "Hey, you know what, forming a circus was kind of fun, but running one is boring. Let's sell the circus and buy a ship so we can smuggle contraband into the Kingdom of Law." Now the GM needs to figure out what parts of ship movement, combat, and the smuggling business the players are interested in.

Or I guess the GM could make the smuggling business just as boring as he made the circus business, and hope that sooner or later the players will give up and go back to dungeon crawling.

QuoteI’m not an expert in everything. But I am interested in most things and don’t mind doing some research in the things I don’t already know and remember something about. Frankly, you seem much less interested in a whole lot of the details of a world.

What makes you say that, Bren?

QuoteIf no one is interested in certain details then by all means use a more abstract method for managing those elements of the world. If you really would rather just make up stuff on the fly without taking the time or making the effort to have the details make sense or to use an abstract method of simulation that’s fine too. Obviously simulation isn’t really your primary concern at that point. But it doesn’t appear to be the primary concern of most GMs. And it’s barely a secondary concern for many.

Simulation isn't my concern? But Bren, according to your definition of simulation, isn't every single roleplaying game a simulation?? What do you mean by 'simulation'? Don't tell me you have converted to my definition without acknowledging it? Here is how I read your interpretation:

Manzanaro authors stuff into the game = making up stuff on the fly without taking the time or making the effort to have the details make sense or to use an abstract method of simulation

Bren authors stuff into the game = simulation, especially if it takes him a long time to do so

Quote from: Maarzan;895069If we have a game, that has as a (I assume priorly negotiated) focus of simulation as indicated by the headline, then changing things high-handedly away from simulation to make things "more interesting" according to "better story" is shitty GMing!

Of course there will be decissions to be made and some may get wrong and some have some leway in what direction they fall, but you start already with the intent to deviate from the preagreed path and thus kind of cheat.

Maarzan, where have I talked about changing things away from simulation to make thing more interesting according to "better story"?

Where have I talked about having an intention to deviate from the preagreed path?

Can you provide quotes? Because otherwise I have to assume you are reading things into what I am saying that I have never said. Don't worry though, it isn't like you are the first person in this thread to do so.

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

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

I also strive to define in my head as much relevant information as possible, as early as possible, and once such information is defined, I will treat it as concrete even if my head is the only place it has been defined. So if the thief PC breaks into a random house, and I decide (by fiat or die roll) that the house is occupied by an elderly couple asleep upstairs, and 3 cats? I will abide by this and see how it plays out under the rules of simulation of the game being played. I will not decide, "This would be a much more interesting narrative if there were a 11th level Fighter in the house, " but I will try to present the narrative of the unfolding robbery in as suspenseful and compelling a manner as possible, by use of narrative techniques.

And also, yes, I do author large chunks of material related to the core premise of the game. So I might author a dungeon and its inhabitants, but than I will let the interaction between the PCs and the dungeon play out strictly under rules of simulation. Similarly, in the circus scenario? I would absolutely author a rival circus of sinister clowns, freakshow denizens, a malicious ringmaster, and animal tamers, and I would very likely author other NPCs with their own particular agendas related to the PCs' circus as well. But than I would strive to play out the interactions with these NPCs in as simulationist a manner as possible. I will not grant the NPCs omniscient knowledge for the sake of narrative effect. Nor will I just throw them into the plot whenever I feel like it. Instead I will actually track their locations and actions in the world, just as I do with the PCs (though not quite with such specificity, admittedly) and I will allow interactions to occur as dictated by this tracking process.

You do it the same way you say Bren is insulting you - casually strewn into the text. Exemplary:

Quote from: Manzanaro;895019So Bren, when you come up with all these details, you do so purely from a perspective of what is "realistic" and logical for the setting? Whether these details actually end up generating an interesting narrative is of no concern? Hmm.

So where I would say, "There is definitely going to be a competing circus, and in fact, it will be one run by a genuinely ruthless competitor, and I will be very much looking for ways to get some drama out of that rivalry, while faithfully adhering to the rules of simulation where they come into play; you, on the other hand, would say, "Realistically for this setting there is about a 3% chance of a rival circus and I rolled and there's not, so let's see what else I can think of to roll for."

See, MY Gamemastering 101 is a bit different than yours, and includes the principle that it is the GMs responsibility to make things interesting. While a hastily written set of rules for Sim Fantasy Circus, may indeed result in interesting gameplay, it may also result in what is basically just a very dry business simulation. And, also? To be realistic? ...

You are building the dichometry realistic/logical vs. interesting/narrative here.

And later adding that it is the responsibility of the GM to make things "interesting" - instead of a "dry" business simulation.

Or the circus example. If the characters are starting in the bordferlands chances are low that there is another circus with all the drama you are inducing. There is already enough fuss with getting the circus started at all without having to immidiately tackle a big malicious rival - even if this rival would fit the level of the PCs trying their hand at circus buisiness and probably haven chosen the perifery intentionally to avoid the trouble during their first steps. Your way the game is rapidly about the other circus and stopping the malicious intents of their cast instead of running your own one.

Quote from: Maarzan;895090You do it the same way you say Bren is insulting you - casually strewn into the text. Exemplary:



You are building the dichometry realistic/logical vs. interesting/narrative here.

And later adding that it is the responsibility of the GM to make things "interesting" - instead of a "dry" business simulation.

Come on Maarzan. In the very post you are quoting, I say "While a hastily written set of rules for Sim Fantasy Circus, may indeed result in interesting gameplay, it may also result in what is basically just a very dry business simulation." So clearly if I am saying that Bren's rules of simulation that he professes to be based in realism/logic may indeed result in interesting gameplay, that is not presenting "interesting" to be a dichotomy with "realism/logic".

I hate wasting time knocking apart the straw man positions people create for me. Could you please try to avoid doing this?

Quote from: Manzanaro;895091Come on Maarzan. In the very post you are quoting, I say "While a hastily written set of rules for Sim Fantasy Circus, may indeed result in interesting gameplay, it may also result in what is basically just a very dry business simulation." So clearly if I am saying that Bren's rules of simulation that he professes to be based in realism/logic may indeed result in interesting gameplay, that is not presenting "interesting" to be a dichotomy with "realism/logic".

I hate wasting time knocking part the straw man positions people create for me. Could you please try to avoid doing this?

It is not a strawman and I see your answer as an example of you seriously not understanding the problem. Your idea of interesting looks limited to dramatic stories and thus completely miss that some people find this "dry business simulation" interesting. Which leads to you suggesting elements that can seriously disrupt their kind of fun and is exactly the risk when someone steps into a simulation game with the intent to "fix it"/ "get a good narrative from it".

Quote from: Maarzan;895092It is not a strawman and I see your answer as an example of you seriously not understanding the problem. Your idea of interesting looks limited to dramatic stories and thus completely miss that some people find this "dry business simulation" interesting. Which leads to you suggesting elements that can seriously disrupt their kind of fun and is exactly the risk when someone steps into a simulation game with the intent to "fix it"/ "get a good narrative from it".

Some people may also find sitting around as a group and running Railroad Tycoon and voting on decisions to be interesting. It would almost certainly be a deeper, more realistic, and more logical economic simulation than anything I am going to whip together in a week. Heck, sounds kind of fun to me!

But when it comes to TTRPGs? Never, ever, in 35 years of gaming have I seen people come to the RPG table wanting to do a deep business sim stripped of narrative elements. If that is what floats your boat? Rock on! But it is not something I would find interesting as a GM and so I am not going to run something like that.

If you think there is a vast untapped market for this sort of thing though, I urge you to jump on it.

But otherwise, I can assure you that I do not find a dichotomy between realistic and interesting in any larger sense. But realism is indeed secondary to interest. This is why, if I am roleplaying a situation where the PCs have to stand in line for 6 hours, I am not going to say "We are going to stop the game for 6 hours to realistically simulate the experience of standing in line". Instead I am going to narrate this and move on. As I have said repeatedly, it is largely a matter of focus. Do I try to weigh up all the economic factors of running a circus and spend hours playing this stuff out? Or do I call for a Business skill roll and then move on to what I find to be more interesting?

Quote from: Manzanaro;895093Some people may also find sitting around as a group and running Railroad Tycoon and voting on decisions to be interesting. It would almost certainly be a deeper, more realistic, and more logical economic simulation than anything I am going to whip together in a week. Heck, sounds kind of fun to me!

But when it comes to TTRPGs? Never, ever, in 35 years of gaming have I seen people come to the RPG table wanting to do a deep business sim stripped of narrative elements. If that is what floats your boat? Rock on! But it is not something I would find interesting as a GM and so I am not going to run something like that.

If you think there is a vast untapped market for this sort of thing though, I urge you to jump on it.

But otherwise, I can assure you that I do not find a dichotomy between realistic and interesting in any larger sense. But realism is indeed secondary to interest. This is why, if I am roleplaying a situation where the PCs have to stand in line for 6 hours, I am not going to say "We are going to stop the game for 6 hours to realistically simulate the experience of standing in line". Instead I am going to narrate this and move on. As I have said repeatedly, it is largely a matter of focus. Do I try to weigh up all the economic factors of running a circus and spend hours playing this stuff out? Or do I call for a Business skill roll and then move on to what I find to be more interesting?

I assume the difference between the abstract railroad tycoon and doing it as a character should be obvious.

Stripped? Narrative (for a certain kind of "narrative") is just not a question. Live will give enough interesting situations without wringing it.

And it is not problem when you don´t find it interesting. Just label your game accordingly and we are fine. But in this discussion here the basic assumption is a simulation game and how to change it - and from the sim view seemingly for the worse.

Big untapped market? Probably not but having limited head count doesn´t invalidate a taste. Nobody is forcing anyone else to join. But if you join resepct the given focus.

Ok, now you want to show that you are able to show up with a real strawman and the line example? Take a cookie and be a nice boy. :tap: :tap:

Yes, all those small details you can get, is what is giving the interested player the circus atmosphere he is looking for. And that includes tent problems, supplies, advertising and too hungry monster attractions - and where applicable and in sensible doses all the other mentioned stuff, including possibly a (not overdramatized) rival.

So my circus is a circus, is a circus, is a circus, that probably is meeting some odd events from time to time due to traveling in a magical world and probably some of the cast being curious etc. .
But else it is about all the typical facetts that go with running a circus.

Your circus is probably just a backdrop to a group of traveling guardians of the realm under disguise and the stage performance is just a lastly irrelevant accessory just like the handsome purple scarf someone is using for hiding his identity, never caring about the circus itself at all.