I wrote a manifesto today, proclaiming the return of Simulationism. I'm sharing it today because the essay references a lot of folks I first met here at TheRPG site, including Brian Gleichman and John H. Kim, and bashes on Ron Edwards a bit, who is of course the ancient foe of our own RPG Pundit.

If anyone is interested, you can check it out here: https://arbiterofworlds.substack.com/p/a-manifesto-in-defense-of-simulationism

Fellow simulationist here. After getting depressed by more and more "big" names like the Big D and Pathfinder(1) ditching simulationist stuff (like absolute DCs for skill checks, etc., especially in D5), and many new high-production-value lineups like Fate(2) having complete disregard for the playstyle, this article sparked some hope that others like me do exist in the open...

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1) They still have some sample DCs, but they made the awful act of creating top-down designed nonplayer entities...
2) Political standings aside, their books ARE well made for a small publisher.

QuoteThe first theory was called the threefold model and it was created by Mary Kuhner in 1997 and thereafter popularized by John H. Kim. According to the threefold model, there are three styles of playing RPGs: dramatist, gamist, and simulationist. Kim explains the three styles as follows:

        "dramatist": is the style which values how well the in-game action creates a satisfying storyline. Different kinds of stories may be viewed as satisfying, depending on individual tastes, varying from fanciful pulp action to believable character drama. It is the end result of the story which is important.

        "gamist": is the style which values setting up a fair challenge for the players (as opposed to the PCs). The challenges may be tactical combat, intellectual mysteries, politics, or anything else. The players will try to solve the problems they are presented with, and in turn the GM will make these challenges solvable if they act intelligently within the contract.

        "simulationist": is the style which values resolving in-game events based solely on game-world considerations, without allowing any meta-game concerns to affect the decision. Thus, a fully simulationist GM will not fudge results to save PCs or to save her plot, or even change facts unknown to the players. Such a GM may use meta-game considerations to decide meta-game issues like who is playing which character, whether to play out a conversation word for word, and so forth, but she will resolve actual in-game events based on what would "really" happen.

Our own jhkim?

Respect!

I really value immersion, something brain-damaged Edwards seemed incapable of, and incapable of comprehending. I think simulation is vital for that sense of you-are-there immersion. It does not need to be as robust a world-sim as ACKS, but there needs to be a simulation element.

QuoteI'm not cherry picking — Edwards goes on and on about how terrible Simulationists are. The full thread has to be read to be believed. By 2004, Edwards had gone further and condemned everyone who enjoyed simulationist RPGs as "brain damaged."

I might be wrong about this, but did not Edwards later revise his stance on Sim, in an essay entitled "Simulationism: The Right to Dream?" I think this is when he finally crystalized his model. It's been years, but I seem to recall in that essay he treated Sim as an equal third leg in the triad.

Also, and I might be wrong about this as well, but wasn't the "brain-damaged" comment directed specifically at World of Darkness games and players?

As for Sim games, I would place Traveller at the top of the list. 

Quote from: Aglondir on March 07, 2023, 11:46:06 PM
I might be wrong about this, but did not Edwards later revise his stance on Sim, in an essay entitled "Simulationism: The Right to Dream?" I think this is when he finally crystalized his model. It's been years, but I seem to recall in that essay he treated Sim as an equal third leg in the triad.

Also, and I might be wrong about this as well, but wasn't the "brain-damaged" comment directed specifically at World of Darkness games and players?

I think you're definitely right about 'brain damaged', which referred to players of 'Storyteller' railroad games who could only look for the pre-written railroad to follow.

Here's the Simulation essay - http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/ - I recall him actually becoming MORE hostile to Simulation after that came out though, with comments on The Forge about it being a dysfunctional play style. He never really seemed to 'get' it. He never seems to have felt you-are-there immersion or understood why people valued it.

Quote from: amacris on March 07, 2023, 10:56:40 PM
I wrote a manifesto today, proclaiming the return of Simulationism.

For most of the last ten or so years, "simulationist" has been a slur on forums, and a trigger word to pile on the downvotes on the false democracy boards.  I'm glad to see you raise a flag, that's for sure.

As regards the Gygax thing, I think you stretch a bit.  He calls it realism-simulation, and it's pretty obvious that if your idea of tabletop games is researching capabilities of different troop types across centuries, and then rolling out real battles or hypotheticals that would be interesting (once you are convinced your system will give a good enough guess in a conflict of men who were separated by time and/or space, in hypothetical conflict)... then you might be a bit cross with a guy who comes in with dragons, griffons, and elves, and gives them attributes which he finds mechanically interesting, when those mechanics are there for a reason.

How would a late-1970s Gygax have responded to the idea of "simualtionism" being an invented term to slam anyone who maintained high levels of verisimilitude in his hypothetical world?  It was in the era where words were being invented for the purpose of slicing up societies, be they the size of nations or comic-book stores, so he'd doubtless recognize the type of verbal trickery, but on which side of this would he come down?  Even in 2002, on enworld, Gary Gygax was opposed to incorporating a host of example factors in the combat simulation, but that's very different from having a reasonably accurate way of modelling large scale combats that occur off screen, or allowing for high level economic simulations of nations to answer questions the DM might have, etc.  Clearly, when there was an opportunity to either model something with a system or just handwave and choose whatever is the most dramatic, the latter would be greatly preferred. 

But, why?  My take is, that way, when something dramatic does happen, it's real in the context of the game.  If the game has enough rules to simulate something, then your interactions with it as a thing are rewarded.  But maybe the real truth is something else.

Anyway, great read.

I was interested that the essay didn't discuss what I've sometimes seen as a common critique levelled against Simulationism, which is less of a disagreement of principle or theory and more about sheer (lack of) practicality of play.

Put simply, in practice, most Simulationist games which want to create an immersive experience that has the feel of an objective, complex, living world do so by using a massive volume of rule options and cases, and by requiring players and GMs to track massive volumes of data, from timekeeping to resource usage to distance travelled and off-stage historical and political events (it's no accident that Ascendant is nearly 600 pages long). The plain fact is that a lot of gamers, even back during the first days of AD&D 1e and 2e, simply didn't have any interest in investing the amount of time and mental energy required for this, which is exactly why those subsystems mostly disappeared from D&D in the third edition and afterwards.

The gamers of what might be called the "Joss Whedon" school of roleplaying (I consider Whedon the most egregious example of a creator who builds his world solely in terms of how exciting the next idea he gets is) tend to be mostly interested in depicting and resolving in-game conflicts as immediately as possible, and are only interested in the coherence and objectivity of the conflicts' setting just so far as (and no farther than) absolutely necessary to make those conflicts feel real, exciting, and important. "Simulationism", I think, got somewhat unfairly defined as any interest in worldbuilding/world-managing consistency for its own sake beyond that requirement, which is also where the acrimony comes from -- we always see as "obsessive" any interest in a topic beyond what we ourselves find interesting.

I am finding either extreme of narrativeism or simulationism unpalatable, but I do not need my pretend elf game constrained by academic theory.

The rules are not the game. The rules are tool for the GM to create a game with. If the world is poorly defined, how can anyone sensibly answer "what does your character do?" I do not believe that the goal of a pen and paper roleplaying game is to simulate a world anymore that it is to tell a story. The story will emerge from the choices we make and those choices are constrained by how the world works.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on March 08, 2023, 01:37:29 AM
I was interested that the essay didn't discuss what I've sometimes seen as a common critique levelled against Simulationism, which is less of a disagreement of principle or theory and more about sheer (lack of) practicality of play.

Put simply, in practice, most Simulationist games which want to create an immersive experience that has the feel of an objective, complex, living world do so by using a massive volume of rule options and cases, and by requiring players and GMs to track massive volumes of data, from timekeeping to resource usage to distance travelled and off-stage historical and political events (it's no accident that Ascendant is nearly 600 pages long). The plain fact is that a lot of gamers, even back during the first days of AD&D 1e and 2e, simply didn't have any interest in investing the amount of time and mental energy required for this, which is exactly why those subsystems mostly disappeared from D&D in the third edition and afterwards.

The gamers of what might be called the "Joss Whedon" school of roleplaying (I consider Whedon the most egregious example of a creator who builds his world solely in terms of how exciting the next idea he gets is) tend to be mostly interested in depicting and resolving in-game conflicts as immediately as possible, and are only interested in the coherence and objectivity of the conflicts' setting just so far as (and no farther than) absolutely necessary to make those conflicts feel real, exciting, and important. "Simulationism", I think, got somewhat unfairly defined as any interest in worldbuilding/world-managing consistency for its own sake beyond that requirement, which is also where the acrimony comes from -- we always see as "obsessive" any interest in a topic beyond what we ourselves find interesting.

I agree with you that Simulationism tends to be condemned for requiring complex rules. The degree of complexity someone wants in their game is very much an aesthetic choice that has a lot of influences from how skilled your GM is to how invested your fellow players are to how fast you can read. BUT -- and this is, I think, the important part -- there is no *inherent* reason that Simulation has to be rules-heavy.

Consider Kriegspiel, the wargame used to train Prussian officers. Kriegspiel had two variants, "rules-based" and "free" Kriegspiel. Rules-based Kriegspiel was similar to e.g. Ascendant, with lots of rules for everything. Free Kriegspiel relied on an objective referee to evaluate the outcome of the player choices. But what Free Kriegspiel DIDNT have was a "storyteller" saying "it would be so dramatic if there was bad weather suddenly so that the cavalry have to fight in the mud". Nor did it have a "everyone has to have fun GM" saying "well, Colonel Guderian is outnumbered, we should probably give re-balance the scenario to make it more fun for both sides." Those things simply didn't happen because the goal of Kriegspiel was to accurately simulate war to train officers.

It happens that I, personally, am more of a rules-based than free Kriegspieller, and my games reflect that. I would never dispute that! But Simulationism is bigger than me, much bigger, it's a big tent and there's room for Simulationists who, like a free kriegspiel referee, use their expertise and judgment to run a rules-light game whose comittment is towards simulating its fantasy world.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on March 08, 2023, 01:37:29 AM
I was interested that the essay didn't discuss what I've sometimes seen as a common critique levelled against Simulationism, which is less of a disagreement of principle or theory and more about sheer (lack of) practicality of play.

Put simply, in practice, most Simulationist games which want to create an immersive experience that has the feel of an objective, complex, living world do so by using a massive volume of rule options and cases, and by requiring players and GMs to track massive volumes of data, from timekeeping to resource usage to distance travelled and off-stage historical and political events (it's no accident that Ascendant is nearly 600 pages long). The plain fact is that a lot of gamers, even back during the first days of AD&D 1e and 2e, simply didn't have any interest in investing the amount of time and mental energy required for this, which is exactly why those subsystems mostly disappeared from D&D in the third edition and afterwards.

The gamers of what might be called the "Joss Whedon" school of roleplaying (I consider Whedon the most egregious example of a creator who builds his world solely in terms of how exciting the next idea he gets is) tend to be mostly interested in depicting and resolving in-game conflicts as immediately as possible, and are only interested in the coherence and objectivity of the conflicts' setting just so far as (and no farther than) absolutely necessary to make those conflicts feel real, exciting, and important. "Simulationism", I think, got somewhat unfairly defined as any interest in worldbuilding/world-managing consistency for its own sake beyond that requirement, which is also where the acrimony comes from -- we always see as "obsessive" any interest in a topic beyond what we ourselves find interesting.

Incidentally, I *despise* Joss Whedon's style of storytelling, and JJ Abrams, and so on. I took a screenwriting course a couple years ago and one of the things they taught us was "there is no backstory except what's in the script" "at any given point your protagonist should always do what's most dramatic." I thought that was horrible advice. I don't like movies and TV shows written like that, and I don't like RPG campaigns run like that.

Quote from: Venka on March 08, 2023, 01:26:56 AM
But, why?  My take is, that way, when something dramatic does happen, it's real in the context of the game. 

I think that feeling of 'real' is very important, and connected to the feeling of immersion I value.

I've seen discussion of errant simulation re I think the board wargame Afrika Korps. The game is a super detailed operational level simulation and simulates stuff like Italian troops needing extra water to boil their spaghetti. I think you had to allocate fuel to individual scout planes. The reviewer asked whose perspective it was intended to simulate. Not Rommel's - IRL a lot of the decisions that needed to be made in the game would be made by logistics officers far lower down in the command chain than him. So in terms of "You are Rommel" it was actually a worse simulation than a less detailed one would have been.

Quote from: amacris on March 08, 2023, 03:26:43 AM
Consider Kriegspiel, the wargame used to train Prussian officers. Kriegspiel had two variants, "rules-based" and "free" Kriegspiel. Rules-based Kriegspiel was similar to e.g. Ascendant, with lots of rules for everything. Free Kriegspiel relied on an objective referee to evaluate the outcome of the player choices. But what Free Kriegspiel DIDNT have was a "storyteller" saying "it would be so dramatic if there was bad weather suddenly so that the cavalry have to fight in the mud". Nor did it have a "everyone has to have fun GM" saying "well, Colonel Guderian is outnumbered, we should probably give re-balance the scenario to make it more fun for both sides." Those things simply didn't happen because the goal of Kriegspiel was to accurately simulate war to train officers.

It happens that I, personally, am more of a rules-based than free Kriegspieller, and my games reflect that. I would never dispute that! But Simulationism is bigger than me, much bigger, it's a big tent and there's room for Simulationists who, like a free kriegspiel referee, use their expertise and judgment to run a rules-light game whose comittment is towards simulating its fantasy world.

Absolutely! Personally I have gone over to using a lot of Free Kriegsspiel techniques in my world-simulation. Eg I often resolve off-screen battles by setting the stakes, then rolling a single D6. Usually '1' is "worst result for players" and '6' is "best result for players".  I got really sick of the kind of stale stories you tend to get from dramatist play, where eg all NPC good guys are completely incompetent and only the PCs can save the day. Equally bad of course is the Ed Greenwood style where omni-competent NPCs will always save the day while the PCs look on admiringly.

BTW Alex have you come across "Combat As Sport vs Combat As War" (https://www.enworld.org/threads/very-long-combat-as-sport-vs-combat-as-war-a-key-difference-in-d-d-play-styles.317715/) ? That dichotomy seems to map well to the two kinds of 'Gamist' play you describe. John Kim's "Set up a fair challenge" vs Gleichman's "challenge player skill (without regard to fairness)".

JHKim's Gamist: the style which values setting up a fair challenge for the players (as opposed to the PCs). The challenges may be tactical combat, intellectual mysteries, politics, or anything else. The players will try to solve the problems they are presented with, and in turn the GM will make these challenges solvable if they act intelligently within the contract.

Gleichman's Gamist: the style which values the application of objective player skill in order to resolve situations defined as important to the group. These situations may be based upon combat, mysteries, puzzles or anything else where skilled play may make a difference in outcome although that difference doesn't always need to be as simple as obvious victory/defeat.

You say Retired Adventurer calls them the "Classic" and "OSR" cultures, but that doesn't feel right to me considering much of my OSR gaming is published megadungeons with pretty clearly graded threat-by-level (PC level & dungeon level). I think the strongest example of Kim-Gamist 'fair challenge' play would be 4e D&D, drawing on precedents in 3e D&D.

Edit: Just reread RA, I first read it in '21. I agree there is a distinct module-based 'Classic' style which is the main style at Dragonsfoot, and that this differs from OSR play, which looks back to a lost 'pre module' era of megadungeons. Classic emerged out of early organised play and the published modules derived from that. It is a Challenge/Gamist form. OSR is also primarily Challenge/Gamist. But some of the distinctions look a bit off to me. The OSR standard is the Megadungeon, and the question "How deep do you want to go?" where the Classic standard is "What module shall we play?"

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on March 08, 2023, 01:37:29 AM
Put simply, in practice, most Simulationist games which want to create an immersive experience that has the feel of an objective, complex, living world do so by using a massive volume of rule options and cases, and by requiring players and GMs to track massive volumes of data, from timekeeping to resource usage to distance travelled and off-stage historical and political events (it's no accident that Ascendant is nearly 600 pages long). The plain fact is that a lot of gamers, even back during the first days of AD&D 1e and 2e, simply didn't have any interest in investing the amount of time and mental energy required for this, which is exactly why those subsystems mostly disappeared from D&D in the third edition and afterwards.

The gamers of what might be called the "Joss Whedon" school of roleplaying (I consider Whedon the most egregious example of a creator who builds his world solely in terms of how exciting the next idea he gets is) tend to be mostly interested in depicting and resolving in-game conflicts as immediately as possible, and are only interested in the coherence and objectivity of the conflicts' setting just so far as (and no farther than) absolutely necessary to make those conflicts feel real, exciting, and important. "Simulationism", I think, got somewhat unfairly defined as any interest in worldbuilding/world-managing consistency for its own sake beyond that requirement, which is also where the acrimony comes from -- we always see as "obsessive" any interest in a topic beyond what we ourselves find interesting.

My counterpoint to this criticism is that the point of the rules is to reflect the setting of the campaign. But the level of detail it does this at is a preference. In short, if you want to bring a world to life OD&D works just as well as GURPS with all the options. There are differences. You will have a lot more rulings and make more notes with OD&D than you would with GURPS for instance.

Rules can be an effective shorthand for communicating how a setting works. But at the end of the day it boils down to players describing what they want to do as their characters and you as the referee adjudicating this and describing how the circumstances change.

My view is that when you start introducing metagaming to this cycle you start to move away from the point of tabletop roleplaying, considering things as a player outside of the setting rather than acting as a character in a setting. Whether it pursuing game logic because of a quirk in the rules or the desire to predetermine an outcome in pursuit of a coherent narrative (story).