An important point to consider as well is "what are you simulating?"

I don't think I'd get many arguments that WEG Star Wars is virtually the platonic ideal of Star Wars in RPG form, yet its got two different forms of meta-currency (character points and force points) for PCs to spend to bend the game results to their desires, so its not really simulating a world so much as its simulating the genre conventions of the Star Wars universe. Guidelines to keep conflict in the "sport" vs. "war" range for the PCs wouldn't be at all out of place there either because, even if the correct answer is "run away" the PCs must have a reasonable chance to successfully run away (or you hear the enemy commander say "take them alive" so the correct answer might instead be "surrender now and escape later") or its not going to feel much like Star Wars.

But while that's a pretty good way to simulate Star Wars, I'm not sure it really falls under what is being defined here as simulationist style play.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 08, 2023, 07:43:58 AM
An important point to consider as well is "what are you simulating?"

I don't think I'd get many arguments that WEG Star Wars is virtually the platonic ideal of Star Wars in RPG form, yet its got two different forms of meta-currency (character points and force points) for PCs to spend to bend the game results to their desires, so its not really simulating a world so much as its simulating the genre conventions of the Star Wars universe. Guidelines to keep conflict in the "sport" vs. "war" range for the PCs wouldn't be at all out of place there either because, even if the correct answer is "run away" the PCs must have a reasonable chance to successfully run away (or you hear the enemy commander say "take them alive" so the correct answer might instead be "surrender now and escape later") or its not going to feel much like Star Wars.

But while that's a pretty good way to simulate Star Wars, I'm not sure it really falls under what is being defined here as simulationist style play.

I've seen that kind of thing called "emulation" to distinguish it from "simulation".  I think that's as accurate a term as any.  Though the line between emulation and simulation is necessarily sometimes blurry.

Which is a good segue into what for me is the key point in all this:  The absolute silliest statement in all of the Edwards stuff, quoted in the Amacris' essay, is that bit about a game needing to drive exclusively towards exactly one method to be any good. The "science" of design  to the extent that there is any) is to break the game down into its atomic parts and analyze them.  The art of design is to make choices from the tools you have to work with, for a specific case at hand.  Edwards tries to get around this by using some sleight of hand to claim faulty methods when in many of his examples what we instead have are slapdash design or even no design at all. 

I would say it this way.  Every role playing game worth the name is at least an "emulation" of something. You get some way along the "emulation" line and you cross gradually into simulation, maybe without even knowing it. 

There has to be context in which to to make a decision. I won't go as far as Estar and say that the point of rules is to reflect the setting, as that implies to me that it is the sole point of rules.  I will agree entirely that a fair chunk of the rules should reflect the setting, as soon as there is one.  Nor is this limited to cases of generic or universal systems.  For example, GURPS certainly better reflects a setting after it has been applied to one, even more so after the GM has tweaked it and/or decided what to include or not include.  However, even as generic as it is, GURPS already reflects certain assumptions about the kind of settings it is going to reflect and how it does it impinges on how the setting comes across.  But in the bigger case, there will be some emulation of something in the rules, and it isn't difficult for this to cross into simulation at points.  The only exception I can think of, conceptually, is a game so focused on theme to the exclusion of all else, that it's emulation is a transparent veneer.  We can argue if such a game even exists, but to the extent one does, for me it's not an RPG, because it has lost all context.  Such an entity would be the opposite of Estar's view, if I'm understanding him correctly.

I'm always looking for "good enough" simulation.  That's the point, roughly, where the emulation is very solid, way past the veneer stage, anchored in just enough simulation to give all the GM and players a common point of reference as characters, players, and as people in general.  If that sounds vague, it's because it is.  It's the art of the point where the simulation attaches to mechanics and setting, as well as gameplay and the foundation of the emergent story.  Of if you want the negative definition, it's the point at which these elements come together to move past mere theme.  Thus my attention on naming things what they are. 

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 08, 2023, 07:43:58 AM
An important point to consider as well is "what are you simulating?"

But while that's a pretty good way to simulate Star Wars, I'm not sure it really falls under what is being defined here as simulationist style play.

   This is why I think 'simulationism' needs further division into 'genre simulationism' and 'reality simulationism', although the relationship between the two is more analog than digital.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on March 08, 2023, 08:14:12 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 08, 2023, 07:43:58 AM
An important point to consider as well is "what are you simulating?"

I don't think I'd get many arguments that WEG Star Wars is virtually the platonic ideal of Star Wars in RPG form, yet its got two different forms of meta-currency (character points and force points) for PCs to spend to bend the game results to their desires, so its not really simulating a world so much as its simulating the genre conventions of the Star Wars universe. Guidelines to keep conflict in the "sport" vs. "war" range for the PCs wouldn't be at all out of place there either because, even if the correct answer is "run away" the PCs must have a reasonable chance to successfully run away (or you hear the enemy commander say "take them alive" so the correct answer might instead be "surrender now and escape later") or its not going to feel much like Star Wars.

But while that's a pretty good way to simulate Star Wars, I'm not sure it really falls under what is being defined here as simulationist style play.

I've seen that kind of thing called "emulation" to distinguish it from "simulation".  I think that's as accurate a term as any.  Though the line between emulation and simulation is necessarily sometimes blurry.

I agree. I've used the term "emulation" before to describe it.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on March 08, 2023, 08:33:10 AM
   This is why I think 'simulationism' needs further division into 'genre simulationism' and 'reality simulationism', although the relationship between the two is more analog than digital.

Genre Sim is commonly called Dramatism. Emulate the genre to tell similar stories.
Reality Sim is commonly called World Sim or just Simulation. Emulate the world in which the stories take place.

Edwards saw them as the same (Sim), where the GDS model distinguishes them.

I've seen "simulationist" used as an antonym of abstraction in relation to 80s and 90s rpgs like BRP, Shadowrun, ST system, etc. In this use, simulationist refers to an rpg that tracks individual attributes and skills like strength, charisma, computer use, driving, lockpicking, hit points, mental points, etc in a fair amount of detail. Whereas a more abstract design would be RISUS' clichés like "space pirate" or "dashing rogue."

My preference is for more abstract design because I can't really be bothered with nitty gritty skill choices. I always feel like I'm gimping myself somehow or the system isn't realistic enough.

I enjoy all three legs of GNS in varying degrees.

I think it is important to note that S is usually genre simulation, and that it need not use very many rules or data to do so.

It's like GURPS, I like GURPS *to a point*. That point is when the modelling work becomes greater than the fun at the table. Ditto Traveller.

In engineering and sciences (social and physical) we know that all models are broken, but if they work within the scope of the domain to be modelled, then they are 'good enough'.

I've been arguing that GURPS is a story game for years now   Though, when it comes down to it character creation is a huge part of what GURPS is and the point system is entirely based on story concerns.  It utterly sucks as a balance tool.  The designers just consider a point total as an interesting boundary to work around.

My games all fall into the simulationist end of things.

All this ink (electronic and otherwise) spilled, when you could boil it down to:

Rule of cool, and rule of funny.

Now if you'll excuse me I wanna see if my PCs try to kill a bad guy with an Instant Fortress.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 08, 2023, 12:03:59 PM
All this ink (electronic and otherwise) spilled, when you could boil it down to:

Rule of cool, and rule of funny.

Stop putting so much thinking into it! Just get drunk and throw the dice at each other.

Quote from: amacris on March 07, 2023, 10:56:40 PM
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

Thanks, Alexander! And it's nice that you've got a link to my own page. You might specifically mention that I have an essay specifically about explaining Simulationism here:

https://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/threefold/simulationism.html

Quote from: S'mon on March 08, 2023, 09:22:45 AM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on March 08, 2023, 08:33:10 AM
This is why I think 'simulationism' needs further division into 'genre simulationism' and 'reality simulationism', although the relationship between the two is more analog than digital.

Genre Sim is commonly called Dramatism. Emulate the genre to tell similar stories.
Reality Sim is commonly called World Sim or just Simulation. Emulate the world in which the stories take place.

Edwards saw them as the same (Sim), where the GDS model distinguishes them.

Yup. I think Edwards' model is extremely counter-intuitive. "Genre emulation" is clearly a different goal than simulation of a fictional reality.

As for Simulationist games being overly complex, I agree that it is potentially a problem -- but I don't think it is inherent. Some gamist designs have also had endless patches and erratta and tweaks in the name of balance (cough Star Fleet Battles cough). I think the real problem is that sometimes simulationist RPG designers don't know where their center is, so they can't settle on the right level of abstraction.


Abstract simulations are still fully simulations. That's just as true in authentic real world simulations used for testing and training. Decades ago, I was a particle physicist, and we had different levels of simulation. Some simulations were more detailed and were more useful for certain tasks, but would take forever to run . Other simulations were higher-level, ran faster, and were more useful for long-term studies or getting a bird's eye view.

In RPGs, playing out the consequences of actions in a true "what if" mode can be fascinating, and deserves more attention and recognition. (I talk about this more in the essay linked at the top.)

I tend to roll my eyes whenever GNS comes up in a discussion, because while I'm sure it has value in game design, that isn't what's going on the majority of instances where people mention it during a conversation about tabletop games. It's pretty shit as a classification for people who play games.

The term "role-playing game" indicates a certain level of importance placed on gamism. People are playing a game. It follows that they expect to enjoy themselves in so doing. The "role-playing" descriptor implies a certain amount of narrativism, and it seems to be the narrativist elements that distinguish role-playing games from wargames. I'm sure someone who wanted to be contrary for the sake of contrarianism could use a wargame to tell a story, but that seems to miss the point of wargames. Likewise, removing narrativist elements entirely seems to miss the point of role-playing games. Simulationism enters the picture because as humans we like it when things make sense. The three ideas constrain each other.

I probably enjoy the simulationist elements more than either the gamist or narrativist aspects of the hobby, but there is a limit. Try to make your game simulate everything and you'll find out nobody can actually play because they're too busy simulating.

I was going to add a thread after I got Macris' subscription mail on this topic.

First, I think it's really strange how the GNS model is treated as if it was the result of a physics experiment at the cern particle accelerator. At best it's just a model, one way of looking at the world, which may or may not be useful. I really don't think it's a good model. For anything involving the social world, there are lots of ways to model what's going on and those models are more or less valuable, and more or less predictive. The GNS model is very value laden but doesn't even really describe things well.

Who narrates what, when, and what's the scope is a good model also - GM, fortune (dice), player.

Simulation is a weird thing because nearly all games when they do whatever they do well use it. If I'm playing Fate, and we're trying to figure out whether my Aspect "Burly Circus Strong Man" lets me roll to throw a building, we'll probably decide no, because (in this example) the setting is mostly real world and circus strong men can throw buildings. This system just described that produced this result was in fact simulating "mostly real world with circus strong men"

What about the One Ring game. I ran it and it's corruption/shadow mechanics combined with long time frames, etc., produced a game story/feeling that was very much like the movies/books. Like WW veterans, the characters had sacrificed for their community but were worn by care. That seems to me like its simulating Tolkien fiction.

Quote
I'm sure someone who wanted to be contrary for the sake of contrarianism could use a wargame to tell a story, but that seems to miss the point of wargames

Many wargamers do exactly that, to varying degrees.
Even a very simulationist wargame is exploring 'what if' stories.. otherwise the battles would play out exactly the same.
With imagined battles, there is often a narrative, indeed military wargames are often exploring potential future narratives.
To the extent that our hobby comes from Braunstein wargames that became fantasy roleplaying, we are all here because of stories from wargames..

Problem of simulationism is that it tends to be on the complex and slow side, qualities that are not attractive to new players, or even some old ones like myself. I started my RPG life with simulationist games (Gurps and Shadowrun) and loved 'em back in my teens, but nowadays in my 40s? Hard pass. My real life wouldn't permit taking hours to create chars, resolve combats, memorize intricate rules exceptions, etc. These days I only play modern stuff like PbtA and nu-OSRs (Mothership, Beyond the Wall, etc) as they're usually simple to learn, fast to prep and quick to play.

That being said, that's a good article and I'm all for simulationism getting more spotlight. The more different playstyles getting played, the better state the hobby will be.