So, I gotta ask, is this "Simulationism?"

[John Wick]

http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=5&i=108883&t=108883

Carpe Deum,
John

[Gordon C. Landis]

Let me go ahead and take this seriously and say the answer - of course :smile: - is "it depends".  But my explanation of WHY it depends (and what it depends upon) seems not quite right to me.  But let me dive in anyway . . .

Let me translate the question as "is it Simulationist to think about the fact that PC's may be in the middle of food prep and have their hands covered in animal guts when the wandering monster strikes?"  My instinct (which I mistrust - more on that later) is that what matters is WHY are you thinking about the animal guts.

Are you going "hey, they're treking cross-country and using their Hunting skills - there's a chance this happens in mid-food prep!"  You're thinking like a Simulationist there - what matters in the decision is the "realism" of the situation (WARNING - "realism" ain't the be-all-end-all in Sim, it's just often the easiest way to talk about it).

Is it more a matter of "they've been surprised . . . wouldn't it be neat if they were in the middle of food prep when the attack came?  Weapons not easily to hand?  I can see the knight fighting with a frypan now.  What a contrast to the "stodgy, dignified" character traits he normally exhibits!  He's been wanting something new and different . . . "  That's more in the Narrativist direction, where you're deciding this based on generating a story and considering things like the specific characters in the situation as you make your decision.

On the other hand, you might (to combine elements of both the above in a Gamist way) be thinking "OK, a group of hunters is making their way across the wilderness.  They failed their Listen (or whatever) check, and said they were happily roasting the meat on an open fire - that's gonna attract some unpleasant, hungry attention.  And they should be at a disadvantage, due to that failed check and the lack of careful camp-making they exhibited . . . OK, a couple of 'em are in mid-prep and their hands are slick - call that -2 on Physical rolls, unless they take an action to wipe their hands.  Off we go . . . "

(Obviously, you could let a bit of all of these effect your decsion, so it's only over time that we see if G or N or S is more strongly favored.  But  . . . let's say the chars are really beat up, and an encounter now will probablly kill 'em.  Then your G or N or S prefs will have a BIG impact on this scene - a strong-Sim approach wouln't even take that into account, a Gamist approach might lower the lethality of the monster to keep the challenge "winable", while a Narrativist might be just fine with ditching the encounter all together).

So that's one way to describe how "it depends".  The notion that GNS is about "decisions" is an important one, that serves this description quite well.  But my concern here is that by talking so much about WHY the decision was made, I've moved outside of Ron's "observable behaviors" box - "why" is a thought process, not neccessarily observable.  What's observable here is BASICALLY unchanged - the fight happens mid food-prep.  There are SOME observable details, like the announcement of minuses, but that could really happen in all three cases - again, the reason WHY just changes (Sim-cause it just is harder to hit when your hands are slick, Nar-cause it's neat and has good RP detail opportunity, Gam-cause the contest is kept challenging this way).

So . . . I'm gonna stop now.  Hope this at least PARTIALLY answers John's question, and sparks some interesting discussion.

Gordon C. Landis

[hardcoremoose]

Just to broach the "observable behaviors" subject and apply it to the situation at hand, I'd say it is simulationist behavior.  The tone of the paragraph is very matter-of-fact, as if the hunting episode is a routine element of their roleplaying, and the real question asked by the author was something to the effect of "How do you split up the chores while camped out in the woods?"  That seems like a small detail to be worried about if you're narrativist or gamist.

But, of course, it's easy to misunderstand someone's intent from behind the keyboard.  Time and time again I've been frustrated by how easily something I've written on a forum or in an e-mail is taken wildly out of context, so maybe what I am regarding as "observable behavior" in this case is not at all accurate.

Take care,
Moose

[ This Message was edited by: hardcoremoose on 2001-08-15 11:33 ]

[Ron Edwards]

Much as I shudder, these days, to see a thread with a title like this one's, I gotta say, you guys are totally with it.

I especially agree with the "behaviors" thoughts - we'd do best to SEE or PARTICIPATE in the game itself, in order to see how the GM and players deal with one another's announcements and actions. As written, the piece gives me the basis for a strong guess, but that sort of thing has fooled me before.

Best,
Ron

[John Wick]

(Responding out of curiosity, not skepticism...)

The gyst I'm getting is we have to observe the players' behaviors to determine what part of the triangle they fall on.

I've heard talk about G/N/S in terms of game design. Does that mean I design games with G/N/S in mind as per how the players approach the game?

[Ron Edwards]

Hey John,

Couple things ...

I don't think anyone can claim to say what's going through any game designer's mind at the time. That strikes me as a pretty hard claim to back up, if anyone were to make it.

Instead, the claim is that rules on the page facilitate various behaviors during play. It may be that a given game designer says, "Hm, if my rules work like THIS, then play is more likely to proceed like THAT, and that's what I'm looking for."

If - and that's IF - the designer is thinking in principles-terms (and he does not have to be), then I suggest that GNS thinking is mighty handy for that purpose.

My main claim on top of that one, is that the game designer is better off thinking in this fashion (using GNS or not, but SOMETHING anyway), rather in the "Try to make it appeal to any and every role-player" fashion. By "better off," I mean that more people will probably like that game over the long haul.

And finally, if a game designer can end up making great games without thinking about ANY of this in a deliberate fashion, but managing to make design decisions that really kick ass, then that's cool too.

Best,
Ron

[Epoch]

One of my long-term (read: unlikely to ever happen) goals is to actually write a game which explicitely tries to support as much and as many styles of play as possible.

I've got a concept and everything -- it's post-apocalypse religious stuff, so I may have plagirized the Synister boys before-the-fact -- but what I've primarily been thinking about is a real building-blocks approach to the game, trying to make it as "open design" as possible.  Kind of like FUDGE in terms of making it "open," (though it will inevitably be less open than FUDGE), but remaining a playable-off-the-bat game for people who don't enjoy doing a lot of the systems-design work that FUDGE, well, doesn't require, but encourages.

I'm thinking lots of sidebars that say things like, "So, the default approach to combat in After Eden is intended to be a compromise between fast, exciting resolution and lots of opportunities for player decisions to influence the conflict.  If you and your group are comfortable with more detailed combat, slot in these rules on such-and-such pages.  If, on the other hand, you and your group want to make combat as mechanically simple as possible, go ahead and do this...  Remember that mechanically simple doesn't mean that you can't lavish it with a wealth of descriptive attention and detail, if you want to."  or "This setting element can be used in a number of ways.  If you're going for a high-power, high action game, these folks can be great victims to protect, or they could easily have information.  On the other hand, if you want a paranoia-filled, intriuge-based game, a cell of these folks might be ideal PC's -- possible game ideas include..."

Obviously, such a game still wouldn't be all things to all people.  But it might be interesting to see whether or not that kind of explicit catering to a wider range of play than usual would have positive results.

But, as I said, I'll almost certainly never get around to it.

[Mytholder]

Epoch -
seeing as you're never going to write it, I'm going to add an equally implausible suggestion. :smile:

Basically...you've got little checkboxes at the top of certain pages. Everytime those rules are referenced in the course of play, the GM ticks a box. If all the checkboxes are filled in, another section of rules "opens up" and now applies.

For example, the game has a fairly freeform miracle system, with a few optional rules to make it more complex. Every time an optional rule is referenced, that page gets a tick. Ten ticks, and it's obvious the players want more detailed miracle rules. Appendix 2C, detailed miracle rules, now comes into play.

The idea is that the ruleset adapts to the group...

[Epoch]

Wow!

That's amazingly cool.

Obviously, it would work better in a non-paper format, where you could actually seamlessly drop the new rules into the existing text -- and maybe even work out a submissions feature where people could get their house rules into use.

But it's a really brilliant idea.  Not really that implausible, either.  Five years from now, I fully expect to have a laptop with wireless internet connectivity at 90% of all my game sessions, so some kind of electronic, dynamic rulebook would not be out of the question.

For After Eden in particular, I was thinking that much of the modularity would be more world-oriented stuff, like, well...  To give really specific information, I'd probably have to jump into a fair amount of background, and that's not really relevent here.

[Gordon C. Landis]

On 2001-08-18 12:16, John Wick wrote:
I've heard talk about G/N/S in terms of game design. Does that mean I design games with G/N/S in mind as per how the players approach the game?

Let me try some gross simplification here  - how unlike me :wink:

John, I believe you quoted Jared as enlightening you with something like "Decide on the people you're writing a game for, and design it for them.  Don't worry about other folks."

Isn't that pretty much "design[ing] games . . . per how the players approach the game?"

GNS is a way of thinking about what kinds of things those people do in a game.  If it's a reasonable description, it may be reasonably useful as tool to keep the design "on course".  There are obviously many other ways to keep the design "on course".

And if I go on any longer, I won't be simplifying.

Gordon C. Landis

PS - If it's not obvious, this all just my take - I've found it valuable to explain (or try to explain) these notions MANY times to people in my play group, as it helps me understand (or fool myself into thinking I understand) the concepts, and how they can/might be useful in our games.  Thanks/appologies to the Forge and all its' participants for allowing/tolerating me to do the same here.

[Mike Holmes]

To answer the original question, of course it's simulationist. It isn't important to story, and it isn't very important to the challenge (probably), so it's not narrativist or gamist. The sorts of gamers that get a kick out of such details are the simulationists.

And I'll repeat that. Simulationists get a kick out of details that have nothing to do with the story or challenge. That's what makes them simulationists. What interests them are the details.

Now, certain levels of detail are more interesting to some simulationists than others. Some are looking to simulate Aurthurian legend, while others want to simulate moment-to-moment life in a fantasy/medieval setting. For the former group, such details as dividing up chores is not important where as for the latter group it may be essential. I will say that players who appreciate the moment-to-moment level are few, actually. And, in fact, there are some games that are dysfunctional mainly because a GM decides to focus on such detail when the players are not at all interested. I know this because I may have been guilty of it in the past, myself. But I do have had players for whom this was the be-all of ways to play.

Interestingly, the best essay I ever read on this was found in a RoleMaster product, the GMs guide for RMSS. No, really. In fact there are a number of essays in that book that discuss the range of types of simulations that you can run. They use their own vocabulary to discuss things, but their points are all salient. The essay in question discussed what they referred to as Scale. And they pointed out that on one end of the spectrum of Scale was descriptions of every little action that a character took (right up to bathroom breaks). On the far other end was only looking at character actions that were of greatest significance, ignoring things like travel unless interrupted, etc. They pointed out that most games were most comfortable somewhere in-between, but YMMV.

BTW, the question (in question) was asked by a relatively poor simulationist player. The answer to questions like that from any experienced simulationist is to just make up something plausible, as specific group dynamics are always different (and no context was provided anyhow), and converting something like the slipperiness of guts into game modifiers (which are imperfect simulation mechanics, themselves) is not likely to be perfect by any standard. Wing it.  :wink:

Mike Holmes