On loosing faith in simulation

[Mike Holmes]

Preference, preference, preference.

I have players who, though they are quite aware of the limitations of Rolemaster in terms of "realism" (I at one point went to great extremes explaining this to them, myself), still prefer to play it despite the unrealistic results it produces. To a certain extent this is Gamism in that they are trying to do well in the game world using such a silly system. But it's also very much exploration of that system. They very simply enjoy pushing all the numbers around to see what they can make them do.

One of these players is referred to by our gaming circle, unsurprisingly, as "The Accountant" for just how good he is at these things.

Doesn't float your boat? Cool. Doesn't mean that it doesn't  float somebody elses. You are misattributing the reason why such systems are interesting to the people who play them and enjoy them. They care not one whit for "realism". They like complex systems for their own sake.

Mike

[RobMuadib]

When I started out in rpgs so many years ago I was a died in the wool simulationist.  When my friends decided to write our own rpg we actually did things like jumping over tables and measuring the time with a stopwatch to get our time/action/initiative system just right.

   To simulate something you have to have two things: a mathematical model, and a set of data about the start-points for the system. Plus the amount of math involved increases exponentially with the number of elements in the system. So the amount of math you have to do to run the simulation rapidly becomes unacceptable for by-hand calculations.(That is to say keeping track of it imposed an excessive delay in the narrative...)  For example, the simple matter of bleeding. How many GMs keep track of blood loss from wounds?  Practically none,because the additional bookeeping is too much of a burden. Yet bleeding is only one of the issues involved in modeling wounding and its effects.

   Or take bullet damage.  Bullet effects are exceedingly difficult to predict,one guy take 4 handgun slugs in the torso and WALKS three miles to the emergency room, another manages to kill himself with a Crossman B-B gun.  Any rpg damage system to really model this would have to be much more complex than can be calculated by hand.

   Back in the 80's the US military was investigating the issue of changing its standard sidearm from the .45 to a 9mm.   An extremely complicated  debate ensued about whether a smaller faster bullet was 'better' than a big slow one. Trauma surgeons,ballistics experts, soldiers,policemen all weighed in with signifigantly varied oppinions.  Complex tests involving shooting bulllets in gelatin and asessing the damage, and in one group of tests they actually shot some cows and then diseccted them.  Given how difficult 'simulating' bullet wounds was for these real experts how much of a chance is some RPG designer who may have never fired a weapon supposed to design 'ex nihilio' a bullet damage simulation?  

   One of my favorite RPGs (KULT) has different wound charts for no less than 15  types of pistols.  You may be sure that no source exists for good data about the different wound effects for such subtly different weapons.  Deep down virtually everyone knows that designers are making these things up by gueswork and intuition.  And that goes for long charts of subtly varied modifiers for diffent conditions, guesswork ,guesswork all.  

     Given all of this, I have concluded that anything but the most 'fuzzy' of simulation in a by hand rpg is effectively impossible. Anybody who claims to do better than 'great honking gun' and 'little dinky gun' is lying to you and waisting your time making you look up numbers that add up to nothing and making you pay to have them printed out (and that goes for sword and spears too).

b_bankhead

I feel a huge urge to refute some of your points here. As to the point of your liking Narrativism, and it's relative advantage for actually playing of an RPG, I wholeheartedly agree.

Now, to the shit I feel you are wrong about. You are conflating RPG design with actual play in a lot of your points, which are too very different beasts, ESPECIALLY for realistic/detailed/simulative systems.

First, to your point about simulating things requring a mathematical model and data. That is exactly right, but then you go on to shoot yourself in the foot, so to speak, by pointing out that this huge volume of data on ballisitics wounding and effects exists, and then dismiss it as valuable, necessary research material for the RPG designer who is actually interested in providing a realistic/detailed system for such things.

The truth is there is a vast body of knowledge on such things, not all of it agrees with each other, however, it is certainly there.

Brian Gleichman really speaks to this point well in the post he made to rec.games.frp.advocay about Concepts for Realistic Firearm Combat in a RPG (long). I bolded what was the important point, to me, that you dismissed out of hand in your post.

This is an icky subject.

First, let's be certain about our wording. Realism in a game is
generally viewed as the reproduction of events that match the real
world.

Real World combat is a complex subject that is still poorly understood
even by those who have spent a lifetime on the subject.

Even more troubling, there isn't enough information available to model
all aspects of the subject. At best, we have sectional or incomplete
data.

And then, even if we did have all the data, we couldn't fit it into
something a simple as an rpg.

Give all of this, how are we to judge what is a realistic game system?

The answer is rather simple actually. Does it come close to matching
what we DO know. This is nothing more than a basic sanity check. After
all, we can't object to that we don't know.

We know for example that most law-enforcement gun battles take place at
a range of 21 feet or less. We know that trained FBI agents hit with
about one of six rounds fired under those typical conditions.

A realistic system would duplicate these facts. To the extent that a
system doesn't, it's unrealistic.

Then of course there are readily available sources with detailed information on such things right online, such as http://www.firearmstactical.com/tactical.htm, or http://www.iwba.com. Then there are sources such as www.emedicine.com, www.vnh.org which offer detailed information on gunshot wounds.

Not to mention the huge number of books that can be had on these subjects with detailed information about guns, gunshot wounds, medicine, (including gunshot wounds, stab wounds, poison, disease, and all manner of subjects of interest for realistic/detailed RPG design.)

So, will all of this detail be "simplified" into one or two numbers for purposes of the RPG, yes. Does it mean that the designer by knowing and researching all these things and then using the data to design his system/model is wasting his time. NO, I would say. It is much better to gloss things over and simplify, when you know you are, than to guess.

So, I guess I am refuting your point that it is ultimately futile/guesswork to design a detailed/realistic system, it isn't. Is it harder? Much.  Will it require a more complex system to accomodate this extra data and modeling, should the designer wish to include it? Yes.

So think of this next time you examine some complex simulationist style system filled with charts and rules.  Big columns of numbers arrayed all nice and neat can produce an illusion  of precision (and realism, whatever that is to you...) entirely unearned by any real world considerations....

And I strongly disagree in principle with this last statement. Though it may often be the case, it is not necessarily warranted, consider most of the games by Greg Porter, the GOD, of detailed/realistic RPG design. He actually studies the sources that are available, analyzes the data, developing computer models that he can convert to mechanics, and puts them into usable mechanics for others.

He is an old school designer harkening back to the Board Wargame Designers of old. People who develop a deep technical and historical knowledge of their subject and translate that expertise into detailed games for others. Where all the trappings are trustable in that either they are accurate, or were fudged for good reason.

Lastly, I guess I object to the incipient implication in your post that narrativist play/narrativism is the end-all be-all of RPGs. A perennial stigma against the forge itself. Some people, I would even dare say many, enjoy using realistic/detailed systems in and of themselves in the stoy aspect, i.e. sim for sims sake. Like, some people might be interested in an RPG framework that would let them realistically explore what it would be like to be in a Gunfight, without having to actually get into one, where the detail of resolution is more than you lived/ you died, and then......

Oh well, enough ranting by me, and this is not to rail at you specifically b_bankhead, more so the general themes and "prejudices" shown in your message.

Rob Muadib
(Who often times feels the desire to engage in detailed/realistic simulations of firearms combat:) )[/b]

[MK Snyder]

My understanding is that "simulationism" in role-playing is not about, well, simulating, in the sense of trying to create a Holodeck.

For one thing, there is conflict between completeness/detail and time--in real life, the bullet's speed, trajectory, and damage are all resolved much more quickly than in a pen and paper role-playing game.

It is more about "Creationism" "(Creativieism?)": constructing, describing, and regulating in sufficient detail a fantasy environment and events such that it is engaging (interesting) to the player. The data so manipulated, and the common frame of reference, is often derived from our commonly experienced reality--but need not necessarily be so in all things; that's why there are fairies and vampires.

So, the measure of "simulationism" is of necessity subjective. Players of different personality/cognitive types will find different levels of detail, or different choices of detail, engaging.

The choice and level of detail is selective--mostly those features of reality that have importance to humans--combat doesn't tend to replicate the ambiant humidity of the room, or bacterial levels, or age of the paint on the walls. Those things aren't important in most games.

In real life, they are as much an element of the event of getting shot, as the caliber of the bullet. In most games they are left out, as not being necessary to the play.

In a game focused on forensic investigation, they could be included, as the simulations focus is on the data collection practiced by law enforcement. Thus, simulationism is the servant of premise.

[Alan]

Is it possible that the defining quality of simulationism is simple consistency?  That a given action, in a given situarion, should always have the same probability of occurance, regardless of meta-game or narrative considerations.

- Alan

[Le Joueur]

Is it possible that the defining quality of Simulationism is simple consistency?  That a given action, in a given situation, should always have the same probability of occurrence, regardless of meta-game or narrative considerations.

Unless you wish to imply that Narrativist and Gamist games are defined by inconsistency, I don't think "simple consistency" works as a defining quality.

However, if you're talking about effects predictably following causes, then you've stumbled onto the general consensus.  Furthermore, it is usually subdivided into what carries the most weight in terms of causal relationships, Character, Setting, System, Color, and Circumstance.  Since gamers aren't as thorough as Star Trek holodecks, one or two of these will often collectively take precedence.  (That's not to say that you can tell until well after the fact though.)

I've seen this most often referred to as verisimilitude for the fact that it doesn't have to actually be accurate, but more needs to 'feel' accurate.

Fang Langford

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Fang nailed it. The defining feature of Simulationist play (cue qualifier: "according to Ron") is in-game causality. If X happens, then there better be a W that caused it.

However, what a lot of people have trouble with is that this principle applies to many arenas of causality (personality, physical motion in space, interaction of substances, large-scale social dynamics, "magic," and lots more). As a gross and over-generalized example, a group whose concern is that any character's action be caused by his or her mental and emotional state may be less interested in bullet-caliber, and vice versa.

Let's take this thread back to b_bankhead's expressed concern. I'm interested: do you think your concern has been addressed properly? I'm reasonably certain that you were not slamming Sim play, but expressing (finding?) your own feet regarding its features. Let me if I'm reading that correctly, as well as whether any issues you wanted to discuss have been met.

Best,
Ron

[Jeremy Cole]

Fang nailed it. The defining feature of Simulationist play (cue qualifier: "according to Ron") is in-game causality. If X happens, then there better be a W that caused it.

Damn it, I said that in the first reply on this thread.  

Simulationism, though, isn't all about realism, or fine levels of granularity.  Its about ensuring cause and effect, at whatever level of abstraction you want, this is an important distinction.

All the posting that could have been avoided if you only bothered to read my pearls of wisdom.
:)

Jeremy

[Ron Edwards]

Sigh ... yes, Jeremy, you nailed it too.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

All the posting that could have been avoided if you only bothered to read my pearls of wisdom.
:)
Jeremy

Heh, heh.

I oft use to say the same thing...till someone pointed out that true genius is never recognized until after death.   Now I have something to look forward to ;-)