Session Report

First Playtest and Incomplete Dissolution of System

Last night, I tried to run the first playtest session of a system I’d been working on for the past year or so. What happened wasn’t what I would have expected in my wildest dreams, and I'm uncertain how much use it has as an actual test of system. It has led me to some interesting thoughts on the nature of Sim, so maybe it will serve some useful educational purpose for myself and others.

First, a rough group synopsis. We’re all college students, around twenty/twenty-one. Everyone knows each other, we’ve hung out together a lot before this. It’s a rough mix of four longtime gamers (mostly DnD, but we’ve also played PTA, MLWM, Exalted, BESM and Adventure) and two other friends who were newer to gaming (a girl who’d played a BESM campaign with us and a guy who’d once been in a Vampire oneshot).

They knew coming into the game that it was a oneshot, (the system was designed towards running oneshots), that it was supposed to be most like Adventure! or BESM (in other words, Simulationist) and that their characters were all premade. I’d decided the scenario would be a vagrant rip-off of Star Wars (and a few other Space Opera genre works), with the mission of storming the capital and killing the Emperor in his palace.

Essentially, I was trying to create a system that would intensify whatever I’d found enjoyable in Sim games. As a GM, it always seemed to be getting to describe crazy, out-of-the-world settings and characters, and as a player, it seemed to be all about playing your character as clichéd and true to the genre as possible. Getting to do something wild and flashy totally in bounds of the GM's big story. It’s a bit like cosplay, I guess. I just wanted to get rid of all the complicated Illusionist system bits that got in the way. I call it the Oneshot System, meant to just run oneshots, because in general, my enjoyment of Sim barely lasts more than one or two sessions before even I get bored.

So, it was pretty simple. Roll some d6, count success and see if you beat the challenge or not. I had two system currencies, Jazz and Theme Music. Theme Music was like Gift Dice or Fanmail, to be given out when another player impressed you. They got refreshed throughout the game. Jazz was your usual “spend 1 to add 1 die” currency. Every character had several Niches (areas of skill where they got more dice to roll) and Cliches.

Cliches (which became more and more important as play went on) were these sort of stereotypical little things a player could do to get a point of Jazz. They were based on what I thought represented the best articulations of Sim reward systems: TSOY’s Keys, Unknown Armies’s charge-gaining, NWOD disadvantages, etc. For example, the Obi Wan ripoff character had a Cliché where he gained a point if he tried to give another player advice, or defuse a situation. The brutal space pirate got a point for torturing a defeated enemy. The alien warrior got a point for defending his honor. The psychic got a point for muttering to himself.

So, I started the game, and immediately the veteran gamers started using Cliches. They seemed to love this part of the system. The system seemed to be holding up, so I sent them into battle against some lackey “Seedtroopers”. There was not combat system, so I thought it would work smoothly.

Ten minutes later, the troopers were finally dead and the players were looking at me confused. One of them told me that didn’t seem about exploring the genre at all: characters in Star Wars never have trouble taking down a few faceless stormtroopers. He was right, and suddenly I questioned why anyone ever had to roll at all to kill extras in a Sim game. It seems silly now.

The group began to discuss, while I was trying to figure out if I should increase their dice or decrease the challenge ratings or what. “Why can’t we just meet them and then describe what happens?” one said. Another player opinioned that he’d rather have a more detailed combat system, but he changed his mind a few minutes later.  I raised my head from my system notes and asked if maybe they just wanted to go full freeform then (run it like a Sim game where I just decided what happened but they more or less controlled their characters and could add color). Once upon a time, in high school, online freeform RPGs had been my sole passion, until I’d discovered face-to-face roleplaying in college. I’d never combined the two, however.

And we played, like that. I told them the environment, told them what they had to do, roleplayed my cool little NPCs with their funny voices, handheld them through the whole story (utter pastiche really). They continued to just play along, and when they ended up in combat or whatever, I’d ask them how they took the opponents out. The players pointed out that the Niches should now constitute some sort of automatic, effortless success. The master pilot should be able to do anything involving flying, the master gunfighter should never miss.

At one point, I asked if they wanted to get rid of the Theme Music, since they didn’t seem to be using it. That’s when one of the players suggested I look at the table, and I was shocked. They’d been giving their currency away to each other the whole time, without me realizing it. I also suggested if maybe they wanted to give up the Cliches entirely (as gaining Jazz had stopped having meaning) or maybe just consider the person who gained the most Jazz the best roleplayer or something. The players unanimously disagreed with me, saying they loved playing out the Cliches and they wanted the points to still matter. And they continued like that, with the veteran gamers roleplaying their Cliches the whole time as the story continued. All I can guess is that the “fun” received playing the clichés from these premade characters was reward enough.

The freeform didn’t really get in the way of the Sim too much. Some problems did arise. There weren’t many “hanging on by their teeth” moments of tension, or whatever, because they would just succeed eventually and continue on. What was I going to do? Have them get killed before the end? How was that in-genre for a Space Opera? I guess despite this lack, it still seemed exciting to them.

It became really obvious whenever I was presenting them with something just to slow them down. I gave up pretty soon after, so the game moved pretty fast. It’s not like I could challenge them in that way anyway. The game just sort of settled into me describing stuff as it happened, and them acting out their Clichés. The IIEE of the game was similarly hard to determine or describe; I think it was defaulting to the social hierarchy of us as friends.

Finally, they got to the end, and I told them now was the time to finally roll dice. They used all that Jazz they’d built up the whole game, and utterly destroyed him (very in-genre, I guess). They players mostly told me they’d enjoyed it, and I believed them except for one of the newer gamers.

It’s important to note the girl is probably a result of Gamer’s Girlfriend syndrome. Her boyfriend was in the BESM campaign, but not in this game. He was around, but said he wasn’t feeling well and spent most of the time in the other room playing video games (WOW). She seemed distracted/bored most of the time. One of the more veteran gamers tried to get her more interested (helping him rob a food market while on a space station), but it didn’t seem to get her more interested. The other new gamer (playing a cyborg) seemed to get rather into the game (I think he genuinely enjoyed the experience unlike the girl), but neither of them ever used any Cliches.

It’s made me think. It wasn’t what I expected at all. I didn’t even know freeform roleplaying could work well between a group of people around a table. It maintained it’s Sim aspect the whole time, but I have to think that’s due to the pre-existing social contract.

All I can guess is that (like almost all of Sim) enjoying this limited playing of a character’s ticks is a behavior that has to be learned. It may constitute whatever it is veteran Sim GM’s refer to as “good roleplaying” (try saying that phrase out loud without a hint of sarcasm).

The “rolling to kill henchmen” problem keeps returning to my mind over and over again. It’s true: heroes in genre works don’t get wounded or have much difficulty fighting henchmen generally. Maybe we should separate the idea that “system success” equates “character’s success in SIS” in Sim? That makes sense for Gamist games, but maybe not Sim. In some Narr games, it seems like that “system success” is more about deciding which player gets to decide the result of a story conflict rather than the success of the characters. What is the corresponding conflict for the Simulationist game, for what is basically a pre-scripted exercise in genre exploration?

I don’t know. Looking cool? Having a snappy wisecrack? Those things feel more like stuff you should be rewarded for in Sim instead of rewarded with. Anyone have any idea here? I’m a bit lost. Maybe I can rewire the subtle IIEE issues I was having so that WHO gets to look cool is decided with my system? That might lead to some sort of endless loop where the "coolest" player-characters overshadow the rest. I do feel like I’ve learned a lot about Sim and how it works in this playtest. This was ultimately a side project to a Gamist game I started a long time ago (I’ve posted about it here before) so, maybe it’s time for me to put this to the side and let it simmer while I look back at my Gamist project.

Anyway, sorry if I’m a little behind on the terminology; I’ve been busy doing paleontology research for the past year. (Graptolites rock.) The Forge looks great, really love the new changes in structure.

Thanks for reading!
-Dave Bapst

Few months ago I designed one-shot simulationist game focused on genre emulation, more limited in scope than what you write about, but I think a bit similar in design goals (Crystalicum Lite, link in my signature - but the game is in Polish, so I assume you probably won't be able to read it). This is how I handled some of the issues you mention:

-mook fights are treated just like any other kind of check. If the chararacters lose, they are either subdued, wounded or killed, depending on the intentions of their opponents. If they win they can spent their successes to achieve some tasks despite being attacked, or dispose of the opponents entirely. It's fairly possible to "kill the army" with good enough roll, but often characters facing overwhelming oddswill get only as many successes to be able to achieve some of their objectives (e.g. capture/release someone guarded, steal an item, destroy key facilities of enemy base or something), and escape using their last successes. One roll, and then players decide what they achieve with their successes, and they can do one "thing" per success - the same mechanic is used in any non-combat situation.

-when players deal with some uber-important NPC, conflict resolution similar to TSoY BDtP kicks in. This is handled by a series of opposed checks, surceasing in one such opposed check means that the stake of the winner is realised in the story. Stakes can involve killing or wounding, so one failed roll can kill or disable characters.

-there is a resource called Luck, regained by acting according to genre cliches, and doing things connected with character's chosen niche in the story (e.g Leader, Friend, Scoundrel etc.). Spending one point in conflict let's you negate opponent's roll entirely, by describing some dramatic shift of the situation (so, in practice the conflict is seldom resolved with one roll). Also, players can use Luck to boost their rolls and use special abilities (one point is spent whenever character does something that would be out of reach for a normal human being).

-now, killing and wounding works in a different way than in most games. Player can spend one point of luck to avoid certain death, e.g. after a ship's explosion it turns out that the character somehow managed to get into an escape pod. In conflicts, when death stakes are involved, spending one point of luck allows the player to decide whether he prefers to negate opponents efforts and stay in the conflict, or take the blow and miraculously come back later. Thus, setting killing stakes in conflict is used mainly to make the opponent "run" from the scene, not to kill him. Also, there is an option of wounding the opponent - this can be avoided only by negating opponents effort, and wounded character suffers from a non-cumulative penalty. Such wounds never accumulate and never cause death - they only make things tougher for the character.

-the effect is that players have to decide whether they care enough for achieving something in a given situation to spend valuable resources, or they are willing to accept minor failures and setbacks. They are also constantly conscious that using too much of their resources now might mean being threatened by death later.

-also, I have blatantly stolen Exalted stunt bonuses. Well, I changed what is rewarded a bit to emulate the genre more accurately.

Now, what I see in your game:

-notice, that combat does not always have to end with one side dying. Losers can be captured, or suffer from other kind of setback or consequences. Resolving mook fights makes a lot of sense if character's survival is guaranteed by the rules, but losing the fight means that the story goes in less favourable way (notice how in Star Wars, in the Death Star the heroes start "losing" with the waves of incoming stormtroopers and have to escape into that pit with trash, were another complications await).

-generally, you could use conflict resolution that decide on the direction of the story - heroes never die, but they can achieve their goals, or stumble upon some additional complications. Notice that in stories you often know that the protagonists are going to succeed, by the tension is built by complicating their lives.

-so, you have this jazz thing and stuff. Maybe assume that characters succeed automatically in most situations, unless there are possible setbacks for them. In such situations, they would have to spend some of their resources in order to avoid the setback (say, one point for a setback), or accept complications, saving resources for later use. Also, using niches could cost some jazz or theme music, or what have you, and be the only way to succeed in some very important situations. E.g. only the character with "pilot" niche is able to escape enemy ships by flying through the asteroid belt, or only "Jedi" character can strike the killing blow in a climactic fight, etc. That way, you make sure that genre's stereotypical situations get realised during the session. It would work especially well for a tailored adventure, if you provide players with the list of niches that will play some role in the story (note - not can play, but will play). If no one chooses some of the key niches, they simply won't be able to do some things later in the story, and will have to look for ways of circumventing such problems or give up completing some of their goals.

(notice, that all those solutions are strictly Sim - nothing Nair in there, since such rules support genre emulation and playing out cliche scenes, not addressing the premise)

Also, one thing that comes to my mind:

All I can guess is that (like almost all of Sim) enjoying this limited playing of a character’s ticks is a behavior that has to be learned.

David wrote:
What is the corresponding conflict for the Simulationist game, for what is basically a pre-scripted exercise in genre exploration?

David wrote:
He was right, and suddenly I questioned why anyone ever had to roll at all to kill extras in a Sim game. It seems silly now.

Filip wrote:
-there is a resource called Luck, regained by acting according to genre cliches, and doing things connected with character's chosen niche in the story (e.g Leader, Friend, Scoundrel etc.). ...
Notice that in stories you often know that the protagonists are going to succeed, by the tension is built by complicating their lives.

Colin,

Sim is Live the Dream -- it's creating a world and people that live in it, and taking seriously the question "what would it be like to live there"?

Hey guys, thanks for your responses. Sorry for my slow reply, it’s been a busy week thanks to computer troubles. Anyway…

Filip wrote:
Few months ago I designed one-shot simulationist game focused on genre emulation, more limited in scope than what you write about, but I think a bit similar in design goals (Crystalicum Lite, link in my signature - but the game is in Polish, so I assume you probably won't be able to read it). This is how I handled some of the issues you mention:

(list snipped)

-now, killing and wounding works in a different way than in most games. Player can spend one point of luck to avoid certain death, e.g. after a ship's explosion it turns out that the character somehow managed to get into an escape pod. In conflicts, when death stakes are involved, spending one point of luck allows the player to decide whether he prefers to negate opponents efforts and stay in the conflict, or take the blow and miraculously come back later. Thus, setting killing stakes in conflict is used mainly to make the opponent "run" from the scene, not to kill him. Also, there is an option of wounding the opponent - this can be avoided only by negating opponents effort, and wounded character suffers from a non-cumulative penalty. Such wounds never accumulate and never cause death - they only make things tougher for the character.

-also, I have blatantly stolen Exalted stunt bonuses. Well, I changed what is rewarded a bit to emulate the genre more accurately.

Now, what I see in your game:

-notice, that combat does not always have to end with one side dying. Losers can be captured, or suffer from other kind of setback or consequences. Resolving mook fights makes a lot of sense if character's survival is guaranteed by the rules, but losing the fight means that the story goes in less favourable way (notice how in Star Wars, in the Death Star the heroes start "losing" with the waves of incoming stormtroopers and have to escape into that pit with trash, were another complications await).

-generally, you could use conflict resolution that decide on the direction of the story - heroes never die, but they can achieve their goals, or stumble upon some additional complications. Notice that in stories you often know that the protagonists are going to succeed, by the tension is built by complicating their lives.

-so, you have this jazz thing and stuff. Maybe assume that characters succeed automatically in most situations, unless there are possible setbacks for them. In such situations, they would have to spend some of their resources in order to avoid the setback (say, one point for a setback), or accept complications, saving resources for later use. Also, using niches could cost some jazz or theme music, or what have you, and be the only way to succeed in some very important situations. E.g. only the character with "pilot" niche is able to escape enemy ships by flying through the asteroid belt, or only "Jedi" character can strike the killing blow in a climactic fight, etc. That way, you make sure that genre's stereotypical situations get realised during the session. It would work especially well for a tailored adventure, if you provide players with the list of niches that will play some role in the story (note - not can play, but will play). If no one chooses some of the key niches, they simply won't be able to do some things later in the story, and will have to look for ways of circumventing such problems or give up completing some of their goals.

(notice, that all those solutions are strictly Sim - nothing Nar in there, since such rules support genre emulation and playing out cliche scenes, not addressing the premise)

No, it is not a behaviour that can be learned. It is a preference, and it's impossible to learn enjoying something if one is simply not able to enjoy it. At most, preferences can shift over time.

For the same reason I can't really help you much with this Girlfriend syndrome, or passive players problem. Some people simply enjoy such things, e.g. being in the story without any real influence over its course - and I'm not sure if G, N and S Creative Agendas actually take into account some of similar preferences (it's probably arguable whether such participationist modes of play fall under "Sim by default").

colin wrote: That's an awfully harsh description of Sim.  Are you sure you really believe that playing through a "prescripted exercise" sounds like fun?  I'm stuck with the feeling, at least from that report, that you're trying to design a game for a style of play you don't like, and am wondering why you're doing that.

I think you've gotten "Space Opera" confused with "Sim" here.  Call of Cthulhu, for example, is a classic Sim system, and that's a game with no such thing as a mook to mow down.

You guys have a very different idea of "Sim" than I do.  If you're worried about the Story-as-story enough to be classifying characters' roles, I'd have said that's more Nar -- see PTA's "Screen Presence".  Sim is Live the Dream -- it's creating a world and people that live in it, and taking seriously the question "what would it be like to live there"?  And I would have classed things like Theme Music and regaining Jazz through acting out cliches as an <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/">intrusion of metagame mechanics antithetical to Sim.

Filip wrote: Yup, just like in the games we're talking about. "What would it be like to live there (in a world ruled by the laws of a given genre)". And the question is taken deadly serious, believe it or not. This is not Nar, it's a simulationist pastiche. Classification of roles etc. doesn't serve creating and addressing the premise in any way, so such features do not support Nar play. Instead, these things help to emulate source material.

On the other hand, I could argue that some of the games commonly identified as Narrativist are in fact Simulationist. I'm not sure how it is with PTA, since I haven't seen the game yet, unfortunately.

David wrote:
Players meet mooks while exploring an enemy complex. Everyone (players and GM) knows due to the necessity of the frontloaded story, the mooks will be beaten. Genre suggests this will occur effortlessly. This is meant to be resolved very quickly. Considering no one is really in contention about the fact the mooks will be beaten, could anything else possibly be in contention? It doesn’t seem to fit the Sim CA well to say “well, we roll to see if you get wounded or not doing this”. Maybe that’s part of it, but it seems like there should be something more significant in conflict here.

Filip, I’d love to hear about your system and the precise particulars of it. Is it described in any threads here on the Forge? We can take this to PM if you want.

I think one of the bits we may separate on is that my game is effectively "on rails". It's an entirely frontloaded adventure I've written up beforehand to minimize any need of mine to improvise. Having the players be captured wasn't part of the adventure, so there wasn't room for that to occur as a result of conflicts. I'm guessing your Sim oneshots had more room to move around in?

I think I get what your system does towards deciding levels of success/failure, but how do the stakes get decided? Who decides what one success or three successes mean? Who or what decides what counts as "one thing"? I think you are probably quite right in using conflict resolution/task resolution switching like TSoY. Task resolution builds tension better...

Could I hear more about this "chosen niche" thing and the genre cliches? I always find the details of reward systems important.

Also, tell me about the genre this was being played in. You mention Luck being used to power actions beyond human capability...

Ah, see, I meant for the Gift Dice/Fanmail like mechanic to take the place of that.

Ah, well, I wasn't expecting help with that, but thank you. I do think Sim is more of a taste you learn to like than one that comes naturally. I'm pretty certain if Sim hadn't been the game style I was exposed to the most before finding the Forge, I probably wouldn't enjoy it much at all ("Why do A when I can do B or C?"). I do have fond memories, though, of playing and running Sim games. If it makes it seem like I take a harsh attitude towards Sim, well, that's probably true enough. Each fond memory is balanced by a memory of the sting of realizing the limits of illusionism (even the GM's seemed to think I could control the story; they believed their own illusionism). The only thing that's let me run Sim at all is telling players they just don't have control of the story in this sort of game. To me, it's a hard truth of what Sim is. Some don't like it and don't play, others don't mind and do play.

It seems to me, there really isn’t anything else I can put into contention and retain a Sim CA. That means I have to go back and change the frontloaded scenario: either allow enough freedom in the story for players and GM to argue out a set of stakes for conflict (so that the players could get captured) or design the scenario so that the conflict cascades into more conflicts if they fail (like what Filip suggested, ex: having them end up in a trash compactor if they fail).

What is the corresponding conflict for the Simulationist game, for what is basically a pre-scripted exercise in genre exploration?

the whole system was based around playing a frontloaded scenario, practically handholding the players through a precise series of story events.

Hey guys, thanks for the responses, now let me get to responding back to them. I’m thinking there may not be much more left to this particular topic, though.

colin wrote:
Okay, so your objective is to bring alive a space opera feel, if I understand rightly, so you want to characters to pull off spectacular stunts -- a mook fight should be a chance to show off how awesome they are.  As to what could be in contention, perhaps it's more of a chance to recharge -- earn some Jazz to use later by beating up the mooks in suitably genre-fulfilling style.

Filip wrote:
In conflict resolutions, everyone involved simply states what will happen if he wins. Of course, this can lead to unexpected dramatic twists, and it supports the genre - stories in Crystalicum should be full of surprises. Also, conflict resolution comes into play only when the characters deal with very important NPCs, so not extremely often - and the importance of those situations is highlights by potentially greater impact of the effects.

When it comes to task resolution, every success allows to make one specific change in the world/story, gain one information (one question to the GM) or achieve one very specific goal. When there is any doubt, GM has final word, but guidelines for interpreting the most common situations are provided (like what can be achieved with one success in combat, espionage, interstellar sailing, item creation/repair, etc.). The same guidelines can also be used to interpret the effects of conflict resolution, if players see such a need.

The basic reward is renewing one point of Luck per scene when character does something strongly connected with his role in the story (I used the same rules in Crystalicum d20, and its an important difference from normal Crystalicum, where players are rewarded for consistent acting of the character's psychology, and roles are only descriptive, with no mechanical effect outside of the character creation). …

…It's also possible to regain whole Luck once per session for succumbing to the character's weakness or heroically overcoming it. As you see it was very NWoD-inspired.

There is also an optional long-term reward system for those who would like to play more than one session - players gain one advance simply for being there and additional advances for famous deeds (fame is strongly connected with power in Crystalicum). It doesn't work very well, but that was not the focus of my design and the game wasn't really intended for long-term play.

Just to be on the same page - I advice you to take a look at this article concerning gamemastering stances. I kind of like the terminology presented there. Notice, that illusionism can be used in connection with any CA, and using illusionist techniques doesn't have to automatically indicate at Sim. I think Sim games can just as well be run using different methods, including bass rpg (like my Crystalicum Lite), and still stay Sim.

That said, I understand your approach - I too was exposed mainly to illusionist Sim for my first years of gaming, and I started hating it once I discovered gamist D&D and then Forge-style games. But then, I think that what I like in Sim play comes to me rather naturally, from my own preferences, rather than old, not really satisfactory experiences (accidentally I also demonstrate Sim tendencies connected with emulation of visually-extreme genres, and it was not possible for me to explore them in RPG some years ago, since traditional Polish sim involves a focus on down-to-earth grim'n'gritty "realism").

But then, it's really difficult for me to think about a mechanic that would be used for a game in which everything important is decided beforehand. Since players probably contribute only colour in such a play, it would probably make sense to weave the mechanics around colour creation and not much else.

Pariah wrote:
I do not think that this is what a Sim game tries to do for its players. Further, I would be inclined to argue that a pure vanilla Sim game could not have a pre-scripted anything: it would present the genre, the world, and a situation and leave it to the players to act. And the game's system would, ideally, only serve to determine if an action succeeds vis a vis "appropriateness" to the world and genre (and maybe physics).

If anything, I'd argue that Sim is MOST open to freedom of action, as world simulation leave a huge range of potential hooks and points of engagement for characters.

You are using a potentially Sim system to run a clearly (to me) Nar game agenda.

Perhaps you should try to structure your scenarios more like "event sequences" which, if unchecked by the players, will come to pass "naturally" as is appropriate to the genre. Then, the players can engage them (or not) and enjoy their own path to success (or try to survive failure and aftermath). This could still be one-shot, and the focus (and agenda) could still be highly Sim. But recognize that the players might just as well choose to run off track, ignore the Emperor, and become smugglers. All within genre, all appropriate choices, all OK--unless you have some Story to serve that they are "undermining."

You could even attempt some subtle force: make it cost each character a LOT to leave the Emperor alive--maybe the Emperor has some dirt on each of them or holds their families (or entire home worlds?) under his thumb, as hostage. Sure, you can go be a smuggler... and let your planet die! Somewhat forceful--but at no time is the playing group required to choose one thing over the other. But their choices have real impacts in the game AND on their characters ("villainous scum" and "cowardly traitors" could become annoying sobriquets).

And as you have by now realized, I suspect, any of those events sequences that MUST happen or that CAN'T be avoided are probably trouble spots in your scenario design. In general (maybe this is High Theory?) a Sim scenario can not have a strict story arc or mandatory events, because no "real world" (other than, perhaps, Never-Neverland and Oz) has a thematic imperative operating "behind the scenes"--there is no "scene" behind which to be, nor is there a "behind," really....

Glad I could sort of help--though now I am a bit confused in general about what happened in this thread. I see you want it closed, but I feel obliged to clarify two points that might have been misinterpretted:

1) I read your "pre-scripted exercise in genre exploration" line and interpretted that as a "script" that you arrived at before ("pre") the play commenced. As it involved genre exploration, I figured that script was supposed to help show off the genre--I suppose something like going on a tour bus ride through a theme park, rather than wandering the park on foot, at will. Sorry if I didn't understand your use of those terms.
2) I don't think I ever used the term "realism." If I did, I apologize for being misleading. I meant to only use the term verisimilitude, and should have really tried to also use the phrase "internal coherence." Recall that I even said that physics itself would only "maybe" be an appropriate thing for the system to engage--not required at all. So, no "realism" here; just an assessment of Sim play as being focused exclusively on world coherence, modelling, and consistency.

I am beginning to doubt that many folks really knows what "Sim" play is or, at least, how to recognize it in situation structure or game rules--I am coming to believe that it is an "everything else" category in the GNS structure.

And that could explain why I am very confused when you say, "In my experience, Simulationism normally answers the Impossible Thing Before Breakfast by giving the GM full story control, which would certainly stop any players from having freedom of action. The only other model I’ve seen is improvising the story as it goes along (bass playing) and control of the story there is still really left up to the GM."

My reading of The Big Model does not even have the term "story" in the same Venn Diagram circle as "Sim": story is a meaningless term, vis a vis Simulationist play, because (as I said at close of last post) there is no "story" lurking behind the physics or nature of a world (other than extreme cases like Oz and NeverNeverLand, whose "sim" elements--paradoxically, it seems--ought to enforce some nature of "moral" or "story" or "theme." But special cases do not define general categories.)

Thus, I don't believe that a GM can't attempt The Impossible Thing in vanilla Sim, because the game system will always be the final adjudicator. Yes, the GM sets up situations and, yes, he could certainly set them up to all-but "autofail" or "autosucceed" and become a railroader--regardless of where his tracks lead, story or competition or whatever. But there's always a roll, there's always a chart or table to consult for the general situational category, or there is always a system in place that tries to model world-plausible results from initial conditions (if in any way a thorough sim system). A GM that forces his way past such Sim systems isn't really playing Sim, though, eh? He's got some other agenda which he is obfuscating with a Sim system--a system that must be hamstrung to keep it from undoing his force with contrary resolutions.

Anyhow, you may let this thread die, if you like; but I think you are taking away a view of my points which is quite the opposite of my intentions. Again, my apologies if I wasn't clear enough, and I hope this reply removes any further confusion.

David

Pariah wrote:
My reading of The Big Model does not even have the term "story" in the same Venn Diagram circle as "Sim": story is a meaningless term, vis a vis Simulationist play, because (as I said at close of last post) there is no "story" lurking behind the physics or nature of a world

colin wrote:
you want to characters to pull off spectacular stunts -- a mook fight should be a chance to show off how awesome they are. 

Pariah wrote:
Glad I could sort of help--though now I am a bit confused in general about what happened in this thread. ...
...Anyhow, you may let this thread die, if you like; but I think you are taking away a view of my points which is quite the opposite of my intentions. Again, my apologies if I wasn't clear enough, and I hope this reply removes any further confusion.

David

It seems like a shame to leave everything pre-scripted, nothing unknown. What if each character had a goal (that was in-genre) and a failure (also in-genre) that were the only two possible outcomes for that characters?

For instance, the Hotshot Pilot could end up saving the girl and destroying the villain's space station, or he could end up as a traitor, or an unlikeable jerk who the girl rejects to go off with some other character, or something similar (maybe he destroys the space station but dies in the process).

Or each character has a possible "ending" that they try to make happen. In each scene they can "collect" points toward that goal. All the goals can be pre-scripted, if you like.

So, for instance, our Hotshot Pilot ALWAYS looks cool and pilots like a daredevil, but each scene either means that he's impressing the girl more, or scaring her away, and something the player does determines which is more likely to win out in the end.

Likewise, you could write a scenario (given your desire for everything to be set up beforehand) with a possible and in-genre ending for each character defeating the final Villain. Whoever collects the most points along the way (or whatever) will get to have his ending narrated by you, or take place in some other way.

So, you're choosing from pre-scripted options, all of which are perfectly in-genre, but the players can still compete to get the one they want to happen.

Maybe something like that would suit your game, and lend some purpose to each die roll (yes, the heroes defeat the stormtroopers, but meanwhile does one of them impress another, or gain a store of courage that will help him later?).

Best,

Paul

Paul-

By Jove, that's really interesting. Could probably drift to Gamism (Pantheon comes to mind, although different), though the result would certaining be fun.

-Dave