Quote from: Manzanaro;901025No. The distinction is that if you roll on a table you are not CHOOSING the outcome. Why is this so hard for you to understand after all this time?

When you roll to hit is that 'authoring by proxy'? Why not just have the GM choose whether the attack hits instead of leaving it in the hands of whatever jackass wrote the rules?

In a way you are. As I've mentioned before rules in D&D portray long sword damage against full plate as something entirely different from putting on full plate and getting hit by a sword. Many players prefer a long sword over a mace and clerics (who can't shed blood) were deemed less combat effective because maces do less damage than swords. In truth a blunt weapon with a massive end is very effective against plate.

So yes, in a way it is authoring by proxy because you're repeating the same errors over and over again, and a GM that knows medieval weapons and rules a hit instead of  leaving it in the hands of whatever jackass wrote the rules is probably better than  leaving it in the hands of whatever jackass wrote the rules. That's why GM ruling is so important and rules not so much.

I think that the veracity or accuracy of the output is a different tangent than what "simulation" is for some people. I'm taking a stab in the dark here, but I think that part of Manzanaro's definition of simulation is, requires that the system is a closed system with results that do not come from a human after the system has been defined. Sorry if I'm putting words in your mouth, Manzanaro.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;901073I think that the veracity or accuracy of the output is a different tangent than what "simulation" is for some people. I'm taking a stab in the dark here, but I think that part of Manzanaro's definition of simulation is, requires that the system is a closed system with results that do not come from a human after the system has been defined. Sorry if I'm putting words in your mouth, Manzanaro.

I agree with your comment and I believe that's Manzanaro's angle as well. Yet if we look at it 1. You have some kind of table of critical results for lots of different skills. is just a documented version of 2. If there is an extreme roll, the GM makes up an appropriate feeling result on the spot. in which the GM plays day in and day out, writes everything down, publishes it as a book and titles it Dungeon Masters Guide. The point being that most of these tables have a "narrative" origin and now Manzanaro is drawing a line between the two when it seems one comes from the other, as it clearly does not come from "reality" and observing real medieval combat on youtube.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;901066I get this and I agree. It's a tough pickle, though, as you illustrated before. I can't imagine the amount of effort it would take to come up with tables upon tables of criticals for all kinds of skills and situations. There would by necessity be a lot of holes left that would need to be filled by the GM's imagination, even in the most simulationist of simulationist systems.

Even if you did have all those crit tables, the GM still has to exercise judgment as to which table to use. We tackled this a while back when we spoke of the footnote in the Assassin's table in the DMG 1st Ed, which allows characters of any class a chance for an autokill when attacking "helpless" opponents. Well, who decides whether the opponent's predicament is helpless or not? What is the standard? If it were "helpless" in an absolute sense, that should mean they can be automatically slain, not given a probability. Auto-slay is reserved in the rules for magically sleeping or held opponents. The kind of "helpless" the rules call for her are specifically in a grey area that requires DM judgment.

I think the bigger picture is this. In an ideal world, what I (as DM) want to happen, what the rules say should happen, and what is consistent with the imaginary game world, would all be one in the same. However, in the real world, these things are not always aligned. The question is, how do we reconcile the differences. My understanding of Manzanaro's position is that he reconciles the difference by anchoring how the world works to how the rules works. Whereas my position is that the purpose of the rules (among other things) is to "enable the setting," if I may use such a clumsy phrase. So when I see a divergence between the game rules and the game world, in those instances the rules are not serving the purpose and so are not applicable. Now because my paradigm is world-first while Manzanaro's is rules-first, I feel my position is the more simulationist one. His is more "gamist" if you want to use that term.

The beef I have with Manzanaro is I feel he conflates my use of GM judgment (of the same kind that strict adherence to the rules calls for on the 1st Ed Assassin's table) when I apply it to fidelity to the game world with "what I want" by using imprecise terms like "authoring" and "fiat." What I really want is, ultimately, a great and interesting story. However, a great story, to me, involves a range of emotions. At times it may make me feel upset or anxious or I may just plain hate parts of it, but find in the end, those parts to be essential to a greater hole. It's because what I want "in the moment" is often times a betrayal of what I want in the big picture, that I find the most effective method for getting a great story is to begin with great premises and then trust a great process. Thus the notion that my judgment calls are "fiat" or external to my process rather than being a working part of that mechanism is simply inaccurate.

(Now if you want to know why it is that when I consider the best means for Simulationist-First to be World-First, but the best means for Story-First to be "what I want"-last, it's because, as I mentioned, if the story is any good, it's affecting my emotional state and in turn "what I want" in the moment. Whereas when it comes to rules vs world, those things are not emotionally-dependent.)

Quote from: Saurondor;901075I agree with your comment and I believe that's Manzanaro's angle as well. Yet if we look at it 1. You have some kind of table of critical results for lots of different skills. is just a documented version of 2. If there is an extreme roll, the GM makes up an appropriate feeling result on the spot. in which the GM plays day in and day out, writes everything down, publishes it as a book and titles it Dungeon Masters Guide. The point being that most of these tables have a "narrative" origin and now Manzanaro is drawing a line between the two when it seems one comes from the other, as it clearly does not come from "reality" and observing real medieval combat on youtube.

Sure, people write up the tables. They write the rules of simulation. But that is a level of causality one step beyond that of "why things happen in the gameworld".

And again the answer is going to be basically "it happened because someone said it happened" or "it happened because that was the result the rules returned". Your saying "but someone wrote the rules so it is the same thing" is mixing up layers of causality so as to make them useless truisms. It's like someone answering everything with "because of God". Why is your nose bleeding? "Because of God!" Why did you call me? "Because of God!" The answer doesn't convey much about direct causality, but skips down the chain ignoring the more generally useful direct cause.

Also, you keep bringing up "realism" like how games suck because they don't properly model swords vs. plate mail or whatever. My reply to that sort of thing is, So what? Most games don't really even model the essential concept of mass all that well, let alone various material properties and their pertinent qualities in regards to medieval warfare. Trying to get TTRPG rules to precisely conform to reality is an unprofitable bottomless rabbit hole. And the 'realism' of the rules of simulation are not really a big deal for me, as long as I can narrate the output of the rules in a way that seems plausible.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;901066I get this and I agree. It's a tough pickle, though, as you illustrated before. I can't imagine the amount of effort it would take to come up with tables upon tables of criticals for all kinds of skills and situations. There would by necessity be a lot of holes left that would need to be filled by the GM's imagination, even in the most simulationist of simulationist systems.

As a thought experiment (and sorry if this has come up already), imagine that instead of a human, you had a very advanced AI inference system that did not work off of crit tables, but was connected to the internet at large. Imagine that it could somehow synthesize creative responses appropriate to the situation from speedily trawling the internet, would you consider that simulation or not simulation? I'm just trying to see where you might draw the line.

I suppose it would depend on the criteria by which it synthesized its responses. Is it based on data analysis and statistics or are its responses geared towards narrative effects like escalating drama?

But yeah, I acknowledge that outside of combat, it is hard to find comprehensive rules of simulation, and so the GM ends up just narrating outcomes as he feels appropriate. Even there, I think that the GM is going to be either following tenets of simulation or tenets of narrative. In other words he is going to be narrating based on what he finds most plausible given the known factors, or on what he finds most narratively pleasing. Not saying one way is better than the other, but I do actually find that a lot of GMs have a sense of drama which is fairly transparent, contrived, and hackneyed... so in general I prefer that a GM follow tenets of simulation and just let the drama emerge organically.

Quote from: Manzanaro;901167Also, you keep bringing up "realism" like how games suck because they don't properly model swords vs. plate mail or whatever. My reply to that sort of thing is, So what? Most games don't really even model the essential concept of mass all that well, let alone various material properties and their pertinent qualities in regards to medieval warfare. Trying to get TTRPG rules to precisely conform to reality is an unprofitable bottomless rabbit hole. And the 'realism' of the rules of simulation are not really a big deal for me, as long as I can narrate the output of the rules in a way that seems plausible.

I agree with you, most games do not really model much in a realistic way, but yet we have tons of fun playing them. That's because most games are "encoding" the underlying narrative in their rules. The rules are meant to recreate the adventure and exploration and not the realistic sword swing. That's what's so contradictory about your position. That you clearly realize the rules are not recreating some "realism" and yet you enforce them above the decision and ruling of the GM, an educated decision and not the whim of the GM at a given moment. The only way I can reconcile this is to believe you're a rules lawyer. You're aware that the rules don't simulate realism, but they're the key to understanding the "game world" and "winning", a GM's ruling undermines your capacity to anticipate the outcome within the "game reality" created by the rule set and it seems you abhor anything that goes against this "precious simulation" because then you can't win.

Quote from: Saurondor;901178I agree with you, most games do not really model much in a realistic way, but yet we have tons of fun playing them. That's because most games are "encoding" the underlying narrative in their rules. The rules are meant to recreate the adventure and exploration and not the realistic sword swing. That's what's so contradictory about your position. That you clearly realize the rules are not recreating some "realism" and yet you enforce them above the decision and ruling of the GM, an educated decision and not the whim of the GM at a given moment. The only way I can reconcile this is to believe you're a rules lawyer. You're aware that the rules don't simulate realism, but they're the key to understanding the "game world" and "winning", a GM's ruling undermines your capacity to anticipate the outcome within the "game reality" created by the rule set and it seems you abhor anything that goes against this "precious simulation" because then you can't win.

Whenever you try to summarize my position, you look like an idiot. I think I've mentioned that.

There's nothing contradictory about my position at all. But seriously? I don't think you have understood virtually anything I've said throughout this thread, and the sad thing is I have really not been saying anything complicated.

And why are you putting words in quotes like I said them? Who the fuck has said anything about "winning"? Anticipating outcomes? That was your line wasn't it? Anyway, whatever, I am starting to suspect you have issues. "Issues".

Quote from: Manzanaro;901208Whenever you try to summarize my position, you look like an idiot. I think I've mentioned that.

There's nothing contradictory about my position at all. But seriously? I don't think you have understood virtually anything I've said throughout this thread, and the sad thing is I have really not been saying anything complicated.

And why are you putting words in quotes like I said them? Who the fuck has said anything about "winning"? Anticipating outcomes? That was your line wasn't it? Anyway, whatever, I am starting to suspect you have issues. "Issues".

I'm not putting quotes as if you said them. Quotes can be used for more than quoting other peoples words, namely:

QuoteWriting about letters and words
 
Quotation marks can be used when referring to a specific word or letter. (Some writers instead use italics for this purpose.)
 
In the previous sentence, “letter” was properly spelled with two “t”s.

I'm using quotes instead of italics to highlight specific words I'm talking about.

I'm also not putting words into your mouth. I'm just expressing my opinion and my view that I find your position contradictory. You might not find anything contradictory in your position, and I sure would hope so or the sake your mental health, but it might be convenient to understand why I find such a contradiction so you can then try to understand my position. Understanding to which you seem to be investing little or no effort and just reducing yourself to calling me an "idiot" (there goes the quotes again, but I'm talking about the word idiot and not actually quoting you on the usage of the word idiot).

We simply have two different positions. I understand yours, but when I express mine you go ballistic about me not understanding you. I understand your position, I simply don't agree with it wholeheartedly.

Yeah. Quotes can be used for all kinds of things. But when you are using them in a discussion of MY supposed opinion, putting quotes around words that I have used intermixed with OTHER words in quotes? It's pretty unclear how you mean to use the quotes if it isn't in the sense of, "here is some stuff you keep saying".

Secondly? I don't go ballistic about you expressing your position. Have at it. Hell, I have no.idea of your position other than that you have a serious thing for bell curves and probability graphs.

What I get pissed at is you telling me MY position, in an intentionally confrontational manner, and being completely fucking wrong about what my position is. Over and over and over.

Quote from: Manzanaro;901245Yeah. Quotes can be used for all kinds of things. But when you are using them in a discussion of MY supposed opinion, putting quotes around words that I have used intermixed with OTHER words in quotes? It's pretty unclear how you mean to use the quotes if it isn't in the sense of, "here is some stuff you keep saying".

Secondly? I don't go ballistic about you expressing your position. Have at it. Hell, I have no.idea of your position other than that you have a serious thing for bell curves and probability graphs.

What I get pissed at is you telling me MY position, in an intentionally confrontational manner, and being completely fucking wrong about what my position is. Over and over and over.

Manzanaro, I'm not telling you your position. I sure hope you're aware of your own position, once again for the sake of your own mental health. What I'm mentioning is my perception of your position, which can be quite different to what you intend to project through your words. If what I mention is "fucking wrong" (and now I am quoting you) then it's either that I'm fucking stupid or your not making yourself fucking clear, or a mixture of these two to a greater or lesser degree. Maybe you should take the time to consider why your position makes "no fucking sense" to me instead of just brushing me off as "an idiot". Because maybe, just maybe, that reluctance to consider somebody else's position as valid is what's keeping you from obtaining good narrative from rules of simulation.

Quote from: Saurondor;901063Damage, as the destruction of the Death Star in A New Hope shows us, is a function of the hit location and not so much the weapon. A well placed dagger is more effective than an ill placed long sword. In many games damage is a fixed range sometimes modified by strength, but hardly by skill. Sure, I might have some feat that improves it, but overall once I hit the actual hit location is not that relevant to the damage done.

Here's the thing. I really don't care what "many games" do. I was talking about the power, in terms of range of possibilities, of a tried-and-true mechanic, not a specific RPG. Though to the extend I do have a particular game in the back of my mind, it's a game that I play, and your objections here are simply off the mark in that regard. The game I have in mind, the harm range for virtually all weapons is the same d20, and harm is far, far more influenced by skill than strength (at least for human adventurers, great monsters is a different matter). So why don't you go ahead and scratch these points off your list.

QuoteThis is mainly due to the limited range of the d20 and the lack of long tails you're so quick to disregard.

Now hold on a minute. First, ok, so let's say we've got a straight-up, no-frills d20 mechanic (and I'll address this "no-frills" assumption in a bit), the best you can do is roll a 20, and that's it. Ok. Great. So my 1st level D&D character needs a 20 to hit AC 0, or 5% likely. But the key question here is what happens when I go up against AC -5? Are my odds of success -20%? No. Because probability is bound by 1 and 0. We can decide that anything mathematically outside the range of the die is just going to be treated as impossible, so the slop of the line representing the probability of success against various difficulties changes and flattens out. Or we can decide that 20 is an auto success. Again, the slop of the line changes and flattens out. Or, we could do something middle-of-the-road, like the 6 repeating 20's from the AD&D 1st Ed hit tables.

The point is, because probability is bound by 0 and 1, there is no such thing as a truly linear probability distribution. It's gotta change as it approaches 1 and 0. Virtually every game designer is perfectly aware of this and specifies provisions (like 20 is always a hit, or 1 is always a miss) for handling it. When we speak of linear game mechanics, it should be understood that this is a colloquialism not to be taken literally. Because technically, the line does take some turns. However it is handled, the fact is the probabilities do still approach the bounds asymptotically, and thus long tails ARE in fact present. It's just if we're using a straight up d20, we have to round it to increments of 5%. Rounding error, sure, effects the game in practice. For instance, if you decide it levels out at 0% rather than 5%, some things just aren't going to be possible. Rounding error does not, however,  negate principle.

Second, I have not been quick to disregard long tails. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm just not going to obsess over something that happens so infrequently. I'm not going to sacrifice, say, the transparency of probability that a so-called linear mechanic (especially d100) offers just on account of long tails. If it's got tons of advantages in the middle 80% of cases over and beyond some convoluted curve mechanic, I'm going to take the plain linear mechanic every single time and then just write in exceptions for handling the tails, because, again, the tails are inevitable no matter what. No game design can change the fact that probability is bound by 1 and 0.

So now I'll handle the "no frills" assumption. I never, ever stated that there would be no frills. As long as you'd doing exception handlers for the natural bounds of probability, instead of doing something like the 1st Ed hit tables of 6 repeating 20's, I can instead rule that whenever a natural 20 is rolled, it mini-explodes, so I add 1d10 to it. Now I have a well-defined hit probability all the way down to AC -10. Also, the probabilities at the extreme end progress in increments of 0.5% rather than 5%. If you were belly-aching before when I suggested something doesn't lack tails just because the rounding is grainy (and I know you were), well then here you have it. I still haven't given up the d20 core mechanic. It's still a straight d20 90% of the time (assuming I do something similar on the opposite end). 90% of the time I can quickly calculate the probability in my head, 90% of the time I can just read a nice, simple die result. As a GM, I can pick up a fist full of d20's and make all the goblin hit rolls at once (and if any result in 20, I can zero in on that as needed). Your examples are always suspiciously one-on-one.

QuoteNotice how for skilled vs skilled and experienced vs experienced (black and orange lines respectively) the damage (rolls above 0) behaves quite similar to the d20 + damage (green line) for a required roll of 16 or better. Now the experienced vs skilled roll automatically shifts the curve right due to the higher skill of the experienced PC over the skilled NPC. This cyan curve behaves similar to a d20 + damage when the required roll to hit is 13 or better (lower than before because the PC is more experienced than the target NPC) and the damage is taken to 2d6+2, enjoying a bonus to damage for higher skill.

Okay, but this is child's stuff. This idea has been extremely well-known in the RPG community for more than 2 decades, probably a lot longer even. I've had plenty of time to consider it. Ultimately I decided to reject it. Explaining it like you just invented fire isn't going to do anything. One simple reason. What if I don't want it to do that? Maybe I'm jaded. I just think it's kind of a goofy mindset gamers have to try to incorporate everything into one big probability stew. And you can only go in two directions. Slide the curve to the left, or slide it to the right. The whole thing is on one great big dial. Hey, that may work great for you. But I want multiple dials.

This doesn't mean I can't have hit prob and damage move in tandem. I can easily imitate what you're doing with an old-fashioned mechanic. So if I'm using a system with d100 skill checks, d20 harm rolls, and I say, "Every 10 points of Archery skill (10% improved chance to hit) adds 1 to harm," then I'm doing exactly that. I have that option. But then, I have other options, too. Skills can operate on multiple dials, situation modifiers, magic. Heck, being that I have two dials, I even get to have criticals on each dial. Yeah. The damage dial uses diminished exploding dice--can potentially doing double normal dice damage. Where a crit on the hit dice bypasses armor. It's possible to have one dial crit and not the other. Or both at the same time. Thus the very best hit possible in the game (using a lance driven at charge) is 1 in 12 million. Is that tail long enough for you?

QuoteLast, but not least, there's the usage of mechanics outside combat. If degree of success is set by a die roll for hp then other skills must have hp too? Farming points, and litigation points, and negotiation points, and fun points, and entertainment points, and what not. Question for you, since you seem to like damage rolls so much, why do other skill usages lack the equivalent of hit points and just reduce the outcome to a success or failure roll?

You haven't come straight out and said it, but there's enough context for me to conclude you're engaged in the "hit points is a combat stat" fallacy. Hit points are used in plenty of instances outside of combat. Falling damage, for instance. Traps. Poison and illness. Combat interfaces with hit points because for better or for worse, hit points is what tells us if the character is alive or not. On the other hand, what tells me whether or not persuading with an NPC works? Well, for me, I look at what the NPC's motivations are. If you aimed your talk-action and/or skill use at his motivations and were successful, then you've persuaded him. If not, you haven't. Motivations, however, are not well-ordered. They're not numerical. I can't place them on a scale. So it makes no sense for me to have things like "negotiation points."

And in fact, not even all weapon use in combat is aimed at depleting hit points. When using a lasso for example, the number I'm more likely to care about is how many legs the monster has rather than how many hit points.

Quote from: Lunamancer;901374One simple reason. What if I don't want it to do that?

You can knock yourself out. This isn't a pissing contest and you're free to do whatever you feel like at your gaming table. You seem to be threatened by alternative mechanics to your favorite d20 or d100. Nobody is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to change. I'm just exposing mechanics I've developed for my games to address certain issues.

Carry on.

Saurondor, if you want me to consider your position, go ahead and tell me what it is. That would be super refreshing compared to your continuous bizarre misunderstandings of everything I say.

Quote from: Saurondor;901075If there is an extreme roll, the GM makes up an appropriate feeling result on the spot.[/I] in which the GM plays day in and day out, writes everything down, publishes it as a book and titles it Dungeon Masters Guide. The point being that most of these tables have a "narrative" origin

OK, so I have now learned how to get rules of simulation from a good narrative. Reading this entire thread has really paid off. :rolleyes: