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    Simulationism: The Right to Dream

    by [8]Ron Edwards

    Many thanks are due to Clinton R. Nixon, Paul Czege, Jared A. Sorensen,

    Ralph Mazza, Christopher Kubasik, and Mike Holmes for comments on the

    manuscript. Several points, key text quotes, and nuances of argument

    wouldn't be in the article without their input. All inconsistencies or

    argumentative flaws, on the other hand, may be laid at my door.

    This is the first of three essays about the three GNS modes of

    role-playing. Each one is about both play and game design, with the

    former as the basic issue, and each one is intended to develop the

    points made in my "GNS and related matters of role-playing design"

    essay. I'm also drawing upon ideas I didn't express in that essay and

    many, many points of debate at the Forge over the last year. The

    original essay cleared up a lot of acrimony and misunderstanding that

    had arisen in the previous years, and I'm hoping that the current series

    plays an even more positive role in the current context - not only to

    remove negative connotations and interpretations (which are now much

    fewer anyway), but to encourage mutual understanding and appreciation

    among all role-players about all the available modes of play.

    Each essay isn't a segregated unit only about that one mode. Each will

    include more general issues, especially if they pertain especially if

    not uniquely to the mode under discussion, and each one is intended to

    clarify and develop "GNS and related matters" as a whole. Also, each one

    concludes with a Hard Question for those who prefer that mode of play.

    Each Hard Question is supposed to be interesting on its own, but I hope

    that the three taken together will be much more than merely

    "interesting."

    Simulationist role-playing has a great deal of power and potential. In

    the previous essay, I wrote that it "... is expressed by enhancing one

    or more of the listed elements [Character, Setting, Situation, System,

    Color]; in other words, Simulationism heightens and focuses Exploration

    as the priority of play. The players may be greatly concerned with the

    internal logic and experiential consistency of that Exploration."

    Exploration reviewed

    Obviously the thing to do is to get as clear an understanding of

    "Exploration" as possible. It's our jargon term for imagining,

    "dreaming" if you will, about made-up characters in made-up situations.

    It's central to all role-playing, but in Simulationist play, it's the

    top priority.

    I need to stop th'flow for a moment to explain some background, though.

    My original notions were mainly laid out in "System Does Matter," my

    first essay about all this stuff, based on my readings about the

    Threefold Model proposed in the r.g.f.a. discussion group. At the Gaming

    Outpost, lots of debate ensued about my essay, and eventually a poster

    called the Scarlet Jester objected to the term Simulationism in terms of

    its connotations, offering "Exploration" as the replacement - defined as

    the enjoyment of the "dream" or the imagination as an act in itself. He

    called his model "GENder" as an alternative to the then-existing GNS.

    GENder made a lot of sense to me, with one exception: Exploration, to

    me, seemed to be involved in all of role-playing. I decided to modify

    GNS severely and "float" the three modes on a "sea" of Exploration. In

    that context, Simulationist play priorities suddenly made more sense -

    as I saw it and still do, unlike Narrativist and Gamist priorities which

    are defined by an interpersonal out-of-game agenda, Simulationist play

    prioritizes the in-game functions and imagined events.

    From the introduction to RuneQuest, second edition (The Chaosium, 1978,

    1979, 1980; specific author for this text unknown; game authors are

    Steve Perrin, Ray Turney, Steve Henderson, and Warren James):

      What is a fantasy role-playing game?

      A role-playing game is a game of character development, simulating the

      process of personal development commonly called "life."

    [In fairness, later text in the introduction brings in some adversarial

    GM/player context that sounds more Gamist, but the above quote is

    reinforced more often throughout the book's rules and text.]

    From the introduction of Skyrealms of Jorune, 3rd edition (Chessex

    Publications, 1992, author is Andrew Leker):

      Is it possible to win at role-playing? The whole idea of role-playing

      is to have a good time. Players work toward a common goal, often

      survival, but sometimes helping a friend in need, or accomplishing a

      task of unquestioned importance. Although there will be no winner or

      losers in an absolute sense, you will have the satisfaction of

      watching your character think through challenges, survive

      confrontations with other races, grow, and develop new skills.

    [Note the synecdoche: the "whole idea."]

    From the introduction to Marc Miller's Traveller (1996, author is Marc

    Miller):

      ... the players' enjoyment comes from identifying with the character

      and vicariously experiencing the situation with that character, just

      as the reader of a novel and the viewer of a movie identify with the

      character ...

    [The above text is followed by some Impossible Thing Before Breakfast

    text which will be discussed in the Narrativism essay.]

    What's fun or good about that? Simulationist play looks awfully strange

    to those who enjoy lots of metagame and overt social context during

    play. "You do it just to do it? What the hell is that?"

    However, contrary to some accusations, it's not autistic or

    schizophrenic, being just as social and group-Premise as any other

    role-playing. The key issues are shared love of the source material and

    sincerity. Simulationism is sort of like Virtual Reality, but with the

    emphasis on the "V," because it clearly covers so many subjects. Perhaps

    it could be called V-Whatever rather than V-Reality. If the Whatever is

    a fine, cool thing, then it's fun to see fellow players imagine what you

    are imagining, and vice versa. (By "you" in that sentence, I am

    referring to anyone at the table, GM or player.) To the dedicated

    practitioner, such play is sincere to a degree that's lacking in

    heavy-metagame play, and that sincerity is the quality that I'm focusing

    on throughout this essay.

    Sincere shared creativity: all role-playing has to have it. For some,

    it's the whole point.

    Is the term fatally flawed?

    More than once, people have called for abandoning the term "simulation"

    in its entirety. Most of the objections arise from connotations of one

    sort or another, since it gets used for all sorts of recreational or

    applied things. If it's Simulationism, then what's it Simulating, and

    what form does the resulting Simulation take?

    For better or for worse, this issue has never really struck home for me.

    My call is that the term is is defined locally and historically, and not

    really descriptive as such ("simulating") in nearly any application.

    Here's the variety that I see:

      * Simulation in wargaming = historical plausibility ("realism").

      * Simulation in computer games = rendering, reaction time.

      * Simulation in behavioral terms = "let's pretend" in terms of our

        expressions, gestures, and voices.

      * Simulate in emotional terms = related to lying, as in dissimulate or

        simulated passion.

    Since the term does not carry a single meaning among all the other

    contexts, assigning a specific meaning for role-playing just seems to be

    par for the course and not especially or intrinsically confusing.

    Hastily added: "to me." Maybe I'm just obdurate.

    Taking it role-playing specifically, a new issue arises: it's awfully

    hard to get at goals of any kind right out of the texts. A good place to

    start is Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, in just about the first text ever

    that tried to explain what was going on (Dungeon Master's Guide, first

    edition, 1979, TSR; the author is Gary Gygax):

      Of the two approaches to hobby games today, one is best described as

      the realism-simulation school and the other as the game school. AD&D

      is assuredly an adherent of the latter school. It does not stress any

      realism ... It does little to attempt to simulate anything either.

      ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is first and foremost a game for the fun

      and enjoyment of those who seek to use imagination and creativity.

    How to parse this? It seems unequivocal. However, first, this text is

    palpably disingenuous regarding "simulates nothing" - the immense

    efforts devoted in this book to the importance of in-game time and

    in-game justifications of hit-points, retainer/hireling opinions, costs

    for castle parts, and much more, do not support his claim. Second, and

    more importantly, Gygax is speaking from a 1970s perspective of

    role-playing existing as a subset of wargaming. What he calls simulation

    or realism, I call historical accuracy; what he calls "game"

    (imaginative, creative), I call Exploration. As an "umbrella point,"

    although D&D and AD&D of this era were procedurally mainly Gamist, all

    accompanying text by Gygax in any publication represents, I think, very

    hard-line post-wargame Simulationism as conceived by GNS theory.

    A somewhat lesser issue concerns whether I'm doing great violence to the

    term Simulationism as proposed in the original Threefold Model. My

    answer to this has two parts. (1) The Threefold definitions, for all

    three modes, tend to benefit in this debate from being moving targets

    over the years. (2) My set of theorizing, usually called "GNS" although

    I'm starting to wish for a better umbrella term, explicitly disavows any

    need for consistency with the Threefold.

    However, although I'm not convinced it's necessary, one possible

    solution has arisen. Jack Spencer proposed "Emulation" for the goals of

    play that I currently call Simulationism. If I felt any need for a

    wholly new term, this would probably be it.

    Baseline Simulationist practice

    The five elements of role-playing as laid out in my GNS essay are

    obviously where we start. Modelling them is the ideal. My first point

    about that is that the model need not be static; dynamic characters and

    settings, for instance, are perfectly valid Simulationist elements. My

    second point is that different types of Simulationist play can address

    very different things, ranging from a focus on characters' most

    deep-psychology processes, to a focus on the kinetic impact and

    physiological effects of weapons, to a focus on economic trends and

    politics, and more. I'll go into this lots more later.

    The second point is that the mechanics-emphasis of the modelling system

    are also highly variable: it can handled strictly verbally (Drama),

    through the agency of charts and arrows, or through the agency of

    dice/Fortune mechanics. Any combination of these or anything like them

    are fine; what matters is that within the system, causality is clear,

    handled without metagame intrusion and without confusion on anyone's

    part. That's why it's often referred to as "the engine," and unlike

    other modes of play, the engine, upon being activated and further

    employed by players and GM, is expected to be the authoritative motive

    force for the game to "go."

    The game engine, whatever it might be, is not to be messed with. It is

    causality among the five elements of play. Whether everyone has to get

    the engine in terms of its functions varies among games and among

    groups, but recognizing its authority as the causal agent is a big part

    of play. (To repeat, the engine's extent and detail aren't the point; I

    could be talking about a notecard of brief "stay in character"

    requirements or a 300-page set of probability charts.) By the way,

    moving the GM into a position of authority over the rules/system is a

    derived state of the rules' authority; I'll discuss that later.

    Many Simulationist systems also emphasize modularity - you've got the

    baseline engine for what happens, so for specialty phenomena, whatever

    new rules go on top must not violate or devalue that baseline. When a

    system is very strong in this regard, it's what most people call

    "universal" or "generic," by which they mean customizable through

    addition.

    My final point is that this mode requires clear

    player-character/real-person boundaries, in terms of in-character

    knowledge and metagame knowledge. There's no single set of boundaries

    that applies to all ways to play Simulationist, but whatever they are in

    a given instance, they must be clear and abided by.

    How-to-play text

    A lot of game texts in this tradition reach for a fascinating ideal:

    that reading the book is actually the start of play, moving seamlessly

    into group play via character creation. Features of some texts like the

    NPC-to-PC explanatory style and GM-only sections are consistent with

    this ideal, as well as the otherwise-puzzling statement that character

    generation is a form of Director stance. It supports the central point

    of this essay, that the value of Simulationist play is prioritizing the

    group imaginative experience, to an extent that expands the very notion

    of "play" into acts that from Narrativist or Gamist perspectives are not

    play at all.

    This ideal poses two problems: one for the GM in particular, and one for

    the group as a whole.

    The GM problem, only partly solved by GM-only sections, is that it makes

    it very hard to write a coherent how-to explanation for scenario

    preparation and implementation. Putting this sort of information right

    out "in front of God and everybody" is counter-intuitive for some

    Simulationist-design authors, because it's getting behind the curtain at

    the metagame level. The experience of play, according to the basic goal,

    is supposed to minimize metagame, but preparation for play, from the

    GM's perspective, is necessarily metagame-heavy, and if reading the book

    is assumed to be actually beginning to play ... well, then a certain

    conflict of interest sets into the process.

    The usual textual solution is to assume that the GM is already on the

    same page and to address him or her as a co-conspirator. In many games,

    however, such information is outright punted, such that a GM must bring

    a particular set of experiences and values to the text in the first

    place in order to play the game.

    The whole-group problem is that individually-conducted character

    creation often produces differing conclusions about the point of play

    from player to player, which is to say, the characters are fully

    plausible and created by the rules, but are also manifestly incapable of

    interacting in terms of any one person's desired genre/setting. The

    classic example in fantasy-adventure play is the party including a

    paladin and an assassin; the one in superhero play is the super-team

    that includes both a Spider-Man clone and a Wolverine clone.

    The usual textual solution is to urge that all character creation be

    subject to the approval of the GM, which in practice poses some

    problems. For instance, it assumes that the Social Contract of the game

    group permits such authority and presents no procedure to follow if that

    happens not to be the case. Also, I have never seen any text explaining

    what a GM is supposed to do or to say to the player regarding how to

    re-write the character or to design a new one; every example, and there

    are many, seems to assume that the GM "just knows" how to communicate

    the je ne sais qua to the player.

    I suggest that genuinely helpful, teaching-oriented text that does not

    fall into synecdoche ("real role-players," etc) would be a tremendous

    benefit to presenting straightforwardly Simulationist games. Such text

    would include methods for GMs to prepare scenarios from a fully-metagame

    perspective - which is to say, the ideal of the book "being play" would

    have to be lost temporarily - as well as methods for the GM's work

    during character creation itself. Furthermore, this text would have to

    be practical and compelling to players in a way that "All character

    creation is subject to the approval of the GM" is not - for instance, it

    would inspire players to avoid the paladin-assassin problem on their

    own, during the creation of the first characters rather than the second

    ones.

    Historically, such text has been rare. Well, actually, it's rare for any

    mode of play, but I submit that Simulationist-oriented games have tended

    to have special trouble with it due to the widely-held ideal of treating

    the text experience as play.

    Internal Cause is King

    Consider Character, Setting, and Situation - and now consider what

    happens to them, over time. In Simulationist play, cause is the key, the

    imagined cosmos in action. The way these elements tie together, as well

    as how they're Colored, are intended to produce "genre" in the general

    sense of the term, especially since the meaning or point is supposed to

    emerge without extra attention. It's a tall order: the relationship is

    supposed to turn out a certain way or set of ways, since what goes on

    "ought" to go on, based on internal logic instead of intrusive agenda.

    Since real people decide when to roll, as well as any number of other

    contextual details, they can take this spec a certain distance. However,

    the right sort of meaning or point then is expected to emerge from

    System outcomes, in application.

    Clearly, System is a major design element here, as the causal anchor

    among the other elements. As I outlined in the previous essay, System is

    mainly composed of character creation, resolution, and reward mechanics.

    During character generation, layering and overt currency are frequently

    employed to engage the player in Simulationist play during the process.

    Layering may be employed to establish and identify the character's

    plausibility in terms of the game-world itself. For a look at the

    historical differences among games, compare the methods for establishing

    player-character skill competence in early RuneQuest (Simulationist)

    with those of Hero Wars (Narrativist). In Hero Wars, the system limits

    how many of the thirty or so starting abilities are assigned high values

    (two really good ones and one great one), but not which ones. Whereas in

    RuneQuest, every skill has a starting-character value based on its

    commonality and difficulty to learn, and every skill is rated in money

    regarding learning higher values of competence, based both on difficulty

    to learn and who teaches the skill. Hero Wars character creation, which

    is minimally layered, isn't concerned with the implausibility of having

    a mastery-level in Greatsword be just as "likely" as having it in

    Farming; RuneQuest character creation, which is maximally layered,

    emphatically is.

    To repeat, the above point is historical. Whether the distinction I've

    drawn holds for any and all Simulationist play potential, I don't know.

    A related issue is prerequisite attributes and abilities for a given

    ability, which represent a further step of layering. Prerequisites are

    common in historical Simulationist and Gamist design, and in the former,

    I think they are present specifically to reinforce the same

    plausibility/likelihood issue.

    For currency, consider Champions or many of the games based on its

    principles. From a Simulationist perspective on play, if a given feature

    costs more than another, or if it can be traded off with some other

    feature, or if it plus another feature mathematically yield a third,

    then it's all built to focus attention and assign cause from "is" to

    "does" in the imagined game-context. That cause must be (a) engaging (as

    for any RPG) and (b) causally continuous through the layers, providing

    for many equally-functional, equally-plausible, and potentially

    equally-enjoyable options.

    I think this combined approach and perceived purpose of layering and

    currency is why attribute + skill systems have remained entrenched - a

    strong sub-set of the Simulationist perspective demands that the

    in-world ontogeny of a character's ability be integrated into the

    process of establishing it on the character sheet.

    Resolution mechanics, in Simulationist design, boil down to asking about

    the cause of what, which is to say, what performances are important

    during play. These vary widely, including internal states, interactions

    and expressions, physical motions (most games), and even decisions. Two

    games may be equally Simulationist even if one concerns coping with

    childhood trauma and the other concerns blasting villains with lightning

    bolts. What makes them Simulationist is the strict adherence to in-game

    (i.e. pre-established) cause for the outcomes that occur during play.

    Before talking about dice or other specific resolution mechanics, I'll

    discuss two elements of Resolution which are rarely recognized: the

    treatment of in-game time and space. These are a big deal in

    Simulationist play as universal and consistent constraints, which must

    apply equally to any part of the imagined universe, at any point during

    play.

    To talk about this, let's break the issue down a little:

      * In-game time occurs regarding the actually-played imaginary moments

        and events. It's best expressed by combat mechanics, which in

        Simulationist play are often extremely well-defined in terms of

        seconds and actions, but also by movement rates at various scales,

        starship travel times, and similar things.

      * Metagame time is rarely discussed openly, but it's the crucial one.

        It refers to time-lapse among really-played scenes: can someone get

        to the castle before someone else kills the king; can someone fly

        across Detroit before someone else detonates the Mind Bomb. Metagame

        time isn't "played," but its management is a central issue for

        scene-framing and the outcome of the session as a whole.

      * Real time is, of course, the real time of play as experienced by the

        people at the table. I think comparing between its flow and that of

        the in-game time is a crucial issue as well - when is a huge hunk of

        real time necessary to establish a teeny bit of in-game time, and

        vice versa?

    The following text is also from the first edition of the Dungeon

    Master's Guide (TSR, 1979); the author is Gary Gygax.

      Game time is of the utmost importance. Failure to keep careful track

      of time expenditure by player characters will result in many anomalies

      in the game. ...

      One of the things stated in the original game of D&D was the

      importance of recording game time with respect to each and every

      player-character in a campaign. In AD&D it is emphasized even more:

      YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN UNLESS EXTENSIVE RECORDS ARE

      KEPT.

      [provides an example, then:]

      You may ask why time is so important if it causes such difficulties

      with record-keeping, dictates who can or can not go adventuring during

      a game session, and disperses player characters to the four winds by

      its strictures. Well, as initially pointed out, it is a necessary

      penalty imposed on characters for certain activities [making magic

      items - RE]. Beyond that, it also gives players yet another

      interesting set of choices and consequences. The latter tends to bring

      more true-to-life quality to the game, as some characters will use

      precious time to the utmost advantage, some will treat it lightly, and

      some will be constantly wasting it to their complete detriment. Time

      is yet another facet which helps to separate the superior players from

      the lesser ones.

    That latter point bears close, close examination. Gygax is not talking

    about winning, I think, but about a quality. This is his value judgment

    about how to play this game. His "true to life quality," I think, is

    synonymous with his earlier reference to creativity and imagination, or

    Simulationism (prioritizing Exploration) as defined by me.

    Gygax's text perfectly states the Simulationist view of in-game time. It

    is a causal constraint on the other sorts. One can even find, in many

    early game texts, rules that enforce how in-game time acts on real time,

    and vice versa. However, most importantly, it constrains metagame time.

    It works in-to-out. In-game time at the fine-grained level (rounds,

    seconds, actions, movement rates) sets incontrovertible, foundation

    material for making judgments about hours, days, cross-town movment, and

    who gets where in what order. I recommend anyone who's interested to the

    text of DC Heroes for some of the most explicit text available on this

    issue throughout the book.

    So much for time; now let's talk space. Rules for characters' movement

    in the imagined space of the situation go all the way back to wargaming,

    in the (to us oldies) familiar forms of grids and hex-maps, counters,

    and even rules or tape-measures. The original context was pretty

    large-scale: the movement of troops, heavy vehicles, squadrons, and so

    on. For role-playing in the "new" sense, the scale got bumped down to

    the individual level, and so came to emphasize facing, movement rate,

    turn rate, number of personal actions, and similar.

    The interesting thing is that most of these specific details have been

    lost in most, although not all, Simulationist rules design over the

    decades, with nary a whimper. Why? Because second-to-second kinetics

    ceased to be (or rarely were) the issue of Exploration at hand,

    particularly in genre-heavy play (see later). The Situation of interest

    typically isn't "facing" when we want Character, Setting, System,

    Situation, and Color to fire on shared cylinders with full

    internal-consistency and agreed-upon thematic outcomes.

    It's significant, I think, that movement-specific mechanics do remain in

    many Gamist RPG design as an element of tactical challenge.

    Now for the more nitty-gritty resolution mechanics, or DFK (Drama,

    Karma, Fortune). Historically speaking, the System has been based on

    task resolution, not conflict resolution, regardless of scale. Don't

    mistake "conflict" for "large-scale task." This point is independent of

    the system's complexity; it applies to rock-paper-scissors and GM-fiat

    as well as to dice and tables.

    The causal sequence of task resolution in Simulationist play must be

    linear in time. He swings: on target or not? The other guy dodges or

    parries: well or badly? The weapon contacts the unit of armor + body:

    how hard? The armor stops some of it: how much? The remaining impact

    hits tissue: how deeply? With what psychological (stunning, pain)

    effects? With what continuing effects? All of this is settled in order,

    on this guy's "go," and the next guy's "go" is simply waiting its turn,

    in time.

    The few exceptions have always been accompanied by explanatory text,

    sometimes apologetic and sometimes blase. A good example is

    classic hit location, in which the characters first roll to-hit and

    to-parry, then hit location for anywhere on the body (RuneQuest, GURPS).

    Cognitively, to the Simulationist player, this requires a replay of the

    character's intent and action that is nearly intolerable. It often

    breaks down in play, either switching entirely to called shots and

    abandoning the location roll, or waiting on the parry roll until the hit

    location is known. Another good example is rolling for initiative, which

    has generated hours of painful argument about what in the world it

    represents in-game, at the moment of the roll relative to in-game time.

    The most common Simulationist resolution is handled through Fortune,

    specifically Fortune-at-the-End. This term refers to a dice roll (or

    cards, or whatever) which is consulted after all possible pre-resolution

    description of the actions in question has been delivered. Its

    alternative, Fortune-in-the-Middle, is not historically observed in

    Simulationist game design. (See glossary for definitions and links.)

    A useful way to look at Fortune in much Simulationist play is to think

    of anything that isn't rolled as being a 100% outcome on an implied

    roll. The extreme view (see the Purist for System category below) is to

    interpret the whole shootin' universe as tacitly operating according to

    the d100 or the 3d6 or whatever that's used to handle character task

    resolution.

    An entire discussion awaits concerning the shape of dice curves,

    modifiers' effects, separate vs. incorporated effects, and more. I look

    forward to this on the forums. Also, more details about resolution in

    Simulationist games are presented below, when I break down the sub-types

    in detail.

    Finally, reward mechanics remain a topic of vast debate and design

    potential in Simulationist games. I think the following historical

    categories barely scratch the surface.

    BRP style: character improvement is literally a function of play just as

    any other action, via practice and study. This is the famous "if you

    succeed with a skill during play, roll over your skill percent between

    sessions in order to improve." The pitfall is graininess, such that one

    can then start debating about whether one should learn more or less

    across ten "hits" against one opponent vs. one hit each for ten

    opponents, why one does or doesn't learn from a failed attempt, and how

    study is to be rated and applied (much less how it's to be played)

    relative to the "experience" methods.

    Hero style: the player gains points simply for being there (despite

    attempts at parsing it, that's what it amounts to), and the

    point-allocation based cost of character creation continues to be