D&D is not a world simulator

[Max_Killjoy]

He has an answer, just not one you like. There's a difference between No Answer and An Answer I Disagree With.

To be blunt, no, it wasn't an answer, it was just "you don't see it because you're this thing ha ha ha".

Their priorities are not the same as yours. So some systems meet their priorities that don't meet yours.

The issue isn't their differing priorities.

The issue is that their priorities would not seem to be at all served by dissonant, disconnected, incoherent, un-synced combinations of rules and settings.

[Segev]

The way you word your complaints borders on "Everyone who thinks differently than me is wrong" which is why you get the kickback you get. Not because you say "I don't prefer this," but you say that and also infer through your wording that people who do prefer it are weird or damaged somehow. Cut out that last bit and you might get less defensive, smart-aleck comments from people who feel like you're implying their preferences are weird, alien, or bizaare. They aren't. They're just NOT YOURS.

Pardon me while I wax semantic for a moment: He's implying, not inferring. Inference is what you draw from an implication.

[Segev]

So in other words, you don't actually have an answer, and you're being a smartass to cover it.

I listed reasons why the benefits of rules/setting sync aren't tied to "simulationism".

(And in case it hasn't been made clear, I keep using the "" around the terms from GNS because for the most part I think it's a bunk concept, a false trichotomy.)

He did answer you. He said that he understands why you think the way that you do. He expressed that people disagree with you because they do not share your preferences nor your thought patterns.

What has most people grinding their teeth with you is that you seem to be incapable of or unwilling to consider that you're expressing opinions, not stating facts.


Because you really are. "Rules that work" is actually pretty variable, depending on what the goal of the rule is. While I happen to agree with you that a good system's rules will adequately simulate the setting to the point that the story emerges from their interaction with player choices, that doesn't mean that all game systems have that as their goal. I (like, apparently, you) don't prefer game systems like that. Fate seems really annoying, to me, for example. But its rules aren't "failures" at being functional rules. They do what they're meant to, for people who enjoy the kind of game they generate. I get very annoyed with such subjective applications of rules which don't let me make predictions about how things will work. But that's my preference, not a failure of the rules to deliver the cinematic (and sometimes frustratingly - to me - inconsistent) flow of story that they're designed to.

[Max_Killjoy]

He did answer you. He said that he understands why you think the way that you do. He expressed that people disagree with you because they do not share your preferences nor your thought patterns.

What has most people grinding their teeth with you is that you seem to be incapable of or unwilling to consider that you're expressing opinions, not stating facts.


Because you really are. "Rules that work" is actually pretty variable, depending on what the goal of the rule is. While I happen to agree with you that a good system's rules will adequately simulate the setting to the point that the story emerges from their interaction with player choices, that doesn't mean that all game systems have that as their goal. I (like, apparently, you) don't prefer game systems like that. Fate seems really annoying, to me, for example. But its rules aren't "failures" at being functional rules. They do what they're meant to, for people who enjoy the kind of game they generate. I get very annoyed with such subjective applications of rules which don't let me make predictions about how things will work. But that's my preference, not a failure of the rules to deliver the cinematic (and sometimes frustratingly - to me - inconsistent) flow of story that they're designed to.

And yet he doesn't understand why I think the way I do. He even cut off the parts where I explained that:

I don't see how those abstract, disconnected rules appeal to "Gamists" -- as detailed above, if the rules and the setting are not in sync, you end up with a far higher risk of arbitrary, unfair rulings... more is subject to GM fiat, without anything outside the rules to compare to. The simplest way to prove that 2+2=4, is to take two of something, and two more of something, and then count how many you have in total.

I don't see how disconnected rules appeal to "Narrativists" -- how the heck do you tell a story set in a world when you don't even know how that world works or what the characters would expect to happen in certain situations or...

As noted earlier: It's not that I don't understand the different preferences. It's that dissonant, disconnected, incoherent, un-synced setting-rules combinations appear to be less capable of fulfilling any of the stated preferences.

Setting-rules sync would appear to both address concerns of fairness and balance, and tie into the world-building and continuity and coherence issues inherent to well-crafted stories.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Simulationism - the belief that keeping track of a hundred different irrelevant boring details will somehow magically produce an enjoyable experience as an emergent property.

[Max_Killjoy]

Simulationism - the belief that keeping track of a hundred different irrelevant boring details will somehow magically produce an enjoyable experience as an emergent property.

Strawman much?

We both know that's not true, and completely unfair. Such distortion does absolutely nothing for the discussion, any more than deceitfully calling "narrativist" gameplay "the belief that rules ruin a good day of make-believe" would.



/plonk

[Quertus]

Not because you say "I don't prefer this," but you say that and also infer through your wording that people who do prefer it are weird or damaged somehow. Cut out that last bit and you might get less defensive, smart-aleck comments from people who feel like you're implying their preferences are weird, alien, or bizaare. They aren't. They're just NOT YOURS.

Perhaps a bit off topic, but I'm sure I do this, too . If someone says they like a salmon, marmalade, and eggplant sandwich, I'll certainly respond in a "WTF, why do you like that?" tone. I find this facilitates efficient communication. That way, instead of explaining that marmalade is sweet, and sandwiches are great conveyances, etc etc, they can instead skip straight to, no, I didn't mean together.

Similarly, if they say they like ice cream & french fries, by displaying my level of confusion & disbelief, they can skip straight to explaining that they dip their fries in ice cream instead of ketchup, and it provides that mix of sweet & salty that they look for in a snack.

So, how does one facilitate efficient conversation by expressing one's level of disbelief, without appearing to be attacking / without evoking defensive, smart-aleck comments?

[Segev]

And yet he doesn't understand why I think the way I do. He even cut off the parts where I explained that:

I don't see how those abstract, disconnected rules appeal to "Gamists" -- as detailed above, if the rules and the setting are not in sync, you end up with a far higher risk of arbitrary, unfair rulings... more is subject to GM fiat, without anything outside the rules to compare to. The simplest way to prove that 2+2=4, is to take two of something, and two more of something, and then count how many you have in total.

I don't see how disconnected rules appeal to "Narrativists" -- how the heck do you tell a story set in a world when you don't even know how that world works or what the characters would expect to happen in certain situations or...

As noted earlier: It's not that I don't understand the different preferences. It's that dissonant, disconnected, incoherent, un-synced setting-rules combinations appear to be less capable of fulfilling any of the stated preferences.

Setting-rules sync would appear to both address concerns of fairness and balance, and tie into the world-building and continuity and coherence issues inherent to well-crafted stories.

I honestly share your preferences. But I do understand how a group more interested in mutual storytelling would be okay with more arbitrary and inconsistent rulings; they substitute what we would relegate to a die roll with GM (or even player) arbitrariness.

Simulationism - the belief that keeping track of a hundred different irrelevant boring details will somehow magically produce an enjoyable experience as an emergent property.

Nonsense. Proper simulation minimizes the things you have to track by focusing the model on the important elements.

[ComradeBear]

Perhaps a bit off topic, but I'm sure I do this, too . If someone says they like a salmon, marmalade, and eggplant sandwich, I'll certainly respond in a "WTF, why do you like that?" tone. I find this facilitates efficient communication. That way, instead of explaining that marmalade is sweet, and sandwiches are great conveyances, etc etc, they can instead skip straight to, no, I didn't mean together.

Similarly, if they say they like ice cream & french fries, by displaying my level of confusion & disbelief, they can skip straight to explaining that they dip their fries in ice cream instead of ketchup, and it provides that mix of sweet & salty that they look for in a snack.

So, how does one facilitate efficient conversation by expressing one's level of disbelief, without appearing to be attacking / without evoking defensive, smart-aleck comments?

"I'm not sure I would enjoy that as much as you do, but hey, more power to ya." Or variants thereof. All you really need to do is couple your expression of disagreement with a statement that there's nothing inherently wrong with having preferences of a different stripe. You'll get the same outcome without the same backlash.

To be blunt, no, it wasn't an answer, it was just "you don't see it because you're this thing ha ha ha".

Any mocking tone is being applied by you.
He is no more mocking you than it would be to point out that someone who believes life has no meaning and all human endeavour stems from our fear of inevitably ceasing to be is a neitzschean, and when they say that they don't comprehend hopeful attitudes about humanity one replies with "Because you're a neitzschean." They're pretty obviously correct for several reasons, even if this person has drawn some arbitrary line that makes them cease to fit. (Especially if that arbitrary line doesn't actually make it any less true.)

The issue isn't their differing priorities.

The issue is that their priorities would not seem to be at all served by dissonant, disconnected, incoherent, un-synced combinations of rules and settings.

That's because you don't understand what their priorities ARE. Some of those things don't really matter to them, because they don't intend to pick apart the setting to get to the clockwork innards. In short, they don't give a flip that if you were to do a certain combo of things you could get crazy outcomes because that's not important to them. What matters to them is neat things happening with certain window dressing that they enjoy, and that is no more or less intellectually valid than the way you like to game. I recognize that Pacific Rim is entirely stupid. Under no circumstances is a giant humanoid robot that punches real hard the best way to deal with big monsters. But I don't care, because I want to see robots punch monsters and chuck buildings at their faces. I'm not that invested in the minutae.

And yet he doesn't understand why I think the way I do. He even cut off the parts where I explained that:

I don't see how those abstract, disconnected rules appeal to "Gamists" -- as detailed above, if the rules and the setting are not in sync, you end up with a far higher risk of arbitrary, unfair rulings... more is subject to GM fiat, without anything outside the rules to compare to. The simplest way to prove that 2+2=4, is to take two of something, and two more of something, and then count how many you have in total.

I don't see how disconnected rules appeal to "Narrativists" -- how the heck do you tell a story set in a world when you don't even know how that world works or what the characters would expect to happen in certain situations or...

To the first: Because they want to fiddle with the rules and kill stuff and don't give a flip about the world. The world is there to serve a similar purpose to the game board in CandyLand. The backdrop for all the other crap that's happening, but who really cares so long as we kill stuff and have fun.

To the second, I pretty much already described it. The Setting can be neat, but we're more concerned with the characters. If we need to come up with a reason or rule on the fly, good systems will inform us how to do so. (Most PbtA systems, FATE, etc) But until we need to get into that nitty gritty, we're not going to worry about it because that's low on the priority list compared to other things. I had a character piss off the Psychic Maelstrom in a game of Apocalypse World. We don't have a rule for that, but I knew what would happen and so I took 15 seconds while two players were discussing a plan and came up with something suitable to the setting, wrote it down for future use, and was done with it. Any time it came up in the rest of the campaign, I referred to my rule and carried on no problem. After the campaign was over I stopped using that rule because it didn't apply anymore. The system empowered me to know how to make rules on the fly that fit with the system's architecture.

As noted earlier: It's not that I don't understand the different preferences. It's that dissonant, disconnected, incoherent, un-synced setting-rules combinations appear to be less capable of fulfilling any of the stated preferences.

Because you're not understanding what the preferences actually are, and using opinions as facts to buoy up an argument that has no legitimate merit. (ie, without meeting this specific arbitrary goal I personally seek in games, games can't be good.)

Also note the use of "Seem" meaning you've likely never actually seen these rules IN PLAY, but instead read them and balked without actually understanding their function. If you showed me a complex engine diagram I probably couldn't tell you if it would work or not, but if I follow those instructions and build it, I'll know for sure. RPG rules work the same way. Especially if you're hearing about them in vague terms, from second-hand sources on a forum, from people who have neither the time nor inclination to detail all of the inner workings of a several-hundred page system.

Basically: Don't knock it 'till you've tried it.
(Hell, I'm pretty proud of the fact that I can pretty much turn anything into a functioning PbtA rule that does what I want with enough thought, and usually that's not much, especially for Apocalypse World... though it does need to be for a post-apocalyptic setting for hopefully obvious reasons.)

Setting-rules sync would appear to both address concerns of fairness and balance, and tie into the world-building and continuity and coherence issues inherent to well-crafted stories.

Candyland is fair and balanced. It has no rules about anything to do with Candyland, even though the rules explain that you are kids travelling through candyland. Because that crap doesn't matter to the game. Feel free to extrapolate this as you wish until you figure out why your first complaint makes no sense. (For easy mode: Basically, the GAME parts need to be balanced, and gamists don't give two flying rat farts about whether the world is coherent because it's a passing distraction, not the meat of the game. So long as being a Wizard and being a Knight makes you just as good as making stuff deader, they don't care if the Shining Stone spell would make a better system than going by candlelight for lighting city streets, because the thought never crosses their mind because they just don't care.)

What constitutes a well-crafted story is subjective, so your second point is also an opinion disguised as a fact, and so what YOU think makes for a well-crafted story might not matter to others, and for these others their rulesets work just fine.

[Max_Killjoy]

Candy-Land is in no way an RPG... I leave to others the consideration of what that makes games with a similar low level of concern for setting, character, coherence, etc.

Because you're not understanding what the preferences actually are,

I'd appreciate it if you'd stop calling me a liar.

[ComradeBear]

I honestly share your preferences. But I do understand how a group more interested in mutual storytelling would be okay with more arbitrary and inconsistent rulings; they substitute what we would relegate to a die roll with GM (or even player) arbitrariness.

1. Most rulings have some degree of arbitraryness, either at the rules level or the GM level, but I'm not gonna say all rulings are equally arbitrary.

2. Why does an arbitrary ruling need to be inconsistent? Just write it down! Why is writing a ruling down for later reference not a possibility for narrative systems?

3. Why can the ruling not involve a die roll? Mine often involve going to dice rather than myself. Why are we assuming that's the exception rather than something really common?

Nonsense. Proper simulation minimizes the things you have to track by focusing the model on the important elements.

What is important is 100% subjective, so by this metric literally everything is simulationist about different things. Proper simulations models THE SETTING AND ITS INHERENT PROPERTIES, and extrapolates upwards towards consequences as needed.

Narrative games start at the conclusions and extrapolate downwards towards reasons as needed.

Gamist games don't care about setting as anything beyond being the backdrop and so it's just filler between having a good time killing stuff. Their rules are laser-focused on creating a good game first, and a setting/narrative second. If it's considered much at all.

[Max_Killjoy]

Narrative games start at the conclusions and extrapolate downwards towards reasons as needed.

And yet whenever I say that narrativist games invert cause and effect, and involve deliberate reliance on retroactive continuity, I get crap from the fans of those games.

[georgie_leech]

I'd appreciate it if you'd stop calling me a liar.

...you... do understand the difference between 'you're wrong,' or 'I think you're mistaken,' and being called a liar, right?

[ComradeBear]

Candy-Land is in no way an RPG... I leave to others the consideration of what that makes games with a similar low level of concern for setting, character, coherence, etc.

No True Scotsman, anyone?

"If your RPG rules don't sync with the setting then they won't be balanced!"

"There are RPGs that are balanced and don't give two hoots about the setting"

"Then they aren't RPGs!"

Come on.

And if that example is the only counter you can muster, I guess my points are pretty good ones.

[Max_Killjoy]

No True Scotsman, anyone?

"If your RPG rules don't sync with the setting then they won't be balanced!"

"There are RPGs that are balanced and don't give two hoots about the setting"

"Then they aren't RPGs!"

Come on.

And if that example is the only counter you can muster, I guess my points are pretty good ones.

You're the one who compared heavily "gamist" systems to flipping Candy-Land, not me.

[ComradeBear]

And yet whenever I say that narrativist games invert cause and effect, and involve deliberate reliance on retroactive continuity, I get crap from the fans of those games.

Probably because those are different assertions from what I'm saying. I'm saying narrativist games start at "How the world is" and figure out the Why as needed if there's no fluff reason.

Inversion of cause and effect would imply that we figure out what happens after the roll and work out what the roll was from there.

Retroactive continuity does appear in some games, though, like Blades in the Dark, which (being a heist game designed to feel a little like Ocean's 11) allows a certain number of Flashbacks per game to let you say "I, as a player, was not smart enough to plan for this, but my character was and here's what they did. )
However, that's more rare than you assert. Most narrative games have pretty simple continuity unless someone messed up at some point and nobody noticed until later, when we just go "eh. Not a big deal, we'll do it correctly going forward." And... that's usually the full extent of it. Flashback scenes are usually pretty rare and usually have the purpose of mending discrepancy between Character Knowledge and Player Knowledge. (Ie, the character would logically know this information, even if the player doesn't.)

So yeah, your assertions have some merit, but they're not all-encompassing rules for how those games are actually run. You might want to play a few and see if those things come up as much as you think they do. You may be surprised to find that those with more experience with these kinds of games actually DO know what they're talking about. :D

[Max_Killjoy]

...you... do understand the difference between 'you're wrong,' or 'I think you're mistaken,' and being called a liar, right?

Well, I know what I call it when one person says "I understand that you like X, I just don't understand how Y doesn't give you X", and someone else repeatedly responds "you don't understand that I like X".

[Cosi]

Simulationism - the belief that keeping track of a hundred different irrelevant boring details will somehow magically produce an enjoyable experience as an emergent property.

"Simulationism" has nothing to do with level of detail, and everything to do with consistency. I don't care if you track calorie counts, or "rations", or just call for survival checks periodically. I do care that the world behaves as if whatever you do was how the world works.

Perhaps a bit off topic, but I'm sure I do this, too . If someone says they like a salmon, marmalade, and eggplant sandwich, I'll certainly respond in a "WTF, why do you like that?" tone. I find this facilitates efficient communication. That way, instead of explaining that marmalade is sweet, and sandwiches are great conveyances, etc etc, they can instead skip straight to, no, I didn't mean together.

I think "your preferences are weird/terrible/inconsistent/whatever" is (potentially) a totally reasonable response to someone saying "I have these preferences", and not at all a failure to understand that people want different things. If someone said that what they really wanted out of D&D was for the DM to bash them in the face with a hammer, my response would be much close to "why would you want that" than "you want different things than I do, and I understand that".

Insisting that Max accept you having different preferences than him is missing the point. He doesn't think you secretly have his preferences. He thinks your preferences are incomprehensible (and frankly, I agree).

"I'm not sure I would enjoy that as much as you do, but hey, more power to ya." Or variants thereof. All you really need to do is couple your expression of disagreement with a statement that there's nothing inherently wrong with having preferences of a different stripe. You'll get the same outcome without the same backlash.

I suppose that is strictly true, in that there is not a big book of legitimate preferences somewhere that outlines what preferences you are allowed to have, but if someone comes up to you and says "I want exactly the opposite of what you want", it is not unreasonable to at least want an explanation of why they want that before you agree to live and let live.

Also, since any given game is going to involve trade-offs in preference fulfillment, you probably need to figure out some way to explain to people who disagree with you why they'd want to support your perspective on some particular rules issue.

Any mocking tone is being applied by you.

I'm pretty sure at least one poster is explicitly mocking "simulationism", and I think the language of GNS is inherently, if not mocking, at least dismissive (in the "you can't criticize this, it's not for you way").

Some of those things don't really matter to them, because they don't intend to pick apart the setting to get to the clockwork innards.

I don't think that can be true. Whatever preferences you have for a system, whether that's "just models PCs doin' some stuff" or "can accurately simulate a world that believable matches the fluff", the only possible way to determine whether or not a system fulfills them is by "picking apart the system" to see if it responds in a way consistent with whatever preferences you have.

Because you're not understanding what the preferences actually are, and using opinions as facts to buoy up an argument that has no legitimate merit. (ie, without meeting this specific arbitrary goal I personally seek in games, games can't be good.)

But you are doing the exact same thing by failing to attempt to evaluate why Max's preferences might actually be something that is universally applicable.

(For easy mode: Basically, the GAME parts need to be balanced, and gamists don't give two flying rat farts about whether the world is coherent because it's a passing distraction, not the meat of the game. So long as being a Wizard and being a Knight makes you just as good as making stuff deader, they don't care if the Shining Stone spell would make a better system than going by candlelight for lighting city streets, because the thought never crosses their mind because they just don't care.)

I'm pretty sure the overlap between "people who complain that game settings make no sense" and "people who complain that game balance makes no sense" is close to 100%.

What constitutes a well-crafted story is subjective, so your second point is also an opinion disguised as a fact, and so what YOU think makes for a well-crafted story might not matter to others, and for these others their rulesets work just fine.

Could you maybe explain some of those alternate standards? Because right now your argument seems to be "other people might have different opinions", which is not really a complete position until you explain what those other opinions might be.

[ComradeBear]

You're the one who compared heavily "gamist" systems to flipping Candy-Land, not me.

Then you completely missed the point. Which was:
Suggesting that Game Balance and Setting are inexorably tied together is patently not true.
As evidenced by the existence of a game, which is balanced, and even has a setting, and the setting has no impact whatsoever.

As you increase the depth of the setting, you need not also expect an increase in game balance. They are not tied.

Does my example make more sense now, or are we going to get stuck on this example for a few pages?

Also:
I never accused anyone of lying. All I accused you of was incorrectly assessing your own comprehension. People believe they understand things that they don't actually understand all the time. This was one of those cases. Please don't try to paint me as a bully for pointing out flawed reasoning. That's not cool, yo.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'm pretty sure the overlap between "people who complain that game settings make no sense" and "people who complain that game balance makes no sense" is close to 100%.

Which points to why I find GNS to be so counter-productive -- it establishes a false trichotomy of extreme positions, that rarely actually exist in real, breathing gamers.

And it leads some people to false conclusions about their fellow gamers; once they think they have someone pegged as X type of gamer, they will then presume, based on the GNS "rundown" for that type of gamer, to know everything about that other gamer's likes, dislikes, thought processes, etc.

And it also leads to a very silly sort of "us vs them" attitude.


It's very possible, for example, for a gamer to love character-driven games, using rules that are fair and balanced and map the game world and characters coherently.


I prefer games where the course of events is driven more by character decisions and personality... but every set of rules I've ever seen that was built around "capturing the fiction" rather than coherence with the "other reality", has left me utterly disinterested.

[ComradeBear]

"Simulationism" has nothing to do with level of detail, and everything to do with consistency. I don't care if you track calorie counts, or "rations", or just call for survival checks periodically. I do care that the world behaves as if whatever you do was how the world works.

Ok.

I think "your preferences are weird/terrible/inconsistent/whatever" is (potentially) a totally reasonable response to someone saying "I have these preferences", and not at all a failure to understand that people want different things. If someone said that what they really wanted out of D&D was for the DM to bash them in the face with a hammer, my response would be much close to "why would you want that" than "you want different things than I do, and I understand that".

Note that your example is literally harmful to their health, rather than something relatively benign.

Insisting that Max accept you having different preferences than him is missing the point. He doesn't think you secretly have his preferences. He thinks your preferences are incomprehensible (and frankly, I agree).

I'm not sure where I insisted he acknowledge my preferences, but that his failure to figure out the why was his problem, not mine. My priorities are what they are. They make sense within their context, but I'm no weirder for them than he is for his. Painting those with alternative preferences as weirdos is where you get into "badwrongfun" territory, which I don't tolerate. *shrug*

I suppose that is strictly true, in that there is not a big book of legitimate preferences somewhere that outlines what preferences you are allowed to have, but if someone comes up to you and says "I want exactly the opposite of what you want", it is not unreasonable to at least want an explanation of why they want that before you agree to live and let live.

Why? Why must their preferences be qualified? I want vanilla ice cream. Someone comes up and says they would rather have a taco. My response: "Cool. Have fun with your taco." Because it doesn't affect me.

I like, say, Gran Turismo (the game). Someone tells me they prefer surfing. Ok. That literally doesn't affect me.

Their preferences literally don't affect you unless you are being forced to cater to them (which I doubt you are in most cases). So WHY do they need to get your approval for you to "live and let live?" And what is the alternative if they fail to communicate why or don't feel the need to? Do you harrass them about it?

I really hope this paragraph was just not particularly well thought out.

Also, since any given game is going to involve trade-offs in preference fulfillment, you probably need to figure out some way to explain to people who disagree with you why they'd want to support your perspective on some particular rules issue.

This is a given that nobody has disagreed with?

I'm pretty sure at least one poster is explicitly mocking "simulationism", and I think the language of GNS is inherently, if not mocking, at least dismissive (in the "you can't criticize this, it's not for you way").

One poster mocking does not equal one particular sentence being mocking.
And if someone uses those terms in that way? Call them on it because that's stupid.

I don't think that can be true. Whatever preferences you have for a system, whether that's "just models PCs doin' some stuff" or "can accurately simulate a world that believable matches the fluff", the only possible way to determine whether or not a system fulfills them is by "picking apart the system" to see if it responds in a way consistent with whatever preferences you have.

You're talking about picking apart the system. I'm talking about picking apart the SETTING. Those are two different things, so I'm thinking you misread or I was unintentionally unclear.

But you are doing the exact same thing by failing to attempt to evaluate why Max's preferences might actually be something that is universally applicable.

...No?
A preference is an opinion, not a fact of being.
I'm not saying he's wrong to feel as he does. Or even to measure systems by his preferences.
But all food cannot and should not be measured by how much it is similar to my favorite food, and have that standard be for everyone.

I'm pretty sure the overlap between "people who complain that game settings make no sense" and "people who complain that game balance makes no sense" is close to 100%.

Run some actual numbers on that and come back. Otherwise it's just a hunch. And there's no reason why in my example that the rules can't be unbalanced AND the setting can't also suck. There's just not necessarily a causal relationship between the two.

Could you maybe explain some of those alternate standards? Because right now your argument seems to be "other people might have different opinions", which is not really a complete position until you explain what those other opinions might be.

I've been sharing some, if you've being paying attention.

I care less about setting and more about character relationships and interpersonal drama.

Small inconsistencies don't bother me so long as the overall story is entertaining to me. (As illustrated with my Pacific Rim example)

Some prefer a story that touches upon a truth of the human condition, even if the surrounding setpieces aren't entirely consistent. What makes the story good is the introspection and calling forth of internal truths rather than on the world surrounding the characters.

Some prefer a story with lots of cool setpieces and concepts, a series of really neat scenes strung together like a candy necklace, little bundles of "the good stuff" kept strung together by just enough to get us from scene to scene. (Musicals and action movies do this a lot, and both can be very entertaining!)

Just a few examples off the top of my head. There are probably more.

[Max_Killjoy]

Then you completely missed the point. Which was:
Suggesting that Game Balance and Setting are inexorably tied together is patently not true.
As evidenced by the existence of a game, which is balanced, and even has a setting, and the setting has no impact whatsoever.

As you increase the depth of the setting, you need not also expect an increase in game balance. They are not tied.

Does my example make more sense now, or are we going to get stuck on this example for a few pages?

The rules-set of Candy-Land is also very simple, and functions as the rules of a boardgame, and nothing more. We're not going to get stuck on your example, because you're giving an example of an apple to "prove" something about oranges. If that's your example, then you didn't make your point about RPG rules at all.

It's as if I said "An automobile won't work without some sort of engine or motor", and you said "but this tricycle works just fine without anything of the sort".

It's also proof that you've just not been paying much attention to what I'm actually posting -- I went into far more specific an explanation than "unsynced rules can't be balanced and fair". What I actually said, quite plainly, was that an unsynced system is more likely to break when you get outside the RAW and into fringe cases and judgement calls, because you can't fall back on the "reality" in which the game is set to inform those decisions. The more disconnected the rules, the more true this is.

Candy-Land or any other simple little board game is a terrible comparison for an RPG because you literally never get outside the rules. Your comparison is like claiming that criminal law should be simple because Go Fish has simple rules and works.

Also:
I never accused anyone of lying. All I accused you of was incorrectly assessing your own comprehension. People believe they understand things that they don't actually understand all the time. This was one of those cases. Please don't try to paint me as a bully for pointing out flawed reasoning. That's not cool, yo.

Spin it however you want.

[ComradeBear]

The rules-set of Candy-Land is also very simple, and functions as the rules of a boardgame, and nothing more. We're not going to get stuck on your example, because you're giving an example of an apple to "prove" something about oranges. If that's your example, then you didn't make your point about RPG rules at all.

It's as if I said "An automobile won't work without some sort of engine or motor", and you said "but this tricycle works just fine without anything of the sort".

The rules being simple doesn't hurt the point that Game Balance and Setting are not inexorably tied. I could run D&D in a blank white plane where monsters spawn randomly for my players to fight and the rules would not really care much save for some of the survival elements, but if the plane spawned food and water too, then that problem also goes away. And you have basically no setting and just combat, and the ruleset's balance is utterly unchanged.

Maybe that's a better example since we're still hung up on Candyland.

Spin it however you want.

Really? You're going to imply that I'm lying about not calling you a liar? Are you expecting me not to recognize the big heaping pile of irony left all over the floor here?

[Max_Killjoy]

The rules being simple doesn't hurt the point that Game Balance and Setting are not inexorably tied.

Try responding to what I'm posting instead of what you'd like to respond to.

I went into far more specific an explanation than "unsynced rules can't be balanced and fair". What I actually said, quite plainly and quite clearly, was that an unsynced system is more likely to break when you get outside the RAW and into fringe cases and judgement calls, because you can't fall back on the "reality" in which the game is set to inform those decisions. The more disconnected the rules, the more true this is.

Candy-Land or any other simple little board game is a terrible comparison for an RPG because you literally cannot never get outside the rules. Your comparison is like claiming that criminal law should be simple because Go Fish has simple rules and works.

Really? You're going to imply that I'm lying about not calling you a liar? Are you expecting me not to recognize the big heaping pile of irony left all over the floor here?

Given that you clearly can't be arsed to actually read what I'm posting, I really don't give a damn what you think you see.

[georgie_leech]

Well, I know what I call it when one person says "I understand that you like X, I just don't understand how Y doesn't give you X", and someone else repeatedly responds "you don't understand that I like X".

Very well. You are mistaken. It is not that 'disconnected rules' are something that gamists or narrativists enjoy. It's that disconnected rules bother them far less than they do you. All else being equal, of course more connected rules and setting are better than the alternative, but all else isn't equal.

Fundamentally, no game system is perfect, because that would require infinite time and money to make perfect. Given that, most players would prefer a game that directed that time and money towards the areas that they care about. After all, time and money spent on areas they don't care about doesn't help them enjoy the game, when it could have gone to something they enjoyed.

To borrow a metaphor, sure, a car with a fancy sooped up engine and carbon fibre hood is better than one without those features. They're not features I care about though, so I'm not likely to get a car with them because such a car is likely to be more expensive.

[Cosi]

Note that your example is literally harmful to their health, rather than something relatively benign.

Sure, but that's not really the point. I'd have a similar response to "my favorite movie is Paul Blart: Mall Cop" or any sufficiently bizarre opinion.

Why? Why must their preferences be qualified? I want vanilla ice cream. Someone comes up and says they would rather have a taco. My response: "Cool. Have fun with your taco." Because it doesn't affect me.

Because your preference isn't unrelated to theirs. Ice Cream/Taco are completely unrelated. Whether D&D has a consistent setting or not, not so much. You're totally welcome to play games with settings that don't make any sense. But insisting that you get to do that in a thread about D&D is, whether you understand that or not, asking that D&D's setting not make any sense.

This is a given that nobody has disagreed with?

If you assume strong GNS (people who want G hate N and S), it's obvious because that makes game design zero sum.

Even if you have weaker preferences (Gs don't care about N or S), you still have a trade off because any time you spend making the setting make sense is time you don't spend writing new classes or improving roleplaying or whatever.

And if someone uses those terms in that way? Call them on it because that's stupid.

That's literally the only thing the terms do though. Their entire function is to break something down into smaller pieces, which are not meaningful outside the context of the whole. A RPG isn't "an exercise in simulating a world" or "an exercise in telling a story" or "an exercise in playing a game". It's an exercise in telling a story set in a simulated world and resolved according to the rules of a game. Separating those things is like claiming you can divide hot fugde sundaes into "hot" "fudge" and "sundae" and preserve the overall meaning. That's not how terms of art work.

Run some actual numbers on that and come back. Otherwise it's just a hunch. And there's no reason why in my example that the rules can't be unbalanced AND the setting can't also suck. There's just not necessarily a causal relationship between the two.

The counterassertion GNS makes (that people have uncorrelated preferences about balance and setting consistency) equally needs to be backed up. And while I don't have an actual study to talk about, I would note that the two largest efforts to make the D&D setting and rules consistent (the Tomes and the Tippyverse) both come from people who (seem to) care that the game is unbalanced.

Small inconsistencies don't bother me so long as the overall story is entertaining to me. (As illustrated with my Pacific Rim example)

But there's not any inconsistency there! Pacific Rim operates on a totally consistent set of physics. In the Pacific Rim universe, the rational response to being attacked by giant monsters is to build giant robots to fight them. The fact that this is different from how the real world works isn't an inconsistency, it's just the movie being fictional. What would be inconsistent is if, in Pacific Rim 8, Earth was attacked by tentacle monsters from space, and people decided that the correct solution to that problem was nukes or something.

[ComradeBear]

Try responding to what I'm posting instead of what you'd like to respond to.

I could say something really snarky here about cherries and their harvest, as it relates to my posts and your posts about my posts, but I'm going to not do that.

I went into far more specific an explanation than "unsynced rules can't be balanced and fair". What I actually said, quite plainly and quite clearly, was that an unsynced system is more likely to break when you get outside the RAW and into fringe cases and judgement calls, because you can't fall back on the "reality" in which the game is set to inform those decisions. The more disconnected the rules, the more true this is.

You have no evidence to support this, and are just saying it. On the flipside, you have Mutants and Masterminds which, like all large systems, has a few glaring places where the game can be broken, but overall the game is very well balanced. And it also has the advantage of being pretty much setting-independent. You can run D&D in M&M, no problem.

The problem is assuming that the best place to look will always be the setting rather than basic Game-design principals when a problem is reached. (For what gamists want, anyways) When in fact they will often be happier with the outcome that leads to more game/more balance over What Works In The Setting's Physics. They don't care what the setting has to say.

They will likely refer to similar game rules and the essence of the design for those rules, and copy that over. A GM with a lot of experience with the rules will be able to do that really quickly. No consulting the setting needed.

Candy-Land or any other simple little board game is a terrible comparison for an RPG because you literally cannot never get outside the rules. Your comparison is like claiming that criminal law should be simple because Go Fish has simple rules and works.

When did I say rpgs need to be simplified for gamists? I never did. I suggested that I'm really good at solving fringe cases within my favorite systems, and that narrative-focused games can handle their problems really easily when well-written, whether or not they are indellibly tied to setting.
Something something reading what I wrote, and something about pots and kettles and declarations of pigment.

Given that you clearly can't be arsed to actually read what I'm posting, I really don't give a damn what you think you see.

Remember when I said, many posts ago, that you've got to stop taking disagreement with your ideas as personal attacks against your character?
I remember it. Chill, bruh. I can disagree with your statements or even declare that reality doesn't match your statements without you being a liar because of it.

And trust me, I'm blunt enough that if I think you're just flat-out lying, I'll call you out on it. Since I didn't call you out on lying, I clearly don't think you are.

Also, your words seem to be kinda slipping into ad-hominem here as if to try and make me disallowed from participating anymore because I'm mean or stupid or some other personal failing. I hope that's not the intention and merely a miscommunication, because that would be Not Cool, bro. Let's try to be excellent to eachother and give people the benefit of the doubt that they had best intentions with what they write down. Feel free to ask for clarification if their words seem to not be spoken with best intentions in an obvious way. And take them seriously when they clarify that their words were meant with best intentions and human fallibility made the words seem less kind than intended.

In other words, let's keep it simple and not go for personal attacks, real or implied. Ok?

[Max_Killjoy]

When did I say rpgs need to be simplified for gamists? I never did.

You didn't, and I never said you did.

Another instance of you not reading what I'm posting, and appearing to be more interested in "winning" an argument against a position I'm not taking, than you are in anything I'm actually saying.

Also, your words seem to be kinda slipping into ad-hominem here as if to try and make me disallowed from participating anymore because I'm mean or stupid or some other personal failing. I hope that's not the intention and merely a miscommunication, because that would be Not Cool, bro. Let's try to be excellent to eachother and give people the benefit of the doubt that they had best intentions with what they write down. Feel free to ask for clarification if their words seem to not be spoken with best intentions in an obvious way. And take them seriously when they clarify that their words were meant with best intentions and human fallibility made the words seem less kind than intended.

In other words, let's keep it simple and not go for personal attacks, real or implied. Ok?

Spare me the passive-aggressive crap. You don't get to misrepresent my positions, try to put words in my mouth, insult me... and then pretend to be an innocently aggrieved party when I tell you to stuff that noise.

[georgie_leech]

For the record:

Better rules setting integration leads to better balance.
But what about games like Candy land, which show how you can have a setting that is meaningless for the rules but is not an rpg?

Up to here things are more or less coherent. Can we back up to talking about those instead of making non-sequitors or accusing other people misreading posts or kitchen ware calling boiling water receptacles black? However accurate such accusations may be, they do precisely 0 to actually advance the point being discussed.

[Cosi]

You have no evidence to support this, and are just saying it. On the flipside, you have Mutants and Masterminds which, like all large systems, has a few glaring places where the game can be broken, but overall the game is very well balanced. And it also has the advantage of being pretty much setting-independent.

No, it's not. Different abilities have different values in different settings. The amount of super-strength you need to have to matter in a modern setting (like Shadowrun or Vampire) is much larger than the amount of super-strength you need to have to matter in a fantasy setting (like D&D or Exalted). Because the modern setting has trucks and cranes and such. The value of animate dead differs radically based on whether or not the economy of the the setting can be disrupted by an influx of unskilled labor. Any number of spells are basically equivalent to some technology, and so vary in value based on whether or not that technology exists.

I am openly contemptuous of the idea that you can have setting-independent balance of abilities that effect the setting.

The problem is assuming that the best place to look will always be the setting rather than basic Game-design principals when a problem is reached.

But those are inextricably linked. Suppose you have two abilities. One gives you a moderate amount of semi-skilled labor (i.e. Leadership). The other gives you a large amount of unskilled labor (i.e. animate dead). Are those abilities balanced? Maybe, maybe not. It depends, not on mechanics, but on the setting. If the setting is using semi-skilled labor efficiently, but has large potential gains from unskilled labor, animate dead is substantially better than Leadership. And vice versa if the reverse is true.

As long as player abilities interact with the setting, you can't talk about the balance of player abilities without talking about the setting.