Samurai Jill
2009-09-11, 11:13 AM
These articles' summary thread may be found here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6938183&postcount=1).
A Brief Introduction
Simulationism is best summed up as the idea that "Internal cause is King". It's a style of play that focuses primarily on reinforcing the idea that the world- and it's inhabitants- are somehow independant entities that can go about their own business, without the intrusion of real-world priorities. It's the desire to create a 'pocket universe' of sorts- that, following on suitable preparation, the internal operations of the imagined world should, in a sense, proceed automatically- without conscious creative attention.
...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.
...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.
The ideal to aspire to here, even if it's illusory, is that the world doesn't radiate out from the needs and concerns of the players- that they're all 'just visiting,' so to speak. The world is, of course, not real- but the idea is make the collective 'suspension of disbelief' as easy as possible. To 'Be there.' That's it!
What follows is some general discussion of the diversity of the Simulationist design, and of techniques associated with it that can lead to it's confusion with other modes of play.
Elements of Exploration
Colour- description of perceptions or detail that isn't directly relevant.
Setting- the imagined world and it's major component parts.
Character- the individual as inhabitant of the world, controlled by a player.
Situation- a specific focus of 'conflicting interests' between the above.
System- the consistent methods by which interaction of the above is resolved.
These things are necessarily present in all role-play to a greater or lesser degree, but in Simulationism, the faithful modelling in accordance with genre convention of one or more of them is the primary and dominant focus of the players' attentions. (Note we can call 'reality' as a genre here.) Players often confuse the Exploration of Character, Setting, Situation or Colour, in itself, or in any combination, with Narrativism, and the Exploration of System with Gamism. Neither is neccesarily the case. Just because you're rolling dice doesn't mean you're aiming to win, and just because you aren't doesn't mean you have protagonism.
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... 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.
Role-play vs. Roll-play: The Overblown Distinction
The oft-touted distinction between roll-play and role-play is nothing more or less than the Exploration of System and the Exploration of Character- either of which, when prioritised, is Simulationism...
Why? Because both, when made a foremost and formal concern of play, reinforce the notion that "Internal cause is King"- that events in-game should unfold based on internal logic, rather than external agenda. (Replace 'Exploration' with 'Simulation', and it becomes much clearer.) One stresses that characters should act on the basis of IC information only, the other stresses that in-world events follow predictable statistical trends.
Neither is mutually exclusive, however. It is entirely possible to approximate various mental attributes of a character through numerical guages, just as it possible to augment resolution of physical interaction through vivid, vicarious description. Many Simulationist (or partly Simulationist) rule-sets use a blend of both. (Again, however- if one's arm were to be twisted- one might say that Simulationist roll-play tends to mesh better with Gamist concerns, and that Simulationist role-play tends to mesh better with Narrativist concerns. The former has an iron impartiality that can help guarantee fairness, and the latter is more easily adapted to the demands of addressing Premise.)
High-Concept and Purist-For-System
These are the two grand traditions of Simulationist play and design.
Purist For System is the pursuit of a detailed, often fairly realistic mechanical framework which can resolve the details of physical interaction across a wide variety of scales, in time and space, while remaining flexible enough to adapt to more than one setting. A frequent approach is what's called a 'General' system, where the core components are standardised, and then extended or tweaked to cope with the nuances of different scales, settings, or even creative agendas. GURPS and FUDGE are fair examples.
...In this sort of design, there's no possible excuse for any imperfections, including scale-derived breakdowns of the fundamental point/probability relationships. The system must be cleanly and at the service of the element(s) being emphasized, in strictly in-game-world terms. A good one is elegant, consistent, applicable to anything that happens in play, and clear about its outcomes. It also has to have points of contact at any scale for any conceivable thing. It cannot contain patch-rules to correct for inconsistencies; consistency is the essence of quality.
As I see it, Purist for System design is a tall, tall order. It's arguably the hardest design spec in all of role-playing.
High Concept design aims to recreate the conventions of a specific literary or cinematic genre or body of related works, sometimes blending the aspects of several, and benefit substantially from specialising their mechanics to evoke the recurrent motifs and underlying themes of such works. Examples include Call of Cthulhu, Serenity and Deadlands, with varying degrees of success from a design standpoint. (A good many Narrativist RPGs share a similar agenda, as it helps them to keep their rules focused, and therefore relatively concise.)
In cinema, "High Concept" refers to any film idea that can be pitched in a very limited amount of time; the usual method uses references to other films. Sometimes, although not necessarily, it's presented as a combination: "Jaws meets Good Will Hunting," or that sort of thing. I'm adopting it to role-playing without much modification, although emphasizing that the source references can come from any medium and also that the two-title combo isn't always employed.
...writing a High Concept Simulationist game is actually much easier than writing a Purist for System one, as complex Setting-prep or Situation-prep have a lot in common with writing a story and knowing "how it's supposed to go" but not finishing it. However, playing this kind of game is actually harder in some ways - everyone must be pumped about the in-game content, but without reference to a corresponding metagame.
Are there conflicts between these different approaches, between each genre? Sure. But they're generally obvious and easily spotted, and consequently don't require discussion in much detail. Anyone sticking superheroes into the Cthulhu Mythos is generally begging for trouble. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellboy)
Freeform vs. Heavyweight
Having lots of elaborate rules, extensive setting description or lengthy character creation guidelines does not neccesarily mean a game is Simulationist. Depending on the 'genre' in question, very few rules could be needed (e.g, Wushu, Risus,) and conversely, a very elaborate rule-set might not model any set of genre expectations with great fidelity (e.g, AD&D), or place primary emphasis on a different creative agenda (e.g, 4E D&D, Burning Wheel: Gamist and Narrativist respectively.)
Simulationism vs. Exploration
This is a terminological distinction which I think causes a good deal of confusion, so I'll just cut to the chase here: There is very, very little qualitative difference between what's called 'Exploration' and Simulationism in terms of their associated techniques or underlying imaginative priorities. Pure Simulationism is defined as Exploration-to-the-exclusion-of-other-concerns, but a degree of Exploration is actually essential to nearly all RPGs.
If one were to twist my arm, I would say that the distinction between the two is between plausibility or suspension of disbelief and accuracy or likelihood. During Exploration, it's okay to introduce new elements of character or setting provided what you add doesn't actively contradict what's been established before. Simulationism, on the other hand, frowns upon any introduction that isn't actively demanded by the interactions of prior elements- because, again, "Internal cause is King".
The line between the two is often very blurry, as, even outside of Sim play, different people have quite different standards of plausibility or standards for the suspension of disbelief, and Simulationism is also the only GNS mode recognised as being able to functionally hybridise- in a supportive role- with other modes of play. Nonetheless, it's a distinction you can't wholly ignore.
There is one possible exception to this rule: Hard Core Gamism. Gamism is the only creative agenda which can survive the process of total or near-total abstraction- but such play lies (by definition!) outside the scope of this discussion, and will need to be covered later.
Illusionism vs. Narrativism: A Real Distinction
Force is formally defined as the deliberate constraint of player decisions to conform with the GM's authority. When it's obvious, it's called railroading. Simulationist (or even Sim-inclined) players rarely put up with the obvious use of Force, because it visibly betrays the implied agreement that "Internal cause is King". How, then, do you furnish them with a compelling story? The most frequent solution is Illusionism- the gentle herding of players towards predetermined thematic conclusions based solely on the manipulation of IC environmental data.
...A lot of internet blood has been spilled regarding how this phenomenon is or is not related to Narrativist play, but I think it's an easy issue. The key for these games is GM authority over the story's content and integrity at all points, including managing the input by players. Even system results are judged appropriate or not by the GM; "fudging" Fortune outcomes is overtly granted as a GM right.
The Golden Rule of White Wolf games is a covert way to say the same thing: ignore any rule that interferes with fun. No one, I presume, thinks that any player may invoke the Golden Rule at any time; what it's really saying is that the GM may ignore any rule (or any player who invokes it) that ruins his or her idea of what should happen.
...for example in Arrowflight (2002, Deep 7; the author is Todd Downing).
Driving the Plot
Once you've constructed your magnum opus of a campaign plot, the players will inevitably find ways to exploit, ignore, or downright break all of your hard work. You can either let that happen, or you can crack the whip and get them back in line. Don't be afraid of exploiting a character's past or weakness to ensure complicity. After all, you are the storyteller. Without you, they'd be playing Monopoly. Some of the tried and true methods of driving a plot are as follows:
- Start the characters off in Adversity. Strip them of everything ...
- Alternately, have them called upon to serve the Common Good ...
- Appeal to any number of Baser Instincts ...
- Force them in a certain direction with Rule of Law ...
- Similar to the Rule of Law, you can direct your players with Threat of Bodily Harm ...
..."Story" emerges from the GM's efforts in this regard, with players being either cooperative (passively or actively), or obstreperous, in which case various "don't let them take over" methods are encouraged.
Players frequently mistake this process for genuine creative input to the story, and hence Narrativism. It is nothing of the sort. Creative input from the players here is by definition nil. Their attentions are neccesarily elsewhere- on staying in character, and reacting to stimuli in a believable fashion- and not upon the demands of authorship. This confusion is further compounded when a formerly Simulationist GM does start demanding active creative input from the players:
Jesse: I'm just still a little confused between Narrativism and Simulationism where the Situation has a lot of ethical/moral problems embedded in it and the GM uses no Force techniques to produce a specific outcome. I don't understand how Premise-expressing elements can be included and players not be considered addressing a Premise when they can't resolve the Situation without doing so.
Me: There is no such Simulationism. You're confused between Narrativism and Narrativism, looking for a difference when there isn't any.
Why would this break Sim?- Because the GM winds up specifically angling conflicts to push the PCs' emotional buttons from then on. All of a sudden, the world revolves around them, and not the other way around. In short, play ceases to model the world as an independant entity- the metagame agenda of Narrativism has quietly taken over.
Potential GNS Conflicts
Gamist Conflict: The Absence of Abstraction
While often a useful complement to Gamist play, such... imprecise concepts as Classes, Levels, HP and XP, without useful in-world analogues often undercut the Simulationist aesthetic quite badly. There's no concrete, in-world reason why slaughtering kobolds should magically make you better at picking locks. Conversely, there's no concrete, in-world reason why veteran warriors should find picking up skills impossibly arduous compared with novices in the trade. There's no concrete, in-world reason why clerics should automatically find it tougher to learn stealth- and there sure as Hell ain't no concrete, in-world reason why seasoned characters may only die the proverbial 'death by a thousand cuts', whilst keen-young-hopefuls keel over with a broadsword to the nads.
Particularly to the Purist-for-System Simulationist, these notions are, without exception, perfect nonsense. When I see threads dissecting in detail how Hit Points might "make sense", I really despair. To do so is to miss the point- they are there to make combat survivable, not directly enhance immersion. Levels and Classes are there to enforce parity in character effectiveness and ensure niche protection. XP is detached from the use of specific skills to allow the player to strategise in terms of character resources without constraining per-encounter tactics. These are all Gamist concerns.
Magic is something of a special case. Modelling sorcery is of course never going to conform comfortably to the known laws of thermodynamics, but at the same time, magic plays such an integral and characteristic role in many settings that it's fans may be nettled considerably when it's forced to conform to the needs of a fire-at-will tactical arsenal. To give but one example, a D&D sorceror in the Earthsea setting would stick out like a porn store in the Vatican.
Alas, Truenamer. I knew thee well.
However, High-Concept Simulationist play which specifically makes reference to literary or cinematic genres involving impossibly robust characters- e.g, Wuxia fantasy, powerful Superheroes, high-octane action flicks, maybe even Anime CRPGs- (do they constitute a 'genre' at this point?) -may actively demand breaches of realism along many fronts. Even here, primary Simulationist focus tends to be on accuracy first and balance or tactical variety second, but subordination to Gamism (or, indeed, Narrativism) might well be less uncomfortable in such cases.
Gamist Conflict: Life is Unfair
In their original Tolkienesque conception, Elves are more powerful than Orcs. More powerful than Humans. More powerful than Dwarves. Definitely more powerful than Halflings. Don't pretend otherwise- That's just the way things are. We're talking a +8 Dex bonus here- plus the fact even the greenest of them has probably seen more action than members of any other race can accumulate in a lifetime. There is no way to model such a setting faithfully, AND allow players to access the character diversity of associated stories, AND accomodate Gamist play.
...I won't even get started on realistic katana duels.
Gamist Conflict: What's my angle?
This is very similar to the Gamist conflict with Narrativism: A Gamist tends to put up with ethical restrictions on their character in much the same way they'll take a -2 Con bonus for playing elves: it's a strategic tradeoff to be weighed and considered in terms of long-term profits and losses. This is difficult to balance with committed role-play of a convincing character.
Narrativist Conflict: Formalisation or Mechanisation of Personality
This is basically the 'breach of contract' I discussed in the Nar essay: the idea that a character's goals, ethics, personality traits and other mental quirks can be put down on paper and their varied interactions tracked mechanically. Such techniques can, up to a point, theoretically benefit either Narrativist or Simulationist play, but there is a subtle distinction between how each would use it: in Narrativist play, there is an active expectation that personality will (or at least could) change at the player's discretion- in Simulationist play, that idea is generally frowned upon. In the former case, it discloses motives in a way that makes collaboration on Theme easier. In the latter case, it regulates how the character should reliably behave at all times. It curtails choices, rather than heightening them.
In other words, personality traits in Simulationism represent safeguards. In Narrativism, they are battlegrounds. During play, the difference could hardly be more marked.
Narrativist Conflict: Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain
This is the aforementioned Illusionism, and is an excellent technique for imposing an overall story upon the sequence of events without the requirement of players having to be consciously concerned with thematic authorship. This can be a very functional style of play, and allows for thrilling stories without violation of the key Simulationist aesthetic of acting on the basis of IC information and environmental stimuli alone (-indeed, such commitment is what allows Simulationists to be gently corralled for thematic purposes in the first place.) A general "agreement to be deceived" prevails in such groups, which are very good at hashing out their respective tolerances for the covert use of Force.
But it is not, and never can be, collaborative authorship of story.
Narrativist Conflict: FREEEEEDOOOOM!
At the opposite extreme, some Simulationist GMs make no attempt to direct players' attentions whatsoever. And again, as long as the players feel engaged by... whatever it is they are doing.... then there is nothing inherently wrong with this. It just ain't story.
Protagonism is incompatible with the GM making your significant decisions for you, by obvious methods or otherwise, but neither is it compatible with the total absence of all constraint. A story has constraints- the active address of premise through protagonism to produce theme- and while there is immense variety within those constraints, you must acknowledge them- consciously or otherwise- before story can emerge. The key is to push the emotional buttons of the characters as hard as possible- presenting them with increasingly pitched internal conflicts- while being as accomodating as possible in dealing with their reactions. This kind of treatment usually involves a lot of serendipity, unhappy coincidence, and general stretching of strict probability. That doesn't mesh well with Sim priorities.
Narrativist Conflict: Death by the numbers.
This has been touched on already in the Nar essay under the heading of 'points of contact' and 'appropriate levels of detail' to cover two seperate but related points of friction: Simulationists- particularly of the heavyweight variety- often like to nail things down precisely. They want detailed characters, a detailed setting, detailed skill-proficiencies that advance chiefly through practice, and detailed task resolution during play. Many of these measures either actively constrain the address of premise by limiting what characters can viably attempt, or simply take too much effort for the Narrativist to be bothered.
A Closing Word
Simulationism has a very venerable tradition in RPGs, dating right back to the dawn of the hobby- Runequest is perhaps the earliest clear example. Examples are not hard to come by, and the techniques they employ can often be very useful in other GNS modes.
Here's a quick overview of existing diversity in Simulationist play. I'm focusing on fun, functional, coherent play - none of the following is a criticism or indictment. Also, I've tried to represent as many creator-owned titles as possible, but I'll refer to others as needed.
...Purists for System
What games are these? EABA, JAGS, SOL, Pocket Universe, and Fudge are deliberately "generalist" regarding setting. The big commercial models are GURPS, BRP (in its "unstripped" form), DC Heroes (now Blood of Heroes), Rolemaster, D6 (derived and considerably Simulationized from Star Wars), and the Hero System (as such, mainly derived from Danger International and Fantasy Hero rather than early Champions).
...High Concept
...This sort of game design will be familiar to almost anyone, represented by Arrowflight (Setting), Pax Draconis (Setting), Godlike (Setting), Sun & Storm (Setting + Situation), Dreamwalker (Situation), The Godsend Agenda (Character-Setting tug-of-war), The Collectors (applied Fudge, Situation + Character), Heartquest (applied Fudge; Character), Children of the Sun (Setting), Fvlminata (Setting), and Dread (Situation + Character), Fading Suns (Setting), Earthdawn (Setting), Space: 1889 (Setting), Mutant Chronicles (Setting), Mage first edition (Character), Mage second edition (Setting), Ironclaw (Setting), and Continuum (Setting with a touch of System). Many Fantasy Heartbreakers fall into this category, almost all Setting-based. Some of the best-known games of this type include Tekumel, Jorune, Traveller (specifically in its mid-80s through mid-90s form), Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, Nephilim, Feng Shui, the various secondary settings for AD&D2 like Al-Qadim, and quite a few D20 or WEG games which rely on licensing...
A Brief Introduction
Simulationism is best summed up as the idea that "Internal cause is King". It's a style of play that focuses primarily on reinforcing the idea that the world- and it's inhabitants- are somehow independant entities that can go about their own business, without the intrusion of real-world priorities. It's the desire to create a 'pocket universe' of sorts- that, following on suitable preparation, the internal operations of the imagined world should, in a sense, proceed automatically- without conscious creative attention.
...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.
...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.
The ideal to aspire to here, even if it's illusory, is that the world doesn't radiate out from the needs and concerns of the players- that they're all 'just visiting,' so to speak. The world is, of course, not real- but the idea is make the collective 'suspension of disbelief' as easy as possible. To 'Be there.' That's it!
What follows is some general discussion of the diversity of the Simulationist design, and of techniques associated with it that can lead to it's confusion with other modes of play.
Elements of Exploration
Colour- description of perceptions or detail that isn't directly relevant.
Setting- the imagined world and it's major component parts.
Character- the individual as inhabitant of the world, controlled by a player.
Situation- a specific focus of 'conflicting interests' between the above.
System- the consistent methods by which interaction of the above is resolved.
These things are necessarily present in all role-play to a greater or lesser degree, but in Simulationism, the faithful modelling in accordance with genre convention of one or more of them is the primary and dominant focus of the players' attentions. (Note we can call 'reality' as a genre here.) Players often confuse the Exploration of Character, Setting, Situation or Colour, in itself, or in any combination, with Narrativism, and the Exploration of System with Gamism. Neither is neccesarily the case. Just because you're rolling dice doesn't mean you're aiming to win, and just because you aren't doesn't mean you have protagonism.
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... 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.
Role-play vs. Roll-play: The Overblown Distinction
The oft-touted distinction between roll-play and role-play is nothing more or less than the Exploration of System and the Exploration of Character- either of which, when prioritised, is Simulationism...
Why? Because both, when made a foremost and formal concern of play, reinforce the notion that "Internal cause is King"- that events in-game should unfold based on internal logic, rather than external agenda. (Replace 'Exploration' with 'Simulation', and it becomes much clearer.) One stresses that characters should act on the basis of IC information only, the other stresses that in-world events follow predictable statistical trends.
Neither is mutually exclusive, however. It is entirely possible to approximate various mental attributes of a character through numerical guages, just as it possible to augment resolution of physical interaction through vivid, vicarious description. Many Simulationist (or partly Simulationist) rule-sets use a blend of both. (Again, however- if one's arm were to be twisted- one might say that Simulationist roll-play tends to mesh better with Gamist concerns, and that Simulationist role-play tends to mesh better with Narrativist concerns. The former has an iron impartiality that can help guarantee fairness, and the latter is more easily adapted to the demands of addressing Premise.)
High-Concept and Purist-For-System
These are the two grand traditions of Simulationist play and design.
Purist For System is the pursuit of a detailed, often fairly realistic mechanical framework which can resolve the details of physical interaction across a wide variety of scales, in time and space, while remaining flexible enough to adapt to more than one setting. A frequent approach is what's called a 'General' system, where the core components are standardised, and then extended or tweaked to cope with the nuances of different scales, settings, or even creative agendas. GURPS and FUDGE are fair examples.
...In this sort of design, there's no possible excuse for any imperfections, including scale-derived breakdowns of the fundamental point/probability relationships. The system must be cleanly and at the service of the element(s) being emphasized, in strictly in-game-world terms. A good one is elegant, consistent, applicable to anything that happens in play, and clear about its outcomes. It also has to have points of contact at any scale for any conceivable thing. It cannot contain patch-rules to correct for inconsistencies; consistency is the essence of quality.
As I see it, Purist for System design is a tall, tall order. It's arguably the hardest design spec in all of role-playing.
High Concept design aims to recreate the conventions of a specific literary or cinematic genre or body of related works, sometimes blending the aspects of several, and benefit substantially from specialising their mechanics to evoke the recurrent motifs and underlying themes of such works. Examples include Call of Cthulhu, Serenity and Deadlands, with varying degrees of success from a design standpoint. (A good many Narrativist RPGs share a similar agenda, as it helps them to keep their rules focused, and therefore relatively concise.)
In cinema, "High Concept" refers to any film idea that can be pitched in a very limited amount of time; the usual method uses references to other films. Sometimes, although not necessarily, it's presented as a combination: "Jaws meets Good Will Hunting," or that sort of thing. I'm adopting it to role-playing without much modification, although emphasizing that the source references can come from any medium and also that the two-title combo isn't always employed.
...writing a High Concept Simulationist game is actually much easier than writing a Purist for System one, as complex Setting-prep or Situation-prep have a lot in common with writing a story and knowing "how it's supposed to go" but not finishing it. However, playing this kind of game is actually harder in some ways - everyone must be pumped about the in-game content, but without reference to a corresponding metagame.
Are there conflicts between these different approaches, between each genre? Sure. But they're generally obvious and easily spotted, and consequently don't require discussion in much detail. Anyone sticking superheroes into the Cthulhu Mythos is generally begging for trouble. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellboy)
Freeform vs. Heavyweight
Having lots of elaborate rules, extensive setting description or lengthy character creation guidelines does not neccesarily mean a game is Simulationist. Depending on the 'genre' in question, very few rules could be needed (e.g, Wushu, Risus,) and conversely, a very elaborate rule-set might not model any set of genre expectations with great fidelity (e.g, AD&D), or place primary emphasis on a different creative agenda (e.g, 4E D&D, Burning Wheel: Gamist and Narrativist respectively.)
Simulationism vs. Exploration
This is a terminological distinction which I think causes a good deal of confusion, so I'll just cut to the chase here: There is very, very little qualitative difference between what's called 'Exploration' and Simulationism in terms of their associated techniques or underlying imaginative priorities. Pure Simulationism is defined as Exploration-to-the-exclusion-of-other-concerns, but a degree of Exploration is actually essential to nearly all RPGs.
If one were to twist my arm, I would say that the distinction between the two is between plausibility or suspension of disbelief and accuracy or likelihood. During Exploration, it's okay to introduce new elements of character or setting provided what you add doesn't actively contradict what's been established before. Simulationism, on the other hand, frowns upon any introduction that isn't actively demanded by the interactions of prior elements- because, again, "Internal cause is King".
The line between the two is often very blurry, as, even outside of Sim play, different people have quite different standards of plausibility or standards for the suspension of disbelief, and Simulationism is also the only GNS mode recognised as being able to functionally hybridise- in a supportive role- with other modes of play. Nonetheless, it's a distinction you can't wholly ignore.
There is one possible exception to this rule: Hard Core Gamism. Gamism is the only creative agenda which can survive the process of total or near-total abstraction- but such play lies (by definition!) outside the scope of this discussion, and will need to be covered later.
Illusionism vs. Narrativism: A Real Distinction
Force is formally defined as the deliberate constraint of player decisions to conform with the GM's authority. When it's obvious, it's called railroading. Simulationist (or even Sim-inclined) players rarely put up with the obvious use of Force, because it visibly betrays the implied agreement that "Internal cause is King". How, then, do you furnish them with a compelling story? The most frequent solution is Illusionism- the gentle herding of players towards predetermined thematic conclusions based solely on the manipulation of IC environmental data.
...A lot of internet blood has been spilled regarding how this phenomenon is or is not related to Narrativist play, but I think it's an easy issue. The key for these games is GM authority over the story's content and integrity at all points, including managing the input by players. Even system results are judged appropriate or not by the GM; "fudging" Fortune outcomes is overtly granted as a GM right.
The Golden Rule of White Wolf games is a covert way to say the same thing: ignore any rule that interferes with fun. No one, I presume, thinks that any player may invoke the Golden Rule at any time; what it's really saying is that the GM may ignore any rule (or any player who invokes it) that ruins his or her idea of what should happen.
...for example in Arrowflight (2002, Deep 7; the author is Todd Downing).
Driving the Plot
Once you've constructed your magnum opus of a campaign plot, the players will inevitably find ways to exploit, ignore, or downright break all of your hard work. You can either let that happen, or you can crack the whip and get them back in line. Don't be afraid of exploiting a character's past or weakness to ensure complicity. After all, you are the storyteller. Without you, they'd be playing Monopoly. Some of the tried and true methods of driving a plot are as follows:
- Start the characters off in Adversity. Strip them of everything ...
- Alternately, have them called upon to serve the Common Good ...
- Appeal to any number of Baser Instincts ...
- Force them in a certain direction with Rule of Law ...
- Similar to the Rule of Law, you can direct your players with Threat of Bodily Harm ...
..."Story" emerges from the GM's efforts in this regard, with players being either cooperative (passively or actively), or obstreperous, in which case various "don't let them take over" methods are encouraged.
Players frequently mistake this process for genuine creative input to the story, and hence Narrativism. It is nothing of the sort. Creative input from the players here is by definition nil. Their attentions are neccesarily elsewhere- on staying in character, and reacting to stimuli in a believable fashion- and not upon the demands of authorship. This confusion is further compounded when a formerly Simulationist GM does start demanding active creative input from the players:
Jesse: I'm just still a little confused between Narrativism and Simulationism where the Situation has a lot of ethical/moral problems embedded in it and the GM uses no Force techniques to produce a specific outcome. I don't understand how Premise-expressing elements can be included and players not be considered addressing a Premise when they can't resolve the Situation without doing so.
Me: There is no such Simulationism. You're confused between Narrativism and Narrativism, looking for a difference when there isn't any.
Why would this break Sim?- Because the GM winds up specifically angling conflicts to push the PCs' emotional buttons from then on. All of a sudden, the world revolves around them, and not the other way around. In short, play ceases to model the world as an independant entity- the metagame agenda of Narrativism has quietly taken over.
Potential GNS Conflicts
Gamist Conflict: The Absence of Abstraction
While often a useful complement to Gamist play, such... imprecise concepts as Classes, Levels, HP and XP, without useful in-world analogues often undercut the Simulationist aesthetic quite badly. There's no concrete, in-world reason why slaughtering kobolds should magically make you better at picking locks. Conversely, there's no concrete, in-world reason why veteran warriors should find picking up skills impossibly arduous compared with novices in the trade. There's no concrete, in-world reason why clerics should automatically find it tougher to learn stealth- and there sure as Hell ain't no concrete, in-world reason why seasoned characters may only die the proverbial 'death by a thousand cuts', whilst keen-young-hopefuls keel over with a broadsword to the nads.
Particularly to the Purist-for-System Simulationist, these notions are, without exception, perfect nonsense. When I see threads dissecting in detail how Hit Points might "make sense", I really despair. To do so is to miss the point- they are there to make combat survivable, not directly enhance immersion. Levels and Classes are there to enforce parity in character effectiveness and ensure niche protection. XP is detached from the use of specific skills to allow the player to strategise in terms of character resources without constraining per-encounter tactics. These are all Gamist concerns.
Magic is something of a special case. Modelling sorcery is of course never going to conform comfortably to the known laws of thermodynamics, but at the same time, magic plays such an integral and characteristic role in many settings that it's fans may be nettled considerably when it's forced to conform to the needs of a fire-at-will tactical arsenal. To give but one example, a D&D sorceror in the Earthsea setting would stick out like a porn store in the Vatican.
Alas, Truenamer. I knew thee well.
However, High-Concept Simulationist play which specifically makes reference to literary or cinematic genres involving impossibly robust characters- e.g, Wuxia fantasy, powerful Superheroes, high-octane action flicks, maybe even Anime CRPGs- (do they constitute a 'genre' at this point?) -may actively demand breaches of realism along many fronts. Even here, primary Simulationist focus tends to be on accuracy first and balance or tactical variety second, but subordination to Gamism (or, indeed, Narrativism) might well be less uncomfortable in such cases.
Gamist Conflict: Life is Unfair
In their original Tolkienesque conception, Elves are more powerful than Orcs. More powerful than Humans. More powerful than Dwarves. Definitely more powerful than Halflings. Don't pretend otherwise- That's just the way things are. We're talking a +8 Dex bonus here- plus the fact even the greenest of them has probably seen more action than members of any other race can accumulate in a lifetime. There is no way to model such a setting faithfully, AND allow players to access the character diversity of associated stories, AND accomodate Gamist play.
...I won't even get started on realistic katana duels.
Gamist Conflict: What's my angle?
This is very similar to the Gamist conflict with Narrativism: A Gamist tends to put up with ethical restrictions on their character in much the same way they'll take a -2 Con bonus for playing elves: it's a strategic tradeoff to be weighed and considered in terms of long-term profits and losses. This is difficult to balance with committed role-play of a convincing character.
Narrativist Conflict: Formalisation or Mechanisation of Personality
This is basically the 'breach of contract' I discussed in the Nar essay: the idea that a character's goals, ethics, personality traits and other mental quirks can be put down on paper and their varied interactions tracked mechanically. Such techniques can, up to a point, theoretically benefit either Narrativist or Simulationist play, but there is a subtle distinction between how each would use it: in Narrativist play, there is an active expectation that personality will (or at least could) change at the player's discretion- in Simulationist play, that idea is generally frowned upon. In the former case, it discloses motives in a way that makes collaboration on Theme easier. In the latter case, it regulates how the character should reliably behave at all times. It curtails choices, rather than heightening them.
In other words, personality traits in Simulationism represent safeguards. In Narrativism, they are battlegrounds. During play, the difference could hardly be more marked.
Narrativist Conflict: Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain
This is the aforementioned Illusionism, and is an excellent technique for imposing an overall story upon the sequence of events without the requirement of players having to be consciously concerned with thematic authorship. This can be a very functional style of play, and allows for thrilling stories without violation of the key Simulationist aesthetic of acting on the basis of IC information and environmental stimuli alone (-indeed, such commitment is what allows Simulationists to be gently corralled for thematic purposes in the first place.) A general "agreement to be deceived" prevails in such groups, which are very good at hashing out their respective tolerances for the covert use of Force.
But it is not, and never can be, collaborative authorship of story.
Narrativist Conflict: FREEEEEDOOOOM!
At the opposite extreme, some Simulationist GMs make no attempt to direct players' attentions whatsoever. And again, as long as the players feel engaged by... whatever it is they are doing.... then there is nothing inherently wrong with this. It just ain't story.
Protagonism is incompatible with the GM making your significant decisions for you, by obvious methods or otherwise, but neither is it compatible with the total absence of all constraint. A story has constraints- the active address of premise through protagonism to produce theme- and while there is immense variety within those constraints, you must acknowledge them- consciously or otherwise- before story can emerge. The key is to push the emotional buttons of the characters as hard as possible- presenting them with increasingly pitched internal conflicts- while being as accomodating as possible in dealing with their reactions. This kind of treatment usually involves a lot of serendipity, unhappy coincidence, and general stretching of strict probability. That doesn't mesh well with Sim priorities.
Narrativist Conflict: Death by the numbers.
This has been touched on already in the Nar essay under the heading of 'points of contact' and 'appropriate levels of detail' to cover two seperate but related points of friction: Simulationists- particularly of the heavyweight variety- often like to nail things down precisely. They want detailed characters, a detailed setting, detailed skill-proficiencies that advance chiefly through practice, and detailed task resolution during play. Many of these measures either actively constrain the address of premise by limiting what characters can viably attempt, or simply take too much effort for the Narrativist to be bothered.
A Closing Word
Simulationism has a very venerable tradition in RPGs, dating right back to the dawn of the hobby- Runequest is perhaps the earliest clear example. Examples are not hard to come by, and the techniques they employ can often be very useful in other GNS modes.
Here's a quick overview of existing diversity in Simulationist play. I'm focusing on fun, functional, coherent play - none of the following is a criticism or indictment. Also, I've tried to represent as many creator-owned titles as possible, but I'll refer to others as needed.
...Purists for System
What games are these? EABA, JAGS, SOL, Pocket Universe, and Fudge are deliberately "generalist" regarding setting. The big commercial models are GURPS, BRP (in its "unstripped" form), DC Heroes (now Blood of Heroes), Rolemaster, D6 (derived and considerably Simulationized from Star Wars), and the Hero System (as such, mainly derived from Danger International and Fantasy Hero rather than early Champions).
...High Concept
...This sort of game design will be familiar to almost anyone, represented by Arrowflight (Setting), Pax Draconis (Setting), Godlike (Setting), Sun & Storm (Setting + Situation), Dreamwalker (Situation), The Godsend Agenda (Character-Setting tug-of-war), The Collectors (applied Fudge, Situation + Character), Heartquest (applied Fudge; Character), Children of the Sun (Setting), Fvlminata (Setting), and Dread (Situation + Character), Fading Suns (Setting), Earthdawn (Setting), Space: 1889 (Setting), Mutant Chronicles (Setting), Mage first edition (Character), Mage second edition (Setting), Ironclaw (Setting), and Continuum (Setting with a touch of System). Many Fantasy Heartbreakers fall into this category, almost all Setting-based. Some of the best-known games of this type include Tekumel, Jorune, Traveller (specifically in its mid-80s through mid-90s form), Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, Nephilim, Feng Shui, the various secondary settings for AD&D2 like Al-Qadim, and quite a few D20 or WEG games which rely on licensing...