Re : Tracking

From: Simon Hibbs <simonh_hibbs_at_...>
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 08:18:15 -0800
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Andreas Mueller :

>To get philosophic: Simulationist is not a bad word. In fact,
>I feel that consistency makes the game more believable and enjoyable.

Why do you think that naratively determined rules are going to be any less realistic than strictly simulationist ones?

In producing your charts, you took into account a wide variety of factors that could affect tracking. Surely the important thing is that Narrators be aware that these factors exist and can make tracking more or less difficult.

If I were to write up detailed rules for tracking, what are the chances that my system would produce the same numbers as yours? If a narrator understands what factors can affect tracking, why should numbers derived from a table which you made up necesserily be any more valid than numbers the narrator made up?

Even inconsistency can be more realistic. If the difficulty for tracking through grass are different in your table than the ones a narrator made up, maybe it's because the grass is longer, or thicker, or wetter. Is all grass going to be equaly difficult to track through?

>I'm no friend of making the decision how difficult the task needs to
>be _solely_ based upon story reasons. Then you don't need to roll.

Why on earth not? One of the joys of roleplaying is the suspense of roling the dice. That's just as true regardless of the way the numbers you're rolling against were determined.

>You can tell everybody, what you want him to know and leave
>everything else out. Sorry, but that's not interesting for me.

That's always true in any roleplayign game anyway. The scenaro writer or narrator always has complete freedom in how they set up the game and the challenges they set before the players. If I'm running a session in which the players try to track down some bandits, I can choose how difficult it is by determining the bandit's camoflage and stealth skills, the terrain they are hiding in, etc. Whether I'm a narrative or simulationist GM doesn't change the fact that I can make it as hard or as easy as I like.

> ...This
>way, I have a story line, that every player is forced to go along.
>My way to play (tm) is to give them any information they require
>without a roll (or by ignoring the outcome of any roll ;-). I let
>my players roll, if I feel that they can get some other information,
>that makes their job easier. This way, I'm surprised with the
>creative solutions the players come up.

And this can only happen in a simulationist game? Of course not! A narrative GM is no more likely to be a controll freak than a simulationist one. They both have controll of many aspects of the game, but the way the choose to express that controll is different.

I'd much rather play a game with a GM that can respond to my player choices quickly and flexibly, than one that spends half the game session looking up the tables for the modifiers to the task I just asked to perform.

Simon Hibbs



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