From: CX6L <CX6L@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA>
Subject: Re: game vs reality simulation
Organization: McGill University
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 17:01:00 GMT

In article <16001@mindlink.bc.ca> Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow) writes:

>CX6L@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA writes:

>> Yes, but gamers try and use game terms to describe things. This avoids
>> abiguities and puts us all on the same wavelength. In GURPS, there is a
>> target area called the torso (area 9-11). A part of this is the chest
>> (9-10) and the rest is the abdomen (11). We're talking GURPS here, not
>> anatomy. Try and speak our language, OK?

>That makes sense for a GURPS group discussing that system.  In a discussion
>involving gamers who use different systems, I think it would be best to use
>standard "real world" language, such as anatomy, and the gamers can translate
>that into their game system terms.

Ok, sorry for the flaming gist of my earlier comment. I agree I
was talking GURPS. I do think real-life language is a good norm.
I was just disagreeing with the way the earlier writer was using
a tone and style that suggested he was writing in the language
of his personal profession, which, while "real-life", is no more
generic to, say, a physicist like me, than GURPS is to all of
gamer-dom. *I* don't speak in equations: I just didn't like the
way Mr Frazer was speaking in terms of experiences I (or, I
suspect, many others) have never had.

>> Yes, but in RPGs, the PCs are supposed to be the rare and heroic members of
>> society who *can* do such "impossible" things.

>Whoa!  That may be true for your personal gaming style preference, but it is
>not universally true for RPGs.

Actually, it is *not* true in my style! It is just what I have
observed a lot in *others'* styles. I felt that since my style
was not very much like most I had observed, I'd speak in terms
of those people! Don't worry: I'm not a high-tech hack-n-slasher!
(My opinions, for those who've read them, should indicate this
amply!)

>> Someone with modest willpower could f**k the "laws" of psychology
>> at any time. PCs are such individuals. So they don't wilt under fire.

>That too is determined by gaming style preferences.  In other games, players
>who disregard what their characters _should_ be doing, according to what the
>other gamers accept as reasonable behaviour, may not be appreciated.  We were
>considering having one PC committed to a psychiatric exam, since his
>behaviour could be described as "psychopathic".

I think my problem here is simply that most of the gamers I
know like to throw away society's expectations and norms in
the context of gaming. I never really thought there was much
sentiment out there for "ordinary folks" gaming. I was wrong.
100 000 apologies. (PS - thanks for being polite about this.)

>> Most games allow a character to work around injury and keep going. Almost
>> all players like this, and want their characters to ignore anything less
>> than a killing or incapacitating shot. So maybe your group likes to play
>> characters who go down when shot in the foot. Most folks do not. Playing a
>> game where the slightest injury takes you out is not fun at all.

>In the latter gaming environment, the PCs do not act the same way the PCs in
>the former games do.  PCs in the latter style simply do not engage in as much
>combat as the former; they know that they're likely to be rendered
>incapacitated by one shot.  Not all games and gamers need constant heroic
>combat to be fun.

I, in fact, detest constant heroic combat! I like rare and
relevant combats, in my game. I think the point I was trying
to get across (sorry if it was not clear), is that *as written*,
the rules in a great many games encourage this. I remember
playing Twilight 2000, and having a malnourished kid kill
someone with a thrown knife, like he was some kind of Sergeant
Rock, or something. Then, he took a burst from an AK-47 and
didn't even fall down! I was taken aback. This kind of thing
keeps cropping up in game after game. Most games where it
does crop up kind of put me off. However, if the people in
the gaming group like "heroic fiction", then I think the GM
has a certain obligation to try and make the players happy!

>There was someone just a while ago who complained that he switched from AD&D
>to something more realistic (GURPS?), and found that it wasn't working.  I
>expect that he was trying to play AD&D style in a system that didn't support
>it.

Perhaps he was. I haven't played AD&D in almost a decade. I
don't really remember what it was like....

>> GURPS says that a gun is a gun, and skill is skill. .... GURPS tries to
>> *rationalize*, not complicate, the true situation.

>"Rationalize" is not the same as "simplify".  Saying that firing a snub-nosed
>handgun while someone is firing at you is the same as firing a sniper rifle
>from a prepared position is not rationalizing, it's simplifying to the point
>of irrationality.  :)

I agree, to the extent that most games produce the occasional
not-so-rational result. In physics, we have numerical models
of nature which only hold given certain limits and conditions.
Beyond these, the models break down. Games are just numerical
models of all of reality! Given a few false premises, I suspect
they break down, too :-)

>Real life situations are complicated.  Some game systems follows that
>complexity; others simplify the situations, yet maintain actions and effects
>that are rational in real life; other systems simplify--or complicate--the
>situations, but distort the effects so that characters act in manners that
>would be stupid or insane in real life.  Which system you prefer is personal
>preference.

 I think, to a good extent, the number of "stupid" or "insane"
things that happen in a game is not due to so much to the
system as to the players. Some players just like to act crazy.
I've had more than a few try to jerk my chain. I've done it
to other GMs, at times. But I usually tolerate it if, *and only
if*, all the other players agree it is fun, and not annoying.
Consideration is a rule that no game can impose: we just have
to provide that along with imagination.

>> NO! GURPS has a philosophy: injury is injury. Combat, regardless of its
>> form, consists of a few basic parts: placing the attack where it can
>> injure, avoiding defensive or evasive actions on the part of the target,
>> and resolving injury. Combat is combat. In GURPS, projectile and melee can
>> and do mesh easily together. One does not need ridiculous "ranged combat
>> phases" and "close combat phases" etc from older games.

>Hmmm, sounds like GURPs fits into the last category of the systems I
>mentioned above: it both oversimplifies the world it is supposed to
>represent/simulate and allows/encourages character actions that would be
>irrational in the real world..  :)

I don't know. I find that some games that people have advocated
on this board as "more realistic than GURPS" are not, IMHO. They,
in turn, think GURPS is less realistic. They have bought and
played their system, I have done the same with GURPS. Perhaps
it's just loyalty to a game which is at work here. That often
causes gamers to do irrational things....

>> This is a gaming board. Speak the language, or get out.

>What language are your referring to, that represents the universal language
>for this group?  There seem to be a multitude of "gaming languages" used
>here. GURPS is _not_ universal.  The only language I think we could possibly
>agree on is "real life", where a reader can pick up a dictionary or other
>reference book and have a reasonable chance of agreeing on what "torso"
>means.  Each of us can then translate that into GURPS terms, or Legacy terms,
>or whatever.

My point, again, was that Frazer was discussing his points in
the language of the combat-trained, which is no more universal
than the language of GURPS. Bryce Koike was using the language
of GURPS. Since this is a gaming board, I just felt that the
lesser of two evils was the language of GURPS. Also, I should
point out that whether or not the thread is a GURPS thread,
most of the posts to it as of late have been re: GURPS. I just
wanted to use the same terminology.

>I think the basis of this latest thread was Bryce's claim that aiming at the
>head or "vitals" was "realistic".  It is not realistic.  It may be sensible
>given the rules of GURPS, which represent a deviation from "real life", but
>it would not be sensible in real life or in many other game systems.

True. I agreed with that then, and I'll agree with it now. I
was objecting to the fact that Frazer implied no one shoots
for the vitals or brain, not if they want to live through a
firefight. I happen to know other combat-trained types who
do not agree. Since Frazer and these guys are both still
alive, I would assume neither is totally correct. GURPS allows
for both situations, actually: the GM can always rule called
shots impossible without "n" turns of Aiming, which would
expose most people's character for long enough to get hit!
Then no one would do this....

>BTW, my dictionary says "torso" means the body minus the head and appendages.
>I'd refer to the chest area as "thorax".  What the GURPS manuals call it is
>irrelevant in a multi-game system discussion.

Hm. Well, true enough. But (big "but") I feel that if one writer
is going to criticize or flame another on this board, he is
under obligation to at the very least direct his comments to the
other writer in the language that other writer was employing.
You wouldn't like it if I used pure physics to argue a point
on the reality of ballistics in your game system, especially if
you aren't a physicist. I just feel that while general posts
can be in any language the writer wishes, responses, out of
courtesy, should come back in roughly the same language as
 the thing they are responding to.

>Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca


______________________________________________________________________
|      From the Most Holy Keyboard of:                               |
|      Dr Manfred Kromm, Reverend of the Temple of the Squid God,    |
|      Professor of Quantum Parapsychology.                          |
|____________________________________________________________________|
|           )                               "This won't hurt a bit.  |
|  |========|OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO>------      Afterwards . . . you'll |
|           )                                see things MY way!"     |
|____________________________________________________________________|