First, a Bit of Context

It began nearly fifteen years ago on the USENET, but finally came to a boil with these two threads: Realistic combat in RPGs and especially Gun Legends in RPGS, in which the original poster complained about AK47 damage being too high in Savage Worlds (when compared to more powerful rifles) and was almost immediately attacked by dramatist-evangelists who criticized him for even caring about realism. Now, granted Savage Worlds is known for being cinematic, and the majority of posters defended the OP’s position that if you’re going to differentiate between guns, you should get the differentiation right (otherwise, just use a few broad categories like “defensive pistol” and “assault rifle”), but some posters just couldn’t resist making the same implications, ones I’ve heard since the nineties, and which exploded during the heyday of The Forge, that real roleplayers don’t care about these sort of things.

First, I wrote a theoretical outline of what a Character Consistent combat system would look like, not using game mechanics, but instead concepts and theory that would guide the use or selection of mechanics. It was going to not only show a way to do Character Consistent combat in a variety of ‘crunch’ levels, but explain to dramatist (but not dramatist-evangelists – they don’t tend to listen well), gamist, and unaligned players just what we were getting at and why we wanted it. That was going to be this month’s column.

Then I got mad. Mad at the dramatist-evangelist tendency to look down their noses at other playing styles, to assume that the reason we don’t like playing that way is because we just haven’t tried it, or haven’t given it a chance, to assume that Forgite-indie games are for real roleplayers, and the rest of us are just roll-players.

So Character-Consistent Mechanics will have to wait until next month. Now, I present to you…

A Simulationist Manifesto

If Mark Rein*Hagen and Robin Laws are to be believed, and dramatist roleplaying games are art, then so too are simulationist games. If the dramatist style is like John Woo’s heroic bloodshed or George Lucas’s multi-influenced epics, the simulationist-immersive style (or Character Consistent, and I like to call it) is more like cinema verite’, mumblecore, or, better yet, documentary footage of a fictional world.

Instead of sharing narrative duties and spending drama points to direct the plot, the players in habit their characters as authentically as possible, making decisions purely from their characters’ perspectives – and the GM does likewise, playing the “world” and NPCs as objectively as she can, basing every decision on what would happen, not what would make the best story or challenge.

This does not always lead to a typical Hollywood story with rising action, a climax, and a denouement, with character death coming only at dramatically appropriate moments. What it does lead to is this: unexpected, utterly genuine moments that, in retrospect, feel real.

Lucius Senecus wanted nothing so much as to regain his place and redeem his family’s name among Nova Roman nobility. He’d put those dreams aside to travel with, protect, and lead Medina, Tomas, Marcio, Juaco, and Than, guarding them from bounty hunters, supernatural threats, and, worst of all, the servants of the Dark Riders. He’d bled for them, toiled with them, given them direction, counsel, and advice. And over time, they forgot what little they’d ever understood about who Lucius had been and what he had lost.

But Lucius Senecus did not forget. And when the Dark Riders themselves offered him a chance to redeem his family name and regain its fortune … even though they had been enemies, even though he did not trust their intentions, he said the only thing he could: “yes.”

I still get chills just remembering the emotion in the room that night. No one expected it. I was the GM, and honestly, I never thought he’d say yes. Lucius’s player literally said, “I have to – I have to do what he’d do. Yes.”

Five minutes later, when we, the players and GM, caught our collective breath, we continued playing. The other PC’s, turned against Lucius instantly, as shocked and stunned by his betrayal as their players. Well, except for Medina, who still trusted Lucius, even as he held her hostage in an attempt to not have to fight Marcio and Juaco.

Marcio, a former pit fighter, drew his sword, stepped forward, and challenged Lucius to a duel. “My people have a saying; ‘strength and honor,’” Lucius said as he moved Medina aside, freeing his right hand, and reached toward his belt, as if to draw his sword and accept. Suddenly, Lucius drew his pistola and fired, wounding and stunning Marcio with a gut shot. “There’s a reason strength comes first.”

The bull-like Juaco charged Lucius, swinging away with his ax, not even thinking that he might miss and hit Medina. He drove his ax into Lucius’ chest, severing the straps and cutting between the breast and back plates (had Juaco’s player rolled 1 better on his to-hit roll, he’d have buried his ax in Lucius’s unarmored head, killing him instantly).

Lucius fell, but before Juaco could finish him, Medina intervened. An empathic healer, she began taking his wounds upon herself and healing them, feeling his pain while she alleviated it. At this point, the full weight of what he had done fell upon Lucius, and he stopped Medina, refusing to be healed beyond the simple staunching of the wound’s bleeding, choosing to heal slowly, to feel his own pain. Lucius staggered to his feet and walked away from both the Dark Riders who offered him power and the friends he’d betrayed.

We ended the session there, stunned, emotionally drained, and knowing we would not soon forget this session.

The events in this session could have happened in any play style, but the emotional power of these events came from the players’ immersion. No one tagged an Aspect to set up Lucius’s temptation, and conversely, a failed virtue or humanity check isn’t what caused him to give in. Lucius’s player didn’t spend a Bennie to avoid Juaco’s death blow – he just got lucky. Nobody spent Willpower to boost any of their various Trait checks or combat rolls.

In fact, no one had to make any out of character decisions concerning their characters at all in that campaign: no willpower points, no Fate points, no fear checks, no personality mechanics, nothing. We didn’t have any strict, obscure rules about “if you say it, your character says it,” nor did we regulate when people dropped out or into character. But when they were in character, they were in character, with no metagame intrusions.

These narrative-control mechanics can make a satisfactory story structure more likely. The better ones, used correctly, can virtually guarantee it. What they cannot do is make it authentic. No one can create authenticity through manipulation. And it is authenticity that we seek.

Those of us who prefer a simulationist, even immersive play style are not clueless newbies who just haven’t gotten around to reading those good Forge articles yet. We aren’t unsophisticated Philistines who’d rather argue about “gun porn” and gear descriptions than embrace modern narrative control. We don’t prefer, for example, something like GURPS to FATE because we like min-maxing and point-accounting.

We know what we want: authenticity. We know a story won’t always emerge, at least not one that looks like a standard movie. But we’re willing to take that risk, because what does emerge, untampered with, free of GM and out-of-character player manipulation, can be breathtaking … even ten years down the line.

End Notes

If this made you mad, if it offends your sensitivities or world view to read that dedicated, thoughtful roleplayers might actually have good reasons for not liking Dogs in the Vineyard, Spirit of the Century, or your favorite indie game, then I have no apology to offer. Either get a broader worldview or a thicker skin.

If, however, you found it interesting (whether it fits your style or not), or you just want to see such a system in action, stick around (trust me, it won’t be GURPS level of crunch. Rule-set weight is really an orthogonal concern). My next few columns will go into detail.

Post Script

I think I may have described the Lucius Senecus incident badly. As written, it seems like a really dramatic event, and it was. But it was not dramatically appropriate. This was the point in the narrative when the hero overcomes temptation, realizes who his real friends are, and chooses them over the ambitions of his past. This was to be the foundation upon which Lucius led his friends in their struggle to overthrow the Dark Riders and their Master. That is clearly not what happened.

What happened was a total plot derailment, a glorious train wreck. The closest equivalent I can think of would be if, when Darth Vader told Luke he was his father and offered to rule the galaxy together, Luke had said, “Dad?” and run to Vader, to take his place by his long-lost father’s side as a Dark Lord of the Sith. Sure, Leia, Han and Chewie’s players would have been stunned (along with the GM and possibly even Luke’s player), and sure, they’d remember the game session forever, but it would not have been a very satisfying ending for the audience watching The Empire Strikes Back.

And that’s a large part of the point. Simulationist-Immersive play doesn’t concern itself with an audience, not even the audience of the GM and other players. If the narrative goes off the rails, turns sideways, or wanders, that’s fine. Real life doesn’t always roll out in story form. As long as everyone is able to inhabit their characters and actually experience things from a new, different perspective, you’re doing it right. Think of it as first-person roleplaying; the view is not from the director’s chair or the author’s desk, but from the character’s eyes.