ABSTRACTION OR SIMULATION

By Andy Collins, developer

One of the great strengths of tabletop roleplaying games is that they allow characters to attempt anything the players can imagine. The open-ended nature of most RPGs, and the presence of a living arbiter (the DM), allow for a range of actions far beyond what any board game, card game, or computer game can handle.

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Ironically, the place where many RPG systems break down is when they attempt to simulate actions and aspects of the “real world.” Although a certain level of believability must be achieved, many designers and players strive for a level of simulation far beyond what’s necessary to for a game.

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Is it “realistic” that every player in Monopoly starts with exactly the same amount of money, that players have a 1-in-6 chance of being released from Jail each turn they’re incarcerated, or that a shoe can amass property and collect rental payments? Of course not, but nobody playing Monopoly complains about such things. Everyone accepts a certain level of abstraction for fun game play.

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Every edition of D&D has struggled to find the right balance between simulation and abstraction that achieves maximum playability and fun. Overall, the game leans more heavily toward abstraction, and that’s not an accident. Not only does the game focus on elements way beyond the realms of reality, but it also consciously requires the characters to perform heroic, even superheroic, actions.

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The important caveat to any abstract system is that even an abstracted activity must be acceptably believable to the players. That is, the participants in the game must believe that the in-game outcome could have occurred in the situation in question.

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That “believability factor” is relative, not absolute. It varies based on the core assumptions of the game, the setting, and even the playing group. What’s believable in one game might not be in another. Casually leaping 20 feet from a standing start sounds unbelievable . . . unless you’re playing a wuxia-influenced game. In that case, it’s pedestrian. A group of expert climbers might demand more simulationist aspects in a climbing system, because their advanced expertise doesn’t allow them to “believe” in the outcomes that result from the rules.

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That’s the same reason why many doctors can’t enjoy medical dramas on TV. Although the average viewer can accept and enjoy week after week of bizarre cases and way-out- there diagnoses, it’s so far removed from the professional’s real-life experiences and expertise that she just can’t bring herself to believe the show enough to appreciate the entertainment value. I can only imagine how “unrealistic” a show on game designers would seem to me and the folks I work with.

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It’s tempting to look at a rule and imagine how to make it more realistic. Whenever this temptation rears its ugly head, just ask yourself if the added realism actually increases smooth, fun game play. The answer is usually “No”—just like a “realistic” cop or doctor show would be pretty boring to watch. (Oh, goody, another episode of paperwork!)

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In D&D, halflings are almost as strong as humans. In a realistic game, these pint-size characters would have the muscle of a 10-year-old. Of course, then they’d be unable to do much in combat. Instead, D&D abstracts the difference between the two races, pushing them closer together to ensure that halflings are playable. They’re still weaker than humans—that’s the believability factor—but not so much weaker as to be unplayable.

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In D&D, characters bounce back from injuries with no real consequences. In a realistic game, a character who actually manages to survive being clawed, gnawed, and flash-fried by a red dragon as big as a house would be in a hospital for weeks, and (assuming he could still walk at all) would walk with a limp for the rest of his life. Of course, that makes it a little hard to continue the adventure, so D&D abstracts character injuries and recovery with the hit point system. Massive injuries can certainly kill even a powerful character, and coming back from death takes its toll. That’s the believability factor. But virtually any injury can be repaired relatively quickly if you have the right resources, which allows the game to keep rolling.

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Players carry out melee combats by rolling dice and moving minis around a grid on a turn-by-turn basis in D&D. In a realistic game, combat would be incredibly chaotic and uncontrolled, with many more interruptions and missteps, and a lot less finesse. Of course, that would make combat scenes drag on forever, result in a lot of wasted actions, and encourage endless timing arguments. Instead, D&D encourages players to recreate their favorite action movie stunts (or create their own) within a fast-paced combat system by minimizing the number of variables and actions they have to track. It keeps order by having each participant take turns. This system sacrifices many elements of simulation in order to achieve the desired level of playability, but the resulting action remains reasonable enough to pass the average player’s believability test.

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Put simply, no game can perfectly simulate reality. If it did, it wouldn’t be a game anymore, it’d be real life. (Who wants to buy a copy of that?) It might be more realistic for Monopoly players to start with different amounts of money, but that wouldn’t make the game more fun. If D&D perfectly simulated battling a horde of raging barbarians, it would not only cost a lot more money to purchase (those actors don’t come cheap), it would result in a lot more lawsuits.

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Abstraction is the game player’s (and game designer’s) best friend. It lets us recreate an endless array of activities we’d never be able to (or want to) accomplish in real life. What’s more, it lets us do so quickly and efficiently, maximizing the play and minimizing the rule-searching. When it’s done right, abstraction actually improves our immersion into the game’s own version of reality. Actions within the game flow so naturally and intuitively that we forget that we’re bounded by rules at all.

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Personally, I can’t think of any greater achievement in game design.