# If it's not real then why call for "realism"?



## Silvercat Moonpaw (Apr 3, 2009)

Forked from:  DMs: what have you learned from PLAYING that has made you a better DM? 



Nai_Calus said:


> Sure. When it's plausible and sensible. Epic-level character with fire resistance out the arse? Hell, lower-level character with fire resistance? Adventuring on the Paraelemental Plane of Magma where you've prepared for, well, running around a bunch of sodding lava? Sure.
> 
> Random mountain interior designed to be a test for warriors? Uhh... Level 9 Bard 4/Swashbuckler 5 wearing the standard Studded Leather armor a L1 character would have, whose only magical item was a cold iron longsword which was presumably the stock +1, who doesn't have resistance to anything? Umm... Nope. Not plausible at all.………
> 
> ...





> I'm not going to complain about realism in D&D specifically.  I am going to ask, however:
> 
> Why do you believe that a fictional world will work as you expect it to work rather than possibly having rules that allow it to operate in ways antithetical to your perceptions?



I'm posing the above question to everyone who cares to read.

It's just something that I don't get when I read about "realism" OR "versimilitude":
Why do you expect things to act like reality, or act consistently, when they aren't real?

I can understand it if people just want to play in that kind of world, but I don't understand it when the tone is one of expectation that that's how things should _always_ work.


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## billd91 (Apr 3, 2009)

SilvercatMoonpaw2 said:


> I can understand it if people just want to play in that kind of world, but I don't understand it when the tone is one of expectation that that's how things should _always_ work.




It depends on the game you're playing. If you're playing Toon with cartoon physics, that's one thing. Most games are something else, though.

Think of it this way: Pretty much all tabletop RPGs, contrasted with computer RPGs, are different from actual reality _by exception_. In other words, we expect the games to obey normal physical laws except for places where the game changes them for the purposes of the game. In fact, we functionally have to have those expectations. There's no physics engine constructed by the rules from the ground up. If there were, they'd be impossible for a human referee to implement. That's very different from computer games which do build physics engines, in effect, to determine how the sprites/avatars/what-have-you  move and interact with their environment. That all has to be built.

Because of this, when tabletop gaming, we have to use our own knowledge of reality around us to determine what seems a reasonable thing to do, to estimate what may have a chance of success (necessary for playing with a sense of rationality), and to form a mental image of what's going on in a scene (again, another contrast with computer RPGs, which present a visual image).

This is why people want some form of realism or verisimilitude. Some sense of it with respect to possible actions in the game is necessary. Some need for it is more subjective, particularly in the way realism helps with forming a mental and consistent picture of how the world works around the characters. Some players simply demand more of that than others, but all pretty much demand some. They expect things to fall down rather than up, they expect things with more mass to weigh more, and so on.


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## Kask (Apr 3, 2009)

SilvercatMoonpaw2 said:


> It's just something that I don't get when I read about "realism" OR "versimilitude":
> Why do you expect things to act like reality, or act consistently, when they aren't real?




Well, within the game world there has to be consistency or the players cannot plan or even really know what is going on.  One day their spells work like in the book, the next day every spell backfires, the next day gravity is reversed and the PCs fall into the sky when they leave the tavern, etc., etc.


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## Alzrius (Apr 3, 2009)

Wolfgang Baur addresses the idea of fantasy "realism" in his excellent book, the Kobold Guide to Game Design, Vol. 1: Adventures. To briefly snip a few lines:



			
				Wolfgang Baur said:
			
		

> I hate the common critique of fantasy adventures and settings that they are “not realistic enough.” At the same time, I totally understand. The critique is not about realism. It is about depth and plausibility.
> 
> A realistic setting does not have wizards, 20-pound battleaxes, or half-naked Amazon elves. Or giants, dragons, or beholders. Or anything fun, really.
> 
> A fantasy adventure has all those things, plus flying carpets, cloud castles, clockwork monkeys, and earth elementals of pure diamond. If you present these things in a serious, respectful, and coherent way, it wins over more fans than if they are munged together haphazardly.


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## Janx (Apr 3, 2009)

I assume that when somebody uses the term "realism" in regards to an RPG, they are referring to one of two aspects:

1) playing in a game where everything is internally consistent and rational.  The world works mostly just like ours, except there's magic, and all but medieval technology hasn't been invented yet.  Every thing makes sense (if the player had all the facts/barring mysteries).

2) they are talking about a game being treated gritty, and less heroic.  Where simulation rules for fatigue are applied, and a higher lethality from wounds.


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## Rechan (Apr 3, 2009)

SilvercatMoonpaw2 said:


> I can understand it if people just want to play in that kind of world, but I don't understand it when the tone is one of expectation that that's how things should _always_ work.



Simply put, for some people if it doesn't _work_ realistically, then it breaks their suspension of disbelief. 

The next question being, "Why would it be so important to that person's enjoyment?" To which the answer is, "Matter of that individual's taste."


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## Mallus (Apr 3, 2009)

billd91 said:


> Pretty much all tabletop RPGs, contrasted with computer RPGs, are different from actual reality _by exception_. In other words, we expect the games to obey normal physical laws except for places where the game changes them for the purposes of the game.



Very well said! Have some XP. 

Also... the same can be said about the worlds described in most fantasy fiction; they mostly obey the same laws as the real world, except for the places where they don't in order to allow for the genre's conventions.


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## Mallus (Apr 3, 2009)

Kask said:


> Well, within the game world there has to be consistency or the players cannot plan or even really know what is going on.



There has to be _some_ consistency. A pretty small amount, actually, or D&D never would have made it out of the illogical glory of the AD&D era.


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## roguerouge (Apr 3, 2009)

Many stories strive for internal consistency to permit greater suspension of disbelief, which allows for a pleasing sense of immersion from its audience. I agree that "realism" is a spectacularly poor word choice when describing a high fantasy world, when consistency and plausibility is what is actually meant.

Edit: in the example you cite, there's a different dynamic in play. Basically, the player seems to feel that the DM is altering the rules of the game arbitrarily, which makes all of the player's decision-making invalid and unfun for that player. If DnD is about choices and the DM's decisions make the world in which the player's choices invulnerable to player agency, then the player has a right to be upset. Games are defined by rules; theater need not be. The player signed up to play a game, not to be a DM's sock puppet. Unless the player was told ahead of time that the game would be like the one described, he's the victim of the DM's bad faith.


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## Rechan (Apr 3, 2009)

billd91 said:


> This is why people want some form of realism or verisimilitude. Some sense of it with respect to possible actions in the game is necessary. Some need for it is more subjective, particularly in the way realism helps with forming a mental and consistent picture of how the world works around the characters. Some players simply demand more of that than others, but all pretty much demand some. They expect things to fall down rather than up, they expect things with more mass to weigh more, and so on.



I think though that there's not any game out there where you fall up, not down, and larger things weigh less. 

The following consists of "Realism in RPGs as far I have seen discussed, so YMMV". 

I honestly think that most issues of "realism" stem from less realistic mechanics, as opposed to assumptions. How a fighter can kill 20 mooks/minions/whatnot without breaking a sweat.

The issue of "realism" as far as mechanics is concerned is... well, where's the line? Let's take, for instance, the flying carpet. How are you staying on? Shouldn't you have to roll to stay on, which increases in difficulty as your speed increases? How are you protecting yourself from wind chill? How about altitude? Or, getting hit by a Titan. If a giant hit you, it would be like having a tree dropped on you - you would be utterly destroyed because the giant is simply _so large_ that the power behind his swing, and the weight of his weapon, would just pulverize you. It would be like you kicking a frog in the face.

There is a system out there, I have been told, that is so very convoluted and complex, but _so very realistic_ that two men standing 10 feet apart, firing the same weapon at one another, can lead to one man taking next to no damage from a hit, and the other being killed, because the system takes into account so many different factors. But it takes just so long to compute, that it's unwieldy. 

The issue of realism crops up when someone says, "THere's no way this rule would work." For instance, Critical fumbles. A critical fumble happens on a natural 1. But, statistically, a 1 happens every 20 rolls. So, if you have 100 men fighting, 20% are going to lose their swords or hurt themselves because they rolled a 1.

Or, when you take a rule, and expand it in terms of a realistic world, the rule breaks down. For instance, the old "Wall of Iron". A wizard can cast Wall of Iron and create a _Wall of Iron_ that doesn't go away. He could then take that wall and melt it down and have a _whole lot of iron_. He could wreck the Iron economy just by casting a spell over and over. And, if you have more than one wizard, then...


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## Umbran (Apr 3, 2009)

SilvercatMoonpaw2 said:


> Why do you expect things to act like reality, or act consistently, when they aren't real?




Whether something acts like reality is _thoroughly_ separate for whether things act consistently.

Consistency is required for players to make decent decisions about character actions.  Inconsistency means players cannot plan intelligently.  I expect consistency unless the GM has specifically billed the world as being largely inconsistent.  

As for being realistic - this is the most easily grasped form or consistency, for one thing.  For another, it is a particular artistic style, and some folks like it.  When they game, they expect to see things they like - that is part of the point of playing, after all.

Consider fiction - while some of it is highly unrealistic, a great deal of it is realistic.  A lot of folks expect their non-genre fiction to be realistic and consistent, but he story's completely fake.  Same with RPGs.


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## Rechan (Apr 3, 2009)

Mallus said:


> they mostly obey the same laws as the real world, except for the places where they don't in order to allow for the genre's conventions.



Or world-specific differences.

Hollow worlds, worlds which are more like a cylinder, worlds which rest on the backs of four elephants...

For instance, Spelljammer took everything known about space, and took a very big eraser to it, before scribbling over it with stuff.


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## Kraydak (Apr 3, 2009)

There are a few reasons to call for "realism":

a) Touchstones.  If a game has "humans", then they should act human.  If a game has elves, they don't need to act like humans.  Even then however, it helps to have humans that act human even if you want to focus on the elves, because it provides (part of) a framework, and it helps if elves are thriving, they don't act as if they have a racial death-wish.

b) Taking (a) further: Player-game world interaction.  Players are very disconnected from the game world, and experience it only from the DM's descriptions, which are never universal, often mispoken and frequently either mis or un-heard.  Having the game-world function in a genre-limited-realistic manner (and having the players knowing the genre) is immensely valuable: if the players have no idea how the world will react to their actions, they will be reduced to pixel-hunting.

c) Taking (b) further yet: Simulationism.  A DM's time and descriptive capacity are both extremely limited.  Two people can easily and legitimately disagree on how easy or likely a given situation is.  It helps if the players can fill in the gaps and rules are provided that remove the 2-people 2-opinions problem.  If crunch and fluff match, this is relatively easy.  If they mismatch, it becomes hard or impossible.


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## avin (Apr 3, 2009)

Umbran said:


> Consistency is required for players to make decent decisions about character actions.  Inconsistency means players cannot plan intelligently.




I agree with that.

Sometimes things sound like they don't make sense, even for a fantasy game, and that's usually painful to players when the only explanation is "magic explains!".

I like games where I can interact better with scenary (GURPS compared to D&D, for example) with some consistency. Where jumping from a building means death, not X damage. That doesn't mean D&D or any other system is wrong, they just fill the sense of consistency in different levels for different people.


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## Cadfan (Apr 3, 2009)

I generally assume that calls for realism in RPGs are covers for other, underlying sources of dissatisfaction.  Usually a dislike of change.  We tend to internalize the abstractions that are part of games we like, while not understanding how those abstractions might appear to an outsider.  Then, when we play a game we don't like, we take on the role of the outsider and are highly critical.


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## Daniel D. Fox (Apr 3, 2009)

Plausibility, maturity and consistency are much better terms used to describe what some gamers deem as "realistic" games.


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## Imban (Apr 3, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> I generally assume that calls for realism in RPGs are covers for other, underlying sources of dissatisfaction.  Usually a dislike of change.




Trying to psychoanalyze your opponents in a debate rarely results in anything except anger and hurt feelings.



> We tend to internalize the abstractions that are part of games we like, while not understanding how those abstractions might appear to an outsider.  Then, when we play a game we don't like, we take on the role of the outsider and are highly critical.




Because alternatively, we tend to like games that we like the abstractions involved in. You're here insisting that everyone in history who's said they hate hit point systems actually doesn't like them for the stated reason, but because of some gameplay reason that they either cannot state or refuse to.


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## Irda Ranger (Apr 3, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> I generally assume that calls for realism in RPGs are covers for other, underlying sources of dissatisfaction.



I don't think that's a safe assumption. It may be true in some cases, but I think most posters here are self-aware enough to know what they really want.

....

As for the OP, I will just second the above posters that there are two common uses of the word "realism",

1. Absent A Rule, Reality. Players expect that the D&D world will work like the real world unless there's a rule that says otherwise. So, lacking a rule on gravity, we assume that D&D gravity (on the world's surface) accelerates at 9.80665 m/s2. That's "realistic." 

2. Once a Rule, Logic Follows. Players expect that the rules (both the written rules and the unwritten "realistic" rules that flow from "Absent a Rule, Reality" and also the "social rules" of a given game world) follow logically from one another. If it's logically required that "If _A_, Then _B_", it's realistic to expect _B_ once _A_ has been established. 

By example, Spelljammer changed a lot of the rules of standard D&D, resetting what's "realistic", but once it's established that air pockets can become stale the PCs can would be within their rights to say that it's not "realistic" to build a Spelljammer ship with an open-flame galley but no way of refreshing the atmosphere - "_I mean, who would do that? It doesn't make sense!_". (Maybe not the best example, but I'm sure you get my point. There's no rule in the book forbidding open-flame galleys, but it would be stupid to use one on a ship built for long space voyages.)


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## Jack7 (Apr 3, 2009)

_*That reminds me of an old story:*_

When a thing seems real it will work, even if it won't.

When a thing seems unreal it will provoke doubt, even if it isn't.

When a person feels he is being duped then he is naturally suspicious, even if there ain't no real reason.

When a person feels everything is square then he will be trusting all around, even if nothing really is.

The fantasy to most folks is for things to be real when they ain't, but that's okay most of the time, cause that's the way it is supposed to be anyways. The reality though is that when things aren't as they should be, then nothing seems real, cause you've already noticed.

Now some folks are fine with one degree of one thing, and some with one degree of another.
But sooner or later it's all seen for what was intended.

Unless, of course, you just ain't really trying at not being truthful.
Or is it the other way around?

And that's about all I got to say about that...


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## Silvercat Moonpaw (Apr 3, 2009)

Okay, thanks for the responses so far.  They help, in a way.


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## Cadfan (Apr 3, 2009)

Irda Ranger said:


> I don't think that's a safe assumption. It may be true in some cases, but I think most posters here are self-aware enough to know what they really want.



I dunno.  I've read enough posts in which people complain about some perceived flaw in realism while lauding another wacky system to have some skepticism on this front.  Healing all damage overnight versus healing all damage in three days bed rest?  Spells as an almost tangible *thing* inside your brain versus spells as descriptions of magical effects you can create?  These all have their partisans who insist that the other is unrealistic.  To an outsider, I doubt there's a difference.

I think that the general assumption that your opponent knows what he wants and says what he means is one of politeness, not reality.  Ditto the rule that I can say this about people in general, but never about any specific person.


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## Mallus (Apr 3, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> I dunno.  I've read enough posts in which people complain about some perceived flaw in realism while lauding another wacky system to have some skepticism on this front.



I think this is indicative of people mistaking genre (and game) conventions for realism (not that they're unsure of what they actually want).


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## Mournblade94 (Apr 3, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> I generally assume that calls for realism in RPGs are covers for other, underlying sources of dissatisfaction. Usually a dislike of change. We tend to internalize the abstractions that are part of games we like, while not understanding how those abstractions might appear to an outsider. Then, when we play a game we don't like, we take on the role of the outsider and are highly critical.




I personally like consistency.  I demand realism and versimilitude so that a context exists, not because I have some nebulous problem with a game system.  

I am self aware enough to know what my problems are with a system, and a complaint of no realism is just that... a complaint of no realism.


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## billd91 (Apr 3, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> I dunno.  I've read enough posts in which people complain about some perceived flaw in realism while lauding another wacky system to have some skepticism on this front.  Healing all damage overnight versus healing all damage in three days bed rest?  Spells as an almost tangible *thing* inside your brain versus spells as descriptions of magical effects you can create?  These all have their partisans who insist that the other is unrealistic.  To an outsider, I doubt there's a difference.
> 
> I think that the general assumption that your opponent knows what he wants and says what he means is one of politeness, not reality.  Ditto the rule that I can say this about people in general, but never about any specific person.




It seems to me that you're ignoring whether or not someone might disagree with the degree of departure from reality. When it comes to the exceptions the rules introduce from reality, there may well be a threshold of departure in which a player can no longer accept the rule. In the case of recovering overnight vs 3 days, one is clearly closer to reality (even if not much). But if the downstream effects on the pacing of the game those 3 days require compared to overnight is more agreeable (you do have to pull up stakes out of the dungeon and all that implies, for example, rather than just catch 6 hours of rest), then it's fair to consider the overnight healing as *too* unrealistic.


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## Wombat (Apr 3, 2009)

I think, as can be seen from the responses here, that "realism" is defined differently by different people.

There is, for example, "rules realism".  This seems to be generally based on the notion that rules follow from each other -- if A1 is possible then A2 should be possible.  This is something that i tend to look for in games quite a bit.  Ultimately this falls under the purview of the rules designers.  They are under an obligation to take such consistencies into account.  

There is also "world realism" which is a very confused notion.  A large part of the problem with this concept is essentially the reversal of my core axiom: match the rules to the world rather than the world to the rules.  If there is a disconnect between what is perceived as "possible in the setting" and "possible under the rules set" many people get annoyed.  This is particularly important with already established settings and places.  

Take these two examples.  One poster earlier mentioned _Toon_, a wonderful game.  In Toon you would expect, given the world-rules, that if a character runs off a cliff, that character may continue running ... until the character looks down; at this point the character looks chagrined/worried and then plummets downwards towards pain, perhaps giving a little wave along the way.  In _Ars Magica_, another wonderful game, there are assumptions about 13th century Europe and the social mores of the time -- peasants have no influence, dukes may raise vast armies, religion is vastly important, there are no gunpowder weapons, etc.  If a peasant spits on a bishop, the peasant will be, at a minimum, severely roughed up and probably killed.  These are two rather different takes on "world realities".

Another take on "world realism" is a level of consistency.  I A begets B one time, but A begets aardarks another, people get to get worried.  This becomes important in an otherwise unknown fantasy or science fiction setting, one where fewer of the "ground rules" are known.  If, for example, giving a _nah_-flower to a priest of Floogey grants a peasant the ability to fly, that should always be the case.  If the next time a peasant hands a _nah_-flower to a priest of Floogey the peasant is torn limb from limb, there needs to be a reason for this - perhaps the third moon is in the wrong phase or suchlike.  If a spaceship can travel at faster-then-light speeds with a single pilot in one instance, then this should always be true for that ship; if there is an alteration to this situation, again there needs to be an explanation.  

Much of the "world realism" falls on the shoulders of the GM -- this mighty individual may seem to have a lot of power, but also a horde of strange responsibilities.

A few people use "realism" to mean "I didn't get what I want"; in this case the problem is between the player and the group as a whole and there is no pat answer.

Again, "realism" is a variable term.


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## Filcher (Apr 3, 2009)

I believe we are mistaking "realism" for "suspension of disbelief."

We don't want realism. We want flying dragons that can breath fire.

We do want our disbelief of flying dragons than can breath fire, suspended.


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## billd91 (Apr 3, 2009)

Filcher said:


> I believe we are mistaking "realism" for "suspension of disbelief."
> 
> We don't want realism. We want flying dragons that can breath fire.
> 
> We do want our disbelief of flying dragons than can breath fire, suspended.




But we also want it to behave with some semblance of realism or have its effect on the environment reflected realistically. It moves through the air like a large winged creature, it needs accessways large enough in its lair, its breath can light things on fire, etc. 
The elements of the dragon's presence that conform to our understanding of reality (or at least fit in with them) help in the suspension of disbelief.


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## Galloglaich (Apr 3, 2009)

"Realism" is one of those lightning rod terms which cause very angry debates in the RPG world. This is because it's broad enough and subjective enough that it can be percieved in different ways, it's important to many if not most RPGs (depending on how you define it of course ), and due to these two reasons alone, people willfully misinterpret what is meant by the term (as so often happens in any discussion of gaming theory) and discussions of the concept consist of people talking past each other.

Another major problem with realism is that many more or less sincere interpretations of "realistic" games in the early days of RPGs went off on rather odd, and notoriously unsuccessful tangents, which were subsequently internalized by many gamers as the meaning of realism (i.e. complexity). So as a result it has a really bad name in role playing gaming, people think realism in combat rules means things like fatigue points or hit locations, and that realism in terms of a setting means something from Monty Python's Holy Grail.

Realism is important in gaming for the reasons a lot of people cited here upthread, in practical terms it essentially means internal consistency which contributes to verisimilitude, immersion, and other things quite a few gamers really like (though many hate the term). And contributes to non-gamers being able to get into RPGs without too much investment in learning entirely new ways of thinking. 

But it is usually conflated for detail or complexity, due to games like Rolemaster or even GURPS. Somehow we lost the concept from wargames that a realistic game can also be abstract and simple. As a result, the explicit rejection of realism by many game designers including Gary Gygax, leaving AD&D a wierd amalgum of fairly well researched (but flawed) medieval background with high fantasy, low fantasy, and comic book themes.

In 3.5 we had the mixed blessing of returning to an idea of balance, but by then the 'realistic' basis was so far astray that a largely artificial system was created which was highly complex while having very little relation to reality. This actually makes it harder for non gamers to get into it, since the shared reality of real people is useless, instead you have to speak the made up "klingon" language of this entirely artificial world. I think this contributed to shrinking the RPG demographic even more than it was, which in turn increased the 'drift' of basing game world physics (in things like combat rules or historical settings) further into "klingon" land, alienating non gamers from the genre still further. Which I think some gamers actually really like. Now we have the further complication that some of the strange ideas of early RPGs have been successfully introduced to a much wider audience by MMORPG's, and we are now seeing a second retrenching of these themes.

But one of the biggest problems with rejecting realism utterly is that you do lose this common ground, and unless you have already bought into the strange ideas of RPG gaming (like the notion that a 10" knife is essentially a nuisance weapon, or falling off a cliff sort of tickles) then many of the fundamental notions of the game strike newcomers as absurd, and are a turn-off. (assuming they aren't already MMORPG gamers of course!)

Another major problem which we saw in 3.5 was that trying to make logical sense (or 'balance') of a fundamentally unrealistic system causes the same kind of complexity creep that the early misguided attempts to apply "realism" did. 






Historically, things like weapons and armor, fighting styles and techniques balanced each other out in a rather elegant way. Trying to reinvent that from scratch leaves you down a road paved with with double bladed swords and spiked chains that eventually leads you into a level of geekdom most people find a little off-putting.

Of course dragons and flying carpets are unrealistic, but they exist in fairy tales, films, and novels which are a lot more broadly popular than RPG's are. It is the underlying fabric of interneal consistency which makes them stand out and seem magical in literature. In RPG's, if everything is magical, nothing is. Conversely, making the underlying reality convincing can really make the strange and magical seem _strange _and_ magic_, such as in such widely popular games as Call of Cthulhu.

Genre based games like TOON, or Paranoia, or SpellJammer are perfectly sound, even "realistic" in their own way, since they are internally consistent and match expectations people in the broader culture (everyone who watched a cartoon, say) can predict at least to some extent. Much of the mush-mash of particularly fantasy RPGs suffers from a distinct lack of grounding in realism, and the urge to just throw it out the window entirely won't solve these problems.

Realism is just a tool, a means toward the end of having a fun game. Some games may not require it at all, but you shouldn't make "unrealistic" assumptions about what it actually _is_ and throw the baby out with the bathwater as a result  

G.


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## Silvercat Moonpaw (Apr 3, 2009)

Filcher said:


> I believe we are mistaking "realism" for "suspension of disbelief."
> 
> We don't want realism. We want flying dragons that can breath fire.
> 
> We do want our disbelief of flying dragons than can breath fire, suspended.



Which is an interesting thing because I find that my disbelief is suspended by the very existence of anything made to be realistic. 

Really, I find that any attempt to build something in a game (such as a setting/world), especially if it's called out as being done that way, in a "realistic"/"versimilitudinous"/"internally consistent" way to be very jarring.  It sits there and proclaims that everything around it isn't real.


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## Fallen Seraph (Apr 3, 2009)

I think one aspect that needs to be addressed especially when it concerns mechanics is simply; *"do you view mechanics as a in-game property."* In which I mean, when a mechanic says "resting overnight causes 100 HP", do you view that as meaning in-world this is what happens. Or do you view it simply as a gameplay element and that in-world something different is occurring, ie; "they are still injured but able to perform as they would normally."

This I think can play a strong role in one's Suspension of Disbelief. Do they view the rules as a element of the actual game-world, or simply a means to interact with this game world. Myself I view it as simply a way to interact and thus I think my ability to Suspend Disbelief is probably somewhat higher then others.


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## Janx (Apr 3, 2009)

billd91 said:


> But we also want it to behave with some semblance of realism or have its effect on the environment reflected realistically. It moves through the air like a large winged creature, it needs accessways large enough in its lair, its breath can light things on fire, etc.
> The elements of the dragon's presence that conform to our understanding of reality (or at least fit in with them) help in the suspension of disbelief.




bingo!  We don't have to justify how a dragon exists.  The player can accept that (suspension of disbelief).  The player should not accept that 20' wide dragons can squeeze through 3' doors.  That's not realistic.

If we open the door of unrealistic, we end up playing in a cartoon universe where the kings lives in a burrito hammock smoking albatrosses.  It makes no sense.  It is unimaginable (well at least not consistently).  A non-reality is one in which quite literally, anything can happen.  There is no cause and effect.  Things can go from being, to non-being, to being something else willy-nilly, and do not make sense in doing so.  It's like playing in a world where the characters randomly appear in different squares each round, regardless of their action.  And they randomly transform from thing to thing (one minute you're a toaster, the next, you're a human fighter, the next every one is salmon, swimming in tomato soup).

This is the extreme interpretation of "non-realism".  Picaso.

Realism is to take the fantasy, and fit it into our known and shared conception of reality.  It is, as others have said, to take how things work in our world, and change only a few elements.  

That sets every player's expectation.  We know how our world works.  If you tell me, we're playing in a world, much like our own, set in medieval times, I know what you're talking about.  I take our own knowledge of medieval times, and I apply that to your game.  When you tell me, "and there's orcs, elves, and magic." I start fitting them in.  

That's a whole lot easier than telling me we're playing in a world where nothing is like the real world, and you mean it.

You could call this interpretation, the Macro Realism View.  It applies to the game world in general.  I suspect most people work this way, and that "realism" arguments are really about this.

Seperate from that is the Micro Realism View.  It would cover how the game approaches realism to individual aspects, like combat, movement, eating/sleeping/fatigue, falling damage, drowning, etc.  For the most part, we all know there's a trade-off in how closely real-life activities are simulated in a game.  Usually it's a matter of game balance, fun, and speed.

If somebody's complaining about "realism" in relation to Micro, it's usually a matter of it wasn't realistic enough (usually in that the player didn't like the result), or it was too realistic (usually in that the player didn't like the result).


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## Barastrondo (Apr 3, 2009)

SilvercatMoonpaw2 said:


> Which is an interesting thing because I find that my disbelief is suspended by the very existence of anything made to be realistic.
> 
> Really, I find that any attempt to build something in a game (such as a setting/world), especially if it's called out as being done that way, in a "realistic"/"versimilitudinous"/"internally consistent" way to be very jarring.  It sits there and proclaims that everything around it isn't real.




But delicious meat pies and ale are realistic. How cruel to demand a fantasy world without them!


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## Galloglaich (Apr 3, 2009)

Janx said:


> bingo! We don't have to justify how a dragon exists. The player can accept that (suspension of disbelief). The player should not accept that 20' wide dragons can squeeze through 3' doors. That's not realistic.
> 
> If we open the door of unrealistic, we end up playing in a cartoon universe where the kings lives in a burrito hammock smoking albatrosses. It makes no sense. It is unimaginable (well at least not consistently). A non-reality is one in which quite literally, anything can happen. There is no cause and effect. Things can go from being, to non-being, to being something else willy-nilly, and do not make sense in doing so. It's like playing in a world where the characters randomly appear in different squares each round, regardless of their action. And they randomly transform from thing to thing (one minute you're a toaster, the next, you're a human fighter, the next every one is salmon, swimming in tomato soup).
> 
> ...




Really good points.  One issue with the Micro realism is that people always assume a particular level of abstraction 

I think another reason people tend to reject "Macro" realistic settings is due to a really distorted, simplified view of history, and the conflation in some cases of their own limted reality with the actual reality of the world.  In other words they think Medieval Europe (the most common assumed genre for FRPGs like DnD) is a simplistic wasteland similar to a Renaissance Faire except 90% of the people are peasants with Leprosy, and that ordinary people are nearly all weak and ineffectual compared to say, Wolverine or Conan.

Which is why I created this thread about what I called the "Dilbert in the Dungeon" syndrome.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/242110-history-mythology-art-rpgs.html

G.


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## Lonely Tylenol (Apr 3, 2009)

roguerouge said:


> Many stories strive for internal consistency to permit greater suspension of disbelief, which allows for a pleasing sense of immersion from its audience. I agree that "realism" is a spectacularly poor word choice when describing a high fantasy world, when consistency and plausibility is what is actually meant.
> 
> Edit: in the example you cite, there's a different dynamic in play. Basically, the player seems to feel that the DM is altering the rules of the game arbitrarily, which makes all of the player's decision-making invalid and unfun for that player. If DnD is about choices and the DM's decisions make the world in which the player's choices invulnerable to player agency, then the player has a right to be upset. Games are defined by rules; theater need not be. The player signed up to play a game, not to be a DM's sock puppet. Unless the player was told ahead of time that the game would be like the one described, he's the victim of the DM's bad faith.



I agree.  In the example given, the player was not complaining about the realism of fighting in a room full of lava (although I think he thought he was).  He was actually complaining about a bad DM who arbitrarily said "no" to his suggestions, in order to railroad the player through some predetermined chain of events.  The player then associated the lava with the bad DMing and came out against the former by presenting the latter.

Had that been a fun-filled encounter in which his character was able to do a bunch of awesome stuff and risk his life to accomplish his goals in a fair and compelling manner, I'm sure he'd be singing a different tune with respect to the believability of a lava-proximate encounter.


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## Galloglaich (Apr 3, 2009)

Lonely Tylenol said:


> Had that been a fun-filled encounter in which his character was able to do a bunch of awesome stuff and risk his life to accomplish his goals in a fair and compelling manner, I'm sure he'd be singing a different tune with respect to the believability of a lava-proximate encounter.





The problem is, if you see lava, and it behaves in a manner differently than you expect, i.e. more like lukewarm marmelade (it doesn't burn you unless you touch it.. you can relatively safely crawl over it etc.) and everything else in the room does as well, you really don't know where to stand (not on the cannons apparently) because your normal assumptions of how the physics works, how the room is shaped, how cannons and walls work etc. are all useless.

Now to me what you are arguing is basically that if you really trust the DM, you have a good rapport, maybe you can riff off of each other and have a fun time in an essentially nonsensical world.  Which is certainly a valid way to play. 



But if you are a new player coming into a game, you are likely to be confused by this. "There is lava pouring into the room? I run away. I can't run away? I guess I'm dead, right?" The assumption that lava works in this particular nonsensical way is quite an intuitive leap to make unless you do have that close rapport with your DM already and are used to making things up on the fly together (or you just happen to know their gaming style real well) or are a really hard core gamer long used to playing this particular sort of game (I've played RPGs for 20 years and I never played a game where lava worked like that)


I think gamers tend to assume that notions they have in their head essentially from say, memorizing several entire rule books, playing for years with certain friends or spending tens of thousands of hours playing fantasy computer games, are universal, when in fact they are anything but.


These are the only ways you could really predict the "reality" you get in a lot of contemporary RPGs, which as I said before, tends to enforce the demographic isolation of gamers, which a lot of gamers complain about but I expect quite a few have grown very comfortable with.

Not everybody understands even a little bit of real world physics let alone history but the fact that it shapes and touches our entire lives, means that it does tend to match our expectations, and sometimes even our education. Unless you have a specific reason to deviate from it (to highlight drama say), I don't personally understand the point of the general drift away from realism into some really wierd types of cartoon worlds we see increasingly in RPGs, unless you are intentionally trying to isolate the game and make it unnecessarily complicated and baroque.

G.


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## Nai_Calus (Apr 3, 2009)

Lonely Tylenol said:


> I agree.  In the example given, the player was not complaining about the realism of fighting in a room full of lava (although I think he thought he was).  He was actually complaining about a bad DM who arbitrarily said "no" to his suggestions, in order to railroad the player through some predetermined chain of events.  The player then associated the lava with the bad DMing and came out against the former by presenting the latter.
> 
> Had that been a fun-filled encounter in which his character was able to do a bunch of awesome stuff and risk his life to accomplish his goals in a fair and compelling manner, I'm sure he'd be singing a different tune with respect to the believability of a lava-proximate encounter.




Nope, not even remotely.  As I mentioned in the other thread, I can't watch volcano movies either for this very reason. Wouldn't have mattered if it had been a puzzle full of 'Yes, go ahead, you *can* do that, good eye spotting that'. The lava still would have bothered the hell out of me. (Nor was it the last appearance of lava. Later 'challenges' involving lava had it coming within inches of us. Again, no effect. Again, me facepalming.)

It's a pet peeve of mine, a longstanding one I've had for many, many years since before I even knew what D&D was. Same thing with earthquake movies and really any natural disaster movie. I'm sitting there trying not to scream at the screen that that isn't how it frakking works, dang it.

Stuff like that I tend to see mostly as an insult to the intelligence of both myself and the other players. Doesn't matter how well-done the puzzle is. If it's magic non-hot lava, I'm automatically taken out of it. 

Even with the shutting down and 'no you can't do that', I would have liked that puzzle if it had just been *water* instead of lava. One simple change, and it's a logically consistent puzzle that is believeable as something that has been used before and will be again, is still perfectly dangerous and potentially deadly, and doesn't leave me going 'what no not the damned lava thing from movies it doesn't work that way'. I was annoyed with that puzzle before it started, heh.

But then I'm That Guy who gets annoyed when space battles have sound effects.


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## pawsplay (Apr 3, 2009)

SilvercatMoonpaw2 said:


> Why do you expect things to act like reality, or act consistently, when they aren't real?




Because utter nonsense is pointless and boring.


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## Lonely Tylenol (Apr 3, 2009)

Nai_Calus said:


> Nope, not even remotely.




Fair enough.  Have you seen the 4E lava rules?


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## Scribble (Apr 3, 2009)

Galloglaich said:


> Not everybody understands even a little bit of real world physics let alone history but the fact that it shapes and touches our entire lives, means that it does tend to match our expectations, and sometimes even our education. Unless you have a specific reason to deviate from it (to highlight drama say), I don't personally understand the point of the general drift away from realism into some really wierd types of cartoon worlds we see increasingly in RPGs, unless you are intentionally trying to isolate the game and make it unnecessarily complicated and baroque..




Because the non rationality of it is the part we find fun? It's only "unnecessarily complicated and baraoque" when you insist on trying to put it into some sort of rational assumption.  It's just a different way of looking at things.

It's like a magic trick. When I see the trick, it's cool because of the fact that it seems to break the assumptions I have about the world around me.  When I learn how to do the trick, it's still cool, but in a different way. (Now I can use it to break other people's assumptions about the world around them.)


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## Asmor (Apr 3, 2009)

Realism and verisimilitude are two completely different things.

You can make things unrealistic and maintain verisimilitude. When you break verisimilitude is when things get silly.

For example, in the golden age of comics, Superman might have been seen holding an entire building above his head. It's perfectly fine to assume that Superman had the strength to hold that much weight, but it's silly to think that the building would remain structurally intact when in essence all of its weight is being compressed down in two teeny, tiny points (Superman's hands). Superman's arm would simply punch through the building, not hold it up.


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## Ed_Laprade (Apr 3, 2009)

SilvercatMoonpaw2 said:


> Forked from: DMs: what have you learned from PLAYING that has made you a better DM?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I've only read the first post after this, and that answered the question. But I'm going to add my two pence anyway, to make it even simpler. 

Its because my character *lives there*. So unless I've been told, at the start of the game, that something doesn't work the way it does in our world, you bet your @$$ that's how I'm going to expect it to work.


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## RefinedBean (Apr 3, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Because utter nonsense is pointless and boring.




That's why we houserule anything related to dragons out of our D&D games.

C'mon now.  Pretty much anything magical is utter nonsense to someone.


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## Scribble (Apr 3, 2009)

Asmor said:


> For example, in the golden age of comics, Superman might have been seen holding an entire building above his head. It's perfectly fine to assume that Superman had the strength to hold that much weight, but it's silly to think that the building would remain structurally intact when in essence all of its weight is being compressed down in two teeny, tiny points (Superman's hands). Superman's arm would simply punch through the building, not hold it up.




What good is Superman's ability to hold up a building if someone is going to enforce physics on him? Rationality is the enemy of circus peanuts.


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## Silvercat Moonpaw (Apr 3, 2009)

Nai_Calus said:


> But then I'm That Guy who gets annoyed when space battles have sound effects.



Well okay, at this point while I can't agree with you I at least can understand by comparason.  I have the same problem with all forms of "mind power".

I must say, though, that I find myself the opposite of one thing you said: I feel insulted when someone decides that they're going to invoke realism over cinematics.  I feel insulted that someone thought I either needed or wanted to see another boring piece of mundanity, and insulted that they didn't trust my imagination to suspend my knowledge of the real world to accept something that's satisfying image-wise.


Asmor said:


> For example, in the golden age of comics, Superman might have been seen holding an entire building above his head. It's perfectly fine to assume that Superman had the strength to hold that much weight, but it's silly to think that the building would remain structurally intact when in essence all of its weight is being compressed down in two teeny, tiny points (Superman's hands). Superman's arm would simply punch through the building, not hold it up.



So what?  Why's it matter?  You know it's not real.


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## Galloglaich (Apr 3, 2009)

Asmor said:


> Realism and verisimilitude are two completely different things.
> 
> You can make things unrealistic and maintain verisimilitude. When you break verisimilitude is when things get silly.
> 
> For example, in the golden age of comics, Superman might have been seen holding an entire building above his head. It's perfectly fine to assume that Superman had the strength to hold that much weight, but it's silly to think that the building would remain structurally intact when in essence all of its weight is being compressed down in two teeny, tiny points (Superman's hands). Superman's arm would simply punch through the building, not hold it up.




The difference between realism and versimilitude vis a vis gaming is that internal consistency within a genre is all you need as long as you are familiar with that genre. Like say, Toon if you have ever seen a Buggs Bunny cartoon in your life, which most people have.

Realism is the expectation of verisimilitude when you aren't already within a clearly defined Genre (Superhero, Star Wars, Vampires, Steampunk, Cthulhu, etc. etc.)

I think the problem a lot of people have with most FRPGs is that the presumed fantasy genre baseline can range from the fairly realistic low-fantasy world many people know from early fantasy novels, (the Conan books, Jack Vances Dying Earth, Fafhred and Grey Mouser) to the rather zany worlds of World of Warcraft, anime, or the throw-away Sci Fi channel movie of the week (Gargoyles vs. the SS or whatever).

In the former case you can bring your own expectations of everymans knowledge of the real world and history into, with the expectation that there will be a few fantasy elements (dragons, magic spells, potions whatever) but by and large the world is one you can expect to find your way around in. In the latter case, who knows whats going on.


Still worse, often, rather than being consistently in one zone or another, many FRPGs are a rather ill-defined and often confusing mish-mash of realistic and cartoonish elements. 

G.


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## Galloglaich (Apr 3, 2009)

Scribble said:


> Because the non rationality of it is the part we find fun? It's only "unnecessarily complicated and baraoque" when you insist on trying to put it into some sort of rational assumption. It's just a different way of looking at things.
> 
> It's like a magic trick. When I see the trick, it's cool because of the fact that it seems to break the assumptions I have about the world around me. When I learn how to do the trick, it's still cool, but in a different way. (Now I can use it to break other people's assumptions about the world around them.)




This almost seems like a classic example of talking past each other in these kinds of discussions.  I don't recall anyone advocating realism in this thread who seriously suggested playing FRPG in an entirely mundane world - a world with no magic tricks.

In fact, the idea we have been discussing of introducing Magic elements into an otherwise realistic world is exactly like seeing a good Magic trick.  

The flipside strikes me as more like drifting into an entirely magical world, through the looking glass as it were, which is fine if it has an internal logical all it's own, like the world of Alice in Wonderland or Peter Pan, or The Wizard of Oz.  If you have a game going that is truly magical in this sense, my hat is off to you.


The problem is precious few game designers and DM's rise up to the level of a Lewis Caroll, and you end up playing in a game that is more like a bad episode of Thundar the Barbarian...

G.


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## Galloglaich (Apr 3, 2009)

SilvercatMoonpaw2 said:


> I must say, though, that I find myself the opposite of one thing you said: I feel insulted when someone decides that they're going to invoke realism over cinematics.




Why does cinematics and realism have to be mutually exclusive?  Was The Thing realistic?  Was Alien?  Aliens?  Blade Runner?



> I feel insulted that someone thought I either needed or wanted to see another boring piece of mundanity, and insulted that they didn't trust my imagination to suspend my knowledge of the real world to accept something that's satisfying image-wise.




I'm a little exasperated by the idea that reality is boring or mundane...  

When playing an RPG, if it's meant to be a relatively serious game (a rather big iF) I feel insulted if I'm expected to play in a crude sophomoric mish mash that doesn't make even the least bit of sense, for the same reason I wouldn't go to a movie theater and pay to watch the latest made for Sci Fi Channel masterpiece "Mansquito" or whatever.  

If you are a Dali, paint me a surreal landscape I'll be glad to play in it, but I'm a grown man, I don't waste my time with juvenile pablum.  I personally don't think RPG's need to be dumbed down, I don't play with action figures or hot wheels cars, I can go to the gym and spar with somebody for real if I want to fight and I have a real car.  And there is nothing boring or mundane about my life.

G.


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## Lanefan (Apr 3, 2009)

Some semblance of realism-mirroring is necessary (in, as others have mentioned, a non-genre system) if only so as not to have to design one's game-world physics, chemistry, and biology from the Big Bang on down in order to explain how things work as they do.  So, we assume basics such as gravity; moons orbiting planets orbiting stars etc.; that solids and liquids and gases generally behave as they do in reality; that water freezes at 0 (32) and boils at 100 (212); that life exists, functions, and reproduces much as in reality; and so on.

Then, we overlay whatever amount of non-reality required to achieve the game we're looking to play: living gods; magic as a 5th force of physics that can be manipulated by some lifeforms and in rare instances can manipulate itself; non-invention of gunpowder or any other industrial-revolution stuff; fantastic lifeforms; the alternate planes and how they affect the game world, etc.

The questions (and for some, problems) arise when we try to explain the non-real overlays in terms relating to reality, as I do with magic above.  Should we bother?  I say yes, as far as possible, as it adds to internal consistency and by extension to "believability"; here defined as "a situation where things make enough sense to the players in and out of character such that they do not find themselves asking on a meta-game level how and why something works the way it does".

Lan-"nothing's really real"-efan


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## Scribble (Apr 3, 2009)

Galloglaich said:


> This almost seems like a classic example of talking past each other in these kinds of discussions.  I don't recall anyone advocating realism in this thread who seriously suggested playing FRPG in an entirely mundane world - a world with no magic tricks.




Well talking past eachother may be the case because that's not at all what I was saying. 

My statement (maybe I said it poorly) was that people have different ways of looking at a situation. I think it's a right brain vrs left brain thing.

Some people want things (even fantastic things) to have a rationality to them. They want the rules of the world, and they want the rules to be consistant. If there are no rules, or they don't know the rules they're uncomfortable, and will even make "standard"  rules for use going forward.

Some people don't want (or care) things to have that rationality. The fantastic does fantastic stuff, and it doesn't matter if the fantastic stuff has a logical explaination. It's just cool, so it exists. These people don't care if they know the rules so much, and tend to change the rules to match their ideal anyway.


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## Leatherhead (Apr 3, 2009)

Without realistic things to contrast with, the fantastic becomes meaningless.

Also, because there seems to be more than one argument here: What is the point of having rules if everything seems to ignore them? In most works of fiction, even magic has rules. Excessive handwaving gets a little frustrating.


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## Silvercat Moonpaw (Apr 3, 2009)

Galloglaich said:


> Why does cinematics and realism have to be mutually exclusive?  Was The Thing realistic?  Was Alien?  Aliens?  Blade Runner?



Yeah, they were.  And so they were boring to me.

I'm not sure if cinematics and realism have to be mutually exclusive, but I think if you try to use them both there's very little to work with.


Galloglaich said:


> I'm a little exasperated by the idea that reality is boring or mundane...



Compared to what fantastic things exist in the non-real world the stuff I go through every do isn't worth thinking about.


Galloglaich said:


> I personally don't think RPG's need to be dumbed down, I don't play with action figures or hot wheels cars, I can go to the gym and spar with somebody for real if I want to fight and I have a real car.  And there is nothing boring or mundane about my life.



I don't think it should be dumbed-down either.  But I view realism as dumbing it down because I _know_ reality.  I want something that I _don't_ know, which in something speculative.


Leatherhead said:


> Without realistic things to contrast with, the fantastic becomes meaningless.



Isn't this what real life provides?


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## Leatherhead (Apr 3, 2009)

SilvercatMoonpaw2 said:


> Isn't this what real life provides?




Which is why people inject parts of real life into their games, even when the game has fantasy elements.


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## pawsplay (Apr 3, 2009)

RefinedBean said:


> That's why we houserule anything related to dragons out of our D&D games.
> 
> C'mon now.  Pretty much anything magical is utter nonsense to someone.




If I say, "dragon," you picture something in your head. Therefore, dragons are not utter nonsense.


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## Fanaelialae (Apr 3, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> If I say, "dragon," you picture something in your head. Therefore, dragons are not utter nonsense.




If you know anything about physics, you're aware that a two ton lizard that can fly is absurd.  Sure, you can say "it's magic", but I've never seen anti-magic/ dispel magic drop a dragon out of the sky.

Fantasy bends real world laws all the time.  I admit that there comes a point where it can go too far and enter the "realm of the absurd", but in general I think it's okay if fantasy _bends_ the rules from time to time.  It's _fantasy_, not real world + magic.


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## pawsplay (Apr 4, 2009)

Fanaelialae said:


> If you know anything about physics, you're aware that a two ton lizard that can fly is absurd.  Sure, you can say "it's magic", but I've never seen anti-magic/ dispel magic drop a dragon out of the sky.
> 
> Fantasy bends real world laws all the time.  I admit that there comes a point where it can go too far and enter the "realm of the absurd", but in general I think it's okay if fantasy _bends_ the rules from time to time.  It's _fantasy_, not real world + magic.




Imagine a halfling is capable, in game mechanical terms, of tackling an ancient red dragon to the ground. In some game worlds, this is perfectly acceptable. In others, this is surreal to the extreme. Reality, in the game world, is whether this is an acceptable event. 

As for dragons themselves... they may be physically impossible, but magic is a sufficient explanation. Anti-magic and dispel magic, by the way, will not case a golem to turn into a pile clay, will not work on any artifact, and will not cause a beholder to fall. In fact, anti-magic will not, naturally enough, cause itself to fail. Casting such a a spell does not mean "the rules of magic no longer apply," it just means, "certain magical effects in this area are suppressed." It's anti-magic zone, not "zone of things acting like the real world."

Realism is important if you decide to merge, say, Conan, with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. you have to decide what the new rules are. If you do not decide, the result is just incoherent.


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## JRRNeiklot (Apr 4, 2009)

Fanaelialae said:


> Fantasy bends real world laws all the time.  I admit that there comes a point where it can go too far and enter the "realm of the absurd", but in general I think it's okay if fantasy _bends_ the rules from time to time.  It's _fantasy_, not real world + magic.




But that's exactly what I want from a game.  Real (medieval) world + magic + mythical creatures.


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## Fanaelialae (Apr 4, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Imagine a halfling is capable, in game mechanical terms, of tackling an ancient red dragon to the ground. In some game worlds, this is perfectly acceptable. In others, this is surreal to the extreme. Reality, in the game world, is whether this is an acceptable event.
> 
> As for dragons themselves... they may be physically impossible, but magic is a sufficient explanation. Anti-magic and dispel magic, by the way, will not case a golem to turn into a pile clay, will not work on any artifact, and will not cause a beholder to fall. In fact, anti-magic will not, naturally enough, cause itself to fail. Casting such a a spell does not mean "the rules of magic no longer apply," it just means, "certain magical effects in this area are suppressed." It's anti-magic zone, not "zone of things acting like the real world."
> 
> Realism is important if you decide to merge, say, Conan, with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. you have to decide what the new rules are. If you do not decide, the result is just incoherent.




So why is it that it's okay for dragon flight to be explained away by magic but you can't have magic-infused lava that radiates less heat?  Why is it okay for an anti-magic zone to suppress some magical effects but not others (beyond the fact that it would be so broken if beholders inside it couldn't do anything but flop around helplessly, dragons fell out of the sky, and golems deanimated)?

Don't get me wrong, I think the room filling with lava trap/test was inherently very flawed (encounter hammering, DM didn't think the trap through, etc), but I think it has more to do with the DM than anything else.  

Magic is a very powerful dramatic tool in fantasy.  If you want to have a fight over a pit of lava, then the cult currently inhabiting the volcano used rituals to reduce the radiant heat within so that the volcano could be habitable (and PCs can notice and decipher the runes used to enact this ritual using Arcana).  Alternately, it could just be magic lava, prized by wizards for use in their eldritch research (which could also be why the cult chose this particular lair in the first place).

I think the "realism problem" often has more to do with DMs who don't consider the basic justifications/reasons (5 W's) and implications of their settings than anything else.


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## Fanaelialae (Apr 4, 2009)

JRRNeiklot said:


> But that's exactly what I want from a game.  Real (medieval) world + magic + mythical creatures.




For me, magic and the real world are incompatible unless magic is _exceedingly_ rare.  The defining laws of our universe are (usually) default in a fantasy setting, but as I see it the presence of magic automatically downgrades all laws into _guidelines_.  IMO, in any setting with prevalent magic the default assumption of anyone living there would be, "everything is as it is, except when it isn't".

I mean sure, you can count on gravity to cause objects to fall downwards.  Unless some magical beastie reverses gravity, or some mystical experiment has unintended consequences and suddenly the laws of our universe need no longer apply...  

These don't have to be day to day occurrences in the lives of the common folk for this to hold true.  They tell and retell the tales of wizards flagrantly disregarding the laws of physics, and therefore have a pretty good idea that those laws aren't rock solid, even if they haven't seen it for themselves.  

The sun will rise tomorrow... unless some wizard stops it from traveling across the sky or the gods are peeved... let's just cross our fingers, say our prayers and hope for the best.


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## Imban (Apr 4, 2009)

Lonely Tylenol said:


> Fair enough.  Have you seen the 4E lava rules?




The lava in Beyond the Mottled Tower actually deals 10d10 damage per round of immersion and none if you are not in direct contact with it, and is used in a lava trap exactly like the one he's complaining about here - it's a neat scene, but if you're bothered by being five feet or so above a rising column of lava, it's gonna bug you a lot.


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## Rechan (Apr 4, 2009)

Galloglaich said:
			
		

> The problem is, if you see lava, and it behaves in a manner differently than you expect, i.e. more like lukewarm marmelade (it doesn't burn you unless you touch it.. you can relatively safely crawl over it etc.) and everything else in the room does as well, you really don't know where to stand (not on the cannons apparently) because your normal assumptions of how the physics works, how the room is shaped, how cannons and walls work etc. are all useless.




And the reverse of that is that if you make lava behave _too realistically_, it might become so annoying that it's not fun if you implement it. 

If you're relatively close to lava, you're dead. Lava heats the surrounding area to 700 degrees, which would cook a person. Not to mention the gasses, ashes, and such that accompany lava and volcanos. 

So, fighting in the heart of a volcano is just _impossible_ if you're going to be realistic. But, we ignore that, because otherwise it's not fun. 



			
				Janx said:
			
		

> bingo! We don't have to justify how a dragon exists. The player can accept that (suspension of disbelief). The player should not accept that 20' wide dragons can squeeze through 3' doors. That's not realistic.




At the same time, I have seen issues of "Realism", not as far as, "How can a dragon exist, how can it fly", but more a macro issue of, "Wait a minute. There simply cannot be _that_ many dragons in the world, because based on the monster's size, it would have to eat _so much things_ that it can't possibly exist."

You have folks calling unrealism due to the notion of lots and lots of monsters (apex predators) existing in a world. A dungeon of monsters would, respectively, have eaten all the normal woodland animals surrounding it to force the monsters into starvation, for instance. 

Taking that level of Macro thinking too far forces you to fight against the genre itself.


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## Rechan (Apr 4, 2009)

SilvercatMoonpaw2 said:


> So what?  Why's it matter?  You know it's not real.



I may know Louise Lane is not real, but if someone dropped a car on her and it just resulted in a concussion, I call shenanigans.

The issue of "Superman picking up a building and it being acceptable" also depends on the surrounding acceptable notions. 

In Golden Age era, that sort of physics just isn't applied. Golden Age, Four Color comics are a different beast. Captain America can just beat a whole army of soldiers with his fist, no matter what they bring against him. Whereas, in current age comics, the Captain has been killed by a sniper on a rooftop.

So the issue is internal consistency of the reality.

On the other hand, it also depends on if it makes a more interesting cinematic effect/plot point. For instance, if Superman tried to pick up a building, the building was shredded due to him being the only thing it held up... and because of that, someone inside the building falls out, hurts themselves, and Superman feels guilty. Or, he picks up the building and holds it up, so that it falls apart, because he wants to get to something inside the building (kind of like how you would put sand through a sifting box). 

But, if the building behaves the way above, then the next time he picks up a building, it better react the same way.


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## Imban (Apr 4, 2009)

Rechan said:


> And the reverse of that is that if you make lava behave _too realistically_, it might become so annoying that it's not fun if you implement it.
> 
> If you're relatively close to lava, you're dead. Lava heats the surrounding area to 700 degrees, which would cook a person. Not to mention the gasses, ashes, and such that accompany lava and volcanos.
> 
> So, fighting in the heart of a volcano is just _impossible_ if you're going to be realistic. But, we ignore that, because otherwise it's not fun.




You seem to be holding unquestioned that a game in which one can fight five feet above a rising column of lava is better than one in which you can't, so naturally your conclusion is that we have to have non-realistic lava.

Alternatively, some people might want to treat molten rock as something to stay the hell away from, not something which should be decorating every good villain's throne room.


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## Rechan (Apr 4, 2009)

Galloglaich said:


> Why does cinematics and realism have to be mutually exclusive?  Was The Thing realistic?  Was Alien?  Aliens?  Blade Runner?
> 
> ...
> 
> I'm a little exasperated by the idea that reality is boring or mundane...



I'm a little exasperated by the idea that reality is the bottom line for acceptable cinimatics.

It doesn't have to be, but for some types of cinematic enjoyment, you _have_ to set reality aside for it to _work_. Wuxia, movies like _The Matrix_ or _Wanted_, or "stuff blows up" action film. 

Most are utter BS, but unless you can accept "That wouldn't happen in real life - but I'm enjoying it anyway!" then overt realism ruins it.

I really hate taking my dad to an action movie, because he will pick apart every little thing as "That wouldn't happen", when the point was to create an enjoyable visual and emotional response. Of _course_ a man can't leap out of a burning building, land on his feet, do a cartwheel and unload a magazine of bullets into a dozen guys while being unharmed, and not pause a beat. But _It was awesome, wasn't it_?


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## Rechan (Apr 4, 2009)

Imban said:


> You seem to be holding unquestioned that a game in which one can fight five feet above a rising column of lava is *better* than one in which you can't, so naturally your conclusion is that we have to have non-realistic lava.
> 
> Alternatively, some people might want to treat molten rock as something to stay the hell away from, not something which should be decorating every good villain's throne room.



Emphasis mine. I didn't say *better*. 

You, Inbam, seem to be assuming that just because I like it my way, I think that's the _only_ way.

My point is that, "If you have too much realism on how lava works, you _can't_ have a cinematic battle in a volcano." Too much realism prevents very cinematic things. 

Yes, You, Inbam, make the point of "Some may like it that way." Correct, I acknowledge that. But "Some like it the other way." Now what?

The impression I get from those that demand realism, is that realism _is_ the only acceptable way. And that, to use the above example, if I _want_ a battle in the heart of a volcano, well I'm just wrong because that's silly, lava should be avoided like hell because that's how it should be. 

Too much in one direction offends the other side of the spectrum.

Too much realism makes it unenjoyable for me. Too much cinematics may make it unenjoyable for you. The answer is either, "Find something that matches your tastes" or "Expect a meet in the middle", because "I demand this be changed so that it's more the way I like it" isn't going to get anyone anywhere. 

(Note, I'm not saying that YOU, Imban, personally am saying that I should not have cinematic things, or that Realism Is the Only Way, but that is the feeling I get FROM those who demand realism.)


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## Imban (Apr 4, 2009)

Rechan said:


> I didn't say *better*.
> 
> You assume that just because I like it my way, I think that's the _only_ way.
> 
> ...




The thing is, few of these questions *are* actually spectrums ("Can you suffocate a stone golem?" or "Can you set a meteor hammer against a charge?" are pretty binary, after all...), and the benefit of consistency is greater than either realism or cinematic/video-game reality alone, and it's easily to demonstrate:

In a consistent world, regardless of what the answer to "How deadly is lava?" is, you can make a proper judgment as to whether to cross a metal catwalk 5' above a bubbling lava lake: if the answer is "supremely deadly" you should turn back and run screaming, while if the answer is "like in a few of the video games I've played", you don't even need the catwalk, since you can just dash across the surface of the lava unharmed.

In an inconsistent world, you've got even odds of immolating the second you step out onto the catwalk and being able to dash across the surface of the lava.

So as a result, the pressure is there for everyone to make their way the only way, because having both competing in the same campaign sucks. In a perfect world, everyone would just play by the rules that they want to play by, but some people are stuck playing prewritten adventures or with players who want you to play by the rules in the goddamn book because they were made by people who deservedly get paid to do it.


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## Rechan (Apr 4, 2009)

Leatherhead said:


> Which is why people inject parts of real life into their games, even when the game has fantasy elements.



The missing word in your sentence is _some people_.

The issue of "Injecting real life elements into a fantasy game" comes down, not just to taste, genre and expectations, but also an emotional component.

Let's take Watchmen. Watchmen is a movie that deconstructs the Superhero genre. That says, "Here are super-powered vigilantes that fight crime. What would that do to someone's psyche and personality? How would the world react? And how would these people behave, if the real world issues of morality are applied? Who is the good guy, who is the bad guy?"

For some people, that is awesome.

For others, that's horrible. Not because it harms the genre, but because for two hours, they want to _escape_ the moral ambiguidy of the Real World, they don't want to be depressed because this so-called Hero does something despicable because he's human, they want to believe in Good vs. Evil that good can triumph over evil, that the nice guy gets the girl, justice, hope and love are eternal, bad things rarely happen to good people for no reason, that the hero isn't in a Greek Tragedy where his flaws are his undoing, but overcomes due to the qualities of his character, the world _can_ be made a better place, and happy endings usually happen.

The same is with RPGs. Last month, there was a thread about Good Vs. Evil in this forum; some people vehemently defended the right for there to be Alignment absolutes in RPGS (Orcs are evil, killing the babies is not a morally questionable act, etc), while others vehemently defended moral relativism (The issue of Orc babies being a blank slate, with overtly evil tendencies, and killing orc babies causes a paladin to fall). 

There was a very bold line drawn in the sand; the Absolutists did not want moral issues in their game; they wanted to *believe* their character was Good, the other guy was Evil, and no question brought to their justifications.

Not because of a simplistic world view. But, at least for some (and I would wager, many), they _don't want to deal with that crap because they have to deal with it every day of their lives_. For 4 hours every weekend, they _want_ to be a knight in shining armor saving the princess because that's _not_ real. 

Fantasy, in the truest sense: an escape from "Stuff Sucks".

Bringing this back more in line to the current topic, then, one can also take this view about an RPG or a movie or whatnot. Realism can be separated (and, desired to be separated) from cinematics or the game world, because that person is _wanting_ something unrealistic to begin with.

For these folks, elves dieing of syphilis is totally counter-productive to what they seek in an RPG experience.


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## Rechan (Apr 4, 2009)

Imban said:


> So as a result, the pressure is there for everyone to make their way the only way, because having both competing in the same campaign sucks. In a perfect world, everyone would just play by the rules that they want to play by, but some people are stuck playing prewritten adventures or with players who want you to play by the rules in the goddamn book because they were made by people who deservedly get paid to do it.




And that there is the problem. 

It's not an issue of "This game system is incompatable with my preferred style", but rather "This group, this DM/player, is inconsistent with my style."

If someone is unwilling to change a rule to better fit their tastes, or if someone is unwilling to _accept_ a rule change for taste, then that is not the flaw of the system, but the people and the situation. 

If you cooked chicken for dinner, I come over and I don't like chicken, that's my problem, not the fault of the quality of the food. So, alot of this feels like much ado about the quality of the chicken, not individual tastes. And while pre-made adventures/campaign settings/game rules are more like a pre-made chicken dinner, for the most part "Rules systems" are more like the uncooked chicken ready for your recipe.

And while the issue may be the group, it can indeed be the system. I have seen far too many people using an incompatable system. Instead of just looking for a system that suit their preferences/needs, rather than take a system that doesn't, and try to force/expect/suffer a system into doing what they want. To me, it's like trying to turn a VW Bug into a drag racer; you can _try_, and possibly succeed, but the amount of time, frustration, money and effort far outweighs forcing oneself only work with a VW Bug.


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## Aus_Snow (Apr 4, 2009)

Rechan said:


> Fantasy, in the truest sense: an escape from "Stuff Sucks".



Hm. How do you figure that then? I mean, the dictionaries I've checked seem to lend a rather different perspective. So, how is _that_ the 'truest sense' of the word?


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## Rechan (Apr 4, 2009)

Aus_Snow said:


> Hm. How do you figure that then? I mean, the dictionaries I've checked seem to lend a rather different perspective. So, how is _that_ the 'truest sense' of the word?



Fantasy, not in the Genre sense of Magic, Elves and Dragons.

Fantasy, in the common vernacular, of a daydream or desire that is not reality. 

When you're an IT guy working in a cube, quitting your job and moving to the Carribean to sell wood carvings to tourists isn't realistic, and if you did it, it probably wouldn't work out. But sitting in your cube, thinking and wanting without doing anything about it, it is a Fantasy.

The key: it's not real, not just in the sense of "not actually happening", but also not real in the sense of expectations, logistics, repercussions or probability. It's just "Nice to think about", because you're not bothering with thinking about anything but the good parts.

In this sense, putting "Realism" in your fantasy is like having a sexual fantasy and then saying, "But a girl would _never_ do that, and then there's the risk of injury, health and pregnancy, so I should stop having that fantasy."


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## ProfessorCirno (Apr 4, 2009)

You know, all of this could be avoided if you just used the suppliment Fire and Brimstone! Lava Rules For Your Game to solve that nasty mess.

The issue I think people are having here is that one group is saying "This is why we like versimilitude and consistancy," both of which I misspelled, and the other group is saying "NO SHUT UP YOU'RE WRONG."

We know you don't like those.  We know this is meant to be simple fantasy escapism.  But uh, the OP didn't ask that, the OP asked why we like it.


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## Aus_Snow (Apr 4, 2009)

Rechan said:


> Fantasy, in the common vernacular, of a daydream or desire that is not reality.



Here are some definitions. Not the best source, granted, but it'll do.

Now, 'the common vernacular' _might_ be at odds with that as dramatically as you claim. But I doubt it.



> The key: it's not real, not just in the sense of "not actually happening", but also not real in the sense of expectations, logistics, repercussions or probability. It's just "Nice to think about", because you're not bothering with thinking about anything but the good parts.



Yes, yes. No need to point out 'the key' like that. Eesh.  I do understand where *you* are coming from. But I disagree that your definition (representing, according to you, 'the truest sense' of the word) is all you claim it to be.

Anyway, it just seemed like an odd thing to go saying. No biggie, really.


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## jdrakeh (Apr 4, 2009)

Verisimilitude is a word used to refer to a "grounding reality" in fictional works, otherwise referred to as "consistency" in said works by many posters in this thread. It is commonly thought that a fantasy game (or any other work of written fiction) must facilitate the reader's player's willingness to suspend his or her disbelief _in order to appeal to a wide audience_.* Specifically, it is felt that such games must justify the existence of fantastic elements. 

In order to promote this willing suspension of disbelief, a fantasy game must have _some_ credibility. The easiest way to achieve such credibility is by way of verisimilitude — by implementing a consistent, grounding, reality to which fantatic elements prove the exception. Frex, settings like Birthright, Greyhawk, and FR achieve this through the implementation of a grounding reality modeled on Medieval Europe. 

I think Wikipedia (remarkably) manages to explain it best by saying that anything physically possible in the worldview of the reader's experience (or, in this case, the _player's_ experience) is defined as credible. Thus, the reader can glean truth even in fiction because it reflects the realistic aspects of their own existence. As that explanation suggests, what is or is not the right amount of verisimilitude depends upon the indivdiual to whom the question is put. 

Some people simply desire more or less reflection in that regard, depending upon why they pursue RPGs and what the conditions of their personal existence are. There is no 'correct' level of verisimiltude. It's a matter of personal preference. Like salt on food. Some people want a lot of verisimilitude in their fantasy, while some people want very little. 

*This is an important distinction because fiction _does_ exist (as do games) that ignore this philosophy, though they tend to appeal to a comparatively small audience. It's the difference between being D&D and being Mechanical Dream or Noumenon.


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## Rechan (Apr 4, 2009)

Aus_Snow said:


> Here are some definitions.
> 
> ...
> 
> Yes, yes. No need to point out 'the key' like that. Eesh.  I do understand where *you* are coming from. But I disagree that your definition (representing, according to you, 'the truest sense' of the word) is all you claim it to be.



Ah, semantics.  

See, I thought:



> 4. Psychology. an imagined or conjured up sequence fulfilling a psychological need; daydream.



Was the definition of Fantasy. 

I suppose, I should have said, "A different kind of fantasy (than the genre)".


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## Aus_Snow (Apr 4, 2009)

Rechan said:


> Ah, semantics.



Weeeell, I'll get to that in just a second. . .



> See I thought:
> 
> 4. Psychology. an imagined or conjured up sequence fulfilling a psychological need; daydream.
> 
> Was the definition of Fantasy.



It's *a* definition, yeah. 

Semantics? No. Just not seeing clarification of any kind for something that struck me as unclear, and then seeking some. But thanks, I got that now.


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## Rechan (Apr 4, 2009)

jdrakeh said:


> Some people simply desire more or less reflection in that regard, depending upon why they pursue RPGs and what the conditions of their personal existence are. There is no 'correct' level of verisimiltude. It's a matter of personal preference. Like salt on food. Some people want a lot of verisimilitude in their fantasy, while some people want very little.



For your post in general, but especially for this point above, I give you XP. 

That's a great point; that verisimilitude for the most part exists in every work, but it's merely a matter of _degree_, and that degree is also matched in the degree of which a person seeks or accepts.


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## Greg K (Apr 4, 2009)

Rechan said:


> Of _course_ a man can't leap out of a burning building, land on his feet, do a cartwheel and unload a magazine of bullets into a dozen guys while being unharmed, and not pause a beat. But _It was awesome, wasn't it_?




No (of course, this is based on my own preference, ymmv).


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## Rechan (Apr 4, 2009)

Greg K said:


> No.



How did that contribute at all to the discussion?


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## PrecociousApprentice (Apr 4, 2009)

Not only does the level of verisimilitude necessary differ between people in an audience, but it differs for each element of the fantasy world for each person. Some might be fine with the non-deadly lava and have serious problems with recovering wounds in one night but not have problems with three nights, etc... Verisimilitude is relative to genre, world, world element, audience, and likely more. It is almost silly to say that any level of verisimilitude is necessary. When we insist this, it implies that verisimilitude is on a single axis, and you can travel down this single axis in either direction, more or less believable, and that this axis is objective. The reality is that there are infinite verisimilitude axes, and no axis can be difined as objective.

As an addition, I think that Rechan's post about the definition of fantasy is highly congruent with the definition cited. 



			
				Fantasy defined in dictionary cited said:
			
		

> 1.	imagination, esp. when extravagant and unrestrained.



The idea that fantasy is imagination (really just a mental image of something not real) that is extravagent and unrestrained kind of makes the need for "reality" in fantasy a rediculous impossibility.


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## jdrakeh (Apr 4, 2009)

PrecociousApprentice said:


> It is almost silly to say that any level of verisimilitude is necessary. When we insist this, it implies that verisimilitude is on a single axis, and you can travel down this single axis in either direction, more or less believable, and that this axis is objective.




I agree that saying "verisimilitude is necessary" without providing specific context is almost silly. The thing is, I don't think anybody who contributed in an important manner to the concept has ever said that "verisimilitude is necessary" _without_ providing a such context. 

Plato and Aristotle proposed that _in order for a piece of art to hold significance or persuasion for an audience_, it must have a grounding reality. They didn't say "a grounding reality is necessary" without providing specific context. Likewise, Samuel Taylor Coleridge proposed that a work of fiction must facilitate the reader's willingness to suspend his or her disbelief _in order to appeal to a wide audience_. 

As for your other assertion, saying that some level of verisimilitude is necessary for a specific condition to exist implies absolutely none of what you have suggested that it implies. Indeed, the assumed existence of multiple axes of verisimilitude (and other subjective criteria) is a key principle in modern media, especially when it comes to marketing. You may be more familiar with the concept of a "target audience" — one specific demographic (or axis) amongst many.


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## Galloglaich (Apr 4, 2009)

SilvercatMoonpaw2 said:


> Yeah, they were. And so they were boring to me.
> 
> I'm not sure if cinematics and realism have to be mutually exclusive, but I think if you try to use them both there's very little to work with.




Perhaps, but Alien, Blade Runner, the Thing etc. were among the most successful and famous films in the sci fi genre, I don't think by coincidence.  So your reaction is not necessarily the norm - to the contrary


  Maybe you should give an example of a film in the sci-fi or fantasy realm you thought was good?



> Compared to what fantastic things exist in the non-real world the stuff I go through every do isn't worth thinking about.



  No doubt, but you are making the all-too common mistake of confusing reality as it relates to an RPG (i.e. history, physics) with _your_ reality (your job, your life).  These are two very different things.

Again, it was for people just like you that I posted the ‘Dilbert in the Dungeon’ Thread.


http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/242110-history-mythology-art-rpgs.html




> I don't think it should be dumbed-down either. But I view realism as dumbing it down because I _know_ reality.



  Based on your statements, I don’t think you have a clue.  There are more wild and incredible stories in History than in all the RPG’s ever played times all the fantasy novels ever written to the power of every computer game ever coded. 



> I want something that I _don't_ know, which in something speculative.



  The set of things you don’t know may include many things that are speculative, but it also includes, trust me, a whole lot of real things amigo.

G.


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## Galloglaich (Apr 4, 2009)

Scribble said:


> Well talking past eachother may be the case because that's not at all what I was saying.
> 
> My statement (maybe I said it poorly) was that people have different ways of looking at a situation. I think it's a right brain vrs left brain thing.
> 
> ...




For me it's not at all an issue of making the special or magic things rational (this is what I mean by talking past each other) but of making the non-special or magic things rational so that the special or magic things stand out all the more.  

G.


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## Galloglaich (Apr 4, 2009)

Rechan said:


> And the reverse of that is that if you make lava behave _too realistically_, it might become so annoying that it's not fun if you implement it.
> 
> If you're relatively close to lava, you're dead. Lava heats the surrounding area to 700 degrees, which would cook a person. Not to mention the gasses, ashes, and such that accompany lava and volcanos.
> 
> So, fighting in the heart of a volcano is just _impossible_ if you're going to be realistic. But, we ignore that, because otherwise it's not fun. .




I don't follow your logic.  if lava behaves like lava, just as water behaves like water and air behaves like air, and you still can add a new force we could call Magic.  Magic can trump these other forces.  Magic could for example make you temporarily or permanently immune to the effects of Heat.   To me that would make sense.

The problem with just arbitrarily fudging lava to behave more like it does in say, a particular cartoon you saw when you were 14, is how do I know where you got that idea from, how do I know whether to expect anything else to work in this universe differently from what I expect from my intuitive understanding of the real world, and if I find something else that is strange, how can I tell if it's Magic causing it to be strange or simply another fudge from the DM or the game designer? 

If I'm playing in a world where I expect things to more or less make sense, and I see someone playing near Lava, I can assume that there is Magic afoot.  Or maybe I should just play along and assume Lava doesn't burn you unless you touch it in this universe, ( it better or I'll get mad when I'm burned to a cinder because I don't have Magical protection.... )

And maybe later when I see a talking dog, instead of thinking there is anything unusual about it, I'll just throw it a scooby snack...  that's fine for TOON, I would find it a little disconcerting in a standard FRPG.

G.


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## Galloglaich (Apr 4, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Imagine a halfling is capable, in game mechanical terms, of tackling an ancient red dragon to the ground. In some game worlds, this is perfectly acceptable. In others, this is surreal to the extreme. Reality, in the game world, is whether this is an acceptable event.
> 
> As for dragons themselves... they may be physically impossible, but magic is a sufficient explanation. Anti-magic and dispel magic, by the way, will not case a golem to turn into a pile clay, will not work on any artifact, and will not cause a beholder to fall. In fact, anti-magic will not, naturally enough, cause itself to fail. Casting such a a spell does not mean "the rules of magic no longer apply," it just means, "certain magical effects in this area are suppressed." It's anti-magic zone, not "zone of things acting like the real world."
> 
> Realism is important if you decide to merge, say, Conan, with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. you have to decide what the new rules are. If you do not decide, the result is just incoherent.




Really well put.

G.


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## Galloglaich (Apr 4, 2009)

Rechan said:


> I'm a little exasperated by the idea that reality is the bottom line for acceptable cinimatics.
> 
> It doesn't have to be, but for some types of cinematic enjoyment, you _have_ to set reality aside for it to _work_. Wuxia, movies like _The Matrix_ or _Wanted_, or "stuff blows up" action film.




To me, the Matrix was _extremely_ realistic.  I haven't seen the other films so can't comment on those.    But the Matrix (at least the original one) had a highly plausible, carefully thought out and well reationalized "magical" reality layered on top of the 'real' reality we were all familiar with.  When people slowed down to watch bullets going by, you could see the sonic disruption of the air from the bullets.  Having someone who was able to bend reality because reality itself is virtual, is quite analagous to having a Wizard who can invoke Magic that distorts an otherwise rational Medieval world.

To me unrealistic is something like a shootout in the A-Team, a first person shooter like Halo, or your typical mainstream FRPG system .  

G.


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## Fallen Seraph (Apr 4, 2009)

I think one aspect of realism that should be addressed is "shifting realism" based on the narrative at the time. This is probably not something some people would like, but I find it has worked quite well for me. I shift my realism depending on what the scene needs.

If a scene requires something to go beyond the norms then it does. But if scaling it back suits the mood of another scene it does. This can get confusing yes, but if properly managed by having good atmosphere and understanding between the Player and DM then it can work wonderfully. 

So to bring in lava, if you want a fight near lava without a magical reason to be alive, the DM pumps up the action and the over-the-top feel of the scene. Make the players feel like, "yeah we can do this". In another where they must evade lava and watch their breathing because of ash pump up a feeling of dread or danger. This requires trust between the player and DM, but if known before hand as the means of the DM then in my experience works.

It doesn't feel like there is a disconnect to, or that the consistency has gone either since it is the consistency with the mood, atmosphere and plot that keeps things going not the world element.


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## Rechan (Apr 4, 2009)

Galloglaich said:


> I don't follow your logic.  if lava behaves like lava, just as water behaves like water and air behaves like air, and you still can add a new force we could call Magic.  Magic can trump these other forces.  Magic could for example make you temporarily or permanently immune to the effects of Heat.   To me that would make sense.
> 
> The problem with just arbitrarily fudging lava to behave more like it does in say, a particular cartoon you saw when you were 14, is how do I know where you got that idea from, how do I know whether to expect anything else to work in this universe differently from what I expect from my intuitive understanding of the real world, and if I find something else that is strange, how can I tell if it's Magic causing it to be strange or simply another fudge from the DM or the game designer?
> 
> If I'm playing in a world where I expect things to more or less make sense, and I see someone playing near Lava, I can assume that there is Magic afoot.  Or maybe I should just play along and assume Lava doesn't burn you unless you touch it in this universe, ( it better or I'll get mad when I'm burned to a cinder because I don't have Magical protection.... )



Or you could assume that I don't know Lava doesn't kill you unless you touch it, because quite simply _some do not_. DMs/game designers aren't all-knowing, in terms of the realistic applications of things. 

Forget "Cartoon I saw at age 14"; one of the damn BOND movies has a villain with a base in a volcano. I didn't know "Lava kills you if you're in the room with it" until I read it on TvTropes.com, and I took Geology in college!

If you're standing on a flying city about three miles above the ground, _you_ might assume "hey, there's magic afoot keeping me from getting hypothermia up here" whereas the next guy _doesn't realize it's really windy/cold/hard to breathe that high up_, and therefore doesn't take that into consideration. 

Once I was running a game where the PCs were in the desert, and looking through an abandoned town. They come to a door, and open it, and there are stairs leading down. Suddenly one of the players announces, "Something bad must be going down here; people in the desert don't dig underground, the earth is too hard! Something sinister is afoot."

I just looked at him and said, "Huh? Basements/cellars aren't universal?" 

The player assumed something was intentionally done, in the game, when really it was that way because of ignorance.


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## Rechan (Apr 4, 2009)

Here's what I've been seeing missing from this whole talk of realism and player/dm assumptions:

People saying "Well I expect this to happen if I do this" well - what happened to asking instead of just acting without instead consulting? Do people not ask the DM if there are any differences of how his world works to the real world, or do these issues not come up until people just stumble into them?

Using the running example of the Lava/Volcano... if there's lava in the room, shouldn't you ask the DM what the rules are? Or, if the plot seems to be directing you to a Volcano where a Dragon lives in the heart of it... then either the DM is assuming you are going to go in, or he's going to assume that you aren't. 

Wouldn't checking be advisable?


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## Galloglaich (Apr 4, 2009)

jdrakeh said:


> Some people simply desire more or less reflection in that regard, depending upon why they pursue RPGs and what the conditions of their personal existence are. There is no 'correct' level of verisimiltude. It's a matter of personal preference. Like salt on food. Some people want a lot of verisimilitude in their fantasy, while some people want very little.




But the other factor at work.  If you take a low level of realism, you have the problem that people entering into a given game are going to be faced with an exponentially larger learning curve.


If you will indulge a flight of fantasy (which I can assure you is not unrealistic) Lets premise a person, I'll call her "Brunette Girlfriend", or BG for short.   is not a hard core gamer by any stretch of the imagination.  BG is of a different demographic than the typical hard core gamer, but she is fun to be around.  More fun than games even.

Lets say BG has a moderate interest or tolerance for playing games once in a while.  We have friends over on weekends, play poker one night, board games like pictionary another night, and play drinking games on yet another.

If Galloglaich tried to get BG to play an RPG #1, "E&E", which has a rather complex low verisimilitude world and physics based on a mish mash of the expectations of hard core gamers, trekkies, anime fans and comic book collectors, she is going to have an exponentially more difficult time relating to the new game.  As she encounters one illogical oddity after another, pretty soon BG is getting annoyed asking snarky questions, and quickly gets fed up.  Before Galloglaich knows it, game night is over.

On the other hand, when Galloglaich tries introducing RPG #2, "Call of  ToolHoo", which is relatively simple and mostly based on familar concepts from the real world, onto which are layered a well developed, engaging and strangely compelling literary horror genre which is internally consistent, he finds BG relates to it fairly easily.  They have a good time and RPGs become an occasional part of game night, which continues.


This is why I like realism.

G.


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## Galloglaich (Apr 4, 2009)

Fallen Seraph said:


> I think one aspect of realism that should be addressed is "shifting realism" based on the narrative at the time. This is probably not something some people would like, but I find it has worked quite well for me. I shift my realism depending on what the scene needs.
> 
> If a scene requires something to go beyond the norms then it does. But if scaling it back suits the mood of another scene it does. This can get confusing yes, but if properly managed by having good atmosphere and understanding between the Player and DM then it can work wonderfully.
> 
> ...





That seems reasonable to me, but something which you would develop as part of the rapport between DM and players, if not necessarily built into a game system per se.

G.


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## Fallen Seraph (Apr 4, 2009)

Galloglaich said:


> That seems reasonable to me, but something which you would develop as part of the rapport between DM and players, if not necessarily built into a game system per se.
> 
> G.



*Nods, nods* Yeah that is why I made sure to mention the trust issue. Though I do think there is mechanical ramifications with this, in that with a shifting realism on different aspects of the world the mechanics put into place would also adjust. 

Just you know throwing it out there as another debate point. Another point on the spectrum as it were.


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## Galloglaich (Apr 4, 2009)

Rechan said:


> Here's what I've been seeing missing from this whole talk of realism and player/dm assumptions:
> 
> People saying "Well I expect this to happen if I do this" well - what happened to asking instead of just acting without instead consulting? Do people not ask the DM if there are any differences of how his world works to the real world, or do these issues not come up until people just stumble into them?
> 
> ...




I think this is also just a difference between playing RPG's as a kid, or as a grownup.  When I was first playing DnD at the age of 13 or 14, we really didn't care about details too much or know much about history or physics.

I'm 40 years old now and the people I play with are well read professionals who have traveled around the world, done tours in the military, lived in other countries etc., so at this point I want a different type of game.  The world around me seems more consistent with the rules I understand, and I expect an RPG, a computer game, or a film I spend the limited amount of time and money I can devote to entertainment to not jar me out of immersion by being gratuitously illogical or internally inconsistent (without a good reason)

I think I was much more tolerant of that when I was young.

G


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## Galloglaich (Apr 4, 2009)

Fallen Seraph said:


> *Nods, nods* Yeah that is why I made sure to mention the trust issue. Though I do think there is mechanical ramifications with this, in that with a shifting realism on different aspects of the world the mechanics put into place would also adjust.
> 
> Just you know throwing it out there as another debate point. Another point on the spectrum as it were.




No, it's a valid point, but it comes back to the idea of having some structure that you deviate from... based in realistic assumptions we normally have.

It's kind of like, if you know the rules of Grammar and punctuation, you can break the rules and get away with it (especially if you are James Joyce or Shakespeare).  But if you are just muddled and can't tell that you are writing one run-on sentence or double negative after another, you come across as semi-literate.  If you follow me.

G.


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## Rechan (Apr 4, 2009)

Galloglaich said:


> I think I was much more tolerant of that when I was young.




And thus the disconnect. Because I don't _care_ if it's illogical, improbable, impossible, or whatever. If it's _cool_, or if you put enough effort/production into something, then there's a high likelihood of it being allowed. 

Games like Spirit of the Century, which are high cinematic Pulp (people with jet packs or fighting on the wings of planes, or dispatching a squad of ninja without breaking a sweat), are _great_ to me, and they run like this.

I come to an RPG to be entertained with my friends, not to over-think it. 

And here I am, almost 30, with a degree in a (social) science, and well read. Everyone in my gaming group are 35 or up.

To go back to Spirit of the Century, the game's mechanics reinforce the feel. You can spend a Fate point to simply declare, "I have a lighter!" even though your character doesn't smoke, simply because it would be dramatically useful to have a lighter at that moment. Compare that to a game (or a GM) that expects you to have that lighter in your inventory, purchased and the GP subtracted from your total, well in advance. So there is no "learning curve", if you agree by how the game works.


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## Fallen Seraph (Apr 4, 2009)

Galloglaich said:


> No, it's a valid point, but it comes back to the idea of having some structure that you deviate from... based in realistic assumptions we normally have.
> 
> It's kind of like, if you know the rules of Grammar and punctuation, you can break the rules and get away with it (especially if you are James Joyce or Shakespeare).  But if you are just muddled and can't tell that you are writing one run-on sentence or double negative after another, you come across as semi-literate.  If you follow me.
> 
> G.



Well it depends, the baseline itself can alter on what is viewed as the "norm", in that gaming world. A game like Exalted will have a very different norm-view of lava then a game like WH. Essentially, my view is realism need not apply as long as the focus of the game, be it through themes, atmosphere, style, etc. works. If a game is one that a realistic view works then that is what be in place.

So thus with my shifting reality model, the baseline that is deviated from for different specific scenes is dependent on the baseline of that game's genre and style. Basically style and gameplay influences reality and mechanics not vice-versa.

Edit: To Rechan, I keep meaning to pick up SoTC but keep getting side-tracked (just like with me planning to pick of SR (though now waiting for anniversary book to come out)).


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 4, 2009)

Realism, Consistency, Verisimilitude what they actually mean to someone seems to depend on the individual. 

The real important thing of "consistency" to me seems to be that the player can make predictions on what happens, and if something happens, he would have the ability to figure out what happened.

And this can apply both to mechanics as it can apply to the "game world". 

Spend an Action Point grants you an extra action. It does so consistently. 
If that changed, the rules are either inconsistent, or you can figure out there is another rule at work you weren't aware before. But there is still a rule that describes this different outcome happening. (Maybe you took a feat to get a different ability, or it is a property of a monster/ally/environment).

If you do a favor for the Mayor, he will be thankful. If you meet him again, you expect him to still be thankful and have a positive attitude towards you.
If you later come back and he is not thankful, a consistent world means that that something changed his attitude. Maybe you figure out he is dominated, or someone claimed you had attacked his son unprovoked, or something like that. You can investigate and figure out what was different.


Lava being deadly or not being deadly is a question of realism. But it's not inconsistent if the lava is not deadly and you can fight in its vicinity It would become inconsistent if it suddenly turned deadly - unless other rules describe why it is so deadly now.


Verisimilitude seems to be about whether you can accept the world as it is described or you can't. The less closer the game world or its rule system seems to the real world, the less verisimilitude it has. 
Maybe you just can't believe that the Mayor could get angry at you after all you did, and figuring out it was just some advisor's lie turning him against you doesn't feel right to you.
Maybe you find it perfectly acceptable that fighting over a pool of lava is okay. You might acknowledge it's probably harmful/deadly in the real world, but you can accept it because it makes an awesome scene.

It doesn't seem clear to me where anyones need for verisimilitude is "broken". It depends a lot on what preconceived notions you have about the game and what you find important elements and what not. 
Sometimes it might be cruicial to "break" verisimilitude. If you want a action-laden game system, you really don't want a "realistic" rendition of injuries, wounds and infections.


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## Rechan (Apr 4, 2009)

Fallen Seraph said:


> Edit: To Rechan, I keep meaning to pick up SoTC but keep getting side-tracked (just like with me planning to pick of SR (though now waiting for anniversary book to come out)).



[sblock=Tangent]Honestly, I have never got a chance to _play_ it, but I'm very familiar with the rules and I like them, conceptually.

Funnily enough, I was turned on to SotC because the same system is being used for the Dresden Files RPG. And the DFRPG is a different genre, and more realistic (even though it has magic and suchlike). 

In fact, the DF treats magic as if it were real. I.e. magic has to behave in accordance with the laws of physics. If you try to create fire in a room with little oxygen, it's not going to work too well because fire needs air to burn. Now, I don't know where the system meets the book's narrative on that level of realism, but we'll just have to see.

Personally, I hope I don't have to compute the volume of a fireball cast in a smaller space and how far it's going to flow down a hallway like ye olde 2e fireball. [/sblock]


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## pawsplay (Apr 4, 2009)

Rechan said:


> How did that contribute at all to the discussion?




By pointing out that's not awesome to everyone. Whereas I am very curious why you trimmed the context and made it seem as if Greg K simply wrote "No." with a period and everything.


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## Greg K (Apr 4, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> By pointing out that's not awesome to everyone. Whereas I am very curious why you trimmed the context and made it seem as if Greg K simply wrote "No." with a period and everything.




In all fairness to Rechan, he probably didn't trim it.  I  think that I had, originally, typed  "No" and hit submit and realized that I had left off the qualifier and immediately went back to add it.  Rechan probably responded before I finished making the change. 

(I can't remember for sure. Yesterday was a bit of a blur as I had to take one of my friends from his work to Emergency Urgent Care.)


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## Nai_Calus (Apr 4, 2009)

Indeed, some of us don't really find that sort of thing awesome in the context of something we're trying to take seriously.

Now, one of my favourite movies is The Fifth Element, which has a ton of utterly ridiculous stuff in it, which in the context of the movie is awesome. But it's not a serious movie, at all. It's more serious than, say, Spaceballs, but it's definitely not trying to be anything but what it is. In the movie, Leeloo's fight scenes are plausible, that Diva Plavalaguna can actually sing like that with the stones inside her presumably wreaking all sorts of havoc on her diaphragm if it's anywhere near where it is on humans is perfectly OK, etc. That's the genre they're going for there, comedic sci-fi. In the context of *that* I would possibly almost be willing to accept a fight five feet above lava. We've already established that this is That Kind Of World. 

Now, D&D with the group I'm in tends to be more Serious Business. The campaign with the lava especially so, since the DM had a story he was beating into us whether we liked it or not. It was a serious campaign with serious elements, frequent and important NPC interaction, and a world that was apparently mostly low-magic and gritty. So to run into that, in that context, ugh. It's a serious campaign with a serious world, so a sudden cartoon element is massively jarring, plus it's one of my bugaboos at that, so it's very disconnecting and offputting and leaves me going 'well what the hell do I assume now'. Which is why I asked the DM what he was even allowing to be possible there instead of just assuming I could jump onto/through things. My assumptions about what is normal are suddenly useless, because suddenly the world has taken a turn for the non-normal.

In a campaign in a setting more like The Fifth Element, high magic and manliness and not taking it seriously, that I've been told in advance is this way and where similar stuff has happened? I'm still going to roll my eyes, but I'm not going to be utterly thrown out of things. I knew something like this was coming sooner or later when I joined.

Now even in a realistic setting with lava that works like real lava, I'm not saying you can't have your epic fight five feet above a rising column of lava - As long as it is *plausible*. The BBEG has his lair in an active volcano, or even on the Paraelemental Plane of Magma. He's a high-level wizard easily capable of protecting himself and creating items to protect himself and his minions there from the lava. Just the location itself is going to keep most people out. The PCs, though, are a resourceful, capable lot who have after much investigation and preparation been able to find his lair and how to get there, and been able to procure or produce items for themselves to use that will protect them. Thus protected, they may happily charge right into the heart of that volcano or the PEPoM and have an epic, awesome fight with him there. This *is* awesome, because there's a *reason* for it and it is the direct reflection of an accomplishment on the part of the PCs that they are able to have this crowning moment of awesome in which the rules of reality simply do not apply to them - Because they've been able to come into the ability to make it not apply. Lava is still generally deadly. It just isn't right now, for you, because you came prepared.

By the time you can, say, make that DC90 Balance check to stand on liquid, you're generally so soaked in magic items and possibly your own magical abilities that it stops throwing anyone for a loop. You know what's possible and what isn't, but your ability and your magic simply don't care anymore. At that point it's perfectly acceptable. I *expect* that in certain settings and levels of PC competence.

My original point that has been lost here that I was making in the other thread with the example of 'running around a half-full magma chamber' was "Don't use totally unbelievable obstacles." In the situation I was facing, the lava was totally unbelievable. In another situation with plenty of magic and preparation for just exactly that where lava is trivial? Sure. Bring it on.

But I don't believe in selective or even worse inconsistent application of reality just for the sake of 'cool' if that isn't what the tone of the campaign is *about*. There is plenty, plenty of opportunity in D&D for cool that doesn't necessitate things like selectively hot lava. Cool that makes the players feel great because their good thinking and ingenuity allowed them to spit on reality. 

And a question must be asked: What about fighting on a narrow catwalk over a flow of lava is so much cooler than, say, fighting on a narrow bridge over a roaring, swollen river filled with jagged rocks, rapids and whirlpools? Either way if you go off the side you're going to be in a world of hurt and trouble and probably dead. But the river is a lot more believable as a setting for characters who are not quite utterly heat-resistant badasses.


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## jdrakeh (Apr 4, 2009)

Galloglaich said:


> But the other factor at work.  If you take a low level of realism, you have the problem that people entering into a given game are going to be faced with an exponentially larger learning curve.




And? This doesn't have any bearing on what I stated. Some people like lots of verisimilitude. Some people prefer very little. Neither group of people is right or wrong.


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## nightwyrm (Apr 4, 2009)

I think that whether someone finds a particular situation to be unrealistic depends heavily on his or her knowledge base. As someone with a M.Sc. in biology, I find most of the MM to be rediculous. Someone else who has a Ph.D. in literature might not. Yet, I'll still put dragons and griffons and giant bugs into my games coz they're cool and interesting. 

What gets me annoyed, however, is people who insists that their knowledge of reality not be handwaved by "it's magic" or "just coz it's cool", but expects me to ignore my biological knowledge and accept that dragons could exist in a game world "just coz they're magic". Why the heck does biology gets the "it's magic" shaft while everything else must adhere to the real world (gamers with biology degrees unite and demand equal treatment ).

But at the end of the day, when I go to be entertained, the only thing that matters is fun. The Anakin vs Obi-wan fight in RotS is pretty much impossible, but the lightsaber fight is so cool that I can ignore that they're essentially surfing on lava.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Apr 4, 2009)

Nai_Calus said:


> And a question must be asked: What about fighting on a narrow catwalk over a flow of lava is so much cooler than, say, fighting on a narrow bridge over a roaring, swollen river filled with jagged rocks, rapids and whirlpools? Either way if you go off the side you're going to be in a world of hurt and trouble and probably dead. But the river is a lot more believable as a setting for characters who are not quite utterly heat-resistant badasses.



For me it has to do with the fact that it is SO unrealistic plus the danger level.  If there is a river with jagged rocks, there's a chance I'll survive.  Most D&D adventures I've played tend to have jagged rocks and fast moving rivers doing 2d6 damage per round or something while in it.  I'm likely to be able to survive for a long time.  Plus, I've grown up on over the top action movies.  People in movies survive long falls into fast moving rivers with jagged rocks all the time.

On the other hand, lava is deadly.  I expect to die nearly instantly when I fall into it.  Plus, I don't see lava all the time.  In fact, I've never seen lava in person.  I've seen fast moving rivers before.  With jagged rocks even.  But I've never been above a river of lava, fighting for my life.  Of course, that's because it's impossible in real life.  Which is exactly why I like it in my games.  The further away from real life they are the better.


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## Celebrim (Apr 4, 2009)

SilvercatMoonpaw2 said:


> Why do you expect things to act like reality, or act consistently, when they aren't real?




Because the contrary would create an unplayable mess.

Let's imagine the situation.

DM: The first orc swings its axe and misses.  Now you can attack, roll a d20.
PC: *clatter* I roll a 17... does that hit?
DM: The axe transforms in to a flamingo.  The ice cream sundae bounces away.  Your turn again, roll 3d6 to attack.
PC: Umm...I stab at the other orc with my flamingo... *clatter* a seven?
DM: A palpable hit.  Nose hairs go flying everywhere, and a the pansies begin singing Handel's Messiah.
PC: Err..ok.  So is the orc dead or not?
DM: Ooops.  As you begin to check, you collapse through the floor, resulting in a mobius space time distortion.  Roll a saving throw vs. zany or your spleen will get a free paid vacation to Maui.
PC: Ummm.. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but saving throws are with a d20 right?
DM: No, with d6's on odd numbered whims on Thursday.



> I can understand it if people just want to play in that kind of world, but I don't understand it when the tone is one of expectation that that's how things should _always_ work.




I think that even for those that protest otherwise, there is an assumption of consistancy and an expectation of a certain degree of conformity.  Players generally expect that for a given proposition, the range of outcomes is somewhat predictable.  If the range of outcomes for a given proposition is not predictable, then players might as well act completely randomly because the outcome of random actions will be fundamentally no different than taking planned actions.  For a player, if there isn't any sort of expectation about how things will work, then they are fully at the whim of the DM.   If there is an expectation about how things will work, then they are still fully at the whim of the DM but at least they have some reasonable expectation about what those whims might be.  Furthermore, if something really outside their expectations happens, if the world generally conforms to understandable rules, then that surprising event can generally be lumped into a class of somewhat understandable phenomenom like - 'The wall was an illusion.'

Now there is no reason at all that the game world rules and physics need to conform to real world physics, but there are some pretty strong reasons why both DMs and players might prefer that they do.  For one thing, if they do, then everyone at the table has a preexisting shared model of reality that they can draw on to predict outcomes and communicate ideas.  For example, players generally understand upon seeing an elephant that they can't pick it up, unless they look at there character sheet and see some special exemption like, 'Elephant tosser.'  Thus, in almost all cases, the exemptions where reality doesn't apply are much easier to track of than the cases where 'it works just like reality'.

The truth of the matter is that I've never played at a game table (with the dozens of groups I've gamed with), where there wasn't an expectation that 99% of things would conform to reality.  Thus, players knew that fire was hot unless something explicitly informed them of the exception.  Players knew that horses ate grass and oats, that they couldn't walk through a stone wall without a special exemption, that they could grasp things in about arms reach, that they could talk to each other at a distance of about 30' and be heard but that they might have to raise their voices slightly to do so, that they would get thirsty in a desert and that water could be used to quench this thirst, but that salt water wouldn't be useful in this regard, that infants are unlikely to be able to respond or help themselves, that grass is usually green, that a candle can be lit for light, and so on and so forth.  We could sit here and list literally millions of facts that players at the table agreed upon without ever mentioning that they agreed to them or even ever questioning why they should agree to them given that the world 'wasn't real'.  

To be honest, I think the whole question is meaningless.  Every group is going to rely on a vast body of known facts to create player propositions like, "I try to open the door.", and DM responses like, "The door is locked/stuck/trapped/has no handle/is an illusion/etc."  Without them, communication is impossible.  Whenever I see complaints about 'versimlitude' and 'realism' come up, my immediate assumption is that this is a proxy argument of some sort where the player has a very specific complaint or set of complaints but rather than addressing those specific complaints, the player tries to generalize the problem to obscure what is actually being discussed.

I should also say that I really get annoyed by red herrings like, "Why do you worry about realism if you are playing a game where people can sling fire with their minds?"  In the context of the game, there isn't anything unrealistic at all about people conjuring and slinging fire with their minds.  In fact, all this fire conjuring and slinging happens in very specific and very predictable ways, and are usually explained with great detail.  A group of players who see a robed figure lift his hands, do a bit of a dance, and shout, "Ahar nash inceratae" or some other rubbish, aren't going to be the least surprised when a bead of fire leaps from his finger tips and exlodes into a ball of flame.  They will probably be a bit suprised though if they hit the figure with a battleaxe and they find themselves standing in Central Park Station holding a poodle.   Now, in the context of a fantasy game, the latter isn't impossible, but if it happens the players will probably want to grasp how and why this extraordinary event occurred, whereas in the case of the bead of fire exploding into a 40' diameter ball of flame they'll probably not even see it as extraordinary at all but rather entirely mundane.


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## pawsplay (Apr 4, 2009)

nightwyrm said:


> But at the end of the day, when I go to be entertained, the only thing that matters is fun. The Anakin vs Obi-wan fight in RotS is pretty much impossible, but the lightsaber fight is so cool that I can ignore that they're essentially surfing on lava.




Actually, those platforms are magnetically shielded, and later on, Anakin does burst into flame just from being near lava. So that particular example is, more or less, "realistic."


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## nightwyrm (Apr 4, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Actually, those platforms are magnetically shielded, and later on, Anakin does burst into flame just from being near lava. So that particular example is, more or less, "realistic."




right....that's some serious fanwank.

And just coz we're on this subject:  Convection Schmonvection


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## Majoru Oakheart (Apr 4, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Actually, those platforms are magnetically shielded, and later on, Anakin does burst into flame just from being near lava. So that particular example is, more or less, "realistic."




Meh, it looks like they are standing about 10-20 feet away from the lava and are perfectly fine.  Anakin only bursts into flame when he gets within about 2 feet of the lava itself.  Obi-wan even walks pretty darn close to the edge to look down at the flaming Anakin and he's completely fine.  Maybe they were using some Jedi fire retardant trick, but I doubt it.

Plus, one of them was standing on a droid's head.  He might have had magnetic shielding, but I doubt it was big enough to cover an entire person standing on it.

It's just a flimsy excuse to have a battle over lava.


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## Remathilis (Apr 4, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> It's just a flimsy excuse to have a battle over lava.




[fanboy] I know, wasn't it great! [/fanboy]


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## PrecociousApprentice (Apr 5, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> Whenever I see complaints about 'versimlitude' and 'realism' come up, my immediate assumption is that this is a proxy argument of some sort where the player has a very specific complaint or set of complaints but rather than addressing those specific complaints, the player tries to generalize the problem to obscure what is actually being discussed.



This basically sums up my feeling about this entire debate. They might not even know that they are obscuring the conversation. Clear communication about what you really feel or mean about a subject is a skill, and many (if not most) people do not posess this skill. 

The closer a game sticks to "reality", whatever that is, the easier it is to make assumptions, as long as your assumptions will be consistent with "reality". No level of "unreality" can ruin a game, given the right context within the game. 

Many people have very "unreal" notions about "reality". This causes many arguments because we don't all have the same idea of what is real, and those ideas are really meaningless without context. The problem only comes up when people are not mature enough to communicate their way through it and come to a compromise. 

To echo the comment above about biology, I am a former paramedic/firefighter and current medical student. Most of you wouldn't believe what is medically "realistic".


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## Majoru Oakheart (Apr 5, 2009)

Remathilis said:


> [fanboy] I know, wasn't it great! [/fanboy]



Hey, I'm right there with you.  It was awesome.  Which I think, was my point.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Apr 5, 2009)

PrecociousApprentice said:


> Many people have very "unreal" notions about "reality". This causes many arguments because we don't all have the same idea of what is real, and those ideas are really meaningless without context. The problem only comes up when people are not mature enough to communicate their way through it and come to a compromise.




Which actually brings up another point.  This is exactly what used to cause huge problems in my 2e games.  When there isn't rules for something in the game, you default back to "realism".  2e being a more rules light game than 3e or 4e, there was more times we had to fall back on realism.  And since everyone has a different view on what is "realistic", it used to cause a lot of arguments.

I remember on arguments on things like "How far can a person jump?", "How difficult is it to jump on someone's head from 20 feet up?", "How hard is it to pin an Ogre?", and many others.  You'd be surprised exactly HOW different people's views on what is OBVIOUSLY realistic is.


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## Andor (Apr 5, 2009)

Celebrim said:


> Because the contrary would create an unplayable mess.




Exp given, for great justice.


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## prosfilaes (Apr 5, 2009)

Rechan said:


> Using the running example of the Lava/Volcano... if there's lava in the room, shouldn't you ask the DM what the rules are? Or, if the plot seems to be directing you to a Volcano where a Dragon lives in the heart of it... then either the DM is assuming you are going to go in, or he's going to assume that you aren't.
> 
> Wouldn't checking be advisable?




When should you check, and how do you keep that from slowing down the game? If the DM says "it's snowing outside", is that really a request to stop the game until we have the complete rules of cold weather and its dangers to characters explained? I don't know that you can expect everyone to be on the same page about lava whether or not you declare that you're being realistic, but that doesn't stop it from being a mood-kill when you go



> The Wizard bows to you mockingly: "You will not escape out of here alive." He then drops iron plates in the wall and lava starts flowing out to cover the flow. "There is no power greater than..." Wait, let's go over the lava rules real quick so that everyone knows how they work.




And that's not necessarily realism, though realism will cut down on a lot of the questions. I'm not sure I want to stress about what type of protection my paladin's armor gives him against the cold, though.


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## PrecociousApprentice (Apr 5, 2009)

Actually, I have no problem telling players the game implications for the elements I put in my world. Your example of a stop in the middle of a description is rediculous, but after that would be fine. I actually regularly tweak rules at the table to fit the scene better, and I tell the players about it when it comes into play. I just did that the other night to simplify the cover rules in 4e for a battle we had. We did not use the rules from the PHB, but I think that my shortcut fit the intention really well, and it allowed us to play faster and fit our scenario better. Communication makes games better. Don't make people guess.

Actually, that is the heart of it right there. Communicate with players. Don't leave things for them to assume. When you inevitably run into a problem because communication has not been perfect, talk it out and come to a compromise. This has made all of my games better. I bet there are quite a number of cries of "This is not real enough!" that are really just a failure to communicate. Obviously not all, but I would guess a fair number amount to inadequate communication or inability to compromise.


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## PrecociousApprentice (Apr 5, 2009)

Actually, I have no problem telling players the game implications for the elements I put in my world. Your example of a stop in the middle of a description is rediculous, but after that would be fine. I actually regularly tweak rules at the table to fit the scene better, and I tell the players about it when it comes into play. I just did that the other night to simplify the cover rules in 4e for a battle we had. We did not use the rules from the PHB, but I think that my shortcut fit the intention really well, and it allowed us to play faster and fit our scenario better. Communication makes games better. Don't make people guess.

Actually, that is the heart of it right there. Communicate with players. Don't leave things for them to assume. When you inevitably run into a problem because communication has not been perfect, talk it out and come to a compromise. This has made all of my games better. I bet there are quite a number of cries of "This is not real enough!" that are really just a failure to communicate. Obviously not all, but I would guess a fair number amount to inadequate communication or inability to compromise.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Apr 5, 2009)

PrecociousApprentice said:


> Actually, I have no problem telling players the game implications for the elements I put in my world. Your example of a stop in the middle of a description is rediculous, but after that would be fine. I actually regularly tweak rules at the table to fit the scene better, and I tell the players about it when it comes into play.




Yeah, I do this all the time.  My battles pretty much start with:

"You see a bunch of Orcs on the road in front of you.  They snarl menacingly at ready their weapons.  They don't look friendly.  Roll for initiative."

*write down the init*

"Alright, this is the situation.  This is water over here.  It doesn't look deep, walking through it will be hindering terrain.  These are big rocks, they provide cover.  It takes 2 squares of movement to get on them or you can jump up with an Athletics check.  These are trees.  The truck of the tree is blocking terrain, the leaves and undergrowth are hindering terrain but provide cover when standing in them.

Any questions?  No.  Good, the beginning of initiative is..."


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## PrecociousApprentice (Apr 5, 2009)

Exactly MO, and if there is someone that doesn't like how I set things up, they can object, and we handle it throught communication. If it looks like it is not going to get resolved quickly, I ask that the players just go with a decent compromise this time, and we will settle it outside of game time. Keep play flowing, allow dissent, and communicate about everything.


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## Imban (Apr 5, 2009)

PrecociousApprentice said:


> Not only does the level of verisimilitude necessary differ between people in an audience, but it differs for each element of the fantasy world for each person. Some might be fine with the non-deadly lava and have serious problems with recovering wounds in one night but not have problems with three nights, etc... Verisimilitude is relative to genre, world, world element, audience, and likely more. *It is almost silly to say that any level of verisimilitude is necessary.* When we insist this, it implies that verisimilitude is on a single axis, and you can travel down this single axis in either direction, more or less believable, and that this axis is objective. The reality is that there are infinite verisimilitude axes, and no axis can be difined as objective.




It's pretty hard to say what people's preferences for things are, yes, since they differ for everyone, but your bolded line is dangerously wrong - it sounds an awful lot like "No level of verisimilitude is necessary" as opposed to "no single level of verisimilitude is necessary", and while I'd argue the latter is wrong too (because enough consistency to stop people from giant frogging locked doors is probably necessary to everyone), the former is basically the Perfect solution fallacy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in action: I might strictly prefer games where all damage is actually greivous physical (or "life force") wounds inflicted upon a character, while Nabmi might strictly prefer games where no injury incompatible with life (for example, skinny-dipping in magma, repeated greataxe blows to the forehead, etc.) is possibly survivable. Our preferences for levels of verisimilitude ("Healing spells heal being demoralized? People can be fatally demoralized or mind-boggled? What?" and "People can survive third-degree burns to 100% of their body? What?") are clearly incompatible, but you seem to be advocating game designers realize this and... write a game that satisfies neither of us because it can't possibly satisfy us both.

Which is fine, if what you're actually saying is "I have very low verisimilitude preferences and want game designers to write games that satisfy *me*.", but that doesn't occupy a more privileged position than any other.


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## PrecociousApprentice (Apr 5, 2009)

I am actually not saying anything about my preferred level of "realism" in any perticular game, much less ALL games. 

I am saying that "realism" is very much context dependent. We can't even all agree on what is "real" in the real world. Check into any religion debate. "Realism" is something that is dependent on genre, theme, tone, as well as group and individual tastes, and is basically set for each element in the game. This only happens as a process, and requires communication to create the "necessary" amount of "realism". Complaining about whether a certain game is "realistic" enough means nothing without all of this context. 

The complaints about insufficient "realism" typically happen over a specific event in game. They are often a reaction to the DM not having the same assumptions about what "real" is in a fantasy game as they do. The ones that don't fit this mold are typically people who hate a specific game and just want to bash it and it's adherents, and usually takes the tone of "Your unrealistic games are inferior to mine!" The only rebuttal to the second is "Quit playing this system and quit insulting me." The rebuttal to the second is "Your objections are meaningless without the context to give them meaning. Your problems probably exist as a result of insuficient or failed communication." 

I am not trying to point out that there is no solution. I am not trying to point out that there is a perfect solution. I am pointing out where all of these debates go wrong. They go wrong because any complaint about the percieved lack of "realism" in any particular game should be structured in the form of "This particular game is not realistic enough..." with a long string of qualifiers, the most important of which will be "...for me in this context." Anything less really has no meaning.


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## BryonD (Apr 5, 2009)

SilvercatMoonpaw2 said:


> Why do you expect things to act like reality, or act consistently, when they aren't real?



If things need not act with any consistency because they are not real, then why spend any money on rulebooks?   Seriously.

I haven't read a single post in this thread beyond the first.  I'd imagine I'm retreading.  But, just speaking for myself, the reason I expect things to act consistently is because it has been demonstrated that it can be achieved and having that in place adds leaps and bounds of quality to the satisfaction and enjoyment of the gaming experience.


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## howandwhy99 (Apr 6, 2009)

Perusing some of these responses, I tihnk the OP has received a definite answer.  A roleplaying game, at least a traditional roleplaying game, needs to have a coherent world and inhabitants or the game is unplayable.  The game, again for traditional RPGs, has been about creating and enacting strategies and tactics within a fictional world.  The degree to which the game world is or isn't predictable is the degree to which the players can or cannot strategize within it.  No plans or preparations can really be made in relation to an incoherent (or worse, inexistent) world.  This is why we have adventure modules.  And campaign worlds. And book after book of detailed characters and items and places and more.  It is to define an understandable world for the players to discover. 

I'm not going to get into the specifics defining between realism, verisimilitude, and fantasy realities.  But a game world that cannot be understood by its' players definitively  cannot be successfully roleplayed within.


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## ExploderWizard (Apr 6, 2009)

howandwhy99 said:


> Perusing some of these responses, I tihnk the OP has received a definite answer. A roleplaying game, at least a traditional roleplaying game, needs to have a coherent world and inhabitants or the game is unplayable. The game, again for traditional RPGs, has been about creating and enacting strategies and tactics within a fictional world. The degree to which the game world is or isn't predictable is the degree to which the players can or cannot strategize within it. No plans or preparations can really be made in relation to an incoherent (or worse, inexistent) world. This is why we have adventure modules. And campaign worlds. And book after book of detailed characters and items and places and more. It is to define an understandable world for the players to discover.
> 
> I'm not going to get into the specifics defining between realism, verisimilitude, and fantasy realities. But a game world that cannot be understood by its' players definitively cannot be successfully roleplayed within.




I agree with this assessment. Expanding upon this premise of a world with a defined reality (no matter how realistic or unrealistic it may be) the players need to be informed about what is obviously perceptible about that reality. This doesn't mean that thier characters have to know how everything in the world works. There are a lot of people in our own world who don't understand the math behind basic physics but they can recognize "normal" behavior based on these physical principles when they see it.

Such basic understanding of baseline world knowledge is essential in order for the strange and mysterious to have any real meaning. I enjoy using different basic physical and magical laws for other planes of existance. These differences are only meaningful if the prime material plane is consistent in this regard. 

Baseline realities don't have to be the same as those of the real world. A fantasy world could feature slightly less gravity than earth which would mean that heroic jumps, and leaps would be accepted as normal in such a world. The important thing would be that characters from this world know through common knowledge that such feats were "normal" and wouldn't have the same "Wow!!" factor that they would on a world with normal gravity. 

I prefer using the realities of the real world with well defined exceptions. The trick to maintaining consistency isn't in sticking to reality its in ensuring that the players are not suprised by something that thier characters would know by default.


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## Galloglaich (Apr 6, 2009)

The issue is ultimately internal consistency, and the confusion I think it comes back to whether or not you are in a Genre. We can recognize certain clear Genres that are well defined in pop culture: "Toon", Star Wars, Film Noire, Superhero, Western, etc. These are generally understood by most people, so non-gamers can fairly easily guess the basic rules of these worlds; falling doesn't kill you in a Toon world, spaceships make noise in outer space and "The Force" works like Magic in Star Wars etc. To me any game which is fairly accessible to regular folks is a healthier game.

When it comes to Fantasy RPG's, some people have always assumed a relatively consistent realistic / historically based world, with well defined magic and mythological elements laid over that. Many other people have always played in a variety of default Fantasy Genres of some kind.... which has brought great enjoyment to people playing with their friends in their own groups. The problem with these 'default' Genres is that they are not explicitly defined as such. The default FRPG Genre is actually a lot of baggage from a myriad of games, tv shows, films, books, which find their way into individual games and also rules systems. It's basically something wich comes out of gamer culture, and is always interpreted differently by each group of players.

The latter approach causes a serious problem for many people when certain rules systems enforce an (always slightly different) very specific type of pseudo-High Fantasy Genre, making the other realistic, historical, or specific literary subgenres (Tolkein, Vance, Moorcock, Leiber) based games all but impossible to play within the system (without heavy house-rules).

There are many clearly defined subGenres within Fantasy or Sci Fi which have been quite successful: Call of Cthulhu, Steampunk, Vampires, Paranoia, Space Opera, Post-Apocalypse, Conan, Dying Earth, Warhammer etc. etc. Games based on these genres are usually successful because people clearly know what they are getting into.

I think the problem with DnD is that a frankly rather cartoonish (but serious!) FRPG Genre enforcing a very specific type of game play has been imposed upon it. Some people really like this default Genre (in it's various wildly different incarnations 2nd, 3rd or 4th Ed, Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Grayhawk etc. etc.), but not everybody does, and more importantly, I personally think people who haven't already been playing RPGs for decades often find them rather alienating. For me personally, these are Genre I got into as a kid, but I can't get really enjoy any more as an adult. 

I also think people don't realize how off-putting some of the assumptions which make up this Genre are to regular folks who aren't gamers, and how much this "default genre" isolates gamers and keeps games like DnD deep inside a niche. Anybody who saw Star Wars gets the Star Wars Genre. Maybe it's a little nerdy, but if you like Star Wars, you'll have no problem fitting into a Star Wars game. The only way you can really know this default FRPG genre is really to have memorized a lot of RPG manuals and / or played hundreds of hours of RPGs. This makes it much harder for 'normal' people to buy into, IMO. When I have tried to introduce people to DnD, and they ask me "Wait, that guy is an ordinary human fighter, but he fell off the fifth story of the building and he can still run away?" or "Why does being stabbed with a dagger hurt less than being hit with a stick? Isn't a Dagger a big knife like this big?" I don't really know what to tell them, other than "well that is just the rules of the game...".

I think there are a variety of ways to play RPGs, there is no reason why people can't play any way they want including games where you can surf on lava if you want to. But people new to RPGs, and even people who have played for years but have some knowledge of history, weapons, martial arts, biology etc. etc., may feel more comfortable with a game that isn't based on this particular, frankly rather strange FRPG Genre that has come to seem normal to us by default, in much the same way as a Renaissance Faire comes to be the 'normal' version of Medieval History for a lot of people. 

By contrast, a realistic basis for your game means you have a world you can understand without already being immersed in gamer culture, and has the additional advantage that it is automatically internally consistent, without tons of wierd gymnastic tinkering with the rules to make them balance.

G.


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## Scribble (Apr 6, 2009)

Galloglaich said:


> For me it's not at all an issue of making the special or magic things rational (this is what I mean by talking past each other) but of making the non-special or magic things rational so that the special or magic things stand out all the more.




I understand what you're saying, but I also think maybe I'm not making the right point. I though about it a bit over the weekend:

Even when it comes to some things magical and some things mundane, sometimes you have to be willing to kind of recanoiter the mundane in order for the two to mesh. Afterall what good is superman's ability to lift a building if physics never lets him do it?

That's where what I like to call the FUNdane comes in. It's the part where the two meet. In order to showcase superman's great stregnth he lifts a building, and doesn't break through it instead. In order to have a "cool" thing like a dragon, we make fundane say sure, lizards can fly if they just had wings.

In D&D this also doesn't just mean a magic layer connected to a mundane layer. The "magic" layer can sometimes simply mean the outrageous parts. IE the dragon... it's not really magic, but we fundane physics a bit so that for the most part it's the same but some stuff is different. (Because it's fun.)

We see this in other artistic mediums as well... IE in real life watching someone run a DNA test over the course of a number of weeks in a sterile lab is BORRING. But if you fundane it a bit, and make it happen much faster, in a visualy stimulating fashion that meshes well to a techno beat? Now it's fun!

The problem is that everyone's level of fundane they're willing to accept is different. 

My wife is in fact a research biologist studying breast cancer, so CSI really bugs her. It's all done too quickly and easily, they aren't at all sterile, and too small of a group to do as much as they do.  The pay off just isn't worth it for her.

On the other hand she really likes Fringe. Half the time he's  just babbling scientific buzz words when he talks about mundane science, but the end result is so much fun that she doesn't mind. 

In a social game like D&D this can cause issues though. IE the DM's fundane annoys one of his players, and it's especialy true if it hinder's the player in some way. "What do you mean he made it accross the lava and did that much damage??? Lava should kill him instanty there's no way he could do that!"

I think in the end it's just going to be one of those things that's different for everyone, and various groups have to come to their own consensus about the level of fundane they're willing to accept.


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## Janx (Apr 6, 2009)

The bulk of the "that's not realistic" arguments I see in games come from one side arguing against something that happened in the game, or somebody trying to screw the other side with "realisim".  In both cases, it's trying to manipulate the rules and game events to a favorable outcome.

In a game with a good GM, a scene with lava will be introduced with description and clues as to what's dangerous, and what's not.

If there's a bridge, the implication is the party will cross it (and it's safe, or it's a trap).

If it's too hot, the PC will be told about searing heat, before he gets too close to actually take damage.

If there's dangerous gases, the PC will be told that the air is hard to breathe, and gets worse the close he gets to the lava.


In a game with a bad GM, the GM will say nothing like this.  He's waiting for the PC to get within range of the lava to announce heat damage.  The PC has no common sense "this is too hot" warnings before he gets too close.

On the player side, it's the same thing.  If the orcs start crossing the bridge, they'll bring up that the orcs should die from the heat and gasses because they saw a show on National Geographic about it.  Never mind that they wouldn't bring that up, if the PCs were needing to cross that bridge.

It's a known characteristic, that if you try to accurately simulate reality, the game rules become complex and numerous.  This slows down game play, and reduces fun.  People bring up realisim, specifically to attack what's happening in game, to try to gain an advantage.


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## Galloglaich (Apr 6, 2009)

Janx said:


> It's a known characteristic, that if you try to accurately simulate reality, the game rules become complex and numerous. This slows down game play, and reduces fun. .




Thats funny, because I actually find the opposite to be the case. In my opinion, a realistic system can allow the rules to be more in the background. 

DnD 3.5 could hardly be called a realistic game by any stretch of the imagination, I think a lot of it's high-complexity comes from trying to tweak a system based on an artificial faux medieval Universe with an almost irreconcilable mish=mash of elements without any connection to historical reality or recognizable literary genres.  

By comparison, when I play Call of Cthulhu, I almost never think about the rules, (other than my SAN points). The genre is an extremely realistic, highly detailed historical background, onto which are layered distinct Lovecreaft mythos elements (and a few non-existent towns). As a player, I'm thinking about the last clue we just found, whether an NPC we met is part of a dangerous cult, of staying one step ahead of the law etc., not the rules. If I decide to climb on a window ledge, I know it will involve a relatively simple die roll with fairly realistic odds of success, and if I fall, I can predict what will happen based on my experiences of real life (i.e. I'm in trouble).

There is this really persistent myth that realistic = complex, and unrealistic=simple. Thats a completely false dichotomy. Whether your system is based on a historical world or a completely new made up one isn't even necessarily related to the level of abstraction.

The real problem with some 'realistic' systems in the past is a lot of game designers didn't do much research about things like martial arts or weapons, physiology or animals, or history, so when they do tried to make something realistic tend to make poorly educated guesses about reality based on re-hashed research done 30 years ago. And nothing fits together very well as a result.



> People bring up realisim, specifically to attack what's happening in game, to try to gain an advantage.



I find that people tend to use the excuse that it's fantasy and not meant to be realistic to cover poorly thought out, randomly fluctuating game environments that tend to become more rather than less complex over time as they get patched together like a rube-goldeberg machine in a doomed effort to achieve some kind of consistency.

G.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 6, 2009)

There's a rule I remember about fiction writing that's always stuck with me: people will accept the impossible, but not the improbable. Many people who have no problem with Superman flying (to go back a bit in the thread), have a problem with the glasses as a disguise.

I chalk this up to personal taste. People call for realism in unrealistic situations because calling for realism sounds objective while saying something isn't to your particular taste does not, and I've noticed a preference to be objective in this culture.

Similar terms seem to mask personal taste with objectivity: suspension of disbelief and consistency to name two.

Suspension of disbelief is usually used to counter the realism argument by saying that whatever brought them out of the game is objectively bad and most others would agree with them. This is false because what takes one person out of the moment will not affect another.

Consistency sounds the most objective but it falls short in that many stories are inconsistent with each other. The history of the Marvel and DC universes are notoriously inconsistent, yet people still read them. TV shows are often inconsistent, sitcoms are notorious for keeping kids in school far longer than should. Soap operas are notable for their loose rules on character aging and other such things. Yet still people watch them and enjoy them.

As a DM I don't deal with generalities with my group. Either A is fun or it is not fun. If it's not fun I don't do it. Generalities get in the way my total domination of the game by encouraging players to make arguments based on generalities to try to get away with things that aren't fun for me.

Remember, happiness is mandatory. The players are required to have fun.


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## Galloglaich (Apr 6, 2009)

fanboy2000 said:


> Consistency sounds the most objective but it falls short in that many stories are inconsistent with each other. The history of the Marvel and DC universes are notoriously inconsistent, yet people still read them. TV shows are often inconsistent, sitcoms are notorious for keeping kids in school far longer than should. Soap operas are notable for their loose rules on character aging and other such things. Yet still people watch them and enjoy them..




This is a good analogy, and there is another way to look at it. DC or Marvel Comic books and Soap operas may be highly enjoyable for certain demographics who never get tired of them, but usually the very young and the very old respectively... A lot of people (myself included) are too old for the former and not senile enough yet for the latter .

More to the point, comic books and soap operas are both well established, recognizable Genres which evolved over the course of generations.  So the particular quirks are pretty well understood by their fans.

G.


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## Mallus (Apr 6, 2009)

fanboy2000 said:


> The history of the Marvel and DC universes are notoriously inconsistent, yet people still read them.



This is because rigorous consistency is merely one of the pleasures a fictional universe can offer. There are a lot of others.

Someone once remarked consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. While I wouldn't go _that_ far -- everyone is entitled to their fetishes-- I would say rigorous consistency is, frankly, close-to-impossible in certain of the more fanciful fictional genres, and a kind of 'just-so logic' and 'just-so consistency' are the most you can expect.


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## Galloglaich (Apr 6, 2009)

Mallus said:


> This is because rigorous consistency is merely one of the pleasures a fictional universe can offer. There are a lot of others.
> 
> Someone once remarked consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. While I wouldn't go _that_ far -- everyone is entitled to their fetishes-- I would say rigorous consistency is, frankly, close-to-impossible in certain of the more fanciful fictional genres, and a kind of 'just-so logic' and 'just-so consistency' are the most you can expect.




I guess it kind of depends what kind of grasp of reality you have. What seems like a niggling detail to one person strikes another as complete derailment. 

When I was eight, the idea of Superman flying around, picking up skyscrapers, wearing tights and a cape, and fooling his close associates by wearing glasses all seemed pretty reasonable. Schoolmates who argued about this or that superhero power struck me as petty and small minded. 

But by the time I was thirteen or fourteen superheroes in general seemed pretty corny... today I couldn't follow a story about superman to save my life, let alone act one out as a serious participant, I would just get bored and my mind would wander after two seconds. It takes something a bit more grown up to catch my attention. I really don't think I'm alone in this.

G.


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## Ariosto (Apr 7, 2009)

The movie _The Matrix_ early on smashed my suspension of disbelief by throwing the laws of thermodynamics out the window with its fundamental premise. That was a little hard for me to take in stride because the movie seemed otherwise somewhat intelligently and carefully put together -- and there was no need for such a stupid explanation (worse really than none at all). _Dark City_ worked better for me partly because it lacked the "cyberpunk" trappings inspiring science-fiction expectations.

_The Core_, on the other hand, was obviously and thoroughly absurd. I expected no less going in, and it kept up the "so bad the badness itself is entertaining" aspect enough to sustain my interest. I could see much _more_ interesting possibilities, though, in a story not so determinedly clueless.

It was hard to avoid sensing some contempt for the audience in both cases. Apparently, the film makers could not be bothered to educate themselves (even to a barely passable high-school level) on very basic matters -- because they assumed of the audience a deep-seated ignorance. The assumption might generally be correct, but taking that as an excuse for such laziness is insulting. It's like the things children of a certain age notice with distaste in works by authors who have the notion that stories for children should be _childish_.


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## Fallen Seraph (Apr 7, 2009)

Ariosto said:


> It was hard to avoid sensing some contempt for the audience in both cases. Apparently, the film makers could not be bothered to educate themselves (even to a barely passable high-school level) on very basic matters -- because they assumed of the audience a deep-seated ignorance. The assumption might generally be correct, but taking that as an excuse for such laziness is insulting. It's like the things children of a certain age notice with distaste in works by authors who have the notion that stories for children should be _childish_.



I don't think it is the view that the audience has deep-seated ignorance, nor simply being lazy/not knowing. But more (especially with something like the _Matrix_) that reality if it gets in the way of telling a story (especially if it is core to the premise) then the story should win out over reality.

If the Wachowski Brothers had been that deeply concerned about reality (and I wouldn't be surprised if they had fairly good knowledge on academic knowledge) then the _Matrix_ would simply not exist. What would one wish to have, everything stick to reality or have a fun/good story be told?


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## Ariosto (Apr 7, 2009)

Again, there was simply _no need_ for such stupidity that I could see. An at least slightly plausible explanation could have been offered -- or _none at all_. The idiotic rationale simply drew attention to itself that (for me) distracted from the story.


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 7, 2009)

*Robert Anton Wilson is a god*



Galloglaich said:


> More to the point, comic books and soap operas are both well established, recognizable Genres which evolved over the course of generations.  So the particular quirks are pretty well understood by their fans.



I agree with you. The peculiarities of comic books are well known by their fans. I suspect that this is part of their charm, but no one in the comic book community wants to admit it. 

That said, inconsistencies are not limited to juvenile literature and soaps. But you don't have to take my word for it...



			
				 Martin Gardner in the essay The Royal Historian of Oz* said:
			
		

> Literary masterpieces are often written with astonishing carelessness of detail. Cervantes completely forgot that Sancho Panza’s ass had been stolen; with no word or explanation we find Sancho riding him again. Robinson Crusoe strips off his cloths, swims out to the wreckage of a ship, and a moment later we find him filling his pockets with biscuts from the ship’s bread room. Like the Baker Street Irregulars, who delight in inventing plausible explantions for Watson’s memory lapses, a group of Oz enthusiasts can spend many pleasant hours suggesting ways for harmonizing similar contradictions in the Royal History.



Going back to realism, I think a big part of the debate that is often missing is consensus. For a DM, realism is simply a matter what the players let him or her get away with. For a game designer, realism is a simply a matter of what his or her audience will let the designer get away with. 

As a DM it's important to enforce the rule that happiness is mandatory. Voluntary compliance makes the rule easy to enforce so I make sure that my players think they are getting an acceptable amount of realism. A game designer would be well advised to take his or her audience into account when deciding on the amount of realism to include.

* first published in _Fantasy and Science Fiction_ January/February 1955 and re-published in _The Night is Large: Collected Essays 1938-1995_


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## fanboy2000 (Apr 7, 2009)

*More thoughts on realism*

Has anyone thought about the lack of realism outside of science fiction and fantasy? Ask a criminal lawyer about _Law & Order_ and you'll see what I mean. Or think about the layout of sitcom apartments, has anyone _ever_ had an apartment with kind of layout? Doesn't anyone use the wall their TV is on?

And this isn't a new phenomena. Anyone ever seen a Shakespearian comedy? Twin bother and sister who look exactly alike? Fraternal twins simply don't work like that. Neither do identical twins. 

While I'm at it, the Neo Classicism style popular during the Renaissance wasn't exactly realistic either. 

While I'm on the subject of film, TV, and theater, I'd like to point out that actors are trained to act un-realistically. Every acting class I've taken has said an actor is supposed to find out what the character wants and base their performance on that. It's well established in psychology that people do not act in a manner consistent with what they want. But that's what actor's are trained to do. I wouldn't be surprised some actors/acting coaches actually thought humans behaved that way.


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## Galloglaich (Apr 7, 2009)

Fallen Seraph said:


> I don't think it is the view that the audience has deep-seated ignorance, nor simply being lazy/not knowing. But more (especially with something like the _Matrix_) that reality if it gets in the way of telling a story (especially if it is core to the premise) then the story should win out over reality.
> 
> If the Wachowski Brothers had been that deeply concerned about reality (and I wouldn't be surprised if they had fairly good knowledge on academic knowledge) then the _Matrix_ would simply not exist. What would one wish to have, everything stick to reality or have a fun/good story be told?




I must be missing something, because I thought the majority of the 'magical' scenes in the Matrix, at least in the first film (the one everybody liked), took place in a virtual reality. Therefore it was realistic. I think that is what a lot of people liked about it.

I really loved the original Matrix (Carrie Anne Moss, yum..), but I thought the series went downhill, and I thought the verisimilitude seemed to really unravel by the third film....



But this is completely beside the point. *Nobody is arguing that you have to be a slave to realism or that you can't have Magic in your game.* Nobody is even arguing that you have to use think about realism at all. We are describing why we think realism is important for our gaming and how _we_ like to use it. I personally believe unless you have some intentional specific reason it works better to keep things realistic, *partly because this makes the Magical elements stand out.  (*All desert and no dinner makes for a stomach ache.)


So in other words, if we want to make a game in which a guy can fly, or walk on lava to get back to the OP, of course there is nothing wrong with that. What we think is a drag is to drift unconsciously into a zone where physics more or less randomly works or doesn't work etc. for no particular reason other than inertia or laziness or the assumption that your audience is stupid... or just because thats the way it was done before and some people have gotten really comfortable with that.

G.


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## Galloglaich (Apr 7, 2009)

fanboy2000 said:


> Has anyone thought about the lack of realism outside of science fiction and fantasy? Ask a criminal lawyer about _Law & Order_ and you'll see what I mean. Or think about the layout of sitcom apartments, has anyone _ever_ had an apartment with kind of layout? Doesn't anyone use the wall their TV is on?
> 
> And this isn't a new phenomena. Anyone ever seen a Shakespearian comedy? Twin bother and sister who look exactly alike? Fraternal twins simply don't work like that. Neither do identical twins.
> 
> While I'm at it, the Neo Classicism style popular during the Renaissance wasn't exactly realistic either.




What you are talking about here are Genres.  Within a given Genre the rules of the Genre supercede realism.  

What we are arguing is that realism is good to fall back on unless you have a good reason, like being inside a Genre.  This is particularly true for a Generalist game like DnD, which is ostensibly meant to be serious rather than comedic like Toon, say.  Of course you can make up a new Genre, or base one on the assumed expectations of your audience, but then that makes it harder to engage people who have to learn it and buy into it.  Quite a challenge for an RPG which is already a type of game which new people have some trouble buying into.



> While I'm on the subject of film, TV, and theater, I'd like to point out that actors are trained to act un-realistically. Every acting class I've taken has said an actor is supposed to find out what the character wants and base their performance on that. It's well established in psychology that people do not act in a manner consistent with what they want. But that's what actor's are trained to do. I wouldn't be surprised some actors/acting coaches actually thought humans behaved that way.




Yes, and most TV shows and films are basically crap.  The ones which stand out are often the ones which convey real characters and real situations, contrary to the expectations of the audience, or the ones which make up their own new reality intentionally.

But even within a Genre, realism can be useful.

Some audience really liked the old kind of John Wayne war movies where the "good guys" never died and the supporting characters got neat little wounds at dramatic moments, and then gave moving speeches before they passed away.  This is a cliche that became a Genre of it's own, and many people were very, very comfortable with that, so comfortable that these films stayed in that particular groove for decades.  But eventually the unrealistic elements got so predictable they had become really boring even for people who knew nothing about warfare, and those kind of War movies stopped making money.

Then a film like Saving Private Ryan comes along, and with a lot of expensive technical advice from historian Stephen Ambrose, added a touch of brutal realism in the D-Day landing scene which contributed to the film becomming wildly popular.  Then Blackhawk Down showed the harsh reality of a gritty firefight in Somalia, and also gripped the audience (and made millions). Did these films have dramatic and frankly unrealistic elements?  Of course!  But by tapping into the reality of the nuanced (and often surprising) historical events they portrayed they were able to re-establish a foundation of verisimilitude which strengthened the Genre, and made the dramatic / unrealistic elements they did use stand out and seem more plausible.

G.


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## pawsplay (Apr 8, 2009)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> Meh, it looks like they are standing about 10-20 feet away from the lava and are perfectly fine.  Anakin only bursts into flame when he gets within about 2 feet of the lava itself.  Obi-wan even walks pretty darn close to the edge to look down at the flaming Anakin and he's completely fine.  Maybe they were using some Jedi fire retardant trick, but I doubt it.
> 
> Plus, one of them was standing on a droid's head.  He might have had magnetic shielding, but I doubt it was big enough to cover an entire person standing on it.
> 
> It's just a flimsy excuse to have a battle over lava.




There isn't enough information to even argue what should happen. I don't know what was shield, how much, how it works, etc. It's enough that we understand the equipment was magnetically sealed (consistent with what happens later when the protection is turned off during the final battle) and we know we can suspend some of our ordinary expectations about being near that much lava (and on a metallic planet, which usually means poison and radiation). If, by chance, someone missed that element, then the battle looks decidedly silly. 

Knowing a dragon is a magical beast that breathes fire is sufficient. Everything else follows from that; any explanation need bend only in the direction of explaining why. 

Explaining what, however, is an important matter; if a dragon gets killed and falls on someone, we would expect that to be catastrophic, even if we assume dragons are fairly light for their size. Similarly, if economics in a world look strange, we want to know why; "people are not like Earth people" is acceptable but changes the milieu significantly.


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## Rechan (Apr 8, 2009)

Galloglaich said:


> I guess it kind of depends what kind of grasp of reality you have. What seems like a niggling detail to one person strikes another as complete derailment.
> 
> When I was eight, the idea of Superman flying around, picking up skyscrapers, wearing tights and a cape, and fooling his close associates by wearing glasses all seemed pretty reasonable. Schoolmates who argued about this or that superhero power struck me as petty and small minded.
> 
> But by the time I was thirteen or fourteen superheroes in general seemed pretty corny... today I couldn't follow a story about superman to save my life, let alone act one out as a serious participant, I would just get bored and my mind would wander after two seconds. It takes something a bit more grown up to catch my attention. I really don't think I'm alone in this.



You know, I'm reading a whole lot of subtle condescending insult here.

You may not even realize it. But reading this, I see "Clearly, only people who are not mature can enjoy superheros, due to its implausibility. I just Can't enjoy them because I'm an ADULT". No, you didn't spell it out, but you point out that you felt Superman was reasonable at a young age, then at 13 it's corny, now you can't even pay attention to it. 

Look at your first sentence: "it depends on what kind of grasp on reality you have." What exactly is "grasp of reality" supposed to mean besides how sane you are?

Or what you said earlier:


> This is a good analogy, and there is another way to look at it. DC or Marvel Comic books and Soap operas may be highly enjoyable for certain demographics who never get tired of them, but usually the very young and the very old respectively... A lot of people (myself included) are too old for the former and not senile enough yet for the latter



So either the immature young, or the senile old, like these things? this article says the average age of the comic book reader is 19-20, according to "industry sources". Any time I am in a comic shop, those who are looking at comics (like my father) are in their 30s or 40s. Do you really think the majority of Soap Opera viewers are senile old folks, and not, say, house wives and people who work in doctors' offices where the TV is on? 

Maybe I am wrong, to which I apologize, but the impression I get from your words is that you are implying those who like what does not interest you are somehow immature or mentally unstable.


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## Ariosto (Apr 8, 2009)

> Similarly, if economics in a world look strange, we want to know why.



Indeed.



			
				4E Player's Handbook said:
			
		

> Although you can try to sell copies of a ritual you know, doing so offers no financial gain ... You pay the full cost to create a scroll and can typically sell it for only half value.




Why? Has D&D Land been conquered by Communists? If you try to break even, or to make a profit, do Federal Trade Commission Balrogs show up? Inquiring minds want to know!


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## Lanefan (Apr 8, 2009)

Ariosto said:


> Why? Has D&D Land been conquered by Communists? If you try to break even, or to make a profit, do Federal Trade Commission Balrogs show up? Inquiring minds want to know!



The FTC Balrogs won't show up, but try this in my game and the DM Smackdown Agency sure will.

I *refuse* to DM a game revolving around profit-based economics.  It's perhaps my biggest intentional back-turn on how the game-world's reality would normally function, but I despise econonics as a science in real life and if I can avoid it in my game, I will.

That, and my players in-character are greedy enough as it is. 

Lanefan


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## Plane Sailing (Apr 8, 2009)

Galloglaich said:


> This is a good analogy, and there is another way to look at it. DC or Marvel Comic books and Soap operas may be highly enjoyable for certain demographics who never get tired of them, but usually the very young and the very old respectively... A lot of people (myself included) are too old for the former and not senile enough yet for the latter .






Galloglaich said:


> I guess it kind of depends what kind of grasp of reality you have. What seems like a niggling detail to one person strikes another as complete derailment.
> 
> When I was eight, the idea of Superman flying around, picking up skyscrapers, wearing tights and a cape, and fooling his close associates by wearing glasses all seemed pretty reasonable. Schoolmates who argued about this or that superhero power struck me as petty and small minded.
> 
> But by the time I was thirteen or fourteen superheroes in general seemed pretty corny... today I couldn't follow a story about superman to save my life, let alone act one out as a serious participant, I would just get bored and my mind would wander after two seconds. It takes something a bit more grown up to catch my attention. I really don't think I'm alone in this.




I don't know whether you are realise you are doing it, but your recent posts (I've included two above) are rather condescending. 

Stop it, or you'll be banned from the thread.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 8, 2009)

Galloglaich said:


> I must be missing something, because I thought the majority of the 'magical' scenes in the Matrix, at least in the first film (the one everybody liked), took place in a virtual reality. Therefore it was realistic. I think that is what a lot of people liked about it.




I don't think the issue was the Matrix itself as a virtual reality, but the reason why the machines created it - to get energy from the humans.

That doesn't make any sense. It would have been better to claim they need the processing power of the human brain or whatever. (That doesn't make much more sense, since we actually need the processing power of our brain for ourselves , even in a virtual reality).


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## Galloglaich (Sep 25, 2010)

Plane Sailing said:


> I don't know whether you are realise you are doing it, but your recent posts (I've included two above) are rather condescending.
> 
> Stop it, or you'll be banned from the thread.




Hey, I was describing my own life experiences, if somebody took that as a put down of Superman comics I can't help that.  

G.


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## Mournblade94 (Sep 25, 2010)

Galloglaich said:


> This is a good analogy, and there is another way to look at it. DC or Marvel Comic books and Soap operas may be highly enjoyable for certain demographics who never get tired of them, but usually the very young and the very old respectively... A lot of people (myself included) are too old for the former and not senile enough yet for the latter
> 
> G.




There is very little difference between the age maturity of superhero comics and fantasy.

To say you are too old for comics, yet somehow the fantasy genre is in your age group, is just a bit silly.

Monsters evolving the shape of garments to eat Dungeon Delvers (Cloaker) just as ridiculous as humans developing strange mutation powers.  

A table top rules system will not achieve realism unless in the construction experimentation is done, and lots of variables are isolated for effect.  Otherwise it is all a matter of opinion of what is realistic.  By their nature, all combat systems are abstractions, as they cannot account for 'realistic' forcings.


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## Mort (Sep 25, 2010)

Galloglaich said:


> This is a good analogy, and there is another way to look at it. DC or Marvel Comic books and Soap operas may be highly enjoyable for certain demographics who never get tired of them, but usually the very young and the very old respectively... A lot of people (myself included) are too old for the former and not senile enough yet for the latter .
> 
> More to the point, comic books and soap operas are both well established, recognizable Genres which evolved over the course of generations.  So the particular quirks are pretty well understood by their fans.
> 
> G.




The first thing I thought of when reading this post (and a few others like it) is the old quote "anyone driving slower than me is an idiot; anyone driving faster is a maniac." It's too easy to assume that your opinion and or view is the obviously correct one and talk down accordingly.

Ironically, realism in an RPG is quite subjective, in the sense that quite a lot of things many people assume are realistic (for better or worse) are not - death spirals come to mind as an example.


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## Serra (Sep 25, 2010)

> It's just something that I don't get when I read about "realism" OR "versimilitude":
> Why do you expect things to act like reality, or act consistently, when they aren't real?




Certainly it's not reality. For myself, I call it suspension of disbeilef, World cohesion, and In-game believability.

I have deeper immersion into the game world with ~some~ consistancy to it.


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## prosfilaes (Sep 25, 2010)

Lanefan said:


> The FTC Balrogs won't show up, but try this in my game and the DM Smackdown Agency sure will.
> 
> I *refuse* to DM a game revolving around profit-based economics.  It's perhaps my biggest intentional back-turn on how the game-world's reality would normally function, but I despise econonics as a science in real life and if I can avoid it in my game, I will.
> 
> ...



But that's a bit of a horse of a different color. The GM saying that they don't want to play a mercantile campaign is one thing. Personally, I'd go with the solution that there just isn't enough free demand for the things to make scribing them profitable except as a full-time business. But just declaring that they sell for less then they cost to make is hacky and annoying. 

Unrealistic rules that are just there to block the players are generally more annoying than unrealistic rules that enable fun things.


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## Derren (Sep 25, 2010)

Rechan said:


> Or, when you take a rule, and expand it in terms of a realistic world, the rule breaks down. For instance, the old "Wall of Iron". A wizard can cast Wall of Iron and create a _Wall of Iron_ that doesn't go away. He could then take that wall and melt it down and have a _whole lot of iron_. He could wreck the Iron economy just by casting a spell over and over. And, if you have more than one wizard, then...




Let me ressurect this post to make my point

When I talk about "realism" (and I do it rather often) I do not mean that wizards should not be able to create iron. If I would be against that I should not be really playing fantasy RPGs. No, what I mean is the society and economy should take into account that iron can be aquired without mining.

Or to use a common D&D problem. In practically every edition its rather easy to ressurect dead people. And when I complain about the lack of realism it is not because clerics are able to do that, but because the society still works like in the real world and everyone assumes that dead is final, even though it is not.

So in the end, a world which would be completely fantastic and nearly unrecognizable when compared to the real world it would still be more "real" to me than a 1:1 copy of mediveal earth with magic tacked on.



pawsplay said:


> Knowing a dragon is a magical beast that breathes fire is sufficient. Everything else follows from that; any explanation need bend only in the direction of explaining why.
> 
> Explaining what, however, is an important matter; if a dragon gets killed and falls on someone, we would expect that to be catastrophic, even if we assume dragons are fairly light for their size. Similarly, if economics in a world look strange, we want to know why; "people are not like Earth people" is acceptable but changes the milieu significantly.




For me its more important that the existence of fire breathing dragons affects the world beyond having a big "no go" mark on maps and later a quest to slay one. How does the existence of such creatures affect politics or architecture?
I can accept the existence of fantastic creatures because its fantasy. I can accept PCs somehow escaping them when a dragon falls on them because its a game. But having dragons, magic and many other fantastic things in the world without it changing in some way to accomodate them I can not accept.


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## Serra (Sep 25, 2010)

Derren said:


> Let me ressurect this post to make my point
> 
> 
> Or to use a common D&D problem. In practically every edition its rather easy to ressurect dead people. And when I complain about the lack of realism it is not because clerics are able to do that, but because the society still works like in the real world and everyone assumes that dead is final, even though it is not.




I flagged this point as to me it's a good example of game believability/ world cohesion with realism so to speak.


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## Votan (Sep 25, 2010)

Serra said:


> I flagged this point as to me it's a good example of game believability/ world cohesion with realism so to speak.




Steven Brust was a fantasy author who did an extremely good job of demonstrating the sort of implications that it would have on a society for death to be reversible.  

Of course, the most immediate reaction was an attempt to make death permanent in ways that spells could not reverse.


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## Haltherrion (Sep 25, 2010)

SilvercatMoonpaw2 said:


> Forked from: DMs: what have you learned from PLAYING that has made you a better DM?
> 
> 
> 
> ...




FRP games like fantasy books and movies require a certain amount of suspension of disbelief but audiences still expect a certain amount of internal consistency. In general, for the latter cases, the smaller the amount of disbelief the better it works. Audiences will interprete the game, movie or novel within the mechanics of real-world + "established suspension of disbelief".

Games are somewhat different in pracitce in that they have a huge body of rules (generally) that defines the "disbelief" necessary to execute them but it is still the same principle. So if the rules call for high fire resistance and it is well integrated into the rest of the system, most folks won't complain.

But in all genres if the author/ref/screenwriter keeps changing the required suspension of disbelief, the audience gets annoyed. The reference point keeps changing and they lose the context for enjoying the situation. What's the fun of battling Sauron if Gandalf at the end of the books pulls out a nuclear fireball?

Now, some people might quibble with the amount of suspension of disbelief required for a certain work but that's a personal preference issue. You might like James Bond movies, others might think they are preposterous and stupid. Others might dislike anything to do with magic and prefer their RPs to be gritty historical games. There's nothing right or wrong about that.


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## Zhaleskra (Sep 25, 2010)

I long ago replaced "realism" with "believability". "Versimilitude" to my ears sounds like jargon for the sake of jargon.

By believability, I mean what happens need to make sense in the context of the game mechanics.


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## Galloglaich (Sep 26, 2010)

Mournblade94 said:


> There is very little difference between the age maturity of superhero comics and fantasy.
> 
> To say you are too old for comics, yet somehow the fantasy genre is in your age group, is just a bit silly.
> 
> Monsters evolving the shape of garments to eat Dungeon Delvers (Cloaker) just as ridiculous as humans developing strange mutation powers.




But you are missing my point.  I don't use things like cloakers in my campaigns.  I don't think "Cloakers=Fantasy"  I don't find cloakers in the fantasy literature which defined the genre; Jack Vance or Fritz Lieber or Robert E. Howard or Lovecraft or Moorcock or Clark Ashton Smith.   For that matter I never felt obligated to use all the monsters in the Monster Manual or even to use monsters from Greek Mythology and Tolkein in the same campaign.

It's a similar comparison between a made-for-Sci-Fi-Channel fantasy movie about radioactive gargoyles or something, vs. a film such as, say Princess Bride or Stara Basn.   "Mansquito" has a very limited appeal, only people already very into the Sci Genre could sit through that unless they were drunk.  My girlfriend definitely won't watch it.  By comparison, Alien or Bladerunner, or Princess Bride, have a very wide appeal (and therefore reached a wide audience).  I would similarly like to see RPGs, particularly DnD, reach a wider audience in terms of demographics than they do today.

"Mansquito" requires a different level of suspension of disbelief than Alien.  The latter is more my idea of the level of 'fantasy' that I enjoy in an RPG. Even a more campy film like  Princess Bride which may be more 'high magic' than Alien or Stara Basn, is still based (not coincidentally) on an understanding of everything from real historical fencing techniques to established literary tropes, and had it's own plausible internal logic that made sense on an adult level.  To me it didn't "break" reality, it just bent it. 



> A table top rules system will not achieve realism unless in the construction experimentation is done, and lots of variables are isolated for effect.  Otherwise it is all a matter of opinion of what is realistic.  By their nature, all combat systems are abstractions, as they cannot account for 'realistic' forcings.



You can argue that literally anything is subjective including whether the sky is blue, at some level you have to fish or cut bait.   Five years ago I wrote a game to prove that an RpG combat system can be both fast paced and realistic, without being complicated or using tons of variables.  It has been put to the test and I think I've made my point.  Realism does _not_ equal complexity, that is a *false dichotomy*; realism is simply the basis of the underlying pattern.  You as a game designer (or a DM) can choose the level of abstraction you want, and choose what factors you want to bend.  So long as you are doing so intelligently it should still feel right. 

The reason we base so many things in games on real or historical systems is because they have their own internal consistency, their own balance, they have the feel of the rhythms of real life.  A fight based on real martial arts, whether it's got 5 variables or 500, is more fun to me than one based on arbitrary gibberish.  You can call it subjective if you like but I think it's an objective reality.  That is why in Fantasy and Sci Fi genres it's generally better to _stretch_ reality (and mythology) than to re-invent it, which is why the default Fantasy genre involves men with swords slaying beasts rather than (as someone once put it) amoebas with health-rays building immune systems inside giant space arachnids*.   

G.

* though who knows, that could be a fun game


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## Galloglaich (Sep 26, 2010)

Votan said:


> Steven Brust was a fantasy author who did an extremely good job of demonstrating the sort of implications that it would have on a society for death to be reversible.
> 
> Of course, the most immediate reaction was an attempt to make death permanent in ways that spells could not reverse.





The idea that you _have_ to have ressurection in a Fantasy RPG game is another example of unnecessary baggage.  It should be an option; it should not be hard-wired into the rules.

G.


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## prosfilaes (Sep 26, 2010)

Galloglaich said:


> The idea that you _have_ to have ressurection in a Fantasy RPG game is another example of unnecessary baggage.  It should be an option; it should not be hard-wired into the rules.




You don't have to have resurrection in a Fantasy RPG. I'm sure that the Dresden Files RPG doesn't. But D&D isn't really a universal fantasy RPG--imagine trying to run the Dresden Files with D&D without a hundred pages of house rules or completely ignoring what the Dresden Files says about magic. If you want to play D&D as written, it's written for universes where there is resurrection magic. If you don't want to play with resurrection magic, then it's a simple house rule; the same type of house rule required if you don't want mages conjuring food--and if you want to run a Harry Potter RPG using D&D, those are just two of the rules you're going to have to change.

I find the positions that the books should take into account how much of an effect resurrection can have on the world and that resurrection should be an optional feature to be slightly contradictory, though. Optional rules are a lot harder to well-integrate into a system and world, since they are optional.


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## Galloglaich (Sep 26, 2010)

Well, I think maybe that is part of the problem with how 'tight' DnD has gotten in it's last two or three incarnations in the pursuit of 'balance'.  I'm by no means trying to start any edition war nonsense here, but somewhere along the line the game changed to start to build-in expectations of a certain type of play, and that is a bit of a problem for me.  I think DnD is the 'gateway drug' of RPGs and should be fairly generic or at least grounded in the literary fantasy genre.

I don't think 1E DnD was hard wired for high - level / high - magic play (i.e. mandatory Resurrection).  We didn't always play high-magic type games when I was into DnD in high school and in the Army.  Sometimes we did, sometimes we went off into low fantasy or historical or Lovecraft or mythological based games.  To me AD&D was flexible enough (maybe due to being pretty broken) to accommodate all of those styles of play.  Maybe that changed somewhere along the line, I don't know exactly when, but as a gamer and an industry writer I can say it certainly got harder to move out of the main current of the game at all in more recent years.  Not impossible, but harder.  And at the same time, that current got narrower; more complex and less realistic and more inflated in terms of Magic and player power / expectations. 

Someone upthread (scribble?) was using a term 'FUNdane', I think that is basically the same idea I'm describing of 'bending rather than breaking reality'.  One always needs to make a few adjustments to 'reality' in a Fantasy or Sci Fi genre, whether for an RPG game or a Computer game or a movie or a TV show; and when you are doing it consciously and for a purpose I think it works.  But the problem for some of us comes when it starts to generically drift, _un_consciously if you will.   When you are getting a whole lot of 'FUNdane' all over the place which isn't well thought out or even planned at all, or even necessarily Fun, the whole ground under your feet starts to shift into "Mansquito" territory and the only way to know what is going on is to be already deeply embedded into the cliches and worn out tropes of the genre.   Which even some of us who know them are burnt out on.  

I think a lot of the yearning for balance or even people complaining about realism is a matter of players not trusting their DM's, which is an entirely different issue... A good DM is really a prerequisite for a good RPG!  I don't think you can fix the rules of a ROLE PLAYING game to handle a bad DM.   I really don't think you should try to either, it will become an adversarial game by degrees, and a board game in the long run.

Some people may like this trend, which is fine.  But in response to the OP, some people like a grounding in something from the real world, whether that is History, Martial arts, Mythology, or a well established Literary genre.  The underlying core assumptions of a Fantasy RPG are going to be based on some elements of all of the above.  Given that they are, and we know we are going to be living with them in any game regardless of the level of abstraction, the argument seems to be whether this grounding should be done carefully and with some effort, or haphazardly.

So are we basing our game in the Odyssey and Gilgamesh and the Norse Sagas and Talhoffer and Musashi and the Brothers Grimm and Tolkein and Jack Vance, or are we basing it on some TV shows, a bunch of old RPGs, anime and fan fiction and computer games that nobody even remembers any more?  I guess that is the choice.

I personally would at least like to have the option of the former rather than being forced into the latter.  I think that is what a lot of people, at least those who aren't struggling with a bad DM, mean when they say they want some 'realism' in their game.

G.


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## Mournblade94 (Sep 26, 2010)

Galloglaich said:


> You can argue that literally anything is subjective including whether the sky is blue, at some level you have to fish or cut bait.




Really you can't.  Whether or not the sky is blue is not subjective, it is empirical.  The scientific method of inquiry was invented just so you could eliminate the subjective.  You might have a certain interpretation of 'what blue means' but it can be proven that the light reflected into your eye falls within the range of 450 to 475nm.



Galloglaich said:


> Five years ago I wrote a game to prove that an RpG combat system can be both fast paced and realistic, without being complicated or using tons of variables.  It has been put to the test and I think I've made my point.  Realism does _not_ equal complexity, that is a *false dichotomy*; realism is simply the basis of the underlying pattern.  You as a game designer (or a DM) can choose the level of abstraction you want, and choose what factors you want to bend.  So long as you are doing so intelligently it should still feel right.




Yet it will STILL be an abstraction.  What you did was make a less abstract model for combat. Unless you have experienced every type of combat you cannot know.  I get that a 'realistic' combat system does not need to be complex.  The only label you can put on it then is MORE realistic than X.  Bottom line, is any paper combat system is an abstraction.  It will not account for all variables, and therefore what you consider realistic, may not in fact be realistic.  You mentioned before your rules system was 'cinematic'.  If you mean 'cinematic' as portrayed by john woo or hollywood, right there realism is blown out of the water.

I do not argue that realism requires a maximum level of complexity, I argue that it is an impossibility to achieve in the realm of abstract table top systems.  At best you get the level of reality for which you are happy.  Even when you achieve that level of reality you enjoy, I doubt the rules make any sort of game impact change.  In other words, I doubt a feat 'more realistic' than precise shot would really effect outcome all that much within the frame of the d20 system.

At that point you have to decide whether story is more important than simulation.  I am a simulation nut, in that I want rules for research, and crafting, and castle construction, and writing spellbooks.  I am more interested in THAT it is covered more than HOW it is covered.  I improve rules where needed, and 'let it go' in other circumstances.

So if your argument is a MORE realistic system does not have to be complex I can agree.  If your argument is a MORE realistic system is self evident, I have to disagree, because in the realm of table top it always must be an abstraction.  Whether your combat system is CHESS or ROLEMASTER there is always an abstraction.


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## Haltherrion (Sep 26, 2010)

Galloglaich said:


> I think a lot of the yearning for balance or even people complaining about realism is a matter of players not trusting their DM's, which is an entirely different issue... A good DM is really a prerequisite for a good RPG! I don't think you can fix the rules of a ROLE PLAYING game to handle a bad DM. I really don't think you should try to either, it will become an adversarial game by degrees, and a board game in the long run.




Regarding realism, that's never been an issue in my experience. My groups aren't afraid to use our real world experience for all of the more game parts of FRP where realism tends to crop up (how much does food weight, how far can you travel in a day, etc.) In the end, if it meets one's group's sense of realism, it is good enough. It is not like there is an independent realism police.

Regarding balance, that's another issue. That comes down to "game equity": do the players feel they are getting their share of fun in a gaming session.  I've been playing for over 30 years and my players and I have put up with a lot of inequity over the years from the goofy XP tables of first addition onward and while it worked and we were good sports about rotating the less interesting roles, I'm all for the focus on balance and making sure each class packs a reasonably comparable amount of punch.

For our group, the 4E edition has been a big hit to a large extent because of the focus on balance and this is a very seasoned group. (That tactical combat system is a big plus for us, too. There are downsides but overall, big net win.)

I suppose my players and I may take a funny view on realism versus balance. We foremost recognize it is a game and accept rules that make it fairly even for all (same XP advancement tables, comparable things PCs can do in a combat round, same cost/effort of level advancement, etc.) but outside of the mechanics that determine rate of advancement and combat effectiveness, we like realism. We like our griffons to eat a reasonable amount of food for instance (see one of my blogs )

As we use the game rules for advancement/combat and our judgement for the rest, we look to the rules for balance and ourselves for realism.

And I've never had an issue removing ressurrection from any game system. Most campaigns, I don't allow it. Dead is dead; gives the game a little extra edge.


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## coyote6 (Sep 27, 2010)

Galloglaich said:


> Hey, I was describing my own life experiences, if somebody took that as a put down of Superman comics I can't help that.




I find thread necromancy to complain about moderator comments from 17 months ago unrealistic.


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## Plane Sailing (Sep 27, 2010)

Galloglaich said:


> Hey, I was describing my own life experiences, if somebody took that as a put down of Superman comics I can't help that.
> 
> G.




Clearly you don't realise when you are being condescending then. I'd advise you to think a bit more about it.

I'm not sure why you resurrect a thread from last year to comment on moderation, but you should know that if you've got questions or issues about moderation you should email or PM the moderator in question, not respond in the thread.

Thanks


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## AllisterH (Sep 27, 2010)

jdrakeh said:


> In order to promote this willing suspension of disbelief, a fantasy game must have _some_ credibility. The easiest way to achieve such credibility is by way of verisimilitude — by implementing a consistent, grounding, reality to which fantatic elements prove the exception. Frex, settings like Birthright, Greyhawk, and FR achieve this through the implementation of a grounding reality modeled on Medieval Europe.
> 
> I think Wikipedia (remarkably) manages to explain it best by saying that anything physically possible in the worldview of the reader's experience (or, in this case, the _player's_ experience) is defined as credible. Thus, the reader can glean truth even in fiction because it reflects the realistic aspects of their own existence. As that explanation suggests, what is or is not the right amount of verisimilitude depends upon the indivdiual to whom the question is put.
> 
> .[/size]




That's an interesting point...I've always wondered if East Asian gamers have as much trouble with regarding "fantastical" martial heroes given their upbringing and what they consider "credible" for a martial hero.

As an aside, while we were talking about Dragons, what about Giants? Even excusing the suare cube law, why is it that when a Giant hits a halfling or even a human, that human isn't launced 50 into the air?


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## Votan (Sep 27, 2010)

Galloglaich said:


> I don't think 1E DnD was hard wired for high - level / high - magic play (i.e. mandatory Resurrection).




The original game (AD&D first edition) actually had names for the classes at each level with a bit of an expectation that very high level characters would get involved with building keeps or politics or running a church.

Raise Dead (with serious limitations) was a 5th levels spell that was not easy to come by and had limitations (level loss, IIRC, and a resurrection survival chance that was not typically 100%).  In the same sense, permanent crafting drained CON (again, unless my memory fails me).  

So I think the default AD&D game did not have access to these features on a regular basis.  Raise Dead was possible but hard.  It wasn't until 2E that I seem to recall very high level NPCs becoming the norm.


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## billd91 (Sep 27, 2010)

AllisterH said:


> As an aside, while we were talking about Dragons, what about Giants? Even excusing the suare cube law, why is it that when a Giant hits a halfling or even a human, that human isn't launced 50 into the air?




Frankly, I wouldn't expect a human to be launched 50 feet into the air if smacked by something only about 2 to 3 times as big (which is where most D&D giants fall). I certainly wouldn't have expected either of my children (when they were halfling-sized) to fly very far if I had hit them with a baseball bat simply because I was twice their size and considerably heavier.
D&D isn't exactly the real world... but it's not governed entirely by superhero physics either.


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## Galloglaich (Sep 27, 2010)

coyote6 said:


> I find thread necromancy to complain about moderator comments from 17 months ago unrealistic.




I didn't notice the comment until I posted the reply.  I didn't even remember the thread at all, I'm active intermittently on a few different forums, and don't usually post thhat much in ENworld except in one particular long-running (and oft-ressurected) thread .  If this constitutes 'thread necromancy' according to ENworld etiquette it certainly wasn't intentional as such, but I notice other people seem to still be interested in discussing the subject.

If someone (or in this case a few people) specifically comments to something I said, particularly if I feel they are mischaracterizing what I actually wrote I'll reply to anyone who addresses me in a thread, even if I don't see it for 17 months or 17 years.

G.


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## prosfilaes (Sep 27, 2010)

AllisterH said:


> As an aside, while we were talking about Dragons, what about Giants? Even excusing the suare cube law, why is it that when a Giant hits a halfling or even a human, that human isn't launced 50 into the air?




On Mythbusters, they've hit Buster with a two ton ram, and it didn't launch him all that high in the air. There's three factors here; the clubs aren't that massive, I don't see the giants being all that fast, and if the hit point abstraction means anything, it's got to mean that even a good hit on a high-level fighter probably isn't the type of direct midsection hit that would launch a person.


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## Hussar (Sep 28, 2010)

Galloglaich said:
			
		

> But you are missing my point. I don't use things like cloakers in my campaigns. I don't think "Cloakers=Fantasy" I don't find cloakers in the fantasy literature which defined the genre; Jack Vance or Fritz Lieber or Robert E. Howard or Lovecraft or Moorcock or Clark Ashton Smith. For that matter I never felt obligated to use all the monsters in the Monster Manual or even to use monsters from Greek Mythology and Tolkein in the same campaign.




While cloakers might not specifically been in those writers, I could easily see a Lovecraft version of one.  And "Clothes that eat you" is a staple of weird tales from the pulps.  So, it's hardly a strange one.

But, more to the point, why do you think that those specific authors "defined the genre"?  There's a heck of a lot more to fantasy than those.  Why is it people define genre as "stuff I like" and anything outside that genre as "stuff I don't like"?

As far as ressurection in AD&D goes.  Raise dead was 5000 gp back in AD&D as well, according to the DMG.  That was affordable by third, fourth level PC's quite easily.  After all, they'd spend more than that simply training a level.  Splitting up the treasure a bit to get Bob raised was pretty simple.


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## fanboy2000 (Sep 28, 2010)

Hussar said:


> Why is it people define genre as "stuff I like" and anything outside that genre as "stuff I don't like"?



I don't know, I'm still trying to figure out why 1984 and Slaughter House 5 aren't in the Science Fiction section.


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## billd91 (Sep 28, 2010)

fanboy2000 said:


> I don't know, I'm still trying to figure out why 1984 and Slaughter House 5 aren't in the Science Fiction section.




Eh, probably because some group of stodgy literary critics came to the conclusion that they transcend the limits of a niche genre.


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## Barastrondo (Sep 29, 2010)

Hussar said:


> While cloakers might not specifically been in those writers, I could easily see a Lovecraft version of one.  And "Clothes that eat you" is a staple of weird tales from the pulps.  So, it's hardly a strange one.




Fritz Leiber's "The Sunken Land." It's at least as close as the displacer beast is to A. E. Van Vogt's Coeurl.


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## Umbran (Sep 29, 2010)

fanboy2000 said:


> I don't know, I'm still trying to figure out why 1984 and Slaughter House 5 aren't in the Science Fiction section.




Where a bookstore shelves an item depends less upon the technical genre classification, and somewhat more on where folks expect they'll find the work.  

While 1984 is speculative, it isn't speculating on the effects of scientific or technological advances.  The real speculation is on sociological and political trends.

Vonnegut uses a lot of more standard sci-fi tropes, he has always been well-accepted outside the genre, again largely for themes that have nothing to do with the science he references.


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## fanboy2000 (Sep 29, 2010)

Umbran said:


> Where a bookstore shelves an item depends less upon the technical genre classification, and somewhat more on where folks expect they'll find the work.



Stop that. Isn't there a rule here about being logical?


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## Hussar (Sep 30, 2010)

And, let's not forget, being consigned to the SF section is death for any mainstream author.  There's a reason Margaret Atwood absolutely refuses to place her work within SF circles.  

The SF ghetto is not where mainstream authors and publishers choose to be.

Thinking about this a bit more, and looking at three of the authors in Galloglaich's post - Vance, Moorcock and Lovecraft, about the only part of fantasy that isn't covered is Epic fantasy, a la Tolkien.  And I don't think anyone would seriously try to exclude Tolkien from the genre.  I mean, if you made a Venn diagram of all the fantasy (and SF) tropes contained in Vance, Moorcock and Lovecraft, what isn't covered by at least one of the three?


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## ProfessorCirno (Sep 30, 2010)

To comment on the original topic:

The problem with "realism" is that often times the complaint is about something _realistic_.

The problem with verisimilitude is that it is _so _subject to personal belief.  Like, ok, firearms breaks your verisimilitude because you think the entire world would immidiately revolutionize, but you have no problems with castles in a setting with flying monsters, standing armies in a medieval setting, organized warfare in a setting with cloudkill, or pre-ren era economics and mercantalism in a setting with easy access to trade and mass transportation?

The _real_ problem behind "verisimilitude" and "realism" and "belief" is that so often it breaks down into "The non-caster did something."

There was a rather lengthy thread on the Paizo forums where someone had expressed disgust that a fighter could fall down tall cliff and live.  _Never mind that this happens in real life_, their problem was "Well a wizard can use magic to survive."

People have created this weird and synthetic gap between magic and fantasy.  This is not a magical roleplaying game.  It is a fantasy roleplaying game.  Characters should be fantastic, not magical.  A character can be awesome, mythological, and fantastic without ever casting a single Magic Missile.  

This isn't even an old school vs new school thing.  it's just that the new school follows what the game was always meant to be.  WHen you crack open that 2e PHB, the examples for fighters are not militia or simple man with a sword.  Beowulf, Perseus, Sigfried, Hercules - these are not characters who had to run back to their wizard before doing things, these were heroes that performed supernatural and incredible feats.

Let me express this edict now: when the rule of cool/mythology and verisimilitude clash, the former should _always_ win.


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## Doug McCrae (Sep 30, 2010)

ProfessorCirno said:


> People have created this weird and synthetic gap between magic and fantasy.



That's an extremely interesting point. You're right, I think that's how most people view the world the rpg, typically D&D, is set in. _Whatever is not magic obeys the laws of physics of our world._ This becomes extremely problematic for game balance if some PCs are magical, therefore not bound by these laws, and some are.

Magic gives the GM a get out of jail free card to do whatever is necessary to have his plots work. Something doesn't make sense? Just add magic. Magic can do anything.

So you get worlds where the 'adventure areas' are very different from the world of towns and cities and farmland and so forth - the 'normal world'. The adventure zones are full of magic, as are the PCs themselves. The normal world otoh works the way it does in our world's past, more or less.


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## howandwhy99 (Sep 30, 2010)

It's the reality puzzle of the game.  Think about Pac-Man. It had walled mazes the player navigated around screen to evade or kill the ghosts.  Why couldn't he just past through the walls?  Or pass through in only certain spots? Or only at certain times? Why do we think we can or cannot do this in the real world?  I think it's about expectations.  There are no walls there.  It's all pixels on a screen.  But the game was a craze because people could predict how to evade the ghosts as if those wall-looking pixels were walls. 

That's verisimilitude.  It's using the words of the DM or the pixels on screen to relay a common understanding between designer and player.  2-dimensionality in this case.

You get the same effect when you learn how far your avatar can fall before dying or how long it can stay under water before drowning.  There is no avatar, gravity, falling, water, suffocation, etc., going on.  Of course.  Gamers aren't that stupid.  But they recognize the similarity and adjust their expectations accordingly.  The closer that simulated reality is to common understanding of reality, the more accessible the game.

Think of the old Mario Bros. where a few of the ground pits would fall into secret areas, while the vast majority did not.   That's bad game design IMO.  If you set that expectation upon the players, then they will either methodically jump in every pit to "clear the level" or quit playing the game out of frustration.

I think the call for realism is simply a desire for internal logic within a game.  Meaning some constant logic pattern discernible by the players.  It is precisely this element, which makes those games so damned addictive.  And what made D&D similarly so.

Back when it was a reality puzzle game.  When memory mattered.


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## prosfilaes (Sep 30, 2010)

ProfessorCirno said:


> There was a rather lengthy thread on the Paizo forums where someone had expressed disgust that a fighter could fall down tall cliff and live.  _Never mind that this happens in real life_,




It happens in rare occasions in real life. But very rarely, and people _never_ walk away from it. To pick one sample, with medical teams on hand, not a single person out of some 200 survived a jump from the WTC. The complaint is generally that a high-level fighter can jump from a building and suffer _zero_ risk that they won't be able to walk away from it. 



> when the rule of cool/mythology and verisimilitude clash, the former should _always_ win.




Jumping off a cliff is only cool if it's risky or at least awesome. Jumping off a cliff because it's the quickest way down and 20d6 damage doesn't matter any more is silly, not cool. All the mythological characters have explanations; Hercules was the son of Zeus, Achilles was dipped by the heel, Perseus was not only the son of a god, he always had tailored magical items given to him by the gods. Why is it so hard to ask for some explanation why a mortal can suddenly after a few levels survive a 100 ft fall?

I think that's a great rule--for Primetime Adventures. But D&D is a different game, which is less dependent on storytelling and more on tactical challenges. If a cliff is put in front of the characters as a challenge, they should solve it with the tools at hand, and if the rules match some sort of verisimilitude, it'll let players think in character instead of thinking of it solely as a rules puzzle.


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## JRRNeiklot (Sep 30, 2010)

prosfilaes said:


> It happens in rare occasions in real life. But very rarely, and people _never_ walk away from it.




Wrong.  A friend of my dad's was a paratrooper in WW2.  His chute failed and he plummeted thousands of feet and landed flat of his back in a farmer's field.  He got up and walked several miles to the nearest unit.  His back was broken and he spent several months recuperating, but he DID walk away.  You can say he got extremely lucky, but that's the point.  Heroes get lucky all the time.

EdiT:  He also had the coolest name *EVER*:  Buck Austin.


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## ProfessorCirno (Oct 1, 2010)

prosfilaes said:


> It happens in rare occasions in real life. But very rarely, and people _never_ walk away from it. To pick one sample, with medical teams on hand, not a single person out of some 200 survived a jump from the WTC. The complaint is generally that a high-level fighter can jump from a building and suffer _zero_ risk that they won't be able to walk away from it.




Nope.  Oh, certainly, it's rare, but people do walk away from it.  Yes, it's the extraordinary for it to happen, but adventurers are extraordinary people.



> All the mythological characters have explanations; Hercules was the son of Zeus, Achilles was dipped by the heel, Perseus was not only the son of a god, he always had tailored magical items given to him by the gods. Why is it so hard to ask for some explanation why a mortal can suddenly after a few levels survive a 100 ft fall?




What about Sir Roland?  Beowulf?  *Everyone* involved in the Three Kingdoms?

There isn't a problem here that you're seeing.

The difference is the source of heroism.  Previously, it was generally accepted that the gods ruled all.  The supernatural and the natural had a clear separation, which is why in *so* many ancient religions, visions and possession was such a big deal - it allowed the mortal man to understand the supernatural.  Mankind did not control his own destiny.  Therefore, heroes had to be related to divinity - it's what allowed them to alter the world.

As time went on, the idea of self determinism grew far more popular, and romanticism of a "past age of magic" grew.  So you had modern pulp characters who could do the impossible but had their powers from some mystical rite they underwent, or from ancient practices they followed.

Later, self determinism reached full popularity and the elements of the supernatural were more frowned on.  You had characters who represented The Best Detective, The Toughest Cop, and other similar archtypes.  These are characters who _still did the extraordinary_, but they did it because of extreme training, or from esoteric understanding of science and natural laws.  Batman is a normal man who, even without his gadgets, can do the extraordinary.  James Bond has a vague supernatural luck that allows him to do things no other man can.

So, the heroism hasn't changed, but their _roots_ have.

And really, how are wizards exempt from this?  Name a normal, mortal human wizard that wasn't D&D related.  Name one.  Merlin was of supernatural heritage, Gandalf was an angel, and the original wise bearded wizard was the god Odin.  None of those are normal human beings who just took on apprenticehood at ye old local wizard tower.  That is what is perhaps the most darkly humorous part of this entire argument - a mortal warrior who does the extraordinary is _entirely_ in line with medieval fantasy, but a mortal wizard?  That's a D&D-ism only.


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## fanboy2000 (Oct 1, 2010)

ProfessorCirno said:


> And really, how are wizards exempt from this?  Name a normal, mortal human wizard that wasn't D&D related.  Name one.  Merlin was of supernatural heritage, Gandalf was an angel, and the original wise bearded wizard was the god Odin.  None of those are normal human beings who just took on apprenticehood at ye old local wizard tower.  That is what is perhaps the most darkly humorous part of this entire argument - a mortal warrior who does the extraordinary is _entirely_ in line with medieval fantasy, but a mortal wizard?  That's a D&D-ism only.



IIRC, the Grey Mouser from Liber's books knew some magic that he learned from training under an apprentice. Though, this might be considered D&D related because, while the stories pre-date D&D, they definitely seemed to have influenced it.

Note: this is just a nitpick. I agree with what you're saying.


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## JRRNeiklot (Oct 1, 2010)

ProfessorCirno said:


> And really, how are wizards exempt from this?  Name a normal, mortal human wizard that wasn't D&D related.  Name one.





Harold Shea, Reed Chalmer, Mazirian, Ulan Dhor, Atlantes, the sorceror from Alladin, (can't remember his name), I'm sure there are dozens of others.


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## Hussar (Oct 1, 2010)

JRRNeiklot said:


> Harold Shea, Reed Chalmer, Mazirian, Ulan Dhor, Atlantes, the sorceror from Alladin, (can't remember his name), I'm sure there are dozens of others.




Wow, I need to read a lot more pulp era fantasy.  Other than Harold Shea, I don't know any of those names.

But, let's be honest here, ProfC does have a point.


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## prosfilaes (Oct 1, 2010)

Hussar said:


> Wow, I need to read a lot more pulp era fantasy.  Other than Harold Shea, I don't know any of those names.
> 
> But, let's be honest here, ProfC does have a point.




Charles Dexter Ward--and quite likely family, there's nothing saying his illustrious ancestor was born immortal.


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## ProfessorCirno (Oct 1, 2010)

JRRNeiklot said:


> Harold Shea, Reed Chalmer, Mazirian, Ulan Dhor, Atlantes, the sorceror from Alladin, (can't remember his name), I'm sure there are dozens of others.




I admitingly don't know the first two, as they're from the same series.

Vancian wizards?  Come on, that practically just counts as "D&D wizard," but ok.  Ok.  I'll compromise.  Let's made D&D wizards properly Vancian.  They can have five spells memorized (at most), and they need access to a gigantic library that they've put together themselves to learn the spells.

What, no takers?

Atlantes isn't a D&D wizard.  He never learned magic.  He is a pagan sorcerer and illusionist who uses an artifact to trap others in a castle.  He doesn't have a spell book and a pouch full of guano.

The sorcerer in Aladdin?  You mean the man who uses trickery and charisma to get Aladdin to do his bidding, not magic?  The one who never did any actual magic other then sealing a cave?  That's incredibly far from D&D magic.

None of the above walked around and threw fireballs.  D&D magic is bizarrely flashy when the vast majority of "magic" as presented in most books is definitively _subtle_.  Hell, Odin was mocked because spellcraft was seen as cowardly and effeminate.

D&D wizards are their own self contained thing.  So yes, again, fighters who accomplish the impossible?  Those are _more_ in line with myth and legend then wizards who fly around, turn invisible, turn into a hydra, and then throw fireballs.


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## Plane Sailing (Oct 1, 2010)

JRRNeiklot said:


> Harold Shea, Reed Chalmer, Mazirian, Ulan Dhor, Atlantes, the sorceror from Alladin, (can't remember his name), I'm sure there are dozens of others.




Ged from Earthsea, bad guys in Conan, some of the characters in the Belgariad, the Time of the Dark (Hambly) just to name some other obvious ones.


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## Plane Sailing (Oct 1, 2010)

ProfessorCirno said:


> This isn't even an old school vs new school thing.  it's just that the new school follows what the game was always meant to be.  WHen you crack open that 2e PHB, the examples for fighters are not militia or simple man with a sword.  Beowulf, Perseus, Sigfried, Hercules - these are not characters who had to run back to their wizard before doing things, these were heroes that performed supernatural and incredible feats.
> 
> Let me express this edict now: when the rule of cool/mythology and verisimilitude clash, the former should _always_ win.




Although those may have been given as examples in the PHB, Nobody I've ever played with wanted to be a player in greek or other myths. They wanted to play Sinbad, Conan or Aragorn.

Essentially extra-competent humans.

Funny thing is, we had lots of fun at that too.

It is just as wrong for you to say that mythology should always trump verisimilitude because of your preferences as it would be for me to say that verisimilitude should always trump mythology because of my preferences!

The key issue is only really whether a group who are playing D&D together (or anything else, for that matter) have a shared joint understanding of the kind of thing they are playing. It seems to me that some of the reaction against 4e was that it was percieved to be shifting D&D much more towards the mythological/cool side of things at every level, and those who flavoured their D&D as more Conan/Sinbad/Aragorn found it hard to reconcile those changes.

I'm not saying that there is any right or wrong in peoples preferences here, but noting that there are legitimately different game perceptions available to people

Cheers


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## Plane Sailing (Oct 1, 2010)

JRRNeiklot said:


> Wrong.  A friend of my dad's was a paratrooper in WW2.  His chute failed and he plummeted thousands of feet and landed flat of his back in a farmer's field.  He got up and walked several miles to the nearest unit.  His back was broken and he spent several months recuperating, but he DID walk away.  You can say he got extremely lucky, but that's the point.  Heroes get lucky all the time.




Great story!



ProfessorCirno said:


> Nope.  Oh, certainly, it's rare, but people do walk away from it.  Yes, it's the extraordinary for it to happen, but adventurers are extraordinary people.




I think the issue isn't that it is _possible_ to survive it, but that it should be not just a regular occurrence but in some situations an optimal choice!

Side note: my favourite literary survival of a fall is when the Gray Mouser is knocked off a mountain top in a duel.  fafhred gets on a flying beastie and zooms down to attempt to rescue him and finds the Mouser falling in a diving position, "just in case there was some water at the bottom". Luckily F rescues him.

Cheers


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## ProfessorCirno (Oct 1, 2010)

Plane Sailing said:


> Although those may have been given as examples in the PHB, Nobody I've ever played with wanted to be a player in greek or other myths. They wanted to play Sinbad, Conan or Aragorn.
> 
> Essentially extra-competent humans.
> 
> Funny thing is, we had lots of fun at that too.




You're, um, actually agreeing with me.  Read my other post about the origins of heroism ;p



> It is just as wrong for you to say that mythology should always trump verisimilitude because of your preferences as it would be for me to say that verisimilitude should always trump mythology because of my preferences!




I sorta felt it went without saying that this was in my opinion.



> The key issue is only really whether a group who are playing D&D together (or anything else, for that matter) have a shared joint understanding of the kind of thing they are playing. It seems to me that some of the reaction against 4e was that it was percieved to be shifting D&D much more towards the mythological/cool side of things at every level, and those who flavoured their D&D as more Conan/Sinbad/Aragorn found it hard to reconcile those changes.




Uh.

Is this the same Conan that survived being crucified, the same Sinbad who carried the Old Man of the Sea atop his shoulders for several days, and the same Aragorn who single handedly drove away ringwraiths at the young age of 86?

Because those aren't exactly low level, low fantastic characters.



> I'm not saying that there is any right or wrong in peoples preferences here, but noting that there are legitimately different game perceptions available to people
> 
> Cheers




The issue is that _all your examples agree with me_.


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## ProfessorCirno (Oct 1, 2010)

Plane Sailing said:


> Ged from Earthsea, bad guys in Conan, some of the characters in the Belgariad, the Time of the Dark (Hambly) just to name some other obvious ones.




Earthsea as I recall actually created the idea of the wizard protagonist, so I'll give you that.

Conan bad guys?  As I recall, they were clerics.  They got their dark powers from Set and by being shifty racist caricature of other ethnicities.

I have not red Belgariad, but I recall hearing that it - like most fantasy after D&D came out - is heavily influenced _by_ D&D.

I hadn't even heard of The Time of the Dark, but I don't think the 80's count as a time of myth and legend


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## Plane Sailing (Oct 1, 2010)

ProfessorCirno said:


> You're, um, actually agreeing with me.  Read my other post about the origins of heroism ;p




Fair enough!


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## Plane Sailing (Oct 1, 2010)

ProfessorCirno said:


> Conan bad guys?  As I recall, they were clerics.  They got their dark powers from Set and by being shifty racist caricature of other ethnicities.
> 
> I have not red Belgariad, but I recall hearing that it - like most fantasy after D&D came out - is heavily influenced _by_ D&D.
> 
> I hadn't even heard of The Time of the Dark, but I don't think the 80's count as a time of myth and legend




Agreed that the line between clerics and wizards is pretty blurry in Conan. I'm thinking of the Yara in "Tower of the Elephant" and Khemsa in "Seers of the black circle" here though, as they seemed more traditionally wizardy.

The Belgariad is essentially a 'troupe' novel, the key idea of magic in it is that you need the will and the word to make something happen, and small things are easier than big things; there are not many wizards because it is quite easy for them to accidentally kill themselves while learning how to do magic well. Bel-something and Polgara are the main good guy wizards, there are some bad guy wizards too. The main troupe includes knock-offs of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser amongst others  Not very D&D style magic though.

The dating of fantasy books is an interesting topic in these discussions - I'd be happy to limit my discussion to books which appeared before D&D did, in order to avoid RPG pollution, as it were!

Cheers


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## JRRNeiklot (Oct 1, 2010)

ProfessorCirno said:


> I admitingly don't know the first two, as they're from the same series.






> Vancian wizards?  Come on, that practically just counts as "D&D wizard," but ok.




I'd argue D&D wizards count as Vancian.





> Atlantes isn't a D&D wizard.  He never learned magic.  He is a pagan sorcerer and illusionist who uses an artifact to trap others in a castle.  He doesn't have a spell book and a pouch full of guano.




Pre 3e, wizards and sorcerors were pretty much interchangeable.  In fact, a name level magic user WAS a sorceror.



> The sorcerer in Aladdin?  You mean the man who uses trickery and charisma to get Aladdin to do his bidding, not magic?  The one who never did any actual magic other then sealing a cave?  That's incredibly far from D&D magic.




Admittedly, I haven't read Aladdin in 35 years or so, so I may be misremembering, but I recall him being very wizard like.  The cave was likely the source of the knock spell.





> D&D wizards are their own self contained thing.  So yes, again, fighters who accomplish the impossible?  Those are _more_ in line with myth and legend then wizards who fly around, turn invisible, turn into a hydra, and then throw fireballs.



[/QUOTE]

I'm not really disagreeing here.


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## ourchair (Oct 2, 2010)

Janx said:


> I assume that when somebody uses the term "realism" in regards to an RPG, they are referring to one of two aspects:
> 
> 1) playing in a game where everything is internally consistent and rational.  The world works mostly just like ours, except there's magic, and all but medieval technology hasn't been invented yet.  Every thing makes sense (if the player had all the facts/barring mysteries).
> 
> 2) they are talking about a game being treated gritty, and less heroic.  Where simulation rules for fatigue are applied, and a higher lethality from wounds.



What bothers me is when people conflate the two together, not as an affront to the idea of playing a fantasy game itself, but rather, by having certain expectations of what the world was supposed to be and basically presupposing the intent of its creators and designers.

For example, I hate it when people expect ALL villains to be 'sympathetic and complex' as if that somehow automatically makes the villain BETTER, when more often than not it needlessly complicates what the villain is contributing to the story. (But that's a whole 'nother discussion altogether)

I believe realism has a place in games, but the act of playing the game itself, the narrative components that drive the adventures should be shorn of a thousand undramatic details.


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## WayneLigon (Oct 2, 2010)

ProfessorCirno said:


> And really, how are wizards exempt from this?  Name a normal, mortal human wizard that wasn't D&D related.  Name one.




Golden Age and Silver Age comics are rife with them. Decades before D&D existed, you had Dr Fate*, Zatarra, Sargon, Ibis, and others who were normal, mortal guys who studied magic from books. They sometimes utilize spell components, or devices - magical items are all over the place. They blow stuff up with fireballs, fly, shoot lightning from their eyes, turn people into trees, animate objects, etc etc. 

Dr. Strange of course follows the classic D&D path of seeking knowledge, studying under a master, delving into ancient tomes, bolstering his powers through acquisition of magic items, takes his own apprentice, etc. 

* In the original comics, Dr Fate was not an avatar of higher beings - he was an explorer's kid who studied under the wizard Nabu.


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## Bluenose (Oct 2, 2010)

Plane Sailing said:


> Ged from Earthsea, bad guys in Conan, some of the characters in the Belgariad, the Time of the Dark (Hambly) just to name some other obvious ones.




Circe and Medea (and Medea's father) from greek myth; Koschei the Undying from Russia; a rather large selection of enchantresses from various King Arthur tales; most of the evil side from Faerie Queen; several in de Camp's various Noveria tales. Arguably someone like the Emperor Ming in Flash Gordon would be another example. They're not that difficult to find, although a lot aren't really very D&D like. I actually find clerics a lot harder to identify.


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## Mournblade94 (Oct 2, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> That's an extremely interesting point. You're right, I think that's how most people view the world the rpg, typically D&D, is set in. _Whatever is not magic obeys the laws of physics of our world._ This becomes extremely problematic for game balance if some PCs are magical, therefore not bound by these laws, and some are.
> 
> Magic gives the GM a get out of jail free card to do whatever is necessary to have his plots work. Something doesn't make sense? Just add magic. Magic can do anything.
> 
> So you get worlds where the 'adventure areas' are very different from the world of towns and cities and farmland and so forth - the 'normal world'. The adventure zones are full of magic, as are the PCs themselves. The normal world otoh works the way it does in our world's past, more or less.




I am much more of a realism advocate in sci fi then fantasy.  I prefer my sci fi closer to what is feasible.  Star Wars I consider fantasy in a space setting.  When Lucas attempts to explain the force scientifically I find it jarring.  I don't want to know how the things work in Star Wars, I just accept it as a near magical world.

I read comics, I love sci fi, but I HATE the show FRINGE.  The simple reason is because it does not come close to getting BASIC science right.  It is Jarring to me because the science is not speculative, it is just wrong.  Star Trek, does not jar me as much because it is mostly speculative.

When they do things like put BAR CODES on DNA in Star Trek, I find it just silly.

Fantasy I will pretty much accept just about any crazy thing.  I still like basic rules of physics to apply... but I like magic to break them.


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