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

[ExploderWizard]

Originally Posted by howandwhy99

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.

[Galloglaich]

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.

[Scribble]

Originally Posted by Galloglaich

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.

[Janx]

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.

[Galloglaich]

Originally Posted by Janx

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.

[fanboy2000]

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.

[Galloglaich]

Originally Posted by fanboy2000

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.

[Mallus]

Originally Posted by fanboy2000

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.

[Galloglaich]

Originally Posted by Mallus

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.

[Ariosto]

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.

[Fallen Seraph]

Originally Posted by Ariosto

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?

[Ariosto]

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.

[fanboy2000]

Originally Posted by Galloglaich

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...

Originally Posted by Martin Gardner in the essay The Royal Historian of Oz*

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

[fanboy2000]

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.

[Galloglaich]

Originally Posted by Fallen Seraph

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.

[Galloglaich]

Originally Posted by fanboy2000

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.

[pawsplay]

Originally Posted by Majoru Oakheart

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.

[Rechan]

Originally Posted by Galloglaich

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.

[Ariosto]

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

Indeed.

Originally Posted by 4E Player's Handbook, p. 299

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!

[Lanefan]

Originally Posted by Ariosto

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