Gygax on Realism in Game Design

Gary Gygax said:

As its rules were specifically designed
to make it fun and enjoyable, and the consensus of opinion is that D&D
is so, does it need to have logical justification of any or all of its rules?
Because logic does not necessarily create an enjoyable game form, the
reply must be generally negative. Logic, even game logic, must be
transcended in the interest of the overall game.

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I really have to thank the people on this thread for reminding me Just How Much Gary's atrocious writing style gets under my skin. The man just oozes pomposity... and if that weren't enough, he combines a preference for ten-dollar words with a complete failure of precision in using them.

Saying 'logic must be transcended' is a magnificently ludicrous phrase. Who needs the law of non-contradiction, or the law of the excluded middle? We must transcend the nature of thought in the name of FUN!

That isn't really what he meant, of course. It's just what he said. What he meant was something like, "A foolish desire for over-consistency in rules is the hobgoblin of little minds." I would take issue with that too, as it happens, but such is life.

[MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION] : Life is so, so unfair. Why can I not xp you for the posts you've been making in this thread?!

I love Gary's style but I agree that it's a distinct style not for everyone.

I like what I like. For three editions I didn't have to deal with a bunch of playstyles I don't care for. Either I didn't notice them as they occurred in the next house over or they just didn't happen. Doesn't matter. I was able to play D&D in the style I like and I was happy.

Then 4e came along and changed the game so it really only played well in one style. It was "modernized". That was great if 4e was your style. It was terrible if the new style wasn't your style though. I tried at first not realizing all the changes that had occurred or their impact on my game.

When 5e was announced I returned to the boards to see what was up. Would 5e just continue 4e, or would it be something based on earlier editions? Or a little of both. I don't know. I have though by reading threads here and on the WOTC boards learned a lot about what I like in an rpg. That newfound knowledge will arm me well in making my decision about 5e. Right now I don't know. It's a playtest so why should I know.

I have started "making my own" game. If that works out for me and my group, I think Gary looking down would approve. We are having fun. We made the game our own. Rules were always guidelines in Gary's day. The DM was empowered. Never let a rule trump commonsense. I learned all those lessons from long ago and they've served me well. Thank you Gary.

Love him or hate him, I think everyone can agree Gygax had an abundance of personality and love for the game. I think a big factor in D&D catching on like it did was the fact that reading those first manuals weren't just learning the rules, you were also making a friend.

One of D&Ds problems since Gygax left is the fact that it no longer has a face. No Stan Lee or Col. Sanders to welcome new players.

Kamikaze Midget said:

The first is to admit the thing isn't important and go with the flow.

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And for the most part they aren't very important.

The second is to say, "Wait, no, if the game works that way, that's not fun for me. If the point of the game is my enjoyment, and the game works that way, it fails. Lets go play flashlight tag in the park instead."

Life's full of awesome distractions. No one needs to play D&D. Playing D&D is actually kind of a commitment. If D&D doesn't deliver the enjoyment you want, there's plenty of other things to fill your free time with. Because what can ruin a D&D game can be so specific and arbitrary, if you're going to make a D&D that reaches the largest possible audience, you're going to want a D&D that isn't dogmatic about what you need to accept as a precondition of playing it.

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While for the most part I agree with you, you can't do that for every single thing in the game that eventually will bug someone. I disagree that it's possible. (Especially when it's things like the aforementioned Katana that are just based on someone's world view, and we disagree completely. How do you come to a perfect match there?) And I'm not really sure I'm would even want to game with someone who every time something came up that disagreed with their worldview, and they didn't get their way went to play laser flashlight or whatever in the woods...

As a DM I try my best to make the game as perfect as it can be for everyone. I've argued in countless (DM Should haz all the powerz!) threads- D&D isn't just about the players fun or the DM's fun it's about the group's fun... So I try to find workable compromises and such, but ultimately the DM is the arbiter of the game, and to keep things flowing you just have to tell someone to just deal with it.

IE Sometimes the best way to keep up the fun for everyone at the table is for the person to just accept it, and move on.

Scribble said:

The second is to say, "Wait, no, if the game works that way, that's not fun for me. If the point of the game is my enjoyment, and the game works that way, it fails. Lets go play flashlight tag in the park instead."

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While for the most part I agree with you, you can't do that for every single thing in the game that eventually will bug someone. I disagree that it's possible. (Especially when it's things like the aforementioned Katana that are just based on someone's world view, and we disagree completely. How do you come to a perfect match there?) And I'm not really sure I'm would even want to game with someone who every time something came up that disagreed with their worldview, and they didn't get their way went to play laser flashlight or whatever in the woods...

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I think ultimately we might all agree. I don't have that many deal breakers but the ones I do have I can't accept. I mostly DM though so it's no big deal. I pick the game and I design the world and then I find players in that order. People know I like to try different things and experiment with various rules. So playing in one campaign doesn't mean you'll love the next one I run. And my style isn't for some people at all. I try real hard to make myself clear on what I do and how it works. Because honestly I have more players than I have slots. So it doesn't help anyone to accept someone who isn't going to be happy.

technoextreme said:

Why? 3E is an aberant game compared to previous editions. 4E in general was a heck of a lot more closer to the original game.

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4e is very different to the original game. The game 4e is close to is one I can't trace back much past 1984 and the Dragonlance Saga. What 4e has in common with Gygax era D&D is a desire to be a specific game - but a different one from the one Gygax and Arneson created. 2e and the various 3.Xs were all written in an attempt to be D&D by people who hadn't created it and in various ways didn't understand it.

Which means we have absolutely no idea what Gygax would have made of 4e. My guess is "Interesting game. Not one I want to play much." Which is very different to his opinions on 2e and 3.0/3.5 which (especially for 3.X) are very different to his versions of D&D but trying to look as if they aren't.

The Shadow said:

I really have to thank the people on this thread for reminding me Just How Much Gary's atrocious writing style gets under my skin. The man just oozes pomposity... and if that weren't enough, he combines a preference for ten-dollar words with a complete failure of precision in using them.

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The failure of precision is kinda intentional (though it is an odd choice for a rule book). It adds up to a very distinctive voice, a style.

Back in the day I wasn't a fan of Gary's writing, either. I've come to appreciate it a lot more now, and here's why.

Gary's language serves two purposes. It's suppose to explain the game at the same time it inspires you to play it, and it often does the latter far better than the former. Having come to gaming from fantasy fiction, I didn't need the rules of the game to be inspiring in and of themselves; I'd already read much of the source fiction Gary lists in Appendix N.

But many gamers didn't follow that route, and over the years, I've read numerous testimonials to Gary's writing, citing it as the principle inspiration for people's campaigns, for their love of D&D.

Bit of an eye-opener, that was. Now, 25 or so years on from my first reading of the AD&D core books, I see them in a different light, their language as Gary's love letter to the fiction he admired, particularly Jack Vance's and Fritz Lieber's. I can also see the humor in it, the self-awareness, the places where the tone slips knowingly in self-mockery -- it's a lot less pompous than I first thought.

It's still a damn strange way to write a rule book. But there's nothing else like it, and after all these years, I count myself a fan.

Bedrockgames said:

I wiuld just keep in mind that the discussion about reaism and gaminess were very different at the time he said that. People were making intricate and extraordinary attempts toward realism that you just dont really see today. I dont know that one can take a 30 year old quote from Gary and assume it sheds much light on what the man would have though about current discussions concerning things ike martial encounter powers or putting game play considerations ahead of setting considerations. I think he was really talking more against attempts to break combat into detailed and realistic mechanics.

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I don't think so. He was making a point about "fun" being more important than "realism". He did not made a scale about it, or "how much realism is too much realism". Nor he was talking about complexity. You don't really need to make systems more complex to make them more realistic. For example: "you get maximum hit dice at first level. You roll your hit dice at second level. You don't gain more hit points, ever" isn't a complex rule. And it is much more "realistic" than having 200 hp at lvel 20 and being able to fall from the Empire State. His point (and I agree), is that fantasy RPG shouldn't try to be "realistic", they should try to be "fun". One could argue that the ablative mechanic of having a big bag of hit points work greatly as "plot protection" for the PC, and thus is inherently superior to other, more realistic mechanics where a single hit can kill you right on the spot. I certainly can live with HP, and honestly think they work great for D&D. Gygax point was, precisselly, that you shouldn't worry about your game being "realistic", but being "fun". Some people might agree with Gygax, and some others might disagree with him. This is no different than any other thing where Gary has a stance (like Vancian magic). Some people will agree, and some other will not.

triqui said:

I don't think so. He was making a point about "fun" being more important than "realism". He did not made a scale about it, or "how much realism is too much realism". Nor he was talking about complexity. You don't really need to make systems more complex to make them more realistic.

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Yep, yep, and heck yeah! In his later writing he was much more a fan of rules-lite systems, possibly because he didn't want the added complexity of a bunch of rules.

IME rules should do the bare minimum needed to play, and get the heck out of the way so the DM can do what he does best.

Scribble said:

While for the most part I agree with you, you can't do that for every single thing in the game that eventually will bug someone. I disagree that it's possible.

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Perfection is an impossible dream of extremists, but that doesn't mean that improvement is not possible in most cases.

Scribble said:

Especially when it's things like the aforementioned Katana that are just based on someone's world view, and we disagree completely. How do you come to a perfect match there?

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In these cases, you generally allow a choice. The more you enable a true choice (and not a false kind of "Well, you technically can..." kind of choice), the more robust your game is against this possible failure. It will never be perfect, but it can be more solid.

Scribble said:

And I'm not really sure I'm would even want to game with someone who every time something came up that disagreed with their worldview, and they didn't get their way went to play laser flashlight or whatever in the woods...

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It's my opinion that no one should feel OBLIGATED to ENDURE a game of D&D. If the purpose of D&D is enjoyment, and it fails at that purpose for you (for whatever arbitrary reason you think it fails), you shouldn't be playing it (or at least not in that way). It's not unreasonable, if you're not enjoying the game, to go do something else with your time. If the experience isn't enjoyable to me, and I try to point that out, and the response is "Take it or leave it!", then there's really zero incentive for me to take it. Repeated over and over again across multiple tables it becomes a strategy of jamming your fingers in your ears and going "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" rather than actually facing the horrifying prospect that you might have to allow people to do things differently if you'd like them to play your game. And if you don't want them to play your game, well, mission accomplished!

There are things D&D can't change. D&D will probably never be a game for those who think heroic fantasy is stupid. It will probably not be a very good game for playing outdoors (though LARP is an interesting variant!). It will not replicate the graphics and sound feedback loop of a videogame. It won't be very good at scratching a competitive itch.

There are things D&D can change, or at least allow the option for individual tables to change (since what people want is arbitrary). Things like...the level of assumed magic in your game (which 3e had trouble changing) or using minis on a grid (which 4e didn't like you futzing with) or HP representing fate or meat or...etc.

Scribble said:

Sometimes the best way to keep up the fun for everyone at the table is for the person to just accept it, and move on.

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Sure, it's usually no big deal.

But lets not make the mistake of being too proud to change, or too Manichean to be flexible. The world is not divided into "rational folks who I can play with and who don't question the game" and "crybaby bellyachin' nancypantses with Problems." Not every beef is an illegitimate whine. Even most illegitimate whines have some grounding in a real experience. Criticism should not be rejected, it should be incorporated.

There's really no reason why D&D has to have some monolithic One Way To Play. Someone who wants a more "realistic" combat system (meaning: grim-n-gritty!) should probably get one (without requiring those who don't care about it to bother with it). D&D should be able to make that adjustment. That's not really an intractable request.