Gygax on Realism in Game Design

I feel like the realism debate is a total rehash, but I do want to say that over the years there has been a lot of times when I thought I was smarter than EGG - including over the issue of realism.

And the more time I spend gaming and the older I get, the more credit I'm willing to give EGG. All the stuff that I used to think was 'obviously' stupid - like hit points, Vancian magic, alignment, AC, classes, etc. - turned out, after some experience of the alternatives, to be not so stupid.

EGG created his game as he gamed, not with some deep vision, but organicly. It evolved as he learned and it grew. The result is typical of an organic system. It's messy. It's complicated. It's at times illogical.

But it has something that almost all the attempts to replace it carefully crafted from elegant theories about fun and built with (or without) careful math generally don't have. It just works. The fundamental mechanical systems he created have never really been replaced on a wide scale. Lots of people try, but it never seems to work out. The design endures. You can pretty much find it everywhere now.

The answer -for me- lies (ironically enough) in Gary's own rant against realism; in his own words.

While science fantasy does have some facts and good theories to logically proceed from, so that a semblance of truth can be claimed for those works which attempt to ground themselves on the basis of reality for their future projections, the world of “never-was” has no such shelter.


If we can look at technologies which do not exist in science fiction and draw conclusions about how something might work based upon the world we know in the here and now, why is it impossible to do the same when considering dragons, magics, and elves?

Do I accept that my conclusions may not necessarily be the same as those arrived at by someone else? I certainly do. The question I then get in many of these discussions is which 'logic' for 'realism' is correct. Is it mine or that of someone else?

Quite obviously, the first answer to that would be mine if I am at my table and somebody else's at their own table. However, I am willing to believe that -while there certainly will be differences- there will generally be a ballpark area of similarity between my conclusions and those of someone else in most cases (if we're using realism as a baseline.)

It is that generally shared ballpark which is important for a game which is intended to be shared among a community; among a group of friends sitting around a table rolling some dice. Yes, fantasy involves a world that never was, but I still feel there are are things which fit into a ballpark of 'realism' which would be more acceptable to the majority of those looking at realism as a goal, and I likewise believe there are things which would not fit into that same ballpark for the majority of those who want realism -or at least conclusions which resemble the plausibility of what we are familiar with- to be given a nod from fantasy.

Unwise said:

In my games, I would like to think that the PCs can tell the effects of their actions by considering "what will this do to the story being told?" generally they will take the realistic options, but they seem to sense the difference between gameist-stupidity and the time for heroic action.

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Clearly in all three examples the problem was not in game mechanics but in player's metagaming mentality.

Johnny3D3D said:

The answer -for me- lies (ironically enough) in Gary's own rant against realism; in his own words.

While science fantasy does have some facts and good theories to logically proceed from, so that a semblance of truth can be claimed for those works which attempt to ground themselves on the basis of reality for their future projections, the world of “never-was” has no such shelter.


If we can look at technologies which do not exist in science fiction and draw conclusions about how something might work based upon the world we know in the here and now, why is it impossible to do the same when considering dragons, magics, and elves?

Do I accept that my conclusions may not necessarily be the same as those arrived at by someone else? I certainly do. The question I then get in many of these discussions is which 'logic' for 'realism' is correct. Is it mine or that of someone else?

Quite obviously, the first answer to that would be mine if I am at my table and somebody else's at their own table. However, I am willing to believe that -while there certainly will be differences- there will generally be a ballpark area of similarity between my conclusions and those of someone else in most cases (if we're using realism as a baseline.)

It is that generally shared ballpark which is important for a game which is intended to be shared among a community; among a group of friends sitting around a table rolling some dice. Yes, fantasy involves a world that never was, but I still feel there are are things which fit into a ballpark of 'realism' which would be more acceptable to the majority of those looking at realism as a goal, and I likewise believe there are things which would not fit into that same ballpark for the majority of those who want realism -or at least conclusions which resemble the plausibility of what we are familiar with- to be given a nod from fantasy.

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Because magic, quite simply, breaks the rules. That's what it does. Were magic to follow rules, it would just be reflavored technology. Spells can veer dangerously close to that, but the fact of the matter is that in a magical setting, logic is not only a burden, but something that snaps you OUT of the setting. Try it some time. Take a party member who is trying to figure out HOW the magic works, or WHY a demon chose to answer one person and not any of thousands of others or WHAT causes dragons to love hording so much and WHERE do the gods live all the time and what makes a god anyway, how does that even work and see how quickly you get irritated.

Gods exist. Wizards exist. Magic exists. Demons and Devils exist. Wishes can be granted, and can backfire in amazing ways. You might find the Deck of Many Things. And none of this follows any sort of overall rules of realism. It's not like a Warp Drive, which someday we might invent, or an Alien Species, which someday we might meet, or nanotechnology, which someday we might have. It's MAGIC. And it doesn't have to follow your logic.

Unwise said:

D&D is a decision making game, you need to know what framework you are working in, in order to make the appropriate decisions.

Every game needs a baseline that says "this is how you can expect things to work".

<snip>

This is where realism is useful, everybody knows the basics of how the real world works. It is a useful baseline to say "if I do this, then I can expect that to be the result".

<snip>

Realism is just a useful tool to set the groundwork for decision making. The solution really seems to be communication built up over time between the DM and group.

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I've got nothing at all againt communication over time between GM and group, but I don't think "realism" is a particularly firm baseline for that - after all, I've seen posts on this board in which posters estimates for jumpable distances and runnable speeds don't match contemporary elite athlets, let along demigods. I think a common understanding of the genre, in combination with generous rather than restrictive adjudication by the GM, is just as good if not better.

The Shadow said:

I stand in mute awe.

Is there anyone willing to describe AD&D as "simple, streamlined rules, unified system, good design"? To deny that it has anything comparable to "tables for combing your hair or anything else"? We're talking about a game that has a random harlot table, after all!

But to compare it to chess... that is truly the crowning audacity.

If this was truly Gary's goal... Wow.

EDIT: I say this as someone who spent many hours playing AD&D, and who enjoyed it thoroughly, by the by. But also as someone who loves it while being aware of its flaws.

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hamstertamer said:

Indeed, if Gary's goal was to make AD&D like Chess or just "simple, streamlined rules, unified system, good design" then he failed from start to finish. Just reading the rules for surprise will leave people confused or with different interpretations.

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The mistake you are making here is believing that AD&D represented D&D in its "ideal" form to Gygax. The game Gygax played was essentially OD&D with the Greyhawk supplement and some house rules. AD&D, OTOH, was written for the market. He through all those rules in there because there was demand for those rules, not because he personally thought they should be in there. One might think of original D&D as what Gygax wanted people to play as a gamer, but AD&D's existance was heavily tied into the business of TSR. The Advanced title and single by-line saved money that would go to Arneson. Dungeons & Dragons had exploded at GenCon, and they needed common rules for organized play, preferably rules that could handle corner-cases. Gygax's last product for TSR was Unearthed Arcana, a book written less because it represented what Gygax thought D&D needed, but to pull TSR out of the financial whole it was in.

So while it's counter-intuitive, AD&D is not the place to go to see Gygax's Platonic Ideal of Game Design, particularly that of D&D.

Ichneumon said:

If that's true, he really should have spent more time looking over the shoulders of 'Red Box' architects Tom Moldvay and Frank Mentzer.

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He did. When those sets came out, Gygax was still top dog at TSR, and he worked closely with both Moldvay and Mentzer. IIRC from Mentzer's posts on Dragonsfoot, while Gygax was listed as the author and Mentzer the editor, in fact it was the other way around. In fact, the word came down from Gygax himself that in writing BECMI, Mentzer was not to use anything from AD&D.

GreyICE said:

Well first, I'd like to point out that Gary always strongly discouraged people from houseruling D&D heavily. And second, most people play AD&D 2E.

And Advance Dungeons and Dragons Second Edition was not under the control of Gygax. Gygax parted ways with TSR in a fairly hostile and combative blowup, the details of which don't really have to be gotten into, but suffice to say he later published another gaming system that TSR bought out and buried, simply to keep Gygax from publishing anything.

Gygax may have been the father of D&D, but by the time AD&D was truly hitting its stride he had nothing to do with it anymore.

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I can see where you are coming from, but can't agree at all. While Gygax did express such sentiments about AD&D (since he was looking for it to be TSR's primary cash cow), he expressed quite the opposite in the rules of OD&D, as well as implicitly endorsing such houseruling freedom (by editorial control) of the two Red Box Sets.

And I agree with others that AD&D's heyday in terms of mass popularity were in the 1980s, also coincidentally when the D&D line was also well-supported. When you get into the 2e era, the D&D line was practically dead. They capped it off with Rules Cyclopedia, and then started cannablizing it for 2e.

GreyICE said:

Because magic, quite simply, breaks the rules. That's what it does. Were magic to follow rules, it would just be reflavored technology. Spells can veer dangerously close to that, but the fact of the matter is that in a magical setting, logic is not only a burden, but something that snaps you OUT of the setting. Try it some time. Take a party member who is trying to figure out HOW the magic works, or WHY a demon chose to answer one person and not any of thousands of others or WHAT causes dragons to love hording so much and WHERE do the gods live all the time and what makes a god anyway, how does that even work and see how quickly you get irritated.

Gods exist. Wizards exist. Magic exists. Demons and Devils exist. Wishes can be granted, and can backfire in amazing ways. You might find the Deck of Many Things. And none of this follows any sort of overall rules of realism. It's not like a Warp Drive, which someday we might invent, or an Alien Species, which someday we might meet, or nanotechnology, which someday we might have. It's MAGIC. And it doesn't have to follow your logic.

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A good point, but there is also ground for reality to support magic. I don't need to know the specifics of how exactly a wizard conjures a fireball to still believe that the fireball should generally behave like fire once put into play.

You're right, I would get irritated (and do if you've read some of my other posts) when trying to make sense of things which have no way to make sense such as why it is safer and tactically better for my D&D character to be inside the mouth of a crocodile being chewed on than outside of the mouth of the crocodile. Realistically, being chewed on by a crocodile (or a dragon if we want to ramp up the example) should suck; it should be harmful to my character barring some reason why it isn't. ...and, yes, magic would be an acceptable answer to me as to why it isn't.

Animal said:

Clearly in all three examples the problem was not in game mechanics but in player's metagaming mentality.

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I don't feel that that is entirely fair. As a general rule we (or at least I) want players to play in accordance with hit points remaining, as well as with some regard to the likely damage they might take from various sources - for example, to be more cautious when entering the dragon's cave on low hit points than when entering the goblins' cave on full hit points. Given the way that D&D works, if players are expected to play their PCs as if every threat might be immediately deadly, the game will tend to turtle to a halt.

I'm not sure why damage from archery and falling should be treated differently.

Iosue said:

The mistake you are making here is believing that AD&D represented D&D in its "ideal" form to Gygax. The game Gygax played was essentially OD&D with the Greyhawk supplement and some house rules. AD&D, OTOH, was written for the market. He through all those rules in there because there was demand for those rules, not because he personally thought they should be in there. One might think of original D&D as what Gygax wanted people to play as a gamer, but AD&D's existance was heavily tied into the business of TSR. The Advanced title and single by-line saved money that would go to Arneson. Dungeons & Dragons had exploded at GenCon, and they needed common rules for organized play, preferably rules that could handle corner-cases. Gygax's last product for TSR was Unearthed Arcana, a book written less because it represented what Gygax thought D&D needed, but to pull TSR out of the financial whole it was in.

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I'm not sure that Gygax really felt that way. He referred to AD&D several times as a groundbreaking system that would change everything, calling it something "like nothing that had ever come before," and generally raving about how good it is. Here's a few samples:



This next one is from Issue 20, in December 1978 (so you can see the mid-1978 schedule is going real well).


This is probably Gygax's clearest mission statement for AD&D ever. Didn't quite work out how he wanted, but, well.

Animal said:

Clearly in all three examples the problem was not in game mechanics but in player's metagaming mentality.

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I'm just curious, what was the correct answer to those three examples? The answer that would not indicate a metagaming mentality?

It might just be a matter of definition, but I don't agree with this, the issue is that I would say Gygaxian players reactions are a bit 'gameist' but not metagaming at all. Meta-gaming in our culture tends to be a judgement call against munchkinism and is not what is happening here. They are playing the game presented to them, in the way that it has been proscribed in the rules and culture of the gaming table.

Meta-gaming would be using out-of-game knowledge about the DMs mood or preferences for instance. E.g. "He just bought the Underdark book, so my character blames the Drow for this kidnapping. Chances are I will be right".

Take my first example for instance. Imagine this situation where 10 minutes earlier a PC got shot at point blank range with a crossbow during combat and it did minimal damage to them. Now they are in pretty much the same situation, they try to attack the enemy like they did last time, but the DM just says they are shot through the heart and die.

- The player knows it is "silly" that crossbows don't do much damage, but is playing the game presented to him. He is not one of those annoying guys that spends his time ranting about how much platemail a longbow can penetrate etc.
- The sudden shift from gameism to realism was not necessarily overt.
- The DM comes across as the bad guy now, for just 'breaking the rules' and summarily and arbitarilly executing a PC.

What happened here was a failure to communicate the shift in scene and paradigm (for lack of a better word).

In the second example, last game session say the Fighter got knocked over a cliff of that height during combat, he took the significant damage, climbed back up and rejoined the party. Now the evil villian is about to get away with the princess. Why wouldn't the brave knight risk bodily harm to himself and jump down after him? After all, 24hrs earlier he did that. So he jumps, and the DM describes that he is now a red smear on the ground...

If the DM likes to swap regularly between gritty realism and heroic gameism, then occasionally there will be a jarring disconnection and uncertainty regarding PC actions.

I know this could be true in my games, at least for a new player that joined our group. I guess in reflection, we have two unspoken rules 1) You can get away with more in combat than out of it e.g. falling, running through fire etc. and 2) If what you are doing seems stupid, it probably is. e.g. jumping down a 50' cliff.