Why is realism "lame"?

Zhaleskra · Dec 23, 2012

Romeo & Juliet is really about the stupidity of Blood Feuds, the lust suicides are actually the side story. Too bad it took both families losing a child to realize it.

Elf Witch · Dec 24, 2012

CroBob said:
You know there have been people in real life who have walked away from falls at terminal velocity with scratches and bruises, though more often, if they live, they have broken bones and such. There have also been real life war heroes who, even though they sustained a large volume of injuries, continued fighting on against superior numbers, through luck, skill, and grit. The heroes of games are these people, in their world. How are they "mundane" after surviving so much and saving kingdoms etc? What's mundane about that, and why would you want high fantasy to be "mundane"?

Why? We're not talking about average Joe, here, we're talking a talented, stubborn, tough SoB, who started out with that talent, toughness, and stubbornness, and adventured near constantly for months... it doesn't seem like he might become something more than the average warrior?

Few games lack internal consistency. As long as you follow the rules of the game the same way in every applicable situation, then the game is necessarily internally consistent. It's only not if the person running the game fails to make it so. It seems to me like you want it to be consistent with your picture of reality, hence saying you want it "realistic". A thing can be completely internally consistent while being absolutely nothing like what you'd find in reality... for example, the existence of magic and dragons. No, people who want "realism" are not asking for internal consistency, they're asking for external consistency, consistency with the real world. Which role playing games are historically bad at, and which would make the game boring in my opinion.

The reason is that he's a freaking hero! He doesn't succumb to the injuries or deaths of lesser men, or else he'd constantly have broken bones, internal bleeding, months and months of recovery time, physical therapy, and all of that instead of these "Hit Point" things which are akin to nothing you'd find in reality, and are completely, utterly, mechanistic in nature. I like a little grit now and again myself, but I don't want my grit to be anything like in real life, or else my characters would lose limbs in explosions, suffer soft tissue damage, get infections, etc. Again, realism isn't fun.

The people who have fallen are in the minority and it was sheer luck or maybe divine intervention if you believe that kind of thing. I would not mind a mechanic that simulates luck, or divine intervention. What I don't like is the entire idea that because you are such a good fighter that some how relates to being able to walk from something like that almost every single time.

Other games have fantasy and magic in them and without some kind of magical intervention you are not usually going to walk away from a terminal velocity fall. As a DM I want my players to take stuff like that seriously take precautions like using ropes or everyone buying a featherfall item. I hate the way metagame comes into it with the oh don't worry about it we have enough hit points. That way of thinking ruins the game for me. PCs should not know how many hit points they have or what level they are.

They may not be an average Joe but it is hokey and schlocky and imo unbelievable that in three months a person can go from being an apprentice mage or a new fighter to being an expert that rivals fighters and mages who have spent years honing their crafts. It is one of the reasons I use a really slow progression for XP which works fine in a homebrew but is really hard in an adventure path. It is the side effect of a level based game. Whuch is why DnD does do all kinds of fantasy style setting equally well. As a player I don't have as much an issue with this one as I do as a DM.

That is simply not true. I want an in game explanation of why something happens. Take healing and raise dead two of the most unrealistic aspects of the game they work fine for me because the explanation that a god is involved. I don't have to twist myself into a knot as a story teller to say why this happened. And the biggest attraction to RPGs for me is the story telling aspect. I want to feel like my PC is living in a real world not playing a game. If I wanted the game experience solely I could just play video games. I am well aware that to play RPGs you need rules that simulate things like combat. And that no matter how well written these rules are there will always be moments of WTF. And for those moments you remind yourself that it is just a game and move on. But if those WTF moments start happening a lot then it becomes unfun to me and not what I want in a RPG.

There is big difference between being a hero like John McClain who survives a lot of damage and Superman who can only be harmed with krptonite. Dump John McClain in lave he is going to die his odds of falling out of a jet at terminal velocity is not going to be in his favor. You are taking it to extremes to try and prove that your way is the only way to play the game. I am not talking about making the game super realistic with the things you describe. I am perfectly happy to hand wave away healing because of divine intervention. Or curing poison with a magical spell or disease for that matter.

I just don't like the who hoo aspect of the hit point system that allows high level mundane character to survive totally unrealistic things for no other reason than hit points. It is why for things like that I would prefer a mechanic other than just taking straight damage. Realism is not fun for you that is fine but for others we like a little realism in our games and it would be nice if DnD had supplemental rules to allow that but since it does not you house rule or got o third party products.

JamesonCourage · Dec 24, 2012

CroBob said:
You know there have been people in real life who have walked away from falls at terminal velocity with scratches and bruises, though more often, if they live, they have broken bones and such. There have also been real life war heroes who, even though they sustained a large volume of injuries, continued fighting on against superior numbers, through luck, skill, and grit. The heroes of games are these people, in their world. How are they "mundane" after surviving so much and saving kingdoms etc? What's mundane about that, and why would you want high fantasy to be "mundane"?

Hey, at least you didn't go all badwrongfun, right?

CroBob said:
I like a little grit now and again myself, but I don't want my grit to be anything like in real life, or else my characters would lose limbs in explosions, suffer soft tissue damage, get infections, etc. Again, realism isn't fun.

It's funny; when I wrote my RPG, I included limb loss, rules for infections, concussions, broken bones, etc. And, you know what? My friends and I like it. My brother (who is also running a game) likes it, as do his players. I can enjoy a game without it, sure, but your "this isn't fun" is about as generally accurate as "skip the gate guard talks, it isn't fun" was. It's wrong. As always, play what you like

CroBob · Dec 24, 2012

Bedrockgames said:
But not everyone wants this kind of over the top heroism in an rpg. For some players grit that is a bit more like real life is fun. I think for most people who play D&D it is expected that the game not be terribly realistic, but elf witch seems to be saying she has come to realize she wants a much more down to earth fantasy system. Nothing wrong with her wanting a system where the odds of surviving certain situations, the time it takes to develop skills, etc is a bit more realistic. There are plenty of RPGs out there that make this sort of thing a priority.

Then play those ones. I'm simply answering the questions of the thread. I, like many others, do not want our RPGs to be realistic because realistic is boring or, worse, full of horrible consequences for the actions heroes take. Further, Games are simply bad at mimicking real life, unless they forgo a HP system entirely, instead making somebody injured, possibly maimed, instead of simply "taking damage" in whatever sort of hit point system it has. In real life, you don't lose HPs, or stamina, or whatever. In real life, you get a gauge in your neck and start bleeding out, and then you're out of the fight and in recovery for months, if you survive at all. I agree there should be some sort of balance between realism and completely unrealistic, but only to the point that you can identify with the setting the game takes place in. I mean, there is generally ground, gravity, humanoids, and interaction at least somewhat reminiscent of how people can act, even if through different means. However, I don't understand why a game which involves freaking magic becomes unbelievable simply because one of the toughest SoBs on the planet can survive a short encounter with lava. That guy who conjured the lava out of thin air, sure, that makes sense, but someone coming into contact with the lava and surviving doesn't? I can't empathize with that train of thought.

CroBob · Dec 24, 2012

Elf Witch said:
The people who have fallen are in the minority and it was sheer luck or maybe divine intervention if you believe that kind of thing. I would not mind a mechanic that simulates luck, or divine intervention. What I don't like is the entire idea that because you are such a good fighter that some how relates to being able to walk from something like that almost every single time.

It was or was not divine intervention regardless what I think of the situation. If you do like the mechanic that failing a climb check or two means you're almost assuredly going to die, unless you bought those feather fall items, cool. That's you. I'm not arguing about how a game should or should not be, I'm simply explaining why people, myself included, don't find such "realism" to be fun.

Other games have fantasy and magic in them and without some kind of magical intervention you are not usually going to walk away from a terminal velocity fall. As a DM I want my players to take stuff like that seriously take precautions like using ropes or everyone buying a featherfall item. I hate the way metagame comes into it with the oh don't worry about it we have enough hit points. That way of thinking ruins the game for me. PCs should not know how many hit points they have or what level they are.

Then play those games.

That is simply not true. I want an in game explanation of why something happens. Take healing and raise dead two of the most unrealistic aspects of the game they work fine for me because the explanation that a god is involved. I don't have to twist myself into a knot as a story teller to say why this happened. And the biggest attraction to RPGs for me is the story telling aspect. I want to feel like my PC is living in a real world not playing a game. If I wanted the game experience solely I could just play video games. I am well aware that to play RPGs you need rules that simulate things like combat. And that no matter how well written these rules are there will always be moments of WTF. And for those moments you remind yourself that it is just a game and move on. But if those WTF moments start happening a lot then it becomes unfun to me and not what I want in a RPG.

You want an explanation for things which, in game, observably are true? You know how we figure things out in reality, right? We see what happens, and then we try to figure out why it happens. Eventually, we'll get to the basist levels of physics, where no more explanation can be discovered, and it's simply how things work. That basest level doesn't need an explanation, it's simply how the universe works. If something works in the game, it doesn't matter how that same thing works in reality, because that's not how it works in the game. Again, you want the game to be more like real life, and that's your prerogative, but if something works a certain way in a fictional world, well, that's just how it works. Why it works that way is due to the game-world's functioning, not the real world's. That's why magic works, because the game-world functions differently from the real world. Magic has an in-game explanation, so, too, do the other parts of the game which aren't realistic, they simply aren't spelled out. Magic isn't spelled out either. Does there have to be a core rule book all about the fictional world's physical mechanics in order to make the game fun? I don't think so.

There is big difference between being a hero like John McClain who survives a lot of damage and Superman who can only be harmed with krptonite. Dump John McClain in lave he is going to die his odds of falling out of a jet at terminal velocity is not going to be in his favor. You are taking it to extremes to try and prove that your way is the only way to play the game. I am not talking about making the game super realistic with the things you describe. I am perfectly happy to hand wave away healing because of divine intervention. Or curing poison with a magical spell or disease for that matter.

When did I ever say there's only one, or even a finite, number of ways to play games? I think you're taking my points apart from their purpose. I'm explaining why people don't care about their games being realistic. I'm not saying realism is bad, only that many people find it both un-fun and silly to expect realism from RPGs.

I just don't like the who hoo aspect of the hit point system that allows high level mundane character to survive totally unrealistic things for no other reason than hit points. It is why for things like that I would prefer a mechanic other than just taking straight damage. Realism is not fun for you that is fine but for others we like a little realism in our games and it would be nice if DnD had supplemental rules to allow that but since it does not you house rule or got o third party products.

Hit points are innately unrealistic, though! I mean, your tastes are your tastes, but why you would complain about hit points being unrealistic makes me really curious why you play games that use them at all. Hit points aren't supposed to be realistic. That's not their job.

CroBob · Dec 24, 2012

JamesonCourage said:
It's funny; when I wrote my RPG, I included limb loss, rules for infections, concussions, broken bones, etc. And, you know what? My friends and I like it. My brother (who is also running a game) likes it, as do his players. I can enjoy a game without it, sure, but your "this isn't fun" is about as generally accurate as "skip the gate guard talks, it isn't fun" was. It's wrong. As always, play what you like

Good on you and your friends. Have a ball. You and your friends are not other people, who don't want that kind of realism, who don't find realism to be all that fun.

I don't know what skipping gate guard talks has to do with any of this. I don't see the connection. To many RPG players, the game being realistic isn't especially important. What that has to do with their desire to speak with gate guards I don't know. Could you please explain that to me?

Elf Witch · Dec 24, 2012

CroBob said:
It was or was not divine intervention regardless what I think of the situation. If you do like the mechanic that failing a climb check or two means you're almost assuredly going to die, unless you bought those feather fall items, cool. That's you. I'm not arguing about how a game should or should not be, I'm simply explaining why people, myself included, don't find such "realism" to be fun.

Then play those games.

You want an explanation for things which, in game, observably are true? You know how we figure things out in reality, right? We see what happens, and then we try to figure out why it happens. Eventually, we'll get to the basist levels of physics, where no more explanation can be discovered, and it's simply how things work. That basest level doesn't need an explanation, it's simply how the universe works. If something works in the game, it doesn't matter how that same thing works in reality, because that's not how it works in the game. Again, you want the game to be more like real life, and that's your prerogative, but if something works a certain way in a fictional world, well, that's just how it works. Why it works that way is due to the game-world's functioning, not the real world's. That's why magic works, because the game-world functions differently from the real world. Magic has an in-game explanation, so, too, do the other parts of the game which aren't realistic, they simply aren't spelled out. Magic isn't spelled out either. Does there have to be a core rule book all about the fictional world's physical mechanics in order to make the game fun? I don't think so.

When did I ever say there's only one, or even a finite, number of ways to play games? I think you're taking my points apart from their purpose. I'm explaining why people don't care about their games being realistic. I'm not saying realism is bad, only that many people find it both un-fun and silly to expect realism from RPGs.

Hit points are innately unrealistic, though! I mean, your tastes are your tastes, but why you would complain about hit points being unrealistic makes me really curious why you play games that use them at all. Hit points aren't supposed to be realistic. That's not their job.

I do think that certain things should be more deadly. Unless you are immune to fire and heat in my game fall into lava you are dead no save and your body is burned up and you need something more powerful than raise dead to come back. The only chance you have is A DM fiat I decide a god wants you alive and saves you. B if you have played your character as being faithful to a god I roll a D20 and on a 1 or 2 the god steps in. I actually do this a lot. Since in my homebrew the gods are not distant uncaring creatures.

If you fall in my game from what would be considered death for most people you roll you decide high or low before the dice roll guess right you live through the fall because of luck fail the roll and you die. Now the above for lava also applies plus my game as action points and fate points that help keep the game from being overly deadly.

I have already wrote why we play DnD even when there are times I don't think it works well. And it really annoys me when people say this. First of all most fantasy based games are level based. I am not a fan of say Fantasy Hero because the entire work is put on the DM. You have to completely build everything from the ground up it takes a lot of work and I know a lot of my group don't like the system. What I don't understand is why there can't be supplemental rules for this kind of thing. They have done it for other things look at Unearthed Arcana which allows you to add all kinds of things to your game from prestige paladins and bards to bloodlines.

That is not good enough. We may not know why everything works in our real world but I know gravity is the thing that makes fall so deadly and that lack of air which you can't see will kill you. I know that if you die and are buried you are not coming back. I know the studies of people who fell and lived has to do with a lot of things. The angle of the body when it hits what it lands on,if anything is there to slow the descent. The PCs may not know how things work but as DM I want to know the basics. Like I said I want some kind of explanation of why a mundane character can live through something like this on a regular basis. If the answer is that there is a god that grants demi god status to all fighters then fine there is an explanation

The way you are coming across and the way you are wording things sure sounds like you are coming at it from a badfun kind of way. If that is not what you are trying then fine.

I dislike the hit point system a lot but I accept that in a level based game it is a way of measuring what a PC can handle. I think it is a clunky system the whole you are fine up until you run out of them. Personally I would like to see a system ( as an option add on) where you take minuses as you lose a certain % of hit points. I also like rules for having to make a save for losing a lot in one hit. Again this should be something optional.

As for why we play DnD because it is is the best known game for fantasy and it has a lot of support and unlike a lot of other games it does not have a setting hard wired into it. I would love if someone took the Shadowrun rules and made a game using them for a generic fantasy setting and no I don't mean Earthdawn. That would be perfect for the style of fantasy games I run. I prefer a lower magic, more gritty style of game. I wish I was better at mechanics and balance then I would try and do this myself.

JamesonCourage · Dec 24, 2012

CroBob said:
Good on you and your friends. Have a ball. You and your friends are not other people, who don't want that kind of realism, who don't find realism to be all that fun.

I'm not saying it's fun for everyone. I'm saying that you saying "realism isn't fun" is wrong as a general statement.

CroBob said:
I don't know what skipping gate guard talks has to do with any of this. I don't see the connection. To many RPG players, the game being realistic isn't especially important. What that has to do with their desire to speak with gate guards I don't know. Could you please explain that to me?

It's a reference to, essentially, this thread, which has a quote from James Wyatt in the 4e DMG that states "An encounter with two guards at the city gate isn’t fun." As you can see from the thread, there was some dissent with that view, as different people find different things fun.

And that's how it relates. That's what I was saying. You saying "realism isn't fun" is the same thing. As a general, blanket statement, it's fairly astoundingly wrong. I want to explicitly note, when people challenged your post, you did reply (not to me, but to Elf Witch) "I'm simply explaining why people, myself included, don't find such "realism" to be fun." And that's cool. But, claims of "realism is lame" or "realism isn't fun" as blanket statements, without qualifiers, is just begging for disagreement, in about the degree that the reverse would. Trust me, I've got no beef with your play style. Heck, see my signature

As always, play what you like

Hussar · Dec 24, 2012

Just as a point of clarity JC. That isn't quite what is being said in the 4e dmg. That's taking things pretty far out of context.

CroBob · Dec 24, 2012

Elf Witch said:
I have already wrote why we play DnD even when there are times I don't think it works well. And it really annoys me when people say this. First of all most fantasy based games are level based. I am not a fan of say Fantasy Hero because the entire work is put on the DM. You have to completely build everything from the ground up it takes a lot of work and I know a lot of my group don't like the system. What I don't understand is why there can't be supplemental rules for this kind of thing. They have done it for other things look at Unearthed Arcana which allows you to add all kinds of things to your game from prestige paladins and bards to bloodlines.

You can make as many supplemental, or "house", rules as you desire. I mean, if people don't like when a game isn't realistic, citing that other games are realistic... if this is such a hitch for you, I don't understand why you stick to the less realistic one. Or does it wind up that it's not really that important?

That is not good enough. We may not know why everything works in our real world but I know gravity is the thing that makes fall so deadly and that lack of air which you can't see will kill you. I know that if you die and are buried you are not coming back. I know the studies of people who fell and lived has to do with a lot of things. The angle of the body when it hits what it lands on,if anything is there to slow the descent. The PCs may not know how things work but as DM I want to know the basics. Like I said I want some kind of explanation of why a mundane character can live through something like this on a regular basis. If the answer is that there is a god that grants demi god status to all fighters then fine there is an explanation

I'm sorry, I'm having a difficult time wrapping my mind around this complaint. I mean, you complain that it's unexplained, yet refuse to explain it yourself. Do you have the same problem with magical spells not being explained? Yes, we know how certain things work in real life... the fictional world is not real life. Falls and lava don't have to be as deadly as in real life, you simply want them to be. And that's fine, but if the rules state something works that way, either it does, regardless how or if it gets explained, or you're free to change it to how you desire it to be. Where's the problem?

The way you are coming across and the way you are wording things sure sounds like you are coming at it from a badfun kind of way. If that is not what you are trying then fine.

It's not. I may even be debating the issue, but my point is certainly not that either of us, or that anyone, is "right" or "wrong" in any objective sense. I do find it kind of silly that someone's upset over the unbelievability of HPs. Yeah, they're unbelievable, but I don't see that as a weakness. It's simply a part of how the game works. The game isn't trying to duplicate real life, which is made patent through the existence of magic, gods, monsters, HPs, etc. Nothing in the game is realistic, and I have a hard time understanding why someone would have a problem with "mundane" people also being unrealistic. Basically, it seems like cherry picking to me.

I prefer a lower magic, more gritty style of game.

By pure coincidence, that's exactly the kind of game I'm working on right now. Still, I don't know if it'd suit all of your tastes, but those two aspects are there.

JamesonCourage said:
I'm not saying it's fun for everyone. I'm saying that you saying "realism isn't fun" is wrong as a general statement.

It was the answer to a question about opinions, so I presumed it'd obviously be about my opinion. However, I have a habit of taking things in ways other people do not, so there's a good chance I didn't pay enough attention to how I worded my answers. If that's what happened, I am sorry.

It's a reference to, essentially, this thread, which has a quote from James Wyatt in the 4e DMG that states "An encounter with two guards at the city gate isn’t fun." As you can see from the thread, there was some dissent with that view, as different people find different things fun.

And that's how it relates. That's what I was saying. You saying "realism isn't fun" is the same thing. As a general, blanket statement, it's fairly astoundingly wrong. I want to explicitly note, when people challenged your post, you did reply (not to me, but to Elf Witch) "I'm simply explaining why people, myself included, don't find such "realism" to be fun." And that's cool. But, claims of "realism is lame" or "realism isn't fun" as blanket statements, without qualifiers, is just begging for disagreement, in about the degree that the reverse would. Trust me, I've got no beef with your play style. Heck, see my signature As always, play what you like

I can't help but notice that the very second poster says something about how skipping over the parts that aren't fun would mean going from combat to combat... and I'm curious; If this sort of thought is why people have a problem with 4E, then it's them who are defining the fun part of the game to be fights. And, certainly, the fights are fun, but that's not the only fun part (to me). The idea to skip to the fun parts would include skipping the mundane parts such as walking down the road to the palace and waiting in the clerk's office, and skip right to the meeting with the king's adviser, which will likely involve no combat, yet will probably still be fun. If you find only combat to be fun, awesome, play as you will, but that doesn't mean the game created the definition of what you find fun, it's only advising to skip the parts that are irrelevant to your fun. I fail to see how that's bad advice.