A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

AbdulAlhazred said:

Interesting... Don't you guys (I mean you, [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], and there have been a couple others) often discuss things in terms of playing a game in which the PCs are NOT picked out by fate. Where in fact they are simply nobody special, unless perhaps they actual manage to forcefully inject themselves into the wheels of fate (and I would assume this to be a difficult process which rarely succeeds). So, I wouldn't think you would advocate for the use of encounter tables which would require such an interpretation.

I mean, even in a 'you are nobody' type of game maybe PCs draw a little attention, make a few enemies, etc. and see more action than Joe Farmer, and I doubt you'd find that objectionable to a certain degree. Still, I am just curious what your take is on this Gygaxian/Anesian design element which was particularly prominent in AD&D.

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While I have a similar playstyle to [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and some others, we do have our differences. I like that the PCs are heroes of destiny. What I don't do is have only people of destiny allowed to be members of a character class. You might have a dozen fighters in the competition, but the PC fighter is probably the only one fate is following closely.

Okay due to the number of responses I have only responded to @Aldarc's comment so far, other points I either agree with or haven't really gotten around to them or do not form part of the conversation topic I'm interested in. I also provided a short synopsis of many of the responses below as it makes it easier for me to gather my thoughts. Feel free to correct.

Aldarc said:

I don't agree because this seems like a binary viewpoint of combat defense that evaluates realism in terms of whether a system has an AC mechanic or not. It's overly simplistic, lacking scope of how other games perform a similar function with different mechanics. Some games use counter combat rolls. The DM rolls (defense/combat) and the player rolls (defense/combat), and the success of the attack is in the difference. Is that more or less realistic than AC? Other games have the player roll defense, whether using dice polls or defeating a static difficulty number. Is that more realistic than AC? Many systems use armor as damage absorption/reduction. Is that more or less realistic than AC? I can't say for certain, because this does not fundamentally strike me as a debate on realism, but, rather, a debate on gaming preferences and aesthetics rather than some silly, vacuous notion of realism being on a scale, which unsurprisingly seems to having moving goalposts and arbitrary standards. The "realism scale" has as much "meat" as talking about the invisible hand of the market, the leviathan of the state, the state of nature, or the social contract of governance.

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Okay, in that instance I can agree with you when one attempts to measure up differing mechanics which are attempting to do the same thing (AC versus Absorption for instance). it does come down to subjectivity.

Would you agree though, for the sake of the argument, if we look at D&D solely and said the next edition of D&D will either have an AC mechanic (as it does now) or every attack will be considered successful, no die roll required. If you have to compare those two scenarios - is one more realistic/authentic than the other or do you feel that still comes down to preferences: those that wish to role dice and those that don't.
Personally I feel at this point it cannot be just preferences and that there is a case for insert preferred buzzword, either wearing armour protects your character in some way, however abstract, or it is just cosmetic.

SYNOPSIS

My conversation starter was AC vs No AC which is more real.

@Aldarc suggested its preferences as you cannot measure what is more real between AC vs Absorption mechanic. Mostly dealt with above.

@Ovinomancer said he would measure more realism at the fiction level not via processes and described a 'GM decides' game which inputs realistic results via GM narration. Have to give this more thought.

@hawkeyefan is ok with the terminology more realism except when measuring system vs system, a little similar to Aldarc as he follows the line of preferences which I understand, but probably no surprise to him, I disagree with the BitD example he used - it is TOTALLY gamist and we probably won't agree. In this specific instance I would probably side with Max.

@AbdulAlhazred returns to the semantic debate and prefers the term more authentic giving his reasons for the use of either term as he views it. I may not agree entirely, but my interest does not lie in the semantic debate. I'm ok with the term more authentic as I've said many times, I was using the more realism term as a shorthand for a great many things.

@pemerton reiterates everyone else's point in his first two replies (which is where I am). Where I feel I need to point out, the mechanics giving rise to more realism were always acknowledged as very abstract in design and overly simplistic. i.e. If we fall from a distance in RL we take damage, similarly in the gaming fiction. Are they same or even close in design or outcome, of course not. @Maxperson has made this point numerous times, but posters still feel the need to mention how poorly mechanics imitate RL.

Sadras said:

Would you agree though, for the sake of the argument, if we look at D&D solely and said the next edition of D&D will either have an AC mechanic (as it does now) or every attack will be considered successful, no die roll required. If you have to compare those two scenarios - is one more realistic/authentic than the other or do you feel that still comes down to preferences: those that wish to role dice and those that don't.

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To be clear - are you positing a system in which neither armour nor level/HD makes any difference in combat, and combat is essentially the attrition of damage dice?

As [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] already posted, the bit about armour not mattering takes us close to 4e, where armour is mostly a cosmetic thing except for a handful of classes (by default wizards and sorcerers have a bit less than anyone else, while paladins have a bit more). The bit about level/HD not mattering would be a big change for D&D but not inherently unrealistic.

This would be a big change in resolution compared to standard D&D, but I'm missing the bit where it's unrealistic. Of course if you write in some fiction heavier armour makes people more robust in combat and then the mechanics contradict that you'll get some weirdness - but (eg) 4e avoids such weirdness by writing into the fiction that there are multiple ways to be robust in combat: armour, quick reflexes, quick thinking, etc.

pemerton said:

To be clear - are you positing a system in which neither armour nor level/HD makes any difference in combat, and combat is essentially the attrition of damage dice?

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No it was strictly an AC or no AC mechanic, I wasn't even touching level/HD.

As [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] already posted, the bit about armour not mattering takes us close to 4e, where armour is mostly a cosmetic thing except for a handful of classes (by default wizards and sorcerers have a bit less than anyone else, while paladins have a bit more).

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That is fair.

Sadras said:

@Ovinomancer said he would measure more realism at the fiction level not via processes and described a 'GM decides' game which inputs realistic results via GM narration. Have to give this more thought.

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It's a tad stronger than that. I'm saying you can only evaluate it in the fiction. The process cannot be realistic. This leads into...

@hawkeyefan is ok with the terminology more realism except when measuring system vs system, a little similar to Aldarc as he follows the line of preferences which I understand, but probably no surprise to him, I disagree with the BitD example he used - it is TOTALLY gamist and we probably won't agree. In this specific instance I would probably side with Max.

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This is a good example. If we consider how the BitD example works vs "traditional" play, then, in the fiction, both have detailed planning, both have encumberance factors for gear brought, and both have these two things pay off when the right equipment for the situation is deployed. They are indistinguishable from within the fiction.

The difference is what is played out at the table. In Blades, the planning part is, at most, montaged and happens offscreen. It's assumed that good planning occurred so the game jumps straight into tge execution. As someone that's been through more than one full session planning spree, I immensely appreciate this.

But, not everyone does, so there's still lots of enjoyment in actually doing the planning. That's cool, but it doesn't affect the "realism", just the focus of play.

Lanefan said:

To some extent I'll disagree with this, not so much from the system-v-realism point of view but from the system-v-immersion point of view.

Part of the goal of having one's game world be authentic and-or realistic is, I think, to help the players immerse themselves in the world and in the characters they play within it. Given that, having the players track their gear and expenses adds to the immersion factor in that the players are doing what the characters would be doing. Realistically, a character - particularly a poor one - is going to know how much money it has at any given time; and any adventuring character worth its salt is going to know what's in its backpack and what amount of remaining supplies it has on hand. Player knowledge matching character knowledge where it can is highly beneficial for immersion, and thus just as the character knows what's in its pack at any given time, so should the player.

Hand-waving all this makes the game easier and more efficient to play, to be sure, but note there's this trade-off to consider. Some might think the ease-efficiency is worth it, others might not.

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I agree with you that it's a matter of opinion, and that what helps immersion or a feeling of authenticity will vary from person to person.

In this case, what makes Blades in the Dark so immersive is that the character feels more like a person that actually exists in the world the game is portraying. The character is capable and has the ability to plan correctly. This is a trait of the character that the mechanics help portray.

To me, as a quality of the character, it feels more fundamentally important to immersion than do the contents of their backpack.

Look at films or other forms of fiction.....does it break immersion to see a character pull something from their backpack or utility belt that helps them in a given situation? There could be extreme examples we could cite ("Robin, get me the Bat-shark repellent!" comes to mind), but for the most part, we simply accept what we see. The character is prepared for what they're facing.

Other times, we'll get a montage showing what the character is bringing, and that can work as well because it makes us wonder how each item will come into play. I like this approach in fiction because it builds anticipation, but I don't find that the typical RPG character inventory evokes the same sense of anticipation. I don't look at it and wonder "Wow, when will Ragnar need to use one of these torches!"

So for me, a mechanic that replicates how a scoundrel in Doskvol will prepare for a score is going to feel more immersive than me as a player simply making choices about what to bring.

Lanefan said:

Where realism (and other less pleasant considerations that at their extreme go all the way to cheating) comes into it is if a player can determine a character's gear-on-hand on the fly, is it realistic/authentic/believable for that PC to always just happen to have some particular piece of exotic gear available just at the moment it happens to be needed? Again, some might not care; but I sure do.

Maybe or maybe not more realistic, but I'd argue that on the whole these mechanics* push the game towards being more immersive.

* - and note this doesn't necessarily have to be done using hard-wired mechanics; the point is that it's paid close attention to at all rather than just hand-waved.

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Well it's not quite that perfect. Each playbook/class has a specific list to choose from based on their specialty. Some items appear on the list for each playbook/class, others are unique to a specific playbook/class or two. Exotic gear is pretty limited, and beyond a few exceptions, requires that the player spend downtime actions for a long term project to add such an item to their list of available gear, or that they use a downtime action to acquire an asset for one time use.

I wouldn't describe the method in Blades in the Dark as being "hand-waved" because there are specific mechanics involved. It's just that the mechanics work differently than what we'd consider standard. In fact, I find the selection and use of gear in Blades in the Dark to be far more important to the game than what is typical for D&D.

Ovinomancer said:

To touch on the actual topic for a moment, "realism" however defined, cannot be a trait of game mechanics. These do not exist in the fiction and are, in fact, means of establishing fiction. It's the fiction that's "realistic" or not, not the mechanic. There's zero "realism" in rolling a die to determine a cause or effect.

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Maxperson said:

It really doesn't matter, since many things you are adding to the fiction need associated mechanics. Talking about mechanics is the same as talking about the fiction, since the mechanic as you note will result in the fiction being more realistic. Your argument here is semantics.

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I don't think that it's semantics at all. If you roll a die or play a card or spend a hero point or whatever other mechanic you may use in a game for a character to make an attack, the fictional result is that the character makes an attack.

In other words, there are different types of mechanics that can be connected to the same type of fictional action, and none of those mechanics is "more realistic" than the other. Which is the entire point of the discussion, I believe; i.e. a GM making an informed decision, a GM making a die roll, a GM asking the player to make a die roll.....whatever mechanic is used it's the end result that we would determine as realistic or not, authentic or not, believable or not.

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Sadras said:

@hawkeyefan is ok with the terminology more realism except when measuring system vs system, a little similar to Aldarc as he follows the line of preferences which I understand, but probably no surprise to him, I disagree with the BitD example he used - it is TOTALLY gamist and we probably won't agree. In this specific instance I would probably side with Max.

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I think Ovinomancer explained it well, but I do want to address the description of how Blades handles gear being "totally gamist"; that's really not the case. There is game consideration given to the mechanic, yes, but it's also rooted in character. The freedom to choose gear as needed in play is meant to mirror the character's knowledge of the world and their specialty as a professional criminal.

In one instance, the character's ability is what's being portrayed, in the other, the player's ability is what matters. Which you may prefer is a matter of opinion, of course, but I don't think the BitD method is purely a gamist approach.

Ovinomancer said:

It's a tad stronger than that. I'm saying you can only evaluate it in the fiction. The process cannot be realistic. This leads into...

This is a good example. If we consider how the BitD example works vs "traditional" play, then, in the fiction, both have detailed planning, both have encumberance factors for gear brought, and both have these two things pay off when the right equipment for the situation is deployed. They are indistinguishable from within the fiction.

The difference is what is played out at the table. In Blades, the planning part is, at most, montaged and happens offscreen. It's assumed that good planning occurred so the game jumps straight into tge execution. As someone that's been through more than one full session planning spree, I immensely appreciate this.

But, not everyone does, so there's still lots of enjoyment in actually doing the planning. That's cool, but it doesn't affect the "realism", just the focus of play.

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I hear what you are saying but it comes down to this:
In reality, we plan what to take before the trip/adventure, hard choices have to be made at planning level which will affect encumbrance depending on what we pack, it might affect how we travel depending on what is carried, it might affect how stealthy we are able to move, the choices are made on the intelligence gathered at time of departure, it will affect what the next person in the group decides to bring, our gear might affect the decisions/reactions of NPCs, it might affect what might get broken or damaged during the trip....

Much of this is circumvented via the BitD system which allocates slots based on when it is required.

The one is clearly gamist, it is not even a question.

And just to be clear I'm not knocking it. I'm just stating the mechanic is less like how it happens in real. I would love to go overseas and not pack anything except a luggage bag with x slots and a generic weight and just replicate clothing depending on the weather. My wife would have loved that on our last trip to Europe.

EDIT: Bolded part added for clarity.