Legends and Lore - Nod To Realism

[Mark CMG]

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Nod To Realism)

(. . .) the levels of simulation rose and fell as the game developed, but there's no denying that a nod to realism is clearly something that a significant number of players over the years have felt was important. But how much realism is too much? How much is enough?

It's an interesting question. What's your take on it?

 

[Stormonu]

That's a tough question, and it varies from rule area to rule area and story to story.

Generally, I want my rules a little more believable than Hollywood physics. It's that subtle bit of story you can tell someone and they respond "cool" instead of "that's a load of BS." Fireballs should burn, things with wings can fly (even if they'd be too heavy in our world), throw someone off the edge of the cliff and short of magic or wings, they should fall.

Ruleswise, I don't want to be involved in calculus calculations - Either give me an easy formula that takes a few seconds to solve (1d6 per 10 feet fallen) or a quick chart to reference. Anything beyond that will likely get chucked (1E's Weapon vs. Armor charts, for example - even 2E's was a bit clumsy).

For me, the game isn't looking up and makes rules calls. It's presenting a story and being able to quickly resolve what happens. You don't need complex rules for that, you just need to be able to answer "Will your crazy idea work (Yes/No)?" and then move on.

 

[JamesonCourage]

I had three major factors in mind when I made my RPG: realism*, fantasy, and balance.

I want the rules to feel realistic. I'm okay with bending them away from realism and towards the fantastic, but they still need to feel rooted in realism. Ideally, this should be the case while being balanced.

Realism is the basis for both of my other goals, and thus is very important to me, personally. I know it work be for others. We'll see how this goes. As always, play what you like

* Yes, I know that I should be using the word "verisimilitude". I tire of it, personally, but consider it used, if that helps.

 

[pemerton]

It's an interesting question. What's your take on it?

Of all the Monte Cook Legend and Lore columns, I think I found this one the most frustrating, because (at least as far as I can tell) he does not distinguish between (i) realism/verisimilitude as a constraint on outcomes generated via the action resolution mechanics, and (ii) realism/verisimilitude as a constraint on the processes of the action resolution mechanics.

To explain: suppose the game says that, when I want my PC to do something (say, cross a narrow ledge above a cliff) and the GM thinks it might be risky (my PC is wearing high heeled shoes and have little experience as a climber or acrobat), then I have to toss a coin: heads, and I get to narrate how my PC succeeds; tails, and the GM gets to narrate how my PC fails. Suppose, furthermore, that there is a rule that governs both PC and GM - that the narration, whatever it is, must be realisitc/verismilitudinous. So if my klutzy PC successfully traverses the ledge while wearing high heels I can't say "I suddenly developed Spider Man-style wall walking ability". I have to say something like "Despite the narrowness of the ledge and the inappropriateness of my shoes, I just don't look down, and inch across without falling".

Now we have a game that produces only realistic outcomes in play, but it doesn't have very simulationist mechanics. The coin toss is, very obviously, a metagame technique for allocating the authority to decide what happens in the game. (The World, The Flesh and the Devil is a more sophisticated version of this.)

A game like D&D can have comparable sorts of mechanics, too, although probably more heavily disguised. For example: in building up my PC's ability with a sword (proficiency, feats, better magic items, etc) am I (i) changing the nature of my PC within the fiction (ie making him/her a better sword fighter), or (ii) building up player resources that give me a better chance, in conflicts involving sword fighting, of declaring that my PC is the winner? Most of the time, I think D&D assumes the first answer. But some aspects of 4e probably make more sense interpreted in the second way. For example, it's one way of making sense of a CHA paladin's attacks - it's not that the paladin charms his/her enemies into stepping into the path of his/her sword, but rather the PC's CHA is a resource the player is calling upon to make his/her paladin the centre of the action. Likewise the STR paladin power "Valiant Strike", which grants a bonus to hit when surrounded by multiple foes. Does the paladin actually get fiercer in the fiction, like Conan when surrounded? That would make sense for a babarian power, but for Valiant Strike I prefer the "player resource" interpretation: by using that power you actually make it more likely that your paladin will be valiant, because you increase your chances of getting to describe your paladin smiting foes if your paladin is surrounded by many such foes.

None of this vitiates realism/verisimilitude - at least in a fantasy game, there is nothing unverisimilitudinous about a valiant knight smiting the foes that surround him, nor about a Galahad-like figure who seems in some ways frail and innocent, but nevertheless smites foes with divine power.

But clearly these are not simulationionst mechanics of the sort Monte Cook seems interested in (weapon vs armour, speed factor, etc).

Particularly in this most recent column, I don't feel that Monte is asking the questions that will help the WotC designers reconcile 4e with 3E/PF, because they don't recongise the key dimensions in which those games differ.

 

[Dausuul]

"Nods to realism" comes close, but I think the key point is "don't get between the players and the simulation." In other words, the moment the players have to step "outside the game" and think about how to justify the mechanics, you've lost them. Even if there is in fact a pretty good justification, the fact that they had to stop and think in order to get to it is a major problem, because the last thing you want people thinking about in the middle of a game is how to justify the rules.

On the other hand, if the only way to notice a lack of realism is to step outside the game, you can get away with some utterly unrealistic systems; hit points and XP being good examples.

 

[delericho]

If his notion of a nod to realism is "a detailed list of polearms", then he's on completely the wrong track.

In general, I want the game to be just about believable on a surface level. With low-level characters, unless they are explicitly using magic, what they do should be possible in the real world. When using magic, or for higher level characters, this is much less important, since at that point we're definitely dealing with fantasy elements. The "Hollywood Realism" description is a very good one.

But, really, it's not about what "nods to realism" the game provides, or even which ones it supports. For me, it is much more important that the game not outright shred any notion of realism - I don't mind a high-level fighter surviving a huge fall, since he's an epic hero. I don't mind a wizard summoning fire with a few arcane syllables, since that's what he does. But I do mind if a character changes direction in mid-jump with no magic involved, and no fixed point on which to adjust.

Edit: A better example: "Raiders of the Lost Ark". The bit where Indy goes under the truck is crazy, and would almost certainly get him killed. But then, they actually had a stuntman do that, so fair enough. The bit where the Ark wipes out the Nazis is obviously not possible... but since we're dealing with an ancient artifact and assuming magic, I have no problem with it.

But the bit where he rides the submarine, and the canonical explanation is that he just held on to the outside? Yeah, that makes me want to punch George Lucas.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I think the article could have done with less focus on realism and addressed internal consistency instead.

A game that assumes dragons, wizards, and flashy magical effects isn't selling realism. Magic and supernatural power being actual forces in the implied world mean that realism isn't all that big of an issue.

No matter how fantastic a fantasy world is, a certain level of believability is needed to draw in an audience. The easiest way to accomplish that is with common frames of reference. Simple things such as the presence of human beings, night and day, and the force of gravity help to provide that reference.

A fantasy world being what it is, can change these things around but too much erasure of these kinds of things make it harder for players to accept the game world as a plausible place for the game to take place in.

 

[LurkAway]

@Dausuul , now here you can appropriately discuss potion helmets without threadjacking

 

[LurkAway]

Guys, although I think it's useful to differentiate "realism" to believability to verisimilitude to internal consistency to plausibility, we've all been down that road many, many times -- and I think we all know what Monte is trying to get at it, even if we argue the minituae of definitions. "Nod to realism" works well enough for me, and he does acknowledge the subjectivity of it all, so you can't fault him for nailing down some sort of objective definition of what D&D "realism" would be.

I think this article is measuring the desire to achieve "realism", not measuring "realism" itself.

 

[P1NBACK]

Monte has clearly missed the last 10 years of progress in game design and theory.

He's also stuck on "realism" when he needs to be talking about "plausibility". There's a difference.