If it's not real then why call for "realism"?

[AllisterH]

In order to promote this willing suspension of disbelief, a fantasy game must have some credibility. The easiest way to achieve such credibility is by way of verisimilitude — by implementing a consistent, grounding, reality to which fantatic elements prove the exception. Frex, settings like Birthright, Greyhawk, and FR achieve this through the implementation of a grounding reality modeled on Medieval Europe.

I think Wikipedia (remarkably) manages to explain it best by saying that anything physically possible in the worldview of the reader's experience (or, in this case, the player's experience) is defined as credible. Thus, the reader can glean truth even in fiction because it reflects the realistic aspects of their own existence. As that explanation suggests, what is or is not the right amount of verisimilitude depends upon the indivdiual to whom the question is put.

.[/size]

That's an interesting point...I've always wondered if East Asian gamers have as much trouble with regarding "fantastical" martial heroes given their upbringing and what they consider "credible" for a martial hero.

As an aside, while we were talking about Dragons, what about Giants? Even excusing the suare cube law, why is it that when a Giant hits a halfling or even a human, that human isn't launced 50 into the air?

 

[Votan]

I don't think 1E DnD was hard wired for high - level / high - magic play (i.e. mandatory Resurrection).

The original game (AD&D first edition) actually had names for the classes at each level with a bit of an expectation that very high level characters would get involved with building keeps or politics or running a church.

Raise Dead (with serious limitations) was a 5th levels spell that was not easy to come by and had limitations (level loss, IIRC, and a resurrection survival chance that was not typically 100%). In the same sense, permanent crafting drained CON (again, unless my memory fails me).

So I think the default AD&D game did not have access to these features on a regular basis. Raise Dead was possible but hard. It wasn't until 2E that I seem to recall very high level NPCs becoming the norm.

 

[billd91]

As an aside, while we were talking about Dragons, what about Giants? Even excusing the suare cube law, why is it that when a Giant hits a halfling or even a human, that human isn't launced 50 into the air?

Frankly, I wouldn't expect a human to be launched 50 feet into the air if smacked by something only about 2 to 3 times as big (which is where most D&D giants fall). I certainly wouldn't have expected either of my children (when they were halfling-sized) to fly very far if I had hit them with a baseball bat simply because I was twice their size and considerably heavier.
D&D isn't exactly the real world... but it's not governed entirely by superhero physics either.

 

[Galloglaich]

I find thread necromancy to complain about moderator comments from 17 months ago unrealistic.

I didn't notice the comment until I posted the reply. I didn't even remember the thread at all, I'm active intermittently on a few different forums, and don't usually post thhat much in ENworld except in one particular long-running (and oft-ressurected) thread . If this constitutes 'thread necromancy' according to ENworld etiquette it certainly wasn't intentional as such, but I notice other people seem to still be interested in discussing the subject.

If someone (or in this case a few people) specifically comments to something I said, particularly if I feel they are mischaracterizing what I actually wrote I'll reply to anyone who addresses me in a thread, even if I don't see it for 17 months or 17 years.

G.

 

[prosfilaes]

As an aside, while we were talking about Dragons, what about Giants? Even excusing the suare cube law, why is it that when a Giant hits a halfling or even a human, that human isn't launced 50 into the air?

On Mythbusters, they've hit Buster with a two ton ram, and it didn't launch him all that high in the air. There's three factors here; the clubs aren't that massive, I don't see the giants being all that fast, and if the hit point abstraction means anything, it's got to mean that even a good hit on a high-level fighter probably isn't the type of direct midsection hit that would launch a person.

 

[Hussar]

But you are missing my point. I don't use things like cloakers in my campaigns. I don't think "Cloakers=Fantasy" I don't find cloakers in the fantasy literature which defined the genre; Jack Vance or Fritz Lieber or Robert E. Howard or Lovecraft or Moorcock or Clark Ashton Smith. For that matter I never felt obligated to use all the monsters in the Monster Manual or even to use monsters from Greek Mythology and Tolkein in the same campaign.

While cloakers might not specifically been in those writers, I could easily see a Lovecraft version of one. And "Clothes that eat you" is a staple of weird tales from the pulps. So, it's hardly a strange one.

But, more to the point, why do you think that those specific authors "defined the genre"? There's a heck of a lot more to fantasy than those. Why is it people define genre as "stuff I like" and anything outside that genre as "stuff I don't like"?

As far as ressurection in AD&D goes. Raise dead was 5000 gp back in AD&D as well, according to the DMG. That was affordable by third, fourth level PC's quite easily. After all, they'd spend more than that simply training a level. Splitting up the treasure a bit to get Bob raised was pretty simple.

 

[fanboy2000]

Why is it people define genre as "stuff I like" and anything outside that genre as "stuff I don't like"?

I don't know, I'm still trying to figure out why 1984 and Slaughter House 5 aren't in the Science Fiction section.

 

[billd91]

I don't know, I'm still trying to figure out why 1984 and Slaughter House 5 aren't in the Science Fiction section.

Eh, probably because some group of stodgy literary critics came to the conclusion that they transcend the limits of a niche genre.

 

[Barastrondo]

While cloakers might not specifically been in those writers, I could easily see a Lovecraft version of one. And "Clothes that eat you" is a staple of weird tales from the pulps. So, it's hardly a strange one.

Fritz Leiber's "The Sunken Land." It's at least as close as the displacer beast is to A. E. Van Vogt's Coeurl.

 

[Umbran]

I don't know, I'm still trying to figure out why 1984 and Slaughter House 5 aren't in the Science Fiction section.

Where a bookstore shelves an item depends less upon the technical genre classification, and somewhat more on where folks expect they'll find the work.

While 1984 is speculative, it isn't speculating on the effects of scientific or technological advances. The real speculation is on sociological and political trends.

Vonnegut uses a lot of more standard sci-fi tropes, he has always been well-accepted outside the genre, again largely for themes that have nothing to do with the science he references.