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

[Rechan]

So what? Why's it matter? You know it's not real.

I may know Louise Lane is not real, but if someone dropped a car on her and it just resulted in a concussion, I call shenanigans.

The issue of "Superman picking up a building and it being acceptable" also depends on the surrounding acceptable notions.

In Golden Age era, that sort of physics just isn't applied. Golden Age, Four Color comics are a different beast. Captain America can just beat a whole army of soldiers with his fist, no matter what they bring against him. Whereas, in current age comics, the Captain has been killed by a sniper on a rooftop.

So the issue is internal consistency of the reality.

On the other hand, it also depends on if it makes a more interesting cinematic effect/plot point. For instance, if Superman tried to pick up a building, the building was shredded due to him being the only thing it held up... and because of that, someone inside the building falls out, hurts themselves, and Superman feels guilty. Or, he picks up the building and holds it up, so that it falls apart, because he wants to get to something inside the building (kind of like how you would put sand through a sifting box).

But, if the building behaves the way above, then the next time he picks up a building, it better react the same way.

 

[Imban]

And the reverse of that is that if you make lava behave too realistically, it might become so annoying that it's not fun if you implement it.

If you're relatively close to lava, you're dead. Lava heats the surrounding area to 700 degrees, which would cook a person. Not to mention the gasses, ashes, and such that accompany lava and volcanos.

So, fighting in the heart of a volcano is just impossible if you're going to be realistic. But, we ignore that, because otherwise it's not fun.

You seem to be holding unquestioned that a game in which one can fight five feet above a rising column of lava is better than one in which you can't, so naturally your conclusion is that we have to have non-realistic lava.

Alternatively, some people might want to treat molten rock as something to stay the hell away from, not something which should be decorating every good villain's throne room.

 

[Rechan]

Why does cinematics and realism have to be mutually exclusive? Was The Thing realistic? Was Alien? Aliens? Blade Runner?

...

I'm a little exasperated by the idea that reality is boring or mundane...

I'm a little exasperated by the idea that reality is the bottom line for acceptable cinimatics.

It doesn't have to be, but for some types of cinematic enjoyment, you have to set reality aside for it to work. Wuxia, movies like The Matrix or Wanted, or "stuff blows up" action film.

Most are utter BS, but unless you can accept "That wouldn't happen in real life - but I'm enjoying it anyway!" then overt realism ruins it.

I really hate taking my dad to an action movie, because he will pick apart every little thing as "That wouldn't happen", when the point was to create an enjoyable visual and emotional response. Of course a man can't leap out of a burning building, land on his feet, do a cartwheel and unload a magazine of bullets into a dozen guys while being unharmed, and not pause a beat. But It was awesome, wasn't it?

 

[Rechan]

You seem to be holding unquestioned that a game in which one can fight five feet above a rising column of lava is better than one in which you can't, so naturally your conclusion is that we have to have non-realistic lava.

Alternatively, some people might want to treat molten rock as something to stay the hell away from, not something which should be decorating every good villain's throne room.

Emphasis mine. I didn't say better.

You, Inbam, seem to be assuming that just because I like it my way, I think that's the only way.

My point is that, "If you have too much realism on how lava works, you can't have a cinematic battle in a volcano." Too much realism prevents very cinematic things.

Yes, You, Inbam, make the point of "Some may like it that way." Correct, I acknowledge that. But "Some like it the other way." Now what?

The impression I get from those that demand realism, is that realism is the only acceptable way. And that, to use the above example, if I want a battle in the heart of a volcano, well I'm just wrong because that's silly, lava should be avoided like hell because that's how it should be.

Too much in one direction offends the other side of the spectrum.

Too much realism makes it unenjoyable for me. Too much cinematics may make it unenjoyable for you. The answer is either, "Find something that matches your tastes" or "Expect a meet in the middle", because "I demand this be changed so that it's more the way I like it" isn't going to get anyone anywhere.

(Note, I'm not saying that YOU, Imban, personally am saying that I should not have cinematic things, or that Realism Is the Only Way, but that is the feeling I get FROM those who demand realism.)

 

[Imban]

I didn't say better.

You assume that just because I like it my way, I think that's the only way.

But, the impression I get from those that demand realism, is that realism is the only acceptable way. And that, to use the above example, if I want a battle in the heart of a volcano, well I'm just wrong because that's silly, lava should be avoided like hell because that's how it should be.

Too much in one direction offends the other side of the spectrum.

The thing is, few of these questions are actually spectrums ("Can you suffocate a stone golem?" or "Can you set a meteor hammer against a charge?" are pretty binary, after all...), and the benefit of consistency is greater than either realism or cinematic/video-game reality alone, and it's easily to demonstrate:

In a consistent world, regardless of what the answer to "How deadly is lava?" is, you can make a proper judgment as to whether to cross a metal catwalk 5' above a bubbling lava lake: if the answer is "supremely deadly" you should turn back and run screaming, while if the answer is "like in a few of the video games I've played", you don't even need the catwalk, since you can just dash across the surface of the lava unharmed.

In an inconsistent world, you've got even odds of immolating the second you step out onto the catwalk and being able to dash across the surface of the lava.

So as a result, the pressure is there for everyone to make their way the only way, because having both competing in the same campaign sucks. In a perfect world, everyone would just play by the rules that they want to play by, but some people are stuck playing prewritten adventures or with players who want you to play by the rules in the goddamn book because they were made by people who deservedly get paid to do it.

 

[Rechan]

Which is why people inject parts of real life into their games, even when the game has fantasy elements.

The missing word in your sentence is some people.

The issue of "Injecting real life elements into a fantasy game" comes down, not just to taste, genre and expectations, but also an emotional component.

Let's take Watchmen. Watchmen is a movie that deconstructs the Superhero genre. That says, "Here are super-powered vigilantes that fight crime. What would that do to someone's psyche and personality? How would the world react? And how would these people behave, if the real world issues of morality are applied? Who is the good guy, who is the bad guy?"

For some people, that is awesome.

For others, that's horrible. Not because it harms the genre, but because for two hours, they want to escape the moral ambiguidy of the Real World, they don't want to be depressed because this so-called Hero does something despicable because he's human, they want to believe in Good vs. Evil that good can triumph over evil, that the nice guy gets the girl, justice, hope and love are eternal, bad things rarely happen to good people for no reason, that the hero isn't in a Greek Tragedy where his flaws are his undoing, but overcomes due to the qualities of his character, the world can be made a better place, and happy endings usually happen.

The same is with RPGs. Last month, there was a thread about Good Vs. Evil in this forum; some people vehemently defended the right for there to be Alignment absolutes in RPGS (Orcs are evil, killing the babies is not a morally questionable act, etc), while others vehemently defended moral relativism (The issue of Orc babies being a blank slate, with overtly evil tendencies, and killing orc babies causes a paladin to fall).

There was a very bold line drawn in the sand; the Absolutists did not want moral issues in their game; they wanted to believe their character was Good, the other guy was Evil, and no question brought to their justifications.

Not because of a simplistic world view. But, at least for some (and I would wager, many), they don't want to deal with that crap because they have to deal with it every day of their lives. For 4 hours every weekend, they want to be a knight in shining armor saving the princess because that's not real.

Fantasy, in the truest sense: an escape from "Stuff Sucks".

Bringing this back more in line to the current topic, then, one can also take this view about an RPG or a movie or whatnot. Realism can be separated (and, desired to be separated) from cinematics or the game world, because that person is wanting something unrealistic to begin with.

For these folks, elves dieing of syphilis is totally counter-productive to what they seek in an RPG experience.

 

[Rechan]

So as a result, the pressure is there for everyone to make their way the only way, because having both competing in the same campaign sucks. In a perfect world, everyone would just play by the rules that they want to play by, but some people are stuck playing prewritten adventures or with players who want you to play by the rules in the goddamn book because they were made by people who deservedly get paid to do it.

And that there is the problem.

It's not an issue of "This game system is incompatable with my preferred style", but rather "This group, this DM/player, is inconsistent with my style."

If someone is unwilling to change a rule to better fit their tastes, or if someone is unwilling to accept a rule change for taste, then that is not the flaw of the system, but the people and the situation.

If you cooked chicken for dinner, I come over and I don't like chicken, that's my problem, not the fault of the quality of the food. So, alot of this feels like much ado about the quality of the chicken, not individual tastes. And while pre-made adventures/campaign settings/game rules are more like a pre-made chicken dinner, for the most part "Rules systems" are more like the uncooked chicken ready for your recipe.

And while the issue may be the group, it can indeed be the system. I have seen far too many people using an incompatable system. Instead of just looking for a system that suit their preferences/needs, rather than take a system that doesn't, and try to force/expect/suffer a system into doing what they want. To me, it's like trying to turn a VW Bug into a drag racer; you can try, and possibly succeed, but the amount of time, frustration, money and effort far outweighs forcing oneself only work with a VW Bug.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Fantasy, in the truest sense: an escape from "Stuff Sucks".

Hm. How do you figure that then? I mean, the dictionaries I've checked seem to lend a rather different perspective. So, how is that the 'truest sense' of the word?

 

[Rechan]

Hm. How do you figure that then? I mean, the dictionaries I've checked seem to lend a rather different perspective. So, how is that the 'truest sense' of the word?

Fantasy, not in the Genre sense of Magic, Elves and Dragons.

Fantasy, in the common vernacular, of a daydream or desire that is not reality.

When you're an IT guy working in a cube, quitting your job and moving to the Carribean to sell wood carvings to tourists isn't realistic, and if you did it, it probably wouldn't work out. But sitting in your cube, thinking and wanting without doing anything about it, it is a Fantasy.

The key: it's not real, not just in the sense of "not actually happening", but also not real in the sense of expectations, logistics, repercussions or probability. It's just "Nice to think about", because you're not bothering with thinking about anything but the good parts.

In this sense, putting "Realism" in your fantasy is like having a sexual fantasy and then saying, "But a girl would never do that, and then there's the risk of injury, health and pregnancy, so I should stop having that fantasy."

 

[ProfessorCirno]

You know, all of this could be avoided if you just used the suppliment Fire and Brimstone! Lava Rules For Your Game to solve that nasty mess.

The issue I think people are having here is that one group is saying "This is why we like versimilitude and consistancy," both of which I misspelled, and the other group is saying "NO SHUT UP YOU'RE WRONG."

We know you don't like those. We know this is meant to be simple fantasy escapism. But uh, the OP didn't ask that, the OP asked why we like it.