For those who don't know about the show. Mythbusters is a show where a team of of technical experts explore whether a myth of some sort is true. For example, some of the myths they've explored have been "bull in a china shop". "you can't polish poop" amidst others. They've explored pirate mytrhs and old west myths. The results are often quite surprising. They capture the results of their experiments on video tape so that they are there for all to see, and that arguing against the results is too much like arguing that two plus two does not equal four.
So here's the thing. These are reality. For an example of a realistic result, they were exploring old west myths in one episode. One such myth they were exploring was the myth of whether or not the rope of a hangman's noose could be parted in one shot.
This was seen in the the movie "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly" in which Clint Eastwood's character The Man With No Name was running a con with a criminal. The criminal had a bounty on his head and they commit a crime in order to raise the price of the bounty so they can collect the bounty and split it fifty fifty. When his partner was being hanged, he'd use a Winchester repeater to shoot the rope and part the rope in one shot. His partner would fall to the horse and ride out of town.
Now, the Mythbusters experimented this myth in one of their episodes. They also tried several different period firearms and shot at the rope. The bullets either missed the rope or would barely scratch it. They had it on high speed cameras so you could actually see what happened when the bullet struck the rope. essentially the bullets broke one or two strands of it.
Eventually they got a marksman to shoot at the rope. He was able to cut the rope in two but it took a half dozen shots to do so. That's the reality of that myth.
But the dramatic of that myth would be to part the rope in one shot.
Now that's the basis of the question, if you were running a game, what would you enforce? Would you enforce the reality, that is assign the rope a certain amount of structural points to it before it can be parted?
Or would you allow the dramatic, that is allow trhe player to part it in one shot?
In other words, what is more important in your games, dramatic heroics or not?
For me, since at least for me role playing games are for allowing people to be heroic so I would allow a player to part the rope in one shot. I think enforcing the reality of things actually limits players, and I don't really like doing that.
So here's the thing. These are reality. For an example of a realistic result, they were exploring old west myths in one episode. One such myth they were exploring was the myth of whether or not the rope of a hangman's noose could be parted in one shot.
This was seen in the the movie "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly" in which Clint Eastwood's character The Man With No Name was running a con with a criminal. The criminal had a bounty on his head and they commit a crime in order to raise the price of the bounty so they can collect the bounty and split it fifty fifty. When his partner was being hanged, he'd use a Winchester repeater to shoot the rope and part the rope in one shot. His partner would fall to the horse and ride out of town.
Now, the Mythbusters experimented this myth in one of their episodes. They also tried several different period firearms and shot at the rope. The bullets either missed the rope or would barely scratch it. They had it on high speed cameras so you could actually see what happened when the bullet struck the rope. essentially the bullets broke one or two strands of it.
Eventually they got a marksman to shoot at the rope. He was able to cut the rope in two but it took a half dozen shots to do so. That's the reality of that myth.
But the dramatic of that myth would be to part the rope in one shot.
Now that's the basis of the question, if you were running a game, what would you enforce? Would you enforce the reality, that is assign the rope a certain amount of structural points to it before it can be parted?
Or would you allow the dramatic, that is allow trhe player to part it in one shot?
In other words, what is more important in your games, dramatic heroics or not?
For me, since at least for me role playing games are for allowing people to be heroic so I would allow a player to part the rope in one shot. I think enforcing the reality of things actually limits players, and I don't really like doing that.