The nature of "realism" in the game world

[Scribble]

But you'd still build a structure that can defend against more mundane threats.

I think there is a disconnect here on my part:
I read the question and it sounds to me like people are asking "Why bother defending against mundane threats?" So I respond by saying "The mundane threats do still need to be addressed."
Apparently the question is supposed to be interpreted "Why is no one addressing these special threats?"

Sort of.

D&D is just take a stereotypical medieval setting, and stick magic and monsters in it without any real thoughts about how they would change anything.

(It's also equally true of the non threat stuff too in my opinion.)

It would be as if in real life, we learned the power of electricity, but only a few "crazy scientists" ever bothered to use it for anything. Magic should have a HUGE effect on how a culture opperates... But it's only ever given a small slimmer of thought. (Not that I find it bad, just interesting when talking about realism in gaming.)

 

[DandD]

But you'd still build a structure that can defend against more mundane threats.

I think there is a disconnect here on my part:
I read the question and it sounds to me like people are asking "Why bother defending against mundane threats?" So I respond by saying "The mundane threats do still need to be addressed."
Apparently the question is supposed to be interpreted "Why is no one addressing these special threats?"

Fortifications that are useful against magical threats are also useful against mundane threats.
Being less visible helps against many spells, and being underground or in a mountain helps against flying monsters. Just don't forget to fortify your walls with something dense and hard against bullettes and other borrowing monsters.

 

[Jack7]

It is an interesting analysis Wik, which has been followed by some interesting comments.

My own personal feeling on the matter is that when it comes to RP games you basically have three distinct forms of perceiving the world, or of constructing the world and then perceiving that construction. (I'm not talking about things like were discussed in Why the World Exists, but rather things like human forms of perceptual reality and how that colors different ways of perceiving in-game-reality.)

The DM might set out with one objective in creating the milieu (as regards game reality), the designer with a separate objective in creating the game, and the player with still a third way of interpreting the work of the other two. Then again all three ways might correspond in any particular game. It basically depends upon the interaction (interactivity) of the various elements, designer, referee, and player, and their various methods of interfacing with both the product and with one another.

But to me there are three ways of perceiving and constructing game reality (these various ways are not mutually exclusive and sometimes all three exist simultaneously in the same game and sometimes all three are necessary components to make a good game) - Realism, Anti-Realism, and Counter (as in, on the other hand) or Hyper Realism.

I am in favor of a game design pursuing all three and of a milieu pursuing all three, though not necessarily to the same degree of intensity or emphasis in any particular effort.



I think your analysis in right in the main. However how many artefacts arise in a rules light system will also depend on the consistency of the DM. But I think there is one other thing that you may want to consider regarding "rule-set artefacts." And that is that such artefacts (as the name implies, both an artifice/artificial element, and a fact, a solid representation of a whole thing) can develop into a complex entity of their own which in effect becomes a competing and substratum or even sub-rosan reality. That is the basic game has a "reality set" (for lack of a better term) or an underlying, foundational reality. But in certain games, depending upon construction, and you sued some good examples in your earlier post, an entirely new reality can spring from the rule set which in effects competes against or at the very least acts in friction against the basic game reality.

And you see this principle in real world mechanical objects all of the time. Let's say you develop a beautiful engine or power plant for a new jet fighter. But once installed it does not function as anticipated because other design and/or performance factors were not designed in concert, so that the whole craft does not act fluidly (the power plant may stall under certain conditions because the aerodynamic capabilities of the craft are so good that they over tax the engine in steep acceleration - the plant gives tremendous power but does not act consistently under quick oxygen depletion, or the engine may act very inefficiently in real world conditions never anticipated during the original design phase) but maneuvers inefficiently. This often hoopoes when design elements are "chopped up" and sub-contracted out, the intent being to produce the best of every possible system component. However in true interface components cannot operate smoothly as a whole. They develop counter-functions which operate against the original intent of the design parameters not because that was planned but because disparate elements were designed in isolation from the entire product. You can work to solve this problem with physical artefacts because computer simulations and prototype testing can help you reduce the inevitable discrepancies between intended design and final execution. But with a Role Playing Game you cannot anticipate every contingency of the human mind and imagination. The human mind will easily find exploits in complex psychological devices (and that is one thing that an RPG is - it is an imagination-based interactive psychological device) and then capitalize upon them.

And in game design this is exactly what happened I suspect with the 3rd Edition of D&D. (In reality it happens with most things to some degree, but usually the degree of dis-pondence, as in lack of correspondence, is very minor or functionally unnoticeable, or immaterial). By designing many of the parts in isolation from one another when the package was then later assembled the complexity of the design led to the unwitting development of a number of counter-realities orbiting the underlying and overall game reality, leading to a "disruption of gravities." (Hope you don't mind the physics analogies, often when discussing behavioral conditions I slip into physics based analogical comparisons.) When one aspect was stressed over another then the "center of gravity" or emphasis shifted in one direction, when another design element was emphasized then the center of gravity shifted yet again, in effect creating a number of different game-tides (I am of course creating neologisms peculiar to this discussion in order to describe what I am intending to say). this is why I suspect that to many people the 3rd Edition especially seemed like entirely different games to different people. Not because of the overall design, but because it produced so many unwitting counter-realities within itself.

Suffice it to say that if you invent a very complex rule set then no matter how realistic it is, because it is an overlay reality, and not a real world reality, then counter-relates will inevitably develop, especially if design elements are developed in isolation at different time periods. That is why it is almost imperative to build in your own counter-realities and sometimes even anti-realities as counter-ballast when developing complex rule sets governing human action. If you don't build in such counterballast from the start then you face the unenviable task of developing your counter-measures to such counter-realities piece-meal, as you go along. If effect you must then strip out much of the original and useless overcomplexity, or you must face a future of constantly making a thing more and more and more complex as you attempt to jury-rig every possible crack that develops in the seams. So, in for a penny, in for a pound.

I think though that your analysis was very astute about how complex the rules are in relationship to how game realities function and how or if a number of different, counter, or even anti-realities develop.

I think though it might be constructive as an exercise to list the various types of Realities, Anti-Realities, and Counter Realities that exist in game designs and then you and others can debate the relative strengths and weaknesses of each one, as well as get some idea of how they relate one to another.

After all you can't really know how a thing really operates or what it really means until you define it and then compare your definitions against other testable things for analysis.

Anywho, good luck. I gotta go.
Sorry about the numerous typos I'm sure I made.
I had to write fast cause I've got a lot of work to do tonight.

By the way, if I'm not mistaken you also will be studying to become a paramedic soon? I think i read that on your blog.
If that is so, then Godspeed and congratulations.
I'm a trained medic myself.

Medicine and biology are old scientific interests of mine.
As a little kid I used to do cryogenic freezing and recovery experiments on frogs and spiders. I also experimented by developing my own emergency medical and vet kit, and then by saving wounded and sick animals in the neighborhood (I grew up in the country on my dad's estate. So I had a lot of animals to work on.)

It went uphill from there though, and so I got better over time.
Anywho, gotta go.

 

[Wik]

By the way, if I'm not mistaken you also will be studying to become a paramedic soon? I think i read that on your blog.
If that is so, then Godspeed and congratulations.
I'm a trained medic myself.

Well.... sort of. At the end of the month, I'll start my Operational First Aid 3, which is the basic requirements for a paramedic in B.C. After they take that course, they have about half a dozen courses to take, each only a day or two in length, and then they can be a paramedic. But, the course I'm talking will allow me to do ridealongs with paramedics, and if someone got hurt at work, I'd be allowed to ride with the person to the hospital.

Personally, I'm taking the course because I can afford it right now, and you never know what might open up because of it (I could be out of a job in May, because I'm an auxiliary in the provincial government). Who knows? Maybe I'll actually head towards Paramedic, because in May, I'll be 75% of the way there.

But I digress.

***

I like a lot of the points raised here. The idea of "judgement artefacts" is a new one to me, but it does make sense. I know that, personally, it never came up, because in any rules-light system I've played it's been in the sense that "GM judgement calls do not become house rules". But, it'd be pretty one-sided of me to point the stink finger at one side of the argument and not apply it to the other. I can see these artifacts coming up in play.

I think realism is much more important when it comes to actions of NPCs than when it comes to physics/rules. It's one thing to handwave invisibility as "it works and you can see while invisible", it's another if the existence of invisibility has no impact or is not reflected in the game world.

Shadowrun is, at least partially, pretty realistic not because of the mechanics, but because the world (with some exceptions) tries to have some internal consistency. Invisibility exists, is known, and the world adapted to it. There are magical guards, and technological means to counter it.

Contrast this with some settings where despite the known existence of Fly and Invisibility, people who are likely to be the target of such a combo behave as if there were no such things. That's not realistic.

I agree with this, fully. But, it's not really what I'm getting at.

In a rules-light system, you can say something like "You're all superheroes. Make characters, and have at it" - and you'll usually get some weird, genre-specific characters. While Wolverine and Colossus might be the exact same statistically in this game, there's a huge flavour difference. And players will act within the genre, ideally, because they want to.

In a rules-heavy system, there will almost always be some rule that gets in the way of the actual genre conventions. Wolverine could overpower Colossus, or vice versa, because of the way the rules work. It could wind up being useless to used ranged attacks. In the end, the game winds up encouraging flying guys with claws and healing factors, because that's the "best" character according to the rules.

It's an exaggerated example, but bear with me. The same can be said about, say, standard 3E (assuming a "typical" fantasy setting): If you were going to be a fighter, you pretty much had to be a TWF or a Power Attack fighter. If you went sword and board*, you were shooting yourself in the foot - this kind of flies in the face of the common image of the brave knightly warrior in "heroic fantasy".

This, by the way, happens in Shadowrun. You can easily make a mage/hacker/street samurai troll with a bunch of contacts. You can make some very gnarly, powerful characters in SR - and characters that really can destroy the gritty feeling and fear of combat suggested by the game's setting. Really, to run a successful 4e Shadowrun game, you must do so with both the players and GM kind of adopting an agreed-upon set of standards.

So, yes, you can make a realistic setting - and please do! That's a very good idea. But the problem is, as rules get more and more complicated, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain a consistent game "reality" that fits the three tiers of reality suggested by an earlier poster.

* Unless you took a Tower Shield, which opened a whole other can o' worms

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Generally speaking while designing a game/world I don't spend much time on realism. While yes there may be some realism brought about through simply developing the basic ideas of the world it is never something I consciously look into.

Instead I spend more time in the plot, atmosphere, NPCs, etc. My basic mindset is "engage the player to the point that things like "realism" are not as relevant". Almost like how in some movies, what a person did is entirely unrealistic and you can quite literally see it but your enthralled enough in the story or just simply the neatness of it that the idea of "how realistic is this?" doesn't cross your mind.

So I guess the long of short of it is. I circumnavigate realism in my games by using the "rule of cool" and keeping the narrative and flow of the game continuous.

 

[Ariosto]

Scribble's points have me a bit puzzled.

I'm not sure where the notion comes from that castles should not be worthwhile, or that counter-measures against magical attacks should not be employed as considered cost-effective. In my experience, players who get the opportunity to build strongholds tend to do so with the very strategic acumen that led to such a level. I don't see any compulsion on the DM to set up the campaign in such bizarre fashion as suggested ... but I am not thoroughly versed in recent editions and I do know that some perverse economics is a rule in 4E!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ariosto
Combat is THE big example in most RPGs, reflecting for one thing the hobby's war-game roots. A one-step or otherwise too-abstract resolution of a fight (Did the PCs win? YES/NO) would be unsatisfactory; there's got to be some degree of "process modeling."

I dissagree. I think the ultimate question being answered in combat is "did I kill it?" yes/no. With several smaller questions adding up to answer the bigger question. (Aka did I take away any of its ability to force that answer to be NO?)

I'm just saying that the game itself needs to concentrate more on the outcome, and less on the steps to get there for me to find it at all realistic, and not robotic. You can string together as many of the rules as you need to aqnswer the final question, but each of them should concentrate on the outcome of its own specific part, and nothing else.

IE: I need to cross through this cavern. Do I do so? wouldn't be handled by a single question/answer- Each step you use to try to cross the cavern, however, might be.

Do I hop over the pit? Do I duck under the flaming table? Do I climb the wall to get to the cave opening? Etc...

This just seems to be arguing BOTH ways at once!