A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

Bedrockgames said:

No, that isn't what was being contrasted.

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With respect, I am the one who brought it up. So I don't think you get to tell me what I meant by it.

Umbran said:

With respect, I am the one who brought it up. So I don't think you get to tell me what I meant by it.

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But that isn’t relevant to points being made in the thread. Like I said, I was responding to a particular kind of scenario, and the example that came up was my tea house and what is st the tea house.

I can try to address your position if you like, but when I was responding to you, it was in the context of Penerton’s position. Can you clarify your reason for raising that issue? Do you think a GM shouldn’t be able to say ‘No there isn’t a tea house there’?

I have no problem letting the players try anything that would be feasible in the setting. If they there is a tea house and they go to it, I will let them. But that isn’t ‘say yes’ to me. Say yes tends to pertain to things like whether the tea house is even there or what can be found inside the tea house. I don’t subscribe to Just Say Yes for this reason. I think it is important for ‘no’ to be on the table when it comes to setting content. If you like, that is fine. I can see it’s utility. It just isn’t something I like to do (and I don’t think I should have to just because other GMs out there have had successs with it).

Maxperson said:

Yes, having some realism is the same as valuing realism.

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How? I have some lint in my pocket. Does it stand to reason then that I value lint?

Have you considered that "realism" is simply a byproduct of some other game value and not an end value in itself? My contention is that I believe that most proponents of "realism" in TTRPGs mistakenly confuse "realism" as an end value in TTRPGs.

It's just that the value is variable. If it wasn't valued, it wouldn't be used in nearly the amounts that it is, or even at all. There's a lot more than just humans with 5 fingers. Grass, swords, spears, wolves, horses, eating food, breathing air, and much more is all realism in D&D. Realism just isn't all or nothing like many want to portray it. It's a point on a spectrum and the value you place on it, the value I place on it, and the value the game designers place on it are probably all different. You don't have and use something if there's no value to it.

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You are missing the forest for the trees here.

Simply having falling and falling damage at all is a level of realism, as are the existences of the long sword and healing.

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Many video games have "healing," but pretensions of "realism" are typically absent in how it is done. It is primarily a gaming pacing mechanism rather than a desire for emulating reality. This is largely true as well for D&D. Similar criticisms could be directed towards the other listed items.

Or let's go to the longsword. It does d8 damage. Would it be less realistic if it was changed to d6 damage? How about if a hand ax did d8 damage? How do these mechanics connect to any meaningful notions of valuing realism? Again, I don't really think that realism really pushes, pulls, or drives the mechanics of these games. Usually other things get cited instead, such as the designers' desire to have variable weapon types, playstyles, damages, aesthetics, etc. The presence of these things do not make them realistic, especially since they are largely divorced from their actual use in reality.

Aldarc said:

How? I have some lint in my pocket. Does it stand to reason then that I value lint?

Have you considered that "realism" is simply a byproduct of some other game value and not an end value in itself? My contention is that I believe that most proponents of "realism" in TTRPGs mistakenly confuse "realism" as an end value in TTRPGs.

You are missing the forest for the trees here.

Many video games have "healing," but pretensions of "realism" are typically absent in how it is done. It is primarily a gaming pacing mechanism rather than a desire for emulating reality. This is largely true as well for D&D. Similar criticisms could be directed towards the other listed items.

Or let's go to the longsword. It does d8 damage. Would it be less realistic if it was changed to d6 damage? How about if a hand ax did d8 damage? How do these mechanics connect to any meaningful notions of valuing realism? Again, I don't really think that realism really pushes, pulls, or drives the mechanics of these games. Usually other things get cited instead, such as the designers' desire to have variable weapon types, playstyles, damages, aesthetics, etc. The presence of these things do not make them realistic, especially since they are largely divorced from their actual use in reality.

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I think D&D isn't the best example of a game striving for realism. I do think there is an expectation though that certain things will be believable. This is an old debate. But there is no reason that magic nullifies the desire for people to see plausible cause and effect and have boulders dropped on peoples heads do more damage than a pocket knife. I think you can accept that magical healing is an exception to the general laws of physics we are used to, but expect things that are not magic to abide by some kind of logic. Even in genres where physics seem to get broken, like wuxia, there are reasons for why people are able to do things like walk up buildings, generate Qi energy attacks and exude poisoned needles from their bodies. But gravity still plays a role in such a world. I don't realism is the best word, because that only captures a narrow slice of what people are after. Some folks want realism. Most expect a certain degree of believability. That said, I think you can ruin a perfectly good game obsessing over this stuff. Plausible enough for our purposes, is about what I expect in most games (and clearly there will be exceptions to that, depending on the type of game, setting, genre, etc). People can hand wave realism though if they want That is not a problem. I just think it is reasonable for a person to say they value realism, verisimilitude, plausibility, etc (even if Dragons exist int he setting).

What I think is important here is hashing out this stuff in advance. Because it isn't just about system. It is also about how the GM makes judgments. I usually explain to the group "what movie franchise they are in". Basically how grounded things will be, so they can get a sense of things like how plausible or strained their schemes can be.

Bedrockgames said:

But that isn’t relevant to points being made in the thread. Like I said, I was responding to a particular kind of scenario, and the example that came up was my tea house and what is st the tea house.

I can try to address your position if you like, but when I was responding to you, it was in the context of Penerton’s position. Can you clarify your reason for raising that issue? Do you think a GM shouldn’t be able to say ‘No there isn’t a tea house there’?

I have no problem letting the players try anything that would be feasible in the setting. If they there is a tea house and they go to it, I will let them. But that isn’t ‘say yes’ to me. Say yes tends to pertain to things like whether the tea house is even there or what can be found inside the tea house. I don’t subscribe to Just Say Yes for this reason. I think it is important for ‘no’ to be on the table when it comes to setting content. If you like, that is fine. I can see it’s utility. It just isn’t something I like to do (and I don’t think I should have to just because other GMs out there have had successs with it).

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"Saying Yes" per se doesn't mean much: it was originally phrased Say yes or roll the Dice, and in that game was RAW, not a suggestion. The Dice were lots btw, not for immediate resolution ala D20, but in order to start a potentially broad series of conflicting actions in different arenas to win whatever was at stake. Anyway in that game the Gm had to be adversarial against the players (so the use of many dice to have a fair "fight" without pulling punches), including bits of metagame strategy. Also the Gm had to prep the adventure before hand, like a small sandbox module, in which Npcs and backstory were very important to unfold events/investigation/decision making in game. But not even there players had the authority to create new content about the setting/situation out of their head, because prep & plot by Gm.

Numidius said:

"Saying Yes" per se doesn't mean much: it was originally phrased Say yes or roll the Dice, and in that game was RAW, not a suggestion. The Dice were lots btw, not for immediate resolution ala D20, but in order to start a potentially broad series of conflicting actions in different arenas to win whatever was at stake. Anyway in that game the Gm had to be adversarial against the players (so the use of many dice to have a fair "fight" without pulling punches), including bits of metagame strategy. Also the Gm had to prep the adventure before hand, like a small sandbox module, in which Npcs and backstory were very important to unfold events/investigation/decision making in game. But not even there players had the authority to create new content about the setting/situation out of their head, because prep & plot by Gm.

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I get that, but that isn't what Umbran was talking about in the post I responded to.

Maxperson said:

Not for me and the other supporters here in this thread. What we do is a fine approximation of real life.

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Er...what I do is at best a rather vague approximation of real life; with a fine approximation of course being the goal.

Maxperson said:

I take exception to describing how the game is intended to be played as a DM flaw. It's not a flaw to be in charge of content introduction.

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I'm not sure all that many here (other than some hard-core story-now types) would say that it is - you're on solid ground here.

The flaw comes when the GM also tries to be or remain in charge of everything that happens to that content after introduction.

Bedrockgames said:

I think D&D isn't the best example of a game striving for realism. I do think there is an expectation though that certain things will be believable. This is an old debate. But there is no reason that magic nullifies the desire for people to see plausible cause and effect and have boulders dropped on peoples heads do more damage than a pocket knife. I think you can accept that magical healing is an exception to the general laws of physics we are used to, but expect things that are not magic to abide by some kind of logic. Even in genres where physics seem to get broken, like wuxia, there are reasons for why people are able to do things like walk up buildings, generate Qi energy attacks and exude poisoned needles from their bodies. But gravity still plays a role in such a world. I don't realism is the best word, because that only captures a narrow slice of what people are after. Some folks want realism. Most expect a certain degree of believability. That said, I think you can ruin a perfectly good game obsessing over this stuff. Plausible enough for our purposes, is about what I expect in most games (and clearly there will be exceptions to that, depending on the type of game, setting, genre, etc). People can hand wave realism though if they want That is not a problem. I just think it is reasonable for a person to say they value realism, verisimilitude, plausibility, etc (even if Dragons exist int he setting).

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Substitute the phrase "internal logic" for "realism" and you're probably gold.

Magic isn't realistic in the earth-based sense but we still kind of expect it and its effects to have a consistent internal logic wthin that setting or game world. Every time I cast a fireball, for example, it's going to take me x-amount of time to cast and have y-series of effects when it resolves - incuding among other things setting stuff on fire rather than freezing it cold.

Then, if something happens in the game to change that internal logic it becomes obvsious that this is in fact a change to the norm (e.g. we're off-world and closer to the plane of fire, so my fireball takes less time to cast and has a more damaging effect than I'm used to).

Bedrockgames said:

This is an important point. When I am playing a game like this, I want to feel like I am exploring a place and being rewarded for making sound choices. If there is no good reason for me to believe they are at the tea house, and they are just there because that is where I go looking for them, that is all a bit quantum ogre to me. I don't care as a player if they are there or not, I care that the GM is actually thinking about whether they should be there, and not just having it be so because that is where I went. And I am not saying this is the only way to do it, the best, or even the most popular way. I am just saying it is a perfectly fine way to run a game that many people find satisfying. But others in the thread insist that it is mother may I. And again, I have to point out, mother may I is a criticism. It is a complaint players make about play when it is not fun and feels like a game of mother may I. What I keep seeing happening in these discussion with this group of posters is they are they are consistently using terminology in this way, to play up their preferred styles while knocking down others. I think any lexicon of gaming that is that biased, has to have its utility questioned. If you are going to use terms that liken an entire approach to a child's game, or if you are going to attribute positive moral qualities to one style and negative ones to a contrasting style, it isn't a particularly objective lexicon.

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Well this here is a big part of the disconnect... I, like you actually enjoy exploration games, but [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has made it clear in other threads that he doesn't particularly value exploration in his games (and please correct me if I am mistaken here). Personally I see that as a gigantic flaw and a limitation in his style and techniques of play, as well as something that isn't really addressed or explored in any of his arguments (except to dismiss it as something he is not interested or frame it negatively... as opposed to exploring it's actual merits and flaws in a neutral manner).