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

Immortal Sun said:

I know, and he always shows up late.

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True, but he keeps it real.

Manbearcat said:

@Maxperson

Do you mean something like “baseline familiarity centered around our own physical systems?” Gravity is a thing, some interactions transfer more energy than others, nonparasitic plants need light for photosynthesis, humans (and animals like them) express themselves based on biological and social imperatives. Stuff like that?

I don’t think (broadly) that anyone would disagree with that (@Aldarc included).

I think the friction arises when we try to sort out the nature of a certain paradox that seems to violate our baselines arbitrarily, what to extrapolate from it, what is the consequence/utility (from a gameplay perspective) of digging too deeply or hewing too closely/granularly (to our baselines). Further still, the more Through the Looking Glass components get ported to our games, the more friction there is (as even our seemingly trivially “true” baselines become challenged).

EDIT - That isn’t even touching on the questions of:

1) Does hewing to x too closely cause gameplay issues (balance, overhead)?

2) Does hewing to x too closely interfere with having interesting inputs to gameplay (framed conflicts, proposed action declarations, exciting obstacles).

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In my experience, a lot of this can be sorted out quickly by saying to the players "This is the movie franchise you are in"( in terms of what physics and plausibility to expect). James Bond, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, and the Venom Mob, all have different levels of adherence to real world physics and causality.

Maxperson said:

I am using it in the way it's commonly used. [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION] seems to be intentionally minimizing realism in order to win a point, so I demonstrated the importance of realism in RPGs in the hope that he would at least acknowledge that realism has more meaning than "pocket lint." Alas, he seems to be one of those who would rather stick his head in the sand and sing la la la, than to admit when he is wrong about something.

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Your personal attacks and strawmen aside, if you read my arguments in good faith, you would know that it is not about minimizing realism, Max. It's about acknowledging how "realism" itself is typically not the actual goal for self-professed advocates of "realism." This is why I asked you:

Aldarc said:

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.

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And similarly before:

Aldarc said:

Even ignoring the fantastical elements within the most popular genre of TTRPG play, I'm not sure if I would call it 'realism' by any reasonable metric. Often that appeal to realism is selectively applied, if not prejudiciously, by both the game system and the participants, typically with some other goal or value in mind. 'Realism' is likely a smokescreen for some other issue(s). This is to say, I don't necessarily think that 'realism' is the genuine goal of people who claim they desire 'realism' in their TTRPG, especially D&D.

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The point is not that realism is not present in RPGs (that's your strawman) - and arguing that realism is a component of games is just a meaningless platitude - but, rather, that (1) notions of realism are prejudiciously applied (this is also a key point), and (2) this is typically for the sake of other underlying game design goals. IMHO, the underlying design goals within calls for "realism" serve as the actual end and value rather than "realism" itself. I think that both [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION]'s excellent response here and [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s suggestion to replace "realism" with "internal logic" allude to this issue. Both seem to acknowledge the deficiency of the term "realism" in describing the actual desired good here. The actual "good" or "value" is not so much "realism," but with how the players engage with the environment (or game) as part of cultivating the desired play experience. Based upon past conversations, I suspect that for the "Old School play" of Bedrockgames and Lanefan, the point is not "realism," but, instead, in having "known knowns" that help players make informed decisions conducive of skilled play. (If I am mistaken in summarizing their preferences here, I will gladly admit my error and welcome clarification.) This is also why I find appeals to "realism" in a system to be a smokescreen that masks the actual underlying issues of the desired game play. It would be easier to identify, design, and cultivate for that desired play experience without hiding it behind vague and prejudiciously applied notions of "realism" obscuring that process.

So, again, for example if we take the matter of healing. To me its inclusion as part of a game is not a matter of "realism," but, rather, of pacing and tone. We advocate different types of healing mechanics because we want different things out of the game experience rather than "realism." If we want something "Grim 'n' Gritty" where we want to emphasize character attrition, resource management, or the dangerous, survivalist tone of the imaginative play space, then we may desire to make healing slower or more difficult to come by. But it would be far more difficult to discuss how we would potentially design healing in such a game if it is obscured behind appeals to "realism." "Realism" almost becomes a red herring in the discussion.

Aldarc said:

Your personal attacks and strawmen aside, if you read my arguments in good faith, you would know that it is not about minimizing realism, Max. It's about acknowledging how "realism" itself is typically not the actual goal for self-professed advocates of "realism." This is why I asked you:
And similarly before:
The point is not that realism is not present in RPGs (that's your strawman) - and arguing that realism is a component of games is just a meaningless platitude - but, rather, that (1) notions of realism are prejudiciously applied (this is also a key point), and (2) this is typically for the sake of other underlying game design goals. IMHO, the underlying design goals within calls for "realism" serve as the actual end and value rather than "realism" itself. I think that both [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION]'s excellent response hereand [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s suggestion to replace "realism" with "internal logic" allude to this issue. Both seem to acknowledge the deficiency of the term "realism" in describing the actual desired good here. The actual "good" or "value" is not so much "realism," but with how the players engage with the environment (or game) as part of cultivating the desired play experience. Based upon past conversations, I suspect that for the "Old School play" of Bedrockgames and Lanefan, the point is not "realism," but, instead, in having "known knowns" that help players make informed decisions conducive of skilled play. (If I am mistaken in summarizing their preferences here, I will gladly admit my error and welcome clarification.) This is also why I find appeals to "realism" in a system to be a smokescreen that masks the actual underlying issues of the desired game play. It would be easier to identify, design, and cultivate for that desired play experience without hiding it behind vague and prejudiciously applied notions of "realism" obscuring that process.

So, again, for example if we take the matter of healing. To me its inclusion as part of a game is not a matter of "realism," but, rather, of pacing and tone. We advocate different types of healing mechanics because we want different things out of the game experience rather than "realism." If we want something "Grim 'n' Gritty" where we want to emphasize character attrition, resource management, or the dangerous, survivalist tone of the imaginative play space, then we may desire to make healing slower or more difficult to come by. But it would be far more difficult to discuss how we would potentially design healing in such a game if it is obscured behind appeals to "realism." "Realism" almost becomes a red herring in the discussion.

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Just to clarify. I think realism is a perfectly valid expectation. My point was just most groups are made up of people whose expectations differ on this and are part of a spectrum. So it is good to settle and clarify whether this will be realism in the sense of our everyday world, one of the movie franchises I pointed out, or some particular genre. Wanting realism is fine. Lots of people want that. But I think most people come in with a more nuanced exception.

Aldarc said:

The point is not that realism is not present in RPGs (that's your strawman) - and arguing that realism is a component of games is just a meaningless platitude - but, rather, that (1) notions of realism are prejudiciously applied (this is also a key point), and (2) this is typically for the sake of other underlying game design goals. IMHO, the underlying design goals within calls for "realism" serve as the actual end and value rather than "realism" itself. I think that both [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION]'s excellent response hereand [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s suggestion to replace "realism" with "internal logic" allude to this issue. Both seem to acknowledge the deficiency of the term "realism" in describing the actual desired good here. The actual "good" or "value" is not so much "realism," but with how the players engage with the environment (or game) as part of cultivating the desired play experience. Based upon past conversations, I suspect that for the "Old School play" of Bedrockgames and Lanefan, the point is not "realism," but, instead, in having "known knowns" that help players make informed decisions conducive of skilled play. (If I am mistaken in summarizing their preferences here, I will gladly admit my error and welcome clarification.) This is also why I find appeals to "realism" in a system to be a smokescreen that masks the actual underlying issues of the desired game play. It would be easier to identify, design, and cultivate for that desired play experience without hiding it behind vague and prejudiciously applied notions of "realism" obscuring that process.
.

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I don't think the term is deficient. And I don't think we need to shift focus onto how players interact with the setting or build a theoretical model around it (in fact, please, please don't build theoretical models around something I happen to utter online in passing). I think you just need to take the step of clarifying what 'realism' means. And if realism isn't the expectation, you need to take the time to clarify what are the believability expectations in the setting. There are definitely players who want the game to reflect reality. They want wounds to heal at the rate they would in real life (barring magical healing of course because as we've established, that is an exception). We shouldn't act like these players don't exist, are misguided, or misunderstand what they really want. At the same time, we can acknowledge that and see there is a spectrum of expectation. Some people want real world healing rates (true realism), some people want healing rates that are plausible but don't get int the way of things moving forward (more like action movie realism). And the list goes on. Not a zero sum game. All these things can exist in the gaming hobby.

Bedrockgames said:

I don't think the term is deficient. And I don't think we need to shift focus onto how players interact with the setting or build a theoretical model around it (in fact, please, please don't build theoretical models around something I happen to utter online in passing).

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My apologies then. I perhaps inferred too much from your response to my post here:

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.

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... where you seem to downplay D&D as a game striving for realism while shifting the terms of discussion to "believable." And your final point here:

Basically how grounded things will be, so they can get a sense of things like how plausible or strained their schemes can be.

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Seemed congruent with my point about how this was a matter of setting expectations of "knowns" in game play for players.

That said, I do hope that my own argument is clear enough for you.

I think you just need to take the step of clarifying what 'realism' means.

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I did not introduce "realism" into the discussion so the clarification for the meaning of 'realism' is not mine to make.

And if realism isn't the expectation, you need to take the time to clarify what are the believability expectations in the setting. There are definitely players who want the game to reflect reality. They want wounds to heal at the rate they would in real life (barring magical healing of course because as we've established, that is an exception). We shouldn't act like these players don't exist, are misguided, or misunderstand what they really want. At the same time, we can acknowledge that and see there is a spectrum of expectation. Some people want real world healing rates (true realism), some people want healing rates that are plausible but don't get int the way of things moving forward (more like action movie realism). And the list goes on. Not a zero sum game. All these things can exist in the gaming hobby.

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I do not agree with you here, and my different experiences with such discussions of "realism" may contribute to our different sense of whether underlying issues exist or not.

Imaro said:

I just wanted to comment here as well and say perhaps your videogame examples are a little outdated. Grand Theft Auto Online a game where you explore an online virtual world with no character driven stakes has 90 million sales worldwide and over 6 billion in revenue. It is a sandbox and it is one of the most profitable entertainment products of all time... not videogame... products.

Edit: This also ignores the rise in populareity of MMO lites with open worlds such as Destiny & Destiny 2, The Division and the upcoming Division 2 & Anthem. These games are wildly popular and have little if any character driven stakes... just exploration, looting and combat. The fact that these games are so popular always makes me wonder at people who claim D&D is only dominant because it was first... no it basically created this style of play that is the blueprint to making tons of money for a videogame when done right... and D&D has a content generator that can actually keep up with it's players.

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Maybe six or seven years ago I had a conversation on these forums about this very topic around why I felt 4e was giving me such a poor play experience.

My view at the time (and still remains) was that CRPGs have now vastly exceeded TTRPGs' ability to plug in to this kind of input/reward/feedback loop. The games you've mentioned, plus things like Diablo, Torchlight---oh, and dare I say World of Warcraft?---are all vastly better at expediting the explore/reward/feedback loop than TTRPGs are.

Even CRPGs that go for bigger, broader storylines like the Baldur's Gate series, Pillars of Eternity, Knights of the Old Republic, Skyrim, etc., still have a much faster action/reward/feedback loop than TTRPGs.

And it's my considered opinion that 4e failed in large part because it was trying to replicate this action/reward/feedback loop as a tabletop experience, but it was doomed to fail from the start, because it neither A) differentiated itself from CRPG products that were already doing this, and doing it well, and B) the actual gameplay experience couldn't "complete the loop" fast enough to engage the player base it was ostensibly targeting.

You don't pull in a World of Warcraft player into the TTRPG market by saying, "It's just like WoW, only you roll dice!" You pull them into the market because it offers a DIFFERENT experience.

Am I saying that TTRPGs can't offer some of this same feedback loop? Well, yes of course it can. I mean, the entire OSR movement is a testament to this fact. But trying to distill TTRPG play into this kind of action/reward/feedback loop indefinitely I think is ultimately a lost cause. Because CRPGs simply do this better, faster, and with less upfront investment in time, money, and required social capital.

I'd be infinitely curious to hear from the One-True-Sandboxers out there if they really do like "sandboxing" the whole time----or if the "sandboxing" portion of the campaign is just a ramp-up to get their hooks into the game world / plot so they can start pursuing stuff that matters to their character.

Aldarc said:

I do not agree with you here, and my different experiences with such discussions of "realism" may contribute to our different sense of whether underlying issues exist or not.

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you don't believe there are players who actually want realism?

Bedrockgames said:

Just to clarify. I think realism is a perfectly valid expectation. My point was just most groups are made up of people whose expectations differ on this and are part of a spectrum. So it is good to settle and clarify whether this will be realism in the sense of our everyday world, one of the movie franchises I pointed out, or some particular genre. Wanting realism is fine. Lots of people want that. But I think most people come in with a more nuanced exception.

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It is one of the essential and fundamental disputes among D&D players and is at the heart of the martial vs spellcaster fight (because it's well beyond debate at this point). How much a game nods to realism in general and realism as filtered through the genre it models while balancing game playability is the art of RPG design.

Bedrockgames said:

you don't believe there are players who actually want realism?

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I'm certain there's a player base out there that actually wants "really real realistic reality realism" as the sole and complete focus of their gaming experience.

For all seventeen of those people, they already have GURPS. The rest of us have to make do with other systems that are, you know, actually fun.