Why is realism "lame"?

[billd91]

Why? It's what you do with anything else. If you don't like a certain food, you either alter the recipe until you do like it, or you eat something else. Don't like how unrealistic a fantasy game is? Change it until you like it, or play something else. It's not ballsing up, it's a practical solution. Playing the game you want, how you want, is the best way to game. I fail to see how that's remotely bad advice.

Around here, particularly when discussing what D&D could or should be, it often seems to be dick advice intended to get someone to go away and shut up. I'm not saying that was your intent in this case, but it's often a not-so-subtle undercurrent in these discussion. That's why, though it isn't necessarily bad advice in general (though it might be for specific circumstances), it also isn't necessarily good advice either.

There are good reasons for wanting to tweak D&D to get it to do what you want rather than seek out a different game. The huge base of players with at least passing familiarity with it is a huge benefit of having been the market leader for 30 years. Teaching players a few house rules is typically a lot easier than teaching them a new game. And though there are a lot of players on these boards willing to try new games, there are a lot more causal gamers out there willing to play something they know but not so willing to learn a bunch of new games.

 

[Elf Witch]

Why? It's what you do with anything else. If you don't like a certain food, you either alter the recipe until you do like it, or you eat something else. Don't like how unrealistic a fantasy game is? Change it until you like it, or play something else. It's not ballsing up, it's a practical solution. Playing the game you want, how you want, is the best way to game. I fail to see how that's remotely bad advice.



So (1) "God did it", and (2) "Magic has a spiritual fatigue element" are full explanations with no missing steps or complexity for you, but "He's so tough that falling at terminal velocity simply won't kill him" isn't a good enough explanation for that? I think you're missing my point entirely. I'm not saying that it's realistic, or that it can be explained through parallels with reality, I'm saying that it doesn't need to parallel reality, because it's fiction. If you want an explaination, you can make one up on the fly. Say he's simply that tough, or say the acceleration of gravity versus the wind resistance greatly reduces terminal velocity in this specific world, or whatever. You can explain it however you want! That's not your problem. You don't like it because it doesn't parallel reality. You want it to. Bottom line. And that's fine. I don't empathize, but that's your problem, not the lack of an explanation.



Not only is it what they claim, if it's to be believable at all, that's what it must be; A character's ability to continue taking relevant action. Once you reach zero, you're actually injured, not just worn out and bruised... Why can a high level Fighter do those things? I provided two explanations for the fall damage in my last paragraph. Lava could simply be not as hot as in real life, or he's simply so tough that he can withstand falling in friggin' lava. Bam! Again, any explanation you want. You claim there's no in-game reason, but there obviously is, since that's what happens. If you want to explain it with in-game physics, go ahead. Nobody's stopping you. If you want it more realistic, do that. Again, the problem is not the lack of explanation, it's the lack of this fantasy being real.



I have no idea how haste aging a wizard, coming back from the dead, or leveling, can even possibly correlate with anything that happens in reality. It's all completely fictitious. None of that was realistic, because there's nothing in reality we can compare it to, aside other fictions or, possibly, medical science, but that's reaching. More gritty, sure, but not more realistic at all.

Bill explained it better than I have.

We are just going in circles at this point. I am sorry you don't or won't understand what I am saying. That certain things are enough to make be unable to suspend my disbelief. That they hit me over the head that this is a GAME. I know it is a game but I want the rules to fade away in the back ground as much as possible. I want to be able to think like my PC and explore the world. As a DM I want to be able to make a living breathing world that makes sense to me. Unless I have or the world designer changed how basic gravity works and how fire works on the human body then I find it a bug that these things stop happening at high level for no other logical reason that the person has more hit points. I don't know how to describe this any other way.

Sure as the DM I can pull out the god did it or you got lucky but this gets old and unbelievable if it happens all the time and there is my point falling from a high cliff or being dropped by a dragon should not be something that you can live through over and over again it makes the game feel like a cartoon at that point the PCs become Wily E Coyote.

Just because something is fiction does not mean you can do anything you want it. Well you can but doing so will stop you from being published. In a magical setting in a fictional novel for example the author sets up how things work if he does it well then the reader is willing to suspend disbelief as long as the author does nothing to break the rules he has created.

 

[CroBob]

No, I understand that it breaks your suspension of disbelief, I'm simply baffled about that. I'm curious, if you were playing on a world that was literally broken far in the past, beyond what any modern societies know how it happened, and due to this cataclysmic event, whatever it was, the world was nothing more than a bunch of islands literally floating above a vast ocean, and there was no detectable magic causing it (that is, it seems to simply be the nature of the post-cataclysm world), would that break your suspension of disbelief?

The quality you seem to dislike is that a thing is different from how it works in reality without being magical, so it seems to me you would dislike this setting, due to non-magical floating islands, but I intuit that something like that wouldn't actually bother you... so I'm curious, would it?

 

[Bedrockgames]

No, I understand that it breaks your suspension of disbelief, I'm simply baffled about that. I'm curious, if you were playing on a world that was literally broken far in the past, beyond what any modern societies know how it happened, and due to this cataclysmic event, whatever it was, the world was nothing more than a bunch of islands literally floating above a vast ocean, and there was no detectable magic causing it (that is, it seems to simply be the nature of the post-cataclysm world), would that break your suspension of disbelief?

The quality you seem to dislike is that a thing is different from how it works in reality without being magical, so it seems to me you would dislike this setting, due to non-magical floating islands, but I intuit that something like that wouldn't actually bother you... so I'm curious, would it?

It really isnt that hard to understand and frankly. Her position isnt that unusual or mystifying. This argument has been one in the hobby for years. Some people dont worry about realism or believability and others do. Just because dragons exist and magic exists, that doesnt mean our other assumptions aobut reality ought to go out the window. If something happens because of magic, such as magical healing, that works because there is an explanation. If my warrior acts more ike a cartoon than a man, with no supernatural or magical justification, well that makes an already fantastic world that much harder for some to swallow.

 

[Hussar]

Around here, particularly when discussing what D&D could or should be, it often seems to be dick advice intended to get someone to go away and shut up. I'm not saying that was your intent in this case, but it's often a not-so-subtle undercurrent in these discussion. That's why, though it isn't necessarily bad advice in general (though it might be for specific circumstances), it also isn't necessarily good advice either.

There are good reasons for wanting to tweak D&D to get it to do what you want rather than seek out a different game. The huge base of players with at least passing familiarity with it is a huge benefit of having been the market leader for 30 years. Teaching players a few house rules is typically a lot easier than teaching them a new game. And though there are a lot of players on these boards willing to try new games, there are a lot more causal gamers out there willing to play something they know but not so willing to learn a bunch of new games.

Fair enough but how far should that go? You talk about undercurrents. Frquently in these discussions people try to claim that the game directly supports things that were never supported. Maybe it wasn't particularly hindered but it was never supported. But people will swear up and down that the game was this or that way.

You only have to look at the various HP discussions or better yet, pacing of leveling back in the day to see that. All sorts of claims get made that have little or no support in the text of the game.

So, at what point is it okay to tell people that what they are looking for is not found where they are looking but is much more better served in another place? People looking for gritty realism in D&D are going to be very disappointed. It's just not there.

 

[Umbran]

So, at what point is it okay to tell people that what they are looking for is not found where they are looking but is much more better served in another place? People looking for gritty realism in D&D are going to be very disappointed. It's just not there.

At the point when you're omniscient enough to know for certain that others *cannot* find what they want there.

It would be tons better to say, "I think you'd find what you're looking for more easily in this other place, for these reasons...." Try not to tell others what they can or cannot do - tell them about your own experiences, and what they might learn from them, keeping in mind that they aren't you, and may find different things satisfying.

 

[SkidAce]

double post...

 

[SkidAce]

At the point when you're omniscient enough to know for certain that others *cannot* find what they want there.

It would be tons better to say, "I think you'd find what you're looking for more easily in this other place, for these reasons...." Try not to tell others what they can or cannot do - tell them about your own experiences, and what they might learn from them, keeping in mind that they aren't you, and may find different things satisfying.

I was going to explain to Hussar that DnD with gritty realism is a reality for me...but you said it better.

 

[I'm A Banana]

So, at what point is it okay to tell people that what they are looking for is not found where they are looking but is much more better served in another place? People looking for gritty realism in D&D are going to be very disappointed. It's just not there.

Not necessarily. People have used this game in a variety of different ways over the last 40 years or so, and there's never been a Fun Police to tell them they've been doing it badly. In the same vein, what people are using your tool for when it's not suited gives you an indication of where they want to use your tool, and there's probably no reason you shouldn't accommodate them, if you can.

I mean, think of a hammer. That little claw on the back of it, used for extracting nails. If someone had control over all the hammers produced, and only produced ones without that little claw, and said it was because "Hammers are for nailing things in, and if you want to pull nails out, it's just not for that. You can perhaps buy a Nail Puller instead," we'd all be using two tools for something that could be done in one. There's little good reason to presuppose that this highly flexible game engine is only usable for a narrow band of entertainment, and almost no good reason to say that it shouldn't be used for that, too, if it can be.

And it clearly can be.

 

[Elf Witch]

No, I understand that it breaks your suspension of disbelief, I'm simply baffled about that. I'm curious, if you were playing on a world that was literally broken far in the past, beyond what any modern societies know how it happened, and due to this cataclysmic event, whatever it was, the world was nothing more than a bunch of islands literally floating above a vast ocean, and there was no detectable magic causing it (that is, it seems to simply be the nature of the post-cataclysm world), would that break your suspension of disbelief?

The quality you seem to dislike is that a thing is different from how it works in reality without being magical, so it seems to me you would dislike this setting, due to non-magical floating islands, but I intuit that something like that wouldn't actually bother you... so I'm curious, would it?

That really depends can it be hand waved away as having to do something with the way gravity works or because of minerals in the islands that push against minerals in the land and pushes the islands into the air. There is a lot I can suspend my disbelief on. I play Toon and in the game I have no issue with falling of mountains tied to an anvil or getting shot by a cannon. As I said my issue with falling is that if it is because gravity works differently then it should for all classes and levels. The same for divine intervention. If it is because the gods have given high level fighters a boon for service and they now bounce instead of break then I may groan but I can still buy it. It bugs me the way it is so I fixed it.


This whole thread is, is realism lame. I don't it is nor do I think it ruins the fun of a fantasy game. I addressed areas in DnD that bother me and I have said why I have also said how I house ruled it. The only thing I have not been able to houserule because I can't figure out a way to make it work is dealing with mobs and threats of just huge numbers of trained combat soldiers facing four high level PCs.

I don't think this is really any different from people who hate how powerful magic gets and want to put in ways to make it less powerful. I think a lot of people may have things in the game that breaks the immersion or the fun for them.

We all have our "things" I have a friend who hates Buffy the Vampire slayer because the vampires and demons don't just buy a gun and take out the slayer form a distance. I love Buffy so I am willing to overlook this flaw. For the most part I like DnD so I am willing to overlook certain things like hit points other things not so easily.