Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
You're fooling yourself if you think game design isn't a part of you sitting down to play on game night. Game design runs through adventure design, and definitely through consideration of house rules or rulings at the table -- you're engaged in game design at all of those points because you're making decisions that change how the game plays. Note, not is played, but plays -- how the mechanics work to achieve a goal.
When you talk about how you want your game to have more realism, that's game design -- you're taking the general rules of 5e, say, and adding your design layer on top to achieve your play goals. Game design isn't just creating a new ruleset, it's also in how choose to use a ruleset. Frex, I know for a fact that when you sit down to play a game, for instance, it doesn't play like my game does, even if we both use the same system. Why? Game design choices we're both making for our different tables.
If it's game design, it's at best secondary or tertiary to everything else that is going on. I don't give a fig about the design when I'm modifying things to make them more realistic. I care that it's more realistic.
As for 'realism', that cannot be a goal for you in a game with elves and magic.
Yes. Yes it can, and it's a fact that it is. You don't get to tell me what my goals are. Realism is not an all or nothing thing. That's a False Dichotomy. I can have realism in some parts of my game, and have elves and Tarrasques in other parts.
What you're looking for is a game that is as close to normal assumptions except where specifically detailed otherwise. So, people can't "heal" overnight because that's bad, except magic.
This is false. It's because I want more realism. Nothing more. Nothing less.
You're bringing a lens of "as much like the world as possible so magic can be more magical" without ever examining why or what you get from doing this.
So first, I'm not trying to make it as much like the world as possible. I like a lower level of realism than that. Second, whatever else I get is secondary to the fact, and it is a fact, that I want more realism in parts of the game.
it's asking you to consider if there's another goal you're aiming for but misidentifying because you haven't stopped to really think it through.
There isn't. The goal is more realism. Anything else that comes as a result of adding that additional realism is secondary. I know why I do things. I know what my goal is. There's no chance of it being anything else.