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

[Manbearcat]

Let's take that falling example. If I decide that I want to add more realism to falling, I can require a death save from any fall of 20 feet or higher, with a -1 penalty for each additional 10 feet. That would give your 30 story fall(300 feet) a -28 penalty to the death save. Good luck surviving that fall over and over again. It still won't mirror reality, but it is in fact more realistic.

D&D is not now, nor has it every been "entirely fantastic." It has many fantastic elements to it, but there has always been a good measure of realism to it.

The problem with adjustments like the above, Max, is that the rider effects to stuff like this quickly either becomes clearly arbitrary or “not D&D.”

The kinetic energy of a body at terminal velocity has less kinetic energy than that of an Ancient Dragon swinging its tail (even if for some strange reason you assume 2/3 the acceleration of a human punch). I think people can intuit that without performing any math.

So if the mechanics dictate your heroes die at an extremely high rate due to high falls, they better not be wading into melee with Ancient Dragons. So that ceases to become one of the foundational tropes of D&D.

 

[Maxperson]

The problem with adjustments like the above, Max, is that the rider effects to stuff like this quickly either becomes clearly arbitrary or “not D&D.”

The kinetic energy of a body at terminal velocity has less kinetic energy than that of an Ancient Dragon swinging its tail (even if for some strange reason you assume 2/3 the acceleration of a human punch). I think people can intuit that without performing any math.

So if the mechanics dictate your heroes die at an extremely high rate due to high falls, they better not be wading into melee with Ancient Dragons. So that ceases to become one of the foundational tropes of D&D.

Sure, enough drastic changes will change the feel of the game. Most particular change like the one above isn't enough. The point, though, is that you can move things closer to realism. There are a plethora of lest drastic falling changes that make falling more realistic, but perhaps not as realistic as the one I just described.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Sure, enough drastic changes will change the feel of the game. Most particular change like the one above isn't enough. The point, though, is that you can move things closer to realism. There are a plethora of lest drastic falling changes that make falling more realistic, but perhaps not as realistic as the one I just described.

But it's not moving towards realism. It's just as unrealistic as it was before, somewhat moreso as it's now even more conflicting with ither abstractions. What it may be is more evocative of deadly falls tropes, or increasing overall lethality, neither of which are realism.

You went on above about how realism isn't a claim to being betterer, but you fight tooth and nail to keep it as describing what you do. Can you honestly ask yourself why that is?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

People are basically just advocating for plausibility, not real world physics and realism. And no one is saying the things that happen can't also be fun. An outcome can be both fun and plausible. I would point out as well, I've been advocating for not being overly rigid about approaches and playstyles and instead, focusing on keeping the table going over the long haul. But the notion that it was even possible for the GM to make judgements on this sort of thing with plausibility in mind, without it being mother may I, was attacked in the OP. This argument is stemming from that debate. I said from very early on in this thread, I wasn't advocating for anything approaching real world physics. This whole arguments is because of a post I made, where I said that the scenario I described was no more mother may i, than real life is mother may I. I never, ever suggested, that the ideal should therefore be for the game to model real life. I was merely talking about how the game can feature real life-like crossing/missing of paths (and that doesn't make it mother-may-I).

Fair enough, and I don't think there's anything wrong with asking the question "what might happen here?" or "what might be the consequences of this action?" I mean, at some level those are questions that HAVE to be asked. Again, there's a need for coherency, so at least some sort of plausibility is implicit in that.

I do rebel against this notion, which is pretty commonly brought up here, that somehow GM's are "just figuring out what would really happen" or that they "must simply follow the consequences" with the idea there is even any way to determine that which is not 99% simply what they want to see happen next (for whatever reason, fun presumably). I'd say that this stance is not based on 'physics' (of any kind particularly) either. It seems to be based on, actually I don't know what. It claims literally that there is some 'natural progression' of a given 'world state' that can be 'worked out', at least in some degree.

Honestly, I'm not sure where you fall in this, and I'm not that interested in lambasting or jousting with anyone over these sorts of things. We all have various notions, and if we have fun playing based on them who really cares, right? I have just felt a bunch of heat for pointing out this "but he's not wearing any clothes!" thing (in a few threads, this one, and the parent thread probably, maybe a couple others over the past few years).

 

[Maxperson]

But it's not moving towards realism. It's just as unrealistic as it was before, somewhat moreso as it's now even more conflicting with ither abstractions. What it may be is more evocative of deadly falls tropes, or increasing overall lethality, neither of which are realism.

You can repeat that false mantra all you want, but it still won't be true. It's not just as unrealistic as it was before, and realism doesn't become better or worse because of issues with other abstractions. Realism is relative to how things happen in real life. If your new rule more closely matches how things happen in real life, it's more realistic. If it less closely matches what happens in real life, it's less realistic.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

While it may be believable for that one in a thousand or one in ten thousand change to hit, if it hits every time they go looking for it, it quickly becomes unbelievable or even if they believe it, unrealistic in the extreme. I mean, it's also one in ten thousand believable that a cult member will walk past them where they are standing, so why even bother to go looking. Just tell the DM that you wait where you are at and see if a cult member walks by, and one will.

But what makes you think it is 'one in a thousand?' A perfectly reasonable person might conclude, on the same relatively thin evidence that an FRPG setting and play history is going to present some entirely different probability, anywhere from 100% to zero has a reasonable chance of being plausible. Usually nobody will even be equipped to really come up with some sort of 'probability'. There's a group of people who apparently are located to some degree or other in a given area where there is an inn. Is this sect hostile to inns? OK, maybe they won't be found there, sure! You'd have to establish a lot of, generally kind of obscure, facts about this group. Just going by modules, and the play of them which I've experienced, it would be pretty unlikely that the writers would say something like "this group definitely hangs out exactly here, here, and over here." In fact usually most of what is known about a location, say a town where an inn might be, is that so-and-so IS in a certain exact spot when the PCs show up, even though it must be true that only a part of his time is spent there.

So this whole "it won't hang together believably unless we try to pretend we're real people in this place and make up chances that things happen" just doesn't hang together, AT ALL. I mean, sure if you want to write a 5000 page encyclopedia of a town and tell us in detail everything each character or group does, how they would react to a myriad of things likely and unlikely, every bit of data about what is under the floorboards here and there, and who hates the neighbor kids, and on and on and on. If not then really there is just not the kind of detail and depth available to even know what is or is not plausible. All we can do is basically create a few general precepts and conventions and follow them, and decide what would be fun and make that happen. I still maintain that this is what people ACTUALLY do, and the logic that is used to make it plausible is, beyond a very basic level, just a lampshade.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This perception of yours reminds me of someone who is very depressed and perceives that life simply cannot get better. Despite that person's perception, yes, yes it can.

Let's take that falling example. If I decide that I want to add more realism to falling, I can require a death save from any fall of 20 feet or higher, with a -1 penalty for each additional 10 feet. That would give your 30 story fall(300 feet) a -28 penalty to the death save. Good luck surviving that fall over and over again. It still won't mirror reality, but it is in fact more realistic.

D&D is not now, nor has it every been "entirely fantastic." It has many fantastic elements to it, but there has always been a good measure of realism to it.



Sure you can, and I can make all 100 of those examples more realistic, because despite your claim, realism can be gauged on a scale of unrealistic to mirrors reality. You might not be able to attach an exact number to it, but you can certainly tell which way on the scale you are moving any particular example.

TBH I am baffled at how any of this is engaging my argument. Of course we could make realistic RPGs. We could study medical texts for years, and make up computer simulations, and do tons of research and come up with 250 pages of detailed rules covering injuries and death. It might be quite realistic (there probably is still a corner case or two, but whatever). This is not relevant because nobody does that. It is a spherical cow. In actual games we play to have fun, and hit points is a fun way to play. Realism be damned.

And sure, D&D has some level of realism, sword blows hurt you, so do falls, fire, etc. All drawn from true life at some basic level. This DOES establish what I call coherency, the ability to frame scenes so that the game participants can work out what is at stake, what their options are, etc. I would note though that you wouldn't expect a complete neophyte in the D&D game to make very good decisions. MUCH of the logic engaged in is heavily shaped and colored by rules which are not very realistic.

So, for example, once my 11th level Ranger leaped off a high cliff because he wanted to catch up with some bad guys. Sure, he knew he was going to take some damage, but I knew that the falling rules coupled with the height of the cliff meant death was vanishingly unlikely and the character possessed some magic which would make up for the hit point deficit later. No person unfamiliar with the rules of D&D would have understood that decision. Any reasonable person would call a 200' fall lethal 99.99% of the time.

The point is, the conventions and processes of game play are what is transcendent at the table. Internally consistent logic is pretty thin and the fact that we could in some theoretical white room try to make our game work in a logical or realistic fashion is irrelevant to any discussion of actual games at actual tables.

 

[Maxperson]

But what makes you think it is 'one in a thousand?' A perfectly reasonable person might conclude, on the same relatively thin evidence that an FRPG setting and play history is going to present some entirely different probability, anywhere from 100% to zero has a reasonable chance of being plausible. Usually nobody will even be equipped to really come up with some sort of 'probability'. There's a group of people who apparently are located to some degree or other in a given area where there is an inn. Is this sect hostile to inns? OK, maybe they won't be found there, sure! You'd have to establish a lot of, generally kind of obscure, facts about this group. Just going by modules, and the play of them which I've experienced, it would be pretty unlikely that the writers would say something like "this group definitely hangs out exactly here, here, and over here." In fact usually most of what is known about a location, say a town where an inn might be, is that so-and-so IS in a certain exact spot when the PCs show up, even though it must be true that only a part of his time is spent there.

The DM is perfectly equipped to come up with some sort of probability. He's the one who knows what the cult is up to, and where it's located. In a large town or city, the odds that a cult member will just happen to be at some random tea place at the exact moment that the PC's walk are very long. The DM knows that. Unless of course the DM knows that the tea place is the base of operations for the cult, in which case it would be the 100%(or close to it) that you note.

So this whole "it won't hang together believably unless we try to pretend we're real people in this place and make up chances that things happen" just doesn't hang together, AT ALL. I mean, sure if you want to write a 5000 page encyclopedia of a town and tell us in detail everything each character or group does, how they would react to a myriad of things likely and unlikely, every bit of data about what is under the floorboards here and there, and who hates the neighbor kids, and on and on and on. If not then really there is just not the kind of detail and depth available to even know what is or is not plausible. All we can do is basically create a few general precepts and conventions and follow them, and decide what would be fun and make that happen. I still maintain that this is what people ACTUALLY do, and the logic that is used to make it plausible is, beyond a very basic level, just a lampshade.

No. It doesn't require anywhere NEAR that amount of detail to come up with the probability. The DM sets probabilities and is uniquely equipped to estimate them based on his knowledge of what is going on.

 

[Maxperson]

TBH I am baffled at how any of this is engaging my argument. Of course we could make realistic RPGs. We could study medical texts for years, and make up computer simulations, and do tons of research and come up with 250 pages of detailed rules covering injuries and death. It might be quite realistic (there probably is still a corner case or two, but whatever). This is not relevant because nobody does that. It is a spherical cow. In actual games we play to have fun, and hit points is a fun way to play. Realism be damned.

This is a False Dichotomy. It's not either "totally unrealistic" or "mirrors reality." Realism is present in D&D as it is currently written. Lots of it.

And sure, D&D has some level of realism, sword blows hurt you, so do falls, fire, etc. All drawn from true life at some basic level. This DOES establish what I call coherency, the ability to frame scenes so that the game participants can work out what is at stake, what their options are, etc. I would note though that you wouldn't expect a complete neophyte in the D&D game to make very good decisions. MUCH of the logic engaged in is heavily shaped and colored by rules which are not very realistic.

This isn't very relevant to my position. All RPGs are a mix of some level or realism and some level of unrealism. So what. Moving something towards the "mirrors reality" end of the spectrum makes it more realistic. Moving it towards the "doesn't bear any relation to reality whatsoever" end of the spectrum makes it less realistic.

The point is, the conventions and processes of game play are what is transcendent at the table. Internally consistent logic is pretty thin and the fact that we could in some theoretical white room try to make our game work in a logical or realistic fashion is irrelevant to any discussion of actual games at actual tables.

Yes, table preferences rule the game. Some tables like things to be more realistic, and some less, yet others like it the way it is. That doesn't alter my argument at all.

 

[billd91]

I do rebel against this notion, which is pretty commonly brought up here, that somehow GM's are "just figuring out what would really happen" or that they "must simply follow the consequences" with the idea there is even any way to determine that which is not 99% simply what they want to see happen next (for whatever reason, fun presumably). I'd say that this stance is not based on 'physics' (of any kind particularly) either. It seems to be based on, actually I don't know what. It claims literally that there is some 'natural progression' of a given 'world state' that can be 'worked out', at least in some degree.

If you have a trust problem with GMs, then that sounds like a you issue to me. It may be safe to say there are some GMs out there who might choose what happens based on what they want to happen - but I also know there are a lot of GMs out there who take the idea that they should be impartial seriously. Frankly, I'm a little more suspicious of the "Say Yes or Roll" mentality than the "Say Yes or No when appropriate for the situation" mentality because I don't feel the former gives the setting/mysteries/NPCs an even break with the PCs.