On Behavioral Realism

[dragoner]

@dragoner What genre is your game, out of curiosity? What you briefly described makes me think it is a modern game, which in my experience lends itself better to players acting like real people because they are closer to it.

It is modern SF, year 2211, using a hacked Classic Traveller: Fusion Rockets and no easy Anti-Gravity. They are on a planet Pryp'yat orbiting Delta Trianguli, and they have used the resort as home base for a variety of adventures: going to the black market, navigating a corrupt bureaucracy, and pulling off the great monorail job. Against a background of revolution, sort of like Batista's Cuba.

The players did sign on for what I called a little harder sci-fi, that might have something to do with it over the bog standard space fantasy. In any of these games, there is the challenge of realistic behavior, fantasy it is probably easier to camp out. In the game I'm running, the player's have been more violent than one would consider reasonable, which is also sadly normal for RPG's. I know someone who was running games at GenCon, and they presented a choice where one had to choose to kill innocents or suffer significant penalties, and people almost always chose to kill the innocents.

I will sometimes throw in "downer" descriptions, such as when looting corpses, have the player's find a photograph of the trooper's wife holding a baby, with "Come home soon Johnny" written on the back, as a reminder of what they are doing and who they are. Takes the sting off a TPK though.

 

[steenan]

I think there are three factors to take into account here.

The first is what the players seek in the game, what they find interesting. Forcing them to spend time and focus on things they have no interest in is a bad idea. If they want exploration and adventure, or if they want monster slaying, don't waste their time with an inn, unless there's an adventure or a monster there. In my Exalted campaign there were many scenes at baths not because anybody wanted to focus on bathing itself, but because it was a perfect background for various social interactions.

The second factor is the existence (or not) of disincentives. In general, if something that's purely color competes for time or resources with the central gameplay, the color loses. If a PC has a choice between spending money for a room or bath and spending it on weapons, spells or other items that their life depends on, it's easy to see what they will choose. In games where money is abstract and players may pay for things without reducing their long-term resources, or games where money can't buy mechanical bonuses, no such conflict exists and players are much more willing to have their PCs spend money on luxuries.

The third factor is the existence of mechanical incentives for spending resources on non-essentials. While lack of mechanical disincentives and incentives leaves it as color and roleplaying opportunity, existence of both incentives and disincentives creates a tactical choice. Such incentives may be recovering stress only when well fed and sleeping in comfort; getting XP for money "wasted" (spent on drinks, gambling, girls/boys, charity etc.) instead of earned; getting a social modifier based on the standard of living and similar things.

 

[Umbran]

Also, general point - if you are going through the bean-counting of making them pay for every night and every meal, that's a disincentive, cognitively speaking. If you use an "upkeep" style of managing living expenses, they may view it differently.

 

[uzirath]

Also, general point - if you are going through the bean-counting of making them pay for every night and every meal, that's a disincentive, cognitively speaking. If you use an "upkeep" style of managing living expenses, they may view it differently.

This. In my GURPS games, there is a standard cost of living when PCs aren't in the wilderness. This covers room and board commensurate with their social status. Wealthier, higher-status PCs spend more on clothing and the accoutrements of their position. They can choose to avoid the fee by camping in the wilderness, but this will deny (or penalize) access to services and useful NPCs. You can't waltz into a high-end enchanter's shop covered in dungeon grime; at the very least, you're not going to get the best prices. Depending on the types of PCs, the majority of the group might set up camp in the woods while the "face" PC goes into town to handle business. This seems reasonable, especially when the group is largely comprised of characters who would have trouble in town anyway (unusual races, lower social class, etc.).

I used a similar system way back in my AD&D days, too, with no complaints from players. In my experience, most players have been eager to live the high life in town if they could afford it. I just try to make it more fun than sleeping in their sweaty armor. (Despite being fairly thrifty in real life, I love playing big spenders who regularly waste all their money on fine clothes and expensive wine!)

 

[Asisreo]

I ran a game where I tried to insert/encourage more realism and the response from one of my players was, "If I wanted to take a bath or go shopping, Id go home and take a bath or go shopping".

There's 2 interesting things with that logic.
1. Sure, taking a bath by yourself in an average private modern bath is mundane but it can be fun roleplaying a public bath scene, especially since most baths of the era would either be public or belong to nobility. if your party members are not a common race, or even just a minority in the settlement, you can briefly describe how the other visitors are clearly staring and some are whispering amongst themselves.

2. Most of these mundane things should probably be skipped, yes, but just asking for a little more detail in life can have different effects. Imagine they decided to take a bath because you pointed out that it's been a while and they end up in the same bathhouse as the secret BBEG who they know is evil but they haven't convinced everyone else they're evil.

 

[R_J_K75]

There's 2 interesting things with that logic.
1. Sure, taking a bath by yourself in an average private modern bath is mundane but it can be fun roleplaying a public bath scene, especially since most baths of the era would either be public or belong to nobility. if your party members are not a common race, or even just a minority in the settlement, you can briefly describe how the other visitors are clearly staring and some are whispering amongst themselves.

2. Most of these mundane things should probably be skipped, yes, but just asking for a little more detail in life can have different effects. Imagine they decided to take a bath because you pointed out that it's been a while and they end up in the same bathhouse as the secret BBEG who they know is evil but they haven't convinced everyone else they're evil.

I agree with a lot of what you said and it might have been a missed opportunities, but it was a once a week game at a game store for 2-3 hours. The sessions had to be pretty straight forward to get anything accomplished and there was a bit of player turnover. We were playing in Waterdeep at the time and correct me if Im wrong but I believe that the city has running water. Id Imagine they do have public bath houses but in all honesty I never even thought of that. I always pictured that 9 out of 10 settlements just used a river, lake or some other means other than a bath house, and that they didn't have a bath tub or running water. I always depicted things as the lower rungs of society were pretty dirty folk, while the working class probably bathed on a semi-regular basis and only wealthy merchants and nobles would be clean all the time. Adventurers bathed after coming back from their last trek but not everyday unless their players explicitly said they were, or they were playing some fancy milk drinking Paladin. Guess it comes down to the groups play style.

 

[Guest 6801328]

And yet they too can stink.



He is. He is just asking for ways, should he want to, to incentivise a less gamist approach. I'm using that term loosely. So what are the benefits of washing, splurging at a tavern, eating well, socialising with ones preferred gender, maintaining your equipment, updating your maps, acquisition of clothing, resting your horse, good grooming, paying for massages, sharing a decent drink...

Xanathars addresses some of these concerns, others not.

EDIT: Besides some of these might be great ways to introduce interesting NPCs or storylines.



Plenty games have additional conditions that do not exist within D&D. I believe Torchbearer has the Hungry condition. There is no great harm to the game by introducing a Dishevelled condition. I feel describing that as policing is somewhat hyperbolic.

The important question, though, is why.

If the reason is that it bugs the DM that the players won't behave "realistically" then that's a bad reason (imo, of course.). Imposing an aesthetic preference on players is (almost?) always a bad idea.

But if the reason is to support an interesting and engaging game mechanic, then sure. But from the tone of the thread it sounds like the DM wants one thing and the players want another.

And, as @Umbran points out, tracking copper and silver pieces can be the opposite of fun.

 

[Celebrim]

I mean, I guess it's up to them what they find fun? I'm not sure mandatory fun by roleplaying a bath is my cup of tea.

This comment is still bugging me, because aren't you the publisher of N.E.W.?

One of my favorite mechanics in N.E.W. is the statistics for ships includes a factor for crew comfort, which IIRC caps the effective skill of the crew. This actually gives an incentive to spend space and mass on 'useless' things like living quarters and other crew amenities that otherwise would unrealistically be devoted entirely to more pew pew.

Which means you actually published an RPG with one of the strongest mechanics for mandatory roleplaying a bath on the market. Your game actually makes ships more combat effective if they have a bathroom.

Which in my opinion is great!

 

[Umbran]

Which means you actually published an RPG with one of the strongest mechanics for mandatory roleplaying a bath on the market.

I mean, doe sthe game actually mandate role playing the bath? Or do you simply get the stats if the bath is present, and we just assume the bath takes place? I'm going to guess the latter...

 

[Reynard]

The important question, though, is why.

If the reason is that it bugs the DM that the players won't behave "realistically" then that's a bad reason (imo, of course.). Imposing an aesthetic preference on players is (almost?) always a bad idea.

But if the reason is to support an interesting and engaging game mechanic, then sure. But from the tone of the thread it sounds like the DM wants one thing and the players want another.

And, as @Umbran points out, tracking copper and silver pieces can be the opposite of fun.

Broadly speaking, I am wondering about encouraging realism in player behavior, particularly in games like D&D that have few mechanical incentives to do anything but hoard weapons and armor.