On Behavioral Realism

[Reynard]

What distinguishes those other systems from D&D is that they have the mechanical resources to support the fiction when it strays from combat or physical adventuring into social and emotional affairs. If I wanted more of this sort of thing in a D&D game, I'd consider looking hard at what might be done to beef up social resolution.

What do those games you mentioned do to support such play?

 

[John Dallman]

Adventures in Middle Earth has the (most excellent) Mirkwood campaign, which takes place over 30 years(!) Since adventures are basically once per year, the Fellowship Phase (extended Downtime) becomes more important, and includes things you are mentioning here.

Timescales definitely affect this. In Pendragon, adventures are usually one a game year, and getting married and having a family are important things for PCs to do.

I've played a couple of characters (one GURPS, one TORG) who had wives and families before they took up "adventuring." Neither was doing it for thrills or getting rich quick (though they wouldn't object to that); both had primary reasons of honour or duty.

 

[macd21]

I think it's definitely collaborative. Of course, this thread is about how to encourage such behavior so what concrete steps would you take to promote connection.

The simplest first step is to talk to your players and let them know what kind of game you have in mind.

But beyond that, if you want them to connect, you need to give them something to connect to. Perhaps an NPC who shows a romantic/sexual interest in a PC. A place they could call home. Contacts they keep coming back to, who eventually become friends. And I find that once you start doing that, the players will begin contributing more on their own.

 

[MGibster]

Having players engaged in the setting is something I would love but I'm not sure how interested a lot of my players are in that kind of thing. For a lot of players, the game is an escapist fantasy and they don't want to consider the consequences of their actions or find their characters beholden to local custom and authorities.
Most players I know would rather have their character killed than forced to do something they don't necessarily want to do. And you know what? When I play D&D I'm kind of the same way.

D&D is not a game that demands a player to follow customs, respect authority figures, or care about building long lasting relationships with NPCs. Can you do it? Certainly, and I'm sure many of you have. I just don't think it's the right game for that kind of thing. But if you want it to be that kind of game you've got to talk to your players about it. And give them tangible benefits for playing that kind of game. The DM's Guide has some good advice for rewards outside of experience points or treasure. Access to information or new skills isn't a bad place to start.

 

[Derren]

D&D is in its core a murderhobo simulator with a group of guys going out, slaughtering hordes of "ok to kill" creatures and take their stuff. That you do not get realistic behaviour from the PCs should be obvious.

So when you want a different kind of behaviour you either need to change the system completely or bend it a lot and do away with the usual core D&D gameplay.

 

[Reynard]

D&D is in its core a murderhobo simulator with a group of guys going out, slaughtering hordes of "ok to kill" creatures and take their stuff. That you do not get realistic behaviour from the PCs should be obvious.

So when you want a different kind of behaviour you either need to change the system completely or bend it a lot and do away with the usual core D&D gameplay.

Almost everything in the above is categorically inaccurate.

 

[Maxperson]

D&D is in its core a murderhobo simulator with a group of guys going out, slaughtering hordes of "ok to kill" creatures and take their stuff. That you do not get realistic behaviour from the PCs should be obvious.

One does not equal the other. You can have murder hobos that still act in a realistic manner.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think it may be a bit strong to say that what people are looking for is a 'reality simulation'. It might be fairer to say that some (perhaps even many) DMs hope for some (any) engagement in the fiction outside of combat, whatever that looks like. Could be social interaction, could be exploration, could be stronger inter-PC interactions, whatever. D&D is actually kinda boring when it's all handwaving in between combat encounters. IMO anyway, YMMV.

 

[Derren]

Almost everything in the above is categorically inaccurate.

If you need to pretend that D&D is something more than it is, fine. Buts thats how situations like what the OP describes happen.
The D&D rules is centred around combat, the goal is to amass loot and become powerful in the process. Just open the books and adventure and look how much of the content is about this. It is no surprise that you end up with edgy PCs which behave very unnaturally or PCs which concentrate on the one thing D&D is about, namely combat, and forsake everything else.

So unless you have players who feel the same need as you to pretend D&D is something different then you are stuck with changing the game. Either literally by changing to a different system or changing much of D&D itself so that the core of the game is not dungeon crawling, defeating mosters, etc.
Just be aware that its a lot of work to change a system away from its core goal.

 

[pemerton]

What do those games you mentioned do to support such play?

They don't treat treasure/income as a component of PC build. They have social resolution mechanics. They allow time to pass (though in different ways - in RM, because healing, studying rituals, etc takes time; in Prince Valiant because all passage of time and recovery and so on is purely GM fiat, and so it is easy to narrate "seasons pass").

Another feature that I think is important is that they downplay the idea of "the adventure" and "the quest giver". Without wanting to be too pejorative about D&D - which is an unhelpful turn that this thread is taking - I think it's fair to say that they depend a bit less than D&D often does on "unreal" contrivances to make the action work. The sorts of contrivances I'm referring to are the dungeon, wacky traps, sequences of monsters, etc that tend to characterise a lot of D&D play. I think this sort of stuff crowds out "realistic" fiction.

In 5e play the idea of 6 o 8 encounters per "adventuring day" is one part of cross-class balance. I think that can be one source of pressure towards the contrivances I've just tried to describe. So that's one are you might look at - eg will changing recovery periods allow play to take on a more "realistic" rhythm. (I don't know the answer, but am just trying to think some things through.)

In my Prince Valiant game, when two PCs were rivals for the hand of the one maiden, we were able to resolve their courtship in various ways because the game has a uniform resolution system for all sorts of conflict - I can't remember all the details now, but I do remember at one point the two PCs were deciding who would be the one to be sponsored by Violette at the joust (or something like that) and resolving it via opposed Fellowship checks. This is an example of what I mean when I say that the "realistic" action isn't something that sits outside of, or alongside, the real action of the game but rather is itself part of the action.

I don't have a clear idea of how one would drift 5e D&D in this sort of direciton - I don't know the system well enough. I haven't tried this sort of drift in 4e D&D - our 4e game (with many of the same players as these other games I've described) didn't have a lot of this sort of grounded realism in it: it was more about charismatic leadership and cosmological conflicts than friends and family and interpersonal relationships.

But I would look at how one frames the action, how one treats treasure and other rewards, what one puts at stake in the fiction, how one handles pacing - these are some of the things that seem relevant to me.