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Can you elaborate on that? I'm curious what you mean.

Now that you mention that, yes, I remember that being true for Call of Cthulhu... although the advantage of CoC is that there are a lot less skills to keep track of. I don't know about Runequest. With complex D&D classes, that could mean a lot of record keeping, but seems doable with simple...

I was thinking that the easiest nod to realism for fireball is to increase its rarity in gameplay. I think fireball as a 3rd level spell and a wide area burst is a sacred cow that can be butchered IMO. I can't think of any or many fantasy stories or films that feature massive magical fiery...

I like the idea, but I assume it changes the nature of what levels means in D&D. Often times, levels are mostly abstractions that have little or no correlation to what happens in the adventure. For example, you could gain climbing skill points without ever doing any climbing in the adventure or...

Fireball :: d20srd.org "It can melt metals with low melting points, such as lead, gold, copper, silver, and bronze" I think the simulationist "logic" is that fireball causes a great deal of damage, so it must burn hotter, to cause that extra damage in a single round (assuming fantasy logic that...

Very good review, so I skim-read the PDFs and... aah... the hard sci-fi setting is so complicated -- it's one thing to read Hyperion novels, another thing to inhabit them. I'll read the PDFs for fun, but we'll see if it feels accessible as an rpg.

I could have the same problem if the system is dumping the work of making something "realistic" on the game group, and then when I define what I might find realistic and have the narrative control to alter the story accordingly, I could completely turn off any player who disagrees with my view...

Yes, I argued that nods to "realism" is theoretically possible via one way or the other (or a compromise/combination of both). Disclaimer: I didn't make a judgement call on which is "better". In the case of an ultra-light ruleset (vs something like 3E), the rules-oriented reference points are...

Yes. Did you read the next few paragraphs, where I specifically contrasted rules-oriented reference points vs setting-oriented reference points? I think you somehow missed it :)

Alright, forget the survey, I'll try again... With an ultra-light Page 42+ ruleset alone, nodding to "realism" is a tricky beast, because there's almost no reference points for a common "realistic" baseline for the group. It's as challenging as acting in front of a blue screen. With a very...

Ya, you're right that it's not probabilistically significant. Perception wise, though, why is that one element being singled out? That makes it feel like that modifier or action resolution (and the corresponding narrative) is more significant somehow than other potential narrative elements. I...

Conversely, I think that criticizing someone for criticizing a metagame mechanic that isn't used in a way that nods to realism is missing the point (in context of this thread anyway).

Seriously? :)

Theoretically, what you say should be true. In practice, I think it is difficult when players are trying to "win" against the DM and when anyone views the rules as enforcing "this is how it always works" instead of "this is how it usually works" and when the presentation and wording implies to...

Ya, according to this survey about 22% of gamers are Storytellers, or perhaps "narrativists", who enjoy shaping the story. But 22% of gamers are Character Actors, who enjoy inhabiting the story, and to do that, you need a somewhat predefined world in which to explore. I was wondering how...

Ya, because people aren't technically interested in the "truth". They're interested in stories that deliver a certain experience. I agree with you that I couldn't care less about the viscosity of lava, because it's not an interesting question to me. Whether Gollum sinks into the lava or burns...

The comments under that article include counterpoints like "The reason it makes sense for the other things to be given a pass and not the lava is that the those other things are intended to be fantastical. The lava is supposed to merely be lava, or maybe especially hot lava". I mentioned...

I agree on the latter point, and that's why I intentionally worded it as "fiction nods to the rules" (emphasis on "nods"), just like rules that nod to realism. Why is one term unhelpful but not the other? I did a switcheroo to force a change of perspective. It's true that D&D isn't solely about...

Conjuration successful! I agreed 5E will not be 3.XE revisited (at least for business reasons). Realistically, I could write more but your conjuration power didn't summon an autonomous entity :)

Well, apparently steel melts at ~1370 degrees C (2500°F) so realisticallly (without the quotes, intentionally), anything that melts steel will incinerate flesh. I don't think a fireball was actively intended by the designers to melt metal armor (if it does, it's the unintentional by-product of...