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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6503461" data-attributes="member: 4937">It's not so much just a matter of realism, as it is a matter of internal consistency and adjudication impartiality.  Generally speaking, a role play game consists of a proposition, fortune, adjudication loop.  The player makes a proposition, "I want to do foo.", if the outcome is doubtful a fortune mechanic is introduced, and then based on the results of that proposition the GM describes the outcome.  It's my desire that the stakes of a proposition be somewhat predictable and observable from the combination of the setting and player experience of the real world, and not depend on DM whim or sense of what he thinks is best for the story.   Realism is important only in so much as it helps inform that decision making loop on the player's end.If it occurs to me, "Hmmm... the player might fall of this high place." or "Wow, it might be awesome of the players could fall off and then do something dramatic to avoid striking the ground.", then rather than arranging for a desired goal by being flexible in my ruling, I prefer to arrange that by controlling what I explicitly have full control over as a GM, namely the particular details of the setting.   So rather than say, "Hmm... it would be interesting if the player's had 3 rounds to try to come up with a solution before they go 'splat!'", I'll say, "Since it is interesting for the players to have at least 3 rounds to try to come up with a solution, the most interesting height for the cliff is 3000 feet (or whatever accounts for the desired time)"As the GM, I consider my preference largely irrelevant.  If it is a matter of obtaining my preference, then I should not GM at all.  I should write novels instead.  As the GM, I have too much power to allow myself to have those sort of preferences or to allow those preferences to influence play.  If I were to allow myself to influence play according to my preference, I and only I would ever have my preference.  The players have no tools to actually be able to thwart my will, they'd just be observers of my story, brought along for the ride to validate how cool my story was.  This is utterly unfair to the players.  To allow the players to have free will, I must scrupulously avoid interfering in the story directly, shaping the story only by subtly shaping the possibilities provided by the setting and relying my inability to always predict the future to ensure that it isn't a railroad, and the subtly of that shaping to ensure that even when there are rails they are very unobtrusive. In particular, if I make the conscious choice of wanting a story where the players are the heroes, then I deprive the players of the ability to be the heroes.  If the players do heroic deeds because I've arranged things such that heroic deeds are the order of the day, then the players haven't not obtained these results by choice, by cleverness, or by virtue of their moral and heroic qualities of these things.  If on the other hand, I'm maintaining impartiality and letting the chips fall where they may, when the players do obtain heroic results, they can rightly lay claim to the consequences.  The very fact that the Gwen Stacy outcome is likely, is what makes the Mary Jane outcome so valued.  Note that originally, in the context of silver age comic books, it was the fact that the Gwen Stacy outcome was so unthinkable - rescues being routine and expected - that delivered the moment's dramatic impact.  It's widely regarded as the most important single scene in the history of comic books.  Saving the world, or even a single human life, suddenly stopped seeming so effortless as to be meaningless.  Character's suddenly lost plot protection.</blockquote>

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