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

[Aldarc]

There is. Any time your model brings in something from the real world and attempts to model the real world to some degree, realism has increased, even if the model is still highly unrealistic. The real world connection and modeling must have greater realism than having nothing at all, because nothing = 0 and you have at least something greater than 0 with those connections.

This seems like circular reasoning, Max. You assert something as being self-evident, namely in the bold. When asked for clarification or support for that thesis, you just repeat the thesis again as if it were objective truth. This sort of circular reasoning is the primary point of disconnect and frustration that I suspect many of us are having with your argumentation.

Requoting this point for Max, hopefully adding to the point that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] made. If you are arguing that realism has increased in any objective sense, then you need to demonstrate how beyond simply repeating that point. I don't think that "someone will put it into a game" should be equated to mean "realism has increased."

To rephrase my point above, it seems to some of us that you, Max, are asserting that X > 0, this is to say that any value of "realism" supplied by a Model (X) is inherently greater than 0 (i.e., no model). The problem is that you have not really demonstrated that X >= 0. It has been more of a circular assumption that X >= 1, ergo 1+ > 0 rather than demonstrating any actual proof of the value of X. Moreover this argument does not take into account multiple mechanical attempts to model reality. How does one comparatively measure the modeling of a realistic phenomenom between systems? To the best of my recollection, this query remains unaddressed.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Hriston]

Yes there does need to be a rule or mechanic for it. Degradation causes weapons to hit less and do less damage, as well as break. If there is degradation, you either have a rule for those things or the DM just uses fiat. Otherwise, it doesn't actually exist.



The players don't get to add things to the game without DM approval, and DM approval = the DM adding it to the game. If the players came to me and said they wanted weapon degradation in the game, I would sit with them to work out the mechanics for it. They could not unilaterally add it, though, and the existence of the whetstone doesn't do it by itself.

And the whole, "The players add it in by buying whetstones and saying they repair their weapons" is dead on its face. Again, if we play a game together and you purchase a whetstone and "repair your sword, but I don't do either, my sword is still going to be identical to yours. That proves that weapon degradation doesn't exist, because if it did, my weapon would degrade, but it doesn't.



False Equivalences are false. You don't need a mechanic for grass and leaves, because grass and leaves don't impact mechanics he way weapon degradation will. A degrading weapon will be less effective and eventually break.

Not if you have a whetstone!

I think this is an important point. If there were a weapon degradation mechanic in 5E that penalized players for not making weapon maintenance a focus of play, all that would accomplish is to force players to declare that their characters are maintaining their weapons and the mechanic would never be used. I think the designers of 5E were wise to avoid such a waste of page space.

The argument that weapon degradation must necessarily have a mechanical effect so that, without such an expression, weapon degradation cannot exist within the fiction is circular. There can be broken, rusty, dull, and notched swords strewn all around the in-game fiction without a single weapon belonging to a PC falling into disrepair, whether the game focuses on the PCs maintaining their weapons or not.

 

[Aldarc]

I appreciate your attempts, but I'm not sure if I agree with them.

You have a computer flight simulation (early days). There is no model for wind in it.

One day, the developers put in a model for wind. It is, of course, crude and decidedly simple. Yet putting in wind does two things-

1. It makes the simulation more "realistic"* than it was before, because, hey, wind! Before, there was no accounting for wind, now there is.

Does it? Isn't this the debate?

What if the prior "no wind" model was actually more realistic at simulating flight than the second program that attempted to crudely model wind? This latter one would simply make realism determined purely by intent rather than any actual accuracy of modeling reality. But as picked up in the other conversation, sometimes increased authenticity in TTRPGs does not require any modeling by the rules, simply through establishing the fiction. You will need to convince me that when it comes to TTRPGs that rules for wind is inherently more realistic than the table participants establishing the fiction of wind in the game.

2. This is the more important point- once you have the model, you can improve it if you want. That's right; other people (the developers, the players, and so on) can see how the wind model works, and then they can determine how close it actually models, you know, wind. In various situations. And then they can determine if they want to improve the model (increase the complexity) or not, or maybe just take it out altogether (because any use of wind, while increasing realism, is decreasing the fun the people were having).

Or they could develop separate models independently. I'm not sure why an initial model claiming to model realism means that realism has objectively increased just because others can dick around with the model. You have not really demonstrated that realism has increased, but, rather, only that the number of models has increased.

So that's what people were getting at- this is not a new debate, at all. That is why this is so confusing to, inter alia, me. I already quoted EGG in the DMG from 1979- here, let me try some quotes from it again:

So, again, five years after RPGs became a thing, we see that this is a tired debate. Not because no one could understand what realism meant (or even the realism/simulation school), but because if you were familiar with the differences between wargaming and TTRPGs, it was already annoying. Gygax (and everyone else) knew exactly what realism entailed- increasing complexity. Because there's no such thing as a free lunch; the more you model things to match how they actually work (realism/simulation) the more complex the system. But that doesn't mean that no one could understand what it meant.

And EGG notably refers to the entire realism matter as "an absurd effort at best considering the topic!" while engaging the matter. His position is comparable to the position many of us here also have: it's an inherently absurd, futile effort. So it sounds as if EGG did not really think that realism was something that could be feasibly modeled in the game, and he even puts 'realistic' in quotes with a tinge of irony.

And what remains unresolved: how the frak do you objectively compare the modeling of realism between games? Let's imagine that all else being equal, what is more realistic? A D&D 5E that has its longsword do d8 damage or a D&D 5E that has its longsword do a d10 damage?

 

[lowkey13]

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[Ovinomancer]

I don't think defining realism by opportunity for possible future improvement is at all useful. Especially as this state exists for non-modeled things as well as crudely modeled things.

You could have a model for "wind" that refuels the airplane, frex, which is a very bad model of "wind" such that it's actually worse than no wind for anything traceable to wind. This means there's either some additional unstated constraints on this definition of "realism" (which likely hide subjectivity) or this definition is flawed. I'm betting on the former.

 

[Aldarc]

It's really not hard. I swear. From my P.O.V., it's just you fighting the example at this point.

We have had so many examples in this thread at this point and many of our positions have roughly remained the same. So I suspect that the differences of perspective run deeper than a matter of "fighting the example."

Once you attempt to model reality, by definition you have increased the realism (the simulation) because at the point the model can be improved.

And again, we are only looking at one simulation here (one computer flight game, one TTRPG, etc.). Before- no wind. After? Wind. Once you have introduced it, you can at least attempt to improve it, discuss it, and have it more closely match actual wind effects.

You are again just restating/repeating your thesis unsupported as if it were self-evident. Based upon your above comment that "it's really not hard," you find it to be self-evident. But there are those, myself included, who don't find this proposition to be self-evident. You are welcome to accuse us of living in a bubble of group think or being intentionally obtuse, but I do think we are all being genuine here.

I don't think that adding a model for a phenomenon inherently makes it more realistic than one that does not because the unmodeled phenomenon may present a more realistic depiction than one with a modeled phenomenon. Just because others can "improve" the model is just a red herring. It doesn't matter. Because others may never see that model and provide a superior version. So simply having that model is not inherently a net positive. That has to be earned through more than a creative intent to model reality.

Again, one TTRPG may have a model for wind. Another TTRPG may not have a model for wind but will instead allows for participants to freely establish game fiction, which may include wind. Knowing nothing about either the former game model or the latter established fiction, we cannot say which game is "realistic" than the other.

What's more, as per my first post in this thread, most of the sh*t people make appeals of "realism" to when talking about games are not about "realism," but about aesthetic game preferences. These are gamist debates masquerading as "realism" debates.

But what you are stating, in effect, is that you can't even bother because there is no such thing- and that's crazy talk from my P.O.V.; that would mean that, basically, all of science, CGI, simulations, and even such things as econometrics and math applications to sports are useless because model aren't worth either doing or improving. And I'm pretty sure that's not your argument.

Probably because you are presenting a reductio ad absurdum. I'm stating that simply attempting to model phenomena in reality does not have any inherent objective positive value of contributing to realism and sometimes this models can be more harmful than the lack of models.

Again, I'm pretty sure I'm familiar with the debate, given that I've quoted it several times. Are you familiar enough with the 70s and 80s wargaming and TTRPG debates that you'd like to discuss what EGG really meant? I mean, I'm game! Are you sure you have this right?

I'm not sure what EGG really meant, but I have my own genuine reading of the text that you provided me as you have yours. You seem pretty confident about what EGG meant. But EGG's texts have been used to support people holding wildly different opinions and positions before, so I'm not sure how this may be different.

Again, you are saying betweem games (and what does that have to do with your final example)? If you look back at what I have been consistently saying, I have never stated anything with regards to trying to make qualitative statements between different games, only about statements within a game.

The debate has variously been about both as the topic has broadly been about realism in tabletop gaming. This has included people making claims about the increase of objective realism within games and comparisons between games. The reason I asked about the sword is that systems and subsystems can vary across games. So if we just compare a single item, such as a longsword, can we say which version of the otherwise same game represents a more realistic portrayal of longswords. So if all things are equal between two games - one where a longsword deals d8 damage and one longsword deals d10 damage - which is more realistic?

 

[lowkey13]

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[pemerton]

Comparing RPG rules to flight simulators is (in my view) largely unhelpful and unilluminating. I'll let [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] repeat his account of why, should he care to. All I'll say is that people desigining simulations of that sort don't just make stuff up. Whereas that is precisely what most game design involves.

 

[Maxperson]

I think this is an important point. If there were a weapon degradation mechanic in 5E that penalized players for not making weapon maintenance a focus of play, all that would accomplish is to force players to declare that their characters are maintaining their weapons and the mechanic would never be used. I think the designers of 5E were wise to avoid such a waste of page space.

This is not accurate. There will be times when maintaining weapons is not possible, just like when you track ammo and encumbrance, sometimes you run out of arrows. Most of the time it won't be an issue. Sometimes it will.

The argument that weapon degradation must necessarily have a mechanical effect so that, without such an expression, weapon degradation cannot exist within the fiction is circular. There can be broken, rusty, dull, and notched swords strewn all around the in-game fiction without a single weapon belonging to a PC falling into disrepair, whether the game focuses on the PCs maintaining their weapons or not.

This is inconsistent, which is something to be avoided. It's nonsense for the DM to include degradation for NPC items, but make PC items immune to degradation. If PC items are not immune, there should be a mechanic to demonstrate it.