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

[Lanefan]

Actually, I think the entirety of D&D is a refutation of this argument. A rather thorough one in fact! The game was instantly, at its initial inception, trapped by the structure of its mechanics, the places where it is abstract, and others where it is concrete, and the way it structures participant roles, etc.

All true, yet even there within that framework one can, if one wants, hew closer to or farther from the realistic.

It has never escaped ANY of this, and the one time it got close/arguably did, you all utterly rejected the result!

If you're referring to 4e (and if not, to what are you referring) and thus trying to imply 4e was less abstract than the other D&Ds, you're off the mark all round. One of the main reasons 4e was rejected was because it was too abstract.

I would argue that game designers find it necessary to implement some sorts of mechanics, lest there be no game at all. Yet, to a large degree, the choices they make at the start are unlikely to be overcome later, or incrementally improved. Instead, whole new game systems are usually constructed.

The mechanics give a framework, within which a DM can decide whether to - and how to - make her game seem to her players a) more or less realism-based and-or b) more or less authentic within itself. Both a) and b) are choices a DM has to make, even if she doesn't realize she's doing so.

 

[Lanefan]

But weapon size is not necessarily an indicator of damage. ... Why does a mace deal 1d6 damage when a longsword deals 1d8 damage?

Good question. In 1e a mace did d6+1 to non-large foes where a longsword did d8 - exactly the same average but the mace didn't have the option of doing 1 or 8.

One could argue there's in fact some realism behind this: a longsword hit could just nick you (1 pt damage) but any hit from a mace is more likely to pack some punch (thus starts at 2 pts damage). At the other end a longsword, being a stabbing weapon, could carve through more vital bits on a good strike (thus 8 pts maximum) where a mace is only ever going to hurt you on the outside, though sometimes painfully (so max 7 pts damage).

 

[Lanefan]

I've been part of a play culture that has a very robust sense of what realism in RPGing means, and that is very conscious of the difference between and relationships between mechanical process and fictional content.

This difference is worth noting.

For my part I'm mostly concerned with realism (or authenticity) in the content of the fiction - the ends - rather than so much the mechanical processes used to get there - the means.

That said, there's means that make it easier* to achieve these desired ends and means that make it more difficult; and not all of these means are necessarily hard-coded rules. All I want is to avoid those means that make it more difficult, and call them out when I see them.

* - though often more time-consuming; a spectrum along wich everyone eventually finds his-her acceptable trade-off point.

I didn't say that. What I said is that you should have mechanics for them. Otherwise they lack sufficient realism(in my opinion) to even bother with. There's no point in telling someone his weapon is dinged up, bent, dull or whatever, if there's no mechanical difference between that weapon and a brand new sharp one.

Here I disagree to some extent, as I'm not that much a part of the "rule-for-everything" crowd.

Telling someone a weapon is beat-up or dull or bent should, if the player is immersed in playing her role, cause her to have her PC tend to said weapon reasonably soon (or replace it) whether there's mechanical ramifications involved or not.

 

[Maxperson]

I think Gygax, as most game designers of that time and in some respects to this day, believed that there had to be a certain degree of authenticity. He was creating a fantasy RPG with heroes, swords, dragons, dungeons, wizards, etc. It had to reflect an understanding of the genre, and be relatable to real life in some degree, of course. Just like a fantasy novel must. So it is understood that the situations which happen in D&D are 'true to life' in some degree, which does mean realistic. That realism is in the service of play. It makes things comprehensible and relatable. He was uninterested in whether something was realistic per-se. As am I also.

I don't see how he could be interested in making the game relatable to real life via realism, and be interested in making things in D&D true to life to some degree via realism, and be uninterested in realism. I can see how he might be uninterested in excessive realism, though.

 

[Lanefan]

Just to be amusing, since I have really nothing I want to expand on or disagree with, I actually belonged to a club which played The Campaign for North Africa. They then went on to play a full integrated run of War in the East, War in the West, and War in the Pacific. Ever seen the Earth at 30 miles per hex? She be big.

Dare I ask, how big?

Was your map laid out on the floor of an aircraft hangar?

 

[Maxperson]

Here I disagree to some extent, as I'm not that much a part of the "rule-for-everything" crowd.

Telling someone a weapon is beat-up or dull or bent should, if the player is immersed in playing her role, cause her to have her PC tend to said weapon reasonably soon (or replace it) whether there's mechanical ramifications involved or not.

That works for many things, but not for this. If I'm immersed in my role and I have this beat up sword, but the other fighter in the party has a gleaming new sword, and both weapons are functioning identically, that's going to be jarring for me. The role of a beat up sword is to function less well than a brand new one, and if you try to model that role, it's either going to be modeled though a mechanical rule or via DM fiat. While I am a fan of DM fiat, in this case the DM just announcing periodically that the PC misses due to the sword being dull or does half damage this time for the same reason, or the weapon snaps now, is not going to go over all that well.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[pemerton]

Cat farts and clocks chiming don't cause weapons to break down.

Nor does rolling a certain result on a die cause weapons to break down. We're talking about systems for deciding what happens in the fiction.

What's with the number 66 anyway? Why was that number so deadly on the crit charts?

Having a deadly result somewhere in the middle of the charts doesn't affect the odds of rolling an unmodified deadly result, but does change the odds of getting a deadly result if Ambush skill is used to modify a crit.

 

[Bedrockgames]

How on earth is this thread still going on?