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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7564991" data-attributes="member: 82106">TBH I am baffled at how any of this is engaging my argument. Of course we could make realistic RPGs. We could study medical texts for years, and make up computer simulations, and do tons of research and come up with 250 pages of detailed rules covering injuries and death. It might be quite realistic (there probably is still a corner case or two, but whatever). This is not relevant because nobody does that. It is a spherical cow. In actual games we play to have fun, and hit points is a fun way to play. Realism be damned. And sure, D&D has some level of realism, sword blows hurt you, so do falls, fire, etc. All drawn from true life at some basic level. This DOES establish what I call coherency, the ability to frame scenes so that the game participants can work out what is at stake, what their options are, etc. I would note though that you wouldn't expect a complete neophyte in the D&D game to make very good decisions. MUCH of the logic engaged in is heavily shaped and colored by rules which are not very realistic.So, for example, once my 11th level Ranger leaped off a high cliff because he wanted to catch up with some bad guys. Sure, he knew he was going to take some damage, but I knew that the falling rules coupled with the height of the cliff meant death was vanishingly unlikely and the character possessed some magic which would make up for the hit point deficit later. No person unfamiliar with the rules of D&D would have understood that decision. Any reasonable person would call a 200' fall lethal 99.99% of the time.The point is, the conventions and processes of game play are what is transcendent at the table. Internally consistent logic is pretty thin and the fact that we could in some theoretical white room try to make our game work in a logical or realistic fashion is irrelevant to any discussion of actual games at actual tables.</blockquote>

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