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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9270829" data-attributes="member: 6877472">How closely a D&D game should hew towards our reality has always been a hot button topic, and I imagine it always will be.  You can say "the game world is equivalent to 12th century Europe unless otherwise stated" but those "otherwise" statements will pile up quickly when historically, double handed broadswords and full plate wouldn't exist yet.  And that magical creatures and spellcasters exist.  And that "oh, yeah, that wizard's funhouse dungeon has rivers flowing through the air" or "oh yeah, that's an earth mote, it's a big hunk of rock that hovers in the sky".I understand why "hit points" are a bone of contention, as that's a game mechanic used to simulate the reality of combat, and is not supposed to be part of the narrative.  Characters don't know what hit points are, or AC, or what have you.  But if someone is hit by seventeen arrows and doesn't die, characters will notice that, and the only way to explain that (the Gygaxian model of hit points), also rubs a lot of people the wrong way!Attempts have been made to create game worlds based on the observable effects of game mechanics, and these are often decried as ludicrous or silly.  But to maintain the fiction that game mechanics don't affect the world requires willful ignorance- the DM basically becomes Oz telling people not to look behind the curtain!And how often have DM's been warned against players who actually bring up realism (Gygax himself comments on this) in an attempt to undermine the fantasy?  Bringing up the laws of thermodynamics, heat convection, or actual science facts about how far something could be seen from a distance, or how much damage you should take from being within 5' of something as hot as molten lava?And you also have to take into account how arbitrary all the rules elements are.  Nobody started hewing at people with a long sword to figure out how much more damage it does than a short sword when writing rules for weapon damage.  Or actively pitched people off roofs to calculate falling damage.  How hot would a Fireball need to be to deal it's damage when it manifests completely and dissipates in a 6-second timeframe?Does a lightning bolt travel at light speed?  Does it function like real lightning?  How does one produce a "ray of cold"?  If an orb of acid does the same damage to everything it touches, what kind of acid are we talking about here?  Would the existence of Fabricate jump start an industrial revolution?  How does a D&D economy work anyways, when adventurers are constantly dumping wealth that has been out of circulation for centuries back into the market?You can see how this can quickly spiral out of control.  It's been postulated that Ancient Rome only needed better metals and a lack of slaves to have steam engines.  In our 12th century analog world, adamantine and mithril exist, and slavery is considered an EVIL act! On a fundamental level, there are many things that occur in a D&D game that defy logic or reason.  That's why it's fantasy, after all.  This isn't to say that there is no realism, of course, but any line drawn cannot be a straight one, because there are many exceptions, and at the end of the day, everyone has to agree that D&D is a game, not a simulation.  This doesn't mean you cannot play the game in a serious manner, pretending that the world absolutely makes sense (it's a roleplaying game, after all), but it should also be acknowledged that there are many things that routinely break verisimilitude where we are given no explanation other than "hey, it's magic, go with it it".</blockquote>

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