Do YOU nod to "realism"?

[D'karr]

That's a good way to put it. Maybe saying not stupid, not silly, or not nonsensical is a more succinct way to explain it.

What might be stupid to person A, might not be so for person B. So calling it "realism" is actually counterproductive because it obviously has nothing at all to do with such.

Since it's all a matter of preference, then I prefer for the game to keep that portion of the "realism" in the hands of the people that are best at defining it. The people at the table playing the game. I don't want the designers version of "realism" to be the part that hampers the "realism" at my game.

So many people have provided reasonable explanations for these "corner case" powers that supposedly break the "realism" meter for some people that I tend to conclude that those still having a problem are simply spending more of their time looking for ways for things not work. If I spend any time at all on it, I spend my time looking for ways for things to work, and it's considerably less straining.

Just because the "rules" don't spell something out, does not mean that I can't spell it myself for my game table when needed and wanted.

 

[Phaezen]

That's fine for aggressive humanoids like orcs or gnolls, where it makes some sense for them to charge up to someone taunting them. It breaks down when the enemy is mindless skeletons, an ooze, or a enemy spellcaster that knows it's a bad idea to come and stand next to the fighter. If the power only worked on things that it made some sense for it to work on, that's acceptable, but I really don't see how the fighter is going to taunt an ooze, or convince that wizard with no melee skills that he should waltz right up to the fighter.

Ooze, possibly the fighter flexing heats him up, making himself a more inviting target to heat sensing ooze.

As for any intellagent creature like a spell caster, the fighter scoring a hit against their Will Defence indicates his ability to overcome their natural instincts and attempt to rush and overwhelm the fighter, could be by taunting their lineage or abilities or threatening them in some other way if they don't close the gap rapidly.

Skeletons or other mindless creatures will still posses some kind of animal instinct unless they are being directly controlled, so the fighter could be feigning a weakness in his defences inviting them to overwhelm him, relying on his strength to bring his weapon back up at the last moment.

 

[Mallus]

What I have a problem with is the he only smites something with his divine laser beams if it attacks someone besides him. That makes no sense.

Think about it this way: paladin's challenge isn't just smack talk, it's a divinely-empowered curse.

The paladin challenges a foe to single combat. If his foe doesn't honor it, a god punishes said foe. If the paladin doesn't honor it, by attacking something else, then the curse magic goes away.

If you can accept a priest throwing around curses which have tangible effects, why not a paladin? It's not hard to reconcile this particular mechanical effect with the in-game fiction.

See my *Stupid* point is differant than yours!

This is a good point... but I'll add this. D&D combat is, traditionally, full of stupid things. Which provides a certain context for evaluating D&D believability.

How does one fight a Gelatinous Cube with a sword or mace? It's a large block of acidic, paralytic protoplasm, lacking any form of internal support structure or organ systems. How does nicking or bashing a small part of it's volume kill it? There isn't even a nucleus to strike at...

How does a human armed with a sword survive going toe-to-toe with a 15ft tall giant? Given it's mass, any solid hit should bat the human away like a rag-doll. How about fighting a dinosaur with melee weapons?

Sure, it's possible to describe these engagements in semi-plausible ways --using a loose definition of plausible-- but it requires adding a lot of user-supplied fiction to the base mechanical results. Which is fine, doing so is a central activity to role-playing gaming.

The question that interests me is this: why is easy to rationalize a sword fight between a man and a giant or a woman and a Gelatinous Cube but difficult to rationalize a paladin's mark or, dare I say, Come and Get It?

In both cases, you're reconciling mechanical results with the in-game fiction.

 

[keterys]

It's totally okay to not defend Come and Get It.

The funny part is, all of the hubbub about it wouldn't be there if it were an Arcane / Divine / Primal / Psionic power. People just don't really like Martial getting those kinds of toys, cause it breaks their belief.

Which can be okay - for example, I think an interesting martial variant would be a close burst 1, shift 3, another close burst 1 targeting enemies not included in the first burst. (Sweep and Smash, or whatever) Suddenly it's very martial, and less people would complain about it - but still pretty darn awesome.

I'm pretty staggered by the inability to justify divine challenge. That one seems like dead simple fitting the narrative.

 

[talok55]

What might be stupid to person A, might not be so for person B. So calling it "realism" is actually counterproductive because it obviously has nothing at all to do with such.

Since it's all a matter of preference, then I prefer for the game to keep that portion of the "realism" in the hands of the people that are best at defining it. The people at the table playing the game. I don't want the designers version of "realism" to be the part that hampers the "realism" at my game.

So many people have provided reasonable explanations for these "corner case" powers that supposedly break the "realism" meter for some people that I tend to conclude that those still having a problem are simply spending more of their time looking for ways for things not work. If I spend any time at all on it, I spend my time looking for ways for things to work, and it's considerably less straining.

Just because the "rules" don't spell something out, does not mean that I can't spell it myself for my game table when needed and wanted.

How about putting it this way? I think that having abilities that are so unrealistic (or whatever synonym you want to use) that they seem to be stupid, silly, or nonsensical compared with what we know about how reality functions in the game world (some of which overlaps with the reality of our world) pushes a game that is supposed to be an RPG too far into the realm of tactical miniatures skirmish game for my tastes. Some don't mind those miniature game aspects in their RPG, but a lot of people would prefer less of these metagamey mechanics in their RPG of choice, especially if it is the main RPG out there, D&D. In short, I think D&D is served well by having at least a nod to realism in it's mechanics, rather than completely abandoning realism.

 

[keterys]

Everyone's got some mighty different standards, though.

I mean, divine challenge is stupid / silly / nonsensical, but flying dragons, going toe to toe with gargantuan enemies of any kind, and _hit points_ are?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Everyone's got some mighty different standards, though.

I mean, divine challenge is stupid / silly / nonsensical, but flying dragons, going toe to toe with gargantuan enemies of any kind, and _hit points_ are?

the former is new but hte latter have been internalised as normal through 30 pluss years of usage.

 

[Wormwood]

That's fine for aggressive humanoids like orcs or gnolls, where it makes some sense for them to charge up to someone taunting them. It breaks down when the enemy is mindless skeletons, an ooze, or a enemy spellcaster that knows it's a bad idea to come and stand next to the fighter. If the power only worked on things that it made some sense for it to work on, that's acceptable, but I really don't see how the fighter is going to taunt an ooze, or convince that wizard with no melee skills that he should waltz right up to the fighter.

I agree---but I've long since reconciled powers like "Come and Get It" as a granting a tiny bit of narrative control to the player using it.

Rather than 'taunting' oozes and zombies, perhaps the fighter is predicting a group of opponents will move into such a way that he can punish them for their mistake?

No magic involved, just a really canny warrior capitalizing on the mistakes of his opponents. The fact that the player forced the situation instead of the DM doesn't matter to the narrative at all.

 

[Hussar]

Why would China invent virtually everything in the pre-industrial world and then stay at that level for hundreds of years?

Well in China's case they created non-glass ceramics that did what they needed them to do so they had no need to invent glass. The fact they did not have glass meant they stayed still as most of the inventions after that required glass as an intergral part of the invention itself, but most often it is needed for the scientific experimentation, research and development that was needed to come up with the idea in the first place.

Another place - the arab world was very mathematically and scientifically developed, hungrily gobbling up anything they could get their hands on from China and India, among other places and developing stuff themselves. They were very into knowledge and education. Religious attitudes put the mockers on that and they became stuck in time.

Another place - The Roman Empire was top of the food chain so they felt very little need to develop anything new. They mostly just sat around for years feeling big and clever (and constantly looking back at the Greeks)until they had their backsides handed to them on a plate and then everything fell apart.

Years, yup. Thousands of years? Really? And what happened in every single example you gave when the inwards looking empire bumped an outward looking group? Their borders collapsed and they got over run. China in the 18th century, the Romans in the 5th.

Yet, in fantasy settings, we have these nation states with thousands of years of civilization, and constant trade and contact with neighbours, that stay stagnant for millenia.

Just bugs the heck out of me.

 

[Hussar]

Seems to me some of you guys saying Realism really mean (not stupid).

Like someone grabing green slim or useing burning hands while in a room stuffed with gunpowder.

I don't use hardly any realism in my games but I do try and not be stupid. Just because there isn't a rule for drowning in lamp oil doesn't mean you can't drown in it.

But every DM will have a differant take on whats stupid.

Just because I think you can't grab green slim with your hands doesn't mean every DM needs to make green slim ungrabable. We all do our best for our games but almost never agree one what best means.

Thats cool.Whatever works for you!

In my game I do try and make it fun first and maybe give a nod towards some strange inner versimilitude but it isn't much more than a nod.

I do try and not let things get to the point where I feel we are being stupid. Just because the power says you can move strait ahead 4 squares doesnt mean you can move through that wall or stand on water!

But at the same time I am not sweating it if you somehow flip a monster on its back even though he is four times bigger than you.

See my *Stupid* point is differant than yours!

This I totally agree with. John Scalzi has a great article about flying snowmen in which he relates a story about his wife reading a book to his daughter in which a snowman comes to life, eats soup, dances around and then takes off and flies. The daughter became rather upset because the idea of flying snowmen are just stupid.

Scalzi's comment:

“So, yeah: In a film with impossibly large spiders, talking trees, rings freighted with corrupting evil, Uruks birthed from mud (not to mention legions of ghost warriors and battle elephants larger than tanks), are we really going to complain about insufficiently dense lava? Because if you’re going to demand that be accurate in a physical sense, I want to know why you’re giving the rest of that stuff a pass. If you’re going to complain that the snowman flies, you should also be able to explain why it’s okay to have it eat hot soup.”

Which speaks to this rather strongly. Everyone's line is different.

From the designer's point of view, who should draw that line? The group or the designer?