Gygax on Realism in Game Design

[Mishihari Lord]

Clearly in all three examples the problem was not in game mechanics but in player's metagaming mentality.

Absolutely not.

Metagaming happens when a player has to choose between an option that is optimal according to the game mechanics and an option that makes sense for the fiction/setting/genre, and he chooses the mechanically optimal option. If you have mechanics that are true to genre (which might be realism) then a player doesn't have to make that choice: the mechanically optimal choice and the genre-reasonable choice are one and the same.

For me at least, this makes the game a lot more fun.

 

[D'karr]

I'm not sure why damage from archery and falling should be treated differently.

But that is the beauty of an RPG. In D&D specifically, the basis for the rules are tied directly to the adjudication of the DM. The DM is the person that can, and should, inject into the game whatever level of "realism" the game needs at his table to remain fun.

If the DM decided that the arrow to the chest was going to be lethal if you did not follow the guard, he could.

Gygax's rail against realism is not against the vision of the DM. It's against the "vision" of the rules. He didn't provide realistic rules. He made workable rules. Realism, he left entirely at the mercy of the DM.

I think that is the legacy of Gygax. The rules are simply guidelines and the DM does not have to follow any rule that will "break" HIS game. The responsibility of providing a workable set of rules was put on the game. The responsibility to keeping the game "fun" was put on the DM. And the tools were given to the DM to do so. The rules are workable and abide by certain genre (high fantasy) conventions. The DM needs to decide what works, and doesn't at his game. If the situation you put the players in is not going to follow those specific genre conventions, then the DM needs to bend/break the rules to accommodate his vision. In essence, Gygax gave you, the DM, "carte blanche" to disregard anything provided by the rules that does not work at "your" table.

That is and will always be the genius of Gygax.






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[S'mon]

[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] plays a more simulationist 4e.

Yeah - I've learned to turn it down a bit though, after my initial 4e campaign (Vault of Larin Karr) was not a huge success. For my Loudwater Forgotten Realms campaign I try to go fairly light on the sim, in accordance with the story-centric tropes of the setting and the advice in the 4e FRCG, as well as in the 4e DMG. But I still tend to stat out major NPCs, for instance, even ones I don't expect the PCs to fight - and they have 'Platonic' levels, not 'Schrodinger levels' - they're "Level 8 Baleful Thaumaturge" not 'PC Level+2 Baleful Thaumaturge'.
Meanwhile I'm getting my sim fix more with my 1e AD&D campaign, which is mostly a sim/drama game, a soap opera with plausible geography and politics - which is kinda weird considering my players there are ur-Gamist Dragonsfoot grognards.

 

[S'mon]

Well first, I'd like to point out that Gary always strongly discouraged people from houseruling D&D heavily. And second, most people play AD&D 2E.

What a weird thing to say. You often see "What do you play?" polls on ENW, rpgnet etc, and I've never seen 2e be more than a small minority taste. It might have had more players than 1e some time in the late '90s, but I rather doubt it. Personally I did use bits of the 2e PHB awhile alongside my 1e stuff, but I've never owned a 2e DMG.

 

[Bluenose]

What a weird thing to say. You often see "What do you play?" polls on ENW, rpgnet etc, and I've never seen 2e be more than a small minority taste. It might have had more players than 1e some time in the late '90s, but I rather doubt it. Personally I did use bits of the 2e PHB awhile alongside my 1e stuff, but I've never owned a 2e DMG.

It might perhaps be true in the late 80s/early 90s, when 1e books were harder to find and the B/X series was discontinued. I have my doubts, though.

 

[S'mon]

Gygax's last product for TSR was Unearthed Arcana, a book written less because it represented what Gygax thought D&D needed, but to pull TSR out of the financial whole it was in.

Hm... I have to strongly concur with this. And yet Celebrim is also right - since I dropped UA and a few of the esoteric 1e sub-systems, I'm finding that the 'OD&D+Greyhawk' chassis that remains is extremely elegant and effective! I'm finding all sorts of beneficial emergent properties. For instance, using DMG random spell acquisition, I get interesting Magic-User characters well balanced against other classes. Dropping UA Weapon Spec, suddenly the listed Armour Class values for armour and monsters feel 'right' - plate is genuinely hard to penetrate, troll hide is hard to hurt even at mid-level.

Overall, I have to say that in retrospect the post-UA AD&D I grew up with is a 'decadent' game; the beauty of the original was severely degraded. I'm enjoying my PHB-only AD&D game more than I've ever enjoyed AD&D before.

 

[Maggan]

Still, I believe that his distinctive style and singular approach was vital in helping D&D become a social phenomenon.

That could be the case. But there are instances in other countries where the hobby exploded from a set or rules other than D&D, where the rules didn't feature Gygax's style of writing.

I'm thinking of Sweden, where "Drakar och Demoner" (a BRP translation originally) dominated in the same way D&D did in the US, and of Germany, where "Das Schwarze Auge" was the foundation of the hobby (if I'm correctly informed).

In the states, it was D&D that ruled supreme. In other parts of the world, others lay claim to the throne. And many were as successful in their markets as D&D was in the US, even though they didn't share all characteristics of D&D.

My take on that is that it wasn't the rules or the prose that was vital in helping D&D becoming a social phenomenon, but rather that it was the essence of the idea of roleplaying games that was what caught on.

And that essence came garbed in many guises, some more verbose than others.

/M

 

[Scribble]

What a weird thing to say. You often see "What do you play?" polls on ENW, rpgnet etc, and I've never seen 2e be more than a small minority taste. It might have had more players than 1e some time in the late '90s, but I rather doubt it. Personally I did use bits of the 2e PHB awhile alongside my 1e stuff, but I've never owned a 2e DMG.

It might perhaps be true in the late 80s/early 90s, when 1e books were harder to find and the B/X series was discontinued. I have my doubts, though.

If you were to use any of the numerous conventions I attended throughout the 90s as any kind of evidence, it might lean towards 2e being more popular at the time... Most of the pages were filled with 2e games, with only a few token 1e games. Most of the hobby store games (in my area at least) were also 2e...

It was odd. It always seemed like everyone played 2e but talked about how 1e was better.

Myself I played 2e, but mixed in some 1e elements.

 

[tlantl]

I only ever played in one campaign where the DM insisted on using 2e over 1e and that was because he didn't own any 1e books and couldn't find any to buy.

This was about two years before 3e came out so I guess it makes sense. 1e AD&D had been out of print for six or eight years by then.

The rest of the groups I ran or played in only took select pieces from 2e, the stuff they liked that added to the AD&D experience. No one I knew who played D&D just up and switched to 2e.

I did see a lot of people go to 3e and from my experience with that is none of them were tickled pink by the new rules once the brand new and shiny wore off. I don't know anyone who enjoys DMing the thing.

Around these parts 4e might just as well not exist. I imagine there are a couple of high school groups playing it but none of the established groups I have contact with have made the switch.

 

[The Shadow]

I do not believe that hobbyists and casual players should be continually barraged with new rules, new systems, and new drains on their purses.

Well that, at least, is a laudable sentiment that doesn't seem to have been held by his successors.