How important is "realism"?

[Garthanos]

This. I care about tropes, not science.

Well I would go with "science rocks but not so much in my games" LOL

 

[Aldarc]

Realism is overrated and people are too finicky about when it matters or how to apply it.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Well I would go with "science rocks but not so much in my games" LOL

If "unrealistic" is to "story tropes", then "realistic" is to.......I don't know what the latter would be. I have difficulty with explaining my thoughts.

I do think science is fun, but I'm very aware of just how much the style of stories I like flagrantly violate actual science and wish to acknowledge that.

 

[Fenris-77]

Realism is overrated and people are too finicky about when it matters or how to apply it.

Realism is me getting winded running up a flight of stairs, or the equivalent of rolling three 1's in a row trying to swat a bee with a roll of paper towel. Overrated indeed.

 

[Yora]

The important thing is consistency, and worlds that behave in ways that players can reasonably anticipate.
The players' characters are natives of the world, so players also need to understand how basics things in the world work. You can make exceptions for everything as GM, but you need to be able to communicate those campaign specific oddities to the players in a way they understand. When things work in certain ways and the players are only confused, then the game become a nuisance. Lettings things behave as they normally would unless you have a good reason not to is almost always the best approach.

 

[Garthanos]

The players' characters are natives of the world, so players also need to understand how basics things in the world work.

Depends on how basic for me. I mean arguably the player's characters are often extraordinary exceptions to the normal inhabitants too in keeping with the tropes previously mentioned. I just read a book where a main character was able to actively perceive the flows of magic as colors and patterns in the air. This was not normal to anyone else in the setting and he didnt realize this till more than 3/4 of the way through the first book of the series and he had plenty of interactions with those who worked magic and had read huge amounts of the technical lore. See also "protagonist syndrome" for other features.

 

[aramis erak]

How important is it that your games reflect reality? Examples include making coins in a D&D game more closely reflect the size and weight of real medieval money, limiting the number of predators in an area to a realistic number, or not having sound in space. Are there some specific "realistic" elements that make the game more fun, but other things that always disrupt the story? Or maybe you don't care at all?

My friends and I have been debating this, and I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks.

I love verisimilitude when it doesn't get in the way of playing the game. The setting needs to make enough sense to be runnable.

 

[Aldarc]

I do get the feeling that one issue is that people confuse "generic verisimilitude"* for "realism," with people invoking the latter when they are truthfully more concerned about the former.

* 'generic' as in the versimilitude or plausibility of something within the confines of its own genre

 

[S'mon]

How important is it that your games reflect reality? Examples include making coins in a D&D game more closely reflect the size and weight of real medieval money, limiting the number of predators in an area to a realistic number, or not having sound in space. Are there some specific "realistic" elements that make the game more fun, but other things that always disrupt the story? Or maybe you don't care at all?

My friends and I have been debating this, and I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks.

In an SF game, no sound in space.
Coins can be bigger than real medieval silver coins, but not 1" plates please. 1/100 lb is my sweet spot.
Predators - hm, I want some nod to plausibility, it doesn't need to strictly reflect real-world norms. The predators should have something to eat, and there should be a lot more prey than predators. It doesn't need to fit a zoologist's best empirical estimates.
Likewise, I like maps with villages, the density does not have to match IRL medieval or dark age norms, but not too obviously ridiculous - no 50 mile hikes to the next village. If you can get there in a day I'll accept it; maybe the setting is more like sparser parts of central Asia than England in 1350.

 

[Ixal]

Very important, although you have to differentiate between "like in the real world" and "makes sense internally".
If you don't have the latter the types of stories you can tell in your world are severly limited and games can only be simple railroads as every time the players start to think in depth about something in the game and how to interact with it the setting might break. Thus they are trained to just follow the railroad and not to think about stuff.