How is D&D of any edition realistic?

[hong]

Then again, perhaps minions are simply not useful in my narrative. I would probably be in a better position than you to judge that, what with it being my narrative and all.

If your narrative is one in which the great majority of humans are level 1-2 commoners/experts/warriors, and the great majority of orcs are level 1-2 warriors/barbarians, and things like manes, quasits and low-rank modrons greatly outnumber horned devils, balors and modron hierarchs, then minions are very useful. And indeed, this kind of thing is what is posited in the 3E default setting.

And we still don't know what you think about the kobold armor issue.

Contrary to popular belief, use of the royal pronoun does not automatically confer on us the nobility that we might desire.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Hmmm. So long as people continue to engage in strawman bashing and hyperbole (not at all a rarity from what I have seen), I see it as pretty much necessary. Unless you want folks to just longwindedly spell out the definitions of these words, which doesn't really help the brevity of a discussion.

Thank you - besides I like hyperbole, and no I won't stop using it. so nyah!

 

[Thunderfoot]

You know Star Wars isn't very realistic either - according to the Lava rules, Anakin Skywalker should have been a goner.

 

[Mister Doug]

Out of curiosity, can anyone point to one of these posts? While I have seen many posts argueing that 4e is less internally consistant than previous editions, the only times I recall the term 'realistic' come up when when someone wanted to attack the realism of previous editions as though that somehow excused any potential flaws that may exist in 4e.

Jeez. I have a hard time finding my way back to threads even when I'm posting actively.

My fuzzy long-term memory leads me to think of complaints on realism regarding diagonals counting the same as other squares for movement, using squares for movement, the "new" abstraction of hit points and how it reflects healing, healing surges, martial powers, marks... These are examples of problems not with internal consistency, but modeling a reality. (Complaints that characters and monsters use different rules subsystems-- e.g., minion rules-- are complaints about internal consistency, and thus another matter.)

Anyway, I think that James' rant grew at least partially out of this thread, which has several posts expounding the history of D&D as a simulation:

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=4243468&postcount=1
http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=4243876&postcount=33
http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=4247384&postcount=78


All that said, I would point out that I don't really think many, if any, people would really argue that any version of D&D really simulates diddly-squat. But arguments about realism have been bandied about which are really about what should be abstracted, how it should be abstracted, and how that makes "good" gameplay. The innate imprecision of language and the dynamics of online communication then exacerbate this discussion drags on longer than anyone would expect.

All in my self-important opinion, of course.

Doug