How is D&D of any edition realistic?

[Mister Doug]

Oh, I totally agree. I never said it was THE historical re-creationist dream, but it did evolve from that. All fantasy has that 'coolness' factor of which you speak, that's one reason it calls to us still today. I would say that the most realistic of any of the system was Rolemaster as pertains to weapons and damage and the above mentioned C&S to actual overall period re-creation. But I think my point still stands, as the system has moved forward the past has been left behind. . . so to speak.

I would more say that its influences are now newfangled things that these youngsters like today and not the stuff that old grognards found fascinating. Pop culture has changed, and the conception of what a fantasy setting has changed, and I think that's where the transformation of D&D has really occurred.

As I move into my 40s, I just realize that some of the tropes and assumptions I hold are just different from younger people around me. I just expect to find things I loved when I was younger, such as comics and RPGs, to be evolving in ways that force me to re-think how I interact with the hobbies and media. That's no more a statement on the media than it is on me.

And I always thought RQ felt more realistic and less cartoony than RM, but that without rune magic, that just meant a lot of disabled combatants lying around on the ground, which wasn't very heroic.

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

Thunderfoot, if this was my thread, I would concede that the historical aspects of D&D have lessened quite a bit. I think that this is not what most people object to when they say that 4e is less realistic than 3.x. The usual gripe is more centered on the physics aspects. More specifically that 4e seems to abandon the idea that the rules are the physics of the world. I would maintain that anyone that thought that 3.x was consistent when you viewed the rules as the physics of the world was looking at the system with rose colored glasses, but the points you make are valid. It seems that a lot of the fluff of 4e does not sit well with people who have Tolkein, ancient Rome, or Conan in mind. The rules facilitate these concepts better in 4e, but the fluff is terrible. I have never liked any of the fluff of D&D anyway. I make up my own, so no skin off my nose.

 

[Delta]

I think that this kind of thread has finally convinced me that I'm done with D&D.

 

[Kzach]

My edition is better'n ur edition 'cause, so nyuh!

 

[jdrakeh]

My edition is better'n ur edition 'cause, so nyuh!

Look, if we aren't going to have reason in this thread, we'll have no honesty, either! Be gone with you and your wretched honesty!

 

[jdrakeh]

Um... The article you cited listed 13 people who survived long falls. None of whom by the way were the 3 I was thinking of, so that's 16 examples. Here is another, here are a few more, here are two more, and on that same site he puts the odds at about 1 in 300,000 although given that we have now got a population of about 20 survivors within the last 50 years I'm guessing that that's actually errs on the side of conservatism.

Is falling a long distance a brilliant idea? Nope. As you mentioned people managed to kill themselves in falls of 10'. And some survive falls of hundreds of feet onto concrete. What does that mean for hit points? Probably only that they are no worse than any other system for trying to quickly model any system as fantastically complex as injury and healing. I mean look at the battle at kruger for god's sake, that's a young calf survivng a tug of war between a croc and a lioness and it still lived. Clearly it wasn't a minion.

At any rate, 1 in 300,000 is still a far, far, far cry from the roughly 1:3 chance of a 10th Level D&D character surviving that same kind of fall and by no means confirms that surviving such a fall in real life is a commonplace occurance. So. . . based on the quotes that you cite, I must conclude that we agree surviving falls of several hundred feet is by no means the rule in real life but, rather, the exception? No?

I, in turn, acknowledge that my math may be incorrect (I guessed because this is a message forum not a college thesis or a grant proposal). It seems, however, that the larger picture is unaffected -- survivng from falls of more than 60 feet without injury is still an extremely rare event (merely not as rare as I had guessed).

At any rate, could we possibly return to the topic at hand, instead of merely attempting to critique my math, despite the fact that it still correctly paints the situation as a very uncommon occurance (which, for the purposes of this topic, is all that matters)?

 

[jdrakeh]

Obviously, if you ask Hero or GURPS or Rolemaster players or whatever else you choose, many would not choose to describe D&D as realistic.

But D&D players have invested time in learning the system and adapting it. They have learned to tweak and to adjudicate around the rules to make what they want to happen happen.'

I think the perception of realism, simulation, and modeling reality actually happens in the realm of where DMs have learned to create a sense of internal consistency in judging around the rules. I think that's why the old grognards still believe that the less-defined rules of OD&D and AD&D, for instance are more realistic than the very defined rules of 3.x -- there is a lot of space for creating consistency.

3.x players have learned how to adapt defined rules to their interpretation, and the system of house rules, adjudication, and rules applications. That feels consistent, thus feels like a model, and thus feels realistic.

4e is unknown, and breaks the rules noted above, even though in essence most of the consistent and realistic parts of those in the eyes of players and DMs is actually occurring outside of the framework of the rules.

All IMNSHO, of course.

Even without providing specific examples, that is probably the most well-reasoned, least hostile, reply to my original post. Thanks for giving explanations a shot, at the very least. I'd grant you dignitas if we could do that here.

 

[hong]

Bah, that's what I said!

 

[Andor]

At any rate, could we possibly return to the topic at hand, instead of merely attempting to critique my math, despite the fact that it still correctly paints the situation as a very uncommon occurance (which, for the purposes of this topic, is all that matters)?

Sure, I did say it was an unrelated note.

Although thinking on it, not completely unrelated. As I said before, it's a lack of internal consistancy that bugs me. For all the flaws in the HP system in earlier editions at least some effort had to be put into generating the corner cases that put lie to it's abstractness. In 4e however, if I have a character that uses a blowgun, or shiruken or whatever weapon in 4e does that 1 point of damage needed to delived poison it's going to kill any minion it hits, even un-poisoned. Even if they are 21st level. Or Huge. Or look like this:

How does a bamboo dart kill a 21st level one of those 100% of the time?

 

[hong]

How does a bamboo dart kill a 21st level one of those 100% of the time?

A bamboo dart does not kill a 21st level one of those 100% of the time. (Hint: at most, it will kill 95% of the time.)