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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Corathon" data-source="post: 4248222" data-attributes="member: 22238">Unfortunately, I don't have the time to read this whole thread, so I'm just going to respond to the OP. Maybe somebody has already made the points that I'm about to make. Here goes...I think that previous editions of (A)D&D were not intended to be realistic. In a realistic game, there would be no magic, monsters, etc.What these games sought is verisimilitude. They were an attempt to allow the players to suspend disbelief so that they could enjoy the game. So I agree with you -  in part.That said, I disagree with some of your examples of "unrealism". Since the only edition that I know well is 1E AD&D, I'll use that as a basis to discuss your examples. Nitpick: 1066 is not after the Middle Ages. If crossbows did appear in Europe around that time (I'll take your word for it), they would not be anachronistic in a game that was actually trying to depict the Middle Ages. I agree. The inclusion of fantasy elements means that the game is not realistic.No one can take a sword through the brain pan and remain standing. But what part of the game rules tells you that someone being hit for, say, 12 points of damage, just took "a sword blade through the brain pan"?In AD&D 1E (and in later versions,too, I think), nothing tells you that your character took a wound to any particular area. That 12 hit points might be "a sword blade through the brain pan" if you had 2 hit points left before being hit. If you had 85, they are just a nick, or bruise, or maybe a slightly pulled muscle from having to get out of the way of the stroke.  The unrealism is in assuming that a hit for some amount of damage always represents a serious wound. It doesn't. There was at one time an excellent thread here on EN World giving real world examples of people who were hit many times and still continued to fight. Unfortunately, I don't have time to look for it.As for falling hundreds of feet, it would be phenomenally lucky to survive that without serious harm. But high level characters are lucky. That's part of what levels and hit points are supposed to represent. Maybe the fellow falling off the hundred-foot cliff hit some branches growing out of the cliffside on the way down, slowing his fall. Maybe he landed in a soft patch of deep mud. To assume that he landed on his head on pointy rocks and is more-or-less unhurt is begging the question. I would argue that the fact that he still has 20 hit points left (or whatever) after the fall tells us that he had a lucky fall. If the fall killed him, then perhaps he landed on his head on the pointy rocks. I don't claim that's realistic, though. Nitpick: It was actually introduced (as an optional rule, perhaps?) in 2nd edition. I guess that the called shots rule was a 2nd edition thing? Its not in 1E. Even so, a hit to the head does NOT inevitably mean death. It might only mean a cut cheek or a dented helmet.Yes, reminiscent of myth and folklore - and of fantasy literature, too. Elric survives such a fall in Stormbringer.Some of these are not examples of unrealism, but of abstraction. Granted, a real person does not move n inches or m squares, but what's the point of this observation? Are you saying that scaling things down to fit on the table top is unrealistic? What makes you assume that weapon combat is not a learned skill and that the characters never practice? If your logic is that "we never played that out", I can only answer that a lot of things in a PCs life are not played out, but happen nonetheless. You don't play out every meal or trip to the bathroom, do you? Rules for winds affecting projectiles are given in many places (1E examples: World of Greyhawk weather table, Wilderness Survival Guide). I'd guess that such rules also exist in later editions. How often do wound remain untreated in your games? In games that I have played or run, they are usually healed by magic (or psionics) in short order. Also, most "wounds" in AD&D are not real wounds, just painful bruises, scratches, and so on.I'm not one who is making such arguments, but your examples of "unrealism" strike me as deliberately interpreting the rules in the most unrealistic way possible. IMO, the best argument against realism in (A)D&D is that there are no magic, dragons, demi-humans, etc in the real world.</blockquote>

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