How much does reality matter in your games?

[reanjr]

If a player knows enough about a topic that the in-game presentation of such ruins suspension of disbelief, then reality is a concern. If you are a sailor and the DM says that the wind is going against the direction you are headed, stopping you dead in the water, the obvious reply would be to begin tacking. If the rules do not support such a situation, then there is a serious problem.

This is just the first example that popped into my head, but it illustrates what I am trying to get across. If none of the players knew anything about sailing or the physics involved in a unidirectional force against an object in a medium then the call that the ship comes to a stop might seem reasonable. If, on the other hand, the players understand tacking, then they could would be mighty peeved that such a simple idea is shot down because the rules say so.

Unfortunately, I game in a very diversely educated group (I am the weapons and armor and medieval historian and physics guy, we have a sailor, a martial arts guru, and one guy who knows the absolute stupidest things that no one else knows). So we have to add realism in lots of places.

Damn history channel, ruining our fun with facts.

 

[mythusmage]

A consistent foundation is what I'm looking for. It may not be a realistic foundation, but as long as it's consistent I can live with a bit of unreality.

However, when a world deals with the mundane, with matters that can be researched and verified, then I'll go with making it as 'real' as I can.

Such as the fact Spanish galleons couldn't tack. Didn't have the rigging for it, or the crew. Before tacking became possible ships had to wear away. Turn away from the wind. In effect they had to make a nearly 360 degree turn in order to change course a few degrees.

And other things, like sailing ships moving faster with the wind coming from the side, instead of from directly behind. Or that larger sailing ships have a faster top speed than smaller ones.

Then you have heeling and other fun things.

"We're gonna capsize!"

"Nah, the ship's just heeling."

 

[mythusmage]

This question is spawned by some thoughts and observations I've had about pirate games, but I suppose it applies to all subjects.

I've seen a number of posts from DMs who want to run pirate games, but have trouble coming up with adventure ideas. It occurred to me that perhaps this is because many folks just don't understand the underlying politics and economics of piracy, or how to translate it into interesting game material.

Similarly, I've grown extremely frustrated with the wealth of books providing ridiculously inaccurate descriptions of sailing ships and their characteristics.

Both of these happen to be topics I have fairly extensive professional knowledge of, and I thought, "I should set the record straight and write a couple game articles or even a book."

When can we expect them? Give your company some nautical name, and use a motto like, "Salt Sea Resources for Discerning GMs" or something like that. I expect a fair number of people would use them.

In my experience it's a boring GM that makes for a boring game.

"The pale red waves are flattening out. The ship's yellow wake soon becomes the only sign that anything is moving under the deep orange sky. What are you doing?"

"Wait a minute. Isn't the sky blue?!

"Not any more."

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Realism matters up to a point.

I don't like putting anything in my campaign that I can't explain better than "It's magic!" or "it just does".

Damn straight!

That's almost exactly what we have in the Kingdoms of Kalamar writer's design guidelines - everything must make sense. You can't just use "it's magic" to explain away something that doesn't make sense.

A campaign setting that's grounded in reality is stronger and holds together better than something that's just thrown together. It feels more like a "real world."

 

[The Shaman]

I aply realistic treatments of elements such as physics, ecology, culture, and so on to my campaign-worlds - as others have noted, it provides a touchstone of familiarity for the players and adds depth and verisimilitude. I also find that when the mundane things work relatively seamlessly, the fantastical elements are that much more more magical and interesting - if everything is strange and unusual, than nothing is.

The amount of effort I enlist in getting the details right is also somewhat genre dependent. I spend a lot of time on ecology, geography, and culture for my HB game-worlds, as I find these elements are what tend to bring a world to life in the minds of the players - the way in which these elements interact creates much of the tension that I turn into story-arcs, so I find this level of detail makes encounter development much easier.

For modern settings I focus on the kinds of details that place the characters in a particular time and environment - for example, for a d20 Modern adventure, the characters are on a ferry and a television is playing in the passenger cabin, so I created snippets of fake news that the characters hear in the background: traffic on the Viaduct, the score in the Sonics game, and so on. The ferry is one that is in actual service between the locations, the characters are given directions that are real streets, and the house they were sent to visit came from a real-estate listing on San Juan Island. The goal in this case is to give the players a "you are there!" experience through their characters, to capture the immediacy of the moment.

For a historical game I'm working on, I'm doing copius research on the places and events of the period. That said, I don't feel straigh-jacketed to recreate the historical events - rather, they provide a means of understanding the time and place so that my adventures and campaign will have a convincing feel. I rather liken this to writing historical fiction.

One thing that I haven't heard mentioned so far is that, for me as the GM, this is FUN! I enjoy the time I spend reading and writing, prowling used book stores and searching the Internet, striving to give my campaigns and settings an air of authenticity without making them into travelogs or history reports. This is one reason I rarely find myself drawn to published campaign settings - it really sucks a lot of the enjoyment out of the creative process for me. Being able to create a believable illusion for my players is probably my favorite part of role-playing, so working out the "realistic" details of the game world is a labor of love.

That said, while I enjoy adding verisimilitude to my settings, I'm really not overly worried about realistic game mechanics - in my experience, rules that strive to create detailed simulations of real-world activities tend to be dry as dust. I prefer that resolving the use of skills should be quick and easy, even if it lacks precision and accuracy compared to other simulations.

 

[WayneLigon]

I use as much reality as the genre, player mix, setting, and theme/tone of the campaign needs. Years and years ago I used to try and use a great deal more. I'd research castles and armor types, swords and other weapons, midieval economics and the like. Then I realized two things. (1) I was breaking Monte Cook's cardinal rule: never design more than you need (or something like that) and (2) All sources are tainted and contradictory; no two people can agree on anything. I could find a perfectly good book on, say, swords. Then the next thing I'd read would say 'all that was crap; this is how it really was'. Then the next and the next books would say the same thing OR they'd obivously all borrowed from each other and it was just a complete parroting of what everyone else said. So I stopped bothering. Heck, you can't get two people to agree on a proper Latin translation of anything. If I need to find something now, I'll look at a GURPS Sourcebook or some other simpler compiled work.

I'll use reality, physics, etc if it furthers the plot or provides for an exciting challenge or makes for a good scene. Otherwise, I don't bother much as long as the game is internally consistant.

 

[pogre]

I would say I am much more of a gamist than a simulationists these days. "Realism" used to matter a lot to me, but not so much these days. I look for playability first, but will use history to enrich my game.