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<blockquote data-quote="Kraydak" data-source="post: 4738614" data-attributes="member: 12306">There are a few reasons to call for &quot;realism&quot;:a) Touchstones.&nbsp; If a game has &quot;humans&quot;, then they should act human.&nbsp; If a game has elves, they don't need to act like humans.&nbsp; Even then however, it helps to have humans that act human even if you want to focus on the elves, because it provides (part of) a framework, and it helps if elves are thriving, they don't act as if they have a racial death-wish.b) Taking (a) further: Player-game world interaction.&nbsp; Players are very disconnected from the game world, and experience it only from the DM's descriptions, which are never universal, often mispoken and frequently either mis or un-heard.&nbsp; Having the game-world function in a genre-limited-realistic manner (and having the players knowing the genre) is immensely valuable: if the players have no idea how the world will react to their actions, they will be reduced to pixel-hunting.c) Taking (b) further yet: Simulationism.&nbsp; A DM's time and descriptive capacity are both extremely limited.&nbsp; Two people can easily and legitimately disagree on how easy or likely a given situation is.&nbsp; It helps if the players can fill in the gaps and rules are provided that remove the 2-people 2-opinions problem.&nbsp; If crunch and fluff match, this is relatively easy.&nbsp; If they mismatch, it becomes hard or impossible.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Kraydak, post: 4738614, member: 12306"] There are a few reasons to call for "realism": a) Touchstones. If a game has "humans", then they should act human. If a game has elves, they don't need to act like humans. Even then however, it helps to have humans that act human even if you want to focus on the elves, because it provides (part of) a framework, and it helps if elves are thriving, they don't act as if they have a racial death-wish. b) Taking (a) further: Player-game world interaction. Players are very disconnected from the game world, and experience it only from the DM's descriptions, which are never universal, often mispoken and frequently either mis or un-heard. Having the game-world function in a genre-limited-realistic manner (and having the players knowing the genre) is immensely valuable: if the players have no idea how the world will react to their actions, they will be reduced to pixel-hunting. c) Taking (b) further yet: Simulationism. A DM's time and descriptive capacity are both extremely limited. Two people can easily and legitimately disagree on how easy or likely a given situation is. It helps if the players can fill in the gaps and rules are provided that remove the 2-people 2-opinions problem. If crunch and fluff match, this is relatively easy. If they mismatch, it becomes hard or impossible. [/QUOTE]

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