On the Value of "Realism"

[fanboy2000]

I was running a game where the party were in a Nevada/New Mexico like desert. They are going through a town. One of the players senses something Underground, beneath a building. The next player says, "Ooh! There must be a sinister reason for there being something underground; cellars are just not made in this sort of climate/environment!"

I just stared at the player, dumbfounded. I've always been around basements. I thought they were pretty universal. But apparently they're very regional. The player was making assumptions based on the Real World, which were wrong because I didn't know better.

I used to deal with this on a regular basis. One of my former players is a math major. Great guy. He loves to model things. Loves it. Often I'd say something, describe something, and then jump to a million little conclusions that would never, ever, have occurred to me. Ever.

The most egregious example came during a Science Fiction game. The premise was a prison brake. The PCs hired to brake some rebels out of a prison located on a planet surrounded with artificial defensive satellites. So far, so good. Well, between game sessions I was talking to him and he told me that he had been thinking about it and there were only two ways to achieve what I had described and the proceeded to tell me what they were. Now, he does a good job of explaining difficult concepts. He even makes it entertaining. But he made the whole thing a lot more complicated than it was. Really, all they had to do was exploit the malfunction of one satellite. Simple.

But he liked to do that sort of thing, so I usually went along with it. You know, "yep, that's what I meant" sort of thing. No need to ruin a player's fun if it's not impacting me. Every now and then I'd get grumpy and feel he was dictating my world to me, and I'd say nope, that's not how things work. It often surprised him, more so than it would me if the roles were reversed.

The kind of realism I have the most trouble with is social realism. I'd say no to most instances of any kind imposition of what people think society in my world should be like.

 

[Krensky]

By the book, unless the DM allows simultaneous actions, we can't shoot them when they have no cover as they cross the bridge! Say I'm one of the archers. My turn comes up, but there's no-one on the bridge to shoot (as it's my turn, it's not the turn of any of the enemy, so they're all safe under cover and not moving). So my action is to hold my shot until someone's on the bridge where I can see him...and a bad guy's turn then comes up and his move action is to cross the bridge. Well, if my held action puts my init. just ahead of his, he hasn't started moving yet and still has cover...and if it puts my init. just behind his, he's already across the bloody bridge and now has cover on the other side! For this to work, I have to be able to act simultaneously with his move; but the rules say I can't, and that is completely unrealistic.

You wanted to ready an action, not delay it, but I take your point as a generality.

And think of the tactical and swashbuckling options to be had if characters could plan to act simultaneously ...

Hey, some of us play d20 games that have that.

Another easy mechanical way to reflect reality is to put anything random on a bell curve (i.e. rolling more than one die in combination to resolve it) rather than a line (rolling one die), as that's how just about all random things in reality work - on a bell curve. It messes with the other math of the game - bonuses etc. have to be completely rethought - but it might be worth it. Hit point rolls are one obvious and easy thing to do this with...instead of rolling a d8, roll 2d4.

I've used the 3d6 variant in UA, and it doesn't really screw up the math regarding bonuses, other then making them slightly more important since the dice will have far less potential effect. It's kind of like taking ten on almost everything.

 

[steenan]

I, in general, don't care about realism in most RPGs. I do, however, care about consistency, and that means for me "being able to explain in-game why things happen the way they do". The fantasy world does not follow the laws of the real world and, in my opinion, it's not good to think it, even approximately, does (that is what brings the "I create black powder" argument and all its kin). It has its own laws, though, laws that allow dragons to fly and people to shoot fireballs from their hands. Existence of such laws is necessary to understand the fictional world in such a way that it allows making meaningful choices and tactical decisions. It also causes everything that happens in the game world to feel like natural consequences of previous events, not arbitrary GM fiat and railroading.

The laws of fantasy world don't, in general, have to be fully known from the beginning. Exploring mysterious aspects of world's cosmology, magic, physics and religion may be a central theme of a campaign or an interesting addition. They need, however, to exist. Even if the characters don't know why something happened the way it did, the should, at least potentially, be able to find out. That is, for me, one of the greatest advantages of Earthdawn over D&D: they have very similar mode of play (adventurers much more powerful than common people, magic that is usable only by few, quickly gaining power by adventuring, dungeons with monsters and treasure), but Earthdawn explains why it is so, while D&D just assumes it is.

Also, the laws of a fantastic world are not the same as mechanical rules and treating rules as "laws of physics" creates absurd situations. Rules may be, at most, an approximation - and a poor one, because otherwise they would be too complicated to use at a table. They may, also, be only a tool of resolving conflicts, with no pretense of simulating anything - and it isn't a worse solution. In both cases, though, the rules are not enough for players and GM to decide what can happen and what it may cause. That is why it is possible to have an immersive game with a very abstract system, while no mechanics, no matter how detailed, will save a system with an inconsistent and nonsensical world from being anything more than a boardgame.

 

[Reynard]

One thing that seems to be getting ignored here (Rechan touched on it a little bit) is the level of realism that all players are agreeing to (or "Plausibility" is my favored word for what you're talking about). Namely, basic tenets of realism aren't as important as everyone setting the baseline for it ahead of time. Simply, all the players say, "OK, are we setting physics at Gritty-low-miracular? Pulp Novel level miracular? Silver Age DC MIracular? What?" and then they ensure they are in sync.

I'd serparate "plausibility" from "real like" for purposes of this discussion. The latter is there is to give everyone a common baseline so that ideas communicated at the table are more easily understood, assessed and acted upon. The former is about the extropolation of the setting and its elements, "real like" or "fantastical". For example, if dragons fly because they have superheated gas in their "breath bladders" (certainly not a "real like" game element) it is "plausible" that gettinga dragon to breath a lot will hurt its ability to fly or managing to extract said bladder in one piece will allow some magineer to create a hot air balloon.

 

[Reynard]

That is why it is possible to have an immersive game with a very abstract system, while no mechanics, no matter how detailed, will save a system with an inconsistent and nonsensical world from being anything more than a boardgame.

What makes this possible, IMO, is that everyone at the table is speaking the same language and working off the same baseline. It doesn't have to be the real world, of course, but if it is, there's far less setup or education time necessary for everyone to reach that baseline.

 

[maddman75]

I find that the term realism has to take into account what the genre of the game is. I'm usually not too interested in the real world, but the world that I'm running a game in. If I'm running Buffy, then what is 'realistic' is what would happen in the TV show. M&M, what would happen in comic books or superhero movies. SPycraft? What would happen in a Bond movie. So on and so forth.

I also tend to be drama centered. If someone in full plate is soaking wet, I'm not going to go into detail, assuming he takes care of his armor off screen is fine for me. To be honest I'm probably not going to think of it that much. But if I can get some kind of conflict out of it, you betcha.

 

[Voadam]

Not quite the same but

I wonder if doctors have the same kind of "harder suspension of disbelief" problem when they look at someone who's gone to 0 or -9 hit points in D&D and healed back up to full in a few days or weeks' time? I suspect the proverbial devil is in the details - the more you know, the tougher it gets to call it "believeable physics."

My dad who is an emergency room doctor, runs his ER, and trains EMTs got really angry after watching a random five minutes of an episode of ER that was on TV when we were making dinner one night. EMTs were taking a patient out of an ambulence and transferring him to a hospital gurney. My dad turned to me and said "I'd fire an EMT who transferred a patient in a neck brace like that! On the spot. That would have paralyzed the guy! And the doc there didn't even notice! I can't believe this show. I can't watch this crap."

 

[Fifth Element]

By the book, unless the DM allows simultaneous actions, we can't shoot them when they have no cover as they cross the bridge! Say I'm one of the archers. My turn comes up, but there's no-one on the bridge to shoot (as it's my turn, it's not the turn of any of the enemy, so they're all safe under cover and not moving). So my action is to hold my shot until someone's on the bridge where I can see him...and a bad guy's turn then comes up and his move action is to cross the bridge. Well, if my held action puts my init. just ahead of his, he hasn't started moving yet and still has cover...and if it puts my init. just behind his, he's already across the bloody bridge and now has cover on the other side! For this to work, I have to be able to act simultaneously with his move; but the rules say I can't, and that is completely unrealistic.

My brain remembers reading somewhere that you're supposed to treat each 5 feet of movement as a separate 'action' for purposes of triggering a readied action (at least in 4E). Am I imagining that? That would solve the problem in the specific example above at least.