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Message: <blockquote data-quote="steenan" data-source="post: 4865537" data-attributes="member: 23240">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.</blockquote>

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