D&D 5E Realism and Simulationism in 5e: Is D&D Supposed to be Realistic?

[pemerton]

Uhm. Not sure I agree if you're running a game with a strong merchanter bent.

Even then, I think you can mostly get by with the tables, can't you?

By calculating from ship mortgages and the cost of membership in the TAS, one can calculate that the interest rate in Classic Traveller is around 5%. But does anyone, even someone playing a merchant-oriented game, really worry about fluctuations in interest rates, planet-wide or sector-wide depressions, etc? Does anyone try and correlate those phenomena with the number of willing low-jump passengers (who, given the risk of death, in most cases must surely by leaving their current world in pursuit of economically better circumstances)?

I've never heard of it.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yes we did, and my assessment was not based on familiarity. I've played more 4e than 5e. I didn't bother to argue with you further, as historically that has not been particularly good use of my time. Nor I have great desire to participate in some proxy edition wars which this seems to have become.

Shame, as the original topic of the thread was rather interesting.

Odd. I never mentioned 4e. I don't see how I could be engaging in edition warring when I never once mentioned a different edition. I was solely focused on the mechanics that exist all in 5e.

 

[pemerton]

I agree. Middle Earth's purpose was not even to portray realistic societies. None of it was even meant to be a single world. That came later in the process. Its purpose was originally a vehicle for Tolkien's love of (constructed) languages and myths combined with a fanciful story for his kids that turned into a bigger project.

I would add: JRRT took the idea of "fairy story" seriously. A fairy story imposes its own demands, but who built the mysterious castle that Sir Gawaine encounters after riding for weeks through the wilds of the enchanted forest, and where does their food and silk come from are not among them!

How do you have any clue what is being produced where?

Rivendell doesn't have factories. No production is taking place between Bree and Rivendell, given it's all wilderness populated only by trolls, wolves, Nazgul and rangers.

We don't know the population of Rivendell, but it's not a large city and many estimates put it at a few hundred at most, a quick google search marks it at 100 or fewer. As far as we know elves crap silver* and import all of their goods.

*More seriously, craft highly sought after goods that are worth a small fortune to outside traders or any other number of ways of sustaining themselves.

Using what raw materials? They don't mine it themselves. And trading with whom? The journey from Bree to Rivendell is an arduous one. Boromir seems to be the first arrival there from Gondor in generations. Tharbad is ruins.

It's also not hard to believe that elves have some magic that help sustain them.

Perhaps. This doesn't show the economy, economic geography etc to be realistic, though!

As far as the hobbits, they're small agrarian towns similar to those that have always existed about a day apart.

But with the material wellbeing not of Meru farmers of 100 years ago, but of British villagers in the 19th century. Where is all the stuff coming from? It's not realistic - it's imagination! A fairy story.

 

[Oofta]

Yes, but blowing off how other people see it does the discussion no good. "It doesn't bother me" isn't an answer to much of anything.

So I'm not allowed to state that I disagree?

I've tried explaining what I do, why I do it and why I think it works, or at least works for us. I get nowhere so why bother.

On the other hand I'm going to apologize for stating my opinion.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Well, yes. That's the whole point: where there's an equal choice, go with the associated mechanic every time.

Why? There's a claim that this aligns with what the character experiences, but I don't find that this actually follows -- there's always some bridge that must be created and some bias introduced to associated mechanics that reinforce only one or a narrow selection of appropriate expected outcomes with the character. A mechanic that instead offers you a chance to inhabit your character in a way you want to, to describe a situation that you think does the job, is also good for roleplaying. The idea that associated mechanics are better for roleplaying is one I find to be myopic and extremely narrow.

Obviously, and again that's the point: don't use dissociated mechanics unless you have to, in full knowledge that those "have to" times are going to arise.

I find having mechanics be "dissociated" means I have even more say about what my character does and thinks and feels and tries than ones that require me to perform within the narrow input parameters and generate only narrow output parameters for roleplaying. I fully get that some people prefer the tightness because it enables them to feel like their character, but ultimately all mechanics are dissociated. We aren't our character, the world is make believe, and we're playing a game.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Odd. I never mentioned 4e. I don't see how I could be engaging in edition warring when I never once mentioned a different edition. I was solely focused on the mechanics that exist all in 5e.

It's not just you. And your "look, 5e has disassociated mechanics too!" thing certainly seems like a proxy edition war, after the another poster complaining how it was a concept created to dismiss 4e.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It's not just you. And your "look, 5e has disassociated mechanics too!" thing certainly seems like a proxy edition war, after the another poster complaining how it was a concept created to dismiss 4e.

Only if you consider dissociated mechanics solely useful in describing a different edition. There's a reason I asked for your definition before starting that discussion. And blaming me for what other posters said while you're attempting to dismiss me for those things? Please don't.

 

[Lanefan]

Rivendell doesn't have factories.

That we are told of. Doesn't mean they don't exist, though "factories" in this case would mean small smithies and woodworking outfits.

No production is taking place between Bree and Rivendell, given it's all wilderness populated only by trolls, wolves, Nazgul and rangers.

Using what raw materials? They don't mine it themselves. And trading with whom? The journey from Bree to Rivendell is an arduous one.

Look east rather than west. Only recently (in The Hobbit time) has Mirkwood become impassable; before that, trade could and probably did come and go from Rivendell to the east, perhaps brokered by the Wood Elves in (now known as) Mirkwood.

But with the material wellbeing not of Meru farmers of 100 years ago, but of British villagers in the 19th century. Where is all the stuff coming from? It's not realistic - it's imagination! A fairy story.

There's little if anything shown in the Shire that the Hobbits couldn't have made themselves, given how long they've been established there. And it's not like they're completely cut off; if nothing else they've been sending pipeweed south for ages and one assumes getting something in return for it.

One has to keep in mind that the Middle Earth we see in Hobbit/LotR is in fairly steep decline and well on its way to falling apart. Things weren't always this bad, and the magnificent 1420 summer is portrayed as a jumpstart toward a return to what was once normality.

 

[Lanefan]

Why? There's a claim that this aligns with what the character experiences, but I don't find that this actually follows -- there's always some bridge that must be created and some bias introduced to associated mechanics that reinforce only one or a narrow selection of appropriate expected outcomes with the character. A mechanic that instead offers you a chance to inhabit your character in a way you want to, to describe a situation that you think does the job, is also good for roleplaying. The idea that associated mechanics are better for roleplaying is one I find to be myopic and extremely narrow.

I find having mechanics be "dissociated" means I have even more say about what my character does and thinks and feels and tries than ones that require me to perform within the narrow input parameters and generate only narrow output parameters for roleplaying. I fully get that some people prefer the tightness because it enables them to feel like their character, but ultimately all mechanics are dissociated.

You're conflating abstraction with dissociation.

All mechanics are abstractions, yes. It's their raison d'etre. But not all mechanics are dissociated and many more are not nearly dissociated enough to cause an issue because those mechanics are reflecting something that can easily be explained in the fiction.

Example: attacking a foe with a weapon. Unless we're in full-blown LARP mode, we need abstracted mechanics to reflect the uncertainty of a) whether that attack will connect and b) if it does, how much effect does it have. Dissociated? Not really - the mechanics reflect what's happening in the fiction fairly closely.

However, if a meta-currency allows a player to arbitrarily change the result generated by those mechanics (e.g. "I'll use my miss-becomes-a-hit token") then it's dissociated all over the place; which is one reason why I really dislike those sort of meta-currency elements.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Even then, I think you can mostly get by with the tables, can't you?

By calculating from ship mortgages and the cost of membership in the TAS, one can calculate that the interest rate in Classic Traveller is around 5%. But does anyone, even someone playing a merchant-oriented game, really worry about fluctuations in interest rates, planet-wide or sector-wide depressions, etc? Does anyone try and correlate those phenomena with the number of willing low-jump passengers (who, given the risk of death, in most cases must surely by leaving their current world in pursuit of economically better circumstances)?

I've never heard of it.

I certainly had people research trade circles, and try to keep track on demand. And after a while of doing that, if anyone involved knows anything about economics (as one of mine did) the lack of some things making sense (such as the fact Free Traders really didn't) starts to jump out.