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

[MichaelSomething]

So...is there some third path out of this dilemma?

Go play Pathfinder 2nd Edition? I never hear people say that game has disassociated mechanics!

 

[Mordhau]

That is, if we generalize it out from "choices my character makes/information my character personally has" and into "things that relate to choices my character makes/information my character personally has," then almost all mechanics are fundamentally "dissociated" in D&D, because they arise from character creation and advancement, which are both (by the author's own words) "dissociated." That seems a logical dead-end. But if we do not do this thing, then it seems that HP are neither "associated" nor "dissociated," because they have nothing to do with the choices made or actions taken.

So...is there some third path out of this dilemma?

Not getting this or why you think it matters.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Not getting this or why you think it matters.

If we perform the generalization you seem to be asking for, then "dissociated" mechanics applies to essentially everything in D&D--that is, there are near zero "associated" mechanics--because, by the original article's own admission, character creation is inherently "dissociated," and essentialy all other (mechanics-related) choices draw, to some extent, on the character so created. If we don't perform that generalization (whether because I have misunderstood you so it wasn't relevant to begin with, or because you agree with the foregoing), then I don't understand how or why HP are relevant to the "dissociation" because you don't make choices about HP in the first place, and thus they cannot be relevant to either "association" or "dissociation."

If the former, it would seem "dissociated" mechanics is conceptually useless from the get-go, since it applies to almost everything. If the latter, then I don't see the relevance of mentioning HP at all, because they cannot be "associated" nor "dissociated" because you don't actually make choices regarding HP.

(For the record, I do think one should make the above generalization, mostly because the original article kinda-sorta implies one should but never explicitly says so. But if you do, it reveals a host of issues...which is what I've been arguing.)

 

[Mordhau]

I don't see why character creation is relevant. I don't see how character creation can be dissociated or associatd because there isn't even a character yet.

Nor do I see why whether one decision about character creation or advancement whether associated or not necessarily affects whether later mechanics are associated or not.

I also don't know what the generalisation is that I'm supposed to be asking for?

 

[pemerton]

I don't see a whole lot of corn being grown on the lawn of the White House, but that doesn't mean that Washington, D.C., is unrealistic or that there's no food around or that if you go there you should primarily meet farmers fresh from the fields or craftsmen.

Washington DC is at the centre of one of the most powerful hubs of production ever to exist in the history of the world. It is impossible to move through today's world without encountering evidence of US production (eg the computer I'm typing on right now is running software written in and sold from the US).

The world of Middle Earth, as presented by JRRT in The Hobbit and the LotR, has very little in common with the US, or even with 12th-13th century China. It is not a productive hub. The northwest is sparsely settled. We see no signs of industry. Just tropes - the folk of the Shire, the red-faced innkeeper in Bree, etc.

You're presuming the descriptions must be complete and comprehensive, and I don't see why that might be the case at all. The economics aren't relevant to the story so they wouldn't be featured beyond what is immediately visible. "You didn't include what isn't relevant so therefore it's unrealistic," is just not a justifiable line of reasoning.

I'm not assuming anything. I'm reading the books, including what they describe, and noting that it is unrealistic.

Who made all the crockery in Bag End, described in the opening chapter of the Hobbit? Where are all the fine cheeses coming from? The waistcoats and pocket handkerchiefs? The description is fitting for a 19th century English gentleman, similar in some ways to Toad of Toad Hall. But the wealth of 19th century English gentlemen wasn't produced out of isolated villages of dozens of people with no industry, no mining, no importing and exporting, etc.

Rivendell is the seat of power for elves in the region, right?

<snip>

Even the map of middle earth is questionable, frankly. It is, after all, generally understood to be the map that Bilbo and Frodo made for their autobiographical accounts. Frodo in particular was interested in avoiding settlements, especially after the near miss at Bree. Do you think all these regions have names, but nobody lives there because there are no cities on the map? Or is it more believable that they just wouldn't be included because they weren't relevant. That's how stories about real events are told, isn't it?

I take JRRT's account - in his stories, his appendices, his maps - to be more authoritative than yours. The story of how the northwest became ruin and desolate is told in Appendix A.

 

[pemerton]

Is that treatment realistic enough to allow you-the-reader to easily believe the various peoples in the setting can exist as they do and can have done so for long enough to establish the history as presented in the novels? To wit, could the Hobbits have believably lived in the Shire for the hundreds of years it seems they have? Sure. Could the Elves have believably lived in Rivendell for lo these many centuries? Sure, and remember they control some forest lands around that valley and could be sourcing food from there. And so on.

If yes to the italicized question, then job done.

The answer to the italicised, as far as Middle Earth is concerned, is a clear "no". The Hobbits live like they're at the centre of world production (ie 19th century England) when, in the fiction, they are a tiny and isolated people. We have readily available real-world evidence of what the material conditions of life are for small villages on the periphery of the world economy, both historical and contemporary. The Shire is not consistent with it.

 

[pemerton]

Thing is, in the novels we only get decsriptions of those bits of the setting the protagonists encounter.

Even so, the Shire lands (and those around) are shown as fertile enough to feed whoever lives there and have some left over for export...and we do know the Hobbits export pipeweed. We don't see the smithies and the breweries and the tailors etc. because they're not met in the story, but we do see the weapons and ales and clothes they produce - they have to come from somewhere and are left to reasonably assume those more industrial elements are present, if unseen. We also know there's more to Bree than just the Prancing Pony thus some of those industrial producers could easily be there or somewhere nearby.

You don't make your world realistice simply by asserting that it is so.

I mean, I could write a fiction about Fiji in which every Fijian villager, at the time of their colonisation, had a carriage and a watch which they had bought by exporting surplus crops. But no one would believe it.

The fiction doesn't become more realistic by giving the peasants funny pseudo-English names and describing them as wearing waistcoats and eating English cheeses. How are the hobbits generating the relevant surpluses? Who is producing all the product they import?

Those are rhetorical questions, by the way. They have no answer. JRRT didn't write answers to them; I'm not even sure he asked them. They are not remotely germane to the nature or the goals of his books.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yes, because cheese and waistcoats definitely could have only existed with the full industrial might of the British Empire...

What I've been wondering where Bilbo's mantelpiece clock came from as that seems to be completely out of place given the tech level of the setting, but it also a single item that could have curious history (a gift to some Baggins ancestor from a genius dwarven artisan) and IIRC is only referred to in the Hobbit which is overall written more in less serious style.

In any case, when I said that fantasy should try to be consistent, I definitively didn't mean this sort of nitpicking about things that are vaguely descripted in the work in the first place.

 

[pemerton]

Here's the link between "dissociated" mechanics and JRRT's economics:

If you think that there is a realistic explanation for the economics of The Shire and Bree and Rivendell and Lorien, sitting just outside the page; then there is an explanation for why the Battlemaster can't Trip anyone at the moment - again it's sitting just outside the page, waiting for you to work out what it is!

 

[Micah Sweet]

So..."dissociation" is just a different term for "immersion-breaking." What's the point of it, if it's literally just synonymous with that?

Association and disassociate in regards to mechanics can be measured on a spectrum (regardless of how you feel about either). Whether or not something breaks your immersion is entirely subjective.