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

[Lyxen]

I don't do this as a means to make D&D simulationist, but I often do have a semi-cohesive structure to magic and science in my worlds. Look too close and it, of course, breaks down, but I'm only making sufficient explanations such that someone researching magic isn't as nonsensical as someone predicting whether a fair coin will read heads-or-tails.

There's many ways I've fit magical models into my games. From them being an extension of divine beings, with Arcane magic being their power converted into a more generalized form. To magic being within a different spacial dimension that gets projected onto our third dimension through oscillation.

I obviously don't write entire proofs or theses of the magical energies of every given universe, but knowing how magic works to a certain degree does help me with consistency.

That is quite different from trying to define the physics of the world based on real-world physics and incorporating magic. Yes, there are power sources, and how they relate together is important, in particular often in terms of story. Or to adjudicate what gods are, how they can (or cannot) be affected by mortal magic, how psionics (if you use them) relate to the rest, etc.

Of course, we also have these kind of elements, mostly from the history of our games. But they are mostly important at high levels, and players in these adventures have all the necessary time to understand how this works, usually as part of experimenting in game.

 

[Oofta]

That is quite different from trying to define the physics of the world based on real-world physics and incorporating magic. Yes, there are power sources, and how they relate together is important, in particular often in terms of story. Or to adjudicate what gods are, how they can (or cannot) be affected by mortal magic, how psionics (if you use them) relate to the rest, etc.

Of course, we also have these kind of elements, mostly from the history of our games. But they are mostly important at high levels, and players in these adventures have all the necessary time to understand how this works, usually as part of experimenting in game.

I assume that at a macro level, the world still works the same unless there is magic involved. Not sure how else you would run things, we need a frame of reference.

Of course a lot of things are magic in D&D land. Giants, dragons, fast healing and so on.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't think its ever been particularly realistic, old focus on some kinds of minutia notwithstanding.

What's more important is that I don't think it does a particularly authentic feeling in any incarnation in the sense of the simulationist usage Snarf uses in the first post. Because its trying to serve too many masters as it were.

 

[see]

I will, however, note that "in the old days" (that is, 1e), there was an explicit rule on p.19 of the PHB (third footnote on "Character Classes Table II: Armor and Weapons Permitted") that said:

"Characters under 5' height cannot employ the longbow or any weapon over 12' in length. Those under 100 pounds of body weight cannot use the heavy crossbow or pole arms in excess of 200 gold piece weight equivalent, including two-handed swords."

So even a halfling with a belt of storm giant strength in 1e couldn't use what in 5e would be called "heavy" weapons.

 

[Azzy]

I will, however, note that "in the old days" (that is, 1e), there was an explicit rule on p.19 of the PHB (third footnote on "Character Classes Table II: Armor and Weapons Permitted") that said:

"Characters under 5' height cannot employ the longbow or any weapon over 12' in length. Those under 100 pounds of body weight cannot use the heavy crossbow or pole arms in excess of 200 gold piece weight equivalent, including two-handed swords."

So oddly worded. The use of "including" seems to suggest (grammatically, at least) that two-handed swords are pole-arms.

 

[Smackpixi]

You weird wall of text people are silly. Not reading. D&D is not realistic, it’s not supposed to be realistic. It never was, and it was never intended to be. Period.

FFS, is a game. People often take it too seriously, and argue game minutia as if life or death were at stake, they are not. It’s a game, a game using dice and tables and other ideas to gameify make believe. It’s great, but it’s not real or a simulation of reality.

 

[Mordhau]

This debate puzzles me, hence my jokes earlier.

Surely there is simply no way to reasonably think about it except in regards to more or less realistic in respect to particular areas.

It's inherently comparative not binary. It's also inherently selective being more realistic in some areas and utterly indifferent to reality in others.

Sure D&D's not particularly realistic, but it's not an unrealistic as it could be either. It's rooted in all kinds of assumptions related to how the real world works, some of them intentional, some of them unexamined, and some of the based on Gygaxes assumptions from the 70s that have somehow become deeply ingrained (such as the existence of studded leather armour).

For example, the recurrent debates about what martials should be able to do tend to run into the issue that the game tends to assume that certain things such as unmagically assisted jump distances are broadly based on real world capabilities and not on say, the portrayal of lightness Kung Fu in Wuxia films.

 

[overgeeked]

All of which is fine, but are you going to be the one who sits down and writes this all up in detail* such that players can have a reasonable expectation of how everything works in the setting? Further, are you then going to expect-insist your players to not just read these books but to internalize and normalize them to the same extent they have for real-world physics? Yeah, didn't think so.

Yet without that, or using real-world physics as a stand-in, the players have no clue how physics in the setting differ from real-world physics for even the simplest of things; which if nothing else would act as a pretty large barrier to immersion as it becomes difficult if not impossible to form a coherent picture in one's mind of the PC and its surroundings.

* - I mean, you could write entire chapters on detailing how and why in-setting gravity allows falls that don't do much damage but doesn't allow a commoner to do moon-jumps and in which things still weigh what they do...or you could just fix falling damage to better reflect reality and have done with it.

What do you think falling damage should be?

I always thought it should be something like 1d10 for 10 feet, and doubled for every additional 10 feet. 20 = 2d10, 30 = 4d10, 40 = 8d10, etc. After 80-90 feet even higher level characters are all but guaranteed to die.

 

[Voadam]

What do you think falling damage should be?

I always thought it should be something like 1d10 for 10 feet, and doubled for every additional 10 feet. 20 = 2d10, 30 = 4d10, 40 = 8d10, etc. After 80-90 feet even higher level characters are all but guaranteed to die.

I house ruled falling to be 1d6 per 10 feet cumulative. So the first 10 feet is 1d6. The second 10 feet is 2d6 added to the first 10 feet 1d6 for 3d6 total. The third 10 feet falling would accelerate to add another 3d6 for 6d6 total. And so on. I did this partially because I am afraid of heights and find them really scary so I wanted my world to reflect that. I rarely used significant height falls in games so it was more a fun way to say scary things to me are scarier threats in my game.

I came up with that on my own, but I later read that Gygax had intended for falls to work like that, but that from poor drafting and editing it ended up published as just 1d6 lineally per 10 feet and so it stuck.

Serious distance falls where someone just dropped and took damage is not something I generally wanted happening even with my house rules, unlike getting hurt in combat which I wanted to regularly happen in my action genre preferred game styles. Serious falls to drop and take damage are generally verisimilitude breaking for me.

John Wick and Black Widow both had scenes of this that jarred me out of the action genre for the characters. Thor falling 200 feet and being stunned a bit is not verisimilitude breaking given his supernatural toughness. Hawkeye finding a way to not crash when falling (such as with trick arrows) is not verisimilitude breaking. Hawkeye just falling multiple stories onto concrete and being bruised and winded but otherwise OK is very jarring.

For D&D monks falling 100 feet with no damage because of their monk power is not verisimilitude breaking. Same for someone being safely caught by a feather fall spell. Someone dropping 40 feet and just taking a little damage (4d6 or 10d6 doesn't really matter) is more verisimilitude breaking for me. So as a DM I try and avoid that as a likely situation. Most pits I use are 10-20 feet deep to force a situation of the PC trying to figure out how to get out of a pit, not deep enough ones where the main point would be how much damage they take with a calculation of pit depth compared to expected PC hps.

 

[Lanefan]

So oddly worded. The use of "including" seems to suggest (grammatically, at least) that two-handed swords are pole-arms.

For a Hobbit, a 2-handed sword is a pole-arm.