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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 1522689" data-attributes="member: 5171">Actually, in an arguthread not too long ago, I tried to make the point that realism is not the opposite of simplicity.  Realism is the opposite of cinematism, and granularity is the opposite of simplicity.  (And when I say "tried to make the point", I mean "hypothesized", not "made the point but people were too foolish to understand me".)You can make a very realistic system that uses a 1d6 roll, plus your bonuses in something, to determine what happens.  It's realistic -- it's just not very precise, not very granular, and while the result of a guy with X years of training trying to do Y might statistically map very well to the real-life odds (making it realistic), it's not going to have the nitty-gritty detail many gamers want.  D&D is by nature cinematic because people get more hit points -- it can be argued that it's abstract, and I often do argue just that, but really, at high levels, D&D people are just good at not getting seriously hurt by that sword, and in reality, people don't generally get that good.  It's meant to be a model of a fun-swordfights fantasy movie, which by nature makes it cinematic.I think that in many ways, D&D is trying to be both granular and cinematic -- and while the two aren't mutually exclusive, they are more difficult.  It's hard to come up with viable rules for exactly how falling should work when people can toss fireballs around all the time without trouble.  If your world works in the magical "No square-cube problem" way, then different weapon sizes might not work or matter -- a giant's dagger can be a human's longsword or a halfling's greatsword, but if your world works in a more realistic way, in which dragons fly only because of magic and giants have to be insanely tough and strong in order not to collapse under their own weight, then, just as a human would have trouble using a six-foot pocketknife in a fight, a halfling shouldn't be able to use a dagger.  The line between where it's nitpicking and where it's worth it is a fine one, and it varies by campaign.</blockquote>

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