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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kengar" data-source="post: 242938" data-attributes="member: 3230">Realism in FRPGTo me, "Realism" in gaming means more an internal consistency within the setting than whether monsters and magic exist. Sometimes, designing a setting can be like playing chess against yourself. You have to look at each culture individually and determine a rational structure. Even cliched cultures can be realistic in this way.For example, let's say you have two main races: elves and orcs. They hate each other because of a long bloody history of fighting for territory and control of the open plains where the elves try to grow food and the orcs hunt. This is why they have contact with one another at all.The elves have lived in their graceful cities for hundreds of centuries. They have brilliant scholars, powerful magics and mighty warriors. So why haven't they gotten rid of those pesky orcs who are barely savages? Something must be stopping them. What is it? Maybe it's sheer numbers. The elves are few in number. They breed seldom because of their long lifespans and the orcs multiply like maggots. If the orcs hate elves so much and there are so many of them, why haven't they won? Perhaps they are disorganized (tribal bands) and they lack the powerful magic of the elves. Thus a balance is struck and an impasse reached. The elves lack the bloodlust and the numbers to press an attack against the roving bands of orcs. The orcs are neither united nor do their shamans' spirit magic compare to the sorcery of the elven battle mages.</blockquote>

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