So, what breaks your suspension of disbelief?

[Mallus]

Any break in internal consistency within the framework of the setting does it for me as well.

What if external references are internally consistent for the given setting?

And it might help to clearly define 'internal consistency'. Most games I've seen trade heavily in the modelling of various filmic/literary genres. They're externally consistent. By design. What we seem to be talking about is a species of genre fidelity. No Ash in a Conan movie, etc.

But isn't D&D is typically played in a weird amalgam of Conanesque pulp and Tolkienesque romance? Which seem pretty imimicable to me. And yet its the norm.

So what are we talking about when we talk about internal consistency?

 

[Derren]

Any break in internal consistency

I agree. I really hate it when the game gets unlogical. Not unlogical like "people can throw balls of fire" but unlogical like "The world/society behaves as if people can not throw fireballs".

Something which often comes up is raising the dead. When you can bring people back to life then the world should also behave as if this is possible.

 

[Mallus]

The Names

Here's an (incomplete) version of my campaigns Dramatis Personae. I'm curious what you all will make of the names. Not all silly, not all serious. I think they go a long way towards setting the tone of the game.


The Tenor: A homeless, alcoholic Giant (former soldier) with a lovely singing voice.
Riktiktavi, aka "Little Buddy": The Tenor's Hannu monk companion. His name means "hostile to snakes".

Delphine Laxshmi St. Sous: Heiress to a large shipping fortune in Narayan and kidnap victim.
Pavur-Pierre Arjuna S. Sous: Her father. A Magnate of Narayan, owner of Blue Star Lines.
Joachim Driftwood: Delphine's fiance. An orphan priest of Kruetzel and chef at the Palm d'Whorl at the Narayan Arms Hotel.

Edouard Revi: Captain of the naval patrol ship Windsprint, believed to be the current location of Joachim, after running afoul of a press-gang.

Mop Mop Bow: tea-shop owner and alchemist. Properietor of The Kingdom of Peacable Teas.
King Daikon: street shaman and greengrocer. Now unoffical protector of the Little Ajakhan neighborhood.

<Lt. Capt. Savur Philippe:> head of the Fort Ormond Assymetric Recruitment Squad. Deceased

<Lt. Lucky:> Philippe's right hand man. Deceased.

Sanjuro "Saville" Roeh: Amoral alchemist in Little Ajakhan. The Room Rouge Players were steady customers.

Watchful Ox: Saville's hulking Ruhk-Kaza bodyguard.

Han Oi Xian: A half-Imperial Priest of the Shu (Shugenja) and (former) part-time Yakuza boss. Strives to return his dead mothers soul to a living body.

<Aribella Sans Merci:> Xian's mother. Mostly dead. Her soul resides in her favorite jade necklace.

Broken Chain: Slack-faced, idiot-savant spiked chain fighter. Xian's bodygaurd.
Cloud Ghost:> Deceased hobgoblin monk with funny hat. Master of the Soft Thunder Strike.

Blub-blub: A sea-devil priest.
Blib-blub: His apprentice.

<Master Yu:> Now-deceased head of the Cobra-in-Repose Dojo.
Wok-Top: former soldier and now resturant owner.

(The Room Rouge Players)
<Jacque the Knive, Esq.:> deceased.
<Short Paul, Esq.:> deceased.
<Mark un Mark, Esq.:> deceased.
<Boneaparte, Esq.:> deceased.

(The Staff at Urbane Outfitters)
Margeaux Devareaux: A specialist in magical item sales/acquistions.
Sandrine: A shop girl.
Zeus: A weapons-master.

(Faculty at the University of Narayan)
Dr. Mephisophocles: professor of Ineffable Inquiry and Un-Nautral Philosophy. Has a familiar named Doubting Thomas.
Gaspard Obeserai Illigitimo: professor of archeology. Expert on the lost city of Ur-Imbra in the Lassantess Wastes.

(Various Mages)
Riven Sugarglass: master alchemist in Eris. Said to have worked on the Philosopher's Algorithm, and to own a copy of the Calculatus Homonculatus.
Shalazar: head of the so-called New School at the Acadeum Gaeta in Gallina. Pioneer of new uses for Gate Magic.
Ramadeo Ben Donovan: a young student at the Acadeum Gaeta, rumored to have Shalazar's ear.
Nadir Medhi: Shirac mind-witch trained at the Miir Valley School. Has witch-hawk familiar. Rumored to have drunk from the Goblet of Ire.

Sul Sark: a Ruhk-Kaza mercenary with magical powers. Often found at The Chapel of Love in Narayan.
Kadijah Thoris (of the Helios Flower Clan of the Great Ummab of the Shirac): A dealer in magics at the Grand Bizarre in Marimbra.
Arabia Wainwright: A bestselling romance-novelist.

 

[Someone]

So what are we talking about when we talk about internal consistency?

They are a set of rules that describe the world and define what´s and what´s not possible. Of course, since the world is imagined, that set of rules is arbitrary. The problem comes often when different people have slightly different ideas of them, or when situations possible with another set of rules (formations of infantry in close proximity, ways to behave when someone dies) logically conflict with new rules (Existence of destructive magic, Raise Dead)

 

[Sejs]

Silly names and blatant metagaming are on my list, as well as one that cropped up just recently: supercompetance and/or ridiculous levels of development by NPCs. Allow me to explain -

FR campaign, we're pretty much the head honchos of this small (and I do mean small... talkin' 2 towns total) island kingdomlet in the Sea of Fallen Stars. On this island there's a mountain full o' diamond deposits, so we're small, but we're wealthy. Export deals with Sembia and Cormyr, and a small Thayvian enclave who're interested in our product for spell components. All well and good. We're away from home for about 3, 3 and a half weeks in Sembia doing the whole trade renegotiation thing, and upon returning we find out that we have a Problem. Capital-letter 'p' grade of problem to the tune of .. well, he's something. A vampire who may or may not be psionic, and has a crew of brainwashed scallywags.

Enter, the Vampirate. We're trying to deal with this guy, who has since gone to ground in our port town. Which is to say, the only town we have that isn't the nations capitol. We do the natural thing and set about trying to Deal With The Situation using the only method we know how; blundering interaction, blind luck, and violence.

Now herein lies my problem - Dread Captain Mindfang here has had at most less than a month in which to entrench himself in our quiet beach community. In that time he and his minions have carved themselves an extensive underground lair, tunneling thru the bedrock and connecting a large number of warehouse sub-levels, then filling it all with traps and stashing their booty there.

And we know there wasn't anything like that before we left, because we friggin' built that town in the first place. When we left for Sembia there was no Batcave under the shipping district. Not to mention the fact that they did all this significant construction without anyone in the town catching a single whif that something might be up.

In three weeks.

There's more, but you get the gist. That sorta thing breaks my suspension of disbelief like dry twigs over a lumberjack's knee. It's one thing to have set up shop incognito somewhere, it's another entirely to have dug the great dungeon of Underwarehouse in our own home without us catching wise.

 

[Turanil]

So, what´s your limit?

A typical D&D party.

I mean: the one that includes a halfling paladin-blackguard wearing a trenchcoat and a katana, a half-dragon ninja-druid, and the ubiquitous medieval technomancer gnome in dungeonpunk garb.

 

[radferth]

I'm gonna have to jump on the internal consistancy bandwagon. I can deal with any weird set of factors as long as they are always the case. When the DM fiats that something is different than it ever was before, and then it goes back to normal later, that hurts SOD. Ditto bad guys doing stupid stuff for no reason.

 

[Someone]

Now that I think on it, dungeons also irk me a lot. Not things like why the bloody hell would anyone spend millions of man-hours tunneling through solid rock 10-feet wide corridors that frequently lead nowhere, all of them parallel or perpendicular with each other, or how can the medusa in room #6 coexist with the duergar on room #7. Or why do they protect invaluable secrets and treasures with a riddle. A riddle. Would you protect your bank account with a riddle, or do you use a password only you know? With the years and hard training, I´ve learned to doublethink them out of my mind.

I talk about things like water. You know, you pick a module with a dungeon full of goblins. You read the module, examine the map and realize there´s no water source. Not even a drop of it. And the nearest river is miles away. Why did the goblins chose that particular place to live, far away from the most basic of daily needs, and having to deal with the duergar in room #7 and the medusa living in room #6?

That kind of things.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Characters in a setting other than modern Earth with modern Earth social mores. Heck, they bug the heck out of me ON modern Earth, much less in a fantasy/sci-fi world.

On a related note, settings where adventuring is a major activity and much-needed, but the ruling aristocracy is NOT comprised of extremely competent adventurers. Aristocracies essentially *always* start because the ruling class was made of up the best warriors, the most cunning strategists and the most charismatic leaders. Once ensconsed, these adventurers have wealth (for magic items) and both a vested interest in and the resources to get lots of XP for their children. In a 25 point buy world, the rulers should be 32 points. In an ECL 2 average world, the rulers should be ECL 10.

On a different note related to the first point, D&D alignment. Especially detectable alignment. Especially on mortals.

Characters who refer to themselves by their class names. "I'm a Rogue." "I'm a veteran watchman (read: fighter 2/rogue 1/swashbuckler 3) and you're under arrest. Moron."

Settings loaded to the gills with magic items, spellcasters and magic-using monsters, where all this magic works (fairly) reliably... and no one puts it to practical use. Double points if the average person freaks out when he sees a relatively normal creature like a griffon.

 

[Agent Oracle]

Bad GMing allways ruins my suspention of disbelief.

My Evil GM made a world where all time was STOPPED, so we never got tired, we didn't have to eat drink, or what have you. Now, this would have been forgiveable if we could have, you know... encountered unique time-stop sensitive encounters, but Instead all we got was perpetual, nonmoving fields of grain and lots of random encounters being thrown at us, often of the same NPC's over and over with new templates attached. Also, he tended to change the background story of the BBEG whenever it suited him.

My incompitent DM set up a world that was a direct violation of the laws of causality. A plague in the future, killed 99% of the population and destroyed all technology (???) leaving everyone in the feudal ages. Yeah, it made a lot of sense to me too. Oh, and he had us lay siege to a castle with a +12 ballistae at level 3.

My roleplayer DM had NPC's with more richly detailed lives than we as PC's had. Not to mention more influence and more importance in the plot. And one of them had a gun in a fantasy world. Overall it was a rough campaign.

I've had some rough times as a PC, but i've been responcible for my players loosing intrest too. I got burned out doin an 8-hour a week game. That was punishment.