D&D General So, you want realism in D&D?

[Charlaquin]

Selective or not, it's still more realism than the base game offers.

To be clear, I don’t mean that pejoratively. As alluded to in one of my other posts in this thread, I think most people want a certain degree of “realism” or “verisimilitude” or whatever you want to call it. We’re just differently selective about it.

 

[Charlaquin]

Where I see the two 'realisms' as working hand in hand, co-operatively rather than in opposition.

The first gives a player a setting that can most easily be related to and-or imagined - it looks and works just like Earth except hey, there's a Dragon flying over those trees, the sun is orange, and someone just made those trees grow 100' in a hurry. A DM who thinks it all through can even come up with a homebrew underlying model of game-world physics that accounts for and seamlessly blends magic with real-world physics, on which you're all set.

Once the first is established, the second - the consistency piece - just makes sure it keeps working the same way all the time.

Thus, when I speak of realism I'm including both types above.

I mostly agree, though I think treating magic as part of the world’s physics can end up sucking the, well, magic out of it. Part of what makes magic magical is that it’s beyond understanding - if it works by totally coherent, consistent, physics-like laws, it’s just fantasy science. Magic needs some mysticism, some unpredictability, to really feel like magic. At least, to me.

 

[Maxperson]

To be clear, I don’t mean that pejoratively. As alluded to in one of my other posts in this thread, I think most people want a certain degree of “realism” or “verisimilitude” or whatever you want to call it. We’re just differently selective about it.

Of course. I'm okay with combat making no sense whatsoever since it's turn based. Others want to house rule it so that it can be closer to simultaneous(more realism). Some are okay with combatants never slipping or falling in combat due to random chance. Others want to add in fumble tables to increase the realism.

Which things we're okay with and which(if any) we want to modify in order to increase realism will vary from person to person, and table to table.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Personally, I’m opposed to mammalian dragonborn not because of realism, but because of rule of cool. A sapient species of oviparous reptiles is way more interesting than dragon ladies with boobs.

Dragonborn are also oviparous.

They're basically monotremes with no hair and no (regular) sweat glands. They have breasts and suckle their young for a few months after hatching, until the early teeth have fully grown in and the child is ready to begin eating more than milk and soft food. This process is much faster than it is in humans, as dragonborn children are capable of walking within hours of hatching and have the development of a three-year-old human by the time they are only one year old.

IIRC, there were even references in some dragonborn lore articles to the idea that a mild vulgar phrase among them would be something like "shards and shells!", referring to infancy and hatching.

 

[Maxperson]

Dragoborn were hatched from Dragon eggs. Dragons don't have boobs, so Dragonborn shouldn't have boobs.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Where I see the two 'realisms' as working hand in hand, co-operatively rather than in opposition.

The first gives a player a setting that can most easily be related to and-or imagined - it looks and works just like Earth except hey, there's a Dragon flying over those trees, the sun is orange, and someone just made those trees grow 100' in a hurry. A DM who thinks it all through can even come up with a homebrew underlying model of game-world physics that accounts for and seamlessly blends magic with real-world physics, on which you're all set.

Once the first is established, the second - the consistency piece - just makes sure it keeps working the same way all the time.

Thus, when I speak of realism I'm including both types above.

The main problem is, people will decry something for failing to be the first thing even after they have just defended some minimally-explained thing, and then dismiss criticisms in both directions for basically no more reason than "well I don't get the Realism Feels from X but I do get them from Y," and this is the critical bit, while acting like these feels are objective, because they are in some way derived from either real facts (or """facts,""" as is so often the case, see my previous post about the many false beliefs humans have), or from perceived levels of "justification" (which is always and fundamentally a subjective and personal determination).

It's never "I don't find that very realistic," it's "that ISN'T realistic, and is therefore bad." And if you point out how they excuse one thing for one reason but not for another, hoooo boy do they get testy!

 

[Maxperson]

And if you point out how they excuse one thing for one reason but not for another

That's not really important, though. I can find X to be too unrealistic in Y situation, but not in Z situation.

 

[niklinna]

Dragoborn were hatched from Dragon eggs. Dragons don't have boobs, so Dragonborn shouldn't have boobs.

While this whole dragonborn thing is a bit of a sideshow to the discussion, and regardless of any established canon, I'll just toss out that there's more ways to give birth and feed young than egg/live-birth and breast milk:

• Ovoviviparity
• Oophagy
• Crop milk
• Trophallaxis

Those are some of the less-gross ways, in fact....

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Dragoborn were hatched from Dragon eggs. Dragons don't have boobs, so Dragonborn shouldn't have boobs.

Pretty sure that origin was deprecated and completely sure that it only appeared during the 5e playtest, not 4e. And it was deprecated specifically because it has some seriously crappy implications.

4e dragonborn, no one knows their exact origin. It's an open question answered by ideologically charged mythology, not perfectly known history. (In brief: some say they were made from whole cloth, either as servants to dragons, predecessors to dragons, or equal but distinct siblings; some say they formed by direct and accidental creation when Io's blood fell to the earth; some say they were made from dragons by divine alteration, or conversely that dragons were made from them by divine alteration.)

That's not really important, though. I can find X to be too unrealistic in Y situation, but not in Z situation.

It absolutely is. Also, I'm not talking about "I find X to be realistic in fictional setting A and unrealistic in fictional setting B," I'm talking about "I am totally cool with dragons, which violate several basic rules of biology, physics, and plain common sense, but having humans who can do things that aren't even on par with Olympic level athletes is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE IN ALL CASES, and you are OBJECTIVELY WRONG if you disagree because SCIENCE says so." Even when it doesn't.

See my referenced example of how "unrealistic" it is to have both full plate armor and handheld gunpowder weapons (or indeed ANY form of gunpowder weaponry like cannons) in the same game....even though handguns may actually predate plate armor IRL (they were certainly contemporaries) and gunpowder cannons DEFINITELY predate full plate.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Dragoborn were hatched from Dragon eggs. Dragons don't have boobs, so Dragonborn shouldn't have boobs.

Drgonborn were made for adolescent males to play. You're lucky they only have the two boobs.