Suspension of Disbelief

[Gold Roger]

I thought deeply about what disrupts my SoD:
Is it players that read or build dice-towers in the midst of the session? nope.
Is it the reference of game rules? nope.
Is it the lack of personality in some PCs*? nope.
Is it out of game diskussions of things that could be done in game? nope.
Is it silly names, comments or other humor? nope
And many others of similar calibre. But really, all of these things where plenny in yesterdays one-shot session and even as they happened I was as deeply immersed as possible in a group with such a lack of concentration at all. These things are annoying, but they won't hurt my SoD.
What did and always does hurt my SoD was boring combats. You know those fights where there are some crappy opponents that don't deal real damage, but the PC's don't get rid of? When the players aren't motivated to really use their abilities and just go "I hit him... again"#? When the PCs just go up against some mooks?
It's those moments I loose every illusion of adventure and it all boils down to a bunch of dice rolling. There's nothing more anoing to me than that.

*I often have players that tell me what the personality of their PC's is before game and during game there is no personality at all
#Yesterdays rogue player wouldn't even try to get into flanking position even once in six hours, no wonder she doesn't like combats.

 

[JohnSnow]

Generally speaking, I find most in-game "this is a puzzle" puzzles to seriously lack credibility. I've seen it done well, oh, about 3 times. That said, I think that what was said in the following quote is totally accurate.

As for the *real* point of this post, word puzzles at all are generally enough to start me suspending my suspension of disbelief. The only time I've ever seen it done reasonably well is The Last Crusade.

The "word puzzles" in the last Crusade were clues to overcoming challenges. That's cool, and you could even see why someone would guard their lair with horribly lethal traps that could be bypassed by properly deciphering the clues (as Indy did). Very cool.

Other than that, the riddle game in The Hobbit worked, because of the Sphinxian character of it, and the fact that riddles seem like a reasonable pasttime for many intelligent creatures, whatever language they speak. Puns, on the other hand... Finally, the scene near the end of The Fifth Element was a much better example of a "magic" puzzle than most of what I've seen in D&D. The solution is trivial - once you figure out how the things work.

My own SoD dies whenever I'm reminded that the world is an imaginary construct. Things like tests designed to "challenge the players" and not their characters or in-game situations that change without an in-game reason. I like the quote about "one implausibility at a time," because I can tolerate a little pushing of the boundaries (the existence of whiskey in the Wheel of Time series for example), just not too much.

I understand the Gygaxian theory on the subject, but I don't think players should be denied their character's resources. For example, I'd give the player of a "smart" character a "hint" if he makes a successful intelligence check. I hate games where the intelligence, wisdom, and charisma of the character never come up in play. Talk about killing the suspension of disbelief and reminding me that I'm NOT my character.

As an addendum, I agree about boring combats. But the trick is that I agree about BORING combats. If combat can be made more exciting than "I whack him AGAIN," I tend to forget about how it's mechanically simulated (dice-rolling) and focus on the fact that the character just rolled beneath the ogre's legs and hamstrung him (even if it took an extra die roll or two to pull it off). But maybe that's me.

 

[WizarDru]

(the existence of whiskey in the Wheel of Time series for example), just not too much.

Huh? What's wrong with that? The Chinese invented Whiskey around 105 BC or so, and the celts were making similar kinds of grain alcohols as far back as 800 B.C. It's hardly anachronistic, especially given the huge amount of trade by caravan and ship seen in the series. I have plenty of problems with WoT, but that ain't one of them. Especially since we're talking about a game that mixes hundreds of years of technology and history and blends them together (while ignoring some contemporary technology at the same time).

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I particularly despise using relatively ordinary English personal names (i.e. Jason, Harold, Frederick) for characters in a non-Earth fantasy setting. It's okay in a one-shot or humorous game, but in a long-term serious campaign it just becomes a constant irritation to me like a blister in my brain.

I couldn't disagree more. Now, Fred the elf or Carlos the dwarf, that's silly; what destroys my suspension of disbelief, though, are "fantasy" names straight out of crappy Tolkienesque EFP novels.

One of my regular gaming buddies is a fantastic, immersive player, but his names are some of the worst I've ever seen. Ironically, the one I mocked him most for - Jarlath Xyax Drakkar . . . turns out that "Jarlath" is a current enough name that one of the actors in Day of the Dead is named Jarlath, but still.

Tekarl, for instance. Ridiculous. I agree that names like Bob and Johnny are terrible, but I think that too far in the direction of "invented" or "fantasy" is even worse.

 

[fusangite]

I prefer the cosmology of Glorantha, which acknowledges that different people may worship the same deity under different names and with different attributes. Glorantha does a nice job with the history, too, giving different histories depending on who you are and where you live.

I was lucky enough to find Glorantha when I was 12 and even then, the approach was clearly more convincing.

 

[jgbrowning]

I've never really thought of it before, but I don't really have a suspension of disbelief when playing. I guess I never break out of the "I'm playing a game" mindset and really get into it. Odd, considering that I love setting scenes and backgrounds. Hrm.. I'll have to think about that for a bit.

joe b.

 

[shilsen]

Tekarl, for instance. Ridiculous. I agree that names like Bob and Johnny are terrible, but I think that too far in the direction of "invented" or "fantasy" is even worse.

I may be missing something, but what makes a name like Tekarl more ridiculous than something like Bob or Manik or Cwerl (all real names, by the way). It's one thing if your campaign setting has a clear, organic structure of names, but in many settings, one name is no more or less inappropriate than another.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

*shrugs*

All I can say is that some names sound like people would actually come up with them, and some sound like a guy sat down and threw some syllables together.

I would add: Unless "Manik" is pronounced unlike the word "manic" it's probably not a good name, for the same reason "Crayzee" wouldn't be a good name no matter how linguistically justified it is.

"Cwerl" is identifiably Welsh, so it doesn't bother me (and it's not pronounced "Kwerl", the way it's spelled, either). I guess I'm trying to say that there are plenty of exotic names from real cultures, any one of which sound cooler than fifty names like "Kynnaren" or "Valadan".

"Drakkar" is actually an interesting surname, not that there are many people named "Longboat" in English.

 

[the Jester]

One thing that breaks my suspension of disbelief sometimes is when monsters always, always, always fight to the death.

Sometimes it ought to be more like-

"Oh crap!" says the dire tiger to herself upon reach 10 hp. "I better get outta here!"

Caveat: this is my preference, not necessarily yours.

 

[Afrodyte]

One thing that breaks my suspension of disbelief sometimes is when monsters always, always, always fight to the death.

Sometimes it ought to be more like-

"Oh crap!" says the dire tiger to herself upon reach 10 hp. "I better get outta here!"

You know, sometimes I wonder if a combination chase/fight sequence would be more interesting. You know, as in somebody fighting to get away. You'd probably have to houserule things a lot, though. To keep the chase from being a series of 5-foot backward steps.