Suspension of Disbelief

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Huh. It's funny, as I was reading fusangite's original post, I came across:

The other, however, required that one read a 424-page work of 19th century military theory (apparently a seminal work) before the game. ... nothing whatsoever to do with Taoist or Prussian theories of war

And I thought, "Huh, I wonder if he means On War. Nah - if he meant that one, he'd've said it; everyone knows On War."

So, I spent a couple minutes googling and amazoning for other 19th Century Prussian military writers, trying to come up with someone who was a Clausewitz contemporary and was well known enough to be considered a seminal work.

I couldn't really find any that deserved the appelation, but I'd be interested if anyone else has!

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.

 

[sniffles]

If anything, the worst possible thing to kill the mood is directly referencing to the rules. As difficult as that may sound...having a player call out "C'mon use your best 8th level spell to buff me and I'll use my +3 Mithril sword to kill that multi-templated beholder!" is just annoying.

I hate that too. I also wish there were some way to refer to spells by something other than their names from the PHB. Why would a wizard from one country necessarily use the same spell name as a wizard from a completely different culture? Why would a wizard and a cleric use the same name? But I overlook that one because it's too complicated to come up with alternate spell names or descriptions and then expect the GM and possibly the other players to recognize them all.

And I dislike it when players immediately identify a monster and start referring to it by it's MM name. If the party has probably never seen that monster before, then unless someone makes a knowledge check to know what it is, we shouldn't know what it is. Especially not its attacks or vulnerabilities.

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 agree with Rel's complaint about NPCs, too. I have a GM whom I otherwise really admire and enjoy playing with, who insists on making all his NPCs have extreme secret motivations that the PCs can never understand. No one is ever what they seem.

I really dislike having all NPC representatives of any race behave in a stereotypical manner. Halflings do not all have to be obsessed with food. Dwarves do not all have to be humorless gold-grubbers. Certainly there are racial traits, but members of a particular race don't have to be clones of each other.

 

[fusangite]

...whose standard MO is "If you do this difficult quest for me for free then I shall allow you to speak to me whereupon I'll ask you for a favor that seems well within my mighty powers but that I haven't done myself for some reason. If you accomplish what I ask then that will earn you the right to speak to me again whereupon I'll ask for an even bigger favor without so much as a please or thank you."

And yet, I've seen this in volunteer organizations in real life before.

That's so funny 'cuz it's so true.

 

[Quasqueton]

my suspension of disbelief ends when i play d02.

Then you should try playing D&D [current edition]. It is great for supporing imagination.

Quasqueton

 

[Remathilis]

Duex ex Machina

Clones/Doppelgangers

Exotic Posions

Ancient Evils silently waiting for PCs.

Of course, I USE all of these and so does the other DM I game with, but they still blow my SoD most the time.

 

[Quasqueton]

Wow. Reading some of the answers in this thread, I wonder, why the hell do you even play RPGs?

Quasqueton

 

[Kanegrundar]

I don't have a problem with suspension of disbelief as long as things are coherent in the context of the game. However, there are things that bug the hell out of me while gaming:

Stupid character names (very prevalent in MMORPG's): I hate characters named Seymour Butts, XXX, or any variation of popular literature characters on clone characters (used to be Drizzt, but now is more Gimli and Legolas).

High level NPC's stealing the PC's thunder. I hate Deus Ex machinas like this (or in any form), leaves me feeling that the DM didn't think we could make it on our own. Live or die, let me try!!!

I hate every other barkeep or stablemaster being a retired adventurer. Why adventure when you can goad townspeople into a fight and take their stuff instead of the monsters? Why should you risk your neck, then the town librarian is a 20th level mage?

As to any DM making me read 400 some pages of non-gaming material for the game, I would kindly tell him he's crazy and then leave. IMO, anything more than 10-20 pages of setting information is too much. For a new player in an established campaign, it's a different story, but for a low-level game in which the PC's likely won't know much beyond basic facts and stories of the world around them, leave all the detail to come out during the sessions.

Kane

 

[sniffles]

I don't quite comprehend the objection to deus ex machina. If it's really glaringly obvious, or happens every time the PCs face a major challenge, then I can understand. But occasionally it can be interesting. It could provide a plot hook or major story development. And if you've been playing for quite a while and are really attached to your characters and have a big storyline in development, and you don't want that derailed by a sudden TPK due to poor dice rolls, I think it works fine.

And what's wrong with any of the things Remathilis described? How do they mess up suspension of disbelief? Examples, please!

 

[Zappo]

I agree with Numion. The fact that I am faced with a crosswords puzzle does much more to hurt my suspension of disbelief than the language the puzzle is in. When a puzzle shows up, it is obvious that the situation has shifted from being an in-game challenge for the character to an out-of-game challenge for the player.

And even that issue is dwarfed by the idea of having to read On War to game.

 

[Kanegrundar]

Deus Ex Machinas used cleverly and sparingly are just fine. Too often however, they are used waaaay too often. Most of the time I've seen them played it was to show off the DM's favorite character (either from books or from their own creation) or to bail the party out of an encounter that was too tough to begin with.

Kane