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<blockquote data-quote="ryryguy" data-source="post: 4178567" data-attributes="member: 64945">Interesting, because on first thought, you'd think that no one who enjoys D&amp;D would really be looking at things from the Realism point of view.&nbsp; I mean, fireballs and dragons are obviously not realistic!&nbsp; And if you assume fireballs and dragon breath, getting hit with one and not dying is not realistic!Yet on further reflection, I have run across people (mainly on message boards) who do seem to subscribe to this viewpoint.&nbsp; How do they impose a realistic frame on the wildly unrealistic fantasy of D&amp;D?It's blurry, but I think at least in part they sort of &quot;promote&quot; the Verisimilitude view into a realistic frame.&nbsp; The rules themselves, as they are set up (and often in particular the &quot;RAW&quot;) end up standing for reality.&nbsp; That's where you can get something like, &quot;A CR23 Demogorgon is not realistic because and advanced balor would crush him.&quot;&nbsp; It's not &quot;realistic&quot; because the advanced balor has better hit points, spell resistance, etc., so according to that measure of &quot;reality&quot;, the Demogorgon's rule makes no sense.This isn't that different than the Versimilitude frame, under which the advanced balor will win just as readily... I guess the difference is that it's when this gets promoted to realism is when a world builder will start to chafe.&nbsp; If the invented reality of the world is that the Demogorgon is the boss, it may not matter so much that in a fight, he might lose.&nbsp; So what?&nbsp; That fight just doesn't happen.&nbsp; But get more strictly realist about it and you start having to beef up Demogorgon, or provide a rules-based excuse for his rule.Sorry, I don't have a major point here... I just think it's interesting how this plays out with regard to D&amp;D.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="ryryguy, post: 4178567, member: 64945"] Interesting, because on first thought, you'd think that no one who enjoys D&D would really be looking at things from the Realism point of view. I mean, fireballs and dragons are obviously not realistic! And if you assume fireballs and dragon breath, getting hit with one and not dying is not realistic! Yet on further reflection, I have run across people (mainly on message boards) who do seem to subscribe to this viewpoint. How do they impose a realistic frame on the wildly unrealistic fantasy of D&D? It's blurry, but I think at least in part they sort of "promote" the Verisimilitude view into a realistic frame. The rules themselves, as they are set up (and often in particular the "RAW") end up standing for reality. That's where you can get something like, "A CR23 Demogorgon is not realistic because and advanced balor would crush him." It's not "realistic" because the advanced balor has better hit points, spell resistance, etc., so according to that measure of "reality", the Demogorgon's rule makes no sense. This isn't that different than the Versimilitude frame, under which the advanced balor will win just as readily... I guess the difference is that it's when this gets promoted to realism is when a world builder will start to chafe. If the invented reality of the world is that the Demogorgon is the boss, it may not matter so much that in a fight, he might lose. So what? That fight just doesn't happen. But get more strictly realist about it and you start having to beef up Demogorgon, or provide a rules-based excuse for his rule. Sorry, I don't have a major point here... I just think it's interesting how this plays out with regard to D&D. [/QUOTE]

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