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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Argyle King" data-source="post: 5262811" data-attributes="member: 58416">Internal consistency is important; it's one of the reasons why there was a point in time where I was leaning toward becoming a D&D 4E Hater.  Because of the vast difference of numbers generated by and for monsters versus numbers generated by and for PCs, the game world would at times interact very differently with the two groups.  For example, a PC could easily blast through a door or a wall with even just an at-will power in many cases; however, the big bad dragon solo who was supposed to be the scourge of the land would have trouble doing so. I've since come to realize that I was just trying to make the system do something it wasn't intended to though.  4E PCs are (I think) supposed to be the John McClains and Chuck Norrises of their world.  Generally speaking, I've found that trying to mix realism into 4E doesn't turn out very well. However, realism in a fantasy game does not have to be a bad thing.  Yes, there are dragons, elves, and magic, but that doesn't mean you can't still have your fantasy grounded in realism.  You can have realism in fantasy by having a fireball spell act just like any other fire once it hits; likewise, casting a lightning spell while standing in a pool of water might be a bad idea.  In The Hobbit, the dragon Smaug was able to reliably fight an army - this is a level of realism injected into the setting.  It seems plausible that a gigantic fire breathing monster would be hard to kill or require knowing about a specific weakness to exploit.  Action movies are a pretty good example of how fantasy can be created by exaggerating realism.  As a whole, the world is realistic; the hero tends to have abilities which are exaggerated, but still seem plausible and not too world shattering.  In many cases we know the hero is going to win at the end, but the story and the percieved realism of the world still manages to trick us into believing he might lose.  The Punisher is a pretty good example of this; his only 'super power' is that he's good at killing.  While his abilities are somewhat over the top in some cases, he generally tends to be fairly well grounded in reality; he feels pain; he has flaws; etc; etc.  Conan is a very good example too; while he is easily above and beyond the ordinary swordsman, and he can reliably fight multiple opponents, he still has his limits.  Likewise -and to give another movie based example, I highly enjoyed the first Transporter movie.  It had many fantastic elements, but they were interwoven with enough reality to allow my mind to accept the plausibility of things which probably couldn't happen under ordinary circumstances.  However, I found Transporter 2 to be too unbelievable and too forced for me to enjoy it.  In one scene, the driver simultaneously ramps the car, has it do a barrel roll in mid air, and uses a crane to remove a bomb from the bottom of his car.  To me, the style of Transporter 2 was too much of a departure from the level of realism set in the first movie for me to enjoy it.  I went into it expecting a certain amount of realism, and it moved too far beyond what I went into it expecting.   Expectations versus delivery is something very important to consider.  I feel that part of running a successful game and keeping the players engaged involves the group deciding upon a collectively accepted level of (or lack of) realism in their game.  This goes both ways.   In a super hero game that I'm currently involved in, one player went into the game expecting a power and realism level akin to something like The Watchmen; everybody else went into the game expecting a power and realism level more akin to Dragon Ball Z.  As you might expect, the player who was expecting a more realistic style of game made a character who seems out of place, and he often feels underpowered compared to everyone else. On the other end of the spectrum, I ran a fairly gritty dungeon crawl a while back.  I had thought everyone was on board with what I had prepared, but one guy created a character who dumped all of his points into fighting abilities.  Unfortunately for him, his character had no skills at all when it came to surviving the wild; finding food; etc.  While he was totally awesome at combat, the other characters had to pretty much baby sit him when it came to doing anything other than fighting.  His character actually ended up dying due to having a different idea about realism in the game than everyone else in the group had via trying to make a running jump across an immense canyon and splatting into the ground. Take some time to sit down with your group and figure out what kind of players you have.  Does Bob enjoy roleplaying?  Does Dan like hack and slash?  Does Ed like traps and puzzles?  Does the group as a whole like certain things more than other things?  This helps solve a lot of problems before they start.   If you are a player, figure out what kind of game your DM intends to run.  Don't be afraid to ask questions.  This usually helps you to know if something like the linguist feat will be virtually worthless or very valuable.  Too often -especially in D&D- we focus on what's in the books; don't forget who's at the table.  edit: Looking back across this, I think I was rambling a little, and I drifted, but I still think there's some merit to the idea of deciding as a group what kind of game you want.  Coming together and compromising as a group and reaching a level of mutually wanted realism -in my opinion- leads to more fun for everyone.</blockquote>

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