The nature of "realism" in the game world

[Derren]

I think realism is much more important when it comes to actions of NPCs than when it comes to physics/rules. It's one thing to handwave invisibility as "it works and you can see while invisible", it's another if the existence of invisibility has no impact or is not reflected in the game world.

Shadowrun is, at least partially, pretty realistic not because of the mechanics, but because the world (with some exceptions) tries to have some internal consistency. Invisibility exists, is known, and the world adapted to it. There are magical guards, and technological means to counter it.

Contrast this with some settings where despite the known existence of Fly and Invisibility, people who are likely to be the target of such a combo behave as if there were no such things. That's not realistic.

A game world should have an explanation why applications of spells and powers most gamers will come up with in 5 minutes are not done.

Thats the point. The problem with "realism" is not that invisibility spells, flying fire breathing monsters, and teleportation exist. The problem is that despite this people still build castles and choose to walk everywhere.

 

[Scribble]

I think it has less to do with whether the system is rules light or heavy, and more to do with how the system is designed to be used/interpreted.

In my opinion, a good system and one that feels more "realistic" is one that, as opposed how the action happens to begin with, concentrates more on the results of that action. Does this action succeed? YES/NO.

When it does that, the DM and players can fill in the gaps about how, or why the event worked as it did.

I think it's similar to why people tend to like a books better then the film version of the same story. Despite a killer special effects budget, or the skill of the director, someone elses way of seeing things isn't going to precisely match our own imaginations.

In a game I feel it's no different. I don't need a number to represent every element of the lock that makes it harder/easier to open- my mind will fill in those details- I just want to know if I opened it or not. When games start concentrating on those details I start to feel as if the world feels to clockwork and systematic, and someone elses imagination (about how the world should work) starts to veer away from my own.

Just my opinion though.

 

[The Ghost]

I think it has less to do with whether the system is rules light or heavy, and more to do with how the system is designed to be used/interpreted.

This. I can accept certain levels of idiosyncratic rules so long as the system achieves what it is set out to do.

 

[Ariosto]

The frequency and importance in the game of a given situation may be a measure of how useful a well-constructed rule is likely to be. A mechanical formalism in place of role-playing is awkward, although the latter might be supplemented in some cases -- so most useful rules are likely to pertain to things that can't be resolved through role-playing.

Combat is THE big example in most RPGs, reflecting for one thing the hobby's war-game roots. A one-step or otherwise too-abstract resolution of a fight (Did the PCs win? YES/NO) would be unsatisfactory; there's got to be some degree of "process modeling."

Having players actually fence is part of LARP, but does not fit the "paper and pencil" bill. (Pencils can be dangerous!) Amber Diceless emphasizes detailed description of actions without (obviously) dice-rolls, but with a heavy presumption that if all else is equal then the higher "stat" wins.

There's a balance to strike between the player skill and player choice of role-playing on one hand, and the "roll-playing" aspect reflecting character factors apart from that with quantified mechanics on the other.

I find that King Arthur Pendragon does an excellent job of incorporating the latter into psychological and interpersonal situations -- in keeping with the focus of the game. In contrast, social "skill challenges" are among the things I most dislike in 4E.

Games with different emphases in play naturally have different emphases in rules, assuming they are designed with some sense of such proportion.

When character creation is (A) focused on "balance" and (B) an exercise in resource management, game balance makes use of resources (abilities, skills, feats, powers, advantages, disadvantages, etc.) extremely important. A "character build" that gets deprived of its expected effectiveness is likely to cause consternation.

If Player A has devoted a significant number of points to a basket weaving rating, then there's an expectation that a basket weaving rating shall be significantly "powerful" in play.

The wisdom/aging/skill glitch mentioned above is an example of the "rule of unintended consequences." The more complex the system, the harder it is to keep track of all interactions and predict all emergent properties.

If verisimilitude takes priority, then it's easy (in terms of the "social contract") to revise or ignore troublesome rules-as-written. If abstract game play takes priority, then there's likely to be resistance to any approach that's not "by the book."

 

[Scribble]

Combat is THE big example in most RPGs, reflecting for one thing the hobby's war-game roots. A one-step or otherwise too-abstract resolution of a fight (Did the PCs win? YES/NO) would be unsatisfactory; there's got to be some degree of "process modeling."

I dissagree. I think the ultimate question being answered in combat is "did I kill it?" yes/no. With several smaller questions adding up to answer the bigger question. (Aka did I take away any of its ability to force that answer to be NO?)

I'm just saying that the game itself needs to concentrate more on the outcome, and less on the steps to get there for me to find it at all realistic, and not robotic. You can string together as many of the rules as you need to aqnswer the final question, but each of them should concentrate on the outcome of its own specific part, and nothing else.

IE: I need to cross through this cavern. Do I do so? wouldn't be handled by a single question/answer- Each step you use to try to cross the cavern, however, might be.

Do I hop over the pit? Do I duck under the flaming table? Do I climb the wall to get to the cave opening? Etc...

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

The problem with "realism" is not that invisibility spells, flying fire breathing monsters, and teleportation exist. The problem is that despite this people still build castles and choose to walk everywhere.

This line of thinking confuses me somewhat: Why would people ignore mundane concerns just because a few rare (assuming they are rare) bypasses exist?

You build a castle against those people who can't get into it. You walk everywhere because you don't have another means of travel, or because it's more efficient/economical.

 

[Scribble]

This line of thinking confuses me somewhat: Why would people ignore mundane concerns just because a few rare (assuming they are rare) bypasses exist?

You build a castle against those people who can't get into it. You walk everywhere because you don't have another means of travel, or because it's more efficient/economical.

The problem is in D&D they tend not to be rare (or are only rare because we overlook the fact that they really probably shouldn't/wouldn't be...)

 

[Celebrim]

Rather than consulting game rules, many times the GM is required to make a judgement call in response to a player action, based on what he thinks is realistic (whether it is real-world realistic or game-world realistic is an important choice for the GM). Because this is a human element adjudicating player actions, the presence of rules-artefacts will arise less frequently.

I applaud you thinking hard on this topic, but I think you need to take it one step further.

While its true that human judgment gives a richer experience than any possible rules set, if what you propose is true, then the most 'realistic' game system would be one with no rules at all. The GM simply responds to any proposition with what he thinks should happen.

But I think you'll quickly see that if this was the case, there would be an enormous number of 'judgment artifacts' that would arise in the course of play where the GM is forced to make a snap judgment and ends up making a bad call. How the GM decided to handle it was unrealistic in some fashion or full consequences were poorly thought out.

What I want you to see is that there is no real difference between a 'rules artifact' and a 'judgment artifact'. In any rules-light system where the Game Master was striving for realism, very quickly he'd find himself making rulings on the same sort of things again and again. In order to reduce his work load and bring some consistancy to the game, the GM would handle the same ambiguity in the same fashion again and again. In effect, the GM will have created an unwritten house rule. Once the GM does that, the rule becomes part of the game system, just as if it was part of the official rules as written.

Suppose that aging really did play a big role in our hypothetical game, but that the rules were unspecific on how aging was to be handled. Our novice GM would probably invent some house rule which reduced physical attributes, and possibly increased certain mental ones. Perhaps then he'd realize that the existing rule was inadequate, because after a certain point mental attributes should begin to decline as well. So a new house rule would be created as the GM's system increased in complexity. Then the GM might eventually find even this system inadequate to deal with reality in a way that felt real, so the GM might invent a system by which the aging characters would acquire various conditions that hindered them in various specific ways (incontinance, poor balance, lame, fragile, hard of hearing, whatever). At last, the system might now feel sufficiently real, but alas in an effort to be both fair and realistic the real system in use would no longer be the simple elegant one at the beginning. As someone else has pointed out, D&D's aging rules don't fail because they are too rules heavy - they fail because they are too rules light.

All game systems have a tendency to become more and more codified the longer you play them as in any system, however complete or incomplete, the GM institutes rulings to cover ambigious situations and reasonable player propositions that aren't covered under the rules. Each ruling becomes part of the common law of the table, and is referenced probably both by players and the GM when determining future courses of action and how to handle new ambiguities. The problem is of course, that not all GMs - even good GMs - are also good rulesmiths. Even the best GMs make bad rulings, and some of the best GMs make alot of really awkward rules that never achieve what they intended them to achieve.

So strange artifacts are going to develop whether you use a rules light system or a rules heavy system. The real question isn't how many rules do you have, but how comprehensive they are. Do the rules in fact cover all possible player propositions? Typically they don't. Rules light systems tend to leave alot up to the DM to decide on the fly, and eventually evolve into rules heavy systems over time. Rules heavy systems tend to have the illusion of completeness, but only by limiting player imagination to the propositions which are covered by the rules. Whether rules light or rules heavy, there is a tendency for players to look at a rules heavy system and simply discount as impossible any option not expressedly permited.

Take d20. Can you study the stars to see signs and omens that hint at the future course of events? According to the rules, only if you cast a 'divination' spell, at which point the stars under the rules become unnecessary. The result is that D20 players typically don't become astrologers, no matter how much a part of fantasy source material that may be. What happens to a D&D player who isn't a cleric who offers up or fails to offer up a sacrifice to a diety? According to the rules, nothing, so d20 players tend not to make religious sacrifices. If you are wanting to model your fantasy after the Illiad and the Oddyssey, then here come the house rules in some form. Very likely these will quickly evolve beyond, "The DM randomly smites or blesses you.", in order to make the game feel more fair and less arbitrary.

And so on and so forth.

The problem that any GM running any system has is that 'reality' is complicated. It's not simple. An almost endless variaty of things can take place in 'reality'. If these are to have any effect other than color, rulings will have to be made to cover them. So any rules light system that strives to be realistic inevitably becomes a rules heavy system, and often a very awkward and clumsy one if the original system isn't comprehensive enough.

 

[nightwyrm]

This line of thinking confuses me somewhat: Why would people ignore mundane concerns just because a few rare (assuming they are rare) bypasses exist?

You build a castle against those people who can't get into it. You walk everywhere because you don't have another means of travel, or because it's more efficient/economical.

The use of nuclear weapons during wartime in our world is rare (only two instances) but governments still build a bunch of hardened military sites to defend or withstand against nuclear missile attacks.

Same thing with a psuedo-medieval D&D game world, except that flying dragons and teleporting wizards and rampaging giants etc. are much more common, or at least they should be if one goes by D&D rules and expectations. Yet people still build large above ground structures like castles and city walls that doesn't do jack against those enemies.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

The use of nuclear weapons during wartime in our world is rare (only two instances) but governments still build a bunch of hardened military sites to defend or withstand against nuclear missile attacks.

Same thing with a psuedo-medieval D&D game world, except that flying dragons and teleporting wizards and rampaging giants etc. are much more common, or at least they should be if one goes by D&D rules and expectations. Yet people still build large above ground structures like castles and city walls that doesn't do jack against those enemies.

But you'd still build a structure that can defend against more mundane threats.

I think there is a disconnect here on my part:
I read the question and it sounds to me like people are asking "Why bother defending against mundane threats?" So I respond by saying "The mundane threats do still need to be addressed."
Apparently the question is supposed to be interpreted "Why is no one addressing these special threats?"