Why the demand for realism....

[Otterscrubber]

in a game where a 200lb man (or 90lb woman) can slay a 70ft fire-breathing, armor plated, flying dinosaur using hand to hand weapons or by shooting lightning out of their fingertips? I mean really? Really?

The word of the month is verisimilutude, and every time I see it there is an inevitable follow up thread about how 4e is lacking it. I guess the line where physics hits the wall where dragons exist is different for everyone, but c'mon folks give some room for imagination. I guess I don't really have a point here, just wanted to share my thoughts about the comic irony of someone playing a game where literally anything is possible and thinking that it is not realistic enough.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

I kind of agree. I mean I don't hear enough of "Thats not realistic" and I'm like "yeah, well show me YOUR collection of +1 Daggers then"

I agree that a certain amount of realism should be used. Just so that people can identify with whats happening. But to the extent of house ruling all of physics and quantum theory just so your fighter can swing his sword in a "realistic" time frame doesn't quite register as "fun"

Its a GAME so PLAY it

 

[Zurai]

Wrong forum.

 

[Falling Icicle]

in a game where a 200lb man (or 90lb woman) can slay a 70ft fire-breathing, armor plated, flying dinosaur using hand to hand weapons or by shooting lightning out of their fingertips? I mean really? Really?

You're confusing realism with believability. The game is obviously not realistic, but it can still be believable.

 

[VannATLC]

verisimilutude and realism are not the same thing.

Verisimilutude is better conveyed as 'internal consistency'

3e is, IMO, marginally better in this. But most of the people naysaying verisimilutude in 4e always seem to pick things I don't have problems with.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Off to General Discussion we go!

 

[Otterscrubber]

This thread was based on realism in 4e? Why was it moved to a non-4e forum?

 

[KarinsDad]

The issue is that 4E (sometimes strongly) sacrifices believability in some areas in the name of simplicity.

The entire concept of healing, for example, is not. It's not healing if the PC never really gets damaged. So, on the one hand, we are led to believe that the PC is not really taking damage and jumps back to full capability between combats or after a good nights rest, and on the other hand, we have terms like Cure and Healing Surges and Damage.

That's not internally consistent.

And, what's most interesting is the extreme justifications and rationals concerning it.

It's merely a mechanic for ease of play. Rationalizing it doesn't work because the rationalizations are after the fact. The explanation did not come first, the mechanic came first. The WotC designers did not say "How can we emulate a willpower or morale type system"? Instead, they said "How can we speed up play?". Hence, these types of rationalizations are artificial and not internally consistent because the rule did not come from the explanation, the explanation came from the rule.


And sometimes, simplicity is a good thing. Other times, it affects some people's verisimilutude. The fact that it does so is not a cause for criticism of those people. They just have a different believability threshold than the OP.

 

[xechnao]

in a game where a 200lb man (or 90lb woman) can slay a 70ft fire-breathing, armor plated, flying dinosaur using hand to hand weapons or by shooting lightning out of their fingertips? I mean really? Really?

The word of the month is verisimilutude, and every time I see it there is an inevitable follow up thread about how 4e is lacking it. I guess the line where physics hits the wall where dragons exist is different for everyone, but c'mon folks give some room for imagination. I guess I don't really have a point here, just wanted to share my thoughts about the comic irony of someone playing a game where literally anything is possible and thinking that it is not realistic enough.

I think this is irrelevant to realism the way I see it. You could be doing all sorts of physical things if you think about technology. What I may not find realistic could be around how relations could be functioning within a party and what sort of risks one accepts to take and for what reason. And here I have a problem with 4e's role of defenders (as already stated more times).

 

[Lanefan]

Realism is useful for two reasons:

1. It makes the game world easier to parse in the imagination if all the non-magical ordinary physical stuff e.g. gravity, weather, physics, distance, time, etc. work the way we're used to in the real world except in specific cases where as a feature of the game world they work differently as per what the DM has designed. From there, it provides a handy frame of reference for the magical/fantastic parts to use as a jumping-off point.

2. It makes things easier (i.e. possible) for the DM who wants to take the game into the minutae of the world...commoner-level PCs, resource management down to the single arrow...and-or who wants the game world to more accurately reflect what a real-world-with-magic would be like; this includes not all characters being equal, death being more final, combat being more fluid and more precise/granular than the 5' grid allows for, etc.

Lanefan