Why the demand for realism....

[delericho]

I'm with the OP, I think realism/believability died the second a normal man could kill a grizzly bear with his hands. That's unbelievable if you want to use RL explanations.

A 'normal man' in D&D terms has always either been unclassed (BECM D&D, 4e), 0-level (1st Ed, 2nd Ed), or a low level NPC class (3.Xe). While, technically, any of them could kill a grizzly with his bare hands, the odds of it actually happening are miniscule. And, of course, IRL a normal man could theoretically do exactly the same - the odds are just vanishingly small.

EDIT: I think the complaints about how 4e lacks versimilitude is mostly due to unfamiliarity. It's not inherently less "realistic" than earlier D&Ds, it's different and takes a while to get used to.

In 4e, a helpless opponent does not lose their Dex bonus to AC, and a coup de grace is not an automatic hit. And so, the following is very possible:

The King's Justice hushes the crown. "The prisoner wishes to say a word."

Wallace struggles against the pain. With a supreme effort he gathers his breath. His voice carries clear in the silence.

"Freeee-dom!"

There is a pause, as everyone digests this. The King's Justice ponders. He knows he shouldn't, but he decides to show mercy. He nods to the headsman. The axe comes down...

The dice spins...

"Damn! I missed!"

"You're kidding?"

"No. His AC is <10 + half level + Dex or Int bonus> minus 2 for combat advantage. The headsman is only 4th level, so only has a +8 to hit. I'll try again."

The headsman raises his axe a second time.

"Got it. That's 23 damage. You're dead."

Mel speaks, "Um... actually I'm not quite dead. My character is only down to -22 hit points. He doesn't die until -30. And the damage wasn't enough to kill me outright - you needed 30 to do that."

"Of for the love of..." Hamish says.

Stephen adds, "A Scotsman, an Englishman and an Irishman go to an execution..."

The headsman raises his axe again...

"I'll just roll my saving throw," Mel says. The dice bounces, and comes up a 20.

"No way!"

"What does that mean?"

"I'm going to try to slip my bonds!"

"Dude, your intestines are hanging out!"

"So, I've got fifteen hit points. I'll be fine."

"You have got to be kidding me..."

"I love this game!"

And then there's the 'Stealth Rhino'...

 

[fiddlerjones]

Your complaint about a helpless opponent not losing their ability bonus to AC and whatnot could just be one of 4E's rule problems - every edition has them. Still, the situation described below is, to me, one of the situations in which a prudent DM forgoes the combat rules and just has the axe connect and the head come off.

In a game about imagination, I can be surprised and confused when the rules tell me that I can't try and use you as a human shield because I don't have the right power. I mean, I can imagine it...why can't I do it?

The idea here is not that you can't attempt to use a human as a sheild (or pin another creature, or disarm, or trip), it's that you can't do it effectively in combat, and thus a power is required to give you a real chance. Personally, if I had a player that tried to, say, disarm an opponent, I'd call for a difficult check of some sort. Even in 3.x, most conceivable actions were not covered in the rules for this reason.

Admittedly, 4E uses more abstractions (looking at you, healing surges), but this is mostly an issue of player adjustment, and I feel like most players and DMs will be fine with it after adjusting to the feel of the system.

 

[Aus_Snow]

The word of the month is verisimilutude

I'd say 'suspension of disbelief' is the important thing, at least as far as me and mine are concerned. Whether that's due to 'realism', 'verisimilitude' or um, any other term one might prefer, is anyone's guess, probably.

It's not a black and white thing. Some people find that too much of a certain thing, or too little of another, will be what it takes for suspension of disbelief (and therefore, I guess, 'immersion' - that is, being immersed in the experiences and perspective of your character in the imaginary settings and situations) to be damaged, broken, gone, whatever.

So, a lot of the time, when people talk about needing realism, or the 'lite' hip variant, verisimilitude (no, I do know they mean different things, j/k), they're not meaning that a game, say, is totally lacking, or that their alternative (if they have one, which they usually do) is without any lack at all, but that it's a matter of degrees. IOW, somewhere a line was crossed.

Sometimes, it's down to too much 'metagamey' stuff (for some folks). Others can't stand too much crunch, as they find it interferes with immersion or suchlike. Or it could simply be a thing like, falling any distance will not kill you, no matter what. Or any other thing that (to some people) might seem too odd, unlikely (yes, even in a fantasy setting context) or 'arranged' to be so for some unpalatable reason (a game/metagame reason, generally.)

 

[JohnRTroy]

Gygax hated the master of Vermisilitude; Tolkien and D&D has always been a pulp fantasy game as a result. Tolkien was a master at tapping into our sub-concious knowledge of history because he spent so long studying it; it is why LoTR and his other books FEEL so real.

You're misinterpreting Gary's dislike of Tolkien. Gary was also a master of Vermisilitude. It's one thing I admired most about him, don't confuse his dislike of the Lord of the Rings with an assumption he hates detail. Gary gave incredible details to the logic of his campaign settings--he studied history and was a lot more studied than I think the average DM is. The pulp roots of D&D are because Gary loved the stories of the "old guard".

One of the best books Gary wrote before he passed away was "Living Fantasy". This explains how a quasi-European Middle Ages culture would be like in a world of fantasy and magic. It's a very good book and it goes into things like "why firearms don't exist here", "why isn't everybody helped by healing magic", the role Wizards would have in building society, etc.

The better campaign worlds tend to go into this detail--I like Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Empire of the Petal Throne, Jorune, etc, a lot better than some of these newer ones. They pay a lot of attention to detail. Gary stuff is about as detailed as Tolkien's stuff is--read the World of Greyhawk stuff to see that in action. In his later campaign worlds, he made sure to say that a lot of the creatures came from either special subterranean ecologies or from alternate worlds that then populated the existing campaign worlds (a Faerie-type world, other planes for elementals, etc).

(Although to be fair, Gary had no problem with side-treks to Wonderland and would argue with people who said a Dragon was more "realistic" than a talking flower).

"Realism" as I see it is applied critical thinking.

When people create fantasy worlds, the better ones suspend disbelief and explain why things are different. The more knowledge people have, the more certain aspects of the world seem like BS unless explained. A fantasy game must have at least a little suspension of disbelief, BUT you also want to make it consistently logical.

This kind of stuff is what critical thinking players think about. When I watched the last two LoTR movies, I was dismayed that these human lands had absolutely no farms! How did they get their food. These big "isolated towns" in the middle of vast wasteland don't make sense! That lack of detail actually took me out of the movie, making me less enjoy it. As pulpy and enjoyable the Indiana Jones films are--the one scene I hated was when Indy survived the nuke test by hiding in a old refrigerator--it was an "oh, c'mon" moment.

So, getting back to D&D, if players are concerned about "realism", I think they are reacting to certain powers that might stretch the laws of real physics or break the critical thinking mode. The game is more meta-gaming rather than simulation-like in that "healing surges" seem more like dramatic "second wind" moments, and having 1hp minions. I always knew hit points was always meant to be "abstract representations", at least in the case of the heroes.

I think the best thing is to understand things like exploits (as opposed to spells) are more "meta-game" interpretations in some cases and aren't always meant to be "special maneuvers" akin to martial arts. However, I can also see players being a little disturbed by this, since in some cases it's harder to reconcile with what a realistic human being (or humanoid) might go through, and in many cases the meta-game logic trumps any sort of simulation-level realism they might expect.

I'm not saying the new D&D is bad, but I can understand players not liking some of the new rules such as minions and healing surges because of this heavy-handedness.

 

[ExploderWizard]

For my games realism can go take a hike. World consistency needs to stay or else a campaign is nothing more than a series of one shots. A character in 4E has no identity. It is a collection of abilities slapped together for mathmatical balance at its level and given a name.

It can be said that all characters are just collections of abilities and this is true to some extent. 4E is the first edition where a character of level 15 could be completely unrecognizable from its level 1 stats. With enough swapping out of powers the higher level character could retain nearly none of the abilities that it once had. The following situation could actually happen in a 4E game:

Peasant groupie: " Wow look its Baddude the warrior who saved our village from those ogres two years ago!"

Baddude: " Yes it is I. How fares your village?"

Peasant groupie: " Just great! I was tellin my buddy here how you taught those beasties a lesson. How did you do it again?"

Baddude: " Well I moved in and [Insert description of kewl power use here] and showed them I was not to be trifled with".

Peasant groupie: " Awesome!! Hey look here comes a couple hill giants, they look mean. You can demonstrate what you did for my buddy who missed you trouncing the ogres."

Baddude: " Well..........uh.....umm.....I can't do that anymore son. I forgot how. But I can do this!!" [performs kewl new power on the hill giants]

Peasant groupie: " Great job! Here, take this bag of silver mighty warrior. I hope it will help you find a cure for your memory loss."

Earlier editions had a sort of continuity. Powers gained built upon powers that existed. A character could perform low level functions of his class if there was a desire or need. It helps connect the abilities of a character with his history and the ongoing campaign story. Replacing powers like swapping out a failed hard drive in a RAID array utterly destroys the feel of this continuity and, more importantly, the connection with the campaign world.

Please, won't you give? Donate your excess gold to find a cure for this crippling memory loss. The mind of a 4E character is a terrible thing to waste.

 

[Wormwood]

I prefer cinematic realism.

As long as the world is as internally consistent as an over-the-top action flick, I'm satisfied.

McClane's Law, I believe it's called.

 

[med stud]

A character in 4E has no identity. It is a collection of abilities slapped together for mathmatical balance at its level and given a name.

Uh... That is not unique to 4e, you know. The rules have never provided a character with identity in any version of D&D.

 

[med stud]

A 'normal man' in D&D terms has always either been unclassed (BECM D&D, 4e), 0-level (1st Ed, 2nd Ed), or a low level NPC class (3.Xe). While, technically, any of them could kill a grizzly with his bare hands, the odds of it actually happening are miniscule. And, of course, IRL a normal man could theoretically do exactly the same - the odds are just vanishingly small.

I would say that an unarmed man winning vs a grizzly bear isn't even theoretically possible IRL. Unless you say it's a grizzly cub or a quadroplegic grizzly bear or something like that. The point of my argument was that in D&D, there are people who can reliably defeat grizzly bears with their hands. Man-o-bear, in an arena, with no clothes. There is nothing like that IRL. When I said "normal man", I meant a normal homo sapiens, not your average clerk. You could take Royce Gracie, Mike Tyson, Magnus Samuelsson or Larry Thorn. All of them represent the pinnacle of human fighting expertise. None of them could take on a large bear unarmed and win.

In 4e, a helpless opponent does not lose their Dex bonus to AC, and a coup de grace is not an automatic hit. And so, the following is very possible:

In that case it would be stupid to follow the rules. That problem exists in almost every roleplaying game. The first house rule I made when I was nine years old was that an executioner doesn't need to roll damage.

And then there's the 'Stealth Rhino'...

That's only applicable if the DM decides that the rhino will sneak. It's like the jumping elephants of 3e; elephants could jump like wuxia-heroes if you were going by the rules. Since the elephants don't jump if the DM doesn't want them to jump, the problem was a non-issue.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Uh... That is not unique to 4e, you know. The rules have never provided a character with identity in any version of D&D.

If you read the whole post you will see that I said as much myself. No earlier edition provides a character with anything other than stats. 4E is simply the first edition to turn those stats into a file format that can be modified, overwritten, and deleted.

 

[BryonD]

Many game systems don't have rules that would be able to "simulate" this.

I can think of at least one that does. I guess I'll play that one.