How believable is your world? Or to put it another way, how much must players suspend their disbelief to enjoy the game?
The second spectrum of game master play styles is about how much or how little the game resembles a believable world. Believability becomes important if immersion in the “story” of the game is important to the group, regardless of whether the GM is an improvisor, situation-setter, or storyteller. Anything that interferes with that immersion can potentially lessen a player’s enjoyment.
The three believability categories I’ve identified are “fantastical” vs. "realist" vs. "rule of cool".
Where this unlimited supply of kobolds came from, nobody knows. Where those kobolds go, nobody knows. Players may wave it off as fantastic magic, and try to cope with an endless stream of minor monsters. Perhaps you could call this “sense of wonder” as a category, because the idea is that even if something is outlandish, if it’s conceivable in a high magic setting then it’s okay (perhaps even desirable) in the game.
I remember a teenage friend of mine telling me about a game where a player wanted to throw a wood stove (a very large object of iron and steel) across a river. Of course, no D&D character is Superman or even the Hulk, so this should have been dismissed out of hand, but the GM gave the player one chance in 20 of doing it! Because it was cool. (And because an awful lot of D&D players don’t understand probability, that five percent is a very good chance in comparison with most real-world chances . . .)
You could see the Fantastical as a subset of the Rule of Cool, where the Fantastical only applies the rule to the environment the players encounter, not to everything that happens. Both the Fantastical and Rule of Cool are related to a looser style of playing RPGs, common to new players who aren't fully versed with the rules. This frees up having to worry about knowing every detail of a RPG system, and depending on the group, may be preferred.
While I’m of the Realist school, I suspect the majority of RPG play today is dominated by the Rule of Cool. After all, so many movies and novels follow something like this rule, these days, that hardly any adventure movie is believable. But many viewers still enjoy them (including me).
Your Turn: Where do you fit in the spectrum of believability GM styles?
The second spectrum of game master play styles is about how much or how little the game resembles a believable world. Believability becomes important if immersion in the “story” of the game is important to the group, regardless of whether the GM is an improvisor, situation-setter, or storyteller. Anything that interferes with that immersion can potentially lessen a player’s enjoyment.
The three believability categories I’ve identified are “fantastical” vs. "realist" vs. "rule of cool".
Fantastical
The Fantastical school (fantastical: strange, weird, or fanciful in appearance, conception, etc.) might be epitomized by Gary Gygax’s fountain of kobolds (IIRC it was an example in the D&D 1e DMG). Stashed away in a dungeon somewhere is a fountain (or even a hole in the ground) that issues kobolds constantly.Where this unlimited supply of kobolds came from, nobody knows. Where those kobolds go, nobody knows. Players may wave it off as fantastic magic, and try to cope with an endless stream of minor monsters. Perhaps you could call this “sense of wonder” as a category, because the idea is that even if something is outlandish, if it’s conceivable in a high magic setting then it’s okay (perhaps even desirable) in the game.
Realist
The Realists tend to think of the game as like a fantasy novel insofar as they want players to easily suspend their disbelief. My standard is: could you believe the event if you read it in a (good) fantasy novel?Rule of Cool
The “rule of cool” is, if something is cool, it’s okay to allow it in the game. Whose standard of cool? A combination of the GM and the players.I remember a teenage friend of mine telling me about a game where a player wanted to throw a wood stove (a very large object of iron and steel) across a river. Of course, no D&D character is Superman or even the Hulk, so this should have been dismissed out of hand, but the GM gave the player one chance in 20 of doing it! Because it was cool. (And because an awful lot of D&D players don’t understand probability, that five percent is a very good chance in comparison with most real-world chances . . .)
Combining Modes of Believability
Remember that this is a spectrum, so most people are going to be in between two of the three categories somewhere.You could see the Fantastical as a subset of the Rule of Cool, where the Fantastical only applies the rule to the environment the players encounter, not to everything that happens. Both the Fantastical and Rule of Cool are related to a looser style of playing RPGs, common to new players who aren't fully versed with the rules. This frees up having to worry about knowing every detail of a RPG system, and depending on the group, may be preferred.
While I’m of the Realist school, I suspect the majority of RPG play today is dominated by the Rule of Cool. After all, so many movies and novels follow something like this rule, these days, that hardly any adventure movie is believable. But many viewers still enjoy them (including me).
Your Turn: Where do you fit in the spectrum of believability GM styles?
