So like I posted in my thread about mixing sci fi and fantasy I am working on a new setting. I do this fairly often as a way to kill time and keep the old GMing gears turning so to speak.

One thing that I have run across already is that little nag in the back of my head over things that aren't "realistic". For instance I really want to include some simple firearms as a uncommon but not particularly rare weapon. Of course the first thing that pops into my head is how such things would effect the development of armor and the like. Does anyone else struggle to quite that voice that says "but that doesn't make sense"?

I am really wanting to get a weird science fantasy, slightly over the top vibe. When I have a cool idea is it better to just ignore any misgivings any throw it in there? At what point does this kind of thing become an issue for players? As a player do you ever stop and think "but if there is an airship here why do people still use carts and oxen"? I know some of these problems can be explained away fairly easily. I suppose I am just trying to learn to deal with the obessive urge to have an explanation for everything, I mean at the end of the day we are playing elf mens.

This varies very much person to person - I, for one, am generally bugged by stuff that's not explained, but I can also roll with "rule of cool". But I'd prefer not to.

At the same time, sometimes the more realistic the whole thing is, the more nitpicky I will feel about such stuff. I'm not bothered by laser swords or Force or Imperial idiocy (well the last one bothers me a wee little, but only a little, because I like Fett and Vader ;p. And I'll admit villain stupidity has really always bothered me, even when I was watching cartoons as a 10 year old - and for some odd reason, the villain's destiny to fail made me connect with it more than with the hero) in Star Wars, but I'll be bothered by Die Hardesque plot in Almost Human episode, combined with people communicated with special cell phones when police jams communications (why didn't their own detectives get those as standard issue? Or why there isn't a special police frequency? Police can afford androids and special anti - ABC weapons inoculations, I don't think special cell phones will be that much of a strain on a budget). And on the same episode so to speak of the same show - a simple handwavium as "they staged a stupid much more serious crime to jam the alarms for a lesser one" will work for me in a pinch.

All in all, I'll probably feel more picky about the people living in that world who'll appear to be cardboard cutouts of Anglo - Saxons, than huge flying bugs serving as cities.

Well, the real world doesn't make sense.

Look at the middle ages. Some technology was actually fairly advanced (armor, weapons), yet they didn't have things like the mechanical reaper (which the Celts had).

Look at the decline in plumbing. The Romans again had fairly sophisticated sewer systems and latrines. By AD 100, they had water in most homes.

And then far earlier, the Indus Valley civilization had flush toilets.  It's crazy, 2700 BC, they had flush toilets in Mohenjo-daro, yet you didn't seem them in Europe, really, until AD 1600, and they didn't catch on until the 1850s.

Huh, that is true that many societies were advanced in one area and laughably backwards in others, I suppose I often forget that.

Ricewind, if I understand you correctly expectations are part of it? As in you have a problem with it if the world presents itself in one fashion and then violates tha expectation by throwing something incongruent in?

Quote from: Arkansan;728943Huh, that is true that many societies were advanced in one area and laughably backwards in others, I suppose I often forget that.

Ricewind, if I understand you correctly expectations are part of it? As in you have a problem with it if the world presents itself in one fashion and then violates tha expectation by throwing something incongruent in?

That's probably a good way of putting things I meant. Bear in mind that it's just me, and I am one picky git.

Quote from: Arkansan;728936I am really wanting to get a weird science fantasy, slightly over the top vibe. When I have a cool idea is it better to just ignore any misgivings any throw it in there? At what point does this kind of thing become an issue for players? As a player do you ever stop and think "but if there is an airship here why do people still use carts and oxen"? I know some of these problems can be explained away fairly easily. I suppose I am just trying to learn to deal with the obessive urge to have an explanation for everything, I mean at the end of the day we are playing elf mens.

Bender is your avatar.  Would Futurama be better if it gave a whit about realism?  Certainly not for what it is.  But it would if it was trying to be taken seriously.

Small tweaks can solve some of your problems. For example: one of the elements in gun powder could be exceedingly rare, far more so than on Earth. Thus use of firearms or cannon would be less common. Perhaps only used by the nobility is prestige cases.

Or you could go the Honor route. Use of firearms is seen as dishonorable or unmanly. Or the Church considers gunpowder to be devilish in nature.

But you're right, in the end it is all fantasy and much doesn't need a rational explanation. If you want animals that can talk and reason like a human, well, there you go. If you want blimps in a 12th century setting, do it.

Quote from: Old One Eye;728947Bender is your avatar.  Would Futurama be better if it gave a whit about realism?  Certainly not for what it is.  But it would if it was trying to be taken seriously.

Hadn't thought of it in that respect, but you're right. I suppose that it is all relative to what it is that is trying to be acommplished and how expectations are established for the players. Now that I think about it Futurama is a great example of science fantasy in many respects because it has little concern for realism and much more for wild imaginings with scientific trappings.

Does any one else have to fight the compulsive urge to try and make things as sense? I find it odd that it is such a hang up for me as I often enjoy settings that play fast and loose with realism and stick more to cool factor. I think as an exercise in creativity I should just go with what sounds fun and fits the theme while designing this setting. Might be nice to force my self to break old habits.

Quote from: Arkansan;728950Hadn't thought of it in that respect, but you're right. I suppose that it is all relative to what it is that is trying to be acommplished and how expectations are established for the players. Now that I think about it Futurama is a great example of science fantasy in many respects because it has little concern for realism and much more for wild imaginings with scientific trappings.

Does any one else have to fight the compulsive urge to try and make things as sense? I find it odd that it is such a hang up for me as I often enjoy settings that play fast and loose with realism and stick more to cool factor. I think as an exercise in creativity I should just go with what sounds fun and fits the theme while designing this setting. Might be nice to force my self to break old habits.

Yeah, even I'm not the sort of guy who'd be calculating how a realistic dragon should look - don't get  bogged in minutia, and remember. Do something cool, then explain why, if you want to keep some crazy logic. And as I said, bear my advice with lots of salt, because I'm a bit of the realism freak.

Also, I'd say that the more fantastic (literally) elements are there, the less I care about notions of realism. There's a threshold where I don't care about that anymore.

It depends on your preferences and your players.  Some people -- me, for instance -- require a high level of verisimilitude.  Others don't.  

Another factor is that, gamers being gamers, many of them think they know a great deal more about what was possible when with what technology than they actually do.  Heck, take your example, for instance: carts and oxen were in common use throughout Europe at the very time that German zeppelins were bombing London in WWI.

"Realism" is just someone's idea of versimilitude, which is the appearance of reality, and therefore a completely subjective idea depending on one's own sensibilities and the context in which they are put in play.

"We are OK with dragons, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants and fireball-flinging wizards, but having firearms totally destroys it for us" is an attitude that I have seen and heard but do not understand.

Your game is as realistic as you want it to be. As soon as you have many standard things of RPGs then realism flies out of the window. What you have instead is a realistic outcome of having those things. Some people like these things to be completely explained, others just accept that's the way it is.

Quote from: Benoist;728975"Realism" is just someone's idea of versimilitude, which is the appearance of reality, and therefore a completely subjective idea depending on one's own sensibilities and the context in which they are put in play.

Bingo, bango, bongo!  Nailed it.

It might be that your world isn't static and the rarity of some technologies may be a temporary state.

It could also be that the gaps you see will be patched in the reader's eye by the coolness of your overall vision. I don't mean the "rule of cool" per se but that if you don't draw attention to problems, the reader will fill in their own explanations if they're motivated.

For some reason I feel like mentioning Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. So I did. Watch it if you haven't yet done so; it might give you some ideas.

Quote from: soltakss;729004"We are OK with dragons, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants and fireball-flinging wizards, but having firearms totally destroys it for us" is an attitude that I have seen and heard but do not understand.

Gunpowder Is Naughty And Not Fantasy