I figured posting my standard sticky response to the "On the virtues of unrealism" thread would be threadcrapping, so here 'tis.  From another forum, several years ago:

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QuoteI think the real question here is, "why do you consider the mechanics nonsense"? We're talking an imaginary dwarf, with 100 imaginary hit points, falling off an imaginary cliff, taking damage that is, also, imaginary.

If the designer finds it desirable that a character could fall off a cliff and survive, it will be so. If not, for whatever reason, it will not be. (The first mention of "but it's not REALISTIC!" gets you kicked. This is all *imaginary*, remember?)

If I had a dime for every time I've heard this over the last couple decades, I could pay all the bills this month.

Well, yes, it's all imaginary.  So why use cliffs, or indeed any recognizable terrain at all?  Why not adventure in big fluffy masses of amorphia?  Or just 'port to anywhere we want to go, and imagine it to be anything convenient to us?

Why should we use perfectly recognizable medieval weaponry?  It's imaginary, isn't it?  Don't limit yourself, hit the enemy with your kerfluffmezoz or your wheezimithuzit!

And since it doesn't have to make sense, we don't need to have these pesky movement rules, besides which we all want to be Matrixy and John Woo-esque, don't we?  Tell your DM that you're running through the air and phasing right through every intervening tree and foe to hit the Big Bad with your wheezimithuzit, and better yet you're doing it before he cut down your friend, because since it's all imaginary we don't have to use linear time either.

No, I don't care that I rolled a "miss."  Skill progression is one of those boring realism constructs, and I don't believe in it.  Let's just imagine that I hit the Big Bad whenever I need to, and for twenty-five hundred d8 of damage, too.  Encumbrance is boringly realistic too, so I'm ignoring it, and I'd rather imagine that my snazzy quilted vest protected me like the glacis armor on a T-72, please.

Alright, show of hands.  Why don't we play our RPGs that way?

It's called suspension of disbelief. We put our games into recognizable settings that mimic real life.  We use swords in fantasy games because we have the expectation that such milieus use swords, and those swords do the relative damage of a sword instead of the damage of a 155mm mortar shell because that is our expectation too.  Our fantasy characters wear tunics and cloaks, live in walled cities or sacred groves, and scale ramparts where the force of gravity pulls us downward, not pushes us up.  We have an expectation of how fast we can walk, how far we can ride, and how long we can sail.  All these expectations are founded in reality.

To the degree we ignore these things, just because, we lose touch with suspension of disbelief.  If the ten-foot-tall Big Bad hits a peon with his greatsword, we expect the peon to be in a world of hurt; we don't expect the sword to bounce off.  If the party wizard shoots a fireball at the orcs' wooden stockade, we expect that it might catch fire; we don't expect the wall to grow flowers instead.  

And if an armored dwarf takes a gainer off of a hundred foot sheer drop, we expect to find a soggy mass at the base of the cliff.  We sure as hell don't expect a dwarf boinging around like a rubber ball, happily warbling, "Bumbles bounce!"

That there are a great many gamers who want their rule systems to reflect reality, rather than ignore it -- so that we find ourselves constantly sidetracked as to issues of WHY suchandsuch doesn't make sense, or because the GM has to explain how come the dwarf isn't a soggy mass -- ought be a surprise to no one.

Realism or whimsy are not absolute states in the realm of gaming.

The level of abstraction desired for a given system will have a huge impact on the realism level of the game. We might want familliar trappings to our fantasy worlds yet have heroes who can withstand the kind of damage that would realistically kill anyone.

The game itself is an escape from reality. Its an alternate place we can visit for a time and have the unreal become real. You could simulate a realistic approximation of a pseudo-medieval world if you wish,but the first time a wizard starts flinging magic missiles the suspension of disbelief is shot to hell.

The type of reality desired for me varies a lot depending on the game. I can accept fighters surviving 100 foot drops in a D&D game but it would spoil my enjoyment if such things happened regularly in a GURPS espionage game.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;693836We might want familliar trappings to our fantasy worlds yet have heroes who can withstand the kind of damage that would realistically kill anyone.

I'm assuming that's the royal 'we' there. Personally I find it's quite a rush to play in a fantasy game where the system is fairly realistic, no comfort blanket of scores of HP, no super saving throws, etc. Some like medieval superheroes, good for them.

I mostly agree with the OP but I will say that I put playability above realism, way above it. I hardly bother with encumbrance and I deliberately don't use hit locations or death spirals, too much accounting. If something is realistic but is slowing the game down, it's getting ditched. With that said I usually try to research the bits I do keep in my game so they individually or combined produce realistic outcomes, or as near as I can find data for.

It's all about internal consistent rule sets, right? But with an over arching agreement between the players and GM that the GM is telling the story and gets to decide on what happens in the story, with the players general consensus, and a set of mutually understandable rules that help them work out various random/chaotic bits.

Dwarf falls off cliff? Roll 1d100. I rolled a 1 -- critical success maximus. What now? Catch branch from tree growing out of cliff? Fall in soggy patch of swamp at base of cliff. The guy rolled a 1! You've gotta give him a break, right, some kind of in game reward for having beaten the odds by so much.

And let's face it, when was the last time you saw a dragon at the park? Or someone casting a teleport spell to get to a meeting on time? The suspension of disbelief allows unreal stuff within a gradation of acceptable scales. If we insisted on reality, all those swords that everyone uses all the time would cost about fifty times what they do and for the most part they'd be made of bronze or bad iron

Quote from: Ravenswing;693752It’s called suspension of disbelief. We put our games into recognizable settings that mimic real life.

That is a consideration but not the only one for incorporating emulation based on realism.

The more important one to me is that resolving actions realistically is that players can use their real life knowledge to determine their choices. This cuts down on what the referee has to communicate and allow him to spend more time on other things.

And being realistic is not the sole criteria by which to judge this. Any widespread tropes can be used in this manner. One reason we have so many variations of vanilla D&D fantasy settings in RPGs because the conventions are widely understood. You don't have to explain to most people what a dwarf, elf, or halflings is.

Suspension of disbelief is important to many but it is so subjective too. Suspension of disbelief operates in a game of Toon as well as the most gritty game of Harnmaster.

However the amount of what you have to tell your players, and amount of information the player have in order to make choices are easier things to look at objectively.

For me the use of realism in my fantasy allows me to cut down what I have to tell my players. Allows my players to make valid assumption about my setting. I combined this with the generous use of stereotypes both mundane and mythical. The net effect of which allows the group to spend more time on the unique and interesting aspects of the Majestic Wilderlands.

Quote from: The Traveller;693842I'm assuming that's the royal 'we' there. Personally I find it's quite a rush to play in a fantasy game where the system is fairly realistic, no comfort blanket of scores of HP, no super saving throws, etc. Some like medieval superheroes, good for them.

I was speaking mainly about the popularity of D&D. I enjoy gritty low fantasy also. Low point total characters in GURPS fantasy is some of my favorite gaming.

The real problem is that deep in our little selfish knows-it's-wrong heart of hearts we all entertain the delusion that we're God, and that we can SEE HOW THINGS REALLY ARE. The issue with that is that everyone sees things differently. This creeps into RPGs because players and GMs assume that their limited, subjective viewpoint is indeed objective - "it's common sense man!"

Realism, in terms of RPGs, is a big fat lie unless one can put some restraint on how a selfish, narrow point of view.  If you're running a sandbox game, I think it's helpful to have a discussion at the beginning of the game as to what is expected in how things work - players and GMs can't read each other's minds, but they can come to a mutually agreed on understanding of tone, flow, characterization, how the imaginary physics work, and so on. When folks say "I want a realistic game!", the question I ask is, "whose realism?" It certainly is possible to make the GMs realism (the only one that really matters in a sandbox game) understood before the game starts. I'm starting Temple of Elemental Evil using AD&D 1 tonight and I'm having this conevrsation with my players right now.

When some folks talk about how they have a hard time accepting, for example, how a human fighter can kill 4 opponents with one blow (perfectly allowable against less than 1 HD opponents in AD&D 1), they're really talking about their understanding of the agreed upon simulated setting. Likewise with shouting healing at people (Warlords in 4E), and so on. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as we accepted it's just one of many positions.  Also, I feel that for that the BRP series of games (RuneQuest in particular) are better at strict physics simulation than D&D, but that's for another thread.

My point is that a GM should take great care with explaining "this is how I see things" to players, and players should take great care to understand how their GM views things if playing in an OSR/sandbox style setting. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having strict emulation guidelines in a Sim/Physics engine style game, but there needs to be clear communication. Players need to know whether or not certain kinds of action are going to fly (for example, some GMs love Errol Flynn or Wu Xia style acrobatics and stunts, others will hate that and want to see the clash of shields and hard, gritty styles of combat.)

Fact - in real life, combat is often boring to watch. D&D and other early games have their roots in movies and books as much as in any notions of historical real world combat. So, 'realism' is a shibboleth, it should be substituted for 'what I want to see.'

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;693867Realism, in terms of RPGs, is a big fat lie unless one can put some restraint on how a selfish, narrow point of view.  

It's not realism unless you're comparing it with real world data. The falling off a building one is a good example, we have real world data on survival rates based on falls from various heights. These are expressed as percentage chances.

Dice rolls, ranges, average hits points and how these interact can also be very easily expressed as percentage chances.

Edit: damn somehow wiped out half my post, in summary opinion shouldn't enter into anything described as 'realism', only references to real world data and how closely you can match your results to real world outcomes. Sometimes that means using wacky maths, sometimes the simplest systems are the best, but of course no system can be 100% realistic if for no other reason than that standard dice ranges often don't compare well to the various curves and bumps you encounter in reality. Wherever possible however I would attempt to research real world effects and get as near an approximation as I can without impeding playability.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;693867Fact - in real life, combat is often boring to watch. D&D and other early games have their roots in movies and books as much as in any notions of historical real world combat. So, 'realism' is a shibboleth, it should be substituted for 'what I want to see.'

The fact is, being in combat in real life is not in any way tedious. Watching a group of people sit at a table throwing dice and shouting is boring, but to them, living the experience, it's anything but. They aren't watching the combat, they are in the combat. This is immersion, it's not a spectator sport, and it is definetely something that keeping an eye on realism helps.

Quote from: estar;693845The more important one to me is that resolving actions realistically is that players can use their real life knowledge to determine their choices. This cuts down on what the referee has to communicate and allow him to spend more time on other things.

I think that this gets to the essence of my position as well.  

It's also the same reason why published game worlds can be useful -- people can read about the nation of Cormyr and have some idea of what it is like.  People know the basic ideas of the setting.  It's also why I think Dragon Age is a neat RPG world -- it's easy to find people who spent 40 hours learning all about the setting.

Somewhere a middle is sitting in a sleazy hotel room pounding down shots of cheap whiskey while a loaded revolver sits on the table.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;693867When some folks talk about how they have a hard time accepting, for example, how a human fighter can kill 4 opponents with one blow (perfectly allowable against less than 1 HD opponents in AD&D 1) . . .

Against opponents of less then one hit die, fighters may make a number of attacks equal to their level.

That's not 'killing 4 opponents with one blow.'

Quote from: Black Vulmea;694021Against opponents of less then one hit die, fighters may make a number of attacks equal to their level.

That's not 'killing 4 opponents with one blow.'

True.
And, it is during a melle round of one minute assumed to contain many strikes, so the fighter is not even 'getting 4 attacks'; its all consistant.

Realism isn't the right word.

ver·i·si·mil·i·tude

/ˌverəsəˈmiliˌt(y)o͞od/

noun
noun: verisimilitude
1. the appearance of being true or real.
"the detail gives the novel some verisimilitude"

synonyms:
realism, believability, plausibility, authenticity, credibility, lifelikeness

Edit: Let me expand a little bit. What people who say "We want realism" really want is verisimilitude, not realism. As has been noted, realism precludes all fantasy. Verisimilitude means something that feels real, even when it obviously isn't. It aids in suspension of disbelief.

Of course, in the end, it still ends up in the same place:

Not everybody wants the same things from a game (or any other recreational activity). There is one One True Way Of Gaming.

Quote from: taustin;694455Realism isn't the right word.

ver·i·si·mil·i·tude

/ˌverəsəˈmiliˌt(y)o͞od/

noun
noun: verisimilitude
1. the appearance of being true or real.
"the detail gives the novel some verisimilitude"

synonyms:
realism, believability, plausibility, authenticity, credibility, lifelikeness More

A commonly repeated mistake but a mistake nonetheless.

Totally agree with the OP. Great post, btw.