Quote from: jhkim;581508OK, I'd agree with that.  Do you think anyone is arguing that we should accept all metagaming?  I haven't seen that claim so far, but maybe I missed something.  

There seems to be some slippery sloping going on.

QuoteAll of the options I outlined ("Fair Fight", "Fair Warning", and "Life's Not Fair") are compatible with an actual-death, old-school game.

I don't really think any of them were really reflective of actual play, though. It sounds just like Armchair Theorizing to me.

 

QuoteHowever, I don't think that my playing through a typical AD&D1 module designed for 4th - 6th level characters (which falls under Fair Fight) qualifies as storygaming.  

Dungeon Modules were designed for Tournament play. They have no bearing whatsoever on old school sandboxing.

QuoteIf the GM doesn't metagame to make things fair, then things won't be fair.  The PCs will die sometimes not because they were stupid, but because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.  

Sometimes, yes. Much like real life.

QuoteThis might be true in abstract principle, but in practice many real GMs would still be annoyed if - after preparing a bunch of local material - the PCs decided to get on a ship and go across the sea.

Then that GM is either a newb or a moron, because any GM worthy of the title knows that trying to predict what players will do is like herding cats. It's simply bad GMing to do prep work that depends on a particular course of action by the players.

QuoteThat doesn't mean they'd switch from sandbox to railroading, but they would have some negative feelings.

Again, either newb or moron; experienced GMs don't expect PCs to dance to their tune.

QuoteSo for many people, that is a drawback of the style - which should be weighed against the drawbacks of other styles like a not-quite-pure sandbox where the PCs make real choices, but there is some balancing and limits to the choices.

A gilded cage is still a cage. Choices that are restricted to being between a sets of rails are no choices at all.

But Wolf, Richard, you forget: because elves!

Seriously though, trying to logically recreate a fantastic past (with magic!) that corresponds to our non-magical understanding of evolutionary development is a... monumental task of noble proportions.


It also fixes what was by design the flexible foundation of the game: the GM's development of setting. An interesting personal exercise, but overall not something I find worth pursuing as a universal.

Or we could just say any ol' setting excuse to justify things. For example, the good metal dragons got bored and decided to tinker with servitor races, like humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc., just because they could. They wanted to see if they could create independent races. And evil chromatic dragons did likewise with their servitor races, like goblins, gnolls, kobolds, orcs, orges, etc., just because they hate letting the metal dragons have all the fun. But they still want servants. And thus Mythos invades D&D...

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;581623Stupid, small predators were a serious problem for early pastoral peoples; insects, rodents, weather for agricultural.

But they didn't live in a world of magic and imminent gods who took an active interest in their lives.

The key thing to remember about a fantasy world is all the myths are true. There really ARE gods. They really DO mettle in the affairs of mortals. There IS magic. Magic ISN'T just science with the numbers filed off.

All the logic of an evolutionary past goes out the window when we recognize that science and evolution have fuckall do with gods and magic.

Quote from: RPGPundit;581615But we can tap into the forces that do. Or at least, I can. But really, so could anyone else.

RPGPundit

"I can call up spirits from the vasty deep."
"Well, so could I, or any other man, but will they come when you call for them?"

Quote from: Doctor Jest;581634The key thing to remember about a fantasy world is all the myths are true. There really ARE gods. They really DO mettle in the affairs of mortals. There IS magic. Magic ISN'T just science with the numbers filed off.

The elephant in the room is that if you're going to resort to A Wizard Did It for everything, then any claim to "emulation" or "verisimilitude" is just going to go out the window.  You can say anything at all, including that humans have red skin and lay eggs.  But at that point, you've unmoored yourself and your players from any ability to immerse in the setting, because anything could be true for any or no reason, and there's no way to make sensible in-world decisions about anything.

Having studied late antiquity and medieval economics and technology a fair bit, one thing that always makes me laugh is when old-school modules are held up to me as shining examples of immersive sandbox play, and the first thing I note upon reading them is "what do these people eat?"

I'm going to toss this abstract in here as food for thought; the bolded line is my one of my favorite quotes in a research paper ever.

QuoteAsiatic lions (Panthera leo persica) now occur in the wild only as a small population (about 250 animals) within a single reserve, the Gir forest in Gujarat state in western India. Persistent attacks by lions on humans hinder support among local peoples for lion conservation. We analyzed 193 attacks by lions on humans and conducted interviews with 73 villagers to identify the spatial, temporal, and social factors associated with lion-human conflict in the region. An average of 14.8 attacks by lions and 2.2 lion-caused deaths occurred annually between 1978 and 1991, and most attacks (82%) occurred on private lands outside the forest reserve. A drought in 1987-1988 precipititated an increase in rates of conflicts (from 7.3 to 40.0 attacks/year) and in the proportion of attacks that occurred outside the reserve (from 75% to 87%). The spatial pattern of lion attacks could not be distinguished from random before the drought, whereas attacks were clustered after the drought in village subdistricts with a higher ratio of revenue land to forest edge and those closer to sites where lions where lions were formerly baited for tourist shows. Subadult lions were involved in conflicts in disproportion to their relative abundance. A majority of villagers interviewed expressed hostile attitudes toward lions owing to the threat of personal injury and economic hardship (mainly livestock damage) posed by lions. The escalation in lion-human conflict following the drought probably resulted from a combination of increased aggressiveness in lions and a tendency for villagers to bring their surviving livestock into their dwellings. Dissatisfaction with the government's compensation system for lion-depredated livestock was reported widely. The current strategy for coping with problem lions--that is, returning them to areas in the Gir forest already saturated with lions--is inadequate, as indicated by the sharp increase in lion-human conflict since 1988. Prohibiting lion baiting for tourist shows, consolidation of reserve boundaries, and implementation of a more equitable and simpler system for compensating villagers for livestock destroyed by lions could provide short-term alleviation of lion-human conflict in the region. Long-term alleviation may entail reducing the lion population by relocating or culling lions.

Quote from: Opaopajr;581633But Wolf, Richard, you forget: because elves!

Yeah, I was actually thinking of Forgotten Realms while writing that, where the world was apparently ruled by dragons in the ancient past, but fully civilized, belligerent and numerous elves came to Faerun from another world and hunted them to near extinction facilitating a more naturalistic development of human(oids) in this world made safe for roughly elf-sized inhabitants.

Of course the "Elves are in Decline" trope in FR is complete handwaving, because elves are always in decline, which also is a prerequisite for humans as the dominant species.  It's also coincidentally lucky that elves tend to be good-aligned and xenophobic to allow other humanoid races to develop relatively free of interference.  

They could just as easily be evil and imperialistic, which gives you human "civilization" being Eloi to the elves Morloks instead of molemen beholder-slaves.  The development of elves on their secret homeworld is also completely ambiguous which is a kick the can explanation.

All in all though, very clever setting element.  It at least takes my Suspension -o-disbelief-o-meter into acceptable ranges, since I don't really need think so hard about how humans eat and breed and other science facts.

You also have divine homeostasis in FR (which is by contrast very lame) which explains why technology never develops, and various other handwaving of why things on Toril are a lot like they are on Earth despite the presence of so many alien elements to the tune of 'because the Gods will it so for no apparent raisin'.

I think once go that route there isn't any real reason to not just have anything.  Any game mechanic can be explained in character as God's will.  4HD monsters are divinely forbidden from inhabiting the 3rd level of any dungeon.

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;581719Any game mechanic can be explained in character as God's will.  4HD monsters are divinely forbidden from inhabiting the 3rd level of any dungeon.

Amen

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;581719You also have divine homeostasis in FR (which is by contrast very lame) which explains why technology never develops, and various other handwaving of why things on Toril are a lot like they are on Earth despite the presence of so many alien elements to the tune of 'because the Gods will it so for no apparent raisin'.

I think once go that route there isn't any real reason to not just have anything.  Any game mechanic can be explained in character as God's will.  4HD monsters are divinely forbidden from inhabiting the 3rd level of any dungeon.

Meh, technology is gained and lost over time and often amazing ruins are left in its wake, just like Earth (in fact, it's probably the reason we incorporated that idea into our fantasy as a trope in the first place). That and most 2e settings I've read don't freeze technologically, they just deal with a very specific time range. Comparing our modern age of technological development , which for a 200 year time frame has been positively explosive, to other ages is rather unfair. Fits and starts, it all pans out in fits and starts.

And no, I don't divinely forbid 4HD monsters from inhabiting the 3rd level of any dungeon. Perhaps there are GMs who do that, and perhaps 'divine will' is their reason. Wouldn't know about it. But that's their prerogative.

But it's also completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Not all GM considerations, be they setting or metagame structure, are made equal. And as has been pointed out already it's disingenuous to make "any = all" (or guilt by association) as the counter argument. Basically I keep seeing red herring -- Red herring (fallacy), the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but does not address the issue in question. -- and I am running out of soda crackers.

I wasn't really making an argument, except that D&D/generic fantasy RPGs in general are far more about rule of cool than any 'organic' or 'realistic' concerns.

D&D has megalithic stone castles, and full plate, alongside magic that makes those castles basically indefensible, and Age of Sail tech right alongside 9c vikings in longships, and so forth and so on.

Ultimately I'm willing to suspend my disbelief enough for my love of big stone castles, vikings, 17th century pirates, wizards and dragons to all exist in the same setting, so long as I'm given something remotely plausible.

I'm not going to go about claiming that it's more than remotely plausible though, which is what I was stabbing at.

QuoteThat and most 2e settings I've read don't freeze technologically, they just deal with a very specific time range.

Like which ones?  Most of them cover either an impossibly long 'specific time range' like Forgotten Realms where there have been human civilizations for hundreds of thousands of years (and where gunpowder doesn't work by divine intervention but was backdoored in via the Prometheus-esque diety Gond as unreliable and insanely expensive 'smokepowder' which means the age of the gun will never come to Faerun until all it's God's are dead).

There is Ravenloft where the various demesne's are morphic and controlled by the Domain Lord (often unwittingly), and some places have technology (including electricity and electroshock therapy) while their 'neighbor' is smack dab in the middle of the dark ages.  (Although I don't really have a problem with the Horror Themepark that is Ravenloft for similar reasons that I don't have a problem with Pirates of the Caribbean existing side by side with Lion in Winter as it does in much of generic fantasy, but ultimately both are about 'rule of cool' rather than verisimilitude, simulationism, et cetera.)

How long has Athas been "Dark Sun"?  Dark Sun is probably one of the more plausible settings because the world is probably incapable of fostering high civilization due to desertification, and few places supporting large populations.   I'll give you Dark Sun.

IIRC Greyhawk is in a similar, but less egregious vein as FR.

Most fantasy settings have human history, much less demihuman history that spans the entirety of the existence of humanity as a species on the planet Earth and really none of them have had tech past the Italian Renaissance.

The only setting that I'm currently familiar with (and I'm far from familiar with even all the most popular ones, so you probably do have a specific example but I think it would be an outlier) that has a more 'realistic' timeframe is Golarion which IIRC might cover an absurd 20k years of "Human" history (counting the proto-human, Atlantean/Numenorian ripoffs).  Golarion also has much higher non-magical technology compared to most fantasy settings as well though.  

Even still, it's still got a lot of boilerplate fantasy (which I'm sure is intentional) like theme park civilizations with Knights in Shining Armor, Vikings, and Age of Sail (and arguably Golarion's guns and cannons fall into it's own theme park as well), as well as the impossible longevity of empires in unbroken lines which are  ubiquitous feature of generic fantasy.  Dynasties that lost 50 generations, or 500 instead of 3 or 5.

Also saying 'Anything is possible' is literally synonymous with saying 'All things are possible' so I don't see how any=/=all when it clearly does in this context.  I don't think that people are actually going to design their setting willy nilly and declare "A Wizard Did It" but they clearly are willing to do so as a justification for some things.  Although again I don't have much of a problem with it (if it's actually plausible like the Forgotten Realm's extra-terrestrial elves) but I'm not going to pass off my preference as being outside the 'rule of cool' arena and say it's more than a remotely plausible excuse to include things I like, make the game playable, humanocentric and thus immersive, et cetera.

That's mostly what I'm objecting to.  That these settings are "realistic" in any way.  Realistically, you can't transplant things from Earth relatively unaltered with the assumptions present in the D&D world.  The presence of elves, magic, and literal, in the flesh Gods only exacerbates the problem really, because you wind up with ersatz medieval Europe, with tacked on fantasy elements that really don't impact society in meaningful ways.

Quote from: Opaopajr;581763Meh, technology is gained and lost over time and often amazing ruins are left in its wake, just like Earth (in fact, it's probably the reason we incorporated that idea into our fantasy as a trope in the first place).

I remember the one time we killed a Red Dragon and got a +4 Defender sword and the blueprints for Hero of Alexandria's steam engine.

JG

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;581839I wasn't really making an argument, except that D&D/generic fantasy RPGs in general are far more about rule of cool than any 'organic' or 'realistic' concerns.

D&D has megalithic stone castles, and full plate, alongside magic that makes those castles basically indefensible, and Age of Sail tech right alongside 9c vikings in longships, and so forth and so on.

Ultimately I'm willing to suspend my disbelief enough for my love of big stone castles, vikings, 17th century pirates, wizards and dragons to all exist in the same setting, so long as I'm given something remotely plausible.

I'm not going to go about claiming that it's more than remotely plausible though, which is what I was stabbing at.

Yes, they really are about the rule of cool, aren't they. :cool:

But then with magic and direct divine intervention I wouldn't go further than remotely plausible myself either. Just logical enough from the framework that I understand about humanity. Which reflects the whole usage of spheres of influence, organized societies, etc.

And dude, arquebus is in the PHB. It's up to you to craft your setting with gunpowder. Someone who has FR Kara Tur will have to report whether black powder is available there. Birthright talks about black powder cannons and how it may arise in the setting, but also how its a GM consideration because of fundamental changes it will bring. I personally think the argument "OMG guns, everything must now change!" has been overblown about past ages. Crossbows and cannons likely had greater middle ages impact. I believe it'd take the advent of rifling and repeating rounds to leave unquestionable superiority, but whatever.

About which settings, I agree that several have an elasticity that you just have to let go your assumptions, embrace theirs, and enjoy the ride, like Planescape, Ravenloft, Spelljammer. They, like a delightful post-modern argument, make sense within their own framework -- because our assumed framework need not apply. And that's important, our framework can only be partially embraced in any setting not directly analogous to our world. So some settings just have a lot more fun discarding most of our framework and replacing it with another one.

By the way, Blacklore Elves from Hollow World have like automatons that mow their lawn, skyscrapers, hover cars, phasers, and fashionistas. It's a delightful tidbit of madness. But that's a world where regions are even more isolated, so you can have 'Egyptian empire' next to 'Aztecs with Dinosaurs!' except there's like this big impassable wall keeping them apart (cuz it's inside the known world of Mystara). They're a hoot; I totally need to do a D&D + Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure mashup with them.

True, many dynasties seem shorter than fantastical counterparts on first inspection. We also don't have resurrection as a spell, which conjures up frightful evil dynasties lasting centuries... But anyway I thought I'd give you a website about long dynasties on earth. Shortest among them is 790 years. Though several are placed BCE and questionably long, over half are CE and verifiable (in my non-Amer-Euro history emphasis, many here are verifiable for at least 1000+ years):

Socyberty: 10 Dynasties that Reigned the Longest in History

And about 'any not equaling all', as noted above in the more elastic settings, you are giving up a portion of your understanding's framework and embracing an alternate world's premise. That's foundational. It has nothing to do with artificially funneling PCs through hoops and denying real meaning to their exploration choices. They are as mutually opposed concepts as a games' rules and playing field from its tournaments' rule structure and competitor field; one is the game, the other is the metagame.

One is you embrace the play premise or you don't. The other is you undermine the initial play premise offered and supplant it with a different game. (Edit: It sounds harsh, but it is a foundational question in my eye. RPG play premise assumes you believe RPGs are about player character choices in situ, playing a role, and not about story track completion, playing a storied battle track. Worries about having enough XP fed to you to level in order to complete the storied quest in sequence obviates what I feel is a crucial player decision element of RPGs. A railroad may be a fun game, but it's a radically different game from what RPGs initially offer as their premise (bad modules withstanding).)

Basically this topic asks obliquely: which game are you really playing?

As this is already a wall of text, I'll stop. I'll answer anything you feel I didn't get to yet. But thanks for this conversation. By the way, we share many pragmatic critiques on setting verisimilitude. And I find that such pragmatism is a useful skill to edit settings into something more palatable for my suspension of belief.

Mr. Wolf, doncha know that because elves are perfect, that of course they have to be dying, xenophopic, stupid lawful good?  Or even better be midnight black and even more stupid chaotic evil because of women and even more stupid stuff? 3/4e tried to fix it but the Drizzt FR fanboi's wouldn't have any of that logic crap. Hence we get politically correct Draconians ala Dragonborn.

Hell at least GURPS let's you choose your personal stupidity.

Serious question, should I be more offended that the ONLY elves that make sense are black?  So black to be an obvious racism thing or that women control things?  It isn't like several societies both modern and ancient weren't matricartical.....simple question.

Quote from: daniel_ream;581676The elephant in the room is that if you're going to resort to A Wizard Did It for everything, then any claim to "emulation" or "verisimilitude" is just going to go out the window.  

Bullshit. Humans lived for tens of thousands of years believing the way things worked was defined by the actions of supernatural beings and forces all around them and somehow didn't fail to find the world to be real.

Your being culturally myopic with a mechanistic post-renaissance world view.

Neither emulation or versilimitude require realism, Unless your trying to emulate reality.

The right answer to "how did something like this evolve???", if we're being immersive, is to respond "how the hell do you know what evolution is?"

QuoteYou can say anything at all, including that humans have red skin and lay eggs

Kinda like Barsoom?

QuoteBut at that point, you've unmoored yourself and your players from any ability to immerse in the setting, because anything could be true for any or no reason, and there's no way to make sensible in-world decisions about anything.

There's that slippery slope I mentioned a few posts up.

A world can be Magical and Mythical and still be internally consistent. Absolute realism isn't the only way to achieve versilimitude.

And not knowing how everything works is not the same as not knowing how anything works.

QuoteHaving studied late antiquity and medieval economics and technology a fair bit, one thing that always makes me laugh is when old-school modules are held up to me as shining examples of immersive sandbox play, and the first thing I note upon reading them is "what do these people eat?"

Sorry, who, exactly was holding up old school modules as being immersive sandbox play? I mean other than that guy over there made of straw?

Quote from: Opaopajr;581493Which does get back to Lord Vreeg's comment that setting will adjust to system at some point.

For me, it's just the opposite, the system adjusts to the setting -- but then I am a real believer in Rule 0 and in my Rule 0a (Setting needs trump the RAW every time.)