Quote from: estar;582059ANY RPG can be used for sandbox play by virtue of the fact they all focus on individual characters in a setting whose actions are adjudicated by a referee.

Where complexity and design comes into play is for the novice referee. The more detailed games require more to learn it would be hard to juggle learning both the sandbox style, create locales and detailed character and combat rules.

Older edition D&D has a virtue in that the dungeon is a very easy format to master for novices. Make a maze with room, number key each room, and write down what in each of them. The character starts at the entrance.

I was talking about encounter distance and xoot

Quote from: daniel_ream;581944GMs and sourcebooks are a lousy interface to a fictional culture, and the players' ability to extrapolate from what little information they get from those is determined by how well they can apply what knowledge they already have abut human culture, history, and psychology.

The more bizarre, arbitrary and nonsensical elements are added to a setting, the more you're going to get assumption clash and the game bogging down as the players question the GM constantly on what is or is not true about the setting because they have no basis for judgment.

this has never been a major problem for me as a player. I seem to get what I need from sourcebooks and a good GM can convey what I need to know through a variety  of methods. Maybe we just have different expectations here. But to me a source book is a handy, straightforward way to get the basics of a setting. Where sourcebooks tend to be weak is the micro, street level scale scale (though I think that varies from book to book). If you use macro and micro history as a rough analogy, the core book offers a bit of a macro view in most cases and supplemental material (like the old TSR "so and so's guide to X" can offer more of a micro, street level view). Some books are able to mix the two. It is never going to be perfect enough to be 100% reaistic (but pretty much any source material out there will fall short in that respect). The advantage rpg sourcebooks have is they are written with the needs of gamers in mind so I find them quite useful. For me, what I am looking for is a setting that is believable. It doesn't have to be fully realistic. I find between a well designed source book, a competent GM and eager players, things tend to work out quite well.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;582107this has never been a major problem for me as a player. I seem to get what I need from sourcebooks and a good GM can convey what I need to know through a variety  of methods. Maybe we just have different expectations here. But to me a source book is a handy, straightforward way to get the basics of a setting. Where sourcebooks tend to be weak is the micro, street level scale scale (though I think that varies from book to book). If you use macro and micro history as a rough analogy, the core book offers a bit of a macro view in most cases and supplemental material (like the old TSR "so and so's guide to X" can offer more of a micro, street level view). Some books are able to mix the two. It is never going to be perfect enough to be 100% reaistic (but pretty much any source material out there will fall short in that respect). The advantage rpg sourcebooks have is they are written with the needs of gamers in mind so I find them quite useful. For me, what I am looking for is a setting that is believable. It doesn't have to be fully realistic. I find between a well designed source book, a competent GM and eager players, things tend to work out quite well.

+1

I fail to see the requirement that cultures being depicted in any form of entertainment (including RPGs) be 100% accurate.  In fact, I said the same thing back in that racism thread.

Unless the detail is necessary to meet the goals of the game, said detail is just dead weight.

Unless the goal of your RPG is a 100%-accurate cultural simulator, then I'm not at all sure what's being advocated.

For example, take the example of 'shh = embarrassed'.  What if I simply don't like that detail of real Japan and elect to omit it in my campaign?  How do you measure the impact of this choice?

Quote from: mcbobbo;582109+1

I fail to see the requirement that cultures being depicted in any form of entertainment (including RPGs) be 100% accurate.  In fact, I said the same thing back in that racism thread.

Unless the detail is necessary to meet the goals of the game, said detail is just dead weight.

Unless the goal of your RPG is a 100%-accurate cultural simulator, then I'm not at all sure what's being advocated.

For example, take the example of 'shh = embarrassed'.  What if I simply don't like that detail of real Japan and elect to omit it in my campaign?  How do you measure the impact of this choice?

What's being advocated is the idea that you can't ever have a 100% accurate anything. It's the notion that all the things you encounter at anybody's table is patently "inorganic" because we, as people, cannot match what happens in real life so the best we can do is arbitrate and attempt to go with what sounds plausible. No one is saying that not being able to do so is a particular problem but that we can't do it at all.

Quote from: MGuy;582115What's being advocated is the idea that you can't ever have a 100% accurate anything. It's the notion that all the things you encounter at anybody's table is patently "inorganic" because we, as people, cannot match what happens in real life so the best we can do is arbitrate and attempt to go with what sounds plausible. No one is saying that not being able to do so is a particular problem but that we can't do it at all.

Of course. But then the point is similar to impressionism. You create a tapestry made of blobs of color, and the imagination of the participants (people experiencing the painting, looking at it) does the rest, filling in the blanks, connecting the dots to imagine lines where there are none, and so on. It is not about "reality". It is about "verisimilitude", which is a word that literally means "the appearance of reality" (i.e. "verus" truth, and "similis" likeness, the likeness of truth).



People who are unable or unwilling to let their imagination create an appearance of reality, are unable or unwilling to let their mind fill in the blanks and connect the dots so that there is a shared game world coming into being amongst the participants of the role playing game, are unable or unwilling to suspend their disbelief, are basically not playing a TRPG. They might be playing a type of board game, an elaborate miniatures skirmish wargame, some sort of verbal game of collaborative story telling, but they fail at one of the fundamentals of role playing games: playing within the worlds of their own imaginations.

Excellent illustration!

Quote from: MGuy;582115What's being advocated is the idea that you can't ever have a 100% accurate anything. It's the notion that all the things you encounter at anybody's table is patently "inorganic" because we, as people, cannot match what happens in real life so the best we can do is arbitrate and attempt to go with what sounds plausible. No one is saying that not being able to do so is a particular problem but that we can't do it at all.

No one is arguing for a simulation of real life. All people are calling for is believability and plausibility. The distinction between something that feels real and something that is real has been made multiple times. Just because 100% genuine realism is impossible that doesn't mean you drop all efforts at maintaining immersion or say anything goes. When peope say organic, i think all they mean is a setting that makes sense, has internal consistency, has some visible cause and effect and is believable. It is a question of what you prioritize when making decisions as a GM.

Quote from: estar;582128Excellent illustration!

It is Impression, Soleil Levant, by Claude Monet. I love that painting.

Quote from: Benoist;582135It is Impression, Soleil Levant, by Claude Monet. I love that painting.

+1, Ben.

I can't tell at this point what people are disagreeing about.  

It seems to me that a good example of Benoist's impressionism principle is deadDMwalking's example of saying "Rohirim are like Vikings, but they ride horses instead of sail around in Long Boats'."

Quote from: jhkim;582139I can't tell at this point what people are disagreeing about.  

It seems to me that a good example of Benoist's impressionism principle is deadDMwalking's example of saying "Rohirim are like Vikings, but they ride horses instead of sail around in Long Boats'."

It seems to me the disagreement basically goes like this:

Side A: "Suggested Encounters Per Day" work fine.
Side B: "We think Suggested Encounters Per Day feel fake, and do not mesh well with the notion of verisimilitude and world in motion. We're taking this lived-in, organic universe approach instead."
Side A: "Well your approach is not real at all, and can't recreate a world's reality 100%, so it's organic at 0% in any case (<-- notice the logical jump here from "the world reality isn't totally consistent" to "it doesn't happen at all ever"), so Suggested Encounters Per Day are just as good as anything."
Side B: "It's not about recreating a reality 100% for us. It's about creating an impression of realism, cf. impressionism, verisimilitude, suspension of disbelief."

That's what the disagreement comes down to, from my vantage point. My opinion is that just throwing one's arms in the air and claiming "well everything's fake in a role playing game so we might as well give up on that immersion thing and just use any mechanics" is like completely missing the point of role playing games. It's basically saying "the game is fake, so we might as well play it as the fake thing it is and not care about playing RPGs at all." It's a really wrong-headed argument to make, IMO.

Quote from: Benoist;582144That's what the disagreement comes down to, from my vantage point. .

That's what the disagreement always comes down to in these types of situations.

"What do you mean you don't like fighters being able to leap 100' across the battlefield, stunning all opponents in line of sight with a single attack.  You don't have a problem with magic users casting spells, and that's not real, so your verisimilitude is already gone."

Hell, if we go by that logic, then those players shouldn't have problems with machine gun toting giant rabbits in their D&D games.  We all make cut offs as to what we want in realism vs fantasy, so that above statement is fundamentally flawed.  Not that it will stop people from saying it.

Quote from: jhkim;582139I can't tell at this point what people are disagreeing about.  

It seems to me that a good example of Benoist's impressionism principle is deadDMwalking's example of saying "Rohirim are like Vikings, but they ride horses instead of sail around in Long Boats'."

The Rohirim are fantasy Anglo-Saxons who ride horse. But Anglo-Saxons are a step away from Vikings culture wise. So your analogy would get the players into the ballpark and probably better for the average player.

Quote from: Benoist;582144It's basically saying "the game is fake, so we might as well play it as the fake thing it is and not care about playing RPGs at all." It's a really wrong-headed argument to make, IMO.

I agree and will add that the Side A argument does not reflect how the majority of roleplayers think about their game.

I am not saying that most roleplayers are deep immersionists. My experience the average roleplayer is playing a reflection of themselves in a fantasy world. Their response to various situations is what they would do considering the past history of the campaign and the abilities they posses via their character.

Which is OK and works well for many including myself.

Quote from: Benoist;582118Of course. But then the point is similar to impressionism. You create a tapestry made of blobs of color, and the imagination of the participants (people experiencing the painting, looking at it) does the rest, filling in the blanks, connecting the dots to imagine lines where there are none, and so on. It is not about "reality". It is about "verisimilitude", which is a word that literally means "the appearance of reality" (i.e. "verus" truth, and "similis" likeness, the likeness of truth).

Right.  And the point here is that while you may have an idea of what 'reality' looks like, someone else might have a different 'impression' that can cause problems.  The closer things are to 'real life' the more likely people are to be on the same page.  

So if you decide to start changing things from 'default expectations', you have to do more work to make those differences clear to the player - since they can't experience the world as vibrantly as their character would.  

What this tends to mean is that there's a lot of setting stuff that isn't necessarily logical, or even appropriate to the game world - it's informed by metagame concerns (and that's fine) but balancing real world expectations with game world physics (you know, where magic is real) tends to mean the world players explore is actually one that SHOULDN'T exist - but it is most convenient to provide an interesting game and players don't delve too far into the absurdity.  

For example, it's a trope to assume that underdark races survive on fungus.  It is also possible that the fungus converts a certain amount of 'invisible' radiation into 'food' through some kind of photsynthesis like process.  But even considering that, the biomass of the Underdarks' known inhabitants is too great for the known food.  As players we accept that 'they eat mushrooms' and don't dig much deeper - but if we did, we'd expose the world for what it is - a fantasy.  It's a peek behind the curtain that can damage the game.  So everyone tries to pretend that there's no curtain, and certainly there's nothing behind it - but if we're being honest, we all know that it's there and there's a reason you don't dig too deep.

Edit for Clarity -
Encounters per Day is a suggestion for how a DM builds a dungeon and an adventure location.  That's it.  Yes, it is a 'metagame concern', but so is most of what makes the world 'interesting' for players to explore.  Use it, don't use it, it doesn't matter.  But if you use it, use it for what it was meant to be.  It's not really different than having 'suggested random encounter tables by terrain'.  If you roll a 'blue dragon' where you hadn't specifically known that one lairs there (but you know that it is a suitable place for them to live) you have let metagame elements influence the game world.  That's fine.  And if you plan on having an average of four fights before the PCs will have a chance to rest safely, that's also fine - it makes the world feel more exciting (and if you do it right, it feels realistic.  If you do it wrong (ie, you've had four encounters, you can rest now) then it is immersion-breaking gamist bullshit.  You can use it without going that far.