I actually think plausible is a great word to add in, since it adds a veneer of, "Of Course" to the process of creation.

Believablilty is a good one.  I think of it as being like watching a play on stage.  Most stage play sets aren't really all that good, unless you're a big-time theater.  But the audience accepts them if the play is good.  RPGs are like that, if they generally work pretty well and are fun, we all simply ignore the bits where the paint is chipped or the microphone is visible.

And to echo what somebody else said, again, if you don't want the PCs wandering around town in full armor, don't make it necessary.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;845822Believablilty is a good one.  I think of it as being like watching a play on stage.  Most stage play sets aren't really all that good, unless you're a big-time theater.  But the audience accepts them if the play is good.  RPGs are like that, if they generally work pretty well and are fun, we all simply ignore the bits where the paint is chipped or the microphone is visible.

And to echo what somebody else said, again, if you don't want the PCs wandering around town in full armor, don't make it necessary.

And, as we are working with, maybe don't make it logical and necessary for them to wear armor in town system-wise,  and then penalize them for it setting wise.

Believability is another good one. Theater is a great analogy.

Quote from: LordVreeg;845825And, as we are working with, maybe don't make it logical and necessary for them to wear armor in town system-wise,  and then penalize them for it setting wise.

Believability is another good one. Theater is a great analogy.

Exactly. If I have a rough and tumble town where trouble lurks around every corner then I am not going to try and force some sort of weird ass law on the PCs or NPCs requiring them to disarm. But if I've established that towns are safe and theres laws to abide and they refuse to stow the gear. Then that is their own fault and if things go poorly they can and will get filled full of arrows.

My OD&D setting has one main city in the region. The City of Rings has wealthy inner rings and rougher outer rings. The deeper you go, the stricter the rules and the more powerful the contacts you can make.

I did SCA so I know you can easily sleep in armor. It's not comfortable, but after an afternoon of sword swinging in the sun, I more than once, just napped under a tree in armor. When I woke up, I wasn't much worse for wear. When you're physically exhausted, any sleep is pretty good. After fighting a few hours in the sun, you just pass out.

The bigger problem is heat exhaustion and being weighed down. Steel weapons and armor are DAMN heavy after a while. Heck, even LARP armor and weapons can get tiresome to carry about after a while.

Quote from: LordVreeg;845791I think part of the issue is that in game design/style, the terms, 'logical' and 'realistic' are used as synonymous, when they are not.  

Realistic infers that the rule or system is based on reality.  That it was pulled from the real world.

"Realistic" is a loaded word in discussion of games and fiction in general, as this thread has already demonstrated with allusions to the classic "there are fireballs, therefore the game is absolutely divorced from reality and 'realism' has no place in it" argument.  In my previous post, I'd considered adding notes to the effect of "'realistic' with respect to the game world, not the real world" or "by 'realism', I mean 'the sense that this could be real (even though it isn't)'", but ended up editing them out as too clumsy and distracting from my point.  Even if someone wants to argue that I'm absolutely wrong for having used the word "realism", I'm confident that my meaning was still clear to all readers.

Quote from: Bren;845806If you want to describe the derivation as "making sense" based on defined rules and setting premises, then the word you want is plausible not logical. The outcome may be logical without seeming plausible.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;845808I usually speak in terms of believability and internal logic.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;845822Believablilty is a good one.  I think of it as being like watching a play on stage.  Most stage play sets aren't really all that good, unless you're a big-time theater.  But the audience accepts them if the play is good.  RPGs are like that, if they generally work pretty well and are fun, we all simply ignore the bits where the paint is chipped or the microphone is visible.

These are all good points and good alternative terms which are more technically correct than "realistic" (without being as clumsy as "verisimilitudinous"), but they're also all beside the actual point of my previous post, which was that restrictions on the PCs' options don't necessarily come about solely from the GM's personal preferences (as Sommerjon has been claiming).  They may instead be the result of extrapolating from what is known of the real world, modified by a handful of setting-specific deviations from reality.

Well, I dig how you were using the term, but often, in our games, we have facts, details, cultures, that actually come from real history.

Like weapons.  How many of us haves arms and armor that are real-world analogs?  Most of us, no matter how crazy detailed our worlds are.

So, whereas 'realism' may be understood to some degree, in a conversation when 'something taken from actual reality'  is needed as a term, the term 'realism' is just going to be less effective.  No stress, but that is why the other terms are going to be better in this conversational context.

I appreciate the attempts to think of words that might not provoke the "it's a FANTASY game" arguments as much as "realistic" does, but I think it's also worth keeping in mind that the word "realistic" does not mean "about the real world, not about a fantasy world."

"Realistic" means: representing familiar things in a way that is accurate or true to life.
"a realistic human drama"

And this is my baseline reason for finding it a bit odd for PCs to seem to never take off their armor, even in safe civilized situations, such as towns where monsters and random attacks against a group of strong people is not at all expected. I also do run settings where people going about town with battle gear is fairly common, but I'm sensitive to what the people of a setting are like, and what their norms and reactions to things are liable to be. So even in those settings, there will be different reactions of unarmed townsfolk to the men who go around armed and armored, and the ones who don't, or even the ones who have weapons but put them away in town. And I like to be able to have actual towns where serious violence is very rare and going about armored is not the social norm and gets attention and draws suspicion, because that seems quite like what would tend to happen in a place that was mostly safe. To me, that seems like it'd be more realistic (see actual definition of word, above) for to expect for most safe non-violent communities. I might expect their upper/warrior/aristocratic classes, and police, to carry weapons but not usually be in heavy armor.  I'd also expect the level of alarm that carrying weapons and wearing armor causes, to increase depending on how scruffy or foreign or strange the carriers seem to the locals.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;845822And to echo what somebody else said, again, if you don't want the PCs wandering around town in full armor, don't make it necessary.

Agreed, but I'm assuming it's not necessary if the Referee thinks it's a boneheaded idea;).

Quote from: AsenRG;845993Agreed, but I'm assuming it's not necessary if the Referee thinks it's a boneheaded idea;).

Don't give the GM too much credit....

Quote from: LordVreeg;846003Don't give the GM too much credit....

I find that assuming Referees aren't running games where doing what's necessary for survival is considered boneheaded isn't an impossibly high standard.

Quote from: jhkim;844493I find that it is extremely common for groups to apply modern standards rather than medieval ones to fantasy worlds. It's hard to picture how a town could function without police, but police are a modern development. While there were laws and courts, they often worked quite differently than in modern times. A town watch wasn't necessarily set up by the government, but was rather a group of neighbors who armed themselves to keep their area safe. Today we would call them vigilantes, but then it was being a good citizen.


For those like Ravenswing who say that people would never absolutely wear armor in town, I'm trying to understand what you mean.

Let's say we're in medieval Scotland, and a traveling group of Gaelic warriors have recently driven off a band of Picts. They go into a nearby market town. Are you saying that they would unquestionably take off their armor and carry it in their packs, rather than wear armor into the town?

I don't have any specific references on the point, but that doesn't sound like narratives I read like the historical Icelandic sagas or the Song of Roland. I would picture the warriors as coming into town and mostly doing what they liked - because warriors generally seem rowdy and arrogant. If they caused too much trouble some people would gather a mob to oust them, but especially if they were spending a bunch of money, they might instead be welcomed.

It depends on the period you're talking about. It sounds like you're talking the dark ages; and the answer there is that the local lord would decide if they should get armor or not. As soon as he hears there's a group of dudes running around in armor, he'll either want to welcome them to his keep or he'll send armed men to drive them out.

In later periods, like the 13th century and up, you can bet that if there was any law and order anywhere near that market town, those guys would not be allowed to run around in armor.  So barring a period of massive civil chaos, they would definitely want to take it off upon getting to a market town.

Level of safety is a big factor. Do the PCs feel safe in town? If they dont. And more importantly, arent. Then they might have good reason not to stow the gear. Otherwise what reason do they have to not? Its safe. Relax.

Quote from: Omega;846713Level of safety is a big factor. Do the PCs feel safe in town? If they dont. And more importantly, arent. Then they might have good reason not to stow the gear. Otherwise what reason do they have to not? Its safe. Relax.

Really, that actually is the main factor.  If people are being cut down on the streets then everyone will walk around armed (just look at modern failed states).  If an attack is the source of great scandal then it would be odd not to be walking around in civilian clothes.

Look at what happened to John the Fearless when he assassinated his brother (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_the_Fearless) -- despite being a powerful duke, he suffered a massive political price for a killing on the streets of Paris.

Quote from: Bren;845291Read English much? It was parody.

It was "parody" trying to make a point, and that point is a strawman: the notion that if some people wear armor and/or brandish arms in a quasi-medieval city then everything else might as well be off-the-wall fantastical as well. That's stupid beyond belief.

Quote from: AsenRG;845305It's better to have the reading comprehension of a donkey than a donkey's ability to communicate your point without kicking (or rather, the lack thereof). Like you, for example:)!

Want some cheese to go with your whine?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;845822Believablilty is a good one.  I think of it as being like watching a play on stage.  Most stage play sets aren't really all that good, unless you're a big-time theater.  But the audience accepts them if the play is good.  RPGs are like that, if they generally work pretty well and are fun, we all simply ignore the bits where the paint is chipped or the microphone is visible.

A lot of that is simply a matter of knowing what's important and what isn't. I'm not about to let the fact that a prop or costume isn't authentic for the time period depicted distract me from the drama unfolding, let alone ruin it.

I like shoot-'em-up cowboy movies and I couldn't care less if Dodge City in real life had very strict gun laws. The fact that doing so might be foolhardy and stir up trouble is all the more reason to do it!

QuoteAnd to echo what somebody else said, again, if you don't want the PCs wandering around town in full armor, don't make it necessary.