Quote from: Will;788263I've had similar comments regarding parallel discussions in MMOs, too.

Yep, seen it those places myself ... a MMORPG forum was in fact where the original of that sticky came from.

Now, okay: it's plain that there's a spectrum.  On one side of each line are people happy with that amount of verisimilitude.  On the other side of that line are people who don't care one way or another, and a bit further down the spectrum are people who are irritated by verisimilitude.  So stipulated.

It just pisses me off how angry some of the antis get that there are gamers who dare to want more verisimilitude.  I've asked them why they feel so threatened by the issue ... and I think that's the crux of it right there: they do feel threatened.  Which is silly.  It's okay for them to want a less intellectual, less rigorous game setting than others do.  It'd just be nice for them to own their position, rather than fling insults at those who disagree.

Quote from: LordVreeg;788269'Realistic' is the improper term to worry about. The term to work with in pairing Mechanics and Verisimilitude and the ability to suspend belief is 'Logical'.

(shrugs)  Nomenclature is nomenclature.  It grows organically about twenty times as often as it's manufactured, and gaming (as with every other human endeavor) is studded with terms that make no objective sense.  The issue was termed "realism" decades ago, it's the one that enjoys universal recognition and traction in such discussions, and I doubt it's going to change in your lifetime or mine.

Quote from: Ravenswing

Quote from: Originally Posted by LordVreeg'Realistic' is the improper term to worry about. The term to work with in pairing Mechanics and Verisimilitude and the ability to suspend belief is 'Logical'.

(shrugs) Nomenclature is nomenclature. It grows organically about twenty times as often as it's manufactured, and gaming (as with every other human endeavor) is studded with terms that make no objective sense. The issue was termed "realism" decades ago, it's the one that enjoys universal recognition and traction in such discussions, and I doubt it's going to change in your lifetime or mine.

Probably why I've always been quite happy doing my own thing gaming wise.  I really don't care as much about what some parts of a hobby term a thing as long as we know what we are talking about when we are having a discussion here.  The term 'realistic' is actually fraught with conversational mischief as to how it relates to our reality; so I feel no pains in introducing a better term that is not so burdened.  

Now, when we talk about an actual historical setting, or a game set in a real place,the ability for a game system to mimic it could be called 'realistic'.  But if we are talking about a setting other than ours, one where one can achieve suspension of belief but still has fantasy races and magic and strange religions and demons and undead....one doubts a term that can be defined as "the faithful representation of reality" is really the best one to talk about how it helps suspend said belief.

Further, since it is clearly NOT often the right term, the use of it impedes.  

Now, I happen to agree with your comments  about verisimilitude.  I don't understand how someone's preference for wanting more should make them bad; and frankly, to a certain point, I'll go further and say that some level of it is laudable and should be recognized as such.  Sure, some beer and pretzels gaming is fun, and sometimes we just want to create a little something and see how it flies.  But someone really working and building something unique to their vision that actually holds together well and increases player involvement is entirely a working of no little achievement.

Quote from: Ravenswing;788303(shrugs)  Nomenclature is nomenclature.  It grows organically about twenty times as often as it's manufactured, and gaming (as with every other human endeavor) is studded with terms that make no objective sense.  The issue was termed "realism" decades ago, it's the one that enjoys universal recognition and traction in such discussions, and I doubt it's going to change in your lifetime or mine.

In case Lord Vreeg is right because when it comes to things like superpower or magic nothing is realistic. But my experience that players buy in better when they are able to deduce how things works as they learn about the setting.

So I agree with Vreeg that Logical is the goal to shoot for rather talking about realism.

Quote from: Haffrung;788153Then why not throw in cell phones, motorcycles, and predator drones to fantasy worlds? I mean, anything goes in fantasy, right?

Well, why not?

QuoteFact is, people have varying degrees of interest in verisimilitude in their fantasy RPGs (and in fantasy fiction). Some want medieval Europe with a dash of magic throw in. Some want Eberron. Hand-waving away all concerns about demographics, technology, and social models is just a lazy way to discount legitimate preferences.  

I'm not dismissing all concerns, just the way some obsess over them far beyond anything remotely relevant to a fantasy setting. If having potatoes in Middle Earth or Westeros kills SoD for you because medieval Europe didn't have them, that's more your fault than Tolkien's or Martin's.

QuoteI've thrown down fantasy fiction is contempt when it showed too modern of an outlook (or rather, when the worlds that were dramatically different from our own were full of people with modern outlooks).

Maybe that's because people haven't really changed much over time, so there's no reason to think they would change very much over time and distance. Again, this notion that a fantasy setting needs to follow the real world is dumb.

QuoteTo me, behavior flows from setting. In historical fiction, fantasy games - all imaginary worlds. I can no more overlook blatant inconsistencies than I could shrug off Legolas calling Gimli a douchebag and playing Angry Birds on his iPhone during a lull in the battle of Helm's Deep. It spoils any sense of immersion in a plausible world.

That's a truckload of tough titty for you then.

Quote from: estar;788376In case Lord Vreeg is right because when it comes to things like superpower or magic nothing is realistic. But my experience that players buy in better when they are able to deduce how things works as they learn about the setting.

So I agree with Vreeg that Logical is the goal to shoot for rather talking about realism.

Yeah I used to go off on the quest for realism in my games. Like you said though, I have realized that what is more important is a gaming world that has a measure of coherency, things make sense within that context.

My friend and I were noting similar issues about games that overly favor players at the expense of contextual cohesion. A word that came up that encapsulated that disaffection was "continuity," as in there felt a lack of continuity amid all the pyrotechnic awesome glommed onto PCs compared to the world around them.

Quote from: Elfdart;788460I'm not dismissing all concerns, just the way some obsess over them far beyond anything remotely relevant to a fantasy setting. If having potatoes in Middle Earth or Westeros kills SoD for you because medieval Europe didn't have them, that's more your fault than Tolkien's or Martin's.

Still not getting the distinction between "fault" and "preference," are you?

This is not a matter of me being better than you because I prefer more verisimilitude than you, or you being better than me because you think the degree of verisimilitude I want in this situation or that strikes you as being over the top.  The degree I choose to obsess over something -- or you choose to obsess over something -- is a preference.  It's nothing to do with morality or sanity.

Swear to heaven, you're sounding like a guy who'd jeer at a chef because the fellow wants his spices Just So, instead of just going out for a burger or popping a TV dinner in the oven, which suits that guy just fine.

I do think this is all just preference. As a GM I usually let the needs of players guide me here since they are the ones I need to buy into the setting. But I don't think this is a single spectrum, it is many. I've run into players who care a lot about some details, not about others. Demographics are one of those details I see people invested in once in a while, but just because a player doesn't care about population density in a region that doesn't mean I can ignore other aspects of the setting (even when I was a history student, demographics came up very rarely). So you might have a player who doesn't care how many people are living in the valley or how far apart your settlements are, but might care very much about where the wood for their houses comes from and how they manage to get so much of it being in a seemingly wood-poor area of the world. They might also care about other things like the hierarchies of your religious institutions, the way trade is conducted, how armies are organized and what tactics they use, etc. Usually I try to zero in on the things I see my players asking questions about. Those are the parts of the setting I give most of my attention to. In a campaign last year I had a player who was especially interested in Carp farming in one of the settlements so I made a point of researching ancient aquaculture.

My view is that it is all preference, but there are techniques or elements that been shown to work more often than not. As well as techniques and elements that been shown to fail more often than. To confuse the issue, there are reports and anecdotes where a referee does everything "wrong" but everybody has a great time playing.

It similar to what is a good movie? There is a lot of technical aspects to making a movie and if you don't do them well the result is a bad movie, except when it isn't. It can be maddening but that how it is when it comes to human beings and entertainment. The same with tabletop roleplaying.

In my mind any debate about including Fantasy Demographics in a game is pointless. The simple fact is that there are people where it add greatly to their game. And there are people where it doesn't. And it is a spectrum issue as well in that people and groups vary in just how much detail they want.

Anybody in this thread should read any affirmative statement about including Fantasy Demographics as being precedded by "If you like the details of Fantasy demographics, here are my thoughts." An ideal world I wouldn't have to say this. Obviously we don't so there it is.

This thread about when Fantasy Demographics are included in a game. If you are not interested in this type of detail. Then this topic is of no use to you.

Also undertstand what doesn't work for you, is it not true of others. One of the top priorities of a  referee of any campaign using any system with specific type of detail is to understand what his players are interested. If you don't do that then you are going to have problem period as you are operating in the blind.

Quote from: estar;788503This thread about when Fantasy Demographics are included in a game. If you are not interested in this type of detail. Then this topic is of no use to you. d greatly to their game. And there are people where it doesn't. And it is a spectrum issue as well in that people and groups vary in just how much detail they want.

While I think some discussion on the merits of any subject is normal and fine (even if it is a little off topic) this is worth keeping in mind. The OP originally was just asking for resources on producing demographic information for a personal campaign. I am going to go ahead and start a separate thread on the subject of whether demographics matter for purposes of verisimilitude to help keep this thread focused on serving its original purpose.

QuoteAlso undertstand what doesn't work for you, is it not true of others. One of the top priorities of a  referee of any campaign using any system with specific type of detail is to understand what his players are interested. If you don't do that then you are going to have problem period as you are operating in the blind.

This is key for me in any discussion on these matters.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;788498In a campaign last year I had a player who was especially interested in Carp farming in one of the settlements so I made a point of researching ancient aquaculture.

I care little about aquaculture, but I've got to say someone liking it and you including it because someone likes it is cool. :cool:

Quote from: Bren;788556I care little about aquaculture, but I've got to say someone liking it and you including it because someone likes it is cool. :cool:

ditto.
I get pretty wide in my description, as I enjoy it, but when a player wants to know something, it is awesome...and leads us places we have not been in our own worlds....

Quote from: Bren;788556I care little about aquaculture, but I've got to say someone liking it and you including it because someone likes it is cool. :cool:

I honestly could have cared less about it at the time too. I've always been more interested in social structures frankly. But this player was asking a lot of questions in character about the carp farming occurring in a village they found. I think I just had the Carp farming present in my notes because I had wanted the village to feel a touch different from some of the other places they'd been to. After the player asked some questions I couldn't really answer I did the research and became quite interested in it as a result. It definitely helped me flesh out a key part of my setting at the time.

Quote from: Elfdart;788460I'm not dismissing all concerns, just the way some obsess over them far beyond anything remotely relevant to a fantasy setting. If having potatoes in Middle Earth or Westeros kills SoD for you because medieval Europe didn't have them, that's more your fault than Tolkien's or Martin's.

Uh, you do realize that Martin's primary goal in writing A Song of Ice and Fire was to present gritty real-world medieval attitudes and environments in a genre he felt had become completely un-tethered from those realities, right? He has pretty much the same issues with bog-standard fantasy that I have. The fact there's a massive audience receptive to his approach at building a setting suggests there's real appetite for grittier, real-world settings and drama. ASoIaF could easily be historical fiction. Which isn't surprising, as Martin himself admits that in recent decades he has read far more history and historical fiction than fantasy.

Quote from: Haffrung;788561Uh, you do realize that Martin's primary goal in writing A Song of Ice and Fire was to present gritty real-world medieval attitudes and environments in a genre he felt had become completely un-tethered from those realities, right? He has pretty much the same issues with bog-standard fantasy that I have. The fact there's a massive audience receptive to his approach at building a setting suggests there's real appetite for grittier, real-world settings and drama. ASoIaF could easily be historical fiction. Which isn't surprising, as Martin himself admits that in recent decades he has read far more history and historical fiction than fantasy.

In my opinion Martin's approach works not because it is gritty, bloody, or full of sex. (Although it doesn't hurt). But by drawing on real attitude and environment he makes his character feel more like people. Ultimately what most people are most interested in reading about is what other people are doing. I.e. the Soap Opera effect.

One of the reason I include history and demographics in my games is not because it makes the numbers plausible. But it allows me to create more compelling NPCs for the PCs to interact with. NPCs come off as having their own life which in my experience makes them more interesting to players.