Quote from: jhkimCan I tell the difference browsing in a store?  Possibly not.  However, when in a campaign for a time I will almost always read about the subject of the campaign.  For my Vinland game, I read some of the first contact narratives as well as the Icelandic sagas and other non-fiction books about the cultures and periods.  I've read various other books about the period and the nature.  So over time I will notice, yes.

Well, I think you are mixing two issues here now, setting and system, though there is some overlap.

With respect to system, would you really notice whether (for example) the percentage chance of dying from a leg wound was based on military research, was based on historical sources, or was pulled out of the air based on what felt right to the author?  Do you personally know what the odds of dying from a leg wound are?  Do you really play systems that support the historical realities of combat, which include slowly bleeding to death and dying of infection, perhaps days after the battle?  Do the systems you use address shock, a critical component of traumatic injuries?

With respect to setting, even if you read various books about the period and nature, you may simply be reading another author's bias and extrapolations.  Many authors write their modern attitudes and even political biases into their works.  As a result, not only can you find conflicting interpretations for many historical milieus but there are pervasive unquestioned and unsupported biases that get written into many mainstream works.  See Lawrence Keeley's War Before Civilization for  a good treatment of one pervasive form of bias and how it affects not only interpretations of evidence but whether an archaeologist gets research grants.  

Do you remember the commotion on rec.games.frp.advocacy (some crossposted to misc) when James Wallis put up his "I can write at least as well as William Manchester" challenge and recommended Manchester's A World Lit Only By Fire only to create a firestorm of people telling him why they thought Manchester was a hack and wrong about many things?

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.frp.misc/browse_frm/thread/9a3138387b20f26

Another example is the narrative of Easter Island as a lesson in the danger of humans ignoring their environment, which may not be what really happened:

http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/53200?fulltext=true&print=yes

So even if you read books about history and nature (and especially if they are books written for the general public rather than academics), there is no guarantee that your game is really  realistic, either.  

That's not to say that research is useless or that we can never know the truth about anything.  It can provide all sorts of details and ideas that can enrich a setting or system and it can help get rid of obvious misconceptions.  But at the end of the day, what I think most people care about is whether it's plausible and fun than whether it's real and authentic.  

As the thread titled "Accuracy vs. Modern Sentiment?", this thread, and various threads in many places concerning historical sex roles, racism, and so on illustrate, there are elements of reality that players don't want to deal with because they don't think they are fun.  Yes, you can try to adjust certain historical elements to make them more palatable to modern sensibilities but then a lot of the realism goes out the door upon close inspection.

Bored now, need whiskey and JimBobOz to help bring this thread back to life.

When, as a game designer, you're agonizing about whether to make the incubation period of syphilis 2d8+1 days or 4d4+1 days, you know something has gone badly wrong somewhere

(I went with 4d4+1.  The curve matches the standard deviation better, the d4 doesn't get enough use and using something sharp and pointly to roll for a venereal disease just seemed right)

Quote from: John MorrowSo even if you read books about history and nature (and especially if they are books written for the general public rather than academics), there is no guarantee that your game is really  realistic, either.  

That's not to say that research is useless or that we can never know the truth about anything.  It can provide all sorts of details and ideas that can enrich a setting or system and it can help get rid of obvious misconceptions.  But at the end of the day, what I think most people care about is whether it's plausible and fun than whether it's real and authentic

No, this is the same baseless argument that "realism" means that you have to be omniscient and perfect.  That is ridiculous.  Sure, people can disagree about reality, and two experts in a field may have arguments over particular points.  That doesn't negate the term "realism", particularly in the field of RPGs where the standard is wading through dozens of orcs.  

Realistic means "close to reality" -- like what Yamo and Nicephorus said.  i.e. Roughly what would happen in real life.  

Your statement also uses the cheap rhetorical tactic of framing "fun" as opposed to "real".  You can apply this to anything as a empty argument that it's not fun.  For example, would you prefer your game to be "dark and gritty" or "fun and light"?  That's a pointless question, because some people have fun with dark and gritty games.  By the same token, some people have fun with realistic games (which isn't the same as dark and gritty).  

Quote from: John MorrowAs the thread titled "Accuracy vs. Modern Sentiment?", this thread, and various threads in many places concerning historical sex roles, racism, and so on illustrate, there are elements of reality that players don't want to deal with because they don't think they are fun.  Yes, you can try to adjust certain historical elements to make them more palatable to modern sensibilities but then a lot of the realism goes out the door upon close inspection.

You're over-generalizing.  Yes, most players don't give a shit about realism at all.  They enjoy over the top fantasy, like slaying dragons with swords, thirty-foot jump kicks, and so forth.  Of the minority, many players only want limited realism or realism only in certain areas.  However, that's different than blanket statements like "Realism doesn't exist" or "Do you want what's fun, or what's real?" or any of the other statements given.  

For example, in the "Accuracy vs Modern Sentiment" thread that many people responded that they preferred to keep the historical sexism and racism.  But you generalize that away by saying that since some people preferred to ignore historical sexism, that means that therefore no one wants realism.

Quote from: jhkimRealistic means "close to reality" -- like what Yamo and Nicephorus said.  i.e. Roughly what would happen in real life.

The problem, which I think you might keep missing, is that there are almost as many views about "what would happen in real life" as their are people to have opinions about it.  If there isn't any consensus about what would happen in real life, then how can you have a game that is "close to reality"?  Whose reality?  Remember, you've already rejected the need for an "omniscient and perfect" realism so what does that leave us?  Subjective realism.  The perception or feel of realism.  Verisimilitude.

Quote from: jhkimYour statement also uses the cheap rhetorical tactic of framing "fun" as opposed to "real".  You can apply this to anything as a empty argument that it's not fun.  For example, would you prefer your game to be "dark and gritty" or "fun and light"?  That's a pointless question, because some people have fun with dark and gritty games.  By the same token, some people have fun with realistic games (which isn't the same as dark and gritty).

I'm using a point that has been tossed at me in numerous in the past and it is valid.  The sentiment behind it is that reality can be very unpleasant and there are limits to how much unpleasantness people want in their games.  Even in "dark and gritty" games, the full nasty nature of the setting is rarely directed toward the PCs.  Instead, it's experienced at arms length as something that happens to NPCs.  Similarly, I've yet to hear a description of a historical game that presents the period in question without changes creeping in, often to make things less unpleasant, either intentionally or unintentionally.

Let me put it this way.  Have you ever had a PC die from an infection or disease?  How many female PCs have been raped in your games?  How many dead children have the PCs had to deal with in your games?  How many of the PCs have starved to death or died of thirst in your games?  How many PCs have frozen to death in your games?  How many PCs have been murdered without any chance to defend themselves (e.g., poison, a knife to the throat at night, or a sniper)?  Heck, how often do your PCs have one of their problems solved by a happy coincidence or the local authorities?

If you remember the discussion we had about your Vinland game, I mentioned the summer weather up at Lake George and I think you added a thunder storm to one part of your game as a result.  How many GMs totally forget about the weather and how many players actually notice it's missing?    As I explained on the Steve Jackson Games forums concerning one of their GURPS: Space editions, most planetary generation systems can tell you how many AU a planet is from the star but none that I'm aware of even try to tell you what the weather is like when you step off of your spaceship.

Quote from: jhkimYou're over-generalizing.  Yes, most players don't give a shit about realism at all.  They enjoy over the top fantasy, like slaying dragons with swords, thirty-foot jump kicks, and so forth.  Of the minority, many players only want limited realism or realism only in certain areas.  However, that's different than blanket statements like "Realism doesn't exist" or "Do you want what's fun, or what's real?" or any of the other statements given.

My argument is that most players and GMs lack the knowledge to know the difference between something that is real and something that is made up so long as the made up value seems reasonable.  And if two experts can disagree over what's real, even picking an expert opinion is no guarantee that someone won't think it's not accurate or realistic.

Again, it all boils down to verisimiltude more than accuracy.  30-foot jump kicks look gravity-defying so people know they aren't realistic, but how far can a real martial artist jump and deliver a kick?  Do you know?  

Quote from: jhkimFor example, in the "Accuracy vs Modern Sentiment" thread that many people responded that they preferred to keep the historical sexism and racism.  But you generalize that away by saying that since some people preferred to ignore historical sexism, that means that therefore no one wants realism.

The reason why I dismissed those sentiments is that even where people say they wanted those things, they went on to talk about ways of evading the unpleasantness.  There is a recognition that directing the full brunt of the racism or sexism of a historical setting at a PC probably wouldn't be fun.

But even where the players and GM do want realism, warts and all, I'm not sure they have the capacity to tell the difference between realism and a guess except in very special cases.  

It's also so difficult to forget the myriad of modern assumptions that we take for granted, including all sorts of things like our perception of time, our understanding of biology, our beliefs about what makes a person good or bad, and so on, that most people can't help but to think about situations in the game anachronistically.  The end result is more of a historical pastiche or costume drama rather than something "realistic".  

That's not to say that it can't be fun and can't be more realistic than a game that ignores reality to, say, allow 30 foot flying kicks.  But it's simply an issue of degree, not  being absolutely true to real life.

Look, there is a philosophical argument that we never know true reality -- all of us only know what is inside our own heads.  If you accept this, then you can say that nothing is truly "realistic", including scientific simulations running on massive supercomputers.  It's all just about matching what is in people's heads.  

However, I personally believe in an absolute reality.  I also think that when push comes to shove, most other people do to.  I don't want to say, "Well, Game X is highly realistic... to certain 8-year-olds" and continuously qualify my terms like that.  I prefer to assume an absolute reality and also accept that sometimes we will make mistakes about it, but those mistakes don't invalidate the concept of an absolute reality which we approach.

Quote from: John MorrowAgain, it all boils down to verisimiltude more than accuracy.  30-foot jump kicks look gravity-defying so people know they aren't realistic, but how far can a real martial artist jump and deliver a kick?  Do you know?

What I see here is an attitude that "realism" needs to be a binary, which can only be applied if everything is perfectly detailed.  i.e. So, say, if Twilight 2000 has the range of a AK-47 wrong, or a character can jump 9 feet when really he should only jump 7, then that means that it's no different than D&D or Exalted.  I don't see the point of that.  It seems pretty reasonable and intuitive to say that T2K is realistic.  

Quote from: John MorrowLet me put it this way.  Have you ever had a PC die from an infection or disease?  How many female PCs have been raped in your games?  How many dead children have the PCs had to deal with in your games?  How many of the PCs have starved to death or died of thirst in your games?  How many PCs have frozen to death in your games?  How many PCs have been murdered without any chance to defend themselves (e.g., poison, a knife to the throat at night, or a sniper)?  Heck, how often do your PCs have one of their problems solved by a happy coincidence or the local authorities?

I don't agree that any of these are necessary for realism.  For example, in my Vinland campaign all of the PCs were well-to-do, respected members of the land-owning class.  They were never in any danger of starving to death or freezing to death.  Is that unrealistic?  No, it's not.  So I reject your criteria here.  

However, in just the last session that I played in, the PCs had one of their problems handled by the local authorities.  I mean, that one's pretty common.  I've had a number of PCs murdered without a fight, though generally in one-shots rather than in long-term campaigns.  (My long-term campaigns are set up to be about PCs in relatively safe positions.)  

Now, that said, most of the games that I play in are not very realistic.  The Vinland game had many breaks from reality, mostly because of its magic.  But I don't want to reject the concept of realism just because it isn't common for RPGs.  It is perfectly possible to play in games which are realistic.  

Quote from: John MorrowThe reason why I dismissed those sentiments is that even where people say they wanted those things, they went on to talk about ways of evading the unpleasantness.  There is a recognition that directing the full brunt of the racism or sexism of a historical setting at a PC probably wouldn't be fun.

For the most part, people suggested ways of avoiding unpleasantness which were within the reality.  You seem to be dead set on the idea that reality always has to be unpleasant, but it's not true.  Even in historical times, there were women in positions of power; there were people who lived their lives without starving or freezing to death; and so forth.

I would have thought that if you guys have been arguing about this since rgfa times, you would have reached some sort of agreement by now.

Quote from: T-WillardBored now, need whiskey and JimBobOz to help bring this thread back to life.

I think the horse is dead, they're just flogging it because they like flogging off.

Quote from: droogI would have thought that if you guys have been arguing about this since rgfa times, you would have reached some sort of agreement by now.

Like I said...

Anyhow, no-one wants actual realism in gaming. Because then our characters might chicken out of adventures sometimes  If a character gets drunk, then the player has to listen and/or describe the hangover, the big hard painful or nasty sloppy smelly Post-Drinking Shit, and so on. If a character gets laid, we'd have to describe the fumbling, the sometimes prety ordinary sex, the fart in the middle, etc. If a character is wounded, we have to roll for infection, talk about the itching of the stitches, the swollen painful pussy bleeding of the wound. If a character goes without food for a day or two, we have to describe the empty stomach, the tiredness, the weakness, etc. If a character falls in love, we have to describe the ecstatic happiness, the goofiness, the fact that the way the lover chews their food or scratches their arse makes you feel more loving towards them, and so on.

Who the fuck wants all that? Now, a realistic theme or flavour, okay, that's something different. Things which bring the setting to life for the players are good. For example in my Saxon low fantasy campaign, I threw in a few Saxon words. You mightn't think that calling it a "seax" instead of "large knife," or "Thane" instead of "lord" would make much difference, but it really did. A few alien words, a few vivid descriptions of the soldier's webbing never quite fitting right, the castle's stone floor being fucking cold in the mornings - these things help bring the setting to life, and add to fun.

Actual realism no-one wants.

When I complain about lack of realism, it has nothing to do with lack of details, JimBob.

Quote from: jhkimHowever, I personally believe in an absolute reality.  I also think that when push comes to shove, most other people do to.

I believe in an absolute reality, too.  I'm not arguing that it doesn't exist.

My argument, which was more about system than setting but can be true about settings, too, is that (A) most gamers lack the knowledge to tell the difference between reality and a guess based on "common sense" or "conventional wisdom", (B) even when a system or setting author researches an issue, their take on the issue is not necessarily "reality", and (C) even when a system or setting author researches an issue, if their interpretation differs from what the players think is realistic, it will feel unrealistic even if it is accurate.

The problem is not that an absolute reality doesn't exist.  I believe it does, too.   The problem is that we all look at it through a subjective window.  So a system or setting being true to the absolute reality is less important to a person's enjoyment of the game as realistic than their perception of realism -- their subjective assessment of what's realistic or not.

Quote from: jhkimI don't want to say, "Well, Game X is highly realistic... to certain 8-year-olds" and continuously qualify my terms like that.  I prefer to assume an absolute reality and also accept that sometimes we will make mistakes about it, but those mistakes don't invalidate the concept of an absolute reality which we approach.

Well, I agree that the goal of "realism" can be legitimate, even if a system or setting falls short.  But I think it's important to understand the distinction between "realism" (in the sense of attempting to match absolute reality) and "verisimilitude" (in the sense of trying to feel realistic) and think that the latter is often more important than the former.  It's also important to recognize that a game that tries to be realistic might not, in practice, be any more realistic than a game based on guesswork.

Quote from: jhkimWhat I see here is an attitude that "realism" needs to be a binary, which can only be applied if everything is perfectly detailed.  i.e. So, say, if Twilight 2000 has the range of a AK-47 wrong, or a character can jump 9 feet when really he should only jump 7, then that means that it's no different than D&D or Exalted.  I don't see the point of that.  It seems pretty reasonable and intuitive to say that T2K is realistic.

Not at all.  My point is that if a player believes a person can jump 20 feet and D&D allows a character to jump 20 feet but Twilight 2000 only allows a character to jump 9 feet, D&D will feel more realistic to that player than Twilight 2000, even if the Twilight 2000 figures were derived from research into human athletic performance and D&D was a guess.  And even if Twilight 2000 is well researched, that's no guarantee that the system will actually produce realistic results that fall outside of the scope or focus of the research.  Further, unless the Twilight 2000 jumping distance takes running starts, encumbrance, and a host of other issues into account that can affect jumping distance, how "realistic" is it really?

Quote from: jhkimI don't agree that any of these are necessary for realism.  For example, in my Vinland campaign all of the PCs were well-to-do, respected members of the land-owning class.  They were never in any danger of starving to death or freezing to death.  Is that unrealistic?  No, it's not.  So I reject your criteria here.

I think you keep shifting the focus here.  You claimed that placing "fun" and "realistic" in opposition was unfair because some people enjoy realism just as they enjoy dark and gritty games.  I pointed out that the reason why people consider realism to be "not fun" is that real life is full of all sorts of really unpleasant things and so are dark and gritty games.  My point here is that players who say that they want "realism" (or "dark and gritty") tend to want a subset of realism (or dark and gritty) that minimizes the unpleasant stuff that the player's character is going to experience.  

In other words, your players are playing in a world full of short brutal lives that your players would never really want to experience, so they create characters that avoid it.  The same thing that motivates your players to create characters that are exempt from the most unpleasant parts of life during that historical period is the same thing that motivates GMs and players to want to simply remove those elements from the setting.  Those elements of reality are not fun to play.

The point here is that most players don't want reality with all of the sharp edges.  They want a taste of it, but not the full thing.

As for never being in danger of starving or freezing to death, I'm not sure any person in any pre-modern period at in that area was ever that safe.  Given that your game took place after the Medieval Climate Optimum and around the time when the Little Ice Age was in play, I can only assume that your characters never travelled in the winter and always had a good harvest.  Have you ever been to Lake George in January?

Quote from: jhkimHowever, in just the last session that I played in, the PCs had one of their problems handled by the local authorities.  I mean, that one's pretty common.  I've had a number of PCs murdered without a fight, though generally in one-shots rather than in long-term campaigns.  (My long-term campaigns are set up to be about PCs in relatively safe positions.)

One-shots have a very different dynamic than long-term campaigns, so that's not what I really had in mind, though I do find it interesting that those games let PCs die that way.  

Quote from: jhkimNow, that said, most of the games that I play in are not very realistic.  The Vinland game had many breaks from reality, mostly because of its magic.  But I don't want to reject the concept of realism just because it isn't common for RPGs.  It is perfectly possible to play in games which are realistic.

But what does that mean?  Why do you consider Twilight 2000 more realistic than, say, d20 Modern?  Yes, games like Exalted and Feng Shui go out of their way to let characters do impossible things.  That's not what I'm talking about.  What I'm talking about is whether you can tell the difference between a game that's based on research about the real world and a game that's based on the author's best guess about what feels real?  And if the research is based on SCA combat (as several games are), how "realistic" is that really, since the SCA is not really life-or-death combat but a combat sport?  And if the "realistic" game based on SCA combat is played by a person who fights with live steel (yes, there are people who fight with real steel swords) or who has actually been in some knife fights, how realistic is it going to feel?

Quote from: jhkimFor the most part, people suggested ways of avoiding unpleasantness which were within the reality.  You seem to be dead set on the idea that reality always has to be unpleasant, but it's not true.  Even in historical times, there were women in positions of power; there were people who lived their lives without starving or freezing to death; and so forth.

No.  My point is that if you say you want a "dark and gritty" game but only want NPCs to feel the full brunt of the "dark and gritty" side of the setting, then I question the player's enthusiasm for really experiencing a "dark and gritty" game.  They want to experience it at arms length because, well, it's not fun to be the victim of a dark and gritty setting.

Similarly, when a player tells me that they want to experience a realistic historical game that has racism and sexism in it and then does everything they can to evade that racism or sexism having any real impact on their character, I question that player's enthusiasm for really experiencing the racism and sexism of a certain historical period.  They want to experience it as background color but not directly.  At that point, you can also get to play people with more modern sensibilities in a historical setting and that makes it a modern costume drama rather than realism.  

It's like the rich people who used to tour the Five Points slums to "experience" how the poor people in slums lived.  I doubt many of them had the dedication to spend a few weeks living there to really experience it.

Yes, there are some people who have at least some of that dedication.  There are Civil War re-enactors who spend the night out in the cold in period clothing eating period food, huddled together for warmth to experience what Civil War soldiers experienced.  But even then, I doubt many would be enthusiastic about using live ammo, actually getting shot, and being treated using period medical treatments.

Quote from: droogI would have thought that if you guys have been arguing about this since rgfa times, you would have reached some sort of agreement by now.

Well, we haven't actually been arguing about this since rec.games.frp.advocacy days.  But even if we had, my opinions have changed some since those days.

*SIGH* To try to defend realism, look at some examples of game rules found in "Murphy's rules" that have things like a typical 6th level fighter in D&D being able to survive a fall from ANY height. Or maybe the original Indiana Jones rpg in which a character could be shot by a luger 20 times and recover in 2 hours.

That's what I mean when i say i want a certain level of realism in my games, I don't want situations like those.

Quote from: Dominus NoxThat's what I mean when i say i want a certain level of realism in my games, I don't want situations like those.

There were plenty of Murphy's Rules for realistic games, too.

When Steve Jackson Games first released Man-To-Man, the combat rules for GURPS, they published designer's notes in The Space Gamer.  They talked about the research they did in to weapon weights and damage and so on.  But at the end of that process, they decided to make the damage less realistic because during the playtest, the more realistic damage wasn't much fun.  So while GURPS is fairly realistic, the designers purposely decided to be less realistic than they could have been in order ot make the game more fun.

Quote from: John MorrowWell, I agree that the goal of "realism" can be legitimate, even if a system or setting falls short.  But I think it's important to understand the distinction between "realism" (in the sense of attempting to match absolute reality) and "verisimilitude" (in the sense of trying to feel realistic) and think that the latter is often more important than the former.  It's also important to recognize that a game that tries to be realistic might not, in practice, be any more realistic than a game based on guesswork.

OK, well at least we have agreed on definitions here.  So there is "realism" and there is "verisimilitude" -- and these are different qualities.  The points where they differ are where a player has preconceptions which are not true.  However, given the degree to which most RPGs break from reality, hopefully we can agree that to a large degree these two qualities overlap with each other.  

I'm willing to believe that most players prefer verisimilitude over realism in the cases where they differ.  However, speaking for myself, I prefer that if I have some false belief that the game correct me rather than playing to my preconceptions.  So for me, realism is more important.  

Quote from: John MorrowThe point here is that most players don't want reality with all of the sharp edges.  They want a taste of it, but not the full thing.

I'm fine with this as far as what most players want.  Though actually,  it seems to me that most players want very little in the way of either realism or verisimilitude.  They're fine with flying wire-fu stunts, dragonslaying, and so forth.  

Quote from: John MorrowMy point here is that players who say that they want "realism" (or "dark and gritty") tend to want a subset of realism (or dark and gritty) that minimizes the unpleasant stuff that the player's character is going to experience.

In other words, your players are playing in a world full of short brutal lives that your players would never really want to experience, so they create characters that avoid it.  The same thing that motivates your players to create characters that are exempt from the most unpleasant parts of life during that historical period is the same thing that motivates GMs and players to want to simply remove those elements from the setting.  Those elements of reality are not fun to play.

I don't disagree that most players are not interested in realism.  However, here you're phrasing this in absolutes about what everyone enjoys -- not to mention telling me about what I and my players enjoy.  I would prefer you at least ask regarding this rather than telling me what I like.  

There are many players who do enjoy having unpleasant things happen to their characters.  That is why some people play Call of Cthulhu instead of Teenagers from Outer Space.  Thus, making things more pleasant for the characters does not always make the game more fun for the players.  

I can talk more about specific examples, but I'd like to at least agree on the principle first.  

Quote from: John MorrowIt's like the rich people who used to tour the Five Points slums to "experience" how the poor people in slums lived.  I doubt many of them had the dedication to spend a few weeks living there to really experience it.

Yes, there are some people who have at least some of that dedication.  There are Civil War re-enactors who spend the night out in the cold in period clothing eating period food, huddled together for warmth to experience what Civil War soldiers experienced.  But even then, I doubt many would be enthusiastic about using live ammo, actually getting shot, and being treated using period medical treatments.

Look, you seem to have lost the point that this is a fucking game.  Regardless of how realistic the mechanics we use, no one is ever actually going to get shot.  Is playing the game going to give you the true experience of being shot then?  No, of course not.  No one ever claimed that it did.

As long as it makes sense in the context of the setting.

My dragons can fly not because dragons can fly, but because my dragons can levitate. The wings are just there for propulsion. Dragons can levitate because they have an innate ability to manipulate the topography of space-time. They don't understand how they do it, scientists don't understand how they do it. People have ideas as to how dragons do it, but the people of the setting have not yet gained the information needed to formulated even a half-assed hypothesis. Those wyrms (lung in the Orient) who can fly do so because they can manipulate space-time topography better than dragons do, but even they don't really know how they do it.

So, yes, there are martial artists in the setting who can do 30 foot leaps. Not because the setting allows for 30 foot leaps, but because they've learned magics that manipulate space-time topography so their leaps can reach 30 feet.

That's my nod at realism.