Plausibility, Realism and game design goals [an essay]

[Dauntless]

Plausibility is a subjective experience or interpretation.
Realism is an attempt to accurately model objective reality.

What's the difference?  When you try to create a realistic system, you attempt to create rules that will accurately predict a given situation.  When given a set of inputs A, B, and C, the game rules will give you an output D.  If in reality, given independent variables, A, B, and C, and the causal relationship gives you the result D, then you can say that the game (in that instance) was realistic.  A good simulator will give you accurate results (calculated by taking the predicted value vs. the actual value) a high percentage of the time.  You can get into statistics here and talk about statistical confidence, variation, and deviances, but that's overboard for an RPG (but not for military class simulations).

Plausibility on the other hand is a subjective interpretation for your knowledge as you have pointed out.  If you believed that a ball will drop faster in a vaccum than a feather, then having a result that the ball and feather hit at the same time will be very unbelievable to you.

The problem in creating realistic rules is pretty big.  Firstly, for an RPG, the rules can't be too complex.  Therefore the rules must abstract out some degree of the underlying principles of reality.  This very act diminishes the realism.  Secondly, there may be many many independent variables that affect a given situation.  As a designer, you have to figure out which ones have the most impact on the outcome, but you have to leave out the others.  And as Chaos theory has shown us, sometimes even the smallest variable can have dramatic outcomes (admittedly Chaos theory applies to extremely complex systems....but then again, the human brain is a complex system).  Finally, we may not even know the underlying principles of the system we wish to model.  A good example of this is damage.  Many "realistic" systems base gun damage off of kinetic energy, but as we do more research, we discover that hydrostatic shock caused temporary cavities don't really increase damage.  In other words, a medium velocity bullet that fragments or bounces off bone may do more damage than a high velocity round that drills a clean hole inside you.

I used to be super-gung ho about realism, but now I see a different way of doing things.  To me, realism is not the end goal, but a means.  The end goal is creating the atmosphere and tone that you want, and the means is using as much realism as possible, and filling in the blanks where you have to.

I tend to prefer realistic systems precisely because they can be educational.  It also makes the players reflect on their own real world a lot more instead of seeing RPG'ing as simply escapism.

So my definition of a realistic system would be one that takes into account as much domain knowledge as possible in order to accurately predict an event given that if the same inputs happened in real life, the outcomes of both the game and reality would match (within say a good percentage of each other).

Plausibility is how your prediction of the given events matches the actual outcome.  If your prediction matches the real result, then it's plausible, if not, then it's implausible, improbable, or maybe even impossible.

[Valamir]

Some of this discussion is starting to miss the point.

Its not a question of realism vs. plausibility.  Plausibility and realism are effectively synonyms...except one is the truth and the other a lie.

Saying you like realism in a game is merely saying you like the game to be either 1) consistant with what you already know to be true, or 2) if you don't already know it, presented in a way that convinces you it is.

Both of those are veritable definitions of plausible.  The game could actually be a cocked up pile of nonsense but as long as those 2 things are true you'll play the game and THINK its "realistic".  You'll think its realistic, you'll claim its realistic, hell, you may even modify your world view to account for the new knowledge you've learned...but you have absolutely positively NO way of knowing whether or not it actually IS true.  You believe it to be realistic completely, solely, and for no other reason than it SEEMS entirely plausible to you.  And you'll continue to believe that right up until you acquire additional knowledge that conflicts with the game and which you hold to be more credible.  At that point what used to seem plausible...no longer will...and you'll no longer believe the game to be realistic.  THAT is how mutable and impermanent supposedly "realistic" games are.  Its a myth.

That's why plausibility is the better word.  Because plausible is all it is.  You don't KNOW its realistic...you simply BELIEVE it to be so based on whatever level of knowledge you have on the subject.  You believe it because it seems plausible.  If the game was "informed by research" than that helps with #2 above, but it still comes down to plausibility...because after all, the reseach could be flawed.

If you created a space game based entirely on Newtonian physics which you've researched extensively, you'd write rules such that one could accelerate a rocket ship to infinite speeds given enough reaction mass.  If you played it with Isaac Newton, he'd swear up and down how "realistic" it was.  Play it with Albert Einstein, however,  and he'd point out how unrealistic it is.  See...the game was NEVER "realistic".  It was just PLAUSIBLE enough based on Isaac's knowledge that he BELIEVED it to be.   It "seemed real" (which is all "realistic" is ostensibly supposed to mean) but only because Isaac lacked the knowledge to realize that it wasn't.  To Al...it seemed about as real as a 10th level D&D fighter getting shot with a dozen arrows and having no chance of dying.  

What more proof could anyone need to realize that:

seems real = realistic = what's plausible to me today

Therefor there is no special value to realism greater than the value of plausibility.  They are the same.


But look at how many people will swear up and down that there's something more to it than that.  People who refuse to believe that the games they dearly hold to be "realistic" only seem so because they don't know any better.  Because that's the lie of realism.  Slap the label "realistic" on something and somehow people start to think that theres more substance there than "mere" plausibility.  But there isn't.  That's all there is.

Its not a "just a semantic arguement".  Its a crucial distinction because we're talking world-view paradigm shifting here.  There's a breed of gamer who worships at the altar of "Realism" and a breed of game designer who pursues "realism" like a holy grail.

But those games are like the Emerald City where "Realism" is a humbug calling itself a Wizard pleading with you to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.  That man behind the curtain is Plausibility.  Because once you strip away all of the fancy sounding text and the almost fetish-like obsession...all you're left with is the cold hard fact that "Realistic" means absolutely nothing more profound than "whatever seems plausible enough for me to believe based on what I know today".

Plausible, is the honest term.  Because it allows for the fact that what seems plausible today might not tomorrow.  Because it allows for the fact that what seems plausible to you might not seem plausible to someone who knows more than you.

"Realism" is like the tart with the heavily painted face hoping you won't notice the wrinkles.  "Realism" would like you believe that there's something more substantial to it.  Using the world "Realism" makes it easy to believe that you're talking fact rather than belief.  But ultimately...unless you're the one person in the universe (aka God) who has 100% perfect knowledge of all things...you're quite likely wrong about many of the things you think are facts anyway.  Yet as long as you believe them to be fact, a game which supports that view will SEEM "realistic" even when its wouldn't to someone who knows better.


Thing is, Realism's an easy habit to fall into.  Way too many cop-out design decisions have been made in the name of "realism".  Way too many people use Realism like a trump card to overturn all opposition.  Realism...makes it easy to design a sucky game and pretend it doesn't suck...because its "realistic" and that HAS to be good....right?

No one would have that level of brainwashed devotion to something that's merely "plausible".  Things that are merely plausible would be recognized for what they are...clay waiting to be shaped by the game designer into the form they need to make a good game.  And yet even though thats all "realism" is (a collection of the merely plausible), people who think of realism as being more than that would never accept that.  Their long indoctrination gives "realistic" an aura of immutability...  If only they think about it hard enough they can figure out the RIGHT way to write the rule...when instead they should be trying to figure out the BEST way to write the rule.

Slavish devotion to realism is responsible for thousands of pages of suck.  And the laughable (and sad) thing is...that in the end...those attempts are generally no more realistic than the games with numbers pulled out of thin air...because very few of the devotees of "realism" have the advanced knowledge necessary to write realistic rules to begin with.


All of which is just to prove the point that there is absolutely ZERO benefit to writing a rule one way instead of another simply because its "more realistic".  Because "more realistic" is a bunch of Wizard of Oz hoodoo.  That doesn't mean "don't write that rules that way".  It simply means "come up with a better reason to write the rule that way, because 'its realistic' is just vapor"  it also means "if you can't come up with a better reason...THEN start questioning why you need the rule at all."

Because if you don't have a better reason...then your game will suck, period.  Just like all the other steaming piles of excrement that have been shat out of brains by people who didn't want to bother having a good reason for the rules they were writing.

[M. J. Young]

I think that the debate with John is just a tad off topic, but that it can be brought back to add something to the point.

I will certainly concede that there is such a thing as "realism" and that well-researched efforts "approach" it ever more accurately. I think John will concede two things that matter to me:[list=1][*]Perfect realism is probably unattainable due to the complexity involved.[*]The refinement of near-perfect realism requires ever more complexity.[/list:o]Given those two points, I think we can proceed.

The argument made by those who favor "realism" would seem to be that any rule which makes the game a more accurate representation of reality in any way is automatically a better rule either than any other rule or than no rule at all. If "realism" is the single stated objective, we should ultimately see a game so complex that it is entirely unplayable by a roomful of Cray Supercomputers.

That's an absurd outcome. It means that the drive toward "realism" must be tempered by some other, unstated goal, some basis for deciding how much realism is worth the cost.

However, the evaluation of "how much realism is worth the cost" must be based on some other measure, some scale that determines the value of this one. Since "Realism is the ultimate goal" automatically precludes any decision that excludes any rule that would increase realism, realism cannot be the basis for that decision. However, since complexity is measured by something so subjective as "playability", it's difficult to see how it could itself be the limiter. Playable by whom? For what objectives? To what standard?

What is being argued here (by Ralph, I think, and certainly by me) is that the only value "realism" has in game design is that it serves some other objective. The amount of realism that is "good" in game design can only be measured by the degree to which it serves or impedes that other objective.

Thus if we're designing that hypothetical game that teaches school children about feudal Japan, our objective is to create a game that will engage children in a specific age group and convey to them factual and experiential information about that culture. On this basis we can say, "Yes, this rule increases the degree to which play will realistically represent the culture," and we can also say, "No, that rule will unduly burden the system, making it less engaging for the target audience, more difficult to play, and thus ultimately less effective at teaching about feudal Japan."

Thus realism cannot be a game design objective for its own sake. It can only be a factor considered in the effort to reach some other defined design objective. You can't create the 100.000000% realistic game, and long before you reach 95% you're probably in an unplayable system, so you have to make those trade-offs based on what the real objective of the design is.

Does that clarify the issues?

--M. J. Young

[John Kim]

That's why plausibility is the better word.  Because plausible is all it is.  You don't KNOW its realistic...you simply BELIEVE it to be so based on whatever level of knowledge you have on the subject.  You believe it because it seems plausible.  If the game was "informed by research" than that helps with #2 above, but it still comes down to plausibility...because after all, the reseach could be flawed.
...
Using the world "Realism" makes it easy to believe that you're talking fact rather than belief.  But ultimately...unless you're the one person in the universe (aka God) who has 100% perfect knowledge of all things...you're quite likely wrong about many of the things you think are facts anyway.

Just to be clear here, you're arguing (like LordSmerf/Thomas did earlier) that "realism" simply doesn't exist as a concept -- regardless of whether you're taking a college science class, conducting your own research, or playing an RPG.  Because any human research can potentially be flawed, you conclude there is no such thing as objective realism.  I don't agree with that, but it isn't something I care to argue.  If you want to dismiss the idea of realism in any endeavor, then let's just agree to disagree.  

Its not a "just a semantic arguement".  Its a crucial distinction because we're talking world-view paradigm shifting here.  There's a breed of gamer who worships at the altar of "Realism" and a breed of game designer who pursues "realism" like a holy grail.

But those games are like the Emerald City where "Realism" is a humbug calling itself a Wizard pleading with you to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.  That man behind the curtain is Plausibility.  Because once you strip away all of the fancy sounding text and the almost fetish-like obsession...all you're left with is the cold hard fact that "Realistic" means absolutely nothing more profound than "whatever seems plausible enough for me to believe based on what I know today".

OK, maybe it is a world-paradigm difference here.  I enjoy my fetish-like obsession with reality.  I can spend hours or even days talking about reality, and I feel that my life have been enriched by study of it.  I discuss this in my short essay http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/realism.html">RPG Realism and Education.  Picking up the example from there, yes, Traveller helped lead me down my own fetish-like obsession with learning about science and astronomy.  You can see the horrors which this inflicted on me, since I went on to waste years of my life ignoring the man behind the curtain as I went through college, got my PhD, and went on to further research.  

If the above seems sarcastic and dismissive, well, that's because it is.  Traveller affected my life precisely because it was more than just what I knew at the time -- it introduced me to more, and it fostered both understanding and interest in the fields of physics and astronomy.  Now if someone were to assert that realism is the only valid goal in RPGs, I would argue with equal vehemence against them.  But when you dismiss it as a meaningless "fetish-like obsession", I'm going to disagree with you.

[Vaxalon]

I have to shake my head in wonder at the mention of Traveller in a discussion of RPG realism.

[John Kim]

I have to shake my head in wonder at the mention of Traveller in a discussion of RPG realism.

Have you read my essay?  This is exactly one of the fallacies that I discuss -- the idea that realism has to be binary.  i.e. Some people feel that if there is any difference from strict, perfect reality (which doesn't exist in any model), then that makes any attempt at realism meaningless.  The logic seems to be that either something has to be a perfect reality or it is useless.  I find the preposterous.  

Traveller has tons of non-real elements: from jump drives to psionics to ten-ton computers.  On the other hand, it also contains real physics and astronomy in it which are clearly and simply explained.  I personally benefitted from the latter.  I don't see how there is any contradiction in this.

[Nathan P.]

It seems to me that Ralph is basically saying that "realism" isn't a design goal at all. It's just not. It's a means by which you attempt to fulfill your design goals. But designing for "realism" is mistaking the means for the end.

Does that clarify anything?

[b_bankhead]

Traveller has tons of non-real elements: from jump drives to psionics to ten-ton computers.  On the other hand, it also contains real physics and astronomy in it which are clearly and simply explained.  I personally benefitted from the latter.  I don't see how there is any contradiction in this.

Well I can see that you weren't using the Traveler books as texts, otherwise you never would have gotten out of Basic Science.

It's true that Traveler has some realistic elements buried in it, but for that matter so does D&D. (Those exotic polearms really did exist...) but the problem is that the reality is buried in a mass of unreality like nuggets of gold in a stream. Only a person who is already well versed in science is going to know which is which.

I have a strong belief, based on a extensive experience, that 'realism' in SF games can only be maintained at the level of color and group CA. It doesn't matter how much 'accuracy' you put in your rules, if the your players don't know their asteroids from an  impact crater in the ground, it's all going to come out, 'hand me the plot device so I can reverse the polarity of the neutron flow'.

Traveler is a fine example of the victory of plausibility. The tiny (and tiny they are) nuggets of reality only exist to add plausibility to the far greater mass of unreality.  But hey it works, Traveler has maintained the this illusion for almost 3 decades, primarily because the rpg crowd,overall, doesn't know as much real science as it likes to think.

Look I'm glad for anybody who went into real science because of Traveler,but 'realism' really isn't necessary for this. After all the late Carl Sagan listed E.R. Burrough's John Carter of Mars series as a primary influence in his becoming an astronomer....

[Valamir]

What is being argued here (by Ralph, I think, and certainly by me) is that the only value "realism" has in game design is that it serves some other objective. The amount of realism that is "good" in game design can only be measured by the degree to which it serves or impedes that other objective.

BINGO.

And to respond to John.  No, I'm not argueing that there is no such thing as objective realism (I'm not even addressing that as a question).  I'm argueing that there is no value to putting objective realism (even if it exists) on a pedestool as some sort of master goal to be sought after.  

For every single statement you can ever make about how "X is portrayed realistically in game Y" you can find some expert who can point out "No its not.  Game Y fails to account for a, b, and c and is there for NOT very realistic at all".  

This is exactly what Vax touches on with regards to Traveller.  Traveller may have inspired you to do further research but it certainly didn't do so because it was realistic, John.  Because it ain't.  You can drive a truck through the holes in Traveller realism.  What it did have was a lot of crunchy stuff that had the appearance of being based on an internally consistant vision...but "realistic"?  

No.  It was not realistic.  It seemed plausible to you in a way that caught your fancy and made you want to learn more...but if you'd already had your PhD the first time you picked up a Traveller book you wouldn't now be trying to claim it was "realistic"...because you'd have known better and would not be contending with nostalgic memories of the game's impact on your life.  You instead would have been sniggering at some of the game's assumptions which contradict what you've since learned.

Your point that realism isn't binary is not only 100% correct, but also 100% proves my point.  Its precisely because it is this morphous impossible to pin down thing that means something different to everybody based on each persons level of knowledge that makes it worthless as a design goal.

It seemed more realistic to young John than what you'd seen before and thus excited you.  But it certainly doesn't seem more realistic than what Dr. John learned in school.  That alone should convince you that what it had was plausibility not realism.


On eductation, I've already said that if your purpose is to pursue education...than that IS your design goal.  The design goal that should, MUST, take precedence over mistaken notions of "realism".

The design goal would be something to the nature of "present the field of X consistant with the teachings and theories of Dr. so-an-so circa 2005 in a manner that educates players and engages them in the depth and excitement of the topic".  Notice that this is vastly different (and vastly improved) on some vague notion of "make it realistic".

[John Kim]

This is exactly what Vax touches on with regards to Traveller.  Traveller may have inspired you to do further research but it certainly didn't do so because it was realistic, John.  Because it ain't.  You can drive a truck through the holes in Traveller realism.  What it did have was a lot of crunchy stuff that had the appearance of being based on an internally consistant vision...but "realistic"?

No.  It was not realistic.  It seemed plausible to you in a way that caught your fancy and made you want to learn more...

OK, you're back to the binary claim about realism -- i.e. you're trying to make a claim of either "yes" or "no" regarding the realism of Traveller as a whole.  Which is crap.  Traveller did not simply inspire me to read elsewhere.  It has real information about physics and astronomy which I learned from.  It's not ideal for this, and I think that RPGs could potentially do much better -- but it did a pretty good job IMO.  

but if you'd already had your PhD the first time you picked up a Traveller book you wouldn't now be trying to claim it was "realistic"...because you'd have known better and would not be contending with nostalgic memories of the game's impact on your life.  You instead would have been sniggering at some of the game's assumptions which contradict what you've since learned.

I don't know how you conclude about what I would do, because in my opinion you are completely wrong.  I have my PhD now and am perfectly capable of looking rationally at Traveller.  I still think it has good, informative material.  

Is it a graduate-level text?  No, of course not.  But again, realism is not a binary condition.  If I were a school teacher, I might well incorporate Traveller into my curriculum, because it has useful, real informational content.  

The design goal would be something to the nature of "present the field of X consistant with the teachings and theories of Dr. so-an-so circa 2005 in a manner that educates players and engages them in the depth and excitement of the topic".  Notice that this is vastly different (and vastly improved) on some vague notion of "make it realistic".

Well, obviously just the single word "realistic" is vague.  A more specific design goal is needed.  But the same thing is true of any other one-word design goal.  i.e. "Story" is pointlessly vague as a design goal.  A more useful design goal is "Encourage players to engage in narrative within X genre as exemplified by authors C and D, etc."  The same applies to "challenge" or "competition" or a host of other possibilities.

[Walt Freitag]

Ralph, my sympathy for your point is running afoul of my distaste for absolutes. (This has been happening to me a lot at the Forge recently).

I'll grant you that it's usually helpful to think of realism as a means in support of some other goal.

However, plausibility is not the same as realism, nor the best that can be hoped for short of realism. There are many notions that are plausible but not realistic.

Let's take an example: bodies exploding when exposed to the vacuum of space. If your game rule says bodies explode in space, and mine says they don't, they both might be equally plausible to everyone in our target audience. Yours might even be a better game. But in that particular aspect, mine's more realistic than yours. I can say that unequivocally. I might not be able to say that mine is "realistic" or that yours is "unrealistic" since those are mere opinions (like whether a room is "too hot" or "too cold"), but I bloody well can say that bodies not exploding is more realistic than bodies exploding. If an expert comes along who says yours is more realistic because bodies actually do explode, that expert is wrong. That might be a naughty word to use in this nobody-knows-nothin'-about-nothin' culture we seem to be buying into here, but that doesn't make him one iota less wrong.

- Walt

[Dauntless]

Its not a question of realism vs. plausibility. Plausibility and realism are effectively synonyms...except one is the truth and the other a lie.

No, they aren't quite the same.  They are not mutually exclusive, though in a way they are the flip sides of the same coin.

Plausibility is your own expectation of how the world works.  When you are confronted with something that doesn't fit your own predictions, then either one of two things happens:  You investigate why the expected didn't match the actual, or you reject the actual outcome as (in character) a coincidence or an anomaly or (OOC) that the rules system is funked up.  Plausibility is very much like a heuristic that we use to measure things against.  Plausibility is based on many things; our knowledge, our preconceived ideas (our underlying ontology), our misinformation, our intellectual capacity, our inclination to question,  and our beliefs (to fill in the gaps where our knowledge hasn't gone yet).  Plausibility is our subjective interpretation of things.

Realism is on one hand objective, and in another subjective (as a matter of philosophical debate, there are subjectivists who say that there is no objective reality only that which can be experienced by my mind...ala The Matrix, "Brain in a jar", or Yogacara-like "Mind only" philosophies....and there are the pure objectivists who say that everything fundamentally exists seperately and independently from one another and "interpretation" is merely the chemical and electrical processes occurring in our mind given specific sensory input).  But here in the west, we typically define realism as an objective and independent reality which follows a set of laws.  Whenever we do science, we are trying to discover these laws, because when we discover them, we can then predict how events will turn out.  In other words, through these laws (or hypotheses) given a set of causes, we can predict the effects.  These laws are unchangeable, immutable and not subject to interpretation (though as we're discovering, science is having a harder time trying to reconcile the idea of a purely Newtonian objective universe without the impact of consciousness working on it).  If a law of hypothesis is changed or thrown out, it is because a new discovery was made that did not fit the previous law, and a new one has to be made that fits in the new data as well as all the old data (as I often have to tell people, science never "proves" anything, in fact it can only disprove things when it discovers something new that doesn't fit...this is why our knowledge and laws are always changing).

This is what seperates realism from plausibility.  Plausibility is subjective and interpretive, realism is objective and is bound by law.  I should mention that subjectivists would say that the only reality is plausibility, while pure objectivists would say that plausibility is a result of our lack of understanding of objective reality.

I will agree however that trying to chase the "realism" ghost is nigh impossible.  At best what you can do is explain that the data and formula you have come up with were based on sound scientific method and analysis.  This doesn't mean the resulting rules are necessarily "realistic"...they may fail the criterion that it doesn't accurately enough predict what would happen in real life under the same circumstances.  I see the pursuit of using realistic methodology simply as support to help guide how I design the rules.  Another good advantage is that trying to model things realistically usually gives you good consistency, which is something that purely made up rules often have difficulty with.  Instead of just "winging it" or giving a very subjective off the cuff estimation, I'll try to analyze the problem instead.  It may be my guesstimate was in the same ballpark as the more thorough analysis, but I like the confidence it gives me because the game will seem plausible in my eyes.  And for me, that's what is important.

[xenopulse]

(cut out rambling on epistemology, metaphysics, Kant, Kuhn, and realism)

I hear one side saying that realism is a design goal. I hear the other side saying that that we'll never get there and that aiming for realism is really not a goal in itself. I think that both are true to a degree. Some people want rules that more accurately model events that fit with our real-life experiences and educational background--whether current or future (i.e., they want to play games that, if they researched the topic in question in the future, they'd think the model was in accordance with that research).

Why would people want that? Apparently simply to simulate these events more accurately. Just like other people want to build models of 17th century lineships accurately. But they won't be able to build the real thing.

So:
1. Some people want models that are as close to being models in accordance with current knowledge and research as possible without being impossible to play.
2. That means they're not aiming for realism itself, but for a maximum of correlation between modeled accuracy and well-researched expectations.
3. We could simply call this a degree of plausibility with very high standards.
4. That means that yes, it's still a matter of plausibility and not objective reality, BUT the important part is that standards are very high.

Can we agree on that?

[Dauntless]

After reading through more of the posts....

If the argument is that realism for its own sake is a bad thing, then I'd have to agree.  Realistic rules should be supportive of another design criterion you have so that it can set a tone or flavor for the game as a whole, or that it serves some other effect for the game.

I'll give you an example.  In my game, I currently have a grand total of 28 statistics (both primary and derived), and this isn't including Personality stats (I have Psyche stats, and a Principles commentary) Perks and Flaws, Skills or Powers.  Speaking of Skills, there's not just a description and a controlling attribute.  There's also a Classification (Academia, Trained, Innate, Artistic), a Category (what class or family of related skills does it belong to), and a Difficulty (how hard it is to learn).

Why so many statistics?  Not purely for the sake of realism, but mainly for consistency as well as better defining the character.  Another major reason was so that I didn't have to have a gazillion "special cases" which many other games often pass off as Talents or Powers.  For example, by having so many stats, it's very easy in my game to create a character who is small and wiry, and can't lift a lot of weight, but can generate a lot of power (High Power, High Fitness, Low Mass/Height ratio).  This ideally fits the character concept of a gymnast of martial artists.  A bodybuilder on the other hand could be High Mass/Height ratio, Mid Fitness, High Force.

So what may seem as an overly complex system will in fact ease play in many respects as well as simplify arbitration simply because there is more character detail.  So you pay for the complexity at the beginning, but then arbitration of events, and the actual character conceptualization are more vividly defined.  So I think it's a good trade off.  So I wasn't going purely for realism for the sake of realism.

[Valamir]

So:
1. Some people want models that are as close to being models in accordance with current knowledge and research as possible without being impossible to play.
2. That means they're not aiming for realism itself, but for a maximum of correlation between modeled accuracy and well-researched expectations.
3. We could simply call this a degree of plausibility with very high standards.
4. That means that yes, it's still a matter of plausibility and not objective reality, BUT the important part is that standards are very high.

That's exactly right Christian, excellent summary, especially #3.

I'd make the point a little stronger.  It is impossible in a game to model reality.  The best you can do is model someone else's model of reality.

If you're going to design a game that's "realistic" in the collequial sense of the world, then only thing you can do is find an expert in the field and base your game model of that expert (or school's) view of how things are.  Often times the experts don't agree (especially in the softer sciences which is where the majority of roleplaying takes place...or in the leading edge of harder science).  If you follow one group's theories the other group will disagree.  So which is "more realistic"?  Impossible to say.  The best you can do is say its very plausible given a specific set of standards that are accepted as a given.