What is the most realistic RPG?

[weeble]

The game I consider most realistic was a game of Hawkmoon I participated in a few years ago. Before I go on, I should point out that I've never read the Hawkmoon manual, and I understand that what we were playing had deviated seriously from however it had been written.

What made it realistic for me was largely the perceived consistency between the rules and the setting, at least so far as related to things my character was interested in doing. I played a (rather immoral) scientist, seeking to understand and harness the various beneficial mutations which existed in that particular post-apocalyptic setting. Of course, actual written knowledge of the science was immensely hard to come by. The GM had gone to some effort to create a system for scientific research, learning and application, despite her problems with maths. It since inspired me to spend some time considering mechanisms for representing the acquisition, transfer and storage of information in general.

Anyway, so far as realism goes, describing something I considered realistic doesn't really help as much as describing things I find unrealistic.  My main problem is with games that don't seem to have an internal consistency. It's always been my perception that in a world conforming to the D&D rules, any minor noble is forced to have stacks of magic items to ward off invisible, ethereal, flying, silent assailants threatening his or her mind, body and/or soul. Universities would not have lectures on thaumaturgy, because nobody could learn from them - instead they'd have field trips to raze a nearby goblin village. With my naive understanding of the Cyberpunk rules (only ever as a player), it seems that 10% of planes crash on take-off, or more specifically that any real risk is at least 10% probable. These things don't seem to mesh with the setting presented.

Perhaps if it was made clear that the world outside of the story at hand does not conform to the same set of rules then these things would not be an issue. Still, it's frustrating to try to play a character who knows that something works for many other nameless people, but inexplicably fails for him or her. You end up with a list of mind traps - things that characters cannot think about or act upon, lest the character or the world unravel itself. I suppose none of these things are all that much of an issue unless the character at hand is a scholar, a scientist, a seeker of knowledge. That in turn reflects the kind of game I like.

Weeble.

[Mike Holmes]

MJ,

You're very long post about Feminism in Traveller makes the point that teh GDW folks were making a probably incorrect prediction. Which has nothing to do with the discussion here. The question is not whether particular predicitons are correct. As you point out, they are unlikley to be. Givan that, however, all SF is equally unrealistic by that assessment. So the criteria has to be elsewhere. The question should be whether or not the sort of detail they've included, whatever it may be, is good for realism (or what sort of realism it's good for), and whether or not the box closing that this fact represents is a cop out or not.

Fang (and others with related points),

I'd like to define the opposing view of realism better, as I, at least occasionally, feel it. Which is that simulation is important in terms of realism over emulation because it allows, in theory and where well designed, for real world (for lack of a better word; beleivable?) strategies to be empolyed in the simulation, and to recieve confirmation or denial of those strategies in an arbitrary fashion. That is, a good simulation is an engine for testing hypothesis, and this is what they are used for outside of RPGs. In RPGs, the heypotheses that can be tested are often tactical owing to the wargaming heritage of RPGs, but they do not have to be. Essentially what's fun to a person like myself in such a sim is that I can test "what if" and get a result that feels credible to an extent.

Yes, we can talk til were blue in the face about how all sim's fail at some level of detail. What you have to understand is that there's a point where it's at least satisfactory, and often fun for my type of player to play this way. It's the same urge that can have me spending a zillion hours playing a game like Civilization III on the computer.

To a player like this, Realism has to do with just how well the simulation seems to produce credible results. And no ammount of end loading for emulation can suffice.

In fact the Cynic in me wants to ask why you don't play freeform if you feel this way. What do you see the rules as being useful for if not to frame that imaginary space in a way that allows it to be seen as a sort of objectively real space in terms of conducting thought experiments within?

But I'll be satisfied if we can just allow for this to be a simple matter of preference.

Mike

[Paganini]

Mike, I had a big long post writen out refuting your point, but I don't think your point is what it actually looks like after all. I'm looking for some clarification.

You ask: "In fact the Cynic in me wants to ask why you don't play freeform if you feel this way."

Are you talking about small-s simulation without defined rules? This is really confusing me. On the surface, it looks like you're asking "what are rules good for if not ensuring consistency inside the imagined environment?" This can't be right . . .  you couldn't have designed Universalis without understanding the answer. So what are you really getting at?

OTOH, the distinction you're making between simulation and emulation seems to be that emulation does not allow one to perform causal thought experiments inside the shared imagination. I don't get it. Simulation and emulation are both concerned with answering the same postulate: "If this were real, how would it behave?" The difference is in how those behaviors are produced. So, what gives?

[Ron Edwards]

Arrrgh ...

Mike, that comment was needlessly provocative. You know the answer already: the Lumpley Principle.

Nathan, let's let this one drop as well. There's no point in going into it: Mike knows the answer to his own question, it's all part of a side-issue in a typical Fang-Mike interchange, and it's about to destroy the integrity of the thread.

Best,
Ron

[Marco]

Arrrgh ...

Mike, that comment was needlessly provocative. You know the answer already: the Lumpley Principle.

Nathan, let's let this one drop as well. There's no point in going into it: Mike knows the answer to his own question, it's all part of a side-issue in a typical Fang-Mike interchange, and it's about to destroy the integrity of the thread.

Best,
Ron

Aww ... I was waiting for the Shock and Awe pahse of the Fang-Mike Exchange.  Also: I should know this: what is the Lumpey Principle?

-Marco

[Mike Holmes]

Ron is correct. I am needling Fang (probably wrongly, but that's me all over, isn't it), about his casual and dismissive attituide towards another preference.

Nathan, my point is exactly that I understand both motives perfectly, and don't understand people who belittle other people's preferences under the guise of misunderstanding them.  

I suppose.

I can see how some people could believe that such a cycling would result in an ever more 'realistic' game and that explains the 'realism urge' as it functions in game design that I have seen. ...But doesn't do much to explain why this would be a good thing.

"Ooh, those silly type two realists. They've really got their heads in the sand."

I'm sure Fang will be along presently to explain this away as a misinterperetation of subtext.

My rhetoric (note the lack of quesiotn marks), was meant to counter Fangs rhetoric, and to make the above point. Guess I was a bit too subtle.

Nathan, I would not say that emulation cannot be used to answer thought experiments. I would, OTOH, say that for certain people it is not satisfactory, at least not all the time. Because the results aren't as scientifically vaild, not as rigid. Which doesn't make the results of emulation worse, it just makes them different.

If you don't agree with that, all I can do is point to the behavior. Yes, I'm making a circular argument. It's OK to have differing preferences in terms of RPGs (God if it's not in RPGs what hope do we have for peace in the world?) And if it's OK to have preferences, then the results of those preferences can only be invalid if they lead to dysfunciton; or, rather, the categorical imperative pertains. But I've yet to see a detractor even state, much less prove that such play is dysfuncitonal.

Which really begs the question, why this thread is even continuing? If the desire is to really just understand the range of definitions of Realism, then it seems that we're straying dangerously close to ethnography, and not doing much for game design. The point that there are multiple definitions has definitely been made.

Mike

[lumpley]

...what is the Lumpey Principle?

My cue.

The lookie-me-I'm-a-principle principle is that what a game's rules do is facilitate consensus among the players.

Here's the original thread.

-Vincent

[Le Joueur]

...needling Fang (probably wrongly, but that's me all over, isn't it), about his casual and dismissive attitude towards another preference.

...I'm sure Fang will be along presently to explain this away as a misinterperetation of subtext.

As you wish.

I thought it was rather obvious when I littered the whole post with "I think" and "to me" after starting with, "What do I think...."  It was supposed to be clearly and literally my opinion of 'realism.'  Just what the originator asked for.

I mean, how can I have

my own preference except that I dismiss all others?[/list:u]I haven't been misinterpretted so I am perfectly willing to let it drop; can we?

Fang Langford

p. s. I do play free-form, a lot; and it always lacks the 'concrete feeling' that a "design for effect" emulator offers.  With one of those we can easily 'fix' the results to satisfy our needs for 'realism.'

[M. J. Young]

MJ,

You're very long post about Feminism in Traveller makes the point that teh GDW folks were making a probably incorrect prediction. Which has nothing to do with the discussion here. The question is not whether particular predicitons are correct. As you point out, they are unlikley to be. Givan that, however, all SF is equally unrealistic by that assessment. So the criteria has to be elsewhere. The question should be whether or not the sort of detail they've included, whatever it may be, is good for realism (or what sort of realism it's good for), and whether or not the box closing that this fact represents is a cop out or not.

Perhaps, though, this actually puts it back on topic. Is it realistic to suggest that in the future there will be no gender roles and no gender distinctions, or not? Now, I can play in a game where gender distinctions aren't seriously emphasized, or in which religion is never mentioned--but when that starts to become a focus, when it is emphasized that gender distinctions have been eliminated and religion has faded from humanity, my disbelief suspenders snap (thank you, John Wick), and it loses a sense of realism. I no longer believe the setting credible. It doesn't seem like a world in which real people exist.

At the same time, there will be others who hold that those predictions of the future are among the few that will prove accurate, that male/female roles and attitudes will collapse into genderless human attitudes and religion will be relegated to historical mythology of some minor interest; for these people, it is entirely possible that a world which strongly suggests gender distinctions and religious faith in a futuristic setting may be as unrealistic as the reverse is for me. They have a preconceived notion of what the future will be like; I also have such a notion. When the created image of that world clashes strongly with the expectations of the player, that sense we call "realism" fails--not because the world as presented is actually unrealistic, but because it disagrees with our beliefs about it.

Johannes, is this still helping to come to grips with what people mean by "realism" in their games?

--M. J. Young

[Johannes]

Wow! You spend the weekend away from your computer and...

Hi M.J.,
Yes this is the sort of thing that I wanted from the thread and it touches an interesting point: the reality which is taken as the measuring stick of realism (like in my definition) is inaccessible in itself. All we have is a more or less biased and subjective experience of reality.

Hi Mike,
Yes this is ethnography of sorts but I think that mapping the meanings is useful to game designers (which I am not) too. Game design is about using language and I believe that you can benefit from knowing it.

I want to thank everybody for their input and Emily for her clarification of the topic. Here is a lot to analyze and I hope I can get some taxonomy worked out. It will however take some time as there is so much material. I'll keep reading the thread of course.

[CplFerro]

Dear Johannes:

I'd rate my mental stress at reading the post title at 25.

I run Gamma World via customised Phoenix Command.  Any at given moment it's about as realistic as I can make it, pressing up against the genre conventions I have in mind.

Realism in games, means evoking recognition of real principles.  Even the weirdest of fantasy worlds must retain certain real principles of interaction, or it will become impossible to appreciate as anything other than a bizarre and empty novelty.

A game's realism alone depends on the knowledge of its participants of real principles of the universe.  It is meaningless to assert that a game is realistic, if none of the participants can aver for it.  To the best of their knowledge it will, at best, be verisimilar.

So, the most realistic game, is the game which best evokes recognition of real principles in its particular participants.  It has nothing to do with mechanics of any sort in of themselves, but rather only as those mechanics spur recognition.

For example, I try to make my game as realistic as I can, by making the world function according to the principles of the world that I know.  To the extent I lack such knowledge, I rate my mere articles of learning (e.g. statistical, sensual information, etc., rather than true knowledge), by how closely associated they feel to me, to the principles I know, or to the principles I hypothesise.  In the case of appearances, I try to match them as close as possible to those I have experienced, or have heard or seen of, with the mind always to back them up with a supporting principle, wherever possible.

A realistic game therefore becomes harder to run the more knowledge the GM has, because the breadth of his ignorance confronts him.

A verisimilar game becomes easier to run the more knowledge the GM has, because he has far more ways of fudging the truth.

This is why it is better for the most apparently knowledgeable participant to GM, because he will more easily be able to run a verisimilar game for the others, and strive toward a realistic game for himself.  If a less-knowledgeable participant GMs, either he will be frustrated by being called on his ignorance by more learned fellows, or those players will suffer disbelief politely.



Cpl Ferro

[Valamir]

So, the most realistic game, is the game which best evokes recognition of real principles in its particular participants. It has nothing to do with mechanics of any sort in of themselves, but rather only as those mechanics spur recognition.

This I actually disagree with quite strongly for the reasons outlined in my post above.

"evokes recognition of real principles" is a great way to summarize what is going on, but by itself it means nothing.  It is a black box.  

Game mechanics are how the evocation occurs*

Peoples preference for game mechanics will have a definite impact on the success of the evocation.

Design for Effect games (done well), evoke realism for me just fine.  For others they are transparent and not realistic at all.

Some people have a wholly irrational aversion to dice pools on the basis of concealing probabilities.  Doesn't matter how well you design them, they will view the output as non realistic.

Mechanics and the evocation you speak of are tied hand in hand.


*Technically, it is possible to achieve the evocation of real principles completely free form by the voluntary and concious adherance of all participants to those principals.  I have seen this, but it is so rare as to not be advisable as a foundation for game design theory.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

*Technically, it is possible to achieve the evocation of real principles completely free form by the voluntary and concious adherance of all participants to those principals.  I have seen this, but it is so rare as to not be advisable as a foundation for game design theory.

Why is that? Just because something is rare is not enough to put is aside. I mean in the 70's, VCRs were rare. Now they are common. On Pentacost, Chritianity had only 11 members (or so). Something common started as something rare at one point. What matters is if it can be reproduced effectively and distributed to many people or not. Now if it cannot be reliably reproduced even when all of the participants are on the same page or only a handful of people will ever "get" it, then OK. (Personally, I think that is just a challenge to fix whatever problem there is) Otherwise, I think it is a possible method that deserve inspection.

[CplFerro]

Dear Valamir:

Thank you for the clarification.  Indeed I would go further and argue that mechanics are indispensable for all games, provided we define mechanics to mean the sum of all signifiers, axioms, or algorithms available to serve as reminders for ideas about situations, and suggesting options for transformation.  Games may lack axioms or algorithms, but all games with a speaking component make use of signifiers.

The mechanics in of themselves, however, divorced from an estimation of their potential for such evocation in a particular gaming group, or set of groups, under consideration, are not, and never could be, realistic.  It would be like asking if English is realistic.  Thus, reiterating, the most realistic game is that with mechanics the participants find evocative.

Now, correct me if I mistake Design for Effect as producing satisfactory outcomes, and Design to Cause as producing satisfactory reasons for outcomes.   Then, I'm attracted to Design to Cause, to lend weight to the proceedings, by making the /how/ contribute as much as the /what/.



Cpl Ferro

[Valamir]

Now, correct me if I mistake Design for Effect as producing satisfactory outcomes, and Design to Cause as producing satisfactory reasons for outcomes. Then, I’m attracted to Design to Cause, to lend weight to the proceedings, by making the /how/ contribute as much as the /what/.

Exactly.  Which is why the mechanics are and indispensible for how they portray or don't portray realism, yet one is completely incapable of ever declaring a certain set of mechanics as being definitively "realistic"...only realistic according to a certain players standard of "realism".

Jack:  I think I didn't communicate the idea I was trying to make well.  It was not that this segment is so small that it doesn't count.  It is that it is too small and specialized to render the more common method invalid by its own existance.

In other words:

The statement was made that Mechanics are seperate from Realism
I was pointing out that while it is possible (albiet rare) to play Realistically in an environment devoid of mechanics, that the normal situation is that mechanics and Realism are closely tied together.