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John Kim wrote:
Most traditional as well as most narration-based mechanics would be plausible but not realistic. There is no particular effort at simulation. The game designer/GM/player may make up modifiers and results, but they are based on feeling rather than real-world knowledge. So, for example, you can just tell the players to make up something that fits and it is fairly easy to be plausible.

Realism is distinct in that it requires research. i.e. Mechanics with are both plausible and realistic go beyond common sense and preconceptions. For example, games like FVLMINATA or Sengoku incorporate historical research into character generation. Games like Traveller have science in their starship and star system mechanics. Games like Millenium's End have research in their gun damage. These are uncommon but not non-existant.

I have to absolutely agree with Ralph here. When people say "Realistic" they basically mean "Plausible with regard to my personal model of the real world". Thus realism is just a specific subset of plausibility where the reference frame is one's personal model of reality.

And I would like to add one thing: People do not necessarily need to know more to find some game rule "unrealistic" (implausible that is). they could just as well know less and find something implausible that is absolutely plausible for an expert.
Take for example a hypothetical game about (space) travel that includes relativity effects. A person from the 19th century would very probably shake his head at the idea that time slows down when you move faster. I can almost hear them say: "What the ...? So when I run, my watch goes slower?!? This is totally unrealistic! This game sucks!!" So basically everything that does not fit ones personal model of reality is viewed as unrealistic. And this just means that it is perceived as implausible when judged by what one believes about reality.

Ralph,

As you can tell from my posts in that linked thread, I completely concur.

Let me also point out that I have realized, through that thread, that this problem is entirely linked to task resolution systems. Focusing on plausible results means almost necessarily a focus on individual actions and what specific effects they produce. When you replace task resolution with conflict resolution mechanics that simply allow you to resolve stakes, *each group of players* can determine by themselves what the plausible task-level interpretation of the conflict outcome is. It takes away from the mechanical detail of a scene, but the players can flesh those details out as much as they want based on their own understanding of what's going on.

So. My point is, if you're very concerned with plausibility, maybe a solution is the completely counter-intuitive path of switching to conflict resolution and leaving the details to the players' imagination. It won't work for everybody, of course, but it's worth contemplating.

Hi Ralph,

I diagree with you, so let me paraphrase your argument to see if I've got the gist of it: No one can write a realistic game because you can always find someone who can add more relevant detail.

This much is not true. When you build any model, you build it with an eye towards achieving a certain level of accuracy and precision. At any given level, you really, honestly, truly can nail all of the factors that matter -- all other factors will be at the level of noise. Then, when someone says, "But you didn't account for X", you can say, "My game models events with a precision of 1.0, and X can only shift the answer by .01. So it should not be in the model," and that's the end of that.

But I do agree with you on the larger point that the choice of how much detail to pursue is a very significant design choice that the designer should not ignore. I don't think your argument supports it, though -- it just falls out from the obvious fact that a model can't tell you what it should be modelling.

If I have it correctly John's example was in contrast to GURPS and Hero where weight-lifters are the best long-jumpers. This means that a game which distinguishes the "big strong weight-lifter guy" from "the guy with strong legs" is going to operate at a lower-level of abstraction than the game which just has "a strong character."

The term realism, in this context, I think refers to the level of abstraction modeled (i.e. John's example models body-type but not age as in your example). I think that in contrast it is possible for one game to be "more realistic" than another in that respect.

I mean, it's true that becoming closer to real is a journey that has no end and it's true that a game mechanic which doesn't allow every possible result is going to be 'unrealistic somewhere'--but I think we can still distinguish between games which present and use very high-level abstractions (which may create more implausibilities in their mechanics) than games which use lower-level abstractions (which may produce fewer).

I'm reminded of Morrorw Project's wound and hit location tables (taken from battlefield wound data). If I got shot in the head with a 9mm and lived in that game I wouldn't declare it "unrealistic" because I can see just how damn unlikely that really is given their system (i.e. it's about as likely as it is judging from real wound data: not very).*

On the other hand, if I play Hero and roll 1d+1 RKA for the handgun and deem a head shot to be 2x Body (I don't recall the actual modifer) I can see that my normal guy will take about 9 BODY from an average shot. A slighly lower than average shot (a roll of a 2) does 6 BOD. That, you know, isn't "all that deadly" and if I had to make a real life decision based on facing down a 9mm to the face I'd think that Morrow Project more 'realisitcaly' represented my odds of survival than Hero.

It's all about the contrast to something else, IMO.

-Marco
* Note that there is a credibility issue here (which is what John also touches on with the research bit). A game which clearly has done its research may seem more credible to me than one which hasn't. This doesn't necessiarily make it "more real" in an objective sense, I would say. But I think it's related to a sense of objective reality when what we assume or might believe at first glance is shown not to be true (or not necessiarily true).

Neel,

I think you and Ralph are mostly disagreeing due to differing definitions of 'realistic'. Your definition from you post is pretty much what Ralph is calling 'plausible within the design goals'. He seems (this is my interpretation) to be defining 'realistic' as 'absolutely faithful to real-world phenomena to the Nth degree of detail'. Given that, I believe he is correct in say that designing a realistic game is doomed to failure. No one knows that much about the real world. However, setting solid design parameters and then making the mechanics plausible within the parameters is very doable.

Valamir wrote: Lev Lafayette went so far as to write in the above linked thread: "In other words, for the purposes of sim, yes the rules reflect realism"

Hopefully I've demonstrated that this is a provably false statement, and one doomed to failure as a design goal. The design goal can not be to reflect realism because realism can never actually be achieved...its simply individual plausibility and personal preference couched in the terminology of "realism" in order to justify adopting those preferences as the "right way".

Hi guys,

While the logical construction of Ralph's argument may not hold for you, I agree with the idea behind it.

For the purposes of designing games to be functionally used by humans- there are limitations to how well we can model actual reality. So, for actual play, designers need to juggle what things to model more or less accurately, and what levels of that creates plausibility in their game world.

Arguing that something is more "realistic" can only be claimed with a couple of extra riders to it:
-Realistic in these particular areas(firearms, horseriding, whatever)
-Realistic according to these particular sources (personal experience, masters of the field, research)

With all these riders- complete or overall realism is not a plausible, functional goal. Plausibility in relation to realism, within certain boundaries and areas of simulation is something that people CAN aim for, and achieve.

Chris

Nicholas: Absolutely true. You don't even have to bring different time periods into it. Just create a game based on realistic firearms based on real military and police data and give it to a bunch of typical gamers to see how much reality conflict with their idea of plausible.

Christian: Conflict resolution is absolute *a* solution (along with the Fortune in the middle mechanics that often accompany it). It works because the rules stop being about giving a plausible result and just give a high level outcome and leave it to the play group to fit a plausible result into that outcome...thereby ensuring for any given group the result will seem plausible. One down side to that is that you rely on the players to have sufficient knowledge to fill in the blanks. Sometimes there is a desire to not have any idea how it will work and allow the game system to show you the answer. Conflict resolution isn't so good for that.

Personally, that's where I see the role of Task Resolution being. That game or portion of a game that you want to educate the players on how something works. The best way to do that is often to break the complex event (like tactical combat) down into maneageable chunks and let the players experiment with assembling those chunks in an effective manner and thus "learn" a bit about tactics (as envisioned by the designer) in the process. Riddle of Steel's Combat system does this admirably IMO.


Neel: Let me change the paraphrase for you. "No one can deny a realistic game so one first must recognize that what you're calling realistic is just your personal judgement on plausibility. Once you realize that "realistic" is thus not some actual goal with its own intrinsic value you can realize that all of the time you thought you were pursuing this holy grail of realism you were really doing nothing more than pursuing your own personal judgment. Thus all of the dogma that crops up surrounding realism can be discarded because while applying that dogma to the illusory "realism" might sound good...applying it to joes-personal-judgement is just foolish. Recognizing that allows designers to break away from the slavish pursuit of something that can't be achieved and instead put their energies into what can...designing a game to meet a specific goal or ideal.

Your point on precision is well taken, but not really implementable in a game environment. You can talk about significant digits and tolerance and degrees of precision when you have something mathematically measurable in the controlled conditions of a lab, but in the outside of the lab that precision (being based on assumptions of conditions that no longer exist) doesn't hold. That's while real world tank engagements rarely play out in a manner that sophisticated military ballistic simulations would suggest.

They can calculate all they want about angle of attack, kinetic energy, and mm of armor with given properties...but once tanks start shooting at each other it never works so cleanly.

But that's somewhat besides the point, because this "really, honestly, truly can nail all of the factors that matter -- all other factors will be at the level of noise" is only true IF the designer of the game is an expert in that field. And not just that field...but every field that will be represented in the game. If he's not (and that clearly is the standard assumption) then he can't nail down all of the factors that matter because he doesn't have enough knowledge to. He can't estimate the degree of precision that he does nail down because he doesn't know enough about what he doesn't know to determine that.

That's what usually happens in such games. You'll get some piece of it that hyper "realistic"...such as ballistics rules that take into account muzzle velocity and recoil etc. Because THAT's the piece the designer researched enough to know about to be able to do what you suggest. But the rest of the game...say the computer hacking rules, or the security systems rules, or the vehicle rules...are just back to the realm of designer's personal plausibility. And as I noted...the game that achieves maximum precision for all of its rules for every aspect of the game...probably isn't playable.


Marco: With regards to "More realistic", sure...I said as much. I wrote "Any game that I find plausible is going to seem "more realistic" to me than one that I don't find plausible. But that same game is going to seem "unrealistic" to someone who knows more than I do. " But just because Morrow is "more realistic" than GURPs doesn't make Morrow "realistic".

"More realistic" simply means that more people will find Morrow's ballistic outcomes to be plausible than will find Hero's outcomes to be plausible. But there again "More people" has to be defined to a particular demographic...which people...more tribesmen in Cameron? More CSI ballistics experts?

Also, I'll just not here (though it would make a good thread) that degree of abstraction is only tangentally related to degree of plausbility. You can have a high degree of plausibility with a very abstract set of rules. The only thing low abstraction does is allow people who are less expert to get more plausble results. Experts can get quite plausible results with very abstract rules.


John: You're not disagreeing with me at all, because I agree completely with the phenemenon you're outlining. I merely disagreed with you using "realism" to define the distinction. But note here what you're doing when you say "therefore writing off the possibility of education through RPGs. " That's pure design goal.

If the designer doesn't give a fig about educating children about feudal Japan but his design goal is to achieve a fun play experience...then yes it makes no difference. Goal accomplished. If the designers goal is to educate children and wants to use the game as a teaching device, that's great too. That's the sort of design goal I'm talking about.

With regards to using it as a teaching tool, perhaps you judge Sengoku to have enough factual information to be useful as a teaching tool to children. Great, I love the idea. But that doesn't make it "realistic". That simply makes it accurate enough for your purpose. Game A might be plausible to the children and implausible to you and thus you judge it not suitable as a teaching tool. But just because you judge Game B as being suitable as a teaching tool does not make it realistic. It just means its plausible both to the children and to you. Someone else may come along and say "holy cow, how could you fill the children's mind with such rubbish...Game B is totally unrealistic"...because its not plausible to them.

I'm only objecting to taking an arbitrary degree of plausibility (i.e. what's plausible to you) and labeling it realistic. Your concept I completely agree with. But Realistic is not an appropriate word to use to define it.

Valamir wrote:
Marco: With regards to "More realistic", sure...I said as much. I wrote "Any game that I find plausible is going to seem "more realistic" to me than one that I don't find plausible. But that same game is going to seem "unrealistic" to someone who knows more than I do. " But just because Morrow is "more realistic" than GURPs doesn't make Morrow "realistic".

"More realistic" simply means that more people will find Morrow's ballistic outcomes to be plausible than will find Hero's outcomes to be plausible. But there again "More people" has to be defined to a particular demographic...which people...more tribesmen in Cameron? More CSI ballistics experts?

Also, I'll just not here (though it would make a good thread) that degree of abstraction is only tangentally related to degree of plausbility. You can have a high degree of plausibility with a very abstract set of rules. The only thing low abstraction does is allow people who are less expert to get more plausble results. Experts can get quite plausible results with very abstract rules.

Edited to note: Cross-posted with Marco, whom I pretty much agree with, and may have expressed it better than I did.

Valamir wrote: Nicholas: Absolutely true. You don't even have to bring different time periods into it. Just create a game based on realistic firearms based on real military and police data and give it to a bunch of typical gamers to see how much reality conflict with their idea of plausible.

Valamir wrote: John: You're not disagreeing with me at all, because I agree completely with the phenemenon you're outlining. I merely disagreed with you using "realism" to define the distinction. But note here what you're doing when you say "therefore writing off the possibility of education through RPGs. " That's pure design goal.

If the designer doesn't give a fig about educating children about feudal Japan but his design goal is to achieve a fun play experience...then yes it makes no difference. Goal accomplished. If the designers goal is to educate children and wants to use the game as a teaching device, that's great too. That's the sort of design goal I'm talking about.

Valamir wrote: I'm only objecting to taking an arbitrary degree of plausibility (i.e. what's plausible to you) and labeling it realistic. Your concept I completely agree with. But Realistic is not an appropriate word to use to define it.

I think we're in total agreement on this, Marco.

When you did C-13 I'd bet that you had certain goals in mind for what you wanted to accomplish with all that research. You weren't doing it to make the game "more realistic" you were doing it because ... of X... I don't know if you vocalized X during the process, but I'd bet you had it in the back of your mind and it guided your decisions as to what to cull from the material you gathered.

That's the point of the essay after all. Design goals are the key to good design, and "realism" is not a design goal...its a smoke screen that people use to conceal personal preference, or its a crutch they fall back on so they don't have to think about goals too much.

That doesn't invalidate concepts like those John has raised. But I strongly believe that what he's talking about isn't "realism" at all. That's just a convenient historical term to use...but one which has far too much baggage.

Valamir wrote:
With regards to using it as a teaching tool, perhaps you judge Sengoku to have enough factual information to be useful as a teaching tool to children. Great, I love the idea. But that doesn't make it "realistic". That simply makes it accurate enough for your purpose. Game A might be plausible to the children and implausible to you and thus you judge it not suitable as a teaching tool. But just because you judge Game B as being suitable as a teaching tool does not make it realistic. It just means its plausible both to the children and to you. Someone else may come along and say "holy cow, how could you fill the children's mind with such rubbish...Game B is totally unrealistic"...because its not plausible to them.

I'm only objecting to taking an arbitrary degree of plausibility (i.e. what's plausible to you) and labeling it realistic. Your concept I completely agree with. But Realistic is not an appropriate word to use to define it.

John Kim,

I hope this isn't off topic, but what if my goal is to educate people about the way that comics portrayed Japan? Which game is more realistic? I would say neither one, that they both seek to attain different goals.

Further, historians may disagree about what happened at a given point in history. And they may all be right (or wrong) because it turns out that analyzing history is very very difficult.

Here's a real-world example: Did Apollo 11 land on the moon? Far more people find this proposition plausible than the proposition that the US government faked the whole thing, but some people do find it "unrealistic" that such a thing occurred.

Now, obviously objectively it either happened or it didn't, but we can't actually know for sure. More evidence seems to indicate "yes" than "no", and this is one of the reasons more people believe "yes" than "no", but that does not prove which one is more realistic.

I would suggest that whenever you use the term "realism", especially in terms of researched material, what you really mean is "more plausible to people who have studied this extensively". Now, I'm perfectly willing to assume that those people who have studied whatever it is extensively are closer to understanding the "real" form of whatever it is, but that doesn't actually mean that they do...

Thomas

Valamir wrote: I think we're in total agreement on this, Marco.

When you did C-13 I'd bet that you had certain goals in mind for what you wanted to accomplish with all that research. You weren't doing it to make the game "more realistic" you were doing it because ... of X... I don't know if you vocalized X during the process, but I'd bet you had it in the back of your mind and it guided your decisions as to what to cull from the material you gathered.

John Kim wrote:
Well, here you're citing that reality is different than what typical gamers find plausible. That's exactly my point!!! Reality can be different than what the players find plausible. I find it a bit nonsensical that you say that the term "realistic" shouldn't be used, but also cite "realistic" firearms and how what they find plausible conflicts with "reality".

I'm a bit stuck. How can I express the distinction between the made-up Japan game and the real Japan game? As I see it, they're both plausible, but they differ in realism.

Look at your own reply to Nicolas. Do you see how it was useful for you to use the term "realistic"? That's exactly what I feel is useful in discussion. Avoiding it will only hamper discussion, IMO.

I think a fundamental error here is to assume that there are polar two binary opposites based on a thesis "Realistic" and an antithesis "NOT realistic".

Of course, if one takes the view that word "realistic" equates with a 100.00% accurate model of reality then noone will ever be able to achieve it. By definition the model would have to be bigger than the world itself. I don't think anyone is suggesting this, so that straw man can be dispensed with.

Realistic does not mean reality itself. It is an adjective, "a realistic game", not a noun ("reality"). Game X can be more realistic than Game Y.

This does not necessarily mean that Game X is only more realistic than Game Y in certain areas as well. There is such a thing as adaptability or scope which, along with realism (a continuum, not an absolute) and playability (ditto) are also, imho, good game design goals.

Perhaps the essence of the debate then is not between realism and its negation, but between universalism and particularism. Perhaps one is claiming that a game that attempts universalism is axiomatically doomed to failure compared to one that attempts to narrow its scope to particular objectives ("what the game is for").

Again, I would take issue with this as well. But I'll wait until this point is clarified.

I'm siding with Ralph concerning a very specific and narrow use of the words "realism" and "realistic" within the gaming world that I, too, find egregious. Let me approach it in a different way.

Back in the 1980 presidential election, Omni magazine commissioned a simulation. It seems that one think tank had a computer program that modeled the economy fairly well, and Omni asked them to run 1) a projection of the economy over the next four years if Carter's current policies continued into the future and 2) a projection of the economy over the next four years if Reagan's program was enacted in full. It was run. It showed that Reagan's projections were correct, that tax cuts would increase investment, employment, and government revenue. In fact, Reagan was elected, but not all of his plan was enacted; still, over the years that followed there was the projected shift in the economy. The model had correctly predicted what would happen. One could say that it very accurately modeled reality.

To do this, the model required the input of several hundred individual economic factors, each of which was tracked in its interaction with all the others. Using the computers available at that time, it probably took several days to run each projection. While we would say that was realistic, it was certainly far more detail than any of us could include in a role playing game, particularly for modeling something so minor in play as the overall shifts in the economies of nations. We would be happy with something a lot less detailed. That of course means something a lot less realistic. Our compromise is based, however, on a notion that there is a limit to what is playable, a reduced return on investment as it were, so accuracy beyond a certain point while not exactly irrelevant is not worth the added effort to achieve.

The problem is that this "certain point" beyond which the added effort is excessive is entirely subjective. Yet any statement that realism is the objective must inherently include the unspoken caveat that it is realism within the bounds of what we subjectively feel is a reasonable effort to achieve such realism.

And since that boundary is subjective, any statement that we are shooting for "realism" means nothing more than "I want to make it as realistic as I think it's worth spending the effort to achieve."

For some gamers, Fudge achieves that. It is sufficiently realistic to meet their needs, and they are not willing to invest any additional effort in learning or using rules or mechanics that would make the outcomes more realistic, because such additional investment is not worth the return. It is realistic enough as it is.

For some gamers, GURPS and Rolemaster are the models they prefer. They feel that these games are making a serious effort at creating realistic outcomes based on complex inputs, and that the additional investment of effort, the drag this places on game play, the cost of books and materials, and all the rest, are vindicated in the increased realism produced.

Yet there are those who claim these games are not realistic enough; they want something that achieves greater levels of realism. They're willing to invest more into getting that greater level of realism.

I doubt, though, that they're willing to enter eight hundred variables into a computer program and wait fifteen minutes for the program to process one attack. That's more complexity than it's worth--to almost anyone. It might be worth it to someone attempting to model whether a lone gunman in the book depository could have killed President Kennedy, or whether there had to be a second gunman; but it's not going to be worth it to find out whether Grungar the Barbarian manages to cleave his fifteenth orc in this combat.

Thus whenever anyone says that "realism" is the design goal, they mean "modeling reality as accurately as I personally feel is worth the effort", and nothing more than that.

The problem arises when they assert that any decision they make is correct if it more accurately models reality, without recognizing that any decision they make which reduces complexity but less accurately models reality is working from a conflicting principle. That conflicting principle is not recognized as such. The designer doesn't say, "I want it to be as realistic as I think is worth the effort." That indeed would be patently the same is "I want it to be what I want," a design agendum that is tautologous and essentially useless to anyone, perhaps including the designer. Yet that is what any designer is inherently saying when he says that "realism" is the objective of the design.

The questions that could reasonably be asked are how realistic do we want this, how much effort are we willing to put into obtaining more realistic results, and what is the purpose which this particular level of realism serves.

It is that last point that is missed. Since realism cannot be absolute, it is accepted that it is relative, tempered by the cost in complexity. To know what is the proper level of realism we need to know what objective that realism serves. Otherwise, the pursuit of realism is meaningless.

--M. J. Young

Lev, no one is making realism into a binary condition. This entire thread has included references to the fact that its a continuum. And niether is it universalism vs particularism (or "focus" as we more commonly call it around here). That topic shares some similarities but is not what this is about.

You say that realism and playability are good game design goals...and that is the fundamental untruth that I've been trying to shake you out of since your first post. THEY ARE NOT GOALS. Period. Fact. NOT GOALS.

They are techniques you can use to achieve your design goals. They are the MEANS to the end. They are not and cannot be the end themselves because they have no end.

You said yourself that realism is a continuum (I think that's a poor word to describe the concept, but I understand what you mean by it). You also agree that you cannot ever get to 100% realism...another seemingly obvious truth.

Therefor it should be abundantly and obviously clear that you must stop somewhere along that continuum. Somewhere you have to say...that's it. The rules are now good enough. But the question is "good enough for what?"

What told you to stop at that point in the continuum. Why there and no further. Why that far and not earlier? Why there?

The answer should be because that's the point where your design goals were achieved. That is the ONLY valid reason for picking one point on the continuum over another. If you don't have those goals to tell you where to stop...then you don't have a good design. Form follows function. Before you can settle on a form...you've GOT to understand the function.

Valamir wrote:
You say that realism and playability are good game design goals...and that is the fundamental untruth that I've been trying to shake you out of since your first post. THEY ARE NOT GOALS. Period. Fact.

They are techniques you can use to achieve your design goals. They are the MEANS to the end. They are not and cannot be the end themselves because they have no end.

Therefor it should be abundantly and obviously clear that you must stop somewhere along that continuum. Somewhere you have to say...that's it. The rules are now good enough. But the question is "good enough for what?"

LordSmerf wrote: I hope this isn't off topic, but what if my goal is to educate people about the way that comics portrayed Japan? Which game is more realistic? I would say neither one, that they both seek to attain different goals.

LordSmerf wrote:
I would suggest that whenever you use the term "realism", especially in terms of researched material, what you really mean is "more plausible to people who have studied this extensively

Quoting from the sim essay:

The GM problem, only partly solved by GM-only sections, is that it makes it very hard to write a coherent how-to explanation for scenario preparation and implementation. Putting this sort of information right out "in front of God and everybody" is counter-intuitive for some Simulationist-design authors, because it's getting behind the curtain at the metagame level. The experience of play, according to the basic goal, is supposed to minimize metagame, but preparation for play, from the GM's perspective, is necessarily metagame-heavy

Nicolas Crost wrote: I think Thomas nailed it here. Because here is basically what you do to create a "realistic" game: You read studies and models published by a bunch of experts. You familiarize yourself with their way of seeing things, with their model of reality. You find out what is plausible to them! So your "realistic" game is basically a game that is "plausible by what some experts say". So if your design goal is to teach people about what historian X said about Japan, that is perfectly allright. But this is not "realism" since I bet you quite a few bucks that I can find some expert historian Y who disagrees strongly with the position of historian X…

Nicolas Crost wrote: Which brings me to the point of how plausibility is constructed. Looking at the psychology of attitudes and how attitudes are formed, (at least) two things may contribute to the feeling of plausibility in a player of a roleplaying game.
1. The actual content of the game. That is how plausible do the outcomes of the resolution of the game per se seem to me. Do they fit my model of reality or not?
2. The credibility of the sender. That is who is backing up the claims made in the game? How much and which type of research was done?

This means that the highest plausibility (what John and Marco might call “realism”) will be achieved when the output of the game fits my model of reality and the game is backed up by credible experts, that is it does not only fit my own model but also the model of some credible experts.

Nicolas Crost wrote: How does this help us in game design?
Well, first, it might explain why games with a lot of research and a granular resolution system seem more "realistic" (read "plausible" here) to some people. Those two factors contribute to making the sender (the game text) more credible. Basically game texts with lots of detailed rules (best based on real research) seem like experts (they remind you of science class or something). As such people feel much more inclined to accept the outcomes of the (credible) game as plausible ("realistic").
And second it might help in designing games that teach people. When you want to teach someone, you have the following basis: They have model A of reality but you want them to adopt model B. The problem is that model B does not seem plausible to the guys, they already have model A! So what you have to do is you have to compensate this inherent implausibility of the content (model B) by increasing the plausibility of the sender. That is you have to stress that you have done a lot of research an the topic of the game and you probably have to include a lot of detail (setting information and/or resolution detail).

John Kim wrote: Er, so what? Sure, experts in any field may differ on details or lesser-known subjects. But the same thing is true in any field outside of RPGs. For example, I built computer simulations for high-energy physics experiments. Yet, you could find an 'expert' who objected to how my simulations were run. Does this mean that they weren't realistic and I shouldn't use that term for them? <snip>

lev_lafayette wrote: Playability is a goal. The rules are a technique used to achieve that.
Realism is a goal. The rules are a technique used to achieve that.
Roleplaying is a goal. The rules are a technique used to achieve that.

For an example which certain games have been justly criticised for;

Readibility is a goal. Style is a technique used to achieve it.

I further my thoughts on the rewards involved here, Vs user perception.

I really get the impression that this urge for realism is a desire to learn. Now, you don't want to learn silly crap. You want to learn the real deal (indeed, it could help you in real life). I think the phrase "Informed by research" indicates how much the user wants a manual filled with the best research currently available. 'Realism' is a missplaced term for that.

However, there is a bit of a twist here. Imagine were back in the day where the world is thought to be flat. And this crazy guy who thinks it's round, brings out an RPG with that in it. If you want 'realism', do you buy his RPG?

The problem with wanting 'realism' is in the inherant denial of the need for trust. Desiring 'realism' is pretending that you don't need to trust any RL person (in their findings), and that realism can just be had, sans the involvement of any human (and their perception).

While 'informed by research' definately includes that idea of trust. Someone who seeks an RPG which is 'informed by research' can actually consider buying the crazy 'round world' RPG. Someone who seeks 'realism' is going to ignore that RPG, and in their delusion never even have a chance at what they really seek.

Noon wrote: The problem with wanting 'realism' is in the inherant denial of the need for trust. Desiring 'realism' is pretending that you don't need to trust any RL person (in their findings), and that realism can just be had, sans the involvement of any human (and their perception).

While 'informed by research' definately includes that idea of trust. Someone who seeks an RPG which is 'informed by research' can actually consider buying the crazy 'round world' RPG. Someone who seeks 'realism' is going to ignore that RPG, and in their delusion never even have a chance at what they really seek.

I'm surprised noone has brought up the word "Versimilitude" yet.

John Kim wrote: If it's just semantics over the word, I guess I'm fine with substituting "informed by research" if consensus is that "realism" means something preposterous. I find it a little odd, but I can live with it. Are we agreed on issues other than the implications of the word?

LordSmerf wrote:

John Kim wrote: If it's just semantics over the word, I guess I'm fine with substituting "informed by research" if consensus is that "realism" means something preposterous. I find it a little odd, but I can live with it. Are we agreed on issues other than the implications of the word?

I think I find myself in agreement with you as long as you and I are on the same page regarding the fact that just because you do extensive research and all the experts agree with your analysis you are not necessarily close to modelling "reality". The reason I have problems with the term "realism" is that it implies that you are modelling objective reality.

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.

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.

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:

• Perfect realism is probably unattainable due to the complexity involved.• The refinement of near-perfect realism requires ever more complexity.

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

Valamir wrote: 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.

Valamir wrote: 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".

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

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

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?

John Kim wrote:

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.

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.

Valamir wrote: 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...

Valamir wrote: 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.

Valamir wrote: 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".

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

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

(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?

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.

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.

Valamir wrote: 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.

Imagine it's 1988. You produce a martial arts roleplaying game. You release it, you sell it as "the most realistic martial arts RPG ever developed". Someone playtests it.

For the playtest they stat up a taekwondo player, black belt, first dan, good physical attributes. They also stat up a jiu-jitsu player from Brazil, purple belt, good physical attributes. They run a hundred combats.

99 times the blackbelt loses. If he's lucky he gets in one or two kicks, which have no appreciable effect, before ending up on the ground. Defeat follows, usually in a few combat rounds, with the blackbelt getting choked out or getting a limb snapped. The one time he wins it's an obvious fluke -- critical hit versus fumble.

No, in 1988 this idea would be greeted with derision. That's not plausible, that's not realistic. No way a blackbelt could get beated by a purple belt like that. Nu-huh.

Why can I say that with confidence? Because that's what happened when mixed martial arts competitions started. The response from the striking martial arts camp was disbelief -- what was happening wasn't plausible. But there it was in hour after hour of video footage -- there it was for anyone who cared to step on the mat and crosstrain. Striker vs grappler -- striker ended up on the ground tapping like Sammy David Jr.

[I mean no particular offense against the taekwondo guys -- I think taekwondo is beautiful, the athleticism is amazing -- but you can swap in pretty much any striking martial art except maybe boxing, muay thai, a couple of others, and the results historically have been the same]

Purple belt wins, that's what's realistic.

We know this because it's 2005 and we have more than a decade of MMA footage showing the statistical reality of the TKD guy vs the BJJ guy. To be fair, we know a BJJ purple belt takes longer to get than a TKD black belt (about five years versus about three years).

So there we have it: realism is no guarantee of plausibility. Realism and plausibility are not similes.

We hear things on the street all the time that confirm this. That's why we even have a cliche for it: Truth is Stranger than Fiction. Guys don't fall thousands of feet from a plane and survive -- except they do. First time I saw footage from the World Trade Centre attack I thought "Cool!" because I thought they were advertising a movie. Took a minute for me to realise it was news footage not a trailer for the next Die Hard movie. Real as it was, it wasn't plausible to me.

So, what does this mean for Ralph's rant? Let me admit I couldn't give two hoots for realism. When they first started hyping Riddle of Steel of RPG.net it was all about the realism of the combat system. I tuned out after the first few posts. Realism? Snoozeville.

So given that realism is seperate from plausibility* why is it not a viable design goal for people who don't have tastes like me?

[* as a side question do people think plausibility can be a design goal -- I can't see an argument that would say 'realism doesn't make a good design goal' that would not also mean that 'plausibility doesn;'t make a good design goal']

Well, no one can accuse this forum of have dim discussions, at least.

I can see that there are many here who are fellow philosophers, which is a blessing and a curse. I enjoy the Realist/Anti-Realist debates as I see many of you do as well. But, cutting to the chase, I say that the issue of agreeing upon a “proper” definition of ‘realistic’ is not essential, or even very useful.

What I think is more productive (for the sake of discussing RPG development) is an agreement on the common use of the term. Can we agree that the non-philosophically trained person uses the term ‘realistic’ as “what is” (or “what would be, given that set of variables”)? Can we agree that the common person, who just watched Schindler’s List will attest to its realistic plot? (Leaving to the side that it’s an easy mark for the philosopher to begin tearing that assertion apart is it agreeable that that is the way the untrained speaks?) And thus, can we accept that the common RPer uses "realistic rules" as a signal that the gaming world will have closer correspondence with the "real world"?

If we can concede that, then isn’t it the best course to allow the term ‘realistic’ be applied to systems that do (seriously and maturely) endeavor to correspond rule with 'fact'? I also make the vulgar assertion that my game is “realistic”. All the hidden baggage of that term is irrelevant to the vast majority of readers, and so isn’t bothersome to me. Now, I will agree that making (grandiose) claims as to the “complete realism” of a system is folly, even to the ears of the untrained, and should be avoided.

And, to the question of “Is there a good justification for incorporating [realism] into the game design” I give a resounding “Yes”… But I am too tired to type that out.

Okay, let me go ahead and put this out there since I stated my initial position very poorly. I want to step back and see if I can sound a bit more intelligent...

Yes, there is such a thing a realism. In RPGs I would say that you can call a system "realistic" if the output is the same as observable real-world events.

This means that I can make my physics realistic. I can construct a model that has the same (or at least something rather close) to real-world outputs. (I feel the need to note that this could be done with simple percentile probability tables instead of complex mechanical interactions).

The problem is when we start talking about "realism" in terms of history, but that's another matter.

So, John, I agree, there is an actual realism that is achievable. However, i don't think that it's as easy to achieve as you have indicated (or at least as I have read you to indicate). Further, I agree with Ralph that realism is not in and of itself an end, but rather it is a means to an end. That means that you need to know what the end you are actually trying to achieve is. Trying to attain realism for its own sake is just kind of silly.

Thomas

John Kim wrote:

Valamir wrote: 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.

Again, this is just arguing that because there can be mistakes and/or disagreement, "realism" doesn't exist in any field, period.

Look closely at your claim here. Suppose I am one of those experts. I have a model intended for a computerized simulation for some experiment. However, some of my peers disagree with me on some point. Well, is it "realistic"? By your criteria, since someone disagrees with me, it is impossible to say. The only thing that I can say is that it is plausible to me.

Ian Charvill wrote: Imagine it's 1988. You produce a martial arts roleplaying game. You release it, you sell it as "the most realistic martial arts RPG ever developed". Someone playtests it.

For the playtest they stat up a taekwondo player, black belt, first dan, good physical attributes. They also stat up a jiu-jitsu player from Brazil, purple belt, good physical attributes. They run a hundred combats.

99 times the blackbelt loses. If he's lucky he gets in one or two kicks, which have no appreciable effect, before ending up on the ground. Defeat follows, usually in a few combat rounds, with the blackbelt getting choked out or getting a limb snapped. The one time he wins it's an obvious fluke -- critical hit versus fumble.

No, in 1988 this idea would be greeted with derision. That's not plausible, that's not realistic. No way a blackbelt could get beated by a purple belt like that. Nu-huh.

Why can I say that with confidence? Because that's what happened when mixed martial arts competitions started. The response from the striking martial arts camp was disbelief -- what was happening wasn't plausible. But there it was in hour after hour of video footage -- there it was for anyone who cared to step on the mat and crosstrain. Striker vs grappler -- striker ended up on the ground tapping like Sammy David Jr.

I agree with the idea that "realism" in a universal, broad sense can not be a design goal for a Role Playing Game. It could be a design goal, perhaps, for person attempting to synthesize human knowledge into some kind of "Science's Best Simulation of all Reality" project, but at that point you just have a model with no game to it. The modelling one does in a Role Playing Game has to serve some purpose for the game, whether modelling reality or something else. Modelling certain narrow areas of reality may support design goals, but modelling reality universally does not, as far as I can figure.

To get more specific, it seems that often in "realistic" games there is a large concern for basic physics, especially as it realtes to combat and other physical human activity. Less often do you see concern for modelling how speices evolve over time, or how genetics, culture, and physical environment effect individuals in a society, or how economics arises and changes over time, how fads arise and spread, etc., etc. To get to the core of it, in a system that has a model of reality as its core, why are you roleplaying? Why not generate a plausable individual of the human species in an environment and just see how its life plays out? If you chose to roleplay an individual, why not roleplay societies? At some point you must sacrifice the goal of a realistic model to let players in to a game. If a player plays a character in a way the reality simulation would consider highly improbable, is that bad role-playing?

All of that is just me being a little absurd about it. I'm saying that for actual game to occur, someone is going to have to want to do something, usually with a character in the case of RPGs. Say the player wants to immerse themselves in what it must have been like to be a Samurai in Feudal Japan. Now, in the RPGs I play, that tends to mean a player wants to get into the head of the samurai and act as he imagines a real samurai may have acted, and getting some pleasure either from the internal emotions the experience generates, living vicariously through a fictional character, or just the joy of seeing the events unfold. This means that we probably won't apply a strictly realistic model to his character's psychology, upbringing, demeanour, to determining its course of action, because doing so removes choice from the player, and choice is essential for roleplaying to occur. On the other hand, traditionally RPGs do allow some of the raw physical simulation aspects of a character's body to be handled by the system without too much uproar. But then you have to ask, "Why can I have my character decide to proposition a beautiful woman at the bar and then later sacrifice himself nobly to save his friends, but I can't simply decide that my character can lift that boulder or jump that chasm?" Universally modelling reality may give that character a 0.025% likelihood of performing the former, but a 55% chance of the latter, yet a game will often let a player perform the former 100% of the time he desires.

So, everytime a concious decision is made not to model something, or not to force events and agents to submit themselves to the reality model, your RPG is starting to take on actual design goals. I think that often, though, these decisions to model or not model certain things are taken without deeply addressing why they are being made. Eventually the game ends up supporting certain styles of play unconciously.

I could have been more clear about all this, but I hope at least there is some interesting perspective in there for you.

Ben

Valamir wrote: And your last sentence which you state with incredulity is 100% accurate. You CAN'T call it "realistic" you can only say its plausible to me. This is a basic feature of science. It doesn't prove anything. A scientific conclusion is nothing more than the conclusion which bests fits available data today. You can eliminate possibilities with science but that's it.
...
That when you boil it down, nothing that has ever been labeled as "realistic" in an RPG has ever actually BEEN "realistic". Silly arguements over this stuff have been going on for decades and nobody is ever actually "right".

Valamir wrote: The fact is that realism has been put on a pedestool for decades. Its been given precidence over just about every other design consideration in traditional games for years.

The ONLY other design consideration which has emerged to challenge it is "playability".

Right. It seems my previous post in this thread has vanished, unfortunately, so let me have another go.

Essentially I agree with John - realism IS, or can be, a design goal. It IS, or can be, valued and valuable as such. It is ridiculous to conflate "realISTIC" with "real". RealISTIC is already a term that communicates an approximation of reality.

I further agree with John and others who have suggested that there is a didactic element in RPG and that the fact that the experience can be taken as realistic and lessons drawn therefrom. I would even go so far as to say that the very goal of exploration is worthless without realism.

I fully, comprehensively, and without reservation agree with every word John writes in this paragraph:

I claim the exact opposite. There is not have nearly enough realism in mainstream RPGs. Reality is interesting and valuable. Compared to the mainstream of RPGs, I would prefer to dispense with jumping up to treetops, wading through dozens of sword chops, fireballs, and a host of the other trappings that RPGs have grown to assume. Give me a roomful of realistic characters with realistic problems at least once, as a change of pace if nothing else.

contracycle wrote: Essentially I agree with John - realism IS, or can be, a design goal. It IS, or can be, valued and valuable as such.

We have spent far too long shying away from realism in favour of "what the customer wants", the customer being presumed to be an idiot who wants only haughty elves and evil orcs and mail bikinis.

What this discussion reminds me of is the absurd efforts to get Special Creation taught alongside Evolution in schools. The assertion that everything is "just a theory" or "subjectively plausible" is an appeal to solipsism and remains logically invalid in my view. It is a nonsense to assert that personal subjectivity renders the conduct of science, the interrogation of actual reality, useless. We have specific methods to overcome that problem, such as peer review and independant reproducibility. And if I write a game based on peer reviewed, independantly verifiable science, then I can and will claim it be realistic in every honest sense of the term, and I fully expect it to appeal to an audience with similar proclivities.

Hi,

I've offered an answer to the "why" of realism in my -Immersive-Relevant Realism topic.

Noon wrote:
Can you ensure an art piece is beutiful to a user? How? Will it force them to think it's beutiful, or did you look at what certain people like in art and used that?

So it'll appeal to those who like such procedures. You've worked the arguement along to the point where you find out "what the customer wants". ie scientific verification.

So what does the goal of 'Realism' mean if users don't give a stuff about scientific verification? Either your making realism your goal, despite the end users desires in relation to that, or it's because your pursuing what particular end users want. For the former, I'm not sure what that has to do with RPG design, and for the latter...yes, as noted, that's a great thing to pursue and a great, clear goal to have.

contracycle wrote:

What I am saying is that realism is actually not tyhat hard to achieve becuase we all live in the same physical world, and our aesthetic and ideological preferences about that world don't count for anything. thats exactly why I can be confident that other people have encountered the same types of things I have encountered in the real world, and why a real depiction has a good chance of making that sort of connection in play.

James Holloway wrote:
Or to put it another way: do RPGs tend to flog realism particularly in areas where the actual experience is under debate?

Hey, :)

contracycle wrote:

Noon wrote: Can you ensure an art piece is beutiful to a user? How? Will it force them to think it's beutiful, or did you look at what certain people like in art and used that?

Obviously not; theres not accounting for taste. That what makes realism eaiser and more accessible - reality doesn't care about your taste,m it merely is, and thus we are likely to have common experiences of its workings.

contracycle wrote:

Noon wrote:
Can you ensure an art piece is beutiful to a user? How? Will it force them to think it's beutiful, or did you look at what certain people like in art and used that?

Obviously not; theres not accounting for taste. That what makes realism eaiser and more accessible - reality doesn't care about your taste,m it merely is, and thus we are likely to have common experiences of its workings.

Noon wrote:
You seem to have an impression that because reality is out there, in front of us, it's policing us so we all have some common and shared experience of it. Rubbish!

When the scientist figures how something works, reality doesn't tap him on the shoulder if he's wrong. Other scientists might, but they didn't do so because reality tapped them on the shoulder either.

Reality is in front of them, and mere is what it is. And everyone is entirely on their own in exploring it, unless they trust others findings, even though those other people are entirely on their own in just the same way.

Basically, when your making an RPG, you look to what people/customers trust in, and put that in the game. Okay, that might be sort of arse backwards for you.

I agree that reality exists in and of itself, but when devoid of interpretation, reality has no meaning, i.e., it has no "workings".

Noon wrote: Basically, when your making an RPG, you look to what people/customers trust in, and put that in the game. Okay, that might be sort of arse backwards for you. How about instead of the goal of realism, you put into the RPG what you trust in (or the findings of others, that you put trust into), leaving it up to the discerning customer to find your RPG's qualities (rather than you pursuing that customers perhaps mistaken beliefs).

I think that's a valid goal, though it might be hard on you financially IMO.

This is a thick topic, and one which tends to have people either bumping heads or just slipping past each other. For those who don't know, this is (or has become) a topic concerning "Realism vs. Anti-Realism" which is either an ontological argument, or a linguistic one, depending on which side of the fence you're on.

I'm just going to paste a few links here. My friend, Dr D. Anderson, is a Harvard PhD, and is working on a book on the subject called Semantic Dualism, but I can't get any juicy passages till the book is published.
I encourage vast amounts of patience for those who wish to dive into this debate. Good Luck!

http://members.aol.com/lshauser/mts.html
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism-sem-challenge/
http://pioneer.netserv.chula.ac.th/~hsoraj/web/CT.html

contracycle wrote:
So yes, I think its the topics that RPG uses that are problematic rather than the principle of realism per se. And its also true that the term "realism" is often used to conceal some oither agenda , or at least can be so used. I understand why people shy away from the question, but I don;t think it should be given up on.

contracycle wrote:

Noon wrote:
You seem to have an impression that because reality is out there, in front of us, it's policing us so we all have some common and shared experience of it. Rubbish!

I'm afraid that is an over-extension to an illogical extreme. Nothing in my argument suggests or requires that the real world pushes itself into our conssiousness - that is not necessary becuase our brains are specifically a machine built to interact with and examine that real world.

I'm a bit uncertain as to whether my last post is lost in the hack or merely buried in the thread; but let me attempt to recall what I wrote some time ago and repeat it.

For the moment, let's forget about whether realism is "possible" in any sense of that word. The point of the thread is whether it can serve as the basis for role playing game design decisions.

That is, we often hear people say that they used rule B instead of rule A because B was more realistic, and that realism was their one goal in all their design decisions.

What Ralph and I contend is that "realism" is not and cannot be the only goal in design. There is no way for that sort of design objective to be met without infinite complexity. The only ways for the goal of "realism" to be met is in one of these two senses:

• Realistic enough to achieve X, where X is the real design goal for which realism is merely the means.• Realistic within the bounds of Y, where Y is a measurable competing design objective that constrains the pursuit of X. An example of this would be as realistic as possible within the constraint that the text must be comprehensible to a fifth grader or as realistic as possible to achieve in a time scale of not greater than five minutes of play time to achieve one minute of action for one character.

If you say that the only design objective is to be as realistic as possible, then you have inherently said that there is no measure by which the game can be "realistic enough" and that there is no countering constraint that says the cost of realism is too high for the return on the investment. Therefore, a game whose only goal is to be fully realistic would have to be unplayable, because by definition playability cannot be a limitation on the pursuit of realism, which here is valued soley for its own sake.

Now, I don't understand why this argument has continued so long. I particularly don't understand why those who have been arguing that realism is a possible objective in game design have not answered my points on this. What has been unclear?

--M. J. Young

M. J. Young wrote: Now, I don't understand why this argument has continued so long. I particularly don't understand why those who have been arguing that realism is a possible objective in game design have not answered my points on this. What has been unclear?

Noon wrote:
An imperfect machine.

Simple logic, it doesn't matter if ten million imperfect machines all analyse the same thing and come to the same conclusion, it is not a perfect understanding.

Back down to earth here, RPG design could do with the same embrace.

M. J. Young wrote: That is, we often hear people say that they used rule B instead of rule A because B was more realistic, and that realism was their one goal in all their design decisions.

I'll contend with a few of your statement's Walt.

Walt Freitag wrote:
I think it's necessary to split apart those two statements.

1. "We used rule B instead of rule A because B was more realistic."

2. "Realism was our one goal in all our design decisions."

The first statement is reasonable. Within the context of an individual rule decision, realism is as good a reason as any for choosing B over A.

The second statement is not reasonable, for all the reasons M. J. and Ralph have put forth.

However, the utterance of the first statement does not automatically imply the second! To intepret it as though it does is uncharitable reading.

Of course there are other goals motivating the stated goals! There always are! And of course sometimes those underlying goals might be questioned. ("Are you sure reducing the weight is important in this particular car? It's a high price luxury car, so customers likely to buy it might not care about fuel economy." ... or ... "But the composite material is so expensive, it will raise the price of the car and make it less attractive to our economy-minded buyers.") But might it be assumed that sometimes, when one automotive engineer or game designer is talking to another, that they understand these underlying issues in context, that they know what they're talking about, so that "to reduce weight" or "to increase realism" can be sufficient explanation for a design decision?

If every time realism is discussed as a goal, some underlying goal such as "playability" must be explicitly acknowledged, then why should we accept "playability" as a valid ultimate design goal either?

Ahey, :)

Walt, I think you put your finger on the wound, here. :)

Walt Freitag wrote: But might it be assumed that sometimes, when one <...> game designer is talking to another, that they understand these underlying issues in context, that they know what they're talking about<...>?

Valamir wrote:

John Kim wrote: If every time realism is discussed as a goal, some underlying goal such as "playability" must be explicitly acknowledged, then why should we accept "playability" as a valid ultimate design goal either?

I believe (without going back to double check) that earlier in this thread I dismissed "playability" as a goal no better and no more useful than "realism".

Walt asked us to compare:

1. "We used rule B instead of rule A because B was more realistic."

2. "Realism was our one goal in all our design decisions."

The first statement is reasonable. Within the context of an individual rule decision, realism is as good a reason as any for choosing B over A.

The second statement is not reasonable, for all the reasons M. J. and Ralph have put forth.

However, the utterance of the first statement does not automatically imply the second! To intepret it as though it does is uncharitable reading.

I don't agree with this at all. As MJ pointed out above #1 SHOULD be "Realistic enough to achieve our design goal of X" not simply that it was "more realistic" period.

If there really is an X that the "realistic enough" is being evaluated against then its important to state that goal (either up front or when asked) so that the success of rule B can be judged on its effectiveness at achieving goal X within the boundary of the desired level of "realism".

If someone asks whether rule B is a good one, or if its "realistic", its not uncharitable to ask what X is before judging. I contend that judging B solely on its merits of "realistic" without accounting for the underlying goal of X is wrong, a disservice to the designer asking for help, and of little added value.

Therefor if there IS an underlying X, then your statement #1 above ("because it was more realistic") is NOT reasonable. Its flat out wrong.

If there ISN'T an underlying X, then, in fact, statement #1 does automatically imply #2 and its not uncharitable to point that out.

I can't buy that Sean.

Lets say you do have as one of your design goals the desire to be able to play out a 10 person firefight in under 45 minutes of real time.

Now you go to a "rule by rule" evaluation.

Rule option #1 is is to account for modifiers to to-hit accuracy based on wind conditions in a manner similar to the modifiers currently in the game for lighting conditions.

Rule option #2 is to skip accounting for wind.


Now your claim is that you can make the choice on a rule by rule level solely on the basis of whether #1 or #2 is more realistic without needing to account for any other goal at that level?

I'd say that would be a world class mistake.

Clearly part of the decision as to whether to go with with #1 or #2 would have to take into account the other 45 minutes or less goal. If rule #1 is more realistic but it also takes the time for a 10 man firefight from 30 minutes to 50...then making the decision solely on the basis of realism is flat out wrong. The real issue is whether or not the rule is realistic enough given the goal of speedy game play (one of the underlying Xs).

If there is such an underlying goal than it must be taken into consideration before deciding on Rule #1 or Rule #2 and before any outside party can judge whether or not Rule #1 is a good rule.

Ralph goes on to argue that if there is no such goal, #1 does imply #2. But this is an obvious fallacy. The fact that a relatively greater degree of realism was the basis for one design decision does not imply that greater realism, or realism tout court, was the 'one goal' in 'all our design decisions'

I tend to agree with you from a normative standpoint, that games designed with everything aiming at a central goal will tend to be better/more interesting/whatever.

However, let's say, hypothetically, that it's all equal. You've got a clear point in the text where a rule is needed to help play, and you've come up with two possibilities. They both seem to solve the problem equally well, but one seems more realistic to you than the other.

It seems to me that that could be a criterion for making a decision. A decision that could go either way, but one that could sensibly be said to be made 'on the basis of realism alone'. Just like I picked my Honda 'on gas mileage alone', but not really, because I could have picked a scooter or something that got better mileage but wouldn't have done the work of the car.

Second, though, some people don't agree with you (and, more conflictedly, me) that there should be one single design goal. Now, for those people, they might pick based on realism here, color there, a cool mechanic in this other place. Some of these people are pro designers in the old-model industry. Gabby's swordfighting rules for Wraethuthu also come to mind. By making that comparison I suggest that, aesthetically, I'm for the most part on your side. However, you seemed to be saying that it was impossible to make a choice of type x period, and I agree with Walt that that formulation is too strong.

P.S. I was totally blown out by the opening text for R&R. Awesome stuff. I haven't had time to read the game yet, but it's a fantastic idea for a philosophically interesting game, on at least two levels (epistemological and ethical). I'm looking forward to some spare time to read the rest of it, and I hope you get it whipped into publishin' shape soon.

I tend to agree with you from a normative standpoint, that games designed with everything aiming at a central goal will tend to be better/more interesting/whatever.

However, let's say, hypothetically, that it's all equal. You've got a clear point in the text where a rule is needed to help play, and you've come up with two possibilities. They both seem to solve the problem and fit your design goals equally well, but one seems more realistic to you than the other.

It seems to me that that could be a criterion for making a decision. A decision that could go either way, but one that could sensibly be said to be made 'on the basis of realism alone'. Just like I picked my Honda 'on gas mileage alone', but not really, because I could have picked a scooter or something that got better mileage but wouldn't have done the work of the car.

Second, though, some people don't agree with you (and, more conflictedly, me) that there should be one single design goal. Now, for those people, they might pick based on realism here, color there, a cool mechanic in this other place. Some of these people are pro designers in the old-model industry. Gabby's swordfighting rules for Wraethuthu also come to mind. By making that comparison I suggest that, aesthetically, I'm for the most part on your side. However, you seemed to be saying that it was impossible to make a choice of type x period, and I agree with Walt that that formulation is too strong.

P.S. I was totally blown out by the opening text for R&R. Awesome stuff. I haven't had time to read the game yet, but it's a fantastic idea for a philosophically interesting game, on at least two levels (epistemological and ethical). I'm looking forward to some spare time to read the rest of it, and I hope you get it whipped into publishin' shape soon.

However, let's say, hypothetically, that it's all equal. You've got a clear point in the text where a rule is needed to help play, and you've come up with two possibilities. They both seem to solve the problem equally well, but one seems more realistic to you than the other.

Valamir wrote: [
Sure, I've got no problem with that. In such a situation you're not failing to take into account the underlying goal.